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Stiles completed the final preparation and reached deep inside himself for his spark. It was barely flickering — not enough to light a birthday candle — but that was more than most magicals could say right now. The implosion of the barriers between the mundane and supernatural worlds had had many costs, including the lives and magic of many. Stiles had only escaped fully "squibbing" himself because his spark was so underused. It was almost as though the universe had overlooked it because it was so pathetic.
Not that Stiles was complaining now, because it meant that he had just enough magic left to attempt this.
Carefully drawing the spark from his core, down his arm, and into his finger, Stiles reached out to touch the candle at the center of his working. Sweat formed on his brow and his fingers shook, but Stiles focused on channeling his stunted spark out of himself and into the candle. Finally, with one last push it went, and the candle lit.
Stiles allowed himself to sigh in relief, before straightening his spine and announcing, "I, Mieczysław Wojciech Stilinski, call upon the Old Gods. Hear my plea on behalf of your children and Nature herself. I call for Justice."
The flame on the candle flared, and suddenly the rest of the candles in the circle lit. "I call upon the Old Gods for Justice!" Stiles intoned again.
The flames flared, shooting over Stiles's head, and a fire-like warmth spread up his spine. The higher the candles flamed, the hotter the fire in his spine burned. "I call… upon the Old… Gods for Justice!" Stiles panted.
The fire in his back spread through Stiles's entire body and the dying forest around him suddenly disappeared into a dark fog.
"Your petition is heard, young spark," a chorus boomed around him, making Stiles recoil. Somewhat softer, they continued, "Speak your piece."
The one thing the books had emphasized was the need to be himself when speaking to the Old Ones. They demanded respect, but disliked artifice or misrepresentation. So, Stiles didn't try to suppress his natural instincts. "Have you seen the world recently? The death and destruction and ruined environment and general…" he waved his hand abstractly, "appocalypse-y-ness?"
That got him a fond chuckle. "We have, young spark."
"Right, well I'm petitioning to fix that. I've mapped it all out and, — while I can't guarantee I've missed something on the other side of the world where a butterfly flapped its wings wrong — I think I've figured out a series of steps to prevent the worst of this war kicking off and sending everything to hell. If these changes to the past can be made, then that should un-fuck just about everything."
"Continue," the voices chorused, sounding interested. At least, if he could apply human emotions to them accurately. Who knew how Old Gods actually felt about anything.
"First, am I allowed to ask questions?"
Stiles couldn't explain how, but he got the distinct impression that they were pleased with his request.
"You may, though they may not be answered the way you wish."
"More information is always useful," Stiles countered, "even if I don't like the answers themselves. Alright, question one: Was Alan Deaton already a darach before he became the Hale pack emissary, or did he change after?"
"Interesting, why do you ask that?" For the first time, Stiles had the impression that a single entity was speaking, not the chorus as a whole. Apparently he'd made them curious.
"Because I'm not sure if it was the cutting down of the Nemeton or letting the Hales burn or something like that that tipped him over the edge, or if it was long gone before then," Stiles explained. "Knowing that would affect my list of changes to be made."
"Ah." There was that impression of approval again. "He was a darach before he approached the Hales."
Stiles nodded and mentally shuffled his list to account for that. "Okay, and was there a time between him being a druid and him being a darach?"
"Explain." Again, Stiles couldn't have explained it, but this felt like a different one of the Old Gods, and they seemed genuinely confused, not just like they were humoring his rambling. Stiles was very familiar with the difference between those two responses.
"Well when he was still doing "good" things for the "balance", he was considered a druid. But when he started doing "bad" things, he was considered a darach," Stiles laid it out. "I want to know if there was a period where he wasn't yet cutting down nemetons and sacrificing innocent families, but he was no longer doing "good". A period of neutrality or chaos or something where he wasn't serving the balance, but wasn't yet actively working against it."
"A significant nuance," The chorus confirmed, and Stiles tried not to preen at their approval. "Yes, there was such a period."
Stiles took a deep breath. "Okay, then, for my petition, I want to request that Deaton be removed from the world's cycle at that point, when he stopped doing good."
"Is that what you truly want, little spark?" a new singular entity spoke, and Stiles knew he was being tested. "There are others who have hurt you more."
