39.2 Family Sings

General Summary

Day 579

Once the seed is planted in the stump we can turn our energy back to our own recovery. Magdalena is okay even after having her energy harvested but she is still weak and her defenses are still down. In this state I can feel my heartsong resonate with her in a way it hasn't before, as though through a crack in her emotional armour. I have every hope that the crack will stay open even once she has fully recovered.   The tiny sprout itself is so gentle and vibrant and Jaeril calls us all to offer it songs to hasten its growth. She sings about finding all of us and arranging a strange new family. Magdalena sings about Jaedien himself in his past lives - the bold, caring big brother who kept her safe and defended her against those who only saw her as parasite. In her song I hear his voice pointing out the difference between cruelty and a natural part of someone's cycle. She sings about how the Grove of Samsara felt like home to her.   I offer it the layered song of all the roles I hold in all of my families - student, teacher, daughter, sister, mother, Imperator. Liliales sings things I haven't heard before...things about his life before becoming Dusk. It's a song about being an outcast and then being unafraid for the first time as he slept and woke into his new form. And finally, Jaeril draws Kaide forward to sing what is probably the first Osyr song to find its way into a fae tree. Kaide sings about Magdalena convincing her parents to offer her up as an apprentice, how her teacher so firmly believed that she would be wasted as the daughter of a merchant. She sings about how all of her past life led to something too wonderful to have been missed. Trillium's song, as I expect, is about following the river and now seeking to find peace within herself.   And even Qing Chen offers a song! His is about his childhood and the carefree life he led before his family grew to the point where he needed to be the responsible one. And he tells the little sapling about the trees in his home, so that it knows that other trees of other varieties exist out there in the wide world.   As the seven of us recover, the mood seems lighter and even Qing Chen has relaxed. Liliales is busily painting illusions of what the grove might one day look like.  

Day 580

After the exhaustion of the previous day I'm shocked when Trillium nudges me awake the next morning. But there is something deep in her eyes that makes me follow her out of the camp and out far into the eldritch trees, warding myself at her request. Once we are well away from the grove she relaxes and I'm buffeted by the unstable magic she had been keeping under tight control. In her blazing eyes I can see the furious spirits she must be holding back.  

His name was Wildfire.

  It is so much sooner than I wanted this to happen, but her memories are leaking back into herself. I ask if she'll let me keep her memories safe until at least Magdalena is at full strength again and she refuses...which I can understand even though a part of me wants to do it anyway and deal with the consequences later. But instead, I call Kaide for help and we analyze it together.   What we hope is that we can partition Trillium from the dragon spirits to keep her safe until we can help her fight them. Whether is is soon with Magdalena or later with Rainbow, the partition needs to happen today. I hold things at bay until Kaide can return with Jaeril, looking overwhelmed and somewhat uncertain of what mystic-adjacent thing we're asking her to do - maintain Trillium's strength while Kaide handles the spirits and I manage the wards and barriers we'll need. Before we begin I whisper quietly to Jaeril,  

There's no such thing as mystics and wizards. It's just people doing things.

  It takes many hours of exhausting work. In the swirling magic of the dragon spirits I can see seven different spirits but only Inferno is immediately identifiable to me amidst the fire, ice, wind, and darkness. Some are raw and unrestrained, others are cold and bitter, others carry despair alongside their rage. By the end, we've sequestered the spirits into their own chambers away from Trillium and our surroundings are battered and wounded with the fire and ice that poured forth while we worked. While we rest and wait for Qing Chen to come help us get back to camp, Kaide remarks that with the spirits separated they will have time to recover before we're able to attack them again; it will make them stronger than they otherwise would have been.   When we finally get back to camp, Qing Chen has tea and recovery pills for us and Magdalena is ready to inspect our work, which she fortunately finds to be safe enough to give us time to reach Rainbow. It will take us two days to reach the island where there is a broken portal which we'll need to repair in order to get to where Rainbow lives.   Even in our exhaustion she insists on telling us the broad strokes of what we'll need:

• Kaide and Qing Chen will help with repairs using inscription.
• I'll manage wards to protect us as we move through the conduit.
• Trillium and Liliales will keep us fed.

After several more hours of recovery we are all in quite a quiet and withdrawn mood, thinking about how to move forward. But Trillium nestles in beside me with memories to share, and I watch her inscribe the precise circle I use for memory-sharing via illusion.   First - an extraordinarily tall elven man with flowing red hair and arrogant eyes. He is like Kindred but without wings and I almost laugh to see how clearly he carries himself with pride and some measure of cockiness. It reminds me of how anyone in our family stands when we really need to get in someone's way. The vision shifts to a much younger elvish boy with the same crimson hair. His eyes are deep, elvish green and I can see both his father's fire and his mother's shadows in him.  

He named himself Shadows Dancing. I had thought it would be longer before he chose a name but...that's not the dragon way. He was growing up so much faster than I thought he would.

  Thankfully she doesn't remember their deaths, though she knows it was demons who killed them. I hold this thought as she drifts to sleep beside me before I can quietly send off some inquiries to Dedrafel about the spirits I sensed in her: Inferno, Ash, Tempest, Frostburn, Nightfall, Abyss, and Eclipse.   The response is quick, as I'd expect from the book-obsessed archivist-in-training.   Eclipse is the younger brother of No Moon, out of Darkness and Starfire (which also makes him Starfield's half-brother), and the two of them were often together. His main essence seems to have been an overwhelming capability at just about anything he set his mind to, and this generated no shortage of enemies.  

Eclipse is known for being extraordinarily capable, some have said that his name reflects more on his ability to eclipse the talents of others than any ability to block the sun in the sky. He was popular in competing for the hearts of many dragons, immensely capable at solving problems and frequently spoiled the plans of schemers by not only being in the right place at the right time but also producing near impossible outcomes even when people schemed against him directly. Were it not for the protection of No Moon, he'd likely have died centuries before he actually did. Following No Moon's death, several of Eclipse's enemies were said to have banded together to strike at Eclipse after Eclipse retreated from the world in grief. Several records point to his body having been dismembered by whomever killed him and his parts being taken as trophies...including his bones.

 

Abyss is one of the children of Darkness and Ocean - little is known about them other than that they are incredibly cold (both magically and emotionally). Abyss was said to be a master planner, someone who frequently had plans within plans and whose true objective was rarely revealed. They're believed to have several children, but both the identities of those children and their parents are considered some of Abyss's greatest secrets. There’s no record of how Abyss may have died, and many have speculated that they would be unable to tell the difference between Abyss being dead and Abyss hiding in order to carry out a particularly long scheme.

  The remaining five dragons: Inferno, Ash, Tempest, Frostburn, and Nightfall are all likely not direct descendants of the five Ancients. Dedrafel tells me he will continue searching and send along whatever he can find.