Tala hopped twice as she moved forward, mirroring aspects to allow the remnants of grit and grime to fall from her. She stretched luxuriantly as she walked back under the outer portcullis, Terry striding at her side.

“That was nice, Terry. It’s been too long since we’ve been able to cut loose side by side.”

Terry tossed his head and chirped happily in agreement.

She almost paused within the gatehouse to be questioned, but the inner gates were open, the portcullis up, so she shrugged to herself and continued inside, where she found her unit waiting along with a few others.

She knew that people had gathered on the walls to watch, just as they had for Mistress Kaeti, but those had dissipated by this point. I wonder if I won or lost anyone a good deal of money?

-Probably not. The gambling places have been doing this a long time. They probably keep the odds really conservative for new Refined in the field.-

Yeah, that makes sense.

Master Clevnis had his arms crossed, and the others’ features were unreadable.

“Hey, all.” Tala waved, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious. “So… what did you think?”

Terry flickered around to look at each Archon from multiple angles before settling on Tala’s shoulder.

The Refined noted Terry’s actions but didn’t otherwise seem to react.

The two that Tala didn’t know, however, seemed to treat the terror bird as a potential threat, eyeing him skeptically until he came to a stop.

Only then did the two Archons who were not a part of her unit step forward.

The shorter one spoke loudly, and it took Tala a moment to realize that it was simply his normal voice, rather than him raising his voice at her. “Why are you putting holes in my wall?”

“Our.” The taller one said, simply. His voice was level, almost muted in comparison but filled with certainty.

Short glanced back, then shook his head. “Fine, our wall. Why are you putting holes in our wall?”

Tala frowned. “Who are you?”

“I’m Adam, that’s Navin.”

Master Navin gave a small, simple wave but didn’t say anything else.

“Well, Master Adam, Master Navin, I’m not sure what the issue is.”

“Have I not been clear?” He glanced back at Master Navin. “I thought I was being pretty clear.”

“Your wall. You don’t want holes in it.”

“Exactly. So? What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I was thrown into a wall, I don’t really understand how it is your wall, or how it is my fault.” After a moment, she shrugged and continued. “I’m also unsure how that qualifies as multiple ‘holes.’”

Tala took a moment to really assess the two. They both appeared to be Fused, moving toward Refined. If she had to guess, they were material Mages, from context, they likely worked with the walls.

“Next time, I could let the cyclops come and hit the wall directly. That would have left a dent. Would that be your preference?”

Master Adam grunted. “You aren’t wrong, and no, we don’t want that to happen, but couldn’t you have handled it better?”

She shrugged. “Well, yes. Always.”

Master Navin barked a laugh, placing a hand on Master Adam’s shoulder. “Adam.”

Master Adam glanced at his partner, then groaned and looked back to her. “Fine. It was Mistress Tala, right?”

“Yes?”

“Well, do better next time, as for this time, I can’t make you pay more than the standard rates for damage incurred during a defensive engagement, but I want something else from you.”

Tala felt her eyes narrow. If he asks for a meal, or something like that, I’m gonna hit him.

-Really? Just for asking?-

Yeah. Mistress Vanga’s right there; he’ll probably be fine after.

“I want the dew of a lazy morning, harvested from the left whisker of a kitten.”

She paused at that, blinking a few times. “What?”

Master Navin closed his eyes and rubbed his temples as he muttered to himself.

Master Clevnis stepped forward. “I think I’ve let this continue long enough. What’s going on?”

Master Adam turned to the unit leader. “I already told you. This Refined has damaged my”—he glanced to Master Navin—“our wall, and I feel recompense is required.”

Tala spoke before her unit leader could, “I’m not hunting down a kitten for dew. And even if I were willing, it’s an impossible thing to fulfill regardless, because the act of having the task, makes the morning anything but lazy.”

“Fine, I’ll take the twinkle of a star off of a noon-time pool.”

Tala gave him a flat look. “I have no idea what is going on here, but I am not amused.”

Master Navin cleared his throat. “He’s being… whimsical, and he’s irritated. I think he’s stuck between being frustrated with you and trying to be funny. I’ll accept twenty gold to clear your debt to him and take him away without further issue.”

Tala almost agreed, just to get this over with, but then she saw a glint of mischief in Master Navin’s eyes. “You’re messing with me too. What, is this some sort of initiation for new defenders? Are you two working together to get an extra bit of gold? I broke some stone. It shouldn’t be hard to repair.”

Master Adam raised a finger, his cheek twitching. “It’s not stone. The walls are made of an incredibly complex interlacing of various materials both natural and man-made.”

Master Navin shook his head. “It’s stone, Adam.”

Master Adam turned on his partner, and they fell to arguing as if it were a common topic for them. In fact, from what Tala heard, they seemed to be picking up the argument somewhere between vastly too complex for her to care and way too detailed for her to follow.

Master Clevnis shook his head, leading Tala away, Terry trailing just behind. “Let’s leave them to it.”

