As their bowls began emptying the door to the kitchens blew open. And with the wind came a gust of leaves and roses, dropping by their feet. It was Ara, still carrying with her a baton, dripping blood onto the cleaned wood and stone.

“ Aunty. . . aunty!” She heaved, frantically waving about with a red face.

The chair beside Asael creaked and fell over. The kitchen aunt stood up. Her fists balled and face sinking upon seeing her beloved spotless sanctuary smeared with blood and grime. 

“ Uh oh..” Sarel muttered and bit his spoon. 

His hands fell upon Asael’s face once more.

For five minutes Sarel covered his eyes and for five minutes the sounds of crying and a wooden baton swinging around resonated through the kitchen hall. Asael watched the rippling soup with disinterest. Then the noise stopped. When Sarel’s hands fell he saw Ara by a sink in the far corner, grumbling as she washed her arms and hands. The kitchen aunt walked to the backyard and flung the baton towards the bushes where it fell amidst sleeping tansies and hyacinths with a rustle.

“ What an ugly thing!” She complained, “ I don’t know why this ghastly thing even sees the light of the day!” 

Asael nodded slowly, eyes trained eagerly upon the buns and mushrooms. He didn’t understand a word of what she said.

Ara returned, hair and hands dripping so much water that for a moment Asael wondered whether she too was a merfolk. 

“ So you are the merfolk!” Head in her hands, she stared at him from across the table.

“ Drink the soup first” The kitchen aunt returned, and uncaring of Ara’s curiosity pushed a bowl in front of her. 

The chamber fell into a peaceful harmony once more. Happy that the burden of conversation had been taken on by Ara, Sarel ignored the incessant chatter and picked up a spoon, scooping some of his own soup and bringing it to Asael’s lips. The two stuffed their mouths in silence.

“ You know when we found you. . . I really thought” Ara whispered between bites, “ How frightened we were. . . there was not a goddess I did not pray to”


When Ara’s eyes fell on him, Asael smiled, masking his inability to make out her words. 

Sarel and Lilia were easy to understand, for their speech was soft and careful, and often times they conversed with him in northern Nimyen. Yet Ara and the kitchen aunt’s voices were indiscernible to one untrained in the Ahsaran weather. Perhaps they hailed from the south or had spent many years beyond the northern continent. But as a merfolk, Asael no longer bore the discerning eye of a Nimyi. And sometimes he could not even tell Lilia from Sarel. It was strange to feel this numbing. . .  to feel himself slip away as the minutes pass. 

“ You ran away from the general’s house didn't you!” Ara roared, “ I knew it! Those bastards. . . still I am glad that you ran away. I would have loved to visit you sooner but AGH!” She stopped, receiving a hard knock on the head from behind. 

“ A-anyway!” She jumped, rubbing her head with a foolish smile, “ What is your name?My name is Ara!”

“ Oh right” Sarel finally lifted his head, “I never did ask . . . I thought perhaps merfolk did not bear any names, I’m sorry” 

Asael stared between them, then lowered his head once more, this time choosing to nibble on a small bun.

Sarel and Ara looked at each other in confusion, the kitchen aunt watched them by the end of the table and sighed. “ Has it not occurred to you that a merfolk may not understand Ahsaran language?”

Oh. . . .Ara slapped her forehead and looked apologetically at Asael. Sarel too knocked his head with a fist.
He had been advised by the lady of the perfumery to speak in the northern dialect. For it seemed that this merfolk hailed up north from Wengen or Araya, rather than Ahsara or the boundary forests. But he had conversed so languidly with Asael in the gardens that he had forgotten this detail.

He turned to Asael and bowed in apology, then spoke in light unpractised Nimyen, “ My name is Sarel and she is Ara, what is your name?”

Asael lifted his head, blinking in surprise. So that is what they were talking about. . .He paused in thought.It would be unwise to share his name lest it point to his origins. If they be revealed before his return he did not know whether this camaraderie would still remain or if it would put the fair folk that had cared for him in danger. And so, 

“ I don’t have a name” he lied.

“ Ah” Ara gasped, “ Then shall we give you a name?”

Sarel and the kitchen aunt shared a troubled glance, “ And what sort of name would that be?”


