It was good to get away from the city. With her legs crossed, she closed her eyes, and let her arms fall loosely to the side. They brushed against the cool, soft moss, and she breathed in deeply. The air was slightly salty, flavored by the vast, glowing sea that stretched past the horizon.
In and out. Rise and fall. Tesha felt the world fall away, and with it, all the troubles that rested on her shoulders. The knockers, the elves, that troublesome troll child, even the coming wave of reinforcements - all were forgotten as she felt that deep, inexplicable peace settled over her, that communion with the realm of Arallû that all the Children craved.
There was nothing but the quiet lapping of the waves against the shore, the rustling of the trees in the wind. Nothing but peace.
A knock disturbed her meditation. Tesha froze, even her heart unable to beat as horror stole over her. No - it couldn’t be, not to me. Not like my mother. Another knock sounded, and she nearly leapt out of her skin.
“Tes̆s̆haaa.” A rather childish voice called out, dragging the end of her name out in a sing-song fashion. The Fey spun around, and her eyes narrowed as she saw the troll child standing a few feet behind her. She was leaning with one hand propped against a tree.
Leaping to her feet, the Fey approached the child quickly. “Did you knock against the tree,” she demanded harshly. “Tell me quickly.” The girl backed up, her confusion evident. “Uh, yes?” She responded hesitantly.
A wave of relief washed over Tesha, so intense it left her dizzy. Placing her hand on the tree to steady herself, she shook her head. “Never do that again to a Fey, do you understand, child?
A slight frown wrinkled the corner of the girl’s lip. “Why?”
“Just. don’t. do. it.” Tesha growled, with a touch more ferocity than she intended.
The child’s head bobbed up and down quickly. “Okay, okay. No knocking,” she agreed. “But why not?”
Tesha closed her eyes and ignored the question. She hoped the child would take the hint and go away, leaving her to once again attempt to summon the sacred peace. But as the seconds ticked by, she heard no sound of crunching leaves or breaking twigs. The child was clearly not leaving. Reluctantly, Tesha opened her eyes to find the girl had moved to within just a few feet of her, staring up at her with an expectant look.
She sighed but gave in. “What do you want?”
The irritating child took her question as an invitation to make herself at home. She practically bounded forward and, crumpling her nice, clean white skirt into the damp moss, plopped herself right down where Tesha had been sitting. “I was hoping you could help me with my magic. Momma says you guys are really gifted with nature spells.”
Momma. The first time she’d heard the child use that word for the elven queen, she'd expected her to be punished. Hell, Tesha had even hoped that perhaps it would be an offense grave enough to expel the troll’s unfortunate presence from their midst. Instead, Aphora had ignored it; she certainly never used the term herself, but neither did she forbid the child to use it either. And while Aphora might not have exactly acknowledged it, it soon became clear to everyone that she did indeed dote on the little troll. So, reluctantly, Tesha had come to the realization that she’d just have to tolerate the Gemlirian's presence.
She sighed again - it was becoming a bad habit - but sat down beside the child. “Some of us perhaps, but our talents mostly lie in mind magic.”
The girl shook her head vigorously, her lilac hair bouncing to and fro on her shoulders. “Momma says that's just what you want people to think; she thinks your real power comes from this realm.”
Tesha bit her lip in aggravation - this time at herself more so than the child. She had done her best to keep her people alive and their secrets safe, but she’d failed, time and time again, on the second task. Despite her best attempts, the savvy elven queen had sniffed out one secret after another and Tesha was simply no match for her. Maybe if the elders hadn’t died it would be different, but she wasn’t convinced that even they would have been a match for Aphora. The woman was one of those occasional anomalies that popped up - a throwback to a time when mages were far more powerful.
“Lady Aphora is mistaken, but we do have some small talents in nature magic,” she lied.
The girl cocked her head to the side, and Tesha could swear she saw a knowing smile in her eyes, but she simply nodded. “Can you help me with a spell?” Not waiting for an answer, the little girl lifted her hands and twirled her fingers in a spell. The essence responded to her promptly, and moments later a glimmering blade of water was clutched tight in her hand.
Tesha frowned, scrunching her brows together. “It looks….fine? What is the problem, child?”
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Qas̆pahti swished the sword back and forth through the air, dangerously close to Tesha's head, before letting the blade rest, pointing to the vast purple sea that surrounded them. “See how it’s blue? Momma says I’m supposed to be able to control water, but the sea won’t listen.”
Understanding dawned on her then. She's trying to connect to the sea. Tesha chewed on her lip, unsure if she should share the truth with the girl. On the one hand, she knew it would please the queen, but on the other…it would be just another one of her people’s secrets the elf had wormed out of her.
She sighed again and fixed her eyes on the girl. “If I explain it to you, do you promise to only tell Lady Aphora?”
The girl nodded, but Tesha wasn’t satisfied yet. “I’m serious,” she insisted. “It is a secret of the Children, not something to be shared with others.”
