Ayre and I spend the next while actually making final preparations, and the entire time she remains coy about what she meant regarding Lilly, After the third pass at the topic, I decide to drop it. I've gathered that Ayre isn’t the type to budge once she’s set her mind on something, so I see little point in trying to needle her about it. Neither is Lilly, for that matter. In fact, both of them are almost the same type of strong-willed — just in very different flavors.
Instead, I focus on getting the tasks done. Hanging shutters on Ayre’s cabin, getting rid of anything perishable, putting everything else away inside Ayre’s trunk. It holds a truly phenomenal amount of stuff that leaves me actually stunned to see. Since waking up and reading some of her books, I’ve gathered that essentia could be used to enchant objects, but I guess I haven’t really internalized what all that could be used for. Ayre rattles off all kinds of common enchanted items she’s read about in her books, but admits pretty readily that her books are all surely out of date, since they came from the faelands and the only “up to date” texts they kept were stories, manuscripts, compositions, and similar. The Court of Song and Tale has a passing interest in historical accounts, but usually only so far as how they can be retold into rousing stories or cautionary tales that they distribute subtly around society.
That bit catches me off guard. “So, there’s a lot of Fae, then? I know that large settlements of people exist. I read about those in your texts, but the fae have similar kingdoms and such?”
Ayre shrugs and rolls her shoulders in an uncertain gesture, “I’d be lying if I said I had much specific info in that regard. Lilly has been evasive about that since forever. What I do know is that while most of the fae stay within their borders, not every one of them believes in their general “hands off” methods of interacting with the world. None I’ve heard of are quite like Lilly, but the different courts around the world all have focuses, as far as my understanding goes. Obviously, Lilly’s court is pretty straightforward in their personal obsession. “Song and Tale” is pretty evocative like that.” She gives up trying to fold a sheer top sheet and bundles it into a ball and tosses it inside the trunk to the tune of a soft *whump* as it passes the boundary of magic. Looking inside, the contents of the trunk are utter chaos, with no remote pattern or organization.
“Do you know any others?” I’ve been wanting to discuss the rest of the world since I arrived, but between Lilly and Ayre, neither had really spent any meaningful time anywhere beyond their homes. Ayre occasionally went into a nearby town, Silverbrook, to buy basic supplies under a glamor provided by Lilly. Her interactions in the town had always been terse and businesslike before going on her way—and she tried to do that only a couple of times a year, visiting a different merchant each time to avoid anyone building a pattern. While the people who took her family never came back, she was not one to take needless risks by drawing the attention of this town. Doubly so because it was known for having a notable population of freelance adventuring groups looking to make a name for themselves.
She shakes her head, her worn-copper hair tousling around with a soft metallic rasp, “Lilly mentioned a couple, but I can’t say I know much more than their names—even if those names might clue me in on some of their themes.” She counts on her fingers as she proceeds, “There’s the Court of Dreams and Desires, which Lilly has never been willing to talk about beyond saying that she doesn’t ‘Doesn’t approve of their antics’. Then there’s the Court of Craft and Coin, who she says like to master handicrafts like her people master storytelling. Outside of that, she’s mentioned there’s a dozen or so major courts like hers that cover broad swathes of the world and myriad smaller courts with more specific interests and focuses, and then countless small groups or individual fae who tend not to subscribe to the whole concept of Courts at all.”
I nod, trying to absorb all the information. “I see. Guess it’s something I can ask Lilly about. Maybe now that she’s out and about, she can talk about stuff more freely? It’s not like anyone can tell her not to.” I hold up some nice looking silver cutlery embossed with stylized flames. She shrugs and points at the trunk.
Ayre grimaces as she hears the silverware strike something that sounds like glass as they pass into the trunk, “Probably not, if I’m being honest. I’ve known her for the better part of twenty years and there are many things she won’t budge on—even more so refuses to explain why. I used to think it was a coy sort of game for them, but as time has gone on, I’ve come to feel that it’s something…more than that.” With a mighty sigh, she looks around the now far more sparse space. “Basically done.” She sweeps a hand at the to-be-thrown-away pile of food that won’t keep for the road, “I’ve noticed you’ve been picking at food the entire time we’ve been working. And like, actually *eating*.” She follows the statement with a mimed motion for effect.
