Even with the rain falling in sheets, Ves could feel the moon glowering overhead, it’s golden glow through the clouds reminding her too much of firelight on smoke. She pulled her gray mage robe closer to herself, the once pristine wool stained with mud and dirt until it could have passed for brown instead. Around her, countless other shapes huddled and shivered, some clustered together under hastily draped oilcloth shelters. Others like herself struggled to maintain a watch on the heavy forest shadows around them.

“You know it’s the reaping tonight, right?” Mara whispered beside her, her own crimson mage robe faring little better. It was telling of how exhausted she was that she didn't bother phasing the water in her robe to steam.

“Shut up, Mara,” Ves pulled her cloak tighter around herself, though that only seemed to press the wet closer to her skin. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking,” she said, her voice small and scared. In her defense, all their voices were small and scared these days. “I’ve been keeping count. It’s definitely the reaping tonight. We need to hold a service.”

“Why don’t you ask the priestess?” Ves bit out, finding her eyes sweeping the shadows even harder. Damn Mara and her infectious fears. “That’s her job.”

“I haven’t been able to find her since…” She trailed off, and even in the dark Ves could see her shiver.

Yesterday, most likely. They’d lost a lot of people yesterday. Not the prince, thank the Goddess. None of his ‘honor guard’ either, damn the Goddess.

“Why don’t you go check again?” Ves offered. Mara wasn’t going to be any use tonight. She’d probably just raise a false alarm in her current state. Better to let the rest of the girls get their sleep. “I’ll be fine here.”

Mara looked at her, face hidden under her hood, then did as she was told, making her way back into what passed for a camp. Ves listened until the squelching dirt and cracking twigs faded to nothing.

Alone with her thoughts, Ves did her best not to brood, and tucked her hands under her cloak and around the old sailor’s compass she kept with her. Her father had always wanted her to join the family business, become a navigator for the family ships. Magnetomancy was rare enough as it was, and even gifts as weak as hers were invaluable in the open sea. Instead she’d insisted she join the academy, be a ‘defender of the realm.’ What a fabulous defense they’d made.

She clutched the compass tighter, caressing the dial’s subtle magnetic field with her powers, stroking it like a pet. She would never forget that first night, the screams, the smell of burning hair and flesh. The shades moved more like waves than people, hundreds of shifting faces, shifting limbs and blades and armor, all repeating the same remembered motions. It was so surreal to see the same shape using the same maneuvers and moves in a dozen places at once. They seemed almost human until you saw them together like that.

Something shifted in the darkness, and her hand went to her sword. She gazed into the dark as she slowly pulled it free of its scabbard. Drawing it out, she pointed it out into the night, and forced her magnetic field through it, using it like a giant compass needle. She felt through the wood and forest, her ‘touch’ passing through the trees as though they were not there, tangling slightly on iron ore in the rocks below, but otherwise reaching out unopposed.

It hit something. For a moment, she couldn’t tell quite what she was feeling. It felt like armor, but there was more to it, almost a musical hum to the field as she caressed it. The strangeness of it stopped her from crying alarm, the shades being perfectly mundane in their arms. Even if they’d had other magnetomancers, they’d have been harder to find, not easier.

She squinted into the woods, trying to see what was catching her field. There, in the shadows, something glinted. Polished glass reflected back at her for a moment, before shifting to deeper cover. She felt a shiver rake down her back, and she fought the urge to scurry back to camp. It was a reaper.

She fumbled for the Goddess’s prayer as she struggled with her thoughts. Should she run back and call the camp? Reapers were servants of the Moon God, enemies of the Goddess by nature, but they weren’t dangerous in a proper sense. It wasn’t going to charge into the camp and start lopping off heads. To all reports they attacked the lone—

She was suddenly painfully aware of Mara’s absence.

She swallowed and tried to fight the tremor in her hand as she kept her sword out, sharply aware of its weight in her arm. She knew where it was, and the Moon God’s servant were devoid of the gift of magic. However strange and elusive they could be, they were mundane things in the end. For all their reports of appearing out of thin air, it couldn’t actually appear out of the darkness behind her. Just the same she swept her field back for a moment, finding only the distant arms and armor of the camp.

She swept her field forward again, finding the reaper still hovering in the darkness. She tried desperately to remember the Goddess’s prayer in its entirety. “Goddess Mirai, she who—”

The reaper did something, seeming to burst into glittering dust in her magnetic sense. She poked and probed the dust, but it was tangled and tumbling in a chaotic mess. After a few seconds, it settled to the forest floor, coating the branches and leaves, but leaving no trace of the reaper. Had her prayer destroyed it? Did that even work?

She swept her field further, searching past the dust, and then she felt it. Steel. Mundane steel. Lots of mundane steel.

