"Yeah, sure, she'd be a good teacher for you."

Theodore blinked. That was... not the reaction he'd expected. He'd just finished explaining the whole situation to his grandfather—the shop, the time-stopping, the casual obliteration of a monster horde, the equally casual time reversal to fix the landscape, and his grandfather's response was basically 'yeah, sounds good'?

"That's it?" Theodore asked. "No concerns about the apprenticeship?"

His grandfather chuckled, leaning back in his chair. They were in the old man's study this time, not the garden. Fireplace crackling, sketching shifting shadows on walls lined with more books than any normal person needed. It seemed his grandfather had quite the hobby.

"Seraphina's mellowed out considerably over the years. She has a penchant for theatrics these days, but that's better than the alternative."

"Mellowed out?" Theodore couldn't help but ask. The woman who'd deleted hundreds of monsters with a hand wave was the mellowed version? "Mellowed out from what?"

"Well, back in the war—"

"War?"

His grandfather gave him a look. "Yes, Theodore, I'm old. I've seen my share of conflicts."

Right. Of course. His grandfather who could apparently seal reincarnated souls was probably older than dirt. Why not.

"Anyway," the old man continued, swirling whatever amber liquid was in his glass, "she was ruthless back then. Seraphina, I mean. The things she did..." He trailed off, staring at the fire. "Let's just say that what you witnessed today would have been considered restraint."

Theodore processed that. The casual annihilation of hundreds of monsters was restraint. Great. Wonderful. What a comforting thought.

"She's stronger than me," his grandfather said, which was saying something considering Theodore had felt the man's mana pressure earlier. "Stronger than anyone I've ever met, actually. And even before I knew her, there were stories. Legends, really."

"What kind of legends?"

"Oh, the usual." His grandfather waved a hand dismissively. "Some say she's a witch who made a pact with something beyond mortal comprehension. Others claim she's a dragon taking human form. There's even one story that says she's actually multiple people sharing the same identity across centuries."

"And the truth?"

"No one knows." His grandfather smiled. "Not even me."

Theodore raised an eyebrow. "You've known her for who knows how long and you don't know what she is?"

"Who knows?" The smile turned cryptic.

Theodore decided not to push that particular mystery. He had bigger questions anyway. More personal ones. He shifted in his chair, trying to figure out how to phrase what he wanted to ask. The fire crackled. A log shifted, sending sparks up the chimney.

"About my... situation," Theodore finally said. "The seed of memories. My reincarnation. Did you have a hand in it? In me being reborn here?"

His grandfather's expression turned serious. He set down his glass, leaned forward slightly. "No."

Simple answer. Theodore waited, because there had to be more.

"I don't know how it happened or why," his grandfather continued. "When I first saw you—when you were born—I was terrified. Terrified of losing you." He paused, seeming to gather his thoughts. "Your soul was an amalgamation. Someone or something big was playing a dangerous game."

"Dangerous how?"

"Reincarnation is taboo, Theodore. Not just frowned upon, it's actively forbidden by powers that even I wouldn't cross. The fact that you existed at all meant someone had broken fundamental rules." His grandfather's eyes were distant now, remembering. "My first thought was that you might be some kind of demonic reincarnation. A possession, maybe. Something wearing my grandson's face."

Theodore's throat went dry.

"I was faced with a decision. Kill you or not. I couldn't make that decision," his grandfather said quietly. "You were so small. So fragile. My grandson, regardless of what else you might be. So I did what I could to protect you. Sealed the memories, calmed your soul, gave you a chance to grow into whatever you were meant to become."

Another pause. The old man picked up his glass again, took a sip.

"And now you've regained your memories. Come to yourself, truly. And I'm thankful I didn't make that decision back then." He met Theodore's eyes. "There's much for you to restore, I think. But that's not my place to meddle. I'm just happy you're back."

Theodore sat there for a long moment, processing. He watched the fire dance. Orange and yellow, occasional hints of blue at the base where the heat was most intense. A normal fire. Safe. Controlled. Nothing like what he carried inside him.

