"Alright! Stand back, weaklings!" Marciella cried out, floating in front of the group while holding her hands on her hips.
Alexa scoffed but took a cautious and imperceptible half step backward. Even if it was just showboating, it always paid to be a little extra careful around Fae that weren't Kastra.
Damien was sitting closest, having just finished experimenting with the strange object he'd made. Alexa was as giddy as the rest of the group, if not more so from Damien's added feelings. Here was a brand new device never before seen on this world, created by her bonded. He'd even mentioned that using this could help teach her enough about lightning to harness it herself as an element.
"My payment has been arranged?" the Fae asked Damien, eyes darting back and forth between him and Kastra.
"Yes, yes; shrink it! Pleaseee," he replied exasperated.
With a wide grin, no doubt deriving pleasure from having all eyes on her, the purple-haired Fae flew up until she was standing on top of the ring. Then, as if the object was simply condensing itself, it began to get smaller and smaller. Alexa felt a wave of mana senses cover the object as everyone eagerly observed what was happening inside of it.
"Incredible," Garrett mumbled off to her right.
She assumed none here besides maybe Kastra had seen shrinking magic in action, and it truly was incredible. Similar to hardening the ground to make it tougher but different, all of the ring's internal pieces shrank along with the others at the exact same rate rather than simply being crushed inward. Alexa could feel each piece in perfect harmony with the rest, growing more minuscule by the second, not even slightly out of balance.
After around a minute, the ring stopped shrinking at about the size of a crown. Looking at the Fae that was still atop it, she was no longer grandiosely standing, but hunched over and panting.
"That... it's so complicated," she panted out. "So many pieces... Good enough..." she finished, flopping face down onto the ring so her body was resting over the top of it.
"Not good enough," Damien complained. "It needs-"
"Out of mana," Marciella groaned as she snuck a peek over at Kastra. "If only I had... more... woe is me-"
"Use mine?" Kastra offered, causing Marciella to sit up and smile widely.
"An excellent suggestion! Then, we can recharge and continue once we go through yours!"
'At least she's consistent in her interest of Kas,' Alexa thought, rolling her eyes.
Kastra flew off Alexa's shoulder and landed on the ring with the purple Fae, who immediately glommed onto her. A few seconds later, Alexa was shown yet another Fae magic she'd never experienced as Kastra's mana flowed into Marciella's body. Similar to when Damien fed Emra his, the mana almost appeared to be ripped out of Kastra's control as Marciella funneled it into the ring, continuing to shrink it further as their mana rapidly depleted.
After another few seconds of staring on with her mouth slightly open in amazement, the process stopped again.
"Need... break," Marciella groaned.
Damien stood up and moved toward them.
"Yes, yes of course," he said with disappointment evident in his voice, eventually picking them both up in his arms and taking them to the carriage while also grabbing onto the bracelet sized ring. "You can take a nap and finish later. Consider this bonus time with..." he continued, fading out as he entered the coach.
"That... was incredible," Garrett said from beside her again, Alexa nodding along. "Kastra... the Fae are something else. Sharing mana, shrinking, that story she told with her illusion magic... I've never seen anything like any of that before. Add Damien's sound magic into it all and I'd say I've never been more impressed in such a short span of time in my life."
"I actually agree with you," Vanessa added in from further to the right. "That... I wish we'd have been able to witness the story."
Alexa once again nodded to that, disappointed herself that she couldn't be there for it. She made a mental note to ask Kastra to retell it whenever they ran into some downtime. For now though...
"Hey, do you have a minute?" she asked, turning toward her aunt.
The older Celestial looked over and up slightly, Alexa having grown a final inch taller than her over the past year. It was a strange feeling, being taller than this woman she'd respected so much throughout her entire life, but the feeling of intimidation that Vanessa gave off was still very much present.
"Anything for my favorite niece," Vanessa replied with a smile. "What's up?"
"I was..." she started, looking to the side briefly before making eye contact again. "Well, I was wondering if you could help me with my flicker step practice. I haven't exactly gotten it down yet, and I've made some progress in school but-"
"I'm going to stop you right there," Vanessa interrupted. "I never figured it out to be honest. If you do, I'll have to ask that you teach me."
Alexa sighed. She thought that was how it might be, but had hoped to the contrary.
Turning to Emily, Alexa began to open her mouth to ask when the other woman held up her hand in response.
"In her boat, I'm afraid sweety. Garrett too... this is something you're going to have to figure out at school. Kastra may be able to help though," Emily offered, disappointing Alexa further but giving her a shred of hope.
It wasn't much hope though. The Fae always moved around in such unique ways and manipulated mana so strangely that even if Kastra knew, she probably wouldn't be able to explain it.
"That's ok. It was worth asking; I'll just... keep at it. Thanks anyway!"
