My daughter ruined a perfectly relaxing early morning sunbath when she launched herself out of the water, showering me in artificial rain. ‘[Mom! I’m ready! I feel so great! How do I look? Am I pretty?]’
I sighed at the little symbols of ice in front of me. It had been so nice and quiet just a moment ago. Vigil was away, visiting Dancer up top. My children slept most of the time and only woke up to eat a bit from my latest huge catch. There were still half an armoured eel and a whole giant centipede left before I’d have to go out and hunt again.
Of course, I knew that my relative peace would come to an end when Caprica woke up late last night and simply left after nuzzling up to me for a few minutes. It reminded me a little bit of my last encounter with Ferra. But since this particularly lazy daughter of mine never picked up reading or magic, I couldn’t ask if she was planning to come back any time soon. Well, at least she said goodbye. Sort of?
Anyways, as soon as Caprica emerged, I knew that Iris wouldn’t be too far behind. With all of her energy and enthusiasm rekindled. And here she was. Chipper and posing her pretty red scales for me, eager for my attention.
I looked up at the sky. The storms will return soon too. I mused. I wondered how my kids would react to rain.
A tiny ice pebble hit the side of my head. I turned back to my now pouting child.
‘[Mom! Look! Look! Look! Don’t ignore me! Do I look like you? Am I all pretty now?]’
I let out another huff. ‘[Good morning to you too, Iris. Did you sleep well? Have you eaten yet?]’
The little scalamander dropped her pose entirely now and scurried closer. ‘[Yes, yes! I slept for ages! Way too long.]’ She reached me and stretched up with both arms to awkwardly hug my face. ‘[Good morning, mom.]’, she wrote in tiny ice symbols directly in front of my eyes.
I caressed her newly ember scaled back and smiled. ‘[Better.]’
Wenn she began to wiggle around impatiently, I let go of her and regarded her finished adult form with a bit more attentiveness. ‘[Very pretty.]’, I wrote finally. Her colouration was very similar to mine. But that would be true for nearly all of my daughters as far as I could judge at this point. Iris tended a bit more to the red side than me, but she still looked like the glow of burning ash. ‘[Didn’t you make a mirror to check for yourself yet?]’
She let out a surprised croak. ‘[I forgot!]’ Not a moment later she started to form a plane surface of frozen water in front of us.
I would probably forever be jealous of my children’s ability to change temperatures. I’d never be able to magic up my own ice in this life. It also was quite a bit harder to manipulate water for me once it turned solid. I strongly suspected that I wouldn’t be able to influence it at all if I didn’t have at least a few traces of earth affinity.
Iris was still gushing all over herself. ‘[Mom, I’m so pretty!. Do you see? I look like fire!]’
I thought we already had established that. ‘[Yes, you do, Honey. Like beautiful embers.]’ She didn’t even turn to read my reply. For my next question, I needed her attention though. So I formed my next pictograms between her and the mirror. ‘[Did you look at your profile yet?]’
She suddenly froze in her self-admiration, stole a glance at me through the reflection and only answered ‘[Yes?]’, while avoiding my eyes again.
That wasn’t suspicious at all, was it?
‘[What’s the matter?]’ I asked, now a bit worried. ‘[Does it say something bad?]’
She rapidly shook her head, then contemplated a little while about something before finally asking: ‘[I know that lying to you is bad. But is it lying, when I’m supposed to keep a secret?]’
Hmm, I thought a bit about that. When they first learned to write, I had to scold my kids often for making stuff up about their siblings to get my attention. I hadn’t known until now that this particular lesson stuck so well. ‘[Who told you to keep it a secret?]’ I finally asked, slowly moving a little closer.
She shied away and looked down at her hands. ‘[That’s part of the secret.]’ Did she start shaking? Iris never ever had been afraid of me. What was wrong with her now?
I stopped dead. ‘[Hey Honey, look at me.]’, I wrote on the ground. ‘[It’s alright. I’m not mad. Just worried about you.]’ She calmed down a bit at that. I started to nuzzle against her. ‘[Is the secret dangerous?]’
She started to relax at my touch. ‘[I don’t think so?]’
‘[Hmm, then it shouldn’t be bad. It has something to do with your profile then?]’ I began to probe.
She nodded tentatively.
‘[And someone told you to keep it a secret after you saw it?]’
‘[I really can’t tell you, mom.] [I’m not supposed to talk about it with anyone yet.]’ She moved to embrace me again. As well as one quadruped could embrace another at least.
