“Your pace is glacial, Ayda. Even my youngest apprentice is working faster than you.”
Ayda nearly jumped out of her skin. She spun around, wings fluttering, whipping her hand out of the pocket of her trousers, thankful that her long shirt would hide the bulge of the piece of wood inside. Master Bivale loomed over her, hovering an inch or so off the floor with his arms folded, as he was prone to do when irritated. The fairy owned the largest carpentry shop in Nikka, and for years now Ayda had been one of his students.
He landed beside her work — a half-finished plain wooden chair. It had a seat and a back, but no legs yet, and it was the third one Ayda had had to make this week. He inspected it closely, prodding and pulling on it to check the pieces were firmly bound together. Ayda waited.
“Sound work as usual,” he admitted. “But how in all the forests does it take a fourth-year student three hours to half-finish a simple chair? Even though you’re gone for six months out of the year, a typical second-year student would be finished by now. So why the delay?”
I’m bored, what do you expect? But Ayda shrugged. “Just being careful.”
“Well, you’ll need to pick up the pace a bit, because I want this finished by today.” He set the chair down and looked at Ayda.
“Yes, sir,” she said, obedient. He left, and she watched him fly across the crowded room. The backroom of Master Bivale’s shop was long and high-ceilinged, the floor so littered with machinery and scrap that nobody even tried to navigate it, taking to the air instead. Down on the ground, the air was dusty, and the noise of machinery was a constant background buzz.
The other students — most of them full-blown apprentices by now — were clustered at the other end of the room, awaiting Bivale’s return. He had been teaching them some complicated technique involving their magic, restricted only to Earth fairies like Ayda, of course. The other Elemental types wouldn’t be able to do anything to wood, and even Earth fairies had a easier time working with living plants rather than dead.
Ayda could feel their eyes on her. She turned back to her work, reminding herself for the hundredth time that it wasn’t her fault she was so far behind — she wouldn’t trade the six months a year she spent traveling with her family for anything. And if it meant she was practically a stranger to the other students, and that she was falling far behind every spring and summer, so what? The open road was her home.
She selected a twig from a nearby pile and began grinding it down to the shape she needed to form the first leg of the chair. It was tedious, and Ayda’s hand kept straying to her pocket.
You’re leaving in two days, she told herself, and then you won’t have to do this again until you get back in the fall. This is your last job. If you finish quickly, you’ll have enough time to sneak away and work on your carving.
The thought spurred her on, and she finished the other three legs in little more than an hour. She sat on the chair, found it wobbled slightly, and trimmed the appropriate legs. Then she sanded the whole thing smooth and stepped back.
There it was. A wooden chair. Oh, it was sized just right for fairies, about five inches tall, with wing slots in the back and a comfortably shaped seat. It was perfectly functional. And perfectly uninspired.
Ayda glanced over her shoulder and saw that Bivale was still busy. Her chair was done, and she wasn’t about to interrupt him and stand around for ages while he verified it, then gave her some menial job to do.
So instead, she snatched her fine carving tools from their hiding place behind a pot of varnish and flew out the back door.
The day was warm, but not hot yet, and a lazy breeze drifted down the deserted cobbled street and spun in the courtyard behind the shop. The wooden buildings were narrow and close together, rising two or three stories above the ground. This back street was where deliveries were loaded and unloaded, but Ayda knew there were none today, and so she could be sure of some peace and quiet.
She laid her tools out on the ground next to her and took the carving out of her pocket. It was a partially formed carving of two fairies holding each other close. It was made from butternut wood and, as of yet, only had some rough proportions hewn out. That was going to change.
Ayda leaned back and closed her eyes briefly, enjoying the warm sunlight on her face. Then she picked up a knife and began to work, losing herself in the rhythm of stroke after stroke along the grain. Occasionally she paused and twisted sunbeams together to burn tiny lines in the wood, a trick she had picked up from a Fire fairy. The Fire fairy had suggested that the trick was intuitive for Earth fairies as well because of plants’ dependence on the sun. For Ayda, it was simply a much better way to carve precise lines.
This was art, and ever since she had been banned from adding decorations to the furniture she made for Bivale under the grounds that beauty “wasn’t the point” of making them, she had taken to carving small statues instead, using wood scraps and a set of small knives. With no one to teach her, she had to try to adapt what she’d learned from making furniture, but she was convinced she was getting better. And if she was good enough, maybe she could go to Crescent Moon and get an apprenticeship in carving instead of carpentry.
