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— The legend of Mævel — (Part VII)

Today was the Day of the Forgotten. Mævel had slept well, nestled into the soft and warm depth of her dreams, her head resting on the short blue fur of the fox.
In sharp contrast with the lovely night, she awoke strangely irritated. Even the birds songs were like noise to her ears, and every sound of the forest she heard with acute intensity and a sense of being submerged by many sensory inputs.
Hopefully, the blue fox voice was still very comforting, and she started to wonder how they could come across a Forgotten One in need.

— I think I know where we can find some Forgotten One in need.
— Where? asked Mævel

The fox paused, then answered her question:
— Near your human parents’ home.

Mævel was surprised. She trusted the fox, and never had really questioned him, because more than that she trusted her own feelings, but now her feelings were telling her that there was something the fox had not told her. Or had told her partially. She was silent, pondering the unseen implications.

— Mæ, I’ll try my best to answer your questions, but remember I cannot tell you everything. I can help you remember some things, but there are things that my curse does not allow me to reveal. You have to find them by your own, in order to free us…
— Free us? I thought you were the one Cursed?…
— Yes I am, and…
— How do you know my parent’s home? How much do you know about me?
— I know you since you are a baby actually. And even before…
— Before? I don’t understand a thing… I feel there are some unseen links, that I cannot decipher, yet they are so close to…
— You’re right, there are links, links that are important, and that I cannot reveal.
— Why can’t you reveal them?
— Let’s go to your human parent’s home…
— Why do you always say my human parents?

The fox blew in front of him, creating a wobbling sound into the air in the form of a ring large enough for them to go through it. And he hopped inside, disappearing in mid-air.

Mævel was perplexed, but did not hesitate. She hopped too into the watery ring in front of her and found herself falling into a void, to reemerge on a bed of dry leaves in front of her parent’s home. Blohmrik the blue fox was seated in front of her, observing a shadowy form at a distance in front of them.

— Is that the Forgotten One we will help?
— Yes.
— Why do you need me? You could help her, couldn’t you?
— She wouldn’t see me, Forgotten Ones are usually obsessed by a few people, those who they feel can remember them, and don’t usually see other people. Their perception is quite different than ours.
— Hang on a minute… Why do you think she will see me?

Mævel looked into the eyes of the fox, and she knew.

— We are linked.

It was more an affirmation than a question.
Mævel wondered who that shadowy figure was. When she focused on her, the form was getting more solid, and she could catch glimpses of how she looked like. And she was surprised. She was about her age, with long blond hair as hers.
Mævel’s voice was broken:
— My parents had told me I was about to die when I was a baby, then by a sort of miracle, I became healthy… Was that true?… I mean… Was that a gentle way of telling me that I had a twin who died or…
— No, Mæ. She is not you. She is not linked to you by blood. You can talk to her, she will listen to you.

So Mævel went to see the shadowy figure. She had stopped wandering and trying to find an opening around the house, for there were none for spirits: all openings were locked by stripes of red cloth hung onto the doors and windows.
Mævel felt the pain of the Forgotten One as she approached her.

— Who are you? she suddenly asked Mævel, raising her head at her approach.
— I am Mævel.
— Mævel… It means marvel of Maÿ… I was born in Maÿ…
— What are you doing here?
— This is my parents’ home.
— How is that possible?
— Twenty one year ago, I was taken away from them, given to Shaint Lejüs in place of a fairy princess. But Shaint Lejüs was no fool, he had sent his apprentice to spy on the fairy king.
— Blohmrik?!
— Yes, Blohmrik… But Blohmrik disobeyed the Elder God, and when he saw the exchange that was about to happen, he let it happen. He wanted to protect the fairy princess from his master. Because Shaint Lejüs wanted the princess as a bride. Ahahaha, how disappointed Lejüs was when he saw that I could not perform the most basic magic spells. I was good at nothing, so he let me go wandering into his Realm. He’d just thought the half-fairy princess had inherited no magic from her father.
— How do you know all that?

— I told her, the blue fox said. I was hoping to bring her relief. But she started to look for her parents, and Lejüs discovered the truth… Because she was not looking for a fairy king. She was heading here, year after year.
— That’s the reason of your curse, is it?
— Yes. She can’t see me because I was Forgotten too, in that form of a blue fox. But as Forgotten Ones don’t forget, I didn’t forget. I couldn’t tell her, because she couldn’t see me.
— So, I am that fairy princess you are talking about… that strange idea was starting to dawn on Mævel.
— Yes. When Lejüs discovered who you were, he wasn’t interested in you any longer, because he thought your magical potential had been irremediably damaged by all those years spent in human company.

