The constraint is always raw material. She has no shortage of ideas or time in which to put them into practice. Hence, she is most avaricious in acquiring hearts whenever an opportunity presents itself. Having a stockpile means she need waste as little time as possible.
- Someone walks into the village.
He's vibrant, colors settled into him with more life than they do for most humans. His hair is a gleaming white, his robes a blue like sapphires, the black of his fur trim so utterly black it might be best to call all other shades of that color a light grey. His eyes are green, glittering with shards of gold and blue, and his staff of ivory is topped with a gem that sparkles with a marvelous iridescence.
He doesn't seem at all concerned with the fairy's power, and his magic lashes out in a rainbow of color, shielding the people as they flee, restoring color to those who have lost their hearts to her but not yet died.
"This is not," he grumbles, "Proper behavior."
She needs to figure out how to find him. Can't use any of her artifacts because of this useless lump in chest. Fuck that old man. She doesn't really want to go back to the city like this.
So.
The Heartful have magic. She should figure out how to use it. Scavenge what she can here and then... push outward.
There's food, some of it already prepared so it'll keep for the winter. There's clothes, in sensible colors (her own outfit, once no longer in the grey-scale of the Heartless, is quite colorful apparently). There's tools and bags and daily usable stuff - none of it artifacts. There's no books, nor any indication of writing.
She's able to get out of earshot before he starts hammering again, fortunately for everyone's collective sanity.
The temple isn't particularly grand, nothing like even the most modest of fairy buildings. It's stone, with tapestries inside and woven rugs and scenes carved into the walls, and a woman in an undyed robe washing the floor.
"Oh, hello and well met, stranger!" she says. "I haven't seen you around! Are you a traveler?"
She frowns, but heads back, bringing out two large wooden plaques, some clay tablets, and a blank piece of wood - as well as a second, older woman, who is somehow a bit more vibrant, and who regards Shade calmly.
The priestess can point out their village, and the other nearby villages, and the paths to important places, and then can transfer whatever map-portion seems most needed?
How do these people not have any paper at all? It's ridiculous. She was doing them a favor by turning their hearts to a useful purpose, putting them out of their misery.
If they really don't have any books at all, she'll probably need to talk to someone to find out what they know about heartful magic. Ugh.
She's definitely not in the mood to do that now. How far out are the furthest villages on her map?
And, a good ways from the village, when the sky above is streaked in shades of dying orange and yellow, there's a girl in an incredibly vibrant orange dress sitting on a tree branch over the path, looking out towards the sunset, though she twists around when Shade comes into sight.
Her saturation's off, in the way of someone who became Heartful after a while without a heart. She has human coloring, mostly, but there's a spryness to her they often don't have - and, of course, the fabric of her dress is far more cleanly manufactured than the typical rough-woven linen or hand-worked leather of human clothes.
"Hello!" she calls, cheerfully.
She jumps down.
"It's about wanting stuff, specifically enough and in the right way that it happens! Some stuff, like lighting a fire, is really simple and easy to do, while some stuff's harder. I started with meditating on wanting my fire lit - it was cold and I wouldn't get a fire otherwise."
"Alright!"
And she leads the way, scampering to the edge of the village to steal their eggs - quite a few - and then back out a distance, where she finds a comfortable pair of rocks to perch on.
"So! Try to focus on wanting these hard-boiled - just one at a time, mind you, whichever you're holding." And she offers one up.
Cliff: is findable! The girl walks her through how to move things simply, and how tree branches are different from reeds which are different from stone. Breaking things is pretty easy. This section of cliff's stable, though, and the girl can correct for anything dangerous.
September trades for food and a bag with colorful embroidery and a bunch of beads and cocoa beans ("These are kind of like currency," she explains, "'Cause everyone thinks they're valuable."), and a thin strip of heavily embroidered cloth like a belt or very long hair ribbon.
September can cover for anything Shade wants, but, yeah. Of course even a relatively big settlement doesn't have a ton of people needing healing, especially not with them just dropping by and not wanting to wait for word to get out.
September also gets them some supplies for making camps with that fold up small, and heads out of the village with a cheery wave back at the villagers.
"You want to do anything other than I guess learn magic and find books?" she asks Shade.
Shade makes her own path, continuing to practice with Heartful magic. In September's absence she keeps her temper on less of a tight leash. There's no one standing next to her that might take offense. And letting it out is... helpful, in certain regards. It's possible she acquires somewhat of a reputation.
