The Goddess's Gift

“Please be careful!” I put my hand on his arm, “There’s no need to hurt yourself just to figure out what these books say!”

“Winna, my love, some of the books up there are older than I am. That means that they were kept not just through the fire of the manor house, but also through your family’s travels before that. They have to be important somehow.”

“I…I guess.”

“And if I have to deal with a little bit of pain in order to be able to figure out what they say, then so be it, I’ll survive. Besides, the more I translate them, the easier it’ll get.”

“Fine, fine.” I sighed, “I just…don’t want you hurt.”

He leaned down and kissed me briefly, murmuring, “I know.”

When the fey man pulled away, he turned his attention back to the book, and smiled, “It did work, though.” he poured over the book.

“I still don’t recognize the language.”

“It’s the common speech, just from a long, long time ago. It was practically a different tongue back then.” Lear explained. “This is…older than the oldest version I know, so it’s not easy to read, but I can glean a little.”

“Anything helpful?”

“Um…I think it’s something of a recording of farm productivity for a specific season.” he gave a wry smile, “So…no.”

“For when my family still lived at the manor?”

“No. I’d be able to read that a lot more easily. I was alive for that. This is one of the books that's older than I am.” Lear paused, and added quietly, “A lot older.” He looked over the page a bit longer, then said haltingly, “It…speaks of a realm that I’m…not entirely familiar with.”

“Oh?”

“It rose and fell before my time. And likely that of my parents.”

“How old are your parents?” I asked.

“Well, they’re dead now.”

I grimaced, “Oh, sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.” he laughed.

I frowned, remembering something from a previous conversation, "I thought you said you didn't have a title, though?"

"I don't. Grandad is still alive."

"Oh, I see. I guess you'll have it someday, then." That was an interesting thought. What would Lear be like as a duke?

"No, I won't, actually. My older sister will inherit the title and the lands."

"You have a sister?"

"Yes." he nodded. "We're not particularly close. She doesn't understand why I work when I don't have to. But I like to work."

"I'm glad you like to work." I muttered, "It's what brought you here."

"Yeah." Lear smiled at me.

We were quiet for a few moments.

Finally, he shook himself. "Well, as I was saying, this book is incredibly old. Both of my parents would be over three thousand if they were alive now, and this book predates that."

“This book is over three thousand years old?!” I squeaked, alarmed.

“Yes. I think these runes” he flipped the book shut, but kept his finger inside the pages to mark his spot as he motioned at small marks that decorated the edges of the book’s cover, “are runes of preservation and protection. I felt them when I translated it. I suspect many of the older books up there have it on them, and it’s probably what saved them from the fire. It’s…unusual magic, and I’ve not seen the like of it before.” he paused, “I’ll have to study it some more, it could be incredibly useful, but only after we’ve figured out what we need to know. I might ask Dern about it, given he’s a dwarf. He’ll know more about runes than I do.”

“Of course.” I murmured.

It was quiet as he turned his attention back to the book.

Finally, the fey man sighed, shaking his head. “There are a lot of words I don’t recognize. I think this one is the name of their homeland, because a few other words make me think they’d been working the land there for generations.” he paused, “The name is…vaguely familiar, but…I can’t place it.”

“Would looking through one that’s less old help?”

“Yes, but I don’t want to go too young, or it might not be helpful, if the name of the goddess had already been lost.” He set the book aside.

“Right.” I nodded.

“I do think this one is not quite as old.” he picked up another and traced the cover, explaining, “It’s less worn.”

“True.” All I could do was offer one-word answers and ask questions while he did the bulk of the investigating, at this point. It was frustrating, but there wasn’t anything I could do.

Well, that wasn’t true. I filled his teacup up again, and he took a long drink from it. “Thanks.”

“That's all I can do right now.” I grimaced.

“No, your company is helpful. Having someone to bounce all this off of is helpful.” he smiled, “I appreciate and love you.” Lear leaned across and kissed me for a moment. “I’m hopeful for this book.”

“Well, open it up, then!”

Not needing to be told twice, he flipped through the book. “Still the same language, but let’s see what happens.” he closed his eyes, and grimaced again, but didn’t grunt in pain as the letters glowed gold for a few moments, and shifted about on the page. “There.” he murmured as the magic faded. “It’s tiring, but doable.”

“Well, stop when you get too tired.”

“I will.” he nodded, tracing the text with his fingers, then flashed a bright, excited smile and exclaiming, “I was right! I can read this much more easily!”

