It was with spry anticipation that Briery listened as Elias explained the new concoctions that he had brewed for her benefit the night before. She listened and took the one with the red lid, holding it like it were some sort of Holy Grail, despite how he explained its shortcomings. But for Briery, someone who lived in the moment, it was more valuable than gold. “Understood. I will use this one sparingly; but if it can prevent me from sitting out or canceling a performance, then that is just what I need. I owe you one, healer; and I hate owing people. Here.”
Turning, she lifted the seat of the settee that wasn’t occupied. Beneath it was a carved wooden box, from which she withdrew a handful of coins in a pouch, and handed it to Elias. At the healer’s rather snide comment that he wouldn’t accept ‘dirty money’ earned by ‘unsavoury means’, she frowned, and shoved the pouch into his hands, anyway. “You have my word that this money is ‘clean’; strictly from what we’ve earned from performances for the past few months. So you can rest easy with a clean conscience.”
Slamming the box shut, she lowered the top of the settee, and sat, folding her arms, a rather serious look on her face. “You’re right to judge people like me; and I won’t lie, not all of our money is honest. In the beginning, we were hard off, and I was incapacitated for too long each month to be of use to anyone. Winters are especially difficult; sometimes, we are lucky if we’ve earned enough to have a single meal per day. So, yes, we have stolen, and we probably will again. Our ongoing goal is to make it possible that we do not have to. And every year, the more fame and recognition we gain, the easier it becomes to avoid that contingency plan.” There was truth to her words in the mere image of her troupe; like Cwenha and Rycen, Briery, while fit due to the nature of her occupation, was on the thin side, which showed in her high-cheekbones and impossibly small waist. It was difficult to see the same in Lautim, simply due to his size and muscle mass.
“But, do not be so quick to judge our current way of life, when you don’t know where we have come from.” The acrobat’s mood rapidly shifted to one more quiet and somber. She lowered her voice. “When we found Lautim, near the bounds of Mollengard, he was a slave, forced into physical labour. Whether it has to do with what he experienced there, or something that occurred before, I don’t know, but he has never uttered a single word. I myself wonder if he even has a voice. He found his freedom with this way of life; it’s his own choice to exhibit his strength, not an order under threat. And that isn’t even the worst of it.”
Picking up her own mug of tea which had been largely forgotten, she took a sip of the now tepid liquid. “Cwenha was still a child when we found her; without a home, and selling her body to make ends meet. She was barely a person… just some hollow thing with a pretty face and no vision for a future. I promised to show her more empowering ways to use her body to earn profit, and she agreed to train on the trapeze. It was only afterwards that I learned she had such a bewitching singing voice. Now, Rycen…”
Briery snorted and shook her head. “He was in jail for repeated theft. I won’t try to defend him. But between the two of us, we started this troupe, and he learned to use his knack for deception in far less harmful ways. I’m not telling you this to garner pity; just to give you a better understanding of why we are where we are, and why we are what we are. Just a bunch of misfits that don’t know anything better than to dazzle, amaze, and confound. In a way, I think we were made for each other. Missing Links that all found a place on a strange and misshapen chain.” She made no comment as to her own origins, so either she found it irrelevant, or more likely, she didn’t feel like discussing them.
“Anyway. Now that you’re a little more enlightened, I won’t waste your time with any more sad stories or moral justifications.” Turning to Alster, who vaguely explained his method, and then Elias, who let her know how he would follow up, she indicated a still-hot kettle sitting atop one of few surfaces with any space. “There is a basin under that table; I’d pour the water and let it cool before dipping your hands in it,” she advised. “It’s just been freshly boiled.”
Taking a breath, she moved over to allow Alster space on the settee. “Not going to lie… I don’t like the sounds of this. But I did say I’d be willing to try anything.” The ringleader said, and let him take her hand. “I trust you’ll be careful; messing around with someone’s insides, by any means, can’t be taken lightly.”
She did her best to relax, something that was by no means an easy task. She couldn’t describe it, but Briery could feel the presence of something foreign entering her body; almost the same way it felt to feel chilled by a disturbing thought. Uncomfortable, but not unbearable… not at first, anyway.
The ringleader started at the assault of a sudden, sharp pain to the left of her lower abdomen, reminiscent of the terrible flare-up she had experienced the night before, but somehow… worse. Like rubbing salt into an open wound. Briery gasped and screamed simultaneously, doubling over in an instant and letting go of Alster’s hand. She couldn’t hear a word anyone said over her own agony and the sound of her blood racing in her ears. She didn’t even notice when Elias intervened, his hand working some inexplicable feat to ease the pain. It took a few moments, but eventually eased, and she was able to straighten up again. Her face had gone ashed, and tears misted in her warm, brown eyes.
“What… was that?” She demanded, before Alster made an explanation of what he had seen, and what he’d tried to do. None of what he said frankly surprised her; the description he gave was entirely accurate in conjunction with the pain that she suffered. Inflammation, lesions… as if the entire organ was near destroying itself. “...well… I can’t argue that that doesn’t sound accurate. About what I imagined was happening inside.” Despite the guilt in Alster’s voice, she didn’t hold him at fault in any way. He’d given her fair warning.
When the Clematis healer was through washing his hands, the ringleader hesitated to comply. “I think… I need a moment,” she confessed, and didn’t realize she was shaking until Daphni placed a new mug of hot tea in her hands. The water and leaves rippled in the small, ceramic mug from her tremors.
“There is no rush.” The Sybaian healer assured her, sympathizing with how shaken she was. Whatever had occurred must have been painful… She wanted to reach out and erase the dark blotches in the woman’s aura, to induce a level of calm that she so desperately needed, but without consent, it would be terribly manipulative. So instead she said, “Whatever happens, you are among three healers, and we won’t leave you in pain.”
“It’s fine. I’ve had this done before; hasn’t hurt me in the past.” Briery said, and carefully sipped her tea until her hands stopped shaking. When she had her nerves under control once again, she placed the mug down and stood, then turned to Elias. “As you can already see, there isn’t a lot of room in here. But I’ll do my best.”
Having sought the help of many healers before, as Briery said, she was no stranger to a manual procedure such as this one. With a little bit of maneuvering (and fortunately, she was flexible, due to the nature of her livelihood), she made it possible by positioning herself on her lower bunk, though what Elias had to say about what he’d found did not come as any surprise; it was the same as before. Scarring, he’d mentioned, which resulted in textural abnormalities. That was exactly what healers had told her in the past; but they would not tell her how, or why, or what any of it meant, because they did not know, and could not speak to the nature of her condition, or whether any of it was related to her pain.
Pulling on her undergarment for modesty when he finished, Briery smoothed the oversized tunic back over her knees. “I could have told you all that, verbatim,” she said to him, shrugging her shoulders. “That’s what they’ve told me before. Though I haven’t any idea what it means, and neither did they. Usually, that is the point where they would give up, and tell me ‘good luck’.”
“It might not be indicative of anything. Some women have abnormal cervixes and they are perfectly healthy.” Daphni offered, trying to compile the information that they’d gleaned. “But, given what Alster has said… I would be willing to be that it is related to the lesions on your uterus, Briery.”
“Great. Wonderful. So, that said,” she folded her arms and arched an eyebrow, “How do I get it to stop?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Whatever the ringleader had going on in her body was rare, not well documented. But lesions did not just occur from nothing, and that her uterus was so inflamed immediately told her that the organ was not functioning properly. Her calm gaze drifted to Alster. “Elias’s knowledge of chronic disease far surpasses my own, so ultimately, I would favor his opinion. But… Alster, if your magic gives you the capability to see what is going on inside, and you are capable of healing by those means, is it possible to heal the lesions that could be causing the painful inflammation? It would pose far less risk than any surgical procedure.”
Briery almost dropped the mug of tea she’d picked up again. Her face was ashen. “You mean, have him do what he just did? Only on a larger scale? How long would that take? I… I don’t know if I could tolerate that. The pain… was too intense. And I like to think of myself as someone who has developed a damned formidable pain threshold over the years…”
“I do realize that.” Daphni nodded, no judgement or reprimand in her demeanor. “Based on your reaction when Alster barely touched the surface of those lesions, I can understand why you’d want to refuse. And, honestly… I’m not sure it would do much to address the bigger picture, even if you did find relief from it, for a while…”
Pressing her lips together, she turned to Elias, knowing that his word and suggestions would ultimately be the most sound--even if they were not always the most popular. But she welcomed his input, especially in a case like this, simply for the fact that she did not want to voice her own thoughts and suspicions on the matter--and she wanted, very much, to be wrong. But if that organ was dysfunctioning to such an extreme degree, and if the disease was so advanced as to leave lesions along the surface of the uterus… was there really a chance it could be reversed? She thought about the performer and her demanding lifestyle. Wondered if, and how, she would ever aspire to have children. And if children were not in her foreseeable future, anyway, due to the nature of her disease…
“Those tonics she’s been taking really have only been addressing the symptoms,” she said as she turned to Elias. “Little more than pain-killers, keeping the inflammation at a manageable level so that she is bedridden less than she would be were she not to take them. But they haven’t actually been doing anything for the nature of her condition. Those lesions, even if Alster were to heal them… they would develop all over again.”
For once, she welcomed Elias’s bluntness, and his vision for saying whatever was necessary, even if it hurt. She didn’t want to have to be the one to suggest the acrobat undergo a complete hysterectomy… That was never a popular solution among women, for a variety of reasons. Even those who did not aspire to have children still drew feminine strength from the fact that they could, if they wanted to, simply for having the working parts for it. And, even those who could not bear children, still drew definition and identity for that which made them women. Though from what she could glean, it was the option seemed to make the most sense.
And she hoped she was wrong.
Before Elias could stay her long-winded justification for their past crimes, the ringleader went ahead and detailed the character of her troupe members. Throughout her bit, which he interpreted as yet another performance, he began counting the coins in the change-purse that she had presented in his hands, feigning disinterest. Why did it matter to him the reasons behind deviant behavior? Such knowledge wouldn’t prevent an innocent from getting pick-pocketed on the street. No matter their desperation, it was not the only path available to them. Reverence of the Eight Colored God may only have reach in St. Thorne, but certain nations were rife with places of worship. Churches, sanctuaries, within which housed benevolent figures more than willing to accept acolytes of the faith. Accepting the cloth was not a decision for everyone, he realized, but the existence of such havens was proof that, were one inclined to follow a righteous, honest life, one would find the means. However, he could agree with Briery on on point.
“Right. So basically, I am entirely messed up on the inside.” Briery summarized, not in the least surprised at Elias’s assessment. “My body isn’t getting rid of everything that it should, and it’s fucking me up. So… what, then? If the tonics are only keeping the symptoms at bay, how can I address the problem?”
That was when everyone suddenly went silent. The Sybaian healer couldn’t look at her, the healer with the mechanical arm seemed utterly lost, and the Clematis healer’s expression had gone from stoic and aloof to worryingly… kind. “What is it?” She furrowed her eyebrows and folded her arms, crossing one knee over the other. “Say what you have to say; I’m not fragile. I want to know the truth.”
So Elias gave her just that--the truth, hard and unforgiving as it was. No permanent treatable solutions. Nothing that medicine has thus far come to treat. Her face didn’t betray her disappointment; not even when the Clematis healer suggested the most radical of methods to treat it: we surgically remove the uterus. Fine. That was fine, it wasn’t as though she ever dreamed of having children, since her lifestyle wasn’t one that easily permitted raising a child. And menstruation had always been nothing but a painful, life-altering inconvenience. So let’s do it, then! She almost wanted to say, ready to agree on the spot. Even if it meant missing the remainder of her performances for the week, and spending a painful week of recovery on the road, it would all be worth it to secure a better future for herself and her troupe. One where she would be able to participate one-hundred-percent of the time, without inconveniencing them to fetch her a hot water bag, or new rags when she bled excessively, or having them accompany her when she was too dangerously anemic to be alone. It would have been worth it…
That is, if the Clematis healer himself might’ve believed that it would solve her problems. Except, he didn’t. It’s high-risk, and can endanger your life, he said to her, without offering an ounce of confidence in the plausible solution. More importantly, it may not eliminate all your pain.
Whatever he said after the fact was lost on the ringleader. Something about tonics, keeping active, and better nourishment that didn’t quite register. She turned her warm, brown eyes downward, staring at her lap--at her abdomen, containing broken, irreparable parts. Parts that would continue to dysfunction, to cause pain, to interfere with her routines for the rest of her life.
Briery smiled, but there was no humor in it. “Well, that’s a bust,” she commented, tucking a brunette tress of wavy hair behind her ear. “What’s the good of a chronic and painful disease if it won’t even kill you? Rude, if you ask me. It’s the least it could do.”
“It can be managed, Briery. I’m sure of it.” Daphni offered. She didn’t miss how despondent and disappointed the acrobat was, and with good reason. She was surrounded by three healers, all with differed and varying specialties to their practices, and not one of them could help her. The Sybaian healer had never felt more disappointed in herself. “You’ve been able to get by on tonics that have been failing you; now Elias has created far more potent tonics to make up for what your old ones are lacking. I’m confident that you’ll still be able to lead a relatively normal life. Or, ‘normal’ as according to you, that is.”
It was a pitiful attempt to placate a woman to had every right to be upset. She wasn’t even sure if Briery heard, as the ringleader’s eyes looked faraway, somewhere else entirely. “It just strikes me as so… strange.” She said, to no one in particular. “That there are people like you; healers, who can deal in real magic, who can do the seemingly impossible… and yet, there is nothing to be done for me. Lives on the brink of death can be saved; I’ve seen compound fractures healed in days. But this?” She spread her hands in front of her abdomen. “This is still, somehow, impossible. It’s just… so hard to believe.”
She turned her attention to Alster, who tried to offer hope in his own way. But she was already too numb from the news. “Our troupe is headed in Braighdath’s direction, next, in fact. But if there is nothing that a Clematis healer, a Sybaian healer, or… whatever it is you are can do for me, then I am not sure what hope I have in some out-of-the-way city. But I appreciate the sentiment.”
Shaking her head, she stood, and looked between Daphni and Elias. “What are the chances that ripping an organ out of my body will make this stop? Because I’d do it; it isn’t as if I used the damned thing, anyway. My way of life isn’t fit for raising a child. I’d do it in a heartbeat if there was a promise that it would put an end to this.”
“That’s the trouble; there is no guarantee that it would help at all.” The Sybaian healer told her sadly. “If we thought it was worth the risk, we would tell you. But Elias is right; while a full hysterectomy would be safest, the procedure itself is delicate and risky, and it could leader to further complications, unrelated to your defective organ. Just another source of pain that cannot be cured. Of course, it is your body, and the decision is entirely your own. But bear in mind you would need to commit to taking the time to recover.” Which she knew, just by looking at the acrobat, would be a difficult compromise. “My guess is that it would be at least a month before you would be able to perform like you did last night; maybe even longer, depending on how your body takes to the surgery. This is why we stress it as an absolute last resort.”
