“This wind is nuts!” I yelled as I struggled with the umbrella that was only barely keeping the three of us less drenched than we already were.

We were trying to get to our next class, but the storm had rolled in over Avonside University out of nowhere, and we were trapped, huddled behind some decorative art thing in a vain attempt to get out of the wind.

Bray looked miserable in his thin T-shirt, huddling up against the metal sculpture, while his friend, —whose name I still hadn’t gotten— looked slightly more comfortable in her similar getup.

“Here let me take it,” she called over the wind, her hands already reaching for the rebellious umbrella that was our only defense against the torrent of rain from above.

I hesitated for a moment, then nodded and carefully passed it to her. She looked like she could probably lift me over her head with a little effort. That wasn’t to say she was all muscle or anything, but there was enough definition in her arms to let me know I’d get my ass beat if it came to that. Which it wouldn’t because conflict was scary.

“You two boys ready to make a run for it?” she yelled over the wind, her tone teasing and amused.

“No!” Bray grumbled, but his nod said otherwise.

“And you? Lanky dude, whatever your name is?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

Lanky dude? I mean fair, but ouch. I nodded, taking a few deep breaths to try and psych myself up for the sprint. It looked like about forty meters to the door and into the atrium where we needed to go. Forty long meters swept by rain that was being driven almost horizontal by this storm.

“Go!” the girl called, and we ran.

Even considering my earlier appraisal of her, it was impressive to see her run and hold the umbrella over all three of us like it was nothing. Damn girl!

Our feet splashed through forming puddles as we bolted across the concrete tiles of the Patten Courtyard. My feet squished uncomfortably as rain filled my shoes up faster than a cup under an exploding faucet. Everything below my mid thigh was soaked, the umbrella could only keep the three of us covered up to a point.

Regardless, we made it into the Atrium, bursting through the doors in a spray of water and screeching wind. The door mechanism was failing to shut it automatically, so Bray’s friend tossed the umbrella back to me and leaned her shoulder into it until the latch clicked closed.

“Holy shit,” she laughed, her chest heaving with the effort. We were all soaked, her most of all. Her clothing clung to her frame in a very revealing way. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her abs, how the hell did those things even get like that? Smooth and toned at the same time.

“How did you even keep this thing upright, let alone covering us from the rain?” I asked, wrenching my eyes back to my umbrella.

I hadn’t been able to get it out before we’d all been drenched, that’s how fast the storm had rolled in, and now the thing was smashed and bent beyond hope. I’d need to get a new one.

“Yeah look at you! You’re like, buff! Are you one of those chicks that like deadlift or something?” Bray asked, openly staring at her.

“Uh yeah, I work out I guess. I lift and shit, but not like, a ton of the time or anything. I’m not interested in being a huge tanky chick or whatever. I mean don’t get me wrong, I think they’re hot as hell, but I don’t want to be one,” she shrugged, looking a little self conscious over the way her top was clinging. She wrapped her arms around her chest and stared back at Bray awkwardly.

“So you’re into buff girls then?” Bray teased, his eyes taking on a mischievous glint.

“I guess, but I’m into girls. I like short, pretty, petite girls, I like tall willowy girls, and yeah… I like buff girls too,” she shrugged, I could see her becoming more uncomfortable by the second.

Bray had a problem with knowing when to stop, and it looked like now was one of those times.

“Bray, knock it off,” I said with as much casual good nature as I could manage. “After all, we wouldn’t want the topic of conversation to turn on you would we?”

There wasn’t actually anything wrong with the short blond guy’s tastes, Bray could like who he liked, but I knew the topic embarrassed him. I could use the playful teasing of that topic to save the girl from any more discomfort. Actually, had I gotten her name yet?

She might have told me actually, but I’d probably been spacing out, so to speak. It was a thing that happened to me sometimes, my brain just stopped processing speech as actual information, and suddenly I was listening to english like it was a foreign language.

Looking at her now, I was impressed with the balance in her body that she’d achieved between soft and hard. She was a generally pretty girl all around too, but then again, this was college. It seemed like every girl was pretty.

Anyway, other than her abs, there was another thing about her that I had taken passing note of. Her hair was short and pale blond, with these fascinating faded red and blue streaks through it. It wasn’t sun faded or anything though, it looked like she’d had it dyed by someone incredibly skilled, and with top notch product to boot.

While Bray struggled with his blush, I asked her, “Who did your hair? It looks incredible, despite how soaked it is now.”

“Oh,” she blinked, surprised by my change of conversational topic. “Uh, it was me. I’m training to be a hair stylist.”

“Nice, I really like it,” I said, then ran my hand through my very wet and very short military style haircut with a grin. “Think I should dye mine?”

“There isn’t much there to dye,” she chuckled, eyeing me over. “And plus, you don’t actually seem like the type of guy who dyes his hair.”

I laughed off her words, because for reasons that would baffle most people, they hurt like hell. I wished I had longer hair, but that was only part of it.

Then she squinted at me, like she’d had a sudden realisation. “You aren’t hitting on me are you? I just said that I like girls, but I guess to be clear, I’m not into guys.” Her eyes flicked to Bray and she added, “Especially ones that stare.”

“He doesn’t hit on anyone, guys or girls,” Bray grumbled, clearly a little grumpy with both of us for the teasing and rebukes. “Never even seen him eye up a girl.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m not attracted to them,” I replied, a little sharply.

In reality, I wasn’t entirely sure who I was attracted to. I didn’t really like the concept of relationships, casual or otherwise. At least not while I was like… this. I didn’t want to be attracted to anyone right now, male or female.

To avoid meeting the eyes of the other two, I turned and looked out into the courtyard we’d just come from. Avonside University was gorgeous, despite the terrible weather that had rolled just now.

We were standing in what people called the Pyramid. It had a proper name and designation, but no one used those. The Pyramid was named like that because the roof was one big glass pyramid, the atrium itself being tacked onto one of the two large central tower blocks on campus. Covered and indoors, it was used as a student social and study space, with the nearby Oak cafe always available if you wanted overpriced food or coffee.

Outside the floor to ceiling glass was the courtyard we’d just come from, its neatly manicured shrubs and trees being whipped to within an inch of their lives by the storm outside. The rain was coming in so hard that it was almost hard to see through it.

“Sorry. That was rude,” I said, giving them both an apologetic expression. “I guess I’ve just never really been one for relationships. Can we change the subject? They seem like so much work after all. I can barely look after myself, how would I manage another person?”

“Sure,” the girl said, then smiled and walked over to slump into a nearby couch. “What’s your name?”

I couldn’t help a chuckle, following her lead and sitting down in a chair opposite. Yeah, we had totally skipped over the whole introduction part. We were classmates, had been for two years now off and on, but Avonside was huge, classes and year groups could get into the high hundreds. Bray, my best friend, was apparently friends with her, although I’d never spoken to her before we had all huddled behind that Sculpture.

“Elias,” I said finally, leaning over to offer her a hand, which she took, her grip far firmer than mine. I raised an eyebrow. “You?”

“Grace,” she replied, giving me an even amicable stare, like she was challenging me to remember it. I would. My memory was scary good.

“Nice name.”

She gave a shrug, looking slightly uncomfortable. “It’s a name, like everyone else's.”

“Great, you know each other’s names now,” Bray said, rolling his eyes before turning them on me. “We still haven’t figured out how we’re getting back to the dorm though Eli. This storm is—”

Bray was interrupted when a flash lit the room, followed quickly by a thundering shockwave. My vision blurred, pain flashed through my body and the whole world took on a strange dizzing spin. Dazed, I tried to make sense of what had just happened. The chair I had been sitting on was on its back, I had been thrown clear. Glass was everywhere, the rain and wind had invaded the safety of the indoors.

“What the fuck,” Grace groaned from a meter away as she pushed herself up off the ground.

“Eli! Are you okay?” Bray called from somewhere, and I let out a grunt to let him know I was fine. I wasn’t sure I could talk at that exact moment.

“Was it a bomb?” Grace asked, her eyes staring out into the black of the storm. Then they narrowed for a moment before they flew wide in confusion and awe. “What the fuck is that?”

My eyes tracked out past the debris and into the black where she was staring, taking a moment to adjust and find whatever she was looking for. Of course, when I saw it, I wondered how the hell I had missed it.

Standing in the center of the courtyard, having apparently obliterated the fountain that used to be there, was a massive black monolith. It was so dark that I couldn’t tell if it was cylinder or rectangular, but it was definitely there, the top up into the black of the storm.

Other students who’d been in the Pyramid were taking notice now too, crowding forward as far as they dared to get a look. I could see people out there in the rain, picking themselves up off the ground where they must have been thrown like we were. Someone stepped out of the atrium and shone a high powered flashlight on the thing, a security guard maybe, and all of a sudden we could see it for what it was.

It was perfectly cylindrical, so smooth in fact that my eyes had trouble reading it, like the very light bouncing off it was wrong somehow. I could feel my vision growing tired and strained just trying to comprehend it. The rain was having trouble with it too, sluicing off it like the surface was hydrophobic.

Then another flash lit up the university, but this one was far gentler and far more strange. A pulse of light flashed out from the monolith, passing through everything and everyone like none of us where here. Two more came out in quick succession and I crawled forward to take cover behind the upturned couch. The other two joined me quickly, and we all shared a nervous glace or two. What was happening?

“This is like something straight out of a movie,” Bray said with a low audible gulp. “One of those sci-fi thrillers where the aliens come pouring out of that thing to eat us.”

“Shut up Bray,” Grace hissed, sending him a scolding look. “Don’t need your dumb, overactive imagination right now. We have crazy shit going on right in front of us.”

“Well it’s better than waiting for whatever horror that thing is about to set on us,” he almost snarled back.

Clearly my two companions were stressed, and I waved a placating hand. “Hey, both of you, come on. No need to get grumpy, we’re all nervous here. Except the big thing outside, I don’t think he’s nervous.”

Bray didn’t reply rolling his eyes instead, his mouth pressed into a thin line, but Grace gave me a quick sidelong glance and a weak smile. Phew. Bray never appreciated my jokes. But really, whatever was happening was bad enough without these two going at each other.

“Everyone please stay calm!” a shrill, anything but calm voice called out through the large room, and we all turned to see an elderly woman in a high visibility vest walking into the Pyramid. “The decision has been made to evacuate the building. Please move in a calm and orderly fashion towards your designated evacuation points.”

Almost immediately I raised my hand with a cough. “Ma’am, that’s out there with the scary... uh, monolith thing. I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

I almost called it a dildo, but managed to stop myself just before the word left my mouth. Now was not the time to be making dumb nervous jokes in front of the university staff.

“Ah… the alternative evacuation point then,” she said, sounding less than reassuring. I couldn’t blame her really, things had gone from normal to strange in a heartbeat.

We slowly did as the terrified woman asked, retreating from the smashed window and the monolith beyond. I couldn’t stop checking on Bray and Grace as we walked, my thoughts beginning to cycle worriedly between wondering what was happening and wanting to keep track of them. Familiar faces were important in times like this, I felt safer with them around.

We all flinched as another pulse of light shot out from the object behind us. Every time the pulse ran through me it felt like every energy drink I’d ever consumed was active in the same moment. It was a uniquely uncomfortable feeling.

I only made it a few more steps before a rapid series of pulses rushed through us and everyone staggered, eyes wild as they all sought out the source of their discomfort. The monolith was lightning up, crackling with energy, arcs of the stuff smashing into anything in the courtyard that could conduct electricity. My gaze met Grace’s, the confusion and fear I felt mirrored in her grey green eyes.

The weirdness wasn’t done with us yet though, not by a long shot. A sound rose about us, sounding like a steel cable being pushed past its limits. Then everything stretched. My whole body felt like it was being contorted at a base level, every cell screaming in fear and pain.

All I knew was the twisting and stretching, my mind wild and animalistic as it tried to make sense out of what was happening. At some point it stopped, but I felt strange, like my mind was spinning in my head, just constantly spinning. It wanted me to turn left, just turn left, just turn left. When I tried to satisfy it though, when I turned my head left, it just wanted more. More rotation, always rotate, always rotate. I screamed, or I thought I did. I wasn’t sure, I was trapped in—

Crack.

I came back jarringly, trying to figure out what was happening. I had clarity again, although my forehead stung, and I tentatively opened my eyes and looked around.

“What the fuck was that?” I heard Bray call, his voice shrill with pain.

I lay on the floor, as did everyone else. They were all caught in their own worlds, blinking and confused like I was. Things were getting wild, and I’d really like to stop being thrown onto the ground. It was like someone had taken my core being and shaken it like they were making a cocktail.

Distantly I heard the high visibility vest woman speaking urgently into her radio, and we all turned when she staggered to her feet and cleared her throat loudly. “Everyone is to move to 4A100 and wait, the staff will be getting a handle on the situation while everyone is safe there.”

“Isn’t that the main gym hall?” Grace asked.

I just shrugged, I’d never had any reason to go there, but Bray nodded. “It is, probably to keep us all safe in one place.”

“Well, lets follow the safety vest’s orders then,” I groaned, pushing myself wobbling up onto my feet.

Everyone slowly began to follow the staff member out the back and towards a hallway, and as I did the same, I noticed something strange. The rain had just stopped and with the storm gone, an unfamiliar night sky was visible through the glass roof of the Pyramid…

I stayed quiet as we made our way into the large gym, my thoughts churning. Had I imagined the sky being different? I’d only gotten a glimpse before we were ushered inside and away from the view. But no, I knew I’d seen it, an arch of light across much of the sky.

I stewed on my confusion as I sat down next to Grace and Bray on the hard wooden floor, feeling like a kid in middle school again. My school hadn’t had enough chairs for all the students during whole school assemblies, so many of us had been made to sit on the floor. I felt almost at home sitting on the glossy wooden floor.

I could see other people I knew from class, Melody was chatting to her best friend Kelsey a few meters away. Those two were joined at the hip and both fairly typical college girls on the surface, until you got them excited about something nerdy. They hid it well, but they were some of the geekiest people I’d ever met.

They were cool to talk to and I got along with them in a friendly classmate sort of way. Although that was the same with most people really, I was never one to start arguments over little disagreements. I always found it was easier to just shrug off differences of opinion rather than start drama about it. I mean, unless they were like a neo-nazi or something, then I’d just politely avoid them.

“What is it?” Bray asked, noticing my silence had been stretching on.

I turned back to the two next to me and opened my mouth to speak, but then found I didn’t know what to say. What the hell did I tell them? I saw some crazy shit in the sky that my brain can’t make sense of, and now I’m trying to figure out if I’m just seeing things?

“I don’t know yet, but I think the weirdness has just started,” I replied apologetically.

“Damn. If you don’t know what’s going on, then I sure won’t,” Bray remarked, making a big show out of the sigh he let out.

“Yeah you aren’t know for your situational awareness,” I grinned, earning a mock scowl from my friend.

“I don’t need to know what’s going on, that’s your job in this friendship. My job is to look amazing,” he said, pretending to flex and then cracking a grin before he could complete the action.

Grace was glancing between us with an amused expression, and I felt some of the tension I’d been feeling ease. I liked Grace, she was cool. Bray had spoken about her only once before, mentioning that they shared a class this semester and they seemed to get along.

After a moment she leaned forward, her expression turning serious again as she asked quietly, “Seriously though, what do you know. You saw something we didn’t, I can tell.”

“How? It took me ages to learn how to read Eli, he’s like a damn enigma or something,” Bray complained, and giving me a strange look for a moment.

Grace just gave a shrug and stared at me expectantly motioning for me to spill my thoughts, so I sighed and lowered my tone as well. “Alright, so just as we were leaving the pyramid, I looked up and saw this huge… I don’t know, line across the night sky. From one side to the other, like an arch.”

“Um, just to point out, but wasn’t it only the afternoon when the storm came in?” Bray asked uncertainly.

So much for Bray not being situationally aware, the comment stopped both Grace and I in our tracks. How the hell had we missed that? We stared at Bray for several long seconds, as the implications sunk it. We’d just stupidly assumed it was night because of how dark the storm had made it, but I shouldn’t have been able to see the stars at all during this time of day, and they had definitely been there.

“That’s… alarming,” Grace said after a moment, hugging her arms to her chest with wide, worried eyes.

“So it’s suddenly night time, and there’s a big line across the sky, what does that mean?” I wondered aloud, perhaps too loudly, because a dude nearby turned to stare.

“What did you say?” he asked in a low gruff murmur, concern written across his expression.

“Uh, nothing,” I said quickly, avoiding meeting the larger guy’s eyes.

“No you said that it’s night time and there was a line,” he said urgently. “Because I totally saw that too.”

“You did?!” I asked, suddenly very interested in what this stranger had to say.

He was in a huddle with Melody and Kelsey, so he couldn’t be too bad. I decided to trust him and shuffled around to include him, his other friend and the two girls.

“Yeah, I totally did. Got a good look at it too,” he nodded almost excitedly. “I couldn’t figure it out man. It was fucking weird, I swear I saw like… I don’t know, islands or something up on that line?”

“Damn, I wished we could go out there and look! I’m already hating the way they’ve cooped us up in here,” the guy’s friend said, seeming just as excited as the first dude.

“It’s for our safety, the university is liable for us remember, it’s just what they have to do,” Melody said placatingly.

“I know, I know,” he replied, still looking frustrated despite what he said.

“I’m Eli by the way,” I said, offering a hand to the guy who’d first spoken.

“Adam,” he grinned, shaking my hand a little too forcefully. “My friend is Duncan.”

“Sup,” Duncan said, giving me that funny upwards bro nod that guys are meant to do when they greet each other.

I didn’t reply in kind, instead giving a smile. I didn’t like doing the bro nod, another thing that hurt for reasons that would get me ridiculed or misunderstood if I tried to explain it.

This didn’t mean I begrudged others who did it though. Duncan seemed cool, a tall larger looking guy wearing a cap over his bald head. He had a face that I could only describe as strong, strong jaw, strong nose, strong eyebrows. Everything about him was deeply masculine in a very traditional sense.

Adam wasn’t much different, but he was without the cap, and replacing it was a shock of dark and unruly hair. His face was a little softer too, but he seemed to make up for it by being even more tanky in the body than Duncan.

Before any of the group could continue the conversation, there was the distinctive clicking of a microphone being turned on, and everyone looked around to find a man clambering up onto a chair at the rear of the gym. He looked a little on the older side, but still healthy and sharp eyed. The type of guy who’d tell witty and interesting stories at a large wedding.

“Hello everyone, sorry for all this confusion. I’m happy to say that the University doesn’t appear to be in any… immediate danger,” he said with a tone that was just a little too cheerful. “We all ask that you be patient while the staff try to get an understanding of the situation we find ourselves in. What I can tell you right now is that we are running on backup power generators situated within the university grounds. We are not receiving power from the outside world.”

“Yeah and what world is that?” Duncan called loudly over the heads of the thousands sitting in the gym.

This couldn’t be everyone from the university either, I was willing to bet that many of the larger spaces on campus were full of people being given similar news.

Laughing nervously, the older staff member pursed his lips before speaking. “Aha, I see we have a joker in our midst. We uh, can confirm that we are not just cut off from the power grid itself, but rather we do not appear to have any contact with the outside world at this time.”

That got a reaction, people started speaking immediately, checking their phones and getting very agitated. The noise was overwhelming as people began to collectively lose their minds.

“Shit, I didn’t even think to check my phone!” Grace blurted, going for her small handbag.

The Bray and I did the same, while the four we’d just connected with all shook their heads.

“You won’t get reception,” Kelsey said, wiggling the phone in her hand. “I tried when this shit first started up. It’s like I’m connected to something, I can see I have bars, but I can’t send anything, can’t call. No internet either.”

I felt my stomach bottom out at her words. What the hell was happening that the internet was down for everyone? Was the world really under attack from aliens as Bray had suggested? Had I not seen the night sky at all when I looked up through the glass of the Pyramid, had I actually seen some sort of huge alien starship like from independence day?

My normally overactive imagination went into stunningly vivid overdrive as it rushed through scenario after scenario. In the end though I had one question in my mind, why were they keeping us inside. The evacuation points were all outside the buildings.

When I refocused, I found I had been staring at the guy with the mic. He appeared to be talking to someone. A middle aged woman with a clipboard was speaking furiously, her gestures wide and erratic, then she handed the clipboard to the man and rushed away.

The older guy stared at that clipboard for a long time, still as a statue. His expression was of someone who had to deliver the news of a death to someone he’d never met, and I suddenly felt empathy for the man. He had some shitty news to give us, and he was going to be the focal point of whatever reaction the room of thousands had.

“Students, tutors… professors,” he began at last, drawing the attention of the gym with his solemn tone. “As the young man earlier pointed out, I am afraid to say that the world beyond the premises of this University is... gone. Simply gone. I’ve seen it for myself, the roads end in forest, the sky holds strange stars.”

He was interrupted by the room once again erupting into a cacophony of voices. Everyone calling out to the man. He braced himself on his chair, like he was standing in the face of gale force winds.

“Please, everyone,” he called out, shouting over the top of the noise with the help of the soundsystem. “We will show you soon, none of us expect you all to believe such wild claims until you have seen it yourselves. I implore you though, please remain calm, it is important to everyone’s survival that we remain calm in this crisis.”

The large gym full of terrified people didn’t listen. Pandemonium erupted as people shouted and argued. Some made for the door, pushing past the ill equipped security guards stationed there. It was chaos. Even the staff running the show seemed to be taking the news badly, rushing over to the man who’d just made the announcement. The way people were pushing for him, I’d be surprised if he lived through the night without a broken bone or two simply from the crush of people.

Everyone was standing now, the crowd moving and undulating worryingly. I had to clamp down hard on my rising fear, I didn’t want to be in this place anymore. There were too many scared, angry people. The conflict around me was like a physical miasma, spreading like a disease through the massed people. I flinched when someone nearby started swearing loudly, the unmistakable tone of anger in his voice pooling in my gut as an anxious churning.

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Grace yelled over the noise, indicating the seven of us in our group and getting a round of emphatic agreement. Oh thank fuck.

“Our dorm room is on the uni grounds!” Bray said quickly. “We can get back there and lock ourselves in for the night! Wait until everything calms down!”

“You’re alright with us coming too?” Melody asked fearfully as she was jostled from behind.

Both Bray and I nodded, and Grace motioned to one of the now unmanned doors. “Let’s go!”

The two larger guys took point without a word, just grim expressions as they made a path through the terrified crowd. We pushed through the arguing masses, and I was alarmed, but not surprised, to see fists beginning to fly as a group of frat guys got physical with each other. Shit, I really hoped the university could get this under control or people were going to get hurt.

A security guard who was bleeding from a broken nose tried to stumble into our path, but Duncan just shook his head and gently but firmly moved the smaller, older man out of the way. I felt a small flicker of a smile as I saw the move, happy that Duncan hadn’t hurt the man. He could have done a hell of a lot of damage, even his hands were huge.

We all breathed a sigh of relief as soon as we made it out of the gym. Seeing so many people arguing and fighting like that made me all kinds of uncomfortable. Bray noticed my reaction to getting out of that place, giving me a knowing smile and a pat on the arm.

Moving forward past the two big guys, he waved his hand forward. “This way guys.”

We followed, the way to our dorm taking us down a few dark corridors before we could exit the building we were in. It looked like the University was conserving power by shutting it down everywhere that didn’t currently need it. Darkness in a place that should have been well lit just added to the atmosphere of crisis, that feeling you get when things have gone strange and normality has been thrown out the window.

“Didn’t like it back in there huh?” Grace asked, sidling up next to me.

“No, I didn’t,” I replied, giving her an appraising look, wondering if she’d laugh at me. I felt like I could trust her though, so I explained further. “I get really anxious around people who are fighting. Verbally or physically. It’s just, I don’t know. I hate it.”

“That’s kinda sweet,” she replied, giving me an odd look. “Too many people relish conflict for the sake of conflict these days.”

“Maybe, but it seems like I’m definitely the odd one out,” I grimaced. “Guys aren’t meant to be… well, weak like I am, I guess.”

“Yeah well, guys who act like guys are supposed to act are kinda shit, so no harm done there,” she chuckled, giving me a playful nudge with her elbow.

I was surprised when my subconscious mind didn’t flinch away. That’s odd, there weren’t many people who I could be casually physical with. I had my father to thank for that, and the dislike of conflict. It’s hard not to flinch around raised voices when that used to mean pain or worse.

“Holy shit,” one of the girls said from up ahead, and both Grace and I glanced up to see we were stepping outside.

Everyone had stopped to stare up into the sky, so I had to push around them to get a good look. What I saw took my breath away. It wasn’t just a line. It took me a few seconds to even parse what I was looking at, the view was so utterly strange. High above us was a strip of land, entire continents visible it was so vast, oceans and seas glittering around them, the rim on either side encrusted with brilliantly white ice sheets.

It must have been thousands, or hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, stars twinkling brightly on either side. Descending down towards the horizon, the strip of land curved and began to widen until was eventually hidden in its own shadow, only barely visible past the cutoff point as it connected with the land we stood on now.

“Are we… are we on a fucking ring world?” Melody asked, her tone breathless and excited.

“This is totally a ring world! We just got schwooped up onto a damn ring world!” Kelsey answered mirroring her friend’s excitement, her hand reaching out to grasp at Melody’s arm.

I wasn’t making the mental leap to acceptance as well as they were. I was stuck on a pair of words. How and why. How and why had we been… schwooped onto this world? The entire university too! What were we going to do? The chances of us being able to even eat the plants on this world were slim, and what about predators, and the people who built this place?

“Why?” I asked finally, my voice dry with worry. “Who did this, and what are they going to do with us?”

The girl’s excitement dimmed drastically with my words, and we all exchanged worried looks. Anyone who just abducted an entire University probably didn’t have the best intentions for us. Were we lab rats, were they going to study us, or were they simply collecting us?

“Definitely time for that dorm room,” Bray muttered, his eyes downcast like he didn’t want to look up.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Grace agreed, motioning for Bray to keep leading the way.

We all began moving again towards the dorm room, but much more slowly as everyone kept glancing up into the sky. The girl’s excitement was resilient and began to return almost immediately, and I found myself enjoying it. It was nice to hear excited voices rather than worried, scared, and angry voices like back in the gym hall.

“I don’t see a sun, so this isn’t like, a Niven ring or whatever. I think it’s more of a halo style one, and we’re orbiting a normal star,” Melody said thoughtfully, staring up into the sky and almost walking into a bollard in the process. Luckily Kelsey was paying attention and pulled her friend out of the way of the impact.

“We could figure it out, Avonside has the tools to do it easy, and the people who know how,” Kelsey said, giggling at her friend’s clumsiness as she continued to steer her.

“I like that it’s a ringworld with a sunset! We’re going to get a sunset! Wait, unless it doesn’t rotate and we’re stuck on the night side of the world forever,” Melody said, looking suddenly worried again.

I grimaced as she voiced her thoughts and I took a few even breaths before tried to smile. “That’s a worrying thought, I’d better mentally add it to the growing list of shit titled, ‘Things that will keep me from sleeping tonight.’ ”

“Oh, I have no hopes of sleeping tonight,” Grace groaned, her gaze finding that glowing blue and green arch of land above us again.

“Neither, but my sleeping pattern is fucked from playing games all night,” Bray said with a self deprecating grin. Damn, what a bunch of jokers we were.

The walk continued in silence for everyone except Melody and Kelsey, who got increasingly wild with their speculation. I had to raise an eyebrow when they got into eldritch gods and tuned them out.

Avonside University was massive, one of the largest tertiary education establishments in the region by total enrollment, although not one of the most prestigious. Because of the large number of people who went here, it also had one of the physically largest campuses around. Built in what had originally been a small town, Avonside had enjoyed having a large amount of land at its disposal, with large sporting grounds and the city botanical gardens surrounding it on all sides.

I had a feeling that the cut to take us out and put us here had been made somewhere in those gardens and sports fields, where the earth could be cut out without taking any half buildings or streets with it. Which raised the alarming idea that yes, the heist of thousands of people and over half a square mile of land had been calculated and intentional.

Rounding the corner towards our dorm, which was on the edge of campus, we again slowed because of what we saw. Which was nothing. No city lights beyond the parks and sports fields, no haze of light pollution, and definitely no city buildings. I’d been right. Barely visible in the darkness beyond was a dense temperate looking forest, the trees swaying in a light breeze. It was odd how calm the scene was, given what it meant for us.

“They just cut the uni out in a big circle!” Adam said, giving a slightly manic laugh. “Holy shit they just… cut a circle out of the Earth and dumped it here.”

Kelsey noticed something else, saying, “Those trees look like trees from Earth.”

“Wait you’re right! They do...” Melody replied, her voice slowing down as she began to think furiously.

“Hopefully we can survive here then, at least if the alien space bats don’t kill us all first,” Grace remarked from next to me.

“Maybe the alien space bats are nice, you never know,” I joked, glancing sideways down at her.

“What like, fuzzy fruit bats or something?” she laughed, and I idly noticed that her smile was almost always lopsided, one corner of her lips always higher than the other. It was a nice smile.

“We should call them like, alien space flying puppies or something if they’re nice,” I nodded, feeling a smile of my own tugging at my mouth.

“Batronauts,” she offered back.

“Fuzzy Batronauts,” I agreed.

“Come on you two, let’s go inside,” Bray grumbled, making shooing motions towards the door of the building.

The building itself was fairly new, having been constructed only a few years prior in order to meet the rising demand for student housing. As with most of the western world, finding a place to rent off campus was getting harder and harder as housing prices and rent rose. Originally Bray and I had wanted to find an apartment off the campus grounds after having boarded in a dorm during our first year, but we hadn’t been able to find anywhere we could even hope to afford.

The dorm itself was nice, although the keycard reader wasn’t working so we had to punch the code into the side door with the mechanical lock rather than the powered one. That was another thing, how were we going to generate power? The backup generators could only have so much fuel after all, and they were clearly already struggling to meet the demand of the whole uni.

We entered through the side door and walked out into the main foyer area, then as the lifts were quite clearly dead, we took the stairs. I was a big fan of the modern architecture of this place, except for one important detail. Why in the hell were all the accents on the place bright orange? It looked hideous! Nothing was more jarring that stumbling out of your room at some awful hour of the morning into a hallway painted orange. Especially for that lecture that no one was going to remember because it was so early, but you had to go for the attendance credits.

“We’re on the fourth floor,” Bray said to the group at large, and we stopped when we got there and spilled out into the floor’s common room.

Each floor had a common room with a basic kitchen, a TV that only had shitty channels and a bunch of tables, chairs and couches. Well, I guess the TV wouldn’t have the shitty channels anymore, and I couldn’t say I was too upset about that. Boy was I glad that students were movie and TV show hoarders, those hard drives were going to be worth their weight in gold.

“Alright, now no judging us for the mess,” Bray said with a grin, then pushed open our door.

Our room wasn’t actually all that messy, mainly because Bray was an unconscious neat freak. He never openly said anything, and I wasn’t entirely sure he realised he was doing it half the time, but he would just idly tidy things. Candy wrapper fallen to the floor? Bray would be getting excited over something that happened in a game and just idly pick it up and throw it in the bin. It was a pretty admirable trait if I was honest.

Our room, and all the other rooms like it in the building, was split into three parts, my room, Bray’s room, and a small living area in the middle. Which meant that in reality it was actually three rooms, not one room. It was weird, but I didn’t complain because I liked my privacy, even from a friend like Bray.

The others spilled into the small living area and looked around curiously, finding our coffee maker, our standard issue big couch and our standard issue armchair. It was all rather nice and comfy, especially with all my pillows scattered everywhere. Bray had his game posters, I had my pillows. I liked my pillows.

“Nice place,” Melody commented, immediately walking over to the couch and dumping herself in it.

I disappeared straight into my room and grabbed two towels, taking my used one for myself to dry up while I threw the other clean one to Grace, who had been starting to shiver a little from the cold.

“Thanks,” she said, giving me a surprised but grateful smile.

“No problem,” I said, feeling suddenly awkward for the gesture. I mean, she’d just looked cold from the rain and stuff, that’s all.

Our group settled into the room with a general feeling of weariness. It had been a long afternoon, and we probably all needed time to process what had happened on both an intellectual and emotional level.

It meant that we were cut off from our families, cut off from any friends we had outside this place. Cut off from almost everything we’d ever known. I kept finding my thoughts turning panicked as I thought about it. Would we ever find our way home? People in stories like this almost never did, or if they did it took a long time.

The others were talking as I spiralled into worry again, and I had no idea how long I’d been tuning them out for. I needed to be alone, I needed to see that ring again, and most importantly I needed to think.

I stood up off the floor and muttered something about going out to the balcony. Then pushed the dorm room door open and wandered down the hall until I got into the common room, then made a beeline for the door out onto the balcony.

Pushing it open, I took in a deep breath of the night air, then had yet another realisation. This was probably alien air. Not from Earth at all. It was breathable though, and not just breathable, but sweet and clean in a way I had never experienced in all my life. I guess they kept the environment happy here, or at least filtered it well.

“You okay?” A soft voice asked from behind me as the door creaked.

I turned to find Grace looking at me with an expression of uncertain concern. She was fidgeting with her thumb as she said it, one hand nervously pulling and pushing at it.

I shrugged, unable to figure out what to say, or if I even wanted to voice my thoughts right now. I had worries on top of worries about our situation.

She regarded me quietly for a moment before she joined me at the railing, leaning heavily on the cold metal. “I’m not. This shit is all sorts of anxiety inducing.”

“It is,” I agreed, my eyes drifting up to find the arch that swept across the sky.

“I hope we can get back,” she sighed, her forehead dropping down onto the back of her hands. “I know that’s probably a long shot, but like… I have family you know? Fuck I hope they’re okay.”

“I’m sure they will be,” I smiled, watching the chill breeze tug playfully at her hair. “Whatever is going to happen will probably happen to us, not them. If that’s any consolation.”

“Strangely enough, it actually kind of is,” she said rolling her head to the side so she could grin at me. “I can deal with shit being thrown at me, or at least try. It’s in my control you know? But them being back on Earth, I can’t help them.”

“You like to be in control of your own destiny huh?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Something like that,” she said, giving me a now sheepish, shy smile. “I’m a bit of a control freak.”

“I can understand that,” I nodded. “Succeeding or failing on your own merits. It’s nice. I’ve had to do a lot of that in my life.”

“I get that vibe from you,” she replied, standing up and arching her back in a stretch. Her voice going high and gasping as she continued. “You know, I hear a lot about how nice you are, how cool you are to talk to and stuff, but no one actually knows anything about you.”

I blinked and stared, her shirt had ridden up and I felt a little breathless right along with her. That was some stretch. I quickly looked away and out into the night, desperately trying to crush my thoughts that threatened to spiral down into a hollow sadness.

I didn’t want to be attracted to her, but she kept doing things that drew my eyes or my mind. The way she was being good conversation now, or the way she’d looked when she was pushing the door closed just before all this had happened.

As I stared out into the night, trying to figure out what I wanted to tell her, my eyes landed on something that I should have seen earlier. I squinted and frowned into the darkness, now intent on the portion of the ring that was dark, hidden in its own shadow.

“There’s no lights!” I blurted, turning to her with wide eyes. “There’s no lights on the dark side of the ring!”

“Um, what? What does that mean?” Grace replied, looking confused at my sudden change of subject.

“You’d expect an advanced civilisation who lived on a ring like this to have cities that were visible when the ring was dark, right?” I rambled excitedly. “There isn’t any, and I bet…”

I trailed off as I looked up towards the far side of the ring, really squinting now. It wasn’t much use because it was way too far away, but then I had another thought and moved my gaze to the stars around the ring now. I waited and watched, trying to see if anything moved. No dice, no movement.

“Alright so,” I said almost to myself, my mind working overtime. “There’s no lights that indicate cities on the dark side, and I can’t really tell from here without a telescope or something, but I didn’t see cities on the far side. Then, finally… there’s no lights moving around the ring either, none of the stars are moving. That would have indicated that there’s space ships flying around you know? You’d expect a civilisation living on this ring to have a bustling port somewhere, bringing in resources for the billions that lived here.”

“Wait, are you saying what I think you’re saying?” she asked with a quick intake of breath, clearly understanding what I was getting at now.

“I mean, this is a ring world right, there’s any number of explanations for why any of those things might not correlate to no one living here. It’s speculation,” I said, backtracking quickly. There was so many explanations that meant I didn’t feel as confident as I had just a moment ago.

“No, no, what you’re saying makes sense. I mean, especially the no spaceships thing, who the hell would go to the trouble of making their civilian trade ships invisible or whatever?” she asked, taking what I’d said and running with it.

“Maybe, I mean they might just be really conscious about light pollution,” I shrugged, smiling despite myself. That sounded silly even to me. Who would get that into reducing light pollution of all things.

The smirk she gave me told me what she thought of that idea. “Yeah, that makes sense. Batronauts would hate light after all, being nocturnal.”

I loved that this was turning into a running joke between us, and it helped lighten my anxious mood considerably. It was hard to fear what was going to happen to us when we joked about them being bats who were scared of light pollution after all.

“Completely makes sense,” I nodded, fully grinning now. “I guess we should go and survey the ring for fruit trees to figure out if they are fruit bats or not.”

“And if there’s no fruit trees, but tons of big dumb herd animals, we’ll know we’re fucked,” she laughed, then shook her head and gave me a playful tap on the arm.

Oh, vampire bats! She had a point, maybe we were food?

“Especially if we find a bunch of husks, drained of all their blood!” I gasped in mock horror, placing the back of my hand to my forehead and pretending to swoon.

“Fear not, sweet maiden. I will protect you, your valiant knight in shining armour,” she replied with an expression that was probably supposed to be stoic, but was instead a sort of grimace as she failed to contain her grin.

“Oh, thank you!” I said in a falsetto, pretending to fan myself.

There was a part of me that wilted at her unknowing joke, but I tried to shrug it off, tried not to think about how much I wanted this little joke to be my reality. I found my mood wavering, but intact, I was still smiling, still enjoying our playful banter. Phew.

We grinned at each other in silence for a few moments, I liked watching the amusement dancing in her eyes. Again I had to remind myself that I was most definitely not her type, despite wanting to be that type. She was just… cool. She was nice, I already felt like I got along with her. Funny how I kept telling myself I didn’t know who I was attracted to, and then someone would come along who made me question if I was just lying to myself. I’d never really find out though, which made me feel… well, not good.

“Well at least there’s one good thing to come out of this shit so far,” she said quietly, interrupting my thoughts. “I made a friend.”

I smiled, feeling a comfortable weight settle into the moment. “You did, and I think I did as well.”

“It is generally a two way street, yeah,” she remarked with good natured sarcasm.

I could do friends. That had some of the fun, some of the benefits. I could still enjoy her company the way I was now, I could still make her laugh and smile with my jokes. Friends was good.

We were still in the process of smiling at each other when Kelsey stuck her head through the door. “Hey guys, Bray found food, just junk food stuff but yeah, wanna eat?”

“Sure,” Grace and I agreed at the same time, earning an eye roll from the messenger.

“Come on then,” she chuckled, turning and heading back to the room with the two of us in tow.

The next few days at Avonside University were chaos. Most people didn’t know what to do, they hid themselves as we had, or they argued and ranted at each other, or they turned to violence and worse. One of the frat houses burned to the ground, thankfully a standalone building so the rest of the university didn’t catch fire too. A security guard was killed during the first night defending the cafes as they were raided for food.

A group of particularly angry, scared individuals even pillaged various areas of the university for supplies and then escaped into the wilderness. They apparently thought their chances were better out in the wilderness than with the chaos in the university.

Our group did what we could to survive, getting wind that one of the dorm cafeterias was giving out food, we went there and got the meager portions they were giving out. We stuck together though, the seven of us, that was the main thing. We all knew we needed each other, safety in numbers and all that.

One terrifying night however the need for safety was proven awfully true. A group of drunk guys tried to get into our room, apparently Melody had been dealing with a stalker for the past year. He was a guy whose unwanted advances she’d rebuffed and he hadn’t taken it well, harassing her ever since.

On that night he decided that the chaos was his chance, talking his friends into helping with an attack on our room. Adam, Duncan and Grace stopped them, putting the awful people down with almost terrifying levels of brutality. We all knew what they had intended, and seeing Grace repeatedly stomping on the ringleader’s gonads had been almost satisfying.

Almost, because of my stupid problems with violence, it had turned me into a wreck. I hated that I’d been so powerless to help, but I’d known that if it had been me who had needed to stop them, I would have failed miserably on many levels.

We got through it though, and on the morning of the third day, gunshots rang out across the campus for several hours. The few campus police and security were cracking down on the wanton violence with deadly and efficient force of their own. It wasn’t pretty, and I was almost certain that during the fighting people were injured or killed who hadn’t done anything wrong.

A lot of people had been hurt during these few days, but then a semblance of order returned when staff came around towards the end of the morning, slowly gathering everyone for an announcement. We were corralled onto one of the sports fields, every single person in Avonside who wasn’t with the people now in charge.

A stage had been set up, the security and cops standing around it looking menacing with their guns. I felt unease building within me, the way everyone was wary of each other. We could all see people who’d done some nasty shit over the past couple of days, and now we were expected to stand next to each other and listen to someone speak without trying to settle grievances on the spot.

Adam and Duncan were all sorts of puffed up, and I knew that Grace had slipped one of Bray’s decorative knives up her sleeve. No one trusted anyone at the moment, that was for sure.

“Hello everyone, thank you for cooperating in coming here,” a woman’s voice said from up the front, her voice was considerably more authoritative than the old man who’d spoken to us in the gym.

We all turned to see a woman in her fifties standing on the stage in front of the microphone. She looked intimidating to say the least, every bit the ball busting female CEO of a movie, and with a start I realised that’s who she was, minus the movie part. She was the woman in charge of this whole place.

“We can all see that our lives have changed,” she said, pointing into the sky where the sun was about an hour away from the midday dimming.

As the sun rose on the first day we had discovered that the ring did indeed spin, both for spin gravity and on the yaw axis to give us a day and night cycle that was almost twenty four hours long.

Continuing after a deep, solemn breath, she said, “Many of you did not take this well, many of you turned on each other, on the university. Let us be clear right now, those of you who committed minor crimes, you will not be punished. We understand that this has been a trying and stressful time, and that can lead to mistakes. However, those of you who went further… you will be punished severely.”

Several people in the crowd tried to make a break for it, bystanders moving out of their way with fearful expressions. It was obvious why they were running, and security guards moved in like hunting dogs. Scuffles broke out, quickly ended by the threat of death at the end of a gun. It was shocking, terrifying to see for someone like me. I’d seen more violence than most, but never like this. The violence I’d experienced in my life had been personal, not institutional and impersonal.

I felt a hand come to rest softly on my back, and I turned to see Bray looking at me, again with that knowing, understanding look. I gave him a weak smile, trying to convey that I was okay, but he didn’t believe it for a moment. Giving my back a quick pat, he turned back to the stage as the woman in charge began to speak again.

“Now that that unpleasantness is dealt with, hello students, tutors, professors and staff. If you do not know me, I am Patricia Rogers, CEO of Avonside University,” her voice was sure as she spoke, until a pause, her voice gaining a wavering tone. “As you have all realised by now, through some means we do not have a hope of understanding, we have been transported here, to this unknown world.”

She looked saddened as she spoke, and I realised that just like everyone else she’d lost everyone from her life. Everyone except the people gathered here. I was still wary of her, but I felt a degree of empathy for her and everyone else. This was a whole huge shitty situation.

Returning to a more lecturing tone, she began to tell us about the world we found ourselves in. “It is a ring world, something we thought of as a science fiction myth until now. While Avonside was embroiled in the strife over the past few days, the researchers we have on campus have been at work. We now have both some information and some hypotheses for you all. The ring is close to three hundred thousand kilometers in diameter, this is about twice the diameter of jupiter, for those needing a frame of reference.”

Holy shit! That was massive, that was so damn massive. That was probably bigger than someone could walk around in their lifetime by a long margin. Sure, it might not be niven ring size, but it was still beyond enormous.

“There also appears to be other inhabitants on the ring, at least on the other side of the ring. These people however, from what our telescopes are able to see do not appear to be nearly as advanced as we are. They live in large rural populations, with cities being small by our standards.”

So we weren’t alone, but not in a batronauts way, but in a… what, medieval culture way? Were the batronauts actually batroknights?

“As for the environment, the plants directly adjacent to the University grounds appear to be biocompatible with human life. There appears to be birds and rodents living in the forest. The air is breathable, the soil is compatible with our crops. In short, the environment here is one that is alarmingly familiar.”

“This information, along with more I will not discuss now, leads us to some double edged conclusions. The first is that whoever put us here meant for us to survive on this world, however... they also meant for us to survive here for a long time. There will be no going back to Earth, our home, for the foreseeable future,” she said, ending her monologue with a grave expression.

The crowd was predictably agitated by this news, and I saw Grace’s expression collapse into one of worry, probably for her family back home. Surprisingly, Duncan began to cry, Adam placing a comforting hand on the large man’s shoulder. Oh right… Duncan had mentioned a fiancée during the last few days, his childhood sweetheart. Fuck. That was rough.

Opposite to Duncan, Melody and Kelsey looked almost relieved, leaning on each other and smiling, their hands clasped tightly together as they had a whispered conversation. Catching me staring, Kesley looked away with a sheepish expression while her cheeks reddened in embarrassment. Alright, I could see why they had been so close all this time then. I gave her a smile, then looked away to give them some privacy.

“Well shit,” Bray said with a snort from next to me. “Guess I don’t have to go home during the break.”

“Yeah me neither,” I said with a smile that quickly grew to a grin. I didn’t really have a home to go back to, not for a long time.

We’d all had time to process our situation over the last few days while all the rioting and shit happened. I didn’t mind one way or another. Bray was most upset by the lack of internet and his inability to play the multiplayer games he loved.

The commotion in the crowd took almost a minute to die down, and when the CEO again stepped up to the mic, everyone slowly fell silent.

Her tone was grave as she began to speak once more, “With this knowledge, Avonside gives each and every one of you a choice. It’s a harsh one, but it is one you must make. You can stay here in the university and work together with us all to survive, doing your part to make that goal a reality, or... you may leave. If you choose to leave, you will be given basic supplies to help you on your way, but nothing more.”

This again caused yet another commotion as people found issue with what she said, or turned to their friends and began to discuss their options.

“What do you all want to do?” Grace asked our group, beginning our own version of that same discussion.

“Stay,” Bray said quickly, Melody and Kelsey both nodding along with him.

“I’d like to stay too,” Adam agreed gruffly, Duncan making a sniffling grunt of affirmation along with his friend. Poor guy.

All eyes turned to me as I quickly thought through the options. I was worried, the way the CEO and security had handled this situation stank of authoritarianism, and that was bad news for everyone. On the other hand… the wilderness was unknown and would be incredibly dangerous. Which did I choose?

Making my decision on the basis that I really liked the people standing with me, I gave them all a smile and murmured, “Stay.”

They all returned the expression, even Duncan who looked… well, like he’d lost his wife to be. These were good people, we could survive whatever power hungry bullshit the University pulled if we stuck together. It was almost like we were a new family, forming due to this crisis. We had each other’s backs.

After the huge assembly we were all asked to stay and talk to staff members with clipboards who sat at folding desks nearby. No one could leave before we had gotten their approval. I was more than weary at first, thinking this was going to end up being awful for us in some way, but the reason for it soon became clear and I relaxed with relief.

They were taking a census. Specifically a census of who’d been taken along with the university and where they were currently staying, but more importantly everyone’s skills. Knowing the capabilities of who would be staying at Avonside was beyond necessary, as it would be the make or break for us as a community.

A point of contention came up quickly, the census staff member wanting to reassign us all to different rooms, and we all flat out refused. We demanded to stay in the same room, but the guy was adamant that it wasn’t an efficient use of space or some shit like that. The compromise came when he agreed to put us in a larger room that would be able to house all seven of us well, if not comfortably.

It was easy sailing after that, Bray’s metalworking hobby was of particular note to the census guy. Grace’s time growing up on a farm would also be helpful for the coming need to plant crops. Duncan had been doing a class in plumbing, hoping to get an apprenticeship at some point. The census guy perked up considerably when I mentioned I was interested in environmental sciences, more specifically studying ecology.

He told me right then and there that I’d be needed to help study the ecology of the region to find plants and animals that were safe for humans to eat and would provide the nutrients we needed. It sounded interesting, except I had to stress that I wasn’t even there yet, only in my second year and beginning to diversify out of general science classes. Shit, I still had classes with Bray who was keen on diving into the science of metallurgy or whatever it was called.

Regardless, I was told to report to a classroom tomorrow along with Grace, Melody, Kelsey and Adam. We’d all be working together apparently, Grace and I being in charge of whatever this team was while the other three would be helping us. Bray and Duncan would be going off to the workshops to do something there, I guess helping with constructing power generators I think, since that required both plumbing and metalworking.

When we were done, we were given a new room to move all of our stuff into, as well as a little piece of paper that we were meant to take to a place that would give us more beds and other stuff. I was kinda hopeful about this, we’d been taking turns in the beds the last few days with the rest of us using the pillows to make nests in an attempt to get comfortable. It hadn’t really been the greatest, so the idea of us all getting mattresses was a welcome one.

“What do you think they’ll be having us do tomorrow?” Melody asked as we delivered our stuff to the new room we’d been given. It was basically just a classroom, but we also had some dividers for a little bit of privacy.

“I’m not sure, it could be a few things, although my best guess would be going out to collect samples of plants and especially things that look edible,” I replied, thinking for a moment.

“Oh yeah, that makes sense. Food will be a concern for sure,” she said, dumping the pillows on the floor in our new room.

With our current load delivered, we turned and began the trek back through the campus to our old room. The two rooms were almost half the campus apart, and even though we’d been going since early afternoon, it was taking forever to move everything. The others were all fetching things from places around the uni that we’d need for our new little home.

Melody and I were moving the last remaining small items as the sun began to set. It would pass below the rim of the world soon, plunging our side of the ring into the dark of night. It was kind of amazing to see and think about. A damn ring world! We were on a ring world!

We chatted idly as we walked, and the topic of Kelsey came up. My curiosity won out and I rather awkwardly asked, “So uh, you and Kelsey…?”

“Me and Kelsey?” she asked, although I could see a flush expanding across her features.

“Um, I just noticed you’re... really close,” I said, feeling my own embarrassment warming my cheeks. I shouldn’t have asked, it was rude of me.

“Oh uh, we…” she started, then immediately trailed off. “It’s complicated. We were roommates during freshman year, but we knew of each other before then. Uh… I guess we kinda sorta got feelings for each other? But both our families were super awful and homophobic, so we agreed to just… not do anything about it you know?”

“Ah,” I nodded, understanding now why they had looked happy when we were told we might not ever be going home. “So now that we’re stuck on this ring world and cut off from home…”

The smile she gave me when I mentioned that little piece of information was enormous, genuine and shy. “Yeah, exactly.”

“That’s cool!” I said, feeling my heart swell a little with happiness for the two of them. “Well, if anything happens I’m with you. Got your back or whatever, for what little that is worth.”

“Thanks,” she grinned, her cheeks rosy with happiness. “And it’s worth a lot, don’t put yourself down! You might not be muscles mcstompynuts like Grace or the other guys, but you’re the brains. You’ve been figuring out stuff faster than Avonside has been telling us!”

“I have a feeling it’s in Avonside’s best interest not to tell us everything they know,” I grimaced, thinking about what they might have found out that would make things worse if everyone knew. “But thanks for the compliment.”

“You’re welcome, now let’s get moving, it would suck to keep carrying shit in the dark,” Melody replied, picking up her pace.

The night passed quickly after that as we finished moving everything over and organised our new room. Bray stuck his posters up all over the walls and I created a sort of communal area with an older couch, some old chairs and all my cushions everywhere. Someone even found a beanbag from somewhere, completing the cozy little room.

We’d used the partitions to make separate sleeping areas for the girls and the guys, which of course drew attention to the fact that I was one of the guys, not the girls. My stomach wrapped itself all up in depressed knots over that, and the others noticed but no one could figure out how to cheer me up. Not that they didn’t try, oh how they tried.

We got food from one of many cafeterias that had been set up around Avonside, everyone flocking to them at dinner time to finally get a good meal. Unfortunately, we were told there was already rationing in place because so much food had been stolen, eaten or spoiled during the chaos of the first few days that our supplies were looking grim.

The university didn’t hide this fact either, they openly said that food would depend on how hard everyone worked in the coming days and weeks. We’d need to move fast if we wanted to survive into the monthly range.

The next morning, we all moved off towards our first day of working, and it was strange, but I found myself getting excited. We were essentially colonists now, just like in all the sci-fi books I had consumed voraciously since I had learned to read. While I had issues with conflict, this whole deal was starting to feel alarmingly like an adventure, and if there was anything I had it was a love of discovering the unknown.

I used to run around in the woods out the back of my house, partially to get away from my constantly arguing parents, but also because I was playing explorer. Mapping out new areas of the forest, building little huts, pretending to farm. All sorts of dumb little games of make-believe. Except now my dumb little games were very, viscerally real.

The room we’d been directed towards was a lecture hall that already had several hundred people in it. At the front was a professor who I recognised as being from the biology department. She was messing around with one of those old projectors, frowning as it failed to start before she gave up and surveyed the growing crowd.

The five of us who were going to be working together all seated ourselves near the middle and waited for the professor to speak.

About ten minutes later, when the room was full, she stepped up and cleared her throat, waiting for the chatter to die down. “Hello everyone, thanks for coming. I’ll cut the crap, we don’t want to waste daylight. We need everyone here to go out into the wilderness directly surrounding Avonside and collect samples of the vegetation for analysis. Specifically, we’re looking for plants that might be edible, because we sure as hell don’t have enough food right now.”

Aha, I’d been right! I felt a little pride for a moment that I’d guessed correctly.

The room was silent as she paused to sweep her gaze over the crowd. Satisfied that we were all paying rapt attention, she kept talking. “You’ll be going out in groups, if you don’t have a group, you’ll get assigned to one. We want at least one biology student, tutor or professor in each group, so please make sure this is the case before heading out. You’ll be given the necessary tools for the job, including a field guide that we think might help. Please make sure not to touch anything directly too, we don’t know if anything is poisonous or not.”

She kept talking after that, giving us a quick rundown on what our duties were and how to collect samples, all that stuff. Then she directed us to come up in groups and collect our kits. Once we were equipped, she gave us a direction to walk in and that was that. Go forth and find food. The directions we’d been given had us moving out and up towards a low ridgeline, one of several in the large valley.

“Of all the places that Avonside had to get plopped down into, it had to be a fucking mountainrange,” Melody complained as we stared up into the forested hill that was our destination.

“Hey, on the plus side, you’ll get some great thighs out of all this,” Grace laughed, giving Kelsey a wink. “I can think of someone who’ll enjoy that.”

“Alright no. No teasing,” Kelsey grumbled, shaking a joking finger back at her.

Grace just raised an eyebrow before turning and heading off towards the treeline. Time to get to work I guess. Saving the the people of Avonside University, one plastic bag of random foliage at a time.

The forest was very instantly strange, although it was only Grace and I who picked up on it at first. Avonside had been placed within a wide valley between two huge mountain ranges, the floor of which was covered in one massive forest. A temperate forest like this back on Earth would have had a dominant conifer population of trees like fir and spruce, while broadleaf trees might be ash and oak.

I couldn’t see any of those species in this forest, but what we did see were so similar they might have been the knock off version. Everything was similar to what we knew, but not identical, it was unnerving.

“This is like some sort of strange abstract dream,” Grace said after five minutes of getting weirded out and confused by the forest around us.

“It is,” I nodded, walking over to a nearby tree. “Look at this one, it has the diamond pattern on the bark like a real Ash tree would have, but the leaves are a little too broad and their colour is off. You can see that the wood is too dark to be an Ash tree as well if you look at that recent break there.”

“Yeah. I mean I can’t point to specifics, I’m just a farm girl, but I can see that they’re all a bit different,” she agreed, trailing her plastic gloved fingers down the bark of the tree in question.

“So what you’re saying is that this whole forest is the same as home, but not?” Adam asked, staring around at the foliage.

“Uh, yeah,” I nodded.

“So that means we might be able to find stuff that is similar but not quite the same as something edible right?” he continued, looking excited.

“Yeah, a lot of nuts like this climate, as do berries. Apples, pears, cherries and uh… plums? I can’t remember. I guess I’ll have a look in the field guide thing they gave us,” I said, unsure if I was getting the science right. “Yeah, we might also find sorbs apparently.”

“The fuck is a sorb?” Melody asked with a laugh.

“Uh it’s like, a little fruit. Comes from central europe and stuff, I think it’s kinda gross personally, but the jam and juice and alcohol made from it can be nice,” I explained while I simultaneously racked my brain for information.

“Well let’s go find a Sorb then, what does it look like?” she asked, coming over to get a glance of the book.

I showed them all how to identify all the different trees and plants that might produce something edible and then we spread out, making sure to stay within sight of each other. The forest stayed alarmingly familiar, and I saw what I swear was a full on squirrel stare at us for several seconds before scampering up a tree to hide.

Wait a second!

“Hey everyone!” I shouted. “There’s not-squirrels in the trees with us, keep an eye out for where they are, there’s probably food around that they’re eating!”

“Oh snap, good point!” Grace called back, giving me an impressed smile.

While I tried not to bask in the fact that I had impressed her, I got to work hunting for squirrels. Pretty soon I was seeing the little critters from time to time hiding in all sorts of trees, but none of them were what we wanted.

“Cherries!” Kelsey exclaimed and we all turned to see her pointing off further into the forest.

Sure enough, there was a smattering of cherry trees in the middle of fruiting. This was… wildly convenient. We all hurried over to look at them. They were more orange than red, but they seemed to be well… basically just your average cherry otherwise.

We collected a few, marked down an approximate location of the trees on a map we’d been given and then continued onwards. We found many more edible Earth analogue plants on our expedition, from mushrooms to walnuts. Our biggest find was a grove of apple trees that didn’t even try and give a pretense of being different. They were literally just apple trees, and it took all my powers of persuasion to keep Adam from just snacking on one. It might be a trap after all, planted by the bats to poison us.

It was getting late by the time we finally stepped out of the forest and onto one of the fields that was now the boundary between Avonside and the wilderness. It had been surprisingly fun to wander around the woods with these people, I’d gotten to know all of them a lot better already than I ever would have if all this hadn’t happened.

After we turned everything in and walked wearily back to our room to hang out before dinner, we were met by a confused Duncan and a Bray who looked… agitated. Oh no, had our luck run out?

“What is it?” Grace groaned, seeing Bray’s expression.

Bray wiggled from side to side for a second before he blurted. “So you know how we’ve all been like, hanging out and protecting each other as a group or whatever. Like we’re all friends and stuff and… yeah. Whatever you want to call it right?”

“Yeah?” I asked, trying to prompt him to get to the point before my anxiety levels rose to astronomical proportions.

“So I made these, to show that we’re like, a group. I don’t know what you want to call it, but we’re us…” he said in a rush, his hand shooting out to show us what he’d been clutching behind his back.

In his palm sat seven little rings made out of a silvery metal, they were fairly simple but I could make out initials that had been scraped into the metal. It looked like he’d tried to size them a little too.

“You made us rings?” Melody asked, stating the obvious.

“Yeah, I mean I know it’s kinda lame, but I wanted… well… yeah,” he said, obviously feeling embarrassed about it.

Before he could double back on the offer I stepped forward and picked up the one with my initials on it and grinned at him. “These are awesome, thanks Bray!”

There was a round of agreement from everyone, and they all crowded around Bray to get their corresponding ring. Bray had made it so that it wasn’t a full loop and they could be bent to better fit our fingers and I got mine to fit on my middle finger.

“This is a cute idea,” Grace smiled, looking down at the ring on her own finger.

“Yeah, we’re like a crew or something,” Melody nodded, trying and failing to bend her ring smaller. Adam moved over to help, his big hands making short work of it.

“A family,” Kelsey said quietly, glancing between us all nervously. “That’s what we are now right? We have each other’s backs and stuff. Like, I know we don’t actually know each other very well as a whole but… I like you guys. You’re pretty great, and the way we’ve stuck together makes me feel far safer and happier than anything my old family ever did… so yeah, if we’re stuck on this world… then we should all be a family.”

For reasons I didn't understand, my eyes sought out Grace. She already had a family she loved, what did she think of this? Her expression was pensive, maybe a little sad as she watched the group talking. I hoped she would be okay with all this, it wouldn't work without her.

“That’s a commitment,” Adam mused somberly, then shrugged. “But fuck it, I think you’re all great so yeah.”

“My family back on Earth is pretty average, annoying to deal with and they don’t really get me. You are all way better than that already,” Bray grinned, then looked at me and squinted a little. “Well, except Eli. he’s just… okay.”

“Rude!” I laughed, then toned my expression down to a more serious smile as I said, “But yeah, you’re all pretty damn cool, and I’m already growing attached. I mean, I’ll be totally honest, I have so much to learn about you all, but… I think it would be fun. I like this family idea.”

I was understating how I felt about this pretty considerably. My real blood family was garbage, my father was abusive, my sister had taken a fucking swan dive into far-right lunacy, and calling my mother “a hands off parent” was being generous. Any new family at this point would be a godsend, especially one with these amazing, wonderful people in it.

The others were all behind the idea of being a little family while still acknowledging that yeah, we didn’t really know each other that well, but shit we’d liked each other’s company so far. Even Grace nodded and smiled her agreement to everything we'd discussed, although I thought I saw a flash of something else in her expression.

With our rings all now on, we headed down to dinner, except of course, Grace. Letting the others know that She and I would catch up, I sat down on the couch quietly and watched her. She looked… upset but in a deeper, less explosive way.

She dropped into one of the armchairs with a sigh, shifting to sit sideways so she could look at me and rest her head on the back of the chair at the same time. Her grey-green eyes were full of emotion, silent but still sort of communicating regardless.

“You mentioned you had a family back on Earth, one you loved dearly,” I murmured after a minute or two.

“Yeah,” she whispered, and she didn’t continue for another minute, but when she did her voice was heavy. “I kinda feel bad for accepting this,” she said, holding the ring up that was on her finger. “I feel like I’m betraying them with all this.”

“I thought you might,” I said with a sad smile.

“I don’t want to replace them in my heart, you know? I’m worried that this family thing we have here will do that, rather than being an addition,” she said as she stared at the ring again.

I peered at the ring along with her, watching as she spun it around. What the hell did I say to any of this? What could I tell her that would help?

Giving a small sound of frustration, I murmured, “I wish I had something profound to say that would help… but yeah this isn’t my area of expertise.”

“What isn’t? I thought you were good at being an ear for people’s troubles,” she asked, seeming more curious that accusatory.

I had no idea how I’d gotten that reputation. I’d been to a few parties where there were some sad drunks who spilled their hearts out to me, plus there were a few classmates I used to speak to a bunch on social media who’d vent their frustrations with life in direct messages. It was all just a part of being friends with someone, or so I thought. Maybe I was wrong.

I shook my head. “Ah no, I mean the family thing.”

“Yours isn’t good?”

I shook my head again. I really didn’t want to go into details about it. That part of my life was mercifully over, it had ended when I moved out and went to college. It would never come back either if we stayed on this new world.

Grace watched me for several moments, probably expecting me to elaborate further, and when I didn’t she sighed, then gave me a little smirk. “Well, if they were shit… I guess we all have to be a better one, huh?”

“I’m hoping,” I smiled back, enjoying the genuine concern in her eyes. She had nice eyes, kind eyes.

“Okay… enough moping I guess. I’ll try and deal with my shit, but thank you for being a good friend. A really good friend,” she told me earnestly, pushing herself up out of the seat. “Dinner?”

“Sure.”

“Found another patch of blueberries,” Grace said as she jogged over to me. “It’s starting to feel like this place has just a little too much food you know?”

“Yeah tell me about it,” I replied, looking up at her from where I was digging in the ground with a trowel.

I was pretty sure this plant would have edible roots, but I needed to actually get to them first. We’d been at this survey for a week now, going out every day and finding an abundance of wild food just ready for the taking. It was strange and honestly downright creepy. Whoever had placed us here definitely intended for us to stay alive in the short term.

Things at Avonside had been surprisingly calm after the management gave us all purpose. People were finding a surprising amount of self satisfaction and happiness just doing their jobs and doing them well. We all missed things from before though, shit the psychology students and faculty staff had their work cut out for them just keeping everyone stable.

There were some suggestions floating around from their department about improving morale. Things like holding parties, or getting the codies to hack the cell towers and turn it into a new network for us. They were even talking about building the basis for a new, much smaller internet in the university. Anything to give us all a semblance of our old normal while we adjusted to our new normal. One thing was for certain though, we weren’t going to be starving in the short term.

Stopping my digging for a moment to have a little rest, I laid the trowel on the ground and leaned back. “Did you hear that another team found a field of wild wheat in a clearing yesterday? We’re going to get bread again one day.”

“Yeah it was Jillian’s team. She’s been bragging about it ever since,” Grace chuckled, plopping herself down next to me and offering a handful of blueberries. “These got cleared for eating a day or two ago, and oh my goodness are they good. Nothing like the tasteless shit they sold us in supermarkets back home.”

“Oh really? Yes please,” I said, taking off my glove and then cupping my hand for her to pour them in.

I took the other glove off too, then popped one of the little things in my mouth. It popped when I bit down and a sweet, but also slightly bitter taste filled my mouth. It was good, the flavour was about twice as intense as I was used to from blueberries and my jaw locked up from the sour portion of the flavour.

“Oh wow, you’re right,” I gasped after a moment, before popping another one in my mouth. “When they get that wheat going we’re going to have some fucking amazing pies. All the fruit tastes good around here, it’s crazy… even if they look a little weird.”

“Yeah well the shit back home was bred for looks and size first and flavour second, these are all the more wild variety,” she replied, a grin on her face as she watched me eat the berries.

“Yeah exactly,” I agreed, pointing at the little blue and grey berries in my hand. “I mean I wouldn’t buy these if they were in a supermarket back home. They’d look almost diseased next to the beauty pageant winners that they sold.”

I finished the blueberries by pouring them all into my mouth, then grinned at Grace and proceeded to try and talk to her through my mouthful. All that came out was a set of unintelligible muffled syllables. She laughed, scrunching up her face and turning away with a look of amused disgust.

“That’s gross Eli! Oh my god,” she said with a grin, picking up my gloves and throwing them at me. “Put these back on and let’s get whatever it is you’re digging at out, I saw some odd trees up ahead that I wanted to explore with you.”

I was almost laughing too much to swallow, but I got them down eventually, followed by my gloves. We worked together at the plant in the ground, digging up what eventually turned out to be a whole lot of nothing, much to my disappointment.

“You can’t win them all,” Grace smiled, pushing herself to her feet and stuffing the dirty gloves in her bag before taking out a clean pair.

I followed suit and motioned into the forest. “Let’s see these weird trees of yours.”

“Alright, follow me,” she nodded, and we moved off.

The forest was so peaceful, apart from the odd rapport of a rifle going off in the distance as the hunters carefully stalked their prey. We were being cautious with the hunting side of things from what I heard, aware as we were of the effect of apex predators on a forest.

It was a lesson hard learned back on earth, forests dying out simply because farmers were killing off wolves, which led to an explosion of the animals they had hunted. That explosion led to those prey animals eating all the slow growing little sprouting trees which in turn let grasses and other faster growing plants take over the forest floor, choking out any saplings before they could get a chance to grow. It was a little convoluted, but many forests were in the process of dying out due to this problem.

Because of the huge role that animals played in the health of a forest as a whole, Avonside was making sure not to hunt everything at first, relying on frozen meat from Earth to feed us for now. Portions were low, but until we had an understanding of the local ecology, we didn’t want to go shooting every animal in sight and destroy our hopes of surviving in the long term. I knew I’d rather eat roasts for several years to come than a bunch of roasts now and then none later.

“Here, look!” Grace exclaimed, interrupting my thoughts to point out the tree she’d found.

“Oh, now that is weird,” I breathed, walking closer to the first out of place tree we’d seen so far.

It wasn’t actually a tree at all, but rather a vine that had long since killed its host tree, growing a taproot of its own to continue independently of the original host. That class of vines had a name, but I forgot it in the moment, because I had far more important things to consider, like the fact that its leaves were blue.

They were a lightish grey-blue colour while the bark was a very light pink. All up the trunk were little branches that held fruits, although they didn’t look at all ripe. They resembled kiwifruit in shape and colour, but were smaller and smooth. The whole thing was definitely not something from Earth as far as I knew.

“There’s more, look,” Grace whispered, pointing further into the trees.

She was right, a few more dotted the forest ahead of us. All the same type of vine too, although I saw one with fruit that were larger and reddish in colour. Guessing those fruit were more ripe that the smaller green ones, I grabbed a sample of the small ones then rushed over to get some of the bigger ones.

“Do you think these are properly alien?” I asked, turning the ripe red fruit around in my hand.

“Maybe,” Grace said, glancing around at the trees with wonder in her eyes. “They don’t look like they want to kill us yet, which is nice, but better keep gloves on just in case. I think I’m honestly relieved to find these things, it was almost weirder to find Earth species rather than alien species on this ring, even if it’s helping us to have the familiar stuff.”

“I know what you mean,” I nodded, wholeheartedly agreeing with her sentiment.

I was going to add something more to our conversation, but my thoughts stopped dead in their tracks when I saw something far more incredibly strange than anything else in my life, even the ring world.

One of the plants was moving.

Frantically motioning towards the thing, trying to get Grace to look at it, I watched as the creature moved slowly through the trees.. It wasn’t like the vine-trees, but something else entirely, far closer to a normal plant in colouration. Mostly just brown bark with a few sprigs of green foliage reaching off it. It was also humanoid in shape, the limbs almost comically long compared to its torso.

Glancing over to see if Grace was seeing this and finding her staring with wide eyes, I turned back to the thing. We watched it bend down to touch a shrub, some plant that looked much like any other random forest floor shrub, except that now that I was looking at it, I saw that the stems were entirely black.

The plant creature caressed it with almost infinite care, then waved a hand slowly over the top of it. Green light fell from its open palm like glittering mist to wrap around the shrub, appearing to have no effect.

“What the hell?” I whispered, my mind racing as I tried to find any sort of reasonable explanation for what we were watching.

The plant creature moved through the grove of odd vine trees almost randomly from what I could tell, bending down every now and then to sprinkle strange green light over the top of more of those little shrubs. It looked like it was taking care of them. The plant creature was gardening!

We kept watching, too afraid to move as it drew closer. It was definitely gardening, bending down to pluck weeds out of the ground with gentle ease, getting the entire root system every time. It was a pretty damn good gardener, although I didn’t actually know much about the subject despite my interest in ecology.

“What’s that?” Grace murmured into my ear, her breath trailing across my face. Wow that was distracting.

Following her pointed finger, my eyes widened when I spotted something glowing orange, mostly hidden behind foliage. I took a step towards it, then another. I wasn’t sure what had me moving towards it, but a part of me needed to go to it, to touch it. I wanted it.

As I slowly stepped over towards whatever was glowing orange, the plant creature looked up, its glowing green eyes trailing my path with curious interest. It didn’t seem to mind that we were here, but I made sure not to step on any of its plants anyway. It was just the nice thing to do.

“Eli!” Grace hissed behind me, rushing forward to catch up with me.

“Don’t stand on any of its plants,” I told her idly, my brain all fuzzy now with the call of the orange glow.

“What are you doing?” she asked desperately, trying to pull me back and away from everything, her long fingers wrapping around my forearms.

I felt a frown crease my forehead and I turned to look at her. “Please let go of me.”

“Eli!” she pleaded, worry ruling her expression now as she got a look at me. I don’t know why she was so worried, it was just an orange glow after all. Nothing to be afraid of. “What is going on with you, stop making that weird expression!”

“Please let go,” I sighed, feeling tired more than angry for her trying to stop me. “It’s very annoying, it makes it harder to walk.”

It just did though, why was she making it harder to walk for me? I just wanted to see what the orange glow was.

Before either of us could say anything more, the plant creature was suddenly next to us, gently prying Grace’s hands off me. We both stared at it in shock as it shook its head at her, then motioned for me to continue. It didn’t speak, not even in another language, not even a sound, just the creak of its limbs and the gentle whisper of its leaves.

I turned to look at my friend, her eyes worried and pleading, and for a brief moment I considered stepping back like she wanted. But no… I needed to see the orange glow, I needed to see what it was.

I carefully moved further, pushing the low plants out of the way. I heard Grace following, still trying to convince me to step back, although her words were beyond me now, my ability to process speech had disappeared again.

The glow, when I got close, turned out to be a large fruit, a little larger than a mango, although it shared the same swollen shape and colour. Except, obviously, it was glowing. The plant that bore it was small, only barely large enough to handle the weight of the thing. Little wisps of orange light floated around it, just like the plant creature’s energy stuff. It was beautiful, alluring in a way that made my heart beat wildly with anticipation.

I couldn’t get my gloves off fast enough, and once they were off I threw them haphazardly to the sid, reaching out towards the fruit. My fingertips grazed the soft skin of the thing, then my whole hand closed around it. The clearing seemed to freeze as I clasped the fruit, still attached to the plant that bore it. It like the entire forest was waiting to see what I did next.

I picked it.

Light exploded out in a rush, every colour of the rainbow swirling out and around me as an almost opaque mist, enveloping me in a maelstrom of clashing colours. I felt a pull, not a mental one like before, my mind was terrifyingly clear now. No, this was a physical pull. As though gravity had been warped and bent to some otherworldly will. I fell in towards the fruit, sucked in my extreme forces, and the last thing I saw before my vision went black was an image of Grace. Her expression was one of terror and desperation, her arm outstretched as though to try and save me.

Then the world closed with the sound of branches breaking under high stress, and everything was dark.

I was warm and safe, that’s what I knew, the only thought in my head were those two feelings. Warmth, safety. It was all I cared to know and all I was capable of knowing, my mind was bare and empty. I have no idea how long I was like that, but I didn’t care about the not knowing, I didn’t care about what was before. I couldn’t remember what was before, not really, not on a conscious level.

It’s hard to think when I was asleep after all, not even aware on a base level of even my own name, let alone my life and memories. They were still there though, melding and mixing together in that way that dreams do, picking faces and events almost at random to construct nonsensical narratives.

Slowly though, my mind gathered itself once more, flowing together from the gaseous state it had been in, back to the solid state of full consciousness. My first fully formed thought was this, why is everything so dark? There was a vague orange haze on the inside of my eyelids, but I couldn’t open my eyes, let alone figure out where I was.

I struggled, pushing against the world around me and found it to be liquid, I was immersed completely in some sort of viscous liquid. I panicked, kicking and squirming, my limbs flailing about with the raw strength of terror.

My limbs felt odd though, weaker than I was used to, thinner than I was used to. That counted for my whole body, it just didn’t seem like my body. I couldn’t feel any of the usual features, no body hair as my legs rubbed together inside the liquid, and… oh my god, there was nothing between my legs. I couldn’t feel it when I moved!

I stilled in my struggles, trying to figure out what was wrong with my body. The more I tried to understand what was different, the more confused I became. I needed to get out of wherever I was and get a look at myself, something very strange had happened to me.

I pushed and pushed, finding some sort of soft wall to my prison, and then I pushed against that too. It was tough, resisting my efforts at first, but then in a rush it burst, and I was ejected, the strange liquid pouring forth around me as I fell to the ground.

Exhausted by my efforts, I gasped for air, realising that I also hadn’t been breathing inside whatever that had been. Strangeness upon strangeness though, I hadn’t felt like I needed to breathe at all in there. Shit I was tired though, why did it feel like I’d just climbed a cliff or something?

An older woman’s voice startled my eyes open when she spoke, her tone curious. “Well that is strange, what an odd little discrepancy we have here. Maybe my memory is going after all.”

I couldn’t see her though, my eyes were so clogged with the gunk I had been swimming in. I wiped at them, trying to clear them of the sticky stuff that smelled oddly sweet, but it was to no avail, until I felt a towel pushed into my hands.

“Here, use that dear,” she said somewhat impatiently.

“Thank you,” I murmured, and was almost immediately startled by how my voice sounded. It was much higher than I had ever heard it before, and I felt a sudden little burst of happiness. I wished it sounded like that all the time.

As I towelled at my face, the woman continued to speak. “So please do tell me, because I’m questioning my memory here, but you went into the fruit as… well, a man did you not?”

“What?” I asked, suddenly very confused. Feeling that familiar little spike of sad wrongness, I nodded slowly, “Uh, yeah I’m a guy.” I paused as soon as I was finished replying, frowning now. My voice still wasn’t going back to normal, that was really odd. Could it stay like that please?

I quickly wiped the last of the gunk from my eyes and opened them properly to get a look at who I was talking to. I found a woman standing over me in a brown robe, the bottom of which was covered in dirt and grass stains, like she’d just been gardening when she found me. What was strange was that her hair was a brilliant, metallic white, and her eyes matched the colour. It was eerie.

“My name is Elias,” I said quietly, still in awe of the fact my voice sounded so feminine.

“I imagine that is a male name where you come from, I suggest you find a new one,” she said curtly, giving me a once over again, her eyes running up and down my body.

What was she looking at that was so strange? I mean— Oh. Oh my god. Oh my fucking god. Right in front of my face were two breasts, attached to my body. They were small as far as boobs went, but they were definitely boobs. Beyond the boobs was a small, thin waist, followed by frankly enormous hips. Then came the small tuft of… wait, metallic magenta pubic hair? That was odd. My dick was gone, replaced by the feminine counterpart and surrounded by soft shapely legs.

In short, my body was pretty undeniably feminine. In fact, it looked like it had been wholly replaced. That... explained the voice thing, I guess. I still had my male speech patterns from what I could tell, but those would hopefully fade. I’d always been putting them on anyway, which had been… well, an effort.

“Right… I can see why you’d be confused,” I said at last, my tone far calmer than I felt. “This is definitely not the horse I rode in on.”

“You don’t seem bothered by this,” she remarked with a frown.

“This is kinda what I’ve wanted my whole life, so yeah, not a big deal,” I shrugged, feeling a wide grin forming.

Seriously, like holy shit, was this a dream? I hugged my arms around my naked torso and felt everything moving so deliciously. My arms were small, no testosterone fuelled muscle on them, the skin so soft even through the goop I was covered in. My boobs were so damn soft as my arms compressed them against my body and I felt my newly remade heart flutter as I felt the much larger nipples.

It was so much, too much all at once. I swear my brain was overloading with the euphoric realisation that somehow, some crazy way, I had been given the body I had always dreamed of. I felt tears beginning to roll down my cheeks as emotion overwhelmed me. I was a girl, I was a girl, I was a girl… I was a girl!

“Oh, an emotional response,” the woman said, taking a step back. “I believe you should save any tears for later, as you are currently still covered in the juices of the magefruit. While it may taste sweet and provide many important nutrients, it is also disgusting. Follow me, I will take you to an area where you may bathe.”

Hold up lady, I was still basking in the wonder that was getting rid of that old gross body. I went to stand up anyway, but before I got anywhere I saw something shining in the orange muck around me. It was my family ring, the one that Bray had made! I scooped it up and tried to put it on my finger, but it didn’t have a hope of fitting onto my slender fingers. Bending it wasn’t an option either, I definitely didn’t have the strength.

With the ring clutched in my small hand, I wobbled to my feet and took a step forward, but curiosity turned my head back to see what I had actually fallen out of. Well that made sense, it was a fruit, like the one I had found with Grace but it was huge, large enough to hold… me. It had burst open when I pushed my way out, the flesh of it torn and the inside still half full of the strange sweet smelling goop. Okay yeah, the crazy lady had a point, that was super gross.

I wobbled after the older woman, who was watching me impatiently further down the dirt path. My fruit had been sitting in the middle of what appeared to be a tended grove, although I saw no sign of another fruit like it. Instead the place was bursting with all sorts of wild and strange species.

Some had huge glowing flowers, others were vines that appeared to be climbing a pillar of crystal, or a tree that was entirely translucent. It was a garden of the imagination, because every single plant was one that did not belong in reality, or at least not the reality I was familiar with. The dirt was just dirt though, and I felt it squishing between my pretty, dainty little toes as I walked.

Almost involuntarily, my happiness over this seeming miracle becoming too much to hold within, I gave a giggle of delight and took a few skipping steps. Of course, that was a bad idea because I was not at all used to moving in this body, and stumbled into a tree. Oops! Oh well, I was happy, I could stumble around a little.

“Are you coming, or will you continue to skip your way into the flora?” the older lady grumbled, squinting at me like I was a wayward puppy who’d gotten all muddy while I was playing. Maybe I should roll around in the dirt a little to make that part true?

“Yeah, sorry,” I smiled, her dour attitude doing nothing to dampen the wild euphoria that was carousing around within me.

It wasn’t just happiness though, there was a truly mind boggling number of questions building up. Was this a dream? Where the hell was I? What the hell happened to me? That was just to name a few. Seriously, I’d just been schwooped onto a ring world, and then I was schwooped into a fruit. It was like a story from some author in the 1930’s who was getting way too high on whatever drug was cool at the time. The type of story that was considered some sort of strange classic in today’s era and had no fewer than four movie adaptations already released.

The path merged with a stone one, and then soon enough we were walking towards a large cottage. It was surrounded by a well kept lawn, but none of that was what drew my attention as we left the forest behind. No, it was the sky.

Gone was the ring world, gone were the stars themselves. The sky was a bluish purple in colour, while the sun was a brilliant gold. It was just like the plants in the forest around Avonside, so close to Earth normal, and yet so alarmingly strange at the same time.

“Follow me, you’re not to go inside until you’re clean, I can’t have you tracking magefruit juice and mud through my house,” my guide told me in what I was beginning to suspect was just her usual grumpy tone of voice.

“Yes ma’am,” I chirped, giving her a little mock salute. Giving me another squinting frown in return, she muttered something under her breath and turned down a side path.

“We’re going to find a bath for you, young woman,” she grumbled, clearly put out by my joyful mood.

Too bad for her, because I felt wonderful. My only worry was that this was all some sort of incredibly vivid dream. Please don’t be an incredibly vivid dream! Wait… did she say mage fruit? Did that mean this was all magic? Oh, I really needed to start asking questions. It was bound to annoy her, but whatever, I wanted answers.

I was led into another portion of the wondrously glowing forest for all of about ten meters before she suddenly stopped, pointing a wrinkled finger down a small incline. Oh! Hidden in the trees was a rock pool the size of a large bathtub, carved and smoothed to provide a place to bathe. Clear hot water poured into the bath from a small stream that wound in through the forest. On the opposite side of the rock tub the water flowed out again, continuing the little stream off into the forest.

“This is nice,” I said, giving the older woman an appreciative smile.

“Yes, yes. It’s lovely, now get in,” she grumbled back, motioning impatiently towards the bath.

I did as she asked, carefully making my way down to the edge of the pool. It looked kinda hot, so I tentatively dipped my toe in to test the temperature.

“Ah! Fuck!” I swore, pulling my foot back almost immediately. “That shit is way too hot!”

“Youth,” the old lady grumbled dismissively.

“My body is like ten minutes old!” I complained, frowning up at her.

“Fine, fine. No need to pout at me young Elias. Stupid name by the way. You ought to pick a new one,” she said with a frustrated roll of her eyes. “Let me adjust the temperature.”

She raised her arm and closed her eyes, the air appearing to go strangely still for a moment in anticipation. There was a stir, a breeze and then markings like blue glowing vines twined their way up her exposed forearm. When they reached her hand, a burst of blue light shot out and raced off into the forest, following the path of the stream closely.

“Try it now,” she remarked with the first smile I’d seen on her. It was the smile of someone showing off, but it was still a smile, so good on her!

I tested the water again with my foot and found it to be a much nicer temperature. So with an eager sigh, I slipped in, feeling the grime being almost tugged off me, like the pool was scrubbing me. Oh my, that felt strange.

“Uh, this feels weird,” I called up, then smiled yet again at how cute my voice sounded. There was actually something I liked about the masculine speech patterns funnelled through a high voice that was unmarred by the ravages of testosterone. It gave my voice a husky quality that was pleasing to the ear. It reminded me of a feminine accent from somewhere like New Zealand.

Another roll of her eyes and she nodded. “Yes the pool is spelled to clean you, stop squirming.”

Before I took her advice, I dunked my head under and let it get my face and hair for a moment. Then when it was done, I pushed back above the surface and leaned gratefully into the rock, letting the water clean me off. It had been a long time since I just had a nice relaxing bath.

Closing my eyes, I tried to let myself just sit and process everything that had happened. Magic existed, that was fairly obvious. Magic fucking existed! I wonder if I could try to learn it? I hope this old lady was willing to teach me, because I would be gutted if she wasn’t. She seemed so grumpy though, maybe it would be best to find another teacher?

Unbidden, my last memory of Grace flashed through my mind’s eye, and I felt my stomach drop into the bottom of the pool. Fuck. I had just been pulled away from everyone, all those friends, my new family. My heart took up a dull ache as I began to worry. Would they be alright? Would I ever be able to see them again? I needed to ask questions, but there was so many, where did I start?

“Am I allowed to ask questions?” I called up to her, my voice significantly more sombre than it had been when I was still bouncing around with euphoria.

I heard her grumble in annoyance from up on the bank for a good five seconds before she finally muttered, “Fine, go ahead.”

“Where are we?” I asked, opening my eyes to watch and wait for an answer.

“Excuse me? We are quite clearly in the Nameless Garden,” she frowned, tilting her head curiously at me. “Specifically, we are in my Grove.”

“I don’t know what either of those things are sorry, is the Nameless Garden somewhere on the ring world, or is it different?” I asked, curious now.

“You are remarkably ignorant for someone who found my magefruit,” she said, really frowning at me now, like I was a puzzle to solve now.

I wondered whether I should tell her where I was from. Pretty clearly I wasn’t a native to this place, wherever it was, but more than that I came from a place where magic didn’t exist, as far as I knew. How would she react if I said I was from Earth, from another place or world?

Taking a chance, I began to speak about the past week of my life. “So about a week ago, my University was taken from the city it was in and placed on the ring world. They took everyone, the buildings too.”

“Ah! That is exciting! Wonderful! No wonder the fruit taught you my way of speech. It should work on the accent though, truly strange. Regardless! It has been almost a hundred years since the last time a new people was brought to the ring!” she exclaimed, suddenly walking down the bank towards me.

Hold up, it taught me her language? Oh holy shit I was speaking a different language. How the hell did I not notice that? Fuck, magic was pretty wild.

She stopped at the edge of the pool and dipped her feet into it. I watched the water gnaw away at the mud there until it was gone, washed away out into the stream below. This bath was so damn cool!

“Tell me about the world you came from!” she said, her demeanour completely changed to one of excitement now.

“Uh, it was called Earth. It was smaller than the ring world, but round too, and it had a population of around seven billion people the last I checked,” I said, trying to think of what to say. “Despite what the uh, people used to say, it was a fairly peaceful world, at least by the standards of our own past. We had a good life expectancy in much of the world, entertainment and arts flourished. It was honestly kinda nice now that I look back.”

“But no magic,” she said with a smile, like she’d figured out some sort of ancient mystery.

“Yeah, no magic,” I nodded, then gave her a pleading look. “Can you uh, explain what happened to me now? Also, I have friends to get back to. I don’t know what they think just happened to me.”

“Oh, there is no just about what happened I’m afraid my dear. You’ve been in that fruit for almost forty days,” she said, showing a little compassion for the first time. Forty days? What?

Before I could freak out over that little bomb that she’d dropped on me, she kept speaking. “You found one of my magefruit. You see, when a mage reaches a certain level of power, they are able to make a magefruit. This allows them to gain advantages in the world of magic, how and why is not important at this time however. The real point is, that magefruit must be planted outside the Nameless Garden, which is the plane of existence we are currently in.”

“Right, we’re in a different plane of existence from the ring, got it,” I nodded, my mind very much not having got it, instead exploding like a watermelon that had just met a fifty calibre bullet.

“I doubt it,” she chuckled, but explained further anyway. “If someone picks that fruit, it takes them and transports them to the Grove of the mage who created it. A Grove, by the way, is a pocket realm within the Nameless Garden and also the source of power for a mage. Anyway, they are then cocooned within the fruit and transformed into a mage. This is what happened to you.”

“I’m a mage now?” I blurted, excitement once again bouncing around inside me like a hyperactive bunny.

“Yes. What, you think any old human woman has bright magenta hair like that?” she scoffed, motioning to my hair. “Mages are separate from their original race in many ways, and one of the ways that manifests in us humans is the colour of our eyes and hair.”

I quickly reached up and grabbed at the hair in question, bringing it around to look at. Wow! It was the same colour as my pubes, a kind of dark metallic magenta colour. That was… amazing. I loved it!

“Can I see myself? Do you have a mirror? The water is moving too much for me to see my reflection,” I asked almost desperately.

Wordlessly, the woman flourished her hand into the air, and this time it was markings like silvery shrubs that whispered up her arm. They culminated in a burst of sliver light in her palm, and a mirror appeared out of nowhere in front of me, spinning into existence out of an infinitely small spark. The mirror was large enough to get a proper look at the whole of me, and what I saw took my breath away.

I was stunning. I was beyond stunning. My face was gorgeous, with high, angled cheekbones and infinitely soft skin. My nose was small and perfect in every way, my lips were full but not too full. My eyes were incredible, the same metallic magenta as my shoulder length hair, shining brightly from wide, huge eyes. I was almost scarily good looking.

My body was also amazing, thin, lean and soft, with curves arching everywhere they were meant to be. Funnily enough, like I’d seen before during my first cursory look at myself, my boobs were actually relatively small. You’d think that the horny fruit that made me look this pretty would have given me balloon titties or something. Not that I was complaining, I liked the ones I had now.

“I’m pretty,” I breathed, my hands drifting up to my face in awe.

“You are indeed, it seems my magical essence is strong,” the old lady remarked sounding impressed with herself and getting a confused glance from me. She responded with the shrug of someone who couldn’t be bothered explaining something.

I kept staring at myself in the mirror, tilting my head, moving around and watching the beauty do the same. That was me. That was really me. This was really, actually real, not a dream. I was a girl, through and through, my outside finally matching my inside. It was like I could breathe for the first time in my life, like I’d been struggling with my head only just above water level. Any stray ripple or wave would send water down my throat, choking me and sending me into a panic.

It was more than that though, far more than that. My very mind felt unshackled from the constraints of latent depression and my terrifying future as a man. I’d always just planned to kill myself at some point, although something had always come along to stop me from going through with it.

Something small and dumb most of the time, like a book series that I wanted to see the conclusion to, or a movie I was intrigued by on the horizon. Recently it had been my friendship with Bray, although my new friends had been adding to that, along with the sheer excitement of our abduction.

Now though, now… I was whole and free and unbound from that final awful truth. I was a woman. I was… a woman who needed a damn name. Grumpy lady was totally right.

“You were right, I need a name,” I said, turning to look at her for the first time in minutes.

“I’m sure you’ll think of one,” she said idly, leafing through the book she was reading. Wait, where’d she get the book from?

“Uh…” I hesitated, trying to think of something. I slipped further into the water in thought, frowning at my reflection in the mirror.

What was my name now? I wanted something fun, something that fit with my magical appearance. Oh, I could—

“Rynadria,” the old lady said, her eyes now strangely piercing, like her gaze was boring into my very essence.

“That’s a mouthful,” I replied, but even then something sprung out at me. Feeling another wave of euphoric rightness, I whispered, “But it can be shortened. Ryn.”

“Ryn, eh?” she mused, placing a bookmark between the pages of her book and then regarding me with a far more normal expression. “I can see it.”

“Thanks… I think I’ll keep it. How did you do that by the way?” I asked curiously. She’d totally just called out a name that knocked me flat with how good it felt.

“A minor divination spell, there were a dozen or so options, I just chose the one I liked the most,” she chuckled, standing up slowly and stretching out. “I am functionally your second mother now, whether either of us wanted it or not.”

“You didn’t want a… a mage daughter?” I asked with amusement.

“I placed my magefruit out in the middle of the damn wilderness, of course I didn’t want a damned mage daughter,” she grumbled to herself. “Nevertheless, you are here and I must do my duty. Don’t get comfortable though! I’m kicking you out when I feel like you won’t immediately die to a random band of thugs.”

“That’s fine, I have a cooler family to get back to,” I said with a cheeky smile.

“Yes, yes, whatever. Now get out of the bath, it’s time to put you to work apprentice,” she huffed, whapping me on the head with her book.

“Ow! Fine! Damn, no need to get physical on me,” I grumped. For some reason the light tap hadn’t reminded me of my past issues with parental figures and physical violence. It had been more playful than anything else.

“Onwards,” she said, ignoring my complaints. “I have so much to teach you before I can throw you out and get on with my life.”

“Okay, okay! I’m getting out.”

I’m getting out, I’m learning what I need to, and then I’m finding my way back to my friends. My family.

The first thing she did when we got inside was rummage around in an old chest, grumbling and swearing as she did so. The inside of the cottage was nice and homey, although it was also incredibly cluttered. There was a kitchen nook off to the side, a seating area with a few big comfy chairs, and a huge study in its own little alcove.

Everything was made of a hard, dark wood, the walls being covered in shelves that held so many random things I wasn’t sure where to look first. It was like someone had taken a stereotypical witches hut, and then a stereotypical wizard’s tower and kinda smooshed them together.

Now that I was aware that I was speaking a different language, it was truly strange to hear words that I shouldn’t understand but could, as though I had always been speaking it. Standing there in the middle of her cottage, a thought occurred to me with a flash of panic. What if I couldn’t speak English anymore?

“I really hope I can speak English again,” I said in English, and hearing the familiar sounds and movements of the language immediately eased my worry.

“Most intriguing, was that your native tongue?” the grumpy woman asked, standing up and passing me a few articles of clothing.

I took a moment to sort out what she’d just dumped in my arms. A pair of underwear, a robe and… oh dear, a bra. Well, not a bra as I was used to it, but still. It extended down almost to my belly button and was tied up at the sides instead of clasping behind me. How the hell did I put this thing on?

“Uh yeah, I was just making sure I could still speak it,” I said sheepishly as I stepped into the underwear.

Somehow it seemed weirder to be getting dressed in front of her than it had been to just stand there naked in front of her. Still, I did my best to put everything on, the bra taking a moment as she gave me frustrated instructions. With her… help, I got it all on reasonably well, marvelling at how strange it felt to have clothing on. Had it always felt like this? I wasn’t a fan of the way the woolen robe scratched at my soft skin, that was for sure.

“Very interesting,” she mused, staring at me intently. “But now is not the time to discuss your culture, now is the time to eat and explain who and what you are now. Consider this your first lesson, so listen well.”

Whoa, lessons already? I was only just… well, born. I needed some time to process this, damn it woman. Also, what the hell was her name?

“Sure but uh, what’s your name?” I asked tentatively.

She gave a puzzled frown, then shrugged. “Did I not introduce myself? Well then, my name is Esra Rihm, previously the High Mage for the Duchy of Iverleik. Now of course, I am an angry hermit who never leaves her Grove. Just the way I like it personally, the outside world is far too complicated to deal with.”

“I get that sentiment, sometimes I just want to get away from it all, grab a family sized bag of doritos and eat it in bed while binge watching some braindead TV show,” I sighed, thinking wistfully of the sanctuary that had been my room back at home. I’d installed a lock on it when I turned fifteen, and that had been the best decision I ever made. Wait no, second best. First was picking the fruit that got me into this situation.

“Yes… well, regardless, onwards with the lesson,” she said, clearly glossing over the fact that she had no idea what I was talking about. “The first thing you should know, or rather that I should reiterate and expand upon, is that you are no longer human. You’re close to it, with a few clear differences. First, your hair and eyes are obviously inhuman, and I will need to teach you a spell to hide this fact later. You will also gain markings across your back that will correspond to the construction of your Grove, when you get to it.”

“And secondly,” she continued, pausing as if for dramatic effect before her skin turned a vivid, leaf-green colour. “There is this. You are now able to photosynthesize to gain energy, should you find the need to do so.”

“Whoa!” I breathed, staring at her in awe. “How do I do that?!”

“Go outside while I prepare our lunch. Stare at the sun, you will feel it then,” she said cryptically, shuffling off towards her kitchen nook.

“Right,” I muttered, wandering outside and onto the lawn. “Stare at the sun, just like the orange wrinkledick did. If he can do it, how hard can it be?”

I did as she’d told me, staring up at the oddly coloured sun and almost immediately looking away as light lanced through my eyes. Fuck, bad plan. Was she playing some kind of weird… magic prank on me?

Oh wait, wow, okay, no she wasn’t. I stared at my hands, then quickly pulled up the sleeves on my robe to get a better look at my skin. It was a dark green colour now, rich and deep, but throughout that green were thin swirling tendrils of bright violet colouring. I stood there, mesmerised as I watched the colour grow more saturated as it suffused my skin.

A smile broke out across my face and I turned to the sun again, making sure to close my eyes this time. The warmth was lovely, like that of a hot shower on a cold morning, and I stood and swayed with the breeze, basking in that lovely light. My breathing slowed too and I felt a sense of base contentment that pulsed lazily through my body.

“I see you have figured it out,” came Esra’s voice from behind me, and I turned lazily to smile and nod at her. “Interesting colouration again too, I do wonder why.”

“It feels wonderful,” I murmured, unsure if I could even get my voice to a higher volume while I felt so light and peaceful.

“That it does my dear, now come, it is time I begin to explain everything in greater detail. Over lunch of course,” she said, blocking my light in an attempt to get me to concentrate again.

So it was that my training as a mage began in earnest. No time to stop and rest, no time to come to grips with the situation. Straight into it, just like that.

She explained that mages were only actually capable of three things when they were newly made. They were able to channel their power to manipulate the world around them on a basic level, functionally it was just telekinesis with a little extra plant stuff going on. You had to reach through into the Nameless Garden with your mind, extending invisible vines out to grasp and move whatever it was you wished to move around. Mages could also use all of their senses to observe magic around them, from mage sight to mage smell. It all sounded a little weird.

These were by far the lesser of the three abilities though, the third and most important ability was being able to travel between the mundane realm and the Nameless Garden. Esra explained that when a mage entered the Garden they left a sort of mark. Invisible to normal human eyes, but visible to other mages. The mage who had entered the Garden could only exit to that point, although once they were back in the mundane realm they could move to a new spot and enter again, moving their mark.

“Never enter the Garden where others can see you, for there are many out in the mundane realm who would love nothing more than to lay in wait on the other side, ready to pounce when you returned,” she warned me sternly, her eyes hammering into me the need to remember this point. “One day, if you survive long enough, you may become powerful enough to be of use to me, and I to you. You need to survive that long however, and this is the fastest way to get yourself killed as a mage.”

“Right, got it,” I nodded, and then asked a question that had been bugging me since this whole conversation began. “Why do they call it the Nameless Garden?”

“Because the early mages could not agree on a name for the garden that they had just discovered, so they instead called it the Nameless Garden,” she explained, clearly not thinking much of the old mages.

“But… they kinda did give it a name. I mean, Nameless Garden is still a name right?” I asked, a little confused about how they could have missed that.

Esra gave an honest to god chuckle when I said that, her eyes moving skyward for a moment. “No one ever said the early mages were in the high end of the intelligence spectrum.”

“Right, the old mages were dumb,” I grinned, loving how that was a complete reversal from what I had been expecting.

“Their descendants however, quickly turned that on its head. It is said that a stupid mage does not live long, and it is wholly true. We are not so numerous or powerful that we can fight the common masses when they get it in their heads to hang us,” she warned, her tone turning from the previous amusement and into a sombre warning. “There are those out there who hunt us, there are those who fear us, and there are those who wish to capture and exploit us. Be wary, and do not reveal you are a mage unless you are confident that you can control the situation.”

“How though? Surely with magic we can fight them off?” I asked, suddenly worried for my ability to even get back to my friends at all.

“Ours is not the only path to arcane power, young Ryn. There are those who seek out magical artifacts and materials, crafting them into items of power. There are those who make deals with terrible and strange beings for a portion of their power, and many more paths besides,” she explained, her eyes clouding over with memory. “I was driven from my position within the duchy by those who claim that their demon is a god. Be wary of those ones. They are very rarely good news.”

“Well, that’s just a given usually, regardless of if they have arcane power or not,” I shrugged, thinking back to the conflicts of Earth’s past… and unfortunately its present too.

“Indeed.”

The lesson continued on after that, fast turning into a verbal conveyor belt of ways for me to die horribly to the people of the mundane realm. It was honestly a little terrifying, and I could see why Esra had elected to stay within her peaceful Grove rather than fight for her position outside. Shit, if I didn’t have my new family to get back to I might have considered the same after hearing all of that.

When the sun began to dip below the horizon, my new teacher called an end to the lecture, and showed me to an area that had somehow been added to her cottage while we’d been outside. It was a small nook of a room, but it had a comfy little bed in it with a bedside table to keep it company. It was cute, and after a small dinner of fruit and bread, we each went to bed.

It was while I lay awake, trying to convince my mind to stop spinning thoughts and go to sleep, that I began to really miss my friends. My mood plummeted and my gut churned. They probably thought I was dead by now, eaten by some terrible plant, never to be seen again. I hoped I could get back to them, I really did.

It was three days of instruction and preparation before Esra decided I was ready to attempt some of that basic telekinesis that she’d been talking about. Three days where the reality of what had happened began to sink in, really, truly sink in. I had a woman’s body now, and more than that, I was technically also no longer human at all. Instead I was part human and part magical plant or something.

The family ring stayed with me, I couldn’t resize it yet, but Esra had decided I wasn’t allowed to try until I was able to do it with my powers. She described it as being an extra incentive to work hard, like I needed any more incentive. I was learning magic after all! That was like every moderately geeky person’s dream!

It was another sunny day in the garden, just a few clouds scudding across the strange sky, each one presenting the question, where had it come from? Esra’s Grove wasn’t that big, certainly not large enough for clouds to form, so where were they coming from? A question for when we moved on to Grove related activities I guessed.

We were sitting on the lawn again, its leaves still cool from the night’s chill, and I was beginning to get antsy with all the waiting. I wanted to try now, why was there so much damn preparation involved in this? How much damage could I really do with simple telekinesis?

“Now remember, start small, we don’t know how strong you are yet, how much baseline power you possess, so to speak,” she explained yet again as she placed a stick down between us.

A cloud passed over the strange sun of the Nameless Garden, and I looked up absently at its backlit milky depths before focusing my concentration back onto the innocuous little stick.

“Let us begin,” she told me, her stare hard with expectation. “Do you feel your power?”

I nodded, my eyes becoming unfocused as I turned my attention to that strange new sense of magic I had. It was surprisingly easy to find the power I had within me. There was no struggle to visualise it or anything like so many characters in the books I read, it was painfully hard to miss, a bright beacon of sensation within me.

“Good, now coax it to grow outward towards your target, like the plants around us,” she murmured, her eyes now also glazed over as she focused on her other sense.

Feeling around my power, I pushed it out, seeking my target. It was hard at first, I had very little control over my magic as it just randomly wandered about. Slowly I was able to take hold though, directing it through the invisible underside of reality until I very carefully wrapped it around the stick and tried to lift.

The was a crunching, cracking sound and wood went spinning off in all directions at high speed. Esra was fast, placing thin glowing shields of hardened air between the both of us and the exploding stick. Wow, alright, now I understood her caution on the subject.

“I think that answers the question of magnitude,” she said calmly, removing the shields. “You could stand to work on your subtlety however, my little apprentice. In all things.”

“Oi, I tried!” I protested, frowning at her petulantly. “Not my fault you packed that thing full of explosives!”

“I did no such thing!” she exclaimed dismissively.

“Uh huh, I don’t believe you,” I grumbled, although it was quite obvious that I actually had just used too much force. I wanted to wind her up a bit though, cos I’m a pain in the ass like that.

“Try again, with a different stick,” she sighed, rolling her eyes.

I gave her a grin. “Well it would be hard to try with the same stick now wouldn’t it?”

“You think yourself so very witty don’t you,” she replied dryly. “Enough talking, more lifting. Gently.”

****

A week later and I was able to lift things around using my mind vines with ease. That’s how I thought of them at least, really it was just the magic within me, which was apparently not plant based. It was pure magic, the same stuff that everyone else used with their various ways of doing things.

My ring was now fitted to my finger, and often I found myself wondering how the others were doing. Was Grace doing okay? Were Kelsey and Melody able to further their relationship? Was Duncan doing okay with the loss of his love? Had they managed to keep Bray from accidentally burning the whole of Avonside down? So many questions.

When I wasn’t practicing manipulating the magic within me, I was learning about the more advanced theory of magic as wielded by mages and our various counterparts. The other caster magic wielders were known as Warlocks, the ones who made deals with patron magical beings in exchange for their power. Warlocks lacked versatility, if their patron was a fire spirit of some description, then they could only throw fire around.

As such, they were sought after in times of war and were far more capable in battle on the whole. Mages on the other hand were considered far more powerful, but also far weaker. A newly created mage would be weak beyond measure, little more useful than a standard human, while an ancient and powerful mage might rule over an entire region through sheer magical power alone.

I also learned of how the plants of a mage’s Grove gave them power. It was all based around imagination and willpower. For example, one day I was explaining mobile phones and the internet to Esra, and she almost immediately took me to a particular flowerbed she had set up.

“This is a mage’s true power, their Grove. More importantly however, it is the plants within the Grove that give us our spells and abilities,” she explained, leaning down to give one of the plants a gentle examination. “Each species represents a spell, given form in a way that the Nameless Garden then converts into a spell for us to use. This species here is one I developed myself, although I know of several others that perform a similar function, that of far-seeing.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” I said, genuinely interested now. “Why are there so many though? Surely if you have one plant then you don’t need a bunch of others. Are they backups?”

“They are backups yes, if one dies while you are out in the world, you will have more to fall back on. Far more importantly though it increases the total amount of magic you may channel into a given spell. Too much magical energy and too few plants to conduct it, and you will burn them out,” she explained arching her back in a joint popping stretch.

We paused for a moment as one of Esra’s Grove tenders wandered past. It turns out that the plant creature we’d seen near the magefruit had actually been one of these things. In order to keep a Grove functioning while the mage was off in the real world, they created tenders, creatures of pure will and magic whose purpose was to take care of the plants. Why the one who’d stopped Grace had done so, neither of us could figure out.

“How do you think up the plants?” I asked as the tender ambled away, content to do what it was created for.

“That is a complicated and time consuming process that I will have to begin teaching you. That may as well be now, so listen well,” she told me curtly, seemingly frustrated by something again. Oh dear.

****

Creating plants, it turned out, required me to first create my own Grove, and for that Esra had plans. Elaborate plans. Plans that required an entire month of preparation on Esra’s part, during which I got very antsy. It felt like I was making no progress at all towards becoming a real mage or getting back to my friends.

“Imagine the Nameless Garden as an ocean, and our Groves are merely islands of order floating on those waters. What we will do now is dive into those waters, slowly at first, and I mean that this time, I don’t want to have to fish you out by the scruff of your neck,” she told me gruffly, although by this point it was mostly for show. I knew she had a little soft spot for me.

“Right, and we’re going to go really far out into that ocean using that crazy spell you’ve been working on for the last month,” I said tiredly, if Esra had a flaw, it was repeating things over and over until my brain screamed for respite. I guess it also served to hammer the information home, but my memory wasn’t one of those that required this style of teaching.

“Indeed, and why are we doing this again?” she asked, prompting me to reply with the answer yet again. After this I was never going back to college.

“We’re going out really far into the unknown regions of the Nameless Garden because mages can swim to each other’s islands and break things there, weakening that mage in the real world. You want to spare me from all the infighting by hiding me out in the middle of nowhere. It also gives me space to expand,” I replied in a bored tone.

I’d been studying the history of inter-mage conflicts for a week now and my god were they a petty lot. It was basically gang warfare in the Nameless Garden, groups of them banding together and then hitting each other’s Groves in drivebys and shit.

Esra had been involved in a powerful block of mages who’d been intent on mutual protection, basically putting up such a strong defence of their Groves that they didn’t need to worry about attacks, but that had all come crumbling down when they had been targeted back in the real world. One by one they had been assassinated or driven into hiding, until Esra too had been forced into hiding by their numerous enemies.

“Good, then are you ready?” Esra prompted, reaching out with a soft, wrinkled hand for mine.

“Yeah,” I nodded, a smile creeping onto my face. I was so ready.

Together we felt for the edges of her Grove with our minds and power, gently prying the seams open to allow ourselves passage. There was a rush of vertigo as up and down ceased to be and the the tranquil garden of her realm was replaced by a far more wild scene. A strange void spread out in every direction, unusual magical plants forming, growing and twisting in every direction like fractals, before they abruptly withered and died.

It was like an endless zero gravity jungle was constantly forming and then dying over and over around us, never content with its shape and structure, always looking to twist itself into something new and interesting.

Esra and I floated there in that void, hair drifting aimlessly with the absence of gravity. She squeezed my hand to get my attention, and I looked over to see her nod back behind us.

When I followed her gaze I found myself looking back into her Grove, the surface translucent and smooth with swirling colours. It was absolutely beautiful. On the outside it seemed spherical, even if on the inside it was not, as though Esra had taken that spherical space and warped it into the one she needed.

Before I’d had time to properly appreciate her Grove from the outside we were moving away at speed. Esra’s spell was one that propelled us at speed through the Nameless Garden, far faster than any mage could normally achieve.

When I’d asked why another mage couldn’t just create the same spell, she’d simply shrugged and said that they could, but the farther we went, the harder it would be to find me anyway. Most mages simply opted to stay within what was known as the Losi Fertile Zone. An area of the Garden where magical plants grew significantly better and resources needed for specific plants were abundant. Sort of like how everyone liked to hang around an oasis because there was a lot of water, but you could still survive out in the desert if you knew how.

Except Esra had a plan here too… because she’d discovered another oasis, another Fertile Zone. It wasn’t nearly as large as the Losi one, but what it lacked in size it made up for in safety. It was so far away that only someone who knew where it lay or was extremely lucky would find it. Esra had found it with that same luck one day, aimlessly exploring at regular speed for days at a time.

Ever forming plants flashed by as we sped through the Garden, flickering past at a speed almost too fast for my eyes to lock onto any single one. I saw a few more Groves along the way too, shining orbs in the distance. Some of them were huge, far larger than Esra’s and that kinda scared me. Who were the mages that those belonged to?

Eventually they were all left behind, our journey taking us onwards into the endless expanse of changing vegetation. Towards the site of my future Grove!

It felt like hours before Esra began to slow us down, hours of endless boredom and repetitive fractal greenery. It was noticeably sparser out here though, the cycle of growth and death seeming slower, more sluggish than it was back in the more fertile area. My eyes were growing almost dumb due to the endless motion around us, and I had to close my eyes at regular intervals just to give them a rest.

Feeling Esra squeeze my hand again, I opened my eyes and looked over to her.

“We’re here,” she told me, her voice bouncing around with the strangest echo I’d ever heard. “How do you like it?”

I looked around, finding a place much the same as the one we’d left a few hours ago, except it was completely devoid of any Groves. I could see clouds of barely visible gasses that were probably different magical energies, resources when converted into the more structured nature of a Grove. I could see the plants here were subtly different too in a way that was hard to pinpoint.

“Choose a place, wherever feels right, then focus your will, like I taught you,” my teacher murmured from next to me, and I nodded, letting go of her hand to float freely on my own.

I wandered for a while, allowing my sense of the arcane to tell me about the lay of the land. It was strange, this sense of magic, wholly impossible to explain to someone who didn’t possess the ability. I found it though, a place that felt good and calming to my mind.

“I like this place,” I said, feeling some of that same warmth I got when I was basking in the sun.

“Then begin,” Esra said simply, waiting patiently nearby.

I was meant to form an image in my mind, that’s what she’d said, but what kind of place did I even want? A mage’s grove could take any form they desired. Esra’s was a simple woodland with low rolling hills and burbling streams.

Slowly the idea came to me, a network of plateaus sitting atop huge stone pillars, their bases lost in fine white mists. I started with one single pillar, soft loamy soil in a layer across its top that was ready for any plants I might want. I created a layer of grass across this soil, a placeholder for things to come. I visualised the sky with the blue colour of Earth’s atmosphere, I gave it the golden sun of sol and the single moon that I strangely missed. My lips quirked in a small contented smile. Home.

With that image in my mind, I pushed outwards around me with my power and my will in equal measure, curling and beating the fabric of the Nameless Garden until the strange energies of the area began to resemble the shape I wanted to give it. I twisted at the protesting status quo until it was mine, submitting to my design like the universe’s slipperiest clay.

There was the moment of creation, when everything finally gave way and a world rushed out into being around us, just the flash of movement and then we were standing in that grass that I had imagined. Magic and potential given form and function, and it was mine. My little slice of mage land.

“Well done Ryn,” Esra said from beside me, looking around at the world I had just willed into being. “The island is a nice touch, the mists are beautiful.”

“Thanks,” I grinned, feeling a blush of all things coming on. I didn’t get compliments from Esra often. “I modelled it after Earth, my home world. This is our sky, our sun, and our moon. There’s an area like this in a place called South America. I’ve never been there, but I’ve seen photos. I always liked how those strange mountains looked.”

“Intriguing,” she said, looking around with interest for a moment before she back turned to me. “Congratulations, you are now truly a mage. A young one, a pitifully weak one, but a full mage nevertheless.”

“It feels nice,” I smiled, then a funny little thought occurred to me. “It’s like I’ve gotten my wand! Now I have to learn all the spells!”

“Yes, yes, continue with your obscure cultural references in your own time, we have work to do,” Esra grumbled, her hands moving with the motions of a spell.

“You’re just jealous that I got to grow up and live in a world where you can order food to be delivered without getting out of bed,” I grinned. She’d all but interrogated me over the concept of delivery drivers and pizza, it had been pretty funny.

Muttering under her breath about cheeky youth, she cast the spell she’d been working on, an area of grass in front of us suddenly withering and turning to ash. I blinked and glanced askance at my teacher. Did she fry the grass for any particular reason?

“This will be where we plant the first two spells I will teach you to create today. Simple ones, but useful nevertheless,” she explained, walking over to kneel next to the patch of bare dirt.

“Oh! Cool!” I exclaimed, suddenly excited and all ears.

Raising an eyebrow at me, she asked, “You remember the theory for the creation of spell plants do you not? Begin with the siphoning of the magical energies your Grove is built upon.”

I nodded and closed my eyes, grasping around for the formless energy of the Nameless Garden. It was there, feeling strangely like cotton candy as I played with it using my mind. I gathered a portion of it, a small amount, because she’d said this would be a small spell.

“Good, just like that,” Esra murmured encouragingly. “You have learned restraint since the debacle involving that stick.”

“Ha. Ha. Very funny,” I grumbled, still with my eyes closed.

Ignoring my complaint, she continued on with her instructions. “This will be an illusory flower, used to disguise your true nature from mundane humanity. As such, we will be manipulating the elemental energy of light. The flower must be small, with a dicot stem, but the pith must be made of the purest clear crystal. The vascular tissue around the outside must be all the colours of the visible spectrum, this can be achieved however you like, but I suggest assigning a colour to each bundle.”

“Okay, got it,” I said, imagining the stalk with a middle that was made of crystal, while the outer layer was made of several bundles of plant tissue that were arranged in a rainbow.

“Good, next, the epidermis must be of crystal again. Then move on to the roots, which must be as black as the darkest cave. At the center of the roots, construct absorption cores with an affinity for light,” she told me, her words careful and precise.

I made a murmuring noise of affirmation while I did as she asked, setting the roots up to be black on the outside and to channel the magical light element on the inside.

“Well done. We turn our attention to the leaves now, just a few along the stalk. Construct them as you would any other plant, they will need some way to gain sunlight, after all. Once this is complete, it is time for the flower. I want you to imagine an image, how you would wish to look when this spell is active. Channel it through the mind map of the plant you have so far and see how it unfolds,” she said with an element of excited expectation. “Keep the changes as few as possible, I suggest only focusing on altering colour for your first attempt.”

I quickly made the leaves as she’d said, then tried to think, what did I want to look like? I’d basically only be changing the colour of my hair and eyes. Oh, and my eyebrows and uh… pubes too. Well, I already had magenta hair, so why not go with ginger? I knew that I’d get jokes, but hey, gingers were like 20% hotter because of the hair colour by default. My eyes could be blue, to match the stereotype.

Taking that image, I pushed it through the plant as though it already had magic coursing through its various pathways. It was absorbed by the roots, swirling and coalescing at the base before rushing up the stem like it was being funneled out of a hose. When it hit the bud at the top, it burst forth into a flower with petals of vivid orange, the stamen of which were a bright sky blue. I gasped and grinned, feeling a surge of pride. It had worked!

“Yes!” Esra exclaimed, sounding almost as happy as I was. “Quick, now plant it in the ground, no wait, plant two or three for good measure!”

I did as she asked, pushing the image of that fully constructed plant out into the fabric of my Grove. Quickly opening my eyes, I watched with a spreading grin as my creation grew out of the ground like I was watching a timelapse. It was so pretty! Oh my god! The way each plant was slightly different, not an exact replica of the image I’d had in my mind, but still the same species. They were all their own living things!

“Wow,” I laughed gleefully, then my eyes widened when they got to work, drawing in the various magical energies and elements that they needed to function from the base loam of the Nameless Garden.

“And there we have it,” my teacher nodded, a note of satisfaction in her tone. “Your first spell. Well done, my last apprentice botched that one more than once.”

“Thank you!” I smiled, then before my mind could really think on the matter, I hugged her, wrapping my arms around her bony frame and squeezing gently.

“O-oh! A hug. How novel,” she coughed awkwardly.

Giggling a little, I let go and stepped back with a wide smile. “On to the second one?”

The second one was far simpler, but also strange and when I realised what she wanted me to do, I practically glowed with excitement. It was another flower, but this one had a white stem with black spots and black leaves. I questioned the black leaves at first, but she explained that the excess heat that would be left over after the leaves did their thing would be used as part of the spell. It was all super technical and I was a little baffled by some of the choices being made.

It was a small flower in the end, barely larger than a dandelion with little silver petals and a bronze center. The purpose of this flower was made apparent when she asked me to place my ring onto the grown flower. There was the barest spark of energy, and then it was done. If I concentrated, I’d be able to tell in which direction each of the other rings made from the same offcut of pipe were. I could find my family! Well, at least once I was out in the mundane realm. It didn’t work in here.

With my plants all set up and working happily, at least in the short term, I’d need my own tenders and a proper ecosystem at some point, we left my Grove and headed back to Esra’s. Her one had the house after all, and it was getting late in the day.

The trip back was different, because I was watching the ever changing plants around us with a lot more interest now. Were they spells in the making, just ready to be figured out?

My curious inspection of the Nameless Garden was cut abruptly short when Esra’s Grove came into view and she slowed us dramatically. She stared at it intently, her eyes moving quickly, unfocused with the use of her mage sight.

“I am a fool,” she whispered, her voice echoing with the strangeness of the void around us. “I am a fool, I should have realised he would strike if I left. I should have known.”

“Who is he?” I asked in alarm, still staring at the smooth, glasslike surface of Esra’s Grove in confusion. “What’s happening?”

I had no idea what she was seeing, even with my magical senses there didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary.

“One of my many enemies has come to take advantage of the situation,” Esra told me, her voice betraying a note of worry.

Crap, if she was worried then I definitely had to be worried.

Now anxious and still very confused, I asked, “What is he doing?”

“Laying waste to my grove,” she sighed, then turned to look at me with a hard, serious expression. “When we enter, we will be coming in from the edge, as is always the case when you arrive at an established Grove. I will go to meet him and slow him down. You will go to the cottage, in my room you will find a pack that has provisions, clothes and tools for survival. Next to it you will find a sack, that will also contain clothing and some small amount of protection. Once you have these items, you must leave the Grove.”

My mouth ran dry, I was meant to leave? “What about you? And where do I go? Back to my Grove? But it’s so far away!”

“So many questions, little one,” she smiled sadly, and reaching up tentatively, she brushed some of my rebellious floating hair out of the way. “Your mark will be where mine is, that is the way of mage birth. When you return to the Nameless Garden, you will find yourself in your own Grove. This one will most likely not exist by that time. As for me? I will manage, it will be some time before we meet again, I will have to flee, but when the time comes I will move and create a new Grove near to yours.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” I asked worriedly. I didn’t want to be thrown into yet another strange situation. I’d only just gotten used to the rhythm of life in her Grove and now I was forced to flee!

“I will be fine, I have survived worse attacks and far greater setbacks, but you are young and new to this world. I must see you safe, you have been a far greater joy than my last apprentice, the man who now waits within my Grove,” she told me affectionately, and I couldn’t help a small scared little smile as I realised she really did care about me.

