It felt like the worst time possible for me to have asked her. I had derailed the conversation because I couldn’t stand Anna demeaning herself, then told her that I wanted her and asked to court her.

If a random person had asked me out like that, I would have looked at them like they were mad.

Maybe I should have used Kindly’s pickup line instead. It would have at least been coherent.

Realizing that I had just asked her out like I had gotten hit over the head a few times, my heart decided to stop for a few beats, just for kicks.

I stopped being able to breathe at all, and I was fairly sure I was beginning to blush as hard as Anna, and while I doubted she could read Kobold ear language, my ears were ramrod straight and still as stone in attention.

I could hear Anna take a quiet shallow breath.

But her eyes didn’t go wide when I told her, they didn’t grow in surprise at all. They were already wide, in a weird way, it’s like she knew how I felt before I even told her.

Did she already guess? I suppose I wasn't very shy about it? Please be into women, please be into women.

She got control of her lips and took a breath that she could use to speak while I held mine.

“I… Yes, I would like that very much,” she said, her blush deepening.

Did my heart just stop for a moment again? I can’t tell if it stopped for a moment or if it just felt really long. Oh, I should probably breathe; that would be good. Come on, in and out.

I started breathing again, starting the process by intentionally breathing, which helped relax me enough to let myself breathe normally, “Thank gods.”

She looked at me a bit surprised and then just nodded.

“So,” I started, stroking a thumb over the back of her hand, “please tell me truthfully, and be a bit greedy, I’m not going anywhere, not without you.”

She nodded, “OK… it freaks me out, and I want it gone, and it’s in my grove. I don’t want it in my grove, especially if it’s not supposed to be here. I want it… I want it gone, and if I can help you get rid of it I will. Honestly, I'm a little angry with you, you did bring a ghost back, but you accidentally brought it back. Considering the state you came back in, I can't bring myself to be particularly angry at you for that. And If I get to be greedy, then I want to sit on your lap while I help.” She told me, flushing and wiggling again before she stood up.

And she did. She sat down on my lap and leaned back into me, and relaxed, and despite the thing crying out for food, I found myself relaxing too. The tension of me telling her, gone after the acceptance, left me able to breathe.

Anna sitting on my lap was no different than when I gave her a head massage, just some pressure and the warmth of her body. No different in so far as it felt physically the same. But, in a way, it was different, I wasn’t just me, I was a suitor, and she wasn’t just Anna, she was a...

Suitor… Suitress? Whatever I… Oh, gods, I did it.

My heartfelt… light, her head came up just below my head, my chest was basically a headrest for her. I thought about what to say, what to ask and settled on just asking them instead of thinking about them.

“Did the tea work?” I asked her.

“Yes, it’s weird and tingly. Not bad, feels good even. No more spasms, no more pain, just tingles.” She told me.

Another twinge of relief. It had worked.

“That’s good. I’m glad. I had no balance, had to do that by nose” I told her as I let my neck rest on her shoulder and felt her breath and heartbeat echo through her back.

“By nose? Is your nose that good.” She asked.

“Mmhm can smell and hear like a hound. Taste is similar to yours, a little different. But the recipe was in your book, couldn’t have done it without book.”

“I feel silly never thinking about it. I should have thought about looking.” She said regretfully.

My ears finally started to relax to mobility.

“It’s ok, now both of us can make it, I wrote recipe. No idea how long it lasts, but plenty more in front room.” I told her, moving my ears to loosen them up a bit.

She just sighed. “Thank you. Can I wait her awhile, I have wanted this for quite a bit.”

“Since you peeped on me?” I teased.

“I… I didn’t mean to.” She spoke. When I checked, I couldn’t see her face, but her ears were a bright scarlet. I could feel the heat in them next to my head.

“It’s ok,” I told her, “Not a big deal for me, different… people. Have seen many no cloths, been seen by others, understand?”

“I… Didn’t know, and it was wrong of me anyway.” She hedged.

“It’s ok; my people are also touchy; want hug? I will do it anytime,” I told her.

“That would be nice. I don’t know anything about you or your history. I would like to know more.” She told me.

“I don’t know much about you either, so we can tell each other,” I told her, wrapping my arms around her waist.

She wiggled as I did it, relaxing further. I could hear her breathing slowly, her heartbeat too. As close as she was, pressed against me, I could smell the flowery smell under the blood that wafted around her, mingled with the scents I so often paid little attention to, like those in sweat or oil on the skin.

