nuue's dragon Seii

Personal Style

Apparel

Skin

Scene

Physical Attributes

Battle Stats

Measurements

Length

4.33 m

Wingspan

3.96 m

Weight

226.91 kg

Genetics

Abyss
Basic

Overcast
Basic

Teal
Basic

Hatchday

Mar 24, 2021
(3 years)

Breed

Adult
Tundra

Eye Type

Ice
Uncommon

Level 25 Tundra

Max Level

STR

129

AGI

DEF

QCK

INT

VIT

MND

Lineage

Parents

none

Offspring

none

Biography

“Come with me, and I'll show you true flight.”
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐

seii
_
changeling
_
they / he / she

♫
»───────────›
Circle of Life
♪
A Youth Written in Fire
♪
Bremen
♪
Come Along
‹───────────«

Seii’s carefree aura is so wide, so all-encompassing, you might not even notice the maimed wing at first. They’ll never mention the limb hacked short at the wrist, and they sidle away from comment with the ease of a slipstream. Some things are better forgotten, and no one is as good and as bad at remembering as they are.

Within their windy heart, they carry a boundless, infectious joy in the world. Step into the same room with them, and you will feel it. Happen to be swept up in their wings for an instant, and you will breathe it. Stay too long, and you will live it.

They’re a magnet for unrequited affections. In the phantom ache of their missing wing, they are all too aware of the fragility of their own life and of the lives around them, and they’re not one to stop a runaway heart in its tracks — oh no, not them. They have a wicked streak, and it’s tempting to tease their admirers with what they’ll never have. And what they themself will never have.

They always ask the same question — is this a dream of a memory, or a memory of a dream? They don’t know. They don’t remember. Tundra-fashion but not quite, an abandoned child of time. Maybe one day, one day they’ll live long enough to understand.

“Is anything real out here? Who are any of us?”
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐

Seii was not always a Tundra. If they screw their eyes up, deep in their mind they can catch glimpses of a time when the world was simple and comforting. Once their paws were tiny and slim and their body was too, their long, silky tail curled around them as they squirmed among their siblings. Their cries filled their ears before their eyes opened. In the warm darkness of infanthood there was the sound of singing, and the stroke of a hand on their fragile little body.

And then they did open their eyes, and oh! the world was a beautiful place. All silvers and blues and greys, and they could see the wind playing music in the leaves. As far as the breeze could blow the land was a dreamy color of mist, the same shade as the newborn’s eyes. And in the starry night sky their people danced, and they too were beautiful.

Feet shifted the fallen leaves, and the newborn looked up into a pointed delicate face. “Mama!”

“Not so, little nymph,” said the dragon, laughing too, and he lifted them to their feet. The small one stumbled to his feet, entranced by the slender figure standing over him. “You can call me Leannan. Can you say that? Leannan.”

“Lee-aayah!”

He laughed again. “No high king am I, but I wanted to say goodbye to you before you go.”

A confused glance from the big eyes.

Placing a hand on their head, Leannan bent down and kissed their nose. The scent of leaves filled the air. “Wind watch your wings, little one. Whatever they call you, never forget your name.” And then — woe of woes — the lovely one turned and leapt into the sky. They gazed after him with a plaintive question.

Arms swept him onto the breeze, and a light voice scolded them. “Ah, love, there you are, and ogling our Leannan, no less! Oh, you’ll be quite the feisty little one, but remember: no staring.” She too let loose a burst of laughter. “It’s time to go, my love.”

Go where? Dangling from the Spiral’s claws, they looked at the world far below and squealed with excitement.

“Hush now. Our people travel fast.” The grass brushed their feet. The hatchling trotted after the sinuous dragon as she flowed across the fields, and now the sky was spangled with stars. “Take a deep breath now, my love,” said the Spiral, the lightness gone from her voice. “This is your last hour outside the bounds of draconic time.”

In the silky sheen of dusk, the hatchling breathed the roots of the trees and the wings of the moths and the glorious body of twilight air. And they knew, deep deep down, they stood on the borders of Time. The Spiral beckoned. Instead of going to her side in the blink of an eye, they scampered through the grass and arrived beside her, panting. By the time (Time!) the two had reached the top of the hills, exhaustion dragged in their every limb.

“Are you tired, love?” she whispered. “Not too far now. You had better get used to it. From now on, you will weary and drowse like any other dragon.” At their whine she stroked their head, her eyes smiling sad. “I’m sorry, love. One day you will see it is worth the wait.”

