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tidesages · 2 years

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<<beneath the tidesblood>>

(six tales, for connected moments)

with all the luck you've had, why are your songs so sad? sing from a book you were reading in bed and took to heart

(a tale for brother zander)

“Maybe if you didn’t get so much ink on your robes, they wouldn’t take so long to get back from the laundry halls. The soap elementals can only work so many wonders before all your sleeves are too grey and have to be replaced entirely,” Brother Zander Bowline pointed out crisply. He was busy wrapping small little bandages around the papercuts he’d earned from their newest venture into an untouched corner of the stacks.

Brother Mathwell’s glance up at him was startling, if only because the movement was magnified twenty times in the thick-lensed glasses perched on his nose. When he looked at you, suddenly all you could see was rheumy eyes. “My dear chap, you were the one who pointed out how empty the aumbry was. You know I’m chief scribe. I can’t help having to write for my job.”

It had been nearly two years - because time always flowed oddly between tunnels, pools, and rain, from Matins to Vespers, since the archives had burned, and yet they were still in varying degrees of disarray. The archivists had tried to make some sense of things and restore missing documents, mind you, but they only comprised so much of the Shrine. And with the continued need to teach and pull out pieces for circulation, as well as getting in older pieces, they were struggling.

Zander Bowline had always doubted his fellow brother could actually see him from a few feet away, glasses or not, but he did his best to arrange his features into a more pleasant expression than a scowl. Patience was a virtue, and one he’d always needed more work on. “My apologies, brother. Being understaffed leaves me a little… stressed.”

The watery gaze turned from him, back to the breviary tome he’d pulled from the stacks. “You do not need to apologize to me on that, my lad,” he murmured as his attention was once more pulled toward the written word. “The office of Sacrist is a thankless one, and they do not send any more new fellows to join our ranks any more. Not since the Renault’s passing, at least… no respect for books, these days.”

The hooded heads turned briefly, Mathwell’s to check for sounds while Zander’s checked for movement among the stacks and desks. “The lad, Brannon, wouldn’t have much of a say in how the Shrine is run,” the latter admitted beneath his breath. For all that the elder sage couldn’t see, he had quite the ear for voices. “It’s really Pike and his ilk, and that fellow’s never run anything more complex than a merchant town. Nothing alike.”

“This wouldn’t have been a problem if the old lord had given a child that could hear the tides. He was so focused on… other things… that he forgot his duty to pass on his strength to the valley. This is why we’re inundated with a lack of tradition!” Mathwell’s stamp came down hard on the page of the breviary, with an ink-laden smack.

The younger man’s gaze narrowed. “That’s not what I heard,” he murmured, “though his… fixations led him to pick an option as wouldn’t have him.”

He strode to the aumbry, pulling open its doors and rifling through the books and vessels. He could feel the old sage’s ears on him while he worked, patiently waiting for him to continue. Finally, as he pulled out a pile of loose papers with writing on them, Mathwell’s patience came to an end and he gave a rattling cough. “By the salt embrace, lad, don’t leave me strung out like a sentence.”

At least recounting old gossip was a good respite from the despair of sorting through hymnals. “Sister Taggin,” he recounted with relish, hearing old Mathwell grumble for a few moments as he tried to remember which sage that was. “The coppercurls with the haunted look. Depthsbringer, the one who failed the loyalty rite.”

Mathwell was tearing through the breviary with a bit more vigor than he usually showed, the walnut-like lines of his face glowing by candlelight. “Ah, yes. She always hung out down here, didn’t she? Thought she was bound to become part of the archivists at one point, ‘til she disappeared.”

Between the flipping of pages, he answered, “I heard Renault was hounding her to give up the path and become the Tidewife.” His fellow’s gasp rang out, along with the sound of something dropping, and he flashed an idle smile over to the other sage before continuing. “Turned him down then and there, and fled the Shrine on some hairbrained notion that she was needed elsewhere. Of course, if he hadn’t spent his energy on a woman as didn’t want him, he’d have had time to bring an heir before the Shrine was broken, aye?”

Zander’s gaze was ripped from the pages by the hand that gripped his upper arm, trembling slightly still. He hadn’t heard the limping steps that usually heralded their fellow archivist’s arrival with mead and cheese - when had Theriot arrived? He didn’t have time to wonder, though, at the stricken stare of the k’thir. His brother’s face was a pale, taut lavender behind his spectacles, and the tentacles curled in a way he’d never seen before.

“Aye, one would think he’d have better t-” Mathwell’s voice cut off, aware of the change in the air even if he could barely see the shapes of the sages frozen in the candlelight. He squinted, setting the book down gently on the desk. “...Cecil? Is that you?”

Theriot had always been a polite presence, Zander thought dimly as sage gave his trapped arm a little shake and pulled him deeper between the stacks. One of the few k’thir that were a more easily-seen staple of the Shrine, and one of the most agreeable sages he’d known, he’d become little more than a shadow in the archives afterward. Amber eyes narrowed behind glasses, distinctly inhuman, and for the first time he remembered that his brother had transcended that step long ago. “Where,” the k’thir murmured, his voice low and rasping, “is she?”

