The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Keiko, Lyric, Nizhentska, Tomomi, and assorted villagers

The others, those that chose not to follow Daxia and Morning Star, were lead into one of the stone buildings. There was a small anteroom, an actual vestibule, through which they were escorted. That lead to another larger room, this one lined with hooks and shelves. Many of these were already occupied by carefully set out cloaks and boots. Nizhentska shed her heavy outer cloak, hung her odd spectacles on the same hook and then kicked off one set of boots. That still left her with a heavy fur wrap, a pair of furlined smaller boots and heavy leather leggings. She shook out her hair, which was as fiery as Daxia's. Her eyes stood out for two reasons. One they were shadowed in black, as if she had painted herself with charcoal before leaving and because they were of different colors. Her left eye was blue, her right eye green.

"Leave stuff here."

She then pushed open the next door.

And they were assaulted by chatter, warmth, and light. Those with a good sense of place would realize they had been heading towards the mesa. Thus it was not surprising that they found themselves in a long carved hall. It was an unexpectantly magnificent space, exquisitely constructed. The walls were mirror-smooth, the floors were black and white marble tiles, and they were, of all things, warm. Of course, being a place of importance, there was a wide frieze running the full perimeter of the room, both illustrations of historical scenes and chains of runes. They shone in the lamplight, a subtle light shimmering, for they were cut into a honey marble and inlaid with gold.

A pair of hearths were set against each side wall, their fires making the room nice and comfy. Long tables of walnut and ebony ran down the center. This whole place was an anachronism. The finishings and furnishings were so different from the people who milled about on the first meal of their off-kilter day. There were quite a few; it was quite probable that there were enough people here, atop the world, to make this place mostly self-sufficient. But if it was, it was a hard life. They were garbed pragmatically, bundled in furs and wools, their conversations more mundane than would normally befit such a place.

Indeed, what was weird was as they entered, a small group armed with spears, bows, and a handful of white rabbits were heading out.

"Goin' fishin..." Nizhentska explained in her terse Jambles manner.

"Goin' fishin for bears."

On reaching the table, she stepped first on a long sitting bench and then right on the table.

"Hoi! Starwatcher's guests! Family. Only pester halfway to Night Sky."

Food was set for them, mostly by little'uns, while around them the conversation milled. In that manner, this place really was just another holdfast. People may live in very different locations, but in some ways, they were all the same. This was something very different than Lyric's small village. There, even the most simple of conversations was laced with dangerous trappings. The conflicts of court, the tangle of oaths and fealty. But here, in the mortal's world, it was just a reflection of day-to-day life: as if these were the things that really mattered and formal court dealings were things to be avoided.

"They came with... horses!"

"Glass Hall needs uncovering. Before next snowfall. Otherwise twice work."

"That one's pretty. Talk to Starwatcher. Mebbe handfast Stella's boy."

"Can we eat them?"

"Aha late. Worried. Hunt icewhales, sometimes icewhales hunt you."

"New meat is fresh meat. Makes Family strong."

"Little one gots whiskers! Whiskers! Is little one a whiskerfish? Mat says whiskerfish ain't real, just tellings!"

"No, not polite."

"Don't stare. Besides, what Mat say? World with White Sisters, anything possible."

"Golden hair, golden hair! Why can't we have golden hair? Not fair. We keep her?"

"Bah. Tired of bear."

They were served by the little ones, who looked up at the strangers as if they were something out of a morning bedtime story. They got a glower from Nizhentska to not be a bother. But when she thought no one was looking, she'd ruffle their hair when they did good. The first meal was a hearty stew — probably bear meat — accompanied by ice-cold kavass. Nizhentska sat rather unceremoniously on the edge of the table, holding her bowl in one hand as she wolfed down her meal. Those more polite could share a sturdy bench, just like everyone else.

"Eat up. Day just started.

"When warm can take you up to Clock."

"Unless want fish bear, hunt icewhale, look for whiskerfish. Not recommend last. Could take forever. Got to do something. At Watchtower, everyone works. Even if stupid work."

Tomomi replied, a little confused.

"Clock? Is that like candlemarks?"

Nizhentska tilted her head. It took her a moment to remember that something day-to-day mundane to her just might be new to a visitor.

"Nin. Nin. Nin. Not Candle. Clock. Metalwork up on world's crown, where one watches stars.

"World Clock."

She paused for a moment, looking at the others for a heartbeat.

"Dayala's Clock."

Her nose wrinkled.

"Stupid clock.

"I always get clobbered by bloody broken tablet.

"Hates me, it does."

Keiko khal’Nakano Hoshiko
[pronounced KAY-ko... do you think the GM has memorized this yet? Nope, not yet...]

As they followed Nizhentska into the building, Keiko couldn’t help but be amazed at the whole... well, village. It was nothing like anything she’d ever seen before, even beyond Kh’Lhy’Ra Pass. Of course, it was also true that she’d never been this high in the Black Mountains either. She had never been this far east. Her Family’s Caravan had only been almost as far as Gh’orre, which was still west of Snowgate Pass. Well, at least she thought it was... she was pretty sure it was.

Had any Rhoni ever been here before? Surely a lone Rhoni of some Family at some time must have been here.

But it didn’t seem like the stories made it out of the Highbeck Jambles.

The only reason she kept walking was that Tomomi’s hand was twined with her, and Tomomi kept walking, following Nizhentska.

Keiko wanted her pigments. Her fingers itched to put the colors and shapes and lines of this place onto little pieces of pasteboard so that others — people who had never been here, people who could never come here — could remember all of this with her.

Dayala’s Clock...?

Shouldn’t that be something she ought to know about? It seemed important.

Sitting between Lyric and Tomomi, she watched the youngsters going about their daily routine and the not-so-routine task of seeing to their guests. Nizhentska seemed like a big sister to all of them.

“Nizhentska, can you tell me the stories of this place? How many people live in this village? Are you all learning to be Starwatchers? What stories do your wall paintings tell? What do the marching lines of runes mean?”

Keiko paused to pick out a piece of meat from her bowl and chew carefully. The spices were interesting... different... tasty.

“How do you get vegetables and fruits? Do you have a way to grow them in the cold? Do many people come up here? Does anyone ever leave? Are you all Dayalans?”

Lyric

The Minstrel did not remove her cloak. She dropped the rucksack though, her armor and weapons secured inside. She hadn't been using her illusion magic since leaving the Vale and didn't have the comfort level to reveal herself. She kept herself close to Keiko and Tomomi, hodd drawn up to hide her more prominent Fey features.

Keiko asked all the good questions. Although it was unlikely Lyric was going to ask them herself, she certain;y did ponder then. This place was very old, and probably not constructed by these people in any of their own memories. These makes were probably a part of the stories of these people who dwelled here now and cared for things so very old.

And the oddity of that thought struck her, as she sat quietly with Keiko and Tomomi nearby her on the bench. Were her friends responsible for watching after her, because she was more ancient than this place?

The conversation of the young ones and even others was hard to follow. Theit language was almost like a shorthand version of the language she was not yet a master of in the first place. Lyric could neither read nor write in this Colonial common tongue and some times this was a challenge for her... but here, in this place, it was even harder to follow. Nizhentska skipped words, important words that connected thoughts. All of them did.

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Keiko, Lyric, Nizhentska, and Tomomi

"Gah!"

That sharp expletive was Nizhentska's initial response to Keiko's query.

"Not you too! Grandmother makes Niz memorize all stories, then tell back! Why? Makes no sense. She already knows stories, or how could she tell me!

"Sometimes Niz thinks Grandmother Starwatcher is daft."

She took a deep, deep breath, looked at her bear stew, and took a big helping as if to steel herself to an inescapable task.

"Fine, fine, fine!

"All of us live here! Yes, all of us, here at top of world. Of course, we do, those who look to night sky and extend their hand upwards, trying to touch, trying to reach, trying to feel in one's heart the magic that is our home. More than handful, more than fullhand of fullhand of fullhands. We are not just simple village on the edge of the Jambles, we are the Snow People. There there are enough of us that if rest of world were to fade away, we would live on.

"And being the Snow People, how could we not know nature of our lives? Bears to fish, rabbits as bait. We know if you place pane of glass between Her light and one's bed, no matter how cold outside, your room will be warm. Thus, we have Great Glass Hall as our highest holdfast. There waters of our Well feed earth collected from bottom of crevasses and in Her warmth we can grow breakfast you eat now, give life to snow spices and walk about without furs and boots.

"As for visitors?"

Swinging her feet as she sat at the edge of the table, Nizhentska placed a finger on her chin.

"Trade yes, visitors no. Unless count unicorns. You can count black ones but counting white ones is like trying to name snowflakes in blizzard.

"Starwatchers can look to stars, and they will tell whether or not to expect visitors, but they not ever tell who.

"We trade fur and meat for seeds and cloth, mostly. Glass Rooms are wondrous, but not big enough for flax.

"And are we all Starwatchers?

"Of course not!"

She considered that again.

"Someone must feed Grandmother and her apprentices! So have hunters, fur makers, folks to look after children, folks to make our tools, folks who work gardens beneath glass and folks to make glass. Unless, of course, you are youngest Granddaughter. Then you must listen to stories every single night, be able to point out stars and their names — not to do Dayala's work or talk to them, but to remember their stories, so they do not go forgotten. And to get this, get that, here carry my books, get clobbered by broken clock."

She then leaned forward as if to share a secret.

"Tell you a story about this place?

"Tell you the most important Story we all have.

"My mat was softest, kindest of us. She made best little pastries and then sprinkled them with cinnamon. Always, always, no matter if I was child or all grown-up like am now there would be basket of them waiting for me when I got home.

"I don’t know if they really were best snikkers in world. They were for me. Because one bite, and if I closed eyes, I could taste love.

"We lost Mat in Great Horse Ice."

Closing her eyes, Nizhentska was silent for a heartbeat. But when she opened them, her eyes were bright and sparkling.

"But now you know.

"Even if it's little tidbit, my Mat now also lives in you.

"Only kind of immortality that matters."

From all about them, there came a sniff followed by smiles. It seemed that once their escort had begun talking, they had become surrounded by the village's children.

"The stories, the runes?"

That became a cue for her to stand upon the table, to sweep her hands in a great circle as if to call forth the carvings from the wall.

"Where were you before you came here? What is the one thing you need to be able to go anywhere? What is the one thing no journey cannot exist without, be that journey from one hall to the next, to the farthest reaches of the ice fields, or a journey between now and me catching you trying to steal my stew? I see that, you scoundrel! Wait! Just because I see you, I am not giving you permission! Gah!"

There was much giggling.

"But back to... yes, the one thing every story needs.

"A beginning.

"And here, here in these halls and all those that wrap around the First Well, are the stories that are the beginning of everything."

If that was true, was it possible that this place was older than even Lyric? Turning slowly, Nizhentska indicated a particular section of the frieze with a sweep of one hand.

"We teach our children not to disturb a sleeping bear. Bears are big and dangerous, and they will swallow... swallow.. swallow..."

Suddenly she spun and pointed at one of the children.

"...swallow YOU, Little Hawk, in one single bear-y gulp!

"But it is also a story that is older than time.

"There, that splash of darkness, that form without form, that darkness has a name. A name as dark and vile, the wind that makes the glaciers shatter — Balhut. One of those without form, kin to Our Lady and the world shaker. Do you know why we teach not to covet the things of others? That while you may admire someone's bear-poker and you may even ask to borrow it, you should never feel bad that they have it and you do not?

"Because that makes you Balhut's child.

"See there the mountain tall?

"See there, the mountain with eyes so wise, so strong, so sure, so quiet, so confident, everything that Balhut could not be?

"How could you not want to be that?

"There, teeth and fangs, claws and talons, see here and there the sundering of the very Foundations of the World.

"See there... see there... covered in red fire drying to black, eating a world's heart, claiming the very form of Those-Who-Are-Here-Always."

Tomomi just stood there, her eyes wider than saucers.

"Balhut triumphant."

Nizhentska became silent, her eyes narrowing. She looked to the children, she caught the gaze of her wards — Lyric, Bekkah, Keiko, and Tomomi — one at a time.

"But like all things stolen in the name of jealousy, that triumph, while before time, was short-lived.

"Balhut had kicked the sleeping bear.

"When the world shattered, Balhut had chosen what side They would take.

"Thus, when Time found her, Balhut discovered not what it meant to be immortal, but what it meant not to be able to die."

She leaned forward, whispering darkly.

"Somewhere that Lord of Chaos is still, is still dying, is still dying with each turn of the Clock's tablets."

A pause.

"Do you want to join her?"

"EEEEEK!"

The squeak came from both the kids and the Mouse. Then the children shook themselves out of their story shock and started to bounce up and down.

"Another!"

Again, Nizhentska choked.

"Gah!"

The children, as one, explained.

"Oh! We love when Niz tells stories!

"She makes them not boring!"

Bekkah

She listened attentively as Nizhentska wove her story. She was good at it and despite the earlier complaints, she clearly enjoyed telling stories.

Bekkah looked at the children around her and gave them a comforting smile, laying a hand on the nearest of them.

She was not an innately curious person. At least not in the way a storyteller could satisfy. Bekkah was more of the curious type who would go and experience the story for herself if possible, so she remained silent, waiting to see if Nizhentska would tell another story or if Keiko or Lyric would ask more questions.

Lyric

The Fey Minstrel sat quietly through the telling. It was hard for her to follow the clipped language, but she listened intently. She looked to the frieze. At the end of the story, where Nizhentska elicited a response from her charges, Lyric stood, stepping over and around all the young ones, to stand before the frieze. She stepped along the length of it a couple paces, trying to get a closer look, hoping for more clarity in the artwork.

When the world shattered

Balhut?

Lord of Chaos?

She continued along the length of the ancient artwork

story that is older than time

...like all things stolen

She wanted to reach out and touch it.

Only kind of immortality that matters

...but what it meant not to be able to die

The sarsen stones, the Iron Silver menhirs, and a Broken Clock

Am I Balhut's child?

Lyric drew back her cowled hood, letting it slip to her shoulders.



"Am I Balhut's child?," she repeated, this time aloud.

Keiko khal’Nakano Hoshiko
[pronounced KAY-ko... do you think the GM has memorized this yet? Nope, not yet...]

Keiko ducked her head and chuckled at Nizhentska’s reaction.

“But how is Grandmother Starwatcher to know you have remembered all the stories correctly?”

She looked up and smiled at the young woman.

“My elders do the same to me.”

The Rhoni simply blinked at the comment about unicorns. That was an interesting tidbit of information!

And so, so, so many Snow People... and so much more than she ever imagined.

“Mat of the Snow People will be remembered by the Rhoni. We are very good at remembering.” Her violet eyes twinkled with merriment. “But not as good as I used to think... we didn’t remember the Snow People.”

...what it meant not to be able to die...

Keiko shuddered. That was said to be a favorite torture of the Eastern Princes. And Daxia’s tale of the Priestesses of the Temple was an echo of Balhut’s fate — Chaos Lords and the Easterners...

She tried to hide her smile at Tomomi’s and the children’s reactions to Nizhentska’s story — she was every bit as good at telling a tale as Keiko’s uncle was!

She followed Lyric’s path to the frieze with her eyes, an arm draped over Tomomi’s shoulder. Then she looked from her friend to the Dayalan Storyteller... back and forth, three, four, a handful of times. Finally, she shook her head.

“Our stories, the Rhoni Lore, say that all people were born from the Shattering. Some stood beside the Lady Dayala. Others stood at the side of the Chaos Lords.

“The Rhoni chose to ride the waves between Order and Chaos.

“The Fae chose to remove themselves from Time.”

Keiko beckoned Lyric to rejoin her and Tomomi and Bekkah.

“Our Lore says you — the Fae — are our Ancestors. If you are Balhut’s child, then I must be, as well.

“But I am not Balhut’s child... I live in Balance, not Chaos.

“And, Friend Lyric, how can you say you are like the Jealous One, the One Who Stole the Dragon’s Form? You seek to learn about a world you abandoned Ages ago. Rather than coveting what others in the World have, you strive to find a way to show your people how to return to the World.”

She smiled at Nizhentska.

“Lyric is Lyric is Lyric.

“My friend Lyric is sometimes silly. And sometimes she forgets to let joy into her heart. It’s okay. Tomomi and I... Ladies Bekkah and Daxia... Dama Kisa and Dama Eleni... we are trying to remind her.”

Keiko turned and held out a hand to Lyric.

“You and your People aren’t immortal because you stepped out of Time, my friend. Well, maybe a little. Mostly, you and your People are immortal because we never forgot you.”

Lyric

Eyes, sad and misty, shifted to regard her 'friends'. Just that word alone, friend, and the gift to know she had friends, was enough to bring a smile to her face and... remember to let joy into her heart. She turned a little, enough to kiss Tomomi on top of her head. And then hugged Keiko.