I try to give a weak smile. “Just…thinking I should try to get used to eating like this more. If we’re gonna be going places with people, I mean.” Her face is more than a little disbelieving, so I try to explain, “I just worry that with the dust and all that, it’ll be hard to hide how…weird this is. I don’t know how other people will respond to seeing it, but after your reactions, I’m not feeling super confident that anyone who doesn’t know me won’t jump to conclusions or something.” Ayre flinches and looks away. “Look, Ayre, I’m not saying I fault you for it. It doesn’t take a scholar to tell this isn’t something normal.” I try to salve my blunder—I hadn’t intended to hurt Ayre’s feelings or anything.
She shakes her head with a frown. “It’s not that, Olly. I’m sorry you noticed that. I’d been trying to give you space to do what you needed without judgment, and I’d had a feeling that I probably didn’t succeed at that.” She reaches over and puts a hand on my left shoulder and squeezes gently while leaning closer. “I get where you’re coming from, and you’re most likely right, but we’ll take most of our meals privately anyways. Besides, between the two of us you’re the subtle one if we should go out in public. Hate to break it to you, ‘purple arm’ gets trumped by ‘actual dragon’ in most people’s eyes. Probably, at least.” She shrugs, wings pantomiming the gesture performatively.
I feel a little better at her taking my excuse, but before she turns to move away, Lilly flies in, back in her preferred scale. “Oooh, shoulder touches and close in private discussion? Can’t leave you two alone at all, can I?” She smiles, but her gaze lingers on Ayre a little longer than I’d expect.
“Nothing like that, Lilly,” Ayre returns coolly and looks over her shoulder at the fairy with a smirk that seems to get Lilly a little less smiley and a little more agitated.
I decide that intervening is probably the wise course of action. After this morning, they’re both still reasonably edgy, and I can’t blame them, really. “So, how was your talk with your weasel friend, Lilly?”
She returns to looking at me with a warmer smile, “He’s off on a grand adventure, it seems. He apparently met my father, and he gave him a task to see done, since he had no intention of staying with the fae.” She shrugs and flutters over to sit on my shoulder. Instinctively, I flinch my arm away as she passes near it. “You know I’m not worried about that, right?” Her words come across with a soft tone, one similar to the one she used while humming and singing earlier. “Seriously. You don’t have to act like you have a disease. Even if it’s contagious, it won’t affect me. Fae can’t get sick or suffer essence poisoning.”
“Sorry, Lilly, it’s a forced habit. It doesn’t take much to make a permanent mistake. I won’t hurt you.” The last sentence jumps into my mouth, bringing a bit more simple truth to what I’d been thinking. “I just don’t want to take an unnecessary risk, is all.”
“Hoookay then, fine. Treat me like the dainty wallflower of a princess that I am.” She crosses and uncrosses her legs, shifting position on my shoulder. Her presence there leaves me feeling vaguely uncomfortable now, but I can’t really place why, so I try to ignore it. “Anyways, as I was saying—Sir Henry Slinks has a quest to recover an artifact of some kind. He refused to tell me under any kind of persuasion I could muster-”
“You just asked him over and over again, didn’t you? You couldn’t bribe him with candy since you owed him it, I assume?” Ayre asks somewhat pointedly.
“Not quite! I tried to get information out of him through some more tricksy measures, but he was cheating.” She lets out a grumpy humph.
“How was he cheating? He seemed like a pretty straightforward creature from what little I saw, though I can’t say I’m any good at reading normal people, let alone a…” I fumble for words.
“Stoat. It’s like a weasel, but smaller. Normally, smaller. He’s abnormally large.” Lilly wanders as she explains, moving along my shoulder, pacing and spinning with flourishes whenever she turns. “Anyways, he was cheating. His hat was a fae, or at least a significant fragment of one. He was getting tips from the hat the entire time, *and* the hat refused to respond to me. Terribly rude. Did get me wondering if the backpack was alive too, but I didn’t find a good time to ask before he got bored and left.” She plops back down into a sitting position with legs crossed. “He said he won’t forget your debt, also, Ayre. Just that he had places to be, so he’ll ‘collect later’.”
Ayre sighs. “Well, at least we already agreed upon terms. So whenever he wanders up, I’ll just have to get some fresh meat for him.” She pauses and then groans. “I specified elk. I’ll have to get him an elk, won’t I?”