“Are they going to be okay?” Tala glanced over her shoulder at the two Archons who were wandering off, still deep in their argument.

“Oh, yes. They are specialists in maintaining city walls during a waning. They are… eccentric, but they work really well together, and their work is beyond reproach. They do like to extort odd requests or gold from people who aren’t familiar with them, though.” He frowned. “Now that I think about it, those who agree to the odd requests seem to lose more in the end, when compared to those who just hand over some gold.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that… I mean that they work well together. They don’t seem to get along very well.” She pointed her thumb at the arguing pair.

He shrugged. “Friendship looks different for different people. A couple of their kids are married, so they’re as much family as friends. That adds complication to any dynamic. They’ve been doing this for almost a century.”

Tala took one last look, and really looked this time.

With the extra focus and context, this time she saw it. There was a comfort with which they held themselves around each other. The conversation was just incidental. They were used to one another, and no longer felt a need to tiptoe around the other.

They were who they were, and they accepted themselves and each other without reservation.

Huh… that’s actually pretty interesting.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“But forget that.” Master Clevnis pulled her attention back as the two of them joined the others from their unit. “You did not properly convey the battle prowess of your friend, here.”

Terry flickered to Tala’s other shoulder, happily preening before the regard of the Refined who surrounded him.

Tala found herself smiling. “Yeah, he’s pretty great, isn’t he?”

Terry headbutted her cheek affectionately.

Mistress Vanga spoke up, “Dimensional terror bird, indeed. How many times did you go through a fount, multi-sized one?”

Terry glanced toward Tala, then flickered three times.

That’s what was guessed. Is he saying three because that’s what I think, or is it the truth?

-Does it matter?-

Probably not, no.

“That’s phenomenal. How did you avoid the subsequent binding…” Mistress Vanga’s eyes widened. “The fount was destroyed shortly after you passed through it the last time?”

Tala found herself frowning. “What’s this?”

It was Master Girt who answered, “All the arcanous creatures known to have passed through a fount three times and survived, shortly afterward were bound to the region—and the fount itself—as magical beasts, content to protect the source of their power. Mistress Vanga is guessing that Terry’s fount was destroyed after he gained the extra power, but before he was bound. All of the benefit, none of the backlash.”

Tala regarded Terry with renewed interest. “One day I will need to get your whole story.”

He regarded her for a long moment, then shook himself and trilled happily. The implication was an obvious, “Nah.”

She found herself laughing, even as she pulled out some jerky and tossed it for him.

“His control is spectacular,” Master Limmestare was staring in fascination, “and he moves with such precision and with so little delay. Unless he was contained, or otherwise completely countered, I cannot imagine him falling in a conflict.”

Terry swallowed the next bit of jerky before chirping happily in agreement.

Master Clevnis clapped his hands together, “Enough standing around and staring at our feathered friend, let’s go eat!”

Tala looked up at the darkening sky. “Aren’t we still on shift? It’s only been like… three hours?”

-Three and a half.-

“Yeah, three and a half hours since our ‘on duty’ rotation started. Aren’t they eight-hour shifts?”

“They are.” Master Clevnis nodded.

Master Limmestare smiled. “I’ll be on the wall while you all eat. There’s no need for all of us to be away from warm food.”

“Oh! About that…” Did Mistress Petra ever respond?

-Of course. Master Simon did as well, but he said he’d need to take more extensive measurements before he could provide a definitive answer.-

What did she say?

-Right, Mistress Petra is happy to provide food this evening, and in fact it should be ready in another half-hour or so. She did want you to know that regularly providing food for another five people would increase the supply budget that she needs.-

We’ll handle it. Tala grinned toward her new unit. “Is there a place that we can all sit together and still be in position to be ‘on duty?’”

Mistress Cerna seemed to catch something in Tala’s look, because she smiled in return. “Of course. There are several secondary guard-stations that won’t be in active use but are positioned to allow quick-response and monitoring. What do you have in mind?”

“A treat for my new unit.”

Twenty minutes later, they were set up in an oddly perfect room.

They were in a circular chamber, roughly centered along the section of wall they were overseeing for this shift, at the level of the wall walk.

During active conflict, this room would serve as a staging ground for soldiers and Mages to gather to either push out onto the wall top to either side, or up the tower top above.

For the moment, however, it was kept empty.

The walls were either magicked in some way—or of a material—to look almost like glass, providing a three-hundred-sixty degree view, both back into the city and out over the walls.

It was even translucent to Tala’s magesight, which either meant it was the material, or that the magics involved were highly sophisticated, which honestly wouldn’t have surprised her.

In the center of this room, Tala had pulled out a large table, acquired with the help of the Zuccats’ advice weeks earlier, along with six matching chairs for herself and her new unit.

The others had watched with bemusement, likely confused because they each had their own items in storage, and they were unsure why she was showing hers to them.

In all likelihood, theirs would be nicer as well, given they’d each had centuries to collect such things, but that was hardly the point.

The table had come out fully set for a large meal, but the dishes on offer weren’t quite ready.

