Leon and Red made good time as they flew north. Leon was in no mood at all to stop for rest, he just wanted to get back to Occulara as soon as he could.
It seemed that Red agreed with him—or at least, felt no need to argue against Leon’s tacit goal. That was, at least, until about two days into their journey, when they were drawing to within a hundred miles of the border the Sunlit Empire shared with the Ilian Empire, when Leon suddenly started to dive.
[What’s going on?] she asked, breaking silence for the first time since they’d left Utavi.
[I saw something that I have to check out,] Leon replied.
What he saw, his avian eyes glittering with greed, was a large tree. Not incredibly large—Heartwood trees, the huge trees of the Scorched Fields, and the massive homes of the Prota Forest’s ruling tree sprites dwarfed what he’d just seen—but as far as more common trees went, this one was quite large.
It didn’t have a single central trunk, but instead had many relatively thin trunks emerging from the ground and stretching outwards and upwards. Other than its relative size, it would’ve otherwise been completely unremarkable, save for the fact that Leon had noticed the forest they were flying over was filled with oak trees, acorns hanging from their limbs.
‘This might just be what I’ve been looking for…’ Leon thought to himself.
When he landed, he immediately transformed back into his human from and dressed himself. Red came to a surprisingly graceful landing close by, considering her size, and followed suit.
[What is this, Leon?] she demanded.
“A project I’ve been working on. Don’t worry, Occulara isn’t going anywhere, we can afford to stop for a few minutes or a few hours.”
Red scowled, but didn’t respond, so Leon considered the matter settled, at least for now. So, he turned his attention back to the tree and conjured Tikos’ glowing lotus. He felt Red’s attention slide from him to the lotus, and her scowl lessened slightly at the peaceful magic it emanated.
“Uhh, Tikos?” he asked aloud, feeling just a little unsure if the flower worked as Tikos had advertised.
He waited a moment, just long enough for his doubt to flex, when Tikos responded, [Leon. Greetings.] The lotus shuddered in Leon’s hand as Tikos’ magic pulsed through it, and Leon broke out into a wide smile.
This thing was… in a word, incredible, but he saved his further thoughts for when he could get back to Occulara and pick Tikos’ brain—or whatever its equivalent was—about just what limits this flower had in terms of communication and power transference.
“Right,” Leon said, forcing himself to again focus on the task at hand. “I found a large oak tree. I have no idea how old it might be, would you be able to check?”
[Place lotus mine against tree,] Tikos instructed, and Leon complied. He approached the tree and carefully set the lotus down atop one of the large branches that stretched out more horizontally than vertically so that the lotus could rest atop it rather than having to be pressed against the tree.
He didn’t have to do anything more, for he’d only taken a single step backward when the lotus pulsed again with Tikos’ power, but this time much more powerfully. Roots as thin as spider silk sprang from the stem of the lotus and wrapped themselves around the trunk of the tree. For several seconds, it was like a flood, feet and feet and feet of roots erupting from the lotus and winding around the tree, until they stopped without any warning at all.
[What creature is this…?] Red wondered aloud. [A strange being you carried with you, Leon.]
“In a way, I guess,” Leon replied. “Just something from a tree sprite friend of mind.”
Red recoiled and her scowl returned. [Tree sprites are worthless beings.]
“How so?” Leon asked, genuinely curious if she had any kind of reason for her outburst.
[No meat,] she simply said. [Not good to eat.]
“Living beings are more than their nutritional value,” Leon said.
Red’s scowl deepened and she glared at the lotus. [This power threatens.]
“You’re dangerous, too. But in the case of Exotikos, they’re not at all violent. In fact, their people seem to abhor violence. You needn’t worry about them.”
Red bared her teeth and huffed, something that would’ve been much more intimidating had she been in her wyvern form, but seemed almost comical as she was now. Regardless, before she could say anything more, Tikos spoke up.
[This tree is fairly old,] it said. [However, it’s not quite ideal old enough. Possible to try, learn something might we with experiment?]
“I’d be down to try,” Leon said as he conjured the massive, terribly intricate enchantment he and his research team had devised. “Might want to stand back there, Red, if you don’t want to get zapped.”
Red, still frowning quite deeply, took a few steps back, but not as many as Leon had hoped. Regardless, he just shrugged and continued his preparations. Red was strong, and she’d been warned. Given the power he and Tikos were going to use for this experiment, he doubted she’d be injured for anything more than a couple of days even if she were to stand atop the tree when the enchantment activated.
So, Leon just set about attaching the enchantment to one of the exposed roots at the base of the tree as he reached into the sky with his power. As his power inundated the heavens, storm clouds rapidly gathered, ruining the otherwise perfectly bright and sunny afternoon. The forest seemed to realize what was about to happen as Leon could hear the forest’s background noise increase as the native fauna scrambled for cover.
Once enough storm clouds had gathered, Leon took a deep breath, and pressed his hand against the spell paper, letting his power flow into the enchantment and be directed according to the inscribed glyphs. At the same time, he summoned lightning from the clouds above, targeting the oak.
