Asonder came out of Arcadia a changed man, although not as much as you'd think. He talks to things and he's kind of slow moving. His magic has gotten weird and powerful, with a lot of politely asking his suroundings for magical power. On the other hand, his aversion to human habitation has gotten even worse, and I think he is rarely seen in the great hall any more.
While he still is very focused on animal and herbam magic, since he has gotten back to Isrillien he is spending a lot of time in the mines, talking with the miners and with the living rock itself.
His feud with Elias is largely forgotten (at least on his side), and he has become enormously self-confident and self-sufficient. He still hates the Ventrians, and wishes we could drive them from the valley, but he has become much more patient and much less talkative, so it is much less apparent.
Sometime in the past few months, he went off to the Lake District to talk with the Arcadians about what he experienced. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have been able to remain completely silent about Giles part in the whole thing, so there is at least someone in Papilio Aestivus or Fenestra Arcadia who knows about Giles and the Mistress of the Hunt's prize mare. How long that will take to get back to Bethelion, I don't know.
Also, I think Asonder wants to take another student, and will probably start hunting up the An for one shortly (he wants an Andar boy).
From the ears of the Arcadians to the ears of Bethelion?
Not much time at all, methinks.
The Arcadians are chummy with the Mille Lacusians: they're neighbors, they chat a lot, and they do share a certain...sense of humour? That's one step.
Quotannis is a Mille Lacusian. He's also a gossip. And gossip about magical horses is likely to be of particular interest him, given that he's magically linked to one himself. And he travels a lot. And furthermore, his soror Querimonia, with whom he's on very close terms, is an ex-Bethelion lecturer, currently at Legatum Grigori -- the new Amicitian covenant which Quotannis visits on a regular basis. So that's two steps.
And as for Querimonia herself, she presumably still stays in touch with a number of her colleagues at Bethelion. As, I'm sure, do plenty of the other magi at Legatum Grigori. So there. Three steps, and we're home.
And that's just one possible route of information. There's also Ostryea to consider, although I suspect the Oyster is probably a bit tighter-tongued than Quotannis is.
So yeah. Bethelion will learn about it soon enough.
Heh. Poor Giles.
Horsie, filius Giles
And then there is the question of the foal itself. It seems to me entirely possible that Asonder gets it back after it has been raised up and bred with the mistress of the hunt's horses again. It seems fitting somehow, and I think it would horrify Giles to have a horse child (who I imagine is a magical horse, but not a fully sentient magical horse) running around somewhere in the world. Would he want it? Would he want Asonder to have it?
I think Asonder would want his student to have it, unless Giles insisted on having it. And I do think Asonder would do his best to keep it a secret that his magic horse was Giles child.
A quick Fae question--
How free were the Fae to mess with Asonder and Giles? Basically I'm trying to determine how cruel the prospect of the mage name "Fallen Stag" might've been for Giles.
Fae question
I imagine that they would have been moderately free to mess with Asonder and Giles, but not totally free. The little hut that Asonder built, and the clearin around it, were basically stable points. Things could enter the clearing to mess with Giles, but they couldn't completely alter his local reality. Wandering outside the clearing would definitely have been more dicey, but I think Asonder did his best to keep Giles from doing this until he was ready to deal with the consequences.
What are you imagining?
Those wacky Fae
Oh, I'm thinking of a group of bored Fae looking for new game to hunt, not lethal, but challenging and for days. And the game in question wouldn't necessarily know that the hunt wouldn't end in a kill.
And other shenanigans as well, what ever you feel is likely.
Basically I feel that while Giles acheived a new appreciation and respect for the Fae the odd twenty years he spent in their realm--learned new defenses against Fae attack, gained all sorts of interesting knowledge, maybe even made a Fae friend or two--he also has a new heightened sense of nervousness around them that can border on the hysterical given the right circumstance.
And whereas I'm sure Giles valued the safety of the hut and clearing, boredom can make him stupid and reckless, especially if Asonder is out galavanting with Mistress of the Hunt. It sometimes takes a couple of bonks on the head to learn him, especially if the realm feels springtime like which always muddles his reason.
And...
Also, witnessing Asonder being messed with by the Fae would've had an ill effect on Giles, no matter how minor the messin'.
Definitely some messing
I can definitely see some of those things happening, not all that often, but it was 20 years, and it certainly doesn't have to be all that often to be traumatic.
Yeah, beyond the hunt, I thin
Yeah, beyond the hunt, I think only two other truly horrific dealingd with the fae, for Giles at least.
One being a few days with a doppleganger Asonder who was a weird combination of abusive and solicitous, and was seriously freaking Giles out until the real Asonder showed up.
The other being when he unknowningly accepted to be part of a game that was part scavenger hunt, part obstacle course that involved a lot of shifting and reality jumps that lasted weeks for Giles, though Asonder said it was only a day. I think this is where Giles' uneasiness about Perdix's trunk comes from.
The siring of the foal is way up there on the list as an unpleasant dealing with the Fae, but not the stuff of night terrors.
Beyond that, probably just the occsional run-of-the-mill ambush or attack, painful, frightening and/or humiliating but no lasting trama. Though the culminative effect probably contributes to his nervousness.