Tala sat in silence as she considered deeply, flying back to Alefast with her unit.

She thought about the poor girl who was at the heart of the cell they’d just come from. She was innocent, at least relatively speaking.

Master Girt hadn’t been able to find any evidence of movement or activity within the cell, and so he’d taken the time to explore some.

There had been a few prisoners in the dungeon of the central castle, but they’d been in relatively comfortable accommodations, if not really lavish or something that they’d likely want to stay in.

From what little he could see, it seemed like a nice enough city-state, filled with people.

Not perfect, not evil, just people.

And they were all trapped.

Either they’d be trapped until Zeme failed, and they’d die with everyone else who was around at that time, or somewhere down the line, someone would cure them, and they would wake up to a world utterly changed.

Eternity can look so different for different people.

She almost mentally reached out to engage Alat in a discussion on eternity, but she hesitated.

Tala had never really talked with her unit-mates about eternity, not in any direct sense.

That would likely be a more productive avenue than talking to herself… again…

-Yeah, I’m great, but I’m still you. Talk to them.-

“Mistress Cerna?”

“Yes, Tala?” The Refined glanced Tala’s way before turning her gaze back to the direction they were flying.

“What is your view on eternity?”

Master Smarag’s eyes opened, seemingly with interest, but he didn’t otherwise react.

Mistress Cerna glanced to Tala again, briefly, smiling. “The fate of those people?”

“Yeah, it’s weighing on me a bit. I didn’t even see them, but knowing that they are effectively trapped, awaiting a savior who may never come?” Tala grimaced. “It has me thinking about my own future. There are powers in this world that I am utterly impotent to resist, after all.”

Mistress Cerna nodded. “Maybe unsurprisingly, I see the world—and time itself—as a tapestry, being woven by our actions and interactions.”

“So…?” Tala leaned in, listening intently.

“So, eternity is simply the fact that the tapestry will continue forever. Individual threads will come and go, but the pattern continues.”

“You just see yourself as a thread?”

The woman smiled. “A long thread, but yes. I know that, regardless of my longevity, I will eventually leave this world in one way or another.”

Tala bit her lip, thinking for a moment before smiling. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

She turned to Mistress Cerna’s husband next, “Master Clevnis?”

“My view on eternity?”

“If you would be so kind, yes please.”

“I suppose I see myself as a rock skipping across the water.”

Tala blinked a few times, then shifted, confused and hoping that he would continue.

“As a Refined, I now have no friction, nor loss of energy between skips, but I could still catch a ripple badly, or strike a fish as it surfaces. I just have no idea when it could all end, but until then, it is quite the trip.” He grinned. “And even when the skipping is done, the stone is not destroyed, it simply has another journey, this time in a new direction, a new world.”

Master Limmestare chuckled. “So, you’re just skipping through life?”

Master Clevnis grinned in return. “For as long as I can.”

Tala nodded, understanding even if she didn’t necessarily agree. “What about you, Master Limmestare?”

The man straightened just a bit, putting on a fake air of authority. “Eternity is a story, of course. It switches narrators, but the story goes on.”

Tala gave him a narrow-eyed look, remembering a certain prisoner.

Master Limmestar chuckled. “You can check my records if it will ease your mind, Mistress Tala. I have had this view for decades.”

“Very well. But if we’re all in a story, what’s the point? Aren’t our actions predetermined?”

“Ahh, you misunderstand. Each of us is a narrator, guiding where the story goes. Conflict comes about when two or more narrators try to tell conflicting stories, and the best times—the best tales—occur when two or more narrators work together to tell a story which is better than any could have brought about on their own.”

“Hmm…” Tala considered. “There is some beauty to that.”

“Thank you.”

“What of the girl? Her city-state?”

“Few stories are happy all the way through, Mistress Tala, as much as we might wish that they were. That said, the best ones—at least in my opinion—have good endings. I work to influence as many narrators as possible toward that end.”

Tala smiled at that. “Thank you for sharing.”

Master Limmestare turned to Mistress Vanga. “What of you, Mistress Vanga?”

“Eternity is relationships.” She answered easily. “My mother has long passed on, but my relationship with her still influences all that I do, and all that I do influences those I interact with. Thus, my mother is still influencing the world long after her death.” She smiled softly. “She often spoke of how much her grandfather loved and invested in her, so all that she did for me was due in part to him—and others—and so they live on in what I do as well.”

That was very similar to a part of what Master Grediv had said. “What we do echoes in eternity?”

Mistress Vanga smiled. “That is Master Grediv’s view, I believe. As for me, I would say it differently, ‘Who we are echoes in eternity.’”

Tala hmmed in thought. She almost turned to Master Girt to ask his view, but she then realized that that would be unkind, given his still all too raw loss.

