Nothing seemed to change as they drifted through the vast emptiness of space. Zoe knew that each Cosmic Step took them further from Abyllan and closer to the moon, but it almost felt as though she were standing still. Everything was so far away that a few kilometers — or even a few hundred kilometers, just didn’t seem to make any difference to their surroundings. Both Abyllan and the moon were just distant spheres, hurtling through space with them.

“We’re still moving, right?" Emma asked, craning her head to look back at Abyllan behind them. ”We haven’t just stopped?"

“I think we’re moving. I’m still teleporting us.” Zoe answered.

“Yeah I know that, I can feel that. But… nothing’s happening, at all.” Emma said.

“Get comfortable.” Zoe said. “This is going to take a while, I think.” Zoe said.

“How long do you think?" Emma asked.

“A day at least? If we can still even say that. What’s a day when we’re not on the planet, and will be hit with the sun’s radiation constantly?" Zoe answered.

After the first few minutes out of the planet’s atmosphere, Zoe had noticed another problem with space travel. The heat. Which surprised her a little, but did make sense once she thought about it. Whenever she thought of space, she imagined this terrifying, cold emptiness. The moment she’d set foot into the vacuum, she’d begin to freeze.

But in reality, she wasn’t in a vacuum. She had a constant sphere of air surrounding her, providing enough pressure to keep her from freezing, so she wasn’t truly in the vacuum of space. But she was in direct line of sight to a nuclear fusion reaction letting off enough energy to heat an entire solar system and burn her skin even with the protection of Abyllan’s atmosphere.

And it was hot. At first, Zoe tried to simply block the line of sight with the sun with a wall of earth, which did work. But then all of their heat was ripped out of the other side of their bubble of air into the vacuum of space and the temperature began to plummet.

Zoe ended up settling on keeping the wall to the sun up most of the time, and then adding in Cinders to her Earth suits to fill them with warm ashes. The whole experience was draining on her mana and slowed down their progress as even more of her mana was directed away from moving and towards keeping them alive.

But it worked, and it was even somewhat comfortable. The perfect temperature hugging her body like a heated blanket of solid rock. Most of the time when she made an earthen suit, she left the legs and arms free, but if she did that in space then their limbs would freeze without the warmth of her makeshift space suit.

Though, spending countless hours without being able to move at all was also a terrible problem. Really, Zoe was finding that space travel was far more complicated than she had expected it to be. Even with the help of powerful magic at her side, all it would take was one small slip up and they would be dead. Maybe they could survive if they managed to get back to a planet within a few minutes, get heated up and have their lungs fill with oxygen again.

But out here? This far away from any civilization? If anything happened, they were entirely on their own. Nobody would get to them before they died, if something went wrong. The chances that anybody would even be aware that something had gone wrong in the first place were slim to none. Maybe there was some powerful entity on the planet watching them, or some powerful entity elsewhere. Or maybe there was somebody staring through their telescope, watching them struggle through space.

“It’s kinda spooky, actually.” Emma said.

“Yeah. Lonely, too.” Zoe responded.

Emma nodded.

“Okay, we’re back to full suits.” Zoe said. She’d settled in on a rotation for her suits. A few hours of travel with full suits followed by a few minutes of letting their limbs and neck be free.

Emma nodded again and put her head back to a comfortable position as earth crawled up around her body, extending from the suit. Bits of smouldering ash were mixed in, adding a slight glow to bits of the suit as Zoe’s mana was spent fighting off the frigid cold of space.

“I didn’t realize how much trust I was putting in you when we left. I kinda thought it would be a few minutes there and then we explore the moon for a bit.” Emma said.

“We can go back if you want?” Zoe asked.

“No, no. If it was somebody else, but I trust you. I just didn’t realize how powerless I am here, I guess. If you suddenly stopped, I’d have nothing I can do. I can teleport, but I can’t keep myself breathing. I can’t keep manage my temperature. Even if I could spend a few seconds rushing back to Abyllan, I wouldn’t reach it.” Emma said.

