Approaching the Shimmer

By the time Calla enters fiore popolare it is early evening. It has taken time to hunt down Matches, and although dedicated to a goal she is neither fast on her feet or particularly hardy. As the door is thrown open she is mumbling her way through the Endurance of Bears just to keep the breath in her body. She spies her quarry, shoots a triumphant look at Orianna, and bustles across the floor. Thus far she has largely deflected or delayed her sister’s gentle support in a way that suggests she is focussed on a specific strategy for a specific problem. Matches, very much at its core.

Matches, who had been sitting quietly, enjoying a delicious and colourful looking cocktail, glances to his side and sees Calla marching towards him. He raises a hand to wave with a smile, then clocks the expression and lets out a small, “Oh shit,” and turns to use the hand to wave down the red-headed woman wearing a wide brimmed hat — the owner known as Leona Autumn — and orders two more of the same cocktail he has.

“Calla, Baker’s, lovely to see you this evening. We all alright?” he asks.

“No”, Calla sits down opposite Matches, “and I am in need of your reciprocal services to become so. We have spent social time together precisely once before, and a repeat performance is necessary.” As her companions make sense of her overly formal request, Leona arrives. Calla sinks one of the two drinks with a grimace, as if to make her point clear.

Orianna’s eyebrows shoot up at Calla’s display of eagerness to imbibe. She firmly takes the other drink whilst signalling the red-headed human woman before she walks away to bring another round of drinks, but says to make some of them non-alcoholic.

“Perhaps we pace ourselves a little so the others can arrive, hmm?” Orianna says, shooting Matches a pleading look.

Matches raises one hand a little defensively while sipping from his glass with the other. “Calla, I am always in the interest of helping out. But I think I need a bit more info before we launch into anything too heavy. Last time was well deserved.”

The three of them are interrupted by a solid thump against the door, a small scream of fright and then a large golden green lion walking up to their table, flopping down at their feet. There’s a possum clinging to it. It yawns and tries to get Orianna to give it scritches.

Orianna lets go of the drink she had secured to take the possum Gigi, noticing out of the corner of her eye that Calla grabs the unattended drink the moment she lets go. She sighs, cradling the possum in her arms as she says, “Hi Florian. Do you want to sit here or…?” She pats the spot beside her.
Florian sprawls wider across the floor. His voice filters into their minds. “I can talk with my brain now. Being a herald is awesome.”

The lion closes its eyes and seemingly settles in for a nap.

A look passes over Orianna’s face, but she nods, putting Gigi on her shoulder where she can sit and see and still get scritches.

“Hi Florian,” Calla’s tone is upbeat in a weirdly flat way, like she’s deliberately ignoring the lion’s comment, “really good to see you.”

Calling back to the last time she was in this position with Matches, she instead puts up fingers and starts counting them off.

“One, this is the first time in decades I’ve been free of a life debt. Frankly, in either direction now that Mittens is repaid. Two, I’ve just completed a ritual that I was less than fully certain I’d survive. Three, I learnt that I definitely wouldn’t have survived the version of it I was going to do initially, and probably the Feywild wouldn’t have either, which, you know, eh, but still. Fourth, the Mountain is back, which was the goal, but now we’ll have to deal with that I suppose. And finally, fifth,” Calla sinks the second drink, gesturing a now open hand at Orianna, “Can you… can you tell them the thing? While I go get changed?”

“A-Are you sure?” the tiefling asks, flustered. “It’s your tale to te-”

Before Orianna could finish, there’s a brief glimmer of purple light, and a small but beautiful gemstone bottle rolls back and forth where Calla was sitting a moment before. Orianna frowns. Matches exhales sharply in amusement.

“That’d be such a good trick to have,” he says.

“We should still wait until-”

“I think she’s deliberately asking you to tell me the fifth thing so she doesn’t have to,” Florian the lion says to her, opening its eyes and looks at her curiously. “Bad news?”