With that, Alexa looked around the area to scout where they'd parked the caravan today, wondering where she should begin practicing. Just about one hundred feet off the road and near a river, she could hear the running water and almost feel how cold it was. A smile adorned her face as she thought about taking a dip, the first real one she'd be able to take since they'd set out on this trip.
"I'm thinking the same thing," Damien suddenly added from beside her, causing her to jump.
"You... what?"
"Hot tub? We have to relax while we can; come on," he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her forward.
"How did you know?" she asked, stumbling along behind him for a moment while grinning.
"Oh please, we take baths way too often at home. It feels weird not to for so long. Plus, you were staring over here with that perverted smile of yours, how could I not know," he finished, grinning back at her as she rolled her eyes in response. "Plus, with how gloomy the weather has been lately I've been wanting to take a hot bath."
About a minute later of creating a walkway through high standing brush and grass, they found themselves staring out across a river that was at least fifty feet wide. The bright clouds glinted off its surface, water rippling and shimmering as they began to clear out a small area.
"Alright, I'll make the basin, you divert the water here and heat it?" Damien offered, already molding the ground they were standing in into a tub of sorts, seats positioned all around its exterior and more than large enough for the entire family.
Alexa nodded, taking her boots off and setting them on an elevated portion of the ground first. The last thing she wanted was to have a pair of shoes that were created from actual material get damaged. They could always remake the ones Kastra created, but she'd received those as a gift from her father when he'd visited, so she had been extra careful with them since.
Turning back, she reached forward lazily and grasped some of the water from the river, commanding it to flow in their direction. The water responded almost violently, crashing in their direction faster than it was flowing downstream and making Alexa sigh. Ever since communing, she hadn't felt challenged once when handling her element anymore. It all came so easy. Every motion, every attempt, every attack... It only got difficult when she'd get overconfident and try to control more than her quantity of mana could keep up with. Even now the water lapped at her ankles as it filled into the tub, lifting her slightly off the ground without asking it to. She didn't mind that and certainly didn't try to stop it; standing on water felt more secure than solid ground. But there was a feeling of loneliness at it being too easy now, especially given how much communing had affected her non-communed manipulation.
Looking out across the river, Alexa began to wonder just how far she could push things. She had tested a wide variety of things back at the academy, how much she could create, how fast she could change it to ice and back, how easy it was now to rip water out of another Mage's grasp... the list went on, but one thing she'd yet to do is just... see the destruction she could cause. They'd never allowed her to experiment with the lake by the housing district and her pool had been too small, so until now she had no idea how much quantity of water she could actually control...
Grinning slightly, Alexa reached forward with her arm and an open palm, sending her mana out to the other side of the river as if creating a tether, then stretched it into a barrier that reached down into the rivers depths.
"Sweetheart?" Damien asked, pausing where he was meticulously crafting some image of a fish with a human top half to look up at her.
Ignoring him, she clenched her outstretched hand into a fist, instantly grabbing ahold of all the water touching her barrier and refusing to allow it to travel downstream. The water responded all too willingly, stopping in its tracks as the river behind it crashed against what had essentially become a wall of solid water, splashing up and over the sides. Expanding her mana upward and along the shoreline, Alexa continued trapping the water behind her liquid dam as it began to rise up above their waists.
"Alexa, honey, we don't need that much water," Damien joked, standing up.
Ignoring him further, she continued holding the river back until it dried up almost entirely on its downstream side, the water above their chests. It looked like a rippling wall of blue, so harmless before, but now it held so much potential to destroy. She could feel the weight crushing against her mana, already causing a sweat to bead up on her forehead. It wasn't a fight over grasping as much water as she could so much as keeping the sheer force of the liquid back.
She felt his hand reach around her waist as he stood alongside her, watching on. She wondered when he'd ask her to stop when she felt a curious excitement come through from the bond. A nervous sweat developed on her back when he let go and a moment later, she watched him jump forward before the huge tide.
The surprise almost caused her to lose control of it, the wall almost releasing as it moved toward him a foot.
"What are you doing! That could kill you, get back here!" she yelled, only slightly panicking.
He grinned back at her and began raising the ground up all around him and along the outside of the river.
"It won't if you keep it there! I want to make a waterfa-"
"I can't keep it like this much longer, you dunce! It's heavy as is! GET BACK HERE," she interrupted, straining as sections of the water began to leak over.
He pretended not to hear her and continued about his business, raising more and more of the riverbed so it was level with where she was standing, then another five so it was set higher. Without a glance back, he continued his project further away, a barrier of some kind protecting him from the water sloshing over and falling on top of him.