"I think my people broke the clock," she said. "Do you remember the story I told at Snowgate Pass? The one where I told you how I was hunted because I was different, because I wanted to see a world that was alive, to find a way to give my people a new hope and a life worth living... The place I almost died, where I no longer hand the strength to run any further? Those pillars were Sarsen Stones... a ring of standing stones. There are several, maybe many all around our lands... As soon as I saw the clock, among those pillars of silver... I felt like I understood a story I once heard as a child, never spoken of among those of the Court... The Magic that it took to move to a world outside of Order and Chaos... that magic was stolen and it took the most powerful mages of our kind to wield it. Some say that many of them died, others whisper that all of them died... I don' know... I was a child, like these young ones gathered here. There were no more children born among my kind after we moved. My only memories of the world before... was the Great Forest of the World, my home... I was so young, so little... It is only a fragment of a memory now, but I refuse to let it go."

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Keiko, Lyric, Nizhentska, Tomomi, and various Snow People

Nizhentska would have answered Lyric, but she didn't have to. She did smile as Keiko did that for her, actually turning back to her younger wards for that moment. To her, it was an obvious answer. She did, however, reassure the young one when they looked toward Lyric with no little amount of worry.

"Nin, nin, nin. Nothing fear, ja? If was one of Balhut's kin, they wouldn't be worried. Would revel, not care, not think, even... if kicked bear or not."

And things may have even gone unnoticed, not even the appearance of strange horns garnering a second look. Strangers were Strangers. They were not Snow People. That was what mattered. Until Keiko spoke a single syllable.

"Fae."

Her word was echoed. It was echoed low and long and dark. One word, one breath, and for a heartbeat, the room was silent, silent until the whispers suddenly started to blizzard through the room.

"Fae?"

"She's a Fae? Oh nin, oh nin, oh nin..."

"Ut oh."

"Get away, get away, get away!"

"Move! I'm hiding here!"

"What's a Fae?"

"Nin, nin, nin, nin, nin, this is not going to end well."

Like the waves created when a big rock was dropped into a pond, the Snow Folk backed away, fled, dove under the table, or skittered to find someone either bigger or wearing bulkier clothing than they happened to be.

"She's in troooooooooooouuuuuuuuuble now!"

Suddenly, there was a clear circle in the room. Inside its circumference was Lyric, Tomomi, and Keiko... and a handful of children, their eyes wide, absolutely fascinated, as if they just could not wait to see what happened next.

"Fae?"

Again, that one syllable was darkly repeated. But, interestingly enough, Lyric the Fae was not the center of the circle.

"Fae!"

Slowly Nizhentska turned. It was as if something in her brain had snapped. Hatred, pent-up emotion of years suffering swelled up within the Snow People's storyteller. Across the tabletop she walked. Slowly she turned, step by step, reaching down to snare bits of breakfast as she did.

"Nin! Not THINK! DID! You BROKE THE THRICE DAMMNED BLOODY CLOCK!"

She tossed a muffin at Lyric. Hard. It missed and bounced off the frieze.

"No idea what did? Ja? JA!"

A piece of bread flew towards the minstrel. Bread, not being very aerodynamic, fluttered to the ground after a foot or two.

"Oh. Oh. Oh. Let me tell story."

To emphasize her words Nizhentska sent something covered with syrup at Lyric. It missed, hit the wall and stuck there.

"Listen to the story every one here knows. Oh ja, oh ja, don't you think I hear laughing when the chirurgeons come out, to drag certain fair, beautiful, tender young lass back to beds. Having done nothing to deserve fate. Especially you, Snowhare! Laugh like icicles breaking in wind!"

One of the children, a girl, giggled. Niz was right.

"Not once, not twice, nit thrice — every single time Great and Wise Starwatcher summons! Hear tale not of luck, not destiny, but premeditated viciousness, of evilness ring of stone, dark side of Dayala's Clock!

"Ask not for whom the Clock tolls, know it tolls for Nizhentska the Innocent!"

She tried to throw another muffin at Lyric. It almost hit Tomomi.

"SQUEAK!"

Nizhentska narrowed her eyes.

"Even muffins, traitors!"

She focused her dark gaze on Lyric.

"Do you know what done? Not once. Not twice. Not thrice. Every time. The Fae Stone. The Fae Stone that's been broken since the Shattering. The Fae stone that's been still, mostly, night, day, motion shattered when YOU PEOPLE decide run away from Time and BROKE HER CLOCK! It sits, frozen, still. That Time stopped. Unmovable object.

"Until Niz step into Clock."

Another crumpet missile was launched. It landed in a bowl of stew.

"Not matter — next to it, other side. Try be sneaky. Try running fast. Try run and stop. NEVER WORKS. Fae Stone breaks loose and faster than white dartling circles clock, always longest, fastest, hurtest way, only stopping when...

"When Nizhentska goes flying off Clock, land in snow far, far below. When Nizhentska wakes up in hospice bed, chirurgeon asking if one or two fingers. Usually four, five. When Nizhentska bashed into ironsilver stone, to slide down because somethings always broke. When Nizhentska carried round ring like riding back of angry bear and then tossed off to tumble-tumble. Once Nizhentska hit unicorn. HORNS HURT!"

She then stopped as one of the children tugged on her cloak. The child whispered a few words that got wide eyes, pink cheeks, and a hastily tossed heel of bread.

"We do not speak of that! Ever!"

Her voice dropped to a whisper.

"I refuse. Not true. Never knocked out of furs."

She swung back and looked at Lyric, hands on her hips.

"Then, after, of course, stops.

"Until next time.

"It's all your fault!"

Keiko khal’Nakano Hoshiko
[pronounced KAY-ko... do you think the GM has memorized this yet? Nope, not yet...]

The Rhoni listened to the Storyteller’s tale, running back along the words to fill in words Nizhentska skipped. She certainly understood the gist of the story.

And when Niz stopped and looked at Lyric, Keiko frowned. Her brows lowered. She took one deep breath, and then said...

“NIN!”

Then the diminutive Rhoni marched over to the table, stepped up on the bench... stepped up on the table, and faced Nizhentska with her hands on her hips. She wasn’t nose to nose with the Dayalan only because the Dayalan was taller.

“Nin, nin, nin, nin!

“I am Rhoni. Rhoni are blamed for everything. We hardly ever do any of the things Gaija blame on us. *I* never do the things Gaija blame on me.

“Nin, nin, nin! Maybe Lyric’s elders broke your foolish clock. But don’t blame my friend for something she did not do. Go find the silly court people of the Fae and blame them!”

Keiko stared at Niz for a handful of heartbeats and then pointed a single finger at the Storyteller.

“I will Read the Cards for you.”

It sounded like a threat.

Bekkah

She was completely taken by surprise by Nin's reaction. Then Keiko stepped forward. She decided to let things play out with Keiko first, but she stepped next to Lyric. Perhaps Nin would be less likely to throw anything harmful at Lyric if she might hit the priestess.

Lyric

The Minstrel was caught off-guard to hear the whispered word and she turned to watch the children withdrawing from her. Was that fear? fear of her? or fear of...

Lyric looked up from them to Niz, stalking forward from atop the long table. She had a considerable height advantage and malice in her eyes. Lyric took a half step back herself. fear of Niz? Lyric flinched at the first errant piece of food thrown at her. The woman's anguish and anger were palpable and wholly focused on Lyric. She could feel it in her spirit. Lyric held her ground after that, hoping the objects being thrown would hit her. Not that she deserved it in and of herself. She didn't. But a representative of her people, in the face of this woman's anger and pain, it could have served some purpose in allowing her the satisfaction of venting her emotions. If Nin truly wanted to hurt her or anyone, she could. There were plenty of solid objects, sharp ones too, that she could wield and throw. And, if Lyric didn't want to be struck, Nin would never be able to touch her. But, what would any of that accomplish. Lyric only used that magic for battle and that was an aspect of her that she did not much care for at all. When it was needed, she use it. When a friend's life was in danger... when the Pack faced overwhelming odds with a greater mission hanging on their success at keeping the Dwarves from reaching the next room... When the Pack committed itself to a sacrifice because there was no way to turn the Dwarves back, but only delay them.... When the Pack accepted that the greater good of giving their lives so that others of their kind might see just one sunrise and one sunset outweighed their own desires to live... Lyric chose to change fate. Lyric used THAT magic because she had friends who believed in her, trusted her, and even loved her. She had never felt these emotions. If she had, she had forgotten them a long time ago.

She would use that magic again for the lives of any of her friends now... But never to avoid the consequences of things she deserved to face, or things her people deserved to face. So she stood her ground and listened to the story and accepted the woman's anger and her ill-aimed wrath.

It hurt to feel the anger though. There was no way to take any of the 'crimes' back. The Fae had done a terrible thing out of their own selfishness and fear and defiance... or whatever it was that caused her elders to steal a magic that wasn't there own. They had become the monsters out of nightmares, reinforced by arrogance in the belief that their Immortality made them superior, better than, above others, with the right to do as they pleased with any one and any thing that was not them. And sometimes to do it with those that were them...

Keiko slipped from her side and boldly confronted the Snow Folk Storyteller. Lyric tried to reach out to stop her. But there were few things that could stop keiko when she decided to do something. Bekkah then stepped up beside her to fill the void. The Priestess was usually so quiet and introspective, an observe of the world, that it surprised her a little. Not because Bekkah didn't care, she certainly did. But that she recognized that Lyric needed reassurance that she wasn't the sum of all evil right now. She let the outstretched hand fall a ways and then she offered it for bekkah to take in her own. With her other hand she reached for Tomomi's little Mouseness hand.

(OOC: I will hold here so as not to muddy the waters with more voices)

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Keiko, Lyric, Nizhentska, Tomomi, and various villagers

"Nin!"

Nizhentska pointed a hand at Keiko, a hand that held a deadly missile. Fine. Her hand had half of a torn hunk of bread in it. She then pointed it at Lyric.

"Ja!"

And back to Keiko.

"Nin!"

And again.

"Ja!"

And again!

"Nin!

"Ja!

"Nin!

"Ja!

"Nin!

"Nin!

"Nin?

"GAH!"

Having gotten tangled in her own frustration, exasperation, and the need to do something, anything, the clock-battered Snow Person stomped her foot on the table and threw up her arms, sending a cascade of breakfast pastries everywhere. In the end... in the end, she refocused her attention upon Keiko.

"Oh nin, oh nin, don't play warrior morning's light! Not Rhoni fault! Nin! Rhoni time good time. Well-behaved time. Marked time. Tick Tock Tick! Space between, where ponies run, may not be same time, but still time, still ordered, still make sense. Currents flow, ride waves here and there, but waves not come out of ocean to beat on poor innocent storytellers.

"Think! If not, how could Cards work? Everything becomes Everything and thus...

"...nothing."

Spinning on her heel, Nizhentska returned her attention back to Lyric.

"SAY SOMETHING!

"Gah!

"Run away. Fine. Run. Run. Run. Turn back on Shattering. Turn back on everyone. Solve riddle, yes? Live forever, not turn into snail? Not change you. Not change world. Just. Stop. Time.

"But Time cannot truly stop.

"How I know?

"Stupid Fae Stone hates me!"

Standing next to Lyric, Tomomi squeezed back when her hand was held. Her head was tilted, quiet, considering.

"The nicest thing about Soft, Lyric's pack-mate?

"When things go badly for you, you can yell and yell and yell and cry.

"Soft is always Soft."

Closing her eye, Nizhentska wrapped her arms about herself.

"I have nothing to ask Cards. Do not need Cards to know what happens when I try to go into Clock.

"Future comes. Time moves on. Why spoil surprise?"

Slowly though, the village storyteller opens her eyes.

"Time moves on."

It was Bekkah she said that too — Bekkah the Priestess.

"You feel it, ja?

And with that, she nodded to Lyric.

Bekkah

"Indeed it does. Far too quickly it seems." she said with a sad look in her blue eyes.

Lyric

Through Niz's fury and anger and hurt and fear, yes, fear, there were clues. Important droplets of rain in the mist and drizzle of emotion. An important question that Niz kept asking without ever getting an answer it seems, was why the clock does what the clock does when she comes near. Not out of hate. Perhaps the more focused question is 'Why dos it move when Nin comes near it?' Lyric had a thought, small, flickering, unsubstantiated and ill-informed... but a thought nonetheless.

Niz implored her to speak. Tomomi comforted Lyric. Bekkah comforted Niz. But speak Lyric must.

"I have no answers Niz... only questions. I have NOT come so far from my own home to break the world anymore than it already is. I want to save my world, my people. I am starting to believe that to save my people I must fix your world..."

As if those words weren't beyond arrogance, Lyric had no idea how she could ever hope to accomplish even the slightest change in destiny and fate.

Lyric let slip Tomomi's paw/hand and took a few steps closer to the table and was now well within Niz's errant range of biscuit fire. She opened her arms, invitingly. "Please step down and allow me to speak my apologies to you and hug you and let you feel the sincerity of my words. While I may be the embodiment of the fears and nightmares of this world, I am not, and never have been a breaker of worlds."

Lyric gestured again, taking another step.

"Please, step down from the table... I am both a child, as young and innocent as these, and also a fearsome creature of nearly three thousand of your years. Trapped in a nearly timeless shadow of the real world and dragged along because nothing can ever truly stop the inexorable pull of Time itself. I do understand that time moves on Niz. I do. Because if it didn't I would never have a care nor fear for the future, nor a longing for that which I barely remember, nor a hope for the future where life and death and love and loss have any real meaning beyond the charade and pantomime that they have become. Yes, Niz... Time marches on. I feel it. I have always felt it. A pain in my heart and soul crying out for me to summon the courage to scream out loud that I must do something about it... Time marches on, because it was only after Time took everything away from me, everything I have clung to as familiar, no matter how harmful it actually was... that I was forced to take a step forward WITH Time. I am here, in front of you now, on this journey because Time has brought me here. It has given me friends to comfort me, protect me, and reason to care for someone other than myself, to understand the truth of emotions I could only pretend to have before, to bring forth a fire in these nearly dormant feelings and make them real again. Friends to cherish, when in all fairness they should fear my cruel and indifferent kind, and shun me. Time has not chosen to explain the reasons why, nor gifted me with a the purpose of how... It has just found a way to place me where I have always wanted and needed to be."

She gestured again for Niz to step down and embrace her.

"Come... please. Feel that I am real and genuine in my hopes and desires. Give me a chance to prove that I am more than what you expect and less than what you hate. Give me a chance to surrender my own guilt over the anguish and pain you and so many others feel because of the terrible cruelty and selfishness that broke the clock in the first place. Please?"

Keiko khal’Nakano Hoshiko
[pronounced KAY-ko... do you think the GM has memorized this yet? Nope, not yet...]

Keiko looked at Friend Lyric as she spoke her heart. Then she looked at Niz and nodded.

“Nizhentska of the Snow People, I would like to tell your story to the Rhoni as the woman who joined hands with a Fae to heal two worlds.”

Not one to hold onto her ire for very long, she smiled at the Storyteller before hopping down from the table to stand beside Lyric.

“I think yours will be a very interesting story, Niz. And perhaps you will find that the Cards have something new to say.”

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Keiko, Lyric, Nizhentska, Tomomi, and various villagers

Nizhentska started at the beginning — or, at the least, the beginning of this serving of the Village's most interesting first meal in a very, very long time. She simply gave Bekkah a wide-eyed look, which then narrowed before becoming wide-eyed once more.

"Nin, nin, nin, nin! This not about you! You are happy, bright, and all is right in world — ray of sunshine on blustery day!

"Don't you feel that about... about... about her! The minstrel! The Fair Folk!"

Again her attention fell on Lyric, looking across at the Fair Folk. Her head tilted — it seemed to be a habit of certain members of the Snow People — and blinked again and again as she listened to the blizzard of words that swept her way. But she was used to blizzards here, and she was the Village storyteller, so listening to tales was second nature to the younger woman. She did, however, take not one but two steps back.

"Promise?

"Promise on Stars and Snowflakes and Whiskersharks and cup of ice-cold kavass? Promise with Pinkies against Thousand Needles of Snowfang's Ironsilver Icicles?"

The look Nizhentska gave Lyric was hesitant and reluctant until she was suddenly interrupted by one of her shorter wards.

"Clobber Nizzy?

"Just like the broke tablet? Here! Here! Here! Need this, da, da, da?"

The young lad — at least he appeared to be a young lad, the kids looked all alike beneath their heavy glacier furs — offered Lyric a large wooden bowl.

"Now Fae-Girl-with-Horns can clobber Nizzy! Yea!"

It was perhaps the oddest reaction that any Fae had ever gotten for stepping out into the Mortal Realms. Niz had a very different one. Their guide looked down at her short quisling, pointing at him as she barked out a sudden exclamation.

"Josefi Black-eyes!

"Don't encourage her!"

He looked crestfallen.

"Aw. Never let me have any fun."