“Okay,” I said sadly, my chest already feeling hollow. I just wanted a sense of normality and safety in my life, was that too much to ask for? What did the universe even fucking have against me?

“Let us go,” Esra said, turning to look into the Grove again. “Fate has plans for us.”

We moved forward, approaching the barrier between the chaos of the garden and the order of the Grove. Esra went through first, the surface rippling with her passage like liquid glass and I followed quickly, not wanting to be left behind.

The interior of the Grove was like a nightmarish version of the place I had spent almost two months learning in. It burned, fire swirling in terrible vortices of carnage. Ash and smoke were thick in the air, the sun just a distant angry red point in the haze above us. Although, we’d stepped through into an area of relative calm, the fire not having yet spread to this area. Before us was a wide trail encircling the border of the Grove, with more trails leading further into the magical forest in front of us.

“Come,” my teacher whispered, motioning towards one of the paths.

The trail was dark as we moved through the trees, the crunch of gravel under our feet sounding all too much like the pop and crack of the distant fire that burned not so far away. I didn’t like this at all, the way this once tranquil place of magic and safety had been turned terrifying and hostile. Shadows danced even here due to the size of the fires.

It took us five minutes of walking before we made it to Esra’s lawn, and that was where he was waiting. I felt my stomach drop out further, already feeling the conflict to come in the back of my mind like a sick worming thing.

The man stood calmly between us and the cottage, just waiting with his hands casually clasped behind his back. He wore an expensive looking suit of what I would consider ancient design. Ruffles and tight pants, the whole medieval noble shebang, although a little more restrained than the pictures I’d seen in the past. The outfit almost looked reasonable.

His dark red hair was short and done in a perfect comb over, while his beard was honestly a little strange. There were little shaved breaks in it halfway down his jaw that made the whole thing look weird. I guess they had different styles in ringworldland.

“My, my, Esra Rihm, is that another apprentice I see?” he asked in a slow, smooth drawl. “And here I am rather vividly remembering you proclaiming never to want another one after me. I see that even the terrible High Mage Rihm can go soft after the years.”

“She’s far more intelligent than you ever were, both mentally and emotionally,” Esra frowned, her fists clenching and unclenching like a cowboy ready to draw at a moment’s notice.

“Hmm, possibly,” the man said, his eyes flitting to meet mine before they slowly trailed up and down my body, sending a shiver of revulsion through me. “She is certainly beautiful, I might have to… take her off your hands, after this little confrontation is over.”

“You even try to touch her and I’ll cut off your fucking balls, child,” Esra spat, her words sending my eyebrows high into my forehead. Wow, alright, she clearly had strong feelings on the subject, that was nice. I would rather not get within groping distance of the asshole either.

“Oh why don’t we let her decide, hmm?” the man laughed, before meeting my eyes again and sketching a low bow. “Hello there sweetness, my name is Gresham Fennimore, or Lord Fennimore to you. Might I know your name, my lady?”

I shivered as he addressed me, everything about it coming off as sleazy and disgusting. It was his tone of voice I think that I hated most, the way it sounded like he already considered me conquered or something. I took a step back, looking away in the vain attempt to get a handle on myself. I was… scared.

I didn’t say anything, I couldn’t really. I had no idea how to deal with the unwelcome advances of a sleazeball like this guy. I hadn’t gotten the years of learning that came with growing up as a girl, where from an age that was far too young they would have men like this creeping on them.

“Somehow, I think she probably has standards,” Esra replied, her tone one of sharp edged amusement.

“Pretty sure I’m not into men at all,” I murmured, thinking of my attraction to Grace and my lack of attraction to the many guys at Avonside.

I met Esra’s eyes to find her brows quirked in surprise, but she shrugged and turned back to Lord Fennimore with a hard expression. “Time for you to leave now Lord Fennimore.”

There was a whisper of a breeze, and I heard Esra’s voice in my ear as though she were right next to me. “Ryn, dear. When the fighting starts, duck back into the forest and circle around. Enter the cottage and gather the items I told you about. Hurry, it will not be long before I lose this duel, too much of my Grove has burned already. As it stands I will be hard pressed to cover your escape and obfuscate your location within the mundane realm.”

I froze, my heart pounding in my chest as it cried out in worry and pain, sadness and a yearning to help. But again, I was too weak to do anything, too scared to rush forward and join her in the fight that I hated but knew was inevitable. Finally I nodded and whispered back, “Thank you Esra, for everything. Please live, I’d really like to see you again.”

Her only response was to glance a small smile at me, then like lightning she flashed forward towards Fennimore, her hands alight with a blistering beam of energy. The attack was swift and true, but it hit a shield of shimmering energy around her target with a sound like electric nails on a chalkboard, causing me to flinch and rush to cover my ears.

Returning fire came quickly, but Esra was gone again, her teleporting spell taking her behind Fennimore, where she hit him again with another beam. After that, the duel was everywhere, quick and deadly as they flickered from place to place, attacks coming in fast and terrible.

My limbs refused to move as my eyes drank in the spectacle. I’d been expecting it to be one sided, but Esra seemed to be holding her own with no problems. It was honestly quite beautiful to see, the way they danced their deadly dance, and if it had been just a dance I would have been cheering for the display. But it wasn’t, each flicker of dark energy was pain, each blast of power was limbs burned and lost. It was terrifying.

So only when a bolt of sickly green energy detonated against the trunk of a nearby tree did I snap out of my daze, bolting for the cover of the forest. I wove through the cultivated underbrush, my way lit by glowing plants and brief flashes of light from the duel. Several times attacks came sailing my way, only to be blocked by a shield formed by Esra. She was protecting me.

Once the duel was out of sight, I veered out of the trees and ran headlong towards the cottage. It seemed so strange, ominous in the amber light of the fires, and I again found myself wondering what kind of asshole would destroy such a peaceful place. Then I realised that yeah, I knew exactly which asshole would do that. Lord Fucking Fennimore.

The door was ajar as I arrived at the cottage, a little winded from the sprint, and I shouldered it open and rushed inside. Esra’s bedroom door was still closed, but when I wove through the living room and tried the handle, it was unlocked. Pushing it open carefully, I took a moment to let my eyes adjust to the twilight before I began my search.

It wasn’t hard to find the pack and bag where they were leaning against the side of her wardrobe. Rushing forward, I pulled the pack on, tightening the straps until they fit my slim frame, then hoisted the drawstring bag over my shoulder. It was kinda heavy, and I winced as the weight of it settled in.

Esra had told me to leave as soon as I got these, but I couldn’t, not without one last look. I moved back into the living room and found a window that would give me a view of the duel. They were still going, although I could see Esra beginning to tire, and she wasn’t using her big beam of energy anymore. The plants required for it must have burned in the inferno outside.

I took in the sight of my mage-mother and teacher one last time as she fought tooth and nail for me after only knowing me for a little over a month or two. She was a good person, gruff, stubborn and grumpy, but also kind and caring under all that. I hoped she’d come to place her new Grove next to mine someday. I hoped she lived to get there.

Turning away from the duel, I concentrated, feeling for the seams of Esra’s Grove and then beyond, finding the boundary between the Nameless Garden and the mundane realm. Esra had helped me find it a few times as practice, but we’d never actually gone over. Now would be the first time, and I’d supposedly be coming out where Esra had last left it.

I took a deep breath in preparation, then pushed, bending and stretching the veil between worlds until it was thin enough for me to pass through, and with nothing but a small tremor, that’s exactly what I did.

Reality bubbled back into being like I was surfacing after dunking my head in a bubble bath. Not the kind of entrance I was expecting, but whatever. My heart was too heavy to find any real amusement in that detail.

I’d come out in a place that was dark, but not the full dark of night in the Nameless Garden, where there was no band of ringworld high above to always reflect light down on us. Wind rustled and moved through the canopy of the trees around me, letting me know even before my eyes had adjusted that I was in a forest. The ground beneath my toes was covered in wet leaves, squishing gently under my weight. A little gross, but I’d grown used to that during my time in the garden.

Just in case, I began to put distance between myself and my exit point, walking randomly through the forest. It was a thoroughly normal temperate forest, which was a little jarring after the beautiful, glowing forest of Esra’s Grove. It seemed so dull and boring. I usually loved a nice forest like this one, but beside the beautiful glowing crystal trees I had spent my time resting under for the past month… well it wasn’t spectacular.

I was a little disappointed to see that it wasn’t the same forest as the one I’d left from, the trees were all ones that enjoyed a slightly more warm and humid environment. I was at least in another climate from the one I’d left. The night air was also warmer than it had been near Avonside. Damn.

Eventually I figured I had walked far enough and sat down wearily against the trunk of some random, thoroughly mundane tree. My feet were starting to hurt, the soil here wasn’t the perfect almost frothy loam that it was in the garden, and the small rocks and half decomposed sticks had been hurting my unguarded feet.

I pulled open the sack first, wanting to put on the clothing within so I didn’t have to lug the heavy sack around with it cutting painfully into my shoulder the whole time. Plus there were probably shoes inside. The first thing that came out was a large coat, I couldn’t make out the colour of it other than it was dark, possibly a navy blue or black. I placed it to the side for now and reached in again.

Next was a pair of leather greaves, then some tall, sturdy boots with an inch of grippy heel on them, the kind you saw soldiers using in old movies, except they were high, coming up to almost my knee. They also came with a pair of big woolen socks perfect for walking long distances.

There was also a pair of tight pants, a shirt, and scarf that I could almost tell was blue by the light of the ring. All in all it seemed like a pretty nice outfit, so I hurriedly undressed and put it all on... well, after cleaning my feet with the robe anyway. The pants were tighter than I thought they would be and I had to wiggle quite a lot to get them over my thighs and hips. Damn, this body was great but it came with some interesting new challenges.

The outfit had a calming effect over me, as though Esra’s forethought to get an outfit ready for me might mean that she could handle her own escape too, and that she hadn’t just sacrificed herself for me. Shit, I really hoped that wasn’t what she’d just done. I could see her pretending everything was fine in order to get me to leave, then throwing herself into the fight with no hope of winning. Nevermind, scratch that, still not calm.

What did I do now though? It was dark and I was hugely tired, the creation of my grove had taken so much out of me that I was beginning to sway on my feet. I couldn’t just sleep here in the forest though could I?

Wait! I had my grove! I could sleep there, I just had to hope it didn’t rain or anything. Esra had said I would return to my Grove if I entered the Nameless Garden, so surely if I just went right back in… I felt around again for that unique sensation, the one at the edge of my mind, the seams of reality. I asked them to part, pushing it thin once more and stepped through.

When I arrived, I found myself shrouded in cold, howling winds that plucked at my newly acquired clothing and threatened to send me tumbling towards the edge. Shit! I hadn’t thought about weather and stuff! I hunkered down against the biting air and tried to think, what could I do? Try reshaping things a little? Could I even do that? I guess I could try.

I called up what remained of my magical might, which was pitifully small after the day’s exertions, and tried to think of a solution to my problem. What about just making a hole in the ground for now? I’d have to hope it didn’t rain, but at least I’d be out of the wind.

With my magic in mental hand, I pushed downward, forcing the land to reshape itself to my mental image. The task was harder than I thought, sapping my strength almost entirely in the process. It worked though, I had a small foxhole, only barely big enough for me to fit in and keep out of the wind.

I fell into the hole in a heap, my brain feeling all kinds of fuzzy and tired. I was vaguely aware of pulling at the pack, dragging a blanket out of it and wrapping it around myself, then I was gone, asleep in an instant.

****

When I woke, it was with a groggy, dull headache and a lack of fine motor skills. For all intents and purposes it felt like I was hungover, which I guessed was the fault of my over use of magic the previous day.

Fumbling my way into my pack, I blearily pulled out something that looked like dried meat and a waterskin, and promptly ate and drank the whole lot. Then I crawled up above and allowed my green skin to come to the surface and drink in the light of the sun. Oh my word, that felt good. I threw off my coat and pulled my sleeves up for even more surface area, then kicked off my boots and struggled with my socks too. My shirt, pants, greaves quickly followed.

Laying there almost naked as I basked in the sunlight, I tried to come to grips with everything that had happened. I felt so damn off balance right now, my life felt like a chaotic roller coaster of happiness and pulled rugs. I just wanted everything to calm down for two seconds. Laying there for what felt like an hour or so, I just wallowed in my own misery. Why couldn’t life just let me be? I wanted my friends back, and Esra too. Wait… my friends! I had the ring tracking spell!

With new purpose and a refreshed mind and body, I pulled myself to my feet and put all my clothes back on… with some effort again. Damn these clothes were tight in places. Next I went to my pack and really began to look through it. I found a flint and tinder kit, a few changes of underclothes, a standalone hood, and a bunch of dried and preserved foods and several other items that would be useful in just my situation. Esra had really prepared well for this eventuality. I needed to thank her the next time I saw her...

Feeling a little better prepared now, I transitioned back to the mundane realm, this time to find myself in a sunlight drenched woodland. It was the same place I’d left obviously, but it seemed almost serene compared to the dark and forboding version of itself it had been at night.

Now to attempt that location spell! I thought back to my Grove and the plant in question, and sure enough it surged forward, eager to help. I channeled magic through it and the spell activated, creating a sort of mental image in my mind. It was vague, mostly just directional information, four of the rings being pretty damn far away, but then… two weren’t. Two were much, much closer.

Why had my friends split up? Why were two of them off on their own out here while the others were probably back at the university? I could tell because the two on their own seemed to be moving, walking at quite a pace, while the others were moving only a little or else entirely stationary.

I had absolutely no idea where I was, what the lay of the land was like beyond what my eyes could see and I certainly had no idea about any of the people who called this region home. Which meant I didn’t really have any decisions to make other than, ‘Walk in the direction of my friends and hope for the best.’

So that’s exactly what I did, the pack on my shoulders, the empty bag safely stuffed inside and my eyes wandering about me for anything that might be useful or harmful.

I walked for hours, the sun rising overhead until it dimmed to mark midday while it passed behind the other side of the ring. A thought occurred to me as that happened, something that really should have been the first thing on my mind after I realised magic was more than just myth. I was standing on a ring world, a ring world where magic was at least moderately widespread and integrated into some sort of medieval society.

Ring worlds were ostensibly the realm of science fiction. How the hell did this all work together? How did it connect and fit, because I was drawing a blank. Had the builders of the ring world used magic to create it, rather than old fashioned technology as we were used to it? Was there a difference? Were we in an entirely different reality from our home, one where magic was just part of the laws of the universe? Shit I just had questions upon questions. None of which would actively help me right now, but at least it passed the time and kept me from worrying about Esra or my friends.

Eventually the woodlands began to thin, and I found myself emerging into farmland, rolling fields of cropland in the middle of their growth cycle. Wheat by the looks of things, although there were also pastures with baby animals frollicking among their older kin, as well as orchards in the middle of bloom. It was springtime in this portion of the ring.

I found a dirt road that led in the direction I wanted and began to follow it, all but openly staring like a tourist at the thoroughly mundane medieval life around me. It was about the time I saw my first random farm worker stop and gawk at me that I realised I was walking around without my disguise, and anyone could see that I was a mage. How could anyone miss my shining magenta hair? Quickly I remedied that fact, pulling the normal human disguise spell over myself.

I didn’t feel any different, but a quick glance in a puddle confirmed the spell was working. I just hoped that news didn’t spread all over the place that there was a beautiful mage walking around. As an extra precaution I fished inside my pack and put the hood on, then wrapped my scarf around the lower half of my face. I didn’t know if I would be more or less vulnerable as a lone, stunningly gorgeous woman in medieval land, or a lone, stunningly gorgeous mage. I wasn’t going to tempt fate, I needed to get to my friends, needed to see them again.

My feet were more than weary after the second day of trudging along that road. I saw a castle in the distance at one point, strange design, but also familiar. The castles of Earth’s history were smaller, less grand in scope than this one. The people of this land had probably been stuck in the medieval era for much longer than we had back on Earth, which I guess when combined with magic led to much larger, more impressive castles and stuff?

I hadn’t been used to walking distances like this before I got my new body, let alone this newly made one. It was a little strange that I had any sort of endurance at all though, with no long distance training at all I should have been dying after the first hour. Maybe mage bodies had a bit more endurance on that front than normal baseline human ones? I should ask the manufacturer.

As for the progress I’d made, the landscape was ever so slightly moving uphill, and I was beginning to see that we were in a sort of large basin. A great many small rivers and streams were feeding into one huge one that I could see in the distance even several kilometers away. Off to my left and right in the far, hazy distance were a pair of low mountain ranges, more like large hills than true towering pillars of rock and earth.

The rattle and clatter of a large horse drawn cart drew my attention, and I turned to watch it coming up behind me on the road. Moving to the side to let it pass, I peered curiously over at it. This wasn’t the first one to go past me, not by a long shot, but I was still interested in seeing any group of fellow travellers up close. It was the four wheeled kind with a cover over the top and a complete lack of suspension that made the whole thing bounce around like it was some sort of theme park ride.

My eyes met those of a man at the front holding the reins. He was young, perhaps three or so years older than me and from what I could tell, sort of handsome in that way that earnest and slightly ignorant guys were. He had a short mess of brown hair, pale skin and big dark brown eyes.

“Where are you headed, miss?” he asked, his wide eyes trying and failing to stay off my body.

I winced and looked away, motioning vaguely forward, not trusting myself to speak.

“Well, would you like to ride with us? We’re going as far as Anverkeit for now, then following the river up into Aberg to Luglastain,” he asked, his expression hopeful in that way that even I recognised.

He wanted the company of a girl, to flirt with, make advances on, the usual thing. However, and this was so awfully stereotypical of me… he did have a ride. Damn, that was tempting.

“If it sways you one way or another, the kid’s harmless. He can barely string the words together to stammer out a flirtatious greeting to a woman anyway, I watched him try his luck with the barmaid at the last inn. I was embarrassed by proxy,” an older voice called from behind, and I turned to see a tall, athletic woman in her forties or fifties hanging out of the back of the covered wagon.

“Valda!” the guy whined, his face heating with the embarrassment that the woman, Valda had mentioned.

“Alright,” I said, just loud enough for them to hear. I hadn’t spoken in days, but my voice was clear and harmonious. Damn, I forgot that my voice was a match for my looks.

“O-oh! Uh, just… wait, should I stop and… oh, I think—” the guy stammered out, before Valda cut in over the top of him. “Here, girl. I’ll pull you up as we go past.”

I nodded, slowing my pace and raising my arm to meet the warrior woman’s strong, muscled one. I felt myself lifted off the ground, and I swung my feet up to push off the slow turning wheel and give us both some extra help. Then I was up in the back of the cart with Valda, nodding my thanks to her.

“Thank you,” I said, again at that low tone. I was honestly feeling a little shy, between the grizzled and intimidating older woman with the big ass sword on her back, to the younger guy who was very obviously interesting in hitting on me.

“Not a problem,” Valda replied, giving me a casual appraisal.

I did the same, noting the rough combination of leather and plate armour she was wearing, form fitting and well worn. The huge claymore she held on her back was intimidating to say the least, held in one of those special holster things for swords like that, too long to be drawn from a traditional sheath. Her hair was almost entirely gray now, only a smattering of pitch blank remaining to show its original colour. My gaze traced further down over the few scars dotted what skin I could see, but it was nothing overly intense, no giant scar across her eye or anything like that.

“You look awfully soft to be wandering the roads of Anverleik, even in trader’s season when the roads are relatively well patrolled,” she stated, clearly coming to the conclusion that I was one dark night away from being attacked and murdered by bandits.

“I am, but not everyone gets the choice,” I replied, then glanced around for somewhere to sit and rest my legs. The bumping of the cart was already threatening to rattle my scarf free from its moorings.

“Aye, that is all too true,” Valda replied, her eyes narrowing slightly in an expression that was either suspicion or respect. I couldn’t tell which.

Gesturing at the various crates and sacks that were stacked in the back of the cart, I asked, “Can I sit down somewhere?”

“Yes, sit on one of the sacks of grain, helps cushion the ride,” the older woman nodded.

“Thanks,” I said again and eased down onto one with a weary sigh.

Taking a chance, I pulled my hood down and then unwrapped my scarf, enjoying the way the cool air tickled across my skin. Damn, it had been getting stifling under all of that cloth. The days were cool still, but also humid from what I was beginning to think were frequent rains. It was all just that little bit too hot to be wrapping your face up like that.

As I was enjoying the cool breeze, I was startled when the cart gave an abrupt jump, followed by the sound of wheels grinding against dirt.

“Cad! Look where you’re driving this bloody thing would you?” Valda growled, and I turned to see the guy dragging his eyes off my face to watch the road again like a scolded puppy.

Oh dear. I glanced an apology to Valda, who was giving me a look that said she was trying to judge me all over again, figure out my story.

“Those are nice clothes you’ve got. Well made, and those boots could buy me food for a month,” she said after a moment, her eyes critical as she gave me a second once over, before they landed on my face. “But that face of your’s girl. That’s something else. What in the god’s name are you doing on your own? Do you have a death wish? Or worse?”

“I had it covered for a reason,” I sighed, my tone starting out defensive, but I was too weary to put much effort into it. “Like I said though, I don’t have a choice.”

“Why is that?” she asked curiously, and I could see Cad’s ears practically swivelling to listen in as well.

Giving a shrug, my fingers found my family ring, absently twisting and pulling at it. “Reasons.”

I still felt very guarded, cautious of the world around me and more than a little scared by it. I had no idea if I could really trust these people, I had no idea what the custom was surrounding offering transport to strangers. Was it common or was I going to be murdered in my sleep tonight? It was far better to keep information about myself under wraps.

“Where are you from?” Cad blurted from up front, trying and failing to stare at me and the road at the same time. “Your accent is so different! I’ve never heard anything like it!”

“This isn’t my first language,” I shrugged, deciding that letting on that I was a foreigner wouldn’t be so bad. They could already tell from my accent anyway.

“What’s your native tongue?” Valda asked, her eyes keen as she regarded me. Damn, why was she so interested in who I was? “I’ve been all over, fought in a lot of places,” Valda continued, and I realised with a jolt that maybe she was just genuinely curious in that grizzled vet sort of way. The way where they were always suspicious of anything new and strange, always on the lookout for potential threats.

“You wouldn’t know it. I’m from outer space after all, a whole different world!” I said in English, then smiled slightly at the comfort I got simply from speaking it. I missed home, I missed my friends.

“Alright,” she laughed, nodding amused acquiescence. “Point taken, you’re from a damn long way away.”

“Why, because you know all the languages around here?” I asked, back in the Anve language, which was what they spoke in this region. “That’s pretty impressive.”

“I can speak some, recognise others,” she shrugged like it was no big deal.

“She used to be a famous mercenary!” Cad exclaimed, his eyes meeting my curious ones with excitement. “I heard she was at the Battle of Atros, when the Abers sent the Ghraigs back up onto their steppes where they belong!”

“Easy there Cad,” the veteran sighed, looking like she suddenly felt the weight of all her years of fighting resting on her shoulders. “I was fighting for King Andras, not the Abers themselves. Those Abers are nasty business, no matter how vital they are to keeping the Ghraig Empire out of the Anverlands.”

“Yeah, but Andras and the other Tlaxans were on the Aber’s side right?” he asked, suddenly looking unsure of himself.

“They were, in the same way the Bithells and the Bethells are on the same side when there’s wolves sighted in the forest back at the village,” she explained patiently.

I raised an eyebrow for an explanation on that one, because it sounded interesting.

“Two families back in our home village,” Valda smiled knowingly. “Come from the same stock back in the day, but somewhere along the line a letter was changed and they’ve been bickering about it ever since.”

“I know the type of feud you’re talking about,” I grinned, thinking back to the homeowner’s association back where I had grown up. They had been embroiled in the most ridiculous petty power struggle I’d ever seen, much to the amusement of everyone not involved, including my conflict averse ass. It had been the reason that the HOA had never actually functioned in my time there. Good times.

“Indeed,” Valda nodded, and we shared the look of two people who didn’t understand the type of person who’s raise a fuss over something like that.

I decided I liked Valda, and Cad was okay too, even if he was obviously developing an infatuation as we continued on down the road. At some point, night began to fall and they pulled the cart up to the side of the road and lit a fire, where we all continued to talk and even shared some of our food between us.

I discovered that Cad and Valda weren’t actually related, only from the same village. When the guy had gotten it into his head that he wanted to be a trader though, Valda had offered to come with him and keep him alive. Probably for his family’s sake as much as his sake. I was smiling as I wrapped myself up in my blanket on the ground. It was nice to talk to people again.

Our journey took us to Anverkeit, the seat of power for the Duke of Anverleik. I was learning that the people who called this region their homeland were the Anvers, and every second damn town or city or even fief had “Anver” somewhere in the name. It was impossible to remember the names of any single place because they all sounded identical, like seriously people, let’s at least try and be creative here!

What intrigued me though, was that this was apparently Esra’s old haunt. This was where she used to rule, or at least sit at the council of the Duke in power. The throne had rather abruptly changed hands when all the mages loyal to him had either died or disappeared. It was fairly obvious that this was also the same event that had forced Esra into hiding the first time. Power struggles among the political elite never changed.

The city was massive by medieval standards, three sets of walls pressed up against the Nostomer River and ranging out in a semicircle, with the ducal citadel in the center. The two innermost walls were small, crumbling things, each marking the previous outer reaches of the ever expanding city. The third, outermost wall was very well maintained however, and pretty damn tall to boot. I could see some of the buildings over the top of the walls, their construction hinting at an architectural style that was similar to that of medieval germans.

I couldn’t stop gawking as we neared the city, staring and leaning from side to side in an attempt to get a better view, much to the amusement of Valda. I kept asking questions about it, about the history of the place and the country as a whole. I was so intrigued by having a real life medieval level society to experience that it was impossible to hide my inner tourist.

Where Valda gave me short, bored answers, it was Cad who took up the slack. He was more than happy to tell me all about ancient stories and battles that he knew of, and I found that he was actually a pretty decent storyteller. He’d be better if he could stop staring at me with huge, yearning doe eyes though. He was so obvious about his interest in me that it was almost painful, and I frequently found myself wincing with second hand embarrassment as he said or did something stupid to get my attention.

He was sweet though, and just a very genuine person in general, so I tried to be kind when I rebuffed his advances. I didn’t want to completely shatter the poor guy’s heart, I’d seen how other people were when they were treated like shit by their crushes when they didn’t really deserve it. Of course, there had also been times where things had gotten creepy, and people had bitched to me about someone who was going way too far with their attentions. Cad wasn’t like that though, so I let him be mostly.

Our stay in the city was brief, a single night in an inn, followed by a morning of bartering in the main market, then heading out at noon. They wanted to make it to the capital of the next nation over as quickly as possible, which was apparently a trading hub for the area, although why this city wasn’t I didn’t know. They were so damn close to each other. The nations around here were very densely packed in general, reminding me of a map of Europe back in the day when France alone had been comprised of like five kingdoms.

It was informative though, many things about the city were similar to what I knew and expected from our media, the smell was bad, poverty was terribly obvious, corruption was rampant and taken for granted. Refuse was often emptied into the streets.

What I should have expected, but hadn’t, were the subtle influences of magic around every major street. Street lamps shone with artificer’s light, as it was known. I saw some basic mechanical devices that were based around utilising magical energy for power. Some of the officers in the city watch even had these strange contraptions that were basically primitive, magically powered handguns.

When the others weren’t paying attention, I quietly cast the spell to locate my friends again, finding them closer again than the last time I’d looked. They were slowly heading towards the same point that we were, which had me thinking I might find them in the next city. I really hoped so, because damn I missed them so badly.

The road out towards our next stop had far less farmland than previously, and it quickly devolved into an increasingly wild forest, the road too was a mess. The forest itself was obviously ancient with, thick, gnarled trees dominated our surroundings, their branches and leaves blocking out all but the most determined rays of sunlight.

The road was a nightmare in bumps and obstacles, and when we hit yet another branch that had fallen on the road, I swore loudly, “Fuck! God damn, I should teach you people about suspension.”

“Suspension?” Cad asked, giving me a worried glance from where he sat next to me at the front of the wagon.

“Ah, shit, wasn’t meant to say that out loud,” I muttered in English, before replying properly in Anve, “Ah it’s these sort of springs that you put between the wheel axles and the cart to absorb the energy of impacts like that one. Good suspension requires the wheels to move partially independently of each other I think though, but that wouldn’t be too much of a problem because this thing is powered by horses.”

Cad blinked at me like I’d explained everything in English rather than Anve, and for a second I wondered if I actually had. I wasn’t an expert of engineering by any means either, and I’m sure a real engineer could turn around and tell me where I’d gone wrong in half a dozen places, but still. Suspension. Please. For the love of my ass.

A sound out in the forest caught my attention like a thunderclap, but I wasn’t sure what it was. It had sounded a little like a floorboard creaking.

“Stop,” Valda said sharply, and Cad and I both turned back to stare at her.

She was on alert, hanging out of the back of the cart, her eyes roaming the forest around us with sharp attention. I turned back to where the sound had come from, anxiety and adrenaline rushing to fill my veins in equal measure.

Cad dutifully stopped the cart according to Valda’s instructions, and we sat there in relative silence as the horses whinnied quietly. I felt the trees around me now, there was a sort of magic in them, not much, but it was there. Maybe they had collected it somehow in their long lives. There was also a strange silence, nothing moved beyond our cart, no birds, no little not-squirrels. Nothing.

A whistling sound came then, high and haunting, and I felt Cad suddenly grasp for my hand. “Oh no. Oh, by the ring maidens no,” he whispered, and I turned to him in confusion. His face was bone white with fear.

The whistling grew nearer at a great speed, and then… something, flew out of the woods. It was twice the size of our horses and so fast it was barely a blur in my vision before the cart was on its side. The sounds of panicking horses erupted into the quiet, their frantic terror dragging the cart several meters before they gave up and began to thrash and kick at their harnesses.

I heard Valda shout from back behind us, then the rasp of her sword being drawn and a great crashing sound. I rolled out of the shifting, bucking cart and dragged Cad with me while I desperately tried to get a look at what was attacking us.

“Oh, holy shit,” I said in English, my blood running deathly cold.

The... thing, it was huge and vaguely man shaped, with powerful legs like a dog’s and a massive barrel chest like a gorilla’s. The arms were long, grotesquely so, and tipped with enormous claws that seemed to have odd holes and divots in them. Oh shit, they were responsible for the whistling. The claws whistled.

Its head was that of something between a bat and a dog, with long torn ears and massive wild eyes, dark with rage. From its hunched back rose four dirty black wings, along with a row of terrible spikes that trailed down its spine. The whole thing was covered in filthy black fur and random sharp thornlike growths for good measure.

“Ershklin,” Cad whimpered. “We’re all dead.”

Valda tried to keep it at bay with her large sword, but it was almost twice as tall as her. She swung, wielding her massive sword almost like it were a quarterstaff, her plated gloves keeping her from being cut by the blade. It bit deep into the monsters side after one skillful swing, but this only pissed the beast off and it reacted with a brutal, rage filled lunge towards her chest. Valda threw herself to the side at the last minute, only barely dodging the whistling talons that quested for her death.

She came up in a wobble, her sword moving to block another flash of those terrible claws just before they tore her in two, but again she was thrown stumbling off balance. She careened backwards and tripped, going down with a thump as all the air left her lungs. The beast was quick to take advantage, showing an intelligence that was just as terrifying as the harmonious claws that dove down towards Valda’s prone form.

She blocked them again with her sword, but only just. For a moment I thought her blade had sunk into the flesh of the Ershklin’s hand, but it came back again with another swipe, and another, and another. Each time those whistling claws dropped, Valda was slower to defend herself, unable to regain her feet, let alone her balance. Then with a grunt, the thing changed the trajectory of its swing, coming in from the side with a wide swing. The huge blade was sent flying to land in the dirt, leaving Valda defenseless as the huge creature made another, final strike to end her.

Except it didn’t connect, because I finally moved. My telekinesis held it, invisible vines wrapping around the bulging limb like it was the trunk of a doomed tree. I stepped forward, shucking off my disguise in the process lest I accidentally burn the plants out back in my grove. I poured power into my vines, more and more of them finding and wrapping around the terrible creature until it was held, floating in midair.

I could feel sweat beginning to bead across my body with the exertion, it was so damn heavy, but with a shaking will, I wrapped another vine around it’s huge bull-like neck. Pain exploded through my forehead and I screamed, twisting and pulling at the thing from all directions, just wanting it to stop hurting Valda. There was a cracking sound, but I barely registered it, all of my focus bent to squeezing, twisting and crushing. Kill it, kill it, kill the monster, kill the damn monster. Make the fear go away.

Its body ruptured like a week-old carcass, gore and viscera spilling out in every direction as the pressure finally overcame it. My vines vanished with the lack of resistance, and I stared at what I had done in shock. New mages were meant to be weak right? We were meant to be little more powerful than a regular human, able to throw a stick around with our minds maybe, but that was meant to be it, right?

Except my stick had exploded, and so had this creature. Pieces of it littered the road behind our wagon, myself and a shocked Valda having only just missed being drenched in the foul smelling stuff. I turned to her where she stood nearby, having evidently rushed to get away from the thing while it was… preoccupied.

She was staring back at me with raw, shuddering fear in her eyes, almost as if she wasn’t really seeing me, but rather some memory from long ago, and I could hear Cad behind me whimpering.

“You’re a mage,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and choked.

“Please don’t hurt me,” I mumbled as my vision began to blur, and then I keeled over, the world turning black as I lost consciousness.

A jolt shook me awake, and I gasped, flailing and clawing around me as I tried to figure out where I was. Was Bray playing a prank on me, what was happening? Why did I feel so strange? What was on my face?

I threw it off, finding that it was my blue scarf. Wait, my scarf, given to me by Esra. Oh my god, I was a girl, I was an outrageously hot girl! I smiled and laughed like a giddy, slightly crazy person. Relief and happiness rushing through me in equal measure as my brain stuttered back to full functionality. Of course, then I remembered why I had been unconscious in the first place.

Bolting upright, I looked around in bleary eyed confusion. Wait, I was in the cart. Valda was staring at me warily from the back where she sat, her legs dangling over the edge. Her posture was that of someone who was ready to strike if I so much as looked like I was going to cause trouble. Right, they knew I was a mage… they had seen me take that enormous creature and crush it like a bug.

“You’re finally awake,” she said coldly, crossing the border between wariness and downright hostility.

“U-um… Hi?” I asked cautiously, feeling my guts begin their anxious squirming as I watched her expression.

“She’s scared of you,” Cad said from up the front where he was driving, as usual. “I mean, I’m scared of you too, you’re a god’s damned mage after all, but… you seem nice too. I made her put you in the cart instead of leaving you behind.”

That honestly made me feel… nice. I think a part of the reason I was so okay with his attentions was, well… they were the attentions that a boy normally gave a girl. It was difficult to explain, but even if I didn’t want to be with him or anything, it was just nice to be treated like a girl, a regular ol’ pretty girl.

“Thank you,” I said sincerely, giving him a truly grateful smile.

Seriously though, the guy had a heart of fucking gold. Well, either that, or his heart was just a normal guy’s one and he it was the big ol’ whopping crush on me that was responsible. Probably both to be honest.

In an attempt to calm them both down a little, I activated the spell to hide my mage features, the plants back in my grove feeling almost happy to help. It would be fun when I got some big trees created, then I could talk about my happy little trees.

“You killed that thing back there like it was nothing,” Valda said out of nowhere. “Just lifted it up into the air and crushed it like a ripe fruit.”

“Yeah…” I breathed awkwardly, avoiding her eyes. “I didn’t know I could do that, actually.”

“Really?” she asked, looking surprised by my admission.

“Yeah, it’s true. I’ve only been a mage for like, two months. I have no idea what I’m doing,” I said honestly, hoping that with that honesty I could get back on her good side. I liked Valda, I didn’t want her to be scared of me, or hate me.

“Two months? I was told that some mages sequester their newborn apprentices in their Groves for years before they feel ready to come back out,” the woman said, frowning like I’d just claimed the sky was red.

"I had to leave, my teacher's grove was attacked, destroyed. I'm trying to find my old friends, from before I became like this," I replied, searching her face for any sign that she was beginning to trust me again.

She was silent for several moments before Cad spoke up again from the front of the cart. "You know… you never told us your name. Or where you're from."

I blinked, opening my mouth to deny it, then frowned. I hadn't given my name, there had never been any sort of introductions, I'd just overheard their names.

"Oh, um. My name is Ryn, I'm from a… from a town called Avonside. I don't know where it is in relation to us though," I told them earnestly, and then a thought occurred to me. "If you um, ever end up hearing about Avonside, and I make it back home, I'd vouch for you if you wanted to trade there."

"What could your Avonside have to trade for that we would be able to sell?" Cad asked, his eyes suddenly sparkling with interest.

"Well, suspension for one thing," I grimaced as we hit another bump in the road.

For some reason that got Valda laughing, and with an amused shake of her head she said, “Oh, that would be nice wouldn’t it. A ride that doesn’t break my withered, bony old ass.”

The instant I saw her laugh, relief flooded through me. If I could make her laugh, then she didn’t hate me.

“You have no idea,” I grinned, thinking almost wistfully back to Earth’s various transport systems. I had taken them for granted so hard. “I remember getting into this one reasonably expensive… uh, cart, and the ride was so smooth I thought we weren’t moving. Not a single vibration through the frame.”

“How is that even possible? Was it spelled or artificed to be that way?” Cad asked in awe.

I shook my head, “No, just very good… um, artisans. I have no idea how it worked, but my friend might know. He studies metallurgy. He’s one of the friends I’m trying to find actually.”

Sounding saddened, Cad asked quietly, “How long will it take to find them?”

“Four are um,” I started, then looked down at the ring and quickly cast the spell, which to a non mage’s eyes flashed with white light. My arms were briefly enveloped in a bouquet of black and white flowers before the display dissipated. “Four are that way,” I said, pointing towards where Avonside was. “That’s probably where my… homeland is, but two are much closer and moving towards the same point we are. I have no idea why but… yeah.”

“Interesting. You will be leaving us in Rotodunum then?” Valda mused, giving me a long look that I couldn’t interpret. The woman was a damn mystery sometimes. Maybe she was relieved to have the volatile mage out of her hair.

“Uh, yeah probably. No more mage problems for you,” I joked half heartedly. It still hurt the way they had reacted to my being a mage, despite how well we had all gotten along up until that point. It made me worried for my eventual reunion with my friends.

“So far you have just made a boring journey far more interesting, and of course, slain a magical beast that would have been certain to kill us otherwise,” Valda shook her head. “Mages are generally bad news for common people like us, but you seem like that rare, good sort.”

“Thanks,” I smiled, feeling some of that hurt I had just mentioned ease. “My mentor was nice enough, but I get the feeling that she might not have been so nice before.”

“Aye, most mages come from the nobility and have very little regard for people below their station. Their mage fruit are usually paid for years in advance,” Valda nodded. “Who was your mentor, if I might ask?”

“Um… Esra Rihm,” I said cautiously.

“No way!” Cad blurted, staring at me in shock. “Esra Rihm was the one who made your fruit? How did you get it? What happened? Everyone says she died!”

“Uh, well… I actually stumbled on it. She put it in the middle of a forest because she didn’t want to deal with another apprentice after her last one,” I replied, thinking back to Lord Fennimore with a shudder.

“Yeah I can bloody well see why, her last apprentice is a fucking sadist. The man can be charming, or he tries to be, the nobility lap it up, but by the gods…” Valda exclaimed, her face screwed up in disgust. “Apologies, I have strong feelings about that man. Watched him kill four hundred prisoners because they were too expensive to keep around or something. The man has no honor whatsoever.”

“You fought beside him?” Cad asked, looking a little appalled.

“Not by any fucking choice of mine,” she spat, shaking her head. “No, he and the other new Lords of Anverleik conscripted every mercenary company they could find. It was either fight for them and get paid, or die by their magic. We chose life.”

“That is… rough,” I grimaced, shaking my head. “No matter where you go, it’s the same shit.”

“Aye, that’s damn right. Us common folk just got to keep our heads down and live the best we can,” Valda sighed, but her hand went to the hilt of her sword, tracing the ridges of leather she found there.

A thought occurred to me as I dwelt on the nature of people in power. What had Esra been like? Was she just like the rest of the mages? Self centered and power hungry? Or was she better than that? She’d seemed… not entirely good, but she’d seemed to have a good sense of morality and fairness. She’d had a heart too, the way she’d been beginning to care about me.

“Was Esra a bad mage?” I asked quietly after a few minutes had passed.

“She was better than some, worse than others,” Valda shrugged. “Not all terribly spectacular as a battle mage, but she made up for it in other ways. I heard talk that she was one of the best, before... you know what. Advocated for a sewer system to be built in Anverkeit, although unfortunately the old lord was just as bad as the new one and he threw that idea out. Said it would cost too much or something.”

“That’s a relief, at least she wasn’t evil,” I sighed, my fears somewhat assuaged. It was nice to know my mentor hadn’t secretly been a monster.

The city of Rotodunum wasn’t too far away now, the whole region being packed together the way it was, like rowdy music fans in a mosh pit. Complete with all the pushing and shoving that it entailed. What was different about Rotodunum was that it was ancient. The island it had been built on and subsequently expanded out from had been inhabited for as long as anyone could remember. I had to move up to the front with Cad so I could get a better view of the incredible sights.

Not as long as the land and the ring remembered though, because Rotodunum was built on some even more ancient ruins. I saw the first signs of them as we approached from the opposite side of the river from the main city, a huge bridge that was so utterly at odds with everything I had seen so far that I had to just stare at it and let my mind come to grips with the thing.

The river itself was several hundred yards across, a deep and ponderous thing. The bridge that spanned it was a wild mess of ordered geometry, steel beams and cables held up a vast walkway, almost as wide as the river was, and all of it was showing signs of corrosion and age. Across that bridge the people of Rotodunum had built houses, shops and any other number of buildings. It was a suburb in and of itself.

“Who built that bridge?” I asked in wonder. I knew the answer of course, it was the same people who had built this world, but I wanted to know more.

“No one knows who built all the ruins,” Valda shrugged. “Same as all the others, it’s a mystery.”

“Some people say it was the gods! That they lived on the world like us, but that the steel ones drove them back into the stars!” Cad whispered excitedly, leaning against me as he told his story. I fought against my inner desire to cringe away from the contact. Not a fan of that kind of thing. “The gods lived on the world back when it was a paradise, no one had any need of anything, but then the Steel Ones came, and they fought a war that made the very world begin to shake!”

Valda’s expression told me all I needed to know about her opinions on the subject, but I was more interested. Myths like this one always had a bearing on reality in some way or another, and that meant I might be able to get some insight into who the builders of this ring were.

“Who are the Steel Ones?” I asked, fishing for information now.

“The Steel Ones!” he exclaimed, like that would tell me everything. When I gave him a blank look, he continued, “They’re the Steel Ones, they’re made of metal and they’re really old. Most of them are dead, but the ones that aren’t are really scary. I heard that there was once a kingdom to the north, a big one, but one day out of nowhere, the biggest Steel One that anyone had ever seen just attacked them! It was bigger than a castle, and it killed them! Destroyed their capital like it was never there!”

“The Steel Ones are no more than magical beasts,” Valda cut in, “Like that thing we killed back in the woods. They are wielders of strange magicks though, throwing spells and the like that no mage has been able to replicate.”

Interesting. That sounded an awful lot like they were really just robots romping around with like, guns and lasers and shit. Future tech that everyone was just writing off as magic. I’d have to see one for myself to know for sure though.

As we neared the bridge, I cast the tracking spell again, and to my surprise I found that it was pointing towards the city proper. Two of my friends were in the city! They were moving around a bit, but they were definitely in there.

Nervous excitement must have been pouring off me in waves, because Cad was giving me the side eye like nothing else. We entered the city just fine, no problems from the guards, other than a few odd glances at the way I had covered myself back up again.

The trip across the bridge was a blur, I couldn’t focus on the incredible sights around me because I was practically crawling up the canvas of the cart from the sheer excited energy running through me. I wonder which of my friends it was in front of me? Was it the two big guys? That would make sense, but it could be any of them. What were they even doing out here too?

When we reached the end of the bridge and turned down a side street to stop in front of an inn, the two I had been travelling with turned to me expectantly.

“I’m guessing this is as far as you’ll be coming with us?” Valda smiled, clearly amused by the way I was almost bouncing around like a rubber ball.

“Yeah,” I nodded gratefully. “Thank you so much, both of you. I might not have even caught up to them if it wasn’t for your help.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” Cad blushed, giving me a shy smile.

I almost hugged them, but then thought better of it. Instead, I said, “Seriously, if either of you need anything in the future… I’ll help. I mean, you’d have to find me, but a good place to find me will be Avonside.”

“We don’t know where that is though!” Cad protested, looking like he might get upset now.

“Trust me, I think you’ll know where it is before the year is out, but just in case,” I said, then pointed in the direction of where I thought it was. “It’s in that direction. I don’t know how far.”

“Alright, we’ll keep that in mind. Thanks again, by the way. For saving my life,” Valda said, offering a hand. “And for saving Cadrick’s too.”

“Cadrick huh?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I hate that name,” he grimaced. “Cad’s better.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I smiled. “See you both again some day.”

“We’ll look forward to it,” Valda nodded, and then I turned and moved through the city, following the call of my friends. I really hoped I could find them, I had an image of where they had been in my mind, but I couldn’t cast the spell again for fear I’d be seen. I’d just have to scope them out the old fashioned way.

I wandered through the city streets, trying to hold my sense of direction true in my mind. It had been this way right? My spell had pointed towards the center of the city when I had last cast it, so hopefully I was heading in the right direction, weaving between the crowds of people and wagons as they all tried to argue their way past each other.

I noticed with distracted interest that this city had some sort of sewer system, drains were present every now and then, and there weren’t gross puddles all over the place like in the last one. It was still pretty gross though with horses shitting everywhere, and I was thankful for my expensive boots. I wonder how much they had cost?

I had a few coins in my pack, but I had no idea what any of them were worth, so I’d mostly just left them there until it came time to help pay for things during the trip here with Cad and Valda. They had known what to do with them. I was on my own now though, so I’d need to learn what was worth what eventually. But not now.

The streets became wider, drains became more frequent and the buildings became larger and built out of more expensive materials. Where the outskirts of the city had been wood and thatch that had gradually transitioned to stone and slate, this area was both, but at a far higher quality of construction. Signs had writing on them now too rather than simple images, and the people who perused those shops wore nicer clothing.

Before long I found myself in a large market square that sat beneath a huge citadel, squatting like a supplicant at the feet of its god. The citadel drew my eye and my mind as one. It was utterly foreign to my eyes, not at all medieval in design, at least not underneath all the additions that had been made since it was originally abandoned.

It was several hundred meters in height, nothing but straight lines and angles all the way up. No curves here, but it nevertheless had an elegance to it, the way all the lines and angles flowed upwards to the peak. The great steel tower had been modified heavily since, the people who now inhabited it trying their best to add to the structure as space was needed. I could see a primitive crane operating off to the side too, pulling goods up to the higher levels.

Dragging my eyes off the very obvious evidence that whoever had once built this place might not be around any longer, I surveyed the market itself. It was a swirling mass of people and stalls, all trying to do business around each other. I saw people who had to be foreigners too. The city was living up to its name as a trading hub, that was for sure.

I began to wander through the crowds, trying to catch a glimpse of my friends. I cursed my new height as I did so, I couldn’t see shit over the top of all the men around me who were now at least half a head taller than me.

As I tried to figure out a new approach to finding people in a crowd, I watched as a group of men in great wraps of cloth argued tooth and nail with a merchant about some strange looking vegetable thing. Across the way I could see a gaggle of women who were obviously high in status, nobles or the wives of rich merchants maybe, their guards trailing as the women wandered aimlessly.

I needed somewhere higher, somewhere I could get a better view of this mess. With that in mind, I tried to pushed through the crowds around me, but almost straight away I accidentally bumped into someone in a full suit of strange armour. It had a base layer of tough black leather, with plates of black metal across many vital areas. My eyes drifted up, an apology already on my lips, but it died when my gaze made contact with the cold black visor of their helmet.

Where a normal sallet style helmet like the one they wore would have had some sort of steel visor or slit for the wearer to see, this one had one of dark tinted glass. I couldn’t even see their eyes as they regarded me with an impassive tilt of their head. Caught as I was by the uneasiness of their appearance, I stood stone still as they looked me up and down.

Four others in similar armour slowed to a stop and watched the silent exchange, and I got a good look at them in return. Each of them wore one of those magical hand guns at their hip, and across their backs were black cloaks of rough wool.

Shaking myself out of my nervous reaction, I quickly raised my hands in an expression of apology and hurried onwards. I don’t know what it was about them, but they intimidated me to no end. Maybe it was the helmets, maybe it was the guns, I don’t know. With my heart beginning to hammer in my chest, I tried to put as much distance as I could between myself and them. There was something about the way the one I had bumped into looked at me, something ominous.

When I turned back to check what their reaction had been, I saw the one I’d bumped into pointing at me and gesturing with agitation. Then… then they began to move towards me. Shit, did they know I was a mage? Were they Fennimore’s men? I picked up my pace, trying to lose them before a chase could really begin.

I bumped into a few more people in my rush to escape, each time apologising profusely and then rushing off before they could make a scene, but it was no use. The black armoured men were spreading out, coordinating to try and cut me off from any exits. I tried to keep my pace to a brisk walk as my panic began to take hold of my system, the worst thing I could do now was get the attention of the regular guards as well as the terrifying armoured men behind me.

Sighing with a small sliver of relief, I made it to one of the many large streets that fed into the marketplace, and plunged down it. My breathing was already laboured with fear and adrenaline in equal measure by now, but surely I could get away now that I was out of the market. They definitely knew I was a mage, there was no other reason for five heavily armoured men to be chasing me down like this.

Turning back again to see if they were following, I saw them turn into the street at a run, and at that point I finally gave in to the insistent rambling of my fear. I barrelled down the street at a sprint and ducked behind a large wagon as it attempted to navigate the uncooperative crowds. With their line of sight temporarily broken, I dodged into an alleyway and almost immediately slipped on something wet and gross. Shit! The grip on the bottom of the boots only just saved me, catching on the cobblestones of the alleyway and keeping me upright, if only barely.

With my balance regained, I rushed into another nook and began to follow it, plunging further into a maze of twisting and turning lanes between high walled buildings. A junction formed again up ahead, the path I was following blocked by an ornate wall with hints of a garden on the other side. I had a choice to make, two directions to go, each one turning a corner after several yards. I chose randomly, rushing down the right hand path.

A few more twists and turns and I was in a small courtyard with a well that apparently serviced a few of the buildings nearby. Shit, there were so many paths to choose from now! Which one did I go for? Had I lost them? What if I chose the wrong one and ended up back on the street where they could find me? I needed to get back to Cad and Valda, they might know what to do. Finding my friends had to come second to surviving long enough to be reunited with them in the first place.

I chose a path at random, a gamble, just bolting towards an opening between the buildings and hoping for the best, wanting to get even further out of the reach of my pursuers. I chose the absolute worst route to take. One of the black clad men was just turning into the courtyard, and we collided with a crash. Stumbling, I watched in horror as he did the same, although his balance was far better than mine.

I backpedalled further, terror enfusing my bones now, they were hunting me, they wanted me. Why did they want me? Why couldn’t they just leave me be? I just wanted to find my friends! Why was the universe doing this to me?

My heel hit something as I retreated, I don’t know what, but I went down on my ass with a heavy thump. My pack thankfully cushioned my fall, but it didn’t matter. They were surrounding me now, all of them in the courtyard, their boots clicking on the rough cobbles. Each one regarded me from behind their helmets, impassive and arrogant as my own gaze flicked wildly between them, wondering which one would be the first to strike.

“I don’t know why we’re chasing this random chick, your friend is fucking dead, get over it,” one of them said with a note of frustration. I cringed at his tone, and tried not to look up. As I was right now, heated words sent my mind reeling with fear.

“Shut the fuck up dude,” the biggest of the men said, turning to loom menacingly over his comrade. Would they fight each other? Could I get away?

One of them stepped towards me, and my panic finally hit maximum. I didn’t want to kill them, I didn’t want the blood of people on my hands, no matter who they were, but I needed to defend myself. My telekinesis rushed blindly forward, twining around each of them and lifting them bodily into the air. Oh my god, they… they didn’t have protections against this? But they were hunting a mage!

“What the fuck!” one shouted, while another began to thrash wildly, yelling at the smallest of their group, the one at the front, the one who’d moved towards me. “I told you! I told you! We can’t just fuck with people, no matter what they wear on their damn finger!”

Wait what? I looked down at the ring on my finger, then back up at them in confusion. What did they know about my ring?

“Where’d you get that ring?” the one who’d moved for me asked with a high, almost cute grunt of pain, ignoring their comrade.

Wait, a woman? The one I’d bumped into was a woman… and oh my god, they were... they had all been speaking English! English, the language that only my friends would know around here.

“Grace?” I squeaked, staring at the woman in armour in shock.

They all fell silent as soon as I spoke, glancing between one another, but I still couldn’t see their expressions because of the helmets. Was I crazy? That had been her right? Her voice? Please be her!

“How do you know my name? Who are you?” the woman asked, her tone low and pained with emotion. “Where did you get that fucking ring?”

“It’s… mine,” I whispered, still staring at them with open shock. Not that they would be able to really see my expression either, I was still wrapped up in hood and scarf. Quickly, my mind racing, I told them, “I’m going to let you down, and you have to take your helmets off. Try moving for those guns and I’ll immobilize you again.”

“Alright,” the woman I was almost sure was Grace said with a nod, still sounding confused and emotional.

I did as I’d promised, carefully letting them down and retracting my telekinesis. As I did so, I levered myself up off the ground and watched them. Slowly, the woman first, they unbuckled their helmets and lifted them off.

I swayed on my feet when Grace’s face came into view, her hair messy and a little sweaty from the helmet, but I couldn’t care less, it was my friend! She was here! I felt tears spring into my eyes, raw emotion bubbling up and spilling out the only way it could.

“Grace!” I cried, taking a step forward before I remembered that she had no idea who I was.

“No, who the fuck are you, and how did you get that ring,” she almost growled, her expression terrible with wrath and confusion.

I flinched as her words hit me, hearing her speak with that tone, directed at me… it hurt, it hurt so much.

“It’s mine!” I blurted desperately, unsure how I could explain anything. “I’m… I’m Eli! Or, I was…”

“What the fuck does that mean?” one of the guys asked with a snort, and with a jolt of excitement I saw that it was Adam.

“Adam!” I gasped. My friends were really here! I just had to convince them of who I was. I needed to… they wouldn’t hurt me right?

“Guys, she’s speaking English,” one of the other’s said. I didn’t recognise him, but I could have hugged him for pointing that out. How were we all forgetting about that? Emotional turmoil? Whatever.

“Oh shit,” Adam blinked, then he really stared at me, his eyes narrowed. I stood there and silently begged for both him and Grace to recognise me somehow. “No one knows English unless they’re from Avonside.”

“Eli was a man,” she said sharply. “Do you think we’re idiots?”

I flinched again, my gut shrivelling with the pain of her words, and quietly I murmured, “Not anymore. I got changed, Grace, my body… it was...”

“She’s scared Grace, let’s at least listen to her,” Adam told her, his tone placating and mercifully calm.

She seemed to finally ease as she took in the way I was very much terrified right now, cringing away from the five of them as they stood in a semi circle around me.

Cocking her head, she gave me a proper, long appraisal. “How? How could you possibly be Eli?”

Here we go, I had to… how did I even do this? Explain myself? Convince them it was still me under the hood?

“Magic fruit,” I replied with an awkward smile, my nervousness speaking for me before I could formulate a proper response. “It wasn’t… um, it wasn’t the Batronauts that got me though. It was a witch. Well, a mage, but...”

She blinked. Once, twice, and then her mouth opened even as her mind slowly churned. Finally, she barked a disbelieving laugh. “Batronauts… holy shit.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, hoping she was starting to believe me, I mean that had been our thing right? No one else had been in on that joke, just the two of us. “I was just like, schooped up into that fruit and then yeah. It turned me into this,” I told her, gesturing down at my very, undeniably feminine body.

“It’s really you?” she asked, and there was a note of hope now, and I nodded, my heart racing with hope. She was starting to believe me!

Wait, but she couldn’t see my face, she couldn’t see my expressions. None of them could. I quickly pulled off both my magical and physical disguises, throwing my hood back and unwrapping my scarf.

“Yeah, sorry, Hi uh…” I said awkwardly, giving her a shy, goofy smile.

Her eyes went massive as I uncovered my face, and one of the guys blurted, “Holy shit.”

“Oh, right,” I winced, remembering what they were seeing. “It’s me though,” I barrelled on urgently, trying to drive the point home. “I mean, I just used magic on you all for crying out loud! And Grace, when all this shit started and we got nabbed from Earth, you were holding the umbrella because Bray and I were too weak to hold the damn thing up! Not that it mattered, because we were all soaked as it was.”

That did it, I watched as her blinking, huge green eyes finally came around. She believed me. Then she was coming at me in a rush, her arms going wide to pull me into a hug against her uncomfortable armour. Somehow, I didn’t care though, all the anxiety, worry and fear I had been carrying with me eased with that simple contact. I relaxed into the hug, letting her stronger frame carry my weight for a moment. Tears sprung up all over again. I was finally safe.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” she cried, squeezing me tighter. “I can’t… I thought you died! And I couldn't stop you, and...” she started, then pulled back just as suddenly as she’d hugged me, her hands still on my shoulders. “How?”

“It was a mage fruit, a um, a kind of magical plant that mages leave around. If you pick it, it drags you into their… magical grove and turns you into one of them,” I replied, doubting that she’d understand even half of that.

She didn’t reply, just staring, her eyes roaming my face with open curiosity. Standing there with the rest of her band shuffling awkwardly, I became hyper aware of how close she was. How strong her hands felt on my shoulders, encompassing them in a way that they couldn’t have if I’d still been in my old body. She was taller than me now, if only marginally, and just kinda slightly bigger in every way. Which wasn’t hard obviously, considering how slim my incredible new body was.

“You’re… gorgeous,” she whispered after a moment, too quiet for the others to hear.

“Yeah,” I murmured, glancing aside to avoid the strange look in her eyes as my cheeks flushed.

She kept staring for several more moments before she suddenly stepped back, her hands letting go like I’d just gone up in flames. “Sorry!” she gasped, and now it was she who was avoiding my eyes.

One of the men, one who hadn’t spoken and I didn’t recognise stepped forward. He looked older than everyone else, at least mid thirties, but he was big and fit, clearly a man who could handle himself in a brawl. His tone was almost businesslike as he asked, “You’re really the uh, person known as Elias Belrose? A student of Avonside University?”

“Um, yup,” I nodded. “I was with you all for only a week before I got… taken.”

He nodded, thoughts whirring behind his eyes before calmly, he asked, “Date of birth?”

My eyebrows raised at that. What was this? A phone call to the tax department? “June, twelfth, year two thousand.”

“What were you studying?” he shot back almost immediately, and I frowned. How on Earth would he know if I was telling the truth? How did he know the answers?

“Uh, the sciences, I intended to go into Ecology,” I replied quickly, watching his face, trying to gain answers as I spoke.

“Alright, I’ll believe you until we can get the full story,” the man nodded, then offered his hand. “Troy Wintringham, leader of this band of… explorers.”

“Thank you,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief and shooting Grace another smile. “What are you all doing out here?”

“Let’s find somewhere more secure, then we’ll trade stories,” came his response as he turned and began to give orders.

Grace sidled up next to me as we started to make our way out of the alleyways, her helmet under her arm. She looked good in armour, very good. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her either, like if I looked away for too long she’d disappear and I’d be left alone again. Would it be weird if I like, grabbed hold of her arm? Just to make sure she stayed real.

“You’re really Eli?” she asked again quietly, her eyes seeming almost to sparkle with an overflow of emotion.

“I am, except… I go by Ryn now,” I said shyly. “I um, yeah. I like that name better. Can’t really walk around with a name like Elias while I look like this. Well, I mean I could, but people would look at me weird. Even the mage woman said it would be weird, and she didn’t even… nevermind,” I rambled nervously, my hands trying and failing to find pockets. I was so nervous still, and like, what do you even do with your hands when you’re nervous? Hands can be so awkward sometimes.

“Ryn? Your name’s Ryn now huh?” she smiled, rolling the name around for a moment. “I like it, it’s cute.”

“Oh,” I blinked, feeling yet another awkward smile tug at my lips. Okay, what was going on here? Why was I being a total weirdo right now? I’d found her! Things were meant to be back to normal, but this felt nothing like normal! Agh!

All the Avonside people put their helmets back on as we left the alleyways, and that reminded me to put my whole disguise back on as well. Couldn’t have this reunion messed up already when some random stranger saw my magenta hair could we?

Grace’s helmet cocked to the side when the magical portion of my disguise reappeared, and she commented, “Ginger huh?”

“It matches my real hair... kinda,” I said defensively, reaching up to self consciously worry at it with my fingers.

“Hey, don’t worry. Not giving you shit over it, it’s just an interesting choice,” she replied, her voice tinny through the helmet.

I smiled and continued with reapplying the mundane elements of the disguise, but internally I was trying to figure out why they were all wearing that armour. That guy who was supposedly in charge had called their group “explorers” but what did that even mean? What were their objectives, why were they so damn far from Avonside, and most importantly, why the scary as fuck armour?

I held my questions though, because leader guy was right, this place wasn’t safe, especially for a mage like me.

“Boss, where the hell are we even going to go? There’s people everywhere, we should just go back to the courtyard. It’s not like it matters if the hot chick is who she says she is, we’re just going to ditch her right?” asked the dude who had so rudely told Grace to stop believing in me when they first came into the courtyard back there.

“James,” Boss man Troy replied calmly, turning to look at him as we walked down the street. At the same time, his arm shot out to block Grace as she clenched her fists angrily and made to move on James.

“Yeah boss?” James asked, confused.

“You’re the dumbest guy I’ve ever had under my command, and back when I was with the military, I knew some pretty fucking dumb people. I’d rather leave you behind than a girl who is so clearly an incredible asset to Avonside, let alone the fact that she’s one of us. Now please shut the fuck up,” Troy replied, still in that calm, disinterested tone of voice.

We continued down the bustling street, dodging a procession of soldiers as we went. I saw several of them give our group the side eye, and I wondered what they would do if they knew who we were. Like, the five armoured Avonsiders were each assets in and of themselves, possessing passing knowledge of a lot of Earth’s tech, or at least knowing what was possible. Then there was me, a… relatively weak newborn mage.

I blinked, wait… I was a mage. I knew the perfect place to have an eavesdropper-free chat! My Grove! I quietly moved up next to Troy, but hesitated for a second or two, my thoughts turning worried. No, if I wanted them to trust me, I had to trust them too.

“Hey, uh… Troy, I know where we can talk with a one hundred percent guarantee of no eavesdroppers,” I said after those few moments of internal debate.

“Oh?” he asked simply.

“Yeah uh, all mages, except the very new ones, have like… a pocket dimension,” I murmured, keeping my voice as low as possible.

“Including you,” he remarked, and I wished I could see his expression right about then. That utterly calm way of talking he had was nerve wracking.

“Yup, we just have to find somewhere that no one will see us enter or exit,” I said quickly. “Plus um, I made mine look like Earth, so if anyone is feeling homesick…”

He regarded me for several long seconds, his helmet impervious to my attempts to read him once again, and my nervousness took a sharp turn upwards.

“Alright,” he nodded, but he didn’t look away, continuing to stare through that impenetrable black visor.

Ugh, I felt so anxious, worried. Like how you might see cops back on Earth walking down the street, and you know you’ve done nothing wrong, but you’re still anxious anyway. Then your nervousness makes you more nervous, because you think they will take that nervousness as guilt.

“I was planning to take us out of the city and into the nearest forest, and we’ll still be doing that. We’ll have a little preliminary chat there, and then you can show us this magical pocket realm of yours,” he said, then turned back to the street like that was that. Wow, okay. He was taking this all very well in stride for a random army dude.

Rather than staying next to him and continuing to wind myself up until I took off into the air like one of those toy helicopters, I slid back until I was next to Grace again. Maybe talking to her would calm me down. Well, except she was wearing one of those damn helmets too, which meant I couldn’t see her expressions either.

“Um, Grace, how are you?” I asked lamely, getting a tilted helmet in return.

“I’ve been better,” she shrugged. “Well actually, now that I’ve found you… I think I might be okay.”

“Were you really… did you actually care that much?” I murmured, somewhat embarrassed that someone thought I was worth that much consideration.

This time, I could tell even through the helmet that she was giving me a look that said something like, are you crazy? “Of course!” she exclaimed, a little too loudly. “You were already like, such a great friend, and we were in this crazy situation, guarding each other’s backs. Then you went all zombie mode on me and walked into a fruit. I thought… shit I don’t know what. Then there was the whole fucking… inquisition afterwards.”

“Inquisition?” I asked quickly.

“Yeah, they didn’t believe me at first, not until they saw the weird fruits, and then suddenly I was being questioned by everyone and their mother. Some people said it was my fault, some people still thought I was crazy even after they saw the wood creature,” she sighed, shaking her head miserably. “It sucked, they wouldn’t even let me mourn you, it was just—“

“Not here, Grace,” Troy warned gently from up ahead. “Save it for when we’re secure.”

“Right, sorry Troy,” Grace murmured with a nod.

The rest of the journey out of the city and into the forest beyond the farmland was done in relative silence. I was feeling worried again, I just felt like something was going to go wrong. The universe had been so keen to pull the rug out from under me every time I was happy, I was almost expecting it now.

The forest in this region was a wet one, almost a temperate rainforest, with oak, ash, birch and many other types of familiar tree vying for sunlight with huge ferns. The forest floor was covered in wet, decaying leaves and vibrantly green undergrowth. Across everything was a layer of moss and fungus. The whole place was a riot of vivid greens, browns and reds. It was incredibly pretty, and I wondered if maybe I could create a magical version of it in my Grove.

I think I wanted that, to build an ecosystem rather than a tended garden. Something that was a little more self sufficient than mages typically built. After all, judging by the books Esra had kept in her cottage, they didn’t have much of an idea about the science of ecology and how every plant and animal was interconnected and required for the health of the greater whole.

“Alright, we’ll stop here,” Troy piped up, jolting me out of my thoughts.

I looked around at where we’d stopped. It was a fairly nondescript part of the forest, the same as everything else.

“So um, where do we start?” I asked nervously.

“We’ll start with a more detailed explanation of what happened to you I think,” he replied, then paused and turned to everyone else. “Helmets off too, let’s have a civilised conversation here.”

I took my magical and mundane disguises off along with them as they did their helmets, smiling at Adam and Grace in particular when their faces were revealed again. I’d missed them. I got a big grin and a subtle wink in return from Adam, which had me giving him a goofy grin right back. Yeah, I was safe with these people, so long as my two friends were around.

Taking a deep breath, I frowned and began to speak. I told them of how it had felt when the fruit was calling me in, then of my fuzzy time within the fruit. I told them how I’d hatched from that fruit, naked and feminine. I told them about Esra, about mages and about how I had been training. I left out the part about how I was explicitly more powerful than was expected of a newly born mage, and definitely didn’t mention how I absolutely loved being in this body over the last one.

That led on to an explanation of my encounter with Lord Fennimore, plus what I had heard from both Esra and Valda about him. Namely, that he was a right piece of work. Troy in particular seemed visibly angry when I mentioned the murder of prisoners because they cost too much and their people refused ransom demands. On the flip side, they were extremely interested to learn that I was now fluent in the native language of this region, Anve.

“You just, popped out of the fruit and could speak, what was it? Anve?” Adam asked incredulously. “This whole magic thing sounds real fucking weird to me.”

I gave a little chuckle and nodded. “Yup, it’s definitely pretty weird.”

As if sensing that my explanation had run its course, Troy stepped in. “Well, now that we have a more… understandable account of what happened, I think it’s fairly safe to say you are who you say you are. Especially considering the way both you and Grace have already begun to bond again. Why don’t we take a look at this, uh, Grove?”

“Um, sure. Just stand close, I think that’s all,” I said, closing my eyes and concentrating on my magical senses.

I could see each of them, their bodies showing as weird bubbles of magical energy. I frowned, hold on... Esra hadn’t looked like that to my magical sight, she’d looked different, like a web of magic with an obvious but intangible connection to her Grove.

With them though, it was like they had a shield of magic around them, a barrier that protected them from further internal inspection with my mage sight. Tentatively, while they thought I was working up the power to take us all to my Grove, I sent out the slightest tendril of power. I went for James, since I already didn’t like him. It struck that bubble, but couldn’t go any further inside his body. That was super strange, would it even be possible to take them all with me?

I tried anyway, reaching out to grasp each of them gently with my power. I saw them squirm when they felt it, but only James muttered a complaint. Then with everyone tethered to me, I sought out the Nameless Garden. As I had done a few times now, I pushed against the fabric of reality, but this time it was harder. Not too difficult, but enough that I could feel the extra weight of my companions as I shunted us through to the reality next door.

When I opened my eyes, we were all standing in my Grove, which was mercifully calm today, no angry wind bearing down on us, just a light breeze and some clouds wandering across the sky. I felt a smile touch my lips even before I heard the gasp from Grace.

“It does look like home!” she exclaimed happily, her hand coming to rest unconsciously on my upper arm.

I looked down at that hand, expecting to flinch away again, but instead I felt my smile go funny and my stomach did a little hiccup. I blinked, confused, then looked back up to see her beaming up at the sky in wonder.

“I didn’t know how much I missed home sky until just now,” she murmured, leaning close.

“Oh uh, yeah. I did it because I missed Earth too. It’s like, I don’t know, part of our psyche or something surely, because wow. Or just homesickness I guess, but I mean, that would be weird for me, because I didn’t really like home a whole lot. I missed all of you more than I missed Earth when I got schwooped that second time. Yeah, maybe it isn’t the psyche thing. I don’t know,” I rambled, petering off as I realised what I was doing. Gosh, why was I making such a tit of myself in front of her all of a sudden?

“This is nice, Eli” Troy said, smiling at me. Probably the first smile I’d seen on him. First expression in general even.

“Oh, her name is Ryn now,” Grace interjected. “Since you know, she’s… a she.”

“Good, good,” Troy nodded, not seeming at all perturbed by the correction. “Alright Ryn, let’s get down to the rest of things shall we? Explanations, if you’re up for joining us in our little quest?”

“Yeah!” I nodded quickly. “I’ll help. I go where Grace and Adam go.”

That seemed to impress him, for some reason I couldn’t figure out, and with a deep breath, he spoke, “Avonside… was attacked…”

“Attacked? What? By who?” I asked worriedly, then turned quickly to Grace. “Are the others okay?”

I could feel myself beginning to freak out, I really hoped Bray was okay. He was my best friend and one of the only people who’d ever truly gotten me. He had to be okay, and the girls as well, and Duncan. My gut churned at the idea of any of their deaths.

“Hey, hey,” Grace said quickly, taking my hand in a very distracting manner. “They’re all fine. Others weren’t but… our family is okay.”

Sighing with relief, I nodded and took a deep breath. “Okay, sorry. I was just… scared. I’ve seen things in even my short time out in the world that make me worry.”

“Yeah, so have we,” Troy nodded gravely. “Thankfully, if such a word can be used to describe the event, we were attacked by regular humans. A band of them, we think they were a tribe from the Ghraiga Steppes, at least now that we’ve explored the world around us somewhat.”

“I’ve heard of the Ghraiga Empire, but what’s the Ghraiga Steppes?” I asked, becoming intrigued by the taste of yet more ring world lore. I mean, it was terrible that Avonside got attacked… but with my family safe and stuff, well my mind went down curiosity lane.

“The Ghraiga Empire, from what our rather rough attempts at communication have told us, takes up much of the area around Avonside. We appeared in a series in uninhabited mountains that they claim as theirs, but since no one actually lives there, they don’t bother to enforce their rule over it. Then, off to the left off spinward, what the locals call north, there is a vast grassland that the Empire also claims. The nomadic tribes there are a little… enigmatic on the issue however,” he told me in a matter of fact way, like he was giving a briefing.

“Right, and I’m guessing they love raiding each other and the settled towns to their south?” I asked.

“Exactly, and it just so happens that one of those groups from Avonside who decided to go out alone rather than stick around… well they got caught by one of these tribes. From there we think they followed the group’s tracks backwards until they found us, defenceless and oblivious in the mountains,” he replied bitterly. Clearly the man had some issues about how badly we’d been defended.

“Oh no,” I whispered, already shaking at the images my mind was conjuring. Foraging parties ridden down by terrible, merciless men on horseback. Working parties butchered as they worked on planting crops or setting up some important machine or other.

“Indeed,” Troy nodded. “After the attack, I stepped forward and offered to take a group of volunteers out into the wilderness, looking for answers about who else lived out here. Grace was the first to volunteer, seeking you I assume. Adam too. Then Kit here, and finally james.”

“Then where’s the armour from then?” I asked, turning to look at Grace’s outfit more carefully.

“It was Bray, actually,” Adam said with a grin. “As well as the rest of the folks in the workshop. People wanted to help, wanted revenge too probably. I think they might have outdone themselves on the scare factor, but it’s been surprisingly good at keeping people from fucking with us.”

Wow! Bray! I always knew you were a nut for swords and armour and stuff, but these were… wow! That was so cool. I mean, yeah… a little less imperial inquisitor would have been nice, but still. Very cool.

“Exactly as the man said,” Troy agreed. “So here we are, trying to gather as much information as possible.”

Wait, there was still one very hard to explain detail about their getup. The guns.

“What about the guns though?!” I blurted, staring at them hard now.

“Just your standard Glock 22,” Troy chuckled. “We modified them to look like those contraptions the guards wear around these parts. We were getting… questions about them.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” I murmured, staring at them in my mage sight now. They only had basic ambient magic to them, nothing like the other ones I’d seen. Duh, I should really be using my magical sight more often. I could even see the base glock underneath with it.

“Indeed,” Troy said, the glanced around. “Well, seeing as we’re here, we may as well have a rest. I don’t suppose you have any food on you? Our packs are back in the Inn we rented at.”

“Oh! Yes,” I blurted, pulling my pack off my shoulders and dumping it on the ground.

From there I passed out some food and everyone settled into the grass. Before I ate though, I had something I needed to do. My reserves of energy were fairly complete right now, so why not use some of it?

First off, I needed to create a type of tree that would be a good wind break for my Grove. I had no idea how to make it have magical properties, but like… did it need to have them? I could change that later when I’d had a chance to settle down and get to the task of trying to puzzle out how magecraft worked. Oh, maybe I could find some books!

“Hey uh, guys…” I started awkwardly. “I’m just going to make a tree real quick, just testing something.”

“Make a tree?” the formerly silent Kit blurted from where he’d fallen starfish-like on the grass. Kit was a funny looking guy, he looked kinda young in the face, but his body was tall and reasonably well built.

“Uh, yeah,” I nodded, feeling my face heat a little. “You know, with magic.”

“Right,” he blinked, clearly confused by the whole idea.

Ignoring him and the even more bemused look I was getting from James-the-dickhead, I turned inwards to the task at hand. I needed a tree that could be a good windbreak, but I vaguely remembered that a proper one needed multiple trees types of trees planted in stages. Still, I was feeling ambitious, so I decided to start with the biggest tree first.

I wanted a really big tree, because I liked big trees, so my mind immediately went to the redwoods. But no, I needed something that would also provide some shelter beneath it. Redwoods weren’t known for their ground level branches. Wait, what about a Fir tree? I’d seen some that were almost houses at the bottom, underneath all the leaves.

Yeah, a Fir tree would work for a first time thing right in the middle of my Grove. I could even go there to relax and read when I had a proper house or something set up. That would be nice.

I pulled an image from my memory of one and went about the task of creating it. I wanted it to be a little more bushy than they normally were to keep out more of that horrible wind, and possibly help with rain. It might also be nice to have it come out taller than normal too.

With that in mind, I carefully put it together and watched to see if it would work in my mental magical sight thingy. Nope, the taproot wasn’t big enough. Oops! Once that was fixed, the tree seemed to work out fine, so I walked over to an area a distance away from the others.

I noticed as I walked past that my little hole had since filled with water, so I guess it had rained since I was last here. Quite a bit by the looks of things. Maybe I should make a small lake out of it at some point? So many possibilities! I wish I could just hide away in here for a few months and really get stuck into making my Grove. Sadly though, I had friends who I wanted to help.

Reaching a point that I figured was roughly center on the huge plateau, I willed the tree into being and coaxed it into growth, pouring magical energy into it by the bucketload. It grew and grew, roots tearing up the ground as they sought out the most advantageous routes through the soil. When I felt my stores of magic beginning to reach lower levels, I eased off and let it consume what was still in its system.

I had a Fir tree! I couldn’t help a little giggle as I reached out to touch the very real leaves of the thing, soft against my slim fingers. Damn, it wasn’t a fireball or anything, but magic was cool!

“This is… wow,” Grace said from beside me, startling me in the process. When did she get there?! She turned to give me a funny look that I couldn’t interpret at all and continued, “You can really use magic now huh? I’m kinda jealous.”

“It’s pretty amazing,” I nodded, restlessly fiddling with the leaves of the tree. “I um, have my mentor to thank for a lot of this. She helped me in so many ways. I hope she’s still alive.”

“Someone like her doesn’t die easily right? Sounds like she used to be a big political player, but also like, good? No one gets in the way of the truly greedy and power hungry without either dying or being very good at playing the game of politics,” she said, trying to reassure me.

I was silent for a moment as I thought on that. I didn’t really have much to go on with Esra. Just a few little tidbits of information. I wish I’d asked more questions about her when I was with Cad and Valda. Still, anyone who pissed off a cunt like Lord Fennimore couldn’t be that bad, right?

“I’ll help you turn into a powerful mage, then you can go and find her, save her maybe!” Grace continued after a moment, her pretty green eyes intense, like she was promising to fight for me in a duel or something crazy.

“I could turn you into a mage too, down the line,” I told her, rather than acknowledging that intensity. It made me uncomfortable in a strange way that I wasn’t used to.

“You could?” she blinked, my slight change of subject throwing her off.

“Yeah, I’d just need to get powerful enough that I can create my own mage fruit. Then I can give it to you,” I said with a small smile. Would she accept the fruit, when it came to that?

“Being a mage would be so cool… but wouldn’t there be better people to give that to?” she asked, glancing away, back towards the group who were staring at the tree with interest. Except Kit, who was approaching it like the thing might claw its way out of the ground and eat him.

“No!” I murmured forcefully, taking both of her hands before I could think why I shouldn’t do that. “I’d want it to be you. You’re… I…”

My face flushed as I realised the intimate way we were standing, hands clasped, hers having curled to hold mine right back. She was close too, so close, her big green eyes wide as they searched mine. Oh no.

I had just realised why things felt strange between Grace and I now… Previously I had been off limits romantically, both because of my own problems with my previous gender and body, but also because she simply hadn’t been attracted to guys. Now though… I was a girl, she was a girl, and both of us were seemingly attracted to girls.

The moment I had that realisation, I dropped her hands and took a step back, mumbling, “Sorry! I just, I think you’re… I trust you, and you care, and I want to give it to someone special… wait, I mean, you’re… smart. And stuff. I think you’d make a good mage, I guess. I don’t know.”

My cheeks were fire, my mind melted to slag, someone must have broken the heat sink in my brain. Shit, would it be possible to magic a hole in the ground I could sink into? Help, Esra! Save me!

Like an angel descending from heaven, Adam wandered up next to us. Unlike an angel descending from heaven, he had a big dumb smirk on his face.

“How are you doing Ryn?” he asked with a slight singsong that was very obviously a subtle dig at my current complexion.

Wait! Complexion! Hah! I could beat that! I pushed my chlorophyll up to my skin, feeling the sun beginning to refill my sapped stores of magic. Damn, that felt wonderful. Almost wonderful enough to distract me from the terrible embarrassment of everything that had just happened.

“Ryn!” Grace blurted, sounding worried. “Are you okay? You’ve turned green!”

“Hulk… garden?” I joked awkwardly, then cringed again as I realised how weird I was being. Before they could notice they were friends with a complete moron, I continued, “I’m part plant! Mages are part plant, so I can photosynthesise for energy and magical power and stuff! That’s… what I’m doing. Right now. Because I feel like it.”

“Jesus, Ryn,” Adam guffawed, patting me on the back. “Take a breath or two would you? You might pass out otherwise.”

“Part… plant?” Grace asked incredulously.

“I mean, she did hatch out of a fruit,” Adam shrugged with another of his goofy grins. “Or was it like, schlorped out of a fruit? You mentioned fruit juice didn’t you, Ryn?”

I was dead. Done. Ryn was no more, only the raw and unending essence of embarrassment. An embarrassment so pure it could be distilled into a fine liquor for those with a truly bonkers taste in alcohol.

“Her cheeks are purple now,” Kit murmured from where he’d been poking at the tree in disbelief.

“Come on you lot,” Troy called, “We have work to do!”

Oh thank god, my real saviour, the no-nonsense army dude came to the rescue.

“I’ve been thinking, with the addition of Ryn to our group, we might want to get our hands on some of the local literature, if we can,” Troy said to the group gathered under my new tree. “Wait, can you read Anve as well as speak it?”

It was pleasantly cool in the hollow space under the branches, just as I’d predicted, so we’d chosen to talk about our next move here.

“Yeah, I can,” I nodded.

“Good, good,” he nodded, then continued. “Our plan was to visit this city since we heard it was a major trading hub for this region, then figure out our plans from there. Now though, since we’ve been exploring, we’ve seen a lot of that magic technology stuff around. I reckon we should get our hands on some, as well as some books on the subject.”

“My mentor told me a little about that,” I supplied, trying to remember the broader lessons I’d gotten on the subject. “They use a few different magically charged ores to get power. Kinda like uranium and those other radioactive elements, but this stuff doesn’t kill you by proximity. It does give off magical energy though, I can feel it sometimes when I’m near the stuff.”

“Ah, that’s good to know,” Troy said, going quiet as be began to think.

While he was thinking, Grace asked, “Well, we came all this way for a trading capital right? What if there’s also like, a magical tech capital around somewhere?”

Troy looked up, staring at her for a moment. “Yeah, I like that. Since we have Ryn around, we might also be able to get a concrete answer on the subject too.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

“He means that none of us speak the language around here better than a two year old. We’ve had more than enough issues getting lost and mistaking directions, shit like that. With you around, our job just became a hell of a lot easier,” Adam said with an appreciative smile. “I’m glad we found you Ryn, we’ve all missed you.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling embarrassment rising all over again.

It was seriously confusing to me why they cared so much about me. I mean, we’d only known each other for like a week. Sure, it was an intense week, but still.

“Well, now that we know what we’re doing, let’s head back into the city before it gets dark and they close the gates for the night. Can we use this place anywhere that we won’t be observed entering it?” Troy asked me with that ever serious expression of his.

“I’m… not sure. It leaves a mark out in the real world that other mages can see. I’m pretty sure they might be able to sense it even through walls,” I said cautiously, because in truth I didn’t know. I’d never met a mage in the outside world before.

“Understood, we’ll use the inn as we’d planned then. Although, we’ll need an extra room now. We’ll put you and Grace in a room together, give you girls some privacy,” Troy decided, already moving to leave the shelter of the tree.

“But boss, this chick was a guy!” James called after him, then adding under his breath. “Fuckin’ pussy one too.”

My arm moved quickly to wrap around Grace’s bicep in an attempt to keep her from smashing the shit out of the dude. I had questions though, his words made it sound like James had known me before… but how? I certainly didn’t recognise him.

Troy turned back slowly to stare at James, and there was a light in his eye that chilled me to the bone. “James,” he said quietly, menacingly. It was just a name, just a simple word, but the cold, raw anger in his tone was more than enough to get the point across. Holy shit, Troy might seem like a calm dude… but what if he wasn’t? What if he was just good at hiding it?

With James cowed, we set off, leaving my Grove and making our way back into town. The sun was still a ways up in the sky, I figured we had a few more hours before sunset. Halfway back to the city though, Troy pulled me back out of range of the others to talk. He seemed calm again, but I was worried and wary now. Grace was sending me anxious glances as Troy and I slowed our paces to get out of range of the others.

“Um, so what did you want to talk about?” I asked, a slight tremor in my voice.

“When I offered to come out here. I had… ulterior motives. Motives I didn’t want to disclose to anyone,” he began quietly, and my gaze snapped to meet his when I heard his tone. He sounded… worried?

“Um?” I was unable to manage any more than that.

“I worked hard to get to where I am now, to make it through… the military and all the garbage that entails. I was lucky to get out before that bastard started shit too, I might not have gotten my scholarship if I’d waited a few more years,” he told me, his worry turning to a hint of anger.

“Who started what shit?” I asked, curious now. Why was he telling me these things?

“The president,” he spat, like actually spat on the ground. “Fucker started shit about transgender service.”

“Wait…” I blurted, really staring at Troy now. “Y-you?”

“Yup,” he nodded, taking a deep breath to calm himself. “Which is why I’m interested in you.”

It took me a moment to realise what he was talking about for a second, and then it hit me.

“Wait if you’re here on the ring now… you can’t get any more meds!” I gasped, the blood draining from my face.

That was horrifying. I’d known vaguely what the options were for transition and what it entailed. Couldn’t go through with anything because of raw terror and an empty bank account, but I’d been aware. I was surprised that it was this effective though, he looked… well, like more of a man than pretty much every guy I’d ever known.

“Correct again,” he responded. “To make matters worse, I have had all… useless parts of my body removed long ago, which means that once I run out of my supply, I’ll begin to weaken. Health problems will start to manifest in various ways.”

“Crap, crap, crap,” I frowned, thinking hard. Could I help him?

“It’s not just me either, there’s others back at Avonside,” he said, blowing out a weary breath.

“I could try and find something with magic… but I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m a complete novice… I’d need like, books and stuff,” I told him, trying to think about what I knew was possible with my plant magic.

I could follow up on the strange ever changing plants of the void in the Nameless Garden, that might help. They had almost looked like spell plants when I was observing them, but I still needed a little theory to help me along.

“I figured,” he sighed. “I’ll see what I can do to help out on the magic front, as well as keep James off your back. In turn, can you look into my problem for me?”

“Definitely!” I said emphatically. “I um, guess it’s… obvious about me?”

“You would be a hell of a lot less functional if you hated what had happened to you,” he shrugged. “It isn’t hard to connect the dots, for someone who knows what it’s like.”

“Well… okay,” I sighed, already trying to think of some way I could twist a plant into being helpful.

Maybe I didn’t need a magical solution, but a scientific one? I could essentially custom design plants with incredible speed and ease, so what if I figured out a way to like, magically engineer a plant to create the hormones that Troy needed? Shit… I could do that with other, more mainstream medicines too!

“You look like you’re having ideas,” Troy chuckled, watching me as I spaced out into the realm of thought.

“Yeah… I am, but I’d need to be back at Avonside to make good on any of them,” I said distractedly, my mind still whirring with possibilities.

“Right. We’d best get our objectives completed quickly then.”

The rest of the walk back to their inn was quiet. I handed over some more coins I didn’t know anything about to help pay, because I don’t know, it just seemed like the right thing to do. I’d have to ask if they’d figured out what everything was worth. Troy got a second room rented for myself and Grace with the money, and we all hung out in the guy’s room until it was time for dinner.

It occurred to me at some point during the time where I was sitting against the wall watching the rest of them play cards that we could use English to stop anyone understanding us. When I asked about why we’d wandered out into the middle of the forest to talk, other than transfer into my Grove, the answer was just as simple. They didn’t know how magic worked. I was pretty sure only the magefruit could give the gift of language, so tentatively Troy gave the all clear to talk about matters vaguely, so long as it was in English of course.

We ate our dinner down in the common room, but it was a quick affair. I think the others felt uncomfortable around the ring’s native population. Probably something to do with the fact that a bunch of them had attacked Avonside, but… these weren’t the same ones. The Anves, from what I had seen, were almost welsh in the way they did things. Their language was certainly a mess of consonants that shouldn’t belong anywhere near that close to each other.

“You ready to go up?” Grace asked quietly from beside me as I spaced out thinking about languages and cultures.

“Go up where?” I blinked, trying to play mental catch up with whatever context she was speaking through.

“To our room,” she said, giving me a playful smile and a nudge with her shoulder. “What were you thinking about that had you so spacey?”

“Oh uh, just dumb stuff,” I shrugged sheepishly. “Typical um, I don’t know... stuff?”

“Oh yeah totally,” she nodded with mock seriousness. “The fate of the world, alien races. The geopolitical landscape. That kind of thing?”

Once again, my cheeks were flushing red. “How did you know?”

“It’s a very, uh… Ryn thing to do,” she chuckled, then patted my shoulder companionably. “Come on.”

I pushed myself to my feet and followed behind her as she said goodnight to the rest of the group. We’d already dumped our bags in the room, so when we arrived there wasn’t really much to do. It was a small room, hardly large enough for space to move around, two single beds somehow crammed into it. There was barely a foot and a half of room between them.

As soon as we were in and the door was closed, I was kicking off my boots and throwing off my coat. My pants followed quickly after, and I was just taking off my top when I heard a strangled gasp from behind me. I turned to see Grace staring at me, her face flushed and her armour very much still on her.

“Uh, Ryn?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yeah?” I asked right back, trying to figure out what the hell I had done this time. My shirt was halfway up me still, held there by frozen, confused hands.

With a tone so low it was almost a whisper, she said, “You remember I’m a lesbian right?”

“Yeah?” I was still pretty confused by what was going on. Was she going to like, ask to sleep with me? Where was this going? Oh gosh, what if she actually did? What would I do then? Would I say yes? She was really cute, and pretty, but I was definitely sure she wouldn’t be interested in me, even if I might be a little interested in her.

“You’re stripping,” she stated, waving an erratic hand in my direction. Her eyes were down near my navel as she spoke.

It was embarrassing how long it took the gears and wheels in my head to turn. Then when I realised that yeah, I was getting naked just, casually right in front of her… I could see where the problem was.

“Um, sorry!” I squeaked, trying and failing to figure out where to hide my half naked body. I settled for crouching behind the bed, my head poking up over the top in wide eyed embarrassment.

“Oh my god,” she said with a nervous, hiccuping laugh. “Get changed, I’ll turn my back. Just… remember next time, if you don’t want me seeing you naked I mean.”

She did as she’d said, turning her back on me to face the wall.

“Right, sorry,” I mumbled rushing for my back and taking off my shirt and bra in the same jerky motion. Well... I tried, but this medieval bra was laced tight, and in the process I managed to pull all the knots into an almost locked state.

“Shit!” I muttered, struggling to bend my arms into a position where I could get proper leverage on them. It was.. Well, a failure. My fingernails were well trimmed because of my time spent helping Esra in the garden, which meant I couldn’t get any sort of purchase on the knots. “Fuck, damn!”

“What? What’s wrong?” Grace asked quickly, almost turning around before she remembered not to.

“The knots in this damned bra are too tight! I can’t get… I can’t get them off!” I whined, staring down at my almost naked body in frustration.

“Wait, the knots on your bra?” she blurted.

“Yeah the bras I was given… they’re lace up ones, like shoes or whatever, but I tried to take it off without untying them and now it’s all… tight,” I said, my voice strained as I continued to struggle with the knots, only succeeding in making it worse for myself. “Grace… please can you help? You’re allowed to look, I guess.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, her voice sounding weirdly breathy.

“Please!” I begged. “Get this bra off me, it’s starting to cut into me.”

“Alright, alright,” she agreed, turning around. “I’m coming.”

Her eyes when she saw my barely covered body were… I watched her visibly swallow, then move over on unsteady legs. Lifting my arms up to allow her to get at the laces, I watched as her hands hesitantly went for them. Her expression was one of intense control and concentration as she fumbled with the laces.

“Fuck, you really pulled these tight,” she gasped after straining at it for a moment.

Our eyes met as she looked up at me from her hunched over position, and I just knew my cheeks were colouring. This was an exceedingly embarrassing situation, and worse, I could tell that she was making a heroic effort not to sexualise me… despite, well, a bombshell body to look at.

As if to avoid looking at me directly, she went back to worrying at the knot, until she finally gave up with a groan. “We’re going to have to cut it.”

“What? But… I need my bra! I don’t have many!” I said mournfully.

“Okay, well… I’ll give it another go, I guess,” she shrugged helplessly.

Her hands went in again with determination, pushing and pulling at the knot and by extension, my body. I was jerked around slightly, her long, strong fingers pushing and brushing against me as she tried to get the knot undone. I was beginning to feel strange, the bra must have been cutting off circulation or something, because I felt so warm, especially in my stomach. It was the weirdest feeling, but also very oddly pleasant.

“I got it!” she exclaimed triumphantly, and then… my bra fell off my shoulder, exposing a boob in the process. “Oh fuck!” she exclaimed at the same time that I squeaked and pulled it back up.

We stared at each other again in mutual, wide eyed embarrassment. Like, we stared and stared and stared. I felt like I was going to melt into the ground all over again, and damn but she was close. I could feel the warmth coming off her, and my whole body tingled with the sensation.

“Uh, I’m going to… um, go and get changed… over there,” she said, pointing to her side of the room, which was a whole whopping four yards away.

“Right, uh, good luck,” I nodded, my head still spinning with about every emotion I was capable of experiencing.

“Thanks, I’ll... yeah,” she nodded, then promptly spun on her heel and retreated.

I dove for my pack like my life depended on it, fishing out a fresh shirt to sleep in and throwing my bra off. With the shirt on, I dove for the covers of my bed and burrowed underneath them.

I listened, my back turned as Grace went through the same motions I just had, extremely, excruciatingly aware of the fact that she was probably half naked behind me. Far out, how was I going to survive being repeatedly roomed with her in any inns we stayed in? This was going to drive me insane.

I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale, I love you vale!

Waking up and getting dressed with Grace was only marginally less awkward than getting undressed had been last night. Only because she wasn’t over with me taking my damn bra off for me. I really wish I wasn’t such a… a damn klutz. Gosh I felt my cheeks heating every time I thought about that, uh, incident.

Thankfully we made it down to the inn’s common room in time for breakfast, and then we were heading out the door. Troy decided that we’d be heading out of the city as soon as we had directions to travel in. All that needed to happen was for me to approach random strangers with five armoured people at my back and get a reasonable response from them. Nothing wrong with this plan at all.

“Right, this isn’t working,” Troy sighed as the fourth person gave me odd directions.

It wasn’t that they weren’t giving us the wrong directions per se, it’s that none of them agreed on where a good center for magical artificing would be, and on top of that, none of them seemed particularly interested in clarifying the matter.

“What’s going wrong?” Adam asked, fiddling with the strap of his helmet.

I waited for someone to come up with the obvious answer, but none of them did. I guess they weren’t aware of the stares we were getting? Or maybe they were and they just weren’t connecting the dots.

“I think it’s the armour, it’s scaring people,” I sighed, then took a chance and began to take off my disguise. “Would you all mind if I went and spoke to some people without… you know, five heavily armoured people at my back?”

Troy gave a chuckle and nodded, “Yeah, okay. I should have figured that out. The locals weren’t exactly keen to talk to us back in the middle east either. Can’t entirely blame them either. I guess you can act as the interpreters did for us.”

“I don’t like the idea of Ryn off on her own,” Grace said quietly. “I just, you know… she’s kinda hot property right now. Someone might try and grab her.”

“Emphasis on the hot,” Kit muttered so low I was almost unsure he’d said it.

“Well, you could always change out of the armour Grace,” Troy said matter of factly.

“But, where?” she asked, gesturing around us at the bustling market.

“Just find an alleyway or something, fuck,” James groaned.

I frowned at James, then tentatively took Grace’s hand. “Come on, we’ll find somewhere.”

“Meet us back here in two hours, you two,” Troy called as I led an angry Grace away.

That James guy was asking to have his balls popped like grapes if he wasn’t careful. Half the shit that came out of his mouth was infuriating to Grace and awkward to me.

We wove through the market crowds as fast as we were able, until we found a side street that we could duck down. Finding an alleyway wasn’t hard after that, they were always just so reliably available. The first stretch was rather disgusting, but we found a quiet nook where she could change.

“Dunno why it has to be me who gets changed,” Grace grumbled as she began to take her armour off. I knew she had basic clothing on underneath now, so I wasn’t too concerned about her undressing, but I still turned my back regardless. “Could have been one of the guys who helped.”

“Because people are more willing to talk to a pretty face,” I replied absently as I kept lookout. “And you did kinda volunteer yourself by pointing it out.”

Grace was silent for a moment, the sounds of her undressing coming to a halt for a moment. “You think I’m pretty?”

“Huh?” I asked, turning around to look at her. “Yeah, of course. Anyone can see it.”

“A lot of people don’t,” she said quietly, her expression… distant.

“Well, they’re wrong,” I frowned. “I thought you were pretty back when I first met you too. In between admiring the way you could wrestle an umbrella and a door at the same time.”

Her expression changed quickly to one of amusement at my words. “Yeah, I’m not going to lie, that was tough. The wind was nuts!”

“Yeah,” I smiled, then playfully bopped her on the shoulder with my wimpy little fist, “Strong girls are cute too.”

Her smile was happily bashful as she murmured, “Thanks Ryn.”

“No problem, now let’s go woo some magical materials merchants,” I said, lowering my voice into what I thought was probably a sultry tone, all while fluttering my eyelashes. Was I being girly? This is girly right?

Grace gave me an amused smile. “Alright there little lady, careful where you point those eyes.”

“Hey, I’m not little. You’re just bigger than me,” I grumbled as I turned my back again to let her continue.

“Yup, sure,” came her sarcastic response.

I didn't reply, instead I stood there and pouted, waiting for her to finish. Once she had her more normal clothing on, we left the alleyway and returned to the market. From there we made our way through the crowds towards the small section of the market that sold things that a magical artificer might be interested in buying. Almost immediately I wondered why it was a small section. Barely a dozen vendors sat in the shade of their tents.

Approaching the nearest one with Grace in tow, I asked, “Hello! How are you?”

The older man behind the desk looked up and squinted. If he could even see past his huge eyebrows. “What can I do for you? You don’t look like the type to be needing anything from my stall.”

“Oh, I um… I’m asking for my friend here!” I said, motioning to Grace. “She’s interested in learning about um, this kind of stuff.”

“Can she not speak for herself?” he asked disinterestedly.

“She doesn’t speak Anve,” I told him, shaking my head.

Damn, why was this guy so damn grumpy? Should I just cut my losses and move to the next guy?

“Hmph, alright,” he huffed. “What do you want to know?”

“We were just wondering if there’s any city that’s well known for this type of, um, magic,” I said, pointing to the various ores, metals and powders he had on his table.

“Depends, do you want a gathering of three practitioners, or a gathering of hundreds?” he asked. “I know of Din, far to the east. They have a well known guild of Constructors. Then there is Huerdan of Davenken up in Abernesia, who is known to have hundreds of Constructors under his employ. Finally, if you are willing to venture into Obrec lands, you have Millowhall down in Clan Mossbed territory.”

“What is… Obrec lands?” I asked tentatively, knowing he was going to be angry for the question.

“Oh come now girl! I will not be fooled by such ridiculous, base questions as this! Go, I will not speak to you,” he exclaimed angrily, making shooing motions. “Damn young un’s and their pranks!”

“Fuck, alright,” I frowned, backing off and taking Grace with me.

Before either of us could try to talk strategy, I heard a voice call out from a few stalls over. “Hey, miss? Old Eurig being his typical old helpful self?”

We both turned to see a much younger merchant at a similar stall, and he was all smiles. Confident, cocky smiles… ugh, whatever. I had joked about using our looks to our advantage after all, like he was probably going to try and do.

“Yeah, uh… I was just asking what Obrec lands are?” I said, repeating the question to the guy.

“What? You mean you don’t know what an Obrec is?” he asked, almost moving into a full on laugh before he realised we were serious. “You really don’t?”

“We’re not from around here,” I said as a way of explanation.

“Right, well… an Obrec, they ain’t human. Sure, they looks sort of like us, they got the face and the body like us. Hands just like us, but their legs, they go backwards! They got hooves on the end of them too and fur across they backs and the like. Horns on their head too and big pointed fluffy ears, sorta like a goat’s ears.”

“That… wow, okay,” I blinked, trying to figure out if this guy was messing with me in turn.

Was he really talking about like, an alien race here? No, they sounded more like a fantasy race than anything else… this was nuts!

“Yeah,” he nodded. “What about them were you asking?”

“We were asking about cities known for their um, Constructing? He mentioned a place called Millowhall,” I said uncertainly.

“Oh, aye! Millowhall is known for its practical shapers of the arcane, that’s for sure. Almost the whole city is dedicated to the craft!” he nodded enthusiastically. “I trained there, I did! Almost didn’t survive living with the Obrec though, they’re… a rowdy lot. They love their drinking, their fighting and… their loving,” he told us, lowering his tone at the last into what he probably thought was an attractive baritone.

Sorry dude, these two girls aren’t interested. Of course, the mere thought of the fact that I now counted under that “girl” term had my heart doing a happy little jig.

“Right… uh, how do we get to this place? We’re looking to travel there and see it!” I asked, feigning more enthusiasm than I felt.

“Oh, you’ll want to follow the river south as far as Infigwaun. Then you’ll want to cut south east. The roads through the Mosteghunoksia plains are a little… rough, so I’d be careful there if I were you,” he warned gravely. “After that, you’ll find the Obrec mountains. Love their mountains they do, but they aren’t like normal mountains. Bloody great pillars of rock, thousands of feet tall, with the densest forest you’ll ever find in the valleys between. Those mountains are bad news if you stray off the paths. They ain’t hunted their monsters down into the ground like we Anves have.”

I hoped the Mosteghunoksia plains weren’t as rough as their name was to say, because… damn. The Obrec mountains sounded pretty already too, I was excited to see them, and their people. Even if he made it sound super dangerous.

“Right, okay… thank you, that’s actually really helpful!” I said, genuinely happy that we had a place to go. Gosh, we’d be seeing an entirely new sentient species for the first time too!

“No problem ladies, if you see old Brenin Boughbreaker, say hi for me, and tell him he owes me a shipment of Tassupine already,” the stall keeper told us good naturedly.

“I will, thank you!” I nodded, giving him what I hoped was a winning smile.

“Safe journeys!” he nodded in return as we wandered off.

Moving back towards where we were meant to meet the others, I felt Grace’s arm slip through mine. The contact had my whole body buzzing and loose limbed, and almost immediately I was forced to lean on her for fear I'd fall over.

I peeked up at her in surprise, and she shrugged, “You can’t get lost again if I’m holding on tight. At worst I’ll end up on some wild fucking adventure along with you this time.”

My smile was involuntarily and wide in reply, and I looked down again before she saw my heating cheeks. Gosh damn, she was really making this whole thing hard on me.

Rather than waiting almost two hours to find the others, we tracked them down instead. It wasn’t hard, they... stood out. Although one of them was missing at the moment, and I couldn’t tell who, because four guys in armour looked the same.

“Hey, which one of you is Troy?” I asked, glancing between them all.

One of the helmets rang with his distinctive, dry chuckle, and I turned to him, relaying what I’d found out.

“Wait, there’s really other sentient races on this ring?” Grace asked, and I realised she wouldn’t have been able to follow the conversation with the vendor.

“Yup,” I nodded. “Apparently so.”

“Well then, that definitely falls under our mandate. Let’s get down to this… Millowhall,” Troy said, butchering the pronunciation. “Right after I figure out where the fuck James has gotten to...”

As an hour passed, and then an hour more, we began to grow worried. James was nowhere to be found, we’d searched the market twice looking for him. Now, I’ll be one of the first to admit that of all the people to go mysteriously missing, I’d rather it was James. Still, he was one of us, and more importantly he knew a lot of shit that could be damaging if he fell into the wrong hands.

The sun was beginning its journey towards the rim of the ring when we decided that something was really, properly wrong. We checked the inn first, and when no one had seen him there, we checked back at the market, asking questions of the vendors to see if they had seen him. No concrete answers were forthcoming from the vendors, so in a last ditch effort, we asked the guards.

The guards had taken notice of our group alright, and they were quick to puff out their chests and get standoffish. When I used my big doe eyes and my fluttering eyelashes at them however, they gave in a little and mentioned that they had seen him heading east along one of the many streets that joined with the market.

“What in the hell was he doing?” Troy asked nobody in particular as we made our way to the street in question.

“Who knows what James is doing or why on any given day?” Adam asked wearily. “The dude’s been a pain in the ass since day fucking one. Why did you even accept him into the group?”

“Because he had experience that would be useful. Camping and hunting experience, for example,” Troy sighed. “And I was pressed for time, the faculty council was keen to know what was out there. Shit, they barely gave us time to get the armour made.”

“Wait, faculty council?” I asked, confused. “Wasn’t that um… CEO lady in charge?”

“She is, but she’s not the only authority,” someone said, and I was surprised to hear it was Kit who spoke up. He continued his explanation in that quiet manner of his, “The university had checks and balances in place previously, and those have become far more important since we were all transported here. More strained too, the holes are showing and there’s talk of forming a real, proper form of government.”

“And no one can agree on what that will be,” Adam said with a derisive roll of his eyes.

Being in the middle of a political crisis during what was probably our grace period before the world discovered our existence did not bode well for Avonside. They needed to be building and fortifying as fast as possible, not… arguing. They didn’t have time to argue.

We walked for five minutes in the direction we’d been sent, only for our questions to turn up nothing when we asked random bystanders. The group had even all taken their helmets off in an attempt to appear less intimidating. It seemed that James had all but disappeared without a trace.

“This is starting to get a little spooky,” Grace said as we stood around after our latest failed attempt to get information.

“Yeah, you don’t just… how do you lose someone like James? He’s wearing intimidating black armour and he’s like, huge,” Adam said, miming James’ height with his hands.

“What do we do Troy?” Grace asked hesitantly.

There was more to that simple question than the words implied though. Do we leave James behind, do we keep trying to find him? There was a risk in trying to find him, a risk to our time and our lives if he didn’t disappear of his own free will. There was a risk if we left him too and he was just off being a moron. He might decide that he wanted to start helping whoever out here would feed him or give him power or whatever else he was interested in.

“We keep trying, we’ll find a different inn and stay the night,” Troy decided. “Although if we see any evidence that something has gone wrong, I think we’ll probably have to book it. Our priority is to get Ryn and the information we’ve gathered back to Avonside.”

“Does Ryn get a choice in that?” Grace asked quietly, and we all turned to look at her in surprise.

Troy was silent for a second, looking almost blindsided by the question. He reached up to rub at his stubble for a moment in thought, his eyes watching me with a new uncertainty.

“Do you want to go back to Avonside?” he asked, just the barest hint of worry in his voice.

I thought about it for a moment, and then nodded slowly, “Yes, but… I’d like to add a condition to that. Would it be alright to take… I don’t know, some time to work on my Grove before we get back. I want to be able to protect myself if they try and take advantage of me back there.”

“That… is a very good point. I think that is more than prudent, considering the political landscape back at the university,” Troy nodded after a moment. “It would be just like them to try as well.”

“You don’t like them?” I asked in surprise. “The admins and stuff?”

“Some of them are good, some of them are not.,” he shrugged. “I don’t trust the ones that aren’t.”

“Okay, that’s reassuring,” I said, giving him a small, relieved smile. “Well, not the bad admins part. That’s not so reassuring.”

He nodded, just slightly, and gave me a pat on the arm. “I’ll have your back Ryn, same as everyone else in this team, including James, as much of an asshole as he is. But for now, let’s widen our search a bit. I’d like to try a few of the side streets around here. James obviously didn’t make it this far, or people would have remembered him.”

And so we continued as the afternoon was approaching evening and we began to run out of side streets. The town was a warren, twisting alleyways and old, repurposed buildings from the ring builders made any sort of attempt at city planning impossible, so they hadn’t bothered. At all.

We were walking down one such side street when we began to notice that there was a distinct lack of local people around. I could see one or two, but other than that… we were alone in the street. I wasn’t the only one who noticed it either, as Troy put up his hand to stop us all.

“This is going to sound cliche,” he said warily. “But it’s too quiet.”

“I know, where are all the people?” I asked, looking around at the ominous lack of native residents. You knew when people suddenly rushed indoors that something bad was happening.

As if on cue, a group of men rounded the corner at the end of the street, some forty yards away. They were soldiers, and wearing pretty fine armour at that, polished and gleaming in the late afternoon light, bright blue and yellow plumes coming out of the tops of their helmets. Tabards with the same colouration were worn over the top of the armour, which made it obvious they were the personal guards for the man in the middle.

His hair was a deep, dark red, the colour of clotted blood, and although I couldn’t see his eyes at this distance, I knew they were probably the same. He wore a long pale yellow coat, with bright blue piping around all the edges. Under the coat was a superbly crafted set of leather armour, accented with the same colours as all the rest of the getup. It was him… Fennimore.

Almost as soon as he came into view, I had my mage senses activated, and sure enough, there was the web of magic within him, the same as Esra had been. His guards were the same as my party, thick bubbles of latent magic protecting the inner workings of their bodies. I guess that explained one thing, mages looked different under mage sight than normal humans. Now I just had to figure out what that meant… but later.

“Troy,” I hissed, grabbing his arm. “That’s a mage, that one I talked about, he’ll be able to—“

“Ah, if it isn’t the merry little band of aliens,” Lord Fennimore drawled with false joviality. “I have one of your friends, you know. Bit of advice next time, don’t let one of your number wander into a bar full of my guards to ask them questions.”

“Fuck,” I swore under my breath as we began to back away, translating while I did it. “James walked into a bar full of his goons and started asking them stuff.”

Troy only nodded, drawing his gun, but keeping it low against his side. The others did the same, and Lord Fennimore and his guards came to a halt as the threat of violence between the two groups became something almost tangible in the air. It took all my willpower not to cringe or outwardly react to their intimidation. I didn’t want to be seen as a scared little girl to that dickhead.

“You and your kind represent a bit of a problem. You see, in the past, whenever a new group of sentient beings is brought to the ring, chaos reins dominant. They bring new ideas, new ways of thinking… and sometimes, conquest. I rather like the way things are now in the world, and I intend to have it stay this way,” he said his eyes cold with determination. Then his eyes fell on me. “Ah! The beautiful little apprentice of Esra, how are you my dear? I see you are on of this lot, congratulations on being the first for your people I assume?”

Again I didn’t reply, and Grace stepped quickly between us, blocking his view of me. She couldn’t understand him, but she didn’t need to, the intent was clear in his tone.

“He’s talking about, I don’t know, he’s threatening us and Avonside. Troy, we can’t win this,” I whispered in English. “The guy teleports around and throws magic and shit. Also he has a shield, like an energy shield.”

“Let’s see if it can stop this,” Troy replied calmly, raising his pistol and taking aim.

Fennimore’s smile was mocking as he watched troy level the weapon, but it changed to shock when the sound of a single shot rang through the evening air. He staggered, his hand going to his chest while his face expressed confused irritation. His guards moved, putting themselves between Troy’s gun and their master.

“Run,” Troy ordered calmly. “They have guns too.”

He was right, each of them had a magical gun at their hips, right next to their sheathed swords. So as ordered, we turned and ran as Fennimore’s guards stood there in shock, none of them yet able to piece together what had happened. Some began to move for us, drawing their swords, but we were already putting distance in the way.

“We’re leaving the city, right now,” Troy said between breaths. “James is, well… he’s fucked. We’re getting out of this place.”

“No arguments here dude,” Adam replied, his voice a little shaken.

I kept looking over my shoulder at where Lord Fennimore stood, leaning on one of his guards, blood now clearly visible from a hole in his chest, very close to where his heart should have been. He was staring at me, anger dripping from his face like sweat, and then with a flash of light, he and the guard he’d been leaning on were gone. In his place I could just barely make out a shimmering haze. He’d retreated to his Grove.

“We should have finished him,” Kit said. “The dude had major creep vibes.”

“I’d rather get us all out alive than take that chance,” Troy replied. “Now, let’s stop talking and move.”

At about that time, the Fennimore’s men remembered that they could shoot back, and tiny sizzling bolts of energy began to burn the air around us. Even as arcane bullets hailed down around us, I had a question dominating my thoughts. Why the hell was that asshole here?

We blasted past the gate guards right as they were beginning to close things up for the night, and their startled shouts followed us out into the descending night. Unfortunately, the closest gate had been the eastern one, which meant we’d have to make distance east to get away before we could turn south towards our goal.

“Shit that was close!” Adam blurted as our feet pounded on the road.

I was beginning to feel winded, I was not used to all this physical activity! Maybe I needed to start doing some fitness training or something, a bit of cardio? That was what the cool kids said right? I should ask Grace once my lungs stopped burning.

“He survived a round to the heart,” Troy frowned, looking at me for an explanation.

I just shrugged helplessly, I had no idea how he’d survived it. He’d looked wounded, but nothing at all as badly as he should have been.

“Fuck,” he swore, mostly to himself.

He pulled his gun out and did something with it, the magazine dropped out and he caught it, staring at it hard. “I have… five rounds left. One more mag in a pouch. God damn it, we need an alternative to these things and fast.”

“An alternative? I mean, you’re low on ammo now, but when we get back to Avonside we can make more right?” I asked between wheezing breaths.

“Not entirely. We don’t have sources for any of the resources needed to make the smokeless powder used, and the workshops were only stocked with a small amount of materials when we were transported here. The local stuff is… let’s just say that we’re significantly further ahead of them in material’s sciences. We’ll most likely need to buy the raw ore and process it ourselves,” Kit replied for Troy. Kit was quickly proving himself to be insanely smart and quiet, kind of James’ polar opposite in a way.

Troy chuckled appreciatively as Kit interjected, then nodded, “What the man said. Without our old industrial base back home, sure we know how to make a lot of things, but we also don’t have the time, manpower or resources to actually do any of it.”

“Alright, guns are going to be off the menu soon,” Grace grimaced looking down at her own one.

With our defence situation put into perspective, my thoughts almost instantly turned to potential solutions. Repeater crossbows maybe? That would eliminate the need for all the chemicals needed for fancy gunpowder. Black powder seemed… less than useful, even given advances in technology and stuff. Having to clean the barrel of gunk all the time made building semi automatic weapons with that stuff less than useful. I could see one jamming and exploding in someone’s face, which was not a pretty thought.

I’d probably just have to leave the problem in the hands of people like Bray, because I was probably wrong. I’d focus on what I could help with, like becoming powerful enough that no one would fuck with us lightly. Medicines too, and possibly I could use Grove tenders to help with mundane tasks?

Our pace slowed as we gained distance, this side of the city being one that had a lot more farmland than the side that bordered the forest, so we needed to get further to break line of sight.

“Ryn, how far away do we have to get before they won’t be able to find that… mark thing when we get into your Grove? We need to rest somewhere safe,” Troy asked after another hour or so.

“The buildings blocked my view of the mark that Fennimore left, but I could sorta smell it for a block or two,” I replied.

“Good to know. Alright team, follow me, we’re going offroad,” he said, turning us off the road and into someone’s orchard.

We followed him out into the farmland, then made the jump into my Grove to rest for the night.

****

The next morning saw us recouping. Troy had decided that rather than trying to outrun mounted search parties, we’d just hide in the Grove until they’d passed us by. We were banking on there not being enough mages to properly search for my mark, or just simply any devices that could find it anyway. It was a gamble, but we needed some downtime to get our shit together, and I needed time to work out how to make spell plants.

“Hey guys,” I said, standing up from where I had been sitting on a low branch. “I’m going to go outside for a bit, I want to look at some magic related things.”

“Wait, outside! By yourself?” Grace asked quickly, reaching up and grabbing hold of my arm.

I glanced down at her hand, at the way her fingers almost encircled my forearm. It was so small and almost delicate compared to what I was used to having. I was so focused on her hand, with its smooth skin and soft strength, that I completely forgot to reply.

When she gave my arm a squeeze, I crashed back into reality and blurted, “Oh no, I mean, like... not outside onto the ring, outside into the Nameless Garden.”

“Uh, outside?” she asked, confused. “How do you go…?”

“Rather than explain, do you want to see?” I grinned, already knowing I’d enjoy her reaction, whatever it was.

“Sure…?” she said, squinting at me now. Oh no, was my grin giving the game away?

“So long as it isn’t dangerous,” Troy said from nearby, eyeing us with concern.

“Nah, it’s fine,” I reassured him. “I went out there and it was fine, just kinda… weird looking.”

“Alright, I hope you can achieve what you’re trying to do,” he replied, going back to sorting through his pack.

Turning to Grace now that we had permission, I pulled her hand gently off my arm and gripped it instead, asking, “Ready?”

“Why do you need my hand?” she questioned quietly.

“Because I don’t want you to float away,” I replied as nonchalantly as possible.

Her eyes grew worried and she glanced down at our joined hands with concern. “Wait, float awa—“

With a flash of directed willpower, I pulled us out into the Nameless Garden.

It was just as I remembered, strange plants stuck in a cycle of growth, maturity and death over and over. Each one reforming into something new during its next beginning. It was as mesmerising to watch the third time as it had been the last two, and I would have floated there in that sea of chaos without moving if it hadn’t been for Grace’s… reaction.

She screamed and grabbed at me, pulling me close and putting us into a wild spin that had me dizzy in seconds. I giggled as we spiralled through the void, her reaction being everything I’d hoped for.

“Ryn!” she yelled in annoyance, hearing my giggle seemed to calm her fear just a little, replacing it with annoyance. “Make it stop!”

“Okay, okay,” I laughed, focusing my mind on keeping us still.

We slowed quickly coming to an abrupt halt some distance from my Grove, our hair floating around us. Grace looked… grumpy with me, which was understandable, but still very funny.

“You little…” she began, but I dropped us straight down at speed, and her words cut off as she clung to me again. “Ryn!”

I might have been enjoying teasing her just a little too much, but she was just so damn cute like this.

“Sorry,” I said, trying very hard to keep my expression neutral. “I’ll stop now.”

“You’re a little shit,” she growled, leaning away from me to give me an irritated stare.

It was at about that moment that I realised just how intimately we were holding one another. Her legs were wrapped loosely around mine, her hands clasped tightly behind my neck, fingers tickling at my hair. In turn, my arms were around her torso, fingers splayed across her warm back for extra support. I gulped and met her clear green eyes, suddenly unable to breathe.

Her expression softened into one that I didn’t recognise, and I watched as her gaze roamed my face with an intensity I hadn’t seen from her before. “Ryn,” she murmured quietly.

“H-hi,” I whispered at a similar volume. My body felt like it was both hot and cold at the same time, but hers was all a sweet warmth.

Wait, was she getting closer? What was happening? My face felt like it was going to ignite into roaring flame at any moment now. Her breath was so warm as it tickled across my cheeks, her eyes shining now like the outside surface of my Grove.

Then in an instant she blinked and backed off, and I felt a little tremor go through her body. She bit her lip, now avoiding my eyes as she looked anywhere but at me.

“What was it you were going to do out here?” she asked finally, after several long moments of silence in which I was rapidly running out of oxygen.

“I wanted to... Uh, watch the plants,” I said, unable to bring my volume back up to normal levels again. We were still tangled up together.

When she raised an eyebrow for further explanation, I tried to order my thoughts enough to explain myself. I needed her to be like, a little further away. I couldn’t think. Her thighs were so strong as they held my legs in place, and then the thought of how her legs were open wide right now sent a flood of boiling arousal through me. Oh no, I was turned on by Grace! I was being super creepy right now! Abort! Bad Ryn!

“I’ll explain, just… um, I need…” I mumbled, my voice a strained squeaking thing as I looked down at our intertwined bodies.

“R-right,” she breathed, carefully letting go of me and untangling our bodies in the process.

I grabbed her hand to keep her stable, and even that contact was a lot to handle right then. God damn, my nerves were humming like the strings on an electric guitar.

Before any more awkwardness could jump out of the bushes and maul us, I dove into my thought process surrounding the plants. Anything to escape the thoughts of how her thighs felt wrapped around me or how it might feel to run my hands over them with intention.

My voice was all kinds of shaky as I began to speak. “I think that I can learn a little about magic if I watch the plants around us. I think they have magical properties, like they’re each just a random mess of spell components all forming and dying over and over.”

“Right… you um, explained before that the plants are like spells,” she said thoughtfully.

“Yeah, so I don’t know, I guess I just want to watch them and see if I can learn anything,” I shrugged, now realising that my idea might sound stupid.

“Okay, so we just float here?” she asked, her hand squeezing mine.

“Yup,” I nodded.

“That sounds relaxing.”

