[Kestrel]

"Listen, I know this isn't probably what either of us want to spend our afternoon doing, but Mom thought we could both benefit from some time together. And besides, we need to find her a present, right?"

Skye padded alongside her sister, head lowered. Ro was wrong, as she always was in this matter. It was Ro who would rather be doing something else—maybe anything else—but not Skye.

"I saw this exact miniature of Lya Pointa Cathedral in a shop down this road a few weeks ago, and I thought it would be perfect for her." Ro raised her voice just enough to be heard over the chatter of the holiday shoppers pushing past them.

Ro glanced back at Skye, who seemed more engrossed in the cobblestones than in the matter at hand, and frowned. "Well, do you have any gift ideas?"

Skye thought of the painting of the Idalani Falls she had seen yesterday, its rays of sunlight peaking through a few drifts of cloud to light up the waterfall spray and set the entire canvas a-sparkle. The brilliant array of color and shape had taken her breath away, and the thought had entered her head to buy it for her mother. But of course, Ro's idea was much more fitting. Their mother greatly preferred the beauty of the mathematical geometries of architecture to the beauty of the chaos of nature. So Skye shook her head. "Not really."

Ro let out a tiny sigh. Her sister was always so...well, she didn't want to say disappointing, exactly, but she never seemed to try very much.

"Well, that's alright. I saw a model of the entirety of Lamenolai there too. It was stunning, but also far too expensive. But if you don't have any ideas, then we could buy it together and get her a joint present this year!"

"Just like last year" was left unsaid, but Skye winced at it anyway. And the year before that, and the year before that... And they were always, always Ro's gifts, just with Skye tacked on, to save the less gifted sister the embarrassment of presenting a clearly inferior item.

[1] [2]

[Kestrel]

Ro had no patience for this today. Her mother had picked the absolute worst day to decide that she and Skye needed some "sister bonding time". There was an enormous pile of project notes still sitting at her desk,  and absolutely nothing finalized for the presentation next week. All she wanted to do was hurry over to that model shop, buy the Lamenolai replica, and go home. Gods, there was just so much that still needed to be done.

She stopped abruptly, and Skye bumped into her. Ro gritted her teeth, but made no comment. She pointed at the shop to their right. "Abvi's" was written out, calligraphy-style, in bright gold, on a white painted sign above the door, a thing curling border of the same gold framing the name. In small black letters underneath, it read "Arts and Crafts".

"Right in here," Ro said, stepping forward to pull open the door.

A happy little bell greeted their entrance, and a yonyuu behind the counter next to the door looked up at the pair.

"Well, hello, hello! My name is Abvi. Welcome to my shop. Let me know if you need anything in particular!"

Ro dipped her head at him, already moving towards the back of the shop. Skye gave a small smile, and hurried after her.

[2] [3] [1]

[Kestrel]

When Ro vanished behind a row of shelves, focused just on her one target, the shopkeeper raised his head up and looked up at Skye, whose attention had been caught by a colorful oddity on a shelf near the front. One corner of his mouth twitched upwards, and he stepped out from behind his counter.

"That there is a genuine soul-crystal."

Abvi's voice came from right behind Skye's shoulder, and she jumped, fumbling with the object in her hands. The yonyuu reached out a paw to steady the crystal and chuckled. "Careful now. This nearly cost me my left arm, you know."

The Kuhna peered at the object more closely. It did look somewhat like a crystal, although it was much more blobby and twisty than it was blocky and faceted, as she thought crystals were. There were weird splotches of color spread throughout the object--some bright red on the loop over here, a dash of yellow striped with blue on the chunk over there--but for the most part it was clear. Skye had thought it was just a decorative glass piece, not a "soul-crystal", whatever that might be.

"You can't find these anywhere else in Evelon," the shopkeeper continued, picking up something that looked like a wooden feather. "I had to travel to an entirely different dimension to pick them up." He winked at Skye. "And then I come back here and sell them for a handful of keystones to people who just want a pretty paperweight," he sighed, placing the feather back on the shelf.

