"Are you sure you're okay? We can push this back if you want..." concerned, Fae looked at the woman in front of her, but Silvia immediately shook her head.
"No! Please, no, I was really excited for this," she explained with a smile on her face, reaching out and grabbing the changeling's hand as the two of them walked down the road. From her hand, a wave of colour flooded out over Fae's body, lingering on her cheeks like a blush.
"I'm glad," Fae replied, squeezing the elf's hand for a moment. The two looked at each other for a few moments, but soon stepped into the restaurant in front of them. It didn't take long for them to be seated, and a waiter came up and handed them their menus.
"You said you've been here before, right?"
Fae immediately nodded her head, glancing up from the menu, "Yeah, but just once. It's really good though! They're trying hard to make sure that the food is traditionally Gardian!"
"I love Gardian food."
"I know, that's why I invited you here," Fae smirked, watching as Silvia's face turned a bright pink while she wasn't able to stop herself from grinning lightly.
"And I'm very glad you did," Silvia replied, "I'm really sorry for not reaching out a lot over the past couple days though, it's been a little..."
"No, no, it's fine. I guess I did get a little lonely... but you don't have to force yourself to reach out when you're not feeling up to it."
"Thank you," Silvia felt her chest grow a bit tighter. Really, she just wanted to jump across the table and kiss Fae after she said that. She's been so understanding about everything, although Silvia hadn't actually told her about what happened yet. Because if she did, then she would also have to get into a whole bunch of other stuff that Silvia wasn't really sure she felt ready to tell Fae. What if that was a turn-off? She couldn't expect Fae to just be fine with dating someone as broken as Silvia. But then again, not telling her felt like she was lying to her... Whichever way she looked, Silvia felt anxious about how to go forward. Trying not to tear up at the thought, Silvia quickly glanced back down at the menu.
"So! What do you think looks good?" she asked, and Fae immediately looked down at her menu as well.
"I've been eyeing the Huitlacoche Quesadillas for a bit now..." Fae explained, "I heard their tamales are pretty good too, and I know that they have ones that don't have lard in them too, if you're worried about that."
"Both of that sounds pretty good... want to get both and share?"
"Sure! Let's do it!"
Fae waved over the waiter and ordered, and the two also got some cocktails that were supposed to go well with their food. As they waited, their conversation kept drifting around into numerous different areas. School, work, art, animals, travel; anything that crossed their minds, really. And the more the two spoke, the more their eyes lingered on each other, as if the world around them was disappearing. Even the food that was soon served was only a side-thought.
Silvia's eyes carefully followed the splotches of colour sprinkled on Fae's face as they moved around, from her cheek, to her neck, down her chest and into the light dress she was wearing. Catching herself before her mind drifted away into thoughts that would make her face turn as red as a traffic light, Silvia sat up straight and pat down her own skirt, acting as if it got some kind of crumbs of their food on it.
Though, when she looked back up, from Fae's expression, Silvia was sure that she knew exactly where the elf had been looking. Fae carefully touched the tip of her shoe against Silvia's, smiling as the two looked into each other's eye. They reached out to each other and held hands on the table, feeling each other's warmth in their fingertips.
It was clear they wanted to do much more than just that, but they both held back. This was their first real date, and neither wanted to ruin things by going too fast. But at some point, that tension got too much, and Fae stuttered something out.
"Y-You know, my roommate is visiting her family for a few weeks right now... do you... do you want to come over later?" Fae asked, the colour all over her body completely stunned, as if the girl was holding her breath in anticipation of an answer. Silvia couldn't help herself but smirk a bit at that, as she nodded her head.
"I would love that," the elf replied, and Fae's colour immediately started moving again, all rushing toward her face as if to hide the expression she was making right now. Anxiously, Fae looked around the table to change the topic, clearly being too nervous to just let things linger here, and soon noticed Silvia's glass.
