[Askoga]: 89.Novels.Savera

Savera eyed her father unhappily. “But this is my home!”

“Yes, childling, I know it's your home. It's my home, too, but you know as well as I do that we'll be safer somewhere else. And if we leave you here, you'll have no way to find us. You know how rare a gift Dooring is.” Lorand's voice was weary, the poor phoenix had been blessed with an exceedingly stubborn daughter, and they had spent hours arguing this point.

“I'm staying, and that's all there is to it! I'm not gonna leave the only place I know.” Savera was adamant, her voice saying clearly that she was as tired of arguing as he, but wouldn't give in.

“Savera,” came her mother's voice, faint with distance, “the rest of us are going. Will you truly not join us?”

Savara squawked in annoyance, “I'm staying!” She yelled, then spread her wings and leapt from the branch. She flew away, to where she could only just barely still hear/feel her parents' presences.

Lorand spoke softly to his wife, “She will not come, Mala. You know how she gets when she sets her mind. The elders have said that none can be forced to come, there will be others here. She will still have a chance, you know.”

Malachi knew that her husband's words were true, but it was still hard for her to accept this. Finally, she spread her own wings and flew to a secluded area, to tell the elders the number of their family that would be moving with the majority of the flock.

Two years later...

“Ka'alo! Watch out!” Savera's musical voice soared sharply through the thoughts of the others. “He's on your tail, Ka!”

“Vera, cover for me, I'm gonna get Ka out of there.” Polu flew out from the safety of their home, diving for the mage that was attacking their friend. Every loss was felt keenly by this flock of the young, and a few very elderly phoenixes. There had only been twenty of them to start, and now they were down to eight.

Savera threw a ball of silver-colored flame down, just behind and slightly above Polu. His bulk would hide the ball until he changed course. They hadn't used this tactic much in the last two years, because they knew that the mages would learn to avoid it too quickly.

“Polu, there's another one!” screeched his wife, Alpena. She dove down, talons stretched out towards the mage that was going after Polu. Alpena was immediately struck by the mage's spell, as she accidentally flew in front of it, and she was captured and killed.

“Savera, their aim's getting better. Take one out for me!” Ka'alo's voice was weak, he was obviously almost done.

“KA!!” Savera screamed, even as she felt his presence flicker out.

By now, the mages had learned that the phoenixes who had chosen to stay would either have to be killed or knocked out, because they would fight until death. Before, phoenixes were captured and tortured, but now that proved too costly for the mages.

When the fighting ended and the mages retreated once again, Savera, unofficial leader of this small flock, did a head count. Ka, Alpena, and two others has been killed. Polu was so distraught at losing his wife before their first child had hatched, that Savera knew he would not be of much tactical use anymore. That left only three of them functional now.

After two more days, and two more attacks by the mages, Savera's count was down to only two of them left, including herself. This was disheartening, to say the least. They might be taking down more mages than the mages were phoenixes, but they were so vastly outnumbered, even from the beginning, that it had always been a lost cause.

Early the next morning, Savera and her last remaining companion, Grethna, waited fearfully for the mages to come again. Finally, only about two shadow-lengths (one hour) after sunrise, the two of them sensed a hunthing unit approaching—approximately fifteen human mages.

“Stay quiet, maybe they won't see us this time,” Savera cautioned.

Two more shadow-lengths passed before the mages finally found them, and the moment Savera knew they'd been discovered, she launched herself out of her tree, screeching. She threw fireball after fireball, with deadly aim, and was satisfied to see three of them fall, before she was knocked out. A spell had only just grazed her, so it didn't actually kill her, but the loss of consciousness was all the mages needed.

When the young phoenix regained consciousness, she found herself aching all over, but still mostly in one piece. It seemed that they had simply plucked out most of her feathers, instead of killing her right off. Maybe they thought she was dead? That seemed likely. Then she felt the mind of a mage approaching her, and he realized that she was alive the moment he saw her, for she had moved, unthinkingly. In panic, Savera reached out for some escape, and she ripped a hole in the fabric of space, pushing herself through the doorway she'd created, and sealing it behind her, acting mostly on instinct.

