56.5 Cycling

General Summary

Day 1114

The Empress is in Dreamfall, and while the changes here are apparent, I can’t help but think of all the elves back home. They have never existed without the Empress' shade, especially those that live in the Capital. Out in the Frontier, the Empress’ shade sometimes felt distant even if it was still present. But elves who have never left the Capital will now have to experience that for themselves. That shade is in Dreamfall, blanketing everyone here.   And Kaide herself is…free. Free to return to the sea, if she wants. Free to go back to all the places that Ausha remembered, and many that she didn't. And her joy ripples out across the bonds that tie the oathsworn together. I can feel everyone around us become a little bit more buoyant. They are tied to her so deeply, like a great tree that stretches up above the boughs of our Grove -- our own shaded Origin Tree.   Andstella comes to find me to talk about how different Dreamfall feels with her presence. By now, she says she’s heard some of Amytri’s entourage wondering if Dreamfall would be a good place to raise a family. She hasn’t thought about immigration policy before now -- the most it had registered to her was that of course elves, fae, dwarves would fit in and be welcome, but she somehow had not thought of humans traipsing around the peaceful Grove. She muses about their immense impact on the world around them -- how quickly and aggressively they live and die. A place could be rapidly changed by that sort of energy. But there are human oathsworn, and of course they will need to be welcome here. Andstella has a lot to think about.   As Dreamfall continues to grow, our little cottages in the midst of the Grove don't feel like the hideaways they once were. Perhaps we'll have to build up into the sky or further towards the mountains to reclaim that sort of privacy.   Amytri and Kaide meet for the first time and she expresses her particular approval of little Ricken and his connection to Black Tourmaline. The rest of the bureaucratic entourage, fortunately, retreats at her direction when we sit down for a family breakfast. I can’t help thinking that they would have argued with the Imperator, though they bow and back away from the Empress. They are unique roles, I suppose.   Family breakfast is a very fae affair with cushions, movable tables, food laid out in various spots and no pressure to remain in one place. The family is so large now that we hav to mix and intermingle if everyone wants to be able to spend time with everyone else. Miriam offers me a tasteful baklava-like layered pastry in a very human style but made with elvish spices. I want to send her to Solace to improve that awful fusion restaurant.   Miriam also introduces us to Pashmiri, her shy elven girlfriend. The two of them met in school, and Pashmiri seems like a sweet, normal elf. She looks suitably horrified to hear us refer to the Empress as ‘Kaide’ and I can feel that her magic is illusion-heavy but not much else. She might be a specialist back home, but not an unusually strong one. It’s sweet to see Miriam with just…a normal elf.   I also get the opportunity to see how Miriam has fixed her strange blended magic with Alder and Kaide’s help. She refracted her own component pieces using the prism effect of her sister’s magic. Now, her magic is a shifting, refracting, beautiful blend…with no zephyr magic at all. She scattered it into a million pieces and it left behind a hole, but the oaths she took filled in the void. And she may not live as long as elves but will probably live for 3-4 centuries now. She doesn’t even feel like a human anymore. She feels like a round-eared elf.   She showed Hella and Hella said she’d need to kidnap her, but didn’t know why. I tell her it won’t be for a few years so not to worry about it.  

I’m not going back to school.

  I laugh at this, as though I’m her mother and she is taking a stand against her primary education. She got what she needed and found what she needed to find. She figured herself out away from her mom and her home, and that’s what school was for. Now, she wants to go somewhere that has both light and shadow that play with one another. She wants to know if I have any ideas about where that is — I have dibs in deciding where she heads next. I’ll have to ask around — I think Rainbow or Cousin Soo might have ideas.   And then Alder settles down next to me, leaning against me as close as a shadow can be. He says that he won’t be going back across the Barrier until I do. He’s with me until I go somewhere I won’t let him follow me (which he says seems likely, and he is right). His life in Ipth feels so far away in hindsight. As far as he’s concerned, when I showed up, it felt like he was home. And Kaide said I would understand dragon magic and darkness magic better than her, and whatever is next for him to learn should come from me. I feel a small burst of pride, hearing that she knows I have become closer to shadows and darkness that she is. She’ll always have the depths of the ocean, where light doesn’t reach. I’ll have the lack of light from being blocked by a celestial body.   Alder asks if I’m really going to settle down and I say yes, but my range now is measured in wingbeats. I probably won’t cross the ocean, or go down to the Great River, or go back across the Barrier. But a journey to the coast takes less than a day — ‘settling down’ doesn’t mean the same thing anymore.   With my immense power now, he says he knows he doesn’t need to keep me safe from things that will threaten me, but he can keep me safe from things that will annoy me. He offers to sneak around for me, and I show him my most unassuming guise — my elven form with the youthful night black hair from before my family was ripped away. He grins — maybe we will be able to sneak around together as we travel. Just two elves travelling on foot, slipping through shadows.   After a while, Alder moves on and Magdalena settles in beside me, watching Kaide.  

I haven’t seen her this happy in a long time.

  But she tells me that Kaide is still hiding herself more than Magdalena would like. Both she and Catena have been distant from the rest of the world, isolated by their own experiences and their closeness to one another. I’m proud of Magdalena for seeing all those little threads that are influencing people’s happiness. She’s learned quickly.   It is time for me to see what I can do about healing the wounds Kaide sustained and has let take root in her since the War of Fire. Her mystics might have been strong enough to heal them at the time, and maybe even could heal them now. But the pain of those wounds is not the physical aspect — it’s that she has allowed them to take root and embed themselves in her. It’s a wound that wraps around her heart as well. The difficult thing about her wounds is not necessarily the healing itself; it’s just that she hasn’t let anyone try.   I can see that Mistress is still a few days out, and Lyssa’s group is still in the Domain. So we will take Kaide to the coast tomorrow and if people arrive while we are gone, that’s fine. They’ll be here when we return. And Kaide will be healed.   As our conversation about Kaide trails off, Magdalena turns her thoughts to the Heart and whether she will be able to watch the wedding. Without a true Origin Tree, she probably will not be able to manifest here. And Magdalena herself seems at peace with that. She doesn’t know if she herself is ready to have the Heart here even though it would be sad for her mother to miss the beginning of something momentous in this wedding.   She thinks that this period of imprisonment might have been a version of ‘sleep’ for the Heart…maybe she’s cycling now and will soon wake as something new and different. Other Treeborn might find that thought blasphemous.