“I see.” Briery nodded, paused, and looked to Alster. “You’re right; the lesions probably would return. But it’s taken them a lifetime to build. Ever since I hit puberty, at least. Hypothetically, if you were to heal the existing lesions… how long do you think that would give me before it got this bad, again?”
Daphni exchanged an incredulous look with Alster, her eyes wide and mouth agape. “Briery, you about went into shock when he hadn’t even managed to heal a single lesion,” the Sybaian healer said softly, looking pointedly at the acrobat’s hands, which had been shaking in the aftermath. “It isn’t realistic to put you through that kind of pain for such transient relief.”
“I can tough it out. I wasn’t prepared for what he did this time, but if I know it’s coming, I think I’d be better off.” Briery flippantly tossed aside her concern. “Be honest, what do you think the time frame would be? Before it builds back up to where it is?”
“If I had to guess, I would be surprised if you’d made it up to a year before experiencing pain to the same extent that you are now.” The Sybaian healer shook her head. “But the lesions would begin to develop again with every cycle. It might be two months before you start to experience the vestiges of pain. Some months ago, Briery, I’d have been able to have you succumb to sleep during such an excruciating procedure; maybe then, I would tell you that it would be a good temporary idea. But I’m not in a state where I’m capable of doing that, anymore; I’m not sure we could find a safe way to numb the pain while Alster healed you from the inside out.”
In her desperation to have something to take away from all of this, however, Briery held firm. “Like you said, it’s my body. I’ll determine what’s too much for me. If I can get any reprieve whatsoever that isn’t just addressing the symptoms, I’ll take it.” Her eyes softened when she looked to Alster, however, and seemed almost apologetic. “That is, if you’ll agree to it. I’m sorry if I scared you with my reaction. I can suck up the pain a little better if I know what’s coming. At least, think about it? We’re here for a few more days. If you decide you aren’t comfortable with it, then I understand.”
The door of the caravan opened, then, and Cwenha stepped inside She was clad in a simple, muted brown gown; a far cry from her striking, silver costume. Were it not for her pale, white hair, which was hanging loose around her shoulders, she’d have been almost unrecognizable. At first, she seemed a tad surprised to find the caravan full of a handful of healers, but her face quickly shifted to bear an expression of excitement. “How did it go? How are you doing?” She asked Briery, setting down the small sack of goods she’d purchased from the festival vendors.
The ringleader’s demeanor changed in an instant. Gone was that deep-seated sadness, the faraway disappointment in her deep eyes. She smiled, with a lightness to her voice, that confirmed her as a truly formidable actress. “I’m feeling fine. Everything is great. My medically and magically-inclined friends hear have lots of wonderful advice. And, fast-acting tonics to use in case of an emergency.” She picked up one of the red-capped bottles that Elias had given her. “I told you I just needed a day to rest. And there’s lots that can be done, going forward. No more instances like what happened last night, at least not for a while.”
Relief bloomed on Cwenha’s face, and her heart-shaped lips pulled into a grin. “Good. I’m so glad to hear this.” She looked to the three healers and smiled. “Thank you so much for all of your help… It is more than anyone else has done, for us. We--Briery, especially--have always been written off as an unworthy cause, in the past. It has been hard to make people understand we are only trying to get by… and that we need our ringleader to be healthy to be able to do that.”
“It was only a matter of time before we ran into some good apples.” Briery said to her, and put an arm around her shoulders. “Do you know if Lautim is even awake, yet? We need to get the trapeze set up and block out tonight’s performance. I trust the three of you can show yourselves out?” She cast a look over her shoulder at the three healers. One that said she would tell Cwenha the truth, eventually; that there was no hope she could be cured. But not now; not when she was not ready to come to terms with it, herself.
As the trio left the caravan, Daphni walked with a heaviness in her step, feeling more like a failure than she had in quite some time. Even if there was nothing she could do directly to provide the lead entertainer with help, she’d hoped at least that she could provide her with some advice. In the end, they’d walked away empty-handed, and Briery wasn’t in much better a place than she had been before.
“Were we right to dissuade her from agreeing to a hysterectomy?” She asked quietly, seeming to second-guess everything she’d said to the ringleader. “There is the potential that it could help. But frankly… I am not convinced that she would do well under surgery. She might be fit and in good shape, but she’s also visibly underweight from lack of proper and regular nourishment. A body in that state doesn’t make for a good recovery without complications.”
It felt so terribly unfair; that a group of talented individuals wanted nothing more than to get by, and were hindered by the very cards dealt to them at birth. It felt wrong; even when the Sybaian healer knew well that the world was not just.
“There has to be something that can be done. She was right; with all of the magic that this world knows, if people can be brought back from the very brink of death, just like you, Elias, it doesn’t make sense that she should have to suffer such a condition.” Daphni went on, her eyes firmly on the ground. “That there isn’t a way to make her uterus function the way it should...”
That was when she paused, stalling completely. The Rigas caster and Clematis healer were several steps ahead of her before they realized she wasn’t accompany them. At Elias’s inquiry as to what was holding her up, she furrowed her eyebrows, looking deep in thought. “...maybe we are looking at this the wrong way.” She said at last, meeting Elias’s gaze. “She’s experiencing pain from a dysfunctional organ that isn’t working correctly. Removing it is too risky, and there is no foreseeable way as of yet to cause it to function as it should… perhaps we should be focusing on finding a way for it not to function at all.”
At the confused and incredulous looks the two gave her, she ventured to clarify. “The lesions won’t heal because during every menstruation cycle, it irritates her uterus all over again. Maybe, then, the solution--until something more miraculous becomes possible--is to find a way to cease her from menstruating, entirely. If there is no build-up to irritate the organ, the scarring might not go away, but the lesions may heal all on their own.”
There was a bright hopefulness to her eyes at the realization, enough to make her smile. Without warning, she kissed Elias’s cheek. “Enjoy yourself at the festival, today. I have some research to do, and only a few days to find out if this is even possible.”
She turned, then, and headed back toward the palace, not looking over her shoulder to see if either of them would follow.
Not for the first time since gaining full access to his magic without falling apart, Alster was again faced with a situation that his power could not tackle. And again, those words returned to him, like a shaky echo from the collapsing walls of this young woman's broken organs. There are people like you...yet there is nothing to be done for me. She was right, but her incredulity at having been denied effective treatment still buried him, to the hilt, into his own pain-addled arm.
He had done good since bargaining with the Serpent, true. He closed the gateway to death for Vega, and gave her developing children a chance to grow in a healthier womb. That was a result he'd never regret, even though it was only possible by essentially surrendering himself to his childhood monster. But one success did not mean he was living a wholly realized life as a healer. One success did not negate the many failures that would happen were he not armed and ready for all solutions. It was the burden of power such as his own. If it could not help, and heal, despite all his shortcomings, then what good was he, and his long list of past deeds? None of it mattered to the acrobat, if his skills could not lend aid to her specific problem. And in that, he felt utterly useless. He really was the "other" of the three healers. The "whatever it is you can do," would-be healer, donning a masquerade mask that hid nothing of his Rigas features. Everyone familiar with the esteemed family knew that a Rigas was all magic, and covetousness. They seldom deigned to give aid outside of the family, let alone heal strangers with impunity.
Elias, witnessing the slump that had cast wires into the Rigas caster's shoulders in a bid to reel him to the ground in defeat, spoke before he could open his mouth and doubtlessly spout some self-defeatist drivel that would benefit nobody. "Magic is not a cure-all, Briery," he said, his voice firm but understanding. "The more nuanced and complex a patient's condition, the more difficult it is to treat. You must first break all preconceptions you have about magic. It is not a miracle, though I will be first to admit that miracles can occur. They, however, are strictly exceptions, not rules. I was willing to die with this understanding in mind. So, let us look at your situation with the tools that we currently have on the table, all right? No pulling examples of great feats from hearsay or your own experiences. I cannot stress how fortunate you, a mere acrobat, are, to have a Clematis, a Sybaian, and a powerful Rigas caster all at your service."
Alster's otherness was uttered. He nodded blearily to the moniker. He was a Rigas, after all. A family that accomplished nothing but elevating their own status. He could be referred by as nothing else, because he was nothing else. But as discussion again returned to healing her lesions, the question of his capability had curved its way back to him. "I will heal your lesions," he said, with a burst of confidence he wasn't expecting. "If it will stave off your excruciating pain for a while, then yes, it is an option."
Elias gave the over-ambitious caster a pointed look, before returning to the acrobat. "There are drugs that are able to render you unconscious and free of pain. It is a feasible method, but only through the discretion of the caster responsible." Who was all too quick to agree, he thought, with a sour twist to his mouth.
Fortunately, they were ushered out of the caravan after the white-haired acrobat stepped inside, and Briery put on an optimistic act so jarring, that Elias was glad to leave when given the permission to do so. Once the three of them were outside, the Clematis healer whirled on Alster.
"You are too liberal with your promises," he said, in a low grumble of a warning. "Keep in mind, Alster, you are not a healer in name, only by actions that have worked in your favor. A combination of skill, raw magic, and luck, which is not always a reliable formula. You must learn that you can't save them all; it is the first and often most important lesson for a healer." He lifted his bag and reared it backward, tempted to slam the good-hearted caster in the side with it. "I know that you want to help, and you want to heal, and the fervor is an admirable trait to see in a healer. But you will deplete your promises, or make too many. Your responsibilities will grow, and overwhelm, and you will burn out like the Sybaia. You will go the way of the mind. Your compassion, and your propensity for taking things too personally...will end you. But now," he threw a frustrated hand towards the caravan, "you have made such a promise that must be kept, lest you lose all integrity. But know this; you cannot be everything to all people. Choose what is most important...and stick to it."
"I appreciate the concern," Alster replied, in a clipped, sterile tone. "But I only have two modes: I care too much, or not at all. There is no middle ground for someone like me. To remain connected to this world, to prevent myself from slipping into some cold, remotely lived half-existence," an almost serpentine glow emanated from his eyes, "I have to stay all in."
Excusing himself, he disappeared into the crowd, having straightened his heavy gait into long, determined strides. Elias shook his head after the self-righteous caster, and regrouped beside Daphni. "He has a Sybaian spirit; I think the two of you enable each other into forming bad habits. You are both disproportionate in your levels of care, and I daresay it's unhealthy for you to persist." He reached for her hand, a gentle cupping over fingers that felt too cold, despite the mildness of the day.
"That is why I harbor no guilt for dissuading her to undergo a hysterectomy. I am not one to push a patient's safety because I am so moved by their plight that I cannot make rational decisions. If their pain is too much to bear and they want to end it all, I prescribe poison. Not every case has a solution, and that is bound to happen, Daphni. I hope the two of you understand that you cannot do it all, at once. Such things take time, and research. Careful study and planning. Sometimes the patient is not alive to benefit from the results of your research, but it's not all for naught, if others who suffer the same affliction can be saved."
As they began to walk, the Sybaian healer lapsed into silence. When he cocked his head toward her, in concern, she paused mid-step, and an idea passed over her lips, one so enlightening, it gave even him pause.
"Huh. That...is not out of the realm of possibility. In fact, that is quite doable, and--"
But she was already taking off, making a frenzied clip towards the palace. "Hold up!" he yelled, almost jogging in order to keep her pace. "I do not 'enjoy' festivals. Research is far more appealing to me, especially in light of what you have proposed; I am joining you." He gave her a wry smirk. "You are going to need my help, anyway."
That evening, after he had completed his prior commitments to Alta, Haraldur, and Sigrid, Alster returned to the caravans behind the stage. By then, the second Missing Links performance had ended, and the crowd was rushing out of the small square. The lingering admirers, mainly of the cherubic singer, had, too, made their departure, and the plank-board stage was dismantled and packed away in the far corner of the troupe's small campsite. With a small bag slung across his shoulder, the Rigas caster arrived at Briery's door. The other troupe members recognized him by sight, and allowed him access to the star performer and ringleader. When she answered the door for him, he dipped his head in greeting--though found it difficult to express the smiles that had come so easy to him, before.
"Briery." He stepped inside the compact house on wheels, having little trouble navigating the cramped spaces, owing to his short and diminutive size. "Cwenha." He noticed the silver-haired singer lounging in the farthest settee from the door, having since shed her glittering outfit for something more modest and comfortable. Briery, too, was wearing the overlarge tunic from earlier that day; by the serene look in her washed, yet still sparkling face (that substance really was impossible to shed), the tonic had done its job in culling the symptoms of her uterine condition.
"How did the performance go? I'm sorry to have missed it tonight. I take it that you didn't experience much pain, this go-around?" At her nod and subsequent detailing of the set that they ran that evening, he set down his bag and began to undo the buckles that kept it bound.
"I know we were only discussing the possibilities of my healing your lesions, and hadn't confirmed a proper time. In that, I must apologize for my impromptu arrival, here. I was going to wait until the morning," but I wanted to lower the chance of running into Daphni and Elias, he thought, but chose not to share. They were unaware of his late-evening call to the caravans of the Missing Links. He hadn't told them, and had thus not received "permission" to proceed. It was wrong of him to ignore the good sense of the Clematis healer, who was, in some ways, his mentor. But he hadn't the time to wait...and neither did she. "But I assumed you'd want this procedure to happen sooner rather than later. I am more than willing to perform it on you now."
Out of his bag, he pulled out a small box, and several vials of an amber-colored substance. "In that box, I have a syringe, which will inject this drug," he showed her the vial, "into your blood-stream. I use this for my chronic pain, sometimes. It's extremely potent, and fast-acting. But it will reduce you to a stupor, and the effects linger for half a day, sometimes longer. That's why I decided to come here tonight, instead of the morning; to give your body time to wean it off. Anyway," he set down the vials, "they are more than effective in suppressing pain, as this drug is often used in surgeries. If you should choose to be unconscious, too," he opened his good hand, like petals on a flower, "I can do that, with my magic. I'll be able to send you into a beautiful dream-state, while I work. This shouldn't take any longer than an hour. So," he looked to her with his careworn eyes, "if this is what you want, we can begin, whenever you're ready."
Elias was right--as he tended to be about many things, Daphni realized. She and Alster really weren’t so different, both in their abilities to heal a person from the inside out, without the need for drugs or surgery, and in their disproportionate ability to care. Even for those who might well be undeserving of it. And because of that, their similarities that drew them toward making promises that they might not be able to keep, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for the Rigas caster, as the Clematis healer chided him for his above-and-beyond promises.