Dooring is an incredibly draining art, and so the young phoenix passed out almost immediately after she closed the doorway behind her. When she regained consciousness, it was to find herself on a scorchingly hot rock surface, in the sunshine. This was all she had time to notice, before she felt a pair of hands lifting her, and heard a voice speaking soothingly to her in a foreign tongue.

Immediately, Savera began struggling to get free, thinking that a mage had caught her again, and she heated her body to the point of burning. Mercifully, the idiot mage hadn't thought to put on a pair of fire-proof gloves, and she felt herself released. She tried to fly, but her feathers hadn't grown back in yet, so she only managed to fall. When she hit the ground, she lost consciousness again.

When next the young phoenix awoke, it was to find herself in a cage with silver bars. She got herself to her two feet, with quite a struggle, and surveyed her surroundings. The latch, she noted, was a simple one, and she didn't smell any magic on it, so she tentatively touched it with one talon. When nothing happened, she maneuvered herself so that she could use her talons to undo the latch, holding herself in place with her beak.

After freeing herself, Savera dropped to the floor, before she suddenly became aware that she was not alone in the room. Cursing herself for being so thoughtless, Savera whirled around, knowing that there was, currently, only one person nearby. Her clairvoyance had, at least, not failed her this time, and she faced a single woman. Savera eyed her defiantly, but the woman spoke only in a surprised tone, and did not come near. Her words were still foreign to the phoenix, so she reached into the woman's mind, tentatively, and searched around.

Finding nothing particularly alarming, Savera chirruped, and searched deeper. This woman smelled so free of magic that she couldn't possibly be a mage of any sort. Or even any other being with magic. To her astonishment, she found that this woman had never seen such an intelligent bird (bird?! insulting to be lumped together with those other creatures, incapable of stringing together even two words to form a coherent thought), and wondered if the heat of the day before wasn't just her imagination.

Deciding to take a chance, Savera carefully formed her thoughts into ideas, instead of words (for her language would make no sense to this woman), and “asked” the woman where she was and how she got here. She recoiled from the barrage of thoughts coming after her innocent questions. Surely, this woman wasn't so stupid as to not know how to keep unimportant or private thoughts to herself! Was she?

Then it dawned on the young phoenix that, perhaps, the woman had never met a telepath before. From her reactions to Savera at all, she should have known, but telepathy was something she simply took for granted. She never realized that there might be people out there who didn't use telepathy at all, or even know about it!

Given this unexpected development, she decided to try a different track. Carefully, she changed her shape to that of a young, elf-like child, with long silver hair and birdlike features. It was a shape she had chosen just before her first burning, her father told her, and now it was the only one she could change to. The now-elf-child, who appeared to be about ten, gestured to herself and said carefully, “Savera.” She realized that the woman was still trying to accept that the “pretty bird” had just turned into a “pretty albino child”, and hadn't heard her. She waited until the woman calmed down a little, then repeated the gesture and the word.

Still taken aback, but seeming to accept the situation for now, the woman repeated Savera's name, then gestured to herself and said, “Anne.”

Savera formed her lips around the unfamiliar sounds, “Anne,” then she smiled happily at the progress, and gestured to herself again, saying, “Savera. Phoenix.”

To the phoenixe's surprise, Anne seemed to recognize the word, and she spoke rapidly, though the only thing Savera could understand was the word phoenix. She got the impression, from Anne's thoughts, that phoenixes weren't supposed to exist, though. Anne hurried off and returned with a heavy book, which she put on the table and gestured for Savera to join her. Excitedly, she flipped through the pages, and Savera saw drawings that looked vaguely like creatures from her own home. Then Anne stopped on a certain page, and Savera laughed. On this page was a drawing of a red phoenix, she thought, but it was drawn as though the artist had only been told that phoenixes were birds of fire.

Still giggling, she pointed to the picture, and said, “Red phoenix,” then she pointed to herself and said, “Silver phoenix.” Pausing for a moment, she then amended, “Silver, gold, blue phoenix.” She named her colors from the greatest amount present in her (her father had been pure silver, and her mother's father had been pure gold) to the least. She also had some little bit of green in her, but that had only ever showed in her sister and her mother's mother, a testament to Savera's grandfather of nine generations before.

At Anne's confused look, Savera began finding things in the room that illustrated the three colors, pointing them out. After only a few examples of each, Anne nodded her understanding. After she learned the four colors (Savera had included red), she named them in her own language. Savera was pleased to begin learning this foreign tongue (which she later learned was called “Common”, which she thought was a silly name for a language).