Placing her hand over her face Nizhentska, stepped nimbly off the table. She did so with a single extremely over-dramatic stiff-legged marching step, like someone who had been sentenced to walking off the edge of the Clock's outcropping to fall into the snowdrifts below.

"Stupid clock.

"How can Niz say no?

"Can't.

"So."

So Nizhentska let Lyric hug her.

Lyric

Lyric cocked her head, eyes wide as Josefi offered a hopeful option. She shook her head and was about to respond with an emphatic negative statement, and maybe even a declarative expression of surprise at the notion of herself clobbering Nishentska, when Niz, herself, reprimanded the boy. She kept her mouth shut and her thoughts to herself for the moment as the caretaker of the children stepped down from the table. Lyric advanced the few steps to meet Niz and offered the embrace. She allowed Niz to make the final step, to enter into the embrace. Lyric's short stature was in a bit of a contrast to Nizhentska, but the Fey woman was determined not to let that be a hindrance.

"Thank you for taking a chance... a risk... It gives me hope, you give me hope."

When the embrace ran it's natural course, and Lyric's own unfamiliarity and discomfort with expressions of physical affection had reached it's peak, Lyric released her hold and stepped back. Her eyes fell to Josefi again, and then a couple of the other children. Everwhere she had travelled since crossing fromthe Fey realms, she had seen children, interacted with them, and been enraptured by them. Bluebell, the waif in the Bordertown... town... city... Babies in the arms of their mothers in market outside Snowgate Keep... and the children playing in Waverider's Reach. But here was a chance to actually interact and do so as herself, free of illusions and fears.

She knelt down where she was standing, upon one knee, so that she was one eye level with the child. She tapped one of her horns with a mischievous smile.

"Do you want to touch them, they're real..."

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Keiko, Lyric, Nizhentska, Tomomi, and various villagers

Bekkah's silence made their escort wrinkle her nose. She had asked a question, explained it when the Priestess took it to the wrong destination, and then there was nothing. Not that there was much time given to ask it a second time — at least not yet — before she had answered the Minstrel.

Hugging anyone here was an awkward thing, not so much because of height but because of furs and the clumsiness of bulky glacier clothing. It took Nizhentska a handful of heartbeats and a suspicious look this way and that - as if she genuinely thought that the metal tablet just might come sailing through the doorways - before she returned the embrace.

"Da. Da. Bah. How can you stay mad at nice folks? If folks not forgive, soon, place like here? No one talks to no one. That's just plain walk on sunny day without eyeshades stupid."

Shaking out her furs when she stepped back, she watched as Lyric turned to the children. It was interesting in that there was a protective component in that gaze, like a momma snowbear watching her cubs play with another critter, know everything would be fine. Until it wasn't fine. If that happened. Josefi, however, had a very different response.

"Can I?

"Yes!"

And with that, he stood on tiptoes and grabbed both of Lyric's horns.

"Snow and stars!"

His head tilted, and then he pushed one horn down and the other up and then one forward and the other back.

"Can we steer you? Just like snow sled!"

Behind the two, Nizhentska ducked her head and placed her hand over her features. Josefi — without letting go — slowly turned, looking directly at Tomomi.

"Are whiskers real too? Can I see? Please please please!"

Tomomi obviously had a very different feeling than Lyric, when it came to being tugged.

"SQUEAK!"

And with that, with a mouse-hop, she was suddenly hiding behind Keiko, seeking protection. Josefi blinked — once, then twice, before he looked up at Lyric with wide eyes.

"You do that too?"

Bekkah

She watched Lyric interact with the child. It made her smile. Something about the innocence of children. She laughed out loud when Josefi turned his attention to Tomomi.

"I think our little friend here is a bit shy. Better to leave her alone."

Lyric

Lyric shook her head slowly after the question about Mouse Hopping.

"Now, I want you to hold on very tight," Lyric said softly to the boy, whose face was directly in front of her own. "Hold on... Don't let go."

Josefi's questions about steering her, or the sudden new fascination with Tomomi, who wisely opted to remove herself from the 'fray', went unanswered for the moment. Lyric began to stand, using her thighs to push her self upward, with back straighter that usual, and lift the boy off of the floor. It seemed like a fun thing to do with him. He was adventurous and daring. Still, she cradled her arms beneath him, not touching but ready if his grip should falter.

Lyric wasn't very tall, and so the fally wouldn't be that dangerous regardless, but she was still prepared.

She tipped her head forward a little and she could feel his weight straining her neck, but it kept him hanging with just a little bit of dangle.

"Okay, try steering me like a sled," Lyric said, waiting and prepared for him to lose his grip. Maybe he wouldn't, but if he did...

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Keiko, Lyric, Nizhentska, Tomomi, and various villagers

"Josefi, no breaking Goat-Lady."

Josefi looked over Lyric's shoulder and made a face at Nizhentska and stuck out his tongue. Nizhentska put her hands on her hips.

"Will tell your Mat and Fa."

His eyes narrowed, and the look he gave his warden was a very definite ‘this means war’ look, for a little kid. Luckily, for now, while everyone else could see the showdown building, Lyric could not. He leaned back and gave this visiter to his Village the most innocent of smiles.

"Yea!"

And as he spoke, he took up Lyrics' offer.

And steered the Minstrel straight for Nizzy.

Lyric

His weight, despite holding her head down slightly, afforded Josefi almost no leverage. Nor could he actually make her walk anywhere at his behest. She laughed and decided to play along. He was precocious. That was a word that had long been used to describe herself among a clann of people that still regarded her as a child even after nearly 3000 years. But then again, the word Child had lost all actual meaning to the Fae. There were none. No children, no babies... none. Lyric and a few others were among the last of the children born to the Fae before they shifted to Faerie.

Step by staggering step, Lyric made the halting journey to Niz at the guidance and lead of her 'driver'. And when she reached Niz she took the boy in her hands, one under each arm, and lifted him up and away from herself as though he were an offering to his true caretaker.

"You have reached your destination, young master."

Lyric pulled her head back to make his grip slip free so that she could make sure that Niz could see she was turning the boy over to her.

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Keiko, Lyric, Josefi, Nizhentska, Tomomi, and various villagers

There are things much easier said than done. And extracting one's horns from a determined child's grip was one of them. Nizzy tilted her head and watched both curiously and knowingly at how resolutely Josefi did not want to let go. Lyric may have declared that his destination was reached, but Josefi was not convinced.

"Nin, nin, nin, nin, we ain't there yet!

"You're supposed to clobber into Niiiii... ack!"

It took a very deliberately placed — and obviously well-practiced — bat of Nizhentska's palm to the back of the lad's head to both silence his complaints and shock him into letting go. Then she was able to take Josefi from Lyric's grasp, holding him up in a similar way but from behind.

"Not very nice, Josefi."

The lad's eyes flew open, and he suddenly started squirming, trying to escape. But being held up from behind with his feet above the floor ensured he had no leverage to escape.

"Hug! That's it! Hug! Hit and hug!"

Nizhentska didn't buy the child's quick words.

"Did Josefi not say clobber?"

Caught out, the boy swallowed.

"Ja. Bad Josefi. Bad Josefi punished."

With wide theatrical steps, it was Nizhentska's turn to take Josefi for a ride. Lurching almost like a top about to fall over, she crossed a similarly short distance between her and her other small charges. The other kids now looked up at Josefi with smiles that were more than a little predatory. They knew exactly what was expected of them.

POUNCE!

And with that, the other children glombed onto their mischief-maker, surrounding him and assaulting him.

"Nin, nin, ni...hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha..."

The tickle attack had begun.

Eventually, Nizhentska let Josefi go, to be buried beneath his cohorts in a tumble of laugher.

"Kids."

With a sigh, Nizhentska sat back down on the edge of the breakfast table. She grabbed a hunk of cheese and broke it in half.

"Can't live with them..."

She offered the other half to Lyric.

"Can't feed them to glacier bears."

Nizzy shook her piece of cheese at the buried Josefi.

"But don't think never thought it!"

That elicited a squeak from Tomomi, hiding completely behind Keiko now.

"I don't want to be bear lunch!"

The kid pile suddenly stopped. As one, they lurched to attention. Children are mercurial, and now a Mouse had gained their attention.

"Rawr!"

In bad imitations of a bear, on all fours, the children started to circle Keiko and Tomomi. Nizhentska placed her hands over her eyes, let out a breath, and then peeked through her fingers. She called out a quick reprimand to her wayward charges.

"How many times say no eating guests? Bad form!"

It was one of the girls who spoke up, rising to her faux-bear knees and pawing the air in front of her.

"Never!

"Never had guests before!"

Dropping her hand, Nizhentska blinked.

"Oh. Da. Right."

Looking at Keiko and Tomomi, Nizhentska just shrugged her shoulders.

"Bad news, you are on your own. Good news, they only tickle."

That did not seem to make Tomomi any less concerned.

Keiko khal’Nakano Hoshiko
[pronounced KAY-ko... do you think the GM has memorized this yet? Nope, not yet...]

The children made her smile. They might be children of the Snow People, but they weren't much different than children of the Rhoni.

And so, when Josefi's punishment turned out to be an enthusiastic tickle attack, Keiko hid her growing smile behind her hand. Her free hand slid from her Forever Friend's shoulder when Tomomi slipped behind her. And when the pack of children turned their attention to her Forever Friend, Keiko giggled.

Looking from Nizhentska back to the children, she danced to the nearest child and began a tickle attack of her own.

"Aha! Sneaky Rhoni are very good ticklers! Run, my friend!" she said to Tomomi. "Lady Bekkah will save you!"

After a moment of tickling the captive child, she looked at Lyric and winked.

"Help me, Friend Lyric! Let us tickle these bear-children into submission!"

She laughed as she reached out to another child that was attempting to sneak up on her.

Bekkah

She laughed and intercepted some of the children before they could get to Tomomi, tickling them in turn.

"Don't worry Tomomi, I'll protect you as well and besides if they do get in, I'm sure I could persuade my Lady to heal you." she added with a wink.

Lyric

The laughter was contagious and Lyric was mesmerized by the many children running around. it was the purest definition of Chaos she could imagine. She tried to fathom her own memories from so long ago, hoping to capture just a hint or fragment of the emotions she must have felt when she was this young. So long ago. When time was young it seemed. When the world was breaking.

The joyous laughter and the screeching and the high pitched, piercing cries of surprise, real and feigned, crowded her thoughts. But lyric wouldn't trade it right now. She watched from the edges as chase the Mouse consumed all the energy in the room. When her eyes glanced across Niz, she came back to look at her for a moment. What has her connection to the clock...

Lyric shook her head to force the errant thoughts of problems and realities away. This was a moment for happiness and revelry. Let Chaos have it's place and time.

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Keiko, Lyric, Nizhentska, Tomomi, and various villagers

"SQUEAK!"

* hop *

And then, suddenly, Tomomi had taken her Forever Friend's advice and retreated to Bekkah. Behind the taller blonde, against her skirts, she hid. Bekkah literally had her hands full. One child could be held with one arm and then tickled with the other. But two? Two fast, quick, and agile children? It was the second, perhaps one of the older of them, she couldn't catch.

So it was a ferocious bear-child in front of her, Tomomi behind her. Tomomi darted right - at least Bekkah's right - and by the time the girl darted right to catch the Mouse, Tomomi had darted left. So she darted left to follow. And Tomomi right. Right-left. Left-right. Right-left. Left-right. And then, ah ha!

Run!

That only resulted in Tomomi being in front of Bekkah and the snow-girl behind her!

Not that Bekkah could actually follow that. She truly did have her hands full. The lad she had caught squirmed and writhed like a flopping fish, and it was all she could do to keep ahold of him. True, the best defense may have been to hug him tight and close, but that backfired horribly.

After a moment's panic at being caught, he started to tickle her!

From Lyric's point of view, for that moment, it was chaos. Their end of the hall had become a tumble of younglings. They never seemed to end. Nizhentska's little collection of students had suddenly expanded as the rest of the village's children noticed the madness at the end table. Not all were successful. At least a few were being dragged away by their ears or arms or the collar of their tunics, their parents reminding them of more serious matters.

"Chores, chores, chores!"

Nizhentska was having worse luck. She'd catch a faux glacier bear, set them down...

"STAY!"

And the moment Nizhentska turned around to capture another errant ward, the previous one would rawr and escape.

"No one ever listens to me..."

Their guide's eyes narrowed as she set about her herding tasks with even more fervor.

"Are goat-people ticklish?"

A pair of absolutely identical boys looked up at Lyric, hands held up in imitation of a bear pawing the air. That shook her. In her home village, no one was the same. Everyone was different. Unique. No two brownies were alike. There was only one Protector of the realm. Lyric and the only Redcap served her. Even being a Fae, Lyric was the only one of herself.

Thus, the first poke caught her unawares.

The tickling followed.

As for Keiko?

Now that a sight to see!

Glacier bears were the snowfield's apex predator! Didn't she know that? Oh no! Rhoni-lass is coming after us!

Of course, they ran. For a little bit.

Then they remembered they were fierce glacier bears. And turned back to pounce Keiko.

Thus, between the tables, between the stools and benches, they zigged and zagged. For one set of heartbeats, Keiko chased them. For the other, Keiko found herself being chased! They had the advantage of numbers; Keiko had grown up in a caravan family! She knew These Things. So the chase would circle a table, and they'd end up running behind her, reversing the role of predator and prey.

And this kept going on and on and on.

Of course, they all were altogether oblivious when the vestibule door opened.

The Starwatcher had returned, accompanied by the Knight of Dawnview Castle.

The Starwatcher leaned against the doorframe and buried her face in her hands.

Lord Protector, Her Ladyship Verchovai Daxia Yurisdotter
[Daxia serves DAYALA... the GM ESPECIALLY should get this right]

Daxia walked into the building with her grandmother and made sure the door was closed tightly to keep the ice and snow on the other side of the door, outside where it belonged. Then she stopped in the second doorway to watch the chaos — the glorious, maddening, delightful chaos of handfuls of children at play. She had lived a far different life than her sister. There were very few children in the Temple and they were all so serious — just as she had been. Even in her travels, she rarely came across more than a handful in any one place. The only exception had been Midsummer in Talantal, but those children had been far more interested in their Monster Lady than the Knight and her Unicorn.

Watching this exhibition of chaos, she began to understand Bekkah’s desire to surround herself with the youngsters.

Dazi’s face lit up with a joyful smile.

Dayala was the Goddess of Time and Order. But Daxia, a Knight in Her army, understood that Order and Chaos needed to be balanced. And what better way to balance Order than the Chaos stirred up by joyful children?

“Hoi!” she called out to cousin Nizhentska. “How many these cousins to Bekkah and Dazi?”

Bekkah

Bekkah laughed with joy. Pure, happy joy at the children's antics. The one attempting to tickle her found that she wasn't ticklish and he soon found that she knew exactly where to tickle him to maximum effect. She attempted to move to block the one chasing Tomomi, but that was hopeless. The little mouse would have to learn to fend for herself in these wilds. She was pretty sure, she could manage it.

She smiled as she Dazi enter and it was clear to her sister that Bekkah was enjoying this as much as anyone could enjoy anything. In fact, the last time she'd seen Bekkah smile like this was when she was dancing with a certain blacksmith.

Lyric

The Minstrel had cast aside the thoughts of plans and the worries of quests and wanted to feel a freedom and reckless abandon she had only remembered from a time when and age when her life seemed simpler. When she wasn't entwined in the politics of Court and Clan, when every note and every word played and spoken had to have meaning, when every thought and deed carried weight and responsibility. From a time before when her fanciful errant ways were simply a pantomime of a those memories. From a time before she forgot what it was like to be a child and her pretending actually became pretending to pretend.

Seeing the children play sparked those fragments of memory and a wildfire of the magic in her spirit gave them life. The memories came alive and the things forgotten began to fill in as though a artist worked a sculpture from stone to reveal the true art hidden lost within the muddled clay. She began to remember, and the memories were truth. The real memories and not just a fragment to serve as a script for a tale of a memory devoid of love, life and laughter.

Tears streamed her cheeks as she wheeled about, watching the children. So much so that she was startled by the approach of the two boys, so identical that surely one must be an illusion for the purposes of a prank upon her. But no, they were two identical works of art. There was no magic involved, save that which gave hem life in the first place.

She backed up a step as the 'menaced' with the threat of being 'bear tickled'. Was that even a thing?

In that moment of hesitation they pounced. These little bears attacked and tested whether she could be tickled. 'Play' among her kind, given there were no children, was often of a more adult nature. But no matter how playful it might be, it was never innocent. Every thing was with purpose and intent. And so, Lyric didn't know the answer to the children's question, "Are goat-people ticklish?", but was eager to find out.

