49.6 Myriad Cycles

General Summary

Day 1061

Late into the night, I talk with Qing Chen about what has been done to Void. Oblivion is able to contact Darkness, and I would like to send along as much help as I can.   According to my junior brother, the curse is a complex, powerful piece of magic that eats away at a dragon’s magic. It is so complicated that it takes enormous coordination and effort to pull off, so it is not necessarily a regular threat to beware of, but there is no dragon-based antidote that might help Void.   Oblivion’s opinion is that Void would need draconic help, or pure magic help to overcome the curse. Hearing this, though, I think strengthening his fae nature would be more effective. He is unbalanced, as someone with both natures, and it is no wonder that his fae side is not coming to the forefront to support his wounded dragon side right now. At the same time - Trenali’s fae nature is supposedly ‘incompatible with life’ and I don’t even know what strengthening it would mean.   Still - my general recommendation is that Magdalena or Rainbow would be best-positioned to help, and that if Void returns to the ground then I could also arrange for the Heart of Song to help us. It is the least she can do after so many millennia of not connecting with her grandchildren.  

Day 1062

Mistress wakes me earlier than I’d like…apparently Uncle Red is back with whoever he had gone to find in the East. He has gone to speak with Asphodeloideae, but the newcomer has asked to meet me. She’s in the sitting room on the ship waiting for us and I don’t recognize her at all, even magically.   She’s an elf, maybe in her mid hundreds, dressed as a military irregular. Pale skin, dark hair, bloodred eyes, and tattoos on her neck in an ancient elvish script. She introduces herself as Phalieae, a name which contains reference to the words ‘sharp’ and ‘leaf’ in our language. She seems very excited to meet me, but I remain quite aloof until she finally admits that she is what’s left of Temira. Magically, she does feel like just a regular elf, though she’s very complex and probably Undying, which also means she’s many things and can pull on lots of different kinds of magic.   This persona of hers is, obviously, one of the ones who has been writing absolutely steaming fictional stories about Mistress and I. Usually she is working adjacent to the military and creating chaos for the Collective on the front lines, but agreed to take a break when Uncle Red called upon her and offered a chance to meet me. I skate past her questions about the Heart of Song and whether I can reach her again - Temira or Phalieae are not people I want to disclose anything to so easily.   She understands and doesn’t push, thankfully, but also says she remembers her crimes and the debts she owes. I am not quite sure what she means by that, and I don’t really know who she is. She doesn’t fit into the tapestry of what I’m doing. She says she rather likes not fitting into any tapestry, and I have to agree with that.   As he told us earlier, Uncle Red hid her after her people betrayed her. She says she’s still technically a Treeborn but doesn’t have the magical presence of a one, and isn’t even fae anymore after her children clipped her wings and extracted her magic. She’s no stranger to agony and is too stubborn to give in to despair and die… so she turned to elves where she felt most comfortable. Elves understand what it’s like to lose and rediscover something worth being attached to.   Her story does mirror the elvish experience remarkably well - lost Grove, turned away by those who she might have turned to for help, and finding shade and shelter in the shadow of the Empress. Kaide is, apparently, aware of Phalieae and has accepted her oaths. Indeed - I can feel the pulse of her imperial oaths in her blood just like I can with any sworn elf.   The fae who clipped her wings, though, are likely still the ones in power in the Red Thorn grove. Much like the Kings and Queens that Magdalena locked beneath the ground up North, or the first Fae of Drifting Seeds, these ones are probably Undying as well, and strengthened even further by their Treeborn’s magic. Phalieae says she’s not interested in solving that problem (“young ones should solve their own problems”) but still - it’s good for me to know. Perhaps I will send my own young ones; Liliales and Detoura ought to have gone to investigate on their way to the coast.   As Phalieae tells us her story, I’ve warmed up to her enough that I feel no obligation to treat her as anything other than what she is: A strangely old elf who has written terribly inappropriate things about me and my partner, who is standing beside me. I take the opportunity to inform Mistress so that the three of us can settle this issue (the primary issue being the porn itself, the secondary issue being that it’s simply inaccurate about what goes on between us). Eventually we agree that she will stop writing, though I am not convinced she will leave the entire family alone…she does ask to be introduced to my apprentices. They’ll have to fend for themselves, I think.   I am not sure that this not-Temira would even want it, but I offer the Heart of Song’s leaf anyway. She takes it and examines it for a moment before handing it back and asking me to return it.  

Tell her that her daughter died a long time ago, and she should keep this to remember the person who died. If she wants to know the person who walked away from that, she’s welcome to talk to me at any time.

    My respect for the elf rises immediately. I can’t imagine that letting go of the leaf would be so easy if she wasn’t genuine about walking away from life as a Treeborn. And with that, the not-Temira elf sighs and goes to speak with Asphodeloideae.  

If she wants a relationship with me, she’ll have to start at the beginning.

  She leaves me with a gift of a box of tea from her past life. She cultivated it near her grove to give her emotional fortitude and a bit of a buffer as she helped her own children work through the feelings they had as they emerged from sleep. She said it was a precious tool in warding herself against the pain and hurt of others - a tool she think I will be able to use as I walk through all the old hurts and heal them.   When Uncle Red finally arrives, I give him hell for giving me no warning at all that Temira was coming back, or that she is now fully an elf. I feel almost justified in trying to shock him by pulling out the zither, but even that doesn’t get to him.  

So you have one…

  He knows of other items forged with the wood of this tree, but doesn’t know if they’re still around. He’s encountered two of them - one is a great drum (he wondered if Mistress would ever play it but we know it’s not meant for her the way things have gone) that he says it should stay where it is until someone finds it who can use it. He knows that weapons were forged as well, likely a bow at some point, and Ailanthus carries a spear.  

If I were you, I’d get two more strings on that as quickly as possible. You’re starting to accumulate aura. Dusk is strong, but there is Growth and Compassion as well, and Hope, and still others that are fainter. After your encounter with the Heart, you sank into being Leaf and Vine a bit and Asphodeloideae threw you into her cycle. Stringing that instrument will help strengthen and stabilize you as part of your strength even if you are not actively playing it.

  It’s reasonable advice, but not something I will work on without consulting Magdalena. The consequences of stringing a cycle before it is fully integrated into me seem too dire.   Uncle Red, fortunately, is not so awe-struck by the leaf gift from the Heart of Song. He tucks it away safely and remarks that maybe he will work it into a guitar or some other instrument. It is powerful, after all.  

By the way - have you heard your name?

  Evidently my own fae title has been developing for thousands of years, since I first appeared and claimed to be fae of Drifting Seeds, Day and Night, Leaf and Vine. For millennia, fae have quietly wondered about an unknown fae of Myriad Cycles. And now that the fae of Drifting Seeds have emerged and identified me, I’m unknown no longer.   Heiassa of Myriad Cycles.