I watched at a removed distance as the girl I made worked on the stone carvings I had left in the manor. I had managed to make it two weeks already, but wasn't' sure how much longer I could continue to fight my instincts on this. I had been trying to chase down what these instincts actually were, since it seemed too strong to be something natural. Yet, i couldn't see my core and I had a feeling that it would take being able to see it to figure anything out. What I knew was that any creature that was capable of sentient thought became marked as an "Intruder", and it seemed like the instincts wanted those constantly removed. I had read the old books so many times at this point I had them memorized, but nothing in them gave the impression that dungeons were intelligent. Which made me even more curious about exploring beyond my domain. Perhaps I could find out more, and being able to see the core of another might help with my own. I didn't like the drive to kill my own daughter, and it seemed like my monsters had the same instincts push them from time to time too.
When my attention wavered when she was out in an area with them. They would begin to group up and move towards her, and I had caught a few frozen in the act of attacking them. Though it seemed like she had a rudimentary control over them with some odd hand gestures. Which is what prompted me to try and teach her magic this last week. The girl had rapidly developed in martial combat, seeming to have a gift for the art of hand to hand or even simple weapons. Magic was turning out to be not so much, and I had a hunch it was that beastkin's fault for this. He had been controlled by magic, afraid of it, and was a fairly large, physically powerful creature. While I had altered the life patterns I fear it might have influenced her body still. The hair and eyes were one thing new, but she had patches of soft fur on other parts of her body too. Like a hybrid between both and yet not either of them.
Her face screwed up in concentration as I watched her now. It was the cutest thing to see her struggle and improve, which she did well in both. She would likely need to take my other guest with her when she left, or I would probably eat him. His aura was pretty stable and I had been around it enough that I could easily just dissolve him where he slept. But, he would likely be a good source of knowledge outside my domain that she would need in order to blend in. Which is why I had almost completed my healing of his arms and legs, bones weren't easy to regrow without causing vast amounts of pain I found out. When I regenerated his arm, the screaming took forever to stop, and then he pass out again. Such frail creatures in my mind, but at least my daughter wasn't as bad. When she got hurt, she did cry out a little, but then didn't peep when I reset bones or healed gapping wounds. Another reason for her to learn something of magic.
The few times she got truly overwhelmed and was at risk of death, a different instinct kicked in and I blinked to find all the creatures impaled in spikes. Which made this whole mess more confusing to me. How could I be protective but what her dead at the same time? Clearly it was the instinct to kill that was foreign here. In 'The Song of Fire' while the mother wasn't a good one, even she cared enough to protect her daughter when her husband tries to kill her later in the story. So the emotion of concern and protectiveness was natural for mothers. Part of my core ached at these thoughts, they had been constantly playing at me for the last two weeks.
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"Soon, I will send her out into the world, and then I imagine I will have more concerns..." I said to myself, the mana pool trembling to the sounds. But I didn't want her to go yet, I kept finding excuses to spend more time with her. She wanted to listen to me talk, and we read 'The Song of Fire' together before she went to sleep when she got tired. I didn't realize how alone I was until I wasn't alone anymore.
"Stop thinking about it, or you will just torture the beetles like last week." I chided myself. I didn't know if actually talking to myself was a good thing, but it did make me feel a little better about how everything was playing out.
"A better thing to think about is her name...again." This subject was another one causing problems. She responded to me when I talked to her, and she didn't have a name yet. But I knew it was important for the outside world, and having a name made something click. After all I was born with a name in my head.
"I am Elyria." and the world froze for a brief moment, and my mana pool seemed to twist and move into a complex symbol I could see everywhere. Then it was gone again like every time I had said my name out loud. I didn't think it was the same for everyone, or conversations would be impossible outside in the world. Yet, I knew that names were still important "The Song of Fire" made that quite clear after 100 re-reads. My daughter stood up from her desk, stretched, and went to go poke our guest with a stick again.
"What name feels right when all the ones i have read have others attached to them? You are new and my daughter so a name is vital..." I continued to mutter to myself. I had asked her what she would like to be named twice now, and both times she just smiled and waved her hands. I refused to call her Wave or Hands, it was undignified for a child of mine. I felt that when I named her out loud, something would change. Perhaps she would start speaking instead of writing or moving her hands, or maybe she would gain a kind of magic. The only odd thing about her right now was her ability to see my mana tendrils and thus see me. She smiled and waved at me again, one hand still holding the stick, and I found myself filled with warmth.
"Maybe that is a name for you, Pyra." Then my vision froze and she was filled with a green and red light. It flowed from her skin and eyes to twist a complex pattern around her body. A pattern that I could understand a part of, 'Joy'. She was that to me, and why I didn't want to let her go. She was my joy, my Pyra, a flame that brings both light and joy to all that view it. Then time resumed and she frowned slightly, before giving me the widest smile yet. Her eyes twinkling green and red, instead of their old blue and silver.
"I like my name, Mother." She said, her first words, and then I understood what humans called grief. So precious to me, and yet I would have to make her leave.