The coral fits in the palm of your hand. Textured as lace but hard as a rock. Veins runs through, intersecting its body making a five-point star. It’s heavy. Incredibly heavy, a gold bullion dumped onto your hand. It gives the royal Yleensa the power to remain immortal. A gift only to be received by the Good Spirit. A gift not to be found on one’s own. You must follow this coral, Fincher. You must follow this coral, Fincher.
“Wow Fincher. Yeh just had one of yeh visions or what yeh call them. Do yeh control that voice of yehs when yeh have one of them? Because it’s real spooky when yeh voice changes.”
Katasavana hates sleeping in her room alone so most nights she comes in to bother Fincher and tonight she has interrupted him painting one of the most important visions he has ever had about one of the only things he has yet to learn a lot about from Seer Oculo and that is the Coral of Life. Katasavana shoved her way through the door and unlocked it with that wild magic of hers and said a dozen different comments about the paints of the coral Fincher quickly shoved his bed over. “Don’t say a word about that painting,” he said. “Not a word but I’d like to have a pinch of that,” she said. “Why?” And she said, “Don’t know.”
And now Katasavana just witnessed another vision as it happened instead of barging in while Fincher painted the last one and the Good Spirit is refusing to let him rest tonight before Alessia’s big day by barraging visions nonstop which isn’t actually nonstop but usually they only come once a week if that or if someone asks but tonight has been far too many and he is taxed and too exhausted to explain in detail to Katasavana about the visions and voice changes because he has told her so many times before but her kind as children have the attention span of about two eye blinks so of course she’s forgotten.
Fincher grabs a pallet of pinks and reds and whites and greens and blacks and grays and a few brushes and walks past her as he mumbles, “The Good Spirit does as it will to its Seers. Goodnight and go to bed. Big day tomorrow.”
She sighs but sprints down the hallway to her room. “Thank you, thank you,” he whispers to himself. Fincher can’t ever paint well with Katasavana looming because her Helvede energy is unyielding and she doesn’t even know how powerful she is to the point that she could influence his own memories of the Good Spirit’s visions and she did that once as she hovered over him while he painted King Nafar’s childhood memory of weaving with his grandmother and she influenced the memory Fincher saw in his mind and next thing he knows the picture became a tangled ball of yarn with Nafar sitting on the ground with a kitten on his lap and King Nafar wasn’t happy but thankfully he understands her abilities and lack of skills to control them.
In fact, pretty sure she doesn’t even know she can do that yet since Katasavana only talks about lighting matches and candles and unlocking doors.
He’s perfected the sneak technique in this palace and it takes socks and the ability to find and stay within the shadows and careful steps paired with hushed breathing with no adrenaline rushes and no nerves. It gets Fincher to the bottom step, seven steps from Alessia’s room, without waking a soul.
Should he or shouldn’t he? Go to her room and plead just one more time for her to stay safe and stay here and stay near Fincher or let her make her own way? One paint down and two paints down and a dip of the brush while thoughts mingle with the picture the Good Spirit left in his mind just a few minutes and Katasavana eye blinks later and its bodies transform the stairs and the walls as it climbs and wraps and battles the Bad Spirit and it takes only a few hours to finish painting though deciding on what to do with Alessia distracts him nearly as bad as Katasavana can warp his memories. “At least the good spirit wins,” he says to himself before heading to the bottom and gathering the rest of his paints.
In the shadows staring at her door Fincher sets his tools against the wall and resigns himself to one more embarrassing rejection because it’s like he’s talked to a brick wall – she won’t receive any of Fincher’s words or his thoughts or his opinions at all and he can’t get her to see the falsity in her life or the lies and the deceit and the careful curating of her life and he can’t get her to see it just like he can’t get her to stop asking him about all the creatures in the world. Fincher’s heart wants to thud though he refuses to let it as he takes the first step towards her door but just as he does the doorknob twists and her door cracks open and he slides backwards into the darkness.
Alessia’s hair is the only motion telling of her moving through the dark while she stays far from any light. Fincher should tell her about that so she can be about as good as he is but now isn’t the time because she moves so quickly from the hallway to the parlor to the room he painted the other day of her pudgy aunt who isn’t so kind to the Seer he saw in the Good Spirit’s message. Keeps her in a cottage and coerces her with food. Yes food for when she’s a good little Seer and no food for when she’s a bad little Seer and to the elite Yleensa, you never know when you’re a bad little Seer until someone’s hand is swift to the cheek but Fincher’s been fortunate enough here.
“What a painting Fincher,” the Queen and King said. The aunt said nothing but her blank stare at the Seer in the cottage and a blink towards Fincher meant she knew exactly what he saw and that is the aunt sent that little Seer to live with the Good Spirit after the saggy-cheeked murderer didn’t like how the reading went and only her and Fincher and the soul of that girl and the Good Spirit know about it. But she can’t touch Fincher at least while he lives under Nafar’s rule but his hand is swift too just in another way.
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Alessia stands to the side, shadowed and secret and listens and so does he but he’s too far to make out much but the word, Coral, is distinct enough and the Good Spirit told him he must follow the Coral. Follow the coral, Fincher.
