Calm settles over Arc like a shrouded cage, shutting his swift-growing fury up into a little prison. In this moment, he is just a wingless chick and this is the corpse of his mother. It is the slowly cooling body of the bird that found him a year ago, dragging himself by his fingertips across open ground by a shack hidden in thin parts of an unfamiliar forest. The bird that heard him begging for help and carried him, following delirious instructions, to find his Keep. The bird that stayed in his home forest to look after him instead of returning to her own trees and participating in the mating season.
He grips her by the beak and pulls, dragging her all the way into the shelter she’d tried to reach. Squirming past her, he plucks his blanket from the nest and spreads it across her back, covering the mortal wound. Kneeling by her head once more, he takes his old spidersilk arm wraps and meticulously shrouds her head with them.
Rocking back on his heels, he strokes her neck. He bends his head down by her covered eyes and murmurs, “I’ll be okay.”
An inquisitive whoowot sounds outside.
“A minute!” he snaps. Turning to Mother falcon’s wings, he wrenches one of the smaller feathers free. He retrieves the bundle of his sheds, slipping her feather in among his own. Snatching a knapsack, he shoves in his spare clothes, the knife, two dried berries, and any moonweave he hasn’t used. He shoves half a walnut and a watersack into his tunic. Slinging his sheds bundle and knapsack of supplies across his back, he slides past her body and shuts his door for the last time.
If any bird deserves a burial chamber, it’s her. His home will have to do.
The owl scans the overhead canopy, tensed to spring skyward at the least shadow. Arc stashes all his belongings at the base of his tree, then covers the bags with fallen leaves. Striding toward the owl, Arc snarls, “You! Chick-mine.”
Her head snaps around, the wide eyes blinking at him.
“Said you have nest. Said you want to protect nest. You want me to stop the eagle.”
“Yes. Stop eagle.”
“Fly me to the eagle.”
The owl spreads her wings wide, lowers her head, and screeches in his face, her beak wide enough to show her gullet. “Is death! Not go to death! Never fly at death!”
He smacks her beak aside, shouting, “I can’t fly! You want me to stop the eagle? You have to be my wings! Get me to the eagle. Get me above the eagle. I’ll do the rest.”
She hisses at him, every feather fluffed. Raking her talons along the ground, she clicks her beak in defiance. “Never fly at death.”
“Then death takes your nest!” he yells, pointing at his door. “In there is the falcon that was nesting on me. The eagle got her. She escaped, but still died. Think she was a bad flyer? Think again! And she didn’t have to protect a nest! What chance do you have? Are you going to wait for the eagle to get you, too?”
A shiver wracks her from head to feet. Her feathers refuse to settle. She waddles from foot to foot, agitated.
Arc hounds her, barging in on one side, forcing her to shuffle around to keep space between them. “You know I can do it, or you wouldn’t have pestered me. But I need your wings. Get as high as you can, far above where the eagle flies, and get me above it. Then you can leave. If not, you can go hide on your nest. Hope the eagle doesn’t find you before your chicks fly.”
She craws a miserable noise. “Don’t like.”
“You hate dead chicks more.” He grabs onto her wing. “Stand still.”
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An eagle that kills for sport can’t be reasoned with, so Arc prepares for an extended shouting match. Stoppered up anger rams his tiredness aside, but it won’t aid his endurance. He forces himself to eat the walnut and wash it down with all the water in the sack. He’ll need the energy.
The killer eagle isn’t hard to find. Branch chatter is a near constant flow of territorial threats, advertisements to mate, and warnings of danger. It only takes a few questions for the chatter to point them in the direction of the latest quiet circle, a roving, chatter-free area all creatures abandon wherever the eagle roosts.
“Resting. That way. Resting and says kill, kill, kill. Don’t go. Death,” warns a robin.
The owl shudders on the wing, but Arc only grips her feathers and barks, “Your chicks.” At this, she circles up and up, climbing from updraft to updraft. It’s been a long time since he last flew this high.