“Ayda!” The angry tone made Ayda sit up straight, fear flaring in her chest. There was no time to hide — the back door burst open and Bivale flew out. He fixed on the carving in Ayda’s hand immediately.
“I knew it,” he hissed, flying over to her and snatching it away. “Wasting time on trinkets again, and avoiding your work to boot.”
“I finished the chair,” Ayda protested. “That was my only assignment.”
“And you know you should have come to me as soon as you were done instead of running off,” Bivale said, clenching the carving so hard Ayda was afraid it would snap. “I should confiscate this.”
“No!” Ayda shouted. “Please, no. It’s a gift for my parents. It’s their anniversary.”
Surprised, Bivale looked down at it again. After a long moment, his expression softened. “It’s well-done,” he admitted, running a calloused thumb along the wood. “They’ll appreciate it. But that doesn’t excuse this.”
“I’m sorry, Master Bivale,” Ayda said, trying to sound as sincere as possible. But in her mind, she had been done with carpentry for the summer since she’d finished that chair.
Bivale nodded. “Thank you. I came looking for you because your sister is here. She says your parents need you at the shop.”
“What? Why?” They should be getting the wagon loaded by now, and they didn’t need her for that.
“Well I don’t know,” he said. “She’s waiting outside. You better not keep her waiting; she seems to be in a rush.”
Ayda hastily stowed her carving tools away and jammed the carving into her pocket. Then she flew up and over the building rather than going back inside and being stared at by the other students. She landed on the cobblestones in front of her older sister Nova.
Nova was tall for a fairy, more than eight inches, and was three years older than Ayda’s fourteen. Her black hair was cropped short so it just brushed her pointed ears, a pine barrette pulling it back on the right. She wore a leaf blouse stained black, and a pair of tightly-fitted pants. Her angular face was anxious and harried.
“Whittling again?” she asked when Ayda landed.
“Shut up,” Ayda said. “What’s going on?”
“Follow me,” Nova said. She took off without another word, glancing back over her shoulder.
Would it kill her to explain first? But Ayda launched into the air and followed her sister anyway.
--
Ayda’s parents were waiting outside of their shop, a humble building at the edge of Nikka’s city limits, only made remarkable by the greenhouse at the back and the fact that it was only a single story. Behind it was the city wall — four feet high, it ran along all of Nikka, except for the side that adjoined the river, where docks spilled out into its waters. On the other side, opposite from the water and just outside the walls, were the two great trees, where most of Nikka’s inhabitants made their homes. The groundcity was for business, not for living.
Nova and Ayda landed together in front of their parents.
“She was hiding in the back, whittling again,” Nova informed them smoothly. Ayda glared at her. Tattletale. Her mother frowned at her, disappointment clear.
“We’ll talk about it later,” her father said, looking weary. “Ayda, there’s been a… development.”
“Not another setback!” Ayda exclaimed. They should have been on the road weeks ago. At first, she’d thought it was just the late spring. But spring was well along by now, and the date just kept getting postponed. Whatever her parents weren’t telling her, Nova definitely knew — she was in training to take over the business after all, as the eldest — but nobody had seen fit to tell Ayda. Still, there had to be a reason for the constant delays.
“You’ll see,” her mother said. They led Ayda through the shop and to the back of the greenhouse. Much like Mater Bivale’s shop, the greenhouse had a door that led to a small street for deliveries. But what Ayda’s family delivered was not dead, carved wood, but living, breathing, magical plants. To call them gardeners would be like calling Ayda’s sculptures whittling — it simply didn’t convey the artistry involved, the time spent with the plants, persuading them to grow just right, with a little bit of magic here and there until the whole plant radiated.
And six months out of the year, they traveled the Three Kingdoms, selling their plants and herbs and offering their services to those whose gardens needed a little more life.
It’ll be more like four months out of the year if we don’t leave soon, Ayda thought. But then Ayda’s mother pulled the door open and Ayda stepped outside. She wasn’t impressed.
“It’s our wagon,” she said. “Why’s it empty?”
“Take a look inside,” her father said, and so with a shrug Ayda climbed in.
“Oh,” she said after a moment. She bit her lip, staring at the floor of the wagon. The wood was warped and discolored, and a patch of mildew spread out to cover the entire front half. Ayda glanced up to the beams and saw that one of them was rotted through as well, and could hardly keep itself up. She scrambled back outside, suddenly understanding why her parents had called her here.
