Legend of Ransera

"I know you won't, Filaurel," he replied with a shy smile. "Your skill with thread and needle is rivaled by your artistic eye and sense of the person for whom you sew."

It felt strange to make friends still, and he thought perhaps he was getting the feel for it. Master Tavári'nar had been a lifeline, IX a responsibility. Torin and Destyn were people he clung to, as well, to replace those he had lost. Jacun had been kind, but not quite so familiar, in the end. But then Laurevere was a neighbor who had become a friend, and he had friends of friends with whom he was quite comfortable.

Now, he was befriending other artisans, building friendships based on mutual respect for the work. That was a new wrinkle, and not unwelcome.

His face fell at the admission. Filaurel gave him permission to acknowledge his illness, but he daren't endart himself too much in private matters.

"You are welcome to share stories from your soldiering days," he said. Though he had begun to learn the blade after the burglary of his home in Kalzasi, he was hardly a soldier. "And if you ever change your mind, I will happily make the journey as easy as possible."

Torin paid him too much for his work, he thought, and so he had accumulated quite a bit. Then again, Tavárinoikos was reminding him of his worth. In any case, he had learned to streamline the journey—a public gate from Silfanore to Vallanar, cross the border into Auris, and then use one of Torin's doorknobs to open a gate home. But he didn't want to push too hard.

"In the meantime, ..." his fingers danced a complex ballet through the air. After a moment, they trailed light, and a runic circle formed. He paused, and a breeze slithered in through some crack between the door and its frame, coalescing into an air elemental, who was careful not to send papers or fabric flying merely by existing there.

After a moment of silent communion, Sivan nodded and the elemental flew into the circle. It disappeared and the circle became much like a traveler's window. It showed them the elemental's point of view as it flew up and up. They had both been on airships before, so it wasn't terribly new as it rose from Gloaming Hapertas higher and higher above the suburb of Huoninque, the river Hyarmenya becoming a thin ribbon shining burnished in the sunlight.

"Perxy likes to go fast," he said quietly, not wanting narration to ruin the effect. "She will fly higher than an airship can safely go without wards to maintain air pressure. The winds are naturally faster there, and so... you see..."

She flew so high that the sprawl of Silfanore became a mere gleam upon the browns and grays of mountain, the whites of snow, and the faint greens of the evergreens. Then, she flew from the principality of Tronóridan northwest toward realm of Casarrond, where Prince Salmakis ruled.

"If I cannot bring you to Kalzasi, I can bring Kalzasi to you."

Though he had more friends now than he ever had before, Sivan was not so well-versed in fostering intimacy that he knew what he was doing. While he did allow himself to read those surface thoughts that people put out into the world that didn't require delving into their auras, Filaurel kept his emotions close to his heart, much as Sivan did. Perhaps it was that care with one's own thoughts and feelings as well as a respect for the other persons boundaries that allowed them to get on so well. But his best friend, Torin, was also a master sembler, and they had grown so accustomed to blending the edges of their auras while working so as to brainstorm, communicate, and work in tandem more efficiently in the workshop that he felt he knew Torin almost better than Sivan knew himself.

That was not the case here, which wasn't a bad thing, but he couldn't use his friendship with Torin as a map for a friendship with anyone else. Without a map, he felt a little helpless, but if he was spinning like a sailboat in the surf, at least it didn't seem as though he had offended Filaurel or overstepped some boundary.

"The burden of peace," he said, quietly humorous, or at least he intended it to be.

As for Perxy's journey, he could only smile and shrug.

"I would imagine they had even more elegant means to do so, but I have been working with this wind spirit for years and she told me how slow everything seemed down here on the ground. So, of course, I had to have her show me what the world is like higher and faster than most airships travel."

Indeed, her view was like a map come to life. Tiny clouds moving almost imperceptibly. The shine of sunlight on ribbons of rivers. The sickly colors of the Clockwork Waste. Then the mountains that separated Turoth from Karnor.

Sivan was quiet. A part of him wanted to narrate, but certainly a soldier would know his geography.

As she neared the western edge of the Astralars, Perxy began to descend and, of necessity, decelerate. Eventually, they could see Kalzasi, especially those parts of it floating above the ground, framed by the flat mirror of Udori. Closer and closer still she flew, and the grand palaces of the Great Houses shone, their architecture derivative of certain trends that the Hytori had explored centuries ago, though they were evolving differently now.

