by Pirateaba
Think of faeries. Don’t think of them like people, but like stories.
Magic.
“I’m going into the city. I need to buy things.”
Erin reached for her coin pouch and hesitated. She took a handful of gold coins Krshia had helped her exchange and added them to the pouch.
“A lot of things.”
Ceria followed her out the door for a little bit, and then left. Erin walked through the snow, barely noticing the fact that she’d forgotten her second layer.
She’d held it in her hands, just for a second.
She was sure of it.
—-
A huge crowd of Gnolls and Drakes was gathered in front of the Watch barracks when Erin passed that way towards Market Street. She paused, long enough to realize that something was very wrong.
All the Gnolls were growling, or facing the barracks with fists clenched or claws extened. Their hair was standing up, and they were very still.
Standing in front of the entrance was Watch Captain Zevara, and at her side was Relc and Klbkch. The two heavy-hitters. Yes, something was wrong.
Erin listened to the shouting as she walked past. The Gnolls wanted in, and the Watch wasn’t letting them.
“Go back! Disperse! We’re holding the Human until a trial can be set up. Tomorrow! No one gets in or out, got it?”
Zevara was shouting above the howls and raised voices in the crowd. Not just Gnolls were angry of course; several Drakes seemed to be out for blood, but they were definitely a scaled minority in the crowd.
What had happened? But she had to follow the vision in her head before it was too late. Erin walked on, and noticed Klbkch’s head slowly turning to follow her before he focused on the crowd.
Keep moving. Keep walking. She had the vision.
But Erin stopped when she reached Market Street. Because of the fire.
It had swept through the street again, only this time there had been people close by, able to contain the blaze. In fact, the flames had only destroyed one place. A stall. One Gnoll’s stall, to be precise.
Krshia sat on the ground in front of her burned venue, staring at the rubble and ash. Nothing remained of her goods, not the wooden stall, not the carefully organized supplies—nothing.
It was gone. Erased. And somehow, Erin knew that insurance plans hadn’t been invented yet in this world.
The street was very quiet. Gnolls and Drakes gathered around Krshia, giving her space, watching silently. Erin didn’t know what to do. But she approached anyways. The crowd stared at her with little warmth, but they let her pass.
“Krshia.”
The Gnoll barely looked up as Erin walked over. She sat very still, staring at her stall.
“Erin Solstice. It is a dark day, yes?”
“Yes.”
What else was there to say? Erin paused, and then sat down. She stared at the ruined stall and part of her heart broke. But another part saw grass growing out of the destruction, a tree pushing its way past the cracked cobblestone, into the sky.
If she could do magic, then maybe—
“What happened?”
Krshia told her in a soft voice. It was the thief. Some human girl who Krshia had set a trap for with the other shopkeepers. It had worked, but the girl had a ring that cast a spell which destroyed her shop.
She was alive. The girl, that was. Scratched, bleeding, but alive. Krshia had turned her over to the Watch however reluctantly to face trial. That was the law. But the law wouldn’t restore Krshia’s stall, or her livelihood.
Erin didn’t know what to say. This was the way of the world. That was what her brain told her. Bad days, death, violence. It was all over the news. Bad days, for everyone, everywhere, never ending.
But it shouldn’t be this way. Erin looked at her fingertips. She could still feel it.
“If I can help—”
“Not now. Maybe we will talk. But now—”
Krshia sighed, and all the boundless energy she seemed to have went out of her. Her ears lowered, her tail drooped. Erin reached out to pat her shoulder, and someone shouted.
“It’s their fault! These Humans caused this!”
She looked around with the crowd. A Drake was standing several feet away, pointing angrily at Erin. She recognized him.
Lism.
“You see? This is all because of Humans! Twice now, they’ve destroyed parts of our city! First, when they unleashed the undead and now, an upstanding shopkeeper’s livelihood has been destroyed!”
His voice was strident as he gestured towards the burnt stall and Erin. Krshia stirred, looking at him, and Erin slowly got to her feet.
