.
I already understood that unidentified magics were messing with navigation and senses in this country, but I hadn’t received any detailed information on it. My senses were only telling me that Light and Dark magics were involved, but they couldn’t decode anything.
It was the result of a single spell? I doubted that, but still, I was all ears when this woman began voluntarily explaining things.
Gesturing around to the left and the right, Möemen stated, “Throughout our land, impassable boundaries lurk, not only to obstruct, but to bewitch one’s sense of direction, or twist one’s course. If you aren’t careful, you might fly a straight line only to come upon the very same spot you passed over, only minutes before. Or you might fly North and come to a place which had formerly lay South.”
She glanced over her shoulder again, with a sidelong, teasing look. “I’m certain you have already experienced these things. You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”
In reaction to my expression, she again laughed, then explained, “In order to safely travel, either a particular path must belong to your folkways, or the seal upon you must be able to unlock it. You will lose your way otherwise. And even if a path is normally open to you, you will lose your way if you attempt to lead another through it, unless they are someone whom you are permitted to guide.”
I remembered Serera mentioning that she could only guide her family or her prisoners to Tëan Tír. So this was what she had been talking about.
I was hearing this with growing concern. My understanding of Serera’s plan was that she would find me and guide me… somewhere. Not to Tëan Tír, since she already said she could not do that without permission, but she would lead me to safety, then go get permission for me to finish the journey. Or, perhaps it was her plan to go get that permission first and then fetch me.
But what if someone else brought me somewhere that Serera couldn’t go?
“So no matter how hard you try, you can’t go somewhere you don’t have a ‘seal’ for?” I asked.
“Oh, you can find your way very slowly. That’s how new folkways are born. If you live in an area long enough, you can learn the paths from it to the locations adjacent to it. Gradually you extend your range to those locations, and become resident in a new territory. Do you have the years it would take to get from here to Tëan Tír by that method, Your Highness? Do you know which direction you should fly from here, to avoid starting out by getting yourself even more lost?”
She was sounding more and more smug as she spoke. As if she knew I was trapped. Or… imprisoned?
I considered that we had been walking for quite a range, and in the opposite direction from the meadow where the butterflies had found me.
I noted, “You already more-or-less told me that it was back toward that meadow that I was sitting in, before.”
She turned her head sideways to where she could glance sidelong at me, where I was seated behind her. I saw a look of mild surprise on her face. “I suppose that I did, at that.”
Then turning a bit farther to look at me over her shoulder, she said, with a chuckle, “But, do you know what direction that meadow is, Your Highness?”
That ‘GPS’ in my head went to work. I had relaxed at the meadow for long enough to have ‘recorded’ the position in my head, at least in short-term memory. I thought we were headed away from that spot, and that the brook we were following might in fact be the same water as the stream in that meadow, but my location sensing ability was telling me that it was straight ahead!
She glanced over her shoulder at me again. And laughed again. She was getting a lot of delight at my expense.
With a frown, I asked, “What are you planning, Miss Möemnen?”
She laughed again, a bit cruelly. But she spoke in a flirty tone. “What do you imagine, Your Highness? You sound quite apprehensive. Am I so awful?”
Somehow, she made herself truly sound hurt at the suggestion, even though I hadn’t made it and I had zero faith that she was actually hurt.
“While your friends were carrying me to you, you could have sent word to one of the fairy lords that are looking for me. It seems my mother had made a lot of enemies. Are you one of them?”
She brought the deer to a halt. We were near a large boulder with abundant mosses, in a dark part of the woods near a steep hill.
“This place will do,” she stated, and dismounted. She turned and grabbed me by the waist to help me down. Placing her hand on the bridle, she caused some Darkness mana to flow over the gear outfitting her mount, and to my surprise, it all vanished.
“Rín, go have your lunch,” she told the animal.
It tossed its head briskly, then moved off into the woods.
Möemnen led me toward the mossy boulder– it was easily twice my height, although still dwarfed by the massive ashes and maples growing around it– and stopped at spot next to it where lush grass grew despite the shade. It looked similar to moonglow grass, a plant that lives on ambient free mana instead of light. I noticed a few other normally subterranean plants growing nearby. It all indicated a mana spring in the vicinity. A comfy spot for a fairy to live.