‘[Alright]’, I replied easily and put my arm around her in turn.
It wasn’t like I couldn’t guess what this was about. Iris had always been way too bright. Even compared with her smartest siblings she was leagues ahead. She picked up concepts like language as if they were something familiar to her that she merely had forgotten. And now she obviously got a Quest together with her Profile activation.
The only real question here was, which god she was the champion of. I couldn’t decide if it would be a good or a bad thing if it was by any chance Fertility.
Well, Iris said it wasn’t a dangerous secret. So I’d trust her for now.
I broke our hug and regarded her for a moment. Then I nodded towards the pond. ‘[Do you want me to help you test out your magic a bit before more of your siblings wake up?]’, I asked with a toothy smirk.
She beamed at me. ‘[Yes! Let’s try to burn something!]’
I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or groan.
Once Vigil came back down from the caldera, it would get an earful!
The rest of the morning we spent playing around with Iris’ newfound better control. Her neck frill gave her a significantly higher sensitivity for different kinds of magic energies. It might also have been a bit detrimental that her gills had to be coated in water all the time before. That surely would have dulled every other affinity she had.
It was remarkable that so many of my children were able to learn a little bit of magic during their larva stage at all. I only ever became aware of those energies after my own metamorphosis concluded. Well, actually during, but I didn’t realise yet what it was then.
Carefully inquiring after my daughter’s affinities solved that mystery while nearly throwing me into an envious fit. They were Water (moderate), Heat (weak), Earth (weak) and, as if that hadn’t been enough, Light (traces).
The moderate water affinity explained how she could grasp magic at all before her gills turned into the neck frill. The heat and earth were how she made and controlled ice. And I guessed light was another component of fire? It seemed like it had been a good decision to flood the eggs with Vigil’s energy as soon as I came back here two days late, though. Considering how much my own affinity for water took hold, I otherwise probably wouldn’t have been able to complete my first quest with this clutch.
My gripes with my own inadequacies aside, we had quite a bit of fun. Iris heated up some horsetails until they caught fire and then tried to keep them burning as long as she could manage. Next, she tried ferns, then one of the thorny millipede-vines. When she finally set a whole bottle-brush tree on fire and I had to help her to put it out with copious amounts of water I had to put my foot down.
‘[You should focus on keeping the fire low first and then on controlling the actual flames.]’ I admonished her as I cleaned the soot from her face and neck shield. ‘[If you set the forest on fire before the rains start again, at least wait until Vigil comes back, please?]’
I wasn’t really mad. It was actually kind of funny to see her panic and croak for help. But her siblings would wake up in a short while too. And nearly half of them would immediately be able to try to copy their genius sister.
‘[But it is so hard.]’, she answered dejected. ‘[Making the fire is easy, but the flames do what they want.] [I only can nudge them a little bit.]’
‘[Now you know how it feels for me to control ice.]’ I tell her, full of mirth. ‘[You have to practice hard.]’ And in the future, you’ll have the pleasure to feel jealous of your children, when they do with ease what you struggle with now. I added in my mind.
Iris made herself a new mirror. ‘[Okay. I will be careful.]’ She examined herself for any leftover smudges or ash. ‘[When will the rains start?]’, she asked me distractedly in pretty crooked symbols.
‘[You look fine.]’ Of course, she didn’t take my word for it and continued to inspect her shiny scales. ‘[I don’t know. But it shouldn’t be long now. Maybe a few days?]’
She finally was satisfied and turned back to me, dissolving the mirror and my answer with it. ‘[The water really will fall from the sky? For a whole night?]’ I nodded. ‘[How did it end up in the sky in the first place?]’
I grinned. Then I told her to heat up a bubble of water until it boiled away completely.
‘[It’s gone.]’, she simply stated.
‘[It is.]’ I confirmed. ‘[Now do the same but hold one of your mirrors over it.]’
My daughter was fascinated by the results. ‘[So, the sky is cold?]’, she asked, flicking her tongue over her left eye.
She really was a bright one. I admit I might have felt a tiny bit proud.
A short while later she set off to explore the forest. Now that she didn’t have to come back so often to get more water to keep breathing, she was eager to take longer excursions and discover new things. I wasn’t too worried since I had hunted down all the bigger threats ages ago. I only warned her to be careful around rivers if she made it that far.
Once she was gone I took a look at the afternoon sky. The sun was already setting behind the volcano. Up in the caldera, it would surely be up for hours yet. I sighed. At least it was quiet again.
