When their dishes of Aethenwood salad have been cleared away, Tric asks his cousin, “So, you wanted to look for Alric’s parents?”
“Yes, of cou—I mean, I’m assuming you do, right?” Heppa asks back, maintaining the fiction for herself that they are doing this for the sake of learning more about Tric’s kin. “But I don’t know where to start.”
“She keeps falcons, right? His mother?”
Heppa nods. “Good point.”
They leave the Elvish Retreat, and after asking around for a falconer, find themselves before long on a bustling street near one of the waterways in the city. Up ahead of them is a multistory building with a signboard above the door that depicts a falcon in flight with a long, unfurled piece of paper fluttering in its claws. Under it are the words Plume and Paper. As they move through the crowds toward it, they see a woman cloaked in green emerge from the shop. Her hood is up, but they see a flash of platinum hair and very pale skin as she turns and heads farther down the street. Alric’s words about her “otherworldly grace” now finally make sense to Heppa, as she sees for herself how differently this figure moves compared to the sea of humans. “Whoa. You really do stand out,” Tric mutters next to her, indicating that he has recognized the same thing. The posture, the carriage, the smoothness of gait, the style of dress, even the height all set this person off from the humans around her.
The cousins enter the shop, and there is a jangle of bells, just like at the Parting Glass. The interior feels rather humid, perhaps owing to the large tub of murky liquid occupying one side of the room. Behind the counter stands a middle-aged human with white skin. His short hair and close-cut beard are brown sprinkled with gray. “Oh! More elves,” he says in cheerful surprise. “That’s a little unusual. What an exciting day! Welcome. Welcome!” Tric and Heppa are a little taken aback by yet another friendly greeting. It seems that the farther they get from Hisanham, the less grumpy humans are about seeing them. The man behind the counter fills their silence. “What can we do for you today? Perhaps you’re interested in some of our fine parchment?” He pulls samples out from under the counter and spreads them out to show off the various textures. “We have some with plants embedded in them, if that’s more of interest to you.” He holds up some with flowers and others with leaves.
“I think this is the wrong shop,” Heppa whispers to Tric.
“We don’t know Alric’s mom’s name, do we?” he quietly asks.
“No, I don’t,” Heppa admits sheepishly. That part of the Manu family tree on her map just has question marks attached to Alric and to Damal. Clearing her throat, she speaks up. “Um, we’re actually looking for somebody who is related to my companion Tric here,” she says.
Tric throws her a look. That is not how he would phrase this at all. “Is the lady falconer in?” he asks more directly.
“Oh. Oh! Uh… yes, Lonfar is upstairs with her birds. Um…”
“Great. We’re friends of Damal,” Tric adds, figuring that will go more smoothly than saying they are friends of Alric.
The man’s eyebrows shoot up. “Friends of Damal!” he repeats in surprise. “Friends of Damal…” he mutters again, trying to mesh that statement up with what the other elf has said regarding relations.
“Yes. He’s living in South Tower now,” Tric adds to support his claim when the man stares at them for a bit too long, blinking in confusion.
“Well, perhaps I’ll just get Lonfar, then!” the shopkeep finally declares, deciding he cannot sort this situation out himself.
“Thank you!” Heppa says happily, both excited and nervous about meeting Alric’s mother.
Tric watches as the man turns his attention to a rack of cords behind the counter and begins muttering about which combination to pull. This must be more of the Manu mechanical ingenuity, Tric thinks, recalling some of the innovative devices at the Parting Glass. “Well, I’ll try this and see how it goes,” the man tosses over his shoulder at them. The set he pulls causes jingling on the ground floor, leading to more muttering. “Ah! I can never get this right!”
Tric joins the man behind the counter, offering encouragement. “I think you’ve nearly got it there,” he says. “Try to picture when she was showing you. A certain number from the right. A certain number from the left. They would be organized in a sensible fashion. I’m sure you can remember. Surely she had you tug on them directly.” With the rhythm of his words and the repetitive motions of tapping each of the thin wires, Tric weaves a web of confidence. The inspired shopkeeper pulls a different combination, sending the correct signal this time. Unaware of how everything is connected, Tric gets his own fingers cut in the process, as the thin wires he is still handling shift and slice him.
The ringing is quite distant, and the thumping of feet on steps begins high up in the building. Before long, though, a woman with dark brown skin and long black braids emerges from a door on the side of the room. She is short of stature, but her long hair reaches down to the small of her back. She looks wiry and about the same age as Mhaev, though not battle-toughened like Tric’s mother. Heppa studies the new arrival with interest, trying to pick out anything in this woman’s features that might resemble Alric. Although Heppa has spent hours watching him, it was not very recently and she has no sketch of him for a direct comparison. It seems to her, though, that the skin tones of the two humans in the room would average out to something like Tric’s chestnut coloring, which is quite similar to Alric’s.
“Lonfar, these visitors say that they are friends of your brother,” the man says.
Tric steps out from behind the counter, wiping the small amount of blood from his fingers. “We’ve just come from South Tower,” he explains. “My cousin Hepalonia here is—”
“Oh! Do you have news of Damal?” Lonfar asks.
“He’s doing well. I’d say he’s his usual self, as far as I know him,” Tric answers neutrally.
“He’s a fabulous mentor,” Heppa says cheerfully.
“He recently helped us with a problem we had in our forest,” Tric adds for context.
“Are you a student of his?” Lonfar asks.
“Um… in a sense,” Heppa says after a bit of consideration.
“By falcon, we should say,” Tric adds.
“You’re studying falconry with him?” Lonfar has a leather guard on her left arm, much like the one Alric wears.
“Alchemy,” Heppa clarifies.
“Student by falcon,” Tric says.