“Good.” I giggled, pleased to see his excitement.

Lear fell silent as he read, while I sipped my tea and petted the kitties as they slept.

“This…” he frowned, leaning back into the couch and staring out at nothing in particular. “This is familiar.”

“What is?”

“The name of the place your family is from.” the fey man muttered. His eyes were unfocused, and I sensed he was a thousand miles away, at the moment. “Magical humans from a place called Evarin.”

“Are you saying that…more than just my family had magic?”

“Yes.” he replied quietly. “It seems that all the people in Evarin had magic.”

“Really?” I stared at him. “There was an entire kingdom of humans who could use magic?”

“Yes, and that sounds so familiar to me.” Lear sounded vaguely annoyed now, and muttered, “Evarin…why is that familiar?”

“Evarin.” I said softly. My family’s homeland. “That’s a pretty name for a place.”

Lear blinked, and his eyes focused. He smiled, reaching out to cup my face in his hand. “It is. I bet it was a beautiful place, too. You’re beautiful, and so of course your family had to come from a beautiful place.”

“That doesn't even make any sense!” I rolled my eyes at him, but leaned into the gentle touch, “Besides, you don’t have to flirt anymore, you’ve already won me over.”

“Of course I still have to flirt! It’s now my job to make sure you don’t forget that I want you, and think you’re beautiful.” he smirked, leaning forward to kiss me.

This time, I pulled away, asking him, “Will you…tell me more about what you read?”

Lear stroked my cheek gently, smiling, “Of course.” he looked back down at the book. “The country was in something of a decline during this period.” He muttered, turning the page. “Hmm…” he looked up. “Your…family was pretty religious, it seems.”

“Oh?” As far as I knew, my immediate family hadn’t been particularly religious. We’d thanked the goddess, and always used our powers to help people, which was the right thing to do with them, but we hadn’t prayed to her or gone to any temples, or offered sacrifices or offerings. Not that I knew of, anyways.

“Or maybe religious isn’t the word. This book is much like the older one, full of farming records, but it also has a bit of political commentary as well. The other one might have too, but it was too difficult to decipher.”

“What kind of stuff does it say?”

“It talks about a group of people that it refers to as the ‘Untrue’ versus the ‘True’. Your family seems to align itself with the ‘True’. They’re different factions. From what I can glean, the True have stayed true, for lack of a better term, to the goddess’ charge and meaning for them, and the Untrue have abandoned that purpose.”

“Okay.” I nodded.

“The Untrue faction has gained a lot of power, according to this.” he tapped the page he was on, “And they’re beginning to mock and shun the families who belong to the True faction and still practice the old ways.”

“The old ways?”

“I’m not sure what that means, exactly, but typically it has some religious connotations.” Lear admitted, shaking his head. “Which is why I think your family was religious. I’ll figure it out. There are a lot more books up there. And I think that, if I can start with books from around this time period,” he held up the book he had, “that it’ll help me be able to work back through the older books by using the not quite-so-old books as a language bridge, of sorts. They’ll help me infer the meaning of words I don’t understand, or need more context for, in the older books.”

“I think I understand.” I frowned.

“I’m basically treating the language in the older ones like a different language, or languages, entirely, but the newer ones are like languages that are far closer to the common speech, with enough words and roots in common (no pun intended), that I can translate easily enough. Taking what I’ve learned from translating the less-old language to the version we speak now, I can work backwards.”

“Oh. That makes sense, yes.” I nodded. “So, I guess you’ll be spending a lot of time working on them for the next little bit?”

“I actually don’t think so.” he shook his head.

“No?”

“I would be shocked to find that they don’t mention the goddess’ name in these texts somewhere. I highly doubt that they had any reason to hide their goddess’ name back in Evarin, given she’s the one who’d blessed the entire populace with their powers. I’m kind of surprised I haven’t run into her name sooner, honestly.”

“Good point.” I frowned.

Lear turned his gaze back to the book.

“Well, I’m going to weave a little, while you read.” I told him.

“Sure!” he nodded, but didn’t look up as I stood and went to my loom.

The clacking of the loom soon filled the air.

As I worked, my mind drifted over everything we’d learned so far.

