It took longer than Tif would have liked to find them all. Jer was the easiest, in his room at the hostel putting the finishing touches on the letter he had promised her. His eyes were baggy as he explained that sleep had eluded him, so he’d risen early to get pen and paper, and then spent the rest of the morning getting the necessary words arranged appropriately. A stack of papers on the dresser with sentences crossed out was a testament to the thought he had put into the final copy. She gave him a quick hug, thanking him, and then told him that his home was about to be attacked. Tif figured he had just as much of a right to know as she did and thought he might change his mind about returning with her.
Jer, however, shook his head, saying that he was familiar enough with Tears to know that adding him to the journey would drain Melus’s ris twice as fast, ruining their chances of reaching Lercel quickly, which Tif’s qiha confirmed.
Jer then gave her a wan smile, placing his hand on her clothed shoulder to not activate his Blood ris and said, “I put my faith in those already there, and you, Tif. If you can help preserve Lercel without putting yourself in too much danger, you will have my gratitude.”
She promised that she would, pecking him on the cheek before he could tell her not to, her lips tingling, and then she and Melus were off again. Plumya they found snoring loudly in a tree near the bar, curled up in an empty bird’s nest. In another time and place, Tif might have asked the fairy if she had scared the regular occupants away, but with the sun creeping its way up through the sky and every moment that she wasn’t leaving Sah’Sah weighing on her, Tif gave the details as quickly as she could. Plumya grinned ferally, much to Tif’s relief, and claimed she’d make it there faster than ‘whoever fancy-Tears-boy was’, which Melus scoffed at.
Teerog they had to ask around to locate, but thankfully a towering cyclops covered in red ris generated a great deal of attention. So, it was only frustratingly long instead of maddeningly long before they were standing behind the cyclops on one of the bamboo platforms that Tears scouts used to return to the reflection. Teerog was staring out at the ocean, her back as wide as a closed door and just as inviting. Tif pushed past her worries of ruining her newest friendship and explained to the cyclops the state of things.
As soon as Teerog heard about the Death siege, she grimaced, saying in her deep voice, “This is what Teerog gets for waiting. If she had gone to Lercel directly, she could have the crest and be on her way to Bheroth right now. ”
“I know,” Tif said, “and I’m sorry.” She held up the rolled parchment Jer had given her, tied together with one of the thick hairs from his head. “But without this I could never be a true citizen of Lercel again, and without coming here and listening to Udaru, Jer would have never written it for me.”
Teerog’s eye rolled toward the paper tube but her expression grew no more forgiving. She then looked down at Melus.
“Take me to the shore, and I will get there before either of you.”
“It seems like none of you have much need of me,” he said, flippantly. “I’ll just be on my merry way then. I hear my unfinished play calling, in a nice room, with a nice view, where Death is most certainly not about to invade.”
Tif grabbed his long sleeve, the cloth surprisingly silky in her hands. “I need you, Qiha. Please.”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “Say that again.”
“Qiha?” she said, not quite sure what he meant. “Qiha Melus? Please?”
The young man sighed dramatically. “Why does my name have to sound so pleasing with Qiha in front of it, as if the two were meant to be paired together? And why, dear Aspects, must my first disciple be suicidal?” He was looking forlornly up at the clouds above now.
“I’m not suicidal,” Tif said, drawhing his gaze back down, “I have a plan.”
“Little newt,” he said, “if you think those ramblings you said to Udaru are a plan, we’d have as much luck porting through solid stone as we will of making a difference in the battle to come.” Before Tif could protest, he waved his unopened fan at her. “Salt leeches need to be ripped off in one go, lest the teeth stick, and the same applies for terrible ideas. The sooner done, the sooner we all know if we live to see another sunrise. And if we die, at least we die pretty.” He glanced up at Teerog. “...some of us more than others.”
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“You talk more than a fairy,” she said down to him. “Do you know this?”
“Charming,” Melus said drolly. “Let’s give you a head start, shall we?”
Melus transported her and Teerog to the shore, and as soon as their feet touched the sand, Teerog was off running without a word of goodbye.
