Chapter 25: Day of Reunion (part one)
Spring 34
When Dolce woke up, she could hear Lest and Dylas by the campfire, discussing breakfast. Amber had snuck over to sleep by her side, some of her vibrant green hair showing at the edge of the blanket. Meanwhile, Pico sat on the bag glowering at the butterfly girl. Dolce half expected this to happen, after the effort it had taken to get Amber to sleep under her own blanket. Slipping out carefully to avoid waking her, Dolce went to her bag to get dressed.
"She's lucky," Pico said, crossing her arms over her chest and still looking at Amber jealously.
"You sneak into my bed most nights," Dolce whispered, shooing her off with a hand.
The ghost flew a short ways off. "Yeah, but you half wake up and throw me into the wall for doing that."
She grumbled under her breath but didn't want to argue about that this morning. There was another possible argument that she had to prepare for, although she wanted it to be a reasonable discussion. While she had come prepared with a change of clothes, she used a refreshing spell on the clothes she had worn yesterday so she could wear them again today. The white dress that Amber had been wearing yesterday was left on the bed she was supposed to be in. That had been the only thing she was wearing: no shoes, no corset, no petticoat, no underpants. Since they and Pico were the only girls in this camp, it was up to Dolce to convince Amber to get dressed again today, preferably in something more appropriate and complete. They'd have to forgo shoes, but she felt they were similar enough in size to let her wear the extra items she'd packed. Then she used the refreshing spell on Amber's dress and patched up a tear on the hem.
Amber came awake by throwing the blanket off her and sitting up on the spot. After a big yawn, she rubbed her eyes. "Morning time," she said, then stared a moment at the wrist binding and spirit chain she had. She frowned and shook them.
"Good morning, Amber," Dolce said. "I've got your dress fixed up."
"That's not my dress, it's Heather's," she said. On realizing the problem there, she pouted. "Oh, but, she's gone."
"Then you'd best take good care of it in her memory," she said.
Amber nodded. "That sounds good. Well, it's morning! Let's go see Ven!" She got up and almost ran out of the tent.
Dolce was too quick for her, grabbing her elbow before she could leave. "Hold on, you need to get dressed first."
"Why?" She made a face at the idea. "Clothes are fun occasionally, but they'd be a big bother every day. They never last long on me anyhow."
"They're for warmth and modesty," Dolce explained.
Amber shook her head. "But it's spring! So it's going to be good and warm for a long time. And even if you wore them in winter when it is cold, they'd get wet and froze real easily."
Her eyes widened, stunned at the statement. "You never even wore clothes for winter?"
"Good lord, girl, how'd you not freeze to death when you lived out in the woods?" Pico added.
"Me and matron Saffron always moved out to the fire rune spring when winter was coming," Amber said as if that was the sensible solution. "And I had a big fur blanket for when the wind was blowing."
"Don't fairies wear clothes?" Pico asked. "You always see them in illustrations with leafy or flowery dresses."
Apparently not. "No, those are petals and leaves they grow themselves. I was a wingless fairy, so I only got fruits. Trying to make dresses out of leaves and flowers wouldn't work cause they'd turn brown and brittle much faster. But I've got wings now, so I don't have to bother."
"No, you do because you didn't get the other coverings," Dolce said. "It might have been fine in the company of fairies, but Ven lives in a human community. We have rules and expectations for how people act and dress. It keeps things fair, clean, and peaceful."
"Fairies only live by the rules they make up," Amber said, starting to frown.
Dolce raised an eyebrow. "Who made up that rule?"
That caught her without a clear answer. "Um, well... that's just how it is. I don't think that's a rule. Is it?"
"If most fairies live like that, then it's a rule itself," she said. "But there are a lot of rules like that, which any being lives by even if most of them don't realize it's a rule. One of those in human communities is that people always wear clothes when they go out."
She frowned a moment longer, then sighed in giving up. "Well if Ven is living with humans now, I did say that I'd live by some rules made by others Then I have to wear clothes too, huh?"
"That's right," Dolce said. "Your outfit yesterday was incomplete, but you may borrow a few of my things so you're properly covered. I'll teach you how to secure them."
At first, it went okay once she accepted that she had to wear clothes. She even liked the things that Dolce let her borrow. But it wasn't even a minute after they got out of the tent that Amber barreled into Lest and clung to his back. "Lest, I have pretty underwear now!"
"Oh gods, I hope I have the patience for this today," Dolce said under her breath, clenching a fist briefly. All of the guys were out here now.