"That's the Palace of the First Wind," he said, "where the previous ruling family lives. Their current family head is the reincarnation of Arcas. While I have vague plans of finding an unused flying chunk of mountain to build upon and fully delve into my hermit nature, I live on the ground.

"This is the Plaza of Jeweled Arches. I thought I was misunderstanding the Common when I first arrived. There aren't really all that many arches, but the roofs of the buildings are painted bright colors as you can see." And Perxy descended toward a tower whose roof was emerald green. "Well, you can see where people have brushed the snow off their roofs."

"That's where I live. It... was a modest cottage when I found it, but some industrious earth elementals who were helping me dig out a cellar decided to use that displaced earth and stone to build upward as well. So now I have a tower like some wizard from a story." He laughed, a little embarrassed, but also a little delighted to be able to share.

The vision was obscured by green leaves despite the more ferocious winter of Karnor. They weren't evergreens, either.

"Ah, my garden. Well, I was a Summoner first, and so my garden became much like a Hytori garden—a haven for wild spirits. The tree she passed through is actually an enchantment I found in one of their libraries. A Living Grave. Inside it, a friend of mine sleeps. The tree keeps him alive while I try to figure out how to break the curse upon him. If we were actually there, you would hear the thrumming of the bee's nest. The spirits keep my garden a good deal warmer than the rest of the city during winter. I have to allow for a cold season or the plants and animals and spirits will grow disoriented, but I keep it milder."

"I do feel fortunate that I am able to travel easily back and forth between the frontier and my homeland," he admitted. He didn't see it quite like that, but it wasn't truly deceptive. It was easier to exist with mixed bloodlines there, but it did lack many things that Sol'Valen had in abundance.

Sivan was proud of his home because it was his and, as a Len'Hytori, it was unlikely he would ever have grander, but he knew it didn't compare to the spires of Silfanore.

"Oh, actually..." he gestured toward the view Perxy was affording them. The elemental whirled around to the other side of the enchanted tree to where Destyn had planted his strange Ecithian seed. Beyond it was an altar with a gem that flashed dawnfire.

"A friend of mine planted a seed he found on an adventure in Ecith. Healthy sapling now, you see. In any case... he wasn't clear on the details, but Arcas... now Talon Novalys... came while I was away, set up this altar and... well, the dawnfire comes in handy. I haven't figured out how to create it myself, but it's just... there, you see, so I have tried to use it for various things. It might be an effective tool, but I am neither a curse-breaker nor a physician and... I think it could burn away the curse if applied correctly, but the curse has gotten into him like roots and if I could successfully burn them away, the damage they leave behind might still kill him.

"And I think... well, I say friend, but I don't actually know him well. He was barely speaking when I found him. I get the sense that he might be part of the problem? I think he needs to want the spell broken, and when I have revived him, his mind isn't quite there enough to even cogitate on that. I recently found out that the Aimatiká are real. I met one. Perhaps I can bring him to them and they might heal him."

Then he paused—not for long before he caught himself—but it occurred to him that he knew an Aimatikí and she might deign to allow him to bring a patient to their mountain fastness, or to take Filaurel. There was that quick calculation of whether such a moonshot was something Filaurel had already attempted, whether it would be rude to offer that tenuous hope.

"Oh, you owe me no apologies," he said with a smile, waving it away. "Greater minds than mine don't always think of every possible solution to a problem."

As for the rest, he considered.

"I suppose the Dreamer might bypass his conscious mind easily, though I suppose it would be more likely a Dreamwalker would deign to help a mortal so. I met the king once, though I don't know whether I have the gall to petition him to intercede with the God or intercede himself. Come to think of it, the Aimatiká might help him, too, though I would sooner ask a boon of them on your behalf than his. He sleeps, his curse not worsening. You live."

And Filaurel had implied the curse was degenerative. That the curse was congenital made him think the Aimatiká were even more likely to have some insight into an effective cure or treatment, but he didn't want to push. He would ask Laurevere, and if aid were offered, he would carry that offer to Filaurel and let him decide.

It was, after all, his body, his life. One ought to respect that.

A part of his mind was already imagining a cadre of artificed golems to aid and assist him in his decline. He might balk at an arachnine loom that wove textiles with only a little direction now, that didn't mean he might not want one later, and Sivan could develop the idea against that day in order to be better prepared to help and help quickly.

"Now, what do you think I will be wearing at the turning of the seasons, when we celebrate the Dream King's wedding?"

If Sivan started preparing himself mentally for it now, it might feel less nerve-wracking when the time actually came. He smiled; hope springs eternal.

Huzzah! 10 xp for use at your discretion.