Eternity was likely a painful subject for him, even if he didn’t want others to avoid the subject. He was not so selfish as to stifle the advancement of others for his own comfort.

The Healer turned to the one Paragon who was with them, preventing any sort of awkward silence. “Master Smarag?”

Master Smarag nodded once, definitively. Then, words practically poured from the normally taciturn man. “Eternity is the journey. Zeme is our current path, but when we die, the journey does not end. It is like coming to the shore of a great ocean and getting on a ship. Is there some far-off country within which we will continue our journey like we have, here? I don’t know. We may sail forever, continuing in a manner utterly unlike we have traveled up until that point. Regardless, the journey is without end. That is eternity.”

Everyone seemed to have far-off looks, considering the Paragon’s words.

Into that silence, Master Girt sighed, speaking up for the first time in the short conversation, “Eternity is illogical, and it’s a lie.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

All those free to do so looked his way.

“We don’t age, but that’s not immortality. Rocks don’t age, not technically, but no one talks about a rock being immortal.”

Tala shrugged. “Because rocks aren’t alive. We don’t expect them to change.”

“Yet they do, don’t they.” It wasn’t a question. “The very mountains we fly near weren’t always here, and they weren’t always shaped this way. Even on the scale of mountains, Refined and those more advanced are long-lived, but no one and nothing lasts for eternity.” He sighed, looking down at his hands. “Nothing save the next world.”

She tilted her head to one side. “Do we know that, though?”

He shook his head. “Know? No. But those of us with the capacity to sense, and who have had a soulbond pass on…” He closed his eyes for a moment before seeming to harden his resolve to continue, “In that moment—the awful moment of utter separation—we get a glimpse at what is to come. It is purifying fire, clear-cold water, rest beyond measure, and never-ending purpose. Everything about that place practically screams eternal. Whether it is or not, I suppose we’ll all find out eventually, but I believe it is.” He gave a small, self-deprecating smile, then. “So, I suppose eternity isn’t a lie in and of itself, just the idea of eternity here is a lie.”

Tala found herself nodding. “That was close to the sense I got from it.” She hesitated, then clarified, “Meaning the next world seems eternal, not the other part.”

Master Girt looked up, frowning. “I didn’t know that you’d lost a soulbond.”

She shook her head at the misunderstanding, “No, I haven’t. I helped a fount pass on, but I did it… unconventionally.”

Should I give them access to the memories?

-Given it’s your perspective, it might not be a good idea. It would push them all toward your understandings, drawing them away from their own path.-

Yeah… I wish we could purge my understanding from the memory.

-I can work on that?-

Worth a try. Thank you.

-I aim to please.-

Mistress Vanga smiled warmly. “No surprise, there.”

Tala decided to ignore the other woman. “Looking into the next world… I felt both entirely welcome and utterly unworthy. I felt like I would have to lose most of what I believe to be myself in order to truly become myself enough to enter.” She frowned. “That makes no sense, but it was the feeling I had.”

Master Girt nodded. “A different way of phrasing it, but yes. I understand what you mean. Regardless, now you know my view on eternity. Here, there is no eternity, only the pale echo of what is to come. All suffering will end—” He swallowed visibly. “We will be united with the lost and discover that it had been we who were lost all along, now welcomed home.”

As he turned to lean against the clear side of the windscreen, everyone fell into contemplative silence.

Mistress Vanga went to sit beside Master Girt, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder while joining him in his silence.

* * *

Tala, Rane, Master Simon, Adrill, and Brandon all stood in the secondary, larger area of Kit for what Tala thought would be a fun experiment.

She had been using siege orbs for more than a year by that point, and she had only made them out of air. It was time to try using other materials.

Tala wanted to try water, first.

Master Simon and Adrill had insisted that they perform the first test in this remote location for safety’s sake. They had also insisted on being present to watch.

Of course, Tala could have ignored them, but she appreciated their perspectives and insights, and after all, she was employing them for their expertise. She’d be a bit of a fool to ignore them in those circumstances.

In that vein, they’d also insisted that a Healer be on hand.

Tala had chosen to listen to that suggestion as well, and she had invited her unit-mate.

As such, Mistress Vanga arrived outside of Kit at the appointed time, and Tala drew her in.

The Refined didn’t resist, and a moment later, she was standing beside Tala and the three men.

The Healer looked around, orienting on Tala before she spoke, “You know, your ability to do that is rather terrifying. I feel as if I could fight you, but I don’t think I could win.”

Tala chuckled, “Yeah, it makes the idea of dimensional spiders a whole lot more terrifying. You don’t even have to step into a web, they can just snag you.”

Everyone turned to look at her with horrified expressions. Rane shook his head, “Tala, why under the stars, did you bring those up?”

She sighed. “Sorry… I didn’t really consider that it wouldn’t be kind to bring them up.”

