The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (23 page)

They had time before supper to stroll around the settlement giving cookies and apologies to everyone that Helemia had intentionally frightened months before, and they made sure to use no magic or psionics as they did so.

The next day they visited every household in the settlement, giving away cookies and inviting everyone to their first birthday party in the gathering hall the following week.  They asked that no-one give them birthday presents, since otherwise it would seem self-serving to arrange their own birthday party and invite the entire community to it.

By that time their magic lessons had progressed to the point where Mark and Talia felt safe in letting them have a trickle of power to use on their own; enough to lift about forty-five kilograms each by Movement with either wizard’s or warlock’s power.  This allowed the two of them working together to Move almost a hundred and eighty kilos with both sources of power, and that was more than enough to be useful.  They spend most of their days that week making themselves helpful to whoever could use some help with whatever they were doing.  This included such tasks as weeding gardens, harvesting vegetables, maintaining boats and fishing gear, household chores, and assisting in the construction of hidden shelters and fortifications.

They raised their standing in the community quite considerably that week, among the adults and teens at least.  They still didn’t spend any time with the other children, who they considered to be frivolous and boring, and who didn’t really like them much anyway.

They awoke early on the morning of their first birthday almost giddy with excitement, and hurried through their breakfast. 

Helemia was just a bit smaller than average for a one-year-old elven baby, while Reggie was already the size of an average two-year-old-human.  Their hair was already twenty-three to twenty-six centimeters long, and she wore her black locks loose and flowing, while he tied his blond mane back with a leather thong at the base of his skull.   They looked adorably cute in matching deer hide pants, boots, and short tunics, accented with a few small areas of swirling abstract beadwork.  They’d spent their last five evenings planning their birthday party and preparing for it with the adults who were helping them with it, and as soon as they were finished breakfast they put their plan into action.

First they ran to Sana’s Kitchen to help with initial food preparation for a feast for the entire community, then they met Mark, Talia, and Alilia at the gathering hall where they helped put up ribbons, bouquets of flowers, and other physical decorations, then they all went back to the restaurant for lunch and to help with the cooking for another two hours.  Then Reggie and Helemia spent an hour psionicly calling small birds from all over the islands, then back to Sana’s to help with getting all the food into Preserving serving dishes, Moving it all over to the hall, arranging tables and chairs, and finalizing the meal’s presentation.  Finally, the twins cast the decorations that were Illusions by themselves.  These included three brilliant rainbows just beneath the dome of the hall that met in the center, and an amazing fountain consisting of an ornately carved white marble bowl three meters wide and a meter deep with three marble dolphins in the middle spouting streams into the air from their mouths, but the fluid they spouted in artistic and complex patterns up to three meters high wasn’t water, it was liquid fire.

“That is just beautiful.” Alilia marveled.

“It is.” Mark agreed with a grin.  “I don’t know if I’m more impressed by your ability to maintain such complex Illusions without even keeping your attention on them, or by the breath-taking artistry of it all.”

“Thank you Father.” the twins chorused together with proud smiles.

“And that’s the last of it.” Talia nodded with satisfaction.  “We’re a few minutes early, but we might as well open the doors, and you can start welcoming your guests.”

“Okay.” Helemia agreed as she Levitated two meters and took one last long look around the great room.  Everything seemed in order, so they went to the main entrance and swung the doors open wide with Movement.

Reggie and Helemia took their places just to one side of the doors, and the adults let the twins greet their guests.  After all, the entire event had been the twins’ idea, and it was definitely their production.  The adults knew that it was the twins’ coming-out party, and their birthday was only a handy excuse for their social debut.

There were already about thirty people visiting and chatting outside the hall as they waited for the doors to open, and the first to enter and be greeted were Dalia and Bezedil, who had been babysitting Valentia.

Within twenty minutes everyone had arrived and been greeted and seated.  The dragons and unicorns lounged on the floor, as did many of the children and younger adults of the humans and elves, using the available cushions for comfort and leaving some of the chairs empty.

