Chapter Text
It had been pouring rain for nearly two days straight, pelting the humble roof of St. Fermis with the weight of the heavens themselves from how inescapable the sound was. Every chamber, every nook, it was nearly too loud to hear yourself think, much less escape through scripture.
Suddenly hearing the sounds of people over that torrent chilled the young girl as thoroughly as the mistake of opening a window back in the Mage Academy had. Shouting, screaming, and impacts on the stone street brought horrifyingly vivid images to mind.
The Sanctor was on edge too, a rare sight for the former warrior monk. His grip on the podium tightened as he glared daggers at the door, looking more like he was daring the chaos outside to test his skills and patience by threatening the sanctuary he protected than hoping they’d open to welcome in the meek to take harbor until both storms had passed.
As a child of but twelve summers, all she could do was small chores around the church, as befitted the piety expected of House Cygnus. “Piety” which she actively slighted by using the candles as practice for minor fire spells in her latest efforts to close the gap between her talent and her little sister’s, rather than using the igniter set aside for the purpose.
As long as the work was done, none of her elders had noticed. They tried to ignore her schooling as it was thanks to her family, with how closely some felt it veered into heresy.
Ironically, having her own harmless secrets like this helped her feel closer to God.
The wet wind that rushed in when the doors swung open nearly put out most of her work.
It wasn’t cold, since the rising humidity was what made the sky burst to start with. A blessing of its own for the desert around their capital, no matter how scary it might seem in the moment.
But God felt absent from His house as a soaked young paripus stumbled in. Another paripus on his back was in worse condition, but both clearly needed medical attention.
Her voice was absent when the Sanctor berated them, as if they were anything other than children not much older than her, if even that much, in dire need of help. The taller boy looked more likely to bite the man than heed the order to leave, narrow tail thrashing like a caught snake, and the shorter’s head lolled dangerously off his shoulder.
Behind them both, two smaller boys skittered in. A eugief, white-furred with bright blue eyes and the least battered of the three, and a paripus with brown hair nearly as wild as their apparent eldest, made worse from trying to reflexively shake himself dry only for a jolt of pain to stop him with a mewl.
The noise made the one being carried’s head raise a little. A sign of life, however faint, that his little brother was quick to catch along with his older brother’s hand.
While looking nothing alike, the little grey paripus reminded her so strongly of how Junah fretted over her the last time Rella had taken ill that she knew they couldn’t be anything else.
“-We have no healer here, away with you!” the Sanctor claimed over the din of others trying to approach the doors. A crowd accusing these children of blasphemy of all things, of being liars enthralled by some “abomination”.
Jeers that claimed their “lies” were about igniters. Of what it really takes to make them.
Her church caused this small family so much pain? She had been told sacrifices were necessary to protect the flock as a whole. But surely to prey on the weakest among them would be the actions of a wolf, not a shepherd.
A wan-faced clemar came to mind as he had smiled softly over one of her questions in the Academy. When she asked him how he could both support learning magic’s secrets and a God who wished to spare his children that burden for their own happiness.
“That is contrary, is it not? Magic is a powerful and dangerous force without Igniters to guide it. But Igniters make magic simpler to use, not easier. A healer who knows only Igniters will be as wont to risk harming their patient as one casting a spell with fear clouding their judgement.”
“I-I know how to heal.” Rella’s voice stammered out, and the smallest paripus looked up at her with the largest eyes as if he was seeing God in her. That helped harden her resolve against her “superior’s” disapproval. “I’ve- I’ve never worked with a paripus before, but I could try. It can’t- couldn’t hurt? I could use the pr-practice anyway, so we could say we have a healer!” she finished with a strained, desperate smile.
The Sanctor looked like he wanted to snap at her for her insubordination, but while he might have been a roussainte, her family had been far too devout for too long for him to deny her without social consequence.
“These faithless animals don’t belong in a house of God.”
How could anyone call those pleading red eyes “faithless”?
“Being here means they have faith in us.” Rella’s wings pulled tight to her as talking back brought the familiar burn of tears to her eyes. But she didn’t let them fall, and her tone sounded firmer than she felt. “I will take responsibility for them until they leave, if anyone else objects.”
He scoffed at her, with the sort of look like he wasn’t sure if she was simply naive or if she was playing her part in her family’s latest scheme. It made her skin crawl the way it did when other families spoke of her little sister as an “investment”, but the latter possibility was likely why he conceded to her request at all.
Not wanting to push her luck, she led the four to the room she was given to study and moved her bench some to make it easier to lay the worst among them on it. She felt a worried hand brush against her wingtips, and the hand pulled away with a flinch when she “caught” him.
“Is Del gonna be okay, miss?” the youngest asked, as if he didn’t look plenty terrible too. All of them looked underfed and like they hadn’t had a full night’s rest in days.
“I need to address the curse before his injuries.” she replied as she tested his magla, and nearly pulled her hand away in shock. Her reaction only made the other boys worry so she cleared her throat to give some semblance of authority. “Sorry, I was just surprised. He has a lot of magic for me to work with, but most of it isn’t his own.”
“Makes sense. Fool took on more than his fair share of “tests” even before he got it in his head to let the bastards have it.” the green-haired paripus shrugged and the little one gasped in horror.
