#deydesli

Inktober 2017 / 24 “Deydesli Amberlight” Pen and copic

There was a power outage today, so I tried to draw Deydesli by memory.  The most difficult part was not being sure if she was human or elvish...  ><

@prgrmmr @naren-deydesli

She had managed to avoid the welcoming party. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go. Terellion was her best friend, and she was glad he had finally returned home after spending the past two years in Rathel training to be an adahi. It was whom he had brought back with him that she was wary of. Deydesli had missed her friend, but she was a little less thrilled that he had returned with a mage. It wasn’t even really the fact that he was a mage, but he was a Thril Gandir trained mage, not a rogue mage like she was. The whole idea of bringing someone well-versed in all the rules seemed like trouble to her.

Her fears not assuaged by her own magic ability. She only had one that she knew of, premonition. She could see things before it happened. However, whenever she tried to see what the mage might do, she came up with nothing. She knew that meant he knew how to ward against her ability, but why would he do that unless his intention was to turn her in. Terellion was an adahi now and had to carry a pair of iron mitts. This mage could grab them, slap them on her, and translocate her all the way to Thril Gandir, where she would most surely wind up imprisoned for the rest of her life, if not for her ability, then for the fact she wasn’t taken there as a child.

So she missed the parties. She avoided his house and the town hall where he was being reinstated as the swordkeeper. There was one place she couldn’t avoid. She was the teacher at the small town’s school. Terellion worked there as well, repairing things and fetching supplies from the town to the south. While others had filled in while he was gone, she was eager for him to come back.

She was hoping he would be alone on his first day back, but he was not so lucky. The students hadn’t arrived yet. Deydesli always made it a point to arrive an hour before they did. When he walked in ten minutes after she got there with the mage trailing behind him, her first instinct was to glance at the side door. She could make a run for it, but instead, she stayed frozen in place.

“Dey!” Terellion smiled as he approached. She tried to smile back as he continued, “I haven’t seen you since I got back. Someone has been waiting to meet you.”

The other elf was tall, thin, and covered in a long flowing robe. His dark skin was a little lighter than his reddish-brown hair and his violet eyes regarded her. He smiled. “Hi. I’m Magister Hethurin Fairsong.” He extended his hand.

Deydesli extended her hand as well. Was this it? Would he be able to tell what she was? Their hands touched. His grip was firm and felt genuine. She still couldn’t tell what he would do. “I’m Deydesli. I’m the teacher here.”

“Terellion’s told me a lot about you. I wanted to thank you for helping him, and me, while we were in the castle in Moressley.”

She glanced at Terellion. How much had he told him?

As if reading her mind, Terellion said, “He knows.”

“Ter! You’re not supposed to tell anyone!”

“He already knew there was someone poking at his wards,” Terellion explained. He sat down on top of one of the desks in the classroom. “I think you should give him a chance.”

“Well, I don’t have much choice now, do I?”

Hethurin sat on the desk next to Terellion, “I won’t turn you in, and I know you’re more than just a mage.”

Deydesli remained silent. That he knew anything at all was a bad idea.

“Your ability— You’ve told everyone it’s premonition and you've treated it like something that any mage can do. No one here has questioned it, but I know better. You’re one of the three seers— the seer of the future. There’s only ever one at any given time, and you’re the only one in Naren right now with the ability to see the future.”

Deydesli lowered her brows and stared at him defiantly, “So you’re going to tell everyone?”

Hethurin shook his head.

“Take me to Thril Gandir?”

Hethurin shook his head again. “I don’t think anyone else should know.”

She blinked. It certainly wasn’t what she expected a Thril Gandir mage to say.

“Terellion knows, and I know, but does anyone else need to? Thril Gandir certainly doesn’t need to know. They already have the seer of the past, and he can’t even leave for visits home despite having a perfect record. I feel very strongly against people being held places against their will. You already have Terellion looking out for you, but I want you to know that you now have me as well.”

(( My prompt word was ‘fish’. There are no actual fish in the story, but it starts with fishing! ))

“Magister Fairsong! What are you doing? We have fishermen who come into the village to buy from. There’s no need to soil your hands.”

Hethurin Fairsong looked up. The council members tended to watch him a little more closely when Terellion was out of town. He should be used to it by now, but he had just leaned back to relax with his fishing pole in hand. “It’s quite fine, Hirdle. I enjoy fishing.”

Hirdle Mountaincrane seemed taken aback. “Are- are you sure?”