Alexa began to struggle to stay upright as the water continued to pile onto her not-well-thought-through experiment. She tried to keep it off the top of his head while letting other sections release but could feel that when some of the water went, it began to flow faster and cut through her veil of mana like a knife, making her lose control quicker. Any more of this and the simple project she'd created would let loose, sweeping her up in the process.
With a sigh of resignation and more than a little self-blame, Alexa entered her communed state and immediately regripped the twenty-foot tall wall of water. As if her mana had doubled, or tripled, she felt it crash upward over the top of the spilling tide, pulling it back into itself and holding it to her whims with ease. She had no idea why it was now so much more manageable, but it was a fact that she no longer needed half the mana she had been expending to keep control of it until now.
"Hurry up, please," she groaned out, watching as he strode along the riverbed, putting the finishing touches on an intricate, artistic, and very sloped dam.
She was able to stay in this state for up to a couple of minutes before it began to give her an increasingly painful headache. It used to be much shorter, but familiarizing herself with the process had lengthened that. Watching him fool around wasn't making it any easier on her though, and she couldn't tell if the headache was starting early or she was just irritated.
"Almost... and... done!" he finally yelled back, grinning from ear to ear as he lept up and out of the riverbed to her in one bound. "Don't release it too fas-"
Letting go and dropping her communed state, Alexa slinked down into the water by her ankles, wiped of energy. What had started as a simple exercise had turned into an exhausting lesson on what not to do when her eccentric partner was around.
Looking up as the ground began shaking and a roar of water sounded out before her, Alexa's eyes widened. Everything she'd been holding back shot in all directions over the sides and front of Damien's dam. She would have been afraid of the repercussions as it sped toward her as well if not for him standing next to her, skillfully taking control of and diverting the wave of water back toward the rest of the river. Everywhere else around them, however, began to be engulfed. Spanning almost three hundred feet upriver, the water flowed outward and into the brush, burying the grass as their basin ironically became the only dry spot for hundreds of feet in every direction, minus the couple of inches she had already funneled into it.
The roar of the water pouring forward and downstream was almost deafening as well, destructive as it crashed down and broke off pieces of the dam. Large enough to create a neat feature but too small to hold back the wall of water she had created, chunks of it ripped off and were being thrown down the riverbed. The water Damien was keeping off them had been blinding and over their heads at one point, but was finally below their stomachs, lowering by the second but still too high to stand in without effort.
A bit of panic struck Alexa yet again as she looked where her boots should be, only to realize the area had been flooded. Glancing around the area Damien was protecting, she couldn't find any sign of them either until looking at the man himself, her boots nestled between his bicep and ribs. Always there, protecting her and the things she valued.
For the first time, Alexa smiled while thinking about moving forward with the decision she'd made. It was going to be a long and rough road, but she had the two best pillars of support to travel it with that anyone could ask for.
Suddenly couple of shouts of alarm rang out from back in the caravan's direction as Damien began mumbling complaints.
"Slowly, I said... now I'm going to have to repair it. That did look pretty cool though," he finished, looking down at her as she smiled back up at him, exhausted. "What am I going to do with you, crazy woman."
She looked up at him and shrugged, looking forward to spending their lives together tormenting one another.
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"I still can't believe you of all people flooded the road," Garrett chuckled out, seated in the hot tub along with the rest of their family.
"She's always so controlling of my fun but does stuff like this. That Minotaur lady is soooo mad at you," Damien added, laughing as well as he poked Alexa in the side.
She was sitting next to him pouting as the family all joked at her expense. Moments where she did something bad were rare and because of it, everyone was getting their jabs in.
"Such a mess, that we had to move the carts all to the other side of the road AND manipulate a barrier to keep the water off of it... I'm just glad it didn't take long to put all the water back on this side of that highway," Adrenna said, jumping in on the fun.
Frankly, Damien was happy she'd done it. It paid to let loose every now and then, and he hadn't seen something that surprised him so much in years now. It was an unreal and beautiful spectacle, only reminding him of what all he was capable of himself. All of the things he'd read about in books before; parting the sea, walking along the ocean floor, creating a tornado... all things he could do with the right practice.
"So how much further along do we need to go?" Alexa asked, seeming eager to change the subject as people around snickered. "It's about two months back to Hathen, right?"
Damien set his hand on her leg under the water and squeezed it, smiling and kissing the side of her head. She looked cute when embarrassed, in his opinion.
"It normally is sweety, but it'll be a little shorter this time around because the caravan is moving so quickly. Having all the carriages with the same horses really helps keep the schedule, so I'd say we'll get to the mountain base in about a month and cross over in ten or so days, depending on if the snow has started yet."
"That sounds about right," Vanessa nodded along. "The snow usually starts..."
