Sylya'na'lith: Stranger in a normal land

[tleilaxughola]

"Sylya!" her father called to her across the daycamp. "Come, we must speak." Sighing with resignation, the wild elf girl lay down her arrow stock and feathers, rose, and trotted over to him.

"What, father? What remains to be said?" she snapped at him.

Drawing himself up, he scowled fiercely at her, a low growl in his chest. A fearsome warrior, obviously skilled with his spear, his tattoos and piercings made him quite intimidating. To anyone but her, that is. He spoke in low, angry tones. "You face the elders at dusk, girl," he said. "I've had enough of your nonsense. I have said it: you cannot be a Lightweaver. I will not see you dead like the rest of my children! You will choose to follow Mhair."

"No, Father," she said, shaking her head defiantly. "I will not."

"The bow, then!" he said, voice rising slightly.

"I will not," she said again stubbornly.

"The sword!" he snapped. She just glared at him, her vivid green eyes boring holes in his skull. "Rrraahh! Mhair strike you bald, you cursed river serpent of a girl! Your brothers are all dead. It will be many moons before you can bend the light. Who will feed you in that time?"

"I will feed myself, you old goat!" she hissed. "Already I can..."

"Silence! Hold your tongue with me, devil girl!" he roared, turning heads clear across the camp. "Your skills are fine for childish games with real warriors nearby. But relying on them for your own full share? Ha! Your head is in a hole and you still think it is night, but your ass stands clear in the daylight!"

Flushing angrily, she shouted back at him. "The hole -your- head is in travels with you, old man!"

Gasping, sputtering with anger, he raised his hand as though to strike her, but caught himself and slowly lowered it. "I have tried to help you, Little Flower. You spit on my help and throw it in my face. All your life I have tolerated it, for you were the child of my mate, and I did for you all I could. But tonight, you are a child no longer. Your time of protection is at an end. You must now join the tribe...or leave it."

He turned with finality, not caring how she responded, and moved off to speak to some trackers who had just returned. As usual, Great Chief Head-In-His-Ass had no time for her beyond a gruff rebuke in the center of the camp, where everyone would stare and laugh with each other.

Worry ate at her, worry that he was right. The thought that his assessment was perfectly accurate just made her despise him all the more. Her situation was a case of the worst timing the world had ever seen, all her dreams ripped asunder. Her brothers, along with ten other young men, had been hunting just a month before, and had been ambushed by a pack of razorclaws. In one swift frenzy of death for the elves and life for the beasts, her chance for becoming what she dreamed to be were chewed up into gristle. Now, with no brothers to protect her, they would say she must choose a mate to pursue this path...but none of the boys left in Winding Rose tribe were old enough to be a warchief. As the only remaining child of Winding Rose tribe's Warchief, and a daughter, whoever was mated to her would inherit the title when her father died. And any child of Mhair knew, death could strike without warning...her mate could become the new Warchief at any time. Possibly deliberately. Maddeningly, this meant the Elders had as much say in her choice of mate as she did.

Despite her public insistance that she could fend for herself, she knew she faced a hard few years and was unlikely to survive it. Joining one of the other paths would give her Waybrothers who would feed her while she trained. But the thought of abandoning the light, after all she had accomplished with it so far! She simply could not. I am the first lightweaver the rose tribe has seen in three generations, she thought bitterly. I cannot abandon the path, no matter how tangled it becomes. The tribe needs this!

Night fell, finding her still worrying over the same thoughts with no new resolution. The campfires were doused, all but the center fire, and the elders slowly made their way down to its heady orange light. They chanted in their odd, droning way, singing the old songs, coaxing out the moon. Tribesemen moved about, trading with each other and drinking the burning water. Hours later, its light finally spilled through the jungle canopy, making everything glow silvery-blue in her vision. The singing died away, leaving the night sounds. The elders turned and looked at her, beckoned her, and she approached.

"Sylya, daughter of Netu," the oldest elf intoned. "Tonight, the seasons change. You have seen a hundred summers, and a hundred winters. Now you must join the tribe, and choose your path to tomorrow. Will you step out of childhood, and join us?"

"I will," she said boldly, not a hint of her misgivings showing.

"Then what path will you follow, to claim a share?" he rasped.

"I will weave the light, eldest."