His arms were stiff, hackles raised from the interrogation before his brain realized that was occurring. “She?” he echoed, voice rising a little as he tried to pull out of the grip. Theriot’s fingers tightened, beard of tendrips snaking out to grip the unlucky archivist’s collar.

“Taggin. Where did she go?” He could hear the strain in his brother’s voice, too. This conversation had swept like a riptide into dangerous waters.

Zander gulped on air, and his throat bobbed. “She - she failed the test. That’s all I know, Brother, she failed the loyalty test and she’s gone. That’s it. Please don’t hurt me, Brother.” He raised both hands, letting the papers fall from them… his wellbeing was more important than the writings, now.

As if his words had broken a spell, Theriot released him. The elder staggered back a little, tears shining in the dull glow of his eyes, and he shook his head a little wildly. “She couldn’t - no. I don’t know what I want to believe.” He turned, and without even an apology or farewell took uneven steps to disappear behind another shelf. On another row, Zander could see a fallen tray, where mead spilled over the graven stones to disappear into the cracks.

He didn’t move, whether to run after Theriot or to rejoin the wizened sage. Instead, he knelt down to pick up his papers with hands that shook slightly from unused adrenaline. “Brother Bowline?” Mathwell called after him. “What did he want? Are you well, my good lad?”

the sea moves so slowly she holds your heart so closely though the tide leaves so lonely she returns your mind so holy

(a tale for sister clement)

The line drifted lazily across the waters, bobber mostly visible above the waves. Then, barely perceptibly, it vanished. The line tugged at Ira Driftstone’s hands and she sat up a little more in the boat. “Clement, come and help,” she commanded as she began to reel it in.

“I don’t understand why you don’t want to call the fish in with the water.” It wasn’t exactly petulant, or at least Clement wasn’t trying to be. At least it helped the tideguard feel more at use as she carefully knelt in the dinghy’s bottom boards and did the work of reeling while the tidesage angled the rod.

“For the same reason we don’t just pull up the fish for the fishermen, really. It would be a waste of energy, and unfair to the fish.” A sheen of sweat rose on the sage’s forehead, hood lowered to reveal many braids tied back at the nape of her neck. “If you were a fish, wouldn’t you feel awful if someone just plucked you out of the water without a chance to run away? At least this allows them to try to trick me or run away. And I get to eat stupid fish for my supper.”

Now that brought sweat to Clement’s neck, beneath the lip of the helm. She reached up with one hand, keeping the other reeling while she felt lightly at her face to make sure her visage was holding. It wouldn’t do to show her tentacled face on the outside of the Shrine. A jerk from the rod made her start, and she reached back down to help take the rod in both hands.

Ira’s fingers brushed against her knuckles, making her hands tremble slightly as she finally reeled in the fish. The snapper thrashed against the hook, making it sink in deeper, and blood began to slide down on the deck. Clement just dug her heels and held onto the rod while the sage ran her hands down the thin filament to stop its struggling.

“Oh, it’s dying,” came the soft murmur. Everything about Ira was soft, she thought, from her careful voice to her skin and eyes, as dark as the sea at night. Even her Drustvari accent held a nice lilt to it that Clement couldn’t hope to compete with, not with her home-grown northern clip to her words. Not that she wanted to complete with a sage, but it still made her feel inadequate. “Sister Clement, please put it out of its misery.”

“...Right. Aye, Sister!” Dropping the rod, since Ira had it controlled, Clement reached for the sharp knife at her side. She turned the fish over with a gauntleted hand, then pressed the tip of the blade into the top of the head. A quick blow to the pommel made it sink in, instantly killing the fish without pain. The struggling faded, and the snapper lay against the deck as its blood seeped into the wood. There was nothing special about the fish, really - a simple lane snapper with reddened scales, common around the Shrine area, though usually fished up in bigger numbers than this. “We could bring this to the kitchen, have it processed into oil,” she suggested.

Those dark eyes glanced up at Clement briefly, and she could feel a flush rising in the chromatophores on her cheeks. “I think I’d like to grill it,” the sage murmured, not judging, but with enough empathy that the hidden purple skin seemed to burn underneath the helm. “If you can take us back to the shore, and get a fire started, I brought some supplies from the kitchens.”

After thinking about it, the tideguard was starting to realize that the sudden outing was a bit more planned than first realized. Not that this was a bad thing, in the slightest. With a murmur of obedience, she took her place once again at the stern and fumbled with the ropes. The small boat had a single sail, a rudder, and a pair of oars just in case. For now, though, they’d be fine. As she unfurled the sail and started toward the shore of the Shrine’s isle, Ira took up the abandoned blade and began the process of cutting the gills. She dipped the fish into the running water beside the boat, holding on tightly as the current swept the blood away. “Let your soul wash away from its mortal shell,” the sage whispered, her voice carrying on the wind, “and flow into the waters.”