Mistress Vanga shook her head, trying to hide her smile. “So, why exactly am I here? I do enjoy a good get-together, and you all are fine folk, but I assume there was a specific reason.”

Tala latched onto the change of subject. “Yes, there is a specific reason.”

The Healer waited for Tala to continue.

“So, you know my siege orbs?”

“Yes, Mistress Tala. I am familiar.” Mistress Vanga’s smile grew a bit.

“Well, I’m going to try to create one out of water.”

The woman blinked a few times. “I see. How far away shall we be waiting?”

They both turned to look at the large cube of water that floated a dozen yards from them, or so.

Tala was suspending the liquid through an act of will, basically constantly moving the water to be where she wanted it to be, despite its propensity to crash to the ground.

Mistress Vanga sighed.

Tala quickly spoke. “I wasn’t going to enact the working this close. I was just verifying that I could keep the water in place.”

The Healer looked skeptical, but didn’t say anything further.

Tala coughed, and then willed the water to a distance of a few hundred yards.

Mistress Vanga nodded. “Very well. I think with this amount of distance, so long as you don’t do something… astral, we should be fine, here.”

“Astral?” Tala frowned. Maybe she means stellar? No, that’s not a good term for it either.

“Having to do with the heavens. Maybe not the correct term, but I don’t generally think of things in that way. But, given your abilities, I’m concerned you might just devote enough power to make a mini-star, or black hole, or the like.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll get anywhere near that pressure.” Tala smiled. “I appreciate the faith you have in my abilities, though.”

Mistress Vanga cocked an eyebrow while still smiling as she asked another question, “And you're starting with…?”

“A ten foot cube of water.”

“Alright, then.” She sat down in the provided chair, taking a glass of a cold juice that Mistress Petra had provided and Tala had set out on a nearby table. “Begin whenever you wish.”

Tala nodded.

She already had a perfect visualization of the water. After all, not only was she seeing it with her threefold sight at every level possible, she was willing it to be where it was, keeping it in place.

So, with that visualization in mind, she began to pour power into her gravity-altering magics, affecting the water's gravitational attraction to itself.

She focused, even while those looking on began to chat. They were all familiar enough with her that they knew it would take a bit to build up to anything worthy of paying much attention to.

After a few minutes of devoting nearly her full throughput to amplifying the effect of gravity upon the water, that water began to pull inward just ever so slightly, getting smaller under the building pressure.

Honestly, if Tala understood correctly, that meant that it was under a lot of pressure.

Unfortunately, the liquid was also beginning to heat up, which was inconvenient.

It wasn’t shedding its excess heat as readily as the air did during her creation of siege orbs, partially because water could take in a lot more heat energy than air could.

Well, this is my sanctum. My water. My heat.

Kit was soulbound to her, and through Kit, Tala had utter mastery over the contents of this space.

With an act of will, Tala pulled the heat from the water, not aiming for any temperature in particular. Instead, she just pulled the heat away, even as she ramped up the gravitational attraction.

Given the multiplicative effects of her magic, the water began to shrink at a noticeable rate even as it heated up more and more quickly.

Because of that, she pulled out more and more heat. She wasn’t being delicate about it, simply dumping the heat into a pocket in the ground deep on the far side of this section of Kit’s interior.

The water under the influence of her magics began to become solid, but she wasn’t sure if it was due to the pressure or the temperature, given she was pulling so much heat uniformly away from it, trying to stay ahead of the heating effect.

Then, when the water had compressed to a bit more than half its previous volume—and Tala had pulled a truly ludicrous amount of heat out of it—there was a resonant thrum, and she saw in real time as the water molecules rearranged.

At least, that was her guess as to what was happening.

She couldn’t actually see the water molecules themselves, not really, but there was an odd rippling through the entire mass of the now somewhat rounded block of ice, and Tala’s working vanished.

Her mental understanding of the water simply no longer being true enough to let her magics keep hold.

Tala gasped, staggering at the sudden loss of a place to dump her gushing power.

It felt as if she’d had a leg kicked out from under her, but she recovered quickly enough.

Even so, the shock of losing a target-lock also caused her to lose her will-power hold on the no-longer-water, and it dropped a couple of feet to the ground, where… it just sat there.

Master Simon came forward, “Mistress Tala? Are you alright?”

She nodded and let Mistress Vanga’s magic wash over her, verifying her condition.

Once that was established, he returned his attention to his Archival slate.

Brandon and Adrill were similarly engrossed with their magical readings.

Rane was standing, simply staring at the ice in the near distance, clearly intrigued.

Master Simon finally shook his head, clearly a bit dumbstruck for a long moment before turning back to Tala, “What… did you do?”

“Honestly? I’m not quite sure?”

After a long moment, he nodded. “Well, I guess that we should go find out.”