Chapter Forty-Seven

“Wait… wait, what?” A mass of barely chewed berries slopped out of Amberosin’s mouth. As far as Ta’K was concerned she surely had the right to be so incredulous.

“Mhm. Both of you. Actually, this is a little ahead of schedule if I am being honest. Ha!”

Mezir shoved another fistful of tiny fruit into his mouth and chomped with extremely obvious enjoyment. There was a loud shiiiiip sound from the large man as he suckled the berries in his mouth and drained them of all their delicious vitality. He too had more than a few escape his mouth, but Mezir was quick to catch them.

“Uhm- excuse me? Anything else to add to that or are we just supposed to marvel at your piggish manners?” Amberosin smirked and scooped some smooshed food off of her own face, quietly cleaned her finger, and leaned back on Ta’K. The young woman definitely understood a thing or two about irony.

He wondered if she could understand why his heart skipped when he watched her clear the berry from her finger.

“Ha!” Ta’K nearly shot out of his skin at Mezir’s loud laugh.

Focus! She is no object of your fantasies. Father would be disappointed. Though, she did lean on him firmly- but does a firm, prolonged touch mean anything? Can friends not share a common sign of affection? His heart was racing too fast for a young man sitting and breathing didn’t seem to help much because his body only pressed back against Amberosin’s harder when he took a deep breath in. Ta’K never held those kinds of feelings for anyone before, the romantic type, that is. He was too young before the Fracturing, too downtrodden and broken during his time at the mines to admire any man or woman for anything more than another broken, downtrodden sack of bone and flesh. Amberosin, though- she sparked something in his chest, his arms, his back- his loins.

Ah, stop it you, cretin! There are more important matters afoot.

Still, Ta’K smiled to himself as Amberosin settled further into his side. He found his heart slowing of its own accord after she sat there a moment.

“Oh!” Mezir slapped his leg hard enough that a small creature scattered from nearby greenery. “Ha! Dear, sister! You are just as witty as your mother ever was, I’ll tell you one thing, she would be proud of that silver tongue and prize-winning smile. Alicena used those exact qualities to bewitch all of Blancana, Dweller’s Rebellion included.”

Amberosin tensed slightly, only for an instant, at the mention of her mother’s name. When the tension passed she laughed.

“Yes, yes, I remember some of the good ole days, old man. Now stop changing the subject!”

Amberosin chomped and slurped down berries nearly as loudly as Mezir but Ta’K couldn’t imagine it did anything to besmirch her visage. If anything it had only made Mezir seem even more rugged, like an incessantly jubilant wild man who ate, sat, and shit when it pleased him. They were both unkempt, supernatural beauties in Ta’K’s eyes. Granted, they were the only two kind faces he’d met in the past decade that weren’t dead. Yet.

“Right, right. Suppose it is only fair that you two learn about- the prophecy!” Mezir waved massive arms around wildly and made an ‘oooooh’ noise before bursting into another fit of entirely sincere laughter. “No, no, I jest. Seriously though, it is quite the story, I suppose.” He stopped and looked up towards, squinting against the soft red rays of Noctra’s dawn beneath Mother Moon Solas. “Yes… we should still have enough time for a short Telling, I’d say.”

A Telling!

Ta’K visibly perked up at the word, an action which sent the side of his chest into a deeper coalescence with Amberosin’s firm warmth against him, but it hardly phased Ta’K now.

A Telling! He hadn’t heard a real one of those in years.

“A short... Telling? Like one of Lenny’s stories?”

“Yes! Ah, Lenny would have made a master Weaver, in another life.”

Would have?

“Would have?” Amberosin’s words mirrored his thoughts once more.

“Not to worry, not to worry. Lenny is fine, has been fine for a while now. He just hasn’t been to Blancana in, oh, say about ten years or so.” Mezir gave a boyish smile, full of teeth and a secret long held.