But none of that discredited that Elias was correct in his appraisal. Alster, however much he strived to be, was not yet a true ‘healer’. Both she and Elias had spent a good portion of their lives (she, in particular, had dedicated her whole life) to learning their craft, and it was only recently that the Rigas caster had become aware and comfortable in his ability to heal in a similar fashion as the Sybaia. There was still much refinement to be done, much that he needed to learn, and to learn to temper. There was a reason she hadn’t offered to help send the ringleader to sleep while Alster healed her lesions: because she knew her limits, and as much as it pained her, she needed to respect them, or else find herself on bedrest indefinitely by Elias’s orders. Alster, too, needed to learn to respect his limits, and needed to learn what was off limits.
“Neither of us are discrediting what you do as being effective, Alster,” Daphni added, to try and soften the blow of Elias’s words. “It is noble of you to offer to do what you can for that woman. Though I would recommend that you tell one of us before you proceed, so that someone can oversee the procedure and watch out for any danger, either involving Briery, yourself, or the both of you. And not because we do not trust you to do well.” She quickly amended, taking note of the Rigas caster’s already wounded pride. “Just as standard procedure with anything risky is taking place. It would be the same, were it myself or Elias performing it. You never know what can go wrong…”
Whether or not Alster heard any of what she had to say remained unknown. With a dangerous mixture of wounded pride and determination, he stalked off, leaving Daphni in a particularly worried state. “I know he is ahead of himself. But… I cannot deny him his desire to help that woman. Between the three of us, someone should have a solution for her. So,” that very same determination mirrored in Alster’s eyes flickered in her own. It was the first time they had looked so ‘alive’, since she had saved Elias from his own untimely demise. “I am determined to find some source of hope for the acrobat before she leaves. Just because I cannot safely make use of my abilities as a Sybaian does not altogether discredit my abilities as a healer.”
She hadn’t expected him to follow, not when Elias had sounded so convinced that they had done everything within their realm of possibility to help Briery Frealy--and that was fine. He was at liberty to state his own limits and boundaries, and she respected that, although it did not prevent her from making her own choices about limitations. But before she knew it, he was running to catch up with her, taking her by the hand. His fingers felt warm and reassuring against her cool digits.
“Does this mean you have decided not to give up on a band of lowly entertainers?” She raised an eyebrow, and smiled. “There might be some hope for you yet, Clematis. You say that I am negatively influencing Alster with my penchant to care too hard, and too much, but I daresay I am also beginning to influence you. And I like what I see.”
And, once again, he was right: she would need his help, simply for the nature of his expertise. “I know a thing or two about herbs and remedies. But chemistry is not my strong point; not the way these things can potentially react with one another. And I’m not sure I want to be alone in figuring out how to safely cause an organ to cease functioning. So,” she grinned. “Let’s see how long we can safely keep her Highness from noticing we’ve withdrawn from festivities.
That evening, the Missing Links’ show went without a hitch. Fortunately, the lead acrobat and ringleader did not find herself succumbing to excruciating pain, and was able to not only complete her breath-taking routine, but to stay for the entirety of the performance. The audience, some new and some from the night before, continued to be amazed and astounded, and for the second night in a row, they did well with the amount of donations that compiled after the show.
It was later that evening, after the performers had found somewhere to bathe, was the glitter off of their bodies, and to change into more comfortable clothing, that there was a knock at the women’s caravan door. Briery answered, her hair damp from scrubbing glitter from it, clothed in the same oversized tunic she had been wearing earlier. For a beat, she appeared shocked to see him. He had made her a promise, yes, but she honestly hadn’t thought he meant to make good on it so soon. Not that she wasn’t pleasantly surprised and grateful, all the same. “
Ah. The ‘other’ healer.” SHe smiled, holding the door wide for him to answer. “And a Rigas caster, if I recall. I’ve heard of your lineage, though I’ve never ventured to beautiful Stella D’Mare, myself. Something tells me that our troupe would not be particularly welcome there, and even if we were tolerated, we would not be making the kind of money that keeps us afloat. Oddly, we have found that it is the richer places who tend to be more conservative with their coin. Then again, I suppose that is how you stay rich, is it not?” She arched an eyebrow. “But that’s beside the point. I did not expect to see you back here, so soon…”
Cwenha, who was sitting on a settee with a book in her lap and a mug of steaming tea in her hand, looked up when she heard her name. Even without the glitter on her face, the paint and liner on her eyes, and the sparkly costume, the singer and acrobat still maintained a luminous, young sort of beauty, with her wide eyes and heart shaped lips. For a brief moment, she looked shocked. “You must certainly have won Briery’s favor, if she is allowing you into our private space after the performance,” she said, shooting an almost accusatory glance at the ringleader. “But to answer your question, it went well, tonight. All of us were able to fulfill our performances, and then some. We even had the time and energy for a final encore at the end.” Her accusatory gaze softened ever so slightly, and she put down her book and tea. “Thank you for your help. I am sure it is because of you and the other two healers that Briery was able to perform, tonight.”
Briery eyed the bag that the Rigas caster was carrying, and ventured to answer, “What bring your back here, this evening? Not that you aren’t welcome, of course. Very rarely do I cavort with any of my audience before or after a show, let alone allow them into my space unannounced, as Cwenha mentioned…”
That was when Alster explained his intentions--to make good on the promise that he had made to her, that morning. She eyed the syringe, and for a brief moment, appeared hesitant to agree. Remembering that sudden, searing pain from that morning, how it felt like it cut through her body like knives… The vials, however, looked promising. And she was relatively small and light; a dosage like that would come close to knocking her out, anyway, she imagined. “All right. We can do this now.” She said with a resolute nod, missing the shocked look in Cwenha’s wide eyes.
“What does he mean, Briery? I thought you said everything was okay.” She questioned, eyeing the syringe dubiously. “I thought you said everything would be fine… this does not look fine, to me.”
Briery shot the smaller woman an apologetic smile, and shook her head. “I’m sorry I did not tell you earlier, Cwen. But they diagnosed that my condition… what is happening to me, is chronic. And there is no cure for it. To make a long story short, my uterus apparently has a tendency to wreak havoc on itself; it’s full of lesions, which seem to be the culprit causing my pain. There is only a vague hope of managing the pain it causes me. But…” She glanced at Alster. “This man, here, is magically adept. He said he can heal the lesions. They will return, inevitably, but at least for a short amount of time, I might actually find some relief… I’ll take whatever I can get.”
Cwenha listened quietly and nodded, her wide, pale eyes illuminating sadness. “We always get our hopes too high.” She said softly. “Every time you’ve seen a healer, with the potential that they might be the one to make all of this stop… but now we know it won’t. We are going to have to live with this, indefinitely.”
“I’m afraid so.” The ringleader told her softly, expelling a long breath of air. “But… we’ll manage it. I will manage it. And I’ll be a little bit better, for a while.” Returning her attention to Alster, and to the promising-looking vials in the brown case. She nodded once. “I think whatever is in those vials will probably suffice. I am not fond of being rendered unconscious, even if it is for my own benefit. I’d rather be semi-aware of what’s happening to me… Forgive me for being a little bit paranoid.”
Of course, she found no judgement from the Rigas caster, who was happy to load the syringe with one of the vials and carefully inject the amber contents into her arm. Cwenha pulled her knees to her chest and turned her face away, too squeamish to watch. “It’s all right, Cwenha; you can look now.” Briery teased, pressing the sore spot on her arm where the syringe had been. Not thirty seconds later, she was blinking rapidly, and slowly lifted a hand to her head. “Oh… you were right. This it… it works… fast.”
“Hey, maybe you should lie down.” Jumping up from the settee, Cwenha moved toward Briery and, with Alster’s help, coaxed her toward her bottom bunk to lie down. Her body was limp, like every muscle in it had ceased to function. “Is this normal?” She asked Alster, visibly concerned. “Is she supposed to be like this?”
“I’m fine.” Briery said to her, her voice airy and languid. “I just… don’t really care about anything. It’s all very far away…”
Pressing her lips together, the singer took a seat at the head of Briery’s bed, where she took one of her hands. “I’m trusting you not to hurt her,” she informed Alster, though knew full well this couldn’t be a comfortable procedure, if he had offered to send her to sleep. “Please, just be careful…”
Cwenha watched with cautious eyes as Alster took Briery’s hand, the ringleader putting up no resistance in her stupefied state. He seemed to go into a sort of trance, holding Briery’s hand in his own flesh and blood fingers, though it didn’t look as though he was doing much at all. Moments passed, before she began to notice Briery stir, her brow furrowing like she was experiencing some sort of discomfort. “Briery? Are you all right?” She asked, holding onto the ringleader’s other hand.
The stupefied acrobat only groaned softly. “It’s fine…” It didn’t look fine, but whatever was happening, Cwenha was too afraid to interrupt it. So it went on this way for for an hour; Briery gripping her hand, breathing through what seemed to at least be a manageable pain, until at last the magic user opened his eyes, and let go of her hand. Briery’s brow smoothed; she ceased her writing, but trembling faintly.
“Were you able to help her? Will she be all right?” Cwenha asked Alster, pulling a blanket over the ringleader’s trembling form. “Will… she be able to perform tomorrow?”
When Alster withdrew from Elias and Daphni’s range, his heart was pumping in his temples, drowning out the ambient crowd noise in his ears. His eyes, so open and aware, saw his surroundings with the clarity of a man looking retrograde, certain of the turns of the river because he’d navigated it, before. He hadn’t known why he reacted so strongly to Elias’s admonishment outside of the caravans. The Clematis healer was nothing if not rational and honest, and his lecture was well-reasoned. Alster did not have the experience of a healer, and he was too invested in the lives of strangers. Everything to everyone...that, too, was true. Power branched out of him in multitudinous directions; a tree, growing along with the sphere of his influence. The more he traveled and experienced, the higher the tree extended, and hence, the farther he strayed from his roots—from the home that needed him. And the farther he strayed from her. From Elespeth.
His city, his family—they should have been foremost on his mind. Yet, he was in Eyraille, immersing himself in a festival that was not rightly his to enjoy. He celebrated, he laughed, and connected with friends, and the more he lived in the bliss of a moment, the more he forgot the dying branch of his tree. Despite his renewed hope to rebuild Stella D'Mare in the image that Grandmother Alta deserved, he wanted that future for her. No...for him. Stella D’Mare meant nothing without the people who were capable of creating it into a rightful haven: Elespeth, Chara, Alta...and others who lived on different branches on the tree. Those branches included outsiders, or strangers, outliers he was so desperate to collect, like birds seeking respite from the ongoing storm. They would accept him, if only he gave, and gave, and gave. They would keep him rooted and spare him from the emptiness that, daily, threatened to swallow him into the waiting oblivion of the Serpent’s maw.
Remember why you wanted to destroy Stella D’Mare the first time, the Serpent spoke. He spoke. So they would respect your will. Your power. Freedom from your imprisonment. They could control you no longer. Your power is your own, to do with as you command. Destroy with it, or save with it. No matter what you do, they will rest at your feet. The world is yours.
They would respect him, too. Elias. Daphni. It mattered not that he wasn't properly trained in the ways of healing. He was a magical prodigy. He’d learned to heal flesh wounds at a professional level when he was but a child, long before Elias or Daphni were even alive to consider their paths. He devoured medical texts and remembered everything he’d read, reciting passages verbatim. He understood, and applied, and the knowledge was innate. It lived in him, and he could wield it with an expert flick of his fingers. So then why did he allow people to treat him as a lesser being? Unworthy of existence or consideration? He was Alster Rigas, and that meant something more than mere title or prestige, which was stripped from the body at death. He was not 'other.' He had a name. He was...like everyone else.
I’m human.
No you’re not, the Serpent in him hissed. Not anymore.
I always have been.
You’re striving to be more than human. You are the tree that holds fragile lives upright. ...You want to be a god.
I want to save.
Because if they believe in and worship you, you won’t disappear.
I’m already disappearing.
Because you were never human. Humans die, but gods...they fade when beliefs wane. When prayers go unanswered. What are you doing now, Alster?
...Answering a prayer.
That evening, he’d entered Briery’s caravan with somber-faced purpose. Gone was the ease in which he spoke to friends and strangers alike. The personable demeanor that people such as Chara, Tivia, and Vitali considered too infuriating, fawning, or disgusting in its desperation for acceptance...he’d left it outside. He had a task to accomplish. That was all.
“Alster Rigas,” he said, in response to Briery’s mention of his ‘other’ status for the second time that day. “You may...drop the Rigas. That’s not my identity. Stella D’Mare is in shambles, my family remains haughty in the face of great loss, and our riches will soon be nothing but a memory. We are dying, and I, already dead and resurrected as something else.” He shook away the thick cloud that had strangled his ability to speak with at least the illusion of humanity. He took a breath, and tried again. “I’m afraid no circuses will be gracing the dead streets of Mollengard-occupied territory. We had many circuses, in the city of wealth and excess. Maybe one day soon, it will happen again.”
At the ringleader’s agreement to undergo the procedure, Alster immediately returned to the vials he’d set on the desk, beside the case. With care, he removed the sharp needled tool from its cushioning inside the box, showed it to the open vial, and bade it drink the amber nectar like a hummingbird before a flower. “Spread your arm out for me, Briery,” he turned to her, syringe poised in his good hand. “Factoring in your height and weight, I’ve calculated the correct dose that’s required for this procedure. You will feel a pinch,” he clicked his tongue in afterthought, “but that shouldn’t bother you too much.”
After injecting the ringleader through the vein with the liquid, he set the instrument back in the case, and, along with Cwenha, helped her now-limp body into the bottom bunk of her bed. Making himself comfortable on the bed beside her, he took her hand as though it were as precious as porcelain. “I know you said you didn’t want to be asleep for this,” he said, with a soothing whisper, “but try to let yourself drift. It shouldn’t be hard, with the drug in you.” He turned his gaze to Cwenha. “You have an important job. Watch us. If you sense something is awry—if she seizes up, or convulses, or screams from the pain—wake me up. I’ll withdraw immediately.” For the sake of the young singer, he presented her a small, reassuring smile. “I foresee about an hour. If it goes on for longer, wake me up.”
With his instructions properly conveyed, he peered over at the sedate Briery, who’d stilled upon the bed in corpse-like repose. If not for her open eyes, he’d have assumed she was asleep. “Are you ready, Briery?” At her nod, he tightened his hold on her hand, and closed his eyes.
Once again, he found himself traveling through her body, following the beacon that his hyper-sensitive energies could feel. It was in distress; its waves of anguish were plaintive and feral and gripping, and it pulled him towards the source. He didn’t fight, only flowed forward, until he was there, in a dark, dripping, bleeding cave. It wept with black pustules, and heaved, like a cow trying to shed blood flies from its hide. Those lesions were spotted like tiny black holes, cuts of oblivion. If he approached too close, they’d surely suck him inside. But he knew that to be untrue. The lesions were merely wounds needing to be excised. Zap them out of existence.