The old man frowned, the other elders muttering among themselves. Her father looked weary and resigned. "That cannot be, daughter of Netu."

"I can feed myself while I learn! I can..."

"It does not matter if you feed yourself," the old man cut in angrily. "There are other matters to consider. You must have a mate, and not just so you do not starve. The elders are agreed in this. You must choose a mate from among those at the fire. Courting and details can wait, but you must choose now. Say the words."

"But there are no unmatched men in our tribe old enough! Would you have a child as your chief?" she snapped angrily. But the old man just shook his head, leaving her little choice. She raised her voice to the crowd, sneering and defiant. She spoke the ancient invitation to the challenge, her words dripping with sarcasm. "Which 'man' among you will step into the firelight to be seen by me, to be judged for the feathers?"

"You do not understand," said the eldest sadly, and stepped aside. A group she had not even noticed stood, revealing themselves in the firelight. Ice washed down her spine when she saw the delegation from the Hawk tribe. They must have arrived after the songs began...she had not seen them arrive. Among them was J'nan, son of the Hawk's warchief. Smiling cruelly, leering at her, he stepped to the edge of the fire's circle of stones.

Her eyes sought her father accusingly, but he would not look at her. They fell upon old M'grathi instead. M'grathi, who had tried three times to bring down her father and take his place. M'grathi, who had advised her in the ways of the elders. M'grathi, who now sneered at her in triumph. He told me I could go without a mate! she cried to herself. He tricked me! She was cold, numbed with shock as the ritual proceded and the elders assigned J'nan his challenge. The implications spread like fire through her mind. Screaming Hawk tribe will eat Winding Rose! The rose tribe will be devoured! M'grathi had strong ties to Hawk tribe...no doubt his own position would be elevated once the devouring was done. The implications of wedding J'nan were not lost on her, particularly under his hungry gaze. Her future appeared to be one of pain and torment, and she withered inside at the thought of it. She was caught, trapped...

A jingling of small bells interrupted her thoughts, and the elders stopped speaking with J'nan and his party. The quiet glade grew quieter still as hundreds of breaths caught in their throats. Walking from the edge of the glade was a stooped old woman covered with feathers and beads and animal tails, wearing a crown of bright silver jinglebeads. Her milky white eyes gazed past everything in her path...but were fixed on Sylya.

Murmers spread through the gathered wild elves as she made her way forward. M'grathi the elder stepped forward and barred her path. "What is this, Mi'nh!" he yelled at her. "This is an acceptance ritual, old woman! You are not needed here! Go back to the forest! How dare you interrupt? Leave and AaaiiiI!!" The old woman raised her hand casually, and M'grathi's harsh words were cut off by a mass of vines suddenly swarming from the underbrush and wrapping him up like a spider's dinner.

"M'hair will speak when she wishes," she croaked feebly, and hobbled on past the struggling elder. All others in her path backed away as she continued forward, eventually stopping before Sylya. The young chieftain's daughter fell to her knee before the ancient TreeSpeaker. The old blind druid reached forth to lay a hand on her head, and spoke with a voice suddenly deep, hollow, and booming, seemingly thrown back by the trees surrounding the glade as if it were their own voice instead. "Sylya'na'lith, daughter of Netu'ji'lith, you will run north! North, to the place where earth and sky embrace! North, where water sleeps, and the Sun fears to tread! North, to lay this seed upon the shore of the Sea of Glass!" The old woman fumbled blindly for Sylya's hand and roughly pressed a simple acorn into her hand.

Sylya remained on her knee, staring at the acorn in shock. "Wh...what?" she stammered. The old woman paid her no mind, simply walked back to the egde of the clearing. When she passed between the first of the trees, the jingling stopped, and she was gone. Noise burst upon the scene once more, hundreds of whispered conversations suddenly shushushushing through the clearing. Sylya looked back on those gathered at the fire. Her father was weeping with relief, laughing loudly...the elders in various states of outrage and confusion, and J'nan...he looked as if he had just discovered that his rations were full of ants. J'nan started to protest, scream that this was unfair and she would be his, but his father struck him to silence him, so hard that J'nan crumpled to the ground. His accusing gaze from the ground was not levelled at his father, but at Sylya.

