40.3 I Need Life

General Summary

Day 676

Throughout the entire period of Trillium’s recovery, all of us have orbited her villa with a sense of impatience and concern, beginning with Magdalena. Where I would normally feel my own sense of concern, it ebbs and flows with our teachers’ emotions when they check on her. It is an exercise in patience and submission to fate to not linger and fret over my niece’s ever-paling body in her bedroom. The nearest I let myself lurk is in the sitting room, where Kaide and I generally do our homework. Cedriel and Liliales, again, collaborate to provide drink, food, and whatever else eases our collective anxiety.   Fourteen days after her Bestowal, Wraith gently calls me into the bedroom. Trillium has paled nearly to the same alabaster tone as Wraith herself, and her hair has darkened to a black that gleams with purple and green as the light strikes it. Her nails, too, have grown out to sharpened claws that match Wraith save for the iridescence.   Half an hour after Wraith summons me, Trillium opens her eyes (which are now inky black with vertical pupils). I have to wonder if this is some particular sense that a dragon ancestor has - knowing precisely when her egg is going to hatch.  

Do you know your name?   I’m still Trillium…Trillium Nightshade…   Good. You are dragon enough to know your name.

  As the news leaks out of the room and we all gather, Magdalena seems incredibly relieved and choked up at our success. Rainbow reassures me that they will take Trillium to visit both Mistress and Doraal soon now that she is strong enough, and that they will help Trillium access the Dreaming and guide others in to visit her on the mountaintop.  

Day 677

The next day, Trillium has strengthened even more and the spirits are clearly better contained within her.   She asks me if it was hard to hold onto being an elf when I became fae as well, for she found it very difficult to retain her oaths and sense of being an elf as the dragon bloodline took hold of her. She fought for it, standing in a garden and refusing to let any of her growth die off in the swirling magic that Wraith had given her.  

Wraith has a lot of death in her, but I need life. I thought of you and dad and living things.

  I advise her further to speak with Uncle Red about whether she’ll be able to call Wraith’s ancestors.  

Day 678

The next night, it’s finally time to introduce Wraith and Mistress. Cedriel and Trillium accompany us and I lead us North to Drognar, where Mistress is passing through on her way to the Grove of Seasons.   The tension between Mistress and Wraith/Cedriel is palpable, not because they have any reason to dislike one another but because they are simply from different times, and neither has had any reason to practice falling in with others like Trillium and I have.   Mistress is immediately thrown off by Cedriel’s lack of oaths (“hollowness” she calls it) and Wraith naturally comes to his defence, telling us that he predates our “silly oaths”.   Fortunately, there is nothing that brings people together like loving the same people. Eventually Trillium asks Wraith to show us her other form and, for the first time, I see her disappear and burst forth from shadows in her dragon shape. She’s as large as Onyx, but slender and graceful with stark white horns and claws. She is not as old as Tide, I assume, but her aura is intense and powerful in a way that communicates that she is a dragon who knows exactly who she is, and embraces it. She is magnificent, though the cold, grave aura makes my skin crawl and I know Mistress feels the same.  

I am a Wraith. Wraiths bring oblivion, not death.

  In the face of this powerful reminder of the innate sense of draconic pride and grandiosity, Trillium quietly asks her mother and I to help keep her humble when her dragon side encourages her towards pride.  

Day 680

Eventually, I can delay no longer. With Trillium awake and gaining strength and Mistress traveling even further North, it is time for us to leave as well.   Rainbow accompanies us to the top of their mountain and casts out a bridge that spans the sky from here to a mountain quite near the headwaters of the Great River. A single step on this bridge will be like a thousand taken on the ground, and it will take us scarce minutes to cross the sky.   The goodbyes are sad, but there is none of the desperation so common to hard goodbyes. Instead, there is a deep certainty that we will see one another before long, in the scheme of our lives. Rainbow intends to destroy the gates that allowed people to travel here using spatial magic, but they give us tokens that will help us find our way back.   Even Magdalena promises to visit more, and to not chase away Rainbow when they come looking for her. I think the two of them will have many incomparably powerful research projects together.   After a while, we can prolong the goodbyes no further. In just a few steps, we are miles away.