Burnt Out Ends of Smoky Days

Oh, he had pushed his wisdom more than once, a mistake that had cost him more than one friendship. Some he had been able to rebuild, others... others dangled, breaking and broken, beneath the weight of his hubris. It had been a year of painful lessons and failures, backsliding and self-sabotage, but he was learning, however slowly, to let go and allow his friends to live their lives, even if they chose not to accept his help. His was only one way after all, and in the world there were many ways, and 'right' or 'wrong' didn't always apply to them. They just... were. Sometimes he had to let go and trust in his friends the way they trusted in him. In the end weren't they all stronger for it?

The darkness was little barrier to a man with a fox's eyes, and he felt a faint surge of satisfaction that he had guessed correctly about her desire for a task beyond scattering the ashes of her old life. "I know little myself," he admitted ruefully. "I learned of it mostly from Loren, who you'll meet soon enough, I'm sure. A substance that amplifies magic..." He paused, a hint of warning coming into his voice. "But which can also cause it to go out of control, becoming too powerful for a mage to control. It's rumored to be found in Halo, but Warder Neron claims it doesn't exist - or at least, that they don't have any. He's offered me the chance to go looking for it, though the location is near a village of exiles with... questionable eating habits." No need to shock Maea just yet. Not when her curiosity would almost certainly lead her to pursuing more details soon enough.

The surprise on her face was nearly enough to surprise a laugh from him, if their surroundings had been less dour. He shook his head as he stripped the thorns from the flower, then reached out in invitation, tucking the flower behind Maea's ear if she would allow it. "Oh, the Voice has only threatened to kill me if I interfere with her portals," he said lightly, as if it were a mild annoyance and not the life-ending edge of danger he knowingly danced along. "Which is its own little piece of awkwardness. But no. Safrin grew tired of my..." And there he paused, the forced levity fading as he sighed and looked down to the lantern at his feet. "My pride. My... hubris. My desire to be a hero when in her eyes I am anything but." He attempted to shrug it off, but there was a pain and a fear there that had been burned into his soul at her hands. "The magic was not intentional on her part, I think. It was... an accident. A side effect of her punishment, nothing more. But it has been just as effective, in its own way." He looked back to her, a weary sadness in his smile. "To have all this power, to have regained the magic I had so long yearned for... and to have it fail so often. I can Heal, but I cannot fix Amalia's legs. I can make fruit and flowers grow... but not in the land of Halo, where they need food even more desperately than here." The 'curse' was not the magic itself, but the miracles he had once seen performed by others, that he could not do himself, even to save his friends.

Unmoving as he tucked the flower behind her ear, she felt smaller than usual at the gesture. A little rose-thorn prick of joy and sorrow, because once again he'd done something that reminded her of Noah. How often had the brother decorated her with flowers? With little crowns of woven grass or branches, of braids and ribbons before his lovers hair began to hold more sway... As though to remind her that she, at least in his eyes if no one else's, was pretty. Worth something. Even in the midst of her bewilderment about gods and magic and elating adventure, it was a gesture that went straight to her heart. And perhaps it was a fortunate thing indeed that it was a brother that came to mind when Maea looked at the bard, and that he was already spoken for, because the sweet warmth in her chest could very easily have been mistaken for something else entirely.

A stillness settled over the fields as Jigano quieted. Maea considered him, even as milky fingers sought out the delicate petals of the rose, holding the lily gentle in her spare hand. She saw his joy and his pain, the dizzying depths that just opened before his feet, and the plunge he may or might not try to take. It was a precipice on which she'd lived her entire life, a ropewalk she still balanced along even now. Power or the grace of the gods? Hubris or humility? The lines that crossed the many opposites were thin and hard to see indeed.

Humming in quiet introspection, she reached out for the night around them. Water whispered a sweet tune in her ears as she gathered the dew from the grass, from the few lingering puddles, from the beading mist and the moisture of her hem. Drawing it close in quiet welcome, the droplets coalesced and took on a shape of their own, a swarm of translucent butterflies glinting in the white glow of the lantern.

