Welcome, you’ve stumbled into The Tori Story Series. If this is your first visit to this realm you might want to catch up.

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The Peddler and Tori traveled through the Void while Peddler continued to sing his new song. Well, not a new song really. Just the ancient song of Lost Things Found altered by the influence of Tori’s new and powerful song of healing. He was simply trying to locate the penicillin. Truly he didn’t understand the subtle energies that were at work. If he had, he might have left well enough alone.

As he sang, he held the dirt from the spade in his hand. It was a long shot, but he hoped to access a connection. It didn’t take long to realize they were just traveling in circles. By design? Maybe yes, maybe no.

Circles were definitely traveled though, (if Little Smith had been there he would have been thrilled). You see, all dirt is connected— a little too connected. The Void didn’t know which way to turn, and so continued to turn, round and round. Spinning like hands on a clock measuring seconds, not minutes or hours. When the connection is everywhere, where do you go? In circles, of course.

Oddly enough, the Peddler’s new song did carry through the Void. Ultimately, Fate would have its way. Come what may, all the eggs in the Ether were fertilized.

After time, completely frustrated, the Peddler interrupted his song.

“This isn’t going to work.” He explained to Tori although she didn’t need an explanation.

“Try something different.” Tori offered. 

She had traveled with him the entire time, releasing short, somewhat impatience sighs wondering when he would stop the nonsense. Dizzying it was and she was quite over it; she was no Little Smith.

Peddler exhaled an aggravated sigh and rubbed his temple. “Tori, this is the Void we are talking about. Nothing changes; it remains ever the same. Doing something different isn’t going to work.”

“Peddler,” Tori giggled as she took his hand in hers, her speech slowed to a near drunken slur. “How could you possibly know that unless you try?” She smiled at him, content. All at once, just happy to be. Now that the Peddler no longer sang, the Void grew still. Serene. Tori, having never experienced such peace, fell into a stupor.

The Peddler watched, aghast, as Tori’s eyes glazed over in bliss and her body began to slowly fade. His heart gripped with fear. Now, after all these years it dawned on him— this is what had become of Rowan.

And that is when another horrifying realization hit him— what if Tori finds out?

~

Peddler cringed. The lie he had told Tori was laughable but she had bought it. After all, at the time she knew nothing of the workings of the Void. True, she was sharp but incredibly naive. Was naive the right word? No. She was the opposite of naive. Her problem was that she trusted.

The She. Peddler thought. All She trusted way too easily. Giving over their hearts to whoever was near. Guard the heart— all Keepers knew that. Trust no one. That’s how a Keeper survived. It’s how you maintained balance in your sphere. 

But from the beginning Tori offered him her heart and he not knowing what to do with it, took it. Then left. He assumed she was asking him to protect it. Assumptions… would he ever learn? Tori’s gift, however, beckoned him to her. An unspoken invitation.

Peddler had known Tori’s gift might be his undoing, but he couldn’t refuse her. He had never been able to. Not even when she asked for penicillin, a substance he knew it was far too advanced for Andor. Yet he brought it anyway… why? Now, not only was Andor aware of Tori’s presence but Peace Keeper Lain might be too. They were in a world of trouble on all sides.

Tori made no qualms about blindly trusting what was in front of her. So when the Peddler fed her his lie and she bought it, he was flabbergasted. A fellow Keeper would never have bought such a preposterous explanation.

He expected a barrage of questions from Tori. Ones he would never be able to answer. What he got was silence. Despairing, deafening silence.

Losing Rowan, the lie, the blind acceptance, and the deafening silence; it happened right after the Peddler rescued Tori and Rowan from Belton that night the mirror should have been shattered.

That very night the Peddler had watched the entire scene play out through the ancient mirror. He had given her the mirror for that very reason. So he could keep an eye on both her and the boy. It was for her protection.

And thank goodness he did, because he too saw both lens and portal materialize and when he saw the lens he knew Tori and Rowan were compromised. Keeper Belton would soon arrive and take the boy. A boy with such power would never be allowed to live. Rowan’s very existence threatened the Entire. The Peddler knew that. He should have turned the boy over to the Council of Keepers himself, but didn’t. How could he? Rowan was his.

So the Peddler whisked Tori and Rowan through the Void to drop them both in Andor. He meant to carry them out of the portal one at a time, so the disturbance wouldn’t be too large thereby alerting Keeper Andor to the foreign matter that had just entered his realm.

Getting Tori through? No problem. But when Peddler went back for Rowan, and discovered he wasn’t there, he had no idea what to do.

Instead of thinking it through, he just blurted out the first thing that came to mind. The Taser caused an explosion that killed Rowan, he lead Tori to believe. Better she think the boy dead. Then at least she wouldn’t try to leave Andor in search of him.

Ridiculous yes, but what else could he do? Besides, he justified, it was for her protection.

At the time, he thought Keeper Belton had caught up with them. He had spent the last several years searching countless dimensions for any sign of the boy. Now, the Peddler knew the truth, Rowan wasn’t kidnapped, he had simply faded into the Void. Much like what was happening to Tori right now.

~

“Tori wake up.” Peddler stirred up the Void and the circling began again.

“Peddler, NO! It’s Rowan… Let me go back.” Tori screamed, her entire body wracking with sobs. “Let me GO BACK!”

“You can’t” Peddler said, his voice no louder than the slightest whisper. “It’s too risky.”

Clearly the Void would only overtake her just as it had Rowan. And the Peddler wasn’t willing to lose Tori; it was a risk he just wasn’t willing to take.

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