The cousins spend a few more days in Wesmere before heading out with Ash. There are more follow-up questions from the council, and they consult on some additional drafts of the letter to High Lord Volas. On one of those days, Tric and Heppa pay a visit to Essa and Ruthiel, Ash’s parents. Heppa is unsure of whether they will have anything more to tell her about corruption than she was able to learn from Soliana, but Tric assures her that just a plain old social visit is completely justified. “Not everything needs to be about magical theory,” he says. “I’m sure it will be, but it doesn’t have to be.”
“Yes, let’s go. I’d love to meet them. They’re Ash’s parents, and Ash is your brother. They’re family!” Heppa says excitedly. More and more, she is coming to realize just how much Penna’s decisions have cost. Cut off from grandparents, from cousins… Tric couldn’t even know who his own father was!
Rather than try to awkwardly rope Ash into an introduction, Tric and Heppa simply present themselves as the grandchildren of Cleomithir and Quaemilya. “Ash mentioned that it would be good for us to stop by while we’re in Wesmere,” Tric adds.
“Liar!” says the ranger who answered the door. “That is not something my Ash would say. Ash would not send Cleomithir’s grandchildren to my door!” Whatever happened between Essa and Anador was a hundred years ago, but judging from the heat of her response, it is still fresh today.
“If you wish to talk magic, you should talk with my mother,” Tric says in a voice dropped in pitch and roughed up a bit to sound more like Ash. Continuing in his regular, lighter tones, he says, “That sounds like an invitation to me, just in his own particular way. I think coming from Ash, that is probably pretty nice. I mean, it’s a complete sentence from him!”
Essa is about ready to slam the door on them when a shyde glides up beside her. “I will handle these visitors,” says Ruthiel. “The wood pile is getting a bit low, my dear. Perhaps you could see to that.” She continues forward, arms outstretched to encourage the newcomers to move in the opposite direction of the angry woman who is now picking up an axe. “Let’s go to the glade,” she suggests as she hovers alongside Tric and Heppa.
Like Essa, Ruthiel is pale of skin and hair. But while Essa was clad in practical clothes similar to Ash’s, Ruthiel wears a green dress with long flowing white sleeves, belted in place by living vines. Her translucent white wings are in full display behind her, and she has no qualms about using them. They are more substantial than the ethereal wings of Lady Ethiliel, the sylph that Heppa and Tric met in Weldyn.
Heppa marvels at all the important people that they are meeting on their travels: woses, stars, shydes, sylphs. One just does not encounter these types at home in the village. She thanks Ruthiel for taking the time to talk with them. “Ash mentioned you would be a good person to talk to about sensing corruption. I’ve learned that it is not so much a matter of whether one can detect corruption. Rather, if one knows what the natural world is supposed to feel like, one can sense when something is off. What is your experience of that?”
Ruthiel is pleased to discuss the topic. “It is an absolute delight for me to sense into the fae currents, so soothing and completing.” When they reach the glade, she invites the cousins to sit down at the base of a well-established tree. “Make yourselves comfortable,” she tells them, as she floats down herself, folding her wings behind her and her legs under her. Together, they meditate under Ruthiel’s guidance, communing with the fae to the best of their ability.
Tric, now still in a way he seldom is, becomes aware of the water nearby. There is the moisture in the air, but also other large quantities. Those seem to carry more minerals than where he mostly recently filled his skin. And fish, maybe a big bass. Could be dinner… Water dowsing really is an elvish magical art in some sense. Tric considers this as a possible approach to getting Nasir’s house made nobility. Nasir’s water dowsing is so good it’s magical. Therefore he must be a lord. He is sure he could get Fenowin to back him up on the argument that nature and fae magic are really all one thing.
Heppa has not practiced these techniques at all and finds meditation difficult. She keeps thinking of things she wants to ask, but she knows better than to pose questions while they are all supposed to be quiet. Apparently, these struggles are written clear across her face, as when they finish, Ruthiel addresses them.
“Unfortunately, if you cannot quiet yourself to listen, then you will never be able to tell when the sounds are wrong,” the shyde says. “Some corruption is the lack of what is good that is supposed to be there, rather than something bad that is actively present. Sometimes it is just a matter of something being snuffed out, and it needs to be regrown. Whereas if something alien has been introduced, it needs to be pruned. That is the difference between when healing is required versus when fighting is. As a shyde, healing is my practice. If I listen for things and find they are not there, I can nurture them back. If I hear something discordant, to use my earlier analogy, then that is when it is time to get sorceresses and rangers involved.”
Heppa’s brow is wrinkled in thought. “So, like surgery to remove a poison versus just closing up a wound,” Tric says, rephrasing it in medical terms for her. “To pull out a thorn, you need a knife.”
“What is troubling you, young elf?” Ruthiel asks Heppa, reading a personal struggle deeper than just comprehension on her face. When Heppa hesitates, Ruthiel adds, “Are you comfortable discussing this in front of an audience?” She gestures over at Tric. “Or shall we send this young fellow to go chop wood, too?”
“I’d prefer to go fishing, if you don’t mind,” Tric says. “I can go if you like.”
“No, no, this is not a secret from Tric,” Heppa tells Ruthiel.