Qas̆pahti nodded again, throwing her hands up enthusiastically. “I promise!”
Tesha curled her legs up and leaned against a nearby tree. “The children did not always live in this world. We were born in the realm of Arallû.”
The girl interrupted her, “You mean this place?”
The Fey frowned. “Please don’t interrupt me. But, yes, the name is the same. Arallû - the original Arallû, that is - was once part of three interconnected realms - As̆ratu, Adammu, and Arallû. The inhabitants of As̆ratu and Arallû were beings of great power - our ancestors and the ancestors of many other races too - while the inhabitants of Adammu were beings similar to the Corsythians.”
Tesha paused, grimacing in discontent. “I wish I could remember the exact details of the story but, it was our priests’ job to relay the story and all but the youngest of them were…” She trailed off, searching for the right words, and settled for a euphemism. “…left behind.” There was no need for the child to learn about the destruction of their city.
“Something caused a war to break out between As̆ratu and Arallû, and millions upon millions died. Adammu, trapped between As̆ratu and Arallû, suffered the worst of the destruction but eventually even the other realms were affected. Our ancestors were allied with a number of races there, the Sidhe-”
The girl’s eyes widened in recognition, and she opened her mouth to speak, but Tesha shushed her. “Don’t interrupt,” she reminded her. “As I was saying, they were allies with the Sidhe and a number of others, but our elders came to believe that the war was a lost cause. Fearing our people would be destroyed, they searched for a way out.”
“They devised a spell to cut us off from the rest of Arallû for a thousand years - hoping that peace would have been restored by now - and abandoned the Sidhe.”
“Their spell was a failure. Rather than cutting our people off from the war, the elders’ spell shattered the realm of Arallû into a dozen splinters. Most of our people died outright, but a few survived trapped on a small portion of our world. Perhaps we would have been perpetually imprisoned if the god Tsiāhu had not noticed us. Though he did not belong to the pantheon of the three realms, he took pity on us; he stabilized our realm and attached it to his own.”
Tesha gestured at the world around them - the glowing purple sea, the verdant, mossy earth, the thousands of pale yellow trees that raised their leaves futilely towards a sun that never shone. “This realm, our Arallû, is but a shadow of the world from which we came, but it is ours. We are the people born from it, and it only answers our call. That is why you cannot control the sea, child.” Tesha knew that wasn’t quite the truth, but it was close enough.
“Oh. You're sure?” That was all the girl said, but the dejection on her face was so overwhelmingly evident that, much to her surprise, Tesha found herself feeling a smidge of pity for the little troll.
She nodded, “I am. You would need to be descended from one of the races that originated in Arallû to draw on this realm’s magic.”
“Why can I feel the water so strongly then?” the girl finally asked.
The Fey cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
The girl raised her hand and, letting a bit of essence pool up, stretched it toward the nearby sea. She tried to cast something on it, but the water didn’t obey her desire - or at least, so the little troll thought.
But Tesha’s eyes widened as she spotted something the girl hadn’t seen. Three drops had risen ever so slightly above the waves. It was barely anything, certainly not enough to fuel a spell, and yet…the sea had responded to her.
“Do it again,” she snapped suddenly. The child glanced over at her, confused, but complied. The essence called for the sea and again, a few droplets rose in response. “Again,” she commanded, and again the sea responded.
“You can stop now.” She turned to face the child, examining her with new eyes. In truth, given her distasteful lineage, the Fey leader had spent as little time as possible with Qas̆pahti. She was vaguely aware that she was only half-troll, but as her appearance unfortunately favored her Gemlirian father, that was the only half that really mattered.
There was nothing at all to indicate that the child had even a shred of Fey heritage in her; not even a smidge of green could be detected in her eyes, skin, or hair, nor did her essence feel akin to her people. The essence felt to her like the crisp cold of a glacial stream rather than the gentle warmth of a babbling brook. And yet - the sea had acknowledged her.
Could she actually learn to control it like us? Tesha didn’t know, nor was she sure if she was willing to teach the child. Her nose crinkled slightly in distaste as she gazed down at the grey-skinned and lilac-haired child, but she couldn’t deny that the mystery intrigued her. She was willing to bet that the child had no ancestors from the Children of St. Martin lurking in her family tree, even if it stretched back a thousand years, but she hadn’t quite told the child the truth when she’d said only they could control this realm.
There were the others, after all. The ones her people had abandoned in the war. Could she have been born to a summoned? Despite herself, Tesha found herself drawn in. “You can go now, child, but tell Lady Aphora that I wish to speak to her.” She hesitated, then threw the child a bone. “It’s possible that I might be able to teach something after all.”
The girl perked up, her face practically glowing with excitement. “Really?!”
“No promises,” Tesha quickly clarified, “but sometimes there can be exceptions, and you might just be one.”
The girl wasted no time scampering off into the forest, back toward the city. Left alone, Tesha reclaimed her seat and closed her eyes, trying to summon that all-consuming peace again.
It was a fruitless battle.