(Sixthday of the Second Week of Mossro, 669 A.C.)
Fourthday and Fifthday passed in a blur. Usually, Dahlia woke before the sun even began to lighten the sky, but she slept in both days until nearly noon. Wanily was gone when she finally did get up on Fourthday, probably off to visit that questionable friend of hers, but she was still in the church on Fifthday. Dahlia just about jumped out of her skin when she shuffled, still half-asleep, into the main room and very nearly ran straight into Wanily. She had fully expected to spend another day alone in the church, but Wanily stuck around the whole time. Dahlia was immensely grateful--she had never been a solitary creature having grown up in such a big family then becoming part of the church with all its members. Just being with someone else did wonders to lift some of the fog that had settled over Dahlia’s mind.
She just didn’t know what to do. Her grief felt like a palpable thing, a mass that had taken up space right behind her heart and pumped its sorrow into her being with every heartbeat, never letting her forget. Her brother was dying. Sweet, young Quiv--who always made sure to play with the kids that had no other friends, who excelled in school and spent so many days reading, who had cried and cried and cried when Dahlia told him she was leaving--was dying. And though he had been able to say goodbye to her when she departed on the ship for Fris, she wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to him.
She wrote to the brother in charge of her mission on Fourthday while Wanily was gone. The courier she went to was owned by the Empire, so though the people working there curled their lips and spat their words, they took Dahlia’s letter and sent it off with one of their figonas without much fuss. They barely even charged her for the service--which was good, considering Dahlia had very little money to go around.
Still, she didn’t have very high hopes. The brother was a lovely person, of course--all true followers of Amera were. But he had seemed very stern when Dahlia met him, and she doubted he would budge on his stance. As terrible as Dahlia’s situation was, how could she or anyone else say it held a candle to the hatred that festered in Fris?
So she sent the letter on Fourthday and promptly put it out of her mind. She spent Fifthday showing Wanily how to sew--at least, she showed her how to sew properly since Wanily already had some rudimentary knowledge. Her lines had been anything but straight and it took her several minutes of fumbling to get the needle threaded, but she at least knew how to do it.
She wasn’t the quickest study, but she seemed to like working with her hands. Wanily’s willingness to learn and her upbeat attitude that prevailed despite the many times she pricked her fingers or had to redo her stitching made her far from the worst student Dahlia had ever taught.
Dahlia quickly learned that Wanily liked to talk, too. She told stories of the people she had met in her travels, her studies in magic, her favorite foods, the weird dreams that had stuck with her over the years--anything and everything that wasn’t about her mysterious friend. Dahlia asked, but that only made Wanily clam up for a while, and Dahlia, who had welcomed the distraction of Wanily’s chatter, did not touch the subject again when Wanily eventually began talking again.
Now it was Sixthday, the day that Wanily was set to begin learning magic from Harriet, and Dahlia laid in bed, wondering what she was going to do with herself. She got up and tiptoed to the main room, doing her best to avoid waking Wanily still slumbering away in her bed. As she passed, Dahlia felt a pang of envy at how peaceful she looked.
She could just open the door and look outside, but Dahlia didn’t feel ready to face the world yet. Instead, she went to the glass sphere still sitting on one of her pews--an astro-orb, she learned they were called from Gren when he came back to collect the empty crates--and peered into its depths. The white dots inside formed a large X, the same as the seventh daystellation, Boreso. She checked the other orb--the minute orb--and found that only about a quarter of the hour had passed so far. Still early, then, so Wanily didn’t have to get going for a while yet. Dahlia just wanted to be sure--she didn’t want her to be late for the first day of her training. She doubted that would go over well with Harriet.
She moved over to an empty pew and sat. She stared at the far wall for a while, then tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling. She wished she could say she was thinking, but it didn’t feel like a single coherent thought entered her mind. She debated reading Quiv’s letter again and ultimately decided against it, not needing the reminder. A while after that, she thought about praying, but despite the guilt that welled up inside her, she couldn’t bring herself to do so. Amera’s love always brought comfort to Dahlia during hard times, but this time--she didn’t want to be comforted. She wanted her brother to live.
“What are you doing?”
Dahlia started, shoulders jumping. She turned her head to where Wanily stood in the doorway to the other room. Her brows were bunched in concern.