And it was truth... Innocent and free, without ulterior motive or hidden intention. Their rush had dropped her on her rear as she wrapped them to ensure they didn't get hurt, and that felt like a mothering instinct she knew nothing about, and had only fragments of her own mother's love from thousands of sunrises and sunsets ago. "Come my sweet song," her mother said as she scooped Lyric into her arms, "Our world is about to change... everything will change..." Lyric found another memory in this moment and the magic of her spirit gave it new life and she remembered. And the instinct was to protect and nurture the children. Something lost to her people so long ago when there were no more children.

Lyric squealed as she twisted to escape. Even she was surprised by the sound she made, and they laughed and squealed again. She skittered backwards on the floor to avoid them, yet daring them to come at her. And she laughed, as a child might laugh. And she cried as a Lyric might cry when she remembered what it was like ton be a child playing a child's game.

And a game it would be...

""You have to catch me first," she challenged in a screechy, over-stimulated, child-like voice. With that she turned and spun magic about herself. It was a part of her, the essence of Fae. her magic was not a learned thing. it was inborn, practiced and refined, oh yes, but inherent to her nature and woven into every fiber and droplet of her being. An illusion took shape within the shimmer and sparkles and the magic washed out to fill the room and all who witnessed it. Lyric was not a shapechanger. No... the illusion did not change her, but rather it affected anyone and everyone who saw it. Every sense told the mind and the heart that the illusion was real.

Lyric's Fae magic was powerful, and she could not remember when last she used it simply for the joy of feeling free, for the happiness that the laughter gave her, for the wonderment of her own spirit.

The Faerie Fox with the brilliant glowing eyes leaped and bounded and hopped up and down in place, there was a melodic combinations of sounds that accompanied every hop and jump and rustle of fur and swish of her tail "Tickle Bears can't catch ME... I'm a Lyric Fox." Even the Lyric Fox's words sounded like music and she flipped over and bounded across the room, weaving under the table and through the legs of chairs, around other children, squealing and yip-barking and calling for the 'hoped for' chase to commence.

Lyric was lost to the game as her memories of being a child, a true Fae child, had begun to return to her.

Lord Protector, Her Ladyship Verchovai Daxia Yurisdotter
[Daxia serves DAYALA... the GM ESPECIALLY should get this right]

The Starlord watched the children running there and there and everywhere. So much joy in such a small space! Her smile was not nearly as brilliant as her sister’s... no, not even close. Dazi was hard-pressed to recall a time when she’d been this happy... this exact kind of happiness.

It was an old, old memory... before Mama and Papa had died... when she and Bekkah were the dashing, whirling children trying to capture a towering parent.

She didn’t pay an inordinate amount of attention to the twins, though she did make sure to glance as frequently at Lyric as she did the delicate Mouse girl. And when the minstrel was replaced by a pretty little fox, the Dayalan did little more than blink an extra time.

After all, what was one more strange thing in the cartloads of strange things she’d seen since leaving the Vale?

However, once Lyric began leading the children on a merry chase around the hall, Daxia’s attention was set mostly on the Fae lass. This way and that way, chasing and being chased... the children were laughing merrily. If her interpretation of the behavior of Lyric Fox was at all accurate, well, she was having a grand time as well.

She did, of course, note the adults in the room. And the fact that their amusement was beginning to slide into frustration.

Chaos...

The Patterner began watching the patterns. There was no denying that Kisa was far more skilled at reading the patterns of the world. But reading the patterns of people in front of her? Well, Kassia hadn’t been her only teacher... and Gillyflower had been happy to send her tumbling across the practice yard for not paying attention to the patterns in arms training.

Even Chaos had patterns...

Just before Grandmother could become vexed enough to put a stop to the fun, just as Lyric Fox was about to dart in front of them again, Daxia stuck out a booted foot in front of the Fae Fox. She didn’t watch the result, merely trusting that Lyric’s reaction time was sufficient to keep her from falling off the mountain.

Then she looked at Grandmother.

“Ha! Chaos trip over Order! Good joke!”

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Daxia, Keiko, Lyric, Grandmother Starwatcher, Nizhentska, Tomomi, and various villagers

"All of them!"

Nizhentska's response to the Starlord's initial query was half proclamation and half chortle.

"One big happy family!"

Her smile was disturbed, however, when one of the kids immediately stopped, turned, and kicked her in the shin.

"Not me! Nizzy! Eeeeeewwwwww!"

Their red-haired escort looked down at this one with wide eyes and an apparent look of shock. Not that there was any actual hurt, Nizhentska's leggings were thick enough to prevent that. On the other hand, it did look as if she was about to swat him when one of the other little kids, a girl, did it first.

"Bad Blizzy! Bad! If Mat up in Sky heard you say that about Big Sister, we all eat icicles for a season!"

That stopped him, and he bit his lip.

"Her Mat up in Sky too. Makes us family. Belong now to each other."

Bekkah, too, appeared to be trapped in a perennial dance of the very young. Well, until her partner was tickled in return. His cries of ‘no fair, no fair’ echoed across the hall, and it was as if she were trying to hold a large and very wriggly and squirmy fish. His arms flailing and legs pumping and kicking — he wasn't trying to hurt anyone except it was he who ended being the significantly more ticklish. This, of course, forced her to stay still as she tried to wrangle this little Snowfolk, leaving Tomomi and her pursuer running circles around her. Once, Tomomi tripped and fell, and the girl zoomed past, and for a few heartbeats, it was Tomomi chasing her until they both realized the accidental role reversal.

"SQUEAK!"

It quickly reversed itself.

And then, and then something worked.

Something worked far, far, far too well.

It was one of the girls that reacted first.

"Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cute!"

And the chase was on. Not just the few that were nearby, but all of them, every single one, started to follow the bouncing Fae fox! And that they did — it was a wild chain of children, rushing after the illusionary critter. Over the table and under the table, between the chairs and benches... Sometimes there was a tumble and clatter as the children in their pursuit burst past furniture too close. Sometimes they were thwarted by the little fox slipping through a space that looked too small even for her!

Then they'd scatter, seeking and searching.

"There! There, there, there!"

Someone watching would probably suspect that Lyric was bouncing back into view as a tease — how could a chaotic chase continue if one's pursuers were foiled? And then, just as the gaggle of children was a breath away, Daxia put her foot down. The Starwatcher peeked and smiled.

And the Lyric-fox tripped up and tumbled.

The result was a very different form of chaos — and the real question was whether Daxia was the cause or simply the catalyst concerning the amount of energy and concentration required to keep up such a complicated illusion. It was no small feat to become a little fox critter.

Thus, Lyric tumbled like a fancy colored ball, and when she finally came to rest, the illusion was shattered, leaving her half upside down in a very playful sprawl. And, of course, buried under a whole lot of delighted children.

"Hoohoo! She's back!"

"Yea!"

"Can we keep her?"

"NIN!"

Raising her head from her hands, Grandmother Starwatcher looked out across the playful disaster area. She barked out her command, very much the Village Elder, trying to restore some manner of normalcy to her breakfast hall.

"Enough! Children of the Snowfolk, you all have chores to do! Dishes not wash themselves! Tables not get polished by wishes, and no help Mat and Fa and they die in snow from too much work!"

The children all went eep, but they didn't leave Lyric. Some tried to hide her under a concealing pile of themselves — to shield her from Grandmother's wrath — while others tried to take shelter from the same wrath by hiding behind the minstrel. Now, of course, it was the parents' turn to knowingly grin — though they, for the most part, managed to not laugh out loud. The children had little to fear.

"Nizhentska! Your fault!

"Make me the grumpy one!

"Tcha!"

Crossing her arms, Grandmother sat down at the end of the table. Nizhentska knew better than to contradict the Starwatcher, and she made sure some hot food was set out for the village leader and Daxia. The kids and their parents also scattered in a more ordered fashion, until it was the small group left — Daxia, Tomomi, Bekkah, Lyric, Keiko, Nizhentska and the Starwatcher. While the hall was not truly empty, they were given their privacy to now talk about more grown-up topics. Finally, after her warm meal, the Starwtcher turned to them.

"So. Why you here?

"What seek?

"Fix clock?

"How?"

Lord Protector, Her Ladyship Verchovai Daxia Yurisdotter
[Daxia serves DAYALA... the GM ESPECIALLY should get this right]

Daxia chuckled. “Hoi! Family getting bigger and bigger! So happy... yah, Bekkah?”

The children... well, the little boy Cousin Niz had called Blizzy... he made her smile falter just a bit. She took a few steps forward and crouched down in front of the siblings.

“Sister right. Niz has Mat in Sky. Blizzy and sister have Mat in Sky. Dazi and Bekkah have Mat in Sky.” She put one hand over her heart and lightly tapped the boy’s chest over his heart. “What is same? All have Mat still in heart, yah? Always, always.

“Mat watching. Yah, Blizzy miss her. Bet Mat miss Blizzy so very much, too. Always will miss Mat, Bliz. But not always will hurt so much. Maybe not until Bliz grown, but someday will not hurt so.”

Once Grandmother had managed to disburse the gaggle of children off to their chores for the day, after the hot meal was consumed, Daxia looked at her companions before turning to answer Grandmother’s questions.

“So. Dazi and Bekkah come to visit Grandmother and cousin. Cousins.

“Dazi come because Khorall and High Priestess say, ‘Go learn!’”

She shook her head, then shrugged.

“Did not know of connection between Clock and Fae, but already tell Lyric will help if possible. Helping Lyric will fix Clock? Okay.

“How?”

That was when the Priestess’s eyes turned to the Rhoni lass.

“Is that good question for Cards? How to help Lyric and fix Clock?”


[OOC: Please feel free to post for Bekkah and Lyric at this point; don’t wait on me for Keiko.]

Keiko khal’Nakano Hoshiko
[pronounced KAY-ko... do you think the GM has memorized this yet? Nope, not yet...]

Keiko was almost sad to see all the children set to their daily tasks. However, she understood how important their chores were and how important a routine was. Playing with them had been a delightful interlude. And it reminded her how much she missed her family.

For the first time in weeks, she wondered how long it would be before she was able to see them again. She sighed softly as she sat at the table with the others. When the time was right, she would be reunited with them. Until then?

Until then, there were so many things to learn!

Elder Starwatcher’s questions were intriguing, and Lady Daxia’s answer — well, the latter part, anyway — caused the Rhoni to chuckle.

“Ja. Learning is an excellent reason for why I’m here. And it seemed like a good idea to stay with Friend Lyric and Forever Friend Tomomi.”

What did she seek? Wasn’t that the most compelling question of all? It could be applied to a specific adventure like this... or it could be related to an entire life’s journey. But learning new stories would be an appropriate answer for the whole of Keiko’s life. Beyond that, her goals were less about seeking and more about serving... How could she best help each person she met?

She blinked at the Dayalan’s questions.

“Well... not exactly. But if I understand what you’re trying to find, you might ask the Cards about the essence of the Clock’s... brokenness, I suppose. Or ask about the nature of the Fae’s relationship to the Clock.”

She looked at Friend Lyric and smiled.

“And if you are interested, you might wish to ask the Cards about the nature of the relationship, the connection between you and Nizhentska.”

Bekkah

She loved children. She could do this all day long. She laughed and her smile was as big as her sister had ever seen. Then Lyric used her magic and the smile grew even brighter. She laughed, encouraging the children to get the pretty fox.

By the end, she was wiping tears from laughing so hard.

Things quickly came to an end as Grandmother came into the room. She didn't begrudge her wanting order, everyone had things that had to get done. She straightened her dress, wiping her eyes one last time.

"I just wanted to come back again." she said simply.

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Daxia, Keiko, Lyric, Nizhentska, Grandmother Starwatcher, Tomomi, and various villagers

"Connection?"

Nizhentska stopped and blinked, looking between the Rhoni Card Reader and the Fae Minstrel. Lyric was still tumbled on the floor as their snow folk guide slowly circled her, leaning forward to peer at the Fae. First, she placed her hands on her head as if to confirm that chaotic red locks were atop her head. Then her hands went to her ears, which were rounded and not pointed.

"Nin and nin," she said. "Nin horns, nin pointed ears and most important, nin to big red splash across clothes so not mistaken for snowbank. Just met and not even finished first meal!"

She gave Lyric a curious look.

"Me and you. How could there be any...?" she asked.

But before she could finish her thought, Josefi — his arms full of bowls and plates — could not help opening his mouth.

"Nin! Cannot turn into cute snowfox! Nizhentska boring!"

His warden looked back at him with wide eyes.

"Boring? Boring? Boring?"

She raised her hands over him, first like a snow bear about to drop down on its small, tiny victim. Then, however, she spun around dramatically and clapped her hands over her head — once, twice and, because all important things come in threes, clapped a third time.

"Oh, come one, come all, come listen to Nizhentska! She has tale of blizzards across dawn, of horrible lightning that slashed up from glacier and high into skies, of thunder louder than avalanche's roar! But what is story without hero? Is he brave? Is he bold? Come, listen, hear, and remember! When storm shatters Hero awake, does he..."

"NIZZY NOT BORING!"

It was his turn to look up at Nizhentska with eyes wide, but this time in little-kid terror, terror about what she might say next!

"Nizzy Nizzy Nizzy not boring at all, at all, at all! But no time! Nizzy teach responsibility, ja? Ja! Gotta get bowls to cleaning, ja, ja, ja, and ja!"

And with no small amount of chuckling from his comrades, Josefi quickly, and in a very dedicated manner, made sure he had collected enough of the breakfast wares to disappear to wherever dishes and bowls were cleaned.

Nizhentska had a very contented smile. Her words were fierce but also soft.

"No one calls Nizhentska boring. Nizhentska knows far too many tales for anyone's good!"

Grandmother watched the scene play out with no little amusement, either. Her face became serious again, as she looked between Lyric, Nizhentska, and Keiko. But before she spoke to Daxia, she let her attention fall to Bekkah.

"Cannot come back to place one has never been, granddaughter. Aye, you granddaughter. Means, though, you still come to Family's home, even if first time. Not sure what to think. We have always followed one Goddess, all the way back to World's Shattering. Rebellion! Ja. That's what is. Rebellion!"

She then turned to Daxia.

"Such troublemakers in our house! Knights and Imperials!

"Sigh."

Grandmother didn't sigh. She actually said the word 'sigh.' She took a breath. She looked to her other relative, who was still wrinkling her nose as she considered Keiko and Lyric. Grandmother's shoulders shrugged in a very philosophical manner.

"At least not boring.

"None of you."

She then, like any good village elder, turned the conversation back around to Daxia.

"So. Many good questions.

"Which do you choose?

"Not my place to ask. It is for you and your friends."

Lyric

Lyric remained on the floor where she had tumbled. Tripped up, but she never saw it coming and she wasn't weaving through the chairs and tables and so all of her was present and thus she tumbled. But it didn't matter. She was laughing a laughter that she hadn't laughed in so very long. A happiness felt she hadn't felt in so very long. The fact that it was over could be a saddening, but it wasn't. She had enough happiness to last her and so she lay there staring up at the ceiling, arms and legs splayed out while the children dispersed. They too would want for the game to continue, and maybe later it would. Even at such a young age, there were lessons to be learned about growing up. Lyric couldn't remember much about growing up, except that she did it, and that there were important things to be learned. Still, 'playing', truly playing seemed more beneficial to living than all the lessons she had ever learned. Something in that idea, somewhere in that concept was what life should have meant for the Fae... before they were turned to war... and thus rebelled, and then made prisoners of themselves.

Lyric said nothing. She just laid there on her back, vaguely seeing the ceiling as she enjoyed the remembrance of the playing from only moments ago.

Chaos trip over Order... what? Dazi's joke, spoke to one or Others took a time before Lyric did more than just hear it. It was a clever wordplay and maybe even funny, but in a wordplay kind of way- metaphors for her... her tripping Lyric. Ahh, lyric got it now.Fae had long memories though... the Wheel would turn and Chaos would find it's way to even the game... Yes, more metaphors that became more manifest in her consciousness.

Lyric dismissed those thoughts and tried to return to thinking about playing. Remembering playing, remembering being a child, and feeling the happiness of a distant memory and the sadness for its fading. All the wile there was eating and talking, mostly the elderly sage called Starwatcher. She had questions. Others answered the questions and Lyric laid on the floor, hearing questions and realizing that she was losing the battle to keep the 'play' in the forefront of her mind. How awkward it must have been for all the others to be gathered around the table and the Minstrel to be lying on the floor, arms and legs splayed out as though she didn't care who might be in the room with them.


A Question, one of several, about the purpose for coming to this place. And others answered. Lyric was silent. The next question about what people were seeking in this place. And others answered. Lyric was silent. Mention of the clock, and questions were asked. Lyric remained silent. She had no answers to share on most of this. Her journey was not about answering questions, it was about finding an answer- It was about finding a 'Song'.

There was talk of connections between Nizhentska and the Fae, a rebuttal about appearances. A further rebuttal of Niz's inability to change shape. Despite Lyric's own thoughts on a particular misconception, she didn't have any knowledge one way or another if this was possible or not. She'd rather daydream about the 'Playing' some more, but it was getting harder and harder to focus on that without the children around her.