The sun is at its highest point. Below, the forest is an eternal carpet, every shade of green woven in its endless swells and dips. The owl tilts, banking right for several seconds, then levels out, her head twitching from side to side as she scans below.
“Bright. Sun. Harder see. Hear… hear nothing. Nothing over there.”
“Chick-mine, you trust me? Trust me with your nest? That I’ll make the eagle stop?”
“Arc-one makes eagle stop.”
“Then do what I say. Glide feet down and hold still. I’ll climb down, you hold me.”
“Hurt Arc-one with talons. Not want.”
“Only a little. Stopping eagle more important. Hold me, then swoop on eagle like catching a mouse, except you drop me on eagle. Then fly away fast. Don’t look back.”
The owl clicks, then sticks her legs down, keeping her wings steady. Carefully, Arc wraps his arms around her neck and swings around until he’s pressed against her underside. He brings his knees up and, gripping her body with his knees, he shimmies down.
For a moment, his vision tilts. I’m so high up. I’ll fall. It’ll all be over in a few seconds.
It passes. He is still panting short breaths. Another wave of dizziness builds.
“Arc-one, let go. I catch.”
Immediately he releases his grip. She tucks her legs up and over as he falls and snaps her talons around him before he drops even a body-length. Her talons slice shallow cuts through tunic and skin along one side of his body. He grinds his teeth to stifle a cry. He has to make her trust that he’s strong or she won’t go near the eagle.
“Good,” he manages. “Good catch. Beautiful. Now, see the eagle?”
“Looking. Big quiet circle.” She drops a current or two lower, still searching. “There.” Her call is quiet, carrying the full horror of a hunter watching a far more powerful predator.
He can’t see it but trusts her senses. “Take me down. Drop me on it.”
She angles down, tucking her wings back until only narrow lengths show on either side. The force peels back Arc’s cheeks as they shoot down. The green carpet rushes up to meet them, separating out into individual trees. Near the top of an old, dying spruce tree, a brown clump quickly gains definition as an eagle. A massive eagle with dark brown plumage and a burnished-gold feathered head crouches in the tree’s naked limbs, muttering to itself.
“Kill. Kill. Kill more. Must kill. Kill.”
Arc’s fury erupts from its cage, filling his mouth with words and his arms with strength.
The eagle only has enough time to twist its head up as the owl approaches and releases Arc at the perfect point for him sail down and crash into the eagle’s back.
The eagle’s head is the size of Arc’s whole body, so the impact does little but startle the bird. It shoots its wings out and takes off, breathing hard and shrilling, “Kill! Kill. What bird? Kill. Find you. Kill!”
The owl veers off among the lower branches, fleeing at the speed of terror. Arc can tell the eagle is angling for pursuit. Hauling himself up to the eagle’s neck, he clamps his legs there and grabs fistfuls of tiny feathers just above the eyes, yanking them.
“What? What? What is? Kill! Kill!” the eagle shrieks, banking hard to the left.
Arc bends to the side so the eagle can see him out of the corner of its eye. “Got your attention? Good. GET OUT OF MY FOREST.”
The eagle hisses. “Skyte. No skyte. Why skyte? Go away.”
“You go away!”
“Need to kill. Not skyte. Lots of kill.”
“Too much kill! No more! Get out of my forest!” He yanks the tiny feathers free, scattering them to the wind.
“Stop! Hurts! I kill you!”
Arc laughs, full of scorn. “Kill me? Go ahead. Try!”
The eagle opens its beak wider, screaming, “Tear you off! Tear you little bits! Eat you dead! Eat you live!”
“Empty threats!” Arc howls, swinging a fist into the eagle’s eye. His fist bounces off the bird’s clear eyelid, but it flexes under the blow and sends the eagle careening into a tree. It thrashes its wings, snatching at a branch to perch on. It twists its head around viciously.
“Hurts! No do! I kill!”
“Go ahead! Reach up and crush me with your claws! Or climb up high and spin, see if you can shake me off!”
It bends its head low, reaching a leg up, but the talons stop short of Arc’s body. The eagle hesitates, chirrring angrily.