As his power flowed through the enchantment, it rushed throughout the oak and began twisting and turning in ways that he was too inexperienced with nature magic to understand. It felt like his power had turned into roots that were forcing their way through the bark and into the heart of the tree. As his summoned lightning, gold in color, began striking the tree, lightning surged through the tree and through these roots of power.
Leon had seen many trees struck by lightning before, and oftentimes, the bolts would carve deep trenches in the bark, burning everything they touched and leaving the trees scarred and blackened by heat. However, Leon’s lightning barely even singed the upper branches before being absorbed into the tree.
The tree began to vibrate and roar with contained thunder, while its many thick branches shuddered and cracked under the strain of storing so much violent power. One branch practically exploded as lightning erupted from its surface. Another branch cracked so deeply that it snapped clean off, letting another torrent of lightning pour out and scorch the surroundings.
After several long seconds, Leon let go of his power, and the last bolt fell upon the tree. The tree continued to vibrate for several more seconds, but with two of its largest branches gone, the power Leon had filled it with leaking out, it was unable to retain his lightning. It shook again with the sound of thunder, several arcs of purple-ish lightning danced about in its upper branches, and then fell still.
This attempt to create more thunder wood had failed, but having watched the whole thing, Leon still couldn’t help but smile. It was an enlightening experience, and one that told him they were on the right track.
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Agreeing with his instincts, Tikos, through its lotus that was still wrapped around an intact branch, said, “Promising start, many further to go.”
“Indeed,” Leon whispered as he took the lotus back, his golden eyes staring at the tree’s upper branches. He’d never seen that particular shade of lightning before, and he wondered just what that meant…
Once he’d separated Tikos’ lotus from the tree, the roots that had sprouted from it shriveled up and disintegrated.
“Bring some this wood,” Tikos requested. “Much testing needs done.”
“Can do,” Leon replied as he swept his hand out in front of him, pulling as much of the tree into his soul realm as he could. It didn’t go easily, however, being wider than most of his modular villa’s compartments. Still, he squeezed and stretched, and managed to pull the tree in, leaving only a few pieces of debris and a couple errant roots behind.
Once he finished, Red finally walked over, her amber eyes narrow and her mouth turned downward in a concerned frown.
[What was this?] she asked.
“An attempt to create a kind of super material,” Leon explained. “We can talk about it on the way back, so why don’t we get back into the air?”
Red hesitantly nodded, and soon enough they were both back in their respective beast forms and flying quite quickly northward. However, as they got started, Leon noticed an object flying toward them at high speed: an ark. It was small, so much so that he couldn’t imagine it had a crew of more than half a dozen. However, it was moving fast, and moving straight towards them.
[Move!] Leon shouted as he flapped his wings and called upon his wind magic to speed him up even more. Red did similar with her power, allowing her to just barely keep up with him.
The ark behind then turned slightly in their direction, but rather than following them, it instead slowed down over where the tree had just been.
‘Did we draw attention with that display?’ Leon wondered, notionally frowning. ‘We’re out in the middle of nowhere, how did they notice this? It wasn’t that powerful…’
After flying in several slow, wide circles, the ark turned back toward them and began following, but at a respectable distance. They were still in the Sunlit Empire, and not wanting to cause any complicated incidents, Leon just kept flying, not attacking the ark, but not losing sight of it, either. It only waved off once Leon and Red reached the border with the Ilian Empire less than an hour later.
[Why let those humans go?] Red asked, having remained otherwise silent once they’d taken back to the air, simply following Leon’s lead.
[How have they harmed us?] Leon asked in response. [I’ll admit feeling curious as to why they came this way at all, but can we really fault them for that?] At this point, while he was still speaking with Red, he recognized that he was speaking more to himself than to her. [They didn’t attack us, so why not let them go?]
[They’ll remember this,] Red rebutted. [Safer for us to silence them forever.]
[Again, though, why? Have we done something shameful? Have we showed weakness?]
[We ran from them. That is weakness. They advanced, and we retreated.]
[We weren’t fighting, so why look at it that way?]
[All life is a battle. We all fight for our own resources. If we’re strong, we subjugate those around us and take their resources. If we’re weak, the strong will take ours.]
[Like that black wyvern did for you?]
[Yes,] Red responded without even the tiniest hint of changing her way of thinking, though there were a few traces of anger in her mental tone. [I was too weak to deal with my mate, and had to pay the price. I believe you humans have a similar concept: taxes.]
[Taxes are a little different. They’re meant to fund government institutions which are then supposed to provide for common security and prosperity. Taxes are thus for the benefit of all, and when they’re used for the benefit of only the already-powerful, it’s generally seen as shameful and corrupt. Not that that stops some people…]
Red growled aloud and seemed to spit derisively into his mind, [Humans.] She said no more on the topic, so instead, Leon began telling her in greater detail of just what he’d been trying to do with the tree, and what he and his people had been doing for the past half year.
Once he’d finished, they’d started flying over more urban regions. So far, they’d flown mostly over the more sparsely-inhabited western region of the Sunlit Empire, with its cities mostly located further east. However, the Ilian Empire was vast and heavily urbanized, even more than two days’ flight south from its heartland.