I sat there with her for a while, not talking about anything, as we took in one another and enjoyed the closeness.

“Do you still want to talk about ghost baby demon thing?” I asked her, breaking the silence.

She sighed again, though this time, it wasn’t in a good way.

“Yes. However, it was nice to sit here for a while. So… how would you normally deal with… a soul?” She asked.

I was surprised by her all over again. She wanted to just jump right into it. Sitting in my lap to full-tilt sprint without even moving.

“Well. I have a skill for it. Normally they just go over on their own, but this one didn’t; I don’t know if it wanted to.”

The questions started immediately; Anna’s full speed of questions made me have to spit out answers at a rapid pace.

“Is it active or passive?”

“Passive?”

“How do you know if it wanted to go.”

“Most of them acknowledge me; this one just cried.”

“What do they normally say?”

“Um.” I tripped myself up for a moment, trying to keep up, keep answering, “I am warm? Apparently.”

“Warm like a fire, or warm like normal.”

“Warm like a fire, I think.”

“So, they’re cold?”

“Well, not…”

Wait, most of them are normal. But this one was cold. And they got colder when they bit me, heck even I got colder.

“This one was. It made me cold too.” I told her.

“Are you still cold?” She asked.

“Less cold than before. It’s not a normal cold, it’s… inside.”

“That’s good to know, the cold isn’t permanent. How did it make you cold?”

“It… Bit me?” I told her hesitantly.

I could feel Anna take a deep breath before letting it out.

“OK then. Could you focus on the skill? Force it over?” She asked.

I lifted one hand and gave her a so-so gesture, “Maybe? But might bite more, hurt, and keep hurting even after gone. I have no idea how it works.”

“If I can see your status, I can use a spell to view it. I would understand if you didn’t want to show me, however.” She told me.

“Why would I mind? It’s just a status; someone always seen mine. Is that not normal? No going to the temple when you unlock?”

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She moved her head back and forth a bit, which was awkward with how we were seated, but I could tell she was thinking.

“Maybe others do that. But I was born a noble, and nobles keep skills to themselves. Letting someone know what you can do can be your downfall. Some skills are a way of understanding someone. Take a skill like… [Gentile Caress]. It’s a skill any lord class can get, but the only people who get it are gentle people. A lord could use that. They can get away with more, better trades and more aggressive posturing to get what they want. Or a skill like [Bluster], which makes you appear more intimidating, even when you shouldn’t be, and you can push back if you know it’s just a skill or if you have a skill of your own.”

She told me, meanderingly. Building up steam. I listened to her carefully, thinking about it carefully.

“As a mage, I can see past those skills, but that just means I keep what I can do closer to the chest. I suppose I’m still not used to being open about it. Honestly, you’re somewhat a breath of fresh air, if I’m being honest… you stumbling into my life has left me somewhat unready to talk to someone like a normal human being.”

I snorted a bit.

“Anna, I’m not Human.”

“Oh, shush you,” she said, slapping my hand chidingly, “you know well what I mean. People. Persons. Whatever.”

“Sounds rough,” I told her. “I can understand, not personally, but I can. If someone knows, they can use it. Sound like Avarice worshipers. Greedy Snakes.”

That managed to get a chuckle out of her.

“Most of them are.”

“Gross, but I suppose that makes sense,” I told her.

“Somewhat. So, to get back to the conversation at hand, you are ok with showing me your status?” she asked.

“I can, but I need to stand up to cast the spell.”

“No, you don’t. Why would you need to stand?”

I blinked. “Anna, you taught me how to cast [Status]; you know what I need to do to cast.”

“Yes, for a first time casting it. [Magi] can help with that; when you cast a spell for the first time, you need to do it. Then you know the spell; it's inscribed in your status, and you learn the pattern and can use the skill to limit what you need to do. [Magi] lets you sense mana, manipulate it, and eventually cut out the necessary movements or make casting it more efficient with movement. Remember, you're a mage now, even if you're new to it. How much did it take to cast it the first time?” She asked.

I didn’t really get it, but I told her anyway. “Around 40.”

“Ok, so you can get that down to around twenty. It’s based on the proficiency of the caster, both the literal number and the caster's skill.”

Oh. I suppose that makes sense. You never hear about a mage making a jig before casting a fireball. They just do it, bang fireball.

