Welcome to Gaia! ::

Entry 185

Bronnie ducked into the cave entrance, ignoring the fear she felt when she did so; it only really helped a little to know that it was magically induced.

"Eldila?"

There was the croak of a raven, and Eldila's voice called, "I hear her, Ing. Honestly. I'm not such an old fool as that. Come in, Bronwen. Come in."

Her wings folded tightly against her sides, Bronnie slipped into the warm and comfortable little alcove. Eldila was still seated in the rocking chair, as he'd been when she'd left him. He smiled at her. "Tell me, stranger, who you are," he said, formally.

For once, she was glad of her mother's lessons. "Once nameless, I am Bronwen Shadoweaver," she said, sitting on the footstool beside the rocking chair.

"I welcome you into the tribe, Shadoweaver. May your name bring you peace." Eldila touched her hair. "It is a good name."

"Thank you."

Ing scratched the ragged ruff of feathers at his throat with a clawed foot, and cackled.

"I'm getting to it, Ing. Patience." Eldila swatted in the raven's general direction. "You haven't been home yet, have you?"

"No," she admitted.

"Then I will escort you there."

Bronnie blinked up at him. "Um, but..."

Eldila laughed. "I have some need of your mother's services in her role as Singer. We shall travel together, then, and keep each other company. We can leave tomorrow."

"Oh." Surprised, she rubbed her cheek. "Mum'll be glad to see you, I think. So'll Uncle Ray."

"And I them. But to more immediate matters," Eldila continued, "I must inquire as to the nature of your name. Shall I take it, then, that you had some experience with your abilities that led you to this?"

"I... I did."

"I see." He tapped his fingers on the chair's wooden arm. "Bronwen, even if you're not exactly a dragon mage in the traditional sense, I would think it likely you would benefit from the same things I and my predecessors do."

"Like what?"

"The thing is, Bronwen, that true dragon mages are so rare that there's never anyone to pass down helpful information about magic. Since we dragons have never had a written language, we have no books to record it, either. We learn from our spoken history, from our stories, and from our own souls. We find our magic ourselves."

"How?" Deeply interested, Bronnie rested her chin on her hands.

"A familiar."

"What?"

"A familiar. Come here, Ing." The raven shook its feathers and flapped across the room to alight upon the table beside Eldila; the old dragon stroked the raven's feathers. "A familiar begins as an ordinary animal, willing to stay with you, but it becomes tied to your soul. We have always believed that is where magic comes from, the little magics that allow us to shapeshift or give us our magic breaths. A familiar, being a physical tie to something intangible, makes it easier to draw upon the soul, study the soul, learn your own abilities."

Bronnie chewed on a knuckle. "So I need to find a familiar? How do you find one?"

"Different for everyone, I would suppose." Eldila shrugged vaguely. "I have had, in my lifetime, no less than thirty-seven creatures who have served me as a familiar. Most of them have been ravens. I like ravens," he laughed. "They're bold, and rude, and they like shiny things. Ing has been telling me since he met you how much he loves your necklace."

Bronnie blushed and put a hand over it; Ing cackled.

"Now, Ing himself is about five years old. That's fairly young for a raven. He was born on Earth, the same Earth our species came from, and came to Gaia with me. Someone told me, once, about the passing of familiars from elder mages to younger, and I think I would like to do this."

She stared, her mouth working. Ing readjusted his wings. "But... but... He's... he's yours."

"I have talked it over with him extensively," Eldila said, smilingly, "and he is willing if you are. He will go with you, and soon the bond will start to form, and you will understand him, and he will understand you. I know he's awfully big, but you don't really need to feed him. Most of the time he's more than willing to find himself a piece of roadkill or hunt down some chicks or goslings or something along those lines."

Bronnie peered at Ing, and extended her arm to the bird. The raven tossed his head, and stepped delicately onto her arm. He was quite heavy, but he was as large as some hawks, after all. He croaked and picked at her hair with his sharp beak.

"Is that settled, then?" Eldila was grinning broadly.

"I, uh, suppose it is," Bronnie said. Ing cackled his agreement.

