Season 3: Episode 4 – The Ground We Stand On

This series contains mature themes and is intended for adult listeners.

POV: Bryn Tal

> Begin Porta Cor imprint.<

I sat in Afanen’s garden.

It was summer again. A year ago, I gave Afanen her first pair of gardening gloves so she could help me tend the roses.

The roses bloomed all around me, a stark contrast to what these streets looked like months ago when the war ended.

Amid the devastation, my roses remained untouched. Unburned. Unmarred. I opened it to the public.

I watched a human woman sit down with a little girl on another bench across from me.

“This garden was named for a little girl,” the woman told the child.

“Who was she?” The child asked.

“They say she was the rose of all roses.”

I said nothing.

I kept my eyes on the roses and pictured her face.

---

Dahlfia sat on the couch, looking out the window. Sunlight caught in her hair, but the way she held herself—careful, quiet—told me the medics’ warnings still lingered.

The back of her head had taken a substantial blow, but thankfully, she showed no signs of permanent damage other than some initial memory issues.

I sat beside her and took her hands. “Last night, you said you were remembering the war. Tell me what you remember in the tunnel.”

Her gaze stayed on the window while she spoke, and she gently squeezed my hands back. “The burn marks,” she murmured, “at first, I thought they were torch marks. But they were too clean. Too deliberate.” She continued, “Thantos technology can be strange, as I’m sure you’re aware from your late husband. Thantos always uses natural materials to make its technology. This wasn’t. It felt… off-world.”

She finally turned toward me, and the seriousness in her eyes made my stomach tighten. “I slowed down to study them,” she said. “That hesitation let the humans in uniforms trap us. We got ready to fight.”

She stopped for a moment to take a sip of water and slid her hands back into mine. “Before they reached us, I heard one say, ‘Not the one with the blue hair.’ And the two dozen fighters with me went down almost instantly from a very precise and small light ray.”

Her voice thinned, “Then I felt someone come up behind me, and that’s when I sent you our phrase. And I blacked out.”

She leaned in, “They knew about us.”

I sucked in my lower lip, thinking, “Awyr said something similar to me before she returned to Che’el de Velg’lan. She believed we were infiltrated. She would investigate it.”

I took a sip of my water and then hesitated only a moment, “Speaking of Awyr, did I tell you what she told Mallaidh when she was dying?”

Dahlfia shook her head.

“She whispered to her, ‘You could never have been ONE.’  I thought Mallaidh had been Velg’lan before coming to our council. So the phrasing…”

Dahlfia looked down at our hands for a moment, then up to me. “ONE is Awyr’s position in the Council. They don’t have titles, only numbers. As a Velg’lan, I would refer to Awyr in any formal Velg’lan setting as ONE instead of Awyr.” Her eyes lingered on me a moment.

I lifted both of my eyebrows at her word choice, “What do you mean, ‘as a Velg’lan’? Dahlfia, are you saying you are a Velg’lan?”

“I am.”

The words hit harder than I expected. I looked down at my water.

“Is there anything else you’ve kept from me? I mean, your parents and now this. I feel like I’ve been honest with you about everything in my life, and in the last six months, I’ve learned two enormous things about you that you didn’t trust me with.”

She did not flinch or look away. Her fingers slid over mine, slow and deliberate. “I am keeping nothing else from you. I should have told you about my parents sooner; that was my failure. The Velg’lan part,” she paused, choosing her words, “I must be careful with who knows. Awyr permitted me to disclose it to you before she left. I am the only non-Croenddu ever to become one in their 8000 years of history.”

My chest tightened, not from anger, but from the weight of everything she carried alone.

I looked down as her fingers caressed mine, “We need to make sure we are always forthcoming with each other,” I said quietly. “The world falls apart around us. We cannot afford secrets. Not between us.”

She lifted one hand to my chin, guiding my gaze back to hers, “I will be.”

Then she kissed me, deep, certain, and grounding.

Not long into the kiss, however, the front door burst open without a knock or announcement. Kylah stepped through the threshold and stood staring at us.

