Flames of Shadow and Sky

Yang walked into town and up to the apothecary. An older woman looked up from her station behind the main counter, her cat ears twitching. “Oh, good morning. What can I do for you?” “Good morning, Kali. There’s someone at the Illuminator’s home in desperate need of healing and a checkup. I don’t know her story beyond she was a pegasus knight, cast out for some reason. She’s asleep right now, but she’ll need a checkup soon. Her and her pegasus are so skinny. You should’ve seen the threadbare clothes and awful boots she came into the Sanctuary of Second Blessings with.” Normally she wouldn’t spread information about anybody, but in this case, Pyrrha desperately needed someone to check up on her. “She’s probably going to need a lot of tinctures to help aide in her recovery.” Kali frowned. “Oh dearie me. That doesn’t sound good…” “It’s really not. This poor woman has been through the Void of Oblivion. Like I said, I don’t know her full story, but she really, really needs a checkup, tinctures, and stuff to aide in her recovery.” Kali nodded. “I’ll send Blake up there in a couple of hours. You said she was asleep? Hopefully a few hours will be enough to give her some recovery time.” Yang nodded. “Yeah, she has basically no energy with how weak she is. I’m taking care of Lumesong, one of our pyrelarks, for her until Pyrrha can really learn what Lumesong needs in order to be cared for.” Kali blinked. “One of your pyrelarks wanted to befriend her?” Yang nodded. “She said that Vareya herself sent her a message to stay with Pyrrha.” She frowned. “Wasn’t there a field of sunfruit here at one time? I think I remember Arjun having a ton of auroraswifts back when I was a kid… It’s why your house is so tall, right?” The house was one of the tallest in all of Hazelmere. Arjuna had died about a decade ago which was unfortunate. The man had brought a lot of joy to the people of Hazelmere. He was touched by Rhyza the Dawnbringer and loved to make the kids smile by giving them auroraswift feathers and giving out sunfruit.  Kali nodded. “There was a sunfruit field here years ago. We still have Solaris Blooms, though, so we can get Nectar of Dawn. Granted, they haven’t grown in quite yet, but they should be popping up in a month or so. Your pyrelarks do enjoy some Nectar of Dawn, right?” Yang nodded. “Yeah, they definitely do. It’s more of a treat for them than a major part of their diet like it is for the auroraswifts. Honestly, we could always use more sunfruit, but I didn’t see it growing when I came up…” Kali sighed. “After Arjun died, we let the field go because we weren’t keeping auroraswifts. I’ll have Blake clear the field of briers with her magic once she’s more free. It might take a couple days, though. You do have plenty at the Sanctum, though, right?” Yang nodded. “It won’t be hard for me to go to and from the Illuminator’s home to the Sanctum, but it’s still a bit annoying. Your place is closer than the Sanctum is…and it’ll take time for all of the sunfruit to grow. They’re pretty hardy, but yeah…” “Oh, they’ll still be beneath the soil and should start popping up as soon as the briers are removed. I’ll also have her plant some Solaris Blooms in the fields as well. We have some seeds that should take root pretty readily.” Yang smiled. “Thanks. I’ll definitely appreciate it.” Kali returned the smile. “It’s no trouble. I’ll send Blake over in a few hours.” “All right. I’ll see her then.” Yang left the apothecary and headed back to the Illuminator’s house, then put her horse back up. Honestly, she wasn’t sure what to do with herself now… She had days filled with duties, but she had been released from said duties so she could help make sure Lumesong was cared for. There were plenty of people at the Sanctum, so losing one Flamekeeper wasn’t really a big deal in the end. Not many people knew how to properly care for pyrelarks. They were sacred birds to Vareya, but they were generally only kept at Sanctums, either mixed ones or ones dedicated to Vareya. They weren’t like zephyrwing doves where they were easy to keep and feed. Pyrelarks had very specific care requirements that were hard for the everyday person to meet. Same with auroraswifts. She sighed and went back to her room, laying on the bed. She wasn’t used to having literally nothing to do. This was really not a great fit for her, but she needed to remind Pyrrha of how to take care of Lumesong. The lack of food was probably messing with the poor woman’s brain. She could only imagine being without food for however long really impacted somebody’s memory. It made the body weak, so why wouldn’t it make the mind weak as well? It only made sense to her. Everything would be impacted by the lack of nutrients… Maybe there was something she could do. She got up and started poking around the house. It seemed well cared for which only made sense since it was the Illuminator's house. Even if nobody lived here, there was no reason to allow the home to fall into disrepair. It could be used at a moment’s notice. There were several servants that no doubt were paid to keep it up even if nobody lived here. She really just had no idea what she could do… Not doing anything didn’t sit well with her. She just needed to keep busy. She’d kept busy since she was a child. She had all sorts of duties to take care of at the Sanctum from her