Reggie and Helemia Levitated three meters so everyone could see them.  “Hello, and welcome to our party!” Reggie called as they smiled and waved.  It sounded a bit strange to hear Trade Common spoken so well in his baby’s voice, and he augmented his volume with a simple spell, but there were many there who were glad he hadn’t communicated with psionics.

“First, we’d like to say that we did as much of the work for this party as we could ourselves, but we couldn’t have done it without a lot of help.  We’d like to thank Great-Grandmother Sana and everyone at Sana’s Kitchen for all their help with the wonderful feast we’ll all be enjoying in a little while!”

They led a round of applause for those worthy cooks, who smiled and waved in acknowledgement.

“And we’d like to thank our wonderful parents, all three of them, for their help with everything!”

Mark and Talia smiled and waved to acknowledge their applause, but Alilia was so moved that she merely blushed bright pink and smiled as she wiped a tear away.  The twins had never called her a parent before, and she was surprised at how moved she was to hear them publicly declare it.  Talia chuckled at her emotion, and gave her a supportive one-armed hug.  She returned it, and cuddled Valentia, held in her other arm, a little closer.

“We’ve noticed some of you being very careful around our fire fountain, but you don’t need to worry ‘cause it’s just an Illusion.  After dinner there’ll be games and dancing, and during dinner we’ll be listening to the music of The Orchestra of The High People, taken from one of Mother’s memories.  But first, we’ll listen to a quintet from Heartwood playing Flying In The Morning, accompanying the birds of Hiliani in dance!”

As he said that last, everyone heard the rousing song begin, seemingly coming from all around them, and hundreds of small birds flew in the open windows and began flying an intricate dance of swirling and darting patterns in time to the music.  They flew well out of reach of their audience, but occasionally flew low enough that some could faintly feel the wind of their passage, proving that they weren’t an Illusion.  The song was a short one, only a bit more than three minutes long, and as it ended the birds flew back out the windows and dispersed.

Everyone gave an enthusiastic round of applause, and as the orchestral piece began, Helemia called: “Eat well everyone, we made sure there was lots!”

The tables with the food were arranged around the perimeter of the room, including bushel baskets of salads for each of the unicorns.  There was even a whole beef for the dragons, which was little more than a snack for the four of them, but it was a tasty one.  The beef was whole and raw, but the twins were provided it with an Illusion of having been prepared and roasted for the benefit of the rest of the gathering, which the dragons did not perceive.

As containers and serving dishes were opened all over the room, the twins made their way to their table, which was on the far end of the group of long seating tables from the main doors, nearest to where the dragons lounged.  Everyone served themselves except for the youngest children, which included the twins, and Mark carried a tray with four plates along the serving tables while Talia loaded it with their meals.

“Mmm, this is
so good!
”  Karzog growled in Draconian to Reggie and Helemia while tearing off a mouthful of beef. “Thank you!  Domestic animals are always
so tender!
”

“You’re welcome!”
Reggie psionicly replied in the same language, since the humanoid vocal apparatus was incapable of doing justice to the spoken language of dragons.  He allowed only the dragons and his table group to hear him. 
“Changing the smell of it for everyone is one of the hardest things we’ve done.  But then, we didn’t have to cook it, so it’s still less work in total than everyone else’s meals.”

He and Helemia were glad for the conversation, since they were the only ones seated at their table while everyone else served up.

As a politeness, Yazadril cast Tongues for Draconian on himself and the rest of their tablemates while serving himself six meters away, and displayed no outward sign that he had done so.

“So let me see if I understand all this.” Povon chuckled, continuing in Draconian.  “You two are changing the sight and scent of this beef for everyone else here, and you’re casting the Illusions of the rainbows and the fire fountain, and you’re broadcasting the sound component of a Reading of Talia’s memory of the orchestra playing, all simultaneously?  Will you still be able to eat without spilling on yourselves while doing all that?”