"I could use this water to put out a fire," she mused aloud, as she let the magic dance around them. "I could spend it to water a field, wash clothes or fill a glass to drink from. Or - " she continued, voice hardening a little; the butterflies suddenly moved faster, swarming around Jigano in a frenzy of wet wings, to brush against his face and coming dangerously close to his mouth, his nose, his eyes... " - I could drown someone with it. With some practice, who is to say I couldn't reach for the blood in your veins, control your movements and make you act against your will."

The glittering water eased off without delivering on any such promise, perhaps leaving only wet kisses on his cheeks as she let it disperse into mist.

"But in the end, I could do most of that with my hands. The magic only makes it easier. It's only a tool, Jigano. It is not the magic that makes you who you are. The gods take issue with it, and therefore it is a curse to those of us who desire their love and acceptance, but... would you be less yourself if you lost your healing touch or your flowers again? Perhaps it could let you help Amalia, perhaps not... but what if what happened to her was meant to be so? If perhaps Vi has a plan for his daughter, that we just cannot see yet?"

Wrapping the shawl more tightly about herself, Maea smiled at him, a mute apology in her eyes in case she'd taken her little demonstration too far.

"Why do you want to find the mageglass? Is it to seek more power for yourself? To be the hero Safrin claims you are not?"

He smiled as the rose settled into place, a burst of color that drew attention to the delicate lines of Maea's face and the new vibrancy of her eyes. It was a moment of peace stolen from the darker places his question had led him, but though he had made many mistakes in his life - indeed, even just in the past year and a half - still he continued to struggle forward, making more, occasionally retreating for a time to lick his wounds, but always coming back in the end, like a moth to a flame. One day the gods would burn him up, but for the moment he yet lived to offer what care he could to his friends - Maea not least among them.

He had known of her telekinesis since the day they had repaired the Guildhalls windows after LongNight's ravages. Since then he had learned a great deal more about Caido's magic, unearthing a journal documenting the known types and stages of each. More, he had watched such things progress in others around him, as new powers manifested and existing ones strengthened. He was surprised but not shocked when the water began to swirl around them, a slow smile spreading over his features at the butterflies she formed. The smile faded as her voice hardened, however, a silver brow arching at her display. He ignored the splash of moisture on his skin; Loren's ice was far more deadly, and his control far more precise than Maea's, and for all her bravado the Launceleyn's body count was much, much higher.

They had only to look at the field around them to see the results of it. Her not-quite-threats and choice of water magic given what had just happened in this very place a mere day before hardened his expression. "I was less myself," he said softly. "The magic that was taken from me, ripped from my soul so that I would better fit this world was as much a part of me as any other. Losing that aspect of me made me... reckless. Destructive. Like a fox gnawing off its own leg to escape a trap." He grew quiet a moment, remembering how he had provoked the Voice, had angered Safrin - and stubbornly refused to back down from either. How he had done the same with Zariah, with Deimos, with Wessex. Not always so foolish, no, but there was a fey wildness in him that had mourned the passage of something so dear to him, and sought to follow in its wake, even as he had assured his friends and family that, no, he didn't miss it, didn't regret being here with them, didn't wish to be whole again. "I appreciate what you're trying to say, Maea, and I know you have also felt the pain of losing a family and a home, but until you have felt something so integral to who you are ripped from you unwillingly, something inside you that you would never have chosen to lose..." He sighed, frustration bleeding away into weariness. "Suffice to say, I hope it's something you never have to understand." He said nothing to the plans of gods, for he patently didn't believe that was the case. Safrin had tried to protect Amalia, he'd seen the light upon her wings that kept the building back. No, Amalia had hesitated over... something. He didn't know what. And that hesitation had cost her dearly. It had nothing to do with gods or grand plans, of that he was certain.

