Day 449
When I wake up from the prescribed afternoon nap my mind is full of thoughts. Kaide and I have rested like leaves overtop of one another, bodies curled together with my arms around her. I wake feeling confused - doesn't my sister usually sleep facing me?
But that thought is of another sister in another time, and I sit up to write down the memory of
My First Sister that is already slipping back into feelings I have about Liliales and ancient family. The detailed vignette comes bundled with other memories of fae and elves living together where elves had evolved their own traditions around songs at the end of their lives. Close friends and family members would gather to sing about the departed - it wasn't uncommon for families that didn't have anyone talented in music to invite others to help assemble a song. Elven funerals had also come to include music played by either family, friends, or trusted guests.
Ancient elves, so near to the Fae of Leaf and Vine, had a saying,
If one were to lose everyone they loved and cared about in this world, they still wouldn't ever die unsung as long as there were fae to pick up their tune.
It fits together with what we learned in the ruins of Avan'Nal. The most recent songs we found there had music in the background, played by people other than the person singing their song. I wonder still though - Sandstorm spoke with such firmness that the location had been selected as a grim reminder to the fae of their lost cousins. This saying ringing in my mind is a bridge between the outcast former-fae and those who kept their wings. There's always been love here even where there has been tension.
Nowadays at elvish funerals we still have music but it is instrumental. The dead don't have lyrical songs to chronicle their lives but attendees might share stories or poetry alongside emotion-laden music that recalls the memory of the loved one. Each song is an invitation for others to reflect on memories they have that are triggered by the music. Hundreds of independent branches spring forth from that single root without narration or words rather than a single trunk shooting upwards, following the deceased's story.
When Kaide wakes she can tell I've had an unusually impactful dream, which I describe to her. She wonders if maybe elves have picked up habits from the Osyr we've bonded with. Osyr funerals are about returning to the deep and music always gets deeper and slower as the ceremony continues, finishing with a low drone.
We take some time reading the letters that Magdalena has sent each of us. The content of mine is unassuming aside from the now-passed fear that Magdalena was injured in an irrecoverable way. But Kaide returns from her reading looking contemplative.
She asked an unfair question, but at least she acknowledged it as unfair. She wants to know if I would make the same choice that I did back then, only I can't remember what I did. She's offering a third option aside from reuniting with the Empress and picking up from the last of my memories. Perhaps we could create something new.
I know that she was disappointed when my other self chose to be a ruler; she said it was throwing away my talent and that being an Empress was a waste.
This, I find interesting, for Magdalena has ever so subtly pushed me towards leadership in these lands. Whether it is because this place needed it or it aligns with her own goals or simply because this is an extension of my talents and not a distraction, I can't be sure.
Kaide will need to spend some time thinking and as part of this I raise the idea that has been rattling around in my head. When I write letters to take back across the Barrier I will have to sign my name to them as Fifth Hand...except that such a title is not one that anyone will recognize or associate with me back home. I feel its rightful weight here but I would like to commune with the Empress in Deldrin before I am ready to claim it in the Capital. I think it would be good for Kaide to get to speak with her as well - perhaps it will be easier to hear about this choice from the Empress rather than Magdalena. Fortunately she agrees, and so plans begin to shape up in my head as to our path after the wedding.
Eventually Amytri and Hella arrive and we all head out to a lovely rooftop restaurant serving adapted dwarvish foods. It is simple fare, clearly intended for the taster to appreciate the core of what they're eating rather than being obscured by spices and sauces.
As we eat Amytri probes me for thoughts on sending a delegation to Dreamfall for a cultural exchange, maybe 100? 50? I tell him how many people I recall being in Dreamfall last I was there but try my best to defer such a decision to Andstella in the coming week. It is over my mild estimations that a sudden metal bolt embeds itself in his neck, a fraction of an inch away from his spine.
The ensuing chaos is filled with blood spraying from Amytri's throat and ice magic deflecting more bolts (it was Kaide's magic that sent the bolt off-target in the first place) before I send both Osyr mages into the streets to hunt down the source of the attack. All of us saw a flash from a high tower nearby but I turn my mind from the racing thoughts and slice open my own arms, tying myself to Amytri's sputtering life force.
