Tala found herself holding Sella, curled up in a chair within her sanctum.

Sella was to leave for the Academy the next day, and Tala wanted just a bit more time with the girl.

Sella was snuggled close, clearly feeling some of the same desire for connection and closeness as Tala did.

This is my last sibling… There aren’t any more behind her.

-Well, if things go as expected, you’ll start having nieces and nephews before too long.-

Tala’s eye twitched at that. The very idea of her siblings having children was… disconcerting? Uncomfortable? She wasn’t entirely sure.

Nea’s wedding festivities had just drawn to a close, and the girl—covered in green paint rather than the yellow she’d started with—had bid her family goodbye just a few hours earlier.

The days of celebration had allowed Tala to catch up with Illie and Nalac—they had good natured grumbles about their masters but were doing well overall—as well as her other siblings. Even Mita and Akli were there, and Tala did her best to inquire after their lives as newlyweds. The conversations had been cordial, but there was still a distance between them and Tala, even if it was no longer a distance born of disinterest.

The gap might be bridged in years to come, or it might not, but they were all now willing for it to be so spanned.

Dagan, Alva, Osip, Fedir, and Olen had all been exuberantly bubbling about whatever new thing or theory they’d each just learned or been exposed to at the Academy, and Illie and Nalac seemed to revel—just a bit—in being the ‘older and wiser’ siblings to those still attending the place of magical learning.

Tala graciously didn’t burst their bubble.

Verla was pregnant with her and Caln’s first. Latna and Mistress Anna were getting along splendidly—with Anna having firmly wormed her way into the family as a whole with her strange, extrovert-based magic—and Master Leighis was still in regular communication with them all, most often with Latna.

He had been in attendance at the wedding, but he didn’t officiate this time. Nea liked the Healer well enough, but she didn’t have the same connection to him that some of the others did, even excluding Latna.

I miss the days when I could just put all my siblings in one mental block… There are so many of them, and they’re all doing and feeling and experiencing so many different things.

-It can be oh so inconvenient when our siblings become distinct people, can it not?-

Yeah… Tala gave Sella a little squeeze, and the girl shifted to get even more comfortable. The whole position was a bit precarious as Sella was almost Tala’s size, the girl being nearly fully grown already.

Tala didn’t mind though. It wasn’t like Sella could hurt her in any way.

Rane was currently out with Caln, Miro, Nalac, and Osip, getting some ‘guy time.’ Whatever that meant.

Miro was honestly a bit like Mita and Akli, in that he had less in common with the other siblings than most, but he also didn’t seem to mind, still participating fully, even if mainly as an observer. He was a quiet one, settling into a quiet life as an assistant in the Marliweather Library—not the Archon one.

He seemed to be incredibly content with his books, deflecting any more probing questions with casual, contented ease.

During the past few days, there had been some obtuse questions about Tala and Rane’s courtship, but no one had pressed the issue, for which Tala was grateful. Terry was somewhere in the sanctum, using his granted authority to let her know that he wanted to be alone. So, she was doing her best to not watch him.

-I see all. I just don’t tell you.-

Oh, I’m aware. You could give me nightmares for eternity with what you’ve seen.

-...You have no idea. Your threefold sight is truly a double edged sword, and were I a creature of mere flesh and blood, I’d have gone insane with all it has exposed me to.- Alat sent the impression of a revolted shudder.

…Good to know? Let’s keep this division of labor, shall we.

-Of course. Your insanity would be highly inconvenient for me.-

Tala chuckled at that.

The sound and motion of Tala’s chest caused Sella to lift her own head and look up. “What?”

“Just had a funny thought.”

“Oh? What was it?” Tala saw the spark of childhood curiosity in the girl’s eyes. She’d not get away without giving some sort of answer. She could lie, of course, but what was the point in that? Genuine curiosity should be encouraged.

“Well, I have a magically created assistant within my mind.”

“Oh, Alat? Yeah, she’s great.”