The air in the palace gets chilly at night and maybe it’s a bit of the darkness too, penetrating the pores on his arms but the Queen and Kings leave the room and Alessia makes her way back to her room but Fincher can’t because he has to follow the coral because the Good Spirit said so. The Coral of Life, Fincher, following it the Good Spirit said. But the sway of Alessia’s hair makes him want to follow and to confess all that’s on his heart like she’s not immortal and neither are her parents and that the Neresian Prince will take her to the depth’s of the abyss and Fincher can keep her safe but the Coral of Life Fincher, follow it the Good Spirit says so he does and traces the shadows of Alessia’s parents back to their room and waits and waits and closes his eyes because sometimes the Good Spirit continues to guide him if he asks and waits and thinks only of how to serve it.
“Set it here,” King Nafar says. “Right here.”
The Queen sighs. A heavy piece of metal tilts side to side, deep and gravid. Past Alessia’s room, up the stairs, one and two and three, and into his room where he shuts the door and leans against it because his nerves are lit and his breath is shallow and careful feet and quieted adrenaline will bring him to the bedroom of the Queen and King early tomorrow as Alessia prepares for her big day and while Fincher sneaks into their bedroom to steal the Coral of Life because that’s what the Good
Spirit said to do.
Is it actions or words that are chronicled for generations? If Fincher sifts through his notes on his desk while he waits for the third floor to wake and to do chores and ready the royals and prepares to take the Queen and King far from their chambers then Fincher might come to an answer but all he knows for sure is that he’s missing his notes about angels from Seer Oculo’s last four-hour long study session down in the wooden part of town where history has been recorded since the rebirth of the Yleensa and Seers.
Katasavana’s footsteps echo through the hall as her energy sends her running to the steps with a “Big day!” shout that surely would wake any final nobles in their beds because surely the staff has woken the royals and its time for Fincher to take the coral. No one bothers to mention his painting in the stair well and Alessia’s room is empty with the door wide open and the palace is charged with much more vigor than the emptiness of last night and the King and Queen’s chambers are empty though door shut.
A twist and a nudge and a slide into and a rush of blood to his feet because their they lay in their beds covered in the finest fibers the Island of Yleen can craft and eye covers over and blinds drawn and who knew who little the pair would care when their only child is to be given away as a bargaining chip but Fincher takes his stealth to the dresser where a lead bowel sit with a rounded bottom and a lace of white with a figure of a start sits so he takes it praying the bowel doesn’t sound off any alarms and it doesn’t but he moves towards the door silently and experienced and then the door opens to a servant man and stubs Fincher’s toes but he doesn’t dare make a noise but can’t hide his wide-eyed expression from the man before he nods his head and slips out the door between him and the jam.
And Fincher can’t quite believe he holds the heaviest coral in seas in his hands and he slips it under his shirt and holds himself as if he was ill and makes his way to his room where he finally lets the rush make his whole body tremble and shake and the thought of the coral before him is awestriking and what now?
So Fincher does what he does best and stashes it amongst his paints which is in truth a clever disguise because Fincher can transform paints into beautiful displays even while still in their bottles but a knock on his door and a stilled moment for him to gather his thoughts and even his will to leave the precious coral and open the door to King Nafar and before he can say a word his hand raises with the King’s insignia ring inwards and slap across Fincher’s face with enough force to make him stumble and that’s both of them too.
The Queen stands behind him and her stature makes it hard to see her but her crown is distinct with that gold and white diamonds at the tips and she says, “Nafar, that’s not what we’re hear for. Tell the poor boy what is on our minds.”
A pause and a stare that translates to, You’re lucky she is here, and a, “You were not authorized to paint the stairwell,” and a “You’ve never minded before,” from Fincher and then, “The Neresian King and prince has shared that you are trying to make our Alessia impure and convince her to renege on her proposal so it is a problem today.”
His cheek burns because most likely the ring punctured skin but the dull pulse in his cheek drains quickly at the realization that King Nafar isn’t here for the coral but the Queen says, “You must help Fincher understand the gravity of this situation for he cannot get in the way. I will have drinks with Alessia so she doesn’t wonder where you are,” and dainty fingers dressed in jewels turns her husband and a short kiss on the lips and now King Nafar can do as he wishes.
His finger shakes in Fincher’s face as he growls the words, “You will not be present at the proposal or I will feed you to Oculo’s will.” A pause and a moment and, “Understand? Men will be by to ensure you understand.”
Fincher dips his chin and waits for him to leave and then shuts his door and he moves his bed and stares at the paint version of what is hiding amongst his bottles and closes his eyes and waits for the Good Spirit but it does not answer his request so he takes his leather sack and wraps the coral in clothes and sets it inside and adds some paints and brushes and notes from Oculo’s lessons and heads for the door.
Fincher would run from the palace with the anger King Nafar displayed but he won’t because he’ll just walk briskly and make sure to pass by Alessia’s room but she’s gone so he ducks out the side door and although he’s sorrowful about the first part of the King’s threat, he’s terrified of the latter, so he makes it just a few blocks away but not too far because that’s what men like Kings expect. Expect that you’ll run far but not many people think you’ll just duck into the streets and walk calmly until a trinket store catches your eye.