Winds of Home

Awareness is disjointed. The spirit and the body swim around each other, searching for one another, but never really reaching one another in the darkness. He needs to get back. He needs to find something, save something. He does not know, he cannot know. He has to know. He has tried for an eternity. He has tried for seconds. He will try again. Something warns him to stop. Something tells him he will not make it out whole if he keeps trying.

He tries anyway.

--- *** ---

Osthryn kneels at the shore of the lake, the reeds that tower above her flowing gently in the wind. Her kirtle is a beautiful shade of burgundy, lovingly cut from cloth that Martina left her.

Staying in Mountainkeep was not an option. Silovar was right -- even in the absence of danger, a Dragon in human skin known to too many people is inconvenient at best and dangerous at worst. Even if being a known Dragon were no burden, and even if the knowledge of her was not rooted in bloodshed, she could never bring herself to return. Regardless of the memories etched into every cobbled street and the symbolic void the Library leaves in the city's skyline, returning to Mountainkeep would mean leaving him alone. Unprotected.

Osthryn watches the small fish and water-bugs in their watery home, content in this small world that she has made for herself. Two thousand years is long to wait, and her life is barely a quarter of that. Geolu might say that the grace of both suns fully strengthened is the only hope for Silovar to resurrect, but Osthryn is not inclined to take what that murderer says at face value. There is precious little she can try in the meantime that does not cross over into the territory of Necromancy. It is unfortunate that most of the written knowledge regarding resurrection is from a human perspective. Oh, how she despises what Dragonkind never told her.

To her best ability she has tried to decipher the runes on the Standing Stones, in a vain attempt to find some sort of instruction. She has had precious little luck with that. Evidently, the Henge had 'locked itself' down when it first told her to escape that night. At first Osthryn thought the overwhelming feeling she felt to flee the Henge was the warning of Silovar's transformation reverting. Now she realises that as much as the Henge exists to keep the magic of the dead Dragon safely inside, it exists to keep the living Dragon safely away.

Any attempt to enter the Henge brings her up against the force of the web. The symbols themselves are still present, and glow intermittently with some sort of power, but it is almost as if a ward prevents her mind from seeing them clearly. She will figure it out at some point. She has two thousand years to try.

Osthryn sighs as she stands, walking in the opposite direction of the Henge along the lakeshore. Her destination is another set of stones. Not a Henge, but a small thatch-roofed cottage. Building it was a novel experience, she had to try again several times, but eventually she had a roof over her head that she could be proud of. She could not spend all her time watching Silovar's body lie in state behind a preserving force-field. This cottage was her haven. Her place of safety.

A small garden greets her at the back entrance -- consisting of more than just the herbs that Osthryn was so fond of keeping. Cuttings from Silovar's garden strive to flourish where she planted them. Osthryn began to understand the joy Silovar felt when pushing the limits of his magic to keep these out-of-place plants alive in an envrionment they had no business growing in. She would tell him about the intricacies of how each unique cutting adapted to their new spot in her garden when she made her daily trek to the Henge. She always visits it, without fail, to see if today, somehow, his magic prevailed and he had returned.

His body, still intact, was always still.

"Were you up there yet today, Oumee?"

Osthryn looks up at Tomas, the salt-and-pepper of his beard contrasting against the suns-baked brown skin of a life taken to the outdoors. She did not ask anyone to come with her. She would have preferred it if no-one did. None but Silovar or herself knew that the Henge existed. But it turns out Tomas knew of it, and he insisted. He was out of place without Silovar. A human raised by the fae, too human to stay with them, and too fae to be human. Silovar saved him, and understood him.

Birds of a feather, Osthryn thinks to herself sadly, knowing that soon, Tomas too will be gone.

Tomas lifts his eyes uphill to where the standing stones peek over the tops of the Glasswood trees he and Osthryn slowly propagated from cuttings. The Henge was still a secret for now, but humans migrate. Trees are probably not the effective way to hide a Henge for two thousand years, but it is a start.

"No, not yet. How did you fare, Tomas? Is this village you wished to visit to your liking?"

Tomas shrugs his pack off his shoulders. Osthryn kicks herself that in the last forty years she has not determined any better way for Tomas to travel, but resupplying on foot was the best way to remain hidden. Osthryn is no stranger to wandering from village to village in this way as a folk-witch, but wandering folk-witches are a mainstay in Bettramon, not in Grosberg. It was with difficulty that Tomas convinced her that a male hermit wandering between villages will raise fewer questions than a mad forest lady would.

"Very much so. The path to it is easy enough, though the river-crossing might be a problem in high-rain months. There are some mages, and as usual there is some heritage from Mountainkeep, but they are simple in their practice. Magic is used sparingly, and mostly in healing. I did see something interesting..." Tomas rummages deeper into his pack, filtering through the clinking jars of items they could not grow or forage themselves. He retrieves a crude scroll, small enough to fit neatly in the palm of his hand unrolled, and some dried herbs. Osthryn takes it, studying the scroll. It appears to be a written spell, but feels isolated, like it is only a smallest complete part of another whole.

"Oswald would have found this very interesting if he were here," Osthryn muses as she reads it again. She turns her attention to the dried herbs. "What are these herbs for?"

"For the magic," Tomas smiles, "they dry these in the sun, and leave them out for days at a time afterward to ensure it 'soaks' properly. They hold it in their hand when they cast these smaller spells, and once it is spent, well, it is still good for cooking with."

Osthryn probes the herbs. They are inert, no magic is in them. "Are these spent?" She asks.

"No," Tomas chuckles, "The sun-soaked herbs do nothing at all. The magic required to cast this spell is so little that even if the greater sun receded, it could be done. What is important is that they think they do something. What's more, with no Library, a paranoid priesthood, and many of the knowledgeable mages of Mountainkeep aging or dead..."

"Then there is no reason to believe that the herbs don't do anything." Osthryn finishes.

"Mountainkeep's knowledge is still a risk. That knowledge will never truly die out, and I am sure there are still necromancers alive that have merely hidden themselves well from the Inquisition. But Oumee, if I may..."

Osthryn hands the scroll and herbs back to Tomas. "Tomas, I cannot risk it. Not yet. I cannot forgive them yet. Not enough to teach them -- and what shall I teach them? All I know is what can put us in danger."

Tomas takes the scroll and herbs from her, a rueful smile creasing the well-worn crow's feet around his eyes. Osthryn tries to ignore how old Tomas has grown. First Oswald, then Martina. Once Tomas is gone, the two thousand years will really start.

"Oumee, if you cannot forgive them, then you hold me in contempt."

Osthryn sighs, "Tomas, you have done nothing that needs forgiving."

"Oh, I have. I was born one of them. If you cannot forgive them, after all these years, then you have no forgiveness for me."

Osthryn studies Tomas, and for a moment she sees the young servant that she so unfairly mistrusted at first. The young man who despite her failings, rage, and actions, undeservedly forgave her. Not just for the sake of Silovar, but for her own.

She presses her lips in a thin line, closing her eyes. She reopens them, and in front of her stands Tomas. Leathery, wrinkled skin. Black hair now whitened by age and the sun. A salt-and-pepper beard covering an aged face that was once youthful and clean-shaven. A human being.

"I forgive you."

Tomas smiles, and Osthryn feels tears prickling at her eyes. Not only because she sees the sheen of tears forming in his own.

Tomas reaches into his pack, retrieving a small bottle of wine. He holds it out to her, a silent understanding passing between them as Osthryn gingerly accepts it with both hands.

"For when you go up today, Oumee."

Osthryn laughs to herself. She is forty years late, but at least in spirit, she can show Silovar how Glasswood trees got their name.