55.3 Keep Them Safe
General Summary
Day 1108
Two days after laying Nucifera to rest, I’ve had more time to sit back with my tea outside my cottage, nestled up with Thalien, and watch the wedding preparations underway.
Detoura and Dawn have been engaged in a heated multi-day debate over who is to fulfill the responsibilities of ‘best man’, with persuasive arguments on either side. Both can lay claim to having known the groom longer, and Detoura knows the couple very well. But Dawn makes a convincing point that a fae of despair is simply not a good choice for the festivities. In the end, I don’t hear the resolution aside from knowing that Liliales has brought Bran in to mediate the situation.
Late in the evening, Cousin Soo and Shi Yen glide into the Grove and come find me with news of the workings on the Barrier.
This ziggurat feels like elder cousin Kaide’s work — it is very aggressive. But recently tempered?
He has scoped out the spots for passageways through the Barrier and repaired the necessary keystones to calm the Barrier so that we can manipulate a single keystone to create the throughways. He could do it himself, but apparently it is located in a set of very interesting ancient ruins and thought my student group might enjoy coming along.
The night is falling, which is the perfect time to collect up Starfield, Moonflower, and Elnora (their shared student, for now). And finally, Andstella and I have an opportunity to adventure together — she is giddy with excitement.
So we set off for the Ruins of Samawi.
It is my first time flying into the Barrier and I am strong enough now that I can see and interpret the energy as opposed to being subject to it. The current of magic should flow along the mountain ridges and follow the topography but instead, it is chaotically swirling without reason and fracturing even further. The fractures grow near the ground, and that must be what allows for refugees to stumble through the mists.
Cousin Soo guides us towards peak that looks as though something careened into it, carving out a crescent shape. Beneath it are floating ruins, hovering above the mountain range in a network of over thirty island cities. The largest is about the same size as Deldrin. Soo tells us that there are enormous glyphs carved into the stone and I thought we could help clear the snow off of them so we could examine them further — so Starfield and I take a bit of glee in unleashing the power of our combined roars and amplified magic upon the landscape. It is deafening, irresistible, and causes a flood of snow down the mountainside.
The revealed runes make up a star chart of some kind, meant to draw celestial magic from the heavens and channel it into the world below. The interaction of these runes and the Barrier magic causes the fracturing and fragmenting of the Barrier’s magic…which Soo says was originally accounted for, but not powerfully enough. The passageways that Soo and I intend to create will also act as spillways for any additional energy channeled from these runes or the other workings in the area. We should check on them to make sure they’re working, but it is a more effective solution than simply suppressing whatever has been created here.
We perch atop a neighbouring peak, humanoids standing atop my claws to stay warm as Starfield and I cling to the mountain and crane our necks about to get a better view.
And then — the sky brightens as a ball of fire approaches and collides with the side of the rune-inscribed mountain. When it clears, three zephyr siblings stand before us: Talmen in red and gold, Sella in her ethereal silvery robes, and Mora dressed in crimson.
A rumbling growl begins in my throat as I curve my fore claws protectively over my passengers. Talmen steps forward to speak:
We don’t want to fight…you remind me of someone else very large and intimidating…and I already owe you several debts.
The growl doesn’t leave my voice as I ask him where his Fisherman is, and which debts he thinks he owes me.
He tells me that Isurus is suffering right now, somewhere even they can’t see him. He is probably reconstructing his bodyguard, Erak. The four debts he names to me are:
- Dealing with Killeon, destroying everything they had corrupted, including Elder Hamman.
- Helping Gedrin.
- Reaching out to his church in Haven in peace and my work in mitigating conflict.
- What I’ve done to Isurus.
His words are correct, but I remind him that I owe him a debt as well, for the things he allowed his people to do to mine when they burned the Empress out of them. Of course, I remain suspicious of him.
He continues speaking for the three of them and asks what I would have him do to make amends, and I ask the others if he really speaks for them — will they not speak for themselves?
Mora shifts uncomfortably but Sella steps forwards to say that she advises Talmen, and he carries the responsibility himself. It is what they have agreed to, so he speaks for her. It’s a cowardly answer, to think that an advisor carries no responsibility. But she nods and accepts that they will suffer together and share responsibility for their actions. I get the sense that the three of them are romantically entangled -- three married siblings.