I ate some of the centipede. Then I settled down in the shallows of the pond, waiting for the next child to come up for a snack or completing their transformation. To pass the time I took a look at my Profile. I hadn’t in a while, but talking with Iris about hers made me a bit curious.
Species: Scalamander
Breed: Swamp
Sex: female
Age: 3 years
Designation: Sweetie
Aliases: Mom, Caring little Sister, Precious
Titles: Matriarch (pending, specification required)
Occupation: Teacher, Nurse
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Blessings: Champion of Memory
Traits: none
Affinities: Water (weak)
Earth (traces)
Proficiencies: Swimming (novice)
Hiking (novice)
Energy Absorption (novice)
Ambient Energy Manipulation (novice)
Cooking (basic)
Teaching (competent)
Quests: Let’s make a cult!
Notes: Dear Memory,
don’t forget my pie!
Who is Fertility and why do we have to piss her off?
The first thing I noticed was that I had a ‘breed’ now. A thing to ask my kids about, probably. I had a title now too. Who- or whatever gave it to me, I had no clue. I also finally wasn’t a ‘Vagabond’ anymore. Well, I did stay in the same place for a few moons after all. And I kinda built a home here?
I had a new proficiency too. It was the highest I reached with any so far. I was really curious to know what scale this System used to measure that. I didn’t think I’ve done that well.
Oh! And Energy Absorption was at novice now. I totally should try to increase my affinity again when the rain was back. Perhaps I’d have more success now.
Only a moment later, I got my second shower of the day. No, there still were no clouds in the sky. It was caused by two more of my children waking up and enthusiastically bursting through the surface of the pond.
‘[Mom!] [I’m done!] [Look!]’ That was Ruby.
‘[Mom!] [Why green?] [I wanted be red!] [and pretty]’ And that was Cinder.
‘[That’s because you’re a boy, Cinder. You look very dashing.]’, I tried to placate him. I mean, he really did. A bit like his father. Maybe a little darker but still pine-green.
Ruby pushed herself between her smaller brother and me. ‘[What about me?] [You didn’t say] [anything about me!]’
Before I could answer I was showered again in yet another fountain of excited offspring. ‘[Mom!] [I’m green!] [Am I sick?]’
‘[No you’re not sick, Fir. You’re completely fine.]’ I wrote back. Ruby crept ever closer, trying to block her siblings out of my field of view. ‘[You look beautiful too, Ruby.]’
She nodded. ‘[I knew it!]’
‘[Mom says] [I look dashing.]’, Cinder proudly explained to his brother.
‘[What ‘dashing’ mean?]’, Fir asked in return.
Cinder pondered over that for a few seconds. Then he turned to me. ‘[Mom?!]’
I had the feeling I’d have a terrible headache before nightfall.
I was right. It seems I wasn’t just a genius but a seer as well. And it would continue throughout the following days. If I didn’t have to ‘admire’ yet another child’s new adult form, I had to keep the rest from burning down the forest.
Their breed was called ‘Mountain’ and their affinities were very much the same as Iris’. The only differences were that some had only traces of earth and Pyra had light at weak.
Within all that stress, I even missed the silent departure of a couple of my less talented kids. I was quite annoyed with myself for not being all that sad about it.
The others just said good-bye in a similar fashion as Caprica had. Even of the more intelligent ones, many decided to go ‘on a journey’ by themselves or in small groups. Maybe I had told them to many stories about my travels with Vigil and Trigger?
Speaking of Vigil. When it returned to our little spawn pond it was ecstatic at the sight of freshly charred vegetation. It immediately continued teaching the little arsonists about all the joys of burning things.
I was honestly glad when Iris eventually came home from her little excursion and helped me with the healing of all the singes and burns that accumulated. It became quite a bit easier when the rains ultimately returned with an enormous thunderstorm.
It was the middle of the night when the dark clouds finally burst. Of course, we could watch them slowly accumulate over the whole afternoon, so I was prepared. My children… not so much.
Only eleven were still staying at the pond with me. Junior, the last one who still had to finish his transformation, was sleeping through the whole thing. Verdan was hiding beneath my tail, trembling. Rose and Siria made fun of him at first, but they flinched with every thunderclap.