youngest years… She’d never not had something to keep her hands busy. On the fourth floor, she blinked when she saw a room full of various different types of crafting pieces. There were several different types of looms, all packed tightly into the room. She started to move them and saw that one was for weaving sacred sashes. Apparently someone that had prior inhabited this building had been a weaver… Yang had done plenty of weaving like that in her time, so she could definitely take it up. The loom looked to be in decent shape, despite being here for only Vareya knew how long. She would have to replace the warp threads, though, as they had rotted. The loom itself was in really good shape, though. She could definitely put this to use… She hadn’t woven in quite a long time, but it would help keep her busy and she could do something good for the Sanctum as well. She would have to return to the Sanctum to get new warp threads which, fine. She hadn’t thought she’d need to return quite so soon, but she really needed things to help occupy her time. She would also need thread that she could weave with. The Sanctum always had an excess of cloth and thread saved up for stuff like this. She had no doubt she could weave sacred sashes and help keep them supplied. She could weave them for the children which there always seemed to be a shortage of due to how kids got things messy and could often ruin them.  She tracked down a servant and told them what she needed and where her room was, then went back out to the barn. She saddled up her horse again and returned to the Sanctum. She got the warp threads and the supplies she needed, then headed back to the Illuminator’s house. Thankfully, the loom had been taken down to her room by time she returned which was much welcome. She reworked the warp threads then sat down, starting to weave the sashes. It’d take her a little while to get the hang of things again, but she was certain she would in due time… 

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Blake shook her head and sighed after her mother told her what was needed of her. “But Mother, I’m the one that’s supposed to take over the apothecary shop when you and Father die. We all have our roles, of course, but spending time up at the Illuminator's house? That’ll eat up time I can be at the shop.” “Caring for people is the core of what we do, Blake; you of all of our children should know that. The shop is important, yes, but so is caring for people. We’re the main ones in town that’ll be taking care of people as they age. From the sound of it, Pyrrha will be here for quite a while along with Weiss. I don’t think Weiss needs any care, but Pyrrha needs quite a bit from the sound of it. We make house calls. Your siblings can man the shop while you go away for an hour or two.” Blake nodded and sighed, her ears dropping. “All right…” She really didn’t want to leave the shop. It would be far from unattended especially since her parents were nowhere near retirement age, but still. She didn’t like being taken away from the shop too much. She just really enjoyed dealing with the customers. She was the eldest of the family and it fell on her to take care of the customers. Pyrrha would definitely be a customer since it sounded like she needed some serious medical care, but still… She just wasn’t used to making house calls yet. Her parents were the ones that generally did that, not her. But she supposed she would need to learn eventually… And it wasn’t like she’d be away from the shop forever. She still did need to go out and gather herbs since Shae and Selma weren’t old enough to be trusted with that yet. They had Sterling, their Herbwhisper, but even so… They were only eight and ten and not old enough to be able to handle going out and gathering the correct herbs in the wild. She would see what all Pyrrha needed in terms of a physical. She wasn’t sure what tonics and tinctures she’d need until she met with Pyrrha. All she knew was that Pyrrha was a disgraced pegasus knight and that she’d been wandering for quite a while. She was skinny as was her pegasus. That was all that Blake knew. Though…Kali did say to go after a few hours. She still had time. Maybe she could bring some tinctures based off of that… She wasn’t entirely certain what she would need, though. She knew that being denied food and water could effect memory, so maybe some lucidroot tonic would do some good and if she hadn’t eaten enough for quite a long time, she would have trouble eating… Syrup for the Hungering Bloom might do her good too… Blake just wanted to be certain that Pyrrha could heal. She gathered a few more elixirs and tinctures and gently set the vials in her bag before going downstairs again. “You said something about clearing the briers?” she asked her mother. Kali nodded. “Yang said that she wanted some sunfruit for the Sanctum as well as some Solaris Blooms. We do have Solaris Blooms still, but having more would be extremely useful for the pyrelarks and the auroraswifts.”  