Electricity surrounded his being. It shot outward, in a steady arc, and interacted with the first lesion. It screamed and fought as it shrank, and shriveled, and died. With every lesion he dealt steady shocks, diligently flitting from aberration to aberration. Once he addressed all of the lesions, he sent outward a pulse of low, humming energy, in an attempt to soothe what he had so willfully attacked. It’s all over now. He sang with the energies, and hummed along to its low frequency pitch. You will recover.
He blanketed the area with the salve of his intent, dousing the residual sparks and the flames. And when he was all done, he swam out of her body, and back into his. Consciousness twitched. Sensation returned. With a slow opening of his eyes, he took in the overbright world, with its garish angles and foreign swirls of colors.
In a brief moment of confusion, he looked to Cwenha, recognizing nothing about her other than a bundle of organs and nerves, tied taut with layers of flaky, porous material. But within minutes, he found purchase in the realm where he’d spent much of his time. Life. Living. It happened here, he reminded himself. You exist here.
Releasing her hand, he stood shakily to his feet, and poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the table. He presented it to the acrobat with a wan smile. “I’ve excised the lesions,” he said, a triumphant glimmer forming in his awakening eyes. “All of them. This should drastically decease your pain for the following cycles. You did well, Briery. You withstood the discomfort.” He gripped her hand one last time and sent her another small surge of magic, to help with the trembling. “You should be able to perform tomorrow. Sleep until then, drink plenty of water, and take your tonic, as you have been. I’ll check on you in the morning, and see how you’re faring.”
After a long day bouncing between the library and the infirmary, Elias and Daphni decided that sleep was a necessity. For, determined as they were to develop a formula in time before the troupe’s departure, they also needed to operate within the realms of realism, and bodily demands. And, right then, their bodies demanded sleep.
“Do not forget, Daphni,” he warned her, as they cleared their working table at the infirmary of its books, “that you are infirm, and it is still my duty to ensure that you are looking after your own health. Though I’ve humored you in our collective research, please note that finding a 'cure' within days is not altogether feasible. And if this in any way compromises your condition, we are desisting immediately. That being said,” he tucked their borrowed books under his arm and stood from his chair, “I do think we’ve made an admirable start. Conservative though I am, we have found a few leads.”
He offered his free arm to her, which she took as she, too, rose from her seated position. Linked together, they strode from the infirmary and down the palace corridors, en route to their chambers. But as they turned the corner, they encountered Alster heading in their direction. There was a regal bearing about him, an uncommon sight, despite his upbringing. His spine was positioned straighter, his mouth firm and untroubled, and his blue-green eyes defiant in their cool appraisal of Daphni and Elias. Though he presented himself with grace, there still was a certain desperation about him. Something manic, hidden behind his calculated expression.
“I've healed her of her lesions,” he said to the two healers, as he neared them in the corridor. “A few hours ago. I thought you should know.”
“Even when we specifically stated you hold off until you are accompanied by an experienced healer?” He released Daphni’s arm, and transferred the books into both hands. He needed all the grip he could manage, if it would stay him from dropping them in response to the caster’s steady insolence.
“I’ve been healing longer than the years of your collective experience, combined,” he bit, his brow drawing into a glare. “Yes, I don’t have dedicated experience, but I am not nothing, either.”
“Nobody said you were!”
“I healed her,” he said, quietly. “And I’ve shirked nothing else in the process. I’ve been there for everyone. And now,” he lifted his good hand, which cradled the resonance stone, “I will be there for Elespeth. I can do it all, Elias. Because I will not disappear.”
“What are you on about?!” But by then, he was already skirting past them down the hallway, his confident strides looking more like the splaying of some creature possessed inside a human form. It seemed...unnatural.
“The man is already losing his goddamned mind,” he said, clawing his fingers around his small cache of books. “I was too quick to refer to him as a colleague. Not when he is losing all sense of reality. Going the way of the mind, like I said.” With the sad shake of his head, he turned and continued down the corridor, in the direction the Rigas caster had gone. “We need to watch him, Daphni. Especially if he contacts Briery again, and decides to ‘heal’ her entire uterus, while he’s at it. If not us, then someone. Someone who can get through to him."
All thanks to the drug flowing through her veins, the sensation was not like that which she had experienced before. Not that sharp, burning, agonizing flare that had sent her crumpling into herself that morning. Instead, it was like a steady ache, like the pinch of that needle, over and over again; not comfortable, and definitely one that she wished would cease as soon as possible. Almost like a painful itch that no matter how far she reached, she could not scratch.
Fortunately, another effect of the heavy drug was that she did not care as much. Certainly, the pain was at the forefront of her thoughts, but so was the softness of the mattress beneath her body, and the warmth of Cwenha’s hand. From somewhere far away, she heard Alster’s voice: let yourself drift, he’d said, and that was not a hard thing to do. She felt as though she could have fallen asleep if she’d wanted to, but she resisted going that far. The faraway sensation of pain was enough to keep her alert, to keep her present, even if the feeling was so detached she could almost envision that she was only dreaming it.
The acrobat wasn’t entirely sure how much time had passed, by the time the pain finally ebbed away to nothing. It was difficult for her eyes to focus, but she could make out Alster’s form as Cwenha helped her sit up, and the Rigas caster handed her a glass of water. She wrapped both hands around it to make sure it did not spill, and even then, she didn’t trust herself not to drop it altogether. “Thank you,” she said, taking a sip before passing the cup to Cwenha, afraid she would upset the water. “I owe you more than I can possibly afford to pay, I’m afraid... I cannot put a price on prolonging my involvement with this troupe. Even if it only buys me a few months more, before I must leave.”
“Leave? What are you talking about?” Cwenha suddenly went rigid, her eyes wide as she turned to Briery, taking a seat next to her on the bed. “This is a joke, right? You don’t mean it.”
“If only. But I don’t joke about serious things.” The ringleader’s voice was lazy and drug-addled, but it was no less sincere--and serious. “I am sorry, Cwenha. I tried--they all tried. This Alster Rigas, and the Sybaian and the Clematis healer, but there is no cure for what I have. It isn’t deadly, but it is going to shorten my time in this world as a successful performer. It is only a matter of time before I become too accustomed to the new tonics, as well. It will only get worse from there.”
The young singer shook her head and took Briery’s arm, stroking her hand. “You’re drugged out of your mind… you don’t mean any of this. You can’t…”
“I’m sorry, Cwenha. But I’d have told you sooner or later… you, all of you, need to look at the future of this troupe, without me. Keep at the trapeze; you’ll be better than me at it, in a matter of years.” She offered a small, encouraging smile that did nothing to placate the pale-haired girl. “It won’t be anytime soon. I’ve got some years left in me, with the new tonics, not to mention with that Alster has just done for me. It is not the near future… but most definitely the foreseeable future.”
“You can’t. We are a family. You said that yourself.” Cwenah’s voice was simultaneously soft and sharp; hurt and betrayed on so many levels. “You don’t abandon your family…”
“And family does not hold other family back. Look at all of the shows I’ve had to pull out of; the shows that we have had to altogether cancel. You are as big a star as me, Cwen; in fact, you shine brighter, in many ways. I cannot in good conscience remain among you lot as simply another mouth to feed… someone whose body is too unpredictable to perform. I promised myself that a long time ago. Unless I find a miracle. But,” she shook her head, “the Clematis healer told me not to hold my breath. Miracles are for the lucky; we might be talented, but none of us are lucky. Again, this will not occur anytime, soon. We will figure it out as we go along.”
There were tears in Cwenha’s pale eyes, trickling down her cheeks. Her own shoulders shook with the emotion she was holding in. “Where will you go, then? What will you do, with no one to help you when you are too anemic to get out of bed?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve been lost, before, and I found my way. I always do. You shouldn’t be concerned.” Lifting her arm, which felt heavier than usual, she wrapped it around Cwenha’s small shoulders, and turned her bleary gaze toward Alster. “Time is the one thing you cannot put a price on… and you have bought me time with this family. More time that I can contribute and be useful to them. If you see the Clematis and the Sybaian healer, tell them I thank them, as well. It wasn’t my intention to sound ungrateful, earlier.”
Daphni had ignored Elias’s suggestion that they call it a night, many times over. And it was only when she caught herself drifting off over her books, that she realized it might be time to concede defeat--for now. Picking herself up off of the desk she was slumped over in Eyraille’s infirmary, she sighed and tucked the books she’d been reading under her arm. There was a great deal of information at their disposal; the trouble was narrowing it down, and finding the niches that they so sought to find the answer.
“I think that your idea and my idea of ‘infirm’ differ,” she mentioned quietly, more to herself than to him. But she knew better than to turn down his advice; recognizing Elias for his skills and expertise, while taking care not to bruise his ego (though he would wholeheartedly deny that he had one at all) was a delicate game, indeed. And with the new developments in their interpersonal relationship, with the vestiges of an idea to raise have a child together… Needless to say, the Sybaian healer was learning when it was safe to be outspoken. “I know the tightrope that I am walking when I exert myself, Elias; but I also know when I have gone too far. Can you trust me to pull back on my own?”
She took his proffered arm, just to make a point, realizing that hours and hours of reading and straining to stretch her thoughts in the right direction had made her grow weary and weak. But calling it a night did not mean that she was about to concede defeat to their very short timeframe. “I, conversely, think that this is entirely possible to find a solution before the week is up,” she said, after a moment of thought. “We have everything that we need. All of the documented herbs and medicines and tonics that women have used for decades and centuries as contraceptives. There must be a means somewhere, in there, to take it all from controlling the waxing and waning of menses to stopping it altogether. Purposeful infertility… it has to be possible. And we have the pieces.” Glancing at him sidelong, she smiled sweetly. “Let’s make another day of it, tomorrow. And go into it with the mindset that we will find the treatment that this woman needs. I have grown rather fond of Eyraille’s penchant for positive thinking.”
They were halfway down the corridor, when they encountered Alster Rigas. Immediately, Daphni felt inclined to draw back. Aside from the uncanny wildness in his blue eyes, there was something unsettling about the tinge of the Rigas caster’s aura… something that she could not quite put her her thumb on.
Nonetheless, she offered a kind smile. “Alster. What are you doing up, so late?”
He wasn’t listening; or if he was, he didn’t care. And the news that he shared about shocked her as much as the unfamiliar color of his aura… “You… the acrobat? You healed her lesions?” And without either of them present, to keep an eye on the situation. Without Elias, to determine that he had given her just the right dosage of sedative, and without her, to keep an eye on changes in her aura that might suggest the ringleader was experiencing more pain during her procedure than what was visibly possible to tell…
Elias spoke for the both of them, of course, giving Alster an earful that the caster seemed to have expected to hear. Once again, the Clematis healer was not wrong, but he could not see the odd stirrings of Alster Rigas’s aura, and perhaps did not realize that a more delicate approach was necessary… And it was far too late for her to save face.
Sure enough, he turned away, deflecting Elias’s words in a decidedly defensive manner. Pressing her lips together, she stepped forward, and spoke up before she could think better of it. “You didn’t heal her; you just put off her suffering for a little bit longer.” A harsh claim to make, but a true one, and it was striking enough (especially coming from Daphni Adela, of all people) to freeze the Rigas Caster in his steps. He stood, rigid, in the middle of the corridor, allow the Sybaian healer ample opportunity to clarify.
“It’s the same with Elias’s tonics. She is going to grow immune to her effects; so far, none of us have healed her, Alster. Only mitigated the symptoms. But there… we think there might be a way to eradicate the the problem, even if we cannot cure her of the disease itself.” This got Alster’s attention, enough that he turned around, and she went on. “She suffers because the process of her menses is dysfunctional; her uterus doesn’t act the way it should, and it is too dangerous to remove it. But if she were to stop menstruating altogether, and if there was nothing to build up in that organ to cause further lesions and agony, then the problem will solve itself. And that is where we are at, thus far.”
Expelling a sigh, the weary healer took another few steps forwards, her palms up. “But it isn’t enough. We haven’t gotten far enough in a day to make gains, and the troupe will be leaving with the closing of the festival. I understand your passion to help, Alster, because I share in that passion, as well. It rules us, to the point where we would sooner burn ourselves our trying to heal than to give up on someone. I am determined to find a solution for that woman. But between Elias and myself… so far, it has not been nearly enough. Do you really want to help, Alster?”
She closed the distance between the two of them and met his eyes. “Then help us. Work with us, not without us. You are not nothing; there wouldn’t have been any other way to determine the cause of that ringleader’s pain were it not for your ability to see inside. Exploratory surgery would likewise have been too risky. We know your worth, we know that you are capable of great things, but we do not have a lot of time. Collaborating is our only hope to truly make a difference in Briery Frealy’s life.
“So… what do you say?” Her voice softened to something of a plea. “Will you help us? I am not asking to placate you. I am asking because… because I do not want to suffer the defeat of letting her down, like every other healer she has encountered. And I know that you don’t want that, either. Because you care.”
Watching him finally stride away down the corridor, Daphni’s shoulders slumped, and she pressed a hand to her forehead. “You are allowed to hate me, for that,” she said to Elias, knowing there was no use in defending the approach she’d taken. “But you’re right; we do need to keep an eye on him. Something is off, and the only way we will be able to successfully monitor him is by working with him, not alienating him. Besides… I meant what I said.” She pivoted on her heal and turned to the Clematis healer, meeting his hazel eyes. “I will not concede defeat so easily. And we do need all the help that we can get.”
The reverberation of Daphni’s words against the corridor walls ground Alster’s feet to a stop.
“Possessed? ...no. I don’t think that is quite right.” Daphni used, her eyes trailing after Alster, long after he’d disappeared down the corridor. “He is still himself; still Alster. But… he is also something other. It makes me suspect that this has something to do with his bond to the serpentine creature that he felled--or, rather, that he sent to another plane of existence, entirely. He has not quite been the same since that event. Somehow, he is more powerful… and also far more unpredictable.”
The Sybaian healer pressed her lips together, knowing full well that Elias forbade her to interfere with the troubled Rigas caster’s mind before he even verbally clarified as much. She did not bother to hide her disappointment, though. “That is the worst part. That I could help him. See into the recesses of his soul that are letting something else in; I could help him navigate it. Except… that I cannot. Because I am no longer strong enough.” She sighed so deep it could have well deflated her. “But there will be emotional baggage everywhere, Elias, no matter where I turn or how well I keep myself hidden. Haraldur has it, as does Vega. I sensed it in the Dawn warrior and the young King. Even you have it, and instead of talking to me to give it an outlet, you are continuing to let it fester.” That last statement was not an accusation, but merely an observation. “Though I do commend your admirable efforts to hide it. But what I am trying to convey is that emotional baggage alone will not end me. It is a nuisance and gives me a headache, yes, but I only experience it in terms of passive stress. It does not filter through me the way distress does when I exercise my abilities.
