52.5 Night Falls Everywhere

General Summary

Day 1070

Liliales and the others join us hardly an hour after we have all left the council chambers. Evidently the dinner did not last long after that disturbance. And my little son rightfully points out that having people step out of sheer darkness in the midst of the castle the humans have taken for their own…is very frightening to the humans. It is not a concern to me or Darkness, and Liliales reports that he planted seeds to suggest that the human council develop a clear relationship with the Empire and bring themselves under Imperial protection. Maybe a permanent elvish seat on the council, maybe a permanent Osyr seat. I laugh at this - it’s a very good idea, and would give us two seats in total, since Nishvalen will surely win one of the ‘human’ seats in good order.   Trillium sucker punches Void when she sees him - a righteous move but one that slowly calms down as we explain everything Void has been through and why he left so urgently. By the end of the night, she and Void are laughing like siblings again, and she is chattering happily with Oblivion about their shared experiences being utterly forgotten.   Wildfire and I settle down together to enjoy her happiness and he tells me that he never thought true dragons would welcome him or his people. It’s funny - Wildfire talking about ‘true dragons’ in this company…demon-dragon, elf-dragon, dragon-fae, elf-dragon-fae. But Void and Darkness point out that it seems to only be the youngsters who are obsessed with race like that. The elders know what’s really important.   Besides, with the Demon-Dragon Clan now at the Keep, we are sure to see more and more babies of mixed racial heritage. Demons are, after all, unusually charming.  

Day 1071

Once everyone is awake and actually moving around, Eusphyra arrives to discuss the next steps. Of course we will need to heal Black Tourmaline and wake up the Osyr, but there is some untangling that we need to do first. The magic sustaining all of the sleeping Osyr is at risk of collapsing when Black Tourmaline disconnects from it, but with Oblivion and Ausha and I working together, it is not much trouble to rearrange the lines and keep things tidy.   Once the Osyr wake, Eusphyra’s plan is for them to be housed at the other four hidden islands throughout the city. Now that I am here, I can tweak the wards to open them up to more than those who were originally intended to be there…all four were once elite places of training for the Imperial military. They were all deliberately made to be hidden and still contain things that likely should not be released into anyone’s hands. Once the wards have been modified, I send the youngsters out to clear out the islands and make them habitable for more common inhabitants. For now, these islands will only be accessible to Imperial citizens, with one of them eventually serving as an embassy to the human part of the city.   The hidden islands are also part of the magical enchantment keeping people alive. The magical engineering on display is incredible, and I can also see Black Tourmaline’s work at play in its design. She was one of the original Imperial Sorcerers, and incredibly adept at structured magic with metal and crystals. And she is a small dragon, compared to me and Starfield, but still vast compared to a humanoid. Darkness tells us that he will make sure she wakes fully and immediately, without the drowsy incoherent stage that sometimes pops up after a very long slumber in dragons. Apparently dragons of Fire often have the most trouble and will rampage in their half-asleep state, but with Darkness present, we can avoid it entirely.   When Eusphyra and I go out to inspect the state of the islands, he tells me more about them.   The island where my family has taken up residence is the Shadowed Depths Academy of Magic, a school which came into being after the Empress' ascension. It was focused on finding overlap between the magic practiced by Osyr and the elves who were now a core part of the Empire. Those who trained here would have been given the title of Imperial Sorcerer, so Kadia must have studied here in her day.   The Everflowing Mystic Pearl is a much older school with a focus in mysticism and elementalism. Many of the long-lasting magic artefacts created by Osyr were built here, including things like my pearl. Ausha says that she knew of it, but by the time she was skilled enough to attend or teach, she was already following Teacher. There is also the Crashing Wave War College, which was a place of mounted warriorship both atop ocean creatures and waves. Some of the curriculum here would have been about sending waves inland - surely a useful tool against Ingans.   And the last two schools bear distinctly elvish arts about them. The Midnight Blossom Temple still carries traces of Uncle Red’s magic (along with a statue of him as Headmaster) and taught a tradition of elvish berserker fighting that I’ve seen Mistress use when calling her warrior ancestors. The Leaf Shadow Night School was presided over by one of Deldrin’s dragon guardians - Leaf Shadow, a master of moving quietly and secretly.   The last of Deldrin’s guardians is still trapped with Trillium, and Eusphyra tells me that Nightfall was the soul of Deldrin - an accomplished mage and mystic who helped the Osyr resist the Longing. They kept the despair at bay, and kept people’s morale’s up during the war.   With our preparations complete, Eusphyra and I rest for a while and chat more about Deldrin, the Outlands, and our future on this side of the Barrier. He’s had his fair share of issues dealing with humans and their human lifespans - it’s hard to convince them to think beyond the short term. Even those with children seem to have trouble thinking generationally. I think in time they’ll recognize the pattern of things improving on a time scale that one human can’t observe.   After all - they weren’t supposed to have magic like this - they’re a Lesser Race. They don’t have a long-lived racial memory like the rest of us do. How do they make sense of being so short-lived and also powerful? I recount the conversation that Ausha and I had with Wyn the Azure on this very subject, and Eusphyra tells me that he’s witnessed at least one drunk wizard was sobbing over the same questions.   Warm and happy with the success of the day, I feel free spitballing ridiculous ideas. Maybe we introduce them to demons, and see their lifespans extend from those relationships? Maybe we replace their zephyr magic with something else? Dragon magic?  

