Faeries! Yousei. Spirits of air, earth, fire, metal, water, or wood. Normally intangible and mostly invisible entities, but able to manifest in their element. Everything seemed to revolve around them. Everybody had at least one attendant faerie, and could use borrow or direct their power to manipulate their elements.
Faerie crafting. Some people were better at it than others. Strong faeries helped, of course, but were attracted to strong native talent. Developing that into something usable took skill and training, and some people just weren’t as dedicated as others.
However, the more power your faeries had, and the more skilled your crafting, then the better your social status. Entry into the upper classes technically required strong faerie craft to earn rank. Supposedly, you couldn’t just be born into the position; though you could marry into it.
Which had suited Nabiki’s plans just fine, but the new arrivals upset things somewhat.
Oddly, the Saotomes didn’t seem to have much social standing at all at first glance and second sight; their clothes were shabby, and Nabiki couldn’t sense the metal of much coin on their disreputable persons. Which was a puzzle because it seemed that the boy, at least had exceptional fine faerie craft, in both breadth and height of talent, and her father had considered him a good prospect sight unseen because of his father.
Tendo Soun had three moderately strong faeries, of wood, metal, and water, and he had once served as a Senshi Ferrous in the military, qualifying him for citizenship. He now sat on the town council and ran a small school of faerie craft. He was respected and moderately well off.
Nabiki herself had two faeries –one of earth and one of metal– but sword craft seemed too hazardous an occupation, and stone masonry too strenuous and course a labor for a refined young lady. Nor was she quite willing to resort the alternative earth crafting occupation – well not entirely; she wouldn’t sell herself that cheaply. However, there were other ways for a clever girl to get ahead in a faerie craft driven economy.
She looked guiltily around her room, bent over a polished metal mirror and whispered, “Rei, come forth.”
Naming faeries was something only peons did; something to which the upper crust turned up their noses and looked down them snootily. But Nabiki had come into her faerie craft before figuring that out, so it was her guilty secret.
A face appeared in the mirror; not just an image, but a embossed carving pressed up from the surface. Nabiki smiled fondly at the impression of cobalt blue hair framing pale silver skin, and her Rei waited with eternal patience.
“Okay, show me what you found out,” Nabiki instructed.
Rei blinked her compliance, then her face sank back into the mirror. The surface rippled and smoothed out, then an image played out. Nabiki smirked; this was a special trick she’d taught her cold metal faerie with great effort. Scrying was normally only done using water faeries, but Nabiki had reasoned that metal reflected as well as, if not better than, water.
The effort to train her metal faerie had proven well worth the reward. There were limits, of course. Water vapour was ubiquitous, but her Rei needed a piece of reflective metal to be on the scene. Still, nobody suspected Nabiki of being able to scry at all, and her Rei simply ignored wards set against water faeries.
What Rei had espied upon was Nabiki’s sister venting frustration in the hall, wreaking havoc on a poorly abused training dummy, and played back the images with high fidelity. Nabiki studied Rei’s scrying for a while, before commanding her faerie to freeze the image.
“Perfect,” she murmured, then carried the mirror over to her desk. “Asuka, come forth!” she bade.
Nothing happened for a while, then the brick wall bulged, and formed into an orange haired faerie. Asuka stepped out onto the desk, and glared up at Nabiki, hands planted firmly on her shapely little hips.
A quirky smile crossed Nabiki’s lips as she regarded her earthen firecracker. Often she thought that her earth faerie might have better suited her younger sister’s temperament. But then too, her metal faerie’s placidity matched her older sister, so it was something of a wash.
“Alright, you know what to do. Let’s get to work,” Nabiki instructed, and she unwrapped a block of wet clay. Asuka momentarily looked as though she’d refuse, then turned to lay her hands into the block. Nabiki bent her will into guiding the stubborn faerie’s efforts, and in moments they’d copied the image from Rei’s mirror.
The clay harden as Asuka carefully expelled the moisture. That much she could manage on her own, though water working was not her forte. All that was required was to fire and paint it, tasks Nabiki either had to delegate to others or hire a faerie-bound kiln, but then the figurine would be ready to sell for a tidy profit. Nabiki smiled in satisfaction; her little sculptures always fetched a nice price from the local collectors.
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(Posted Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:27)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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