“So, no. Neither the case of Briery Frealy, nor that of Alster Rigas, or even that of yourself, is too much for me to handle.” Daphni rested a reassuring hand on his arm. “So let me do what I can, without making use of my abilities. What is the point of remaining in this plane of existence if I cannot continue to impact the people around me, in some way? Keeping people alive without allowing them a reason to live… that is crueler than leaving them to die.”
She did not miss the soft wave of compassion that spread over his features, however. For one who acted so aloof and stoic, Elias’s care was genuine. And when he cared for a cause… he cared a lot. “I respect what you are trying to do for me. And I’ll let you; because being a part of your life has given me an altogether new reason for looking toward the future. And don’t think for a moment that I have forgotten about what you agreed to.” Daphni smiled playfully. “If you change your mind now, I very well may die of a broken heart. I told you before, when a Sybaia makes this sort of commitment to someone, they are all in. Which means you need to be all in, as well. And, in the meantime, while we are fortunate enough to be here...”
Daphni sighed. It was true; it could not always be for free, this process of healing. They were fortunate enough to be able to do it, this one time, but she could tell that Elias was not particularly happy about it. “I can’t dispute that. If it were up to me, ealing would never have to cost anybody anything. But I know that life isn’t like that. For people like you, it costs coin; for people like me, it eventually costs our lives. Just humor me one more time, on this. We do whatever we can for Briery Frealy, and when that is over, continue to monitor the princess’s pregnancy, which will be a far more passive endeavor, anyway.”
She stared at the pile of books on the table. How much would it take from her, if Elias was right? If they could not find the right balance of ingredients, if they could not produce enough of it in time? The Sybaian healer was no longer able to heal others from the inside-out; she wasn’t sure that she could endure admitting defeat to other methods of healing, as well…
They’d only manage day few hours of sleep, due to a late night and an early morning, but Daphni was ready to continue where she had left off the night before as soon as the sun was up. She’d have made right for the infirmary as soon as she dressed, but at Elias’s insistence, she partook in a small meal, beforehand. Books in hand, they did not expect to find the infirmary occupied by another other than Eyraille’s physicians. Yet there, corroborating over a handful of books, were two people who were apt to ruin the Clematis healer’s morning: Alster Rigas, and Imogen St. Rain.
Alster looked different, today. Or, perhaps it was more accurate to say that he looked ‘familiar’. That kind smile that mirrored in his blue eyes, way he carried himself, the lilt to his voice and the cadence of his words… and his aura. Back to its familiar colour. Whatever had possessed him (literally or figuratively) had relinquished its hold. At least, for now.
“Good morning, Alster.” The Sybaian healer offered a disarming smile, approaching the sandy-haired caster. “We certainly did not expect to see you here, this early. Pardon my observation, but you look rather tired.”
Her comment was followed up by Elias’s less-than-tactful comment about lacking sleep, which Alster confirmed. She couldn’t judge him for it; had she the energy in her, she’d have worked all night. But that wasn’t what caught her off guard; nor was it the presence of Imogen St. Rain, whose presence rattled her slightly more than Alster’s. It was Alster’s claim, and the reason for him collaborating. The Sybaian healer nearly dropped the books she had tucked under her arm.
“You… you know of a working solution that ceases menstruation?” She asked, breathless. Placing the now-forgotten books upon one of the tables, she moved toward Alster and Imogen, the latter who deigned to explain that reasons for which she’d developed such a concoction in the first place. To think that there was a solution, and that it had already long been tried and tested for efficacy… “This… this is wonderful news! Elias and I, even if we’d have crafted our own formula, and finished it in time, there wouldn’t have been any way to ensure its efficacy. The patient we were intending to craft it for… she is leaving at the end of the festival. We would never have know if it would have worked.”
Daphne’s excitement was so palpable that she almost didn't hear Alster announce his intent to check on the afflicted acrobat and her newly healed (for now) uterus. Not until Elias abruptly announced that he would accompany him. The Sybaian healer knew well that it had less to do with keeping an eye on the Rigas caster, and more to do with the fact he would rather be anywhere but in Imogen’s company. She couldn't help but feel sorry for the Kariji woman, at the sadness in her eyes when the Clematis healer turned away without looking back.
“He has been hurting for a very long time, without allowing it an outlet. When you become so accustomed to a certain kind of pain, you learn to adapt yourself to it. What you see now is how he has learned to adapt. I would offer to help him, if I knew that he would accept…” She trailed off, but the message was clear: she wasn't well enough to heal the wounds that still stung as deep as Elias’s soul.
Glancing sidelong at the pile of books in front of Imogen, ones that she had been pouring over since before Alster had arrived. Research on magic resistance… “What you are trying to do for me… I would never fault you, if you cannot find a solution for what ails me. But if it is at all possible, I think Elias would be hard-pressed not to try his hand at forgiveness. Or to at least start the process.”
There was a pause after Alster knocked on the door of Briery’s caravan. “Just a moment!” Her familiar voice called, a moment before she answered the door herself. The ringleader still had a groggy, somewhat dreamy look about her, but she was alert enough to smile politely. “Alster--and the Clematis healer. Come in.”
She stood aside to let the two healers inside before closing the door quietly. It was still fairly early, but Briery was alone in her caravan. There was no sign of Cwenha. Briery moved slowly, carefully, taking a seat on the settee. One hand rested gingerly on her abdomen. “Oh--don’t be concerned. It isn't what you think.” She said to them, waving off their looks of concern is with a flippant gesture. “I’m a little sore today--and still a little out of it. But it isn't the same pain I’m used to. Probably just residual from whatever it is Alster, here, was able to do to heal my lesions. Frankly, I’m more concerned about that drug you gave me beforehand… how long does it last? I feel like I spent a night celebrating too hard.”
Beneath her tunic was evidence of mild swelling around her lower abdomen, which was only perceptible in contrast to her typically flat and toned abdomen; not worryingly so, but enough to suggest her body was merely recovering from the trauma of healing her lesions with such aggressively potent magic. Though it didn't seem to bother her unless she moved too suddenly. “What are the chances this will resolve itself before tonight?” She asked. “My troupe is already reasonably cross with my, after my drug-addled confession, last night… Cwenha hasn’t spoken to me, since. She was up and out before I was even awake, this morning.”
For Elias’s benefit, she mentioned, “I’m sure you’re already aware, but your talented friend healed my lesions, last night. I cannot honestly remember most of what occurred, with that drug in my veins… though I do know that I revealed to Cwenha something she was not yet ready to hear.”
The ringleader cast her gaze down to her lap and smiled sadly. “I know I would’ve had to tell her sooner or later, but if I’d known that drug would give me such a loose tongue, I think I’d have opted for you to put me out after all, Alster. I am sure there is a better way I could have shared my future plans. By now, she has likely told Rycen and Lautim, as well. Tonight’s performance is going to be an awkward one, at best.”
Raking a hand through her hair, Briery turned to gaze on Elias. “Like I already said to Alser, the lot of you have bought me time. If this disease of mine does not have a cure, then luck and time are all that I have. Eventually, there will come a point when I can’t reliably perform, anymore. I don’t want to be a burden on the troupe, so when that time comes, it’ll be time for me to part ways with them. I know that they will do just fine without me; I’ve been priming Cwenha to take over on the trapeze for years, now. Though… I don’t think she sees it the way I do. She is angry…”
For a moment, as her eyes strayed, still semi-glazed as the last vestiges of the drug in her system circulated through her veins. At last, she shook her head. “But, none of this is your problem. Thank you, both, for everything. I didn’t come to Eyraille expecting to receive any help; their healers haven’t done much for me in this past. I honestly can’t say I’ve ever had such a fulfilling Equinox festival, and I owe it to you.”
Removing her finger from the page, as she was no longer fooling Daphni into believing she was diligent in her reading, she leaned back in her chair, and slumped against its wood backing. “He was always a serious child,” she said, with faltered speech. “And quiet. He rarely cried, or asked for attention. Even when he was so young, he was reserved, and shy of his emotions. I know that I’ve observed it all from afar,” she grabbed a quill pen from the table, running her fingers through the fibers that comprised the feather shaft, “and I fully admit that my...estrangement might have contributed to his development early-on. If I had coddled him, held him to my breast, ladled him with much-deserved attention...maybe he would feel more comfortable reaching out to loved ones for help. But now—he probably considers himself above his emotions; far-removed, and far-affected. Even towards someone like you, Daphni, somebody he trusts, and loves, and desires to keep safe. Even to you, he sees his inner turmoils as inconsequential.”
“Ah. Well, so long as I will be able to perform tonight, then all should be fine. Don’t fret, Clematis; if the swelling hasn’t gone down by this evening, I’ll refrain from taking to the trapeze. That costume is skin-tight; if I can’t look good in it, then I’m not wearing it.” The acrobat smiled, but her smile didn’t look ‘fine’. It looked… sad. “To be very honest with you, I have never been under the influence of any such drug, before. It didn’t even occur to me that it would loosen my tongue. But… they were words that needed to be said, regardless. My troupe deserves to know. Just… a different time, and under different circumstances might have been better.”
Standing slowly, one hand gingerly clutching her tender abdomen, Briery moved toward the door, to let the two healers out. The Clematis healer was right; they’d done their job, and their due-diligence by checking up on her, afterwards. She was no longer their problem.
...at least, that was what she thought, until the Rigas caster made another very shocking point. The ringleader turned around so suddenly one would’ve thought she was startled, her eyes wide and mouse agape. She stared intently at Alster, as if trying to determine whether he was merely placating her fragile hopes, or telling the truth. “You… you’re serious? There is still a possibility that this can be… well, not cured, but controlled?”
Of course, the Clematis healer was quick with his rebuttal and brutal honesty. Which, of course, was to be expected; only a few days remained of the festival, and that was not a lot of time, at all…. “I don’t care if it is untested--I’ll try it. I’ll be your test subject. When you have lived with this kind of pain for as long as I have, anything is possible. At this point, I have nothing to lose. But… if you are successful, then I am going to have to make our last few shows count.” Her smile faded, and she glanced at the settee, beneath which the troupe stored their earnings. “As it stands, I cannot in good faith spend any more of our earnings on my own medical care. It isn’t fair to the others. But… I believe in the both of you--and your Sybaian healer. So I will enchant and amaze this kingdom, like it has never been amazed or enchanted before. We will not hold anything back, for the final show.”
Daphni could only shake her head at Imogen’s attestment to her role in how Elias had grown and formed as a person. Everything that she said was likely true; after all, children, in their move formative years, developed habits that would last them their entire lives, based on the experiences they had. Elias, isolated as he was as a child, and without a mother to teach him how to be soft, and that it was okay to seek a shoulder to cry on, or to cry at all when you were hurt, may have learned a thing or two as a means of coping. His introversion and dedication to his studies had probably resulted by a means of directing his attention away from what was hurting, what was bothering him. But all the same…
“I cannot disagree with you entirely. Any number of things can occur as a child grows; many people believe they become complete, yet immature versions of themselves sooner than they can count their age on one hand.” The Sybaian healer said, watching as Imogen pushed away the book she had been focusing on. Or, rather, hadn’t been focusing on, at all. “And while you cannot reverse what has already taken place… you can move forward, which you already seem to be doing. I can tell, by your desire to make things right with your son. But you must also understand that while you may be able to let go of the past, it is something to which Elias clings fiercely. As if he lets go of it, he will lose parts of himself that he values. That said, part of this process--most of it, in fact, will have little to do with whatever miracles you can craft, Imogen. Whether or not you are able to help me, it is up to Elias to open himself up to forgiveness. But if what you say is true, and I happen to be the only person he cares for…” She offered a soft smile. “Then even he cannot deny that you have come through for him, as I said; that would be illogical, and he is someone who governs his life by logic alone. I would not take offense if your desire to help me is solely born of your desire to reconnect with your son.”
Turning her attention to the list of ingredients that Imogen was jotting down with her quill, the Sybaian healer handed her the book in question and nodded. “We spent all of yesterday and well into the night sifting through these books. Elias has more experience in chemistry and herbalism than I do; he was the one taking notes.” And of course they were extensive and impressive. The Clematis healer did not go into anything half-heartedly, even if it was not a job he particularly decided to do. But now, he was as committed to the acrobat’s cause as she was, and would not leave a task unfinished. It would eat away at his sense of accomplishment. “What we mainly found were methods of contraception, but none which actually prevented menstruation. It is a lot like trying to find a needle in a haystack… All of this information, and its potential, but piecing it together has proved to be a challenge.”
Daphni nearly jumped at Imogen’s sudden burst of excitement. The Eyraillian healers were certainly taken aback, casting annoyed glances in the two women’s directions for interrupting their careful concentration. “What is it?” The Sybaian healer asked. “Did you find something?”
It was wit muted elation that Imogen declared that Elias had already discovered the missing ingredients--right down to the correct dosage. Daphni could not hold back the smile on her face; one of relief and happiness and pride. Of course Elias had figured it out without even realizing it. She had never considered the possibility that he was a genius, but… she could see it, now. The man had answers that he didn’t even realize he had. “This is wonderful.” She said to Imogen, and felt almost inclined to hug the woman. “How quickly do you think we can craft it into a tonic--or several tonics? Enough to last the acrobat some months. We can give her the recipe, to take to other…”
Her voice trailed off the moment the paper fluttered from Imogen’s hands, and the woman crumpled in on herself. “Imogen…” She was hesitant to react, but she did not know why. Had Elias’s appraisal of his mother jaded her own feelings toward her? Or had she simply expected the Kariji woman to be… well, for lack of better words, stronger? That isn’t fair, she chided herself. No one needed to be strong when faced with familial alienation. Pressing her lips together, she lay a hand upon Imogen’s shoulder. “I cannot say that he will ever accept you as a mother, Imogen. That choice is Elias’s, and his alone. But you must understand, as well, that he is a different sort of person, and he does not necessarily share his feelings in the same way that others might. Even I have difficulty reading him, and I am able to see his aura.”
Daphni tried to offer a smile, but it did not console the distraught woman. So she took a seat on a nearby stool, and folded her hands in her lap. “It is beyond me why I mean anything to him, Imogen. I’ve been a perpetual thorn in his side since the day we met. He criticized my practice; he hated me for saving his life. I’ve been his patient on numerous occasions, and despite the… evolution in our relationship, I still am, given my deteriorating condition. And he does treat me as such. It is only in the careful words that he lets slip, and the actions that he takes, that I know he cares about me as more than a patient or a colleague. It almost killed him to be forthright about that.