So we did, floating among the ever shifting and changing forest of the Nameless Garden. At first I wasn’t able to concentrate on anything other than the feel of her hand in mine, but as time passed my eyes sought out the almost-patterns all around us. I shifted into mage sight and stared around, watching a nearby plant as it grew into a broad flower, each petal humming with imminent energy.

Another plant, gnarled and twisted like the roots of a great tree, was collecting stray wisps of magic from around it and funnelling it all into its core. It didn’t do anything with the energy, and when it died, the magic floated free once more. It was fascinating, and the more I watched, the more I realised I had been right. The ever changing plants in the void were nonsensical spells, like the whole garden was some sort of random number generator, spitting out and then destroying possible combinations.

I tried to memorise each twist of root and curve of petal that I saw around me, doing my best to figure out how it worked. I saw one stem that seemed to channel magical energy into itself and convert it into a dark elemental form. I saw flower buds that promised kinetic movement, any energy pumped into them becoming raw potential motion.

At some point, I began to experiment with the plants around me, gathering magical energies from around me and funneling them through the randomly generated plants to see what happened.

When one of them burst into song, I jumped on it and did my best to figure out how it worked, all while Grace held tight to my hand as she tried to figure out what the hell was happening. I did attempt to explain what I was doing as I played around, although I knew she had only the barest idea of what I was talking about. I wasn’t surprised though, no one would be able to really grasp what was happening without mage sight.

We had to end at some point though, and when my stomach began reminding me that I still needed to eat to survive, we moved back into my Grove, appearing on the edge of the plateau. I could see my tree standing tall in the middle and my smile widened. I was going to have fun with this whole magic thing.

Lunch was quick, no one wanted to linger over travel food after all, and once it was over I was free to work my magic. Literally. First, I needed to get the plateau properly protected from the elements, which meant starting to create a wind break all around the edges.

Something I’d learned outside in the void was how to create trees with bark that was both harder than normal and more supple than normal. I’d also watched as the plants outside had funneled and controlled various elements and resources. One of those had been simple water.

With both of those things in mind, I started work on the first layer of trees needed to stop the wind that was even now threatening to pick up. It had to be a relatively short tree, something hardy and tenacious. I didn’t choose any one species, instead forming my own tree that drew inspiration from many.

Different to the plants I had created thus far, I used the leaves of the tree to draw in the raw magic of the garden, which gave them a purplish blue colour that glowed faintly in the dark. Next came the trunk, the bark being that sturdy kind that I had discovered. The core of the trunk would be taking in the energy from the leaves and converting it into physical matter. Namely, water. Lastly, the roots would push that water deep into the ground to create an aquifer within the plateau.

This would hopefully solve any groundwater problems I had if there was ever a drought or whatever, and I’d be able to draw it back up to create the lake I had wanted. With the lake, I’d then be able to have streams running out in all directions that would cascade over the edge in really pretty waterfalls. Was this mostly all for aesthetics? Yeah, but so what, I wanted my Grove to be pretty.

I began to plant the trees a few meters from the edge, but after only three of the things I was drained to the point of dizziness and had to stop. Throwing most of my clothing off, I fell into the grass with my chlorophyll drawing in that sweet sunlight. It was a strange feeling, being thirsty for sunlight, and soon I was drifting in the warmth and bliss of the sun’s rays.

I felt my intake grow and grow, which I thought was odd, but I didn’t dwell on it, my mind fuzzy with calm warmth as it was. Why did it matter if I was getting more sunlight than normal? That is, until I felt a pressure on my stomach. My eyes creaked open like the wonky door on the shed back at my parent’s house and I looked up into the worried eyes of Grace.

She was speaking, but I couldn’t really hear her.

I couldn't hear anything at all? That was odd. I tried to sit up, and it was a terribly slow process, like I was wading through water or something in ugg boots. Looking down at myself, my eyebrows shot up when I saw that my skin had become… extremely plantlike, overlapping leaves with little magenta flowers sprouting from random points across me. Moving was hard, my body refusing to deform with any speed at all.

It was all rushing back into me now though, the flowers and leaves growing in reverse, until finally I was back to normal. Normal and almost naked. My pale skin was vaguely pink with the sudden chill of the wind. Crap, I was in my underwear again in front of Grace.

“Where’s my clothes?” I asked, my voice sounding a little rough, but otherwise okay.

“Um, here,” my friend replied, passing them all to me in a bundle, her gaze very studiously glued to my face. She looked concerned, brows furrowed with worry again, although her cheeks were blushing up all pretty again.

“Are you okay?” I asked as I hastily put my clothing back on. She was rather clearly embarrassed by my nakedness.

“You were like, full plant just then, it was… I don’t know. Am I being too overprotective here? I keep jumping up and trying to… you know, save you from things and stuff. I don’t want to be annoying,” she said, her expression tight and her eyes turning downcast.

“What? No! I like it,” I told her sincerely. “It’s nice to be cared about by someone.”

“Oh? Really?” she asked, looking back up at me with a nervous laugh. “I totally thought I was being annoying.”

“I haven’t really talked about my past… but um, I haven’t really had the best experiences with family and friends until recently, so it’s a bit of a novel concept for me that someone actually gives a shit about my wellbeing you know?” I said quietly. I hated talking about my past, it was depressing and it made other people depressed, so why bother?

“You hinted at it once or twice,” she said with a sad smile, her hand coming to rest tentatively on my arm. “I uh, guess I’ll just have to care more than you’ve missed out on huh? ...Well, I mean like all of us, the whole group I mean. Not just me, because that would actually be weird,” she chuckled awkwardly as she furiously backpedalled.

I found a smile on my face out of nowhere, briefly wondering how it had gotten there before I just let it happen and nodded. “We can all care about each other lots, yeah.”

“Guess you have um, more planting to do and stuff?” she said quickly, changing the subject.

“Yeah, it’s going to take me forever to get these damn trees down, they take so much energy,” I grumbled, frowning at them.

“Can’t they grow themselves?” she asked curiously, walking over to press her hand to one.

“I don’t actually know? I figure it would take forever for them to mature and the wind might break them or something in the meantime,” I mused, but my mind was already working. She’d given me an idea.

What if I didn’t have to be the one to push the growth magic into them? What if I could make another plant to do that for me? It would probably end up still being slow, but faster than either planting them and waiting or doing them three trees at a time and then passing out, turning into a bushy version of myself in the process.

“Oh Grace,” I said, giving her a grateful smile. “You just gave me an idea.”

“I did?” she asked in surprise, before she sent a cocky smile back. “Damn I’m good.”

“You are,” I said, a lot more sincerely than I meant to.

With the idea of funnelling magical energy into plants to help them grow, I first needed to figure out what was different when a plant drew in energy from the base loam of the garden versus when I fed it my own energy. To test it, I made my way to where the next tree should go in the line and created the seed. Instead of feeding it large amounts of raw power though, I gave it the barest trickle of magic.

I could see it going into the seed too, it started as a fluffy mist coming off my body, but it rapidly began to twist into a small wispy tendril of energy. It was like watching wool being spun into thread. Okay, so my whole body was responsible for the creation of this stuff, which meant I couldn’t really copy the function.

What was interesting to me though, when I really looked at my body, was that it almost looked like I had two bodies overlaid on top of one another. There was the recognisable anatomy of a human there, pulsing with magic and everything. There was also something else, a less distinct side to my body that almost looked like, well, the anatomy of a plant. I could see the treelike structure of my plant veins and many more pieces that I simply didn’t recognise.

None of that helped me with the task at hand though, I still couldn’t really see how the growth magic was being formed. Not that it would stop me, if I couldn’t see the mechanisms my body used to create the growth energy, I’d just figure out a different way to do it.

I stood there and stared at the energy as it slowly trickled out of my body, just watching it, tasting the smell of it on my magical senses. It was definitely magic, but… different. More like the elemental magic that floated around out in the void than the basic stuff alongside it. What if I just… could I mix some of those elements together to create it? No, none of the elemental magics felt like they would mix into this.

You know what, fuck it, I’ll just make it work on the fly. I started with the roots as the collectors this time, like I had with my first plants. From there I built the framework of a small, hardy little shrub. Proper wood and bark that was dense and thick enough to survive any battering it might receive. The hard part came when I got into the core of that wood. It needed to convert that energy into that growth magic stuff as it flowed up through the plant.

Taking a chance, I grabbed some of the energy I was still feeding into the windbreak tree and pushed it directly into the wood of the new plant. While it flowed in, I began to create the building blocks for that elemental energy converting plant I had seen earlier. I didn’t go all the way though, suddenly taking my mental hands off the shrub while simultaneously pushing more growth energy at the mechanisms.

I watched with tense concentration as the two clashed and broke over and over, until there was a little spark, and suddenly it all fit together. I’d done it! The wood of this plant would now produce growth energy! Before it could fall apart on me, I very quickly formed leaves and flowers, the flowers especially would be releasing that growth energy, directing it at whatever plant needed it nearby. Then I was throwing it into the ground and planting a bunch of seeds for the trees I needed to grow.

Eagerly, I stepped back to watch. The shrub was slow to start, I could see it coming close to dying as it struggled with the wacky plant magic contraption I had saddled it with. It held in the end though and soon enough the flowers were letting out a slow but steady stream of growth energy towards my trees.

I gave a whoop of victory and leapt around in the air a few times from the sheer excitement. Fuck yeah! I was doing it! Magic!

“Whoa there bunny girl!” Grace laughed. “Enough with the binkies, you’ll accidentally throw yourself off the edge!”

“Bunnies?” I asked, yet another idea exploding through my skull. Oh. My. Goodness. I knew what my tenders would look like!

“Oh yeah, my family has two of them, they’re so damn cute,” she replied, unaware of the path she’d just caused my imagination to take. “When they get excited that’s what they do, jump in the air all spazzy like. It’s called binkies.”

She had no idea what she’d just unleashed upon my unsuspecting Grove… no idea.

We waited in the Grove for three days, and I spent most of that time setting up the outer ring of trees around the plateau. A few of the little growth bushes kept dying off for reasons I couldn’t figure out, but on the whole the system seemed to be working well, and by the end of the three days I had the first layer planted in its entirety. Grace kept me company for some of it, but Troy began to hold training courses in hand to hand combat and her time was mostly taken up by that.

On the fourth day though, disaster loomed on the horizon. An enormous storm front was threatening my Grove from outside its bounds. It was strange, the idea that storms could exist beyond the perimeter and I wondered how that even worked. Until I took a peek outside my Grove that is.

The storm was there in the form of a huge boiling wave of energy, arcs of various elemental magics flashing within its depths. It looked incredibly ominous, and as soon as I saw it I was rushing back inside to tell the others. Our stay in my Grove had ended, and I just had to hope that all the work I had done wasn’t wiped out by the time we were able to return.

Leaving in a hurry as the gigantic dark clouds loomed ever closer, each member of the group was in a circle around me, guns drawn and aimed. We had no idea what we’d find outside, so we just had to be ready to fight back if our mark was watched.

Thankfully, were lucky this time, no one stood outside except a few very startled birds. As soon as we’d made sure no one the coast was clear, we took off south through the farmland, hopping stone fences as we went. With no road to follow initially, it was slow going, but once we made contact with a farmer’s backroad, we started making better time.

“Are we still going to go to Millowhall?” Grace asked cautiously as we walked, glancing worriedly at Troy.

That was a concern of mine as well. With James in Fennimore’s hands it was only a matter of time until he got through the language barrier and learned of Avonside’s existence. If he didn’t know already that is, he’d called us aliens after all. Maybe word was already spreading amongst those in power?

“Yes,” Troy said confidently, which had me confused until he explained, “Either he knew about Avonside already, or he’ll know soon, that much is certain, but what is also certain is that James doesn’t know the specific route we took to get here. Shit, I don’t even know it since we don’t have any maps to go by.”

“Right, but like, they can still find it eventually, and if we spend another month or two out here…” Adam interjected, also looking worried for the folk back home.

“There are two other important things to remember,” Troy went on. “One, it takes time to assemble and move an army, and two, there is a hell of a lot of both distance and other nations between the two. We’re smack bang in the middle of one of the largest powers in the region, and from what I’ve managed to piece together, they aren’t exactly fond of the folk from this area.”

“Oh yeah!” I blurted, remembering what Cad and Valda had said. “Some people I travelled with mentioned that they had recently fought a war against the Ghraiga. I’m not sure if it was the same war, but like I said a while back, the man executed a bunch of prisoners too. Maybe his dickish reputation will stop him from being able to march through everyone else’s lands.”

“There is that too,” Troy agreed. “So we get as much info as we can during this trip, the type that might help us stand against an attack when it comes. Avonside wouldn’t survive regardless of if they had advanced warning right now.”

“So we take our time and gather as much information as possible, and just hope Avonside is still standing when we get back?” Kit winced. “That’s pretty bleak dude.”

“Hey, not just information guys,” I blurted, having a brainwave of massive proportions.

“Oh? What do you mean?” Troy asked with a slight smile.

“We have my Grove! We can dump as much crap in there as we want and it will follow me wherever I go! We could get our hands on like, a shitload of materials and take it all back with us. Might take a while to transport it to and from my Grove since there’s a magical cost based on how much I’m moving in and out, but still!” I explained with growing excitement. I could get Bray all the metal he wanted with this! The only problem was money…

“That is… a fucking fantastic idea,” Troy blurted, losing his calm for a second as his eyes widened and his expression shifted into a grin. “Wow, that will be amazing, depending on what we can get our hands on. Ryn, you’re fucking brilliant.”

“She definitely is,” Grace said with a grin that was all dancing eyes. “Bray is going to worship you for that. They were all complaining about low stores of materials even before we left.”

“What can we trade for though? We’re not exactly rolling in the local currency,” Adam frowned, thinking hard.

We all went silent as we each worked the problem in our heads. We had information, that was our biggest asset, but not here with us, not really. It was all back at the university, books and professors and stuff with a sizable chunk of the information of Earth to pick through.

“Everyone think on it,” Troy said after a moment. “We’ll table the discussion until we have any ideas. The very least we could do is walk around collecting large rocks or something to help with construction.”

With the conversation halted, we continued to move through the farming backroads for most of the day, eating lunch as we walked rather than stopping. Every moment we stayed close to the city was another that our enemies could find us. Word had probably already gotten out that Fennimore was looking for a group like ours.

A few of the locals saw us, but they all kept their distance, the armour serving its purpose of scaring everyone away very well. No doubt mention of our passage would reach the ears of our enemies at some point. We really needed to ditch the armour in favour of sets that were a little less conspicuous.

When the day began to close however, we ran into a problem. Namely, where to sleep. I wasn’t sure if it was safe to go back to my Grove yet, and I certainly didn’t know any way to check. Which meant we either risked me going back inside to take a look, or found somewhere to camp.

Troy eventually made the decision to keep us out of the Grove for now and we found a small copse of ash trees to sleep in. No fire or anything, just blankets on the ground and a watch set through the night. I volunteered to stand watch with Grace during the quiet early morning hours, because I wanted to keep her company. Also because she was the person I most wanted to spend watch with anyway.

My sleep was fitful, fraught with strange dreams that made little to no sense, and I was almost grateful when I was woken. Getting up quietly as Troy and Kit went to sleep, Grace and I made our way to a small bank of soil to watch the dark night around us.

Night time was something that still got to me, the eerie dark of the night around us. Sure, the sky was always bright with the day side of the ring, but the land around us held no light but the distant barely visible glow of a farmer’s hearth fire. There was no bright smudge of city lights on the horizon or a line of highway street lights off in the distance. Just raw darkness.

Shaking myself out of my thoughts of the night and what we’d lost, I turned my mind to Grace. There was something I’d been meaning to ask of her since we found each other again, but I could never get around to mentioning it, so I took that chance now.

“Grace…” I began in that tone everyone uses when they have a heavy question to ask. “How did uh, how did the rest of our friends, or family take my um… disappearance?”

She gave a quick glance sideways at me, opened her mouth to speak, but then paused. She pursed her lips and picked up a stick from the ground, beginning to play with it as she formulated her response.

“Adam and Duncan, they took it the best. They were upset, but of all of us, they were the ones who knew you the least. Kelsey and Melody cried, they mourned, but they kept moving too. You know that I was… well, first they didn’t believe me, the admins. I had to insist and show them the weird place where you got taken,” she replied quietly, her voice sombre with memory.

“Then when they did, there were questions, so many questions. The security dickheads wanted to know everything, it was… awful,” she sighed, her hands shaking a little now. “But it wasn’t as bad as Bray.”

“What did he do?” I asked, suddenly anxious. What had happened?

“He wasn’t… he got angry at me first, for not stopping you. We argued and it was just… he was torn up. Really torn up…” she said, then paused and looked up at me with a question of her own in her eyes. “When you said you knew his type… what type is that?”

It took me a second to understand what she was referring to, but when I did, I wasn’t sure if it was my place to say. I hesitated, but then… I also wanted to know where she was going with this. “He’s gay,” I finally replied. “He’s still dealing with a lot of internalised homophobia, some days he uh, really hates himself over it. I tried to be there for him during those times but… it’s hard. He isn’t an easy person to comfort.”

“I thought so, because… well I think he might have been in love with you Ryn, or rather, with the guy that you were,” she said, a stray wisp of her short hair blowing into her face as she spoke.

I watched that wisp for a moment as I processed what she was saying. Shit… that was a lot. Bray had lost me, his friend, but also… the person he’d fallen for, even if I had never reciprocated. I wasn’t the best person to understand love, I’d never felt it, or let myself feel it. I lived in the world though, I knew what happened to other people when they lost someone they loved.

Groaning, I placed my head in my hands. “Fuck, that would explain a lot.”

“Yeah,” she nodded, a hesitant hand coming to rest on my back. I twitched for a second, but then leaned into the comforting contact. It was completely at odds with my normal aversion to physical contact, but I really liked it when she touched me. A frighteningly large part of me wanted to just lean over and fall into her arms, her soft, safe arms. She might not take me into them though, and that fear of rejection is what kept me in place.

“Did he stay angry with you?” I asked once I’d pushed down the urge to press close to her.

“No, he came around eventually. We grew closer for it in the end, but it was a hard few weeks,” she told me as she idly stripped the bark from the stick she’d been playing with. “He wanted to come along on this trip with us you know, but they wouldn’t let him. Too valuable where he is apparently.”

“Yeah I can imagine,” I smiled, thinking fondly of the guy who’d been my best friend for a while now. “He’s such a nut about metals and stuff. Has he gotten onto you about swords yet?”

“Oh my god, don’t even remind me,” she chuckled, miming a flourish with the stick. Putting on a terrible impression of Bray, she continued, “Steel isn’t actually just one metal you know! There’s so many different types, and you have to make sure you choose the right one for the weapon, or you may as well have used lead!”

I gave a startled giggle as she performed her impersonation. While the voice was off by a whole lot, her words were the exact ones I’d gotten when I first dared to mention that most hallowed of metals in his presence.

“He’s such a dork,” I grinned, smiling into the night as I took a trip down memory lane. “Can’t wait to see him and the others when we get back.”

“Me too,” she sighed. “Almost as much as I want a nice hot, high pressure shower.”

“Wait, did they get the plumbing sorted?” I asked, suddenly very excited for the idea.

She raised a hand and shook it side to side. “Sorta, they were working on it. Materials were low though. Takes a lot of metal to run a pipe out to one of the rivers.”

I laughed then as an idea occurred to me. It was a wild one, a crazy one for later on… but…

“I could make a shower in my Grove,” I murmured as the idea was still forming.

“Wait, you could?” she asked eagerly. “How?”

“I mean… so long as a plant has like, all the right parts, it can be pretty much any shape it needs to be right?” I said, a cocky smile forming on my lips.

“You…” she breathed, excitement glittering in her eyes so brightly I could see it even in the dark. “Please do that!”

“I totally plan to!”

The next two days saw us travelling like this, avoiding main roads and the occasional patrol. The patrols weren’t Fennimore’s men thankfully, but rather the local men-at-arms doing their rounds. Still, being seen by them would be bad, they had surely heard of what had happened back in Ritodunum.

I wish we knew what the actual local politics were like. Medieval politics like the ones in this region were usually very… loose with their allegiances. Lords within the same kingdom were known to go to war with each other over lands and resources sometimes. It was kinda nuts how much was allowed between the nobility.

For this reason, we might be able to find a sympathetic lord or two who’d be able to help us in some way. I’m sure there was someone who’d love to throw a few coins at us just for wounding the guy. Especially given the fact that this wasn’t even his nation we were in right now. Sure, their capital cities were a day’s trip by river barge away from each other, but that might not mean much politically.

That day as we plodded wearily along, we began to grow suspicious of the number of patrols going past us. They were all riding or marching hard in the same direction we were going, but the weird part was that they barely spared a glance in our direction.

It was about the time that a full forty armoured men on horseback rode past with lances held high that we realised that this wasn’t about us. The eyes of the riders were hard, but many also wore expressions of dread. Which begged the question, what were they worried about?

“I don’t like this,” Troy said, calling us to a halt. “There’s shit going down up ahead.”

“Do we try and go around it or what?” I asked, looking down the road like I might be able to catch a glimpse of what was happening.

Troy frowned and did the same as me, his expression deep in thought. Finally, he sighed, “We’ll continue until we know for certain what’s happening. I have a feeling we’ll want to know what’s going on rather than get blindsided when it rides us down. Information is key to us right now, and anything we can observe here might be useful.”

With the decision made, we continued, although guns were loosened in holsters and helmets were put on. For my part, I had worn my magical disguise, which also had the added benefit of telling me that at least those plants were still alive. Now I put on my physical disguise too, wrapping the scarf tightly around my face.

Around us, the farms were quiet as the folk who usually tended them were making for their houses and closing up. They had realised that bad things were happening too, it was difficult to ignore the steady stream of soldiers riding in the direction we were talking. Even the very air seemed to thrum with the tension of it all.

Wait.

Was that thrum just tension? It seemed just a little more physical than simply my imagination. Something was making a very odd noise up ahead of us, and for a moment I was trying to listen for whistling, but caught none.

“Do you hear that?” Grace asked in a hushed whisper.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “It almost sounds like… like a swarm of bees having a fight with a chainsaw.”

“That is an incredibly… accurate description actually,” she said with a dark laugh.

“Bodies,” Troy interrupted simply, and we all jerked our gazes forward.

I gulped and quickly looked away almost as soon as I saw them, but it was too late. The image was burned into my brain. A pair of farmhands were burned and in multiple pieces, each cut to their bodies having been cauterised as it was made. It reminded me of how lightsabers made wounds but it was more… visceral in person.

We all looked to Troy, who just nodded us onwards. I was a little terrified now, what the hell had caused this? Was it a mage? Who just killed random farmhands like that though?

As we turned a corner on the road around a line of trees, a small village came into view, no more than twenty or thirty buildings in total. Many were on fire in small ways that threatened to become a blaze to level the whole place if it wasn’t contained. At least a hundred or so soldiers stood a ways back from the entrance to the place, the mounted knights and men-at-arms we’d seen earlier off to the side, but no one was making a move into the village.

Soon a group of villagers ran out, ten or so of them, women with babies in hand, children following. They rushed towards the gathered men with tear streaked faces, eyes wild with fear. I saw no men. I held my breath as they neared the massed soldiers, but they weren’t cut down like I’d been suspecting. Rather, they were directed to the back and given water and first aid by a small gathering of retainers.

We approached quietly but without guile, stopping some twenty yards from the villagers and retainers. I could make out their terrified rambling from here, and what I heard was chilling.

“There’s none left, we’re… they all died, it killed everyone else!” one woman was wailing, clutching at her confused and scared looking toddler.

“You’ll stop it right, you’ll stop that thing?” a teenaged looking kid was asking, his face stained with ash. “It killed my dad! It killed my dad!”

“We sent for a mage, child. There was one back at the Angenver inn, but… we don’t know if she will deign to help us,” one of the retainers said. “We will keep you safe in the meantime and try to hold it back.”

Before I could relay this back to to my friends… “it” came crashing through one of the external houses. It stood at almost two storeys tall, made of a shining silvery metal that was pitted with age and ancient battle scars. Four legs extended crablike from a central chassis, their outside surfaces broad and aesthetically curved into what looked like steel shields capable of stopping even armour piercing rounds from a modern Earth military.

The central chassis was shaped like a wedge to deflect projectiles, and sprouting from the shoulders of the thing were two arms of similar construction to the legs. On their tips however they bore the distinctive barrels of projectile weapons. The head of the thing was a small football shaped lump of metal sitting deep within the shoulders. It bore no sensor equipment as far as I could see, but it was turning and rotating as if surveying the massed troops. This had to be a steel one!

I was running forward before the others even realised it. I didn’t really care if the soldiers were our enemies or our allies, but I knew that I didn’t want to see them slaughtered.

“Ryn!” Grace cried from behind me, her feet pounding on the dirt of the road in an effort to catch up. “Shit, Ryn!”

Idly, a small few of the mounted men turned to watch me as I ran. None of the massed soldiers in the way made any attempt to move though, every one of them standing transfixed by the enemy in front of them. I heard that terrible raw thrum again, rising in pitch, and I looked across the massed heads to see energy building in one of the cannons protruding from its forearms.

A beam of deathly red energy lanced out from the weapon, running an arc through the massed troops, cutting every one of them it touched as though they were sliced by a huge molten blade. I wasn’t in the path, but two dozen people must have just been cut down by that beam, and I staggered to a halt just behind the last of the ranks, staring at the mess of bodies in awed dread.

People were shouting around me, the knights were now charging it from the side, crossbows were firing, their bolts ineffectually bouncing off the metal hull of the terrible mechanical death machine. Some men were turning to flee, others charging headlong into the path of the second beam just as it fired.

Atop the steel one, the chassis opened at the shoulders to allow two extra twin guns to rise on smaller arms. They took aim and began a rapid fire hissing as they hosed the crowd of men down with buzzing bolts of energy. Half of the men before me were already dead or dying, their wounded cries for help crashing into my psyche like the projectiles that had taken them.

I had my will though, my power of mind. Being a mage had taught me that, and I focused, pushing the horror of massed human suffering out of my mind. I was a damned mage, I’d crush this awful thing into a scrap of tinfoil and pass out bleeding from my ears if I had to.

Pulling my disguises from my face, I raised my arms towards the steel one. I sent my mind-vines rushing out towards it, lashing them around each of the four weapons. Gripping tight, I yanked them upwards with all the strength of will that I could manage and simply held them there. As soon as I had my vines on it, I’d realised my mistake. I wasn’t powerful enough to crush it. This was all I could do, keep the weapons pointed away from the poor men around us.

The knights saw their enemy mysteriously waylaid and rushed again, hacking at it with swords that did nothing but ring uselessly off its steel hide. They needed to go for the joints, damn it! They might be able to fuck its joints up, but their current approach wasn’t going to work.

“Ryn,” Grace gasped from beside me, staring at the carnage around us in horror.

“They need to go for the joints!” I ground out through clenched teeth. “Their swords are useless if they keep hitting the damn armoured plates.”

“We should be leaving!” Troy replied hotly instead, coming up on my other side. “But… since we’re committed, we’ll see what we can do. I can see a few points that our guns might do some damage too, but I’m not confident. Keep that thing’s weapons pointed away and we might have this.”

“I’m sorry! I just… these people!” I cried guiltily, feeling tears running down my cheeks at all the misery around us even as my head began to pound in earnest. Shit, had my stupid actions gotten us all killed?

Troy gave a grunt and nodded, “Hang in there kid. The rest of you, come on, it looks like we’re playing hero.”

“A little warning would have been nice, but yeah… it’s the right thing to do,” Grace sighed, her voice tight as she finally looked up from the bodies. “After you boss.”

“Sorry,” was all I could manage through the increasing pain in my skull. “But please hurry. This really hurts.”

They were off, rushing towards the evil death robot across the carpet of bodies between. I watched through the narrowed slits of my eyes as Troy raised his gun and took careful aim, popping off shots at some small area I couldn’t see. The others joined in, gunshots ringing loud even over the cries of battle.

It didn’t take long to see that the bullets weren’t working, nor the swords of the knights, and certainly not the pathetic crossbow bolts fired by some of the soldiers. Nothing was doing anything, not even my vines could crush it. Instead, my powers simply bound it helpless but impervious. That is… until my grip on them failed.

With one large spike of pain, my vines fell away into nothing, and the arms of the ancient machine fell back into position, weapons humming with promised death.

Grace moved quickly, her hand plunging into one of the pouches at her hips. She took something out, something so jarringly out of place that it took my brain a second just to figure out what it was, even though I had seen its like plenty of times before. It was her phone.

She lobbed it wide with a hasty flick of her arm and it went sailing off to the side of the huge, menacing mechanical monster. The reaction from the robot and its charging weapons was immediate. It swivelled and shifted its position, each weapon coming to bear on where the tiny device had landed. There was only a split second’s hesitation before each weapon tore into the phone and the ground around it like a battleship firing off a full broadside.

What the hell? Had Grace known it would do that? As one, my armoured friends rushed to the side away from the guns as they poured still more fire into the ground where the phone had probably long since ceased to exist. Rather than raise their weapons again, my party stared at it helplessly. There was no point, they couldn’t do anything.

Grace didn’t stay still for long however, as she turned and picked up the sword of a downed soldier. Hefting it, she moved forward towards the robot and proceeded to jam the sword into one of the leg joints where it met the chassis.

“Ryn!” she called urgently. “Can you hammer that in with your telekinesis?”

Taking mental stock of myself, I realised I still had a little energy to give, and it was refilling rapidly. Too rapidly, it didn’t refill this fast even when I went full shrubbery mode. Was the storm somehow effecting my energy reserves?

Rather than ponder the reasons for it, I shrugged and formed my mental vines into one huge knot, then crashed it with all my might into the pommel of the sword. There was a grinding sound as it was hammered into the machine, and the leg went abruptly limp.

“We got a leg!” Grace exclaimed triumphantly, right as the Steel One turned its football shaped head around to stare at her.

Before the guns could come to bear on them, what was left of the knights came back, their lances ringing the metal of its chassis like a gong. Except this time, the machine staggered slightly and the sword that was wedged inside it ground just a little deeper with the movement.

“Good job friends!” the man at their front called as he galloped past with his now broken lance still in hand. “Damn good job! Let’s see if we can’t do some damage to this thing before it takes us all eh?”

There was a ragged cheer from what remained of the ground troops, and they rushed it again, swords questing for the joints as Grace had done. Damn, they were brave if nothing else. Kinda like my team and I. The beams and autocannons fired again, but with so few people left standing, they weren’t as effective. It seemed accuracy hadn’t been a priority in this thing’s design.

I was about to capitalise on a sword placed by Adam, when I heard a single set of pounding footsteps on the road behind me. “Oh, by Gosbari’s tits,” a feminine voice swore behind me in an accent I’d never heard. “Fuckin’ late and now people are dead all over the fuckin’ place. I knew that last pint was a bad idea. Always decline the last pint.”

I turned in surprise at the words, my eyes falling on a woman next to me. She wasn’t a human woman however. She was pretty, in an angular sort of way, with large golden eyes that shone in the sun. Her hair was just as golden and almost offensively bright, its metallic sheen leaving after images in my sight.

Sprouting from the sides of her forehead were two twisting golden horns that arched back over her head. She wore a well tailored but rumpled black suit with silver accents, the trousers of which ended in… in hooves rather than boots. I could see golden fur on the back of her neck and around her hooves, as well as the backs of her hands.

“Well, better get to work huh, gorgeous?” she asked me with a wink, disappearing out of thin air with the thump of displaced air.

She reappeared above the steel one, somehow having drawn a cavalry saber in the process, the edge of which glowed with a dark edge. She swung, the arc of her blade cutting straight through one of the smaller autocannon arms like it wasn’t even there.

I clattered to the ground, but she wasn’t done. The other guns swung up as hard as they could in an attempt to blast her out of the sky, but she was gone again, wrapped in dark energies that spirited her away to safety.

She landed nimbly in the dirt near where the phone had been, her sword at the ready. The steel one was just as quick to take aim again, but she simply stood there with a cocky little smile tipping the edge of her lips. All three remaining weapons poured fire at her in a deadly volley of energy, but in that exact same moment of peril, she thrust forward with her sword and a magical shield the colour of silver flashed out in front of her.

Every crackling bolt or beam that hit that shield flew right back at the steel one in a destructive wave that tore great glowing rents in its armour. The other autocannon arm was blasted from its socket, twirling through the air to land several yards away in the grass. Somehow each of the reflected attacks had missed all the gathered people attacking it too, which had me raising an eyebrow.

Her sword seemed to extend, blue glowing magic increasing its length by a considerable amount. Not wasting any time, she dashed forward in a line, straight under the legs of the machine, twirling in a circular slash that cut each of the four limbs in half. She was out the other side as it crashed to the ground with a groaning sound, stumps flailing as it tried to twist itself to face her.

Summoning the dark edge to her sword again, she approached it with a casual stride. Wandered up to it as it struggled, she tilted her head to the side and promptly drove her sword dead center into its chassis. It stopped moving immediately, every limb going limp as the internal workings that kept it moving ceased to function.

Silence descended over the battlefield as she yanked her sword free, the dark edge gone, replaced by the mundane silver of steel. She inspected her blade with a frown, brushing her finger over the flat of it. With a slight nod of approval, she flicked it back into the sheath at her hip, and turned to survey the carnage around us.

“Well, that’s a load of shit ain’t it?” she called to no one in particular as she surveyed the dead. “What in the hell is this bastard doing in the middle of Aberg lands anyway? Didn’t you lot get rid of all of them? I mean granted, he’s a small one, but still!”

“Aye, we were just as surprised as you were, my lady,” the lead knight called as he trotted up near her.

I slowly began to pick my way through the bodies towards my friends as they spoke to each other, but my attention was most definitely focused on this conversation.

“Lord Dinveria, greetings,” the non-human woman said, giving him a nod. “Apologies for my late arrival. I had a rather long night last night.”

“I am well aware of the reputation of Eilian the Golden,” he chuckled, just a slight note of bitterness in his voice. “I was planning to have to hold out until the afternoon.”

Eilian’s response was a snort of amusement, and then her eyes fell on me with a spark of interest. My party was making their way over to me as she stared at me, and soon the Lord was turning to watch me too.

“And who would you be?” she asked with an open smile.

“Uh,” I squeaked, feeling very self conscious and off balance both by her self confidence and the death that was littered around us. “My name is, um… Ryn.”

“Ryn? I’d have heard of someone with such perfect beauty as you possess. Where do you hail from?” the lord asked curiously.

“Avonside,” I replied as my party members came to stand with me.

“Ryn of Avonside eh? And this lot?” Eilian asked, gesturing to my friends.

Damn, this mage chick was just so damn confident. Even her posture as she surveyed us was just casually commanding in a way that drew the eye of everyone around us. She seemed to be almost… good? At least not an asshole like Fennimore. She wasn’t going for my throat or anything, so that was nice.

Turning to the people in question, I gulped and whispered in english, “They’re asking who you all are.”

“Crap, do we really need to think of a name?” Grace asked.

“Order of Eleos,” Kit blurted, and we all turned to him in question.

He gave a sheepish laugh and shrugged. “I’m a history nerd, there’s an old greek deity called Eleos. She represented mercy and compassion, which is kinda what we want to be about right? So… the Order of Eleos.”

Troy gave a nod, “It’s irrelevant what we call ourselves, so sure, go ahead. We can come up with real names if we need them later.”

I kinda liked it though, and it felt like more than just a name to hand over in the here and now, this moment felt important to me. Like we’d just unofficially decided to be something new, a beginning that might one day turn into something great.

Turning back to the mage and the lord, I told them, “Uh, the Order of Eleos.”

“Well, I extend my thanks to the Order of Eleos,” Lord Dinveria smiled. “That was a timely intervention. We’d have all been slaughtered long before Lady Eilian turned up if it weren’t for your timely aid in delaying the beast’s rampage.”

“Uh, cool. Yeah, no problem,” I smiled, still feeling exceedingly awkward. I mean, I was talking to a hotshot mage chick, who was also just very attractive, as well as some old looking lord dude wearing a very brightly polished set of armour.

“You’re a mage right?” Eilian asked, pointing to my hair. Uh oh, here we go.

“Yup,” I replied warily, suddenly feeling like maybe this was a dangerous situation all over again. Possibly more dangerous than the huge robot.

“That was an impressive use of raw power there, but if you’d like I think you could do with some… pointers,” she said wryly, but there was a note of something else in there, something… almost flirtatious in her expression.

“Let me ask my friends?” I asked worriedly. What kind of pointers was she interested in giving me?

Beside me, Grace shifted to stand closer, and I glanced over into her reflective helmet visor. Damn helmet, hiding her expression from me. Had she noticed the weird way the mage was talking to me?

“What’s she saying?” Grace asked quietly.

“She wants to give me… um, magic tips,” I replied, trying to keep my expression neutral.

“That could be beneficial if she isn’t being disingenuous,” Troy hummed, tone thoughtful.

“Should I accept?” I asked them with bated breath.

“I’d say so,” Troy nodded. “I doubt we could stop her if she has any intention to do us harm anyway.”

“True,” I sighed, then turned back to the alien mage. “Sure, that would be nice. Thank you.”

After I’d accepted Eilian’s offer of some magical pointers, she’d decided to follow us for a portion of our journey. She apparently had a ship to catch in Norishin, the furthest city up the river that ocean going ships could visit, so she only had a few days with us.

Lord Dinveria’s lands were some of the last before we entered the nation that Lord Fennimore called home, and as such it would be nice to have the added magical muscle to deal with any of his goons. We’d be crossing through the nation for only a day or so, this area being a very thin strip of owned land, so we were just hoping to dash across without being noticed.

“Sorry for the staring,” I told Eilian as we walked down the road towards the unguarded border. “We’ve just never seen an Obrec before.”

“Aye, I know. I’ve heard that about you lot, you’re ah… new,” she nodded with a cheeky, twinkle eyed smile. “Heard you wounded that peacock Fennimore too, if the armour is anything to go by, which is why I’m offering my assistance. Aren’t that many who’d call him an enemy these days, so it’s best to make sure the ones that exist live long enough to cause him trouble.”

“You don’t like him?” I asked curiously.

“Of course not!” she exclaimed, throwing a hand in the air for emphasis. “The man killed my mage father after all, lovely old man who took me in after… well, a lot of shit went down back home. Anyway, point is, the man is plain evil and he has very little regard for the word no, so there’s that too.”

That was good to know. She was at least a potential ally as far as Fennimore went. It was also good to know that there were still people around here who didn’t like him. Made me feel a little less alone in this, so to speak.

“He attacked my mage mother too, I don’t even know if she’s still alive,” I sighed, trying not to let thoughts of Esra’s fate haunt me.

“Oh, who was she?” Eilian asked with a raised eyebrow. Dang it, did her eyes have to dance like that all the time? It was distracting the way she seemed to be coming on to me with a simple question.

“Esra Rihm,” I told her quietly, as if my lower volume might keep her from having a bad reaction to the name.

“Oh! Esra!” she exclaimed, watching me with a new light in her eyes. “You’re her new apprentice? Damn, that’s some luck! I saw her in someone else’s grove a few nights back. Wasn’t looking the greatest, but she was alive, so don’t worry about that.”

My heart leapt at her words and a smile bounced into place on my face. Esra was alive! She was alive! I already felt like I could breathe easy again, one of many worries put at ease.

“Really?” I asked, and continued into a delighted ramble, “Oh thank you! I was worried. She was nice to me, even if she was like really grumpy about it. It’s crazy that someone can be both a huge grump and also really nice, it seems like they should be mutually exclusive, but somehow she managed it. So yeah… I’ve um, been… worrying. Yup.”

“No problem,” she smiled, again with that little sparkle in her eye. Was it just the golden colour of her eyes?

“What are you talking about?” Grace asked from my other side, and I turned to look at her. She’d been a little off since the fight and I couldn’t figure out why. She certainly wasn’t saying.

“She just told me that she saw my mentor alive a few days ago in someone else’s grove,” I replied, giving Grace a smile that I hoped might cheer her up.

“Oh nice, that’s good news,” she said, her eyes flicking from my face to Eilian’s and back. “Is she helping with the magic stuff too?”

“Not yet,” I shook my head, and Grace made a humming sound that was almost disapproval.

Why was she so agitated right now? Surely she didn’t distrust Eilian that much. She was acting like she had to be near me at all times or I’d find myself impaled by the smiling obrec or something. I know I’d said I enjoyed her being protective, but this was a little much.

“Your friend doesn’t seem to like me,” the Obrec mage remarked dryly.

“She’s just protective of me,” I said placatingly in Anve. Sure, I might be a little critical of Grace in my head, but I was definitely going to defend her if someone else even hinted at badmouthing her. “She thought I was dead until like five days ago and she’s worried I might disappear on her again. She was asking about magic stuff anyway.”

“Ah yes, magic stuff,” she chuckled, a finger straying to the pommel of her sword. “I guess we should get to it shouldn’t we? Tell me, what spells do you currently have?”

“Uh, none that are very useful,” I blushed with embarrassment. Some mage I was.

“Not even a shield?” she asked, looking genuinely surprised.

“Ah, no… I have a disguise flower and a flower to track my friends through our rings,” I murmured.

Gosh, I really should have spent more time on combat spells. Still, I felt like any attempt to make anything complex would end up with it being torn from the soil by the winds of my grove.

“Well that’s not the greatest,” she said with a straight face. “It would be easiest just to get you to make the plant in your grove, but I’m assuming that I haven’t gained enough trust for that yet, so I’ll have to explain a few basic components for you.”

Well, that confirmed the idea that you weren’t supposed to just invite any old random into your grove. Guess I should start screening people or something.

“Oh we can’t go into my grove anyway,” I smiled. “There’s a magic storm crashing over it right now, place is uninhabitable.”

“A… what?” she asked, her eyebrows rising into her hairline.

“A huge magical storm!” I said, waving my arms around in an attempt to indicate size. “It looked like a normal big storm inside my grove, but when I went outside it was like this huge cloud of boiling magical energy! It was nuts, we ran away as soon as we saw it!”

“That is… not something I have heard of before,” she said, looking slightly baffled now. “But regardless, here’s a few components you can use to make some useful combat spells…”

From here on the conversation turned very technical, and it was strange to see this sweet talking swashbuckler suddenly get nitty gritty with magical details. It seemed that even though she liked her women and her drink, she was still a magic nerd like the rest of us.

She explained about the different types of shields. Shields geared towards fending off certain elements with high efficiency, shields geared towards blocking magic in general with less efficiency, and shields geared towards mundane attacks like crossbows and the like.

“How did our bullets hit Fennimore if he probably had a mundane shield up then?” I asked with a frown.

“The man is a stickler for energy conservation. Knowing him, he probably only had a shield strong enough to stop a heavy crossbow bolt or two. Those weapons you’re toting look like they pack a considerably stronger punch than that, if that fight back there was anything to go by,” she said with a roll of her eyes directed at the absent asshole.

Further questions revealed that Eilian wasn’t sure how Fennimore had survived the hole in his chest, but that the idea that he’d gained some extra protection was worrying. Mages were apparently supposed to die pretty easily to that kind of thing, just like normal humans, and she promised to spread the word that something was up.

From there the conversation moved on. She began to explain how the different types shield could be given form via the plants of a grove. It was interesting, the different techniques she was describing. I thought I had seen a few plants like that when Grace and I had been out observing the wild ones, and now that I knew what to look for, I might be able to discover some fun alternatives.

She also explained her own style of combat a little. Telling me how she liked to imbue her sword with properties and powers rather than just flinging magic around like other people tended to do, and I honestly thought it was pretty cool. Not my style, but still it was inarguably effective, not to mention impressive to observe, which I suspected might have been the point of it all.

I decided, after the quick little combat magic introduction from Eilian, that it was about time I started teaching my friends how to speak Anve. They were rough with it currently, but seemed eager to learn. Especially Grace, who had been constantly asking me what Eilian was saying during lulls in the conversation.

When the day wore on into the evening and we agreed to stop for the night, it was at an inn rather than some random copse of trees. We figured with Eilian around and Fennimore supposedly still wounded, we’d be able to avoid any problems. Plus, that lord from back at the battle with the steel one was not a fan of the magical dickhead, and the lord of this place swore fealty to him.

The village was a bustling one as far as villages went. This was because of its status as the last town before Fennimore’s nation, Anverleik, and it saw a lot of traders come through. There were even a few slightly more specialty shops that would cater to traders and travellers, such as a shoemaker and a saddlemaker. It was honestly quite a nice little town, with its protective castle on a hill half a mile or so away.

The inn was similarly bustling, with a large common room and plenty of happy travellers settling in for a night of drinking. They even had music, which was something I hadn’t heard in a long time. We approached the innkeeper as he was finishing up with another customer and the man almost immediately plastered a smile on his face.

“Hello! What can I do for you and your party lady mages?” he asked with a kindly smile, his eyes on me and Eilian.

Right, I wasn’t wearing my disguise, and I don’t think Eilian knew the meaning of the word. It made sense that he’d assume we were the leaders of the little party, given the culture around our kind.

“Two rooms, three men in one, two women in other,” Troy said in his halting Anve, gesturing to our party and earning a surprised look from the innkeep. Yup, he definitely hadn’t been expecting one of the ‘guards’ to speak up.

“Ah… yes. Good good,” he said, a little taken aback.

“A single room for me thanks, my good man,” Eilian said with a pleasant smile. “Make it the nicest you have available.”

“Yes, of course,” he nodded, turning to look at a ledger he had behind his bar. He frowned as he stared at it, then glanced back up.

“We have the room for you, my lady,” he said, looking at Eilian, but then his eyes shifted to my friends and I. “However, I am afraid I have no more double rooms available. Only the triple and a four man room.”

“Ah, problem,” Troy frowned, then turned and glanced a question at Grace and I.

“Well, I’m sure the three of us cou—“ Eilian began to say, but Grace cut in over her. “Single room, big bed?”

Wait, was she suggesting that she and I sleep in the same bed? Oh no, I couldn’t… that would be even harder to deal with than normal! I could already feel my cheeks heating at the thought of what might happen. Or rather, what my wandering mind wanted to happen, even if I knew it wouldn’t. Wait damn, did I really want something to happen between Grace and I? No, I was just… it was the embarrassment. Stupid attraction, why couldn’t it leave me alone?

The innkeep frowned as he tried to parse what Grace was talking about, but eventually he checked the ledger again and nodded, “Yes, we have a… couple’s room available.”

Couple’s room. My cheeks heated even further and I had to stare at my feet to avoid seeing anyone notice how embarrassed I was getting. Eilian would totally catch on to my reaction. Grace and I… in a couple’s room. My thoughts jumped to cheesy love hotels with big heart shaped beds and mood lighting and… oh gosh. Still, there wasn’t really an alternative was there, and it’s not like I wouldn’t… enjoy it, just a little though. She was a good friend, so of course I’d enjoy being close to her like that. Yup. Definitely.

“We’ll take that one,” I murmured, just loud enough for him to hear.

“Very good, I’ll see about having them all freshened up for you,” the innkeep said happily, and I further melted into the floor as everyone else ordered food.

My excitable mind was already conjuring up thoughts of accidental touches and soft skin, lips placing gasping kisses down my neck as I… oh my word. Just like that I was further exploding into a mind-numb mess of embarrassment. I was so screwed. Also there was some evapotranspiration happening in a particular area due to those thoughts and it was making things difficult. Someone please send help!

With the rooms sorted, we headed off to find a table for our group. Grace stuck closer to me than I was used to, and I was going from flustered to confused and then to worried about her. Something was definitely bothering her

The group sat down wearily, tired from all the walking we’d been doing recently, as well as the battle today. I made sure I sat down next to Grace, and while everyone else was getting settled, I leaned over and placed my mouth close to her ear, whispering, “Are you okay Grace? You’re acting funny and it has me worried about you.”

She turned to look at me first with confusion in her expression, then there was a flicker of something, just the barest hint of sadness. “What do you mean?” she asked as she covered up the split second lapse.

Her face was so close, her lips just inches from mine, but I couldn’t back away. It was as though there were a magnetism between us in that moment, and it took all my self control just to keep myself in place. My heart was pulling me towards her, tugging at my chest insistently.

“You’ve been upset all day,” I murmured, searching her deep green eyes for any hint of what might be bothering her.

Grace looked like she might reply, but then she shook her head instead. “I don’t want to talk about it here.”

I watched her for a little longer, an intense wave of affection for her washing over me. Something about seeing her vulnerable and trying her best to hide that fact had me feeling caring and protective of her. She was so important to me, the way she always had my back, was always on my side no matter what. Even when I’d fucked up and rushed into that battle earlier, she’d done nothing more than politely ask that I warn her beforehand.

Before I could really think on it, my arm was coming up to wrap around her waist in a quick, awkward sideways hug. “We can talk in our room later then,” I told her gently, hoping my smile would cheer her up a little.

Judging by the shy smile she sent back at me and the way she leaned into my little hug, I figured I’d made the right move. “Okay. Thanks Ryn.”

I made to pull my hand back but the way she was still leaned slightly against me made me hesitate. I opted to keep my hand lightly resting on the small of her back while I leaned back into her. Neither of us mentioned the contact as we turned back to the group at large, finding only Adam watching us in that moment.

He glanced between us for a second, and he gave us the tiniest of nods before he turned back to Eilian, who was saying something to him. My eyebrows shot up when I noticed that her hand was resting on his forearm.

I was quiet as conversation ebbed and flowed around us in mostly broken Anve. I helped out in translation where I could, taking those moments to try and teach my friends in the process. Other than that, I was done with talking in general. I’d been the face of the group for a while and it was quickly overwhelming me. The sooner everyone else could speak Anve, the better.

The food arrived, a fairly standard roast that had little seasoning. Another thing we’d taken for granted back on Earth was the abundance of spices available to us. Only the rich and powerful would have access to them now. Well, and mages I guessed as an afterthought. I could probably set up greenhouses and the like in my grove for— oh my goodness. I knew how to buy power back in Avonside. I had the perfect plan. Coffee.

My peaceful abstention from the conversation was brought to a grinding halt by Eilian, who asked, “So Ryn, please indulge me, but what is it you do with your time when it is not spent galavanting around the place getting into hopeless battles?”

Looking up from where I’d been poking at the remnants of my food, I had to think about her question for a moment. “Uh, I guess I used to just watch TV shows a lot, or study for my exams. Sometimes my friend Bray would get me to play games with him, although I was always really bad at the ones he liked to play. I like to collect pillows too. Oh! And reading! I love reading stories.”

“I did not understand half of that,” she chuckled with a shake of her head. “What is a tee vee shaw?”

“Oh, um,” I said in surprise, forgetting that she’d have very little context for half of the things I’d just spoken about. “It’s like… theatre. A play, but it’s recorded by a device that lets you see it at any time you want to. Like on a… crap, it’s really hard to explain. There’s a lot of things about our culture that are just going to sound like gibberish to you.”

“I’m starting to gather that,” she murmured, her eyes taking on that weird sparkle again as she leaned forward across the table towards me. “Would you be willing to show me these things? Maybe I should visit this Avonside of yours, hmm?”

Oh gosh, just when I thought I’d escaped from this sort of attention from her, she was trying again.

“U-um, we… I don’t have any of that stuff on me, sorry,” I told her, clumsily tripping over each syllable that I spoke.

“I throw the last thing for this away to stop metal thing,” Grace told her haltingly in Anve, and I turned to see her expression wasn’t the happiest again. I think it was time to get her out of here.

Adam piped up in his own messy version of the language, and Eilian was back to listening intently to the large guy as he tried to explain what a show was.

“Grace, want to go back to our room and get ready for bed early?” I asked hopefully.

“Oh my god, please,” she breathed, relief pouring off her in waves. “I want to get out of this armour and find a damn bath.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said with a little giggle. “Well, except the armour, because I’m not wearing any.”

“I know what you meant, you goof,” she smiled before she downed the last of the weak beer they had served us. To the group she said, “Hey everyone, Ryn and I are going to go to bed early.”

“Night,” the guys nodded, while Eilian gave us both the flirtiest smile I’d seen on her yet. “Have fun girls…” she teased.

That set my cheeks aflame and a quick glance at Grace revealed embarrassment flaming up across her face too. She looked so damn pretty when she blushed, it made me want to reach up and place a kiss on her reddened cheeks. Obviously I couldn’t for reasons written all across her face right now. I could see it in the way she was avoiding my eyes. She didn’t see me that way, even if was a girl now.

“Let’s go find the baths,” Grace mumbled, leading the way without looking back at me.

God damn it, why did Eilian have to say that? Now Grace was all weirded out and things were going to be so damn awkward for us when we went to bed. This was lame.

The baths were all small, cramped single person affairs that didn’t have the warmest water in the world, nor was the soap all that great. This led to a rather short bath that left me cold and tired. Getting dressed in sleeping clothing inside the bath seemed like a smart idea while I shared a room with Grace, so I put on my loose linen shirt and a new pair of underwear.

I trudged up the sturdy wooden stairs towards our room, having gotten directions from the innkeeper. Honestly, I just felt shattered in general, the walking, the constant attention from everyone as I had to be the bridge between the group and the world due to the language barrier. Even my feelings for Grace were exhausting me. It was a pretty foregone conclusion now that I was interested in her romantically, which meant that I was going to be diving into unrequited crush territory whether I liked it or not.

I sighed and pushed open the door to our room, finding her already laid out on the bed with her eyes closed. She wore simple clothing now, and it looked like she’d only have to take off her cloth pants in order to be ready to sleep.

I could tell by her breathing that she wasn’t asleep, just resting her eyes, so I murmured a greeting. “Hey Grace.”

“Hey,” she murmured sleepily, cracking an eye to look at me for a moment.

I dumped my belongings on the floor next to hers, closed the door and locked it, then padded across the room to my side of the bed. Lifting the covers, I slipped inside and rolled to face her. There was a single candle burning in the room right now on the bedside table next to her, and it gave her a ruddy orange glow that had my eyes drinking in the sight of her. She was so pretty, so wonderful. My heart began to ache watching the gentle rise and fall of her breathing.

“Grace?” I asked quietly. “Why were you upset today?”

With a sigh, she turned her head to look at me. “Isn’t it obvious?”

I shook my head, it wasn’t, at least not to me.

“That Eilian chick. She’s been hitting on you all day, and not subtly either. I just… I don’t trust her, at least not as far as you go. I don’t want you to be hurt by someone like her,” she told me, looking away again. Her eyes stayed glued to the ceiling as she said, “I felt like she wasn’t really going to leave you alone until you said yes. I don’t know. I fell for something similar once, and if wasn’t fun.”

“She did stop in the end though,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, only after she decided to settle for Adam. No offence to the guy of course, but not even Eilian herself is as stunningly beautiful as you are,” she replied with a snort.

“It wasn’t working, you know that right?” I said gently, and again I was unable to stop myself as I reached out to tentatively touch her shoulder. “I’m a virgin, and I know that like, it shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. At least to me. I don’t want a random hookup with someone I’ve known for less than a day to be my first time.”

“You are?” she asked, looking at me in surprise. “But even before you got changed into a girl you were attractive, in a nerdy sort of way, and that’s coming from a lesbian. You’re also like, an amazingly good person.”

I bit my lip and looked down at the pillow next to me for a moment, judging how much I wanted to tell her. I closed my eyes with a grimace as I made a decision, steeled myself, and then opened them again with resolve.

“I didn’t want to be in a relationship because… because I hated myself,” I told her truthfully. “I hated that I was… male. I am almost one hundred percent sure that my mage fruit turning me into a girl wasn’t an accident.”

Grace rocked back, her eyes widening as she took a long, deep breath. “Wow... I should probably have realised that, in hindsight.”

“I figured, what the hell is the point in even bothering you know? I wasn’t even sure if I was interested in girls or guys, not entirely,” I shrugged bitterly. “Plus, I don’t have the greatest track record with love in all its other forms too.”

“Oh, Ryn,” she murmured sadly, her hand coming up to take mine where it had been sitting on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. That makes a lot of sense, in a very depressing sort of way.”

“I’m okay now, I think. I’m certainly happy, and I don’t know… I feel so good just existing now,” I said, forcing a smile that soon became real as I thought of how happy I was to be Ryn.

“Thank you for telling me,” she smiled, giving my hand a squeeze. “You definitely seem happier this way, even with people trying to kill us.”

“Thanks for not being awful about it,” I said in return, absolutely loving the way her hand felt over mine.

Gosh though, just the feel of her skin was sending little sparks of sensation up my arm. We stayed like that together, just holding hands and watching each other for a long time. I felt so connected to her in that moment, and I could almost imagine that we might be able to go further than friendship one day.

Her expression seemed to be wavering into sadness though, and I squeezed her hand quickly. She took a breath that didn’t sound entirely stable and said, “I’d never be awful about something like that, and especially not to you. You’re… a large reason I still feel sane on this ring. Out of everyone on it, you’re the one who actually, truly seems to care about me.”

“What about the others?” I frowned, confused.

She shook her head. “Yes and no. The girls are too caught up in each other to pay too much attention to me. Bray and I are great friends, but there’s a disconnect between us and he’s always busy. Duncan was pretty cool, but again, he’s been so damn busy with the plumbing stuff. Adam has been a great friend, but I don’t really relate to him on a deeper level than simple friendship and camaraderie. It's like the whole dynamic in the group broke a little when we thought you'd died.”

I knew what she meant. The few good friendships in my life had been fine, but there was a level beyond that, and I wasn’t talking about romance. Having that person in your life who really got you, deep down at a wordless, emotional level was so important. The type of friend who felt so solid in your life that you knew you could always depend on them. Grace not having that, isolated in the Avonside community regardless of how many people are around...

“You’ve been lonely,” I blurted in understanding.

Her lips thinned and her brows furrowed as she visibly fought with her emotions, and I was shuffling over to comfort her in an instant.

“Please let me hug you?” I asked, beginning to struggle with sympathetic emotions of my own.

“Yes,” she gasped, rolling over to bury her face in my shoulder without any more invitation.

My hand went to the back of her head, where I began to gently stroke her soft blonde hair. My poor friend, I wished she didn’t think she needed to be strong all the time. It was okay to let other people hold the line every now and then. My other arm was trapped underneath her for a few seconds while I struggled with my own empathetic emotional response, but I managed to shift it until I was cradling her torso. She was silently crying against me, her body making these little quivering motions that had me pulling her even tighter to me.

“I miss my family!” she cried, her voice muffled by my shoulder. “The one back on Earth. I miss my little brother, I miss my mom. I miss my dad.”

“I know,” I murmured, pressing a careful kiss to the top of her head. My heart felt like it was being wrenched from my chest with every silent sob that shook her body.

“There’s so much pressure, so much shit to deal with, people to protect. Then I find out that it could all mean nothing, because the enemies we have out here are so fucking powerful that we might lose regardless of what we do!” she said with a tone that was part despair and part anger.

“We’ll figure it out,” I whispered. Then thought of something that might have a small chance of helping. “I don’t know if this helps, and I haven’t told anyone this Grace, but… I am significantly more powerful than I should be for a newly born mage.”

“What do you mean?” she asked rolling over to make tear-filled eye contact.

“The amount of raw power I’ve started with in this body is like, crazy. I don’t know exactly how much, but Esra was surprised and a little awed by it,” I said with a shrug. “I might be able to eclipse that asshole Fennimore sooner than we think.”

“That’s… good news,” she said, swallowing hard. “Do you think you can?”

“We’ll see, but I’m hopeful,” I told her with an attempt at a smile. “I wish we could just ask him to go away. Diplomacy would be so much easier and save so many lives.”

“I don’t think he’s interested in talking about anything but himself. But… you being powerful, that gives me a little more hope, I think?” she whispered, her eyes drifting down to my neck in thought. “I guess it’s my job to help you survive long enough to make it there.”

“No,” I shook my head. “It’s your job to be you, to be Grace. We’re friends, best friends… family even. Whatever you want to call it. We’ll help each other. A team.”

“Okay,” she said with a smile of her own. “I like that, that’s a nice way of thinking about it.”

I felt my worries over her easing, and I allowed myself to just lay there and look into her eyes for a moment, my arms around her. It was odd, being the protector for the moment. Grace was usually doing that for me, but I was more than happy to fill this role when she needed it. I’d do pretty much anything for her, if I was one hundred percent honest with myself. Somewhere in this short week together, I’d grown to really, truly care about her.

My dreams were filled with the smell of death and burning flesh, and it caused me to shake awake long before Grace. Violently pushing the memories of the battle out of my head, I tried to steady my breathing and my erratic heartbeat. I’d managed to hold the images of the battle at bay for most of yesterday, so much had been happening, but it seemed that my subconscious had decided to hoard them.

After I’d calmed myself down, I opened my eyes to find Grace sleeping peacefully beside me. I had a decision to make, get out of bed quietly and begin my day, or lay in bed and watch her like a total creep. I chose the total creep option, because I wanted to be here when she woke up. I had no fully formed reasons for wanting this, I just did. My heart needed it.

As her breathing was starting to shorten a little, indicating that she was just coming out of sleep, I drank in the sight of her sleeping face. She was on her side, having travelled all the way across her pillow until she was almost falling off the end towards me. Her shortish blond hair was a mess, spiked up in all directions and she had just the tiniest of smiles on her lips.

Letting out a huge sigh, her eyes fluttering open and blinked blearily at me. My heart practically exploded with all the feelings that seeing her wake up induced in me, but I managed to outwardly keep my cool. Internally, not so much.

“Hey,” she smiled, her voice deliciously husky with sleep, and I swear I melted right there in the bed.

These feelings were getting out of hand fast, way too fast for me! Frantically I searched for the breaks on the train, but I found none. I was doomed.

“Morning Grace,” I whispered, my emotions robbing me of any volume above that.

Her arm reached lazily out to smooth my hair down for a second or two, and I closed my eyes in bliss.

“More walking today,” she reminded me as she took her hand back. “We should get up.”

“I don’t want to,” I mumbled, still enjoying the after-image of her hand on my head.

“Come on,” she chuckled, the bed shifting as she got out on her side.

Damn it, how was she able to move this early in the morning? She was such a morning person, whereas I felt like I needed at least a few hours before I could do anything other than grumble helplessly.

****

Our journey continued onwards after the monumental task of getting out of bed. We stumbled through breakfast and said our goodbyes to the innkeep on our way out. We had a lot of ground to cover and we wouldn’t be getting much rest as we essentially passed through what was now enemy territory.

One thing I did notice was that Adam hadn’t actually emerged with Eilian from her room. Whether this meant they had slept together or not I couldn’t tell. I wouldn’t have minded Eilian’s advances so much if I was at all experienced in the area of casual sex, but as I had literally no experience, it had been awkward. That, and I had a full blown crush developing on my friend right now, which meant to my eyes, every other woman seemed just that little bit dull compared to Grace.

Whatever had happened last night, that didn’t stop the Obrec woman from hitting on me a bunch more as she told me about a few of the more novice combat spells she knew. I was a lot more interested in her mind than anything she could offer me with her body.

Passing into Anverleik was as simple as walking past a set of border markers, although off in the distance we could see watchtowers on both sides. It was strange, going from the rigid nation state structure of Earth to the mess that was the european style feudal system. So far as I could tell now, the region was a mix of the different gaelic cultures, with some french and german thrown in over the top.

I was starting to think that the gaelic people had been the first ones “imported” to the area, followed by a sampling of a few more european cultures as the years and centuries marched on. It ended in a language that was predominantly alphabet salad mixed with some stolen words from the romance languages and then a few guttural additions from ancient germanic ones.

We didn’t get to explore the local culture much this time however as we powered through towards the border with Noroshin. A relatively neutral country as far as we could tell. Fennimore and his liege lords were still in the process of expanding their power in the region.

The tense walk only got worse as a few patrols passed us by, and we could tell they recognised us too. They’d stare anger at us, every inch of them spoiling for a fight. Except… they didn’t, because they could see that there were two mages in the party. Our whereabouts were obviously being tracked though, and anxiety began to build within me with each step I took.

I walked next to Grace the whole way, almost on top of her really, because her proximity had a huge calming influence over me. It also had the added benefit of keeping Eilian at bay just a little.

“You okay Ryn?” Grace asked me quietly as we walked.

Glancing up at her I shook my head. “Nervous, really nervous.”

“Same,” she said with a tight laugh. “The sooner we get across that border, the better.”

“Yeah, I hate knowing I’m in Fennimore’s stomping grounds,” I frowned, watching the road pass under me.

“That, and Eilian is parting with us once we reach the river crossing over in Noroshin,” she murmured, earning an eye roll and a smile from me.

Approaching the Border as afternoon fell, we noticed that we had a tail. A group of men in what looked like some sort of hunter or ranger’s garb were following us at a safe distance on horseback. They didn’t seem to be making any moves right now, but it had my gut churning with worry. Were they somehow reporting our progress to an ambush party up ahead?

When the first border watchtower came into view, even easy going Eilian was fingering the hilt of her sword nervously, her eyes flicking back and forth across the fields and pastures around us. Surely they would try something, right? It would almost be surprising if they didn’t attack us.

Moving past the tower though, and nothing came, no troops springing from the crops around us, nor mages or knights. Each step towards the border marker bringing nothing but a tension so tight you could strum it like the strings of a guitar.

The marker stones were now just a few hundred yards away, then fifty, then ten… and then we were over. The danger wasn’t gone though, because it was pretty well known that borders, even marked ones like these, were at best a suggestion rather than a concrete line. Our tail did mysteriously disappear when we crossed the border though, which was nice.

“Do you think they’ll try attack us on this side?” I asked Eilian, who shrugged helplessly.

“I have no idea, if I’m honest,” she said. “You humans do things strange, that’s for sure. Even a vagabond like me has respect for the forests, but you lot seem to just cut them down wherever you please. ‘Course you don’t come from the forests like us Obrec do, it ain’t in your blood.”

“Maybe the ones that have been on the ring for a while are like that,” I said, shaking my head with a frown. “But I’d like to think that those of us from Avonside are a little better about it.”

“Hardly,” Kit snorted. He’d been the fastest to pick up on the Anve language, and it showed now. “They were burning the fucking amazon last I heard before we got portaled over here.”

“Amazon?” Eilian asked, curious now.

“Big-ass jungle back on Earth,” he replied. “Absolutely massive, biggest on the planet. But obviously that doesn’t matter to those hungry for wealth.”

“Greed is the way of most races I’ve met,” Eilian sighed, glancing up at the dark side of the ring. “Neither of our races is even the worst for it, not by a long shot.”

“That not frightening at all,” Grace muttered sarcastically in anve, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Aye, exactly,” Eilian nodded, and the two shared a glance that could almost be called cordial.

The sense of apprehension that we’d felt as we waited for the an attack that hadn’t come turned to restlessness as we closed in on the river. A bridge came into view, along with a crossroads that sat before it. This was where we’d be saying goodbye to our Obrec travelling companion.

“Alright, guess I’ll see you all whenever I get around to visiting that town of yours,” she said with a smile. “It’s been interesting travelling with you!”

“Yeah, you too. Thanks again for saving us back at that battle,” I told her, finding that I still kinda liked her, despite all the flirting and whatnot.

“Not a problem, anything for a pretty girl,” she winked. “Especially considering you’re Esra’s kid. Us children of the Scalmeis coven need to stick together after all, it’s not like there’s many of us left.”

“The Scalmeis coven?” I asked, suddenly confused. Children? What?

“That group of mages that Esra and my old man were part of,” she replied as she walked backwards away from us. “Ask Esra when she tracks you down!”

Then she was gone, trotting off down the road with her hooves kicking up dust and her horns shining in the sun. Damn, what a wild woman.

“Time to cross the river,” Troy told us, wasting no time. “Ryn, I’d like to try for your grove tonight rather than sleep in an inn. I’m not going to trust the locals until we’re far, far away from that man.”

Crossing the river here looked like it was just a little dangerous. The bridge was another one of those old ring builder ones, but unlike the one I’d seen earlier in the city, this one had seen far better days. Pockmarks and blast patterns indicated it had been the site of an ancient battle, and there were even a couple of husks that looked to be steel ones scattered about. They were very obviously ruined, but it was a little terrifying nevertheless.

Metal creaked and sang in the breeze as we moved across, but the bridge held. I guess people had been using it for millennia before us and it hadn’t fallen down, so it probably wasn’t going to keel over now either.

Once safely on the other side, we turned off the path and made for the nearest copse of trees. It was here that we prepared to enter my grove again. We hunched down and centered ourselves in case the wind was strong, then turned to Troy to give the word.

“Everyone ready?” he asked, glancing between us all. Nods from all around. “Alright, take us in Ryn.”

I did so, reaching back and sideways towards the fabric of reality with my mind. I grabbed hold of my friends and pushed us across. Then the light changed to the familiar dusk of Earth, and we sighed in relief as our feet stayed under us. Nothing but a breeze to greet us.

I smiled and straightened, only for Grace to give a choked gasp. “Oh my fucking god!”

I turned towards where she was looking and my breath stopped in my chest. My tree… my happy tree in the middle of my grove… It had grown! My eyes followed its new form up… and up… and up…

“That’s no moon...” Kit whispered in awed disbelief.

“Shit! It’s still growing!” I blurted as I switched to mage sight.

It most definitely was. How though? What was causing it to shoot into the air like this? I could see large amounts of growth energy all through the tree, and I followed the stream of power down into the ground. When I saw what was happening, I let out a strangled squeak of a laugh and turned to look out to the edge of my grove.

Sure enough, because I’d designed those windbreak trees to be a certain height, they hadn’t grown past that point. The smaller shrubs hadn’t stopped pumping them full of storm-fuelled growth energy though, and with nowhere to go but to follow the water down, it had all pooled in the aquifer down below the plateau. Right about where the roots of my now enormous happy tree was able to get at it.

The store of growth energy below us was truly staggering to my eyes, and with the tree still sucking it up and growing at a frankly alarming rate, I knew what I had to do. It was time to shape this thing into a house.

“Guys, I need to work, magic stuff. Please don’t disturb me,” I said quickly, sitting down cross legged and closing my eyes. Distractions could very well ruin what I was about to do.

I vaguely heard their alarmed voices around me, but someone shushed everyone else up and I was able to concentrate. I needed to change the internal blueprints of the tree first, so I got to work designing it. I created a ramp, made out of a root that led up to the base of the tree. From there I created an entry hall. The entry hall would have two large rooms coming off it that I intended to be storage. I didn’t think we’d want to cart things too far up the tree.

I then created a central imperial staircase, a stair that ramps up from the middle of the floor until it hits the back wall, where it splits in two to travel up each side. The landing wrapped all the way around the second story of the room. It was then connected to a balcony outside the tree by several open archways. This was where I got a little tricky. All across this balcony I created twisting supports that reached from the outer edge up in a curve to the trunk again.

Spanning between these supports, I formed windows made of the same plantlike crystal that I’d used for some of my first plants, effectively creating an indoor living room balcony area with plant glass. I wondered what it would look like at that scale. Would it have little plant veins running through it?

Opposite the imperial staircase and above the doorway on the second floor, I began a spiral staircase that would be the spine of the structure. I carried it up, creating simple floors with windows as I went. Each window was different to the broad sheets of crystal I’d used earlier though. These were several overlapping leaves of crystal that could be pushed open to allow air to filter in. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do for now. Leaving out any internal walls for the floors I had yet to give purpose to, I turned to the next problem.

Bathrooms, and how to make them work. The easy part was the baths, which I created three of. They worked in a similar way to the windbreak trees, collecting magical energies from the nameless garden and transforming them into water to be poured into the tub. From there I mimicked Esra’s bath with the water constantly flowing rather than using an on-and-off tap.

From there I realised I had another opportunity. Separating the baths from the toilets, I created different rooms and ran that bathwater along channels into a group of stalls that would serve as toilets. Enclosing the channels apart from where someone would sit, creating the toilet seats themselves, I moved on to how I would deal with the waste.

Ideally I’d purify it and allow it to join the lake I wanted to create, but I had no idea how to do that right now, so instead I ran that channel all the way down the tree and into the ground, where at least the waste would feed any plants that needed it. I would almost certainly be running into problems later, but for now it would have to do.

Bathrooms and toilets designed, I moved on up the tree some more. I began to straighten out some of the branches at a level that would be quite high up, flattening out their tops and producing broad walkways. The same as I had down at the second story balcony, I wrapped those in plant-crystal and the supports that it needed to stay upright. There, I now had the start of some greenhouses!

Lastly, I needed kitchens, lights and a way to heat the whole place. I just had no idea how to do any of those things right now. Wait… no, I could do the lights. I’d seen the leaves of the outside ring of trees glowing as they collected energy, so maybe if I created some flowers internally that took in energy and… possibly converted it to heat?

I just had to be careful with how much heat I allowed them to take in, because too much and it might overheat and damage the tree. I decided to stay safe and have them more as dim ambient lights rather than anything solid right now. Except in the case of the bath water, where I allowed them to collect more. The flowers there were fully submerged in the upstream side and would hopefully keep the water warm. They would however dissipate their heat into the structure of the tree and keep the place warm. Ideally though, the tree itself would regulate temperature using its own instincts and base processes.

With everything I could think of in that moment accounted for, I ran through the whole tree to make sure that the normal base functions could still do their job, rerouting important parts as needed. Nutrients still needed to flow up and down the trunk. In the process of double checking everything, I noticed a problem that the tree was already having.

There’s a certain height limit to each species of tree based on how high they can pump water up from below. My fir tree had run into this problem as it was forced to grow unnaturally large as magic was pumped into it. To help with this, I copied the mechanisms of my windbreak trees again with water, but ran them in the other direction. It seemed to work, at least in my mind simulation, and so with a few final touches like some extra balconies all the way up, I pushed the new instructions into the real fir tree.

I opened my eyes to watch and saw immediate and explosive growth. The staircase up into the entry hall burst out of the side, grinding up the soil as it pushed through like a bulldozer. Rippling up the tree like a wave, my alterations took hold. Windows formed, the second story balcony erupted out in a ring and high above us the greenhouse branches twisted into being.

“Holy shit!” Grace exclaimed, her neck arching upwards.

“Did you just turn your tree into a… a fuckin’ house?” Adam asked incredulously.

“That isn’t even a house!” Kit laughed in excitement. “That’s a full-on tree wizard’s tower!”

“Oh my god, you’re right!” Grace grinned, turning to me excitedly. “When can we go in?”

Seeing their reactions had me grinning like an idiot and my ego prancing around in the grass nearby. After chasing my ego down and forcing it to sit still, I told them, “Let’s give it like an hour or so, I’m hoping it will slow down a little, because otherwise we might all end up as tiny people in a giant’s house.”

“This is the most ridiculous shit,” Troy said with a disbelieving shake of his head. “Like fever dream levels of weird.”

“It’s amazing is what it is!” Grace burbled, taking a few steps towards the bloody great happy little tree.

“I have to warn you all though, I wasn’t able to get any sort of kitchen in yet. I didn’t know how to create enough heat to cook with while keeping the whole place from burning down,” I said in warning, then I grinned at Grace. “There are baths though. I made sure of that!”

Grace gave a wordless cry of happiness and lunged for me, sweeping me up into a hug that had my legs dangling uselessly in the air. Startled, my arms went around her shoulders for support and I held on for dear life as she carried me around in a quick circle before placing me back on the ground.

“I can have a good bath! Civilisation at last!” she yelled up into the sky exuberantly.

I wandered away as Grace celebrated her impending bath, trying my best to recover from her woman-handling of me. I’d only felt it a few times now, but there was a warmth spreading through my lower body that was pleasant in some very unique ways. Arousal was… nice, even if I was feeling it because my friend had just picked me up like I weighed nothing.

Approaching the edge of my plateau, I found much of my previous hard work destroyed. My water collection trees were much like Grace’s hair had been this morning. A mess. A few had been torn out by their roots and flung over the edge into the mists, while some were broken and dead. I even found a branch from my big fir tree that had impacted one section like a meteorite from space, crushing everything in its path before it came to a stop teetering on the edge of the cliff.

My growth energy plants had been whipped to within an inch of their lives, but they were bouncing back. I suspected that the massive excess of growth energy had sustained them and the trees that hadn’t simply snapped in half or whatever. All in all about sixty-five percent of my plants were still alive, which was bad, but also better than I’d feared.

Deciding to be useful, I picked up a few of the dead branches with my telekinesis and began dragging them back to the others. We may as well cook our food over an open fire in the middle the grass fields until I figured out our kitchen problem.

“Hey, I have firewood,” I called as I got back to them, dumping the broken remnants of my trees nearby.

“Oh, ouch,” Adam said with a sympathetic laugh. “Guess the storm wasn’t just the tree version of viagra.”

“Nope,” I sighed. “A bunch of my work was wiped out, but I mean… I got that thing out of it, so I can’t really complain,” I said, gesturing to my enormous wizard’s tree. It was slowing down now, the energy required to make my changes using up a lot of the growth energy that had been stored in the water below.

“I’ll start a fire then,” Troy said, bending down to pick up a twisted and broken piece of tree. Then he looked up at me with a smile. “This is amazing Ryn, crazy, wild and amazing. Good fucking work.”

“Thanks,” I grinned, turning up to look high into my tree’s branches. I really had done good work. Wait, oh no, my ego! It was hopping away again!

Dinner was quick, warming up travel food didn’t really take long and wasn’t much more appetising that way. I needed to create some food related plants as soon as possible. Coming back to the grove in the future after a day of travelling and picking some fruit to eat along with the hard tack and dried meat would be amazing.

We made sure to put the fire out, then approached the huge ramp that ran up the top of a root. There weren’t any railings as such, but the actual smooth wood of the path was carved about a foot into the root, giving us clear guides. I realised that I had made a mistake as we walked up the path towards the open front door. This was going to become one hell of a water slide when it rained. I’d need to fix that when the next storm rolled around though. I certainly didn’t have enough growth magic within me to fix it manually and the reserves down in the aquifer were almost drained.

The big entryway itself would need to have a gate made for it eventually, but for now it stood open. Stepping across the threshold, we found ourselves in the vast entry hall and the initial impression of the place had a slow self satisfied smile pulling at my lips. Oh my gosh, it was gorgeous. The floors were the creamy colour of fir wood, organically smooth as though it had been polished for decades. The outer walls where they could be seen were bark, while any that didn’t edge with the outside were the same light colour as the floor.

The staircase railings were wrapped and twisted vines, delicate light giving flowers providing a dull glow from the supports. The walls were littered with them too where they sprouted almost at random. The effect was like a night full of little flower shaped fireflies that lit the room with a muted orange-yellow glow. It was like we’d stepped into a fairy tale elven hall or something.

“This is… wow,” Grace mumbled from beside me.

I turned to her with a grin. “Isn’t it?”

“How far up does it go? How many floors?” Adam asked in wonder, his voice echoing as he walked into the middle of the room and looked around.

“So far there’s twenty or so, but until I figure out a lift or something, I don’t think we’ll be going up too far,” I smiled, pointing to the spiral staircase that began above us. “That’s the only way up or down right now.”

“Right, the old sky scraper problem,” Kit nodded thoughtfully. “We really need to get you some books in magic. Damn, I’m so jealous about the whole magic thing.”

“I’ll be able to turn others into mages one day,” I said, glancing a grin at Grace. “We’ll work on that part.”

“Future mages aside, how did you set everything up? How many baths, bedrooms etcetera?” Troy asked, a grin on even his face. I enjoyed getting full, genuine emotions out of the stoic man.

“Three baths and bathrooms, then all the other floors are empty. I have some reserve energy that I’ve saved to use in creating interior walls as needed. I figured we’d see how much space we had and how much people needed, then create some bedrooms and stuff,” I shrugged, then pointed to the staircase. “Should we go and see?”

“Lead on, lady of the house,” he said with a gesture forwards.

I did so, taking them up the huge central staircase. It was magical really, and not in the literal sense. Sure, I was walking up a staircase I had created in my mind and willed into existence with wild and barely tamed powers, but it was also all mine and that made it so much more magical to me. It was all one hundred percent mine and no one could try to claim otherwise without brute force magical attack. I had a home, a place of safety, and it was beautiful.

We moved up into the large, circular balcony and living room area and I stopped briefly to explain my plans for it. I saw people lounging in the warm sun, reading a book or working on some portable craft. Hell, even typing on laptops or whatever. I wanted a sort of calm cafe vibe with it, plenty of tables and comfy armchairs and sofas, that kind of thing.

Then it was time to go up the stairs. The first floor was a bathroom and toilet that would service the areas below as well as two floors above, so we headed in and I showed them around. The single bathroom stalls were especially dim, and we didn’t have toilet paper. I’d forgotten sinks too… damn, I’d have to make a list or something. We’d have to wash our hands in the bath canal after it had left the bath itself.

The bathroom itself was… well, mood-lit is the term I think. The firefly flowers dotted the walls and roof, and I already had ideas to add a few variations on the colour when I had time to experiment. Grace didn’t care about any of that though, because when she dipped her hand into the warm, clean water of the bath she gave an audible moan that had the insides of my thighs tingling.

“I know you promised to make me a real bath Ryn, but this is amazing,” she told me with a funny looking expression on her face. It was like her eyes were drinking me or something, the way she was staring.

“I did hope you’d like it,” I smiled, feeling a little shy all of a sudden.

“Before you run off to claim one of the upstairs baths for yourself, let’s sort out bedroom arrangements. I think that if we have the chance, each of us would like some privacy. We’ve been in each other’s company for nearly a month and a half now and after that skirmish yesterday I think we could do with some rest,” Troy said, moving us forward. I think he might have been a little tired and just wanted us to get a move on.

With a round of nods from everyone, I ushered them all back into the stairwell and up to where I figured I wanted the bedrooms. The empty floors were really just that, a huge space about one hundred feet in diameter.

“So uh, I guess for now we can use this floor for bedrooms?” I said, motioning around. “I can make the interior walls however we need them. We won’t have doors or anything though, I think we’ll need to get them made later on.”

“Alright,” Troy nodded, his expression thoughtful. “Until we have doors then, I think it might be good for yourself and Grace to have a floor for yourselves? If that’s alright, this is your domain after all.”

Glancing over at the other girl in the party to see what she thought, I saw her nodding enthusiastically. “Yes, definitely a good idea,” she said quickly.

“Alright, uh, I’m thinking maybe a central hang out area and then have the rooms running off like spokes on a wheel,” I told them.

They all agreed, and so I took hold of the residual growth energy around us in the tree and changed the blueprints to match what I wanted. The floor was enormous at around ninety feet across, so all the rooms would be rather large, even giving a huge amount of space to the central common room. I created new light giving flowers in each of the rooms and then since I didn’t actually need to be up there for it to work, I did the floor above us in the same way for Grace and I.

“Alright, done!” I said as the walls were finishing their own construction. I’d designed the walls to be very insulating and heavily soundproof, in case that was needed by anyone. It might help keep things private even with the empty holes where the doors should be.

“Damn, this is… it feels a little like cheating,” Kit murmured in appreciation. “Not that it actually is, but if you could replicate this back at Avonside… a lot of our problems would be solved.”

Troy barked out a surprised laugh and turned to look at Kit, “Damn, I didn’t even think of that. Why didn’t that cross my mind? It seems so obvious now. We’d need more than just Ryn as far as mages go, but it could solve some future problems we’re bound to run into.”

“Strategy talk tomorrow, sleep now,” Grace groaned, already moving back towards the stairwell. “Coming Ryn?”

“Goodnight girls,” Adam laughed, waving as I followed my impatient friend.

There was a round of goodnights from the rest of them as we followed the spiral stair up to our own floor, which had already finished its transformation.

“So uh, we take separate rooms?” Grace asked, staring around the expansive space. Damn, it needed furniture.

“I… guess so,” I said quietly, doing my best to hide my disappointment. I liked sleeping in the same room as her now. It made me feel safe.

“Alright, I guess it’s goodnight to you too?” she said with an odd expression, not quite meeting my eyes.

“Yeah… I guess so,” I smiled awkwardly, but I didn’t make a move towards any of the rooms.

We stood there for what felt like minutes, but was probably only seconds. What was going on? Why was this so awkward?

Abruptly, Grace took a few quick steps towards me, pulling me into a brief hug. Then she was off towards one of the rooms, disappearing inside. I was deeply confused now, my poor heart struggling to beat back the emotions that threatened it.

I made my way towards the room next to Grace’s and dumped my pack by the door. Time to try and sleep I guess.

****

“Hello everyone, sorry for all this confusion. I’m happy to say that the University doesn’t appear to be in any… immediate danger,” said the old man from admin, his cheerful tone raising the hair on the back of my neck. “We all ask that you be patient while the staff try to get an understanding of the situation we find ourselves in. What I can tell you right now is that we are running on backup power generators situated within the university grounds. We are not receiving power from the outside world.”

“Yeah and what world is that?” Duncan yelled over the heads of the gym that was packed full of university staff and students.

The old administrator opened his mouth to speak, but rather than words, a sudden, deadly beam of red energy lanced out, slicing Duncan in two at the waist. I stared in horror as the two halves of my friend’s body slid away from each other, charred innards slopping out onto the floor. People were screaming now, struggling to get up and out of the gym, an enormous steel one bursting impossibly from within the old administrator.

Bray was cut down next, stray fire from the shoulder mounted auto cannons tearing him into chunks even after he’d already died to the first bolts. Watching the raw meat of his body twitch with the shots sent me dry heaving as my confused mind tried to process what was happening.

People were dying everywhere around us in brutal ways as the walls came tumbling down, more steel ones climbing over the rubble to claim us all for the grasping hands of death. It was just like the battle outside the village, people screaming, crying, dying. Nowhere was safe this time, there was no cocky mage to save us, only more particle beams lancing through the air, motes of dust sparkling along their length as they were incinerated.

“Hey, Ryn!” Grace said, from next to me, looking worried but far less worried than she should have been. “Ryn, it’s okay. It’s okay. I have you, it’s okay. You’re safe.”

The words of Grace in the Avonside gym became the words of Grace in my dimly lit room, and I stared at one of the glowing flowers on the ceiling above me for a moment, trying to figure out what was going on. I blinked, sleep grinding in the corners of my eyes. Where were the steel ones? They’d been killing everyone!

“It’s okay Ryn, just a nightmare. You’re safe,” Grace repeated, her voice gentle and soothing.

“Nightmare?” I asked groggily, trying to take stock of where I was.

Grace was kneeling next to where I’d put my blankets, leaning awkwardly over me to stroke her fingers through my hair. My back hurt from the wooden floor and I’d worked up a cold sweat as I had the… nightmare. It had just been a nightmare, not real. Bray and Duncan would still be alive. I let out an unsteady, desperate breath. They had to be.

“Yeah, you were crying out and whimpering, I could hear you from my room,” she murmured with another gentle caress of my hair.

“Need you,” I mumbled, my voice heavy with sleep and my arm reaching up to clutch at her baggy shirt. “Safe with Grace. Please stay.”

Grace’s voice was surprised as she said, “Oh, uh… let me go and get my blankets then?”

“Okay,” I sighed tiredly, letting go of her shirt. Grace padded quietly out the room and I lay back against the smooth, hard floor.

I just needed her. She made me feel safe with her presence, the subtle smell of her on the air when she was around, the gentle way she was always looking out for me. The not so gentle ways she was looking out for me too, ready to get physical with people who might hurt me. Bray had been a little like that too, but where Bray had been slightly selfish, Grace was nothing but wholesome to my eyes.

“Ryn… um, where do you want me?” she asked hesitantly from the doorway.

I made a flailing motion in the general direction of right next to me and she nodded, walking over to set herself up. I was probably crossing a few lines here, but when she lay down I shuffled up next to her, our arms and legs touching along their lengths.

“Oh, hello,” she said with a gasp.

“Goodnight,” I whispered, sleep already claiming me again as the presence of my best friend signaled to my subconscious mind that everything was okay. I couldn’t tell for sure, but right before I fell asleep, I swear Grace put her arm around me.

Sleeping next to Grace, or at least in the same room proved to be a huge factor in the quality of my sleep I realised as we all blearily had breakfast down in the boy’s common area. Turns out that all the events of the past few months on the ring were taking their toll on my psyche. Restless sleep and nightmares, memories that I skipped and dodged around rather than examining them properly.

Warily, ashamedly, I spoke up to the group, “Guys uh… I think I need time in my grove. Time to calm down. A lot has been happening and… yeah.”

“The nightmare?” Grace asked gently from my side.

“Yeah,” I nodded, staring down at my food in order to avoid meeting everyone else’s eyes.

“That’s a good idea Ryn. Everyone here is just… no offence, but besides me, you were all just college kids until three or so months ago. I wish… well, no. There’s no point in playing what ifs, but if you need someone to talk to about anything that’s happened, I’m here. I’ve been through a lot, lived through a lot and hopefully I can help you all do the same,” Troy said kindly, his voice taking on hints of regret.

“I might have to take you up on that,” Kit said quietly, his face schooled carefully neutral. “This shit has been amazing. Magic is real, we’re on a ring world, alien cultures around us and stuff, but… the attack on Avonside, fighting bandits on our way here, the battle with that robot thing… it’s fucked up man.”

“I can’t get the scene of that battle with the robot out of my head,” Grace nodded, giving a little shudder.

“Yeah, the team definitely needs a rest,” Troy decided. “We’ll take some time to chill out here and see if we can’t spruce this place up a bit. I don’t know about you lot, but we could really do with some damned beds.”

There was hearty agreement from the group, which meant I had a lot of magic stuff to do. I sagged in relief as the decision was made, but also because in a weird way, the fact I wasn’t the only person haunted by what we’d seen made me feel less like a weakling.

“Can we get like, a list of stuff that we’ll need, magic wise? I can pretty much only do plants and landscaping, so we’ll have to think within the bounds of those constraints,” I told them, eager for the alternative conversation topic.

“Yeah, we can do that,” Troy smiled. “I imagine the rest of us have some knowledge that could help. We’ll start brainstorming.”

“Alright,” I nodded, then thought of what I needed to begin first. “I think I’ll go and work on the outer protections of my grove first while you do that. Damn, I wish I had tenders though, extra hands would be amazing.”

“Oh!” Adam exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. “Eilian mentioned that! She said something about… asking her grove to help? I can’t remember much.”

“Asking her grove to help…” I repeated, furrowing my brows in thought. “Thanks… I’ll see if I can figure out what that means.”

“Alright, I’m going to go and start dragging all those knocked down trees into storage, they might be useful,” Adam said, standing up.

“Good idea,” Troy replied, following Adam up and out the door.

Guess that was it then, time to get to work.

****

Replacing all the growth shrubs and water trees took most of the morning, but when I was done I flopped down into the grass feeling pretty good. It was nice to just work without care for being stabbed, burned or shot.

I was currently basking in the sun, as much clothing as I could reasonably take off had been thrown aside so I could get as much skin as possible into the light. It was nice, warm and peaceful. Unfortunately, I was just a little bored as I waited for my reserves of mana to replenish. There was only so much laying around in the sun you could do during the day before your mind started to wander.

So rather than let it go back into the recent past, I decided to try and figure out what Eilian had meant by, ‘asking her grove for help’. My grove itself was there within me, as well as without of me, bound to my will, my life and my magic. I began to poke and prod at it with my magical senses, feeling a frown come on as nothing really happened.

“How do I get help from you?” I murmured to myself, my eyes still closed.

I want a big bunny to pop up and help me please. Although, probably give it opposable thumbs. Wait, but not weird looking ones, I thought at my grove in a probably fruitless attempt to get it to cooperate.

Except, there was a small surge of power from my grove, as though it had heard me after all. I felt nothing happen though, there was no pull of magic from my reserves, nor a spike of magic pulled from the surrounding garden. Odd. Where did it get that power it had just used? Also, what was the soft thing poking at my arm?

I opened my eyes slowly, retracting my plant body back into my human one. As my eyes refocused, my curious gaze was returned by a very fluffy little face staring back at me.

“Oh my goodness!” I blurted, sitting straight up in surprise.

There was a bunny! It was about three feet tall with soft, luscious golden fur all over its body and little warm black eyes. Its ears were the floppy kind, and they looked to be even softer than the rest of it.

“Hey bun,” I said with quiet delight. Until it hopped into my lap that is. “Oof! Bun, you’re heavy! Oh, now you’re sniffing at my face. Look at your little nose twitch!”

My heart was melting, a puddle of squealing girl as the soft fluffy animal stared at me from my lap. I was about to try and move it when we were joined by a second and third bunny, who just popped into existence next to us.

The second one was black all over except for little tufts of white fur on the tips of its long floppy ears, while the third one was entirely white except for a small patch of gold on its nose. Then a forth one popped into existence, and a fifth.

“Oh no,” I squeaked as more and more bunnies began to flop into existence around me.

Did I make a mistake by choosing bunnies as my tenders? Were they going to multiply until I was drowning in soft bunny fur? No, they did stop eventually, but by that time I had around fifteen of the little critters hopping around me and sniffing at things. What the hell did I do now?

Carefully shifting the heffalump out of my lap, I stood up and muttered, “Where the hell are my clothes?”

No sooner had I said it, than a small fluffy paw was tapping me on the leg. I turned and looked down to find the first black bun trying to hand me my pants.

“Oh! Thanks little one!” I laughed in surprise, reaching down to take the pants out of its hands.

As I was putting them on, another bunny I hadn’t noticed yet hopped up with my shirt in hand, and it almost looked pleased with itself.

“Well, you’re all rather helpful aren’t you,” I said to the crowd around me, a huge grin on my face. They were so damn cute, I felt like I was going to giggle and cry at the same time.

I was met by silence and many attentive twitching noses, one or two rubbing at their faces with their big fluffy paws.

“What do I do with you all now? I guess you can all just follow me around and play while I set up the next layer of trees,” I mused, then remembered what the time was. “No, wait. It’s lunch time. Come on everyone, let’s go and find the others!”

With that I marched off towards my tree with an army of buns hopping along behind me. They weren’t the most disciplined lot, frequently stopping to sniff things or eat some grass, which had me wondering exactly what their nature was. Were they more magical or more physical? How intelligent were they? Clearly they understood that I’d needed my clothes earlier, but that might have also been part of the magic of their creation.

I found Adam first as he was approaching the ramp up into the tree. He stopped dead in his tracks when he looked up from something in his hands, then burst out into laughter.

“Oh my god, Ryn! Are these your tenders? How are there so many of them, and why are they a bunch of rabbits?” he asked between gasps of laughter.

“The scientific term is bun, actually. But I asked my grove for some help and this is what I got, like fifteen buns. They’re good buns too and they’re very helpful,” I said with mock chastisement. I meant it though, no one was allowed to laugh at my buns. They were just trying their best.

Next to arrive was Grace, who saw the horde from a mile off and squealed with delight. Rushing over, she knelt next to one and tentatively reached out to pat its soft fur. The bunny turned to sniff at her, then promptly stood up on its hind legs, pushed her over and then hopped up to lay on her stomach.

“Ryn! What are these? Why are there a bunch of huge bunnies in your grove?” she asked as she giggled and played with the bun on her stomach. Something inside me wished that I was in place of that bun, but I decided right then and there that I would not be jealous of my own buns.

“They’re my grove tenders! They will help me with plant things and maybe more,” I said happily, reaching down to pat one of them.

“This is so good!” she said with a happy laugh, and I realised with a spark of insight that the buns might also be able to help us emotionally too. Like support animals or something.

Kit and Troy both arrived soon after, and once the ruckus around my new buns was over with, we sat down for lunch.

With secretive whispers, I assigned a bun to each of the team with the express orders to be both helpful and cuddly in an effort to keep everyone happy. No one could be too sad when they had a big bun to cuddle after all.

“Alright so I was talking to Kit, and he had the idea to—“ Troy started to say, before being interrupted when his secret support bun flopped down on the grass against him. He chuckled for a moment and placed a hand on the bun, beginning to pat it as he continued, “Anyway, he had some ideas for plant related materials. Wood is the obvious one, then cotton to make some sort of bedding, bamboo would be useful for a variety of reasons too.”

“Gourds!” Grace exclaimed suddenly as she chewed on her tough travel food. “Dry them out and make bowls and cups! And like, please can we have some sort of plant for toilet paper.”

I wholeheartedly agreed with that sentiment. Girl parts were a lot harder to clean that guy parts had been, that was for sure.

“Hemp for rope,” Adam commented as he stared down at the bun in front of him. It was currently cleaning its face with its paws.

“Dyes and stuff too, we could sell those probably,” Kit murmured as he pressed his face into the soft fur of his secret support bun. “Damn these bunnies are soft!”

“Think you can work on those Ryn? After we have some food sources that is?” Troy asked, and I nodded in reply while munching on my own food.

After lunch I walked back to the edge and began to design my second row of trees. They were basically just apple trees, although again they were strengthened to withstand the wind. My hope was that the apples would be a useful source of food for us later as well as just their wind break duties.

Once that was done, I began to walk around the perimeter, planting the seeds that would become my apple trees. The buns reacted almost immediately, hopping up to the recently planted trees and clearing away grass from where I had phased the seeds into existence under the soil. Then they started doing what I’d seen that tender near the mage fruit do so long ago. They sprinkled little dustings of growth energy over the plants.

“Huh, I guess you’ll be very, very useful, as well as cute,” I mused out loud, and then I realised something. Was this why I hadn’t seen any of my growth plants in Esra’s place? Because there was already a solution to the problem, even if the buns were putting out far less growth energy? I’d have to ask her when she finally made it over here.

Musings aside, I had work to do, so that’s what I got to doing. With the help of my buns I might even be able to get the whole second row done before nightfall.

That night, Grace and I slept side by side again. At first it hadn't been a sure thing, but we'd shared a look as we arrived at our floor that had solidified the arrangement. Settling down next to her had been… it was nerve wracking and wonderful. Until a bunny hopped into the room, lay down on the floor and promptly flopped to the side. That seemed to break the ice a little as we shared a chuckle.

We didn’t immediately dive into sleep however. Instead we talked about things, about how the journey was going, about the grove and about Avonside. I got to learn a little more about Grace’s past too, how her family was tight knit, which I’d known, but also about how she used to play tennis back when she was in high school. By the time we were actually ready to go to sleep, I had a huge smile on my face and a pleasant glow in my heart.

The next day saw my second row of trees having grown nicely, and more than once I saw bunnies hopping around sprinkling little dustings of growth energy on things. With that taken care of I went ahead and placed down a few fruit trees near the tower, apricots were a favourite of mine, as were peaches, so those were first. Berry bushes of all sorts went down as well, as did some nut trees. Pretty much anything that would grow in the climate of my plateau.

After that I started work on the final layer of windbreak trees and their supporting growth plants as the day moved into the afternoon. Several fir trees went into the ground that I made sure to put a limit on this time. I didn’t want a ring of not-so-little happy trees after all. Besides the height limiter, I planned to turn them into some sort of defence when I knew how, but as it stood I was a massively ignorant novice. Maybe I should dedicate another day or so to watching the plants outside.

Our third day spent back in the grove consisted of me slowly building up patches of the various plants we’d need as resources later on. It was about when I got to making the latex that I realised I had an opportunity once I got back to Avonside. With the help of both chemists and biologists, I might be able to design a tree that could give us some truly unique and useful glues that might relieve some of our reliance on things like screws and nails.

Once I’d planted a bunch of different resource crops, trees and the like, I moved on to a task I had been dreading. The lake. See, unlike with plants, I needed to use my own raw magical energy to manipulate my grove into changing itself, moving dirt and rock around. I wished I’d thought of all this when I’d created the place. It had been so easy back then.

There was only one way this was going to happen, and that was by doing it, so I began to slowly move earth out of where I wanted the lake, beginning what would be a small hill in the process. As soon as I began, an army of bunnies swarmed the site and I stopped to watch in confusion. Then they began to dig.

“Holy shit, what… what are they doing?” Grace asked, from behind me. Turning around, that first glance at her had me floored.

She was wearing shorts and a tank top, sports bra visible beneath. Covered in sweat and grass stains, she dabbed at her forehead with a little hand towel as she watched the bunnies dig, completely oblivious to the stunned girl next to her. I couldn’t help but drink in the sight of her, and if she hadn’t been amazed by the feat bungineering happening nearby I might have been caught in my stare.

“They’re… um, they’re doing… they are digging. My lake, I mean, they’re helping me dig the hole for the lake,” I said, stumbling and tripping over my words as I tried to tear my eyes off her. “What have you been doing?”

“Troy has us training again,” she replied pointing back towards the area that he’d claimed for the purpose.

“Is it helping?” I asked, temporarily dropping my gaze to pet her emotional support bun that had followed her over.

“Yeah, although keeping up with Adam is a pain in the ass. The guy is a tank,” she grumbled, watching me pet her bun. Frowning, she pointed at it. “That little guy has been following me around for days, helping me out and shit. Why is that? Is that just what they do?”

“Um, no…” I mumbled, feeling embarrassed about what I’d done. “I assigned a bunny to each of you as like, an emotional support animal, because we all need something cuddly and cute to help relieve all the tension we’ve been dealing with.”

“Oh, wow… that’s actually incredibly thoughtful Ryn,” she said with surprise, and I glanced up to see her smiling at me all funny again. She’d been giving me these looks and smiles recently that seemed almost sad, but not sad at the same time. I couldn’t figure out what they meant.

“Thanks,” I smiled awkwardly, turning back to watch my bunnies digging. Could they dig me a hole that would let me hide from my own awkwardness while they were at it?

They were going at the task with truly impressive gusto, and I idly began to help out again, moving dirt with my mind.

Grace noticed, watching as the dirt floated through the air with her eyebrows raised. “Damn, I wish I could do that.”

“Soon, don’t worry,” I replied. “We’ll figure something out.”

“It’s not a big deal, I’m not going to get upset over it,” she said with a calm shrug of her shoulders. “Plus,” she went on, tapping me gently on the arm. “One of my best friends is a mage! Why do I need to be one too?”

My cheeks were heating as she gave me yet another funny smile, and I had to take a few deep breaths just to calm my heart rate. Why did her words of platonic affection hit me so hard like that?

“I don’t… know,” I finally said, almost gasping it out around my exploding heart.

“Exactly,” she chuckled, her eyes following the bunnies as they dug up the landscape.

We stood in silence for a minute or two, me moving dirt with my mind and her watching it all happen. Progress was slow with the lake, I could only move so much and the rabbits were just using their hands. They were trying their best, but it just wasn’t very effective.

“We need to get the little critters some tools,” Grace said, evidently having followed my train of thought along with me.

“Yeah, maybe I could get Troy to carve them some wooden ones or something,” I mused, and then a thought hit me. “Or I could carve them myself…” I whispered, forming a single mind vine before me.

Esra hadn’t really spoken about the telekinesis much beyond teaching me how to move shit around with it. Technically speaking it wasn’t made of vines either, that was just how I thought of it. The reality was that it was just a force, and you exerted it on the world around you using your mind. Could I sharpen that force? Make it so that I was pushing on something with so fine a point that it would cut it?

Since I’d been planting bamboo recently, I grew a shoot of it next to us, the stalk rising out of the earth with ease. Bamboo almost didn’t need my encouragement the way it shot out of the ground.

“Um,” Grace began, but I ignored her in that moment as I focused on contracting the point of my willpower into as fine an edge as possible.

Once I was certain it would work, I slashed it sideways through the bamboo. Or, I tried… instead the bamboo simply shook from the impact, and there was a small dent in where I’d hit it.

“Damn, that would have been so cool,” I sighed, glaring at the annoying piece of greenery.

“What would have been cool?” my friend asked, smiling as she watched me. “Also it’s really cute when you pout like that.”

That got my attention, and I blinked up at her in surprise. She thought I was cute when I pouted? I’d been pouting?

“I mean, like… cute like one of the bunnies… like… because it’s… um. Yeah, you are… I don’t know,” she babbled as she realised what she’d said, her cheeks going red with embarrassment. Stepping forward, she reached up and ruffled my hair quickly, mumbling, “Um yeah, good luck with the digging, fluffy cute girl. I mean that in like, a not weird way. Fuck. I’ll go now.”

Before I could recover from whatever had just happened, she was off back towards the sparring area.

Seriously, what the hell had just happened? She’d just… freaked out and started babbling, then run away. Did I do something wrong? I racked my brain for any ideas as to what had just caused that and came up empty. Wait, no… had she somehow figured out that I was into her? No that couldn’t be it… she’d have had a larger reaction to that.

Making a decision, I rushed after her. “Grace! Wait!”

She stopped in her tracks, her power walking coming to an abrupt halt as she turned to look at me in surprise.

“What… what’s wrong?” she asked nervously.

Stopping in front of her, I stared into her expressive green eyes intently. I could see that I’d definitely done something wrong. The way she was standing, the way she wasn’t meeting my gaze, even her expression was closed.

“I’m really sorry! Whatever I did, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel weird or whatever,” I told her quickly, my expression and tone just two steps away from desperate.

“What? No, it was me being weird!” she said quickly, taking a step back towards me. “I called you cute, but in like, a weird way, not a friend way.”

It was my turn to step towards her, and I took both of her hands in mine. Crap, I’d just started touching her again without thinking about it. Too late now though, we were only a foot or so away from each other, and I was hyper aware of that fact. Her hands were soft on the tops, but I could feel a few calluses forming where her armoured gloves didn’t fit perfectly.

“Grace, it’s fine. I like being called cute by you,” I murmured, suddenly unable to look her in the eyes.

I stared at our clasped hands instead, the way hers had curled to capture mine back. They were so strong under her delicate skin, each subtle shift of weight and balance between us sending shocks of sensation was shooting up my arm.

“You do?” she breathed with such aching emotion that I had to look up.

Her eyes were so full, so wide as they pulled me into their grey-green depths. I was powerless under that stare, under her touch, and even just in her presence. Heartbeat thundering in my ears and ordered thought rapidly retreating from my mind, she was all that I was aware of. This beautiful girl in front of me was my world. I wasn’t even trying to go anywhere as I pressed towards her, just swaying like a sapling under a forceful gust of wind.

She didn’t step back, didn’t move away. Rather, her hands gripped mine even tighter, her expression drinking me in as I leaned over, closer and closer until… my forehead bumped into her collarbone. I blinked, wait… what had just happened?

Grace’s arms moved around my shoulders, pulling me gently against her. “Thanks Ryn. I’ve always had a problem with being so fucking awkward with female friends. I just… I always mess it up one way or another, so it’s really nice to have someone who doesn’t judge me when my tongue gets all tied.”

“Right,” I murmured, my brain fizzing and popping as I tried to comprehend what I had thought was happening versus what had just actually happened. “You’re a great friend,” I said, my mouth almost in autopilot.

Letting go of me, she beamed down at me from her slight height advantage and stepped backwards. “Thank you Ryn. Anyway, uh, break is over, back to throwing the boys around! Talk to you tonight!”

“Yeah… see you… good luck,” I said, still a little stunned.

Then she was off again, trotting happily back to the sparring area, no idea what she’d just done to me. My brain was… fried. I’d almost felt the ghost of her lips on mine for a few moments there, but instead… “friend”.

I turned back towards my lake project with a new weight pressing down on me. Life had gotten just that little bit harder.

Over the next day I nursed my windbreak into full functionality, then began the rather odd work of teaching my bunnies how to harvest all the various crops and resources and then store them. The truly strange part was when they understood my detailed instructions, nodding vaguely as they got to work. The little buns even started using their teeth to slowly cut down some of the trees I’d planted specifically for wood. I hadn't chosen weak species either, going for a couple of hardwoods, teak and indian rosewood.

I was starting to realise that my buns were made of sturdier stuff than just regular old buns. They also didn’t seem to put the grass they ate anywhere, so to speak. It disappeared into them and never came out. Maybe they were consuming it and turning it back into magic to use on my plants?

They’d been moving earth for my lake at a slowly increasing rate too, and I was starting to think they were multiplying when I wasn’t looking.

Now it was our fifth day back in the grove, and I was laying on the wooden floor of my big balcony room staring up into the shadowed heights of the happy little tree and working on my first combat spell. I was designing the shields first, because they seemed like the most important thing. I could learn to hit back once I could take a hit in the first place.

“Sunbathing without your greenery out huh?” Grace asked as she sat down next to me, looking just as incredible as she had yesterday at the lake site.

“Yeah, just trying to think up combat spells,” I sighed, shelving the magic shield I’d been tinkering with.

I was trying to figure out a way to make it useful beyond simply blocking spells. There had to be some sort of common underlying principle that I could use to block a few different damage sources at once without resorting to three shields overlaid on top of one another.

“It’s so crazy, this whole magic thing,” Grace said, staring out of the window at where the buns were busy at work.

“Yeah,” I said simply, watching her watch the buns.

“Exciting though too!” she continued, turning back to me. “Have you thought about what crazy things you might do with it once everything has calmed down?”

I shook my head. “Not really. Everything’s been moving so fast, I always have so much to think about that I haven’t really gotten to that part yet.”

“I think you’ll get up to all sorts of crazy and wonderful shenanigans,” she grinned.

“Oh?” I asked, wondering why she thought that.

“You just seem like the creative type, I don’t know. Not creative as in painting or any other art, but like… creative of thought,” she said, her brows furrowing cutely as she tried to express her ideas.

Ideas that left me bashful and fighting a blush. “Thanks.”

We sat in silence for a long while after that, but it wasn’t a totally awkward silence, but a happy and companionable one. Grace and I had been spending a hell of a lot of time in each other’s company recently, but rather than getting sick of her, I relished each second of it.

“You know, it’s funny right, considering I was really keen on my health back on Earth, but I actually miss fast food. That once a month trip I’d do to a chain, grab a bunch of yummy food and just enjoy myself,” she said after a few minutes, her voice wistful.

“I think I miss my computer the most. Just, access to information, you know? There have been so many problems I’ve had where I could have just googled it,” I sighed, thinking of all the plants I could engineer if I had access to the internet and all the scientific papers available there.

I missed a lot of things besides google though, from the presumption of safety and a death at an old age to the simple convenience of a supermarket. Hell, even being able to just find a hardware store and buy some tools would have been amazing right now.

“Yeah that makes sense. Funnily enough, back at Avonside that was one thing that didn’t take them very long. Getting our phones and shit hooked up again, creating a public central database for entertainment,” she told me, shifting to lay down like I was. “Of course, my phone is nothing but little incinerated particles of dust now.”

“That was such quick thinking by the way. I thought that when I lost my hold on that thing we were all fucked,” I said gratefully, reaching over to squeeze her calf with my hand, the only part of her I could reach.

“It was pure instinct,” she chuckled. “Robots like tech, right? Shiny unidentified tech thing had to be interesting to the big bastard.”

It made sense in a funny sort of way. Any combat robot would be equipped with scanners that would be able to see the power running through a phone. That plus the fact it was unknown tech, the robot probably thought it was a threat.

“And you call me smart?” I grinned, although she wouldn’t be able to see it from this angle.

Grace was definitely smart, despite her claims otherwise. Like so many people, she viewed ignorance as something negative, to be mocked and frowned at. It was wrong, people were allowed to be ignorant so long as you were willing to learn, or to let others deal with things if they weren’t. No one could reasonably blame a builder for not knowing the maths surrounding the strong nuclear force.

“You are! I’m just like, average,” she complained, her voice taking on such a cute tone as she grumbled.

I sat up and glared at her with friendly menace, “Nope. You try and claim that again and I’ll sic my bunnies on you.”

“Oh no! The horror!” she chuckled, her eyes sparkling with amusement.

She spoke too soon however, because as if it had read my mind, her emotional support bun was on her, hopping up on top of her and making itself comfortable.

“Oh my god,” she gasped as the air was knocked out of her lungs. “You weren’t kidding!”

“Good bun!” I giggled, shuffling across the floor and into patting range.

The bun nuzzled at my hand with its twitching little nose and for the hundredth time my heart melted at the sight. They were so damn cute.

“You’ve gone mad with power!” Grace wheezed as she dumped the bun sideways onto the floor. The bun decided this was the perfect opportunity to flop sideways, so that’s what it did.

“Good bun,” I cooed again, scratching behind its big floppy ears.

“I can’t tell what’s cuter,” Grace smiled, watching me dote on the bun. “The bunnies, or how much you love them.” That comment received a frown from me, which only caused her smile to widen. “Aw, now she pouts!” my friend continued, her tone playful and teasing.

“Don’t you have punching practice or something?” I grumbled, feeling my cheeks heating again. I was just a regular ol’ blush factory over here now.

“Nope! I’ve been allowed to rest for the afternoon,” she laughed triumphantly.

“Well… I have work to do!” I grouched, definitely not pouting.

“That’s fine, I’ll be right here,” she chuckled, and I couldn’t help it when a smile broke ranks and bloomed across my face. Damn it, she made me too happy. Why was this so difficult? I wished I could just go over there and… well I don’t know. Cuddle her or something.

It took me several minutes to rein my cuddle obsessed brain back into line, but once I had my concentration back, I realised something. I’d need a shield that could potentially be expanded to protect my friends too. I also realised that efficiency might not really need to be a concern of mine. Why bother whittling down power usage percentages when I apparently had so much more magic at my disposal than other mages? Why not abuse that fact and have incredibly strong shields instead?

So that’s what I did, taking the design that Eilian had told me about and adapting it somewhat. Unlike my other spells, the shield spell was a tree which used its leaves to produce the final end result. I set up the roots as normal, taking in energy and then funneling it up into the trunk, which would convert it into the necessary energies needed to create the shield.

The shield was made up of three parts. There was a kinetic shield for stopping mundane projectiles moving at high speed, and an energy shield for stopping the steel one’s lasers and spells that produced energy attacks like it. Finally there was a shield that stopped direct magical attacks and interference. Each would be produced by the same spell, although Eilian had warned me that if I had low energy reserves I should instead separate the three into their own individual spells.

Since I was putting them all into the same spell, the tree would have a sort of twisted trunk, three different colours all mixed up like stirred neapolitan ice cream. White for kinetic, blue for energy and purple for magic. The leaves were the same, although the colours were instead assigned between the stalk, veins and leaf material instead. The whole thing had very obviously been designed and refined by generations of mages and it was quite complex.

There was one final cherry on top however, something that Eilian had whispered with a rather evil expression on her face. Her own personal touch to the shield, something we had seen displayed during the battle. With the flowers free to still have a use, I was able to add the reflection capabilities to my spell. It was going to be one mean spell when I used it, that was for sure.

The next spell I worked through was a basic knockback spell that would allow me to throw anything and everything away from me. It was a fairly simple shrub, roots to take in magic, stem to convert it to kinetic energy and then flowers to store it for use. It was kinda pretty though, normal green leaves and gently glowing white flowers.

After that was another spell that wasn’t particularly lethal. Initially, Eilian had been giving me all sorts of deadly and destructive spell ideas, but I’d quickly told her that it wasn’t really my style. I’d make some like that and keep them in reserve, but I’d rather not burn holes in people if I could help it.

Rather than burning or slicing people, this spell fired orbs of goop that would stick to people like the strongest adhesive in the world and stay like that until the internal magic of each blob dissipated. The flower to create this spell was like an oversized yellow rose with a very small stem that had it drooping over towards the ground. I thought it was kinda cute.

Of course, I did still make the burning spell for if I had to fight some inhuman eldritch horror again. This one was fairly standard, but with a little twist. It required both hands held out in front and it produced a huge amount of boiling flame. The trick was that the closer my hands were together, the less flamethrower-like it became and the more laser-like it became. Essentially it was just a hose of flame with a variable nozzle. I hoped it would allow me to burn a hole through the hull of a steel one.

I was almost ready to leave it at that, but the idea of turning my telekinesis into blades had gotten me thinking. This was going to be my most complicated spell yet, but I felt like I needed something like this. I needed a spell that would allow me to be useful in a variety of scenarios.

The spell was entirely my own design, using several elements I’d learned of by observing the plants outside. The spell needed to be robust, so I used a tree as the template, then created its roots with the typical energy absorption. After that it was onto the trunk, which would be forging the energy the roots fed it into a variety of different flavours of magic, the main ones being potential motion and a sort of hard light.

The leaves would combine these energies into something that was going to be deadly or defensive, depending on what I intended to do with it. I had to predefine the shape that the hard light would take, but I was going for simple here, nothing complex. Deciding to add a little flair like Eilian had done with her spells, I changed the colour of the leaves to be the same dark magenta as my hair, which in turn would cause the spell to take that colour when it was used.

Throughout every one of these plants I made sure that they were capable of producing seeds that might grow into more of their kind. I wanted my grove to be an ecosystem after all, not just a curated garden.

Templates held firmly in my mind, I went outside with Grace trailing behind. I walked about the area, planting the spells randomly in an attempt to spread out the power of my spells, rather than keeping them in neat beds as Esra had done. The idea was that the whole forest I planned to plant would have to be destroyed before I lost access to any one spell.

I concentrated most of my growth energy on the shield trees this time around, growing a few to full height, as surviving would be a priority. My offensive spells could wait for the buns and growth plants to bring them up.

That night as we ate dinner, I mentioned to Troy that I’d gotten some combat spells completed and planted. With that in mind he asked everyone how they felt about continuing our journey and received a positive response from us all. It was time to continue onwards to Millowhall.

The next morning we stood in formation, our new plan for exiting the grove about to be put in motion. We were waiting for Troy’s signal to make the jump back to the mundane realm. This time however, I’d be putting my shield up around us all as soon as we popped out. Hopefully this would negate any element of surprise that potential enemies might have camping outside.

The moment came, we hopped over and my barrier shimmered into existence. Transparent purple energy surrounding us in a dome, and I had to smile at the idea that I could now properly protect my friends with magic.

No crossbow bolts or blasts of magic came at us however, and we relaxed when we saw that no one was waiting for us. It was strange, but I’d almost expected there to be enemies waiting. We hadn’t exactly been thorough about hiding my mark after all. Not that I was going to complain, I was not keen to get into a fight.

We began our journey south, passing by the city of Norishin on our way. We couldn’t enter it though, the city was on the other side of the huge river with no bridge across. It was a fairly unremarkable city, compared to the others I’d come across anyway besides the large harbour it had. We ended the day inside my grove again, taking extra care to hide my mark this time.

We spent the next two days following the river south until we reached the point at which we’d be diverting off into the plains of Mosteghunoksia. We decided to stay at an inn in the village we ended up in this time, mainly because we needed information about the path ahead. The vendor’s instructions had been, “Go across the plains,” which wasn’t actually all that helpful. We’d need real directions if we wanted to get across.

The village looked like any other we’d passed through, as was the single inn that serviced travellers running through it. Stone and rough sawn wood constructions with thatched roofing seemed to be the go to arrangement for this region. The inn looked to be a little low on patrons tonight, so the innkeep was able to see to us immediately.

“How can I help you all?” he asked amicably, not at all phased by my friends and their intimidating armour, although their helmets were off, so that probably helped.

“Two rooms please, three people in one, two in the other,” Troy said, showing off some of his newly acquired skill with the local language. That wasn’t to say he and the rest were anywhere close to passable, but they could do this much.

“Of course, I’ll see to it,” the innkeep nodded, pausing to see if we needed anything else.

“Ah, sorry,” I began hesitantly. “We’re trying to get to Clan Mossbed lands and we were wondering the best way across the plains.”

“The Mosteghunoksia plains?” he frowned, and when I nodded his expression turned grave. “I’d avoid the area if I were you. It’s good farmland, but no one lives there. Mighty strange place, some say it’s full of the undead, others speak of much more deadly beasts. There ain’t no road across, but if you’re looking for the Mossbed lands, you want to head directly due south east. You’ll see the mountains of their lands soon enough.”

“What about going around them?” I asked curiously.

“That’s even more dangerous, at least with that mage war going on,” he replied with a grimace. “The south of Anverkethia is a nightmare right now with the Terne coven tearing the place apart.”

This sounded like something we should know about. “What… who are the Terne coven?”

“That lot of mages who’ve been takin’ over around these parts for the last decade. The Anverkethian mages are the last holdouts after the Scalmeis went down,” he shrugged. “We’d all best get comfortable with the new lot, because it’s lookin’ like they’re here to stay.”

“That’s unfortunate,” I sighed, then gave him a weary smile. “Mages are mages though right?”

“Aye, although some’s better than others that’s for sure,” he nodded seriously.

I was wearing my normal person magical disguise thankfully, otherwise my comment would have gotten a strange look. I didn’t actually believe that all mages were equally awful, obviously. I’d just figured it might be a good idea to sound him out on the issue.

“Well, thanks for the help,” I said with a grateful nod, turning to relay the information to the rest of the group.

Kit looked like he’d understood most of it by the frown he wore. “These plains don’t sound like such a good idea,” he said worriedly. “But then, running into what sounds like Fennimore’s crew if we go around the plains sounds even worse.”

“I’d definitely rather deal with zombies or whatever than a coven of angry mages eager to get a shot back at us,” Grace said, her eyes flicking towards me.

“Agreed,” Troy nodded. “We’ll be going across the plains as planned.”