The door bursts open as Waffles and Frigus dive through it. “Wait for me y’all!”

“Frigus, Waffles!” Orianna smiles, throwing a quick apologetic wave to the mixologist behind the counter. She waves it away, adding more drinks to the tray she is building up.

“Calla, uh, was just explaining why we are having this meeting and she asked me to tell the fifth thing so she could, um, get more comfortable.” She looks at Florian. “And it’s not necessarily bad news…”

Lion-Florian doesn’t appear to pay attention to her. Instead, he is doing his best to start a cuddle pile with Waffles, who seems more intent on wrestling than cuddling.

Matches leans towards Orianna raising a curious eyebrow. “So what’s the fifth thing?”

Orianna sighs and shuffles over, making room for Frigus beside her. “After Arcravine left, Kesserax offered to keep the spell Calla had created safe in the Court of Sorcery. To do so, she had to pull it out of her memory and when she did, the memory-slash-spell became a small opal…” She looks around the table, hoping one of them will see where she is leading to.
Turns out that Frigus is the first to understand. “Ohhhh… oh… wow this is great news, wait where is Calla?” Orianna gestures at the bottle.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Matches’ confusion. She says, “Calla is the Herald of Kesserax,” at the same time Frigus just mouths “Herald”.

The lion and the dragon freeze in the pile, paws in each other’s mouths. Waffles goes for the pin and fails.

Gigi falls off of Orianna’s shoulder.

Florian extracts himself from the pile with as much dignity as he can muster and then stands up, fully human.

“Its- It is quite the revelation for her,” Orianna says, nodding at Florian and Matches’ looks.

“Well that’s fucking baller,” Florian says. “How’s she feeling about it? She need a hug?”

“I don’t want to presume but… she wants to ask us what it means to be a Herald. I think. And possibly process what that could mean for her.”

Florian notices Orianna massaging her right hand a little. There are marks on her skin where nails had dug into the back of her hands, in the same place where someone might have been holding it very very tightly.

Frigus leans over and whispers at the vessel, “Well, aside from having a cool new parent who is really nice, you get to represent your dragon’s interests and protect people and you get some cool new powers and a bunch of cousins. Plus I got these sick chokers too.”

Meanwhile, Matches exclaims, “Fuck me! Oh mate, that’s heavy.” He runs a hand through his hair with eyes wide, then looks back across the bar. “Leona, gonna need to stick some alcohol back in those drinks, sorry love.” He slides extra gold across as a tip.

“Don’t worry, there’s some of both,” Leona says with a wink to Matches and a nod to Orianna.

Matches returns the wink and mouths, “You’re a star, darling,” to Leona as she brings over a tray of fourteen various drinks. It appears she made two for each of them, including Gigi and Waffles. Their drinks are in what could be considered more bowl-like cups but they are no less customers of the fiore popolare. Once done, Leona nods, and returns to the bar already helping another guest.

Florian pulls up a chair and takes a seat next to Matches, sliding a small pouch onto the table next to him.

“Frigus, I don’t think she can hear you when she’s in there,” the druid says. “We’ll tell her all about it when she comes back out. And then we’ll toast to our ever-growing family.”

There’s a light popping sound as Calla reappears, bottle scooped up and stowed fluidly before she straightens her glasses. The more observant members of the gathering can tell that a glamour has (at least partially) been dropped. She gets herself comfortable without making eye contact with anyone, and then shrugs before the assembled family.
“Soooo, what’s it like being a Herald?”

Florian raises a drink in her direction. “Pretty fucking awesome. I did mention the talking with my brain thing, right?”

Gigi waddles over to Calla under the table and begins to painstakingly climb her leg.

“Not now Ma… Oh. Hi Gigi. No. Wait. Hang on.” It’s Calla’s turn to scoop up Gigi, but as she does there’s a harsh set of Primordial phrases whispered into the shadow beneath Calla’s chair. Moments later Tourmaline shoulders the door open and is gone into the streets.

