Day 452
Of the two families I need to visit, I know that one will be easier than the other. I find Belle and Brinnon’s home near the town square, an unassuming apartment with knitted doilies and comfortable throws neatly placed around the space. Amidst the grandmotherly decor is a suit of armour and a sword, still in good condition and clearly well cared for.
Belle and I sit in companionable light conversation together. Neither of us are strangers to loss and we know there is not much to be said. Just the company and shared understanding of sadness is enough.
Before I leave she hands me several items one after the other with a sense of bequeathement. While I have been gone she has knit me a summer-weight hooded shawl in a deep pine green yarn, organic and non-repeating. The enchantments are simple and suitable for travelling clothes but there is something deeper that would avoid curious eyes and she pairs it with a brooch intended to hide my ears. The magic is similar to what Kaide and I had created for my wings just accomplished in a different way.
Along with this she offers a book of patterns, her needles, and yarn. Everything else she intends to leave to the knitting circle but we both know that it will be many months before I come back here and she has no intention of staying that long.
I can't keep Brinnon waiting.
When I leave I spend a few moments in the darkness of the alley behind her house just feeling the inevitable strength of the stone behind my back and against my tender wings. Belle warned me that Nisset's family had taken it very hard...but I'm already so raw that I draw my (grounded) feet as I approach their homestead.
Nisset's wife, Charity, meets me at the door before I have a chance to knock. Rather, she emerges while I'm still on the pathway. She has the same sort of tightly-wound grief that I've come to recognize in the loved ones of many fallen - she intends to be the bastion of strength in her family. I ask if she'll sit with me and she spills out a measured tirade against his death, against me, against everything that happened to them.
He was a better man than anyone gave him credit for, he took lives and avoided his own dangers, he settled here and raised a family and escaped the people who would have killed him. If it weren't for the trouble that I brought here he wouldn't have died.
There are cracks in the façade she is erecting - I know he was a good man...he gave me some of the best and most honest advice anyone here could offer. He cared for my own assassin and counselled him well. But she's right that he wouldn't have died if not for the machinations of people who had a bone to pick with
me and not him. I know she knows that her husband died because he was a brave man who felt it was finally worth it to use his skills again.
When she hands me a leather case "for that boy" I try to make it a trade for the Soul's Respite I've had burning a hole in my pouch. I'm not surprised that she refuses it as a sign of weakness despite my objection. I'm not surprised that she tells me to keep away from her family and her children. It's such a human reaction and there is nothing that I can offer, in my Undying elvish and fae nature, that wouldn't seem like pity.
The case contains two hollow knives, still sharp and well-maintained, and vials of rare toxins. I'm sure Alder will appreciate them.
I had scheduled my visits in this order for a reason but I am more in need of Vedrah's garden than I could have anticipated. We settle into her courtyard with tea and I let myself get lost in her talk about the plants she is growing, the children she is teaching, her plans to improve the fountains and expand the garden itself. She has been appointed as the town gardener and is eager to strengthen relations with the new city states so she might find an apprentice to tend to the trees when she's gone. We make our own trade - my seeds and a letter bird for a small packet to send to Doraal and a blend of tea that will help me sleep peacefully. I do feel refreshed as I make my goodbye. She's a good gardener.
Despite being more than ready to leave, I'm slowed by one more unexpected visit. Debran catches me just as I approach the inn and waves me down with his one remaining hand. The other was lost to frostbite, apparently. He and Mel eagerly show me the lightweight bow they have made over the winter - Thogrin horn, apparently.
I'm dead tired but Mel is a delight, showing off with her own target practice and chattering about how she wants to learn archery from elves because she has heard we are the best, how she thinks she could have hit that blue winged man, how she is cultivating some elemental wind magic that she cups in the palm of her hand. I tell her about Lyssa and her eyes widen with amazement just as mine well up with the intense urge to fly home.
But I'm patient and polite. I admire the beautifully tooled leather quiver set with a copper foiled tree. The arrows they've made to accompany the bow are particularly hefty and made to puncture through armour. The trajectory of the bow is faster than my usual bow. It's fine work and I hope they do more of it, especially when I get a chance to introduce Debran to Spindle - perhaps he will be able to craft himself a new hand as well. Mel is eager to leave home and go adventuring and the increasing urgency of a mentorship arrangement for all our young heroes is clear.
But finally I can leave. Kaide, Yneir, and Onyx attend to me as soon as I call them out of the inn (where Onyx has been discussing masonry and construction with seemingly all the men in the village) and we collect up Wayla, Annette, and Nina's parents.
Comments