Fomoria awoke once more, he hadn’t had any night terrors since Anon started casting ring of light on him whenever he tried to sleep, with 'tried' being the operative word.

His mastering of his sigil caused him to have a constant lesser version, increasing his strength, giving him more energy, lowering his pain levels, but his extra energy needed to be worked out if he was to get any rest.

If before sitting still annoyed him but he could work past it, now sitting still was torturous, and no amount of cracking his knuckles or bouncing his legs was enough to calm him down.

He had already been fighting his Others for almost an hour, and a dozen of them had been beaten to the point that they had to retreat.

Their battleground, the Plains of Wrath, what he officially named the deadlands where he lost control over himself, and they fought under the Spire of Other, a living tower of bone and flesh, a spine of the earth.

It was to be the home of the Others who had no lands to marshall, and they would feed information into it which could then be accessed by the Others.

It wasn’t a direct weapon, it was a living library where the older Others could learn to use the magic Xol taught Fomoria to somewhat bridge the gap between them as individuals.

Fomoria tore the arm from the Other, using it as a club to slightly extend his reach as he struck another.

Two more launched their beam sigil at him.

They weren’t nearly as powerful as their progenitor, but the sigil was fast and strong, forcing him to dodge.

Fomoria couldn’t barely keep up, requiring him to sometimes use a gate to move around.

But he bought enough time to cast the shield sigil, absorbing one of the beams.

Avoiding the other was easier, and the Other couldn’t recast his sigil faster than Fomoria.

When the remaining beam clashed with his, the Other knew that something bad would happen if they continued, and stopped the casting.

Fomoria’s beam hit him in the chest, forcing a surrender, and then a simple skip and physical exchange ended with him elbowing the last Other in the jaw, ripping it off.

Fomoria roared with his arms outstretched, forcing the Others to cover their ears.

He fought without a shirt, his bones became more pronounced when he fought, his knuckles grew spikes with a slight curve that would tear out chunks of flesh.

He stood hunched over his breath hot enough to cause heat distortion.

“Thank you.”

Fomoria helped the Others heal themselves and there were no hard feelings about the maiming.

Anon was rolling around in bed, she slept, but never well without him.

The moment he slipped into bed, she crawled on him, seeking his heat and the sound of his heartbeat.

In the morning, after breakfast, Fomoria met with the first of the children.

He promised to spend an afternoon with the top five students across the nations, though naturally all of them came from Kor, since that is where his school program started.

Before lunch, he would spend an hour with each of them, in three groups.

He knew a little of each of them, the first would be a pair of friends, then a set of twins, and finally, one of the white Plest, those who survived the poison and whose scales lost their color.

The pair arrived in a carriage, he could feel joy and anxiety before they stepped out.

They were a young Faun boy and Ibexian girl.

Both of them began to kneel.

“Rise.”

“Thank you, King Fomoria.”

“Please, just call me Fomoria.”

“Yes sir, Fomoria, sir.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle.

“How old are both of you?”

“14.”

They both answered.

“You must be Jake, and you must be… Ur’Kel.”

“Why did you say it like that?”

“I knew a different Kel, Ar’Kel.”

“Oh, were you friends?”

“No. So, what is it that makes you two ranked 4 and 5?”

Kel pushed Jake forward and he spoke, his voice barely a whisper.

“I am a lightning mage, she is good at growing things.”

“Very good. And I’ve heard that you two spend much of your time helping others throughout the city?”

“Yes, we like helping people.”

“Ah, what was the last thing that you did?”

“A girl’s kitten climbed a tree but couldn’t get back down. Kel grew footholds and it was able to climb down.”

“That’s nice. Would you like to come inside now?”

“Ah, um, yes, thank you.”

Once inside, Fomoria directed them to get changed, saying that he already set out a set for them.

He chuckled when he heard yelps from both rooms; few enjoyed shifting suits immediately.

When they came out, Kel had a confident strut and started moving around to really test the range of motion.

When she first arrived, she had been wearing a dress, such a sight was something Fomoria never really got used to, he just couldn’t see most beastkin as being feminine.