Like a night-time breeze they passed through the sleeping clan that was not there before, and halted in a place beneath the stars. There she made them lie down. Stretching out in the grass, the hatchling looked at the sky and held back a whimper. Tears were a new thing to them. Weep? The Fey Folk did not wound themselves with weeping. Over their bared breast the Spiral drew intricate patterns in the air that they did not understand, but the potent smell of magic rose in their nostrils.

All at once she clamped a hand over their mouth, startling them. And then they almost screamed aloud.

Writhing, they arched their back and tried to fight free of the pain, but she had pinned them, gagged them. Her head was pressed against their cheek as she breathed, “I’m sorry, love, I’m sorry. Hold on, child. Hold on tight.”

The crack of bone echoed through the reeds. If some night wanderer had peeked in the glade, it would have seen a grotesque sight. Under the sky their ribcage shrank and stretched, collapsing their chest. Their body twisted and lengthened, as though enormous hands were pulling them by the head and hips. At last, the hum of the wind stirred their wings and new-sprouted fur. Tears streamed from their closed eyes. Hiccups wracked their fragile form.

“It’s over, love,” said the Spiral. She had changed them. Beneath the bite of the breeze, they felt disfigured and naked, as though the spell had stripped them of their skin and left them bare on the ground. Trapped. As they struggled to find their feet, she laid a hand on them. “Stay.”

Taking their head in her hands she kissed them, on brow and cheeks and mouth after the faery-fashion. “Remember your name, Satchin. Now farewell.” Light as a feather, she lifted away and spun into the sky with another hatchling sound asleep in her embrace. It seemed their memories fled with her.

And so Seii the clan named them, and Seii they were to all, except that little locked-away corner where Satchin watched the world with luminous green eyes.

***

From the beginning, Seii was a curious one. If you ask them, this is what they will say their parents told them:

While their siblings writhed and played and spun in circles, they were steadier, more solemn than a hatchling of their age had a right to be. Even as they tried their little wings, racing the wind, their wide eyes gazed out with the gravity of someone much older or much younger — their clanmates could not tell which. As an infant, they never squalled, never smiled, never laughed. Were they simple or wise?

They were charming, that was certain. Their laughter grew with them, till they could send an entire lair into tears of hilarity. Strangest of all, dragons of all kinds grew infatuated with them at an astonishing speed. And Seii was no ascetic. They flirted back. They were a master of winks and sly smiles, and subtle shifts of the weight. They courted three rivals at once and lay back to watch them fight. The clan leaders considered them a troublemaker, but they were too well-loved to punish in earnest.

When they were younger, they used to spend long hours reliving what they could of the strange dreams that haunted them. “Wind watch your wings,” a far away voice repeated, “Wind watch your wings, little one.”

Snatches of memory flitted through them. They remembered song. In that past life, Time flowed slow and fast all at once, a shimmering river that parted around them and left them untouched. In that life, they lived outside of the moment and watched it fly by. Then the sweetest memory of all surfaced and would not leave them alone: a beautiful dragon kissing them farewell. Where was that dragon now? What was their name?

Name?

Bit by bit, the richness of life buried the melancholy. They pushed it to the back of their mind. Sornieth was waiting, time was limited. Life was too short for brooding.

Adolescence flew by in a blaze. They seemed to never grow older. Oh yes, they were longer and stronger, and their eyes sharper and more cunning. But their enthralling air and love of danger never left them. And yet — through it all, there was something deeper and sadder about Seii that stirred the heart. In times of quiet, their gaze would grow distant, their brow furrow as if trying to remember something long gone. And then the moment would pass, and they would turn and flash their winning grin, and all the cares of life would whirl away. If they took up romancing, you would never doubt them, even as you watched them pluck at the heartstrings of a dozen others and leave them within the day. With Seii, a day was a year, and a year a day. The touch of their wings and their wild windy scent lingered long after the pain of abandonment.

Clanmates began to apprehend the day they matured from a young rascal to a scoundrel. What would they do with this wild spirit? But Seii never gave them a chance to decide. One morning, they approached the Queen and announced they were leaving.

“Where?” inquired the Queen.

“Wherever the wind takes me.”

“You have a haven here in this clan, Seii. I cannot guarantee you will receive the same tolerance in other places.”