Meanwhile, Lest turned a bit pink and Leon raised an eyebrow while his tail twitched. Dylas blushed even more and had his face in his hands trying to keep out of this strange talk. Perhaps luckily for this moment, Sven was still covered in his chewed up Executioner armor and any reaction he had was hidden. Lest was the one who replied, saying, "Ah, yeah, that's good Amber, but we usually don't announce something like that out in public."
"Why not?" she asked, genuinely curious.
"It's indecent," he said.
"But Dolly had me put it on to be decent," Amber said, looking over at her.
Pico grinned at that, now finding her hilarious. After shooting the ghost a glare to keep quiet, Dolce bit her lip to remind herself to keep calm too. "It's called underwear because you wear it under things and it's supposed to stay secret like that," she said.
"Then I should tell people that I don't have underwear?" she asked.
When she'd heard stories of Amber before, she'd thought of her as an innocent child becoming a guardian out of a pure love. Not as this grown woman that was going to need all kinds of basic ideas of civilization explained to her. Could anyone be that uneducated? "Are you trying to be aggravating?"
"No, she isn't," Lest said quickly, defusing the argument before it could start.
Leon poked her with his fan and tried to help. "Amber, just don't mention underwear. It's a secret everyone has so nobody talks about it much."
"But now I want to know what underwear other people have," Amber said. "You can't have any on because you're not wearing much."
He shrugged. "It's a secret, so I'm not saying."
Although how much it helped was debatable as Amber pouted. "And why can you wear not much when I have to wear a dress? It's not fair."
Dolce sighed. Fortunately, Leon explained, "People expect different things out of men and women. Didn't you have anyone to tell you about such things, like your mother?"
"No, not many people," Amber said. "I knew Ven, and lots of flowers and lots of fairies. I had a human friend my age, but her parents were weird."
"Oh, I see," Leon said, looking at her thoughtfully. "Then you have a lot to learn about living with other humans and being a good young woman."
"Can you teach me, Lest?" Amber asked immediately, still holding onto his shoulders.
"Dolce would be better qualified than me because she's actually a woman," Lest answered.
"Well you're one of Ven's friends too, so you must be good at it," Amber said to Dolce (still not letting go of Lest). "Are you gonna teach me more?"
"She's really good at it, even better than me!" Pico said.
"Very well, but you'll need to learn well," Dolce said, taking Amber's shoulder.
"Yay, I'll be a really good good young woman," Amber said with a bright smile.
"First of all, let Lest go so we can have breakfast," Dolce said, tugging at her.
"But I love him," she said, although she did let go and stand back up.
"We've just met, so you need to practice your manners and graces in order to be ready," Lest said, rubbing his shoulder.
"Then can I marry you?" Amber asked hopefully.
"You'd need excellent manners and graces in order to marry a prince," Dolce said. "You have a lot to learn before you can ask questions like that."
"Aw, but why?" she asked, flicking her wings out like she'd fly off. "He rescued me like a storybook prince and so now we're going to get married."
"He's rescued all of us here, so there's more his potential bride needs to do," she said firmly. Although, there was still that lingering attraction to him, so the idea of a rescue marriage sounded nice.
"Then we're all going to marry him?" Amber asked, her eyes wide.
"Ah, no, and I'm not ready to consider things that far ahead yet," Lest said, as if he hoped that could end the conversation.
"And this isn't a story book, so things are more complicated," Dolce added.
"Yeah, it seems like there's tons to learn about being in civilization," Amber said, a bit dispirited.
"We've got lots to learn, sister," Leon said, smiling at her. "We can figure some of it out together."
It was noon when they came to the town's south gate. If she had been a human, Venti felt like she'd be unable to sit still. She'd be right out at the gate waiting for them, pacing. That is, if she hadn't gone off with Lest and the others herself. There were so many interesting things on the wind today. While the return of all four guardians was dearest to her heart, this was a day that would be remembered by many for more than that. But if she paced around, she'd wear herself out and might be asleep when they came home. That wouldn't do; she patiently waited.
But this wait of centuries was finally over. The lost souls were all found, all coming home. It was like many chains on her heart were about to break, would be gone once she saw them all together herself. Since her heart was freed, now she could relax. Or, maybe not. She had to stay for a little while longer with them. Make sure they could adapt and make new friends, figure out how to free them all fully like Dylas, see that the town would thrive, observe how the rune spheres changed things, there was a lot to do now.
While she had listened to them talking this whole while, it was easier now that they were coming into town. "Where'd all the rocks come from?!" Amber asked in surprise on seeing the town plaza from under the gate.
"It was horribly muddy before they put the plaza in," Dolce said. "But I wish they'd kept the fountain."