Lyric then heard the boy, Josefi, come through the room to gather tableware, and Lyric actually looked away from the ceiling. perhaps he was here to play? No. His chores included cleaning up the table. Lyric sighed as he left. His comments concerning Niz being boring seemed particularly pointed and probably born of his emotions and the frustration that influenced. Lyric remembered how hard it was to be child at times, and reflection revealed that her lack of experience with handling her emotions often brought her conflict with elders. She understood the boy's plight. Three thousand years later she still had a hard time managing her demeanor and emotions among her own kind. Maybe that was true for all of the Fae who were the last children born before they shifted their realms to Faerie. Everything changed in that moment, and that changed was really the last change to happen for them all.

Fix the clock. Hah... Fae didn't track time, so a clock was just a word to her, she really didn't know what it was or what it did, except that it was very pretty when they passed near it on their way here. Oh, she wished the children would hurry with their chores. There were several other 'changes' she could make and she wanted to see what games could be revealed.

Dazi spoke, and there was more talk of the Clock thing. And the Cards. And that meant that Keiko would have to answer those questions. Some while back, Lyric had entertained the notion that she might reveal herself to Keiko first by having her read cards for her, about her... But Lyric didn't understand the cards and didn't want to disrespect her friend and her talents just because Lyric was scared of losing a friend over a a secret she had been keeping. Sure, who wants to find out you are friends with someone whose people are fashioned as evil villains and monsters in story, song, and poem? The horrors told in tales were not wrong it seemed, but Lyric was not not them. Lyric was Lyric... was Lyric.

The elder Starwatcher spoke more, prodding everyone to speak, pulling answers from them. But she was silent... until...

Keiko talked about what questions might be suited for her cards... the Fae and the Clock... Niz and the Fae...

And there was a lot of things to be said, a lot of questions to be answered, even if she didn't have answers.

"No, I did not come here for the Clock. I don't know what a clock is or what it does. Time? Time has no meaning to me. Although that has changed some now that I travel with friends for whom it has so much meaning... but I have lived since the Shattering War and had no understanding of how many sunrises and sunsets that has been. Many."

Lyric sat up, twisted to get up off the floor. With a glance back to the place she had just vacated she felt the pang of loss for the feelings she was trying so hard to hold onto in the hopes the children would return and refresh them again.

"I came here because this is where my friends were going. Certainly not because I enjoy the cold. Oh no. Quite the opposite. I am not of the Court of Ice. I am of the Court of Rain, and I do not like the cold. But i like my friends. I have never had friends before... real friends... friends who actually like me, and not just pretend because pretending things is all we remember instead of actually doing. I came because I wanted to help them on the things they wanted and needed to learn. I had heard it mentioned there might be a great lost city to find. I know nothing of this except that it might be a great tale, and I love stories and tales and songs..."

"My own journey began with a task given to me by Kethysynthia, the Banished One... the Border Guard."

Lyric paused and shook her head when she realized that she had first thought to go even further back in the story and then changed her mind because it was irrelevant, and time was important and mortals probably didn't have time for her her meandering ramblings that came with telling her own life tales.

"She told me to travel in the mortal realms and search for a 'Song to Save Our People'. I do not know what that means, so I travel to learn that, and then I will search for it. So, to learn that there is a clock here that watches time for all of the world, and that my people broke it is not a revelation I came to by design. But I suppose the things of tales and songs, fate and destiny have conspired to lead me to those whom I might travel among and then be brought to a place that has answers to questions I didn't know to ask."

It seemed important to first answer the large thoughts and questions, if what she said might actually be considered an answer. And then she turned to Niz, and speak words that were also not likely to be answers. She took the steps to approach her and offered the caretaker of children her hands to hold between them.

"I am Fae, that is true. But no two Fae look alike... not from smallest of winged fairies and sprites to the largest of our Ents. So, there are no... Goat People. I am unique. I bear no direct resemblance to the woman who gave birth to me, nor to the man who fathered me. None of us do, but in a finite sense of things, certain features might repeat in seeming infinite combinations. So I am not the only one with horns, nor even the only one with horns similar to these. So any connection you might have to the Fae, that may or may not be the reason the Clock reacts to you, has nothing to do with your appearance."

"And I should also mention that I am not a shape changer. I did not actually become a snow fox, or Fae Fox. It was an illusion. Magic that runs in my blood. That and the combination of some of my other blood abilities allowed me to pretend to be a Fae Fox and move like a Fae Fox should move. And pretending seemed to be such a wonderful thing that I somehow forget how to do..."

"Anyway... Friend Keiko points out that her Cards might offer some insight into any possible connection, but I suppose that... If I am allowed... I should travel to this Clock and see if it tries to hit me in the head as well. That might prove something one way or another."

Bekkah

She shrugged.

"When the Gods speak, it's best to listen. Perhaps, not one of the Gods I grew up with, but definitely one I've come to love. After all, it's hard to not like healing the sick and wounded."

[ooc: Sorry about not knowing whether I've been here or not. You know me ]

Lord Protector, Her Ladyship Verchovai Daxia Yurisdotter
[Daxia serves DAYALA... the GM ESPECIALLY should get this right]

Daxia chuckled at her cousin’s performance and young Josefi’s backtracking at Niz’s threats to tell more stories.

“Yah,” Daxia agreed after Josefi left, “Nizzy not boring. Good thing!”

She beamed at Grandmother; it was very nearly the same expression that she used to display when Gilly pointed out that she’d done this thing or that thing quite well.

“Making good trouble... is what Bekkah and Dazi do!

“And not time for question. Lyric wants to visit Clock. Maybe see answers there? Maybe not. Should observe Lyric and Clock, though.

“Clock first. Questions second.”

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Daxia, Keiko, Lyric, Nizhentska, Grandmother Starwatcher, and Tomomi, and various villagers

Grandmother looked at Daxia. Then she looked at Bekkah. Both were kin. Then she just rolled her eyes a bit, not in exasperation or frustration, but perhaps only to glance upwards, towards the sky. The sky was the place for sun and stars.

"Goodness. Goodness, goodness. How happen? Daxia, your sister must have collected all goodness in world when she was born. Which is a good thing. It only makes one think. Is, somewhere, someone to balance our Bekkah? We have sunshine princess, ja? Must there, somewhere, be Prince of Storms? It is curious thought."

Grandmother sat down at the long table. Though she was the last one there for breakfast, the children made sure there was a bowl of warm stew and bread from the kitchens set before her quickly, as if they knew that making Grandmother wait was not a good matter.

"Something to think about after food. Think while hungry make anyone grumpy, ja?"

Nizhentska, however, just wrinkled her nose a bit, looking at Lyric.

"You seek Song? But there are so many! Is it sad song of heroes that stand against dark forces and sacrifices made in places so far away they may be in dream? Breakfast's happy song about apples and cinnamon? Light song? Fanciful song of snowflakes in one's palm or one with blizzard of truth?

"Is it something that can be found?"

Their guide grimaced a bit as she slowly adjusted her heavy furs, knowing that they were bound soon for the snow, the ice, night sky, and the World's Clock.

"Why do you get up come First Meal, a friend from far, far away, Minstrel Lyric? Is that what you live for? To find this one Song? Then I ask, I can't help but think, what happens when you find it?

"Why would you get up the night after?"

She then laughed, laughed, and spun around once, her arms held straight out.

"Is Song you seek real or illusion? Is it like being a Fairy Fox? Oh ja, it was illusion to you! But to Little Ones?"

Stopping, she put both hands on her knees and leaned forward.

"I speak truth. For them, it was very, very, very, very real."

Straightening, she shook herself.

"But ja, we now speak true shades of white. Come, come, we all know. Want to see Clock clobber poor Nizhentska. Everyone wants to see that. Always. Clock first, questions after.

"Because everything, everything starts with Clock."

Nizhentska waited while those who wished to follow bundled themselves up again, preparing for the Glacier Night. Their guide's bone goggles hung around her neck, not necessary now that She had set. Those who stayed would find the evening quiet — this hall was silent and empty as the Glacier villagers went about their morning tasks. The children would be a little out of sorts, looking for ways to be helpful. Their schedule had been disturbed by their teacher now being busy elsewhere. Nizhentska made sure the doors were closed tight behind them before leading them up to the Clock.

Daxia had been this way; the others had not. Stairs with long treads and small risers spiraled around the dark stone mesa. They circumnavigated the outcropping several times before they reached the top. However, they did not reach the top without incident. About halfway up, they were almost run down. It seems a black unicorn was running for his life, clip-clopping down the carved path. The reason was simple. Morning Star was being chased — not by one white Unicorn but a small herd of them.

Indeed, from such a hasty retreat, there was only one conclusion that could be drawn: that there actually was such a thing as being too magnificent!

Finally, they stood beneath that first tall ironsilver trilithon, its smooth surfaces reflecting in brilliant sparkles of the sea of stars that arched high over their heads. There was a ring of stacked ironsilver stones, marking the border of the great Ancient mechanism. Within orbited the white metal tablets that made up the Clock itself, each moving according to their own order.

They floated just at a person's highest reach. They moved, each in their own orbit, within the greater stone circle. One moved extremely fast and bore a Horse rune. The one with the Forest rune marked a calm and determined pace. Directly opposite this stone, moving at the same pace, was the tablet bearing the Wheel of Chaos. Each element had a stone, and they each had their own speed. There was only one that bore two runes, also elemental, those of the elements Water and Ice. This one seemed to be standing still.

The last two were the mysterious ones: black metal and crystal.

There was no apparent change when Lyric approached the ages-old circle. It was something actually older than her or her people. Not even a shift in the breeze.

"Didn't think so..."

Nizhentska took in a deep breath and took a step forward. She reached out towards the first tall metal pillar. And there it was. It was faint, it was slight, it was almost imperceptible. The tablet with two runes on it seemed to twitch.

"The things I do for folks..."

Carefully Nizhentska circled the outer ring until that unmoving stone was opposite her. She crouched, like someone who was preparing to race. And then she did: she sprinted forward as fast as she could.

It was like a flash of lightning, like a blur of white against the far horizon.

"AIIIIEEEEEEE!"

And like a rag doll, Nizhentska was flying through the air! Her arms and legs were spread wide as she arced towards the little group. As if purposefully aimed, she hit the ground and tumbled, slipping over ice and casting up enormous sprays of snow until she skated to a stop, on her back, at Lyric's feet. She grimaced and with a very put upon expression, offered the Minstrel a simple greeting.

"Hi."

The two-runed tablet was still again. Unmoving. However, it had moved — it now rested at the spot where Nizhentska had tried to enter the ring.

Lord Protector, Her Ladyship Verchovai Daxia Yurisdotter
[Daxia serves DAYALA... the GM ESPECIALLY should get this right]

“Yah, yah! Princess Sunshine!”

Daxia, sitting beside Bekkah at the breakfast table, nudged her sister with her shoulder and smiled.

“That’s Bekkah. Is why all love her!”

Then she looked at Grandmother thoughtfully.

“Hmm. Imperial Prince of Storms? Velikki. Noble Prince of Storms? Montague.

“Khorall of Storms? Oh. Simple! Is Korie! Not so bad when get to know him. Still. Don’t make Korie angry.

“One good son. One mischief-making son. One son... needs more goodness in life. Maybe. One daughter... fear for her. Not my place to save Korie daughter from Montague, though. She not defenseless, no. Maybe she save self.”

Then Daxia shrugged and listened to Cousin Nizzy and Lyric. As they were getting ready to head back to the Clock, she eyed her cousin.

“Not want to see Clock clobber Niz. Maybe ask Clock why it clobber Niz every time.”

At that statement, had anyone been watching her, they would have seen Keiko’s eyebrows raise in surprise.

Near the end of their journey to the Clock, Daxia stood and stared at Morning Star’s retreating form for several heartbeats before bursting out laughing.

“Oh! Best day! New things! Magnificent Unicorn discover downside to magnificence! Make Dazi happy!”

On the mesa that held the Clock, Daxia studied the various tiles that made up the device while listening to to Nizzy’s comments to Lyric.

As her cousin tried to outrace the stone, Dazi watched the tile, not Nizzy. Then, as Niz was tossed across the circle, the priestess kept her focus on the Starwatcher initiate. When it was clear that the young woman had fewer injuries than the Starlord had when Dandy had clobbered her in Talantal, Dazi turned back to the Fae tile, slowly walking widdershins around the circle close to the trilithons.

The Fae stone certainly seemed to have a mind of its own and definitely didn’t like her cousin. Or... maybe it really, really liked Nizzy and was trying too hard to show its affection and wound up clobbering Nizzy instead? Was the Clock a living thing?

Wasn’t that something Grandmother had asked earlier?

“So. Horse. First-born,” she muttered to herself. “Next circle is Forest, Chaos... in beginning, only things – Forest, Chaos, narazhen raveshda vezhayin. Always, forever balance-tension with Forest, Chaos. First-born run, play. These all first-things.

“Also Death, Mastery same circle Forest, Chaos. Again, narazhen raveshda vezhayin.

“Around narazhen raveshda vezhayin, First-born is... elements. Yah. Most gods, goddesses like elements, first-things. Even Rhoni and Fae! Only Risha not. Hmm.

“Why only Fae have special stone? Because hide before Shattering finish shattering? People choose gods, goddesses to follow. Rhoni not choose, only ride waves. Choose not to choose. No, all choose to choose, to not choose during Shattering, even Fae. Ah! Only Fae run away, hide. Okay.”

She glanced at the trilithon beside her.

“Shattering finish shattering. New runes for new time?” she continued, looking at the ring of tiles circling outside the trilithons.

“Why Time outside? Dayala make Time, start fight with Chaos. Begin Forest-breaking war.”

Dazi frowned.

“Hmm. Shattering begin time of men. Share time with gods, goddesses. Interesting that Velikki think men can toss away gods. Velikki maybe only understand Velikki, not understand all people. Hmm.

“Point?”

She turned back to her grandmother.

“Ah! Point. Yah. Grandmother ask Dazi if Clock alive or just made-thing. Think Clock act like living thing, like silly child with Nizzy. Dazi know about silly children. Dazi was silly child! Clock still young like child? Maybe! Time keep going until Dayala get bored. We make sure Dayala find new things so not get bored! Bet She laugh now at Magnificent Unicorn!”

She nodded at her own internal logic before continuing.

“Fae only people have special stone. Why?

“Fae only people have runes all inside trilithons.” Then she shrugged. “Risha people only ones have runes all outside. Important? Don’t know. But think Fae only people hide from Dayala more important, most important.

“Who make Clock — Dayala and Unicorns? Or ancestor Starwatchers and Dayala and Unicorns? Ancestor Starwatchers only start study Clock after Forest-breaking war ends?

“When Clock made? During Forest-breaking war? Before? After? Hard to make beautiful things in war. But Dayala, Unicorns not think like people, maybe make beautiful thing in war. But maybe not before. Dayala not make Time yet, so no need for Clock. If Clock made during Forest-breaking war, before or after Fae hide? Dayala point at Fae hiding... or predict Fae hiding? Does it matter?

“Nin. Probably nin.

“Ah. Unicorns ask Dayala stop Chaos Lords eating of Unicorns. Dayala make Time, white Unicorns help make Clock as thanks, black Unicorns be friends to Dayala’s followers as thanks. Okay. Make sense. Never understood what White Unicorns do besides amuse children and tease Jvrill.”

Daxia shrugged again, then looked at the Fae stone with narrowed eyes before glancing at her cousin on the ground. She shook her finger at the stone.

“Why, why, why, why?

“Stone not like Nizzy? Stone like Nizzy too much? Clock not want Nizzy be Starwatcher. Ah! Maybe want Nizzy be best Starwatcher of Third Age! Ha ha! Silly Clock! Fae stone not even care about Fae girl!

“Oh. Maybe Clock show liking Fae girl by giving present of Nizzy-friend to Lyric! Practice clobbering Nizzy for when Fae arrive. Morning Star think Dazi bring him present of Eastern princess. Silly Unicorn. Ha! Very funny Clock! Except Unicorn not funny for Eastern princess, Clock not funny for cousin Nizzy.

“Hmm. Romana friend to Dazi. Morning Star understand. Maybe. More likely just wants more apples. But Romana bring apples. So Morning Star not try eating anymore.”

Daxia crossed her arms under her cloak and clucked her tongue at the Fae tile.

“Hoi! You clobber Nizzy here...” She gestured toward her cousin and the minstrel. “...so Nizzy, Lyric be friends together? That your message, Silly Clock? Need Lyric bring you apples too? What Clock Fae Stone like as much as Magnificent Unicorn like apples?”

Finally, Daxia looked at her cousin and smiled.

“Lyric pretty good friend to have. Not like cold much, but has many good stories. Good friend for cousin storyteller, yah? Lyric sensible, but get sad even more than Cobble Block Dazi. Maybe Nizzy help Lyric be less sad?

“Go, go! Make friends!

