Seed 2

May 20th, 2032.

I was frozen in a mix of terror and awe as I clung to the back of Ultima. Her staff had morphed into a broom, continuing to shine with a dim golden glow. We were flying over the black sands surrounding a great boiling lake spanning thousands of square miles.

The forests were strange and alien, burnt brown trunks with leaves of blue-green in a thousand shapes and sizes, from gnarled gourd-shaped shrubs to pillars of wood twice as big as any tree on Earth.

“This is…” I was lost for words at the alien beauty and strangeness of the world around me.

“Welcome Celia to the Calafia Isles, over two hundred thousand square kilometers of a half buried grave in all its gory glory.” Ultima sounded fond of her home, and I wondered where she had hidden away her quarry. Did she have a pocket dimension too?

“Grave?” I questioned, even as I glanced up at the red sky and yellow sun. “Wait, why is the sky red? It’s not sunset or sunrise.”

“Aeroplankton feed off a mix of light and magic and tint the color of our skies, everything from microscopic specks to billions of gasbags that get eaten by aerial Otherkind like sky whales.”

“That’s the coolest thing I've ever heard,” I whispered excitedly. Vibrating and flapping my hands at the mere idea of seeing gigantic flying magical animals. “How big can these sky whales get?”

“Like fifty-five of me in length?” Ultima said with a bemused smile. “You won't be seeing many, they're migratory and tend to only come here during the winter months to have their calves.”

I nodded, riding the feeling of the ambient magic in the air. It was a warm buzz deep in my heart, like I was being welcomed by the world. It felt right, like a hug from my mom.

Mom. She was going to be so angry and disappointed, wasn't she?

“So this place… the Woven Realm is the source of our world’s myths isn't it?”

Ultima smiled. “Things from my world have been leaking into yours for thousands of years and vice versa so who can say? The Craft is shaped by thought and perception, and magic itself is alive, maybe your world has shaped mine in equal measure.”

Interesting to think about.

The witch had a complicated expression on her face, silver eyes storming with thought, and I wondered what was on her mind.

Then I felt an odd prickle on my back, like the air was full of needles, and I paled. “What—” I paled. “DUCK!”

Ultima reacted in an instant, and we narrowly dodged a bolt of violet light. Which was followed by half a dozen more spells in a half second. Ultima simply sliced the air in a hand chop that released a strange lens of silver light that unmade the attacks upon contact.

“Ultima Grimshaw, The Wandering Abyss! You are under arrest by the authority of the Chantry and of the Pale King, surrender now, or prepare to fight!”

I blinked, what?

“Oh Celia, that is the other reason I'm concerned about maybe taking you on as an apprentice.” Ultima answered as I noted people following us, three people riding giant spider-bats. Their membranous wings unfold as they ride the air currents. They were in all-white cloaks, their features obscured by their billowing clothing and flat masks of eerie red. “That would be the Chantry, a group I suggest you keep your distance from.”

“A bit late for that, aren't we!” I screamed at the witch.

One who was far broader than humanly possible let out a guttural curse. They made a strange wavy thrusting motion flaring with blue light… and a massive surge of hyper-compressed water speared towards us at what felt like the speed of sound.

Ultima laughed at death in the form of a spell, and cast her own spell, flicking her wrist and forming a circle in the air which shimmered with starlight and all the colors of the sky.

Shooting stars filled the air, forming a storm of light that honed in on the three witches. All three of them were scattered like mere dust, tossed aside by the spell, which had countered the hydrokinetic cannon with a stream of stars.

“Close your mouth and shut your eyes, we have to pick up the pace.”

I did as Ultima asked, and the air shattered around us.

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“Oh God I think I'm going to be sick,” I was hit like a truck by nausea. Moving at a third the speed of sound on a staff, was not free of car sickness. “Where are we even?”

I looked around, surrounding us was a mix of open plains and dense forest, blending into one another seamlessly. Filled with strange plants of alien color and texture. I could see odd animals and creatures hiding from our presence, a rabbit with ornate horns inlaid with gold and fur as cyan as the grass. A red-furred three-legged canine, jaws unlatching themselves as they stuck out their tongue in the summer breeze.