The Tundra spread their hands with a winning grin. “I’ll find a way.” Blowing a kiss to their home, they sprang into the air and was gone before anyone could call them back. They never saw those faces again.

At least, this is what Seii will insist was their past. If you were to search the maps, no matter how many atlases you flipped through, there was no clan with a Queen of that name in the Reedcleft Ascent. But … did it really matter?

Oh! they were free now. Nothing tied them down. For they were set loose on the boundless breeze, they were the world’s and it was theirs.

I was born here! their heart cried. They loved the sky, they loved the world. They loved the vastness of it, thousands upon thousands of leagues in which to lose themself and never return to the same place. If one little Tundra could court the universe, they would. Whooping with joy, they gave himself up to the wind and their own exuberance.

“Take me where you will!” they shouted to the sky. “I want to see the world!” They lived in the moment. If the moment was danger, they welcomed it and ravished it. If it was peace, they found a risk to run, a storm to race.

That night — or perhaps a hundred nights afterward — they stopped to rest in one of the myriad little marketplaces across Sornieth. At once, dozens of eyes turned on them, and Seii pivoted to give a friendly salute to each of their owners, laughing at the blushes that crept up their faces. They looked away, forgetting that Seii’s sharp vision pierced the darkness as well as it did in the sunlight.

Lighting down on a tavern roof, they ran down an outside beam and hopped through the door. A Mirror with a patch over one green eye greeted them. “Welcome! Are you hungry?”

Seii sat themself down with a plop and grinned. “Yes, but I haven’t got any money.”

“No matter,” chuckled the Mirror, busy behind the counter. In a moment she returned with a pheasant breast and a carafe of tea.

“Ah …” Cupping their claws around the mug, Seii inhaled the sweet vapor and sipped. “Delicious!”

The night breeze sang through cracks in the bamboo walls and the Tundra hummed along, letting the the wind lead the melody on. They remembered the mages of their old clan casting glowing bolts, and memorizing long intricate spells to unleash in battle. Grand stuff, but this was better magic. This was the magic that made up the weaving of their lives.

With no other customers, the Mirror tavernkeeper squatted down on the ground with a cup of watered mead and chatted in time to the windy beat. In the lulls, Seii replied with questions of their own. What is your name? How long have you been in the business? From which part of the Windswept Plateau do you hail?

“Caevy, Captain Caevy if you like. I’ve been in this here tavern for seven years, but before that I worked on the ships.” The Mirror tapped her tail to the music, the eye patch making her grin lopsided. “The Cloudsong, you know. It’s a massive airborne system of kites and flying platforms, but for good commute you got to have airships, and sailors too. Not everyone can fly half so well as you. And you?”

“Seii. I came from the cliffs overlooking the bay, on the borders of Reedcleft, but I’m gonna tour the world!”

Caevy nodded, her eyes growing dreamy. “I’ve always wanted to do that, fly Sornieth from end to end. It’s a vast place. Such a shame we’ve got so little time here.”

“You can come with me,” exhorted Seii, holding out their hand. “We’ll be the name of the skies!”

“Ha. If only. I’ve had my footloose days, and I’ve paid for them too. My roots go too deep now. What will I do with this tavern, and all my customers? I can’t leave them behind.”

“But if you could …” The prospect of the wide world took Seii’s breath away. They leapt to their feet. “Take them with you! Imagine what I would — what we would see. To soar for days on end, to sleep under all the stars and touch every corner of Sornieth!” The world was open before them. They could do anything and everything. They wanted to laugh with sheer giddy excitement, to shout their love of life and liberty to the deities. Oh! Living was wonderful. “I can’t wait to be off again, Caevy. If only you could come with me!”

Caevy was wistful. “If only, my friend. What I wouldn’t give to be free again. If ever you seek a helping hand or a familiar face, don’t you hesitate to send the word for Captain Caevy.”

“No need!” Saluting, Seii turned their smile on her, fit to break a heart with their happiness. “I don’t need any help. I was made for this.” (For some reason, this seemed true. More true than it should be.)

“Well, you do you. I couldn’t stop you if I wanted. But take a word of advice. Don’t let your love of life get too mixed up with the love of the things in life.”

“Thank you, and Singer bless! May we meet again!” Tilting their head to the Mirror, the music danced into a whirlwind as Seii darted out the tavern like a rush of wind. As she picked up the cups, Caevy gazed through the doorway into the night and sighed, her eyes full of things long ago.