“I don’t know,” Dahlia admitted, which was probably not what she should say if she wanted Wanily to stop worrying. But it was the truth. She didn’t know what she was doing.
But, she thought desperately, she wanted to do something. She wouldn’t just spend another day wallowing in despair.
And she had an inkling of what she could do.
Wanily hummed in thought. “Do you know what time it is?”
Dahlia craned her neck to the pew behind her, where she’d left the astro-orb. The daystellation Boreso was gone, replaced by the crown of Nella, the eighth daystellation. Dahlia had lost almost an hour just sitting around doing nothing.
Wasn’t much different from most days, she thought bitterly.
“It’s Nella,” she said aloud. “Reesh will be here soon. You should probably get going.”
“Yeah,” Wanily said, but her voice sounded strange. Dahlia soon learned why when she asked, “Are you going to be okay?”
The question, simple and well-meaning, hit Dahlia like a punch to the gut. But, Dahlia managed a smile. “Yes,” she said, and she meant it. “Don’t worry about me, Wanily. Go and learn a lot from Harriet, okay? Then you can tell me all about it over dinner.”
Wanily’s eyes searched Dahlia’s face for a moment, but eventually, she grinned. “I’ll learn everything Harriet knows.” She shrugged. “Or as much as she’s willing to teach me.”
Dahlia stood. “I don’t think you have time for breakfast. Will you be alright without it?”
“Yeah, it’s not the first time,” Wanily said, as if that didn’t just break Dahlia’s heart. Dahlia was no stranger to such hardship, but that didn’t mean she wanted other people to suffer like she had. “Thanks, though. I’ll see you tonight, Dahlia.”
Wanily hefted her satchel a little higher--Dahlia hadn’t even realized at first that she had it with her--and moved to the front door. She gave Dahlia a small wave before she opened it and slipped outside into the brightening morning.
Dahlia waved back a beat too late for Wanily to have caught it, but it was the thought that counted, she told herself. She sighed and clasped her hands together, pacing back and forth. She knew what she should do. But she was afraid. It was probably only going to make the people of Shraven hate her more.
It didn’t matter. If she could reach the heart of just one of these non-believers, it would be worth it.
Nodding to herself, she went to grab the clothes she’d made with Wanily yesterday. It was time to do something--something important. After all, what did she have to lose?
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Harriet sat in her empty house, on her chair, by her crackling fireplace, and waited. Time magic was tricky to learn, and Harriet really only knew the basics of it. Time was a fickle thing, after all. All the domains of the old gods relied on each other, but Time was especially dependent on the others. To master it, a person had to understand that connection deeply enough to reach out and manipulate both at once. At least, that’s how Harriet understood it.
She knew enough, however, to reach out to the domain of Tressia and tug on it ever so slightly. It wasn’t enough to manipulate it at all, but it was enough to bring the knowledge into her mind and soul. It was just a few minutes until the daystellation Reesh would be in the sky. If she had pulled a little harder, she could have known the exact number of milliseconds left until that time came, but that hardly seemed necessary.
So, she had at least a few minutes left, if not almost an entire hour. That girl--Vanily or whatever--would have no way of knowing when Reesh would appear without access to time magic. The Ameran church wasn’t exactly close to Harriet's house either.
Harriet mulled over what she would do with the girl today. She needed to figure out how much she knew first. There were a couple of options depending on that for what Harriet would begin teaching her, but she had to know where the girl stood first. That shouldn’t be too difficult, though. She could just ask Vanily what she knew and give her a more applied skills test. That was the beauty of old magic--to see what someone was capable of, they could just do it. Spells weren’t some hodgepodge of wands and gems and--and whatever else new magic mages used. They just were.
She stood, deciding on making some tea while she waited, but just as she got her bag of tea leaves out, there was a knock at the door. Harriet found herself frowning, more than a little surprised. Vanily was already here?
She went and opened the door, and sure enough, Vanily stood outside. She shot Harriet a grin the moment their eyes met, and she barged forward, forcing Harriet to step aside and let her in or get trampled.
“Hello to you, too, Vanily,” Harriet drawled.
