Riko makes it out to the grassy spot before we do and lounges comfortably in the sun. We have to wait for a bit until John arrives with my food. I sit with Emily as she eats lunch and talks to her friends. Besides Jess, I haven't seen much of them lately, and I don't know how much Emily has seen them either. I get up after a bit, once John turns onto our street, meeting him out front and taking the food with a smile and thanks.
"Looking a lot better," he says immediately, and ruffles my hair. Is it really that obvious?
Not having a constant phantom ache punctuated by sharp spikes of pain whenever I think? Yeah, it's going to be that obvious...
He leaves with a wave and I go in to eat. I still don't have the sort of appetite as I did before, even though that mana injury healed. Once I'm finished, we head out to meet Riko again.
There are a lot more people coming and going through the North Gate now, usually the peasants who go out to gather every day. People further south tend to go through the place where the West Gate was, traveling through a cleared section among the wreckage.
There are only two guards at the North Gate when we approach, a sign of how thinly they're stretched. They've kept up the defensive line around the reconstruction area. Even with the four magical creatures helping out in the forest, some nasty things have slipped through a couple times throughout the last week, so they're still on alert.
As for the traffic through the gate, it sees most in the morning and at night, so it's not as crowded in the middle of the day. Except for today of course. Since way more of the peasant class is going to church now, there are plenty of them leaving late to gather after church. Not too many thankfully, so we don't get crushed between bodies like a few of the heavy traffic days we've seen before.
While everyone else leaving the gate turns left toward the forest, we go straight ahead, meeting Riko in the little grassy spot just a short distance down the road. Now that it isn't such a big deal to travel through the gate, this spot might work better if I want to talk to Effy again, except that there are way more people nearby, a shallow hill the only thing keeping us out of sight...
I'll probably keep meeting her in the forest if I need to.
Sitting down in the grass, Riko hops into my lap so I'll pet her. This is my first real chance to just sit and pet a cat, so it's nice to just feel her fur. Surprisingly, it's not quite as soft as Kiara or Myra's. She pouts and huffs a little at the comparison, but can't really deny it. Myra sends a laughing thought at Avara, that she definitely has the best fur, which just leads to sputtering, embarrassed denials from Avara, and everyone chuckles a little. I'd like to pet her too, I point out, see for myself who has the best fur.
"Oh, that reminds me!" I realize aloud. Emily jumps a little, I think I startled her. "Ah, sorry."
"No, it's just that you were staring off, so I figured you were, you know, focusing elsewhere." She gives a small wave of her hand to refer to all of the other animals.
"Sort of, that's what I was reminded about. I wanted to tell you that I got three more."
"Really?" her eyebrows go up.
"Yeah, sort of. They're magical creatures, not animals," I explain. Emily's mouth drops open a little.
"How did you get magical creatures?"
"Myra knew them, it was her idea. To get more help protecting the town."
She pauses. "Huh, that makes a lot of sense," Emily says, then smiles a little. "Good idea."
"Only the best," Myra shoots back. When I relay that to Emily, we both break into a fit of giggles. Even Riko gives an amused 'meow.'
----------------------------------------
"Alright, alright." I'm glad the mood is lighter, because I had some time to think about what I want to do while waiting for lunch. The extra time just made me even more nervous about actually doing this. Since pushing at that weird alien knowledge I picked up didn't help any, I'm going in completely blind. Who knows how easy it might be to seriously mess something up?
Before I have time to go over all the horrible possibilities again and lose my nerve, I take Riko in my lap and form another one of those connecting surfaces like I did with all of my mind-speaking tests. One end goes over into Riko's mana well, which is actually a lot larger than it was before.
I don't remember how exactly big it was back when I converted her, but this must be at least five or ten times what it was. Because she has my mana now? That's the only real change from before, so that's probably it.
Moving on, I'm not sure exactly what to do, so I start by just putting the connection in her mana well.
No, this isn't right, I realize. If I mess up, something could happen to Riko. So I swap things around. I'll do it from her, on myself.
