Tala and Rane had decided to ‘deal’ with all their wedding presents sooner rather than later.

They were nearly done preparing for their honeymoon, but they hadn’t actually picked a departure date as of yet.

That was fine. They would leave soon enough. They were immortal, after all, so why rush?

It was a week after the wedding, all requisite paperwork was filed, and they were standing next to their mini forest.

“I… I don’t know if I can take all that at once.”

Rane grunted. “That is rather large. You’re used to taking smaller, more potent acquisitions.”

“Yeah. Cells, holds, ether holds, and things like that. This?” She gestured to the hundred acres of old-growth forest before her. “This is a lot of wood.”

Rane gave her a look. “A lot of woods.” He emphasized the ‘s’. “It’s a lot of woods.”

“I know what I said; though, that’s true too.” She smiled his way. “Were we to harvest these trees in the traditional way, we would end up with a lot of wood.”

“Ahh, yeah, that’s true.” He still gave her a sidelong glance.

“Well, let’s see what Kit can do with this.” She manifested Kit as a pouch and tossed the devourling at the nearest tree. “Mine.”

And thus, the devouring began.

It was odd as Kit couldn’t just open wide enough to eat the whole forest in one pass. Instead, she started with one tree, tracing it downward and scooping out the dirt, rock, and soil along with the roots, and where the roots entangled with another tree’s, she began devouring that tree too.

It was imperfect, as she had to find ways to keep her portal within her capacity, but it was still workable.

In less than a couple of hours, a large chunk of land had been scooped out, about twenty feet deep.

Kit was content with her acquisition, and Rane and Tala had nothing further to do in the area.

* * *

As for all the little gifts, there were dozens.

Most were minor items of one kind or other, more meant to convey support than be a true ‘gift.’ After all, they were in a position to have more monetary and magical resources than most of those who came to celebrate with them—those who’d given ‘big’ gifts excepted.

A few stood out regardless.

Tala and Rane pulled out the odd set of two buttons and two magical lights.

It was a gift from Rane’s older sister, Chloe.

The note accompanying the clearly magical items simply conveyed that it was so that they would always know when the other was ready to ‘get on with it.’

The ‘signal’ lights were always on, and the buttons did nothing.

They both chuckled, sharing in the humor of the implication.

Half an hour later, they pulled out the next gift. It was a cookbook from Brand—he hadn’t been able to attend, but he’d sent the gift regardless—containing ‘Caravan Favorites’ and other recipes of note. Importantly, all the recipes were scaled for the feeding of a lot of people at once, which made them perfect for Tala’s meals.

Since they’d already opened one book, Alat directed them to Master Cazor’s present next, as he had gotten them a book as well, it seemed.

With Alat continuing to maintain surprises for Tala—keeping her threefold perception from showing her what was inside any of the myriad packages and parcels—Tala was as surprised as Rane when he pulled it out. “What is it?”

Rane was frowning, but he opened it and burst out laughing. “Here, take a look.”

Tala took the book and read the cover, ‘Everything You Know About Marriage and Each Other.’

As she flipped it open, she chuckled as well.

It was essentially blank.

There were places to record ‘firsts’ for their marriage as well as prompts for conversations to get to know one another better, and things of that kind, but over all, there was ‘nothing’ inside.

“Well, that was kind of him.”

Rane nodded. “Indeed it was, yes.”

The rest of the gifts were fairly standard, kind expressions of support.

They received a cast-iron tea set with sapphire blue and blood-red enamel—they’d made their wedding colors known ahead of time.

There was a large smattering of physical books to add to Tala’s library. Including a lovely book of idioms and their origins from Lyn.

A few guests had actually gotten them blank books that were incredibly nicely bound, and a selection of various print-grade inks. Tala wasn’t sure why, until Rane found the note signed by many of the Librarians from Alefast, Waning and Bandfast.

They were for Tala and Alat to fill with whatever ‘book’ they wished. The Librarians knew of Tala, Alat, and Kit’s abilities within Kit, and they were counting on those for the creation of physical copies.

The Librarians had also set up a fund with which Rane and Tala could buy the rights to access a few books that they wished from the titles not freely available. From those, they could either simply access them within the Archive, or ‘copy’ them out at their leisure.

Alat especially loved that set of gifts as it gave her yet another toy to play with.

Some of the restaurants that Tala and Rane had used to make the food and drink for the wedding had sent a selection of casks of alcohol. None were very large, but each beverage selection was intended for Refined or more advanced Archons.

