WHERE The Barns WHEN Sometime in early January (backdated before Snowglobe plot) WHAT Blue asks Thurvishar to end the debate once and for all: is her estranged dad inside the tree? STATUS Complete! WARNINGS None!
Thurvishar hadn’t been expecting a communication from Blue Sargent, but that didn’t mean that it was unwelcome. After his New Year’s Eve party, his socialization for the week (month?) completed, he’d returned his cozy library to its typical form and hunkered down with a hot drink and his books on interdimensional theorems. Her request was vague enough to peak his interest; after writing back to tell her he’d be at the Barns, he threw on his peacoat and the cheery blue scarf he’d purchased from her his first week at Vallo and headed out.
Although he’d been used to hot, humid weather in Quur, he’d spent just enough time in Yor as a boy to know how to deal with colder temperatures. Snow was only pretty when you weren’t sloshing around in it, but at least Vallo wasn’t as frigid as Yor, where on several of the higher plains you had less than two minutes to find shelter before you froze to death (Yor, by and large, was not a place Thurvishar missed). Luckily Blue was stationed right where she’d said she’d be, and after brief greetings and wishes of luck in the New Year, Thurvishar got right to the point: “You said you wanted to look for something?”
"Look for, snoop for, all the same thing. C'mon," Blue said, ushering Thirvishar with her, but not stopping to look back and see if he was following. She'd explain on the way.
Was it wrong to be cagey about this? Maybe. But Blue Sargent always had a sort of held-back air about her. Sometimes being sensible and telling the truth, when the worst-case scenario is just a disgusted look from a stranger, was not such a bad thing. Blue had spent a fair portion of her high school life being eccentric and that weird girl who lives with psychics. This shouldn't have been a big deal—especially because magic was as simple as breathing in Vallo.
But when she spent most of her entire life being part tree, telling Thursvishar that they were about to meet her "dad" felt awkward.
She stomped around in her vibrantly colored knitwear and equally vibrant combat boots (artwork courtesy of Ronan Lynch) behind the main house and up a gentle incline. The tree, a twisted knotted thing with an incredibly leafy crown, stood alone in the middle of one of the fields. It looked naked out here when it usually was cramped in the backyard of Fox Way.
Blue held out her arms presenting the tree. "Thurvishar, meet my dad." She paused, then added, "Maybe my dad. I want to know if he's inside there or not."
“I really wish you’d warned me,” Thurvishar said with his typical dry-as-dirt humor. “I’d have worn a less casual ensemble.”
Peering up at the beech, nothing on his face gave away any sort of surprise or consternation. After all, he’d assisted recently with turning a harp back to a human being, one of his best friends was the son of the Goddess of Death, and that was saying nothing about his own garbled bloodlines. Blue had proved herself several times over to be in her right mind, and Thurvishar was not going to be the one to doubt her now.
Now, though, came the necessary question. Thurvishar worded it as delicately as possible: “I assume your father, if he is indeed present, is capable of communication that I would be able to recognize?” Because it seemed obvious what Blue intended: he was a mind reader that currently couldn’t read minds due to Vallo’s interference. She was an amplifier, able to boost messages that might otherwise be too weak to hear. Just from standing near her, Thurvishar could hear a steady but comforting buzz coming from within nearby homes - indiscernible but present, a crackle of thoughts flowing like a river.
Blue waved off Thurvishar's joke, amused that he would even think to dress up for a tree. Did he see what she was wearing? If her father cared about anything, it would not be about clothing.
"About that..." Blue said, her attention sliding to Thurvishar before back to the tree. She had forgotten to bring the translation box with her, but maybe that was an unconscious decision. Did she want to have another conversation with Artemus? Was this just to comfort her own paranoia?
She reached out and touched the bark. There was longing in the gesture, for a relationship she would never have. Anger flared up too, mad that she even missed it at all. "He's probably sleeping," Blue said, instead of answering Thursvishar's question. "Communication isn't necessary, just seeing if you can get any sense of consciousness in there. I want to know if I take an ax to this for firewood, I'm not committing murder of an anciently crappy father."
Pulling hand away, Blue squinted up to Thurvishar. "I might feel a little bad."
There seemed to be a wide divergence between accepting a tree as a potential progenitor and plotting its death via firewood, but Thurvishar, who had complicated relationships with most of his family himself, did not comment. “There are other trees, if it comes to that,” he agreed mildly, inclining his head with a smile that danced somewhere along the neutral line between I get it and maybe let’s not murder.
Briefly he wondered just how disappointed she would be if this tree did have a familiar consciousness - or if it didn’t. Plenty of double-edged swords to go around, but Thurvishar didn’t do more than lean in and lightly place a hand on the tree, trying to push his away inside to hear a murmur of mental movement.
It should have come naturally - it once had, to the point where he’d not been able to stop it if he’d wanted to. It was the reason he was still alive today - he’d gone from child hostage to extremely valuable tool as soon as Gadrith had discovered his unusual witch gift, but Thurvishar had generally only resented it. It had robbed him as much as it had given, over the years, and only seldom did he miss it here in Vallo. The tree was still, a breath of warm air, but nothing that indicated anything intelligent.
