Chương 42: Róise’s Song

As Róise watched Miriam march off to the field where she would be meeting Cian, she turned to her own Cian floating beside her.

"Does this not take effort for you? Being in a bunch of places at once?" Cian shrugged.

"Not really. Normally I try to find some way to make my state of being relatable by reminding you that I'm really the entire Walk, and the person you're seeing in front of you is just a part, kind of like some function of your own body, but it doesn't really map. It's just something I can do." They walked to the town square, no longer a party venue, but just the cross-section of the busiest part of the town. People waved to them as they moved leisurely from place to place.

It was like no marketplace Róise had ever seen in Shirren. There were no barkers calling out to sell their wares. No patrolmen to crack down on thievery. No thievery that she could see either. Just folks offering what they had and trading for what they needed among dozens of stands and stalls. It felt unnatural.

"Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't know about other places - I am only this one place, you know," Cian said when she asked about it.

"But we don't have money - what would the point be? There are so few of us and most of us can never leave. So we basically just give each other whatever we need. People pick the job they most want to do and do it, then help out on the ones no one wants to do." Cian was always careful to include himself in the "us" of his people, Róise noticed. He truly didn't think of himself as the lord of this realm, no matter that he was powerful enough to snuff out anyone on the island - and was in fact the island itself.

He seemed to want to be one of the people - not a King like his namesake.

"So, do you have a meadow for me to train in?" Róise asked.

"Nope. Your Nature and Adept class combination is about people. So we're going to train here, where the people are." Cian gestured around to the village.

"Once we get your reweaving going, we'll talk to Kelly - he's our resident head minstrel. Not an adept, but I think he can help you with technique."

"How am I going to redo my weaving?" Róise asked.

"I didn't even know you could."

"Ah, yeah, it's not easy," Cian admitted.

"Come, let's sit by the river." They settled onto a pleasant stone bench set just where the pair were able to see a picturesque view of the river. Róise could see big golden fish swimming lazily with the current.

"The river provides most of the protein the villagers get," Cian said.

"It runs down - up, maybe? - to a small lake where we stock the fish. There are some actual animals in the jungle - not monsters - but the villagers can't really catch them easily. And really, no one wants to kill and eat a pretty parrot if you can help it."

"How do you reweave your forsa?" Róise asked abruptly.

"I didn't even know there were other methods than what I was taught as a girl until I met Miriam."

"Your family were gardeners?" Róise stiffened.

"My mother was. It was a hobby she took up when she was older - she was a Silver Nature herself. But I used to play in the garden with her when I was young, before she got bored of it. And me, " she added sadly.

"Before I knew it I had adopted the Life Nature."

"And so you cultivated it like a Garden Adept would," Cian nodded.

"I just did what my tutors told me."

"But something changed. You didn't become a Garden Adept." She scowled.

"Is that important? I ended up growing up on the streets with Cormac. I spent a lot of time in a tavern with a bartender who looked after me, and before I knew it I had taken the Folksong Adept class." Cian sighed.

"Here's the thing, Róise. It does matter why you do the things you do. I can perhaps surmise a few things from what you've told me already." He hesitated, then continued.

"Do you know why you're a Folksong Adept, and not just a Song Adept? Most of them I have met were bards or minstrels."

"What kind of techniques do they use?"

"Support. Healing. Making others stronger. It's unfortunately why I've never had a Song Adept successfully escape the Walk - they are team players in an environment where there can be no team. Yet you use a very similar Nature and class for combat that they do for gentler forsa applications. Do you know what a folk song really is?" Róise raised an eyebrow.

"Just common songs. Drinking songs, stuff like that."

"Indeed. But there's more to it. Folk songs are passed down in very specific traditions. But I think there's more to it - it's not what a folk song is that matters. What you think it is matters most. What kind of songs most resonated with you in that tavern?" Cian asked. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Róise shrugged.

"They were just normal songs I think."

"No, Róise. They weren't," Cian said, his tone harder than before.

"I can't help you if you don't level with me." She grimaced.

"They're not my secrets to tell. People's lives are on the line." Cian grinned.

"Who am I going to tell? I'm not going anywhere." Róise clasped her hands together tightly, looking intensely at the fish.

"They… they were rebel songs," she admitted.

"Máirín, the bartender at the tavern. She was the leader of a rebel cell that met out of the back."

"Ahh, that connects some of the dots," Cian said, nodding.

"My… most of my family was killed during an incident with the Shorinu occupiers." Róise fidgeted in her seat, unable to find any comfort on the stone bench.

"I just… it was the first time I had heard people talking about fighting back. Not just rolling over and taking it."

"I think I see where you're going with it," Cian said gently.

"The songs they sang - songs of rebellion. Where others might have heard a drinking tune, you heard…"

"War," she finished for him, nodding.

"Yes. It's a war that's still going on."

