99th Ashan, 720
Location: ---
It was finally happening. One of the first goals Ari'sora had ever made for herself was finally becoming a reality. When Ren'zar was arrested for smuggling, she had been freed from a lifetime of slavery. She and her sister had been brought to Beacon where they had been given both medical care, and a home. Since then...everything had changed. Ari'sora had gotten a job for herself. Bit by bit, she had saved up her money until she could buy a house of her very own.
Over time, her ideas for a home had changed. In the beginning, she had thought that a nice small quite house would work. But back then, it had been just her, Mi'zuri, Rin'saia, Hotaru her nightpup, and a border collie named Arashi. Things were different now. With four children, Shadow, a talking cat who happened to be her best friend in the world, Shadow's three kittens, her half sister Mi'zuri, Ryl'ryn, a woman she loved like a sister, and the animals to consider...they had needed a much larger place to call home. Last Zi'da, Ari'sora had finally managed to save up enough to buy them a new home. And earlier this season, they had found the perfect place.
It was located in the Sweetwine Woods, and came with enough land that they would have their own private sanctuary. The house was big enough to fit them all comfortably, and there was plenty of room to fly. It was close enough to the town that they could go whenever they wished. That was important to all of them. Ari'sora didn't think she could get used to living without frequent trips to the library and Scholar's Nook anymore, and she was taking classes at the University. There was work to consider as well.
The house was perfect...and it was hers. Ari'sora had come to love the cottage they lived in here in Beacon, but she had always known that it was a temporary sanctuary. Once she was on her feet, she would be expected to move on so that someone else who needed the cottage more than she did could move in. So Ari'sora had mixed feelings while she watched her family bustling about as they packed up their belongings.
At an arc and nearly two seasons, Rin'saia "helped" by following the adults around as they did the work. Once in a while the toddler would hand them something to pack. More often than not, she ended up getting in the way, but she was cute, and she was trying to help, so no one minded. Ryusar and Sai'rin were too young to walk just yet, so Mi'zuri and Ryl'ryn carried them on their backs in special carry slings as they worked. Ari'sora did the same with her youngest son, Tenryu.
"Come look at this, Ari'sora!" Ryl'ryn called from the hall.
Ari'sora found her friend in front of the small storage closet. Ryl'ryn was bent over and it seemed as though she was trying to pull something out of the floor.
"What is it?" Ari'sora asked curiously.
"One of the floor boards broke when I accidentally dropped one of the boxes of books, and I found a space beneath them. This chest was inside it."
Ari'sora made a mental reminder to tell the people who ran Beacon about the broken floorboards. It wasn't something she knew how to fix herself, but she would offer to do something else in exchange for the time someone would need to spend repairing the damage. But the chest was far more interesting at the moment, so she set that thought aside for now. It wasn't like any other chest she had ever seen before. Whoever built it created it in the image of a horse. The part that held items was the body of the wooden horse. It had four wooden legs, and a head. The mane and tail were made out of straw. It was a sturdy, well made chest that was intricately carved. Ari'sora wasn't certain if it was meant to be a child's toy, or a means of storing something.
"Is it locked?" she asked at last.
"Is there anything inside it?"
"It feels heavy enough that there's probably something inside the horse chest." Ryl'ryn said excitedly.
Ari'sora watched while Ryl'ryn tried to open the chest. They were in luck; it was unlocked. Ryl'ryn reached inside and pulled out a bowl. At least...Ari'sora thought it might be a bowl. It was deep enough to be used as a soup bowl, anyway. But if it was a bowl, it was the strangest one she had ever seen. It was shaped like a horse shoe. And instead of being made out of wood, it was made out of...something. Ari'sora had no idea what it was made out of, but it whatever it was, it was beautiful. It was pale purple at the top, but the color seemed to leach out of it until it was a pretty cream color at the bottom. As Ari'sora stared at it, it reminded her of embers in a fire somehow. It almost seemed as if it was smouldering.
Ryl'ryn handed the horse shoe shaped bowl to Ari'sora, then reached into the horse chest once more. This time, she showed Ari'sora a single sheet of paper. On it was a message written in calligraphy. Whoever wrote it was skilled enough in the art that the single sentence looked like a piece of art.
"Flying horses paint the sky in magnificent colors in Egilrun...?" Ari'sora murmured softly as she read the message out loud.
"Well, it certainly seems to fit the "horse" theme we seem to have going here. But what does it mean?"
Ari'sora didn't know, and she said as much. But she suddenly felt the urge to go to the library and look for books about Egilrun and flying horses.
"We'll need to leave these with the people in charge of the town. Maybe they can find the person they belong to."
Ryl'ryn shook her head.
"There's another note inside, see?"
Ryl'ryn showed her the note.
"It says that whoever finds the chest is welcome to keep it and everything in it, but that they should come to Egilrun and see the flying horses for themselves."
Ari'sora thought about the note for several trills.
"Well...we did want to go on a vacation and travel to different parts of the island. I think we should add Egilrun to the list of places we go to visit." she said in bemusement.
Ryl'ryn agreed, and the two of them put the bowl and notes back into the horse chest.
"Are you guys ready to go yet?! Everything's packed on the wagon, and Rin'saia and I are waiting for you slow pokes!" Mi'zuri called.
Ari'sora shared a smile with Ryl'ryn. They would keep the contents of the chest to themselves...along with the fact that they were adding a destination to their trip on the basis of an odd note found in a strange chest.
"We're ready!" Ari'sora called out to her sister.
The two of them quickly placed the floorboards back where they belonged, gathered up the last of the boxes, and headed outside where Mi'zuri was waiting. Once they packed the last of the boxes and the chest on the wagon, it was time to go. Ari'sora and Ryl'ryn walked beside the wagon to make sure that none of their belongings fell off while Mi'zuri and the kids rode with the driver.
They had barely reached the edge of the forest when one of the wagon wheels broke. The driver quickly jumped down to examine it, and after a few bits, he turned to the group.
"This wagon isn't going anywhere until we can replace that wheel. Problem is...we don't have any spares. We'll have to wait until someone can make a new wheel before we can get the wagon going again. I'm sorry, but you'll have to carry your belongings the rest of the way to your new house yourself."
Ari'sora glanced at Ryl'ryn and Mi'zuri uncertainly. They didn't have all that much stuff to carry, but it would still take several trips to get everything to their new home. And it would only be two of them carrying everything after the first trip. It wasn't fair to the kids to drag them back and forth all trial.
"Well...I guess we'd better get to work, then." Ari'sora said ruefully.
"I'd help you, but I have to go back and tell the others about the wagon." their driver said apologetically.
"We understand. Don't worry about it." Ari'sora said as she began unloading the wagon.
Note
The horse shoe bowl is made out of crystaline (a tier two metal) and embersteel (a tier five metal). From the wiki: Crystalline is an ore with strange properties, though it is common compared to geminite. Crystalline can be found in caves, caverns, and pretty much anywhere dark and cold. It appears in many colors ranging from shades of pale green and purple to cream and, rarely, white. Crystalline can be transparent, depending on craftsmanship, but must be incorporated with other metals. Its durability is weaker than iron and in most cases, it serves better in jewelry and accessories. However, if fashioned with other metals, crystalline can appear mesmerizing to the eye. Embersteel is a metal compound that contains hints of metals which give it a smoldering appearance when worked over and set. Surprisingly, embersteel is stronger than steel; however, it weighs much more than cobalt, iron, or steel, making it unfavorable to most.