He flicked his black eyes back to Blue. “I don’t hear anything,” he confessed, “But I don’t know if Vallo is interfering or if it’s an indication of the tree itself.”
Blue bit her tongue, refrained from the unconscious smug retort of all the other trees here are alive. It's not like she was going to be taking a whack to Cabeswater, but that little sentient copse wasn't a well-known piece of information. Even if Blue dragged Thurvishar out here to figure out if daddiums was in the beech tree, Cabeswater was not hers to talk about.
So instead she folded her arms across her chest and stepped back to let Thurvishar do his thing. Being an amplifier didn't require much lately. After figuring out how to shut it on and off in Vallo, Blue's control was as instinctual as breathing. Being in a house full of mirrors, magicians, and dream-makers made having it off a necessity. Right now though, having it on was selfish and indulgent, giving Thurvishar that little shove he needed. For her
She caught his eye when he glanced over, but Blue quickly averted her attention. She was afraid her face would do something stupid—like care. "No, it's not Vallo. If you don't hear anything, then he's not—" Blue made a small frustrated noise and kicked at a root. "It figures, it figures."
Realizing she was not really explaining anything, she stopped her pouting abruptly and looked up to Thurvishar. "He's always kind of been absent, I shouldn't have expected any different here when the tree showed up, you know?"
Thurvishar’s hand slipped from the tree, and he gave a nod, his expression drawn into the neutral he typically employed when he was doing his best to listen to what was said and not what he picked up through telepathy. After all, she hadn’t turned off her amplification powers, and her disappointment would have been obvious even had she done so.
“Can you--” he made a gesture that was clearly ‘turn it off’ that looked surprisingly like screwing in a lightbulb, and continued: “Was he a spirit?” A spirit could shapeshift back and forth between that of a tree and a person, after all, and they didn’t have sentient forests back home in Quur for Thurvishar to know of. And spirits, in Thurvishar’s experience, had a tendency to misjudge the effect of time on their long lives and neglect those who lacked such longevity. “Obviously it’s none of my business, but you already know I’m nosy, and I know you know it’s fine to tell me to fuck off.”
"Oh!" Blue said surprised, before her face twisting up in consternation. Turning off the amplification should have been a natural instinct, but disappointment had made the sensible side of her slow on the uptake. She did not need Thurvishar to get her grumpy feelings on her father. In a rush, like ripping a plug from a socket, everything magically heightened went still.
With a huff, Blue sat down underneath the decidedly not-dad tree, waving away Thurvishar's politeness about telling him to fuck off. "It's not—he's not a spirit. He's a tir e e'lintes, or a tree light, for us commoners. I guess it's a spirit but he's not dead." The look she gave the tree was full of annoyance before looking up to Thurvishar. "He used to be an adviser to Glendower, I don't know how much Gansey has talked your ear off about it. But he's kind of just around. Or supposed to be."
Blue mustered some nonchalance, but it was short-lived. "The last time I saw him was in my backyard when everything was getting hard. And then he just—" Blue threw her hands out, mimicking an explosion. "Poof! Gone! Back into the tree!"
It was almost a relief when Blue stopped amplifying; Thurvishar had almost gotten used to the quiet. Rather than tower over her, he tucked the tails of his coat beneath him and sat next to her, absorbing what she was saying. “Is he immortal?” he enquired, because it was either that or extreme old age, given how long ago the Welsh king Glendower had lived. “And - am I correct in reading between the lines of your phrasing and assuming that he can assume different forms willingly?” In other words, had he jumped back into a tree to escape whatever hard things Blue was experiencing?
Thurvishar would never understand absent parents. The disgust was rooted from a place of envy, having had his own family wrenched away from him by magic and murder, but even those that had taken their place had been - distant. The D’Lorus family was not a warm one, as a rule; there was simply too much looking the other way to be done. How frustrating it must have been for Blue to know that she did have a father, and his own-- cowardice? self-interest? - prevented her from knowing him. At least his parents had searched for him, as long as they could.
"Yes. No. I don't know, probably. Didn't get a chance to ask him much," Blue said, with a heavy sigh. If she had known she only had a limited time with Artemus, Blue was certain she would have asked him different questions. Or at least prioritized them. Learning more about being a tree-light hovered somewhere around the middle. She also wanted to yell at him more about being gone and leaving Maura to raise her all alone, but that wasn't really a question.
"If he could become anything he wanted, I assume he prefers trees. And maybe spooky caves. He was trapped in one for a while, but that's a whole other story for another day." One that Blue sometimes couldn't believe when she attempted to recount it to herself. That had been a long, weird summer when she had no parents. Just Persephone and Calla holding down Fox Way and Blue falling in love with her ex-boyfriend's best friend. Annoying.
