Allory Fae and the Dragon's Whiskers

Songs

Melodic poesy

Life's chaotic beauty embracing

The echoes between

Eternity

JANDAZARI WAS SHAKEN. HIS whole family was doubly, trebly shaken. They had mourned his death, prepared and embalmed his body – which still smelled pleasantly aromatic – and now sat quietly in their cocoon, sharing a gourd of the King's finest nectar with the not so very deceased.

Excellent nectar. Even Allory found herself far from being too Elemental in her nature, in this time, to partake and enjoy. She was also grateful that no-one seemed willing to break the companionable silence, for she did not know what she might say. So weighty were her concerns for her people, her heart threatened to seep out of her toes. She hugged her knees to her chest, wishing … wishing for she knew not what. Only that Jandazari should not feel as used as an old skein of nectar.

How could she create the boneyard, knowing what the Ancient Septuani had done and still did there?

Yet, she must. It was the only way.

She whispered, "When your great-grandfae Jynnari said you should give your life for me, Jandazari, I never expected that to become a reality. I am ashamed. The truth is that the sap flow of my life is very strange indeed. For example, I first met Jynnari … ah …"

"Seventy-one years ago," Yennary put in. "He told us the tale many times, how this tiny young girlfae hopped out of a vat of fluid and set off a Scintillant rebellion."

"Eep?" she murmured.

That Jynnari?

Disturbing to realise how far back her troublemaking went. Maybe it was not such a recent development. Maybe it had always been her way? Allory bit her tongue. Why? She did not want to be some sort of history-travelling, know-nothing meddler-in-chief. These were peoples' lives!

Jandazari said, "Would you tell us your version of the tale, General Allory?"

"I will, I promise. What I wanted to explain was – in myself, in my sap, I still feel only nineteen. Suggids! I sound crazy, right?"

"You feel my age?" said Jirimae, one of his pupae-sisfae. "Then and now?"

Allory nodded slowly. "Exactly. I remember meeting him and I still feel like that same girlfae today, and the life of Allory the General over these seventy-one years in between in many respects resembles a daydream, a remembrance spun of insubstantial Faesilk. That is why, Jandazari –" she started blushing before she could even finish her sentence "– that's why you caught me admiring you today. Part of me is still that girlfae of nineteen and you, dearest friend of my sap, are really easy on the eyes. Just saying."

His family hooted and clicked their fingers at him, causing Jandazari to turn a rich shade of sapphire. Protests? Nothing a family would allow. She loved the way they interacted. So different to most of her own upbringing.

"Yet, I do not know my fate. I am afraid … very afraid," she admitted. "Soon, I know I must Travel back to my time. I cannot do that, however, until I complete a task here which I believe will spell life or death for our Scintillant people and for many others. I feel that I have already asked too much of your family over the generations –"

"Allory, we will serve," Jandazari declared.

Now, she could not finish. Tears filled her eyes. "Ja – Ja … I –" she shrugged helplessly "– what words? I'm honoured."

Jazyluki laid a hand upon his son's arm, clearly so proud he nearly popped his antennae. "Aye, General. Our ancestor made a promise that day. We will serve – but tell us, please, whom do you serve? What we saw today … what we experienced? I too have no words."

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"We Scintillants are healers," Allory whispered, failing to fight her tears. In the end, she accepted a scrap of Faesilk from Yennary and dabbed her eyes. "In healing, we find our truest joy and highest purpose. You all know the theory of ariavanae, but what I believe you may not know is that the creator and sustainer of Spheris, our Middlesun, is a living, intelligent entity whose language – as best I understand it – is the scintillance of love. I am only beginning to learn about her myself."

The Scintillants murmured in surprise.

Jandazari said, "Does … does she have a name?"

"Aye. I call her Soul Blossom. I haven't learned to communicate properly with her, yet, but in the time that I came from, the Wraith is battling not only our Faerie peoples, but also trying to corrupt and steal the power of Middlesun herself."

The family nodded soberly.

"Ariavanae is pure and miraculous and I wonder if it might not be the soul of Middlesun herself," she added, quietly contemplative. "It imbues everything in our world. Without it, nothing that we know would exist."

"Is what we call the sap of our souls therefore a manifestation of ariavanae?" Yennary breathed.

Allory gasped.

She had never heard it expressed quite that way before. Stunning clarity.