Spruce didn’t seem to care much. He just kept munching on the roasted spider legs Pyra had made earlier under Vigil’s instruction. He was the only one of my ‘slower’ kids that had stayed though. So if he was afraid, he couldn’t pester me with writing out his every fear even if he wanted to. He had picked up a little bit of water magic when his gills turned into the neck shield. So perhaps not all hope was lost on him.
Vigil had built one of its artistic expressionistic castle-things. At the moment it was crouching under some half molten pavilion and stared forlornly towards the top of the volcano. The elemental probably regretted not staying up there with Dancer for a few days longer and missing all the fun now.
Spark and Juniper were cowering next to the proto-spirit. Mesmerized they watched the light show coming from the mountain top, shuddering now and then.
Ash and Pyra were hiding at the bottom of the pond. I had no idea how they could prefer the constant loud low drumming patter inside there over the cracking thunder and lightning flashes outside.
Nibble stumbled around, tasting as many raindrops as she could. Informing me now and then that it was very ‘fresh’ and ‘like water, but cleaner’. Make of that what you will.
And Iris…
‘[Mom! This is amazing!] [All this energy!] [You didn’t tell me, it would be so awesome!] [Why didn’t you tell me?]’ She was excitedly jumping around in the rain, playing with heating it up into steam and cooling it down to hail, drawing patterns in the air around her and taking in all the new vitality that came every year when the rains returned.
She didn’t even look in my direction to see my replies. So I just leaned back, basking in the vital energy bursts and absorbed away. I felt all fuzzy and happy and content with the world.
Then Siria and Rose decided to build a huge bonfire to ‘chase away the loud noises’. They soon were joined by an always helpful Vigil and most of their siblings. My little band of pyromaniacs…
I just watched them arguing about the best stuff to burn for it and laughed to my heart’s content when they coughed on all the smoke they produced from their completely drenched fuel.
This was my family. Well, I wouldn’t be bored again for quite some time at least.
Junior woke up the next day. At first, he was sad that he missed all the excitement, but with the next thunderstorm arriving the same night, he changed his tune pretty fast.
‘[It’s scary, Mom.] [Can you tell story?]’ He always had liked those. But today I had a different plan.
‘[Why don’t you tell me a story instead?]’ I tipped his nose with my left index claw.
Another lightning struck the mountain top and made him flinch. Vigil was up there with its sibling today. I had a lot of convincing to do to keep my more adventurous children from following the elemental quite yet.
In the end, I had given them homework. If they could clad themselves completely in water, they were free to visit the caldera while it was raining. Iris, of course, had to immediately demonstrate a nearly perfect water bubble, wrote ‘[Thanks, Mom!]’ in the air above it and rushed away to catch up with Vigil.
‘[Will Iris be okay?]’ Junior asked, following my gaze up the mountain.
‘[I’m sure, she’ll be just fine.]’ I wrote. ‘[She has far more magic than I had when I was up there for the first time.]’ I still couldn’t help but worry a bit. Well, I had decided not to coddle them. And they were adults now. Hell, most of my kids just left and did gods know what right now. Some of them might already be dead.
I sigh-huffed and turned back to my son. ‘[Now, you wanted to tell me a story?]’ I grinned.
‘[But don’t know anything]’, he protested.
‘[Of course, you do. Just tell me what you remember about Memory.]’ I croaked a chuckle. ‘[You always wanted me to tell you about her more than anything else.]’ I tipped against his forehead. ‘[Always remember…]’, I prodded.
‘[... because only if you remember, you can learn from the past?]’, Junior continued tentatively. I nodded. ‘[And memory is like a flame. If you don’t feed it, it goes out.] [You can make a new fire] [but it won’t have the same flames?]’ He looked towards tonight’s new bonfire, comparing it to the charred remains from yesterday’s.
[But Memory will always remember.] [She watches us and is happy with us] [and is sad with us] [and if we’re lucky and she likes us] [she may help us remember something forgotten.] He looked at me. [As long as we don’t forget her?]
I smiled at him. ‘[That’s Memory. Correct. She will always watch and laugh at us.]’ I told him. Even if we don’t want her to, shameless voyeur that she is. I thought to myself.
‘[And Mom belongs to Memory.]’ My son declared now more confident. ‘[Because Mom is special.] [You are from a dying world] [that was forgotten?]’ If I could, I might have blushed a bit. ‘[And Memory sometimes talks to Mom.] [And she told you to make us strong with fire.] [Like … like… tem? I forgot the word.]’ He deflated a bit.