“Uncomfortable?" Zoe asked.

“I don’t think so. Just… incredible, I guess? I don’t know how to describe the feeling. I’m grateful for the opportunity, but it also makes me realize how important having a variety of skills can be. I thought I was capable. And I am, at what I do. But you’re able to change your strategy and adjust, and react to situations in ways that I couldn’t.” Emma said.

“I can help you learn some skills. I don’t think you’re far from doing this yourself anyway, really.” Zoe said.

“Maybe. I think I can do it on my own though, I just haven’t. It takes time and I guess I haven’t really gotten used to having as much of that as I want, yet. All I would need is Earth and Wind to replicate this I think. I have Fire to keep myself warm and I can already teleport. Plus a bit more mana regeneration I think, but I should be able to sustain it, just not as quick as you’re moving.” Emma said.

Zoe nodded, the earth stretching around her neck to accommodate the movement. “If you do want help just let me know, I’ll share my notes with you.”

Emma laughed. “Don’t nod, it’s not fair that you can do that and I can’t. And your notes don’t make any sense at all.”

“They make sense to me, at least.” Zoe pouted.

“Yeah cause you’re a freak.” Emma smiled.

Zoe focused on her sense of time, trying to get a feeling of how long had passed since they left. She had a somewhat potent and innate sense of distance and time thanks to her Cosmic Mystic class, but using it to feel the passage of time on such a large scale was something she hadn’t gotten used to yet. All she needed to do was look up and see the sun or moon crossing the sky to know the time.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Half a day, maybe? And still it seemed like nothing changed, everything was still just as far away as it was minutes after they left. Or maybe more likely, things had changed at such a slow rate that she hadn’t noticed the changes. If she thought back to when they first left the atmosphere, Abyllan did seem a fair bit bigger than it was now.

It was just so slow. So very, very slow. Was this what she wanted to spend her time doing, really? For now, yes. Visiting the moon was something that so few people could say. Bringing back souvenirs, leaving their own mark on the rock that drifted across the night sky. Maybe finding some civilization that survived on the moon or small bugs that skittered across the surface.

But when she was done, when their moon landing was accomplished and they returned to Abyllan, was this what she wanted to spend years of her life doing? It wouldn’t be possible yet even if she wanted, since the furthest she could go was about three days thanks to Spacial Weave’s time limit.

Zoe sighed. For a moment, when she got the skill, it felt like everything she’d wanted was dropped into her hands on a silver platter. Served up to her by whatever gods ruled this universe in a fit of generosity. But that was ridiculous.

Even if she pushed more mana into the marks and could keep them for a month, that would still only just get her to maybe one of the nearby planets before she had to come back? Space exploration was still nowhere near possible. She needed something permanent, something far more long term. The search wasn’t over yet, but at the very least maybe she could expand the search. Maybe something on the moon would help her, or maybe a nearby planet that she could reach would have aliens with tracking beacons for sale.

“What’s wrong?" Emma asked.

“I just thought I was done, I guess.” Zoe answered. “Thought I had what I wanted, but this really isn’t it. This is boring.”

Emma chuckled. “Say that again when we land on the moon.”

“No, I mean like this is exciting right now. But imagine spending years doing this, trying to find some other planet somewhere? Even if the tracking mark lasted forever, which it doesn’t anyway, I just can’t travel fast enough for it to be worth doing yet.” Zoe said.

“You’d be faster if you didn’t have to drag me along with you, at least.” Emma said.

“Yeah, but I don’t think that’s going to be the difference between me spending decades drifting through space to find the next solar system and me getting there in a reasonable time. I’m slowly losing my sense of value to time and I get that, but that’s a lot even for me.” Zoe said.

“Right. Well, you’ll have to get a lot more mana then. Or a more powerful teleporting skill. Or a less powerful one, maybe?” Emma suggested.