“Well, hell. Should I leave and come back later?” she asked with her hands on her hips.

Dahlfia finished kissing me anyway and then leaned back.

“Kylah, welcome to our home.”

Kylah stepped in front of us. “Yeah, Oswalt told me you two moved in here a couple of nights ago. I opted to wait so you wouldn’t get all weird in front of me, but here we are!” She motioned to Dahlfia and me. “So, this is new, and you didn’t think to mention it?” She smirked at us both.

“Kylah, it doesn’t change our friendship with you.” I reminded her.

“Good, because I’m getting all this information in from Alltud and the Velg’lan now. You want the urgent stuff straight to you and everything else to Oswalt for him to sort through, right?” She turned from us, went to the kitchen, and got a cold drink of something I did not recognize from the creation machine.

She came back into the living room and sat down in a chair near the couch.

“Yes, that would be fantastic,” I told her.

She took a huge gulp from the drink, “Shit, it’s hotter than the nuts on a draigtywod. Did I tell you I saw one?”

Dahlfia smirked at her. “The nut of a draigtywod?”

Kylah guffawed. “Yeah, that too. The fucker was right over me! His drool and shit hit the sand in front of me. Holy fuck!”

She took another gulp and looked Dahlfia over. “You look like shit for someone who got out of fighting a war.” Her grin widened.

“Kylah, I am truly sorry about the whole desert thing.” I kept my voice quiet. I knew she would brush it off, but I needed to say it.

Her violet eyes found mine for a brief second, and then she looked down at her drink. “Ah, hell. Don’t worry about it. I’ll make you pay for it someday. Or at the very least, remind you when it suits me.” She laughed.

That was probably as much forgiveness as I deserved, maybe more.

“I heard you had something planned to honor Gaffdyn,” Kylah asked curiously.

“Yes, we are having one of our best sculptors make two statues of her. One will be put up where the smithy was in her honor, and the other will go to her home community of Linton for their square.” I said.

Kylah smiled. “I like that. I wish I could have gotten to her sooner.”

We all sat silently for a moment.

“It’s so lovely outside, I was thinking of getting Dahlfia out into the fresh air. Why don’t you come with us, Kylah?” I stood up and held my hand out to steady Dahlfia as she did the same.

Kylah leaped to her feet, too. “I heard about your garden,” she said.

“Yes. I wanted it open to the public. Afanen would have loved seeing everyone look at the roses.”

Dahlfia and I walked out the door together, and Kylah followed.

We walked across my front yard to the lot next door. My new house stood where Kylah’s used to be, and the public garden occupied the entire lot where my home and garden had been.

“Where are you living now?” I asked Kylah as I kept my pace slow and stayed by Dahlfia’s side, my arm wrapped around her waist.

“I’m staying at the inn for now. I’m not sure I want a place of my own. I may be gone a lot.” She grinned. “Besides, you hear the best stuff in the inn. Did you know I took down four hundred enemy fighters all by myself? Fucker telling me the story didn’t even realize I was the one he was talking about.”

We arrived in the garden. The roses blooming in different colors were striking.

In silence now, the three of us approached the sign that read ‘Afanen’s Garden’—from the sign hung the pendant that Kylah had given her.

Kylah stopped as we approached the sign, and I saw her stare at the pendant in recognition for a long moment without speaking.

We moved down one of the paths, quiet in our own thoughts. Within minutes, Kylah stirred with uncomfortable agitation.

“Well, I gotta go. I have some things I want to get to Oswalt before he goes home for the day.” She looked around once more and then at us. With a mock salute, she turned on her heel and was gone.

Dahlfia and I watched until we could no longer see her, and then Dahlfia said, “I’m going to go back inside. I’m tired.”

“Do you need me to walk you back in?”

She shook her head. “I’ll go slow. You sit out here and enjoy some sunshine for a bit.” She kissed me on the cheek, and as promised, she slowly walked back down the path toward our house.

I sat down on a bench and looked around me.

Afanen gone. Gaffdyn gone. Because I moved.

