Chapter Text
Where are you, Tsadi?
I paced my forge, another incomplete message stone sitting in pieces on my anvil. It had been too long. Where were those children with their lights? I needed a light to finish the stone and send my message!
An ache went through my wrist. I rubbed it harshly. I’d never dealt with sore wrists; I took care of myself and my tools. But now I felt aches in my hands, a burning in my chest, and a damp chill in the air. What was wrong? So much was wrong but I couldn’t put my finger on what.
The children were… strange. They kept showing up. I’d never had a child in my forge before, yet these caped ones kept finding it. They brought me lights, though, so I could forgive the intrusions. Their lights let me send my stones.
I turned to my anvil and struck the top of it with my fist. I’d sent so many stones. Why wasn’t Tsadi answering? He’d never been out of reach before, never gone more than a day without replying. Even if it was a word or two, he always replied. Always.
Where are you, Tsadi?
I paced my forge. I rubbed my aching wrist. I failed to ignore the damp air. Sometimes when I sat still the dampness would feel like rain. The rain would stick and gather around me, submerging me, soaking through my skin until it reached that burning in my chest and spilled into my Flame and I felt only cold.
So very cold.
Where are you, Tsadi?
I sat on the edge of my anvil and fidgeted with the unfinished diamond.
“Um… hello?”
I turned. A child was here. I got off my anvil and stood before them. “Where is your light? I need it.”
The child fidgeted with the edges of their cape. “I didn’t come to bring you a light this time.”
“What?”
“I had to talk to you.”
“I have nothing to say to you.” Who did this child think they were? “Give me your light, child. I must fix my stone.”
“But they’re not going anywhere!”
My hands curled into fists. “What are you talking about?”
“T-Tsadi hasn’t been getting the—“
“Tsadi!” I stepped forward and leaned down over the child. “Where did you learn his name?”
The child backed up and almost slipped off the platform my forge sat upon. “H-he told me! And he told me your name was Teth!”
My hands shot out and grabbed up the child, who honked in alarm. I made short work of depositing them on top of my anvil and laid my hands down on either side of them. “Where is he? How long has he been there? What happened to him? Why hasn’t he spoken with me? Has he forgotten?”
“Uh—”
“Is he alright? What’s he been doing?”
“He—”
“Is he alone? Is his shield intact? Has he been looking for me? What has he told you?” I held my finger in front of the child’s face. “Answer me in one word. ”
The child faltered over a few syllables before exhaling. They closed their eyes to collect themself, and a few beats of silence later, they answered simply. “Sorry.”
It wasn’t a question or a request for me to repeat myself. It was a downward intonation—an answer.
Sorry.
All my questions, my fears, my angers, my worries, and that’s what he had to say?
Sorry.
I stared down at the child on my anvil. “Sorry.”
“That’s what he said. What he told me to tell you. That he’s sorry. He said you’d know for what.”
I scoffed, shaking my head a little in disbelief. The sound repeated, becoming a thin laugh. Or maybe the start of a sob. I couldn’t quite tell what I was feeling anymore.
I kept my hands on the anvil and bowed my head between my arms. My chest felt tight and my eyes burned. Those thin, tight sounds kept coming as I sank and ended up on my knees beside my anvil. I brought a hand to my mouth. My voice was reflected back at me, strained and high. “Stars. He’s still helpless!”
My head tilted up toward the starry roof of my forge. I laughed. It was a sad laugh. It echoed a few times, bringing my wordless emotions back to me.
There was still a child sitting on my anvil. I stared at them. “Where is he? Where is Tsadi?”
“He’s in his temple. He’s a spirit now, like you.”
My hand drifted to my chest. “Like me….”
That’s right. I was a spirit. I had died a long time ago and yet I was not one with the Megabird. My Flame burned in my chest, I felt the pain of overworked joints, and I couldn’t remember what happened after the king cracked the very foundation of our realm.
I remember standing with my fellow Elders, pouring out magic in futile efforts to hold back the violent red overtaking the pure blue of Eden’s light. I remember meeting Tsadi’s gaze. I remember he looked afraid.