“Plans to jog the whole way there?” Melus asked, taking a deep breath, like bringing them both along had winded him.
“Maybe,” Tif said. “With her first seal of Blood she can pull energy from living things she touches like grass and shrubs. If there’s enough of it, she may not even need to sleep.”
Tif noticed that Melus seemed to be watching Teerog go with a pinch more respect now, but it was only a moment before he refocused on her, grabbing her by the arm and they were gone again.
Like when traveling with others who had the second seal of Tears, her qiha took them up into the sky so they could sail over the trees. She expected him to be quiet as he ported them through the air, focusing on reaching their destination as quickly as possible.
He proved her wrong during their second jump, shouting while they briefly fell.
“Practice your charge!”
“Wha--?” she went to ask but was cutoff by him porting them forward.
Melus seemed to have caught enough to respond when they reached the next section of air. “The more you can hold, the greater your strike. Build up as much as you can,” he yelled.
Tif wisely waited until after their next skyward leap before responding. “But I have nothing to strike. How will I get rid of it?”
“When you cannot bear to hold it any longer, tell me, and I will find you a target.”
So, Tif did just that. Like before, imagining the light hum of her remaining Tears ris increasing was enough to trigger her first seal. And also like before, what started as a low buzz grew until not only her whole arm was shaking but her chest, stomach and both her legs.
Melus was as good as his word when she told him that she couldn’t take it any longer, teeth chattering. With two ports downward, he landed them beside some trees. Though it was further away, Tif stumbled on humming legs toward the one that looked to be dying, covered all over in vines. When she struck the plant-choked trunk, the wood and green exploded away from her fist, leaving a chunk missing from the side of the old tree like a beast three times as big as Teerog had taken a bite out of it.
Tif was still staring in shock at the halfmoon hole she had made, the trunk creaking dangerously to the side, when Melus took her back into the sky.
They repeated the process two more times, her cracking the top off a large rock, which went spinning away into the forest, and then on her last try, she only managed to dent a moss covered wall because she was out of Tears ris, the blue on her left arm completely gone.
Due to this, Melus sped up their aerial travels, but as he did he lectured, pausing at regular intervals throughout as if he always trained those under him while porting: “By practicing building to your maximum charge…you will expand the limits of your body…right now you think it impressive to fell a tree…but in time you could strike through a wall…thick as those that surround your Lercel…such a feat would require a long build…and a significant amount of your ris…the first seal allows for more efficient ris usage…but can still be multiplied in effectiveness by additional spend…just like a Gold shot hitting harder than the initial punch when supplemented…yet there is more to learn than reaching your maximum…you will need to master holding your charge at the amount you wish…without building further and without releasing until the strike is right…you will need to learn to absorb your own charge…without harming yourself when the strike has passed…so the ris is unused and unwasted, ready for your next target…and finally, you will need to practice combining…the charge of the first seal can magnify more than fists and feet…I am using brief bursts now to port farther and faster…I do not know how it will combine with Death…but I am eager, like you I am sure, to see…”
Tif’s head was buzzing with questions, but she hadn’t asked any because she didn’t want him to stop. Before she had a chance, the next thing out of his mouth was a command to rest, to recharge her missing ris faster, so she could start practicing again. Despite her curiosity and the wind howling past her ears, she tried her best to meditate.
It was dusk when they finally stopped, reaching the small cliff she had slept on with Udaru and the other knights in what felt like another lifetime ago. When she had asked Melus if he knew of it, he had snorted, saying that scouts of Sah’Sah had found it years before any knights of Lercel used it. Tif didn’t doubt her qiha, and it made sense since the location was only easily accessible through porting.
Plumya, true to her word, was already there--familiar with the place, too, due to having visited Tif upon it during their first trip to Sah’Sah. Tif let out a relieved breath upon seeing the smug fairy--who hadn’t done a thing to setup camp--because while Tif hadn’t been successful at meditating, she had been thinking a great deal about her plan. And Plumya and her Life seals were a very, very important part of it.