Finally, Master Girt cleared his throat. “As impressive as this set up is, Mistress Tala, I have to ask: Where is the food going to be coming from? Trail rations are only so appetizing, even served in such a fine setting.”

She grinned. “Dinner should be ready now.”

-Yes, as of two minutes ago.-

Thank you. Please pass along my thanks.

-Already done.-

“Here you go.” And she began pulling piping hot dishes out of Kit and sliding them across the table where they came to rest along the length of the middle of the surface. Family style.

The other Refined hesitated for only a moment before taking chairs, leaning in with keen interest.

“Please serve yourselves and pass the dish along.”

Everyone complied, grabbing the nearest dish, and taking a serving before the offerings moved around the group.

Master Limmestare leaned forward and took in a deep whiff of the latest food before him. “This seems to be hot from the oven. Does your storage have temporal-locking abilities? Those are quite rare.” He hesitated. “No, you talked about it being ready… do you have artifacts such that they can make this on command?”

Tala laughed. “Nothing so complicated. I have a cook.”

There was a collective pause.

Mistress Cerna cleared her throat before asking in a carefully neutral voice, “Say again?”

“I have a cook.”

“In your soul-bound storage?”

Tala glanced around, seeing everyone’s concern. “No. My storage isn’t soul-bound.”

Everyone seemed to let out a collective exhalation of relief.

“She is in my magic-bound storage, though. Is that a problem?”

Food began moving again, and it was Master Clevnis who answered, “Generally speaking, once you soul-bond a storage device, only things bound to you, or bound to no one, will be able to enter it.”

“Oh! So, when you thought I had a cook within my soul-bound storage…” Tala felt herself pale slightly at the implication.

“Yes, we thought that you had, for some reason, soul-bound another person and clearly not a spouse, given our earlier discussions.”

“Ahh, I can understand the reaction, then. No, Mistress Petra is quite a wonderful woman who helps me with all sorts of tasks, here and there. As to the storage, I’d happily show you all at some point. I think it’s quite nice.”

They chatted for a few minutes as they continued with the meal before a thought occurred to Tala.

“One moment, does placing unbound magic items within a soul-bound storage…?”

Master Girt nodded, swallowing a bit of buttered bread. “More often than not, that binds the item to you, magically. There are ways to prevent it, but most of them are quite finicky at best.”

“That’s… incredibly good to know.”

He shrugged. “It’s something the Constructionists will go over with you in detail before you go through the bonding process with a storage item.”

That’s fair, I suppose.

A comfortable silence fell over the table as the Refined served themselves and ate in equal measure.

Even as night solidly took hold of the city and surroundings, they didn’t light any artificial light. They didn’t need any with their Refined vision.

Tala had to refill the water pitchers a few times, but other than that, everything was well provided for from the initial unloading.

Somewhere around then, she had a realization, and the feeling almost brought tears to her eyes.

She felt normal in this group.

It wasn’t that she was like them, or they were like her in every way, but they were from the same group. They had the same expectations, similar experiences, similar capacities. They were peers, even if she was the least among them for the moment.

It was something she hadn’t really felt in a long time, even while at the Academy.

The sadness of the realization cracked, when she contemplated on the fact that the sadness was from past lack, and she wasn’t lacking now.

At least there’s potential.

Eventually, eating slowed enough that small talk picked up, and they passed the evening with mundane conversation, simply becoming comfortable around each other as a group.

When their shift ended near the middle of the night, the table and leftovers had long been put away. The table, chairs, and accessories had been placed back in Kit; the leftovers had been thrown for Terry’s amusement, everyone joining in the game after it was understood.

The six came down from the wall, not passing their replacements, as the other unit would be setting up to pass their shift in whatever manner they saw fit.

Once gathered on the road that ran the inner circumference of Alefast, just inside the wall, the unit said their goodbyes, the old-hands welcoming Tala and Terry one last time before they parted ways.

Tala looked up to the sky as she walked, taking in the overt defensive magics woven through the air all around her, overhead even more so.

She was passing through a fortress, a bastion of humanity against the oncoming storm.

This is a waning, Tala, at least the barest edge of one.

An unnoticed smile slowly grew across her lips as she changed her focus and saw the stars, so high above the suddenly simple-seeming magics that protected them.

What is out there, Alat?

-Maybe nothing, but I find that unlikely.-

Yeah. There could be millions of humans among those stars.

-Millions? Tala, if there are humans out there, they’d be counted in the billions, trillions, or even more. Any group of humanity capable of traveling the stars would have to have the numbers to maintain that level of technological advancement.-

Unless there were only a lonely few, looking for others but always missing one another.

There was a long, long silence after that as Tala continued to walk toward the Gredial compound.

Her smile faded a bit, I’m acting a bit like that, aren’t I? Wandering through existence, barely avoiding connections as I pass people by.

-You were, but I think you’re changing.-

Is it for the better?

-That depends on what you want, I suppose. Do you like the changes?-

Her smile slowly grew once again before settling firmly in place. Yeah, I really think I do.