The dragon Fiata visited Vrekant on the seventeenth day. She was the one that Vrekant had warned had two lovers who would be visiting with her. With seven dragons at his dinner table that evening, he used the hospitality charm that he had offered to use for Azosta and Limist, generating a dinner of steaks that had never been part of any living animal. Azosta rejected a portion of the summoned meat, but everyone else took it gladly.
"Just as well you haven't had me using it," said Vrekant as he set out steaks on the table. "I'm not sure how many more uses this old charm has in it."
Fiata was a bright orange vashael. Vrekant hadn't mentioned that detail; most of the farmergons in the area were vrash. She was bright in every sense, energetic and attentive. When the idea of taking a trip to Nidrio was presented to her she took no persuasion at all, but brightly said, "Sure! The crops aren't in planting or harvest. They can keep for a while if we fly off!"
"Does farming really give you so much free time?" asked Aleicree, impressed and suddenly understanding why so many of the area's farmergons had agreed to travel to a feast in Nidrio.
"We-e-ell! Not in planting or harvest time," said Fiata, laughing. "Then the hours are long. When everything's just growing, farming is nothing but guard duty."
"Fate willing, we don't need to guard the crops," said one of Fiata's two lovers, whose name was Medem. She was a dark grey vrash with silver rings in her earfins and, more unusually, in her eyebrows as well. Like most vrash, she wore armour. Hers in particular was polished, setting off her dark scales with silver.
Fiata's other lover was named Wrevaskel, and he was a pearl red vrash with grey lines sweeping across him. He wore a fairly light armour of a minimised design that covered the social expectation for vrash to be armoured, but didn't look like he was investing in strength training. Perhaps it was a cheaper design with its reduced use of metal, but then perhaps not. Wrevaskel had an elegant look for a farmergon.
Both of Fiata's lovers seemed to have armour that stood out as being very finely cared-for. The other farmergons they'd been hosting had rougher armours. These three entered the room with grace and presence. Aleicree wondered if they'd been something else before they'd been farmergons.
They ate steak like any other dragon.
Well, almost any other dragon. Denziu had written of meeting a vegetarian on the Tachanigh-Kelkaith, and there had been that one mentioned by the seller in Korjek. It seemed very strange to Aleicree.
"How long have you been farmergons?" asked Aleicree, when the conversation across the table had a quiet moment.
"A few years," said Wrevaskel.
"A few decades," said Fiata.
"A few years," said Medem. When Aleicree's head swivelled between Fiata and Medem, she clarified, "We didn't enter this career at the same time."
Azosta was picking at his food without much appetite, but following the conversation avidly enough. He asked, "What did you do before you farmed?"
Wrevaskel looked over at Medem, and then said, "We were jewellers."
Fiata smiled and said, "I was a miner."
Limist leaned across the table. "A miner and two jewellers? Did you work together?"
"By the time we knew her, she was already a farmergon," said Medem.
"What's mining like?" asked Aleicree.
Fiata raised a hand and swept it high. "Terrible work is what it is!" she said, dropping her hand. "It's ferociously hard on the body, far from all light... At least we weren't far from the wind with the amicus breeze. Vrash do the work better, but everyone loves a vashael for bringing fresh air into the deeps."
Vrekant asked, "Do you ever miss it?"
Fiata shook her head. "No. Not really. There's only one thing to miss about mining. Nobody wants to do it, so the wage is good. But it's not worth it. I was always exhausted."
Medem grumbled. "We could use a higher wage in our household. Farming verges on charity work. When the harvest is always good, a lot of food just goes to waste."
Aleicree ventured, "Maybe there should be more miners?"
"More perpetually exhausted dragons?" asked Fiata, wearing a sceptical expression and holding up a flat palm.
"Maybe something could be done to make the work less exhausting," Aleicree said.
Azosta made a 'bleh' expression. "Without using magic, preferably. Machinery is rarer and more clever."
Wrevaskel took an interest in Azosta. "What's wrong with magic?"
Which set off yet another round of Azosta's claims that magic would end everything if overused. Aleicree took the opportunity to add to zir notes rather than participate in the conversation, zir lev-i-quill flicking away. "Azosta is obsessed with taking opportunities to warn dragons that magic is a threat to everything that is. I've heard him today praising machinery instead. If we can lure an architect of particular cunning to Nidrio, we'll have Azosta for sure."