She sat on the grass and indicated for me to do so as well. With a flourish of the hand and a surge of Dark magic, an old-fashioned wicker picnic basket materialized on the ground between us. My jaw tried to drop open, but I somehow stopped it and pressed my lips together.
Spells which cause things to appear out of thin air, like teleportation or storage or summoning, are exotic spells which normally only appear in fiction and rumors even on Huade. Manifesting simple short-lived items out of Earth mana, like the skewers that Grandmother created or Aenëe’s Earth-mana sword, is a different kind of magic. It was also an uncommon skill, but at least something I had seen before.
The only factual instance of an appearance spell that I had even heard about before was Ryuu’s summoning.
Yet, this woman had casually summoned her lunch like it was a commonplace act.
As she unpacked tea-towel-wrapped sandwiches, cups and a bottle gourd with a stopper, she noted, “If you were a foolish young fairy who had allowed herself to be lured somewhere where she had no bearings, I would most certainly keep you here as my guest. You would have no choice but to play with me, as long as I could hold you in this territory that I control. Having a young fairy for a plaything is many times more fun that the enjoyment that young mortals provide. I was trapped twice that way myself, as a youngling. Once was for more than a year.”
Now very wary, I noted, “But I’m a young monster, and I need mortal blood to survive, so you couldn’t be imagining doing something like that, right?”
“Eat,” she said, and handed a sandwich to me, then uncorked the gourd and filled the two cups she had set out. As I unwrapped the sandwich, I smelled something I had not smelled since I was Robert… genuine rice wine. Sake.
She handed one to me, picked up the other, and took a sip.
I have to admit, it was a very pleasant spot to have lunch. Nearby patches of deep shadow were helping recharge my Dark mana, and the moisture in the soil and water in the nearby brook were more than enough to allow me to restart my Water coating. I still wasn’t in particular need of it, but I thought it might be better to maintain as much of a reserve as I could, so I restarted the process.
Möemnen tipped her head. “Water mana?”
“I’m one-quarter naiad, Miss Möemnen, so I have to immerse in Water mana often. If I do it this way, I don’t need to spend time in the actual water.”
“That’s very clever,” she replied, and took a bite of her sandwich.
I tried mine. It was pretty good stuff. Egg, mayonnaise, cheese and some sort of pickles. The fairies in the border patrol had served meals of simple ingredients they grew themselves. Comparing their meals to this led me to wonder where the bread and cheese were coming from. Come to think of it, the pickles, the oil for the mayonnaise, the chickens to produce the eggs… heck this entire sandwich was the product of serious processing.
“Is it to your taste?” she wondered.
“It’s very good,” I admitted after washing the bite down with a careful sip. Sake is a strong beverage, much more so than the weak ales and wine cocktails I normally encounter, so I needed to be careful. Despite all my other insane strengths, I am no less vulnerable to the effects of alcohol than anyone else.
“I suppose it would be a bit more problematic to make a pet out of a monster child than a fairy child,” she mused. “The care and feeding of young fairies is rather simple after all. They just need a little food and attention, and they take care of themselves otherwise.”
She scooted closer and stroked my arm. “A monster girl needs to consume a mortal from time to time, after all.”
I finished chewing my latest mouthful and swallowed while growing a frown. “Miss Möemnen, I don’t consume them.”
“No?” she asked as she began caressing my shoulder. I was already uncomfortable as it was. Now I shifted away from her deliberately. She chuckled again.
She noted, “You take their life blood away. If you don’t stop, you would take all of it, wouldn’t you? Even if you aren’t taking their flesh, you are taking their life.”
That set off a twinge of guilt, thanks to a conversation with my grandmother, two nights ago. But I shook my head. “A vampire can’t feed long enough to kill. I would be full long before that.”
Actually, as I said this, I realized that this safeguard no longer held true for me. I could, in fact, keep gathering blood and condensing it, far past my old limit. I didn’t know if I could feed long enough to kill, but the possibility now existed. This wasn’t the time to dwell on it though, so I had to push the thought out of my head.
Möemnen tipped her head, her eyes sparkling. “Is that so? So it would be safe to draw mortals here from time to time to feed you? How very interesting.”
