Zalia watched Frost, who was using a bed of ice to assist her in dragging her kill, drop it at Boreal’s feet. The other young cats all dropped their own prizes in the pile shortly after, each staring up at Boreal in turn. By the looks of it, they had chosen to bring back a Bronze rank creature of a weight greater than their combined weight each.
While some of the townspeople around looked surprised, slightly amused or amazed, others were looking a little disturbed. Zalia decided to take matters into her own hands and opened her vault, moving quickly to store the bodies inside.
She could feel the pure pride radiating from Boreal through their bond and could see the equally strong emotion within the five young cats’ auras. Zalia shook her head in a mixed feeling of amusement and dismay. How was she going to deal with the five of them?
As kittens, they had been a collective menace. As young cats, they were the same except with a much higher capacity for destruction. That capacity would only grow as they did and thought it might be helpful during times of war, it might become a problem if they didn’t settle down as Boreal had. She could only hope.
Zalia only noticed then that Frost and Breeze had ranked up to Bronze, with the other three just behind. They would similarly reach Bronze in the coming days and the timing couldn’t have been better. She had hoped that Aylie would reach Silver before things with the Astar kicked off fully but with her rank already accelerated far past what someone her age should be, things had slowed down in that department.
Leaving Boreal to praise her children, Zalia waved away the crowd and stepped into the temple of Nateysta. She could have tried to commune with him outside of the temple but enjoyed the feeling of peace and safety that came with entering its boundaries.
“Nateysta, I wish to speak with you.”
She pushed the thoughts out from her mind towards the stone and wood of the temple, strongly focused on the altar in particular.
A small vine grew from the side of the altar, creeping along the floor towards her. It thickened quickly before sprouting a fruit like an orange that increased in size dramatically over the course of a minute. The peel of the fruit shed to reveal Nateysta, Ro, in his usual plant crow form.
“Zalia.”
“Why do you always arrive so dramatically?”
She kept the words as a thought as to not disturb the others at prayer around her, though Ro had done that pretty thoroughly by himself. The worship of Nateysta had become a fully fledged religion in Nature’s Reclaim, which was only half Zalia’s fault.
“A god must awe his followers from time to time.”
It was hard to argue with that and who was Zalia to refute? She didn’t have any experience as a god after all.
“If you say so Ro. Look, I think we’re ready to meet the exiled Astar. Do you think you could make it happen? Soon, if possible.”
Ro leaned down, the tip of his petrified wooden beak turning to the side so that one of his deep black, beady eyes could stare right into Zalia’s.
Despite the years of experience Zalia had interacting with many different Ascendants, some friendly, some hostile, a creeping shiver went down her back. Staring into the ancient eye of Nateysta gave her a feeling of a power stretching forever across the horizon, powerful and unknowable.
“I can do this, but know that once this meeting happens there will be no rest until the end of this conflict.”
“I had a feeling. We’re ready but there is one thing I need to be sure of first. You can protect the others if they come with us, right?”
Ro replied with a simple nod before standing back upright.
“Good. The Astar has been waiting patiently for your answer. Bring everyone who will be attending to the front of your house and I will transport everyone to a meeting place of my choice.”
Before Zalia could get in a goodbye, Ro’s avatar had disintegrated, the pile of dust blown out the door by a cool wind.
Knowing that Ro could probably still hear her in the temple, she muttered a goodbye anyway before leaving.
Outside the temple, Boreal and the young ones were still clumped together though the crowd of other people and animals had dispersed. Zalia hadn’t inspected the bodies she had stored just yet but hoped that Boreal had the sense to send the young cats on this trial somewhere outside of the Grove’s influence.
“Boreal, come on.”
Zalia walked back toward the house and Boreal popped out of the cat puddle to follow, her children trotting after in a mess of fur.
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They made their way back to the house and found Aylie and Lumin making preparations for the meeting. She took after Zalia a bit in that way, always wanting to be prepared for whatever situations they might encounter. Though, thinking about it, Aylie could have developed the trait more as a result of the events of the past few years rather than taking after Zalia.
“Hey, where’s Ember?” Zalia asked, not feeling her within the bounds of the house.
Aylie looked up from her little pile of supplies ranging from dried and preserved foods to useful tools including, Zalia saw, an anti-teleportation bracelet that she had given to Aylie.
“Oh, she went out to find the Ancient of War and let him know that he would be in charge while we’re gone.”
Zalia nodded to herself, ticking that off her mental list and adding ‘thank Ember’ to it.