***

Never before had Seii thought how vast Sornieth truly was. A month after leaving Captain Caevy, they were hardly past the borders of the Windswept Plateau. Before them, the boundless blueness of the Sea stretched into the distance. On the ground below, the villages grew sparse as they left the Cloudsong and Crescendo, dwindling into rustic huts and lairs, home to wandering clans chasing their dreams. It was idyllic, and Seii lingered here in these romantic landscapes, on the sun-kissed hills and reedy rustling forests, the running rivers and green mossy stones.

Out here, they seldom met other dragons, but the ones they did were like them — sojourners drifting in the world, having no home and loving the liberty. Only one was different.

They met him in a tiny fief overlooked by a budding monarchy. The ragged Tundra had settled in a temporary hut, constructed of bamboo stalks lashed together, ready to be taken down at a moment’s notice. The wind sang through the walls. There was no thatching; the stars were the roof and the sun the lamp.

He was was drawing patterns in the empty air when Seii touched down.

“Windsinger’s blessing!”

The other Tundra looked up and his hands stilled. “I’m in the middle of something.” A statement, made in a flat voice. He had a faraway accent. His voice told stories of glorious golden dawns, woody resonances and earth deeper and more ancient than the wind.

“In the middle of what?”

“It’s none of your business. Where did you come from?”

“Everywhere and nowhere! My name’s Seii.” When there was no answer, Seii tilted their head expectantly. “What’s yours?”

The stranger looked at them for a long moment with a begrudging expression. “Nobody.” And after a second, “Tavi.”

“Nice to meet you, Tavi.”

Seii held a hand out. Tavi frowned at them. Putting their head to one side, they gave a mischievous smile. “Well, you’re rude. Can I stay with you tonight? It’s lovely to sleep under the stars, but it’s been a chilly day and it’ll be a chillier night.”

They dined on foraged bits, whatever they could glean from the wilds around the hut. But in the open air, it seemed a feast for royalty, and Seii said as much.

Tavi scoffed at them without looking up. “Don’t be melodramatic.” He sat straight as an aspen on the floor, holding his simple wooden bowl with both hands as if it were a cup of libation. As the sun slipped degree by degree below the horizon, he reached across and lit a candle in a single motion, and Seii could not help noticing the smoothness of his neck and shoulders.

Propping their chin in their hands, they leaned forward on their elbows, kicking their feet behind them. “So who are you? I wanna know more about you. Where are you from? What do you do? Why are you out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“I fix things. Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

That was all he would say about himself. Seii yawned, rolling over in the grass. “Oh no, are you one of those mysterious types who like to think they’re better than everybody else? We won’t get along at all then. Those kinds of people are really too boring.”

“Are you that much more interesting?” Tavi retorted.

“Of course I am! For one, I’ll let you know exactly where I’m from! I come from a great clan in the Reedcleft.” They grinned broadly, upside-down. “For another, I’m not you.”

But even as the words left their lips, they paused. Did they really come from such a clan? It all seemed like an illusion now, like a hazy dream they had been clinging to for so long it had begun to blend with their real memories. What were real memories, for that matter?

When Tavi put out the light, it was the first sign that everything was not as it seemed. He had his back to the candle, setting his meager belongings in a meticulous little row along the wall. All at once, the flame snuffed out as if something had simply consumed the light.

Seii blinked. “What happened to the candle?”

“I put it out,” he answered, as if it were obvious.

They watched him spread a big, tattered blanket over the floor and roll himself up in it. While they ate, he had seemed like such an intimidating figure, the candlelight making his face look serious in a quiet, noble sort of way. But now, nestled on the floor with his back to them, he made a surprisingly small shadow in the corner. Seii wondered how he would react if they tried yanking the blanket out from under him, and giggled at the thought.

His eyes opened, two gleaming stars in the darkness. “What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing. You’re funny when you’re irritated.”

“Don’t you ever sleep?”

Flipping a fingertip between their teeth, Seii flashed him an impish smile, tongue out. “Sometimes.”

They stopped as the unmistakable edge of a knife bit their throat. Startled, they put their hands up to their neck, but there was nothing there. Tavi’s eyes frowned at them. “Go to bed, idiot. And don’t forget we met all of three hours ago.”

That night, the dreams of Seii’s childhood came back to them. “Wind watch your wings, little one.” They had new dreams, too.

