24 | Minddreamer
Under the table, something flicks Eli in the leg.
Glancing down as discretely as possible, he finds Abner’s face grinning at him from the shadows beneath the table. Eli nearly smirks, but one of the newer nobles—Eli has yet to learn his name—is speaking to the group. This is not a meeting for warriors, and Eli is only here because of his rank. It is a great honor to be invited in on Queen’s council as he often is, he’s not going to make a scene.
How did the kid even get in? Again, he glances down and finds his son unbuckling the many shiny brass latches on his boots. He manages, just barely, not to roll his eyes.
Lyra is with her sister in one of the markets lining the docks of Monsetyra. It’s a rare thing they both have the opportunity to visit, Lyra with her weaving, and her sister a shepherdess out on the Isles. Abner is too young to be left alone and was supposed to be spending time with his uncle.
So much for that.
Quick as a snake, Eli traps the boy against the legs of the chair with his feet, managing not to let his expression crack. There’s silent shaking from the boy as he laughs and struggles on the marble floor against Eli’s undone boots.
Pulling something out of his pocket, he hands it up to his father. Eli unfolds the little scrap of paper—the boy is constantly doodling things, handing them over to his mother or father. He will be an artist, eventually, or a scientist, given his obsession with the diagrams of everything he draws, not just the art of it.
Eli finds himself looking at an odd little rendering of some sea creature he barely recognizes. It has a squishy, orb of a body and long tentacles from the bottom. Abner has given measurements. It is not very large but appears to drag things into its body with the little filaments of limbs. Eli wonders where the boy even found a diagram to replicate such a creature.
Even living on the shore of the Far Sea, he has never seen one of these oddities washed up on the sands.
Eli tucks it into his pocket—for these little scraps of paper are always given as gifts—and ruffles the boy’s hair, pretending to adjust his pant leg. He would not be in trouble, per se, if the boy was found under his chair, but the queen would not be particularly happy with him. Even with his rank being what it is, he tries to keep a low profile within this palace. He is happy with his position and prefers to learn the goings on of the place while involving himself as little as possible.
Abner undoes the rest of the buckles on his boots.
* * *
Eli is breathing cool air. Warm weight moves on his chest, not quite large enough to be concerning. Water laps at his leg, and he manages to open his eyes against thick unconsciousness.
Staring at the dim of the cavern roof they have fallen into, Eli frowns, grimaces, and lets out a harsh breath.
Elijah Jyce
the Reaper, the Unknown, the Elder
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23/23 Buds | 1/10 Roots | 2/5 Filaments
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Stems
Bladewielder (15), Minddreamer (1)
Eli is less interested in this than the fact his arm is killing him. It’s the same one he injured already. At this rate, he’s going to have a hell of a time getting these kids back to their father—
“Klia…” he croaks, suddenly remembering it all, still uncertain where he is.
It becomes clearer what the weight on his chest is, as he blinks and finds the girl lying atop him, crying quite little sobs. When he raises his head, she throws her arms about his neck. Exhausted, Eli drops his head back to the sandy floor of the cavern and puts his hand on her hair.
* * *
“Fascinating,” Eli mumbles, still half awake. Eyes barely open, he stares at the shimmering words while Klia remains curled on his chest, both of them drenched.
Elijah Jyce
the Reaper, the Unknown, the Elder
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23/23 Buds | 1/10 Roots | 2/5 Filaments
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Stems
Bladewielder (15), Minddreamer (2)
“Minddreamer,” he repeats.
Klia looks up at him, but there’s no recognition in her eyes. Carefully, she brushes some of the water from his beard. Well, I suppose she is no longer sour with me.
Minddreamer | 2 Petals
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Put aside each human fear, battle your wars with a mind so clear—
Eli snorts, then regrets it with a groan. It appears he must have hit either the water or the massive floating jelly rather harder than he realized. As if he was not afraid through all of that. Even after unconsciousness, his heart is still beating too fast, the telltale sign of fading panic cooling in his limbs.
His arm hurts.
Klia frowns at his broken laughter. He tells her, “I am too old for this.”
She puts her head back on his chest. Her weight is rather comforting and doesn’t cause him any extra pain. He rubs her back soothingly.
Yes, Abner is very much going to hear about all of this.
Eli wonders if this new stem is something he can actively harness. Bladewielder presents him with no options, it is simply part of him. He wonders if Minddreamer is something he can activate when he is frightened to clear his mind, or if it is more passive, always acting on him, always making him a little clearer. He concentrates on the shimmering word and is startled when it responds.
Minddreamer | 2 Petals
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Put aside each human fear, battle your wars with a mind so clear—
Once a day, you may decide to wield the bravery we so provide—
We? It is the way the old Order used to speak. No one quite knows the origins of where it came from, why it decided to gift these certain things to humans and other intelligent beings of their lands. Eli wonders if it is a relic of the old ways, or if it is not all so different as he believed.
Perhaps, it is not changed for good.
