Obviously, my grandfather didn’t bring ALL the popsicles along. He didn’t even bring that many. Five of them, specifically. Velliana, the Pixie, Darium the Minotaur, Garth the Crystal Dancer, and the two Imperial scions from families that were still extant, Alkem and Kesh. They were all waiting for me when I arrived in the training room, where I found Bella getting the stuffing beaten out of her by Keiko.
“Oooh, so close!” hissed the sadistic blue streaked. “You almost had me that time. Just a little faster and I know you can land a hit.”
Velliana, who had pulled her feathered (literally, it was actual feathers) lilac hair up into a ponytail, frowned disapprovingly at the B-ranker. “Lady Keiko, I believe the young woman has had quite enough. It’s entirely unfair to expect her to properly combat someone so far above her rank.”
Keiko, who was a B-ranker, just shrugged shamelessly. “It’s not like I’m going all out. Besides, I can see the deficiencies in her forms. I’ve dealt with the real thing more than a few times. I’m giving her good tips, and she IS improving.”
“Keiko,” I said blandly as I stepped into the room. “Can you please not bully my apprentice. It’s the only joy I have in life anymore, and you’re stealing all my fun.”
“Master!” snapped Bella, halfway between exasperation at my attitude and joy at seeing me come to help with her training. “Oh wow, that new mask is so much less terrifying. Where did you get it?”
My hand drifted up to the smooth, familiar expanse of dark wood I now wore. The disturbing obsidian mask I’d had on before was powerful and useful…but it was also made by Black Sorrow, and I didn’t love the idea of leaving it on my face. This one was a private commission from Zeke that Callie had made as a congratulations gift for completing my mission. It had been waiting in the ring when I checked it after dinner with my grandfather, and I had never been so thrilled to see a hunk of wood in my life.
“Present from my wife,” I said casually. “Now, Keiko might be a sadist, but she does know my style. Or at least some of it. Keep working with her for a bit, I need to talk to our new friends over here.”
She nodded seriously. “I wasn’t complaining, master. I know how much work I still need.”
I patted her on the head encouragingly, then turned and made my way over to the five former ice cubes. “Greetings,” I said, bowing my head slightly. “I’m not sure if you know who I am, but my name is Shane. You can also call me Solomon if you’re more comfortable with that.”
It was a little formal, but these people were from who knew how long in the past. I had no idea what their customs or rituals were like, so I decided to air on the side of slightly formal politeness. I was less likely to mortally offend one of them and get challenged to a duel to the death that way.
Velliana, the apparent spokesperson, returned my bowed head with a formal curtsy. “Lord Wyndham, we are aware of you. Your Lady wife spun many tales of your heroism and compassionate nature. I understand we have you to thank for our release from our long incarceration.”
Garth snorted. “She means thanks,” he said wryly. “The pixies were always a little flowery.” He held out a hand, tanned fingers worn from some kind of repeated activity, either weapon wielding or some kind of crafting. He was a big man, shorter than me but wider in the shoulders, and his grip was firm. “And she’s right, thank you, I shudder to think what would have happened if we’d been left in there for another few centuries.”
“How did you all end up stuck there, anyway?” I asked, gesturing them to sit down on a nearby bench used for observing fights. “I’d have figured they would have released you at some point. Were they really content to just leave you in storage until the planet ranked up?”
At first glance, the idea of Cold Storage made sense, but Callus had long since been terraformed and before that, probably abandoned. Their clans had just left them to their own devices and fucked off into space, and that struck me as a pretty terrible way to treat family. They must be terrified being in such a strange new world.
“We don’t know,” Vellianna said uncomfortably. “We don’t know anything about what happened. We’re from various different points in time. Dravost, the planet you call Callus, was the throneworld of the Summerpeace Clan when I was alive. It was part of a grand galactic formation of planets called the Wildstrife, a defensive emplacement that encircled the entirety of the fae territories. We weren’t the strongest clan, of course, being firmly precelestial, but for the formation itself and my clan to both vanish? It’s…concerning.”
I wondered if they’d had a god. Her time had been well before the Aetherbright Empire, which meant none of our deities had been alive to take them out, but from what I knew Aetherbright was pretty strict about deity management too. Though that brought my attention to something else she’d said. “Precelestial?”
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“Ah, apologies,” she said with an embarrassed cough. “The Celestial stage is the name we used for the second watershed. What you call D-rank. Of course, in my time, Celestials were much rarer than they are now. The majority of the Fae were Precelestial. Only great lords of fairy had reached that storied realm. Things have…changed. As you can imagine, this new world is quite confusing, though finding out that remnants of my clan remain was a great consolation.”
Garth nodded. “Same, the Cold Storage was a joint project of the Wildstrife, both the Fae and human factions, though admittedly there were fewer of the latter. Apparently some of the human bloodlines survived to this day, much to my surprise.”