She glanced at them, and then ducked underneath the wagon to see if the wood was weak all the way through. It was, and Ayda could tell at a glance that as soon as they loaded it with anything heavier than a sack of berries, the whole thing would give way.
“How on earth did this happen?” she demanded, extracting herself from the wagon and putting her hands on her hips. “The whole bed needs replacing, and one of the struts to boot. We might as well get an entirely new wagon!”
Her mom’s shoulders sagged. “That’s what we were afraid of,” her dad explained. “It looks like we won’t be leaving tomorrow, whatever happens.”
“But what happened?” Ayda insisted.
Nova shook her head. “It came out of storage like this. We’re guessing there’s a leak in the roof.”
Ayda kicked at a pebble and swore under her breath. “At this rate, we’ll never make it to Erinore before the Diuth floods. How are we supposed to reach Wildegarde?”
“We know,” her father snapped, his thick brows drawn together.
“We’re already looking for another wagon, Ayda,” her mother said, running a hand through her long, chestnut hair. “We should be leaving by the end of the week.”
That’s what you said last week, Ayda thought, but she didn’t press the point.
“Assuming we can get anybody to sell,” Nova said, blunt as ever. “The rumors from the north are making people antsy. Idiots — they’d believe sightings of humans and elves if it gave them something to gossip about.”
Ayda looked to her parents, but, worryingly, they didn’t contradict her sister. But there was nothing she could do to get another wagon, and she had a feeling her parents were going to send her back to Bivale now that she’d confirmed their wagon was unusable. The best way to make them forget where she was supposed to be was to offer to help.
“If we’re not leaving yet, then we still need fresh herbs for the market. I can get them,” Ayda said. “I promise I’ll be back by nightfall.”
Her father raised an eyebrow. “Conveniently getting you out of the city and out of work for the rest of the day.”
“I’ve already had to make three chairs this week,” Ayda pointed out.
“Oh, go ahead,” her mother said with a sigh.
Ayda hugged her in delight and flew off, fingering the carving in her pocket.
Ayda paused only to grab a knapsack and fasten it in front of her, out of the way of her wings. Then she took off, flying high above the streets of Nikka, nodding to the occasional fairy that flew by. Nikka was mostly made up of fairies, but there were a handful of other Little Folk too — gnomes and leprechauns and sprites. It was perfectly possible to get around Nikka without flying, as even the great trees had lifts to carry people up, but Ayda had always felt sorry for species born without flight.
Within minutes, she had flown over the northern wall and was in the forest. Calm swept over her, accompanied by a tingling, a prickling across her skin that meant magic was near. All around her, in fact, for she was of course feeling the magic in the plants nearby. They were comfortable, familiar.
She flew as deep into the forest as she dared, past the nearest patches of littlewart and roseleaf, reasoning she needed to give them more time to recover before plucking them again. As she flew, the sun sank behind the trees and the air grew chilly.
There. She felt the signature of roseleaf and landed on a branch of the bush. She rested her hand against a twig and closed her eyes. She could feel the energy in each branch, its love of life. She could not talk to plants — that would be silly — but as anEarth fairy, her magic lay with all things green and growing. And so she redirected the magic in several of the bush’s leaves, allowing her to pluck them without causing pain. She stowed the leaves in her knapsack, fed the bush a bit of magic as a thank-you, and took off again.
She flew further north, though she knew she was searching too far afield. Not for any risk of getting lost. She knew these woods too well. But if she didn’t turn back soon, she would be home after dusk.
Ayda was about to turn around and content herself with her usual places for finding herbs when she heard an odd, low keening filtering through the leaves. It wasn’t the cry of an animal, at least not one that lived around here. Whoever or whatever it was, it was a sound of sorrow.
Ayda only paused for a second before she turned north again, towards the source of the sound. Five minutes later, the sound was clear, broken by the occasional shuddering gasp. Ayda rounded a tall fir tree and saw a huddled shape on the ground. For a moment, she hovered there, not quite sure what she was seeing. Then she put it together.
It was a human girl, and she was crying.
---
A/N: Sorry this first chapter is a bit long. I didn't want to post it as two parts because it's just barely longish and the ending is much stronger this way. Comments on worldbuilding, the characters, and anything you were confused about would be greatly appreciated. And let me know if you want to be tagged when more chapters are posted!
Maybe Ayda's boredom rubbed a little off on me(I don't think it's boring, just not much of a grabber)
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