But now that she had a shifting suit, she looked more like an adventurer with her leather armor and metal bracers.

“It’s like wearing nothing, right?”

“Can we keep them?”

“Of course.”

Fomoria put a pin on the girl’s chest, a simple shield with a 5 on it.

The backing was made of black bone with a gold trim, but the number itself was made of blood gem.

“Now, I hope that you use it mindfully, but that is a communicator. It can connect to the guards outpost in Kor, to the other four badges, and to mine.”

“You mean I can call you?”

“Yes, but as I said, be mindful. Don’t call during meals, and don’t bother the guards with minor things.

I’ve already heard about what you can do, and I know that you don’t need much help, but if you are in any danger, call them, if it is more immediate, feel free to call me.”

“Really? What if I need help with… other things?”

“Each of your five are the future of this nation, and I know the hardships that come from being stronger than your peers. I will try to help you to grow into people who can help others the way that I believe you should.”

“Can this stop a knife?”

“If I said yes, would you test it?”

“No.”

Fomoria instantly knew that was a lie.

When Jake came out, he seemed to be trying to make himself smaller.

“It feels like nothing at all, doesn’t it?”

He nodded.

“Shift it into something thicker then, purposely restrict your movements. Shifting suits can take some getting used to for some people.”

“Umm… did you have a problem with them at first?”

“No, mine was a suit of armor, it wasn’t quite as free as these ones made of chainmail. Now I feel naked if I don’t wear one, and I find real clothes to be restricting. You could also wear normal clothes over or under your suit if that is more comfortable for you.”

Jake shook his head.

“Then to my lab we shall go.”

He opened a gate, normal, not void, he wasn’t trying to scare them, much; he almost forgot to give the pin to the boy.

They marveled at the sterile white room, though they were just in a test range, and the room was quite barren.

Fomoria had expanded the lab area quite a bit, adding several floors and dozens more rooms.

Its size now rivaled his home above them, as each Other that worked in the labs added whatever rooms they needed to carry out their experiments.

This had an unfortunate side effect of it becoming increasingly labyrinthine since they never really marked the rooms, each Other just remembered what they were doing and where they were doing it; sometimes they tried to add more rooms only to find one already in its place.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“It smells weird.”

Jake pushed into Kel slightly, trying to tell her to be quiet.

“That is because this place has no outside air. Arrays constantly recycle what is breathed out, but when alchemical ingredients are used, sometimes the array is unable to filter them out entirely, so their smells blend together in an odd mix. Though what you are smelling here is ozone. Jake, I assume you know this well?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Loosen up, no need to be shy. I have targets set up here, show off what you can do, be confident in your power.”

They stepped up to the counter and Fomoria prompted him to push the button.

From the ground, human shapes formed from stone.

Fomoria placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“You say you can use lightning, so come, show me.”

He stuttered, miscasting the spell at first, then followed it up with his voice cracking, miscasting once more.

“Loosen up, there is nothing to fear in this place, I am just trying to help, I’m not here to judge you, that happened before you got here, when you earned the right to be here.

You are young, powerful for your age, understand that, don’t be afraid of it.”

Jake took a deep breath, and Kel rubbed his shoulders a little, then he spent the next few minutes firing bolts at targets both quickly and accurately.

“Good, but let me show you true lightning.”

Fomoria pointed two fingers, but made no signs, nor chants.

What was most strange to the boy however, was how quiet his lightning was.

Fomoria and he had two different ideas about shooting the bolts.

Jake tried to recreate the natural phenomenon, which wasn’t a bad idea, however this subconsciously made his more thunderous both when it formed and after it launched.

Fomoria’s made sound only when it struck and blew the statues apart.

“Tell me, what difference do you see?”

“You can make them much stronger, and you don’t need to use movements or words.”

“Chants and signs, please use the proper terms when speaking about magic to avoid confusion.

But power isn’t the biggest thing that changes between us. What elements make up lightning?”

“Fire and light, half and half.”

