48.3 It Could Be Simple

General Summary

Compassion: Day 4 | Hope: Day 16

  Starfire and I decide that before we can involve the city at all, we need to make an overture to Norcrack and learn whatever we can from him. So we take flight and make it to his settlement by late afternoon. As we circle overhead, I can see Norcrack himself and two dozen smaller titans training together - not just in the ranks and orderly drills of soldiers but like apprentices learning from a master. The corrections are gentle, and the enormous titan is so clearly mentoring them. Like the love in the bond between him and the sand-robed figure, it makes me want to know more.   As we approach, Norcrack leaps to the top of a rock formation and takes on a more humanoid form, waving us in for a landing. It is a more direct greeting than either of us expected. In his humanoid form, he is very young, somewhat martial. He greets us as ‘blessed one’ and ‘honoured worm’, and touches two fingers to his brow, thanking us for descending from the sky this time.   As he leads us into his settlement within a canyon, his speaks elegantly and with fine manners. Within the canyon is a masterful illusion of a rock face which neither Starfire nor I could detect before it is revealed to us. It hides cave homes in the wall, inhabited by several thousand spirits. There are many many rock and sand spirits, but also wind and light. No water or wood spirits - there is no hidden oasis lurking behind their illusions.   The place he leads us is particularly decorated and guarded, but a palace, per se. It reminds me a Watchkeeper’s home more than the estate of a noble. We wind up sitting in a lowered area that is magically cooled by a slab of obsidian in the centre of it. Despite his graciousness, I’m still here for a reason.  

You are at war, and I want to know why

  He tells me he would not have picked this fight, and would rather not be at war. He and all his people believe that the hunters are coming for their spirit cores - their elders, their children. None but his aunt have visions of the future, but he listens to her and he is the spirits’ leader. Years ago, when his aunt first had her visions and warned the elders of their community, they ignored it. Her brother believed her and fought to achieve the position of patriarch, but failed and was exiled in the end. Now Norcrack has ascended with his aunt’s help, and they returned home in the hopes of saving their people.   At this point, his aunt joins us. She is clearly the sand-robed figure, and introduces herself as Ta’az’baha. Her own magic is wound up in fate like Bran’s and Thalien’s, and I see her hand at play in the visions that the poor spirits in the city were feeling. She describes it as ‘letting slip the sands of fate’ and I internally recoil at the imagery - grains of sand whipping across a desert to land with spirits who might be able to affect change if only they had the right knowledge? But without any guidance, any preparation, any understanding of what a vision means. When Bran sends visions, I know they will be carefully crafted and tailored to the person who needs them, not flung up like dust in the eyes.   From her, I get more of the context for what is happening.   There was once a river from their oasis to this place in the desert, and she tells me that the leaders of the city certainly knew that the spirits downriver depended on the water. All life needs water to create true intelligence. When the folk in the cities stopped the flow of the river to provide for their own farms, it weakened the spirits for decades. Their leaders told the spirits to leave, to simply go where the water was, but it would have meant abandoning the sacred rock in this place that allows new spirits to be born. Her brother believed that the wizards among the folk wanted them to leave so that they could take the sacred rock. But it hardly matters - the result was that the folk took all the water, and the spirits have been dwindling ever since.   It’s a compelling argument against my concern that Norcrack’s actions constitute an unprovoked war triggered by something that hasn’t happened yet. But still - we all know that whatever diversion of the river was caused by city leaders and not by the regular inhabitants. Ta’az’baha herself remarks that she knows that their enemies are not the common folk - the farmers who depend on water and built farms in a way that hurt the spirits did not know or intend. Their leaders may have placed them there. The common folk all want the same things regardless of their side - to raise their young, share their love.  

There is no single action that will save our fate. We can only take small actions in single steps to increase our odds

  She rests a protective hand on Norcrack’s shoulder, and he speaks up, saying that the folk can only learn the respect the spirits by brute force. The folk believe they are strong, powerful, and plentiful. Even if Norcrack doesn’t want to slaughter them, he thinks they can’t be made to respect the spirits through any way but force.   The picture he paints of his strategy is not what Liva has told me. He says that his men have orders to destroy villages and homes to force the folk to leave, but that they only fight warriors. They refuse to massacre the civilians.  

The message is plain - ‘make way, leave’.

  At my urgent questioning, he tells me that they have sent envoys with this message who have not returned, and they have received no messengers from the city. I am not surprised that both sides would tell me they have sent messengers who have not returned. My hopes of two coherent leaders sitting and talking under the threat of No Moon’s bulk seems unlikely - one or both of them are plainly lying to me, and from what I can see it must be Liva. Norcrack seems almost like a boy in his earnestness.   The effect is furthered by Ta’az’baha suggesting that a marriage is, perhaps, the oldest way of settling such disputes. Norcrack needs an Empress - perhaps there is someone in the city who would be suitable, and the love and understanding of a married couple might come after the respective leaders formalize an agreement to save their people. She even goes so far as to suggest that other fae of my cycle might be able to help with ‘love’. I recoil at the thought - pinning the future of two disparate communities on the abilities of Norcrack and Liva to get along is a fool’s choice. And I would not raise Liva in status, nor send Norcrack to yet another puppeteer.   Instead, I make no distinct promises aside from the commitment to what I can. They have created a nearly unmanageable situation - the folk will not be inclined to forgive and forget a seemingly unprovoked war so easily, and there can be no political gain for a leader who calls them to peace. But I will need time, and Norcrack promises me 6 months if I can promise safety for them. I can do this, certainly.   Before we depart, Ta’az’baha tells me that my being here gives her hope, if nothing else. She and Norcrack have met fae before - my cousins from the Red Thorn grove, when they were up North learning from the Frostburn Empress.   And she hands me a vial of 100 grains of sand to help people understand if need be. I take it, though I tell her quite plainly that I cannot imagine a circumstance in which hurling uncontrolled visions of the future at someone would help our situation. She shrugs - anything she gives me falls into an unseeable abyss of fate. I take a grim satisfaction in this. Like Yneir and Mireen, Ta’az’baha seems like someone who would benefit from seeing less.   On the flight back, Starfire and I assemble our thoughts. Neither of trust Ta’az’baha - she seems like a puppeteer with a very powerful puppet, and the only reason she didn’t become an Empress herself was because she was old and developed enough for the ascension to risk cracking her own spirit core. It was probably easier for her to push Norcrack to do it, knowing that he would likely accept her guidance.   Personally, I think all of the adults in this situation are all tangled up in their own garbage and I’d rather take all the children in the city and spirit settlement, put them in a room together, and watch the natural flexibility of youth form friendships before they learn that their parents might hate one another. Norcrack counts as a child, naturally. He needs some time away from his auntie.   We could take all the kids out to the shore and chaperone them as they come together and make their way home over 6 months…but surely we couldn’t forgive ourselves if any harm came to the children.   Or we let Liva and Norcrack marry? He’s strong enough to stand up to her, and she could learn to love the common folk from him. But he might go from being puppeted by his aunt to puppeted by his wife, and neither of us want that. It’s an easily dismissed option.   So the solution we come up with is…selecting some key adults and taking *them* on a 6 month long retreat in which they learn to live together. Shal’neyah is likely a solid, steadfast enough leader that he could keep things afloat while we kidnap Liva and some other influential folk to even out the group. We will have to find a way to convince Ta’az’baha to hold steady while Norcrack is away, but a few months like that could go a long way in cooling off any hostilities we need to overcome to create a lasting understanding.