I’m tempted to break Jarrah’s rules, or, rather, go against his dire warnings, and take shortcuts with Rayileklian magic. I’m already dying anyway. Teuila needs our telepathic bond back, as soon as possible. I’m able to learn the runes more quickly with the spellcraft enhancement I gained from one of the four tomes I’d read in a levitating trance, but it will still take some time.

Despite wanting to simply sit here, crying with Teuila, I practice each of the runes for the telepathy enchantment, one at a time, over and over and over. Crafting runotypes in three dimensional space is difficult for anyone, most people are supposedly able to incant, either a chant or song that speeds up and helps mold the rune perfectly for them. I’ve got no such ability. I simply brute force my way into magic by manually crafting each rune painstakingly until I can get it down to perfection by rote, and ingrain that into my muscle memory.

I fail hundreds of times per rune, about a thousand on average, which realistically takes me two days to safely do, but when have I ever been realistic, or safe? I think with the new enhancements though, the enchantment from that tome, I might be able to learn a rune perfectly in as few as a hundred, or a hundred and one attempts, maybe two hundred. Still about an hour or more per rune if I don’t want to waste sorcery points speeding up the process. I’d be able to practice too few runes a day if I enhanced the quickness of the runocrafting by doubling or tripling their costs. I drop a weighted sigh while shaking my head at myself.

Teuila’s sobs finally cease, and are replaced by a slow, rhythmic breathing, occasionally punctuated by a soft snore. I know Te. I know. You must be exhausted. You miss Linti, Lightning Hunter, your Lin. You miss Alanea enough for the both of us, now you’ll miss Dawn too. After a ragged breath I sob a single sad sigh. I can barely even handle this reality. I couldn’t leave behind a large memory to continue to remind people of the pain of my loss. I don’t have much faith in my ability to succeed in getting sixteen more dragon hearts. The first one was a stroke of miraculous luck, stumbling onto an evil dragon on the plains, leading the plains Colossi with Karn Dragonslayer. Dumbarse, totally willing to let her kill and eat every little humanoid before finally earning his name.

I guess he was probably doing it for the safety of his kin. He did offer up some fair reasoning about wanting them to live, and he relented on the matter to be resolved by one on one duels. Teuila slew Karn, the Colossi leader, as per the terms of their duel, and I was left facing Kozzurth, the draconic leader. Good thing my thermal resistance is as high as it is. I can’t believe how lucky I was. Kozzurth supposedly had three elements at her disposal, and she chose fire to try to end me with. She spent so long charging up her breath attack, that she couldn’t see me walk through the fire. She didn’t even know I’d leapt into her mouth until I began sawing her head off from inside her throat.

Whatever battle strategy I’d had prepped was thrown out the window the moment she sat in the center of the arena, and slowly spun while I walked a circle around its circumference. Luckily for me honestly. Having to try to ground a flying dragon without my Can’Z’aasian inventory and space magics would be difficult to say the least. Even with the acidic cloud cover that constantly streaks lightning and blankets all of Rayileklia endlessly.

I think we spend days sitting here, bouts of tears taking over us between fitful naps. Sobs and rumbling stomachs the only sound to break our silent mourning. In fact, it has to have been days in this embrace, as I’m approaching the last rune for the telepathy enchantment. I’m around five or six times better at learning the runes at this point, and my sorcery point daily limit continues to increase. Still, it turns out this spell only has maybe twenty one runes that I don’t, or well, didn’t already have perfectly ingrained by rote into my muscle memory. Some of the instructional runes provided for certain spells by the enchanting books I read in my heightened state happen to apply. I finally master the last rune required to be able to cast the enchantment, and drift off into another fitful slumber

When I awaken, Teuila looks like she’s about to give up on everything, and just walk a random direction in the wilderness, to never return and never be seen again. With how well I know this woman to the very depths of the ocean of her emotions, I’m almost positive that that exact thought is passing through her mind. I clasp her hands tightly and draw her gaze to stare into her eyes.

