39.4 A Fourth Time

General Summary

Day 595

With the rest of the day, Rainbow shows us the many suspended gardens they maintain around the mountaintops. Each garden is enclosed within a climate-controlled bubble appropriate to the plants growing within. Many of them are species that Ipthina had told me were extinct, or nearly there. The thought of such climate controlled space within my storage purse is enough to make me take special note of the magic imbued in each one.   To return to the main building, Rainbow transforms into their dragon aspect and graciously carries us all back. They are nearly as large as Haze with iridescent scales and a trail of that magical rainbow essence flowing out behind them as they fly. I only barely convince Kaide not to work on making my wings do the same.   Within Rainbow's home we meet a tall, white-haired person with blank eyes who greets us. Rainbow address them as 'Venn', an attendant, while Magdalena describes them as a construct made of magic itself.   We retire for an early night but I have hardly been in my chambers for half an hour when Rainbow comes calling again. They step effortlessly off the balcony and transform before I can follow, though my wings are already open when they invite me to climb aboard. The sky is darkening as they fly me to the very peak of the mountain where great crystals gather and channel magic through an enormous magic circle.  

Thank you for letting me take Trillium.

  My estimation of Rainbow rises.   They remark that Magdalena seems much warmer and happier now, and they are curious about what happened to make her this way. It's an understandable question, but I'm cautious about answering it specifically. I tell her elder sibling about my ability to say no to her, about Andstella and me and the first tree of day and night, I talk about Kaide and the process of forming a family.  

I'm worried about her. I don't want her to go through this a fourth time.

  And Rainbow tells me about the three previous times - the Pruning, the loss of her revived fae of leaf and vine, and losing Kaide. She had intended Kaide to be a protector of the next Grove she revived, and so it hurt even more that Kaide did what she did. Each time it took Magdalena centuries to recover enough to take another risk. Rainbow thinks that she is eternally doomed to a cycle of creation or destruction until she give up or someone breaks the cycle.  

You take care of her. She needs that. If I could, I'd forbid both of you from leaving so that you could stay safe here. But I know there's no use in that, so you must keep her safe.

  At this I have to bridle a little. She's my teacher, as near to an additional mother as I have. I have kept her as safe as I can, brought back as much of her heart as I know how, given her back an apprentice and woven a family out of the brokenness that was there before. I do not need a lecture or even the slightest additional motivation to keep her safe. What's more - I do not need the additional pressure or knowledge of the consequences of failure when it comes to my teacher's emotional state. They weren't Rainbow's secrets to share. One of the things that they tell me about Magdalena is about their teacher, Kaie. It is out of their mouth before I can protest.  

Teacher is older than both love and hatred. She once said that Magdalena’s path had to be difficult or she would never reach her potential. She forbade me from helping her…though perhaps I can help her apprentices…

  I think it is such a curse on the world that people must reach their potential instead of their happiness. I imagine Kaie wouldn’t find this particularly insightful or notable, but it matters to me. Apparently she has arranged her own students into complementary and sometimes competing roles:

• Rainbow studies and creates new magic.
• Magdalena keeps magic from being lost.
• ‘The Emperor of Magic’, who rules the Imperium, monitors the progression of magic in a culture and moderates it if it gets out of control or dangerous. He administers the Adjudicators as well, apparently.

  I can see why Rainbow and Magdalena could be close, while both seem to be regularly at odds with their younger brother.   So for now, Rainbow simply asks me what I would like to learn while I am “imprisoned” here. There is a certain freedom in being told by an elder, more powerful mage to simply stay put for a while - I wouldn’t have chosen it for myself but I have no interest in resisting the opportunity to actually learn something amidst the military and political turmoil of my lifestyle.   My thinking is interrupted by a request to look at my fate.  