The pointing and naming went on for a while, and after only a few days, Savera and Anne could communicate crudely. They taught each other their own languages, but because the phoenix had a better memory than the elderly Anne, it was Common that they spoke most often. Anne lent Savera one of her shirts, until she could sew together some clothing in Savera's own size, and she taught the youngling how to sew, even as she taught her Common. Fairly soon, Savera was helping out with almost everything around the little cottage.

Because she was fairly self-sufficient, Anne only went into town when she wanted to socialize with others, or when she needed more cloth and thread for her clothing. One day, about a year after Savera had come to live with Anne, she thought that perhaps she would go into town with her this time. By now, she spoke Common fluently, as though she had been speaking it all her life. So, while Anne tied first her own hair, and then Savera's, into a neat bun, she told the young girl that they would tell the village people that she was Anne's distant relative, whom she'd adopted when her parents had passed away a year ago. She said that even with her slightly pointed ears, most of them would assume she was an albino. Savera guessed that the elderly woman was speaking of her pale skin and white-silver hair.

When they got into town, riding in a small cart and driven by Anne's only horse, the two of them bustled about. Anne traded for some cloth (for sewing clothes for Savera had used most of what she had on hand) and a little more thread, and also a couple of skeins of very thin yarn, with which to make lace. He had brought with her some thicker wool yarn to use for trading, as well as some fresh spring vegetables, several loaves of bread, and some goat cheese. At the end of her bargaining and trading, Anne got two iced creams, one for her, and one for Savera.

“To celebrate a good day in town,” she said, smiling and licking at her frozen treat. Just then, a woman came up to them.

“Anne! Daryl needs your help. We were gonna send someone out for you, but then Laci told me you were here already. He's real sick, Anne, come see him, please?”

The elderly woman grabbed her bag, “Vera, stay here, okay? I'll be right back.” She turned then to the other woman, “Lead the way, Marisa.”

So, Savera was left alone with a few other women milling about. Several of them were curious about her, but they quickly found that she was not a very talkative child. Really, it was more that she had nothing to talk about, for they would not want to hear about her home, or who she was. Then she felt a male presence behind her, and she turned around. As she was turning, her sensitive nose caught the distinct scent of magic, and she stiffened, frightened.

The man that smelled of magic was a tallish man, with strong arms and sharp, penetrating black eyes. His hair, too, was jet black, and his skin was a rich brown color. His voice was deep and as rich as his skin, when he spoke, “'Lo.”

Savera, in her fear, had reverted to her native language in her thoughts, and could form no words in Common. One of the women came to her rescue, though, bringing the child back to more stable ground, “Bol! Don't frighten the poor thing! Why, I don't think she's been around more than a few people at a time. Anne said her folks were as much hermits as she is. Now, you be nice to the poor thing, losing her family all at once in that awful accident...” the young woman chattered on, but Savera was no longer paying attention.

“Why are you here?” Bol's rich voice echoed in her thoughts, his country accent disappearing, his words in her native tongue. At Savera's tense silence, he asked again, more kindly this time, “Childling, why are you here?” Even as he was speaking directly to Savera's mind, he gave the appropriate responses to the woman who was speaking to him. Finally, chattered out, she went off to tell someone else the news of Anne's adopted child, Vera. When she left, Bol nodded curtly to Savera, then turned and left.

Later, as they were riding back towards Anne's cottage, Savera asked her about Bol.

“Oh! So you've met our blacksmith, then? I didn't see him around all day, but I guess he was curious enough about a stranger to leave his smithy briefly. He may come off as gruff and unfriendly, but he just doesn't speak much. He has a kind heart below all that. Why do you ask?”

“He smells like magic,” Savera quietly stated. Seeing Anne's surprised look, she added, “Well, has anything bad happened to anything he's worked with? Does he make charms of any sort?” When Anne nodded in understanding, a look of wonder on her face, Savera was satisfied she'd made her point.

“Why, Bol has helped me with many different things. If you can smell magic, would you be able to smell it on things he's worked on?”