Clement should have been watching the bow of the ship, but her eyes flicked back to the tidesage sitting at the side. The silver wisps of soul from the fish drifted off into the currents, quickly vanishing as they passed onward. Her attention only went back when the hull bumped against the sand, and she stopped herself from cursing. Of course she should be paying more attention, and not mooning over what she couldn’t have!

“You handle that well,” Ira murmured as Clement tied up the sail and dropped onto the beachhead, pulling the boat up further so it wouldn’t be washed out to sea. “Your strength and reactions always amaze me. Like nothing could faze you.”

Pale golden eyes blinked up at Ira - the sage was now standing on the bow and dangling the fish over like some sort of bloody figurehead. “I don’t think I react to things well,” she said, perhaps a trifle blankly, before offering a hand to help the other woman down. “I just bumble along where I can, and look for orders when I can’t.” The boat tipped slightly, and she glanced over her shoulder.

Behind them, a dull purple tentacle as long as two ship lengths played with the rudder of the ship. A large, round, curious eye stared at them from the waters. Ira had staggered slightly, turned, then gave a quiet laugh that made Clement feel warm all over. The sage and leviathan stared for a few moments before the latter flipped a little splash of water at the boat and let go. The tendrils slipped off into the waves and vanished into dark smudges.

“He was probably checking which sage I was,” the sage joked, then took Clement’s hand. With much more grace than she felt, she helped the shorter woman down from the boat and then went back in to check for those supplies.

“Why would he need to check?” There they were, tucked under Ira’s seat where they weren’t immediately evident.

The gentle voice drifted over the side of the boat as Clement hoisted the large bag over her shoulder. “Well, there’s a funny story about that. Put those things out on the sand and I’ll get them set up, then I’ll tell you over the fire.”

Being included by Ira kept that warmth from earlier, only curled up in a tight ball in her chest that refused to go away. She couldn’t help but sneak another glance at the sage as she clambered out of the boat and dumped the bag onto the sand. The robed woman flashed a grateful smile at her, and untied the sack to pull out a grey blanket and even smaller little bags. Even a little metal grate came out of the sack, presumably for the fish still bleeding out at her side.

Right. She was getting distracted again. Trudging off along the sand, Clement picked up pieces of driftwood and collected clumps of seagrass. The shores around the Shrine were worn away somewhat with the currents that swept around the islet, and a past lord had decreed that more plants needed to be added to prevent the stone and sand from being washed away. No gardeners kept these shores beyond the occasional warder wandering with an elemental to trim things up. It ran wild and free, slightly overgrown, much like the sages that she guarded.

Her boots left impressions on the tide-soaked coast as she returned. The grasses went down first, along with a tuft of cotton. Ira leaned over and dug in Clement’s hip pocket, eliciting a startled harrumph from the tideguard before flint and tinder were produced. “Thanks,” Ira added unnecessarily, striking sparks on the cotton with the tools. All Clement could do was give a nod and hope that she didn’t look constipated while her heart beat wildly in her throat.

They worked in silence for a minute more, Clement adding sticks to the fire while Ira gutted and descaled the fish. It would take a while for the flames to die down enough to be cookable, but she wasn’t going to complain. Really, it was enough to be here, working together, and not feel like a shackle for the other woman. Not a burden, or an annoyance. Finally, though, she spoke up. “You mentioned a story behind that little kraken checking who you were?”

Ira never startled. “Ah, I’d almost forgotten.” She gave a little smile, directed toward the flames, that made Clement’s stomach do a flip. “It was Practicals season, early this year when ice was still riming the peaks. It was the very first initiate we were testing for the Trial of the Flame’s Passage.”

At the blink from the tideguard she clarified, “I can’t go into details, but it’s the one where they close out the entirety of the Shrine of Shadows. You know, the one with the inner gate that leads to the outside.”

The tideguard winced. She’d kept guard on the inside of the Shrine of Shadows before, when a visiting C’Thrax had needed a special welcome. The usual tunnels weren’t nearly big enough for brethren of that size, and the hullabaloo had gone on for weeks.

“This initiate was one of the older ones we’ve had, so expectations were already… different,” Ira said delicately. She probably hadn’t noticed the movement from Clement, who covered it with a cough and tossed in a few more sticks. “I think he was personally mentored outside the Shrine? All I know is that I never saw him before the Flame’s Passage. They brought me in to do some of the waterworks and slap him around with some waves.”

At Clement’s amused snort, Ira flashed her a slow and deep smile. Maybe her organs were actually doing somersaults instead of flips. “He was doing better than expected, really,” the sage added, “and my current wasn’t working to drag him away from the next shrine he had to visit. I could see some of my fellow wavespeakers were getting frustrated and were throwing the tides a little harder than they should have been.”

Blinking, she asked, “What happens if the testers go a little overboard?”

