14.6 Just Family

General Summary

Day 164

Before bed I sit down with Hella, Kadia, and her parents to tell them the truth about Kadia. Alder joins us at a distance, just keeping watch. I tell them about the War of Fire and the people left behind on this side of the Barrier when the rest of the Empire retreated.   Hella takes over and tells them about meeting Kadia and how lonely she was. About bringing her with us and becoming sisters, and about the magic that allows them to share the body instead of one sleeping while the other wakes. She pleads with them not to be scared of her and the choice she’s made.   Del asks to speak to Kadia directly and Ellen does look scared for a moment and I reach out to reassure her as Kadia begins to speak. She tells them about how much she cares for Hella and how they’ve become sisters over the course of our journey. She tells them of how her home is nearly destroyed and her own family died long ago and that she would love to call this place home and call them family, if they’d have her. It was exactly the right thing to say and soon they are all tangled in a massive hug   In the aftermath of the conversation we all sip warm cider mixed with brandy (Hella included) and Alder tries to articulate to the humans the concept of outer family, which is what they have become. No less loved, just less obligated. Just...family.  

Day 165

Late in the morning Bran steals me away for a walk and leads me to a rise where we can see a plume of campfire smoke in the distance. “Trouble,” he tells me. Nothing we couldn’t handle ourselves but if we handle it, the village will be unprepared for the larger trouble that is to come. He says this incoming attack will be violent and people will die but it feels almost completely random - so random that it seems incongruous with the later troubles that will follow if we intervene now. This is the price of the knowledge of seeing the threads - sometimes you see things you don’t understand and have to make these choices.   If we stop this trouble now then we will need to leave something behind to protect them when we’re gone. Bran and I each have the same terrible, terrible thought of talking to the imprisoned Dread Lord and immediately dismiss it. If this were an elvish town perhaps we could make stone guardians to leave behind but I have a hard time imagining that humans would give up their lives to fuel a guardian to protect their home.   For the amount of time we spend mulling this over, it’s a remarkably sparse conversation. The pieces are all there - we just need to decide how to tug at the threads and if we’ll interfere at all. We can delay our own decision until right before the festival itself.   We split up and spent the rest of the day preparing in our own way. Bran is doing prep on the festival itself, placing things in convenient locations to provide shelter and cover in case of attack. I send out some magical feelers across the land to see if I sense anything that might help that I wasn’t attuned to the last time we were here. Indeed, there is a very faint, dormant magic about three hours away.   I slip into the Dreaming and find myself there as swiftly as I can, arriving at a place in the foothills surrounded by several large streams. Buried beneath a mudslide are the remains of a stone wall. I feel time pulling against me so instead of investigating it myself I call for Dal’s presence.   He appears behind me and I hug him. If only I had more time...what I would give to just come and sit in the woods with him and a cup of uffa (which I tell him about, excitedly) and just...be.   But instead I ask him about the ruins, and he shows me what he knows about them. There’s an archway in the door with faded script in elvish, dwarvish, and ossyr words for Mist and Forest. The magic, stronger here, feels defensive and protective. An old Imperial structure, I guess.   As I think this through, Thalien shows up as well. I’m frustrated to see him here because I think I already know what he’s going to tell me but he surprises me.   “They have to give up all of what they have. They need to protect their community, not their homes. And you have to ask them for a sacrifice they understand in order to prevent a sacrifice they can’t imagine. Bran knows you and he knows these people and he thinks the thread is so thin. I know you better than him, and I think the thread is not as thin as he thinks,”   So they need to be persuaded to leave Whitewater and move here, where they’ll have this magic to protect them. I can see the threads of conversation and the social maneuvering that can make that happen...the words I’ll pick for each person to nudge them towards the decision.   As I make to leave the Dreaming, Thalien asks me to take a message back to Bran:   He’s always welcome in my shadow but sometimes my shadow prevents him from seeing the light with his human eyes.   He’s not an elf and he never will be. That’s a good thing.