“I’m not afraid, exactly.” The words seemed to come hard.  “I just wouldn’t be very good at it.  I’m happy being a small fish.”

“Don’t tempt her,” the Questor grinned.

“Bah.  There’s no room in the tank,” she said.  She leaned back and looked at me.  “Really?” she asked, with an eyebrow cocked high.

“Why doesn’t anyone believe me when I say I’m uncomfortable with the power I have?”  I said.  I hadn’t really ever said it that way before, and I was surprised it had come out that way this time.

She nodded slowly.  “You should be.  We usually think of Openers as dangerous.  Incanters, summoners, taking from the Outside, but you, you crippled and nearly destroyed a Dragon.  Not to say there aren’t other Powers, but even the word Dragon summons, if you forgive the term, images of the fears of mankind.  A Dragon makes many enemies and few friends, but those friends are now warned about you.  Your name is spoken in places that speak languages even the wise fear, Gandalf might say.”  She smiled a little.

“So you’re saying I have powerful enemies?  I kind of got that one on my own,” I rolled my eyes.

“Wouldn’t being a wizard tap you into the kind of power to handle them?  Or are you more scared of yourself than you are of anything that might strike at you?”  There was a smile hinting at her lips.

I got the feeling that there was some kind of test in this.  “I don’t even get the choice of fading and leaving for the West.”

“California’s too delicately balanced.  It’s a minefield.”  She shook her head.  “You’re not getting the One Ring, E.  Have you tried to close the door, such as it is, on your mark?”

That was an interesting idea.  I shook my head.  “Could I?”

“You could ask me to wipe it out, or find someone to transfer it to, willing or unwilling.  Play your enemies against themselves.  You could do a lot of things.”  She didn’t answer my question.  “The Questor,” she waved at her husband, “gave you several free answers.  That in itself could worry your foes.”

I hadn’t thought of that.  We were just folks making good conversation, but on one level, she was absolutely right.  “So what’s the advice?”

“Honestly, I’d like to counsel you to become a wizard, but I don’t take apprentices and it’d be irresponsible otherwise.   That leaves me with an old saw.  Be yourself.”

“That’s easy enough to say,” I pointed out.  “After all, I don’t really know how to be anyone else.”

“Easy with the scare quotes, mister.  We are human beings and we have a choice.  We can work with, against, or just surrender to the flow of things.  Each of those things are important at the right time, at the right instant, and none of us know what that time is.”

“The whole mythology of free will?” I asked.

“Good choice of words.  If you’d just said myth, I would have kicked you in the knee.” She gestured with her foot.  “I think it might touch on that, but even without the context of soul and the behaviouralism inherent in that system, that’s a lot of what makes us human to each other.  It’s how we act when we get to that crux.  You had to free the fire.  It didn’t do Prometheus or Dog or the Sparrow any good, did it?”  It was a sad smile.  “And what comes from outside our worlds has no reason to play by our rules.  They are outside the system, immune to the flow, not part of our cycles, not with the interests of our world in mind.  Like, um, literally.  So, for me, in defining that good or evil thing, I have the good of my world in mind.  You’re a force for it.  Suck it up.”

I grinned.  “Does that mean I get a superhero emblem and maybe a theme song?”

She mock-glared at me.  “I’m sure I could get the kids to whip something up, if you don’t mind being called something as obvious as Hero Man of the Hero Kingdom of Hero Men in Hero World.  I blame it on their father and his inability to find names for his characters.”  She turned the mock glare over to him.

He shrugged, grinning.

“Yeah, yeah, `Nothing wrong with heroes that Batman or the Green Arrow can’t solve.’  That’s practically a motto.”  She sighed.  “Alright, it’s long past time for dessert.  I’m going to make some ice cream sundaes, and then start the kids on their baths.”  She got up and moved towards the kitchen.

“Um, she is aware that they’ve both been members of the JLA, right?” I asked the Questor.

“She had too early a Frank Miller influence on her superheroes, I think,” the Questor.

“It was the smartest question I had brainpower for, I think.”  I yawned.

“Just don’t bring up Superman,” he warned, still smiling.  “She has opinions.”  He stretched out his legs for a moment, then took the dishes into the kitchen.

“Do you like chocolate syrup?” she asked from the doorway.

“Yes.  What, no `eye of newt’ and `wing of bat’?” I teased.

“Dragon’s-blood orange?” she teased.

“Just like mom used to make,” I retorted.

“I can also burn you a grilled cheese sandwich if you’d like.  I’m good with that.”  She disappeared back into the kitchen, in a purely mundane fashion.  That, at least, was like most of the wizards I knew.  I’ve seen some lairs, and some labs, but you still needed the occasional PB&J.  Even wizards had to eat.  Invisible servitors still had to be taught how to scramble your eggs just right.