What We Can't See (Isrydia/Fasail)

[Harbor]

After the war Fasail and Aroure decided to visit Ellesmera. Fasail wanted to practice walking in new places without looking like a drunk—she’d been virtually unable to enter Uru’Baen after the battle, even with Aroure soaring above her to let her see—and because it stung to be of so little use rebuilding the many ravaged lives of others as anything other than a vessel for power. Yes, Fasail had mass quantities of energy she had been siphoning off for decades, and not all of it had been used in the wars, and she had offered it to other spellcasters freely, but she still felt….useless. Pointless. Aberrant and in the way.

She would be no less aberrant in an elven city, where even the children could safely do smaller magics, but at least Aroure could show her what it looked like. They have tall homes built into the trees for visiting Riders and dragons, Aroure told her, having never visited, but having been paging gradually through Sol-lu’s memory and come across that bit of knowledge. I do not know if I will fit, but there are also stretches of grass between breaks in the forest. They are more numerous closer to the city, where the forest thins.

Fasail passed on her understanding, the cool sky’s breeze blowing stray hairs back from her face as they flew, having already passed the enchanted boarders, toward the edges of the humming city.

You ought not be anxious.

I have every right to be, Fasail whispered back. Elves as a whole were not always….understanding of those who not only had maimed themselves with their own magic, but were now so shy of certain magics they were afraid to allow others to attempt to fix it.

Doesn’t mean you have to be, Aroure calmly returned, banking back and forth, swaying, to tilt Fasail at least a little bit out of her current mien.

Fasail smiled. Are you sure it will not bore you too strongly to drift above me at least for a bit? I may well need you all day.

Then I will wait. I have eaten recently—I have nowhere else I need to go.

You may wish to explore the city.

With no war to return to, at present we have the time.

I suppose.

At last Fasail slid from Aroure’s back and wove through the trees—anything larger than a sapling she could sense and avoid, and most of the time still the saplings—out into the grassier areas of the edges of the city, tentative to step out into the sun. Buildings and other non-living structures, like stone walls and fencing, were much harder to place in her mind and thus avoid walking into. But true to her word Aroure soon circled slowly above her, and granted her flickers of her own sight whenever Fasail requested them. Fasail sighed, wishing she could properly see, with the colors she remembered from, oh, a little more than a year since she’d last been able to see color. It had only been a matter of months since she’d lost her vision entirely.

Fasail frowned. Usually one was able to see things that interested them and follow them. What was she supposed to do now? Follow sounds, or scents? How inconvenient. And she had heard that Ellesmera was beautiful. Fasail tripped on the raised edge of a stepping stone and ground her teeth while Aroure expressed her apology, and Fasail told her she couldn’t see everything. She still wasn’t used to raising her feet those extra millimeters higher that she ought to, now that she had no idea what contours the ground before her took. Although it made no difference, Fasail closed her eyes as she straightened, and fought for a sound she found enough interest in to chase it.

The trickle of grass; the rasp of leaves against each other, against twigs, against wood and stone; the scrape of a whetstone against metal; the thump of a cobbler, the rub of his thumb against leather; the chip of a chisel against fractured crystal; the slow high turn of metal oiled and rotating against itself. Her brow puckered. That seemed a strangely….mechanical, against the other tones surrounding her. Resolving herself, Fasail stepped forth to peaceably, gradually track it down.

Fence, Aroure gently reminded her, and Fasail swerved.

[Quetzal]

Since coming to Ellesmera, Isrydia had found herself immersed in learning. The first time she had come here, when Arlyn was a month old, had been primarily to train as a Rider and dragon. Now she was tailoring her experience to suit her own interests, feeling a firm grasp on what it meant to be a Rider even if she and Arlyn didn't have all the years of training the Riders of old received. She had two primary areas of study; magic and astronomy. Magic was something she had always been behind with, preferring a non-fighting career and struggling to master the other skills concerned. Now she was seeing great improvement, especially now she had had a little experience, some advice from Camarat, and lacked the pressure of the war forcing her to focus on combat spells. Astrology was more prevalent than astronomy. Unfortunately that was of less interest to her. She cared not what the energies in the sky were doing, wanting to know how they worked, not what they meant. She liked to attack mysteries of the world from a question of logistics rather than function - after all, there was not always a reason behind things.

Star maps were in abundance, at least. They provided her a wealth of information about the past movement of stars to compare to her own work. It was incredible to see the paths they took. There were patterns and shapes but it was so hard to figure out why. Her telescopes were coming along well since her magic had been improving. It was so much easier to give lenses a perfectly curved surface with magic than trying to do it by hand. The images were sharper than ever but still failed to divulge just what a star was.

One such telescope was in her lap at the moment, receiving a little tinkering to hold the lenses more firmly in place and more perfectly parallel to one another. Metal hummed softly as she slid the levels over one another to give her better access to different components. She was leaning against the trunk of one of the countless thick trees, surrounded by colour. That was something that surprised her about Ellesmera, the colour. She had expected it to be all green, fairly gloomy with the sun blocked by the trees. Orange sunlight filled the admittedly very green city, filled with a spectrum of plants and colourful houses, structures and artwork. The weather was warm and the elven-taught senses to connect to nature told her all sorts of animals were about. Birdsong and elfsong drifted on the breeze from time to time. All in all, pleasant, and a wonder she had not fallen asleep in such a relaxing environment.

A familiar figure stepped near her. She recognised her though it took a second to place her as a Rider from the Varden forces. What was her name... Fasail. Yes, Fasail and Aroure. With only a couple of dozen dragons and Riders alive, she was confident she had heard of all of them, and could recognise all the Varden ones plus a few more. She had never spoken much to Fasail. She had always kept to herself. Now was a perfect chance to get to know her better! "Hello, it's Fasail, isn't it?" she called, then remembered Eragon warning the other Riders she had impaired vision and to bear that in mind when fighting alongside her. She wouldn't be able to see her, and having spoken little may not recognise her voice. "I'm Isrydia, I was with the Varden," she added.