Day 516
Emerging from the Empress' chambers leaves me still in a dreamlike state. I wander about the lower levels for a bit continuing with my notes, drawn back to the strange chaotic magic I'd observed on my first visit here, wondering if I might get a simple answer out of the library to accompany the vast, complicated a questions permeating my life.
It's simple enough - Osyr engineering containing a natural phenomenon leftover from the energy of an ancient impact on the area. Many people have studied it. I see no need to do so and it feels good to encounter a mystery I don't need to solve.
Before I ascend to the shallower levels I pause and examine my own magic, hunting for something changed inside me that I might need to explain. It is buried deeply and interwoven with my existing oaths but there is a difference if I look carefully enough. The blood I took back included a drop from the Empress herself, giving me the freedom to defy her orders if need be. From her blood I feel the echoes of the racial bond and if I stretch my awareness out I can feel each elven life present in the city. I think if any of them were to truly focus on their bond they might feel me too, as though a wisp of the Empress has appeared in the library. Amidst all these dim lights I sense Lyssa approaching on the horizon.
Beneath me my shadow descends into unfathomable darkness, inky and pooling despite the mage lights I have hung to guide me. The connection to it feels stronger in a way I can't quite understand right now.
Back on the third level Kaide has restored the passageway and is working on fixing the runes on the walls, blissfully unaware of the knowledge I now hold. I can reassure her that a meeting would be physically safe and that the Empress wants her to have every opportunity to discover herself but there is still a vast chasm between what Kaide knows of herself and what I now know about the Empress. She asks me to share it because she would rather hear it from me.
So I tell her what I saw, in as sanitized a version as I can. I tell her about the Ingan and her hometown, the message that she was supposed to be, and taking elves as weapons. At some point I stop saying 'you' and start saying 'she' as I refer to the Empress. I tell her about how the other her took the place of our grove trees and severed elves from fae forever.
No wonder teacher hates me...
And the dreamspace snaps away from me and I see my sad sister-companion hurting from something she didn't do that our teacher has no right to hold over her. I have every hope that when we finally collide Magdalena will have experienced enough to know that she is lucky to have a second chance to love her senior student. For now, Kaide and the Empress will have their meeting tomorrow.
Before we leave the library we peek around in the newly uncovered sections and find a room dedicated to document preservation. Ancient books and copies of ancient books, reference magic, and book making supplies are all in tatters save for some precious metal leaf and an enormous roll of soft grey leather. This apparently belonged to a great manta, an enormous creature of water and air that swam in the depths and could also glide above the ways. Kaide seems excited at the prospect of showing them to me one day.
It is late night when we emerge and she goes to sleep immediately as I trudge back to the inn and find only Liliales still awake and active. It is nice hearing about his day - showing off a bit in front of human wizards and navigating the subtle racism of people who think he is a spring fae. Apparently one human wizard was quite determined to make him a senior apprentice.
I hope tomorrow or the day after that he will come meet the Empress. He asks such earnest questions about what she is like ("complicated, lonely") and why she wants to meet him ("You're someone worth meeting"). I think they will be good for each other.
Day 517
I wake to find Lyssa's arms around me having snuck in overnight. Together we sneak off to find a quiet place for breakfast and find ourselves in a corner café decorated with paintings I recognize as belonging to Norrick the Lapis. While his technique is still not to my liking his subject matter has improved - elves feature prominently, including imagery of them protecting the city and citizens over the storm.
Lyssa's report is thorough and accompanied by hands interwoven in mine, draped over my knee, shoulders touching, my wing warming from its closeness to her back.
She did find time to stop in Eir and check on Bran, who is struggling not only with the political events but with whatever Yneir means to him. She is still so deeply in love with a version so similar to the real Bran that he doesn't know how to untangle it. For all his elven sensibilities he is still very human at the heart of it - he promised to marry Vaneilli and it is hard to fathom forging a connection with Yneir as well despite having ample awareness that many of us enjoy our multiple loves. They'll work it out, I'm sure. At least Yneir has stopped calling him 'husband'.
From Nucifera he says he is learning necessary but uncomfortable things, as distasteful as learning warfare when you hope you will never need it but you know one day you will.
The conclusion on Eir is largely that it will probably be fine in the short-term, being so distant and so lacking in any further threatening resources. Neither Lyssa nor I have the capacity to put down roots there and if we want to establish a bond now, it is something that only one of us would be able to encourage. So Bran will be leaving soon and it will take him about three weeks to reach the Weaver's Village.
Amytri is working hard on the cultural exchange between the city states in the Outlands and Andstella has very shrewdly been sending out groups of fae in quads to represent Dreamfall. But the real winner seems to be New Whitewater under the guidance of Wayla. She has orchestrated it so that they are not sending out any folks this year and instead are taking in people to become more cultured so that when they start exporting they will be educated and wiser. I'm sure in small part it is to keep her remaining daughter close to home as well.
And Amytri is also thinking of how to traverse the Unfreezing Sea, potentially with bridges reminiscent of those in Deldrin. I will have to send him whatever reference material I can from the library.
But eventually it is my turn to share and while I try to start at the beginning and tell her about K'savi and Frozen Shade and Mec Ales she gets to the heart of the matter, so to speak.
What has changed you?
I should have known. Having used her eyes and senses before I should have known I couldn't hope to keep this to myself. And I am glad I get to tell her before anyone else because the explanation is so raw, unpolished, chaotic in my description. Words tumble out of me - Empress, unbound, heartbeat, Imperator, inheritor, inner family. I don't know if I have done the circumstance justice and I don't know how I possibly could, especially to Lyssa who has listened while I twist my fears over and over and dodge any implication that I am an Empress myself.
To me the idea has settled into something the Empress did not tell me aloud: One person cannot bear the weight of an Empire alone. One person alone cannot love this people and still have anything left over for herself. One person cannot plot the course of an ever-growing nation at war and remain kind-hearted and resilient.
Lyssa gets it faster than I did - the reason that it felt different saying yes this time compared to when anyone else has called me an Empress.
She's asking you to share the burden.
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