Contingencies

Much later that evening, after Thaneni and Rimmon have retired, after Asteros and Stellarum have left, after the windows and doors are closed, only Orianna and Calla remain in the kitchen. An Unseen Servant cleans while the two sit across from each other.

“So,” says the shorter figure, “contingencies.”

“Yes, contingencies.” A hand comes up to the tiefling’s temple and begins to massage gentle circles. It has been a very long day.

“I think everyone understands that I’m unfolding a further strategy, but I don’t think anyone knows it. I’m keen to keep it that way if you’re amenable?”

Orianna closes her eyes, continuing with those massaging circles. “I suppose I am, for the time being. But you do realise who inspired Magdara’s plan, yes?” She opens her eyes. They swirl with nebulas.

“I…. Uh. Yes, of course.” Calla isn’t surprised by the fact, more that anyone else had made the connection. “Magdara is, after all, a close cousin to First Mountain.” There’s a brief moment of recalculation. “Nonetheless, he remains the third biggest party, and one whose alliance we can guarantee… if restored.”

A slight frown colours the scholar’s face as she sits up straighter, reaching for the pot of tea. “I’m glad you also saw that connection, and I believe you when you say Arcravine’s allegiance could be guaranteed if he is restored.” Lifting it, Orianna feels straight away that it is empty and so puts it down with a small sigh. She folds her hands one over the other instead. “It cannot be easy, living in the state he is in. A half-life, dying a slow, drawn out death. It is… humbling. I remember the fear in his voice as he spoke through you to Magdara. Perhaps he has changed. Perhaps he has learned from this whole experience and would not seek to do something like it again…”

Though her words trail off, Calla can feel from her friend that she is hesitant to believe completely. Not for a mistrust in Calla, but feasibly because Orianna doesn’t have the insider knowledge the eladrin herself has.

“Would you like to know what the Heart of the Mountain was when it came to me? When it was still called Flintglass?” Calla’s mouth flattens. “He was a nightlight.”

Orianna frowns a little. “I don’t understand.”

“When First Mountain was exiled, it wasn’t a kind or gentle act. He fell through the planes, and hit the Court of Stone so hard it shattered. Both it, and him. All the way down to the very heart — a small shard of purple rock found in the Feydark’s deepest cave and passed down through generations of my family for its gentle glow.” Calla pulls her ‘focus’ from a pocket, placing it on the table such that its amethyst glow lights her face from beneath. “For several hundred years, he’s been a nightlight.” The glow is stronger than a nightlight though. That clearly changed when Calla made her connection to the Mountain within.

Orianna leans forward in her chair and for the first time addresses it directly. “What was done to you was neither kind nor gentle,” she says in Primordial. “But your actions were not either. Still,” Orianna glances up to Calla and her face softens, “I believe in your keeper, my friend, my… sister when she says that helping you is something that needs to be done. Your absence is sorely noted, Arcravine, whether the other Primordials will acknowledge it or not.”
The word Orianna uses is something like ‘sister’ except it has a double meaning: twin, counterpart, earthen kinswoman.

Calla stays quiet for a moment, leaving room for anything that might be construed as a response.

The Heart begins to shake and rumble on the table as the light it emits beats like that of heart. Calla is able to interpret both these signs as happy sensations but there is an air of appreciation coming from the First Mountain. The dark-elf lets go of a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, and beams a nervy smile at Orianna. “So. Contingencies,” said this time with less fatigue, more ambition.

“It’s going to take one of two things to restore my Uncle. Possibly both. The first a new body, the second an immense amount of raw power.” Calla grimaces a little, “The first of those things I’ve inadvertently begun to explore, but I believe that a recently deceased creature with a tie to the plane of Earth will yield the best results. Sadly summons return a body to the point of origin, so we’ll probably have to get lucky on that front. I’m not about to go murdering Dao willy-nilly, but it’s not like there are any lack of antagonists in the Dawnlands.

“For the second, there are slow options, and fast options. I’ve started to negotiate the land rights for what will ostensibly represent a return of First Mountain’s Temple to the Prime Material, but sadly, it’ll take a season before even its ‘construction’ is complete, post-purchase.” Calla wrinkles her nose. “Those halflings do drive a hard bargain. “Bringing us, by necessity, to the fast options. Bear with me for a moment, if you will.”