"Fine. We will sleep, then, and in the morning, we'll head home."

Entry 187

Bronnie was quite alarmed when, some distance away from the front door, Eldila sat down abruptly on a large decorative stone. "You go ahead, my dear. I just need a moment to rest. I'll be along in a minute."

"But--"

"Go ahead." He smiled at her. Ing fluffed his feathers and tapped on Eldila's broken horn, the right one.

Bronnie grimaced, but nodded. The Elder seemed slightly out of breath, and rather pale... it worried her. But they were, after all, only just out of site of home. She still worried.

She opened the front door and peered inside, feeling nervous. "Mum? Uncle Ray?" she called.

"BRONNIE!" squealed her mother's voice. Sunny came barrelling down the stairs and flung her arms around her daughter; Ray followed only slightly slower, grinning. "You're okay, you're here, you're back--I mean--" Sunny rolled her eyes and straightened up. "Tell me, stranger, who you are."

Though she'd already said this to Eldila, Bronnie grinned broadly and said it again. "Once nameless, I am Bronwen Shadoweaver."

"I welcome you into the tribe, Shadoweaver. May your name bring you peace and happiness." Sunny planted an over-excited kiss on Bronnie's cheek. "Oh... oh, you weren't calling! I was worried!"

"Sorry. I'm here now?"

Sunny just hugged; Ray squeezed his way into the doorway and hugged them both at once. "This place has been much too quiet without you, Bron," he said.

"Mum... I found, um..." Bronnie pointed vaguely out the door. "Look, he's--"

"I'm here," said Eldila. He had come the rest of the way up the path during the excited family reunion, unnoticed.

Sunny's eyes went wide behind her glasses. "Eldila... you're... you're alive!"

Eldila nodded, grinning. "I am. But I am really rather tired, and if you would only be so good..."

"Of course!" Sunny squeezed Bronnie's arm affectionately. "Could you go get some tea for all of us? Sorry to dump things on you as soon as you get back, but..."

"It's okay." Bronnie headed off to the kitchen, dropping her bags on the floor as she went. When she glanced backwards, Sunny and Ray were helping Eldila into a chair in the living room, while Ing paced back and forth on the coffee table.

Entry 189

Eldila died during the night.

They were alerted to it by Ing's anguished shrieking, which woke up the household. Bronnie had held Dana while Sunny and Ray moved the corpse outside. They laid a tarp over it, weighted it down, and left it until the morning.

Ga'yagas, the pard, agreed to watch over it for the night.

By morning, Eldila's body had assumed its natural shape. He had been a large white dragon with curving horns, one broken off at the tip, and a soft, feathery mane down his back.

Sunny and Ray and Bronnie took draconic shapes, and moved Eldila away from the house. It was... disturbing, to touch him. He was very cold, and very stiff, but it had to be done.

They burned him in a great bonfire; dragonfire is very hot. As it burned, Sunny spoke in the dragon tongue. Bronnie could only pick out the odd word here or there, but she listened attentively. It was, if nothing else, beautiful sounding.

Dana squirmed in Bronnie's forepaws, a little impatient but unafraid of her family's dragon shapes or the fire, and too young to understand the death, simply enjoyed the show.

Sunny translated the speech for Bronnie, after.



Eventually, there was nothing but ash and some blackened bones, which Ray disposed of.

And that was the end.

Afterwards, Bronnie curled up on her bed with Ing perched beside her. The raven was sulky and quiet, but submitted to her touch.

The entire house was very quiet.

Entry 191

There was a tap at the window. Bronnie got up from her desk and opened the window without really looking; Ing fluttered into the room with a contented air.

"Find something to eat?"

Ing croaked something which Bronwen somehow knew was a "yes"; a sort of tenuous understanding was growing between them. She suspected they were a long way away from the full conversations he and Eldila had had.

"Well, don't tell me about it." Bronnie made a face. She knew perfectly well that he was scrounging for roadkill. She sat back down at her desk. Ing hopped over and peered at what she was working on; he asked her a question.

