Day 473
The day after the wedding is calm in the apartment but the faint sound of partying is still carrying in the main streets. I wake at noon and immediately head out to find Spindle. My conversation with him is long overdue.
When Kaide and I arrive at his shop the lights are dark and for a second I'm worried that maybe he's drunk and passed out somewhere in the streets. But he answers when I knock, albeit grumpily.
We're closed. And we're not planning on re-opening.
But there is shuffling and eventually the door opens when I tell him to. He is dishevelled and clearly slept in his clothes, though his arm is missing. The apartment inside is clean though a little sad-looking. The walls are adorned with artwork, clearly his handiwork but not weapons at all. I notice a bird shaped of twisted metal and a sculptural steel tree with spread roots and branches. They are from his first year here before he had really adjusted to his hand and trusted himself to work on blades. Kaide is impressed with the delicate steel work!
As much as I want to hug Spindle and cry with him for his lost apprentice I shield my sorrow and tell him simply that I have two things to ask of him. The first is that I would like him to spend some time with another friend of mine who is also sad. He is not thrilled at the prospect of spending time with a troll given the events of the attack but sighs and agrees to do it.
I leave him and Kaide to fashion a gift for Puddle to ease their meeting, and go to find Onyx.
The sturdy dwarf-shaped dragon is in one of the town squares participating in a competition with other craftspeople. The goal is to create one side of a chess set, spending at most ten minutes on each pieces. Some are carving wood, shaping metal or stone, and Onyx is working with a shiny volcanic glass that I can't imagine doing any sort of delicate work with.
After a few hours the winner is chosen - well-crafted white stone pieces that have been enchanted to move by themselves. The runner-up has used wax casting to produce polished silver pieces, and Onyx's hand-crafted black set takes third. After making a gift of them to the winner, he joins me at my table.
The questions I have for him are so unstructured and chaotic - I feel like I'm just dumping my thoughts on him as the first available dragon I can talk to about dragon things. He tells me he knows of Canyon Shade and that they are distant cousins; he recalls that Canyon Shade is the child of Darkness and Mountain and that often it is hard for dragons so closely related to the first five to fit into a clan. Many of them exist independently, as No Moon did. Or they find their place elsewhere - as Onyx did.
Mountain was part of the Burning Ground Sea clan and it's possible that Canyon Shade joined her there. He notes that Burning Ground Sea is a clan of earth and fire, founded by River. They have a connection to all things that shape the earth and have a friendly rivalry with Infinite Blue. He also tells me about Radiance, a clan founded by Prism and. to which Hue belongs. This might be a reasonable starting place to go looking for Starfield.
More and more I find my guesses at which dragons are related are wrong. I never would have thought to ask Hue about Starfield.
I also ask after Rainbow and find that he is someone who has "moved beyond dragonkind". They are considered to be the greatest dragon wizard to ever live and they left dragons thousands of years ago because there was nothing left to learn, no more mysteries to pursue. They've intervened in dragon conflicts before but purely because the conflict was disturbing one of their experiments. It's curious...they sound like the opposite of No Moon. I wonder what they think of the Zephyr.
In return for this knowledge I spend the rest of the day telling Onyx stories of the Empire and playing virtual tour guide as I weave illusions of the landscape and memories of the cities. The space around us continues with rope competitions and other festivities while I collect a small gathering of children and interested folks, augmented by my illusory Carthian figures. Riqiqiqik and Rabiya's mother smile gently at the rainforest tableau I paint across our table.
Eventually Spindle and Kaide come find me, steel bonsai in hand. Spindle has cleaned himself up and re-attached his hand, I'm pleased to see. Together we make our way back to where I know Puddle will be - they roused themself for the wedding procession but now they are back in almost the same spot they were beforehand.
You sad too? Your tree looks sad.
Over the next hour Puddle slowly rotates the tree and examines it from all angles before slowly talking with Puddle about how it looks windswept and battered but more importantly, the roots are exposed and losing their hold on what would have grounded it. I leave the two of them together talking. I hope they are good for one another.
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