Jin wakes up slowly, mind still trying to pick out reality from dream, and cracks her eyes open.

She then regrets this decision instantly when she sees that damn ring in the sky. She groans. Why couldn’t this be the dream instead?

Sage lifts her head and sees Jin stirring through half lidded eyes. She rubs at her eyes and yawns, “Ahhhhhhlright~” She moves easily to her feet and stretches. “We better-” she cuts off with another yawn, “-get a move on so we can make it to my village before nightfall.”

“Mmrph,” Jin complains, but she shifts herself into a sitting position. Her hip still aches horribly. She blearily blinks around the glade. The chopped wood rests against the stone of the overhang, and the cooking utensils are nowhere to be seen. They’re likely within Sage’s pack, which is being swung onto the girl’s shoulders now. A spicy smoky smell lingers in the air - right, the ‘song flowers’. Sage must have put them in the fire while she was asleep. The smell is strangely pleasant.

“Do you think you can walk there? Or are you gonna use another miracle chair?”

“Mmmrrrrrgh,” Jin responds while rolling to her good side to try and stand. She manages after a minute of struggle where Sage hovers nearby with hands half raised ready to help if needed. Jin’s recently diminished pride is still enough to get her on her feet without help, however. She tests her left leg and finds a somehow worse ache than before her nap. Magic chair would be a lot more accurate, but not having to walk more feels enough like a miracle that Jin’s willing to lean into the name. “Miracle chair,” She finally declares.

Sage grins, “Okie dokie, let’s go!” She takes large exaggerated steps in the direction back down to the road. Jin conjures her ‘miracle chair’ and follows.

Jin eyes the sky again looking for the position of the sun. “How long did I sleep for?”

“Mm… About three hours I think? I was fixing to wake you up myself, but you have good timing I guess!”

“Hm.”

Jin is tired. Physically and mentally. Plus her hip hurts! She can’t sit comfortably, but walking would just have her limping the whole way there. Jin adjusts herself while hissing in pain. Sage frowns at her.

“I didn’t bring any with me, but we have stuff for pain back home. I know the church does anyway, and I think Momma keeps a good supply for when her hands start aching real bad.”

Jin grunts, “Does it work?”

Sage pauses, “I mean, I think so? Momma says it helps, but I was just a kid when she gave some to me for my foot but like, kids will believe anything. If you say dunking their foot in jam makes it feel better they believe you, even when their foot still hurts after!”

Jin gives her a quizzical look.

“Pommen jam doesn’t actually work as a pain killer.” Sage says as explanation.

“I… didn’t think it would?”

Sage nods sagely, which is to say with all the seriousness of someone about to deadpan a load of bullshit, “It’s a common misconception you see. Imagine, a village full of children running around with buckets of jam stuck to their feet trying to hit jamless kids’ feet with sticks so they have to join the jammers.” She shakes her head solemnly, “Much jam was lost, and many rears smacked with spoons. Smacks that, as we all learned, cannot be cured with more jam. I still mourn it to this day.”

Sage catches Jin’s eye with a glint in her own. Jin can’t help it, she starts laughing and Sage immediately joins in.

Jin recovers mostly, “I take it you were one of the kids with buckets on their feet?”

Sage’s laughter picks up before answering, “I led the pack! No kid was better at running with injured feet in buckets let me tell you. No adult could chase me down!”

Both girls laugh again and Jin can feel her body wide tension relax minutely. Everything still hurts, of course, but it seems to matter just a little less. Sage takes the lead again with a self satisfied look on her face.

The two continue their journey in a better mood than before.

Their surroundings get rockier as they continue, and the road starts to curve upwards to keep up with the movement of the terrain. A variety of trees litter the woods, far different from the beech forest Jin remembers. The further they go, the curvier the road gets.

With a nap to help sort out her mind, Jin finally stops chewing on some of her thoughts and starts asking questions. Unfortunately, Sage proves to not be the best source of information on what happened between the time Jin started her experiment with the hourglass and now. She did know the story the church told, but it only vaguely describes the sins of man destroying them from within and the gods having to come clean the mess up, and it’s through their divine justice that yadda yadda yadda- Jin isn’t very interested in religious propaganda at the moment.