“It’s Wanily,” she said, peering around Harriet’s home. If she was offended, she didn’t show it--not that Harriet would care either way. “So what’s first, Ms. Harriet? I already know the basics of motion, so I would really like to learn more about that or time or maybe space. What can you even do with space magic? I haven’t seen much on it. But time magic sounds really cool, and it would be so useful to learn some more about energy. Like, I would love to be able to make fire, but all I really know how to do is make something moving move faster or slower or amplify forces already present. I broke the handle of a pickaxe once just by trying to break it and making those forces more powerful.”
Harriet closed the door and leaned against it, crossing her arms as Wanily continued to talk. When it became apparent that Wanily was not about to stop talking, Harriet held up a hand. “Alright, alright, slow down. You know about motion?”
It was a good place to start with old magic. There were physical things you could focus on, visible outcomes in the form of things moving, and it required relatively little magic.
“Yeah,” Wanily said, seeming to take a breath for the first time since she opened her mouth. “I met a physicist a while back that taught me the basics. He was a really nice guy by the name of Edgar--”
She continued to run her mouth, and Harriet waited until she was forced to suck in another breath before even trying to interrupt her. “Okay, then we’ll start there.” Harriet cast her gaze around the room before settling on her bag of tea. She stepped around Wanily to grab it and dug out one of the leaves. She placed it in the palm of her hand and looked back up at Wanily.
“Move it,” she said.
Wanily gave her a sheepish smile. “I... can’t move things that aren’t already moving. Yet.”
Harriet arched an eyebrow at her, scoffing, “You’re not even going to try?”
Wanily face pinched with determination, rising to the challenge. Her gaze fell to the little dried leaf in Harriet’s hand, her brows scrunching together until they were almost touching. Harriet waited, focused on the leaf in her hand--although less intently than Wanily. Several moments passed without so much as a twitch from any of them but especially the leaf.
Wanily, eventually, deflated. “I don’t think this is working.”
“Explain to me what you’re trying to do,” Harriet said, throwing the leaf into the fire and reclaiming her seat on her chair. She did not invite Wanily to sit--not that there was another chair out in the room for her to do so--but she was either oblivious to the power play or just acting like she was. “How are you using your magic?”
Wanily furrowed her brow. She crossed her arms, gaze falling to the ground. “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like... moving a limb but the limb isn’t attached to me? Or maybe it’s like a thought. It just happens, but you can control where it goes?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
Wanily frowned. “What do you mean?”
Harriet leaned forward in her chair, clasping her hands together. “What is magic to you, Wanily? You told me that it was natural for humans to use magic, which is true. We are magical creatures. But what is it?”
“It’s energy,” Wanily said slowly. Then, more nervously, “Right?”
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“Wrong,” Harriet said. “If it were just energy, then there would be no issue in moving the leaf. It would just be energy to energy.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Krakren is only one of the gods. Energy is only one aspect of the universe. Magic can be energy, but that’s not always the case.” Harriet narrowed her eyes, searching Wanily’s face. She seemed thoughtful, but Harriet didn’t know her and couldn’t say for certain. “What are the building blocks of reality?”
“Well,” Wanily started. She thought for a moment. “Like you said, there’s Krakren, the god of energy. But there’s also Tressia for time, Azonron for space, Inzn for gravity, and Moss for soul. Five old gods, five building blocks.”
“Correct,” Harriet said. “Now, knowing that, what is magic?”
“Magic is...” Wanily trailed off. She pursed her lips, shifted her weight from foot to foot. She seemed to understand, at least, the gravity of this lesson. If Harriet couldn’t make her understand this, there would be no point in trying to teach her. She would never understand.
“Magic is,” she settled on. “It’s... outside of the gods because it is the gods but it’s also something they use and it also isn’t them. And humans, we can use magic in the exact same way. Magic is... everything. It’s energy and time and space and gravity and even soul. But it’s also more than all those things.” She looked back up at Harriet, grinning “It makes the impossible possible.”
Harriet was not the kind of woman that often smiled. But she allowed one side of her lips to quirk up in a smirk. “Correct.”
Wanily huffed, still smiling. “Good, because I think I just gave myself a headache.”
Harriet snorted. “Well, there'll be lots more where that came from if you’re trying to learn old magic. But that’s a good start. So, that being said, I want you to go outside and try to move something from rest. I don’t care what--a leaf, a pebble, a building--as long as you can then prove to me that you’ve figured out how to apply what we’ve discussed. Understood?”
