--- AYMIAE ---

“And then I met with your sister in law, somehow I-” Aymi blinked mid sentence, feeling the privacy spell she’d instinctively set up earlier shatter as Hivren and his fiance opened the door in a flurry of motion, leaping forward ready for an attack. Harrel glanced at them, apparently also having forgotten about the young couple. Aymi sighed, “Right, I can tell you the rest later.”

Hivren glanced between Aymi and Harrel uneasily, Aymi noticed that he was holding a pipe like a bludgeon, “Harrel are you bedeviled?!”

Aymi scolded herself for having forgotten to take down the privacy ward. She really shouldn’t have put it up in the first place, but she’d gotten used to trying to make up for her lack of instinctively silent footsteps and… sparks.

Harrel chuckled, “No, no, Aymi apparently cursed herself on accident.”

She opened her mouth and closed it a few times, “That’s-” She sighed, “wait… yeah, that… yeah that’s what happened. I’m taking that explanation for when I eventually track down Raan.”

“Good luck convincing him to even talk to either of us.”

“I need to eventually, he has my spare key for the bunker!”

Hivren lowered the pipe slightly, “soo… It’s actually Aymi then?”

Harrel nodded, “Next time Hivren, when you think an ally is bedeviled, attack first and ask questions later. But this is definitely Aymi.”

The young woman beside the pipe wielding nephew relaxed visibly, her eyes turning from worried to curious, “Well this has been an eventful meeting.”

“Aymi, this is Kureia, Hivren’s betrothed. Kureia, this is Aymiae, my friend.”

Friend. Why did that word hurt? But… was it even true? The way he’d reacted when he thought someone was stealing Aymi’s identity… she might just be reading too much into it though, and then what, she’d get false hope again? She’d follow him around for years only to realize again, that he wasn’t going to do anything?

Kureia nodded though, oblivious to Aymi’s trade of thought. “A pleasure to meet you. Unless of course this is a huge ruse and you really are an imposter, in which case it would not be a pleasure.”

Aymi raised an eyebrow, “Don’t spend too much energy trying to think of the alternate reality where that’s a fact.”

“If I didn’t spend time thinking up alternate realities, I wouldn’t be nearly as good a historian as I am.”

Aymi found herself smiling, “Remind me to introduce you to Netun sometime. I’m sure he’d have fun with you.” Harrel laughed, because she’d already told him about the immortal mushrooms that lived in the Sanarian desert.

Kureia only seemed intrigued, she belatedly took Hivren’s pipe away and nodded, “If this Netun is interested in History, I’d be thrilled to meet him.”

“He’s in Yera right now, tracking someone, but I’m sure we could introduce you once he gets back.”

Harrel frowned at that, “Sparks, that’s right, you’re alive!”

Aymi blinked at him, “I feel like this entire conversation has been about that?”

Harrel looked relieved all of the sudden, “No, I just realize that means I don’t have to keep spending resources bribing Whisper to keep him from taking over the world.”

“He what?!”

“He stopped laying low after the fire, I think they made him king-”

“Sparks, didn’t he learn after what he did to that group of pitten?”

“Not sure, the only thing I think that’s been slowing him down is the almost complete lack of magic in Yera.”

“Doubly glad we just left him there.”

“But now that you’re back we can use his contract to make him back the heck down!”

“Yeah!” Aymi paused, “Except I don’t know how Go’lir contracts work, it might have been bound to my body or a part of my soul I lost.”

Harrel paused as well. “If it’s like a regular spirit contract then there’s not a binding, it’s just the spirit’s word…”

Aymi sighed, “But possessor entities are weird. I probably have something in the bunker about Go’lir…”

Hivren and Kureia had watched this interaction with a mixture of confusion, intrigue, and even some note-taking on Hivren’s part. When they petered out, Hivren tucked away his notebook, “Well, it’s getting late and Kureia and I have an early day tomorrow. Do you think We’ll see each other again before we have to part ways entirely?”