A small, and intricately layered tablet, maybe an inch by three inches long, is the next object to be slid onto the table. Calla nods pleasantly at Orianna before placing two fingers upon it, closing her eyes, and whispering in a weird mix of Primordial and Sylvan. All the while her left hand makes knots out of its knuckles. As Calla’s whispers layer one upon another to form a strange hiss of background noise, the kitchen’s walls, windows and doors are steadily covered in a thin layer of what looks at first like frost, but is increasingly evident as pale crystal. Once she sees what they are, Orianna gets up to make a fresh pot of tea, the special spiced kind. As she moves around the kitchen, using her druidic magics to heat up the water and make the herbs bloom just a little more, she glances back to Calla. A minute has passed, and the furrow in the eladrin’s brow has deepened while she continues to mutter. Patterns have started to form in the mineral rime, long vines and thorns curling inward, and crystalline flowers blooming around door handles.

Valethra curiously peeks her head into the changing kitchen, smelling Orianna’s brew and hoping to get a treat. But the sight of rime vines and mineral thorns stops her in her tracks just past the threshold. Her nostrils flare, sniffing the air. She gives a little whine, which gets Orianna’s attention. She mutters a reassurance in Draconic but as a particularly big crystalline flower blooms right behind the wyrmling’s head startling her, Valethra is clearly done. Turning tail, she scrabbles for purchase and then bolts out of the kitchen.

Shaking her head, but smiling, Orianna brings the fresh pot of tea and a new plate of biscuits, these ones ginger, to the table. Just as Calla finishes the spell, she begins pouring them both a glass of the milky spiced tea.

“Your magic is very beautiful, Calla. Has anyone ever told you that?”

A warm smile turns the corners of Calla’s mouth upwards as she finishes the ward, takes a deep breath and shakes her fingers out before reaching for a biscuit. “No, I… I’ve always been very… functional. I think my time in the sun, travelling, has, you know… changed things. Not being small all the time.”
She looks around at her work. A slight trace of wonder on her face, as if it’s more than she expected. “I hope this is okay. The things we need to talk about, they need to be private. From everyone.”

That causes Orianna to sit up just a little bit straighter. “Is the manner of your ‘fast option’ that risky?”

“Well,” Calla tilts her head, “you know what they say, ‘fast, cheap, safe, choose two.’”

There’s a moment of concerned silence. “I don’t think I know this saying but I get your meaning.” Orianna takes a deep breath. “Alright. Tell me, please.” She gestures with her hand in a way that says, the floor is yours and I am open to listen.

Calla nods, and dips into a kind of monologue Orianna suspects she mostly deploys alone. Surprisingly though, it’s in the very specific dialect of Undercommon the two have been trading in of late: “The Dawnlands, the Prime Material really, both are caught between the edges of two separate wars. On one hand,” she turns up a palm, “Primordials versus Archwyrms, a conflict that we’re all very much aware of and involved in. On the second,” her other hand turns over, “a cold war in the Feywild. Summer vs Winter. Something I think only a few of us can see, for now.” An increasingly wan smile is steadily replaced by a deepening frown.

“The first is more pressing, both in terms of speed and consequence. We need to put proactive strategy in place, and I do genuinely believe that grabbing the hardest options immediately is the right move. Not only because it pushes things firmly in our favour, but because it provides cover for us to do even more unexpected things.” Calla’s gaze has been mostly downturned, but now she makes firm eye contact. “Like putting First Mountain back on the board.

“The other Primordials, both sides maybe, will interfere unless we act before they can intervene. So by necessity fast, and by definition risky.” A deeper breath, and now the crux of the matter: “Here are the sources of power I think can do what we need at pace: we’ve seen Magdara and her kin take advantage of primordial rifts, we know Glastor’s sniffing around the Wellspring, we know the Staircase can get us anywhere, maybe even any-when. The first of those, finding enough rifts, mining them for power, is too slow. The latter of those, snatching the Mountain from the point of exile and reinstating him here, too risky. Not least of all because it would erase our relatio… Our Alliance. So it’s the Staircase, and it’s the Wellspring. I think we use the first to get access to the second. We do a very rapid series of experiments for some base level assurance of safety… and then we put the Heart into it.”