“I’m still a skyte,” Arc says, grimly. “Even starving or half-mad, you can’t harm us. Never have, never will. Since we’re the only ones you can’t kill, I’m the one who gets to deliver the message,” and here, he fills his lungs full, puts his mouth right by the sensitive ear-hole, and screeches at the highest register, “LEAVE MY FOREST.”
The eagle hisses, flapping its wings uselessly from its perch. “But I’m here! Need to kill!”
Arc grabs more feathers by the eyes and yanks them out.
“Hurts!”
“Leave!”
The eagle screeches, launching off the branch and soaring skyward. It rises with powerful wing thrusts, then dives quickly, twisting as it falls.
Arc hits it in the eye again. “YOU FLY LIKE A TOAD! ARE YOU TRYING TO SHAKE ME OFF? GO FASTER!”
The eagle levels out just above the treetops. He feels the eagle’s heartbeat hammering through its skin as it tears through the sky, heedless of currents or updrafts. He grins savagely, loosening his grip just enough to slide down the eagle’s back, just above the tailfeathers. Here, he worms his way under the feathers on its back and anchors himself in place with a solid grip.
“AWKKKK. AAAAWK! WHAT DO WHAT WHERE SKYTE? OUT! OUT!”
Arc clings tight with his left hand and reaches toward the tail with his right, feeling around. He finds a single long shaft and grips it, wrenching back and forth. The eagle shrieks with pain as the effort moves all adjacent tailfeathers and its flight becomes erratic.
“PAIN! NOT DO!”
Ignoring him, Arc wrenches the feather back and forth a few more times and yanks it free. It’s huge, longer than his whole body, and he immediately releases it to the wind.
The eagle wobbles as it tries to correct its course, screaming, “NOT DO! NEEDING THAT!”
Arc’s head pops up, out of the sea of feathers on its back. “GET OUT OF MY FOREST!”
“THIS MY PLACE! MY KILLS!”
Arc ducks back down and reaches back, grasping another tailfeather.
“NO STOP, STOP, WILL LEAVE!”
As the eagle screams its head off, Arc works another feather free with a sickly sucking sound. The eagle dips, bleeding elevation.
“PAIN! PAIN! WILL LEAVE! LEAVING! NO COME BACK, STOP! NEED THOSE!”
Arc sticks his head up, yelling, “You’ll leave?”
“I leave! Where go?!”
“Seven-day’s flight at your top speed! Any direction!”
“Too far! Not long-winter-travel time!”
Reaching out an arm, Arc grasps the tip of the closest feather embedded in the right wing. It’s much smaller than a tail feather and he has less trouble jerking it out. The eagle’s flight tilts right and it strains to keep a straight path.
“YES, I LEAVE, SEVEN DAY FLYING AWAY NEVER COMING BACK!”
Stolen novel; please report.
Arc worms his way forward under the feathers, popping up again once he reaches the eagle’s neck. “You promise?” he asks, in his gentlest voice.
“Promise promise PROMISE now go away!”
“Good to hear. I trust you not to come back and keep killing everything,” he soothes, patting the eagle’s head for a moment, before reaching over and grabbing the edge of the clear eyelid, dragging it open and exposing the eagle’s eye to cold, tearing winds. “BECAUSE IF I EVER HEAR ANY CHATTER THAT YOU’RE IN MY FOREST AGAIN, I WILL FIND YOU. I WILL RIDE YOU. I WILL PLUCK YOU NAKED MID-AIR, THEN SEE HOW YOU LIKE TALKING WITH THE WOLVES! UNDERSTAND?”
“Understand! Understand! Let go!” the eagle shrills, barely keeping itself from ramming into the tree-tops.
“I’LL LET YOU GO WHEN I’M DONE AND NOT A SECOND SOONER, YOU GRACELESS MUD TURTLE!”
“GET OFF! GET OFF!”
“STRAIGHTEN OUT! YOU THINK YOU’RE A NOBLE FLYER?! A SKILLFUL HUNTER? I’VE SEEN TURKEYS THAT FLY BETTER THAN YOU!”