— Who are you talking to? the shadowy figure asked, bemused.
— Blohmrik, he is here. But it’s untrue, Mævel said, there is magic in me.
— Yes there is, answered the blue fox, and you can undo what has been done with it.

Mævel remembered the useless key she had manifested when she had tried to go out of her human parents’ house. She had not even looked at it closely.

— You can manifest it again Mæ, said the fox. It is with you. You are its lock.

And no sooner had Mævel thought of the big rusted key, than it appeared in her hand again. But this time the rust on it was crackled, and it started to disintegrate, and a brilliant shiny metal started to show beneath it.

Scratching what was left of the rust, Mævel started to look at the beautiful key, it was shaped as a musical note, and it had some word written on it, in an ancient language she didn’t know how to read. But she knew the sound when she ran her finger on the surface of the word.

« Araoni »

That was her. She was remembering, and everything started to change.

The wedding of the God Blohmrik, son of Mirÿnda, Goddess of Mirth and of Bälias, God of the Sparkles with Araoni, daughter of the Fairy Queen Theÿa and the Fairy King Aldurion was pronounced on a bright day of Maÿ, in a beautiful orchard in the presence of Araoni’s human parents and sisters and brothers.

Even Lejüs had been invited, even though he would have preferred to be Forgotten…

And so my story ends… said Captain Bone to Tomkin.

— And was the shadow remembered by her true parents? had asked Tomkin.
— Oh, yes she was… Of course. She just didn’t want to steal the limelight from Mævel, you see. Her parents were happy of course to find back their true daughter.
— You didn’t tell me the name of the true daughter, did you?
— No, I didn’t, said Captain Bone with a wink.

Huÿgens was not much of a cat person.

He liked his dogs because they were solid, loyal companions, and he could count on them to take care of his herd of langoats.

Langoats were a kind of three-eyed manic woolly and horned creatures, with a big sensing tongue, attracted to every new sound, or scent, or colour, or texture… well almost anything new that came before their eyes (when said eyes were not covered by thick layers of wool that is). And as their memory was short too, all kinds of things were always new to them.

That was why the dogs were extremely useful in channeling their movements; not that the langoats would have hurt themselves, because they were very able to provide for themselves, and jump from the top of a cliff without suffering much injuries. But they could very well loose all notion of their physicality and pop in and out of the fabric of time and space.

When they came back, because they always did magically come back, even after months of wandering, they would at times be reconfigured into another creature, and that would be pointless applying too much effort in trying to bring them back to their previous form, because it was said, in relation to their stubbornness that once a langoat, always a langoat…

Huÿgens had already lost some, especially during the shearing season.

And he had found himself back once with a cumbersome hippoliphant, and a bouncy shulimeek instead of two langoats.

Anyway, langoats wool was a very precious asset, highly sought after, as it could very easily bind with magical spells. Most of the clothes made for royalties were actually made with langoat wool, and it was also said that some enchanters had used langoat wool to make magical tapestries that would shapeshift, and reveal things to their owners.

So losing a langoat was not small concern for Huÿgens, and he had to be careful during the shearing season to leave some mops of hair to cover the three eyes of the beasts, so as to curb their insatiable thirst for discoveries.

But these days, Huÿgens had been very concerned about his herding dog Fjutch. Fjutch was a fluffy black dog he had found when it was still a puppy. He had trained it to become the head of his pack of dogs, when he had noticed the old rheumatic Thöm was taking the puppy under its wing —because the old faithful dog was knowing that it would depart and would reconfigure into a new form, but would not allow that to happen, not before he could have found a reliable companionship for his beloved master Huÿgens.

The healing properties of the langoat milk seemed to had done wonders once again, and Fjutch dis-ease was probably just a false alarm, but it had reminded Huÿgens how much he appreciated his dogs, every one of them, every day he was with them.

As for the cats… Illi, that was her name, had decided to come back to the cave, and he was showing her the way to the place where he had found her. He had asked BelleDora to pack a few things for her. He could not give Illi the beverage she was referring to as “coffee”, as that plant was not found in their region, but in compensation, he gave her a gourd of langoat milk, because she seemed like she would probably need some.

When he left her near the hole, he had some tears in his eyes when Illi hugged Fjutch very tenderly, as if the dog was reminding her of something dear. Illi after a moment hesitation, where she was like speaking to herself and not knowing what to do, finally hugged Huÿgens too, thanking him for everything he had done.