I put the connection in my own mana well instead. Nothing happens, so I try connecting the other end to Riko's barrier, like when I use mind-speech. Nothing. So I connect to the inside of my mana well instead of just sitting it in the small pool at the bottom of my well. Nothing. I try connecting her side to her mana well, and there's still nothing.
"Probably because we're both you," Riko volunteers. "Same mana, right? Same soul?" When she puts it that way, it makes me cringe. I usually try to ignore how I'm always aware of the others all the time, their thoughts, feelings, everything. Because even if they aren't me, they... kind of are.
Unfortunately, now that I'm looking at it directly, I know exactly what Riko is talking about. We share everything, so there's no way I can try to change anything, since, well, I'm already on the other end too. It's a little hard to wrap my head around logically, something about how I feel my own mana in my mana well and how it's exactly the same as Riko's, because we're actually the same.
What it comes down to: I can't do this myself. I need someone else to test it on.
"Aria, what's wrong?" Emily asks.
"I... I can't do it," I admit. "It doesn't work with Riko because she has my mana," I explain. How could I possibly test this?
"Could you use hobins again instead?" Emily suggests.
No, that wouldn't work. "I won't be able to get any feedback, any explanation about whether what I'm doing actually works." I mumble while shaking my head.
I need something... someone intelligent. Someone that can communicate with me. Without being me.
I need a person.
Absolutely not. No way. Never. I have no idea how dangerous this could be. Testing it with a human being goes against all of my training. There has to be another way. I shake my head in frustration.
"Aria." Emily puts a hand on my shoulder. "y-"
"No." I cut her off before she can even say it.
She frowns at me and glares a little. "You didn't even listen."
"I won't practice with you, it could be dangerous. We're talking about messing with your soul. I don't even know exactly what that means."
"Fine," she huffs. "But you need someone who can tell you if it's working, right? You need a person, there's no other way."
"Maybe I could..." I can't think of anything. Someone intelligent who can tell me about the results. The only ones who fit that are humans, animals that have a an intelligent soul in them, or the gods. I can't talk to any except Reena, and testing on her would defeat the entire purpose of finding out whether she was telling the truth. Humans are no good either.
That just leaves... "Oh... No..." I mumble under my breath.
"What's wrong?" Emily asks.
"I had a really bad idea. I don't like it, but..." I bite my finger.
"Come on, tell me. What is it?"
I speak slowly, unsure if I should even be saying this out loud. Letting it be anything more than a thought. "The only other things intelligent enough to communicate are the animals I put my soul in. So maybe..." My voice falls until it's a tiny squeak. "It would work on an animal with a human soul in it."
Emily pauses, her eyes twitching slightly wider. She looks down into my lap. "You could... put my mana in Riko, couldn't you?"
My heart thumps loudly in my ears. "I could." I barely get the words out. I have no idea how terrible this idea might be. And... "I don't know, I still don't want to risk Riko like this," I admit. "It's not fair to her. That she would be the one in danger if I mess up. I should be the only one who risks getting hurt doing this. Instead of putting your soul in her, I'd rather
I shake my head. Emily is waving a hand in my face, only stopping when I react.
"Aria?" Emily blinks at me with concern. "Are you alright? You kind of..." she gestures vaguely. "I don't know, I think I lost you there for a bit."
"Yeah, I'm fine. Uhh, what were we talking about?" I take a slow breath, finding my heart rate really fast for just sitting here like this.
That makes her even more worried. "We were talking about you trying to mess with souls by putting mine in Riko, but you said you didn't want to risk her and..." she trails off. "Oh." She stares at the ground with a complicated look. I raise an eyebrow, but it's just for a moment before she jolts a little and immediately continues speaking. "Can't you just ask her? As long as she's fine with it, it's not that much of an issue, right?"
"Mmm," I grumble, but put the thought to her anyway.
"Sounds interesting," she purrs at me. Partly just to mess with me because I'm so nervous.
"And you have to sort out your own reaction to that last bit," Myra suddenly speaks up out of nowhere, with an unspoken feeling of 'that was not ok' beneath her words. What reaction? She forcibly stops me from thinking back to it with the command, "Think about it later. Alone."