Aleicree understood by the way it had come up every night with every new dragon why Limist was fatigued with Azosta the Endseer's eponymous obsession, but zie was still convinced that Azosta was going to be the perfect new geomancer for Praoziu.
It turned out that Fiata knew a little bit about machinery, because the mines had used pumps to keep from being flooded. She described piping capped by a rotating machine powered by draft animals walking in a circle. Azosta took a keen interest. "But it was still an evermine?" he objected at one point.
"It wasn't," she said. "The mines northeast of Sorjek are naturally depleting, and must constantly dig further into the mountains to keep putting out ore. I think the land gods want us to explore the stone."
Aleicree thought of Denziu's letter about a trading journey to the underworld. "I wonder if you'll ever connect to the deep-under," zie mused.
Fiata perked up at that, and laughed. "No, surely not! The Deep-Under is far below the surface, and the mine's maximum depth is limited by the flooding, you know. We can't dig it any deeper than our pumps can remove the water from."
This flummoxed Aleicree. "If digging depths are limited by water, how is the Deep-Under not flooded?"
The dragons around the table looked at each other. Nobody knew the answer to that, but after a moment Wrevaskel asked, "Do you have an interest in the Deep-Under?"
Aleicree nodded. "I do! Temporarily. I have a sibling who is embarking on a trade journey to the Deep-Under. Zir name is Denziu, and zie's a merchant who I believe is seeking to get into the magic lantern trade."
"But magic lanterns are common," said Limist, who had been fairly quiet in the conversation so far.
"Denziu's previous fixation as a merchant had been on trading soil." Aleicree giggled. "I think it's a very humble step up for 'Denziu the Clayseller'."
Fiata asked, "Will we get to meet this humble merchant in Nidrio?"
Aleicree said, "I believe Denziu will be gone away to the deep-under when we get there."
When they’d talked for a while, Vrekant proposed to fetch out his chest of board games. Fiata responded in a way that made Aleicree's heart skip a beat: she kissed Vrekant on the cheek and said something in a voice too low to hear. Vrekant grinned, but shook his head. "The subject hasn't come up. For politeness sake, we must assume our guests too shy," he said.
"Such a disappointment," said Fiata. "I suppose board games are fine for a night."
The board games were not fine, in Aleicree's estimation. Fiata, Medem, and Wrevaskel couldn't be swayed from playing as a bloc. They kept touching tails and bumping hips, and making plays that only made sense when they played together. Everyone endured a storm of lost games, and the only silver lining was that each game was over more quickly than usual.
Aleicree wondered what Fiata had proposed, for which they were "too shy". Zie drafted a letter to Denziu that night and made a point of mentioning it, so that detail of the conversation would go into the pile of papers zie was keeping of letters zie had written. Zie mentioned as well that zie wanted Denziu to send word if zie met any machinists, because Azosta would love to meet one. The dragons of the Deep-Under had more machinery than the dragons of the surface.
The next day, Aleicree copied The Ascent of Shattered Knives with some glee, as it turned out to be a very fun book. It was just a dream journal and nothing zie would ordinarily have copied, but it described a map of imaginary spaces that sounded intriguing and exquisite. Zie would not ordinarily have read any such book, and was left wondering if there had been a little manipulation of zir Fate just to give zir a fun experience.
As for the academic merits of the book itself, zie had to categorise it as fiction, even though it referenced with shocking clarity a dream zie had. Zie could not imagine why Querent-Querent had placed it among the books of Geomantic lore. It had been in the Rift section, zie recalled.
Hoping to resolve zir confusion, zie wrote letters. The first one zie addressed to Ekis, who had gone to the geomantic academy of wind with Aleicree. Zie spoke of the dream zie had experienced and the dreams that The Ascent of Shattered Knives described. Zie did zir best to give credence to its dream geography, describing a kind of map of dreams that mentioned its landmarks. In a strange way, it was all for zir own notes. Zie wasn't used to taking notes of zir own, but zie transcribed a second copy of every letter that zie wrote, so this letter to Ekis became a piece for zir own records.
From there zie wrote other letters, to everyone else zie could remember from the academy, hopeful that some of them would remember something related to magic lore that might help demystify the dream journal zie’d picked up. These letters were very similar to each other, so for zir records zie kept one letter with many names recorded on it. Most of these were to dragons zie had met in that weird alchemical elective. They'd done things zie blushed to recall now. Nothing illegal, of course... If zie cast a wide enough net, zie hoped to catch at least one dragon that had gone from wind magic into proper geomancy, and who might know why the Rift section of the Querent-Querent library had a dream journal in it.