An entire kingdom of humans who could use magic…How strange! Why hadn’t I heard of it before? I thought humans with magic were rare. What had happened to them? Why had my family left and come here? Especially if they’d be the only people with magic in these parts by coming here? Although, them being the only humans with magic in the area could have influenced them to keep the power a secret. Being able to heal was one thing, but if you could do a lot more than just healing, I had no doubt people would ask you to use those powers for them as well. If I were in my family’s shoes, I would feel compelled to do as they asked, since I’d always been taught that the gift had been given to us specifically to help others, and that it was only right that we should help them, given we could do something they couldn't. Maybe the fear of the pressure from others had kept them from sharing it? That’s all I could think of at this point.

Suddenly, Lear murmured something.

“Hm?” I stopped weaving and looked over at him.

He repeated himself. “Marna?”

Diana shifted, and maowed sleepily.

“It is?” Lear asked, blinking in surprise as he looked over at her.

Another maow, then she shut her eyes again.

“What’d she say?” I asked.

“She said that could be a loose sort of translation of her mother’s name, though she’s not heard it pronounced that way before.” Lear turned his slightly startled green eyes to me. We stared at one another for a few moments, then he grinned. “Excellent! Now we just have to track down one of her temples! It shouldn't be hard.”

“You think?”

“Yes. Marna is still worshiped today. That’s just my translation here of what they would have called her, but that’s also what she’s mostly known as now, from what I know.”

“I’ve never heard that name before.” I told him honestly, then frowned.

“It’s not so common in these parts.” Lear told me, shrugging, “She’s from an older human pantheon than is usually worshiped around here, so I’m not surprised.”

“I see.”

“Do you have a map of the world?”

“Yep! Let me get it.” I went to the writing desk in the corner of the room, rummaged around, and returned with the map.

After clearing off the coffee table, we spread it out.

“Marna is more commonly worshiped along the coasts in the south west.” he traced his finger along one edge of the map.

“That’s far away from here.”

“It is. But there’ll likely be a temple somewhere that’ll be close enough that, if we fly, it won’t take too long to get to. It might be a super old, unused one, given her lack of popularity in more recent years, but it would still work.

We were quiet for a few moments.

“There’s a story that I heard as a child, and that story is why some of this” he motioned at the ancient book, “seemed so familiar. Finally learning her name helped me figure out why everything felt so familiar.”

“Please tell me.” I murmured.

“It’s something along the lines of, the children of Marna were strong, and did wonderful works. They had a big city, and were very wealthy.” he paused, thinking for a moment, “They lived on the coast, and were widely revered. But eventually, what they had was no longer enough for them. They wanted more power and greatness, and started to take things they shouldn’t, and do things they shouldn’t. Their mother, Marna, saw what they were doing, and was sad. She took away their city and their things, and cast it into the sea.”

I blinked, then frowned, “That’s…grim.”

“It’s supposed to be. It’s told as a cautionary tale.”

“About greed?”

“For humans, it would be. For fey children, it’s a parable about not getting too big for your britches. Though not being greedy is probably better.” he smiled slightly. “The gods can always humble you, and often do.”

“Do you…think that’s what happened?” I asked him, looking down at the book, now feeling a little scared of what we might find out. Had my ancestors taken things they shouldn’t, and done things they shouldn’t, too?”

“I don’t know.” he sighed, “I’d need to look more. I don’t think the downfall of Evarin is in this one.” he tapped the old tome that lay open in his lap, “The kingdom still seemed to be thriving well enough, though there was discord.”

“I wonder if any of the books at all have the details.” I stood and turned my gaze up to the loft. What other mysteries and answers did the old books up there hold? These two alone had led to even more revelations. I sighed, then shook my head. “Maybe that’s…enough for today.”

“Hm?” he looked up, having started reading again.

“I-I…I know we’ve learned a lot, and I want to be able to help Diana, but I need some time to process all of this.” I murmured.

“That’s fair enough.” Lear smiled, he folded up the map, then stuck it into the book like a bookmark.

“You…don’t mind?”

He stood, reaching out and pulling me close. “Of course not. I’m curious, but it can wait. If it’s too much for you to continue right now, then that’s fine. We’ve already learned so much. Hell, we’ve already discovered the goddess’ name! I really didn’t think we’d manage that in one day.”

“We got lucky.”

“I don’t think we did.” he told me, “Those books were preserved for a reason. Maybe that reason turns out to be you figuring out your family roots in your time of great need."

“I mean…it’s…kind of just a selfish thing, not necessarily a great need, really.” I mumbled.

“I don’t think it is.” he shook his head, “I know you want to do it to restore Diana’s strength because you do love her, but your main motivation is so that you can continue to help people. Not to mention it’s your main source of income, and it’s understandable that you’d want to preserve that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” he assured me.