SUMMARY: The Valdemarian party has spent a full year in the Vale and are about to leave. Young Darci has been handed over to Firesong for training who, having insisted on being her sole teacher until she is magically mature, has custody over her. However, he's not entirely sure he trusts the way Alberich is smiling at him.

A/N: The wild, yellow roses mentioned are hardy, beautiful and grow fast. They are drought resistant and are well known and generally despised in some parts of the Great Plains, including Wyoming and Texas, as they tend to take over pasture and are very nearly impossible to get rid of. Once you get a patch growing well on your land...you're stuck with them.

Wildsong

The morning after Firesong took on young Darci, he explained that earning a Talyadras name, while difficult for an adult should be fairly easy for a child. Children's personalities were simpler. Alberich simply looked at the mage and said, "Poor Bastard, you are. Knowing what into you have dived feet first and without looking, you know not. Learn you shall. Macaws you enjoy?"

Firesong scowled. "Was that your idea of a prank?" He didn't like that smile, Alberich's smile looked like a shark after it brushed it's teeth.

"Nay, Darci send." Alberich smiled more broadly than before. "Now to you shall come the weeping and complaints, vacation I shall have. I shall fetch her back when done her training is." Darci had been remarkably well behaved, ...for her...this past year. She had gotten into plenty of trouble, she wouldn't be Darci if she didn't...but mostly the hertasi that looked after her kept it away from the Talyadras if not the Valdemarians. That had changed today, though since custody had just been officially handed over to Firesong. He had given her the expected hugs and advice...though it had been a little mean to tell the child to relax, be herself and have fun. He knew fully what use she would make of such permission.

"Weeping?" Firesong's eyes widened. "Complaints?"

"Learn you will." He laughed out loud as he got into Kantor's saddle and took his place with the Queen. "Soon, very soon."

~ The Vale ~

The hertasi sighed, one of them had heard Alberich's parting words to the little girl and had wasted no time warning the rest of them. According to the humans of Haven, Darci's antics had been mild and subdued in an effort to behave. Now, the need for that, to the girl, was gone. It didn't take long for the first incident to surface...one of the young boys spotted Darci climbing up the side of one of the tallest young saplings, getting it to bend gradually until she could tie it's tip to the trunk of a mature tree...three more saplings waited for it there. she braided strong fiber ropes around the tips until the four saplings, each coming from a different direction, remained in a sort of 'dome' shape and then she let go so that the woven tips were over her head. She then climbed the mature tree that had held the saplings and started untangling vines from it's branches...undamaged those...and dropped them to the top and sides of the saplings.

The lad flagged down an adult hertasi and just pointed up at what Darci was doing...it gaped.

"I can see what she's doing...she doesn't yet have a home here...and I can understand the design she wants. True, no hertasi could do what she's doing because of the dynamics involved, but once she gets to a point that we can handle it...yes. Fetch Firesong, she could fall from that. And Steelmind, also, to help with growing those flowering vines she wants to use to bind the main supports. I'll go tell my superiors and we'll get something worked out."

~ The Vale ~

Firesong wove a safety net of power under that monkey of a girl he had the responsibility for as she clambered about overhead, carefully weaving the fiver or six different kinds of flowering or fruiting vines by hand, exactly where she wanted them. Those intended for songbirds would fruit outdoors, those intended for humans were woven around branches that had been formed into windows and tied off. Beside him, Steelmind watched with an enchanted expression and sent his more subtle power to those 'windows' and vines to re-enforce the wishes of the girl...so they would anchor themselves in place and grow the way Darci wanted them to.

"I will take her as an apprentice in my Art, Firesong. She's good. She hasn't yet used her power but the design is sound." Steelmind murmured. "Of course, for home building, mature power is needed."

Firesong nodded, bemused. "I don't understand why Alberich warned me that people would come, weeping and complaining about her. She seems like a very focused girl, to me."

A nearby hertasi nearly grinned. "Oh, she can be...but only when she's working on something important to her. It's when she goes looking for entertainment that things can get...interesting."

"Pffft. She's a child...and a pretty young one at that." Firesong scoffed. "How bad could it possibly be?"

"Famous last words..." Steelmind murmured softly.