Beasts begin to flee through the trees, many of them at reckless speeds, like they may from a fire.
There's a distant sound of hooves, and hounds baying, and laughter, all swept up in the tumult of the birds and rabbits and squirrels and foxes and deer all streaming very determinedly away.
The earth shakes -
And a massive wolf snaps into being near her, arriving like thunder, chasing down a large stag.
Someone's riding it. Someone Heartful, with the odd coloration some Heartful fairies have - her hair's a dark bloody shade, her eyes like flecks of crimson, her skin almost too perfectly even. Her clothes practically glow with red, she's so vibrant.
She's laughing, and her eyes flick over towards Shade as she pursues her prey.
The odd fairy - it's unclear yet what role she plays in the Hunt, though she certainly seems comfortable abandoning her chases to fight Shade - flows around Shade's defenses, snapping like fire then moving like a windstorm, harsh and sharp and fluid. Like a very energetic dancer, in fact, if dancers were customarily armed.
She's good, and it's quickly apparent she's testing Shade. For one, she's barely used any magic at all.
She is exceptionally, supremely skilled, enough so to blow September out of the water, who had - other than the old man - been previously the most powerful Heartful that Shade had met. And this woman applies her power well, wielding the same sheer caring as a finely honed blade.
Still, Shade manages to bloody her, ever so lightly.
She pauses, then starts laughing. "I like you! Few manage that."
"It's hard, as far as most are concerned, but I think you'll get it - it's rather like any other Heartful magic. You must care very, very deeply. Except to fly, you must continue to care."
"Either that, or turn yourself into something natively capable of flight. People vary in which they find harder."
And soon enough they reach a large clearing, where a number of people are already gathering - fairies, humans, and Heartful in a shifted form alike. Many of them stop talking when the Yew Queen enters, turning to watch her. A few flick their gazes to Shade.
The Yew Queen and her wolf go to sprawl at one edge, both stretching out languidly, apparently unbothered by the attention.
And, when some critical number of hunters has been reached, people start stepping forward to tell tales of their hunts, presenting prizes if they caught them. The Yew Queen speaks up rarely, though she does seem to enforce a ban on people recruited unwillingly or taken prisoner, challenging a few hunters to duels when she perceives they pressured someone into pretending to be willing. No one takes her up on the challenge, instead relinquishing whoever they'd stolen.
And then, apparently, it's the Yew Queen's turn to present. She tells her tale lowly, so that people have to hush to hear her, of pursuing this or that minor challenge, never knowing herself tested - until she came upon one who stood. The tale of her and Shade's fight glows with praise for the latter's abilities and instincts.
"When the fight ended, we came to an agreement, she and I," the Yew Queen says at the end. "That I would join her hunt, for the man who inflicted Heartfulness upon her. The wind has barely carried whispers of such a man to me, all from centuries ago; our prey is clever, and old, and powerful. Our banners will fly on the morn. Those who wish to have the hunt of a century may join us; those who wish for simpler prey may direct their banners elsewhere."
The gathered hunters break out into murmurs, many of them assessing Shade with keen gazes.
The Yew Queen, sadly, can't hear Shade's internal narration. Things would perhaps be simpler if she could.
Once people have started to disperse, the Yew Queen returns to sprawling, and turns to Shade. "You're a very astute student," she says, plainly, "But there are many magics relevant to a Hunt that you might not yet have, beyond flight. Would you like lessons?"
The Yew Queen then offers quite extensive, organized, actually helpful advice - rather unlike September's mostly intuition-based ramblings.
Her information should be enough for Shade to stop sleeping, assuming she cares about doing that, and heal most simple injuries. Endurance and speed are harder to summarize, more about sustained wanting to keep going, and endurance especially can be finicky to mess with. Still, if you can get sleeplessness and flight, those both synergize well with the required mindset.
She hums, and redirects the conversation back to magic lessons, this time winding over towards divination - it's hard while you're in motion, and most need some kind of focus, like a pool of still water, but far-viewing is definitely possible, and it's rumored that future-viewing is, too...
"It's easier with a reflective surface. A mirror, or a still pool. There's one we passed, though."
And, on the way to it, she explains first how to project your desire into your medium, so it becomes a receptacle and reflection of that desire, and how to correctly shape a desire for scrying on someone.