Harrel frowned, glancing at Aymi, “If we need to get into Aymi’s bunker, we’ll have to track down Raan. He’s in Nakonua somewhere, and Reiaran is on the way…”

“No.” Aymi said quickly, “let them head home alone, I’m sure they need the quality time, that wedding is coming up fast.”

Both of them turned red at that, Hivren coughing into his fist, “No, no, you’d be welcome to come!”

Harrel though was always the kind of person to latch onto weakness like a reasle to water. He grinned, “We wouldn’t want to intrude, hopefully we’ll see you at the wedding though~”

--

They bade farewell to the young couple, who’d rented rooms at a reputable inn rather than sleeping in the dubiously sanitary beds Harrel had found in the upstairs of the book shop. They’d been confused when Aymi said she wouldn’t be able to say goodbye when they left in the morning, and it had taken another hour for her to explain that yes, sandfrost died in the sun, and no, layers didn’t help her as much as they did Netun.

Aymi examined that room with the dubious beds, but it seemed a lot better than what she and Harrel had dealt with during most of their time in Aulous. It was no wonder Harrel had rolled his eyes at the idea of renting rooms.

She shook her head and simply laid out on the floor as Harrel pulled out a bedroll and started setting up camp. The trick with dubious beds was to not use them. He tried to give his bedroll to her, but she simply shook her head.

Harrel turned his light off after a minute and his movements slowly lessened in frequency.

After a long time without making any noise, he spoke quietly, “You don’t need sleep anymore, do you?”

Aymi contemplated not answering, but he would eventually find out later that it was true, “Yeah, I don’t.”

Harrel was silent again, “I’m sorry for never responding to your advances in the past.”

“It’s… fine.”

“No, it’s not.” He responded, seeming angry at his past self. “You clearly were hurt by it and I was just too caught up in the next adventure to notice, even after you left to take care of the Ayfel.”

“Yeah…” Aymi said, a bit hopeful about where this was leading, but also… sparks she was a mushroom now. She found that her emotions weren’t exactly the same as she’d left them either, she remembered being in love with him so hard that she hadn’t tried to pursue anyone else. But now it was different, the problem was she wasn’t quite sure how different.

She knew that she still loved him, she loved how kind he was, she loved how dedicated he was to doing the right thing, she loved how he put so much of himself into adventures, even though that was what had eventually made her leave.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

But there was something missing now.

“I think maybe there’s something wrong with me.” Harrel finally said. “Whenever I think about relationships like that, I just feel like… they always end terribly. My parents hated each other, you know? I always thought that when I eventually got married we’d secretly hate each other too.”

Aymi thought about that, remembering his parents. It made a horrible amount of sense. “And now I’m a mushroom.” She stated, feeling a bit surreal.

“And now you’re a poisonous mushroom, which I feel like makes things more complicated.”

“Yeah I’d refrain from putting any of my body parts in your mouth.”

Harrel laughed for a long moment, and then made a sound like a wince, “Wow Aymi, I never thought you had such a dirty mind.”

She felt a smile appear, “You did all the imagining there, I just gave you the words to imagine.”

“That’s the same thing and you know it.”

--- RAAN ---

Raan often considered himself to be a practical person.

He was practical in that he’d retired from his adventuring career early, he was practical in that he was a farmer now and really, who was more practical than a farmer? Raan was clearly the most practical person there could be in the entirety of Nakonua, this was obvious to him, and it should be obvious to you too. His wife agreed with him and their three wonderful daughters were the most practical they could be.

As such, when early one night he felt two familiar mental signatures enter his range, Raan wasn’t angry, he wasn’t even annoyed. He was… disappointed more than anything else. “Honey, some old friends are looking for me, can you get them to leave while I hide in the basement?”