~ The Vale ~

"Famous Last Words, indeed." Silverfox grinned at his mate as they followed the trail of Darci's 'creativity' through the Vale. They had no idea where she'd gotten the new seeds that were sprouting up all over the place...and the flowering vines she'd planted all around the outside of her 'house' to grow up the trees that made it, were re-seeding themselves at an astounding rate. More than that, they were edible but not digestible by the Vale songbirds, needing to pass through the birds' digestive track to thin down that hard, thick shell around the small, oddly shaped, black seeds...and of course that meant they got planted wherever the droppings fell.

Steelmind was working overtime trying to bring the wild vines under control but needed Firesong's intervention to make the seeds repugnant to the birds. They'd still sprout just fine, though the hard shell was softer and thinner now, but they'd fall from the seed pod and grow where they fell...and where the hertasi wanted them to grow. They were excellent flowers, trumpet shaped, delicate blooms in a wide variety of cool colors, with long, easily climbing, hardy, strong vines...but for right now, those traits were making life complicated for Steelmind. This was because, once the roots were well 'set', the vines could survive all sorts of damage. They mostly bloomed in the cool range of colors when in pastels, including several shades of whites, blues and lavenders, though there were richer jewel tones demonstrated as well. There were also several kinds of 'cousins' that bloomed in a range of delicate pinks and oranges and in one case, a nice family of hot reds, too...and those were all over the place as well, though with smaller flowers and a tendency to send their vines to the upper reaches of the trees before really starting a major bloom, they could be harder to identify since the lower vines were mostly just foliage. Still, those flowers were morning bloomers...mornings and overcast, somewhat coolish days as any amount of heat at all made the fragile blossoms wither away. That left Steelmind with only two or three hours just after dawn to locate new vines...

He was going quietly crazy.

~ The Vale ~

"What are those bright red berries?" Silverfox wanted to know pointing them out, having not seen them in this Vale before.

"Currants. Good for making jams and preserves." Firesong answered, knowing the pair of hertasi behind them would make a note of it. "Edible from the vine as well, though a bit tart." His eyes traced the vines. "Some grow high, where only birds will reach them and some grow low enough to be harvested. This is a part of the Vale that isn't used for anything yet so Darci seems to be planting food producers that she knows need a lot of space here. These are newly in the ground and only a few of the current vines are growing high...and on trees we wanted vines on anyway."

One of the hertasi nodded. "Lucked out, this time. We'll get these under control fairly easily...looks like she put some grapes in as well as other foods. Grown from root cuttings, these. Except the squashes and melons which she also has growing all over the place...from seed, those."

"Yes. Nothing like those yellow roses that have taken over the top of the hill where the hot-spring wells are. Those are a menace."

"Wild." Steelmind said bluntly. "She took the cuttings from healthy wild plants and asked me if I could domesticate them if she planted them somewhere people didn't go much. I looked them over and they were quite healthy, vigorous plants, those...so I said yes. I like working with varieties I've never seen before, after all. So, 'up there', says she, and I nodded and said, 'T'will do."

Both hertasi gave Steelmind a flat, somewhat unfriendly stare. "Your fault then, since that time she actually got permission." The senior of the pair told him. "She told us when we asked her if she was the one who planted them, that they were likely to want to take over...'strong growers and the roots send out runners', She said. Had no idea she meant that, though."

"Trimming just makes them grow more, both faster and thicker, but training them to grow where we want is a pain." The other one confirmed. "Get busy with domesticating them, both of you."

~ The Vale ~

"Firesong, we have a problem." Steelmind had walked up to him with Firesong's father, Starfall.

"That ward of your's is something else...she found a young fire-drake and made a pet out of it when the trainers took the kids out that were considering becoming scouts...and she brought it home with her..." Starfall told his son, nodding at the widening eyes. "That Animal Mindspeech of her's is stronger than we thought. She's bonded to it...and it to her."

"Oh my...that's...not good."

"It's also not reversible. Have I told you lately how glad I am you talked me out of mentoring her and letting you do it? If not, consider it said." He just grinned at Firesong's glare.

"Do you have to rub my face in it?"

"Well, you're the one who said, and I quote, "Pffft. She's a child...and a pretty youngone at that. How bad could it possibly be?" He chuckled as he walked back toward his son's ward and her new...pet. "Don't be all day, son. We have to devise a way to train that young dragon now, as well as Darci."

Behind him he heard Steelmind's laughter at Firesong's expense. "I told you, 'famous last words'. Never ask how bad things can get or the Goddess is likely to reward your overconfidence by showing you. By the way, the Vale has given her a usename...we asked her if she minded if we start calling her Wildsong instead of Darci. She doesn't and has accepted Wildsong as her name."

~ TBC ~