Gulping and blushing, I try to apologize, “Te, I, I’m sorry, that wasn’t how I intended to use the time in the orb. I mean, obviously I don’t regret it, it was fantastic, but it was more distraction than really me being there for you like I wanted to be. I love you eternally, and—.”
Teuila shuts me up with a firm kiss before nestling her face into the crook of my neck and nuzzling there while holding me tightly. Telepathically she mutters, “It’s okay Airhead, my Air. The very air that I breathe. It’s almost like having accelerated thinkspace back, almost, but it’s, well, I might have been aiming for us to do that, I’m not really sure. You know I get just a tiny bit jealous. It sucks, there’s so much going on in the ocean, and I can’t tame it. I know you were helping me learn to float and ride the waves out til they settled on their own, but that was so much easier when we could have like a month in a couple of minutes. I hate not having that anymore. I hate it. I miss you being in me so bad, err—.”
We both flush heatedly after what we’d just done in the orb. My breath catches in my throat and I fight to gulp it down. I know she meant in her mindscape, helping her identify her emotions, but, ah, phrasing. Huff, phew. Now she’s giggling nervously across our mental wavelength. I fight a battle with my blushing cheeks to be able to curl my lips into a loving smile to flash towards Teuila, trying to remain supportive rather than falling into a different state of mind, or mood.
Cough, right, erm, anyway. Huff. Meep! I find myself swatting one of Te’s hands that’s sneaking around dancing its fingers along certain places, and we end up in a Shellcracker Family Slap Fight, an SFSF, until we’re both giggling. Phew. I feel much more assured that we’re okay as a loving couple, despite all that I know Teuila is still dealing with. I wish I could find a way to be *more* there for her though. Wait. Duplication. Can my space skill duplicate technology? For the most part, it’s always been more like, umm, how do I describe it?
Whenever I’ve duplicated things, it mostly seemed like some sort of copy of the dimensions of the object, without any sort of respecting any more than the very basic general makeup of the thing. I guess basically just an object’s shape. Plus, even if I completely mimicked circuitry, if it’s all in that strange umbral onyx substance, how would it transmit electricity? Either it’s all conductive, or none of it is. Hmm, yeah, I don’t think that’ll work. Fricklefrack. I was hoping to give Teuila a phone, so that we could maybe at least text or something.
I guess that’s a dumb idea for me to have had anyway. There aren’t cell towers on Rayileklia. We’d have to happen across a satellite in one of the shops or something, and somehow send it into orbit to be able to have cellular service on Rayileklia to be able to transfer the radio waves aro—. Waves. Lu. Could Luni’s Latent manage receiving and sending cellular signals? What would that do to Lu though, to have to be an intermediary always on the lookout for signals? I’ve already placed so much pressure on her by asking her to manage the timeline.
Anyway, right now I want to focus on Teuila. Even if the project was an idea for Teuila, it was distracting me further and further from her. Sighing, I nuzzle my face into her amazingly teased side-flopped undercut. Kissing Te’s forehead, I try to imagine some way to be *more* present for her. I can’t find any solutions though. I could maybe dive into nearly-paused time, seeking the non, but I don’t think that brainstorming solo for some unspecified amount of time is going to bring me any closer to an answer.
Te jabs me roughly in my torso with her index finger, poking me and prodding me for attention, so I try to shut off my brain as I lean back to gaze upon her face and grant her my undivided attention. Te starts, “So, I kinda wanted to show off this sheathe, it’s sort of like your dimensional sacks and pouches and bags and stuff, but like, check this.”
Teuila sets Mjolnir on the floor, then reaches for empty space at the top of the teal scabbard with its platinum embellishments. Te motions as if drawing a weapon, and suddenly a ghostly translucent blue spear shimmers into existence in her hand. Te then reaches towards the sheath with her non-dominant hand, makes the same motion, but this time draws forth an ethereal, blue-hued translucent spiked-ball flail, which boggles my mind.
Te offers me the spear, so I accept it, and turn it over and over in my hands to inspect it. Suddenly it blinks out of my hands and reappears in Teuila’s main hand. Well that’s a handy hell of a trick. Hard to be disarmed or have your own weapons used against you if you can just call them back to your hand. That’s a heck of a neat sheath. Te grins proudly at her find. Still, when Teuila is walking around with legendary artifact equipment, sentient weapons, and literal god-weapons, it seems a bit redundant, like she said. How’s she going to wield a dozen weapons at once? Unless—.
Excitedly, I offer, “Te, before we went into orb-time, I’d been about to offer, I, I mean. I wanted to, and still want to, make things up to you. I was wondering if maybe a gesture, like, like me making something be only for you, that I’d intended to share with everyone, if that would help. Like, maybe my myconid form, sharing the sporebrain, the hivemind with just you, and the enchantments I might be able to pick up from the books with just you, I—.”
Jokingly, Teuila wrinkles her nose and complains, “Ew, the squishy mushroom? Really Air? That’s what you wanna give me to make me feel better? I’m kidding. The idea itself is sweet, but I wouldn’t want you to do that Air. Your big heart is one of the reasons I koff, lur, koff, loh, luh, koff, y’know. Sharing that with everyone just makes sense for you. Plus, doesn’t that one get stronger with more brains? I don’t want you neutering yourself for me, ah, err, hehe, koff, you know what I mean.”
