PART VII: WHAT IS LOVE?

The demonstration with the Fiends was almost as chaotic as the one with the Imps, with Pixyl continuing to display her Pit-honed dominance of the ring. True to Terrin’s description, Fiends were much like Imps. They tended to pound their chest and roar a lot, Pixyl mockingly doing the same in return a few times, and occasionally tried to dodge attacks, but otherwise their strategy was generally the same; simple feral fury.

If you put two or more Fiends in close proximity, however, things would change a little bit. Fiends seemed to enjoy their personal space, and if two got too close to each other, they would tend to shove or scuffle. One time, two actually started to tear at each other, completely ignoring Pixyl. Terrin described and Pixyl demonstrated a strategy of luring the Fiends close to each other, which would lead to an opening for your counter attack.

The crowd, following Terrin's instructions, had the behavior and tactics driven into their heads, knowing that soon they would need to face the monsters themselves. That didn’t stop them from getting excited, though, as Pixyl worked the crowd between waves. Callie was no different, and was soon yelling and cheering for her friend like a rabid fangirl. [*] People would occasionally shout out ‘The Queen!’ when a demonstration round ended. In turn, Callie managed to get everyone doing a ‘stomp-stomp-clap’ cheer, mimicking the band of the same name and upping the excitement. The crowd wasn’t exactly sure what it meant to ‘rock’ someone, or why they were doing it, but the noise and the chanting was infectious and fun for everyone.

When the demonstration eventually concluded, Thorn dismissed everyone to lunch, and the crowd dispersed. Spirits and conversations were excited, both from the worried anticipation of facing their own Demons soon, but also from Pixyl’s antics in the ring and the show she put on.

As Callie and the others walked towards the hill, Jesca was again hit by another reveal, and they all quickly detoured to the nearby bleacher seating to help her ride it out. Callie could see her friend was beyond frustrated with what was happening to her. Not just the new power reveals though, but also the whole morning’s events, and maybe the night before, too.

“So, what did you get?” Lhawni said, asking the obvious question as Jesca came around.

The Cheetahkin snarled a little in general frustration. “A new skill. Deploy/Recall Bonded Companion.” She looked up at Juniper. “That’s what you do with Loki, right?”

The Dryad nodded. “It is! One of my skills, although it is called Summon/Unsummon Familiar. He doesn’t like it, though.” Next to her, the little Plant Monster looked up, approximating a scowling ‘hands on hips’ gesture and hissing in annoyance at the idea. “I try not to force him if I don’t have to.”

Jesca nodded, running that information through her head. “I’ll unlock it later,” she said glumly.

“Maybe after lunch, you take a quick nap?” Callie suggested, a worried tone in her voice. “Even thirty minutes for you would be pretty refreshing, and we do have today off.”

Jesca nodded, considering the idea.

“Greetings, ladies,” a voice called out as Master Trainer Thorn approached. “It looked like you got a reveal, Jesca. Are you alright?”

Jesca coughed and looked up, before jumping to her feet. “Uh, yes. Yes, sir. I did. I also received another earlier, during the fight.”

“She can now unsummon her unicorn, just as I can my Loki,” Juniper said, eagerly trying to be helpful.

Thorn pondered that for a half moment. “An excellent skill, and absolutely appropriate for the class. May I ask what the other was?”

“A perk called Mana-Enhanced Senses.”

Thorn blinked in surprise. “Really? That’s a perk I have as a Martialist as well.” Then he got a worried look. “Have you unlocked it? If you haven’t, don’t do it yet.”

Jesca shook her head. “Callie suggested waiting, and I have a feeling she’s right.”

“She is. Once you unlock it, all of your senses will become much more acute. The sudden influx of sounds, in particular, can be quite overwhelming. I recommend you do it somewhere quiet and dark, so you can get used to the effect more gradually. Maybe on your morning run?”