“So, what I am trying to say is… I do not believe that you will not have a relationship with your son. But it may not be the relationship that you want, or that you imagined. Let him grieve and be angry; it will burn out. You will notice him turning tables when he starts to acknowledge you--and your intelligence, as you said. That is something he does value, and that he cannot deny. So… help me formulation this tonic for Briery Frealy.” When Imogen drew her hands away from her eyes, Daphni smiled. “You said it yourself, that he cares for me. So by that logic, he cannot rightly deny the actions of those who help me, in some way. He knows how much this case means to me, because I cannot safely access my abilities to help the girl… though that does not mean that I will not help at all. I refuse to concede defeat to this.”
As an afterthought, she mentioned, “If you would like me to… I will talk to him. As stubborn as he is, sometimes, I have a way of getting through.to him. But only if you desire it; I do not get involved in others’ affairs against their will.”
Later that afternoon, when Elias and Alster returned from checking up on the ringleader, Imogen and Daphni were already well on their way to formulating the tonic in question. It was all coming back to Imogen, the treatment of the herbs and their distributions and quantities, and now that they had compiled a complete list of what they needed, and how much, it was just a matter of putting it all together. The Sybaian healer was just on her way out of the infirmary when she encountered Elias--and she could not contain her excitement.
“Elias! You will not believe the breakthrough we just made.” Before she could think better of it, she all but launched herself at the Clematis healer, and pulled him into a kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck. She didn’t even notice the rouge tint of his cheeks when she pulled away. “We’ve done it. Imogen recalled the formula and we’ve compiled a list of ingredients. But it was only possible because you had already pointed out two very necessary ingredients that she had entirely forgotten, until she recognized them in your writing. She said… you’re a genius. I am inclined to believe her.”
Without warning, she took his hand. “She has already left to scour the royal gardens for the herbs that she needs. There is a handful of ingredients that we must purchase elsewhere, at local apothecaries. But money will not be an issue. I took the liberty to approach his Majesty about this, and merely told him you and I were working a ‘charity’ case in the spirit of the festival. His Majesty is in good spirits, himself, and agreed to fund it. I wasn’t so sure before, but… now I am. Now I think we can do this.”
Leading him down the hallway, brimming with more energy than she had in quite a while. “I must give Imogen credit that she has been working as tirelessly as I have, just to be of assistance. Whatever you might feel for her, she is a very intelligent woman--and she just took all of the gruelling guesswork out of our endeavor.” Glancing over her shoulder at the Clematis healer, she smiled. “You certainly got your cleverness honestly, Clematis healer. And now… look what we can do. We can literally change the course of someone’s life. If you ask me, this is just as relevant as saving a life.”
Turning a corner, Daphni led him outside, into the bustle and noise of the festival. The bright sunlight didn’t even seem to bother her. “This means that the ringleader may not have to leave her troupe, afterall. You said it yourself--they are their best selves as a unit, together. Like a family. And I will sleep with more ease knowing that we were able to keep this unconventional family together--regardless of what you might think of their profession.”
There was something to be said for the contagion of high-spirits. While obnoxious to witness, even Elias was not immune to the shift in the acrobat’s mood. Between her and Alster, whose susceptibility to emotional influence was as sensitive as the Sybaia, the entire caravan, sans himself, was extolling the delights and generosity of the Equinox Festival, in all its wish-fulfilling glory. Much as it irked him, the Clematis cleric was not so petty as to continuously dampen a patient’s hope with the brutal realism, so he allowed her a space from which to celebrate a mere possibility. At least...for as long as he could stand it.
It went without saying that Sigrid was not nearly as concerned about the final night of the festival as was Haraldur. As it stood, the only stress that the Dawn Warrior faced was currently wrapped tightly in cloth, stowed away in its sheath beneath the mattress of her bed, and (luckily) without a need to be used. This trip to Eyraille was as much of a vacation as she had ever had: the sights, the people, not to mention the beautiful women. And one woman in particular, toward whom her ceaseless flirtations had become a running joke, much to the mercenary’s chagrin.
Unfortunately for him, Sigrid found no end to her amusement in it. It was likely to never stop being funny, particularly if Vega was so easily flustered about it.
“What’s wrong, Haraldur? Afraid you might lose your soon-to-be fiancee to my irresistible charms?” She teased, arms folded as she leaned against the wall, observing the mercenary’s two left feet with only thinly-veiled amusement. “Or are you just jealous that I am a better dancer than you? Say what you want about your brute-force fighting tactics, it doesn’t lend you an ounce of grade. You’re like a bull in a china shop. And, hey, I am having my fun while I still can. I am nothing if not an honourable person; and as soon as that ring is on her finger, you have my word that I’ll never make advances on her again. Until then…”
Her mouth curled into a sly grin. “Well… she is awfully fetching when she blushes. Sorry, cousin, but I cannot in good faith make any promises. Look, I went my entire life without blood-relatives to tease and to pick on. I don’t know when I am going to get another chance. Besides, do you really mean to tell me that you don’t like seeing the two of us together, even just a little? Don’t even pretend; I might be a woman, but I know how a man’s mind works.” Her shoulders shook with a light chuckle that she could hardly contain. “Though as for your unease at the prospect of proposing to her Highness before all of Eyraille…”
Sigrid stepped away from the wall, and flipped her tightly-woven blonde braid over her shoulder. “It sounds like you are afraid of the unknown. Thinking about all of the possible variables and outcomes to the point where you’re second-guessing yourself. So, let’s unpack that: what do you know for sure? Do you really think for even a moment that your Skyknight commander will not say ‘yes’ to your proposal?” She raised her eyebrows. “I’ve seen the way she looks at you. Clings to you, like she has made you her own. Look at you; you’ve even agreed to let her style you in Eyraillian garb. And did you not see the way she slighted me when she thought that I was making advances on you, simply by being friendly? Really, does any of that really suggest that she will turn down your proposal, Haraldur?”
Of course, everyone in that room knew well that the answer was ‘no’. Sigrid clicked her tongue. “So what are you afraid of, then? What everyone else might think? Because you certainly don’t seem to mind being see with her on your arm. The fact remains that everyone already knows your feelings for her, Haraldur. And this is not going to come as any surprise to them. So if you want my advice…” She rested a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t fuck this up with alcohol. Because if someone were proposing to me and I suspected they’d been drinking, I’d sure as hell make them wait a little longer for my answer. But, in the meantime… let’s fix where you are going wrong with this dance. Because that will be embarrassing for you to mess up. Fortunately for you, I’d rather not see you mess up, because believe what you will, but I am vouching for you.”
They tweaked and critiques the mercenary’s dancing for another hour, until Alster had to duck out and attend to the puppet show with grandmother Alta. Whether or not Haraldur felt any more confident than he had before, Sigrid and Alster did lend him all the help that they could in earnest, but the rest was up to him--because there was no time left.
With Vega at his side (he’d been unable to shake her all day, but that was nothing new), they wandered the grounds for the final day of the festival, snacking on foods that would not be available to them until the next year, and taking in the merry sights. It was the most relaxed that Vega had been in a long time, considering its stark contrast to the war they’d fought, and the ongoing struggle with her body and health, which had only recently resolved itself.
Haraldur, on the other hand, was the stark opposite. It had not surpassed her attention, the way he seemed to grow more and more tense, more and more distracted every day. Even now, as they perused the vendor stalls, he didn’t look as though he were actually looking at anything at all; seeing without really seeing. Dazed, in a sense. It was beginning to concern her.
“Haraldur--are you even present?” Vega asked him, her brows furrowed in obvious concern. “You haven’t said a word for the past twenty minutes. If something is amiss, you know that you can tell me. You’ll find no judgement, here.”
Turning her gaze thoughtfully to the ground, she pressed a sigh from her lungs. “Look, I know what is going on. You don’t have to be so secretive; you are easier to read than you think.”
Frowning when she was met with a suddenly startled expression on his part, she added, “It has been obvious all week, what’s been eating you. What I don’t understand is why you haven’t bothered to tell me. Did you really think you could hide it?” The Skyknight commander raised her eyebrows, and reached to rest a hand on his shoulder. “Caris has you all concerned about your role, tonight. Don’t be bothered by it. Listen, the Green Spirit isn’t the ‘great deal’ that he is making it out to be. Yes, it is the entity that characterizes the festival, but you must realize that this is the last night. People have been drinking themselves under the table for days, now; many are going to be either too hung-over or drunk to attend the dance, or too tipsy to really give a damn how well you play the part. Just take your wreathes, throw them at people, and they’ll be sufficiently amused. And you won’t be the only one in costume.”
The princess offered a winning smile. “Every year, it has been my task to embody the character of the Wind; Eyraille’s signature element. In a way, our costumes are rather complementary. I’ll stand to represent the kingdom, and you will represent the coming of a new season; new beginnings. No doubt, that is exactly why Caris asked you to play the part. Think of it as his way of giving his blessing to our relationship. I highly doubt you will ever hear him admit it, outright."
She had no idea just how far from the truth she was as to what was causing the mercenary’s anxiety. But Haraldur only smiled sheepishly and told her that she was probably right, diverting any further suspicion that it could be something other. “Everything will be fine--in fact, I’m sure of it. But if you don’t believe me, why don’t we see what the cards have to say?”
Vega gestured to a booth that was set up near the village square, not too far from the caravans that had brought a troupe of performers into town. A woman clad in tight, shiny gold was conversing with a client in low tones, pointing to a small spread of tarot cards in front of her. The princess furrowed her brows contemplatively. “She looks familiar… come on. Now I’m intrigued.”
The two of them wandered toward the tent, standing back respectfully as the fortune teller finished up her session with an eager, and slightly agitated looking older man. When at last he walked away, he seemed rather defeated. The fortune teller’s pitying gaze trailed after him, until she noted the red-haired woman and the tall man standing just off to the side. She offered them a polite smile. “Unfortunately, it is my job to deliver the bad news just as much as it is to deliver the good news. Though we might like to tell ourselves otherwise, not everyone is particularly inclined to hear the truth when they seek to have their fortune read.”
“Can you really fault them, though? Everyone wants good news.” Vega glanced over her shoulder, in the direction that the man disappeared. “What was he hoping for?”
“Riches. He’s a chronic gambler, and wanted to know when his efforts would pay off. Unfortunately,” she held up a card depicting a woman washed up on ocean rocks, with ten swords protruding from her back. “This is clearly a warning to stop. Though I doubt he will; few actually buy into what the cards have to say, which is a real shame. They can indeed be very insightful. What about you, your Highness?” The golden-clad woman raised her eyebrows, tucking her cards back into the deck, and began to shuffle again. “Interested in drawing a card or two?”
Vega hesitated, pressing her lips together. She glanced over her shoulder once again, in the direction the gambler had left. “You know, I have been having a truly wonderful time at this festival. Everything seems to be coming together after what feels like a lifetime of hardship. If this happiness is only transient…” She looked sheepish, and shook her head. “Then I don’t want to find out, otherwise.”
“Ah, but it is all about asking the right question. Don’t pursue a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer; focus on your happiness, instead. Ask where it will flourish.” The golden-clad woman fanned out her cards, and presented them to the Skyknight commander.
Hesitating yet another moment, Vega took a breath and pulled a single card. It depicted a man and a woman, whose hands were joined with ribbons, while an angelic figure presided over them. The woman in gold smiled. “Well, it doesn’t take a fortune teller to see that your happiness is rooted in your love for someone special. Say what you will, the cards don’t lie.”
A small smile tugged at Vega’s lips, and she seemed to sigh in relief. She was through with enduring bad news, and was reluctant to break her winning streak of happiness. “You look familiar; was it you, performing on the trapeze just the other night?”
“Indeed. I keep my feet on the ground during the day, but I’m in the air by night; Briery Frealy, your Highness.” She offered a shallow bow. “My troupe and I are happy that you’ll have us, here.”
“Ah-ha, I knew you were familiar. I’ve come to see you perform every Equinox, since you’ve frequented the festival.” Vega smiled, and glanced at Haraldur. “Have you had a chance to see them, yet? Their troupe is formidable. You once said that you’d traveled with the circus; they’re well within the realm of your interests.”
This certainly piqued Briery’s interest. Her smile widened. “A fellow performer? Or former-performer; it’s all the same. A pleasure to meet you, ah…” She extended a hand, waiting for him to offer his name. “Haraldur. Well, if you haven’t seen us perform yet, I do hope you’ll stop by this evening. It will be our grandest performance yet, to send off the festival with a bang. If you have time, even come by beforehand. What was your role in the circus? I’d love to see what you used to be known for. We could even find a place for you in our routine, if you’re interested.”
“Hey--could be fun.” The princess gently nudged Haraldur in the ribs. “They perform before the dance, this evening; it won’t encroach on your commitment as the Green Spirit.”
Every word that dripped from the Dawn Warrior’s mouth had incensed Haraldur even further. Affixing her with an unamused glare, he planted his feet on the floor and emulated a vengeful, immovable guard, a physical representation of what he’d already harbored toward Sigrid’s incorrigible behavior.
“Ah--a knife thrower. And blindfolded? Now, that is impressive.” Briery grinned, leaning over the table in front of her. She looked Haraldur over with curious eyes. “You do look the type that a circus would seek out, with that kind of muscle. I’m willing to bet you might even be able to one-up Rycen. He’s our resident illusionist and knife thrower; damned good aim, but he’s never done it blindfolded. Maybe, if you have a moment, you might offer him some tips? We are always looking for new ways to improve and spice up our shows.”
“Go on, Haraldur; you’ve been getting more and more uptight all week. I’m guessing that is because you haven’t had ample room or time to train. Throw a few knives. I think it will make you feel better.” Vega winked at him. “I promise I won’t get jealous… I think I’ve learned how terribly that sentiment can turn on me.” She added flatly. Of course, she was referring to Sigrid, who wouldn’t seem to give her a break.
When at last the mercenary agreed, Briery offered a broad smile. “Excellent. It will be a good bit of fun. Our last performance will take place after supper, and before this evening’s grand ball--rest assured, I would like not to miss that, either. I’ve always looked forward to the dance you host at the end of the final night, your Highness. All of my troupe does. After all,” she chuckled, “it is about the only time that any royal would allow the likes of us to partake in festivities occurring within the palace. It is a real treat to see a glimpse into another world that is very much not our own.”
“Excellent. Your performances have never failed to amaze Eyraille’s people, Ms. Frealy.” Vega smiled. “You and your troupe are always more than welcome to pay a visit to our palace. I look forward to seeing you all there, tonight.”
The Skyknight commander accompanied Haraldur, that evening, as he made good on his promise to practice with his knives before the Missing Links’ final show. Sure enough, the quartet was there, readying the stage for the performance: a small girl with white hair clad in silver, a giant man who dwarfed even Haraldur by comparison, a tall, lanky man clad in a sparkling green suit, who was able to make smoke puff out of his sleeves. At first, there was no sign of the gold-clad ringleader upon their arrival, but soon after, the door to one of the caravans opened, and three oddly familiar faces filed out, followed by Briery, herself: the Clematis healer, the Sybaian healer, and Alster.
