Branches and roots spread out, some pruned and others yet branching out even further. When four particularly large pieces had grown out far enough, they began shooting upwards, forming the corners of the structure as yet more wood grew to fill out the walls.
A doorway formed, windows, another doorway. A second room started to shoot off from the main one, yet another off the other doorway.
“What in the worlds Zalia,” Ember exploded, looking at the forming building in awe.
The structure wasn’t anything that fancy, the large scale control much easier to maintain than what was required to shape any finer details. If she were to form a perfectly smooth floor or properly squared building, decorations or an artful facade, it would be a lot harder to manage.
Still, she had to stay focused, not having the attention span to reply.
A sloped roof formed, leaves starting to grow out of it to create a foliage covering that grew ever thicker, thick enough that it would keep the rain out. The roots of the structure grew ever downwards and outwards, some tapping into the little stream running nearby and others into a well of water deep, deep below.
A fourth room split off from the others and Zalia finally finished the structure. There were three rooms with beds that grew up from the floor, made of thin interwoven roots and softened with soft fresh leaves. Thin beams of light struck through various gaps in the wood and leaves, dimly lighting the space though even that wasn’t necessary for her, Ember or Boreal anymore.
Congratulations! Healing Presence has reached Bronze 6.
Satisfied with the result, she used preparation to sever her chunk of wood from the structure and store it back in the Grove vault.
“When did you learn that?” Ember asked, coming up to rest an arm around her shoulders.
“I have a lot of free time when you two are snoring away,” Zalia explained, arms crossed.
“... snoring?” Ember asked, suspicion entering her voice.
“Mmmmhmm,” Zalia hummed.
“I do not snore!” Ember refuted.
“If you say so darling,” Zalia said placatively.
“Hey!” Ember protested.
“I can hear from far,” Boreal sent to Zalia.
Zalia snorted in amusement, trying to cover it with a cough.
She felt Ember turn her head to glare at Boreal, as if she had heard it too, so Zalia pulled her close with an arm around the waist.
“Don’t worry about it! We have a nice little home here that we can stay in while we are in Ostoss. I do need to get around setting up everything else though tomorrow is a long way away still,” she said.
She could feel Ember stiffen, then relax, against her side before she rested her head on Zalia’s shoulder.
“Maybe we could all just relax for a little bit,” Ember suggested.
Aylie pushed past both of them, finally running out of patience, running up to explore the new house. Boreal, who was equally impatient and realistically actually younger than Aylie, followed close behind.
“That sounds nice,” Zalia agreed, revelling in the warmth of the woman beside her.
She still wasn’t quite used to enjoying other people’s company, let alone enjoying someone’s company so much that she started to consider a future with them. That was exactly what went through her head at that moment though, as she stood there with Ember’s arm around her and her arm around Ember.
“I still think about leaving this all behind and going somewhere else,” she murmured, tightening her arm around Ember just a little more.
“I.. I’d come with you,” Ember whispered.
Zalia almost jumped with surprise. She knew that the kingdom meant a lot to Ember, the people more so. She was always not only ready but proactively looking to help her people. The fact that Ember would walk away from all of that to go with Zalia shocked her. Did that mean Ember was starting to think of her as she was of Ember?
She could feel the emotions coming off Ember like waves, appreciation, happiness and attraction. She knew that Ember would be feeling all of the same emotions coming from her.
Just because the emotions were there, it didn’t mean that Ember was really up for something like that, mentally.
There was no way to be sure other than to ask.
“Hey, I-” Zalia started.
“Zalia!” she heard Tristan call from somewhere far off behind her, cutting her off.
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“What were you going to say?” Ember asked, lifting her head of Zalia’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry, I should check out whatever this is,” Zalia said, pulling her arm away and turning to face Tristan.
Ember dropped her arm as well but, much to Zalia’s happiness, stayed close. Her confidence had gone away in the instant she was interrupted but that didn’t change her feelings.
“What’s up Tristan?” she called over.
Tristan jogged over but something seemed off to her. His gait wasn’t quite as smooth as normal and there was a very slight nervousness around him that set off alarm bells in her mind.
“Hey, I just wanted to know what the plan was,” he said, coming to a stop a metre and a half in front of them.
Zalia adjusted herself very slightly so that she was in front of Ember just a tiny bit.
“What do you mean, I already told you,” she said, frowning.
“Yeah, you told me what you wanted everyone else in that room to hear, not what your actual plans are,” Tristan added, looking around as if checking no one else was nearby, “I want to know what you actually plan to do about the people who will come. You don’t plan on killing them, do you?”
“What? No, of course not. As I said, I believe I can get them to listen,” Zalia insisted, folding her arms in front of her.
