Camellia

Camellia is awake when I rise, seemingly not having slept. I slip out of Bran’s arms and join her at the fire. She’s reminiscing about how reckless she was when she was younger (less than ten years, she tells me with a chuckle). Maybe next time she’ll be a scoundrel, she thinks. And over tea, she tells me of her family. For once, I feel like another culture’s family structure is more complex than I can understand! She tells me of her (first?) partner, Jederich. He was a few years older than she - a warrior and poet. He was Spring and she was Summer, and together they had Neela-Noren. She speaks happily of this child, who she describes as a dreamer. Then there’s Iish, who has been a wizard and a mystic alternately for all six of their years. She says they’re trapped in a cycle of how and why, and that they’re so curious about the world. Right now they’re with a group of human adventurers, she thinks. And then Gal-Jalia. She tells me it’s her first time being a father, and that is new and hard for her. Mothers stay in sync with their children for 4-5 years, but fathers don’t. She thinks that Gal is listening to songs that make him brave but not fearless. She sounds so proud. She asks if I have children and I laugh. At times it feels like all elves are my children, with the things I have to do. And I have my apprentices and my family. I think I do quite enough mothering already. Perhaps I’m more of a nanny for the elvish people; I think the Empress would be our mother. She just hands off tasks to me sometimes.