Tala’s eye twitched. Alat…

-What? You often have me send them letters. I introduced myself a little while back, and usually add a small message as an addendum to the end. They often respond as well. It’s not my fault you don’t read the messages yourself.-

I ask you to tell me the contents of every letter.

-Yeah, and I don’t feel the need to pass on what they say to me.-

Tala sighed internally. Fine, but how has no one mentioned this to me?

-It’s never come up?-

Tala took a long, slow breath before smiling at Sella. “Yes, Alat. She simply said that me going insane would be inconvenient for her.”

Sella gave a serious nod. “That is so true.”

The seriousness on the little girl’s face pulled Tala back from her mild irritation with Alat. She was here with Sella. So, she should be with Sella. “Anyway, are you excited for the Academy?”

The girl wriggled. “I am… but I’m also scared.”

“Oh? What of?”

“Teleportation…”

Tala raised an eyebrow at that. “But you teleport to see me—and then back home—every few months or so.”

Sella shuddered. “And I’m scared every time.”

Tala gave her another light squeeze, causing the girl to writhe and squeal in mock pain. “Oh, Sella. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

She settled down and shrugged. “I didn’t want anyone to use that as a reason that I couldn’t go.” She didn’t meet Tala’s gaze. “You won’t keep me from going, will you?”

“Oh, little one. No. It is good to do things that we are scared of, so long as we approach them in a smart manner.”

-Like progressing a relationship?-

Hush, you. I’m spending time with my sister.

Alat grunted and didn’t press further.

Tala’s response seemed to mollify Sella as she snuggled back in. “I’m still scared.”

“Bravery isn’t the absence of fear, it is doing what you know is right despite fear.”

“Then, I am very brave.”

The tone Sella used—almost more than her words—evoked a laugh, unbidden, from Tala’s lips. “Oh, Sella. I do love you.”

“I know. I love you, too.”

And that was that. They passed the remainder of the time they had in pleasant companionship.

Sella and the other Academy attending siblings teleported out early the next day after a feast of a breakfast prepared by Mistress Petra—with the help of Karsa and some of Tala’s siblings. Mistress Petra still wouldn’t let Tala help.

Hand-pies, prepared fruit, cream of grains, and so many more dishes had been set out and then consumed by the veritable throng of siblings and spouses, allowing for one more occasion of conversation and togetherness.

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At the same time as the siblings were departing, the Zuccats were saying goodbye to Karsa, leaving her in the hands of her new master—and Mistress Anna, who promised to check on her sister an appropriate amount… Tala suspected that it would turn out to be far, far more than was strictly appropriate.

Less than an hour after Sella’s departure, Irondale had been closed up and taken from its Marliweather wall, and Tala, Rane, and Terry were back in the wilds, heading south.

Lyn wanted to stop in and see how Mistress Kannis was doing. She was apparently due back from a caravan run that day, so she’d have about a day back in Bandfast before they dropped in to see her.

That would be a pleasant enough stop through, and give the Irondalians an afternoon and morning in which to interact with Bandfast before moving back to Alefast with Tala, Terry, and Rane.

Everything was going reasonably well on the journey until just about two hours outside of Marliweather where Tala finally couldn’t continue.

She dropped to the plains, pausing on a taller than average hill and staring up at the sky.

Rane landed next to her a moment later, and Terry flickered to her shoulder, both waiting in silence, trusting that she would speak when she was ready.

After five minutes, Rane seemed to decide that she needed a bit of prompting. “Tala? Is everything alright?”

Tala shook her head, trying to master her own emotions. “No. No, it’s not alright, Rane. They’re all gone. All off at the Academy, married, or otherwise moving on with their lives. What now? I’ll see them less and less over the coming years. They’ll have children, age, and then one day, they’ll just be gone, and I’ll still be here.”

Rane wrapped an arm around her but didn’t say anything, seeming to sense that she wasn’t done processing out loud.

“I graduated nine years ago, Rane. That is so little time compared to what lies ahead, yet also so long. Not even a decade has passed and I’m already Refined. I have five powerful soulbonds, and I have more wealth than I really know what to do with.” She gave a rueful chuckle. “I have an entire town that is mine in essentially every sense.” She didn’t really know where she was going with this, and she really had nothing else that she felt that she needed to say. So, she fell into slightly befuddled silence.

