#episode 198 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

letterstosestrilles · 2 years

Text

Dear Tyko,

I’ve been procrastinating on writing to you since you won’t get my letters yet, and now I’m repaid by having to write you about two things at once even though they happened days apart. Now’s a good time, though, because I’ve just finished some wine and have retired, exhausted, to my bunk, whereas after the first incident I kept myself busy working in engineering here on the Redtree and got distracted doing so—but that’s not telling you anything in a sensible order, so I’ll start again.

I was only in the Storm Gardens of Amsiel for another day or so after I wrote you. Long enough to get a second meal from a restaurant I’d enjoyed, listen to another architect bard working her craft, learn how to ask how much something costs in Celestial (if not how to understand the answer), and check in on Gaizka to make sure they were still well. Which they were! I suspect they’re enjoying having the tuning fork attunement as an excuse to sit around without much to do but read for a while.

But then it was time to get on the Redtree and leave port. It’s very much a clan ship, I think all the crew are Sunweavers (though a few may be by marriage), and it’s much like the Promise in that it doesn’t seem to take passengers very often, which means we got stashed in extra crew bunks (everything a bit big, which I’m used to, but less annoying than usual because here I can float if I can’t reach a shelf). While we were flying out of dock, Finare, who we met on our way to meet Captain Imidris and who’s sort of our unofficial crew liaison, toured us around the ship. Some parts of it looked comfortingly familiar, though I’ve had a peek at their wiring panels, which are things of beauty, and have had to modify a lot of my knowledge to deal with them.

Unlike the usual hydroponic green spaces on ships I know, though, there’s what I can only describe as a park at the center of the ship, a truly green space with vines climbing the walls, plant life everywhere, and a large tree at the center of the room with broad red leaves. I keep forgetting to ask if the tree is in honor of the name or if the name is in honor of the tree. Maliah was immediately enamored and volunteered to help tend to the plants in there as soon as she realized we’d be welcome (and encouraged) to pitch in on the ship.

I was just as pleased to head over to engineering and get a course in their set-up. They’ve got some really clever buffering strategies, and I really like the way their propulsion is built and accessed, I’ll have to draw some sketches for you, because I bet you’d enjoy it as well, and you never know what you’ll get called on to do at the shop.

As the days passed after leaving port, I spent my waking time in engineering or out at the various windows. I’ve spent plenty of time looking out over void and stars since I signed on The Promise, but something about the quality of light here is still different, as well as the knowledge that if I stepped out a door I’d be able to breathe, makes it endlessly fascinating to look at.

After the first few days, we rarely saw a ship. After the first week (and we’re nearly into our third now), I think we can’t have seen more than two, and those were in the first couple of days of that week. No settlements, either, and sure, on the Promise there were long hauls on the ship, but by now this is the longest I’ve gone without at least passing another ship, if not a settlement, even if we didn’t stop.

It was a few days into the second week, and we were just butting up against the proper start of the star fields, when the ship jolted to a sudden stop in a way that meant nothing good at all. I had the luck to be in engineering, and we all spent a wild few minutes checking wiring, and listened to the sound of the propulsion system try desperately to accelerate but eventually back off, stuck like a ground vehicle in mud. Maliah arrived right about then, and said she thought she’d seen out one of the viewports that things might be darker than they should be, when the stars provide such a constant light out here.

I went with her to see for myself, and we were caught by another crew member who said we were wanted urgently on the bridge, and we went up to find the bridge crew wide-eyed and frightened, and Captain Imidris barely holding on to her captain’s calm. She said she hoped we could help, and gestured at the front window, where we saw, well—my first thought was an unexpected moon that had come out of nowhere. My next was a godsfall or other portal, similarly catching the navigation crew by surprise. It was nearly perfectly round, shifting and silver, with a long black slit across it. That gave me my first hint, and then beyond, in darkness darker than there should be, were the suggestions of the contour of an eye socket, of a snout. In short, I was looking at an eye, and it was very much looking back, and Captain Imidris explained in an admirably steady voice that we were in the presence of a void drake, and that he was curious as to why we were out so far, and that she thought that since we were the reason, we were the best choice to answer.

