//yeah this happened

@forgedtruth 

Ch 5- Stepping Off Proper

“What news do you have of my cousin?” Nevarra closed the door quietly to the room Eilana and Luc resided in, before turning to address the Queen’s question. She sighed heavily, and shrugged. “The priests and the doctors have looked him over as best they can, without touching him. He still clings to the mirror, but to all appearances, he is fine. Just… catatonic. Resting.” Yves didn't try to hide her worry, so Nevarra offered her an encouraging, if tired, smile. “Telling you not to worry will of course be pointless, but I have faith. He is strong willed, and this fight seems spiritual in nature. He doesn't worry me, whether he’ll win.” “But how will this change him?” Asked the lavender eyed Queen. Nevarra’s smile faltered for a moment. “I… cannot say,” Nevarra said, her smile waning. “We only have passing knowledge of first finding the divinities. We speak of myth made current.”

“I should have paid him more attention,” Yves muttered, the carpeted hall of the palace eating her words. “I knew he existed, and close, but mother never permitted me see anyone, really. Much less distant cousins, and especially not from Madi's house.”

The approach of two figures silenced the conversation. Nevarra flashed her Queen an apologetic look, knowing well she rarely got to release like that. Yves sighed. “Duty calls.”

The two figures were both familiar to Nevarra. One was a palace servant named Cole- as they got to the pair, he stepped to the side and bowed his head. The other, a lady with red hair cropped short and sparkling green doe eyes, was an agent of Yves’ Mother’s. Known simply as Brunette, she was Lady Jeanette’s most promising protégé.

Brunette cast a look at the door Luc and Eilana rested behind. Without words being exchanged, she and the Queen slipped inside. Left alone, Cole cleared his throat. “You also have a guest. Says they’re an old friend.” ------------------------------------------------------------- Tairne was woke the next morning by a letter delivered by a palace servant.He'd been given a room in the palace barracks; small, cozy, and able to be locked from the outside. The servant stood in awkward silence with the crow while Tairne relieved himself. It amused Tairne to make the man wait, and it was only after he'd seen to washing and dressing that Tairne finally took the letter and returned the man's dignity. Left alone again, he popped the wax seal that shared Nevarra's symbol. 'Word from Lady Jeanette has arrived. The Archivist seems to be in North Oak, and I am to deliver Luc to her at the Merchant's Port lighthouse. We leave at Noon, and I have packed supplies enough for you to accompany. Meet us at the Arms District Parade Grounds. Nevarra.' -------------------------------------------------------------- Eilana sat on the edge of the covered wagon, waiting for time to leave. Amidst people loading supplies and tending the grumpy ox that would pull it, she noticed a couple faces she didn't expect. The first arrived with Nevarra. She was short, lean, wearing simple robes. Her head was clean shaven, making her eyes seem too large. Her scalp was decorated with a myriad of tattoos- what Eilana believed to bewriting, but in an alphabet she didn't recognize. The stranger broke from Nevarra and made a beeline for the front of the wagon. Eilana's curiosity got the better of her, and she slipped around to peek at her. The lady knelt before the ox and excitedly greeted it. She produced a sugar cube from a pocket wedged behind a large, eyecatching leather book strapped at her waste. The ox perked up and munched it happily from the lady's hand, leaving Eilana to notice the black silk ribbon wrapped around her hands like binding Eilana had seen some ruffians use. 'Silk ribbons are no good for punching,' though Eilana to herself, returning back to the end of the wagon.The second face was Tairne, who strolled up right as the others were finishing preparations to leave. He approached without any inkling of remorse at his belated arrival. Nevarra met him with a stern whisper, but his only response was to shrug his pack strap further onto his shoulder. He stepped past her and walked to the wagon, leaving Nevarra looking at his back coldly. "Saying your farewells?" he asked Eilana. "No- I'm going too." She moved to block his view into the wagon, and by extension, his view of Luc. He grunted and attempted to push her gently to the side, but she resisted, and he ended up having to give a full push. "I'm just trying-" "Hey!" "-To check up on him!" Eilana jerked to place her arms and steady herself, and gave him a withering glare. "No change, then?" he asked. "No change," she reluctantly said, rolling her eyes. If he'd just said so...

