The Proposal

Chapter 3: The Proposal

Silva

I ran my fingers under the broken edge of the once-sealed envelope. In the center, it bore a wax seal depicting a winged serpent defeated by some warrior. The envelope was addressed from “The Royal Court of his Highness King Drakgard III, ” in fine inked calligraphy. The letter within also bore a wax seal, which had also been broken by one of the elders, or maybe Mother even. This one was a simple raven or maybe crow, the wax had been smushed so that the image wasn’t as clear as his Highness’s serpent. The letter itself was on fine parchment, and like the address on the envelope, the penmanship within evoked the sense of practice and education, truly a noble’s script. The letter began:

To the leadership of the Mistlands Coven. If you have found this letter and opened it, please deliver it to whomever is most appropriate.

I exhaled heavily, a sly smile forming across my face. Whoever had written this seemed out of their depth, given the lack of a specific intended recipient. The picture of the elders humming and hawing over this foreign stationery became clearer as I read.

Given our nation and your people’s proximity, though the clouds may divide us, and our lengthy history of peace, I am reaching out on behalf of His Highness King Drakgard III and his court to establish a formal treaty of peace between our two peoples. The times are ever-changing, and the future grows uncertain, so we believe a non-aggression pact is in short order.

This document is not the treaty itself, but rather an invitation to begin the process to establish ourselves as peaceful neighbors forevermore. Besides the eventual signing of a written treaty for archival purposes, it is typical for two nations to support the treaty through the marriage of a member of each court, or your people’s equivalent position of societal importance. As our people have had sparse interaction over recent history, I believe another of our customs may prove worthwhile in deepening our peoples’ bonds and learning more about our neighbors, above or below. This custom is a Debutante Ball, where those who’ve turned 18 in the year can meet their peers and have the opportunity to find a life-long partner, or form bonds between noble houses. In our case, I propose we are debuting not to the adult world, but to each other, and so I intend to invite a wider swath of nobles, both married and unmarried, to have a cultural exchange, and to give opportunity to for the noble houses and your equivalent to mingle and be confident in the bond required for the treaty to be upheld.

I know not how long this letter will take to find you, but if possible, please respond before the new moon.

Sincerely,

Lieutenant Shaela of House MacCrow

I rocked my chair back on its rear two legs, taking in what I had just read before slamming the front to legs back down as I burst into laughter. “So it was a crow,” I whispered to myself as I wiped tears from my eyes and recovered from laughter. Out of their depth was an understatement, and both Mother’s and the elders’ perplexed response was quite justified. A debutante ball and a marriage. All for a non-aggression pact with a group of people who have never aggressed upon your lands to begin with. Some serious leaps in logic landed this letter in my hands, but that’s not even what killed me the most. The audacity for some titled, noble, honorable, etc, etc, king to send this letter without even the smallest understanding of how our Coven functioned was baffling. How fortunate the letter was delivered to us, who want nothing more than to melt into the woods and be on our way than to get mixed up in the affairs of Skylanders. Addressed to some nonspecific leadership, with the expectation that our social hierarchy matched any conception of nobility. I couldn’t help but laugh again, my stomach in stitches at the even clearer image of the wise old Crones who have been raising me for the past decade, just dumbfounded at the letter before them. I’m not even sure how many of them would have known what debutante ball was without the lieutenant’s clumsy explanation.

Recovering again, I poured myself one last cup of tea. It had only been an hour since I awoke from my nightmares, and Mother sat to speak with me. The warmth of the tea steadied my breath, my heart slowed, and I began to really consider the proposition at hand. “Hmmm, next new moon,” I mused to myself. Having finished my tea, I moved to the window to glance up at the night sky. “That’s a week or so away.” I turned back and moved to my bedroom. Plenty of time to think, all the better after a good night’s sleep.

---

The sun crept through my wood-shuttered windows, and birds began to sing. Morning had come, and despite the small commotion of last night, I was well rested. The entire premise continued to perplex me. What was going on in the heads of those Skylanders to take a stab in the dark at an alliance with our little Coven? There was a reason contact hadn’t occurred in the lifetime of this king, probably hadn’t occurred since before Drakgard I. And if it was paramount, why was it this lieutenant from some House MacCrow writing it? Why a military personal? So many questions and no answers. I supposed I could draft a hasty reply just to prod for more information. But they seemed to have some sort of deadline coming up on them. While lost in thought, I finished most of my morning chores: getting dressed, making my bed, putting on breakfast. I sat with scrambled eggs and toast in front of me, a bottle of apple juice uncorked to pair with it, and took a break from the endless questions directed towards the mysterious MacCrow and instead contemplated the elders' decision to give me the letter.

I was young, or at least one of the younger adults within the Coven, and that certainly did not justify me being solely in charge of whether or not to pursue diplomacy with a nation whose land you can hardly make out with even the lightest of cloud cover, which was rare to begin with this far north. Sure, I might have a fresher perspective on the matter, but still. Perspective... My perspective. The pieces fell into place. They were all thinking the same thing, although no one would dare to say it out loud. Mother being the one who visited last night cemented it further. My perspective is unique to the Coven. Because I’m not from here. Because I’m a Skylander. Because I’m an outsider.

I pushed the remaining eggs back and forth into mounts atop my plate. I turned the word outsider over and over again in my head. It had been a decade here. Despite remembering my parents and home, despite being haunted by those same memories night after night, the notion that I might not belong had slipped away into the recesses of my mind. I let my fork drop to the side of my plate and perched my head between steepled hands.