Her questions were sharp as knives, and he tilted his head at her, reappraising this wraith who had come back from the dead. He was beginning to remember more than just the pain of loss, now. Once he had been asking the knife-edge questions, and he tilted his head at her in acknowledgment of this small reprisal. "Curiosity, and concern, to answer your first question. The Launceleyns are a power in Halo and Zariah is back... ah, you missed that," he grimaced apologetically. "Zariah declared herself 'Tyrant' and went by 'the Merciless' and tried to force her will on the Hollowed Grounds. She used her magic as a threat to keep people in line, but eventually she disappeared on a mission for the Voice. Suffice to say, the thought of her gaining mageglass and turning it back on her old vendettas is concerning on a public level and a personal one, since she tried to arrest me, threatened to shut down the Guild to try and get to me when I eluded her, and then threatened Amalia with imprisonment when that didn't work. So part of the purpose of this trip is to find it and study it - find it just what it can do, and also how it can be muted or blocked, if we need to. I doubt we'll be keeping it, though. I made a deal with Warder Neron, in exchange for information on where we might find some, he expects me to bring it back to him. In this, at least, heroics have less to do with it, so much as being prepared to defend ourselves in the future if we need to. And if we don't, then we still learn valuable information to add to the Guild Chronicles." New knowledge always had a place, after all, and if it wasn't useful to them now it might be in the future.

His retort troubled her. The recount of how he'd felt upon losing the magic he'd apparently always had went contrary to what Maea had come to believe. She recalled her own answer to Ludo, when asked if she would give it up, and wondered again if it really would be so simple. Back then she had said yes, and she would answer the same again if asked it now; but to have it taken away without a choice? To reach out for the undercurrent that had always been there, and come up with nothing?

Against her will she shuddered, and was again troubled by how deep the connection to the magic truly ran. Indeed a part of her soul. Intrinsical to her being, her nature.

Chastened by the firm way he refused her poor attempt to suggest he would never truly need the magic to help others if that's truly what he wanted - hadn't he done so before? - she lowered her eyes and listened to the rest without interrupting. The part about the Launceleyns was new indeed, and it shocked her to realize how bad things could have become in the Grounds. The reasoning he gave was sound, far more in line with what she expected from the Loreseekers than she'd feared, and it was a task to which she could devote herself without doubt.

"I understand. If that is indeed the case then I will be happy to help you any way I can. Thank you for offering, it really means a lot."

As for the rest... Maea felt she owed him an explanation for her attitude on the topic of magic.

"I'm... I'm sorry if I went too far. I just... have not come to terms with what I feel about these powers." She looked around for the stone and sank back down on it, looking small and weary in the night. "All my life I've been taught that magic is a bad thing. It brought the Cataclysm upon the world, locked us into the barrier and robbed us of the god's favor. At best it's somewhat practical, at worst it's a danger to the order of this world, and no matter what I do I will never be able to get rid of it.

"But though I never wanted it or asked for it, I'm judged for having it, criticized if I use it by some and if I don't by others. Ludo said to use it modestly, under the eyes of the Old Gods, but I have no idea what that actually means. Do I seek it, try to improve on it, or not? Do I use it only when the gods call me to do so? Is it better to let it rot and die away, or make the best of what I'm born with?

"Even if it's not what Vi intended, according to Rae's design, embraced by Mort's mercy?"

Though her voice was low and soft, there was an undercurrent of tired frustration. How many times had she chewed over the same questions without ever finding an answer? None was likely to come, neither from Jigano nor the gods of Caido, and she had yet to settle on an opinion of her own. All she knew was that the topic frightened her. Her own delight in the small miracles she could create was terrifying, and all the voices throughout her upbringing had always screamed that what she did was wrong.

So how could she love it? Didn't that make her into the same terrifying sinners who had risen against their creators and brought the world to ruin? The same kind of awful as the Voice?

He had not meant to lash out at her the way he had, and he winced at the stab of guilt her chastened silence caused him. She'd struck a nerve in her attempt to help, and didn't deserve the simmering frustration that his magic's return - as a curse, a side-effect, instead of the blessing it had been on his world - had set to swirling in his chest for the past season. Deimos had asked if he thought it was a curse, and he had responded then that it wasn't... and that was true. But it was like a regrown limb on a lizard; it might have a similar function, but it wasn't the same as it had been. And he struggled with trying to do the things he had once mastered, now finding them changed or still absent entirely.