And off she was… free and unfettered as a gripshawk…

When Illi had finished arguing with Illi about having her hug the big man, while this was not manners of her kind, she sighed as she saw that the opening she had first thought was here (yeah, because I fell in there! she said), her senses where telling her that it was now closed…

— How quaint said Illi for herself.
— Well, as a matter of fact, it reminds me of something, said Illi F. There was that delicious gentleman, John Lubbock who said “What we see depends mainly on what we look for” and somehow it seems perfect.
— I don’t know any Grubbeck, grumbled Illi, a bit irritated that the hole, which was there before, wouldn’t be here, now she needed it.
— Lubbock was such a nice person, said Illi dreamily… Perhaps I could just try to have a peek inside the cave, if you let me.
— What?! Do again your wizzy wooey thing and I’ll strangle you! Don’t know how I would do it, but I’ll do it!
— Oh, you are so sluggishly gloomy! That was just to help you…
— Mmm, sorry for that, I was a bit upset, said Illi. What could you do?
— Just focus on the inside, and carry us both inside… But actually you would have to leave your body here, and we’ll probably see other things that do not belong to this place, but heck! that should be fun, Illi F said grinning widely.

They were interrupted by some munching sounds and ruffling heavy breath.

— What the bejeezus is that?! hissed Illi the cat (who didn’t even know how she knew so funny sounding words as bejeezus)
— Can’t you see? That’s obviously a dragon eating some bushes… How strange… replied Illi F airily.
— A WHAT? I HATE DRAGONS!
— Ahahah, relax, I was just pulling your leg.
— That’s not funny.
— Well he has funny colours by the way. Pinkish purple I wouldn’t dare to wear in London streets.
— That’s REALLY NOT FUNNY!
— Why so? You can’t see it anyway…
— And what if he sees me? Dragons are vicious creatures.
— He’s too busy eating these funny berries, and will probably collapse of exhaustion once he’s full.
— A chance! A vegetarian dragon!
— OK. Shall we try to find an entrance in the cave with my method, or do we ask the dragon? He looks well-mannered by the way.
— Oh, by the eyeballs of the Mighty Shrimp, you tell me…
— No, you choose.
— No, you.
— You…
— Ooooh, bugger off…

Of all the eggs Malvina had been collecting since the beginning of her settling down in the cave with Leörmn, only one had been producing a baby dragon, till now.

She had nicknamed her Buckberry, because the little one seemed so fond of the buckberries that grew at the entrance of the cave.

Buckberries were a variety of wild big electric blue-vermilion reddish berries, and were known to have thwarted all attempts to be grown in gardens. In a legendary past, a famous king of the near Kingdoms named Hadraz the Third was said to have been loving these fruits so much that he had spent torrents of gold in trying to have them farmed in the precious glasshouses of his realm. All the attempts of the most knowledgeable Master Farmers had been amounting to nilch.

This habit of Buckberry, for one moment had been making Malvina anxious of him revealing the location of their safe haven. As she could and would not prevent him to go in search for them, she created some powerful spells to hide him, at least from people to whom the little dragon had not revealed his true name first.

That had caused some stir from some people who where adventuring near the cave to pick up some of the juicy fruits that could be easily spotted from the plains, as they noticed a heavy breath and * munch * sound around the bushes, that moved like shaken down by a powerful ghost.

Thus has begun the trail of rumours saying that the cave was haunted.

All in all, Malvina was not so displeased that there were only a few eggs hatching at a time, as the young dragons were very lively, much more so than the older ones who kept most of their time sleeping, or more aptly put, dreaming.

Dragons had no need for training in a sense, as they were aware of their abilities, and Buckberry, even being so young could just have been moving away and started his own adventure, but something was compelling him to stay in the cave.

He had chosen a different form from that of Leörmn, and it was indicating he would not have the same intent. As he would continue to grow, he would probably be a very powerful dragon, shaped for flight and discoveries in the farthest boundaries of the Worlds. At times, Leörmn even doubted he would be fit for a human partner, as he had only managed to scare the few humans he had encountered…

After all, it was not necessary, though dragons could draw a lot from such a partnership.

Dragons were not always welcome, as they were feared for their might, and could not always easily explain what they were doing, as most of their movements were in the Unseen.

In that, only Ragmók, the old speech of the dragons could be used to properly explain these movements. Ragmók was not really a speech, in the human sense, as it could also be spoken through gestures or singing or drawing. But it was the very essence of Magix.

When a dragon and a human bonded, they shared their languages in a communion of their spirits, and the chosen human could delve easily into the Unseen, while providing to the chosen dragon an ease of movement into the Seen.