‘[Tempering metal. It’s not that important. We can’t do something like that here yet. Don’t worry about it too much.]’ I reassured him. ‘[Still, you remembered that very well.]’ His expression turned bright for a moment. Then he flinched again when the next thunderclap echoed through the valley.
‘[And what should we do to not forget about Memory?]’, I asked him a few moments later.
He thought about that for a while, looking back towards the bonfire. ‘[Teach others to make fire?]’, he finally asked.
I groaned.
Well, it was as good a start as any I guessed. So I patted his head and told him so. It was amazing enough that he had memorized that much. I should really hold back a bit with the metaphors in the future, though.
When the rain finally let up, coming dawn, Iris stumbled back into our glade alone. She was clearly singed in a few places and had soot and dirt everywhere. She also was hovering a ball of molten rock next to her.
‘[Lava is incredible!]’, she instantly declared once she was sure she got my attention. Pyra was enviously staring at the hot liquid stone under her sister’s control. Everyone else was either asleep or foraging for food at the moment.
I just shook my head at the sight and started cleaning her. ‘[I hope you had fun.]’ I simply stated.
She nodded eagerly, stretching here and there to allow me to wash her a bit more easily. ‘[It was awesome!] [There were those whirlwinds and they played with us.] [And then they made icy rain] [And then they could throw lightning!] [And it was so loud!] [And there was so much fire!] [And Dancer is so funny!] [And then one of the whirlwinds…]’
I stopped reading there and just focused on patching her up. Amused by her antics. Pyra was reading with growing attentiveness though.
‘[Mom! I want to go up too!]’ She turned to me.
‘[You have to get better with your water magic then.]’ I explained for the umpteenth time. ‘[The air in the crater is dangerous.]’
‘[Iris can take me!]’ Pyra turned to her sister, hopeful. ‘[Right?]’
‘[Maybe later. I’m tired now.]’ Iris moved the lava bubble a bit forwards. ‘[But you can play with this while I sleep? Try keeping it hot and watery?]’ Of course, Pyra would. Why didn’t that surprise me?
Around noon, thick plumes of dark smoke drew my attention towards the valley down below. Initially, before I could judge the extent of those forest fires, I thought a few of my kids were perhaps returning or didn’t go that far away in the first place. But some of the fires soon turned into genuine infernos that periodically got doused nearly completely only for them to flare up again a little closer soon after.
Before the early dusk arrived, whoever was coming was close enough for me to see streams of flames and molten rock being thrown around. And the muddy waves those were answered with. Soon after I could also hear them. Exploding and crashing through the woods.
The kids were excited. This probably was just another thunderstorm experience to them. And they hadn’t turned out as scary in the end.
I was far less optimistic. I only knew of one kind of being that could throw around that much magic willy-nilly. And here were two of them fighting it out. One chasing the other, directly towards my home.
I wasn’t confident to repel a pissed off elemental without Vigil's help.
Then the fighting suddenly stopped.
A couple of minutes later, Siria and Nibble, who had been at the creek for dinner, broke through the underbrush in a panicked run.
‘[Mom! Help!]’ ‘[The forest fights with]’ ‘[a lava scalamander.]’ I wasn’t sure which of them wrote what. Nevertheless, I tried my best to calm them down and keep my other children from running off to ‘just take a look’. All the while I kept glancing in the direction the both of them came from, into the now utterly silent woods.
Finally, I saw movement and light between the ferns and vines. Shortly after, most of them smouldered away when Trigger confidently swaggered into sight as if it would do that every other day.
It looked quite battered, but you wouldn’t have noticed that from its attitude.
I still was surrounded by a gaggle of young mountain scalamanders. Only Iris had crept away and now stepped into the newcomer’s path.
She trembled all over. I croaked out to draw attention to me, but she already had started to write.
‘[Who are you? Do you understand me? Why are you here?] She rose a wall of frozen mud between them.
My daughter was quite brave, wasn’t she?
Trigger regarded her for a long moment. Then tilted its head, answering with a bunch of molten simple symbols. I only recognized three.
‘[Sweety] ... [small] ... [?]’
I hit it with a water cannon.
‘[I’m not, you blockhead!] - [Trigger] [must] [stop] [scaring] [babies]’
I deflected the elemental's reflexive return fire with a water shield. Then it just stared at me in confusion. This would be way easier with Vigil here. I had sooo many questions.
Iris kept staring between the two of us, alternatingly flicking her tongue over her eyes.
I croaked exasperated.
‘[Trigger] [trouble] - [always]’