“That is what my teacher would’ve called false lightning. Instead of half and half, use 40% light, 40% fire, and the final 20% should be air. Next, you make thunder with your spell, meaning that you are also accidentally putting in a little air without realizing, since air directly leads to sound magic.

I would guess that your lightning is better than most people your age because you are already making something between true and false lightning. But, you are also wasting mana by adding in that air and then only using it for what ultimately is an illusion. Go, try again.”

Jake shot more bolts, and found that they were better by nearly a half over his other ones after just ten minutes of putting his advice into practice.

He looked down at his hands and began to make fists.

“Go, dance, cheer.”

Jake followed his heart.

He felt great, such a small bit of guidance from the king improved him by leaps and bounds in just a few minutes.

“Next, try to shorten your bolts. The reason why we use a fireball is to compress that heat, it is why a flamethrowing spell is only used in times when you really need that spread.”

“Should I make a lightning ball?”

“No, lightning is also important for its precise nature, you want to focus it on as small an end point as you can. But back to what I was saying, your bolts seem to start at your fingers, which is dangerous due to the risk of splash back. Instead you should focus on starting your spell in front of your hands. This also shortens the distance between you and your target ever so slightly. A spell almost always loses power over a distance, so don’t keep channeling your mana until it reaches the target, cast the spell, keep your lightning short, and let it fly. Most of the tail end of the lightning is just wasted in the end.”

Jake lit up the more Fomoria taught him, but he was only giving the children an hour of his time individually, and since these two came as a group, each would only get 25 minutes just to account for them needing to get dressed, greetings, so on and so forth.

For the next lesson, Kel’s, he brought her to a forest quite a ways away from the city itself.

He noticed how she tensed up the moment they arrived.

“So you feel it?”

Jake looked at his friend strangely when she hesitated to speak.

“This place… is alive…”

She began to tear up, worrying Jake.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She is sensitive to earth mana, and this place is flooded with it.

Kel, this here is my forest where I grow my mimic trees, among other magical plants.

But what I want you to do first is grow this sapling as best you can in the next five minutes.”

She sniffled and wiped her eyes; it was somewhat ironic to have a fire in one’s eyes when they were showing off their green thumbs.

Kel knelt on the ground, despite the winter, this place was kept warmer by a large number of arrays.

This was for two reasons, firstly, it made the plants grow better, secondly, it brought animals into the forest which preferred the warmth, and these animals fed the trees; there was also more oxygen added into the environment.

As Kel was caught up with her small tree, Jake began to wander.

He went to pick a nice looking flower, and was nearly dragged into the small pond by choking kelp, which was being grown as a possible material for powerful ropes.

Fomoria stared down the hivemind of flowing watergrass, and it listened to his order.

“Do be mindful, this forest being alive wasn’t a metaphor or exaggeration.”

Fomoria reached down and plucked the flowers for Jake.

“Here.”

He hadn’t even paid any mind to what they were.

When Kel finished, she was a little tired, but Ibexians were all naturals at earth magic, and she also had a water alignment to match it, making nature magic well… second nature to her.

“Did I do well?”

Fomoria poked and prodded the small tree, six inches in height with twisting branches and dense foliage.

“When I was your age I tried my hand at nature magic for the first time. I was inspired by a book I read of great mountain trees and druids. Are you aware of the term?”

“A druid is… Sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”

“The druids were a specific civilization in the first age, and they heavily specialized in nature magic.

Their cities were housed in massive trees, and these trees were also weapons. They could walk, act as mana batteries, and their sheer size made a swipe of their roots able to wipe out entire armies.

The modern use seems to be a reflection of this, a term for a dead people, but who were so strongly associated with nature that Aarde made them the natural term for any mage who uses mostly nature magic.”

“I don’t really get what you mean.”

“I am not a druid, I have spent too much of my time spreading out my interests and focusing on destruction more than creation. But you, I could see you as a druid; this is a very fine tree.”

He reached down and made a square pot of clay, then dug up the tree and put it in the pot.

“I am sorry to say that I have little real advice to offer you, I am not an expert on this magic.

But, I want you to know that you could surpass me easily if you keep working on this.

