Urtha’s nose caressed the branch’s surface, her body tense as stone, arms screaming for release, body drenched in sweat that slowly trailed down in rivulets. Elemental energy poured through her palms into the bark of the titan-tree, fixing her body into place as if she were embedded firmly into the tree itself even when her fingers had not even pierced through the surface. Beneath her was nothing, just air leading to the roots a hundred meters below, a rope tied around her ankles held a boulder at the end.
A figure sat upon her back, a Golden Elf, her mentor in the absence of the Elf Queen. “Plant.” She spoke the single word.
At the command, Urtha began to slowly pump plant energy through her arms and into the tree. The wood wriggled, and for a split second, her left hand threatened to slip, but she curled her digits, digging into the bark. Clenching her teeth tightly, the sweating intensified.
“Down one.”
Urtha released her left hand and immediately slammed into the wood a little lower than it’d been before. The boulder swayed, threatening to yank her too much to the side, but she held fast, only moving her other hand once it had stabilized properly.
“Clap.”
Her eyes widened. “That’s not-”
“Clap.” The teacher declared.
Quickening her breaths and taking a look down, the Orc grimaced. She braced, and in a singular motion, pulled both hands away from the bark, clapping and slamming them back into the tree. They slid down, and she redoubled the stream of power, trying to dig her digits into the bark and barely managing to find purchase after having scrapped her way down a good ten meters.
“You used stone energy.” The mentor chided. “Make softness from stone energy and firmness from plant energy. You must meld both into one, only then can you begin your climb towards becoming a Champion.” The Golden Elf had not even wavered as she’d continued working on crafting an arrow. The ageless maiden seemed entirely incapable of impatience or irritation; her lessons were crystal clear and straightforward. “Plant energy. Then clap again.”
Urtha swore.
And after a moment, clapped.
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It was a sunny day, and sunny days were slow, with lots of languishing on hot, sun-baked spots and lazily taking in warmth. There was no rest today, sadly, as She had a most important Other, and they were in danger. The clumsy soft and squishy creature that was the Other was as strange as they were precious. They tripped on every rock they found and could not wade through water without nearly drowning. But the Other was also powerful; the Other looked at She and She understood things. Things She knew She could not have understood before meeting the Other. Meeting the Other had created something new. So many things were larger now, sharper, stranger, clearer.
“Rick.” The Other pointed at himself, for some reason calm even though they were surrounded by Death. Especially white-striped Death.
The Other demanded attention, and She snapped to give it. The feeling of connection was followed by another feeling, of self, of… self. “Rick.” The Other repeated, gesturing at their chest. A sense of Self but that was not Self. Of Other. “Rick.”
Then, the Other made the gesture, but at She. “Lise.”
“Seriously?” One of the minor-Deaths squealed and laughed. “Why not just give up and call her Lizzy?”
“It’s the name of a very important woman who discovered fission: Lise Meitner.” He snapped at the minor-Death.
She felt irritated at the minor-Death, and hissed at her. The Other was angry, She was angry too, now. “Lise.” The Other reached out to touch She. Their skin was very warm, and soft, and easily scratched. “Lise.”
Big-Death approached, and She scrambled to save the Other, but was stopped by Death’s large white claw. “Mine,” Big-Death said, placing the Other on Big-Death’s lap. She tried to save the Other from Big-Death again, but was shoved aside.
“Monica.” The Other was irritated, somehow. Did the Other not know that Big-Death should never be touched!? “Wait.” The Other became nervous, quickly looking around. “Where’s the kid?”
“Hunting.” Big-Death answered.
“She’s not even ten!”
“Hunting small things, safe.”
She sat, nervously squirming and trying to understand how the Other could talk to so many Deaths like it was nothing. She considered running again, snatching the Other and making a break for it. But as soon as the thought had formed, the Other pulled out a tasty treat and threw it at She. The meat was good, so good, and She immediately scurried away from the Deaths to savor it properly.
“This is going to take a while.”
“And yet, she’s making remarkable progress.” The Green-Death spoke. “Perhaps you’ve an eye for talent.”
Maybe tonight She would find an opening to slip them both out.
“Oh, and remember to hog-tie Lise tonight again, she’s definitely planning another escape.”
Somehow, the babbling sounds the Other made felt like betrayal, though She wasn’t sure why.
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It was in the late hours of the night, when every mortal slept. A single figure sat on the rooftop of the lone house, too far from the city to be seen. The nocturnal guards had spread out, if just to give the illusion of solitude, as their emotions still lingered in the tip of Kiara’s tongue. An earnest mix of concern and anxiousness. It was a mix she knew well, albeit it usually came with undertones of that desperate eagerness to please and a near cult-like devotion. The ageless maiden could not remember the last time anyone had been concerned for her without trickery being at play. She’d normally need to pretend to be someone else, something else.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Something harmless.
What interested her most of all was that she could taste them even when they should’ve been far enough to be outside the scope of her senses.
Ever since the little… trist… with Rick, and the way he’d used the bond to overwhelm her, Kiara had begun feeling a looseness about her. It was that pain or ache that lingered forever, that one carried upon them for so long they forgot it was there at all. For so long, any and all use of her powers had come at a price, a jolt of agony running through her body. Now that she was devoid of it, Kiara felt, to a degree, lost. Centuries seeing her powers as a sacrifice in some form, a needless annoyance that had to be optimized, polished, perfected to its utmost degree if only to guarantee the least amount of pain every time she cast a spell.
Without it… Kiara felt as if she were losing her edge.
Every day, every hour, she’d fight the urge not to jab the metaphorical thorn back into the wound. There was that annoying little voice in the back of her head, promising her that if she just pushed hard enough, she’d regain what was slipping through her fingers. If she just forced her healing body to cast a powerful enough spell, then the pain would come back, the pain that made her so fiercely proficient at slipping through other’s defenses.