That night Grace and I were given a room with two separate beds, which we pushed together until they were next to each other. It was kinda perfect, there was the uncomfortable gap between the straw-stuffed mattresses as a barrier, but we were close enough that we could still reach each other.

We set off out towards the plains in the morning, but it took us an entire day just to get there in the first place. Humanity had well and truly established itself on this ring, which begged the question of where they had all come from. Had this place really been snatching people since the early medieval years?

The plains themselves were odd. We stepped out onto swaying grass in the cold light of the morning and found it to be strangely devoid of sound. Normally on a huge open area like this, sound would travel far, but all we got was the gentle sighing of the wind. Maybe that was normal, maybe it wasn’t, but either way it was a little unsettling.

Since the plains were higher than the river valley that we’d just left, we soon lost sight of anything other than the endless sea of grass. There wasn’t even any sign of wildlife, no dung laying around and no half eaten stalks. It was empty, completely empty. No wonder people avoided this place.

“I don’t like it here,” I said quietly to the others.

“Yeah, me neither,” Kit replied, his eyes alert and scanning the horizon.

“I feel like there’s something sneaking up on us, even though we should be able to see it right?” Adam asked, sounding less than sure of himself.

“Just stay quiet, stay alert,” Troy murmured, shushing us all.

He was right, we’d be less likely to spot or hear any attackers if we were talking, but I also needed the sound of my companion’s voices right about then. The tension seemed to be rising, my heart was a low pulsing in my ears and everywhere I looked I saw shadows moving in the corner of my eye.

“I see something!” Grace hissed, not ten minutes later. She was pointing out into the grass, her gun drawn but finger off the trigger.

We all looked out into the direction she’d pointed, only for nothing to be visible. I tried to find it, squinting hard out into the mesmerising waves, but I just couldn’t see what she’d seen.

“What was it?” Troy asked, his tone all soldier mode.

Grace looked less sure of herself now, lowering her gun and scanning our surroundings with worry. “I don’t know… it was just movement, I can’t see it now.”

“Alright,” Troy grunted, still wary even as he replaced his own weapon in its holster. “Keep an eye out, but I think this place is messing with us. Ryn, can you see anything on the magic spectrum?”

I flipped over to mage sight as he asked and glanced around, seeing a huge expanse of… grass. There was no magic besides the usual, all the way up to the horizon. I did see something strange however.

“Troy, there’s no big spells around or anything, but I did see a weird… I don’t know, there was a big change in the type of ambient magic floating around over that way,” I said, pointing in the direction we’d been moving already.

“Hmm, well I guess we’ll see what’s over there when we get there,” he mused. “I assume it doesn’t look dangerous?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s like there’s a change in the soil or something. Like the difference of magic between soil and stone.”

With my conclusion that it was probably just a change in the soil makeup causing the strangeness ahead of us, we moved onwards. The tension didn’t ease however, instead it grew. The grass seemed almost alive with potential movement now, attackers crouched low behind every tuft of grass. Nothing was leaping out of the grass at us though, no bandits or monsters to be seen. Nothing but grass and wind as the day wore on and afternoon threatened to become night.

The orange light of sunset lit the vast ocean of swaying gold around us as Troy finally spoke up. “Alright everyone, I think this is far enough. We’ll retreat to the grove for now and—“

I’d been at the front of the party at that moment, and as he was speaking I took just a single, small step backwards. I gasped and wobbled as something strange hit me, my mind reeling from the weirdness I was experiencing. Taking another step back, I struggled to come to terms with an alarming fact. The tension and paranoia that had been our constant companion on the plains just… evaporated.

“Ryn?” Grace exclaimed urgently, rushing for me, only to be hit by that same strange wall of calm. She stumbled too, my arms catching her while her eyes went glassy with shock. “What the hell?” she asked in a high, confused tone.

“What’s wrong?” Troy asked sharply, watching us with eyes that now seemed so deeply paranoid. Had we looked like that a few moments ago?

“The… weird feelings, the stuff… I don’t know, it’s hard to describe,” Grace said quickly. “It’s like we just stepped out of a dream. Step over quickly, I think something has been messing with us.”

The others were suspicious, they hesitated for a moment, but then Adam nodded to himself and walked over to us. He gave a grunt, followed by a low laugh. “Holy shit, that feels so much better.”

With our friend having taken the lead, Troy and Kit followed, their eyes widening with surprise as the fog over their minds was lifted.

“That’s just mildly terrifying,” Kit said sarcastically, staring back out at the plains behind us that seemed like just a bunch of tall grass now. No shadows, no terrifying spectres stalking us right beneath the depths. Expression changing to a frown, he turned to the rest of us, continuing, “We stepped over a threshold here right? The weirdness slowly snuck up on us before, but when we crossed that line it just suddenly disappeared.”

“Like a defence mechanism,” I realised, turning to look forward. “Someone wanted to keep people away without going to all the trouble of killing them. That’s why there’s no animals here either, they would have felt what we were feeling and run away.”

“If that’s the case, then who is in here?” Troy muttered, joining me in staring forward.

On a whim I activated my mage sight again, curious if I could get a glimpse of something now that we were closer. Oh, did I get far more than a simple glimpse. There was the echoes of something huge underneath the ground ahead of us, something so massive that it extended down beyond my vision. Hotspots of magical energy dotted the thing, pulsing in ways that reminded me of a heartbeat or a mechanical pump.

“Oh, fuck me!” I blurted, realising what I was staring at.

“What? What is it?” Grace asked, her eyes flicking between my face and where I was staring at the ground.

“There’s a huge structure buried in the ground! It looks like something made by the ring builders, and there’s magic inside it,” I said excitedly, already scanning for an entrance or something.

I couldn’t tell too much about the place, but what I could see of the place reminded me of the way the ring builders liked to do things.

“That sounds important,” Adam said, also frowning at the ground like he could mysteriously peer through it. “I want to go look.”

“Hold on, let’s go about this cautiously,” Troy said with authority, reining us all in a little. “I agree that we need to check this out, but let’s not go rushing off into danger without checking the corners alright?”

“Aye aye, captain,” Grace nodded, unclipping her helmet from her belt and putting it on. “Let’s suit up then.”

The rest of them got their helmets on and we moved through the long grass towards the underground facility.

There was absolutely no sign of it as we pressed forward, nothing but simple grassland for miles ahead of us, the hazy outline of some mountains appearing on the horizon. Underneath the ground was another story.

It was hard to make out individual details about the place since there was so much earth in the way, and I could only really see the general shape of magic down there. It was like being able to see through objects, while also seeing the objects in their entirety. It took a lot of guesswork and squinting to figure anything out, unless there was something bright, like the obviously magical thingies down there.

“Do you see any way to enter this place?” Troy asked after a minute or two of walking. “Because I don’t see shit.”

“Yeah it looks like it arrives at the surface just over here,” I nodded, pointing towards an innocuous looking patch of ground fifty yards away.

He turned and started in that direction. “Alright, let’s go check it out.”

Still nothing appeared to indicate there was anything below us but dirt and stone, and when we reached the spot where there had seemed to be an entrance, we found more grass and nothing else. Still, I could see it down there, just beneath the surface.

“Stand back,” I told everyone, waiting for them to move out of the way.

This would be my first time using an offensive spell, and I was a little eager to show it off. I called the knockback spell and aimed it at the ground. Tattoos of white flowers wrapped delicately around my wrists for a moment, and then there was the whump of the spell as air was forced violently into the ground. A divot was blasted into the dirt, sending grass and soil flying away from us. Crap, it was going to take me a while to dig down.

Except as I readied my next attempt, something strange happened. The ground began to shake slightly, and right before our eyes it opened up, soil pouring into a hole as a hidden door began to grind open using ancient mechanisms.

“Alriiiight,” I said with uncertainty, taking a few steps back. “I didn’t do that.”

“That’s not suspicious at all,” Adam murmured sarcastically, peering into the dark hole.

As he did so, lights began to flicker on inside, revealing a stairwell that trailed down for several yards before leveling out into a hallway.

“I think it wants us to go inside,” Kit said, glancing between the group and the hole.

Stepping up beside me, Grace put a hand on my shoulder. “Yeah… but Ryn isn’t going first.”

“Hold on,” Troy cut in, stepping up to the entrance too. “It opened when Ryn used a spell. It reacted well to her magic. I’d say she should definitely be the one to go first. So long as she has that shield of hers up.”

Grace’s posture indicated she wanted to argue with him for a second, but she seemed to decide against it, stepping back with a shrug instead.

So putting up my shield as he’d said, I took the first step down into the strange complex below us. The architecture was definitely the same as all the other ring builder stuff we’d seen, and it strangely reminded me of how advanced human tech was always portrayed in science fiction. It was all utilitarian bevelled lines.

The hallway had clearly been build using prefabricated parts too, sections of steel tunnel bolted together with precision perfect seams. Along the roof were strip lights that provided an even, yellow-white glow.

It was all decidedly futuristic looking in a way that was hugely jarring compared to the life I’d been living these past months. Going from what was essentially the medieval era into a science fiction bunker was beyond strange.

It wasn’t long before we arrived at a foyer-like area, complete with very old dead plants in little containers. Couches that seemed just a little too big and slightly too wide were arranged around too high tables, and off to the side were a series of what looked like elevators.

“This is so weirdly familiar,” Kit mumbled, looking around at it all. “It’s like… it’s so normal.”

“Yeah, and I can’t figure out if I like that or not,” Grace replied, walking up to run her hand through some of the dust that had collected on the back of a couch.

“There haven’t been any weapons aimed at us yet,” Troy said. “Let’s continue, see if the lifts still work like the lights do.”

I was silent as I approached them, the team spread out behind me. The lifts, like everything else, appeared to be simple and functional in nature. There was a button to call them, although it was a little higher than I was used to seeing, and a little screen above displaying some symbol I had no hope of understanding. Other than that, it was just the futuristic nature of the place that was different.

I pressed the call button and a chime sounded, followed by another sound that had me practically jump out of my skin with fright. An alien language spoken by an alien mouth was playing from somewhere, and the whole group of us had been startled by it.

No gun turrets popped out of the wall though, just the gentle hiss of the doors sliding open to allow us access into the lift.

“Huh,” Kit laughed nervously. “I think we just heard the voice of one of the race that built this world.”

“I think we did too,” I said quietly, moving into the lift with a rising sense of… not forboding, but a general intensity. We were going to discover something here, I just knew it. Or maybe something would discover us?

Once everyone was inside the steel lift with its complete lack of aesthetics, I peered down at the little panel before me. It looked like some sort of touch screen, and when I moved my hand to poke at it, it lit up. Displayed across the glassy surface were several buttons labelled in a script I couldn’t hope to understand.

“I’m just going to pick at random,” I told the group, pressing one of them.

The doors pinged quietly and then closed, and there was a faint vibration in the lift. No sense of movement though, my stomach didn’t feel like it was lurching up into my throat or anything. Then, just as quickly as the doors had closed, they opened again on a room that was still in the process of lighting up itself for us. Anticipation rising, we moved out a little into the wide space.

“Alright, this is clearly an open plan laboratory,” Adam said in a tone that was almost offended. “This place is straight up weird with the way it isn’t weird,” he complained, then laughed and pointed at a nearby desk. “Shit, look at that. There’s a fucking spoon. It’s straight up just a spoon.”

He was right too. The place was full of incredibly strange looking equipment, but as far as the desks and cubicles were concerned, they were alarmingly familiar. Some ancient person had long ago put their spoon down next to their bowl and left it there for thousands of years. There was a pile of dust in the bowl that must have been the remnants of their meal.

“Let’s spread out everyone, but stay within sight of each other and don’t touch anything. I mean that, alright? No one is going to release some deadly nightmare fuel monster by accidentally pressing a button,” Troy told us seriously. “I am not good with horror.”

“You’re not good with horror?” Adam asked incredulously. “The hardass soldier can’t do horror?”

“No need to tease,” Troy chuckled good naturedly, taking his helmet off. “I was unfortunate enough to watch alien when I was small. Scared the shit out of my tiny young mind.”

“Oh damn,” I said with a cheeky smile. “This place must be pretty bad for you then.”

“Alright, alright,” he groaned, shooing us out into the lab. “Go on kids, find some alien horror that you can unleash on the world.”

We all laughed and did as he said, any tension we might have been experiencing having evaporated with the jokes and banter. Everyone else took their helmets off too as they looked around at the place.

The room was arranged into two halves, four rows of cubicles near the elevator, followed by a whole bunch of strange looking alien scientific equipment, then another four rows of cubicles and so on. The whole pattern was repeated three times in total.

I wandered over to a desk at random and looked down at it. There was a slate of black glass at an angle that implied it had been some sort of computer workstation. Off to the side against the back wall of the cubicle was a little statue or figure sitting on the desk, depicting some sort of strange… thing. I could vaguely make out a head and two legs, but the rest was entirely alien to me. It looked like someone had combined a chicken, a balloon and an anteater into one strange abomination of a creature.

When I moved in for a closer look, a little card of the same black glass as the computer flickered to life, and I let out an audible gasp.

Displayed on the little screen was a set of three… beings. Aliens, probably ring builders. They were humanoid, but impossibly thin by human standards, with tall heads that widened out into a bony frill. It was reminiscent of a triceratops’ shield, but far more graceful and delicate looking.

The eyes on the three aliens were large, with recognisably circular pupils and grey irises, while the mouths were thin and lipless, omnivorous teeth on display between them. Their skin seemed to be leathery in texture, with bony looking scales across their shoulders. They also wore clothing, simple and form fitting grey shirts and trousers with square cut collars.

Most notably though, they were all standing together, long, thin arms held about each other, the smallest of the three in front of the other two. It was quite clearly a picture of a family, probably the family of the scientist who’d worked at this very desk.

They were like us. They weren’t scary batronauts or anything like that, although they did have leathery skin and stuff. Still, they ate with spoons and took pictures with their families and pinned them up in their work spaces. They were so much like us that suddenly I felt a little pang of sadness for them, because their absence on this vast ring didn’t bode well. I hoped that some of their species still existed, because I’d love to meet them.

“Ryn!” Grace’s voice called through the room, interrupting my inspection of the desk. “Come look at this!”

Moving away from the desk and the picture, I headed deeper into the room, to where Grace was waving me over. She was standing in front of a bulky piece of equipment that looked like it was meant to contain something, keep it from getting out. I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle to life as I approached, and the telltale smell of intense magical energies hit me.

“Look through here,” she whispered excitedly.

Coming up beside her, I peered into the little glass viewport that she was motioning me towards. What I saw had my eyes widen and my breath catch in my throat. Visually, it was a dark orb of rippling transparent energy, pulsing with a strange life. Magically speaking, it was wrong.

It wasn’t wrong in an awful, terrifying sense though. It wasn’t some magical cancer or world eating void of death and destruction. Instead, it was like looking at a three year old’s attempt at writing their own name, with the magic I was used to seeing as the parent’s flowing handwriting.

“What is it?” Grace asked, her face coming in to crowd me at the view port, wisps of her hair brushing my cheek.

“Shitty magic,” I blurted, my mind not at all paying attention to what I was saying as I felt her so wonderfully close to me.

“Uh, what?” she asked, turning to frown at me and bringing her face so breathtakingly close to mine. Her small, perfectly shaped lips were right there, her larger bottom lip just begging to be sucked on or nibbled at. Calm down Ryn, calm down, she’s a friend, not food.

“It’s shitty magic,” I told her again, trying to rally my thoughts back into intelligent mode from mess mode. “Looks like they were experimenting with making magic or something? It’s very strange, that’s for sure.”

“Alright,” she said, mercifully backing off a little. “So they were messing around with magic, that’s not what I expected actually. I figured that all the sci-fi stuff would be doing its own thing, while all the magic stuff would be too, if you know what I mean?”

“Me too, which makes me really keen to try and figure out this place,” I nodded, taking several deep breaths in an effort to clear my still very addled mind. “Want to keep looking?”

“Yeah, let’s check out that big pipe looking thing,” she smiled, her hand reaching out to briefly brush my arm.

Again, just like that, she destroyed my ability to think about anything other than that simple touch. Grace, please, oh please… have mercy on me.

The rest of the room contained more of the same, magical experiments and cubicles with ancient personal effects littered all over the place. We decided to take any and all photograph things that we could find. Understanding the people who’d built this place would be a huge boon to figuring out a lot of other stuff about its function and purpose.

As we investigated further and further into the huge complex, we began to realise that the whole place was based around studying magic. Just as with that first experiment though, it was all some degree of strange and primitive, none of it being properly useful as magic. Just blobs of arcane energy that had been twisted into basic knots and shapes.

We also found a warehouse, with furniture, cutlery, and everything else needed to run a large population of scientists underground. There were also several of those black slate computer things, and seeing them sealed the deal. We began to schwoop the whole lot into my grove. Desks, chairs, beds… nothing was safe from our thieving hands.

At first we were dumping it all in the grass, but on our third trip we found the buns doing their part too. They were using all of their three feet in height to carry all the crap we were delivering up into the storage rooms inside the tree. I had to give all the little munchkins pats for that, they were such good buns. We were feeling pretty good about our find, right up until we found them.

We came down in the lift to yet another floor, and this one opened out into a room that was different from any we’d found so far. Wide and spacious, it appeared to be a huge common room chamber of some kind. They had even taken a little more care with the aesthetics of the place, with more very old and very dead pot plants laying around in the corners, as well as what appeared to be an abstract sculpture in the middle of the room.

“This is actually kinda nice,” Grace whispered as we spread out into the room. “I could see myself living here if it wasn’t for the whole sunless hole underground thing.”

“Yeah, same,” I agreed with a note of appreciation.

“I hate to be the one to bring the mood down, but I think we found the scientists,” Adam said sobrely.

He was right. The whole place was open plan, but areas had been clearly set aside for different things. The area Adam had found was what looked to be the communal eating area, an open expanse of floor with several square tables set out.

Sitting at those tables were almost a hundred dead ring builders, slumped down onto their tables amongst an ancient banquet. Their corpses were old and withered, but they hadn’t had much of a chance to decay in the reasonably sterile environment of their makeshift tomb. They looked almost mummified.

In the center of the dead banquet was a stuttering hologram showing the ring and the rest of the system. Running through the hologram at a system-wide scale, a strange cloud-like mass coloured in red stuttered back and forth. It was caught in an animation, the vast red cloud perpetually sweeping over the ring, then flickering back to the last moments before it did so, over and over. Above the whole hologram was a single glowing red symbol, and unlike all the others, it wasn’t hard to figure out what that symbol meant. Zero.

“Is this what I think it is?” Kit asked, his voice high with anxiety. “Did they… kill themselves? Like, mass suicide?”

“Appears so,” Troy murmured, walking towards one of the corpses. “I wish we had some plastic bags, taking samples from this lot would be invaluable for the the brains back home. Even if it is… disrespectful.”

Staring at one of them with something like loss and pity swirling in my stomach, I asked, “Why though? What is that hologram showing? I mean, it’s obvious it was something they feared more than death, and more than those steel ones that they fought a war against… so what is it?”

“That’s the million dollar question isn’t it?” Troy remarked, glancing up at the hologram. “It wasn’t a localised event either, it hit the whole damned ring. I’d be willing to bet that scenes like this played out all across this world when whatever that wave is was about hit them. Mass suicides across the ring.”

“That’s kinda terrifying,” Grace said, coming to stand closer to me. I reached out instinctively to clutch at her arm, and she gave me a grateful smile in return.

“You can say that again,” Troy nodded, and for the first time I thought I saw genuine worry on their face. “Let’s do a quick search of the room, then get out of here. This place is… let’s just move. Taking samples can be done by another team.”

“Yeah, agreed,” Adam said with a wary look around us.

We searched the floor at speed, all of us wanting to get out of there and fast. It felt like we were encroaching in places we shouldn’t now, like disturbing the dead in their rest would lead to something awful happening down the line. Superstitious, I know… but magic was real now, and that put the question to everything humanity had assumed about the supernatural.

We left everything where it was this time, it was more of the same that we’d found in the warehouse anyway, and the idea of stealing from the immediate possessions of the dead gave us all the heebie jeebies. Especially considering we found more dead scientists in their bunks and in other nooks, presumably wanting solitude when they died, rather than companionship.

We all piled back into the lift a few minutes later and headed further down into the complex, only one or two more floors left to go. We found more labs with more random experiments and desks in all but the very last floor of the place.

When we stepped out into that floor, we were met by a single, huge experiment. Sitting in a depression in the middle of the room was a massive glass tank filled with a swirling white gas that rippled with rainbow light at the edges. Pipes hung from the ceiling to connect into the top of this tank, and surrounding the tank at a distance of about five feet were four strange looking flat disks. The disks were held in metal cradles and looked almost like they were made of white ceramic.

On the raised area surrounding the tank and disks were a series of workstations and large black glass screens, some of which were cracked and damaged. It was almost like they had been smashed on purpose, and the fact of which caused yet more questions to rebound through my skull.

“Okay, this looks important,” Troy said, turning to me. “Ryn?”

I nodded and brought up my mage sight. Again, I found myself in awe of what I was looking at. This was not like their other attempts at magic, it was far more sophisticated, but nor was it the type that I was used to. The power within the containment tank seethed and boiled to my eyes, only held in place by the flat disks, which generated a field of more recognisable magic around it.

“It’s magic all right, but it’s not shitty magic,” I told the group, warily stepping forward towards it.

“Alright gang, take a look around while Ryn takes a look, but I don’t think we’ll be able to do anything with it,” Troy said, and I had to agree with him. This thing was far too complex for me to understand.

Grace was quick to follow me, but the others began to spread out and look at the busted terminals instead. The room was so bare of anything interesting besides those terminals and the big ball of volatile energy in the middle, so I shrugged and went back to staring at it.

“What does it look like to your magic eyes?” Grace asked quietly from beside me.

“It’s even more rainbowy,” I told her, shifting my balance this way and that to get a better look.

It was like someone had taken a huge number of different types of magic and shaken it all up together in a bottle. I could feel little flickers of the Nameless Garden in there, as well as other strange signatures that I didn’t recognise. Were there other magical realms besides the Garden? It sure looked like it, judging from this thing.

“Oh wow,” Grace murmured, drawing my attention away from the angry bottle of magic.

I turned my mage sight off to see her, finding that she was staring at me, her eyes fixed on mine with an inquisitive intensity that had goosebumps running up my arms.

“What?” I asked, frozen in place by her gaze.

“Your eyes go funny when you’re using your mage sight,” she told me breathlessly, stepping closer. “They go all sparkly. Do it again.”

I gulped, and switched my mage sight on again for her, but I had to take a step back in the process, because she was way too close again. I... should not have stepped back.

When I moved backwards, I felt my shield brush against something, magic washing over and around it in a discordant stream. I turned to see what it was with a frown, only to realise with slowly dawning horror what I’d done. I’d stepped in front of one of the flat disks, blocking the stream of containment magic with my shield in the process.

The effect was immediate.

The wild magic smashed through the glass with a thunderous roar akin to that of a jet engine and hit my shield square on. It bowed inward with the force of the impact, like a baseball deforming in slow motion as it was hit with a bat.

I had a split second to brace myself before I was thrown violently backwards and into the containment disk with the crack of breaking bone. Pain lanced through my shoulder and my vision swayed, but I didn’t black out, meaning I was able to see the stream of rainbow energy ricochet off to strike Grace in the center of her chest.

The moment it made contact with her body, it was pouring into her like water down a drain. It surged and bucked even as my friend fell to the ground with a scream, her body writhing with pain. Within a second or two it was over, faster than anyone could react, and Grace’s twitching body glowed with a subtle aura of rainbow light. She’d absorbed the whole lot.

Making to go to her, I gave a cry of pain when my own injuries made themselves known, stars dancing before my eyes.

I watched as Troy tried to go for Grace too, only to receive a shock when the energy around her lashed out violently, knocking him backwards. “Shit!” he swore, grimacing as he took a few breaths. “What the hell just happened?”

“I think… I think it was my fault,” I said, my voice quivering with guilt and pain. “I stepped back and accidentally blocked the containment thingies.”

“Damn,” Troy winced. “Alright, it was an accident, blame is not helpful or important. We need to leave though, and get Grace to safety.”

“How? It’s pretty obvious we can’t touch her,” Adam asked, moving over to me instead. Kneeling down, he gingerly helped me to my feet, earning a whimper from me as bone scraped against bone. “Ryn’s hurt,” he told Troy. “Broke her shoulder I think.”

It sure felt like he was right, my shoulder felt sickeningly wrong and I could feel it shifting in ways it was definitely not meant to shift. It had been so long since I’d had a broken bone that I’d forgotten how much it hurt. Which is to say, a lot.

“Keep hold of her,” Troy told him. “I’ll figure out how to get Grace out.”

Before he could go and get himself shocked again, I cut in, “I can do it.”

“How? Your arm is—“ Troy began, before understanding dawned on him and he nodded. “Right, your magic. This makes things a lot easier, thank you Ryn.”

Without replying I reached out with my mind to carefully envelop Grace with my telekinesis, then gingerly picked her up. I didn’t get shocked or anything, thankfully, and she wasn’t too heavy for me.

Seeing her floating unconscious like that sent a terrified pang through my heart, and worry gripped my mind so hard that I thought it would burst. She needed to be okay, she had to be okay. I couldn’t lose Grace. I was so damn stupid, I was so, so stupid. Why had I stepped back?

“Good, let’s get the fuck out of here,” Troy said decisively.

We rushed into the lift in a hurry, and even the short time it took to get to the surface was too long for my fear and pain addled mind. Grace was unconscious for the whole ride up, and she stayed that way as we rushed out of the entrance and towards the mountains in an attempt to put distance behind us.

Her face was pale, and her skin looked clammy with sweat, but aside from those things and the odd glow around her, I couldn’t see any injuries. Of course, she had her pack and armour on, so it was difficult to tell through that.

Magically speaking, she was almost blinding to look at. The tank had been almost three yards in diameter, but now all of that magic was compressed into the much smaller container that was my friend. It did not look happy to be there either, small arcs of what looked like magical plasma were flowing out of her at random, only to get pulled back in again a moment later. It almost looked like her skin was the surface of a star.

It only occurred to me after we’d made the jump to my grove that bringing her here could cause problems, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. The roiling magic within her seemed to noticeably calm as we arrived in the soft grass before my tree. It was night now, both outside and inside my grove, so the way up the ramp was slow as we tried not to lose our footing and fall off the edge. Yet another thing I needed to change.

“What do we do with her?” Adam asked, his expression worried as we all arrived in the entry hall. “And what do we do about Ryn’s shoulder?”

“I’ll be fine,” I groaned, glancing down at my broken shoulder.

The moment we’d entered my grove I’d felt myself beginning to heal, as though the plant half of my body was pulling the human half back together second by second.

“How? You broke your arm!” he exclaimed, looking equal parts exasperated and worried for me.

“My grove is healing me,” I explained with shallow, pained breaths as things happened within me that were obviously meant to be good, but my god did they hurt. I could feel the bones being pulled back into alignment, while torn and bruised muscle was stitched back together.

“That’s a huge relief,” Troy sighed, watching Grace float in midair. “The question remains, what do we do with her?”

“I’m going to take her back up to our room. I’ll have the buns bring two of those big couches up to use as a bed for her,” I told them, and for once I didn’t allow argument. “Sorry, but I’m going to be the one to look after her. This is a magic thing. Plus, I’m the one who did this.”

“Fair. You’re the one who’s most experienced with magic by a significant margin,” Troy nodded, rolling his shoulders wearily. “In that case, please keep us posted, and don’t hesitate to call out if there’s problems. Grace is a good woman and it would suck if she… well, you know all that.”

The other two nodded, and Adam came up to place a huge hand on my small, feminine shoulder, the uninjured one. “I know the boss man said it, but if you need anything, any help at all, let me know and I’ll come running alright?”

“Thanks Adam,” I said, giving him a weak smile through my pain.

Kit just gave an awkward wave and hurried off up the stairs towards the baths. Alone, I walked into the storage with a floating Grace in tow, only to find the buns already hard at work in there. They were maneuvering one of the couches back towards the door, and the sight was amusing enough that it eased my anxious worry over my friend, if only slightly.

“Can you all get those up the stairs?” I asked the buns dubiously. “And clean them, then push them together?”

One of the buns stopped, the cream one that had been one of my first tenders. The little critter stood up straight, saluted proudly, flopped an ear, and then got back to work.

I couldn’t help it, I gave a giggle of relief as a huge smile briefly flitted across my lips. Point taken little friend, you’d see it done.They were damned good buns. I’d have to see about getting some banana trees and carrots growing for them. A little known fact about bunnies amongst the wider population was that they loved bananas and apples, as well as the usual carrots. I was willing to bet they’d already been eating the apples I planted.

With the bed situation handled by my amazing buns, I trudged my way up the stairs with Grace. My destination was a bath, and I was all kinds of conflicted about the impending wash. I’d need to wash her too, but I didn’t want to infringe on her privacy.

It was going to be difficult. I just had to not think about her soft, pale skin or her artfully shaped and moderately sized chest. Shit, my friend was unconscious and injured by unknown magic and I was thinking about her boobs. What a great friend I was, not. Still, she was absolutely covered in sweat and travel dust now and I needed to get it off her.

I got her into the bathroom, then closed my eyes and activated my mage sight. I could see enough of her to begin taking off her armour and clothing while not being able to properly see her naked. Instead, I saw an approximation of her, a sort of smoothed out bubble-like version due to her natural magical defenses extending slightly out from her skin.

Using my telekinesis for this was like trying to undress someone in the dark with a pair of big chopsticks, but eventually I was able to get her undressed. Taking a lot of care, I placed her gently in the bath, making sure to hold her upright while she soaked.

I should have expected a reaction, given what I knew about how water and magic interacted, but I didn’t really consider it. So when her magic reached out into the bath and did the magic equivalent of electrifying it, I was mildly surprised for a moment, then shook my head at my own short sightedness. My worry for her was causing me to make mistakes.

I opened my eyes a little to stare at the water that was alight with subtle flickers of rainbow light, then proceeded to make a movement that was probably very stupid, but I needed to know. I touched the water. Rather than being exploded backwards like Troy had been though, my magical organs began to voraciously drink it in. Not only did it drink the stuff in, but it also felt absolutely incredible, and before I could help myself I let out a long, low moan of pleasure. Holy shit.

Yanking my hand back with a squeak, I blurted a surprised, “Fuck!”

My muscles twitched all over, my breathing was stuttering and shallow, and my heart was a wild drumbeat. Most embarrassing of all was the way I was feeling internally, specifically between my legs. I twitched and pulsed with my heartbeat down there, and I could feel myself growing wet with the arousal. What had that magic just done to me?

I stared down at the stuff as it swirled within me, my body eating it up like it was plasma directly from the sun. I could already see it churning the stuff up into growth magic at a ratio that was terrifyingly efficient. Well, that solved some of my problems at least, at the expense of… apparently, turning me on like a damned light switch.

I decided against hopping into the bath with Grace though, because regardless of sexual arousal magic, it would also just be very weird. So I closed my eyes and used my telekinesis to gently scrub at the areas I was comfortable scrubbing.

It was strange, the way her magical defenses seemed to bow inward to the exact point of her skin and no more, allowing my scrubbing to work. Once my task was done, I took her out and dried her as best I could with a floating towel, a furious blush burning my face the whole damn time.

There wasn’t even anyone watching, but I just felt so damned weird about the whole thing, especially considering the… new effect that Grace had on me. Wait, who was I kidding? She’d already had that effect on me, it was just amplified now.

I couldn’t get her clothed fast enough for my burning face, and my eyes were starting to hurt the way I had them scrunched up tight. Then I was carrying her up to our room, finding that the buns had done very well with their duties.

The alien couches had been pushed together in a way that created a large enclosed space where we could sleep without rolling out anywhere. I laid Grace down carefully onto the makeshift bed, covered her with her blankets and then rushed off to get my own bath done.

Even when I got back the bath was still charged with energy, and on a hunch I decided to work on the tree blueprints quickly. I added sinks to the bathrooms using separate water supplies, grip to the front ramp, along with flowers up and down the sides for lighting.

Adding the revised designs to the tree, I slipped into the bath and watched as my body began to throw the excess growth energy I was generating at it. The changes would take a day or so, but it was faster than throwing my normal reserves at the project. Meanwhile, I just had to endure this unending lust that coursed through me.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” I lied to myself as warm pleasure pulsed within me. I wasn’t going to be uh, going places with it, but damn was it a lot to deal with.

Once my bath was done and I’d calmed down a little, I walked back up to the room and stared down at Grace and the bed. Did I have the guts to lay down next to her, knowing what I did about the energy she was giving off? A thought occurred to me as I took in my friend’s sleeping form. What if by siphoning off the magic she was now obviously generating, I helped her a little? She’d seemed to still and stop sweating when we entered the grove...

I decided to test it, laying down carefully next to her, then placing a hand on her arm. Immediately my body was gorging itself on the stuff, tingling pleasure bursting through my veins in a torrent. I shuddered and pulled my hand back, cutting the flow off. I’d never be able to sleep if I had to deal with that… sensation.

I switched to my plant skin instead, bringing the flora side of my nature to the fore, then tried again. The pleasure was far lessened now, just a gentle hum of warmth, and I could see the rate of absorption had increased astronomically. Growth energy was pouring off me in waves as my reserves filled and then burst their tops. Alright, this might work.

Tentatively, apprehensively, I shifted to press myself against her side, embarrassment and shame coming writhing to the forefront of my mind. I shouldn’t be cuddling up to her like this while she couldn’t say no.

Except, as soon as I made wider contact with her, two things happened. First, the rate I was generating growth energy rose higher still, and second… she stirred. It wasn’t much, but her eyes fluttered open for a second as if half asleep, and she wrapped her arms around me, pulling me closer. My heart exploded into wonder in that moment, her strong arms around me causing a million tiny starbursts of happiness within me.

“You feel so nice and cold,” she whispered, burying her face in my hair.

“Grace? You’re okay?” I asked quickly, relief washing over me too. She was conscious! She might be okay!

Her only reply however, was to let out a long, chainsaw impression of a snore. Alright, clearly I was helping then! All I had to do was fall asleep while my heart thundered in my chest and wild affection ran rampant through my mind.

She felt so wonderful against me, so soft and warm, even without the constant flow of magic coming off of her. I decided not to over analyse what was happening and just enjoy it, enjoy the feeling of being held in her arms. I’d never been held so affectionately like this before, and before long I was crying soft, happy tears.

“Ryn?”

Grace’s voice fluttered pleasantly through my sleeping mind, causing a smile to grow through those bleary first moments of almost-consciousness.

As I slipped from sleep to waking, I gently pressed my face further into her shoulder. “Grace,” I said, breathing her in. I’d never been happier than right in that moment, her arms around me, protecting me.

“Ryn!” Grace said a little more urgently, shaking me slightly.

I groaned and opened my eyes, leaning back from her. I wanted to stay like that, in the uncomplicated world right after waking, where memory and worry hadn’t asserted themselves yet. Unfortunately, complicated was exactly the look she was giving me right now. It was a look that was really a whole lot of different looks. Confusion, worry, and… happiness?

“What… what happened?” she asked, gesturing around us at the… oh dear.

Apparently when I’d fallen asleep, the growth energy I’d been producing with Grace’s help had gotten… side tracked. I had gone full plant, bursting into dark magenta flower, and a few small green vines were wrapped around my friend as if to hold on to her all the better.

“Sorry!” I squeaked, quickly pulling all my personal vegetation back into me.

Except I wasn’t thinking and went to far, completely resuming human form. The instant I did, I received the full force of our body length physical contact. Pleasure exploded through me, searing every nerve with dancing sensation and I let out a high, trilling moan.

It was several seconds before I could get myself under control enough to bring my plant body back to the surface again, and during that time Grace wrapped me worriedly in her arms, inadvertently making the the problem worse. I was now massively aroused too, and still pressed up against the woman who’d caused that arousal. Crap, I wanted her so badly.

“What was that?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.

“It’s… a long story,” I mumbled into her arm, where my face had ended up, my body still twitching slightly with need for her. “What do you remember?”

“The glass thing… it broke and the magic… it got out,” she said slowly, her voice pained as she tried to remember.

“Yeah… it bounced off me and into you. It’s all inside you now,” I told her slowly, pushing back so I could see her face. “You keep making more and more now, I don’t know how.”

“I have magic in me? That magic?” she asked, her voice rising in pitch with every word. “How did we go from me getting contaminated with unknown magic, to us cuddling in our room, which is now also a jungle, on two alien couches, surrounded by a ring of bunnies?”

“Wait what?” I asked in alarm, sitting up to look around the bed.

Each of my buns was flopped in a loose circle on the floor around us, a floor that now had a thick layer of the most luscious grass I’d ever seen. Plants of all types were sprouting directly from the wood of the floor too, ferns, berry bushes, you name it. The walls had erupted into a jungle of glowing leaves, flowers and even fruits, each one wild and unique. It was like the room had gone into a plant riot while we were asleep.

“Okay, that’s new,” I said slowly, feeling my cheeks heating as I realised my mistake. It appears I needed to be awake for my growth energy to remain strictly on task.

“Ryn, please,” she whispered, almost begging. “What’s wrong with me? What’s happening?”

“Right, sorry… after you got hit, all the magic was just… sucked into you, knocking you unconscious. Since then it’s been, uh… reproducing. Then I noticed that if I absorbed it from you, you seemed to feel better… except it’s also very hard to handle that energy and it makes me feel um, weird. So I swapped to plant mode and that seemed to help,” I told her hesitantly, avoiding the whole sexual side of things for now.

She puffed out her cheeks in a big, weary sigh. “Okay… that’s a lot. So we’re cuddling because you’re siphoning energy off me to help me?”

“Um, something like that, yeah, sorry,” I nodded, blushing furiously now. “You uh, did kinda wake up for a second last night and pull me in really close though. You said I was nice and cold.”

“You are nice and cold… and you don’t need to be sorry,” she told me, her voice edged with strange emotion. “You’ve helped me, obviously… but it’s not like I mind cuddling up to you.”

“What?” I asked, breath rapidly escaping my lungs as I dared to hope for a second. “What do you mean?”

My heart was thundering in my chest now as I watched her. Was she maybe going to say that she might be interested in me? Romantically? Surely not… she hadn’t given much of an indication that she was… right? Except now she was staring at me with wide, almost yearning eyes, her own cheeks erupting in a blush.

“I’m sorry,” she cringed. “That was me being weird again, I just… you… I… um. Damn, I don’t know. Cuddles are nice.”

“They are,” I said, my heart so full to bursting now that my words were too quiet, I had to repeat myself. “They are… and I liked this one a lot.”

“You did?” she asked, confusion settling into her expression. “But you were siphoning the magic off me right? Like, that’s why?”

“Kinda,” I said, dropping eye contact. It was too hard, looking into those wonderful, expressive green eyes of hers. If I didn’t look away I might try and kiss her again or something. “Mostly I just didn’t think about it…”

Her face fell. “Oh… I guess I won’t think about it either?”

“No, no!” I exclaimed, shuffling closer again into her arms. “I mean, I wasn’t thinking too hard about why I was cuddling you. I just liked it, you needed it, so I did it!”

“Oh…” she breathed, and then we were just staring at each other again, faces close, bodies closer.

My eyes roamed over her face, enjoying the proximity where I could just… visually explore her like this. She was so pretty, and it was like every day she got prettier in my eyes. She’d been glowing to me even before she got a magical star trapped inside her body. Her personality, protective, caring, gentle and wonderful had drawn me in from the moment I met her back on Earth.

I couldn’t really deny it anymore, I was falling in love with her, emphasis on the falling. Like, really hard, as hard as it would be to fall off my tree. How do you even resist falling for someone like Grace, with her bright mind, that amazing body and gorgeous face, especially since I’d been spending most of my waking and sleeping moments with her. I didn’t resist it, I couldn’t, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to.

She was moving before I realised it, her hand drifting to my waist, her face moving close, her lips parting… and then she was kissing me.

I shorted out, mind going white with shock even as my heart burst into a breathless, overwhelming surge of affection. My body reacted too, shockwaves of warmth rippling through me that had me moving almost without thought. My legs tangled urgently with hers, locking us in place, my hands rushed to hold her, fingers splayed out across the supple muscles of her back.

Her lips were so gentle on mine at first, hesitant and caring, ready to back away in a moment, but when I pulled us closer together, the kiss deepened. My world shrank, just the feel of our mouths moving oh so slowly, oh so tantalisingly together. Each brush of soft lip on soft lip had my mind spinning off madly into space, and it was the most incredible thing I’d ever experienced.

I was being kissed by Grace, by the girl I had literally just admitted to having fallen for, and what’s more… she seemed really into it. Her hands had slid up the back of my shirt now, fingers running a line of hot sensation up my spine. She felt so good, I never wanted to stop kissing her.

So obviously, with that thought… that’s what she did, pulling back from the kiss quickly. “I’m sorry!” she blurted, eyes going wide with panic.

“Don’t be! I loved it, it was amazing, and with the way your magic effects me right now, I’m definitely not complaining,” I said quickly, trying to placate her. Why was she freaking out? I was obviously kissing her back!

Shit, and she had kissed me! Did that mean she was like.. into me? Or just like, horny or something?

“What do you mean, the way my magic effects you?” she asked, each word heavy with worry.

If I hadn’t already been completely red in the face, I would have blushed some more. “Your magic… it turns me on, like… a lot. It’s worse when I’m in full human mode too.”

“What?!” she blurted, almost angrily, pushing back from me entirely. “Was that what this was just now?”

“No! No way!” I said, raw fear piercing my heart. “No! That was something… I’ve been wanting.”

“How can you be sure?” she asked, shaking her head. She looked wild eyed, freaked out by the revelation, far more freaked out than she should be. “How can either of us be sure that you were acting without… you just got a huge dose from me. If you wanted… that, but it didn’t happen until now, you must have been holding back for a reason.”

This could not be happening, this could seriously not be happening. Right when I find out she might be interested in me, right when we actually end up kissing, not just kissing, but my first kiss... now she’s doubting?! It was like a bad dream, a nightmare come to tease me with what I wanted, only to violently yank the rug out from under me.

“I was holding back all this time because I didn’t think you’d want to kiss me back!” I cried with frustration and misery, already expecting the worst from this conversation.

“I did!” she said, her tone lamenting. “But now I don’t know if I’m messing with your head or not when… you know. Shit! Why… why is this. God fuck damn. We can’t know if what you’re feeling is genuine while I have this magic in me!”

“Why are you trying to dictate to me what I am and am not feeling, Grace?” I asked her, almost angry now. “I know what I’ve been feeling, what’s been building within me. I’m falling for you damn it!”

“I can’t do this Ryn, I need to be sure. I can’t… I can’t put my heart out on the line again, I don’t want to hurt again,” she said sadly, getting up and shakily moving out of the bed. “I need to be sure, I need to know… I need to have that undeniable trust in anything that might happen, Ryn. I can’t be crushed again.”

I opened my mouth to protest, to try and convince her, but… she was sort of right. No matter how sure of my own feelings I was, I needed her to be sure too. With that element of uncertainty hanging in her mind, nothing would work.

Although I wasn't entirely sure what "something" would look like. She hadn't outright stated that she was romantically interested… just that she'd enjoyed the kiss. Well, and the heart on the line thing. Maybe she was? Love was so much harder than stories made it out to be.

“Okay…” I said, tears welling in my eyes. “Okay. That makes sense… I wish I could convince you that I’m sincere, but until then… you’re right.”

“Thank you,” she sighed, stepping back towards me and reaching up as if to wipe a tear from my face, although she seemed to think better of it. Stepping back again, she swallowed hard. “I’m going to go to the toilet and find food… I’ll see you down—“

“Wait!” I blurted, remembering something monumentally important. “Wait! You can’t just go off on your own, okay? You’re generating huge amounts of unknown magical energy, so much that it was hurting you, probably doing damage to your body.”

“Oh, shit,” she said, then shook her head in disbelief. “So that means you’re going to need to be practically glued to me doesn’t it?”

“Yes, even… like we were sleeping last night,” I said awkwardly. “I have no idea how often I’ll need to drain you, but we’ll definitely need to be sleeping like that, to make sure you don’t explode or whatever.”

“Explode?!” she asked, alarmed.

“Grace,” I said, a little exasperated. “I don’t think you fully realise what’s happening inside you. You’re… you’re like the sun, you’re a perpetual explosion of wild magic right now. Last night when you were full up, there were arcs of the stuff exploding off your body. Troy tried to pick you up, but the moment he touched you it was like he was hit by lightning!”

“Jesus, really? Okay, okay… so we have to be cuddly, even if it’s… awkward,” she murmured, conflict warring across her expression.

“Basically,” I nodded, too worried about her wellbeing to really pay much mind to the awkward part. “Look, I’m sorry… I just care way too much about you to let this hurt you.”

She let out a long, drawn out sigh and sat down on the arm of the couch. She stayed like that for a few moments before she bonelessly flopped down next to me, her arms snaking around me. She pulled me over to her, then wearily placed her head on my stomach.

“Damn,” she groaned. “This magic shit really doesn’t live up to the hype.”

Tentatively, I reached my hand out, brushing my fingers through her blonde hair. It had grown out since Earth, and the sun had run bright highlights through it. “We’ll figure it out,” I reassured her. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Grace!” Adam cried out as we shuffled into the guy’s common room. “You’re awake!”

“Yeah, thanks to Ryn,” she smiled, glancing sideways at me and lifting our intertwined fingers.

Holding hands had seemed like the easiest way to keep the level of her magic low, so here we were… holding hands. I was struggling with this whole situation on a deep and heartfelt level. The way we were holding hands was more than just how we might do it out of necessity, but we weren’t really talking about it. I mean really, her thumb kept absently brushing mine with so much care that it was making my eyes water.

That brought Adam’s eyebrows up and his eyes down to our hands. “What do you mean?”

Either the buns or the guys had dragged a table and some chairs up, so Grace and I sat down with them, dropping each other’s hands so we could eat. During breakfast, I went on to explain Grace's problem, and how I could mitigate it by absorbing the energy via skin contact. Grace seemed to be perfectly functional otherwise, which meant that after a morning of rest we might be able to continue our journey.

Well, we thought she was fine, until ten minutes into breakfast and she reached for an apple. It was one that had been grown in my grove, or it was… until her magic made itself known again. A small spark of rainbow light, like a miniature coronal mass ejection whipped out with a crack, blowing the apple into little chunks. The tiny explosion sprayed everyone at the table with those chunks of fruit, and we all stopped for a second to stare at it.

“You sure you feel up to travelling?” Troy asked cautiously.

“Yeah,” she nodded, somewhat defensively. “I feel… fine.”

She’d wobbled slightly with that last word, and I took that as my cue to do some proper draining of her powers. I reached over without asking, and lifted her shirt slightly, sliding my hands and bare forearms up her back and stomach. She twitched and straightened as I leaned close and placed my cheek to her neck, head facing away from everyone at the table. I needed as much skin contact as possible after all.

“Oh,” she whispered breathlessly, leaning into the intense skin on skin contact between us. “That’s nice.”

I heard Adam clear his throat with a chuckle and say awkwardly, “I’m sure it is.”

“Shut up,” Grace grumbled. “She’s so nice and cold. It feels like I have a fever and she’s a lovely cold shower. She feels amazing.”

On an incredibly naughty impulse, I shifted my lips to brush at her ear, knowing full well what it would look like to the others, and whispered, “Now which one of us is being compelled to enjoy the touches between us, hmm?”

I felt her answering stutter of breath through my hands and arms, and placed my head back down on her shoulder with a grin, my index finger tracing a slow, soft circle over her spine. She’d been teasing me and testing my self control for weeks now, and with the discovery that she felt something for me, be it sexual or romantic… well I couldn’t resist a little payback.

Troy made a strange, awkward sound, his voice gruff as he said, “Right, so long as you two can… keep that up, do you think we’ll be fine to try and make some miles?”

Shifting my position to look back at him, I nodded. “We might leave a trail of flowers or something behind us though.”

“Uh, what?” Kit blurted, staring between Grace and I with flushed cheeks.

“I’m absorbing all the energy she’d generating and then converting it into growth energy, but there’s no way I could hold the amount she’s making, so instead I’m just constantly radiating the stuff,” I told them. “You might have noticed how there’s some weird new growth around, or the beginnings of some sinks in the bathrooms.”

“Ah, I did notice that,” Kit nodded, looking thoughtfully down at his food. “That’s actually rather useful.”

“It is, I might take my new pet nuke out for a spin soon to grow some of my plants a bit more,” I giggled, getting a grumpy sound from Grace.

“Only if your battery says yes, thank you very much,” she told me, leaning back to glare at me. A glare that was undercut just slightly by the flicker of a smile that was threatening to become a grin.

We held each other’s gazes for probably far longer than necessary, but her eyes were just so entrancing, I couldn’t look away.

“Well, let’s finish breakfast then,” Troy interrupted, and I glanced over to see him very pointedly not looking at us, with Kit doing the same. Adam was grinning at us like an idiot, his eyes sparkling with mirth. Then he wiggled his fuckin’ eyebrows at us. Crap. He was going to add to our suffering with even more of his teasing, I just knew it. Not that Grace and I were doing much to stop that suffering right now.

Despite our teasing back and forth, Grace did actually agree to walk around my grove with me and help give my plants a boost. My grove was going well, the forest sections I’d planted were thriving under the care of my buns, and my resource fields were looking good too. I could see where the buns had been cutting down the trees I’d set out as lumber too, which was great news. I should check out the other storage room that had all the resources collecting in it.

When I did, I found a whole bunch of hardwood logs stacked up, aging and drying in there. There were also several piles of various fruits and vegetables that had little trails of crumbs leading from them. The bunnies had been snacking. That was fine, they were good little buns. Other materials had been collected too, ready for processing, whenever that could be figured out. Maybe I could sell a bunch of this stuff for tools, or maybe doors for the rooms inside the tree. Preferably before another storm hit us.

When lunch came and went, so did we, walking out into the plains again to continue our journey. The mountains were properly visible now, and my word did they look strange. They reminded me of the mountains from that one area in china, huge pillars of rock everywhere, some of them so large and dizzyingly high that I could have sworn they would fall over at any moment. How could anyone live in this place with the fear of those things falling over onto them?

They weren’t all the same height though, or starting off at the same elevation, because where there weren’t rock pillars, it was canyons. The walls of which were so massive that they had definitely earned the right to be called mountains.

It looked like a nightmare to traverse, and I was already wondering how the hell we were going to make our way through. Because on top of the massive rock spires and sheer canyon walls, the whole thing was covered in what looked like a dense, impenetrable temperate rainforest.

We were still a day or so away, but already we were having discussions about what the hell to do next. None of us were equipped to get through. We might have to find our way to a road before we tried to go in too deep. Privately I was kicking myself for not asking about a route through the mountains. My ignorant city-girl nature was really showing itself right about now.

That night we headed back into the grove and stumbled our way through our bedtime routines. Grace and I had to take very quick baths, because neither of us was comfortable bathing with the other, but she still had to have her energy siphoned off constantly.

I sat in our makeshift bed as I waited for her to finish, staring around at the happily glowing vegetation from last night. I really hoped that it wouldn’t get too out of control. Maybe I should get the buns to clear the room out tomorrow? As pretty as it was, it made the room rather hard to use.

“Ryn!” Grace’s voice came through from what we were calling the girl’s common room outside.

“In here!” I replied, leaning my head on the back of one of the couches, now the side wall of our little bed-fort.

A few moments later and she was stumbling into the room, gasping for air. “Please,” she begged, her eyes unfocused, skin pale and arcing with energy, her expression drawn.

“Shit,” I swore, shuffling towards the foot of the bed and helping to pull her into it.

She slept with a sports bra on while she was with me, so I yanked her top up over her head, then did my own. I knew that I wasn’t wearing anything under that top, but she did not look good right now, and that took priority.

I pulled her on top of me, pressing smooth skin to smooth skin and settling her head down on my shoulder while I tried to maximise skin contact across the rest of her body. I was still in my minimum plant form, and had been for the entire day almost, so arousal wasn’t too much a problem. Well, besides the fact that I was now cradling Grace while topless.

“I’ve got you,” I soothed, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of her head. “I’ve got you.”

“I feel like I’m on fire,” she whimpered, clinging to me. “Like I’ve just eaten a really spicy pepper, but my whole body is feeling it, not just my tongue.”

“Yeah, I can feel how warm you are,” I said gently, brushing my fingers down the dip of her spine sympathetically. “I’m draining it though, you’ll feel better soon.”

“Thank you,” she said, so quiet it was more of a sigh than real speech.

While I held her, I decided to make a change to my tree that was purely aesthetic. I added glowing flowers to the outside branches, the colours ranging from purple to pink and into blue. If I was going to constantly be exploding with growth energy while I slept, may as well put it to some use.

“Can we sleep like this tonight?” she murmured drowsily into my collarbone. “I’m comfortable and happy.”

“Yes, of course,” I told her, affection welling up and overflowing within me, just like my magic. Holy shit, I cared about her so damned much. How was it even possible to feel this much raw emotion? “Whatever will make you happy, that’s what we’ll do,” I continued, my voice aching with care.

“Blankets,” she grumbled, tightening her hold on me. “I’m cold no— Ryn… are you topless?“

“Yup,” I laughed quietly. “I didn’t exactly have time to put a bra on before tending to you.”

“Okay, put a bra on or something, then blankets,” she said with embarrassment flaming her cheeks, rolling off me as fast as possible.

I watched her valiantly avoid staring at my boobs for a whole three seconds before her eyes gave a quick flick down, then back up again. I just grinned, it was nice having her get embarrassed about seeing my chest. My boobs were pretty great, and plus, the way she was acting was just a very intense and intimate affirmation of my gender. I was a girl, and not just a girl, but a hot girl who was being stared at by another hot girl, and both of us found the other girl hot. If that makes sense...

Deciding to show a little mercy, I pushed myself out of bed and went hunting in my pack for my bra and the blankets, then hopped back into bed. Smiling sleepily, she waited until I was settled in and then tentatively shuffled over to me.

“I can still…?” she asked, whispering hopefully.

My answer was to smoothly pull her down on top of me. “Yes, you can.”

“Well... shit,” Troy sighed, running his hands through his close cropped hair as he stared at the cliff face in front of us.

It was a broken, jagged thing that was about thirty meters of rock and debris. It was pretty clearly the end of the plains and it ran for about a mile in each direction. The whole mountain range that now towered over us was the same mess of rock, as though some massive god had thrown a tantrum and hacked at the ground with a pickaxe or something.

“Which way do we go?” Grace asked, glancing either way. “Left is inland I think, and right is towards the sea? If I remember correctly?”

Grace wasn’t wearing her armour, just some hardy travelling clothes. We’d realised that if for some reason I needed to drain her quickly, I’d need easier access to her skin than her armour allowed. So normal clothing it was.

“It is,” I nodded, squeezing her hand. “The rivers were travelling in that direction anyway.”

“Towards the sea then,” Troy replied, already beginning to walk that way. “More likely to be settlements and roads near the sea than inland.”

We trekked through the foothills of the mountains for a day before we saw anything other than mountains on one side and grassland on the other. In fact, we almost stumbled into a wide, shallow and sedate river that was meandering out from the mountains at an angle.

When Grace and I approached the water, reaching down to dip our free hands into it, we found it cool and clear. The stuff was probably ice melt from higher in the mountains where it might snow regularly, although we couldn’t see evidence of that from here. There wasn’t any snow to be seen on the mountains from here, only a ton of vegetation.

The river, as much as it blocked our path, also provided some help. It ran in either direction along the bank of the river was a path, although it was little more than a goat track with signs of human passage. Since the river seemed to be coming from the mountains, the decision was made to follow the track into the mountains.

Unlike the Plains of Mosteghunoksia, the mountains and forest were teeming with sound and life. Actually, it was almost deafening as the evening began to roll around, the birds were going absolutely mental in the trees. Thousands of sparrows all yelling over the top of each other like enthusiastic vendors in a crowded market.

At one point we saw a herd of what appeared to be deer grazing close to the bank on the other side of the river, a few of which curiously glanced up to watch us. It was rather amazing to see a place so teeming with life after that damned grassland.

Although, Grace and I really had been making it a little more interesting as we walked. We seemed to send every plant we walked past into excited bloom, the flowers of which would follow us like they might follow the sun as it tracked across the sky. If someone wanted to follow us now, it would not be hard, which was a little worrying.

When we stopped for the night, we hid ourselves as best we could in the forest and swapped over into my grove. The next morning, we continued down the path and found it connected with a larger cart track.

The cart track led us for another half a day, until we sighted a settlement in the distance. It was larger than most villages we’d come across so far, but far smaller than the cities. A well crafted wooden wall surrounded the place where it was nestled in a bend of the river, woodfire smoke drifting up from chimneys that peeked over the wall. We figured it must be some sort ot trading post, a place that had sprung up organically because it was once a convenient place to rest on the journey to trade with the Obrec.

“We need to go in there, get information,” Troy stated, then turned to look at Grace and me. “Except there’s no way we’ll be able to hide you two.”

“We could sell some of the resources from my grove too, try and trade it for some tools and stuff,” I said thoughtfully. “But yeah, I think Grace and I will have to sit this one out.”

“Agreed, will you two be fine on your own, possibly hide in your grove until a predetermined time of day?” he asked with his usual calm expression.

I glanced over at Grace to see what she thought and found her looking back at me. We shared a silent conversation for a split second before I turned back and nodded to Troy. “Yeah, that works. How about sunset?”

“Sunset is easy, sounds good. If for whatever reason we don’t make it back, try again in the morning,” he said with a slight smile. “Let’s go find a spot, then we can take some of your stuff into town to sell.”

“What if you don’t come back at all?” Grace asked quietly. She seemed subdued for some reason, which I’d need to ask her about when we got some time alone. I hoped that her condition wasn’t causing her to get depressed or anything.

“Meet in Millowhall, or failing that, back at Avonside, but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” he smiled reassuringly.

Grace didn’t look convinced by his words, but she didn’t say anything more. Alright, something was definitely wrong with her. Did she know something?

Regardless, we trekked into the forest for a good ten minutes before we decided that we were safe enough, then swapped over. Going straight to the stores, we had a look around at what we might be able to sell. The alien stuff was difficult, because it was almost sure to fetch a good price, but it was also the type of thing that we’d want to take back to Avonside or even just use ourselves.

The plants I’d grown were much easier. The guys loaded up on spices and anything else that might be easy to carry, and then I transferred them all out for their little trip into town, which left Grace and I alone in the grove together.

“What do you want to do?” she asked awkwardly. Right, I was going to ask her what was wrong, then comfort her.

“Come with me,” I told her, taking her hand again and pulling her along behind me.

I dragged her across the large meadow in front of the tower tree towards where the lake was still being dug. Thankfully it hadn’t rained yet and the buns were able to add depth to it without having to swim or anything. It did have a few trees that I’d already placed strategically around it though, including a small stand of willows.

Brushing aside the drooping branches of one willow, I pulled her inside the enclosed space of the tree and then indicated that she sit down against the trunk of the tree. Doing so, she watched me with melancholic curiosity as she carefully got herself comfortable.

“What’s up?” she asked, searching my face for answers.

“You seemed down and a little odd about that conversation we had earlier,” I said, sitting down next to her.

“It’s nothing…” she murmured, avoiding my eyes now.

“Grace?” I asked, matching her quiet tone.

She didn’t answer immediately, so I laid my head down on her shoulder and waited. She seemed to like that, leaning into the contact with a sigh. Then she was shifting, putting both arms around me and cuddling close. It felt so lovely to be casually intimate with her like this, and it almost had me thinking that it was good she’d been hit by that magic. Almost, except for the obvious fear that it might hurt her, or worse. Although… if we could stabilise it and teach her to control it...

“I just kinda feel useless, you know?” she whispered, her breath warm as it ran through my hair. “Like, I don’t know. I have a bad feeling about that town back there, but I can’t really help or fight if I’m glued to you. No offence. I… really enjoy this, don’t get me wrong, and you’re so lovely to be around…”

“It’s okay, I understand,” I said, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze where it rested on my stomach. “We’ll figure something out.”

“How can you be sure though?” she asked, sounding defeated already. “What if I’m stuck like this forever?”

“No,” I frowned, shifting in her arms to face her. “No thinking like that,” I said, almost glaring at her as I booped her nose. “If worst comes to worst, I’ll make a mage fruit and throw you in that. Maybe that will help.”

She blinked at me in bewilderment, then smiled, glancing down for a moment. “Alright,” she chuckled, then looked back up, hitting me with a look so full of emotion that I wondered for a dumb moment if it was being powered by her magic. “You’re so wonderful Ryn. You’re so kind, so thoughtful… so damn smart.”

“O-oh,” I blushed, and it was my turn to look away. “Thanks.”

“You’re beautiful too. You know my mind completely blanked out that first time I saw you? It’s like you were tailor made to be attractive to me. I mean, your hair is one of my favourite colours for crying out loud!” she exclaimed, her hand reaching up to hesitantly brush at it. She gave a little laugh as she continued, “You’re like a… sad bun that was stuck in a small cage, but now you’ve been let out to binkie in the open grass. I guess what I mean is that I still see the old you in there, except happier, more free.”

“It does feel like that. But… as for you, I’ve been impressed and kinda attracted to you since before we arrived on this world,” I confessed, embarrassment heating my cheeks.

“Wait, really?” she asked, a frown creasing her brows.

I snorted. “Yup. You had confused, closeted Ryn all flustered with how you were being all strong and sexy and stuff. Then you were so much fun to talk to and I was all, crap, she’s too good, but she’s a lesbian and I look like a dude.”

“Well, that part isn’t a problem anymore,” she laughed, giving my body a pointed sweep with her eyes.

“Yeah, but instead there’s… this magic thing,” I sighed, settling in against her so I wouldn’t have to meet her gaze.

“Yeah… now there’s that,” she said neutrally.

The conversation died after that, but we sat under the tree and cuddled, dozing in and out of consciousness as the day wore on. Despite the fact that we were meant to be… well, not together, it still felt like we were in that moment. Both of us just enjoying the feel of the other, the silent companionship that slowly settled on us after the awkwardness died down.

Being held was still a wild experience for me, and something that I deeply cherished. I felt safe in her arms, safe and warm and insulated from the world. All feelings that I had been sorely lacking up until now, and I desperately hoped that something more would be allowed to blossom between Grace and I. I couldn’t lose this, I couldn’t lose her.

When it was finally evening and time to swap back to the mundane world to meet the boys, Grace and I reluctantly stood up from where we’d sat all day under the willow tree. We’d talked about this and that, dozed and cuddled, just generally enjoying our little half-day break from travel together.

“You ready?” I asked Grace, dropping her hand so she could wield her pistol properly.

“Yeah,” she smiled, bumping my hip with hers. “Shields up?”

“Okay, I’m going to take us over in three, two… one,” I said, shifting us back into the mundane realm and slamming my shield dome down.

The forest was dark and quiet as we searched the underbrush around us for sign of our friends, but there was nothing but the gentle sway of the wind through leaves around us. Tense moments went by as we waited, nothing stirring, no dorky guys in scary helmets and no enemy mages flinging blasts of fire.

“Where are they?” Grace whispered, lowering her weapon slightly. “And how long can you keep this barrier up?”

“Indefinitely, if you’re touching me,” I replied, switching to mage sight and peering into the forest.

Trying to see through the forest was an exercise in futility as the whole place was absolutely saturated in magic. I wouldn’t be able to see someone if they were even ten meters deep into the trees. Something was obviously strange about this forest, but that wasn’t our concern right now.

“I can’t see them with mage sight, the forest is too charged with magic,” I told her quietly.

“Do we wait?” she asked anxiously, shifting to place her hand on my arm to fuel me with magic.

“Let me see where they are, hold on,” I said, concentrating on that location spell I’d made way back at the start of my grove.

Casting it, I was immediately aware of Grace and her ring standing next to me. After that were the four of our family still at Avonside. Wait, no… one of the three was a while off from Avonside, not far, but enough for it to be significant. Then there was Adam’s ring, off further into the mountains. Much further, and moving fast.

“Shit! Adam is that way, about six miles,” I said quickly, pointing out the direction as worry took hold of me. “He’s running I think, judging by how fast he’s moving, but I can’t tell anything else.”

“What? Why? How did you figure that out?” she asked urgently, raising an eyebrow in question.

“The rings. I have a spell that can track anyone wearing our family rings, it’s how I found you all in the first place,” I told her absently, trying to figure out what was happening with all the magical senses I could bring to bear.

We were alone, they’d abandoned us for some reason. Maybe they were running from something and didn’t want to lead it to us? That had to be it, maybe they ran into mages while they were in the town? Crap, but what did we do now?

What if they died? What if all three of them died? I liked Troy! He was nice, and a kind leader, plus he was trans, like me… he was my people. He couldn’t die. Kit was good too, shy and kind, thoughtful and intelligent. Then there was Adam, cheeky, silly Adam. Family, and he obviously cared about Grace and I the same way we cared about him. He was like a big brother, always stirring shit, but there when we needed someone to carry us.

“Hey, calm down, it’s okay,” Grace said, holstering her gun so that she could cup my cheek with her hand. “We’ll find them, we just have to stay calm and think things through.”

“Yeah.. you’re right,” I nodded, leaning my cheek into her hand appreciatively and taking a few calming breaths. Then something odd occurred to me. “You never thought to ask how I was right there in that market?”

“Nope… I was too busy being happy I found you, to be honest,” she said, squeezing my arm. Then she was smiling and looking bashfully down at the forest floor. “Well, I was also struggling to deal with how cute you’d become.”

“Thanks,” I grinned, feeling the compliment hit me right in the gender feels as well as quelling my fear, just a little. “Okay… okay… thinking calm, the guys are obviously being chased, and they didn’t want to lead whoever it is back towards us.”

“Yeah, there is that,” she sighed, turning to stare off into the forest. “How do we catch up to them? How do we help them?”

“I’m not sure we can, because it’s probably mages,” I sighed, feeling helpless. “I might have raw power, especially with you at my side, but that isn’t really enough. I’d be outclassed on skill no matter how much power I threw into any single spell. Bullets probably won’t work either if it’s Fennimore’s crew and word has gotten out. They will have beefed up their shields.”

“So we have no options,” Grace grimaced, glancing around us at the dark forest with its ring-beams filtering down through the canopy. “What the hell do we do?”

I was silent as I thought on the question while trying to keep myself calm. What if we didn’t need to help them? They were heading towards a border right? Not one of the laughably porous ones back in Anve land, but a real, hard border between two entirely different species, let alone cultures. If they could cross it…

“I think it might be best if we simply followed them at a safe enough distance,” I said after a moment. “They probably got directions to Millowhall right? That must be where they’re going, with whoever is chasing them in tow. Once they reach the border into Mossbed lands, their tail might leave them alone and we can reunite with them.”

“That’s… a plan,” Grace nodded slowly. “I don’t like it, I don’t like being separated from them, but I think you’re right.”

“Neither.” I said, and then took a chance and dropped the barrier. “Do we want to get started? We’ve been kinda sleeping all day, so we might be able to make some miles while that energy lasts.”

“Sure, let’s do it.”

We moved through the forest rather than the road, using Adam’s position to guide us. Keeping off the road just seemed like a good idea due to the fact that they were being chased, we didn’t want to run into the pursuers after all.

The forest was very different at night, quiet in an almost eerie way that had us watching our backs. It wasn’t as bad as the plains, thank goodness, but hearing the call of some creature we didn’t recognise in the distance was a different kind of paranoia. It didn’t help that the wind was perpetually playing with the leaves in the canopy, creating a constant rustle that had been pleasant during the day, but now that we were relying on our hearing, it was a problem.

Thankfully, navigating during night time on the ring was significantly easier than navigating on Earth at night. There was a muted strip of light arcing across the sky after all, rather than just the relatively small point of the moon.

“How close are they?” Grace asked, a few hours after we’d started moving.

“Let me check,” I replied tiredly, casting the spell to track the rings.

Except this time, nothing happened. I could only feel Grace’s ring next to me, while the other rings were gone completely. Slow, gnawing panic began to set in and I rushed to cast the spell again. Maybe something had gone wrong?

With the second casting, I felt all the rings where I had expected them to be and breathed a sigh of relief.

“What?” Grace asked, searching my face with her gaze.

“The spell messed up for a second there,” I said, staring down at my arm where the flower tattoos had been. “But it worked when I tried again.”

“Oh, I didn’t know spells could fail like that,” she said, looking thoughtful.

“Neither did I…” I murmured, too quiet for her to hear.

We kept moving, but my thoughts stayed with the spell misfire I’d just experienced. I could have sworn I’d cast it properly… and yet…

“Do you see that?” Grace blurted, not a few moments later, and I jerked my gaze up to follow her pointed finger.

I gave a squeak of fright when I laid eyes on it. A pair of large, golden eyes stared at us from a tree some ten yards off. They weren’t doing anything, just staring, and when I squinted I could make out the form of some crouched bird, like an owl or something. We froze as it watched us, but it didn’t seem bothered by the fact we’d seen it. It just… stared.

“That’s not creepy at all,” Grace mumbled sarcastically, tugging on my arm to keep us moving.

After the bird we didn’t run into anything for another hour, and we were getting tired, so we decided to stop for the night and go back to the grove.

“I’m just going to do one last check of Adam’s position before we go back,” I said to my friend, fighting a yawn.

“Righto,” she replied as she caught my yawn with one of her own.

Reaching into my grove, I pulled magic through my plants and cast the ring locator spell, watching as the vines and flowers wrapped around my arm and wrist. The spell completed, and I focused on the information it gave me…

“Shit!” I swore, spinning around in confusion. “How the…”

I was staring back the way we’d come, in the direction that my spell now said that Adam was in. Had we somehow passed them? But that couldn’t be right, there was no way they could have made it all the way past us in the time since my last check… what the hell was going on?

“What’s wrong?” Grace asked, squeezing my hand anxiously.

“My spell! It’s… pointing us backwards now. This isn’t right, they should be in front of us still,” I told her, my thoughts whirling. “They should be… something isn’t right. Something is messing with us.”

“Let’s get back into the grove,” she said urgently, pulling me back to face her. “We’re safe in your grove right? We’ll figure out what to do in there, where we have time.”

“Yes… yes, that’s a good idea,” I nodded, closing my eyes to take us back through.

Pulling at the fabric of reality, I pushed between the threads towards the Nameless garden. I felt my grove, familiar and safe as it beckoned to me from within.

Then, with a sudden, head splitting tug, I felt our transition from mundane to garden space change, become twisted. I could only observe with dawning horror as I realised that someone or something had grabbed us as we’d been halfway through, redirecting us somewhere else entirely.

The trip was short, but still filled with panic as questions and worries surged through my mind. Then we were out, dumped unceremoniously onto lush, wild grass. I didn’t wait for any attacks to come, instead I just slammed my barrier shield down as fast as I could bring the spell up. That, thankfully at least, worked.

A high, trilling voice rang out in amused song nearby, “Oh my, isn’t that cute.”

“Who’s there?” Grace demanded, her gun coming up as she swivelled to look around us.

My first move however was to look up, then sigh in relief at what I saw. The arch of the ring was still there, we were still on the ring.

Where the hell were we on the ring though? Glancing around, I saw that we were in a deep hollow within the mountains, craggy and broken rock surrounded us on all sides, familiar verdant forest growing up the sides. Surrounding us was a meadow of lush grass and flowers, with a crystal clear pool of water in the middle.

The strangest thing about our surroundings, apart from the fact that no one was here, was that the vegetation was so lush. Flowers were almost too bright in their colours, even in the dark, the grass was too green, even the dirt was almost as nice as the stuff in my grove. It was like the whole place was bursting with life and growth, far beyond what was normal or natural.

“They always ask that,” the singsong voice muttered. “Who’s there?”

“Well, of course we’re going to ask who’s there when we can’t fucking see you,” Grace growled, rolling her eyes.

“Oh ho, ho,” the voice said with a chuckle. “She’s a plain speaking one, intriguing.”

Grace opened her mouth to reply, but she faltered when the plants around us came alive with movement. Plants from all across the hollow were lifting into the air, their roots sliding out of the ground smoothly and without any dirt trailing behind.

Flowers, ferns, shrubs and everything else twirled and danced in an ever tightening vortex in the center of the hollow, until it ruched inwards on itself. Stepping forth from the maelstrom of leaves and flowers was an obrec woman made of the same material. A patchwork of leaves and petals made up her skin, so closely packed that it made her skin seem entirely smooth. She stood at what must have been seven feet tall was well, all of which was very much unclothed.

“Hello there,” she smiled amicably, a twist of mischief dancing in her eyes.

“Uh, hi?” I asked, my voice rising in pitch as she sauntered towards us, hips swaying seductively.

Once she was within comfortable conversation distance, she sat down, a tangle of vines bursting from the ground to form a chair. Crossing her legs, she regarded us with mysterious amusement.

“You two have been causing quite a racket around here,” she chuckled, idly caressing a flower that had grown out of her chair. “Two little mortals dancing through my woods, leaving a bloody great trail of magic in their wake. Quite intriguing if you ask me, so I just had to get a look at the both of you.”

“Who are you?” Grace asked cautiously. “Hell, what are you?”

“My, that tongue of yours is rather blunt isn’t it?” the large, naked plant woman laughed, before she leaned forward slightly. “My name is Ollinfer, and I am… well that is complicated, but the natives around these parts call me a goddess. Well... as far as you can call anyone on this world a native anyway.”

“Oh…” Grace said, her eyes going wide.

“That explains how you schwooped me away from my grove,” I said quietly. If anyone could just fuck with my magic like it was nothing, it would be a goddess.

“Yes indeed,” she nodded, beginning to play with the flower again. “So if I might ask, now that I have your attention, pray tell why you are wandering through my woods spraying growth magics everywhere. I’m not complaining of course, my realm is the forest after all, but it is not every day that energies of that magnitude are thrown so casually about the countryside.”

Grace and I glanced at each other and I found the same question mirrored in her eyes. Could we trust this strange woman who claimed to be worshipped as a goddess? Did we even have a choice? Would she be able to tell if we were lying?

Grace gave a tiny shrug and a nod, which I took as a sign to just tell Ollinfer the truth.

“We uh, found an ancient ring builder lab and Grace kinda got a big load of rainbow coloured magic poured into her,” I said slowly, watching our host for reactions. “I have to keep siphoning it off and ejecting it as growth energy to keep her from overheating.”

“An ancient ring builder lab,” Ollinfer said, her eyes growing distant as she stared past us. “I remember them, the Umare, they called themselves. I pity them, those poor, noble fools that they were. To think they doomed the galaxy by winning a war.”

Grace and I shared another, alarmed glance at the knowledge she’d just casually dumped on us. The builders were called the Umare, and they had doomed the whole galaxy?

“Sorry, hold on… doomed the whole galaxy?” I asked with a squeak.

“Oh, well… parts of it anyway,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “Forgive an old woman her theatrics. The pressing matter appears to be the uncontrolled multi-spectrum magical fusion going on within your friend here.”

I mean, she was right, but… doomed galaxy! She couldn’t just… drop that and then do the conversational equivalent of wandering off! Wait, uncontrolled multi-spectrum… what?

I took a shaking breath and concentrated, “Right, yeah. That’s a bit of an issue, sorry… can you explain what that means?” Grace gave a snort.

“I will, but well… I suggest you siphon some off her now, she appears to be wobbling,” Ollinfer said, raising an eyebrow and motioning to Grace.

Taking the tall naked lady’s advice, I reached down for Grace’s hand and started draining the magic out of her, because yeah, she’d been swaying a little. It seemed to hit her balance first when she was starting to overheat.

“Oh, my… you’re just spraying it everywhere aren’t you?” Ollinfer coughed, her breathing suddenly laboured. “Would you mind pointing it away from me, it’s hard to think with that mess bouncing around.”

The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself. “Does it make you horny too?”

My cheeks were instantly aflame with embarrassment as I realised what I’d asked and I looked away, anywhere but at the goddess sitting on her throne. I also quickly pointed the spray of energy away from the her.

“Something like that, yes.” Ollinfer said, her laugh ringing out through the hollow like a chorus of songbirds, before she leaned forward to stare pointedly at Grace, her expression turning serious. “Now, I have an… offer for you.”

Oh dear, that sounded… ominous. Everyone knows that making deals with mysterious fae-like beings after being kidnapped by them was always a recipe for disaster.

“What is it?” Grace asked cautiously.

“You have an overabundance of magic pouring out of you, I am always in need of energy,” she replied slowly, tapping her finger against one of the vines that made up her chair. “I am a being of great power, one that many have sought to create a contract with. I believe the term is warlock, to you mortals. I would make you into a warlock, but with a twist.”

“Yeah, see… we have a lot of mythology around deals like that,” Grace shook her head. “It always ends up being twisted to fuck over the mortal.”

I nodded along with Grace, I’d read too many fantasy books where deals like this came back to bite everyone in the ass.

“Aha, she’s prudent too,” Ollinfer smiled, looking pleased. “I am known for such tricks, especially against those I dislike. You two however, you have been traipsing through my woods throwing growth magic around like an oligarch with an unhappy working class. I am rather pleased with the both of you, and as such, I make an offer that will most definitely benefit me, but it is without guile. It’s a rather novel experience, really.”

She was just… admitting that she liked to fuck with people? If we got out of this and made it to Millowhall, we really needed to do some research on her..

“You haven’t actually told us what that twist is,” I pointed out suspiciously.

“Yes, the twist. The twist is that in the process of turning your… friend into a warlock, I will use the transformation to create a solution to your problem. Any time the multi-spectrum energies within her body reach dangerous levels, they will be siphoned off through the connection between us,” Ollinfer replied conversationally. “This is what I will get out of it. A font of energies that I cannot normally access due to my nature. I am fundamentally a being of the Nameless Garden, I cannot create energies from say, the Red Nightmare.”

That sounded like a good deal on the surface, but something about it had my hair standing on end. It must have some hidden meanings, some tricks that would end in misery for Grace, and I turned to tell her that.

“I’ll do it,” she blurted, before I could say so much as a word.

“Grace?!” I exclaimed urgently, my heart beginning to thunder with fear for her.

“What are the chances you can actually fix this, Ryn?” she asked gently, cupping my face in both hands. “If I take this offer, I’m fixed now. If she messes with us, we can deal with it when that happens. Plus… if I can control it like she promises…”

Her last words held hidden suggestion, and I swallowed hard. She was right that the problem would be dealt with, but what if we were trading one problem for an even worse one down the line? I was so scared for her, so scared that she would get hurt by this. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to her.

“Please, Ryn,” she murmured, stepping closer. “I need to do this alright? I need to be strong enough to protect you when you’re down, I want to be your equal, so that I can stand by your side without feeling like dead weight.”

“Kiss me,” I told her quietly, stress removing the filter between my thoughts and my mouth.

“What?” she blinked, surprised.

Closing my eyes for a brief second to collect myself, I whispered, “I’m falling in love with you Grace, so if this goes wrong, I want at least one other kiss to remember. One where you don’t freak out afterwards.”

When I opened my eyes again, I found her gazing into mine with a melancholy expression. “No,” she shook her head. “Maybe once this works, but I’m not going to be pessimistic about this. It will go well, and then I’ll come back and we can talk.”

I didn’t say anything at her refusal, just a slight, defeated nod. My gut was churning with fear for her safety, for what might happen to her when she was changed. Would she even be the same person? What did any of this warlock business entail? We had no idea, and she was just diving in head first.

“I’ll do it,” Grace said, walking towards Ollinfer.

“That was a very touching scene, but I’m afraid you’re going to need your lover’s help and permission,” the verdant goddess said wryly. “She’ll have to take care of you while my magic does its work after all.”

“Wait, lover?” Grace’s eyebrows went up and she came to a stuttering stop. “What?”

“I’m a being that was once of the Nameless Garden, and while other gods, demons and the like have different ways of achieving this process. You, my dear girl, will be stuck unconscious inside a flower for the next week while your body is reconstructed to properly channel magical energy,” she explained calmly, seemingly oblivious to Grace’s chagrin.

Oh, she’d just dropped yet more information on us that I wasn’t going to have time to process. Also she’d called me Grace’s lover. Also, she’d said she was from the garden, and the other gods did things differently? How differently, and… wait, Grace only had to be in the flower for a week, and it was a flower instead of a stupid fruit?

“She gets a flower?” I pouted, anxiety allowing my mouth to get away from me again. “I had to shlorp my way out of a gross ass fruit!”

My stupid brain, why was it always doing shit like this in tense situations? Now was not the time for jokes!

The goddess actually gave a snort at that, pursing her lips as though trying to contain further laughter. “Yes, well… the creators of that particular method were… in a hurry.”

Wait, creators? Someone had created the mage-fruit method of gaining power?

“Just put me in the damned flower then,” Grace sighed, turning to make doe eyes at me. “Will you look after my flower?”

Despite my still simmering worry for her, I once again couldn’t help myself. It was now it was my turn to try and hold my amusement. “I thought you were already experienced in that department? I’m the one with her flower still around.”

“What? No, I mean… oh my god, Ryn!” Grace exclaimed, her cheeks flushing red. She whirled on Ollinfer, almost demanding, “Put me in the flower... please.”

“Wait!” I exclaimed, running up behind Grace and throwing my arms around her neck as she turned back to meet me. “Please be safe, I’ll miss you.”

“The safety part is up to you, apparently, but I’ll be done in a week,” she smiled, squeezing my hip fondly with a hand. “Plus, it’s a hell of a lot shorter than a month.”

“True,” I sighed leaning my head on her collarbone for a moment before letting go and stepping back.

“Are you ready now, Grace?” Ollinfer asked, her tone sombre.

Here it was, I couldn’t stop it, Grace was her own person and she could make her own decisions… I just wished she’d have thought about it a little more before she jumped into it all.

“Yes,” Grace nodded.

The goddess rose to her feet, the throne descending back into the ground as though it had never been there. She stepped towards Grace, each footstep leaving blooms in her wake. Her hand rose, green energies swirling all around her in ribbons of dancing light. Magic wasn’t just coming from her now though, it was bursting forth from all around us now, sweeping in to join the intricate dance around Ollinfer.

Then there was a surge, and the light rushed in towards Grace, swirling around her in a pattern so dense that I could no longer see my friend. The magic began to take form, weaving itself into a large, closed flower that appeared to be on the cusp of blooming. The flower was actually kinda pretty, the closed petals were a light yellow, almost the same colour as Grace’s hair had been. At the edges of the petals was blue and green, the two colours mixing together in a swirl that led to all sorts of interesting blending.

“There we are,” Ollinfer said, sounding a little tired. “You can transfer her to your grove now, take good care of her. Now I must rest.”

“Wait, where is this place? We need to get to Millowhall once this is done!” I said urgently.

“Ah… I’ll fix it so that isn’t a problem,” the goddess said, right as she fell apart back into the flora that she’d used to construct her form.

“Hey! What do you mean by that?” I called, confused and a little worried. “Ollinfer? Hello?”

She was just gone, having dumped Grace into a flower that would chain her to the goddess on some level and turn her into who knew what. I just had to sit around, on my own… for a whole week. Sigh.

Transferring Grace and her flower into my grove after Ollinfer had left went well, I’d been somewhat worried about it going wrong. Within my grove I had her floating in midair with me as I ordered the buns to use some of the now dried out gourds to carry a ton of dirt up and into one of the greenhouses. I had no idea how long she could stay out of the ground for, and my bunnies picked up on that urgency, rushing up and down the stairs tirelessly.

I wanted to put Grace in the greenhouse rather than outside because I didn’t want her to get damaged by any weather that might hit. I had no idea how frequent those big storms were, or how they would effect Grace’s flower as she grew and changed within it.

I was already missing her too, we’d been constant companions for weeks now, and I was feeling that hole beside me keenly. I wished that she’d stopped for two seconds during that whole encounter and just… talked to me. My subconscious mind hadn’t even really figured out that she was totally gone yet, that I’d have to wait a week or more until I could see her again. There hadn’t been a proper goodbye, just… this.

Still, I couldn’t find it in my heart to be upset with her, even though I probably had more than enough reason to be. She’d moved fast to take advantage of an opportunity, and she’d done it for me… for us. Who knows how long Ollinfer’s deal would have been on offer?

It took several hours for the buns to cart all the spoil up while I made a suitably deep hole in the tree for the flower, and when it was done I made sure to water it properly too by planting small water creating flowers around it.

With that task done, I found myself at a loss for what to do. I could work on my grove, sure… but I was also feeling sort of depressed, which severely cut into my motivation to do anything. Perhaps a bath, then bed? I was dead tired after all, we’d been planning to go to sleep when we tried to get into my grove the first time. Deciding on that course of action, I wandered down to the bath.

Taking my clothes off would never cease to be an almost divine experience for me. My pants came off first, revealing my long, elegant legs, the skin perfect and smooth with a slight shine on my shins. Next was my top, leaving me standing in just my underwear, wide hips and thin waist on display. I looked down at myself and smiled, feeling that familiar little jolt of rightness. This was how I was meant to be.

My bath was a long one, the warmth lulling me into a doze that eventually had me stumbling up and into bed. I wrapped myself up in Grace’s blanket instead of mine, because it smelled like her and that gave me comfort. Then I invited the buns up to sleep on the bed with me, which they happily did, encircling me in warm fluffy bodies that helped just a little to alleviate the loneliness that was already settling onto me.

The next day saw me working on the greenhouse that Grace was in, because it felt good to be in proximity to her, even if she was inside the flower. I planted tomatoes, bananas, oranges and various other fruits and veges that liked the warmth of a greenhouse.

I also decided to work on the house tree some more. My stint in the bath last night had me realising that if I moved the water outlet just a meter and a half higher on the wall, I’d basically have a shower. I just had to make a few slight adjustments…

Down in the bathroom, I edited the plans of the tree to move the outlet up, using my own growth energy to move it, since it was a relatively small task. I went further though and completely covered the hole with a layer of wood. With that done, I carefully summoned one of my spells. It was the one I’d made with my own colours in mind.

Six small magenta blades of light swirled into being before me, hovering in midair. They were barely larger than a throwing knife, but with one important distinction, I could move them with my mind. So that’s what I did, testing my control, I swung them this way and that, twirling them about myself as gracefully as I could manage.

It was fun watching them dart about the room under my direction, and pretty soon I was having little dogfights with the things. They swooped at each other, dodging and twisting and flickering through the air at speed. Oh yeah, this spell was going to be incredible. For now though, they were going to be used as a tool.

With playtime over, I directed them up to the covered water outlet and proceeded to spin them. I used the spinning blades to drill holes in the wood, until I had water pouring out in a spray, just like a shower. When I was done, I stood there and grinned, feeling pretty damn pleased with myself.

I went through and did all the baths this way, finishing the task with a huge chunk of the day still to go. What the hell else could I do? Wait, why not try working with the wood in storage the same way? I’d need bigger blades than the ones I had now though, which meant I needed a new spell.

I spent the afternoon working on a spell that would allow me to cut the logs into usable planks and beams. It was harder than I thought, because I needed a lot of heft and weight behind the blades in order to cut through the logs. Eventually I got something that might work as the sun dipped below the horizon and I quickly tested it on one of the logs from storage. It worked pretty well, although the amount of mental effort it took to drive the blade all the way down a log had me panting and covered in sweat. Perfect time to test the new shower I guess.

The next morning was spent slowly cutting the logs into usable pieces, although frequent rests in the sun with my leaves out were required. I didn’t have my pet nuke right now to help me out, so it was back to basking in the sun for hours on end. I really needed to get the buns some tools so that I didn’t have to do this myself. They would probably be far better at it too, as I was really messing up some of the cuts I was making.

Deciding that cutting logs up all day would suck, I swapped to making spells for the rest of the day, in between snacking on fruit and checking on Grace’s flower. My boredom and loneliness produced many spells that day, from one to warm up a cup of liquid, to creating a little floating light, and I even tried my hand at making a spell that would play music. That last one went horribly wrong and had my ears ringing for like ten minutes afterwards. I shelved the idea for later.

Day three saw me back with the logs, but this time with a purpose in mind. I’d decided that I needed a front door, and that required me to cut some logs up into big chunks. Yet another thing that boredom had lent me was time to think on the problem, and I’d figured out a way to construct the huge door without needing to resort to the use of metal.

The doorway itself was arched, so first I needed to create the two halves of the door with solid rectangles of wood that I would then cut to fit the opening. I briefly considered just growing a big ass slab of wood for the task, but that didn’t fit with the aesthetics I had in mind. I wanted a sort of mix between the organic growth of my magic and the rustic woodworking feel of a hobbit-hole. Eventually I’’d like to use a whole lot of wrought iron around the place to complete the aesthetic.

First I needed some glue, which I achieved by collecting some pine sap from a few trees I grew for the purpose, then I melted it in a bowl we’d yoinked from the lab and mixed it with some charcoal. I was really thanking one late night following the youtube recommended rabbithole for that idea. I even remembered that you needed fresh sap for it to work, and you couldn’t allow the sap to boil.

With the glue ready and the six by six inch beams of wood all cut and ready, I bored holes in them at regular intervals up their lengths, then pinned them together with wooden pegs and the glue I had made.

Even with magic to help me, it was slow, messy work that saw my dainty little girl hands covered in gross black goop, but in the end I was looking proudly down at a pair of big ass doors. I was a city girl no longer! Okay, maybe that proclamation was slightly ambitious, but still. Now I just had to get my hands clean somehow… Damn.

I raided Grace’s pack for soap that allowed me to wash all the gunk off my hands, then went off to check on her while the doors dried. I wandered about my greenhouse with a frown. Maybe I could plant some flowers and stuff up here, pretty things for Grace to find when she popped out of her flower.

I planted a bunch of different spell flowers, I had quite a few silly little mundane spells now, including a small fire starting one that I’d used earlier. Finally having the time to fuck around with magic had led to me actually building a nice little repertiore of cantrips. Day three ended with me back in bed and surrounded by buns.

The next morning I mucked around with spells again until a full twenty four hours had passed since I’d worked on the door so the glue had time to set a little. The whole door would probably need reinforcing or even replacing with something sturdier later on, but for now it would work.

Using my telekinesis to float the still rectangular doors up into position, I then summoned just a single hard light blade to score them along where I needed to cut. With the marks done, I carefully carved at my big doors with the larger blade until they would fit neatly into their doorframe. Which left one rather important problem to solve. How in the hell was I going to make a hinge?

Wait, what if I just mounted two poles on the sides of the door and then put holes in the floor and doorway to allow it to rotate? It would be tough as hell to push open and closed by hand, but I had telekinesis powerful enough to lift and crush a two story tall rampaging magical beast. With a shrug, I got to work pinning, gluing and locking a pole into place on each half of the door.

I carefully carved the poles and door to slot together in a way that would keep the door from just breaking off the hinge, adding supports widthways across the doors in the process. The whole thing was enormous, bulky and not altogether what I’d wanted when I set out to do this, but it had been fun to figure out. Of course, actually mounting the doors would have to wait until the next morning when the second round of glue had dried.

My good mood didn’t last all the way to bed though. Just four days and I missed Grace so fucking much. I’d gotten used to having her next to me, ready to talk and joke with. Now I was aimless and lost without her, drifting from task to task like a wraith, trying to fill the hole in my heart with busywork. How had Esra spent years alone in her grove like that? I’d have gone crazy.

It wasn’t working though, keeping busy was only good so long as I was busy, and when each day came to an end and my mind was free to wander, the loneliness came crashing back in. To make matters worse, her blanket was already starting to lose her smell, which had me pining for her that much more. Three days, I could make it through just three more days… But no, laying there in that bed with her fading scent and the buns for company, I began to cry. I missed her so much. Three days seemed like an eternity.

The terrible howl of gale force winds tore me from sleep in the early hours of the morning. Whistling air roared through every open balcony door and window in the whole structure, whipping the plants in my room into a frenzy. Even as I groggily clawed my way to full consciousness the foliage was being shredded, leaves and flower petals swirling out into the night through the window.

“Shit!” I swore, scrambling to secure both of the packs and all the loose items that were laying on the grassy floor. Some of my clothes had already gone flying out the window by the looks of things.

I stuffed everything into the packs and secured them by growing several vines over the top of them. They weren’t my primary concern however, Grace was, and before the vines had finished growing I was rushing out the door, across the common room and up the stairs. I burst out into the greenhouse completely out of breath, but that didn’t stop me from stumbling across to the large yellow flower in the center.

My shaking hands landed on one of the petals with gentle apprehension, sensing through with my mage sight. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found that none of the wild magic outside was making it to Grace, she was safe.

For now.

I just had to secure the tree first, which meant that task number one would be putting the huge gate in. I’d also need to figure out a way to deal with the windows, as already half of the window leaves had been torn out all across the tree. I might need to just grow crystal bark over each opening for the duration of the storm, but I’d need to wait for growth energy to start filtering down into the aquifer.

Rushing down the stairs two at a time, I was out of breath by the time I made it down to the entry hall. Everyone always talked about how running up stairs was hard, but they never mentioned that running down them was just as hard, for different reasons. The hall was a mess, leaves and flowers and everything else were strewn all over the place. It looked like the tops of my windbreak trees had made it into the foyer.

The new doors were intact however, still safe where they had been laying on the floor. So using my telekinesis I began to push them into position, struggling against the wind the whole time. Rain was beginning to find its way inside now too, causing the floor to become slick and dangerous.

As I was about to seal the doorway, a procession of buns rushed through, each one carrying a gourd full of water. Water lapping at the edges with every hop. There were like, twenty of the little friends, all tottering through in a line on their hind legs. What the hell were my buns up to now?

Whatever, I needed to get this job done, then I could figure out whatever harebrained scheme they were up to. Making sure that there weren’t any buns left outside in the storm, I pushed the door into place with my mind.

Using my magic and the first trickle of growth energies coming up from below, I was able to mold the entryway to accommodate the door and lock it in place.

The moment I released my telekinesis they crashed open again with a boom and I was sent stumbling backwards as howling wind and driving rain slapped me in the face. Crap! I hadn’t put a lock bar in place!

Thinking fast, I rushed back to the storage room and threw several logs into the way, using them to block the doors closed. It would have to do for now, I needed to rush up the tree and fix all the windows.

Thankfully the crystal in the downstairs balcony and upstairs greenhouses seemed to be holding well, so I altered the plans of my tree further to cover all the openings with either crystal or plain wood. It was exhausting work on so little sleep, and I vowed to pay a carpenter to make me some damned windows once we made it to Millowhall.

Growth energy was everywhere now outside, gushing up out of the soil as my plants generated it on a massive scale. I had more of them this time too, hidden everywhere that I’d needed them. The water reserves under my plateau were rapidly becoming saturated in the stuff, and it was very obviously going to become a problem.

A problem that I had absolutely no idea how to solve.

Wait, the buns…

What had they been up to?

Shit!

“Hey!” I called, rushing for the stairs. “You’d better not be doing what I think you’re doing!”

I took the stairs two at a time, fuelled by worry for Grace. God damn, I really needed to figure out a solution to the whole stairs thing. Where the hell as Esra when you needed her?

Rushing back out into the greenhouse, ready to collapse, I yelled, “Hey! What are you doing?”

The scene before me would have been comical if my heart hadn’t been pounding with worry.

A swarm of bunnies surrounding Grace’s flower holding gourds and other containers, most of which were now empty, save one or two which were full of growth magic imbued water. They all froze when I yelled and turned to look at me, little noses twitching as they stared.

Making eye contact, one cheeky little bun poured out the last of its water, the trickle of magically charged liquid slowly pattering into the soil.

“You… you… oh my goodness,” I sighed, leaning heavily against the wall as the storm continued to rage and batter at the tree. I could barely see outside with all the rain running down the windows.

I slid to the floor with a groan, enjoying the vibrations of the storm shaking the tree as it helped with my stiff, tired muscles. I’d been running and leaping up and down stairs all morning and my limbs were now making their displeasure known. I couldn’t stop the buns now, they’d already gone and poured the stuff all over her. I could see the growth magic being sucked greedily in by the roots of Grace’s flower.

The buns seemed to take my exhaustion as an invitation to cuddle, hopping over in a swarm. One by one they flopped down onto their sides next to me, or in a few cases splooting, their back legs stretching out behind them. No amount of cute antics was going to save them from a stern talking to though.

“You lot need to be asking permission before you go messing around, alright?” I frowned at them, getting nothing but twitching noses in reply.

With a sigh, I attempted to calm down a little. The flower seemed to be fine for the moment, but something told me I’d need a blanket for her sooner rather than later.

Growth magic accelerated pretty much everything it touched, and I highly doubted that her transformation would be an exception here. I just hoped that it wouldn’t hurt her or mess up the processes as they were sped up.

With a wince I pushed myself back to my feet and sliping free of the flop, I stumbled down to the bedroom to grab a blanket for my friend. She’d undoubtedly be as naked as I had been when I came out of my fruit, assuming that’s what was happening now.

When I arrived in the bedroom it was mercifully free of wind, although I was going to need to move everything to a different one because it was absolutely trashed. The wind had torn all the foliage apart as it was forced into the tight quarters of the tree’s interior.

Blanket in hand, I stumbled back up to the greenhouse, finding that many of the buns had mysteriously disappeared, while the remaining ones were loafed on the floor staring at the flower. A flower that was moving ever so slightly, independently of the wind that was shaking the whole tree.

Slowing to a stop, I froze as I saw what was happening. Was she really, actually going to be coming out of her flower now? It certainly looked like it with the way the petals were slowly peeling away at the top.

I stood there with bated breath as one by one, the petals slowly pulled away from the center. It was almost graceful the way they curled and fell away, each one coming to rest gently against the ground. A figure was slowly revealed within, huddled in a fetal position and unmoving.

“Grace?” I asked, stepping forward tentatively, heart aching in my chest. Had she flowered too early?

When she shifted slightly, letting out a tiny groan, I felt the first bloom of relief hit me, and suddenly I was swallowing back a lump in my throat. “Grace!”

I rushed over to her where she was relaxing out of her huddle, eyes blinking blearily as she looked around the place. She was indeed very naked, as I’d suspected she might be, although I couldn’t see much, as she had her back to me. She wasn’t covered in any gross gunk like I had been though, instead she just smelled overwhelmingly of lilies.

“Ryn?” she croaked, her voice husky with disuse.

That was all my emotional heart needed to overflow, sending a sob bubbling up my throat and tears tracking down my face. I rushed the last few steps and hugged her blanket-first, clinging desperately as though she might vanish at any moment.

Incoherent noises of relief and heartache came pouring out of me as I cried and cuddled up to her. I hadn’t even realised how much I’d missed her, how much I’d been worried that it would all go wrong until just now. It was like I’d been compressed under high pressure without noticing, and now suddenly I was free of it. Without the bubbles in my blood, obviously. Deep sea divers had to slowly reacclimate themselves to lower pressures again after— nevermind.

Her arms were shaky as they came up to hold me in return, and I realised I was being all theatrical while she was still figuring her new self out. “Sorry!” I blurted, pushing away slightly with a wet sniffle. “I missed you.”

My mind stuttered to a halt when I got a proper look at her. She still looked like Grace, but she also… didn’t. It was like someone who was really good at image manipulation had gone over her and removed any and all flaws in her face. Her skin was perfect, her cheekbones were just a little higher, her eyes just a little bigger and brighter, her lashes just a little longer.

It was everything, including her hair. The outside layer was the same blonde as before, but her red and blue dyed highlights were gone. Instead, the inner layers of her hair were green and blue, so that if she shifted slightly the colours would peek through. The changes had me breathless with awe. She’d been amazing before… but now she was… amazing times two, or three. Maybe more.

“Oh Ryn, you’re a mess… I’m sorry,” she apologised tiredly, one of her hands reaching up to brush gently through my hair in a way that had my heart soaring with happiness. “I’m back now though,” she continued, guilt lacing her voice. “I’m sorry I left you for a week, I… shit, look at you. I didn’t think… I just. Crap, I don’t have any excuses.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I hiccuped, still staring at her in amazement. “I don’t care, you’re back now… and it wasn’t a full week either.”

“Wait, it wasn’t?” she asked, confusion entering her expression.

I turned my focus very pointedly to the buns that had come to sit around us. “They watered your flower with growth magic infused water from the storm. It’s only been like four days.”

Grace’s confusion shifted to a grin and she reached over to pat one of the buns between the ears. “Cheers little dudes. I think you saved Ryn from a lot more of my mistake.”

“Please, it sucked but I don’t want to let it ruin seeing you again,” I asked her, hoping she’d put it to rest.

“Alright, sorry,” she murmured, leaning in against me. “I feel so weak and tired.”

“Do you want to wash up and then head to bed?” I asked, wrapping her up in my arms again. “It’s the middle of the night and the tree is all secured against the storm. I’m pretty damn tired too.”

“Yeah, I think a bath would be good,” she said, her head rocking on my shoulder as she nodded. This felt so nice, my heart already felt whole again. Chuckling a little, she mumbled, “Looks like the flower did its job though, you aren’t getting all horny.”

“Yeah,” I said, breathing her in with a smile. Then I perked up when I realised something, something I’d promised her a while back. “I put showers in! You can have a shower!”

“Really?” she asked excitedly. “Oh my god, please show me, I like baths, but the feel of a shower…”

“Come on, they’re in every bath,” I said, wobbling to my feet, then helping her up too. To the buns I gave them all a stern look and ordered, “Move the bed to a different room please and clean it up for us?”

Ear flick salutes all around.

“So what did you do for four days?” Grace asked from where she was under the shower.

She was loving it, and had actually giggled with delight when she saw it. The bathroom was actually becoming really pretty now with the perpetual waterfall of the shower and all the flowers lighting the place. I couldn’t see Grace under the shower though, I was sitting with my back to the wall next to the doorway into the bathroom. Yet another room that needed a real door.

Thinking for a moment on her question, I went over everything I’d done and found that I couldn’t honestly remember much with how damn tired I was right then. “I made a door,” I blurted, trying to buy myself time to think. “A really big one.”

“A big door,” she laughed. “Is that for the front?”

“Yes!” I nodded, even though she couldn’t see it. I was honestly a little addled right now, exhausted both from too little sleep and too much activity. “I also, um… I made some, uh… some things. Some thing things. Fuck, words… uhhhh. The things with the magic and the plants and stuff!” I said, my brain shorting out as I forgot the word spells.

“Spells?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yes!” I exclaimed again. “That thing. I made lots of little ones for everyday stuff.”

“Riiiight,” she giggled, then I heard her give a gasp. “Damn! My legs are hot!”

“I want to seeeee,” I whined, too quietly for her to hear.

“Wow, my body has changed quite a bit!” she said with a disbelieving laugh. “This is great, my thighs are so meaty now!”

My breath caught as my imagination ran wild, briefly wondering what it would be like to get my hands on said thighs. Then the idea of getting my face between them shorted my mind out entirely. I swear there must have been sparks flying.

“Uh huh?” I asked, because that was all I could manage to get out.

“Yeah, I think I’ve gained like almost an inch in diameter on these things,” she told me, oblivious to my plight. “I’ve always wanted thicker thighs.”

“I like… uh, I mean, that’s great!” I called, desperately thankful that she couldn’t see my overheating cheeks.

The splashing stopped for a few seconds, leaving me wondering what was going on. Then Grace’s head poked around the corner, looking down at me with concern.

“Are you okay?” she asked, eyes searching mine. “Did the flower not do its job properly? You look flushed and stuff.”

I wasn’t sure that my blush could get any worse, but apparently I was very wrong. I sat there without words for several seconds as Grace stared down at me with growing worry. She also appeared to be naked apart from the towel she had wrapped loosely around herself, and that wasn’t helping either.

“I’m okay,” I finally managed to squeak, breaking our awkward eye contact.

“You sure don’t look okay,” she said, her voice carrying a great big helping of disbelief.

“You’re just hot, okay?” I blurted desperately. “No magic involved! You were talking about your thighs and then my imagination kind of took that and ran with it! I’m just… I’m just… I’m just regular horny, alright?”

I hid my face in my hands as the weight of raw, heavy embarrassment crashed down on top of me. Holy moly this was something else, I had never felt so embarrassed before in my life. Not even after that time in my senior year of high school when I’d come to school with a mud stain on my butt. Everyone had thought it was something else and the teasing lasted for weeks.

“My thighs?” she asked, words to fill the silence as she processed what I’d said. “Oh! Right! That’s… I’m sorry. I’ll just go finish up real quick then…” she said, stumbling over her words and then disappearing back into the bathroom.

We didn’t speak as she finished off her shower, but I could hear every sound coming out of that room. What was wrong with me all of a sudden? It was like all the previous progress we’d made towards… something, had been wiped clean. I felt so awkward around her all of a sudden. Was it the fact that there was nothing between us now? No more excuses, no more reasons to stay apart. Just us.

“Hey, I’m finished,” Grace murmured, coming out of the bathroom in her sleeping clothes. Sleeping clothes that consisted of underwear and a T-shirt, leaving the aforementioned thighs on full display. Oh my goodness they were wonderful. I wanted to cuddle them, I wanted to rub my cheek on them, and… I kinda wanted to nibble them a little too.

Slowly, my eyes travelled up the length of her as she stood over me, and I savoured every glorious, wonderful inch. Golly gosh darn damn wow.

“Well, that wasn’t subtle at all,” she laughed, although her face had gone bright red. Good, she could be embarrassed too, take some of the heat off me as it were.

Taking a deep breath, I stood up, finding that she still had a few inches on me. She’d gotten taller in the flower, if only by a little. Time to be brave Ryn. I looked her directly in those beautiful, expressive green eyes of hers and said, “It wasn’t really meant to be subtle.”

“Oh,” she breathed, her mouth hanging open just slightly.

We held that charged, electrified eye contact for several long seconds before she finally looked away. Her eyes travelled down to the floor, then out to the stairs, then back to me for a second, all while biting her lip. She was being downright bashful, which was a little out of character for her. I’d always thought that she had at least more confidence in this area than me, but maybe my inexperience was a boon here? Either that or I was just way too tired to have a filter anymore.

“Bed?” she finally asked, giving me a hopeful smile.

“Yes please,” I nodded, and promptly swayed where I stood. Oh yup, it was definitely the exhaustion.

“Come on,” she smiled, more confidently this time even if her cheeks were still very rosy. “You’ve been great, it’s time you were able to rest. I’ll look after you now.”

I gratefully let her take me up to bed, although she initially made for the wrong room, and we had to figure out which one the buns had moved everything to. It turned out to be the one next door, but before we went in, we saw all the buns dutifully cleaning up the previous room… by eating all the foliage. That was one way to do it I guess.

Grace grabbed our blankets from where they had been plopped on the floor and then gently helped me into bed. I was growing rapidly more and more exhausted as the minutes went by, leading to my leaning on her for support. I don’t think either of us minded the extra physical contact there.

I hadn’t actually been wearing pants since I was woken up, so I didn’t really have to do anything except lay down. Grace fussed around with her pack for a bit though, then looked up with a frown. “Some of my stuff is gone.”

I gave a tired lying down nod, “The storm sucked some of it out the window. We’ll have to go outside and find whatever we can once it’s over.”

“Ah shit, right,” she said, placing everything back in her pack.

Once she’d stowed everything away again, she walked over to the couch-bed and looked down at me where I’d already burrowed under my blanket. She raised an amused eyebrow at me and placed a hand on her perfect hip.

“What?” I grumbled. “It’s cold.”

Her amusement was transferred to her whole expression as she moved to the bed. “It’s just cute, that’s all,” she smiled, clambering over the outside edge to get in with me.

I blinked. “Cute?”

“Uh huh,” she smiled, laying down next to me with a languid stretch, before pulling her own blanket over herself. Gosh, what a stretch. Was I dehydrated? Smile turning to a frown, she looked down at it the blanket, the one that I’d been using this past four days. “This smells like you.”

“I missed you,” I mumbled defensively, hiding all but my eyes behind the blanket.

“Awh,” she cooed, her expression going soft and thoughtful before she quietly exclaimed, “Fuck it. Come here.”

She opened her blanket and her arms, and I’ve never wriggled across a bed fast enough. Not that I’ve ever like, recorded by bed wiggling, but yeah, it was fast. I cuddled close into her arms as they closed around me, head coming to rest on her bicep. The sense of comfort was almost instantaneous and I all but melted right there and then. This was where I belonged. Safe in Grace’s arms.

I was well on my way to sleep in a matter of moments, but Grace had one final thing to say before I was out.

“I’m falling for you too, by the way. I didn’t reply when you told me back before I went in the flower,” she murmured gently, her arms squeezing a little tighter around me.

My heart gave a stutter step for a second and I froze in place, sleep receding for the moment. She really was? I mean, it had been kind of implied, but now she'd explicitly stated it! She was falling in love with me! Grace was… oh my goodness. I was crying again, my exhausted brain once again failing to contain the upwelling of emotions within me.

I made a sort of bubbly little noise and shifted to kiss the soft skin of her collarbone. I had no words, no thoughts, just an overwhelming happiness exploding out from my heart in every direction. I wasn't falling for her anymore, I had fallen for her. I loved her, I loved her so much.

I didn't have the guts to tell her that yet though, so I just snuggled in against her and cried. It felt nice to cry, the tears of joy trailing down my cheeks were the physical manifestation of my affection for her after all.

She returned my kisses to the top of my head with a breathless giggle, her nose burrowing into my magenta hair. "I'm guessing this is a good reaction?"

"Yes!" I blurted, pushing back to beam at her, before I lunged forward.

My lips landed a little off to the side, messy and insistent before she corrected for me. Then we were kissing, soft and wild and happy, each gentle brush of our lips sending fresh waves of love and joy twirling and dancing through me. Unfortunately, with each spike of happiness, it became harder and harder to kiss her because I was grinning so damned much.

I parted from her with a giddy laugh. "I'm sorry! I can't stop smiling!"

"I don't want you to stop," she said with a grin of her own, coming in to try and kiss me again, only for our teeth to bump together because of our goofy expressions. Now my teeth ached, but I couldn’t care less, I was in love!

"Ow!" I giggled, placing my cheek to hers instead. It was like a kiss, but with cheeks! Soft, warm cheeks. Goodness, the way our skin felt pressed together like that was heavenly.

"Sorry," she laughed, hugging me tight again. "I'm actually not super amazing at the whole kissing thing.”

Yeah, that was total bullshit. I still remembered the first kiss we’d had, fuelled by raw passion and affection. This time had just been a little funny because both of us were so silly giddy delighted.

"I liked it," I sighed happily, burrowing into her shoulder with my face. "I want to smile kiss you all night."

“In the morning,” she said warmly. “We really need to sleep now.”

As if to punctuate her words, a yawn burst free from me, getting a chuckle from… my lover? My girlfriend?

“Okay,” I agreed, because evidently I was really fucking tired, even if I was also stupidly happy. Questions of relationship status labels, other than kissing and cuddle buddies who had feelings for each other, could wait.

Making a wordless hum of contentment, Grace shifted us both around until she was comfortable, then waited as I did the same. Comfortable for both of us appeared to be her laying on her back while I cuddled up to her side, our legs intertwined and my head on her arm. It felt perfect, and without so much as a goodnight our breathing slowed and settled down into sleep.

“We really need some meat, as much as I love eating fruit and veggies all day, I’m practically dreaming of steaks now,” Grace pouted, as she stared down at the half eaten apple in her hand.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” I sighed, then had a lightbulb moment. “Oh! We need a freezer!”

“We do, and that storm could probably help you with that I’m guessing?” she grinned at me, her eyes brimming with gentle affection. Gosh, my heart…

"Yeah!" I said enthusiastically. "Let me make the changes really quick. The tree and magic will do the rest."

As I closed my eyes to concentrate and envisioned what I needed, I thought I heard her say something like, “You’re so cute when you get excited about magic.”

Regardless of the cute girl whispering, I had a job to do. I needed a staircase down into the ground a wee ways, followed by a hallway out of the tree itself. I wanted the freezing temperatures to be away from the main tree so as to avoid having the perpetual cold damage it in any way. I created a sort of bubble of tree under the ground that would be full of flowers that did the reverse of what the heat and light flowers did. It was kinda as simple as that, although it would need a door at some point.

“Alright, done,” I said, opening my eyes again. “There’s going to be a way down to it from under the entryway staircase.”

“Nice,” she smiled, finally taking a bite out of her apple. “I love that you can just change things on the fly like that.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m cheating and when Esra turns up she’s going to explode or something,” I laughed, already imagining the grumpy old woman pottering around my grove telling me how I’d done everything wrong.

“I’m not sure if I should be worried or not when she comes back,” Grace joked. “She sounds pretty scary.”

“Nah, she’s harmless,” I said, thinking back on her. “She’ll act like she hates you, but when push comes to shove, she’ll like you.”

The storm still raged outside as we continued to eat breakfast, and every now and then you’d feel the whole tree vibrate as a particularly hard gust of wind rocked the structure. Rain lashed at every window, but was otherwise muted by the thick living wood walls. Honestly, now that we’d shored the place up, it was kind of cozy in here. All we needed was a roaring fireplace and some good roast… damn it, there’s the meat problem again.

“What do we do while the storm clears up, can we just leave?” Grace asked after a while, having finished her food.

“We could,” I nodded reluctantly. “But if we came back in, it would put us outside the tree. I don’t really know if it's safe for us to be out there. Which means, I guess, that we might not be able to come back into the grove if we find danger out in the mundane realm.”

“Ah shit, so we have to wait it out?” she winced, leaning down heavily on the table with her elbows. “What the hell are we going to do?”

“I can think of a few things,” I murmured mildly, pretending to be very interested in the stem of an apple that was sitting on the table.

Grace gave a laugh. “Uh huh, but other than that.”

“Well, we could explore your powers,” I said thoughtfully, giving her a good look. “Come to think of it, if it’s okay with you I’d like to take a good look with my mage sight.”

“Oh! Do you think I have mage sight now?” she asked excitedly. “Do I get glowy eyes now too?”

“As if they didn’t already,” I muttered to myself, just loud enough for her to hear.

“Oh my goodness, come here you flirt,” she grinned, pulling me over into her lap like I weighed nothing. I gave a squeal of protest that was brutally snuffed out when her lips descended onto mine.

We’d shyly made out this morning when we woke up, but hunger had quickly ended that. It was apparently hard to get really into kissing when your stomachs were growling and rumbling louder than the storm outside.

This time though, Grace was being strangely dominant, and I found that I loved it. Her hands slipped up under my shirt to cup the soft curve of my waist, the brush of her hands there causing a thrill of lovely sensation all across my body.

The kiss itself was slow and unhurried, sensual without being urgent. She even shifted me into a more balanced position in her lap without breaking contact. Yeah, she definitely wasn’t a novice at this, no matter what her lack of self confidence told her. I was melting under her care, breathy half-moans coming up from within, only to be caught on the tip of her tongue as it briefly dove inside to flick at mine.

I honestly had no idea where my own hands ended up until we broke apart again, where I found they had tugged at Grace’s shirt until I could get at her abs. Well, I couldn’t say I blamed my wandering fingers, the transformation had done nothing but wonders for her soft muscle tone.

“Whoa,” I breathed, feeling a little light headed. Had we remembered to take breaths?

Burying her face in my neck, lips gently pressed to the skin there, she murmured, “Whoa, indeed. Kissing you is amazing.”

“I’m not even doing anything except wiggling my lips,” I giggled as her breath tickled my neck.

She gave a snort of amusement. “It’s working just fine.”

“That’s good, I want to be a good kisser for you,” I smiled, leaning my head to the side so it was resting on hers.

“Cute,” she chuckled, before she gave a tired sigh. “We should try and achieve something while we’re stuck inside though. Work out what I can do. We can make out too, but like… the real world exists out there.”

With disappointment I had to agree, we needed to find the guys and help them, as well as figure out exactly what the hell happened to Grace with her transformation.

“Okay, well,” I said, carefully getting up out of her lap. “First I should look at you with mage sight.”

“Okay,” she nodded, then gave me a hopeful look. “Then can you try and teach me to use that mage sight thing?”

“Sure,” I told her, affection warming my heart as she gave me puppy dog eyes.

I turned my mage sight on and had a look at her, and what I saw caused my eyebrows to make a slow migration towards my hairline. She didn’t have a mage’s web-like aura, but she didn’t have a bubble like before either. Instead, she had what looked to be a sort of magnetic field of magic, arcs of it twirling and twisting about her limbs as she shifted.

Carefully, I pushed my hand towards it, watching it bow inward without resisting as my magic pushed it back. On a hunch, I created a little floating yellow light, one of my many new cantrips, and then pushed it towards her. The moment it came into contact with Grace’s... I’d call it a maginetic field for now, it was sucked into the lines of the field and distributed around her, almost like a shield.

“Whoa, I’m glowing!” she exclaimed, looking down at herself.

I clicked my mage sight off quickly and gave a short bark of a laugh. Oh dear, it looked like my spell had been hijacked! It swirled around her as though the magic had been pulled into a line that stretched through every part of her maginetic field.

“Well, that’s odd,” I frowned, wondering what the hell was going on.

“Hey, I can feel it!” she exclaimed, standing up out of the chair abruptly. “I think I can…”

Suddenly she lit up like the surface of the sun, my spell magnified a thousand fold, the light all but blinding me.

“Holy shit!” I said, crying out in pain. “Stop! Turn it off!”

“Sorry!” she said, and the light disappeared, including the original spell she’d had swirling around her.

“Fucking hell,” I blurted, rubbing at my eyes. “God, we’re lucky I didn’t use the little fire-starting spell or my tree would be burning.”

“Sorry,” Grace murmured, looking embarrassed.

I shook my head and cupped her cheek briefly. “Nah, that was just as much my fault as yours.”

“Okay… but what happened?” she asked, confusion wrinkling her pretty brow.

“Okay so, around you I can see a sort of magnetic field, except it’s made of magic. I’m tentatively calling it a maginetic field. Imagine how the magnetic field around the sun looks, all weird and warped and a little fucky. Except it’s all around you. When I touched that field with my light spell, it got grabbed, and then I’m pretty sure you just amplified the spell with your own magic,” I explained, the act of putting it all into words solidifying my theory about what had just happened.

“No way… so that means I’ll be able to like, take spells from you and then make them super powerful?” she asked, understanding dawning in her eyes.

A brief image of Grace flashed through my mind, standing in her armour while loops of fire circled threateningly about her, and a grin slowly spread across my face.

“Yeah, and not just that, but you might be able to saturate that field with blank magic too! Who knows what that would do,” I said thoughtfully and just a little excitedly. “Maybe you could even power some of those fancy magical artifacts with it? We’ll need to test it all more, including having you pull it in closer, because having you accidentally suck my dome shield up wouldn’t be ideal.”

“Yeah true… okay but…” she began, giving me the puppy dog eyes again.

“Alright, alright,” I grinned, spontaneously leaning forward to kiss the tip of her nose. “Let’s see if you have mage sight.”

“Okay, what do I do?” she asked eagerly.

“It’s sorta like focusing your eyes, but you should be able to feel another set of insubstantial eyelids. Magical ones, which you might be able to feel since you did the whole lamp impression earlier,” I told her, explaining how it felt to me.

I watched her intently as she frowned, struggling for a few moments. Then just like that, the insides of her eyes glowed green, sort of like how a cat’s did in the dark. It was honestly kinda pretty, like I was looking into a pair of opal eyes.

“Whoa!” she breathed, a grin spreading across her face.

“Cool huh?” I smiled, stepping closer to her. We hadn’t been touching for like, a few minutes now, which was a few minutes too long. I wasn’t addicted to her touch, I swear.

“This is awesome,” she told me happily, wrapping an arm around me as she gazed around in wonder. “All the magic around us! It’s beautiful!”

“It’s especially intense with the storm outside,” I nodded, turning my mage sight on again too while I leaned into her.

“I’m so happy,” she told me quietly. “I’m like you now, I can stand beside you without feeling like a weakling.”

“You never needed that to stand next to me,” I told her sincerely. “I always just wanted you.”

“I know, I know,” she groaned, pressing the side of her head to mine. “Tell that to my dumbass brain.”

I could empathise with that, definitely. Brains were dumb and mean and they needed to leave us poor people alone sometimes. I mean gosh, I don’t need to think about the fact that spiders have millions of tiny hairs all over them, but my brain says otherwise all the time.

“Okay,” I smiled, turning her so we were facing each other.

I leaned in, cupping both of her cheeks in my hands so I could tilt her face down to kiss me. Our lips met and wonder sparked all over again. I really, really liked kissing her, it was incredible. The emotions and sensations it sent tumbling through me with each gentle press or flick of the tongue were heavenly. I wonder if we could go back to bed and just make out all day?

Grace and I waited out the full seven days before we decided to risk going out into the mundane world. The guys had been fending for themselves for a while now, but we couldn’t really do anything about it until Grace was safe and the storm had fucked off.