He shrugged and moved back towards his counter. "Well, that's the way the world turns these days, I suppose. No one believes an old yonyuu when he says he's been places no one else has gone, seen things no one else has seen."

[3] [4] [2]

[Kestrel]

Skye's eyes widened at those last words. Seen things no one else has seen...? She carried the object--the soul-crystal over to the register and placed it on the counter. "You said...you said this was a soul-crystal? What's that?"

The yonyuu set down the thing in his hand--what was that, a screwdriver? A tweezer?--and smiled at her. "Ahhhh yes, a soul-crystal. Not very imaginatively named, but it gets the job done." He took it from her, rubbing one paw over a patch of purple near the top. "This, very simply, contains a soul. The essence of it."

Skye blinked. The essence of a soul...? "I'm sorry, but...souls are intangible, aren't they? And how would you ever contain one? And isn't that a horrible thing to do? To contain someone's soul?"

"Well you see, that's why you can't find any other soul-crystals in Evelon, outside of those brought in by me. Evelonian souls are much different. You could never contain an Evelonian soul, safe with dark magics I'm not sure even exist. They have a certain...evanescent quality to them, once unlinked from their person."

The slight frown on Skye's face deepened. Did that mean he had tried to unlink someone's soul from themself? This whole situation was getting more and more unlikely.

"As for the morality, young Kuhna...well, the creatures in that realm are quite a bit different from the creatures you're used to here, as many and varied as they are. Souls are like currency to them, and everyone has more than one. They generate souls in a strange, strange way. One, or two, or six less is no big deal to them." As he spoke the last sentence, he tapped the patches of color in the crystal.

[5] [3]

[Kestrel]

Before Skye had a chance to respond, she heard her sister's voice behind her. "Skye, what are you doing?"

She turned. Ro's mouth was drawn into a frown, a note of annoyance in her eyes. "It isn't there anymore. Someone else must have bought it."

Abvi, who had moved to place the soul-crystal back on its shelf, turned to the pair. "If I may be of service, what item are you looking for?

"I was in here just yesterday, looking at your replicas of Lya Pointa Cathedral and Lamenolai. It seems both of them are gone. Did someone else purchase them?" Ro's voice was clipped and brisk.

"Ah! Those pieces! It's fortunate that you did not purchase them yesterday, young Kuhna. They were displaying some rather peculiar tendencies just this morning, so I took them into the back for further examination." Abvi's eyes were twinkling.

Ro's mouth tightened. "So just some repair work then? Do you know when they might be ready?"

The yonyuu smiled slowly, his eyes focusing on Ro. "I'm afraid, after examination, I have deemed them too dangerous to be sold. In the hands of the ignorant, they could cause mountains of woe."

"Dangerous? What? They're just wooden models. How dangerous can they be? Ro's eyes narrowed. "And I assure you, I am no ignorant customer. I fully appreciate the work and detail that has been put into these models."

Abvi's smile widened. A note of alarm passed through Skye. She thought about what he had said, about the other dimensions and the souls. "Um...Ro, if he says that they're not for purchase, then we should probably just go..." She nudged her sister's shoulder, eyes flicking to the yonyuu's gleeful expression with worry.

Ro turned, annoyance written all over her features. "Not yet, Skye. The Lamenolai model would make perfect gift for Mom; we agreed on that. I want to get to the bottom of this."

[4] [6] [4]

[Kestrel]

At Ro's response, the yonyuu turned his gaze to Skye. His eyes lost the strange, wild joy from before and took on a thoughtful cast. Skye took half a step back, pressing closer to her sister.

"Very well then." His voice had turned soft. "You can have the Lamenolai model...provided your little sister here fixes it for me."

"What??" Skye took another step back in alarm.

"What?" Ro mirrored her sister, taking a step forward, her eyebrows creasing. "You want Skye to fix it for you? Why can't you yourself? Or I could try for you. I'm a builder, an inventor: I could help you fix the thing."