He managed a grateful smile, at least, when she agreed to help, glad that they would be doing something together again - as both friends and Loreseekers. At her apology, though, he simply shook his head. "You didn't," he said reassuringly. "Your questions were good ones and well worth asking. As for my magic... well. You are not the only one who is still coming to terms with what it means to have it returned. Or rather... supplanted? It is not something easy to explain; not the initial loss, and not the recent growth of something new where it used to be." He lapsed back into silence to let her continue, letting her speak her mind and listening as she listed the pros and cons, weights and measures of her power.

She looked lost in the moonlight, but he knew she was stronger than she appeared, and he took time to think about what she had said and asked. "I would say that Outlanders have a different view of it than Naturals... but having been to Halo, I'm not so sure," he said thoughtfully. "They don't seem to have the same bias against it there, so perhaps the Old Gods and the spirits outside the barrier are less concerned with it than the heralds are." He smiled sadly at her, only able to offer a shrug at the rest. "I don't think it will 'die away' even if you avoid using it, but as for the rest? It's a peace only you can define, I think, no matter what you choose." He tilted his head back, looking up at the stars above, the sweep of constellations revealed to them since the barrier had fallen, and exhaled slowly.

"On my world, some magic was innate, like what we have here. Other magic was learned, by those who had the patience to focus intensively on it. And still other magic... the magic I was born with... came from the gods. They could bestow it upon their devout priests and clerics who chose their path, or sometimes people were born with channels to divine and infernal powers, even without a specific god gifting it to them. But it was simply... it was normal. Some people were good sword swingers, or bakers, or smiths. Some people were good at magic or music or alchemy. You chose how to wield that power and which path to pursue with it there. Here... it's still strange to me that it's not viewed as just another tool or talent." He shrugged, offering Maea a wry, sad smile. "I know that doesn't help you here and now. But... it's something to think on, perhaps. Not all gods and not all worlds treat magic as the Heralds and Hollowed Grounds do. Beyond the barrier we might find that the rest of Caido is kinder as well."

Absorbing his words in silence, her expression fell into gentle sadness at what she heard. It was wonderful to hear about a place where magic was more free, but beyond that she lamented the implications that her beloved gods might be more strict than any others out there. If their gifts to Peter and other abandoned were indeed an indication they might be relaxing the attitude of old - if they truly were overlooking the spark and allowing attunement despite it - but... For Jigano, the implications were not quite so benevolent.

"The animal shifts are the gift of gods here" she reminded him. "In that, your place is not much altered - it seems you've been favored twice, over two worlds. I'm afraid your acquiring the spark might lessen that favor though. At least here. It might be that they will never trust you the same again, now that you've been tainted with the magic. For all that you have their favor... you also pose a danger. A risk, just as much as any of us Abandoned. I'm sorry."

She did of course know what he was. Even if it was something he'd never spoken about, and though she had never seen him shift, Maea knew what Isuma was and what it implied about the man the gryphon had bonded to.

Looking down on her hands, on the lily she still held between milky white fingers, she chewed on her lower lip for a while.

"I wish it would die off," she said softly. "If I had the choice between keeping it or attuning... I'd not even hesitate. Even if there are kinder gods, even if the world outside this place both welcome the magic and embrace it... I'd much rather be accepted by the gods I love."

Looking up, she sought Jigano's gaze, guided by the shimmering of stars and soft glow of Ludo's lantern.  For a moment, his eyes seemed to glow cat-bright and eerie in the faint light; then she blinked and the sheen was gone. Had it been her imagination?

"But... well. If you're happy to have your powers back, then I'm glad for you. Don't let my views keep you from enjoying them. I'm a year behind all the changes that's happened here... it's still hard for me to grasp that the barrier is even gone." A slight attempt at a smile came out shaky and uncertain.