His wife raised an eyebrow at him and peered out the dark window, but their property had a few too many trees for that to be a practical method of stalking anyone coming by, Raan resolved to cut a few of them down next week. “Raan, you can’t keep hiding from your past! What happens if all of your daughters decide they’d rather be farmers than seek their fortune!”

That… wasn’t very practical.

Sparking woman.

He grumbled for a moment before remembering his own youth, if it wasn’t for his older brother going out into the world and dying, he would never have tried the same just to avenge him. But then he’d almost died himself, at least two dozen times. After one particularly close call, Raan had decided it simply wasn’t worth it anymore, but here were two familiar minds that as best he could tell, belonged to some of his old adventuring companions.

But seeking one's fortune was important in Nakonua, Raan blamed the humans and their general lust for recognition.

Raan had never been the greatest mind mage, he was better at Empathy, so he wasn’t quite sure who they were, all he knew was that the minds were familiar, he remembered practicing his abilities on both of them in the past.

He did know that one was most likely Harrel since he’d tried at least a dozen times to get Raan to come on this adventure or help him find that lost amulet of the old empires, or… well anything. Harrel knew where to find Raan and Raan knew how to get Harrel to leave.

“-now that Irean is sixteen.”

Raan blinked at his wife and gave her an apologetic look. He’d stopped listening again.

She huffed, annoyance leaking from her like a bad stench. “It’s got to be your friend Harrel again, right? It would be a good idea to introduce Irean to him, he’s famous and all that and everyone knows the eldest child is best for adventures.”

Raan adopted a sour expression, remembering his brother again, “If she wants to I won’t stop her, but we aren’t about to corrupt our-”

There was a knock at the door.

Raan grumbled, and he still wanted to run to the basement and hide in his panic room, but he reluctantly got to his feet and opened the door, glaring mightily at Harrel on the other side.

Didn’t I used to smile like that when we went out on adventures?

Raan’s eyes tracked to the other person standing at his doorway, and nearly jumped out of his skin as he saw Aymi. She was watching him awkwardly, her eyes still slightly crossed as she smiled hesitantly.

“What in the name of-”

“Raan, could I please have the spare key to my bunker?”

“Aymi!? Aren’t you… dead?”

“Now that’s a terribly long story, and I thought you were trying to avoid us.”

“Sparking…” He turned toward Harrel, shook his head and pulled out his key ring, squinting at them, “You know what, I don’t even want to know the story, okay? You just take your key and leave, alright?”

His wife came up behind him and smiled at the newcomers, “Harrel, great to see you again! He’s still just as salty as always.” Harrel bowed slightly at her as Raan pulled up a key that looked promising, it had a golden dragon stylized along the handle and that was pretty neat.

Raan held up the key toward Aymi, “is this it?”

She blinked at it, “Isn’t that the key to the lost sage’s tomb?”

Harrel leaned forward, frowning at it, “Yeah, I remember it.”

Raan felt the blood rush from his face, he dropped the ring of keys and backed up, prodding it with his foot hesitantly, “I’ve been carrying around the curse of the boneless for seventeen years?!”

The red jewel on the dragon’s eye glinted in the lamplight menacingly.

Aymi picked it up, leaking intrigue like a toppled barrel. “Fascinating, you somehow haven’t even touched it in all this time!”

“I thought we lost that in one of the underwater cities?” Harrel muttered to himself. “Does this mean I can finally find out what’s in that tomb?”

“Harrel, the tomb is on Engere, the Society of the Mis-born Dragon is still in charge there.”

“Ah, right. Why was I thinking it was north of Aubinere?”

“Sparks, I was just there, what was it that was north of Aubinere?”

Raan sighed, remembering countless times when he’d been given the map since literally everyone would have died if they relied on Cada’s navigational abilities. Or Harrel’s…or Aymi’s… Marn probably could have led them around without anyone dying, but they wouldn’t have trusted the salty shifter with something like that. “North of Aubinere is Gium’s Tower.” He eventually said.

“Ohhhhhhhhh.” the two said.

