Part the Seventy-Seventh
In which: we take a brief pause to settle a nagging question.
Kiara waits, mostly patiently, while Annika finishes preparing her spells. She actually kind of likes watching her as she slowly turns the pages of her spell-book, occasionally pausing to trace a gesture in the air, or remind herself of an arcane turn of phrase. Even here in a tool shed in the middle of the Sovereignty, her concentration is absolute. Kiara is sure this is Annika’s favorite time of day. A time when she can be completely focused, thinking only of her spells.
At last, Annika closes the cover of the leather-bound book and looks up at Kiara. Almost immediately her tranquil expression is replaced by a concerned frown. “Is something wrong?” she asks.
Kiara shifts from one foot to the other, hopping slightly. “I think Eva is suspicious.”
“Well, she did see you go into the shed and not come out.” Annika rubs the side of her forehead. “I told you, you have to be careful.”
“I think she told Lira. Those two tell each other everything.”
Annika puts a hand on Kiara’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I keep telling them it’s nothing to worry about, and it isn’t. Professor Alexandra vouched for you, they’ll let it go.”
“No they won’t!” Kiara protests, stomping her foot in frustration.
“Well, what do you want to do about it?” Annika asks. “Go back to Dar Pykos?”
Kiara has spent a lot of time thinking about this, but in all that time she’s been unable to come up with a way to presenting the idea in a way that Annika is going to like. She takes a deep breath, and says, “I’mgoingtotellReyushe’sanelfshe’llunderstandandshe’llknowifitsokaytotelltheothers.”
And before Annika can say another word, she flies from the room.
###
Reyu listens, soberly, as Kiara tells her story. She patiently waits for her finish, and then asks.
“Why didn’t you tell us this sooner? We would have been much less suspicious.”
Kiara bites her lip. It’s not a natural gesture for her, and Reyu can’t help but think it seems odd on her face. “We just didn’t know how you’d react. I knew you’d understand, though” she adds hastily, twirling her own name braid around one finger. “The elves have always been really nice to me.”
Reyu smiles. “It pleases me to hear that my sisteren have treated you well. But you should tell the others.”
Kiara is still hesitant. “Are you sure? What will they think of me?”
“I do not know their minds, although I suspect Lira will certainly not… fault you for your unique talents. She has encountered difficulties herself.”
Kiara nods, she hadn’t thought of that. “And Euro likes me,” she points out.
“And I am certain she will be glad to know why.” Reyu becomes serious once again. “But no matter how they react, all of your companions deserve to know. We can be stronger as a group than we would be alone, but only if we know each other’s strengths.”
###
Reyu gathers the party in a small copse of trees where they can converse without being overheard by the villagers, or Lord Fau Meen’s men.
Eva is scowling. Lira still looks groggy from her postponed sleep and slightly confused. Annika keeps stealing nervous glances at Reyu and Kiara. When Thatch and Anvil have at last arrived, Eva can hold her patience no longer:
“Okay, will someone please tell me what is going on here? How did Annika know that the goblins were coming? How did Kiara sneak out of that tool shed? And can she fly or not?”
“Annika or Kiara?”
“I don’t care!”
Reyu looks over to Annika and Kiara. Kiara realizes that this is her cue.
“Well, it’s… we haven’t been completely honest you,” she begins.
“No, really?” Thatch mutters. Reyu shushes him.
“Well, I’m… I don’t know how to describe it… You should probably just see for yourselves, just… promise not to shoot me, okay?”
Before the rest of the party can parse these rather oblique instructions, Kiara leaps into the air and begins to… change.
As she jumps, she draws her knees up close to her body, but as she compacts into a ball she begins, literally, to shrink. Her body spins, head-over-heels, somersaulting in midair and takes on a shimmering golden glow.
As the party watches, agape, Kiara’s shrinking fingers spread, splaying out against the sky like pinions, and then, Eva realizes, they are feathers, and the little girl’s arms have turned to wings, her little pointed nose has become a beak, and a few seconds later, she is looking not at a girl at all, but a perfectly ordinary-looking swallow.