"Alright..." I respond silently, and make myself move on from... whatever that was. "Riko says she's fine with it. Are... are you ok, Emily? You know, with, uhh..." I wave my hands around slightly before finding a really bad way to put it. "Becoming a cat?"
That draws a wide grin from her. Excited and worried at the same time. Maybe a little scared. "Sure, let's do it." I ask Riko a second time to make sure she's super sure, and when she agrees with a swat at my hand, I lower my head a little.
"Alright. Tell me if you want to stop. If you think there's anything wrong. Anything." She nods seriously.
Resolving myself, I pull Emily's colorless mana. She only has a little outside of her well, so I take a some time to mix mine into hers to make more of it before putting back what I took. Now I just need to... "Hmm." Now there's an unexpected problem.
"What is it?" Emily asks, my expression giving me away.
"It's Riko's mana well, she has more mana than I do right now. It's going to be hard to make enough with what I have- Oh, no." I shake my head. "Easy fix." First, I put all of my own colorless mana back into my well. Then I pull from Riko's well, take that out and dump it into my own well, and pull more out of hers. It's a simple, but slow process. There's no way I'm about to cut corners, not after last time.
I do get better at it as I go though, the actions all blend together until I'm pretty much drawing the mana directly out of her well, right over into mine. I have to take about half before I think I have more than she does. From there, I reach down to her core, my own colorless mana embedded at the base of her well.
"Ok, I'm going to do it now," I warn her, and Emily jerks her head in a nervous nod. I sink through the structure of Riko's well to reach the colorless mana, and use Emily's to convert it. It shifts, the entire well grinding soundlessly, and I start dumping more of Emily's colorless mana into it.
Oh.
I forgot about how little mana I can hold compared to the size of the wells. Everything I can hold is like a tiny little bit once it goes inside her well. I begin to rapidly draw more from my own well, mixing it with what I have left of Emily's and dumping that in too. I have no idea if remaining stuck like that for any length of time could cause problems, so I push my concentration as far as it will go, manipulating dozens of chunks of mana at once as I mix and dump it into her well as fast as I possibly can.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
It takes one tick, then another, as I strain to add more tiny drops of Emily's colorless mana, before the well finally finishes converting.
I flinch, badly. It's like a part of me just... stops existing.
Sitting across from me, Emily has almost the exact same reaction.
She stares down at Riko for a few long moments.
"Oh. Ok," she speaks flatly. "This is happening." She presses a hand to her cheek and she keeps talking to no one. "I can see my own face." Riko mimics the gesture with her paw. "Both of them..." Emily breathes...
It doesn't look like the shock is wearing off. I lean forward, touching her shoulder to get her attention on me. "Emily, are you alright?" I ask.
"Y-yes, I think so. It's just... is this how you feel all the time? With all, what? All eleven of them?"
"Uhh, yeah," I answer awkwardly, "though I don't usually pay attention to all of them all the time. And it's only ten now," I remind her as that part occurs to me.
"Right..." she answers vaguely.
"So, are you ok?" I ask again. "No problems or anything?"
"No, I don't think so. There's just... something..." She squints hard. "I don't know how to explain it. Something about Riko feels... different than I feel. Like, to myself. I don't know, does that make sense?"
"Uhh..."
She shrugs a little, knowing her description is no good. "There's also her hearing. She can hear everything. It's the water mana, right?"
"Yeah, I got her some a while ago."
"So she could..." Emily suddenly straightens up, shaking a little.
"Emily?" I ask, sliding a little closer.
"Oh... Oh my gods..." she breathes out, staring off into space with tears in the corner of her eyes, a hand coming to clutch at her chest.
"What is it?" I ask, halfway about to start converting Riko back if there's a problem.
"She has your memories." My breath catches. Her voice comes out shaking, speaking fast as her eyes drift a little side to side. "I don't think it's all of them. Just the ones you thought about while she was still you. Is this really...?" Her words fade, unfinished. A moment later, they come back, hardly more than a breath and a few twitches on her lips. "...how you feel?"
I grab her face, stare her in the eyes. "Emily, look at me. It wasn't that bad. Riko has a lot of water mana, it's making them seem worse than they were," I assure her. I have absolutely no idea if it's true or not.
