Soliana is an expert in elvish magic, but that seems to be the limit of her purview, based on her comments about humans and dwarves so far. While it is true that Tric’s magic got the all-clear from Dolmathengalin—who Tric holds in high esteem—he would still like the elvish take on it. “So, what about the magic of the silver tongue?” Heppa perks some at his question, as this is an area she also finds fascinating. Soliana, however, asks Tric to explain what he means.
To do so, Tric tells a story, one laced with power. As he speaks, his words conjure up the illusion of growth in the plants decorating the room. It is as though they are quickly progressing through the yearly cycle, passing from late summer into fall, then winter, then spring, before finally reaching summer again. He talks about storytellers and how even though their tales bloom brightly, they can never spend too long in one place before their audience wilts and things turn against them. “Then you have to recoil and go somewhere else.” He punctuates his statements by pointing to different pots, laying a figurative mask down across each one as he goes. Tric’s goal is to demonstrate his power while also providing some entertainment, which doubtless Heppa will appreciate.
The effort is wearying, as this is a more complex illusion than any he has tried before, but it is worth it to trick an elvish star. “What are you doing to my plants?” Soliana cries in alarm at first, fearing that he is actually accelerating their growth. But then she takes a closer look, keeping in mind their discussion of magic, and realizes no physical alteration has transpired. When Soliana murmurs her realization that this is illusory, Tric waves his hand, dismissing the effect. “As you can see, the emotions of a crowd can turn very quickly,” he observes.
“This is not a form of magic I am familiar with,” Soliana tells him.
“Ah! All right then. Well, I wasn’t for a long time, too,” Tric admits. Why is this so secretive? It can’t be that rare because I’ve run into Glammur. Though it does occur to him that some practitioners might not realize they are doing it, much like him in the beginning. Maybe just the recognition of the power is rare, not the power itself, the line between someone who is charming versus someone doing a charm. That puts him in mind of his birth father, who had a reputation of being a charmer. “About a hundred years ago Anador was here. I don’t know if you knew him, but if so… Did he do anything like this? Maybe not this exactly,” Tric clarifies, gesturing at the plants his words disguised.
“Ash’s parents might have something to say about that,” Heppa points out.
“Ah, right, you did mention your father was Anador. Of course he had a high degree of magical competency. He and his brother were both quite accomplished. They studied a lot under sorceresses in preparation for their careers as elvish lords. Both of them were quite intuitively talented. That is not always the case, you realize. There are a lot of elvish lords who have to really work at magic to be able to do anything at all. When leading people in a time of war, it is very important for the nobility to demonstrate both martial and magical prowess. Anador was here on a sabbatical from his regular tutors. But he was only here for a short while. I do recall that there was a bit of a dust-up.”
“Yes, we follow you,” Tric says.
“But what you just demonstrated here is not the standard magic of the elvish nobility.”
“I gathered that.”
Soliana shrugs. “Maybe what you are doing is just a different implementation of fae magic. It’s possible. You could have inherited some of Anador’s natural talents. How you are expressing it, though, is not as I would have expected. If you really are interested in taking up the mantle of your father’s noble legacy, you need to spend a good fifty or sixty years under the tutelage of sorceresses…”
“Noble legacy…? I mean, Anador was technically my father, but it’s not like I ever knew the guy. It’s not like I was raised in a noble household.” Elvish nobility? Mastery of magic? Proper schooling? Some of this Tric has joked about since learning of Anador, but he never really seriously considered it. Everything he knows he learned from Nasir or made up himself. Even taking up scouting was just a way to not settle down; scouts are as close to a jack of all trades as one could find in Estbryn Forest. Now, though, he finds himself having to reckon with his inheritance for the first time, suppressed though it may be in his home forest. “I’m proud that I was raised by Nasir, and if I put my mind to it, I probably could dowse for water! I just haven’t done that. I bet I could master this magic; I could figure it out. You said Anador was intuitively good at it, right? Yes, that’s exactly what you said!” Tric does not wait for Soliana’s response, nor does he quibble about individual types of magic. “We needn’t make distinctions between whether you get magical energy by passing around a hat or it is naturally flowing in the water and the wind. It’s all the same thing, right? When we get back to Estbryn Forest, maybe I’ll have a chat with High Lord Volas about this.” Tric took on responsibility under the guidance of woses; he is confident he can do so in his own forest.
Heppa is terrified on behalf of her cousin. It sounds like he will be actively seeking out responsibility, saddling himself with obligations he was lucky enough to avoid up until now.
“Hmm… but how will I smooth this over with Aunt Penna?” Tric murmurs. “That will be the tricky bit. Maybe we can raise Nasir’s household up to be a noble one. We can sell that to the council, that water dowsing is worthy enough.”
“Mother is Nasir’s sister; that would raise her own relatives and reflect well on her,” Heppa points out.
“Oh, yeah, she would love that!”
“Grandfather may have some ideas for how to proceed,” Heppa suggests. Privately, she thinks it would also be a good way to sneak in some questions about their family’s past.
They have taken up enough of Soliana’s time, and the topic has clearly diverged from mushrooms by this point. Neia has already copied over the relevant maps and notes, so Heppa gathers up all her papers, and the cousins take their leave of the elvish star.