Excerpt from Sivilyi’s ‘The Winged Sage’s Proverbs.’

“A village to hatch an egg, a feather to set it free.”

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By the time Mysilia returned with an alternate route, Yenna had found someone willing to talk about Tirk’s past.

The captain was too busy—even with Mysilia back, she was still deep in conversation with her mother. Muut had been free, but hadn’t had much to say.

“Speak to Hirihiri. You’ll not hear it better from anyone else.” The gruff yolm looked up from his map and down at Tirk, before leaning in to whisper to Yenna. “And, you’ll not hear it with the boy in tow.”

“What’s that supposed to mean…?” Yenna’s question trailed off as Muut simply shook his head and walked away. The next puzzle was getting to Hirihiri without Tirk—a problem that solved itself rather handily.

“Young Tirk of Yvild, would you like to ride in the carriage with me?” Suee leaned down, a soft smile on her lips. Tirk nodded emphatically, took the woman’s gloved hand and joined her in the luxury of the enclosed cabin. Still, Yenna felt like that had gone too smoothly—just what was Suee up to? What did she know that Yenna didn’t?

Up on Chime’s back, with the enormous silupker once again in motion, Yenna was doing her best to take up as little space as possible. With Mayi and Jiin’s help, they had convinced Hirihiri to join them—unfortunately, that meant that Yenna had to shuffle over and make space for another person on her seat. With a bit of negotiation, Mayi took a seat next to Yenna, whose normal sideways position became somewhat more diagonal.

“Dang, I didn’t know kesh were so flexible.” Jiin gave a small whistle, and laughed as Mayi flicked her a look. “What? Just look’t Yenna. I’d twist in half if I had’ta sit like that.”

The front of Yenna’s lower half was fully in the bench seat, though her back section stuck out towards Hirihiri’s legs. Yenna had somewhat uncomfortably turned herself almost ninety degrees at the waist to face the rest, an arm resting on the luggage behind her to keep herself in position.

“It’s not comfortable, but it’s not that bad. The kesh waist-joint is a miracle of nature’s design, after all!” Yenna gave a somewhat smug grin. “I’ve heard biomantic researchers claim that this mid-joint is the reason why kesh became so successful as a species. You see, due to its unique design, I can reach–”

“Alright, Yenna,” Mayi chuckled. “Let’s not get started on a lecture. Are you sure you’re comfortable? I could probably scoot over a bit more…”

Yenna looked across Mayi, the woman’s thigh nearly hanging over the edge. If she were to move any further, the doctor would tumble off onto the rapidly moving ground below.

“If you’re all done playing around, I believe you had something to ask of me?” Hirihiri looked more ornery than usual, her long white hair pulled up into a bun. “And where’s Tirk?”

“Enjoyin’ the lap o’ luxury.” Jiin gave a chuckle, and looked over her shoulder—Aroearoe’s carriage was riding just behind Chime.

“The priestess of the moon is looking after him,” Yenna explained. “She believes there’s some potential in him to be nurtured. Though she could have proved it without nearly blowing me up…”

Hirihiri frowned, looked back at the carriage, and sighed. “Ah well. Boy’ll be spoiled rotten in there, most like. You lot can take care of him if he becomes a terror. So? Your question?”

Yenna, Jiin and Mayi looked at each other and gave a nod, though it was on the mage to ask.

“I wanted to know, um… how exactly did you end up with Tirk? Where did he come from?” Suddenly feeling a little self-conscious, Yenna refrained from asking the thousand and one other questions she had backed up too.

“Who’s to say he isn’t mine?” Hirihiri gave a broad grin. The other three women gave her a flat look, and the old cook laughed. “Ah, won’t believe he’s my grandson, then?”

“I never quite got the impression, no.” Mayi shook her head. “You’ve been here longer than us, but it always seemed to me like…”

The doctor waved her hand, trying to think of the right way to say it—Jiin picked right up.

“Like Tirk got adopted, as the captain loves t’do. An’ you just came along for the ride.”

With a small nod of the head at Yenna, Jiin communicated a secret bond from the sharing of her own story—was this how the expedition had grown to this size in the first place? Taking in the lost and those in need over simple hiring of crew-members? It certainly explained why they were all so loyal to the captain.

“Hah! And I didn’t get adopted under the captain’s motherly bosom too?” Hirihiri gave a suggestive wink, and Yenna blushed at the mental image. “Nah, you’re all most of the way correct. I was in need too—wasn’t as simple as the captain wanting for a cook and getting more than she bargained for.”

—

Hirihiri’s tale began several years prior. Though the old cook skimmed over the exact reason why, she had been travelling across Milur. She would spend a few months in a town, performing odd jobs—usually cooking, though she wasn’t above manual labour—in exchange for room and board.