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They set out shortly after his arrival. Three other faces accompanied the group- guards Nevarra instroduced as Wilber, Franz, and Kyla. They were tight lipped, unwelcoming of conversation, and Eilana quickly gave up on telling them apart. Leather armor, nondescript, and helmets- without any sense of personality, Eilana couldn't bother identifying the slight differences in body structure. Throughout the afternoon, the only ones who spoke in casual conversation was the tattooed lady and Nevarra at the front of the wagon. The guards ranged close to the sides, and Tairne followed at a slight distance behind. Eilana tried watching scenery for entertainment, but the farmland around Auldbell ranged from dull to dull and tragically dirty, so it wasn't long until the King's Road rocked her into a dose in the wagonbed. It wasn't until they stopped to make camp that Eilana woke; and she was surprised by the change in the scenery. Flat farmland had given way to rocky foothills and the immense shapes of the Goldspine mountain range spreading as far as she could see to the left and right of the road moving forward. The pass that ran between their immense stone seemed foreboding, and she swore the mountains themselves seemed to make the pass into almost a tube. Blinking and rubbing her eyes, they seemed to straighten, though something about it made the hairs on her neck stand up. Knowing a little of the stories ones would tell to scare kids, it wouldn't surprise her if the mountains did bend and dance with some unknown will of their own. A fire was started by Nevarra's friend while the soldiers set up three tents. Eilana watched the tattooed lady curiously, and was surprised with the sparks came from her fingertip, not from any flint. "Was that a trick of some sort?" "Was what a trick, child-person?" asked the lady, smiling. "The way you started the fire. There was a guy I knew who swore he could make sparks by putting flint in his mouth, but he just ended up chipping a tooth." "Oh. If magic is a trick, I suppose it is?" Eilana stared at her a moment or two, trying to decide if the lady was serious. The lady continued to look back at her, a vague, yet patient look on her face. Eilana decided nothing more was coming, so she would ask more. "Do you really do magic?" "I do." "Are you Morvinian?" "Eilana!" Nevarra said, walking up. It was not quite scolding, but obviously said with shock at Eilana's forcefulness. Eilana started to object, but the lady responded first. "Nope. Not Morvinian." Her response was so matter of fact that Eilana's retort toward Nevarra died. It took Eilana a moment before she spoke again. "It's just the tattoos- I thought that was a Morvinian thing." "I come from a monastery," began the lady, poking at the flames with a stick, to stir up the flames. "We devote ourselves to Oswin, the Divine Librarian, and what knowledge he holds. I've become one with language, to the point I have combined my physical body with written word." "And that's why you can do magic?" "Nope. I studied," the lady replied cheerily, tapping the book strapped at her side. "What's your name?" Eilana asked. "I'm called Dawn-Keeper." "Weird name," muttered Eilana. "More of a title, really," Tairne said, plopping down beside Eilana suddenly, causing her to jump. He flipped open his pack and dug out some jerky and crusted bread and began smacking noisily on it. The Crow landed beside him and he tossed it some of the bread. Around a mouthful, he asked, "Wha's it mean? You keep light?" "Sort of. Can I talk to your bird?" Dawn-Keeper asked, smile never falling from her face. Tairne shrugged. "Not really my bird." "Uh-huh. But it follows you around?" she asked, leaning forward eagerly. "Because you feed it?" Tairne raised a brow. "More like I follow him." "Why's that?" Dawn-Keeper asked. "He's my spirit guide," Tairne replied rolling his eyes. "Where he directs me, I go." Eilana snickered. "You follow a bird, yet you act like you have your life all figured out." Eilana gestured with a thumb toward Tairne, and raised a brow to Nevarra. "Can you believe him?" "Hey, little girl, this bird knows where he's going and where we're needed. What do you have figured out 'bout your life?" Eilana opened her mouth, seeming unsure how to answer, but regardless of what she would say, Dawn-Keeper spoke again first. "Fascinating. So the bird knows where there's trouble and where your fate should take you? Does he use divination? Has he told you where he's taking you?" "No- he doesn't really talk. Crows don't do much talking, now do they? And he doesn't need divination- he's possessed of a powerful guardian spirit." Tairne's tone made Eilana want to throw a rock in his face. She felt like he was not so silently judging them for not knowing these things. 