24.5 Memories of the Future

General Summary

Day 403

The three of us emerge from the Grove and find Yneir smiling and waiting.  

You didn't just follow destiny; you made it!

  Again I try to ignore her and return to the village to find Renelli while I send Camellia to fetch the rest of the family. Renelli herself is lecturing her fellow witches on illusions that draw directly from the caster's memory. Constructing such an illusion will inevitably lead to inconsistencies and flaws that betray the illusion but by casting directly from your memory you can make the spell more coherent and robust. She is demonstrating with memories of the Imperial Gardens and I'm eager to join my own memories with hers.   I've gone one step further than her, drawing in my heart magic and overlaying the visual illusion with the feeling of walking through those shaded pathways and enjoying the cool breeze whisking the sun off your skin. The magic takes hold of me in exchange and suddenly the illusion is growing with ancient fae memories as well as my own - fae and elves walk together through the Capital just like they once did in the ruined city by the Northern Grove. I feel the foundation of our shared illusion crumble as my magic speeds past hers and I release mine as well, smiling at her.   She dismisses her audience and leads me and Tira towards Wen's home, towards Dal. The dungeon she constructed is so very human in nature - full of little cracks that let in the light and shadow. We step easily into the hallway and Renelli leads us down into the excavated earth level that contains Dal.   There are powerful wards humming with electricity but they are no match for Tira, who baits them into destroying themselves with their unbalanced and crudely constructed strength. And once they are gone there is just my beloved Dal held to the wall by roots that wrap around him and into him. At my entreating they release him and I catch him in my arms as he falls. He is so thin, gaunt and weak. In the Dreaming he looked nearly unchanged but here I can see the torture he's gone through.   Out in the open, free from that hollowed out shell of a tree I can see his hands and feet are mangled as though they've been broken repeatedly. Tira is trembling beside me as I hold him and wait for the others to arrive, leaking renewal into his brutalized body. If we had seen him before speaking to Wen I don't think either of us could have restrained ourselves.   Still, he's alright and he's awake with that frustrating crooked smile.  

I felt like I was getting through to her....teaching her to build a family on love and not hatred and anger...