Wanily nodded, grinning. “Yes! I will move something by the end of the day! No, before the end of the day! By the end of the hour!”
Harriet, despite herself, snorted again. “Alright, alright, tuck in your wings, little griffin. You're going to find that it's still not as easy as it sounds, and that's with just the concept being complicated. Don't get discouraged if it takes you a while. It's not like you're just starting out trying to learn old magic, but it could still take you a few days if not a few weeks to harness your magic well enough to move something.”
Wanily rocked back and forth on her heels, still smiling. “Right. But I will get it, just you wait and see!”
Harriet nodded. Now, she had given Wanily what she came here for. Could Harriet get something in return?
“Before you go,” Harriet said, selecting her words and tone with care, “tell me how things are going at the church. Is that priestess treating you well?”
Wanily gave her a strange look. “Why do you care?”
It wasn't asked with suspicion, instead sounding like a genuine question. It was completely fair for her to ask as well--Harriet hadn't exactly been warm to her so far. Not that Harriet was ever warm to anybody.
She could answer honestly and say she didn't trust that priestess. Instead, she settled on something that would hopefully be less outright antagonistic. “She hardly seems capable of taking care of herself, much less anybody else.”
Wanily frowned. “She's kind,” she said, like that had any bearing on anything. “She just wants to help the people of Fris.”
“We don't want her help,” Harriet snapped. When Wanily's frown only deepened, she forced herself to take a breath. She suddenly wished Nicholas was the one teaching Wanily and trying to needle information out of her--he was always better at keeping a level head. “We didn't ask for that priestess to come, Wanily. You understand that, don't you?”
“Not really,” she said. “You guys just got out of a bad war. She's trying to help you guys. I don't understand what the problem is.”
“The problem is not what she's trying to do. The problem lies with her.”
“What do you mean?”
Harriet gave Wanily a calculating look. She didn't think Wanily was being intentionally dense, but it was hard to believe that she didn't know what had happened in Fris. “The Empire is brutal, Wanily,” she said, as slow and measured as she could. “They tried to starve our entire country. They attacked camps during the night and on sacred days. They tortured and raped indiscriminately. There was barely enough land for all the mass graves.”
“But Dahlia didn't do any of that,” Wanily insisted. “She's trying to help.”
“She comes from the same people that razed our country to the ground,” Harriet hissed, hands clenching into fists. “If their god is so good and benevolent--if the people in the Empire truly believe what they preach--they wouldn't have attacked us in the first place.”
That only seemed to confuse Wanily more. “I... thought that Fris attacked the Empire?”
Harriet laughed, but the sound was hollow. “For what reason would we attack the Empire? Is that what that priestess told you? No, the Empire wanted our resources, and they're taking them by force.”
Wanily frowned, seemingly troubled. “But... why would they send Dahlia to help, then?”
“She's not here to help us,” Harriet spat. “She's here to sedate us. To convert us to her insipid religion and force feed us a message of passivity. She’s just another pawn of the Empire, another way to conquer us.”
“Oh.” Wanily crossed her arms, shoulders hunching. “But...”
She trailed off, gaze falling to the ground. Her crestfallen expression was in stark contrast to her earlier energy, but Harriet didn’t care. She told Wanily nothing but the truth, and if she couldn’t handle it, she shouldn’t be in Fris.
“Let me know if she gives you any trouble, alright? That’s all I wanted to say,” Harriet said. When Wanily didn’t immediately react, Harriet shot her an impatient look. “You can leave now. Come back when you have mastered moving an object from rest.”
Wanily opened her mouth and closed it without uttering a word. Finally, she nodded and turned to let herself out of Harriet’s home. She looked over her shoulder, face pinched like she wanted to say something, but ultimately she left without saying anything else.
Harriet sighed as the door clicked shut. She stared at the fire for a long while, just thinking. It hadn’t been her intention to give Wanily a history lesson, but maybe it was for the best. If Harriet could sway her to the side of Fris, it would be even better than trying to subtly weasel information from her. She might just give it willingly.