It was dumb.
She hated it.
It made no logical sense.
But it was hard to let go of something that’d been so crucial to her existence for so long.
Just… rest.
Let her body mend itself, only use the most bare-bones required elemental energy, and only if it didn’t hurt.
Keep herself rested.
All these years, every time she’d done nothing, it’d been either because she was pretending to do nothing, or because there was some plot or plan waiting to unfold. At worst, it would be a wait she’d be forced to do while hiding, trying to avoid being found. Now, however, all she had was to wait, teach a bunch of bratty psychic rodents and Dark Elves how to better use their powers, and just… do nothing.
She wished there were at least something to distract herself with, but her “work” was barely passable as amusement. A teacher to the eager mind-rats, a political tactician in the oversized village filled with barely educated rubes, and a pseudo-mentor/captor for the damaged little humans that came from another world.
This was the sort of roleplay she’d have found challenging two hundred years ago.
Now it wasn’t even keeping her busy.
Groaning and shuffling her fingers through her hair, Kiara let out a wordless sound that wanted to be a whimpered scream. Had she really fallen so low that she’d consider Rick and his equally annoying companions her only proper source of entertainment?
A louder groan escaped her, and Kiara made her choice.
There was a psychic illusionist fox she’d just recently broken in, might as well train her and a few others into something useful.
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The winds of the plains blew past Rosalind’s hair, the tall grass crunched underneath her hoofs, the soil was soft from the morning dew, and the sun was rising over the horizon. The Centaur focused on these things, because there was something else she’d rather not pay attention to, but that she could not avoid no matter how hard she tried.
“You don’t need to fuss over me so much, you know.” Richard, Lord of Sinco, spoke with the soft voice of an attentive lover. “We’re safe now, you can relax.”
“Not until my work is done.” Dia replied, the harshness in her tone was waning, like a sand tower being eroded away by the sea. Dia, the Nightingale, fleshcrafter, and the best healer Rosalind had ever met. The maiden who’d saved Rosalind’s life when she’d thresholded. “The scars on your chest-”
“Don’t impact my health.” The Lord whispered.
“But-”
“You can tend to the internal ones,” he placated, there was a sound of fingers caressing hair. “But those can wait. Mend yourself, you’re important. For me, please?”
“...fine.” The healer finally relented.
Rosalind, as the steed currently carrying the two most important people of Sinco, could feel the way the weight shifted, how the lighter healer moved closer to their Lord. Curiosity got the better of her, and she peeked, just a bit, seeing the Nightingale sinking into his embrace.
The Lord’s eyes caught her, and he winked.
Rosalind’s cheeks heated, and her trot became a little faster.
“You know, how has Haal’s pregnancy progressed?” Rick asked.
It took a moment before Dia responded. “She was pissy that she couldn’t do the ‘big fight.’ Orcs, I tell you, nothing but rocks in their heads.” She sighed exaggeratedly. “Urtha’s in the grove, by the way. She didn’t volunteer for this.”
“Now look at who’s pissy.” The Lord teased. “I trust she knew what she’s doing. If she thought she couldn’t be of help in getting to me, then that’s her call. You don’t see Raphaella here either, do you?”
“The mouse’s not…” A longer deeper sigh. “Yes, my Lord.”
A long quiet moment followed, and Rosalind’s ears felt all the sharper as she tried to discern what was going on. There was a slight shift in the position of her passengers, a soft rustling of cloth, then a tiny sound, not unlike…
“Just a little reward for my knight in shining armor.”
The words were like a tiny knife prickling Rosalind’s heart. She remembered when her life was full of expectations and dreams. A human woman, one of perhaps a dozen in all of Sinco. One day she would’ve wedded someone of importance, perhaps not the Lord, but it wasn’t too outlandish a consideration.
Now she trotted around on four legs and had no toes.
Who’d ever see her, with half of a body covered in fur and hoofs, and think “that’s a fair lady right there?” No one, that’s for sure.
“Yes, my Lord.” Dia repeated, tone breathy and wavering.
“Thank you for saving me.” He added with a low chuckle.
“I-”
“You saved me.” He insisted, cutting her off, and Dia’s weight was pulled closer to the Lord’s. “Thank you.”
Another moment of silence. “The Tigress child-” the words were cut off with the wet pop of a kiss.
Rosalind’s face became hotter.
It seemed some of the rumors of the Lord’s more openly amorous ways were true.
“Just focus on mending yourself, Dia. We can think of all the other things later.” The Lord’s words were followed by a soft pat to the Centaur’s flanks. “And thank you too, Rosalind, I know you’re new to this whole maiden business, but coming here was very brave of you.”
Her back straightened out, rigid like a board. “Th-thank you, my Lord.”
“Is your family doing well?”
“My father is very grateful you allow me to send my stipend to them, my Lord.” She hurried to explain. “And I’ve been helping in the farms during my free days, to alleviate my mother’s work.”
“I’ll see to her limp when we’re back.” Dia’s voice was cold, and Rosalind could feel the daggers of her gaze pressing against the back of her head.
“I heard you were teaching others to read. How does that go?”
The Centaur hesitated. “It goes well, my Lord, few have shown interest, but those that have, learn eagerly.” Nevermind that most of those who asked her to teach them were Mousegirls or maidens trying to gain higher ranks in the militia.
“You’re a great help, you do the purple proud.”
Rosalind’s gaze lowered to the purple cloth tied around her neck, the cloth that’d been given to every Sinco citizen on that special celebration. Chest swelling with warmth, her trot gained a little happy bounce to it. “Thank you, my Lord.”