25.3 Desolate No More

General Summary

Day 408

Just as we are preparing supper for the evening, Kaidé disappears. Sheepishly I recall that we have spent ten hours travelling today and of course ran out of time before we could have another meal together. We'll have to be more cautious in the coming days. She agrees - we can wake together and travel for a few hours, then she'll retire around noon and come out again in the evening. I tease her for leaving me all alone in the bright daylight, skirting around the knowledge of who precisely gave my people the shadows. She seems happy. For our time together I will have to shelter her from the sun. It's a funny but meaning-laden realization.   I pass the evening in quiet contemplation interrupted only by my letterbox.  

How soon can you join me? The Desolation is gone; in its place is a magical sea that I cannot begin to comprehend.

Amytri

And I am suddenly entirely awake and scrambling to send back questions - saltwater? Freshwater? The magic is back? And the entire Desolation, Blasted Lands, all of it is underwater! I'm busy and cannot expect to meet him for several weeks but I will send others to work with him.   He writes back with his own programmed illusion, similar but different to the ones I send. It captures a single extracted memory and shows me cresting luminescent waves stretching out as far as the eye can see. It's deep and the light seems to come from deeper within the sea as well. The shores are dotted with the same grass that once struggled to find purchase in the Desolation, now lush and thriving. And the air coming off of this glowing water is fresh, crisp, and cold. The entire storm condensed into this icy, shining expanse.   I immediately write to Andstella and Kadia. Of course I want Kadia to see this. Andstella and Amytri need to meet regardless and I want her to see this magic and tell me all about it. I want letters from her about new and exciting places. When I inform Amytri that I'll be recommending Andstella and Kadia to visit, he asks me to warn them that anything that touches the water freezes. I dutifully relay the message but I eagerly anticipate the days when they all have their own letterboxes independent of me and my forwarding service.  

Day 409

I wake to a warm fire and bread ready-made. Kaidé has been up ahead of me (not that this is a difficult feat nowadays). The bread is warm and dense, much hardier than Alder's usual fare. It's good and I'm thankful that she made breakfast.   But I am far and away too excited at the prospect of the former Desolation to talk much further about bread. Kaidé admits that she did read the letter as well - apparently I was so excited that it was very hard for her not to see through my eyes.   In her memory there was a sea in that spot as well, also freshwater. When the Osyr fled the sea they transformed themselves to be able to live on land but she's heard legends of powerful magic users who tried to change themselves back in order to seek refuge in this sea. Many died but supposedly some succeeded. But then there was some sort of magical conflict that dried up that entire sea; when their scholars went searching for it again in later years they found it gone and the Desolation in its place.   Some said that the ancient enemy had struck again to deprive the Osyr of even this one shelter, while others thought it was punishment for the heresy of daring to try to change the nature of the sea rather than themselves. With my own recollections of what I saw through the pearl I think it more likely that the Ingans lashed out using the people-who-would-be-Collective as a weapon. Seeing them clashing with ancient Osyr and knowing their proclivity for sucking the life and magic out of an area paints a very clear picture for me. The Collective, the Ingans, the Desolation...so much more connection than any of us in the Empire ever could have imagined.   I can't wait to bring Kaidé to this place and see what she makes of it. She tells me that with some supplies she might be able to fashion jewellery that will let others accompany me into the depths when I use the pearl. For the second time today I tell her to give me a list and I will collect whatever she needs (after all, isn't that what this whole journey is about)?   For a moment she looks uncomfortable asking me to get these things for her. She tells me that she has not normally had to ask for things, nor rely on the kindness of others. Here she is, seemingly, completely reliant on my supplies, my contacts, my planning, even my body.  

What have I done to earn any of this?