“Shades!” She cried out, turning and fleeing towards the camp, reaching out with her power and grabbing the alarm bells around the camp. She shook them as hard as she could, even as the distant forest erupted into crashing cacophony. Unfortunately, she failed to consider the ramifications of charging into a camp of tired, frayed mages as the alarm was called.

She saw the crackle of readied plasma within a circle of mages, their terrified faces lit by harsh shadows as they blindly aimed at the only motion they could see.

What a stupid way to die.

She shut her eyes, though it did nothing to her ability to feel the twisting electrical charge tear its way through her field and towards her delicate nerves and flesh. Then, all at once, it was as though a hammer swept through the space around her. Magnetic fields bent and twisted with so much force that she heard swords and armor lifted from the ground as if in some sort of mighty whirlwind. She opened her eyes to see the bolt of lightning flash around her, illuminating the scene for one brilliant moment.

There he was, the prince himself, hand outstretched and expending more power than a full circle of mages just to save one life. Hers.

Suddenly he was there in front of her, and she dimly realized she’d fallen back onto her rear somewhere in the span of that one second. His hand was outstretched, and they were no longer in a rainsoaked forest, but back in her childhood fantasies. His mouth moved, and even though her ears had been deafened by the bolt, her heart already knew the words he said. “Are you alright?”

She tried to nod even as she reached her hand out, feeling his grasp on her, his skin dry and warm even in this world of dripping darkness. Dimly, she marveled that she could feel so nice, before remembering he was a phase mage as well as a magnetomancer. He only needed to be wet if he wanted to be. How incredible.

Then the moment shattered.

“What are you all standing around for?!” The dreadfully familiar voice of Aria cut through the confusion. “To arms!”

Before Ves could process the fact, the fiery phase mage had grabbed the prince by the arm and dragged him towards the fight, her crimson hair already flickering with plasma, leaving Ves standing there like a dullard as the rest of the camp roused to action. She shook herself, and fought down a sharp little spike of pique. Bloody ‘honor guard.’

She struggled to find her unit, even as flashes and cries of battle began to fill the night. Everything was chaos. Robed mages and armored soldiers thronged and surged, the darkness and dirt serving to obscure banners and ensigns until it was impossible to tell who was who. The only real point of reference was the prince and his retinue, figures wreathed in lightning and fire, surrounded by churning earth as the forest itself was roused to battle.

“Ves!” Cried a familiar voice, and Ves found Mara waving to her, hands tracing foxfire through the night. Ves quickly scampered to her and joined the circle of other magnetomancers and phase mages. Combining their powers like she was taught, Ves quickly joined in weaving magnetic structure into the balls of plasma conjured by the phase mages. Together, they sent balls of searing fire and electricity hurtling into the waves of shades pouring forth, each of their attacks terminating in a thunderclap of flame and the clatter of armor as hapless soldiers found their weapons flash-magnetized.

It wasn’t enough.

“Fall back!” The prince cried, leading the rearguard as their forces began to fight further into the forest. Stumbling over roots and through branches, it was impossible to maintain a proper casting circle, and Ves found herself grabbing spurts of flame from Mara’s hands, attempting to cast the sparks onto the rainsoaked trees to maybe start a fire. In truth, she might as well have been throwing pebbles, but it was better than nothing.

Without the mage circles, the shades began to pick up speed. Only the prince and his ‘honor guard’ were fighting anymore, and with every second they were pushed harder. The only thing they could do was move faster, and so the army was forced to move faster as well. Ves found herself panting, stumbling, branches lashing her as she struggled to see the path ahead.

“Archers!” was the only warning she got. The forest filled with whistling death. She desperately threw out her magnetic senses, trying to steer steel arrowheads away from herself and her circle.

That was how she felt it.

One arrow was on a direct course for her. Even as her field deflected others to the left or right, the lone arrow traveled down a perfect path straight towards her, facing her field dead on and winning. In the dark, clustered forest, there was no way for her to dodge, her focus simply on keeping her footing. It slammed into her lower back, and she screamed.

She lost her footing and slammed into the dirt. She tried to rise, but the shades were already upon her. Not even slowing, something long and sharp thrust itself through her back, driving her to the dirt, before ripping itself free. Feet smashed into her bones and torn innards, bruising and even breaking them, before the tide passed.

The rain continued to fall, and Ves realized she was going to die.

She tried to stand, but her arms weren’t working anymore, if they were even there at all. Should her neck be at that angle? The rain was so uncomfortable. Funny, it was the most uncomfortable thing she felt, that deep cloying cold soaking through her face.

The shadows deepened, reaching out for her, slithering in the edges of her vision. It was so quiet. So cold it was warm. Had she closed her eyes? Or was the night simply that deep?

She could still feel her magic. They said it was a part of your soul, the Goddess’ gift, that no injury or misfortune could ever take it. That’s how she felt it, the hum at the edge of her field. The reaper.

