I wake up several times during the night, Mairi having apparently decided that lying sideways on the mat is a great idea. It’s a miracle that her head manages to always be on the mat, but her arms and legs drag through the dirt on either side. After correcting her position twice, I give up, and just let her lie however she pleases, opting to just lie down wherever she leaves space. There’s not an awful lot of that, but my legs will survive a day in the dirt.
This doesn’t seem to help much though, as she keeps wriggling her way towards me to clamp onto me again. It’s adorable, but it’s also the worst night of sleep I’ve had in a long while. It’s a good thing that I’m not doing those all nighters any more.
I wake up to Mairi’s excited voice asking me something. I blink, and try to force myself awake. Waking up to her smiling face isn’t such a bad way to start the day, I suppose. I’m not sure what she said, though. “Come again?” I ask.
Her excitement is shining clear through her words “Can I help you cook?” I just look at her for a moment, processing what she just said. I’ve been here for most of a month, and never has Mairi shown any interest in preparing food. I don’t think it’s the cheese, because we had cheese before. Is it related to what happened yesterday?
I honestly can’t be bothered to figure it out now. It’s early. “Sure,” I say, as I start to get up. One benefit of sleeping in your clothes is that it’s easy to get up, but I think I’ve stopped feeling clean somewhere around three weeks ago. The city doesn’t have any decent places to wash. Not for these kids anyway. Apparently leaving the city is a bit hit or miss. Sometimes everything is fine, and sometimes the children that do just don’t come back, so everyone is reluctant to do it, especially for something as banal as washing. I’ve felt too guilty to do something they couldn’t, so…
We’re going to need to change something about that though. Right after we prepare breakfast, I think it’s high time I put all my cards on the table.
Rhona is already up, and starting the preparations, so I quickly rise and move to help her, motioning Mairi to come along too. She happily complies, and for a moment I can’t help but marvel again at the contrast with the skilled thief from yesterday.
Rhona looks questioningly at me when Mairi comes along. “She wants to help,” I say as I give a small shrug. Rhona’s eyes widen nearly imperceptibly, and there’s a flash of an accusation directed at me. Her words bely her actions, though, “Thank you Mairi, we can certainly use the help.”
It’s not far into the preparations that I can see her interest waning. Apparently cutting up carrots wasn’t what she was hoping for when she asked to help. I pause my own task of cleaning vegetables, and step over to her. “Is there anything you wanted to do Mairi?”
Mairi scuffs her feet against the bare floor. Glancing between the carrots, me, and where Rhona is adding another load of chopped vegetables to the soup simmering over the fire.
I didn’t understand why they made everything in the form of stew or soup at first, but after days of doing the same, it made sense. One big pot, over a single fire, and you feed everyone. It’d be hard to cook anything else with the limited equipment available, and it fills you up pretty well. There’s also the ease of handing everyone a single bowl. If they had any rice here, we could boil that I suppose, and add the vegetables for something different, but the closest we come is wheat.
After a moment of fidgeting, she mumbles something so quietly I can barely hear it. “I want to learn,” she finally says more clearly, gesturing at where Rhona is shoving the last bit of the beans she just cleaned into the pot.
I smile. I can’t help it. “Putting things in the soup is only a small part of the work, first it needs to be chopped,” she looks a bit obstinate at that "But it’s boring…” she protests. I suppose I can’t disagree with her there. Cooking was never my strong suit either, but there’s something to having all these kids depend on you. I touch Mairi on the shoulder, and gently steer her attention to the now mostly awake children. “See?” And she does. A dozen pairs of eyes are watching the three of us in anticipation.
Her chest puffs out adorably as her eyes grow wide. She glances between me, Rhona, and the children, suddenly aware of where she’s standing and that some of the excitement is focused on her. A look of determination crosses her face as she turns back to the carrots.
It’s nice. Whenever I see Mairi’s determination flagging, she glances at the assembled young ones, and you can practically see her motivation being restored to her. Between the three of us we manage to finish a bit earlier than usual, and as the children dig in, Mairi goes around proudly telling them of all the vegetables she chopped, and how hard it was. I figure I could have chosen a worse person to play mother figure to.