“Oh, they usually get a light scolding afterward, but it doesn’t generally throw off the test. We just factor in the added difficulty afterward in our huddle,” she replied breezily. “Anyways, he was getting near the end and didn’t seem to be struggling as much as he should have, apart from being scared out of his wits. Suddenly, Little Levi-“ Clement laughed, and Ira grinned, “pops up in front of the poor sage, having apparently been sleeping at the bottom before we disturbed him. I thought the lad was going to piss his robes. Apparently his first reaction was to brute-force through it, though, because the next thing I knew he’d ripped the entire. Water. Out of our hands.”

“What.”

“Entire. Water.” Ira’s lips thinned in an attempt to be serious, but Clement had watched her enough to know when she was holding back laughter. “He left us flopping around like beached whales! And - and the ENTIRE water, just got thrown against the leviathan like a battering ram!” She gave an indelicate snort, her voice shaking as she continued, “The next thing we see, the doors had been blown open from the pressure, and the leviathan was skipping over the water’s surface like some sort of demented, tentacled rock. The boy dropped the water back into the basin with a bang, and stumbled onto the shrine. And passed!”

The mock-outrage in the sister’s voice was enough to set Clement off into a fit of giggles, rocking back in the sand that clung to her armor and cloak. The flames crackled merrily as Ira leaned over, resting one hand on the silver chestplate and taking off Clement’s helm with the other. There wasn’t enough time for the tideguard to protest, to reapply her visage, before the helmet dropped. Soft fingers brushed through her tentacles and pulled them up a little, and a warm mouth pressed up against her own.

Clement completely forgot what they were talking about, frankly, and tilted her head to accommodate the other woman’s searching kisses. Her own hands reached up to touch Ira’s collar, reverently, and brush braids away from her face.

It was a good thing her sage knew what she wanted, because she had no intention of remembering the fish still on the ground while there were more interesting topics to explore.

and it’s peaceful in the deep ‘cause either way you cannot breathe no need to pray, no need to speak now i am under

(a tale for brother theriot)

Cecil Theriot hadn’t seen this place since his own ritual.

The thought stopped him in his tracks, robes falling about him in a familiar rustle as he peered across the room and past the lectern. It had been many years since he’d been called to serve the Master irrevocably, and he had traversed the length and depths of the Shrine since then, but never come back to this specific chamber.

He’d been a younger man, then, full of fire and zeal for the Master’s purpose. So sure of himself that he’d known that he could make it, even as they’d poured the mixture down his throat and bound him fast.

Now, stepping forward felt as if the stones were attached to his ankles instead. He idly reached up to touch the long-healed scars on either side of his throat. Whoever was slated to guard this chamber wasn’t here… he’d checked, and the name on the roster was some tideguard pulled away on other duties. It wasn’t like this place was used, but the Wakestorm Council didn’t want anyone to perform any sort of ritual, even accidentally, related to the Master.

The memories weren’t fresh enough to make him forget his bones creaking as he stepped into the water, along the shelf that led to the drop-off. He was different now, older, wiser, less likely to worry about what others thought of his conduct. Speaking of which… why was he here?

If Faygia was living, and that was a very big if, she’d likely fled far away from the Shrine with her knowledge of what awaited her. There was no way she’d come back for him, or anything else that could have been. He could go back to the archives, apologize, and pretend nothing could happen. He wouldn’t even be late for dinner.

He had to know. She was worth leaving his doubt behind.

Entering the water feet-first gave him an unhappy twinge from one knee that always hated these sorts of things. Theriot had the presence of mind to reach up with one hand and hold his glasses in place as the water drew him in. The corner of his mind that had once held His gaze was as silent as ever, sleeping eternally with no signs of waking.

His robes hadn’t been bathed in saltwater for years, now, not while he’d languished in the candlelight Archives. It should have been good to return to his roots. This water wasn’t clean, though, and it held a taste that made his tendrils curl uncomfortably. It was at this point that he remembered that these pools hadn’t been cleaned out in over two years. Not since before the raid on the Shrine, before she would have left. If there was a trace of her, then it would still be there.

Dim waters swallowed him whole, even dimmer from beneath, and he was absurdly grateful that his change once more left him able to breathe in the depths. Tentacles swirled idly in the water and he took in a deep lungful, then expelled it to draw him further down. Every sound down here felt both curiously muffled and magnified, from the beat of his heart to the swirl of the current he made to draw him down to the bottom. It was good that he was now cold-blooded, or the icy waters underneath would have sapped his strength and left him helpless.

He’d remembered the corpses that awaited him at the bottom, though nothing could prepare him for the sight a second time. Whatever bodies had been down there when he’d performed the rite had been either shoved back or removed, because the bodies resting on the bottom now were different. The light seemed to make them more greyish, robes fluttering idly in the wake of his movements as what hair they had left wafted gently out of their hoods. Their skin was waxy, bloated, barely recognizable.

Still, this was why he was here, wasn’t it?

