The Faeries' Harp

34: Arrows and Songbirds

“I wish I’d known archery was this fun,” Rhys remarks, firing another clean shot and hitting near the center of the target that has been set up for him against one of the decorative boulders in the training area, which is the least fancy of the palace’s many gardens. “I would have spent more time using my bow when I was living as a human, if I’d known.”

“You’re a natural,” Seamus encourages him with a smile. “Let’s try with these blades next.” He offers Rhys a blade of crystal with a bone handle.

“Wouldn’t metal be more effective?” Rhys inquires.

“No metal of that kind to be found here. Iron is near as toxic to us as silver.” Seamus gestures meaningfully to the periwinkle scar on Rhys’s palm, and Rhys winces at the reminder. “Have you wielded a blade before?”

“A bit. I was apprenticed to a blacksmith for a little while.”

“We’ll start with the basics, then. Alastair, join us, will you? That rock can hold itself down without your help.” Alastair grudgingly lifts himself off the rock and moves to join Seamus and Myghal, who up to this point has been flying arrow retrieval missions, in helping Rhys learn how to wield his weapon properly. This is not his first choice of how to spend his training time, but Magister Diarmaid decided to split them into groups by gender today, for some reason. He casts a longing glance at the other side of the garden, where Saoirse is working with Kyrie, Aeowyn, and Elowen, and while he is distracted, Rhys nearly lands a blow on his arm.

“Back to reality, daydreamer,” Myghal warns Alastair good-naturedly. Alastair frowns and turns all of his attention to sparring with Rhys, and because he is far more experienced and a better flyer, it is all Rhys can do to fend off Alastair’s flurry of blows.

“Maybe a happy medium, yeah? It’s his first day with a blade,” Seamus scolds. Alastair rolls his eyes.

“Last I knew we didn’t have much time. A trial by fire is the fastest way to learn,” he retorts.

“It’s fine. He’s right. I have to learn,” Rhys agrees, panting but determined. Unlike using his magic, he feels good working with weapons. Sparring feels like progress.

***~O~***

“Maybe we should leave off weapons for now,” Aeowyn urges, surveying their corner of the garden. So far, Saoirse has landed one shot with her bow and arrow in the center of the target, but turned three other arrows into a lizard, a praying mantis, and a salad fork, respectively. Her bow has started to sprout vines and flowers, and Saoirse is doing deep breathing exercises, trying not to give voice to her frustration.

“I know Magister Diarmaid really wanted us to focus on weapons, but I think you’re right. We should take a break,” Elowen agrees.

“The ocarina,” Bergljot suggests firmly. Kyrie’s eyes gleam with anticipation; this is exactly what she has been wanting to try all morning, but she wanted someone else to suggest it first. This is better than she’d hoped for; she doesn’t think that even Magister Diarmaid will want to argue with the unicorn.

“I’m very much in favor of that,” Kyrie agrees immediately. “Saoirse?”

“I’m willing to try it,” Saoirse answers quietly as she gently sets her bow down with no small sense of relief. She gingerly takes the ocarina from her belt and just holds it, unsure of how to begin. “Um…. Do any of you play?”

“I do,” Aeowyn admits, pulling her own ocarina out of its leather pouch. She would never admit it if asked, but her dislike for Saoirse has been melting away over the course of their training session. Almost everyone else Aeowyn has met with great magical talent, except for Kyrie, has been really stuck up about it, but Saoirse seems more embarrassed by her gifts, or her inability to control them, than anything else. “First a few breathing exercises, and we’ll need to practice the mouth positions before we try to play it.”

The breathing techniques come very naturally to Saoirse and seem to do wonders for her emotional state, which Elowen was very concerned was going to be too haywire for any semblance of control with any additional stress. When she’d suggested taking a break, she meant a real break, not changing what they were working on, but to her, it seems that this might be for the best.

While Aeowyn coaches Saoirse through proper lip and tongue positioning with the ocarina, Kyrie pores over various scrolls, looking for simple spells set to music that might be good for a beginner to practice with. She’s not particularly musically inclined, herself, but she’s studied everything she can get her hands on about spells and casting methods and magic use in general.

“Good! All that is very good,” Aeowyn encourages Saoirse, who smiles and blushes but says nothing in reply. “Let’s try a few notes. Just a slow, simple scale. Copy what I do.” She then proceeds to walk Saoirse through the scale, which she executes near perfectly, but not without the notes of her ocarina turning a few nearby clusters of hydrangea blossoms into tiny clouds, which promptly begin raining on the ground beneath them.

“Great technique, but we’re still getting this spillover effect,” Kyrie observes. “I don’t understand it. Maybe we need to make sure there’s some sort of an intention to whatever you’re doing?”

“That might help,” Elowen agrees. Saoirse’s power makes her nervous.

“There’s a simple spell for charming songbirds, is there not?” Bergljot inquires rhetorically.

“That would be harmless enough. Let’s try it,” Kyrie agrees, flipping through her scrolls. “You read music, Saoirse?”

“The human kind,” Saoirse replies. “Is it different here?”

“Not much. Let’s look at this together.”

Kyrie and Saoirse both are pleasantly surprised by how quickly Saoirse catches on to fae musical notation.

“I think I’ve got it,” Saoirse says after only a few moments of studying the scroll. “Will you play it with me, please, Aeowyn? Like the scale?”

“Of course,” Aeowyn agrees. There’s no way even so apt a music student as Saoirse has memorized which fingering positions go with which note so quickly.

The two of them begin to play, Saoirse a mere split second after Aeowyn with each note. A nearby songbird takes notice of them and flies closer and closer, eventually alighting on a branch near Saoirse’s shoulder. At first, all seems to be as it should be, but as they continue to play the simple song-spell, the bird begins to grow…and grow…and grow. When they finish the song, the bird is nearly as large as Bergljot.

“Well, that’s odd,” Kyrie remarks. She lays a hand on the bird’s head, which it accepts, still being completely charmed by the ocarina music, and whispers, “emriohl.” The bird shrinks much more quickly than it grew and promptly flies away once it has resumed its original size.

“I can’t do any of it right,” Saoirse despairs.

“That’s not true. Your ocarina technique is remarkably good, for your first time,” Aeowyn assures her.

“It’s the emotional control aspect, just like you discussed with Magister Diarmaid yesterday,” Kyrie adds. “We just have to keep working on it. I think those breathing exercises you were doing with Aeowyn helped a lot. This one was a lot less…bizarre than some of the accidents with the weapons training. You just can’t expect it all to happen at once.”

“We don’t have much time. What if we run out of time and it’s still like this?” Saoirse whispers, haunted by the images of the Terror of Blackened Name that linger in her memory.

“We’re not gonna let that happen,” Elowen assures her firmly, although her confidence is partially feigned. “Let’s take a break, do some breathing exercises, and get back to it, all right?”

“We can stick to the ocarina. That seems to come much more naturally to you than weapons,” Aeowyn adds.

“Don’t I need to learn all of it?” Saoirse asks, dreading the answer.

“I don’t think so,” Kyrie replies. “We’re a team. Each of us fills a different role. Not all of us need to be experts in everything. We just need to play to each other’s strengths. And you have a lot of potential with song-spells.”

“Just a matter of fine-tuning,” Elowen agrees with a smile. Saoirse offers a small smile in return. I hope they’re right, she worries internally.

“It’s as I showed you before, Saoirse. Teamwork. Let your team guide you,” Bergljot advises. Saoirse takes a deep breath, steeling herself to continue, to exercise more control the next time.

“Let’s get to work, then,” Saoirse decides. Make every moment count.