Sylya gave him a contemptuous, withering glare, and moved back to her small tent to gather her belongings. As she finished packing, her father appeared, watching her with a small smile. "Well Little Flower, it seems you will not be wife to the son of a warchief after all."

"Father, what happened here? Why does M'hair choose me, now, for so pointless a task? This makes no sense! What is going on??" she asked, near tears with confusion as the shock of her situation became real. I must leave the jungle! she thought wildly, fretting over it deeply but revealing none of her concern.

"I'd say M'hair wants us to have a lightweaver," he said casually, tenderly cupping a hand over her cheek. "Perhaps M'hair even favors our tribe, and does not want us to be hawks. Or maybe Mi'nh asked M'grathi into her blankets and he turned her down. But let us not hunt shadows in a cave at dusk. Enough of meanings. You have little time. I am glad M'hair has spared you this, where I could not. I hope you will not hate me for my failure. It is strange out there, Little Flower. They have forgotten the Old Ways, all of them. But remember that survival does not think on what should be, only what is." He hugged her and left before she could respond. Typical, she couldn't help but thinking.

Pack and tent secured to her back, she paused at the edge of the clearing and looked back on her tribe, her family, her dispicable fiance'. It would be years before she saw them again, if ever, a thought that nearly had her weeping and wailing like a toddler. But deeper than that, she rejoiced in being able to honorably run from this union with J'nan the elders had arranged, and even deeper still, she knew that now she would have an opportunity to become a lightweaver for her tribe. She glanced down at the pouch hanging around her neck, fondling the acorn within, and turned away from her people and the life she had known since birth. Drawing a deep breath, she pushed into the underbrush beyond the glade, moving northward into the unknown.

[lucid]

Ten turns of the sky.

When she said it aloud, it made her wonder where the time went.

Ten times as she watched the stars above her, the shape she knew as the Dragon had raced round the sky to catch the sun again. Ten of Mhair's Great Rains that had not soaked her, ten summer solstice festivals she'd missed...

Her path had led her across lands she'd not have imagined even in a fever dream. Everything she'd expected to find was gone, even its bones gone so long their names were unknown. Her ability to go unseen was compromised outside a lush forest, greatly complicating her way north.

Her goal lay beyond a great burnt land, a place where ocean and beach had been flipped in roles. It was lifeless, yet madenningly crawling with hostile humans. Her magical skills were outmatched, invisibility was a joke. She had failed, and failed, and failed. Her only success had been a mouse's...the snakes had gone hungry.

From the slopes of the storm horns, the place where earth and sky embraced, she watched the dawn as she made her camp and saw above it the Dragon constellation, newly risen, nose down into the reddening horizon. He'd caught the sun again, and it looked as though he were breathing fire, incinerating the horizon in a blaze of cosmic scale.

Her Father's words simmered in her memory. Her failure could not be ignored. Taunting these black clad desert humans would only chance to feed the snake.

I'm doing it wrong.

A new path was needed. Much as she tried to avoid contact with these bizarre northfolk, she must seek out her cousins here. This was not her forest. She must learn the bones of this land from those who knew them.

This journey, this odd task, would secure her a favored spot among the fires of her ancestors. Her song would be sung loud and often, oh yes. But the ending would set the tone. She would not have her song be sung in ridicule.

As dawn blazed across the frozen alpine forest slope, she crawled into her well hidden tent and contemplated all the thrown stones and angry shouting that had colored her previous encounters with northfolk.

I don't guess I can do any worse, at least.

[lucid]

It was speaking to the gnome that did it, speaking of her first facing of the Strangeness. The old memory, shaken loose, would not be denied now that she sank into reverie. It hunted her through Dreamwood, and had a nose full of her scent...there was no running, no hiding. She chose her ground, and turned to face it. Nervousness, nausea, fear heralded its approach through the dark, nebulous dream-forest...she gripped her spear of Will tightly...and the memory pounced.

The scene was no dimmer for a decade of gathering dust. Even the smells of the rolling foothill grasslands were sharp in her mind. She had finally crossed the Burning Water, as she had translated the human term Lake of Steam, fifteen moons gone in her journey, at the end of the second summer after her departure from Mhair. That long failure had galled her, her song was marred by a horrible deception she'd foolishly fallen for, and she was eager to be away from all humans, all northfolk, forever. This empty grassland was easily traversed, easy to scout and easy to hide in...she pushed across it faster than her training told her she should, eating the northbound miles ravenously without worry of poisoned meat.

