4.3 Place, Purpose, Love

Day 35

It is early afternoon but we decide to make camp anyway. Rosalia hunts, I forage, and Bran and Alder make us a hearth over our campfire. It’s wonderful to have such a full-fledged meal.   With Kadia’s words in my head, I can feel the magic of the frozen lake at a certain point about a kilometre away, cold and icy. When I ask if the fae and trolls hold any animosity towards elves nowadays, two of my companions (sleeping apprentice excluded) tell me that they haven’t seen or heard anything that would indicate so. Bran, however, tells me that shortly after Thalien’s death he met an old troll mystic who told him that the magic Bran was “playing with” could not be understood and controlled, and didn’t belong on this side of the mountains.   Although Kadia didn’t seem enthusiastic about returning seasons to the lake, I think it will be a better way to solve the problem than killing a rageful revenant. Alder tells us of an elven bedtime story, which I don’t recognize, about Renalia and the Stolen Stone. In it, the heroine lives in a village protected by a demon trapped in a stone. While the village is safe from attack, it is also devoid of any joy, for the demon feeds on it. Renalia steals the stone and smashes it far away from the village, in a carnival where there is nothing but joy and laughter. Then, the demon returns to attack the village but they are able to fight it off.   He proposes this as a solution, thinking perhaps we could bring the winter revenant to a place devoid of winter, such as the top of a hillside in the summer sun. I struggle to fit the analogy of the story into our current struggle...surely you shouldn’t release something amidst the very thing it seeks to consume? And surely luring the revenant into the summer will be nearly impossible…   I think the most likely opportunity is to simply show this raging fae that we have changed. That the enemy they once fought is gone, and the new elven empire bears them no ill will. Bran and I are of the same mind on this, but Rosalia is worried I will allow myself to be injured too deeply. I believe that if Bran and I are blood-bonded and she and Alder are ready to intervene, we will be able to manage it.   Wisely, Alder suggests that we leave Hella in the camp. I’m so pleased with how well they get along. It is good for her to have a big brother and not just teachers.   When she wakes for supper she tells me that she spoke with Kadia and learned about how to borrow strength. The more she borrows (and the further from the tree), the harder it will be on Hella’s own strength.  

Day 36

This time I wake before Alder has a chance to rouse me. He has been scouting ahead and says it will take us three hours to get to the lake on foot. This turns out to be true as we head out into the forest. The air slowly becomes both physically and magically cold, and we begin to see snow before we crest a slope and finally see the lake surrounding a lone island. The island itself is in the midst of a snowfall, though no clouds are in sight.   Bran and I bond ourselves before crossing the lake and delving into the island. Along the way we have to fight past three humanoid ice monsters with long, icicle-like nails and six icy owls.   Finally, we reach what is evidently our destination: A magic circle with glyphs in a language I don’t recognize (not even the Osyr language) and sapphire white flames licking around them. A delicate, alabaster blue-skinned fae sits on a boulder in the centre of the circle with a cruel smile.   This looks like someone who has only felt a single emotion for countless years - frozen in more ways than one. As they rise and approach, full of cold hostility and venom, I step toward the boundary of the circle and ask to speak.   “Things have changed in the thousand years you have existed in this form. You are a people based on change. Please listen.”   They are understandably not convinced at my first offering, and hurl a spear of ice so furiously that it shatters my ward and pierces both me and Bran through our bond. Fiercely the revenant asks how dare I speak of change and bring a slave with me, bound to me by my dark magic.   I’m sure if Rosalia was the one designated to decide when to attack, we would already be fighting. Instead, I grit my teeth and try again. He is not my slave, and these are not shackles that bind him. If you hurt him, I will bleed as well.   Another shard of ice pierces Bran and I gasp at the pain I share in my shoulder.   Over the course of a few minutes I desperately try to explain to this revenant how things have changed, and why I’m here. I know nothing of the war that was once fought between our people, and the elves no longer bind with force. The people I carry with me are friends and family, not slaves.   Alder tries to help...by offering his weapons as a sign of good faith. Unfortunately the revenant sees that he is hiding 25 more and tosses him against a tree with a thud.   Still, they feel my magic and my bond to the Empress and snarl at its darkness. I feel my own fury rising at this. I don’t understand! How can a creature of ice and winter not recognize that there is beauty in both light and dark, in the changing of seasons and the cold of winter where others would see nothing but barren emptiness? They speak scornfully of elves that do not see the stars of the night and are concerned only with the shadows around them. Do fae only perceive the world with their eyes? Is there not warmth and comfort in the sounds of the night and the smell of flowers in the darkness?   They sound bitter as they scoff at the idea that an elf would speak to them of flowers, but they seem to calm and at least ask me about the people I walk with and who they are, why we walk together, whether I would bleed for them. And whether they are with me because of a true bond, and not because of what rewards I can offer them.   It’s a difficult question because the answer is so obvious that I can barely articulate it. Why wouldn’t we travel together? We have found a family to love and protect, and why would someone walk away from that? The bond is there whether reinforced by magic or not. I have already bled for them, in every fight we end up in and every fear I hold when I ask them to do something dangerous for me (or when I tell them not to and they do anyway). We are safer and stronger together.   And I don’t offer them anything at all, only the frustration of travelling with someone who barely knows herself and her mission.   Bran interrupts me and the force of his interjection takes me by surprise. I offered my life and wellbeing to rescue Rosalia from death, I offered a home to Bran who had lost his mentor, I offered Alder a way to reconnect with his people, and I offered Hella safety from those who would have abused her in the village.   Finally, the winter revenant calls me to step into the circle and take pain for my people to prove myself. I do so without hesitation, being pummelled by the hailstones whipping around from the wind in the circle. I can feel Bran wincing at the pain as well before he begins healing us even as I continue to be bludgeoned. Bran’s magic overtakes the damage and though I feel the sting of the ice, it doesn’t damage me.   As it dies down, the revenant asks me if the elves have learned to sing again. I think of Thalien singing and coaxing life to notice him in the gardens in our homeland, and I turn to Bran. Bran nods. Yes, the elves have learned to sing again.   And the revenant seems to relax. Just as the ice monsters shattered and died, cracks appear throughout the winter fae and they seem to simply...dissipate on the wind. Snowflakes are all that are left.   As we pick ourselves up, I can feel the remains of a great enchantment unravelling, and the ice around us begins to melt.   I retrieve a small sword from the base of the boulder, and we return to camp, safely making it across the now melting lake. When we return, Hella is safe and working on translating her magic work into elvish.   I don’t want to disturb her, so I speak to Kadia in dreams once more. This time, I see her as an Osyr, with four arms. She tells me that the other purple heart trees are her as well, there is no other mage guarding the forest. Osyr magic works in 4’s, as do the fae’s. Trolls work in 3’s, apparently. She thanks me for what I have done, and for helping her be a little less alone. She is more awake now, and has a purpose again.   She agrees to redirect the magic of the forest to threaten any race that wishes harm against the Empress’ chosen people, and gives me a glyph to inscribe on a piece of stone or wood as a charm of passage for anyone who the spell would normally catch, but who should be granted safe passage.   And she warns me that the trolls and fae will likely never forgive us, but the fae may one day forget. They can’t remember every song that their trees sing to them.