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Of Roots and Branches- Blue/Pyro

Blue had wandered a little ways away from the rest of the family; Merlyn was feeling talkative, and Blue was not feeling up to being cheerful in response today. He had quietly excused himself and taken the path up the hill into the pine forest area, winding up among the ferns and philodendrons. Ambyr followed him on soft paws, watching over her young charge as she always did when the Tale went off by himself.

It was shady here. There was a chilly touch to the wind, now that he was out of the sun. He pushed his sleeves back down and balanced himself carefully along the wooden beams laid along the path to border it, rather than putting his feet on the cold stone of the path itself. Here and there were gaps in the beams, or places where part of the wood had come away; Blue concentrated on keeping his balance.


"Oooh... they're so pretty!" Pyroxene tilted her head as far back as it could go without making her fall over, staring up the length of a stately redwood. "So tall, so green..."

"They don't have redwoods where you come from?" Sosiqui asked, taking a deep breath. She loved the scent here, so clean and alive.

"Nuh-uh." Pyroxene shook her head. "There's not any trees at all, really. 'Cept the ones in the hydroponics beds, but those are all kinda... um..." She gestured with her hands. "Small and squishy."

The girl turned and ran a bit further down the path, turning her head this way and that to try and look at everything. The sight of all the 'rare' plants had made her temper her usual hyperactivity, if only for a little bit.


Voices? Blue turned to see who was coming. One of his feet landed on an uneven spot, and he abruptly lost his balance. "Whoooo-oaa - " Arms flailing, small wings flapping ineffectually, he wobbled, overbalanced, and fell, landing hard on the paving stones. "Ow," he said, in a very small voice.

Ambyr trotted over to check on him, sniffed him over, and concluded that the only injury had been to her charge's pride. Blue shot a sour glance down the path. Sure enough, someone had come into sight just in time to witness his ungraceful tumble.


Pyroxene stared - she hadn't entirely noticed the other child when she came near, but that fall certainly attracted her attention.

Blue fur. Nose. Ears.

"NOTMOM!" she yelled, at the top of her lungs, not taking her eyes off of Blue.

"What?" Sosiqui darted into view, then frowned at Pyroxene. "I told you to yell if you were in trouble, not for no reason. This is a quiet place."

Pyroxene grabbed Sosiqui's arm. "What's that?" She pointed accusingly at Blue.

"That? Oh..." Sosiqui relaxed. She hadn't seen that face up close, ever, but she was pretty sure about who this was. "That's Blue, I think. The adopted son of one of my friends. He's a Tall Tale, like y- er, he's a Tall Tale."

"Oh." Pyroxene didn't let go, just kept staring at Blue with round, curious eyes.

"Hello, Blue," Sosiqui added, with a mental sigh. "Is your dad around?"


Blue picked himself up with as much dignity as he could manage and brushed himself off. He gave the girl a cool look, trying to cover his embarrassment, and had just opened his mouth to say something - he wasn't quite sure what - when she yelled. He jumped and stepped back.

"I'm not a that," he said indignantly in response to Pyroxene, then realized he was interrupting her mother - notmom? what was that supposed to mean, anyway? - and closed his mouth and listened.

"You know my dad?" he asked, putting one ear back in confusion. He didn't remember meeting this lady. "Um - he's at the knot garden, I was getting too warm in the sun so I asked if I could come up to this part if Ambyr was with me." ... Okay, so that was a bit of a fib, but it wasn't exactly polite to say I wanted to get away because my brother is a pain in the a** to someone you didn't know. Or barely knew.

The little girl was staring at him. Blue's eyes kept flicking back to her, and he firmly squashed the impulse to stick his tongue out at her irritably. One rudeness didn't excuse another.



"Yes, I do, though I don't think I've ever met you - just seen pictures. I'm Sosiqui, and this is Pyroxene," Sosiqui said, poking Pyroxene lightly - pointedly - with her free hand.

"'Lo," Pyroxene said, grudgingly, then let go of Sosiqui's arm. "You don't look anything like the other two..." Ooh, why wouldn't Notmom let her bring her scanner? It was so unfair. This 'species' just made no sense at all! Blue looked nothing like Linneas or Jiro! There was no logic!

Apparently 'magic' was an excuse.

She didn't like that one bit.

"Um," she said, after a moment. "Sorry I yelled. You were all blue and stuff."

"Pyroxene didn't grow up seeing many anthropomorphs," Sosiqui put in, gently, from the background.

"Anthropawhozzie?"

