After what must be another extended several-hours nap, I find myself awoken to the sounds of smooth strong strokes paddling the water. It seems Teuila has fashioned, or saved some large oars, and is using the dinghy to pull the rest of our makeshift floatilla northward as she rows. The physics don’t seem to add up, but maybe she’s increasing her density and the density of the oars while decreasing the density of the rest of the flotilla slightly? I wonder if she even has to think about things like that, or if her powers passively act in ways that she would want them to. I know my powers sometimes surprised me by handling a situation in a different way than I thought I’d have had to.
Teuila notices me moving, and waves my way with a bright smile on her face as she quietly calls out, “Mornin’ Airhead. Still sleepy? You can rest, it’ll be quite a few hours til we’re out of the lake yet.”
I chuckle, and shake my head. I then marvel that I’m able to shake my head. Casting my electrokinetic senses about within my body, the nerve-tunnels are still charred, and present. It seems that, just like what I’d just been thinking about, my powers are starting to understand how I need them to be used. My electrokinesis seems to be guiding the signals that my nervous system would normally be sending to provide locomotion and feedback and such. I try to sense my brain momentarily, but immediately develop a nosebleed and nearly pass out. Well, that’s definitely still damaged.
What’s going on, why am I shifting? Oh, apparently Tiktik and I were cuddled up here in the driver’s seat somehow, at some point. My silent sonar scans our carriage, and the surrounding waves, and I can understand why she’s not within the carriage’s cabin. It’s quite soggy in there, and probably fairly unpleasant. Static penetrates my thoughts like a raucous din, and I’m left reeling. I nearly tumble off the seat into the lake below, but Tiktik catches me with her magical hand.
The static continues to press inwards against my mind, shearing and splitting something within my brain. My eyes well with tears of pain as my nose continues to bleed like a faucet. Moment after moment, the pressure and pain builds until I can’t stand it any longer. As I’m about to give in to the pain and pass out, it suddenly ceases, and I’m left standing in a static-laden mindscape. Everything is out of focus, and fritzing into and out of existence like images on a channel your old CRT TV shouldn’t have access to, but the antenna is picking them up on a nearby channel anyway. A what is doing a what with the huh? Right, right, more Earth things.
Suddenly, in reality, I hear Tiktik yell, “I did it! Tiger’s back big Tee!”
Teuila’s single elongated laugh of glee pierces the eerily quiet lake air as she squees in delight. Te shouts back, “I knew you could do it little Tee, I owe you big babe!”
I raise my eyebrow, confused, though glad about their shared happiness. Tiktik’s mental avatar pokes mine and I nearly jump out of my skin both in my mindscape and meat-space. I’m not trapped alone, separated from our telepathy any longer! Teuila’s mention of owing Tiktik big feels like it’d be an understatement if I echoed it for myself. Tiktik’s mental avatar giggles and squeezes mine in a tight hug before fading in and out.
My mindscape seems unstable currently, but I can sense Teuila’s and Tiktik’s emotions along our psychic connection at least. I’m sure they can read my thoughts once again. From several mental directions, I hear, “Yep!” And, “Yup!” It’s a bit disorienting, to say the least, but hopefully it’ll stabilize with time.
I return to focusing on meat-space, and realize Tiktik’s eyes are differently colored yet again. I could swear that I noticed them being red one time, and green another. Not just slightly different shades due to lighting, but entirely different colors. Actually, did her robes always look like that? I mean, maybe the way the water is causing them to cling to her form, uh, anyway. Her hair is different too, but I think she told me that part of her heritage lets her control that. But wait, her face is different too, it’s, I mean, err. She has always had an adorable, or lovely face, but this is picturesque.
Tiktik, giggling as she rides my thought train, telepathically jokes, “Wait, you seriously never noticed that your eye color, hair length, clothes, and facial features switch it up? I mean, we Fae tend to invoke some change blindness from those around us, when our natural glamours go random, but usually not in ourselves, hehe. Just how rarely do you look at yourself?”
My jaw hangs low as my expression freezes. I’m stuck trying to think about the last time I saw myself, or even asked someone else for a description of me. I'd rather not think of the eerie copy in the Sisters of the Mist compound. I think maybe I saw my reflection once or twice when I was in Autumn Brook in June. Maybe? Otherwise, before that, um, gosh. Maybe when we lived at Shellcracker Pond. Or at least when I was blinded during our early years, looking through Lil’s and Luni’s vision, but I just chalked those differences up to how I appear to each of them.
Tiktik holds her belly as she nearly doubles over laughing in and out of thinkspace. She chides, “You don’t even know? It’s been at least months, if not years? Hehehe, that’s the least self absorbed I’ve ever heard any Fae being.”
I scratch the back of my head as I blush in chagrin. I do have some fairly highly self absorbed tendencies, just not in the visual vanity department. Teuila jokingly sticks up for me across our triple wavelength, “My Air does suffer from a little bit of vanity or pride, but, yeah, not that kind. I mean, they were a weird emerald dragon-person for months on end, and before they even got to that point, they were growing random scales to try to make it happen for months and months. I guess I didn’t really notice the changes either, or just chalked it up to their magics.”
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Just how many methods do I have for altering my appearance? Evolutionary tethers up and down the line of several forms, one. Self-actualization into different forms when dropping those evolutionary tethers, two. Changeling natural gifts, three. Fae glamours, four. Are there any others? Oh, right, the illusory cap, and I could probably copy the spell it provides. Crap on a cracker Reggie. What is your natural form even supposed to look like?
