Tossed In The Deep End of Court|Beastlands

[Darastrix]

"Are there ever more feylings than faeries willing to mentor them?" Nuo asked, curious. Now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen any "old" feylings that he was aware. "How often are there any?"

[Kender Bard]

"Oh well in the past none, I suppose," Septi mused. "The sprites always bonded to other faeries or animals. But this year was unusual. The sprites had oodles and oodles more eggs than normal. Queen Atarai told the faeries to take some and move them around a little, outside of the Beastlands. So while it's possible there's been human feylings in the past that we just never caught on to, you and the rest of them are the first human feylings ever."

[Darastrix]

Well, that would certainly explain why he'd never heard tales of their particular situation before. I wonder....

"You don't suppose the new feyling is Sirius, do you?" he asked Kaylin.

Blueberry fluttered to Nuo and plopped on his shoulder. "He didn't want to come," she said, and made a face at Maple. "And I wanted to tell them about the new one!"

[Kender Bard]

"I hope not," Kaylin said in a small voice.

"Who's Sirius?" Septi asked.

"It's a long story," Kaylin sighed. "But suffice to say, we did not part on good terms with him."

Septi frowned a little. "Well if he's a feyling too, you'll probably see him eventually. All faeries feel the call of the Queen and she hasn't even put out an official summons yet."

[Darastrix]

"'Official summons?'" Nuo repeated. "What happens when she does that? Would the feylings feel it, too?"

[Kender Bard]

"Aye," Septi said. "ALL faeries feel that and they must come when she calls. If they do not, then they'll risk her wrath and that is not something you want brought down on your head. As to how--I'm... I'm not entirely sure. I haven't actually seen it done in my lifetime. I heard she has done so only twice, ever. But there's something in the air... Something anticipatory."

Kaylin shivered, slightly.

Septi gave his head a small shake, ears flopping as he did so. "Well, no matter. Are you ready to get to work?"

"Aye," Kaylin replied lightly. She'd finished eating at any rate. "Maple, are you coming?"

Maple moved to sit near Blueberry. "I'll be along."

Kaylin just nodded and followed Septi as he walked away with her.

[Darastrix]

"I wish we were going to get to spend more time together," Nuo murmured to their sprites. "But it sounds like we won't see each other all day."

"You were together all the time since we became your friends," Blueberry pointed out.

"I know, but she's the first fri--uh, the first human friend I've ever really had." He shook his head a little. Well, there was no sense being maudlin about it; they were still both there. "I guess I should go see what Lairen wants me to do today."

[Kender Bard]

"Look at it this way!" Maple chirped. "If you're even half as long-lived as natural faeries, even only seeing each other some of the time is a lot of time. And you two won't have to do stuff for the other faeries forever. Once you get your learning done, you can do whatever you want with your time."

Lairen, as though summoned, walked over to them and smiled at all three. "Well, shall we get down to business?"

"I'm going to go stay with Kaylin!" Maple announced and flew away to catch up with her human.

Over by where several faeries were playing some sort of game together, one of them leapt up abruptly and began leaping up and down, cheering. "I won! I won!" This one seemed to be a young woman with a small set of bat wings where her ears should have been and she had three toes on her long feet that ended in blunted claws. A lion's tail thrashed behind her excitedly.

"Oh, come, you'll get to see something interesting," Lairen informed Nuo and strode closer to where the 'winning' faerie continued to leap about in excitement.

Atarai rose from her seat and walked over to the winner, smiling benevolently. "What is your name?"

The faerie drew herself up and replied, "Nir'kirma, your Majesty."

"Then from now on you are called Coraenshee'hini," Atarai announced. "There is that new feyling to see to but tonight we shall give you the Elixir of Blooming."

All the faeries began to clap, some more enthusiastically than others. The losers of the game that had been played sulked.

[Darastrix]

"What's the Elixir of Blooming?" Nuo murmured to Lairen as Blueberry clapped on his shoulder. "And what did her name get changed to?"

[Kender Bard]

"Her name is now Leader of the Faerie Children," Lairen explained to Nuo, taking a moment to cut up the name and place them to each word in the title so he could better learn the language. "The Elixir... Well that's a little more difficult to explain." She frowned and thought for a few moments before attempting to answer.

"Plants do many things for human--they can heal, poison, give sustenance... But with faeries this is true as well, except moreso," she stated. "We are far closer tied to the land and its bounty than most. We believe it was Soahc's intention for us to be ever-changing because of our surrounding and that meant physically as well. Some plants have certain affects on faeries. For example, a certain concoction of nectar taken from specific flowers and drunk by a sprite will allow them to have eggs. The exact same one taken by another faerie may make her sprout warts. But some plants have the same affect throughout all faeries and the ones in the Elixir of Blooming is such an example."

"Many faerie are born or created or hatched small and sometimes ugly, or at least not lovely. When the elixir is drunk, they grow and become more comely.You'll see it better tonight. But it is a difficult thing to make, this draft, and so only those who have been selected by the queen to rise in the ranks may drink it."

[Darastrix]

Nuo listened with rapt fascination as Lairen explained how different plants affected different faeries. He’d never imagined something like that. The Elixir of Blooming sounded interesting on its own, but what other elixirs might there be?

“Is that a kind of craft I could learn?” he asked. “How to make different elixirs from plants?”

[Kender Bard]

"Aye you could, though it'd be hard for you," Lairen admitted. "As far as I can imagine, you feylings wouldn't be affected. But you could study from one of the elixerists on what ones we are aware of and help them with things. I'm sure they'd be very pleased to have an assistant, especially for the plant gathering. Would you like me to take you to meet one?"

[Darastrix]

Nuo nodded. "If there's not something else you wanted me to do first. Oh," he added. "About what you told me last night, about deciding whether to use someone's shortened name. If you call someone by their short name, and they respond with your full one, if you speak to them in the future, is it best to go back to using their full name?"

[Kender Bard]

"Aye, unless you want to keep making entreaties towards friendship," Lairen told him. "But you might just make things worse if you do that. It's like being pursued by an initially unwanted, but persistent, lover. You'll either dislike them more or find it endearing. Come--I'll show you to the elixirists." Lairen mosied on over to a group of faeries who kept close together farther north of the faerie gathering. Here, three faeries were gathered about a very old and fairly rusty looking, but still serviceable, cauldron. Two were female, radiant to gaze upon, and the third was a bare-chested and handsome male faerie. All three were keeping an eye on their bubbling pot, though they did glance up at Lairen's approach.

Lairen glanced at Nuo and shot him a small grin. "Elixirists are not above helping themselves to their best goods as you can see."

"We worked for it, we deserved it," one of the females sniffed. She looked like a pink-tinted nymph. Her female companion was almost a mirror image but purple. The male had a faint gold sheen to his skin.

[Darastrix]

They were lovely as flowers, Nuo thought, smiling back at Lairen. He wished he had some sort of artistic talent to capture everything he was seeing. So many of the fey were just beautiful. He felt a quick burst of shyness and glanced to the side to see Blueberry peeking from behind his hair at the three fey. He couldn't blame her; he felt a little uncertain himself. Lairen had said to introduce himself when approached, but they were the ones approaching. And since his mentor was with him, was she supposed to introduce him instead?

Well, since she hadn't....

"It's nice to meet you," he ventured. "I'm Nuo."