[So,] Leon asked once he’d finished his story, [Any questions on all of that?]
Red remained quiet.
[Any observations so far? We’re flying over human lands, now, have any impressions?]
Red snapped, though it came off as more thoughtful than anything else.
[Good land, ruined,] she growled. [Land for prey to run and grow is best, this… farmland is a blight.]
[It’s ruined much of the wild, that’s for sure,] Leon commiserated. [However, it’s ensured a great abundance of food for the Ilian Empire, and with that abundance of food came a great population.]
[Great numbers for wyverns is a thing to dread,] Red replied.
[Wyverns are solitary creatures, aren’t they? You don’t form family bonds, or any other such bonds, do you?]
Red clicked her teeth in what Leon assumed was agreement.
[Humans are more communal. We’re not as naturally strong as wyverns, but our ability to organize and work together has made us the masters of the known world.]
[And what of the unknown world?]
[I can’t say, I don’t know it. But I think that given enough time, we’ll become masters of that world, too. We just need some time.]
[The blight of humanity, growing incessantly,] Red grumbled.
[Hardly, growth is at least as common as stagnation and contraction… which I guess flies in the face of what I just said, doesn’t it? We’re definitely going to need to get you acquainted with some better philosophers than me once we get back to Occulara.]
Silence descended upon them again, and after a while feeling exceptionally awkward, Leon asked her, [Is there anything at all you want to see or do first? You decided to come with me to see and experience new things, isn’t that right? To see what pleasures and delights that human civilization can bring?]
[I… would eat,] Red said, her tone changing to something much more curious than spiteful for the first time in their conversation. [Many things I have witnessed humans eat, but until that night I spent in your camp, I had never tasted human food. I wish to know what it is.]
[That can easily be arranged. The chefs that work in my estate are some of the best in the human world, and there are so many restaurants in Occulara that if they can’t make something to your tastes, then another will surely rise to the challenge. Food’s easy, thanks to all this farmland.]
As they flew, Leon let his eyes drift downward, taking in the sights. They were flying relatively close to an Ilian city of medium size, and even from many miles outside of the city, with his power and avian eyes, Leon could see any public thing in the city that he wanted to with perfect clarity.
However, as his gaze drifted over the local Heaven’s Eye branch, he immediately grew concerned as he saw people running around between the local enclave’s few buildings with much greater panic than he’d ever seen before. When he glanced toward what he took to be the local government buildings, he saw a similar scene. However, most of the people in the city continued going about their daily lives seemingly without any particular care, the rush that everyone in Heaven’s Eye and the local government not permeating throughout the city.
‘What’s going on?’ Leon wondered.
He continued flying, reasoning that if whatever was going on didn’t have the people in a frenzy, then it probably wasn’t that important, and he could just check in on it when he got back to Occulara. It was probably just some local concern, he was sure.
Or at least, he was sure until he and Red drew close enough to Occulara for Maia’s magic to reach them—a distance of some eight hundred-ish miles.
[Leon!] Maia urgently said into his mind, her voice sounding rather shaky and distant even with their connection thanks to the sheer distance between them.
[What’s going on?] Leon asked as he cast his gaze back at the city he and Red had so recently passed and its panicking upper-class.
[We’ve been trying to reach out to you, but Tikos can’t speak to you with the lotus in your soul realm!] Maia explained. [There’s something really big happening, and Elise asked me to reach out as soon as I could.]
Leon slowed his flight and gave Red a brief explanation while Maia went to find Elise to relay the message. As he waited, Leon flew in lazy circles over some Ilian farmland so high above the ground that he and Red were practically invisible in the sky.
After waiting for several minutes, Maia spoke again, having found Elise.
[Relaying,] the river nymph said, [Argos has come under attack and before we lost contact with them, the Imperial fleets further south reported contact with Sky Devils. Leon, it looks like the Sky Devils are trying to launch an invasion. The Imperial fleets were caught unprepared and Argos is under siege.]
Leon’s eyes widened in shock, and he turned to face the southeast. Argos was another three days or so in that direction at his usual pace, but he felt like he could shave a day off if he had to.
‘The remnants of my Clan’s vassals…’ he thought to himself. He’d always wanted to get into some kind of contact with them, and here they were attacking Argos. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of conflict as he wondered what he should do. ‘Defend Argos? Is that the right move? Try and covertly meet with the Sky Devils? Do nothing at all and continue home?’
As if she could sense his inner conflict—and given their connection, she probably could even over this vast distance—Maia went quiet for a moment, then said, [Elise says that we should help defend Argos. Heaven’s Eye has many interests there, and Penelope has already been deployed to defend those interests.]
If Leon could’ve scowled then, he would’ve. Instead, with his heart still conflicted, he beat his wings and began flying southeast, a curious Red just behind him. At the very least, he couldn’t exactly return home after that message.
So, just before he left Maia’s range again, he told her—and the rest of his family and retinue by extension—that he was on his way to Argos. He didn’t say what he was going to do once he got there.