“Wait so… Lenny was, or has been…” Her head shot forward, though Amberosin kept her back pressed against Ta’K. Purposely or not, he appreciated it, for the revelation they were both coming upon was one heavy with implications.

“Ta-da!” Mezir held his arms out wide and gave a short, mock bow.

When both Ta’K and Amberosin simply stared at him and his magical metal box, which was always near to the man, Mezir waved both hands in front of him, giggling like a manic child.

“Oh, dear, no, no need to look so morbidly shocked, the real Lenny is alive and well. Now, however, he utilizes most of his potential Weaver’s talents to seduce… well, damn near everyone in Trallenard, I’d dare say.” Mezir shrugged both massively muscular shoulders, metal and flesh alike as if it was not worth talking about. “You’ll see when we get there. Now, do you want the story or not? We’ve not got a lot of good daylight left to burn, so we must start the Telling now if we are to finish it in time!”

Mezir instantly sat forward and assumed the position of a professional Weaver; legs crossed, back straight, hands set atop each thigh and held loosely with fingers barely making a circle. He sucked in a deep breath and adopted a grand grin. He looked just as Ta’K remembered every Ta’ Weaver looking in his youth. Confident and excited. Every true Weaver enjoyed their craft and Mezir certainly seemed to be having a good time.

Ta’K’s framework hands produced his pipe and giggleweed before he’d even had the thought.

“Yes! Any Telling worth a damn involves a little giggleweed! Only a little though, Amberosin I’m looking at you, we don’t need anybody incapacitated during our great escape.”

Mezir winked at her as Ta’K’s fingers instinctively broke apart soft colorful buds into his long cedar pipe. Mezir grabbed a thin wick from his own pocket and snapped his fingers on the end, creating a small flame that he placed into the giggleweed. Smoke rose up and Ta’K inhaled, passed it along to Mezir who did the same. Each held their own drag in as Amberosin took the pipe and looked at it, seemed to be untrusting of it.

Mezir’s cheeks were turning a harsher red. Ta’K could feel his chest rebelling, begging to burst. Both motioned for her to hurry. Amberosin smiled through her uncertainty and held it to her lips longer than needed before sucking in a quick drag and holding it as she passed the pipe back to Ta’K. Mezir held up three fingers and counted them down. At the fall of his last finger, all three blew their smoke out at once to the center of their circle.

Mezir and Amberosin coughed horrendously, laughing all the while.

Ta’K simply sucked in another large hit when his lungs had cleared.

I can’t tell if this is something I should feel prideful about or not. Best giggleweed smoker? He felt a little pride.

“Okay, whoo, alright then. You two keep that to yourselves over there, it's been a lot longer than I thought. Noctra be uplifted for your spirited gifts, but I am the old man now, aren’t I?” Mezir giggled, appropriately, and Ta’K could see the white of his eyes had already hazed over and gone a tad red around the edges. Still cognitive, but a little fuzzy.

The man was flying.

Amberosin, having intelligently been more reserved with her drag, also looked as red-eyed and hazed over as someone who’d cleared a whole pipe’s worth on their own. Though she motioned to Ta’K for another, and he obliged. They all deserved the break. The levity. The peace.

“Ahm, right.” Mezir resumed his straight-backed pose, albeit much less rigid than before. “ So… uh, this will not be in such a poetic form as stories from Ta’ Weavers, for the sake of saving time. I can’t imagine my poetry is any good anymore anyway! Ha!”

Ta’K smiled as he took another drag from the pipe, which he had to nearly pry from Amberosin’s hands, as he recalled one of Mezir’s poems; the man would recite them by the hundreds when he visited the Ta’ Lands with Lord White’s yearly procession. Only a year before the Fracturing Mezir showed a young Ta’K and Ta’Jir the true intricacies of poetic prose, though truthfully, Ta’K had been more interested in his stories of beasts and battles along the road to the Ta’ Lands. Since then, however, he’d come to revel in the memory of those readings. He thought it would be a shame to miss out on another.

