A week after their first time together, Granny Fox showed up with the girls in tow again. Sai kept a perpetual smile on her face but Kiara blushed a little every time she looked at Marik. After their usual greeting were done Kiara started asking questions about what she could use to make her own portal spell. After finally getting her to tell him what it was she was trying to make the spell do he gave her a few ideas and pointed out some spells to reference that could help her. She thanked him and waved him and Sai off while telling them to 'have fun' before going to talk to her master for a while.
They went off into the woods to one of his training spots and immediately started making out. They decided to try a few new things to see what each of them enjoyed and then took a rest. While still breathing a little heavily, Marik began walking around to pick up the discarded clothing before bringing it back to where Sai was so that they could get redressed. After handing her portion of clothing to her so he could put his own clothes back on he decided to try and strike up a conversation to keep them from deciding on a reenactment.
"I think you'll probably need to learn some mental defense arcanistries soon. It'll be good to have that before I...sorry...before we leave. I could teach you mine or you can try and make your own but you do live with a master of the mind so..."
"Hmm...I can ask Master about some ideas I guess. Is that all, though? Just having the one I already have and a mental defense seems kind of, well, not a lot?"
"I know. You're original one is actually pretty amazing, though. Even if you don't realize it yourself. The potential is outstanding in my opinion."
"Really?"
"Ya. I mean, off the top of my head I can think of like four different things. If you worked at it you could probably make a whole bunch of different ones based off that one alone, you know? It's an illusory flame that you can control with your mind! Like, you could keep the main one you have as the original or until you find something absolutely amazing you want to do with it. Then make an alternate version, change the color a bit, apply some extra property like heat or cold, and boom, now you have a second one. You could even do something crazy like make people think it's hot but it's actually cold. There are so many things you can do with that. It'll take some time and finding the right spells that you can pick the pieces off that you want, but..."
"Hmm. That does sound kind of awesome. I'd still only have a bunch of versions of only one spell, though. Ah. Sorry, only one arcanistry."
"True. It's a good first one and a good one to master, though. I only have so many because none of mine even had that kind of versatile potential. Your one can have all sorts of versions for almost every offensive situation. Utility and defense are missing, sure, but that's why i suggested that as the second one. I just wish I could figure out soul sorcery..."
"Hm? Don't you already know soul sorcery, though? It's the same as other sorceries, right? So it's just moving the soul around and stuff, which is basically what you have to learn first to use other sorceries, isn't it?"
Marik stared at her in shock for a while. It was so obvious! She was absolutely right and somehow he had missed it. He grabbed her face in his hands and kissed her. When he finally let her go he saw her face flushed and her hands were starting to take her clothes right back off.
"No, wait. Let's not take that too much further. That was a reward for the genius answer that I missed for so long. Ah. We shouldn't tell anyone, even our masters, that you figured out soul sorcery. Apparently it's supposed to be a huge secret that no one can learn."
"Hmm? It seemed easy to figure out, though?"
"You also know the secret of what sorcery actually is, remember?"
"I guess so. So, now what. I kind of wanna have sex again..."
"Umm. We should probably limit that to some extent. Especially for now."
"But why?"
"Because I want us to live long enough to do that many many more times instead of just until my birthday."
"Hmph. Stingy."
"*sigh* Look at it this way, then. If we get all of this kind of stuff taken care of sooner then we can do that stuff even more later."
"Mmm...I don't agree but fine. You're the smarter one, anyways."
"No. You're definitely the smarter one. I might be a little wiser and have a different perspective, but you are definitely smarter."
"If you say so."
"I say so. However, you were saying you wanted more arcanistries, right? Well, now we can work on some kind of soul defense together."
"Oh. Okay. Let's do it!"
Luckily, arcane arts did actually seem to interest Sai enough to keep her attention for the discussion. The talked about various circumstances that they would need soul defenses for as well as their own ideas on how to counter them and how to make the arcanistries. Eventually the discussion moved around enough that Marik suddenly had an idea that he wanted to test. He ran back to his room, barely greeting the people around the table, to grab one of his old tomes and then rand back to where he left Sai. Once he found the spell he was looking for, he started trying to convert it to an arcane version. Sai looked over his shoulder and tilted her head.
"Magic Wave? Isn't that one of the most basic spells?"
"Yes. It's also one where I could never figure out what materiel was used for it. The soul is basically the main building block for all mystical arts, though. So if Magic Wave uses soul material it would make sense and make so many other things possible and easier to figure out. Hmm. Well, that didn't work but at least it was a success. it definitely takes soul sorcery materials. Hey, here's something you can do but I can't. Once you figure out how to add properties to your golden flame, you should add just pure soul sorcery material and see what it does."