Lilly laughs warmly, whatever mood she had earlier having left. “With any other fae? Probably. With Sir Henry Slinks? I don’t think he’ll be picky. He’s not like most of us, like that it seems. No experience with tricks or language. That’s why he’s got the hat, as near as I can tell. It’s something of a social guide for him, since he’s invariably going to run into mortals on his adventure.” She launches up and zooms around the room in a wide arc, leaving a trail of golden dust, “The room is basically empty, can we go? Sir Henry Slinks is off on a grand adventure, and it wouldn’t do for him to beat me.”
“What’s he going to beat you at?” Ayre looks at Lilly with heavily lidded eyes.
“At adventure! I’ve been away from home for nearly a week and I haven’t gone anywhere but here. There’s a lot of world out there and only one cabin here. He’s been Awake for two weeks and is on his way to find an artifact for royalty. I’m a bit jealous. We haven’t even met a knight! Or a wise mentor who dies tragically to galvanize us to band together to face great evil!” She runs her hand through her hair and tosses it dramatically.
“I’m ready if you are.” Both Ayre and I say at the same time while turning to look at one another. There’s a moment of silence before we share a laugh again like the one from earlier. It leaves my heart feeling a good bit lighter by the end, when I notice that Lilly is giving both of us a look I don’t quite recognize. “How about you, Lilly? Since we’re both apparently perfectly ready, are you?”
She looks away from the two of us and flutters towards the door, “I’ve been ready for a week. A lifetime, even!” her voice comes out a bit sharper, higher pitch, but Ayre just laughs and begins donning the armor she’d pulled out earlier. The process takes a few minutes and I offer assistance with some straps as necessary. It fits her perfectly well and after a moment it seems to hug her figure tighter--some enchantment refitting the armor in small ways to make it a comfortable wear.
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“Mind carrying the backpack, Olly? It’s really uncomfortable with my wings.” I nod, and she reaches and grabs a heavy looking belt covered in pouches and hard cases. On her right side is a particular case that catches my eye. It’s a clamshell design with a transparent glass top. Inside is three vials of some mixed red and green fluid. Each one is no larger than my thumb at their thickest points, and I can’t see a way to open them at a glance.
They contain highly concentrated essence in a liquid form, and it stalls my brain hard. Something deep down has me stare at those bottles for a long while before Ayre waves her hand in front of my face. “You alright there? Spaced out?”
“Ah, yeah. I was trying to figure out what those are for.” I half-lie on reflex, but am not really sure why. “I…was…” I struggle to go farther, trailing off.
Ayre gives me a gentle look, “It’s fine, Olly, don’t worry.” She tosses her backpack at me unceremoniously. “They’re essence phials. These three are a mixture of Victus essence intermixed with small doses of several others that the body uses to repair itself and a heavily concentrated dose of Hydrus that serves as the phial itself.” She responds informatively as always, dropping into her Teaching Voice, as Lilly calls it.
“The phial is essence too? Why?” I can’t really wrench my eyes from it as I ask. Only with extreme effort can I make eye contact with Ayre. She definitely notices and turns so that side of her body isn’t in my line of sight. I’m…momentarily grateful, but I do wonder how much of that act was helping me focus versus self-preservation of some kind.
“Oh, that’s easy. Like we’ve talked about, healing magic just speeds up your body’s natural healing processes. Your body uses more Hydrus essence than anything else by a good margin in any given span of time, but especially when healing.” She orbits me in the room, moving to grab a few last trinkets to make an effort to look natural while keeping the phials out of sight, I imagine. “So the phial is crushed and absorbed by the user. Breaking the crystallized Hydrus makes it break down into its immaterial form to be absorbed to keep your body hydrated while the rest of the tincture does its’ work. In the case of these, they’re Victus essence that’s been imbued with a fair amount of Sanguis and Cognitio essence. Sanguis is easily synthesized to replace lost blood, and the Cognitio contains the general ‘instructions’ for the potion's operation: which in this case is to address life-threatening injuries.”
She continues to move around the room clockwise until she reaches the far corner and finds something to mindlessly fidget with. “It’ll use your soul vessel as a template, look for major alterations to your form from that template, and then work to repair the most dangerous changes it can identify.”
I stare at her, now fully enthralled. “The potions are intelligent? Is all essence intelligent?” my voice comes out somewhat frantic. I realize that that that would imply that everything I've cons-
My spiraling thoughts are cut short by Ayre tutting at me, “No, Olly. Nothing like that.” She turns to face me and holds my eyes with her own. “Cognitio is the essence of comprehension and commands. It takes to the will of a caster far more readily than most other essence types, and is used to imprint more complex ‘plans’ onto enchantments and distillations like this to help them work better. Think of it like…” She taps her chin, scratching at the scales framing her face with a claw, “…doctor's orders. Almost literally, actually. Whichever alchemist produced these gave them explicit instructions on how to work.”
