Breathing in the Elysium air always feels good to me. Not that I need the air anymore, but the spongy-bits in my lungs help me more readily absorb the aether that suffuses this planet and it gives me a bit of a rush.
As it is post lunch I see the martial instructors sparring, Beecham showing his aether manipulators how to change already manifested spells, and that Alchemist trucking along by himself. I should check on his progress before I leave.
Jenna is working with her body pumping student on something regarding grappling when she sees me and gets tripped by her student.
“Ah, Empress. Good to see you.”
“You as well Instructor DeGurgis. When will be the next opportunity for a progress update?”
“We break for trade skills and focused learning in about an hour, if you have the time?”
I nod and then walk off. The student murmurs to Jenna behind me but I decide not to eaves drop or to let Tessa inform me what they said about me. Not going to be my concern for much longer.
“Candidate, it seems you’ve elected self study. How goes it?”
“Who the . . .” He looks up from the bench of bottles and burners. “Oh, pardon, Empress. It’s . . . a recipe has been eluding me and I can’t help but feel that the quality of the aether source is hamstringing my progress.”
“What are you using?” I ask as I look at the recipe on his pop-up screen.
“Intermediate Aether Ink. The recipe says that I can use that instead of condensed mana but it’s not working.” He tosses his . . . stylus? In exasperation.
With a brief inspection of the ink I can tell what the problem is: the average rating of the ink is intermediate, but the Power is only listed at E. Should probably be a C for this recipe. I can remedy that. “Okay, so, I’m going to give you a common product we make on site, but is not listed on the exchange, and an item that I use personally for my engraving.”
I hand over a pill bottle full of condensed aether of ‘C’ power, and a wax-stopped eyedropper with my S-power Aether ink in it. “Lets see what you can make with both of those. I have some ‘B’ power condensed aether as well, but you’ll have to requisition it from your instructor, with the recipe you intend to use it on. In case you wonder why we don’t list it, that pill bottle is worth about 200 credits? The stopper, maybe six or seven hundred.”
“Thank you, Empress!”
“Thank you. You have chosen a rare path and could benefit the people and the Empire greatly. State sponsorship may be in your future.” He’s barely listening as he stares at the S-powered liquid.
There’s a small chance he becomes an elitist for the ‘finest’ ingredients after this, but this attitude is much preferrable to the self-important scoffing I was getting from him last week. With more than a half an hour left before Jenna should be down, I sit down at an adjacent bench, morph my hand and start working on the complicated spellform on my crown that will essentially make it souldbound.
That’s where Jenna finds me. “This really about a report?”
“Yes, and other topics. Mind joining me for a walk?’
She sighs, “lead the way Empress.”
It’s quiet for five minutes or so, before Jenna breaks the silence, “I was talking with Beecham and Meeker yesterday, and they think that we could take as many as thirty students if we had a trade-sill instructor that wasn’t also a combat instructor. And Meeker is much less of an asshole when you’re not around.”
“I do seem to bring out the worst in people. What’s the prevailing opinion on this being a six week course?”
Jenna makes a face at both my comments, not sure which is worse.
“The two external aether users think that this should be two six week courses. The first six based on conditioning, aether manipulation, and infusing intent into the process. And the second period being for melding Aether and martial techniques. Or advanced spell technique. Whatever Beecham called it. For me though, I think it should be the opposite. I can’t imagine trying to infuse your body without having the knowledge to move it first.”
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I laugh at that, “Yes, I remember our first infused fight. I was much the baby giraffe. But why can’t you do it backwards and have the manipulation and conditioning period with the others? Just offset your training a little, and you can combine resources when they overlap.”
“You would fund those extra periods?”
“If it makes sense for our people, absolutely! That’s why I keep picking people that I think will do the job the best, even if they don’t think too highly of me.” We both chuckle at that, but Jenna’s is sad.
“I think highly of you.”
“Thanks?” I shake my head and breath out a heavy breath, “But do you still think you don’t deserve to be with me?” She bites her lip and looks away, confirming my suspicions. “The plan I came up with yesterday thought I could just come here and say that we should start over and try to just be Penny and Jenna. But is that something you would be comfortable with?”