Abvi shook his head. "No. If any of us three can, it will be her. I have too much, and you have too little, but Skye? I imagine Skye has just enough."

Ro took another stepping forward, coming into between Skye and Abvi. "Listen, I don't know what you're on about, but whatever weird thoughts you're having about my little sister, you need to stop. If you won't sell the model, then fine. We'll take our business somewhere else."

Neither Skye nor Abvi responded. Skye looked into the yonyuu's eyes and thought of her own world that no one else had ever seen. She thought of her trips to the clouds and what her sister would say if she ever told her about them. She thought of that little slice of inexplicability in her life, that small piece of something achingly close to magic.

"No, it's okay, Ro." Her voice was quiet, as it always was, but it possessed a strength, a firmness that was new. "I'll give it a try."

[5] [7] [5]

[Kestrel]

Ro opened her mouth to protest, but Skye shook her head. "It's the perfect gift for Mom, right? We should at least give it a try."

Ro closed her mouth, and backed up a step. "Well...okay then, Skye. If you want to, I guess."

Abvi unfurled his wings and snapped them closed again. "Excellent then! If you'll just come with me, Skye. And you, older sister, stay out here."

"Wait, no, what? No, I insist on going with Skye." But Ro's protests fell on deaf ears, as with a small shake of her head, Skye walked to the back of the shop with Abvi.

"If you do anything to hurt my sister--!" she called after the two.

Abvi turned, midstep, to look at her. "I give you every promise that your sister will emerge, unharmed in any way."

The smile he gave Ro left her with a strange feeling. Not one of worry, but a sense that more was going on here than she realized. She turned away, glancing at the shelves next to her. She picked up a small wooden carving and turned it in her hands. What a strange wooden feather...

[6] [8] [6]

[Kestrel]

"What peculiarities do the models have?" Skye asked, as they neared a small wooden door set in the back corner of the shop.

"We spoke earlier of souls, Skye, and this again has to do with souls. Or something very similar." He inserted a small golden key into a keyhole set high in the door, almost out of his reach. "Objects, buildings, places have souls as well, of a sort. It seems that I was a bit careless in the making of these models, and somehow they have become infused with a bit of the soul of what they show."

Abvi opened the door, and Skye let out a breath she hadn't realized she had taken. She peered into the room, a bit underwhelmed. It looked like a normal storage room: walls lined with shelves lined with all sorts of items. Packed, and just a bit untidy. In the center was an ordinary looking table, with two chairs on either side. On the table were the two wooden models: Lya Pointa Cathedral, and Lamenolai.

Skye's eyes widened. These, at least, did not disappoint. Abvi had crafted them perfectly, each tiny wooden piece fitting exactly with the rest, painted in excruciating detail. Lamenolai looked exactly as it did from above, when she was up in the clouds.

Abvi laid a paw on one of Lya Pointa's spires. "What this means, is that anything that happens to these models also happens to the place itself." He bent the thin spire ever so slightly, until Skye was sure it would break. "As you surely understand, this is not ideal. What I need you to do is remove the soul from these models, so that their wood becomes just ordinary wood, their paint just ordinary paint."

[9] [7]

[Kestrel]

Skye reached out one shaky paw to touch the head of one of Lamenolai's stone guardians. "But why me? Why can't you do it, or Ro?"

Abvi sighed, sitting in one of the chairs next to the models. "Souls are peculiar things, you must understand. Your sister, fortunately for her, has essentially zero affinity for their essence. I have far too much, and as such, souls like to stick to me and collect around me. More importantly, I am susceptible to the souls' wills. Since I made these models, that means the souls are very much inclined to stick to them, and I cannot break that inclination. You, on the other hand, you I think possess some small degree of affinity for these things. Enough that you will be able to connect with the souls at some level, but not so much that you will lose control and fall to their desires." He leaned back in his chair, folding his paws. "And if I'm wrong?" He shrugged. "Souls can do very little to physical beings. Your safety is not at risk here. At worst, your sister will have to find a new perfect present, and I will have to lock these up for good."