Within weeks she reached the end of the grass, where began a northern forest, nestled at the foot of the great mountain range whose jagged, craggy peaks stabbed at the sky beyond. It had the feel of old growth, untouched in countless turns of the sky, though a sorrow seemed to be thick upon the leaves...as small as it was, she guessed She once covered the grassland Sylya had just crossed, and still ached at the loss. She found proof in old stones here and there, this was once a place of the People, some of the splinters of the ruins looking easily ten thousand turns of the sky in age...and she had seen similar stones, in the grassy hills behind her. As she entered the forest, she found there were orcs in Her shade, and something worse near the eastern mountain slope that they feared beyond reason. But they were scattered and small, and this tangled, twisted old forest was more like her home than any she'd yet found. They never even knew she was there.

She became lulled, complacent...she determined to wait here a time, in some patch of the familiar, to regain her breath. If Mhair had wanted this seed carried quickly, She should have chosen faster feet! Yes. Her mission be damned. Sylya would rest here, for a time, gather her strength. This forest, with so many spiked, piercing plant forms like her home, was simply lovely. She would stay here for a season. Yes. Perhaps a full turn of the sky, even. Yes.

She was only given a week.

Moving about the land, she became aware that some of the trees were sickening. Some strange disease had afflicted their leaves. She was no Treespeaker, but her awareness of forest ecology was far and above what most would consider normal. Even so, she could see no way to help these poor trees. Whatever the blight was, she could only watch, and sing to them as they died. Their leaves sickened further, and began falling off, like the hair of one struck with the Gnawing Death...

To her horror, the disease spread. It jumped species, a rare thing for such events, and soon the entire forest was withering before her eyes. Trees died, the Greensong quieting with their loss, driving her mad with the ringing silence it left. The forest floor became a churning charnel house of the trees, dead leaves piled thick against bare black trunks. The vines became brown and made no more berries...the flowers hung their heads, and died. And all she could do, was watch.

She had never before seen something of so cosmic a scale. A great spirit like a forest was as old as the world, was old when her millenia-dead cousins had dragged boulders from Her soil and carved them into cities, was older still when even their bones were gone...she was as powerless to save the forest as she was to kill Her. She wept pitifully, sang songs of mourning to the bones of the trees, which stood jagged and wispy, in mockery of what they once were. Then the Sun himself began to fade, refusing to turn His face upon this disastrous horror, the nights became longer and longer, until Water herself slept, and refused to run in the creeks and pools. A curse had settled on this land...a curse of ultimate darkness. Her soul withered under its touch as much as the forest did.

What nearly broke her was the animals. All the while, during the entire death of the great spirit who was their Mother...they rejoiced. One and all, the animals were reveling, glorying, in the death of their own forest!! When one spoke with animals, one did not truly use words. But she was not entirely aware of herself using words, as such, so the distinction was largely lost on her. The animals spoke in their way...she heard them in hers. Much could be lost in translation...but what they knew, they knew.

"Your forest is dying!" she told the squirrel.

"Yes! She is! Look how much of Her we can eat! Hooray!" it replied, ghoulishly frolicking in the forest's remains.

"Your forest is dying!" she told the deer.

"Yes! What joy! My head is decorated to fight, like Hers!" it replied, its antlers as bare and jagged as the trees.

"Your forest is dying!" she told the bear.

"Yes! At last! Soon, I too will sleep the long sleep! Rejoice!" it replied, oblivious.

"What the hell is WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU?!?!?" she told the sky.

It did not reply.

Soon the last embers of the forest's life faded out, and the air become very cold...the thorns of the vines could not bite her skin, now, but their vengeful ghosts haunted the wind, and the wind had grown thorns itself. She stood in this silent desolation, utterly undone...she had rested here for the familiar, the known...but it was all gone, like a bubble she'd tried to grasp, and popped. She could not save this forest of mad animals and dead trees. But she would sing to Her, before she went on. She would try, at least, to ease Her passage into whatever strange form Forests found themselves in their afterlife. As she wandered, she was oblivious to the passage of time, her grief and horror and numbness left Time no perch. She only knew despair, and it was painted on every tree...and so she could not see the forest for the trees. She did not notice the light returning, nor even the slow thaw taking place literally under her feet.