She moves the topic to something more directly relevant, “So, what reaction should I expect from this church of yours? You still call me a cleric and I assume they will too? Or is there some kind of ceremony I have to undergo before they accept that I’m not an ‘abomination to man’..?”

There’s old stories from times when mages weren’t an essential part of society. Stories of people terrified of mages and their power, where someone could be burned at the stake just for talking about magic. Based on how Sage treats her, Jin isn’t expecting a pitchfork mob any time soon. Yet, the stories keep returning to the forefront of her mind.

“Abomination..? No no, clerics are super respected. As far as ceremonies go I’m pretty sure you’ll be treated a lot better if you officially join the church but like, I don’t see anyone doing more than scoff at you if you don’t. Or yell at you maybe.” Sage frowns in thought, “But ehh, probably not. Just seeing you use miracles from the gods will surely put you in everyone’s good graces. Ooh! You should show them that orb of light! That looks everything like I’d expect a miracle to look like!” Sage grins and continues.

“Priest Herrick will probably want to speak with you of course, and I think you want to speak to Librarian Mirriam. She’s really smart and can probably answer some of those questions of yours about the world. Haha… Ahem, we’re gonna hold mass here in a couple days? Yeah, in two days. Mm… I think people would be offended if you didn’t attend at least one.”

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Jin nods with a frown. A not so small part of her still wants to believe none of this is real. Claims of divinity, a new nebulous status in the eyes of others, and the destruction of an entire civilization. It’s a lot to take in.

Sage frowns too and watches the road ahead looking thoughtful.

They stop for a few minutes to eat and fill up water at a nearby creek, but rather than go foraging Sage busts out the last of the jam and flatbread for them to share. Jin never got around to trying it last night, and is surprised to find the red jam tastes kind of like apples? But more tart and peachy with… cherries..? Yes there’s definitely a cherry flavor in it. Sage confirmed that only a “pommen” fruit went into the jam’s making, though. They run out of flatbread before Jin is full, but she doesn’t complain.

It’s a long walk and Sage starts idly chatting about her family members and other stories from her childhood. Jin is shocked to learn that Sage has four other siblings; one older brother, two younger brothers and one younger sister. More surprising is that her youngest sibling is only seven.

“How old are you anyway, Sage?”

“Twenty one winters! You?”

“Add two.”

Sage nods agreeably. The sun is setting somewhere behind the tree line. Jin wonders if Sage is using ‘winters’ to keep track of her age for fun, or if they actually don’t have calendars where she lives. Jin is about to ask when Sage skips around one bend in the road up ahead and strikes a pose.

“Welcome to Rock Orchard!”

She holds both arms up and twirls on one foot. Jin catches up and sees past the rocky outcropping blocking her view before.

They’ve been heading north towards the mountains for the entire trip and still are a good ways away from the full mountain range, but there’s plenty of hills in the area.

The village is situated around the base of a couple tall hills. Sprouting from somewhere between the hills is a river that cascades downwards in a mixture of waterfalls and short river segments. A road winds up most of the hill, and bridges can be seen spanning most river segments, despite the hill being populated only by plant life in its higher sections.

Several flattened plots of land supported by cobbled stone walls can be seen hosting gardens and orchards.

One particular plot on the hill, at what Jin guesses to be three stories up from the ground level, has several people bustling around a plaza, as well as a large stone building that Jin instantly recognizes to be a church. Despite everything, holy sites still love stained glass windows, huh?

“It’s… beautiful.” There’s almost a question in Jin’s voice, like she’s expecting to be proven wrong at any moment. Sage grins in response.

“It’s the best village on this side of the Peaks! According to Librarian Mirriam… Huh, you know she was probably lying, she’s never been anywhere else south of the Peaks.” Sage wrinkled her nose quickly before smoothing the expression out with another smile.