With that being dealt with, she only had a few things left to handle. Lumin and Aylie would be fine without a doubt and Boreal had wandered off to do her own preparations which likely consisted of finding the young cats something to do while the rest of them were gone. Zalia just had to think about what she needed now.
A plan for dealing with the Astar monarch had been slowly forming in her mind ever since hearing about the rebellious Astar. Ro had told her that the Astar monarch had the aspect of the Astar themselves as their godly realm, which she hoped would work to their favour.
In her vault, Zalia had an artifact created by a high ranked inventor called Et. She had gotten the artifact which was called a ‘constructed heirloom’ by freeing Scour, the god of the desert from it. The heirloom could be used to trap a god by drawing it in within a place of concentrated power related to its aspect. For Ro, that would be one of his temples and she hoped that the rebel Astar would know of a place that would function as the same thing for the Astar monarch so she could draw them in and trap them with it.
That was the basis of her plan, and though many if’s and how’s still remained to be ironed out, she hoped it would be a good enough base to build on.
Finding herself still leaning in the doorway of Aylie’s room staring at nothing with Aylie watching her curiously, she pushed off the doorframe.
“Well, it seems we’re really doing this thing.”
Aylie nodded.
“Yeah, is there anything you wanted me to do while we’re talking with this Astar?”
“Actually yes. I want you to try and read the Astar like you can read others. The ability might not work the same on Astar if at all. Oh, also, if you think they’re able to sense your poking whatsoever, stop. I don’t want to endanger the meeting if possible.”
“Easy enough.”
Zalia turned to leave.
“Oh and Aylie, if it does come to a fight take yourself to the astral straight away. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
She saw a small spark of defiance in Aylie’s expression before it faded away to agreement. Unsure whether she should be concerned about that, Zalia left to her own room. There she opened the portal to her vault and hopped in, comforted as always by the calming, serene aura within.
While Nature’s Reclaim had the same healing power covering it that the vault had, it had grown somewhat… distant ever since the town had been occupied by others. It felt more neutral, belonging less to her than to the town, where the one in the vault was still very much in tune with her.
She hadn’t cleaned out the shelves of the vault in… well, since she had gotten the thing. There hadn’t been any need since the shelves were mostly empty still, despite the five new bodies now stored in them. Strangely, there was still the body of an Astar in there too. Thankfully everything on the shelves were kept frozen in time which would make disposing of all the bodies much easier.
The Astar body was the first to go, burnt to ash that she mixed with water and buried in the herb garden at the back of the vault. She left the bodies of the animals slain by Boreal’s children in case they wanted them back. There were quite a few pieces of junk from her time in Cormaine including a sword, maps, memories and the ritual that Juniper used to bring them there. She left all of that to one corner of the vault shelves.
The God Trap and Et’s journal on the machine were both at the front of the vault, the trap having repaired itself after Zalia destroyed it to free Scour. Near the front she also kept fresh food and water for the rest of her family should they need it along with a supply of Ember and Aylie’s favourite snack, a chocolate covered candy made by a baker near the eastern gate of the town. Though, as far as Zalia could tell, they didn’t have cocoa in Endaria, so the ‘chocolate’ was slightly different to what she was used to from her own world.
Happy with how much food, water and herbs she had stored in the vault, she left and made her way to the living room.
With preparations for their meeting with the Astar mostly already taken care of, Zalia looked to the second to last thing on her mental list. She had been thinking of making a gift for Ember but had been having a hard time figuring out what it should be.
She spent some time using her abilities to form different shapes out of wood, a delicate ring, a circlet designed with the imagery of flames in mind to match her armour and various other pieces of jewellery. Nothing felt quite right.
All of these things she was able to make with a simple thought, no effort required to perform the creation. While the thought was there, it didn’t feel like enough.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Ember poking her head in the doorway.
“We’re all ready.”
Zalia jumped, storing the circlet in her hands before Ember saw it. More time had passed than she realised.
“Alright, let’s do this.”
She got up and followed Ember out the front of the house, Boreal and Aylie already there. Boreal was wearing her heirloom armour and frozen circlet proudly, ready as she always was for battle, her children waiting in the doorway to the house. Aylie had a backpack filled with supplies and her staff held in hand, the anti-teleportation bracelet firmly on her wrist.
Ember was wearing her own armour, though the trail of fire it usually left was turned off at that moment, thankfully.
Zalia gave Ember a kiss and a murmured thank you, ticking that last item off her mental list.
With a thought sent out to the world, Nateysta arrived.
“Ready?”
Zalia nodded and with a rush of power tinged with the aura of nature, they were taken away.