While afraid of what he might find, he was more afraid of never knowing. He made his way between the bodies, peering at each face to try to recall who might have been there. Here was Brother Jeremy, his face twisted with fear in a way that contorted the adipocere of his skin and showed his crooked teeth. Over there was Sister Marley, face half-tentacled, the k’thired sections of her face partially rotted over years in the depths. Hullwarden Wade made a large corpse in the back, bloated and nearly blackish. He’d managed to free his hands before he’d finished drowning, and they reached up toward the surface like a silent chorus of applause. Encore.

Surely Faygia would have been noticeable by her hair in the sea of corpses - depths knew he’d looked at it long enough as it tried to escape her hood. Would she be still human, down at the bottom, or half-transformed? Surely the Master would have welcomed her into His eternal arms, no matter how far she’d gotten, and she had always been one of the most sensitive to the all-encompassing will.

Still, as he carefully picked his way through the bodies of his former brethren, sorrow wrapped around his bones in a gentle embrace. Sorrow wound through with a lightning core of panic. She wasn’t there, as a corpse or otherwise. Wherever she was, she hadn’t died down in this hole, tainted with her lifeblood.

Cecil stared unseeingly toward the surface above, tilting his head in an echo of the fallen sages around him. For once, he allowed himself to hope.

some ancient call that i've answered before it lives in my walls and it's under the floor if this was meant for me, why does it hurt so much?

(a tale for brother zander)

It was always a welcome moment when Galecaller Aldry visited the Archives, Zander Bowline decided. The short sage always remained draped in their robes, winds held tight around them to prevent the books from rustling, and they asked the lovely sorts of questions.

Questions like, what sorts of books would you recommend for someone interested in the intricacies of storm rituals? Like, what are the oldest ceremonies for certain liturgies, or do we have any psalms to the Tidemother you like that are in stock? These sorts of questions could send him wandering through the books for a while on a mission, while still talking with Aldry about whatever topics they’d brought to mind for the day.

This conversation wasn’t nearly as intellectually stimulating as usual, and slightly more aggravating.

“They cut through the initiates like a hot knife through butter,” Aldry pointed out, “and left them piled through the Shrine like driftwood. And then of the ones who were left, all of the Depthsbringer ones were dragged to Uldum and the Vale like lamblings driven off a cliff.”

“The ones who are here now aren’t part of the old heresies,” Zander replied, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “We’ve been given the opportunity to start the Shrine afresh, free from corruption.”

Aldry’s eyes, as grey as a squall, were all too sharp for his liking, and he turned away to continue flipping through books for the one they’d asked for. “We still bear the pollution of the previous Lord’s indiscretions, don’t we? And with our order basically crippled, there’s few in the nation as would want to join, even if they hear the Tidemother’s call. Without a steady flow of initiates, and the ones we have mostly decimated, the only internal solution is a call for sages to pair up. And even then, that would take a generation.”

“Well then, what do we do?” The option of being paired off with some faceless Sister to do his duty sounded intolerable, frankly. Like the whole Tidewives business, only this time it was affecting him. He almost felt sorry for them, come to think of it, and he threw out without thinking, “I dunno, recruit mainlanders?”

When Zander looked up at the silence, the galecaller’s meaningful glance made him set the book down a bit harder than he’d meant to. “Absolutely not,” he answered after the decisive thump. “We’ve already had enough trouble with mainlanders, and you’d want them to come in with their outsider traditions that we can only hope to override?!” He waved dismissively at them.

“If we don’t change with the times, Brother, we will be washed out.” Moving beside him, they carefully sorted through books as well, with a gentleness and grace that would do any archivist proud. “We need new blood, and faster than we can produce children for it. Perhaps not many will come from the mainland, but there’s enough out there that at least a few will be amenable to hearing the call. We can’t afford to be the exclusive and secretive order we were in the past, and we need to…”

Their voice trailed off as someone walked between the stacks near them, with the rustle of scrolls. Zander’s heart briefly leapt into his throat as Brother Theriot walked past. His body hadn’t forgotten that frantic grip, and he tensed as Aldry called out. “Cecil! Where are you off to, in such a hurry?”

He’d barely even noticed that the k’thir had a satchel tucked over an elbow, and his robes were strangely damp. “I’m going out,” Theriot replied shortly. “I’m doing what I should have done before, and finding Taggin.”

“What?” Perhaps it was some fault of his mouth for flying open, but Zander pressed onward. “Why would you find her? She’s not even welcomed by the Shrine, if she’s even alive!” The touch of the galecaller’s hand at his elbow halted him, even as Theriot’s expression darkened.

“I understand.” Perhaps that was Aldry’s flaw, benign too understanding. Still, the shorter sage gave the old scholar a little smile. “I think it’s best that you leave now, and find her. Just… remember to send letters back, okay? You can address them to me, and I’ll make sure that they get to whoever needs them, if you want to talk with someone else.”

“I will. Thank you, Aldry…” With that, trailing off, the k’thir walked once more with purpose. He vanished between the stacks, sounds trailing off while Zander tried to draw himself back into a veneer of composure.

When he glanced over, the smile had receded like low tide. Aldry stared at the empty stacks with a pensiveness usually reserved for the most complex of hypothetical problems. At Zander’s questioning look, they shook their head.