Snorting a laugh I try not to let my mind drift to what we’d ended up doing in the orb. I still can’t help smiling and shaking my head incredulously though. This woman, yeesh. I love her beyond all doubt, all reason, and all ability to describe. Still, I wish I could make some gesture to reassure her, or give her something. Wait, I guess maybe at least let’s check out the random loot we’ve got around here, yeah?
Huh, I think that’s another Q C R, a quick-change ring. Yeah, yeah it definitely is. I toss it to Te, and she dons it immediately, and begins testing out what it’s already bound to, recklessly. Ugh, I love her but she’s scarily reckless. Still, she’s suddenly adorned in an amazingly fitted martial arts gi, and I try to catch my jaw so that I don’t end up drooling as I gaze at her amazingly athletic form that ends up being revealed so greatly beneath the sleeveless gi.
The garb shimmers and shifts in color in the order of the seasons, a cool icy blue to a vibrant spring green into a late summer yellow and finally an autumn orange before returning to blue. Moreover, the back is decorated in seasonal motifs that shift from one to the next in time with the color. While it’s in its icy-blue form, Teuila’s fists exude a frosty mist, and seem to drain the heat from around them. While it’s in its spring green form, green whipping winds whirl about her ankles. While it’s in its summer stage, Teuila’s fists crackle with minor flames, unharmfully to her thankfully, and when it’s in its autumn stage, I can’t ascertain any special effects it has upon her. Does this gi make Teuila immune to fire and cold?
Holy crap, that’s cool as hell. I mean, Shellcracker’s Iceflame Spark already sort of has her covered for the most part, but if she’s going to be swapping out of it, this can keep her—. Did Teuila just grow an extra pair of translucent ghostly arms? I blink in surprise. There were metal bands about Teuila’s wrists that came with the gi, and I can see a faint aura trace from them, up Teuila’s real arms, to her shoulders, which now sprout an extra pair of magical arms. Just what Te needs, more limbs to punch with. Hah. Teuila breaks into a fit of giggles before grinning slyly.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
A shiver visibly runs up Teuila’s spine and she shakes it out before stating, “I think I’m going to really like this outfit with my Jarngripr. The spring season of the gi enhances my jumping, hehehe.”
Pft! I can’t help snorting a laugh and nearly end up spitting as I sputter from the surprise of it. Teuila has a ring that triples her already ridiculous leaping ability, and now a sexily tailored gi that enhances even that? Yeesh. Another thing about the gi is that there’s a purple quiver attached to the hem of its right hip. The quiver seems to be made of glass, and has a lid with five holes in it that has depictions of elements engraved upon it. The lid has four buttons in position corresponding to those four elements, water, fire, earth and air. Teuila fiddles around with it, pressing the buttons, and the plumed nocks of various arrows appear in response to each button press.
Teuila quips in a goofy, grim voice, “Groovy,” but she appears to have sensed something, and is following her nose in a manner of speaking. She calls out, “Hey Airhead, one for you too, sorta!”
My love tosses me a much smaller quiver, one that could only hold crossbow bolts meant for one as small as my wrist-mounted double-barreled crossbow. It has different elements depicted on buttons, if they could even be called elements. One depicts a mushroom cloud, one a snowflake, one a skull, and I’d swear one looks like an anti-personnel hand-grenade. Still, I attach it to my belt with its already myriad pouches and sheaths and other accessories. On the small quiver is something that looks a bit like a frisbee or chakram, but as if it has a slot for a throwing-knife to be sheathed in it.
Hm, studying the runework surrounding the frisbee-type object’s aura, it is indeed a sheath for a throwing knife, and as I gaze at it, it takes on a familiar appearance. Galaxies pass before my eyes as if I’m gazing into deep space with a super-telescope as I move. I could get lost in observing it, so I turn my attention back to the runework. There should be an accompanying knife known as Whisper that should vibrate with a pink psychic elemental energy. The sheath wants to be reunited with it in a way, and in a way it doesn’t. Whisper takes some of the enchantment and life essence away from this cosmic sheath in some fashion. If they’re reunited without being directly used together, they’ll each be something different than this base combined enchantment, an odd way to be greater than the sum of their parts. If I find Whisper, I guess I could enchant it into the Elemental Bandolier somehow, freeing up the sheath to be its own magical item.
Now that I’m sensing odd enchantments that are part of objects meant to be paired together in various ways, my attention is drawn to two, wait, three, four, five, huh, five platinum, or perhaps titanium bicep bangles. Each has a large circular surface on its facing side, with grooved slots carved into it. There’s a tiny wooden box that appears like an old music-box that emanates a paired aura with these bangles. Tossing one of the empty bangles to Teuila, I carefully lift the lid on the box, and gaze squinting into the box at the myriad blindingly brilliant auras suddenly unleashed against my eyes.
