Day 373
We do indeed get three full days together. We are secluded and safe and it feels like we could never have enough of this feeling. When all of this is over I think I might just disappear for a decade with the people I love. Surely the world will have had enough of us after this?
Day 374
When we finally emerge I am armed with precious dwarven espresso, something that makes the early morning bearable. The snow has been melting still and I can see bare ground muddy and wet beneath our feet.
Hand in hand Lyssa and I come across the precise three people I'm looking for: Tira, Alder, and Knotrael.
Tira is comfortably lounging between them, leaning on Alder as he feeds pastries to Knotrael. I snort softly and the boys freeze, eyes wide. Tira laughs, "Look at the two of
them - you have nothing to worry about!"
It's true. If I could be wrapped around Lyssa still I would be. It is only public decorum that reduces us to entangled fingers. Looking at the three of them I can finally connect the threads in my mind. I had certainly thought something would develop between Knotrael and Alder eventually and evidently Tira was more
involved than
advisor as I'd thought.
I chide them for their prey animal response and they relax happily. Knotrael remarks that he might need to ask Doraal if he could leave and join my family. This strikes me as particularly amusing considering I'd last joked to Doraal about stealing Knotrael away in a letter I'd written him.
It's nice seeing Tira so relaxed as she praises Lyssa's elemental mastery from her cozy position between the assassin and the knight. Apparently Lyssa's magic has grown and she has refined it to the point that she can conjure living lightning. She has been fighting ice drakes with her own lightning drakes along with the other incredible things she's learned how to do.
With the rest of the day I gather everyone (and it is becoming quite a long list) for a discussion about what comes next.
Tira, Knotrael, Alder, Lyssa, Hella, Kadia, Camellia, Andstella, Mystery, Magdalena, Dawn, and Miriam. As we gather round, Magdalena notes Lyssa and remarks to me that in a couple more centuries she'll want to spend some time with her as well. This is...the third of my family she's expressed this of!
You're a better collector of people than I
Eventually it is settled who will journey North to free Dal and who will stay here. Only Andstella, Dawn, and Miriam will be staying in Dreamfall but I have plenty of people I need to direct them to. While we are gone they will have the perfect opportunity to strengthen some other relationships.
We will set off in two days. For now we need a night of joy all to ourselves (and the requisite day to recover).
We spend the entire evening in my cottage. Around the outskirts a few fae and dwarves seem curious about us but others usher them back respectfully. I'm glad. These people deserve at least one night of being around just ourselves.
And as all but the dusk and midnight fade away into sleep I find myself alone with Andstella - just the person I needed to see. With her usual grace and understanding she nods when I tell her that I might not return from this particular journey. I might continue onwards on work that only I can do or know of and that means that while I might say my goodbyes to the others later, I must say mine to her now.
In the meantime I leave her the beginnings of a list of things I know we will need to take care of. The other lost groves, relations with the Northern Grove, an Imperial relationship with the fae and with Drognar, even Solace. I will have to write a letter to Amytri to introduce him to Andstella but I know they will get along. There are so many small circles of people I want to see working together; Amytri, Tira, and Andstella are one of them.
And lastly I use the magic Magdalena taught me for the first time. Weaving it around us I feel our connection define itself more clearly in my mind until I can precisely sense her presence. Just like the tree we were both born from I know that no matter how far away I get I will always be able to feel her at the edges of my senses.
Day 375
On our last day in Dreamfall I find Liliales. While I know that he's an adult...I can't help but remember him as a child and feel this urgent tugging at my heart to keep him safe from whatever fear or heartbreak the world might offer him.
The more time we spend together the more I notice an existing pattern of behaviour between us that takes over if neither of us is paying attention. As soon as one of us notice it stumbles and becomes hard to recapture.
He is afraid that his parents won't like who and what he has become. For once I feel truly qualified to offer a parental perspective but I also tell him about Hella's parents and how overjoyed they were to see her safe even after she'd run away to follow an elvish Dread Lord.
"When I go back to see them...can I bring you? Not for at least a year but...I'd like you there,"
"Of course. Of course I'll go with you,"
There is a sliver of me cackling with laughter at how many children I've stolen away by now...and I am happily given the opportunity to recount these stories as he leans into me and asks to hear how I met the rest of my family.
- Hella met me in a tavern in her hometown and ran after me as her village chased me out with torches and pitchforks. She was determined to learn magic and follow me into whatever adventure came next.
- Bran approached me in the same tavern and greeted me in the worst elvish I'd ever heard. He was a gift left for me by my late brother Thalien who had crossed the Barrier before me.
- Alder dropped to his knees as I approached the city gates he was guarding and then had to explain himself to his colleagues. But he was in my army before that... ("You have an army?" Liliales gasps)
- Kadia was a tree but Hella got her out of the tree...
- Camellia nursed me back to health after someone tried to assassinate me (another gasp)
- Dal left his family's restaurant to travel with me
- Thalien just...showed up. He showed up so many times over so many years before I was a Dread Lord that he became quite annoying in his uncanny helpfulness. Fatespinners....
- Lyssa was destroying things with her raw magical power and I contained it for her and then of course she stayed with me
- Tira and Alwen ran away from their noble house and managed to track me deep into the jungle to ask to be my students
"So...At least three and maybe four of your family have been people who ran away from home to join you?" he asks just as Lyssa arrives and wraps an arm around me.
"She's the sort of person who people do that for!" turning to me, "This is the one who remembers being your child?"
She seems quite taken with him...what a strange family we're making.
The three of us head back to the others and I make a point of introducing Liliales to Theaceae, Dawn, and Miriam. This small circle, again, is one I can't wait to see bloom.
Before I leave he tells me what he thinks about my statement that we get to decide what it means to remember one another from another life.
I want it to mean that we get another chance
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