"Nevermind..."


"Oh! Ms. Sosiqui. It's nice to meet you," Blue said, and bowed. He did remember his father mentioning her, now that he thought about it; he hadn't known that she was an Author too, though. "And you too," he said to Pyroxene.

"I don't look like who?" Confused again. This girl just wasn't making sense. Not at the moment, anyway. "Um, it's okay."

He smiled uncertainly at Sosiqui. "Oh. ... She's a Tale, too?" That was also somewhat confusing. A good few of the other Tales he'd met were also anthropomorphs, so if Pyroxene wasn't used to that ...



Uh oh.

Sure enough, Pyroxene folded her arms over her chest and stuck out her lower lip. "No, I'm not... oh." She sighed, dropped the defensive pose and kicked at a nearby pebble. "Ev'rybody keeps sayin' that. But I 'member my mom and dad. I really do." She gave Blue a pleading look.


"Oh. Um, I'm sorry,", Blue said awkwardly, disarmed by the look in Pyro's eyes. What did it mean, if she was a Tale, but she had parents she remembered before her Author? If she had a Tome, and came from the study - well, maybe he was assuming too much, but that would make sense, if "everybody said" - well, he wasn't going to solve it that easily. He'd think about it more later.

"Oh," he realized suddenly, "that's why you said not-mom. Um, sorry, Ms. Sosiqui."



"Oh, don't worry about it," Sosiqui said, with a quick gesture. "I'm sure your father knows all about random children showing up on the doorstep." What was it with Gaia and children, anyway? Was it some kind of cosmic dumping ground for the lost?

Maybe so, since she herself had ended up there.

Pyroxene, meanwhile, paced around Blue with a look of curiosity on her face. "You don't look anythin' like Jiro an' Linny... but you're the same kind of thing? Tale?" She looked confused. Members of the same apparent species should at least look similar!


Blue ducked his head a little. He nodded; he certainly hadn't been the last child to show up in his house, anyway. He'd never really thought too much about it; his brothers were his brothers, after all, regardless of whether or not they were related by blood. It wasn't that abnormal.

He crossed his arms defensively. "We all have Tomes," he pointed out. "And we came from the Study." He kept his Tome shut carefully into a box under his bed. He had no idea what would happen to him if something happened to his book, but the concept sent a shiver down his spine. Instinct said that it would be Very, Very Bad.



"That's not scientific!" Pyroxene sighed and pushed out her lower lip in a pout. "Things have to have rules... like... like that!" She pointed at the Latin name displayed on a plaque at the foot of a nearby tree. "I don't get it." The girl slumped, and for a moment seemed small, and lost.


"It's magic," Blue pointed out. "Magic follows different rules than science does." He crouched down so he wouldn't be looking down at her. "It's still got rules. They're just different." He felt a deep sympathy for the small girl. Her world wasn't working the way she thought it was supposed to, and he had experienced for himself just how unsettling and awful that could be.


incomplete

Smoke everywhere, dirty billows of choking grey. Ash like snow swirling in the air. Overpowering heat. Blue huddled against someone, coughing and gasping for air. It was all wrong. He was going to fail, he had done wrong - he was wrong, he had done a bad thing -

The wolf-boy flailed awake, panting and staring into the darkness. The fire nightmare again. It was coming almost every night now. Slowly, he got out of bed, padded across the room to turn on a lamp.

Confusing dreams, frightening dreams; dreams that sparked a sense of deep and awful guilt in him. He had done something. What had he done? He couldn't remember. Blue leaned against the wall, staring out the window without seeing what was in front of him. If he could only remember. It was his fault; if he could only remember what it was.

He wished the sorrowful dreams would return. They had left him with a monolithic and wistful sorrow, but that was better than the suffocating, panicky sense of guilt that the fire dreams gave him.

Blue hit the floor with a thump, tangled in his sheets and blankets, his wings thrashing futilely against the fabric. He felt alternately hot and cold, trembling, a horrifying sickness roiling in the pit of his stomach. He wasn't going to throw up. He wasn't.

Eventually, some of the nausea subsided. He untangled himself numbly from the bedding and knelt there, his head hanging. All his fault. His fault. The certainty was bone-deep, embedded in him. Why was he alive? He was the guilty one. He didn't deserve this.

The pendant burned cold against his chest. When he looked up, the ghost was sitting on his windowsill, legs swinging, watching him. He recognized her now.

"I'm sorry," he choked out.

The ghost gave him a small, sad smile, and faded out.