Ta’K held up a hand and produced a thick leather-bound book from his pack.

Mezir’s glazed eyes went wide and his intoxicated smile grew tenfold. He looked as if he barely held two great rivers behind each quivering eyelid.

“Oh! Did you hold on to it all these years? Ta’K!” The big man’s heavy arms wrapped around Ta’K and squeezed until he was sure he would snap. At what felt very much like the last second of his spinal cords futile resistance, Mezir relented.

He was sobbing and blubbering freely now.

Amberosin laughed on the ground, Ta’K’s pipe held high in one hand.

Guess I dropped that?

He smirked and shook his head. She’d definitely had another puff or two. Amberosin’s stark white eyes leaked streams of exquisite joy down the sides of her face.

“Oh, my- Amb, you don’t even understand! I- hells, I don’t even understand- I used to keep this journal, right? Notes on beasts, creatures, Wilderfolk, and the sort. Snippets of information here and there about the politics of the day, though not due to any personal interest. Largely, a journal of everything I ever encountered- bound together with one of the incomplete works of Argonia Slib, not that I suspect you know who that is-”

Amberosin shook her head still lost in a fit of laughter but Ta’K was listening. Intent. He knew who Argonia Slib was.

“Yeah, yeah. A story for another time I suppose.” Mezir peered back up to the sky. “Well, long story short, every addition I made to the man's work, my own personal journal of journeys across Noctra alongside our father, Lord White- every single entry, I made in the form of poetry.” An arm waving from below stopped Mezir from continuing.

Amberosin’s laughter died down and she took a moment to catch her breath. “Whoo… this stuff… this is good. Thank you.” She patted Ta’K’s arm and smiled, shaking her head before looking up at Mezir. “But, dear brother, why? Why poetry?” Amberosin did her best pompous noble’s impersonation and held a finger high in the air before quietly chuckling to herself.

Mezir and Ta’K each laughed in turn at her display until silence fell over them. Ta’K took another long hit off his pipe and then tapped out the ashes before slipping it along with the wreath of giggleweed into his pack.

“Truth be told,” Mezir was still smiling like a fool, though his eyes seemed less dazed, more distant than anything, “I don’t know why, really. When our father swept me off of the streets of Blancana’s slums and tossed me into his study without any explanation I just started reading. I had to do something to keep from going mad. The first book I picked up was a book of poetry. Ta’ poetry, to be exact. A volume of ancient epics of heroes and gods, the basis for all Legends. New and old.” Mezir shot quick glances at each of them, smiling still, though much softer than before. “Different story for another time, though. I fear we’ve wasted much more daylight than originally intended.”

Ta’K and Amberosin gave quiet chuckles of their own, shifting to sit beside one another as before. Her leg brushed against his and the heat between them felt as if it were going to sear straight through his bones and leave Ta’K nothing more than a pile of steaming mush.

It's just the giggleweed. Focus.

“All set? Alright. Good, Now, let me see here….” Mezir flipped the sturdy leather-bound journal open to a page more than a quarter of the way through, thumbed over two more, and pointed with an excited, “Ha!” He then read for a moment, his face going from a smoked out jubilation, to stern concentration. When he finished reading Mezir’s features relaxed into a gentle, genuine smile. He cleared his throat.

“Everyone ready?”

Both Amberosin and Ta’K nodded without a word.

“Shaman’s Secrets by Mezir De Blanacana.” Mezir closed his eyes and took a breath so large and full to the brim with air that his chest swelled at least twice it's already massive size. Then, he whistled out a tiny bit of air, widening his lips as the whistle went on until he was breathing out in one steady stream. And he spoke.