Given that there were nearly a dozen such casks—and none of them were likely to have been cheap—Tala had to ask. Alat? How much did we spend on food?

-...Enough that this is an appropriate congratulatory gift.-

…Alright then.

-Oh, don’t be like that. Even if we’d spent a hundred gold—which we didn’t—we’d still be fine. Each cask likely cost a couple of gold at the high end. Keep in mind that such is ‘market’ price, and restaurants generally get food and drink at wholesale discounts. Thus, while it is still a nice gift, it wasn’t as expensive as it would have been for us to acquire the same.-

Noted.

A few gifts were aimed more toward Rane, mainly a selection of various stones for carving, each with directions to the exact area in which the stone had been found in case he particularly liked any of them. That way, he could acquire more of the material that he preferred the most.

There were also quite a few teas, imported from Makinaven, that had both Rane and Tala excited.

The final standout item was something called a ‘Hero’s Journey’ slate.

For most Mages or mundanes, it would track where they went—seemingly using the person’s mind and memory to mark their path.

When Tala connected with it, it expanded so far out that the detail was lost on the little Archive slate.

So, with only a quick verification with Rane, Tala had Kit devour it and replicate the magics onto a large wall.

Due to her perfect memory—after becoming a Mage—it showed rather detailed movements from her, though it started with her childhood. It began by drawing a blood-red line moving vaguely throughout Marliweather before jumping over to the Academy, and coming back to around Bandfast.

From there, it showed her caravan journeys before jumping down to Platoiri—she didn’t have memory of the trip after all—and then it depicted her return trip and time since.

“That’s… that’s actually really cool. The little slate was useless, but the magics are amazing.”

Rane held up a note, a wry grin across his features. “That’s probably why it explicitly said it was for Kit’s devouring.”

“Oh? Who’s it from?”

“Master Boma.”

-Oh, that was really kind of him! I’ll send him a thank you message.-

Thank you, Alat.

She turned to regard Rane, then. “Your turn.”

Rane shrugged and put his hand on the ‘syncing’ location, and his memory of his travels appeared on the same map, traced out in sapphire blue.

He’d never been to the Academy, and most of his early time was spent in and around Alefast, Waning. But after his and Tala’s paths crossed, he traced out most of the same caravan routes as hers had.

Then, when hers blipped away before reappearing down in Platoiri, Rane’s went to her last location, and proceeded to move all over the surrounding region.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Oh, Rane.” Tala gave a sad—yet grateful—smile as she leaned into him. “I knew you looked for me, but that’s a lot more extensive than I had realized.”

When she looked up at him, he was pale, clearly having realized something.

“Rane?”

“Um… can we stop this?”

“No, it already scanned your memories, and it’s just mapping it out for effect. Kit could break it, but the information is already in the Archive, just not displayed. Why?”

He visibly swallowed, but before he answered, Tala perceived his line going into the mountain range, central to the Gated-Human Wilds.

He went up some six peaks before blipping down the base of the last one. Tala chuckled. “Did you fall off?”

He shook his head, his eyes looking up as if expecting lightning from the clear, artificial sky. “I apologize, but… I can’t say.”

She pulled back and gave him a long look. “Really?”

“Really. I am sorry. I would tell you if I could.”

She met his gaze for a while before slowly nodding. “Alright. I trust you.”

And he didn’t want us to go through those peaks for some reason.

-Yeah, a ‘powerful creature.’-

Well, we could likely figure it out if we actually wanted to get around our husband’s seeming wishes.

-Well, he did say he wanted us to know, but he couldn’t tell us.-

Yeah, but so many of those things tend to be ‘if they figure it out because of you, it’s the same as you telling them.’

-Yeah… we don’t want to trigger… whatever is keeping him from telling us. That’s fair.-

Good, we’re on the same page.

And that was that for the ‘little’ gifts, even if many barely qualified as such. As to their last two ‘big’ gifts?

Well, it would take some time for Lisa, Lupe, and Walden’s ‘attestation’ of Irondale’s fitness for non-human habitation to yield any fruit.

The six flying devices though? They could start playing with them right away.

* * *

Tala and Rane laughed—while Enar and Alat did so within their minds and through their Archive connections—as four of the six flying devices they’d been given zipped through various obstacles on the course they’d laid out.

The couple were sitting in the sanctum, side by side, while their devices flew out in Zeme.

Each had a lesser bloodstar array anchored to it, giving perception to each ‘pilot.’