He had never let me see him afraid.
Was he afraid now?
“Child.” I stood up and again put my hands on my anvil. “Hold nothing back. Tell me of Tsadi. What has become of him? Why has he been silent?”
The little being crossed their legs and sat straight. “He hasn’t gotten any of your messages. He didn’t know you were trying to contact him.”
“What? No! That’s not possible. My stones are not faulty. They should be finding his temple.”
The child shook their head. “They’re not. There’s a massive storm covering the realm. It’s possible that they’re being destroyed or thrown off course.”
“A storm?” I narrowed my eyes at the end of the anvil. “Surely there’s lulls… sunlight getting through.”
Another head shake. “The whole realm is dark. There’s dragons and toxic water and sand everywhere.”
“Sand?”
A nod.
“Where is there sand? At the factory?”
“Everywhere. The whole realm.”
I stepped back as if they’d touched me with something hot.
The child tilted their head. “What’s wrong? Is sand bad?”
“Child. Dusk is a grassland.”
Their eyes went wide. “Oh…”
Silence passed between us. I worried my hands together. Dusk was a desert now? Covered in darkness? If none of the landmarks were as I remembered them… no wonder my stones couldn’t find Tsadi.
“We call it the Golden Wasteland now,” said the child. I looked at them disgusted. Wasteland? Tsadi’s realm a wasteland? He suffered through war slowly blotting out everything beautiful, and his realm now bears a dishonored name?
My poor elder.
The child kept offering more words. “To answer a few of your questions, he’s okay. He’s been quiet, mostly. He protected me from the dragons the first time I met him! Two of them!”
“Protected you? So his shield is intact?”
“Y-yeah! It is. Why do you ask? Is it important?”
My Flame warmed as a bit of tension faded from my shoulders. “It is, yes. I made it for him.” My voice lowered. “It was the last thing I made for him. And the last time I saw him without his helmet.”
The child voiced a sad note.
“Protecting others meant so much to him. He trusted me to give him a shield that would be as steadfast and stubborn and… foolish as him.” I covered my eyes with my hand and sighed.
“It… sounds like he means a lot to you,” said the child.
I decided to be honest with them. “There was a time when he meant everything to me.”
The child heard the implication. “Do you still care about him?”
“I would not mindlessly send him messages if I did not.” I made motions to sit on my anvil and the child shifted to the side to make room.
I folded my hands in my lap and spoke sadly. “There was much in our time that troubled us. The king’s expectations. Dusk in civil war. Day and Sunset overfarming. Night’s meddling. The darkness seeking to devour Eden, encroaching more and more despite even the king’s best efforts. It took up our attention, our time, and our patience.
“I’d like to say we made the best decisions and worked together, patiently solving each problem as it came. If that were true, we would still be here. But, you would not.” I cast a glance at the child who was staring, enraptured.
I continued, turning my wrist over in my hand as I did so. “I don’t know why I found time for… whatever Tsadi and I had. Were it not for becoming an Elder, I never would have met him. And I likely wouldn’t have taken notice of him were it not for that… that innocent sincerity of his. I suppose he had a nice face, too.”
The child giggled.
“We started stealing little things. Glances, at first. Then words. Then time. It got to a point where we would steal away a whole day, just to ourselves, responsibility be damned.
“But then he… we both… stopped. He dragged the corpse of a beast into the throne room and threw it before us, forcing us to acknowledge the true threat of the darkness. We all knew of it, but he was the only one who did something actionable. He was angry. I was prideful. He wore his helmet more often and I learned to stop asking him to lift it.” I hovered my fingertips over my lips. “I never got used to how cold that metal was.
“I missed him. I knew he missed me, too. He would show it, in those little moments in my forge, when he came with another set of broken armor and asked me to make it smaller for a new recruit. He’d show it in the way he’d sit and lower his guard, watching me as he always did. He was vulnerable there, in my forge. And I would again steal time, taking longer with my task so he could rest.”
The child beside me was soaking in every word like a little beige sponge. My pride wanted to stop, to keep my story close, but my Flame needed me to keep going.