Why him? Why now? But misery followed misery. Lism continued, shouting to his audience who was far more receptive than Erin would have liked.
“Adventurers keep coming into the city, merchants shortchange us, and humans steal from our most respected citizens! When will it end?”
“Lism. Shut up.”
Krshia said it quietly, but there was an edge in her voice that made the Drake hesitate. The Gnolls around Krshia were silent, but they were on her side.
But those further out in the crowd and many of the Drakes…Erin looked around and stood up.
“Erin.”
Someone whispered to her. Selys. The Drake’s scales were slightly pale, and she looked around as if she was worried. Krshia turned her head slightly to Erin.
“You came here to shop, yes? Go. We will speak. We must speak. But now is not the time.”
“If you’re sure—”
“Go.”
The Gnoll looked at Selys. The younger Drake had tears in her eyes as she stared at the ruins of Krshia’s shop.
“Selys. You will go with Erin, yes? Help her.”
“Okay. Erin—”
Erin stood up wordlessly. She walked through the silent crowd, ignoring the stares. Lism had backed off, but he was still shouting and arguing. He yelled something at her as she passed.
Selys tried to hurry Erin along as she snapped at Lism, but the girl paused. Her ears were ringing a bit. She stopped in front of Lism. The Drake looked alarmed, but then he looked around at the crowd and seemed to draw strength from the onlookers.
“Well? Are you going to attack me too, Human? Go ahead. Prove what a menace your kind is!”
Erin stared at him. Then she shook her head. She was aware other people were staring at her, so she raised her voice as she addressed Lism.
“You are not a nice person. Olesm’s nice, but you’re not. If everyone was nicer, I think we’d get along. But I don’t like you.”
She stared him in the eye, and walked off. Selys hurried off after Erin. After a minute, she heard him shouting in outrage.
Erin didn’t care. She left the street behind and walked on. Sometimes, sadness was too much to process at once. Why did bad things happen? Why couldn’t everything be good?
Magic.
“I don’t—scales and tails, why did it have to happen like that? Poor Krshia. What will she do after that? Almost all her goods were in that stall, and it was warded for goodness sake! What kind of spell could tear through that?”
Selys was talking rapidly as she walked with Erin, upset. Erin nodded once or twice, but then she had to ask.
“I’ve got to go. I’ve got—something very important to do. A guest. I need to buy ingredients.”
“Guests? Now? Erin…”
Selys hesitated. She sighed.
“I can help, I guess, but Krshia’s…look, who’s it for?”
“The faeries.”
For two long minutes Selys just gaped at Erin, searching her face slowly. Erin stared back, heart calm, heart racing.
“The—are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“But they’re—”
Selys hesitated. She looked at Erin again, searchingly, and took a deep breath.
“Okay. Since it’s you, okay. You look—explain it to me later? What do you need?”
Erin nodded. She f
elt grateful.
“Milk. Cream for butter, and…new cow’s milk.”
“Cream I can do, but new cow’s milk? What’s that supposed to be?”
“Is there a baby just born and a mother…who hasn’t given milk yet? That sort of thing?”
Selys had no idea. But she knew a Drake who knew a Drake who knew a Gnoll who said that there was a [Farmer] in a village north of the city who had a cow who was expecting a calf any day now. Two farmers, actually. One had definitely had a calf a week ago; the other might still just have a pregnant cow.
That was enough for Erin. She asked Selys for more help finding bags of sugar. The Drake gave her a very odd look when Erin bought two big bags with much of the gold she’d brought, but she just stared at Erin’s face and shook her head.
“I’ll get the shopkeeper to send a Street Runner to your inn. It’s close enough and she should do it with how much you’re paying her.”
Erin thanked Selys, and wandered away. She was still thinking. Yes. A half-Elf was pure, wasn’t she? Pure enough. And if you were going to gather dead and rotting things, why not a skeleton? It made sense, in that childish way.