At a glance the bolt looks Collective-made and I am plunged into the past, blood pooling around my fingers as I purge my own energy into Mistress, Doraal, and Amytri bleeding out in front of me. But my fingers feel the coarse metal and ridges of a crude mold and I can tell this was just a copy, just enemies learning from enemies. I collect myself again and summon the complicated, multiplicative healing power of Day Breaker to wound myself and pour the released energy fivefold back into our bond. It takes a few seconds before I'm willing to set aside the familiar forged sword and rely only on things more recently leaned.
Guards are rushing into the room and I send them off again to search the streets and fetch Onyx to me, who joins the bond and becomes a steady mountain of energy and stability while I work. I tie together the pain-dulling magic that Wayin showed me with the barely-perceptible threads of order and organization from the intricate dwarven bracers that Nienne bought for me. Through the blood I can sense severed veins, arteries, tiny fragments of bones and a punctured airway amidst loose tendons and chewed up muscle.
I loosen my magical grip on Day Breaker and reach instead for the healing that came with my fae wings and music. It is more effective than I could have hoped and even as the blood continues to pool on the floor I can feel that we're not losing ground and I have a chance to work more carefully. The artery knits itself back together as I direct flesh to grow along a matrix of shining white energy and the wheezing, spurting blood stops.
In the distance I can hear another explosion and the sound of a building collapsing (familiar) but I don't tear my eyes away. Through our bond Onyx keeps watch.
The trachea patches itself delicately and I do the same to the last major vein before releasing my tight grip on the structure and letting the energy run wild over the wound, filling in the gaps and leaving Amytri pale, trembling and unconscious, but alive and stable. One of his guards escorts us to his workshop at my direction, where he tells us we will be safe. With others carrying Amytri I am able to send off a quick note to Lyssa and I see her flame in the distance rise and speed towards us barely seconds after my bird departs.
Solace, quickly please.
Amytri's workshop is guarded...or at least it was. Two guards lie dead while one wounded stands before the door, saluting and giving us the go-ahead to safety. I can feel the magical wards on the area - enough to contain whatever havoc Amytri might produce while working. It feels safe but Onyx and I both remain on edge with Amytri between us. Eventually Kaide arrives and tells us that they captured a prisoner and Hella is guarding him. It seems that there were two teams of traitors amongst Solace's guards in nearby towers who orchestrated the attack. They seemed like local radicals - enemies of Amytri and not me, though they were spouting vitriol about not letting elves remake their world. As I turn the bolt over in my hands it occurs to me that I never inspected the bolt that hit me in Brighton. It's a shame...I don't even know where it ended up. Presumably somewhere where human smiths could make unwieldy copies of it, I suppose. This one is different though - flat-backed instead of notched for a cord.
We take a moment together as I tend to her wounds - dislocated shoulder, badly bruised left arm.
It's not Hella's fault, no matter what she tells you.
And with tea in hand I go off to find my apprentice and our prisoner, leaving word with the guards that if a lightning elf arrives she is to be let in to see Onyx and Amytri, though I sort of think she will hone in on wherever I am.
My little human apprentice is in another room in the tower watching an unconscious man who has been tied to a chair and surrounded by half-metre walls of ice on all sides. She looks a little worse for wear but nothing that can't be easily tended to tomorrow. Regardless, I let my healing magic radiate out weakly as I put an arm around her and remark that Kaide's arm will be just fine.
She looks so sad and angry with herself and it is such a young, childlike expression that it's hard not to smile despite the situation. Guiltily she tells me that the building collapsing was her fault and that Kaide saved her from it. She was just so angry that she lost her control and wanted to kill them all regardless of the cost. If Kaide hadn't deflected it, the other bolt fired at us would have hit me, she says angrily.
I have to chuckle a little. Despite her status as apprentice to the Fifth Hand she is still young, still somewhat inexperienced. This is only her second (maybe third?) time facing such a desperate moment and she and Kaide have had no time to figure out how to work together under such conditions. That sort of thing takes time and she'll learn it eventually. What matters right now is that she didn't get hurt and at this point in time, everyone else is fine as well. There is a growing, gnawing thought at the back of my head that Amytri would have been dead without me though. Perhaps would have been dead even with me, if I hadn't strengthened my healing magic, if Onyx hadn't been nearby, if I hadn't been able to hold so much complicated healing spellcraft in my head as I worked.
They called me a traitor. They hurled the phrase "elf friend" like it was an insult!
And at this I really do have to laugh. From the shy girl in her parents' tavern who touched my pointed ears in wonder to this furious young woman who brings down buildings because someone threatened our family. For the moment, with everyone either healthy or mending, it feels safe to laugh a bit.
Comments