55.4 None and All

General Summary

Day 1108

The zephyr have left, leaving my family here in the ruins. Cousin Soo is acting almost willfully oblivious of how uncomfortable everyone in the group has become, following our encounter with the sibling-spouses. His façade does seem to set Moonflower and Elnora more at ease, but my sisters can still tell how upset I am. We approach a crystal dome which Soo reshapes quite tidily to let us enter. And this island in particular seems to be a once-curated garden now spilling over the beds and having gone to war with one another in their respective magically-maintained environments. The many biomes here remain functional, and the plants have crowded right up to the boundaries or what is available, including magical trees which are nearly as large as Grove trees. Their magic feels spiritual in some way, but not quite fae. There are plenty of flowers, and even an uffa tree.   Andstella and I take the lead in collecting various samples, with Moonflower teaching Elnora about various botanical properties as we all work together. But there are far too many different varieties here to sample fully. Fortunately, Soo and I both think it is perfectly reasonable to move this entire floating garden elsewhere — Dreamfall, the Grotto, Avan’Nal, even to the Unfreezing Sea. Soo thinks that it would be good for the Longing to have a pretty garden nearby to distract it.  

All things are options, we just have to decide what we want.

  But there is no rush — we can modify the Barrier, let the magic settle, and then decide what to do. We can keep coming back here for samples as needed.   Starfield finds many flowers that she thought were extinct, all of which modify a dragon’s breath. I can just imagine them growing in full bushes around Avan’Nal.   As for the near-Grove trees, I can sense very old spirits within them that have been in a sort of perpetual childhood. Their blossoms manifest illusions of memories throughout their life if I feed them just a little bit of magic. All of them remember the zephyr botanists, but they also remember trolls, ancient fae, places. Moonflower hopes we could bring them home to her jungles, which are just as humid as the biomes where they have been planted here. We can both imagine children playing on them, moon watchers climbing them to see the skies at night.   We return back to Dreamfall as the sun rises, with the intent of coming back the next night for more work. Before we disperse, Elnora asks to talk for a moment.  

My grandmother has worshipped Sella all her life. I grew up in the temple. As much as I worship the silver moon, I’ve never felt the same reverence my grandmother did.

  As I thought, she is having a similar experience to what Qing Chen went through upon meeting Magdalena. She is seeing her gods becoming people.  

They knelt to you. Are you really so mighty?

  The simple answer is yes.   A more complicated answer - godhood isn’t about the faith and belief of your people. It is about accepting the mantle when it’s offered, or turning away from it and choosing your own. Talmen and his sisters accepted the mantle, and it got away from them. But I’ve had a very different experience of it than they have, both in the people who chose me and the family I have around me.  

You’ve always known what they are…you could have told me…or grandmother…but you let people keep their faith.

  If there’s anyone who deserves the pain of knowing the truth, it’s not humans. The faith they hold is still precious; the stories they tell still have meaning. They show that humans want to be kind, want to keep their children safe, want to use their heads and follow their hearts, want to know that they’ll be okay when they die.   She is all muddled and confused to think about her own magic and whether it belongs to her at all, and I remind her that most of us are born with nothing and we pick up little bits and pieces along the way. Even me — I was born an elf and that doesn’t make me any less fae or any less dragon now that I’ve accepted the legacy of those races. None of it and all of it is ours, ultimately.  

Day 1109

I sleep until noon and wake to the sound of Trillium’s voice in my sitting room. I emerge, dishevelled and sleepy and make a very funny impression on Blackflame, who is here along with Zadiyah.   He is, as I would expect, an ancient elvish man with the demeanour of a senior soldier: tidy, put together. But I see the spark that so many of my family have…the little crinkles around his eyes that show me that they are smiling eyes more than frowning eyes.   They heard my roar and came to pay their respects, and I reassure them that we would have visited tonight as we head out to the ruins again. But it is just as well to have them here in my cottage and finally get to spend some time with the old dragon who has brought so much security and comfort to my trusted general. To Zadiyah’s surprise, Blackflame has specifically engineered this visit to ask my blessing to swear rider oaths with her.   I have only rarely seen Zadiyah surprised — it’s a treat to see her eyes widen even though she recovers almost immediately.   Over all the time that she has been overseeing the Keep, it has reinvented itself nearly every day. New villages have cropped up around it and new faces are showing up every day. Reunions abound as more elves arrive, and people from any village in the Frontier would find it a familiar environment. At long last, the master of guerrilla warfare is ready to lay down her sword and commit to being the governor that the Keep needs.