“Lee-aayah!” Was that their voice wailing over the long miles of time and hill? They wandered in a place achingly beautiful yet forever lost to them, yearning for something or someone they could not remember. Pain and boiling bones and the bitterness of magic in their mouth, and they screamed, writhing to escape the twisting torture within them.

“Whatever you do, never forget your name.” And they felt pure splitting agony as if great claws had sunk into their flesh and bone and torn them apart. They woke panting and shaking.

A pale green-grey dawn infiltrated the hut through the cracks in the walls. Tavi was still asleep. Sitting up, Seii watched his flanks rise and fall in measured rhythm, looking at his slender figure and feathered wings, and wondering where, where had they seen that dragon in their dreams before? They had seen all sorts of dragons in their life. But none of them haunted their memories like the strange speaker who blessed them.

Stumbling out into the open, they took a deep breath of the fresh, crisp dawn and waited till their heart stopped pounding out of their chest. They shook themself, as if they could shed memories like springtime fur, but they clung, soft and whispering as cobwebs. Making for a little town in the distance, they lighted down in the drowsing streets and scented the air for better fare than the meal last night.

The buildings marched straight and grey, utilitarian. From one of them, a wisp of smoke curled. Barracks. Seii had forgotten the land belonged to a fief. Down the slope, rustic dens dotted the countryside, picturesque from the heights.

Time was still blurry. There was a Fae, skeptical and cynical and absolutely not interested in strangers, so of course Seii flirted with her. She was on an early morning raid of a priest’s pantry — she said, in a low voice, that the priests in these parts were no better than the soldiers, but her family was starving and there was nothing else she could do. Seii offered to kiss her to make her feel better. She knocked that idea out of their head quite literally, and the two went raiding together.

None of it made sense, but Seii’s life rarely made sense, and this morning, they were half-walking on the Other Side where everything was silver and grey, gliding through the world like a leaf in a stream. And the next day, they were back, and she was in the same place waiting for them.

***

The disaster was not in the getting caught. It was in the Fae’s disappearance.

Seii rushed from end to end of the town, searching everywhere, but she was gone. She had not even told them where her family lived. They imagined siblings and parents and loved ones (even children? Who knows) waiting for her day after day, not knowing what had happened. What if she were murdered somewhere, fragile wings pathetic and transparent in death?

“Tavi!”

The Tundra looked up as they burst into the hut. “Good gods, Seii.” His hands, in the middle of tracing a circle in the air, came together before him. Was it their imagination, or was there a golden glow dissipating in the hut?

They hurried on. “Have you seen a Fae? About this tall, looks like —”

“Shut up.” He grabbed their shoulder and steered them toward the door, startling them. “Get out of here. Run east.”

“Why? Are you coming with me?”

Tavi cursed under his breath. “You’re a terrible burglar, did you know that? It took me ten minutes to find out everything you’ve been doing in the past week. You could’ve asked me for help. Now run!”

But it was too late. With a bang, a trio of guards burst into the hut, their armor making the tiny space more cramped than ever. A Coatl pointed at Seii. “That’s the other thief. Arrest them.”

Seii froze.

As the Coatl approached them, they flung themself back on Tavi’s bed. “Why, thank you,” they said at random, their sinuous length sprawled across the floor. “Have some tea before you go.” They reached for a couple of cups, stretching in an exaggerated yawn. “Come and sit a while.”

The Coatl seized their arm and dragged them upright. “Your accomplice sold you out already,” she said. “We caught her yesterday. Give it up.”

“I’ll make tea for you," they offered, like a child at a tea party.

“Knock it off. Come on.”

“Idiot,” muttered Tavi as the guards dragged Seii out the door. They struggled to tear themself free, but their claws closed on them and held them tight as they marched them through the streets. People stared at them; they could feel the eyes.

The guards dumped them in the center of a courtyard. As soon as Seii touched the ground they wormed free and bolted, but they were ready for him. In one sweep a Wildclaw had twisted their limbs — legs, wings and all — behind their back and pinned them stiff. They grew more afraid still when they saw the block of ebony chained to the ground, crisscrossed with slashes. It was not ebony at all. It was only plain wood, stained black with blood.

The world turned upside-down. Garbled words howled to leave them but their throat would not obey, and claws pushed them down — gods, they were going to chop off their head for a burglary?

Someone seized their wing and forced it flat on the block. Oh Windsinger no, not their head but —

“No!” they shrieked. “No! You can have my head! Please! I’ll give you anything, but not that!”