The farmergon they met that evening was dreadfully unassuming, and a little awkward. He tried to nuzzle on Aleicree, and seemed sad when zie shied away from him, but nothing came of that. They talked of Aleicree's siblings, and he agreed to come visit Nidrio, and then as usual they played games from Vrekant's collection. It was a peaceful dinner.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Zie had another dream that night. Zie was in a cold and dark place, but it was wonderful somehow. It was all okay. Everything was okay. Nothing really mattered, but the divides between all things were necessary and beautiful. It was a long, dark dream of flying in a void, and there was no geography of dreams that would ever hold it, because there was no geography to the dream.
When zie awoke, zie appended a description of the dream to the letter to Ekis. It wasn't a complicated dream, but zie asked in the letter, "Should geomancers pay attention to their dreams? Do the land gods speak to us in dreams? It's the only way that I can think of The Ascent of Shattered Knives as properly a book of geomantic lore. I assume that other geomancers believe very much in the significance of their dreams."
Ekis didn't send Aleicree too many letters, but zie hoped to get a reply to this one. It would be something to look forward to. The bundle of other letters zie posted at the same time would hopefully garner replies as well. Zie felt Fate-favoured. Fate wouldn’t let zir forget to mail the right dragon.
After that, zie went back home and copied more of The Ascent of Shattered Knives. The task soaked up days, word by word and page by page. It was full of otherworldly descriptions. Aleicree wondered if studying the books on magic turned dragons into poetgons and paintergons eager to frame new images in new ways.
The farmergons Vrekant met were not exciting dragons, not even when one of them kissed Vrekant after dinner. Another Farard! Aleicree wondered just how close Vrekant had gotten to the locals out here in Sorjek. The dragons he introduced agreed to go to Nidrio or they did not, and Aleicree was a little overwhelmed either way, but did zir best to carry forward being a recruiter in Taisach's name. It was a self-assigned duty, but worth it if they got even one new settler in Nidrio out of the effort to draw these random farmergons of Vrekant's acquaintance into visiting Nidrio.
After a few more days, Aleicree wrote another letter to Praoziu, expressing the hope that some of the farmergons they were recruiting would stay in Nidrio. "They will not stay this season," Aleicree wrote, "Because I know they have the responsibility of the harvest awaiting them. It would be a peculiar farmergon indeed who would abandon an incomplete harvest. Yet as we are offering them a verdant new home, I think we may keep a few of them in Nidrio, particularly as we have offered this journey to an entire social group. It may be profitable to come back and visit Vrekant again SOMEDAY. I do not think Vrekant himself will join us."
That last word passed through Aleicree into zir lev-i-quill before zie had quite thought it through, and zie stalled in sudden horror. Vrekant... would not join them. Zie did not think so. The dragon zie had written so many poems towards would not join them.
Well, of course he wouldn't. He didn't see Aleicree as a potential romance. He'd been forthright about that. He didn't love Azosta's prophecies of the end, either. He tolerated them as dinner table conversation, but it was Aleicree who had found Azosta fascinating.
In that moment, Aleicree first thought that zie liked Azosta a little more than Vrekant. Zie resolved, somewhat whimsically, to try nuzzling him in the evening before dinner, and then zie went back to writing the letter to Praoziu. "If I could pick one of the dragons I have met to very definitely join us, it would be Azosta the Endseer," zie wrote. "I have a confession. I think I left Nidrio on a bad note last time I was there. I thought things about 'a paradise of diligence' that were rather negative towards you. Azosta might be able to understand those thoughts and help you make use of them."
The next trip to the post office revealed replies having been sent to Aleicree at zir temporary address. Taisach had finally replied to zir letters, saying that he was thrilled to host however many guests Aleicree could recruit to visit Nidrio. A most intriguing letter came from one of the dimly-remembered dragons from that infamous alchemical elective in the wind magic academy in Griolor. "Oh Aleicree!" wrote Raddra, "Where did you go after you left the academy? We should have corresponded more over these last few decades! My life has been cold since you left it." Which was a little odd, because Aleicree thought they had not been close, but zie certainly read on.