"The things you felt back then... How are you still...?"
"Emily!" I shake her and start diving into Riko. "I'm changing her back."
"No!" Emily throws her arms around me in a painfully tight hug. "Sorry, no, I'm fine. Just kind of overwhelmed. I'm fine. Your memories are..." She fumbles for words before lamely finishing, "...really strong." Then she just breathes for a while, before releasing me. "Alright, sorry about that, I'm fine now. You can get to work."
I stare at her for a little longer, but it doesn't look like she's lying, so I decide to move on like she said. I gulp. "Sure." I can't think of anything else to say. I shake myself a little. It's time to do this.
"Alright, I'm starting now. Tell me if anything feels wrong, alright? Anything at all."
"Ok."
"Even if there's nothing wrong. Any reason. You tell me to stop, I stop."
"Aria, it'll be fine," Emily smirks a little, silently telling me that I'm worrying too much.
"Hoo, ok." I exhale a big breath, then create a connection again. It's made of my own colorless mana, so I'll need to keep adding bits as it gets converted in Riko's well. Like last time, I try dropping the connection into her well first so it just sits in the mana. I don't feel anything as far as I can tell.
Emily narrows her eyes. Did she just respond to that?!
"Are you doing anything yet?" she asks.
"Y-yes," I answer while blinking rapidly. "How could you tell?"
"I don't know, it's like... something in Riko is different. I... I don't know, it's like this tiny feeling she has." The way she says that, it sounds like my soul left some lasting effect on Riko.
"It's not a problem, is it?" I ask.
"No, it's fine. Just... different. I've never felt anything like it before. Like a..." She closes her eyes, thinking hard as she speaks slowly, making small motions with her hands. "Like a weird tingle. Somewhere... I don't know, somewhere I can't place, inside her." She slowly opens her eyes. "Is this what mana feels like?"
"I'm not sure." I shake my head. "I wouldn't say that's what it feels like for me, but I'm also a lot more used to it."
She nods a little. "Alright, keep going," she urges me, so I do. First by connecting my weirdly formed surface of mana to my own barrier. I try poking around or something with the other end in Riko's well, but I don't feel anything, and Emily doesn't have any response. So I try connecting it to the wall of the mana well instead. Did that work?
"Oh." Emily blinks immediately. "That's... really weird."
"What is it?" I ask.
She squints a little, a trace of confusion on her face. "I can hear you, but... not really. Like... like an echo or muffled through a door or something..." Her words come haltingly as she attempts to describe the feeling. Wait, so 'messing with her soul' lets her hear my thoughts? Like mind-speaking does?
Then something finally clicks. "Emily, can you hear this?" I ask aloud, then silently add, "One, two, three, four." She continues to squint into the distance, eyebrows drawing close in concentration.
"It kind of felt like... counting or something?"
"No words?" I ask.
"No," she immediately shakes her head. I gulp. I think I know where this is going. I detach the connection from my barrier. "Oh, it's gone now," Emily says immediately.
"Yeah, just hold on..." I say while pulling the connection over to my well, nervously connecting to mine too. "What about now?" I ask.
"Umm, nothing I can tell..."
"Hmm..." I tilt my head a little, unsure what I'm actually supposed to do. I'm way less nervous about all of this now, since the last one was basically just mind-speaking. But... there has to be more to it, right? I definitely got the impression that Reena was doing more than just that. I glance up at Emily's face, still a little pinched up with focus. She isn't responding to me thinking right now, so it's definitely different than connecting to my barrier, where she could feel me thinking. "How about now?" I think to her.
I feel the difference immediately. Emily blinks too. "Oh, yeah. It's words now," she says. I stare off for a few moments. That feeling when I thought at her. I could actually tell how it worked. How my mana well sent a sort of... weird blob thing, or vibration, or a kind of like spinning something. It feels like a whole bunch of different sensations at once, none of them entirely accurate on their own.
But the important part is how my own mana well kind of moved, sending that strange bubble of information through the connection I formed. Sent it right down the line until it hit her mana well. It's like, I made her move the way I wanted her to move.