  People around me are consumed with their own sense of undeserving. Even if we could set aside the rich history of the Empress and the elves, is it not enough for us to be two apprentices wandering the world together? I shrug off the idea that Kaidé herself had been cruel and demanding in our earlier days - that was someone else, someone I will probably never meet again.   She laughs and remarks that she sees why our teacher likes me so much - I'm flexible. Contrary to this, I think she actually likes it better when I am inflexible. I reserve the comment that Kaidé, too, seemed to respect and appreciate the inflexibility I showed her when we first met. Magdalena has apparently said that I am the first of her students to scold her and actually make her feel guilty as opposed to witnessing a child's tantrum. I chuckle at this for sometimes Magdalena's harsh emotions feel like a child's tantrum to me. Her jealousy of my family, the barely contained rage at the witches who had no idea what they'd done, the way she handled Bran's magic so carelessly when he was trying to help. Her lack of care for people's delicate and complex natures is exactly how youngsters behave before they've learned how deeply interwoven we all are, how your own heart will hurt if you cause that pain in others. Maybe it's that immunity to heart magic that she's got.   The conversation changes direction and we set off for our morning of travel together before she retires as the sun climbs higher in the sky. Alone in the sky I hear the sound of an impossibly sad reed flute song. Following it leads me to a large cliff with a young autumn fae dangling his feet off the edge as he plays. It's funny what the wings have done to my sense of danger - once this would have looked like someone on the verge of peril. Now it is normal. He seems to start finding an end to his song as I approach and by the time I'm sitting beside him he has finished.   The conversation is sparse in a comfortable way, asking if I've just awoken (do I pass for Spring?) and if I'm heading home. We agree to share a campsite for the night and he shows me to a well laid-out camp that has clearly been used for a while. As we prepare dinner he tells me that his husband was Spring and they couldn't make it back to the Grove in time. Now he's been trapped here trying to figure out how to sing his husband's song to the trees when he finally returns.  

I haven't figured out how to leave here yet.

  After retrieving Kaidé, we settle down for more conversation over the fire. Openly I describe my own Grove, my own Tree, and the cycle of Day and Night. I feel almost guilty for my rapid, awkward descriptions and hasty explanations of lifespans and sleeping patterns. Still, this is something that every one of my kin will have to go through as we spread out and encounter fae of Seasons who will have to come to understand this new people.   The only thing I am not willing to share is the location of our Tree. We have only one, as far as I know. It's a secret too precious to share, just like the existence of my slumbering Celestial cousins.   At first he is confused, of course. As I explain the cycle as best I can, he starts to understand. Dawn is rising early, full of gentle energy and awakening spirit, new growth and readiness for the day like Spring is to the rest of the year. Daylight is clear and bright, shining and warm like Summer. Dusk is soft, quieting music and gathering in from a day's work together much like my own imagining of Autumn. And midnight, quiet and contemplative, cold and careful like Winter laying things to rest.   My new friend, Alec, seems to understand this once I've described it. But for him, Autumn feels different! He reaches for his flute but gestures for me to go ahead when I reflexively reach for my instrument as well. I play him the song of Dusk: A long lullaby traversing many emotions and vignettes in time. The boisterous return from a day's work, crowding into the kitchen and laughing over a meal with family, the stupor that follows as full bellies and warm fires lull people to relaxation, stars beginning to emerge as stories are told and young ones drift off to sleep, and then the hazy in-between of lingering on the edge of unconsciousness when you're not sure what's a dream and what's real.   This, he understands. And then it is his turn to play, a raucous energetic jig of dancing around a bonfire at a harvest festival. Kaidé pulls me to my feet and we dance in the flickering shadows of our campfire, laughing and clapping. But all of a sudden, he stops. The absence of music startles me but I am not at all surprised by his request to travel with us towards the Northern Grove when we leave. That was the point of this evening, of being lured by a sad song amidst the otherwise silent landscape. If there is one thing I know, it is following sadness to its source and offering an ear and a hand. I'm glad that he'll come with us.   Before we sleep (late, even for me) I send Andstella a letter asking if our tree has borne fruit yet and if Dreamfall will be a Grove we can sleep beneath anytime soon. Alec's sad pity at the idea of only having a single tree struck me deep and I am suddenly anxious for a flourishing Grove of our trees even if it will be years before any of us need them.