Fortunately for him, Stiles had gone over his logic hundreds of times before even attempting this ritual. "This isn't about me. In a perfect world would I want to kill Kate and Gerard Argent before they even heard the name Hale? Before they killed a single innocent wolf? Of course. Would I want to take out any other darachs and nogitsunes and Alpha packs and hunters who don't follow the code? Obviously. But the instructions for this ritual were very clear that I can only ask for one boon, and the damage Deaton did to the nemeton network as a whole is more critical than the deaths of hundreds or even thousands of people."
"You could simply ask to protect Beacon Hills and your Nemeton," pointed out the one clearly playing Devil's Advocate.
"Yeah, no. First of all, there's no guarantee that Deaton wouldn't just take himself to the next nemeton and do the same thing there. And since doing this would remove him before he met the Hales, they would have the chance to get a good emissary who actually protected them properly. So I'm already getting that "bonus" of protecting people I care about, even if that isn't the primary benefit." There was no point in acting like Stiles wouldn't take advantage of removing Deaton to improve the welfare of the Hales he had cared about. The Old Gods would have known it already, and so acting otherwise would have been disingenuous and just pissed them off. "Second, I'm not Scott. I'm not so self righteous that I think that sending killers off with a pat on the head and a promise to behave is fine as long as they do their evil and killing outside our county limits. That's not virtuousness; that's allowing evil to thrive as long as you don't have to see it happen."
"Very good," the chorus was back, the individuals speaking with the whole once more.
"Uh… Huh?" Stiles wasn't sure what to say. Surely it couldn't be that easy?
"You are correct both about Deaton's role as a lynchpin and about fact that simply protecting one nemeton or family or individual would not change the course that the world has been set on. However, the way to completely protect both the nemetons and the innocent people is not to ask for the removal of what threatens them, but to give them a protector instead."
"What, some kind of uber hunter? Doing the job they're supposed to be doing?" Stiles considered it.
"Something like that. More accurately, a champion for the hunted. An Avatar of our Justice who could police the supernatural, magical, and hunter worlds equally."
"You mean someone who would take out rogue hunters and darachs, protecting the nemetons and innocent people on all sides." That didn't sound very effective to Stiles at all. Especially since there would be just one hunter facing off against a whole laundry list of darachs, corrupt hunters, and other problems. Stiles was excellent at playing games like Risk; he knew that attempting to defend multiple fronts (or nemetons) was just asking to be defeated.
"Indeed."
"But who? You run the risk of them dying, or corrupting, the way that hunters like the Argents or darachs like Deaton have! Or someone who pulls a Dumbledore and insists on blindly following 'the greater good' no matter who he has to step on in the process. And you'd be expecting them to protect all the nemetons and innocent packs and whatnot all on their own?"
"There is potential for corruption, that is true." The Old Gods agreed. "It would need to be someone who truly understands the real balance — not the fallacious version that most Druids follow. Someone who thinks themselves righteous like Scott McCall or Dumbledore would be totally unsuitable, as you have already pointed out. What of a lawman, like your father?"
Stiles could argue this part in his sleep, after having watched his father's struggle between human law and supernatural justice. "There's a difference between following the law and doing what's right. Sometimes they're the same thing, but sometimes they aren't. The law has no provisions for the supernatural or magical worlds, and it varies from country to country anyway. Someone sworn to uphold the law — whichever law that is — will always eventually encounter a situation where the law conflicts with doing what's right. My dad ran into that catch 22 often, even before knowing about the supernatural."
Again Stiles got the impression that he'd passed some kind of test. "Correct. Our Avatar of Justice would need to be beholden to true justice, not human law. What of a druid?"
Stiles snorted. "If you can find one that understands actual balance, and not the warped version every druid I've met spouted. Unless you're actively in the middle of a trolley problem, there's no way you can tell me that letting innocent children be burned alive is somehow necessary to the balance."
"Indeed. The true balance says that, for every act of evil, good should follow. Too many have come to believe that the opposite should also be true, and that inaction is centrist, instead of an action in and of itself." they agreed.
"Pretty much." That tracked with what Stiles had seen for himself.