"Do you want another drink? I'm also almost done," Fae quickly looked around for the waiter, as Silvia's smile lingered. She felt happy. Really, really happy. As she looked at Fae, something caught her eye behind her, though. A pair of branch-like antlers, decorated with glass flowers and leaves, steadily approaching the pair in a straight line.
Almost taken aback, Silvia straightened her back, as a young woman came into view. Messily curly brown hair covered her head and stretched down to her thighs. She was walking around completely barefoot, in the middle of a city, and was wearing a plain summer dress, with a white so pristine that it made the cuts and rough edges on the fabric stand out even more.
The girl, clearly around Silvia and Fae's age, came to a halt right in front of the two. With an angry glare, as if she despised what she was looking at, the girl gnashed and bared her teeth.
"This is wrong, this... This is all far too wrong!"
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Wisps of red and threads of green moved out of Ryan's hand together, forming the bodies of the two spirits Maximus and Gaia. The moment they fully appeared, the group of people huddling around Ryan moved in closer.
"Oh, wow! Look at that one, it's so cute and tiny..." one of the people said, as Ryan squatted down to pick Maximus up from the ground.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"His name is Maximus. And let me tell you, despite his size, he packs quite the punch. Physically, he's stronger than me," Ryan pointed out, trying not to reveal that Maximus had a class, levels, and stats. Revealing the two spirits like this was one thing, since Ryan didn't want them to live in hiding when they didn't have to, but it was another to go too deep into certain aspects of their existence. Ryan had decided to not keep his class too much of a secret; it was too late for that now anyway. But that didn't mean he should just reveal every little part of it to others.
"What about the other one?"
"Her name is Gaia. She's a spirit that's quite close to nature," Ryan explained, as people moved in to take closer looks. It was very likely that none of them had ever seen spirits before. They were quite rare beings and usually didn't choose to interact with others. There were those that lived in specific places, like spirits that were born from temples or castles; old places with lots of history. They tended to be a bit more open to interacting with people, but even then it was quite rare to get a good look at one. Summoner-type classes weren't particularly common either.
While Gaia seemed a little nervous being stared at by everyone, Maximus seemed to enjoy the attention, and was practically posing on Ryan's hands to show off his good side to everyone.
Soon, someone looked back at Ryan and curiously asked, "So, what kind of spirits are they? What kind of abilities do they have?"
"Well, Gaia's abilities are focused around caring for plants," Ryan explained, "Meanwhile, Maximus' abilities are focused around weapon-based combat."
"That's a pretty big difference... what area will you go into? Botany? Or an Awakened-field, like heroics?" someone wondered, and Ryan laughed a little awkwardly.
"I don't know yet, I only awakened like two weeks ago, and pretty suddenly as well," Ryan admitted, and the crowd grew a bit confused. They glanced over at Alicia, who was watching the whole thing quietly.
"You already got to level 10 in just two weeks? But that..."
Ryan quickly looked over at Alicia, still annoyed that she just blurted something out about his new skill, so he tried to come up with a good explanation that didn't involve telling people about Tiar, "Nope, I'm still just level 4! The new skill Ali- Miss Boreard mention is like a... you know about talent-unlocked skills, right? I tried out a few different things since I awakened and managed to find a new talent... or something like that."
Ryan tried to scramble together some kind of explanation. Unlocking skills through sheer talent was certainly possible, but it was probably even rarer than awakening in the first place and usually required a ton of training. But in some rare cases, people got 'lucky' and unlocked a new skill pretty soon after awakening. Usually, it would be a skill that was close up for selection as a base-skill anyway.
"Aw man, lucky..." Michael muttered quietly to himself next to Ryan, "So... what kind of skill is it?"
Ryan thought about it for a moment, and then looked over at Alicia, who was still just waiting, also anxiously wanting to see Ryan's skill in action. With a slight groan, he rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Alright, I can show it to you guys, but I'm going to need some scrap metal."
"Scrap metal?"
"Yeah, like, a good amount it," Ryan replied, "It could be any metal, but it's not going to be usable anymore after I use the skill, so I would rather not ruin anything."