The shadows on the wall looked like people sometimes. Or animals. Depended on how the flames moved. Right now one of them looked like a bird, wings spread wide. Then the fire shifted and it became something else. A tree, maybe. Hard to tell.

His grandfather was patient. Didn't push. Just sat there with his drink, letting Theodore think.

Theodore hesitated, then extended his hand. Summoned fire to his fingertips. Not the regular kind—the other kind. Purple flame, no bigger than a candle's worth, dancing above his palm.

His grandfather's reaction was immediate. The old man went rigid, glass halfway to his lips. His eyes locked onto the flame with something that looked suspiciously like fear. Real, genuine fear. From a man who'd just admitted to considering infanticide.

"How do you have that?" The question came out sharp. Urgent.

Theodore extinguished the flame, suddenly feeling like he'd done something wrong. "I don't know. I have [Elemental Mastery] and can use normal fire with it, but sometimes—if I really want to—I can summon this instead. It's incredibly dangerous."

"Of course it is." His grandfather set down his glass with a careful click. The fear was fading, replaced by something else. Curiosity, maybe. Or calculation. "Of course it is," he repeated, quieter.

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"So do you know what it is?"

"No."

Theodore's shoulders slumped. One of the main reasons he'd come to the capital was to get answers about the purple fire. If his grandfather didn't know, then who would? Maybe Seraphina, but she seemed more interested in using it than explaining it. Maybe—

His grandfather chuckled. "I'm joking."

Theodore's head snapped up. "What?"

"I said I'm joking. I do know what it is. Or at least, I have a theory."

Theodore wanted to throw something at him. The old man was grinning now, clearly pleased with himself. Wonderful. His ancient, possibly war-criminal grandfather had a sense of humor. Just what Theodore needed.

"So?" Theodore prompted when his grandfather didn't immediately continue. "What is it?"

The old man leaned back again, settling into what Theodore recognized as lecture mode. "When the universe was created, everything that exists came from a single point. We call it the Origin. One moment there was nothing—true nothing, not even empty space—and then the Origin appeared. Or perhaps it always existed and simply chose that moment to act. The philosophy gets complicated."

Theodore found himself nodding along. This actually sounded familiar. Not from this world's education but from his previous life. The Big Bang theory, basically. Everything expanding from a single point of infinite density. Except here they called it the Origin and apparently it involved magic.

"When the Origin splintered, it created everything. Space, time, matter, energy, magic—all of it came from that first moment of breaking. Some of the fragments became what we call the primordial elements. The original, pure forms of fire, water, earth, air, and so on."

"And the purple fire is primordial fire?"

"An echo of it, more likely. The true primordial elements are... well, they don't really exist anymore. Can't exist, maybe. The universe has cooled too much, become too stable. But sometimes, rarely, someone can touch that echo. Channel a fragment of what once was."

Theodore thought about that. In his previous life, scientists had theorized about the early universe. The first few microseconds after the Big Bang when temperatures were so high that the fundamental forces hadn't even separated yet. When quarks and gluons existed in a soup of pure energy before cooling enough to form protons and neutrons.

Was that what the purple fire was? Some kind of magical equivalent to those first moments of creation? A remnant of when the universe was young and violent and burning with the force of its own birth?

It made a certain kind of sense. The purple fire didn't behave like normal fire. It was more fundamental than that. More dangerous. Like handling the raw stuff of creation itself.

"The primordial elements are unstable," his grandfather was saying. "Unusable for most people. They don't follow the rules that normal magic does because they predate those rules. They're older than the laws of nature themselves."

"But I can use it."

"Yes." His grandfather's expression was thoughtful now. "Which raises interesting questions. Either you have some natural affinity for primordial fire specifically, or… Or your soul, being an amalgamation of two different sources, two different worlds perhaps, has properties that let you access things that should be inaccessible."

Theodore hadn't considered that. His reincarnation wasn't just about having memories from Earth. It was about being fundamentally different on a soul level. A hybrid of two realities, maybe. And that hybridization might give him abilities that neither world alone could produce.

Kind of like how mixing two chemicals might create something with properties neither original substance had.

"Is it dangerous?" Theodore asked, though he already knew the answer. Everything about the purple fire screamed danger.