I inspected the house which was about two stories with two tiled roofs on each floor. It had multiple windows like compound eyes and a rounded door lined with dull teeth.

“My domain, my home for the last twenty years and hopefully mine for the next century.” Ultima held her staff close to her chest. Blunt claws curled around ornate wood as she sauntered towards a large house. “It's got a far stronger connection to your world, and it leads right into your town.”

I suppose living in a settlement in the middle of a gigantic desert made it obvious where I came from.

I tilted my head. “Puerta Springs?” The witch nodded. “I would ask how you manage to hide but… magic.” I still wondered what were its limitations? So far it seemed to include manipulation of the elements, matter generation, the ability to travel across realities, or at the least the means to exploit natural paths through them.

The witch was murmuring quietly as she pressed her hand against the door of her home. For a moment I swore the house winked at her before its door opened wide on its own.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Just opening the door—” She said, before getting cut off by a voice from within the house.

“Ultima, we’re out of snacks again!” The new voice sounded awfully young. Ultima’s hard expression melted with affection as someone stepped out from the door.

I blinked, then blinked again.

They… he was a small little thing, maybe about four feet tall. Covered in a thick down of fluff, earthy colors of terra preta and rust red, bordering on rose pink. Light scattered around the edges of his body at odd angles. He was long-bodied, a bit like an upright salamander, his head a cross between human and serpent and puppy. His eyes were placed on his lower jaw, and curly dark hair like roses curtained around him. He had two twisting horns where his ears would be.

His eyes are dark things, eyes like pine, like obsidian, eyes dark as night and painted with starlight, tunnels into black diamonds that stole my breath away. Those eyes blinked, and he slightly stuck out his tongue as if confused.

Bebe, que lindo!

“He's so cute,” I squealed. Ultima hid a smile when the little guy hissed at me. “Who’s this little guy?” He held his fluffy arms against his chest, four-fingered paws tipped with pearlescent claws tapping anxiously against one another.

“That would be Arali, he is a cute little freeloader isn't he?” She said while grabbing the small child in her arms, who protested in an odd sing-song voice. A rushing sound of air, and song.

Like the Sumerian underworld?

That was one of my first thoughts as I approached the pair, having done my research. Kur, Irkalla, Kukku, Arali or Kigal were the most common names for the Sumerian afterlife. He did sound young, like one of my little cousins, so that could have made him anywhere from eight to twelve if he aged like a human.

“Ultima, lemme go! Who is this woman!” His voice was a bit shrill, but it seemed naturally soft, only distorted by his emotions.

“I'm Celia Safar Esteban.” I said without thinking, aren't Names rather important when it comes to magic?

He narrows his wide and oddly cute eyes. “You’re not wearing a crown, and I don't see anything heavenly about you, I can understand the void though. You've got a mighty blank expression.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“What?” That was a complete non sequitur and I was now confused.

“He can hear Names, it's pretty much the only safe magic he has outside his own body being tough as nails,” Ultima explained with warm and soft tones as she gently pat her charge on his fluffy head. “And as you can tell he’s never seen a human in his life.”

“You brought a human here, is that smart?” I didn't know you could put that much sass in such a small body, and Ultima coughed.

“I believe it's better we take this inside, it's where your way home is anyways.”

I grimaced at the thought of going home.

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The inside of Ultima’s home was suitably witchy, the walls were covered in ornate patterns, spell circles, and strange geometric patterns filled with words I couldn't read. Rather clean outside the scuffs and casual damage of a well-lived home, with walls of reddish brown intertwined with veins of black.

There were pictures and paintings on the walls. Arali and Ultima were in many of them along with strangers, some far more alien than the pair. The paintings were of lands and places, strange cities of bone and wood and metal, floating forests hanging in the sky with atmospheric jellyfish, and a great rustic sea, speckled with red by the reflection of the endless sky.

That wasn't what I was paying attention to though at this point. Instead staring at myself in a stray body-length mirror. I was checking myself for injuries, scratches, bruises, lacerations, excetera.

Seems I'm doing good then.

I had the same figure and frame as my mother. Short, curvy, and soft, enough to make other girls jealous and I smiled victoriously at that thought. I was wearing a pair of tight jeans that had been torn by the events of today, and a black t-shirt that bulged around my chest. My skin was a bit pale, though I tanned easily unlike my father. I rubbed at my face next, inspecting round cheeks, batting aside my black bangs, my large nose wrinkling at some dust.

