Jake’s POV
The darkness faded and I was standing in front of Suma’s old school. To my left, was Suma, perched on a metal bar in a row of other jungle gym-like bars. Over a year had passed since the last time I’d been here, and over five years since the first time.
“It looks different.” I said, glancing up at the twisted metal and wood supports, and molded stone walls.
“Really? It looks the same to me.” Suma said, not really bothering to look. From what I remember, her memories of this place weren’t great.
“Do you want to come inside with me?” I offered.
“No. I am going to visit with a few old friends. Contact me when you are ready, and I will summon you to meet them as well.”
“You don’t wanna see Sela-Car?”
“I do not care to, no.” Suma said. For some reason, Suma and she never got along, but I doubt even Suma really knows why. She once said it was something about her personality, but I can’t remember.
“Alright then. I’ll see you in a bit.” With that, Suma flew away, and I walked inside.
Since I’d been here before, I knew, in a general sense, how to find her lab. Thankfully, it seemed school was out at the moment, because no one was around. A few corners and a long hallway or two later, and I found Sela-Car. She was standing on the ground, wingtips pressed against a complex magic circle. Moments later, light began to bend and twist inside the circle, like heatwaves coming off hot pavement. A mirror image of Sela-Car appeared in the circle, except she was not touching the circle itself. It was more like a still image actually, but three-dimensional.
“Finally!” Sela-Car cried out.
“Finally!” The illusion repeated in the exact same way as the original had said. Sela-Car began to flutter around excitedly, and sing happily.
“Asumu da jonn nis ah! Asumu da jonn nis ah!” She sang, until she locked eyes with my stupidly grinning face, and the camera phone I’d pulled out to record. After that, she froze in place, halfway through a wingbeat and fell to the floor clumsily. “How long have you been watching?”
“Since, before finally.”
“So… you saw everything?”
“Everything.” I smiled and nodded.
She stood back up and straightened her ruffled feathers as elegantly as she could, given that she had just faceplanted… beakplanted onto the floor moments ago. “It is good to see you are well and that you have returned safely.”
“Thanks. Are you okay?”
“I am uninjured.” Sela-Car said.
“Except for your pride.”
“Was there something you needed.”
“I could use some help reapplying and repairing the runes you put on my weapons. They got pretty beat up, and I can’t fix them myself right now.” I raised my wrist. She saw it, and her feathers around her neck raised slightly, while the ones on her tail flattened themselves a bit.
“I see. You have my sympathy. I would be happy to reapply your runes.”
“Thanks.”
“In return, I want two things.”
“Okay…”
“Firstly, you never tell a soul what just happened… ever.” I chuckled at that, and agreed. “Second, I need two more daljars of your mana.”
“I gave you quite a bit when I left, didn’t I?”
“Yes, and that lasted a few months. I made several interesting discoveries, and shared my findings with other researchers, but I ran out before I could continue my experiments.”
“Easy enough.” I said. Looking around the room, I saw several more strange rune engraved metal, wood, and stone pillars. “It looks like you’ve been busy.”
“Ah, the capital found out about my research, and her majesty the Queen allocated funding for me to continue it, so long as I share my finding with her first.”
“Queen Ompera?”
“Yes.”
(Hmm, I don’t like that. She was smart, this feels like she’s looking for something.) I thought to myself. “Did she have any other conditions?”
“Only that my findings were to be kept from the nobility, until she cleared it.”
(She knows about my struggles with nobles in the past, maybe she’s just looking for weaknesses to use against the dragon? Or both of us?)
“Sir Jake?” Sela-Car asked.
“Sorry,” I said, snapping myself out of my thoughts, “I was just wondering: do you happen to need a research assistant?”
“You wish to be my assistant?” Sela-Car said, very confused. “Do you have any experience with the runes that I am unaware of? When you left, you seemed rather unknowledgeable about them.”
“A lot has happened. Long story short, I made my own runes.” I said, and summoned my bag.
“You made a rune of you own? Well, that is certainly well done, considering your lack of formal education, but I do not think that qualifies you to-” I pulled out the leather straps that I’d used to mute Harbinger’s music, and showed them to her. “What is that?” She asked, intrigued.
“My runes.” I placed them down in front of her, and activated them. I’d already accounted for any inversion in these runes when I made them, so I didn’t need to use a daljar to power them. The sound around us cut out, as she tried to talk. Her beak opened, but no words came out. I watched as she pecked the ground, shouted, and spoke, until I finally pulled the mana back out.
“This- I have… what are these symbols?” Now she was interested.
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Suma’s POV
I lied to Jake, telling him I was on my way to see old friends. In truth, I was fling to my parent’s home. I told Jake that I did not want to see them, and at the time, I meant it. But the more I thought about it, the more I missed them, even if all we did was argue the last time we spoke. So, landing outside their home, I cast the spell that untangled the vines, and flew inside.