Meanwhile, I turn to Rhona, Calum, Eilidh and Iain, whom are sitting together as usual. “I have some things we need to talk about. Can we do it after breakfast?” I say with some trepidation. I don’t particularly like the idea of having this discussion, but it is necessary. Even if I’ve been pretty forthright with them about things, I’ve kept some things back. Both material and immaterial. My thoughts drift to the bizarre experience yesterday, the crazy way time nearly stopped, and the distress as the energy went berserk. Definitely high time.
None of them are bothered, and all of them nod. Getting together to make plans after breakfast isn’t foreign to them, though this time I guess it won’t go quite as they expect.
image [https://pub-43e7e0f137a34d1ca1ce3be7325ba046.r2.dev/Group.png]
I sit, looking at the four faces looking back at me with something akin to anticipation. Though I’ve been part of their planning before, It’s the first time I have asked to talk. The warm form of Mairi pressed against me on the side gives me some reassurance. Though I’m not certain how wise it is for her to hear all this, I just figure she can handle it.
I drag my sack from behind me. “Ok, so first the easy things.” I say, as I pull out the pouch full of coins. “I have absolutely no idea how much money this is, but lets use it well.” there’s a tinge of shock, but they’re all fairly unsurprised. That is, until Iain takes the pouch. It amuses me that it’s Iain doing this, and not Rhona, but she seems content to leave the finances and logistics entirely to him.
When he takes it, he frowns, then quickly drops it in his lap and opens it. His face goes though several expressions as he counts up the coins within, eventually settling on exasperation. “You got this from that guy that ran when he saw you?” his voice carries more than a tinge of scepticism. At this point, I’m sure he trusts me, so this is just him asking if I’m fucking with him.
It occurs to me that in our last conversation about this we didn’t really get into how much money it was as the focus shifted to my hair. Not much I can do except confirm it though. “Jup, nearly all of it.” I nod at him. “Dear lord…” he breathes, then looks at Rhona and says “Well, consider any money problems solved.”
Rhona tilts her head slightly and asks “How much is it?” Iain seems to count up the amount in his head, before saying “Threehundred and seventy-two coppers.” there’s a tone of awe in his voice. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much money at once.”
Well, that was unexpected. I had guessed the larger silvers were worth a lot, but not at a 1 to 10 ratio with the smaller ones. How does that even work? The volume of the things is only like 3 times the smaller version. Wouldn’t people just take the small ones and melt them down into their bigger counterpart? Maybe something about silver content? I really don’t know how these things work.
They must be growing familiar with my facial expressions, because Eilidh breaks into giggles and says “You had no clue how much money you had, did you?” I can’t help myself, and me, 32 old woman, pouts because of a comment by a 13 year old girl. I sigh and can do naught but agree “No, I did not.”
Rhona looks at me skeptically. Not angry or suspicous, just mildly bemused. “And you are giving this to us why?” I shrug. “It’s just been there in my bag for weeks and it’s not doing anything. No point having it and not using it.”
“Well, we certainly have a use for it,” she agrees. Iain stashes the pouch in the chest of valuables, and comes back.
Right. Next up. I draw the sword from the sack. And Calum nearly jumps up out of his seat in his haste to get over to me. I don’t really say anything, and just hand it over to him. Probably faster if we get the curiosity out of the way first.
He draws the sword from the sheath in a single movement, a sharp sound ringing through the air as the metal clears the scabbard. The boy knows how to make it sound good. I don’t think it ever does when I draw it. He inspects it from all sides, and eventually satisfied, goes to test the sharpness. “Stop!” I shout. He freezes, his finger halfway to the edge. “It’s very sharp. Trust me, you don’t want to test with your finger.” there’s a mild expression of surprise on his face, but he nods, and goes to grab something from the kitchen instead.
A moment later, he returns, excited. “Look!” he nearly shouts at everyone with an expression of childlike glee on his face. Then he touches a carrot to the blade of the sword. And with no apparent resistance, the carrot is sliced clean in half. It’s like he’s holding a lightsaber. Eilidh seems impressed, looking at the blade with sort of professional curiosity. But Rhona and Iain don’t appear to have much interest in it, which I guess makes sense. I’ve never seen Iain fight, and I get the impression Rhona is more… indirect.
