--- AYMIAE, TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO ---
The world passed behind the ship, steady and calm despite the way it still gnawed at Aymi’s stomach, even after two months at sea hopping between islands. Raan would always track her down whenever the sea sickness got bad, he was nice to be around, he was like a little brother in some ways. She showed him how to ‘act fancy’ as he put it, how to write in a way that people would pay for, and how to barter for payments.
Raan was an eager student, and after some prodding he reluctantly revealed his three affinities to her, one being empathy, which a lot of men apparently thought was girly. Aymi understood why they would think that, but that didn’t make them any less wrong. The imprint was based entirely on random chance.
Eventually as time steadily passed, Aymi spotted land in the distance. Finally.
She felt in her pocket and pulled out the package the strange Pitten had given her. She’d long since disappeared, leaving them to pick up a new fish person at the next port. Aymi had asked the new one about the package but he had no idea and tried to explain some politics of the sea cities instead.
Well, she was almost to her destination. She held it though, thinking as the land slowly became larger and the sailors around her started frantically preparing for port. The first few times she’d tried to help out the sailors, but that just got her yelled at by the captain.
Once the land was only an hour or so away, Aymi retreated to her cabin with the package, deciding this could be something sensitive. She tore at the paper and eventually came out with a small wooden box, intricately carved with scenes from myth. Gium shaping the magic of the world, the eight types he sorted them into, the uneven scrambling of the affinities that went with those.
It was beautiful. She took a moment to appreciate it, but she did notice a large dent in one side that partially ruined the experience. Humming, Aymi opened the box and stared at the thing inside. It was a black pendant, the shape was strange with two long spikes jutting out of the central mass, there was a third spike but someone had snapped it off. Considering Aymi had no idea what kind of metal this was, that could have been very easy or very difficult to do.
She picked it up hesitantly and nearly hurled it across the room when a voice spoke in her mind.
‘Hello there, little tuvei. I am called the Whisper. By right of the laws of the go’lir, you have defeated me. I am now in your power.’
--
“Aymi, could you get me more planks for this part?” She perked up at her name, glancing toward Raan who knelt beside the half finished repair job, juggling nails in one hand while another held the hammer and a third supported -if weakly- the plank he was affixing to the hole.
The wall still had an enormous gap in it, but it was getting steadily smaller by the hour. His stack of planks was also decreasing and Aymi agreed that it wouldn’t last through the rest of the wall “Of course.” She stood up without hesitation from where she’d been stapling the picture frame back together and sorting through the various wood chips for a missing piece.
Aymi stretched a bit and nabbed her purse from the chair on her way out just in case they would let her pay for the wood this time. The men across the street were all pulling a different wall up, though that building hadn’t had any remaining after the disaster. She waved at the overseer for that building and started down the ruined street where a couple of kids were already gathering piles of rocks for the men fixing the road.
As she passed through the quickly recovering town, Aymiae couldn’t help but wonder if these attacks would just get worse over the next few years. True, she’d just been passing through with Raan, both of them were out of money at this point and surviving off odd jobs, monster slaying, and occasionally the generosity of the locals.
But Aulous was somehow different from all the other places they’d gone. It was significantly worse when you couldn’t simply exterminate a couple of rowdy bandits or help find a lost chicken.
She hummed to herself, passing into the distribution market, filled with various kinds of fresh planks and nails. Did Raan need more nails too? He hadn’t said. Aymi passed the cooks handing out stew and blankets for anyone who needed them, wondering how Reiaran would have acted if a similar disaster hit them.
Aymi already knew though, the disaster was different but two years weren’t enough to forget the hollow eyes of the mothers and the sorrow that permeated the very walls of the city. That’s why she’d had to leave, to get away from that pain.
She stopped in front of the same stall from earlier, “Ten more planks, please!”
The human grinned, “Right away miss! But ah...how's about I help you?” His accent placed him somewhere in Sanaria or the Aubinere desert.
Aymi examined the planks behind him, counting out ten. Last time she’d had Raan here and he was a lot more sturdy than herself. Not really muscular, but it wasn’t hard for her to take one end and him to take the other and then for the two to simply walk back to the house they were fixing.
The human in front of her could probably carry about twice that much without help.
Aymi hummed slightly, “I don’t want to be a bother, I can just take half now and come back in a bit for the rest?”
“Nonsense! It’ll be faster for both of us this way.”
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Aymi frowned, “but-”
He picked up ten planks and started off the way she’d come. “Where’s this house? You’re going to have to show me.”
She blinked at him a few times and hurried toward him, part of her trying to figure out how to take a plank or two to ease the load and the other frantically trying to rationalize how easy it was to just let him take the whole load.
‘You always do this.’ The whisper said, quiet and unobtrusive, ‘why?’
Aymi grabbed the amulet at her neck anxiously since it would start glowing again, ‘I can’t just let someone do everything for me.’