Day 1072

The full city has fallen into a festival as the joy from the elvish quarter infects the human city - they hardly need to know what an Imperator is to drink to it. Most of the inhabitants are happy and carefree, with children running around playing at being dragons and describing the colour of their scales and their impressive magical powers. Amidst this, an elderly man stands on a street corner wailing about doom, destruction, the dragons who have come to slaughter their gods and take their place.   Unable to resist, I point out that I have done nothing of the sort and that he has nothing to fear from dragons unless he keeps pissing us off. In our spirited (albeit logically one-sided) debate, he makes the mistake of calling me a ‘herald of Darkness’, and the shadows around us deepen almost without any effort on my part. From across the street, Darkness calls over that I can’t be his herald because I am family, and obviously family can’t be herald to one another.   At this, a young boy puffs out his chest and claims that he wants to be the herald of Darkness, if I can’t. Before I can react, Darkness taps him on the head and bestows what I can clearly see is a gift of dragon magic that will grow and devour this child’s Zephyr-gifted magic until nothing remains. This young child will forever be dragon-touched, perhaps the same way Ricken is, or maybe in some other impossible-to-predict way. And his younger sister is standing right beside him, untouched.   At Darkness’ encouragement, I give my own dragon gift to the younger girl. Where her brother’s magic was easily inverted from Candlemaker to shadow, I can strengthen her fire with the nurturing, life-giving fire that Rainbow taught me.  

Night falls everywhere. You can go anywhere. You can be anything.

  The children pelt off, cheering and laughing with excitement. It’s a wild and reckless thing to have done, but I somehow think we should do it more often. Planting seeds of chaos that will help people develop resilience to diversity. Darkness says he will check with Trenali and Rainbow about a magical solution that would analyze a human’s talent and give them a gift that would overpower the Zephyr magic and give them a new opportunity. I exchange a glance with Eusphyra, amused that our late night theory crafting has paid off so immediately.   The eventual waking of Black Tourmaline and the Osyr goes off without a hitch. She breaks the surface of the lake at dusk and launches into the air with an earth-shattering roar as Starfield and I calmly hover around the lake to keep her safe. The humans cheer and applaud from their places on the rooftops.   She looks confused as she catches sight of me, but the three of us all descend to the island where Darkness is waiting. Her humanoid form is not a copy of any race I know, but some rocklike figure of her own design. She is black and gold with the crystalline spikes from her dragon form, quite short and stout.   And she is full of questions, but we usher her inside and settle her down with food and rest before attempting to explain the enormity of time and activity that she has slept through. It is all I can do to explain the barest premise of Ricken, as she senses the connection immediately. The details will have to wait.