"Incredibly. Primordial elements don't just burn or freeze or whatever their normal counterparts do. They unmake things. Return them to the state they were in before the Origin splintered. Which is to say, nothing."

Theodore remembered the first time he'd really unleashed the purple fire. How it had seemed to erase things rather than burn them. Not destruction so much as deletion. Yeah, that tracked with what his grandfather was saying.

"Can I learn to control it better?"

"Possibly. Seraphina would be your best bet for that. She has more experience with exotic magics than anyone else I know." His grandfather picked up his glass again, swirled the liquid thoughtfully.

Theodore sat with that for a while. The fire had burned lower while they talked. His grandfather seemed content to let the silence stretch. Old people were good at that, Theodore had noticed. Comfortable with quiet in a way younger people rarely were. Maybe because they'd already said most of what they needed to say in life. Or maybe because they'd learned that not everything needed words.

Theodore thought about the Origin. About the Big Bang. About how in his previous life, scientists had spent decades trying to understand those first moments of creation. Building massive particle accelerators to smash atoms together at speeds approaching light, trying to recreate conditions that had existed for tiny fractions of a second billions of years ago.

And here he was, apparently carrying around an echo of that primordial state in his soul. Available at will, though dangerous to use.

It was kind of absurd when he thought about it that way.

"The splintering. When the Origin broke apart. Was it intentional?" Theodore said suddenly.

His grandfather looked surprised by the question. "What do you mean?"

"Did something cause it to break? Or did it just... happen? Like, was there a purpose to creation or was it random?"

"Ah." The old man smiled. "The eternal question. Some believe the Origin was conscious and chose to splinter itself to create existence. Others think it was unstable and simply couldn't maintain cohesion. And some argue it was neither—that talking about choice or chance when dealing with something that predates those concepts is meaningless."

Theodore nodded slowly. In his previous life, similar debates had raged about the Big Bang. Was there a cause? Could there even be a cause when time itself didn't exist before that moment? It was the kind of question that made his head hurt if he thought about it too long.

"What do you believe?" Theodore asked.

"I believe it doesn't matter," his grandfather said simply. "We're here now. The universe exists. What came before, what caused it, what purpose it might have, those are interesting questions, but they don't change the reality we live in."

Practical. Theodore could appreciate that.

"Though," his grandfather added with a slight grin, "if you ever figure out the answer, do let me know. I've got a bet running with a few old friends about it."

Theodore couldn't help but laugh. "How old are these friends?"

"Oh, ancient. One of them claims to have met someone who met someone who supposedly witnessed the Origin itself, though I'm fairly certain that's impossible. Still, makes for good drinking stories."

They sat in comfortable silence for a few more minutes.

"Thank you," Theodore finally said. "For the answers. For not killing me when I was born. For... everything, I guess."

His grandfather waved off the thanks. "Family, Theodore. That's what we do. Though do try not to unmake the universe with that purple fire of yours. I'm rather fond of existing."

"I'll do my best."

"That's all anyone can ask. Now, it's late and your mother will skin me alive if I keep you up all night. Go get some rest. You can give Seraphina your answer tomorrow."

Theodore stood as well. He'd already made his decision, really. Had made it the moment she'd offered. Power was power, and he needed all he could get. The fact that she apparently knew something about the purple fire was just a bonus.

"Grandfather?"

"Hm?"

"What was the war? The one you mentioned earlier?"

His grandfather paused at the door. "A story for another time, perhaps. Some tales are better told in daylight." He glanced back. "Though I will say this—if Seraphina has taken an interest in you, it's not random. She sees something. What that something is..." He shrugged. "Well, that's between you and her."

And with that vaguely ominous statement, he left. Where to, Theodore could only guess.

Theodore stayed a moment longer, watching the last of the fire die. Orange to red to dull embers glowing to nothing. Just ash and the memory of warmth.

Tomorrow he'd go back to that shop that might or might not exist depending on who was looking. He'd tell a woman who might be a witch or a dragon or something else entirely that yes, he'd be her apprentice. He'd learn to control power that predated the universe itself.

No pressure.

What a day.

Yeah. Sleep. That would fix everything.

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