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The Headmaster of the Academy of Geo sat at his nice, big sturdy desk and considered throwing it across the room. Everyone seemed to be sending him letters lately, and it wasn't just requests for enrollment or duel challenges or anything interesting. No, there was one for the re-formed Order of Gemma Knights reminding him that their next meeting was coming up—boring—one from his delightful niece who no doubt had sent him a letter full of plant-babble—shudder—and the one that was currently inciting his wish for destruction of property.
Just a neat roll of very nice parchment, sealed with the golden ribbon and stamp of Etansel's branch of Venstrys. As if he couldn't guess who had written him. Only one of his adopted siblings bothered to use his full name in a letter without having one hell of a rant behind it, and quite frankly he was wondering when Nic would get that damned stick out and relax.
Sighing, he tossed his niece's letter and the one from the Knights off to one side, stuffed the rest under the Seventh Moon currently disguised as a sparkly paperweight—hm, really need to find another place to put that...—and tore off the ribbon to the letter from his oldest adopted brother.
'To Headmaster Budralyn Ancaladon-Venstry, greetings from—' "Yeah, yeah, kid, I know who you are, sheesh." His little brother took waaaay too much after Elazul, Goddess help the brat. The rest of the letter, however, dumped all of his annoyance at the wayside. 'We of Etansel are sending these letters across Fa'Diel: our mother Areinne Venstry, Guardian of Amber, and our father Elazul, Knight of Lapis Lazuli, are missing. No one has seen or heard from them in four days. None of their things are missing—even their weapons and armor are exactly where they had been left. There are no signs of struggle in their suite of rooms, no traces of magics that might have stolen them away. It is as if they have simply vanished.
'We have already written Uncle Alexander and Aunt Pearl on the Eastern Continent inquiring if they know anything and were merely told 'Look to the Tree'. Please, if you know anything, anything at all, write back as fast as you are able. Your brother, Nic.'
His bratty brother really was worried if he was dropping titles and signing with his family nickname. For once, though, Bud couldn't really blame him.
Still, Xan and Pearl's message of looking to the Tree nagged at Bud. And without thinking his hand reached out and snagged the letter from his niece, Lisa's youngest girl. Rianna was studying botany on the Tree itself and the letter was postmarked a couple days ago; maybe she'd spotted something.
She had. Didn't sound like she'd figured it out, but she had.
For there amidst chatter about new herbs and uses for this-and-that was the evidence for eyes used to the impossible after more than three hundred years. 'And the Seedling's grown! Of course you know which one I'm talking about, right? There IS only one baby Mana Tree growing up in the crown that we've found, after all...unless you saw another one you aren't telling us about. You haven't, have you? 'Cause that would totally not be cool if you kept it a secret. Anyway! Like I was saying, the Seedling's grown! Two whole inches this week when it hasn't grown that much in nearly a century! Of course the Gemma Knights were all 'as IF' when we tried to tell them and I guess I can't really blame them since it's never grown this fast before, but you shouldn't say 'as IF' to the person who's been studying it all her life, y'know?
'Oooh, and it's blooming, too! Just started a couple days ago, actually. You should really come see it! Such pretty little white flowers, they look like stars almost. And the Seedling—it's really more of a Sapling, now—even has its first symbiotic vine! Such a shy little thing; you can hardly see it curling around the bottom of the Sapling, but it's really there. Delouc tried to get a sample of it and the Sapling nearly zapped his hand off. Can't blame it. I wouldn't want to have my partner's leaves cut. If I had a partner. It's such an odd color, though. Almost blue if you look at it right.
'Anyway...'
Bud swore loudly and colorfully, balling up his fists and shaking them at the ceiling. He'd never wanted Rei and Elazul to get together in the first place; he didn't care that a couple hundred years with her had mellowed out the Jumi Knight into someone barely tolerable! What the hell was the Goddess doing sticking them together for all eternity?
And it looked like he would have to call the meeting of the Gemma Knights sooner than was planned. Like it or not, Fa'Diel had a brand-new mini-Goddess and he would be damned if he let anything happen to her.
'Ware the world, he thought irritably, reaching for parchment and quill. Here comes trouble.
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