The storm did eventually fuck off towards the end of the sixth day since she had gone into her flower, and we jumped at the chance to go outside and survey the damage. The ground was saturated, puddles of water laying deceptively beneath the grass that was now knee height. I should get the bunnies onto mowing it or something.

The largest change was the lake, the thing was full to the brim with magically charged water. In fact it was so full that the puddles we walked through were probably due to it overflowing. I needed to create some pathways for streams when I had the time.

“I found one of your shirts,” Grace commented, picking up a soaking wet white piece of cloth.

“Huh, is it intact?” I asked, walking over to her.

She untangled it and held it out in front of us. “Uh, sort of,” she laughed.

The shirt had ripped down the back, then caught at the lower hem. It was now a very risque backless shirt.

“Should I put it on?” I joked, taking it from her. “Take the Avonside fashion scene by storm.”

I tried to figure out how I’d even wear the damn thing. Putting on wet clothing was always a struggle, even when you weren’t joking around. When I looked up, Grace was staring down at the shirt, her face just a little flushed, her eyes wide.

Giving an awkward laugh, I asked, “Wait… do you want me to put it on?”

“What?” she asked, choking and then coughing as her face flushed further. “I mean, like… you’d look really hot in it, but also that’s whatever. I mean, no… I um.”

A slow smile spread across my face as I actually contemplated putting it on. But no, I didn’t have the guts to do something like that with Grace, at least… not yet.

We continued to look around my grove, finding that for the most part, everything that had been below the line of my wind break had survived, only taking a slight beating. Nothing my buns couldn’t fix with a bit of their magic! The windbreak would heal in time too, which meant that all in all, my plan had worked! My plants wouldn’t die to the first big storm that hit my grove!

We also found a lot of our belongings scattered around the place, although most of it was kinda munted. We collected it all up anyway, no point wasting any of it, since some was made from materials we wouldn’t have access to again for a while yet.

With the grove surveyed and found to be in reasonably good shape, I turned to Grace. “So should we try for Millowhall now? See where the guys have gotten to? If you’re feeling up to it that is.”

“Yeah, I think I’m goo—” she began, but as she was speaking the clouds parted for a moment, raining sunlight down on us. “Oh, that feels so nice,” she gasped, turning to face the sunlight.

I watched in awe as she transformed, her body turning from that of a human to that of… something else. She was the same shape for the most part, except that her skin was made of rough bark, branches sprouting out every so often. The branches quickly produced leaves, and her hair morphed into a tangle of vines and foliage.

“Oh, wow,” I breathed, staring at her.

“What?” she asked, turning to look at me in confusion. Her face, although also covered in bark, seemed to have plates of the stuff that shifted to display expression.

“You just turned into a tree girl,” I told her motioning vaguely in her direction. “Not like me either, I’m all flowers and soft green stem skin, but you’re made of bark!”

Grace’s eyes turned hurriedly down to her arm as she held it out. “Holy shit! I’m like an Ent!”

“You are,” I agreed, stepping close to run my fingers over her hand. She stilled as I did so, and then on a hunch I transformed into plant mode too.

The moment I took that form, something truly strange happened between Grace and I. Strange sensations whirled up from our touch, and we looked up to stare at each other in amazement. Amazement I could feel from both myself and her. I could feel, on a dim level the emotions that she was experiencing.

“Oh,” I blurted, stepping closer almost without thought. My hands went to her face and just sort of… explored, and with every brush of skin to skin between us I could feel the affection she felt for me. Judging by the way she was looking at me, it was a two way street as well.

“That’s new,” she laughed giddily, her arms coming up to settle on my hips. “I… wow. You really feel that for me?”

“Yes,” I nodded, a purple blush escaping to run rampant across my cheeks. “You really feel that for me?”

“Uh huh,” she said, smiling down at me. “Wanna kiss like this?”

Grace, bashful one moment and incredibly forward the next. Kinda like me actually? It was like we swapped back and forth.

“Oh yes,” I said, reaching up to place my hands on her shoulders and pull her down to my level.

The kiss was odd at first, her lips were both rough and soft at the same time. The small ridges of the bark were hard, but the actual texture of the bark itself was soft. All of that paled in comparison to the feedback loop of emotion that swelled within us. Feeling her attraction and affection for me seemed to amplify my own, and vice versa, until my world was nothing but love for her.

When we finally parted, it was like we were sticky, the actual motion of moving away from one another difficult and unpleasant.

“Wow… Wow, wow, holy fucking, wow,” she giggled, looking almost drunk. I probably looked like that too.

“Definitely,” I sighed dreamily, still holding onto her to keep myself upright. Why were my legs made of jelly? They were meant to be made of plant.

We were both silent for many minutes as we just sorta stood there and calmed down. It had been a lot, and my mind was still in the process of rebooting after that surge of emotion.

“Should we um, go have lunch, then get ready to leave?” Grace asked after a moment, still looking a little dizzy.

“Yeah… let’s do that,” I nodded, changing back into normal human mode.

Lunch consisted of more fruit and vegetables, which we were both thoroughly sick of now. I was even considering using my magic to hunt some animals to throw in the freezer at this point. I was hoping I could enlarge my grove to the point that I might be able to sustain some larger animals inside it. It would be so cool to have deer running around in the woods.

When we finished eating, we went back up to our room and got properly ready for leaving the grove. Grace got into her armour, minus the helmet, and I got fully suited up into my coat, scarf and the rest.

“We look so stereotypically fantasy right now,” she laughed as she glanced between us. “The cute mage in her dapper coat and the knight in her armour.”

“You forgot to add hot to your description of the knight,” I corrected, sending a grin her way.

Grace groaned and rolled her eyes, although it was betrayed by her bashful smile. “What have I created?”

I left that question hanging and beckoned for her to come closer. We could leave the grove from anywhere inside it after all. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, determination replacing her amusement, her gun at the ready.

We stood back to back, and after a few calming breaths, I transferred us over.

We did not come out in Ollinfer’s grove, as she’d promised. Instead we found ourselves in an unfamiliar patch of forest. It was definitely forest too, not rainforest like we’d seen when we entered the mountains. Vaguely coniferous trees clung to craggy rock all about us, with hardy shrubs scrambling for what little good soil that the trees weren’t using. Snow blanketed everything in a thin layer, and it looked fresh, as though it had only fallen last night.

“Alright, looks like Ollinfer was good on her word,” Grace remarked, looking around at the scenery.

We weren’t just in a forest though, we were halfway up the side of a mountain, perched on a large terrace-like ledge that extended out of our view, blocked by the trees around us. Curiously, we made our way towards the edge, and when we arrived we were assaulted with the most intense vertigo that I had ever experienced, causing us to stumble backwards.

“I couldn’t see the bottom!” Grace exclaimed, her eyes wide with shock.

She was right. While some distance opposite us there was another almost vertical cliff face like the one we stood on, ledges and terraces running up the side, there was literally no bottom in sight. Our view down was blocked by yet more irregularities in the mountain, but even then we could see that it was really fucking deep. I’d only ever seen terrain like this in Minecraft or on Mars, it was insane.

“We are… wow,” I gasped. “Really fucking high up.”

“We really are…” she said in amazement, shaking her head.

Taking a deep breath, I reined my thoughts in and focused on what we needed to do next. “I’m going to cast my spell and check for the guys.”

I raised my ring hand and carefully cast the spell, watching it closely this time, in case Ollinfer decided to fuck with us again. Thankfully it went off without a hitch, and I quickly located where Adam’s ring was.

“Adam is that way,” I said, pointing down the massive canyon we were standing in. “I don’t think he’s all that far away either.”

“Really?” Grace asked, her tone disbelieving. “How close?”

“I can’t say for sure, I can only get a direction mostly, but he feels close. Maybe a few miles?” I mused, concentrating on the fading information that my spell had brought up.

“Should we start like, trying to walk along this huge cliff?” she asked tentatively, once again staring warily at the edge.

“I guess so,” I shrugged, staring around us in awe at the scenery. It was gorgeous, even if it was also slightly terrifying. We could even see the snow line a few hundred meters below us on the far side of the canyon, and wispy clouds below that. My mind was reeling at the sheer enormity of this place. Had the Umare built this place specifically like this? They must have right? They designed the rest of this ring after all. Would we even be able to continue along this ledge all the way to our friends? How far did it stretch?

Our journey along the side of the mountain was terrifying in the extreme. In some places we traversed, the ledge was so thin that it was impossible to walk side by side, leading to some moments where one or both of us might slip, only to be caught by the other. The rock itself was fairly sturdy, and it didn’t break often under our feet, but the dirt that had collected on top of it was another matter.

Then there were the trees and shrubs, none of which Grace and I could identify. They simply weren’t based on anything we knew, although it looked like they had evolved along similar lines to what we were used to. Clearly this place had been groomed by the Umaru to host the Obrecs, just as our mountains back at Avonside had been cultivated to sustain humanity. It really had me wondering why they had gone through all this trouble.

“Can you tell how far they are now?” Grace asked, not sounding at all as tired as I was.

Having cast the spell only a few minutes ago, I just shook my head. “Closer, but that’s all I can tell right now. They’re also sort of inside the mountain from what I can tell, which doesn’t seem right.”

“Maybe they’re on the other side? This place seems like it has tons of different branching canyons,” Grace commented, staring around at the wild, alien scenery. So far it hadn’t really felt like we were on an alien world… until now. This place was truly strange.

“I didn’t think of that,” I replied, staring through the wall at where Adam was meant to be. Or at least his ring. “You’re probably right.”

“Which means, unless there’s a fork in the canyon up ahead, we need to go up and over, right?” Grace hypothesised, as she stared up at the wall of rock that not only yawned impossibly deep below us, but also dizzyingly high above us until it was lost in misty clouds that swirled and undulated in mysterious patterns.

“I doubt we’d be able to get over that without flying,” I laughed, my voice slightly rough with awe as I continued to stare up the rocky face.

“Good point,” she chuckled, then with a shrug she kept walking, picking her way over twisted roots and loose rocks.

I was starting to wonder if Ollinfer had really put us down near Millowhall, or if she’d just played a strange prank on us. Shit, or maybe her definition of “close” was just ever so slightly different to ours.

We had made a pact with a being that claimed to be a Goddess after all. That in itself was a whole mess of red flags. She could have dumped us on a detour so that would have us fulfilling some unknowable plan or prophecy while we bumbled our way towards the guys.

Either way, we kept moving, doing our best not to get freaked out by the world that had seemingly been turned on its side. We couldn’t even see the ring because of the mists and clouds that swirled around us. It was getting cold too, the chill of the region beginning to seep into our bones despite our clothing.

Then, to make the cold worse, the wind began to pick up, howling and groaning it’s way through the huge passage of rock. Pushing and pulling at us like it wanted to throw us into the chasm below or bash us against the rocky wall beside us. It wasn’t enough to deter us, at least not yet, but it sucked nevertheless.

I was sort of idly daydreaming by that point, letting my mind wander where it would, until some part of me jolted the rest back into the present. I was staring at a huge almost circular slab of rock, some two yards wide and two feet deep. Why had my subconscious mind brought this thing to my attention?

Oh! Oh gosh, it was perfect!

“Grace, hold on,” I said, taking her hand to bring her to a stop. “I want to try and steal that big ass rock for my grove.”

“What, why?” she asked, not yet having made the same connection that I had.

“It could be a floor to place an oven on! I would somewhat protect the tree from burning down!” I exclaimed excitedly.

“Oh, that would be great! We wouldn’t have to go outside to cook anything!” she grinned, understanding my intentions now. “Okay, how do you do it?”

“I don’t know, I guess I’ll just wrap my telekinesis around it and try to yank it in, just like normal,” I shrugged, doing so as I explained it. “See you in just a moment okay?”

Her expression turned worried. “Wait, you’re going without me?”

“I need to conserve energy, sorry. I’ll only be a moment, I promise!” I told her, searching her eyes for any sign she wouldn’t be okay for the few seconds I was gone.

“Alright, see you in a sec,” she sighed.

Nodding, I made sure my grip on the huge rock was solid and then went through the mental steps needed to pull myself into my grove. The strain was pretty intense compared to just transferring people, but after a slightly longer transition time than I was used to, I landed in the center of my grove, the rock alongside me.

Taking a few deep breaths, I took stock of how much energy that had taken out of me. A lot, by the feel of things, not prohibitively so. I could do this transfer maybe four times in a row before I’d burn out. What was interesting was how much energy it had taken compared to moving people in and out. Was it to do with an object’s mass? I’d have to experiment at some point.

When I popped back into the mundane realm, Grace was looking anxious, but otherwise fine.

“Okay, phew,” she breathed, relief all over her expression. “I was worried you’d accidentally get stuck in some sort of wild time bubble or other nonsense. You know how magic and sci-fi goes sometimes, a quick extra dimensional jaunt and then bam, the little maneuver costs them fifty one years.”

“Oh my goodness, you dork,” I said, grinning at her affectionately, cupping her cheek in my hand. Carefully, I went up on my tiptoes and placed a short, tender kiss on her lips, backing away with an intense, adoring stare.

“Oh, yes,” she blurted, her cheeks colouring. “Right, everything’s fine.”

“It is,” I smiled, then tilted my head in the direction we needed to go. “Shall we continue?”

“Yup, deffo,” she nodded, still looking a little flustered. She was so cute.

An hour later and we were still going, with what were probably clouds closing in around us. I wouldn’t be surprised if each stretch of the canyons had their own microbiomes with the way this place was made.

“I’m starting to get pretty cold, Ryn. We should possibly rest for the night, I think it’s starting to get dark, but I can’t tell,” Grace mumbled, coming to a stop and shivering as she turned to look at me. She looked damned cold that was for sure.

“Yeah, alright,” I agreed, taking her hand. I didn’t actually need to take her hand for the transfer into my grove, but I liked holding her hand.

So whatever, sue me.

When we popped into my grove, the relative warmth washed over us almost immediately. It was still somewhat cold, but it was a temperate cold, not a frigid mountain type of cold.

My new big ass rock was still where I’d left it, a crowd of bunnies surrounding it as they tried in vain to move the heavy object. “Hey, stop,” I told them quickly. “You’ll just hurt yourselves, let me do it.”

“Your buns are so good,” Grace laughed. “Trying their best.”

“Trying their best,” I nodded solemnly, as though it was a sacred phrase.

“If you’re going to try moving that thing with your mind, then I’ll head up to the bathroom and have a wash. I feel gross after all that walking.”

“Sure thing, see you soon,” I smiled at her.

As Grace wandered off, looking over her shoulder as she did so, I turned my attention to the big ass rock. Almost like I was straightening my back and lifting with my knees, just like the safety signs always said, I wrapped my telekinesis carefully around it. I could feel its heft even before I tried to move it, and when I did, my eyes blew wide with the effort. Holy shit, this thing was heavy! I could do it though, just.

Mind tight with the effort, I floated the thing up the ramp and into the happy tree, stopping to rest in the entry hall. It took several stops like that before I had it up and into the center of an unused floor. I decided that it was going to be the kitchen, and once the rock was in I had no intention of moving it. Damn, it was so heavy.

Staring at it as I caught my breath, I mumbled my thoughts out loud. “I need a hole in the middle, big enough to contain the fire that’s going to be inside it. How the hell will I achieve that?”

As if in answer, I felt a tugging at my pants, looking down to find the cream coloured bun at my feet. The little critter pointed to itself, then mimed an action that I couldn’t fully interpret.

“I don’t get it,” I said, watching the bun get exasperated with me.

It stopped to think for a moment, then seemed to have a brainwave as it hopped up onto the huge flat stone and mimed bashing something in the middle.

“Oh! You want to dig the hole?” I asked.

Cream nodded, then shook the empty air between its little hands.

“Ah, but you need rocks to do it. Okay, I’ll go get some rocks real quick,” I grinned, feeling my heart swell with the cuteness of the little friends. They were so good.

I popped back out into the mundane world from right there in the room, then made several trips in and out, swiping all the loose stones I could get my mental hands on. I dumped them on the grass outside where the buns could get them, and on my third trip they were swarming the area, hustling back and forth between the spot where I appeared and the tree. Good buns, getting to work.

With that taken care of, I went and had my own bath, luxuriating in the wonderfully warm water. I really liked my tree, and it was only going to get better. Hopefully I could get some proper furniture, maybe some decorations to make it more homey and less echoey. Of course, we had to actually find and get to Millowhall first.

After an early, sleepy night of kissing we woke up the next morning and continued our journey. I found a cloak in my pack, carefully stuffed into the bottom and forgotten about, and I put that on. Unfortunately, there wasn’t really anything Grace could wear over her armour. My cloak certainly wasn’t big enough.

I was however, now that I had seen the region, starting to get a few ideas for what I could sell. Any types of wood that were hard to come by in this massive broken land would probably be very sought after, especially if what people said about the Obrec was true. They really didn’t like cutting down the trees from their forests if they could avoid it.

There were really a whole host of options to make money if you could custom grow your plants to people’s exact specifications like I could. Anything from herbs and spices to medicinal plants to like, bonsai trees or something. Any resource that had its origins in plant life could be ready made.

All of this was precluded by us actually finding Millowhall of course, which was beginning to seem like a distant dream at this point. We’d been walking for hours already with no change except that the canyon was slowly curving away from where the ring was pointed, which was now behind us. I had a feeling that this place was a maze.

That is, until Grace realised something. “Ryn, what if we’re not at the right elevation?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, slowing to a stop as she nerd sniped me right in the noggin.

“What if we’ve been walking along this shitty fucking ledge for almost a day and a half, while there’s a perfectly good road above or below us?” she explained, walking tentatively over to the cliffside and peering down.

“Oh my god, that’s… you’re right, we could have so easily missed a road if we were below it. Hell, we might have even missed an offshoot of the canyon that started out at a higher elevation,” I realised, slapping my forehead. “Damn, Grace… you’re amazing!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she blushed, shaking her head as she came back from the ledge.

Taking her face in both hands, I forced her to look at me, then leaned gently forward and told her, “You. Are. Amazing,” punctuating each word with a kiss.

She was very flushed now, a beautiful red that lit her face up like the sunset. “Thanks,” she said, a bashful little smile shining through her blush. “Where have you been all my life?”

“Duelling my assigned gender to the death,” I remarked, giving her a cheeky grin. Then, adding a wink, I leaned forward and whispered, “I won.”

Her response was to gather me up with a laugh and nuzzle her face into my hair. I leaned in against her, enjoying her warmth, although the metal of her armour was kinda frigid. Still, that wasn’t going to stop me from snuggling up against my beautiful, strong Grace. We both smelled faintly of flowers now, her of lilies and me of… well I wasn’t sure what, but it was definitely a floral scent. I was a little confused as to why a tree girl would smell like a flower that floated on water, but whatever. Who was I to judge a work of art?

“So which way?” I asked after a few moments, still within the embrace. “Did you see a road down there?”

“Didn’t see shit but more snow and trees,” she grumbled. “Which means it’s probably above us. I just wish we could see up there before we climbed up.”

“Yeah…” I agreed, and then a wild, ridiculous, stupid and quite possibly incredibly dangerous idea slammed into my skull. “But I think I have a way to see up there…”

“How?” she asked, stepping back to get a look at me.

I cringed. “You’re going to hate it.”

“Why…?” she asked suspiciously.

“I have one free-stupid-idea card now, right?” I asked tentatively. “After the whole, yeeting yourself into a flower without any critical thought?”

She was frowning at me now in that way that people do when they know something is about to happen that they will get very upset about. “Two stupids doesn’t make a smart, Ryn.”

“Okay, just… let me try?” I pleaded, giving her my best puppy dog eyes.

“You haven’t told me what it is,” she told me, her suspicious expression not wavering an inch.

“I’m going to walk on thin air, sort of,” I said quickly, pointing out into the chasm. “I’ll run out there and then look up and see if I can see anything.”

“How?” she asked, confusion being added to her suspicion.

“With a spell I made while you were in the flower,” I lied. It was one I’d made earlier, but that was details.

“Fine, but if you fall, I’m jumping down after you so that we die together,” she told me, her tone allowing no argument.

“Uh, that’s excessive, but okay,” I winced. I had better not fuck this up then.

Without waiting for her to second guess this, and because if I thought about it too hard I’d fuck it up, I rushed the edge. As my foot fell into empty air, I summoned my hard light blades, one under each foot as I ran. They weren’t able to hold my weight for very long, barely a second before they broke, but that was all I needed. So long as I kept running, I could create new ones to stand on.

It was incredibly dangerous, and I should definitely have practiced first, but if there was one thing that I had going for me, it was my mind. I’d always been able to think my way out of problems, and this was no different… I just had to think faster.

Like I was running across a pond at high speed, relying on surface tension to keep me aloft, I rushed for the other side with the crack of my blades breaking under each footfall. When I reached a small outcropping of rock on the opposite wall, I stepped down onto the solid ground with relief, my heart pounding in my chest even as I felt a wild grin spreading across my face.

“Fuck yeah!” I hollered into the chasm, waving back at Grace. That had been a rush! She looked to be clutching a tree for support as she stared over at me incredulously. Oops, I hope she wasn’t freaking out too hard.

Anyway, time to look up and see what I could see. Which was… not a whole lot. No! Wait! There was something! High above, at least three or four ledges up, or sixty yards, was a bridge spanning the gap where an ancient rock slide had taken out a section of a ledge. It looked to be a reasonably wide one too, which would be perfect for a road. We had a road! Civilization!

My trip back was just as intense as my trip over, but I did make it back in one piece, despite one tiny moment where I misstepped and almost plummeted into the abyss. Only through summoning the larger, single blade was I able to course correct and continue. That one broke a little slower, which had me thinking about improvements to the spell.

I stumbled into Grace’s arms as a giddy, adrenaline fuelled mess, laughing and wild eyed. I felt almost dizzy with the rush that my stunt had given me.

“You’re right, I fucking hated that,” she said seriously, giving me a serious glare. “Let’s never do that again.”

“I need a better way of doing that, yeah,” I giggled. Apparently I was an adrenaline junkie, who knew? “I did see a road though! It’s like three ledges up.”

“How the hell do we get up there?” she asked with a groan.

“Good point, maybe.. Oh, duh, I’m dumb!” I exclaimed, letting my head fall onto her pauldron with a clonk. “I can just grow some vines up the wall.”

“Oh, that’s… yeah. Give them nice, safe handholds while you’re at it, please?” she asked, clearly still a little worried that I’d plummet to my death. I’d have to kiss her extra tenderly tonight.

“I will,” I nodded, then began to dream up a vine that would work. It was a fairly standard one that I came up with, although it had one important distinction. I made it want to grow branches out away from the rock face every foot or so, for handholds as she’d said. Once that was done, I planted the seeds and poured growth energy into them.

They launched up the craggy face of the cliff with alarming speed, until suddenly my growth magic ran out, causing me to sway slightly. I’d only managed to get them like five yards high, which meant… I needed to top up.

“Grace?” I asked, holding onto her for support. “Can you let down the barrier that’s keeping your magic contained? I need you to refill me.”

“Oh, wait, do you think I can do that?” she asked, looking surprised. “I figured I’d only be able to use it in the new way that Ollinfer made for me.”

“Give it a try?”

“Okay, let me just…” she said, closing her eyes. They snapped open with a laugh when her maginetic field fell away and her magic was accessible to me once again. “That was a lot easier than I thought it would be!” she exclaimed.

An idea came over me then, fuelled in part by the rush that running on nothing but my magic had given me. I’d wanted to try transferring magic like this back when I’d been constantly draining her, but I hadn’t been able to… except now I could.

So I didn’t reply, instead closing in for a kiss that I knew, and sort of hoped, was going to cause a… reaction in me. We were together now after all, I was allowed to kiss her, and I’m sure she’d enjoy watching me fall apart.

The instant our lips met, she was pouring into me in a rush, every drop of which was pure erotic pleasure. I moaned into the kiss and went boneless and limp in her arms, shuddering at the cascade of energy that burned hot and wet within me. I was distantly aware of Grace holding me up even as she teased me with her tongue, seeking entry with gentle flicks. Oh crap.

She was definitely enjoying this new power over me, now that she knew my affection for her was very real. So much so, in fact, that her hands had slipped past the waistband of my pants and were now gently caressing and massaging at my ass. This sent my mind tumbling end over end with yet more arousal until all there was in my world was her hands, her lips and her magic.

I shuddered as my magical reserves hit full, like an old steam train arriving at its platform, successive waves of rippling sensation still pulsing lazily through me until I was squirming jelly in my lover’s arms. A few more seconds of that and I’d have actually come. It was quick and dirty and the hottest thing that had ever happened to me, which wasn’t really saying much, but like.. Holy moly. Now I wanted the real thing so badly.

It took several minutes for me to come down off that wild high, as even though she seemed to have shut off the source of energy, it was still bouncing around inside me. Every so often some slight movement between us would spark little bursts of sensation that had me shaking all over again.

“Oh-kay,” Grace breathed, after what felt like hours. “I… that was… wow.”

“Yeah,” I giggled, still soaring and dancing in the clouds. “That was nice, we should do it in a proper bed next time.”

“Oh shit! You.. I… that was your…” she squeaked, beginning to panic.

I clutched at her harder and shook my head emphatically. “No, it’s okay. I didn’t… you know, actually come, but I liked it, a lot.”

“Oh, really? Okay…. But I still feel really—“ she began, but I cut her off with another kiss.

“Please, don’t freak out,” I pleaded, gently running my fingers through her hair. “You’re amazing Grace, and shit, if there’s one way to lose it, it’s standing on the side of a cliff having just walked on air, in the arms of my… um, you. I didn’t though so even then it’s fine… although, I want the real thing so much more now too, wow.”

“Okay… if you say so…” she said dubiously, and it was obvious she was still internally beating herself up over it.

“Grace,” I grumbled, squinting at her now. Then I grinned my cheekiest grin ever, “Stop, it was… magical.”

“Oh my goodness,” she guffawed, her worried expression being replaced by a grin.

“Yup,” I laughed, snuggling in against her again. “You’re the best thing to ever happen to me. Well, apart from the transformation, but they’re kinda linked. I’m serious though… we can do it properly tonight if you want…”

“Tonight…” she mumbled and I could hear her embarrassment in her voice. Then she nodded, her tone shifting into nervous happiness, “Okay, yes… um, we’ll see if, I uh… if you… okay, we’ll… crap. Also I’m starting to think that you’re also the best thing to happen to me. You’re like… yeah. I don’t know, I don’t have words for these emotions.”

She was so cute when she was flustered, it melted my heart even further.

“Then let’s not use words?” I suggested, pulling my plant form to the fore and allowing it to take over.

She silently did the same, and with my head nestled into the crook of her neck, I felt her emotions begin to wash over me. Oh, this was… yes. We stood together there on the cliff, swaying in the cold breeze as we basked in each other’s overwhelming affection. I loved this girl so much, and I could feel just how much she reciprocated.

After our interesting little… altercation, I managed to grow the vines all the way up the side of the cliff. It did however take frequent make out sessions, I mean… magical refuellings, to get it there.

Once it was fully grown, we clambered our way up the makeshift ladder, although the task was a lot harder than I’d thought it would be. I’d climbed ladders before in my life, but when they’re this tall… it was an ordeal. My upper body strength was also not at all what it used to be, thanks to my transformation, even if my legs were now on the thicker side thanks to all the walking we’d been doing.

So, we had to take frequent breaks at each ledge or outcropping of rock we made it to. The rest stops were kinda nice though, as it led to exhausted cuddling, which was fine by me. There was also the part where I got to stare at Grace’s ass as she climbed above me. She had a really nice ass. I wanted to squish it with my hands, and made a mental note to grab it the next time we were kissing.

When we finally pulled ourselves up and onto the ledge with the road, we were pretty exhausted, and opted to just lay on the grass and rest before we actually got up.

“Let’s never do that again,” Grace wheezed. “I thought I was fit, but that was gnarly.”

“Agreed,” I said with a chuckle that quickly turned into a cough. “Exercise is dumb.”

“No, exercise is great,” she chided me. “Climbing unstable vines over a bottomless ravine is not great.”

I made a sound of disagreement and smiled over at her, catching her eye. She rolled her her own eyes back at me and tried in vain to smother the growing grin on her face.

“You’re a dork,” she accused me affectionately.

“Thank you,” I replied gravely, as though accepting some prestigious award. “I’d like to thank… well, Bray I guess.”

“He is probably the one who corrupted you into dorkdom,” she nodded thoughtfully, playing along for a second before her grin launched itself back onto her expression.

Her comment, plus her grin caused me to bubble up in giddy laughter, which cascaded into her doing the same. We laughed together for a good minute before we managed to calm down. I think there must have been a lack of oxygen up here or something because honestly our joking around hadn’t been that funny.

As the laughter subsided I sat up and looked about us at the ledge we found ourselves on. We’d fallen into a patch of rough mountain grass that bordered most of the edge of the cliff, the occasional tree or shrub breaking up the monotony. The highlight of our surroundings though, was a wide cobblestone road that wound its way along the center of the ledge, our grass on one side and a pile of loose debris from the cliff on the other.

It would have been a fairly pleasant scene if it wasn’t for the dull, muted grey light that filtered through the clouds above us. Instead the scene was slightly eerie, even with the mundane looking wagon train approaching in the middle distance.

“Well, we found the road,” Grace remarked. “And some Obrec too. We should ask them for directions.”

“We should,” I agreed, then gave her a sideways look. “Your Anve has been getting pretty good, you wanna do it? Assuming they even speak it.”

“Oh, um… sure,” she said, not sounding at all sure. Oh dear, this is what happened when you tasked two socially anxious people with approaching strangers.

“I’ll talk to them,” I smiled, reaching over to play with her hair. It was so soft and thick, I wanted to snuggle my face into it here and now.

Instead, I struggled my way onto my feet and began to stretch out all my sore and abused muscles. Maybe we should ask for directions and then call it a day. I could really do with a warm, quiet bath right about then.

When it was close enough to make out details, the caravan train was a little different than I’d been expecting. We’d spent so long in medieval land down in the plains that I expected them to be pulled by horses, but they were definitely not pulled by horses. They were pulled by a sort of strange hybrid between an elk and a mountain lion.

The creatures had long, sinuous furry bodies like a large feline, but their legs ended in hooves rather than paws. Their heads had the familiar wedge shape of a feline too, except that their eyes were situated on the sides of their head to search for predators. In addition, their teeth were broad and flat, indicating that they were predominantly herbivores. The final oddities were the huge antlers they sported that curved back before flaring out, and the massive fluffy tails that swung low for balance behind them.

The wagons themselves caused me to bark a laugh that was quickly stifled. They had suspension. Turns out people on this ring knew about a comfortable ride after all, the humans were just predictably lagging behind. The wheels also had what looked like a mechanism to extend metal spikes out to hold them in place on an incline. If I was honest, it looked like the obrec were quite a lot more advanced than the local humanity was.

As they approached, I noticed that they came in two groups, the first being the people who were obviously the merchants, while the others were guards wearing ornate armour. My first thought was that the armour looked heavy. It was full plate, each individual section of which had been stained a dull bronze colour and carved with celtic looking whorls and knots. Their helmets looked sort of like a barbute helm, with a T-shaped opening at the front, although they had holes for their antlers to stick out at the top, and a complex opening mechanism to keep the head enclosed and protected.

All in all they were pretty damned intimidating, and I felt my courage waning by the second. I was meant to just… talk to these people? Oh dear.

The guards saw us pretty quickly and there was a whole lot of talking between them as the wagons slowed to a stop. For a moment I was confused, until I glanced at Grace, who’d stood up beside me, and noticed her hair and eyes. Right, we were both quite clearly mages.

Slowly, with their helmets removed, two of them approached us, one man and one woman. The woman was tall and almost handsome in a feminine way, while the man was a little smaller, looking lithe and quick despite the heavy armour he wore.

Glancing between themselves for a moment, they stopped, the woman speaking up. “Greetings Mages. What is your purpose in blocking our path? We wish to pass in peace.”

“Um, hey,” I said awkwardly, a little intimidated by her formal speech. “We’re not blocking you, it’s fine… we just wanted to ask which way it was to Millowhall. We uh, got lost doing… magic things.”

The two armoured obrec glanced between one another again, and this time the guy spoke, “You… got lost? Doing… magic stuff?”

“Yeah,” I said with a sheepish smile. “It’s a long story. Is it okay to uh, get directions? Please?” I asked hopefully.

“A mage with manners?” the woman muttered, a confused frown crossing her face for a moment. “Yes, directions are… fine. We are heading towards Millowhall now, there’s a tunnel up ahead that takes you there. It’s not far.”

A mage with manners huh? Our kind really had made a name for themselves, and not in a good way.

“Oh cool, thanks,” I smiled, turning and raising an eyebrow to ask if she caught the conversation. “You understand that?” I asked in english.

“Yup,” she grinned. “The chick was a little harder to understand at the start though.”

“Yeah she was using really formal speech. I think she expected us to be the super uptight noble sort of mages,” I explained.

“Mages?” she asked, before she realised that yeah, she at least looked like a normal mage. “Oh right.”

“Where are you from, if you don’t mind us asking? I don’t even recognise the language,” the guy inquired, glancing between us like we’d just been dancing naked.

“Oh, um… Avonside. We’re from the Order of Eleos,” I told them, feeling a little weird claiming to be from some organisation that was actually just five people.

[Author note: I have changed their name because I didn’t like “Solis Rangers” anymore. Eleos is the greek goddess of compassion.]

“Wait,” the woman blinked. “I’ve heard that name before!”

“They’re the ones that some of the mages back home were talking about. Bumped into Eilian the Golden I heard,” the guy replied, looking at us with interest now.

“Right!” she exclaimed, a grin forming on her face. “The ones who wounded Lord Fennelsomething. Whatever his name is.”

“Oh yeah!” he nodded. “Did you really do that?”

“Yeah, our leader shot him with a uh… ranged weapon,” I nodded, a smile forming on my face. I liked having that reputation, it was a fun one. The people who roughed up the asshole murderer cuntface dickwad.

“Well done,” the woman nodded happily. “Bastard has hunted down half our allies in human lands, now it’s looking like we’re going to have to close borders and fortify. It’s like your kind has collectively gone mad, no offence.”

“Not our kind,” I shook my head. “We come from…” I paused, discreetly casting the ring location spell before pointing, “That way. Avonside is a whole lot different.”

“Interesting,” the woman pondered, then shrugged. “Would you both with to ride with us into the city then? Sitting on a wagon is much easier than walking.”

“Oh, please,” I said thankfully, my legs crying out in song at the impending relief. “My legs are killing me!”

“I’m Merwig Thistlescar, but you can call me Mer, and this is my brother, Otho Thistlescar,” she smiled happily. “We’re Stonechaser clan. Come on back to the caravan.”

“Thank you,” I said, giving them both a smile and shifted to indicate my companion. “This is Grace and I’m Ryn, nice to meet you!”

The two obrec turned and began to walk back to their wagons, making enthusiastic gestures as they went. Grace and I shared a puzzled look but followed their lead, wandering along cautiously behind them. We’d been told that the obrec were odd, but so far we’d just met Eilian, who’d been mostly normal, if a little flirty and eccentric. The way these two had done a one eighty into friendship mode the moment they heard something good about us though… that was different.

I sat down close next to Grace in the wagon, almost molding myself to her side like I was made of clay. As I settled in, she glanced down at me with a look that had her soft eyes flaring wide. There was a depth to the shared eye contact between us, long and slow. Her arm was moving, coming to rest protectively about my shoulders before she glanced around the interior of the wagon.

The two obrec were in the process of sharing a glance of their own before they obviously decided to ignore the obvious romantic tension between myself and Grace. We had only just finished coming close to… well, coming a number of times to make the vine ladder, and I could almost feel the energy crackling between us now.

I was also beginning to feel the effects of all the energy I'd channelled earlier, on top of the the exhaustion from the climb. It all had my body feeling floppy and weak, like damp cardboard, and I began to slump into Grace's arms with the gentle rocking of the cart as encouragement.

"You okay, Ryn?" Grace asked with concern, tilting my head up to get a better look at me.

"Tired," I breathed.

"Rest then," she murmured, picking me up and settled me into her lap. "I'll wake you when something happens."

"I like strong, protective Grace," I told her, enjoying the feel of her arms around me, keeping me safe.

Grace didn't get a chance to reply, because Otho, the obrec man finally spoke, voicing a question that had probably been bouncing around in his head as he watched us. "Is your… friend alright?"

"My uh, lover, yeah. She's alright, just tired," Grace told them, her anve accented but passable.

I wasn’t thinking about her accent though, I was thinking about the wording she used. The word lover in anve was a little more complicated, and I wasn’t sure she realised that. It represented a commitment that was beyond what the english version might mean. She’d essentially just called me her girlfriend, or partner but in a way that implied it in the long term, like an informal declaration that she hoped to one day marry me.

This meant that I was having a silent mind explosion as the conversation continued around me. My heart was going wild, and I tried to pretend I was dozing off and not paying attention… why? I don’t know, I wasn’t exactly thinking rationally, that was for sure.

"I told you," the woman called Mer hissed, and through drooping eyelids I saw her elbow Otho. To Grace, she sheepishly explained, "We were not sure if you were together as lovers or not. We know that humans are different with how their love works, and we do not often meet members of your species…"

"Yeah," Grace nodded awkwardly. "She's, um… mine, I guess."

Hers.

"Ah, you are long lovers then?" Mer asked curiously.

“I’m not sure what that means…” Grace said softly, and I felt her shift as though she were looking down at me. “We haven’t been together long… I… I’m sorry can we change the subject?”

“Humans don’t have the long love like we do Mer,” Otho said, clearly realising his sister had gone too far with her questions.

“What do you mean?” Grace asked, sounding a little offended. Crap, I was so tired, but it sounded like I might have to intervene.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I did not mean to offend you,” he said quickly. “Our species… when we find our lifelong lover, our partner until death, our fur patterning will change to match each other, becoming a combination of that which we inherited from our parents. Once this bond is made, it cannot be unmade. There is no one else that will ever satisfy either of the pair.”

“Wait, really?” Grace asked, placated and now sounding interested. “How does that even happen?”

This time it was Mer who answered, “We are not sure. Ancestral tales from our origin world do not speak of the long love, and in the time since then, it has been studied and found to be magical in nature, although none have figured out how, or by what mechanism.”

“That’s pretty wild,” Grace replied, and I found myself agreeing.

It was also a little scary, considering the fact that it meant if you bonded with someone, there was no getting over them if circumstances stopped you from being together.

Any further conversation on the topic was interrupted by the lights going out. Or at least, that’s what my sleepy mind thought for a moment as the red light coming through my closed eyelids turned black.

“Oh, we’re in the tunnel now,” Otho commented. “Not long til Millowhall is in sight.”

I opened my eyes for a moment and peered curiously out of the front of the caravan. I couldn’t see much, it was dark save for what looked to be some form of low level magical lighting. The walls were rough hewn and almost entirely solid rock. Here and there were aged iron support beams, holding up the roof where it had weakened in the past.

Seeing that there wasn’t much else to look at in the tunnel, I closed my eyes again and snuggled back into Grace’s embrace. I couldn’t get over how my heart soared to be in her arms. This was really what I’d been missing all this time? I mean, I’d heard people talk about love, the music industry practically didn’t shut up about it, but… living it, I finally understood. I belonged here in a way that I didn’t even in my grove.

Leaning down, her lips brushing at my ear, Grace whispered, “You’re being really cute right now.”

Having her whisper in my ear had all sorts of effects that I don’t think she’d intended. A shiver ran up my spine even as goosebumps rushed down my skin and heat pooled in my stomach.

Oh gosh, I was still buzzing and turned on from earlier. Tonight couldn’t come soon enough. If she was still interested that is, otherwise I might find myself doing some exploration in the bath by myself. Being tired and horny was the strangest thing, I swear. Like, shit, I was still new to the very concept of horniness, and yet here I was cuddled up in Grace’s arms, happy and turned on in equal measure.

At some point I dozed off, the gentle rocking of the cart and its suspension as my lullaby. I wasn’t sure how long I was out, but the light hitting my eyelids was what woke me. That, or Grace carefully poking my cheek until I responded.

“We’re out the other side of the tunnel,” she told me gently, her voice sounding just as tired as I still felt.

Still, the nap had given me at least a little of my energy back, and I leaned back to smile at her, then glance out the front. What I saw had my eyes widening and my breath escaping in a gasp.

We were in another chasm, almost identical to the one we’d left, with one important difference. A city sprawled sideways on both sides of the massive ravine, looking as though it had been carved out of the very stone of the mountains. Where the obrec hadn’t just carved their buildings out of the rock, they had used the stone in blocks to construct the rest. Great bridges arched across the hundreds of feet between the chasm walls, some large enough that they sported small buildings of their own.

Even from this distance I could see that the city was bustling too, carts and people moving across the lower bridges like ants. The wide road we’d come out onto was pretty full too as people moved in towards the huge gates of the city. I saw a matching one on the other side of the canyon as well. The place was massive.

Them my eyes descended, and I realised with surprise that the floor of this ravine was a lot higher than the last one, with a tangled forest crowding every available inch of soil. The only area that wasn’t covered in thick vegetation down there was the turbulent river that twisted its way down the center. The whole thing was beautiful, inspiring in a way that had me wishing for a moment that I was one of the species that had built this.

“Oh my goodness,” Grace breathed, and although she’d spoken in english, the two obrec with us nodded agreement, proud smiles lighting their expressions.

“It’s something ain’t it?” Mer said, her own eyes betraying that she was not immune to the grandeur before us.

“It’s incredible!” I smiled, leaning out a bit to gawk like a tourist. “Are all obrec cities like this?”

“Some come close, but Millowhall is something special,” Otho told us. “It might not be the capital of any one clan, but it’s the site of our arrival on this world. The very first group of obrec to be dumped on this world founded Millowhall, and it’s been a center of ingenuity and learning ever since.”

The gate into the city was fast approaching now, the looming steel reinforced stone cutting off the afternoon light as we trundled under the first portcullis. They seemed to have a multi-layered defence here, which had me slightly amused. What kind of nutjob would try and attack this place? Where the hell would you put your army? You’d never be able to bring enough soldiers to bear on the place to do more than get your people killed.

The wagon train came to a stop between the walls, and guards in armour that was much the same as our companions approached. “Stonechasers?” one called as he neared the rear of our wagon.

“Aye,” Mer replied, hopping out to greet them.

“What’re you transporting?” he asked gruffly, before his eyes fell on Grace and I. “And who the hell are they?”

“Friends, good people,” Mer said, her voice suddenly menacing, her posture shifting subtly to give herself better balance, hand falling on the pommel of her spiked mace.

“Yeah? They don’t look like Stonechasers to me,” the guard rumbled, glaring at us suspiciously. “Human mages more like, your clan willing to foot the bill when they go feral?”

“They won’t,” Mer said, her voice taking on a venom that would have made a brown snake envious. “Like I said, they’re good. Stonechaser vouches for them.”

“As you wish,” the guard shrugged, still giving us both the side eye. “Your head if they ain’t good.”

“I’m aware,” she replied sarcastically. “You going to inspect our cargo now so we can go in, or just continue being a pain in my ass?”

“Stonechasers,” the guard muttered, rolling his eyes.

He hit the ground before I even saw the large woman move, her gauntleted fist ringing the stupid obrec’s helmet like a bell. Her boot came down on his chest next, and she leaned down, a feral smile just visible past her own helmet.

“You done?” she asked fiercely.

Grace and I shared an alarmed look, and my eyes quickly sought out the other guards… who appeared to be, uh… laughing? At their comrade? What the fuck? Was this normal? Did guards regularly just… wail on each other like that?

“Yeah, you’re free to go through,” the downed man grumbled, which seemed to satisfy our new very scary friend. “No need to inspect your goods this time, I think.”

“Good,” was all Mer said, removing her foot from his chest and hauling herself up into the cart. To the two of us, she smiled amicably, her tone wry as she said, “Welcome to Millowhall and obrec culture, I can tell you haven’t seen how we operate before.”

We said goodbye to the Stonechasers on the other side of the gatehouse, with the promise that we’d come to them if we needed help. I replied that I’d have a lot of stuff to sell later, but we had business to get to first. With the name of the inn that they were going to be using memorised, we headed out in search of our friends. They were undoubtedly in the city, at least according to my tracking spell, so we wandered off in that direction.

The city was as amazing from the inside as it was from the outside, bustling with obrec, humans and a few other races I’d never seen before. Magic was everywhere too, the gentle smell of it permeating the air to my mage senses. I was starting to realise that the Anve kingdoms, duchies and princedoms were actually a backwater in this region, as evidenced by the sheer size of this place compared to any of the other cities we’d been to thus far.

Except, the main difference was the obvious lack of wood, wherever it was possible to swap it out for some other material, they had done so. Doors were still wooden, with steel reinforcements looking to be quite popular. The stone that most buildings were carved out of was mostly the same muted grey as the natural stone from around here, while the tile roofing appeared to be fired terracotta and clay, with some shale thrown in every now and then.

The terrace we found ourselves on was as wide as any normal city street, with vendors hawking their wares on either side as we made our way further in. They gave the center of the street a wide berth though, and there was a pair of obrec guards making sure the wagon traffic was able to move smoothly. It was all oddly familiar really, which led me to think that maybe human and obrec culture had sort of bled together over the years.

We had to cross the chasm to get to where Adam’s ring was, and that meant walking across one of the many huge bridges that spanned it. I’m pretty sure the engineers back at Avonside would have a field day with this whole city, but they’d cream themselves over the bridges.

We found, in the end, that the tracking spell wasn’t pointing across the chasm at all, but rather to an inn that was actually in the bridge. The inn, and many other buildings like it along the length of the huge span of stone, only had the common room and stables on the same level as the main thoroughfare. The rest, I was guessing as we approached it, was underneath, built into the structure that we walked on.

“Damn, this place is incredible,” Grace remarked as we approached the inn. “This bridge is bigger than that one back in that other city. The one made by the ring builders.”

“Yeah, not as long though,” I agreed, glancing around before pushing the door open.

A cheeky expression came over her and she gave me a sly smile, “So… it’s shorter but girthier?”

“Please, no dicks here, I’m not that kind of lesbian,” I groaned, rolling my eyes.

Suddenly she was all blushes as we stepped inside the building. “I have a strap back at uni,” she mumbled, causing my eyebrows to rise and my stomach to do little flips. Oh my goodness gracious… that sounded… wow. And she’d use it… on me? I quivered at the thought.

I shook my head slightly to clear it and glanced around the room instead. Along the back wall was a massive window done in a style that would be old on earth, diamonds of glass set into a lattice of soft metal, possibly lead. Light filtered through that lattice and into the common room on sparkling dust-filled streamers, bathing everything it a dappled yellow glow.

The tables were all smooth, carved stone, carefully crafted to be structurally sound while still movable if the need required it, metal used here too as a way to strengthen sections that had once been weak. The chairs were wooden, although they appeared to have been crafted from wood that had fallen to the forest floor, rather than cut down. The Obrec used so much metal in every aspect of construction, I was starting to think they might have an abundance of the stuff. It boded well for any shopping I might do for materials.

The hearth was set into the far side of the room to the side of the large window, a huge stone thing that appeared to be burning coal or some other material that wasn’t wood. The lengths these people went to get around their desire to protect their forests was incredible.

As for the people in the room, there were all sorts, although most of the patrons were obrec. One couple in the back appeared to be some sort of shorter, more animalistic race. Their bodies were thickly furred, with massive manes tumbling down their backs. They looked for all the world like stubby little humanoid lions with even more fuzz than usual. They were kinda cute, in a menacing, dwarfy sort of way.

Of course, our eyes weren’t really on most of the patrons in the room, but rather the group off to the side, where three guys in black armour sat. Adam was the first to rise, a huge grin dominating his face. “Ryn! Grace!” he exclaimed, rushing over.

He swept me up in a big hug with one arm, Grace in the other. “I fucking knew you’d turn up,” he grinned, before his eyes focused properly on Grace. “Grace… you uh…”

He let us go and stepped back, glancing between us both, but mainly staring at the recently changed girl beside me.

“Long story,” she said self consciously. “Still me though.”

I moved to place my hand on her back in order to steady her, although it was her emotions that were unsteady, not her body.

“Right,” he nodded, his smile returning. “Come tell us about it?”

“Of course,” I said, giving Grace a reassuring smile.

She gave a nod of thanks back, visibly shook herself and moved forward. My girl was strong, despite her lack of self confidence.

Troy’s grin was warm and relieved as we sat down at their table, while Kit was giving us a tired smile. He looked a little beat up, like he’d had a nasty fall. Probably when they were running away from whoever had found them. We had a lot of catching up to do.

Before that though, I shifted my chair sideways until it was flush with Grace's, then cuddled in against her side a little.

Troy raised his eyebrows. "I see that magic problem still persists."

"Um, no… we fixed that," I replied, feeling self conscious about Grace and I, but also unwilling to extricate myself from her. "It's why she looks different now. She's sorta like me… it's more complicated than that though, but it's sensitive information. The kind we should talk about in my grove, not here."

"Alright," he nodded, still eyeing us both up.

"Do you have your own grove, like Ryn?" Kit asked, expression keen and interested.

Grace shook her head. "Nah. I sort of amplify Ryn's spells instead."

"Oh, that's handy," Adam noted, although his eyes were on the contact between us, a slight smirk on his lips. "You two will need to get close, learn to work together? I imagine?"

"Um, yup," Grace nodded, a blush spreading across her cheeks again.

Adam totally knew there was something between Grace and I. He’d known since Eilian I think, but the way we’d been acting since then had probably solidified it in his mind. He was thankfully not pointing it out, which was probably more than our budding little… uh, relationship, could bear.

"How's the situation with your grove?" Troy asked me, mercifully changing the subject.

"We were stuck inside the tree for days because of another storm. It was nuts, trashing the interior before I shored it up," I told them, thinking back on the howling wind and tearing rain. "The wind break worked though, most of it survived."

"Damn good to hear, I'm glad things went okay for you two," he sighed, relieved. "We were worried when we had to make a run for it."

Ah, here it was. I was very interested to hear what had happened to them.

"Why was that anyway?" Grace blurted, leaning forward.

"Some of that wank stain's goons were in town," Adam growled, looking pissed. "The fuckers jumped us and we only just got out."

"Indeed," Troy nodded, taking over the explanation. "Two enemy mages, plus their escorts hit us as we were on our way back from selling your goods. Kit got thrown against a building, that's why he's injured."

"But you're okay?" I asked quickly, running my eyes over the quiet guy properly now, looking for any bad injuries.

"Yeah just bruised... like, everywhere," he said with a smile that was half grimace. "The running afterwards didn't help either."

He might be saying that, but I still wanted to gently throw him into one of my baths and maybe try to concoct a plant to help him. He looked like he was in a whole bunch of pain

"The running fucking sucked, even for me, and all I got was blisters," Adam agreed, wincing as he shifted his feet.

"But you got away…" Grace prompted, glancing between then for more. “Shit, I was worried… especially after some… well, stuff.”

I felt kinda bad, I’d had so much else on my mind that I’d kind of relegated them all to the back of my mind. I’d been worried, sure… but Grace had been my priority.

"Yes, evidently we did get away," Troy remarked, a ghostly wisp of amusement in his tone. "We ran for a long while, almost two days of alternating between walking and running. Luckily for us, it turns out that stuck up nobles don't make good long distance runners. They tried, with magic too, then they gave up and sent their goons on ahead after us. We introduced them to our guns and then they too backed off. Tailed us all the way to the damned border though."

"Yup, let's hope they think of us as not their problem anymore," Adam sighed rubbing his face tiredly.

"Doubt it," I said apologetically. "They've almost finished wiping out every mage that poses a threat to their coven, and unfortunately… we kinda shot one of their leaders."

"Ah," he winced. "Shit…"

"That's not something we can deal with now though," Troy said, bringing us back on track. "Our next move us to rest and see what this city can do for us "

"Oh!" Grace grinned, glancing down at me for a second before she looked back up. “We actually made some friends already. A bunch of obrec from a clan called the Stonechasers."

"Oh yeah!" I said, excited now. "They seemed impressed by our reputation for shooting Fennimore. Said that if we needed anything, we could ask them for help."

"That's great," Troy replied, looking relieved. "You're all not so green around the ears anymore," he noted with a smile.

“Are you saying that we aren’t just dumb college kids anymore?” Adam asked with a laugh.

Troy gave a chuckle and a so-so shake of his hand. “Something like that.”

It almost seemed like he was proud of us, which was pretty cool. I liked the idea that we’d impressed Troy. Hell, I’d kinda impressed myself with how far I’d come since that first day. I was practically a different person than I had been three or four months ago, complete with a new body and name even.

Speaking of bodies, this lot looked like they could do with a rest, a good, hot bath and some nice food.

“Do you all want to go into my Grove for a rest?” I asked, glancing between each of them. “The bunnies should be finished with the open fire cooking pit thing too, so while you three are resting, Grace and I could see about selling some stuff to buy nicer food.”

“That would be amazing,” Kit groaned, slumping forward slightly. “I’ve been dreaming of the baths in your tree, I swear.”

“I added showers to them now,” I said with a sympathetic smile.

“Oh, please can we go there now?” he begged of Troy.

“Sure, if Ryn think’s that its safe to swap over here,” Troy replied, raising an eyebrow at me.

I nodded. “Magic is everywhere here, it would just blend in. We could rent a room here to put my mark in.”

“It’s a plan then.”

We quickly got the guys into the grove and happily soaking in the warm baths. Before that though, Troy gave me a bunch of the money they had gotten from selling stuff a week ago. It was all in obrec coinage, which wasn’t coins, as I’d been expecting, at least, not exactly. They looked like they were bodybuilders or something, smaller in width but taller overall. I guess they were still coins… just like, little chode coins. Ew.

“Let’s go buy a shitload of meat,” Grace blurted as soon as we were back in the room we’d rented in the inn. “Stuff it down in that freezer you made.”

“Definitely,” I agreed wholeheartedly. I was already salivating at the possibility of real meat.

Our search for meat led us out and off the bridge, where we wandered aimlessly until finally asking a guard where we could find a butcher. The guard, taken aback that two mages were both talking to him and doing it in a way that didn’t involve him groveling for some perceived slight, stammered out a response and ran away.

So we trundled off, following the directions he’d given us until we came to a stone building on the market street near the main gate. They had a painted sign depicting a trussed up carcass of some creature, so we assumed it was the right place.

Inside, we found a store keeper who was practically falling over himself to both sell us all the meat we wanted and get us the hell out of his store. Damn, this whole being a mage thing was getting to be a little bit awkward. Everyone was fucking terrified of us.

We ended up getting enough meat to last us weeks, of various cuts and stuff. I don’t know, I’m not a butcher and I have no idea how the unit of measurement they use around here works. I ended up transferring it into my grove right there in the shop while Grace guarded my mark. The buns were tasked with carrying it all down into the freezing room, with the exception of a few bits we’d be cooking later.

Back in town, Grace and I had a mission, to make a god damned fortune. For that, we figured that our new friends would be more than keen to set us up with the right contacts, provided they got a share of the cut. A share that I was more than willing to give, I had never honestly cared about money other than what I needed to survive. Making enough money to give Avonside a good shot at survival though, that was going to be a new experience for me.

We had to ask for directions again, and this time the guard didn’t freak out so hard, especially after I made a massive effort to be polite and kind. It was so much effort though, basically bundling my words up in bubble wrap in order to keep them from fainting or some shit.

That led us on a merry little adventure through the city’s many streets, ramps and even lifts at one point. The place was incredible, and little snippets of magical technology were everywhere. The lifts for example, were powered by compact little magical engines, and I inspected them keenly with my sight. I wanted to know how they worked, and then I’d make Bray build me some. Hell, I could even buy some of those motors, use one for my tree and give the rest to him to take apart.

We found the Stonechasers out the back of the inn they had told us to go to, dealing with securing all of their wagons. The inn itself was built into the cliffside, and the stables were actually more of a large carved out cave than anything else. The hollow space had everything you’d normally expect of a stable and stableyard, complete with teamsters wrestling with stubborn animals.

“Ryn! Grace,” Mer called, spotting us from where she and Otho had been watching the mess with growing amusement. “Welcome to the show!”

“Hiya,” I smiled shyly. Something about the way these two so cheerfully accepted us for everything that we were just… it was a lot.

“What’s got you visiting so soon?” Otho asked curiously, tearing his eyes away from what seemed like a brewing fist fight.

“We had a… business proposition for you all,” I said slowly, gesturing to the Stonechasers at large as I wondered where to start.

“Oh ho!” he grinned. “That sounds like Jerril’s forte,” he mused, before turning to one of the three obrec that were about to hit each other. “Jerri! Get over here!”

“The fuck do you want Otho? I’m busy!” a grumpy old obrec growled. The man was wearing a well cut tunic, close fitting breeches and a cloak that was draped over one shoulder.

“The mages are back! They want to make us stones!” he called, his cheeky amusement at interrupting their argument all but glowing through his expression.

“Stones eh? How on earth will they do that?” he asked, his tempter subsiding as his interest was piqued.

“Uh, stones?” I asked, a little confused. I wanted to make them some money, not stones.

“Money, coinage,” Mer explained with a wave of her hand. “Obrec term for it.”

“Oh, right,” I nodded, glancing over at Grace and finding her looking just as bewildered as I felt.

Jerril the grumpy old obrec had wandered over as Grace and I shared our look, and when my eyes fell on him again, I saw him squinting warily at the both of us.

“Well?” he asked curtly. “Fine young mages you might be, but you don’t seem like you have the power to throw around.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, very confused now.

“You mages, you sometimes sell the things you grow in your groves, yeah? But from what I understand, it takes a lot of power to be just growing trees and whatnot willy nilly, and pardon me for saying so, but you both look to be a little on the younger, greener side,” he explained, but I could tell he was already starting to doubt himself on that front. One of his eyes had gone all squinty.

“We’re not like other mages,” I said cryptically. “I have a bunch of aging logs I can have ready right now.”

“Really now?” he blinked, then I saw the coins rattle around behind his eyes… or, well… stones. “How many?”

“Uh, like twenty five or so for now, but I can grow more too,” I told him self consciously.

“Very interesting…” he murmured, a slow smile creeping across his lips.

“Oh, you have him now!” Mer laughed, appearing beside me to slap me on the back. Sneaky goat lady.

“You can grow what I ask for?” Jerril asked, ignoring Mer.

“Yup,” I nodded. “So long as I have a good enough description or an example.”

It was obviously more complicated than that if I was going to be diving into herbs or medicinal properties, but lumber was well within my abilities.

“Can you grab one of those logs you were talkin’ about? I’d like to see what I’m dealing with, if you don’t mind,” he asked after a few moments of contemplation.

“Uh, sure,” I nodded, turning to Grace. “Guard my mark?”

“Sure,” she said quietly. My girl, content to watch and protect while I brokered deals. She was looking really pretty with the sunlight streaming in from outside to hit her side on like that, accentuating all the angles and curves of her face. I was so damned lucky.

With that image still in my mind, I popped into my grove and walked up the ramp and into my tree. Buns were everywhere now, lounging around in the main foyer, their earlier task having been completed. I knelt down for a second to give one a gentle scratch as I went past. Very good buns.

I chose one of the indian rosewood logs and wrapped my mind around it, dragging it with me back into the mundane realm.

When I arrived, Grace was shuffling awkwardly and trying to make small talk. The look of relief on her face when I popped back into existence was enough to make me want to rush over and hug her.

“This is indian rosewood,” I explained to Jerril the grump. “It’s a tree from human lands.”

“Oh my,” he murmured, bending down to run his fingers over the rough end of the log where the bunnies had cut it down. “It keeps the reddish colouring when it’s polished? What are its uses?”

“Generally it’s used for furniture,” I said, grasping at what little I could remember about it. “It can take a bit of a beating and still look good, so it’s the sort of stuff you’d want to make tables and chairs out of.”

“Girl, if you can get me more of these logs, I can make us both a fortune, assuming that my hunch is true and you’d like us to act as the middle men for you?” he asked, straightening up even as his eyebrow was raised higher in question.

“Uh, yeah,” I nodded. “The locals seem to think we’re going to kill them if they look at us funny…” I agreed sheepishly.

“They would,” he nodded. “About four years back, a bunch of human mages smashed their way through our lands before anyone realised what was happening. They killed a good number of our people’s magic users. Warlocks, mages and even artificers, none were spared. We’re still recovering from the losses, but none were hit harder than the Mossbeds.”

That sounded an awful lot like Fennimore and friends. Makes sense too, is a gross sort of way. While they might all be separated by hundreds to thousands of miles in the mundane realm, the mages were connected much more closely within the Nameless Garden. This meant that a human mage down in Anve lands might have an alliance or friendship with an obrec mage. Ao if you wanted to keep an entire political bloc’s worth of mages from interfering in your plans for world domination, you’d smash them until they were too weak to help their friends.

“Aye, and that led to all sorts of political crap that us Stonechasers thankfully kept ourselves out of,” Mer said with a wince. “We’re lucky, having our lands isolated up in the very north of the mountains.”

A very north that was also close to Avonside… interesting...

“That Eilian that you ran into was part of it,” Otho remarked, clearly wanting to tell the story. “She was forced out of the mountains after she went and bonded with the daughter of the Cherrinbrook clan head. Almost started a war, and now she’s only allowed to visit her fellow mages in their groves, a group that her bonded, I might add, is not a part of.”

Well, that explained how word had gotten over here about us so quickly. If Eilian had been visiting obrec mages to gossip about us, then tales of our exploits were probably halfway around the ring by now.

“Wait, hold on,” Grace blurted, waving her hands. “You’re saying that Eilian the golden fell in love with some boss man’s daughter and that almost started a war? How?”

“That daughter was betrothed to the son of the Timberwild clan, you see,” Otho explained, clearly enjoying his role as storyteller. “The Cherrinbrooks suffered after the human mages attacked same as everyone, but they saw the weakness of the Mossbeds, so they figured if they could secure a blood alliance with the Timberwilds, they’d be able to team up and take a chunk of Mossbed lands.”

“Oh… and then Eilian stuck a spanner in the works…” Grace winced, and I had to agree… that situation could not have been pleasant. Especially if bonding was just two obrec falling deeply in love with each other. No one had much choice when it came to that type of thing.

“Oh that’s not the half of it,” Otho grinned. “This all took place down in the capital city of the Kingdom of Keltan, where young nobles like to go for the summer—“

“Wait… oh my goodness,” Grace groaned, pressing her eyes closed and pinching the bridge of her nose. “What’s the Kingdom of Keltan?”

“Obrec kingdom to the south, like I was saying,” Otho replied, perturbed. “It goes like this, you have a noble house, like ours, the Thistlescars, and we are one house within the Stonechaser clan. Sometimes, a clan or noble house will gain enough power to unify a few clans into a single kingdom. Mossbed, Cherrinbrook, Timberwild, Stonechaser and a few others are all independent clans in the north of obrec lands, each vying for the ability to subjugate the others and form a kingdom.”

“Oh my god,” Grace groaned. “I thought we’d escaped the political bullshit when we left Anve lands.”

Mer gave a snort, “Not by a long shot I’m afraid.”

“That’s a lot of names and none of them mean much to me, I’m sorry,” I apologised. It was true though, they’d just thrown a bowl of word salad at us and seasoned it with political intrigue and a tragic love story. I couldn’t wait to get back to Avonside, where I’d at least understand the political bullshit going on.

“So anyway, like I was saying,” Otho cut in, clearly intent on telling his tale. “They were all down in the capital of Keltan when this happened, and the whole thing started a pitched battle in the streets! The king of Keltan had to kick the whole squabbling lot of them out and—“

“Enough, boy,” Jerril groaned, rolling his eyes before very pointedly turning to me. Right, history lessons later. “Ryn, wasn’t it?” he asked, sounding almost polite. I guess his default setting really was just, massive grump. “I’ll put word out, if you’ll let me keep this log here so I can sound out the local carpenters. Then I’ll get back to you with a price in oh, a day or so, how does that sound?”

“Sure… and uh, how much of a cut will you take?” I asked. I had no idea how to broach that subject, so I just kinda threw it out there.

“Two parts out of ten,” he stated, his voice going all funny and serious. Wait, was he expecting me to haggle?

“Sure,” I shrugged. “Sounds good.”

“Uh,” Mer interjected, staring at me with wide eyes.

I grinned, and if that grin was maybe a little arrogant… well, apparently I was to be feared around here, so why not lean into that a little. “The kind of power it takes to make a tree like that,” I remarked calmly, waving to the rosewood log. “It’s nothing, a tiny portion, barely worth mentioning. I could create an entire forest of these things and still have enough juice rattling around to blow up this inn.”

That seemed to halt the Stonechasers a little, and a few of the bystanders from their clan exchanged worried glances. They didn't need to know that what I'd said wasn't strictly true. Sure, I could grow that forest of trees, but only using the absurd amount of growth energy permeating my grove right now, and of course, I didn't even have an explosion spell.

“I… see,” Jerril chuckled, taking a deep breath. “In that case, how about we only do three parts out of twenty?”

“I guess,” I shrugged again. “Whatever suits you.”

Obrec were damned crazy.

We spent the rest of the day in my grove, hanging out with the guys and relishing the opportunity to just… chill. We were safe for now, we had a lot of good food, a place to cook it inside and buns to cuddle. Also someone else was out in Millowhall making us money, that was nice too.

Despite what we’d said way back in ancient history, otherwise known as that morning, Grace and I did not get intimate that night. With the tree still lacking any internal doors, we were scared to try anything, lest the guys hear us. So we just sort of cuddled our way to sleep as usual, except with a metric fuckload of sexual tension hanging between us now, more so than before. First thing I was doing when I had money was getting this place kitted out with some doors and windows.

Obviously the guys had noticed that we were closer now, but we hadn’t outright done anything that would signal to them just how close. We also hadn’t discussed it, just sort of… mutually decided not to make out in front of them. I had no idea why I personally felt the need to keep them in the dark, and I hadn’t asked Grace either. I guess we just wanted it to be between us for now? I had no idea. We still hadn’t talked about what to call things between us either.

The next day, we went back to meet Jerril, Mer and Otho, this time with Troy as well Grace. Troy and Jerril seemed to hit it off well, and all six of us took a trip into my grove so that I could show the Stonechasers what I had in stock, and what I could grow. Jerril already had several types of wood that eager carpenters were keen to get their hands on. Surprisingly, it was actually local woods they were the most interested in.

Turns out that obrec only harvested wood that had fallen naturally, and several species of trees were more likely to grow into twisted, unusable shapes than not. Those two facts combined meant that there was a massive shortage of wood from those trees. My job would be to replicate those trees, but in a manner that meant they were usable.

So while Jerril took my stock of wood off to sell, as well as source some tools for my buns to cut down the new trees I’d be growing, Mer and Otho took me on a trip down to the floor of the canyon. The idea was to have me inspect the trees that they wanted down there in the forest, so I had a good enough understanding of them.

The way down was slightly terrifying, even for someone like me who wasn’t afraid of heights. On one of the lower, larger bridges was a set of lifts that would lower people down. The lifts, essentially massive cages, did nothing to help with the dizzying heights, and Grace clung to me the whole way down. The wind causing the lift to sway had even me feeling queasy about this endeavour.

“This is… something,” Troy remarked as the clanking mechanisms high above us lowered us down into the mists. It felt like we were entering a wholly different world, one of nothing but the cage around us, the mists, and the gentle creaking of the chains that held us up.

The mists soon turned out to be clouds, and the vista that spread out in a line before and behind us was breathtaking. A forest, ancient beyond measure stretched out down the broken and smashed canyon floor.

I was starting to wonder if these mountains had been intentional or not on the part of the Umare. Surely terrain like this wasn’t what passed for natural on the ring?

“Mer, what was the old obrec home world like?” I asked after a few moments of thought.

“Hmm? Well, from what little records we have left, it was a mountainous one, but of the more normal kind, like the ones to the north past the human Empire of Ghraiga,” she said, face all scrunched up as she tried to remember what she knew. “Like this place, it had many forests in the valleys between the mountains. There was also talk of a huge, uh… moon, I think is the term in Anve.”

That made sense. A large moon would pull on their home world, creating a lot of tectonic activity. I was willing to bet that they lived up in the mountains because the coasts would be a little rough, with huge tides and frequent earthquakes sending tsunamis crashing ashore every couple of years. It left the question of why they used stone to build though, it wasn’t the greatest material for earthquake safety. Maybe that had used wood back then? I was making a lot of assumptions though, and it wasn’t relevant now.

The cage touched down far more gently than I’d expected on the specially constructed stone platform at the bottom. The platform was more of a small fort, crouched on the forest floor to protect the lifts as they touched down. Apparently the forests down here were rather lawless, with forest obrec tribes who bowed to no one regularly raiding the millowhall obrec when they ventured below.

“We won’t be going very far in, some of the locals gave us directions to find the trees we want,” Otho explained as the door was opened and we stepped out.

It was a short trip out of the utilitarian stone fort before we found our way into the forest. Up close, the forest seemed even more ancient, and it was hard to tell if any of the trees I was looking at were even alive. I mean, I guess the tops had leaves on them, but the trunks were covered in lichen, mushrooms and moss.

The forest floor was much the same, dense with wet foliage and choked by the thick canopy above. I was surprised that plant life could even live with so little light under all those leaves and at the bottom of this big hole.

Our journey took us between the moss covered trees and through the misty, damp undergrowth. It was downright creepy in there with the odd, unfamiliar animal sounds filtering through from around us. It didn’t help that the wind was causing a racket above us, howling and rustling through the trees. If someone had said, ‘spooky haunted forest’ to me, this was what I’d have imagined.

So of course, what followed was a nice, peaceful guided tour of said haunted forest. I got to inspect a lot of trees and plants with my mage sight, pointing out little details to Grace as I went. It was nice to have someone else who could see all this stuff, it had been getting kind of lonely in the realm of magic.

Grace also had enough of an understanding about plant life that she was able to follow along. I’d been surprised at first, it had been so long since that first week that I’d forgotten she was selected to be the co-leader of our little foraging party. She actually knew a thing or two, being a farm girl. With her help I was able to make sure I remembered all the details that I needed to know in order to grow my own versions of these trees.

We saw a few other parties out in the woods, foraging for various materials. We were also stopped once by a pair of Mossbed rangers who were simply checking that we were abiding by the rules. All in all, the trip was pretty uneventful, no bandit attacks or scary whistling creatures jumping out of the forest. Just atmospheric spook.

When we got back up a few hours later, Jerril had already found eager buyers for the wood I’d given him, and rather than taking the offered coins, I gave him a list of things I needed. The list included things like the doors and windows, which would probably need measurements and the like, but also furniture, cutlery, and a whole lot of other things.

I also secretly tasked Mer with finding me a pillow shop. Because like, who wouldn’t want to get alien pillows for their pillow collection? I mean, unless they didn’t collect pillows. Something that had always limited my collection was storage space and portability. I had to be able to transport my collection in the past, but now I had a whole tree I could stuff full of pillows! Big, soft fluffy ones were no longer wishful thinking. I briefly wondered if I could get a bed-sized pillow commissioned, but decided to file that idea away for later.

The next few days were spent in a similar manner, growing things to sell, then buying the things I needed for my grove and my tree. Turns out that completely furnishing a big tree tower required a whole ton of stuff, and that wasn’t even mentioning all the little things that were needed. Soap holders for example, as well as a proper kitchen setup, the range of random odds and ends that were required just boggled the mind.

Especially the minds of our Stonechaser friends, who were growing more and more awed by the fortune I was amassing and then spending with their help. They were getting a small cut out of everything they brokered too, which was making them a little giddy.

Doorways and windows were measured and specs were sent off. I asked for them to be made in the obrec style, since it was pretty close to what I liked. Wrought iron bound wood was their go-to, and it would look good beside the rest of the naturally grown tree. The same was happening for the furniture, which didn’t have to be hand crafted like the doors and windows.

By the end of day three in the city we had a bunch of tables, chairs, sofas and beds all throughout the happy little tree. Grace and I finally had a real bed, and it was a monster of a thing. I’d made sure to get a big one for us, because… well if I could almost literally grow money, why not?

I just hoped I wasn’t damaging the local economy too much, although I guess I wouldn’t be keeping too much hard currency, since it wouldn’t be very useful once back in Avonside. That meant that at least I wasn’t taking money out, just… tanking the local wood market instead. Oops.

We were also doing our best to stock up on anything and everything that Avonside might need too. The list was huge, and I had Kit handling most of that, since the dude was highly intelligent and knew what was in short supply.

The whole thing had the Stonechasers happier and happier with us, and the local citizens were starting to take notice too. My name, Grace’s name and the name of our order was floating on the lips of many within the drinking halls, and once or twice Troy had to play bodyguard as people tried to talk to us.

We had yet to source any magical tech, as well as books on magecraft and the like, but I figured the mages of the city would be taking notice of us sooner rather than later. I was throwing an awful lot of magic around after all. I just hoped that when they did, it was a pleasant conversation. I could hope, right?

I decided to redesign the tree slightly using a little of the growth energy I had laying around, as the residence floors were a little too roomy and were proving hard to heat with the enormous central room being an almost cavernous space. That didn’t even count the bathroom and toilet floors, which were using a whole lot of space for not a lot of utility. It was pretty evident that I was not an architect.

Thus, I’d shrunk the common rooms considerably and moved the bathing and toilet areas up with them. Each floor now had two bath and shower combos, plus four toilet cubicles. All in all it was a much better use of a seventy foot diameter space. What on earth had I been thinking originally?

[Image Goes Here]

Life was not all interior design though. The local magical practitioners found me at the end of the fifth day after another successful day of sourcing materials for Avonside and my grove, as well as having the doors installed finally. They approached with a large number of their hangers on, all of which bore stoic, slightly anxious expressions.

The street we were on began to empty of random passers by almost immediately as they saw the impending confrontation, until it was just us and the other mages standing there, staring at each other. At my side I had Grace, while Troy, Kit, Mer and Otho had all moved out in front of us. Had we really shaken things up enough to warrant this kind of response? Surely not, right?

One at the front, an obrec man with wild, metallic green hair and fur stepped forward. He wore a strange formal garment that was almost like he was wearing tails. Except, instead of the big padded shoulders that most suits had, this one had sort of weird droopy spikes made of fabric. It looked vaguely like some sort of wild anime idea of what a suit would look like if it were combined with a clown outfit. Sure, the colours were all muted blacks and golds, with green accents to match his mage colouration… but damn.

“Greetings,” he began in the anve language, a stern but reverent expression on his face. “I am Carac Batrmaul, mage and chancellor of the Millowhall Association for the Practice of the Magical Arts.”

He was looking right at me as he spoke, ignoring everyone else, so I sort of shyly stepped forward and gave him an awkward wave. “Hiya, uh… I’m Ryn… of um, of Avonside.”

“And the woman in charge of everything magical within the Order of Eleos ,” Troy interjected, once I’d finished. Oh no, he was talking me up.

“Ah… yes,” the man nodded, looking somewhat taken aback. “In any case, the Millowhall Association for the Practice of the Magical Arts would like to humbly request a meeting with the esteemed Ryn of Avonside.”

“Uh, sure… I guess,” I said, feeling extremely uncomfortable with the whole situation. Why was the dude being so… polite? I thought mages were meant to be dickheads? I mean sure he sounded like he had a stick lodged firmly up his ass, but he wasn’t being mean or anything.

“If it would suit you then, we would like to offer the Soaring Rest Inn as a neutral venue with which to conduct this meeting, what time would suit you and your retinue?” he asked, continuing in that weird tone he kept using. The one that was both arrogant and subservient at the same time.

I just shrugged. “So long as it isn’t the middle of the night or anything, I don’t mind.”

One of his eyes twitched for a moment before he took in a deep breath to say, “Midday then? Does that suit you, my lady?”

Oh no… did he have a fedora I couldn’t see? Wait no, this was a medieval setting and I was sort of like a noble, so it actually made sense in this context. Still, it made me cringe pretty hard.

“Yeah, sounds good,” I smiled instead. This was such a fucking weird conversation. I was just a girl from 21st century Earth, but it felt like I was talking to someone’s butler from the 1800’s, making arrangement for tea with the lady of his house or something.

“It is done then,” he nodded sombrely. “With your leave, we will go to retire for the night and make preparations.”

“Uh, sure,” I waved. “See you tomorrow then.”

As a group they bowed, so I did the same, which seemed to confuse them further. Then they turned around and sort of hurried off in a big clump. If they wanted to appear all impressive and stuff, they might want to get out onto the parade ground for a week or so, work on their turns, because like… that was a shambles.

Grace and I exchanged a look as they left that said something like, Oh my goodness, that was weird and awkward and uncomfortable.

Then she blew out a sigh that was all, Damn, I’m glad that’s over now though, can we get out of here and back to the grove?

My reply was a weary smile that said, Yeah, no arguments here.

“Well, there goes our evening,” Troy sighed, rubbing at his eyes. “I guess dinner will have to be a strategy meeting now. Otho, Mer, can I interest you in coming back to help us figure out what to do with that lot tomorrow?”

“Our pleasure,” Otho smiled, glancing at his sister for confirmation, who gave a nod.

Decision made, we wandered back down to the inn on the bridge and all piled into the room we were renting there. The patrons had gotten used to us by now, and I saw a few who even gave me hesitant smiles. Was the local population starting to like me? This whole semi-public figure thing was so confusing.

When we hopped back over into my grove, we headed on up to use the baths before dinner. Since I’d freed up a lot of floors, I’d added in a few more residential ones. This meant more baths, which I offered to our two obrec friends, and after they laid eyes on them, they accepted the offer eagerly.

Once we’d all had our nice luxurious baths, we convened down in the common room around one of the new tables with a roast. Adam could cook apparently, and not just passably either. He was secretly some sort of food genius. I swear he’d lied about being a terrible cook at one point too… sneaky dick. I also briefly wondered if the obrec would like food prepared in our style, but they seemed to love it.

That raised all sorts of questions about why our two races were so damned similar. We could eat the same food, looked almost exactly the same from a cosmic evolution standpoint or whatever… hell, even abstract concepts like emotions transferred fairly well between our cultures. When I had like, literally any free time, I wanted to pursue that line of questioning. There had to be something more going on.

“So what are this lot like, the ones we’re meant to be meeting tomorrow?” I asked as our plates emptied.

“Harmless, mostly,” Mer said after she finished chewing. Another cultural similarity, not speaking with a full mouth. “They are a little petty, they like to pretend they are important, but like you saw today… well they’re small fry on the regional scale. You’ve already show yourself to outclass their entire coven of mages.”

“Wait, really?” Grace blurted, giving me a look.

The obrec siblings shared a look before Otho leaned forward eagerly. “It’s true, isn’t it?” he asked. “Avonside is a new arrival to the ring. It’s obvious to anyone native here that Ryn is an incredibly powerful mage. No one can even question it considering the amount or raw plant matter she’s been pumping into the local economy.”

Everyone in our party looked to Troy to answer, who sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, gently placing his cutlery down on his plate. “Yes, we are new here.”

“That explains a whole lot,” Otho said, giving Grace and me a look. “Anves aren’t known for their charitable attitude towards love between human women, for one thing.”

“Wait, what?” Kit asked, staring at us with an open mouth. Had he really not realised?

“Ah…” the obrec man cringed. “...Sorry.”

I turned to see Grace was bright red, her eyes downcast and hands clenched tight. Nuh uh, she was not going to feel self conscious or embarrassed about this. I wasn’t going to let this solidify that notion in her silly, pretty head.

Gently taking hold of her chin, I pulled her head up until her eyes up met mine. The look I sent her was heavy, projecting as much confidence as I could scrounge up from every corner of who I was. Then I kissed her, long and slow, in front of everyone. Her lips tasted of the dinner we’d just eaten, but rather than being sorta gross as I’d expected, it was kinda hot instead.

Sensation was burning up and down my skin in waves, amplified for some reason by the way everyone was watching us. Why did the other’s eyes on us have me feeling… excited? Oh no, had I just discovered something? Regardless, I was breathless when I pulled away, breathless and incredibly turned on. That wasn’t part of the plan! I just wanted to show I wasn’t ashamed of loving her and she shouldn’t be either.

At least it looked like it had worked, her previous expression was gone, that was for sure. Instead, she was gawking at me with a huge, stunned grin on her face, a full blush lighting her face, reaching all the way down to the hint of cleavage I could see down her shirt.

“Sorry everyone,” I said, my voice husky with the feelings of affection and attraction that were surging within me. “She uh, looked upset.”

“I’m sure,” Adam drawled, amusement dancing within his grin. Big, lovable jerk.

“I guess… um… that… okay,” Kit said, his cheeks also red and his eyes firmly planted on his plate.

Poor Kit. He seemed really innocent. Even more innocent than I was. Not that I felt particularly innocent anymore… you could only be edged so many times before you were uh, changed a little.

“It’s okay, Kit,” Mer said, giving him a wink. “You’ll get there, don’t you worry. Maybe sooner, rather than later...”

That had Kit gaping at her openly, which looked kinda comical. There was that famous obrec flirtatiousness at work.

“Good to know, for sure,” Troy said, drawing attention back to Grace and I with a smile and a nod. “You’re good together.”

Otho was still cringing with worry though, as well as ignoring his sister. “I’m sorry.”

“No problem,” I said placatingly.

“If you say so,” he sighed, still looking like he was beating himself up inside. Damn it, why were obrec so confusing? I’d said no problem!

“No, seriously,” I pushed. “There’s nothing wrong, everything is okay.”

“Agreed,” Troy nodded, giving us both a reassuring glance. “Us Avonsiders do not discriminate against any combination of genders in love. At least, most of us, there are still idiots within our people too.”

“There always are,” Mer agreed with an expression that said she wished she could like, suplex every single one or something.

“Anyway, back to those mages from today,” our fearless leader said, diverting us back to the main topic.

Right, we had shit to plan. Too bad my mind and the warmth in my stomach had my thoughts planted firmly in a different grove.

The fact that our floor and bedroom now had doors had my mind fluttering and stuttering with anticipation. After I’d let the obrec back out into the city, I practically ran up the stairs towards the room I shared with Grace. I was still warm and tingly from what had happened at dinner, and well… goodness but I wanted her right then.

When I arrived at our floor, I stepped through into the common room and carefully closed and locked the door. Then I was rushing over to the door into our room, where I paused, my heart thudding in my chest. Was I thinking about this too much? Was I expecting something that wasn’t going to happen? We hadn’t talked about anything happening tonight, we hadn’t really mentioned it since that first night in Millowhall.

Blowing out a huge puff of air, I gently opened the door and stepped inside, closing it behind me and leaning back against it to stare at Grace. She was on the bed, in her sleeping clothes, feet crossed at the ankles and hands behind her head, looking relaxed.

“Hi!” I blurted, a little too loud.

“Hey,” Grace smiled, eyes finding mine.

We stared at each other for several long moments before she tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. “You coming to bed?”

“Um, yup, definitely,” I nodded like a dumbass. Why was I so nervous? They were just doors! Doors that gave us complete privacy to do whatever we wanted…

I stripped down with shaking hands until I was in my underwear and sleeping shirt, then slipped under the covers next to the absolutely gorgeous girl who had my full attention.

With me under the covers, she followed suit, then held out her arms to me. I scooted over and melted into them, and it was like all my nerves and worries and fears and just… everything, it all vanished like so much smoke in the wind. Because in the end, I was with Grace, and I trusted her down into the deepest depths of my heart. I loved her.

I could hear her heartbeat from where my head rested on her chest, and each gentle breath she took felt like it was pulsing life into me too. Pushing myself up, I shifted to look at her, drinking in each curve and line of her recently altered face. I reached up to touch it, playing my fingers delicately across the smooth skin of her cheek as she watched me from behind her lashes.

“You’re so beautiful,” we both said at the same time, which prompted a shared grin.

With that smile still on her face, her fingers snaked into my hair and pulled me down, kissing me oh so gently for just a moment. “Thank you for earlier at the table. I know it was… kinda embarrassing, but… it feels really good to know you care about me no matter who is watching.”

I didn’t get a chance to reply, her lips made sure of that. I didn’t even remember what I was going to say after a moment anyway, so it probably wasn’t amazingly important. Instead, my attention was wholly on her, on each brush of our lips, each amazing burst of goosebumps as her tongue teased at the seam of my mouth, asking entry.

The kiss stayed like that, every time I opened up to her, her tongue backed away with a teasing chuckle. Until I bit her bottom lip, just gently, and got a gasp, followed by a growl. I was on my back in a hurry, a playfully scowling girl above me.

“Cheating,” she stated breathlessly, her eyes alight and wanting. Wanting me.

“I’m not sorry,” I grinned cheekily back up at her, earning an eye roll in return.

Then she was diving back down, but for my neck this time, where she began pressing little kisses just under my jaw, forcing my head back into the pillow in the process.

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” she whispered into my ear, her voice low and sexual in a way I hadn’t ever heard from her. Where was this coming from?

“Please don’t stop,” I blurted, my breathing already heavy. Wait, I’d just sounded really sexual just then! Goodness, I wanted this so badly. Not that I knew what this actually entailed. I mean, I knew the like, broad basics, but—

Grace’s fingers skimmed the underside of my boob, and my eyes flew open, rambling thoughts blasted away. When had her hands gotten under my shirt?

“Ow!” I blurted, one of her fingernails scraping the skin, causing me to twitch as the slight prick of pain startled me.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her hand vanishing from beneath my shirt.

“Your fingernail was scratchy,” I mumbled, feeling embarrassed now.

“Oh crap, sorry… I bite them and… I’ll go fix it, hold on,” she said, her own face going red.

I grabbed her before she could get away and pulled her hand close. Summoning one of my small, magenta blades with a flourish, I carefully nicked the offending spike of fingernail off. Damn, I was good with these things now.

“Show off,” Grace laughed as the blade dissipated.

“Impressing a girl,” I shot back, a teasing grin all over my face.

Then it was her mouth all over my face instead, warm and smiling, leaving damp kisses from the tip of my nose, to my cheeks and then to my lips. “You’re such a dork,” she said, smiling into the kiss.

Instead of speaking, I just sorta shrugged and pulled her down flush against me. Talking time was over, I wanted to be ravished.

As the heat and tension built back up between us, her fingers were tugging at my shirt again, slipping under and taking up where they had left off. They brushed from the underside of my breast, around and up until they met my collarbone. She spent time just tracing that for a while, and I’d never even considered my own collarbone to be at all sexual until that moment. Sure, hers was hot… but mine?

Then her fingers were wandering once more, back down until… they skimmed my nipple, each finger gently tapping it one after another. My breath caught in my throat and my eyes flew open, and she backed off from the kiss to search my face. I nodded quickly, but words were way beyond me now, and she smiled knowingly.

My shirt was already up around my shoulders by that point, but she decided that was too much, and I shifted to allow her to take it off me. Topless now, I watched with nervous excitement as her eyes ran down the length of me.

“Oh…” she whispered, her smile gone, replaced by a look of awe. “Oh… Ryn…”

Hands coming down again, she traced this way and that all over me, over the dip and curve of my waist, to the gentle rise of my stomach, then back up to my breasts again. She didn’t stay there though, and I closed my eyes, relaxing back into the bed as she explored me. The feeling was… wonderful, and not just because I had my lover’s hands on me. It was impossible to ignore the femininity of my own body as her adoring hands highlighted each soft inch.

My eyes flew open again when the wet flick of a tongue across one of my nipples sent shocks of sensation through me. I was pretty sure the image I captured in that moment would be cherished for the rest of my life. I was looking down at her, at the girl I love, with her mouth around my nipple, and my own boobs sitting right there in my field of vision. Holy shit I was a girl, I was a girl in love with a girl… making love to that girl.

She spent long, toe curling minutes there, small flickers of tongue or the briefest brush of teeth sending sparks flying through my body. I buzzed with the sensations, my thighs quivering and my breath stuttering. My heart though, it was full to bursting with raw love for her, for my Grace. My hands were up and into her hair, playing with the short multicoloured strands. I loved her hair, it was so thick and soft, but just rough enough to give a tactile feeling that I relished.

By the time she was moving down my body, eyes locked with mine between each breath-hitching kiss to my chest and stomach, I was wet beyond measure. A wetness she discovered when she pulled my underwear down and my legs parted almost of their own accord.

“Wow,” she grinned up at me.

“What?” I blushed, my hands coming up to hide my face. “You’re hot and you turn me on and you were just sucking on my nipples.”

“I know, but… goodness,” she said, illustrating her point by running a slow finger through my sopping wetness from the bottom up until she brushed a small part of me that pulsed with heady warmth.

I shuddered, my heart doing backflips, and my eyes rolling. Fuck, I was so sensitive. She’d gotten me all worked up since dinner, and now I was made of nothing but nerve bundles, love and a desperate need.

Except… as much as I wanted her to go down on me at some point, I wanted her up here more. “Please come back up? I want to kiss you… while…”

“Sure,” she said, her tone gentle and caring.

That didn’t stop her from giving me a flat-tongued lick however, which had me gasping in surprise. “Oh my goodness… Grace!”

“Sorry,” she laughed, not sounding at all sorry. “I wanted to taste you.”

I grumbled meaningless sounds of annoyance and pulled her towards me, until she obligingly kissed me. I loved the way she settled half on top of me, one leg wrapped around mine, keeping me open to her. I was able to concentrate on our kiss for all of two seconds before her fingers found my center again, and then it was all I could do to even breathe.

I was so hopelessly turned on that I knew I was going to come any second now, my body tensing as her fingers weaved pleasure up my spine. My hips were moving on their own, up and down as I gave in to her, to the affection with which she was now murmuring my name between pecks to my cheek. I couldn’t find it within me to worry about coming so quickly though. We were both girls after all, and if there was one thing I knew about all this, it was that we had a long, wonderful night of this ahead.

Her gentle fingers kept moving, and under their touch my quiet gasps quickly became breathless moans. I had no idea what was even happening down there, just that her fingers were moving over me and it was the most incredible, back-arching sensation I’d ever felt. I was slowly coming undone, and the fact it was Grace here next to me… gosh I loved her. I loved her so much.

Then she did something else, pressed a fingertip somewhere different, and I gave a tiny squeak. “Yes! Grace!” I said, although it was barely a whisper.

She did it again, and I bucked, my hips rising completely off the bed. Holy shit, holy shit… Were my eyes closed? I don’t know, but I couldn’t see, because all I could think, all I could process, was the pulsing thunder of warmth that was exploding through me.

It wasn’t just the warmth of ecstasy that rushed down every limb though, my heart joined in, braiding a note of joyous love in with the pulses that ruled me in that moment. I shook and shook in her arms, clutching at her as her hand kept going, even as her other one held me close.

“Grace,” I heard myself cry, voice husky with exertion. “I love you!”

I lay there in the messed up sheets as Grace held me, panting as I slowly came down from the latest of many, many orgasms she’d given me. What time was it even? Did time still exist? I felt like I was in some looney toons skit where the poor talking animal bounced down some stairs, each thump on their way down pausing for comedic effect. Except… instead of comedy, it was pleasure, and instead of being embarrassed, I felt delighted and loved.

"I love you," I whispered, my voice struggling after what it had just been put through.

Grace chuckled, sweet and caring. "I heard. I think your whole grove heard."

"I was enjoying myself," I pouted, although she couldn't see it with my head tucked up under her chin as it was.

"I definitely enjoyed you."

Gosh, she was being so… so… assertive right now. Confident even. I loved it, seeing her like this, any hint of self consciousness evaporated and replaced with raw seduction. The way she’d ridden my thigh a few times as she fingered me to get herself off… holy moly. I wanted to have a turn making her feel good at some point… but right then I was made of jelly.

"My thigh muscles won't stop twitching, and I can feel my um… it's pulsing," I complained, although I definitely didn't mean it in a negative light. "When you used your tongue, and your fingers were… deep… wow. I liked this body before… but now… that was amazing."

"True, you didn't grow up with that," she mused, fingers brushing delicately through my hair. "You went through puberty having to make do with those other bits as you experimented and stuff. Must be fascinating to see the difference."

Oh no… here comes embarrassment. “I never actually… you know, experimented. I couldn’t bear to touch it much, so yeah… mostly just uncomfortable wet dreams. That was the first waking sexual experience I’ve ever had.”

“Wait… you never masturbated?” she blurted, sounding shocked.

“Well… that’s not entirely true. I tried… once,” I cringed, remembering the terrible mental pain that had caused. “I didn’t get very far. It hurt too much, not physically… but mentally.”

“Oh, my sweet Ryn,” she sighed, her arms pressing tight around me. “I’m admittedly one of those people who’ve never really thought about what it must be like for trans girls like you. I just didn’t have the reason to think about it… I mean I was always supportive, but in a vague, It’s the right thing to do, sense. I’m sorry you had it that hard.”

You and everyone else, Grace. “Most people don’t think about us, or even try to understand us. They might hate us, they might support us… But they don’t ever really make the effort to actually understand us.”

“Doesn’t stop them trying to make laws about you though does it,” Grace said, her voice edging over into anger. Now that was a topic that never failed to throw me into both despair and anger.

“Yeah,” I sighed. I’d never had to deal with the stigma of being visibly trans, but I’d felt every hateful word spoken about us. I’d felt the blind, kneejerk disgust that people had when the news reported on someone who was trans. That wasn’t even taking into account what it felt like to grow up being forced into the “male” box when that had felt so gut-wrenchingly wrong.

“At least we don’t have to deal with that anymore,” she murmured, nuzzling into my hair. “We have enough power between us to make our own laws now. It’s a slightly scary thought, but we could basically just bend the entire of Avonside to our will and there is jack shit they could do about it.”

“That is a really scary thought… I’m not sure I want to force anyone into anything…” I told her slowly, anxiety swelling. I really didn’t want to be in charge of anything, let alone Avonside. Responsibility was scary and confusing, and I’d probably suck at it.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Although if things are going badly…”

“We’ll step in, for sure,” I sighed, already knowing that at some point, I was going to have to throw my weight around when we got back. Before I’d left it had been fairly obvious that some people saw themselves as kings or queens.

“Glad we’re on the same page,” she said, giving me a little kiss on the forehead. “We should probably sleep now though.”

Damn, I was in heaven. Wrapped up in Grace’s arms like this, no immediate worries and a full stomach. “Fine, we can sleep now.”

****

I was sure we were going to wake up too late for the meeting with the weird mages association, but surprisingly we actually managed to wake up at the usual time. We definitely needed a bath though… and our sheets needed changing. I was a little grossed out that we slept in that mess now that the excitement of it all was over, but oh well. A subtle word to my buns and the task was as good as done. I swear Cream had been smirking at me when I asked though.

I felt so damned good that morning, like I’d just had the best sleep of my life. Although, my muscles heartily disagreed with that sentiment until I let them soak in the hot bath. I’d been vaguely aware that sex was a lot of exercise, but no one had warned me that it used all sorts of muscles I didn’t know I even possessed.

After that it was getting dressed in my full outfit, coat, scarf and all. I needed to wear the nicest clothing I had, which unfortunately wasn’t much really. It was worn and travel stained by now, which reminded me that I needed to go and get myself a new wardrobe.

“Hey guys,” I smiled, trying my best not to full on skip into the room ahead of Grace. I felt good alright?

“Morning girls,” Troy replied, giving us both a quick smile before he looked down at his food again.

Kit gave us both a shy smile, then looked down again too. He seemed to be sort of down right now, which had me wondering. He always looked sort of subdued, like life wasn’t wholly engaging to him, but today he looked downright depressed. Time for a bun to go cuddle him.

Adam on the other hand, glanced up with a smile that slowly turned into a look of delight as he stared between Grace and I. “What?” I asked, feeling a little self conscious.

“Nothing,” he shrugged, giving a wink to us both. “You just look happy.”

“I am happy,” I grumbled, sitting down at the table. What was he trying to insinuate there anyway? When my eyes fell on the food sitting in the middle, I tilted my head at him. “You cooked?”

He gave a wry laugh. “Sorta, I had help,” he said, motioning to the buns.

“Wait, the buns helped you cook?” I asked, eyes going wide.

“Yup,” he nodded. “Asked the black one with the fluffy white patch in the middle of its ears if it wanted to help, just as a joke. Then the little dude fucking nodded and suddenly I had a bunch of fuzzy little apprentice chefs around me. If we had pen and paper I swear they would have been taking notes.”

“I had one of your bunnies watching me do my morning exercises too,” Troy remarked, pointing to his emotional support bun. “Then he started copying me.”

“They are smart,” Kit agreed, patting the bun that had found its way to the side of his chair. “Possibly as intelligent as kids or something. I’ve noticed that they are very good learners.”

“Yet another thing I need to look into when I get the time,” I murmured, patting Cream’s head as she hopped up to me. “Yeah, that’s right,” I smiled down, scritching between her ears. “I’m going to teach you people things.”

With a flick of an ear and a tilt of her head, she started nudging at me with her forehead repeatedly while making little tiny sounds. I needed to figure out what all these behaviours meant, then I might actually be able to communicate with my little friends.

****

After a small breakfast, we left to find the place where we were going to meet up with the Stonechaser twins. Mer, Troy and of course, Grace would be coming with me to the meeting with the mages while the others would be hanging out nearby in case we needed the backup. Once we’d found the twins it was off towards our meeting with the magic people.

The venue they had picked was nice, the outside of the freestanding stone structure had been carved into what looked like friezes that depicted various nature scenes. The local version of deer prancing in meadows, predators lurking in the shadows. They’d been painted too, or maybe stained with dye was a better word. It was pretty.

The door was made of wood too, without the overuse of metal to keep it cost-effective. It still boggled my mind that wood was more expensive than metal around here. Boy oh boy were they going to love trading with Avonside if we ever got around to like, roads and stuff. That, and figuring out our sovereignty, since technically we were in the Empire of Ghraiga. I didn’t envy whoever got that diplomatic job.

Troy went first, pushing the large wooden double doors open and holding them for the group. The interior of the place was opulent in the obrec style, more carved stone, iron accents and wooden furniture. They also had several paintings on the walls, which showed more nature scenes with a few religious ones thrown in every now and then.

They didn’t have a front desk like you’d expect at an Earth restaurant, instead a waiter met us at the door, politely asking if we were, “Ryn of Avonside’s party.” When he got a yes, he was leading us off through a side door and down a wide corridor. Stopping at one of the many doors down its length, he opened it and bowed, bidding us to enter.

The sound of chairs scraping on stone heralded our arrival as the magic society or whatever their name was stood up to greet us. The room turned out to be a private dining room, with a window across the far wall, a heavy wooden dining table in the middle and a whole bunch of other decoration around the place. There were even a few curtained nooks that I suspected held servants or hid side passages or something.

“Greetings Lady Ryn, Greetings!” the guy whose name I couldn’t remember said with a deep bow. “Thank you so much for gracing us with your presence.”

“Nah, Grace is that one,” I mumbled under my breath, subtly pointing to the girl in question with my chin. At a volume they could hear, I bowed back and replied, “Uh yeah. Thanks for having us.”

Next to me, Grace started making funny breathing sounds, and I glanced over to see her struggling to hold in a laugh. She flicked a glare in my direction as payment for my inappropriately timed joke. I gave her a little smile in return.

“Yes, well… it is not every day we have a mage of your power and skill visit us, especially one whose reputation has not ah… reached us before,” he said, tripping over the last part.

As we all got seated, I thought about what to say to that. Did I come out with the fact that I was actually a novice? That seemed like a pretty terrible idea.

“Yeah, a reputation can get you killed these days,” I said sobrely. “With Fennimore hunting anyone he thinks is a threat… well it’s best to keep a low profile. Even the most powerful mage cannot defend his or her assets against an army of our kind forever.”

“Yes, very true, very true,” he agreed, looking sort of impressed, although I think he was trying to hide it.

Beside him, an obrec woman who didn’t look to be a mage, but was wearing a few pieces of small and obvious magical tech, cleared her throat. “If I may… my name is Claih, and it’s been noticed amongst us that you travel with another mage here…”

She’d indicated Grace, and I smiled at the fact they had noticed her. She was just as important as I was.

“This is Grace. She isn’t a mage as such, but rather a strange hybrid. The origin of her powers is a secret we are not willing to discuss, but what I can say is that she is part warlock and part… something else, something not seen before,” I told them, unable to keep a small, satisfied smile from creeping onto my lips. I was starting to do pretty well at this, if I did say so myself.

“Very interesting,” the leader man murmured, giving Grace a nod. Claih smiled at her as well, her eyes lighting up with academic interest.

“I’m the choir to her conductor,” Grace said quietly in english, giving me a loving look that had my heart doing little flips. Damn she was gorgeous when she was giving me those soulful looks.

“Yes, well, shall we order food before we get to business? The grilled fernbeam is absolutely amazing, if you are unfamiliar with the menu here,” the leader guy said amicably. Wait, Carac was his name!

“Sure, food sounds lovely,” I said with another diplomatic smile. Woo, go me! Ryn of Avonside the Diplomat! Now if only my heart would stop hammering in my chest every time it was time for me to say something...

The food was actually really good, just as that Carac dude had promised. I had some sort of soup thing that had what looked like a ton of pulled pork in it, served with some bread that looked… well, normal. I wondered if the head chef was willing to teach buns.

We’d spent our time eating and trading smalltalk. Just generally getting to know each other. Turns out that this lot had heard about our strife with Fennimore too. Fucking everyone had at this point, Eilian needed to calm down with the gossiping, damn.

It also turned out that these people were probably the ones we’d originally set out for Millowhall in the hopes of meeting. That woman for example, Claih, was a well respected local Magitecht, as it was apparently called. She specialised in infrastructure and had been the architect of most of the modern magical tech around the city.

She was very interesting, that was for sure, and I was also fairly confident we could entice her into visiting us at some point. I mean, what engineer wouldn’t want to learn from an advanced university? Sure, we used electricity and shit, rather than magic… but most stuff was transferrable.

“You’re right, that was good food,” I told their head magic person, whatever the title had been, trying my best to be dainty as I cleaned up what was left of my meal.

“I find every opportunity to dine at this fine establishment, it’s a true treat every time,” he nodded happily. Alarmingly though, his smile fell away as he leaned forward, studying me intently. “I must ask though, and please excuse the brusque question. What are your intentions for this city going forward?”

Rather than answering right away, I leaned back in my chair to observe him and his party. Mainly it was to give my stupid brain time to calm down, because my goodness had things suddenly gotten tense again. Had my lungs always been this bad at the whole breathing thing? Fuck me, could my body please calm down for like two seconds? This was not anxiety time, this was calm and collected time.

It was Troy who spoke, his gaze cool and his eyes calculating. “Either you already know, or you will know soon enough. God knows our biggest enemy knows… Avonside is a new arrival to the ring. From humanity’s home world. A world that is significantly more advanced than this one in every area that isn’t magic, from what I’ve seen. We were also a university, a center of higher learning, and all of that knowledge was brought with us.”

This had Claih’s immediate attention, along with many of the others. She was leaning forward now, eyes flicking almost feverishly between Troy and me. “Engineering?” she asked, with no small amount of lust in her tone.

“Engineering, materials science, physics, the list goes on,” I said with a grin. “That last one doesn’t even have a word for it in anve. It means the study of the laws of the universe… although I expect they are going to have to rethink a few things when I start flashing magic around.”

“Carac, this is big,” Claih breathed eagerly. “You remember what happened the last time a human settlement arrived, yes?”

“The one from two hundred years ago, or the one from four hundred years ago?” he asked with a bitter snort.

“No one knows anything about the one two hundred years ago,” Claih said, waving a hand dismissively. “They disappeared, poof, gone. I’m talking about the earlier one.”

That caught my attention. Two hundred years wasn’t that long ago in the grand scheme of things, and Grace and I exchanged looks. They’d disappeared too? Where had they gone?

“Yes, I am well aware of those arrogant, awful, genocidal maniacs far to the north,” Carac said, looking close to losing his cool entirely. The guy had been pretty calm until now too. “If you recall, I lost my mentor to those savages.” To the rest of us, he explained through gritted teeth, “They call us Demons up there. Believe us to be the incarnations of evil or some such superstitious drivel.”

“Ah, apologies,” the magitecht said, seeming subdued, but only for a moment. “You can’t deny their successes though, they swept up a thousand warring clans and states and turned them into the largest empire on the continent. In just eighty years. Imagine what we could do if we could get even a taste of the new knowledge these Avonsider’s possess?”

Oh-kaaaaay. That was a little worrying. It was also exactly what Lord Fennimore had said he was trying to stop. He’d literally said that whenever a fresh group was transported to the ring, the whole region saw massive upheaval. Would we unwittingly be the causes of the next massive war? Would we be the reason that empires and nations crumbled and whole races were put to the sword?

“I’m not sure that I like the idea of unleashing that level of carnage again,” I said quietly, sharing a look with Troy.

“Ah, that is not what I meant, of course,” the woman said quickly, eyes wide. “I simply meant… well, everything else. Infrastructure, medicine, quality of life, they are all things that improved along with the chaos. Assuming you bend to their ridiculous religion and aren’t an obrec, with horns and hooves.”

We were all silent for several moments as we watched each other. I didn’t trust her still… but we also needed her, and badly.

“I have a question,” Grace murmured into the silence. “How long has it been since a group of obrec were transported to the ring?”

“Deliveries from our home world stopped almost a thousand years ago,” Craih replied, looking confused by the change of pace.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” my girl replied, brows furrowed with worry. “How many other races are still seeing these… deliveries, as you call them? How long do they typically go for?”

What was Grace up to? Where were these questions leading? She was clearly onto something here, but I’d be damned if I could figure out what.

“There is only one such race that we have contact with,” Carac said, his curiosity piqued now. “And the deliveries last for roughly six thousand years.”

Grace gulped, like she didn’t even want to hear the answer to her next question. “When did humans first arrive on the ring?”

“Roughly six thousand years ago,” came the answer.

“We’re the last,” she mumbled, looking down at her empty plate. “Why are we the last?”

Wow, okay. My Grace wasn’t just a pretty face. That was a very important question to be asking, especially because Grace still had a family back on Earth that she loved.

Looking troubled, but obviously not ready to dive into that can of worms just yet, Troy said, “Yes… well, cosmic revelations aside… which we will definitely be talking about later... shall we divert back to the initial reason for this meeting?”

“We’re here to stock up on supplies for Avonside. Materials that we don’t have the infrastructure get our hands on anymore,” I told him truthfully. “We’re also here to learn about that magic tech you have everywhere. It’s new to us. I’d personally like to find some literature about mages and spells and stuff, but that’s not top priority.”

“And after that, we’ll be on our way,” Troy added with a knowing smile. At least, it was a knowing smile by his standards, which meant just the tiniest twitch of facial muscles.

“That is a relief,” Carac said, slumping in his chair. “I became especially worried for my job when you mentioned you’d only been on the ring a few months. Someone like you Ryn, who has had her powers for barely months, if I’m getting the arrival of Avonside right… well, you’d be replacing me within a year. As it stands, I am very, very eager to stay on your good side.”

“Oh, uh… thanks,” I smiled, unable to handle the look in his eyes, the one that was almost fear.

The discussion turned to specifics, and pretty soon it was realised that we each had something the others wanted. I was rapidly becoming wealthy in the obrec currency, stones or whatever, which they obviously needed. Who didn’t need money? We’d be buying any and all books about magic that they were willing to sell, which would cover that side of things nicely.

The second thing that we had that they wanted was our own store of knowledge. Claih would be coming with us back to Avonside to teach our people about magitech, while also learning everything she could that we had to offer in turn. She seemed pretty damned excited about that, which still had me a little suspicious.

We had a discussion about it in english and decided in the end that the information was going to get out into the wider world at some point anyway, it may as well be to a nation that seemed to be okay. Shit, they had my vote just for the complete lack of homophobia in their culture. It was a breath of fresh air even by the standards back home.

Negotiations lasted for a long while, but eventually we were allowed out and back to our grove. We picked up some strays though. The Stonechasers came for dinner again, including a whole bunch of the other merchants. They wanted to talk to us, something about a proposition they wanted to make.

So by mid to late afternoon we were all back in the grove and I was quite frankly tired of meetings. Still, the Stonechasers were cool and worth listening to, so we all wandered up to the second floor balcony with all its fancy new furniture and lounged around.

I sat down with Grace on a couch near the two who’d be doing most of the talking, namely Troy and Jerril, the leader of their group. We hadn’t really sorted out the interior decorating in this room yet, so stuff was sort of just everywhere. Cream, the bun I’d named for her colouring, hopped over to me and began to beg for pats, which I obviously gave, because she was a good bun.

“So, is it alright if we keep this brief then?” Troy asked, leaning forward with his elbows on the small table he was sitting at. “That last meeting was a slog at the end there.”

Jerril gave a snort and nodded, “Surely. I must say though, having a base of operations like this on hand at any given moment is quite something. Haven’t really heard of mages opening their groves up to this many souls. They’re twitchy about it.”

“Seems like that’s because it's the mage’s center of power. If you took issue with Ryn, you could do a little damage to her magical abilities before she popped you,” Kit said quietly from where he was hugging his bun. He’d named his emotional support bun Sprinkles at some point, on account of the sprinkling of white on her otherwise chocolate brown fur.

I really wish people would stop seeing me as some sort of incredibly powerful goddess. It was intimidating. I needed to have a talk with everyone once things were more settled.

“Popped,” Jerril repeated with a laugh and a sideways glance at me. “Well, I’ll put it plainly to you then. We’d like to come along with you to this Avonside of yours, see what the fuss is about and possibly see if we could find some way to initiate trade between our peoples. I’m willing to bet it won’t be long before you are all rather influential in this region.”

“Coming back with a local trading partner ready to go would definitely be useful for Avonside, not to mention the Order,” Troy said thoughtfully, rubbing at his stubble. His expression became a genuine smile as he agreed to the proposition. “Alright, yeah. Why not. You can guide us along the way while you’re at it.”

“And show you our homeland!” Mer said happily, trying to clap with her big-ass gauntlets and failing miserably. How could the big scary alien lady be so scary and so cute all at the same time?

“What’s it like?” Kit asked, tilting his head, eyes intent on the woman. I smiled as he had to swipe hair out of his eyes, it was getting kinda long. Hairdressers were in short supply out here, although Grace had been doing her best with the skills she’d learned so far in her course. Then she’d gotten all zappy and the boys had to do it on their own. Kit had decided not to bother, saying he didn’t want to look like a shounen anime protagonist.

Since everything had been handled quickly, I gave a weary sigh and leaned back into Grace and tuned out of the conversation. Mer and Otho had launched into a passionate advertisement for their clan’s patch of mountains up to the north. It honestly sounded like the same thing as this place, but smaller… still, everyone loved their home. I just hoped we’d be getting back to ours soon.

** Cream’s Perspective **

Our Lady kept giving us funny rocks to pile up in the big tree burrow. So many rocks. As the matron of the big burrow, it was my job to oversee the moving of the rocks to the places she told us to put them. Since we were running out of room in the big tree burrow, our Lady had made it go down as well as up. She was so smart.

Many days had passed since we had been created, many days of confusion, but as the sun went up and down and up and down those many days, we began to understand ourselves. Our Lady went to another place when she disappeared. Another land of trees and buns. The revelation had shaken our understanding of the universe, but in the end it didn’t matter, because we had food here and things to do. Plus the people liked to pretend groom us, and it felt good.

We were learning more things too, people things! Our Lady was a people, and so were all her friends. Sometimes they weren’t very good at their own people things though. They didn’t wash themselves properly, for one. Not a single lick, except when our Lady’s lady was making her cry out very loudly. Very confusing. One day I needed to figure out how to instruct the people on how to clean themselves properly. They also did not know the proper ways to express their joy and excitement, they remained stationary! No full bodied expressions of happiness or enthusiastic gambolling. They seemed to just get… louder.

One day after our Lady’s lady made her yell very loud at night, we began to get so many things to put in the big tree burrow. So much space was being taken up in the burrow that we had to prepare for the worst. A great many carrots and bananas were stockpiled away, other things too. We felt bad for hiding things from our Lady, but we wanted to make sure we had enough treats.

She always forgot about the treats, because she was funny and burned them before she ate them. Sometimes she made us burn them before she and the other people ate them. The big hairy one was teaching us to burn things in the correct manner for people to eat it. Very strange.

It was the night before our Lady had said that the people were going to leave the Millowburrow and go somewhere else, and it was time for our weekly bun report. This was when we all flopped around the big stone and talked about what had happened that week. I liked this time because it let me learn about all the things happening in our land of trees and buns.

“Sprinkles, you’ve been having problems with the quiet person, so let’s hear what has happened,” I said bundling into a loaf. Loafing was a good position for report time.

“My quiet person has been getting quieter, it is quite unsettling,” Sprinkles said, shaking her head with worry. “I have been asked to cuddling many times more in the sleeping times than I used to be.”

“That is not good, much cuddling is a warning sign with the people,” Wrestlebun said, the bun who had been assigned to the biggest person. “The biggest person does not cuddle often, he is strong with his feelings, and his hands. He is teaching me how to fight!”

“Good,” I said, bobbing my head low in agreement. “One day you will lead us in defending our Lady’s land. Please though, Sprinkles… continue.”

“The quiet one has also been crying,” she said sadly, ears wilting. “He has been saying things like, ‘I wish I was a braindead male isekai protagonist. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with emotions. Why can’t I make myself care? I dreamed about this, but I still don’t care. It’s just people dying or people trying to kill us, and I can do nothing. I am so worthless.’ It is very worrying, because I do not know what some of those words mean, but I hear the pain.”

Around the room, many buns ground their teeth together in sympathy and sadness. A sad person was a failing on our part, we had to do better.

“This is not our fault,” the unnamed black bun said into the silence. “I heard the people talking, sometimes there are things they get sad about that are not things we can ever fix. It is something the people must do for each other. All we can do is make life for the quiet one just a little happier, that he does not despair too deeply.”

“I could learn to burn food better, bring it for him. The people liked burned food!” Sprinkles said, sitting up.

“My person has said that he wonders about the quiet one,” Buddy the bun said, personal bun to the wise strong person. Troy, I think they people called him, but we did not have mouths that could make that noise. “Says that the quiet one is very sad, a sad that is deep.”

I bobbed my head and flicked my ear in agreement, “Keep an eye on the quiet one please, Sprinkles.”

“I shall,” she replied with a bob and flick of her own.

With the matter of the quiet person settled for the moment, I turned to the next bun I wanted to call upon. “Gardeningbun, tell us how the caring for the plants and trees goes.”

“Well, as usual,” he said simply. He did not spend much time with the humans, only earning his name when the Lady had noticed how dedicated he was to caring for the plants. He closed his eyes sleepily before he continued. “The Lady was wise when she made the caring plants. Practically do all the work for me.”

The meeting continued on after this, until our sense of the land of trees and buns told Sprinkles that the quiet person was looking for her. Soon everyone was hopping off to continue their duties and I left to make sure the Lady was happy.

A week later, after so much buying and selling of goods that my head was starting to spin, we set out for the Stonechaser lands and eventually Avonside. Coming with us was Claih and a few of her magitecht friends, as well as the entire Stonechaser party. It was a lot of people, and it made me feel a lot safer.

Sitting in my recently extended storage rooms were enough raw materials to sink an armada. Literally, like there was so much ore alone that any fleet of ships trying to fill itself would sink like the rocks it was carrying. Then there were the books stacked up in bookshelves in a floor I had converted into a library. I already loved that room half to death.

I’d missed reading so damned much. Kit, Mer and I had been camped out in there every chance we could get. Mer was there because she had oh so graciously offered to teach Kit how to read and speak some of the obrec language. I was picking up on it pretty damned fast too, which had me more than a little suspicious about what had been done to my brain while I was in that fruit.

None of that was even mentioning all the magical materials and other stuff of that kind that we’d bought. Everything Claih had said we’d need and more.

The obrec had been lucky with where they were placed, although they hadn’t realised it until recently. The smashed canyons that they lived in were overflowing with a strange type of magically charged crystal, and it was so prevalent in the south that there was said to be entire forests of the stuff. The crystal seemed to be linked to the impossibly deep canyons in some way. Kit had mused at one point that the crust itself had been fractured, and that was why they were so deep. He thought that the crystals had probably been formed during the same event.

Interestingly, their wealth in this stuff had only been discovered recently because Magical technology was a fresh development on a historical scale. In the time since, the near monopoly that the obrec had on the stuff had seen them rise far above their neighbours in raw wealth.

Speaking of raw wealth, I was a little terrified of how monetarily powerful I was, if I was honest. I’d come into a small fortune in gold stones, that I’d be using to fund the Order of Eleos as it grew. I’d never been even close to rich in my life, and having even this small amount had my anxiety running overtime.

The Stonechaser’s wagons were full of smaller, more lightweight goods that they intended to try and sell in Avonside. Cloth, spices and other such things. I offered to let them leave their wagons and stuff in my grove while we walked, but they laughed and said that there was no way they were walking the whole way. Which was good, because oh my lord did I agree. Riding on a wagon was so much better than walking. It basically meant I got to cuddle Grace all day.

Leaving the gates of the amazing city of Millowhall behind, we trundled down the cliffside road again, Grace had her head in my lap was we lay sprawled across bundles of cloth. She had her eyes closed as she relaxed, but she hadn’t fallen asleep quite yet.

“I’m so glad to be out of that city,” she mumbled, turning to smoosh her face into my thigh. “It was getting so draining.”

“That’s because I was literally draining you to refill my magic,” I grinned, stroking her cheek with a finger affectionately.

“You know what I mean,” she laughed, swatting at my stomach.

I grinned and ran my hand through her hair. “I do.”

She was right, all that growing trees, selling trees, negotiating with all the different factions of the city who wanted a piece of what was going on. Pretending to be a confident and powerful mage, albeit one who was much kinder than they were used to. It had been absolutely draining, so much so that we hadn’t even managed to make love again, which I was lamenting. It was hard to work up the motivation to have fun when you felt dead by the end of the day.

Opening her eyes, Grace glanced up at me with a more serious expression. “We’re going to be back at Avonside soonish. How do you uh, how do you feel about that?”

“I’m scared shitless,” I told her honestly. Like… there were so many reasons to be worried. Would Bray accept me for who I was now? Would the university recognise me as one of theirs, or would I be viewed as an outsider? Would they try some ridiculous attempt to control me, or worse, fight me for some reason?

I sighed and scrunched my eyes closed. “There are so many people who know me as Elias back there, and each one is going to have to come to terms with who I am now.”

“Yeah, Bray in particular has been sort of hanging in my mind,” she said with a sympathetic sigh of her own. “I’m scared he’s going to flip out or something. Especially now that we’re like… together. Like, he might see that as a betrayal, and we’ve pinned a few of our plans on him, you know?”

“Yeah… I know,” I nodded, feeling ice form in my gut. Our return to Avonside was something that was beginning to take up more and more brainspace as we got closer. I needed Bray to be okay with me, he was the only friend I had from more than a year ago. I’d left practically no one behind back on Earth.

We were silent after that, thoughts swirling in our heads as the wagon bounced gently down the road. Goddess, but suspension was amazing.

“I wish that I could have found you earlier,” Grace said a few minutes later, her voice gaining even more melancholy. “Well, that and have you be born into a girl body.”

“I’m actually glad my life happened the way it did,” I whispered, feeling yet more ice coalesce inside me.

“What, why?” she asked, a little too loud for my liking.

This stuff was personal and I didn’t want anyone knowing. I hated talking about myself, about my past. Except Grace… I think I could trust Grace.

“Because of my family, because of my father,” I told her, below the volume of even a whisper. “Imagine what… well you don’t know him or what he did, but… just thinking about what he’d do to me if I was a little girl…”

I shuddered as blocked out and abandoned memories flickering to life once more within me. The raw animalistic fear that had gripped me every time he punched a wall, wondering if I would be the next target for his bloodied fists. The ugly slap of those fists on my flesh when I was the target. The aching as my body was never able to fully heal from one beating before the next happened.

“What did he do to you?” she asked, sitting up and placing herself next to me, back against the inside wall of the wagon.

“Physical abuse,” I told her, scrunching my eyes tight against the maelstrom of pain. “Psychological abuse. More. I don’t know what the courts would call it, because the whole thing never made it to anyone. It’s hard to properly think back on it, my mind sort of skips off it like a spaceship coming in at too much of an angle to the atmosphere.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding a little helpless. Instead, she put her arms around me and gently guided my head down to her shoulder. “I can see what you mean then. I’ll add, Ryn gets to grow up as a girl with a loving family, to my vague wishes.”

“That would be nice,” I mumbled, latching onto her like she was one of those funny things a surf life-saver uses to save you. “We could be next door neighbours, figure out we’re gay together one night when we’re having a sleepover and we kiss. Try and hide our cute little teenage relationship from our families and school friends.”

“That sounds lovely,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “Just so long as one of us doesn’t fall for the other first. It would suck to pine after you for years while you bumble around like an idiot not realising you’re gay for me.”