Ara set aside her spoon and bowl, resting her face atop her hands as she pondered, “ Anauya, like the green sky”

“ Eughh” Opposite to her, Sarel gagged, “ Too ugly. . . Sayen for the sky is better. Because his eyes are the shade of the siren’s aurora. The zenith of the night, where the winter sky and the autumnal land of Ahsara meets”

“ Well it is unfair then.” Ara snapped, tearing apart a soft bun.. . only you get to name him, it’ll be a misfortune to be named by you who has no sense of beauty nor rhyme”

“ You. . . “ seethed Sarel, “ To speak of beauty. . .you did not even visit him. I have been by his side for a fortnight, he is almost akin to my brother of flesh and blood. So naturally the honour of naming him should be mine!”


“ I would have visited” Ara argued, from behind her emanated the frosty breath of the kitchen aunt, “ Never mind . . . .”she sat back flailing her arms in defeat, ‘ Then he will be named Ananayen for a green sky, like his eyes”


There was noise outside, shadows crawled past the fires of the opal brazier and stopped by the open doorway. And then there was silence. 

“ By the light of the sky, what is this nonsense” 

The four heads turned. Lady Lilia stood at the doorway. Asael’s eyes flickered to her hands. Clean of blood and grime and clothed still in red chiffon gloves. She sashayed through the kitchen and pulled out the chair at its head, ladling a bowl full of soup, olives and five buns without invitation.

“ So what is this discussion of naming babies?” She leaned back, savouring the taste of her first proper meal of the day. 

Ara peered neath her brows, “ Say Lady Lilia . . . is Ananayen not a pretty name for the merfolk or perhaps Anauya?”


Sarel rolled his eyes and turned with his justifications to Asael. His was infinitely better is it not?  Greater was his understanding of language and literature, much more than Ara who always ran to  the bazaar or the fields at the flip of a page. 

“ Well what do you say?” Lilia looked to Asael, “ What do you wish to be named?”  

 He shrugged, regretting at once as he felt the deep wound tear.,  “ Both is good” 

And for another moment the room fell to silence. 

Lilia hummed, “ But Ananayen is awfully unlike you. . . .how about Isehyn?”


“ What does it mean lady?” Ara jumped  forth joyfully. 

“ Isin for northern lights and Hiyin for sky”


Isehyn, the name bore little meaning in Nimyen, but “ I like it” Asael whispered. 

Something tender blossomed in his heart. Cold and pulsating with life, pillowing his fall. He had found an eave of safety in his cataclysmic fate and  felt that he for a moment could lay his head down in rest.  The little bird in his pockets nipped at his hands. When he talks to Serein, he must put word of his safety in the perfumery.

Yet remembering the blue moon wisp his heart ached. It was no doubt that Raglar had been an emissary of the enemy. And at this time though it has withered, his wisp lay in the hands of the crown prince of Drugar. 

.

.

After dinner he was led to his new room by Sarel. It was on the ground floor of the dormitory house, so he needed not exhaust himself and risk injury clambering about the stairs. Besides Lilia had seen how keen he had been to sit in the gardens. 

“ It had been unused for awhile” Sarel opened the door.


The dark wood floor gleamed and the bedding shimmered under the white moonlight. There was a small cupboard next to the bed, stocked with medicine and bandages. And at its foot there was a sizeable brazier filled to the brim with colourful opals, of violets, greens and gleaming crimsons.

The windows to the room, opened on the left to the courtyard they had sat in earlier and the brilliant fragrances of the brewery next door wafted in through the open doors. 

“ We’ll come visit after a bath if you’re still awake” Sarel smiled by the door, “ But try to sleep, you must be tired. Let’s talk tomorrow!”

As the door closed, the room plunged into a great darkness. Shaking, he uncovered the bright brazier. And in a moment the unease receded, crawling back coldly up his skin and pushing him off balance. Asael staggered to the bed, his eyes growing heavy with each hollow breath.

He could not sleep still. There were things to be done, he had to send word of his safety to Araya. He brought the small blue bird out of his pocket. Its’ form shrunken and curled as it blinked sleepily upon the opal fire.


And for awhile it sat upon the bed, preening it’s feathers, preparing for departure. Asael opened the window with difficulty and rested his head on the pillow, covering  himself warmly with a soft blanket.


“ Raglar had led me to the Ahsaran border forest. I have been poisoned by wintersbane” He whispered. The bird lifted its head and drew near to his chest, “ It is the tear of a phoenix keeping me alive., the wisp has been stolen . . send word of it to Astara. I do not bear the strength to look for it  but it must be retrieved no matter the cost.”

If he could just ensure the wisps’ safety, even if he could not make it back to Araya, perhaps this painful fate would be bearable. 

“ You must remember, my life is not worth the loss of thousands of others’…you must remember that, seek only the safety of the wisp”