"But there were flowers all over, even in winter," Amber said. "How're we gonna find Ven in all these houses?"
Leon pointed where they were going across the plaza. "She's in the center of the castle over there."
Before he could say anything more, Amber took to the air and bolted across the plaza on her wings. Venti smiled as she was hug bombed on the neck. "VEN! Yay, I'm back! And I have wings now, and pretty underwear but I'm not supposed to talk about it, but the wings are most awesome!"
Venti laughed in joy, although she felt glad that the others weren't nearly as fast and wouldn't remind Amber of the lecture from this morning. "They are beautiful wings. But I think it's most awesome that all four of you came back safely. I missed you all so much."
Amber let go of her neck, but decided to perch on her head. Although that wasn't much trouble, since she was even lighter than Venti remembered. "Well you don't have to be sad anymore, so be happy!"
Leon, Dolce, and Dylas all came into the castle then. "Amber, do you have to be on her head?" Dolce asked.
"Yes I do!" Amber insisted.
Arguing already, but it was still fun. "She's fine where she is," Venti said. "Just as long as you don't go to sleep up there."
"All right," she agreed.
Leon was amused at the arguing, but took care to hide his smile with the fan. "I'm jealous," he said.
"Where'd Lest go?" Amber asked, relaxing up there while clasping one of her horns.
"He went to take Sven to the clinic," Dolce said. "We brought someone else back, Venti."
"That's fine, who is he?" she asked, although she already knew.
"You remember that armored guy who wrecked the royal airship from the ground?" Leon said, moving his fan aside to be heard clearly. "We ran into the Executioner in Yokmir Forest and were able to stop the armor and cast Storgane out of it, all unintentionally. But it turns out the person inside wasn't in control of it, exactly as Lest thought. Dolce put him in control. He can still wreak serious havoc in battle, but he asked for protection from some empire."
"The Sechs Empire," Dolce said.
"I see," Venti said, not about to tell them that she'd interfered so they could save Sven. Lest had been worried about him, which made her worry and want to help too. It just hadn't been possible for them to stop the possessed Executioner while sparing its human host and letting him take control. There were too many ways that could have killed Sven. "It's good that you could help him. We'll have to invite him to the party tonight."
"There's going to be a party?" Amber asked excitedly.
"Of course," Venti said. "I want to welcome you back properly."
"You don't have to do that," Leon said.
But he was countered by Amber's happy yell. Then by her hug bomb in which she floored him. "Don't be a party pooper, we're going to have fun!"
Dolce smiled while Pico laughed energetically. "Now do you believe me?" Dylas asked.
Leon grabbed Amber and sat up with her. "Right, if you don't watch it, somebody's going to get death by hugging." Which Amber laughed at.
"Well you do need to be careful about hug bombing just anyone," Venti agreed. Then she chuckled. "But feel free to do so to Leon when he's not expecting it."
"Okay!" Amber said with a big grin.
"Oh goody, trying to keep me on my toes?" Leon asked, then looked up. A blue-green blur darted in from the ceiling entrance, surprising Venti too. It turned out to be a three foot long wind dragon, probably not even fifty years old yet. From her blue and green feathered wings, it was easily apparent that she was one of the more intelligent dragon types. Looking for something, she turned and saw Venti. Then she squealed in fright and dashed off to hide by a large potted plant.
"Is that a new friend of yours?" Amber asked, trying to wriggle out of Leon's grasp to go see. But he wasn't going to let her go free, not after the hug bomb.
"No, I haven't seen this dragon around," Venti said. She leaned forward to peer around the plant, the little one shyly looking back. "It's all right, you're welcome here," she said.
The smaller dragon came back out, hovering a foot off the floor in case she needed to flee quickly. "S-sorry," she said, her command of the human language a little rough. Then she spoke the dragon language, "I wasn't expecting a big dragon here!"
Leon got to his feet, still holding Amber. "What were you expecting?" he replied, getting a puzzled look from Dylas (being the unfortunate one of them who couldn't understand the dragon language). "But don't worry, Ventuswill's the biggest softie around."
"Hey, watch your tongue!" Venti said. Meanwhile, Dolce went to Dylas' side and quietly offered to translate for him.
The other dragon's eyes went wide. "Oh really? Sorry Ventuswill, I thought you'd be smaller, like me."
"I was small like you at one time," she said, thinking briefly of speaking like a dragon for her. But then, she'd spoken this human language for so long that it became natural. "What's your name?"
Finding her friendly and being comfortable with humans around, the small dragon flew closer. "I'm Doomgale, killer of typhoons! Well not yet, but I'm gonna be one day."