“It’s for the best, Zander. I’m surprised he’s lasted this long in the Archives, but he needed to get out while he still can.”

“What do you -” “Pardon,” came a quiet voice, the sound of footsteps along the flagstones nearly silent. Zander dearly hoped he didn’t get a heart attack from all of the sudden and unexpected guests. Rounding on the newcomer, he nearly stuck his face into a blue Wake tabard.

Two sages stood there, hands tucked into their midnight blue robesleeves. Their robes were strangely thick, embroidered with protective runes in silver thread. Their hoods were so deep that only the feeling of being watched and the hint of their chins showed that people were within the robes. Behind them stood a tall, familiar sage in a pale mask with lenses.

While Zander gaped, Aldry spoke up. “Sister Pyre. Brothers. I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.” The shortest sage kept their chin lifted, voice perfectly even and polite as the scholar tried to collect himself.

Stepping apart, the two in the front allowed the sister to move forward. Thin, silver-hued chains dangled between them in a loop, one that brushed the front of the woman’s robeskirts. “Aldry. Brother Bowline.” With pleasantries summarily dismissed, Pyre replied, “Where would Theriot’s office happen to be? We need to speak with him.”

Glancing behind the pair, he could see the trail of dampness left by the fleeing tidesage. Unease and the intense feeling that he could not betray his fellow archivist warred with the inherent fear of the two Brothers on either side. Fortunately, it looked like the galecaller had taken up the mantle to answer. “I believe it’s back there, isn’t it, Brother Bowline?” That was enough to spur him to speak.

“Oh. Er, yes. Yes, it’s back there, though it may be locked while he’s studying.” He jerked his thumb behind him, adding, “Just go through the stacks, take the second left, and look for the door with his name on it.” That door was altogether too close to his own study, now that he thought of it. He didn’t smile, as that would be suspicious.

Still, as the two brothers surveyed him, Aldry continued, “Brother Bowline and I were just collaborating on some research. We don’t want to hinder you, Sister.” A surprisingly strong grip pulled him back against the stacks, and book spines dug into his own spine. With an unseen nod, the two brothers moved onward past them and back together, as if of one mind. The gaze behind the octopodean mask lingered on the two, and with a quick exchange of “Aldry,” “Marianne,” the worst had passed. He sagged against the shelves, taking in a shaky breath through his nose and trying not to look after the three.

It was long moments later that Aldry finally relaxed from their poise, their hunch more evocative of a frightened rabbit. “Don’t tell a soul where he went,” the galecaller hissed between their teeth, and he Zander could only nod.

it's never sunny but i don't even need the sun i don't need anything i'll just make something beautiful of all the ugliness I've done

(a tale for sister morgan)

Rolling waves slowed to a softer surf, one that left dark lines in the sand when it receded. The dampness shifted to a paler tan, only for water to once more roll in across the smooth surface and leave nearly imperceptible ripples on the face of the shoreline. Not too far back, the seagrasses waved in the incoming breeze and tapped silently against salt-stained boots.

Mother Edith had brought a stool for Morgan to sit on as they watched the surf, wordlessly carrying it under one arm until it came time to sit. They’d never mention it to her, but the immediate and unasked-for empathy was one of the many reasons they were thankful the older sage had joined them in the Wharf. This was much easier on their spine, and saved them from getting an eternal crick in their neck. Plus, this far out on the beach they were less likely to be stumbled upon by a sailor or townsperson, so they could let their hoods down and breathe a bit.

“Front’s coming in soon,” Edith remarked, tipping her head up to sniff at the air. “We’ll get a sharp drop in temperatures, and should make tomorrow less of a heat wave. It’d be a good day to set out.”

Morgan frowned at the low line of clouds on the horizon. “Your skills in being subtle are lacking,” they pointed out, perhaps a bit bluntly in turn. “Maybe you need to get yourself checked for that.”

Instead of the typical chastening, the former abbess laughed. The sound was far younger than her years, soft and light. “I only need to soften my words when talking to students, Morgan. You’re a grown person who can take a hint.”

While the smaller sage immediately froze, face darkening like thunder, Edith continued. “You’re not as settled a sage as you pretend to be. Sitting around as a village sage doesn’t make you happy, even though I know teaching is one of your strong suits.” She removed the furred cloak from around her robes, folding it to rest over her knees.

“Unnecessarily observant,” Morgan retorted. “You know why I stay here, and you have no right to judge me.” Their tone was straying toward acerbic, despite their usual attempt to remain friendly with the other tidesage.

A brow rose slowly. “Do I? You’re no longer wanted for crimes, and you’re no longer pretending to be dead. Worth passed his Practicals, and has gone off to other things. Xue has issues that following the Tidemother can’t help with, and needs to find her own path. You don’t have to pack up and move, and you certainly don’t have to go out for long, but the Wharf won’t fall to pieces if you’re not here.”