'But he doesn't even wear pants,' she thought bitterly. "Well, I'll get him to talk!" Dawn-Keeper exclaimed happily, and raised her hands. Her fingers danced quickly through some motions, and she said some words Eilana had never heard the likes of. Tairne jumped to try imposing himself between her and the bird, and succeeded at tripping over his pack, spooking the crow into fluttering to the other side of the fire- right in front of Dawn-Keeper. She finished chanting, and for a moment the crow seemed to glow- or perhaps it was the fire reflecting oddly on his feathers, Eilana couldn't be sure. But after, Dawn-Keeper's brows knitted together. "Oh. Seems he can't or won't. Least not through magic." Her face brightened. "That is utterly fascinating." She looked to Tairne, who was grumpily reassembling the contents of his pack. "I'll try to teach him the old fashioned way then! Magic is a shortcut, after all, and not all shortcuts are good." Tairne rolled his eyes and closed his pack. "Don't you have access to magic?" Nevarra asked, looking to Tairne. He shook his head. "That's not how I work, no." "But I've seen you do things that seemed similar," she said, raising a brow. "What I do, is I ask spirits nicely. They exist all around us, and they're more in tune with Mist than any of the rest of us. By that, they can affect the reality around us in ways we can only replicate through such means as magic. We're imposters, pretending to do what only they truly can." He looked up at Dawn-Keeper, who had been repeatedly telling the crow 'Hello!' until Tairne's statement. "No offense intended on your magic, though." "None taken," Dawn-Keeper pleasantly replied, before saying, "So you can ask spirits to do things for you? You control them?" "Not at all. I simply ask for assistance." "Do they not ask for payment?" Eilana asked, curiously. "Sometimes," Tairne replied. "With proper manners, they're so pleasantly surprised by the attention that they assist without requiring much. It takes respect, patience, and enough insight to let one's sense of self go in their presence. Humility too." Again Eilana snickered. "What's so funny?" he demanded, looking at the girl sternly. "You? Humble? Oh 'You simpletons and your gods and so called civilization'?" "Girl, I know the powers that be, and they're the spirits. Your kings and queens and gods and khans are something, but the spirits that surround us all are everything." "Sounds like religion," stated Dawn-Keeper, glancing at Nevarra. Eilana could be wrong, but it appeared Nevarra had to fight to keep a neutral expression on her face. Tairne scowled and shook his head. "Not at all. Your gods, what makes them who they are? The divinities. The spirits existed before the divinities, and if you want to get technical, Mist, Land, Time and Fate are all spirits in and of themselves. The spirits existed before your gods origins." "But Fate and Time didn't give your spirits any divinities, did they? 'Fate gave the divinities to her favorites of their children,' it's said. I mean, your spirits are definitely powerful and I mean them no disrespect, but why then were they passed over?" Nevarra cautiously said. Tairne snorted. "Didn't one of your gods originate from a squirrel? I have trouble believing 'favorites' to be a particually apt word." "The followers of Nephora aren't partial to that suggestion, not that I think you'd care about their feelings much, huh, spirit boy? Besides, her origins, and possibly a few more, are the effects of the Godswar. I mean, Faegrin the Watcher was a scarecrow who ended up with a divinity hung from him after it's owner was slain. Literally an inanimate object made to resemble a being was able to become a god. Your great spirit Fate probably never saw that coming, huh?" The knight, finishing her reply, added, barely audibly, "No disrespect to Fate intended." "Oooh..." Dawn-Breaker said, causing the other three to look at her. She looked to be watching the exchange with a level of glee. Noticing their looks, she shrugged. "Not quite an educated debate, but best I've had recently." Tairne rolled his eyes and stood. "I'm off to bed," he huffed. "I call that a win for Nevarra!" Eilana called after him, which left Nevarra blushing slight. "You shouldn't poke him," she muttered to Eilana after Tairne had disappeared into his lean-to. Eilana shrugged. "Why not? He's a beligerent ass." Nevarra cleared her throat and shook her head. "Young ladies shouldn't use such language, y'know. And he's also better at tending Luc for the time than anyone else we've had, so lets keep him and his spirits on our side, yes?" Eilana scoffed. "You know I'm not destined for nobility or nothin'. I've a black eye from punching out some street thug for gods sake. And he's so easy to mess with..." "Wars are won by winning hard to reach friends and hitting the tough targets well." Dawn-Keeper said sagely. Eilana gaped at her, unsure how to respond. "I'm... Gonna go lay down," she said, and stood. As she went to lay down in the wagon near Luc, Eilana decided she couldn't tell whether she enjoyed Dawn-Keeper's presence.