Rhona may not be interested in what it is, but she’s certainly interested in where it came from. “So…” she drawls, as she looks at Calum questioningly, “What is that?” Calum doesn’t seem to notice she’s saying anything at first, and jumps when she raises her voice halfway through the second word. “Right,” he says, as he turns to me.
“Where did you get this?”, he seems almost reverent. “Looted it off a dead bandit,” I reply with a straight face. He’s so serious about this — sure, it’s a fancy sword, but it can’t possibly be that special right? Oh god, I’m jinxing myself, aren’t I?
His outraged reply confirms my worst suspicions “What the fuck Emma, you have black hair, and you carry an Empire made sword with you. Are you sure you’re no spy?”, he heaves a breath, “There is no way you got this off a random bandit.” I don’t know what to say to him, at least that part was true. “Look, he was stupid enough to pretty nearly walk into a makeshift spear. If that’s not ‘random bandit’ then I don’t know what is.” then I mutter under my breath “Bha mi… Uh, sure I was absurdly lucky, but that only makes it more true.” Dammit, I’m now muttering to myself in their damn language. How am I picking this up so fast? Not that I’m complaining, but it’s weird.
Then it hits me what he actually said. Empire-made? Good grief, these people are determined to make my life miserable, aren’t they? And I haven’t even met one yet. I might end up hating anyone with black hair just for what they’ve put me through.
Rhona speaks up “If you really took it off a bandit, then they certainly weren’t its original owner. Look,” she says, as she gingerly takes the sword from Calum, then points at the bottom of the hilt. “That there is their order mark. It indicates the channeler that forged it.”
Well, I thought that was just a random decoration. One of the few on the otherwise austere sword. Guess you need some worldly knowledge to figure such things out. Come to think of it. I look at Rhona with a raised eyebrow “And how do you know of such things?”
To my surprise, she doesn’t casually give me a one sentence explanation, but instead turns slightly red. A reluctant expression on her face. Mairi, silent until now, jumps up into jeers immediately. “Rhona is embaaaa-rrassed! Rhona is embaaa-rrased!” Rhona puts her face in her hands at this. Mairi bumps into me conspiritiatorally, and whispers at me "She really doesn’t like to talk about her life before.”
This honestly makes me more curious. What does Rhona have to hide? I figured she’d grew up on the street like most of these kids, but… At that moment Rhona looks back at me, sighs, and says “My parents were merchants.” There’s a flash of distaste on the face of everyone in the circle, none of it directed at Rhona, but nonetheless. What is it with this world and hating weird things. Why are they bothered by merchants?
“And that is bad how?” I can’t help myself from asking. I’m sure they have reasons, but… Rhona looks at me like I’ve been dropped on the head one too many times as a child. She squints her eyes at Mairi “You sure this one is ok?” she questions. Mairi gets a mischievous look in her eyes, and flings her arms around me, then she grins at Rhona and says “Yeah duh, she’s my new mama.”
Rhona rolls her eyes, as Calum, Iain and Eilidh chuckle. She addresses me again, she doesn’t explain, but asks the question that I’ve been dreading instead “Emma, where are you from?” I guess I seemed to much like a country bumpkin asking that question?
I debate again, telling them where I’m actually from. But I’m sure they won’t believe me. I wouldn’t. It’s not that I mind telling them, I just don’t think it’ll help the conversation now. For now I’ll settle for a half truth, until we get the next topic out of the way anyway.
“I entered the country from somewhere to the east. And I’ve traveled quite a distance to get here. I’m not originally from here, and haven’t seen much besides this city, so you’ll have to forgive my ignorance.”, I sigh, “Where I come from merchants are… often annoying, but not something to be ashamed of.”
Everyone gets a speculative look in their eyes at the notion that I’m from outside the country, though it does seem to answer their question. Certainly Rhona is satisfied, though she seems a bit too excited about getting to explain. In the background, I see Iain put his face into his hands, as he rolls his eyes. “Oh boy…” he sighs and looks at me with pity, right before Rhona launches into an impassioned spiel “Ok, well, the merchants, or rather, the council, is why everything is going to shit.”