She had a point, loath as they were to admit it. Morgan had been ready to start arguing the opposite, but they instead slumped in their seat and sighed. “I enjoy teaching people,” they muttered finally.

“Which baffles me, since you dislike people in general,” Edith commented wryly. At the glower from the gnome she winked. It was easy to forget what she’d been through if one didn’t see the scars that crossed over the occasional wrinkle, and the silvery-grey hair of one who’d followed the storm’s call for many years. Not for the first time did they wonder if the loss of Wavespring Monastery had hardened Edith in the same way, or left a lingering bitterness in her. If it did, it never showed around others. “You are terrific at explaining things, though. Would that I had a teacher like you back in Wavespring. Still…”

As she trailed off, Morgan turned to stare once more at the waves. Each tug back of the water was met with a rolling tide, tumbling over itself to spread out along the sand once more. The water left behind trinkets of affection for its stained shore lover, bits of driftwood and stones and shells, and even the occasional piece of seaglass. The collection Worth had picked up still lined one of the windowsills in the Pelagic house.

“Still, you’ve gotten… a reputation. Not a bad one, exactly, but the Shrine sees you as a sort of workhorse for certain tasks. You take on an unconventional student once, and now you’re the person they send ‘lost causes’ along to, since you worked what they see as a miracle. You’ve shown that you’ll grudgingly accept tasks like guarding artifacts, too. So they’ve been foisting off work to you, along with the occasional student when things don’t work out. And if you fail, what thanks will you get?”

That got a snort. “I didn’t do it for the Shrine,” Morgan answered, resisting the urge to roll their eyes. They carefully unwound one bun that had fallen loose, finger-coming the dark and wavy strands before beginning to wrap it back up. “I did it because when I found them, they looked… lost. They needed help.”

“They did,” Edith agreed quietly. “And you were the best one to give it. They needed someone with your expertise, but also your desire to do what’s best for them. You’ll need to leave anyways at some point, don’t you? You said Xue’s trail leads back to Pandaria.”

With the smaller sage’s nod she added, “Take Ronney with you and make a vacation out of it, but go and visit the Boralus monastery first by yourself. Check on things out there, and respond to that odd message we got. Just, don’t take the poor woman with you for the worst of the work. I always had a feeling I’d have to eventually take over as the Wharf’s sage. …Don’t look at me like that, Morgan, now that my students are gone I can take over all of the duties you’re ambivalent about at best.”

Now they did roll their eyes, while they worked on the other bun. “I don’t like the usual town’s sage duties. But it was nice to be appreciated.” Edith’s stare made them admit after, “And the occasional terrorizing of rude sailors is fun.” The two of them chuckled quietly together, lapsing back into an easy silence.

This time it was the abbess who looked back out to sea, letting the wind curl along her face with the promise of cold air rolling in. Morgan remembered how the other woman’s hair had lost the last of its red strands into grey about a year ago, and how the sage had held the reputation of being a spitfire until practically forced into leadership of the old monastery to the north. It was easy to forget that the gentle galecaller held a core of steel and had dragged her way out of certain death not so many years ago.

Eventually, they whispered, “What will I do, after?” From any other person, it would sound like a plea.

Glancing back, Edith gave a smile. It was the sort of smile Morgan detested, full of compassion and understanding. “You could go back to the Shrine, or anywhere, really. If I ever get around to pulling enough sages together for a second Wavespring, maybe you could teach? It would be a shame to waste your gift, and I’d be sure to give you time off to do as you like.”

The gnome looked down at their hands, lily-white and trembling faintly. The reminder of failure was hidden by the half-gloves, only the hint of a scar peeking out on the back of the right one. “Edith, I always hate when you’re right.” Not that they’d admit it to anyone but the older sage, but it was pleasant to have someone sensible to bounce conversation off of and be told when they were being unreasonable.

A carefree chuckle made the woman’s shoulders shake. “You told me that when you sent Worth off to the Shrine, too. I’ll say it again: you give yourself too little credit.”

shallow, rolling holy water rise and slowly fell swallowing a foreign body, rose red holes to show and tell she was washed away with the tide we saw the water in her eyes

(a tale for sister taggin)

This wasn’t the usual flavor of dream that Faygia preferred. After all, there wasn’t nearly enough screaming involved.

Oh, there certainly was some screaming, but it wasn’t the fun sort that was directed in a frenzy of worship toward the Master Below. This sort of screaming was frantic. Sobbing, pleading for one’s life, and rattles that died out into silence with the sound of hacking flesh.

The familiar walkways of the Shrine found her eyes, with fountains spraying out water faintly tinted red as a wounded initiate lay partly submerged in the water. Their hood rendered them faceless, the only thing registering being the neat robes spattered in dark crimson.

It all was both strangely clear and fuzzy, the way her mind skipped along the familiar details and focused on pieces here and there. A cut belt, discarded in the grass with the torn-apart remains of what had been a large tendril. Splashes of spilled void energy pooled here and there, with craters torn from the ground and columns, with the occasional scorchmark.