The Wildclaw muffled them. “Quit carrying on like that.”

Seii thrashed their head free. “No, no, you don’t understand,” they wailed. “Please, no, please …” The sound of a sharpening sword pierced the miasma.

“Hold them still.” Steel flashed.

They screamed, writhing, but the guards were too strong for them, their voice rasping away as they bawled like a dragon possessed. The Wildclaw grabbed their chin and tried again to shut their mouth, but it mattered less and less.

A single dull thud echoed in the courtyard.

***

Seii was not always a Tundra. If they screw their eyes up, deep in their mind they can catch glimpses of a time when the world was simple and comforting. Once they were free, unbound to land or sky, and the wind stroked their face more gently than any mother’s hands. In the darkness, something soft brushed their skin. They tried to move and could not, tried to speak and found that their lips had not even twitched. Shadows moved above them. One stopped just before their chin. I am back in the beginning of time, and Time has come to kill me, they thought. I am back.

And then they did open their eyes, and it was torture, undiluted agony that made death seem easy. But their throat was too dry to cry out.

“Drink,” someone commanded.

They recognized the noble, angular face, the slender build. “Leannan.” The name stirred something buried so deep that the tremors ran through all the years of their memory.

“It’s Tavi. Drink.”

Water splashed on their face and dribbled down their neck. Parting their lips, they caught the drops on their tongue and felt it bring their parched body back to life. They sipped again. As their head cleared, the pain withdrew to their wing and remained there.

“Don’t look,” Tavi warned, but too late. Their eyes followed the elbow-crook to the forearm of … and stopped. Where the long fingers bearing the membrane should have joined in a palm, there was only a stump, roughly tourniqueted, and other things they wished they had not seen. Seii twisted the other way and vomited.

Beside them, they felt Tavi climb to his feet with a sigh. “Get up. You can’t lie here all day.”

Seii turned their face away, hardly trusting their own voice. “I don’t want to.”

“You’ll die out here. Get up, I’ll take you home.”

“My home was the sky,” Seii whispered into the mud. Dimly, as from another world, they felt Tavi lifting them, hefting them onto his back — he was stronger than they expected. He trembled under their weight all throughout the slow trek, but not till they were inside the hut did he let Seii slide down on the floor.

They heard the sounds of Tavi moving about, and felt him lifting their wing to pour something sticky and sweet-smelling on the shortened limb. Honey. Bandages unrolled with a rustle of cloth. From somewhere overhead, a strange warmth touched their skin, as if the sun had come out just for them. Their chest tight with pain both within and without, Seii sunk themself back into the black haze of sleep, hoping never to leave it again. When they woke, the sickening agony had dulled to a lingering, stiffening one, a dragging pain that left them weary and apathetic. They refused Tavi’s offers of food.

“I’ve made some broth and tea.”

“No.”

“You have to eat,” objected Tavi after the fifth attempt.

“I don’t want it.”

“You can’t just lie there and mope. You brought this on yourself.”

“I said I don’t want it.”

“Eat.”

Sitting up, Seii shoved him away. The bowl and the cup went clattering across the floor. “The Shade with you! You’re not my nursemaid! Get the hell out of here and leave me to die in peace!”

Dead silence fell. The bowl rotated on the ground for a second longer. Just beside it, a faint symbol had been scratched into the dust. An eye encircled by a sun. Not for healing, but for warding. Seii suddenly remembered the invisible knife at their throat, the vanishing candle, and looked up at Tavi.

“Oh,” they said. “I didn’t know you were a mage.”

Standing there with the tea spilled at his feet, his face utterly expressionless, Tavi looked at them for so long they half expected him to kill them on the spot.

“Seii,” he said at last. Turning around, he sat down with his back to them. From shoulder to hip, it was a lacerated mass of slices, angry and raw. Blood had run down his spine and crusted in his hair. He spoke without moving his head. “Fifty lashes in public for harboring a wanted criminal.”

Seii stared. All of a sudden, they could see him kneeling in the courtyard, his stony gaze fixed straight ahead while someone whipped him for something he had nothing to do with. Yet even then he had carried them on his bloodied back, all the way home, and here Seii was cursing him for keeping them alive.

They turned their face to the wall and took a deep unsteady breath, willing their voice to stay even. “What did you do with — with the other half?” The severed hand of their wing.

“I buried it.”