She had no idea what was happening. It simply happened. One day...there was green.

Small shoots pushed aggressively into the air, buds appeared on otherwise dead limbs, and grasses slurped the quickening water as she began to move, standing up and turning green again. Trees pushed out new leaves, animals awoke and reappeared, the creeks flowed again, insects buzzed the air.

In a week it was done. The forest was alive, vibrant, thriving. The Greensong was incessant, buzzing, loud. She thought she had gone mad...she might have believed herself a goddess, had she actually prayed for the forest to return to life, but her songs had been requiems devoid of hope. As before, she had no power to make Her live. This was simply...something that had happened. It was alien, unfathomable. She had to leave this place, this madness. No longer did she think of resting here, lest more Strangeness take her in her complacency again. No, she had to flee, like a doe before a panther. Right now.

But first...she had to know. She had to understand. Was she mad? Or was it the world?

She had to know.

She turned to the only source of information available...the animals. It took a few tries before they understood. But finally an owl explained it. Receiving its answer, she turned west, skirting the mountains to push onward, resuming her path and leaving this strange Wood of Thorns behind. The owl had been enough...she was wasting time.

"Your forest...dies...and comes back to life? ...Every year?" she had asked the owl.

"...doesn't yours?" it replied, head tilted far to the side in mocking, condescending wisdom. "...weird."

[lucid]

((HUGE THANKS to my pal Saerel for this drawing

[lucid]

The act of periodically revealing your deepest shame was a long-standing and honored tradition among the Children of Mhair. One could not learn from mistakes if one never looked upon them in the full light of the bonfire. The ritualization of this process had come over time, but had stabilized into its current form thousands of years ago. The elves treated the event as similar to drinking warriors comparing scars...whoever carried the deepest shame was clearly the strongest of spirit, as it was known that enough shame could break even a god.

Sylya honored this tradition, but did not relish it. However much it may improve her, the sword does not thank the anvil. Still, the Ancestors were watching, and even if she had no fellowship here in this odd forest, she had her past. She had many choices of what to reveal, but to her, the deepest shame by far could be stated with but two words: "Captain Jerik"

After crossing the Sea of Grass, she had been wounded rather severely by angry peasants after a misunderstanding about hunting rights, and a long convalescence in a kind human's hut had given her some time to refine her Common and learn a few things about what lay ahead. The man whose name she mangled into Snowbeard had told her that the Burning Water was far too wide and dangerous to swim, nor could she expect a raft to cross it. The only narrow place, at the straight into the Shining Sea, was ripped with strong currents that would hurl her out into the great bay before she could reach the far side, which was deceptively far. No, she must do what the Northfolk do, and find passage on a Ship.

Her people knew of ships, had language for them, but had not used anything larger than an eight-oar longboat in thousands of years. The kind human thought this would be the worst part for her, and said much about traversing the Lake, and about the much-feared Pirate Tribe. But he did not fully understand the depth of her differences, and left her entirely ignorant as to the ways of wharfs and warehouses. She arrived in the city, walked down to the waterfront, and began boldly asking where she could find Sailors. She took their smiles of amusement for friendliness. She followed their direction, and marched straight into a building decorated with the image of a rat with a crown.

The noise was deafening. A bar brawl was in progress on one side of the tavern, a dozen or so men trading blows. The other side was filled with more human men hooting like monkeys and laughing like hyenas. They brandished tankards and screamed forth a cacophony of language smeared into unintelligible noise. None paid her any attention until she pulled her hood back and shook her hair out, letting her braids fall free. Immediately half the noise ceased as the humans who noticed her froze into immobile, stunned silence. Among the brawlers, several stopped fighting in their shock and immediately got floored with sucker punches. In the resulting lull, the others gradually trailed off as they noticed the silence, turned about to find the source, and joined the silence when they saw her.

The moment stretched. Even the rats were silent. Sylya had never felt quite as awkward.

She showed nothing of her uncomfortable misgivings, just raised her head haughtily, and broke the silence. "Am go water. Who is take me?"