So I introduced myself and the others, and Maliah greeted him with her usual cheer, but since I’d spoken first and most, he focused the considerable weight of his attention on me. His voice wasn’t really a voice, more ideas pushed into my head with a little less grace than gods do it (but, to his credit, without the nosebleeds), and he was huge both physically and in my head when, with the amusement of the old, powerful, and utterly unthreatened, he said that we and our ship looked tasty, but that our thoughts were also interesting.

I encouraged that line of thought by very promptly telling him why we were there, because there’s no use in lying to something that can read your mind. (I also horrified Maliah by saying that our thoughts would be tastier than our bodies, and she gave me a lecture afterwards about being careful what I offer to powerful beings, which is fair.) He considered that, and then sort of pushed into my mind, seeking more information without the intermediary of words, and I once again decided that not fighting it was the wiser choice, so I let him turn over my thoughts considering their truth even though it felt like getting slapped with a sudden wave at the beach, and eventually he said that yes, we were interesting, and he was interested to hear the end of the story, if we survived.

(I suspect it might be a little boring, being a void drake.)

Captain Imidris looked like she would prefer to plot several parsecs around the spot on our return voyage, but when I asked if we could come through at least the region on our return journey, she acquiesced, so I told the drake that, and told him that even if Maliah and Niko and Squirt and I don’t survive, we’ll at least try to send a message back with the captain. I also offered, tentatively, thinking of the boredom again, to sing him a song on our return, which seemed to intrigue him.

That bargain made, he released our ship, which he’d been holding about as easily as a child might hold a block (seriously, he was huge, he wasn’t right up against the window but his eye alone was nearly twice my height at ten or so feet of distance), and then he was off into the dark, disappearing or just camouflaging so well we’d never know he was there.

All of us heaved a sigh of relief, and the following hours had an air of celebratory panic. Captain Imidris ordered the good alcohol out, which Maliah supplemented with wine from our Alchemy Jug, and we sat and drank and I collared a crew member (I think he’s Estolan’s brother? Some closer cousin, at the least. They all resemble each other so much and I haven’t got the kinship all worked out yet) and asked if there are any other legendary beasts we might be likely, or not likely, to meet.

The void drake, he assured us with a glazed expression, was about as legendary as they get, other than the spirits of stars and planets. Other than that, the biggest things we’re likely to find are what seem to be jellyfish (he’d never heard of them as water creatures, we’d never heard of them as void creatures, there were definitely a few minutes of confusion there), and they’re not really intelligent and are easy to avoid besides, since they are much more visible than void drakes are.

That was comforting, and we did indeed see one of the jellyfish a few days later, as we were heading into the real star fields, where there are lights everywhere that seem both so close you could reach out and cup one in your palm and farther away than the end of the universe and receding faster every moment. Sometimes they seem to be right in front of you, but part out of the way like the ship has a hand out in front sweeping them away. Once you’ve been in them for a few days, you start seeing tiny variations in color between them, just the slightest shades you couldn’t describe to someone who wasn’t acclimated, like I can tell when a guitar string is ever so slightly out of tune but you can’t.

Maliah, as the days have passed, is visiting the bridge a few times a day, where the navigators have chalked out a protractor on the floor so she can use her attunement to the Khardab’zielach to change our course. I think they’re at least only a little more annoyed than intrigued by the challenge, and Maliah seems to be enjoying having such a concrete way of improving her sense of orientation here, on top of getting to learn about wholly new varieties of plant.

Yesterday morning, when I had breakfast and went to engineering, a few of the hands were talking about one of the lights, which hadn’t swept itself out of our way, and that we were probably a day or two from running into it but that they weren’t sure what to do. I went and found Maliah, and the two of us went to the bridge, where Captain Imidris was pleased to see us and show us the light right ahead (one of the slightly greener ones, but again, I think that’s going to make you imagine more green than was really there) and ask if we had any insight.

I didn’t have anything except the worry that we were playing chicken with a star, but Maliah was more useful. First of all, she confirmed that if we were closer to Jhasdej, we would have to be doing a lot more small course corrections as we get closer, and we’re not near that point yet. Next, she pointed out that all the lights flicker and shimmer and change moment to moment, but this particular light’s flickers were quicker, almost frantic.

That, to both of us, suggested that the being ahead of us was either in distress or very angry, and Maliah and I came to the conclusion at the same time that it couldn’t hurt for me to try Sending, which I did, identifying us as peaceful travelers and asking if it needed help, not even sure it would be able to answer. For a moment, I was sure it wouldn’t, since I didn’t know it, and then I got an answer in a tone that raised the hair on my arms, like a trapped cat about to lash out, telling me to leave it alone, not to come near, that it will stop us if it has to.

