Day 448
On our last day in Avan'Nal I have breakfast with Andstella and Kaide as a small, unusual meeting of students and family. I show them the relevant paragraphs of Magdalena's letter and we watch the Seeing Stone together, wondering about where she could possibly be and what it would like to see it for ourselves. In some number of years I'm sure we will all make a trip with Magdalena and it will be safer with all of us together. Magdalena suffered injuries and feared for her life and I am positive that it would have been safer with someone to watch her back.
Kaide trembles when she reads Magdalena's lines about wanting to bring her in particular, and the closing about protecting our little family.
Does she really mean to include me like this?
I don't want to give the illusion of more closeness than Magdalena might truly feel but...I don't know why she would have used that phrase to refer only to Andstella. I have strong hopes that Kaide is part of this new family as well.
As we discuss, Kaide scoops up Andstella (a little presumptuously, which Andstella points out) and we laugh at how the lines of elder and younger sibling blur between us. Kaide is by far the eldest and senior student and Andstella has been fae much longer than I have. Still, there are other ways in which I care for these two that make the distinction unclear. Either way, it doesn't matter.
As we tease one another I catch Onyx smiling a little sadly at how Kaide holds Andstella. I wonder if this is reminiscent of how she and Yule were, and if this is just a side of Kaide that Onyx remembers disappearing over time.
Breakfast concludes with tea and some technically proficient tea biscuits made by Tira, who has been learning from Alder. While they lack a little of the energy that his and Miriam's biscuits have, they are undeniably good and I think there's nothing wrong with relying heavily on a scale while baking (a point that Jerun disagrees with).
And then we all head our separate ways - Hue returns to the Grotto; Andstella takes Jerun, Alrudian, and Crag back to Dreamfall; while Onyx, Kaide, and I head on to the Unfreezing Sea to collect Hella and Kadia. I am sent with instructions to invite Amytri to Nina's wedding in Drognar so that he and Andstella can finally meet.
The flight takes most of the day but is uneventful, with Kaide resting and Onyx and I largely enjoying the silence. It is after dark when we see the lights above the sea ahead of us and Kaide joins us to see them flickering and dancing above the horizon. As we fly through it I can feel water and ice, wind and storm throughout it along with something stranger yet more familiar: My heartsong. There is a chord here filled with dreamy despair, hope, loss, and discovery. Alongside it I summon an Osyr accompanist with reed instruments but they only last a few seconds before the strength of the magic in the air takes control of them and tears them away. The entire place is so drenched in magic that I wouldn't be confident of maintaining control over any spells here, especially given that I couldn't even hold my heartsong accompanist.
The music remains - deep bass notes with a plucky, ringing high note every so often. It is the Longing set to music, deep and watery. Both Kaide and I listen in silence and my mind wanders to the trolls and whether they have a similar song, whether I could weave these longings together so people might understand one another.
Onyx descends further and we catch sight of grass growing on the shores and ice waves forming slowly as the water crashes forward, luminescence deep beneath it. Two islands come into view and I see Kadia on the Southern one, working with a fountain of radiant energy that shoots upwards into the sky. We land clear and she warns us to stay back as she takes ten minutes to finish it, sending the energy into a snowfall of magic that waters all the plants on the island and fuels them further. Up close I can see that some of these trees seem like they've had several years of growth despite only existing for a matter of months - Kadia's doing, I'm sure.
I crush her into a hug as soon as it's safe, making the rounds of introductions, sharing amusement at Kaide and Kadia's names and circumstances in parallel. It's such a joy to be around Hella again. She is so enthusiastic, talking about magic and dragons and how it would be so cool to "have a dragon" before Onyx gives her a good-natured smack on the head and I tell her that perhaps Tira or Haze will be gracious enough to introduce her to some colleagues in Infinite Blue so that they might collaborate.
I usher us all towards Solace, eager for a warm mug of tea. It only takes an hour or so aboard Onyx and thankfully Amytri writes me back and tells us we can come straight to his tower. Solace is glowing from the air, full of warm oil-powered lanterns that give a yellow cast to the streets just like the cool white in Deep Refractions. It is fairly easy for Onyx to hover near enough that we can slip off before he descends and transforms in mid-air, landing with a rather comedic thud.
I crush Amytri into a hug before we can really get a look at one another and then step back so we can take each other in. I have wings now, so I'm sure he has questions. For his part he is clean-shaven and dressed a little more like a down-to-earth noble than a scruffy traveller. It suits him - once a king always a king, I think. I give him a vague explanation for the wings - Teacher planted a tree, I gave it blood before I knew it was hers, this was the outcome and also I got a sister in the deal. You know how it goes.
Another round of introductions later and I learn that Amytri, too, knows a couple dragons. Obsidian is a cousin of Onyx but Amytri hasn't seen them in a couple centuries. Ash is new to Onyx. Kaide teases easily at Amytri's status as the most junior of Teacher's students. I might have loopholed my way out of this by way of familial relation but I can guarantee that we'll be working together this week and Amytri will be taking copious notes.
Once again I usher us onwards to food and warm drinks and we head out into the city at Amytri's behest. The streets are still bustling and it's clear that some of the construction here is voluntary - seems like some people took advantage of the opportunity and decided to rebuild things even if they hadn't been destroyed.
Finally we are settled into a quiet restaurant patio by a ram-horned human (?) woman who introduces herself as Deneli. The establishment is full of wizards drinking and working on theories at long tables, some of it nonsensical. Actually...much of it nonsensical. It's familiar in a way that aches, remembering long nights playing a similar mental game at the Academy - what might change about our existing structures if we erased a particular foundational rule? These wizards, it seems, are doing that game without realizing it. Deneli tells us that the place only has two rules:
- Enjoy yourselves and let them know if anything can be improved
- Talk about whatever you'd like but don't try anything new (a sensible rule, given their clientele)
Amytri asks her to let the chef simply send out whatever he'd like and I'm quite concerned at what this means for tea, especially as she presents me with a sort of...iced tea. It tastes fine but...well...having just come from a lake of unending ice, I am not interested in cooling off. Eventually a technically sound hot tea is presented and I relax.
The food is curious - clearly an intentional attempt at human-elvish fusion that succeeds in some ways if not others. Perhaps someone like Rina might appreciate it more? I have not yet found a human dish I prefer to anything at home. Food aside, it is so good to hear Amytri talking about his work in Solace. He has been issuing edicts (he accepts my laughter gracefully) to force people to stop working for one day a week and every day 3 hours before dusk. The city has developed an active night-life, something I am eager to experience. We will probably stay here for just under a week (with day trips to the Sea for Kaide and I) before returning to Dreamfall and on to Drognar.
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