Skye gulped and stepped forward, anxiously hovering one paw above the Lamenolai model.

Abvi shook his head. "No, better to start with Lya Pointa. Must smaller of a place." He carefully switched the positions of the models so that the cathedral was nearer Skye's end of the table.

Skye swallowed. "What...what should I do with the souls, once I remove them?"

Abvi considered, rubbing his chin with one paw. "I meant to try and see if I could store these in a crystal too...but that's likely beyond you. The Lamenolai one is easy: send it into the earth below us, and since we're in Lamenolai now, it will rejoin with the rest. Lya Pointa, though? That's a bit tricky. It's all the way in Lambastia..."

He snapped his fingers and stood up, turning to one of the shelves behind him. "Let's see...ah yes, here we go!"

He held up a small painted postcard, grinning. Skye squinted at it. It looked like a map of Evelon, with Lambastia in the top left, and Barakka near the bottom right. And there, on the little Lambastia, near the bottom, was a small triangle shape.

"Here we go! Just send it into this, please." He tapped the triangle with one paw. "Lya Pointa, right here. I'll see that this finds its way back to the Cathedral, too, after you're done."

[10] [8]

[Kestrel]

"But...how do I pull the souls out to begin with? And how do I send them anywhere?"

Abvi clicked his tongue at that. "Well, that's the difficult part, see. There isn't really a process--you just have to kind of do it, and if it works, it works, and if it doesn't, it doesn't." He shrugged. "If you have the ability to do it, you'll figure out how."

Skye gulped and turned her attention back to the models. The shopkeeper's words were hardly encouraging. But then she thought of her clouds, and how cloud-walking was the same way: you just had to do it. There were no tricks, no certain actions to take. You either cloud-walked, or you fell. Hopefully the alternative to success in this situation was less life-threatening.

She closed her eyes and placed one paw on the highest point of the cathedral. She closed her eyes and thought of everything she had ever heard about Lya Pointa Cathedral: she remembered shadows, and evil. Her mental image of the ruins seemed to blur and fade into darkness, and a prickle of unease ran up her spine. But of course, she couldn't forget, Lya Pointa had once truly been a grand cathedral, a place of worship for the followers of the Holy Triumvirate. Somewhere in its past, in its story, there was a glory to it. It must've been a place of light, once.

Squeezing her eyes shut even tighter, Skye lifted her paw a few inches above the model and clenched. Then she pulllllled... and imagined all that past, both dark and light, flowing out of the wood.

Distantly, she heard Abvi gasp. "Yes yes, that's it! Now into the postcard, here!"

She felt something shoved under her chin. With a gasp of effort, she took her clenched paw and pushed, into the flimsy paper underneath.

"Aha! It worked! Excellent, excellent job, Skye."

Tentatively, she opened her eyes and looked at the postcard. A small frown deepened the corners of her mouth. "It...doesn't look any different. And neither does the model!"

Abvi chuckled, setting the postcard down on the table. "In Evelon, remember, souls are very much intangible and invisible. But if you really pay attention, I'm sure you could sense its presence now, in the paper." He reached one paw out to pat her on the shoulder. "That was a very good job there, Skye. Ready to take on Lamenolai now?"

[11] [9]

[Kestrel]

Skye wriggled her toes with pleasure. She had done it. She had pulled the spirit of Lya Pointa out of the model and helped send it on its way back home. Her. Ro couldn't do it; Abvi couldn't do it. But she could, and did. A grin spread over her face and she nodded at the yonyuu.

"I'm ready!" she replied, stretching out a paw over Lamenolai's great citadel.