"Okay. Hmm? What even could it do, though. I mean, that would just be like throwing a bit of your soul at something or something like that, right?"
"Exactly. That's the question: what would or could it do? Will it hit with actual physical force? Will it act as kind of a canceler or counter? I don't know."
"Wait. How would I let you know. I can't use the Far Message spell anymore and the bracelet is too short a message and tells Kiara things too."
"You can tell me about all of your experiments whenever you see me."
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The next week Sai showed up again, by herself this time. They engaged in another little woodland romp and then moved on to the training portion. She hadn't had any success yet with adding things to her fire illusion and her master hadn't given any great ideas or spells for mental defenses. Marik began teaching her his mind blanket and soon realized she hadn't been taught much about counters and canceling. He decided to continue teaching her what he could for the mind blanket until evening and let her take the old outdated book Granny Fox had given him.
Since he actually had some more time on his hands, Marik also began working on the new spells with his master in earnest. It took three months and remembering Magic Wave again, but they managed to complete four spells. Ping was a simple spell that sent out a single burst of high-pitched noise and magically recorded the surroundings based off of the echoes over two seconds as a mental image. Radar was a spell that did something similar but in continuous waves and was thus the continuous version that allowed the mage to get a constantly updated mental image. Magic Ping and Magic Radar were nearly identical except that they were based on Magic Wave instead of sound and created an image that was less defined but only took one second to update. Marik took the opportunity to use their research for a detection type arcanistry as well.
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He also started pushing himself to make a soul defense arcanistry. There were very few spells that dealt with souls, so it took a lot of cross-referencing things and gave him headaches from a lot of the frustrations he encountered but he finally managed to make something similar to his mind blanket for his soul. Vaguely remembering the demonstration of his young soul from his master all those years ago, he worked to make it more like water than cloth and tried to add some minor effects to it so that it would also work as a kind of disguise for those who could see souls. It was a huge success and he felt like he had pulled off the greatest prank when he walked in with the defense up and made his master freak out because it looked like his soul had regressed so much. After a few discussions his master finally helped him adjust it so that his soul looked like an average normal person's. The downside was that he just couldn't keep up three arcanistries all the time so easily. If he had a few more years to work on it, then he might be bale to pull it off, but for now he decided to just drop his mind shield and focus on being able to activate it as quickly as possible.
Sai started visiting every week, except the few that he was out doing mercenary work to make some money. On the occasions where Kiara and Granny fox also came they would all go out to visit some place or another to keep up with the twins' social rehabilitation. Marik taught Sai the mind blanket and soul disguise arcanistries as well as how to practice keeping them up at all times in addition to how to put canceling or countering effects into arcanistries. Learning how to add canceling effects was apparently part of what Sai needed to finally start being able to give her illusory fire some attributes. Both Sai and Marik got excited about that which finally caused him to ask her if she actually was enjoying learning or arcanistry or just enjoyed that he enjoyed it. Apparently she actually thought working on arcanistry was fun, mostly.
When he and his master had time they would also head off to some towns for Marik to order some things to be made or to find some things that he thought he might need. He had set aside about a week's worth of living expenses for most places and poured the rest of the money he made during mercenary work into everything else.
He did successfully create a new detection arcanistry as well. It allowed him to hear soul usage as a kind of unnatural buzz. He was also getting tired of trying to specify the differences between a creature's soul itself and saying soul to determine materials or the soul-like power that seemed to be in everything and everywhere so he figured that until he heard otherwise it should be called spirit for the more general term and thus called his new detection arcanistry spirit hearing. It was a fairly simple arcanistry to cast so it took little practice to be able to cast it at a pace he felt satisfied with.
Shortly before news of the things he had ordered being ready came to him he hit upon a sudden realization. Sai had no armor. Neither did he, really, but he was practically immune to curses and his almost unnaturally high healing rate helped with poisons and injuries. Unfortunately nearly all his money had been used and even if he counted the emergency living money has was holding back there wasn't enough to get some good armor for her. Knowing her, there was also a chance she wouldn't even wear it most of the time anyways but he still made a mental note about doing something about it in the near future.
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Then, a couple days after the appropriate ordered item was received, he made sure that all three foxkin would be visiting and waited with bated breath. He secretly asked Granny Fox to also let Matilda visit for a short while before heading back. Once the portal opened and everyone, including the confused maid, stepped out he walked over to Sai and grabbed her hands. In beast race traditions there was no kneeling or anything for this sort of situation.
"I love you, Sai. Marry me."
He dropped the earring he had had made for her into her hand and waited. She opened her eyes wide and then looked into her hand. A huge smile showed on her face and she gripped the earring tightly before leaping at him and throwing her arms around his neck.
"Okay. I love you, too, so okay."
