Ah.

You made it.

I was wondering when you would arrive.

Not that you're late.

You're exactly on time.

I would know.

 

Stories are interesting things.

They have a habit of making sense of

what made absolutely no sense while it

was happening. Very convenient.

Usually afterwards.

 

A woman named Cassandra will make

considerable use of this.

When we first meet her, she thinks she

understands herself rather well.

She does, actually.

Just not the important bits.

Those tend to be less cooperative.

 

So the stories give them other shapes.

Love becomes a god.

Fear grows teeth.

Death starts talking.

Someone inevitably ends up in a forest.

Sometimes an underworld.

Depends on the day.

 

Cassandra could, of course, simply say

what she feels.

You humans could try that generally.

But I admit, the underworld has better

scenery.

 

And myth gives her something she

needs. Distance.

Enough to look at something without

immediately having to call it her own.

Enough to recognise it.

Eventually.

She's very good at eventually.

 

 

Which is where our story begins.

With Cassandra.

She will find things here.

Some she is looking for.

Others have been waiting for her.

She tends to prefer the first kind.

That will not always be an option.

 

There is one thing you should know

before we go any further.

This isn't a novel.

These are separate stories.

Although separate is doing quite a lot

of work there.

 

The old myths were told that way too.

One story about a god falling in love.

Another about someone starting a war.

Someone annoys the wrong goddess.

Different stories.

Same gods. Same forces. Same world.

 

Eventually you realise they have been

telling you something larger all along.

It works rather like that here.

Each story stands on its own.

But they remember each other.

Things return.

Images. Questions.

Occasionally people Cassandra was

quite certain we were finished with.

We weren't.

 

Cassandra moves through

nearly all of them.

Sometimes deliberately.

Sometimes because she has made a

choice without quite noticing.

Those are often the interesting ones.

 

And somewhere along the way,

something larger begins to appear.

Cassandra won't see it immediately.

Naturally.

 

I could tell her.

I won't.

She prefers discovering these things

herself.

A little stubborn, perhaps.

She would call it determined.

I'll let her.

Her story begins with...

 

The Cycle.

Recognition. Trials. Power

 

It sounds very tidy.

Three words. Three stages.

Lovely.

Reality was less cooperative.

 

This is where Cassandra is tested.

She recognises things she would

rather not.

Loses things she would rather keep.

Finds things she didn't know were

missing.

And occasionally gets things

spectacularly wrong.

She has her moments.

 

Some of these stories are dark.

Some beautiful.

Some rather difficult to tell apart.

But dark is not the same as hopeless.

That's worth remembering.

Especially here.

 

The Cycle shapes Cassandra.

Not into someone else.

More into herself.

It takes a while.

Naturally.

 

The Coda.

A threshold.

 

And then there is the Coda.

Not another trial.

Cassandra has had quite

enough of those.

Something has changed.

Not everything.

Let's remain realistic.

 

But enough.

Enough for what comes next.

Although perhaps we shouldn't get

ahead of ourselves.

Come on.

There's still a little way to go.

 

Becoming.

A play.

 

After all that myth, something changes.

Cassandra has spent quite enough

time in forests, ancient worlds and the

occasional underworld.

They served their purpose.

 

But eventually, there are things you

cannot understand from a distance.

You have to stand there.

Speak. Listen.

Answer when someone asks you a

question. Cassandra finds the last one

particularly inconvenient.

 

So she gets a stage.

Quite literally.

Now there is a newsroom.

Work. Ambition. Friendship. Love.

People talking over one another and

pretending they know what they're

doing.

In other words, a fairly normal day.

It looks much more ordinary.

It isn't.

 

Because a stage asks something

different of her.

No myth to give her distance.

No narrator to speak for her.

 

Just Cassandra.

Her voice.

And whatever she decides to do with it.

 

The Encounters.

Twenty-two stories.

 

Well, eventually twenty-two.

These things take time.

Fortunately, I have some.

 

By now, Cassandra no longer needs to

travel very far to find the unusual.

It has learned to come to her.

In bars. On beaches. In boardrooms.

Sometimes looking exactly as you

would expect.

Usually not.

 

Old forces.

Many names. Many faces.

They've never been particularly

attached to one form.

People are.

People do enjoy naming things.

Cassandra included.

 

She'll meet them one by one.

She'll ask questions. Make

assumptions. Change her mind.

Occasionally she'll even be right the

first time.

We should appreciate those moments

when they happen.

 

I know most of them.

Some are delightful.

Some are exhausting.

One or two have been taking

themselves far too seriously

for several centuries.

Please don't tell them I said that.

Actually, do.

It might help.

 

The forms change.

The stories change.

Cassandra changes.

The forces don't.

Still here.

Just considerably better disguised.