I nod along, “That’s impressive. How can they plan for everything? An arrow in the lung needs very different treatment from a…ripped off arm, right?”
She gestures outside and starts to make her way after casting a final glance around the room. “Well, it doesn’t need ultra-specific instructions. Your body, or more accurately your soul, will tell it what to do. Everything you *are* is tied up in your soul vessel. It’s used for channeling magic, sure, but it serves a more fundamental purpose in our body’s operation. It reflects everything outside of it on a one-to-one basis. Your arms, legs, head, brain, lungs, and everything else have directly correlated places on your vessel.” The both of us leave the building as I heft the overstuffed backpack onto my left shoulder, but have to stop myself from slinging it over my other shoulder to not risk the backpack itself.
“There are important distinctions, though. Major damage can make it ‘through’ the body and into the vessel itself. That’s what causes scarring, lasting health conditions, and makes it phenomenally difficult to reattach limbs after a length of time or to magically create new ones. Once major damage is done, it usually has shaved off, shattered, or otherwise damaged the corresponding location on your vessel.“ Lilly flutters over and lands on my shoulder, beginning to listen in attentively and without interrupting. She seems to like listening to Ayre talk like this, even if she gives her a hard time occasionally.
The concept is all making sense, but I make a connection that starts to make it challenging to focus. My breaths start to come a bit more shallowly as the idea runs around in tight little circles in my head. Without further warning, I interject into what Ayre had been saying a moment earlier, “Ayre, didn’t you say that I don’t have one?” I look at her significantly, and she withers at the question.
She hesitates for a while, searching for words. “I said I wasn’t sure…” The response comes out weak, and she knows it but seems to be at a loss for words.
Wishing I could take the question back after seeing her uncertainty, I offer, “Yeah, that’s fair. Don’t worry about it. I heal really fast anyways, so I suppose I don’t have much to worry about in that regard.”
Lilly jumps in on my side, adding to my comment: though whether it’s to alleviate Ayre’s stress or mine is up in the air. “It also seems mostly to ignore scarring, aside from that spot on your neck. When we pulled you out of the river, you looked as if you had run through a thicket of knives, and now you're basically perfect.” Lilly beams at me.
I see a good opportunity to switch topics, so I grab at it greedily. “You’re not really wrong, there, actually. The woman who attacked me had a set of knives that seemed to take commands directly. The first one she used, I grabbed and drained. Doing so, I think, almost killed me outright. Something in it was…different.” I trail off, remember the sensation and rubbing at my right shoulder in phantom memory of the feeling. “But after I took the essence out of that knife, she stopped allowing the knives to come into reach for more than a moment at a time.”
I was starting to talk faster, I’ve wanted to talk about this since I woke up at Ayre’s home. “She was chasing me out of that village and the knives kept making passes at me. Slicing open an arm here, trying to cut a tendon on a leg there. By the time she finally cornered me, I was certain I should have been dead a few times over, but something kept me going.” I look down at my hands, flexing and twisting them around before my eyes settle on the silver ring on my crystalline hand. I take hold of it with my other hand and idly twist it to see if I can take it off, but moving it sends a spike of pain straight through my arm and into my brain. “I think this is related to this whole situation, but I don’t know how.” I hold up my right hand and gesture to it with my left.
Lilly gasps, cutting me off. “Where’d you get that?” She flutters towards my raised right hand, and I jerk it away from her on reflex. Lilly flutters back a bit to inspect from a safe distance, outside of arm's reach. “Right, sorry. I just got excited. My father wears rings like those and has for as long as I’ve been around.”
Ayre cocks her head, “How are you just now noticing this? He’s been wearing that ring since we found him. I thought it meant he was a noble or something with access to enchanted items.”
“Well, it’s not like Olly lets me get close to inspect that arm or anything, and every other time it might have come up we’ve been busy, or you two have been sparring, or you two were fighting, or you two were talking about magic theory…” She trails a bit, looking momentarily self-conscious. “Anyways, Father’s had ten of those rings as long as I’ve known. I never really thought to ask him what they were for—many fae just wear jewelry because it’s a nice look. But that swirling quicksilver material is unmistakable. You’ve got one of the same type of ring he does. What’s it do?”
