30.3 Complicated Magic

Days 461 - 467

After a full night of partying the summer fae bed down and say goodnight to everyone else. Jerun is disappointed to be missing the wedding but I assure him there will be plenty of other opportunities for joy and connection amongst my family in the future.   The following days pass in conversation and magical work.  

Rina

I finally get to speak with Rina about going to the Empire even though it's clear she has already decided to go and just needs some reassurance. It's nice to get the chance. Her questions are tough but not surprising - she wants to know if she feels like an elf, if people will treat her fairly, and if there are other complicated people there. Her magic does feel elvish, of course, and it's bolstered by the sacrifice her mother made. But she feels human as well in the same way that I feel both fae and elvish. In my case, at least, the different magic is harmonious. For Rina she has two magics that don't play well together. Her Candlemaker magic stops her from touching shadows completely while the shade keeps her light from shining as brightly as it otherwise would. Based on everything I've seen from human (Zephyr) magic I can't imagine the pieces harmonizing...but I have thoughts on how it might. Maybe one day it will be something I can tinker with, an reformation of No Moon's war in a different way. I would love to see Zephyr magic transformed into something modular that welcomes communion with all the other magic that exists.   As for what people will see in her, I tell her honestly that I don't know but that people tend to see whatever you show them. She knows she's not an abomination. I'm glad I'm sending the three young women together so they can lean on one another but all three of them are strange in their own way and strong enough to stand alone if they have to. And of course there are plenty of complicated elves back home. Apparently Rina has been hearing from Alrudian of the songs and stories told about me back home.   The best advice I can give her is to be herself, which is advice that most youngsters do not want to hear. Instead I tell her that people might look askance at outsiders but the secret is that there are always far more outsiders than anyone thinks. The best thing to do is to find your people and stick with them...and not to pick fights that you can't win.  

Armour

The next task is armour. I'm fortunate to be found by a young midnight fae named Olneya as I am lurking about trying to find anyone who knows enough about leather working to make me something suitable. He's young but he has memories of being an armourer and is interested in trying again, though he first asks about a set of mail. It seems he remembers forging mail out of an iridescent metal and is amazed when I rummage about and produce the arcanum given to me by Onyx.   But instead of mail, we agree to try to make something out of the wyrmling hide and arcanum inlays. The hide itself is tricky since it belonged to a fiery aggressive creature more suited to berserkers than the magic I practice. But between Olneya, Kaide, and myself we come to the conclusion of tying it to the dusk predator magic I rarely have had cause to use. And better - he can make us two paired breastplates that will act as a magical conduit between us.   In exchange I have him over for dinner one night with Lyssa and Kaide. He claims that he wanted this trade because of Lyssa's cooking but Kaide wastes no opportunity to tease me about this young fae mooning after me. I don't know if I will ever grow accustomed to the strangeness of a 6 year old adult.   It takes three days of work to complete the armour and it turns out better than I could have hoped. It eases the predatory magic and lets me sustain it for nearly an hour without tiring, extending it to Kaide as well. And it protects my wings with smooth plates of arcanum around the joints!  

Storage

After completing the armour I settle down alone with Kaide to finally put my four-dimensional storage plans into practice. As I had sketched out in the Grotto, we combine the seeds and fuse their properties together while guiding the resulting plant through a guide trellis of magic circles until it yields a fruit grown in the structure of the storage space I need.   The base seed is a pomelo which gets combined with numerous seeds containing compression and layered properties (peech, peony, fern) and flexibility (willow). An apple seed leaves the box with a softer, magically malleable surface that I might be able to connect to yet another space if need be. For now, the orange-sized ball opens to reveal six segments of extra-dimensional space which I infuse with magic to hold their contents steady and secure. Two of them get combined with seeds from the Unfreezing Sea to produce a cold room and an ice room, and a third segment is protected by Kaide with magic to seal in any magical artefacts that we place there. It will be a safe location for anything that might be tracked by someone else or be leaking magic that needs to be contained. The entire fruit is also seeded with my own blood, making it loyal to me and anyone sworn to me. It may not be as secure as the heart space Magdalena helped me create but it is an extremely functional piece of magic and I can't wait to show Amytri.   I'm sure the spherical nature of it will baffle him and I'll return to find some cubic metal construction when he does the same for himself. For now it feels good to tuck away all my heavy potions, materials, and Kaide's tools into a safe space.  

Day 468

With three days left until the wedding I finally get the chance to sit down with Lyssa and Kaide and plan out the coronation that will follow. The structure of oaths made by an elvish lord to the Empire is easy to modify for how non-elvish these communities are and Lyssa seems happy with this. Kaide points out that the leaders here should not just be lords and to use that language would be to lower them in the eyes of their people.   I have to agree, especially after all the teasing I've dedicated to how Amytri and Torrick are kings. It wouldn't do to give that up and make them lords. Instead I think it will become a norm here that that in the Outlands of the Empire we have city states and principalities ruled by monarchs who are loyal to their Hand and to the Empress. By the time anyone on the other side of the Barrier has a chance to disagree it will have already been done and they'll have to disagree to my face if they care so much.   The creation of these monarchies raises the need to form a governing body with representatives from each. This is a task I feel more than happy to leave to the monarchs themselves.   And there are still other titles that need to be bestowed. I don't know what titles Andstella and Zadiyah wish to hold but they are family and it deserves a conversation rather than an instruction. I am not at all assured that Zadiyah has any interest in being a queen (and it might be a fight in itself to get her to tell me what she really wants) but I still want her in charge of the Keep and that area. Lord Commander, maybe. And as much as I have teased Andstella about being a princess I do think she is fit to be a queen and I hope she accepts the title if I suggest it.   Lyssa though, deserves to be a Dread Lord, and it would make me very happy to enact that rite before our delegation leaves for the Empire. I keep the thought private but I intend to see the Empress in Deldrin before they depart and this has risen to the top of what I hope to discuss. My place as a Hand and Kaide's future as an independent entity can be managed without her knowledge for a long while still. To make Lyssa a Dread Lord needs to come from her directly.   After several hectic days I finally have the time to write to Mystery (Trillium?) and pass along what Uncle told me about home and her parents. I feel a thrill of anxiety telling her so much about people she doesn't remember but has every reason to love - I worry that it will hurt more than it helps and that knowing but not being able to reach out to them will be painful. But she is resilient and I am not going to shield her from truths that might hurt instead of giving her the support she needs to face them.