Inside my soul, I felt Afanen’s presence everywhere.

I watched a human woman and a small girl sit down on the bench across from me. The little girl pointed out the pink roses.

I listened to their conversation for a few minutes and found myself staring into Afanen’s favorite yellow roses. And there I saw her face.

“This garden was named after a little girl,” the woman told the child.

“Who was she?” The child asked.

“They say she was the rose of all roses.”

I said nothing.

I kept my eyes on the yellow roses and her face.

When they got up and left, I let myself cry.

Two weeks later, the medics released Dahlfia from medical care.

The peace of the garden already felt distant.

I stood behind the dais with Dahlfia helping me put on all the ceremonial adornments. A few were salvaged from the old council, and each community in Landoris presented the leader with one of their own.

“That silver and black uniform looks great with your hair and eyes,” I told her. She flashed me a grin and then continued adding the adornments to the proper places.

“All eyes will be on you this evening, Benadur Bryn Tal.” Her tone was very serious and reverent.

She finished and looked me over, then leaned to straighten my collar. “There. You’re ready.”

I could hear things settling down on the dais, and out in the seating area, we opened it to the public. It was time.

Councilor Myr came up to me from a back hallway. “Well, Benadur, I see you are ready.” She gave me a respectful nod. “I’m heading up now, and in a few minutes you follow.”

I nodded. She moved up the steps to the dais.

Dahlfia took my hands in hers and guided me into a slow, steady breath. “You’ve got this.” She kissed my cheek lightly and then let my hands go before standing at attention.

I stood there for a moment looking at her, heard Myr reach the podium, and turned to face the steps.

I heard Myr’s voice announce, “Your elected councilors have chosen a Benadur, and tonight we officially name her and celebrate the union she has brought across Landoris.”

I began to walk up the steps, Dahlfia a couple of steps behind me.

I got on the dais and walked toward the podium. There was no standing room in the open area. It was packed full of faces of humans and Tylwyth Teg alike. Some of our councilors were also human. It was a new council, for certain.

I saw Kylah out there and Oswalt sitting together in the front row. Both of them were smiling proudly at me. The ceremony wasn’t exceptionally long, and I was thankful on behalf of those who were standing.

When Myr placed the stole of the Benadur around my neck, carefully making sure it draped evenly, I felt a weight that didn’t come from the fabric.

We began to chant the Litany of the Tylwyth Teg in unison, now the Litany of Landoris, since it included humans.

May the air around you be plentiful.
May the soil beneath your feet be firm.
May the sun illuminate what must be revealed.
May the waters help you grow.
May your heart be at one with your mind.
And may your soul bind to Anturia for the benefit of all.

After the public left, we had a small celebration planned for just the councilors, their families and friends, and the staff. We moved from the main chamber to one of the party rooms so as not to be disrespectful to the purpose of that chamber.

I wore a simple blue dress that clung to my waistline and had flowing bell sleeves. Every chance she got to whisper it in my ear, Dahlfia kept telling me she couldn’t keep her eyes off me. I blushed each time.

I don’t remember an evening when I felt so happy as I met our new councilors and their families and talked about our dreams for our future world together, with hope, even with the shadow of Emperor Dax looming on the other side of the planet.

We had plans, and we could make things work now. Dahlfia was standing next to me, explaining to a human from 1952 Earth that it was perfectly normal for same-gender couples to exist in Anturia. Meanwhile, I watched Myr dance with her husband, who had traveled here from Eleri for the ceremony.

Dahlfia turned back to me. “May I have this dance?”

I smiled at her. “Of course!”

I moved with her out onto the dance floor, and we held each other close as the soft music played. I wished it could have stayed that way all night.

Instead, Oswalt ran into the room with a Croen Glas male behind him that I had never seen before. Oswalt searched the room and frantically ran over to me with the male trailing behind him.

“Bryn, Bryn! It’s broken. The transmission from the coast, and now another just came through. The Porta Segreta is malfunctioning and pulling humans in on its own. It won’t stop.”

> End Porta Cor imprint.<