“That’s…” Starlit violet eyes dart back and forth between amethyst for a second as Orianna catches on to what her friend is suggesting. “That is quite risky, least of all for what it would mean to those few allies we have.” She immediately holds up a hand to placate Calla. “I’m not saying we should not try to do this. I’m more concerned about the how. You’ve thought about the method quite thoroughly, even if you’re not absolutely certain it will work. But going to the Wellspring means approaching Kessarax — probably without her finding out? There is also the matter of the Sovereign of the Court of Sorcery, and the Coven. The Staircase may circumvent that, but I would be hesitant to make enemies of the folk safeguarding that place. We would have to rely on Henri to get us in and out. Unless…” Here, she hesitates. “…you are wanting to pursue a Call?”

“I am.” Calla’s firm in her reply, but eases off as she recognises Orianna’s gesture for what it is, “And we’d go in through the top. I can afford to alienate the Sovereign, for now, but not Kessarax. Certainly not Mystara. If we’re lucky no-one will even know we’re there until it’s too late. “If you can think of another option I’m more than happy to hear it, but… we are on a pretty drastic deadline.”

“How soon?”

“Hard to say, but I’d guess before the winter is out?”

“Hmm…” Orianna thinks, taking a big sip of tea. The scales on her face and neck shimmer with an excited kind of light, though her expression is still. “Would it be before or after we release Life and Death?” she eventually asks softly.

“Ideally? I might be more of a hindrance than a help with the Archwyrms. If there was any way I could do it at the same time, or very shortly afterwards, I would.”

“I don’t see you as a hindrance, Calla.” Orianna reaches across the table laying her hand down, palm up. An offering.

Calla takes Orianna’s hand, but it’s a light touch, a little uncertain. “Thank you. I… I wish we all had your grace.” A wash of fatigue comes over her, and her gaze drops. “I’m going after a Call. When I have it, I’m planning for the Wellspring. I’ll wait until after Life and Death if I can. If…” her eyes meet Orianna’s again, but it’s softer than before, “if we can find something less risky by then, I’ll take it.”

Orianna blushed at Calla’s initial words, but it recedes by the time she is done. The tiefling nods. But then a thought occurs to her in the form of a question. She looks down at their hands, the tentative touch that could disappear at a moment’s notice. “Let me ask you something, a question I am not sure has been properly asked of you in all of this. Whatever answer you give, I will still be here.” She lifts their hands just a little, taking care to keep the touch unrestrictive. “You are strong of will and heart Calla, but you are not alone in any of this. I’m here for you.”

Her eyes find Calla’s again, and she asks, “Do you support what Magdara, Phystal, Abrax and Glastor are doing? Do you believe in their cause, regardless of the consequences?”

Calla looks puzzled for a second, but then grasps Orianna’s hand more tightly, not less, “Oh! No, not at all. Please don’t mistake me, what they’re doing is… it’s the very definition of unnatural, unlawful. It’s… tension is essential for balance in the elements but this is too far. Conflict yes, but this? No. I don’t support it. The very wheel of the Planes is against it.

“The Para-elementals should sit in between the Elementals, Earth should be in balance with the other Three, the Quasi-elementals should thrive within their domain. If you can’t rely on the building blocks of this world, all is chaos.” Calla is so horrified by that last word that she nearly spits it out in revulsion.

“Then this goal, mountainous in its scale, will happen.” Orianna’s lips quirk up in a playful smile at the pun. “It is as you say, Calla. Earth should be opposite Fire, Air, and Water. That is how the scales are meant to be balanced,” she finishes, more serious but no less heartfelt.

“I’m… I cannot tell you how relieved I am that we’re agreed. This must remain secret, not a breath of it outside a Sanctum, but… I’m glad we spoke. I have been…” Calla swiftly pockets the Heart, “all but alone in this for the longest time. It feels less fragile, less volatile, to have it shared.”

“It is what family is for. Sharing your troubles, helping to carry anything you can no longer do on your own, making the impossible attainable. Or however the saying goes,” Orianna says, smiling. “I, too, am glad we’ve spoken. Your trust in me… it means a lot, Calla.”