“So… How do I do that?”

“Well, feel the mana around us. You can, right?”

“Well, yes, though it’s a bit hazy.”

“Congrats, you are already visualizing and differentiating the types of mana. The higher your stats, the more accurately. Now it will be easier to do.”

“That’s… nice, I guess. So how do I move the mana?”

“Flex the skill like a passive skill.”

I tried.

It was like an extra sense. I honestly didn’t think about flexing the skill. For a sense skill, it was just an extended reach. It was, after all, feeling something around you.

Flexing it instead lets me narrow down on myself and feel the area around me more clearly. Feel it, and as I quite quickly found, move and shape it.

I could only do a little moving in the area, and it was a small area only a few feet around me. But I could shape it.

I started doing some of the techniques, and it started getting thicker. I added some finger movements in, and that helped too. The thicker the mana, the easier it was to move it, which seemed counterintuitive. It was like pouring honey faster than water, but I picked up on it fast enough.

This is so bizarre. Useful too, but bizarre.

It was hard, but I could feel that the more I used it, the more I could do with it.

“I’m going to need my arms, but I’ll try,” I told Anna, who was apparently just sitting there feeling me fumble around.

I started casting and shaping the mana. It was way easier than doing my dance, and I started feeling it gradually take shape.

I wonder if it’s going to feel the same.

“Anna. Will it be the same as the first time?”

“Hmm? No, it becomes less intense; unless you cast a stronger spell, it won’t be as intense. What did it feel like for you?”

I couldn’t tell her; I remained silent, blushing at the idea of it like the coward I was.

“Oh. Was it intense? Some people have a weaker or stronger reaction.”

Anna, please, no.

“Oh. It must have been good.”

She leaned away to look at me; I knew I was red in the face, but her looking at me like that made me blush even worse. I had to look away.

“It’s fine, Saph. Everyone feels that way the first time, and I do mean everyone; I won’t laugh.”

I would feel like a hypocrite if I didn’t tell her, considering my 'tell me how you feel.' Gods, this is embarrassing.

“I… You might need to get off if it’s as intense.”

“Ooh. That good? I’m a little jealous.”

“Anna, please don’t tease me.” I pleaded. Anna didn't relent.

“It’s fine. Magic is commonly a mage's first time. I know it was certainly mine.”

I agreed, if not with words, and kept casting, although I had encountered a problem. I couldn’t quite get the pattern right without standing. I could get closer by moving my arms, but I couldn’t get the pattern right without the full body movements.

I struggled with it for a bit before I felt Anna reach in to help; it was like Anna reaching in and holding my hand. Only her hand was giant, big enough to encompass me entirely. She reached in and started helping, keeping pace with my comparable fumbling, expertly moving the mana.

“Your… big,” I told her, feeling the immense strength of Anna all around me, shaping the pattern with incredible accuracy, moving way more than I could, even with the motions.

“I’m experienced, is all. I have two casting classes and skills to move mana away from myself; that’s what you're feeling; focus; you can cast the spell now.”

I let my mana out, shaping it through the pattern, and like I felt before, a distance from myself as me, I was just a vessel, and I flowed out of my vessel as it spoke the words and pulled me into myself.

“[Status].”

The moment I said the word, I could feel myself shake and lean back into the chair. It wasn’t as intense as last time; I didn’t soak myself for one. Anna didn’t hop off my lap, which was a little embarrassing, but I suppose she was looking at the point of the whole thing.

Mid-euphoria, I looked over Anna’s shoulder and peered at the blue magical panel.

Name: Saphine

Race: Kobold Psychopomp

Age: 2813

Titles and Information

Stats and Growth

Innate Skills and Spells

Titles: [Saint of Death]

Level: 20

Proficiency: 2

Hit points: 96/96

Mana: 2371/2400

Build: 42 Dexterous +2|+1

Speed: 5

Senses: 27 Accuity +1|+1

Durability: 96 Spirit +3|+2

Mind: 40 Wis +3|+1

Social: 20 Int +2|+1

[Natural Senses], [Child of the Aurora], [Guardian of the Ansestors], [Saint of Death], [Marked by the Long Road] [True Immortality], [Magi], [Death Magic Affinity], [Sense Death], [Tenebral Bane].

[Cantrip], [Status].