"What of those creatures who seem to exist only to cause harm?" came from the Devil's Advocate voice.
Stiles considered that for a moment. "What, like wendigos?"
"For example."
"Well my first inclination is that wendigos don't serve the balance at all, and shouldn't exist. I suppose a druid would make the argument that they're a necessary part of the circle of life in the sense that they hunt humans, who are otherwise apex predators. However, they don't seem to actually serve an ecological niche in that sense. It isn't the same as vampires, who can feed without killing — and most that I've met actually prefer it that way. Also, they can feed from more than just humans, like animals and shifters, while wendigos can't. It's humans or nothing. And it's impossible to "fix" them. There's literally nothing else that they can eat and feel satiated except people, so even if they wanted to stop, it would be like those people who feed their dogs and cats vegan diets and slowly torture and kill them through stupidity."
That got Stiles another fond chuckle. "An apt analogy. Wendigos, in fact, are not a naturally evolved creature, but one created by a misguided druid in an attempt to create balance. As you surmised, they were made to target humans because it was perceived that such a predator was needed."
"Son of a bitch."
"Clearly then, you have the understanding needed to be our Avatar of Justice."
"Wait, say what now?" Stiles' jaw dropped. He thought he'd been proving the validity of his petition, not auditioning to be turned into some kind of uber-judge.
"And that is but one more reason why you are the best choice," the Old Gods pointed out. "You have already seen just how badly the world can degrade; you understand the pitfalls that can befall the Avatar and are prepared to avoid them; you even acknowledge that you cannot stand as a shield around the entire world, and will need help to defend all fronts. You embody the essence of our Justice, and by performing this ritual you have already shown a willingness to act as our Avatar. No other would fit."
And Stiles found he couldn't really argue with any of that. He wanted to, of course, because this was not at all what he'd signed up for, but in a way, it kind of actually was. Still… "Are there other options?"
"We could simply grant your initial petition as presented, but it would simply delay this situation by a few decades, perhaps a century. Removing one single butterfly would remove a single hurricane, but not every future storm."
That made a frustrating amount of sense, and a small part of Stiles wanted to take it, and leave the future storms to be someone else's problem. But he just couldn't do it.
Stiles looked down at his hands, noticing for the first time the blood that had dried on his fingers. Blood that he had used to lay out the runes and sigils for the ritual. Blood of a werewolf, freely given.
"I assume that there's going to be some element of time travel involved, if you're sending me back to become your Avatar instead of just removing Deaton yourself," Stiles mused aloud. "So just… — I know wolves only have one mate. Just tell me— if I agree to do this, that I'm not leaving him alone. Tell me that I'm not his only choice — his only chance — at having a mate. That he'll be able to find someone else to love."
"He will be given a choice," the Old Gods agreed, and Stiles felt the weight of their promise like a physical binding.
"Then I'm all yours," he acceded.
The candles blew out, and Stiles was swallowed by darkness. The warmth inside him returned, and this time he realized it was his spark, no longer drained by Deaton's siphons, or gutted by the death of magic in the world, but whole and cleansed. It was followed by another wave of magic, cooler and older, and as they both settled into his chest, Stiles quickly deduced that this was the power of the Avatar of Justice being bestowed upon him.
He floated in the darkness for an undetermined amount of time, assimilating the changes to his petition and doing his best to plot out what he would need to do, once he arrived whenever he was going to be placed.
There was the slightest change in the air pressure around him, and Stiles tensed. He was no longer alone.
"Hello Sweetheart," a very familiar — very impossible — voice said. "I hear we have a darach to kill that I missed out on the first time around."
"Zombiewolf," Stiles's eyes sprung open, and he found himself lying on the ground, in a very different forest than the dying one he'd left behind. A very different Peter was standing over him, looking perfect and unruffled and not haunted by so many losses or covered in the blood he'd willingly given up for Stiles's crazy plan. Peter smiled lovingly and held out a hand to pull Stiles off the ground. It was a position they had been in dozens — hundreds — of times before, but it was impossible now. "How—?"
Peter grabbed his hand and gently tugged Stiles up into his arms. "Oh Sweetheart. I was given a choice."