Magical theory discussions are a drag to Tric, but he knows Blululldrum’s words have been troubling his cousin, so he stays to lend her his support.
Heppa hems and haws a bit, but Ruthiel is a very direct questioner and is able to draw out responses. She has had a hundred years of practice extracting information from a taciturn son, and she turns those skills to good use here. Heppa admits that a wose mentioned being able to sense corruption within her.
Tric adds, “In our travels, we have come across different kinds of artifacts that at one point or another we’ve had to bear. So there’s some concern whether this corruption is… Is it going to go away?”
“I don’t know how much there is or what specifically led to it,” Heppa says, opening up more. “I haven’t had the time to explore it so much, as I only found out recently in the Grey Woods. I don’t think it came from there.”
“Ah, but you are not already in the habit of listening to the fae currents, so you cannot yourself tell whether this is indeed the case,” Ruthiel observes.
“Yes,” Heppa acknowledges. “So I’m not able to tell what specific artifact may or may not be leading to it.”
Ruthiel wrinkles her nose with a sniff at the thought of casually conducting experiments to measure how much corruption different items cause. “You should not be bringing more of that upon yourself,” she cautions. “If you have theories on what has done this to you, do not do those things, not even in controlled environments!” Heppa nods; that does sound wise. “I have some ideas for things we could try,” Ruthiel says, “but they all involve a lot of stillness. Is that something you think you can do?”
“I would love to try!” Heppa is always up for experimentation. “I would love to hear any ideas you have on this matter, or any thoughts you have on removing it… Or what kind it is…”
“Let us first see if I can pinpoint anything myself.” Ruthiel turns to the other young elf. “So, Tric, you’ve traveled with her and mostly shared the same experiences? I am wondering if I can use you as a sort of ground.”
“Ah, setting a baseline,” Heppa murmurs, approving of the experimental design.
“Might be a lot of chaos in there,” Tric says, “but absolutely, sure!”
The cousins’ excitement dims over the next several hours, as their hips and knees protest staying folded up so long on the grass floor of the glade. Under Ruthiel’s guidance, however, they do manage to extend their senses and quiet their minds. There is a momentary distraction as Mate comes flapping through at one point, but Tric dispatches him to go fish for whatever creature it is he keeps sensing in the nearby pond. Having studied fishing under a master like Nasir, Mate ties string to a stick and sits with it on a branch, rather than diving in with his beak or flying over to snatch with claws. He does not catch anything as large as a bass, but he entertains himself.
Ruthiel leads Heppa and Tric through a lengthier and more elaborate meditation than the first round. She starts with what they can physically sense of the forest: the sounds they can hear, the air on their skin, the grass under them. Then she moves them beyond that to their elvish sense of the life force moving through all these things. At first, she guides them with words, but once they have sunk into the fae currents, she leaves them to continue on their own while she directs her attention to her own sense of them. Unfortunately, even with having Tric there to set a baseline, Ruthiel is not able to fully discern the corruption issue that Heppa described. The shyde just does not know Heppa well enough.
After the session, Ruthiel shares, “Something does feel a little off about you, Heppa, but it is very subtle. I have had a lengthy career; I have fought undead alongside Wesmere’s forces. You do not feel at all like things associated with that. Whatever is going on with you feels very minor to my senses. It may have only started recently. You do not feel like you are in imminent danger, but I would advise you to be cautious with the items that you think might be related. I understand that you are emissaries and are on the road a lot of the time, but I would strongly advise you to spend more time communing. Do not just go to the fae energy when you want it to do something for you. That is not the way to become friends with someone. Visit it. Ask it how it is doing. I realize that may sound strange—and I do not mean to suggest that fae energy has a will of its own or things that it wants to accomplish—but you need to know the currents on a more intimate level in order to have any hope of taking care of this issue yourself. If you think that this is a problem that you can get somebody else to solve for you, then that will involve you settling down next to a shyde for potentially a decade or so. The solution to this requires stillness, and it appears that you two are not practiced at that,” she concludes, noting the cousins painfully straightening out their limbs.
“It might be a physiological problem,” Tric says, making up excuses for himself. “Some of us don’t have the grace of other elves.”
“Oh, no, I feel it in my hips, too,” Heppa assures him. “I did not choose my spot wisely.”
“Maybe a calming tea first, next time.”
“Or a pillow.”
All joking aside, Heppa is extremely grateful to Ruthiel for the information and her generous gift of time. This action (or inaction) plan is more than Heppa had before, and it gives her an applied reason to further explore fae energy. And it is a relief to hear that her corruption level is not too high, at least not by elvish measures. That supports her theory that woses are more sensitive to it.
As dusk approaches, they leave the glade. Ruthiel is confident that Essa will have worked out whatever she needed to by now. Tric apologizes for inadvertently setting her off and tells Ruthiel that he and Heppa are getting along well with Ash, who will be leading them east through the mountains.
“Ah, that will be good. He enjoys the mountains,” she says, pleased.
“Oh, and he did this fine work,” Tric adds, turning his neck so she can see the tattoo Ash did. She takes a close look at the green tree, and Tric comments, “I’m more of a spring,” regarding his palette. Then he clarifies, “Ash did the leaves. I did the lightning, more or less.”