Thorn’s warning received, he soon took his leave, and everyone headed down the hill to the mess tent for the midday meal. Callie felt a nostalgic sense of home when the prepared lunch turned out to be simple, grilled-cheese sandwiches. Bread, cheese and butter was a pretty universal taste, and Callie was swept back to her childhood, when her mother or grandmother would make them for her. Callie even cut the sandwich into four triangles, exactly as she liked it when she was seven.

Callie had just returned with a second sandwich, when Pixyl briefly stopped by, having been delayed finishing up with the Warlocks. Even though she’d get sweaty again with her afternoon training, the Pixie wanted to put on fresh clothes that weren't covered in ash and various chunks of singed Demon. She did acknowledge the few cheers from other recruits with a polite wave, but was mostly worried how Jesca was doing. They all filled her in on the latest reveals, and you could see Pixyl mulling them over in her head before declaring them ‘cool’. As a parting action, with a grin she snatched half of Callie’s sandwich, a triangle in each hand, before scampering off towards the bunkhouses, laughing.

Before long, the bell rang, Calling all the recruits to their afternoon training, which left Callie alone with Jesca and her unicorn. With people now dispersed, the unicorn felt comfortable enough to walk several meters away to nibble on some grass. Jesca had put her head in her arms, not asleep, just deep in her own thoughts and mentally exhausted from the morning.

“Hey, Jesca?” Callie asked carefully.

“Hmm? What?” the Cheetahkin replied looking up.

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“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll even take that nap you mentioned.”

“That’s good, but that’s also not really what I meant. I saw you last night. With Ambria and Koka. I don’t want to pry if it’s not my place, but do you want to talk about it? It’s just us right now.”

Jesca sighed and shrugged. “I suppose, but I’m still not really sure what happened. My head is all muddy. Your Gnome music helped me, though, somehow.”

Callie nodded, not saying anything in order to encourage her friend to keep talking, although it took her a moment to realize what she meant by ‘Gnome music’.

“Yesterday, when you played that joke on me? I had flashes of a sudden life with Ambria. Meeting her parents, a wedding, a cute little house somewhere, growing old together. It scared me, Callie. A lot. But a minute later it disappeared, because it wasn’t real, and somehow that scared me even more; the loss of that possible simple, quiet life hurt for some reason I can’t explain.”

“Oh no!” Callie cried out. “I’m so sorry!”

Shaking her head, Jesca took Callie’s hand with her paw. “That’s just it. If it hadn’t been for your silly little joke, I never would have realized how much I missed that feeling when it was gone. For just a few seconds, my life had a different purpose than it’s had since I was a little cub. Sure, it was forced on me by your supposed ‘Faun Law’, and it was scary because of the surprise, but it also felt … good. For some reason I would have been happy growing old in Ambria’s little mushroom house, Callie, if that really had to happen. I guess it all finally came crashing on me at once last night.”

“Are … do you have feelings for Ambria?”

Jesca laughed lightly. “I don’t know. I’ve never really been attracted to people, physically or romantically, that is. And love? I’m not even sure what love is. But the idea of being part of someone’s life together? The idea of making my own way with someone, rather than the Beastkin way? That felt right.”

“You mentioned to me that first day about getting married and having kids,” Callie said, a little confused, letting the statement hang.

“It’s just assumed, as a Beastkin. We’re all supposed to have at least four cubs, preferably more. This is why Beastkins have become so numerous in only a few hundred years after The Escape. Getting married is supposed to go with all those cubs, but probably just to assure stability. More and more people don’t bother getting married. After my Curse, I’ll go home and be expected to make babies, and quickly while I’m still young.”

Callie tried to drink this bit of information in, and resisted the urge to start asking a dozen questions about Beastkin society that immediately popped into her head. This conversation was about Jesca.

“The idea of a quiet future with Ambria, something different than what I have in front of me, somehow felt … good.” Jesca smiled weakly. “And then in a blink, that possibility was gone.” Jesca sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I’m just going to need time to figure it out. Maybe there’s a Listener in camp I could talk to.”

“A Listener?”

“You know, someone to help you sort out your feelings?”

“Oh, right. A therapist. You could ask Tasi. She would know who might be able to help.”