I

“Today I was blessed

By the will of Shaman, yes

Those most revered-

III

In the lands of the Venerable

They laced the air with smoke

And sent me;

III

On my way, on a trip

Where I met two youthful lads,

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

One with an eye of steel

And the other with a vital mind,

Unfortunately-

IV

I left before a kinship formed

Though friendship was evident;

V

They knew more than I

Ever would, no matter

How long my life-

VI

I’ll never forget

The dream I lived, that night

Behind the lids of tired eyes

A vision found its way

To my mind;

VII

The images were hazy

Quick and distorted

Loud and confused

Hopeful and concerning

All the same-

VIII

I saw another couple, clearly

An amber arrow

And a bone-white blade.

IX

Now, I fear I understand

The secret of the Shaman.”

Mezir eyed the journal in his hand while taking a paced, deep breath. He raised his eyebrow and sharply closed the book, smiling at the jolted Ta’K and Amberosin.

“Eh, not my best work, and far too short for a proper telling, but you get the idea?”

Ta’K nodded his head up and down frantically. It was profound and narrative just like all-

“Not at all.” Amberosin cocked her head sideways. “I mean… I get the story up to meeting the kids, and that you had a vision, and maybe it’s just because my mother never exposed me to any literature unrelated to combat… but what the fuck is that vision all about? Amber arrow? Bone white blade?” She shook her head slightly before snapping her head up to Mezir. “Ah, sorry. Great poem otherwise, I think.”

Mezir simply laughed and waved a dismissal hand at the apology.

“ Nonsense, I was a shit poet, dear sister.” He mimicked Amberosin’s own haughty noble voice and shot her a wink. “I was, however, good at keeping secrets. There are layers of convoluted code in these poems, all revealing more detailed pictures. I learned to make my writings a bit more cryptic after finding our father rummaging through my notes, part of some grand scheme or another I’m sure. The code for this one is quite simple to break honestly, but I always sprinkled a few false trails in to keep him off the scent of the truth, for a while at least.”

Mezir uncrossed his muscular legs and slid closer to both Ta’K and Amberosin, holding the journal out and pointing at the words “... Amber arrow,” and, “.. bone-white blade.”

“I’m sure Ta’K already caught this seeing as it is really just a play on the Ta’ vocabulary.”

Ta’K shook his head in an energetic affirmation, shrugging his shoulders at Amberosin who eyed him whimsically. It was almost like she knew Ta’K had no idea what Mezir was talking about.

“Good, good. So, look here Amberosin.” Mezir places his shoulder just barely in Ta’K’s view to give Amberosin a more personal view of the words. Ta’K peered quietly over his shoulder, shaking his head in approval anytime Mezir glanced his way. “ This here, you’ll recognize, since it's part of your own name. ‘Amber’, see?”She nodded and held her eyebrow high. Ta’K thought she looked a lot like Mezir making that face.

“Brilliant! Would have considered you quite impish if you couldn’t recognize your own name, little sister. This actually brings us to the next part in your lesson-” they had quite the same sense of humor as well, it seemed, as Amberosin was already smiling before the punchline, “- this is literally your name.” She socked him in his metal arm, didn’t even flinch at the impact against her skin, which split and leaked at the knuckles. They both laughed.

Their banter and play made Ta’K suddenly long for the company of his elder brother.

“Care to explain, asshole?” She sounded just like Ta’K talking to Ta’Jir after one of his supreme philosophical reveals. Same levity.

“‘Rosin’ is one of many Ta words for an arrow. Amber is a material natural to Noctra, so in all dialects is simply amber. Therefore, an amber arrow would be…”

“Amber rosin. Amber-rosin. Huh. Okay… I can see that.” She smirked at Mezir. “ But what does a bone-white blade have to do with this guy?” She motioned back to Ta’K with a quick flick of her head.

“May I tell her?” Mezir was looking directly at Ta’K.

Ta’K only nodded in return. Even if he was allowed to speak he wasn’t sure he could handle the explanation. Not without at least a little more giggleweed, at the least.

Amberosin eyed Ta’K for a moment after Mezir turned back to the journal, pointing once more.

“Alright, so names and all get a little… difficult with the Ta’ language. I’m sure you realized that our silently miraculous friend here has the word Ta’ in his name, yeah? Every member of the Ta’ Uma clan was exactly the same. Do you know what the word on its own means?”