Tala and Alat simply got the input directly through aspect mirroring.

Rane and Enar got their perspectives via Alat, who aspect mirrored their arrays and fed the info to the Archive. From there, Enar pulled it down and spliced it together for himself and Rane.

At the moment, they were having a simple race.

They’d all initially learned to maneuver the small devices within the sanctum, where Tala and Alat could protect them from damage, but now, they were competing to circle Alefast, Waning.

There were waypoints that they had to hit, thus keeping all the flyers on similar—but not identical—courses.

There was more than sufficient magic in the area around Alefast to power the devices, and so, aside from the potential to wreck the rather expensive flyers, it was a purely good time.

Terry hadn’t been interested as of yet, and Tala occasionally teased him that he would be far behind the rest of them when he finally caved and joined in, but he didn’t seem to mind.

They had all, collectively, already bugged Mistress Holly to improve and augment their various inscriptions with the more intense use of such Archive connected devices in mind.

Rane and Enar just wanted to be able to use them without requiring Alat or Tala—and toward that end, Rane was working on a means of replicating her bloodstars with sapphire Archon Stars, to no avail as of yet.

Tala and Alat wanted to facilitate Alat using a mini-swarm of the things with relative ease.

They were still expensive, but their ability to have her bloodstars being the source of perception reduced the cost by at least a factor of ten. If they were more affordable, everyone would want one… or thirty.

Alat, of course, was by far the best. It wasn’t because she had a closer connection with the devices—in fact, she was facilitating the connection with them so seamlessly that her involvement wasn’t a hindrance in the least. Instead, her skill seemed to stem from her ability to more closely associate with the device, and move it more naturally, where Tala, Rane, and even Enar still found the feel of the device to be a bit alien.

Even so, they were getting used to it, and this time, Enar was only a minute behind Alat with Tala and Rane coming a bare nine and twelve seconds behind him, respectively.

One of the wonderful things about these devices was their pure iron cladding—which contained only a small opening on the starward side to allow for an uninterrupted Archive connection.

Because of that cladding, they didn’t set off any sensors or alarms for the Defenders, so they didn’t have to get permission or give warning before their little races.

To be fair, if they had tried to breach the city’s defenses, they would most likely have been detected, but just moving in the wilds? They were essentially invisible.

Another interesting result of the cladding was that Tala finally noticed that her ‘iron’—as acquired through the dasgannach—wasn’t actually pure.

Unlike the iron of the flier’s cladding, hers was generally at least somewhat tainted with carbon, making it technically a steel.

She didn’t know exactly how that changed things, but she felt like it did somehow.

She did feel like she could still claim the iron on the flyers, but she refrained—despite the pull given that they were hers—so that they could continue to function without issue.

-I still say it would be fine. With your bloodstars along for the ride, your aura should be present there as well.-

Yeah, but I still haven’t been able to have a discontiguous aura.

-Except with Terry.-

Yeah, well, that’s different. It’s more like it’s his aura, that just happens to match mine.

-I still say you are thinking about it wrong. The limitation is within our own mind. Master Akra has indicated that he agrees.-

Probably, but we’ll figure it out soon enough.

* * *

Months passed, in which Tala and Rane reveled in newly married life. They played with, read, and used many of their presents, though they held off on exploring the devoured bunch of holds, saving that little bundle of surprises for a later date.

During that time, Ron petitioned for Tala to be more involved with the reborn gateless, and Lyn indicated that they were concerned that she would lose interest and discard them. She confided in Tala that the moniker of ‘Mother’ was most likely one given and maintained in hopes of drawing Tala into more of an active role, as much as it was having an opposite effect.

Regardless, still uncomfortable with their reverence for her and focused on enjoying her time as a newlywed, Tala had put them off, sending Lyn in her stead, and even hiring some trainers to come in on a semi-permanent basis to shore up the gateless’s weakness in skilled combat. The trainers wouldn’t come when Tala and Rane left on their honeymoon, but until then—whenever then was—the trainers would keep the reborn at bay.

Thus, the two of them simply enjoyed their time together—being married—and they had confirmed their soulbond many, many times. The bond was stable and strong, and nothing was wrong with them physically, but they had begun to notice an oddity.

Their souls had never even tried to form another soul from what they could tell. Other couples had told them that—given their advancement—they should have felt something.

Thus, they had asked Master Nadro for the more detailed analysis, which he had said would be possible once their bond was in place.

He had readily agreed, and so, they were together once again.