Jesca mulled that a bit and then nodded her head. “Maybe I’ll ask her later today since we have it off.” She looked at Callie and smiled, taking her hand again. “Really, I’m okay. If anything, I apparently have this new life as this Beastmaster class, with her and whatever other animals decide to bond with me.” She gestured to the grazing unicorn. “Maybe they’ll end up being my family, instead.”

Callie squeezed Jesca’s paw. “Jesca, if our joke in any way hurt you, please know we didn’t mean to. I know you said it was fine, but please, just know that.”

The Catkin smiled, and her eyes were actually bright. “I do know. You don’t even need to say anything for me to know that. And it was really funny, too.” She looked up at the unicorn, and then back towards the bunkhouses. “She said she’s thirsty, so I’m going to take her to the fountain and I think I'll take that nap. Can we find each other in, say, an hour? If I’m not up, feel free to wake me.”

“She’s going to need a name you know, right?” Callie said, nodding to the foal.

“Do you remember any more Gnome gods that might apply to a female unicorn? Loki has been a pretty good name for Juniper’s little thieving plant-monster.”

“Maybe? Let me think.” Callie pondered a moment. At first, she considered the name ‘Amalthea’ from The Last Unicorn as the obvious choice. Jesca was right, though, unicorns were so majestic that she needed to be named after one of the gods, especially since Loki got one of those names too. It could become a pet theme for when she adopted more companions, too! But what would be a good match for a unicorn? Venus? No, she was the goddess of beauty, and while the foal definitely was beautiful, it needed to be something … wildernessy, too. Callie didn’t know a lot of the more about the obscure pantheon members, really only the common ones, and Loki kept making her think back to the Marvel movies. Then, she remembered a Women’s Studies workshop her junior year about women in mythology.

“I’ve got it!” Callie grinned.

“Oh? Really? Is it the goddess of exploding contraptions or something?”

“No!” Callie said, laughing. “She’s the goddess of wild animals and nature and goddess of the hunt. A few other things that I can’t remember, too. Oh yeah, she’s also the goddess of virginity, so if you think about it …”

Jesca rolled her eyes at that, throwing her arms up. But then she looked at her new Companion, and remembered why the foal had presumably trusted her in the first place. “What is it?”

“Her name is Artemis!”

Jesca’s eyes opened wide at the strange, Gnomeish name. It was so … different and unique. “Do you like that name?” she asked the foal. “A name is what someone would call you. Yes, you are still a unicorn if you have a name. Yes, all people get names. No, you’re not a people. Wait, you know what, you are a people, because you can talk, at least to me, and that makes you a people.”

Callie snickered, hearing only one side of Jesca’s exasperated conversation with the little unicorn. It was like watching a mother argue with a five-year-old, which, in a way it sort of was.

“She doesn’t understand,” Jesca sighed. “But I think it’s a great name, Callie. It’s so … Gnome! It will always remind me of you and our time here.” She turned. “You hear that, your name is Artemis.” Then she rolled her eyes again, sighing. “Yes, you are still a unicorn!”

Jesca shook her head, slightly smiled, and squeezed Callie’s hand one last time. She rose and started walking back towards home, the newly-named unicorn quietly clopping along next to her.

Callie was glad to see Jesca smile, at least a little. Still, a part of her felt awful, both because of the joke they played, but also because she honestly didn’t really know how to help her friend. She had always been bad at the deep emotional support stuff with people she truly cared about, which probably partially explained why she had been single since she came back home.

Not sure what to do now that she had some free time, Callie’s mind wandered and drifted a bit, finally seeming to settle on an image of this new dual-class Jesca. She imagined the Ranger-Beastmaster mounted on her now fully-grown Artemis, surrounded by a small group of various creatures that didn’t really have form. She was sitting tall and commanding, wearing leather armor with a bow across her back and a whip at her side instead of swords. The image was … magnificent, almost regal. Then it struck Callie. The Jesca in her mind was missing something to make the image just perfect.

“She needs a hat!” Callie said, leaping from the bench.