Rane squeezed her again when it was clear that she had nothing further to convey. He then tentatively spoke into the gap, “You have done much, and much is ahead of you. I think your choices to try to be a part of your various siblings’ lives is a good one, one that you will be glad that you made. Unfortunately, you are likely correct, those choices will probably mean watching as their lives go in different directions from your own. I have the easy way out with my own family. I haven’t really stayed connected to any of my siblings, except tangentially, and even then only really because we happen to be in the same city. Chloe and I send letters occasionally, but we aren’t really a part of each other's lives.” He shrugged. “It’s a trade-off, and I suspect that yours have been the wiser choices.”

She leaned against him, taking comfort in his presence more than his words. He wasn’t wrong, but his intention hadn’t really been to assuage her worry. If anything he’d purposely let her know that her concern was valid, but that it was still probably a good choice.

Relationships were odd things.

They stood there for a few minutes before she gave him a kiss, and they got back on their way to Bandfast.

* * *

Tala and Rane sat back as her siblings talked and bantered.

Dagan and Alva had just returned from the Academy after finishing out their final set of classes, and the whole troop had come to Alefast, Waning, via teleport to meet them there. They, in turn, had come straight to Alefast to have this exact reunion before Tala paid for everyone to go back to Marliweather, where this set of twins' new masters resided.

Well, she would also be sending the older twins to Arconaven, but that was just details.

Tala had been very intentional this time in extending the invitation to all spouses as well. So, they had quite the group. Even Illie and Nalac had come, despite the expense and discomfort of reinscription upon their return to Arconaven.

There was a bit of an odd flavor to the encounter when compared to the previous sibling meet-ups, because with Sella off at the Academy, there really wasn’t a younger contingent to sit counterpoint to the ‘adult’ siblings.

Everyone felt the difference, but it wasn’t specifically an unpleasant change. The youngers were missed, but it was actually rather nice to have a more laid back, conversationally focused reunion.

Dagon and Alva had shifted their fundamental understandings from ones of lightning over to light. Though, they still decided to play off of each other.

The conversation had gone rather easily once it started.

Alva’s was relatively simple, “All we see is already light.”

Tala considered for a moment before nodding. “I can understand that. So, you focus on light magics?”

The girl nodded. “I am a Material Guide, focusing on light, or really the particles and waves that make up light.”

Dagan grunted, interjecting with the clear intention of stealing Alva’s spotlight. She let him with a small smile and a rueful shake of her head. “Yup! Duality in all things. But as well thought out as that is, I prefer mine.”

Nalac had huffed a laugh. “Of course you would say that. Yours should be one you prefer.”

The other siblings hushed him.

“So?” Tala prompted, “What is yours?”

Dagan let it build just a bit more before grinning widely. “In the right light, everyone is blind.”

Rane grunted, “So, light Mage as well?”

“Yup, Immaterial Guide. I focus on amplitude, frequency, and velocity.” He held up his hand to briefly forestall any questions. “Velocity in the directional sense, not in sense of the absolute speed of light. I don’t understand the fundamentals of Zeme enough to mess with that sort of constant. The idea of a speed being unchanging in all frames of reference is nonsensical to me…”

Rane smiled at the younger man. “That’s quite interesting.” He gestured between the twins. “Is it hard to tell your magics apart?”

Alva shook her head and sighed dramatically. “Hardly. He likes operating in the various spectra outside of the visible. I prefer to keep to what I can see.”

Tala interjected then, “So, by ‘right light’ you mean light which can’t be seen?”

Dagan pointed at her, dipping his head in acknowledgement. “That’s one meaning, yeah.”

“Interesting. I imagine that makes your magics hard to deal with.” She glanced toward Nalac, and the boy gave a slight grimace.

He said under his breath. “Just like mine is…”

Dagan didn’t hear, and he grinned widely, even as Alva scowled in mock severity. “Oh, absolutely.”