They sat in a small, comfortable study-like room, each sipping a warm beverage. Master Nadro didn’t beat around the topic, having already had their souls examined and studied the results. “Mistress Tala, your soul bears the strong hallmarks of a Reality curse. As we said before, this is most likely due to your brushes with dasgannach, including your soulbond to one. You also have Void bound to your soul. With the Magical nature of the gated-human soul, you have somehow managed to create a rather firm tie to existence as a whole. We knew this before, but we were unsure how that would affect Rane, and your potential children.”

Tala gave a small smile, still rather proud of her accomplishments. But yet again, Master Nadro wasn’t smiling. “Really? How isn’t that a good thing?”

Master Nadro frowned. “Well, rather than tempering your soul as we had expected, Rane’s soul was shifted toward yours. You helped bring out those same aspects in him, if to a far lesser degree. As such, if your souls were to come together to make a child, the child would undoubtedly be similarly aspected. Unfortunately, the human form simply isn’t designed for such a soul. Your body is reinforced to the point that it is a non-issue, and Rane’s Refined nature keeps him from having any negative side effects. Unfortunately, the concern is that even the child of two Refined would not be robust enough for such an Existence soul.” He grimaced. “Pardon the terrible vernacular. This isn’t something that we’ve come across before.”

Tala had felt herself pale, and Rane was frowning in earnest even as he spoke, “Master Nadro, I… Am I understanding right? Are you saying that we can’t have children?”

The older man sighed. “Essentially, yes, that is what I am saying. From what we can tell, there will be difficulties. Obviously, as soon as the child is there, we have the knowledge and expertise to help him or her grow and develop, to stay alive and thrive. The issue is that we have no record of a soul coming into being—being created—when a viable body was not imminent. There can be complications in development, and we still do lose some babies before they are born, but that is vanishingly rare. All that to say, it seems that it will be impossible for the two of you to have biological children, that’s why your souls haven’t even tried to create a new soul.”

That created a long moment of stunned silence.

It wasn’t that Tala was infertile, nor Rane either. They were biologically fine. It was that their souls were such that any baby’s soul they helped create would be unable to be housed in a mundane body, so the soul creation process simply didn’t go beyond the initial melding.

Rane took his hand from Tala’s before putting his arm around her shoulders and retaking her hand with his other. “So… I still don’t understand.”

Master Nadro sighed, giving a sad smile. “We don’t exactly understand either. We are just giving you our best understanding.”

Oh… Tala sat in stunned silence, unable to really process what they were discussing. It honestly didn’t feel real. Like someone telling her that if she flipped a coin, it wouldn’t ever land on heads.

It just seemed… impossible.

Sure, she could get tails a few times, maybe even a ton of times, but every time? Surely there was a mistake.

True, she hadn’t been dead set on having children, but she had been becoming excited to have some eventually, whenever it worked out.

But now… now that seemingly wasn’t possible.

Sure, there might be something that they could do to get around the issue eventually—magic was magic after all—but for the foreseeable future… nothing.

She felt a pain from her middle that she knew was purely originating from her own mind. She crossed her arms over her abdomen and hunched slightly nonetheless. Rane kept his hand on her knee when she’d pulled her own hand free, and his arm was a comforting weight as he and Master Nadro continued to talk.

Even though the topic was obviously important, Tala hardly paid attention.

-Tala? Are you going to be okay?-

I… I don’t know. I never defined myself as someone who would be the ‘bringer of life’ or anything like that, but… I did want kids… right?

-Yeah… we did. We do.- Alat added the last a bit more firmly.

Rane squeezed Tala around the shoulders a bit more tightly, and she realized that they were no longer inside.

He had led her in a bit of a daze out of the Archon Compound and into the light of a late fall day. Even as they continued to stroll, he leaned in close and spoke so only she could hear, “Tala? I’m here. What do you need?”

She tried to force a smile, grateful at the offer, but she couldn’t, not yet. “I think… I think I need to get away for a while.”

He hesitated, as if bracing himself. “Alone?”

She shook her head vehemently. “No, no. I… Let’s go. We’ve been ready for our honeymoon for months now. I just want to get away, away from here. Let’s go.”

He gave a sad smile. “Alright. If that’s what you need, I’ll coordinate with Alat, Enar, and Lyn to make it happen. We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you.”

He hesitated again, then added, “I won’t tell anyone, not yet. When you’re ready, we can talk with anyone you want.”

She pulled in close to him then and nodded against his chest. “Thank you.”