“If Dazi can make friends with Eastern princess, easy for Nizzy to make friend with Fae minstrel!”

She nodded as if this were the most obvious thing in the world... although it probably was only so completely obvious to her.

Lyric

The Minstrel had little to offer the elder human, the grandmother Starwatcher, or whatever it was that Daxia called her. It seemed to vary with a context unknown to the Fae woman. But it was Niz who had a number of questions, perhaps rhetorical because she didn't pause long enough for answers. Perhaps they were jibes meant to express her questions to the universe and focus them on the fae because the fae was now a living vessel to receive her angst and anger and hurt and confusion.

"Cloaked in an illusion does not make my happiness at the experience of playing with very children... any less real for me. In fact it made it more real, because I could play among them and be truly free, in reckless abandon and not have them view them through the shaded lens of stories and tales and events in which I had no role, but must carry the burden of the consequences all the same. I just wanted to play, and children are the closest humans can be to understanding what it to be Fae at our purest and most innocent, as we once were, as we still should be... As I dream and hope I can be again. It was very real to me, just as I have chased many a fae fox through thicket and briar, over a hill and through a stream, and around trees in maddening circles, careless, carefree, laughing, and oblivious... if only for a fraction of a moment or a minute or any other fragment of time that I have no way to gauge within myself."

She followed after Niz, with a shake of her head. "No... I do not wish to see you get hurt. I don't want anyone to get hurt. I would be content to simply see this clock and hope that I gain some understanding in its presence. To see you hurt so that we may witness a strange and unexplained... event... not the right word I know, but it will have to do... unexplained event might be revealed.... No, that is poor reason to risk your well-being. But you will be you just as Lyric is Lyric is Lyric."

Once outside an on their way she added, "truth being truth being truth, if there was a way the clock could come to me where it was warmer, then I would think that the best solution overall."

Lyric could have just as easily allowed herself to be distracted to follow after the unicorns as they raced down the stairs, past them, through them, as they made their way up to the mesa. That certainly looked more fun, although she wasn't sure what expression Morningstar was wearing upon his face... was he truly fearing for his life, or simply enjoying the fact that he had to run from the white ones and thus fearing for his life and yet not. Complicated, yes. She did not know the black unicorn beyond pleasantries in all the months spent travelling now to get to this place and so she couldn't venture a guess. It just looked fun to be running.

Lyric came as close as seemed reasonable when they reached the mesa top. She tried to take in the whole of it, hoping that somehow these metal trilithons would trigger some connection and impart some wisdom when she thought of the standing stone circles in her own realms. The one where she nearly died, where she was reborn, was the easiest to remember.

The floating tiles, as a whole and a part of the great device, did not react to Lyric's presence. Was this expected? Lyric didn't know. She had never heard of this place and knew so little about the stories that might have spawned from those events called the Shattering.

Hearing Dazi's question about Why it moved, and seeing Keiko's reaction, Lyric nodded and shrugged for Keiko's benefit. "Why do any of them move? Do they measure the same thing for the thing they are assigned?" her questions sounded rhetorical, as if she needed to hear them aloud, but part of her wanted Dazi to hear them as well. "Are Forest and Chaos in balance? Did they Fae elements, Water... Rain... Water... and Ice once belong to the Chaos tile but are now their own tile? Why two runes, if everything else is an element of the natural way of things? Except that Water and Ice are the same element, just in different states of being... I don't know what I am saying and I doubt it means anything useful... Just thinking aloud."

Niz, seeing the Fae Stone was unmoving at Lyric's presence, set out to demonstrate her point, but not before reminding everyone that her choice to risk injury was somehow a sacrifice that needed to be noted. When the fae Stone did indeed move, it was too fast to truly see anything except the aftermath. Lyric knelt down to look Niz in the eyes.

"Are you injured? Do you need healing?" her tone was genuine and born of real concern. Once Niz stated was okay, Lytic reached out to Niz's face, to touch her cheek, and spoke again. "Please do not do that again. You could have been gravely hurt. You have said as much in the past where bones have been broken. And if the thought is to give us a chance to figure out why it does what it does when you do what you do... well, You can NOT possibly do it enough times for us to discount enough false reasons in the hope of finding one that MIGHT, only MIGHT, be true. It isn't worth it to see you hurt like that. And, to answer your most pressing question... I do not know what happens when I find the song I am seeking. But I do believe it is not the end, but rather a new beginning... at least that is what I hope... and if I am right, then I will have every reason to wake the next morn, and learn to count them for i might only have a finite number of them as it was intended... and so I would not dare waste one of them. I would find joy and happiness in every moment... and that is worth getting up for every day... ja?""

Dazi had a lot to say, only some of which made sense to the fae woman. But that was Dazi's nature. She needed to work through all her thoughts and would slowly weed them down and then, she would make them clear enough for a Minstrel to understand.

"The clock is older than the Fae and made before the Shattering, that much I can sense and feel. But it might not have always looked like this. Just as it measures time, I also think it measures the truth of the world. You ask questions about why stones are in certain places within the rings and mention the names of peoples as well. I think your answer lies within your question. What is it about these peoples that is being reflected in the tiles and where they are in the whole of the clock? If the Forest and Chaos is in balance and in opposition as seen across the clock- would it also not stand to reason that the fae stone might once have been a part of either or both. It stands still because it is held out of the reach of time, but not out of reach of the clock. I am guessing. I do not know. And I will ignore the part about Unicorns being eaten by Chaos Lords. That sounds awful. "

With Niz shaken but not broken, Lyric stood again and approached the ring. She looked up to see the stones floating just at the very farthest reach of her fingers. In fact, she would probably have to jump to touch one. Niz was taller than she, that was true. But...

"I know it moves too fast to see it coming or going but it seems to me that it had to change its height in order to hit her, and enough so that it didn't just hit her head. It hits her to knock her clear. It hits her to keep her from getting deeper. It hit her this time to return her to me, even though that doesn't seem the obvious path she should have been thrown, all the way from the other side. It knows what it is doing. It has a reason. The clock that is, and something in relation to the Fae Stone in particular."

Lyric continued walking toward the edge, not many steps from where Niz landed, but Lyric's path would cut across the face of the clock toward the Fae Stone. She wanted to see it up close and that meant she might need to look at it from that place no-place called Astray... the In-Between... the place where she could see both worlds at once. Her magic was nearly depleted for the day but she had enough to make a full cross... or go to the in-between and come back.

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Daxia, Keiko, Lyric, Nizhentska, Grandmother Starwatcher, and Tomomi

This is how it ended: Nizhentska sitting on the cold stone, knees drawn up, leaning back on straight arms, and looking up at the motionless Fae tablet. On either side of her stood Daxia and Lyric, their own observations of the broken clock piece for the moment completed. Above them, the night sky arched, the stars far brighter and far more numerous than could be seen from any mainland keep. The Fae tablet held its place now, still. It was not, or at the least did not feel like, a contented stillness, as if it had completed its mischief. It was a pensive stillness, taut and expectant, as of it were waiting and at the very limit of its patience.

This was something that could be very understandable. It had been broken for a very, very long time.

One of the other tablets slowly passed over the trio's heads, making its slow revolution around the Ancient clockwork device. Its path was silent and certainly well-ordered.

How they got to this point, however, was anything but well-ordered. They had actually started back in the warm, safe, glacier-covered village. It began with Grandmother Starwatcher considering, very seriously, the nature of Lady Bekkah's opposite and whom it might very well be — or rather, who it was certainly not.

"Nin, nin, nin. Not Imperial, ja? Imperials easy to figure out. Once figured out, even most tangled circles become straight line. Someone else, ja? That one, ja, may have been horrible influence on certain tzarina, deep inside has good heart. Must be someone else, perhaps someone farther away.

"Perhaps someone whose tales have never reached this place. If so, how would I know?

"How can this one be then?"

Nizhentska, however, was mulling another matter, glancing back to Lyric every now and then. She held her response until they were making their way up to the Clock's mesa, their footsteps muffled by the soft snow. Her pace slowed, finally coming to a stop. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes narrowed and crossed as if she were trying to see the tip of her small button nose.

"Chasing Fae foxes and Fae foxes being chased! What if you were Fae fox in expanse of snowfields, all alone, in great white empty, where sound is muffled by drifts and crevasses. If Fae fox were to yip, would there be yip? If no one there to hear Fae fox yip, is it actual, or is it dream?

"When does Fae fox become Fae fox?"

Their appointed guide peered across the short distance between herself and the minstrel.

"Are you girl dreaming of being Fae fox, or are you Fae fox dreaming of being girl?

"When are you real?

"Nin.

"When are you actual?

"Ja."

Tomomi tilted her head.. or, rather, the hood of her travel cloak — keeping her well-sheltered and protected from the cold — had a very definite cant. She took a step closer to Keiko as if to find some much-needed anchorage.

"You are making a Mouse's head hurt."

This was when Grandmother reached out with her large, heavy tome and bopped her Initiate on the top of her head. She just have Nizhentska a look.

"No hurting our guests. Very impolite."

"Hurt?" Nizhentska snorted back the fierce retort. Well, fierce for only that one first word. She kicked at the snow at her feet, sending up a small flurry of white.

"Only asked question. If not ask, how am I supposed to know? To know, must ask! And who taught Nizzy that? Certain Grandmother, ja? Certain Grandmother with very big book.

"Bah! Not fair! Life not fair for Nizzy! Grandmother gets big book for writing and beating on poor student! But Nizzy? Nizzy must just remember!

"Hurt?"

She turned her attention back to Lyric before looking up at the broken Clock.

"Think Nizzy like being hurt? May think Nizzy crazy, not that crazy."

Stretching out her arms straight, she turned around in place as she looked up. The night sky arced above them, scattered with stars brighter and more numerous than could be seen from any mainland keep.

"Listen to Nizzy, Nizzy tell about hurt.

"Her name was Kathreen, and she was just a stable girl. She worked very hard, but she had a soft heart. She never learned the way of swords and shields, never held a spear, but she believed, and she was a good girl, and she was so proud that they let her wear a simple leather necklace from which hung a white star. She looked after everyone else's midnight brothers, making sure they had water, that they had a nice place to rest, that they could have carrots or apples or a cube of rock candy when they wished.

"Then came that bitter night when the sun set over the temple, the night when the terraces flowed with blood, dancing down the carved steps like water over stones, the night when heroes were born and died in but a heartbeat. No one knew her, no one thought about her, that night. She was just the stable lass, and there was death on their doorstep. Look deep into your hearts and be honest... truly honest. Would you have remembered a stable lass the night Bordertown fell?

"She stood at the doorway, her arms outstretched, just like mine are now. She had no spear, no sword, no dagger, no shield. She just stood there. And the demon-kin and the multi-colored knights that had come on the Eastern wind paused. They could not believe this. And they laughed. They laughed at her, they chortled, they made jokes in a language she couldn't understand. But anyone, anyone could tell they were laughing at her. The laughter didn't stop even after they had snared her up, even after they had tossed her from one to another, even after she was nothing but a broken, silent doll, dull eyes fading as she looked up to a starry sky for the very last time.

"She had bought enough time for the black unicorns to escape...

"So they could stand by their soulmates and not die alone."

Nizhentska pointed to the sky... to a single star set away from the others.

"There she is now. The first set in the sky that night.

"So far away. Still alone."

Nizhentska pointed to the Clock.

"That is only place where she can still be heard.

"It hurt, ja.

"But how could I not?"

She was quiet the rest of the way up to the Clock. The silence grew heavy, and as if she knew conversation was needed, Grandmother spoke to Daxia.

"Not sure. Not sure correct. Tablets may not represent powers. May mean places. May mean people. Forest is place. Rhoni are people, demons come from spheres of wind and ice. Life and death are borders of our time here, when we rise, when we finally set.

"Fae are both. People and place. Now set alone. As for how old Clock is?"

The Starwatcher paused at the first trithilon.

"Best we know, was crafted during timeless shattering and may have been first of places built by Sisters. Her rising and setting brought order, ja, but then world shattered because of order, because of war.

"I think, me, that shattering was attempt to restore chaos to everything, despite Her path across sky. Perhaps Clock was then needed to bring order to all world's fragments. Other days, think Clock simply tracks passage of time in all places shattered, reminding us that even if broken, all still part of whole."

Tomomi just gave the Starwatcher a look, just like she did to Nizzy earlier.

"Apologies." Nizzy's grandmother grinned at their smallest companion. This brought Nizzy's bright nature back.

"Can I hit you now?"

Grandmother's answer was certainly predictable.

"Nin."

"Not fair."

"Is life."

Grandmother then returned her attention to the celestial mechanism. A short while later, Nizzy was at Lyric's feet. Both Lyric's and Daxia's investigations were quickly done. Because of the size of the Clock, none of the stones -- save for the Fae stone -- moved very fast, and their motions were predictable. Thus, they could get a good look at the misbehaving tablet, walk around it when at rest. However, it was high enough that it was just out of reach of Daxi's, the tallest of their group, highest fingertip reach.

To Daxia, it was, indeed, very fae-like... inscrutable, an unknown. For Lyric, too, it felt mysterious. As the Fae tablet used both logic and chaos, that should mean it would be more familiar to her than anyone else. Instead, the more she looked at it, the more she felt she was missing something important.

The Starwatcher spoke to Daxia.

"Fae tablet.. tablet just like them. Alone. Separate. Unknown. I do not believe tablets represent powers. Believe they represent People. Places. Things. All are bound by Time. Rhoni are people. Forest is Place. We know strange creatures, those summoned and controlled, are drawn from elemental spheres. Life, Death are our sunrise, sunset where each personal time on Heartwood begins and ends. The Fae? Fae are both people and place.

"Perhaps this why many runes do not show up in Clock.

"You maybe right.

"Question might not be how... but some manner of why."

Nizhentska shook herself, clearing metaphorical stars from her eyes.

"Achoo!

"I am no one's gift!"

Her statement was much more self-centered, returning back to the here and now, where it wasn't the idea of snow that made her sneeze but the fact that it was just, well, cold. Her nose wrinkled up; she looked annoyed again.

"But first time... first time tossed at anyone.

"Not just out."

* * * *

OOC: Good news! Both Daxia and Lyric asked or brought up so many interesting things in their two posts! Bad news! It was impossible to answer everything in one post. Good News! If there's anything that wasn't responded to that you'd still like to know, feel free to re-ask in your next post.

Lyric

Lyric listened and she observed. Niz's story was poignant and powerful. Lyric loved stories and his was one she never heard. It had Unicorns, and terrible enemies bent on hurting them and anyone in their path. Was that an important thing to remember? That somehow Black Unicorns in this world were somehow invested with a strength of Order. Or, to perceive the allegory in the story? Were Daxia's companion here now with them, Lyric would turn her attention to him, as if that would help her unravel this mysterious puzzle.

She regarded the Fae Stone again. It operated with both logic and Chaos... Logic was Order. The Fae were not Order. And yet they were. That is what they became. That is what she became. She straddled both, strangely more in a state of balance than was ever meant for her kind.Their entire society was framed around a chaotic form of Order. The rules and the oaths, all very complex and complicated and yet so often beyond arbitrary to the point where they made no sense at all. But still they were rules, and rules that must be followed. And when Lyric didn't follow the rules, she was dismissed to her own devices. And when Lyric's ideas about how things should be could no longer be dismissed because they threatened the nature of how things must be she was excised from society like a cancer, exiled and hunted, a wicked and cruel display of their sense of Order pretending to be Chaos. Lyric came as close to dying that day, that moment, that she never felt so alive as right there, and tight then. With nothing left to lose, nothing left to give, nothing left to surrender... she chose to live those last moments in defiance of everything that now pretended to be Fae.

Lyric closed her eyes and spoke aloud. "Tomomi Friend, I apologize... I am going to hurt your head... Forgive me."

Eyes still closed, "Niz I am the fae Fox. I am Lyric. How better to explain this than to, once again, borrow the deep wisdom of Friend Keiko. Lyric is Lyric is Lyric. I am unique because that was how I was made to be, living a life where uniqueness became subjugated to conformity. Where Chaos and Order could no longer hold sway, and yet neither would never be beyond reach. Where who I was became less important than what I was. Where I spent endless moment that became endless days, until days had no meaning... pondering the logic of my existence... until I no longer understood that my existence simply was just that... a life to be lived in joy and freedom. My Chaos became order and Logic became my lens through which I perceived the only existence I ever truly knew and remembered... save for distant glimpses and fragments of a laughter and a Forest."

Lyric sat quiet for just a moment now before she continued.

"The unintended consequences of using the Magicks of Gods and stealing the power of the Universe destroyed all those whose hubris exceeded their wisdom. And we were cursed with Immortality for daring to step outside the reach of the Primal Forces. But... the horror of the joke was that, we didn't escape at all. The curse of immortality is such that it dulls the senses to everything, and makes one push further and further to feel anything at all. And when there is nothing left to feel you have only the remembrance of feeling, and of emotion, and even those become like shadow play, a caricature of reality. Do something long enough and you can convince yourself that it is real, has meaning, and is important. Tell yourself a lie enough times and you may well begin to believe it. Suffer immortality and you can't even remember when life lost all meaning and your soul lost all sanguinity."