"A soul-utterance of unspeakable complexity?" her husfae added.

Gasp again.

"We'd have to call that an ariayaenvul, I suppose," Iyenory contributed shyly.

"A – what did you say?" Allory choked out, her head snapping around so fast she tweaked a muscle in her neck, despite her ever-shifting Elemental nature. The small girlfae hung her head, colouring heatedly. "No, no, please … I only meant, it's a beautiful idea! Hear me – it's an exquisite insight, Iyenory! How do you know that word?"

"It isn't – I make up words," she squeaked, on the point of imploding with embarrassment.

"Oh, it's a made-up word?"

"Aye."

"Wonderful!" Allory found herself right beside the girlfae, squeezing her hands. She gentled her touch. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important – crucial, in fact. Iyenory, I believe this is an insight into the very nature of the world-soul. Please, would you tell me more? Tell us how you imagined this word to be."

"Well, as you know, General Allory –" Iyenory gazed for the longest time at their intertwined hands, one undersized pair holding another, before saying wistfully "– ariavana is our Scintillant name for the world-soul. I modified it with the infix yaen – meaning a true expression – and the suffix ul, conveying the idea of a quintessential axiom, to try to capture what I thought you were talking about. See?" Allory began to shake her antennae slowly, but the girlfae explained, "So the word becomes – it's clumsy, of course – the axiomatic truthful expression of the world-soul's quintessential nature. Ergo, an ariayaenvul."

Wheezing, not breathing, for fate had just slapped her with a Giant-sized hammer. This was the answer to the way the Ancient Septuani had for aeons parasitized the immortal souls of her kind?

And for such a truth to spring from a despised runt like herself?

Echoes through time that hammered into her soul, the sure knowledge of a mighty fate revealed.

"General?" Jandazari prompted, shaking her arm.

"Eep?"

"You were far, far away," he said. "Where did you go?"

"To a place where I discovered the help I've most needed for decades, if not centuries. I'm just … overcome. Delightfully frazzled and bedazzled in every drop of my sap. Iyenory, how can I ever thank you enough? You are a treasure. I – I can't tell you how … this whole family's a treasure! Arise, o verimost sap of my soul, to pour blessing upon these beautiful friends!"

They all chuckled as if she were a complete madfae.

Apparently, this was clear nectar with them.

Priceless.

Plans swarmed into Allory's mind. She needed to start a tradition of Scintillants having soul lockets. Or, discover one. She'd manufacture an ancient legend that would inspire the creation of a new generation of soul lockets, but only one would be the true ariayaenvul. And for that, she would need an artisan. A Faerie gifted to see essential spiritual truths; a soul in whom the creative ariavanae of Soul Blossom flowed thick and superb and undeniable.

She knew just the girlfae.

Popping up to kiss Iyenory's cheek, she said, "So Iyenory, last time we met, you were considering what occupation you'd like to pursue in the future. I don't suppose you've contemplated becoming a Magesmith Artisan, by any chance?"

"I … I have," she whispered, glancing aside at her Momfae and Dadfae, "but we can't, can we?"

Allory read naked longing in the droop of the girlfae's wings, in the regretful way she touched her antennae. She saw a hint of the inner self-talk she knew all too well: smallest, littlest, poor me. The true sap conviction that fate somehow had no good things planned for a runt.

Iyenory truly believed she deserved nothing good in life.

Jazyluki nodded, his face drawn in shame. "You're slap in the nectar, General, but we could never afford it. Not the way apprenticeships are currently run in Ahm-Shira, with the bigger Faerie tribes monopolising the more prestigious crafts, and with the war on … I'm sorry, but it's as far beyond our means as Middlesun lies above the clouds – isn't it, dearest sap?"

Yennary bobbed her antennae. "Aye."

"I may be able to do something about that," Allory offered.

"Would you?" Iyenory yelped.

Her parents made to hush her, but Allory hushed them right back. "Jazyluki, Yennary, please let me have my fun." She batted her eyelashes shamelessly at everyone. "May I speak to the King on your behalf? Being a General Allory has to come with a few useful perks, doesn't it?"

They burst out laughing. Relieved. Delighted. Daring, at last, to dream.

As she fell asleep that night, it struck her how precious it was to laugh with lifelong friends. Now that was healing music for the soul.