“Yeah, I don’t know. I like being with you and around you. You’re inspiring and dedicated, though surprisingly a mess. But I’m still so afraid that Katie will snap her fingers and you’ll drop me and break my heart?”
I shake my head at that, “It’s funny that you trust me to run a country as the Empress, but you don’t trust my word as a person. That lack of trust doesn’t feel great after how long we’ve been dating.” More emotion bleeds into my voice, and at the end of the statement, I plop down on the beach and hug my knees.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s the wife verses girlfriend thing, Penny. When the two come into conflict, what’s going to happen to me?” She flinches as her statement draws a glare from me.
“Jenna, how many times must we approach this topic? My wife and I have an agreement because she needs a group of blood donors. I wasn’t expecting to click with someone enough to want another relationship, but here we are. Katie has some issues with it, but she knows you’re important to me. This has been true the entire time we’ve been together. Why is it still an issue?”
“Because! I’ll never be wife material to you! I’ll only be the Empress’ girlfriend. What if I want the house and the kids too?” She’s crouched to my level, her hands on my knees crying as she shouts at me. When she finishes, a little fear creeps in as though she let a secret out.
I sniffle, “Why can’t you still have that?”
“What?” she falls back onto her butt, staring past my head.
“I mean, why can’t you be wife material? Why can’t we have kids eventually? There are tier 3 medical devices that can absolutely facilitate that. I’ve checked. It seems to me that you’re making a lot of assumptions about what I want and what you mean to me.” I sigh, tired of processing emotion and dealing with expectations, especially errant ones.
“How about this: knowing that I want to continue being with you, think about what you want our relationship to be. Assume everything is on the table, save ditching Katie, what would you want ‘Us’ to be. I haven’t had the kids talk with Katie in a while, but last I checked she doesn’t want them. So my chance for them right now could include you. If you end up not being able to trust me about these things, be honest.”
“If I wake up from this dream, and you don’t remember any of this I’ll be crushed.”
As much as I don’t feel like comforting anyone in my emotional state, I can see how fragile she is right now. I crawl over to her and kiss her softly. “Still feel like a dream?”
“Every time.”
***
I summoned my shuttle and warped back to Astoria, taking a few moments to collect myself after landing on a strip of lawn near the 15th floor.
I confirm that I have an appointment scheduled in a first-floor conference room here in the Castle. I look around briefly to find that Francesca is here when I see a small sandy blonde wave at me from across the compound. I wave back and ping her with a happy chirp. Dork.
I walk into the space and see no one. I triple check that I have a meeting and then check the topic of the meeting: Manor Optics and proposed resolutions. Hmm, why did Naomi even schedule this without a POC for me to contact?
I close my screens and take a few moments to look around in more detail. On the refreshment cart, there is a wedge of galaxy fruit and a paper folder with documents in it. The letter on top says:
This is the price of defiance.
What follows are a multitude of photos of Katie inflagrante in the Grotto. The last few are different, they are in our loft, and Katie is unconscious and being violated. My hand and then my whole body starts shaking in rage. Katie’s letter had broached that she was abused, these are intended to rub my face in it. As though shaming and violating another human is just another currency. The thin layer of control that keeps my aether steady pops and i teleport us to the 48th floor patio to scream.
All of my hate for the posturing politicians, all my sadness pooling within me, and all the rage of the callous abuse of my wife comes to the forefront. I ball it up into a mass of negative emotions, emotions tainted and black enough to start dissolving my insides, so I push. I push so hard from as deep as the bones in my feet, that gouts of boiling black aether fill the sky at a velocity that shoots the goop far past the foundations of my castle, making the ground shift and shutter as more of the corruption covers it.
Tessa shrinks back from the horror spewing from me, trying to avoid any splatter from the devouring black sludge. She starts to say something, but the rage and screaming don’t let me hear what she’s muttering about. With enough repetition, I start hearing her ask me to stop. I finally do when I hear the tears coming from my synthetic person.