As for milk…
Erin had to ask for directions, but eventually she left the northern gate and found the village. It was a small gathering on top of a large hill—it had to be a large hill to hold the houses and barn. In, fact, it was closer to a plateau, just with a gradient for a slope. Upland. That’s what the right word was.
She found the farmer’s barn and house a ways away from the village. Erin stared at the boars in a fence, and wondered why. Then she looked around and found an older Drake, tending to a calf still sticky and wet as he scrambled to his feet.
She’d arrived just in time. The Drake jumped when Erin approached and grabbed at a pitchfork, but she was unarmed and besides, he’d heard of her.
When Erin explained what she wanted, the Drake gave her an odd look, but Erin offered him a gold piece and he took it. It was hard to milk the cow; the mother clearly wanted the calf to suckle, but in the end the Drake had two buckets of…milk for Erin. He told her the calf needed the rest, and that was fine.
Erin stared at the buckets as she carefully carried them back to her inn along the snowy plains. Was it really milk? It looked…yellower, and thicker than normal milk. But it was a cow’s first milk. She’d asked, and yes, this was the first calf the cow had had. This was the first milk the cow had given.
It was what she needed. But—more. Erin was sure there was more that was important. Ingredients were fine, but they were only one piece of the puzzle. To make it special, you had to do things. You had to have ritual, a bit of…
Magic.
—-
Erin found her way back to the inn and separated the two buckets. One would be for tonight. The other she had to put into a butter churn.
She didn’t have one. But Selys had brought one with the delivery of cream. Erin thanked her, and then realized Toren was coming back.
The skeleton had a huge basket filled with odd mushrooms in his hands, but he also had a dead Shield Spider he was dragging behind him. Selys screamed a bit when she saw it, but Erin had an idea.
She took the mushrooms, and told Toren to milk the spider of venom. She had no idea how to do that and neither did the skeleton, but Selys had seen it done once and helped figure it out.
Erin missed the process. It was apparently messy—enough so that Selys left in distress, covered in spider insides. But she took the shell, or rather, had someone come to get it.
Toren gave Erin a small bottle full of clear liquid. She’d expected the venom to be green, but then, Erin didn’t know what it was supposed to look like. It was fine. Deadly; Selys had said it was dangerous, but fine.
If Erin drank it, she’d probably die. But maybe…
“‘Double, double, boil and trouble…’”
Toren looked at Erin curiously, and she shook her head. Witches did it. What would faeries eat? The trick was to abandoned common sense. To imagine the stupidest—no, that was wrong. To dream. That was what children did. That was what Erin had to do.
Dream. And turn it into reality.
Erin went into her kitchen and stared at what she’d brought. She had lots of sugar. It was grown further south, where Winter sometimes never arrived, but even then, it was costly to ship and make. Erin had two big bags and she’d spent a lot of gold on both, but it wasn’t right.
Not pure. That was what the faerie had said. Maybe it was an offhand comment, but…
How would you make something pure? How would you put magic into sugar? Erin thought. Her eyes fell on the white sugar. Somehow, even without modern refining equipment, the skilled laborers managed to create sugar as white as salt or…snow…
Erin stared at the sugar. Yes. That was it. Snow. And snow was more beautiful in the moonlight. Moons. Dancing in a glade in a forest as the moonlight shone down.
Yes.
She took the sugar, and mixed it with snow in a large bowl. Then she set it on a table facing a window where the sun could shine in.
Then Erin set to churning the cream she’d bought. She knew what had to be done thanks to her [Advanced Cooking] skill, but it was still hard work. The handle moved easily at first, but after a while it grew harder and harder to move.
Still, she was strong, again thanks to a Skill. Erin finished churning the butter and found a sieve. She separated the wet butter from the buttermilk and put each in a separate container. Then she started making bread.
Toren returned with more mushrooms, some spotted with odd colors, a few simply brown and drab. Erin took them all, separating the good ones from the rotting and washing them carefully. She put them on a plate, arranging them carefully.