She hurried along the stones, avoiding the distant cries for now. There was something she needed to find. Was it people? The Master’s will was deadly silent within her head as she searched. When she tripped over an outstretched arm, sending it rolling, she caught herself painfully on an elbow. The handprint she left on the stones was rusty. She had been injured, though she couldn’t feel the pain for now. All she knew was that she’d been abandoned, and rightly so.

Picking herself back up, Fay could hear the thump of armored footsteps. She ran without a thought toward the nearest entrance, ducking as an arrow shot over her head. Her curls flew out around the edges of her hood, and she skidded down a ramp to plaster herself behind a column.

There was someone she needed to find. In the Archives, wasn’t it? She could hear the small group of people tramping through on the other side. Filthy Stormwindian accents. The shame of failure stung, right along her head, as if a band had squeezed her tight.

“Say, weren’t there more headed this way?” This voice was gruff, low, and male.

“We don’t care about stragglers, as long as they’re not going to hit us from behind.” That sounded Gilnean, and rough. Fay tried to still her breathing, clapping a hand over her mouth. She just knew that if she came out and tried to fight, she wouldn’t be able to even get a shot off, and the knowledge was a heavy stone of dread resting in her gut. “We need to get to Stormsong first, and take care of other things later.”

The name barely made her twitch, only a mental stab through her forehead (a wound, a hole, an eye socket, a rift) giving her a reaction. She gritted her teeth against the sudden pain, shifting a little in place, and the sudden silence on the other side made her heartbeat skyrocket. All she could do was press her back to the column and wait in dizzying fear. Then their steps moved on, leaving her in peace. Until the cries started again, closer.

Faygia ran, in the opposite direction of the steps, ignoring the new wails and sobbing. Any aid she could give was far too late… she’d known this from the start, and all she could hope was that she made it in time for one thing.

The further she ran, the slower she seemed to move… the Shrine’s walls seemed to move past at a crawl, her feet flying and nearly crashing. There was a commotion up ahead, and as she flew into the chamber, a shout echoed along the walls.

They were already here - how had they gotten here so quickly? - and Worth had fallen, one arm raised to shield his face from the helmeted paladin. His begging stuttered and stumbled, not nearly good enough to spare him. “No!” Her voice rose, power gathering at her fingertips, but a blast of arcane ice from the mage made her stick, solid, to the floor. Her hands were coated, energy wrapped around her up to her neck, leaving her free to watch as the Light-blessed sword rose and fell.

When his head fell from his shoulders, she could still see the surprise painting his expression before it slackened. The body crumpled, letting the paladin straighten up with a murmured prayer behind his visor.

She was weeping, she realized too late, and hot tears ran across her face in strange patterns. From anger, guilt, or despair, it was hard to say, as a mainlander dressed in furs and spikes brought forward the next victim. Glasses fell from a tentacled face, and as she waited for the familiar voice to speak -

A knock at the door yanked her from her sleep with a jolt. Fay sat up in her bed begrudgingly, reaching up to rub the damp and tearstained results of the night from her cheeks. “I’m coming,” she snapped toward the door, then allowed herself to sniffle and scrub at her face some more. It was clear she looked like shit anyway, but she might as well look like a nightmare hadn’t ground her beneath its boot.

When she stepped out of her bed, she automatically checked the straps buckled to its slats. They kept the box beneath it bound so it wouldn’t knock over anything else when the Anne rocked, and hid the engraved Blinded Eye from any curious person peeping over her shoulder. Everything was as it should be.

Finally, vaguely surprised she hadn’t heard another knock after the first one, the sage shuffled to the door and opened it. Her apprentice stood there sheepishly, flinching as the door was yanked open.

“What.” It was probably morning, but it was still too early for her to say anything more than a few syllables. Something about seeing Worth alive and awkward in front of her was especially jarring, with the murky haze of her nightmares still swimming through her brain.

This resulted in Worth sticking a letter practically underneath her nose, making her wince as a ripple of pain curled inside of her head. “Sorry! I - I just wanted to give you your mail. This came in for you, and I… sorry, I wanted to make sure you got it.” She was left holding the mail, still blinking, as he fled down the corridor and babbled his goodbyes.

All she could think was, This had better be worth waking me up, as she shut the door once more. The contents of the dream were swiftly forgotten and blurred as she tried to use her higher brain functions to open it. Damn whoever thought it was a good idea to seal this thing so insidiously shut.

When Faygia finally opened the letter, lying back on the bed, she gave a groan at the signature at the bottom. Pelagic. The gnome was probably trying to spite her for the whole ink thing. Only then did she catch the gist of the message, and the rest was suddenly not important.

Standing back up (and wobbling a little), the sage groaned and headed to the dresser to pick up yesterday’s robes. Hopefully Worth had already fixed her coffee…

#fiction #tidesage #warcraft #brother zander #brother theriot #sister clement #sister morgan #sister taggin #sister ira #galecaller aldry #mother edith #sister pyre #since these are all around the same time i figured they needed to be put together just like when originally written

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