“Mother, Father!” I called out.
“Daughter of mine? Suma?” My mother called out, then probably remembered that I had a name. She came out from her roost, and greeted me singing happily. “By baby, you have come home!” She pressed her head against mine, and let out shaky sigh. “I have missed you so much, Suma.”
“I-I have missed you too.” I said, caught off guard. Pulling my head from hers after a moment, I asked, “Is father here?”
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“Um, no. Your father and I have decided to end our relationship.” Mother’s voice was tired, yet full of emotion.
“What?” I asked.
“I am afraid we could not reconcile after an argument.”
“You two have been together since before I was hatched. What was the argument about?”
“It was about your familiar, and the army. What else?” She said.
“But I thought you two disliked both of those things?”
“We did, but in time, I changed my mind. I said that we should have supported your decision more, and accepted your familiar, as strange as he was. Your father-”
“Thought he was right, and heard nothing else about it?” I asked, knowing my father well enough, despite his efforts to the contrary, to feel assured that is what happened.
“Yes. Perhaps it is for the best? Ours was always an… unorthodox pairing.” She said. Mother was right. By most Neame’s standards, staying with a single partner for longer than two years was abnormal. Jake once mentioned that his people often mate for life, but in this kingdom at least, it was not. Normally, a couple only stays together until a child is hatched, and then the two separate. If the child is male, they stay with the father. If they are female, they stay with the mother.
“I do not know. He was cold to me, but nonetheless, I did still have an affection for him.” I said.
“Suma, my child, I am sorry for the way we left things off the last time we saw each other. I regretted it more than you could ever know. Please forgive me.”
“…Yes. I forgive you.” I placed my head on hers again.
“Perhaps… I could meet your familiar? He protected you in the army, so I wish to thank him properly.”
“He would like that.” Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. “Mother, would you like a name?”
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Jake’s POV
“So each of these symbols corresponds with a sound, and those sounds form the basis of your language?” Sela-Car asked looking over the paper with letters written all over it. We were still in her lab, only now I was teaching her about the cursive alphabet I modified to make writing runes easier. Her attention was fully focused, and she seemed to be absorbing everything. “Fascinating, what a brilliant system!” Her feathers sparkled brighter than I’d ever seen them before, which still wasn’t overly bright, but she was clearly excited. “And your people use this for communication?”
“Yeah. Well, not everyone, but in my country they do.” I told her. “Other countries use their own systems, or multiple systems mashed together.”
“Sir Jake, I would be interested in visiting your country some day.”
“…Okay. I think you might have some trouble communicating, but one day, sure.” I avoided the awkward explanation of how and why I was stuck here, and just agreed before changing the subject. “You know, you’ve gotten the alphabet pretty quickly. It’s impressive.”
“While more complicated than runes on the surface, this system is inherently simpler. Even the symbols themselves are less complicated. Memorizing them and their associated sounds did not take long.”
“Wait, you already did? Like, you memorized the whole alphabet in the last hour we’ve been talking?”
“Indeed. It was exhilarating! I cannot wait to begin experimenting with them.”
“How?”
“Well, I suppose I will begin with sounding out simple instructions, perhaps then I will-”
“No, how did you learn them so quickly? Do you have an eidetic memory?”
“Yes.”
“…”
“…”
“Is that normal for Neame?” I wondered.
“No. But I was hatched with it. Applying it to my research is quite useful.” Sela-Car explained. “Speaking of which, it is time for me to return to my experiment. Thank you for teaching me this Sir Jake. I cannot thank you enough. This changes the direction of my research entirely!”
“Sure, you’re welcome.”
After that, we said goodbye, and I started walking back to Suma’s house/cave thing. “Suma,” I said, over our private connection, “I’m done at Sela-Car’s lab. She agreed to fix and help improve my runes.”
“Okay, Jake. Actually, I have some good news, and a favor to ask.”
“What’s up?”
“I went and saw my mother, like you suggested.”
“Oh, that’s… how did that go?”
“It went well, for the most part. But she would like to meet you.”
“I’d love to meet her! Does this mean you’ve made up?”
“It does.”
“And what about your dad?”
“Father and Mother have… ended their relationship. He left their home and has begun living on the other side of the mountain.”
“Oh man. Suma, I’m so sorry. Are they getting a divorce?”
“A what?”
“Like, are they ending their marriage officially, or…?”
“Marriage? What is that?”
“Do Neame not get married?!” I asked, shocked.
“I do not know what that it.”
“Do your people go to a courthouse, sign some documents, and swear to live together forever?”
“No… do humans?” She sounded equally shocked.
“But wait, doesn’t Sela-Car have a husband?”
“Yes. Is that what a husband is?”
“What did you think it was?”
“I had assumed it was something akin to a mate, but I did not realize it was some sort of legally enforceable arrangement.” She said, confused. “Is your mother married?”
