My wife excuses herself, to head off alone. I assume she’ll be working whatever magic it takes to use her Latent to rescind the lock on Dragonforce-infused healing. Prinrin stays nearby, wanting a word with me after I get done discussing Littlebit’s needs for supplies and the like. My inner circle now have tasks to attend to though that are going to pull us apart, and scatter us to the four winds, once again. Just like our last days on Can’Z’aas. It’s terrifying how similar the situation is. Mite hulks invading, a swarm of foes that seems endless, though dragons rather than a giant-insect horde, Lucky off digging somewhere, us being scattered to attend to necessary activities.
It’s all too similar. But I guess that’s just the way life works. Things are cyclical, similarities crop up. We see patterns where there are none. At least, I hope there aren’t any patterns here. I don’t know where Mataalii is, but I’m almost sure I’ll see him again before my life on Rayileklia is over. It might even be what ends my life on Rayileklia. Him coming after me, seeking out vengeance for the final time. I’ve dreaded the possibility since we arrived here. Phooph. I puff a breath and sigh, weary just from the thought of it.
Apparently when Nala went out earlier, she was taking some sort of readings from our Can’Z’aasian digital shop structure, at the source. I’m curious what her findings were. I embrace Luni for a long moment, and our lips lock for what feels both like an eternity, and yet no time at all, never long enough for either of us. Te smooches each of us swiftly and softly, before rocketing away, planning to work on as many of our goals as possible, even helping out with intel gathering for the info we need.
Lucky bays once quietly in sadness as we all hug him. We’ll let him get a good night of rest, before he heads out accompanied by the Spellknights, and Lil’s new little army, and whomever else is going in the first wave of defense of Vieriss. He whuffs quietly and hunkers down against the tinkering table, surprising Nala and Littlebit a little bit. I sigh and mentally facepalm at my mental redundancy… mentally. Huff, le sigh. You’re getting tired Reggie. Yeah, y’think? Gee, real genius call there. Stop smarting off and focus goober. Hm? Oh, right.
Pouting, Lil confides, “I’m um, gonna get Ixey, and bring her down here, so we can hang out until you make your magic mirrors pal. You and momma are gonna make sure she and Zayzi get to Jee-stan safe, right? You won’t let anything happen to them, will you?”
Gulping down sadness and apprehension while blinking back tears, I nod affirmatively, barely able to choke out, “Of course, My Heart, of course. They’re important to you, to me, to Kinzul. We’ll make sure they’re safe.”
Satisfied, Lil looses a breath shakily, sniffles once before standing, and trots away towards Solace. We’ve got to be absolutely sure innocents like Ixey and Zayzi and Del and Charles and Del’s son are going to make it through the rest of this stupid war. I’m going to break as many of my own limitations as I can, pull out every stop I can think of, and try to get them all to safety, should the worst come to pass.
We still don’t know if the planet’s going to erupt or something from the hole we blew in it by capsizing Thunderpeak Citadel or Stormspire Peak or whatever it was. We probably should have added keeping tabs on that to our intelligence gathering goals list. I figure it’ll be pretty obvious if it happens though. It’d be pretty hard to miss the world splitting in two, or spitting up its lifeblood all over its surface. I know it’s an alarmist idea, and I’m hoping that that’s all it is.
The thing about applying physics to metaphysics is they don’t always translate how you think they will. If they translate at all. But anyway—Reggie. Yeah? It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. What? Oh. Thanks. Phew. I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath for a bit there. I guess I’m more than a little on edge about the whole thing.
Gazing wistfully after Luni and Lil as they depart Verdimenn, I feel my resolve waver slightly. Knowing we might all be pursuing different duties at any given moment, in different places, all week, until the final battle hurts. I, I understand why I comforted myself a second ago. Tears swim about along the lids of my eyes and dance to the edge of my lashes, hanging there, a constellation of sadness. I’m forced to sniffle to be able to breathe through my nose.
Please, please let this be nothing like Can’Z’aas’s final days. Please. I beg, sending my plea nowhere, out into the void, figuratively. I guess kind of literally too, since I cast the plea out within my own mind, and I represent a void in many aspects. Drawing a deep breath and loosing a shaky sigh, I turn my attention to the few individuals remaining in the tinkering workspace at the moment. Nala, Lucky, Prinrin, Alanea, Leezahna who was apparently woken up by Te, or just by our general commotion with our nearness to her home, and several of the Spellknights, Yui and Yuri included.
