48.5 Worth a Try
General Summary
Compassion: Day 6 | Hope: Day 18
Once we have gathered everyone, we do end up with a couple extra people. Kiita has been tagging along with me and makes no motion to remain behind as we prepare to load out. It seems she has truly worn me down - I don’t even try to suggest that she stay in the city.
Starfire and Void also bring an additional person - a young sand spirit named Rishia who clearly adores Norcrack, though he seems none the wiser. He seems to view her like a little sister.
Assembling everyone in the mountains, Starfire lays down some ground rules for the first few days:
- No Moon, Heiassa, Void, and Starfire are in charge.
- All of our guests will accept a magical binding from Starfire to reduce them to ‘lesser folk’ with no shapeshifting or magic.
- Our guests will set up camp just like normal folks.
I quietly tell Void that I did this for team-building to Cereus and Magdalena and he laughs at the thought, asking how I managed to survive doing it to her. He’s never met her, but even this long ago, she’s a legend and many people are afraid of her. I point out that people are frightened of Trenali as well, and he acknowledges the truth of it. People don’t understand that Trenali just wants to curl up in her library and not make trouble for folks.
We talk a little more about Treeborn and I learn that Uncle Cereus has terrible curses - but they’re ‘useful’, according to No Moon. Apparently he cursed Temira with something based on dawn (the eternal morning hangover). Other options include the midnight wakefulness (many bathroom trips), the midday drag of sun-warmed lethargy, and a dusky feeling of an incomplete task list that never goes away. He is remarkably skilled at drawing out the worst part of each time of day. No Moon thinks they’re good for wearing a person out of stubbornness. Privately, I’m a little offended at the idea of bringing out the worst in each cycle.
As we lounge and watch the campers set up, the boys tease one another for their lack of magic. Void says he’ll give it a try if No Moon will, but No Moon can only summon enormous pools of magic whenever he tries it. To demonstrate, he calls up a 100m tall pillar of fire instead of a campfire. Starfire rolls her eyes playfully.
My advice to him is much like what I told Alwen - it’s okay to start big. But you have to find a safe place to try things of that scale so that he can feel it without fear or apprehension. A positive experience lets a person feel curiosity, and that is where growth begins. I wonder if there is a mountain he might take an interest in reshaping?
His eyes grow distant, then, and he tells me of a place far North, past the Great River. There are smaller rivers that can be followed until the grove gets truly thick and there is a range of humble mountains. He loves the view of all the groves together, and there is a mountain that feels close to the stars. That’s the one, he tells us. That’s the one he wants to make into his home - a place where he, Starfire, and Void will all feel at home.
From his description, it sounds like the place I brought Lyssa…but I saw no trace of No Moon there. I wonder if I wasn’t looking closely enough, or if he never made it there.
No Moon grows wistful then, thinking about the space underneath the mountain where no light reaches. A place to retreat away from all things and rest in the darkness. He tells us that he’s always admired Darkness and Trenali for having a relationship that has lasted so long, and which has such a deep well of trust and intimacy. It strikes me as curious that dragons tend to partner for centuries to raise an egg, and many fae are inherently changeable with relationships that shift just like cycles. But a dragon and fae have lasted this long, and far into the future in my own time.
The journey overland
For the first few days in the mountains, it becomes glaringly obvious why Starfire sealed away everyone’s powers. The squabbles and bickering are intense, but fortunately come to no injuries. Liva takes on the role of camp cook, with Kiita’s assistance at times. Starfire, quite practically, makes it known that Liva can’t just take on all the labour as a defence mechanism and summons Rishia to assist. This becomes Starfire’s role throughout - pushing people into tasks and jobs where they must work together and help.
No Moon’s job, it turns out, is looking for trouble. He spends hours scouting ahead so that we can all push the group towards reasonably-levelled hazards that they can tackle as a team. For my part, I make strategic use of my own compassion magic to encourage understanding and empathy.
A while later in the journey, No Moon pulls me away to come look at something unusual that he has found. On the side of a nearby mountain are hundreds of broken Eldritch trees and a swathe of land behind them that is torn up. Deep gouges and grooves in the earth show where enormous trees must have been pulled up, leaving behind no broken roots or stumps. Even No Moon would struggle to rip up a Grove tree, though maybe Darkness could. Maybe several dragons working together.