There was a building emotion in her voice, even a tremolo that accented her voice's cadence.

"And you simply exist, pretending that you have relevance despite all evidence to the contrary. You can not live life in a void of isolation. You are doomed the moment you seal yourself away behind a veil of your own insecurities and arrogances. If you trade away your need for freedom for the want of safety, never knowing the infinite value of what you surrender, nor the immeasurable price of the consequences of your choice, then you condemn yourself to an illusion that the latter fulfills the former. The lie becomes your truth, your world, and your prison. You create your own truth, and live in that lie until the unbearable weight of that endless void that is your soul or spirit cries out. Mayhap that sounds only like a distant echo as you repeat now pantomimed experiences that have long ago, or maybe just the previous dawn, lost any meaning and significance. But should it bring you to pause, even if only for a fraction of a moment... that then is the first moment you have been alive, truly alive, in an amount of time you no longer have the capacity to comprehend. Reach for it, grasp it, hear it... draw it to you and make it part of you. Like a spark to dry grasses and kindling, smolder and smoke can become flame and fire, building a lasting ember in the pit of the vessel where once a spirit dwelled. Still it does, just withered and weak, atrophied but redeemable. Pour into that pit constantly this fire as if it were a liquid, life giving and rich, for a fire's life is brief but in infinite, joyful, hopeful, sorrow-laden supply. Love and hate have to mean something. Joy and sorrow can not exist without each other. Courage and fear can not be known individually. Without the true experience of any one of these things you can not understand the other. But to do that, to reach out and grasp that flickering mote of light, that infinitesimal spark of hope, that sound you think is an echo, you must be willing to experience life and not hide from it."

Tears streamed down Lyric's cheeks unabated. She seemed content to reveal these thoughts, for these were a deeper revelation of the philosophical yearning of a life spent reaching for something she couldn't touch because she couldn't fathom it on her own, through logic. The Fae Minstrel opened her eyes, but her sight was obscured because the thick film of wetness shrouded her vision like an opaque veil. She wiped at them

"It was only when I faced death, real death, true death that I realized what it meant to be alive... to be who I was meant to be... And only then did I grasp the meaning of Life. I was free. And even if my life was to last but a moment or two more before i was cut down for my desire to seek something alien and forbidden, I would die knowing that I had discovered it, touched it, and lived it in those final moments. And they would be the most joyful moments ever, because I was alive, truly alive."

Lyric looked directly at Niz. "I am the Fae Fox because the Fae Fox never forgot who she was, who she was meant to be... Even if I didn't know I had forgotten, I was always meant to be who I was meant to be.... Lyric is Lyric is Lyric. I've spent a hundred, a thousand, lifetimes seeing the world through Logic, trying to understand my place in it. When the truth is, I was born to see the world through my emotions and my heart. That is who I am. That is who I was meant to be."

The Fae Fox-Girl looked to the Fae Stone and then to Niz again. The Fae Stone had chosen Niz. It wasn't trying to hurt her, although that had happened. it could have killed it. It much so fast that logic dictated that it could and should have killed her with any impact. But it wasn't trying to kill her. It was trying to communicate with her. There wasn't a logic to be possessed that could have revealed this to Lyric. It was only when she stopped thinking about it and tried to FEEL it from the perspective of a living thing, the Stone, the Clock... What changed... The Stone, the Clock now had a way to finish the message it was trying to convey. It threw Niz right to Lyric.

"Sometimes Destiny whispers to us in our dreams. Sometimes it runs us to ground in a Ring of Standing Stones to face death to prove we are worthy of living. And sometimes it hits us with a stone tablet. The question I have for you... Who were you meant to be, Nizhentska?"

Lord Protector, Her Ladyship Verchovai Daxia Yurisdotter [Daxia serves DAYALA... the GM ESPECIALLY should get this right]
and
Keiko khal’Nakano Hoshiko [pronounced KAY-ko... do you think the GM has memorized this yet? Nope, not yet...]

As they walked up to the Clock’s mesa, Daxia smiled at Nizzy’s philosophical musings about Fae foxes. The young woman reminded her of both Kisa and Kassia in the way she strode confidently down the path of her logic. But more important, at least to the Starlord, was the tale of the Bordertown Temple’s stable lass, Kathreen.

“We are always just buying time,” she whispered softly, quoting a bit of wisdom Dandelion had shared when she’d first met the Dayalan captain of the Wild Horde. Perhaps only the Starwatchers had known about Kathreen and her sacrifice. Now, so did a Dayalan priestess. And just because that particular Sister couldn’t be seen from the mainland, it didn’t mean she needed to be forgotten.

Dazi’s attention was snared by Grandmother.

“No one ask Sisters, our Lady, Unicorns what tablets mean?” She sounded... well, surprised. “No one in all Time ask? No one ever as curious as Cobble Block Dazi asking questions not supposed to ask??”

She blinked and stared at Grandmother for a moment before turning to her cousin.

“Not even Nizhentska ask?

“So surprising.”

Then she shrugged.

“Are Fae both people and place because they ran away?

“Set alone but not like Sister Kathreen. No one but Starwatchers remember Sister. Many, many mothers tell stories of Fae, scaring little children.

“Sister Dandelion fight naughty Fae.

“Maybe mothers tell not-true stories. Still... people remember Fae more than Sisters.”

Keiko took that moment to interject quietly. “Perhaps only a few people, you Starwatchers, remember all your fallen ancestors. But all Rhoni remember the Fae. They are our family once upon a time. It’s why I call Friend Lyric ‘Ancestor.’”

Daxia regarded both the Fae and the Rhoni.

“Huh.

“Why? Okay, one why is Fae run away. Why Fae run away when Rhoni kinfolk stay?”

She turned to Keiko.

“Have stories about why Fae run away?”

Perhaps being a storyteller in her own right, a Rhoni Loremaster, made it easier for Keiko to understand the Dayalan’s shortened speech pattern, something Daxia hadn’t used during their trip from Bordertown to Dawnview Castle. She probably sounded similar when she spoke Forestalk — after all, she wasn’t as proficient in that language as she was in Colonial and Eastern.

She tilted her head, considering the request, and then shook her head.

“It wasn’t until the World settled after the Shattering that we began making the teaching songs in earnest. But we do have proverbs from before and during the Shattering.

“The Rhoni’s greatest strength is riding the waves, following the currents of the World — not the whims of gods or men.

“The Fae’s greatest strength — before the Shattering, during the Shattering — is the potent magic they possess.

“Rather than lend that magic to either Order or Chaos, they hid it, and themselves, away where neither Chaos nor Order could steal it.”

She looked around the group, then at the Fae stone.

“All of this might have been consumed by Chaos if they had not fled. Those Ancestors left the World so that those who remained could maintain an uneasy balance between Order and Chaos.

“Despite the wars that ended the First and Second Ages, we can’t deny that balance remains to this day.”

Daxia narrowed her eyes at the Rhoni lass and then gestured to the sky filled with thousands after thousands of stars.

“This is balance?”

Keiko nodded. “Ja. Unfair, maybe. But as Dama Starwatcher pointed out, life is not fair. Isn’t it better to see and speak to your ancestors than to have both them and you not exist? Had my ancestors, Lyric’s kinfolk, chosen differently, we likely would not be here to have this conversation.” She pointed to the faint star Nizzy had named Kathreen. “She would not be here. Most of them would not be here.”

The Priestess stared for a moment longer before she made a sound.

“Hmpf. Okay. Not fair, but still necessary. Don’t have to like. And don’t.

“But accepting your truth.”

Keiko inclined her head, accepting that the Dayalan had come to the correct conclusion that certain things simply... were.



OOC: Left off the last part wherein Keiko interacts with Lyric. Maybe I'll come back to it next time around.

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Daxia, Keiko, Lyric, Nizhentska, Grandmother Starwatcher, and Tomomi

There was a lot of talking, quite a bit of it. The Starwatcher listened, perhaps a bit detached, every so often scribbling something in her tome. But mostly she watched her own personal charge. Nizhentska now... she seemed fascinated, and her attention was rapt. Every now and then, she bounced impatiently or tilted her head or gnawed on her lower lip.

"You try," Grandmother Starwatcher said, giving Dazi a wry smile, reaching up to place her hand on the top of her own hood, rubbing as if something hurt.

"I was told only: good question. Makes sense. We broke Clock, we fix Clock, ja? Nizzy ask, end up throwing fists of snow at Sun. She said did no good but made her feel better.

"Clock itself, silent. Tablets and stones only, marking quiet path at top of Her world.

"Listen to Rhoni. She is right."

With a nod to the rider of waves, Grandmother quoted her, albeit in the broken dialect of the Jambles.

"Not until World settled after Shattering that we began making teaching songs in earnest."

"What do we actually know?

"We actually know so little.

"Maybe that is why we call stories of whimsy and dusting of snow 'fairy tales.'"

Nizhentska, her expression odd, interrupted. She looked uncharacteristically serious, eyes narrowed.

"Ja.

"What do we actually know."

She then spun, pointing an accusatory finger at her elder.

"We know that you, always, always, make Nizzy greet folks who come to visit."

She stomped her foot, so similar to another princess — even to the theatrical hands on her hips.

"And what happens?

"Even here..."

She turned to face Daxia.

"Even here... we learn of monster lady running from broken home, wanting only to be good and kind girl."

"Even here... we learn of council that changed very nature of mainland, where lost scamp restored honor to Empire's conscience, noble Family rescued, and dark warlord transformed from predator into prey."

"Even here... we learn of curse broken by blade of white, of two who stood through unspeakable horror for forever worth of nights.

"Even here... we learned that caring does not have to end with death."

Slowly Nizhentska turned. Step by step, inch by inch, until she was face to face to the minstrel. For a moment, her head tilted, then it straightened again. She gave Lyric a solemn nod, and then, by pointing one booted toe, she spun on the other, arms thrown out as she faced everyone else.

"Come one, come all, come teachers and students, come grandmothers and cousins, come friends old and new ...

"Come listen to Nizzy of the Jambles...

"Come hear her newest tale, come hear her tell you of the Fae."

She bounced impatiently and then leaned forward as if to share a secret with all.

"Apologies. Nizzy lies! Come listen to the newest tale of single Fae troubadour, sometimes fox, sometimes warrior, whose name is like melody, reminding us that harmony is part of life. But first, I must ask...

"What do we know of Fae folks?

"Don't answer that. Nizzy knows. Nizzy knows truth, Grandmother's truth. What we know is like snow drifting on wind, white dust so light and airy it is less than real, more fleeting than dream."

Standing straight again, she slipped sideways, so she blocked no one's view of Lyric.

"We know nothing. Perhaps the one who wields Death's Blade knows more. All have heard of her and hers standing against unstoppable warriors from somewhere else. But Dandelion Koromov keeps own counsel. What do we know of the warriors of Elven kind? How can we know anything if no one else survives their wild hunt? Of the Fair Folk themselves? They have taken themselves away from here. They are in black chest of darkest steel and strongest magics that, once invited inside, most often one never returns, and if one does is never same as when drawn inside.

"All we know are whispers and dreams, hints of song that we know words but not melody. Or if we know melody, we just cannot get words quite right.

"So..."

She leaned forward a bit.

"There we were...

"And that means what I am telling you is true.

"There we were, rather there I was, standing in cold waiting for those new to our forgotten village. And among these new friends was a lass not-from-here. Not mouse girl, though she was there too, all cute and travel-eyed, hiding in shadow of her best friend. It was goat-horned lass but no goat-horned girl. Was she creation of fell magics come to harm us? Child of some little spirit who watches over herds in far off Highgaard? Did she wrong some powerful person and now must bear a wrath-fallen curse?

"We looked, we wondered, were they real? They were! They could be touched, and even strongest tugging could not pull them from her pretty head.

"And then... then... then we discovered that one of the Fair Folk had walked into our breakfast hall when, with blink and a swirl, with magics unknown and so full of power...

"Did she bring doom on us? Did she slice us with unstoppable blades of wrath? Did she slay us in our heavy fur-lined boots for some inscrutable insult we had no knowledge?

"Well... if that was true, would Nizzy be here right now?

"What did she do?

"She turned into a Fox! Fox light and mischievous, ran and danced with us, which did indeed bring magic into our halls...

"The magic of children laughing and smiling.

"What better magic is that?"

Folding her arms behind her, Nizzy rocked back and forth on her heels.

"Listen to what Nizzy learned that morning, that day she stood beneath the Fae Stone of World Clock.

"Was Lyric the Minstrel a girl or a fox?

"She spoke of logic and heart. She spoke of costs of immortality. She spoke of being lost and found. She spoke of world being unexpected place and having stepped into it, found it new and strange. She was so lost she had to go somewhere else to get first hints of who she was. So many words, contradictions... so much new, different, odd until head spun and all stars in sky danced around me.

"And this is what I will tell little ones, when they gather around, warming our hands at fire, just before sleep.

"That most amazing thing...

"Is that learning about life is so very confusing.

"Is she girl, or is she fox?

"The truth?

"She is just as confused as you or me.

"She is just like us and just like us, only beginning discovery of how big and wild and yes, how confusing world is.

"And isn't that great?

"It makes us kin."

She let her words fall to silence then, beneath the midnight sky.

Finally, with one hand, Nizhentska, with no little amount of flourish, swooped down her hood. Then, dramatically, she shook out her flame-colored hair as she tossed her head. She smiled brightly, proudly, her eyes flashing like the stars above, her gaze locked with Lyric's.

Nizhentska finally answered the minstrel's question.

"You want to know...

"What am I?

"What am I!

...tick...

"I am a storyteller!"

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Daxia, Keiko, Lyric, Nizhentska, Grandmother Starwatcher, and Tomomi

Grandmother Starwatcher could not help but smile as she watched her bright initiate. Right to the very end; anything else, of course, would have been improper.

Then her attention snapped away.

She blinked.

Her eyes went wide.

"The Fae tablet...

"It moved."

The Starwatcher's next question addressed everyone. Daxia, Lyric, Bekkah, Tomomi and even Nizzy.

...tock...

"Why... what did you just do?"

Lyric the Fae Minstrel

Lyric watched. Lyric listened. She stood quiet and still as Nizhentska turned a summary of Lyric's arrival to the frozen wilderness at the top of the world into a tale. It was a powerful tale, and what it lacked in terms of the verbal acuity could be attributed to the speech patterns of the people of these lands. Dazia had adopted it as though she put back on a familiar coat for the comfort and warmth. That abridged, economical speech, where unnecessary words were dropped, or clipped, and the resulting halting style of speech became a starkly punctuated staccato of profound pronouncement, had it's own heart and rhythm. It was a bit confusing to the Fae Minstrel, a child herself by some accounts, and ancient by others, but still a foreign speaker of this mortal world's tongue by all accounts respectively.

And yet, the story had impact, and a rhythm and that was something that could be taught, but only those that came by the understanding of it naturally would ever truly master it... and Niz was a master of it. Thus her story was powerful and had emotional context and artistic meaning in the concise and economical delivery. Even if Lyric struggled to fill in words that connected phrases as her mind required before parsing them for understanding, the Minstrel felt the story.

The Fae held up a hand at the elderly Starwatcher's question, as if to still the air again. Lyric's eyes never left the Storyteller though. The quieting gesture was not done out of disrespect though, but rather to clear her own headspace. Lyric cocked her head, and then looked past Niz to the complex device upon the mesa. her own thoughts wheeling. She looked back to Niz, head cocking the other direction now.

"She didn't do anything... She just is. She is as she has declared and the Clock has recognized her.... Accepted her... Nizhentska never was destined to be your apprentice, Great Mother Who Watches the Stars. No. She is a Storyteller. She is the Clock's Apprentice. She is THE Storyteller... The Voice of the Clock, and all the Clock has recorded and measured. Yes. The Voice. And she has told the first Fae story in a very long time. Just as I am the first Fae in a very long time to stand here to listen to the Story. As if she sang a song so the Clock could be heard..."

Lyric shrugged... "Or, maybe I am very wrong and know absolutely nothing. That has been true before as well."

Lord Protector, Her Ladyship Verchovai Daxia Yurisdotter
[Daxia serves DAYALA... the GM ESPECIALLY should get this right]

That the history of the World hadn’t truly been set in language and stone until the Shattering was, for the most part, over and settled didn’t surprise the Dayalan scholar. Even here, in the highest reaches of the Black Mountains, the Shattering had changed the World that Had Been into the World that Now Was. Still, between the stories of the Rhoni and the stories of the Fae — and perhaps stories that most cults preferred not to remember — there were hints at what might have been.

Daxia was always interested in the past... because it was a key to understanding the present and perhaps, just perhaps, a lantern to shine a light on the future.