Amberosin indicated that she did not.

“Venerable. Ta’ is venerable, in dialect, in life… and in death.”

Ta’K appreciated the sentiment and laid a soft hand on Mezir’s back to show it.

Amberosin’s eyebrows furrowed, relaxed, and furrowed once more. “Okay… so what is ‘Uma?”

“One.”

“So the Ta’ Uma translates to-”

“Roughly.”

“Alright brother, roughly translates to… Venerable One.” A thousand questions passed over her eyes but Amberosin only pursed her lips and nodded.

Ta’K himself had questions about the connection between their head clan, Ta’ Uma, and the deserts between Blancana and the rest of Noctra; Uma’ Lands. The matter regularly found itself at the forefront of his lonesome thoughts. As always, however, the world moved on without giving him an answer.

“ Our lone bandaged “Venerable One” is known as Ta’K. “‘K” alone in the native dialect means knife, blade, or at the least, sharp rock for cutting. Therefore if we are to use it for the word ‘blade’...”

“Venerable Blade.” She looked at the ground for a moment before smiling and finding Ta’K’s gaze. “That is extremely badass.”

Ta’K raised his hands and moved his head to the side. Psh, if you say so.

“But… the bone-white part… is that just fluff?”

Mezir once more looked to Ta’K who bowed his head in quick approval.

“He had a brother, the second boy from the story, named Ta’Jir. His moniker, Jir, can be translated into a few different words but among the Ta’ Uma, it meant only one thing; bone white. I do believe it was in reference to his uncommonly pale complexion at birth, though, by the time I met him Ta’Jir was darker than even I. And his younger brother.” Mezir made a face between a smirk and a grimace. “It fits in the story because Ta’ Uma traditions state that if you witness one of your kin perish, especially in a violent manner, you are to adopt their name, their moniker, and therefore their being, into your own. So technically our friend's full name would be “Ta’K-Ta’Jir” or “Takjir” depending on his own personal preference.”

Ta’K had a hard time not reliving his brother’s death again then and there, the mention of his name alone was enough to lather Ta’K’s mind into a thick mesh of guilt and sorrow, but he was able to meet Amberosin’s suddenly crystal clear, piercing white eyes and keep himself together. She stared at him with a question burning on the tip of her tongue.

“He prefers Ta’K, for now at least.” Mezir cut their stare like a flint knife.

“How’d you-”

Mezir’s metal hand shot up, one finger pointed towards the sky, cleaving her question.

“Sorry sis, that story will have to wait for another time. I think we’ve got company.”

***

Ta’K was already moving, his arms spread out wide to either side as he slid in front of Mezir and Amberosin. He faced the Wilders in the direction that she’d been facing the entire time. Mezir’s back was to the Wilders but he’d been the one to make the announcement.

What am I missing? What can’t I see?

Left to right, right to left, up to down, and down to up- Amberosin had a damn near panoramic view of the entire vast forests before her and she couldn’t see a single thing that indicated any unwanted visitors, human or otherwise.

No animals? Not a single scurrying creature. That is never a good sign.

“Oh my, that is never a good sign. Listen.” Mezir turned towards Ta’K and the Wilders in question. Still sitting with his legs crossed.

His eyes were devoid of any glazed, dazed sheen and she felt herself returning to some state close to normal; the prospect of danger seemed to tarnish all effects of the giggleweed for both of them. Fortunately. Their bandaged friend seemed completely unaffected by the near entire pipes worth he’d smoked, if anything Amberosin thought he’d moved even quicker.

All three listened intently. All three heard the exact same chilling and unnatural silence.

Just like the stairs. With Lord White.

“Just like the stairs. With father.”

“But… different.” Amberosin stepped beside Ta’K.

“Right.” Mezir stood just behind Ta’K, next to her.