I lightly patted a spot on my thigh, feeling the crinkle of a patch, and sighed.

Ultima walked in from a hallway, her staff at her side. She let out a soft whisper, and in a flash of light, a cat-sized fluffy silk moth emerged to land on her neck.

“Luna, it seems you’re finally sick of being nice and cozy in my staff, am I right?” Ultima cooed at the impossibly cute giant moth, lightly tickling her fluffy face. “How about you go and bother Arali for a bit, we don't need him calling in another beast with his song.” Luna saluted her witch and flew off with a fluttering beat of her four wings.

There was a second beat of an uncomfortable silence. Ultima sitting down on her couch, made of an odd pliable leather.

“Please don't send me away.” I blurted out my feelings without thinking, and covered my mouth with my hand. My head was pounding, my heart beating like a drum at the idea of going back to a mundane life.

I was so tired of it all.

Ultima stared at me with an unreadable expression, silver eyes faintly glowing in the dim lighting of her home. “Are you really that certain about learning under my aegis, human?”

I nodded seriously. I had loved magic as a kid, loved books about it even as they were replaced by textbooks and piles of homework and worksheets. I wasn't a kid, I was a prodigy.

I wanted something that was mine. “I can do it, don't count me out, Miss Grimshaw.”

Her eyes crinkled with her smile. “I'll see what I can do.”

I felt elated and beamed up at her.

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Ultima was in a contemplative mood. This was the first stray she had picked up in a long time since she had found Arali. Freshly hatched from a strange egg of organic crystal tougher than even the hardest ironwood, stronger even than mithril and adamant. She had been unable to resist the plea of the girl known as Celia Safar Esteban.

Why did this one girl pull at my heartstrings? Out of hundreds of people, why her?

Then she remembered those tired eyes of brown bordering on black boring into her, the lines of stress, the subtle shake of her hands, the mental and emotional exhaustion bordering on burnout, and remembered another pair of eyes just like those. Eyes that would never open again.

She knew why she couldn't say no to this girl, she just didn't want to think about it.

So here she was. She was hiding her form with the power of light that burned in her soul. Standing in front of the off-white home of a human teenager and her single mother. Celia was very fortunate that Ultima was a bleeding heart.

She had once wanted to be an educator before having her dream beaten out of her by the Chantry.

Her understanding of human technology like the internet also meant she had a public record to show Celia’s mother. She had long since set up her own business, freelance programming which wasn't far off from certain aspects of the Craft. Plus she dabbled with tinkering with human technology here and there, enough to improve her own magic.

Well, here I go.

Ultima in her disguise turned towards the door and loudly knocked and then rang the doorbell for extra emphasis. And not because I forgot it was there.

She blinked, and with a deep breath began to look at the auras around her. Reaching out to her inner self, to that core of stars and flame and chaos dwelling within the heart of her soul.

Her prospective student… Celia was an interesting enigma, the aura of a human. The light of their soul was often stagnant and still, not even able to leave the confines of their skin. Held within a cage of their own making, less an aura and more of a spark. But Celia was different. Celia did not carry an aura like all those borne of the Titans could, but her spark was so much grander, a sliver so dense it warped the light around it, like a living lens, a void in the world.

Her mother was no different. But there was a weariness in that spark, a weight of years and time her daughter had yet to face. Like mother like daughter then?

The door was almost ripped off its hinges. Revealing the crazed hazel eyes of an older Latina woman with dark brown curly hair cascading down her face, wearing a pretty little number, a yellow sundress that fit her curvy frame just fine.

Cute, but she looks pissed.

The woman’s pretty gaze slid off of her in an instant, immediately honing in on her daughter like a vicious predator or a protective mother.

“Celia!” She immediately lunged at her uncomfortable daughter, pulling her into a deep and tight hug. Ultima saw the love, but also noted the slight tremble in Celia’s shoulders.

I don't know what she's been through, but I know her mother doesn't know.

Or worse she did know and didn't care. Ultima hoped it wasn't that, hoped she wouldn't have to see the same scars she had seen on others.