Classes

Class Skills

Class spells

[Grave Digger] Level 21

[Tool handling], [Rapid action], [Toil], [Sense stones], [Displace dirt], [Sense Composition], [Durable tools], [Timeless construct], [Aura of Soil], [Last Rites].

[Verdant Nexus] Level 21

[Green Thumb], [Planters Delight], [Aid Yield], [Revitalize Land], [Aura of Renewal], [Guide Plant], [Verdant Touch], [Wild Growth], [Verdant Sense], [Wellspring of Renewal].

[Apprentice Mage] Level 1

[Woodsman] Level 1

Anna was looking at the blue window of my status so intensely I could literally feel it, and not only because she was casting a spell, her presence, though more nebulous after my release of [Magi], was still so gargantuan that I could feel her in the air even as she focused on casting a separate spell. But even her gaze was practically palpable.

And she didn’t move as she cast it. She didn’t even say a word. The pattern repeated over and over as she presumably scanned her eyes over the page.

“What is this written in? Is this your language? I have never seen that writing.”

“It is. It’s Kirish. Can’t you understand them?” I asked.

“Well, yes. But it’s still weird to read the writing and not be able to parse the words.”

She stopped momentarily when looking at age, but she kept casting the spell bless her.

Yeah, I suppose I need to talk with her about that. That is going to be a massive can of worms.

I had gotten the increase in stats I had thought I knew I would. But I had also gotten an increase in my dexterity, possibly from a skill or my new subrace. I had also gotten two new innate skills, one of which sounded quite bad; the other, I had no idea what it meant. Looking at it only gave me a self-explanatory definition. It made me a bane to the use of Tenebrae but did not explain it; whatever it was, I could cause bad stuff to happen when it was wielded in my vicinity, at least at a relatively close distance.

[Death Magic Affinity] was something I did not want to mess with. That sounded like something that would get me hung, like necromancy. Just the words alone sounded bad, like just by using it, I would dawn a black cowl and cape, chuckle, and speak cryptically. It boosted Death magic, which was a type of skill my [Guide] had talked about, which was something I understood little about detail-wise beyond the fact it would make any death magic stronger.

It did not give me a good feeling about my future actions should I choose to use it. Being fantastic at death magic was not something I wanted to be remembered for. I was already freaky enough; tacking on death magic would just make it worse.

Anna did not start babbling about my age nor freak out at the two freaking evil-sounding skills when she got to them.

The thing that I had wanted to look at was also there. [Child of the Aurora]. A skill that connected me to the aurora, the skill no one told me about. It told me of an ethereal song of light and how it would guide me, its child, through the dark. It, too, was cryptic, very cryptic, but at least it was honest with its dramatic speech, it didn’t hide its meaning behind terms I would need to read from a textbook.

“Ohh kay then.” Anna started, her magic releasing and her presence withdrawing from around me.

“Did you get what you were looking for?” I asked.

“Kind of? A lot of surprises. But I think I figured it out. [Saint of Death] and [Marked by the Long Road] move the soul through you. We would have to figure out how to pacify it first, then send it to the afterlife. Unless you want to risk doing it anyway.”

“I would greatly prefer not,” I told her.

“I don’t blame you. Even if the idea of it in here feels incredibly wrong.”

I returned to holding her waist with my hands while we waited for the status to disappear.

Some part of me wanted to quip a little; some tiny part of my brain wanted to go for it, tit for tat with her. But I decided against it because I didn't want to kick.

“Thank you for being patient with me,” I told her instead.

“It's… well, it’s not that the ghost or spirit or whatever it is, the thing out there isn’t a problem, but more that I’m not going to pin that entirely on you. I am a little bit angry at you, don’t get me wrong, but considering the tea, I would be willing to call it even. Just make sure to get it out of here as quickly as possible.” She told me, relaxing back into me and letting herself go limp.

I checked the light outside but found that it was already dark. Anna had come home late and tired, and I had lost track of the time.

“Come on, Anna, I think it is time for bed,” I told her, shaking her a bit.

“I suppose... Will you carry me?” She asked, either embarrassed or just quietly.

I couldn’t not chuckle at that and I lifted her up like a princess and carried her to bed. She squeaked a little and ended up holding onto me as I exited the study, walked through the main room with its screaming monster baby, and entered Anna’s bedroom, where I laid her down and got in next to her.

Now for my next difficulty. Going to sleep with the screaming child in the next room.