Their heart twisted. Part of them ached with the loss, as though having the hand with them would somehow reunite it with their body. They wanted to see it one more time, the last remnant of their freedom. Like the corpse of a dead friend, empty and useless but still dear.

Tavi crossed his arms. “Why, did you want to make a relic out of it?”

“I thought only Skydancers read minds,” complained Seii, but they glanced up and saw his tired, worn face. Hesitating, they gathered themself and swallowed their shattered pride. “I guess … I’ll have some tea.”

The mage’s eyes gazed back, bone weary but bright as the sun. “It’s about time you did.” He paused as Seii looked expectantly at him. “So? Make your own tea. You just threw my tea all over me.”

***

Sornieth was waiting. The world glowed with gold and green, light and lush, for they say that the spring of the Windswept Plateau is second only to the Viridian Labyrinth. The wind sang a high and joyous melody, teasing them, calling them. Why do you not go on? it asked. In the wild days of your happiness, you courted me and raced me through the sky. You swore to follow me wherever I went. Come, I am going now. I am leaving you behind. Follow me!

Sitting on the rickety beams of the hut, Seii heard the beckons, but their wings drooped at their sides, forever useless, and their tail hung to the ground. The hut shifted in the wind. Down below, the fief unfolded, the tender grass sheathing the cruelty within. They refused to look in that direction.

Tavi rapped on the tip of their tail. “Seii?”

They did not answer.

“Did you find the food I left for you?”

“Yes, I did.” They did not turn around.

Rising on his toes, he put his elbows on the roof, but the hut would not support the additional weight. He backed down again. “I should be going on my way soon.”

“I know.”

“It’s been almost a year, and I’ve got places to go.”

“Then go. I’ll only slow you down.”

“Gods’ sake.” Tavi sounded annoyed. “I can’t stand martyrs. We’ll travel at your pace.”

Still they would not look at him, their eyes fixed on the sky and the scudding clouds. A flock of swallows swooped high overhead. And now they could not turn around without betraying their face and the glint on their cheeks.

It made no difference to Tavi. The eye of the sun sees all. “Listen, Seii. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and tell me what you want me to do.”

“Send for Captain Caevy,” Seii said all at once, startling themself.

“Who?”

“Caevy, former sky sailor and tavernkeeper at Zefera, in the Steppes.”

The Steppes were two thousand miles away. But Tavi packed his scanty belongings and left to find someone he had never met. Seii wandered alone by the hut, and watched the sky from the roof. The stars moved. The wind changed, bringing a fresh, lonely smell of the Sea from the north, and the crispness faded from the air as summer rolled in like a rich golden fog. And every sight, every sight and every shade of life, brought a grief of its own. Time went turning on, leaving Seii behind forlorn, aching, seeking. Remembering. They were an orphan of the world.

When they first saw the speck on the horizon, they turned away. A Roc or an Imperial, soaring on its powerful wings. They could no longer bear to see even a butterfly flutter past, and them unable to join it. But it grew larger, and the sun glistened off it. This was no living creature. As it grew closer, Seii goggled at it, squinting the spots out of their vision — it was radiant, brilliant, shining like a star. And it was heading for them. They stiffened, ready to face their end with open eyes, but a golden shape arced down out of the sky to meet them.

“You asked for Captain Caevy,” said Tavi, as if no time had passed between them at all. “Here she is. She’s come to teach you to fly again.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you’ll see.” And to Seii’s astonishment, a small smile flickered on his face. He lighted down on the hut beside them, ignoring the reeds’ warning groan. “I’ve travelled four thousand miles for this.”

A roar like a full-blown furnace and the snap and boom of flapping fabric filled their ears. With a creak of metal and wood, the thing circled the hillside, dipping lower with each pass until its glittering underside brushed the grass.

“Catch!” a familiar voice called, and Seii threw up their arms to protect himself as a length of heavy rope came coiling down at them. The hut wobbled under the sudden movement. As the mighty object thudded down to the ground, it released a blast of scorching wind that blew the collapsing hut into a pile of rods, sending Tavi and Seii tumbling down with it.

Entangled in Tavi’s limbs, Seii flashed a grin out of old habit. At once, gravity retaliated in all the wrong directions. They only caught a glimpse of his signature frown before they found themself dumped in a heap twenty feet away, the mage sitting as quiet as could be in the grass. He barely spared them a glance as they sputtered in protest.

At that moment, a lean shape leapt over the railing and landed beside them, three eyes sparkling and wide mouth grinning. “Well, Seii, my old friend, what do you say?”