The energy here is bizarre - a residual sense of many energies that don’t seem to fit together. Dominance, chaos, discordance, some things that feel like they could be good and bright, but others that don’t. My spine tingles, flicking through the mental archive of Treeborn that I know of. It feels like Talikkin at first, with the dominating energy, but his Grove is far North in Blood Fallen Valley. The threads of brightness confuse me too, and I wonder if this is Krimili, and I had heard false reports of his Grove being in crocodile territory.
There was a settlement here, but nothing but foundation remains of the buildings. Clearly only fae lived here, as there are no paths or roads throughout the area. The only other physical things left behind are spirit crystals and some minor possessions that seem like they were dropped. Enough of the buildings are gone that there are no signs or written clues left behind.
No Moon tells me that the Eldritch trees don’t look torn by claws so much as burned or destroyed with magic. As I wander through the Eldritch grove, my compassion magic pours out of me like it is trying desperately to fill the void around me. The trees around us were all specifically broken in a way that targeted the sprits - all heartwood. But the spirits here are not dead so much as…gone.
I can sense the pieces of a cycle here, all mixed up and spread across the area. Maybe I can siphon off each energy and see what each piece of the cycle was…so I give the dominant energy something to attack: Lively green lightning, nourishing and strong.
The dominant energy does leap on my bait instantly, coalescing to such a degree that a spiritual storm swirls up around us. When it fades, I am left holding a new spiritual treasure - a lightning whip of tyranny. It’s a furious, megalomaniac spirit of dominance and energy…writhing and consumptive. Ailanthus, I think. And I remember that his title included both heaven and hell.
When Void and Starfire arrive, they find me unhappily holding the sparking whip and musing about what to do with it. Starfire agrees - it’s a living thing, even if it is not something that should exist. Fortunately Void takes care of it, disappearing it into some dimensional storage. He agrees with my assessment - likely Ailanthus’ grove.
It makes me think it more likely that the fae of tyranny up and left, rather than being attacked. It makes it a place that we will give a wide berth rather than a place to investigate. Even if there might be an opportunity for learning here for our young charges, we don’t understand the story enough to draw a clear lesson from it. I wouldn’t want to build them a model based on something false.
Later, Void asks what I think of the whip. He was thinking that he would send it to Oblivion to be disposed of, but it seems like he is sensitive that he, too, might be seen as a thing that should not exist. For my part, I think tyranny is a hard thing to reform, since it tends to extremes and extremes have very little room for flexibility or thoughtfulness. Void does not strike me as a man of extremes - he has relied on No Moon’s judgement because he values the nuance even if he knows he cannot reliably see it himself.
As we brainstorm what we might do with the sparking little tyrant, he has the idea of using it as a tool for unworthy rulers - not to wield against their people but to keep the ruler in line. No Moon, evidently, has seen many great leaders pass their empires to cruel or selfish inheritors. Maybe this little thing could be used to whip them into shape when they are letting their people down.
It could be a young, foolish idea. But people tried with me, so maybe I should try with it.
It is nearly too much to bear, hearing the raw hope and vulnerability in his voice. And clearly, I do not disguise it well, because he takes the chance to ask about why I’m here.
Why did auntie send you here?
He says he feels strange around me, like I might be his big sister, worrying about him. Hope and compassion will do that, but it’s even beyond that. From me, it feels personal. And of course, it is. I knew I would have to tell him something over this trip - I surely won’t stay for another cycle and I don’t want any of these people to think I’ve abandoned them.
So I tell him about the days I spent with Mistress in the past, when there was a gap in my memory as an apprentice and it was filled by travelling back in time. He looks a little puzzled, but curious and open; he asks if that’s what’s happening here - that we’ve already met but he doesn’t remember me. I am nearly in tears when I tell him it’s the other way - we’ll meet again but I won’t remember him. There is no way that he could see me like this and think that this is a happy story, but he grins and jokes with me anyway. I can’t properly tell if he is genuine or disguising some fear - I refuse to lean on my magic to find out.
I tell him he handles it very well - he doesn’t tell me anything. He’s very taciturn when I meet him again, and he laughs and says No Moon says he’s bad at keeping secrets so perhaps he chose to disappear so he doesn’t risk telling me things in the future. It’s an appealing story. I know it can’t be true. The Void I meet in the future is not one who is playfully keeping secrets from an old friend. But we laugh anyway, and play at thinking that maybe he’ll spend years thinking up a good prank for me when he finds me again.
And he asks to call me ‘big sister’ - maybe it will get No Moon off our back about dating. Dating, he tells me, has never made any sense to him anyway.
