.
It was only Secondday Night in the first week of the month, so the thin sliver of the Full Greater Moon had only been above the horizon for a short time, while I was beginning my patrol, and had now set. Even so, at this altitude, the light was quite good thanks to the Great River of Heaven stretched across the sky above me, amazingly bright and vivid through the thin, high altitude air.
Milky Way? Not only do we not call it that on Huade, the Milky Way is specifically the galaxy where Earth dwells. This isn’t even the same universe as Earth, much less the same galaxy. But the name “Great River of Heaven” is similar to the name the Japanese give the Milky Way for a reason. It looks very similar from Huade in clear air, like a great stream of luminous water spanning the sky.
Why am I talking about the sky? Because at that time, I was staring up at it while soaking in the basin that Arken had made for me at lunch time.
Gross? Horses drank out of it? I’ve acquired a strange lack of concern for such things since acquiring this body. A few nights previous, I was soaking in a swamp, remember? I think fairies generally don’t worry about germs and the like because we’re meant to live in nature. I don’t know whether it’s an unbeatable immune system or something magic-based, but fairies just don’t get sick.
And the small amount of horse saliva in the water wasn’t an issue, in my mind, because it would be awfully diluted in a couple hundred gallons of water. Frankly, I didn’t care. I was enjoying being able to relax and recharge my body rather than having to work at it by maintaining a mana coating.
The air temperature had dropped enough to cause a fog to rise off the water that had been baking in the sun only a few hours ago. I have no idea how warm it had become by the end of the day, but it was still above body temperature, leaving me with a comfortable bath. I relaxed and channeled my concentration into recovering the Darkness from my core that I had used up earlier for my cloak.
I had quite a bit of Darkness channeled into Vampire Sense at the moment, but I had drawn that from the surroundings. I had to keep a watch out, of course, as a fifteen-year-old girl bathing out in the open nude except for the little pouch for Lucy’s stone.
I didn’t have to recover the Water I had expended to fill this basin, because I had done so at dinner time. We had made it down into the valley behind this ridge, where a strong stream flowed down from the Giant’s Fortress. It had been fiercely cold stuff. The climate here didn’t see much rain, so the flow was meltwater off a glacier upstream. But meltwater from ice that has been accumulating free mana for decades is wonderfully rich stuff. I was happily drawing it in and stuffing it into my core while I ate my dinner of trout from the same stream.
No, I didn’t catch them myself, Grandmother-style. The veteran adventurers in the group caught them. Adventurers learn how to feed themselves in the wild.
We originally had a concern that bandits might be using that valley for a hideout, but not after the severe effort we went through to get down into it. It became painfully obvious why Rufin’s brigade was skipping it for their bandit sweeps. The narrowness of the valley, not quite a gorge, made it useless for wyvern riders and the steepness made it impossible without magic for mounted beasts other than expensive-to-feed mountain goats. Dilorè, Talene, Arken and Ceria had to work hard, using various spells like [Surefoot], [Wind Porter] and [Featherlight] to guide nine very nervous horses down the incline.
My bath was a good spot, with a wide sky above thanks to being above the treeline, no visibility from below, and no people for many miles. There were monsters in the area, but the monsters were all small ones that preyed on critters like chipmunks and pikas. And those monsters were far enough away that the only eyes nearby were those same chipmunks and pikas.
Was the congenital exhibitionism of my mother’s species beginning to affect me? I don’t think so. I’m certain that being naked around my grandfather and uncle would have been just as uncomfortable at that moment as it had been in Tëan Tír. And don’t even talk about how mortifying it would be if a non-relative happened by. But being like this out in nature felt really good, better than being in clothes.
The feeling of the water on my skin, and the cool air on my exposed chest where I rose out of the water, felt more comfortable than the softest cotton. I wondered if that feeling was the real reason fairies are such exhibitionists? Being bundled in dead animal or plant fibers simply feels inferior to being clad in nature.
I briefly felt like enjoying myself a little more fully, but then I remembered the two potential witnesses present, and didn’t follow through. The truth was, I hadn’t done anything like that with myself since Durandal became part of my life. But the fact that I was briefly tempted in that situation was a pretty good measure of how stimulating it was.
To take my mind off my body’s urges, I decided it was time to get back to work on my mission.
I called out, “Hey, Old Man?”
What is it, My Lady?
“Have you worked anything out with Lucy yet?”