Mora looks to Sella before speaking, but tells me that she likes how I fight from the heart and not just the head. She says she’s just as guilty as the others, but she won’t welcome suffering the way they do. She intends to fight, whatever that means.
Finally, Talmen admits that none of their explanations for their behaviour will matter. He can see that my methods are superior, and I probably care more about the outcomes than the motives when it comes to Isurus and the humans.
Why didn’t you stop him? Why couldn’t you?
He is silent for a long while before speaking. Evidently it was a matter of timing — and he is willing to tell me the story even if it doesn’t make a difference. The three of them had been exiled from the zephyr (for their relationship, it is implied). Humans had first come into existence and they were the first race to arise from Chaos with no magic: the first of the ‘lesser’ races. For whatever reason, the Master had decided that they should find their way without touching magic at all, and they were dying in droves. Between the other races, the monsters of the area, and the prevalence of magic everywhere else, humans were doomed.
There is a nostalgic, affectionate tone to this golden man’s voice as he describes the humans looking to the heavens for hope and raising prayers to save themselves. They looked up the same way the zephyr do. And so when Isurus approached their trio with an opportunity to liberate these little ones…they agreed. The three of them gave their blood to establish the bloodlines and create scions over the years. They claim to have stayed apart from the direct work that Isurus and Sitka were doing.
We watched over them like the sun and stars. But we thought they shouldn’t reach us directly, just as we cannot reach the heavens. It isn’t easy to be apart…and all of us succumbed at some point, teaching or nurturing someone. But humans quickly corrupt something that comes from a god. Whatever words we gave would be used as we hoped, then misused for even longer afterwards.
The generational infusions of their blood are needed, otherwise humans will lose their magic altogether. And now the laboratory is gone. Humans will be without magic within half a millennia.
Cousin Soo tells me softly that the humans on this continent would probably be fine even without their bloodlines, but the ones on the Western continent would surely perish. It is miraculous that they have survived as long as they have.
The three zephyr came to me because they won’t turn away from humans, even if Isurus moves on and Sitka is kept away. When they heard my roar, they knew they had the opportunity to come speak with me. At this, I have to hide my annoyance — I am a very easy person to find, even when I am not 350 metres long and roaring across a mountain range.
They’ve seen how my Empress and I empower those who join the Empire, and say that it is superior to anything they have ever done. On his knees, Talmen offers me his life and power if such a sacrifice is needed to bring all of humanity into the shelter of the Empire, just like the Empress sacrificed a city of elves to forge our first bond. Sella kneels too, offering the same thing. But she also conjures a chain made of silvery moonlight and suggests that she would be more useful for her mind, if we bind her to our service.
It is such a spectacle, and I’m glad for the distance between my passengers and these zephyr. Elnora sees her own gods kneeling and offering me their lives. My sisters and cousin see a dramatic appeal that these people never would have made if they knew anything about me. Perhaps a less-healed Kaide would have easily accepted the suggestion of writing these gods off and taking their people underwing at the cost of their lives. I am not interested in Imperial additions that cost lives to forge.
Mora looks incredibly frustrated with her fellows. She says we could chain her too and she’d fight for us, she’d give blood if it means we need to take less from Talmen and Sella. But she won’t give up her life without a fight — there has to be another way, even if she doesn’t want to be left alone without her husband and sister.
You want my willing sacrifice? You can’t have it, because it’s not the right way. I refuse to believe that that’s the only way to solve this. I will fight for a dream. I will fight until sacrifice is the only option and then I’ll die before them.
She is so much older than me, and yet I see all the stubbornness and volatility of youth in her. I see her bloodline represents her well, but these rash emotions are not the ones I am after. They are not the ones to bring before someone you consider to be your last hope.
If there are ways to save her people by fighting, I’m sure she will find it. But my Empire has had enough fighting.
Then fight, Mora.
I turn away. I don’t need their help to figure out how to give humans a chance at survival in the next few centuries. The most I can say for these three is that they saw people in trouble and wanted to help, and at least two of them are humble enough to admit they were foolish and ultimately offer everything they can to the goal of a better solution. I can hear the three of them arguing softly as I shepherd my passengers back to the runes and to the work we came to do.
Humans will have their salvation regardless.