The noise resumed with such suddenness, it hit her like an explosion. Laughing, jeering, yelling, some of them were using words but she understood none of it. Several started toward her, more fell in behind them, and she needed no words to read their intent. Realizing she had blundered her way into a hostile tribe's camp, the tactical situation crystalizing clearly (terrifyingly) in a single moment, she scowled fiercely and readied herself for battle. The first of them reached for her...

Binding the Wind to her bidding with a deft gesture and quick, backwards-sounding word, she pushed her hand forward at the man with a striking flat palm, and the Wind burst forth with anger in a sharp explosion of force. The whole front rank of humans went down, bowled backwards onto their asses on all sides of her, their jeers and yells turning to shocked surprise and pain. She wove again in the time she bought, binding Wind's force into herself so she would dance like Wind, and weaving to waken the spirit of the knives she drew forth in a quick, practiced motion. The others in the bar had risen from their seats as the first rank had fallen, and the quickest of them now leaped over their friends to begin the dance anew.

She was not ashamed of the fight she gave. Her ancestors could not fault her there. Slashed arms, broken ribs, and spat teeth showed her passage through the mob, trying for the door. One man lay paralyzed, several more were befuddled by enchantment and fighting each other. But inevitably, this fight was unwinnable. There were just too many. When she set one of them on fire, she'd hoped it would deter the others, but it only escalated their efforts. Something heavy and wooden smashed into her from behind, knocking her to the floor. She kicked a knee to produce a howl of pain and thud of falling body, she slashed an arm that reached for her, then a boot found the side of her head and sent her reeling.

She blinked stars away, vaguely aware that she should be fighting, regaining her feet, but she couldn't seem to recall how to do such things. She only made it to her knees. As her vision cleared, she saw an angry man with blood streaming from his nose step up and stand over her. He did not hesitate, but raised his club high...she knew the club would be the last thing she would see. It started to fall...

Club and bloody-nosed man alike were abruptly smashed aside, vanishing in a tumbling blur of flying wood as a shattering chair impacted him from behind. Sylya perceived a blur of blue, and then she was grabbed, lifted...she started to struggle, strike at whoever had her, but she had no chance...before her struggles could focus, she was set on her feet, and released.

The shock of this cleared her mind. She turned to find a flamboyantly dressed human with a large feather in his odd headgear, striking at the other humans with a long, slim blade. As she watched, he grabbed a tankard and hurled it into another man's face, shattering mug and teeth alike. He turned toward her to smile, and his eyes widened, amusement going to alarm.

"Duck, Princess!", he yelled in perfectly fluent elven.

Her combat reflexes had been honed and trained since before she could speak her own name. The order snapped her back to reality, leaving such questions as "How" and "Whuh" for when battle was done. She dropped like a stone even as he punched into where her head had just been, flattening the human who had just come up behind her. She leapt aside and began the dance again, slashing at the sailors with her knives, lashing out with knees and elbows.

"Too many pirates! The door! Make for the door!" he shouted, and she did, the man in blue guarding her flank. Together they fought their way free, pushing into the street beyond and running through the city like their pants were on fire. He led her through the twisting maze of piled stone to a small cave, where they collapsed in gales of relieved laughter.

And the night had not ended there.

She had never been so fortunate! Truly, she thought, Hanali had smiled upon her with this handsome, dashing man and his timely rescue. Not only could he understand her, not only did he help her through the city to resupply herself, but it came to pass that he was a chief of the Merchant tribes, Captain of the Dancing Queen, which was a stout ship with a loyal crew. In crisp and proper elven, he declared that it would be his honor to provide her transport over the Lake of Steam. She 'made camp' in his cabin, and they set sail a few days later. He called her "Princess", and she felt like one.

But there, the luck had run out. Only two days out of port, one of the crew ran up very excited, jabbering in their monkey tongue. Captain Jerik looked very grim, and explained to her that a ship of the Pirate Tribe had been sighted, and they would surely chase down the Dancing Queen.

"This will be a fierce battle, Princess," he said, gently stroking her cheek. "Pirate tribe is well known for their raiders. I would not see you harmed...hide below in my cabin, and if we survive, I will tell you when it is safe."

He could not have chosen more inflammatory words.