“After a bit of time, I’d feel the urge to keep travelling,” Hirihiri explained. “Just didn’t feel right, stopping in one place for too long. Yenna, are you writing this down?”

“I-I, uh.” Yenna’s journal was in her lap, quill scribbling down everything of its own accord. “Is that a problem? I write down nearly everything that happens—a travel diary, of sorts.”

“No, no problem. Just make sure you write down how beautiful I am¹! Now, where was I…?”

When Hirihiri arrived at the town of Yvild, it was barely more than a village. Tucked away in rural Milur, it existed as the remnants of a mining town—an old truesilver mine long exhausted, its residents unwilling or unable to move on to greener pastures. Instead, the people of the town of Yvild pivoted to tourism—the mines had left two rather profound effects on the local area that aided in this. First was an excess of colourful stone, all of which polished up rather nicely into unique crafts at the hands of the town’s craft families. The second was the discovery of natural steam vents that produced an unusual underground sauna—local legend spoke that the miners found themselves so rejuvenated that they didn’t need to sleep, the steam filled with the blessing of some god or spirit granting them power.

“All intentional rumour-spreading, of course,” Hirihiri nodded—deflating Yenna, who had been rather interested to hear about a blessed sauna. “You wouldn’t believe how many suckers came all the way up to this middle-of-nowhere town just to sit in a dark, steamy cave. But that’s beside the point.”

Hirihiri found herself a place in the local inn—a massive, beautiful old structure that also charged visitors for entry to the sauna. She cleaned rooms, washed sheets, cooked meals—nothing glamorous, but it served the old woman well. In her time working there, she saw many visitors come and go, though the people of the town always stayed the same.

There were no children in Yvild, and most of its residents were older—the youngest were barely adults, old enough to be forming families or leaving town, though not one held aspirations beyond the tiny village itself. In fact, in all that time, Hirihiri never saw one of them leave—merchants came to them to trade, visitors came to them to stay, but none of the people of Yvild stepped out of the shadow of the mountain above the town. It was unusual, but the people were kind, friendly, caring sorts—the sort of people who would happily welcome a strange old woman and give her a job to do.

“I was there for about a year before I first laid eyes on Tirk.” Hirihiri’s face was deathly serious, shaken by the memory. “He was the first thing that ever changed in that town, and it was never the same again.”

On a cool winter’s day, Hirihiri had spied one of the townsfolk descending into the mine towards the sauna caverns. It wasn’t unusual—the people of the town kept the caves clean and safe, ensured all the guide ropes were intact and the enchanted lights maintained their glow. It wasn’t until an hour later, when Hirihiri realised the woman hadn’t returned, that she began to grow concerned.

The old cook let another hour pass—there were all sorts of reasons why the young lady might not have returned that weren’t a problem. Perhaps she was fixing some troublesome bit of the staircase, or maybe she had even decided to take a nap down there, in the warm, dark caves. Maybe even a secret rendezvous—a lover hiding down there in the dark for her. When that second hour passed, Hirihiri’s ideas turned for the worst—a cave-in had left her trapped, she had hurt herself by the scalding steam vents, she had tumbled down some unnoticed passage. Not wanting to cause a fuss if the woman really was having a discreet meeting with another of the townsfolk, Hirihiri slipped out and went into the caves herself.

The tunnels always left the old cook somewhat disoriented. They curved slightly, dipped up or down, in ways that were subtle enough that one wasn’t quite sure which way they were facing—the trail of steps, rope-marked passages, and wall-mounted lights the only guide. The woman wasn’t in any of the main passages, and Hirihiri wasn’t about to slip into the dark, unused tunnels without help—she checked the first of the sauna chambers.

A wooden door, set with an hourglass timer and a shelf for one’s clothes, kept the steam and heat inside and the tunnel’s warm light out. A wave of heat smacked into Hirihiri as she opened the door, and she stepped into the dim sauna. This first chamber was merely the outermost of four, its heat like midday under a summer’s sun. Humidity stuck to the old cook’s clothes, and her eyes adjusted to the barely-there lighting of wide, luminescent mushrooms that dotted the cave’s walls. Spying no one inside, Hirihiri left her shawl at the door—she wasn’t a fragile old grandma, but even she could succumb to heatstroke if she didn’t lose a layer or two.

“Vere!” Hirihiri’s voice echoed dully in the cave as she approached the door at the back. “Vere, my girl! Are you here?”

Getting no response, the cook entered the second chamber and continued her search. Sweat was starting to drip down her forehead, the sheer heat in here greater than the previous chamber. No sign of the woman, but a bucket and scrubbing brush left behind insisted she might have come this way. Had she left it behind when she went further inside, or had Vere forgotten it on her way out? Hirihiri started to doubt herself—she could well have just missed the girl leaving the cave, no?