It doesn’t seem that bad, but when Mairi suddenly unclamps from me, and hurriedly rushes off, I’m suddenly anxious about where this is going. Rhona doesn’t seem oblivous to this though, and it halts her in her tracks. She frowns at Mairi and Iain, but then looks back at me, and with great difficulty, seems to swallow a whole lectures worth of dialogue. “So yeah, my parents are part of that. They’re indirectly why everyone is here.” She seems more resigned than angry about that. But then she continues, “Including me.” Ah, there is the bitterness.
Mairi has run off, so Calum takes it upon himself to play her role, and says “Rhona is high nobility. If this were the high empire anyway.” then he grins, and looks at Rhona “Or she would be, if she hadn’t run off.” There’s a tinge of amusement in his voice, but a far greater deal of respect. I can’t say I disagree, if she truly is, was, a noble, then why the hell is she here? I mean, sure, she seems to hate the system, if not her parents, but… How do you get from there to here?
Rhona glares at Calum, but there’s no fire behind it, more like pleading “We’re not talking about me now.” She returns to me, having apparently lost track of what she was going with this. “Ok, anyway, I studied a bunch, before, and that’s why I know things.” then she glares at everyone around her, and pointedly says “And that’s why they know things.”
I decide that this is not the moment to be contrary. And just go with the flow. “Anyway, if that’s of more use to me than to you. Please use it.”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
Calum squints at me. “Come to think of it, you’re pretty tall.” Is he really saying that to a lady? I’m joking, I’m well aware of my height. I don’t think 5’10” is so large, but… certainly many are smaller. Calum’s taller than me though, standing about two inches above me - well, maybe “standing above” is an exaggeration.
“Lets do something different,” he says, “Let me teach you how to use this instead?” the last is clearly a question, but also not. He’s not asking me if I like it, he’s asking me if I hate it enough to sabotage any attempt to learn. Calum clearly thinks I should. I unconciously glance at Eilidh, and see a complex expression on her face, directed at Calum, not me.
Why did I look at Eilidh? Is it because she seems like the only other girl that fights? Oh well. I consider it carefully, or I think I do, but really I just think of the bandit that was staring me down that I killed purely through luck. “Sure, that sounds like a great idea.”
image [https://pub-43e7e0f137a34d1ca1ce3be7325ba046.r2.dev/Group.png]
Calum seems happy enough, so that’s one subject deal with, which only leaves the elephant in the room.
I start hesitantly, “So, there is one more thing.” Everyone immediately focuses on the bag, but I shake my head, chuckling lightly “No, no more stuff. This is different.”
I’m not sure how to start, how to describe this. I begin haltingly “So, there’s these moments that, I can sort of slow down time.”
They were all listening attentively, then when I said that, they… relaxed? Somehow, the reaction is not what I expected.
The confusion must be evident on my face, because Iain starts laughing. “Sorry, sorry, we were just expecting another bombshell,” he explains. My face quickly transitions through all the four, or was it five, stages of grief, as I realize that what I thought was amazing is not. And I kept this for last specifically because I thought it was going to be the most disturbing.
“That’s normal?” I hesitatingly ask him. “Well, it’s not exactly normal,” he replies, “But it’s not exactly unheard of either. Not that any of us have had any opportunity to.”
“What does that mean?” I inquire. Iain shifts, leaning forwards, “Well, how did you end up obtaining the fruit? Stole it?” he inquires. There is—of course—zero judgement when he mentions stealing as a reasonable way to obtain one.
It’s interesting that the knowledge that these fruits give you this power is apparently common knowledge, but I better confirm “Just to be certain, you are talking about the glowing blue ones right?” He nods, and agrees “They’re kind of hard to mistake right?”
I can’t help but agree. Even after weeks, the image of the fruits in the tree is still burned in my mind. The intense hunger that my body felt for the sustenance it never knew it needed. Or maybe it wasn’t my body, but my soul?
Anyhow, “No, this one I didn’t steal, I got them from a tree.”
I see the four pairs of eyes that are looking at me widen. Iain is the first to respond, “And where did you find this tree? Did you sneak into the fortress somehow?” His voice is dripping with disbelief.