"I am the daughter of the Warchief! I am the Lightweaver of Winding Rose tribe!" she rebuked angrily. "Are my knives not sharp? Does my spear lie broken? My ancestors were no cowards, and their blood runs true! I will tell you when it is safe!"

As the other ship approached, she turned her magic on them. Fire blasted the deck, incinerating sails and sailors alike. Snapping lines whipped like manic squid arms, yard arms crashed to the decks. Her enchantments snared the minds of the survivors, sowing chaos and disorder among their ranks, and when the Dancing Queen's men finally boarded the other ship, there was nothing to do but mop up. The fight was won without a single lost crewman. Captain Jerik was enthusiastic in his praise, but still ordered a hasty retreat.

"That was impressive, Princess. But you can't do it again today. And this was just one of their scouts. Like ants, when he does not return, the others will come in force. We'll let them buzz around for a few days, then try again."

She reluctantly agreed. And so it was. They returned to port, took on new supplies, ate and drank very well indeed, then gathered the crew and set out again.

Two days out of port, the crew again spotted another ship. Again Captain Jerik looked grim, and again he fanned the flame of her pride into a spectacular show of force.

"I feel strange letting you do all the work. And I worry you'll overexert yourself, you haven't fully trained in the magic yet, you said so yourself. Are you certain you can handle it?"

Minutes later, the flames of the Pirate Tribe vessel belched her answer in the form of roiling smoke and terrified screams. But again, the Captain warned that more Pirates would come, and no ship could hope to outmatch three, let alone five. So back to port they went, to pass more days in debauchery and drugged stupors.

Then they left port again. And it happened again.

Again the cry she came to know so well, "Sail Ho!" Again her magic overpowering the enemy, again the retreat to safety, again the wait for clear waters.

And again.

And again.

For nearly four full moons, almost the entire spring and half of the summer, the pattern repeated. The Dancing Queen had fended off a dozen of Pirate Tribe's attacks, but still they came on. She had doubted Captain Jerik at first, but if their tribe had this many spears, to face them en masse would indeed be a fool's fight. His way was best...they must try to slip through unseen, avoiding a full fight, and retreat when discovered.

The pattern might have repeated forever, but finally the turning gears of fate slipped, grinding out a new thing.

The cry of "Sail Ho!" had again called her abovedecks, she began hurling her magic at the other vessel. To her surprise, when she called upon Fire to devour them, Fire rushed toward them at her command, and then...vanished. Someone on the pirate ship had unraveled her weaving! She recovered in time to hastily do the same to their attempt to enchant the Dancing Queen's crew. She hurled her own spell back, which was also blocked. Parry, riposte, attack, defend, she plied her craft to her utmost, and the best she could achieve was stalemate...she and the Pirate Lightweaver were evenly matched. The ships came closer together, close enough that grapples were thrown. Boarding planks slapped down as the solid, groaning CRUNCH shuddered through the ships when they collided.

The two ships were askance when they rammed but they swung around quickly. From her position on the sterncastle she saw the other ship pivoting toward her...the sails turned, reaching a place where she could see past them, and lay eyes upon her quarry for the first time. The pirate wizard was-

...an elf.

What the hell?!?!

Her shock was mirrored upon the face of the robed Moon Elf across from her. They stared at each other, stunned, aghast, incredulous. Both could see, neither had known they were trying to spill Quessir blood. She sputtered, trying to form words, she wanted to ask why, why, cousin, why are you helping those pirates...

Her opponent recovered first. He called across the narrowing gap at her in crisp, perfect elven:

"Cousin!! Why are you helping those pirates?!?"

It was not Hanali who was smiling.

It was Erevan.

*********

What happened next, she does not speak of, for she is not at all ashamed of that, at least. It is enough to know that the Dancing Queen and her handsome Captain do not appear again in this tale, nor in any other. As for Sylya, she allowed her cousin to ferry her across the Burning Water...it took less than a day before they saw land. She was very quiet, would not look anyone in the eyes. Eventually, they left her alone. Without comment, without waiting for the ship to find a port in some other mad pile of stones full of Northfolk, she slipped over the side unnoticed in the middle of the night, and swam the last mile to shore.

The sea could wash away a great deal of dirt and slime. But when she finally staggered up into the sandy surf, she did not feel like she would ever be clean again.