I cannot seem to make her understand. She expects you to ask the Wind spirits, and doesn’t seem to understand that you do not know where those spirits are.
“Is there any chance she’s being intentionally obstinate? I accidentally hurt her before, after all.”
Certainly, there is a chance of this, My Lady. It does not feel as though this is the problem, however. I get the impression she is unable to understand the question.
“I can occasionally spot them passing by,” I noted. “Perhaps I should just ask one at random? But how am I supposed to know if they are those whom Lord Moram controls?”
The ancient vodyanoy of Greenwater Fen seemed to be an extraordinary spirit tamer, considering how quickly he had found spirits with memories of my cousin Amelia and her knight, Lady Chiara. It was plausible that many such passing spirits would be his, but it couldn’t be the case that they all were.
A tinny little girl voice suddenly directed, “Ask!”
My head jerked back away from a tiny, softly glowing, pixie-like figure which had suddenly appeared in front of me, perhaps six inches from my nose. I say ‘pixie-like’ because she was clearly far too small to be an actual pixie. They vary in size, but Kiki is fairly typical at eight to nine inches tall. This creature was only about an inch tall.
She was vaguely naked, but with missing body features, like a magical girl in the middle of her transformation, and her butterfly wings were much larger in comparison to her body than Mother’s or Dilorè’s wings in comparison to theirs. She drifted down and landed… well, basically on the tip of my left breast, taking a seat there like it was a cushion meant for her. Her wings folded neatly back, just like the butterfly she resembled.
Staring down at her, I asked, “Lucy?”
“Mm!” she replied. I concentrated on my senses and discovered she was indeed the spirit from the stone. It seemed I had misunderstood that she was permanently lodged inside the stone. I wondered about how the real relationship between her and the stone worked. Was the stone just a travel trailer for her?
I had never seen a spirit take on a humanoid form. They were always vague impressions, passing by. Since few humans can perceive them, they gave Tiana a reputation as a preschool child for having a wild imagination, before the people in the Palace came to understand what it was that she was seeing.
This being, though, was certainly visible to my normal vision.
“Why can I see you so clearly, Lucy?”
“Master teach!”
Durandal explained, She is a Light spirit, My Lady, so she is using Light magic to generate an illusion. Since she is really present, and has no alternative appearance, there is no falsehood, so you don’t recognize it as an illusion.
“This is a first for me. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Tiana had encountered Spirit Trainers and Spirit Magicians in the past, but never any whose spirits could make themselves visible.
It is an ancient magic. In the old days, I saw it many times with tamed spirits. Trainers would give their Light spirits illusions, their Darkness spirits shadows, and their Earth, Wind, Water, Fire and Aether spirits manifestations of their elements.
Lord Moram was a monster of unknown antiquity. Perhaps this was something he had learned back in those same ‘old days’.
I asked. “Are you telling me I should just ask any passing Wind spirit about the lady I am looking for, and they would know who I mean?”
“Master strong! They know!”
“Lucy, the problem with that is, I can’t speak to them,” I pointed out. “That’s why Lord Moram had me take you along.”
She tipped her head, looking very confused.
Puzzled, I called over my shoulder to my sword, “Old Man, I’m right about that, aren’t I? I’ve certainly never had a conversation with a spirit, before.”
Give me some time to sort this out with her, Durandal answered.
Which was another way to say, we’re back to square one. This was getting aggravating.
After another hour soaking, which was easily longer than I needed, I finally got out of the bath, shivering a little in the cool air. I pulled Light from my core and circulated it to warm myself, then used [Fairy Breeze] to dry myself.
When I stood, Lucy had flittered over to perch on Durandal’s pommel where I had leaned him against a rock. It was a very convincing illusion of actual flight. She was still silent, as was Durandal. It made me wonder what a conversation between spirits actually sounded like. Were they literally negotiating in Ostish, or was it nothing like human speech?
Retrieving my comb, I found a different rock to perch on and sat there dealing with my hair a while. I hadn’t made it wet, but the [Fairy Breeze] spell had knocked my hair bun loose and made a mess of it.
At last, I had my hair straight and my clothes back on, and I had recovered the hairpin that my Wind spell had knocked away. I was ready to gear up.
I told Lucy, “I’m about to go on patrol again. Are you going to fly beside me or go back into the stone?”
“I go,” she said, and flew straight at the pouch, disappearing into it. The sudden move had made me flinch, but there was no feeling of impact.
I shook my head and put on the rest of my gear.