She huffed, hiding a smile. She was clearly pleased by what he could do. “His magic acts near him, but they send out essentially instant, invisible attacks or counters. It’s infuriating to deal with.”

Dagan nodded her way. “But it’s even better when you work with me.”

Tala was considering how she’d counter such magics, and she found herself a bit at a loss.

-Come on, Tala. We already went over this with Nalac. You’d just take the hits and kill him an instant later.-

As I said last time, of course I could do that, but that’s not very satisfying… I genuinely want to actually counter his magics, not just brute force the results I wanted.

-...Do I need to make the same joke, again?-

I do not brute force my desired results from difficult situations.

-If you say so.-

You really aren’t nice some of the time.

Dagan was clearly quite proud of himself. “The instructors were very impressed. They said I was following well in my siblings’ footsteps and my light magic would be among the hardest magics to counter. They did warn that without Alva’s amplification and enhancement, the power output wouldn’t be very impressive until I improved.” He shrugged. “It works fantastically for defense and once Nalac left, I was able to figure out how to take out any annoying insects with ease.” He gave his brother a smirking glance. “I got better at that than you, even.”

Nalac shrugged. “Bugs are just bugs. Wait until you encounter real tests.”

Dagan nodded excitedly. “I am quite eager, yeah.”

Tala did have one final question. “I’d thought you two were set on lightning? We didn’t discuss it much, but I thought you liked the power and speed?”

Alva smiled. “We did, but it turns out that light made more sense to us.”

Dagan interjected, “And it’s faster.”

She sighed, but nodded. “And it’s faster.”

And that was it.

Since most of the siblings and spouses weren’t Mages, not too much more was said about the subject.

The presence of the spouses changed the dynamic further still but again, not in a bad way. There was a lot of talk about babies because Verla, Mita, Akli, and Nea were all at various stages of the joyous condition.

Tala was hesitant at first, feeling like she didn’t really have a way to relate to that, but at Alat’s prompting, she implied that she could actually see the little ones as they were growing within the women, and offered to let everyone else do so as well.

That was met with ecstatic acceptance—from everyone actually—and Rane helped them acquire a large enough Archive slate for her to connect to in order to facilitate the display of a mundane interpretation of her threefold sight.

Alat did the heavy lifting, first showing sliced views. Tala was very careful to caveat the view beforehand, letting them know that they’d see the internals so no one panicked.

Everyone was strangely fascinated, seeing the little people growing within the various women. Tala and Alat even facilitated a few games of ‘guess the baby,’ where they would display a foot or eye or other part and everyone else would have to guess what it was they were looking at and which baby that part belonged to.

It inspired a lot of playful arguing, a lot of laughter, and a lot of smiles. Overall, it was an incredible win for the gathering as a whole.

The family visit ended up being two days, everyone having arrived on the first morning and not leaving until the second day’s afternoon, just as the near-summer day was beginning to draw to a close.

Her unit had been very understanding throughout, allowing Tala and Rane to both skip their regular duties. They would be resuming them the next morning.

As the last of them teleported out, she leaned sideways against Rane, taking comfort in his presence in the renewed absence of her family.

This visit had gone better than any previous, in her opinion. She felt truly connected to her siblings—and that was even before she had looked at the reality threads and seen that their connection was literally growing more potent. Unfortunately, that actually made the final departure all the more disheartening in a way.

Those lines were now just as strong, but somehow they seemed stretched, as if they were under tension, and something told her that they would begin to fray and shrink over time, if not maintained. Even so, she felt better for the existence of the threads. It was as if the connections being there made her feel more linked with Zeme as a whole and who she was in it.

Rane pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “You’ll see them again.”

She turned, putting her arms around him. “Am I that obvious?”

“To me?” He met her gaze, love and humor sparkling within his eyes. “Sometimes.”

She sighed, leaning against him once more and settling into a comfortable silence.

Not wanting to make a spectacle of themselves, they moved out of the teleportation tower, her arm around his waist, his around her shoulders, and with Tala still leaning against Rane’s side.