Venti chuckled at her enthusiasm. "Well it's an admirable ambition, Doomgale. It shouldn't take you long from now to be that strong."
"Yeah, I'm working on it," Doomgale said, happy to have her support now knowing that she was the divine wind dragon.
"Then what brings you around here?" Leon asked, deciding it was fine to let Amber go now. She decided to stay on the ground to get a better look at Doomgale.
"Frey said that Lest was living in this castle now and I wanted to say hi to him first," she said. "Sorry if I'm interrupting, but is he around?"
"I'm over here, Doomgale," Lest said as he came into the castle, smiling at this unexpected visitor.
Doomgale immediately went to whirl around him. "Hi Lest! Hee hee, I got to see you first!"
"She's a cute dragon too," Amber said, deciding that she wanted to be friends too.
Lest petted Doomgale, saying, "Yeah, but she's hard to keep up with just like you. But if you're here, that means Frey is around."
"Your sister?" Venti asked, more so the others knew who they meant. "I haven't met her yet and Doomgale just showed up."
"She and Flareson should be coming down soon," Doomgale said.
While his usual defense blur was going, Lest was obviously happy to have her arrive. "All right. I was going to talk with you all, but I'd better make sure she doesn't cause any trouble getting in."
Noticing a fire dragon descending nearby, Venti asked, "Like landing in the town plaza?"
"Yeah, oh wait, are they doing that?" Lest headed right back out to find that they were. The fourteen foot long fire dragon, with rough coal gray scales and plumes of flames, was causing concern in those outside who saw his descent. Including Forte who came into view poised to fight if need be.
"Oo, I want to see," Amber said, taking off after him.
Venti chuckled. "Same as always; it could be trouble getting her to be civilized. You did well in getting her dressed."
"That took a lot of effort," Dolce said, not sure if she could keep that up.
"I have an idea of who to ask about it," she said.
Outside, Venti could see that Frey was prepared to fly by dragon, with heavy pants, tall boots, and leather gloves to handle the fire dragon's rough scales and heated plumes. Then a tight helmet with goggles, a long scarf, and a tight jacket to handle moving through the air without the shields an airship would have. Strangely, she also wore a huge glass bottle stopped with a cork, strapped right on her back. It had a sparkling swirl like a monster gate inside it. As for the dragon himself, Flareson didn't seem happy with humans other than the twins around. He took back to the air and circled around to find a spot outside town to settle at. Doomgale sat in the castle entrance watching the reunion.
Frey immediately went to hug her brother. "Leslie! You're walking!"
"You're here soon than I thought, Freya," Lest said, hugging her back. "Just don't go landing in the town plaza again, you'll scare people off."
"I'd scare them off anyhow," she said.
"Yeah, but I have to keep order around here, even with you." Unlike when Lest came and she was suspicious, Venti already thought having Frey around too could be fun. From the letters and his stories, it'd make the town even more interesting. It was a risk that she knew etherlink. Then again, these earthmates seemed to realize it was a mistake.
"That's a girl?" Leon asked, half joking. "Doesn't look like it from that gear."
"It's practical looking gear," Dolce said, interested that she'd dare to wear pants out in the open. "Except the bottle."
As they came into the castle, Frey removed her helmet so she could start unpinning her green hair from the spiral braids she'd put it in. Amber immediately asked, "You're the princess?"
"I'm not a princess," Frey said as they came through the doorway. "I'm just his sister."
"Doesn't that make you a princess since he's a prince?" Amber asked again.
"I'm definitely not princess material." Lest laughed at her, making her insist, "I am not! I'm already a sage, geez."
"Could I be the princess instead?" Doomgale asked, flitting around them.
"Seems like we have a lot of new arrivals today," Venti said, wondering if there was some way to get Frey cornered into being the princess just because she was insistent on not being one. Even if only as a joke.
In the hectic mess of them coming back with Amber and Sven, and then Frey dropping in with her two dragons, Dolce eventually got asked to take Amber to the clinic to be checked on and then to see Illuminata. On her way out, she grabbed Leon to come with them. "What do you want me around for?" he asked. "She'll be entertainment enough."
"I think even between Pico and I, she's going to be hard to keep track of, and on track," she said. "But Dylas already slipped off when the room started getting crowded."
"Hope he doesn't get too shy if there's going to be a party tonight," he said, his ears turning about.
That stopped when Pico and Amber flew in their path to the clinic. "But I was told people don't come back from wilting," Amber said. "How are you still alive?"