Heading towards her, I hold out our finished list of goals to show Leezahna, and to make a request, “Hey, um, Quartermaster. Things just got serious, deadly serious. I’m going to need your help, a lot of it. Is uh, is now an okay time to sit down and talk some of that out?”
There’s an understanding in Leezahna’s eyes, a storm of emotions gathering, welling up within her. She nods slowly, before mentioning, “I, um, heard most of your planning session. It was hard not to. I didn’t intend to eavesdrop, at first. Then it just sounded too important. I didn’t know if you’d want me there though, so I just listened.”
Scratching my head ruefully, I admit, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t sure if you were awake or would be interested. I did find myself wishing I’d had our quartermaster there for most of it, since needs for various supplies cropped up for like half of our goals. You uh, able to forgive my absentmindedness on that one?”
The emerald-tressed lass shrugs, which draws my attention to her bare shoulders, and the nightie she’s wearing. I blink repeatedly and quickly avert my gaze. There’s nothing obscene about it, it’s just a very lovely translucent fabric. Thankfully she’s wearing another layer under it, but still, it’d be hard not to be distracted by her beautifully crafted human form if I didn’t set my gaze somewhere else. Oh, crap. I kinda forgot she can hear my every thought when I’m in range. I facepalm, realizing that she didn’t need to listen through dozens of meters of stone to hear us, she just needed to listen to my brain’s mental monologue of the events.
We exchange a glance, her blushing, but smirking with pride, me blushing, and feeling like a jerk. I’m tempted to ask her how it went when Miraina approached her, and what they talked about, but I don’t want to upset her, or pry into either her or Miraina’s personal life. It’s just a curiosity. I’m sure Iylynila would be far more than just a little curious though, so it’s probably good that she took Veril and Farzhis out of Solace to head directly for Vieriss. Those three, and hopefully their teammate Induul, will be among the first watch, and first front line of defenders holding Terrorzin’s horde at bay.
It strikes me that we need Shaylon out there as soon as possible. Boetah too, despite me wanting to not take him away from Atter during their conjugation. Argh, we need protections for our protectors, and defenses for our defenders. This is an insane, nearly impossible situation. I try to hide my growl of frustration.
Leezahna though, comments, “Impossible seems to be your thing, Schism. These magically renewable resources, granting mercy to Terrorzin’s creeps, destroying two mountains in two days, and the Evil Claws. Do, do I have to stay? If, if you need a quartermaster, but if the civilians are, are being evacuated, am, am I still a civilian?”
My heart breaks momentarily as I turn to cast my gaze down, averting it in sadness. Mustering myself as best I can, I answer, “I wouldn’t hold it against you if you considered yourself a civilian, and left when we evacuate them. They’ll need a quartermaster in Jeegoobotstan as much as or more than we’ll need one during, and leading up to, the final fight. It might be better if you do evacuate with them. Y’know? I’m proud of you Leeza, and grateful you thought to ask.”
Rubbing my eyes on my forearm, I try to wipe away the tears. This poor woman. Bullied to tears, threatened near to death, gone home to a haughty family that disagrees with notions her eyes were opened to, and here she is, doing her best to redeem herself in every possible way. There’s really not much I can say that hasn’t already been said. She knows that I love everyone under my care. That I care for everyone who desires peace, who tries to live their life without harming others.
I’m surprised when I hear a sniffle. Leezahna quickly turns aside as my gaze travels up, intending to meet hers. We stand together, moping for a while, before we both sigh and push aside our emotions to get down to business. There’s a prideful sneer on Leeza’s face when she gets into work mode. I don’t know if that’s how she’d always looked when she was ready to get down to business, or if it’s new, for this moment.
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Regardless, I start hashing things out, “So, Leeza, you’ve got the quantities of resources we’re producing, and you’re a whiz with arithmetic, so I know I can trust you to get their base values, and figure out the total we’re working with. Further, I trust you to get in touch with a few of the individuals who’ve tried their hands at crafting to turn a profit. You know your writings, and calligraphy can be worth a fair amount. We want to maximize the capital gains with the least amount of required effort, and least necessity of volunteers. I’ll trust you to try to graph out a sweet spot, or eyeball it, or make a call, based on your social skills. You do know people, and how to work them in a sense. That can be an asset right now. I’ll trust your judgement on any of the base resource objectives. ‘Kay?”