  And I'm sure he was. Who could resist him teaching that sort of thing? Whatever horrible, awful, nightmare love she felt for him was real to her. But my thoughts are interrupted as suddenly Lyssa is here, Bran and Alder, Knotrael and Hella, Mystery and Camellia, wrapping him in tears and love. Electricity crackles in Lyssa's eyes as she notices his mangled limbs and I snatch up her hand and give it a squeeze. Whatever justice was owed for that has been dealt already.   When Dal catches sight of Mystery he startles before giving a bow. One day I will remember to explain her before someone encounters her but today I've had a lot of my mind and I think I cannot be blamed! Still, he takes it well enough in stride, easygoing Dal.   Unfortunately not so easygoing as Bran and I figure out how to fix the deep wounds he's sustained. Between my strong sleep magic and Bran's skill at...making...we manage to set his bones again. As we work I can feel Bran Fatespinning to correct what was done to him.   As we've been huddled here outside Wen's tree the village has largely ignored us, especially Yneir who seems to have enough sense to stay away for now. For the night we make our way into the Grove, trusting it to ward off any intruders. It reacts to Magdalena in a hopeful way and she tells us to go on alone while she takes care of some things.   So the evening finds us camped near a small stream beneath Grove trees that feel like a curse upon them has been lifted. Lyssa and Alder busy themselves cooking as I get to sit with Dal's head in my lap, playing with his grown-out hair until Magdalena returns. When she does appear she beckons me to follow her deeper into the Grove and so I transfer Dal's head to Lyssa's care and slip out of the camp after her.   We wind up deep in the Grove where the trees become tangled and impassable, much like the border between the Northern Grove and my tree. Here, she turns and faces me frankly.   The people in the village carry tools and weapons made of Grove wood and it is a feat of remarkable restraint that she has not killed them already. For this, I am grateful. I tell Wen's story and the story of the village with as much a measured tone as I can manage until I have to tell her how these people consumed Grove sap to possess whatever skills Wen had distilled from the mutilated trees. Bile rises in my throat as I recount her journey to the Northern Grove and how she was chased off as an abomination and still continued to try and transform these unknowing people into fae.   Between the two of us is still a disagreement - one fae who thinks these crimes are worthy of execution and one who is still unwilling to kill off people who have a chance at redemption. We might be able to sever their bond with the trees the way the Fae of Leaf and Vine did, or transform them into fae with a real connection to the Grove like we did with Dawn. Our conclusion feels hollow to me - we're going to let Bran examine the threads in the village and tell us whether the future is brighter for fae if they live or die. I think the role of executioner is not one he will want to play and so it is Magdalena's responsibility to ask for it.   Fortunately she has other, brighter things to discuss. I am as emotionally exhausted as I can remember ever being. But as she directs me to look up at the trees we stand beneath, I feel the exhaustion recede.   The trees here are not the iridescent seasonal trees in the shallower parts of the Grove, nor are they the deep purple of my tree. These are silver with speckles of gold in single branches throughout the canopy. I don't recognize them and why would I? They're Celestial trees, a surprise even to Magdalena.   In the Pruning the Celestial Fae were hunted for much the same reason as the Fae of Day and Night. Where my people were long-lived and had a cycle that stretched out comfortably, Celestial Fae lived in a decade of sleep for a century of wakefulness, progressing through their four-period cycle in sequence just like the Fae of Leaf and Vine. Instead of inheriting songs during their sleep they lived fully awake in the Dreaming and learned directly from fae who lived there. Other Celestial Fae who had finished with the waking world and retired to the Dreaming after death (like Thalien?) to live forever. They were a race of people who never truly died and jealousy springs eternal.   But these trees...they're sheltered within a seasonal Grove and that must have meant that at some point late in the Pruning some seasonal fae knew that this was worth protecting. I wonder if there are more...if maybe other seasonal fae kept their cousins safe in stasis until those trees could be rediscovered with love.   Nestled here in the roots of ancient trees I put both Magdalena and myself to sleep and reach out towards the Dreaming, searching for more family. When I open my eyes it feels like we've vaulted up kilometres into the sky with the heavens opening up around us. We are alone for just a moment before a brilliant silvery girl comes drifting out towards us, smiling at Magdalena.  

Elder!  The heavens have shifted since we last saw someone new...is it time for us to pass? Are you here to take and preserve us?

  She greets Magdalena so gracefully and respectfully. There is no fear or loathing in her voice...is this what it once was? Is it just the Fae of Seasons who feel so repulsed by my...companion? The word 'teacher' slips in my mind but no immediate replacement offers itself up. I still don't know what to call her. We haven't had time to write a new word into being for us.  

I only come for those who have no hope left.

  And her attention turns to me. Her dialect is so old that it is just as removed from my ancient fae memories as the modern tongue but I have no distractions and I can understand if I try. Once again, I explain how I came to be and that I am both fae and...elf...except that these people don't know what elves are.   Surrounded by hundreds of fae in celebration, Magdalena and I explain the barest necessary threads of history to understand how the world now stands. And after that it is just simple, easily flowing conversation about my family and magic and the kind of life I lead. One fae of each other aspect in their cycle make themselves especially friendly: A charming red-headed man with crimson wings for the blood moon, a very handsome fae as shining and golden as Yneir (ugh),  and a dark-haired woman with translucent star-speckled wings.   The woman, Nal, steals me away for a little while to talk more about magic. Perched high in the boughs of the Celestial trees feels like being home in my garden, staring up at the sky as I think about whatever arcane formula has been plaguing me that week. Nal is similar - a researcher who spent her life working on magical mysteries and wayfinding in the stars. She tells me about the schools that the Celestial Fae once had in the Dreaming and how when it was time for someone to live as a wizard they would simply attend school for their decade of sleep. The Celestials don't distinguish between mysticism and arcane magic and while that may have surprised me not too long ago, I have a very personal appreciation for being both a wizard and a mystic.   By the end of the night Nal makes me a curious request: To travel together, in parallel, so that we can continue our friendship in the Dreaming even as I travel far away. "Starlight sisters", she says, and works a magic to connect us much like I am bonded to my family in the waking world. No matter where I appear in the Dreaming, we will be able to find one another. I can't wait to introduce her to Andstella. The fae side of my family is rapidly expanding already.