“Well! Let’s go to my house first, I guess. I’ll show you around later tonight or tomorrow, depending on how long dinner lasts. Ooh, and there will be a feast tomorrow! We always have one the day before a sermon. Lucky timing for you! Everyone will already be prepping for it so you won’t have to deal with a spur of the moment feast, those are always a mess. One time when my father and some of his friends came back from a hunting trip…” Jin stopped listening.

The two follow the road to the first cluster of buildings at the edge of the village. The trees from the forest are thinned to non-existence dozens of meters from most buildings. The nearest cluster of houses have a large grove of fruit trees acting as a barrier between them and the forest beyond. The trees have bright red fruits weighing the branches down. As they approach Jin gets a better idea of scale and realizes that each fruit is easily the size of her head.

The yard of a large building near these houses is littered with red stained buckets and wooden tools.

Jin, realizing she’s still actively maintaining a spell, steps to her feet and dispels her miracle chair. She’s pretty sure her hip doesn’t hurt any less, but she’s at least dealt with it long enough to ignore the pain for now. She doesn’t plan on hiding her magic per se, but the promise of food is a strong enough motivator to avoid any chance of a mob of villagers wanting to talk to her.

Just in time too, it looks like. A boy hitting a wooden ring with a stick comes out from behind the building and spots the two girls. He starts running towards them screaming and waving, stick and hoop abandoned.

“Sage Sage Saaaaage!”

A dark haired boy with more freckles than Sage runs straight into her at high speeds. Sage, clearly expecting this, turns his momentum into a spinning hug while laughing.

She holds him with one arm and digs her knuckles into curly black hair with another. The boy tries to bat Sage’s hand away while simultaneously hugging her to poor results.

“Hey Basil! Are you shirking your chores at the cannery again? Oh! This here is Jin, say hi to Jin! Jin, this is my little brother, Basil.”

Basil jumps off of Sage and takes a good look at Jin. His eyes go wide. “Woah! That’s that girl! Her eyes really are gold!”

He scoots closer to Jin and looks into her eyes, “Sage her eyes are gold! They’re gold! Just like you said!” He starts… Jumping in circles around Jin? And chanting “golden eyes” on repeat. Jin fails to hold back a sigh. Looks like Sage’s energy is genetic.

Sage lifts a hand to her mouth to poorly cover her grin, “Basil! Don’t be rude, say hi.”

“Hiiiii~!” He says while twirling like a top in place with his arms stretched out. Sage gives up her stern adult charade before she even starts and laughs.

“Hey Basil, why don’t you go tell Momma that I’m back? And that we have a guest!”

“Okie dokie! Momma already knows, Priest Herrick told us!”

Sage tilts her head and follows Basil’s pointed finger to the large plateau up the hill with the church on it. It’s easier to see now that they’re closer. The crowd of people are bustling around with stacks of food or setting up chairs and tables. One man spots them from the distance and waves. Sage waves back.

Basil stares at Jin for a long moment, “Are you really a cleric, miss?”

Jin frowns and backtracks through the conversation to remember when that was brought up. It wasn’t. She looks up at where a man is still standing with his hand half raised in a wave. He has a bulky looking silver chain necklace she can barely see from the distance. Her eyes glitter with magic as she squints at the man, but she quickly looks back towards Basil, “I… Yes, how did you know?”

Basil grins wide. His dimples are even deeper than Sage’s, “I told you, Priest Herrick told us!”

Jin looks back at the no longer waving man to see him turn and talk to someone. She catches Sage’s eye with a questioning look. Sage just shrugs in response. “He’s a priest, the gods tell him things sometimes.”

“Right…” What, are all church members secretly mages or something? If that was the case then why would they classify clerics separately? Or do they have mages that scry surrounding areas that send ‘revelations’ to priests? That seems …likely? Especially with that necklace of his. She wants to get a better look at it.

Jin sighs and shakes her head. She’ll get answers soon. Hopefully. Sage manages to shoo Basil off and the young boy starts running through the streets shouting, “Sage is back! Sage is baaaaack!”

Sage smiles after him, then nods her head down the road, “Looks like it’ll be a feast tonight! Guess the gods saw you coming and wanted you to feel welcomed.”

“Yeah, sure.” One point for a network of mage spys.