“You would be Celia’s mother then?” She called out quietly, gaining the attention of the woman her own age. Her silver eyes turned a shade of the lightest blue with magic and will. “Took me some time to find your address when I found a lost teenager at my doorstep at the edge of town.”

“Celia… you did what?” The woman hissed, a voice thick with worry, anger, and other emotions.

Celia spoke softly. “I got… overwhelmed, I didn't stop walking until I burnt out and and—” She cut herself off, unable to say any more words.

Her mother didn't say a thing, hazel eyes filled with uncertainty. “You can't keep doing things like this mija, you've been getting into trouble all throughout high school… and even once you graduated it hasn't stopped. And I don't want to—”

Celia pulled herself off of her mother. Her face twisted into a frustration so familiar it hurt down in her heart. “Don’t want to do what?”

The woman flinched. “I've been thinking, my company offers a career summer camp, perhaps it would do you some good to be with kids your age doing something productive.”

“Mama, you work as an accountant, that's not what I'm interested in.” The sheer distaste in Celia’s eyes said many things for Ultima, none of which she would voice out loud.

“And how has following your interests ended so far?” Ultima frowned at the comment and saw the hurt in Celia’s eyes. Saw how her mother almost reached for her mouth.

“You…”

“If you're looking to have your child do something productive, I can offer some assistance.” She butted in before any more words could be said that couldn't be taken back.

“And who are you exactly?” The older woman finally put more attention towards her. By Hel, she's ice cold.

“Names Ultima Grimshaw, freelance programmer, and tinkerer,” she offered a flirty wink, and was rewarded with a scowl and a hint of a blush spreading across the mother’s soft features. “I run a little company that does work around these parts, and have been thinking of taking on an apprentice, to take on some of the minor tasks in my business.”

“My daughter really left a good impression on you then?” There was skepticism directed towards her, and Ultima sighed.

“We had some time to talk while I escorted her home, she seems like a good kid who needs something to keep her interested. She showed interest in my work and I thought why not? I do have all the proper paperwork to have an apprenticeship, if that's something to worry about.”

“Celia is still a minor, I don't know how much she can really do as… part of your business.”

Ultima didn't disregard that factor. “She’s sixteen, isn't she? Old enough to work a job, and I certainly think she's more than capable. My other offer was that she’d be a housesitter and I’d teach her my ways on the side.”

To her surprise, the mother looked intrigued. “House sitting, does that mean you’ll be away?”

Ultima shook her head. “No. I've got my own home, I just inherited one I don't really use and need someone to watch out for it. It’s… important to me, though not so much that I’d need to hire some overwrought professional sitter.”

The human woman just raised an eyebrow. “Oh? So you just want some cheap labor?”

Ultima snorted. “I just want to help the kid out, and that house has a good set-up since I use it to store equipment. Programming is good work, but I am getting up there in age.”

There was a moment of silence between them. The expression of Celia's mother shifting. “How much would my daughter be paid for house sitting or working as an apprentice for you?”

“About fifty bucks a day for keeping my house in order, eighteen bucks an hour for an apprenticeship… so about seven hundred ten dollars a week not accounting for taxes.”

Ultima despised taxes, especially American ones with their over-complicated mess of a system.

“If she takes on your apprenticeship, is housing an option?”

Celia blinked. “Mama?” There was surprise there, as if confused.

The Latina woman seemed to age a decade, shoulders sagging with weight. “You've become a bit of a recluse mija… and I feel like I might be suffocating you, if this is something you want perhaps a little independence would be good for you?” There was a sharpness in those eyes of hers, and Ultima gulped.

Did she know?

“Oh.” Celia was quiet after that, fidgeting with her hands and shifting her weight from foot to foot.

“I think I'm gonna need a name if you're certain about this, paperwork, and all. So what's the name of the gorgeous woman in front of me?” Ultima meant it to be a slight tease and nothing more.

The recipient laughed, a soft sound like bells that made Ultima flush. “Oh you're sweet, please call me Lucia.”

She smiled widely. “Only if you call me Ultima.” she offered her hand which Ultima gladly took, longer calloused fingers briefly intertwining with the soft hands of her apprentice’s mother.

Celia looked between the two women with confusion, rapidly blinking.