Ceria came back after another hour, muddy, cold, wet, and grumpy. But she’d found the flowers. The half-Elf had gathered quite a variety of flowers, most of them squashed and dying. But among them was something that looked like bluebells. Erin took the deep flowers and placed them around the table like cups.
She went back to work. Ceria helped set up the tables, arranging flowers and small dishes, but when she was done and the sun was starting to set, she found Erin, exhausted, using normal milk to make more butter and more sweet milk, just in case.
“Why do you think they’ll like all this? And why do you have to make the butter yourself? You could just buy it, with how much money you’re spending.”
Erin paused in churning the butter long enough to shoo Toren away again. He kept wanting to take over, but she wouldn’t let him touch the handle.
“Virgin hands. Fresh butter. No death. Except on the mushrooms.”
“Children’s stories.”
Ceria stared at the display, and nodded slowly.
“When I was a child—the elders said that once, a long time ago, the faeries were supposed to get along with Elves. Well, sort of. It’s just a story, but maybe…”
She trailed off, and Erin thought she understood. It was silly. Half of what was being done made no sense, but…
They were faeries. Fables brought to life. Who was to say what was right or wrong. Erin had to believe. Her heart was full of doubt, but the faerie had said it.
Magic is.
“Are you sure it will work?”
“It has to. And it should.”
Erin gave Ceria several gold pieces and the half-Elf went into the city. She came back with what few fruits she could buy, and more news about the thief and Krshia.
“Apparently, the girl’s a rich daughter of some kind. She won’t say whose child she is, but she had enough magical artifacts on her for a Gold-rank team of adventurers. Can you believe that? Nearly all of them are out of magic, though. It seems she’d been using them non-stop for nearly a month to steal and survive.”
“Mm.”
Erin labored over a last loaf of bread as Ceria talked. She was trying to bake fruits into the loaf, and it was working thanks to her [Advanced Cooking] skill. Erin had no idea it was
even possible, but she’d thought of it, and so she was doing it. It would go lovely with the whipped cream. The vanilla beans had cost a fortune, though.
Ceria paused, clearly waiting for another reaction. But when it didn’t come she went on.
“Well, the Gnolls want her blood. Literally, her blood. Krshia’s the most calm headed of the lot. She wants the thief on trial. If she has people who will send payment, or the artifacts can pay off the damages…it’s not likely, given how much destruction the girl’s caused. But if she can’t, well, it’d be bad for relations to execute a human outright for theft, but I think exile would be a death sentence, don’t you?”
“Cold out.”
Erin stared out the window in the kitchen. Ceria nodded.
“Exactly. She’d die before she reached another city—even if they gave her supplies is my guess. I got a look at her, and she seems too pampered to last. But that’s what the Gnolls want. They’re talking about a blood-debt, so they’re pushing for exile if it means she dies. It’s a mess out there.”
The girl barely heard Ceria. She wondered how Krshia was doing. She was the important part of the story. Erin would go help her. Or come when the Gnoll called. But not yet. She understood. When she’d been hurt, she’d wanted to be alone to mourn.
Erin put the dough in the stone oven and walked out into her common room to check on the bowl of sugar and snow.
Over the course of the day, the snow melted and mixed with the sugar. Erin stirred the bowl until it was nearly completely mixed, and syrupy, heavy liquid lay in the bowl. As the moon rose, the light shone down into the cloudy mixture, making it glow.
Ceria helped some more, and even made food. Erin had forgotten to eat, but she was treated to some egg…yolks in a bowl and bread. With sugar. She ate it mechanically, still in a trance.
It had to work. Please, let it work.
The bowl was glowing by the time the two had finished. It looked like it was glowing. The moonlight was caught in the sugary water and reflected out, a mirror to the dark skies.
Maybe it was just a trick of the light. But it was enough. Erin took the first milk of a cow and mixed the moonstruck sugar and melted snow into it. She took the bread she’d made herself out of the oven. It was still warm, and she wrapped it in a towel to keep it warmer. Then she placed the hard-churned butter next to it.