“I’m positive. You didn’t need me for anything, did you?” Hethurin asked, eager for the human to leave.

“I… Well, no, but I did come to inform you of a discovery made this afternoon.”

Hethurin reeled in a little of his slack, but made no move to indicate he was ready to leave his fishing spot. “A discovery?”

“Yes. Is Terellion back yet? This could concern him as well.”

“I just translocated him and his horse to Westerfair this morning. It took some time off the trip, but I don’t expect he’ll return for another few days yet.” He regarded Hirdle curiously, “Why? Is something wrong with the sword? His sister is in town to look after it while he’s gone.”

“Oh no, no. It’s not the sword. It is highly irregular for an adahi to leave his mage behind, but I suppose it’s all for the best in this instance. At least you’re not both gone. You should finish up and meet me at the town hall.”

Hethurin twitched an ear, realizing that Hirdle still hadn’t told him exactly what the discovery was. He decided it would be easier to drop it, and just go find out for himself. “I’ll be there shortly.”

He reeled in his line, and closed up his small tacklebox. Whatever Hirdle’s discovery was had better be good. He loved Terellion, but his adahi and husband did not share the same passion for fishing as he did. Although he always said he wanted to go with him, Hethurin believed he was bored most of the time. Either that or they wound up doing something else and not fishing at all. Not that something else wasn’t fun too, but it made actual real fishing easier to do when Terellion made his short trips to get supplies for the small village’s school.

He made his way into town. The home he had just moved into with Terellion was along the way. They had been in the town together for over a year now, and had both decided that they were going to need a bigger place as they wanted to adopt. Thus they sold Terellion’s old home and moved into a bigger one closer to the town center. He stopped there and left his fishing gear, before continuing on to the town hall.

He noticed a delivery wagon in front of the town hall, which was a rather small building, but it suited the small town quite well. He climbed the steps and went inside, noticing a group of people huddled in one corner.

“Magister Fairsong, there you are. We’ve been waiting for you.” Solrys Lightweaver, the only elf on the town’s council, noticed him approaching first.

The others turned to look at him, and that’s when he saw the little bundle in Deydesli’s arms.

Solrys spoke again, “Deydesli came to us this morning and insisted that we check the crates in the shipment coming into the general store today.”

Hethurin looked around at the others. There was one he didn’t recognize, and he spoke next.

“I swear. I have no idea how she got in there. I’ve come all the way from Aduandel and never heard a peep. I’ve unloaded and loaded boxes along the way. I’m not sure where the one she was in was from.”

“We believe you. We do not intend to look into the matter much. It’s quite obvious that whomever put her in the crate meant to abandon her.” Solrys reassured the man.  He turned to face Hethurin again. “The real matter now is finding her a home. Hethurin, we know you and Terellion have been meaning to adopt, but you also know we don’t have any orphans here.”

Hethurin nodded. “That is correct. Terellion was going to ask at the Kingsfall orphanage about the procedure with them while he’s there.”

Deydesli approached him and passed the bundled baby to his arms. “She’s very new.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, “I know for a fact that Terellion will say yes. Why don’t you take her for a few days until he gets home? She needs a family, and you will be excellent parents.”

This is Desdeyliri, or in my first novel (coming to kindle soon!), Deydesli. In WoW, she is a friend’s character. I borrowed her for my book series, Knights of Naren. In Naren, she is a school teacher and rogue mage who helps her friend, Terellion, when he is sent to retrieve a stolen sword. 

Deydesli Amberwind wrote the word on the board for the younger children to see. Two of the youngest were learning how to read, and today's focus was the letter ’B’. She had finished her own school work early as usual, and, as she had been doing since the beginning of this school year, had gone to the front of the class to help Mrs. Softpetal. She was only twelve, but as she had nothing else to do, Mrs. Softpetal had agreed to let her assist.

“Thank you, Deydesli. Children, who can tell me which letter is at the start of the word.” All four hands went up. She looked at the two youngest. “Iandor?”

“It’s a B.” the boy answered while wiggling in his seat.

“That's right! Now, who can read the word?” she looked at the oldest two, Leria and Tavion who were eight and nine respectively, as they both put their hands up. “Tavion?”

“Ball.”

“That's right. It starts with the letter B and the word is ball. B-b-ball,” she said emphasizing the ‘B’. “Deydesli, give them the next word, please.”