Blake sighed. “I miss Grandfather.” Arjun had kept all sorts of auroraswifts while she’d been growing up, but he’d had to give them up after he’d gotten too old and painful to climb the stairs up to the top level of the house. Their place was seven stories tall which really allowed the auroraswifts to see the sun as soon as it came up. Of course, taller would be better, but that was the safest height the house could be at. She really missed seeing the auroraswifts tilt and tumble in the air, dancing as they joyfully sang their greeting to the dawn. It was something she’d taken for granted, but now, she missed it deeply. “I know, honey… He was a good man.” Kali smiled. “He’ll see you again in the Twilight Veil.” Blake nodded, her ears drooping over. “I know, but it’s still hard…” Auroraswifts were such joyful birds. She really wanted to be able to see them on the daily again, but she would have to go to the Sanctum for that. Anybody was allowed into the Sanctum on any business, but it still stung that she’d have to make the half hour journey up there if she wanted to see the birds. She just… Ugh. She knew how to care for auroraswifts, but they preferred to be kept at least in pairs as they were high social, communal flock birds. Arjun had had a small flock of them upstairs, but the joyful songs had been quiet for a decade at this point… Plus, she was no follower of Rhyza, so she saw no reason to ask to have a pair or two of the birds. They would be treated well here, but even so…best to just leave them with their flock. “Anyway, I’ll go deal with the briers, then check on Pyrrha.” “Thank you, honey.” “It’s going to be a weeks-long thing, though… I’ll have to pick them all by hand.” “Honey…you’re a Plantshaper, or did you forget?” Blake’s cheeks heated up. “I’m used to using my abilities for growing plants, not killing them!” She was trying, but sometimes, she did legitimately forget that she was a Plantshaper. She had been trained at the Sanctum to use her magic, of course, but still… She’d been left on her own for a few years now, and really just used her magic to grow plants for their apothecary rather than kill anything. The briers would be very useful for different types of tonics and elixirs… She wouldn’t let anything go to waste. “I guess I can work on it for a bit before going to talk to Pyrrha.” “All right. Be careful.” Kali kissed Blake’s head and Blake went out to their back fields which were just full of briers and all sorts of other wild-growing plants. She doubted anything would go to waste, though, as a lot of things people thought were weeds had medicinal uses. So she set about clearing part of the field where she could feel the sunfruit already starting to push up, now that the briers and other more intense plants were growing. Sunfruit were incredibly hardy plants that could and would lay dormant until they were allowed to grow again. She had no doubt that this field would be springing with sunfruit by time summer hit. She would be glad to see the sunfruit again and smell the sweet scent of their blossoms. She would pick some blossoms but they needed them to grow into fruit, so she couldn’t pick too many… They stayed for weeks even in a vase and gave off the most beautiful scent. But with all the plants pulled and sorted, she headed off to the Illuminator’s house with her bag slung over her shoulder. It would be faster to go on horseback, of course, but it was a nice day (at least as nice as it could be in Heshval), so she saw no reason to hurry. From the sound of it, that young woman was in dire straits, but she was resting. There was really no need to hurry. There was plenty of time left in the day, though she would feel bad if she woke the young woman up… There was really no winning here unfortunately. She made her way to the Illuminator’s house and knocked on the door. A servant answered. “Oh, good afternoon, Blake… I didn’t know you were visiting.” “I’m here to check on the Illuminator’s companion. The young ex-pegasus knight.” “Oh, her.” The woman clearly wasn’t impressed. “Well, her room is this way.” The woman led the way and then motioned to a door. She then bowed and left Blake to her own devices. Blake hesitated before knocking on the door softly. She really didn’t want to startle Pyrrha if she were asleep, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. Thankfully, the door cracked a moment later and a green eye met her. “Who are you?” Pyrrha’s voice was quiet and cracked from disuse. Blake’s heart dropped. Oh, no wonder Yang had been so concerned… Even from here, it was obvious that Pyrrha’s eyes were sunken in and her face gaunt. Yeesh, she definitely needed some major help… Blake was going to have to be the one to help her too… This wasn’t going to be great…  “I’m Blake Belladonna, one of the local apothecaries. Yang came down to the shop and asked me to look at you.” There was a pause of several moments. “Yang?” “The Flamekeeper of Vareya?” “Oh, her… I guess I do need some checkup…” The door opened and Pyrrha stood there, obviously very awkward.  Blake came into the room and closed the door behind her, then had Pyrrha sit down. She gave her as thorough a checkup as she possibly could and asked a ton of questions about what was ailing Pyrrha. Pyrrha said mainly her memory was causing her issues and she couldn’t eat very much. She said that her energy was also a problem due to the lack of nutrition over the past several months. Blake prescribed her some lucidroot tonic, Syrup for the Hungering Bloom, and Elixir of Emberwake. “There, those should help counteract the worst of your symptoms. I’ll be here to check on you once a day, okay?” Pyrrha nodded. “Okay.”  Blake smiled at her, and then left.

