Chapter 11 - Mystic Mystari
Grabbing the thing, she started getting ready for the next leg of the journey as she finally decided to reach her magic for the orb and spark the connection. She'd been expecting the Magic Guild, worrying over their master as they did every five or so years when she made the journey to check the young ones anew.
Instead, Zantaris' voice was the one that came from the orb, "Apologies, Mystari, for the early call. I had wanted to take care of this before the day's business could distract me and risk I forget."
Mystari grumbled a bit, but eventually relented with a few short words, "This is unlike you, Zan." As they were not in a meeting room full of officials, she had little reason to treat him with the absolute deference people expected. They'd attended classes in the capital together, learned magic together, learned to dive together.
She was, after all, one of his own sisters though most might question it as on the surface she looked nothing like him. Her fur was black, as was her hair, though a keen eye would see the undertone of red changing the color ever so slightly. Where her brother had red eyes, hers had softened into the same pink as the color of the dawn sky outside. She had also inherited the tuft of fur on her tail, its deep crimson the only sign of connection between them to quick scrutiny.
"Vex continues to live up to his name," a sharp laugh escaped her at that, she'd been one of many to warn her brother away from naming the child in such a way but he'd been insistent and paid for it every day with the boy's tendencies towards causing anger in those around him, though almost never maliciously, "He met another child while Dreamwalking the other day, one interesting enough that he did not cut the connection immediately."
That, more so than Vex living up to his name, caught her attention. She'd met the boy Dreamwalking a time or two and would merely watch him roll his eyes and turn, disappearing into the distance as if he'd been a dream instead. Even his own family were not enough to keep him within a Dreamwalk so the other child had to be something quite amazing indeed.
As Zan continued his explanation, alternating between airing his frustrations over his vexing child and telling her what she needed to know, she too became interested in the young girl. It was rare for a young Faelyn to have enough magic that an adult would consider looking at them twice, their magic built itself as they grew, after all. Though her elemental affinities should have been beginning to show she should have still felt relatively unremarkable unless she was something truly special as Vex had been.
The boy was as skilled as he was irritating, she conceded mentally, knowing he could one day rise to take her own place but confident that he'd rather eat his own tail for dinner than do so. For him to acknowledge someone took a lot and Mystari only barely had enough magic of her own, as head of all of the Mystics of their land, to earn his respect. He lived and breathed his magic and his studies, which could have made him a good Mystic if only he cared for others just as deeply.
Eventually, she was dressed and the message relayed, she looked for a silver-furred child in the city where Mystic Alnus taught the younglings. She did not know the name immediately, he was not someone that was in the academy at the same time she was. Stepping out of her shelter, she moved into the bustle of her guards to help pull the entire camp apart and get moving, eating a small meal as they did so.
Their actual meal would no doubt be hosted by the first village they got to, a couple hours travel away. Mystari would have loved to just test the children and be on her way but the people rarely saw the head Mystic and seemed to always have some feast or party or celebration planned. She'd be lucky to get through another three settlements, dragging her guards along at a speed even they fussed about traveling at.
She was right, dragging herself into the third small village of the day just as the sky started to turn towards dusk. It was, relatively speaking at least, fairly near the edge of the forest, a good three or four day's travel at least. For those without the skills of the Faelyn, though, the forest was a very dangerous place. The beasts that lived there were the reason Faelyn did not live on the forest floor and also the reason the race had such powerful latent magical abilities. The forest breathed magic and danger in equal measure and the Faelyn had risen to keep it in check.
The truce with other nations was more so young Faelyn would no longer be kidnapped and sold into slavery than anything else. While the Elfin people had magic of their own, it was not suited towards combating the things that lived in the forest, creatures that only got stronger the deeper one traveled. The Faelyn kept the other nations from destroying themselves by trying to disrupt the forest too much, though the Elfin people never could seem to grasp that fact. Instead, they laid the blame of any invading parties deaths at the feet of the Faelyn, calling them monsters that learned to mimic speech when they thought no ears could hear them.
The runner that had gone ahead of them at the last leg of the journey, giving the place time to prepare for her arrival, sat on the ground near the congregation gathered to greet her. The elders of the village and the Mystic led the greeting, though most of the town had turned out for it.
When the Mystic bowed his head slightly, naming himself Alnus, her tail lashed once with interest even as she acknowledged why she didn't know him personally, though now that she saw him, she did remember him from her last trip out. He was old enough to be her father, perhaps even her grandfather and would soon begin the process of training his replacement or requesting one from the academy if none of the prospects were suitable for it.