Thomelisa Taken, Pt XXXIII

So close... just one more entry, methinks, and then I can let it all simmer and come back for a really solid rewrite (so much rewriting) in a few months.

***

The day came- longer than I thought it would, but of course swallows must fly more slowly with a rider- when Bluebeak appeared to have settled in for the winter.  My scrying revealed a place of lush vegetation, jewel-toned flowers, and the deep blue sky that indicated great warmth.  Quite different from what was outside my own front door, as winter continued its icy stranglehold.  I would not need my wools or furs, at any rate.

As I stepped through the mirror into the scene before me, I felt a moment of resistance, as though I was attempting to step through molasses.  Slowly I pushed deeper, until it seemed as though my entire body would be captured and stuck in the strangely thick aether that linked my cottage with the other side of the world.  I fought down the panic that began to blossom in my belly- if I slowed enough, if I stopped moving, would I be trapped in the mirror forever?

But then, just as I felt my heel swallowed up by the resistance, my fingertips broke through, and my arm quickly followed.  And then I was standing on top of a crumbling white building, surrounded by extremely startled swallows who exploded into the air like a expletive-spewing whirlwind.

For my part, I began to sweat immediately, and I realized that this place was hot as the hottest summer day in my woods.  Well, Elisa would certainly appreciate that, as well as the cheerful golden sun that was sparkling off the white stone around me, although I shuddered to imagine what summer must be like.  I needed to find shade quickly, lest I pass out.  But first-

“Thomelisa!” I cried, setting the swallows into another frenzy of swooping and shrieking.  “Where are you?”

She did not answer me- or if she did, I couldn’t hear it above the ruckus the birds were making- so I tried another tack.

“Bluebeak!  I’m looking for Bluebeak!”

This shocked the flocks into momentary silence, and in fact a good many of them winged their way to a further off bit of the palace- for surely that’s what this enormous structure must have been.  Those that remained chattered breathlessly amongst themselves at how strange it was that a human could speak.

“Which of you is Bluebeak?” I demanded, gritting my teeth at my lack of a Compulsion spell.  “I have business with him!”

At last a single swallow came and hovered briefly in front of my face, then darted up to a little alcove above my head.  He poked his face out to eye me, and as he did I noticed that his beak was a rather startling shade of blue.

“Bluebeak,” I said, letting my relief color my tone.  “I owe you a great debt, my friend.”

“You…” he ruffled and then smoothed his feathers nervously.  “You are a witch.  Witches don’t like to be in the debt of anyone.”

“No, we do not,” I admitted.  “But I would gladly indebt myself to you for the rest of all your descendents lives, for what you’ve done for me.”

“You’re her mother, aren’t you?”  He hopped out to the very edge of the alcove, and I could see he was wearing a delicate little scarf, just right for a tiny woman to cling to.

“I am,” I said.  “Where is she?”

“With her people,” Bluebeak said, and I thought I heard heartache in his voice.  My own heart froze.  To have come so far, only to have lost her again-

“What do you mean… with her people?  I’m her people!”

“No, you’re not,” he said sadly.  “No more than I.  We can love her, and she can love us, but we are not the same as her.”

“The same as- are you telling me that there are others like my daughter?”  I wasn’t sure if it was the sun, or the revelation, but I felt faint, and had to slowly lower myself to sit on the vine-covered marble.  Bluebeak fluttered down and landed on my knee.

“Except they have wings,” he said.  “But she tells me they’ve offered to make her wings, as well.”

“Make her wings,” I whispered, staring out towards the hazy horizon.  “Wait-” my gaze snapped back to his, and he ruffled again in discomfort.  “She told you?  Does that mean she’s nearby?”

“Yes- just near that fallen pillar there,” he said gesturing with his beak.  “I knew she wouldn’t be comfortable living in my nest, so I told her to choose a home amongst the flowers, which I know she loves.  That’s where she met him-”

But I wasn’t really listening any more, because I was too busy looking for a route down off the roof.

Thomelisa Taken, Pt XXXII

(EDIT: I just today [the 28th] realized that something went terribly wrong with the formatting on this, but I think I have it fixed now?)

I picked this up again in an attempt to get it finished before the New Year.  I think there's maybe another 800-1000 words left to go (for reference, tonight's entry is about 600), so here's hoping I can finish it up before the weekend!  I have a lot planned for 2018, and I don't want this to fall by the wayside for that long...