"I would perhaps feel more favored if a god had ever chosen to claim me," he said with a wry smile. "Instead of it being a vagary of the Voice's machine." But he said it lightly, for it had been enough to simply retain at least some aspect of his heritage in his fox's form. "And I'd already lost Safrin's favor, even before this silent song of magic in my soul. Ludo didn't seem to mind what had become of me when last I delivered LongNight's lost souls to it, though, so I don't think it makes much difference in that matter. There's no need to be sorry on my behalf." He paused, tilting his head thoughtfully. "Besides, the Old Gods clearly don't mind utilizing mages, or at least, those who are both mage and Attuned, in their service, no matter what Safrin or the heralds might think." He had proof of that in one of his many pockets, round and smooth and cool to the touch.

He had become so used to people knowing that he was Attuned that he hadn't even thought about hiding it from Maea now, when once he had put so much effort into it. Too much had happened, too many secrets spilled or spent in the process of helping others for him to ever go back, and he was in truth happier for it, though he still hid the shifting itself whenever possible; a lingering hangup from his old world.

It was his turn to listen, then, sad that Maea should hate such an integral part of herself. Given the biases of the world she had grown up in, however, he couldn't blame her. "A strange lament for the young woman who danced with Ludo and bears its rags," he said gently, reaching out to brush her shoulder with a gentle hand and reclaim her pale gaze. "You are more accepted, I think, than even most Attuned. How many others can claim such visible favor?" He smiled as she looked up at him and offered her happiness. He bowed his head in acceptance, then looked up again, gaze more searching.

"Is there someone or something specific you wish to know about?" he asked, smile turning a little wry. "You have a Loreseeker before you who would be happy to answer any questions you might have about the recent history of the Hollowed Grounds and Greatwood." It was what he was there for, after all. What all of them in the Guild were there for; to answer questions and help whoever needed it.

"There is another thing I've yet to fully come to terms with," she said with a little smile, on the subject of the Herald. "There are still times when I wonder if it wasn't a dream, after all. Seeing gods, speaking to them, earning their gifts... I keep thinking it'll end soon, that it was only a fluke and I'll never meet them again." It's why she never let go of the shawl. Even when she slept, she kept it folded beneath her head, terrified that it might disappear and leave her without this one solid, undeniable proof of what had happened. Her clear sight should really be enough to do that, but... in the end, the rags were more tangible. And she loved it, no matter that it was a tattered and worn looking garment, made of a material she couldn't quite place.

Perhaps it was about time she started to reconsider what it actually meant to be what she was. The term Abandoned... might not be what applied anymore. Acquired her kind had once been called, and it hovered at the back of her mind like a beacon of hope. A suggestion that all might not be as desperately bleak as it once had seemed. Maea was behind the times, now. A year after everyone in terms of development, openminded thinking and new ideas; there was no way she could catch up on that in one evening, but this was indeed a good place to start.

But as Jigano offered her the chance to ask any question, she actually laughed again, some of the dolor lifting from her spirit.

"Be careful what you offer, Provost, or I might have you stand here and speak for the rest of the night," she teased. "Perhaps I'll ask you to explain the blight for me then? And how you found the portals. Also, why did Zariah want you arrested? Then again, I've been very curious about the migration patterns of the Luxere, could you perhaps enlighten me on that as well? Oh, and what about the Fae, and the Greatwood, have you found a way to get through it yet? Is there a map to look at?"

Pale eyes glittered with laughter in the night as she kept listing questions, big and small, heaping them up in a tottering pile for the guildmaster to pick apart at his leisure.

Jigano nodded slowly at what she meant, not so hardened after only a year and a half to the miracles that were comparatively common on Caido as to take them for granted. "The gods... each can be fickle, in their own ways," he agreed. "You never know who will answer, and whether they will be happy to see you... even if they seemed to like you before." His first meeting with Safrin had gone well, after all. And yet, the second time he'd seen the goddess she had been as cold and distant as the moon, and just as pitiless. Why she hated him so much more than any other he didn't know, but he was afraid anything he did to try and mend that bridge would only make things worse. Gods did not seem particularly... flexible, in their thinking. That's what they had mortals for.