I drew up my knee to my chin, propping my foot on the anvil and hugging my shin. “I made his shield. It was the first new item he asked me to make for himself. Everything else he commissioned from me had been for his soldiers, but now he was asking for something personal. ‘I must protect my people’, he told me. ‘They need a stronger wall than that of stone.’
“That shield was my finest work. The steel recipe I found in Night. The ore came from Sunset, the fuel in my forge from Day, a design from a Dawn artisan, and its wooden handle from here. It took me three weeks to craft and temper, but once it was done… oh, it was glorious. He carried it more often than his spear.
“With that shield, he became more sure of himself. I began to recognize him again. I’m pretty sure he smiled more.” I chuckled. “I did for sure. We even stole time for ourselves again. Though it never lasted as long. I thought that finally we had each other again.
“But… then it all ended. The king gave up. Sacrificed himself to the Light. We were all there for it, when our kingdom was shattered. I don’t think I saw what came after. I think I…” My hand drifted to my chest again.
The child piped up. “You died right after the Shattering?”
I exhaled. “Is that what you call it? I suppose I did.” My hands rubbed across my face and up through my hair. “I don’t recall. I was asleep for a long time. Then you kids started showing up.”
I chuckled and leaned back, cocking my head at the child. I reached out and roughly poked them in the chest. “You little bugs making all those noises, flapping around with your little lights,” I teased.
The child chirped and fell over from the force of my push. “H-hey! Watch it!”
I laughed as they flailed and stood up, then stamped their feet. Their honks pitched down and fired out rapidly, making a little bluish cloud of noise around their head.
Their display only made me laugh harder. It was so hard to take the little bugs seriously! They got madder and squeaked indignantly, then turned and sat down with their body covered by their cape. Were they pouting?
I stifled my laughter and reached for them again. “I’m sorry, little bug, I shouldn’t tease.” I patted their head with a finger. “You’re the one who woke me up in the first place, and your flames let me try to reach Tsadi.”
They turned to me. I took it as a sign to continue. “I am grateful for you. Your lights cleared my head out of what felt like a dream, if only for a moment.”
Once again my voice softened and I gazed out into the distance. “He is okay, right? You said he was awake?”
The child crossed their legs and moved their cape back as they relaxed. “Yes. He’s awake. And he misses you. I mentioned you to him and it looked like he was about to cry.”
I almost choked on my breath. “Cry? Him? At mere mention of me?”
Now it was their turn to tease. “I mean… you almost did.”
“Oh, don’t you start. I can still kick you out of here.”
They giggled. “He sent me here! He asked me to talk to you, and told me your name.” They peeked over the edge of the anvil and pointed at the pieces of a message stone. “If those aren’t getting through to him, I could take it. I can fly right over there no problem.”
I was stunned. It seemed like a good idea, but I shook my head. “You need not concern yourself with the grief of these lost spirits.”
“Uhhh yes I do? It’s literally the whole reason we exist.”
I stared. “Seriously?” They nodded. I scoffed. “Megabird above, you’re telling me that you’re all Children of Light?”
They shrugged and nodded.
I pinched the space between my eyes and sighed. “Of course. Of course. Because the thing this kingdom needs is more little Alefs.”
“More what?”
“Never mind. Let me think.” I stood and gathered up the stone pieces, laying them out on my anvil. The child poked at the pieces but I shooed their hands away. “Don’t touch. Go amuse yourself, I need to finish this and think about what I’m going to say.”
“Don’t you need this first?” The child pulled a small light from their chest and held it out.
“Ah. Yes. Thank you.” I took their light and set it beside the stones. “Now go on.”
“Okay, okaayyy…” They flapped away and I soon heard distant plucks of a harp.
I started piecing the stone together, weaving a message inside it. I failed to notice the child had snuck up on me until they chirped, “You gonna tell him you love him?”
I startled so much that I nearly broke the stone again. “Ah! Bug! I said to leave me in peace!”
“But you are gonna tell him, right?”
“Tell him what?”