Blue let out a long, dramatic sigh, blowing her stray hairs up in the process. "Please tell me you had like a normal-er family. Your dad wasn't a tree, was he? Did your mom call him Butternut? My mom called mine Butternut. I can never eat squash the same way again."
Thurvishar empathized with her frustration, even if her specific woes weren’t his, although he tucked away the factoid that apparently her father could be any number of things, and apparently was important enough for someone to trap inside a cave. A question for another day, perhaps, when Blue hadn’t been so recently kicked in the throat by Fate.
At her question regarding Thurvishar and his normal family, he was unable to keep from uttering a very un-Thurvihsar-like wheeze. “Ah, no,” he managed once he was reasonably certain he had no more farm animal noises left inside of him. “I’m afraid I wasn’t privy to pet names, although Butternut is a-- unique one. No,” he said, sobering a little - there was no way to delicately spin what came next, “my grandfather - who is an immortal dragon part-time, by the by - allowed one of his associates to abscond with me when I was a baby. I was useful, you see - originally as a political pawn, for my father was the Emperor of Quur - but eventually due to my telepathy, invaluable as well. I was raised by that associate, and eventually took his name, his fortune and his rank in nobility after I killed him.” He didn’t sugar-coat it; why bother. There were any number of sob stories floating around Vallo, and he was sitting next to someone who certainly had a few of her own. “I don’t remember either of my parents. They were both killed before I was able to reunite with them.” He left out the part about the gaesh - they could go to that when Blue was willing to talk about why her father had been a prisoner.
He smiled, and it was all-bones: “But I hear that having a normal family is simply wonderful.”
Blue pulled her legs closer, resting her chin on her knees. Thurvishar's story sounded like the hundreds of ones she had heard Gansey recall—aside from the mythical beast family member and telepathy, Thurvishar could be his own sort of medieval royal, full of political power and intrigue. And murder, always murder.
She should have been more surprised by the killing part, but Blue's mom's boyfriend was a hitman, and truly nothing could shock her anymore. Especially after months in Vallo where this stuff was standard. She made a little hum of acknowledgment, with an empathic that sucks. "I guess it depends on your definition of normal. Actually, who decides what is normal? Most people are raised in single-family homes. Wouldn't that be normal?" Blue was musing out loud; she had no right to bring up single moms, she lived in a house that was constantly filled with extended family. That had felt normal to her.
"So wait—" Blue started to say, as if part of what Thurvishar suddenly hit her. "If your grandfather was a dragon, does that make you like part-part dragon? How does that work?"
Thurvishar shrugged. “I suppose the base standard is living with someone who provides you with a good role model, a safe home, and affection. Anything else is just… nice to have.” His home had been safe; at least he had that much. Everyone had been too frightened of the D’Lorus’s to challenge them directly.
At Blue’s question, he hesitated. “I’m honestly not certain,” he finally said. “I only found out that he was my grandfather just before I arrived at Vallo. Before that, he was simply… our adversary.” He’d never be over trading one evil-ass family for another. “I don’t know how to shapeshift, before you ask it. Never showed any aptitude for it, nor had a decent teacher.” He smiled what could likely only be termed a polite version of a shit-eating grin. “I don’t suppose you have any insight into the matter, what with your lineage?”
Blue nodded. Having Maura was enough, it always had been. She almost felt embarrassed at how much finding out her father not being in the tree had affected her. Blue Sargent did not like to be embarrassed. She'd move on from this like she did with many other things.
However, Blue was about to ask if he could shapeshift, but at his request she stopped, holding up a hand that said okay, I won't. But it didn't stop her from laughing at the mention of her lineage.
"Pshaw, no. Zero insight. I love trees, but I do not want to be one even if I could," Blue said, smiling her own shit-eating grin back. "Plus I would make the worst teacher. Could you imagine? I would threaten to chop you in half for messing up." Blue nodded her head toward her currently empty father tree; she had been very quick to threaten dismemberment before she knew if he was in there or not.
"It's probably better that you don't have the aptitude for it. I think you do just fine as is."
“I hear fear can be a powerful motivator when it comes to discipline,” Thurvishar answered mildly, having faith that Blue wouldn’t be that bad of a teacher if push came to shove. “I considered teaching at the magical schools here,” he admitted, “but I was exactly the sort of smart-ass student I would want to murder. I don’t think I have the temperament for it either.”
With a nod toward the peaceful, unresponsive tree that loomed over him, he stood, brushing himself off. “If you’d like to drown your patriarchal sorrows in a pastry, I’m inclined to enable you.”
Blue took a moment to theatrically consider Thurvishar's offer, before nodding and pushing herself to her feet. She had leaned on the tree for support, and it was in gesture that she considered that the empty tree was just as empty as their relationship had been. She didn't need it. Blue did need a pastry though.
"If you're enabling me to load up on sugar carbs, I might be inclined to enable myself to pay for yours too," Blue said, taking the lead back to the main house. "And then you can tell me about all your school smartass shenanigans. Nothing smashes the patriarchy more than being a shit head.”