She reached out to it, wrapping it in her field. She didn’t know what it would do, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t bear to be alone as the darkness and the numbness crept in. She tried to pull it closer, and felt it approaching. It was closer, closer, close enough to hug.

Please don’t go.

I don’t want to die alone.

----------------------------------------

She smelled sand.

Ves slowly sat up. Beside her was a campfire on red stone, the dry, gritty earth scraping beneath her as she slowly tucked her legs under herself. The warmth was inviting, familiar, the scent of smoke not like that of that horrible night, but simple clean wood of a type she couldn’t identify. She gazed around at the red walls of the cave, the cold stars of night glittering outside.

“Hello?” She reached out with her magnetic senses, or tried to. Where they should have been was only emptiness.

She groped blindly, uncomprehendingly at the space where her power had once been. It wasn’t fear she felt, but raw confusion, like simply going deaf in the middle of a conversation. Except, people went deaf sometimes. You could understand what deaf was. People didn’t stop being mages. It wasn’t something you could lose.

Maybe there just wasn’t any metal? Or… anything magnetic? She knew things could be hidden in a wire cage from a magnetomancer, so maybe it was something like that?

She put it aside, the observation too strange to process. Instead she tried focusing on her surroundings, but there wasn’t much there to see. The cave itself was a simple sandstone tunnel, ending a scant few feet from where she lay, with a slight slant to the ceiling that let the smoke of the fire curl out into the night. Outside, there were dunes and night sky, but nothing distinct. Slowly, she stood and made her way to the mouth of the cave, trying to find some bearings.

As she came up to the outside world, she realized she’d been wrong about the time of day. The sky wasn’t perfectly dark, but tinged with the faint light of moonshadow, so she’d been out of it little over half a day. All around her stretched a desert of rolling, golden dunes that seemed somehow familiar to her. As she wracked her brain, the hour of moonshadow passed, the sun beginning to peak out again and bathe the land in light.

She glanced up and felt her heart stop.

It wasn’t the moon that was blocking the sun. The orb above her was green and blue. That was where she recognized the golden dunes around her. She was on the moon.

She spun back to the cave, finding a new figure sitting beside the fire. It looked to be little more than a floating torso made of oily wisps, an eyeless canine head turned towards her, a lonely orb of an eye clutched in its jagged jaws. The Moon God, right out of the scriptures.

She’d been reaped. That was why she couldn’t feel her magic. Magic was a gift of the Goddess, a gift to her beloved children. But she was forever beyond the Goddess’ love now, doomed to live beyond her blessings.

But she was doomed to live, which was the only thing that kept her on her feet as she staggered to the fire and towards that cyclopean gaze.

“Hello,” she said, standing beside the fire.

“Hi,” said the Moon God. “Nice to meet you.”

Silence fell.

“Want a seat?” the Moon God, the strands of his being twisting to pat the earth beside him.

Despite her unease, she sat down, though she placed the fire between them. “So… what happens now?”

“Well that really depends on you!” He smiled at her, an expression not entirely comforting. “What would you like to do?”

“What… would I like to do?” Between her missing magic and the Moon God’s attitude, she felt for all the world that she was in some kind of bizarre dream. She simply had no context. The sermons of the Goddess were understandably quiet on the topic of what happened after the Moon God took you.

“Yes!” he nodded eagerly. “You must have had some inkling of what you wanted when you reached out to my extractor.”

“Extractor?” She ran through the events of her death, the memory sending a crawling chill under her skin. “The reaper?”

“Pft!” He rolled his lone eye, such a human expression. “Reapers! Bloody Goddess. Surprised she didn’t have her clergy dub them ‘baby eaters.’” He fixed her with a firm look. “They are extractors. They perform the extraction of endangered souls. Like you.”

“Me?” Even as she said the word, she could see his point. She’d been dying, hadn’t she? And he’d saved her. Whatever the Goddess’ teachings said, whatever the cost, he’d done her a favor. “Thank you.”

“Don’t often hear that from mages.” His eyebrows rose, despite having no eyes under them. It was strange. “Then again, I don’t often see mages.”

“I don’t imagine many of them think terribly well of you,” she ventured, clenching her hands in case he took the comment poorly.

“Obviously! Reapers! Pfah!” He floated a little off the ground, as though standing, beginning to drift back and forth in a pacing motion. “Honestly, it’s such a pathetic racket. Give a few folks some paltry parlor tricks, tell them how special they are, then get them to keep the rabble-rousers in line.” He paused. “You by any chance nobility? Powerful family?”

She shook her head. “Not really, my family owns a few ships, but we’re not one of the great trading families.”

“Damnation,” he shook his head. “That would have been a really nice coup. Ah well! We’re here to talk what I can do for you, not what you can do for me.”

