The Witch and the Lich; Revelations

Credits; Rea, Krell,

The Nieldic new year began as had its final day.  Krell finally decided to sally forth for the day while Rea was still contentedly snoring on the bed.  She hadn't bothered to change, and it seemed to have an interesting effect on the neurally interfaced color shifting dress she'd gotten herself.  In place of mere colors, he could see images whipping across the fabric.  Stars over head, and towards the bottom he could see a grassy field.  Short green grass, he was amazed he could make out individual blades but there they were, cut short, watered, and fertilized.  Somewhere suburban then, maybe a community park or a picnic area.  Then he saw a hand flash by on the side of her dress; it was wearing one of her gloves.  She was dreaming of herself, and if the timing and elevation was any indication, she was practically skipping.  It suddenly occured to him that he was watching someone else's dream and he turned away.  She could dream in peace. 
He walked out side and found himself looking at the face of oblivion.  And endless nothing, absorbing everything around it but never becoming anything.  Then he realized it was much more blue than he'd always imagined oblivion and heard a melodic laugh come from beyond it.  The nothing took on the form of a cat and began circling its mistress' legs. 
"My apologies, ZeeGee can be quite inquisitive at times and I'm afraid in its natural state it is rather startling."
Arcania had set up a large cushioned chair and was playing solitare in front of the door.  Her pet-thing sat across from her and twitched its tail slowly as it watched him.  He knew that it reflected her, and so he could tell that even with her white pupilless eyes she was watching him too. 
"You named it?"
"It named itself, I was simply the first one to call it as such.  ZeeGee and I have much in common you see; we both wander, we both have seen the unrecorded wonders of deep space, and we both enjoy long walks barefoot in the snow."
"It's alive?"
"Ssshh!  If Igor hears you saying that he'll remember his flesh golem research and we'll all be stuck here on our own while he and Cyssie run off to Transylvania again."
"Well we wouldn't want that now would we?"
"No.  Things are boring around here when they leave."  She snapped and the cards began to shuffle themselves.  She continued to watch him for a moment before continuing.  "How much has she told you about me?"
"What?" 
"See, Rea and I have an agreement.  It's actually a threeway, but Petra's not here so I'll let her be.  The way it works is that any time one of us tells someone something about one of the others, that other gets to tell you something equivalent about her.  Rea is the worst at keeping secrets, so I figure she's told you all kinds of jusicy stuff about me.  Petra's really good about it, which is just as well since nobody really has any dirt on her.  And me, let's just say I'm the only one of us who ever had proper siblings."
"So what is this, some sort of mutual revelation pact?"
"Sort of; its mostly to keep Rea from blabbing all over the place about everything, while keeping her closest companions informed of who they're dealing with.  After all, everyone knows about me, and Petra is a complete paladin; its really only her who keeps secrets."
"How often has this happened then?"
"Never, Rea has always had this sort of lone wolf thing going on.  You're her first companion in my lifetime, and I'm no spring lamb."
"Alright then, she's told me who you are, what you've done, about your family situation, how many people normally try to kill you in a day, your love of books and search for a particular book, and that you can't kill anyone."  He paused and thought before adding on, "And she also admitted that she couldn't kill you if she tried."
"She's selling herself short; if she really tried she could.  It's just that she's never had to really try at anything for a long time.  And I mean a really long time; Petra remembers back when she used to make things hard for herself on purpose just to stay in practice.  As long as I've known her though she's been able to clear a room in the blink of an eye.  Have you ever seen her face down a company of soldiers?"
He shook his head.  He'd seen her around combat, but never actually participating in it. 
"Imagine a hundred men suffering exactly the number of wounds, in exactly the right places, to cause instantly fatal blood loss at the same time.  Now before you lose that image, imagine they all have penciled in mustaches and have been pantsed.  And that it happens so fast you don't even see her move unless she manages to stop about a half an inch off of where she started.  Do you know how long our fight last night went?"
He stopped and considered it.  It would have taken him hours to inflict that many wounds on an equivalent opponent, and Rea had still been shivering when he'd arrived. 
"Maybe four hours."
"One minute."
"That's impossible.  I know she's fast but a minute?"
"ZeeGee frosted us both.  I regained consciousness first, she hadn't even used her blades."  She paused again and looked at him pointedly.  "We weren't going to kill each other; you do realize that, right?"
He shook his head absent mindedly.  It was hard to get past the idea of her moving fast enough to have fundamentally won a fight in a minute. 
"Alright, I'm sure she'll catch you up on that eventually.  More to the point then; she's old, very old, older than anyone but Ceanne and five score times more powerful than anyone.  She kills immortals the way Petra kills shades or I read.  Her ultimate goal in life is to grow up; plain and simple.  She has a lot of family, but none of them close and none of them descended directly; best as I can tell she's spent so much time as a child she'd never willing inflict it on anyone.  So I rather doubt she'll ever have kids.  And as for what she's done; nothing.  She's never done anything worth noting.  She fought in the Great Ga-Vok war way back when, and she usually sides with the immortals whenever something big happens.  But she never fights demons, she never leads armies, and she never gets paid for her services.  I first heard about her because she kills a lot of immortals and Mum had noticed the trend followed one teenage girl.  Petra's probably the best one to ask, she's the only one actually stronger and she knows things no one could know.  If you find her, ask."
"That's a lot to know.  Why do I feel like you actually know more though?"
"I do, but I won't say.  She may not keep secrets well; but she reveals them perfectly.  She hasn't revealed the whole truth about some things about me, so I can't reveal them about her.  She can be pretty tricky like that, you should watch for it."
She snapped again and he realized she'd finished another round of solitare.  ZeeGee closed his eyes slowly and seemed to smile mischeviously.  One thing was certain, Rea was much more complicated than she'd ever let on.  He'd have to find Petra and get her to tell him more if he wanted the truth.