It takes a second to process but Orianna figures out the words: “Mal, for fuck’s sake, go eat that letter at Orianna’s. If you can do it without being seen I’ll buy you a new bed.” Orianna takes one of the non-alcoholic drinks and has the smallest sip, uncertainty causing the crystal scales on her face to flicker.

Meanwhile, Gigi has decided to be a minor nuisance in Calla’s arms, just enough so that it’s a little bit distracting, clearly trying to keep the eladrin from spinning out further.

Florian sips his drink and runs a tattooed hand through his hair. “You okay, Calla? It’s a lot to take in, I get that.”

“No. I think it’s okay to say, no. I was indentured to my family, then to the Mountain, then Mittens, and now I’m free of them all. I’m… I’m not ready.” She takes a big sigh and a slightly more measured sip of the drink in front of her. “Am I allowed to not be ready?”

Florian levels a look at her. “Dude, you’re allowed to say no. Full stop.”

Orianna doesn’t say anything but she is looking intently at Calla, watching her carefully. They both know what saying no would mean. Calla said so herself to Kesserax, to all of them.

“I’m not sure if you can hear me when you’re in the vessel?” Frigus pauses thinking. “It’s maybe not something that’s for everyone. But if it helps you decide I think you’d be a fantastic choice. You’re already part of the family as far as I’m concerned, this would just make it extra official. Plus everyone here has fire magic going on. I need someone else with cold magic to balance it out.”

Florian sets his drink down and leans forward as intently as he can muster, which is still pretty relaxed. “Calla. I’m not kidding. You can say no. If it means something bad, we’ll figure it out. But do you maybe wanna spell that out and we can puzzle it over together?”

“I can’t.” She shakes her head and laughs, ruefully, “If it goes to my next of kin… that’s… that’s my family. It’s my brother. He’s… it can’t be him.”

“Because you like him and you don’t want to inflict this on him or because he’s a bad dude and he shouldn’t have the power?” Florian asks softly, kindly. Respectfully. It’s clear to her he just wants to know.

“None of my kin should have this power. I didn’t just leave, Florian. I ran away. I escaped.”

“Alright. Then you keep hold of it,” Matches says. “Take it one step at a time, Calla. I mean, I haven’t even taken any vows yet and I found mine out way earlier than anyone else. You’ve got time to figure out what this all means.”

“I think… maybe I could wait until the end of Summer to do it?”

Florian cocks his head. “Is there something that makes that a better time to say yes?”

“Mmm, very much. My people are seasonal. Summer is less melancholy. More wild. A better time to be free and a better time for big things.” Calla takes another big sip of a drink. “She’ll… I’ll handle it better then.”

Frigus has been listening, sipping a spiked cup of tea and is already working on knitting Calla two sweaters depending on what route she wants to go down.

“I would love to see you as a double Herald, I bet that would be sick. But if your family is the reason you want to do this, I think from what we have learned we have to be chosen too. If your family are not safe to have the power then maybe Kessarax won’t let them take the vows in the first place. Whatever you choose, you know we’ll help you with the outcome.”

“What if you don’t have time to wait for Summer’s coming?”

The sound of Orianna’s voice was almost so quiet it could have been mistaken for a whisper. She had fallen into looking at the swirling nebula of her mocktail. The pinch of her brows was framing the symbol of Stellarum with deep spikes. That, combined with the note of worry colouring her words was enough to give any of the others pause.
Calla nods and smiles through Frigus’ support, but goes cold again with Orianna’s question. “What do you mean?”

It is Orianna’s turn to avoid eye contact, this time with everyone. “Just that the Archwyrms are preparing for war. They are involved now and you may be asked if you are ready before Summer’s end.” Her eyes drift up and catch on each of their faces as she continues, “I’ve been told to be ready to open the door to the Wyrm Hold. That time is coming soon — sooner than any of us think. Why else do you think Maldrosa and Thaliatrasza have asked Florian and Frigus to take their Vows?”