Yawning, Damien lifted up his hand and stared at the ring adorning his right hand's ring finger. A grin traced across his lips as it hummed quietly, generating a charge that he continuously sapped away. At the rate he was spinning it and the strength of the magnets, it would take about thirty minutes to fully saturate the amount of electricity his mana could handle. Not very efficient for spur of the moment battle, but this was simply on a low setting. If he really wanted to push it, he figured he could get that number down to five minutes, but he'd be left with a lump of useless melted metal on his finger by the end of it.
Either way, it was going to be a boon. Keeping the voltage to the same level it was usually created at in this world, he could only fully create two times before he'd run out of mana. He could control a lot more than when he was younger and had four or more times the amount of mana to work with, but creating it was always going to be his biggest limiting factor. Adjusting the output from his ring to be as deadly as a bolt of lightning would take up some mana as well, but nowhere near as much as creating it from nothing.
Looking over his shoulder, he smiled at the beautiful river in the moonlight. Extending his left hand, he sent the energy he'd finished storing out over the water, nonvolatile and beautiful as it traveled to the other side. Like a giant pillar of soft white glow, it spread outward until it blanketed the river in a huge cube before he let go and the motes of light all dispersed into the water.
"I'll never grow tired of that. And you can do it so often now... that's already the third one," Kastra commented, smiling blankly toward the river when Damien turned back to see her leaning on Alexa.
"Yes," he replied, grinning devilishly down at his ring. "This ring... so precious... one to rule them all."
"What?" Alexa asked, confused.
"My precious," he replied, staring into his ring while maintaining his eery smile.
'My preciousss.'
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The month passed by and the group was finally beginning to approach the base of the mountain range separating the left side of the continent from the right. They'd been traveling approximately ten miles south of the east to west oriented mountain range, crossing many rivers and streams that bled off them into a main river that led out toward the ocean.
Rising extra early today in an attempt to catch the woman off guard, Marci once again began her day of mischief with an evil grin. Darting out of her nest she'd created in Kastra's hair the night before, she launched into the sky with a silent hurrah and flew toward the front of the caravan where her favorite Elerian to torment resided, snowballs in hand.
Barriers, tents, alterations... many defense mechanisms had been employed by this particularly talented individual in an attempt to stave off Marci's torment, but none had been successful of yet. Looking down with glee in her eyes, it seemed today she wouldn't be stopped either, despite the thick dome of rock the Minotaur had hidden under.
Though, it might take a little bit of extra time due to the sheer thickness of the rock.
Waking up others along the way as she accidentally dropped and recreated more than a few snowballs and bouts of acid, Marci surveyed the surroundings and halted in her tracks, smile dropping as a look of puzzlement adorned her face. It was a usual occurrence, the few other times she'd awoken this early, that she'd see four or five of the lookouts posted all around the outside of the group of the ugly wooden boxes, yet today, only the two near the rear of the wagon were out and about. It was possible the other few were seeking privacy to relieve themselves, but all at the same time...
Just then, the sun slowly began to crest over the mountains, causing her thoughts on that to go to the back of her mind as she shielded her eyes from the glorious view, wide smile returning. Today would be fun, just as any other, and it would start with the same roar she grew so accustomed to hearing of late.
Beginning her mad dash to the ground, she wondered of the many ways to get to the woman before her. Breakthrough directly, find the door, teleport inside... They all lacked a certain flair for such an early rise, and it would no doubt be smelly, stuffy, and generally uncomfortable inside that musky dome. She didn't exactly enjoy the thought of subjecting herself to that environment.
Landing on top of the dome, Marci spread out herself and grinned maniacally, finding more than a few small holes throughout the barrier to allow clean air into it.
'Clouds don't only belong in the sky and now I don't have to go in there! I'll make her come out!'
Giggling like a fool, Marci held her hands above her head as she began to create more of the bright pink and sticky bubbles she'd used before, only this time they took on the fluffier appearance of the huge white cotton balls in the sky. She was eager to see if they'd fit through the holes and how quickly she could get the woman out with them.
She began to move her arms downward, a look that in any other circumstance would promise mercy radiating across her entire face, right as a loud horn sounded out from the east.
"Wha-" Marci began, halting and turning her head in that direction as the barrier beneath her shattered outward in an instant. "H-hey!"
"THE HORN!" the woman frantically bellowed out before looking toward the mountain, then turning to face the caravan. "AWAKE, ENEMIES!" she roared at the top of her lungs, voice thundering out across the camp as Marci flew upward and covered her ears in anguish.
Head a bit foggy from the bestial sound, she blinked a few times before glancing back toward the base of the mountain again, shocked to discover more than a few figures running towards them, and a plethora of others flying.
"Celestials? Why does the toy think they're enemies?" Marci wondered aloud, looking back down to the woman in charge as the first raindrop hit her cheek.
"Those aren't Celestials, you fool. They're Hellials."