All the Avonside people put their helmets back on as we left the alleyways, and that reminded me to put my whole disguise back on as well. Couldn’t have this reunion messed up already when some random stranger saw my magenta hair could we?
Grace’s helmet cocked to the side when the magical portion of my disguise reappeared, and she commented, “Ginger huh?”
“It matches my real hair... kinda,” I said defensively, reaching up to self consciously worry at it with my fingers.
“Hey, don’t worry. Not giving you shit over it, it’s just an interesting choice,” she replied, her voice tinny through the helmet.
I smiled and continued with reapplying the mundane elements of the disguise, but internally I was trying to figure out why they were all wearing that armour. That guy who was supposedly in charge had called their group “explorers” but what did that even mean? What were their objectives, why were they so damn far from Avonside, and most importantly, why the scary as fuck armour?
I held my questions though, because leader guy was right, this place wasn’t safe, especially for a mage like me.
“Boss, where the hell are we even going to go? There’s people everywhere, we should just go back to the courtyard. It’s not like it matters if the hot chick is who she says she is, we’re just going to ditch her right?” asked the dude who had so rudely told Grace to stop believing in me when they first came into the courtyard back there.
“James,” Boss man Troy replied calmly, turning to look at him as we walked down the street. At the same time, his arm shot out to block Grace as she clenched her fists angrily and made to move on James.
“Yeah boss?” James asked, confused.
“You’re the dumbest guy I’ve ever had under my command, and back when I was with the military, I knew some pretty fucking dumb people. I’d rather leave you behind than a girl who is so clearly an incredible asset to Avonside, let alone the fact that she’s one of us. Now please shut the fuck up,” Troy replied, still in that calm, disinterested tone of voice.
We continued down the bustling street, dodging a procession of soldiers as we went. I saw several of them give our group the side eye, and I wondered what they would do if they knew who we were. Like, the five armoured Avonsiders were each assets in and of themselves, possessing passing knowledge of a lot of Earth’s tech, or at least knowing what was possible. Then there was me, a… relatively weak newborn mage.
I blinked, wait… I was a mage. I knew the perfect place to have an eavesdropper-free chat! My Grove! I quietly moved up next to Troy, but hesitated for a second or two, my thoughts turning worried. No, if I wanted them to trust me, I had to trust them too.
“Hey, uh… Troy, I know where we can talk with a one hundred percent guarantee of no eavesdroppers,” I said after those few moments of internal debate.
“Oh?” he asked simply.
“Yeah uh, all mages, except the very new ones, have like… a pocket dimension,” I murmured, keeping my voice as low as possible.
“Including you,” he remarked, and I wished I could see his expression right about then. That utterly calm way of talking he had was nerve wracking.
“Yup, we just have to find somewhere that no one will see us enter or exit,” I said quickly. “Plus um, I made mine look like Earth, so if anyone is feeling homesick…”
He regarded me for several long seconds, his helmet impervious to my attempts to read him once again, and my nervousness took a sharp turn upwards.
“Alright,” he nodded, but he didn’t look away, continuing to stare through that impenetrable black visor.
Ugh, I felt so anxious, worried. Like how you might see cops back on Earth walking down the street, and you know you’ve done nothing wrong, but you’re still anxious anyway. Then your nervousness makes you more nervous, because you think they will take that nervousness as guilt.
“I was planning to take us out of the city and into the nearest forest, and we’ll still be doing that. We’ll have a little preliminary chat there, and then you can show us this magical pocket realm of yours,” he said, then turned back to the street like that was that. Wow, okay. He was taking this all very well in stride for a random army dude.
Rather than staying next to him and continuing to wind myself up until I took off into the air like one of those toy helicopters, I slid back until I was next to Grace again. Maybe talking to her would calm me down. Well, except she was wearing one of those damn helmets too, which meant I couldn’t see her expressions either.
“Um, Grace, how are you?” I asked lamely, getting a tilted helmet in return.
“I’ve been better,” she shrugged. “Well actually, now that I’ve found you… I think I might be okay.”
“Were you really… did you actually care that much?” I murmured, somewhat embarrassed that someone thought I was worth that much consideration.
This time, I could tell even through the helmet that she was giving me a look that said something like, are you crazy? “Of course!” she exclaimed, a little too loudly. “You were already like, such a great friend, and we were in this crazy situation, guarding each other’s backs. Then you went all zombie mode on me and walked into a fruit. I thought… shit I don’t know what. Then there was the whole fucking… inquisition afterwards.”
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“Inquisition?” I asked quickly.
“Yeah, they didn’t believe me at first, not until they saw the weird fruits, and then suddenly I was being questioned by everyone and their mother. Some people said it was my fault, some people still thought I was crazy even after they saw the wood creature,” she sighed, shaking her head miserably. “It sucked, they wouldn’t even let me mourn you, it was just—“
“Not here, Grace,” Troy warned gently from up ahead. “Save it for when we’re secure.”
“Right, sorry Troy,” Grace murmured with a nod.
The rest of the journey out of the city and into the forest beyond the farmland was done in relative silence. I was feeling worried again, I just felt like something was going to go wrong. The universe had been so keen to pull the rug out from under me every time I was happy, I was almost expecting it now.