“What do you mean?" Zoe asked.

“Well yours does a whole bunch of extra stuff too, right? Maybe it costs more mana cause of all that, even if you’re not using it? Or maybe you could just get some feats that improve your mana efficiency, or space affinity or something.” Emma suggested.

“Maybe. This is fun right now though, really. I am enjoying this. It’s just also making me realize how insanely big space really is. It doesn’t feel like it’s that big when you’re down on the ground looking up at things. But that’s just cause everything you’re seeing is also insanely big.” Zoe said.

“Yeah I really thought we’d be at the moon by now already.” Emma laughed.

“I mean I knew it would take a while to get there. It’s just really setting in now.” Zoe chuckled. “Like I knew it would be far, I just didn’t know know, you know? And this is just the moon! What about other planets in the solar system. It would take weeks to get there probably. That would be so boring, the whole time."

“That’s a good point. A day trip to the moon’s not bad, but I don’t know if I’d wanna come for a month long journey through this.” Emma said.

“Right? It’s crazy. Space is so big. What the heck. How is it so big?” Zoe laughed.

“I dunno. Space worms, probably.” Emma laughed.

Zoe rolled her eyes and hours more passed with the two gripping hands so she could continue to teleport them. She’d wrapped a dense bit of earth around their hands so no matter what happened, they wouldn’t let go of each other. Even when Zoe freed their limbs, their hands were still connected. If they let go and Emma was left behind, Zoe would never be able to forgive herself.

Eventually, the moon seemed larger than it was. Zoe wasn’t sure how big it used to be, but she was pretty sure it didn’t take up as much of her view of space before as it was now.

“I think we’re getting closer.” Zoe said.

“Oh thank god.” Emma laughed. “I was worried we were stuck in some stupid space hole and not moving.”

“Really?" Zoe asked.

“Yeah! Nothing was happening!” Emma said.

“That would be terrifying.” Zoe said.

“Yeah it would be. But we’re not. The moon does look bigger now, when’d that happen anyway?” Emma asked.

“I dunno. Maybe another few hours and we’re there? An hour? I have no idea how far away it is. But it definitely looks bigger now than it did.” Zoe said.

In another couple hours, they were floating a few dozen meters above the surface of the moon. Zoe was surprised to see how smooth the moon’s surface really looked from up close. Every picture she’d seen of it back home was full of massive craters, and even approaching the moon from space it seemed peppered with craters.

But up close, drifting down to the surface, it seemed so smooth and flat. Bits of rock and dirt — mostly grayish and white with specks of silver shining through were tossed about creating a somewhat rough surface. But no more rough than a road that needs maintenance or a even the surface of a brick.

Maybe they just avoided the craters, or maybe the craters were so large that up close they seemed flat. Zoe wasn’t sure.

Emma took a deep breath as they descended down. “We’re about to land on the moon, Zoe.”

“Yeah we are.” Zoe grinned.

Zoe brought the two of them down to just a few inches above the surface and then removed the earthen suits that hugged them.

Emma knelt down and rubbed her hand along the gray rocks as she cackled. “We’re on the moon, Zoe! I’m touching the moon!”

Zoe laughed with her and knelt down to rip out some of the ground they stood on. It was harder than she expected, harder than most rocks she’d found back on Abyllan. And heavy, despite it being peppered with thousands of tiny holes.

“You need to dig up a bunch of this rock and bring it back. I want Oliver and Fennel to have the coolest toys ever.” Emma said.

“Okay, that’s a funny idea but we don’t actually know if it would be safe, you know? There could be bacteria or something on this that would be bad for them.” Zoe said.

“Then burn it or whatever. But I want toys for my cats.” Emma said as she crossed her arms.

“Fine, fine. We’ll make some toys. But first, lets explore a bit.” Zoe smiled.

“Heck yeah!” Emma shouted. “Who else has had the chance to walk around on the moon?"