“Alright, alright, maybe we don’t have time,” Matches says a little too quickly, attempting to salvage the scary news. “But I’ll tell you what you do have. Us. It’s hardly just a couple of us Heralds trying to figure it out anymore, we’re a bleedin’ squadron by now. I wouldn’t be doing any of this nonsense if Orianna didn’t give me a hand, so with the rest of us helping this’ll be an absolute dog walk for you darling, don’t even worry.” He flashes Calla a slightly uneasy grin. He is aware of his downplaying the situation, but the intent is sincere.

Frigus tries to smile too but his teeth are pointy, so the effect isn’t as reassuring.

“Matches, as always, makes a good point. We have a whole bunch of Heralds already and whilst it would be great to have more I am sure we will make it work whatever you decide to do.”

They lift their little eyes, now a glacial blue from the jumper they’re working on to look at Calla. “I think we can tell you why we became heralds and how totally awesome it is to have this purpose, this family, better connection to dragons and that’s before we mention our sick magic powers and these cool treasures, but those things relate to us. Maybe we would be of more help if we know why you’re worried about being a herald?”

“I guess…” she looks around from face to face, each warm, welcoming, genuine, “has anyone asked what happens if you want to quit?”

“It’s not something I had thought about. But maybe Orianna knows better? You know… cause dads?” Frigus, unsure if this is taboo or not turns their eyes back to knitting and puts the finishing touches on jumper number one and tucks it under the table before Calla can see it, then takes out a ball of blue wool and waffles holds it whilst they start on the second jumper.
“If you say no, nothing happens,” the kobold continues. “Only the bit about it passing on to another relative. And even if you say yes, that’s a two step process. If you quit before step two I assume that the same thing happens as if you say no immediately. Dunno if you can quit after step two. We can ask?”

“I can ask Stellarum,” Orianna says, her voice very quiet. “If it will help.” She looks at Calla.

Calla seems very grateful for Orianna’s offer to ask a few questions of Stellarum directly, and outlines her worries. As she does so, there are occasional glimpses of some other design behind her eyes. Magical enhancement might be keeping her on her feet, but under the influence of an increasing amount of alcohol she’s steadily becoming less guarded than usual. It’ll come as some surprise when she asks the question no-one has yet aired publicly:

“Look, what this comes down to, really, is… are you all okay? It sounds like we’re about to be asked to fight in an interplanar war and that’s… it’s big. It’s not new for me, exactly, but I’ve been… in the medic tent? Kind of? The whole time? Are you all okay about that? How are you feeling? Is it… are you being treated well? Are you… are you being treated like people or… possessions? Pieces on the board?”

Matches looks around a little sheepishly, but does speak up. “Look, I expected myself to be the last person invested in all this. It’s much more beyond me and my scope of life up until now. But I have to admit, Vulcanax has done nothing but look out for me, keep me safe, and help my magic grow. Even before I knew about him he was keeping me safe. I can’t speak for all of them, and I don’t really know about yours but…” He scratches the back of his neck and sighs at the next part. “I feel safer knowing I’m a Herald, and that the big fella is looking out for me.”

“I don’t particularly want to fight if I don’t have to,” Frigus chimes in. “Fighting is bad for your health. But we’ve fought side by side before in a big battle, the one where you exploded the guy’s head. But we have power and I think we should use it to help people.

“As for how we are treated, Mum is really nice to me and Waffles. I don’t think she thinks of me as a possession. But my vows are kinda to be a good big brother to all the lil dragons out there. I think she’d protect us if we needed it plus look at these sick chokers we got.”

Calla looks sheepish, guilty even, at the mention of Voss’ untimely demise. But nods along as Matches and Frigus describe their comforting circumstances.

“They are lovely. And from what I understand of the vows you’ve sworn it sounds like most of the bargain is… easy? Most of them are things you’d likely do anyway with a little push. But that’s…” She looks down, speaking more quietly, feeling bad for even bringing it up. “That’s common in a bad deal. I’m not saying they are bad deals, just that the shape of them is familiar.”
Calla’s glamour shifts, and it’s clear she’s mimicking someone she knows well. Someone sharp and predatory.