Nodding wordlessly, Leezahna makes a wave of her hand, motioning for me to carry on, so I do, “Right, so, some raw materials will be used to form blockades. I’ll need you to get in touch with the Spellknights who are used to erecting barricades and such, to see how much they need. Also, ask Nala and Littlebit how much they’re going to need, and if they can make more of those force-distributing barriers, ones large enough to, well, handle Vieriss Valley’s canyon width in some of its slimmest spaces. Understand?”
To impress upon her how much I’m relying on her, and how proud I am of her, how much we in the Onyx Dawn need her, I continue to explain, “You are critical, to so much of what we’re going to accomplish, or try to accomplish, between now and the final fight. Your choices determine how much time we have, how effective our traps are, how much magical might our friends and allies have as backups and trinkets and such. You even in a sense decide how many troops we have, by figuring out how much to allocate to the creation of Littlebit’s and Nala’s automatons that they can infuse and animate. Since they’re limited in how many they can animate at once, and we’re hoping to not get them destroyed instantly repeatedly, you’ll determine their effectiveness, and value, and how many we can commit to animating or reanimating or whatever the two tinkerers consider it.”
Leezahna’s eyes widen in apprehension and understanding. I know she understood on some levels, that quartermaster is an important role, and that I was trusting her with a lot of responsibility, but this is all of the worst and best at once. It’s the most of my trust, it’s everyone’s trust, in the entire Onyx Dawn, hoping that the choices she makes are the ones closest to correct for the best outcomes. It’s also far more stress than I wanted to put on her, hell, on anyone. Rubbing my eyes on my forearm once more, I stand for several moments, meeting Leezahna’s gaze, trying to emit an aura of care, comfort, and calm.
The lass trembles, but to her credit, she steels herself and responds, “I can do that. I will do that. All of it. I won’t let you down, not now, not again, never again. If the Ice of Rage wins, Mother wouldn’t survive. I’m going to make sure that bastard gets the most we can throw at him thrown at him, the most effectively we can do it. Th-thank you. Thank you Schism, for trusting me with this responsibility, this honor.”
Nodding her way, I can’t help myself as I offer Leezahna a hug. She doesn’t leap into my arms or anything, but she does allow a slow simultaneous approach with a curt polite shoulder patting around each other’s backs. She vibrates with intense discomfort, so I pull away immediately, apologetically. I hand her the primary copy of our goals list, in order for her to photocopy them when she gets a chance, in order to get everyone up to speed on our priorities. She spins on her heel haughtily, as usual, and then cringes, as usual, before marching back to her room to gather her notes and ledger. I’ve got the right person on this job. I know it.
I suspect she literally won’t rest if there’s any part of her task that she can complete at a given moment, that she hasn’t already taken care of. Telepathically I send well-wishes to Leezahna, trying to remind her to take care of herself too, making self-care a priority, just like we’re making it one for our defenders. We can’t afford to have her burn out. She’s important to us now. Massively so.
As I’m turning to attend to the artificer’s needs, Prinrin stops me to hop into my arms and wrap her limbs around me saying, “Schism my sweet, you’re doing so well, so well stepping into his shoes. He’d be so proud of you, like I am. You’re our Hero, the one we need. We’ve needed you dearie. I’ve needed you, for so long my sweet Schism. Remind me, like you did before, to come back to them, my dears, my children. I owe you my life many times over, dear me I do my dear. Our deviant little club will have to skip a week or two, but I dare say Illy feels the same, in many ways Schism sweetie. And obviously of course our Lady, my dearest, longest friend, loves you so deeply that it hurts. I don’t know what hurts that linger are plaguing her right now, but I think you made the right choice in refusing her secret request dearie. We needed you here for this, and for the coming battles.”
A whirlwind as ever, I can barely keep up with Prinrin’s speech, let alone the cascade of emotions that hit me as she smoothly shifts into and out of deeply touching topics that tug my heart in so many directions. I squeeze my sweet, intuitive, loving, lovely little old lady tightly, lovingly. We let tears flow down into each other’s necks as we let the embrace linger. I do think I needed to hear that from her. It was eating away at me inside, worried that my choice hurt Kinzul. After a long while, yet too short a moment, we tilt our faces to let our lips meet in the briefest kiss that conveys all of our empathy for the other.
As our lips part, I mutter, “I told you before, any war, no matter the outcome, if you’re not there on the other side of it to celebrate, I’ll consider a loss in its entirety. I will, I will remind you, again and again, to come home, for them. Thank you for using the gift I gave you, for using it the way you promised Pawn and me to. Just, just thank you for still being here, for making it this far Prinrin, my wonderful, deviant little old lady.”