Take care of this tree here, grow it however you want, but, I would recommend you look at grafting, the process of fusing plants together so they take on traits from both. My father is honestly probably the better nature mage between us, and he made a tree that grew lemons, apples, and grapes.”

“Is he a powerful mage?”

“No, at least, he wasn’t last I saw him. When he was younger, he tried to join the army, and they said that he had no aptitude for magic, but now he is learning, because he found out what he wanted to do with magic, he wanted to better farm.”

He had shown the two around some more, which is what Kel wanted, since just learning of new plants would help her to try and recreate them from mundane ones.

“What is your goal with your magic?”

“I want to help people.”

“Why?”

“Because it is right.”

“Why?”

“Because… it feels good.”

“Ultimately, a mage is a selfish person, even if they help others.”

The accusation offended Kel.

“I am NOT selfish.”

“But you admitted it yourself, you help others to feel good.”

“That isn’t selfish.”

“If it didn’t make you feel good, would you still do it?”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Yet just before, you said that it is right because it felt good. Your reasoning is circular.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I meant that…”

She tried to explain herself, but couldn’t put her thoughts together in any way that wasn’t exactly what she had already said or sounded like she was lying to herself.

“Kel isn’t bad.”

“It is good to defend your friend, but can you explain further?”

“It doesn’t matter if she helps because it makes her feel good, because she is still helping.”

“Kel, do you agree with Jake?”

“No, I’m not selfish.”

“Let go of the idea that being selfish is evil. I am selfish, I help because it is the right thing, because not doing the right thing makes me feel bad, which is not any different than it making you feel good.”

“But you give up so much to us, how can you be selfish?”

“As I said, my reason for helping is to avoid feeling bad. I destroy myself because feeling bad is worse than whatever physical pain is inflicted on me.”

“That’s not being selfish.”

“I don’t agree. What I am doing is not trying to insult you, but to make you think about why you do what you do, and to understand that having a tendency that others may consider bad isn’t a moral failing, it is just human nature. Don’t let how you are perceived by others change what you want to be, because a mage must have an independent mind to reach their greatest heights, they must understand themselves, confront what they believe they are, and ultimately come to be their own person.

Our time is coming to a close, do you have any more questions? Perhaps you would like to ask something in private?”

Kel still wasn’t happy with Fomoria, but Jake finally finished what he wanted the flowers for, and put the flower crown on her, slipping them around her horns, and her anger faded; Fomoria took a closer look at the flowers, his mind falling to a darker place for a moment.

“Yes, I would like to ask something in private.”

Jake had warmed up immensely as he recognized Fomoria’s kinder nature.

He sat with the boy in his office.

“Can you make me an Ibexian?”

“Technically yes, but really no.”

“What does that mean?”

“An Ibexian is a being that is bound by a pact with the god Anu, even if I made you look like one, you would never be an Ibexian, and your children? I’m not even sure what that would do.”

Jake blushed

“Who said anything about that?”

“You want to be with Kel, right? So you would trade in your bare skin for fur, you’d trade antlers for horns.”

He just sat there and twiddled his thumbs for a minute.

“Yes, I love her.”

“Why the orange Lotus’s?”

“It’s her favorite flower, I saw them and thought she would like to wear them.”

Fomoria went silent. He saw a reverse of he and Adina in the pair, but as they went around, he saw them as also being allowed to have childhoods unlike him.

By 14 he was jaded, full of anger and resentment, he had killed men, but these two seemed purer.

“I will ask, figure out if you could accept the Ibexian pact, otherwise, when you are 18, if this is still what you want, I will give you an Ibexian body. But I need to ask, what about your parents?”

“Oh… I guess that would be odd… I’ll talk to them. You promise though, you’ll do it?”

“I will also need to speak with her when the time comes, but before I do that, you should eventually make your feelings clear to her and ask her opinion about what you want to become.”

Jake thanked Fomoria and then went outside.

Kel came into his office and sat down.

“Can you make me into a Faun?”

He burst out in laughter.

----------------------------------------

As he looked at the aftermath, he wondered about what he had become.

These thoughts faded away, he saw this second guessing as nothing but weakness.