Raddra wrote that the land gods rarely tamper with dreams, but also that, "Some geomancers believe that their dreams show their individual sensitivity to Fate, and have built dream geographies similar to your Ascent of Shattered Knives in order to try to augur Fate without divination. I think they're being foolish, because dreams also show distortion from anything you obsess about enough, and so the geographies become self-fulfilling.”
“Still, there are strongly recurring themes, and the shattered knife theme in particular is foundational to the arcane principle of Rift. Rift is a dangerous principle and its influence shatters relationships, but it's also why violent conflict is so rare on Theoma.”
Beyond the unexpected cry of loneliness with which it opened, the letter went on about ‘Rift’ spells in a way that made Aleicree suspect Raddra had continued on from the Wind Magic academy to become a practising scholargon of some description. Aleicree read the letter thrice in confusion.
It wouldn't help Praoziu, Aleicree thought. A magic of shattering relationships seemed the furthest thing from helpful for establishing a city. A sense of disquiet settled into Aleicree. Maybe zie was doing something wrong. Maybe zie was going to harm Praoziu's new city project somehow. Could a dream of 'Rift' mean that?
There was no room in zir plans for a change of direction, zie decided. Too many farmergons had signed on already. Azosta still seemed too perfect for Praoziu's service. Zie would continue copying The Ascent of Shattered Knives even now that it disquieted zir. A dream could be just a dream.
After several more quiet days of scribing by sunlight and entertaining farmergons in the evening (Aleicree’s favourite was the almost-unspeaking Rokalenth, whose purple scales were just too handsome), Aleicree had nearly finished duplicating The Ascent of Shattered Knives. It was the 23rd day and thus another weekend, but like the 2nd day and the 9th day, it passed unremarked. Vrekant was out meditating and/or flying to manipulate the weather almost every day. Azosta and Limist weren’t on vacation at all, but were driven by their sense of poverty to finish the month’s work. Aleicree didn’t mind. Zie fit into working daily. Zie enjoyed having a comprehensible, consistent task to focus on all day. Both being the wind and scribing books fit into that.
When zie finished The Ascent by midday, zie used magic to modify the blank book to more exactly duplicate the original. Although the duplication was perfect and the spell was familiar, there was a backlash from the spell that left Aleicree's head spinning. The colours of things fluctuated when zir attention was off of them. The world's exact dimensions seemed to waver, so that the rooms in Vrekant's house seemed full of strange angles, and Aleicree couldn't help seeing all of them as zie paced through the house with fervent nonsense in zir head.
Zie wandered into Vrekant's pantheon room.
This was a taboo thing to do. It was a very private space, even without a door blocking it off from the rest of the house. Ordinarily, Aleicree would never have done it. It was the drain from the spell affecting zir wits that led zir to pace through all of Vrekant's sprawling one-floor house. Zie went to every other room before going into his pantheon room, but then zie didn't hesitate before barging through the last uncrossed door in the house.
It was a little hall of dragon statues. Five places had a dragon sitting in them, and the sixth was empty.
Aleicree scanned the room briefly and frozen when zir eyes landed on a statue of Aleicree zirself. Zir jaw dropped open. The blue stone of the statue was even a fair approximation of Aleicree’s colour. The neck of the statue was adorned with prayer charms.
Putting a statue of someone in one's pantheon room and praying to it was a way to influence the Fate of someone from afar. It wasn't spell-casting. It was "merely" an activity that the land gods noticed at great distance.
Six was a pretty normal size for a pantheon room. Such a room would hold statues of the half dozen dragons one really wanted to see live forever. Occasionally, a statue or two in a pantheon room would be in memorial of someone who one had wanted to see live forever, but who did not.
And Vrekant had placed a statue of Aleicree into his very private devotions room. Zie was shocked. He cared this much about zir and he'd denied romantic interest? No wonder he'd put zir up for a month when zie visited. The duration had seemed a bit long.
Did the local farmergons know that Aleicree sent regular letters to Vrekant, too? Had he shared on the poems zie'd sent to him?
Aleicree pressed zir snout into the floor in frustration, squeezing zir eyes closed. Zie had so many questions, and wouldn't politely be able to ask any of them. Zie wanted to see this room and study every statue in this room, but every moment in this room was forbidden. Anything zie learned about Vrekant while having gone in here without asking was something zie could not ask about.
Zie ran for the entrance without examining the other four statues.