“Hey!” I grumbled, feeling a smile of my own forming. “I wouldn’t do that!”

“Uh huh, sure… so you wouldn’t be so wrapped up in that pretty little head of yours, thinking about all sorts of wild things instead of facing the feelings inside?” she chuckled, kissing the top of my head.

“I wouldn’t… I mean… I’m sure I’d realise it,” I pouted, enjoying her affectionate words and touch even as she teased me.

“Keep telling yourself that babe,” she laughed, squeezing me tight for a moment. Then she was blurting, “Fuck, I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” I sighed happily, melting further into her comforting arms. Of course, then I had to ruin the feeling by posing a question that had my heart racing, even if I was sure of the outcome. “This means that you’re my girlfriend, right? I can call you that?”

“Of course,” she told me tenderly. “We are girlfriends.”

“Okay good,” I nodded, content again.

The wagon trundled on into the day as we continued to talk and cuddle, rocking gently with the uneven road. At some point the stone gave way to a simple and well travelled dirt road when we veered off the highway and down a side canyon. Then night began to descend and the caravan of wagons all pulled into a broad section of the wide ledge.

“Would you all like to use my grove to sleep in?” I asked Jerril as I gave a long, weary stretch. Damn, but being cramped up in the wagon for hours had made my muscles very angry with me.

“No, thank you for the offer though Ryn,” he smiled, bowing slightly. “We’ll do things as we always have. Need to protect the wagons after all.”

“Uh, I wouldn’t mind a nice bed though,” Mer said, shuffling her hooves on the ground as she gave me a hopeful look. “And a bath…”

Jerril just rolled his eyes and wandered off. They had a lot of other guards I guess.

“Sure, you and Otho can come with,” I giggled, motioning them both over as our group assembled.

We made the jump over into my grove and immediately began to make for the Happy Little Tree. It had been near to pitch black in the obrec mountains when we left it, only a thin strip of dark blue sky visible high above, but here in my grove the sunset streaked through the clouds and lit them afire with gold. I smiled at the sight, then found my gaze drawn to Grace to see what her reaction was. I found a smile on her face too. I liked that smile.

My wistful loving stare was interrupted by a frantic Cream the bun as she barrelled across the grass towards us at full speed. She skidded to a halt and rushed towards me, tugging insistently on my arm, trying to pull me out towards the rim of the plateau we were on.

“What’s up Cream?” I asked, frowning down at her. The little bun gnashed her teeth in frustration and used her little fuzzy paw-hand-thing to point out in the direction she’d been trying to pull me.

I glanced up, squinting to get a look through the trees. Wait… was that a person? Oh shit, they were using magic! I was sprinting before I could figure out if they had done any damage yet, my shield slamming down around me. Looks like it had finally happened, someone had found my grove.

Wait, they weren’t here to destroy my grove… it was, it was… oh my goodness, oh my fucking god! She was here, she was alive! I mean I’d known that part, but still! She was right there!

My breath hitched as joy swelled within me. Either that or the sprint over had stolen all the air from my lungs. “Esra! Esra!”

“Careful, you little shit,” she growled as I hurtled towards her. I didn’t listen, throwing my arms around her elderly body with a laugh that was all full of bubbles.

“Esra! Oh my god, you’re here!” I said happily, squeezing perhaps a little harder than I should have.

“Let go of me you… you… pest!” she said, swatting uselessly at my back. “Let go of me this instant, and tell me what in the god’s name you have done to this place! What is that preposterous waste of space you have in the middle, and how did you even… make it?”

Of course she’d get annoyed at my tree. Typical Esra Rihm, always grumpy. Well, I knew exactly where I fit into this little dynamic between us.

“Are you saying that I figured something out that you don’t understand?” I asked with a shit-eating grin.

“I am not saying anything of the sort, young lady,” she said with a glare. “I’m sure if I got a good look at it, I’d figure it out in a heartbeat, but I want to hear it from you!”

I decided not to point out that she’d just admitted to not understanding what it was currently, and instead I looked up at the massive tree in question. “It was just a happy little accident.”

“You… you…” she sputtered, gawking at me like I’d just grown another head. “That was an accident? How? How did you create such a gargantuan monstrosity by accident?!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. This was too much fun. I was assuming that her being more grumpy than I remembered was just her version of excitement at finally seeing me again.

“Well, you see that plant there?” I asked her, pointing to one of the growth energy plants. “I created those things because I was getting tired using my magic to grow everything manually. They’re a little finicky and they keep dying and need constant maintenance, but anyway, they work great to make growth magic. Then, I had those trees over there making water, but—”

“Wait,” she groaned, putting a hand up to stall me. “You made plants to do the growing for you?” she asked, sounding suddenly very exhausted. “My word, I really wish that whiny little child of a man had waited just a week or so more before burning my damned grove to the ground. It didn’t occur to you to simply use tenders like a normal bloody mage?”

I laughed. “I have those too, look! Here comes Cream now!”

Cream hopped up, her head bobbing timidly as she used the motion to get a proper look at my mage-mother. Poor prey animals and their sideways facing eyes. She was so cute, and I could tell she was a little apprehensive about Esra. She’d never met her after all, and Esra could be very scary, especially to small, sweet little buns like her.

“You named it,” Esra said in a deadpan. Then, with a sigh, she placed both hands to her face and took a deep breath. “Please continue to explain that accident over there.”

Oh my goodness, I forgot how much fun it was to tease her. I had missed her so much, and being seperated from her like that, right when we’d been starting to bond? It had sucked big time.

“Right, so I had the trees out there making water and funnelling it into an aquifer underneath the plateau, right? But then this big magical storm came, and it pumped so much raw energy into my grove that everything was overflowing with it, and my plants took that and turned it into growth energy. When the water trees had all grown as high as the limit I set on them, that energy had nowhere else to go but down with the water… where my big tree, which was much smaller at the time, found it,” I told her, enjoying every moment of the wild tale. I could see her left eye twitching like mad as she listened, it was great.

“I experienced one of those storms before, yes,” she murmured, deep in thought. “Never seen the like, back in that other fertile zone. I warded my grove against it after not an hour under its ire… but if it could be harnessed as you say… my, my… my sweet little apprentice isn’t just a pretty face. A pretty face created with my incredible pedigree of course, but still… where was I? Oh yes!”

She was silent for several long moments, glancing between the ground, the growth plants and my tree. Her eyes were lit from within, the telltale sign that she was using mage sight. She began to mumble to herself again, shuffling up to one of my growth plants to get a better look.

She gave a gasp and leaned down even closer, nose practically touching the outer leaves. “Impossible… Impossible… but could it? No, no, no, but that’s impossible! But why? Would could govern such an impossible discrepancy?” she muttered, gently parting the leaves of the plant to get a better look at it. Glancing up at me, she wore an expression that was somewhere between awe and outrage. “You broke the fundamental principles of magic, as practiced by those of us within the nameless garden. What you have done here should be impossible!”

“Yeah well, it was really cool, because I got to turn the big tree into a house!” I grinned, shrugging off the whole, breaking magic thing. I kinda knew I’d done that when I made the things… they had not been keen to exist, and still weren’t entirely happy with the situation.

“The big tree… is a house,” she said with another one of her deadpan stares. Then she tilted her head and nodded thoughtfully. “Well actually, if you have the sheer amount of raw power that you seem to have just laying around, I can’t see why you wouldn’t turn that freak of nature into a nice little tower.”

“Hey, it’s my happy little tree,” I pouted. “Don’t diss the happy little tree.”

“I am not dissing the happy little tree,” she told me with a sniff. “I am simply calling it how it is.”

“You are totally dissing my happy little tree right now, and it’s making me sad,” I mumbled, making fake sniffling sounds while I rubbed at my eyes. Was my fake crying working? Was she taking the bait? I took a peek to make sure...

“Oh, you have got to be joking,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. “Stop the theatrics young lady, you’re far more intelligent than that.” Oh gosh darn it! She saw through me again.

The gentle shushing of feet on grass heralded the arrival of the rest of my friends, who were glancing between Esra and I in total bewilderment. I guess they probably heard a lot of our bickering. I really, really hoped that she was nice to them. She needed to like my friends, and especially Grace.

“And just who are this lot?” Esra demanded, folding her arms and glaring at them all. “My word, you have an awful lot of explaining to do, young lady.”

Oh dear… she was not going to be playing the kind old lady I guess. Time to do damage control!

“Uh, that one is my lover,” I said, pointing to Grace. “She’s from Avonside, and so are the rest, except the two obrec of course. They are Stonechaser clan, they’ve been helping me tank the wood market in Millowhall so I can suck the whole region dry of gold.”

Okay, so maybe I was spinning the truth a little here, but it was for a good cause. That good cause mainly just being Esra’s hilarious reactions to what I’d been up to in her absence, but still… I couldn’t resist.

“You… they… gold? What?” my mage-mother sputtered, staring at me with wide, horrified eyes. She seemed to decide that the most pressing issue was Grace as she turned to glare at my girlfriend. “You, who are you? What does a warlock want with my... uh, apprentice? If you harm her…” she hissed, eyes narrowing as she squinted menacingly at Grace. “I’ll… I’ll… leave you alone, because being bound to that brat is punishment enough.”

“Hey!” I exclaimed, trying to sound grumpy even as I fought the laughter that was bubbling up within me. “She’s really happy being in a relationship with me, thank you very much! Right Grace?”

“Um… yes, definitely,” Grace nodded. She looked just a little overwhelmed, which was understandable. Esra had bowled into my grove like one of those big storms and was currently making a big mess.

“Ah, not very bright then,” Esra scowled. “Either that or blinded by love, considering the little wretch that she’s gotten herself involved with,” she continued with a sideways glance at me.

“Awh! I missed you too,” I chirped happily, bringing her in for another hug and earning an indignant squawk for my troubles.

It seemed like she might try and protest that for a minute, before she mellowed and gave me just a slight little nod. “Alright, I will admit that in my journeys since we parted ways, I have somehow found myself missing your pestilential presence by my side.”

“Now you can say sorry to Grace,” I said sternly, narrowing my eyes at her. “Or I won’t tell you about how she got her magic. It’s a really good story, trust me.” Not to mention one that I probably needed to tell her, since she might actually be able to understand what had happened.

My mentor gaped at me for several moments, then swapped to staring at Grace. “Fine, you may court my apprentice, but I expect you to treat her like the precious young woman that she is.” Awh! She really did care! I was precious!

“Oh, definitely,” Grace replied, giving me a loving look. “I’ll also make sure she actually eats and bathes between getting lost in magic stuff.”

“Ah, good. I approve…” Esra smiled, happy with my girlfriend’s answer. Then her smile faded as she turned her eyes on the rest of them. “I expect that there is a very interesting tale to tell. You don’t, by chance, have food in that massive accident of yours do you Ryn? Food that has not been grown on a plant?”

“We bought so much meat in Millowhall, you have no idea,” I grinned, wrapping my arm around Esra’s shoulders and steering her towards the accident. It was totally time for a celebratory feast… assuming the buns were up to the task.

** Cream’s perspective **

“This new lady scares me,” Hopper told me, the special helper bun for our Lady’s lady. “She says so many mean things and it’s making me nervous. I can’t even swing my metal tool for trees! I just want to hide with Grace.”

Hopper was unique in that he was trying his best to learn all the people words for things. It was a very noble effort, especially for a bun to try understanding such enigmatic beings as people.

“She would protect you… meanwhile our Lady is being very annoying to the angry new lady. It is like she is charging her, only to veer off at the last second,” I said, shaking myself as a preyfear rippled through my fur.

“I think that the new angry lady is our Lady’s creator, like how our Lady created us,” Hopper said, tilting his head to look at me out of one eye. Hopper was fast becoming a source of great wisdom for us in understanding the people.

“Your work in understanding the people is so admirable Hopper,” I told him gratefully, giving a hop of appreciation.

Before either of us could continue our talk, Black was rushing up, head bowed low. “Come quick, come quick! We must burn food for the people, they are hungry! We can’t make the grumpy lady dislike us so soon!”

That got us moving, and I sent out a call through the betweenthoughts to gather the buns we needed for the task. We raced past the people as they slowly hopped their way up the tree, causing the grumpy lady to yell lots. By the time we made it to the burning room, two paws of buns were there and ready. We were good buns, the best buns.

Black immediately began giving orders. “We’re going to do recipe uh… thirteen paws and one finger. The quiet one was happy when he told the big hairy one about it, called it recipe sixty six or something. Anyway, we need to make the fire warmer again, it’s running low!”

“On it!” Sprinkles squeaked eagerly, getting the metal poking thing and throwing more chopped tree on the fire. Sprinkles was slightly alarming sometimes with how eagerly she groomed the fire when it was her turn to do so.

“Cream, I need the treats chopped into smaller treats, quickly!” Black called, and off i went to do my duty. I gathered many different treats, especially the ones the people liked a lot. We had learned that people did not like dry grass very much, so we used the carrots and the funny bulbous roots with the fire. There were so many types of treats, it was hard to remember all the names, only the colours and smells. We called Carrots orangesweetearth because that just made more sense.

I used the flat metal claw to chop the treats into smaller treats, then rushed to get the crushed sneezy plant and the little white grains, then sprinkled it all over the small treats. With the small treats properly ruined I popped them onto a tray and then onto the big metal thing above the fire. It was a little sad watching the fire burn the treats, but then I remembered that the treats were already ruined by the sneezy plant and the white grains.

Turning to look at the bustle that was happening in the burning room, I was just in time to see the people crowd into the room.

“What in the wide ring is going on in here?” the grumpy lady exclaimed, looking shocked. I think it was shocked. People feelings were hard to figure out sometimes.

“Oh… damn,” the big hairy man said, making the really deep laugh that tickled our ears. “I really did teach them well, huh? They even put salt and pepper on the veggies.”

That was me! I put the salt and the pepper on the veg-ees!

“Dang, you really did,” our lady said with the funny high pitched laugh that made our fur tingle. “They’re so cute. You’re all such good buns, thank you!”

That was cause for binkies all around, so I did that, zooming around the cooking stone once out of happiness. We were good buns! Oh! I wonder if I could get some grooms from our lady! I rushed over and stood up on my hind paws, nudging her hand with my nose in question.

Our lady laughed and her hand came down to stroke gently between my ears. It felt so lovely. “I have no idea how I’m going to give you all the pats you deserve,” she continued. “Such good buns!”

“I have never seen tenders do this much, nor have I seen tenders that display this much intelligence,” the grumpy lady said, not sounding very grumpy. She was bending down to look at me, which was scary so I hopped to put our lady between us for protection.

“Stop scaring Cream with your wrinkly old mug, Esra,” our lady said, doing the verbal charging thing again. I really wished she’d stop antagonising the grumpy lady.

“I’ll have you know that this wrinkly old mug has seen kings bow and scrape before it, in the hopes that they might take it to bed, thank you very much,” the grumpy lady said, which prompted a round of choking sounds from our lady. Was she in trouble? What was wrong?

“That is so gross, none of us needed to know that,” our lady said in a high pitched voice. “Come on, let’s go find a place to eat all this.”

Before she left, our lady snuck in a little grooming for Black and Sprinkles too. She was very nice to us, although I think we might need to talk to her at some point about pats for the buns that didn’t get seen by her very much.

Explaining all my adventures to Esra since I had left her grove took all of dinner and then some. The food was amazing though, the buns really did try their best with this stuff. The way Cream had gone and bounced around the kitchen when I praised her had been so cute.

Esra’s wariness of the buns had lasted until she took a bite out of the food. Adam had taught them well, at least with this recipe, and the results were pretty damned good. She’d asked what else I had them doing, and I’d described the various tasks they had been assigned around the place. Which led to how they were harvesting wood and the Millowhall part of the story.

“No!” she laughed, her white eyes bright with mirth. “You had that blowhard Carac bowing and scraping? By the gods, I wish I could have seen that! You must have cut into his concerns rather heavily if he stopped his egotistical strutting enough to negotiate with you!”

“He seemed kinda nice,” I shrugged, smiling nevertheless at her happiness. Esra didn’t get excited like that often. “I mean, uptight and stuff… but not a terrible person.”

“He’s not a terrible person under all of it, no,” she nodded, a wan smile coming across her face. “I just dealt with many a mage such as him in my time, and I find myself running out of patience for their type. You can only listen to a man tell you all about his own importance so many times before you begin to fall asleep.”

Probably why she was such an irritable grump too. It must have been such a tough thing to try and do good for people in politics around here. Especially during Fennimore’s rise to power and all those manipulative assholes that he liked to hang out with.

“Yeah, I hear you,” Troy nodded with the slightest of eyerolls. “There were types like that in the military too. People who let their power get to their head, running their mouths and acting like they are hot shit. Then comes time to actually do something real and they flake off.”

Esra hummed agreement, eyeing Troy as though seeing him in a new light. “You were in the military of uh... Earth, was it?”

“For a nation on that world, yeah,” he nodded. “Saw combat, although the nature of it is very different to what it’s like here on the ring.”

“Interesting,” Esra murmured, her eyes drifting between all of us from Avonside.

Interesting was one word for it. I could see that she knew what that meant for the long term political landscape of this region. I wonder if she agreed with Fennimore or not on this issue?

The moment ended when she turned to me with a serious but distinctly motherly expression on her face. “Back to more immediate matters… you, my little apprentice, are going to need to do some serious magework when you finish this little adventure that you are on,” she told me sternly. “You have no defences, for one thing, which is a terrible oversight. Additionally, I will be showing you how to modify some of the spells you have created to be more efficient. Not to mention figuring out what to do with that… frankly terrifying store of energy you have beneath our feet.”

“Oh, what about it?” I asked, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck stand up at attention. Was she going to tell me that it might explode at any moment?

Contrary to where my fears had been running, her eyes lit up with the sort of evil expression reserved only for mad scientists about to press the button and unleash their doomsday weapon. “My dear, sweet little child… there is so very much that we could do with it. You will not hear me say this often… but you have unwittingly stumbled upon a system that will forever change the balance of power within mages. The storms out here, combined with your methods of collecting the energy… oh my word...”

I felt a proud grin blossom across my face, followed by a happy blush. “Does that mean I did good?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t let that pretty head of yours swell, Rynadria Belrose. I worked hard on it after all, can’t have it becoming grotesque and misshapen.”

Oh no. She used my full name!

****

We did eventually have to go to bed, and to my surprise, Esra asked to use a room to sleep in for the time being. Her grove wasn’t very well equipped on the home and hearth side of things. She’d muttered something about her magic and spells being a priority over niceties or whatever. I don’t know, wasn’t paying attention.

I did pay attention when she offhandedly explained the reason for creating a magefruit. It was like… saving your progress in a game. It took time, effort and a not insignificant amount of energy, but once it was created, it set a hard lower limit on the raw power a mage could bring to bear.

You could torch a whole grove to the ground, destroy it utterly and that mage would still be able to wield raw magic with the same power and finesse that they had when their grove was at its peak. Their spells would still be gone, but if they could escape, then it allowed them to build a new grove far quicker than the first time around. Which all explained why she had made that my mage fruit and then hidden it in the first place.

It was way too late in the night when we all finally fell into bed. Waking up the next morning to continue our journey really really sucked. God I was tired.

The following evening, Esra was there again, practically dragging me by the scruff of my neck to begin teaching me magic things. Specifically, she thought it was some sort of crime against humanity that I didn’t have a short ranged teleport spell. The kind that she and Fennimore had been using in their duel way back then. Apparently it was a staple or something?

That took most of our limited time that night, largely because she was never satisfied. I had to keep making changes until it was absolutely perfect in her eyes. Something about keeping her apprentice from teleporting herself into the ground. Then it was off to collapse into bed, mentally drained from the strain of working with spell plants as well as the scant night’s sleep I’d gotten before.

This routine continued as we made our slow way through the winding paths of the obrec mountains. They were beautiful too, some chasms wide enough to be proper valleys, with towns and villages up and down the walls. The obrec revered their forests to the point that they would refused to clear them to build settlements.

Some, like the wild obrec, still followed the old traditions, living within the ancient depths of the forests. They were a secretive and elusive lot, and no one knew much about them. The majority of their kind though, they lived on the slopes and walls of their great mountain range. The carved obrec, named for the way they carved their cities out of stone, were the ones we’d been interacting with this whole time.

On one particular night during our travels, when Esra brought up the topic of my transformation, Troy rather surprisingly educated Esra and everyone else on what it meant to be transgender.

He didn’t out himself as such, but he explained the pain of it, the desperate hate for one’s own body and the toll that it took on the mind. He explained how much damage it dealt to a persons life without them even realising it, how people might to withdraw socially, because socialising as the gender they were assigned at birth was mentally painful. They might score poorly at school because some portion of their mind was always assigned to resisting the existential horror of having your body change in ways that felt fundamentally wrong.

So many other things were spoken about, and Esra seemed genuinely interested and sympathetic, which was… odd. Old people were generally pretty bad with this kind of thing. Then again, she hadn’t really cared when I introduced Grace to her.

The next day, while she was teaching me a proper spell to use for heating the baths, I asked her, “Esra, where are you right now? Out on the ring, I mean?”

She paused as she was sketching out some diagrams on paper and glanced up at me. “Somewhere. It’s best you don’t know, I’m afraid. Rest assured I’ll be making it to that town of yours shortly. This ecology business you talk about has me intrigued.”

I perked up. “Really? I was going to try to get some books made about that stuff to put in here, so you might not have to go all the way if you want to learn.” I said, pointing around us at the mostly empty library. “I have a whole plan for how to implement a functioning ecosystem in my grove when I get the chance.”

“Books are one thing my dear child, but learning from those who know what they are talking about is far superior, as you should well know,” she chided me, giving a pointed look around us.

“Hey!” I grinned with more than a little cheek. “You said I’d stumbled on something really important by blindly following my instincts.”

“And you could have just as easily killed yourself, or much worse, so I’m going to chalk it up to dumb luck and make sure you don’t break things again,” she grumbled, still irritated that I kept bringing it up.

“Alright, alright,” I laughed, distractedly playing with a strand of my dark magenta hair. The way it shone in the light was kinda mesmerising sometimes. I loved it.

“Put your hair down and pay attention,” she snapped, tapping the paper with a finger. “This is important, you get this wrong and it will burn down this whole damned tree you love so much.”

“It’s a good tree,” I complained. “Why wouldn’t I love it?”

Her response was a weary sigh, but we got back to the lesson anyway. God I was getting tired though. Endless boring rides in a cart during the day followed by intense lessons in spellcraft during the night were playing hell with me. I just wanted to sleep in and roll out of bed at noon, preferably with cute messy bed hair that would have my girlfriend throwing me back into bed with no intention of sleeping. Was that really too much to ask for?

Goodness I was horny, but never when I actually had her on hand… being perpetually tired was a bit of a barrier to multiple orgasms.

Apparently it was too much to ask for though, because two weeks later when we reached Thistlescar, home and seat of power to our obrec friends with the same name, I was exhausted.

Thistlescar was far smaller than Millowhall had been, which made sense considering it was just the hall for a noble family within the Stonechaser clan rather than a full capital city or anything. The Stonechasers lived in the very outskirts of the obrec mountains, and therefore the canyons and forests were far less extreme than they had been further in. That didn’t mean it was any less impressive though.

The castle sat carved out of an enormous promontory of stone that had sheared off the cliff years ago and now hung out into the wide, shallow chasm. It towered over the forest below, looking for all the world like it would finish toppling down at any moment, despite having never moved more than an inch further from where it currently sat.

“That doesn’t look safe,” Kit murmured, staring at the castle with trepidation. He’d been getting more and more timid recently. Something about Mer’s attempts to woo him had him restless and sort of vaguely upset, even as he also seemed to enjoy her attention. I was worried about him. I might have to talk to Mer about maybe taking a step back.

“Oh, it’s perfectly safe, don’t worry,” the obrec woman in question said soothingly. “In fact, since we hollowed it out and turned it into a town, we actually lessened the danger. Not as top-heavy. It’s not going to fall for thousands of years, if ever.”

“Tell that to one good earthquake,” Kit muttered, glancing away from both the castle and Mer. “I lived in LA for a few years, you look at things differently after you feel your first really big one.”

“Yeah, that’s very true,” Grace agreed from next to me. “I think we’ll be fine though.”

Despite how close the place looked, it still took most of the afternoon to actually make it there along the winding cliffside road, and the way it began to loom over us certainly put some legitimacy behind our friends in my minds eye. I mean… it’s one thing to meet a bunch of people with money and carts, but to see this massive fortress town… that was something else. I hoped the rest of their noble house were as cool as this lot.

Our arrival at Thistlescar held significantly more fanfare than I had been anticipating. There were obrec children fucking everywhere for one thing, and when they saw humans they went mental. I found myself with a little procession behind me as the caravan trundled into the huge courtyard at the base of the fortress town.

Little obrec children yammered away at me in the local dialect of the obrec language that I had no hope of understanding. Still, they didn’t seem to mind that all I did was smile and create little showers of ephemeral rose petals everywhere. That particular spell had been made for an entirely different and non-child friendly activity, but they didn’t need to know.

One thing we learned very quickly was that every single obrec in this place was part of the Thistlescar noble house. Which kinda confused the hell out of us who were used to the human definition of noble.

Turns out that when the humans first met the obrec, they decided that they were “barbarians” so they named their most obvious form of social structure as clan. Then, they got just as confused as we did about the whole thing and decided that the actual clans within what should have been a kingdom were called noble houses. The obrec didn’t seem to care about any of that shit though, because why does it matter what the idiots down in the plains thought?

“We do still have all that fancy pantsy noble stuff though,” Mer was explaining to us as we helped get the carts secure. “Sorta, we don’t all strut around like we’re the best thing around like the obrec in the big cities or the humans down in the plains. See, the Lord of Thistlescar is Horln, he rules all our lands like you’d expect. Otho ‘n me are the kids of his younger sister.”

“So you’re like, minor nobles if we convert to silly human standards?” Kit asked with a shy grin. The guy was tall but somehow he still managed to make shy seem cute on that big frame of his.

“Yes,” she agreed, her eyes shining with mirrored mirth.

“Otho! Mer! Welcome home! Who do we have here?” a loud bellowing voice called.

We all turned to find a rather old obrec man who was somewhat on the heavier side both in girth and height as he made his way over to us.

“Uncle Horln, the man himself,” Mer laughed, opening her arms just in time to get all but plowed over by the huge obrec.

Okay so clearly things were a little informal around here. None of the other obrec seemed particularly phased by their lord barrelling through to pick Mer up. There were smiles and laughs, but no bowing or scraping of any kind.

“How’s my favourite niece?” he asked with a hearty chuckle, placing her back on the ground. “And my favourite nephew! Did you make us some of those stones we’re meant to be chasing?”

“You have no idea,” Otho grinned, looking incredibly pleased with himself. As well he should, since a simple act of kindness by him and his sister led to them making an absolute mountain of money, with the possibility of more in the future.

Otho and Mer took turns filling in the increasingly growing crowd of Thistlescars about their adventures. Apparently they had been set upon by wild beasts before we found them, which they had handled well. Then came all the Millowhall stuff, a story that I knew way too intimately, so I kinda phased out for that.

We moved indoors once the wagons and all that were safely stowed, where cooks were already working on a feast to celebrate the caravan’s return. They had this huge communal room filled with tables, chairs and roaring magefire hearths.

Those were immediately of interest to me, and I rushed over to take a look. Claih laughed when she saw my interest, and with a just as intrigued Kit by my side she told us all about it. They burned magic, basically. Specifically they were powered by the magical crystal that was abundant in the obrec mountains. They were fairly simple things, converting raw magical energy into flame at a very efficient rate, which made for a good source of warmth in a huge stone fortress like this one.

We stayed a total of three days in Thistlescar, during which time I actually spent most of my time working on my grove’s defences with Esra. She had me weaponise my windbreak, modifying their base plan to incorporate an energy shield of sorts. That got me thinking bigger though. I’d been a huge Star Gate nerd a few years back, and one thing that I had always loved was the city of atlantis. What if I copied that but in tree form… oh my goodness, so many ideas.

“Esra, what if I use my big tree in conjunction with these ones to create a huge shield? I’d probably need a ton of power to do that right? But I have a ton of power laying around, and the next storm is going to overflow my lake even further,” I mused, sort of just rambling my ideas off.

“You… that’s preposterous, of course you can’t—“ Esra started before trailing off, brows furrowed. “Hmm, if you used that tree as a reservoir, that would fix the problem with… and an amplifier, it is an awfully large tree after all… but how would you tackle the law of arcane pressure? That much energy would cause a catastrophic… no… it might be possible if you feed it back into the structure… Ah, but then there’s that warlock of yours...”

I couldn’t help a grin as I watched Esra’s sharp mind fade out of reality and into the problem. Her eyes were on fire with intellectual lust, the kind that someone with a love for problem solving got when they were making headway with a particularly interesting idea.

It was almost ten minutes of muttering later than Esra stood up straight from her increasingly hunched posture to announce, “It is possible, and more than that, I may have discovered a possible solution for your storm energy storage problems too. We will need that girl of yours however.”

“What, Grace?” I asked, confused as to how she could help.

Esra smiled. “She is instrumental to the success… or wildly ruinous outcome of this experiment.”

Oh dear. Mage mother dearest was insane.

****

“I am so confused right now,” Grace sighed, rubbing at her eyes with thumb and forefinger. “You want to push a spell plan through my um, maginetic field? While both of us are in plant form, so we can use that empathic thingy?”

“Yes, indeed!” Esra nodded like a bobblehead in a hurricane.

“Then… I point it at… the big tree,” Grace continued, eyeing the older woman dubiously.

“Quite so!” Esra agreed, still nodding, except I think the van that the bobblehead was in had been thrown clear and was now tumbling back to earth. “You are not confused at all, my dear.”

“Alright… if you say so…” my girlfriend sighed, eyes finding mine. She did not look very confident.

I reached out and cupped her cheek with just a taste of the infinite tenderness I felt for her. “You can do it. I believe in you, you’re incredible.”

“I wish,” she said, although her bashful smile said that at least something in my words had landed home.

“You two can get all mushy and romantic with each other after this task is complete,” Esra grumbled, although some of her usual bite was missing from the words. “Let’s get to work please.”

I nodded and took my hand back and trailed my eyes over the plans we’d drawn out, using up quite a lot of rather expensive paper. One thing that sucked about obrec culture. Wax fucking tablets were the norm for hashing out ideas like this. I shuddered.

The plan was both simple and complex. We were taking the spherical shield that I already knew and tying it into a collective of plants and trees throughout the grove. By Esra’s own admission this was treading new ground. Spells like this had been attempted before, some times successfully, but always at a far smaller scale. No one had the sort of energy reserves that we had out here in the wop-wops of the Nameless Garden.

The shield spell would be anchored using the huge main tree, while the middle layer of the windbreak trees would expand its reach out to the very edge of my grove. An edge which was now technically down at the bottom of the huge cliff. I hadn’t realised it, but the place had grown rather substantially.

The part where Grace came in was interesting. After Esra had learned about the nature of my girlfriend’s powers, her eyes had almost fallen out of her head. By using Grace to amplify the spell, we weren’t just increasing its overall power. We were lacing it with the power of other magical realms.

We’d tested this before we went ahead with the big version, and when I funnelled my shield spell through her, it had become changed, different in a way that was awkward to the magical eye. Rather than purple, it had taken on a shimmering white-rainbow colour, and had increased its efficiency by terrifying factors. It was like the magical equivalent of advanced composite materials. By threading the magic of every realm through the shield, it became far stronger than each individual part might have been. Nothing, not even fae creatures like Ollinfer would be able to get through the large, storm powered version.

In theory. It had to work on a larger scale first.

It took a long time to get the spell structure right in my mind, holding the tree and all the changes we’d be making to it together while also working on the outside ones was intense. So difficult in fact that I lost it more than once, the whole thing unravelling in my head, meaning I had to start over.

Two hours later though, I had it done, and with a desperate gasp I said, “Okay, I’ve got it. Are you ready Grace? I can’t hold it stable for long!”

“Yes, yes! Go!” she blurted, bright magical plant eyes wide with worry and excitement.

Here goes nothing! I pushed the mental plans at her, powering it with as much of my own energy as I could muster while using our empathic link to guide her as best I could. Which wasn’t… the best way to communicate complex thought, if I was honest. Communicating something like, “a little more to the left,” with pure emotion was like trying to play charades while standing a mile apart and using binoculars.

Working together like that, we very carefully maneuvered everything into place, and after double and triple checking via binocular charades, we finally agreed that it was good. Like a codie hitting compile on a particularly troublesome piece of code, we watched and waited to see if anything terrible would happen.

Something did.

Reality skewed sideways like a cardboard box without two of its walls, before it twisted and spun like one of those vomit inducing carnival rides. Except it wasn’t just a mechanical object doing the spinning, but the very orientation of whatever stood for the laws of reality in the Nameless Garden.

I felt like I was a yoyo on the end of a hyperactive toddler’s finger while they bounced around inside a barrel that was inside another barrel that was rolling down a rocky hill. I felt like I was made of rubber and my body was being twisted around a pencil that was then snapped in half. I felt like melted mozzarella being eaten by a hundred year old woman with no teeth.

In short, the world went fucking upside down for a few seconds and then suddenly I was rushing for the bathroom, Esra and Grace not far behind me.

We spent a while in there just vomiting our guts out, the viciousness of what had just happened to our minds and bodies so overwhelming that it was hard to do anything else. Grace was the first to come back to herself, wobbling over on unsteady legs to hold my hair out of my face while I shuddered over the toilet bowl.

Eventually I began to calm down, and after washing my mouth out with water, I turned to an also recovered Esra. She had a worried frown all over her face, mage sight active as she stared up into the heights of the tree through the walls.

“I don’t know what could have caused such a reaction,” she said, half to us and half thinking out loud.

I opened my mouth to speak, to ask her if she had any idea what had just happened to us, when I noticed something. Something that really should have registered to me sooner.

“My grove!” I blurted, rushing for the door. Was I correct? I felt something vastly different through my connection with my source of power.

The other two were after me moments later, calling out with questions and frustration. They’d find out at the same time I did though. No sense in throwing words around when we could go and find out.

The afternoon sun hung lazily in the sky as we burst out of the main doors of the big tree. There had been some light rain that morning, leaving the ramp slightly damp, puddles in the corners. It made our headlong rush down the ramp more than a little dangerous, but we made it to the bottom just fine.

Then it was out and into my grove, so different from when I had first created it. The vast expanse of grass had shrunk drastically, only fifty or so meters in radius around the tree now. The rest was a forest of spell plants and trees, sprinkled at random across the plateau.

Loamy soil few up behind us as I led the other two through the twisting paths that my buns had picked out. They meandered between the trunks of my fairy-like forest in a way that I loved, but I’d heard the others complaining about how they made no sense. It made perfect sense if you had an eye for the flow of things. A straight path through a wild forest like this one would be a travesty.

“Rynadria! You damned pest, where are you going?” Esra cried in frustration.

“You’ll see,” I exclaimed, and then as we burst out through the windbreak trees, we did indeed see what had happened.

Below us, the ephemeral mists that had swirled and danced beneath the cliffs of my grove were gone. In their place was an absolutely stunning view, a broad shelf of land protruded out from the base of my plateau, ending in another cliff some five hundred meters from where we stood. Beyond that were the mists again, lit with the orange of the afternoon sun. Like my grove had been in the beginning, that massive shelf was a vaguely flat sea of verdant green grass that swayed gently as wind rippled across its surface.

“Oh my,” Esra breathed, reaching out for a tree to support herself. “I may have forgotten to take something into account…”

“What did you forget to take into account?” Grace asked, looking anxious as she played with her thumb, pushing it around with the other hand nervously. “Did I break Ryn’s grove?”

“Far from it,” Esra smiled, staring out at the new expanse of green land. “We simply… expanded it. Rather abruptly, which is what caused us such distress. Normally one grows their grove in small increments, a tree or three here, and patch of flowers there. It is not often that something as grand and ambitious as that tree is altered. See, a grove grows not just with the number of plants, but also with their complexity. We often forget that our groves are intelligent, in their own way. They thrive on the artistry that we create within their bounds.”

“And we just wove together a massive and very complex spell that spans multiple plants,” I finished for her, understanding hitting me like a splash of cold water to the face. “Wow… that is… no wonder my internal power reserves feel so strange. It’s almost doubled!”

“We have… a lot of work to do young Ryn, a lot of work to do,” she replied, shaking her head in consternation. “But first… I think I am going to need a tree like yours after all. It is simply too great a tool not to use. Oh, and I think that growth energy plant of yours could use some… refinement.”

****

We left the Thistlescar town with high spirits and a lot of new goods to sell. Crop seeds, textiles and all sorts that Lord Horln wanted to sell. He was wholeheartedly behind the idea of forging ties of friendship with Avonside, provided they were willing to deal in good faith. Troy commented that we’d make sure of that.

Our journey home continued at the same mind numbly exhausting pace as before. I began to sleep during the cart rides rather than at night, which gave me plenty of time to work on my grove.

I focused on creating the defences for the upper plateau. The shield worked, thankfully, but I needed more than that. I created vines that lay within my forest, each one bearing innocuous blue flowers that would begin to arc lightning between them if the buns determined someone was a threat. In fact, I created a good deal of defenses like that. I had strangling vines that would attack people, I designed little seedlings that hid in the fallen leaves that once activated would spring up to grasp at people, their thorns heated to white hot intensity.

I also began the rather gruelling task of building a ramp down to the lower level of the plateau, which I frankly had no clue what to do with. I was still filling out the forest up above for crying out loud. I elected not to plant anything down there yet, instead focusing on creating the river system that would feed it all, flowing down from my lake above in massive waterfalls.

Another week into our journey and Esra had me bring Grace over to her grove where we could recreate the shield spell there too. Except hers was a little different. Rather than one large tree like me, she used six slightly smaller ones. Her shield would be different too, it was less robust than mine, but it had a rather terrifying additional feature.

Mine felt like a solid wall of faintly humming stone when you touched it. Hers simply vaporised anything it came into contact with. That’s right, hers was significantly deadlier than mine. When I asked why mine wasn’t like that, her response was simply, “You let so many people into that grove of yours that someone was bound to wander into it at some point. I assume that you’d like your guests to stay as a single coherent physical entity?”

I’d nodded and felt a little silly, because yeah… I could see someone walking into it at some point. Or touching it on purpose, just to see what happened. Not thinking about anyone particular on that last one, certainly not a long time friend of mine whose name started with B and ended with dumbass.

Esra’s grove was kinda frightening to be honest. She’d taken after me with the house tree, since she didn’t have time to go and get regular building materials. She had way more finesse and control over her plants than I did though, which was never more demonstrably visible than when I saw the house she’d made.

The six trees that were the central pillar for her shield had been coaxed into weaving their branches together in artful patters, creating a house in the process. It was incredibly pretty too, flowers and fruit hung from excess branches, while small creeping vines added a layer of thick greenery.

She’d even figured out windows using branches that would open and close them on demand. I think she was mentally controlling them or something, but I had no idea.

Her grove was already huge too, although she had it laid out in an organised manner, like her old one. No wild forest ecosystem here. She said that her mind desired order, and a forest like mine, however good for its defensive purposes, would be far too difficult for her to tend and navigate.

I didn’t bring up that my buns did most of that, I think she was a little grumpy that she had no idea about ecology yet. One of he few plant related fields that I had superior knowledge in.

Outside of the Nameless Garden, we finally reached the northern edge of the obrec mountains halfway through our second week out of Thistlescar. During that first night camping in the lowland woods, Esra appeared in my grove, huffing and puffing for breath. The downside to my newly expanded grove was that when people arrived, they arrived way out at the new edge.

It was early evening and the skies above were clouding over, producing a false twilight that gave a sense of peaceful melancholy. I pushed a stray strand of hair out of my face, the tiniest flash of irritation running through my mind as I wondered how it had gotten loose from my ponytail. Long hair was a pain sometimes.

“Ryn,” she gasped, leaning on a nearby tree. “I have need of you.”

“Oh? What’s up?” I asked, standing up from where I’d been playing with the new design that she’d made for the growth magic plants.

“My grove has grown to the point that I do not feel comfortable expanding further without first making sure of my current progress,” she explained, her eyes searching mine carefully. “So I will put the decision to you plainly now… which of your companions would be best suited to the honor of a mage fruit?”

“Well, I’m going to have to find the others first. I won’t make this decision without discussing it with my people, I’m not their overlord or whatever,” I told her in response to her question.

In my mind I was already thinking of candidates though. It would either be Troy or Kit. I was thinking Troy mainly because he would then get a body that aligned wholly with who he was. Unfortunately, I don’t think he’d be a great fit for getting some actual magecraft done.

Kit on the other hand would make for an amazing mage. He was almost overly excited about the whole idea of magic, to the point of learning as much as he could even if he couldn’t actually wield it himself.

“Ah yes, I forgot about that. I dreamed of this sort of cooperation and harmony between my peers and others in positions of power back in my politicking days, but to see it actually manifested is rather jarring,” Esra mused, staring through me for a moment.

“Me? Position of power?” I asked, bewildered. I mean, sure… that whole Millowhall thing had happened… but they were small fry, right?

“Rynadria, in terms of raw magical might, you are already one of the most prominent mages that reside on this continent,” she told me seriously. “When you reach the level of control and elegance that I possess, you will be a force to rival the so-called gods. Of course, so will I by that point.”

I squinted at her, wondering if she was messing with me or something. Surely that wasn’t true?

“Why are you staring at me like that, girl? It is a factual statement and I am a more than reliable source on this matter,” she grumbled after several seconds of eyeballing.

“No reason,” I shrugged pretending to be interested in my hair again. “Anyway, I should go find the others. They’re probably in the tree. Cya soon!”

I didn’t quite run away, but it wasn’t quite walking either. Behind me I heard Esra grumble something under her breath and follow along behind me. Crap, she wanted to be there for the conversation.

We found the rest of them playing cards on the second floor, which we were starting to call the glass balcony, on account of all the tree glass that allowed light in. Adam was very animatedly explaining the rules of some card game that I wasn’t familiar with to Otho and Mer, but they all stopped when we stepped up.

“Hey you two, should I deal you in?” Adam asked, a twinkle of mischief in his eye.

“Actually… we kinda need to talk about something really important,” I told him apologetically.

Troy put his cards down first, face down before leaning on the table with his elbows. “What’s up?”

My friends —the Order of Eleos, I guess I should start thinking of them as, since we were all meant to be players in regional politics or something now— all put their cards down too, switching from silly to serious mode seamlessly.

“I am going to be creating another mage fruit soon, and since hiding it didn’t work last time,” Esra began, pausing with a pointed look in my direction. “I think it would be best if I were to gift it to one of you Avonsiders, rather than some foppish noble for a bag of gold.”

There was a collective intake of breath around the table as everyone realised just what that meant. We had to choose someone for a life altering change that would give them massive power. It was a heavy decision, although there was the option of more in the future too. I’d probably need to make one at some point soon.

I started with Troy, bringing up his problem with meds, something that hadn’t crossed my mind much with everything that had happened. With a meaningful look, I stated, “This would solve your problem, if we gave it to you.”

“I’m aware,” he nodded calmly, then sighed, giving the grove beyond the windows a wistful look. “But it would not solve the problem for all those others in the same boat as me. I am also probably not the best person when it comes to actual magecraft. No, that gift would be wasted on me. I believe it would be best to give it to someone who would utilise it to its fullest potential, and ultimately help the order and those with said, uh… problem.”

“You are turning down an offer of power?” Esra asked curiously.

He shrugged, staring down at his weathered hands for a moment. “In a team, everyone has a role to play. Mine is that of advisor and leader in things of administration and combat. I have never been good with abstract thought, math and all that. What point would it serve to give the thing to me? Hell, giving it to someone I trust and who could wield magic to its fullest potential would be a far greater addition to any power I could wield.”

“If only the leaders of this world thought as you do,” the older woman muttered with a sad shake of her head.

“Aye,” Otho sighed with a pained roll of his eyes. “Could certainly use some more level heads in obrec politics.”

Adam spoke up next, leaning forward with confused interest. “Sorry if this is an awkward question, but what is this problem exactly?”

Oh Adam, why yes… that was an incredibly awkward question. Although that made me wonder how Troy had managed to hide what was, uh... in his pants, so to speak. They had all slept in the same room extremely often. If anyone could be a master of stealth, I guess it was Troy.

“Not something I’d like to discuss currently, sorry,” Troy said quickly, although still as calm and assured as ever.

Made sense, not wanting to come out to everyone. Something I learned early on in my research of the subject was just how effective transition using standard modern Earth methods could be. Which of course meant something else, the number of trans people that any one person had met was almost certainly higher than they thought it was.

Many trans people chose not to disclose themselves at all. Why bother, after all? Unless you were going to get sexual with someone or advocate for transgender rights, there wasn’t much reason to out yourself and go inviting attack in a world that was not nearly as accepting as it pretended to be. Too many people seemed cool and normal until topics of race, sexuality or gender came up, then they went off the deep end into the asshole pool. Although, maybe both Troy and I were just paranoid? I don’t know.

Pulling a chair out for Esra and then myself, I sat down heavily and pushed a few insistent strands of hair out of my eyes. “Well, then we should figure out who’d be best at magic then. Oh and if I remember my lessons right, warlocks like Grace cannot become mages and vice versa. Something about conflicting sources of magical power or whatever.”

Esra nodded as she sat down. “It appears that you were listening after all. In between sunbathing all day.”

“The sun feels good on my plant skin,” I grumbled, poking my tongue out for a split second.

“I am aware,” she replied dryly.

“Kit would be best at magic, absolutely no doubt,” Adam said, turning to look at the quiet guy in question. “As much as I’d like to become a cool mage and fling fireballs around or whatever, I think I’m best suited to the uh… knight role in this little fantasy thing we have going on.”

“Kit is very interested in magic, that is certain,” Mer agreed, smiling at him as he stared red faced down at the table. I could tell he wanted this really badly, but also that he was probably unwilling to speak up and ask for it.

“Kit, do you want to be a mage?” I asked him gently, trying my best not to smile at his bashfulness.

Pushing the cards around on the table with his index finger, he asked quietly, “What about Mer and Otho?”

I briefly considered them, Otho might be a good fit but I wasn’t sure that Mer was. Unfortunately, we hadn’t known them that long and while I did trust them, my trust didn’t extend that far.

“I’m afraid they aren’t part of the order,” I told him, giving an apologetic expression to the two obrec in question. “Possibly down the line we can give them a fruit each, but for now… I think it’s best to keep it between those of us from Avonside. Excluding James, obviously… wherever the hell he’s ended up.”

“Jesus, is it bad that I haven’t thought about him in weeks?” Grace blurted with a disbelieving laugh. Her cheeks blushed a pretty pink when she realised she’d just interrupted, and she mumbled, “Ah… sorry, continue…”

I grinned at her, then turned back to Kit. “So, do you want the fruit? You already know a little about magic as it is.”

“I mean… I guess… if you want me to,” he shrugged, giving me a weak smile.

With an exasperated sigh, I leaned forward. “You need to be sure, Kit. This is a life changing decision. We all believe in you, we think you can do it… but you need to believe it too.”

Rather than speak, he bit his lip and played with his cards some more, sliding them over and under one another. His eyes were unfocused, drifting listlessly as he thought. What was he thinking? He was always so closed, to the point where I had almost no idea about his past, even after travelling with him for months now.

He’d mentioned recently that he’d lived in LA, but that was about it. Had he left family behind? A girlfriend? A boyfriend? Shit, I didn’t even know his dang sexuality. He showed interest in Mer, but maybe it was just platonic?

“Okay,” he nodded, startling me out of my thoughts. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you all for a month… missing out on the journey back, all that stuff. At least I don’t have anyone back at Avonside to explain my shiny new hair to.”

“You don’t?” I asked, feeling the sudden urge to hug him.

He shook his head, expression falling slightly. “Part of why I agreed to come out on this crazy adventure. I had a few friends from the uni, but they left when everyone was given the chance. They were big anime fans, saw themselves living out their isekai fantasies or whatever. Kinda funny how being a hard sci-fi nerd saved me from that stupidity.”

“Yeah,” I agreed with a little half hearted amused snort. Standing up out of my seat, I clapped my hands once, “I guess that genre does lend itself to exploring this type of situation with a touch more realism.” To Esra I asked, “How long do we have? I assume it’s kinda urgent?”

“Indeed,” she said, also rising from her chair. “The fruit cannot remain in my grove for long, it will deteriorate.”

“How do we do this then? Just… go over and I grab it, then take both it and Kit out into the ring?” I asked, feeling a flutter of anxiety run through my insides. Goodness, I didn’t like having responsibilities. Bring on the day when all of this mess was behind us and I could just hide in my grove for the rest of my life.

“Yes,” was Esra’s response as she motioned for Kit to follow. “And soon, say your goodbyes now boy, we must be swift. Enough time has already been wasted on talk.”

“If we were wasting time, why didn’t you say so?” I frowned, but shook my head, dismissing my own question. “Nevermind.” She’d probably just grump out some silly excuse anyway.

Mer was up at the same time Kit was, pulling him into an awkward hug. “See you on the other side, friend. I presume you will be much more attractive than you already are by then.” Unlike Kit, there was no hiding Mer’s interest.

He laughed, a small, silly thing that had me hoping for his future. He’d been getting more and more melancholy recently and it had been worrying. I should have spoken to him, should have tried to help or something… I wish there was more time in the day. The end of this journey couldn’t come soon enough.

“Okay, I’m ready,” he said with a steadying intake of breath.

“What do you mean you don’t know where Avonside is?” Jerril exclaimed as we stood outside the first major human town we’d visited since we left the mountains.

“Well, we didn’t exactly have any maps to follow when we left,” Adam told him, matching the elderly obrec’s volume. “We didn’t even know fuckin’ magic existed by that point. Or obrec, for that matter.”

“It’s in that direction,” I said, pointing towards where my tracking spell said the rings were. “Like, literally exactly that direction.”

“Ah yes, very helpful,” Jerril huffed, closing his eyes for a moment as he took a few calming breaths.

“The first town we found was called Agoshin,” Troy said, having wandered over when he heard shouting. “Once we get there, I can get us to Avonside.”

“Agoshin,” Jerril nodded. “Thank you, finally a name, something I can work with.”

All but dragging Troy by the arm, the elderly obrec man took him over to what I called their command wagon. It was where Jerril rode, along with their gold and maps. Goodness the man could get grumpy when things weren’t going efficiently.

Adam sidled up next to me as they walked off and leaned down to whisper, “He and Esra would make such a cute couple. They could argue each other hoarse for our entertainment.”

“I don’t think the ring would survive that,” I grinned, shaking my head in amusement.

Three days since Kit had gone into the fruit and we were struggling. The guards in the Empire of Ghraiga were less than accommodating, and not in the same way that the obrec ones had been. No, Ghraiga apparently had a huge bureaucracy problem.

When the others had originally passed through, they’d just been a band of heavily armed travellers. Suspicious, sure… but you didn’t make money out of taxing people like that. A wagon full of obrec goods however… that was far more tempting. So licenses were needed, stamps and seals were needed and a lot of palms had to be greased with coin. The Stonechasers acted like it was no big deal, but my mind was blown.

We’d been stuck in this stupid town for days, waiting for pompous aristocrats to sign a document, and they couldn’t give a shit about how many mages were in the party. So, three days after arriving here, we were finally ready to leave.

The town wasn’t even interesting. Their buildings were all made of stone and wood, with gross rotting thatched roofs over any building that was obviously owned by someone poor. The wealth disparity here was stark and egregious.

We’d stayed in an inn that catered almost exclusively to travellers like us, or… well, the obrec had. We stayed in my grove obviously.

Mer had been mopey as hell since Kit went into the fruit too, trudging around and sighing a whole lot. It was cute, seeing the strong, confident warrior woman pining after my friend. I just hoped it turned out okay… Kit was a mysterious and sensitive guy and had a feeling that he needed a lot of finesse to handle in a romantic sense.

“Hey, whatcha thinking about?” a quiet, caring voice asked as arms wrapped around me from behind.

I hummed in happy surprise and leaned back against Grace, taking in her warmth and smell, revelling in the feelings of safety and love that they evoked within me.

“Just… stuff,” I shrugged, the willpower to fully explain my thought process eluding me. “Nothing terribly interesting.”

Her laugh was tender and quiet in my ear, and we turned to watch the obrec get themselves ready to leave. It seemed that Troy and Jerril had figured out a route to take.

“Holding you like this, it makes it so clear that the fruit really did give you a form that fits who you are,” Grace murmured, kissing my ear. “My strong but hesitant girl, powerful mage with the restraint not to use it on the innocent. You’re incredible.”

My cheeks heated with her words, while places further down heated with her kiss. It had been so long since we’d made love, properly at least. We’d tried a few times, but exhaustion was my constant companion these days and after the second time I’d fallen asleep while we were trying, we’d given up. For now.

“You two ready to mount up?” Troy asked, oblivious to where my thoughts had been.

I choked on my tongue and started coughing at the unintentional pun he’d made while Grace laughed and nodded. Time for more mind numbing days of wagon travel followed by magecraft in the evenings. Hurray. At least my grove was well fortified and I had spells for all sorts of strange crap.

My tree had spells for airflow now, spells for heating, actual lights in the form of spherical fruit hanging from the ceilings. They had to be high enough to be out of reach of the buns though, because apparently the little critters thought they were mighty fine snacks.

The landscape of Ghraiga was not the most pleasant place to travel through. At least in the mountains the view had been stunning every single day. Instead, we got vast low rolling hills with grass and low shrubs as far as the eye could see.

I’d heard great plains like this being described as seas or oceans before, but I’d never realised how true it really was. Sure, the weird freaky one from a month or two ago had been something, but this was… a whole other level. By week two in the massive empire, the never-changing vista was beginning to wear on my sanity.

I was told that the south east of the empire was actually interesting, Troy saying that it sounded like it had a climate similar to southern France or something, but I’d never been to southern France so I had no idea what that was like.

Even Grace and the others were starting to hate the monotonous countryside. When they had originally come through here they had been further to the west, using the river system to travel much faster through this barren place.

No wonder the Ghraiga Empire couldn’t control the nomadic tribes that roamed around these steppes, the sheer magnitude of the place would make it impossible. You could send millions to their deaths in these golden grasslands, withered away by horse archers without ever wounding one of the enemy. I wondered if we’d meet some of those tribes. It had been one such tribe that had attacked Avonside, oh so many months ago. I hoped any we met were more peaceful than that one had been.

“Do you think the others are okay back at Avonside?” Grace asked sleepily as we rode in the wagon on yet another monotonous day. I was in her lap, slouched and dozing as she played absently with my hand, pushing at the squishy bits and moving my fingers randomly. Like she did with her thumb, but my hand instead.

“I really hope so,” I replied after a moment of thought. “They are still alive, at least. I think. Their rings move around ever so slightly whenever I cast the tracking spell.”

“Things were stable there when we left, but also… worrying. I remember we talked about the politics stuff, but the reality of our situation was really beginning to sink in to people. I mean, most of us are students who had whole lives ahead of us back on Earth you know? We were so used to how the world worked, and now everything is different,” she said morosely, sighing and pulling me closer against her. In a whisper, she added, “I’m coping because I have you.”

“Oh Grace…” I gulped, my heart in my throat. I wiggled around until I was facing her so I could give her a tender little kiss. “I haven’t had time to deal with that, sadly. I’ve had almost no downtime to really think about things since this all began… just non-stop shit happening. Maybe when we get back to Avonside I’ll start to feel it…”

“It’s more than just an individual thing for me though,” she said with a shake of her head. “I mean, people were tense. They would get angry over stupid shit, there were fights between the more testosterone fuelled guys, that kind of thing. Plus gossip, oh my god the gossip.”

“I remember you telling me about how people were talking about you,” I said, thinking back on our conversation in that inn so long ago. “How people blamed you for my death.”

We’d also discussed what we’d do if things had gone bad at Avonside. We had more power than the entirety of Avonside. Hell, even more than that now, with my grove expansion and Esra’s return to teaching me.

“I am bad with confrontation, with conflict, I said at last. “I try to find peaceful solutions, even if those… even if the solution is to give in and let myself get walked over like a doormat.”

“Not anymore, you’ve grown,” she disagreed, kissing the tip of my nose. “You still try to be peaceful, but you know how to use force when you need to as well. Just remember how you picked us up and hung us in the air when we chased you.”

I laughed, a smile forming on my face involuntarily. “Okay, yeah. But still, I—“

“Hey you two, we might need you to be up and on your guard,” Otho said, poking his head into the back of the wagon. “Mer thinks she saw someone, not sure who. Just a shadow…”

My first thought was about ring builder mind fuckery, but we would have felt it here in the wagon too if that were the case. Which meant that there really might be someone out there watching us. I guess it was time for me to do magey things. Time for Esra’s relentless training to pay off.

“Let me take a look,” I said, pushing myself up and exiting the slowly moving wagon.

“Mer’s eyes are pretty good, I don’t know—“ Otho began, but I smiled and shook my head, cutting him off, “Not with my eyes dummy, with magic.”

“Oh, right…”

Moving off to the side so I wouldn’t get slowly and excruciatingly run over by the wagons, I raised my hand and closed my eyes. The spell was there, ready for me to call it to my aid, and I did.

I felt the tattoos swirl up my arm for a moment, building into a bubble of energy that formed within my fist. Clenched my fist tight, popping it and sending out a pulse of curious, seeking magic.

It raced across the landscape, surfing the undulating hills up to two miles out before it doubled back and returned to me. I took it back into my hand and inspected it with mage sight, squinting as I tried to understand what it was telling me. It was confused, which couldn’t be right. It was telling me nothing was out there, and then for a split second it would falter, telling me the opposite, although only in vague terms.

“My spell is… acting up,” I said, opening my eyes to find Troy and Mer had joined us, along with several of the caravan guards. “It’s almost like… Esra said this was a fairly standard spell, hold on. Let me try something else.”

If my standard and well known mage spell for scouting an area was acting up, it might mean that there was also a spell to counter it, and I was getting odd readings rather than nothing because of how much power I could bring to bear.

Something I’d noticed about mages from the ring, both young and old, allies and enemies, was that they all dismissed the half of them that was plant. They saw it as a sometimes useful but mostly irrelevant side effect of being a mage. They didn’t explore it, didn’t embrace it. They left it to sit in a metaphorical shed to gather dust.

I transformed then, taking on a moderate amount of my plant nature. Enough that I could move freely while still being able to do what I wanted.

Crouching in the grass, I wormed my fingers into the dry soil and cast another spell, one I’d thought up and created myself. I spoke to the grass on that base empathic level, amplifying their sense of being just long enough to ask them all a question.

What is out there? Do you feel boots crushing your stalks, kicking up your roots. Do you feel the insects scatter as vibrations warn them of potential danger?

Yes. We do.

I never thought I’d actually see the real version of the phrase, circling the wagons, and yet the obrec did just that. As soon as I confirmed that there were people out there, they were moving to get ready.

Nervous fear clutched at my stomach as I took my place behind the front line fighters, all obrec warriors. They wore heavy armour and carried mostly blunt weapons, maces and the like. Stuff that was designed to deal with other obrec also wearing the same type of armour. It was pretty stuff, heavy plate with swirling celtic-like knots and embellishments. They were definitely an imposing lot.

Mer was with them, I think she’d gotten an armour upgrade because now it was slightly more ornate, with beautiful silver accents around the edges of the plates. Her helmet had an extra set of horns in addition to her real antlers that poked through the specially designed holes. Obrec helmets were imposing, the way they almost came apart to allow those foot long horns of theirs.

By contrast, their back line was decked out in leather armour, bows at the ready. They had the same intriguing patterns across them as their plate armoured brethren and all up they made an impressive force to behold.

Arrayed around me were Grace, Troy, Adam and Otho. Otho had the same leather armour as the archers, but instead of a bow he wielded an elegant megitech rifle. A gift from Claih who hid with her two understudies in the wagons with a far more terrifying contraption.

They had brought along some magitech thing that looked for all the world like an old anti-tank gun. She told me it was anti-personnel though, so I guess it was more like an MG emplacement or something. I don’t know. The thing was half as tall as me and ten times as heavy, made of ugly black metal and glowing doodads that meant nothing to me. I might be a mage, but the art of a magitecht was beyond me.

My three Order of Eleos friends had their pistols at hand, and shortswords at their hips. It had been interesting to watch them train, especially Troy who had skills with knife fighting but not with longer blades. I wasn’t so sure they would be all that much help against the mages I was going to be fighting though.

I had my hand in the dirt again, communing with the grass, if you could call it that. It took the entire visible field of plants working together in order to figure out how to speak simple sentences. I felt a little bad at first, raising them to the intelligence of dogs for a few moments, but they seemed almost relieved to slip back into the fog they were used to. Plants were strange, far more alien than any of the “aliens” I’d seen so far on the ring.

“They’ve realised we stopped,” I told the people around me, standing up and shaking the dirt off my hand. “Can’t tell how many exactly, but more than us, that’s for sure.”

“Can you tell how many mages?” Otho asked worriedly.

I shook my head. “One, maybe two? No sure way to tell though.”

“We’re going to find out either way, and sooner rather than later,” Grace said, pointing up the slight slope of what counted for a hill out here.

I gulped. Shit… I was probably going to have to kill people here. My stomach squirmed at the idea and my thoughts were transported instantly back to the battle with the Steel One outside that nameless village.

Those poor people had all died, and now I was going to take on the role of monster. Sure, they were probably out to kill us, but they were still thinking and feeling people. The others had dealt with bandits early on in their journey, as well as defending Avonside when it had been attacked… but me?

I closed my eyes and tried to pull myself together. Our enemies had started this. They were the aggressors, they were the ones forcing this situation, where one side had to win and one side had to die.

Except, maybe if I could take on the mages and kill them first, maybe that would force their random henchmen to surrender? I’d have to be quick and brutal though, I’d have to use my massive reserves of power and beat their mages into the ground with the sheer force of it. Fear was my objective. Obliterate the few, so the many might flee or surrender in terror and so preserve my friends as well.

The idea of destroying two of what were probably Fennimore’s mages was slightly more palatable than mass murder of, well... frankly quite helpless soldiers. They couldn’t hurt me, never in a million years.

I guess that was the heart of the matter with mages in general wasn’t it? The average person was completely powerless against one of my kind. We could do literally anything we wanted to those around us, especially at the level of power that I had achieved.

Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I opened my eyes just as the first few of those helpless lambs trotted over the hill. Sure enough, all sixty or so wore Fennimore’s red. The mage wasn’t hard to pick out. He carried no weapons and wore no armour. Instead his arrogance was draped across his shoulders like a cloak, cocky stride and assured smile. That was in addition to his real cloak of course, a flashy thing with gold embroidery and tassels at the bottom.

Behind him was another mage, younger and just as foppish as his elder. I made a quick guess that I was facing a master and apprentice combination, and I winced as I realised who my first target was.

“Don’t try and chase me or anything guys,” I said to everyone. “I think this is going to get dicey for anyone who isn’t a mage. Lots of teleporting and stuff. Real anime shit.”

Grace gave me a worried look, and the rest just blinked in confusion. Damnit, Kit would have gotten the joke.

“Are you sure I can’t help? I’m a warlock and stuff right, so I can… I don’t know,” she sighed, her eyes begging.

“I’m sorry… probably not,” I shook my head apologetically. “We haven’t really practiced fighting together, but I know what I’m meant to do if I’m operating on my own. Even duelled with Esra a few times, which sucked. She’s a bit brutal as a teacher.”

“You need to live through this, okay?” she told me seriously, worry etched in lines across her gorgeous face.

“I promise.”

Then I was off, teleporting away, out into the field to the side of the battle lines. I watched as the two mages instantly freaked out, twisting and turning to try and figure out where I’d gone. I didn’t wait for them to find me, lifting my hand up with terrible purpose.

Flowers of fire twisted in glowing patterns just under the skin of my arm, snaking up in a flash as they got to work. The beam of white hot fire was sickeningly bright as it lanced out, punching straight through the apprentice’s shield as though it had never existed. Several soldiers found their clothes lit aflame, the raw heat of the beam briefly heating the air beyond the ignition temperature of cloth. Chaos broke out amongst their ranks as they tried to put out the fires and figure out what had just happened.

The apprentice was dead instantly, his lifeless and charred corpse flopping uselessly to the ground. Dead. Fuck. I couldn’t dwell on it. I teleported again, short hops that took me up onto the low hill alongside them. The mage spotted me and cried out in anger, blinking out of existence as he came for me.

Crackling lightning wreathed his fist for just a moment before it lashed out, slamming into my shield with significant force. Not significant enough however, because my shield held and not by a slim margin. It had barely felt it, and I could see the other guy realise how little damage he’d done with widening eyes.

He disappeared from view again, and the next thing I knew fireballs were peppering me from five different directions. He was moving fast, never staying on one place for more than a second and I had a hard time keeping up. How was he hitting me from so many places?

Shit, I just wasn’t used to fighting like this, wasn’t used to using my magical senses at hyper speed to figure out where he was and what spells he was using. Esra hadn’t gotten to this part of my training yet!

I lashed out with sparks of magenta lightning wherever I thought he was, but I only got glimpses before he was out of my field of vision again. At least there was nothing to hide behind in this rolling sea of grass.

Breathing rapidly, I began to panic when I realised he was whittling my shield down and there was nothing I could do about it. He was too fast, too smart in the way he moved, always staying out of my field of vision. The grass had caught fire now too, fireballs missing their mark and landing among the dry stalks, adding to the confusion with filthy smoke that hung in the air and obscured my vision further.

“Crap! Shit, shit, shit, where the fuck are you?” I coughed, voice rough as the smoke stung my lungs.

Whirling, I searched in vain for my enemy with futile twists and turns, only ever able to catch him a microsecond before he vanished again. My shield was failing, and I couldn’t see anything. Tears ran down my cheeks from my stinging eyes and it was all I could do to keep teleporting blindly through the growing fire.

No, no, no… I was better than this. I was Rynadria of Avonside, I was supposed to be some sort of big shot wizard chick. So think, if you're so great. Wait… if I used the void flower spell I’d been messing around with… but like, a lot of them. Yes! I had it! I had a plan!

First, I cast my tracking spell to identify where my friends were, and likely the battlefield. With the discovery that my adversary and I had travelled quite a ways from the main fight, I knew I had the space I needed. Briefly, a scene from the first Iron Man movie flickered through my thoughts, where Tony Stark is showing off some of his missiles or something. It was time to do that.

With my shields falling lower and lower, I began to sow seeds of destruction about the battlefield. Fist sized orbs of magenta energy flying from my hands like an old school aristocrat throwing coin to the people in an effort to stave off his own beheading.

It didn’t take long before I was forced to run however, I didn’t want to get caught in my own spell after all. I rushed to clear the area, flickering through space with as much speed as I could muster. I needed to be long gone and back at the battle before my plan went off. Plus, I needed to intimidate the enemy, and what better way to do that than pulling off the ol’ cool girls don’t look at explosions thing.

Left behind in the smoke and fire, Fennimore’s bootlicker took a second to figure out I’d just legged it, but it was too late. I landed on the road in time to see the battle in full swing, red soldiers lying dead across the road, a few heavily armoured obrec having also met sad, grisly ends. So many dead already, more falling every second as mace or bullet met soft flesh.

Then the entire short hill behind me erupted.

Large flowers of my own dark magenta colouring bloomed, their glow filling the smoke with a terrifying eerie light before they detonated into swirling ribbons of magic one after another. Dirt and grass showered the battlefield, bringing a stop to the whole thing as they all stared out at the deadly beautiful display of magic.

Briefly, through all the carnage behind me, my magical senses alerted me to the mage’s shield as it failed. He was shredded into tiny chunks of meat less than a second later, my violent flowers doing their work with even more cruel efficiency than I had thought possible. Jesus christ… he had to be spread across half of that mulched hillside now. I fought the urge to throw up.

I didn’t have time to stop and dwell on his death though and certainly not to throw up, I still had a job to do. I summoned another spell, one to wreath myself in the same magenta glow as the flowers behind me. It was a simple illusion spell, but it was impressive nevertheless. My eyes would be glowing flat and bright, my hair would be shining like a nebula, floating about my head as though shucking the grip of gravity.

I fixed Fennimore’s troops with as evil a stare as I could muster. “Surrender!” I shouted, my voice amplified to an almost painful volume. “Or be destroyed.”

The sun soaked into my leaves, warm and gentle as Grace’s arms. It had the same effect as her arms too, soothing my mind of the worry and anxiety that had plagued my mind recently. Two weeks ago I’d fought and killed two people, one so quickly it had almost been an execution.

Troy had sat me down after the battle for a chat, and every night since. He’d talked a little about his time in the military, using his experience to help me through the fact that I now had another person’s blood on my hands. He said all the things that I’d read about in books. That it was good that I felt a degree of horror at what I’d done, but not to let it control me, and especially not to lose that horror entirely.

We had travelled for a week and a few days to reach the foothills of the mountains that Avonside lay within, and another day to reach the town that the Order had first found when they left so many months ago.

We were now taking a rest while the obrec made preparations to take their wagons into the mountains. Mostly wagon related stuff that I had no idea about. I was a little skeptical that they could get those things through the rough terrain ahead of us at all. We probably should have thought about it a bit more.

I’d only gotten a day of rest before Esra pulled me over into her grove for a lot of combat training. After that last battle with Fennimore’s people, she’d decided that combat was definitely a priority for me. Both of us had big targets on our backs, and somehow they had been able to follow us through the mundane realm, always there waiting to pounce. Esra had gotten the worst of it. She’d apparently killed six of Fennimore’s more experienced mages thus far.

I was in Esra’s grove now, practicing in a little arena that she’d set up for me and eventually Kit. The idea was to train my magical senses in the ways of magical combat. There was no real way to tell what exact spell your enemy was using, but you could get a taste of what types of energy those spells might make use of.

Fire spells were easy to pick out, the heat of fire energy was unmistakable. Some, like teleportation, were a little harder to pick out because they used many different types to do what they did.

It was pretty clear as I lay there on the ground in my plant form that I had a long way to go in training. Magical combat was an entire discipline, with many areas and sections you could focus on. There was no brute forcing it with raw power either, at least when it came to more skilled opponents. It would be years before I could hold a candle to the real mages that roamed this continent.

“Ryn!” Esra’s voice knocked me out of my trance and I blinked, pulling my plant features back into myself. My eyes took a moment to focus, but when I did I found Esra standing over me, looking all kinds of agitated. “Hurry up and get off the ground. Your friend, Kit… he’s going to be hatching out of his fruit any moment now. We must hurry.”

** Kit’s POV **

I sort of kinda knew what to expect going into the mage fruit, Ryn had told me all about it on the way over to Esra’s grove. Then I’d forgotten it all because oh my goodness was the Nameless Garden pretty! I mean, it was also absolutely terrifying, because up and down ceased to be things that applied in that space… but still!

Once we’d had the fruit, which was actually a seed at that point, Ryn had transported us both out onto the ring, where she’d planted it and we’d watched it grow in a matter of seconds. Magic was just so cool! I was so glad the magic system in this place was more than just fireballs and lightning. That stuff was fine for games and all that, but this was the real world and we needed magic floating lights and cute bunny familiars and stuff. The necessities, obviously.

God I was such a failure at being a guy. What kind of man was about to get magic and all he could think about was pretty lights and cute fluffy animals?

Once it was ready, I’d touched the fruit, it had sort of called to me, I didn’t really get a choice in the matter. Suddenly it was wham bam slam into the… fruit? That sounded better before I actually put it into ordered words.

As I understood it, once the fruit sucked me in I was transported into Esra’s grove, where I’d been for the past few weeks. Unconscious too, which was nice because I’d probably go insane being stuck in a fruit for a month. Did not sound like a good time to me. Not that I knew what a good time was. Life had been very far from a good time so far.

I cringed as my stupid fucking brain began to dwell on my past, with my absentee parents, always off working, or my older sister and the way she had bullied and degraded me. It was so hard to stop the spiral, so hard to stop my shithead masochist mind from dredging up every torment I had endured in my short life.

Shaking my head to try and stop the thoughts, I realised with a start that I was both awake and floating in a viscous liquid. Oh my goodness, I was awake! That meant… that meant I was a mage now, transformed and able to have my own grove! I just had to get out of this gunk.

I opened my eyes, a skill I’d learned in swim class, and blinked around trying to see through the juice. Unlike the chlorinated pools of my childhood, this didn’t sting, and I was able to dimly make out where the outside of the fruit was.

I reached for it, only for my brain to fizzle and spin when it took longer than I’d expected to find the wall. Not a really long time, mind you… but it was sort of like stepping off something when you expected there to be hard ground under your feet. That was odd…

Regardless, I pushed at the wall with as much strength as I could muster. Which was apparently, not a whole lot. I pushed and I pushed and I pushed, but I just couldn’t get a hole in it. Damn, why was I so weak? My whole body felt strange actually, but I couldn’t really tell how because the juice was rendering everything down to a fog of orange.

With a frown, I lunged for the edge of the fruit and bit down with my teeth, tearing a hunk out of it. Like a popped balloon, it exploded, sending me slopping out to sprawl across the ground. God that was so fucking gross! That was a whole other level of yuck. Blech.

“Oh, you have got to be joking,” came an amused chortle, Ryn’s voice if I had to guess. Her voice was an odd mixture of high and pretty but with soft husky undertones. I was pretty jealous, if I was honest.

“What in the god’s name?” Esra’s voice asked, and I blearily wiped the juice out of my eyes to find her leaning over me, staring into the fruit with a huge scowl on her face. “This is too much of a coincidence, this is just… unprecedented madness I tell you! What could be causing such results from my fruit?”

She wiped a finger over the inside of the now empty sack that had been my fruit and stared at the sticky juice on her finger. She sniffed at it and muttered something about acceptable parameters, but I wasn’t sure.

Next to me, Ryn knelt down and smiled, a quirky and amused one that had me narrowing my eyes at her. “What?” I asked, and practically jumped out of my skin when a small, feminine voice spoke for me.

She just motioned down at the rest of my body, giving me a kind, compassionate expression as she readied to give me a towel to wrap myself in.

My eyes were wide as I followed where she’d pointed. Oh… oh holy crapsicles. Those were boobs. I think? I’d never seen any, other than my mother’s when I was very young. They were small, but definitely developed. Then below them was a smooth, flat stomach flanked by a thin waist and wide hips.

Between those hips was a tuft of metallic brown fuzz and… nothing else that I could see. My hand rushed down there so fast I swear it should have whizzed off into the bushes. Instead I found my bush, and then the uh... new anatomy.

I freaked out, a hyperventilating squeak straining out of my new high voice. “Ryn! I’m a… I’m a… girl!”

“You have the body of one, that’s for sure,” she nodded, standing up and offering me a hand to help me up. “Whether you actually are one is… um… well we can talk about that. I guess. I uh, I’m here to help? Is what I’m saying?”

“What does that mean?” I asked, panicked and quivering. Crap, no one would recognise me, and… Mer…

“Body and mind are two different things, Kit,” she said gently, then wiggled her fingers again. “Come on, let’s go get you bathed while Esra tries to figure out if she is doing mage fruit wrong.”

I felt tears prick at the edges of my eyes, getting caught in my now much longer lashes, “Did she do this? Did she mess it up and turn me into a girl?”

Esra’s response was quick and frustrated. “No! No I did not! This is… this must be something to do with you being from that planet, Earth or whatever!”

Ryn rolled her eyes, and laughed, “Esra, all humans are from Earth.”

“Quiet, you!” the older mage grouched, gesticulating wildly. “There is clearly something wrong with you Avonsiders! My last apprentice went in as a healthy young man and came out of it a healthy young man!”

“Look how well that turned out. Maybe you just rolled the dice twice and it came up trans,” Ryn shot back while motioning for me to take her hand. “Come on Kit, I’ll get you into the bath and we can talk. Without grumpy old women involved.”

How was she able to just… talk back like that? Esra was so scary and Ryn just bantered and bickered right back at her. I wish I had half as much confidence as my friend.

I had to smile though, I couldn’t help it. Even if I could never talk back to anyone like that, it was pretty funny to watch Ryn do it. They were always amusing, always making me struggle not to laugh. My initial panic was wearing off thanks to the silly banter between them.

Ryn gave me a pointed look as she stood above me, making grabby motions with her hand. Right, time to get up. I took Ryn’s hand and found myself pulled up and onto my feet. Except… only kinda.

“Oh no,” I groaned, feeling my face flame up in a blush. I covered my face as Ryn laughed another one of her giddy laughs and placed the towel around my shoulders.

I was at least a head shorter than her now. A whole head shorter! I was a… a damned hobbit now!

“Come on tiny, bath time,” Ryn giggled, pulling me along by the hand.

This sucked!

Ryn led me through Esra’s garden until we got to her big tree house. Or should that be trees house, since there was more than one tree used to make it? Was there any clear rules on that matter? Damn, I really missed the internet. Then again, I would have probably started a big argument between some very opinionated people on the topic.

It was a nice tree, not as good as Ryn’s though, in my opinion. Maybe that was just because I considered her tree to be home nowadays. I even had my own room! Something I hadn’t had back in Avonside, that’s for sure. Space in a functional building was kind of a hot commodity back there. Oh, I wondered how close we were to Avonside now?

Thump. Pain, all over my face and chest.

I staggered backwards, small arms cartwheeling for balance before Ryn caught me and pulled me upright again.

“Careful of the doorway, Tiny,” she said, brushing at my forehead and looking for a wound. “Damn, I guess it was too much to hope for that you’d be coordinated with such a massive change in height.”

I blinked and glanced around, how had I missed the doorway? It was right there… was it because I was so short now? My strides were certainly shorter and it took more time to walk around… maybe it was… I stared out into Esra’s grove and froze.

“What’s wrong?” Ryn asked her tone that of worry, and when I didn’t reply, she prompted me again, “Tiny? You okay?”

“The fruit ruined my eyesight,” I said in a flat, pained voice.

“Your… eyesight?” she repeated, and I glanced back to find her inspecting me anxiously.

Looking back out into the grove, I could see it now. Things were more blurry than before, but not enough that I’d noticed it immediately. Then there was the glowing plants, they were doing this weird thing where they had glowing diagonal lines coming out of them that faded as they got further away from the source. Basically lens flare but a little more subtle.

“Yeah, it’s more blurry than I remember… and… I don’t know,” I shrugged glancing back over at her. She was in focus at least, being right next to me.

She raised an eyebrow. “How blurry? Because if it’s enough for you to miss something as obvious as a big square doorway, we might have a problem.”

I felt another blush coming and glanced over her shoulder just to make sure. Yup, perfectly visible. My eyes dove for the ground like a soldier suddenly coming under fire.

“Not blurry enough to miss the door, then?” she asked with a little laugh and a friendly pat on the arm. “Alright then Tiny Daydreamer, let’s go in the door properly this time yeah? While you’re still paying attention.”

Gah! This was so embarrassing! I was so useless! What kind of guy was bashful and weak and pitiful like this? I’d always been an embarrassment to the ideal male. I’d been strong and tall before, with a young but handsome face… but inside I’d been nothing but a quiet nerdy shitty excuse for a male.

“This way, little uh… brother?” Ryn asked, faltering as she reached the part of her sentence where she needed to gender me.

I shrugged. I don’t know. I’d never been a very good guy, maybe I should just give in to the whole body change? The fruit seemed to think I’d be better off this way… and it had done the same to Ryn and she’d known she was trans… fuck. Dangerous line of thinking. Let’s just go with girl and not think about the implications for now. My thoughts were enough of a mess without that shit. Troy’s explanation of transgender stuff had been scary enough without it applying to me.

“Sister,” I finally sighed in defeat, nodding for her to continue.

“Alrighty then, sister, let’s go get all that gunk off you,” she said with easily identifiable false cheer. I could see the worry in her eyes. I’d seen her worrying about me before too, and everyone else. Even Sprinkles had been keyed into my depression. I missed Sprinkles. The cute bunny wouldn’t be able to follow me into my grove either...

Esra’s tree didn’t have any huge fancy atrium or anything, just a small room that led into a corridor. We took a right turn into funny looking plant door down the hall and walked into the bathroom. The centerpiece was a large gently steaming rock pool, although all the stones had been smoothed out so they wouldn’t be rough on the skin. It was a lot like Ryn’s setup other than that, with little flowers for lights and a rack full of more towels off to the side.

“Hop in, I’ll get you a clean towel for when you get out,” Ryn told me with a gentle pat on the back.

Letting my dirty towel fall, I did as she asked, gingerly dipping a toe in to test the temperature before sliding in properly. Oh, that was so nice. For the first time in a while, I felt myself consciously smile.

A splash next to me wiped it off my face even as my heart began to thunder in my chest. Deep breaths, deep breaths… you’re safe in here, you’re safe in here… God I hated it when there were loud noises I wasn’t expecting.

Ryn had just hopped into the bath too, although wearing her underwear, rather than being naked. Still, another blush rushed onto my cheeks and I quickly looked away. She was really, really hot, and that bra and panties didn’t really hide the rest of her. I was completely naked too, had been all this time and… it was very strange to be naked around her.

“Oh my goodness,” she sighed, her tone somewhere between amusement and exasperation. “You can look at me, it’s fine. You’ve been naked this whole time! And I know it’s super fucking cliche of me to say, but we’re both girls here now.”

“Yeah, they always say that in gender bender manga, don’t they?” I said with a reluctant laugh. Then my eyes widened and I actually did turn to look at her. “Oh no! We’re a trope! This is totally the onsen scene with the older sister! Please don’t try and wash my back!”

“I won’t be touching you, don’t worry,” she grinned, leaning back into the bath and closing her eyes. “Honestly, I’ve been training all day and I need a break. A bath sounded good.”

“Training? Like, in magic?” I asked, curious now. Normally she used the word studying when it came to magic.

“Combat situational magical awareness,” she grumbled, flicking some water across the large bath for emphasis. “Mind-bendingly boring and tiring. But necessary… I need to be better, I need to be able to… nevermind, don’t matter right now,” she told me, trailing off into a sad, uncertain tone that had me wondering if she was okay.

Of course, I didn’t have the confidence to ask if she was doing okay. “Sounds… fun,” I mumbled instead.

“Not really,” she said, a smile returning to her face.

I didn’t really know what to say. I never knew what to say.

My gaze drifted down a little and I felt a sigh slip out. Regardless of her vulnerability just now, she still looked so unconsciously self assured, with her beautiful body, long legs and just… everything. Eyes closed, relaxing, thinking about her day’s training or whatever. Then, underneath all of that, she wielded ungodly amounts of power.

Why couldn’t I be like that? Why was I such a nervous wreck so often? I mean, I knew she wasn’t perfect, I knew that she had a lot of emotions going on like anyone else, but still… she was amazing. Me on the other hand?

There was a time when I’d thought I had a crush on her, when I first saw her in that back alley courtyard. I’d never met her at Avonside, but right then I’d thought she was amazing. Facing off against us and forcing us to talk.

Then she turned out to be such a bright person, full of life in a way that lit up any room she was in. It took me until meeting Mer to realise the distinction between a crush and just being envious of someone for who they were. I wanted to be like Ryn so badly, strong and vulnerable at the same time, cute and scary. She had a depth of emotion that was awe inspiring to see sometimes. It was her duality of strength and weakness that I envied. She was a great person and I wanted to be that too.

“Wash your hair, Tiny,” she told me without opening her eyes, breaking my train of thought.

Tiny. Why didn’t I hate that nickname she was using? I’d lamented being shorter than her just a few minutes ago, yet now it had me feeling… not good, but unconcerned, calm even?

“I don’t hear splashing,” she chided me, although there was a smile on her lips just the same. “Less brooding, more head dunking, cutie.”

“Fine,” I grumbled, dunking my head under the water as I’d been told. It totally wasn’t to avoid letting her see my blush at being called cute. Definitely not.

I shook my hair around for a few moments, feeling the water magically rinsing it. What an odd feeling. When I burst back out of the water, Ryn was up and standing in the pool, giving me the weirdest look.

“What?” I squinted at her, suspicious as all heck.

“Are you ready?” she asked, a mischievous glint in her magenta eyes.

Oh this was more than suspicious now. “For what?” I asked, preparing to jump out of the bath if I needed to.

“This!” she exclaimed, and cast a spell with a flourish of her hand.

I was halfway out of the pool before I saw what she’d done, and it froze me in my tracks. Slowly, I let myself sink back into the water as I stared in awe. She’d created a mirror out of thin air, and within that silvered window... was a girl.

She was short, obviously, with huge eyes the colour of polished rosewood. Her hair was a wild mass of curls in the same colour, appearing dark brown where the light wasn’t hitting it, while almost ginger where it was.

She… no wait, me... I was… I was so pretty. Not like Ryn, not in that dark and mysterious elfin way that she was. No… I was pretty in a small, cute sort of way. Except… there was a slight resemblance between us. We had the same gentle tilt to our eyes, the same long eyelashes, the same nose and lips. There might be more to that sisters thing that I’d thought.

I shifted my head to the side experimentally and watched with a racing heart as my curls bounced and bobbed, just barely brushing my tiny sloped shoulders. My eyes went to those shoulders, tracing the delicate line of them before I found my collarbone, stark and defined under soft, pale skin. A breath shuddered out of me as I felt a minor wave of dizziness.

My small perky breasts bounced ever so slightly with the breath, and I jerked my gaze back up as my cheeks flamed bright yet again. Except… the blush looked incredible on me. Rosy cheeks framing my high cheekbones and bringing out the reddish umber of my eyes. Oh my god… I was pretty! Why did that make me so happy?

Reaching up to poke at my cheek, I glanced over the top of the mirror to look at Ryn. “I’m… pretty?”

“You definitely are!” she smiled gently, moving around the mirror to sit next to me on the rock ledge. “Did you notice the resemblance?”

“I did… we look… sort of similar,” I agreed, meeting her eyes through the mirror. Except she was still taller and way more intensely beautiful than I was.

I found my own gaze in the mirror now, and something strange happened. I’d never really considered my previous male good looks to be something worth noting… but looking at myself now, a girl… I smiled. I smiled because yeah, I might not be a bombshell like Ryn, but I was cute and pretty in my own way, and I liked that?

“Like it, huh?” Ryn teased, echoing my thoughts as she gave me a look that was way too knowing for my liking.

“No,” I grumbled, and felt a flutter go through my heart when I saw my own pout in the mirror. Oh god damn it, I was extremely cute. This was… a lot to handle.

“Suuuure,” she grinned, easing back into a relaxed position and closing her eyes again. “Tell me when you’re done with the mirror then.”

“Not yet! I’m not done yet!” I blurted, then frowned annoyance at her when I realised that she’d been baiting me. She was already getting in on the older sister teasing! This was… well she was definitely an improvement from my mundane older sister back on Earth actually. Fuck, another smile! Where were they coming from?

“Take your time, Tiny,” she said, again with that gentle, knowing tone of voice. “Take your time.”

After the bath came the problem of clothing. They’d had clothing ready for me in Esra’s place… except it was way too big for me now, because they were expecting Kit the guy to come out of the fruit. We briefly tried one of my old shirts on, but it was practically a dress now. Ryn said we could use them to make cute clothes for me later.

Esra rushed off into the real world where she was near a town large enough to sell clothing while Ryn and I sat in the sun and talked. Wrapped in a towel, I listened to her recount all that had happened while I was inside the fruit. When she got to the part about Fennimore’s men attacking I got worried, then impressed when she told me of her strategy and how she’d essentially ended the battle early.

She seemed very upset about the fact she’d had to kill anyone at all, but in a deep, below the surface sort of way. God I wished we were close enough that I could help. Then again, she had Grace, who was also amazing and probably helping Ryn all she could. I sighed. I just felt so useless again. As always.

“It’s kind of exciting to not be the only mage in the group,” Ryn said, staring out into Esra’s grove and playing with a lock of her hair. “I mean, apart from Esra… but she doesn’t totally count.”

“Oh… yeah,” I nodded, slowly reaching up to pull a lock of my own hair down. Oh wow, it was like a spring! I uncoiled and uncoiled it until it was straight out. My hair was like twice as long as it looked! I wonder what it would look like if I used a hair straightener on it?

Ryn was oblivious to my thoughts, which was expected because she couldn’t read minds. Instead, she continued talking, turning to me excitedly, “Oh! I forgot to tell you! I made a joke about mage battles being super anime at the start of the battle, but no one got it. We need more geeks in the order, I swear. You would have totally gotten the joke if you were there.”

I smiled, the joke wasn’t quite funny enough to laugh at, given that it was so many days after the fact, but it was still good. “Yeah… it takes a special type of nerd to get jokes like that, huh?”

Ryn nodded emphatically, her wavy hair bouncing all over the place. “Exactly. I mean Grace gets my sci-fi jokes and references, but she’s cis, so she didn’t really watch too much anime.”

“Cis girls don’t watch anime?” I asked, frowning as I thought about it. Surely they did, I mean, all that shoujo-ai stuff had to be aimed at lesbian girls right?

“I guess they probably do… I don’t know. I’m talking out of my ass,” she shrugged, sending me a goofy grin.

I smiled back, then looked down at the grass under me, another train of thought already whisking me away. Was I a lesbian girl now? I mean… Mer was cute. I liked her, she was fun and kinda silly sometimes, but she had this serious side that was a little intimidating. Like all obrec, she was a bit alien with her emotions. It was hard to describe, but all of us humans had picked up on it.

She was tall too, with a warrior woman’s body, gentle but toned feminine muscle, along with her short, soft fur and horns and stuff. Goodness, her horns… I don’t know why but I really liked them, the way they swept forward slightly, then up and back over her head.

Okay so I had no idea if I was into anyone other than girls… but I definitely liked girls. Especially Mer. Not that she would be interested in me anymore. I was a girl now, and she had been chasing after Kit the man, not Kit the tiny girl.

I sighed and rubbed at the tears that sprung up again. Stupid tears, stupid eyes. Stupid face. Some things had carried over I guess. I still cried at the drop of a hat, I still blushed instantly and I still hated myself. Yay.

“There you are!” Esra said, coming up behind us. “Honestly, you had to choose the most obscure patch of grass to loiter in didn’t you?”

“Keeping you on your toes,” Ryn said with a grin, getting up and taking the large package from Esra. “These are her clothes?”

“Indeed. I was not able to find a full wardrobe, not with my current funds anyway, so this will have to do until we can find somewhere to get more made,” Esra agreed, staring down at me with a sort of confused expression. Then her eyes softened and she directed a question at me, “How are you holding up, dear?”

“Oh… um, okay… I guess,” I mumbled. I had no idea how to talk to Esra normally, but especially not when she was being… nice?

She raised an eyebrow and did that whole, old person looking over glasses thing. Except she didn’t wear glasses. “A non-answer, I see. So you are not coping then? Your eyesight is still compromised?”

Damn it, people who were socially intelligent were the worst. I couldn’t just mumble and stay silent around them. “Um… no, I’m doing… well, this body isn’t so bad. I kinda like it, actually. Apart from the height and the eyes thing. So yeah, my eyes are still screwy.”

“We’ll have to obtain some spectacles for you at some point in the future then. Unfortunately, it is a very expensive and time consuming process, so we may have to wait—“ Esra said, before Ryn cleared her throat. “What is it, you pesky young woman?”

“Whoa,” Ryn laughed, fanning herself. “I’ve upgraded to pesky young woman! It was girl the other day! Should I go get a frilly skirt and bat my eyes coquettishly at all the pretty knight women now?”

I snorted, trying not to laugh. God, Ryn was such a brat, it was hilarious. My cheeks were probably going red as I tried to hold in my amusement. Laughing would probably cause Esra to grumble at me too, and I wanted to stay firmly in the ‘mommy’s little angel’ list. At least for now.

“Get to the point, Rynadria,” the older woman sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Right,” Ryn grinned, then turned to me. “We can find an optometrist back in Avonside pretty easily I think. Provided the whole place hasn’t burned to the ground and gone all Mad Max on us or something.”

Oh shit, that was totally right. I’d get a really good one too, since a lot of the Avonside people were experts in their field. I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled appreciation at my new older sister. Where the hell would I be without her taking care of this stuff? Apart from semi-blind, that is.

“Mad Max? Optometrist?” Esra asked, rolling her eyes in annoyance. “Who is Max and why is he mad? What is an Optometrist? How is any of this relevant?”

“Um, Mad Max is… a story from Earth. About the breakdown of society… and a whole lot of other stuff,” I explained quietly, my eyes downcast as I picked at the grass absently. “An Optometrist is a specialist in the health of the human eye. They are generally responsible for measuring the problems in someone’s eye so they can have glasses made. Spectacles, rather.”

“Thank you,” she said, giving me a pleased nod. Then she turned to Ryn and scowled. “There, was that so hard?”

“Suck up,” Ryn said, poking an accusatory tongue out at me. I felt my stomach drop, had I upset Ryn? But no, then she winked and smiled at me. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

Offering me her hand again, she said, “Let’s get you dressed, then we can take you back to my grove and introduce you to everyone.”

Nevermind, stomach was plummeting again as anxiety took its rightful place on the throne of my mind.

****

Esra wasn’t going to join us over in Ryn’s grove, mumbling something about needing to investigate my fruit. She was probably just as confused as I was about why I’d come out with a girl’s body.

Which meant that I only had Ryn beside me as we walked through the lower fields of her grove wearing the simple linen shirt and breeches that Esra had found. Goodness her grove was big now. And pretty, with the waterfalls streaming over the high cliffs, the afternoon light generating tiny rainbows in the mists that surrounded them. The stairs up that cliff were less than pretty however. My tiny new legs were not keen, not keen at all.

Ryn solved the problem by taking my hand and teleporting us up, one short hop through the fabric of space at a time. It still took a while, but at least my legs weren’t on fire by the end of it.

That led me to a realisation. I wouldn’t have to do any of Troy’s training anymore! There’s no way he’d make a girl of my height try and wrestle Adam or whatever. I couldn’t be a hair over five feet, if that. Adam could just sit on me and I’d be immobilised.

Then Ryn scared the crap out of me by using her voice amplifying spell to call everyone to the ramp, and I felt my anxiety skyrocket to new levels.

“Sorry,” she apologised, giving me a sheepish look. “This will be easier if we tell everyone at once.”

“Okay,” I nodded, my heart still pounding at a million miles and hour. God I hated being so anxious all the time.

It took us a few minutes to get through the forest, the winding paths adding to the time it took. Ryn’s forest paths were almost fae, the way they twisted and messed with your sense of direction. She loved them though, so I guess it was okay.

When we exited the forest, we could see everyone standing around at the bottom of the ramp as Ryn’s megaphone announcement had asked. My eyes went straight for Mer, who was casually laughing at something Adam had said. I stepped behind Ryn almost subconsciously as a mix of jealousy and anxiety spiked through my heart. Had she already moved on?

We continued like that across the field of grass, until finally joining them at the base of the ramp. I couldn’t really see them from behind Ryn, I was just that small, but I heard them turn to greet her.

“Hey all! Kit came out of the fruit, finally!” Ryn said happily, motioning to where I had been next to her before I’d hidden.

“Great… uh, but where is he?” Adam asked, confused.

“Huh?” Ryn turned quickly and found me. Her expression turned sympathetic, and she moved to stand next to me, an arm going around my shoulder. “This is her. Meet the new and improved Kit, everyone.”

Improved? Maybe...

“No fucking way,” Grace blurted, her eyes almost falling out of her head. In fact, everyone was staring at me like that. Oh god.

I looked to Mer as fast as I could, finding her staring at me with the same shock. Hugging myself, I wrenched my eyes away, finding solace in the grass at my feet. Anywhere to avoid the awful expressions on everyone’s faces.

Ryn gave me a comforting squeeze as she told them, “Before you ask, no this isn’t a joke. Esra and I were just as surprised as you all, trust me. Still, this is what’s happened… please be kind to her.”

“She’s cute as heck,” Grace said, speaking first again, her shocked expression switching to a huge grin. “Do you have another name you want to use, Kit?”

“Um… no, Kit is fine for now,” I said, but my voice was so quiet that even Ryn didn’t hear me. I had to clear my throat and try again, shaking my head, “No… Kit is fine for now, thanks.”

“Seconding the cute thing,” Adam said, squatting down to get into my field of view, he was so much taller than me now. “How you doing in there, friend?”

I shrugged. “I’m okay.”

Adam’s response was a wordless sound of doubt. Ugh, even Adam was seeing through me. Mer’s expression had felt like a lance to the heart, and it was all I could do not to cry.

I was about to lose that battle when someone unexpected hopped up to me and I found a fluffy snout up in my face, sniffing away. My heart melted as Sprinkles nudged at me affectionately, a happy little growl coming out of the bunny that was now only a foot and a half shorter than me.

“Hey Sprinkles!” I giggled, kneeling down to cuddle her. Then all of a sudden I was crying, burying my face in the bun’s fur as I clung to the rabbit who so clearly still recognised me. I was so confused about everything, so scared about Mer’s new perception of me, but Sprinkles was still here, still cared about me.

A squeak of fright burst out of me when I felt a pair of strong arms go around both myself and Sprinkles, and when I looked up I found myself looking directly into Mer’s big brown eyes. She smiled, her gaze roaming all over my face as though devouring every photon of light that bounced off it.

"When I said you would turn out to be even more good looking than you already were, I didn't think it would be in the opposite direction," she told me quietly, gentle wonder written all over her expression.

"What do you mean?" I gulped, unable to believe that she might still think of me that way.

"You are gorgeous, so full of delicate beauty, like the snow flowers that bloom on the highest peaks of my home," she told me in a whisper, her hand rising for the briefest of moments to brush at a lock of my curly hair. I felt a blush flame up across my cheeks and I dropped my gaze back to Sprinkles as something fluttered wildly within me. I think it was my heart. My heated cheeks brought a laugh out of her and in the same quiet, gentle tone she said, "And you have the colour of those flowers too, vibrant and pure… and pink."

A grin blossomed across my new face and relief slammed into me like a thing that’s going fast, even as embarrassment drove my face into the bunny’s fur again. She was being very poetic and mushy… and she still liked me! Now I just had to work up the courage to accept her advances...

** Ryn’s POV **

Kit was beyond adorable, and I was almost entirely convinced she was trans. I mean, if she wasn’t she’d be freaking out about her body a hell of a lot more than she was. Beyond that though, it was as though everything fit when you looked at her now. Her personality just matched her new body so utterly perfectly that it was impossible to argue that she didn’t belong in the new one.

Seeing her come out of that fruit had embarrassingly been a surprise. It shouldn’t have in hindsight, the signs of Kit’s egginess were there. Then she almost immediately decided she’d go with the whole girl thing.

Poor girl had a confidence problem though, and her new form had definitely shaken what little confidence she did have. I’d have to help with that, teach her some cool spells and help her out with any problems she might have. Shit… I had no idea what I was doing. It was still early days though, not even a full day.

We’d finished dinner in the tree and were preparing to sleep, which had led to a conundrum.

“I think it is probably best if you come up to the girl’s dorm with us, Kit,” Grace said gently, smiling at the tiny girl as we stood in the guy’s common room.

“Are you sure?” Kit asked, glancing worriedly between Grace, Mer and me. “I don’t think I really belong up there…”

I gave a sigh, I felt that one. The ol’ gender imposter syndrome. “Alright… Kit. Are you a girl?”

“I mean… um… maybe?” she said, swallowing hard as her eyes fell to the floor and her hands started tangling themselves in her shirt. “I guess I am. I mean… I am.”

“Then as a girl, you are welcome to sleep on the girl’s floor,” I said walking over to stand next to her. “Alright?”

“Um… yeah, okay,” she nodded, looking up at me with her big brown soulful eyes. “If you’re all okay with it, I mean.”

The other two voiced their wholehearted agreement, so I motioned to her old room. “Should we move your stuff then, Tiny?”

“Oh no, not the nickname again,” she groaned quietly.

I laughed and put my arm around her for a quick side hug. “Yes, the nickname. Come on, let’s get your stuff.”

The four of us helped move Kit’s few belongings up to the girl’s floor, where she proceeded to get indecisive about which room she wanted to choose. We all just decided to put her in the one next to Mer, who’d been staying in the tree off and on since the journey began. Mer, of course, did not mind this one bit.

Watching her handle Kit’s transformation had increased my already high standing of her to new heights. I hadn’t heard what was whispered between them over the top of Sprinkles, but Kit had seemed happy, so it must have been nice.

The next day saw Esra arriving in my tree to help with something I hadn’t even thought about yet. We were all getting ready to leave the grove and return to the ring so that we could begin our journey into the mountains.

“Esra! What are you doing here in the morning?” I asked, walking over to give her a hug. A hug she accepted grudgingly, but enjoyed nevertheless.

“I am not in a position to be babysitting a newly made mage as I make my way to your Avonside,” she told me plainly, without any sign of her usual grump. “Where you have been attacked a handful of times, myself and the few of my allies that still live have borne the brunt of it. If I were to bring Kit out through my mark, she would be in grave danger.”

“I thought that there wasn’t a choice?” I asked curiously, turning to look at the new mage in question as she stood near Mer. She wasn’t going to come out with us, given that we didn’t know what would happen if I took her out of the grove, considering she was a mage now.

“There isn’t a choice, no. Her mark is where mine is,” she nodded, which had me tilting my head in confusion. “When a mage leaves the Nameless Garden, no matter by what process, they will invariably arrive in the mundane realm on their mage mark. If I were to take you out of here now, you would arrive at your own mark.”

“There’s got to be a but in there somewhere,” I mused, watching her with a growing smile. She wanted to impress us with her magical prowess and intelligence right now.

“Indeed,” she said with a smile that reached all the way up to crinkle her crow’s feet. “I have been researching mage marks and long distance teleportation for quite some time. It was a bit of an… obsession, during my time avoiding the mundane realm. Your appearance in my grove and the problems we faced with you appearing in the middle of hostile territory had me approaching the problem from a new angle.”

I gasped as I understood what she was saying. “It might not be possible to move an established mage mark, but maybe a new mage’s mark is more open to change?”

“Exactly, my dear girl!” she exclaimed happily. “Well done! I believe that I can bind her mark to yours instead! At least until she leaves and it becomes sealed by her leaving the Garden for the first time.”

Yes! Mage mum was happy with me! Long ranged teleportation would be a game changer if she figured it out too. I’d have to hit her up about that later, maybe my propensity to break magic might help her.

Turning to Kit, I raised an eyebrow. “How’s that sound? Want to come ride in a cart again?”

She nodded quickly, her curly hair bouncing wildly. “Definitely. I want to stay with you all, especially if going with Esra is as dangerous as she says.”

“You would be dead the moment the next attack against me were to occur,” Esra said, rather unhelpfully.

“Right...” Kit nodded, giving our mage mother the side eye before she turned to me with wide eyes.

“Yeah, don’t worry… we’ll get you back over with us,” I agreed.

The solution turned out to be remarkably simple, at least from our perspective. Esra simply cast a spell and the job was done, I could take Kit out with us into the mundane realm. I assumed that the spell itself was incredibly complex, judging by the way Esra wobbled slightly as her reserves of energy were drained.

With Kit racing up the tree to grab travel stuff, I helped Esra up into one of the big armchairs in the glass balcony so she could chill while she recovered. Woman was trying to hide it, but she was getting a bit long in the tooth.

When Kit was ready, I took her hand and asked, “On three?”

“Yeah, okay,” she smiled hesitantly.

“One, two, three.“ I pulled us all over onto the ring, earning a squeal of fear from Kit who was doing her tiny best to crush my hand. “Hey, hey… ow… Tiny, please,” I complained, prying myself from her grip. Girl still had some of her grip strength at least.

“Sorry,” she breathed sheepishly. “I was worried it would go wrong.”

Mer approached before I could speak, the tall obrec woman coming to stand next to Kit.

“But it didn’t,” Mer smiled, then motioned towards the waiting wagon train. “Want to go find a wagon to sit in for the journey?”

Kit nodded, a blush forming on her cheeks as she looked up at Mer. Their height difference was pretty intense. Kit was on the shorter end of what was the normal range for a woman, and Mer was very much at the other end of that.

With those two off, Grace grabbed me and we all went to hop into our own wagons. The journey into the mountains would involve us all having to get out and push apparently, so we were going to be doing things this time instead of just slowly dying of boredom. The scenery was lovely too, mountains were always so beautiful.

They were the type of behemoth mountains that you only really saw in a few places back on Earth. Slow to build at first, it almost seemed like you might not be going upwards at all, until all of a sudden you found yourself in a valley with titans on either side of you.

The vegetation was familiar at least, the same stuff that Grace and I had found all the way back in the first week we arrived. Back when I’d been Eli. Thank fuck that was behind me.

I was so happy when we found a raspberry patch that I made the whole wagon train stop so we could pick them all. I took some back to my grove and grew them. My buns would love them, buns loved raspberries.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only time the wagon train had to stop. They’d get stuck on the terrain fairly regularly and would need to be pushed out. A few times they became so bogged down that I would have to lift them out with my telekinesis, aided by a much weaker Kit. It wasn’t all bad though, because the same spikes that the obrec usually used to stop their wagons from rolling down hill could be used to give their wheels some impressive traction.

I was the busiest of those of us from the Order, because in addition to my towtruck duties, I was also the only person who could point us towards Avonside with any degree of reliability. Troy would often remember the paths they had taken to get out of the mountains once I had found the direction we needed to go, which helped us find routes we could take the wagons through.

More often than not though, we’d just have to stop and wait while scouts were sent out into the area so they could find us a path.

Then one of them went missing.

At first we thought the woman might have gotten lost, she was an experienced obrec ranger for the Thistlescar clan, but this was harsh and unfamiliar terrain. Then her body was found a day later, mangled by animals but with the unmistakable wounds caused by arrows.

Someone else was out there in the mountains with us, and they were not friendly.

The obrec got serious after they found their scout dead, and I don’t mean they weren’t serious before. This was just… seriously serious. Their rangers changed tack, covered themselves with local vegetation and any with bright fur colours covered up or dulled their fur with mud. While the rest of us stayed put, wary and at the ready, they hunted.

I asked to help, but I was told to stay with the wagons. I was too valuable, too irreplaceable. I argued that I was strong, my shield was impenetrable. Claih decided to prove me wrong.

She asked me to summon a shield around a fallen log with as much power as I could pump into it. Then she took out a magitech rifle and fiddled with it, squinting at my shield through a strange lens every so often as she did so. When she was satisfied that her gun was calibrated properly or whatever, she knelt down, her hooves digging furrows in the dirt.

“You want to see why mages don’t rule the ring with an iron fist like they did hundreds of years ago? Why your kind is seen as powerful tools to the rulers of this land, but still expendable? Here is why,” she told me, finally raising the rifle to her shoulder.

The shot rang out with the sound of a thousand pieces of paper being torn in unison, a terrible red bolt of magic flying with unerring accuracy into the log. It didn’t do much damage, but the hole was almost geometrically clean, a perfect circle drilled straight through the log.

She replaced the rifle in its holster on her back with casual ease, giving me a look. “Now, I know you mages are tough, that shot would see you running back to that grove of yours. You’d come back out angrier than a kalka defending her little ones, but ask yourself… are you willing to chance that?”

“No,” I shook my head, understanding now. “Is that how Esra’s coven was killed?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, giving me an apologetic shrug. “Human affairs, we don’t pay as much attention as we should, even after they taught our mages a lesson. It was a combination, you see, that got the obrec mages. When those human ones came crawling down the ravines, they took magitechts too, like me. They worked together in a way that we hadn’t seen before.”

I nodded understanding, glancing back at the log with a host of thoughts whirling in my mind. I would have been dead if there had been someone with a rifle like Claih’s on the enemy mage’s side back at that battle. Defending myself without a hole or two in me had been hard enough. Retreating to my grove to heal would have given the mages the opportunity to wreak havoc on my allies.

“Why wasn’t there a magitecht at the attack down on the plains?” I asked finally, turning back to her.

She grinned, running a finger briefly along one of her horns, her eyes alight with a cocky amusement. “Why, my guild of course. Can’t go shooting anyone with any magic rifles if you don’t have anything to power it. Stupid fool human mages didn’t think about that when they hit us, but we got our revenge through subtler means. We obrec don’t agree on much, but one thing we do agree on is regulating how much crystal we sell to the bastards down in that valley.”

I returned her grin with no small degree of satisfaction. Good, fuck the valley humans, or at least those who ruled them. Scheming bastards.

“Good,” Grace said from behind me, where she’d been sitting on a different log. She pointed to Claih’s rifle and inquired, “What were you doing when you fiddled with that thing? You were looking through a little lens too.”’

“Aha, good question!” Claih exclaimed happily, pulling the rifle down from its perch again. She flicked some levers and unhooked a part of the casing. Inside were a series of what looked like crystal spikes, all in a row in a chamber underneath the main barrel. They looked like they could be flicked up one by one as needed.

“These,” she continued, pointing to them. “These are attunement crystals. I’m sure you’re aware of the different elemental aspects that magic can take on, as well as the many multitude of raw magical energies. As a mage, you only have access to raw energy from the Nameless Garden, but my rifle here can fire any that I can get my hands on. Then I just use those attunement spikes to give it an elemental affinity, like say, fire. Breaking that shield was just about finding the right combination of energies to pierce it.”

“Wait, so you can shoot like, magic from the Red Nightmare out of that?” Grace asked, staring at the gun with equal parts fear and fascination.

“Gods, no!” the obrec woman said quickly, shaking her head. “No one can wield that terrible power, and honestly, I’d never wish to. Terrible stuff. Couldn’t get my hands on a power crystal of that type anyway, never heard of one existing. You see, in order to change what base magic we want to use, we need to first get someone who wields that magic to fill one of our crystals with it. Otherwise we’re just shooting white magic, the weak, base power that is frankly not good for much besides powering a hearth or a street light. As for Red Nightmare, there’s no mages and no warlocks who can wield it. As far as I know, no gods can use it either. Only one that isn’t represented in the pantheons.”

“Give me an empty crystal,” Grace said, stretching her hand out.

“Grace?” I asked, giving her a pointed, worried look.

“I need to be useful, Ryn,” she said with a melancholy smile. “I was useless back at that battle, but… this…”

I blew out a breath and glanced at Claih. Could we trust her? Too late, the obrec magitecht had handed a crystal to my girlfriend, eyes full of wary curiosity.

Grace took the finger length rod of clear crystal in her hand and rolled it around for a moment, staring at it with a frown. Her lips parted, tongue flicking out to wet her lips before she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

Dark red spread down her arm, converting it to terrible, decayed and twisted wood, horrifying jagged thorns sprouting to point in every random direction. The power coiled down into her hand, then poured into the crystal like molten tar. Distantly, almost at the edge of hearing, was the sound of a thousand screaming voices, a full orchestra and choir that sang but a single note. Torment.

Then it was over, the deathly aura around her receded, the thorns shrank back into her skin as though they had never existed, and her skin returned to its unblemished state. The crystal though, it was now filled with an inky dark red the colour of tainted blood, faint wisps of the energy briefly escaping like ink in water, only to be pulled back in.

I turned to Claih, finding her speechless with awe and dread, her eyes fixed on the terrible crystal. It took her many moments before she shook herself and glanced up at Grace with wary respect. “By Jarrig’s sweat slick balls, girl… that… that shouldn’t be possible.”

“Now you can shoot our enemies with Red Nightmare,” she replied, offering the crystal back to Claih.

“Gods no, I said I wouldn’t wish to wield that stuff for a reason,” she shook her head. With a sigh though, she reached for her pack and pulled something out of it. The object looked like a thermos or something with a glass window all the way around the middle. She unscrewed the top and held it out to Grace, keeping her fingers well away from the opening. “Put it in here.”

With delicate movements, my girlfriend did so, dropping it in with a clunk. Claih was quick to screw the cap on, then appeared to almost sag with relief, like she’d been holding her breath. “Let’s not do that again, at least until we understand what we’re doing, or are doing it from a very healthy distance, aye?”

“Understood,” Grace smiled, shaking her hand out a little like it was numb or something.

I found myself breathing out a sigh of relief too, that Red Nightmare stuff set my teeth to humming in a way that was distinctly uncomfortable. I had a lot to think about. When I’d first started as a mage, Esra had explained to me the differences between warlocks and mages, and between mages and ordinary people.

Warlocks came into their power far earlier in their journey than us mages, or at least the normal ones, I wasn’t the best example. They would also hit a power ceiling at some point, as well as walls constricting their utility. A warlock with a patron who was a fire elemental or whatever could only fling fire around. He couldn’t repair a broken tool or make it rain to water the crops. He could only burn.

A mage, I’d been told, had almost limitless potential utility, but took far longer to come into their power. That warlock might be able to summon a tornado of fire in a few short years after acquiring their power, but a mage might take a decade or more of training and power accumulation to reach that level.

I was, of course, an exception to that rule. I’d broken it so thoroughly that nobody really knew what to do with me. Well, except Grace, but that was different and oh so very fun.

My thoughts were interrupted when one of the rangers returned, and Troy beckoned us all over. The obrec ranger was filthy, but I think that was just camouflage. His hair was matted down with mud and his cloak had small sprigs of the nearby foliage threaded through small metal hoops that were woven into it.

“Near as we can tell,” he was saying, directing his attention to Jerril and Mer, “We don’t have any of Valley Folk out here with us. They aren’t incredible scouts either, tracks are easy enough to follow.”

“Not Valley Folk eh? Any ideas to narrow that down a little,” Jerril asked, scratching lightly at the fur on the back of his neck.

“A few. They pulled the arrows out of Keica, but the wounds looked like the ones Ghraiga use. Three pronged broadheads,” he explained, drawing the shape out in the air with a finger.

Ah shit. Just what we needed, another group getting antagonistic. What the hell were they doing in the mountains anyway? I mean sure, technically the Ghraiga laid claim to these mountains, but that was just words in court and lines on a map as far as I had been told. None of their people lived in here, there were no roads or outposts. Nothing to actually enforce that claim, so why were they here now? Apart from the obvious reason…

“Was there any sign that the arrows were poisoned?” Troy asked, a frown furrowing his brows.

The ranger shook his head. “None that we could see. Just regular old arrows took her down.”

“Not the steppe tribe that attacked Avonside then. They all used poison in their arrows,” he said, his expression twitching into the slightest, briefest sneer. “They had little notches in their arrowheads for the stuff to sit while it was in flight.”

“Doesn’t really narrow it down, sadly,” the ranger told him apologetically. “Upper steppe tribes use the poison because it comes from a snake that lives up there. Lower steppe tribes don’t have the snake, so they don’t use it. Could be anyone out here, so long as they’re Ghraiga born or trained.”

“Bugger,” Troy swore, pinching his upper lip between his fingers.

“Boys… boys, boys, boys,” a voice laughed from the edge of the huddle, and we turned to find Claih smiling at us. “You have a warlock, a mage and a magitecht at your disposal. Use us, lay a trap for these Ghraiga.” Then she held up the canister with the crystal that Grace had given her, expression turning terrible, deadly. “Let’s give them something to fear, shall we? We’ll call it… experiment number one.”

The plan, or experiment, was kind of simple really. Claih took what was essentially a remote detonator and attached it to her little Red Nightmare container, and that in turn was placed inside an old backpack.

With that ready, we set off into the mountains in search of a place to set up. I had to keep casting my detection spell to make sure we weren’t accidentally seen by our prey before the trap was set.

We chose an innocuous clearing at the bottom of a small and well forested valley. Lots of places for us to hide and watch. The pack, along with a few more random camping items, were placed down there, but that wouldn’t be enough to entice our adversaries down to look. Any self respecting ranger or scout would be wary of something like this, so we needed to make it look interesting enough to investigate anyway.

The ranger’s plan to do this was a little… gruesome. They had hunted and killed a few deer that day with the intention that they would feed us, but now they mangled them and threw the pieces all across the clearing. Blood, guts and pieces of deer everywhere in a convincing display of savagery that, quite frankly, made me feel a little ill.

It wasn’t just the carnage though, because deer and obrec had a few passing similarities that when the subject was in multiple pieces, might lead someone to confuse one for the other, so long as no intact heads were around. Basically, from a distance it looked like a group of obrec rangers had been torn apart by some magical beast.

All that had to happen now was an accidental fire to be lit, and for a bunch of obrec to scream in supposed fear for their lives. Which is what they did next.

They were convincing with their screams, I’ll give them that. Even seeing that the people making those sounds were okay wasn’t enough to stop my stomach from icing over. My hand found Grace’s next to mine as we crouched and latched on tightly. I don’t know why I reacted like this, I had always struggled with realistic depictions of pain in others, however fake they might be.

We were crouched beside a bush and a tree, which combined to shield us from the view of any overly watchful eyes. Everyone else was hidden nearby, watching as the rangers scattered to their own hiding spots.

The wait that followed was excruciating, the only thing of interest to look at being the fire down in the pretend camp that was trying its best to consume the damp foliage of the clearing. At least it was creating a hell of a lot of smoke as it slowly dried the grass out, then burned it.

“I’m so bored,” I whined quietly after what felt like hours, cuddling up closer to Grace. “Why are they taking so long?”

“I don’t know, should we ask them? I’d text them to ask why they’re late but my phone was vaporised by a giant robot,” she laughed, reaching around to run her hand through my hair.

“The ring be like that though,” I smiled, almost purring as she scratched at my scalp. “Oh, that… that… that’s good, keep doing that.”

“Whatever keeps the magical princess happy,” she said wryly, continuing to scratch at me as I’d asked.

Goodness, I knew that she was shutting me up with the scratches but I didn’t much care. It felt nice. It did actually kinda suck about her phone though. There wasn’t going to be any more phones, at least for a very long time. I wonder if we’d even live long enough to see that. Come to think of it, what was the lifespan of a mage?

I’d like to live for a long time, but only if there was a way to slow the maturing process of my mind. I wanted to live a longer than natural life only if I could stay as me, as the Ryn I was now, rather than some properly grown up and wizened old woman. It just looked like the older people got, the slower they moved through the world, and I didn’t mean physically. I wanted to keep my energy, my excitement for the world and my urge to explore it.

“Ryn,” Grace whispered urgently, her fingers leaving my hair to grab my head and point it down at the fake camp below.

They were there, five men in dark cloaks creeping out of the woods with bows in hand. Except one, which held a magitech rifle at the ready. Guess this trap was a good idea then, and Claih’s lesson had been delivered at a very opportune time.

Squinting, I couldn’t get a clear picture of the men beyond their cloaks and their weapons, which had me frustrated. Hoping they had no way to detect the use of my magic, I carefully raised my hand and cast another of those spells that made me more than just a battle mage. The air in front of me bent and warped, becoming a lens for me to look through.

They weren’t Fennimore’s men, that much was certain as soon as I got a good look at them. Their chests held a symbol I had seen more than a dozen times recently, a blue-gray field with an orange sun at its center. Ghraiga military.

They edged closer into the clearing, the lead one stopping to inspect a dismembered hoof. I sat there with Grace at my side, tense as we waited. He had to realise it wasn’t an obrec foot right? I’d heard about the Ghraiga and obrec having skirmishes from the Stonechasers, they had to have some knowledge of the other race, right?

The man sprang up with a cry of alarm, placing an arrow into the nock on his bow in the same motion he took to get up. Crap, they weren’t to the pack yet! They’d be out of range!

A sharp crack sounded from the clearing below, confusing me for a second before I realised it was the detonator going off inside the pack. At first, nothing happened and even the Ghraiga scouts paused in confusion. They had probably expected to die with the sound of that small magical explosive going off. I could feel it though, feel the magic down there almost like it was intelligent, like it was confused as to where its cage had gone.

Slowly, tendrils of inky dark red energy snaked out of the pack, like a blind cephalopod getting its bearings. It twitched and spasmed as it did so, tentacles flickering like malfunctioning holograms, never quite occupying any single space for long.

“What the hell…” Grace mumbled from beside me, tense as the drawn bow strings of the men below. “I could feel and sort of control it before, but now it’s like it doesn’t recognise me at all.”

I was about to reply, thoughts spinning like thread into words that would be delivered to my mouth so that sound might be crafted, but all of that died when they struck. The tentacles of what looked like congealed blood lunged like vipers, one for each scout, spearing them each through the chest.

The scouts began to scream and claw at the spikes of energy in their chests, only for their hands to come away sticky with the magic of the nightmare. It began to spread under their skin like an infection, making its way for their head. The lead man began to thrash, crying and wailing as he desperately pulled his sleeve back to watch the inky red energy spread.

We stared in horror as it reached his neck and then grew upwards. That’s when his screaming became truly terrifying, animalistic and raw. His fingers turned to terrible hooks and he brought them up, wailing as he began to claw at his own face with manic despair.