I think I get it now. What Reena said about 'non-important' parts of the soul. If the soul is the mana well, or the mana inside it, or maybe all of it combined, then just messing with the movement to put your voice in their mind... that really isn't a big deal at all. I really did blow up at her over nothing.
No, no, there was more to it than that, I have to remind myself again. I can understand her just doing it to speak to me, but she also said, what was it... something about how she was worried about my soul and she was inspecting it. Trying to see if I hurt myself in some way I wouldn't understand.
As far as I can tell by feel right now, connecting to Emily's soul inside Riko just lets me push my words into her head so we can talk mentally, better than just using mixtures of feelings. And actually, I also don't need to worry about overwhelming her like this, do I? The size of the connection I made is the same on both ends, I didn't even have to connect to a larger surface inside of Riko, like I did with just barriers. Maybe a lasting effect from my mana, since I'm connected to Riko's mana well instead of Emily's?
I shake my head a little, I'm getting sidetracked. "Hey, Emily, try thinking back to me," I think toward her, then try to pay attention to the way her well moves in response. Can I hear her like this?
I pick it up. The movement, like a flow of water, or metal being stirred up, pressed on and manipulated slightly by the walls of its own container, her well itself. Experiencing the changes, I wonder, is this the soul? The entire well, its movements, the mana, the structure, all of it?
I risk a touch at those alien thoughts to see if I'm right and... sort of. I'm closer at least. Still missing some key, fundamental thing, but something about the feeling says that yes, the entirety of the well and everything it contains at least resembles the soul a little. Once I've considered that, I turn my attention back to Emily's thoughts. Those movements and ripples themselves don't really mean anything to me, not on their own. But it feels like I'm pulling the information out, drawing it into myself, to my own well.
It arrives, and somehow, I can understand it. "Is it working?" she asks. I can even pick up the curiosity and nerves of her thoughts with the words themselves. Interestingly, it's followed shortly by, "Of course it is." There's no difference in the... 'sound,' or the 'texture' of the motion, but that one was definitely Riko.
"Yeah, it works!" I send the thought back to her excitedly. She smiles, and I can actually pick up the movements of happiness from her. Even Riko meows a little.
Alright, I think to myself. So far, this is basically just a better way to mind-speak. What about other things? Examining the soul like Reena did? Now that I have a somewhat better idea of what a soul actually is, how would I do that? Do I even want to? My goal was to figure out if Reena might have been lying to me. For the most part, I can tell she wasn't. At least, as long as I believe that making non-important changes was referring to talking to me, then I can actually believe her. Of course she wasn't doing anything wrong if she was just talking to me.
But... that feeling, when she was examining my soul for some sort of 'damage,' still bothers me. Why would she do that? Because I told her I'd converted animals? Because... right, because I told her I converted those hobins into non-living things, and I watched... whatever happened when I did it. She wasn't lying when she said that scared her and she was worried I hurt myself. But where would she even look in my soul for something like that? What kind of damage would it even do?
Come on, think... Looking at that gave me those alien feelings that seem to know exactly how all of this works, but it feels like the information is both incompatible with my thoughts and often just too much to consciously think about. When I do, it causes the same sort of phantom pain that trying to interact with mana when my barrier was damaged caused. So... maybe it causes damage to my barrier when I think about it?
No, that isn't my soul. Reena was looking at my soul for damage. Then, damage to... what, the structure or inner walls of my mana well? Ok, that is something to be worried about...
How similar to my barrier are the walls of my mana well anyway? Taking a moment to feel them, they're... really similar, actually. Not quite the same, but they both have that same weirdly bouncy, kind of energetic feeling. I think my mana well is just a bit more bouncy though.
I run the same check inside Riko and Emily too, after asking if it's alright. It's... weird. First off, despite both mana wells having Emily's colorless mana in them, they don't feel exactly the same. Riko's is just a little more similar to mine, I think. That same energetic buzz, but more faint. Maybe that's the difference Emily felt earlier.