Standing on the other side of the pantheon room's open door frame, zie resolved to ask permission to enter it, and wondered if zie should admit that zie had already seen the statue of zirself.
The flawed spell was still plaguing Aleicree with a terrible restlessness. Zie took off zir uniform and stowed it in zir room, resolving to spend the rest of the day at the beach. As much as the world looked a bit strange right now, it didn't stop zir from taking flight. Zie spent the rest of the day at the seaside digging holes in the sand and splashing in the tide. It took a few hours for the serenity drain to wear off, but it was reasonably harmless.
When zie got back, Vrekant rebuked zir for leaving the door unlocked, and an abashed Aleicree hung zir head. You need more than one key, Aleicree thought, but zie wasn't quite bold enough to say so.
Over dinner with yet another rough-armoured farmergon, Aleicree was bold enough to ask Vrekant, "May I enter your pantheon room?"
"I'd rather not share that," said Vrekant, smiling unbothered by the request. "I need to get a proper door installed on that room. The open door frame is just too inviting; dragons sometimes wander in. But it's a very private room, you know. It's just between me and the land gods who I venerate."
Why do you have a statue of me?! Aleicree thought, frustrated by Vrekant's refusal to consider the topic. They'd gotten along at the academy, but there had to be a story here! It didn't seem like a story Aleicree would become privy to. If it was just between him and the land gods, zie couldn't very well say that zie had just happened to wander in.
It was weird. It was technically very good for Aleicree's health to be in someone else's pantheon room like this, and zie'd have been flying with the stars if this discovery had happened before Vrekant denied romantic interest, and... zie was staring at him. Abashed, zie looked at the table instead.
"You already looked," said Vrekant. "Let's talk about this tonight in private."
Azosta frowned at Vrekant. "You can't expect someone left alone all day to respect the sanctity of an open door frame."
Vrekant shrugged. "You're right, of course. I won't be harsh."
After they bid farewell to the farmergon for the night, Vrekant beckoned for Aleicree to follow him, and he led zir to the big room with the indoor fire pit under a central chimney. "Sooo," he started, turning to face Aleicree. "I bet you're wondering why I commissioned a statue of you."
"I didn't even look at the other ones," Aleicree said.
Vrekant recited, "Raddra the Baker, Professor Inkacha, Zoeskkel the Longfin, and Letasos the Golden, who is one of my parents." Raddra was the acquaintance of Aleicree's who had written back to zir recently. Professor Inkacha was one of the professors at the Griolor windmage academy. Zoeskkel was a name that Aleicree didn't recognize.
Aleicree tilted zir head. "Should I ask about them, too?"
"Please do."
Aleicree dug for a question, and asked, "Why only one of your parents?"
Vrekant sighed. "Because Kelend the Loud yelled at too many dragons while I was nearby. It's not that I want zir to die, mind you. I just don't have this kind of respect for zir."
Aleicree had another question in mind. "Who is Zoeskkel the Longfin?"
Vrekant tilted his head. "You don't remember him? He was in several of our classes, and he had very long fins."
"So you have statues to three of your friends from windmage academy, plus Professor Inkacha!" Aleicree saw the pattern now. "You really had a good time studying wind magic at school, didn't you?"
"I really did," said Vrekant with a nod. "And in your case specifically, I wanted your talent at wind magic to survive at sea. Being a seagon can be dangerous, you know. Rogue waves are real."
"They're a silly thing to worry about," said Aleicree. "They're the wrath of the sea gods. How often do passing ships upset the sea gods?"
Vrekant dipped his head. "Well," he said, "there are pirates and shoals, too."
"Most pirates have necromancers on board. Fate affects them very weakly. But, thank you for worrying that my ship might run aground on a shoal." Aleicree stepped in and touched noses with Vrekant, then dipped zir head under his and pushed upwards on his snout.
"W-well, you're welcome," said Vrekant, and Aleicree smiled to see that zie'd finally raised a blush from him.
They nuzzled a bit more. "That can't be all," zie murmured. "Vrekant, most of the academy trains to go to sea..."
"There were also fond memories and special extracurriculars..."
They kissed. It wasn't a long kiss, but neither was it just a peck. They stood by a dead fireplace in a big room and the air was warm with the last of summer. Aleicree thought their kiss couldn't mean very much, but that was okay for an awful lot of dragons. Their relationship was still special. Every respectable house had a pantheon room, but only one had a statue of Aleicree.