I just have to shrug. “It doesn’t seem to *do* anything. I’ve fiddled with it, tried talking to it, exposed it to all kinds of stuff. Never really reacts to anything. I just had a feeling it’s important because it’s on my messed up hand and isn’t being destroyed like anything else would be.”
Lilly joins my shrug and returns to sitting on my shoulder, giving me a bored look. “I suppose there’s nothing for it, then. My fathers’ rings have never seemed to do anything either, so maybe you just lucked into the odd piece of fae jewelry before this happened to you.” She glances around and looks up at the sun as she begins her afternoon journey towards the mountain range in the far north that can always be seen poking above the horizon. “Are we gonna go at some point?”
Ayre grumbles and gestures to the north. “Yes, Lilly. Let's get out of here. I’m confident we could fight anything we run into in these woods—I’ve been doing it for years—but there’s still no point in inviting trouble we don’t have to.” She agitatedly flicks her tail and stretches her wings. “The town I stock up at is about two days walk from here—probably a little more, we aren’t exactly the most well-traveled group, and I’m sure Lilly will get distracted by a few things along the way.” Lilly looks indignant for a moment, but Ayre winks at her, “You can hold on to my horns if you'd like, Lil.”
Ever mercurial, Lilly takes a moment to dust my shoulder off—anywhere Lilly sits for any length of time always accumulates a pile of dust from her constantly emitting essence—before fluttering over to Ayre and nestling amongst her hair. When she goes out of arm's reach, I let free a breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding as a wave of stress breaks and begins to dissipate rapidly.
Leaving the cabin and cave, the field and well, behind feels like a critical moment to me.
Maybe not the well. I’ll be glad to see that go.
In this new life I’ve been thrust into, this will be the furthest I’ve ever traveled, and that bubble is only going to increase from here. I feel…a significant amount of trepidation. I realize that, functionally speaking, I have spent my entire life here and there’s a bittersweet feeling to leaving. Nothing could change there, but….nothing could change there, in either case or either direction.
Ayre notices me slowing and slows down to pace me. “You okay?” Lilly atop her head lifts herself to a sitting position atop one of her horns and looks at me with unbridled cheer. It warms me a bit, but I feel the urge to back up a step as Ayre comes within arm's reach. I suppress it and focus.
“I’d just been thinking that, in terms of my experiences, I’d also spent my entire life in that clearing. No differently than you, even if only in a subjective way. It feels weird to think I’m leaving with no real plan or knowledge of what’s ahead.” I feel somber at voicing the concern. “Just wondering if it wouldn’t be safer for me to stay. You’re a good fighter, and Lilly could probably restrain me if it was warranted. But what about other people?”
Ayre makes a thoughtful face that almost tosses Lilly off her head, “Well, it’s not like you were perfectly safe there either. Sitting still isn’t good when your problems might be helped by moving. I think I know that better than anyone now.”
Lilly chimes in while clinging to the horn, “I’m fairly sure all of us have that issue, actually. I can only spend so much time playing with the forest animals to craft a story in the dearth of new things going on. Gotta go see things, meet people, do stuff. Ayre’s gotten boring, and you’ve got a cool story ahead of you, fixing both of those problems requires we leave!”
“That’s it. I’m revoking horn privilege, you can walk.” Ayre vigorously shakes her head back and forth, knocking Lilly free, and breaks into a jog to get away from the now disgruntled fairy.
“Let’s go, Olly, she’s going to get away otherwise and I need vengeance. Can I ride on your head? I won’t tug your hair or anything, you guys just move way faster than I can comfortably keep up with.” She looks really bashful, asking. And I don’t really understand why. She’d been doing the same with Ayre for presumably fifteen years or more.
“Go for it, Lilly, just keep towards the left side if you can.” She gives me a small smile and flutters over, settling in amongst my messy hair and holding on softly. “Let me know if I need to slow down.” The anxiety returns the moment she's within reach again, but I make a point of shoving it aside to not worry Lilly or make her feel bad.
With that done, I set to catching up to Ayre, who has now pulled a good distance ahead and seems to be trying to maintain the lead. I decide I have to pass her and really pour on the effort. Lilly lets out a joyful giggle as she bounces along with my stride.
Each step feels good, being in motion is reassuring, and looking ahead has me feeling a little more confident as I leave a past, one I never really knew anyways, behind.