Tomorrow, she thought, she would talk to Nicholas. Get his input on the situation. He already knew she had agreed to teach the girl some of what she knew, but he didn’t approve of her motives. Knowing him, he probably wouldn’t like that Harriet was trying to radicalize a foreigner, either. He was of the opinion that Fris needed to come back on its own, which Harriet didn’t necessarily disagree with. She wasn’t about to accept help from the Empire that damned them, so why should she accept help from the world that had turned a blind eye?
Wanily, though--she didn’t know where she came from. She was a wanderer without being a Wanderer. Maybe Harriet could trust her. At least, Harriet might be able to manipulate her.
For now, there wasn’t more she could do about the matter. So she leaned back in her chair and simply watched the fire crackle before her. One day, she thought. One day, she would watch the Empire burn in just the same way.
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“Only by the love of Amera can you be remembered!” Dahlia cried, hands thrown out on either side of her.
The people bustling through the city’s square paid her no mind. She stood on the corner, dressed in her priestess robes, and shouted until her voice cracked and her throat hurt. She would not be deterred.
“Only by her grace can you embrace your full potential!”
Someone spat at her feet as they passed, throwing her a look that almost made her shrink back from the sheer disgust. Maybe she would have before she received the news about her brother--maybe she would have fled and hunkered down in her church and sewed her clothes that no one wore and cooked her food that no one ate. But not anymore. She was going to do something important, and that started by doing something other than hiding.
“I forgive you,” Dahlia told the passerby, which only served to make him scowl harder. She thought for a moment he might just launch himself at her, but he merely turned and disappeared into the throngs of the crowd.
Louder, Dahlia shouted, “I forgive all, because Amera forgives all if you only ask for forgiveness!”
“Shut the fuck up!” someone hollered, with several more voices rising in agreement.
Dahlia flinched. “Hatred has no place in the new world,” she insisted. “Hatred is the death that lasts forever! But through Amera--”
Someone shoved into her from behind. Dahlia yelped, stumbling forward just in time to avoid falling flat on her face. She whirled around only to falter when she found herself face to face with a group of teenage boys. The intensity of their scowls did nothing to hide how young they were.
“Shut up and go back to Tiranda,” the one in the middle sneered. He must have been the one to push her.
Dahlia straightened, raising her chin. “I won’t. I will do good for your people. I only want to help.”
The young man shot forward with a cry, barreling straight into Dahlia and knocking the both of them on the ground. Dahlia hit the cobbled street hard, knocking her head against the stones. The young man gripped her by the shoulders and shook her violently, spittle flying as he shouted, “My father died in your Empire’s war! All the Empire has ever done is take from us! We don’t want you or your help!”
Dahlia found it increasingly difficult to listen to him through the ringing in her ears. She tried to shove him off, but he was much stronger than her. She wished desperately in that moment that she knew some magic, but she wasn’t sure she would be able to cast a spell right now anyway.
The weight of the boy suddenly disappeared. Dahlia scrabbled away, blinking furiously against the light of day that felt much brighter than it had before the hit to her head. Two Tirandan soldiers had grabbed the young man by the arms and hoisted him up off of her. He thrashed and cried, tears streaming down his face.
“You took my father from me,” he howled, over and over, as the soldiers dragged him away.
Dahlia, still dazed from the attack, climbed to her feet and tried to make sense of what just happened. She knew the wounds from the war ran deep, but she had never imagined it would be so bad.
“Are you alright, sister?” someone asked from behind her. Dahlia brightened until she turned and found another soldier standing behind her. Oh well, it was still nice this woman cared.
“I think I have a concussion,” Dahlia admitted. She looked around the town square which had gone very nearly silent. The crowds that had been weaving through the area just moments before were gone. Soldiers lined the streets now.
The soldier in front of her nodded. “I can have someone fetch you a healing potion. Let me walk you back to the church.”
Dahlia stumbled after the soldier as she started to move away, her feet feeling clumsy. She looked behind her, where the boy had been dragged away.
“What’s going to happen to that boy?” Dahlia asked.
The soldier snorted. “Who cares? He attacked a member of the church.”
I care, Dahlia thought. She couldn’t help but imagine his guttural cries as he was taken, mourning a father he could never get back. Because of the Empire. Because of what Dahlia stood for.