“Sure!”
Helemia replied with a mental giggle. 
“We’ve applied automated physical spell techniques to psionic spells. Once we start one it keeps going on it’s own.  The hardest part was doing the bird dance, though you really only have to get a good control on the flock leaders, and the rest follow them.  And the hardest part of
that
was making sure that none of them pooped while they were in here!”

She continued after everyone got a good chuckle from that.  “
We’re getting pretty good at psionics since Quewanak started training us in psionic warfare.  We’ve adapted his techniques to almost everything we do.  For instance, the way we’re changing the smell of the beef is the reverse of a method for hiding on a battlefield after a defeat, only instead of covering our smell and making us smell dead, we’re covering the dead smell of the beef and making it smell to humanoids like that other roast beef over there.  And we’re covering all of the smells of the meat from the unicorns, raw and cooked both.”

“He’s taught us to hide our psionics a lot better too,”
Reggie added,
“So most people here think this is all being done with physical magic instead of psionics, and none of them know when we’re Reading them anymore.  I think we could fool everyone here now except you, Quewanak, and Father.”

“Yah, thanks again, Quewanak!”
Helemia told him with happy sincerity.

“You are most welcome.” Quewanak responded in a throbbing snarl as he delicately ripped a clawful of beef from the carcass.  “Your psionic ability is unprecedented, especially at your ages, and your training with it may prove crucial to the war effort.  And with the exception of your father, you’re easier to train in Draconian psionic techniques than any other non-Draconians I’ve perceived.  Likely this is due to your early Linking with Kragorram.”

“Probably, that’s how we know how to speak Draconian, anyway.”
Reggie agreed.

“I think the fact that they inherently use two kinds of power probably helps too.”
Mark opined as he and Talia took their seats. 
“They and Valentia are the only non-dragons that do that, as far as I know, and we know that psionics uses magic from Yazadril and Alilia’s research.”

“True, though we now know that psionics is done in a different part of the brain from physical magic.”
Yazadril contributed. 
“Tithian’s team figured that out.  And we correlated her findings with a survey of when psionic development occurs.  It’s almost always before or after the development of physical magical ability, they’re almost never simultaneous, regardless of race.”

“That’s obvious here.”
Reggie laughed. 
“Me and Helemia don’t have magic yet, and Valentia doesn’t have psionics yet.  She’s close though, she’ll get it pretty soon.  I just hope we get magic soon too.”

“Ah, the impatience of youth.” Povon teased.  “You’d best slow down some, or we’re likely to run out of things to teach you long before our time here is up!”

“That’s a chance we’re willing to take.”
Helemia laughed.  “In the meantime, pass that pickle sauce please!” she finished in spoken Trade Common.

They let their meal occupy most of their attention for a while.

When almost everyone was finished eating and the symphony they were listening to had reached its finale, the twins Levitated three meters to address the room again, and Helemia spoke.

“We’ll have dancing and music now, and we’ll also be having a one-turn badra tournament.  Everyone who wants to play gets one turn to score for the tournament.  You can keep playing after everyone’s played a turn, but only your first turn counts for the tournament, and Nek Sibook, who’s our local badra champion, will be our referee.  We’ll have some nice prizes for the best five scores at the end of the party.

“After the dancing and the tournament, Reggie and I will perform a sequence of Illusions for your entertainment.

“We’ll give out the prizes and end the party at four hours to midnight, because by then it’ll almost be our bedtime!  Have fun!”

The assembly gave them a chuckle and a round of polite applause, and jaunty music was heard by all.  Soon couples were moving to the dance floor, and a crowd formed around the badra wall.

A casual game of badra was usually eight turns, while a tournament game was sixty-four turns.  A single turn of badra was to roll two eight-sided dice, and throw two small balls at the eight graduated holes in a wall in a vertical row that featured the largest hole at the top worth one point, and the smallest hole at the bottom worth eight points.  A player had to throw at the holes selected by their dice roll, so to get the maximum score of sixteen required a great deal of both skill and luck.  This ensured that almost everyone had a chance to win the tournament, so it was a good choice of format to ensure broad participation.