“Only if he put magic in it.” Savera started looking around, searching out signs of magic, which she didn't actually smell, but she didn't know what to call the sense that felt magic. The horse's shoes had small traces of staying magic worked into them, and the axles of the wagon they rode in had strengthening magic coursing all through them. She recognized them all as Bol's magic, for he had been very close to her, and she'd gotten a very good whiff of his magic. As she studied them, trying to learn more about the man that had made these items, she noticed something amiss. She resolved to examine the bottom of the wagon when they got home.

Back at the cottage, Savera helped unload the wagon, put everything away, and take care of the horse. Then, she crawled under the wagon's seat and looked at the spot she had noticed before, which was emitting a very strong odor of magic. What was strange about this smell, though, was that it didn't seem to have much of a purpose, it simply was. As soon as she looked at the spot, though, she knew what it was, and she must have made quite a racket in her reaction—which included bumping her head against the bottom of the seat, and then falling off the wagon—because when she looked up from the ground, Anne was rushing out, worried.

“Are you okay?”

Savera didn't seem to notice Anne, she just shook her head as though to clear it, then said, “It's a feather.” She got to her feet and dusted herself off, and finally saw Anne, “Yes, I'm fine. Sorry about that.”

Several more months passed, and it was late summer before Anne suggested a trip into the village again. To her surprise, Savera said she didn't really want to go. Then, when Anne was about to leave, Savera ran out. “Wait! I changed my mind!” While Anne waited patiently by the wagon, Savera changed quickly, and pulled her hair back into a tidy little bun.

In town, Savera hopped off the wagon and helped Anne unload some of the vegetables (which she would be trading for some herbs and other items she needed before winter), then turned and asked, “Would you mind if I visited the blacksmith?”

“Of course not. Do you know where the smithy is?”

Savera nodded, and ran off towards it. Her silent call to Bol preceded her, “I request an audience.” It was a formal request, in her native tongue, saying much more than just, “Can I talk to you?”

“You are welcome,” came his rich voice in return, “I had hoped to see you.”

Once she was at the smithy, Savera halted at the doorway, bowed very slightly, and waited. From the depths of the smithy came Bol's rich voice, roughened by his accent, “Come in!”

Savera entered and quickly found the smith. Immediately, he handed her a hammer, and the only direction he gave was a gesture towards the nail mold and one word, “Nails.”

She eyed the anvil, “I don't know how.”

Bol came over, showed her how to position the soft, heated metal, and then showed her how to snap it off. Then he watched critically as she tried it. After her first nail, he grabbed a crate and had her stand on it. From her new height, she was able to make a better nail, and he nodded in satisfaction, returning to his own work.

While the young phoenix became more comfortable with her work, there was relative silence in the forge. Then, though she did not break the silence aloud, Savera said quietly, “Black?”

Bol's thought returned, quick as lightning, “Yes. Five burnings ago.”

Savera knew the history of the black phoenixes, knew that they had been wiped out, that it was with the blacks in mind that her own flock had fled their home. “I'm sorry,” came her quiet response. They said nothing more to each other for the rest of the day, until Anne came looking for her.

Bol looked up from his work as Anne entered. Savera briefly thought that the village folk must be unnerved by his uncanny ability to know when someone else was nearby, but their lack of any telepathic ability meant that they also didn't bother to hide their thoughts, so they seemed to speak loudly and unheedingly, to a telepath.

“Anne,” he said, in greeting, then wiped his hands on his heavy apron and laid one on Savera's shoulder, “Need an 'prentice.” Savera knew that this was his way of asking if she could stay here, and learn his trade. She knew that if she stayed, she'd learn a good deal more than smithing, though.

Anne was startled, looked between the two phoenixes, though she still didn't know that Bol was a phoenix at all, of course, then shook her head, “I can't decide that now.” This, of course, meant that she wanted to discuss the idea with Savera herself, and that discussion would have to wait until they were on their way home.

Bol nodded and his hand disappeared from her shoulder. Gruffly he said, “Go on,” to the youngling. His farewell within her thoughts was less gruff, though, “Be safe, childling.”

Shortly after that, they were on their way home, Savera with an iced cream, and Anne broached the subject after a long silence.

“Do you want to be his apprentice? Smithing is a hard job, but I think you could do it. I saw some of the nails you made, and they're not bad. But more than that, you have a habit of changing into a bird sometimes, especially in your sleep.”