Fortunately, Hirihiri was not one to leave things to chance and second-guesses. Carefully pulling open the door to the third chamber, the old cook went further inside.

“Vere! If you’ve gone and passed out in here, I’m going to give you a right earful!” The old cook wiped the sweat from her face, achieving little—even with the light of the glowing mushrooms, steam was pouring into this chamber enough to fill it with a heavy fog. The third and fourth chambers had been fitted with some kind of enchantment to ensure its occupants could breathe, though Hirihiri felt her lungs choking with excess water.

With one last chamber’s door before her, Hirihiri paused, her hand hovering over the wooden door-handle. A subtle light was shining on the other side, brighter than it should be. Frowning deeply, the old cook muttered a few prayers and threw open the door.

Sitting in the middle of the room, her back leaning against a burning-hot steam vent, the woman she had come to find was cradling a small bundle in her arms. Vere was drenched from head to toe, staring down and smiling softly at the contents of the bundle—a small child. This was no place for a child, let alone anyone sitting here for so long—Hirihiri ushered Vere to her feet and urged the both of them out of the cave.

“Just what were you doing down there?” Hirihiri had brought both of them back to the inn, changing herself out of her dripping clothes before the cold made her sick. Vere didn’t answer—the old cook had to force her to change too, and found clean sheets to swaddle the young boy in.

The child was wide awake, seemingly no worse for wear for his stay in the sauna. He looked to be a perfectly ordinary yolm child, a small stud of a horn on his forehead, though his straw-blonde hair didn’t match anyone from the town. His eyes were completely black, no colour, no whites, just black—though he wasn’t blind or impaired in his vision in any way.

When Hirihiri tried to explain what had happened to the people of the town, they ignored her. None of them wanted to hear about the sauna, Vere’s strange silence, the boy’s unusual eyes—all of them simply doted on the child.

“He’s so cute! Ah, what a blessed little boy!”

“A miracle, isn’t he? An angel. How do you do, young man?”

The town decided that Vere would look after him for the time being, though not one of them asked any of the obvious questions. Where were the boy’s parents? Where had he come from? Why was he in the sauna, deep underground? Hirihiri felt like she had gone mad for the rest of the day—all of her concerns dismissed, brushed aside like they were nothing.

However, the madness had only just begun. The next day, the people of Yvild were caught in the belief that the boy had not only been there all along, but that he was Vere’s own son. Vere couldn’t name a father, but everyone in the town knew the child’s name—Tirk. 

The attitude of everyone in town subtly changed, doting on the boy like he was a god-sent gift. It was subtle at first—people going out of their way to check on him and Vere, praising him for everything he did. Strange as it all was, Hirihiri was willing to accept that it was perhaps a case of the town being swept up in the excitement of having a child to care for—but it was so much more. People began to treat Tirk with gifts, for all manner of reasons.

“Ah, the boy helped me out in the workshop just yesterday,” one of the craftsmen explained when Hirihiri asked, “So I thought I’d make him a little toy.”

“He rather entertained us over tea, so I thought I’d bring him a blanket I made.”

“Doesn’t our little angel deserve a bit of pocket money? Oh, no, just a moon or two, for all the odd jobs he does.”

The odd thing was, Tirk was extremely helpful—for such a small boy, he knew exactly where to be, exactly how to help. He loved helping, but he loved helping Hirihiri most of all. Handing over pegs to hang up the washing, passing vegetables over for the stew, little things that endeared him to the old cook. Despite his unusual origins, he was a genuinely lovely child, beloved by all.

Several months passed. Tirk had become something of an obsession for the townsfolk—he was all they talked about, to each other and to visitors. No one ever had a bad word to say about him, even though Hirihiri knew he got up to mischief. She was the only one who ever scolded him—when he snuck a bite of dessert before dinner, when he made a mess or refused to clean up after himself, Hirihiri felt like she was the only one raising him. The rest were just doting, spoiling him. Then, arguments started.

Hirihiri couldn’t point at a particular starting point, but the mood in the town grew tense. People wanted Tirk’s attention, and worked against one another to earn it. In front of him, gifts grew extravagant—out of sight, tempers boiled over. Hirihiri watched with horror one night as a man claimed that Tirk liked helping out in his shop most of all, only for three other men to physically attack him. She heard barely-hidden barbs laced into casual gossip between the women in charge of the craft houses. Things were heating up, and Hirihiri wanted out. However, she couldn’t leave the boy, and the people of the town would have her head if she tried to abscond with him.

As things grew increasingly tense in the village, Tirk spent more and more time with the old cook.

“Everyone says scary things to me, Hihi.” Over a bowl of stew, Tirk opened up. “But they don’t say words. They wanna keep me.”