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Pyrrha watched as the apothecary left. So she had three tonics to take daily, at least for right now. It was going to take her time to regain her strength and stamina, but these would help bolster her. The Syrup for the Hungering Bloom would definitely be welcome because she was really hungry. She couldn’t keep much down right now or take much since she had been bereft of consistent food for such a long time. She was looking forward to rebuilding herself…though she really didn’t know what to do with herself. She was in an environment that was safe now, so she really wanted something to do with her time… She just…didn’t know what to do. And she had to limit herself simply because she wasn’t very strong right now. It was beyond frustrating, but what else could she do? She would definitely feel better after the Elixir of Emberwake, but it still wouldn’t be safe to do anything that was intense in physical activity. She took the Syrup for the Hungering Bloom and the Elixir of Emberwake which…didn’t make her feel any different. She had used the Elixir of Emberwake while in the pegasus knight field and it worked, but it took a bit of time. It’d been so long since she’d used it that she really couldn’t remember how long it took to function. She hoped it would be sooner rather than later, though. She really just wanted to feel like herself again… She was trying, but she’d only been here less than a day. She wasn’t going to start feeling at her prime until she could start taking in food again consistently and she’d need to take the Syrup for the Hungering Bloom with her meals to allow her to eat without her body being overwhelmed. She wasn’t really certain what she should do with herself. She couldn’t do a lot due to her majorly depleted energy and such… She really just wanted to sleep even though she hadn’t been awake for that long. She just… She had no idea how to handle this. She should’ve died a long time ago. It was only Nendia’s knowledge of the winter foragables that had kept her alive as long as she’d been. Maybe she ought to at least explore the house… She got up off her bed and went over to the little bird—Lumesong, if she remembered correctly. Blake had told her to start the lucidroot tonic tomorrow to be on a normal timetable with it, rather than taking it at odd times one day, then starting a normal schedule the next day. She hoped she would remember… She wondered if there was paper anywhere. She let the bird hop onto her shoulder, then she dug through the various drawers. She found some paper and a pen, so she scribbled down her regimen and placed it on her nightstand. That would hopefully help her remember to take it. It wasn’t like there was a way to set an alarm to tell her to take things at all… That would be wonderful and easy, but no, she had to try to remember on her own. She left the room and started wandering around a bit. She just…had no idea what to do with herself now. She hadn’t expected to ever be in a place where she wouldn’t have her training and daily rites to perform. Granted, she didn’t want to do her daily rites to Heshia now. The deity had betrayed her despite her years of loyal service. Anger bubbled in her heart and she couldn’t put it down. She hated Heshia now. Why would Heshia betray one of their children? She’d done everything right, but Heshia remained silent despite the botched and rigged trial she’d been put up to. It was then that she saw the blonde woman approaching. “Oh, Pyrrha, you’re up?” she asked. “Um, what was your name again?” “Yang.” “Right.” “What do you need?” “Um… Something to do. I…don’t really know what to do with myself.” It was hard to admit, but she did. She really just had no way to know what to do with herself. She was used to having life dictated to her at all hours of the day even while out on the road. She had shifts of things to do and knew when to do them. She hadn’t had true free time since she was a child…and she’d been about seven when her parents had shoved her off to the Sisterhood. She didn’t remember her family much at all other than she wasn’t wanted. She could probably have tried to return to them, but she doubted they would’ve taken her in… She had no lands to inherit or anything like that. She was the youngest and simply a liability to her family. “Yeah, I’m trying to figure that out myself. I found a room that has a ton of different types of wefts. Have you ever woven before? I found one for sacred sashes… Where fire lies unkindled, the spark withers in silence and all, y’know?” Basically, idle people could easily make them turn to bad temptations. She wasn’t the most familiar with the saying, but she’d heard it enough times that she knew what it meant. Considering Yang was a Vareya adherent, it only made sense