57.1 That's Not the Question

General Summary

Day 1115

I set out to find Kaide the next morning, ready to persuade her to come out to the coast. I find her deep in conversation with Amytri, the two of them talking about succession and being able to let go of the places they rule.   Andstella is hanging onto the conversation, as is Wayla. When I arrive, Amytri points out that I have taken the most viable strategy, which is to set up an Empire and push other people onto thrones so that I remain free. It has been an excellent strategy with its own challenges, of course. But unfortunately for all of them, it only works for one person per Empire, and I got to it first.   Kaide says that the major difference between the Empire and the other smaller kingdoms within it is that elves recognize the burden of leadership upon her. Amytri agrees — the humans in Solace don’t seem to realize how much work it is to be the leader. And in New Whitewater, former councillors know exactly how much work it is and are trying to escape from it, pushing Wayla to be more like a Queen than a First Councillor.   All of the rulers within the Empire are facing different problems with different perspectives. Kaide’s opinion is that so long as the only problems faced by a state are internal, the ruler has done their job well and kept their people safe.   From my perspective, the only agency a ruler truly has is over the internal state of their people. If there are major internal issues, there is something the ruler needs to be addressing.  

Perhaps the Empress will manage external affairs for the Empire and the Imperator will manage internal affairs.

  A convenient thing for Kaide to decide just as we are ready to wipe the Collective out of our path, I think.   But eventually I tug my senior sister away from the crowd and lure her, Catena, and Shrouded Petrichor out to the coast with Magdalena in tow. We arrive at the coast as the sun is setting — just an anonymous part of the shore with crashes waves and the sun painting the water.   As Kaide wades out into the water, I can feel her magic strengthening and being nourished by the waves. Once the sun has sunk beneath the horizon, she returns to the shore.   I ask to see her face, touch my water-wet hands to her cheeks.  

Do you want to stay like this?

 

I’ve made my peace with it.

 

That’s not the question.

  She tells me about how she has spent her life on creation and destruction, but creation is different from healing. She has never been good at healing.  

Growth and change are inevitable. Aren’t you really asking if I’m willing to heal?

  We walk back into the water together and I examine her wounds properly. She is like a tree still smoldering on the inside long after a forest fire. The fire inside her is not conscious and malevolent like the fire spirits within the Severed — it’s just a contained flame that I can draw out of her quite easily. I’m left with a ball of Ingan fire which I tuck away for later study. And the burning afterimage of it falls away, sinking into the ocean like the setting sun itself.   What follows is simple, easy. It’s healing magic, and she is not so terribly wounded now that the flame is gone. But the face that emerges is strangely young — her transition into being Undying happened early in her life and I see a young woman before me even though she is millennia old. She looks as she must have when Magdalena picked her up — the young miss of a merchant family.   She stares at herself in a suspended pane of ice that she pulls from the ocean, touching her smooth skin wordlessly. I fade backwards up the bank to join Magdalena as Catena comes forward and examines a face she has never seen before. Kaide was wounded long before they met, long before they grew close.   Magdalena rests her head on my shoulder.  

I was so angry at her for letting what happened to her consume her. I was angry at her for leaving me, for refusing to heal and leave the struggles of the Osyr behind. Seeing her like this again…I feel like I got my first apprentice back twice. Both times, because of you.

  Deep in the night, we head to the Crystal Spires, all with our auras contained and wearing our simplest guises. Just a young Osyr and four elves wandering the night market.