Once a day, he can use this new skill the Order has provided him. It does not indicate how long it lasts. It is nearly at its lowest point, so perhaps he can earn more by thinking through his battles as he once did. This is not the first time he had to strategize in these past days, and it was still done through the lease of panic, but the first true time since Klia helped him unlock his magic. Or perhaps the ordeal with the snake helped but did not quite unlock it.
“Klia?” he mumbles. “Is your magic of the night and dark? As your brother’s is of the light?”
She gives his uninjured wrist a squeeze. Whether it is a yes or she is only nervous, he does not know. Eventually, he will discover it, coax her into telling him. If nothing else, Thistle seems as if he may be more likely to explain, if this whole experience takes some of the rage toward Eli out of him, which it seems to have if his dream encounter was any indication.
Eventually, he knows he needs to sit and figure out where they are. He saw a tree before they hit the water, so perhaps there will be something better to eat than their—
My bag.
Groaning, cursing, and relieved Klia probably won’t repeat any of his foul language, Eli rolls the girl off him enough that he can sit up. Realizing what he’s doing, she scrambles to the dark of the sandy underground beach where they’ve found themselves and helps tug him up by his worn coat.
Taking a few moments to allow his head to stop spinning, he glances at his burning arm, not seeing much through the barest tears in the fabric. He isn’t in much of a terrible hurry to inspect it, and so puts it off by gazing about the space.
“Klia…” he mumbles. “Did you see where my bag fell? And yours?”
With a nod, she scrambles up and trots off a little way down the lapping water. She seems to have skinned her elbow and not much more. Rather shocking, considering the situation. The monsters wish very much to have the children in their grasp but do not harm them once they have them.
Strange.
Offhandedly, Eli wonders if it is Abner. If, because he was one of those who first took to distorting the Order, there is somehow something instilled in it to never harm Abner’s children.
Certainly, there is nothing in them preventing them from harming Abner’s father. Eli sighs.
One of the buckles on his boots has come unlatched in the scuffle. Tiredly, he locks it back into place.
Klia drags Eli’s bag down the shore, depositing it beside him and gazing down at it unhappily. Her own little backpack is clutched in her hand, and she pulls the drenched book out from it, looking at Eli as if he can dry it.
“Perhaps we can make a fire, we’ll work on drying it, as long as there is firewood to—”
The girl points over her shoulder, and Eli follows her finger. There is indeed a massive tree here as well. No sunlight filters in, and Eli cannot imagine how it lives down here. Perhaps the Order not only wishes to overgrow the sun but needs light not at all.
In fairer news, there are fallen branches about the base. Most of the trunk is bare, the shadow of branches at the top shimmering faintly with blue leaves. Pushing himself to his feet, Eli trudges up the black sand of the shore and toward the giant monster of a tree, tramping down a bit of grass here and there as he goes. Not much else is living, but circling the tree, Eli finds little bushes sprouted with some tiny orange berries he once used to eat while trampling through the southern mountains with his warriors in arms.
Eli nudges the bushes with his boot and a few dozen plump, overripe berries drop to the ground. The general rule he’s found after the Order changed: anything fallen from the plants is nearly as harmless as it once was. Firewood: safe to burn when dead. Animals: safe to harvest once dead. Mushrooms: safe to eat once dried or cooked. Fruits or vegetables or tubers: safe once they’ve fallen to the earth or are dug up in harvest.
Still, he puts only one in his mouth as an experiment, wincing at the familiar bitter-sweet of them, just as he remembers from decades back. Funny, that these have decided to grow here alongside the strange tree. They are common in high mountains, but Eli hasn’t seen them around his monastery.
They are far from his monastery now, he supposes.
“Klia,” he calls, giving it a few minutes to decide if any harm should come from the berries moments later. “Help your grandfather and find some firewood, won’t you? The driest you can.”
Even soaking wet and through a scare, the girl nods vigorously and scampers around the tree while Eli brings his pack and hers up to the base of the wide trunk as slowly and uncomfortably as he’s been in a good long while. It takes too many tries to get the fire started, but he does so. Such warmth has never been more welcome. They have no dry things to wear, so Klia takes off everything but the thin shift she first came in, and Eli kicks off his boots, socks, and coat.
Unfastening his shirt and shrugging it off his shoulders, he finds his arm not nearly as mangled as he expects. Strange, large welts wrap around his frail skin and thin muscles, but it hurts much worse than it appears. Drawing his hand across it, he winces but finds no blood. At least, there is nothing to become infected. He shall keep it clean regardless. He rids himself of the bandage on his sliced forearm—it needs to be washed and dried, and there is a scab enough for him to let the wound see air while he rests.
Scooting up next to him, Klia gazes at his arm with open concern, touching his hand.
“You know I was not trying to get us lost,” Eli mumbles, more for himself than the belief she’ll answer or understand. “I was trying to ensure we were not crushed. Not eaten by that thing. You understand?”
She nods, and curls up beside him with her head returned against his chest, over his heart where Abner’s necklace still rests.