Chapter Text
Names have power. Humans have forgotten, sort of— or perhaps they have warped it, by granting power to families instead of to titles.
Oscar knew the power of his name. He did not like it. Power was not meant to be flung like that: it was meant to be held, to be treasured, to be saved and carefully metered.
Names have power. Monsters know this: the fairies of the forest, the sphinxes of the desert, the trolls of the lowlands, and the harpies of the mountains all guard their names, that strangers might not know them. The last of these have a long reach: they remember the names of all who are theirs and all who were, and the names of those who might be.
The mountains have a long reach. They claim those who wish it and those who do not, those who flee and those who are cast out. So, too, do people lay claim to the mountains: heroes and vigilantes, mayors and citizens, monsters and men.
The mountains have their own names, some old, some new. The Giantkiller is an old one, and has been carried by many; ours would not be the first to be hated and feared. The last had been both vigilante and titled hero; ours would be neither.
Jack would burn down a giant with golden fire, would help build a castle from his bones, would rain terror on the mountains who hated to claim her. They would call her Giantkiller because they knew her feat but not her name. They would call her the Seeress's because she was, because she stayed as close as a shadow, forever on guard, the poison that dripped from the Seeress's fangs. They would call her a traitor because the first time a mage had thrown fire at her master, she had caught it and torn it apart the way only a mage could.
The mountains have their own names, some old, some new, and the Seeress is a new one. The first had believed, painfully, in the cost of innocent lives; ours would not know what she believed, exactly, only that the work had to be done.