"I'm not alive," Pico said. "I'm only here still because I'm tied to Dolly for all eternity."
"Why her?"
Before Pico could say something terrible, Dolce quickly said, "She's tied to me because she enjoys tormenting me the most."
"I love you!" Pico said, turning to her with a big grin.
"Huh?" Amber asked, looking between them in complete confusion.
Pico thought it was fun. "We're sisters by different parents, been together for always, she while she lived and I while I've not."
"And I grew up while she never did," Dolce added. It was something she often wished, that a ghost could gain maturity. Pico might be more tolerable then.
"That sounds weird, but fun," Amber said, taking it in delight.
"You really want to know about it?" Leon asked. "It's complicated."
"Yeah, but I was never good at learning complicated stuff," Amber replied, giving up on it for now.
It was so much easier to teach children, Dolce thought. They were usually eager to learn things and their age made their excitability easier to deal with. Trying to keep Amber talking so that she followed them, Dolce and Leon brought her to the clinic. It was busy in there, mostly because the two post women were in. While it seemed strange, Nancy explained that one of them was an earthmate good with machines so they were there to see if they could get Sven's armor taken off. Nancy looked over Amber in her husband's place, although the fairy girl kept trying to go off to check out various things in the house. When Amber was cleared as being fine, Leon picked her up again in jest, saying that she could check out that stuff in another less crowded place.
The flower shop was less crowded, with just the shopkeeper there. Illuminata was reading a book, but set it aside as they came in. "Hey, welcome, what can I help you with?"
"Wow there's so many flowers in here," Amber said in excitement, immediately darting to a basket and getting her nose in them. "They're out of the sun but they're so happy, that's weird."
"Please don't eat these ones," Dolce said, recalling how she'd snacked on a toyherb in the forest. "Illuminata? Ventuswill has a request of you, a challenge she says. This is Amber, one of the other guardians. She seems to know a lot about flowers, but not much about civilized living. We'd like you to help her adjust."
Illuminata got up from her chair and came towards them. "Is that so? You do seem like a fairy."
"I am!" Amber said happily, looking over at her. "I was a wingless fairy, but then I got wings, so I'm like the others now. Once I find them again."
"Time displaced changling, huh?" She put her hand on her chin. "Although the time displacement may not matter as much given the way fairies are." The elf then smiled and said something in an odd tongue. Amber replied in the same. When Leon responded to them, they both looked shocked.
"Mind letting us in on it?" Pico asked, tilting her head.
"I was just checking," Illuminata said, still looking at Leon. "But I thought I'd never meet a man able to speak the fairy tongue."
He shrugged. "There was a large population of them in Yokmir Forest in my time, lots of tricksters among them. The easiest way to keep a boy safe around them is to have him learn a few key phrases to ward off certain tricks of theirs. Then I just learned the rest out of curiosity."
"That would be one way to do it," Illuminata said. With that figured out, she turned back to Amber. "Then what kind of flowers do you like growing?"
Without hesitating, Amber said, "The tasty ones! And emery flowers, but you don't eat those. They are really pretty, so it's fine."
"Oo, emeries," Illuminata said, happy to hear it. "Though they take a lot of patience to grow and the seeds are highly valued due to rarity."
"I'm surprised to hear that you like a flower that takes patience," Dolce said. Amber could barely hold still for a nurse's exam, how could she wait on a long growing flower?
"But it's really pretty at every stage," Amber said. "You get to enjoy it for a really long time. Hey, what's this flower? I've never seen it before." She picked up a flower that was unfamiliar to Dolce as well, one that had vibrant red petals held upwards like an elegant glass.
"That's a tulip," Illuminata said. "It's not originally from Norad lands, but they were really popular imports around four hundred years ago."
Amber was delighted. "It looks like a cup! So you could drink out of it and eat it when you're done."
The elf laughed. "Nice idea, although I don't think the petals are tight enough to hold liquids."
"But it might hold honey," Amber pointed out.
Although she had no way of knowing about the tulip, Amber did know a lot about native flowers, both raising and eating them. Iluminata was delighted and agreed to teach her, even letting her live in the flower shop too. Dolce told her that she'd need to learn about money and the idea of selling things to work in the shop. However, the elf said that Ventuswill was right in that this would be an excellent challenge for one of her mind.
A/N: Sorry Amber, but there's no polygamy for this story. No incest either, but those are the only certain rules for when this story invariably gets around to shipping. That's quite a ways off.
And Frey finally arrives! Though she's not the only late arrival character. I'm counting Sven as a bachelor, so I need to bring in another girl to balance things out. I'm sure you'll know her when she shows up.