He smiled, expression lightening at his friend's laughter, and the sight of her in the moonlight with a yellow rose in her hair and a lily in her hands. She was spring's wayward daughter, come home a bit late but home at last - and that's what mattered most. "In reverse chronological order, then?" he teased gently. "Very well. The blight was an unnatural sickness that sprung up in the Greatwood shortly after the barrier fell and we began to explore there. It started with plants, turning them black and twisted, killing and changing them and wounding the Wood itself. Next it began to affect animals, changing them as well, blackening their blood and spit, making them aggressive, vicious, and cruel... and then it began to do the same to Fae and humans, too. Anyone who wasn't Ascended could be affected. The old gods said only that they had never seen such a disease before, but warned that at the rate it was spreading the Greatwood would be dead and gone within a year. The Voice... was notably silent, though her Ascended vociferously defended her and insisted she had nothing to do with it. At first." He grew silent for a moment, a flicker of pain passing over his expression as he remembered his argument with Sam and the first real cracks that had begin to show in their friendship. "Myself and many others were... infected with it. By the time the snows began to fall we were... little more than rabid animals. I have few memories of that time... a blessing, in some cases, I think. It had been a slow descent to that point, but a... a painful one, given how our - my - temper too-often got the better of me, and I was drawn into lashing out at those who I held most dear. We were cold all the time, and the world seemed to lack color, joy... anything good. All that mattered was tearing it down and making others hurt the way I - we - did." He grew silent a moment, lost in the bleak memory of that nightmarish time. When he raised his head again his eyes were a little more distant, a little harder, though it was not directed at Maea.

"As it turns out, it was the Voice who had caused the Blight. She claimed it was an accident, but she did nothing to fix the problem. Since her Ascended were immune, perhaps she hoped that the disease would drive those desperate to avoid it into her shrines to be turned." He turned his head to look out towards the Greatwood, closing his eyes and tilting his head to catch a warming breeze that promised summer's return as it momentarily blew fresh, clean air over them and ruffled their pale hair. "Or perhaps she hoped that it would remove the Fae as a barrier to her children. Either way, it was the Ascended who had spread the plague unknowingly as they tromped through the Fae's woods. And it was Vi and Rae who created a cure. Special roses that grew in the middle of Deepfrost, with crimson petals and golden thorns. When they pricked the Blighted we regained a measure of awareness again... for a time. But it was Arduinna, a Wild Fae of great power, who in the end sacrificed herself to end the blight. The Roses drew the blight from the land and people, and Arduinna gathered it into herself. Now she kneels forever in a shrine in the Wildwood, a blackened statue containing the darkness, a guardian against its return."

He bowed his head in her memory, grateful beyond words for what she'd done, and when he looked at Maea again there was a crooked smile upon his face. "Someone among the Ascended - my guess is Sam, though it could have been another - tried to put up an anonymous letter on the Notice Board a little while ago, claiming that the Voice had fixed the Blight. It's a nice little piece of revisionist history, but those who lived through it know the truth. Now... portals next? Or Zariah?" he asked, a slightly teasing note to his voice though he looked happy to continue. No one would ever accuse him of not appreciating the sound of his own voice!

It had been a joke, really. The way she threw topics at him like so many memory-snowballs. She'd expected him to duck, avoid the effort involved, or perhaps pick one and let her explore the rest on her own. But it seemed she'd underestimated the bard in him, who loved spinning a good yarn. All the more outrageous because it was true.

No wonder he was master over the fastest growing guild in the Grounds.

Maea sat stunned, listening to the flood of words that began to pour from him. At one point she was tempted to hold up a hand, interrupt and just force the man to actually breathe a second... but seeing the sheer delight on his face she stopped herself and just listened. As always these past days it was a lot to take in and consider, but her provost left few holes to the story and her concerns were mainly about his own health. Not a very urgent matter, as he'd clearly been cured of the condition by now, and she saved it for another day. Some gloomy Leafchange eve by the fire, perhaps, when tales of woe would be appreciated.

"I... have not been to the Temple yet," she admitted, a bit weakly in the aftermath of the monologue. "But... it seems like a thing he might do. What about the other Ascended, how do they view this... accident?

Shrugging a little, she was tempted to ask for the Luxere migration patterns just to see if he could tell her anything about it, but thought better of it. If not careful, she might find herself assigned to the task of studying them to answer that very question herself...