“Uh, no. I found it in the forest I came through to get here. Is that unusual? I kinda figured that if one grew there they must grow elsewhere.” The slack jawed gaze they look at me with tells me that yes, it is unusual. “Emma, where is this tree?” Rhona asks me with some anticipation. I respond but haltingly, “Uh, about 5 days west of here, by my reckoning. At least, it was there a month ago. They don’t suddenly disappear do they?” It’s a magic tree after all, they might very well randomly disappear and appear somewhere else.
Iain chuckles, “No, they do not. But I’ve never heard of a tree not owned by the council and kept behind lock and key.”, then his eyes grow wide. “Wait, a whole tree? How many fruits did you eat?” there’s some excitement in his voice. I think back to that time. I think I ate three? And then brought one along? I was not in a great state to be making long term memories at the time. “Probably three or four…?” I respond.
The kids share a look. “Damn, Emma,” Calum finally says. “I’ve never heard of anyone but soldiers in time of war eating that many.” Then he looks down apparently indecisive, before fixing with me a gaze. “So, how does it feel? We all hear stories, but…”, around him, Rhona, Eilidh and Iain are all nodding. They might not think the effect by itself is amazing, but the way I obtained it? And apparently four fruits is a lot? I think it just barely filled me up at the time, and that was why I didn’t eat any more? After all, the whole tree was full of them.
The anticipation in their gaze doesn’t let me ruminate any longer, I have to answer their query. “Well, it was kind of weird at first. I mean, you can feel your body now, right?” They all nod. “After I ate the fruit it felt like I realized that I have a second body, one that’s in the exact same position as my real body.” I don’t tell them about the bizarre effect earlier when I heard about Mairi, when that unreal body grew fuzzy. It’s not something I want to dwell on.
“After I realized that, it felt kind of like I’d discovered a whole new organ to use?” They’re listening with rapt attention. Rhona is nodding along, as if this is in line with what she’s heard before. “Anyway, when I tweak it in the right way, time slows down around me.” Or maybe my mind speeds up, I suddenly realize. My body moves at the same speed as before, but I can suddenly think about everything several times longer. “It took me quite a while to get used to it.” I can’t help but awkwardly recall the time I spent practicing and constantly falling on my face. They don’t need to know that.
I shrug, “I haven’t been able to make it do anything but slow down time though.” I grimace, and mutter half under my breath “Not for lack of trying though.” I look at Rhona, since she seems to know something about how this works. Maybe her education covered this topic? “I can’t figure out how to use the runes. I’ve seen the mages at the entrance to the city use them, but…” I sigh, “I had a hard time just getting the juice to flow through mine.”
Rhona remains silent, staring at me. Hello? Earth to Rhona? Suddenly, chaos erupts as they all practically dive at me, bombarding me with versions of the same question: “You know runes?! How? Where? What? Are you a channeler? Are you crazy?” Well, I suppose those are actually several different questions, but they all essentially amount to “What the hell?!” in various forms.
“Ah… I guess… I found some of them?” I wanted to get closer to the mages at the gate too, but I’d practically need to be right in their face to see their runes.
The stream of what the hells only seems to increase with that acknowledgement, so I just pull the piece of bark with my runes out in the hope that it’ll satisfy whatever it is they want from me. In their fervor, it takes them a moment to notice that I’m holding something out.
Eventually Rhona takes the bark out of my hand, eyes wide as she scans the badly engraved copies of the runes I took from the cave. “Holy spirits…” she breathes out reverently. Iain is less impressed. Or maybe he focuses on something else “Emma, forget about your black hair.” he points at the piece of bark. “If those are true runes,” he starts, when Rhona interjects. “They’re true, they look exactly like the examples in my lessons.” Iain glances at her, but turns back to me and says with meaning “If they are, then that there is a death warrant.”
Calum and Eilidh seem divided between wanting to look at what’s on the bark, and not. Iain is very deliberately looking anywhere but the bark. Rhona however, is engrossed. “There are 9…” she breathes. “I’ve never seen any real ones…” I look at her and ask, confused “Didn’t you just say they were in your lessons?”