Deydesli wrote the word ‘Bird’ and turned around to around to look at the children. She nearly gasped upon seeing Iandor covered with blood, but when she blinked, it was gone. She glanced at Mrs. Softpetal, but she carried on with the lesson as if everything was normal.

She looked back to Iandor. Another image came to mind. Wolves. She recalled that over the past few months she would get bursts of clarity, or that was her best way to describe it. It was almost as if she knew the answers on the tests before she knew the answers, and it was the same with her reading and math homework. It didn’t make sense, but she thought maybe she would walk Iandor home. He’d be safe that way, right?

She looked down at her arm and gasped at the sight of blood, but then she blinked and it was gone.

“Deydesli? Are you okay?”

She had really gasped that time. “I’m fine. I’m sorry. Is it time for the next word?”

“Yes, please.”

Deydesli wrote the next word, ‘Baby’, trying to forget what she had seen. Maybe it had just been her overactive imagination, but had it ever been wrong before? She thought she was going to get her first bra for her twelfth name day, and she did. Just yesterday, she had the idea that her mother was making a fresh loaf of bread that day and it hadn’t cooked right. That had been right as well.

She looked up to see Iandor covered in blood again. The wolves had surrounded them. She couldn’t protect him.

She looked at Mrs. Softpetal. She was still giving the lesson as if everything was normal. “Mrs. Softpetal,” she interrupted. She was starting to panic and didn’t know what else to do. She continued, “Iandor can’t go home at the normal time or the usual way today.”

The teacher raised a brow in surprise. Deydesli hoped she wasn’t getting in trouble. She quickly added, “Something is going to happen. I know it is.”

“Deydesli, calm down. What’s going to happen?”

She frowned with worry. How was Mrs. Softpetal going to believe her? “I just know it’s something bad, and it might involve wolves. I don’t know how I know. Please, he can’t go home along his usual path.”

“It’s the only path to his home.” Mrs. Softpetal went to hold Iandor’s hand. The young boy looked scared now, and Deydesli felt a pang of guilt for causing his fear.

“Can we please get someone with some sort of weapon to go with him? I’ll go too if there’s someone strong with us.”

“Lessons are almost done for the day. Can you watch the younger ones while I’m gone? I’ll get someone. It’ll only be a few minutes. Finish the rest of the lesson with them.”

Deydesli nodded and did as asked while Mrs. Softpetal put on a shawl and hurried out the side door. She returned a few minutes later with a man who neither had a weapon nor was very strong. She glanced at her teacher doubtfully.

“Deydesli, you remember Solrys. He just graduated a few years ago.”

She nodded. She remembered him. He had graduated just as she had moved into the older group so she didn’t know him very well, despite sharing a classroom with him for a few years. She did know there were stronger options. He wasn’t even carrying anything to defend himself with.

“I remember him, but-”

“I remember you as well,” Solrys said. “Come, step outside with me. We need to discuss something.”

Did he have a weapon outside? She glanced at Mrs. Softpetal, who merely nodded. Deydesli tried not to show her irritation. Were they even taking her seriously? She followed Solrys outside.

“So what is it? I asked for help getting Iandor home because I know something is going to happen, and I’m sorry but you don’t look like you’ll be an awful lot of help.”

Solrys smiled slightly. “Looks aren’t everything, especially where magic is involved.”

She stared at him, frightened of what he’d say next. Was that it? She had magic and they were going to cart her off to Thril Gandir? She’d never even been out of the town. She was close to panicking when he spoke again.

“I meant me, but I think, based on what Mrs. Softpetal said, you might have it too. I have some books that may help in my home. You can borrow them if you want, but you’ll need to be careful. It’s hard to get books on magic outside of Thril Gandir without raising suspicion.” “You have magic?” “Shh, not so loud.” He voice lowered to a whisper. “I can help you get the boy home safely, and I can help you figure out what your abilities are and how to use them. I think. I’ve read a lot of books anyway. You might not like hearing that I think your ability is very rare. However, before I do any of that, I need to have your word that you won’t tell anyone. There are only a few people who know about me. If the wrong person knows and lets it slip, Thril Gandir will show up very quickly to take us both to stay in the mage city. This needs to be a secret.”

She nodded, though she still didn’t look sure. “You really think I have magic?” She kept her voice down this time.

“Yes, and a very special ability. I’ll explain everything I know about it later. You promise to keep it a secret?”

“Yes. You can really get Iandor home safely?”

“I’m sure of it. Let’s go get him, shall we?”