As long as my magnetic axis is in motion, while I’m flipping the poles of my electrons, mirrored with the particles of the me that is somehow both existent, and non, during the portion of the lightning leap, I should be able to manage this maneuver. Or at least, I shouldn’t die from using it this particular time. I don’t have the mental computational capacity even in nearly-paused time to determine the appropriate quantum fluctuations to perfectly mirror the me that temporarily steps into the future to the end of my lightning leap.
I almost wonder if it would have been safer to find a way to launch myself into the atmosphere, absorb extra lightning, and just come down in a massive crashdown strike. The answer is no, of course it wouldn’t, but not by much. This is still ridiculously dangerous, even with all the extra prep every other moment. If I could move well enough on my own, it’d have been much safer to try to kite them all along until they were lined up down some sort of corridor, and use up pretty much the last charges in my archsorc staff.
Body to body to body I bounce along, having to pause time from moment to moment to adjust my calculations and correct my course as I adjust for each miscalculation I’ve made. I’ve made many. I didn’t take into account my own magnetic fields shifting at, or pulling on, the electrons in the particles of the bodies I’m slamming into for example. Huff.
The kobolds continue to dart about quickly and quietly, their scaled feet and claws making nearly no sounds, especially in the brief scant few seconds that my lightning leap is occurring during. Each one’s reptilian predatory eyes flash alight at my approach, but not with fear, rather with a hateful determination, born of malicious mistreatment. It’s very likely they’ve worked in service with a dragon that can breathe lightning, and are only all the more angered at my attack. The pitch black sky mirrors my attack in an almost serene fashion when viewed inbetween paused moments, the illumination of the lightning brightening the canyon walls for a scant few instants as I survey what I can in paused time.
The intensity of the storm overhead seems to reach a crescendo, having been raging constantly as per usual on Rayileklia. Yet the thunder echoing through the canyon, bouncing along its walls like a deafening roar feels like an appropriate soundtrack to the chaos of what can no longer be considered a battle. Several Kobolds at the farthest end of my spiral are attempting to move their blades, claws, or picks in my direction. Some even going so far as to brace themselves in a predictive attack, hoping that I’m somehow run through by my own momentum on their weapons. While it’s unpleasant, their outstretched weapons or limbs simply aid my course, allowing me to travel along a directed path. It does leave a lump in the pit of my stomach, as if I’d left it in the lurch, but whether that’s a physical symptom of traveling along a conduit, or the sickness I feel at causing grievous injury to a living being, I couldn’t rightly say. Not at the moment anyway.
In only a few seconds since I’d heard Dippy’s voice, there’s suddenly an uneasy, eery stillness in the canyon. I’m left fritzing, standing at the end of my spiral arc. As my form finalizes after coalescing, I’m left erratically stumbling side to side, as if still flipping my magnetic pole violently along with throwing my center of weight. As I struggle to right myself, I fail, and drop to my knees. In the next moment, I’m violently thrown onto my side by my own uncontrollable momentum. I’d loose up sick, but I feel empty inside. An intense pressure builds along the inside of my cranium. It’s not violently painful, but it’s powerful enough that I sink into the feeling of its squeeze, almost like being cradled by the darkness. I meet unconsciousness almost gratefully.
I chuckle at the tavern-maid, Selunie I believe it was, “I’m sorry, I hadn’t thought, well, after your friend, Taylynn I think it is, after the erm, discussion we had, I wasn’t truly certain what to believe. That was months ago now, I did have a job to do after all.”
The audacious, precocious lass responds by flicking me in the nose, of all things, before chastising me, “You think my offer of friendship ends because you sleep with my best friend?”
I cough, and sputter, grateful for the far table and quiet nature of the young woman’s voice. I shoot her a mildly annoyed glare at the indelicateness of her answer. Her smile is infectious though, and I can’t help but smile in return. How did I get so sidetracked? Why did I stay for more than the moment it took to fill in Jarvis Tavner? Taylynn isn’t here, of course she isn’t, she’s some wandering princessora, seeking adventure out there on our miserable little planet. Yet her invitation of comfort at the hands of herself and her friend echo in my mind. Comfort I’d not sought or received in my near century of life, until now.
I know why we avoid friendships, and romances. Obviously. We make enemies, and retaliating against The Hidden of The Vale tends to be difficult, at best, unless we’re foolish enough to create attachments out amongst the lands in which we sew chaos and confusion. Then the families of the rich and powerful that we tend to be sent against, well, they can seek their own brand of revenge by hurting those we might come to care about. Vicious cycles and all that.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Before I can even come up with a response to her inappropriate tease, she interrupts my thoughts to ask, “So, tell me more about Eights?”