I speak, for perhaps the first time in days, “I have a surprise for you. A little something I’ve been doing to work through the grief. Sit here a bit while I prepare the stuff?”

Teuila sniffles, but nods before she eyes me with curiosity. She sits against the wall, slumping down in sadness once more, no longer ready to just leave everything behind. I dig about for enough rubies in my hyperdimensional haversack to create the permanentifying paste for the telepathy enchantment. Once I’ve got enough, I grind the rubies to dust, and mix the paste as quickly as I can. Despite how urgently and quickly I want to do this, I craft the runes agonizingly slowly, using my basic brute force method, rather than quickening it at the cost of more sorcery points. Teuila hiccups occasionally as she sobs only infrequently.

I close my eyes and beg all that is good in the universe that this works appropriately, despite us not being Rayileklian life forms. Teuila’s mind is an odd digital encyclopedic construct, and mine is adjacent to that as well. Please, please if there is any mercy left in the universe for us. Just let this work. I finish casting the telepathic enchantment, with only the two of us as its targets, and I quickly begin applying the permanency via the ruby paste. I permanently ingrain the enchantment along Teuila’s face, Jaw, forehead, ears, brow, neck, and portions of her spine.

I gulp and close my eyes once more as I think testingly at Teuila, “Te, can you he—“

Stolen novel; please report.

Teuila excitedly launches herself at me so hard that we go rolling about the hallway. There’s joyous laughter mingling with her saddened sobs as we begin to trade pin after pin with each other. My love, My Wings. We’re back.

Teuila telepathically adds, “Damn straight! My Airhead, my Air, the very Air that I breathe. You did it! I knew you could! I didn’t realize you were able to work on this while we were both crying our hearts out. I didn’t even think to try working on anything. Hiccup. Sniffle. But, but you did it. I can feel you in my head again. Where you belong.”

I cup her cheek and she strokes my hand while we rest our foreheads together, just relishing our return to this bit of normalcy for us. Our telepathy was such a huge part of our Can’Z’aasian lives. My strong-willed, ferociously powerful, athletic, beautiful, kind, wonderful Teuila. There’s so much I want to tell you, so much I want to do for you. I’m struggling between wallowing, giving up on everything, and working myself bone-dry until I die. I, I might actually be closer to that second one, with how long we’ve been sitting here.

Te responds to my train of thoughts, “Oh crap that’s right! I got water for us, it’s back in our room! I, glp. A Sister found me there, while I was unpacking what I’d foraged, she, she told me about Dawny. Somehow I remember her. The day it happened, my memories were all weird for a little bit, like suddenly they didn’t make sense, why we didn’t sleep in the same sleeping bag for a while, and stuff, just like an empty space where Dawny should be in my memories. Then poof, there she was, back in my brain. Did you do that?”

I nod, gulping down sadness. It was the only thing I succeeded at doing in the end. Teuila, oh my beloved Teuila, to have you in my head again, it feels like it’s the only good thing so far on Rayileklia. I know that’s not quite true, but I’m so glad to have you back. To have our bond back.

Te grins down at me, still hiccuping and sobbing occasionally between laughs. Several tears splash upon my face as she acknowledges the same, “Yeah, me too, obvee, Airhead. Gosh, do you think if we went back to the Hidden Heart, that we could get Big A. In on this? Could I maybe see that changeling you of your inner self with her? Ugh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be jealous of stuff like that. I keep doing that. I’m sorry.”

I wear a sad half frown as I shrug one shoulder at Teuila. Oh, before I forget, uh, well, hm. Te, remember how I’m dying?

Teuila’s frown becomes a saddened scowl as her telepathic reply comes across incredulously, “Remember? How could I ever forget? I just, I want my time with you to, to, to be something other than watching the clock tick life away. You big jerk. What the hell?”

