Summer in the City of London, 1552

The summer sun hung high above the Thames, casting golden light upon the cobbled lanes and timbered walls of the City of London. In this year, 1552, the world felt strangely tilted toward the good. The pestilences of past decades had not returned with their usual fury, and the cruel flames of old persecutions had grown cold. Londoners walked with lighter steps, and for once, the streets did not echo with suspicion but with song, laughter, and the soft hush of marvel.

Something had changed. It was not written in proclamations nor spoken aloud in the courts of nobles or merchants, but in the rhythm of the city itself — a quiet pulse of hope and curiosity. The City of London, ancient and proud, had opened its heart to a people long hidden in the corners of legend and superstition: the Prodigals.

They did not arrive in conquest nor cloaked in shadows, but as neighbors, merchants, midwives, scholars, and smiths. They walked the streets as one among many, and where suspicion might once have found root, there was instead fascination and warmth. The fishmonger at the quay spoke of his lodger, who never aged and who hummed tunes older than the churches. A washerwoman in Eastcheap spoke with pride of her cousin's husband who turned into a great cat and protected their home from thieves. The children of the city played games of tag and hide-and-seek with companions whose eyes shimmered with fae gleam or whose strength could split stone — but who still laughed at the same jokes and shared crusts of bread beneath plum trees.

There were places in the city where the boundary between the worlds had grown thin — not dangerous, not frightening, but vibrant. A walled garden behind a stone apothecary bloomed each morning with flowers that changed hue with the sunrise. A public fountain near Guildhall now sang gentle lullabies when no one watched. Some nights, the stars above the city blinked with unusual brightness, like eyes of some friendly watcher.

One of the greatest wonders of that summer were the Avalon storytellers.

They arrived quietly — no grand entrance, no announcement. Just a simple wooden stage raised in the grass beside the Fleet, near where old ruins met the edge of market laughter. They were a strange and colorful band, clothed in woven patterns older than London’s stones, faces painted in ochres and coal, some with antlered crowns, others with sea-shelled cloaks. But it was their words, not their appearance, that drew the crowd.

They told tales from the roots of the Isles — of battles fought not with armies but with promises, of rivers that walked, of wolves that sang beneath moonlight to awaken kings, of a queen who made peace with death by kissing it kindly. They told stories of the stones that remember, and of the sky’s sorrow when Albion was torn. Londoners came in droves, sitting on barrels and crates and blankets, eyes wide and minds opened. Even those who wore the collars of clergy, or the finery of court, or the soot of forge, sat side by side without fear.

And more than the stories, it was the sense that these performers — these wanderers — were not visitors but reminders. That something old and kind still lived in the soil of the isles, and it now had breath again in the beating heart of London.

As summer deepened, so too did this harmony. There were quiet agreements — the market guards learned which alleyways not to patrol too hard, and the merchants gave certain families extra space without questions. When disputes rose, they were settled not with blades or threats, but often with storytelling, or shared meals under moonlight. Even the rats seemed to argue less in those months.

In the taverns, songs once forgotten were sung anew — not out of rebellion, but out of reverence. And in the churches, there was a gentle shifting, where some prayers began to include not just saints and kings, but the unseen and the ancient. Not all understood, but many accepted.

By the end of the season, the City of London stood as no other in the world. Not for its wealth or power, but for its possibility. Here, at least for now, Prodigal and mortal walked together, built together, and dreamed the same dreams.

And though none could say how long such peace would last, those who lived that summer would speak of it for years to come — when the sun was warm, the stories were alive, and the city breathed magic as naturally as it did smoke.