“We are?” She tumbled the idea around in her head, trying to make it fit. “But you’re the one that saved me?”

“Well yes,” he said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world. “I’m not much of one for nobility, but I think noblesse oblige is something we can all get behind, no?”

“Wait, no, wait wait wait,” She buried her face in her hands, rubbing them. “You save me, and now you want to give me things? Why aren’t you demanding I… destroy the Goddess? Turn followers from her faith?”

“Ah, that’s the thing~” He grinned, and it was such a predatory expression that he suddenly seemed like the monster from those terrifying illuminated scriptures. “All that happens naturally! All I have to do is get you set up and turn you loose, and you’ll reach the right conclusions all your own.”

“What?” She boggled at him. “You’re just going to… gift me… what even? And I’m just going to… turn against the Goddess?”

“Well, haven’t you done that already?” He smirked. “Through no urging of my own I might add. All I did was have one of my agents on hand. The Goddess failed you all on her own.”

“I…” She couldn’t really argue the point. She’d done what she’d done of her own volition, the fear of death wrapped around her heart. He’d saved her, and the Goddess didn’t.

“See?” He practically bounced in place, grinning so wide it was a miracle his eye didn’t fall out. “I don’t have to do a damn thing.” He paused. “Well, I don’t have to extort a damn thing. I obviously saved you, so that’s something. But none of it was conditional.”

She chewed her lip, mulling that over. “What if I don’t want your gifts?”

“Then you’re free to refuse!” He smiled. “Though how you expect to get back home without so much as a free ride escapes me.” He shrugged. “Would make a great story though! Or a really crappy one.” He glanced out the cave mouth. “How good are you with deserts?”

“Not very,” She shot him a flat look, and he only grinned wider. Though the warnings of the Goddess rang in her ears, they were distant things, sermons she’d attended out of habit and obligation. Even as the academy had preached of the blessings of the Goddess, every day had hammered home that there were many far more blessed than she had been. She felt her mouth twist as the prince walked through her mind’s eye, flanked on all sides by his little gaggle of ‘honor guards.’ Beautiful, powerful, talented, they were all pinnacles of what the Goddess’ blessing could be. So very distant from her mousy, mud-haired self.

“I see you’re thinking,” the Moon God said, again smirking. “I like thinking.”

“Hypothetically,” She said, flexing her academy education. “What… gifts, would you be giving? The sermons say those touched by the moon become monsters.”

“Yes, just as I unleash reapers on the world.” He glanced down, sweeping a tendril over himself as if dusting off a coat. “Pfah! I suppose my gifts would seem monstrous to those stodgy sycophants. I won’t deny, I find the human form… bland. There are so many wonderful shapes and forms of life, yet so many just slap four limbs on a body and call it done! Artistically bankrupt hacks, one and all!” He gave a huff, having to lunge forward and catch his eye again. “Hmph!”

“Uhm,” She swallowed, her mind flashing to the old seaside tales her father would tell her at bedtime. “I don’t think I’m interested in having… tentacles or anything.”

He let out a long-suffering sigh. “No, I suppose you’re not. Most I extract are deliberate heretics, those who open their eyes to the Goddess’ lies of their own volition. That tends to go with a certain flair for the extreme.” He looked her up and down for a moment, then drifted up from the fire, leaving her to scoot rapidly around it as he made his way to the exit of the cave. He paused at the mouth. “You coming?”

“I…” She’d come this far, hadn’t she? She stood up, and followed him out into the golden sands.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Excellent,” He said, smiling as something small and silver glinted on the horizon. “I have something to show you.”

As she watched, she shape grew, gleaming in the sunlight. She had never seen metal so clean, the entire surface shining like the face of a mirror. As she watched, it pivoted in the air, the glow and ripple of hot plasma evident as it shifted down, stirring the sands beneath it into a whirling cloud. After a moment, the jets died down, and the side of the thing opened, the Moon God drifting inside.

"How would you like to see a city?"

----------------------------------------

It wasn’t the most amazing thing she’d ever seen, that title still went to castle Uthed, with its golden marble walls suspended upon magnetic pillars, but it was so different.

The buildings were made of the same rich red sandstone that seemed to exist everywhere, but instead of being roughly formed, they were cut into smooth, geometric shapes with rounded corners. She swept her fingers along one wall, her touch gliding effortlessly along whatever smooth lacquer or polish was used on the grainy rock.

Even at night, their journey having outrun the sun, light was everywhere she looked. Not the flickering of lamps or even the current-lights the academy had boasted of, but lights blazing in every color imaginable. Reds, blues, pinks, yellows and more shone out on glowing murals the rival of any illuminated manuscript. And the people! The only way she could tell they were people was they way they milled through the streets and entered the shops, the unmistakable behavior of any thriving port town. Their bodies came in every shape and form imaginable. Flesh intermingled with metals and other materials. Some strode on four, six, or maybe dozens of legs. They slithered, or flew, or tumbled from place to place, many sporting the same brilliant variety of color as the town they were in.