She barks out a short laugh, “Hah, did you think they’d show me real runes? Even my instructor had no idea what a real one looked like, he wouldn’t have been a teacher otherwise.” her gaze returns to the bark “No, the only people that know true runes are channelers. And they…”
Iain breaks in again “They’re very, very protective of them.” That there, he points at the bark. “If what Rhona claims is true… Whole villages have been burned for less.”, he rests his head in his hands.
“That’s not even counting our beloved council,” he continues. “Independent channelers are bad, but the council, the military? They’d just disappear you. The only reason they don’t do the same to all independents is that some of them are too strong.”
“Lets hope that all the runes you have there are common ones.” he says. Rhona is silent for a moment, then slowly shakes her head. “I don’t think so Iain. Some of these…” she looks at me, “Where did you say you found these?” I shrug, “I copied them from the wall of a cave near where the tree is. I’m fairly certain some are incorrect. The simple ones were easy to copy, but the bark is too hard to write on for the complex ones.”
Rhona returns her gaze to the bark “I’ll say. I can recognize the simple ones as runes, but… I’m not sure if anyone has seen these before.”
Well, I’m happy to know that they’re supposed to do something. The last time I really tried, nothing of interest happened, aside from the feeling I did something very badly wrong. It’s kind of a long shot, but “Do you know what they are supposed to do?” I ask Rhona.
“Just because I know what they are doesn’t mean I understand them.” She points at the simple ones at the top “These are simple, they’ll just get us all killed.” then she moves her finger down, “These might see the city wiped from the face of the earth.”, and finally, she points at the bottommost runes, the ones that I just barely managed to copy. “These? I’ve never seen anything of this complexity before, even as an example…” There is a tremor to her voice as she finishes “Countries probably fight wars over less.”
Eilidh moves to grab the bark from Rhona as she shouts anxiously “Right, so lets burn it! We don’t need anything like this shit!” I’m surprised that it’s Eilidh responding like that. I’d have expected it to be Iain. Rhona jerks the bark out of Eilidh’s grasping hands though. “No need to be hasty, it’s been here for weeks and nobody has come for us.” she cradles the bark, as Eilidh glares at her. “Rhona, what are you doing? Aren’t you supposed to protect us all?”
I raise my hand “Uh, sorry, but that’s kinda mine.” I don’t truly care, since I’ve more or less memorized the four simple runes during my trip here, and I’m fairly certain I’ve got the two intermediate ones down too, but that’s not true for the complex ones. Not that I think they’d be much help since I’m fairly certain they’re incorrect anyway.
Iain looks at me sharply “Emma, having that here is a danger to us all. We must destroy it.” Well, that’s fair I suppose. I really wouldn’t want anything to happen to them because I wanted to keep a weird piece of bark with funny symbols on. “I mean, I don’t really mind. I’ve memorized those anyway.” This garners me an eyeroll, and another face in hands moment from Iain.
“Please, don’t call anything down on us. Just, forget about them.” he pleads. I can’t really agree to that. It’s fucking magic! I don’t want to implicate them, but I definitely don’t want to stop experimenting either.
Suddenly, Mairi’s happy voice pipes up from behind me. “So, can you show us some magic?” I jerk around. How long has she been there? Everyone else looks at Mairi, then shifts their gazes to me, expectant.
“Well, I… I tried many times, but the one time I tried with too much power, I think something went wrong. Since then I’ve been trying to improve my control first, since I don’t actually know what any of these runes do.” I point at the bark in Rhona’s hand. Rhona responds “I’m fairly certain that the simple runes can’t really do much damage by themselves. They’re supposed to be combined.”
Combined? How does that work? “Uh, how exactly?” I ask her. She looks at me like I’m crazy. “Do I look like a channeler to you? I know some theory, nothing more.” Well crap.
“Come on mama, you can do something? Right?” Mairy pleads. I’m honestly not sure about this. In fact I think it’s downright stupid, but I’m certainly not immune to those pleading looks. What can go wrong?