"Hm, the Fae. As you don't seem to mind." It was hard not to laugh, the sheer enjoyment he radiated was quite infectuous.

Put a quarter in the bard, and you had to listen to the whole song. Maea might have been joking, but Jigano took his role as historian seriously and enjoyed being able to practice it in place of fighting rogue demigods or burying the dead. The subject matter was personally difficult to relive in his memories as he relayed it to his friend, but it was also worth knowing, and a key to understanding how the public opinion of Ascended had shifted since Maea had been spirited away.

He realized too late that he had overwhelmed her. She was but newly returned, and he had overdone his attempt to help. He winced contritely at the weakness in her voice, but it seemed it was a momentary thing as she girded her mental loins and dove back in with more questions. The first he could only shrug at, a thoughtful frown marring his features. "I haven't spoken to all of them about it. Those I have... seem to be defensive of her. Playing up the 'it was an accident' part and glossing over that she did nothing to stop its spread, or that the old gods had to clean up her mess. I was told that it wasn't that important because no one had died from it..." His frown became a grimace and he shook his head. "Again, ignoring Arduinna's sacrifice and handwaving the damage to minds and souls it caused even in those that survived. Even in those I consider mostly kindly among the Ascended there was a... a callousness to it all." It was clear that it troubled him, and he drew a calming breath before looking at her again, finding a crooked smile for her next question.

"The Fae are not happy to have neighbors again," he said dryly, using tone and an arched brow to indicate it was an understatement. "The first expedition into their Woods was largely kidnapped and tossed into a Pit they have in their Village. Amalia bonded to a starwhale calf, saving its life, and earning the... well. The tolerance of the Fae, I suppose I'd call it. They agreed to give us free range of the Wildwood so long as humans stayed out of their Village, but then the Ascended and the blight happened and we were banned from their territory for a while." Understandably so, his brief pause seemed to say. "In Leafchange, though, there was a... a call that went out, from a rare and special being that lives in a place called the Crimson Cataract. She had been struck with the blight and was dying of it. A number of us went to try and help her, in spite of the ban, and against all odds we succeeded. Because of that the Fae returned the freedom of the Wood to all non-Ascended. Their leader, Delah, is a woman of little patience and a great deal of mistrust, so this was a great concession from them." He tilted his head, thinking back on all that had happened, and sighed as he considered what came next.

"Within the Greatwood there is a tree known as the 'Mathair.' It is massive, ancient, and it housed a spirit... a lesser goddess, or something like one, if I understand it correctly. It is a sacred place to the Fae. A place of power." He frowned again, a brooding expression overcoming his features as he remembered what the Fae guards had told him of that night. "The Ascended, some group of them including Wessex and Sam, at least, snuck into Greatwood one night in Deepfrost and attacked the Mathair. When Fae came to defend it, they attacked the tree's guardians as well. Between them and the Voice the guards were all slain, as was the spirit of the tree... and one of the Voice's portals was opened in its place." Jigano sighed as he looked down at the lantern, as if trying to see the souls that might bob within it. "Given that Wessex was Queen of the Hollowed Grounds at the time this was basically seen as an act of war. Delah once again closed the borders to all Grounders for as long as Wessex remained Queen. Wessex retaliated by forbidding any from the Greatwood from coming here. LongNight came soon after so travel wasn't high on anyone's list, but a little while ago Wessex agreed to hold a vote for whether or not we wanted her to remain Queen." He snorted softly at the memory, tilting a glance to Maea with a ghost of a wry smile. "It was a circus, just like Zariah's town meetings, and to be honest the total tally was too close for my comfort, but in the end Wessex was voted out. And so, for the moment, the borders are once again open - for non-Ascended. Some of the younger Fae are curious and eager to see new sights beyond their Woods, and one of them even joined the Guild... right before... all of this," he finished softly, gaze sweeping the fields where so many had recently fallen.