One by one however, each of the poor doomed men below us went limp, their bodies hanging on the ends of those disgusting, awful spikes. They stayed like that for what felt like centuries, but was actually only a few seconds. Then the twitching began, their bodies thrashing violently once more even as the energy of the red nightmare flowed completely out of the pack.

Using its own form as a conduit, it funneled the rest of its form through the bodies of the scouts and up. Each of the five tentacles joined back up into a mass of dark red liquid above the clearing, then spread out into a flat disk.

Grace and I were shaking as we watched, unable to look away from the awful scene below. My brows furrowed in confusion as the disk of magic wobbled, then rent apart, leaving a vibrant red space where it had been.

It took me a second to realise what I was looking at, or rather, into… it was the Red Nightmare itself. The magical realm where this energy had originated. It had just torn a hole in the fabric of space and tunneled back to its home.

There was a tearing sound, wet flesh ripping and my gaze dropped back down to the bodies of the scouts, where the nightmare energy was busy pulling something violently out of each body. The things were vaguely human in shape, made of white magic, their edges indistinct. What wasn’t hard to see was the terror with which the humanoid shapes writhed, desperate to free themselves from the clutches of the energy.

It only lasted a second, two at most, then they were gone, the red magic, the portal and all. Just the bodies remained, drained of all the magic that had infected them just moments before. They fell to the ground with distant thumps, and the clearing was quiet once more.

The quiet lasted a long time, minutes passing as every single person who had been watching sat stunned by what they had just seen. I could feel Grace’s hand in mine, tense and clammy with sweat.

I gulped, turning to her. “Never use that energy again.”

“Yeah…” she agreed, her eyes wide with horror and even tears. I saw her swallow, once… twice. “That was… did it… did it rip their souls out?”

“It looked like that…” I breathed, turning to glance back at the bodies. “If souls are real. It also… it took them into the red nightmare.”

“Yeah…” she nodded, looking dazed and lost. “I know they killed that ranger… but I don’t think… they didn’t deserve whatever that was.”

Wordlessly, I nodded, placing my arm around her shoulders. I could only think of one person I knew who might deserve a fate like that, and even then… I wasn’t sure.

“How are you able to summon the Red Nightmare?” Claih demanded as soon as we were back with the wagons. The fear in her eyes was potent, an almost physical force emanating from within her. Or maybe it was the way she clutched at her still holstered magitech sidearm.

“It’s not just the Red Nightmare,” I said, moving to stand between the obrec magitecht and my girlfriend.

“Not just the Red Nightmare?” the woman asked in a choked voice, staring at me with confused awe. “What else can she summon?”

“All of them,” Grace said quietly as she stepped up beside me, a hand coming to rest on my shoulder. To me she said, “They may as well know the truth.”

Around us were arrayed all the persons of note within the caravan. Mer and Kit stood next to each other, Otho leaning on his rifle nearby. Jerril and a few other obrec in leadership positions stood to the side while Adam and Troy stood with Grace and I.

“I agree, after that… I think it’s time to talk about what happened,” Troy said gently, stepping up onto Grace’s other side. “Who knows, maybe they will have some insight.”

“Okay…” she breathed, biting her lip for a moment before looking sideways at me.

“I’ll tell the story,” I smiled, bumping her with my shoulder affectionately.

I took a moment to order my thoughts, dredging up the memories so that I might tell them properly. “Alright… so about two months ago, we found a ruin,” I began, looking up at the small crowd. “It was a ring builder ruin, specifically a research center. They appeared to have been studying magic, trying to understand it or something. At the lowest level we found a strange mass of energy contained within a large glass tank. It appeared to be a combination of every type of magic there is.”

As I spoke, Claih’s expression quickly went from fearful and hostile to curious, her grip on her holstered sidearm lessening as she listened.

“There was an… accident…” I said slowly, wincing as I remembered my fuck up. “My fault… I unwittingly blocked a containment pylon and allowed the magic to break free. It bounced off my shield and right into Grace… she just absorbed the whole lot, like water down a drain.”

“This power is finite then?” Claih asked, eyes finding Grace as her mind whirred.

“No… she began to generate it on her own, we don’t know why…” I shook my head, again pausing to figure out what to say next. “She was volatile afterwards, anyone trying to touch her would be violently thrown away by the energy discharge. Except me, I was able to absorb her power through skin contact and turn it into growth energy. I could drain her so she didn’t uh… fill up and explode.”

“By the gods…” Otho whispered, eyes wide as he stepped forward. “Can you imagine what would have happened if that stuff got out of her? If she had detonated?”

“Nothing good, and certainly on a larger scale than what we just witnessed,” Claih agreed, her expression having changed again, to one that looked almost like respect.

“We didn’t really know what to do, until someone interfered,” I sighed, taking Grace’s hand in my own. I made eye contact with as many of the obrec as I could before I spoke her name. “Ollinfer, one of your obrec gods. She redirected us as we tried to enter my grove and gave us an offer. She would make an altered warlock bond with Grace, allowing her to siphon off the excess magic that was produced and use it for herself. It also appears that there were some other side effects, a few abilities that allow Grace to manipulate her magic in unique ways.”

“Ollinfer,” Jerrig breathed, a smile slowly contorting his grumpy old face. “Grace is a warlock of Ollinfer!”

“Well, now I am considerably less worried,” Claih smiled, then laughed and shook her head. “Ollinfer might be a conniving hag, but at least she’s a conniving hag in the general direction of good.”

Grace burst out laughing, then ran her free hand through her hair with a sigh of relief. “That was my take on her too. One of those rare, ruthless and ambitious individuals who is actually on your side.”

“We’ll have to watch out for her, but on the whole I think we’re safe,” Jerril mused, thumb and forefinger stroking his chin. He let out a small grunt and gave Grace and then the attending crowd a hard, pointed look. “You should keep that little talent of yours a secret. That goes for everyone here! Any obrec who speaks a word of this, I will see you clanless within a day, do you hear me? Take this to your graves.”

Agreement came forth from everyone in a burst of chatter, and Jerril seemed satisfied. He was right too, if it became common knowledge that Grace had the power to wield the Red Nightmare, there would be hell to pay, in many different and terrible forms.

The conversation continued into a more lighthearted direction after that, and it was clear the danger had passed. Our allies were once again friendly.

We also found out a lot more about Ollinfer and her past exploits, including falling in love with the head of an obrec clan at one point. That story ended in heartbreak for her when the guy rebuffed her, saying that having a relationship with a goddess probably wouldn’t work.

Then there was the time that she apparently got pissed off at a river for diverting down a path that starved an area of forest from the water it needed. She exploded the river. There was also a story about her getting drunk off the growth magic of a human mage she’d uh… fornicated with, then wandered into an obrec town and picked a fight with the gatehouse. Not the people within it, the actual gatehouse building itself.

She replaced it later when she woke up the next morning though, so that was good. Now the town had a gatehouse made out of impenetrable wood that they were actually quite proud of apparently. All of that was to say that she was startlingly similar to many polythiestic religions. She wouldn’t be out of place in the greek pantheon, that was for sure.

Claih approached us after we’d gotten back on the road, hopping up into our wagon with a tentative smile. I was nestled into Grace’s arms again, my default position when we were travelling, and Claih sat down opposite us.

“Hello, I came to discuss some things, but first I must apologise for my antagonistic attitude before,” she said with a gentle expression. “I should have behaved better.”

Grace answered before I could, “No, it’s honestly understandable considering what we just saw.”

I had to agree with her there. What had happened to those scouts would haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. It had been beyond horrifying. Anyone would be rightfully shaken by what they had witnessed.

“Thanks,” she smiled, but shook her head anyway. “On to my main point for being here though… Grace, can you really wield magic from every realm?”

“Near as I can tell, yeah,” she nodded. “Or… create it anyway. I can’t actually do anything with it once I’ve made it.”

“Can you take it back into yourself?” the magitecht asked curiously. “If so, could you create a small amount of combined energy for me? It should be safe.”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked, eyeing her skeptically. This hadn’t exactly worked out well last time. I was really not keen for a repeat of last time.

She chuckled, her long furry pointed ears twitching for a moment. “Yes, I’m sure. Each realm of magic has an opposite that will uh, keep it in line, so to speak. I’m interested to finally look at all of them together, existing in harmony.”

Huh… I wonder what the opposite realm to the Red Nightmare was? Could it be the Nameless Garden? Or was it some other realm that was like, blue or something? Well, then again, energy from any realm could take on any colour so I guess that was a moot point. Except for the base colour… wait, concentrate!

“Alright,” Grace shrugged, raising her hand. Crap, I’d gotten too distracted to voice any more concerns! Nerd sniped by magical theory! I instinctively cringed away, and she let me out of her lap before she did her thing.

The magic swirled down her arm, which only took on her default plantlike appearance. The white rainbow energy flickered into existence in her palm, just a tiny mote of the stuff that spun and twirled lazily. Oh, that wasn’t so bad. It was kinda cute… it just needed googly eyes.

“Eternal chasm, that is beautiful,” the obrec woman murmured, leaning forward. A thoughtful expression came over her face, followed by a sheepish look. “Alright, now I know I don’t have the best track record with you, but hear me out…”

“Oh no,” Grace said with a roll of her eyes, closing her hand and taking the energy back inside herself. “Here we go again.”

“Grace… you would be an incredibly powerful magitecht, if you wanted. You’d be able to charge your own devices with whatever energy they needed on the spot. I know of mages that have taken up the craft as well, and warlocks… but you would be above them all,” she said, excitement drawing her forward again. “Then, like the pure snow at the top of a mountain, you could fire all of them at once. I could help you, teach you… or just make the weapons for you.”

Oh, now that was an idea. Images of Grace wielding a rifle that she could calibrate to perfectly pierce our enemies’ shields came to mind. She could give others crystals charged so that they could do the same!

“I wouldn’t be the best at like… developing stuff,” my girlfriend sighed, but she quickly shook it off in favour of being cautiously excited. “But if you designed some guns and made them, or taught me how to make them and maintain them… I could do that.”

I didn’t mention it out lout, but if Bray didn’t hate us over everything, he could build and design new and interesting devices for Grace to use as well.

“Yes!” Claih exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air and accidentally punching her own antler. “Ah, ow! Damn!” she grumbled, shaking her fist out. “What I mean to say is that, I am very excited to try. I’ve never had the opportunity to experiment with every energy at once like that. It would be a great help to my own research, so it isn’t exactly complete altruism on my part.”

“That’s fair,” Grace agreed, a wistful smile on her face. She turned to me for a moment, and I felt my heart do little flips when she hit me with that expression. “I’ll be useful to you! We can be a team, mage and magitecht!”

“Yeah,” I said, a smile of my own tugging at my lips. She needed this. Since almost day one of knowing her, she’d been grasping and reaching for some way to gain control of herself and her destiny on this world. Here was her chance.

Claih and Troy were a surprisingly effective duo, working together to figure out how best to equip Grace. Troy was more than keen to get Grace kitted out in shiny magitech stuff. Unfortunately, we had no way to actually make the things she’d need, but they decided to at least figure out what setup my girlfriend was best with.

She had a go with Claih’s really big rifle, Otho’s smaller one and then some pistols of various sizes too. She seemed to enjoy the big pistols the most. The type that was so big they’d give your heart an extra beat if they had fired regular bullets. Instead they used magic as ammunition, which instead had your hair standing on end and a saw-toothed vibration rushing through your body.

That wasn’t to say she was terrible with the other guns. The big rifle that Claih had also had Grace smiling as she blasted away at trees. She wasn’t amazing, but she could hit things okay considering how little training she had. I guess I’d be setting up a shooting range in my grove at some point soon.

Meanwhile, our journey into the mountains was mercifully uninterrupted after the run in with the Ghraiga scouts. I really hoped we’d gotten all of them, because if we hadn’t, it might bring a whole lot of unwanted attention down on Avonside. I know that my scans hadn’t found anything nearby, and neither had the efforts of the obrec rangers, but my stomach still twisted anxiously regardless.

The terrain itself was our biggest problem in moving forward. Entire days were spent trying to find a path forward, sitting in the wagons and talking aimlessly while the rangers did their thing. I wished I had a spell to help them, some way to point them in the right direction. I had ideas of scanning the area and then creating a holographic map. That was way above my skills though.

It was yet another day and we were sitting around bored out of our minds as the scouts ranged ahead. The forest had gotten increasingly harder to get the wagons through and tall mountains slowly rose up on either side of us. I felt like we were getting close though. I swear I recognised some of the tallest peaks. That is, when I could see them, the canopy was pretty thick.

The living parts of the forest weren’t the only problem, because it was part tree but also part boulder, huge hunks of the stone lay everywhere, covered in plantlife and moss. There were a ton of rocks hidden throughout the underbrush too, just waiting for a wagon wheel to run into it.

I was sitting against one of those wheels, Grace splayed out across the ground, head in my lap and her arm over her eyes as she tried to sleep. I loved her, I loved my girlfriend so much. We’d spent so much time in each other’s company during the past month that it felt like we’d been together for a year, not a few months.

She was so pretty, her almost shoulder length blond hair going everywhere, the internal colour on full display. Green and blue strands splayed out in all their glossy glory.

Gently, I used a finger to trace her hairline, marvelling at both her soft skin and her soft hair. Until she giggled and gave a little squirm, lifting her arm to glare at me, “Ryn! That tickles!”

“Sorry,” I grinned, placing my hand fully over her head and smoothing her hair out over my thigh. So damned soft.

“Hey,” a small voice said, causing both myself and Grace to look over in its direction.

Kit stood a few meters away, awkwardly holding her hands in front of her as she gave us a tentative smile.

“What’s up?” I asked, beckoning her over. “Pull up a wheel or a patch of ground and sit with us.”

Her smile went from hesitant to amused and genuine in the space of a moment. “Funny,” she replied with a little roll of her eyes as she sat down next to me.

“Where’s Mer?” I asked, glancing around quickly to see if she was hiding somewhere. Nope, Merwig wasn’t in sight.

“Oh… um… she had to do guard stuff,” Kit shrugged, already playing with a twig that she’d picked up off the ground. “Otho got grumpy with her for spending so much time with me instead of doing her guard work.”

Kit and Mer had been almost inseparable since we’d gotten the shorter girl back from her fruit. I say almost because they hadn’t actually gotten closer than a few feet to each other since their hug in my grove. Kit seemed all over the place mentally, and I think Mer had picked up on that, backing off on pushing any potential relationship in favour of being a friend to the skittish girl.

Rather than ask further about Mer, I changed the topic, “How are you doing? Has Esra taken you to make a grove yet?”

She shook her head. Esra had tasked me with different things to study and train in while she focused on foundational learning for Kit. Our mage mother had helped me set up my own training area on the lower level of the plateau, somewhere I could practice magical combat without “causing a racket while I’m trying to teach young Kit”, whatever that meant. Kit and I were the same age anyway, or nearabouts.

“Still the boring basics then?” I grinned, leaning back to glance over at some rangers who’d just arrived back at the caravan.

“Kinda… is it weird that I actually enjoy it? I mean it’s easy, but it’s all just so… so cool!” Kit said, getting excited next to me. “The way magic interacts with the structures inside spell plants is just so strange, you know? I’ve seen a neural network laid out in a sort of graphic right, back when computers were a thing in our lives, and it almost looks the same.”

“Huh… I didn’t actually think of it like that, but you’re right. It’s somewhere between those fancy graphics of neurons firing and a crystal lattice or whatever,” I hummed, then perked up as Troy turned and waved at us, motioning for the three of us to go over there. “Guess they need us. Let’s go.”

We all hauled ourselves up off the damp forest floor and made our way over to the gathering crowd of people. They stood near the lead wagon, which had stopped because the ground was getting pretty bad in front of us.

One of the higher ranking scouts was nodding as she spoke to Troy, “Yeah, they didn’t see us. It was a good effort, for a group that obviously hasn’t done much bushcraft.”

“So they weren’t very good then?” he smiled, rolling his eyes. “Figures.”

“Well, I was trying to be diplomatic about it,” she laughed, her ears twitching in that way that obrec ears did when they laughed. “They’re your people after all.”

“I didn’t train them,” Troy said with mock defensiveness, holding his hands up.

“Wait, we found some of our people?” I blurted, suddenly very excited and very anxious. This was it. This was the homecoming I had been working towards for months, ever since I got out of that fruit.

“Aye, we did,” the scout smiled, turning to me. “Looks like they have hidden sentries set up, even made little towers. It’s adorable, really… but we might have to teach them a thing or two once we get there and explain ourselves. Provided we’re paid, of course.”

My mind was whirling in a dozen different directions, each of them only tangentially related to one another. How were Kelsey and Melody doing? How much had the campus changed while we were gone? Then there was Bray, my only friend from before all this started. How was he doing?

“We’ll get to that,” Troy agreed absently, running the pad of his thumb over his stubble. “For now though, I think it’s important that we make contact at least. We’ve been gone for months, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve written us off as dead by now.”

“So we rock up to that sentry post and just… say hello?” Grace asked, sharing a quick nervous glance with me.

It sounded so anticlimactic. Coming all this way just to knock on the proverbial door and say hello. Then again, what else were we going to do?

“Yeah, pretty much,” Troy nodded with a deadpan expression. “We’ll approach without stealth, just to make sure they know we’re friendly. Black armour on and waving hello, all that jazz, so get ready… and where the hell is Adam?”

****

The sentry post was hidden in a rocky outcropping a few miles from where the caravan had stopped. Honestly, I still couldn’t see it, no matter how many times the obrec rangers pointed it out. I was just taking their word on it. I could sense them however, my scan spell picking them up easily.

As we approached, Adam and Troy were at the front while the three of us girls walked behind them. The two guys were the only ones out of the group that hadn’t changed in some drastic way, so this was going to take some explaining. In hindsight, it was a damned good thing that Troy hadn’t gone into the fruit. I could only imagine the hassle we’d encounter with him looking different. We had one ranger with us and several more shadowing our movements within the trees.

“Oh, I can see them now! With my mage sight,” I said, tilting my head to look up. We were close enough now, just a couple of hundred yards, and I could dimly see their magical auras.

“Lucky for some,” Kit grumbled from beside me, squinting to try and eke out just a little more focus from her busted eyes. Poor girl. It really was odd that the fruit had done that.

“Let’s stop here,” Troy said, holding his hand up in a fist like any of us actually knew his funny army signals. I think that one meant stop?

We came to a halt anyway, fanning out to relax a bit from the trek over. My legs hadn’t gotten that much exercise in a while, and although they weren’t protesting, they felt a little warm.

“Adam, please use that loud voice of yours to call them down,” Troy said, turning to Adam with the slightest of smiles.

“Wow, rude,” Adam grinned turning anyway and cupping his hands around his mouth. “Yo! Avonsiders! We’re here to talk! It’s Troy and company! Minus some and plus a whole lot more!”

“Real formal,” Grace commented with a quiet chuckle. “Professional and well delivered.”

“Thanks,” he replied with a grin. “I’m just talented at this sort of thing, you know? Maybe I should write Ryn’s speeches for her when she’s empress of the ring.”

“Oh god, no thanks,” I grimaced, the thought of that much responsibility sending a shudder down my spine. The number of meetings that would entail…

We bantered away for what felt like an hour before we finally saw some people coming down from the sentry post. Three figures picking their way carefully down the face of the rocky outcropping. From this distance I could only make out two men and a woman, but I had a spell for that.

I cast the lensing spell, but grunted in disappointment when I didn’t recognise any of them. They looked like students at least, which was hopeful. I’d been a little afraid of running into the power tripping security forces that had ruled Avonside during the week I was there.

They wore padded body armour similar to the Order, although it was unpainted and a little light on metal plates. Most of it was undyed leather.

Approaching cautiously, they stopped a dozen yards away and eyed us up. I could see the worry in their eyes, like they were expecting to be jumped and killed.

“Hey friends,” Troy said in english, giving them a slight wave. “We’re uh, finally back. Don’t know if you’d even remember faculty sending us out. We’re scouting team one. At least, that’s what they called us when we left.”

“Wait, you’re that guy… the one who was yelling about needing intel on the outside world like five months ago!” one of the guys blurted, his eyes going wide. “Troy, right? No shit, I actually remember watching you leave. Man, those security guys were so mad you showed them up.”

“There’s only three of you in the armour,” the woman said, expression suspicious as she glanced at Kit and I. Then her eyes went as big as dinner plates when she saw the obrec ranger who was with us. “What is that?”

“Who, and they’re an obrec,” I supplied helpfully. “Alien, from a big mountain range a few months south of here.”

The woman’s eyes stayed on the obrec, but the two guys turned to look at me, and I inwardly cringed as they both gave me a once over. Right, forgot about that. I was pretty now.

They were silent for a long time as they processed their thoughts, before the woman shook herself and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “I can’t believe I was getting drunk and trying to get through a BA only half a year ago,” she groaned, turning her eyes up. “This fucking ring, dude.”

“You think you have it bad,” I laughed, unable to help myself. “I was a dude six months ago, then I got swallowed by a magic fruit. Dunno if you remember the first week. I’m told there was a real shitstorm after I uh, disappeared.”

“For real?” one of the guys blurted, his eyes bugging out. “You’re that Eli dude? The one that went missing? Damn right there was a shitstorm, they had to make an announcement about you. You’re uh, looking good… by the way… How did that even happen? That’s some next level sci-fi shit right there.”

“You’ve heard of me then,” I smiled wryly, then sighed, “And the story is… a lot to explain.”

I’d explain the whole magical transformation, trans thing and new name thing later. It would only confuse the situation, and my old nickname was just feminine enough that it didn’t hurt too much. Especially since I’d spent a while in my dream body, allowing me to be confident in who I really was. I wasn’t going to let some shitty old name hurt me anymore. Well, maybe a little… I’d just endure it.

“We’ll see,” the woman said, clearly not as convinced as her male compatriots. “So what else? I have a radio that I can call back with, but I need to actually know what I should tell them.”

“Uh,” Troy said, turning to look at us. I felt for him. Where the hell did you even start with the magnitude of shit we had to report. “Well, tell them Troy’s scouting mission is back. Tell them we also found the student formerly known as Elias Belrose, who went missing during our first week on the ring. Also tell them that we have a trade mission from a potential ally. A group of non-humans called obrec, from a nation called the Stonechasers.”

“Righto,” she nodded, opening a pouch at her hip and taking out a big chunky walkie talkie.

I cleared my throat and almost put up my hand before saying, “Tell them we have literal tons of metal and metal ore for them.”

“That is something they will be happy to hear,” she said, a genuine smile taking over her face. “We need metal like nothing else. Let me make the call.”

The call came back fairly quickly, the people in charge back at Avonside wanted to talk to us. Of the sentries, the woman appeared to be their leader, and she sent one of the guys back up into the outpost while the other stayed with her. They bristled a little when our obrec called one of his rangers out of the surrounding forest so he could relay what was happening back to the caravan.

“What the fuck? Where did he come from?” the dude sentry blurted in alarm, hand going to his pistol.

Troy spoke with a nonchalant shrug, “There’s a bunch of them around us. Security. They are expert rangers from the Stonechaser nation, or clan. Whatever you want to call it. They’re here to guard the merchant caravan that’s a few klicks back.”

“Right,” the woman nodded, her eyes following the new ranger warily as he moved off, having received his orders. “Well, follow me I guess. Let’s head back. It might take an hour to walk there.”

“We’ve been walking for months, what’s one hour more?” Grace smiled, pushing her wavy hair out of her face. Her soft, distracting hair. My eyes followed its every subtle wave for a moment, drinking it in.

The woman only snorted in reply, whether it was in amusement, I couldn’t tell.

I spoke first, my anxiety over the unknown overpowering my anxiety of talking to the standoffish woman. “I’m Ryn now, by the way. Felt kinda silly to use the old name since it was a dude name and all.”

She gave me a sideways look, followed by a big sigh. “Jenna, and I’ll be honest, I find it hard to believe that you just… turned into a woman. That doesn’t just…”

“Well, the change wasn’t by accident,” I said with a frown. “I didn’t just have my body changed either.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, glaring at me suspiciously.

Behind us, the obrec ranger laughed, low and amused. We both turned to look at him as he shook his head in amusement.

“What?” I asked, curious if he understood us.

When he spoke, it seemed that our english lessons with the twins had spread. “She pokes dragon with her tiny stick. Does not know power you hold. Very stupid.”

My eyes quickly found Jenna’s again as she turned to stare at me, her eyes roamed for just a second before they blew wide, “Wait, your eyes are pink! Your hair isn’t dyed… It’s actually pink too!”

“Correct,” I grinned, not saying a word more.

She moved ahead after that, obviously not comfortable being around me after her observations and the words of our obrec friend. I made sure to glance back at him and wiggle my eyebrows. He gave me a silent laugh. It had been pretty funny. I just couldn’t find it in myself to care that someone was scared of me because I was different. There was also the part where she couldn’t do shit to hurt me.

We walked in silence for about ten minutes, the trees staying the same and the rocks getting craggier. I was starting to wonder how this was meant to mellow back out so soon into Avonside’s fairly chill valley. Had the Umare plonked us down in a hidden valley within the mountains?

Troy eventually broke the silence, asking, “How have things changed since we left? Faculty and the CEO still battling it out?”

“They most definitely are,” Jenna said with a scowl. She gave him and the rest of us a long, hard look before she sagged a little, expression softening. “Look, I shouldn’t be telling you this until people with way more authority than me have cleared you… but things are tense. Resources have been stretched thin, people are sick of eating the same unseasoned crap. The faculty won’t stop bitching at each other and at the CEO about things… and security is still doing their thing.”

“By their thing, do you mean throwing their weight around like they own the campus?” Grace asked, with an expression that showed just what she thought of the security people.

“Kinda,” she said, then motioned to her and her companion. “They’ve had a little less room to throw their weight around since the militia was formed by the faculty, but they are still very much the CEO’s attack dogs.”

“Militia,” Troy sighed, shaking his head. “Man, you kids should be getting drunk and studying, like you said. Not… not guarding a town from attack and sitting out in the cold.” His eyes found me and he gave another sigh. “At least we might be able to help.”

Jenna went on to describe how on more than one occasion the ACS, or Avonside Campus Security, had been assholes. Some were actual cops who had been stationed there, and they had a lovely little arsenal of over the top weapons at their disposal. The only upside had been that the fabrication department wasn’t willing to make shit for them.

The fabrication department was apparently a conglomeration of all the skilled construction people, a merger of many different areas of Avonside that had allowed them to streamline the manufacturing pipeline.

They apparently had a lot of power, which had been solidified when the ACS tried to force them to use the dwindling supplies of metal to make armour for them. The fabrication dept had refused, stating that if anyone tried to force them to do anything, they would sabotage the work they were forced to do. They had gotten roughed up, but then the militia backed them and… well a lot had happened.

Something I’d been curious about was how they were still unaware that magic was a thing. I mean, there probably wasn’t a whole lot of it out here, but all of Esra’s plants had still been there. She’d set them up to keep the fruit alive, and part of that had been the lone tender she left.

“Jenna… how much did they tell everyone about my disappearance?” I asked, glancing at Grace as I did so. I still remembered her telling me what those bastards had put her through.

“Uh… what do you mean?” she asked, tilting her head in confusion. “We know that you were transported in a similar manner to the way we were brought to the ring in the first place. They didn’t say much more than that. There were rumours about a plantlike alien and a fruit and stuff, like my friend here said… but nothing else really. It was pretty hush hush.”

“Huh,” I grunted softly, a smile forming. Would be interesting to see people’s reactions when we broke the news about magic.

I got another suspicious look from her, but she didn’t say anything else and I didn’t give her any more information. I wanted to wait, do my big reveal when someone was trying to flex on us. I could see her starting to believe me too. Simply asserting my identity through casual dialogue seemed to be working.

When Avonside finally came into view, felt a smile come to my lips unbidden, and weight seemed to ease off me. It had changed, but it was still recognisably Earth. I missed my home planet. I missed ordering pizza and going down to the local second hand bookstore to find a new book to read. I really hoped there was a fiction industry on this world, because if there wasn’t I was going to run out of books to read.

The biggest difference I could see was the defenses. They had dug a trench around the campus and compacted the dirt into a berm, then begun building a wooden wall on top of that. It was almost complete now, with a gate and towers at regular intervals.

The wall was actually far larger than the area that had originally been schwooped, but there didn’t seem to be a massive number of new buildings. Rather, the wall encompassed a large number of fields, as well as a section of river nearby which had a dam built at one end. I could see a few windmills too. I guess that was how they had solved the energy situation.

“The dam generates energy too, right?” I asked, pointing to it. From what little I knew about power grids, you needed a stable and adjustable source of power to keep it working. Windmills were too volatile to provide the backbone of a grid.

“Yeah, as far as I know,” the male sentry said with a shrug. “It’s not enough though, unfortunately. We have to ration power still.”

“I wonder if there’s a way to convert…” Kit began quietly in anve, making pointed eye contact with me. “You know… magic, into electricity. We could definitely do something about that power problem.”

“It wouldn’t be hard,” I agreed, ideas already forming in my mind. “I mean… we’re already doing it with my baths… just increase the heat and put a turbine on top of it.”

“Oh… true, that’s actually really simple,” she said with a quiet laugh. “Duh. I was way overthinking it, dreaming up lightning plants and shit.”

The sentries gave us both looks. “What language was that?” Jenna asked, looking very suspicious.

“Anve, it’s the language of a region back that way,” I said, motioning vaguely behind us. “Don’t worry. She was just asking about power generation. We had an idea that would help, but right now it involves something that we’re not going to talk about until we can tell the people in charge, or I guess, if someone forces it out of us.”

“You seem to have all the answers for us, don’t you?” she replied sceptically.

I shrugged. “What do you think made us take like four months to get back? We were running around trying to find solutions to Avonside’s problems.”

“Good point,” she nodded, conceding. “If you’re genuine, I’ll be more than happy. Until the bosses give you the tick though, I’m going to be suspicious. This world isn’t friendly and if we let our guard down, more will die.”

I had to agree with her on that one. I had a sneaking suspicion that she might have lost someone in the attack that had happened so many months ago.

The gate was manned by a pair of militia who looked bored right up until they saw us. They stood up straight and called, “Jenna! What’s going on?”

“People to see the faculty,” she said, then pulled an apologetic expression. “Sorry, can’t say more. You’ll probably find out soon enough though.”

The gate was also made of wood, and the two militia who’d been guarding it nodded, signalling to those inside that we should be let through. They might be amateurish, but at least they were trying. Made me a little hopeful that we could win them over once we’d shown ourselves to be genuine.

Sadly, we didn’t make it more than ten yards through the gate before something bad happened. A group of ten ACS guys rolled up with their blue uniforms and riot gear on, trying their best to look intimidating.

“Militiawoman Jenna, we’ll handle them from here, CEO wants to talk to them,” the lead one said gruffy, giving us all a once over.

“I was told to take them to see the faculty council,” Jenna replied, glancing worriedly back at us.

The ACS guy shook his head. “Change of plans. CEO wants them.”

“Um… let me just call and ask,” Jenna said, turning her back and pulling out a phone. I could see her expression was worried.

The guy at the lead frowned, his hand going to the pistol holstered at his hip. Oh hell no. Fuck this.

“Here, let me fix this situation,” I said, moving forward and patting Jenna on the shoulder as I went. To the dicks in their dumb blue uniforms I gave a glare. “You all heard her. She has orders, and she hasn’t heard differently from her chain of command.”

“Ryn…” Troy said quietly from behind me, and I turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow. Was this a bad idea? His expression was neutral, and speaking in anve, he said, “Quick and brutal. Beat their faces into the fucking ground. Like you did in the battle, don’t leave any doubt about who has more power.”

My eyebrows rose. Alright, if Troy condoned a little use of force, then I was going to use a little force. As a treat.

“Alright, I’m going to give you all a few seconds to think, and then I want you to turn your asses around and go back to whatever it is you do in that security room of yours,” I told the assembled ACS.

“And who the fuck are you?” the lead guy asked with an amused sneer. “You’re coming with us girl, or we’ll make you come with us.”

I gave him a look of disappointment. That was the only warning he and his buddies got.

With a flourish, I whipped my hand forward as spell flower tattoos snaked up my wrist, a blast of concussive force throwing them all sharply backwards. They tumbled like forgotten luggage behind a jet engine, their gear going everywhere, limbs flailing. I couldn’t help a laugh at how comical it looked. Helmets, shields, guns, batons and grown men all flying into the air to scatter across the trampled earthen area behind the gate.

Before any could recover, I wrapped tendrils of telekinetic power around them all, lifting them into the air. Orienting them all so they were prone, I twisted them so they were facing the ground that was a few feet below them. With a sharp, dismissive wave of my hand, I brought them all down hard, following Troy’s orders to the letter.

My finishing touch was to sow the seeds of vines throughout their ranks, urging them to grow up and lock around the necks of each one, pinning them there. I made sure they wouldn’t suffocate, I wasn’t cruel after all. Maybe someone would take pity on them later, cut them off the ground. I don’t know, and I didn’t really care.

“Should have listened,” I said with a poison smile, and turning to my group as casually as I possibly could, I asked, “Should we continue?”

All the militia people were staring at me in shock, and I took a little satisfaction from seeing Jenna’s eyes so wide they looked like they might fall out. The dragon was revealed.

Everyone was silent for long moments, before the male sentry who’d been escorting us let out a nervous laugh, “Well then, that was satisfying to watch… why don’t we all just uh… go see our friends in the faculty, eh? I mean, I’m sure dirt is really nutritious if you’re desperate, but I’m not very keen to watch the pigs wallow. It’s kinda gross.”

“Yes…” Jenna nodded, still staring at me. “Good idea. Let’s move.”

The room that the faculty met us in was an aging lecture hall, the type that a new class in some obscure subject might be given to use. Five rows of threadbare fold down seats and worn wooden desktops led to a raised stage, where a plastic and steel school table had been set up.

Five people sat at the table, three women and two men, all of them with varying degrees of grey in their hair. They wore tired looking formal clothing, suits for four of them, while one of the women wore a simple black dress. They looked very much the part of university administrators, albeit ones that hadn’t been able to get their clothing repaired in six months.

“Jenna, thank you for bringing them here. We were worried that the ACS might have gotten to you,” the central woman said, leaning forward intently.

“Ah… they did,” Jenna said with an awkward cough. “The newcomers… dealt with them. I highly suggest you don’t piss the one with pink hair off… ma’am.”

“Is that so,” the woman replied slowly, her eyes coming down on me like someone was using their watch face to reflect the sun into my eyes. She had one intense stare, dayum. Then her gaze drifted past me to fall on the obrec, eyes going wide, a gasp escaping her thin lips.

“Ah, right…” Troy chuckled, turning to the obrec. “This is an obrec, an alien to be exact, although we’re all technically aliens on this ring.”

There was a lot of staring by the five people at the table, and a long silence to go along with it. Not that I blamed them, meeting another thinking, feeling being that wasn’t human was a pretty big deal.

“Hello, I am pleased to be meeting you,” the ranger said in his awkward version of english, smiling ruefully. “It is long time since I meet others who have not seen obrec.”

“Ah…” the woman with the stare said, her eyes bugging out. “I imagine we will get to an explanation… at some point. Nice to meet you, uh… Mr Obrec.”

“We met his kind during our adventures,” Troy said, saving us from another awkward silence. “Which, speaking of… Scouting team one, here to report in. At long last.”

“My god!” one of the men blurted, tearing his eyes off the obrec ranger and interrupting any further talk about him. He leaned forward and pushed his large glasses up his face, staring in open astonishment. “It really is you, Troy! My goodness boy, we honestly thought you were dead! I couldn’t believe it when we got word you’d just wandered up to a sentry post!”

Troy’s face broke out into a full-faced genuine smile, eyes crinkling at the sides. “Ayup, that’s me. Sorry it took so long Doctor Richards, we got a little… sidetracked, but I think it was worth it.”

Doctor Richards gave a laugh, one of those full bellied ones that you might expect from a mall Santa. I bet this guy used to be a mall Santa. You know, back when there were malls. Getting a hold of himself, Mall Santa smiled again, saying, “Well, hopefully this little debriefing goes well! I’m most interested in hearing of your adventures!”

“Speaking of that debriefing,” the central woman said with a pointed look in Santa’s direction. She was a little younger than the rest, although that still put her in her fifties or more. She was one of those older women who looked simultaneously in-shape and a little gaunt, the whip-smart english professor vibe.

“Ah, yes… my apologies, please continue,” the older man said, motioning with his hand to her.

Turning to us, the severe woman smiled, or at least attempted to… maybe she was Troy’s mum? “Hello, we are here to represent the faculty council. I am Dr Wilcott, head of the college of law. Dr Richards here is the head of the college of natural sciences.” She then pointed to the other man, a small but spritely old guy with a keen eye, before continuing her introductions down the line. “This is Dr Ruthven, then Dr Ross and Dr Leslie, heads of economics, political science and arts, respectively.”

Troy made eye contact with each as they were introduced, waiting until we were all seated in the front row before sitting down himself. “Good to see you all again. Glad it’s only the five of you and not… well, the rest.”

What did that mean? Was he talking about the CEO and her stooges or the other faculty heads?

“Likewise, Troy,” Dr Wilcott said with a slight smile. “I honestly did not expect to see you again when we sent you out. What little we knew of the outside world at the time was foreboding, and what we have learned since is downright worrisome.”

“It is that, yeah,” he said evenly, leaning back into his chair.

There was a rustle and I heard boots ascending back up the stairs of the lecture hall. Dr Wilcott’s stare turned up to skewer our militia escort. “Jenna, William, please sit as well, if you would,” she said as the two sentries froze where they were. “I’d like you here, thank you.”

“Uh… sure, ma’am,” Jenna replied, sitting uneasily down in a chair beside the male sentry whose name was apparently William.

“Well, I guess we’ll get straight to it then, you must be impatient to get to a good bath and some food?” she asked, her tone rising into a question as she raised an eyebrow.

“Actually ma’am, I expect we’ve had access to nicer facilities than are here at Avonside,” Troy said, giving me a grateful smile.

Dr Wilcott’s eyebrows rose at that, and she leaned forward. “Interesting. I notice that two members of your party are missing… and you have gained two more. Please, give us an overview of your travels. I’d like a full written report later, but lets not waste time on excessive spoken word, the details of which will likely be forgotten.”

“Agreed,” Dr Richards said with an emphatic nod. “I expect if we asked for the whole story, by the time you were done, our faculties would need to find replacement heads!” he finished with another one of his Santa laughs that had me smiling almost involuntarily. Damn infectious laughter.

Dr Leslie, the woman in the dress on the end rolled her eyes and placed a hand to her forehead in exasperation, even as she fought a smile. “I can’t believe I married you. At least I kept my last name.”

“You love it dear,” he grinned in reply, sending a wink down the table at her.

I don’t know what I expected when we finally got to this point, but old person banter and flirting was not it. The silly talk was putting me at ease though. Maybe this would be easier than I’d feared?

“This is why I separated the both of you to opposite ends of the desk,” Dr Wilcott groaned, covering her face with both hands for a moment. Moving before anyone could reply, she slapped them down on the table and gave Troy a look. “Please, a brief version of your travels, if you would, Troy.”

“Well, uh… alright. Here goes. It took us a few weeks to get out of the mountains to start off with, and I had us moving cautiously in case we ran into danger. We didn’t find anything but a bear, which ran off when it saw us. Leaving the mountains had us stumbling into a small town. Avonside is apparently situated within a section of mountain range that is claimed by a nation called the Empire of Ghraiga,” he explained slowly, his eyes moving randomly across the floor as he gathered his thoughts.

“Empire?” Dr Richards asked, his joviality replaced with concern, which was mirrored by a nod from the head of political science.

“Yeah,” Troy agreed. “They have a strange mix of medieval level technology and ah… magical technology.”

“Say that again?” Richards blinked, leaning forward as far as his large stomach would allow.

“We’ll get to that part later, trust me,” the younger man smiled, already looking weary. There was so much to explain, so much that these five people needed to know.

“Let him speak,” Dr Wilcott said quietly.

Troy continued with his explanation after exhaling a long breath, “Okay so, we sold some of the goods we brought from Avonside to get local coin, then bought passage on a barge down a large river. We travelled this way for many weeks, stopping off in various towns in a few different nations and staying to look around for a few days. We had limited success in learning the dominant local language, anve.”

Turning to me, he gave me an almost parental smile, “Then we found Ryn, or rather, we found each other. We were in a city like many others we had visited when Grace spotted someone with a ring she recognised. She and her group of friends apparently all share a ring like this, and she urged us to follow this person and investigate.”

Grace, Adam and I all helpfully raised our hands to show off the rings in question, and the faculty representatives looked on curiously. We were incredibly lucky that Bray had made these things. I shuddered to think of what might have happened without them.

“The woman we followed turned out to be Ryn here, formerly known as the student who disappeared, Elias Belrose,” Troy said, gesturing to me again.

“And just how exactly is that possible?” Dr Wilcott asked, and her skeptical look was shared by her colleagues. Their reaction should have sent my stomach plunging and my heart racing, but it didn’t. Instead, I got excited.

“Magic,” I said, trying not to grin like an idiot. I was going to have so much fun revealing the existence of magic to everyone. “You all know how I disappeared, right? Sucked into a weird fruit in the middle of a bunch of alien looking plants, with a humanoid plant-like alien among them?”

I got a round of hesitant nods from the faculty heads, so I continued. “The fruit was… well, essentially, a reproductive device…”

I went on to give a brief explanation of magic and how it worked, what a mage was and all that stuff. As I spoke, each set of eyebrows opposite me rose and rose, until I thought they were all going to fly off like moths or something.

“This is… quite the tale. I mean, really… part human, part plant?” Dr Richards said finally, clearly not believing me. Of course the sciences guy wouldn’t take me at my word. “It’s preposterous. We already determined that—“

“Do I have your permission for a demonstration?” I asked ignoring him and turning to the woman in charge, excitement rolling through me like thunder.

“Go ahead,” Wilcott said simply, clearly interested now. It was kinda weird how the head of the law college was the most interested in my magic.

With her go ahead, I allowed my plant half to come to the fore. My pale skin turned green and purple, soft and leafy, my hair had vines threaded through it, each one bearing flowers of bright magenta. A few green vines sprouted out of my arms, then wrapped around them, forcing me to take my big coat off in order to let them free. Wish I had control over that.

“Well, here’s the plant part,” I said simply, and with a twist of my wrist I summoned my dark magenta blades. “And here’s magic. These are blades made of solid energy, controlled by my mind. Here…”

I drifted one to each of the faculty heads, allowing them to drop to the table. “Careful, they’re sharp, but you can pick them up.”

They did so, tenderly of course. Dr Richards had a deep frown on his face, while his wife was smiling, her expression close to joy.

“They’re beautiful,” the head of the arts said, turning the blade over with delicate fingers. “You say this magic is versatile?”

“Very,” I agreed with a smile to match hers. “Here, look.”

With another gesture that I didn’t actually need to do, I used the flower petal spell. Tiny specks of bright energy flickered into existence above them, spinning quickly into delicate blue rose petals that rained down upon the five representatives of the faculty like winter’s first snow.

“Oh my word!” Dr Richards said, a smile breaking through his frown. He wasn’t smiling for the petals though, I could see him staring intently at the formation process, where my spell turned energy into matter, however temporary. What a nerd.

“Ma’am, if I may?” Jenna said, speaking up for the first time since she’d sat down. When she got a nod from her superior, the sentry continued, “She is more than just pretty spells… When we came through the gates, a group of ACS intercepted us with the intention of diverting the scouting team to the CEO. They became belligerent very quickly, but Ryn ah… lifted them into the air with magic and then slammed them into the ground. With them there, she secured them to the ground with what appeared to be vines that she magically grew for the purpose.”

“Yeah…” I nodded awkwardly, feeling my stomach clench up a little with anxiety. Here’s the part that would make them a little less happy about me. “I am essentially a one woman army… it’s honestly a little scary how much power I wield,” I told them truthfully.

“A one woman army with a shield of magic that is near unbreakable,” Troy added pointedly, giving the faculty a long stare.

“I see,” Wilcott, murmured, eyes boring into me with an unreadable expression. “Let us then take a moment to speak about your identity then. Why, exactly, are you a woman now, and how can we be sure that you are Elias Belrose?”

I winced, and I felt Grace’s fingers weave through mine. We shared a look, her eyes full of love and encouragement. Alright, I could do this. I could explain it.

Bolstered, I turned back to the five greying heads that awaited my answer. “I’m a woman because I am transgender. I should never have been a ‘man’” I told them, using air quotes when I said the word that had haunted me for most of my life.

“My mentor suspects that the fruit uh, optimised me, so to speak. When I was being converted into a mage, it must have realised my nature somehow and reconstructed my body to better suit my mind, soul or whatever. As for my identity… I don’t really know how to prove that absolutely. I have the ring, I know all my details that are probably in the system… all that stuff,” I shrugged, sort of helplessly. “I proved it to Grace by using an inside joke that we’d had… and just being me.”

“It’s true,” my girlfriend said from beside me, still holding my hand. “I only knew her for a short time before she was taken, but we were close. She isn’t exactly the same though, she’s happier and more confident now. A lot has happened, but I’ll vouch for her until the end of time and back.”

We waited for long moments after her speech, and my stomach did its best to bury itself in the floor. They had to believe us, they had to!

Finally, and unexpectedly, Dr Wilcott gave us a wry smile, steepling her fingers and leaning back, “That won’t be necessary. I am still being showered in blue flower petals after all. Magic is rather obviously, if confoundingly, real. I expect Dr Richards and his college will have a lot of work ahead of them.”

“Indeed,” Science Santa chuckled, giving me a mock scowl. “You’ve given me quite the headache already.”

“You… believe me?” I blinked, more than a little surprised.

“We do, and I’m sure you’ll continue to prove yourself,” Dr Wilcott said kindly. Her expression changed to one of wry amusement as though a thought had just occurred to her. “From what we have seen and heard of you, the fact that you did not march in and assert control over the whole campus through overwhelming force speaks volumes as to your character, at the very least.”

“Ah… yeah,” I said sheepishly. I felt so strange about having the power of a minor goddess, at least compared to the mere mortals in front of me, people that had once held so much power over me. I didn’t need them at all now. I could leave Avonside and live my life however I wanted, then die of old age in the distant future. I was here because I wanted to help, and because I had friends here.

“Thank you Ryn. We’ll shelve the discussion of you and magic for now, in favour of getting to the end of this report some time before the end of the day,” she said, concluding my role in things and turning to Troy with a gesture that he keep going.

He nodded thanks and began where he left off, which was Fennimore capturing James and the following interaction we’d had with him. Recounting what the awful man had said about his future aspirations and intentions had grey heads huddling and whispering furiously.

There were a lot of questions after that, and both Troy and myself gave them as many details as we could about Fennimore and his cohort of evil. We went over his rise to power, his vicious strike on the obrec and his extermination of rival mage covens. They were particularly horrified when I mentioned his war crimes.

Eventually we moved on from Fennimore, and Troy told them about how we’d decided to travel to Millowhall, which prompted a brief explanation of magitech and then warlocks. When we got to the confrontation with the steel one, Dr Richards grew excited, asking a lot of questions about how it had moved, behaved and looked, before the leader lady cut him off.

Santa’s silence lasted until Troy told them of the ring builder ruin, the old man practically jumping out of his seat with excitement when we mentioned the Umare tech we’d brought with us. He of course went pale and quiet when we described the fate of the Umare, how they had committed mass suicide rather than face some terrible catastrophe. I tried not to react when Troy failed to mention the red nightmare and just how horrifying that catastrophe must have been.

He did talk about what had happened to Grace though, and the problems that had arisen because of that as well as the eventual solution we found with Ollinfer. He also told of the escape from Fennimore’s goons and then our reunion at the inn in Millowhall.

The whole Millowhall saga had them excited, and in the economic’s guy’s case, quiet amusement when I described the chaos I’d caused in the wood market there. Dr Wilcott was the one to interrupt and move things forward again. “You have metals? How much?”

“So much, ma’am,” I grinned. Seeing these old people getting excited at my hard work was a fulfilling thing. Each of us in the order had gone through so much to deliver this news, these sorely needed materials. Seeing it appreciated had me so happy. “Want me to go and get some?”

“Ah… that won’t be—“ I didn’t wait for her to finish, popping into my grove in a flash and rushing for the happy tree. I quickly grabbed a few ingots of various metals with my telekinesis, then teleported back into the lecture hall. “Here!” I said breathlessly, dumping the heavy lumps of metal onto their table with a series of loud thumps.

“Well, isn’t that handy,” Dr Leslie laughed, picking one of them up and promptly dropping it again with a surprised groan when she realised how heavy it was.

Troy had an actual list of what we had, as well as a list of what I could grow, which he produced for them. Watching their eyes widen and widen as they realised just how much we could do for Avonside had me grinning unashamedly. Like, we could give them everything from metal and other raw materials, to coffee and chocolate. Even Jenna was looking excited when I mentioned the coffee thing. It was also about now that I realised how much work I was going to be doing in the near future.

After the excitement died down, Troy continued his report with the Stonechasers and their merchant caravan, camped out in the woods and waiting for word that they could continue. The prospect of allies had the faculty heads breathing easy, and the prospect of an outside trade partner had them excited. Especially the economics guy, who was a little disappointed when we couldn’t immediately start talking numbers and other businessy merchant shit with him. I told him not to worry, Jerril would happily go on and on about it in detail.

We also went into more detail about the obrec, their culture and some of the other races we’d seen during our visit to Millowhall. I was fond of the small fuzzy people, personally… but that was probably just me. They were cute, okay?

Dr Wilcott finally called an end to things when it became clear this was not going to be a one-meeting kinda deal.

“It appears that your mission was a resounding success Troy, well done,” she told him happily. “Is there anything else we should know before we end? We have matters of your safety within the campus to consider, obviously. The ACS will be trying their thuggery again soon, I imagine.”

“There is the matter of Kit, one of the members of the original team,” Troy said, motioning to the small girl. “She was also transformed into a mage, and similarly to Ryn, is transgender, hence the radically different new look. She is new to magic and will be studying with their mentor for a long while, but I don’t expect it will be long before she is a competent mage in her own right.”

“Understood,” the older woman smiled, and turning her attention to Kit, she said, “Congratulations on your… transition, that’s the right word isn’t it?” pausing she glanced over at me as well, “Both of you, actually.”

“Oh, um… thank you,” Kit mumbled, smiling down at Dr Wilcott’s feet. Goodness, the girl was so adorable. Really needed to work on that confidence with her though. “Yes it is. The right word, I mean… transition...”

“Good, good, and just so we’re clear, the university’s policies on LGBT students and staff still apply, you are welcome and protected here. The punishments for those that infringe on your rights might have changed a little, but rest assured that if you find yourselves the target of discrimination, please take it up with student services,” she said, glancing between both Kit and I, then hesitantly to Grace.

Ah, she’d picked up in us had she? Guess the hand holding had been a giveaway. Hadn’t caught on to the master of stealth himself though. “Thank you,” I told her gratefully, speaking for all of us.

“There is one other… matter,” Troy said hesitantly, taking a deep breath.

“Oh?” the steel eyed law professor asked, raising an eyebrow.

“While we were out there, we named ourselves the Order of Eleos and did our best to spread good words about ourselves and Avonside,” Troy began, making eye contact with each faculty head. “Going forward, I intend to grow this order with people from Avonside, as well as others. My goal is to create a strong independent military, diplomatic and humanitarian aid force that would help further the interests of Avonside, as well as general compassion on the ring. There is a lot of hardship out there, and I’d like to try and do something to help with that.”

“Interesting,” Dr Wilcott mused, stroking her chin thoughtfully as she gazed at us. “You’d continue as you have, I assume? But with more teams, better gear and training? Where would you be based? I’m not personally opposed to the idea, I can see how you would act as a check against the ACS, especially with magic at your side.”

“Exactly,” he said, and for once I could see a little nervousness from him. “We would of course use our own funds to maintain the order, I have no desire to take much needed resources from Avonside. As for the ACS… I feel as though they might be a little… outdated, if you take my meaning.”

“That, is the understatement of the century,” Jenna grumbled from her seat, earning muttered agreement from the other faculty heads. I couldn’t help a smile. These five were a hell of a lot cooler than I’d been expecting, if I was honest. Something told me that the rest of their colleagues wouldn’t be so cool.

Wilcott acknowledged Jenna’s words with a slight smile before speaking again, “I won’t lie to you Troy, you’ll have to fight for recognition from the full council, if you even plan to wait for approval. The five of us here are those I could gather on short notice and that I thought would be the most receptive to you and your group. I am playing political games here, holding this meeting before they can get word of your return. The council as a whole is as fractured and argumentative as ever, barely any more use than the CEO. Which, of course, there’s a very good chance you may have to physically fight the ACS if the CEO takes issue with you.”

“We’re well aware of that,” Troy chuckled darkly. “Thank you ma’am, you’ve been far more receptive than I had dared hope. To everything, really.”

“Like I said, others won’t be,” she warned. “The university is divided in many different ways. I’m hoping that you will shake up the tense status quo, preferably in our favour,” she told us, gesturing to her four colleagues. “I know an opportunity for progress and change when I see one Troy, and you and your proposed order are it.”

Even as the meeting ended, Troy was dragged off to sort out a bunch of different things. The obrec ranger would be returning to his caravan, along with Jenna, William and a number of militia. The two sentries apparently knew a route that the caravan could take to get to Avonside, and along with the militia would be their escort into Avonside.

Grace and I were both given phones that would work on the university network, so that we could be contacted when the obrec arrived. Which meant that for several hours we had nothing to do.

We stood outside the room, Grace, Adam, Kit and I, just staring at each other. We were finally home. Now what?

“I guess… we should go and find the others…” Grace sighed at last, her expression mirroring the unease I felt in my gut.

“The others… you mean um, the ones who have rings like you?” Kit asked hesitantly. “Should I go…?”

“No, you’re welcome with us Kit,” I said reassuringly, putting an arm around her shoulder.

“I hope they’re okay,” Adam murmured, his usually characteristic cheer replaced with apprehension. Shit, if even he was worried…

“Do we even know where they are?” I asked, glancing up and down the now deserted hallway we were in. “I feel like randomly wandering around the campus could cause some trouble.”

“I could just text them and ask,” Adam offered, getting his phone out of his pocket. Damn, it had been so long since I’d been in a place with tech that I’d forgotten about phones.

He did so, asking Duncan where everyone was at these days. When he got a reply, we were surprised to learn that they all still had the small classroom that we’d been given at the start. I wonder what they’d done with the place since I left.

Just the thought of seeing them all again had me feeling like I’d just chugged a gallon of ice-cold brine. It was one thing to convince a bunch of old people who wanted things from me, and it was another thing to convince my old friends, people who’d known me as Eli the wimpy dude who liked pillows and helping people.

I had a trick up my sleeve, but it would be painful. So painful in fact, that I hadn’t used it in the faculty meeting. Not even Grace had seen it, although she knew I’d worked on the spell. I shuddered, turning my awareness outwards again as we began to walk towards our old room. Grace’s hand found mine as we walked, and I honestly couldn’t tell who was hanging on tighter.

Signs of change were everywhere within the university. Jerry-rigged fixes to things that the maintenance people could no longer get parts for. Rooms that used to be classrooms had their windows covered with paint or cardboard to give those who now lived within some privacy. The doors to those rooms were often decorated with art or other signs of customisation, an attempt to liven up the unfortunate living conditions. A few had signs of damage that had since been repaired.

Garden areas within the campus now grew fruit, vegetables and herbs, while weeds grew between newly formed cracks in the pavement. Administration posters were everywhere, older ones displaying water rationing rules, while newer ones were recruiting for various new organisations. I saw a vandalised and torn poster asking for volunteers to join the militia, a ragged blue line painted across it.

Signs of strife and division were everywhere, now that I was looking. Broken windows that had been replaced with wood boards, the shattered glass left to sit below its old home. I saw a few bullet holes in walls, now filled with caulk.

There were people out and about though, and we passed an old student common room that had people chilling inside it, watching a movie on a projector. One of the campus cafes was giving out food for some form of currency I didn’t recognise, people sitting at tables and chatting.

“Grace! Oh my god, Grace!” someone called, and we all stopped to see a girl getting up from one of the tables. She looked like your average pretty college girl, dark eyes, middling height and brown hair, except with the addition of a toolbelt at her hip. She rushed up and threw her arms around Grace in a quick hug, before stepping back to stare in awe. “We thought you’d died out there!”

“Sandy!” Grace exclaimed. “We almost did, I lost count of the number of times sketchy shit happened. What are you doing now? You have a toolbelt!”

“Yeah, I had to put down the clippers and pick up a wrench unfortunately,” Sandy said, with a wry laugh. “A nice haircut isn’t exactly top priority these days. Speaking of which… your hair has changed, in fact… you’re taller!”

“Long story,” my girlfriend said, glancing at me.

That drew her friend’s gaze to me, then to our joined hands. “Who’s this?” she asked with a smile for me, seeming genuine.

“This is Ryn. She was uh… it’s a long story…” Grace sighed, scratching at the back of her neck as she glanced at me.

“I’m the guy who went missing during the first week,” I told her calmly. It was going to get out anyway, may as well start it off with my own spin on the story. “I’ve obviously changed… there’s a lot out there. It’s a long story.”

“Well… nice to meet you, Ryn,” Sandy said slowly, a slight smile on her lips. “Will I hear the story at some point, because if I remember correctly, descriptions of you were a little different to how you look now. Must be a wild story.”

“It involves magic, an alternate plane of existence and ancient aliens,” I said with as close to a poker face as I could manage.

She rolled her eyes. “Ha ha, real funny.”

I just grinned. Yes, I was a brat, no I wasn’t going to tell her that it was the truth, at least… not in so many words.

The conversation turned back to life at Avonside, Sandy explaining that she’d joined up with the maintenance corps. They were the group responsible for… well, fixing shit, but also getting things working again, hooking everything up to the new power and internet grids, that sort of thing.

She apparently loved it, something she never would have discovered about herself had she continued to go through the same hairdresser course that Grace had been in. They were teaching those like her on the go, usually in an apprenticeship-like scenario, with classes thrown in every now and then. It was kinda cool actually.

“We do need to get going though, Sandy,” Grace said after a few minutes, gesturing to the waiting Adam and Kit. “Gotta go find some of our people.”

“Right, sorry! Don’t let me keep you, but hit me up with a text later!” the energetic mechanic said happily.

“Oh, speaking of…” Grace blurted, holding a hand up to stall her friend. “They gave me a new phone, my old one got shot by a robot. Let me give you my new number, one second.”

“Uh, what?” Sandy blinked.

“She isn’t joking,” Adam laughed, miming the action of the robot when it had shot at the phone, making laser gun sounds. “She used it as a distraction. Dunno why the robot hated her phone that much, but it drilled that thing good. Then a magical goat chick with a sword sliced it up like some movie character.”

“You’re fucking with me,” the girl said, squinting at him suspiciously.

“Nope,” Grace said casually, then read out her number to Sandy, who scrambled to get it down. Numbers exchanged, we bid her goodbye and moved to leave.

Aha! My time to shine! I pretended to drop my own phone right as I stepped away, but before it could hit the ground, I caught it with my telekinesis.

“Oops!” I laughed, pulling the phone back up to my eyes without actually putting a finger on it. I turned it around, pretending to inspect it for damage. “Nope, it’s still good. Magic is so useful like that!”

Sandy’s eyes were as big as dinnerplates as she stared at me, and I tugged on Grace’s hand to get us moving. “See ya Sandy, good luck with the wrench thing!”

We continued on, all four of us trying not to laugh. The look on that girl’s face… oh my goodness.

“She’s going to tell people about it, you know that right?” Grace asked with a grin, shaking her head at me.

“Yup, but that’s kinda the point,” I winked.

She frowned, raising an eyebrow in question.

“Rumours,” Kit murmured, little brows furrowed as thoughts whirled behind her big brown eyes. “If people know she has magic, combined with what happened at the gate… people will realise she’s dangerous and they can’t just mess with her. Defense by intimidation.”

“Yup,” I agreed, happy that someone had realised my plan.

“You’re sneaky as shit, Ryn!” Adam exclaimed, giving me a look of respect. “Nicely done.”

“Or they’ll start a witch hunt,” Grace frowned, looking troubled.

I shrugged. “Then I’ll just stand in the middle of them with my shield up and wait for them to get bored. They don’t have magic or magitech rifles, they can’t do shit. We both know my shield is strong enough to stop bullets and way more.”

“True enough…” Kit agreed, and a wistful expression flitted briefly across her adorable face for a moment. “Can’t wait to be like that… but back to Sandy, I’m surprised she believed you when you said who you used to be.”

“She probably didn’t,” Adam chuckled, shoving his hands into his pockets as a blast of cold mountain wind rolled over us. “At least until she dropped her phone and pulled that magic stunt. No one who’s good at talking to people is going to call you a liar to your face like that.”

“Yup,” Grace said, glancing back at the cafe before we turned a corner and it was lost from sight. “Sandy is always about being happy and avoiding mentioning the bad stuff at all costs. Means that she’s a fun person to hang with, but she isn’t really there when times are hard.”

“Not the worst character flaw in the world,” I murmured, thinking back to my friends from high school. They had done nothing but bitch and moan about everything, as though they were incapable of happiness. I’d take a Sandy over them, any day.

Slowly, we got through the campus, walking down half remembered pathways that had changed in the time we were gone. It was like seeing an old friend who’d changed drastically since elementary school. You could see the ravages of life in their wrinkles and scars, in the way they carried themselves or the styles they wore. Avonside was different now, hardened against a world that was far less hospitable than the last. I just hoped its core hadn’t become rotten.

The door to our old room had been decorated since we’d left, the names of everyone painted onto it with different colours to create a rainbow. My name was there too, along with the words “Rest in peace, we miss you Eli.” I felt my heart clench at the sight, and suddenly tears were collecting at the corners of my eyes.

“Fuck,” I squeaked, coming to a halt as I stared at it, trying desperately to control myself.

“That’s… new,” Grace murmured, pulling me against her side.

I felt Adam’s hand come down on my shoulder and give it a squeeze, “Yeah. Wasn’t there when we left. We got your back though Ryn, it’ll be fine.”

“Thanks,” I sniffled, playing with the lapels of my coat as I took some deep breaths in an attempt to steady myself. I don’t know why that had hit me as hard as it did. Maybe it was the way they had obviously cared about me, despite thinking I was gone.

“We ready to go in?” Grace asked, giving me a gentle, loving look. Her eyes were so green, a vibrant grass green with flecks of brown and blue within. I loved her eyes.

Grabbing her by the back of the head, I pulled her down to my level and kissed her. It was a hard kiss, fierce and passionate as I attempted to drown out my roiling, anxiety filled gut.

Parting from her with a gasp, I gave her a grin I definitely didn’t feel and nodded, “Yeah.”

With that, Adam went first, opening the door and stepping through to hold it for us. Kit hovered behind us, the only one here who wasn’t part of our original group. She was going to get included whether she liked it or not though.

“Hello?” Adam called. “Anyone home?”

“Adam!” A flying bundle of dark emerald hair flew at the tall dude, wrapping shorter arms around him with a giddy laugh. Melody grinned up at him, her chin probably painfully sticking into his chest. She looked the same as ever, plus a few inches of brown at the roots of her hair. I guess dark green hair dye was in short supply now.

“I can’t believe you’re here, that you’re even alive!” she exclaimed, then growled. “And what the hell took you all so long, you were meant to be out for like, a few months, not half a year! We were so worried, I swear—” she blinked, her eyes finally landing on Kit and me. I guess we were the two shortest members of the group. She smiled and let Adam go, a blush filling out her cheeks. “New people, hey… I swear I’m normal.”

I laughed, the happiness at seeing her alive and happy outweighing my anxiety for a moment. “Hey Melody,” I said with a tentative smile.

“Wow… I mean, hello, nice to meet you…” she said her eyes roaming all over my face, then they dove bashfully to the floor before moving on to Kit. “You too. Nice to meet both of you.”

Grace and I exchanged a look, but didn’t otherwise comment. We could get to my identity later. For now, we moved into the room and found the other three. Kelsey sat on a worn couch, legs crossed and long blonde hair up in a bun on the top of her head. She gave Grace and Adam a huge smile, waving to both of them and offering greetings.

Duncan went to straight to Adam and pulled him into a bro hug that looked almost painful it was so intense. I did not miss that type of thing at all.

Then there was Bray. Short, stocky bray with his curly brown hair and big stupid grin. I felt a pang of heartache shoot through my chest. God I’d missed him. He’d just stood up from where he’d been sitting in a pile of my pillows, beaming happily at Grace and Adam. “You really are back! I was ready to uh… add your names to the door.”

“Morbid,” Adam said with an awkward smile, very obviously trying not to look at me.

Bray just shrugged, then his eyes narrowed. “Grace, did something happen? You look different?”

“Ah… yeah,” she nodded, her hand trailing awkwardly down her other arm. “Magic… literally.”

“No… I think it’s just the different coloured hair,” Kelsey said as all eyes turned to my girlfriend. “The red is gone, there’s green in there now.”

“Oh my god, did you find hair dye out there? Please tell me you got some green for me!” Melody chirped, flopping back down on the couch with her girlfriend, who immediately put an arm around her.

“Ah… no,” Grace shook her head again. “I’m not joking, it really was magic… look.”

Her skin went rigid and rough, shifting and changing as it became the bark of her plant form. I smiled as I saw the little cracks between the plates of bark, where she glowed gently from within, swirling green and blue light changing places from one moment to the next.

“Holy shit!” Duncan blurted, stepping quickly backwards, only for his foot to catch on a pillow, sending his huge frame crashing down to the floor.

“Wow!” Melody blurted at the same time that Kelsey choked and began to sputter, smacking herself on the chest with a fist as she began to cough.

Bray froze, staring at her with utter shock, face going white. “You said that a tree person killed Eli… now you are one?”

“Uh, actually no… it was the fruit,” I said into the quiet that followed. Slowly, I raised my hand to show them the ring. “And… it didn’t kill me.”

The silence before I spoke morphed into something that was truly the absence of sound. It was like everyone had stopped breathing. Nobody moved, nobody spoke. All of them staring at either me, or the ring on my finger.

“No way,” Melody breathed, breaking the tense silence, eyes wide and staring. “Really?”

“Yes… I—“ I started, but I was interrupted, Bray hissing with rage. “What the fuck is this? Is this someone’s idea of a joke?”

No no no, Bray had to believe me. Gulping to keep rising bile down, I shook my head emphatically, “No! The fruit was a… a teleportation device. It was magic though, and it teleported me to somewhere and then it changed me… into this. Into a woman.”

“No!” he shouted, taking a step towards me, tears filling his eyes. “No! You’re not Eli! You’re not my friend! You’re all… you’re all…”

I could feel it slipping, the moment. He was sliding into anger, fear and disbelief. He needed to believe me! I felt tears of my own threaten, my breathing quickening with dismay. His fists were clenched so tight, white at the knuckles and shaking. Was he really… was he really going to try and hit me? Would revealing my illusion of my old self even work here, or would it solidify the supposed trickery in his mind?

“You’re gay!” I yelled, blurted really, as my desperation addled mind clutched at straws. “You’re gay and your favourite type of porn is watching a short twink guy get spit roasted by two huge muscled dudes! You like it even more if they have tattoos and stuff!”

I was breathing heavily as I finished, my expression morphing into one of horror at the embarrassing secret I’d just blurted to everyone in the room. I watched my best friend go bone white, jaw dropping open as he stared at me. Really, properly stared. Wait, I think he was starting to believe me.

Before I could help myself, I said one more thing, something silly and completely irrelevant. “You have a big problem with farting when you’re running.”

“He does,” a feminine voice mumbled into the room, and I turned to see Kelsey nodding. “I try to stay upwind when we’re on our morning run, but I can still hear it sometimes.”

“It’s when he’s had beans the night before,” I said, feeling my face heating rapidly. Oh god what was happening? What the fuck was I saying?

I turned back to look at Bray, willing him to believe me. Please for the love of big throbbing cocks or whatever you’re into Bray, believe me. I watched him blink, once, twice, then he closed his eyes and let out a long, sharp whistling exhale.

“Dude…” Bray said in the gentlest of whispers. “You said you’d never tell anyone…”

“Yeah well, that’s what happens when you act like a fuckwit,” I pouted, struggling with a wave of hope that crashed into me like a bun that wasn’t watching where it was binkying.

“How?” he demanded, hitting me with an intense stare like he was trying to delve into my eyes to find my soul within.

“I’m trans…” I said gently, anxiously pulling at my hair for comfort. “I knew I was trans since forever, but I was too scared to do anything about it. I probably would have never done anything. Then the fruit happened. It pulled me into… another place, where it held me, changed me into something else, but also giving me the body I needed at the same time.”

“It’s true,” Grace said, stepping up beside me again like the absolutely fucking angelic girlfriend that she was. “When we found her, she cracked a joke at me that had only been between us. She’s proven who she was over and over again as we travelled the ring outside these mountains.”

Bray lunged for me, almost without warning. His arms went around me, tight even as I felt his body shaking with emotion. "I can't believe it," he said in a choked voice. "I mean, I can… but I can't. Oh god."

We were the same height now, but when I brought my arms up to desperately return the hug, I found him so much bigger anyway. He was stronger now, a lot stronger, I could feel it in the muscles of his back and arms.

Still, this was undeniably him, my friend Bray. We might both be a little different now, but I still felt that connection to him. The bond of a friendship that could be picked right back up as though nothing had happened.

We both had tears in our eyes when we parted, and holding me for a second at arm's length, he gave me a watery smile. "You were hotter before. Sorry."

"No… pretty sure this is an improvement," Grace chuckled from behind me.

“You look like a magical girl with that hair,” Melody offered, eyeing it up with an odd kind of hunger.

“Yeah, my eyes are magenta too, if you didn’t notice,” I said with a little smile in her direction.

She snorted. “Oh I noticed. You’re as hot as one too.” Kelsey pinched her, earning a squeal and teeth sinking into her shoulder. They glared at each other for a few moments before Kelsey cracked a grin, saying in a stage whisper, “Isn’t she though? Holy fuck! Do you think we can get her name?”

“Her name is Ryn,” Grace frowned, stepping up to put a protective arm around me. “Back off you two…”

“Foursome?” Melody asked innocently.

“Oh my god,” a tiny voice coughed from behind us all, and we turned to see Kit staring at the lot of us like we were a few terrifying giggles away from being thrown in an asylum.

“Sorry, sorry,” Melody laughed, a huge grin taking over her face. “Sorry… just kinda giddy. High on happiness. That’s really you in there uh… deadname?” she asked, actually saying the word deadname.

I nodded, returning her smile. “New and improved. I can even do magic now.”

“Real?” Kelsey asked, excitement exploding out of her. “You gotta show us!”

“Stand up then,” I told them both with an overly casual wave of my hand.

The two girls squinted at me suspiciously, but otherwise did as I’d asked. Bray was busy staring between Grace and I, his expression unreadable. I hoped that I could distract him from my relationship with her by wowing him with magic instead. Best to tackle that issue later. Plus the buns, I had a feeling that he’d love the buns.

Carefully, I twisted my magic around everyone in the room, and with a burst of magical might, took us over into my grove. There was another pause, silence whispering through the eight of us like my telekinesis had just done, before Melody screamed, “Coooooool! Oh my god, this is so fucking cool!”

She knelt on the ground with a wide smile, raising her hands to the happy little tree like she was praising god. “That… is so cool,” she said finally, regaining a tiny mote of her composure. Not that she really had any to begin with. If she were a car, her pedal would be welded to the floor, and if she ever slowed down it would be as loud and fiery as a movie car crash.

The other three had much different reactions, from profuse swearing on Bray's part to a sort of strangled squeak-groan from Duncan. Kelsey stood frozen, eyes blown wide as they tracked slowly across the scene.

"What is this place?" she finally asked, turning to me somewhat fearfully.

"This is my grove, my sort of… pocket dimension and seat of power. Many of the plants around us are actually the instructions for spells I can cast. That tree over there, with the crazy twisted trunk, that one and all the others like it let me summon a shield of energy," I explained, trying to be as calm and gentle as possible.

"And the big fuck-off tree?" Bray asked, staring up into its canopy with awe.

"That's our home," I grinned. "It's like my wizard's tower or whatever."

“It has baths, and showers,” Grace offered helpfully. "And private rooms for everyone with big comfy beds."

“Wait, really?” Bray asked, a slight smile touching his lips. “Oh man, I— what is that? Is that a giant bunny?”

I followed his gaze, finding Cream and a bun I didn't recognize. They watched us curiously, standing up on their hind legs and their little noses twitching. Goodness, they were cute.

“Uh, yeah… they’re kinda like my familiars,” I smiled, feeling my soul relax as everyone finally seemed to properly believe me. Well, Duncan hadn’t said anything, but he only had eyes for his bromantic partner in crime.

“Let’s go have a bath,” Grace suggested, making shooing motions towards the tree. “And a tour, but I really need a wash after all that walking and debriefing.”

"I'd like to de-brief you," I muttered, just loud enough for only her to hear. Her blush was adorable.

There was round of agreement on the bath thing, and then we were moving, the four newcomers to my grove openly gawking around at the beauty that I had created with magic, a whole lot of study and a boat load of hard work.

“Oh by the way,” I said casually, sidling up to Bray. “We brought you like, literal tons of metal.”

“Why the hell didn’t you lead with that?” he exclaimed in mock outrage. “If there’s anything more Eli-like than forgetting about the importance of beautiful, shiny metal, then I haven’t seen it.”

“It’s Ryn now, actually,” I said with a grin. “Rynadria Belrose.”

“Oh, sorry… Ryn-like,” he said, giving me a hesitant, apologetic smile.

“I got some alien pillows too.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

“So um, yeah,” I said with a silly grin on my face, gesturing with a limp hand at the piles of crap in the storage room. “That’s all the stuff I have.”

“You say that like you somehow don’t have enough or something,” Bray squeaked, eyes blown wide like a little boy confronted with a room full of lego sets. “Do you have any tools?”

“Uh, yeah… in that crate over there,” I nodded, pointing to the box in question. Dang, I really hadn’t realised how much stuff I was buying until just now. Giving Bray a tour of all the materials we had on hand had really driven home the magnitude of what we’d acquired.

He wandered over and lifted the lid, peering inside. “Damn, you just… piled all that in there, huh?”

“We tried to keep it all safe but… it’s hard when you have a lot of stuff and not much space to put it,” I said sheepishly, feeling bad for all the little tools. They hadn’t even gotten padding, but I guess they were flying economy so they just had to deal with it.

He gave a grunt as he leaned into the crate, picking up a hammer and big chunky chisel. Tools in hand, he wandered back over to the stack of iron ingots and placed the chisel down point first on the corner of one. “Can I?” he asked, turning to me with puppy dog eyes.

“I’m not entirely sure what you’re doing, but go ahead, I guess,” I shrugged. The stuff was for him anyway, I didn’t really mind what happened to it once I gave it to him and his metalworker friends.

“Chipping off a piece so I can get a look at it,” he told me in a mumble as he readied the hammer. Now that I was looking, I noticed he’d gained a bunch of muscle. Guess he needed it for working metal without adequate power for the fancier tools. Maybe we could get Claih to make some magically powered versions, or even convert the ones we had already. I filed the thought away for later.

The hammer came down with a ringing crack, and a piece of metal pinged off to bounce across the ground. Bray followed it, picking it up and examining it with intense interest. Then he was muttering about carbon content and crystalline structure and I was completely lost.

“Will you be okay down here?” I asked as he went back to the tool crate to rummage again. “I’m going to head up and see how the others are doing.”

“Yeah, yeah…” he said absently, frowning as he picked up a tool I didn’t recognise.

“If you need help with something, just ask one of the buns,” I said, waving and walking backwards in the direction of the stairs.

“Wait, ask a… a bun?” he blinked in surprise, halting in his ransacking of the tool box.

“Yeah uh, oh, here’s one now,” I said as a charcoal grey bun hopped down the stairs to stand next to me. “Hey there,” I cooed, reaching down to gently pat it. “You’re Smoke, right?”

The bun nodded, then turned to Bray and waved. Dang, the things were displaying more and more intelligence by the day.

To Bray, I said, “Bray, meet Smoke, your new assistant! Ask… um, them? Whatever you need.”

“Right… uh, hello Smoke, nice to meet you,” Bray said with a bemused smile. To both of our surprise, the little bun gave my friend the “sup” nod.

“You’re already best buds! See you both later!” I laughed, rushing back up the stairs before Bray could wrangle me into explaining the buns.

We’d gone down to the lowest basement level that I had created a while back for storage, with the others going up to use the baths. I’d run up and have a quick shower, then join everyone. Was I nervous about what everyone thought? No, of course not. Definitely not.

Geez, I wasn’t even convincing in my thoughts. Truth was, I was scared that my mundane friends would start to think of me differently now that I had powerful magic or whatever. Like seriously, I’d be terrified of me if I were Bray or Melody or whatever.

On my way up the tree, a quick glance revealed Adam and Duncan catching up in the guy’s dorm, and I gave them a quick wave before I continued.

I found Grace, Kit, Melody and Kelsey all hanging out in the girl’s common room. They were all sprawled out in one of the couch nooks we’d set up. A little square of couches with a coffee table in the middle. Moving on autopilot, I wandered over to Grace and flopped into her lap like a lazy bun. So much for showering I guess. I’d do that in a second, I needed my girlfriend time. Recharging my cuddle batteries.

“We need lifts,” I grumbled as I laid my head down on her shoulder, cuddling in close and closing my eyes for a moment. She felt so strong and safe. I always knew I could go to her and she would hold me while I felt small.

“Uh, Ryn,” Grace murmured, her tone that of a warning. At the same time on the couch opposite, Melody gave an excited gasp while Kelsey exclaimed, “Whoa, hold on!”

Oh. Darn.

I opened my eyes and lifted my head, first looking at the two other girls, then back up at my girlfriend. I opened and closed my mouth a few times, unable to figure out what to say, and seeing that, Grace gave a groan.

With a sheepish shrug at Melody and Kelsey, she fought to hide a happy little grin. “Yeah… we um, got together.”

“That’s so cute,” Melody whispered, like she was trying not to startle a tiny bird.

Kelsey turned and kissed her girlfriend on the cheek. “You’re cute too,” she smiled, then turned back to us, expression turning inquisitive. “Is it okay if we ask how long, how did it happen?”

“Don’t know about Grace, but it started for me the night we got dragged to this ring,” I replied with a tinge of embarrassment. “I thought she was so damn cool, and we were building a really great friendship. Obviously I uh… wasn’t to her tastes at that point, so… yeah. I just kinda resigned myself to quietly crushing on her.”

“Wait, really,” Grace asked, wrapping her arms around me. I glanced up at her and nodded, feeling silly and a little small. “That’s so precious,” she sighed happily, leaning in to give me a little kiss. “I remember thinking you were pretty great. I didn’t really consider you an option though, like you said.”

My embarrassment was replaced with a grin that might have been accused of being cocky. “Fast forward a few months and I took off my scarf and you saw my new face.”

“Ah… yeah,” she laughed, her cheeks gaining a dusting of pink. “Jeez, I’ve grown a little used to it by now, but damn… you really are beautiful Ryn.”

“Thank you,” I preened, wiggling happily in her lap for emphasis.

“Oh no, her ego grows,” my girlfriend said with another laugh. “You’re also a massive fucking brat, so don’t get too excited.”

“This just gets better and better,” Melody beamed, cuddling up closer to Kelsey. “I bet they have amazing sex.”

That had Grace choking and sputtering, and me feeling like my cheeks could cook an egg. Off on the side couch, silent until now, Kit murmured, “If the volume is anything to go by, I’d say yes.”

“Hey!” I exclaimed as my cheeks became flame elementals. “I fixed the wall’s sound problem alright! No one can hear anything now!”

“Very interesting,” Melody smiled, giving Kelsey a pointed look, which had the more mellow girl glancing up at the ceiling for a moment as she joined the blushing squad.

“I mean, you’re both welcome to stay here,” I said tentatively. “My plan is to let any of our friends stay in here. It’s safe, no one can hurt you and it’s got everything you’d ever need.”

“Except internet,” Melody commented with a wry grin.

I opened my mouth to agree, when something occurred to me. There had to be a way to send some sort of magical signal out. If I could have a converter hidden in Avonside that temporarily converted electrical signals into magical ones, I could send it to my grove and convert it back.

“Hey Kit, have you seen anything in the books about sending magical signals between realms?” I asked, turning to the small girl curled up on the third couch. She’d gotten a blanket from somewhere since the conversation had started and was now firmly wrapped in it, her little head poking out the top.

“Yeah, actually,” Kit said after a moment’s thought. “Some guy like fifty years ago did some research on it. It was part of what Esra has been working on. They got simple signals through, but since they were looking at trying to teleport from a grove to a specific point on the ring, they only regarded it as a first step.”

“We’d need to find an electrical engineer to help us, but I’m sure we could hook something up,” I said with growing excitement. That was where my interests really lay, with my magic and my plants. Unfortunately, I had to deal with keeping the real world from falling apart.

“I’ll start researching and asking Esra for help!” Kit exclaimed, a smile lighting her little face. “I can design a spell plant for us!”

Melody slowly put up a hand, having watched the back and forth with growing confusion and excitement. “Are you… saying what I think you’re saying?”

“That we might be able to get a connection to the Avonside internet, such as it is?” Kit asked, face split by a grin. “Because yeah, I think we can do it.”

“This place is heaven,” the excitable Melody sighed happily, leaning back into the couch. “I can live out all my wildest cottagecore fantasies.”

“You’re never going to get her to leave,” Kelsey laughed, giving me a look. “I hope you realise what you’ve done.”

I shrugged. “This place needs a little more living in, you know? Sometimes it’s just the buns here and they get lonely.”

“Oh no, you want me to pet and cuddle your big fluffy bunnies too, that sounds like real work!” Melody giggled, sort of jumping on Kelsey and wrapping her arms around her girlfriend’s neck.

“Babe, in all seriousness… I think it is actually a good idea for you to hang out in here,” Kelsey said cautiously, trying to read her girlfriend’s face as she spoke.

“How come, did that bastard come back?” Grace asked, her tone matching my own. I was a force to be reckoned with now, I wouldn’t hesitate to literally rip Melody’s stalker limb from limb.

Kelsey shook her head and grimaced. “We found out that when him and his mates fled Avonside, they didn’t actually end up dying. One of the more reluctant members came back, he said they had been found by some crazy religious group on the other side of the mountains. Now they’re all playing at holy crusader.”

“Jesus,” I groaned. “I know the ones you’re talking about. Man, this world is so fucked.”

“That’s why the order exists though, right?” Grace asked, pulling me tighter against her. “We’re going to fuck everyone up and force it to be a good place whether they like it or not.”

“Step one, dumpster some cops,” Kit murmured, which prompted the room to lose all of it’s serious air as we laughed. Kit was funny when she surprised us with her little quips.

She was right though. In a few hours we’d have to go back out and help deal with whatever situation the obrec caravan had gotten itself into, as well as figure out housing for them and… shit there was a lot to do.

Adam, Duncan, Grace and I all phased back into the real world inside the old room again, and I would be lying if I said I hadn’t slammed my entry shield down. I did not feel at all safe in Avonside right now, and I was starting to think I never would while the CEO and her goons were running around.

No one was in the room, luckily. They’d have been splattered if they were. My resolve to protect my friends and the people of Avonside from falling into some sort of dystopia was growing by the minute. These people deserved to live happily.

“My phone is blowing up,” Adam announced, pulling his phone from his pocket. He took a moment to read it, then swore loudly, “Fuck. Ryn, we gotta move, like right now. The CEO has her goons out there fucking with the obrec. They’ve fired warning shots.”

“Right. Up, we need to go up,” I ordered curtly, making for the door without waiting for the others to agree.

“Shouldn’t we go down?” I heard Duncan ask, but Adam shushed him. “Nah, just do what she says. She knows what she’s doing, even if she don’t have time to explain shit to us in the moment.”

Good boys.

Now I just had to take everyone to go and deal with the bad ones. I’d never been a fan of cops, it always seemed like so many of them, too many of them really, were in it for entirely the wrong reasons. Campus cops like these ones were especially bad, because as far as copping went, they were the lowest of the low. These guys were living their wildest power fantasies right now.

We made our way up the building and out onto the rooftop. We all turned to look out across the campus, where we could see the obrec stopped on the other side of the cleared land that surrounded Avonside. We couldn’t see the cops from here, but we could hear the occasional pop of a gun going off.

“Put your hands on my shoulders or arms,” I told them all, gathering my power for one of many new spells I was probably going to have to use.

They did so, and I gathered my energy for what was an extremely showy little spell I’d come up with. I needed to look the part, after all. Delicate filigree vines of a silver crystal wrapped their way about my arms, then out over the rest of my body, covering it in a dress that appeared to be both jewelry, fabric and plant all at once.

Grace caught my eye with a look of surprise. I winked, “I’ll wear it for you later, don’t worry.”

Next, I did something infinitely less delicate and far more expensive in raw magic. I tore space into little pieces, stomped on it, and then spat on it for good measure. Which is to say, I teleported myself and everyone touching me across the distance between the rooftop and the confrontation happening outside the campus.

We appeared out of sight of the campus security, rematerializing behind a pickup that appeared to have been converted for use in the fields.

Quietly, to my friends I told them, “Look menacing.” Then I stepped out, head held high and back straight. I needed to project the air of someone who was a badass bitch, someone who owned everything around her by default. I needed to become the feminine embodiment of authority.

The obrec stood behind the cover of their wagons, with a bunch of militia alongside them. Troy was there too, along with Mer, Otho, Claih and the others. Wait, shit… one of the obrec rangers looked wounded. I gave a small nod to them, then turned to the line of blue opposite.

Wow, I think they had brought out every single one of their number. They had definitely been recruiting, because there hadn’t been even half that many before we were schwooped to the ring. Bunch of idiots made the wrong choice.

Some had makeshift uniforms and weapons, but all of them looked ready to fight. In their center behind a small honour guard was the CEO herself, looking the part of a stereotypical older white person who thinks the world belongs to them. She also had a megaphone.

“Who are you?” she asked over the intervening space.

“I am Rynadria of the Order of Eleos,” I told her simply, using my voice amplification spell, then threw a question of my own at her. “Why are you arrayed against those who have been invited into Avonside?”

I heard a derisive snort come through the megaphone. “I gave no authorisation for them to enter, and I am the ultimate authority within the campus. Stand aside and let me handle this situation, then we will speak.”

My eyes rolled so hard I thought I might pull one of the muscles in there. “Speak about what? I’m not going to agree to work with you. You don’t seem to be entirely reasonable, at least from what I can see given your response to the obrec here.”

“I am in charge! I am the one who says who may enter and who may not!” she exclaimed angrily, stepping out from behind her guards. Okay, apparently I hit a sore spot there. She seemed to sort of collect herself, her expression turning from anger to beseeching. “I am trying to lead this university through troubled times. Once we have our feet under us, then we can open a dialogue with whatever natives may be on this world, teach them.”

That did not sound good. “Teach them what, exactly?” I asked suspiciously.

“Well, how a polite society functions for one thing, frequent bathing for another. If they can be trusted, we will also teach them a few of the simple luxuries that technology brings,” she said, like it should be obvious to me.

“That sounds suspiciously like imperialist, colonialist nastiness,” I told her, feeling slightly disgusted. Because that had worked out so well back on earth. Actually… technically it had, just not for any of the native peoples who got in the way by existing on the land already.

“They are savages out there!” she exclaimed, sweeping her hand towards the obrec caravan. “They attacked us, killed good people! We fought them off, of course, once the element of surprise wore off. Guns have a way of deciding that type of thing.”

“You are in for such a nasty surprise,” I laughed, shaking my head ruefully. Guns were nothing compared to the power I wielded.

“You are beginning to try my patience girl,” she said, irritation pouring out of her like sweat. “Get out of my way.”

“No,” I told her simply. “You get the fuck back into your office and stay out of my way.”

“Do you not see my security?” she asked with a disbelieving shake of her head, gesturing to the cops around her.

I grinned, rocking my hips to the side and placing a hand down on them. “You can bring your army, yeah… but your army can’t bring me down.”

“Shoot her,” she told the cop directly to her left. The man didn’t even hesitate, raising his rifle to his shoulder.

Right, negotiations were over I guess.

I floated a few feet into the air, for the sake of dramatics, my arm rising to point right back at the guy with the gun. He fired, the ringing rapport of his weapon coinciding with the dull thump of the round hitting my shield.

They stared at me, dumbfounded. Well, some of them. I noticed at least ten who looked ready to bolt. Guess they remembered what had happened a few hours ago.

Short of my battle to the death with the mages, I hadn’t killed anyone yet. I didn’t intend to start now, but I was not about to be merciful here. Magic gave me a lot of options, and many were less than pleasant. This next spell was one of them.

Still pointing at the man who’d just shot at me, I flicked a dark projectile at him, the bolt of energy flashing across the intervening space from one heartbeat to the next. The moment before it hit, the projectile shattered like crystal, each shard targeting a certain piece of his body.

Blood exploded out of him, splattering the fields behind as he flew backwards. Every bone in his body that one might consider not immediately important had shattered under the impact of the shards, his skin rupturing in a spiderweb pattern alongside it. His scream as he hit the ground was chilling even to me, and I watched with a queasy stomach as his body writhed, twitching and spasming in the dirt.

Push the emotions down Ryn, focus on the job. Do not falter.

More projectiles followed, flickering out from above my shoulders like I had shoulder mounted missile banks. Cops all down the line were hit at random, the crack of bone and the spatter of blood like some sort of hellish anthem against authoritarianism.

The spell was designed to shock, to terrify with the damage it did and the screams of pain. It was a spell designed to rout an enemy facing a foe whose power was beyond their comprehension. It was designed to deal with them.

What they didn’t realise as their comrades dropped like popped balloons full of gore and blood, was that the same spell was also working on stabilising its victims. This was probably my most complicated spell, and I’d designed it with more than a lot of Esra’s help. This was another example where I was sort of breaking magic a little, but to get around the body’s natural shield against raw magic, I was injecting growth energy into the shards.

Sort of like a trojan horse, the growth energy rode the shards into their bodies. When the shards evaporated, the growth energy spread through them, healing and repairing enough damage to keep them from dying. Yet another avenue of magic that we needed to look into further.

Guns began to fall to the ground all down the line, shouted pleas for mercy drifting out across the trampled field. I let up on my barrage, pausing to see what the CEO would do.

She was staring in horror at the carnage all about her. Slowly her eyes drifted back to meet mine, something like hate kindling within them. She said something, but the megaphone was in her hand, hanging limp at her side. She brought it to her lips slowly. “You’re a monster.”

“I am reality,” I shrugged. “Avonside does not have time to deal with your petty attempt to play dictator. None of your people will die, if it even matters to you.”

She stood silent for several seconds, megaphone drifting down slightly before she yanked it back up to her mouth. “What do you want of me then?”

“The same offer you gave all those who didn’t want to stay in Avonside under your rule,” I said, hoping that the faculty and everyone would be okay with me giving orders. “You and your goons may heal and prepare, then you must leave.”

“Leave?” she squeaked, eyes widening in fear. “Go out there into god knows what filth?”

“You had your chance to act like a decent leader and human,” I shrugged, pretending nonchalance while internally I desperately hoped she’d take the offer. Seeing that spell in action had me slightly nauseous and I really wasn’t in a hurry to deploy it again.

It took her a long time to respond, turning to deliberate with one of her lieutenants. At least, I assumed that was what the big silly blue hat was about. Finally, she turned back and lifted the megaphone once more. “I accept your terms.”

Not long after the confrontation with the CEO and her Security, a young looking guy in a militia uniform tentatively approached me. The faculty council wanted to talk. Understandable really, considering what I’d just done. I just wish I hadn’t had to do it.

“I’m coming with you,” Grace told both myself and the apprehensive security guy.

“Thank you,” I smiled gratefully, enjoying her protectiveness over me.

“Oh, okay,” the security guy said, glancing between the two of us. “They’re at the gate, by the way.”

Grace and I followed him across the field, past the wounded blue guys on the ground. We got a lot of different looks from their number as we went past. Fear and anger were there, followed by hopelessness and even confusion. Sucks to be them I guess, but I couldn’t find it within me to feel an ounce of pity.

The fields outside Avonside had been trampled by the security people, crops that had just begun to show green shoots above the soil were now snapped and broken. Fucking morons, they were lucky I had arrived, because now Avonside would be relying on my grove to make up the deficit in food.

“Hey dude,” I asked, calling to our escort. “How much did they just trample?”

Faltering in his step for a moment, he turned back to look at me nervously. “Uh, dunno…”

“Well, thanks anyway,” I said absently, looking around at the carnage. The inklings of an idea were forming. A way to make sure everyone knew I wasn’t just a butcher of shitty people.

There were a few more of the council at the gate than there had been at the meeting, and the ones that were new looked mighty pissed off. Dr Richards the mall santa looked worried, while his wife Dr Leslie had a carefully hidden sparkle in her eye. Dr Ross the political science guy was definitely the most apprehensive of the five we’d met, while Dr Ruthven the economics dude was staring at the trampled fields in dismay.

Dr Wilcott was pensive as she obviously ignored a short frumpy looking woman who was trying to get all angry and in her face. Unfortunately for her, the stern woman of law had a pretty intense height advantage and it was not working.

“Hey there Dr Wilcott,” I called as we approached, giving her a slight smile and a friendly wave.

“Ryn, I see you are getting into—“ she began, only to get interrupted as the shorter woman barged forward towards me.

Her tirade began instantly and in full force. “You! Who gave you the right to dictate demands like that? You’re a newcomer, a… a… ringworl—“ Her barrage of angry words stopped rather abruptly when she met my shield with her nose, the dull thump of the soft appendage like a punchline at the end of a joke.

“Sorry, you cut off for a second, what were you saying?” Grace asked in a cocky, amused drawl.

For my part, I just stared cooly into her anger filled eyes, projecting an ice I didn’t feel but very much needed to right now. I needed to be calm and collected, but most of all, I needed to be both strong and non-threatening.

“You… you…” she stammered, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes as she glared at us. “You just barge in here and… attack people, making proclamations…”

“Fixing your problems?” I offered with both eyebrows raised.

“Fixing what problems? All I see is more mess, the defences of the campus halves and our crops trampled!” she exclaimed, gesticulating wildly.

Aha, perfect. Raising both hands with a flourish, I reached out to the mangled, broken and dying plants across the field and pulsed growth energy into as many as I could manage. The energy drain was an order of magnitude more immense than what this would have taken in the grove, but I was able to cover a fair number of the plants.

Reacting with gentle speed, they began to repair themselves and worm their way up out of the ground. Draining almost all my power reserves, I took them beyond the stage of growth they had been at before, urging them up until they were bursting with life.

With a field now ripe for harvest behind me, I placed a hand still sparking with green growth energy on my hip. “That’s one down. You gotta give me some time lady, I’ve only been here for a few hours and most of that time has been dealing with that sorry group of thugs.”

From behind the irate woman, Dr Wilcott gave an amused snort. “Dr Lewis, I suggest you cease antagonising the highly powerful woman with unknown powers.”

“Yeah, what she said,” Grace said from beside me, snaking an arm around my waist. “Seriously, she’s been holding back. I hope you realise that.”

“Yeah…” I grimaced, glancing awkwardly back at the mutilated security forces. When I turned back to the gathered faculty council members, I gave them my best innocent look. “Okay… I’m just a student alright? I was another one of those kids you used to teach. I have no aspirations of power or whatever, I just want to make out with my girlfriend while not having to worry about everyone dying or getting hurt or abused or whatever.”

“And yet here you are hurting and abusing people,” Dr Lewis growled, spreading a hand to encompass the battlefield behind us.

“I’m not going to get into a stupid ethics debate with you,” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose in frustration. “They were shit people doing shit things, and since I have the power to stop them, I did so. Look, I’m here to help people with my magic, but I’m not going to help people who I think don’t deserve it. You can deal with that however you want. Have a good day with your petty power struggles or whatever, I’m going to go and do actual work by getting your visitors settled down.”

With that, I turned and left them standing there, suddenly deeply tired and uninterested in playing their bullshit games. If I allowed myself to fall into my own ego for a second, I knew that I was on a whole other level from them. I had the power to single handedly crush a small army with my mind, and they had… what, employment contracts from another world and a few hundred barely trained college kids?

Argument broke out behind us as we left the council behind, making for the obrec where they were figuring themselves out. Whatever, they could fight it out I guess.

Everyone from the obrec caravan, as well as Jenna from the militia were ready and waiting when we arrived, but I spoke first, “Is your ranger okay?”

“Claih had some sort of potion to help her, she’ll be fine in a week. It was close though, those weapons are not to be underestimated,” Mer replied gravely, giving the now retreating security people a glare.

Ah crap, I’d have to sort out supplies for them. Sending them out there with nothing but their guns was just as much of a death sentence as killing them. They’d never find enough food to feed the whole group when the area had already been picked clean by Avonside foragers.

“Alright… that’s good,” I sighed with relief. “Now we just need to figure out where to house you all.”

“For now, that council has told us to make camp around the side of the campus, over towards the river. They don’t have room to spare at the moment inside… unfortunately,” Troy explained with a grimace. “The obrec brought tents, thank the gods, but the weather around here can get pretty chilly, not to mention windy.”

I almost said something about being sorry that I’d dragged them all the way here to live in tents, when I realised I had experience in building structures. I’d have to do something far more simple than my tree…

“I think I have an idea, let’s go see the area,” I told him after a few moments of thought.

“I figured you would,” he grinned, then turned to the obrec. “Alright, looks like we might be able to get you all some accommodation after all! Let’s get moving!”

“Hold on, Troy, can you show me where… nevermind.” He’d already wandered off to shout orders at people he wasn’t even in command of.

“I can show you where it is,” Jenna supplied with a sympathetic smile.

Gesturing with a wave of my hand, I asked, “Please? I think I have an idea for getting them properly housed, but I’d like to start things before they get all underfoot.”

The area they had designated for the obrec to camp out was on the long downward slope to the nearby river. A path had already been trodden into the grass, leading down to where a dam was in construction.

Well, I guess I could just shove the building I was planning to make on that dirt track they had made? It would probably end up being a road anyway.

“The council won’t be too mad if I grow an inn here, right?” I asked Jenna casually, glancing past her for a moment to grin at Grace. She knew what was up.

“Grow a… what?” the militiawoman asked, staring at me with wide eyes.

I couldn’t help myself, I gave her a wink and stepped past her to grab Grace by the shoulders. “I’m going to top up, is that okay?”

“Oh geez, alright,” she laughed nervously. “Jenna… buckle up, I guess.”

“Love you,” I murmured, right before I planted my lips on hers.

Grace’s reaction was quick, her power opening to me like a blooming flower. The strength of the torrent surprised us both, and I heard one or both of us gasp as the pleasure rocked through our connection.

Unbidden, vines grew out from the both of us, intertwining until we were not just in a human embrace, but one of plant and flower. The process was quicker this time, and far more potent. I’d grown as a mage since the last time we did this, and it showed in the depth of power that I could take in.

The kiss was wonderful too, slow and caring, easing away the stress and anxiety of the last day. Goodness, I loved my Grace. I was safe in her arms, safe from the challenges of the world for a few moments while we shared our affection for each other with twisting tendril and questing tongues.

When we parted, it was with a burst of magenta flower petals that swirled around me in a whirlwind dance. Only, they weren’t simple petals, but an excess manifestation of the power I’d just been given by my lover.

“That was real fuckin’ gay,” Jenna commented with wide eyes. “I don’t mean that in a bad way! It was just… you know… us straights make out and you get a hard dick rubbing against your leg. None of this flower petal stuff.”

“Magical gay kisses,” Grace hummed happily, eyes sparkling with mirth as they found mine. “I love it.”

“I might need another top up before this is done, seems like there’s an exponential price to pay on growing shit out here in the mundane realm,” I told her with a warning that was only slightly ruined by the giddy grin I felt twitching at my lips.

“I’ll be here,” she laughed, and motioned for me to get to work.

So I did, summoning a multitude of different places for the work. I didn’t go in with any designs in mind this time, I wasn’t tailoring plants for specific purposes, I just needed them to grow the way I wanted them to.

My plan was simple, a log common hall, but where the logs were living trees and the floor was intertwined and flattened roots. I began with the walls, each tree starting out as a small green shoot before it quickly sprang up until they were all three storeys tall. With that done, I curved them all gently inwards until they touched, allowing them to tangle at the apex so as to keep the rain out.

From there, I did the same thing inside and on the horizontal plane, branches reaching out to form floors and stairs. I created rooms of various sides on the second and third floors, with a central hallway on each to connect it all.

My final touch was to grow roots out across the ground, forming a flattened carpet of the things to keep the obrec’s hooves out of the dirt. I did leave a central area without a floor to allow a fire pit to be dug if they wanted one. They’d have to make doors and windows themselves, but I’m sure they could manage. It was a roof at least.

When I came back down from my magical thought process, I found I had gained an audience. The obrec had arrived, and along with many avonsiders, they were all staring at me, wonder or apprehension in their eyes. I winced at the fear on their faces, but then I found resolve kindle in my heart. I’d turn that fear into happiness, they’d see. Avonside would be paradise by the time I was done with it.

The obrec were pretty happy with their new accommodations, but less happy about the crowd of staring university people. I wasn’t able to stick around and smooth things over unfortunately, because I was dead tired by that point, the day had been way too long.

Once everything was sorted in the mundane world, I took Mer, Otho, Grace, Adam, and Duncan all back into my grove for the night. We could start doing work stuff in the morning.

“What a nightmare of a situation,” Adam grumbled as we made our way up into my tree.

Mer blew out a long breath, then shrugged and gave us all a wry smile. “Not the worst reception we’ve gotten trying to trade with other cultures.”

“I’d hate to see what a worse reception looked like,” Duncan said with a dark chuckle. Poor dude was still in the staring at the horns phase of meeting an obrec. At least he was being chill about things.

“Usually involves a lot more death,” Otho replied with grim amusement. “They were lucky that Ryn was there.”

“Leaving them alive was a bit of a surprise, for sure,” Mer agreed, giving me a look.

“The stain on my conscience would have been there for the rest of my life,” I said soberly, and then a thought occurred to me. “And… I honestly have no idea how long that is going to be.”

“Mages are long lived, but not overly so,” Otho told us, brows furrowed in thought. “But there have been many who lived for a very, very long time. Longevity through the nameless garden does exist, but not many know its secret.”

“I have a feeling you might want to get on that Ryn,” Grace said quietly, her hand finding mine. “Being linked to a goddess of youthfulness and spring as I am… I think I might be living a long time.”

“Yikes,” Adam muttered, giving us both a sympathetic look. “Being immortal scares the piss out of me.”

“Me too,” his friend agreed.

From there, we went up into the tree and found everyone else, making quick introductions where needed before we all rushed for bed. It wasn’t even the end of day freaking one back at Avonside and so much had happened. I really hoped things went a little more smoothly from here on out.

The entire next day proved that to be a false hope as I helped figure out the logistics of getting the CEO and her supporters out of Avonside. I was a little wary that she’d agreed to leave so readily, so I turned to Kit to research a way for us to keep an eye on them after they had left. Well, more than just recreating the ring thingy and throwing one in her pocket or something.

I didn’t even get to see my friends that much, but apparently they were doing pretty well. Kit was able to ferry people into the nameless garden too, so we had two different ways in and out. This meant that we were able to begin unloading all the materials and supplies I’d brought.

Another day later and the CEO and her goons were gone, along with way too much of the university’s dwindling stores of food. They set off to the north, opposite to where we’d come from. Kit didn’t manage to find a more elegant method of tracking them in time, so we ended up repeating the ring idea with an innocuous buckle in one of the food packs. They’d never suspect anything and we’d know if they were doubling back to attack us again.

As for the food situation, I had an excruciatingly long meeting with a few members of the horticultural department, where I had to list in detail what I thought I could provide. Explaining that I could basically summon food from thin air with the power of thought didn’t go over particularly well at first. Their tune changed when I also explained that with their help I could make all sorts of crazy new plants… well they got very excited.

That was the reason the meeting went on so long. I had to explain how I could create new plants and what I’d need to know in order to do so. The idea of designing food crops had the head of the department bouncing excitedly around the room, which was rather comical when you considered that she was a diminutive indian woman.

Day three saw Troy gathering a great many people into my tree to discuss things, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t extremely curious.

Around a large table on the balcony sat sat Troy, Esra, Kit, Mer, Otho, Duncan, Adam, Claih, Kelsey, Melody, Bray, Grace and myself. Pretty much everyone I considered to be trustworthy, minus Claih who I still wasn’t sure about.

“Thanks for coming, everyone,” Troy began once the last of us was seated. “I wanted to discuss something rather important. Now that we’ve had a few days to settle into life back at Avonside, I think it’s time we get serious about the Order of Eleos.”

“How so?” Grace asked, then shook her head and clarified, “I mean, what do we do first? How do you even like… start something like this?”

“First, we need an objective, a purpose,” Troy replied, giving my girlfriend a nod. “I’d like to put forward a bunch. First, a more abstract one, but it’s in our name. Compassion. We want to go out into the world and help people with their problems. I don’t just mean the kind that you can swing a sword at either. Next, equality. Specifically, equality among thinking beings, regardless of any number of circumstances they find themselves in. Things like sexuality, race, gender and species.”

“Species, huh? Is that being added because of the recently departed security forces?” Claih asked dryly.

Troy gave a gentle snort of amusement. “Exactly, but it’s important to be reasonably specific here. Oppressors often try to claim they are the oppressed in order to muddy the waters.”

“What about religion, culture and all that?” Kelsey asked carefully, gaze focused on Troy with vivid intensity.

“Religion and culture is… more difficult. Not every religion is equal, and the same for culture. I’ve run into too many cultures that glorify violence and too many religions that codify the abuse of others,” our leader sighed, eyes haunted. “We will fight those while protecting the ones we like, to put it frankly.”

Her expression easing, she smiled and leaned back in her chair. “Good.”

Troy opened his mouth to continue when Melody spoke up, “Sorry to butt in… but what are people like me doing here? I’m no good at anything that you will be doing.”

“On the contrary, that’s what I wanted to talk about next,” he smiled.

“An organisation like this will need a support structure. People to craft the things we need to do our work, people to manage our food, people to train new recruits… the list goes on. Administrators will be invaluable to our success,” he explained, sketching randomly on the table with his finger.

“I was thinking about that,” I said, leaning forward. “What if we used the second tier of my grove for the knights? Out in the real world it’s a lot harder to create things with my magic, but here... I am close to a goddess in power. The knights would never lack for anything that can be created with my magic. We’d never have food problems, all that jazz. Could even make pastures for grazing animals.”

Troy perked up. “Indeed, I was hoping you’d make that offer. We’ll still need chapter houses out in the real world though. Using your grove is also contingent on us both finding a way to come and go as we please without your help, while also protecting your grove from any who might potentially do you harm.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” I said with a long sigh. “Unfortunately, I have no idea about leaving the grove, but I know I can defend it. I have the shield…” I trailed off as a thought hit me. Oh, this could be good. “But, I also just had an idea.”

Esra, silent and watching until now, bolted upright in her chair and threw me an acidic glare. “Oh no you don’t!” she blurted urgently. “No, young lady, if you go recklessly breaking the rules of magic again…”

“What’s wrong?” I asked her sweetly, batting my eyelashes at her. The effect was probably diminished slightly by the way I couldn’t keep a cheeky grin off my face.

Her answer was a suspicious scowl, but she turned to Troy instead. “I have a solution for your problem with access to Rynadria’s grove. I have been researching teleportation for too many decades to count, and while I have not had much success there, I have learned many things. It is possible to create an artifact that will allow a bonded user to shift to a specific point in the garden and back.”

“What would that require?” Kit asked, excitement overriding her shy nature. “How does it work?”

Esra gave the smaller mage a gentle smile. “We would create a central node of magically resonant crystal. Pieces of this node would be bound to the intended user through a ritual, requiring contact with their blood while inside their natural aura.”

“English Esra, for the non mages,” I sighed, indicating the confused expressions around the table.

Another dirty look shot in my direction and she turned to the audience at large. “Imagine, if you will, a pillar of crystal set within a central square. Any who have a bonded fragment of that crystal structure would be able to shift between that waypoint and mundane reality, much like a mage does, complete with their own mage mark. That fragment would be bonded to them by allowing it to come into contact with the intended recipient’s blood while within their body. I suggest a small cut to the tongue or lip, followed by placing it in their mouth. That fragment could then be set into a ring.”

“Well, holy shit…” Troy grinned, leaning back slightly, eyes on the older woman with a look of gratitude. “I could kiss you right now, that is absolutely perfect.”

“I will have to turn you down on that offer,” she replied, although her eyes sparkled slightly as she spoke. “However, I believe I can be of much use to your fledgeling order, and I look forward to helping where I can. It is a noble endeavor, and just perhaps… you may be able to succeed where myself and my coven failed. You have my roguish daughters on your side, after all.”

That had my eyebrows rising. Was this what hetero looked like? It had been a while since I saw it, so it was hard to remember. Wait… also… did she just mean me, when she said daughter?

“We can restart the coven,” Kit murmured, looking hopefully at Esra. “I want to be part of a coven. Not for any like… proper reason, but it just sounds cool.”

“Covens are not to be joined or started just because they sound cool, young lady,” Esra snapped, tone failing to give any real edge to her words.

“Scalmeis coven does sound pretty cool,” I said, agreeing with Kit. “How about it mum? Want us in your magic gang?”

“It is not a… a magic gang!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air in frustration. “You two… by the gods…”

Kit’s eyes flicked to meet mine, and there was a spark of understanding, or more specifically… a spark of sibling mischief. In a surprisingly gruff voice, she said, “Ain’t nobody messin’ with the Scalmeis gang. We own this ring, don’t let anybody go forgettin’ it.”

It took Troy way too long to get the meeting back under control again after Kit’s little improv session, but it was totally worth it to see the look of confused frustration on Esra’s face.

As the meeting wore on, we got into the details about how and what to do. Before that though, we needed to know who would be joining. Obviously the five of us who’d been adventuring around the place were in, but that still left the rest.

Duncan signed up without a second thought, while Melody and Kelsey were hesitant because they had no idea how they would help. Troy explained that they could pick any non-combat job they wanted once we figured out what the order would need, and that won them over.

Bray had a rather amusing stipulation for his membership. He wanted his own workshop in my grove, as well as a blank check for making cool shit. Troy and I both readily agreed. Claih piped up then, asking for the same thing, and we also agreed, so long as she helped teach bray and vice versa.

Then came the two obrec, who were enthusiastic, but also didn’t want to just up and abandon their clan. We said we’d give them time to talk things over with their folks, and that was that, we had our first new members.

Troy wanted to get started on planning out our new compound, but I had other ideas. Big ideas… crazy ideas, wild ideas. I was excited, so very excited, because I’d had a little hunch about something for a while now, but hadn’t really had a reason or opportunity to test it.

That required me to remove everyone from the grove though… and my friends were not happy about it.

“Don’t break anything,” Troy told me warily as I dropped them all off in the mundane world.

“When can we come back in?” Melody asked in a whine.

“I’ll let you all back in soon, I promise. No more than an hour or two,” I told them, then disappeared back into my grove before they could complain further.

Of course, that still left me with one grumpy old woman to deal with.

“Just what are you planning?” Esra asked, her face inches from mine as I reappeared.

“Jesus fuck,” I swore, stumbling backwards. “Personal space, damn it.”

“Well?” she demanded, stepping back into my face.

“I’m going to talk to my grove for a bit,” I explained, wondering if she’d understand what I meant.

Judging by the frown she gave me, I don’t think so. “When I said that your grove had a mind of its own, I meant in the way that a common beast does, not another person.”

I shrugged. “Let me try?”

She rolled her eyes, but after a moment, she nodded. “If you wish. Talking to your bunnies can’t be that bad.”

I grinned, biting my tongue as best I could. Those were some famous last words mummy dearest.

She disappeared in a swirl of autumn leaves with nothing but one last suspicious look, and then I was alone in my grove. Well, not entirely alone.

Cream bounded up to me, having sensed that I needed her. Sitting down there in the grass, I opened my arms for her and gave an adoring smile to my smallest friend. “Hey there little bun, we’re going to have a chat, you and I.”

She tilted her head at me for a moment, but obliged and hopped into my lap.

“So, we’re going to be having a lot of people visiting soon, and I was thinking that we need to remodel a little bit,” I explained to her twitching little nose.

Her earnest bun eyes blinked back up at me, one of her lopped ears trying to perk up a little. She was clearly listening to me, I just had no idea how much of this she was understanding.

“Now, I know we’re told that we can only shape our grove on that scale once, but they also told me that you weren’t very smart, and that’s a lie, isn’t it?” I asked her, giving the bun a loose hug.

To my surprise she nodded, then tilted her head and made a grumbling, growling sound.

I gave a laugh, I couldn’t help it. She was so damned cute with her big fluffy cheeks and her floppy ears. “Alright, unfortunately, I’m not as smart as you are. I can’t understand bun language, so we’re going to have to go at this slowly.”

Another nod. Goodness, she was so cute.

“So can we like, merge again and make some modifications?” I asked hopefully, all my concentration centered on reading her fuzzy little face.

This time I was met with a thoughtful tilt of her head and a paw scratching at her chin. She sat like that for several moments before giving me a shrug. Almost flooring me in surprise, a word came out of her little mouth. “Try?”

“Wait, you can talk?” I blurted, excitement flooding me like warmth after a shot of whiskey.

“Try,” she said again, and I swear I heard amusement in her little bun voice.

“Alright, yeah it’s probably pretty difficult to speak english when your mouth wasn’t designed for that,” I winced, giving her an apologetic look. “Sorry about that.”

“Good as be, no change,” she told me, little fuzzy hands coming up to hold my cheeks. “No change.”

“Alright, you like how you are then,” I laughed, tears in my eyes over how awesome this was. My buns were talking! At least, cream was. I wrapped her in a spontaneous hug. “I love all of you buns,” I told her gently, scratching between her ears. “You’re all so good to me.”

I got a quiet little squeaking chirp in response from my fluffy cuddle buddy, and I let go with a happy sigh. “Okay, so what do we do? Same as when I created the grove?”

A nod, followed by another bun smile. Bun smiles were a little different to human ones, the eyes didn’t change much, and unlike dogs they hadn’t had enough time to evolve eyebrow muscles. Her ears perked up and her mouth tilted upwards though, and that definitely counted as a smile in my book.

Closing my eyes, I leaned down and placed my forehead to her fluffy one, reaching out as best I could. As I had done when I created my grove, and again when I created the buns, I extended my magical sense of self beyond my body, seeking out the mind of the grove.

I touched against it almost immediately, then flinched when I felt a voice speak directly with my mind. “Hello Ryn.” The voice wasn’t angry or anything, despite my reaction. It was more… gentle, actually.

“Hi,” I sent back, wondering at the odd sensation that this contact brought on me. My grove’s consciousness had grown since I last communed with it.

“You wish to change us?” it asked, mental tone full of curiosity.

“Yeah, like this,” I said, showing the mind that was my grove an image, an idea for what it could be.

“Intriguing, why?” it asked, again curious. The weird thing about its mental voice was that I could hear a multitude of… well, ears, listening. Were my buns listening in on the conversation?

Composing myself for a moment, I sent, “Many more people will be visiting, some making this place their home. I wish to physically isolate the area they will visit from your heart.”

“More minds wish to visit? Interesting,” it mused, and I received the mental image of a bunny tapping its chin with a little fluffy finger in thought. “New minds help me grow. Did you know that? I know not how or why, I know not if other groves react the same way… but I do. Yes, I will reshape myself for you. Please continue to treat my smaller selves with care, they are happy, and therefore I am happy.”

“I’m glad,” I said, wishing I could hug this personification of my grove. “You’ve been amazing for me, so wonderful in so many different ways.”

“I have seen, this makes us bright of heart… no, happy. It makes us happy,” the voice of my grove said warmly.

Then, just like that, the conversation was over and I felt reality shift around me. It was quick, a mere heartbeat, then it was done. One moment my grove looked as it had since the beginning, the next it had entirely changed.

Under the hood though, it wasn’t as simple, not by a long shot. A vast quantity of energy had just been consumed, so much so that I could feel a void surrounding my grove within the garden. Magic was already rushing in to fill that vacuum, and I knew exactly what would happen when it reached me. I’d just created a storm of magic. Still… it had worked, it had most definitely worked.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, gazing out over the new terrain from my new position atop my tree.

Gone was the simple plateau, the tiered cake of rock and earth. I couldn’t even say it had been replaced though, because that would be a disservice to what had just transpired.

What had been my original grove was now the top of a dead volcano, with the lake now at its center. My windbreak of trees lined the top of the gentle slope, spell plants arrayed in familiar patterns across the caldera. The topography was more broken now, small hillocks of varying sizes breaking up what had once been a flat plane of grass.

My tree stood proud in the middle, and from there I was able to look out at a new and awe inspiring little world. A few terraces made their way down the steep slopes of the volcano, extra space for me to work on spells, before it hit the same mist that had been there before. Anyone entering that mist would find themselves rather abruptly floating in the nameless garden.

This was critical for any potential defence of my new volcano, because out from one of its sides sprang a narrow ridgeline of craggy rock. This bridge over the mists arrived at another ancient volcano, although this one was styled a little differently.

Where the main one had been made to look like it slowly fizzled out over millennia, the second one had been styled to look like it had exploded, violently. Now it resembled a wide craterlike valley with a rocky ridgeline surrounding it.

The true reason for the massive power draw lay in the size of this new area. At almost fifty miles in diameter, it was fit for a medium sized city to nestle within, all while leaving plenty of room for farmland. It was gargantuan, and I was truly amazed that it had even worked. Somehow, my grove had managed to make itself physically larger on the inside, while still maintaining its present size and power limitations within the nameless garden.

It was perfect, and I felt my heart swell with pride for my buns, including my biggest bun of all, the grove itself.

“I think the grove did pretty good, don’t you,” I asked finally, turning to look down at Cream, who stood at my hip.

“Burrow. Try,” she agreed earnestly, staring out over the vista with a twitching nose and big, alert brown eyes.

“Yeah,” I sighed happily. “Burrow really did try, and boy did it succeed.”

I brought all of everyone back in again after Cream and I were done gawking. Well, except Esra, she’d have to find her own way in from the far end of the grove.

“Wow, what did you do to the place?” Adam asked as we all appeared in the center of the bowl, below the big tree. “Looks like you turned it into a wrinkly old sheet.”

“Follow me,” I grinned mischievously, turning for the tree. “We have a lot of stairs to climb.”

Leading them all up the stairs had me feeling like a mother duck, and the urge to quack proved almost too great to bear. Thankfully, we made it to the top before my resolve shattered. A quackless journey.

I hadn’t been to the very top of the tree often, since walking up all those steps was not the most enjoyable experience ever. The view had been stunning even before I’d asked the grove to change, but now it was magnificent.

Wordless sounds of surprise and awe rippled through the gathered members of the order as they saw the extent of the changes.

“Ryn…” Kit whispered reverently, stepping up to the railing. “How did you do this?”

“I treated my grove well and then asked nicely,” I told her truthfully. That was really the extent of what had happened. It had been the grove that did all the work, not me.

“Ryn… I’ve heard you referred to as a goddess a few times in the past, but this genuinely seals the deal,” Troy remarked, staring out across the view before us. “This isn’t a grove anymore, this is a small world.”

“My plan is to set up a little river to run through it, then a lake in the middle,” I explained, tracing the desired path with a finger. “We can have our compound near the lake, then have a forest around the outside. I’ll transplant some animals into it so we have a source of meat. Livestock pastures too, all that stuff.”

“You really need a better way of getting around this place,” Melody commented, eyes wide as she stared down at the valley.

“I was kind of hoping Claih would help with that, actually,” I said, giving the woman in question a hopeful look.

Her response was wry, knowing look. “Aye, I’ll figure something out for your tree and the land beyond, provided I can take a look through the books in that university of yours.”

I grinned. “They might get their feathers a little ruffled, but I’ll make sure of it.”

“Wait, what’s that?” Grace asked, taking my hand to get my attention. Her other one was pointing down at the ridgeline that separated my own personal area from the valley.

It took me a moment to realise what the flashing light was, and then I grinned. “That would be Esra, she’s teleporting over from the edge of the grove.”

“She’s going to be so mad at you,” Kit commented, just the hint of a smile on her lips.

Giggling gleefully, I nodded in agreement, “I know, I’m excited to see her reaction.”

“You’re such a god damn brat,” Grace laughed, squeezing my hand affectionately.

For just a moment, I allowed myself to fall sideways against her, leaning my head on her shoulder. I don’t know why that little exchange had sent a shot of love straight to my heart, but I relished it nevertheless.