That was alarming to say the least, but it didn’t sound angry, or not only angry—more the kind of scared that has to loop back into anger lest the person feeling it all freeze entirely. I suggested a course correction, which was difficult but not impossible according to the piloting team, and Sent again, advising it that we would steer away, and that if there was any way to help or reassure it, we’d like to know.

All I really got was satisfaction that we were steering away and a reiteration of its desire that we stay away. With all the telepathy I’ve been doing, between Sending and praying and the void drake, I’m starting to be able to recognize the character of voices in my head, and this one came with a sense of earth, of magma like Avka’s lair, of soil, and Maliah and I agreed, when I relayed that, that probably I was conversing with a planetar.

One that, it was becoming increasingly clear, was in distress and pain but who couldn’t or wouldn’t move away, which made neither of us inclined to listen to it telling us to leave it be. (Though I think the Sunweavers would have been glad enough to skirt around it and call themselves lucky.) I thought it most likely that it was protecting something, and the question was whether it was protecting itself in the wake of injury or other harm, something else too helpless to move from its spot, or, most intimidatingly, us, from something it was holding that might hurt us if we got close.

I Sent once more then, saying that we have healing magics and potions available, and it gave a quick denial and grudging thanks that made me think it was more one of the first two options.

Pressing it just then seemed like it would do more harm than good, so I left off the conversation and said maybe we should set up a watch to see if the flashing got slower or faster at all as we replotted our course. Maliah agreed and offered to take the first shift, so I talked with her a little while and went off, and found myself aware, as the hours went by, of attention. Like the void drake’s, but more distant, distant enough that the person paying such close attention probably couldn’t get much more than impressions. (From what Maliah and Niko both said after, I think its attention was roaming all over the ship in that time, but like with the void drake, since I’d spoken first and most, I was the largest focus of attention.)

Not knowing what else to do, I did … well, much what I did with Devon and Loren in those first few desperate hours. I tried to stay outwardly calm and cheerful without being effusive, I had pleasant conversations with people around me, did a pleasant shift in engineering, went back to my bunk and sang a few songs that weren’t sugary-sweet or annoyingly cheerful but also weren’t tragic ballads about glorious battles or anything like that. I don’t know if it did much good, but it also didn’t hurt.

We got close, and I went back to the bridge to find Maliah there again, looking out through a very neatly designed spyglass (we should buy her one of the ones calibrated for here before we go back, I don’t know how much they’d do on our own stars but she’d probably like it anyway), where she said she could see the being I’d been talking to. She described it, as I later confirmed for myself, as not dissimilar to an elemental, if not in as literal a sense. Whereas the earth elementals we’ve met are literally made of stone, the planetar was made of a suggestion of stone and earth, if that makes sense as a distinction.

It was also, she said in more than a little distress, very badly wounded, with long gashes and bad scarring all across its side, and it looked like it might have taken a Blight to the face. It was watching us, mistrustful and upset, and neither of us could bear the thought of that, so I tried Sending again.

I offered our help. It countered that it couldn’t trust us. I asked if there was a possible way we could earn its trust, at least enough that we could send it a healing potion and it would be willing to take it. There was a pause, and a scoff, and it said that maybe if the gods themselves stood for us, and that we’d be welcome to send the potion but it didn’t promise it would take it. I said that we were there with the Lady of Stars’s let, and prayed for her to vouch for us, but I was so concentrated on holding the thread of the Sending waiting for an answer that I don’t think she heard me this time.

Maliah, though, folded her hands together and bowed her head and called on Cernunnos, hoping that perhaps there’s enough earth magic in his domain that he could make a connection to a planetar, and it worked. I didn’t catch it, but she opened her eyes and looked through the spyglass in time to see a flash of the green of the Feywild wrap itself briefly around the planetar and let go.

Whatever Cernunnos said, it helped, because just when I thought we wouldn’t get an answer, I received three words: “You. Alone. Unarmed.”

Nobody liked it, precisely, but by that point we were invested in giving the planetar what help we could, so I said I would Teleport over and made sure I didn’t have any daggers or anything else with a sharp edge on me. I debated my gloves, but they make my magic more powerful and focused, so I couldn’t really afford to leave them behind.