The forest in this region was a wet one, almost a temperate rainforest, with oak, ash, birch and many other types of familiar tree vying for sunlight with huge ferns. The forest floor was covered in wet, decaying leaves and vibrantly green undergrowth. Across everything was a layer of moss and fungus. The whole place was a riot of vivid greens, browns and reds. It was incredibly pretty, and I wondered if maybe I could create a magical version of it in my Grove.
I think I wanted that, to build an ecosystem rather than a tended garden. Something that was a little more self sufficient than mages typically built. After all, judging by the books Esra had kept in her cottage, they didn’t have much of an idea about the science of ecology and how every plant and animal was interconnected and required for the health of the greater whole.
“Alright, we’ll stop here,” Troy piped up, jolting me out of my thoughts.
I looked around at where we’d stopped. It was a fairly nondescript part of the forest, the same as everything else.
“So um, where do we start?” I asked nervously.
“We’ll start with a more detailed explanation of what happened to you I think,” he replied, then paused and turned to everyone else. “Helmets off too, let’s have a civilised conversation here.”
I took my magical and mundane disguises off along with them as they did their helmets, smiling at Adam and Grace in particular when their faces were revealed again. I’d missed them. I got a big grin and a subtle wink in return from Adam, which had me giving him a goofy grin right back. Yeah, I was safe with these people, so long as my two friends were around.
Taking a deep breath, I frowned and began to speak. I told them of how it had felt when the fruit was calling me in, then of my fuzzy time within the fruit. I told them how I’d hatched from that fruit, naked and feminine. I told them about Esra, about mages and about how I had been training. I left out the part about how I was explicitly more powerful than was expected of a newly born mage, and definitely didn’t mention how I absolutely loved being in this body over the last one.
That led on to an explanation of my encounter with Lord Fennimore, plus what I had heard from both Esra and Valda about him. Namely, that he was a right piece of work. Troy in particular seemed visibly angry when I mentioned the murder of prisoners because they cost too much and their people refused ransom demands. On the flip side, they were extremely interested to learn that I was now fluent in the native language of this region, Anve.
“You just, popped out of the fruit and could speak, what was it? Anve?” Adam asked incredulously. “This whole magic thing sounds real fucking weird to me.”
I gave a little chuckle and nodded. “Yup, it’s definitely pretty weird.”
As if sensing that my explanation had run its course, Troy stepped in. “Well, now that we have a more… understandable account of what happened, I think it’s fairly safe to say you are who you say you are. Especially considering the way both you and Grace have already begun to bond again. Why don’t we take a look at this, uh, Grove?”
“Um, sure. Just stand close, I think that’s all,” I said, closing my eyes and concentrating on my magical senses.
I could see each of them, their bodies showing as weird bubbles of magical energy. I frowned, hold on... Esra hadn’t looked like that to my magical sight, she’d looked different, like a web of magic with an obvious but intangible connection to her Grove.
With them though, it was like they had a shield of magic around them, a barrier that protected them from further internal inspection with my mage sight. Tentatively, while they thought I was working up the power to take us all to my Grove, I sent out the slightest tendril of power. I went for James, since I already didn’t like him. It struck that bubble, but couldn’t go any further inside his body. That was super strange, would it even be possible to take them all with me?
I tried anyway, reaching out to grasp each of them gently with my power. I saw them squirm when they felt it, but only James muttered a complaint. Then with everyone tethered to me, I sought out the Nameless Garden. As I had done a few times now, I pushed against the fabric of reality, but this time it was harder. Not too difficult, but enough that I could feel the extra weight of my companions as I shunted us through to the reality next door.
When I opened my eyes, we were all standing in my Grove, which was mercifully calm today, no angry wind bearing down on us, just a light breeze and some clouds wandering across the sky. I felt a smile touch my lips even before I heard the gasp from Grace.
“It does look like home!” she exclaimed happily, her hand coming to rest unconsciously on my upper arm.
I looked down at that hand, expecting to flinch away again, but instead I felt my smile go funny and my stomach did a little hiccup. I blinked, confused, then looked back up to see her beaming up at the sky in wonder.
“I didn’t know how much I missed home sky until just now,” she murmured, leaning close.
“Oh uh, yeah. I did it because I missed Earth too. It’s like, I don’t know, part of our psyche or something surely, because wow. Or just homesickness I guess, but I mean, that would be weird for me, because I didn’t really like home a whole lot. I missed all of you more than I missed Earth when I got schwooped that second time. Yeah, maybe it isn’t the psyche thing. I don’t know,” I rambled, petering off as I realised what I was doing. Gosh, why was I making such a tit of myself in front of her all of a sudden?
“This is nice, Eli” Troy said, smiling at me. Probably the first smile I’d seen on him. First expression in general even.
“Oh, her name is Ryn now,” Grace interjected. “Since you know, she’s… a she.”
“Good, good,” Troy nodded, not seeming at all perturbed by the correction. “Alright Ryn, let’s get down to the rest of things shall we? Explanations, if you’re up for joining us in our little quest?”
“Yeah!” I nodded quickly. “I’ll help. I go where Grace and Adam go.”
That seemed to impress him, for some reason I couldn’t figure out, and with a deep breath, he spoke, “Avonside… was attacked…”