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Once Upon a Time in Old An Lar
Day 20 of the Brightening Month, Continued #2

Day 20 of the Brightening Month, Continued #2

Chapter 17

As firstborn of the Lifegiver, all the Fae have the gift to touch the flame we call magic. Most of us even have some special area of magic that’s our unique gift. Many of us don’t use it well, or often. That is why touchstones are so popular; they amplify our poor underdeveloped magic abilities for those odd times we want to invoke the power.

Why? Well magic can be messy. Poorly done, it can cause all sorts of unxpected consequences, especially big magics – look at the Dragonkin. They came to An Lar because someone on Dragonhame cast a magic that created the Fire Sickness, a magic sickness that infected almost all of them. It made those touched by it mad, burning everything in sight. If Gandaran hadn’t invented the magical medicine Blazendraught, there would be no more Dragonkin. As it was, Dragonhame is a burned, blighted place, scarred by the wars that led to the Fire Sickness, and Dragonkin are smaller, less powerful than they were before the disaster, also an unexpected magical side effect of Blazendraught.

Another example is the Boundary Lands. The nearer you get to the Boundary Wall, the more blighted the land becomes. It’s not just the impact of long ages of fighting between the Shadowlands and the Sunlit Lands. The fact that it spills out for miles on either side of the wall shows it’s the magic woven into the wall itself that creates some of the wasting.

And all of us have heard horror stories of people who misused their touchstones, or tried a spell that backfired.

Still, where there are Fae, there will be magic. Pixies will fly, nymphs will seduce, the Lake Folk will build their homes in the deeps of lakes, shapeshifters will change form, and all the myriad forms of magic that is just natural to us.

What we do here, then, is to find the best, most practical ways to use magic, how to avoid the pitfalls and come into our own heritage safel y. This has been our goal ever since Belisama walked the ruins of the world after the T roubles and the Sundering. I hope you, too, can find the best ways to find the way to your own heritage here.

The Way of Practical Studies - Goosequill Leader Lissa Roseburn

Gan pushed up her sleeves, tied the hankie like a scarf around her head, and headed out to her cart to grab a basket of goodies.

After giving the pixies their first taste of what it was going to be like living with her, she got down to the real work of moving in. A little domestic magic unbundled the wagon, and had a neat pile of trunks, barrels, chests and mysterious bundles lined up around the front of the house, joined by a work table, four nice kitchen chairs, an overstuffed comfortable chair, a good mattress, a wardrobe, and several other things.

“You had all that in your wagon?” Bu the pixie asked. “How?”

“Bauchan magic,” Gan said. “The men who packed the wagon were very good at it.”

The first thing she did was create a pixie-free zone in the bedroom, much to the chagrin of Cowslip, who was camping out there to get away from the others.

“It’s not fair!” the little pixie said. She fluttered in front of the door, looking at the space longingly. To a pixie’s eyes, the doorway glittered with an ominous red light. Cowslip walked over to touch it. It gently pushed her back. She flew into it. This time, it was like running into a wall. She bounced off it hard.

“It might not be, but it’s a price you have to pay for all the good things that I’m bringing,” Gan said, as she hung fresh curtains on the bedroom window. “Sometimes, a woman needs a place to have a little privacy. And a way to keep the pixie dust out of her things.”

“Be nice,” Arne said, helping Cowslip up. “That pie was delicious!”

It was a nice, sunny room. overlooking the flower beds, and the forest beyond. Alas, the garden was in a wild and uncultivated state, filled with the dead weeds of last summer. “That’s another something I need to take care of. Well, one thing at a time.”

“Let’s get rid of this,” she said, grabbing the thin and dirty mattress, and dragging it to the front door where she tossed it under a maple tree. It landed there, almost flat, stained and torn in a place or two.

“The old hermit didn’t care much about his comfort, did he?” Gan said, brushing her hands off and almost immediately, Cowslip and three other pixies who had followed her out were fighting on who would get to spend the night on it.

“Comfort must be relative,” she said, reaching for her own mattress in the stack of furnishings to move in.

Her own mattress was much firmer, and happily, it fit on the bedframe nicely. Moxie and Arne watched her from the warded doorway as she worked, spreading sheets and blankets and pillows on the bed.

“Why do you do that?” Moxie asked. “You could be like me and find a nice pile of leaves to sleep on. This looks hard.”

“It’s a bit hard to find a leaf pile big enough for a body like mine,” Gan replied.

Moxie bit her bottom lip, thinking. “I guess you’re right,” she said.

The room arranged to her liking and perfectly free of pixies, Gan moved into the kitchen, and half a dozen little sprites followed her. “For this, I’ll need the heavy duty apron,” she said, taking it off the hook. “And a pair of work sleeves.” She rummaged in one of chests she had left in the main room, and found them, slipping them over the sleeves of her dress. “And a cap, else my hair will be filled with soot before it’s time to cook dinner.” That was in the same chest. She unfastened the kerchief she had worn earier, then put it on and tied it firmly under her chin. “No dust getting to me!”