“I don’t understand,” she finally said, turning to the Moon God. “Where are the ships?”

“How did…” He stared at her a moment, the burst into laughter. “Your family owned ships, of course you’d recognize a port town. A rose by any other name…” He shook his head, then pointed past the town. “Give it a second.”

She did as he asked, and in a moment, a massive metal form, similar to the one that had taken them to the town, rose into the sky. Holes on the bottom again blazing with the unmistakable glow of plasma, it pivoted and took off into the night sky, leaving Ves gawping stupidly at its departure. “Its… a… starship?”

“Yes! Ah, you’re a quick one!” He slapped her on the back, a surprisingly wimpy touch actually. “You are correct, you are in a starport for starships! Technically I don’t really need to maintain one, but I know it pisses the Goddess off, and as long as the traffic is kept largely obscured from her ‘precious little world,’ our bargain stands.”

“Bargain?” She stopped. “You have a bargain with the Goddess?”

“Ehhh, unwritten one.” He shrugged. “Same bargain you have with anyone when you don’t throw dirt in their eyes, stab them, and take their coin purse before you say ‘hello.’ There are guidelines between beings like us, unspoken thresholds to keep gentle needling from turning to all-out war.” He chuckled. “One of those is, ‘don’t let my sorry podunk backwater world know they’re a sorry podunk backwater world.’”

“I see,” she stared down at her feet, digesting the fact that her world was essentially nowhere. “That’s… kind of depressing.”

“And that’s why nobody wants you to know.” He gave her a pat on the head, then paused. “You could head out there, if you like,” he said. “Charter a ship, set out for the great frontier.”

“I…” The size of it boggled her mind. The sheer scale of what he was proposing. Then her thoughts turned back to the night the city burned. “No, they need my help back there.” A thought occurred to her. “I… can still help them, right? I don’t have to…”

“No,” the Moon God said. He stared into space for a second. “Wait, I mean, no you don’t have to fight them or anything, yes you can help them.” He nodded resolutely. “Now whether they want your help is another matter, but that’s your bridge to cross.”

“Alright,” she took a deep breath. Helping them felt right. It helped her feel normal, like something she, Ves, a normal person and not a monster would do. As she took a deep breath, she instinctively reached for her old magnetics exercises, only to run smack into that same dead space. It must have shown on her face, because another pat graced her head.

“Come on, I still have something to show you.” He began leading her down the streets.

She followed, but with her mood darkened, the streets didn’t seem quite so inviting. Surrounded by such color, such life, she was only reminded of her own plainness. For a minute, she was back in the academy halls, walking back from the combat qualifiers. She could hear the giggles again, the whispers. She’d wound up against Aria in her very first match, the ones used to weed out the chaff so only the truly spectacular could perform for the audiences. She’d been weeded in about four seconds.

"Hey, Dave!"

She glanced up before she realized he wasn't talking to her. He was chatting up one of the bulkier metal forms, this one sliding along the ground on strange toothed belts.

"Hey Moony, how's it been going?" He stopped and turned to the Moon God, extending a multi-jointed arm tipped with a claw. They shook limbs.

"Good! Surprised to see you back around here," the Moon God said. "Thought the eastern rim was mostly dried up?"

"Oh, it is, but the Confederation's so desperate for resources they're willing to throw more money at surveys." Dave shrugged with the scraping of metal. "I figure it's slow, safe work. I never see my kids, so I thought I might take the kind of work they could come along for," Dave said. "What about you? Still doing the 'moon god' thing?"

"You know it!" He pointed a tendril back at Ves. "Actually in the middle of doing the whole gift thing right now."

"Ah! Well don't let me keep you," He slapped the Moon God on the shoulder. "Buy you a drink next time you're free."

The Moon God shot him a huge grin. "I can't let you do that, Dave."

They both burst into laugher, Dave continuing on with a wave.

The Moon God had friends?

She was so distracted watching Dave go, that she bumped head-first into the Moon God.

“Hey!” He shot her a look, then resumed fiddling with something beside the door he’d stopped in front of. “Hard enough remembering this stupid code as it is…” Finally, there was a beep and the door slid open. “Aha! Serious advice, be careful when you encrypt pass-codes in your own head. Come on in!”

The space she entered instantly reminded her of a seamstress’s shop, only there wasn’t a scrap of clothes on the mannequins. And they weren’t mannequins. She gasped and averted her eyes from the room of nude people, only for the Moon God to burst out laughing. “No, no, they’re not people, just bodies!”