I pout as I try to explain into Teuila’s brain, before she can beat me up, “Te, the Sisters, one told me something. She said I paid one, but that I needed to pay five and five and six more. She was talking about elder dragon hearts, seventeen total, so sixteen more. I don’t know why. She hinted that, at that point, I’d figure out something about the cure for my condition. She also said some cryptic stuff about me not knowing who or what I’d become after accomplishing it.”

I quickly telepathically add, “You know, normal crazy seer lady stuff. Point is, she made it sound possible. Hell, she made it sound likely even, that we would make it to that point. Especially after she said that we were basically already on the most likely path, that they’d hoped to avert at least a bit of it.”

Teuila fairly glows with new hope as her mind sends to mine, “What!? Really? Then, then, then we’ve gotta get started right away. Dawny, she, she made me promise, like every day for a week, that, that I’d find your cure, that I wouldn’t just give up, and watch you die, or let you do that to yourself either. I, I’m sorry I couldn’t right away. It broke me so hard when I found out. My heart is still in so much pain. Air, love, how do normal people get through stuff like this?”

I sniffle and nod along with Teuila. I shake my head unknowingly to answer her question, but, to lighten the mood, I joke into her mind, “I don’t think normal people do get through stuff like this, because I don’t think normal people have centuries old friends cursed to fade from existence and bring down a whole nation with them.”

Teuila playfully slaps me before grinning at me like a loon. I can’t help smiling as I gaze upon her gorgeous countenance. Her face radiates strength and beauty. I lose myself in her emerald eyes, like tumbling down a mineshaft bored through the purest vein of emerald in all of existence. Surreal, sparkling, dark and deep. Also, apparently, descriptive enough to make My Wings blush. Sorry Teuila, heh. I adore everything about you.

Glp. Hi Bud, yes, that stuff too, but I’ve told you that’s not appropri—

Teuila bursts into laughter across our telepathic wavelength. She queries, “Wait, wait, that’s what Lullaby sounds like? I totally hear the family resemblance, also, haha, watch it buster. Airhead is right. Ya gotta at least buy a gal some sweets before ya start talking about the badonkas and stuff. Obvee.”

Pfft, hahaha. That’s my Teuila alright. Yes Bud, she’s just as wonderful and amazing telepathically, all the way into the very depths of her mindscape, as she is in all the other ways. Her mindscape? Well, our original shared mindscape was basically just a big shady tree atop a grassy hill on a forever sunny day. Hers specifically though? Well it was a wild ocean, a stormy sea of literally moving emotions. Her inner self was a, wait, really? Te, did you hear that? Do you want to try it?

Teuila virtually shouts into our telepathic bond, “Yes, yes yes yes yes yes! Please Lullaby, Bud, please, please yes! I didn’t know you were reading about my Airhead’s life on their inner self thingy. Ugh, another person I get to be jealous of. Err, sorry. Please though Bud, yes, just like the way you read it.”

Lullaby’s song slowly begins to craft wilds, a wilderness to be populated in our mindscapes. He sings into creation a hill, and atop that hill a lively, shady tree. Our telepathic avatars slowly materialize in response to having a location in which to propagate. Teuila’s avatar takes the hand of mine, and she dashes up the hill towards our tree. I catch her and spin her about, running with her in my arms, laughing joyously as even my mental avatar is a klutz. My avatar trips on its own feet, which sends the two of us rolling up the hill to thunk into the trunk of the tree, laughing all the while.

We laze about, staring into each other’s eyes, even our mental avatars crying tears of pure joy. We’re back together. We’re truly together again. Let’s never part, ever again.

Teuila’s telepathic avatar mumbles her thanks to Lullaby, Requiem of the Windless Wilds, “Bud, thank you, this is probably the best gift you could have given me right now. What? Pfftt, hahaha. Okay, sure, you earned the right to talk about hooters and blowfish, honkers and badonkers. Hehe, you’re such a dork. Yes, it’s okay to be a dork, especially when I’m the one calling you one. Thank you Bud. Just thank you so much.”