Have your Fatespinners told you why you’re so amazing? It is how very talented and ordinary you are. You were not born with destiny - everything you have done is just…you.   Your line is very long, but that is no surprise. Others with such long, powerful threads often find themselves subject to their fate and lose the ability to steer it, but that is not the case with you. In your fate, it seems that you are still very free to steer it and will remain so for a long time, perhaps forever. That is remarkable.

Retaining my ability to steer my own fate is something I’m very invested in, and there is one major item on the horizon that I’m quite certain will change things, and Rainbow is the right person to ask about it.   For the first time since I tucked it away, I reveal No Moon’s legacy and the story behind how I acquired it. Rainbow is extremely surprised.  

I’m shocked that he left a legacy at all - it’s like a map for someone else to follow and he was always so determined to discover things himself. You know, he avoided me because it was so tempting to ask me questions and I would always give him the answer. He wanted to find things out for himself.

  The merging of blood and legacies is really something I feel I should ask Magdalena about, but there is something delicate and uncertain about asking her the detailed questions about how I would change. I’m shy to even imply that I’m thinking of it, even though I need the information just to protect myself and my existing legacies.   But Rainbow is very open about what would happen if I were to adopt the legacy.  

Physically, your elf and fae natures are harmonious since elves were once fae. No Moon’s legacy is so powerful that it will pull you away from the legacies you currently hold…it is probably five times stronger, at least. If you were to take on his legacy now, you would be far more dragon than elf or fae.   You could strengthen your existing legacies to balance out the three pieces you want to carry. Becoming an elven Empress would strengthen that legacy and yes, planting your own seed and creating a new cycle of fae would strengthen that side of yourself.   So long as the balance point of your three natures is somewhat central or dragon-leaning, you would have a physical dragon form. I imagine that you would be quite large, since this is No Moon’s bloodline.   If your balance point is closer to being elf-fae, you might look like Void with his scales and draconic wings. But there are also incompatible areas between these three legacies - places where they cannot touch and you would die as a result of taking on this new one. The safest thing, surely, would be to just let the stronger legacy consume you…perhaps you would be 80% dragon, 10% each of elf and fae.

  Throughout the discussion, Rainbow and I have been adding to a floating illusion in the air before us to illustrate the balance. At this, the balance tips heavily towards the dragon side and I imagine a world in which I don’t sleep or cycle, a world in which I’m not guided by the elven urge to seek connection. I could take new oaths, I assume…I imagine Onyx and the other Imperial dragons took oaths? I might not be able to hear the trees anymore…I certainly wouldn’t be able to reach Orange. It is unthinkable, and I tip the illusion back into balance. I wonder if maybe it would be a more suitable legacy for Trillium one day, given that she is already going to transform into a dragon.   I wonder what No Moon was thinking, to be such an incredibly powerful person and leave a legacy behind knowing that any who took it up would likely have to bend entirely to his presence. Rainbow is right - it doesn’t seem like the sort of thing he would have done.  

Practically speaking, you would probably gain all of No Moon’s magical skill and capacity. No one keeps precise track of this, but you would likely be in the top 20. No Moon himself was in the top 10.

  By ‘top’ apparently Rainbow is referring to people with the most raw capacity for magic, excluding their own teacher. The thought of this is sort of absurd to me but I suppose it makes sense that these people are all aware of one another the same way I was vaguely aware of Drakken even before we crossed paths.   When I ask, Rainbow tells me that No Moon was betrayed before his death. Starfury and others of the Demon-Dragon Clan (the name of which raises my eyebrows) set him up, or he never would have been killed. Wildfire, too, was probably part of the Demon-Dragon Clan, considering his ability to father a child with an elf. It has been a few centuries since Rainbow checked on them and they have no idea how many members of the clan remain.   It is late in the night before we part ways, and so things that normally would have shocked me are at most a glancing surprise. Rainbow tells me that the storm extinguished the fire raging in the troll’s homeland, but that no trolls seemed to have appeared there yet. And that in all likelihood, No Moon’s daughter, Starfield, is hiding near the headwaters of the Great River.