Thistle Moonwhisper's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Thistle Moonwhisper stood at the pink doors of the shelter and read the notice pinned there for the third time. Unsponsored children turned away. He was eight, near enough, and the rite was in two days. If he did not fly at the rite, he would not fly at all. He pulled at the hem of his silver shirt. Every other fairy child he had seen wore a color that meant something to the elders. No one had told him what silver meant, and the man who had found him, Lysander, was not a fairy elder and could not sponsor a child at the rite. He went looking for the old scholar instead. Aldric Silverweave kept a room on the second floor of the shelter, above the nursery. Thistle knocked once and pushed the door open. The old man sat cross-legged on the floor, sorting dried stems into piles. His robe of gossamer and silver caught the lamp. "I need a sponsor," Thistle said. "For the rite." Aldric did not look up. "I don't sponsor children." "Lysander said you knew everyone." "Knowing is not vouching." He set a stem down. "Ask a clan elder. Silver is not my color to speak for." "No one will tell me what it is." Aldric's hands stopped. He looked at Thistle then, and the look held a long time. "That is the answer," he said. "Not the one you want." Thistle sat down on the floor because his legs would not hold him. He heard footsteps on the stair. Celestia Threadwhisper came in with her hands wrapped in fresh linen. She had helped Lysander pull a child from the chasm and her palms had not healed. She saw Thistle on the floor and the notice crumpled in his fist. "He needs a name at the gate," Aldric said to her. "I cannot give mine." Celestia sat down across from Thistle. "Why not you?" she asked Aldric. "Because if I stand for him, they will ask where he came from. I will have to answer." He folded his hands. "I am not ready to answer." The room went quiet. Celestia looked at her bandaged palms, then at Thistle's silver sleeves. "I'll stand for him," she said. Aldric shook his head. "You belong to no clan fully. They may refuse you." "They may." She met Thistle's eyes. "But I can walk him to the gate and speak. That is more than he has now." Thistle nodded. He did not trust his voice. Celestia stood and winced when her hands took her weight. "Two days," she said. "Be at my shed at first light. We will practice what to say." He went down the stairs with a sponsor and a new problem: the woman speaking for him was half-clan and hurt, and the scholar who knew what silver meant had refused to say it out loud.