“Good evening to you all,” Vega greeted the healers and Alster, all whom she had not seen for the past handful of days. It was easy to lose even close friends, in the fray of the bustling festival. “Glad to see you could make it out. Mind if I join you? Haraldur’s queasy about masquerading as the Green Spirit tonight, and Briery has kindly offered to have him throw a few knives. We’re all better off leaving him to it.”
Planting a kiss on Haraldur’s cheek, Vega ventured off to find a decent seat with her three comrades, leaving the mercenary among the performing folk.
“I am so glad you decided to come.” The gold-clad ringleader chimed. Briery seemed happier, higher than when they had met that morning. Whatever dealings she’d had with the healers and Alster had certainly boosted her spirits. “Come, you should meet our resident knight thrower. Teach Rycen a thing or two about doing it blindfolded.”
The led him over to the lanky magician, who offered an exaggerated bow. “Haraldur, is it? Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir. Briery, here, tells me that you have knife-throwing skills to rival my own. While I do think I’m a pretty good shot, magic tricks are more my expertise. Care to share some pointers on how I might be able to do what you do--with a blindfold?” He held up a set of his own throwing knives, and grinned. “Sorry for the terrible pun; I couldn’t help myself.”
Rycen stood aside to give Haraldur access to the target, and handed him a blindfold. “I want to see this for myself. Sounds pretty damn impressive.”
And, of course, the mercenary did impress. Almost all five of the knives had hit their mark at the very center of the bullseye, and the couple that did not still straddled the line between the center dot and the innermost ring. Rycen whistled and Briery clapped. “Now that is some skill that this troupe needs! Step up your game, Rycen!”
The illusionist snorted and folded his arms. “Right, right. Well, let me give it a shot. You’d be surprised, what I find myself capable of doing. Do you mind?” He stretch out his hand for the blindfold, before tying it around his eyes. “See, I imagine it is all about knowing your surroundings. I know exactly where that bullseye is, and I know my distance from it. I know where to find the bullseye. So….” Readying a knife in his hand, he let it fly--straight past the target, only to embed itself in the wooden frame of one of the caravans.
Briery just groaned and shook her head. “Well, we won’t be trying this trick tonight. Listen to Haraldur, Rycen; he’s the one with the skill.”
“Huh. Seems it isn’t as easy as you make it look…” The magician pulled the blindfold from his eyes and arched an eyebrow at where the throwing knife had embedded itself. “Pah. I’m an illusionist, not a master knife thrower. Though if you don’t intend to join our troupe,” he turned to Haraldur and arched an eyebrow. “I’d be much obliged if you’d show me just how the hell you learned to do that!”
Later that evening, following the fantastic and breath-taking performance of the Missing Links, the ball had begun in full swing. Both Haraldur and Vega had left immediately after the performance, to don their costumes, which took a little more time to prepare than regular clothes. One of the servants tending to Haraldur carefully took in the costume where it was required, while lengthening it in other areas to better fit his form, and then adorned him with all of the ‘necessary’ accessories. When he was finished, and bedecked in shades of green and gold, there was no more time to justify delay, and so he ventured out into the hallway. No sooner did he leave the room that he ran into Sigrid who, unlike everyone else, was not only not dressed the part for a ball, but also heading in the opposite direction of it. When she spotted Haraldur (which was impossible not to do, given that he was clad entirely in green, looking every bit the part of the Green Spirit).
“Haraldur. You really do embody the character well.” The Dawn warrior commented, a grin on her face. “I think you’ll have everyone delighted tonight. No one will even care if you cannot dance. I just caught a glimpse of her Highness, as well--wait until you see her. You really will make quite the pair, tonight.”
At his curiosity regarding her plain clothing (her indigo-colored Dawn Guard attire), and the seeming lack of effort she had put into her appearance, with her blonde hair strewn about her shoulders instead of braided, she smiled sheepishly. “Oh… I don’t plan on being there tonight. Balls and dancing aren’t really my idea of a good time. Trust me, I am sure Vega will not be heartbroken to have one fewer attendee at the event.” She couldn’t help but chuckle, since it was probably true. “If anyone asks, then I’ve come down with a chill and am resting. Anyway, Alster and I are to leave for Stella D’Mare early tomorrow morning. It is probably for the best that I rest, and not party the night away.”
Obviously, this came as a shock, coming from someone who all week had been boasting that she would have Vega for a single dance that night. She shook her head at his confusion. “It was all a long, overly drawn-out joke, Haraldur; I never actually intended to dance with Vega. I would never truly have someone do something of the sort against their will. But I really had you going, taking Alster up on his offer to help me learn to ballroom dance. The princess’s reaction, and yours, were simply too amusing, and… well, I suppose I ran with it for too long.”
Pressing her lips together, Sigrid shrugged her shoulders. “You know, I’ve never told anyone this, but… I will probably never see you again, so it doesn’t matter. But the truth is, Haraldur, I am all talk; and rather a huge coward when it actually comes to courting women.” For once, there was no sly smile on her face to indicate that she was joking. “There was once--just once, maybe five or six years ago, when I was so bold as to reach out. Truth be told, I fell in love with a woman back in Braighdath. She was an artist and a dancer, and I’d had feelings for her long before I found the courage to talk to her. And… to my surprise, it seemed to work. She seemed interested, and agreed to accompany me to a dance in the town square for the celebration of winter solstice. I’d never been so nervous and excited. I dressed my best that night and expected to meet her among the crowds that evening. And, I did, but… it did not unfold as I expected.”
Sigrid rubbed the back of her neck, looking visibly uncomfortable at the mere memory of the event. “It turned out she wasn’t even… ‘available’. She already had a man on her arm; it had all been a joke to her. And she made sure that everyone else was dragged into it, as well. Calling me out in the crowd, taunting and shaming me for my… preferences. Laughing, because I was fool enough to think it could be something real. I don’t think I ever truly recovered from that. You could ask anyone in Braighdath and they’d still remember. I learned a lot, that night; that what I wanted wasn’t a passing fancy, but that it… it also wasn’t safe to pursue. So I do not dance or attend dances; and if ever I find myself truly interested in someone, I know to keep my distance. Flirting with Vega was all a joke; and making a joke of it, of myself, helps mitigate the fool that everyone made of me that one night on the winter solstice.
“But… I won’t continue to talk your ear off with pathetic stories from my past.” The Dawn Warrior smiled and shook her head. “I just wanted to apologize, for taking it too far. You were right; we are little more than strangers to one another. I love my brethren of the Dawn Guard unconditionally; but I was so excited to find a connection from my past, it didn’t even cross my mind that you had already established your own sense of family. With Vega, and with the children you are having together. I don’t really know what I expected, upon meeting you, to be honest. And, anyway, for all we know, we may not be blood at all. Just distant acquaintances from a foggy past.”
It was true; there was no way to know for sure, and it had been wrong of her to assume that it would be possible to connect pieces of her past in a meaningful way. “In any case… I am just happy to know that the boy I once knew has grown up and thrived. This week has been a delightful reprieve from my typical life… especially following the events with that damned sword, which has bound itself to me. I thank you for helping me forget about it, temporarily. Do me a favor, and cherish tonight: the beginning of the rest of your life. Make it one that you won’t forget, hm?”
Before she passed, the Dawn Warrior gently patted his arm. “I don’t know that I’ll see you again, before we leave, tomorrow. So in case I don’t… do take care. Fate has finally dealt you a favorable hand, so you had better live it to its fullest.”
With a final, soft smile, Sigrid made her way back to her bedchamber, leaving Haraldur to venture forth into his bright future with the woman who was soon to be his fiancee.
Nodding his farewell to Vega after she joined the healers and Alster for a spot among the crowd, Haraldur broke his stance with the target to acknowledge Briery, who had gestured over to a green-suited man by the stage. While he preferred to be left to his own devices for a few good minutes of uninterrupted throwing, it wasn’t his target to commandeer, and so it was required of him to make niceties with the circus performers. Besides, he had agreed to showing them, best as he could replicate, his routine from four years ago. Now was his opportunity to represent Eyraille with grace and good cheer, as preparation for his fast-approaching role as the Green Spirit.
At the mercenary’s comment that he thought they would have more time to get to know one another, Sigrid lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “Well, even if you were not a factor in my being here in Eyraille, I still would have come for Alster. Someone needs to help reprieve him of the pain that his arm was causing him. And the same goes for Stella D’Mare; I’ll accompany him there, as well. I wonder if his fiancee has as deep a penchant for jealousy as her Highness.” She snorted and smiled, shaking her head. “Gods above help me if she does. I’d rather not have to spread my romantic preferences to any more ears than I already have just to shake free of engaged womens’ evil eye. It’s bad enough that the lot of you know, but I was willing to do about anything to find a way into Vega’s good graces--for your sake, at least.”
Haraldur’s mood had certainly changed, since that morning. Donned in the attire of the Green Spirit, with his hair styled and face painted, in a way he really seemed to have become the essence of the character, itself. He really had embodied that Eyraillian philosophy of happiness… and forgiveness. But she wasn’t sure she quite forgave herself. “I’ll be honest, Haraldur; I had no right trying to insert myself into your life, regardless of whether or not we are truly related. Family are the people who surround you at the best and worst of times, not the people who share blood. And I have been around for neither of those points in your life, nor you for mine. I suppose, in some ways…” She paused, her eyes thoughtfully searching the floor. “I just wanted to know how it would feel. To be near someone from a past that I can hardly remember. There are times when I still feel like an outlier in Braighdath, even in the Dawn Guard, because when all is said and done, I did not hail from Braighdath. The city begrudgingly accepted me because I had nowhere else to go, and the Dawn Guard extended their hand more or less as an act of charity. I thought… I was foolish to think that this would make me feel different. But…”
Looking up from the floor, Sigrid offered an apologetic smile. “I am more a stranger to you than I am to Braighdath. It doesn’t even make sense to try and connect; after Stella D’Mare, and when all of the dust finally settles, I’ll return to Braighdath and resume my life as it was. And you will return here and raise a family with Vega. I don’t think… that there is much of a future upon which for us to connect, Haraldur. Even if you do come to Stella D’Mare with us. But I must leave with Alster on the morrow; someone needs to help him with the pain in his arm, and we cannot assume that his city is in any state to be able to provide him relief. So if for no other reason, at least I can provide him with certainty that he won’t be in pain the entire time.
“Regardless, I’d love to be there to support you on this evening when your life is about to change forever, but… I’m afraid you’ll have to settle with my well-wishes from afar. Believe me when I say there is no place for me in a ballroom.” The Dawn warrior chuckled. “And just because I could follow Alster’s steps doesn’t mean I am any better at dancing than you. Be that as it may... you won’t be the Fool, tonight. No one in their right mind is going to call the man who is engaged to this kingdom’s princess a fool. You will do just fine, Haraldur.”
With a nod, Sigrid had walked away, and sought the comfort of the room she shared with Alster. Having been surrounded by new people in a strange place all week, the thought of stepping back for a night to herself was not so aversive, anyway. She was here for Alster, as a friend; and it should have been the only reason she’d come.
Picking up Gaolithe, which was resting against the wall near her bed, the Dawn warrior proceeded to unwrap the sword, and then re-wrap it, again. Tightening, securing the fabric around the blade and hilt to ensure it stayed. Not for the first time, she wondered if it would be possible to create a modified hilt for it. One which contained not only the blade, but the hilt, as well. To ensure that there would be no possible way for it to accidentally come into contact with someone else’s skin…
She had already wrapped and unwrapped the blade three times, not yet happy with the result, when Alster entered the room. Immediately, she placed the blade against the far wall, keeping it safely out of his space. “Well. You certainly look…” Sigrid looked the Rigas caster over with a grin. “You look like you belong at a festival for the spring Equinox. I can’t say I even recognize you as Alster Rigas, right now. What are you doing back here? The ball room is in the opposite direction, if I recall.”
He explained that he had come to retrieve the resonance stone, which made sense; while they might have spent the week celebrating, they still had a game plan in mind, and a city in dire need of help. They couldn’t afford the luxury of severing themselves from communication, if it was needed. “A shame you can only project voice through that thing, and not images. I imagine it would be quite the thing for your fiancee in Stella D’Mare to see you looking like this.” She chuckled, and shook her head.
It had been her understanding that they would leave early the next morning; which suited her just fine. Coming to Eyraille… hadn’t quite been what she’d expected. Meeting someone from her past had not gone as she’d expected. It was time to move on to other things, and to stop reaching for the unattainable--and that included the dance.
Sigrid sighed at Alster’s harmless suggestion, and rolled her shoulders forward. He must have run into Haraldur in the corridor. For whatever reason, he seemed to really want her to attend--which, frankly, made no sense. Not on the eve where he planned to propose to the woman he loved. This night should be about them and only them, not tagalongs sharing in the moment. “All right, I’ll come clean. I had never actually intended to dance with her Highness, Alster. For one, while her jealousy seems to be sufficiently allayed, I am not even vaguely convinced that she likes me--and I would never force someone to dance against their will. Not only that, but despite your instructions, I’m still not very good at it. I’m sure I’d make a fool of myself.” The Dawn warrior chuckled, but there was no humor in it. All of her humor had drained, following her confession to Haraldur.
“I only did it to make Haraldur and Vega believe that I was truly going to claim my right to our bargain. And, well, it most certainly worked; but it was only a joke, Alster. I don’t… do well at dances or balls. I will not dance with a man--well, you are the obvious exception, I suppose,” she grinned, “and I learned my lesson long ago that it isn’t safe to publicly out myself and ask another woman. I might have come to terms with who I am, but it hasn’t been easy to live this way. Even if this is a strange kingdom, far from Braighdath, and one I’ll likely never visit again, I can’t… I don’t think I want to risk reopening those old wounds.”
For the first time since she’d met Alster--or any of his comrades, for that matter--the Dawn warrior truly looked and felt vulnerable. Confessing her preferences to the small group was one thing, but admitting to her cowardice in ever pursuing something real, even if it was just to ask someone to dance… It hit home, to the fact that she was not really as strong as she liked to think herself to be.
“You are a very kind friend, Alster, to make such an offer. But I don’t think a ball is the place for me. Besides,” she picked up a tress of her pale blonde hair; not tangled, but she had not bothered to brush the snarls out of it and weave it into a braid, that day. Keeping up with Eyraille’s appearances was damned exhausting. “The ball has already begun, and I have neither a truly proper outfit, or the inclination to do something presentable with my hair. But don’t hold back just because I’m a coward; go and drink to your heart’s delight. I daresay after the week you’ve spent here, first tending to her Highness and then working tirelessly with those healers, you’ve damn well deserved it!”
Sigrid clapped him on the shoulder. “Have enough fun for the both of us. And do come back and tell me how the proposal went. Not that I have any inkling of suspicion that it won’t go well, but I’d like to hear about it, all the same.”