“GET OFF PLEASE! PLEASE GET OFF!”
“BEGGING?! NOW YOU’RE BEGGING? ARE YOU AN EAGLE OR A WORM? JUDGING BY YOUR FLIGHT PATTERN, YOU’RE NOTHING BUT A TREE SLUG! CAN YOU EVEN…”
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By the time Arc’s voice gives out, the sun has sunk halfway toward the horizon. The eagle lands next to Arc’s elm tree, quivering with nerves as Arc slides down and lands on the roots. It doesn’t wait a second longer, launching itself cockeyed back into the air and vanishing through the canopy.
Arc wobbles over to where he stashed his belongings and re-shoulders them, wincing as he rubs his throat.
“Whoo-haw-haw-haw.”
A smile splits his face as he peers up and spots the owl watching him from a lower branch. “You saw?”
“Plucked. Is naked-back-eagle. Shame. No mates long time. Whole forest laugh.”
Arc chuckles, then coughs, rubbing his throat again.
“Eagle gone?”
“Eagle gone.”
“Good. Grateful. Should have killed.”
His smile dissolves into a frown. “That’s not… we don’t do that. None of us do that, ever. It isn’t our way…”
Aria’s words rise up in his mind, contradicting him. “Some have argued we must strike back. After you returned, some of our Wanderers left specifically to study human weapons.”
“…it isn’t our way,” he mutters, wondering if that’s still true.
“Don’t understand. Eagle gone, is good. Dead, better. Skytes strange.”
Arc sags against the roots, his anger spent. He glances at his door. He won’t enter there again, but he can’t walk back to the Keep like this. “Chick-mine, can you—”
“No. Done now. You sleep there. Alive-fire near. Too long gone from nest. Mate hungry.” She spreads her wings. “Find Arc-one soon. Show nest. See healthy chicks.” With that, she flies off.
He shakes his head, grinning. A fox would have curled around him while he slept or carried him home and even licked his wounds. “Ungrateful beasts,” he mutters affectionately, knowing he wouldn’t trade the owl’s regard for any number of canid packs and their loyalty. He glances back at his door. “Besides, they’re loyal when it matters. They’re just pickier about it.”
He slides down the roots to the forest floor, landing on his rear. He leans back, letting his eyelids drift shut.
“Arc Wildspeech my friend?”
He lifts his heavy head. “Remara. Right, Alive-fire.” He waves as she approaches. “Come out.”
She stumps out from the brush, wearing an exaggerated sad frown. “Arc Wildspeech I did not find you here and when I opened your door there was a bird in there and I told it that it should not steal from you but it didn’t move so I shut the door again but something does not feel right because it wasn’t moving at all and I don’t understand these on the ground,” she points at the bloody track, where mother Falcon dragged herself, “so I have been walking back and forth looking at it and hoping you would come back soon where have you been and why is there a bird sleeping in your house?”
He shuts his eyes and rests his head back against the roots. He holds a hand out and blindly beckons her, patting the ground next to him. “Come sit with me.”
The air beside him warms, and he draws in a slow breath. “Remara, what do you know about death?”
“… I’m sorry I do not know what that is.”
He nods. He expected as much. “Remara… I just finished shouting at an eagle for hours. I’m tired. Would you… would you stay with me while I sleep? When I wake up, I want to tell you a story about a brave, bossy bird who took care of me for a long time before you came. Then I’ll explain what death is and you can ask all the questions you want and I’ll answer everything I can.”
A rich, comforting warmth enfolds him. “I would like that very much Arc Wildspeech my friend.”
For a few minutes, he tries to sleep. Yet tired as he is, one question keeps his thoughts circling. He sighs, “Remara. I’ve got one for you, before I sleep. After all this… I’m sure you came from the Maker. Why didn’t the Maker stop…” he gestures at his shoulders.
A haunting sound, like a finger sliding along thin glass, accompanies her answer. “I don’t know.”
He sighs. “Thought not. Me neither. But, Maker sent you here. And the Maker grieves for mother Falcon. Those are more than enough for me to bring to the next Ceremony of Gratitude.”