The foreign mind settled a bit, ‘that is not an explanation. I will blame the disconnect between thought and emotion.’
Aymi rushed to the side of the strange helper, silencing the whisper with a reminder that tonight was a better time to talk. She examined the man for a moment, “I’m Aymi, a traveler or something, what do they call you?”
He glanced at her curiously, “Harrel.” He was silent for a moment, “I’m also a traveler of sorts, mostly trying to get away from my family and all the nonsense on the other side of the sea.”
She nodded, “Did tales of Foralen get to you?”
He blinked at her, “Of course, everyone’s heard of her as far off as Yera.”
Of course the hero had made it all the way out here. It would have been more shocking if she hadn’t. Fari had done something amazing and it made Aymi feel gross inside that she’d discounted her as…well useless. “She’s the reason I left, I just felt sad being at home after that, like I needed to do more with my life. She’s probably doing something in the name of justice again.”
Harrel nodded slowly, following Aymi up the path and eventually into the house the two tuvei were fixing. He set the planks down after some guidance. “Let me know if you need anything else, I’ll probably be in the area for a few more months.”
Aymi smiled, glancing at Raan as he got back to his work, “So will we I think.”
“Yup.” Raan commented, “We need a bigger group though if we want to go after the dragon queen.”
Harrel paused in the doorway, frowning as he turned back to stare at Raan, “You what?”
---Months later---
Aymi frowned at the two arguing humans, trying to figure out how best to intervene in a way that wouldn’t make them mad at her too.
“I said, I’m not one of those fancy shifters that can become anything, I need time to get to know the form!”
“But you literally became a rabbit? How is a hare any different?”
“I can’t even begin to explain!”
“Won’t rabbit fur work?”
“No! They’re different?”
“How are they different, they taste basically the same.”
“There’s a lot of things that can fit between ‘basically’.”
Aymi cleared her throat and the two glaring humans reluctantly stopped for a second to glare at her, “The potion might work with rabbit fur, but it’s best if we follow it completely. A hare has different gifts from Gium that we need for this to work.”
Cada, the one who’d assumed they were the same, grunted in an annoyed fashion and stomped off, “well good luck trapping the thing without me!” She had a point since without a chronomancer or dimensionalist, their chances of successfully catching something that was magically quick were lower than Aeinar itself. But could she really do it anyway? She’s an ameture chronomancer by her own admission.
The whisper took this as a sign to start invading Aymi’s thoughts again, ‘Purpose? Why? Catching a beast to make a potion? Odd mortal ideal. Simply become strong enough you do not need the potion.’
‘That’s not really…practical for us.’ Aymi explained, glancing at Marn with a sigh. The whisper kept listening but Aymi focused on the present. “That could have gone better.”
Marn grunted, putting a hand on his belt knife and scanning the undergrowth for creatures. “Cada can figure out a different way to sneak past a dragon’s senses herself if she thinks it’ll be so easy.”
Aymi sighed, forcing a smile, “Well, I know it’s not tricked by illusions, but I can probably blind it for a moment.”
The shifter grunted again, which could mean a hoard of things. Aymi took it as a good sign that he’d stopped growling at people last week. “Well, if that sparking nullifier ever catches up, this’ll be so much easier.”
“...I believe Harrel has a name?”
“I’ll call him that when he stops calling me ‘rabbit boy,’ I have a name too.”
Aymi felt her smile start to falter as someone came back through the trees. She prepared herself for damage control if it was Cada deciding to keep arguing, but she found herself relaxing somewhat as the harmless form of Raan peeked out and examined the ground with a frown. “Have you guys seen the hare yet? I keep thinking maybe it’s stalking me, does that make sense?”
She tilted her head at him, wondering if there was something else easy he could do to feel included besides scouting out the area.
Marn got to him first though, “Hare’s don’t stalk people, just send us the signal if you sense it coming in our direction.”
Raan laughed nervously, “Right… right. It just has a really weird mental signature.” He reluctantly left, back to the area where he’d been waiting.
Aymi kept watch with a sigh, her illusion of bright light ready as a distraction. This group was far from her ideal one, at each other’s throats most of the time, barely capable, and all of them just kept pushing. Usually Cada helped with peacemaking but she could never get along with Marn. Most of them couldn’t get along with Marn, it was almost like the one-armed shifter was trying to make everyone hate him.
Aymi caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye and flashed the illusion out of sheer instinct. All she got in return for her effort was a yelp of pain from Marn. Right, I have to warn allies about what I’m doing.
The whisper sounded amused when it spoke, ‘You have made this realization before, mortal. Is it really that difficult to remember it?’
Aymi hissed under her breath, “Don’t make me toss you back into the ocean.”
The whisper seemed to like that idea though, ‘Really? Are you offering? I was having such a great time ruling the pitten and destroying human villages. If you release me I promise I’ll-’
‘I’m really learning to regret this agreement.’