So. Connections to be made... paths and patterns to consider. The machinations of the outside world weren’t unknown here in her mother’s home. Those machinations simply weren’t of overwhelming importance here. She smiled at her cousin’s theatrics, though.

Nizhentska spun her words into a tale befitting the greatest of the bards from years and Ages past. (And she was a far better storyteller than that Talesian character.)

Her message, though, was simple in its eloquence.

The unknown and previously unknowable Fae had become known to the People of the Snow. The Fae lass known as Lyric had not come with dark and dire magics, but with a magic borne of childhood’s light abandon. She had demonstrated with words and deeds that life was a confounding conundrum, something everyone eventually had to admit as they grew older — even if it was only a conversation between oneself and one’s Goddess.

And thus, in the display of that magic, Lyric had made herself known to the World... Nizzy recognized that and relayed the tale to the World Clock. Nizhentska called Lyric kin to, well, humanity — not just Nizzy, not just Nizzy’s Highbeck family, not just her far-flung family on the mainland. No, Lyric was kin to all the people of the World.

Daxia stole a glance at Tomomi. Yes, even the Forest Folk were part of the people of the World now, thanks to Bekkah.

She liked that... Lyric being kinfolk that is. It was something that bound her to this world, a way to hold at bay the flightiness. It was even better than a long belt to keep her from stopping off a metaphorical mountain cliff.

Dazi’s attention was snagged then by the Clock... by the Fae stone as it ticked...

...and then tocked...

Her gaze was then drawn to Grandmother Starwatcher, at the elder’s surprised question.

Her grin grew as she looked from Nizzy to Lyric.

And after the minstrel had added her own piece to the tale, the priestess laughed. Storyteller, indeed!

“Not Dazi’s fault! Not Bekkah’s fault! Yuri’s daughters not to blame this time!”

She clapped with real delight, making a muffled sound with mittened hands.

“Clever Nizzy finally tell Fae story to make Clock happy! Clock happy now... it tick-tock, click-clack, move move.

“Good for Lyric to visit Jambles, good for Nizzy to know Lyric. Especially good for Nizzy to tell story for Clock.”

Then Daxia looked at her grandmother once more.

“Not planned, Starwatcher. Except...” She looked up at the sky full of stars, at her foresisters. “Maybe Patterners nudge Dazi’s family, yah? Like current Patterner Khorall nudge Dazi, like Witch teacher nudge Dazi. So Bekkah meet Lyric, Dazi meet Lyric, Nizzy meet Lyric!”

She shrugged and smiled at Grandmother.

“Needed all troublemaker granddaughters for this job, yah?”

Daxia pursed her lips as she contemplated her cousin.

“Good thing troublemaker Nizzy is Snow People. Hoi! Imagine Nizzy and Dazi on mainland!”

And finally, she turned to Lyric, took a deep breath of the cold mountain air, and gestured to her cousin.

“No, no... Cousin Nizzy is a Starwatcher and a Storyteller. We can be many things at once, da? Most Starwatchers just record each star in each constellation. But Nizhentska? She knows their stories. She helps us remember who they were... the women they were when they lived.”

She gestured broadly to the star-filled sky.

“My teacher made sure I knew the names and positions of all the constellations we can see from the mainland. I didn’t know any of their stories, I didn’t know which sisters made up any of them.”

Dazi pointed to the Dark Patch, then to the Spear constellation.

“I know Tashka because she and her beloved had been cursed to spend eternity dying over and over again in the Bordertown Temple. As Grandmother said, I’m a troublemaker. I broke the curse. I will never forget Tashka and Linnette because they told me their story.

“I know Lily Allaine and her warriors because I spent a night at Highside Heather. The magic of the place sent me back to the battle of Silk Creek Bridge. I will never forget the women of the Spear constellation because I learned firsthand the story of their sacrifice.”

Finally, she pointed to the star that had once been the stable lass of the Bordertown Temple.

“Nizzy told us Kathreen’s story, told about her bravery and sacrifice. Now I won’t forget her either.”

Dazi wrapped an arm around Nizzy in a hug.

“Ja, da, yes, yes, yes! Nizhentska of the Snow People told an excellent story for the Clock. Nizzy the Storyteller-Starwatcher!”

She chuckled.

“Still Grandmother’s Initiate, though.”

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Horse

Bekkah, Daxia, Keiko, Lyric, Nizhentska, Grandmother Starwatcher, and Tomomi

...I was the number one grandson. That meant nothing and everything, but definitely, something growing up in an Italian family. My first memories come from grandmother's house — watching the launch of a Mercury Redstone, watching the funeral procession of a president because she had a TV and we didn't yet and, of course, far too many Macy's parades. Sunday was the family dinner, all of us — the aunts, the uncles, and the herd of cousins. Us kids, we ate in the living room, and the adults ate around the kitchen table, and I remember when I was finally invited to join the grown-ups. After once or twice, I returned to a special place back in the living room because it was just so crowded. I remember when she finally passed away and being furious. The hearse was a Lincoln Continental. Grandma was a Cadillac person. Always. I have no memories of my grandmother at the end. It wasn't until afterward that I discovered that my mom and my aunts purposefully kept me away. They knew how close we were and wanted to make sure my memories were only of her at her best and most loving.

I don't think I ever thanked them for such a kindness.

It truly was a great kindness.

What I remember most were her ta-dolls. Simple lemon drop cookies. I had to look up their real name, years later — tarallucci or anginetti. I don't know if it was simply a kid's mispronunciation of Italian or hers to English, but in our household, those simple cookies always were and always will be ta-dolls.

They were also heaven. I don't know why. The jam cookies were sweeter, the Christmas cookies sparkly and bright. But these?

Whenever I visited Grandmother, they were always there. It didn't matter. When I was a kid in the back seat of the car, going over the Mohawk River to grandma's house; when I was in elementary school, after trimming her hedges; when I was in high school and stopped by just to say hello; when I was in college, coming home from Virginia over break... they were always there.

Dependable. Like a simple fact of life.

It didn't matter. Such a simple cookie. They had a plain taste — just a hint of lemon and anise, and that white sugary topping.

I miss them so much.

Because they were made with love.



And she has told the first Fae story in a very long time

"Nizzy, a story told."

Grandmother Starwatcher held her book close like it was the most important thing in the world to her.

"Is that not what we do?"



...somewhere else, somewhen else... a dark-haired rake sat on the edge of a wall. They were watching the sunset, in that odd but beautiful space between light and dark. One, the tallest of the children, stood in her black and white tunics, watching the sun touch the far horizon. Sunset and sunrise, as if it were somehow her time. The next tallest sat next to her Mother, weaving a wreath made up of flowers she had picked. When done, she smiled and placed it on her Mother's head, fitting awkwardly between her pretty mouse ears. Somehow though, that awkward fit was not clumsy but perfectly perfect. Mother was leaning on Father's shoulder and that she was? Well, it was something she still could not believe. It was something so simple, so cherished and straightforward, for someone who had been made as a tool and had to learn to become a person. Their littlest one was tucked up beneath her Father's magical black cloak, dark as night, with no weave or woof, arms wrapped around her Father's waist.

"Alas, my love, I have an admission to make.

"My heart has been stolen by another."

Father now, had always lived life on the edge.

"A most beautiful lass, bright and innocent, and ever since I first saw her, how could I not have fallen? Even now, I can feel how close she is, even though it must forever be a love pure, chaste, and from afar."

The littlest one smiled the brightest of smiles and hugged her Father tighter.

"Oh, Daddy, stop being silly. I'm right here!"



Grandmother Starwatcher slowly moved, stepping in an odd little arc, whose purpose became apparent when she ended up facing Nizhentska with the World Clock not just in the background but rising directly behind the young, self-proclaimed storyteller.

"Could it be so simple? Of course. Of course. We always think the answer comes direct, problem, solution, solution problem.

"And yet, we were simply asking the wrong question."

Nodding to Daxia, she took a long breath before smiling again.

"All it took was a long line of troublemakers. All it took was one person to — for whatever reason — choose to step outside their self-imposed hermitage. No. Not hermitage. Isolation. From being all alone."



...somewhere else, somewhen else... the little lacemaker was hard at work. She was in her own little bit of heaven. Home was Home, but this, this was her home. She had been welcomed here, and by kindness — the kindness of others — she had a shop and a place, a home of her own, and worth. Oh, it was true, you had to climb a lot of stairs against the walls of Snowgate Keep, but it meant when she opened the diamond-paned window to work in the sun's light, she could see the whole town, the whole Vale, all spread out to her gaze.

It was a view that was new every single day.

She could see the path that led to the Keep's entrance too. That always made her smile. Even though they were far apart, that path connected her to her Forever Friend. Hugging herself, she closed her eyes and smiled. It was perfect. Well almost perfect. There was one thing missing. Eyes still closed she smiled gently, remembering. Thus it was that she never noticed that someone had climbed those many many steps, a tall and rugged shadow in patchwork leathers, who now leaned against the open door to her shop... who stepped back into her life once more with a single word.

"Mouse."

Her eyes went wide. Her mouth opened as she spun around, and then, eyes brimming with happy tears, she turned and... hopped... hopped right into the tall Dayalan's arms.

"BROKE!"

The wuffish Dayalan smiled, finding herself with an armful of Tomomi.

"The witch said I needed to come up here, at least once."

Tomomi wasn't listening.

The one missing thing?

Was no longer missing.



"To save themselves, Minstrel, your people ran away. They took themselves apart. They left the world behind. And thus, in saving themselves, they lost everything."

Grandmother Starwatcher's gaze had sought out the Minstrel's. Her words spoke a harsh truth. But they were not unkind.

"Until today.

"Until you two."



...somewhere else, somewhen else... on a hill between two worlds.

"Did you feel that, Sister Death?"

About ten paces away, the blonde-haired lass snorted. She looked like a farmgirl, in simple tunics and surcoat, yet the black sword at her side betrayed that. She offered her companion a smirk and a quick response.

"Let me guess. Something magical happened."

Of course, she had to stand so far away from Sister Life. Kethysynthia was one of the Fair Folk, and standing any closer to Captain Dandelion Koromov would have cut her to the core. She was magic, the Koromov was very much not.

"Time has returned to us. But perhaps now my people, once again mortal, will cherish their lives once more. And thus the lives of others."

The two guardians looked to one another, over the un-crossable gap between them. The human smiled back to the Elf.

"I'd like that. After so many years being respected enemies, between you and me? I'd much rather be your friend."



"Not just Nizzy!"

Nizhentska crossed her arms, giving her teacher a fierce look.

"Stories get lonely so easily. Stories in book, on shelf, are they even stories? Lock yourself away, apart, are you even alive? Do I tell stories to myself, am I crazy Nizzy, gibbering all alone in night beneath stars?"

Stopping, she blinked, once and then twice, realizing what she had just said.

"Wait. Do not answer that."



...somewhere else, somewhen else... in a lovely tower, a pretty girl tapped a line of doublebluff stones, watching them fall in a clitter-clack of one after another. But before it ended she reached out, reached out and caught the very last one. She turned it over in her hand before holding it close to her chest. It was a special tablet.

It was the one that represented her Knight.

No. Daxia. It represented Daxia. Her friend, her companion, and once you took away all the trapping of being a Khorall, being a noble, of having half the world at her beck and call, Daxia was her Most Important. She missed her so much when they were apart, counting the days. But she never counted how many had passed, no. Kisa Allaine counted each one as one closer to when they would be together again.

Just the joy of seeing Daxia again, the looking forward to that moment, that first wonderful instance, made her heart skip.

Of course, there would be kissing.

She blushed.

But each one?

Each one was always a first kiss.



The Clock had understood.

Stories are just like life; they cannot exist in isolation. They cannot survive all alone.

Anything can be real, but they only become actual if they have a genuine effect on you.

It sounded like a complicated philosophy, but the Clock understood that it was anything but.

To be anything more than snow dusting across the glacier, to have any meaning, one's life and one's stories need one oh-so-simple thing.

They need to be shared.



...somewhere else, somewhen else... someone had had enough. There was only one bed, and the floor was cold and uncomfortable, but the black-haired one would have gladly taken it; she had slept in worse places, much worse places. She would have been happy falling asleep against the room's door, as befitted the second spear-carrier from the right, but had slowly been cajoled inside despite how wrong it might have appeared. It was the white-haired lass who had insisted, and not for anything more than kindness, caught between honest-heartfelt care and her own nightmares.

"No. This is so not happening."

Now it's not that sharing a bed was strange. When the dark-haired one was growing up, it was something she and her sisters did, back in that other, forever ago, when she was just a farmer's youngest daughter. It was just as natural as wearing her sister's clothes, once they had outgrown them. Especially as her companion had already, chastely, slid over and rolled over, safe on her half of the bed.

"We both know what's going to happen."

Her back to Kay, Romana just meeped, curled tighter in a ball, biting her lip. She wasn't dumb. So far from it. She didn't know what was worse, knowing that she was blushing or admitting that her protector may just be right.

"This is how it always starts. You over there. Me over here. And I watch over you until you are asleep, because that's what I do, and then I finally fall asleep. But just as I do? That's when you roll over. Oh, I know. You are asleep. All innocent and sweet. But first, it's your arm lashing out. Now sometimes it lands on my tummy, but sometimes it's my nose. Remember the timer I woke up with a black eye? I lied. I didn't fall off the bed!"

Romana meeped a second time.

"Then you move. And I swear, by all my sisters in the sky, if you managed to miss my tummy, that's when you knee me in the gut. And you are so cute looking, how can I do anything? Until, and you know it as well as I, you end up all wrapped about me, resting your head on my chest and smiling the most perfect little smile. If you had nightmares, I could deal with that! But you, you fair Princess, Priestess, best friend, are a snuggler!"

The Easterner blinked.

"Bestus friend?"

"And come morning? I always wake first. You would sleep until noon if folks let you. But I have to lay perfectly still. I have to pretend I am asleep. When you open your eyes and panic, turn, tumbling yourself back to your side of the bed. And believe me, this is when you are at your clumsiest. If my nose wasn't bonked before, now it certainly would be. I am tired of waking up black and blue!

"Here, look at me."

Slowly, slowly Romana rolled over, blue eyes meeting dark ones, yet the dark-eyed gaze was so soft, so kind, so caring. Protective.

"Think. Look deep into your heart. You are the smartest person I have ever met. Do you truly believe I would ever do anything, anything to you that you would not wish?

"Do you truly believe I would ever hurt you?"

It was a long while before the Romana answered. And then it was only with a shake of her head.

"Good. Then no punching or thumping. You'll end up here anyway.

"Poking is my job, not yours."

Slowly, awkwardly, and so so shyly, Romana slipped closer. First, a tentative touch and then a sudden movement, as so naturally she ended up in a cuddle, arms wrapping around the shorter girl and yet, despite being so tall, somehow ending up with her head on Kay's chest. For a while, she shivered, her breath scared, rushed, but so slowly she calmed. Kay was a little less shy. She bravely let her fingers drift through Romana's hair, a so-very-gentle and comforting caress. And then. Then. That's when the tears suddenly started, they started and wouldn't stop, like a well overflowing, as Romana hugged Kay so tight and just could not stop crying.

"Romana?"

Choking, the Eastern princess just held on tighter.

"Mother... Mother... Mother held Romanas..."

Kay wasn't very smart, not like the girl in her arms. But she knew what to say.

"I'm here."

Romana whispered back, opening her heart.

"Reminds Romanas, what it is to be loved."

Kay did not stop her gentle caress. Instead, she just closed her eyes. She knew, every heartbeat of every day that she spent with Romana, that she was, indeed, the luckiest girl in the world.

"Then all is well, Whitehair.

"Because you are."



Grandmother Starwatcher then smiled and let her arms relax a bit. It was an odd smile. It was a proud smile, it was a wistful smile. With extended arms, she offered out her book, that thick heavy tome, where she recorded all things, to her Initiate. Nizhentska's eyes went wide as she instinctively accepted that gift, only after holding it realizing what Grandmother had done, what she had done, what they had done.

"Go."



...somewhere else, somewhen else... a smith looked up. He smiled, simple and so-very-honest. It was for the pretty blonde that stood in his doorway.

"Welcome home."



Tasha Varinkasdotter included both Lyric and Nizhentska in her pronouncement.

"You two have stories to tell."

Nizzy told us Kathreen’s story, told about her bravery and sacrifice. Now I won’t forget her either.

Finally, the Fair Folk had attained immortality.

Even if ten, a hundred, a thousand generations from now and only spoken of in fairy tales told to children...

They, too, will be remembered.

...a grandmother, a grandson and cookies. Part of my life, now only memories. Memories, like the Fae locked away in a little box, are lonely. Only when they are shared can they regain warmth and become more than a wistful smile in a wintery window reflection.

Now, now someone else — you — know of Margaret Buzzo, my grandmother.

Thank you.


Just like all who have walked upon The Heartwood.