Aymi carefully unclipped the curse of the boneless with a strange expression on her face. If he was reading her emotions right, she was thinking about maybe touching the tiny gem. She didn’t though, thankfully, and she handed it to Harrel, who stuck it in his dimensional space.

She flipped through the rest of the keys, eventually finding the one she was after. She unclipped it and moved to hand the rest back to Raan, who was now eyeing them warrily. “Could we maybe make sure there’s nothing surprising on there? I’d rather not keep something like the key to a demon prison or a key to a go’lir temple… or anything like that.”

Aymi paused, pulling the ring back to her with a frown. She went over each key individually, thinking about it, occasionally consulting Harrel, and sometimes she would simply leave a key there, harmless things like a key to a long vanquished cult’s icebox. But most of the time she would clip it off the ring and hand it to Harrel.

She got to one particular key, an ordinary looking bronze one and frowned, unable to identify it. The three of them went back and forth about what it might have been from before Raan’s wife came back from whatever she’d left to do. “Raan, honey, that key is to our cellar. I’ve been looking for it for years.”

The three of them were suitably embarrassed, but they gave the woman her key and continued around the ring. Finally, once there were only three keys left out of about sixty, Raan pocketed the ring again, giving his wife a resigned look. His eldest daughter, Irean looking bored as she frowned at the two strangers.

“Ma, they’re done, can I go now?”

Her mother adopted a strained smile, placing a hand gently but firmly on her daughter’s shoulder. “Harrel! You remember Irean, right?”

Harrel nodded, though he seemed to get what she was trying to do, “I’m not looking to-”

“It’s great to finally meet one of Raan’s daughters!” Aymi smiled, jabbing Harrel with an elbow to shut him up. “Irean was it? What are your affinities?”

She blinked at the suddenly intrigued woman, frowning, “I’m a cronomancer with a water affinity, I also have a smaller illusion skill, but I haven’t found much training there.”

“That’s great! How much training do you have with the other two?”

Sparks, was Aymi trying to steal his daughter with less than a day of notice? And his wife was collaborating with her! “I don’t think-” Raan began, glancing at his wife. He shut up though when he sensed her emotions.

Irean seemed confused, but she answered readily enough, “I’m good a purifying water and I learned how to sense the Flow of Time when I was barely five, I’ve been able to accurately see past events that have significance to me and sometimes I get glimpses of the future.”

Raan continued watching his wife speculatively. She was trying to get them to take Irean right now. It seemed like Aymi was trying to do the same thing. It could be anybody’s guess why though. Irean had to easily be the most beautiful girl in the village, and that wasn’t just his fatherly pride showing through, she would have a good life lined up for her if she stayed here!

But maybe she’s trying to get her to meet some prince or another and charm him. If that was the case, he’d prefer if they just came out and said it. He knew Aymi also preferred to be straight with people, but she was also a woman, which made doing that when it was at Raan’s expense almost impossible.

“Would you consider accepting a possible apprenticeship in five or so years?”

Irean looked like she was about to faint with excitement, but sparks, Raan didn’t like this idea. “Aymi, are you trying to blackmail me?”

She blinked at him and glanced back at Irean. “No, She just seems like a lovely young woman.”

Raan wilted slightly as Irean glared at him, “I’d love to have an apprenticeship! But… wouldn’t it be better to start something like that sooner? I hear most apprentices start younger than I am now.”

Aymi smiled, “The secret to becoming a great mage isn’t to start off as early as possible and hammer down the basics, it’s to wait and see where the ability and the person grows on its own. The fact that you can already see the future at all is proof of that. I’ll admit that usually apprenticeships should start around eighteen with this rule in mind, but I’m going to be very busy for the next couple of years.”

Irean perked up visibly, her eyes shining, “I’ll look forward to it!”

Five years… Raan contemplated, I have five years to get her to reconsider.

He could only hope that a handsome young man who was decently well off would pick Irean up before then.