“She was, but my dad died a few years ago.”
“They stayed together until one of them died?!”
“Yeah, that’s pretty normal.”
“Fascinating. How long were they married?”
“Twenty-five years, I think.”
“…Wow.”
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Suma’s Mother’s POV
It… Jake appeared in my home a few seconds after Suma finished summoning him. He was tall, much more so than I had expected. Even though he was bent over, his head still touched the ceiling. Suma was standing on the ground beside him, and I was also on the ground, but facing him. Before his arrival, my daughter warned me of a few things. She told me to not borrow any of Jake’s mana. To speak to him like I would any Neame, because he was very intelligent and might get offended if I spoke to him like I speak to my own familiar. She asked me to not mention his left upper extremity, his hand as she called it, because he had suffered an injury and lost it in a battle recently. And finally, she told me that he speaks rather rudely; that he constantly uses contractions, and I should just try to ignore them.
“Ow!” He said, rubbing his fur covered head with his long extremities after hitting the ceiling. His limb proportions were so distorted, like he had been stretched out from four directions. I saw his missing limb, and compared it with his other, then felt sympathy; it must have been quite painful.
“Jake, this is my mother. Mother, this is Jake.” Suma introduced us. Her besmears shined erratically. She was never good at hiding her nervousness.
I bowed respectfully to him, then righted myself. “Greetings, Sir Jake.”
“Oh, you can just call me ‘Jake’. You don’t need to add ‘sir’.” He said, folding his long legs under himself, and sitting down.
“Well then, Jake. It is a pleasure to meet you.” I said.
“I’m glad we finally got the chance.” He said. I heard no Sunece in his voice, but I was sure Suma had informed him of my previous opinions.
“Yes… I would like to apologize for my shameful behavior, and for taking so long to finally greet you.”
“It’s fine. You were worried about Suma. In your place, I’d have probably done the same thing.”
(Suma did not lie about his language. Four contractions in half a minute; wow.) I thought to myself. “Thank you for that, but I do not deserve it. I was wrong about you. You protected Suma while she was away, and you were there for her when her father and I were not. My debt to you is... immeasurable.”
“Please don’t worry about it. I was going to do that anyway. I’m just happy that you and Suma made amends. And I would like to extend my apologies for my role with wat happened between you and your hus- uh… between you and Suma’s father.” He said, stuttering during the final part of his sentence.
“Thank you, but it was not your fault. Ours was always an unusual relationship. It was bound to end eventually.”
“Suma explained some of it to me. Things are different on my world. Breakups like this aren’t rare, but they are uncommon, and always sad.”
“Have you experienced this yourself? Suma told me that your ages were relatively the same, so I had assumed you also had not mated yet.”
“Uhhh… ummm.” Jake’s face changed color slightly, and I could sense that he began to emit more mana than he had been before.
“Mother! Please do not. Jake does not like to discuss such matters.”
“I’ve uh… no. I’ve never been in a serious long-term relationship. I mean I’ve dated! But nothing serious. No kids yet.”
“Suma is the same. Even though I have asked her multiple times to meet with my friend’s son.”
“Okay! Well, it was a pleasure doing this. But Jake is quite busy. Right, Jake?” Suma protested, embarrassed.
“You know, on my first day as her familiar, she had me chase away someone who was trying to flirt with her.” Jake laughed.
“That does indeed sound like my daughter.” I chuckled.
“NAMES! My mother wanted a name! Jake, would you mind giving her one?” Suma cried, desperate to change the subject.
“Suma!” I said, surprised at her rudeness. “You cannot just-”
“No problem. I’d love to.”
“W-what?”
“Do you have any preferences for the name?”
“…I…”
“Like, how it should sound, I mean. Or if you want to have a special meaning.”
“…I…”
“You know, you two don’t have a family name. Do you want me to give you both one?”
“…I…”
“Only nobles are allowed to have family names.” Suma said, as if he had just offered her a Morgi fruit seed, and not a family name like some distinguished noble family would have.
“Oh, dang. Just a normal name then. Unless we could get the Grand Duke to make an exception?”
“Even Grand Duke Udoka Sopra cannot change that. It is an ancient law, nearly a thousand years old.”
“Would you truly give me a name?” I finally managed to say, after spending several seconds stunned.
“Sure, if you want one.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you!”
“So, any preferences?”
I thought for a moment, “Yes, one. I would like it to sound similar to my daughter’s name. I want everyone who hears it to know that I am proud to be her mother.” Jake nodded his head.
“Mother…” Suma said, surprised.
“Okay, I can do that.” He closed his eyes for a moment, and rubbed the bottom of his face. “What about… a name that means ‘moon’ on my world? The name is Luna.”
“Luna.” I said, stunned. “It is beautiful. I would love that name.”
“Well then, it is nice to meet you, Luna.”