Wearing a bright half-smile Prinny nods, leans up to kiss my cheek, then hops down out of my arms after disentangling her limbs from my torso. She waves tenderly my way as she jogs back towards Mount Solace. I can’t help gazing after her as she goes. Darn it Prinny, no, I can sense what you’re thinking. No, not because of your tight, pert posterior, you little perv. Pft. But okay, also, yes, because of that. I sigh and chuckle about my deviant little old lady.
Finally turning to face the artificers, I apologize for the wait, “Sorry about that, I had to impress on our quartermaster the, well, you heard. Then, well, you saw that I was mounted, so I, meep—“
Grinning, waggling her brows, having seen another short woman launch herself at me, Littlebit leaps at me from her workstation, forcing me to catch her. Oh heavens she’s so warm as she cuddles into my neck and against my chest, with her loose overalls and tight undershirt. She whispers, “Thank you Tiger. For making Tiktik a priority.”
Gulping back my emotions, I nod wordlessly. We both know it wasn’t an entirely selfless suggestion that I put forth. Certainly, contacting Jeegoobotstan, and Tiktik in particular does benefit the Order, massively, especially our ongoing ‘Twixt portal research, but, like Littlebit and Teuila, I miss that goofy grinning face of my Kitten. We didn’t get to spend as long together in the ‘Twixt as she wanted, and I lament that.
I know I couldn’t have made another choice. And I know things worked out alright in the end, since she was reunited with Littlebit, and the air was cleared. I still have an ache, a yearning in my heart for another timeline in which I spent ages with Tiktik in the ‘Twixt. Blushing, I rattle my skull. Littlebit grins a tad deviously into my neck. Oh, right, I set up psychic networks with everyone, and have been overstressed, overworked, and overemotional, not monitoring which walls were up or down lately. She’s heard every thought I’d had tonight, including the pervy ones about her lovely, slightly curvy, compact form. Whoops.
So, before I embarrass myself further, I try to navigate our minds towards the conversation we’re actually intending to have, “Ah, erm, you said you could divulge which supplies you would need other than than the nitrates and stuff that make up gunpowder? I mean, honestly it won’t be too bad getting ahold of saltpeter and sulfur, even without utilizing our supply system. But if we can pack a bigger punch, we should. Dragons can weather explosions of the usual potency pretty well, depending on proximity.”
Nodding along with me, Littlebit giggles as she leans up to my ear, almost nibbling it as she whispers, “Just kinda wanted to wait til they were all gone, ‘cause the main ingredient is dragon doodie. Hehe.”
Her lips send shivers up my spine as they tickle my ear. Her warm breath, and her own titter of a laugh tinkles and tingles down my ear canal. However, between the sensual tickling, and the humorous nature of her whisper, the humor wins out, and I burst into a snorted half laugh. I can sense Nala rolling her eyes nearby, so I blush heatedly, not sure which part of our little miniature meeting of the minds is more exasperating to her.
Answering my thoughts, Nala comments, “For the record, it’s the obvious attraction Miss Bitty has for you, and you have for her, that are distracting you both. It’d be better for all of us if you just went into this ‘Twixt, where time won’t pass for the rest of us while you got your fornicating thoughts sorted out, in whatever fashion you mammals do to rid yourselves of silly tensions. Honestly, neither of you is subtle in the least.”
Steaming from my collar, I gulp. I’m certainly not going to rip open a portal to the ‘Twixt, untested, and unstable, and leap into it to, erm, fornicate, with Littlebit. Yeesh. Phew, I’m pretty sure my cheeks could weld that sheet of orichalcum right now. Littlebit suffers no such embarrassment. She’s a woman who expresses her intellect and interests openly. I admire that about her, but I’m not as impervious to the discomfort at others knowing my more intimate, private desires.
Coughing, to get us back on track, I attempt to set Littlebit on the edge of her workstation, but she keeps her digits loosely entangled in my hair and clothing to keep me close. She mutters, “Come on Tiger, just keep me company, close company. I’m gonna be sending away my bot buddies, and Nala is volunteering as our extradimensional explorer, in order to get readings we need when we start opening portals. You don’t want me to get lonely, do ya?”
Flustered, I pout and avert my gaze, but I shake my head. No, I don’t want Littlebit getting lonely, not even for a little bit. Ugh, the people in my life know how to get me wrapped around their little fingers. Good thing I cut Farzhis off at the pass back before she started turning over a new leaf. Anyway, which project are we attempting first? Seems like an exciting load of prospects for us lined up on the table.