“Bodies?” She peeked up out of the corner of her eye, and sure enough, not one of them was moving. She slowly pulled away her hands, though it was hard to fight down her blush. Even if they were just bodies they were still nude bodies. And many of them were… extremely comely. The ones that even flirted with being human, anyway.

“Yeah, I looooove crafting bodies in my free time. Mostly for myself, but once in a while it’s fun to share.” He formed a tendril to rub his chin, scanning his shop for something. “Now, I’m sure I have just the thing...”

She watched, her curiosity growing as his limbs shuffled through bodies back and forth. Occasionally he would touch the stand between a body, and its form would change on the spot, sometimes being replaced with a completely different one on the spot. Finally, he stopped at one with a pleased grunt. “You like foxes?”

“Um, I suppo—” She paused as she saw the body in front of him. It was beautiful, if in a strangely androgynous way. It was flawlessly poised in the space between masculine and feminine, but what drew her eyes was the pair of pointed canine ears and nine fluffy tails radiating out from behind it.

“Of course you do, everyone likes fox girls.” He nodded, and began looking it over, hmming as he fiddled with something on the side, and then the chest popped open. Inside was not meat and bones, but polished metal. She was suddenly reminded of the reaper, and wondered if this metal sang like their innards did. Deep down, she ached to know if only for the familiarity of knowing. As she watched, he reached inside and pulled out a small rounded metal tetrahedron from its chest, disconnecting several tubes and hefting it in his grasp. “Now, this might be slightly uncomfortable.”

“What do you—” He poked her in the chest, and abruptly she popped open, robes, ribs, and everything folding aside to reveal a nest of oily black cables not unlike the Moon God’s own body. Before she could react, he pushed the tetrahedron into her chest, and the fibers of her body surged into the openings of the tetrahedron.

The world was obliterated.

----------------------------------------

She awoke with a gasp, promptly smacking herself in the back of the head with her tails. Her tails. She grabbed one in shock and held it in her hands, but somehow she recognized it as part of herself. She blinked dully at it for a few seconds, the thing stark, snowy white, soft as a cloud and silky to the touch. She belatedly noticed the same fur covered her arms, a fine coat of brilliant white that ran up from her now cerise-clawed fingertips and over her elbows like long, elegant gloves. She traced them up to where the fur ended and her skin resumed, light caramel flesh contrasting beautifully with the fur. As she continued to explore, her bedsheet fell away from her chest.

“Goddess!” She exclaimed, startling back. Laughter erupted outside the small bedroom she was in, and a second later the Moon God poked his head around the corner of the red stone doorway.

“You like the look?” He grinned, earning himself a furious shriek as Ves frantically covered herself with sheets and tails.

“I’m a cow!” She hissed, shooting him a death glare. “What am I supposed to wear?! A tent?!”

“Funny how that’s the part that causes an existential crisis~” He dodged a pillow. “Hey! Blame your subconscious, not mine. But I can see you want to be alone.” He drifted smoothly back out of the doorway. “Let me know when you’re in a less tossy mood.”

“Grrr,” it was hard to feel entirely violated when he was so alien, but the he-ness of him certainly didn’t help. She stalked up and over to the door, sheet and tails clutched close, and slammed the door shut before finally taking a breath.

Alone, she had time to survey her room. It was devoid of furniture besides her bed and a full length body mirror. She briefly wondered if any improvised projectiles had been removed ahead of time. Taking a deep breath, and suddenly aware of how hard it was to cover her chest if she did that, she finally dropped her garments.

She was stunning.

Her torso was covered entirely with skin the color of rich caramel, bright blue highlights tracing along her stomach and around her eyes. Brilliant cerise irises gleamed under a head of glossy, cascading white hair shot with streaks of blue, the gentle waves flowing so much more nicely than they ever had in her past life. Atop those glossy locks were a pair of small, fluffy ears, with the same white and blue accents as her hair. Her figure likewise was a thing of fantasy, impossibly feminine and athletic at once. She did a small twirl, realizing as she did so that she wasn’t standing on tip toes, but dainty paws like a fox’s. They were so much tighter and more nimble, she found herself starting to drift through the steps of the one waltz she’d tried at the academy.

They followed the moves with a delicacy and precision she could only have dreamed of. In moments, she had her arms out embracing an imaginary partner, finding herself naturally moving faster and faster through the steps. Her tails moved of their own volition, reflexively balancing and framing her like a peacock’s tail. She could see him there in her arms, Prince Markus, finally held not by some mousy sailor’s girl, but by a thing of otherworldly beauty. She could see the adoring faces all around them, awestruck, and, in a few special cases, sour with envy. As the last step finished, she found herself panting.

To hell with the Goddess and her gifts.

She had better ones now.

Including her magic.