Hearing what Ryan was saying, Aurora seemed to spring into action. Being in charge of Ryan, she was obviously more than curious about seeing what kind of new skill he unlocked. After all, you didn't see a unique class this often, "I think we should have some materials you can use... we have a wide variety of things to let people test their skills."
Ryan sighed lightly. It seemed like he wouldn't be able to avoid showing the skill now, though he felt a little awkward about it. Aurora left the room for a short while, and not even ten minutes later returned with some other employees that were wheeling in a cart with metal sheets. They were on the new side, so not scrap metal, but if they were meant for testing skills then Ryan figured it was fine.
He took off his jacket and folded it up, hanging it over the handles of the cart. So that his sleeve wouldn't get caught in anything, he quickly folded them up and pushed them up to his elbow. That part of the armour was pretty bulky so there was a fair amount of space, but the wrist was a bit tighter so Ryan didn't want to risk anything.
He glanced down at Tiar resting on his left arm. They were aware of what Ryan was trying to do, and were clearly doing their best not to move while this was going on, but Ryan didn't want to risk it, so he quickly pushed his hand into his pocket so that Tiar could concentrate on the skill execution. Since Ryan's left sleeve was still pulled down, Tiar was now completely hidden.
After taking a deep breath, Ryan pressed his palm onto the metal sheets, activating the Spirit Armament skill. Ryan could feel Tiar move over his body, stretching out onto his right arm. Slithering out from under his rolled-up sleeve, the red tendrils quickly reached out to the metal, tearing it apart like paper. Piece by piece, a bulky piece of armour was built around Ryan's right arm. It wasn't a perfect copy of Maximus' Crusader-armour, but it was already a lot closer than the last few times that Ryan and Tiar had tested the skill out.
Ryan moved the arm around, almost as easily as he would his normal arm. While he didn't feel any stronger than normal, just being able to move this hefty metal around with relative ease was already a game-changer. Plus, any damage to this arm didn't translate to the actual crusader-armour piece. It wasn't repaired while the skill was active, but if the same pieces were re-used again afterward, though the integrity of the armour was a bit worse than before, and it got damaged more easily, the prior damage was mostly repaired.
One of the other newly-awakened, who seemed to have a hand-to-hand combat based physical class, let out a groan of envy, "You can just do that as long as you have some metal? What is it, are you basically copying the body of one of your spirits?"
"There are a few conditions to it, but yeah, that's kind of it," Ryan replied, looking over toward Aurora with an awkward smile, "This would have come in pretty handy when I was in the dungeon, huh?"
"Certainly... How is the structural integrity? Can you take it off?" Aurora wondered.
"It's pretty solid while on there, but I can't take it off. It's basically stuck to my arm like this. The skill is only active for ten minutes anyway, and it has a 1-day cooldown right now, so... It's more like a trump card to protect myself, I guess," Ryan explained, holding his hand forward to let people take a closer look. Particularly those with expertise-classes, of which there were a surprising amount here today, were quite interested in the workmanship of the arm. But of course, there were also quite a few people that were surprised Ryan had already gone to a dungeon at his level, though it did happen every once in a while that people went to dungeons right after registering and passing the Dungeoneering test.
The conversation continued for a little longer, though it didn't take long for the next person to get their turn to show their skills. Alicia did come up and take a closer look, though she didn't seem as interested once the skill was actually active as Ryan had thought. As if she wasn't curious about the skill itself, but how Ryan would react when pushed like this.
But... as Ryan was standing here, watching everyone use their skills, and even when the spirit armament skill was deactivated and the metal fell apart into its individual pieces again, something felt... weird.
Ryan couldn't put his finger on it, but something was wrong. Really wrong. He didn't know where this feeling came from, exactly, but it was visceral and distinct. Something Ryan couldn't just ignore, but at the same time, he didn't know what it actually was. Like a random bout of anxiety emanating from all around him.
And throughout the whole rest of the evening, that feeling continued to bother Ryan. That feeling of complete wrongness.