Meanwhile, it had taken Vega longer to get ready than Haraldur, and the reasons for such were obvious when at last the Skyknight commander emerged from her dressing room. Clad in draping, billowing shades of white and pale blue, the Wind stepped over the threshold of the doorway like a creature out of a fable. Her red locks hung loose, having been carefully curls and twisted with strands of glittering silver and sleek, golden roc feathers . Silver also accented her face, carefully blended onto her forehead and the contours of her cheeks. Her eyelids were lined, and glittered with sparkle that could rival that of the circus performers’ stage attire. Her gown itself flowed like the weightlessness of clouds, the long, gauzy sleeves, reaching the ground. From her ears hung a pair of earring crafted from roc feathers and jewels, and a faint glitter that could only be caught in the right light had been dusted upon her cheekbones and lips.
And Vega looked about as happy to wear the costume as Haraldur did to wear his. She offered a sheepish smile. “See? I told you you weren’t the only one masquerading… And here is a fair warning, it never gets any easier as the years pass. Another fair warning--Caris might continue to ask you to play this role, as he has done to me. He seems to have sneaky ways of making people agree. But, on the bright side,” she took him by the arm and grinned. “At least neither of us has to bear this alone. Are you ready?”
Arm in arm, the Green Spirit and the Wind continued down the corridor, all the way to the ballroom, from which music was already resonating, and the sounds of voices and laughter could be heard across corridors and around corners--and it was only about to get louder. As the doors opened to reveal the two most sought-after characters of the evening, the entirety of the ballroom erupted in applause and cheering. Finally, the pinnacle of the evening, and the peak of the festival’s joy had arrived.
“Just wave,” Vega instructed Haraldur, doing the same, herself, “And smile. The wreaths are on the table, to your left. All you need to do is go around and throw them at people, entirely at random, or if they engage you; it’s up to you, really. Nothing to it. See?” She nudged him gently in the ribs. “I told you you have nothing to worry about. Look at these people; more than half of them are barely on their feet. The wine has been out for a while, now.”
“Your Highness.” A familiar voice caught Vega’s attention to her left, and the Wind turned to find the healers, Elias and Daphni, in attendance. It brought a smile to her face; she hadn’t been so sure that she would see either of them here; not with Daphni and her failing health, and Elias and his steadfast obstinacy. The Clematis healer had opted not to dress for the occasion, clad in his tell-tale red robes, but the Sybaian healer had switched out her robes for a pale green gown, and her hair had been curled and twisted and pulled away from her face, woven into an intricate braid at the back of her head. Vega almost didn’t recognize her at all. “You look positively stunning--the both of you.”
“As do you, Daphni. I am glad to see the both of you here.” The princess said in earnest. “Please, enjoy yourselves tonight. You deserve it, for all you’ve done for me.”
The Sybaian healer chuckled. “I believe enjoyment is the one thing that everyone here is having, tonight. Look around you: everyone had come to celebrate. Even the circus performers. Come to think of it, the only person who I have not seen is the woman who accompanied Alster--the blonde warrior.”
Vega furrowed her eyebrows, and scanned the vast ballroom, thinking Daphni to be mistaken… but she was not. The tall blonde could be spotted easily in a crowd, particularly for her refusal to don festive attire… “Where is your incessantly aggravating cousin?” The Skyknight asked Haraldur. “Not that I am going to complain if she forgot about that stupid bargain, but she’s been teasing me about that dance all week. It doesn’t seem likely that it would slip her mind…”
At Sigrid’s flattering comment about his appearance, Alster’s cheeks reddened and he almost ran a nervous hand through his hair, which would have mussed up the style. But he caught his rogue hand in time, and set it to his side. “She’s never seen me in formal attire. Or—ballroom attire, rather. With the constant war and hardship we faced, there was never any time.” His eyes lowered to the ground in an attempt to hide the wave of longing that crossed over them. “I wish she could be here tonight, with me. I’ve left her in a difficult, nigh impossible situation, and instead of being there, I’m here, enjoying myself with our mutual friends. She would love to see Haraldur propose to Vega. The two of them are war comrades; she advocated for their coupling, saw the spark between them that he hadn’t yet recognized.”
Daphni was unable to hold back audible laughter at Haraldur’s observation of Elias. Just… red. It was so true, and yet, terribly funny. “There is no use in attempting to convince him to change his mind. Believe me, I’ve already tried. You’ll never see him in another color. But…”
Turning to the Clematis healer, she grinned and draped the wreath around his neck. “Oh, I don’t think so. You don’t get to completely deny the spirit of the festival, Elias.” She gently chided him, hands on her hips. “I am already green enough. You’ll wear the wreath for the entirety of the dance. You don’t get to shirk tradition, entirely.”
Vega could not help but grin at the exchange. This was a side of the Sybaian healer that she had not seen, before… and, frankly, she liked it. For someone who Elias had otherwise wished would adhere to bedrest, there was a lot of life in her pale, blue eyes. “The Sybaian speaks the truth. It is one thing to refuse to wear celebratory colors while traipsing around the town during the festival; not recommended, but forgivable. But to not partake in the tradition on the final night… it’s prohibited.” She smiled sweetly. “It is my court. Just because your help to me has been invaluable does not make you an exception to Eyraille’s rules.”
And, speaking of exceptions…
The princess listened to Haraldur’s account of what Sigrid had told him: that it had been a joke. All a long, drawn-out, stupid joke that had left her stressed and agitated all week… She could not share in his sympathy for the blonde warrior, even if she wanted to. “Sounds as though I wasn’t wrong, then.” She said, nudging Haraldur in the ribs. “She did want to be close to you, after all. Just… not in the way that I’d initially thought. Nonetheless, her sulking over disappointment and cowardice to live up to her own romantic preferences does not exempt her from being here, tonight. No more than Elias is exempt from wearing festive colors.”
“If I may, your Highness,” Daphni cut in gently. “Elias is one thing; his excuse is rooted in mere obstinacy, so I won’t defend him against your rules. But--although I have not had many dealings at all with this foreign warrior, if she truly is experiencing emotional distress of some kind, and if participating in this grand ball is only likely to exacerbate that pain… perhaps it is best to make that exception for her. The extent of pain that cannot visibly be seen is liable to be just as debilitating as physical wounds.”
But by the astute look on Vega’s face, no longer a warm Wind, but more like a biting Chill, was enough to indicate that she hadn’t heard her--or that she didn’t care. “The spirit of this festival is in putting the past behind us, and focusing on what the future has to bring. So if it is true that she is really holed up in her quarters, pondering events that have already come to pass, then right here is the best place for her to be. And anyway…” She glanced at Haraldur, whose vibrant green seemed to have faded, significantly, in light of this news. “She is single-handedly responsible for dampening the spirits of our Green Spirit. That is a slight, if ever I’ve seen one. I cannot believe I am saying this… but she will be here, tonight.”
Turning to Alster, who accepted a wreath from Haraldur to pass on to Sigrid. “Go and speak with her again. Tell her she must come--and that is an order. I don’t care that I am not her princess, and Eyraille is not her kingdom. She will not disrespect out customs.”
Though startled, Alster complied and left to fulfill his task. The Wind watched him leave through the heavy wooden doors, and wrinkled her nose. “He might need some help. I’ll make sure she shows up.” Turning back to Haraldur, she offered him a half-smile. “I won’t have my Green Spirit feeling dejected, tonight. Let me do this one thing for you. The warrior will be fine; she has nothing to fear, of this crowd. And if she really is seeking to alienate herself from you because she feels there is no hope that your blood connection is strong enough to mean anything… Well, she is going to have to try harder than that, I’m afraid.”
Alster had been right; Sigrid had no intention to show up at the ball, that evening. As soon as the Rigas caster had left, the blonde warrior had settled down on her bed, hands behind her head and eyes turned upward toward the ceiling. She hadn’t lied; not to Haraldur, nor Alster. Since the day she’d been humiliated on the Winter Solstice, dancing had not been a particularly favored passtime, nor had she considered ever expressing her attraction to another woman--at least, not in a serious sense. Teasing Vega had all been a game; enough that she had truly almost considered taking her up on that dance, since it would be so easy to make light of it.
But… Haraldur’s words had resonated with her, whether she liked it or not. She’d teased him, joked with him, as if they had known one another for years. As if tragedy and circumstance had not torn them apart, and made them strangers to one another. But the reality remained that they were strangers; and there was no feasible way to determine if they even shared blood. Treating him like a brother she had always known had only made a fool of her, once again, and had shed light on true face of this situation.
Coming here, expecting that finding a ghost from her past would make a difference… it was foolish. In every sense of the word. It doesn’t matter, anyway, she told herself, resolving to move on and simply be happy for him. He had suffered worse than she had; it was about time his life turned around. But none of that indicated that she had to be part of it, or that it would even be a good thing if she was. Tomorrow, she would leave with Alster for Stella D’Mare; and not only to provide relief for his pain. She wanted to go, if only to move on from the humiliation of thinking that coming to Eyraille would ever make a positive difference in her life… or in Haraldur’s. It was enough to know that he was happy and well. And she could leave, satisfied, knowing that.
There was a knock on her door, and she looked up to find Alster standing in the doorway once again. The Dawn Warrior frowned. “Did you forget something else?” She asked, before she noted the wreath on his arm. And then she heaved a sigh so deep that she might have deflated. “Haraldur sent you, didn’t he?” But why? She wanted to know. We’re strangers. Our blood means nothing. He knows this… he alluded to it, himself. And even if he had reacted out of stress, she also knew that sometimes the truth came out at its purest, when negative emotions were running high. The former mercenary might have regretted what he’d said… but he’d still meant it.
“I don’t know how else to say this to make you or anyone else understand, Alster.” Sigrid shook her head and sat up, rubbing her hands down the front of her face, looking more tired than she felt. “I am not going. Haraldur doesn’t need me there, on one of the most important nights of his life. And I am not about to be made a fool at a dance, again. I’m not dressing like a man, I am not dressing up at all. It just… isn’t my idea of a good time. All right?” She met his eyes, looking for understanding. “Isn’t that enough?”
Apparently, it wasn’t.
Before Alster even had a chance to reply, he was tailed by two guards--yes, guards--who did not wait to be invited before entering her room. “Are you Sigrid Sorenson?” One of them asked. He did not appear to be armed, but looked as though he could--and would--put up a fight.
Dumbfounded, Sigrid shot to her feet, immediately on the defensive. “What is this about?”
“Her Highness, Sir Vega Sorde, requests your presence immediately at the Equinox ball. You are to come with us.”
No. This was absurd; the princess surely had not sent Alster and a pair of guards to retrieve her. Vega didn’t even like her, for the love of all that was good! “Why? Again, I ask, what is this about? I have done nothing wrong. I haven’t broken any of your laws. I came here in peace, just as he did,” she indicated Alster, “and I had rather hoped to spend my evening in peace.”
“You are to come with us.” The second guard parroted, as if he hadn’t heard her at all.
Blood rose up Sigrid’s neck and to her cheeks. “Or what? What will you do if I do not go with you?” She challenged, feeling that fight flood her veins. Would they have her arrested? Throw her in the damned dungeons for not participating in some trite, trivial festival? Forcibly drag her out? But, the real question was… Was she really willing to put up a fight about it, if it came to that?
The two guards exchanged glances, and one shrugged his shoulders. “Her Highness seldom makes demands such as these. It isn’t our place to question that. But I will tell you this much: I wouldn’t want to suffer the consequences of refusing an order from a Sorde. Ultimately, that is your call.”
The Dawn Warrior blinked. Just how vicious could the Sorde family be? She had heard stories of the kingdom’s past; knew the history as well as anyone. But Vega and her brother were supposed to be different. Were taking the kingdom in an entirely different direction… Evidently, that did nothing to mitigate the fact that some blood ran hot, for a reason…
Pressing her lips together, Sigrid said nothing, offering only a curt nod as the guards and Alster accompanied her out of the room, and down the hallway. “I am going to keep telling myself that you had nothing to do with this…” She murmured to Alster, frowning. To his credit, he seemed just as startled that Vega had sent authorities to retrieve her.
Pushing through the heavy wooden doors, Sigrid was met with a maelstrom of noise, music, and colour. It was almost surreal, the utter joy that emanated throughout--almost to the point where it made her uncomfortable (well, more uncomfortable than she already was). But none of that compared to when Vega, dressed intricately as the character of the Wind, approached her. Understandably, confusion was written all over the warrior’s face. “Your Highness…”
“Do you really have the gall to come into my kingdom, and insult it--insult me--by forsaking a very sacred tradition?” The princess asked. And in that moment, she was every inch a royal: austere and unyielding. And not afraid to show it. “You knew the expectation, Sigrid Sorenson. Everyone celebrates Equinox; and you will not sit out the pinnacle of the celebration: this ball.”
“Is this all because of the joke?” Sigrid asked, still struggling to comprehend. “Because I was teasing you about that dance? Flirting with you? I didn’t mean any of it, Your Highness; and I see now that I took it too far. Please accept my apologies. But I…”Her blue eyes scanned the crowd nervously. “I’d rather not be here.”
Vega only snorted, on hand propped on her hip. “Oh, you can bet that this is part of my revenge. You made me uncomfortable for an entire week. So forgive me if I don’t care that you’re uncomfortable for one night.” Taking the wreath that Alster was still holding, she placed it around Sigrid’s neck. “And you will keep that on for the remainder of the evening. Your attire is a disgrace to this festival, so that is the compromise, if you cannot adhere to the dress code.”
“What do you want from me, Vega?” Sigrid finally dropped the formality to show the sheer confusion and discomfort she felt. “Enough pretense; just tell me. If you want me to leave Eyraille--”
“On the contrary, I don’t want you to go anywhere. In fact, you will not leave this room until I specifically give you permission. Me, and me alone. Is that clear?”
But she didn’t wait around for the Dawn warrior’s answer. After all, as a symbol and figurehead, the Wind was expected to mingle; so, mingle she did, along with her green-clad beau.
Looking about as lost as a person possibly could in a crowd, Sigrid scratched the back of her neck. “You mentioned something about drinking.” She said, glancing sidelong at him. “Are you still up for that? Because I don’t know how else I’ll be able to endure this.”
In response to Daphni and her sound laughter at his expense, Elias snorted, but wore the dratted wreath around his neck like a pillory at the stocks. While he would not say it aloud, if wearing his leafy harness spilled laughter out of her mouth, then he would oblige her whims. To hear the delight and amusement caress his ears, tickling him with its wispy warmth, was well worth the embarrassment. His attending the dance, similarly, was all for her. Donned in flourishing flowers and budding life, of the promises that were ready to blossom into possibilities for their future, she had never looked more radiant. For that, he would carry his target, but not in compliant quietude. That was the compromise he made to himself.