“I hope they beat the shit out of him and all his friends,” the soldier continued. “Send them back to their mothers black and blue. Would serve those little fuckers right.”
None of this was right, Dahlia thought. She felt delirious, too hot and too cold, with the world too bright around her. None of this felt right at all.
“I don’t want him to get hurt,” Dahlia said. He was just an angry boy, bitter at the world from having taken someone he loved away from him. He didn’t even have the comfort of knowing that Amera would remember his father.
The soldier didn’t say anything. Dahlia wanted to continue, but she found herself focusing all her energy on just walking in a straight line.
When they reached the church, the soldier opened the door and waited until Dahlia had taken a seat on one of the pews. “I’ll be right back, sister,” she said, closing the door once again.
Dahlia let herself bask in the relative darkness of the church. She closed her eyes and tilted her throbbing head back, taking some deep breaths against the wave of nausea that welled up within her. She was not about to be sick all over the church floor. She wasn’t.
The soldier returned maybe a few minutes later, maybe a few hours, trailed by a man in full armor bearing the Tirandan crest. The soldier handed Dahlia a potion in a small glass bottle and departed with nothing more than a, “Stay safe, sister.”
The man stayed behind, waiting with his hands clasped behind his back until the other soldier had left. He nodded to Dahlia. “Hello, sister. I don’t think we’ve had the chance to meet before this. I wish it had been under better circumstances. I am Commander Darik, the head of the soldiers staying in this part of Fris. But please, we can talk once you’ve had your potion.”
Dahlia blinked at him before her gaze fell to the bottle in her hands. She doubted that they had potions specifically tailored to concussions on hand, and that certainly seemed the case when she downed it, causing the fierce throbbing only to dull to a tender ache. At least she didn’t feel nauseous anymore.
“Isn’t that better?” Darik said, smiling at her. For some reason, his smile set Dahlia on edge. “Now my men took away the boy that attacked you, as well as his fellows. Was there anyone else giving you any trouble?”
She thought about Harriet and Nicholas, but only shook her head. “What’s going to happen to those boys?” she asked.
Darik looked thoughtful. “Do you want them executed?”
“What!?” Dahlia cried. “No! Of course not. I just...”
She trailed off, not sure how to finish the statement. The boy had been angry and rightfully so. He had attacked her and he probably should be punished, but Dahlia didn’t want that. She didn’t want to perpetuate this cycle of hate.
“Now, sister,” Darik said, walking to stand beside her. “There isn’t any reason to become so upset. There’s no use crying in putting down a rabid dog. It’s what’s best for everyone involved.”
Maybe the potion hadn’t worked as well as she thought. She felt sick all over again.
“If you ask me, the Empire shouldn’t have even bothered with an occupation,” Darik continued. “Should have just started over from scratch. These Frisians prove every day that they’re beyond redemption.”
“No one is beyond redemption,” Dahlia said. “By her love and grace, Amera forgives all. You... you believe that, don’t you, commander?”
“Amera’s love is reserved for people, sister. The denizens of Fris could barely be considered beasts, worshiping their pagan gods and practicing their forgotten magicks.” He shrugged. “I, of course, appreciate your presence here, as I’m sure all the people of Tiranda do. But you may be better off saving your energy than trying to make anyone in Fris into something they’re not.”
Dahlia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Commander, I’m not... these people need me. They’re--I--”
“I’m just trying to give you some friendly advice, sister,” Darik said, sparing Dahlia from trying to form her thoughts into words. “To know where to spare your efforts. Are you feeling better?”
“I--yes,” she stammered.
“Then I will take my leave,” Darik said, nodding. “Look after yourself, sister. Think about what I said.”
He left, then, armor clanking as he walked and the sound becoming muffled on the other side of the church’s door until it disappeared completely.
Dahlia brought her knees to her chest, her feet resting right on the edge of the pew. The tears came quietly this time, trailing down her cheeks as she sniffled. She had tried to actually do something this time, and all she seemed to do was make things worse. Not only that, she was told to quit by her own people that claimed what she was doing was completely pointless.
She let herself cry for a while, but eventually she became tired of feeling sorry for herself. She would not be deterred. It didn’t matter if her love was met with hatred. That was when love was needed the most.
One day, she would see love brought into Fris. One day, her efforts had to bear fruit.