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Driving the eagle away undercuts Arc’s fragile recovery. Two skytes come with a carrier for injured skytes and bring Arc back to the Keep. Upon his arrival, Bone Weaver berates him for half an hour, then orders a temporary shelter built outside her own earthen burrow for him. She places him on strict nest-rest for a week.
A makeshift tent is constructed from dead branches and tightly bound leaf-mats. Arc’s nest is little more than loose moss, pine needles, and blankets, but it is comfortable enough. He sleeps most of each day, waking to do little more than eat and drink. Each day, a different skyte brings him food and water, and another comes to wash his clothes. Aria visits daily and checks on him throughout each day, often singing him to sleep.
He still wakes from nightmares most mornings, sometimes screaming, sometimes silently shaking under his covers. Even so, he notices there is one night of dreamless rest every few nights. He begins to look forward to the newly acquired restful night, and for the other times, Aria is often waiting next to his nest in the morning, ready to catch his flailing arms and smooth his transition to reality.
Remara is a continual presence at the opening of his tent, keeping him in a constant state of drowsy warmth. As his strength returns, he begins talking more with Remara, who never runs out of questions no matter how many he answers. Often, their conversations draw clusters of skytes eager to offer their own answers on matters they understand better than Arc. The more this happens, the less they avert their eyes from his face. The more they look at him, the more they talk with him. By degrees, the strain falls away with the silence, shame, and regrets.
By the second week, he is back on his feet, eager to reclaim his chores, but even so there always seems to be another pair of hands to help him.
In the third week, Tell Wanderer returns home to this Keep to warm welcome, bearing news from two other Keeps he has visited, among many other places.
But first, Tell is accosted by a curious molten glass lady.
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“So I understand what a Wildspeech can do and that Tenders work with plants and Weavers make all kinds of glorious things and though I do not think I will ever understand a Feastmaker because I cannot eat food they clearly enjoy what they do and so does everyone else but there aren’t any Wanderers in this Keep so I did not think about it very much but everyone said that you grew up in this Keep and left it but now you have come back so can you please explain to me what a Wanderer is among the skytes?”
Arc’s cheeks swell with the laugh he’s trying to hold back. Aria and Eldest Stem each cough like something is stuck in their throats. Arc imagines that the look on Tell’s face is much like the look on his own face when he first met Remara. By now everyone in the Keep is used to her, but Tell has been gone for over a year and the thunder-struck shock on him tickles Arc to no end.
Of course, Tell gets the benefit of Remara practicing features and limb shapes for nearly a month, so her exuberant interrogation is no longer a bowel-loosening affair. Her mouth motions mostly match the words as she speaks them, too. Arc is absurdly proud of her.
Tell can’t seem to find his words. Others in the Keep elbow each other, snickering. Arc clears his throat to draw Remara’s attention. “Wanderers always leave their Keep when they’re grown. They have different, unique gifts that serve them well outside, and they tend to be restless. Prone to seeking out new sights and experiences to bring back. Looks like you missed a big one, Tell. She’s been here about a month.”
Tell boggles at Arc, then back at Remara.
Snickering, Arc adds, “He’s usually not quiet this long. He has perfect recall of anything he’s ever heard. I bet you two could keep a conversation going for two days straight.”
Remara’s eyes swell wider than they ought as she exclaims, “Oh I think I would enjoy that tell me in your travels have you seen any others like me that has been a question Eldest Stem has asked me but I have not but maybe you have or maybe you have heard someone else speak of someone like me?”
Slowly, Tell shakes his head, keeping his eyes locked on her. “No… not you. Nothing about anyone like you, that is for sure.” Once again, his eyes shift to Arc. “You, though…” his eyes drop down to Arc’s bare arms. He swallows, looking nauseated. Arc’s smile vanishes.
After a moment, Tell meets his eyes again. “You were lost when I left. I am glad…” he exhales a shuddering breath. “I have been to two Keeps. Here.” He pulls a map out of his tunic, unrolling it to show the little gathering, and points to a spot. “At this one, two came back like Arc, but their arms were black up to the shoulders. No wings. They stick together and don’t speak to anyone. Used to be a Tender and a Songspeaker.”