***

The other thing I found beneath the earth was the little nest where my daughter had tended to Bluebeak.  She had made it hay, flower down, and leaves.  And the bird- Triple Faced Goddess be praised- he had added to the mix his own feathers, curling and dancing beneath my breath.

I scooped the entire thing into my hand, laughing at my good fortune, but careful not to let it fly away.  At last I had something I could track!  I tucked the bundle carefully into one of my pouches, pulled out a old brass key, and spoke the word that would take me back to my own cottage.

I spent the next week planning how best to follow them.  I didn’t have enough power to track them constantly- I must do it intermittently.  And I needed greater speed than my two feet would give me- perhaps more speed than the four feet of a horse would give me.  And I’d need to go over mountains and seas, as well.  If only I could fly, like the swallow…

Witches can fly, of course, so long as we have a vessel large enough to bear our form.  Brooms are particularly popular, because the most skilled among us can imbue each individual piece of straw with a flight spell,allowing the tool to be used again and again without the need to respell it.  But then, brooms are really only good for short flights- I would not want to sit on one for the thousands of miles my child might be traveling.

What I needed was a carriage of some sort, something I could sit in comfortably as I flew, something that would even have enough room to carry supplies, so that I wouldn’t have to descend more than necessary.

That thought started me down the road of writing out what supplies I might need, which led me to check my Index for what sorts of things I had in my storage room.  And as I ran my finger down the list, considering what might be useful in what ways, it occured me that what I needed wasn’t a carriage at all.  What I needed was a way to travel without moving.  I could summon anything in this book to my hand and it would simply... be there.  It didn’t come rolling across the dirt, or swimming across the water, or flying through the air: it simply appeared, as though dropped through a portal in the aether.

I needed a portal spell for myself.  A reverse-summoning, as it were.  A spell of sending.

It shouldn’t take much power, in the grand scheme of things- it didn’t have to be continuously cast, like the spell of Greater Understanding.  I should be able to charge it with a single moose- no, I’d better go with two bears, in light of last winter’s activities- and I could certainly build up enough magic to power it, as long as I didn’t cast any other spells for a month or so.

The days and weeks sped past as I worked the mental problem of how to Send myself to where my daughter was.  In the end I decided that once a tracking spell showed Bluebird settled in one place for longer than a fortnight (I restricted myself to checking that infrequently), I would scry him- and once I had an image of where he was residing, I’d turn the mirror into a portal, and step through.  I’d be trapped there once I did so, but that was no matter- I could always make my way home, with Elisa, in a more conventional manner.

Thomelisa Taken, Pt XXXI

(see, after a few days off, I'm back at it again!)

***

“Thomelisa wait!” I shrieked, but of course she did not hear.  And I had no spell of Command to give strength to my words, either.  Fleeter than thought, the tiny black shape vanished into the sky above my head, angling to the south and east.

I stood, numb, staring into the curving blue space that now hung empty.

But had it really been them?  Was I really sure I’d seen a rider on the swallow’s back?

I swallowed hard, feeling the truth in my gut.  I was sure.  I knew it as surely as I knew the exact shade of my daughter’s hair, the exact timbre of her laugh.  Once again she had been taken- but this time in rescue.

I turned slowly back towards the corn field they’d emerged from, a new sort of darkness uncurling in my chest.  For Bluebeak to have rescued Elisa, as he had been so determined to do, there must have been something to be rescued from.  I flexed my fingers, feeling the spells of Cutting and Breaking I kept in my palms.

It was time for someone to realize the folly of keeping a witch’s child from her.

It took me no time at all to unearth- literally- my daughter’s captors: a mouse and a mole.  I tore the truth from their minds with non-too-gentle spells, and learned how Elisa had spent the past ten months: kept away from the sunlight and flowers she loved so much.  The mouse was stupid and narcissistic, but she had kept my daughter alive when winter came, and Elisa had felt true gratitude towards her- perhaps even misguided love.  Because of this, I allowed her to die painlessly.  The mole, however, had sensed my child’s terror of the darkness, of the tunnels, had been perfectly aware of her misery and, in fact, had been titillated by it.

He did not die painlessly.