I blink rapidly, and avert my gaze for the briefest of moments as my eyes mist over with a single tear each. Damnable woman with that look of adoration and admiration on her face. She certainly knows how to twist a knife. She’d make for a great assassin, metaphorically. Still, the joy in her countenance, her enraptured attitude, I can’t help acquiesce and answer for her. Something about her makes me want to give myself up, myself and my story, and share it all with her. Her and that bloody princessora, Taylynn, both, for slightly different reasons. Not that some of the reasons don’t bleed over between the two. They’re both incredibly comely.
I begin to ramble, trying to avert my mind from going down the path of comparing the two women, “Eights was, is, my best and only friend. At least— at least until now I suppose. Jarvis is likely to object to, well, whatever friendship we might form, you understand my work after all.”
She interrupts to rebuff me, “Let me deal with the old fuddy duddy, you and him have a business relationship, and that’s all, you don’t owe him anything else, and I can be friends, or lovers, with whom I please. Please. Um, I mean, continue that is.”
For a moment, I eye her after the slip. The look of desperation in her eyes as she pleas with me, after hinting at her desires is, well, it’s otherworldly. She knows what she wants, and is willing to express it, without pressuring me. She isn’t exactly subtle. She really has no problem bedding me, despite my own dalliance with her best friend Taylynn. Even Taylynn had said as much. The two share anything and everything it would seem. Not that any romance with me is quite what anyone would expect. Perhaps Taylynn somehow knew what lay beneath, before our dalliance. She’s remarkably astute, observant, quick in a number of fashions. Ah, right, avoid comparing the two.
I clear my throat, “Right, well, Eights, huff. I know I’m getting older, because I swear in my youth, Eights was some sort of labrador, then I vaguely remember Eights being some sort of pit bull or blood hound, something short and stout, but Eights is a Great Dane. He was, is, the light of my life, and the reason I’m still a free person, with my head about my neck. I suppose my memories may be foggy on his breed since I’m nearing a century in age, somewhere in my eighties I believe, not that I actually know. It’s almost like I sprung into existence in my youth.”
The fascinated woman, Selunie interjects with a new line of questioning, “Really, Tay wasn’t lying, you’re really that old here?” Her face adopts a quizzical appearance as she tries to suss me out, though even that gaze is colored by a captivated appearance. Her lovely, slightly rounded features are all smile-lines and slightly-lidded eyes, a mixture of joy, suspense, and suspicion.
I barely hide my smirk as I respond, “I think you’ll find that I’m my age no matter where I am, here or there, you insufferably adorable woman.” For a moment, the gaze on her comely face switches from one of pure delight, to one of indignant enlightenment as she understands my tease, but now it’s my turn to interrupt her before she can make a comeback, “Unless you put salt into what the loonies in The Heart of the Wilds claim. Really, calling me a grasshopper, as if they’re somehow ancient beyond my understanding, when I’m likely the oldest person alive in our lands. Erm, sorry about the loonies crack. Loonie is what you like to be called, right?”
Almost caught off guard, her countenance adopts a thoughtful expression momentarily before returning towards joy as she responds, “Eh, don’t worry about it, as long as you don’t call me Sel. It sounds like a transaction. Selunie or Loonie is fine. Wait! Oo, the fairies, the fae!? Tell me about them, please!?”
I huff, heaving a sigh, “They’re just people. A deluded people that are convinced that they’re magical, perhaps it’s all the mushrooms and nuts that they eat. I took a vacation once, a hiatus from— my work. I lived amongst them, attempting to learn magic, to see for myself. There was nothing magical about it I’m afraid. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
A shaky, uncertain voice teetering on the brinks of both anger and despair rouses me, “I know. I know what you’re going to say. I know.”
I blink rapidly and furiously rub my eyes to clear up my blurry double vision as I turn towards the owner of the voice, Teuila, My Wings. I’m about to ask what she knows, but she continues, “I know what you’re going to say, most of it. You’re going to say the right things, the nice things. The things I need to hear, but I don’t want to hear them. I’m not ready. So just don’t. I’m—. I’m sorry. Just don’t.”
My heart shatters as Teuila commands me to not be myself, to not be supportive of her in the way that I want to. Yet, it’s what she wishes, so of course I’ll do as she desires. Trying to distract myself from my own feelings on the matter, I let my senses drift, finding myself in what appears to be a cavern just barely big enough to fit the carriage, several unconscious kobolds, and a few canine and lupine creatures. The cavern has, or had, two exits. One is blocked off, likely by the stone shaping magics of Miza. The other seems to lead deeper into the Kobolds’ tunnel warrens. Dippy and Zippy must have made good on a rescue mission to retrieve my unconscious body.
I’m not even sure I should share my good news with Teuila. I want her to be proud of me, and to be able to enjoy what I might offer, but I don’t want to intrude on her process. If she feels unready, or unwilling to accept my comfort, love, and affection, I don’t want to force those upon her. I inch away from My beloved Wings, towards the nearest wall, to prop myself up. I try not to cry, and fail.