Arc’s stomach bottoms out. He stops breathing.
“At the other Keep, only one has come back. She stands at the edge of the Keep. Can’t stop crying. She sleeps outside, won’t let anyone bring her inside or build a home for her.” Tell hands Eldest Stem the map. “That one still has her wings. Says they didn’t put her on darkweave duty because she’s a Weaver, so she’s more valuable for making moonweave and healing the others. I can recite the details later.”
Arc feels like he’s been kicked in the stomach by a stray paw. His vision goes unfocused as he pictures those three miserable skytes.
Tell hesitates, then turns to Arc. “Arc, I’ve seen three return. Now, four, but you’re… you’re not like the others.”
A warm hand touches Arc’s back. He glances back at Remara, who watches him somberly. He rolls his shoulders, steadying himself. “I was. Like them. I can tell you, but…” he glances at Eldest Stem.
Eldest Stem picks up the sentence. “Come back to my tree. I’ll invite Mel Songspeaker. We’ll share a meal. Please, give us your news first, then gather all the news you like from here.”
Tell Wanderer dips his head. “I will.”
Arc feels Tell’s eyes on his back as he turns and walks to his tent.
Remara pulls up alongside him. She vibrates, one hand pressed over her mouth. He sighs. “Go on.”
“Arc Wildspeech there are others who escaped like you.”
“Yes.”
“And they do not know there is a cure.”
“One of them sounds like she doesn’t need that cure.”
“No but I think she needs other cures and maybe it’s a cure that you have inside you now.”
Arc stops at the entrance to his tent and finds he doesn’t want to lie down. He swings around to face Remara. “I need to go off and think for awhile. I’ll call chick-mine. Take a flight. But answer me something. It’s a crazy thought, and maybe it’s all wrong, but would you go to them and offer the cure you have?”
She tilts her head. “Would you?”
Arc Wildspeech hurts no less for what he has heard today, but in spite of that, he grins.
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At the next Ceremony of Gratitude, Arc attends on owl-back. He lends his fierce birdcry to the celebration for the first time in two years. Every component of the music is grander and louder, each flowering scent and savory bite of food all the more sweet to him. The joy is so sharp it brings tears to his eyes as he adds his voice to their celebration of life.
In the middle of this bright celebration, they draw together and hear news of the darkness. Tell Wanderer stands before the Keep and recounts the stories of skytes who escaped human captors. He spends a great deal of time on the details of their capture, describing the shape of the deceptions that lured each away. Arc approves. The others need to be more wary.
At the close of the ceremony, Stem Tender stands in front of the gathering with Aria and Mel Songspeaker on either side of him. “Today,” Stem says, his voice carrying clear and firm, “we send out one of our own. We also release a beloved visitor. Arc Wildspeech. Remara. Join me.”
Arc clucks his tongue and the owl glides down, landing at the edge of the clearing. He slides off and strides to the front. He stops in front of Eldest Stem as Remara pulls up next to Arc.
Stem looks at them both with a soft smile. “Arc and Remara came to us with a plan two days ago. They have asked to be sent off on this day with our blessing, to bring treatment and comfort to others who have escaped bondage. We are sad to release them, but we do so in the hope that they will alleviate the suffering of other Keeps.”
Aria steps forward, holding out a bundle to Arc. “Blankets. Moonweave. Edge sharpened your knife. Extra clothing. Rope and twine. Watersacks. A copy of the map with the nearest five Keeps marked.”
“And written instructions!” Bone Weaver hollers from behind Arc. “Recipes for numbing and sleep draughts! How to do the procedure! Notes on things we should have done different! How to care for burns that bad! Bring back any additions from other healers!”
Arc swallows a grin, accepting his bundle from Aria and shouldering it.
To Remara, Mel Songspeaker hands a flame-proof bundle. “A flint and two full coals for emergencies. An extra roll of flameproof fabric and sketches of the plant it comes from, so that others can replicate it. An oiled tarp to shed rain.”