Tiktik shrugs in response to my mental rhetorical question, giggling. I find myself shrugging as well, though sluggishly. It seems like my reflexes and actions are going to be much slower even with my powers passively taking over the electrokinetic signaling along my cored-out nerve tunnels. That’s a liability, but it’s better than paralysis. I could probably act and respond at normal speeds, possibly even heightened speeds, if I flood those tunnels with electricity from my newly integrated thunderstick powers. That would probably devastate me from the inside out though, much like my actions during the battle to stall the Fel horde. I guess it’s a bit of a break glass in case of emergencies option.
I call out telepathically to Teuila and Tiktik, “Are we still all on board for the same plan? Get to the north shore of Lake Siempre, part with Tim, go through The Gap to check on the kobold clan and Derbrightmine Dominion, then swing around west into Jaggedfen, to take care of the hydra before the refugees get there?”
Both of their telepathic avatars arrive, nodding at me in my distorted static-laden mindscape. Te adds, “It was a horrible thing, and there’s more horrible things around the next few corners, but you know what Lu always says. You’ve got this. Always have, always will. To each of us. I’m done feeling down and beat. We held back an army! Maybe for only a few hours, but that’s more than most trios can claim. We, we just have to catch up to the rest of these big bad situations, and throw down. Somehow, somehow we’ll get stronger in time, and win. I’m sure of it.”
Tiktik smiles and nods along with Teuila. She’s utterly precious. Like, who is this strange little Fae woman who happened to be in our path? It’s insane that someone so stoic and loyal and kind would almost literally fall into our laps. I chuckle as my mental avatar scratches the back of its head, recalling that the two of them are reading my thoughts right now.
Tiktik chirps, “Yup! Hehe. It’s okay Tiger. You two are interesting, and even if that weren’t enough for me, you’re good people, with the weights of worlds on your shoulders. Everyone needs a hand now and again when struggling against heavy weights. Right?” To emphasize her point, Tiktik’s mental avatar conjures her magical hand, and has it lift her into the air while she poses like Atlas.
Teuila’s mental avatar clasps its belly as she doubles over with laughter while watching Tiktik’s entirely cartoonish dramatic re-enaction of offering a hand to help take a load off. It’s remarkable how well they’ve taken to this version of telepathic mindscapes. Oh! I should tell them!
The two stop their antics and look at me with a mixture of worry and excitement. Te asks the obvious question, “Tell us what Air?”
Blushing, my telepathic avatar relays, “I was able to stop time! Sort of. Like, for everyone, including me, mostly. My thoughts were still working, so it was like our old accelerated thinkspaces. Before you get your hopes up, there’s no way I could pause the world around us without pausing you. I don’t know what would happen to your telepathic avatars while they were in my mindscape though. I’m almost afraid to experiment.”
Teuila’s avatar’s expression lifts and drops as her mood changes from excited to mildly let-down. She does flash me a proud gaze however. Thanks My-Wings. Tiktik’s avatar scratches her head as she follows along. I think she’s trying to parse how I could know I paused time, or nearly-paused time.
Tiktik nods along with my thoughts. I’m not sure I can explain it any better to her than I already did. Time seemed to be slowing down, and it triggered a familiar feeling. When I got a grip on that feeling, I took charge of it, and everything seemed to stop, the waves, the floating grains of herbs, my breath, everything. Everything except my thoughts. I then spent a few hours, maybe a couple of days puzzling out some runostructure changes to my phantasmal steeds spell. I think I can turn them into water-horses. Not seahorses mind you. More like, just replace their legs with flippers.
The pair raise their eyebrows, intrigued. I’m fairly certain I can work out the changes in the next hour or two, but my brain felt like it was exploding while holding time frozen, so I want to do the rest of the theory-crafting in meat-space. Plus, I have to do the physical practice in meat-space anyway. I have my telepathic avatar query the two women in my head, “Are you two both okay?”
Teuila makes a so-so gesture, while Tiktik shouts in a chipper fashion, “Yup! Well, apart from lotsa broken bones. Good thing I had my magicky stuff on me. C’mon Tiger, get out of your head for a bit then.”
Teuila agrees, “Yeah, lets let your brain get some air, Air. Try to recover. If you get us some sweet water horses in a bit? Great. If not? I can handle the rowing.”
I chuckle as I nod towards Teuila’s telepathic avatar as we all begin to fade from thinkspace. She certainly can handle rowing. I sigh in contentment in this brief moment of positivity. The surety of Teuila’s power, her ability to bounce back, just everything about her. All of that? I couldn’t handle this crazy life without it. We don’t even need to discuss the events of the wreck. Te and I will always save each other. We haven’t failed the other yet. Let’s just hope that I can keep up my side of that equation.
Speaking of hopefully balanced equations, let’s take in the spray of the lake and let our mind wander. Maybe the last bit of this puzzle will fit itself into place for me, with the outside stimulus. Huh. Whaddaya know? That’s almost too convenient, but I’m not going to look a gift water-horse in the mouth at this point in time. Seriously though, moments after turning my attention back to it, the last bit falls into place when I’m splashed with water in my face by Tiktik’s magical hand. Now we have a slightly variable steed spell.
I don’t think I can get the steeds to sprout powerful enough wings to both fly and carry a heavy object, but maybe that’ll be a project I can work on with Teuila. It took her density adjustments for me to reach my max speeds on Can’Z’aas, looks like it might take the two of us yet again if I can spare the time to create pegasi from the spell. I’m not certain it’s worth my time to spend on modifying that spell yet, when I have many more spells to learn, and flight on Rayileklia is still far too hazardous. Even if the clouds all suddenly disappeared, it might be easier to just have Teuila leap us around the continent. Still, it’s worth noting down somewhere that it’s a plausible possibility. It’d be a few days of thought seeking the balance to the runostructure’s formulaic equation, but I might be able to afford that at some point.