He replied, and she listened closely to the bard's opinions. No doubt his views were colored by bias - the lantern in his hand was proof if ever she needed one of which side he'd placed himself on in this conflict - but she knew he tried to keep the information from being too colored in anyones favor. Still, the picture he painted was a bleak one, of strife and conflict and warring ideals. The story of the Mathair made her sad, thinking that such an ancient creature - being? - had deserved far better than to be murdered and have its corpse used as gateway.

"What of the Fae themselves, she asked. "Are they like us, or... not so human? Do they all have wings or is that only a few?" She recalled seeing a pair of dragonfly wings in the midst of a shocked Fiat Lux crowd, a Flowerbirth hence, but wasn't sure if that was the norm or a fantastic kind of mutation.

Still, Maea was glad to hear that the borders to the forest were tentatively open again. It meant she would not be barred from exploring it herself. The hesitation to step beyond the barrier she once felt had been quite abruptly ignored when she was plucked out of her home and plunged into Halo. Her world had expanded enormously, and now it only seemed a foolish notion to not head out into it, and discover what she could. Who knew, maybe she'd find more things to care about there than this silver-haired man and his guild. Not that she craved it, but... there was always that feeling of being set adrift, of having her roots ripped up and thrown down some raging river.

Given the shawl that Maea wore, some might assume a similar bias from her. Jigano's lantern had been a request on his part, begged for specifically, not a freely-given gift as the shawl was. No other, in his experience, had received the open affection and favor of the masked god. No Abandoned had received anything even close to it from any god, excepting Rexanna and the Voice. But there was no way to be truly unbiased, not for long on Caido, and Jigano tried to keep his histories simple while not hiding his allegiance. He had been Attuned before he'd been Abandoned, even if it had been without his consent, and the more he had learned the more he was convinced that even if the old gods weren't necessarily friends of humanity, the Voice wasn't the martyr the Ascended claimed her to be, either.

He'd given her the history of the Fae, but hadn't realized that she'd meant a far simpler question, and he blinked as he remembered that the only Fae she might have met before her illness would have been Eliza. "Ah, forgive me, I got ahead of myself," he apologized ruefully. He rose to give her a bow, then offered a hand to help her to her feet. "Walk with me while we talk? We can head back towards the guild and a warm fire before the night gets too chill." He could come back and sing again the next night, though he rather thought that Ludo had already claimed most of the souls of those fallen here. With Frey and Safrin being involved, the soul guide couldn't be ignorant of what had happened.

"The Fae are shorter then I am by far - shorter than you, for the most part, though most I've met are only smaller by a bit. Aside from their size they're human-ish, but every Fae I've met has wings. Dragonfly or butterfly or moth or insect. They can blend into the Greatwood such that they might have invisibility magic... I've seen them use earth and healing magics, and Delah, at least, can partially shift herself into a panther. And, yes, they experience LongNight as a week of darkness but, no, there are no monsters there. Those seem to be only within the Hollowed Grounds... Ascended of the past that the Voice has abandoned," he finished on a darker note, eyes hardening as he remembered the one Kiada and he had spoken to the previous LongNight.

"Of course. Unless you want to finish up here first? I can wait."

Maea readily accepted his hand and stood. Though she did not feel any chill, the damp of the evening was getting to her all the same and a roof over her head would be welcome. She was a touch disappointed that she would not be able to hear him sing that haunting song again tonight, but did not request it of him, unsure if it would be proper.

Besides, there was much else to talk about. Her interest was always keen whenever he realted the events and stories of the past year, but it perked up all the more when he described the Fae. They'd been no more than stories to her, childrens tales so warped and twisted that the things Jigano talked about seemed positively normal in comparison.

"It sounds wonderful, to have wings," she said, a little wistful at the thought. "To be able to fly wherever you want, take off into the sky and not come down again..." She thought of Adam's shift, the little blackbird that had swooped in to greet her the moment she stepped out of the portal. She wondered too what secrets Peter might have gained... she couldn't quite recall if he'd mentioned what gifts Safrin had bestowed on him.

"I'd take flying over the portals any day. I was not too fond of the experience... the space between there and here was... strange." Falling in beside Jigano, she kept his pace as they walked off towards the Settlement and the guildhall.