14.10 Ways of Life
General Summary
Day 167
After speaking to Vedrah I head to see Garend alone (Camellia stays to speak with Vedrah more about herbs). I find him at his mill a ways outside the village.
There’s a very detailed sign describing all the things that are disallowed on his property: Smoking, pipes, knives, etc. It’s a very long list and I respect each one!
It takes him a while to disengage from the mill and remove his protective gear but eventually we settle down outside the door. It has been a fascinating exercise in human politics to speak with each member of the Council and select a strategy. With Garend, I am tired. I lay it out for him with unartful vagaries and he still takes it seriously. He notes that this new place is an awkward distance...not quite far enough to make it a place that they’d have to move to as opposed to flee to.
It’s a good point...good enough that I let the conversation drift as I think. Garend came here as a young man from Haven. His father came from across the sea and constructed many successful mills in Haven but Garend left because Haven was simply too impersonal. He seems like a man who came here not to escape his trauma but to look for something warmer. Hopefully he found it.
He muses again: This village is full of young people who will see the adventure and opportunity that comes with a new place, but also the elders who will fear the loss of tradition and stability. I don’t understand this - the loss of stability, yes, but tradition? A way of life travels with a people, not a place. The traditions held by my people follow them wherever they go. When I tell him this he asks how one loses a way of life and my mind goes to the Collective and the races they’ve collected.
One loses a way of life by being punished for practicing it for so long that your people forget how it was done.
“What if the new way is better?” he asks. Well then people wouldn’t have to be punished to force them to adopt it.
It’s a fruitful conversation and I think he will stand for us when the council discusses moving. He also sends me on my way with a large sack of various grains for Alder, who mentioned that he does a lot of our campfire baking as we travel.
As dusk falls I make my way out towards Vedrah’s cottage again. Bran has prepared a space for her Oaths that includes candles artfully covered in ways that encourage both the warmth of the flickering light and the depth of the shadows cast by it. I feel the Empress’ presence as Vedrah takes her oaths. She is special not because she is the first human but because she is the first human who isn’t also part of my family.
Day 168
The day begins with an early breakfast with Wayla and Camellia. Sher serves us crepes with sugar and honeyed citrus that reminds me of home with the first bite.
More and more I am coming to respect her blunt nature as she proposes a trade: She will give her support to the move, particularly amongst the rest of the village, in exchange for my teaching her daughter Mary. She wants Mary to come with me and be my apprentice for as long as she has things to learn. It’s a big ask and I make sure that she won’t regret lending her support so conditionally before agreeing to consider it. I’ll come back later to work out details. This is something that needs to be discussed with the others.
Bran sighs when I bring it up. “Did Mary try running away again?” and in an instant I become more interested. Children don’t run away for no reason. The others all seem amenable and it solidifies another question that has seemingly been on everyone’s mind - can we bring Dawn and Nina?
Would it be what’s best for them? The best place to learn and grow? Would it be best for the village? With Vedrah sworn to the Empire and the village more amenable to elves, perhaps she will be able to serve as healer while they are gone now...and two mystics growing in their confidence and self-discovery with no teacher could indeed be dangerous.
Bran’s eyes go a bit misty and he says “The Three from Whitewater” in that voice of his, “The choice made...the future is clearer,” but then he turns to Hella, “But you aren’t part of the Three. More and more it seems that your thread isn’t anchored here anymore,”
Hella smile a bit sadly and agrees. More and more she knows that her home is with us.
And then we set off to collect Nina, Dawn, and Mary.
Nina is first, and she is delighted when I ask her to come with us. She and Hella run off to pack and speak with her parents.
Then Dawn, who is unimaginably happy at the invitation. I leave Camellia with them for some lessons and preparations.
And finally back to Wayla, who summons Mary to talk with me. I see her eyes grow huge as Wayla explains that I’m an opportunity for Mary to leave and learn about her talents safely. She and I take a walk together to speak apart from Wayla and the first thing she says to me is simply, “You just need to take me as far as Ipth. You don’t have to teach me,”
As we talk, things fall into place clearly. This is a girl who doesn’t quite know who she is. She knows who everyone else wants her to be (a smaller version of her sister, Annette, who will marry a boy and settle down and have a family) and she knows that she is very much not that thing. She tells me things I assume she hasn’t told anyone else before (there are benefits to being a mysterious stranger riding through town): She stole her sister’s magic and she’s not interested in boys like that.
The first part is curious - I can feel two very different arcane magics in her and now it makes sense - one is hers and the other was Annette’s. Together they have blended into something that I doubt we will ever be able to untangle. The combination of prismic illusion magic and alchemical combination magic is potent and tangled. She’s nearly in tears as she tells me that she could see Haman watching Annette and talking about her magical potential and so she stole her sister’s magic to make sure that Haman couldn’t get at her.
“But now Haman is gone...and I can’t give it back!” she says fretfully. But even if she could give it back, would Annette be better off for having it? And would her life have worked out happily if it hadn’t been taken in the first place? Some pasts are not worth rehashing - only looking forward from. And in this particular case, Annette is happy and Mary (“Miriam,” she tells me) can also be happy if she moves forward.
The second...this thing about loving girls (Hella, she tells me after making me promise not to laugh)...I don’t understand it. It feels surreal to tell her simply that I’ve been in love with a woman for centuries and have her look at me with enormous eyes.
“That’s okay for elves?” she asks. “That’s not okay for humans?” I want to ask, but I’ll save it for someone more used to explaining humanity to me.
The conversation solidifies the future for me - Miriam will come with us and learn who she is and how to love that person.
And then I storm off to ask Bran about what mad human tradition decrees who is allowed to love whom. We are partway through the conversation when he asks why this is such a topic of importance at the moment and I stumble over some excuses about village gossip before asking again - WHY?
No satisfactory reason is forthcoming. This would be a good element of their way of life to simply...encourage them out of.