“Here are three things that of course you’ll agree to. They’re hard but doable. Oh, this fourth one? That sounds vague but fine, and the other three were okay, right? I’m definitely not going to use that worryingly broad wording to throw you under a cart later.”
Her glamour returns to its default. A nebbish, almost frumpy academic wrapped up in detail.

“So it’s important to me that you’re not being taken advantage of by creatures that are thousands of years older than any of you and just… bigger. Not just as someone on the brink of joining those ranks, but as someone who cares for you. Digs is… he’s been through a lot, and he is anxious, but not for no reason.”
Calla shakes her shoulders out, like she’s trying to rid herself of the person she was channelling moments before. Instead she locks eyes with Matches, all but conjuring a moment they shared in Time.

“If any of you, at any point, want to say ‘this is too much for me, I can’t’ or you find yourself out of control, doing something harmful, I need to know that you can back away, and I need to know that I can step between you and anyone trying to tell you you can’t.”

Matches locks eyes back with Calla and holds her gaze with sincerity. “Herald vows and responsibilities are one thing. But my loyalty will always be to The Family. You all decided you wanted to look out for me, I’m going to do the same in return. Keep each other safe, no matter what that means. That’s what I can commit to.”

Orianna has been sitting silently between Matches and Frigus, her eyes closed, the scales framing her eyes and face, and the three sets of horns on her head pulsing gently with light. At the end of Matches declaration, she takes a breath and opens her eyes, not seeing her family but something else farther away. Then she blinks, and looks across the table to Calla.
“I believe I have the answers you're looking for, Calla. Some, at least.

“I will preface that this spell, the power behind it, means that Stellarum cannot lie in her answers.” She levels a look to each of her friends, her family, her fellow Heralds, saving Calla for last. “Make of that what you will.

“When asked if it is possible to quit being a Herald should any of us choose that path, even those who have already taken our Vows, Stellarum said, ‘Yes, of course. Should a Herald decide to leave the position after taking their vows, they are free to do so.’ I did not ask how this was possible, but perhaps that is something between the Herald in question and their Archwyrm,” Orianna offers.

“On the question of a Herald’s connection and if it goes deeper than we have seen or known it to be, Stellarum said, ‘Once the Vows are taken, our connection does deepen. Each Archwyrm is aware of their Herald’s approximate position.’” She gestures with her hands, encompassing the place they sit in. “For example, Stellarum knows I am in Daring Heights on the material plane, she cannot see or hear what we are talking about, or where I am precisely through my eyes, ears, mind, etc. ‘An Archwyrm cannot make a connection to their Herald without their Herald knowing about it.’”

She takes a breath and looks down. There’s a moment as an indistinguishable emotion dashes across Orianna’s face. She takes another beat and when her face lifts up, it’s serene once more.

“If a Herald has personal goals, things they would aspire to or… whatever… ‘No Archwyrm would ever ask their Herald to abandon who they are or what they strive to achieve before or after their Vows are taken.’”

When she finishes, it is like all the light that had been in her retreats, from her eyes, her scales, her horns, even the symbol on her forehead. There is a quiet sigh and Orianna sits back in her seat, and she looks tired. Calla gingerly puts a hand on top of her friend’s, her sister’s. She leans in and whispers a heartfelt, “Thank you.” She leans back out, but leaves her hand in place.

“I’m… Thank you. That’s important. I’m not just grateful for me, I… I think we all needed to know that. I think… you’ve made it clear that things could get a lot more serious, not that they aren’t already, and… the way I feel about all of this. It’s important but…” Calla catches Orianna’s gaze and it’s clear that she knows that there are layers, for both of them, for all of them, to what she says next.

“…Family first.”

There’s a gentle squeeze to Calla’s hand, an acknowledgement and agreement.