As for their barriers, they're very different from one another. Riko's still feels kind of like mine. Somewhat soft and tingly. Emily's doesn't feel flexible, almost at all, just like it was last time.
I'm starting to get it. Especially after feeling how Riko's mana well moved her mana with her and Emily's thoughts. How the well itself directed those changes.
I think the feel of the barrier has to do with its ability to control mana. Which also means that the walls of a mana well are a barrier too. I thought they were different, but they're actually the same... A container for mana, and able to manipulate the mana inside. The barrier in all three of our mana wells is soft, able to manipulate the mana in the well that makes up what's basically a portion of our souls.
The outer barriers are different. Only mine is able to control mana, which is... kind of weird, actually. Riko's is still feels pretty soft, so why can't she?
I try asking and her response is, "Huh... I'm not sure. I can remember how it felt, but something is different."
I glance to Emily. Since it's really her soul inside Riko, she's going to get a very good look at this too. "Give it a try, I want to see if I can feel... whatever happens." I request, sort of uncertain what I'm looking for.
"Alright, here it goes..." Then there's a feeling, slowly growing stronger. A disturbance in Riko's soul as she attempts to control the mana inside her. It's... familiar, in some way I can't place. She keeps trying, but none of her mana moves outside her well. I wonder if I can...
On a strange whim I try to... sort of, think the feeling of controlling mana into Riko's soul. The sensation is weird, like her actions synchronizing with mine. Like I'm guiding her along. At first nothing happens, I have to tweak the method slightly, the feeling of connection with her mana slowly coming into focus as I shift according to some sort of instinct I didn't even realize I had. An instinct for manipulating mana.
It takes a lot of time, but eventually, it works. Her mana starts to move. I can't actually feel if there are any movements from her outer barrier, they must be really tiny. It comes slowly at first, as I settle into the correct methods. I slip a few times and lose the connection as I try to refine it, each time needing to step back or rework the feel to get back on track and improve the control method.
I go on and on, until it finally feels mostly right, and I'm able to get her to a pretty stable place. She gets some mana to just spin in a circle inside her. Slowly, I pull back, letting Riko and, I guess, Emily, maintain it afterward.
I open my eyes, somewhat tired after the amount of work that took. When I look up from Riko to Emily, she has her mouth hanging open in wonder.
I smile at her, and after a moment, she returns it. A big smile with all her teeth showing. "Aria, this is amazing," she says breathlessly.
"Thanks for helping me figure it out. Thank you too, Riko. You were the one who might have gotten hurt. Thank you for doing this for me." I sit and pet her for a bit, drawing away from her mana well. It took a lot of mana to keep that up for so long, but I learned so much. Beyond just being a better way of mind-speaking, actually connecting to a soul allowed me to direct Riko and Emily in controlling mana... I still don't know how you might inspect a soul or what you might find. Thoughts, feelings, memories maybe? Or something bigger, like their personality itself?
Whatever is possible, Reena knows, but she can't tell me. I think she was telling the truth. There are a lot of things she's not allowed to tell me, not allowed to tell mortals, from the sound of it. But she really bent the rules by 'accidentally' having me find out about this, and urging me on by saying I would be able to understand. Even if I didn't understand her message at the time.
"Alright, I'm going to convert Riko back. I have to apologize to Reena."
"Sure," Emily agrees quietly, and Riko rubs her face against my palm as I pet her. This one is easier, I don't need to convert mana from mine to Emily's in order to use it. Slipping into Riko's well, I find the core, where Emily's colorless mana is embedded in that strange solid structure, attached right to the side of the otherwise soft barrier. It makes me wonder what exactly, that structure is. Non-living things like those manastones and rail unit manastones contain the same sort of structure, does that mean it's somehow separate from the soul? I'll think about that more later.
For now, I sink through the structure, convert Emily's colorless mana into mine, and throw more mana at Riko's well until she converts back. With another strange shift, she is part of me again.
Emily shudders, shaking herself. "Wow, that feels weird."
"Yeah, really," I agree.
"Haaaa..." she blows out a huge breath and flops down in the grass, arms and legs spread as she closes her eyes and rests in the sun comfortably. I smile a little, then lie back and do the same.