The pixies followed her around while she did this. Seamus got caught in her clothes chest. Moxie tugged on her cap until Gan brushed her off. “Why are you wearing that, anyway?”

“I’m cleaning the oven out, and tidying up the fireplace. You do like pie, don’t you? And I want to fix a pot of soup for dinner.”

“Let her alone,” Arne said. “You tasted her pie.”

“How about bread?” Moxie asked.

“Yay, soup!” Rosebud said, flying up to join them.

“All of those, little ones, depend on a clean-enough kitchen. And I must admit, the previous owner and the pixies who lived here didn’t do much to keep it clean enough to cook in!”

Moxie laughed. Seamus shoved her. Gan rolled her eyes.

Fetching her broom, a bucket, a huge pile of cleaning cloths, towels, an ash bucket, a coal shovel, two basins and a feather duster, she got to work.

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It didn’t take long to dust and sweep. But the fireplace was another issue. She looked at it carefully. It was actually a very good one. There was a bench set along one wall that jutted out a little ways from the wall, and had two ovens, a good, if grimy transom for pot hooks, and a wide assortment of tools, grates, and a spider griddle on four legs.

“No way am I going to sweep this down by hand, and I bet the chimney is a mess, too.” She went outside, found a barrel that had been used for ash, moved it far away from the furnishings she was moving in. “Perfect,” she said. “I just hope it’s big enough.”

Back inside, she stood in front of the fireplace, made a sigil in the air, a fiery sign that transmogrified into a whirling globe that ran through the fireplace, sucking up all traces of ash and soot and black wherever it touched. It went across the pot hooks, the spider, the grates, the two bake ovens,and up the chimney.

There was a sound, somewhere between a rush and a clatter. Gan went out to check her handiwork, and found a barrel filled with ash, cinder and dirt, full to overflowing.

“Well, that was a messier place than even I realized.”

“All that was in the fireplace?” Moxie asked.

“And in the chimney. I see it was well past the point of a good sweeping.” She gave a contented sigh. “Glad I thought of it. Now to the next step.”

“Food?” Seamus asked.

“Soon, little man. Soon.”

Staple foods: flour, rice, sugar, peas, and other such were put away in the pantry, with a charm against mouse, insect and pixie, much to the chagrin of all of her gathered audience. A cabinet was filled with bottles, spices and herbs, tantalizing smells and tastes that made the pixies intensely curious. Another was filled with an odd array of boxes and bottles and cans and strange containers. This she locked closed. “Some things should only be opened when necessary,” she declared.

Finally she unpacked her dishes, good plates and bowls of wood and pottery, a ceramic teapot, cups, saucers, water glasses, sauce bowls, soup bowls, serving bowls, mixing bowls, graters, grinders, mortars, spoons, knives, cleavers, saws, an axe, stew pots, bread pans, pie pans, roasting pans, ladles, pastry cutters, turners, strainers, and a good, large tea kettle. The last thing she put away was wrapped in a cloth bag.

“And this, children, is what makes my pies so good.” She pulled out her rolling pin, the one she had recently bought in Comrie, and placed it in a place of honor in a kitchen drawer.

“Can we eat yet?” Arne asked.

“If you give me time to cook!”

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Violetta Greenleaf found herself in a strange place. She knew she wasn’t awake. Her body felt far away. She wasn’t sure if she was dreaming. It was, in some ways, very dreamlike, a place of floating and light and shadow, sweeping over her from time to time, and then she was where she was now, sitting in a puddle of sunlight in the middle of a garden.

Tall climbing roses worked their way up the garden wall, a cascade of red and white and pink against gray brickwork. There was a flagstone trail where creeping thyme grew in the cracks, and surrounded by a cascade of flowers, corn flowers, cosmos, delphinium, poppies, catmint, and more. Bees and butterflies drifted lazily about, gathering their food. For some reason, she felt the need to see where the path led to, so she stood up. Slowly, as if walking were a new thing for her, she took careful step after step heading down the path.

The path curved, leaving the sunlight pool and its sun loving flowers, and entered a stretch of trees – apple, peach, walnut, and growing shade. The flowers changed, columbine and hosta among them. Finally she reached a massive oak tree, surrounded by moss-covered rocks.

Beneath the oak was another bench, made of carved stone. She sat down, suddenly very tired. Hearing chittering, she looked up and saw a gray squirrel. It held something in its paws, which it dropped into her lap.

It was a piece of paper, folded tightly. She unfolded it. “Soon you will have to awaken,” she read aloud.

“But not quite yet,” said a voice to her right.

She turned around. All she saw there was a rabbit in the grass. It flicked its ear, then bounded off.

