Diving

It was Silaira's thirteenth summer, and she woke anxious and out of sorts. She had been increasingly out of sorts during the past few years. True to Alnus's promise, the herbal tea she drank stopped all dreams and she had started learning in earnest how to tell between dream, Dreamwalking, and dreams of past lives. She had learned the theories of how to read the dreams, how to tell which was which, the qualities to expect to experience in them and the information she could draw from each.

Still, she was due to stop drinking the tea within a few days and, while she was nervous about her ability to apply what she had learned, she was more excited to finally dream again. Dreams had started to become a topic among the Faelyn her age and she hated being unable to join in.

The lack of dreaming also made her nights feel like a bottomless void when she looked back upon them, a maw of darkness that desperately wanted to devour her. It felt stifling, it felt wrong to not dream. Her tail quivered at the thought of her dreamless nights, the fur fluffing defensively as if in so doing it could somehow protect her.

Her parents had since shown her painted portraits of aunts, uncles, grandparents, and more members of her family, assuaging the fears that had come up with her first Reincarnation Sickness dream, that she was not truly a member of her family but something or someone else entirely. While the traits she showed were rare, they were present in the family: everything from her silvered fur and slightly fluffy tail to the black tufts of fur on the tips of her ears.

Most of her anxiety for the day, though, was not due to the lack of dreams. It was the first major diving test for the Faelyn around her age. She was not sure she was ready, found herself trembling at the idea of failing. The worst of failures could end in broken bones, and even very rarely in death.

The Faelyn lived in a great forest and though it had many lakes, the skill of diving did not involve them. Some had taken to calling it soaring instead, as it seemed more descriptive of what they were learning to do.

She changed and spent longer than was necessary grooming her hair, ears, and tail. Frowning at the mirror the whole time, she worried over all the things that could go wrong. She was top of her age group, one of the fastest though definitely not the strongest. She had mastered all the basics that had been taught, had passed every lesson with flying colors. She could not help but smile slightly at the mirror at the thought of flying colors, as flying was in essence what she would soon be doing.

All the lessons though had been much closer to the ground than todays would be. The net and the ground well beneath it, had been comforting in their nearness. Today she would be diving from the platforms on which they resided, near the mid-section of the trees, instead of the lower platforms where they learned the basics.

Diving was not a skill for all Faelyn to master and quite a few of her age group would be spectating with Mystic Alnus from the lower platform. She was last to dive, last to soar or fall to the net and possibly injure herself, and the idea of having to watch others both succeed and fail only made her more nervous.

Her instructor, Ilex, would be nearby in case of trouble. His skill gave her a small measure of assurance in everyone's safety, should something go wrong. He knew the advanced bits of diving, how to weave magic into it to make himself go faster or slow his fall slightly. As beginners, they knew only the magic to fortify themselves so that they would not lose an arm to the dangerous skill.

Ilex was an interesting Faelyn, his crimson eyes able to seem welcoming one moment and dangerous the next, his tail and ears a rare burnt umber color. He was also incredibly softspoken unless he had to be otherwise and intelligent. It was a bit of an odd combination, as most knew divers as brash and fearless individuals. Ilex taught differently, though, stating that fear was only natural, given that outside of the netted areas one mistake could mean death for someone unprepared. To be a fearless diver was to end up a dead one in his eyes.

Dangerous though it was, diving was necessary for the Faelyn. The floor of the forest outside of their well protected villages was filled with dangerous creatures. If one had to send a message swiftly to another nearby settlement, divers often were the ones to take it. The Faelyn had never taken to using messenger birds, not because of any dislike of them or anything, but because the birds of the forest showed no interest in such a contracted deal.

It also made getting between the levels of their settlements much easier, as often dozens of feet separated the levels, if not hundreds in some of the bigger settlements. Most Faelyn lived in the middle sections of the settlement and those that could not dive had to navigate the often-confusing stairs that wove between the levels.

Due admittedly to poor planning, there were not always stairs to a particular section of the settlement near where they were most needed. The Faelyn settlements had grown organically, and organic growth was often chaotic. To get to the platform to meet instructor Ilex, she would have to first go down a level, as her home was not connected to the upper levels.

There was logic to it, of course. After all, her family was not of major importance, they had no need to go to the levels where the leaders of the settlements met very often and thus did not feel the need to make or maintain a staircase to them.

A light knock at her door made her jump and her mother entered to see the girl's tail once more hopelessly fluffed with anxiety, "I had a feeling," she said softly, "Come, sit on your bed and let me brush your tail this once."

Silaira nodded slightly, and said somewhat quietly, "Only this once though. The others would call me but a kitten if they knew I let you brush my tail still."

"I've no doubt a good number of them have a parent brushing the anxiety out of their tails today too, my little love," her mother said calmly, the brush in her hand already soothing Silaira's nerves, "Diving is something that should make you anxious, after all, that anxiety keeps you alert, keeps you safe, little love. Besides, none will see your tail fluffed as you soar, and even if they do, none will dare speak a word about it lest you quip back with the state of their own tail."

Silara laughed slightly at the truth of that. The others her age were a ragtag group of scholarly and brutish young Faelyn, but they all got along well enough. After all, community was an important thing to the Faelyn and even though families lived in separate units they spent a lot of time together with the others.

Though each home had a bath for when it was needed, the amount of magic needed to run it was not ideal so it was rarely used. Instead, they used communal baths, washing each other's backs and tails as they spoke of the latest things going on. Daily trips to the market, as most Faelyn did not bother to have large cold food storage in their homes, also made certain they saw each other often and got to know each other.

While the Faelyn were a relatively magical race, with quite a few abilities unique to them, they were loath to use that magic too much for the mundane. Magic was a gift; a gift should not be used on something frivolous like a hot bath a hundred feet in the air when it used much less to heat a bath house.

Her nerves soothed, Silaira stood and glanced to her mother, the soft-spoken, grey-furred Faelyn spoke up before she could, "Your father and I will be down with Mystic Alnus and your class watching, so we can be among the first to greet you after your successful dive, little love. Now run along, it would not do to be late."

A glance at the forest floor from the upper platform they were diving off was enough to send a light shiver down Silaira's back. She was not normally scared of heights, after all, they lived in the trees. Still, she rarely had occasion to traverse the upper levels. The others, though, seemed to have similar opinions, some even sitting firmly on the platform and refusing to look over its edge. A few even voiced their displeasure at being up quite so high.