"I'm working on my resume," she told him. "It's not going very well. I don't have much experience... any, really. I mean, I used to help Mum out at the adoption agency thing, but... that really doesn't count." She grimaced. "But I gotta get a job."

Entry 193

Bronnie emerged from the restaurant, her wings hunched against the chilly wind. Ing fluttered down to perch on her shoulder, and nipped kindly at her ear.

"How did it go? Do you have a job now?" Amano was sitting on top of a garbage can, swinging his legs, and beaming from ear to ear. He hopped down as Bronnie came near.

"No. They wouldn't even take my resume." Bronwen rubbed her forehead. Really, she felt like sitting down in the middle of the street and crying for a while. That seemed a bit extreme. "That's three of 'the position is filled,' five of 'we're not looking but we'll keep you on file,' two outright refusals, and one..."

The tanuki tilted his head; it somehow managed to filter down through his brain that his "little sister," as he thought of her in his more lucid moments, was very upset. "One what?"

"They said they didn't want to hire anyone who would scare away potential customers." Bronnie screwed up her face. Ing cackled and nibbled her ear again. "Goddamn stuck-up racist... speciesist, whatever. Bastards."

Amano tilted his head the other way, trying to understand all the words. "You need tea."

"I need... what?" Bronnie blinked. If Amano had suggested beer or wine or some other form of alcohol, she would not have been surprised.

"Tea. Tea is for when you're sad." Amano nodded sagely. "There's a cafe. Over there. I'll buy you tea."

"You have money?"

"I'll buy you tea," he repeated, nonplussed, and pulled her along by her arm.

Entry 195

The tea and sausage rolls came soon enough. Bronnie wasn't feeling very hungry; she broke her sausage roll in pieces and fed some of it to Ing, while she sipped the tea.

"So, why then, is Miss... Bronnie, was it? Why is Miss Bronnie sad?" Lorelei perched herself on a nearby chair. When the woman had come around the corner, more evidence that she was certainly not human had become quite clear; she had a long, deep red, scaly tail, with a tuft of blue-green feathers at the end, and her feet were extraordinarily large and clawed and slightly yellowish, halfway between being human feet and eagle's talons.

"Bronnie needs a job. She had no money," Amano supplied.

"Ah, is that it?"

Bronwen rubbed her nose. "Amano, I'm right here."

"They said rude things to her and she's sad."

"Amano!"

Lorelei rubbed her chin a moment. "You applied at that restaurant down on the corner, didn't you?"

"How'd you know?"

"They've got into trouble for discrimination before. If you're a customer, then they love you to death. If you want to work... no can do." Lorelei scowled. "Actually, not true. For a while they were hiring on some non-human teenagers as delivery boys, for less than minimum wage. A lot less. I think the owner must know someone, to keep getting away with it."

"I had no idea," Bronnie said. Ing cackled.

"I mean, you looked out in the street recently? It's... ridiculous. Humans are in the minority. Most people don't mind elves, or anything that at least looks mostly human most of the time, but folks like me or you, or Amano... not everyone likes that."

Bronnie shrugged a wing. "Well. I guess I just have to keep looking. I'll find something eventually."

Lorelei was tapping her finger against her lips. "Amano, would you say Bronnie here is a reliable sort of person?"

Amano nodded. "She even says no sometimes when I forget I'm not supposed to give her drinks."

"Ah." She seemed to take Amano's zigzag trains of though quite well. "And I suppose you bringing her here has nothing to do with the fact that you heard me fire Phander last week?"

"... I forgot that." Amano grinned up at Lorelei; Bronnie was not entirely sure he was telling the truth.

"Sure you did. Bronnie, hon, you got a resume? I can promise to look it over."

Stunned, Bronwen pulled out a resume, and Lorelei snatched it to peer over.

"I see. Okay. Well, I'll go put this in the office and look at it later." Grinning brightly, Lorelei bustled off into the back of the deli.

As they left the deli later, Bronnie gave Amano an annoyed shove. "Stupid. You could at least tell me what you're planning."

Amano only laughed.

Reserved for Christmas.