“That you love him.”
“Why would I tell him that?”
The child looked confused. “Don’t you?”
“Love him? I haven’t…” My voice dropped and I focused pointedly on my anvil. “I haven’t ever said that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I… I’ve never… needed to…”
I could feel the child’s disappointment. “That’s so dumb! Why haven’t you told him you love him?”
I turned my head away from them. “Fear, I suppose.”
“Of what?! You guys fight dragons and you’re afraid to say you love each other?”
“It’s not that simple!”
“What’s not simple? Saying what you mean?”
Now I turned around and faced them. “I say exactly what I mean. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I understand that you miss each other but for some reason you’re not saying so!”
Stars, I wanted to hammer some sense into this child! “I do miss him-!”
“Then say so!”
“I can’t!”
“Why not?!”
My fist crashed down on my anvil. “Because I already lost him once!”
The child flinched and stepped back.
“I never said I loved him because I was never sure if he loved me.” My words flowed like the river through my realm. “He never had many words for anyone. Through all the stolen words and time he never said he loved me. He shut me out, kept me on the other side of his shield. Even the thing that was supposed to unite us only did so when it was too late. In the end I was alone and cold and… and the last thing I saw in his eyes was fear.”
I took a moment to breathe. “He was the best thing in my life and he left me out of his.”
The child worried their hands. “He… he says he’s sorry.”
“So you’ve said.”
“He is!”
“I believe you.”
“Then…” They were getting visibly frustrated, shaking their hands and pacing in place. “Then why not just say that? Why not say you love him first? He might say it back!”
I was silent. I turned back to my anvil and leaned over it, my fingertips digging into the top.
“You’re trying to reach him and he wants to be reached. Seriously, what are you afraid of?” The child’s voice rose. “What’s the worst that could happen? And you can’t say it will be the death of you because you’re already dead!”
I didn’t think that was supposed to be funny, but I laughed anyway.
But it was funny, wasn’t it? Truly, what was there to be afraid of? Was there anything I really couldn’t say? Our kingdom as we knew it was gone. The war, the expectations, the concerns of our realms, they were obsolete. It was just us now. Us and these children.
What was there to leave unsaid? What was there to be afraid of?
I looked over at the child. I couldn’t read their expression. Tense, maybe. Frustrated. Confused. Sad.
I blinked slowly, exhaling even slower. “You’re a talkative little bug. You make me think about things, I’ll give you that.” My hands drifted over the unfinished message stone. “I need to change my message. And this time I’ll not be disturbed,” I added sharply.
The child perked up. “Okay!” Once again they flapped into the distance to find something to amuse themself.
I picked up the pieces of my stone. The child’s words came from a place of ignorance, but they weren’t wrong.
I knew Tsadi loved me. That fact was too clear for even me to miss. My shield guarded his heart while held the closest to it. Neither of us were really at fault. We just… hadn’t talked about it.
I could talk enough for both of us, if needed.
I miss you, Tsadi.
If he didn’t want to talk, that was fine. His actions had always spoken the loudest. I hadn’t been as gracious a listener.
I forgive you, and I’m sorry too.
He made it clear I could tell him anything. Anything at all. It wouldn’t be fair to withhold the one thing I wanted most to say.
I love you.
The stone was heavy in my hands, full of the weight of my words. I brought it to my lips and tried to imagine that cold, shiny metal over my lover’s cheek.
My message sealed, I now needed a messenger. “Little bug?”
The flap of a cape brought them to a gentle landing on my anvil. I held the stone out to them. “You’ll see this is delivered promptly, yes?”
They took it reverently. “I will!”
I let them take it. I felt like I was handing off a piece of my Flame. “Oh, uh. Here. Take an empty one too. I-in case he wants to reply.”
The child took them both, balancing the large stones in their arms. They put the empty one on their back and hugged mine close. “I’ll go their right away, as fast as my wings can go!”
“Good.” I nodded. “And… thank you, little bug.”
They beamed. “You’re welcome! Bye, Forest mom!”
They left before I had a chance to register what they’d called me.