that she’d use that version of the saying… “No, I’ve never woven before… And I don’t want to make sacred sashes.” “That’s fine. Still, the skill could be a good one to pick up. There are, like, a dozen different looms in there. I can’t recognise all of them, so I might bring someone more specialised in weaving here to see if they can help me identify what all of them are for. It is a very physical task, weaving, but it’s very satisfying to have a product you made with your own hands. Granted, you’re gonna suck at first, but you’ll get better over time, and you can give the products out to people or even sell them.” Yang smiled. “Sound good?” “I guess…” She really wasn’t sure about any of this. She wasn’t used to having free time. Now that she did…she just really didn’t know what to do with herself. She was really trying to adapt, but it was going to be hard. She really just wanted to sleep until she recovered, but there was no real point in that in her mind… She wouldn’t recover until she started doing things and getting back on her feet. She really needed help, but help for the mind didn’t really exist. It was a weird thing to think about, somebody being able to help the mind like they could the soul or body… How could one help something that was as intangible as the mind? Yang clapped her hands together. “All right then! I’d say you could go up the loom room, but yeah, I don’t know what else all is in there. I know somebody in town that would know better. For right now, why don’t you go read or something? There is a library here.” Pyrrha nodded and found the library on the second floor. She looked through the books and found something that interested her. A story of an adventurer that discovered a new path of magic. She wasn’t usually one much for books like this as they were so silly and frivolous, but something lighthearted sounded like it was up her alley right now.  She actually found the book pretty engaging, though she was having a hard time focusing on it due to her low energy. It was a fun romp full of idealised adventure with none of the downsides that came with real travel. After having been in the Sisterhood, then cast out, it was kind of nice to see something silly and unrealistic. Travel was actually quite hard and had a lot of logistics behind it… Whoever had written this book either chose to ignore the real-world logistics of traveling or simply didn’t understand how they worked. Granted, solo travel was also quite different from traveling with a band of sisters like she had done most of the time while out on patrols. She really hated how difficult solo travel was if one was woefully unprepared for it… She really wished she had died during the winter so she didn’t have to deal with the fallout now. She heard soft footsteps approaching and she tensed, only to see Yang poke her head out from behind a bookcase. “Hey Pyrrha, I found someone that can help identify the looms. Wanna come?” “Sure, I guess.” She reluctantly put the book down, carefully marking her spot in it. She followed Yang to a room that was jam packed full of different types of looms. It was honestly intense to see how many different types there could be. Some were small, some were large. Some took up a lot of space, some would fit easily on a tabletop. She really had no idea what any of these were and what they’d be used for. Most were big, though, and would require quite some strength to get out of the door. Pyrrha might be able to lift one of the tabletop ones, but she definitely couldn’t lift any of the larger ones. She had so little strength left in her. Even going up the stairs was enough to make her feel exhausted. “So, there are some neat ones that people would probably appreciate as a product. The starlight rune runner is an easy one to start with, though the phoenix feather is also pretty neat. Ever seen either of those?” Pyrrha shook her head. “Those sound like decorative types of things… I lived in a barracks and was often on the road; no time or space for anything like that.” She was rotated to other barracks depending on where she’d been in the northern capital city. There were numerous garrisons across the city that the sisters rotated between and could be assigned to. She had never really had any chance to personalise anything. She had had her own room as a very young girl, but nothing once she’d been inducted into the Sisterhood. “Ah, I see… Well, how about we get these looms set up in your room and you can try them?” Pyrrha nodded a bit. “O-Okay…” She really knew she needed something to do with her time and this would definitely give her what she needed. It would be nice to have something to put her time into. She hated not having anything to do… It was so hard. They got the looms out and headed down to Pyrrha’s room where they sat them up.