This is my home.

I am welcomed.

I am safe.

With a deep breath, I pulled away from my hands and finished my breakfast. There was no way this was an avenue for the coven to be rid of me. They chose to bring me alone into the coven in the first place. None of the other survivors were whisked away to an unknown village buried deep in the northern mists. They were instead dropped off wherever the Coven determined safe enough, so I was told. No, this wasn’t a slight against me, but rather the elders must have been truly at a loss as to how to move forward. Clearing the table, my thoughts were interrupted by my front door creaking open.

“You’ve done some rearranging!” Viridia, the witch who had rescued and sheltered me, hung her hat and robe. “The desire for spring cleaning coming early?” She chuckled, resting a broom against the entryway wall. Viridia was one of the younger elders, though still much older than me. Not that it showed. She was athletic, always dressed in trousers under her cloak for outrunning bears or soldiers or who knows what. Though with a broom, that wasn’t much of a challenge for us. She also towered over me, despite all my growing since she took me in. She always chalked that up to being poorly fed before she found me, but my parents weren’t much taller than me to begin with. Her hair was strawberry red, hastily put up into a bun that rested below the brim of her hat, pinned with sticks or forks or whatever she could get her hands on.

“You’d be shocked to hear that wasn’t my handiwork,” I replied, scrubbing my dishes at the sink while Viridia explored our home’s new layout.

“Oh? You had guests without me, a rare occasion! Who decided the two of you needed to be cozied up to the fireplace?” She snapped, and fire jumped to life, nestling herself in the rocking chair.

“Mother.” I curtly replied.

“Mother?” Her eyes widened and darted across the room, searching for some answer as to why. “I’m not in trouble, am I? Or I didn’t get you in trouble. Or--”

I cut her off, “We’re fine, I think. You missed a council with some peculiar news, news Mother thought I should way in on.”

Despite being an elder, she often missed council, as she was rarely at home to begin with, at least that was the case since I turned 15. “Fifteen is plenty old for a witch to be on her own!” She had chortled when leaving for the first of her long ventures away, “You know how to care for yourself, cook, garden, do a little magic.” Her wink at that last bit was burned into my memory. “You’ll be fine.” I was fine, it wasn’t as if the rest of the Coven hadn’t been pitching in to raise the lost pup they found. And so I got used to her disappearing for months at a time, only to suddenly reappear with gifts or news from across the world. I explained the conundrum that faced our Coven, and was met with laughter that sparked my own.

“A debutante ball? For us witches,” Viridia cried with laughter, rocking her chair like a branch in a storm. She eventually settled. “Well, what conclusion has the young and wise Silva come to?”

Pushing the words through my last few fits of laughter, “Much the same as you, it seems absurd, does it not?” I took a deep breath, “I guess since I grew up a bit in the Skylands, they hoped I might have some insight.”

“Well, don’t you?” Viridia raised a cheeky eyebrow, “Tell me, Silva dear, did you want to get married, have a family, pursue your dreams?” Her gaze narrowed onto me as she spoke.

The laughter had fully subsided, and I paused, really trying to think back past the nightmares and my rescue. “I supposed there was a boy I fancied.” Viridia made ready to say something, surely a crack at my childhood romance, but before she could reply I continued, “He was the neighbors kid, we got on well, and I remember--” I paused for a moment, taking a deep breath, “I remember my parents asking me all sorts of questions about us playing together, if liked his parents, their house, their farm, et cetera.”

Whatever wisecrack I had anticipated out of Viridia had been packed away, at least for now. She had slowed her rocking and chose her words deliberately, “Did your town do anything like this proposed debutante ball?”

The change in our conversation’s direction caught me a little off guard. I glanced down at the silver plate I had been washing and caught a glimpse of my reflection. I was on the verge of tears. I sniffled, “Maybe? I think we just used our 18th birthday parties for that. You’d get all your friends and neighbors and friends of friends and neighbors and have a big ol’ hurray about being an adult. Lots of people would meet their spouse there, I think.”

Viridia snapped her fingers again, and this time, the tea set came flying out of our cupboards and assembled themselves on the end table before the fireplace. Another snap and the kettle filled itself with water before surging to hang above the fireplace. “I have some gifts. Come sit with me.” She produced a tin full of biscuits and a jar of jam. “From far down south, made from the fruit of a strange plant.” From her bag, she lifted a small potted plant. Sort of a wedge shape with spikes all over. “A cactus, they call it. Its fruit is sweet enough to be made into jam, it seems.”

We ate our cactus jam biscuits and drank our homegrown tea in silence before she spoke up again, “Things are rough down south. There are little skirmishes and jostling for control of the Midland islands flaring up. I’m as much at a loss as my Sisters are on this matter of diplomacy. On one hand, why are they asking for non-aggression as if we aggressed to begin with? But on the other...” She trailed off, scarfing down another biscuit, burying the thought. “I-- I very much doubt our Coven will be in danger. The council has seen a lot, and Mother eons more.” She paused again and then shrugged. “Maybe you should hear them out at least.” With that, Viridia flourished her hands as she stood up, as if directing soldiers how to form rank, and the tea set and kettle marched through the air back to the sink alongside her. As Viridia began dishes, I hugged her goodbye and went off to tend to our ever-stranger garden, added the cactus to its ranks, and mulled over our discussion as I worked.