Savera smiled, licked the iced cream off her lips, and said, “He won't mind. He'll expect it, actually.” She paused, then added carefully, “He's a phoenix, too. Black. Pure black, I think, but I'm not sure.” After another long silence, where Savera finished her treat, she spoke again, “I want to learn from him. But will you be okay alone again?” This was a worry that had plagued her ever since she had decided she wanted to learn from Bol.

“Of course I will. I'll bring you back into town next week, before there's any danger of snow.”

Savera nodded and hugged her friend tightly, “I'll come back and visit sometimes.”

“I know. And I'll be in town occasionally, too.”

They rode the rest of their trip in relative silence, only speaking occasionally to point out some rare flower along the way, or a few deer. When they got back, the two of them spent some time hunting up Savera's few posessions, then they settled down into their usual routine. Anne began knitting a winter scarf for her young friend, and Savera did her best to thoroughly clean the little cottage. Then, the day before they left for town again, the young phoenix gave her elderly companion a necklace.

“It's like a charm,” she explained, gesturing to the single, silver-colored feather tied onto the leather thong, “It'll keep you safe from fire-magic, and if you need it to, it can provide light or warmth. And, if you want to see me or talk to me, just touch it and think of me, and I'll be with you.” She thought for a moment, but in the end decided not to tell Anne of Bol's similar gift under the seat of her wagon.

Anne's eyes were watery as she accepted the necklace, and she wrapped her arms around the little girl and held her close. “Thank you, little one,” she murmured, then gave her the scarf she'd knit. “It's not magical or anything, but it'll keep you warm.” Her voice was thick with emotion.

Savera grinned and wrapped the scarf around her neck, “It's beautiful!”

Once they were in town, Anne gave her a very big hug again, “I can't stay in town today, and I have no business here anyway. I'll see you in the spring, though!” Then she turned and hurried off, so that the youngling wouldn't see her crying.

Savera watched Anne disappear, then she turned and went into the forge, her greeting of, “I'm here, master!” preceding her.

“Welcome, my apprentice,” came Bol's rich voice in her thoughts. Aloud he said, “Nails,” and gestured towards the anvil she's worked at before. Laughing happily, Savera donned a heavy leather apron and obeyed. She spent a good deal of the afternoon making nails, until her arms were too tired to lift the hammer again, and her stomach rumbled loudly, hungrily.

Bol looked up, then smiled, his entire, birdlike face warming in such a movement. He turned back to his work, finishing it swiftly (just a horseshoe), then dropped it in the water and put away his tools before he turned, wiping his hands on his apron. “C'mon,” he said briefly, leading the way.

The two of them shared a simple meal, consisting mostly of fruits, nuts, and berries. While they ate, they shared a silent conversation, with Bol breaking the silence, “It's nice to have someone around.”

“I hope I'll be making more than nails, they're boring.” Savera chewed her apple carefully. Eating was always an odd thing for her when she was in her human shape, even with all her practice.

“Of course! But nails are always needed. Tomorrow, I'll show you how to draw wire.” Savera liked how Bol's voice lost its accent in her thoughts, and how smoothly the words came to her, though she noted occasionally that he didn't always remember what words to use.

When they both finished eating, Bol pointed towards his home—a humble section of rooms tucked behind the smithy. “Study there,” he said simply to his silver-haired apprentice. He rose then and turned back to his shop, and his work.

Savera looked in the direction he'd gestured, and nodded. She followed his map-like directions in her head to a small study, where she found a variety of tomes. Some were on shaping metals, from the most basic to the most skilled, and others were historical. Some were even written in her native language. Excitedly, Savera lifted one book on blowing glass. Bol seemed to be a master of several different trades, for the young phoenix noticed, next to the books on glass and metals, books on wood-working, and even one book was about tailoring. She decided that she would study just glassblowing and metalworking for now, and some of the historical books, and maybe later she would study some of the others.

Several hours later, her stomach reminded her that it was time to eat again, so she went out to find Bol, who was in his shop, discussing the price for forging a set of pokers for the man's daughter. Listening to Bol haggle, his rough accent a stark contrast to the other man's smoother one, Savera wandered over to the forge fire, where she saw that Bol had been working on a sword for an official that would be visiting the town a few weeks hence.