It felt like she might start blathering or repeating herself so Marik just shut her up by kissing her. It stayed as a simple lip to lip kiss because he didn't want to have to fight off her sexual advances in front of everyone but he held it long enough for her to calm down from her excitement. Upon releasing her lips he looked around at everyone and saw their smiling faces. Mostly. Granny Fox just had less of a scowl but that might as well be considered a smile as far as he was concerned.
"And that's how it is. We'll have to do it before we leave, so since time is short a little help would be appreciated."
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The wedding was simple and done in the mansion's courtyard with Granny Fox apparently having the right and ability to officially wed them. Sai was the only to dress differently because Kiara told her she had to wear a wedding dress. It turned out that beast race wedding dresses were actually very provocative instead of puffy and lacy. It almost looked like she was wearing a sexy white other world swimsuit made of light fabric with open navel and back. Apparently, from what Marik understood of the tradition, it was meant to entice other males around so that they could be dealt with appropriately ahead of time while also being easy to tear off during the wedding night. There weren't any vows in the ceremony as it was believed that such things should be said in private instead of public.
The whole ceremony went pretty quickly. Kiara and Matilda cried the whole time. At the end of it, Marik clipped the twisted gold and black earring he had had made onto Sai's ear, making sure it pierced through, and then squeezed the earring like he was taught to make the little clasp mechanism lock together permanently. She took the other earring, which looked like it was made of some kind of light blue glass or crystal twisted together with gold in the same way as the one he had clipped on her just a moment ago, out of his hand and clipped it onto his ear, causing only a slight pricking feeling, before also squeezing it to close it permanently. They kissed for a few moments and Marik saw a few tears coming out of her eyes. He swiftly picked her up and started jogging back into the mansion while Sai shouted behind them.
"Kiara, we'll be using the room until morning. Sorry! I'll make it up to you later!"
It turns out that the dress did get ripped off quite easily. It was a fun night.
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Although they were married now they still stayed at their respective masters' places for the next few weeks before Marik's birthday. They both had some packing to do and things to prepare. Marik wrote up two stacks of parchment noted, each with a simple yarn binding, that held some useful spells and notes and such in one and all of the spell parts and how they worked in the other then put them into simple but strong waterproof boxes. Most of the other things he got ready for packing were just the simple items like a little bit of soap or a change of clothes. He also bought a new travel bag, which had a simple shoulder strap so he could carry it around easily and drop it quickly if needed, for both himself and Sai.
The other main thing he had ordered to be made was Sai's new weapon. This one was made properly and Sai knew about it because he needed the feedback from the makeshift one he had made so long ago for her training. They decided to wait to pick it up until they actually started on their journey. It was made of arachne silk and steel thread for the rope sash to make it relatively light yet strong with both the weighted end and the knife-dart end being made of properly forged steel and properly connected to the rope sash with steel threads used to sew the weak points.
Up until the last day Marik tried to clean up around his master's place. He made sure nothing was left in the forest and started reverting his bedroom back from a bedroom that was once a storeroom into a storeroom that happened to have a bed in it. Any of his own research that he hadn't packed away and didn't touch too far into the secrets of arcanistry he handed off to his master. On the last day before his birthday, after running around like crazy to try and prepare everything, his master sat him down for a final talk.
"Tian."
"Sorry, Master. I don't get it."
"That's my worldly name. Tian. Amongst most of those in the world that have the right to even call me at all, they call me Master Tian. I believe I was even somewhat famous at one point in one of the elven countries about, I don't know, three or four thousand years ago, I guess. Now I wish to offer you two final gifts. One of knowledge and the other protection, of a sort. There are two kinds of proper names. One is etched in the mind and we call it the worldly name. This is the name your mind responds to when called and is usually the name one has grown up hearing themselves called. The other is a soul name. This is a name that gets etched in the soul and rarely happens naturally. Ones that do have it happen naturally have gone through some great even and should be called legends in their own right. The more typical way to get a soul name is to have a Mystic Master read your soul and grant you an appropriate one. Having a soul name etched in your soul brings a great strength and weakness. I have said that names are important before, yes? Were someone to call your name would not your mind direct it's attention to them? In such a way you could say even the powerless have some power over the mind merely by knowing a worldly name. Knowing a soul name will give one power over the soul. Having a soul name that is not known, however, can strengthen one's soul and make it harder for others to interfere with or manipulate. In more direct terms it should make any mystical arts stronger. After I grant you such a name, I will wipe my memory of it and only you will know it. You're new wife should also be getting told something similar about now, as well. if you so desire, no one can stop you two from divulging such thing to one another, but I advise against it, at least until the day you can say your souls and minds are truly protected. Now. Clear your defenses for a moment, boy, and let me get a clear look. I see. Your soul name is: Safang."