Standing in an off-kilter triangle formation, Amberosin thought that they looked rather formidable, though their image did little to cut through the tension. Amberosin tried desperately to follow both men’s sightline hoping she might redeem herself some pride, she’d always been the best tracker and hunter she’d known, though she was realizing she didn’t know many of either to begin with. She didn’t know many people at all, truthfully, but she was certain she knew how to spot a person hiding. Amberosin couldn’t see anything except trees.

A lot of trees. Trees larger than any man-made wall on all of Noctra. Wooden giants that swayed from left to right, dancing on the eerily silent breeze. The young saplings, which she could normally hear squealing and creaking as they danced alongside their elders, waltzed in time without so much as a peep. Somehow the forced silence was much worse out in the endless expanse of the Wilders than it had been in the stairwell.

Amberosin tried to focus on where Mezir and Ta’K were staring, swallowing hard against the tension in her neck. She tried to use the silence to sharpen her vision, squinted hoping to force a tunnel to the answer, and sighed in frustration. Thankfully, unlike in the stairwell with Lord White, she could still hear herself.

And Mezir.

“So…. am I seriously a simpleton that can’t recognize her own name or are you two fucking around?”

“No. You’re no dunce, Amberosin. Our observers are simply adept at hiding.”

Mezir’s arm shot forth and clarified where his gaze landed, stuck like exposed sap to the trunk of a single, lone gigan-palm. It didn’t dance and sway with the others around it, in fact, the gigan-palm remained oblivious to the guidance of Noctra’s waltzing winds and protruded skyward above the Wilder’s verdant canopy. A titan among giants.

“They?”

“You’ll see. Just wait. Watch.”

Amberosin quieted the voice inside that generally refuted orders of any kind, especially from ‘powerful’ men, and waited. Watched. She felt like she was going to start vibrating and shedding her skin if she didn’t get the chance to move soon. Amberosin was getting the hint of a sweat that usually meant it was time to fight or run. Until recent events involving Heria, she never ran. The fight was too much fun. And she had two fairly skilled companions this time around.

I really hope it's a good one. Her muscles tensed and set themselves up to spring in excitement at the first sign of movement. She smiled. Mezir noticed either the smile or the tension, likely both, and patted her shoulder with his right hand. The metal was cold, as metal should be. Not like Ta’K.

“Now, keep yourself collected here Amberosin. Calm.”

“I’m always calm- well, okay, not always- but I swear it's a good excitement. This time.”

“Not like Senfe?”

Senfe.

The word froze her brain for a moment, stopped all thoughts, all reason. Suddenly Amberosin could see Senfe’s treacherous, beautiful, hideous, perfect face smiling at her over the years. Then, she saw it caved. Rotted. Bloody. Something began building in her that Amberosin had never experienced before. She’d handled the guilt with reason, she thought, but even so the image of Senfe dead, the memory of the blood on her hands… it made her feel sick. She’d never thought her first real kill would be such a close friend.

“No. Not at all like Senfe.”

“Good. We may not need to kill anyone.”

May not? Does that mean he starts every encounter with the notion that he will definitely have to kill someone? No escape, no incapacitation? This really is war, huh? That or Mezir is entirely insane like his father. Like our father.

“Not sure how I feel about that.” She laughed her building sickness back down.

“A normal person would feel good about it.”

Mezir didn’t even look her way. No smile. He was whispering. Focusing in on his target. Amberosin eyed the giant tree once more. Unmoving, undisturbed by the silently turbulent gusts of wind, it looked ominous. Unnatural amidst the largest collection of nature on Noctra. A chill built in her legs and shook slightly before she reigned it in. The blood in her veins was running hot now, speeding here and there making sure every part of her body was full to the brim, prepared to attack.

Is he implying that I’m not normal? She also didn’t know how to feel about that.

Ta’K’s right arm gingerly brushed back and sent a wave throughout her skin. She knew it wasn’t casting, Mezir had made it clear how difficult it was to get essence through her body, but something went through her. Calmed her. She tapped his shoulder in a wordless thanks and let herself slowly transform that anxiety into a hearty amount of energy and excitement.

