40.1 Thing, Person, Miracle

General Summary

Day 628

Zehi does agree to travel to the mountaintop with us, though she asks us to help her with something before we leave the forest. There is an island within a lake full of large, toxic frogs that she has not been able to reach on her own. With our help, she hopes to reach the centre and harvest a particular flower which can be used for ‘ice heart tea’, which brings calm and focus when studying or tempering oneself.   Once again, Liliales and I settle into our new magic and ward off the dangerous wildlife of the area. This time it is a trio of stags with symbiotic, woodlike antlers that exude poison.   Late in the morning we reach the lake Zehi wants to cross, covered in giant lilypads and enormous frogs. She tells us that she can usually dance lightly across the lilypads but she sinks as she has to stop and fend off the frogs. Working together this time, I stun many frogs using lightning and strengthen the lilypads as she crosses while Liliales draws off others with illusions. We manage to collect the single lotus-like flower at the centre, which Zehi tells us is surely the best of the flowers that competed here.   When we finally emerge in the mid-afternoon, Rainbow is waiting. I make introductions and there is much consternation and amazement in Rainbow’s expression as I explain that we’ve made a friend in Blood Mist forest.  

I’m aware of Zehi…I thought it would be impossible for you to make friends in there. There are only two people inside!

  When we arrive at the mountaintop, I find Magdalena and Trillium sitting in the garden with two new guests: A pale woman with black hair and pointed black nails, and an elven man who looks a little younger than I am… except for his ancient eyes. That, along with the lack of Imperial bond I sense from him, makes their relationship clear - a dragon and rider.   They have all clearly been indulging in a special wine, with empty bottles littering the ground as Trillium tells animated stories about growing up in the Empire (it’s wonderful to hear these stories coming out of her)!   They introduce themselves as Wraith and Cedriel, and as we warm up to one another, I gather that they lived at Avan’Nal for a time before departing to head far South. I tell them what I can about elves in the Empire (Cedriel’s eyes crinkle and he smiles to hear about happy elves) and on this side of the Barrier.   Wraith is, evidently, who Rainbow asked to help Trillium form the foundation of her bloodline. She marvels at me and Lilalies, and at my elvish-fae heritage. When I tell the story of bleeding on Magdalena’s Tree of Day and Night, she cackles with laughter and admiration for my boldness. It is such a fun departure from Rainbow’s prior certainty that my teacher must have taught me the proper way to offer blood to a tree.   As the sun dips down, we talk more about Trillium’s transformation and my thoughts on it.  

People are people. My family is elvish, fae, human, sort of Osyr, sort of demon, sort of dragon. What once seemed very complicated is now very simple - they’re my people.

  Wraith seems very pleased with this answer and turns to Trillium.  

One of us found you worthy. Since you can’t be together as dragon and rider, and he can’t do this for you, it falls to another to make it right. Even if we were not of the same clan, this is the right way to do it.

  Late into the night we stay awake in the courtyard, lit by firelight and illusions that we spin up to call on all of our homes. Flickering flames, waving tree branches, watery refractions, and Trillium sparring with both Zehi and Cedriel in the tall grass. Even Kaide joins us eventually, bearing an elemental shield pendant she has been working on over the past few days.   Watching Cedriel and Trillium together is unexpectedly difficult. He fights in such an old elvish style that I recognize from when Mistress calls far back into her own ancestors, and so Trillium calls them too, of course. As I watch them and feel the Imperial bond in Trillium but not Cedriel, it occurs to me that perhaps a dragon would no longer be bound by those same oaths. I wonder if I would be able to sense a sworn dragon the way I sense sworn elves now…whether she would still be a part of the Empire as she deepens her apprenticeship to Rainbow and her connection to her family’s clan when she finds them.   With a subtlety that would rival Alder, I find that Wraith has appeared beside me and is watching my misty eyes curiously. She tells me that Cedriel saved her when she was young and in trouble, and then they travelled together for a century because she couldn’t bear the entanglement of living in one place and forming ties. It is in her nature to drift and see the world, and he was willing to do that with her - the two of them were only ever meant to entangle with one another. Now they’ve spent many centuries seeing the world and sometimes sleeping for decades to wait for the world to change so they can explore it anew.   It is somehow both endearing and heart-wrenching to hear such a life. It is, very obviously, not the kind of life I was meant to lead. My thread entangles so easily and with such gravity that I can’t comprehend disappearing for decades and excusing myself from a life of attachment. But my heart aches to see the way she watches Cedriel - my own deepest attachments are still so far away. Still, we are in company. I set the feelings aside and listen to her request.   Wraith is interested in a trade of magics - learning some of my sleep and dream magic in exchange for her secrets of eliminating properties of metal. She also agrees to tell me some of the stories she has collected from her travels - largely details of tragic deaths. It is a curious thing to collect, but I suppose it suits her.   Trillium’s ceremony of Bestowal will take place at the next new moon and she will need to rest for the next 10-20 days  

Day 631

The night before Trillium’s ceremony, I wake into the Dreaming with an eerie sense of familiarity. I have not been Dreaming much since arriving here, as the days are so intellectually grueling that a thorough sleep is absolutely necessary to continue at our pace.   But tonight it is different.  

Found you.

  And my world collapses into the first voice I ever followed into the Dreaming. Her arms fit into place around my wings neatly and I hold her for longer than I thought possible, and still not long enough before we break apart and I can look at her.   The information that passes between us is thorough and deep, but not nearly as important as hearing her voice, seeing her smile, feeling her Dream skin against mine. For the hours we spend in the Dream space, it is like I’m not the Imperator, not the head of the most fateful and key family in the Empire, not on a mission to bring someone back to life, not the heartbeat behind countless peoples who will come together in harmony. I’m the farm girl who would follow her anywhere if she was willing to ask.   The conversation is deep, though, and I find myself absolutely lost in explaining everything I know about Trillium’s history and path forwards. I tell her about Wildfire, Shadows Dancing, the seven spirits and how our hope is that at the end of this we will have our little grandson-dragon back.   Trillium has always had trouble reaching the Dreaming reliably, and I know that by the time she is fully recovered from her Bestowal I might very well be gone. Tonight is the only night I can make this reunion happen and I wake, hurtling into Trillium’s room to drag her back into the Dreaming with me to hug her mother.