57.2 Winter's Warmth

General Summary

Day 1116

The sun is just starting the crest over the mountains when we land in Dreamfall. Despite our silent flight, there are people waiting for us when we land and Kaide is not shrouded in her usual hood as she descends from the ziggurat. The elves, of course, recognize her immediately. And where they would usually bow their heads immediately, some of them stare openly. Alder comes to greet us first, a huge grin on his face.  

Welcome back, teacher.

  We retire for sleep, and I wake to a quiet cottage with just Thalien bustling about in an apron. He doesn’t plan on being a chef like Lyssa or Alder, but he’s enjoying the domesticity. For now, at least… and then when I depart on my trip with Magdalena and her other students, he’ll set off to go see some of the places he has seen only in the Dreaming. Wanderlust will be his calling for a while.   We have a nice, quiet brunch together.  

Day 1117

The next set of arrivals is a group of seasonal fae from the Northern Grove who we see coming far enough in advance to prepare a proper royal reception. Andstella is flustered — she doesn’t normally wear a robe or crown. Fortunately, Amytri is prepared with several…folding thrones for each member of the royal family. Apparently these were prototypes from folding ships to cross the Unfreezing Sea. The throne he presents to Kaide is stark, severe, and she rejects it with some amusement. Instead, she grows her own throne made of coral.   Bran goes to fetch Liliales and Qishali and is very clearly giving some paternal advice to our Dusk Wing Prince. He has clearly seen that this meeting is one of those fateful inflection points, and both of us are aware of it. Likewise, we both know that our hands are not the ones to pull string in this moment. Liliales and Andstella are here, in their Grove, receiving guests from a neighbouring kingdom.   The delegation of seasonal fae enters the hall to find us arranged in a clean semicircle of thrones, ready to receive them. Sienin, the fae who raised Jaeril, is with them…a good sign, I think. She’s autumn right now, a steadfast, calm soldier. To my surprise, she is actually the one leading the delegation of twelve fae — half are winter and the others are spring and autumn. There are no summer fae with them and no youngsters…these are all elders. And I realize that I do not actually know what Liliales’ parents look like — I would not recognize them if they are among this group.   Sienin tells us that she has heard songs from many eras, and has come to make sense of them. She presents Andstella with a box of broken thorns which I recognize from the thicket that cuts the Seasonal Grove off from its history.  

We’ve forgotten things that are painful, and remembering them will be painful as well. We present this in the hopes of demonstrating that we’re wiling to work through the thorny bits, the painful parts, and unearth the old hurts, so that we can make a bigger, better world together. We recognize that we carry a legacy of creating those hurts and we have to examine that before we can build anything else new.

  Andstella points out that this delegation has not brought any more nascent fae of Day and Night with them. Perhaps none have awoken, or they are being held back despite Sienna   Sienin asks to open a conversation about welcoming the Seasonal families of those fae of Day and Night as well. Having seen what happened to Liliales’ family, it is a prudent thought. No one wants to break apart families, even though they might not be of the same cycle. It seems like this delegation has been well-received and there’s hope that relations between our cycles will improve, especially if the thicket is beginning to come down.   As the delegation exits to be shown to accommodations, Liliales approaches two of the fae in the part — both older men in their winter cycle. They seem friendly: Castor (his birth parent) and Wyal.   They ask to sit and have tea and hear all the things they should have heard before. And Liliales agrees, but says it’s tough when they are both winter. Castor presses forward, saying that it’s his winter to understand the warmth of the hearth and not just the ice.  

We miss you. You haven’t been home in a long time. You were hurting when you left and we never made things right. We never wrote, we never reached out. We just let you go. And we thought it would be better and happier but we didn’t say that…and I can’t imagine singing a song that I’m not proud of you, and I can’t imagine you not hearing it. So even though we’re both winter again and even though we weren’t always good, we came to listen. We came to understand and to hear the song that you’ve been making, as far away as you’ve been. As much as you have grown up and changed, we still love you. And that was always true even if we didn’t always understand and even if we were afraid. We were afraid because we didn’t understand and we didn’t know what to do.

  Of the two, Castor was originally Liliales’ mother and is very genuine. Wyal is being polite, but he seems terrified and withdrawn. He is deeply uncomfortable with so many different people — humans, elves, fae, dragons, dwarves, trolls. The more I see Castor and Liliales talk and interact with people, the more I see Wyal ice over and wall himself off. It is hard to restrain myself from stepping in, thawing that ice, working the sort of innate heart magic I have always had.   Wyal puts out a hand to Liliales,  

It seems like you’ve found the place you were always meant to be. I’m glad for that.

  and Liliales steps back from it.  

Maybe we should talk again when you’re not winter. I’ll still be here. I’ll still be dusk. I won’t change as much. You still let your season rule you.

  As his birth parents depart, Liliales leans up against me and I feel him relax. Apparently his parents have been winter twice (Castor) and three times (Wyal) in the five years they were raising Liliales. Apparently Liliales has never seen him spring or summer, and he thinks he must be missing out by not seeing that part of his dad. Wyal has always been icy and cold in his winter years and withdrawn and solemn in autumn. And whatever personality is core to him (which Castor swears is in there) hibernates during the colder seasons.   I send him off to recover with Qishali and go to find Bran. The edges of my wings are tingling with the urge to do *something*, and Bran is the only person who can take up that task. He’ll make one of his omen eggs tonight and have Alder slip it beneath Wyatt’s pillow to show him some dreams of what might be. We can’t tell if Wyal will see the potential consequences of his behaviour or the potential reward he is eschewing, but I trust Bran’s magic to persuade him either way.   As Bran and I discuss our plot, we are approached by two more winter fae — Osta and Iscus. They want to know if I have any insight to shed on some of the older songs that are coming out of the thicket. Some other members of the delegation seem to not want this spoken of, but they and Sienin have decided it is best to simply ask someone who might know. In the past year, everyone who was asleep at a certain time felt a tearing…and then new songs spilled into their trees. Many of them slept for more than a year and woke when they had finished taking in the old songs. It is why there are so many winter fae right now, and very few of the others.   They speak of songs of a great war, of elves and Osyr, of forbidden love between all manner of fae and of fae and elves. They heard of ’the Pruning’ and don’t know what it means. For now, they ask that I tell them the stories and let them decide what to do. One of their delegation has said she doesn’t want to be told until she’s had a chance to observe and form her own guesses — a wizard, clearly.  

Wars are fought with information as much as swords. We all feel called to lead our people through adversity based on the songs we heard, but we don’t know what adversity or what the threat is. Are we here to caution against repeating history? Or to repeat the history itself?

  It is a story I’ve told many times by myself. This time, I call Magdalena and Jaeril to speak with me (and they bring Evismora, who flits over to my arm and latches on). The winter fae flinch back from both Magdalena and Evismora but Jaeril and I make a good bulwark, and of course Sienin is overcome with happiness to see her child again.   I tell them the whole story, from the creation of the Treeborn to the parenting strategies those Treeborn have taken, to the diversity of cycles we once had, to Ailanthus and The Pruning, to the loss of The Heart, to Myriad Cycles and my conviction that we can coexist. I do not tell them of Harmony; that is not quite ready for the world stage yet.   These are the leaders of the Seasonal Grove, as far as I am concerned, and they need to know as much as we do about our history.   They know they will need to prepare everyone for waking with songs like these, so they don’t panic, don’t go off the rails. There’s a lot of context they will need to piece together and figure out how to take care of their people.