“I can’t fucking handle this, my arms feel like they're going to burst out of my skin if I don’t do something- anything! Especially considering I can’t tell what the fuck we are looking-”

The gigan-palm slid to the left, zagged one way, shot back the other, and stopped a good twenty paces closer than it had been. The ground behind it was undisturbed. Amberosin was suddenly fine with standing still a moment longer.

“Wha… what?”

“Ha! Much like you, dear sister, our guests are much for staying in one place for very long either.”

“Guests? You know them?”

Ta’K looked back towards Mezir, affirming that he had the same question.

“Yes, more or less. I used to know quite a few Wilderfolk. Unfortunately, I introduced a few to my father before figuring out what a massive pile of shit he is. They may have been friends to me before but he has had ten years to corrupt and manipulate them. I have no idea what to expect here, aside from the fact that I am almost positive we are about to see a lot of little golden lights buzzing about.”

There was a silence in their group as they stared onward, for Ameberosin at least.

Mezir laughed and threw a hand over his mouth to catch it before it got too loud. “No, Ta’K, I am not still dizzy from the giggleweed.”

Amberosin gave her own chuckle, though she felt very much left out of the joke.

The three survivors of White’s wrath, his precise, planned rage, stood side by side now, their eyes glued to the bark laden titan. After mere moments of their sudden silence, Mezir’s prediction came true. Even Amberosin caught sight of the thousands upon thousands of little glittering golden lights darting from underneath the gigan-palm’s exposed roots as they swarmed into the sky.

She swore she heard little voices, giggles, and other human sounds as the cloud of gold advanced upon them. It was only when the mass made its way a few paces away that she saw the vague outline of minuscule, naked bodies.

“Damn. Jealous Mezir?” Amberosin couldn’t help herself. She was nervous.

“Only about as much as you are.” He raised an eyebrow and flicked his sight over to a golden body with massive breasts and cock.

“Well… must be quite a lot then because that… that is damn impressive.”

“Best of both worlds,” Mezir muttered to her as he stepped forward and bowed low on one knee.

“Great, venerable, honored Lumifaen; to what do we owe the pleasure?”

They replied in unison. “You have been summoned.”

“Have we now? May I ask who has summoned us? And how do they know of our whereabouts?”

Amberosin couldn’t tell if it was a smart move to ask the little beings questions, they could easily lie, but Mezir spoke to them as if they were a merchant peddling wares. Polite, but aware of ulterior intent.

“You, Mezir. Ta’K. Amberosin- have all been summoned for an audience with our Queen.”

“Queen? I thought there were no genders among your people. No sexes, well… all sexes, no genders- no labels of the sort at least. How did you manage to gain a queen if there are no women or men of your kind?”

“ We have been freed from the hands of our captors, the Mukeko, by the gracious actions of our Blessed.”

Amberosin didn’t have a clue what they were talking about and as far as she could tell Ta’K wasn’t much better off. He cocked his head sideways at each new term; Lumifaen, Mukeko, Blessed.

Mezir recognized each and Amberosin could tell that he did not like what he was hearing. His shoulders rolled, hands clenched into fists, neck cracked like a wilder oak split in two by a made bolt of lightning. Then, he sighed.

“Mukeko, aye? I feared he’d go to them when I left. Poor bastards...though, still- you’ve not given your queen a name. No matter how gracious or Blessed she may be, I cannot in good conscience bring these two into such dangerous, unknown circumstances, and present them to a nameless monarch who- .”

“Heria.”

Mezir stopped with his hands in the air to motion behind him at Amberosin and Ta’K, freezing himself in a position like he was ready to dive into waters far below.

“Excuse me?”

“We, the Lumifaen, serve our Blessed, gracious, Queen Heria. She requests your prescience. She shall have it.”

Suddenly, Amberosin lost sight of the sky.