54.6 Interested and Caring

General Summary

Day 1102

Sitka and Magdalena leave behind an unsettled, uncomfortable silence as they depart to Rainbow’s mountain. Magdalena will be back by evening. I don’t care when Sitka returns, so long as she is well behaved. In the absence, Ipthina steps forward with some warm apple cider to make us all feel better. Poor Qing Chen is just rousing from sleep, and Ipthina sweeps in to take care of him too.   Artemisia, too, decides that it is time for her to depart, though not before seeking an invitation to my son’s wedding. As I told her before, those invitations are not mine to give, no matter how much she wants to meet him and lure him into apprenticeship. She can visit well beforehand to see how he feels about her.   This leaves Evismora as the only remaining Treeborn, and she continues to cling to my arm, especially after I reassure her that Thalien and I will have plenty of time together and don’t need space right now. After Evismora takes her trip to Brighton, she’ll return and hopes to adventure with us wherever we go. Thalien quips that we don’t seem to have adventures lined up so much as my endless to-do list, but it’s still sure to be exciting. There will be items on the list that are ver fae-centric and items that are elf-centric or dragon-centric. I’m sure it will involve an ever-rotating cast of my family tagging along.   Once Qing Chen feels well enough to join us, he plops down sheepishly in our little nighttime circle. My arms are already claimed by Evismora and Thalien but I let my night-sky wings elongate into their dragon shape and cover him as well.  

I think I see the difference between someone being interested in me and someone caring about me.

  Poor Qing Chen. Part of him wants to go back home and tell people he met an Exalted One and that they aren’t worth worshipping. But he knows some of his people would believe him to further their agendas and others would disbelieve him to further their own. Some would use it to attack his father. His decision is that he’ll write a book and let it be found one day far in the future as an old account of the world, and then they will be able to judge for themselves without it coming from the demon king son of a demon emperor.   It is just after dusk when Magdalena returns, having deposited Sitka at the mountain where she will be bound to stay until Rainbow has time for her. Her senior sibling is busy training Nightshade and may not have time for several years. In the interim, Magdalena expects that all of her academic family will start gathering and working together again. Now that her junior brother has sent out Cousin Soo and made overtures, it’s time to figure out how to support one another. Having unified magical oversight might be part of the Golden Age that Bran and Thalien have described us bringing about.   As for the hazard realm, I’ll have to write a report on it for our library…which makes me feel like I’ve been a very good apprentice indeed. Magdalena says not to go into any other pocket realms without Kaide, at least. The rules of a place might be completely different and may interfere with my sources of power, so I should bring someone who is different enough from me that we cover more bases in our power sources. So Kaide, Cousin Soo, even Void (who has no elvish background, and much longer tenure of being a dragon).   Late into the night, we have a proper party. Dancing, singing, ghosts of ancestors and happy memories playing music along with us so that Thalien has me to dance with instead of to listen to.   Eventually we wind down and the two boys wind up playing a game of chess that switches sides every so often, spinning the board around to change perspective.   Magdalena and I relax against my dusk tree with Wayin napping in the branches, and we talk about what the future looks like for our own little family. After Brighton, she’ll go check up on her junior brother and maybe collect up Benthic. She wants Amytri, Qing Chen, and Benthic to go off into the world together instead of holing up and getting obsessed with whatever little thing has caught their attention. I’m sure I can spare at least one chaotic good influence from my family to get them into trouble — Hella and Kadia, Miriam, Liliales…who knows.    

Day 1103

The next day, we all go our separate ways. Ipthina and Hue wave farewell as Magdalena and Evismora head to Brighton and I take to the sky with Thalien, Bran, Wayin, and my little tree anchored to my back.   As Avan’Nal approaches, I can see the beaches on the shore have been rearranged and there are enormous sandcastles that whistle and sing as the wind rushes through them. I call out a greeting when I am near (from my perspective), and see two specks leap into the air and fly for much longer than I intended before pulling up beside me. They seem surprised as well, to see just how large I am and how far away I was.  

Elder?

  Shale is round and soft like wet sand, with no horns or ridges to speak of. She and Sandstorm bank alongside me, curious and surprised as I introduce myself again as Softwing Heiassa, not an elder at all.   When we reach the ground and assume our humanoid forms, Sandstorm gives me another wondrous look. But I’m focused on Shale, a matronly-looking elf who looks like she would be a hearth witch if she weren’t already a dragon. And just like any ruler of the home, she sends her partner off to prepare a visiting space for us in a cavern where we will feel at home in the darkness as she gets to know us.   Up close, I can see that the sandcastles have all been built by hand. She is rebuilding the city as it once was, but with respect for all the vines and trees that have emerged in the intervening millennia. The work is not complete, of course, she says she needs to find a dragon of Flame’s lineage who can help her make bricks and glass out of the abundant sand here. And someone of Earth’s lineage who is more like Onyx and can help pull crystals out of the earth to make new song stones. She and Sandstorm can both see a new era here — dragons, riders, even fae.   In the cavern, we take uffa, tea, and mulled wine in that order as I regale people once again with the events of the last few years. And once again, even Bran and Thalien listen in rapture.   For these ancient friends, I sing in dragon song with my accompanists flanking me — No Moon and Starfire in their humanoid forms, arms entwined and leaning against one another as I remember them. Shale listens happily and tells me at the end: I must send elves here. She wants eggs, and she wants elves around as they grow and hatch.