“Keep you? Who said that?” Hirihiri made sure no one was listening—back in the kitchen, the sound of the cooking kept things rather private.

“No one. Everyone. Not you, Hihi. You’re nice.” Tirk looked up at her, smiling as he shovelled a chunk of carrot into his mouth, broth spilling onto his cheek. Hirihiri gave a quiet tsk and wiped it clean. At that moment, she hatched a plan.

The next time a trader came by the town, the cook took him aside—onstensibly to ask about some new kitchen equipment. She gave him a message, asking for help. Hirihiri didn’t need to tell the man that something bad was about to happen in the village, but she wanted to make sure that both herself and Tirk were away when it happened. The man promised to pass on the message, though it galled Hirihiri to leave her fate in the hands of a relative stranger.

Two weeks passed. On a night with no visitors in the town, a fire broke out. An entire house and attached workshop was burned to the ground, with its owners trapped inside. A devastating loss in a town this small, yet no one seemed to mourn the passing of a whole family. Hirihiri knew that it had been retaliation of sorts, that the house was attacked for claiming to be the ones that Tirk loved the most. The entire thing sent shivers up her spine—Hirihiri had been the recipient of plenty of nasty looks and worrisome encounters, but this was murder, plain and simple. She needed to leave, and the cook would be damned if she was leaving Tirk behind here.

The next day, a group of visitors arrived. The tallest yolm Hirihi had ever seen, with a booming voice and a sword-like horn, along with a handful of other yolm travellers—adventurers, stopped for respite. The town was all smiles—not a thing amiss, despite the deaths of several people. The tall yolm woman took an immediate liking to Tirk when the townsfolk showed him off, though she couldn’t see the daggers in their eyes as Tirk smiled back at her.

It wasn’t until that night, when the sword-horn woman made an excuse to come speak to the cook, that Hirihiri realised that this was her promised back-up. She explained everything, feeling certain that the adventurer would dismiss her as some crazy old crone—when Captain Eone took her seriously, Hirihiri felt like the sun was shining on her.

“That night, they kidnapped Tirk.” Hirihiri gave a chuckle. “I asked her to get me and the boy out, and promised her every bit of coin I had. She said she would rather hire a cook instead. I wasn’t privy to the whole plan, but within an hour the townsfolk were raging like a kicked hornet’s nest. I sat there at the edge of town, with a bag of clothes, a sack of vegetables, and a poorly hidden knife. Was sweating bullets waiting like I was told—nearly passed out when I saw what that madwoman Eone was doing.”

To hear it told, it really would have seemed a most heinous abduction without context. Muut had kept the folks in charge of taking care of Tirk busy with promises of a new trade agreement while Narasanha and Eone had burst in through the back. Tirk had been expecting them—when he spotted Eone, he lifted his arms up to be carried. Clad in a soft white robe, Eone had said he looked like an angel.

It didn’t take long for Tirk’s absence to be noticed, and the exit swiftly turned into a mad dash into the night. The entire town had retrieved weapons—pitchforks and brooms, chisels and knives—and given mad chase. Narasanha had scooped the old cook up and carried her as they raced back to Chime, and the whole party left at breakneck pace.

“The rest of the story is all hearsay and rumour, of course, but…” Hirihiri trailed off, leaning back to stare into the clouds above. “I heard after we left, the town just self-destructed. The people there all went mad, with rage or grief, unable to leave but unable to live without the boy. I think they would’ve done so regardless—gone mad in some other way, torn each other to shreds.”

The old woman gave a heavy sigh, and fixed Yenna with a sharp look. “You can’t tell him what became of that town, and its people. Not until he’s old enough. Let him… let him have his childhood in innocence, believing those people are upset but alive. I’d rather he fears going back than despairs over what happened. As it stands, he barely remembers his childhood. Nothing before I found him, and he only remembers our leaving a bit—I told him that we had to flee to stay safe, but nothing more.”

Yenna nodded, and Hirihiri gave the same look to the others—they gave a nod too.

“Just… want that kid to grow up nice and normal, y’know? Not that I think he’ll ever be normal. Hah! Don’t s’pose there’s such a thing as normal anyhow, after all!”

Hirihiri gave a hearty laugh, and the others joined in. Still, this once again left Yenna with more questions than answers. One day, they would have to visit that lonely village—or whatever still remained. For now, all they could do was put one hoof in front of the other.

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¹ - A somewhat forced description of Hirihiri’s beauty begins in the margins of this page, though it picks up some steam. Yenna doesn’t seem interested in her looks personally, but agrees that she was quite attractive—and must have been stunning in her youth. Our mage writes a paragraph in increasingly tiny handwriting, guessing at how she must have been when she was younger—unsurprisingly for Yenna, she imagines a young Hirihiri as both ‘tall and oh-so muscular, possessed of a certain quiet strength.’