Remara’s face shimmers as she accepts it. She studies Arc for a moment, carefully copying how he has hung his bundle.
A skyte from the assembly hurries up and hands a stick to Eldest Stem, who accepts it and turns back to Arc with the stick laid across his palms. “Most Wanderers are born so, but not all. Some are born with other gifts and later choose to travel. Arc Wildspeech The Wanderer, never forget where you came from. Maker bring you back to us safely in the future, as He already has once.”
He holds out the stick to Arc, who realizes this is no simple stick. It’s a livewood walking staff, tall enough to lean on, light, and with a heavy knotted top for whacking obstinate birds. Near the top, two feathers are embedded full-length into the wood, each protected by a lattice of slender root tendrils. One feather is a rich pine color lined with organically curving lines of spring green and the other a light lavender with royal purple eyelets.
Stem. Aria.
Eldest Stem leans forward, whispering, “Only sheds. But take this piece of home with you. Remember who thinks of you every day and always has.”
Arc’s vision blurs and his cheeks ache for the bittersweet joy of it. “Aye,” he chokes.
Aria whispers, “I’ll keep your sheds for you. Come home someday.”
He nods, unable to say more.
Mel and Aria lift their hands over the assembly, closing the ceremony as one, “Maker walk with each of you until next we convene.”
“Aye!” roar the skytes a moment before they surge forward.
The next hour is a blur of hands slapping his shoulder or taking his hands, arms wrapped around him, and wings. So many wings flung around him in a full skyte embrace as member after member of the Keep wishes him safe travels. He has always thought it was too much fuss to send a Wanderer off this way, but now he soaks in every second of contact, storing each face, kind word, and touch so he can revisit it in the days to come.
For a moment, he wants to take it all back. He isn’t ready to go. He’s only just come home.
But then he locks eyes with Remara and he squares his jaw. If there’s even a chance he can pull the others back from the same edge he lived on, he’ll take it. And he’ll travel as long as she will to seek them out.
Slowly, the crowd thins, the skytes reluctantly taking leave in twos and threes. Finally Aria, Mel, and Eldest Stem embrace them, then leave.
The owl sighs, clicking her beak. “Long. Very long. Skytes strange. Should do these things nighttime. I go sleep now. Arc-one, don’t be caught. Chicks fly away soon. I find you after chicks.”
“I’ll watch for you, chick-mine,” Arc says, stroking her head. “Feed the small one more, he needs to get bigger before he flies.”
She chirrs in her throat a bit, butting him back with her forehead. Then she, too, flies off.
Arc shifts his pack and leans on the staff. It’s sturdy and fits his hand comfortably. “Ready, Remara?”
“Ready Arc Wildspeech The Wanderer my friend.”
He opens his mouth, then shuts it, shrugging his shoulders and grinning. “I’m going to have to be careful about picking up extra titles or it will take you ten minutes to say my name someday.”
“Has there ever been a name that long?”
“Haven’t heard of one.” He jerks his chin at the edge of the clearing and begins walking, trailed by Remara. His fingers rub across the walking staff’s lattice, shielding Aria and Stem’s precious sheds. “We start off this way. The nearest Keep is two weeks away with intermittent flying. Longer without.”
“Oh that is a long time.”
“Yes. And this time, I expect you to answer as many questions as you ask.”
“Oh have you got as many questions as I do?” she asked, and he swore she was teasing.
“I guess we’ll find out.”
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At the next Ceremony of Gratitude is heard this invocation:
“And now, we recall the Wanderers who have recently left or not yet returned. Do not forget our valiant explorers, driven to seek out the paths of the world and to greet and make records of all manner of beings and lands that they find. Recall Parch and Milestone, Merca, Tell, and Map. Recall Arc Wildspeech The Wanderer, and our beloved flame, Remara. Hold them dear in your hearts and ask the Maker to bring them home safely. May the lightsculpture be a beacon for those traveling afar, that they may see it and feel that the love of their home follows them.”