"Ok, I understand now." Cian floated up so that he was suspended over the water.

"So, what I think you need to do is a different weaving method than I originally thought. It's more theory than I think you care to get into, but different methods belong to different schools of outcome. The Garden Adept class leads to care and cultivation. The Song Adept class leads to strength and inspiration."

"And the Folksong class?" He smiled wickedly.

"In your case, the Folksong Adept class leads to retribution and destruction." Róise's eyes gleamed.

"Yes. Yes it does."

"So you'll be using a weaving method more akin to Fire Nature than Life," Cian said.

"In this method you're basically weaving your forsa into… hmm. Let's call it points of fireworks. In each of your joints, your forsa should collect with intense pressure until they naturally overflow - little explosions."

"I like the sound of that," Róise said.

"But how do I deal with the forsa weaving I've already made?"

"You have to pull it apart," Cian said, mimicking tearing something in two.

"It's going to hurt. A lot. Also… you'll basically be as powerful as a Third Ring child when you're done."

"Fantastic."

"But, when you've woven the new mesh your forsa will flow through your class better than you ever thought possible. That way, when you use Folksong techniques it will drastically increase the amount of ambient forsa you can absorb, allowing you to weave Fourth Ring density within your own body." Róise sighed, then straightened her back.

"I guess I need to start tearing, then?"

"Unfortunately." Róise breathed deeply, then started to feel inward for her forsa stream. Unlike Miriam, she hadn't spent much time in self-contemplation when it came to her forsa nature - she had barely any mindspace to speak of. Just a sense of her power and its general shape.

"How do I do this?"

"You wove your forsa like a root system. Find an easy root and just tear it away from yourself." She tried visualizing grasping her forsa. It wasn't easy; she hadn't manually woven her root method - it just sort of grew organically as she fed it forsa. She wasn't used to having to take conscious, manual control of it, but she finally felt one under her mental fingertips.

"You know I was always told the weaving method didn't matter. It was only weaving forsa itself that was important." Cian scoffed.

"By people who never left the Third Ring. Or… people who don't really care if you do. The method does matter, especially when it comes to interacting with your Adept class." Róise swallowed nervously. Why was she trusting this strange boy? The personification of the very thing that was keeping them prisoner. What he was asking her to do, if it worked perfectly, would leave her helpless. And it would be pretty painful, apparently.

"I'm having second thoughts."

"Funny," Cian said, his voice suddenly low and cold.

"I thought your goal was retribution and destruction. Maybe when you confront the people who killed your family you can grow them a pretty flower with your garden-variety Garden Adept bullshit." She whipped her head around, snarling at the boy.

"What did you say to me?"

"You heard me." Cian turned his back and started to float away.

"I'm offering to give you what you want. You don't want to listen, I can't make you. But don't pretend that you really care about your rebellion. You'd be better off staying here than dying in the jungle anyway." Róise growled and ripped the closest root she'd found away from herself. The pain was blinding - far worse than she'd even imagined when Cian had described it, but her fury was greater.

"There. That what you're looking for, master sage?" Cian looked back and shrugged.

"I guess it's a start. Maybe I'll come back when you want to take it seriously." The pixie roared, oblivious to the staring townspeople milling around her and began tearing at her inner forsa mesh with abandon. She knew she couldn't harm Cian, so she turned her anger inward. Pruning the root network like it was the line of weeds she used to pull back when she'd first woven it. She ripped handful after handful, until soon she was crumpled limp on the stone bench, drenched in sweat, shaking uncontrollably.

"Shh, shh, it's okay," Cian said, leaning in close.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I said those things. But you needed the anger to take the plunge. That's what we're going to be building - a way to turn your anger into power. Into destruction. Did you get it all?" Róise panted hard, her face against the stone.

"About… half." Cian winced sympathetically.

"Then rest up a bit. We have some more work to do after." ✧✧✧ Leaning against her fruit stand, Luíseach shook her head and turned to yet another Cian standing next to her.

"Why do you do this every time?" The boy snagged a mango and started taking long, languid bites.

"Do what?"

"Torture them. Build them up so much, just to lead them to their deaths." Cian stopped chewing.

"They don't all die. You know that." Luíseach snorted.

"One in thirty at best. You know that even if even a couple of them get through, this whole group isn't going to make it." Cian thought for a moment, then continued to eat.

"It's better to give them hope. I'd rather everyone just stay here and live a peaceful life, but people from the outside aren't like us. They have too much connection to the outside world. Being trapped here is like a prison to them. They'll try to escape whether I help them or not.

"And frankly," he said around a mouthful of mango, "I got tired of watching all of them die thousands of years ago. I will feel better if I at least try to help."

"Yeah," Luíseach said, her eyes taking on a haunted look.

"Imagine being stuck in one place forever. Never able to leave." Cian snorted.

"Preaching to the choir here, my darling. No matter where I go, there I am."