“What?” she asked. “Why?” She was not afraid or disturbed by the rabbit’s words, or even surprised that a rabbit had spoken to her. It fit, here in this place.

“We will tell you when it’s time,” said a flying rock dove. “Until then, rest.”

Leaning back against the oak tree, the world around her, the fruit trees and the flagstones and the flowers slowly melted into a place where light and shadow swirled around her in shifting waves, and once again she felt she was floating.

Somewhere, where she couldn’t sense it, two people were looking down on her body. One of them wiped her forehead with a cooling cloth.

“How much longer?”Xhindi asked.

Violetta breathed in and let it out, slower than a normal sleeping person. She was very pale, and her hair pooled around her, sweated out.

“A few more days, and either her body will defeat the spider toxin, or she will die,” his sister said. She looked up at him. “She feels no pain, no terror while the magic holds her. And her leg is healing. The plan will have to wait at least that long, and longer if she makes it. If she doesn’t,” the woman shrugged, “Well, at least the Mother of Smoke and Fire will have eased her journey onward.”

“This is definitely not the field trip she expected,” Xhindi said, getting up and leaving the room.

“Neither did the rest of us,” the Called said, and went back to her nursing the ailing woman.

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Cullin sat in a tree, overlooking the field that separated the house at Pixie Hollow from the boundary of his forest, watching the woman at work. She had been moving back and forth, sometimes with the help of magic, always with a cloud of pixies following her every move. She didn’t seem to mind their presence at all. Finally, things were put away. Shortly thereafter, she must have lit a fire in the old fireplace, as smoke began to drift out of the chimney.

“She must have something up her sleeve,” Morvran said.

“You’re a suspicious one,” Cullin said. “Just like a raven to see evil omens everywhere. Can’t stand any new shiny thing, can you?”

“You’re a fine one to say anything,” the raven said. “Who haunts the road to make sure nobody even picks up a dry stick?”

Cooking smells began to drift on the late afternoon breeze.

“Definitely setting up home,” Morvran said. “You going to to anything about it?”

“Watch,” Cullin said, and leapt to the ground. He dashed across the field and hurried to the front door of the house, and rapped on it, hard, three times.

Gan opened it. She was much shorter than he was, a bit stout, wearing a white cap on her head and a slightly soiled apron around her waist. Her face was pleasant but not beautiful, contented as she looked up at him. She gave him a welcoming look almost as if she had been expecting him.

“Ah, Tree Shepherd! I was hoping you’d stop by,” she said, and opened the door wide.

He looked in and saw the brightly lit room, with bowls and dishes on the table, the hearth clean and bright, and a comfortable chair in just the right place to enjoy the fireplace. His eyes lit up with surprise.

“What did you do to this place? I was here last week. How... This place...it feels like….”

“”Home?” she said. “Come in, Cullin Mosswood. And you, too, Master Raven.”

“Morvran. My name is Morvran.”

“Morvran it is,” Gan replied, with a nod of her head.

“The meanie has come,” Gillie said, crossing her arms and scowling. “He’s mean to everybody. He chased me out of the house when he came by.”

Moxie joined her. “He tried to grab Bu, too.”

“Hush, child,” Gan said. “No he’s not mean. He’s protective. That’s his job.”

For a moment, Cullin recovered his sternness. He gave the little Fae woman a curt nod. “I just came to say stay on your side of the boundary. The other side is mine.”

“But of course,” Gan said, nodding. That surprised him. “I know you take your duties very seriously. I promise never to go into your lands without your permission. I take my promises as seriously as you do your duties.”

It was like something cracked, almost audible. Moxie flew up to a rafter on the wings of the energy.

“Yes, I do,” he said. “And I will hold you to your word.”

There was a loud caw, and Morvan fluttered to the floor. “She invited the pixies to stay,” he cawed. “Pixies!”

Arne flew over to him. “What’s wrong with Pixies?”

“So what, Morvran?” Cullin asked. “Pixies have a right to a place to live.”

“Thank you,” said Seamus, fluttering nearby. For a moment, it looked like he would land on Cullin’s shoulder, then returned to the table.

“It’s not natural, I say.” The raven fluffed his feathers, and turned his head to stare at Gan with his right eye. “What’s your game?”

Gillie landed on the raven’s back “She’s nice,” she said. “More than you.”

This made Gan smile. She tapped her chin with one finger. “Are you hungry, Master Raven?” she said. “I have apple pie.”

“And bread!” Moxie said. “I love bread.”

“And cabbage and bacon, more than I can eat,” Gan continued. “You two come in. You look like you could use a good feeding.”

Overwhelmed by the unexpected invitation, Cullin found himself dragged in, sat down at her table, a big bowl of bubble and squeak placed in front of him, almost before he could blink.

As Gan got up to get another cup out of the cupboard, she thought of her former place of employ. “Make fun of my practical magics, will you, Master Grendal? Let’s see you master this.”

And turning, she sat down and poured the tea.