♬
I take a deep breath, and with all five of them looking at me expectantly, I sink into the juice effect. Even if I’ve lost some, there is still a whole lot left. I try to recall what I did last time things went wrong. Even if I’m not certain what that rune does, I’ve tried it before and neither I nor my surroundings suffered any ill effects, so I guess it’s as good to attempt as any. I just hope it won’t feel so wrong again.
I concentrate, and visualize the rune floating in my field of view. Maybe last few time the problem was that I tried to superimpose it within my own body, where the juice was already flowing? But how do I get it out of my body? I can twist those muscles to make it slosh around, but… I have been imagining it as some kind of liquid, but maybe it’s not like that at all? The mage that I saw when entering the city certainly didn’t seem to have juice sloshing around in himself, and the runes that he was visualizing, imagining, creating, I don’t know which, were all around him. Meters behind him on the back of the wagon. Under the wagon, on the steering shaft. And there were tens of them at a time.
I try to imagine a set of runes, five of them floating in front me, and find that it somewhat works. They’re imaginary anyway, so they come from the second body? Imaginary in that unreal space? Whatever, there’s 5 of them. Is it all imaginary?
God, I feel so stupid. If I’ve been messing this up all this time because I imagined something hard and it was actually simple, I’m going to be really pissed.
I switch back to a single rune floating in front of me, and try to imagine a line from myself to the rune, with juice flowing through it. I use just a little bit of it, as far as I’m able to imagine that. But… it seems to be working. The imaginary line to the symbol seems to have juice slowly traveling through, and I second body mentally will it to hurry the hell up.
There is a flash in that mindspace, as the juice, way too much of it, connects to the rune. The rune glows brightly for a second, and I feel a slow reverberation through the mindspace. Then… The rune evaporates into nonexistence, taking a healthy chunk of my juice with it into oblivion.
It’s hard to notice at first, but… right where my rune was is now an expanding sphere of… something. It expands slowly outwards, but I realize that time is slowed down in my mind, and that it’s actually expanding quite rapidly. Is time flowing more slowly again? It’s annoying that I can’t judge how fast or slow I am compared to the rest of the world. Regardless, I mentally cheer, it did work! I can fucking do magic!
I do wonder what that sphere is though. Very soon it’s going to hit the ground, and… Oh fuck! What I thought was a sphere of something undefinable, something barely visible, is actually a sphere of rapidly expanding dust particles. In the air that the rune was materialized in, it wasn’t very obvious, though getting more visible as more particles got stuck to the expanding shell, but now that the sphere has reached the ground, it’s abundantly clear what is happening. As the sphere expands, it pushes all the dirt on the floor away. Since the floor here is purely dirt, it’s like a tidal wave of dirt being pushed away from the origin. It doesn’t look like it’s penetrating into the ground, which is a blessing but…
I see the faces of Rhona, Eilidh, Calum and Iain start to morph first into amazement, then shock. Mairi has purely stars in her eyes, apparently unaware of what is happening beyond that it’s cool.
Watching the disaster unfold in slow-motion is getting on my nerves, and I try to deliberately accelerate my pace compared to before. This seems to somewhat work, and the sphere of dust starts to rapidly expand, and then engulfs all of us. The stinging dust flashes into my eyes, which I’d stupidly forgotten to close, nose and mouth. The shock drops me out of juice entirely. And suddenly the world resumes it’s normal pace. A low whoomph fades away, as dirt rains down in a perfect circle around us.
We all cough and rub the dirt and dust out of mouths and eyes, and stare wide eyed at the circle roughly three meters in radius that had its top layer of the dust swept away, now spread in a thin layer over the rest of the hideout.
Fuck! I look up, and to my great relief, there is almost nothing visible above. Most of the dust came from the ground, and shot sideways instead of skywards. I’m not certain how far the sphere expanded before it dissipated, but I can hope nobody will notice when a light rain of dust falls onto them from above.
In the aftermath we’re all stunned speechless. That is until the younger kids all come running over, screaming, in a complete panic about what the hell just happened.
I’m tempted to blame Rhona, ‘Can’t really do much damage’ my ass. But the whole thing is indubitably my own fault for agreeing in the first place. Damn pride.
Next to me, Mairi spits out a mouthful of dirt and whispers, her voice filled with absolute awe, “That. Was. Awesome!”