“Vinca you’re not s’pos’d to swear in churches!”
“Not “s’posed” to swear at all.” Vinca said casually but his eyes were sharp as he watched Rella’s motions carefully as she tried to focus on taming the magla “Del’s” body couldn’t handle.
While foreign, even ancient, this magic wasn’t wholly unfamiliar to her. She could fashion this stake in his soul into a splint to aid his healing. First, she would need to calm his half-conscious mind by showing him reality to dismiss his nightmares. He and his “family” were as safe as they could be. A family that could guide her healing hands through any quirks that might come up.
Even quirks that weren’t caused by what the real cost of an Igniter’s “simplicity” was, or any of the slack faces that haunted his memories. Some with the glowing eyes of listless souls on the streets she hadn’t truly thought to question. Not the way her sister still did.
Her breath caught when she heard him mumble Junah’s name. Obviously, she was giving him too much of her own feelings; surely she’d just stress him further if she didn’t pull back. At least she stopped the hex on him from responding to memories of harming his abusers, as chaotic as that blur of violence was with so many sources of magic clouding his own recollection.
Vinca cocked his head at her as she pulled away to start finding her physical supplies.
“I can get stuff for you! I’m quick!” the eugief offered brightly, like he wouldn’t need to climb most of her things with how small he was. “No matter what Fidelio thinks…” he muttered bitterly as his face scrunched up at her patient.
“An’ our ‘Tule knows ‘is letters; he can read and write!” The youngest paripus nodded up at her fiercely. His face darkened with embarrassment as he quietly looked around at how many books and scrolls she had still strewn around. “Only one o’ us who does thanks to his papa’s work…”
She was tempted to object, to say that having them all close would do their brother more good, but she made her own compromise. She told Tule and Vinca what she planned to grab and brought a chair over so the fledgling could curl up close to his brother.
The little boy started purring as he held Fidelio’s hand to his cheek. He had a naturally good sense of where to place his fingers to keep track of his brother’s strengthening pulse.
“He’s very lucky to have had you all with him to get him here when you did,” Rella said to reassure him, and his grip on his brother’s hand tightened, and he scowled at himself.
“If Del was actually lucky, I’d be the one down like this. Del’s the useful one. Always has been.”
“Come off it. If you were hit this bad, Basilio, Fidelio’d be too much of a mess to be useful to anyone.” Vinca chided as he pulled out the ointments Tule pointed out.
“I’m the same way with my little sister,” Rella spoke over little Basilio’s attempt to object, making the boy go quiet. “I take it he’s also the sort to put his younger siblings’ needs first?”
“I ain’t that much younger than Fidelio,” Vinca grumbled, cheeks a browner shade of green he tried to hide behind his mess of a mane when she risked a glance at him.
“Oh, believe me, I’ve heard that line more than enough from her, too.” Rella smiled at the memory. But being a nidia, Junah’s objection was a little less typical than how Vinca likely meant it. “But we can’t help it, when we find someone precious to us that we can protect.”
Seeing that poor girl, tied up, starved, and singing to herself in a field of erika, changed her that day. When her parents said Junah could stay with them permanently after everything was said and done, as her family, she was so happy she thought her heart would burst.
She’d do anything to keep Junah from ever suffering like that again.
“But Del sez we’re not s’pos’d to leave debts unpaid, or we’ll end up like mum an’ pop.” Basilio huffed to himself, looking near the point of tears. “‘Ow am I s’pos’d to do that if everyone else’s always takin’ care of me?”
“Protecting the people you care about is a gift, not a loan. When it comes to family, it hardly needs thinking about,” she explained gently. Not that her family was ever that considerate, as much as it fretted about the appearances of the “whole”.
When Tule glided to her with a jar of her favorite perfume cream in hand, she gladly took it, though it was too early to use it as a sealer. Still, she got the lid off to give the worried boy’s cheeks a quick dab as an excuse to brush the would-be tears away.
Even as deep into the church as they were, she could hear the fighting outside.
“What it’s like now- it’s not all there is. If you keep living, the world will surely change.” Rella promised and beckoned the other two over to give them dabs of their own. “You all still have each other, and I’ll have Fidelio back up and smiling with you soon.”
Vinca looked very tempted to say something unkind about Fidelio’s normal penchant for smiling, if not for the eugief climbing him to snag him by the ear as a warning. She smirked back at him, “He’ll get his own dabs of good luck from me when he’s awake enough to appreciate it.”
Her expression hardened as she looked at how much blood she had on her hands from handling him already. Even if it had been transferred from his clothing, and not all of that mess was his, as his memories of his wardens' screams could attest, she had a lot of work left to do.
And at the core of her work would be a question she dared not breathe around these boys. Not without more context. The last thing she’d want is to give them information that could endanger them any more than simply escaping that hell might’ve left them facing once out of her care.
If any of these boys had seen something like that for themselves, if that had been part of any of these inhumane “tests”, surely they would have warned her about it as a source of damage. So she could only hope those developing Igniters didn’t actually have, and abuse, such a force.
But how else would a paripus in Grand Trad have dreams about a dragon?