“Oh, I see. He sends you messages by falcon, and you correspond that way. Did you wish to send a message to him? Is that why you are here?”
“Well, Tric is of the Manu,” Heppa replies.
Tric looks at his cousin in surprise, wondering why this keeps being about him. He owns up to it though. “Mhaev was my mother.”
With a gasp, Lonfar cries, “Little Tricksy?!” She steps up to him, coming barely to his shoulder, and declares, “You’ve grown so much!” Turning to the man behind the counter, she drops one hand low and adds, “I haven’t seen him since he was this tall.”
“I got bigger,” Tric says with a smile at the unexpected reception.
“Oh, come in! Come in!” Lonfar says, practically tripping over her words of welcome. “Well, you’re already in! Let us get you some refreshments!”
“If you insist,” Tric agrees, reeling a bit from the easy acceptance.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Heppa says politely, a large smile across her face.
“We’ll break out some mead for this!” Lonfar scurries behind the counter and disappears through a door to the back of the building where presumably the private quarters are.
“Forgive me! Let me introduce myself. I’m Osian,” the man says. He continues hurriedly, “It’s great to see you and so nice to meet you, but I do just need to take care of a few things.” He steps over to the part of the room where the giant vat is and begins lowering in large frames with screens across them. After he dips each one, he pulls it out and places it on a cloth, creating a large stack. As soon as Heppa expresses interest in what he is doing, Osian pulls her over to try out papermaking. Before long, they are deep in discussion about the different types he makes, including the very thin paper that gets cut into strips for the falcon scrolls. He shows Heppa the razors he uses for scraping and cutting that. The material he is working with now, though, is rags, which are not suitable for that purpose. He buys them from the rag collectors and chops them finely. The fibers then rebind together during the soaking and drying process.
Heppa enjoys learning about the different types of paper and their various uses. Osian shows her some examples of fancy paper that is popular among the nobles. Some lords and ladies even commission paper to be made with certain plants or imbued with scents or essential oils. Most of his sales go to nobility, as they tend to be literate and write for a variety of purposes. “I do sell to some of the merchant class as well. And of course there’s the messenger business between here and other places with Manu falconry setup in them, which consumes the special fine paper I showed you earlier.”
“So is it not common for non-noble humans to be literate?” Heppa asks a little nervously. She does not want Alric’s father to dislike her the way his uncle seems to, but she really wants a clear answer to this question. It will help her better understand Alric’s situation.
Osian takes no offense from the question. “Nobility definitely learn how to read,” he says. “Some of the merchants learn some, too.”
“Mages, I guess,” Heppa adds tentatively.
“Oh, definitely mages, yes,” Osian agrees. “Mages are the ones who write half the books—at least! Most people, though, have no need and no time for it.” Heppa at first thinks he means that humans do not live long enough to spend a chunk of their short time learning to read, but as Osian continues elaborating upon his answer, she comes to understand that most humans are just too busy with their livelihoods to engage in something that seems like a frivolous and laborious pursuit. Someone who is spending all their daylight hours out in a fishing boat has little time to spare for learning how to read, particularly when their trade has no use for the skill.
Osian looks past Heppa over to the counter where the two Manu are enjoying some mead. “It’s different for the culture that Lonfar comes from. Reading is far more widespread there. A number of their trades require it and depend upon it in a way that is not common in Wesnoth.” He smiles a little proudly. “She’s taught me my letters over the years. I can write a little bit, and I can read if I need to. It’s a lot of work, though. It’s so hard to remember the Ns and the Ms and the Zs; they all look the same.”
“You’d just much rather make the paper?”
“Yes, I’m happy to provide material to those who can afford the time for the hobby or who need it for their own trade.”
Heppa is satisfied with this response, which gives her much more context on the whole situation with Alric and her letters. Although she does not yet mention Alric to his father, she admits, “It was surprising to me when humans kept asking me if I could read. There wasn’t always a very positive view of elves in South Tower, and I wasn’t sure if that was an underlying reason for the question.”
Osian’s brow crinkles. “There’s a lot of anti-elf sentiment in South Tower, you’re saying?”
Heppa shrugs. Most of it was specifically Manu humans unhappy with Estbryn elves. “Maybe it was just us?”
“It just seems strange that the topic of reading would come up so much,” Osian comments.
“Oh, well, I hadn’t met very many humans at that point. Damal asked me if I could read. But we were sending letters with him, so…”
“You’ve spent most of your years in your forest, then? If you’re only just recently meeting humans?” Osian asks.
“Yes,” Heppa tells him.
“Hunh,” Osian replies. “I’ve moved around a bit myself. I didn’t grow up in Weldyn. Establishing the business here was hard. It took a lot of time and effort to build up the client base.”
“Oh, you had trouble with the falcons,” Heppa says sympathetically, fitting Osian’s comments into what she knows of Alric’s childhood. He told her that his family were among those displaced by the war against Mal-Ravanal. It now sounds like that includes his father too, not just his mother who fled Hisanham. Alric also said that his mother ran into class-related problems in Weldyn simply for having falcons, since in Wesnoth they are primarily kept by the nobility as a prestigious hobby. The same nobility that Alric’s father needed as clients… Heppa muses. She thinks back on what else Alric told her.
“After I really screwed up, it was not wise for me to stay. My dad was not very happy, and it was just going to make things more difficult. Yes, so that’s when my mother packed me off to Uncle Damal.”
Although Alric did not disclose the crime that cost him his left hand, he did say that he and Sleidr had been bold in Weldyn. If they tried to steal something from a lord or lady, that might have caused problems with Osian’s business and the family’s financial security. Maybe it even cost Osian some favors to ensure that Alric only lost a hand and not his life, Heppa muses. Any prying she might attempt is cut off by the sound of a clattering mug across the room.