They stared, stunned, hardly knowing what they were looking at. “Captain Caevy?”

“The one and only.” Caevy struck a good-natured salute. “Last time we met, you wanted me to adventure with you. So here I am. She’s only a little thing, but she’ll take you anywhere you wish faster than an Imperial could fly.”

“She …?” Seii gazed in wonder at the sleek tapering body all patterned over with intricate golden filigree, the pointed bow, the wind-green sails that crowned them all. An airship. She rocked in the breeze, her masts swaying, as if she itched to be off into the great blue yonder already. Coming closer, they put out a tentative hand and touched the hull. Silk fluttered beneath the filigree exoskeleton, creating an illusion that the ship breathed on its own. Deep within her belly, Seii heard a throaty roar and sigh like a massive heartbeat.

Caevy pointed up. “Fire gives her life.” Steam billowed out between the double masts, filling the sails when the wind slackened. “Meet the Daughter of Memory, a skiff picked from the best in the Cloudsong. May she serve you well.” Her name was painted along the hull in gold, melding with the swirls of metal.

“Th-thank you,” whispered Seii, choking. “I — she’s beautiful.”

“Anything for a friend, Seii.” For a moment, Caevy's voice grew serious, though her smile never slipped. Before Seii could answer, she snapped her wings together and her friendly tone was back. “Now, I’ve been away for a month. For your first flight, take me home before my customers riot.”

On the Daughter, Seii learned how to send the skiff soaring a thousand feet into the sky and catch her as she fell; how to point her nose into the wind and drive her forward through the gale; how to tilt the sails just right; how to stoke her fires when the wind was gentle. They remembered the thrill of floating miles above the world, and the glory of the sun oh so close to their face.

And strangest of all, they remembered how to laugh.

They had not even realized they had forgotten until the first time they felt the whirling wind and threw back their head and shouted their exuberance aloud. Then they did not want to stop. Caevy laughed with them, infected by their brimming and overflowing and exploding joy. They saw everything anew and marvelled at it all, wondering how they could have ever wished to die.

Now Seii, once courter of all and lover of none, was in love themself — thrown head over heels with the pulsing music of the skies. The ship was like an extension of their heart. When Seii laughed, so did the ship, bouncing in the breeze. When on the rare occasion they wept, so did she, the wind whining along her sides and rolling in her sails: boom, boom, boom, more solemn than a funeral march.

One night, while Caevy slept below, Seii lay on the deck and watched the stars, feeling the rustle and thrum of their silken metal companion. Something golden flickered in the corner of their vision. Tavi’s straight-backed silhouette perched on the bow, his eyes on the moon sinking into the sea below.

Seii rolled over to look at him. “What are you doing?”

“I was enjoying some peace and quiet.”

“Oh, I see.” They sat up with mischief in their eyes. Laughing was pleasant again, and so was living. Bounding up to his level, they flicked him in the side of the head with a finger, singing. “Ba! Da! Ba ba da ba!”

He caught their wrist with one hand. “You’re insane,” he said, and Seii dissolved into giggles.

“Your face was gold,” they whispered when they had their breath back. “I’ll do it again when you don’t expect it!”

Too soon they left Caevy in Zefera, with sorrow in their smiles but laughter too. Who knows when they will meet again? Sornieth is vast. But the elements are twined. “Goodbye, Seii,” Captain Caevy said. “Singer bless.”

Then the Daughter lurched and they were away, the shape of the Mirror growing smaller and smaller till the world was but a speck, and they were alone in the heights. “Where are we going now?” asked Tavi.

"As far as we can," replied Seii, pointing the bow north. In their ears, a faraway voice whispered. Wind watch your wings, little one. Whatever they call you, never forget your name. Never forget.

relationships
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Tavi—Friend
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Hehe.

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art
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Blacknovelist // credit
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Watch.
Don't you know, when you spin it just so,
all the twists and the turns
straighten out just for you?

Listen.
The stories, the songs, the smiles,
they aren't really for you,
not yet.

Feel.
Go recall, in your palms, through your hair,
when you fall back in trust,
no resistance but air.

Smile.
Come on, smile, like your face will be known,
kept among memories
as frail as the wind.

Know.
It's the truth, a heart can't be caught,
not in hands
that were never there.

______________________

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purchased 8 Apr 2021 for 250g
skin 3000g

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