I knew that some of the Imperial factions were carryovers from the Aetherbright Empire, and that even the Imperial Family could trace their lineage back to the earlier dynasty. I’d done some research into it after our incident at the Aetherbright Academy. Knowing that the Aetherbright Empire had further descendants of even earlier dynasties didn’t surprise me nearly as much, but it was still interesting. I turned to Alkem and Kesh. “Your families are still around?”
Alkem nodded. “I have a distant descendant who is a Duke, and Kesh’s line eventually produced a Marquis. We were invited to return to our clans and decided we might as well travel with the rest of you.”
An A and B-ranker respectively, which wasn’t bad. Two of my friends from the Ruined Soul Temple were heirs to Ducal houses, and I was planning to stop in to talk to them anyway.
We all talked over the route, all of them agreeing to head to the Divine Tree Temple first, and then I said my goodbyes and headed over to work with my apprentice. Bella was lying on her back, wheezing, her nose broken. I turned to glare at Keiko. “You should be ashamed. What kind of monster hits a poor defenseless disciple in the face?’
“I didn’t hit her in the face!” Keiko said indignantly. “She ran into the flat of my hammer headfirst. It wasn’t even moving. She just vanished in a burst of fire and then appeared in front of me, slamming into the hammerhead at top speed.”
Sighing, I leaned down to help my disciple up. “Still haven’t gotten that movement technique down, huh?”
“Well it’s not like I have many places to practice in here!” she said with an expansive gesture. The Acheron wasn’t small, but it was substantially less sizable than, say, The Necromedes (presumably because it was a lot easier to build a giant ship out of A-rank materials than S-rank).
Laughing, I patted her on the shoulder. “Tell you what, you’re obviously working hard, why don’t you take a break. I was going to spar with you a bit, but now I just feel like a bully.”
She sniffed in a dignified manner. “I suppose. I’ll take my leave then.” Lifting her chin high, she strode off, stumbling over her feet from dizziness, but barely managing to catch herself. Chuckling, I thanked Keiko and headed off to find a quiet corner. When that was done, I reached for my bond, and within seconds.
My wife appeared, manifesting from the dark like an angel of the abyss. “Hey stranger,” she said with a warm smile as the clone condensed. “Been busy lately huh? I’ve been hearing all about your heroic exploits.”
I shot her a weak grin, which I knew she could feel even if she didn’t see it. Her smile wilted, her face clouding with concern. “Shane? Are you ok?”
But I wasn’t. I stepped forward, putting my arms around her, and she pulled me close. I didn’t cry, didn’t collapse or weep, I just, clung to her. Not just because of my staff, which I would miss, or even because of the relief. Because I’d been through SO MUCH since we’d last been together in reality. Because I’d suffered, and endured, and triumphed. And sure, that last one was a good thing, but I had changed so much, gone through so many things on my own, and now that it was all over and I was through it, I just felt…exhausted.
Like I’d been holding my breath for the last few months, stuffing down any uncertainty or doubt, and it was all coming back up. The terror of failing my family, the fear of enduring an endless wave of torturous trials, the worry about what surviving those trials was doing to me. Even the anger of Black Sorrow claiming credit for my existence after being such a monumental pain in my ass for my whole life.
I’d ignored and pushed away so many things I’d wanted to feel about this whole ordeal, and now that I was home, or close enough to it, and Callie was here, and no one else could see. I just let myself finally experience it all. It washed over me, all that emotion and wear. It wasn’t something the rebirth could fix, or that I could move past through the trials. It was just the natural consequence of suppressing everything and focusing on a single goal.
Callie held me close, not saying anything, just letting me know it was ok. It took me a few minutes to process everything, just silently working through my feelings, and when I was done, I stood there for another few just enjoying the closeness with my wife before reluctantly pulling back. “I wish you were here in person,” I admitted to her wryly. “It’s not the same long distance.”
“Well, then you should be glad you’re heading for the Divine Tree Temple,” she said with a laugh. “My master has decided to meet her husband at the temple. Provide a united front to show support for her grandson. Your mom and I are obviously coming with her, and we’ll be seeing you soon. Benny, Mel, Jessie, your sister, Gabe, and Bethy are all coming too. We aren’t sure about Abel, no one has heard from him, though Mel assures us he’s alive.”
I snickered at that. “Probably not happily. I can’t imagine Lark is a gentle teacher. But that gives me something to look forward to. I’ll have to push gramps on that training he mentioned though. I have to maintain my lead now that I’m ahead again. Can’t have you skipping past me with that scythe.”
She laughed at that, and it was because neither of us really cared who was ahead. We were going to be together again, and we were strong. The rest would work itself out. In the meantime, I hadn't been running my mouth for no reason. My grandfather had mentioned some technique training during our talk, and I aimed to collect. By the time I saw my friends again, I’d be even stronger. After all, I had a reputation to maintain these days.