“Well… alright. Are you certain? You weren’t there for the last one, there wasn’t much convincing those people,” Tristan added, the nervousness having disappeared entirely.
“Yeah, absolutely. These are rational people, deep down. I’m sure if we explain that the food is being grown for them, not to be hoarded for the needs of the few, they will leave us be. Maybe even help!” Zalia said excitedly.
She could feel the confusion that Ember was experiencing and knew she would need to explain later.
“Ok! You know, you might be right. It’s just so hard to be optimistic with our situation but… maybe things have taken a turn for the better. I’ll see you tomorrow yeah?” Tristan, no, the imposter, said.
“Yeah, tomorrow,” Zalia confirmed, going so far as to step forward and hug the thing.
She felt it for sure, the corruption flowing through it. She had already felt hints of it but the physical contact made it certain in her mind. It had come to figure out if she did actually have some other plan in mind and could only hope that she had been convincing enough to trick it into a false sense of security.
It ran off, perhaps a little faster than it should have to remain inconspicuous.
She had a feeling that it was young, perhaps inexperienced in the art of deception. Why they had sent one that was both of those things to perform such an important task, she was unsure. Hopefully it wasn’t a part of some kind of further plan.
She could see far off that some of the people of Ostoss were beginning to walk into the park, as if the life flowing through it were attracting them.
She spent the next four hours walking about the park and growing various plants in the locations she needed them to be for the ritual. It was hard work that required a lot of concentration and not a small amount of adjustment. She kept finding that she had made the distance between sections of plants too small, as if she was subconsciously trying to make the living ritual smaller. She had a feeling that she wasn’t yet at the point where it should be possible to make such a large ritual, or rather, that it was dangerous for her to do so.
Despite that, she pushed on, forcing the ability to give her the instinctive insight into placement that it usually did.
It was all made a joyful experience by Ember joining her. They laughed together at Ember’s attempts to plant a few of the plants, spoke about nothing yet everything at the same time and generally spent the time relaxing with each other.
Aylie ran back and forth across the park inspecting different plants and using her ability Plant Manipulation to alter their appearances. Zalia knew she was using Spiritual Connection and Astral Walker to see things about these plants that Zalia couldn’t. In a way, Aylie was better, or rather would be better, as a Druid than Zalia was and that was okay with her. It was Aylie’s main class after all, whereas it was only the combination of Zalia’s other two that made her one.
So it was that it brought even further joy to Zalia’s heart to see Aylie teleporting around and engaging with nature, Boreal following along on her adventures. It seemed like, despite the state of Ostoss, Aylie was beginning to open up to the world once more. She still stared off in dissociation every now and then but Zalia felt as if it was now due to the things Aylie could see that none of the rest of them could. She was learning and discovering things about the world that maybe no one else had before. Her class was a blessing given by a god, after all.
Knowing that Boreal was keeping Aylie safe, Zalia allowed herself to open up to the world much in the same way. She had been feeling shut off ever since the death of Delphi but with the healing provided by Ember and the reconnection of the memory, she felt a lot better. The wound still wasn’t healed and would leave a scar, but she would carry that if it meant remembering the collective, something that was the dying wish they had sent to her.
That train of thought brought her to the memory still lurking in her vault, the one given by the collective. She had tried to experience it once, doing so had given her a killer headache and not much progress. That had been when she was still suffering from the repressed memory of the collective's death however. She would try to decipher it once more, perhaps when she had helped stabilise Ostoss.
After the plants were done and Zalia reached out with Herbal Magic, she could tell that the ritual would work. Well, it would work provided she managed to push enough mana and materials into it. She also finally built up enough confidence to talk to Ember once more.
“Hey Ember,” she started.
They were sitting, leant back, on a little bench she had grown into the side of the house, just shaded from the sun by the leaves overhead. Ember was leaning into Zalia and she sat with hands in her lap, fiddling nervously.
“Yeah?” Ember murmured.
“I’ve been meaning to ask, because I want to… well, I’m not sure how customs are for this kind of thing here but,” Zalia started, fumbling over her words a bit.
She could feel herself starting to blush but soldiered on.
“I’m interested in you. Would you be interested in pursuing a relationship? No pressure of course, if you’re not.” she finished, turning her head to look at Ember.
Ember sat up, turning to look at Zalia as well. She could feel Ember’s emotions just as strongly as she could feel her own, as if the woman was projecting them into her very soul. Excitement, anxiety, nervousness. Relief.
“Yes, I am. I’m very interested Zalia,” Ember said, taking both of Zalia’s hands to stop her fiddling.
She could feel how Ember felt, she knew that what she felt for the woman was shared back yet somehow, the answer still surprised her.
“Oh.”