There are tiny rune-engraved clips that would slide into the surface of the bangles. There’s such a cornucopia of different types of runework it’s completely overwhelming to try to analyze. I have to turn my gaze aside and reduce my aura vision as my stomach begins to flop, nauseated from the overwhelming overstimulation. After burping, I feel a bit better. Hiccuping and burping one more time help settle my stomach further. Pulling one clip out of the box at a time, one of them causes me to sink to my knees and weep.
Between tears I clasp Te’s hands and order her, “Please, please clip this in that bangle, and never, never ever ever ever take it off. Te, Te I love you so much, if, if we’d had this—, glp, if—. If we had this on the Night of High Water—,” I can’t bring myself to even finish describing its power.
Teuila immediately understands my tears and the power of the small object. She does as I request and sinks to her own knees to wrap her arms around me. We both cry together for several long minutes. It’s not quite as powerful as the neckchain of the ever-breathing in some ways, in other ways, it’s more powerful, as it offers control over elemental water. The bearer can breathe water, and cast a few spells per day dealing with water.
I quickly resolve to find as many of these trinkets as possible that grant spells in order to equip them to Teuila’s bangle, to help overcome the feeling of being left behind that had been building up within her. I approach my task in a frenetic frenzy. I’m distraught enough that one might think I’m furious with either the objects or myself, but I just—. I just need to do this for Teuila.
One of the trinkets is one of elemental fire, making the bearer completely immune to fire, and granting a few uses of fire spells per day. Teuila hardly even needs the immunity to fire any longer. Te’s own thermal resistances, Shellcracker’s Iceflame Spark, and now her Gi of Seasonal Elements seems to have her covered versus fire, but it certainly can’t hurt to be permanently completely immune to one side of the thermal equation. Well, only specifically fire, not necessarily heat, I need to keep that in mind.
This trinket-clip is one that, hah, it grants flight, which Teuila hardly needs, and some spells related to wind, which is one of Teuila’s dominant elements anyway. But it also grants extreme resistance to lightning, and a chain lightning spell. I clip it into her bangle as well, and shove another one in that makes her resistant to negative thermal fluctuation by way of being imbued with an inner flame, basically cold has a harder time affecting her, and she can add even *more* fire to her punches.
It’s about the time that I’m shoving a fifth trinket into Teuila’s bangle, before having placed any in mine, that Teuila stops my frantic search through the runeworked objects. The one I’d just placed in it gives her another spell that’s sort of like an incredibly short duration Steely Body spell, well, more like a forcebubble spell that only lasts about two seconds, and it either bends or breaks under any damage, but at least it reduces the force of that damage.
Teuila grips my hands, closing them into fists that she holds tenderly as she whispers, “Shh, shh my Airhead, it’s okay. It’s okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for loving me so much. For caring and trying and worrying and doing everything you can to be you. It means so much to me. I’ll keep these, this is more than enough babe. Thank you. Thank you Air sweetie. It’s okay. It means so much to me that I mean so much to you. Come on, tell me about some of these other ones.”
Te rests her forehead against mine, and I allow myself to calm slightly. Blushing at my overreaction, I start listing, “Well, um, that little segmented section with like nine’ish of the trinkets has ones that all require someone who has innate sorcerous potential that can use metamagical abilities to adapt spells. Basically they’d only work when I’m quickening my runework into quick-casted spells, so they’re not much use to anybody else. There’s, um, well, this one over here is one that I kind of want, I—. I feel stupid for it, but it lets the user control stone elementals, protects the bearer from them. It also lets them cast a stonemelding spell, and for some reason intensely increases their resistance to acid, and even lets the bearer sort of rock-walk or something, like, move through stone as if it were thick soup, for maybe five or ten seconds at a time without using any spells, or remaining in stone for up to like eight hours with a spell.”
Hugging me excitedly, Te exclaims, “That’s great for you though Air! Don’t feel stupid about it! I was so worried about you when those rock elementals were beating the crap out of you. I, I don’t want you to feel bad about yourself. It was scary, and it’s okay to have something shake you up or mess you up. Right? I mean, you tell me that sort of thing often enough. It has to be true for you too, okay? Right?”
My lower jaw quivers but I nod shakily in response to Teuila. She’s right. I wouldn’t want her to beat herself up for being affected by something that shook her up. Hell, we’re dealing with the consequences of one of those things today. I could never forgive myself if I held a double standard that made her doubt herself and beat herself up. Still, it’s difficult to take my own advice sometimes, like now. I didn’t get a chance to mention the paired stone or earth runic clip, it can prevent being knocked around, and provides immunity to petrification.
Teuila motions to the books that I’ve had floating around following us as well, that have picked up additional passengers as I snagged others that I no longer trust having in the public library in Mount Verdimenn. I nabbed those ones on the way to our vaults since I now have use for them. I guess I could explain what I know about the new ones, since she knows what the older ones are. If we get a couple of consecutive days off, I’ll have our inner circle and several Order members working in concert to gain some of the enchantments from several of the tomes.
Taking a gander at the newer stuff, I explain, “These ones are sort of unique, and I understand why Nala wanted them to—. Holy crap. Holy crap! Holy Crap!!”