The swallow flies down and settles on Reyu’s shoulder for a moment, before taking to the air and shifting form back to the one the rest of the party has come to know as Kiara.
Thatch sums up what much of the party is thinking in his usual, succinct manner. “Ummm….”
###
Kiara explains her story in brief. “I don’ t know where I came from. I don’t even know if I’m a bird who is sometimes a human, a human who is sometimes a bird, or something else entirely.”
“What forms can you assume?” Anvil asks.
“Only one other. A sort of hybrid, where I can fly, but I can still talk, and have hands that can manipulate objects, like I do now. I don’ t know how long I was on my own—I don’t remember my parents at all—but one day, I was flying through the woods and I found an elven teepee, just set up by itself in the middle of nowhere.
“There was an old elf there, he lived alone, and… well, he knew that I wasn’t a normal bird. He called out to me and talked to me, and he was real nice and stuff. He called me Kiara, and he gave me these braids, so that other elves would know to help me. And I stayed with him for, I don’t know, a while, I guess, but then I left and kinda traveled around until I came to Dar Pykos and met Annika.”
Once the initial flurry of questions and exclamations have died down, Lira waves a hand for attention. “Okay, what I still don’t understand is why Euro likes you so much. I mean, I’ve never heard of weasels and swallows having any particular affinity.”
Yeah, but their eggs are pretty good, Boss. (Lira decides not to relay that tidbit to the group at large.)
Annika clears her throat nervously, blushing as she looks at the ground. “Well… um… Kiara and Euro kind of have something in common.”
“What--?” Lira begins, then stops as the realization dawns. “But, she can’t… I mean… Annika said she didn’t have one!” she finally manages to blurt out.
“It’s true what I told you,” Annika explains. “I did have a familiar, a cat named Mai who was killed by the shadowbeasts in the attack on the Academy. Afterwards… I knew that I wasn’t supposed to be able to summon another familiar yet, not so soon after I had lost Mai, but… I did the ritual anyway.
“At first I didn’t think it had worked, but then this swallow came flying in the window. It was just like when Mai came to me. She perched on the sill and we bonded, just like that. And then she suddenly turned into a little girl.” She puts an arm around Kiara protectively. “We’ve been together ever since.”
“Does anyone else know?” Lira asks.
“I told Professor Alexandra first thing, but we decided to keep it quiet around the Academy. I don’t know if everyone believes that she’s my sister, but they’re willing to let it go at that.”
Euro, whose eyes have been growing wider and wider as the conversation has progressed—bounces excitedly on Lira’s shoulder. Boss! Boss! Do you think I could do that? Do you think?
He runs down off her shoulder to a clear patch of ground and tries, through sheer force of will, to turn into a person. Hey Boss, is it working?
Lira really hates to discourage him, he seems so excited. Umm… not that I can see, she admits.
That’s okay, Boss, I’ll keep working on it.
Eva looks down at the weasel alternatively tying itself into knots on the snow-covered ground, and then pausing to stand stock-still with the oddest look of concentration on his face. “What is he doing?” she asks Lira.
“You don’t want to know.”
(I so wish I could describe to you all Fajitas’ magnificent impression of a weasel attempting to change shape through sheer mental effort. It was priceless.)
Anvil clears his throat. “If we are, as we have, to accept Kiara as a full member of our group, this revelation raises a question of Justice.”
“Huh?” asks Kiara.
“If we are to treat Kiara as an equal member of the party, and to give her a vote as to what course of action we are to pursue in a given circumstance, are we not required to give similar voice and input to Euro?”
There is a pause.
“You know,” says Lira, “you might have a point there.”
Reyu raises an eyebrow. “I am… not certain that would be necessary.”
“You want to tell him that?” Lira asks, pointing to Euro, still writhing on the ground. “That is a weasel who demands a voice!”
Euro, realizing someone is talking about him, looks up. What was that Boss?
Nevermind.