She thought of Lamenolai, the city where she had been born. She thought of its stone walls and its strange guardians, its wide, paved roads and thin, twisting alleyways. She remembered her family's small home: a thin stone building in the nicer part of the city. Two stories, the upper level just her and Ro's bedrooms and a small bathroom. She remembered the paths she used to walk, sometimes with her sister, sometimes with her old friends, sometimes alone. She thought of the history of the city that she had learned when she was young; she thought of the Purine party had made its headquarters here. She thought of the lives of her neighbors and all those around her. She thought of the hospital, of the cemetery, and of all the places in-between. She thought of home.

Abvi laid a paw on her shoulder. "You've done it already," he said.

Skye blinked her eyes open in confusion. "What? I have?" she asked, looking down at the model.

Abvi picked up the base of the miniature Lamenolai and set it on his back. He used one paw to balance it there and moved towards the entrance. "Yep. It was subtle this time, for sure. Gradual. But you did it. All of Lamenolai's spirit is back in Lamenolai and not in this wood." He used his shoulder to push open the door and maneuver the model through. "And as a reward, I will be gifting this to you and your sister to take home to your mother. How does that sound?"

Skye followed, still a little puzzled. "Oh wow, um, that'd be great. Thank you very much."

[14] [10]

[Kestrel]

Skye and Abvi walked back to the front of the shop, Abvi balancing the model and Skye padding behind. They stopped when they got back to where Ro was waiting. She seemed to be engrossed in one of the wooden feathers on the shelf, lightly stroking with one of her paws. Turning her head, Skye noticed an oddly delighted look pass over Abvi's face. A prickle of unease ran down her spine, and she shifted closer to her sister.

"I must say, Sparrowgrass, your sister is quite gifted. All of the models' ah...quirks have quite vanished. Now here is Lamenolai, free of charge," Abvi said, stepping forward and holding out the model for Ro to take.

Skye snapped her head towards the yonyuu upon hearing her sister's full name. They hadn't introduced themselves at all to Abvi during their duration in the shop. Had Ro told him her name yesterday? But the two of them never introduced themselves by full name.

She watched Ro lifted her head from gazing intently at the feather. The use of her full first name didn't seem to affect her at all. Ro dropped her eyes to the model. "Ah, yes!" she exclaimed. "This will be perfect!" She turned to Skye and asked, "Here, will you take this?" Skye obliged, and the model switched to her back. Ro turned back to Abvi. "I'd like to buy this feather as well. How many keystones would it be?"

A slow grin spread over Abvi's face. "For you, zero." He passed her the feather, and the two sisters headed for the door. "I hope you enjoy it!" he called just as the door closed behind them. Abvi smiled. He had waited a long time to find the right person for that feather.

[7] [15 (12)] [11]

[Kestrel]

Outside, Skye walked slowly along, wobbling at bit as she struggled to ensure the model wouldn't fall. Next to her, Ro moved equally slowly, staring down at the feather she held in her paw.

Skye cleared her throat. "Well...this was fun, wasn't it?"

Ro looked up. She gave a thin smile. "I would say it went quite well. So yes." She went back to examining her feather.

The pair lapsed back into silence as they headed for Ro's home. Every so often, Skye would shoot sideways glances at Ro and her feather. Her sister wouldn't take her eyes off the thing. Skye chewed on her bottom lip in worry, and nearly lost control of the model. But asides from a momentary glance in her direction, Ro gave no reaction. Not even a small reprimand, not even a word of caution. The unease grew.

When they reached Ro's door, her sister finally looked up. "Alright, if you bring it in and set it on the table there, I'll take care of all the wrapping and everything. Then on Christmas Day, we'll takeit down to Mom together. Sounds good?"

Skye nodded, and with her sister's help, maneuvered the model through the door and onto the table. She hovered anxiously near the doorway as Ro's attention turned back to the feather--which she was carefully arranging in her small living room. Skye wondered if she should say something. But before she had a chance, Ro glanced back up at her. "That's all, right, Skye? I've got a lot of work to finish tonight. You probably should go on home."

Skye opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again. She nodded once, and slipped out the door. It was just a feather, after all. Ro would be fine.

[8] [16 (13)]