The realization hit her like a thunderclap. She felt inside herself and instantly grasped that familiar awareness inside herself. She almost crowed with joy, indulging in another happy twirl, her tails again framing her motion beautifully, before diving into the feeling. That was when she realized it was different. It wasn’t actually her magic, not quite.

She played around with it, but unlike her magic, that had been like fingers, this felt more like she was swinging around a lantern. She could look at things, illuminate them, but she couldn’t touch them. As she felt the power within herself, she found ‘looking’ metaphor held even to focusing her gaze. She could tighten or loosen the focus, but it had strange effects. Tightening it made things clearer, but it made everything clearer, not like focusing on a single point, but focusing on everything. As she loosened the focus, everything got blurrier, but also… transparent? It was the only way to describe it. Past a point she could make out shapes past the walls, but they were all hopelessly blurry. She made out a shape in the other room that seemed to shift and move, and as she did so, a voice interrupted her.

“Do you have radar?” The shape moved, and she realized it was the Moon God as he poked his head around the corner. “Okay, now I’m curious.”

“What are—” The Moon God suddenly lit up and she was reminded staring into the sun. It didn’t hurt the same way the sun did, but she found her other-sight completely blinded by the experience. Almost as soon as it started, it stopped.

“You are… a girl of interesting depths.” He stared at her a moment, then waved her along after him. “The body I expected, but an adaptive phased radar array?”

“A what?” She followed him along, briefly annoyed that she had to do so clad in a sheet.

“It’s a method of active sensing, like using a lantern to provide light for your eyes.” He led her over to a small dining room, gesturing her to sit. “Coffee?”

“Coffee?” Wasn’t that the drink from Aureana? She remembered the academy faculty couldn’t get enough of the stuff. She quickly found a mug of some dark blackish drink in front of her. She took a sip and grimaced. No wonder it was expensive, it was awful.

“Hah, I hate it too,” he promptly poured out his own cup in some sort of countertop basin. “Radar is… okay, imagine light is like a wave.”

“Like a musical note,” she said. “I’m familiar with the electromagnetic spectrum.” She paused. She knew higher frequencies had more energy, being the favored weapon of those magnetomancers with the power and control to graduate to lumomancy. But light had almost no penetrative power, and it only got worse as— “Am I… seeing with extremely low frequency radiation?”

He blinked, or gaped at her. It was kind of hard to tell the difference with his anatomy. After a moment he slapped his mug to his forehead. “Your world has electromagnetic magic, of course you’d figure it out. Bang-up job though.”

“Hm,” she mulled the revelation over. It wasn’t quite as impressive as magnetomancy, but she found it still filled that itching corner of her mind in a way that made her feel whole again. It would do. “Why are you surprised by this? Didn’t you do…” She flushed as she tried to gesture over herself. “This?”

“Me? No.” He shook his head. “The soulseed I used just provided a framework. As wonderful an idea as it is for someone to have a physical manifestation of their ‘inner self’ the reality is your hopes and dreams have no damned idea how a kidney connects to a bladder. The soulseed provides a framework, in your case a fox girl, then it does all the leg work of personalizing the body and looking after the operations afterward.” He smirked. “Those curves are wholly you.”

“Yeah, sure,” She glanced away, flushing harder as the Moon God snorted. “So how’d I wind up with… radar?”

“That’s what I’d like to know, but I can guess.” He pointed at her with his mug. “Even if magic is a product of your damned Goddess and her mana engine, your experience with it is still yours. Your mind knows how to operate with a sixth sense, and it continues to crave that input as normal. When the soulseed put you together, it found you seeking a missing sense the way you might look for a missing arm. Radar was the closest fit, I guess.”

“Huh,” she took another sip of her coffee, and grimaced again. “This stuff really is awful.”

“Isn’t it?” He gazed into the cup thoughtfully. "I hear most folks prefer it with cream or sugar?"

"Do you have any?" She asked, finding her tails wagging behind herself subconsciously.

"No," he said, making her tails go limp. "I actually just got coffee to do this whole bit."

"So you just got coffee, so you could drink coffee?" She stared at him flatly. "That's absurd."

"That's me!" He shot her a giant grin, and she rolled her eyes.

“Alright,” Ves said, slurping the last of her coffee with a wince. “How do I get back?”

“Shouldn’t you put on clothes first?” The Moon God, damn him, smirked.

She pitched the mug at his head.

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She tugged at the white robes she was now clad in. It felt strange being in robes again, doubly so given how they… hung off her now, but she simply hadn’t had any better ideas. Mage style robes were practical travel wear and she’s never kept up with fashion after joining the academy. Her only recollection of what was considered decent dresswear were her childhood memories, and even then she doubted any of those would be appropriate at her current age, if she could even remember them.

And there was no way in hell she was going to walk around in moon fashions. Just remembering latex made her ears go red.