Maliah threatened to come floating after me if I didn’t come back, and did not seem impressed when I told her that someone’s got to make it to the star, but she sent me off with her blessing anyway, and I Teleported not far from the planetar, whose wounds up close looked even more painful.

It greeted me with an upraised and clawed hand in defense, and I stayed where I was to introduce myself and ask for something to call it. After a moment, it gave the name Ejyl, which obviously wasn’t its whole or true name, but was at least something to call it while I tried desperately for a rapport. I asked what I could do to increase its comfort, and it told me to cast a cantrip first, so I cast a Minor Illusion of the tree in the heart of our ship, letting it look its fill before it told me I could dismiss it and cast healing magic.

I offered options, since after all the Sending with no sleep and two Teleports (one for the potion and then one for me), I was perilously low on magic. I told Ejyl that I could cast Mass Cure Wounds up to three times, or I could Wish for a Heal, which would be more healing all at once but which would mean I’d be stuck there until my magic replenished enough to Teleport. After a moment’s consideration, it asked for the former.

I warned it, as honest as I could be, that I didn’t know what effect its metaphysical form would have on the healing magic, that it might not do as much as I hoped (secretly wondering if I was healing the equivalent of great chasms in the earth, I’m not clear on if the planet Ejyl is connected to would have been suffering as well, I know it’s not a one-to-one kind of thing but surely wounds as bad as those Ejyl had would have to be reflected elsewhere), but that at the very least I would try. Like the void drake, Ejyl prodded my mind, checking for honesty, and finding it, told me it understood and to try.

I did, and the greatest wound started knitting itself closed, everything looking a little less fresh and painful than before. I asked again, and cast again, and its shoulders sagged like a weight had been removed. One more time, and while there were scars, and maybe hairline cuts, Ejyl was clearly in less pain, and met my eyes with less panic before, and pinched its claws around some part of itself and offered me—a stone, or a light, or something that was both, some part of itself, a light for someone not meant for the darkness of the Astral Sea, as it described it. A token, it said, for my help.

I thanked it, and, plucking up my courage, asked what had happened, either so we could report the wrongdoers to someone or so we could be prepared for future threats. It said, voice darkening, that there are mortals who think they can collar a planet to do as they wish, and there were some who had almost succeeded, but there was no need to report them, because they were dead, and it would not let such a thing happen to it again.

Maybe there was more to say then, but I was reminded too much of my own errand here, and the Redtree was getting farther away and would be waiting for me, so I thanked Ejyl one more time and used the last of my most powerful magic for the day to cast one last Teleport back to the ship. Everyone greeted me with relief, and Maliah offered me some wine, so I sat down and drank some with her and told her how it went before I came back here to rest, but I can’t really rest, so I’m writing you instead.

Are we really any better than those poachers who so hurt Ejyl, who have clearly hurt it so much it may never trust a stranger again? If Jhasdej turns us down, even if Kireul turns us down too and we’re forced to find a new plan, we’ll do it. We won’t harm someone who hasn’t consented no matter our desperation to help Reorx. But even in asking, are we in the wrong? I’ve wondered this ever since we chose this quest, but I’ve been so excited to see the Astral Sea, to meet a star, that even when taking a class on blood transfusion I shied away from the knowledge of what we’re going to do. Would we have been better off seeking those flowers on a broken planet?

I don’t know. This felt like the right course, it did, right until I met Ejyl’s eyes and was forcibly reminded of the true cost of what we’re asking. The Lady of Stars wouldn’t send us to someone who would take the request as an insult or a threat, surely? But selfishly, I don’t want to be thought of as a treasure-hunter either.

Maybe after some sleep I’ll be able to remember all the reasons we chose this path, and Maliah will reassure me that we’re not like the monsters who hurt Ejyl, that we never would be. I know it’s true, but things always feel more true once she reminds me of them.

But, at the very least, this has been a reminder that I’m going to need a better explanation than the one I’ve been using if I’m going to convince a star to help. Jhasdej deserves better than stumbling, for the precious gift I’m planning to ask them for. The void drake said our story would be interesting. I think that, at the very least, it’s time to learn to tell it better.

I am a bard, after all.

Love,

Elyn

#in character #in character: letter #letter to: tyko #episode 198 #location: the astral sea #person: maliah #person: imidris sunweaver #person: ejyl #suspenseful situations

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