“Alright, and now we need a weapon for you,” the Moon God gave her robes a tug, settling them like a fussy parent. “While few places on that little ball of dirt despise me quite as much as the godess’ dear Uthed, you probably don’t’ want anything too… noisy.”

“So none of those exploding fire arrows?” She asked. Even the scriptures wrote tales of the burning hail he rained down upon the Traitor King Uthed II. The only thing more dangerous than bargaining with the Moon God was failing to hold up your end.

“Noooooo,” He rolled his eye. “Not useful unless you want to stop back here every time you fire the damn thing. The miniature ones are pretty cool, I will admit, but same problem. No, I think we’ll go with something of the stabbing variety.”

“Like a sword?” She asked.

This was a mistake.

“Not a sword!” He roared, slamming the bench in his workshop hard enough to make one of the half-finished bodies tip over. “Gods above gods, I am sick of swords! You know I get asked for swords from people who can’t even use swords? You have wings and talons, sir! Yes you can hold one but you would get more utility out of dropping a rock on them. That is a thing you can do!” He started to grab at weapons and implements randomly, stalking to and fro before his bench. "There is a whole world of weapons-- No! Worlds of weapons! Axes, hatches, knives, spears, tridents, glaives, bidents, partizans, halberds, meteor hammers, nunchucks, rocks! Enough swords! Never again swords! Not ever!"

She quietly peeked up from behind a display stand, finding him panting in place. An odd thought occurred to her, considering his chest was clearly just a hollow mass of strands. “Do you actually have to breathe?”

The motion stopped instantly, and he grinned. “A bit of advice, as regards gods, deities, and other beings of our ilk.” He leaned in conspiratorially, his anger forgotten. “Never ask us for the truth about ourselves. We live and die on our hidden depths. The honest ones will give you the speech I’m giving you now. The dishonest ones will give you the speech I’m giving you now, then tell you that’s what honest ones do.” He straightened up, suddenly serious. “And the ones that actually tell you the truth aren’t going to live long enough to be worth knowing.”

She swallowed. “Noted.”

“Good! Now, weapons!” He spun back to the bench. “Something elegant, versatile, decidedly exotic.” He grumbled the last words, before giving a startled gasp. “Of course! What do you say to…” he pulled out a surprisingly long spear, almost twice her height. “This!”

“That is… um…” She gently took it from him, wincing as it bumped into several bodies as she tried to maneuver it. “Impressive?”

“Here, here,” he indicated a portion of the grip near the base. “Let me synchronize it to you.”

He did something to it, and at once she had an awareness of the weapon, as if it was a finger or tail. She tried flexing it, and to her shock the haft of the spear twisted like a snake.

“Smart spear!” The Moon God crowed. “Not just a spear, the controllably flexible haft allows it to function as a rope-dagger as well! So, not only do you have the advantages of a rope, a staff, a spear, and a dagger all in one, but it can even perform maneuvers that no common martial artist can even dream of!”

“So like a chain-wielder,” She said.

He stopped. “What.”

“Well, in the school of magnetomancy…” She then proceeded to explain the art of magnetically wielding a chain, watching as the Moon God almost literally deflated before her eyes.

“Yeah,” he finally said. “Like a chain. I guess.”

On impulse, she reached out and gave him a pat on the head.

“Thanks,” he shook himself and sighed. “Well, I think that covers everything, I guess. You’re all equipped and I’m…” His mouth twisted. “Kind of having a damper put on my day, so I think it’s time to get you back home.” He glanced at her. “You know what you’re going to do?”

Her mind skipped back to her dream, the twirling dance with the prince in the hall of castle Uthed. She would also probably save the world too, while she was at it. “Yeah, I do.”

“Well, I guess that’s that,” He heaved a breath. “Let’s get you on your way.”

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“One last thing,” the Moon God said.

Day was well underway by now on the moon, the heat actually slightly oppressive, even under the shelter of her robe. “Yes?”

They’d stopped outside of a massive tower, something called a mass-driver. Messing with her inner radar, she could get the sense it was a magnetic construct of incredible power, though the actual mechanics of it escaped her.

“You are a reflection of your inner self now,” He said, all clowning gone from his composure. He took her hand, and she gazed down at the brilliant fur, the long razor claws. “Never forget that we are ever-changing beings, all of us. Especially you, now that you are both yourself and your own mirror.” He tapped her claws. “Hands are for reaching out to others, but yours are also for killing.” She opened her mouth to protest, but he fixed her with a gaze that filled her vision. “Don’t deny it. They’re more your hands than they’ve ever been.” He held her for a moment, gazing through her as sure as if she were glass. “Just think about it, that’s all I can say.”

She swallowed, and nodded.

With a nod in reply, she boarded the ride back home.

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Less than ten minutes later, she discovered the Moon God had ignored some key details of mass driver transit.