My spike of happiness was dampened slightly when I caught Bray staring at us, causing him to quickly jerk his gaze away and back out into the distance. Ugh, guess it was too much to hope for that he’d be completely chill about Grace and I. The looming heart to heart with him had me feeling all kinds of anxiety.

In a way, it was reassuring to feel worried. It grounded me, and reminded me that despite what everyone kept saying, I was not a deity. I was just a girl with a whole shitload of power. Power that I had a responsibility to use wisely.

“How long will it take you to get that river working?” Troy asked, either oblivious to the moment or bulldozing through it to get us moving again.

“A few days,” I replied after a moment’s thought. “I’ll need time to myself to get things moving, my land increased in size but not my power, so I—“

“Just how many of these damned rabbits do you need Rynadria?” a disgruntled Esra called as she found her way up onto the platform. Turning to look, I was almost immediately skewered by angry white eyes. “More importantly, what in the name of the gods have you done here?”

I opened my mouth to reply, but apparently she wasn’t done. “Do you realise the disturbance you’ve caused outside this grove, young lady? There is a titanic… no, a gargantuan wave of garden energy headed straight for your precious little tree and there is nothing that will stand in its way. I hope you have another harebrained plan up your sleeve, because quite frankly I am not inclined to pull you out of yet another mess that you have created for yourself!”

“How much?” I asked excitedly, ignoring her whole ‘dire warning’ speech.

“H-how much?” she asked incredulously, eyes wide and nostrils flared. “How much? Why does it matter how much there is? You’re doomed if you don’t get everyone out of this place, and you can say goodbye to those damned rabbits of yours.”

“They’re buns, not rabbits. For someone so knowledgeable, you should know the scientific name for them,” I told her absently as a wild, delighted grin slowly dawned across my face like the rising of a blood moon.

“Oh no,” Adam remarked casually. “She has that grin on her face again.”

“How long until it hits?” I asked Esra, already walking to the center of the platform.

“You have but moments to act,” she told me with a deep, resigned sigh.

Rolling my shoulders in their sockets, I closed my eyes. “Awesome.”

My fix for the problem was almost disgustingly simple, and I could have done it from where I’d been standing earlier, but whatever… I couldn’t help but put on a little bit of a show.

Crouching down, I placed my hands on the smooth, warm wood of my beloved tree and altered it, just slightly. The addition was nothing when compared to the tree as a whole, and even to the shield spell I’d just modified it was barely complex at all. I just really, really hoped that I didn’t kill the thing with this little stunt.

Esra had managed to somewhat stabilise the growth magic plant earlier, and I now applied an altered version of it to the weaving that controlled the shield. The scariest part of the plan was if the tree would finish growing the new elements before the wave hit.

Thankfully it did, right as the wave became visible as a rapidly moving stormfront on the horizon.

There are moments in life where nature reminds you that it is boss, that it is powerful and enigmatic and it will fuck you up if you don’t watch out. This was one of those times.

The sheer violence of the storm was such that it seemed to tear the very air to ribbons with bright green lightning that rippled and flashed like a tesla coil on steroids. With the tree being at the center of the grove, it meant that we saw the storm roll over the valley first, bathing it in inky darkness.

I felt more than saw the newly born grass of the valley become shredded by the razor sharp wind as it passed. Oops… guess I’d be making grass for a bit. I wonder what cute little spells I could weave into it? Had anyone bothered making spells out of grass yet?

I didn’t have time to ponder grass spells though, because the storm surged along the ridgeline and then promptly slammed head first into the shield. The very mountain beneath us shuddered under the impact and leaves began to rain gently down around us, knocked loose from their moorings in the canopy above.

Everyone waited, breath bated while the storm hammered and raged against the intangible wall of energy that separated us from instant death at its hands. I felt ice creep up my spine as I watched, a feeling of dreadful hope suffusing me. Please don’t let my cockiness get us all killed.

Off to the side, Esra stared up at the maelstrom with rapt attention, magesight-lit eyes darting back and forth. There was no fear there on her face, and it prompted me to copy her.

Activating my magesight revealed a blinding series of magical tornados, growth energy quite literally being sucked down the sink. It appeared to be rushing into every spare branch, through the veins of the tree and into the mountain below us.

My fear of the storm began to dissipate, replaced by an even greater worry that the very mountain below us was about to detonate under the magical load. How in the hell was it meant to survive through the amount of energy that was being pummelled into it?

Then, all of a sudden, the storm eased, receding back towards the boundary between my grove and the nameless garden. The torrent of energy ebbed with it, sparing us from a catastrophic eruption of magical death from below.

“It will be back,” Esra commented, relief plain in her voice. “Not so violent as that, however.”

“Why will it be back?” Kit squeaked, clearly still a little terrified by what had just happened.

“As a pebble creates rebounding ripples when dropped in a pond, so too will this phenomena continue,” she told us, turning to peer back down at the mountain below. “Like waves in a tub, if I were to explain it in a more relatable manner.”

While she’d been speaking, I’d also turned my eyes downward again, and now my brows creased in confusion. “What on earth is going on down there?”

“To be quite honest my dear… I don’t have a fucking clue,” Esra replied, still staring down.

“I do,” came a voice, and glancing up revealed Claih, kneeling with a large monocle over one eye. “I’ve never seen it happen, it was nothing more than theory before this point.”

“Explain,” my mage mother demanded, and I had a sneaking suspicion that she might be irritated that she wasn’t the one who had the answer.

“It’s forming crystals, merging with the mountain,” the obrec woman explained in rapt awe. “It’s always been obvious to us magitechts that the crystal wasn’t here during the forming of this world. Now, I have definitive proof for the theory.”

Esra’s reply was a groan, hand rising to pinch at the bridge of her nose. “Rynadria Belrose, I swear…”

“You swear what?” I asked as innocently as possible. That shit eating grin though, it was persistent.

“I don’t even know,” she sighed, dropping her hand and gazing skyward. “I don’t even know.”

Something that my grove hadn’t mentioned to me when I’d spoken to it was a certain consequence of expanding. When Esra had been complaining about how many buns I had, she wasn’t joking. The bun population of Rynland had grown by… well, a whole lot.

For the next two days I spent my time working as hard as possible to get everyone sorted, all while meeting each new bun. I needed to spend time with my little friends, they were precious to me and to the functioning of this wonderful home I’d been given by Esra and her fruit.

Two days later and the university people, my friends, the obrec, and everyone else had all been dealt with. I’d focused so hard on that, because I needed a solid week to myself in order to prepare the huge valley for my fellow knights of Eleos.

I began by creating a cave up near the ridge that led to my personal area of the grove. Originally I began to dig with my magic, but pretty soon an army of buns appeared to help me, and the job got done in record time.

Unlike last time, I’d purposefully chosen the composition of the soil and ground below. There was plenty of rich soil on the uppermost layer, but below that you’d begin to run into large hunks of rock until you eventually reached bedrock. I had the buns dig all the way to this layer in a network of branching paths, many too small for me to get into.

Within the tunnels I created a type of moss that would draw in magical energy and convert it into water, thus providing the main source of water for my river-to-be.

My buns helped spread the newly created moss once there was enough of it, and before long I had to evacuate them from the tunnels for fear of them drowning. There was quite a lot of water being produced… perhaps more than I needed… ah well. The river would just flow faster I guess?

With the valley sloping gently down towards the end opposite the cave, the water began to find its own way through the terrain, sloshing and surging all the way.

It was fascinating to watch really, wondering which way the water would take as it raced for the ready made depression in the ground where the lake would be.

Grace came and found me as Cream and I watched the show from up on the top of the crater’s rim.

With a weary groan and a long sigh, she settled down next to me. “I’ve been talking to Claih.”

“What about?” I asked, shifting sideways so I could lean my head on her shoulder.

Arm shifting to hold me against her side, I heard the smile in her voice as she explained, “Talking about getting some magitech stuff going for me. She wants to start with the hand cannons that I tried out earlier. Insists that I help her build them, with Bray as well obviously. I just… I’m no good with making things, you know? I don’t want her efforts to be in vain.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” I told her with a little laugh, kneading at her arm with my fingers idly. “You know exactly how to get a hairstyle out of someone’s messy mop, and you’ve got that sort of insightful intelligence that picks out problems before they arise. You should give it a real shot.”

“There’s also Bray… I don’t want to steal his thunder or anything,” she hesitated, sounding very unsure of herself. “I mean… he’s already kinda pissed at me for dating you.”

“He is?” I asked, sitting up to look at her properly. Within her pretty green eyes I found a lot of self doubt and more than a little worry. At her nod of confirmation, I frowned, “Well he’s a bloody moron then. I’m a girl, he’s not into girls… I’m also a lesbian, so that’s like double the roadblocks. Plus, I just don’t think he’d make a good partner for me anyway.”

“Why not?” she asked, curiosity replacing the anxiety across her face.

“He wouldn’t give me what I need in a relationship,” I smiled, leaning forward to kiss her on the nose. “You do though, you give me the soft, gentle love that I need after the fucked up life I’ve lived. You care for me when I forget to do basic shit like eating, you listen to me when I’m frustrated about things but don’t want to let anyone else know. You’re strong too, strong enough for me to lean on when I need it, but also vulnerable, you let me take care of you in turn. I mean, I could go on and on about what I need in a relationship, but… all I really have to do is point to you. You are what I need.”

As I spoke, her bottom lips pursed and her eyes turned watery, until I finished and she was dragging me into a tight hug. “Oh Ryn, I love you so much. Thank you, thank you… thank you for… for being…”

“Hey, whoa… it’s okay,” I murmured gently, wrapping her up tight in return. “I love you too, I love you.”

Before she could reply, a fluffy nose inserted itself into the hug, and I felt little paws wrap around the both of us. Cream had joined the hug.

Laughing, I gave her a scratch behind her ears. “Thanks Cream.”

Grace let out a little laugh along with me, pulling back again to grin while smearing tears across her face in a failed attempt to clean herself with a sleeve. “It’s just… I mean you give me purpose in this new world, you know? I’m so scared of losing you.”

“I’m not leaving you, silly,” I said with a roll of my eyes for emphasis. “I mean… I like the guy as a friend, but look at him, he’s not a fit for me at all. That’s not even the most compelling reason though, because the truth is I have you. You’re perfect as anyone can hope for in a girlfriend.”

“Yeah but… I’m just me, you know? But you, you’re so kind, intelligent, beautiful, and so good at what you do… I mean look at that,” she told me earnestly, gesturing to the lake that was now filling. “You’re a goddess, how do I match up to that?”

“I don’t want or need you to match up to me and my dumb lake,” I told her seriously, taking her head in both hands so she had to meet my eyes. “I’m all of those things, I guess… but there’s also a lot of things that I am not. Like, for example, I am not a functional adult. That, to me, is far harder than creating miniature worlds and silly moss that makes water. We haven’t really talked about it, but I’ve noticed how you do my laundry.”

“You have more important things to do than your laundry,” she mumbled bashfully, trying to turn away.

“Hey,” I said, pulling her back. “Thank you. Thank you for being my girlfriend, for being there for me. You’re absolutely the only person for me, and plus… you’re a bit of a goddess yourself now, or at least attached to one.”

“I know… but it’s not like I can do anything with it, other than banishing our enemies to some sort of eternal nightmare,” she sighed dejectedly, pouting a little.

“And that is why your topic change isn’t going to work,” I said with a knowing smirk. “You’re going to give this magitecht thing a real try, okay? I think you’ll be good at it, and since your own judgement of yourself is hot garbage, we’ll go with mine instead.”

That had her smiling, her arms coming up to encircle my neck. “I am going to kiss you.”

Shifting a hand to her chest to stall her, I glared at her suspiciously. “Not until you agree that you’ll give it a real try.”

“Fine,” she laughed, rolling her eyes. “I will be a good student and try my best to learn how to make deadly magic guns.”

“Good girl,” I smiled. removing my hand and allowing myself to be pulled closer.

“Me. Cloth. Wash,” Cream said suddenly, breaking the moment as Grace looked down sharply at the bunny. “Lady Lady groom Lady.”

“Did… she just talk?” Grace asked in wide eyed surprise.

“Try,” the small bun shrugged. “Mouth bad.”

As they interacted, I was grinning widely at the whole thing. Cream was one of my favourite beings in the universe, and here she was blowing my poor Grace’s mind with her newfound powers of speech.

“She’s been talking a little since the grove expanded,” I explained to my girlfriend. “It seems like the more people that visit my grove, the smarter it and the buns become.”

“That is fucking awesome,” Grace exclaimed, letting me go to give the bun dual ear scritches.

Cream’s little face scrunched up into a frown. “Yes but… groom now. Me later.”

“Uh, I didn’t understand that,” Grace admitted sheepishly, turning to me for explanation. For my part, I began to laugh, ruffling Cream’s little fuzzy side affectionately.

“She means that she interrupted us as we were about to make out, and that we should get back to that before we talk about her,” I explained as I tried to get control of myself. The way that Cream kept referring to kissing as grooming was too funny.

“Well, if the little bun says so,” Grace chuckled, gently cupping my cheek so I’d turn to face her.

Goodness, her eyes were always so entrancing when she got all romantic like this, as though their depth increased sevenfold while their clarity was that of polished diamond. With a thumb grazing the skin just beneath my eye, she pulled me slowly in towards her soft lips.

In the distance, the telltale boom of an explosion shook the air, causing the dust around us to jump slightly in place. Both of us groaned at the same time, our foreheads connecting with a slight bump as we broke off the kiss before it had even started.

“What was that?” I asked with a long, weary sigh.

“I’m pretty sure that whatever experiment Claih was running just detonated on her,” my girlfriend replied.

I let out another groan. “Lovely.”

Work on my grove went well, the lake filled up and then spilled further down the gentle slope of the valley towards the far side, where it spilled over the edge and down into the mists.

As for regrowing the grass that the storm had wiped out, I took inspiration from my previous communion with grasskind. It was fairly easy to create a low level spell that would essentially do the same thing but without forcing the poor plants into unwelcome sentience. I’d be able to track the whereabouts and basic information of anyone standing on my massive lawn with it. Pretty cool, if I did say so myself.

The Order’s village was also well on its way to becoming a real thing. Unlike with my inner sanctum, we were going with stone and wood for the construction, so the place was going to look like a proper medieval village. Well, apart from all the magic shit that would be everywhere.

Mining the stone was actually kinda hilarious in a multitude of different ways. First off, went out into the mundane world and wandered around until I found a nice exposed cliff face. Then I began to slice it up with magic blades.

This produced a small crowd of gawking Avonsiders, who watched from what they probably thought was a safe distance. That is, until one brave dude made his way over to me with some of his friends in tow.

“Why are you, um… cutting the cliff up?” he asked tentatively.

“Hmm?” I turned, pausing in my vivisection of the mountain to see who had interrupted me. “I’m cutting up stone for the new Order of Eleos base.”

He blinked, and behind him his friends passed looks amongst themselves. “Can’t you like, grow buildings and shit out of thin air?”

“Yeah, but as much as I like it, I don’t think living inside a giant tree is for everyone,” I explained calmly, feeling like I had a chance to be nice here, get on their good side. “Well, the Order decided it anyway, so here I am.”

“Where’s the uh… the base going to be?” he asked curiously, seeming to settle into the conversation.

“Inside my grove,” I smiled, then went on to explain further. “Magic users on this big ring world come in a bunch of different shapes and forms. I’m a mage, which is a little bit of a misnomer as we understand it, but that’s besides the point. Every mage has their own little… pocket dimension, you could say, which is called a grove. We’re building the village in there so it’s safe from all the bullshit in the outside world.”

“That’s so cool,” one of the girls in the group blurted, staring at me with open wonder.

“Must be nice,” another grumbled, clearly not sharing her friend’s assessment of me. “You get to boss everyone around and you have your own safe place to hang out in if things get too rough.”

“I mean… I guess,” I shrugged, unsure what to make of her tone. “There is the fact that there’s a power hungry creeper who wants me dead out wider world. Wants all of us dead, actually.”

That threw her off guard. “What, why?”

“A whole bunch of reasons, but it really just boils down to the fact that he likes being in power and we’re a threat to him,” I shrugged, turning back to my work.

“Well then stop being a threat to him,” she hissed, taking a step towards my back. “You just chased off a whole shit ton of our guards, now you’re saying some guy wants us dead? Who even is this guy? Does the faculty know?”

“Yo Rhea, what the heck is your problem right now?” the friendly girl demanded, stepping between the two of us.

Well, guess I wasn’t getting any more stone cutting done until they stopped being annoying.

“I’d like to know that too, actually,” I stated, crossing my arms and levelling a glare at her. Funny how this sort of thing would have terrified me before. Almost a year later though and I had power beyond anything this lot could hope to get their hands on, and it gave me a certain degree of confidence.

“Why the hell did you get magic anyway?” the angry girl named Rhea asked, almost sneering past her friend at me.

“Pure accident,” I smiled, then tilted my head in thought. “Wait no, there was some stupidity involved too actually, on my part.”

Her answer was a simple stare of confused disbelief, a whole host of emotions trampling across her face as she obviously tried to think of what she’d be angry about next. Evidently she didn’t come up with anything, because she turned on her heel and stomped off in a huff.

“Damn, what was that about?” I asked, motioning to the enraged girl with a hand.

“Honestly, I have no damned idea,” the guy who’d originally approached me said, scratching at the back of his neck in confusion. “She’s normally pretty chill. Unless it’s about men being dumb or something, then she gets sorta… obnoxiously feminist.”

“He’s right,” the girl agreed with a wince. “Like, I’m all for girl power and shit, but she goes about it so weird…”

My eyebrow twitched with sudden suspicion, but I didn’t say anything outright. Instead, I began with something simple I needed to establish first. “So, did you know I used to be a student here?” I asked, pretending to change the subject.

“Yeah, I heard you were a guy too?” the girl asked, her words setting me on edge until her curious expression registered.

“Something like that, yeah,” I smiled awkwardly. Explaining that inside my head I’d never been a man was… frustrating, when it came to cis people. Sex and gender were so closely intertwined in most people’s heads that it just wasn’t worth my individual effort to untangle them.

“What’s that like?” the guy asked curiously. “I always said if I got turned into a girl for a day, I’d just—“

One of the other guys, silent until now, laughed and punched his friend in the shoulder. “Come on dude! Not in the company of the ladies!”

“What, like we don’t all know what he was going to say?” the girl asked, hands now very firmly planted on hips. “I’ll have you know I fuck myself with a dildo bigger than your dick on the reg, thank you very much.”

“She’d know man,” yet another guy piped up with a guffaw. “She’s your ex after all!”

“Wow, okay,” the small dicked dude laughed good naturedly, putting his hands up in defeat.

“I don’t,” I said, shyly joining in. “I uh… have a girlfriend for that.”

“Nice!” original dude grinned, offering me a high five before wimping out when he realised who he was offering it too. Guess I was still a little intimidating.

Guess I should end things here for now, before it got weird. Too many guys who mean good but are just a little too on the pervy side for my taste.

“Well, I’ve got to get back to cutting this cliff up, but if you stick around you’ll see something pretty great,” I told them all with what I hoped was a mysterious wink.

The surprise greatness turned out to be my buns. I transported a whole cohort of them out into the mundane world to help with stacking the newly carved stone. I had them sort each segment by how intact it was, since stonecutting was an artform all on its own, and I had no idea what I was doing. I’d get the buildy people to come out and sort through it all later.

Rhea the grump came back with another girl, both of which stood off to the side and glared at me, occasionally exchanging a whisper or two. I had suspicions about what her problem with me was, and if I was correct… well, it would be incredibly fucking draining.

On the bright side, I was ambushed by a certain newly acquired sister as I delivered the stone to a stockpile within the grove.

“Ryn! Ryn!” she exclaimed, bounding down the slope towards me. “There you are, I had a breakthrough!”

Goodness, Kit was so adorable, with her huge shirt, short shorts and bare feet spinning dirt in all directions.

“On which of your projects?” I asked with an intrigued smile. Kit had been off doing her own thing with Esra for a while now, basically research and development into a bunch of different spells we’d need.

“Well, two actually, but they’re linked,” she said, bopping up and down on the spot for a moment before going still to explain. “So, we got power working obviously, creating energy is actually infinitely easier than we’d thought. You can convert magic to electricity using a pretty simple spell structure. Wires are easy too, same as usual except they are grown by plants.”

“And the wireless network?” I asked hopefully, suddenly finding myself very excited indeed. If there was one thing I still missed from my old life, it was a connection to the internet. We might not have anything as vast as we used to, but the university network was better than nothing. I bet they already had some sort of new social media app. I was so keen to get my eyes on the gossip that people were spinning there.

“Harder… for now we’re going to have to pilfer a router from somewhere on campus,” she winced, giving me an apologetic look. “We have figured out how to transfer information from the mundane world to the Nameless Garden though! A little plant we designed can do it. It’s so cute actually, it’s basically a flower where the stalk ends in an ethernet plug.”

“Wait, really?” I asked as my eyebrows rose with surprised interest. “How on earth does it get the information between realms?”

“I honestly don’t understand it yet,” Kit told me sheepishly, one hand scrunching itself in the too-big T-shirt she wore. “Esra’s been researching this stuff for years and it’s all way beyond me. I mainly helped with the magic to tech interfacing.”

“Still, that’s helpful,” I commended her with a gentle pat on the shoulder. “When can we have it up and running?”

Cheeky little brown eyes widened with impending mischief. “As soon as we can steal a router and find a sneaky place to plug our flower in.”

Oh dear. Since when had quiet, shy little Kit gotten so subtly naughty? Was I a bad influence on her?

“Well… we could go snooping right now…” I suggested, giving her a sly look.

“That’s what I was thinking!” she nodded, but her vigor fell away into uncertainty as she murmured, “I did want to ask you though…”

“Ask me what?”

The stare I got was full of anxiety and hope, and she mumbled her next words out in a rush. “What do you think of… of the name Catherine?”

“Catherine, huh?” I asked slowly, rolling the name around on my tongue as I stared down at the smaller girl. “Yeah, I reckon it fits you pretty damned well actually. Pretty too, but with some interesting connotations. Catherine sounds like a pretty girl who is startlingly intelligent, but unassuming on the surface. Seems like, well… you, actually.”

The smile that broke out across Catherine’s face was radiant, tears springing up spontaneously in the corners of her eyes. “T-thanks Ryn,” she squeaked, voice full to the brim with emotion.

“Hey, come here,” I murmured soothingly, opening my arms. “Come here, Catherine.”

She accepted the hug with a breathless, joyful giggle, and it was all I could do to stop tears of my own. What she was feeling right now, it would be a transformative experience, as if physical healing was occuring within her brain.

It’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it, that feeling, where it seems like your shattered and muddled identity has just formed whole for the first time. Imagine a mirror being broken, but run in reverse, the separate, jagged pieces all spinning impossibly through the air until they slot themselves into their rightful places. Sure, you can never fix the cracks that the stress of dysphoria has wrought on your soul, but if you look past those cracks, you can see a bright and vibrant person in that miraculously rebuilt mirror.

“It feels so… so crazy to hear you call me that,” she laughed, leaning back to peer shyly up at me. “Was it like this for you?”

“Hearing your name for the first time?” I mused, thinking back on that day in the bathtub, when Esra had just thrown the name at me like a towel. “It felt incredible… although I didn’t really get to experience it all in one hit like you. I’d only just seen myself in a mirror at that point, plus I was learning that magic existed and like… everything.”

“Oh geez, yeah… and Esra is a lot sometimes,” she laughed, smiling a pure, happy smile up at me. “I’m glad you were there to help me, gosh.”

“Does this mean you’re admitting that you’re trans and like things as they are now, by the way? I don’t believe we’ve talked about things…” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

“U-uh… no?” she stammered, cheeks going red in the process. “Maybe? I… oh shit, I think I just did… I mean, people have basically just been saying I am, without me even… but like, I didn’t… well…”

It would have been impossible to smother the look of amusement I gave her if I’d tried. Her bumbling was just adorable, and hilariously funny. It was the typical thing that trans people did while they were still unaware, spouting nonsense like, “Yeah, I wish I was a girl, but that doesn’t make me trans!” and, “I just think I’d be better as a girl, it doesn’t mean anything.” All you can do is roll your eyes in that kind of situation.

“Okay, well it doesn’t really matter anyway,” I told her instead, giving a shrug. “Kind of a useless label, given that you’re wandering around in a body that makes you happy, and now with a name that also makes you happy.”

“Thanks,” she grinned, gaze turning bashfully to the ground before bouncing back up to meet mine again. “It’s all so confusing, but at least I have time… and I’m safe from nasty people.”

“About that…” I winced, remembering the altercation I’d found myself in while cutting stone. “I met a pretty aggressive student earlier and got some pretty messy transphobic vibes from her. Be careful okay?”

She agreed with a nod, exasperation plain on her face. “Geez, really? We kinda have bigger problems to worry about.”

“I know,” I sighed, placing a hand on the top of her head for a moment. Lips quirking into a smile, I continued “Things like getting network access! Ready to go undercover?”

Two big brown eyes lit up with excitement. “Hell yes! I made a spell like yours that masks my mage looks, we can pretend to be normal students and sneak around!”

“Awesome,” I laughed, then feigned a passing thought. “Just… pinch me if I start humming the mission impossible theme song.”

“Oh my god, please don’t,” she groaned, rolling her eyes at me.

I winked. “No promises.”

****

Walking around the campus as just two regular girls was an interesting experience. We were both still achingly beautiful, there was no way around that without getting into more intense illusions, and neither of us really wanted to cover it up anyway. Being pretty was nice.

That is, apart from the stares we got from people, but at least it was nothing too far out of the ordinary. Just two good looking girls going about their business.

Avonside campus on the other hand, was a bit of a mess. It had started off as a fairly small university, without much funding and not a whole lot of attention. As the years had gone on though, it had expanded, buying up land around itself and putting it to use.

This haphazard expansion had led to some very odd little twists and turns, with buildings wedged between each other or at odd angles. I loved it personally, but I was one of those weirdos who just hated straight lines and squares in architecture. So boring.

It was especially helpful now, as there were many hidden and aging buildings that had been relegated to storage duty. All we had to do was find one that had a usable ethernet plug and we would be good to go.

One just like that… actually. Thinking I’d found what we were looking for, I motioned for Catherine to follow me, but a small hand whipped out to stop me in my tracks.

“What was that?” she blurted, tone hushed and brows crinkled into a frown. “Oh… it’s gone… Ryn, I think we need to go and take a look.”

“Why? What did you see?” I asked in confusion, but she didn’t wait to answer my question, instead taking my hand and dragging me into an alleyway.

“Follow, stay quiet,” she hissed, expressive brown eyes now deadly serious as she snuck along on quiet tread.

Giving a mental shrug, I did as she asked, keeping behind her while we made our way down the alley. Afternoon creeping in as it was, the light in the cramped space wasn’t incredible, but it was more than enough to make out the silhouette of a man at the other end, disappearing down a side passage.

Okay, Catherine had seen someone we apparently needed to follow… interesting.

Twists made way for turns in our chase as we followed the mysterious guy through the hidden paths of the campus. I was beginning to wonder if he’d seen us and was now trying to lose his tail in the maze.

Eventually however, my smaller sister put a hand out once more, halting me before I barrelled around the next corver. Finger to lips, she motioned towards it, and we both edged our way up as silently as we could manage.

“What took you so long?” a masculine voice asked gruffly.

The next voice pinged my memory, but I couldn’t figure out why. Definitely male though. “I got lost dude, give me a break. You’re the one who needs my help anyway.”

“Your boss promised a lot, but that bitch arrived anyway and where was the help?” the first voice hissed, anger raw in his voice.

“We didn’t get enough time, she moved far faster than we expected. Plus, we told you not to mess with her, but you didn’t believe us,” the second guy grouched. “She’s stronger than we thought too, my boss needs… backup.”

“Too late, because she kicked my boss out of Avonside and now we’re off headed north,” the other man hissed in frustration.

Taking a chance, I leaned over the top of Catherine and took a peek at them. Dark as it was, I didn’t really see much, other than two guys talking outside an open door into a forgotten building.

“That’s… north is towards the Donians though, my boss said they’re kinda crazy dude,” the second one warned, clearly taken aback.

“Crazy is a relative term, to us they sound like the only sane people on this ring,” the first guy shot back, clearly done with the whole conversation. “What have you got to offer that will make my boss want to turn around?”

“I… well, safety for one thing,” came the hesitant reply.

“Safety?” the guy who was clearly one of the cops guffawed. “My boss ain’t after safety dude, she’s after revenge. We all are.”

That seemed to finally harden the unknown dude into annoyance. “Typical. Fuckin’ cops always looking at the little picture, huh? I’m pretty dumb, but even I know that going for the quick emotional win is a dumb idea.”

“There it is, knew we couldn’t trust you,” the cop said defiantly, and with that he turned for the door.

The second guy was faster though, hand flicking out, wreathed in orange vines. The spell was effective, a quick, quiet blast of fiery energy and the cop fell forward with a thump, burning hole burned through his chest.

“Dumbass, still think you have power with your dinky little guns, huh?” the second guy scoffed at the body, kicking it for good measure. “Even after what Ryn did to you and your mates… stupid fuck.”

A tugging on my sleeve brought me back around the corner and out of sight. Catherine and I shared a look of wide eyed worry and confusion. Clearly those two were not our friends, but apparently from different factions?

Nodding frantically back down the path, Catherine silently indicated that we should get the fuck out of there, and I couldn’t agree more. We had no idea how powerful that mage was, and the fact that he spoke english with an american accent was rather worrying. Just who the hell was he?

Our rush to get away was aimless, silence making way to a headlong spring through the campus until we were figured we were safe. Thank fuck for this whack ass campus planning, or lack thereof. As we’d just experienced, it was pretty hard to follow someone through the twists and turns of this place.

“Holy shit,” Catherine puffed, little cheeks pink with the exertion of our escape. “Holy shit…”

“Well, the cop is dead—“ I began, but she interrupted me.

“That was James!” she blurted between gasps for air. “That was James, that boss of his he was talking about must be Fennimore!”

I was floored, because she was absolutely right. “Wow… how do I keep forgetting that James exists? And that was him? He’s a fucking mage now? We need to find Troy, the wifi can wait.”

“Isn’t Troy with the obrec right now?” she asked, eyes wide with just a hint of excited worry.

“Yeah, pretty sure… let’s go,” I nodded, and this time it was my turn to lead her by the hand. James being here was bad, really really bad. Apparently he’d gotten here before us too? My gut twisted with worry. What kind of shit had he already done while he was here?

We found Troy acting as a translator for the obrec as they haggled with some of the university staff over prices. It sounded like a difficult time, to be honest, because each side valued things at vastly different levels. The obrec had no use for a flat screen TV after all.

“Troy, we need to talk, like right now,” I called as we came within range. “Big problem!”

He reacted quickly, speaking first to the obrec, then the uni people. To me, he asked, “Here, or in the grove?”

“Grove,” I told him, and snatched all three of us in without any more discussion on the matter.

“What happened?” he asked, not at all fazed by the sudden transition. Guess he’d done it before.

“We saw James,” Catherine began, jumping in to explain. “He was meeting someone who seemed to be from the CEO’s group, looks like they left some people behind.”

“Shit, we’ll have to weed them out,” Troy grumbled, rubbing at his stubble for a moment in thought.

“No, James killed the cop dude, with magic…” I told him with a shake of my head. “He seems to be a mage now, and from what we caught of the conversation, he’s working for Fennimore.”

“He’s also apparently been here since long before we got back,” Catherine said, finishing where I left off.

That had Troy stopping to stare at us both, before he winced and swore, “Fuck, that is really not good. If he’s a mage, then he has a grove, and if he has a grove, it means he can just… steal whatever the hell tech or information he wants and pass it to Fennimore instantly. There’s no way that slimy bastard would need a man on the inside for any other reason.”

“Not to infiltrate us to make attacking easier?” Catherine asked, wide eyed with worry.

“Why would he need that? Avonside was all but defenceless against someone like him,” Troy replied with a bitter laugh. “He probably has more bodies he could have thrown at us than we had bullets. In fact I guarantee it.”

“Wait…” I murmured slowly, thinking back on what Fennimore had said. “He said he knew that another age of war was coming, spurred on by the tech we brought in. He said he wanted to stop it… but what if he was lying? He knows he could be the next conqueror instead, all he needs to do is get his hands on the theory behind all things gun related and he’s off…”

“Oh,” Catherine squeaked, eyes going wide. “He probably also knows that if he attacks now, we’ll just burn everything… so he can’t get it by force.”

Troy nodded, deep in thought. “If anything, he needs Avonside to be left alone and without any idea of what’s going on.”

“He picked the wrong guy to be subtle then,” my little sister snorted, a wry smile flitting across her lips. “James is dumb as a brick.”

“Don’t be mean to bricks Cat, it’s not nice,” I laughed, nudging her in the side with an elbow.

“Cat?” Troy asked, tilting his head and glancing between us.

“She chose the name Catherine,” I explained, taking that arm and snaking it around her shoulders now.

In a rare display of proper happiness, Troy grinned, “Congratulations Catherine, it’s a pretty name.”

“T-thanks,” she smiled shyly, biting her lip and staring down at the ground.

“Back to the task at hand though, we’re going to need to track down James and incapacitate him,” our leader said, smile fading as fast as it had appeared.

“I’m super busy with everything already, so is Cat here…” I said slowly, wondering how we could track people.

“Hold on, as much as I hate to say it, going after James probably isn’t the best course of action,” the girl in question said quickly. “If James has been here for a while and he’s probably stealing information for Fennimore, he’s already achieved what he wanted. There’s no point in jumping him.”

Troy stared at her for several long seconds as thoughts whirred through everyone’s minds. Finally, he nodded, turning to gaze down at the Order’s valley. “Alright, new plan, because you’re right. If we take James out, Fennimore will know he’s been had, might even step up the timeframe of his plans. That would just leave us with even less time to prepare.”

“That’s… as far as my ideas go, I don’t have any idea what to do instead,” Cat said sheepishly, scrunching up the front of her shirt into a ball.

“That’s fine,” Troy replied. With a raised finger, he pointed down into the valley, “Instead, we need to move faster. We need to get as much as possible moving within the Order, recruiting included. We’ll also need to warn our people to be careful, just because we think James’ primary goal is stealing information, doesn’t mean he won’t kill one of us if he’s given the chance.”

“We could even prepare things for Avonside’s defence without them knowing, store it all in our groves until it’s time to move everything in place,” I said thoughtfully. “They can’t see anything we do in here, so that’s a plus.”

“Indeed, although I think I’ll still task some of the others with tracking James’ movements so we know what he’s stealing,” he said with a weary sigh. “See if we can’t intercept some of it and feed bad science back to Fennimore.”

“I was really hoping that life would chill the fuck out for a little while,” I groaned, scuffing at the dirt with a shoe.

“Me too,” Cat grumbled, copying my movements.

****

I constructed a storehouse within the Order compound first, with the ground floor and upper floor for non-perishables, along with a basement that was cooled to below freezing. These buildings were done with the help of an engineering student that we offered to pay, since I had no fucking idea what I was doing as far as non-plant-based buildings went.

His name was Rueben, a scrawny looking dude with glasses and a perpetually worried expression on his face. He wasn’t actually worried though, he actually seemed to be ever so slightly awestruck by me and the grove.

“H-how much stronger can you make the wood?” he asked as we were contemplating the support beams.

“Very,” I smiled, pulling out my new phone. “Let me look up exactly how though.”

Catherine and I had gone and finished our wifi task after the meeting with Troy, and after a little tweaking we’d managed to get a plant to work as an amplifier for the signal. Having perfect signal anywhere in the grove was pretty fucking cool.

After reading through a few studies on the reasons behind the strength and toughness of various wood types, I went ahead and designed my own for the task.

The next building was a lot harder and required a whole lot more thought. A workshop for potentially explosive projects from our magitechts would need to be robust, so we went for double thickness on the stone walls this time. I had to consult with Claih and Bray on several occasions to get it right, including designing a bunch of random shit like a forge and all that. Honestly, I just did what they told me and hoped that it was correct.

We also laid out a central circular plaza, where the big ass pillar of crystal would end up. Next came a barracks, but that ended up causing some friction between myself and Troy.

“No, they need to be bunking together, it builds camaraderie,” he told me sternly, which elicited a groan from me.

“We’re not turning this into a dumb bootcamp,” I grumbled, hand on hip. “Look, this isn’t going to be an army. We don’t want to produce a bunch of footsoldiers, we want heroes. You don’t make heroes with a sausage factory machine thing.”

Visibly reining himself in from just dismissing my idea outright, he took a deep breath and asked, “Explain?”

“Soldiers have their place in a brutal world like this one, sure… but that’s not what we’re doing here is it?” I queried, gesturing to the plaza that was swarming with cobblestone-laying buns. “We want heroes, individuals… people with hearts and brains to make decisions that will help people. You don’t get that from shoving everyone down into a standardised basic training.”

“You’re talking about more than just sleeping arrangements in the barracks here Ryn,” he pointed out, but he seemed to be listening.

“There’s always a theme when it comes to this kind of thing in media, a big one. Individuality, freedom, and specialisation. I think, instead of trying to throw everyone into a basic training that might weed out important skills, we focus on finding good people and then help them be the best they can be in the fields they excel in,” I explained as calmly as possible.

“And for that to work properly, people need their own rooms, a personal space,” he murmured, turning to stare at the area we’d marked out for the barracks.

I nodded. “Our Order hinges on our members being good people first and foremost. We can sort out the rest of it once we have those good people. We want to find a bunch of gems in the rough, then cut and polish them according to their natural structure, not grind them down into mass produced bricks.”

“Cute metaphor, but they will all still need a certain standard of skill with arms, as well as survival skills within field operatives,” he warned me, almost as if he was asking for me to fix that problem too.

“Okay so, theoretically, say you find someone who is exceedingly good with a magitech gun, but bad at taking care of themselves in the wild,” I said, thinking out loud. “You pair them with someone who is a survivalist expert, maybe someone who is also good with a sword or something. We build teams, use them to cover each other’s weaknesses, all that stuff. I don’t know how to figure all the problems out, but if you go about this the way an army does, you’ll just get an army.”

“Fuck, you’re right…” he groaned, rubbing at his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “I’m going to have to rethink some stuff around how we train operatives, but you’re right.”

“Another thing...” I grinned wryly. “We’re not calling them operatives, that’s lame. We’re in fantasy land, so we’re calling them knights.”

He gave me a big eye roll and a snort for good measure. “Yes, Ryn.”

“Good, now let me get back to building you a village with my mind,” I laughed, shooting him a smug look.

“Your girlfriend is right,” he chuckled goodnaturedly, giving me a mimed cuff up the side of the head. “You’re a brat.”

“And I’m proud of it.”

*** Catherine ***

I dropped the wilted leaf with a frustrated sigh and pulled the newly sprouted shoot up by the roots. Another failure. I didn’t need to let it fruit to tell me that. The photosynthesis reaction wasn’t creating the appropriate molecules.

With another, now defeated sigh, I sat down heavily in the grass and stared about at my grove. Less than one twentieth the size of Ryn’s behemoth, it was nevertheless kinda cozy. I even had a little house now, with a bubbling brook to provide some cute aesthetics.

My grove was a vaguely teardrop shaped island sitting within a vast and misty ocean. The small area around my little house was sort of tended to, but the rest of it was an ugly nightmare of random experiments and stuff. I hadn’t gone for anything close to aesthetics like Ryn had, because I liked hanging out in her place more. It was nicer and everyone else was there too.

I had been worried about there being too many people running around over there when we’d first started thinking about putting the order’s headquarters in her grove. Luckily, that hadn’t been an issue. Ryn, for all her newfound extroversion, was still a shy girl at heart.

Also, Ryn’s grove had internet.

Anyway, it was a week since the whole James thing and I had been tasked with figuring out how to make bioidentical hormones for those transgender people who weren’t as lucky as Ryn and myself.

So here I was, trying to figure out a way to get some of the chemical reaction within a plant’s green bits to like, do what I wanted. Maybe I needed to go at this in an entirely different way. Throw out the normal plant stuff and make a plant out of more arcane materials.

Time to go and get Esra’s help again… okay maybe not. I think I’d rather go and ask Ryn, maybe consult her little library of magical texts. I loved the library in that tree, it was so good. We had one of the new recruits working on getting some of the university biology books copied for us too. She was a nice girl, but it had become apparent very quickly that while she had a good heart… she wasn’t up to the task of slaying evildoers. So she was now the order’s librarian.

I left my latest failed experiment to rot on the ground and pushed myself to my feet. Closing my eyes, I summoned the necessary mental command to push myself out into the Nameless Garden.

Rather than immediately push off towards the massive orb that was Ryn’s grove, I hung there in zero gravity. The fractal and ever changing plants of the Garden were so fascinating. I loved watching them, the way they seemed to be trying to perfect themselves through pure trial and error.

Before I got too distracted, I shook myself and made for the edge of Ryn’s grove. It was so massive now, dwarfing my grove like the sun does the earth. Pushing through the outer membrane placed me in the edge of her inner grove, the area surrounding her tree. That had been my biggest worry when she expanded the grove to accommodate for the Order, having to walk for an hour or two just to get home each day.

Thankfully, with a little bit of experimentation, we’d found a way to create a sort of personal guide. I had a little effigy, a strand of my hair wrapped around a bar of iron. I could feel it when I pushed against the membrane of the grove, personal to me.

A small hedge now circled Ryn’s tree, and within that was a sprawling decorative garden. Each of the plants used within this little garden did have a purpose, but she’d made them with aesthetics in mind too. It looked sort of like those hedge and rose gardens that rich people had around their houses back on earth, except with magical plants.

On the lawn at the base of the ramp up to the tree, I found Ryn face down on the ground. For a microsecond my heart stopped, but then I saw she was breathing and stopped panicking so hard.

“Are you okay?” I asked timidly, sitting down next to her with my legs crossed.

A wordless groan came from her and I saw chlorophyll green and purple suffuse her skin. Flowers sprung up out of her hair while young roots dove into the ground.

“I uh, didn’t get that sorry,” I murmured, reaching out to tentatively pat her shoulder.

Shifting her head to face me, she grumbled, “So tired. So many things to do.”

“Oh, okay.” Made sense why she was all plant mode right now. Easier to recoup energy when you could take it directly from the sun.

I stayed there with her for a while, enjoying the peace and serenity of her garden beneath the shade of the big house tree.

She caught me cleaning my new glasses when she finally sat up. “Those look good on you,” she said with an affectionate grin. Her hand reached out to fluff my already messy bronze hair. “Make you look like the cutest little nerd.”

“I used to be a tall badass nerd who could throw punches,” I grumbled, but my feigned irritation quickly dissolved into a grin to match hers. Yeah, I just… as empowering as that had been, the current iteration of the person who had been Kit was much better.

“So did you need anything, or are you just hanging out?” she asked, changing the subject.

“I failed to make estrogen again,” I blurted, my smile toppling off my face.

Ryn’s face dipped into disappointment, but she quickly shrugged it off and shuffled around to sit beside me. Bringing me into a sideways hug, she told me, “That’s fine, you’ll get it soon enough.”

“I think I need to turn to non-organics for the project. Normal plant stuffs just isn’t cutting it,” I said with a sad sigh. “I mean, it should, but I’m just not good enough.”

“What plant are you using as a base?” she asked thoughtfully. “Because I hate to suggest it, given the memes and shit… but you could modify a um… glycene max plant.”

“A what?” I blinked, confused.

“Soybeans,” she coughed, giving me a big grin.

It took me a moment, I guess because I used to avoid the types of guys that would make those jokes, but then it hit me. “Is that actually a thing?”

“Well, the actual use of phytoestrogens seems to be reducing fertility in female mammals, it’s very similar but also different enough that it fucks with things,” she explained. “It binds to the receptors instead of estradiol. I don’t understand it much more than that, but the end result is less babies in sheep or whatever. If you could mess with the creation of the phytoestrogens to make the process actually create the real thing, you’d be golden.”

“I’m going to look up what other plants do this too,” I grumbled, fishing my phone out of my pocket. “It’s a great idea, but I am absolutely not doing something that on the nose.”

“Trans girls are memers, Cate, trust me, they’ll see the humour in it,” she laughed, rocking us both from side to side with her arm.

I ignored my shit-stirring sister and stared at the article I’d found. There was a lot of stuff that produced the chemical, but it was all weird herbs and sh— “Wait, oranges?” I’d blurted the question, but I showed her the screen afterwards.

“Yo… okay, the soybean thing would have been kinda funny, but that’s actually good…” she said, looking down with an excited expression. “I say go for it! Hell, make it in a few different flavours while you’re at it!”

“That would be hilarious… but we’re also uh… we’re forgetting something,” I said as Troy approached. “Testosterone”

It was kinda crazy how T worked. Troy being trans had been a massive surprise to me, especially because back when I’d been Kit, we’d shared a room and stuff. Goes to show how much hrt really does I guess.

“Oh fudge,” she pouted, pulling out her own phone to do a search. “Wait… no. Ginseng.”

Troy arrived, and she grinned up at him. “How do you feel about drinking ginseng tea for the rest of your life?”

Looking as though he’d been running around training a bunch of kids how to swing steel, Troy just stood there processing Ryn’s question for several moments. “What?”

“Ginseng apparently makes something close to testosterone, so we’re going to try and modify it to produce bio-identical human testosterone instead,” I told him, filling in the blanks for him.

“If it works,” he said with a big, happy grin. Wait… Troy was grinning! Big Troy Grin! “Thanks girls. Glad you have a plan. I’m out of hormones now and it’s doing a number on my muscle density. Not to mention my mood…”

“Alright, the sooner the better then,” Ryn said, dropping her joking tone in favour of a more businesslike one. “I’ll take some time off the building to get that sorted. Our leader can’t be dealing with that type of shit.”

His smile was hopeful and open. “Thanks so much girls. Seriously.”

“Not a problem,” Ryn said, giving me a squeeze with the arm she still had around my tiny shoulders.

My tiny shoulders reminded me yet again of my recent transformation and a little bubble of happiness formed in my chest. It was so beautiful, the emotions that my new form brought up. I loved how big, full, and fluffy my hair was. I gave it a little swish, just for the joy of it, and had to duck and hide a happy blush when Ryn threw me a knowing look.

“I guess we have some work to do, huh sis?” she asked, dropping her head down onto my shoulder for a moment. “So much work. It never ends.”

Catherine

Ryn was in my grove for once! We were both sitting cross legged on the grass of my island as the ocean breeze tugged gently at our hair and leaves. Yeah, since we were alone and there were no pesky humans to stare at us, we’d gone plant mode.

My mage-sister’s magenta flowers shone like jewels in the sunlight, distracting me with their colour. Meanwhile, I was all dark bronze vines that wove around my limbs and through my hair. My leaves were a lighter shade of the same colour, while my flowers were a vibrant orange, the colour of a campfire at night.

I was a little jealous of Ryn’s colouration, to be honest. She was so beautiful, both in form and in the way her smile lit up whatever room she was in. Funny thing was that she didn’t realise it, she just kept on going like she was a normal person. Meanwhile, everyone else treated her like a particularly down to earth and personable goddess.

By contrast, I just looked like a nerd that had been shoved under a buffing wheel for an hour. Shiny, but my glasses were still massive circles on my face and I was still shy and hesitant. I didn’t radiate power and beauty like her.

Well, either that or I just really looked up to her. I mean, nobody had outright said that stuff, so maybe I was just alone in my thoughts.

“You need to change this part, I think?” Ryn said uncertainly, drawing me back out of my head and into the conversation. A while back, Ryn had designed a spell that gave us a visual aid to create spells. A sort of holographic workspace like Tony Stark had in the iron man movies.

Concentrating on the task at hand, I focused my attention on where she was pointing. Something was wrong with the roots?

We were working on the T producing ginseng plant, and so far we’d managed to do some fairly basic stuff, like making it grow faster because ginseng took literally years to grow. Sadly, when it came to the biochemistry stuff, we were stumped.

Ryn gave a long groan and began to spin the holographic display with an idle finger. “It’s crazy how complicated it is to do things at this micro scale. I had an easier time creating gravity defying energy daggers, for crying out loud.”

“I guess this is why the ring mages don’t really do this stuff often,” I mused. “We have basic scientific knowledge from high school and we’re still stumped. I can’t even imagine a mage native to the ring trying to do this shit. I guess we need to go and ask for help from the Avonsiders.”

"Probably," she agreed, and followed up with a wry smile. "Hopefully they’re willing to help. I think we intimidate them."

“Just a little,” I said, surprising myself with a giggle. Goodness, it was very strange when I did something incredibly feminine like that. I couldn’t tell if it was my new body causing it or just that I was allowing myself to express my previously hidden femininity.

A hand came down on top of my head, Ryn smiling behind it. “Cutie,” she accused, fluffing my hair again. She liked doing that. I think it was to assert her tallness.

“Let’s go find that one lady who was really excited about plant magic,” I grumbled, standing up and turning before she could see my heating cheeks.

“After you,” she laughed.

****

Professor Rivas was the head of the horticultural department, and she was somewhat terrifying, despite her size. She was one of those people who you could tell was immensely intelligent without her even opening her mouth.

We found her in a small laboratory garden behind her department, on her hands and knees, hands covered in soil. She was frowning down at a sapling that had only barely pushed through the earth. A quick magical inspection revealed the plant to be a modified apricot tree, but it wasn’t doing so well.

“Professor,” Ryn greeted her, coming to a stop with an amicable smile. “What’s the problem here?”

“Rynadria,” the woman said, standing and wiping her hands on her work trousers. “What a pleasant surprise. This is an apricot, specifically one from earth. It was previously a snack eaten by someone in our office, but now it is a conundrum.”

“Yeah, little buddy isn’t doing so well, huh?” Ryn observed, crouching down to touch the floppy little wannabe tree. To Rivas, she asked, “What’s the problem?”

“We don’t know,” the older woman shrugged helplessly. “Originally, we could grow plants that originate from earth. Everything was fine, but in the last month or so they’ve all been dying off and we can’t figure out why. No detectable pathogens, the soil appears to be good. Nothing should be wrong, and yet… this sapling is dying.”

“How about a trade then?” Ryn asked with her characteristic cheeky grin. “We help you with this, and you help us with our problem.”

The small indian woman narrowed her eyes at us, considering. “And just what problem is it that you are having?”

“This,” my sister said with a flourish of her hand, producing the holographic spellworking tool thingy. We really needed a name for it. Ryn was good with pageantry though, she’d probably think one up soon enough.

The Professor hid her surprise quickly, but you could see the keen interest within her dark eyes. “This is…?”

“It’s a spell,” Ryn said with a grin. “Or rather, a blueprint for a plant that under normal circumstances would become a spell. In this case though, it is just a modified ginseng plant.”

Rivas nodded and stepped closer, turning her head this way and that to get a look at the hologram. “This is remarkable. What are you intending to use this for?”

“Testosterone,” I said quietly. “There are people here who can’t produce it themselves, but need it. We’re planning to do the same with estrogen and oranges.”

“I see, and you need my help with that?” she asked, although her tone implied it was more of a statement.

“Yup,” Ryn said with a nod.

“Well, that is definitely within my realm of knowledge. Follow me, I’ll need the help of some references but I’m sure we can manage something,” Professor Rivas replied with a happy smile. “Hell, I might even throw in some designs for other commonly needed compounds, if we can have a few to grow. I’ve been waiting for a chance to work with the both of you.”

****

The professor was true to her word. Together, the three of us sketched out what we needed, then went through the various methods that we as mages could use to modify the plant. With the goals set and the tools laid out on the metaphorical table, we got to work.

It was complicated, intense, and tiring… and I loved it. It was so interesting the way plants did things at a cellular level. I mean, us humans and stuff did things the same way, but we were talking about plants here. Protein folding made my head hurt, but that was probably more because my brain had turned into a vacuum cleaner for all the knowledge that Rivas was dropping. Damn she was smart!

The ginseng was relatively simple in the end, once we had Rivas’ help. A little bit of messing around with the process and we had what we wanted. She even showed us how to get the plant to store it all in the roots so people could make tea and other things with it.

The estrogen producing orange tree proved much more difficult, but we got through that one too in the end. We also moved on to creating more complex trees for stuff like ibuprofen.

Once the two hormone plant plans were finished, Ryn split off to work on the earth-original plants and their weird dying problem. I had no idea how that turned out, I left while she was still grumbling and frowning over the small sapling.

I was off to find Troy and have him test out the new ginseng!

The journey into the Garden and then into Ryn’s grove took a little while, and when I arrived at what we were calling Eleos town, I stopped to gawk. They had really been busy!

Radiating out from a circular central plaza were four cobblestone roads, one leading to the lake, the other towards the entrance to the grove and another up towards Ryn’s inner plateau. The fourth one led towards a growing forest that would one day be the home of wild deer. So far there were only a few buildings finished.

One was the barracks, although it felt a bit weird to call it that now since Ryn had convinced Troy to give each recruit their own room. The next was the workshop, a large building where Bray ruled supreme. Last I’d seen him was like three whole days ago, which was coincidentally the same time that the forge was finished. I guess he was having fun, considering what I knew of him. We hadn’t really spoken properly yet, so… yeah.

The third building that had been finished was the storehouse, which was packed to the rafters with materials for building and food. Kind of crazy how much they had managed to do. Ryn’s buns were industrious, that’s for sure.

I found Troy in the dusty area that had been cleared of grass and that Troy had dubbed, the training area. He was creative like that.

Ginseng in hand, I was about to approach when my brain processed what my eyes were rather frantically reporting. Troy… he had the buns lined up. Oh my god, he was training a contingent of buns! There must have been like fifty twitching noses, each one watching with unnerving concentration as Troy went through some basic polearm moves.

When he was done miming out a blocking action, the buns all picked up their little spears and began to copy what he’d done. It was the most terrifying and adorable thing I’d ever seen.

“Where are the uh… human recruits?” I asked when I stepped up next to Troy.

Glancing sideways at me, I saw the corner of his mouth quirk in amusement. “They are running.”

“Oh, okay,” I replied dumbly, still marvelling at the bunnies with their little wooden training spears. “You know, I really don’t miss this.”

“Should I get you running too?” he teased, looking down at me.

“Not if you want a regular supply of this,” I pouted, holding up the bag of ginseng for him to see inside it. “We got it done. Now all you have to do is learn how to make tea with it.”

Relief flooded his expression in a wave, and he reached down to gently take the bag from me. “Thank you, Cate. Thank you so much. Seriously.”

I gave him a big grin. “Anytime, Troy. I’ll make sure to keep you stocked. Ryn says your dose should be a chunk about the size of the end segment of your pinky finger.”

“Life saver,” he sighed, breaking off a small chunk and popping it in his mouth. “Literally.”

Catherine

I wandered into the women’s common room within Ryn’s tree at some time near midnight, having spent all afternoon planting various hormone producing vegetation. Not only that, but we also had a few test samples for the basic painkillers that Professor Rivas had designed.

It was kind of funny really, but in an odd turn of events it seemed that herbal medicine would be a legit thing. Not that it hadn’t been in the past, but there was a difference between a tea that could help with headaches and ibuprofen. One would soothe it, the other would nuke that malevolent fuckstain back into the hole that it came from. I had opinions on headaches.

The nice and neat arrangement of furniture had long since been abandoned. Now there were sofas, armchairs, coffee tables, desks, and all sorts all strewn randomly across the room. It was kind of nice really, it gave the place a lived-in feeling.

Ryn was already there, asleep on top of Grace on one of the couches off to the side. Grace was idly browsing through her phone, the harsh light of the screen illuminating the otherwise dark corner they had set up camp in.

Kelsey and Melody were nowhere to be seen, and since their door was closed I assumed they had already gone to bed.

Grace looked up when I came in and gave me a little wave before going back to her phone. Choosing not to disturb them, I grabbed the book I’d been reading over the past few days and shuffled off into another nook on the other side of the large room. I liked my privacy when I was reading, and it felt like it would be a massive invasion of theirs if I were to go sit with them.

The book I was reading was an older one about some assassin dude who reunited with his prince best friend after years. It was one of those stories that had that wow moment where the previously mediocre main character reveals their true power. Cliche, I know, but I was a sucker for the trope.

The dude was just learning how to use his special shadow powers when the sofa shifted underneath me. I glanced up to find Mer had dumped herself into the opposite corner.

Almost instantly, my eyes basked in the sight of her. She wore loose fitting slacks and a crop top, and that was it. Her abs were on full display and it was hard not to gawk.

Then I noticed her inhuman features. Soft, short and silky fur lined her sides and what I could see of her back. Intellectually I knew that the fur covered most of her body, leaving only her stomach, breasts, groin, and inner thighs exposed.

Right then though, I wasn't thinking with all that much intelligence. Instead, my crotch had gained a heartbeat. Oh god, she was so impressively gorgeous. Especially with her large horns that sprang from her forehead and curved upward before dipping down to almost meet behind her head.

"Long time no see," she winked. "That's the phrase, right?"

She was speaking in english, albeit with an accent. All the obrec were getting reasonably fluent, their alien minds uniquely suited to learning languages. The accent just made my problems worse, because it was a really hot accent.

"That's the phrase, yes," I said quietly, trying to keep my eyes on hers. That proved to be a problem too, since they were seriously deep and intriguing ones.

Her smile made me feel like she'd just trailed a feather up the inside of one of my thighs. “What are you reading?” she asked, motioning down to the book that had fallen unceremoniously into my lap when she’d arrived.

“Oh, just a fantasy novel,” I shrugged, placing my bookmark carefully back between its aging paper pages.

Her curiosity wasn’t dampened by my shrug, and she shuffled softly across the sofa and reached for the book. Before her hand touched it though, she stopped and looked up at me. “May I?”

“Um, yeah,” I nodded, feeling far too muddled and tongue tied to say no, even if I’d wanted to. She always had this effect on me. The moment she came near, it was like my powers of speech up and went on vacation.

She stared at the stylised silhouette of a hooded assassin on the cover with raised eyebrows, then flipped it over to look at the blurb. A moment later and the book was carefully deposited back in my lap and she was giving me a wry smile. “I should learn how to read english properly. I cannot read more than a few words on the back of that. What does it say?”

I felt a smile pull at my lips and I ducked my head slightly out of shyness. “It’s… yes. I mean, uh… that writing on the back describes the general plot of the book. It’s called a blurb and it’s meant to sell the book. I mean, because back on earth we had um… yeah. It’s a story, a made up one… um, fiction. People write them and then sell them as entertainment and… yeah.”

She gave an amused chuckle, reaching out with a hand to touch my shoulder. “I am familiar with the concept, Catherine. No need to worry.”

Hearing her say my new name sent spikes of red hot euphoria up my spine that in turn disturbed several butterflies within my stomach. I had to carefully school my features to keep her from seeing just how much the name and her touch had affected me.

I must have said something, because she gave a nod and withdrew the hand. “Yes, it is a thriving industry within the Empire of Ghraiga. I’m afraid that what you have seen thus far of the ring is… well, a barbaric backwater by many standards. Even the great halls of my people pale in comparison to what lies to the east.”

“Really?” I asked, forgetting my shyness for a moment as the chance for more ringworld lore caught my attention. “How so? So far everything has been fairly impressive.”

“Well, you know of the bigots to the north, along with the valley and its squabbling, petty kingdoms. To the east though, that is where the true cultures and empires of the region reside,” she explained as I leaned in.

“I want to see it all, it seems so amazing,” I sighed, flopping sideways so my face was partly smooshed against the couch. Getting even more comfy, I pulled my legs up and tucked them under myself, giving her a sheepish smile in the process. “Sorry if that’s like… weird or whatever. It’s just that our world was so boring and mundane compared to the ring. That book I just put down? It would be considered less fantastical and outlandish than the ring actually is. I’m living in a storybook and it’s a constant source of amazement.”

She gave a little chuckle and copied my position, leaving only a foot and a half of space between our faces. My eyes flicked to her hooves and the way she curled them like I would my toes. It was really cute.

“I would say the same if I were in your world,” she said with a smile. “What little I have seen of Avonside, plus what you have told me… now that seems fantastical.”

My heart fluttered as I watched her huge brown eyes looking into mine, and for a moment I forgot what she’d said. “Y-yeah,” I said, eyes turning downcast. “It was a utopia compared to most of the ring. It had so many problems… but they pale in comparison to the wars and disease that ravage this land on a daily basis.”

“You did get something rather amazing out of this savage world of ours though,” she said, reaching out towards me.

Her hand hovered next to my cheek for a few moments, as though she were trying to decide if she should touch me or not. I think my heart had stopped, or was it my breathing? Probably both.

She apparently decided against touching my cheek, but her smile didn’t waver. She must have seen a question in my eyes though, because she clarified, “You had not given permission. We may be immersed in your culture, but in mine… well it wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“I swear you’ve touched me before,” I frowned, confused now and maybe a little disappointed. “You touched my shoulder!”

“That’s different,” she laughed. “I’m not going to attempt to explain why. It would get awkward, and I am quite enjoying myself in this moment.”

“Oh…” I mumbled, feeling myself blush again. Quick! Change the subject… uh, what had we been talking about? Oh right! “Ah… um, I… yes. This new body, magic… it’s more than I could have hoped for. I like it.”

“I can tell,” she said gently, shifting slightly so that her long fluffy ear wasn’t crushed against the back of the sofa. “Tell me something. Tell me about a random event or interesting fact from your world. Something I won’t have heard.”

I blinked, surprised by her request. Why did she care? I mean I guess it was interesting but, that’s about it.

“U-um,” I mumbled, diving into my mental bin of useless knowledge. “Oh! I know! Back on earth, scientists built a huge circular tunnel under the earth. Can you guess why?”

Her eyebrows rose, but she humoured me, “To hit themselves in the back of the head with an echo?”

A giggle bubbled up and out of me and I shook my head. “Nope, but that’s a pretty funny thought. No, they did it so they could smash tiny particles of matter together at massive speeds. Just to see what happens. Well, and to write it down and think about it a bit.”

Mer let out another one of her funny little chuckles and rolled her eyes in amusement. With a teasing tone dancing through her voice, she commented, “This is what happens when you give people too much safety, eh? They go looking for dramatic explosions.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, trying and failing to keep a straight face. “Defin—“ I didn’t get to finish the word because a massive, eye watering yawn rushed out of me.

“Time to go to sleep, eh?” she said, before stifling a yawn of her own. “Yup, definitely time to sleep. I have a hard day of running and training humans to use swords.”

“You’re helping Troy?” I asked in surprise.

She winced and raised her hand to wiggle it in a so-so gesture. “Attempting to, my dear Cat, attempting to. Unfortunately, I am much more proficient with heavier and less… artful methods of combat.”

“You do like maces,” I agreed, not moving an inch despite the recent agreement about bedtime.

“I really like maces,” she said with a crinkle-eyed smile. “But we can talk about that tomorrow. For now, let us retire before we both fall asleep where we sit.”

Ryn’s PoV

I hopped back out of my grove and into the mundane realm to find it threatening to rain. The clouds above Avonside were dark and billowing, whipped up by the wind as it twisted its way through the mountains. It was going to make gathering stone a pain in my pretty little ass. My buns hated the cold.

The dark weather wasn’t doing anything for my poor tired brain either. So many things to make sure of. I wasn’t good at keeping tasks ordered in my mind at the best of times, but lately I felt like I was drowning.

Today I had to cut stone for construction, touch base with Professor Rivas on an insulin producing plant design, check on the obrec to see if they needed anything, and… shit, what was the last thing? Crap. Hopefully I remembered it by the time I needed to do it.

Walking through the campus was still a surreal experience, considering that like, a year ago, I was doing the same thing on a different planet and in a different body. The students going about their day were gone now, or at least they weren’t really students anymore.

A group of foragers, baskets on their backs, trudged along the same path as me, heading the other way. I wonder what they had all been studying before this. Before they were torn from their old lives and thrust into this dangerous new world. One of them had a thermos full of what smelled like coffee, and deep inside my brain, a remnant of my past self awoke. It seemed my coffee plants had been put to good use.

“Hey, excuse me,” I blurted, swerving slightly so they knew I was talking to them.

The group looked up as one, eyes widening as they realised who was talking to them. They slowed and exchanged looks, as though silently drawing straws to determine who would be unlucky enough to talk to me.

“Yeah?” A thin, awkward looking dude asked cautiously.

“Where’d you get those coffees, if it’s okay to ask,” I said, feeling a little nervous as I gestured to their beverages. The way they were all looking at me made my stomach squirm a little. Like I might vaporise them with an angry look.

“The Fogg building,” he said, politely but curtly. “Cafe at the bottom.”

“Thanks,” I smiled, trying my best to appear unconcerned by the strange attitude of the group. Was I really that scary? Did I have resting murder face when I was tired?

They moved on while I puzzled over their strange behaviour, but in the end all I could do was shrug and wander off in search of the cafe. It had been so long since I had proper coffee, and the smell just now had caused a craving.

The Fogg building wasn’t too far away, being near the center of campus. If I remembered correctly, it mainly housed student services and the cafe at the bottom. I think there might have been a few classrooms at the top too? I wasn’t sure. Either way, it was a small, colourful modern building shoved between two cold war era tower blocks that made it stick out like a sore thumb.

When I got there, a small line had formed that appeared to be growing by the moment. Yawning, I joined the queue and waited patiently.

It was a pretty cute little cafe, to be honest, and it seemed to have survived its time on the ring mostly unscathed. The decorative pot plants looked like they could use some watering, and the paint on the outside sign was slightly faded, but the windows were still there and they even had some tables and chairs laying around. Of course, they no longer accepted money. Instead, they had what were called Work Certificates, which were definitely not money. Nope, not at all.

Unfortunately, the people in the line were less than chill about me just rolling up like a normal person. Everyone was staring at me now, with a broad range of expressions and emotions, some more hidden than others.

Oops, guess I should work on a proper disguise. Something that was more physical than a simple illusion. Could help with research towards changing trans people’s bodies too. Not really a priority in the grand scheme of things, but important to me personally.

The stares were a lot to handle though, and I nervously checked my skin-tight magical shield. Was it still in place? Yeah? Okay, good.

I made my way up through the line, only for my gut to drop out when I saw who was serving the coffee. Rhea, the girl who’d been weirdly confrontational with me the other day when I was mining stone.

Shit, well… that might explain why the people with the coffee were giving me funny looks earlier. Maybe she was talking shit about me?

She hadn’t seen me yet, and I debated just leaving, but… I really wanted that coffee. She also wasn’t the one actually preparing the coffee either, just taking the orders. Worst case she wrote down the wrong order on purpose or something. That was fine, all coffee had its place, and I wasn’t feeling all that picky.

I immediately wished that I had just left when she actually laid eyes on me. Her expression soured in an instant as I stepped up to the counter, and I could tell she was calculating if she could get away with telling me to leave.

She obviously couldn't, since it was my coffee beans she was handing out, and I think she must have realised that because she plastered a smile on her face and asked, “Why hello, Ryn. What can I get you?”

“Um…” I began, unsure how to process her behaviour. “Just whatever is easiest, thanks.”

I placed a Work Cert onto the counter and waited for her reaction. If I didn’t let on what coffee I liked, she couldn’t purposefully give me the wrong coffee. Now you’re thinking with portals, Ryn!

One of her eyes twitched in irritation, but she nodded and picked up a crude paper cup, scribbling something on it and placing it to the side. “It’ll be ready soon, they’ll call your name.”

I nodded my wary thanks and stepped to the side, wondering what she’d put on the cup. A cup that looked like it had been made after Avonside arrived on the ring, funnily enough. I wonder how they had managed that so quickly. Was it even hard to make disposable paper cups?

Some random dude from behind the counter plucked my cup off the waiting tray and began to make my coffee without so much as a glance in my direction. He looked exhausted, and I didn’t blame him. Making coffee for hundreds of people in the space of an hour or two could be tough work. Any service job was.

I wonder if there was some way I could make a coffee spell. Oh, or teach my buns to make coffee! Would they tolerate that?

“Elias?” the called name lanced ice into my heart, and my lungs failed to take in the next breath.

I looked up to see the dude who’d made my coffee looking around. Looking around at all the guys, not at all realising what Rhea had done. To his side, she stood, a look of cruel victory on her face.

Hurting as I was by the sudden intrusion of that months-dead name, I did the only thing I could. I walked up to the guy as calmly as I could, took the cup from his confused grip, and rushed out of the cafe.

Oh god. Why did it hurt so much? It was just a name. I’d heard it a few times since I’d become Ryn, but never… never in a way that was so vindictive, so nasty. She had used that name to send me a message, to tell me that I wasn’t a woman in her eyes, that I was still him. Then there was the name on the cup, written with obvious care onto the paper in permanent marker.

Using a sharpened telekinetic tentacle, I carefully sliced off the name, like a surgeon performing a life-saving operation. The flake of paper never reached the ground, because that same tentacle eviscerated it with a wild savagery that was in stark contrast to the care I had just used. The cup was a little less structurally sound, but that didn’t really matter to me. I could hold the cup together with my mind, after all.

Timidly, I took a sip from the coffee, then breathed a sigh of relief as I found it to be just the way I liked it. Strong enough to princess carry me. At least I had won out there. Silly bitch thought I wouldn’t like it darker than her heart.

Well, time to get to cutting stone, I guess.

Nobody was really around at the quarry when I arrived, which was more than fine by me right then. I wanted to take out some of my stress on some inanimate objects without anyone seeing the tears that came with it.

What the hell was Rhea’s problem anyway? I hadn’t done shit to her, and now she had some sort of petty vendetta out for me? Ugh, whatever. I’d leave extra stone here for the university to use, more than we’d agreed when they let us use the stone. At least that way I was channeling my pain into something useful. Plus, I figured the easiest way to combat her evil whispers was to do even more good than before. The rest of Avonside couldn’t hate me if I was responsible for the roof over their head, right?

Doubted it, to be honest. Humans sucked, and they’d hate people, things, and ideologies for whatever damned reason they wanted, regardless of logic. Still, it made me feel better, so I guess that was something.

A few hours later and I was just polishing off the last load of cut stone when an obrec ranger jogged up to me, waving as she did so.

“Rynadria, greetings,” she said in the obrec tongue. “Otho requests your presence at our lodge. There is a human boy from the Anver states here, he claims to know you.”

“A… huh?” I blinked, trying to imagine who on the ring it could be. The Anvers were… all the humans who lived down in the clusterfuck of principalities to the south. Yeah, that was them… and… but I didn’t know anyone from there, did I? I had passed through with the other members of the order and we hadn’t really made any friends. Confusing. I guess there was only one way to find out.

“Alright, let’s go then.”

The obrec lodge had been altered by its inhabitants since I had built it. They had added all sorts of little things, like a balcony over the entrance. The biggest addition was the large slate roofed patio on one side, which they used to store their wagons out of the rain and work on any crafting that couldn’t be done inside.

Obrec rangers were posted out the front of the patio and main lodge entrance, but with my magic, I could sense several more lurking in the windows where humans couldn’t see them. Guess they trusted the general Avonsider population as much as I did right now.

Underneath the patio was a wagon that didn’t look like it belonged to the obrec, and it was pretty busted up to boot. Functional, but dented and slashed like it had been assaulted by an angry bear. There was even some charring along the back. Just what had happened to this thing, and to the person who owned it?

My guide ushered me in towards the entrance into the lodge, and I followed, marveling at how well the obrec had settled in. The Stonechasers were certainly an industrious lot, that’s for sure.

At a table off to the side were Otho, Jerril, and a human third I didn’t recognise. Otho had an arm around the third guy’s shoulders while Jerril spoke to him. All of them looked serious, but the third guy— hold on, that was…

“Cad?” I asked in surprise. It was the dude who had let me ride on his wagon! Him and his old mercenary protector. What was her name? Va— Valda, that’s right. Except… she wasn’t here.

Cad looked worn and tired compared to when I’d first met him. Worry lines had manifested on his forehead, harbouring dirt from the road. His characteristic easygoing and open expression was missing too, and his brown hair looked like it had only had the most hasty of washes in many many days. His clothes were worn and dirty too, the trousers in particular had a large rent in their fabric on the leg, where something or someone had slashed at him.

“Ryn!” the exhausted merchant exclaimed, standing up out of his seat with a faintly noticeable wobble.

He rushed around the table like a kid seeing their parents for the first time in months, only to slow and redden. “A-ah, hello. I’m sorry, I’m presuming. I um, I… Valda told me to come find you after she… after she…”

“Oh,” I said, my stomach dropping as I realised what he was saying. “How did she… are you okay?”

“It was that guy, Lord Fennimore,” he said, looking sad but not like he was about to fall apart entirely. “He found out we helped you somehow, hunted us. We realised we needed to come to this… this Avonside place, if we wanted to be safe. If we could find you, you could protect us. Valda said… she said you owed us, after all.”

“I did, and I do,” I replied forlornly. God, Fennimore was a fucking piece of work.

His expression wobbled its way into a smile of relief for a moment, before dropping down into one of haunted memory. “They caught us just before we crossed into empire lands. Ambushed us. Valda… she um, she… she jumped off the wagon, smacked the horses and told me to go. Then she just kept fighting until they… until she couldn’t anymore. I saw it from a distance. I escaped, obviously. At least she went out fighting. She always said she hated growing old.”

I swallowed and braced as guilt washed over me. God, Valda had died protecting Cad from my enemy. It was—

“Don’t pull blame onto yourself which is rightfully that of someone else,” Otho said quietly in the obrec tongue, interrupting my train of thought.

Turning, I met his eyes with surprise. All he did was shrug and smile.

Blowing out a long breath, I nodded and turned my gaze back to Cad. Otho could tell me that it wasn’t my fault all he wanted, but that didn’t change much. I was still responsible, even if the blame for the actual act was squarely on Fennimore’s shoulders.

I’d liked Valda too, although I hadn’t known her for long. She’d been kind to me, even when she found out I was a mage. Yeah, I’d forgotten about her in the mess of shit that had happened since, but god… it sucked that she was dead.

At least I could take care of Cad for her. Help the guy get back on his feet, or even just join the order. We could definitely use a guy like him, that was for sure, and he’d be more than safe ensconced in my grove.

Cad’s big brown eyes were glancing between me and Otho in obvious confusion, and with a start I realised that I hadn’t spoken in a few moments. I gave him a smile to let him know everything was chill, then turned and closed my eyes. Running a hand through my long, magenta hair, I tried to pull enough thought juice together to function.

“Fucking Fennimore,” I said at last, bitter and frustrated. If it weren’t for him, I’d be on a much more chill and relaxed timeline than I was. If it weren’t for him, a good woman wouldn’t be dead. Well, and like a whole ton of other shit that the bastard had done.

“A-ah, yeah,” Cad agreed awkwardly, sounding a little intimidated. I guess there had been more venom in my tone than I realised.

“Let’s sit down,” I said , taking care with my tone this time. “Tell me everything.”

Placing my weary butt down on the rough wooden bench beside Jerril and opposite the two younger men, I settled in to listen.

"Well, we kept going after you left us," he began. "Buying goods in one town then shipping them to another. We never mentioned you to anyone, Valda made sure. She knew that association with a mage tends to draw the wrong kind of attention."

I found myself nodding at that. I could only imagine what people would do for a chance at getting the ear of a powerful mage.

“About a month ago, we were a few days' ride from Theorden to sell some Kildierian wool at the market there,” he said, tracing a knot on the wooden table with a finger. “Valda noticed some suspicious riders behind us as we gained the top of a rise and told me to get ready to run if we needed to. Said her bones were telling her something was wrong.”

“Sounds like her,” I said, trying for an amused expression and failing. Gah, I’d actually quite liked the gruff mercenary woman.

Surprisingly, Cad actually smiled at my remark. “Yeah. I’ve known her for a few years now, she’s always been so grumpy but also really nice.” His face fell as he realised the tense he’d used, and he murmured, “Ah… was. She was… yeah.”

Silently, I reached over the table to give his hand an awkward pat. Maybe it was stupid and rude of me, but I was a little wary about touching him, considering how he’d been last time. I just didn’t want to give him the wrong idea.

“Anyway, um… so they gained on us, obviously. Hard to outrun riders using a fully burdened wagon,” he continued bitterly. “It was pretty clear they were after us when they increased their pace to catch us, so Valda threw all the merchandise out the back to clutter the road and free up weight. It only helped for a little while, though, and that’s when she… when she told me to keep going and jumped off the back. Since then I’ve just been on my own, fleeing… yeah. I got a good look at them when they got closer and it was definitely Fennimore’s guys.”

“And you never mentioned me after we parted ways?” I asked, frowning as I tried to figure out how in the ring they found him and Valda.

He shook his head. “We did not.”

“I never mentioned you two either,” I said, confused. “I mean, besides… oh, that slimy fucking cunt!”

The last part had been said in english, but it was clear Cad understood the tone of outrage. “W-what?”

“One of the Avonsiders who I found,” I said, seething with frustrated, impotent anger. “He got captured by Fennimore and swapped sides. I mentioned you two when I was telling them my story.”

“Oh, that would do it, I guess,” he sighed.

It made me want to throw my mage senses wide and hunt him down, regardless of the migraine it would give me with so many people around. What the hell did Fennimore even want with Cad and Valda? They weren’t exactly important in the grand scheme of things. Fuck, first things first though, help the poor, road-weary guy on the other side of the table.

Slapping a smile on my face like that one guy in the meme about stopping a leak in a tank of water, I met his sorrowful gaze. “Well, shit. I’m really sorry about Valda. I’m sorry you got dragged into my problems. I guess, the least I can do is offer to help you do whatever it is you’d like to do from here on out. Assuming you want my help, that is.”

“I don’t even know what I want to do,” he said forlornly. “I can’t go back to trading in Anve lands, the lord will just come after me again. I don’t speak obrec, I don’t speak… um, engleese, and I don’t speak Aber, so I can’t move. I can’t go back to my village because that will put all of them in danger. I... I have nowhere to go.”

“Well… I have a proposition for you then…” I said, hoping he’d be happy with the idea of joining the Order.

“You have… how many people in your grove?” Cad asked with wide eyed excitement. “And you want me to come too? You want me to join your knights?”

I’d just finished explaining what the Order of Eleos was to him, and it had been an experience to remember. It was my defining memory of him, after all, his sense of innocent adventure. He was a romantic at heart, be it pretty girls or tales of adventure, he loved it all. So naturally, as I explained the idea behind an order of knights dedicated to doing good in the world… well, some of the pain in his eyes had transformed into excitement and wonder.

“Well, they’re not my knights,” I said, smiling indulgently. “We operate as a sort of council for big decisions, and then we have a commander for combat operations and stuff. The hierarchy is a little ambiguous right now, and I’m just an advisor. Obviously I have a lot of power because the base is in my grove, but… I try to just mind my own business.”

“Still…” he said, fidgeting with a clay cup on the table. “Gods, what would I even do? I can’t fight. I’m useless when it comes to that kind of thing.”

“There’s much more to running this kind of operation than your ability to stab someone with a sword,” I told him wryly. “My old best friend is training to become our smith and magitecht for example.”

Another ounce of hope lit behind his eyes, and he asked, “I don’t suppose you need a merchant?”

“Probably,” I told him. “Truthfully, I have no idea what kind of personnel we need, but I can get you to the guy who does.”

“Ah, I can answer that,” Otho interjected, his fluffy ears perking up. “We do indeed need a merchant. I could use someone to help me, as I am currently acting as one of very few quartermasters. You will of course need to learn some languages, but that can be arranged. There are already Anve, Aber, and Obrec language classes being taught in the grove.”

“I…” Cad began, bottom lip wobbling dramatically. “Thank you. This is…”

“How about we get you into my grove, then you can clean up, relax, eat, and think, yeah?” I asked patiently. Poor dude was about to have a meltdown in front of everyone inside the lodge.

He just nodded, clearly overwhelmed by the offer we’d just given him. I knew how that felt, too, when everything in life was just so fucking hard, and then someone swoops in to make it all work. The relief you feel is a physical thing, like stepping into a bath that is almost too hot to bear.

“Anything you need from out here?” I asked, motioning around us. “Or can I just drag you in now?”

“I have nothing left,” he said with a defeated shrug of his shoulders. “Except my cart, and a change of clothes.”

“Well, how do you feel about a warm bath and some hot food?” I asked brightly, reaching over to grasp his hand with telekinesis. I made sure to give the rope-like tentacles a subtle magenta hue so he knew what was happening and what they were, but even then his eyes widened with fright.

“A-ah… so long as I’m not the food,” he laughed nervously, eyes flicking between the tentacles and my face.

I laughed and gave him a cheeky wink. “Nah, you’re not the type of food I like, don’t worry.”

It took him a second to understand my little insinuation, but when he did, he went bright red. “O-oh, no! I wasn’t… I mean I don’t… I… would like a bath, yes. Food, too.”

“Want to come into the grove too?” I asked, looking at Otho.

He shrugged. “Sure, I can help translate.”

“Good, let’s all stand up first though. Don’t want to fall on our asses when we arrive,” I replied, following through on the motion as I spoke.

Once everyone had followed my lead, I slipped us all over the interdimensional threshold and into my grove. Since I was beginning to gain some moderate amount of control over where I appeared within my grove now, I was able to take us a little closer to the base of my tree within the new garden I had made. I still felt sort of bad for making anything as orderly and well manicured as the garden that surrounded the tree, but too many people disagreed with me, so… yeah.

“Wh-woah,” Cad gasped, dinner plate eyes flitting around from one fantastical detail to the next. “Oh my… by the…”

*

He spun in a circle and wondered at my grove like a little boy in a dinosaur museum. It was incredibly cute to watch, if I was honest, and gratifying to see. I’d put a lot of work into this place, and seeing that work appreciated with unadulterated enthusiasm was amazing and deeply fulfilling.

“It’s beautiful,” he breathed, grinning from ear to ear.

“It’s my baby. I put a lot of time and effort into this place,” I said, watching curiously as a bun I didn't recognize hopped towards us across the grass. Unlike most of my buns so far, this one didn’t have big lopped ears, but rather small perky ones that stuck up and back out of its head like a pair of indignant radar dishes.

“I-is that a giant bunny?” Cad asked when he noticed the bun arrive.

I nodded and crouched down to scratch at the bun’s forehead in greeting. “Yeah. They’re my helpful little tenders. What’s your name, little one?”

Her little fluffy shoulders shrugged, indicating that she didn’t have one, then she stood up on her hind legs and placed her hands together in a begging gesture. It took me a second, but then I grinned and asked, “Oh, you want me to give you one?”

I got an enthusiastic nod in reply, and a gentle bonk to my knee from a paw.

“Okay… well… how about… Lua?” I asked, watching for her reaction.

Enthusiastic nodding from her cute little silver furred head, and I knew I had guessed right. I always felt like I was discovering their names, rather than thinking them up. “You like Lua?”

More nodding. “Well, that’s good then. What can I do for you, little friend?”

Lua twitched her short ears and looked up at Cad, who was staring in wide eyed fascination. The three foot tall bun hugged herself, then pointed to Cad and mimed the same motion.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, surprised that my grove had already picked up on the need for Cad to have a guide and support bun. “You’re here to be Cad’s helper bun?”

Lua’s excited nodding had me laughing, and I stood back up and launched into an explanation. Cad listened with confusion and more than a few questions. He wanted to know how my buns were so smart, what Lua would be doing, all of that. I couldn’t blame him, my buns were very incredible.

From there we went inside the tree, where I gave him a tour the whole way up to the guy’s common room. Nowadays the tree tower was a bustling hive of activity, with several of my friends lounging in the balcony room, buns behind the bar serving drinks when needed.

We saw Catherine in the library, scribbling away on an expanding array of paper, open books scattered around her. She was working on synthesising more medicines using our magically engineered plants. Getting quite good at it too, which was exciting. Hopefully she’d be able to carry that skill forward into more arcane works.

I made sure to introduce him to everyone too, so that he at least knew who everyone was. He still couldn’t speak to them, but it’d hopefully help.

Unfortunately, I did have to leave him once I showed him to the bathroom. I still had a lot of work to do, and Lua was there now to make sure he didn’t get into too much trouble.

****

Later that day, after I was finished dealing with all of the day's tasks, I dropped back into my grove, tired and hungry. I was about to head back into the tree to check on Cad, when I noticed a small huddle of people over at the newly created upper plateau workshop.

Made out of stone brick and a heat resistant wood I had developed, the workshop was nestled amongst the roots of the great tree. I'd made it so that Claih and Bray could tinker with private projects and ideas without too many people getting underfoot.

It seemed, however, that they had managed to gather a crowd nevertheless. Grace, Troy, Kelsey, Bray, Cad, and Claih all stood outside, with my girlfriend at their center.

As I approached, I began to see why. Grace had a bandolier across her chest, and a crazy looking cannon of a pistol in her hand. It looked pretty jank, if I was honest. Obviously a prototype, but it had a rugged appeal to it as well.

Its two barrels were almost as long as her forearm, while the rest had no casing to protect the inner workings of the gun. It had a revolver-like cylinder area, but instead of housing bullets, it had a slot for little vials of magical energy.

Grace sensed me approaching first and looked up with a smile. “Hey Ryn! Look what Claih made for me!”

“Hey, I helped!” Bray grumbled loudly. “It was me who figured out how to make the bore to add the rifling.”

“Does rifling even help with firing magic?” I asked, accepting a sideways hug from my girlfriend.

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” she grinned, leaning down to give me a short, sweet little kiss. “We were just arguing over the best place to test it out.”

Smiling, I gazed up into her beautiful, expressive green eyes and asked, “Do I need to whip up a quick firing range for you?”

If you’d asked me five minutes ago if I had it in me to create anything out of magic, I’d have told you to fuck off. I was exhausted, but having my girlfriend’s arm around my shoulders and her smile leaving an afterimage in my minds’ eye, it had given me a second wind.

“If you have the energy,” she said with a hopeful puppy dog expression.

Oh goodness, my girlfriend was so cute when she wanted something. “Depends,” I said slyly. “Will you kiss it into me?”

Grace was indeed up to kissing some energy into me, but we kept it fairly PG to avoid making everyone else uncomfortable. With me full of power, we walked off to a remote corner of my upper plateau. Using the magic that she’d just given me, I grew several trees at the edge of a cliff and flattened out one side. That way, the shots would go out into the void, and they’d have a place to pin actual targets if they wanted them.

“So how does it work?” I asked, standing a yard back and to the side of her. Everyone else was arrayed on some hastily grown vine chairs, like we were all a bunch of Victorian ladies and Grace was a gentleman showing off her new toy.

Claih was the one to pipe up and explain it, using the opportunity to walk Grace through the process one last time. “I’ve already told you this, but it never hurts to triple check. Fold the barrel forward to expose the core chamber, then slide in a filled canister.”

Grace did as she was told, opening the gun like a very very careful cowboy. She pulled a small stubby cylinder of glass from her bandolier, one mercifully filled with good old fashioned lime flavoured magic. The verdant magic was then slotted into the waiting cylinder of the gun, which she snapped shut with an audible clack.

“Unlike a more traditional projectile weapon, or even a mass produced magitech gun, this one will understand your intentions,” Claih continued once Grace was ready. “You may discharge the entire canister in one devastating blast, or portion it up into as many as eight deadly bolts. Sixteen if you wish to leave your enemy injured, but alive. Try firing a non-lethal bolt first.”

Once the obrec woman was safely behind her, Grace raised the gun and aimed at one of the trees as best she could without iron sights. Those of us gathered around to watch the test collectively held our breath, waiting for the shot.

It was sudden, when she pulled the trigger. A flash of light and a small bolt of green energy tore across the intervening distance between the gun and the tree, almost too fast for the eye to track. A small splash of green light could be seen against the bark of the tree. I gave a laugh of surprised amusement when, rather than there being a burn or whatever, a small green branch grew where the bolt had impacted. Of course, why would raw life giving growth energy put a hole in anything?

Grace, smiling with eager triumph, aimed again and fired, but this time the projectile of magical energy was larger. It looked for all the world like a blurred arrow as it flew and struck the target. This time a larger branch all but exploded out of the tree, spontaneously flowering as it did so. The force of the growth was so intense that the petals of the newly budded flowers immediately exploded out in a confetti stream.

“Holy moly,” Bray exclaimed from beside me. “That was something!”

“Really cool,” I nodded, surprised to see him there. I hadn’t noticed him take the spot next to me. “Think you can make more?”

Turning his grin in my direction, he said, “I hope so. This magitech stuff is so much more intuitive than our tech.”

I nodded, my thoughts almost immediately going off on a tangent, and I mused, “Yeah. Could be because magic is sort of controlled and manipulated directly with the mind in a lot of cases. It has an inherent sort of base intelligence to it.”

“More like wisdom,” he said, picking up the train of thought. “Our tech is intelligence or knowledge, right? It can follow a convoluted set of instructions to the absolute letter, taking input to make decisions along the way. Magic seems like it’s got wisdom, though. It doesn’t need every decision branch spelled out for it.”

“Huh…” He had a point. A really interesting point. “So you could mix and match them both based on the task you need done. A calculator using normal tech, and magic for something that’s less about exact numbers, like—”

My words were cut off when the tree exploded into flaming splinters of wood. I ducked and flinched automatically, but the carnage had shotgunned out off the cliff in a cone instead. Holy hell… what had just happened?

Grace, bright red with embarrassment, turned sheepishly to look at her audience. “Okay… so firing an entire canister of fire magic makes a big explosion. Good to know…”

"Oh my goodness," I laughed walking over to her. Taking the gun out of her hands, I held it out to Claih. "Well, it works. I assume it's going to need a chassis, though?"

Claih took the weapon with a smile of good natured amusement. "Indeed. I suspect we will need to test each of her magicks to see how the gun uses them. Explosive surprises are… generally frowned upon in my line of work."

"Almost all," Grace said with a pointed glance down at a deceptively benign red canister. "I think I'll leave that one alone until I have much more experience with the gun."

"Ah… yes, agreed," Claih nodded, staring at the canister like it might try to eat everyone then and there.

****

The moment I had spotted Grace across the grass earlier, a yearning had been steadily building in my chest. As we wrapped up the little testing session, it grew to become an almost painful lump. I was tired, a little emotionally raw from the coffee shop, and very much ready to get my girlfriend alone.

So, when we finally got into our room to change into more comfortable clothes for the evening, I turned to Grace and said, "Hey… can you hug me please?"

Careful not to trip over her discarded jacket on the floor, she took the two steps needed to reach me, folding me into her safe embrace. My hands found their way to her back, and I let out a shuddering sigh of relief.

Gods, I had needed this hug. I had needed it so fucking badly.

"What's wrong?" she asked, burying her face in my hair.

"The day was too long," I murmured, soaking myself in her presence. "Too long, and it didn't have enough of you in it."

"You can say that again," she sighed, pulling me even closer.

Gosh, I loved her. I loved her so much. The way her body just barely enveloped mine, not too much taller, it was perfect. Her fingers too, how they dug gently into my waist, accentuating her desire to hold me and my feminine figure all at once.

There were so many little things, sensations and movements, all of them adding up to her. Another person who felt the same mind-searing affection that I held for her. It would never get old, and never was a long time for us.

“Mmmmm,” I hummed, snuggling my face into her neck. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said, pressing a kiss into my hair.

That reminded me that Grace had lips, so I leaned my head back and captured them with my own. Her lips were warm and faintly rough from a long day of training under the sun, but that changed when I ran my tongue over their length. Soft with moisture now, they parted to let me in, and I eagerly took the invitation.

I loved doing this, lapping at her tongue with mine. Nothing like kisses in movies and anime though, where it looks like two slugs having a duel. No, just a flicker of movement. Sensation from the contact caused sparks to zip down my tongue, where they hitched a ride on my spine in all directions. Even better was the effect it had on her. The way her breath hitched every time I did it, and goosebumps rippled up her forearms.

She’d taken her top off as we got inside, so I had access to a lot of delicious skin. Access that I took full advantage of, running my hands up her waist and then down to the band of her sports bra.

I got a shudder out of her as I traced the skin just below it. A fingertip slipped just barely under the fabric, and I ran my finger along the imprint her bra had left on her otherwise smooth skin. I massaged all along that line, pushing the band up a little to let her poor flesh recover from the cursed implement of torture.

“Oh, that feels nice,” she whispered, parting from our kiss just long enough to say the words before she dove back in.

A nip of affection at my bottom lip had me smiling and lapping at hers using that same flickering tongue motion that she loved. She let out a giggle and pulled me closer, gently crushing me and my roving fingers to her chest.

Towing me backwards, she flopped us both down onto the bed, me on top of her. Having my weight land on her didn’t seem to faze her in the slightest, and it was so damned awesome. It was just one of those things that made me feel so good about being a girl. It emphasised how light I was, and yeah… it just made me feel great. She knew it too, which was probably why she’d done it. Gods, I loved her so freaking much.

Reigniting our kiss took a moment of positioning, but then we lost ourselves in each other. It wasn’t really a sexual thing though, we were just enjoying each other. The warmth of our bodies, the softness of skin on skin, and the small sounds of happiness. It all merged together into an hour of heaven.

Sadly, it needed to end. Cad was probably extremely lost and confused by now, and he’d need guidance on what to do with himself. I just hoped that Lua was treating him well.

“Ugh,” I grumbled, pushing myself up onto an elbow. “I don’t want to stop but… we need to get changed and be social.”

“I know…” Grace grumbled, staring up at me with her hair all disheveled and gorgeous. I reached out and ran a hand through it, marveling at the play of light through the different colours. So damned pretty.

“Maybe we should start taking weekends off,” I mused, running a thumb over her hairline. “Or at least one day a week. We can’t keep going on like this after all.”

I nodded with whole hearted agreement. “I’m starting to miss you so much throughout the day that it hurts.”

Her answering smile was so full of love that I couldn’t help but lean down to kiss her again. Maybe Cad would be fine after all… we could stay a little longer, right?

It took Grace and I another thirty minutes to extricate ourselves from the kiss and get dressed. We really did need to take that break, because my god were we hungry for each other. Most nights we simply collapsed in bed or on a couch and cuddled, too tired for anything more. Not that I hated doing that or anything, but I was in love with a human, not a plushie.

Leaving my room, we entered the girls’ floor common room. It was getting pretty messy these days, with one corner occupied by Catherine’s growing mountain of books. Grace had a little mechanic’s corner too where she was practicing maintenance with little gadgets in preparation for her guns. Claih was a firm believer in having a comprehensive understanding of whatever weapon a person might use.

Taking a few more steps into the room, we discovered two more messes on the floor. Looks like we weren’t the only ones who’d been getting their gay on.

Melody had pressed Kelsey prone to the floor and was just beginning to explore with a hand up her shirt, while their mouths were firmly welded together.

Grace gasped and giggled, “Hey girls! What are you up to?”

Melody gave a surprised squeak and fell sideways, leaving Kelsey laughing on the floor and grinning like… well, like a girl who’d just been getting pressed to the floor. Melody’s face was bright red as she looked over at us, and she had a small, mischievous smile on her face nevertheless.

“Sorry you had to walk in on that,” she laughed, reaching out to run her fingers through Kelsey’s loose blonde hair. The fact that her hair wasn’t tied up showed how much fun they’d been having. She loved tying it up in all sorts of intricate patterns.

“Why would you be sorry?” I asked, feeling my own cheeks heating up.

Beside me, Grace chuckled and wrapped an arm around my waist. “Yeah, what do you think we were just doing in there, after all? We are lesbians after all.”

Kelsey blushed, smiled, and gave us a wry look. “Some people get uncomfortable around intense PDA, that's all. I guess my sweet girl was being thoughtful.”

Making a noise of understanding, I stepped over to one of the sofas so I could rest my butt on the back of it. “True. Not me though, nor Grace.”

Grace joined me and gave a nod of affirmation, replacing her hand where it had just been at my waist. I loved how much she wanted to touch me. It made me feel so wanted, so beautiful. Moreso even than staring in the mirror at my face in all its achingly perfect symmetry.

“Not me, especially when it’s other girls,” Kelsey said, and we all turned to her girlfriend for her answer.

Melody bit her lip and flushed further. “A-ah… um… well… see…”

Slowly, Kelsey’s eyebrows rose, as though she suspected the impending answer and that it would be fun. Grace too looked intrigued, clearly thinking along similar lines. What was I missing?

“What is it, cutie,” Kelsey teased, leaning over to kiss her lover’s neck. “Got something to share with the class?”

“It’s hot!” Melody exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. “When people watch me, I think it’s really hot, okay? Geez.”

“Aha,” her girlfriend grinned, taking her hand. “So that’s why you’re suddenly all bashful?”

“Not bashful,” Melody corrected her. “Horny. The idea of fucking or getting fucked by my girlfriend while other people watch is just…” she raised a hand to her head and motioned an explosion. “Monkey brain go boom.”

“That… could be fun,” Kelsey mused, glancing pointedly at Grace and me.

Beside me, my lover choked and looked to me as though for help. I just smiled and shrugged. To be honest, I didn’t entirely hate the idea. I think a part of me wished that I could have gone through college as a girl, experienced dating a few girls and just generally had fun. Explored my sexuality without the burden of my previous body weighing me down and muddying the waters.

It was too late now, though. I had fallen into a glorious, incredible, beautiful, and loving relationship with the girl of my dreams. It was a relationship I never wanted to jeopardize, no matter the what-ifs that were bouncing around in my head.

“I think that I’ll place the whole topic delicately on a shelf for later, and go down to see how the new guy is handling things,” I told them diplomatically. Grace clearly wasn’t entirely keen with anything right now, even if I was open to the idea.

Melody sighed theatrically and gave a pout. “Dang, still no foursome then. That’s okay…”

“We’ll think about it,” Grace said placatingly.

“O-oh! No!” the other girl blurted, waving her hands around with sudden concern. “No, I’m just joking. It’s okay. I’d never actually pressure my friends into something like that.”

“You mean, if we said yes, you’d have backed out?” I asked, faking a saddened expression.

With evil intent, I sat up and moved towards where they were on the ground and knelt before them. Reaching up, I cupped one of Melody’s cheeks with my left hand, and Kelsey’s with my right.

“I was looking forward to it, though,” I said, emphasising the husky, deep tones of my voice. “Eventually, of course… when Grace feels comfortable with it...”

When I stood up, all three girls were staring at me in flustered surprise. Making girls blush was so much fun, especially my girlfriend, and to a lesser extent obviously, my friends.

"Just teasing," I said, winking at the two on the floor who were gaping up at me. To Grace, I asked, "Downstairs?"

"U-um… yeah, sure," she nodded, smiling at me with quiet amusement.

Once we were in the stairwell, she gave me a side eye and asked, “Were you serious? I mean, obviously you said it was a joke, but…”

Now that it was just us, I felt myself blush. Damn, sometimes my brain just jumped at the chance to be a cheeky little shit without thinking of the consequences.

“Sort of?” I said, trailing off as though it were a question. “I mean, obviously I love them as friends. I’ve known them for a while too, before all of this, and I enjoyed their company then too. Which, I guess what I’m saying is, I’d be comfortable with the idea of uh… platonic sex? I have no idea what it’s called or anything.”

Hearing my own words forced me to place my back to the wall of the stairwell and hide my face in my hands. God, I was such a fucking weirdo sometimes. “Gods, that sounds so strange when I say it out loud. Is it weird that… I mean when she was joking around about it, I suddenly thought, oh, that might actually be fun. Does that make you uncomfortable? I’m sorry, I hope you know I love you to the end of the ring and back. The long way around, not to the outer edge—”

Grace kissed me. She pressed me against the wall, pushed my hands out of the way and enveloped me in a cocoon of warmth, all while delicately cradling my head in her hands. It was a different kiss than before. Soft, sweet, and loving.

When she pulled away, she was smiling with so much adoration in her large green eyes that it caused my heart to skip like an old walkman. “Ryn, it’s okay. I understand. It was a bit of harmless teasing fuelled by what-ifs. Yes, the idea of a foursome with them is hot, but… I’m not sure that I’m okay with sharing you, at least for now.”

Crap, please tell me I hadn’t made her worried with my stupid flirting. I mean, yes, I liked the idea of it but… girls were just really pretty. I looked at a lot of other girls and wondered sometimes. Especially obrec women… like, I wonder how that might be different?

Except, I didn’t have any intentions of actually following through on those thoughts. Grace was my life, my world. If I did something to hurt her, I’d throw myself into the red nightmare willingly. It would be less of a nightmare than seeing her heart broken. Fuck, I loved her so damned much. Plus, we’d spent so long pining after each other, what kind of moron would I be if I threw all of that hard work away? Then there was the fact that… wait, I needed to reply.

“I didn’t… I mean I don’t want to…” I stammered, unsure of how to collect all my jumbled thoughts into the message I wanted to send her. “I wouldn’t actually do it. No way in hell. You mean so freaking much to me. I can’t even imagine my future without you in it.”

“I know,” she smiled, kissing me again. When she pulled back, she had a sly, suggestive expression dancing on her lips. “Although… what if I did say yes, hmmm?”

My eyes widened and my brain threw sparks. “A-ah… I would… um…”

Laughing at my reaction, she took my hand and pulled me further down the stairs. “Come on, silly. Your friend is waiting for mama Ryn to help fix everything.”

Oh my god. I was so confused now. Confused and aroused. Did that mean she might be open to the idea later on? Like, if we got really deep with our relationship, built a big fuck off mountain of trust… it might be a possibility? Also, frankly, we needed to strengthen our friendship with Mel and Kels too. We had the bond of surviving that first week on the ring together, but Grace and I had changed so much since then.

Oh, but wait… Grace and I had a cheat code! We could create an empathic link between us! A smile pulled at the corners of my lips, and I found myself rather abruptly excited and aroused. The next time we made love, I knew just what we were going to do...

Since more people had taken up residence in my tree tower, we had instituted a more strict common room protocol. Boys weren’t allowed in the girl’s room and girls weren’t allowed in the boys room. That way the boys could have their dumb macho games and tomfoolery, and us girls could have our girl time. It allowed everyone to chill out without the whole gender tension thing.

It also meant that everyone had started hanging out down on the balcony level during the day, so that’s where we were headed. Well, assuming we arrived there before everyone had decided to go to bed. Goodness gracious, we needed an elevator. Well, that and a non-binary floor if we had any enbies join.

Stepping out onto the enclosed balcony of my tree, Grace and I came to a stop, surprised by what we found. Cad, Otho, Troy, and Bray all playing cards and joking around like they’d known each other for years. It looked like Otho and Troy were translating between Cad and Bray, who appeared to not give much of a damn about their language barrier.

“Well, looks like I was worrying over nothing,” I said in Anve, giving Cad a smile as we approached. “They treating you well?”

Cad glanced up at me and smiled happily. He’d taken a bath since we last saw him, and there was a little bowl of nuts and dried fruit next to him that he was snacking on.

“They’re teaching me cards!” he said, motioning to the in progress game of Scum, I think. I could never be sure, card games weren’t really my thing. Also he pronounced the word cards with such a funny accent that I had to smile.

“Well, that’s good,” I replied, pulling a seat up from a nearby table. Grace placed her chair next to mine, close enough that I could lean sideways into her slightly. “Troy, did you talk to Cad about a potential job as a quartermaster and merchant for the order? I figured he’d be a good fit to get us some local knowledge.”

"Plus," Grace said, once I was done. "Otho will need some help."

Otho, a wry smile quirking his lips, nodded, "I may be Stonechaser, but I'm not too familiar with Anve or Aber lands, so he would fill in a lot of my knowledge gaps."

A round of nodding rolled around the table, except in Bray's case. "What are you all talking about?" He asked, bewildered.

"Cad will be joining us as a merchant and quartermaster of sorts," Troy explained in english.

My eyebrows rose when Bray’s reaction was a big smile and a fist pump. “Hell yeah! We need more boys around here.”

Beside me, Grace growled, and I had to place a hand on her arm to still her.

“I-I mean, because I’m… well, look, gender equality goes both ways okay…” he stammered, eyes wide as my girlfriend glared at him. “I'm just saying… stop looking at me like that, you know what I mean!”

Finally, her glare collapsed into laughter. “I’m just messing with you dude, I get it.”

Grace’s eyes were dancing with cheeky amusement as she turned and met my gaze. We’d both turned to each other at the same time, and seeing her like that made my heart do a happy little binky.

I leaned in and kissed her lightly, and pulled back with hopeful ideas about tonight. Which made me remember…

“Hey Troy,” I blurted, pointing my biggest, hardest hitting puppy dog look at him. “I’m going to take the day off tomorrow with Grace, unless there’s anything urgent…”

From behind me, a voice I hadn’t heard in a few days gave a wry chuckle. “Ryn, my dear, until your friends have their translocation rings, you will be getting no breaks.”

“Esra!” I squealed, bolting up out of my chair so fast it began to tip over. Shifting it out of the way with my telekinesis so I could get to her was an instinctual afterthought, and with it gone I jumped at her.

My mage-mother gave a surprised grunt as my arms wrapped around her, and after a few moments, I had to take a step back and stare at her. Something was different.

Trailing an inquisitive gaze over her, I first noticed her sly, curious smile, which proved that there was something different. Then, I kept going, but it was either too subtle for me to pick out, or I was missing something blindingly obvious. Was it her hair? No, that was the same as ever, silver-blue and elegantly controlled by a tight bun. Maybe it was—

“Oh my god!” I blurted, realising what had changed. “Your skin is… it’s… well you don’t look quite so raisiny now!”

She cringed as if I’d just said her favourite perfume smelled like shit and gently cuffed me with a hand. “Rynadria!” she exclaimed. “I’ll have you know that I have been delving into the secrets of microbiology and genetics, thank you very much. The knowledge of your Avonside University is… astounding. My softer, more youthful skin is the result of this research.”

Hold on, what? I stared at her, really stared at her, flabbergasted as I realised what she was saying. “You… you figured out how to stop and reverse aging?”

“Not quite,” she sighed, rubbing at one of her eyes with a tired smile. “I have discovered how to leverage my hafornsu in such a way as to reverse much of the damage that aging has done. It is, unfortunately, not perfect, and is by no means a true fountain of youth. However, I am rather proud of what I have accomplished in such a short time.”

“Deservedly so,” Troy said from the table, nodding in respect. “You look good.”

Esra froze just as she was about to continue her explanation and stared over my shoulder at him. I turned to watch the exchange and squashed a smile. Troy was just sitting there, cards still in hand, innocently staring over at the older woman he had so effectively derailed.

“Yes, well,” she finally muttered, waving her hand dismissively. “The… intention was to stop this damned body from falling apart around me. Any newly regained youthful beauty is just a side effect.”

“What’s a hafornsu?” Cad asked curiously, seeing as we were speaking in Anve. Next to him, Bray muttered something about needing to get started on learning, “Alien gibberish.”

“A mage has two bodies,” I said, allowing my greenery to show with a gesture at myself. The usual vines and magenta flowers sprouted up in my hair, while my skin turned green and purple. “A human one and a plant-based one. The fancy-shmancy name for the plant one is hafornsu.”

“Fancy-shmancy… what does this word mean?” Esra asked, giving me a suspicious look.

Fighting a shit-guzzling grin, I replied without pause, “It’s another word for a scientific name.”

Annoyingly, Troy came to her rescue with a gentle laugh and a shake of his head. “It is a sort of slang or light hearted insult that can be directed at anything intelligent.”

Damn it Troy! It would have been hilarious if she’d used it in conversation later on.

My mage-mother gave me a sidelong look of annoyance but otherwise continued, “I see… well, regardless, Catherine and I have been using the knowledge of your people to refine and develop many treatments involving drastic restructuring of the human body. So far, we are in preliminary stages, but we have hope. That is also not what I came here to discuss with you all. Rynadria, if we could take a seat?”

The last was said with a gesture to my forgotten chair, and for once I did as I was told, sitting down in the seat like a good girl. My obedience was mostly due to the fact that pointing out the chair had reminded me that Grace was there and ready to snuggle up to.

Taking her hand, I flashed her a little smile and laid my head down on her shoulder. It was funny, people often said that you “grew out of” the whole touchy feely lovey dovey phase, but we definitely hadn’t. If anything, I just wanted to touch her more. Like, how was I meant to just keep my hands to myself when she was so fucking beautiful? Maybe I was just an overly emotional and touch-oriented person? I should ask Grace about it later.

Once Esra was seated, suspiciously close to Troy, I might add, she placed a shoebox sized wooden container on the table. She’d had the thing casually hovering out of sight, using just her mind the whole time. My grumpy mage-mother had a penchant for the dramatic sometimes.

“These,” she said, gesturing to the rough oaken box. “Are the translocation rings you wanted. I have already passed through your new plaza and planted the beacon crystal in place. You have forty to begin with, and I’ll leave the instructions and materials needed to make more with you, Ryn. It’s a tricky spell, so follow the procedure to the letter, please.”

“Oh, nice!” I said, reaching forward to open the box like the impatient gremlin that I was. “Guess I can have that break after all, huh?”

“Indeed,” she replied, rolling her eyes and swatting at my hands. “Did you hear what I said, young lady?”

“A-ah…” I blinked, withdrawing out of range. “Yes… follow the instructions to make more rings, don’t not follow the instructions.”

She gave me another stern look, but nodded, “Precisely. Do make sure you remember that, please?”

Damn, I had a reputation, huh?

“How do we use them?” Troy asked, getting to the point rather than let me keep baiting Esra.

“If you are outside the grove, simply think of the beacon and pull yourself to it within your mind’s eye,” Esra explained. “If you are within, push yourself away. You will feel it when you try. They are designed to be intuitive, I’m sure after a little experimentation you will all grasp the technique.”

“Sounds like what we do,” I noted absently, already wondering what else we could do with the rings. If all fully vetted members of the order were going to have them, it might be good to build more functionality into them.

“Well, thank you very much Esra,” Troy said with a sincere smile. “This will accelerate our schedule considerably. Access to and from the grove has been by far our most frustrating bottleneck.”

“Ah,” my mage-mother began, blinking rapidly. Gosh, was this really happening? Was Esra the all powerful and ancient mage, getting all blushy from Troy’s quiet appreciation? “It’s what I do,” she replied simply, after taking a moment to steady herself. “And, although my own drive to better this gods forsaken ring has sadly decayed, your cause is one I find more than worthy.”

Eyes lighting up with an idea, Troy asked, “Speaking of, if it’s okay with you, could we grab dinner sometime in the next few days? I’d love to pick your brain for details on the political situation nearby, who the major players are, that kind of thing.”

“I… I am sure I will be available,” she replied, still struggling with her rapidly reddening complexion.

“Excellent,” our glorious leader said with what passed for a dashing smile on his face. “Thank you. Oh, and you two,” he continued, directing his gaze at Grace and myself. “You’re free to take a few days off whenever you want. I’m not your boss, after all.”

“Pretty sure you are,” Grace replied with a chuckle. “But thanks, we really needed it.”

“Does that mean we can get back to our card game?” Bray asked, looking a little grumpy. “I mean, assuming the tone you're using is like, oh we’re finishing with business now. Is Anve one of those crazy languages that does tone stuff? God I need to learn like, three… fuck my life.”

“Mood.” Grace agreed with a sigh. “Fucking mood.”

Okay… maybe Catherine and I should figure out how to deal with that problem too. Or something. After our weekend, obviously. That was reserved for cuddling and making love. Oh, and kissing, how could I forget kissing? Gods, I was so excited. Excited and hungry, actually. I wonder what my buns were up to...

Cream’s Perspective

I had been given a very important mission by our lady of the burrow. She had placed the special hoop of coldwood in my hand, a ring, I think she called it. This ring would let me do something no bun had ever done before… leave the burrow unsupervised.

With the help of Wrestlebun and Binkliebun, I would be delivering the dried sourbeans to the outside humans. We were still confused as to why the humans liked their yucky beans, but humans did a lot of odd things, so what was one more?

The three of us gathered the sacks of beans together in the lower store… uh, room. Store room. Yes, that was the words. They were heavy bags too, human sized instead of bun-sized, but we were strong. Especially Wrestlebun, who had even thrown one of the humans over his shoulder the other day during practice.

“The lady has such trust in us,” Binkliebun said with a twitch of her ears. “To make the great hop out into the other world without her. I have heard that other lords and ladies like her don’t even treat their buns as people.”

“They aren’t people,” Wrestlebun stated, hefting the bag onto his shoulder. “Our lady made us to be people. It is not the common way for the powerful humans. Our lady is a warm dawn in the winter, when placed beside the others.”

“I have heard this,” I nodded, frowning slightly. Frowning was new for us, but something had changed, our faces could now move as like the humans. It was a small change, but one that made communicating with them much easier. The big bun once again providing so that our duties would be easier.

“They have a reason for this way,” I continued, turning the ring over in my fluffy hands. “Burrow keepers will not want for anything but their work, if they are not truly people. Giving us minds with which to want, gives us desires other than that of our purpose. It is a problem that plagues our lady.”

“She will learn a path forward,” Binkliebun whispered, her nose twitching with trust.

Binkliebun was a young bun, by our standards even, and very very shy. Early in her life, our lady had discovered her in the storeroom, trying to find some greens for the kitchen. Our lady had stopped what she was doing and had helped Binkliebun with her duties, then taken her up to the room of women for pats. It had instilled a particular devotion in the young bun that had not flopped in the slightest.

“She will,” Wrestlebun agreed with a definitive little thump of one foot. “I can feel it in her when her mind touches ours.”

A rumble of sudden happiness bubbled up from within me. It was true, our lady’s love for us was a second sun of the mind. “She will,” I nodded, then held the ring up for the others to see. “Place your hands on me, we must deliver the sourbeans.”

Binkliebun did not stay herself but an instant, but Wrestlebun checked his heel and elbow teeth. Spurs, the short strong one had called them. Buns were not suited to the weapons of the humans, so Wrestlebun was asked to test new means of defence.

Satisfied the coldwood blades were properly put on, he reached up and put his hand on my shoulder. Now was the part where I had to use the ring-gift. My eyes closed, and thought of the big shiny rock far below in the lower burrow, then pushed against it with my mind-touch.

A funny sound happened, and then the smells of the world changed. Gone was the warmth and the love of the burrow, replaced instead with a bone-deep indifference. It was always an unsettling feeling, how the lands outside the burrow were so… mind-lifeless. We buns did not like it, not one bit. Still, it was bearable for short times.

We had run this route before with the book lady, so we knew where to go with the sacks. The place that we emerged at was a big wide open place made of funny past-liquid stone. Our lady had explained once that it was actually poured like water. Humans were remarkable with their making of things.

From there, it was a short hop around to the back of the big building where the sacks were meant to go. The book lady had taught us that we needed to tap the door with our paws, so I reached up and did so.

The door opened so abruptly that Wrestlebun thumped with surprise behind me. The human woman spoke before she saw us, “Typical fuckin’ man, huh? Always late—“

She glanced down and frowned when she saw us standing at the door with our sacks in hand. “Huh. Guess he lost some of his guts when he lost his balls and height too. Well, drop the coffee then.”

She pointed to the ground, and after a few discreet glances between us, we did so. This woman wasn’t very smart, she kept thinking that book lady was a man. So strange. Book lady was obviously a lady. She said she was, after all.

Beside me, Wrestlebun was frowning at the coffee, thinking with a depth of irritation. Then, in his small, soft voice, he said, “Stupid woman. Think C—“ he stumbled over the name, but pushed forward regardless. “Think Cathereen is man. Wrong. You stop saying wrong. Thank you.”

He punctuated his words with a big thump, which caused his spurs to strike the ground with a jarring, nasty sound. Ah, was this… a meanness? An attack? The calling of Catharleen as a man rather than the woman she was.

“You stop with your attacks,” I nodded, looking up at the human woman who was double my height. “It is nasty.”

With that, I pulled the other two away from the door. We had made our delivery, and now it was time to leave. Silly humans of the outer world didn’t deserve the sourbeans, in my opinion. Our lady would do well to leave them to their fate.

“Wow, how did that bitch ruin bunnies?” another voice asked, a man’s voice. We were away now, but humans always forgot that their ears were puny and ours were large. Bun eyesight may be bad, but seeing was only one of the ways that living things take stock of their surroundings.

“Don’t call him a bitch,” the nasty girl said with a sharp voice. “He doesn’t deserve to be called that. It’s a feminine insult, used by men like him to belittle women. Don’t use it at all, actually.”

“Right… yeah,” the nasty man agreed. “It’s just hard to talk about him as a man when he looks…”

“Looks are irrelevant, he’s still a man,” she snapped, and the door slammed before we could hear anything more.

The three of us buns all shared a long look. That had been… enlightening. It appeared that humans were far nastier than we thought. How could we help though? We buns had been instilled with our lady’s drive to help people, for we were part of her in a way. There must be a way…

“We should tell the horned bun-cousin,” Binkliebun said, ears going suddenly upright with the idea. “Mer. That is her name, we should tell Mer.”

“Why is that?” Wrestlebun asked, bobbing his head in question.

“She protects the book lady,” I explained, nodding along with the idea. “Very good idea, Binkliebun, very good idea. Let us go to her now.”

Us buns were going to help. That’s what we were going to do now, and always.

Ryn’s Perspective

I followed Grace into our room and kicked the door closed behind us. As if we were connected on some subliminal level, she turned and enfolded me with her soft, strong arms. Her cheek came to rest on the top of my head, and my hands immediately snuck under her shirt to get better contact with her warm skin.

I swear the weeks or so that we'd spent needing to siphon energy out of her with skin contact had conditioned me to seek it from her even afterwards. Her skin was always so soft and warm, like living velvet. I couldn't get enough.

"Oh, Ryn…" she whispered, her arms closing tighter around me. "Oh, Ryn."

Humming in quiet, tired agreement, I nuzzled my face into the soft spot between her shoulder and chest. I needed this so bad. Her touch was… everything. Nothing else in my life came close to it in importance.

No, that was a lie. There was something far more important than even that. Her happiness. Her smile. That was the absolute most important thing in this universe to me.

She made my heart spark and pop like I'd just swallowed a mouth full of pop rocks. It was hard to function at times like this, when the emotions were so overwhelming that they consumed my thoughts entirely.

"Grace?" I asked, almost drowsy with love for her.

She shifted against me, one hand stroking up and down my spine. "Yeah?"

"Your happiness is everything to me," I whispered. "Everything."

Her arms pulled tighter around me, and she asked, “Can we get in bed? I want to cuddle you.”

“Yes.” Cuddles sounded fucking amazing.

We had by now developed a favourite cuddling position, and we snuggled up together like that under the covers. Grace lay on her back, while I was on my side, front pressed up against her and my head on her bicep.

It was so comfortable that we often slept like this, legs all tangled together, whispering increasingly tired and nonsensical thoughts to each other.

Tonight though, I wanted to really drink in the intimacy between us. I didn't want to fall asleep immediately and miss out on some premium bliss.

"God, what a day," she groaned, using her long fingers to play with my hair.

"Yeah, you can say that again,"

“We say that every night,” I replied, suddenly too exhausted to put any emotion into my voice.

She snorted. “Because it’s true every night.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, because it was painfully true. I had to say though… all her training was paying off. Her arms were artfully muscled now, even more so than before. Except it seemed no matter what she did, she still looked like the picture of stereotypical feminine beauty. Was Ollinfer a goddess of war and love, as well as verdant growth? That was the only explanation I could find for the way her muscles were developing.

Then, obviously, there was everything about her that was the same. Her vibrant green eyes watching me with so much lazy affection. Her face, perfected from her time in the flower.

“Falling in love with you was kinda fun,” I said, almost blurting it before my brain could really figure out how it had arrived at that conclusion.

Grace gave me a look, her hand stilling in my hair. “How so?”

“So much yearning,” I smiled, kissing the underside of her chin. “Oh and the part where we had to keep touching or you’d explode. That was really fun too.”

“Fun is one way to put it,” she groaned, placing an arm over her eyes even as her lips tweaked into a smile.

“You have to admit it was exciting,” I teased, mimicking one of my moves from during that time. I slid my hand under her shirt and trailed my fingertips across her delicious abs. God, they were so good. I’d seen her taking a dip in the lake a few days ago after training and… yum.

Her breath caught as I tickled the underside of her breasts, and she pulled her arm away to meet my eyes. “You’re fucking cheeky, you know that? I think the part I enjoyed the most was when we were able to connect emotionally… just… feeling your affection for me. It healed me, healed my broken, scarred heart, you know?”

“Like this, you mean?” I asked, allowing just the slightest of my plant form out.

I’d gained a lot of control over it recently, so it was only my hair and vines that sprouted. They twirled and crawled around and over my arm to cup her waist. This was a two way street, though, and she smiled, letting a little of her own dryad form to manifest.

Her shoulder length hair became threaded with grass and leaves, while her shoulders received a scattering of bark like soft, raised freckles. It was a super pretty look, but it also wasn’t what I was focused on at that moment.

She was there in my mind, a warm glow made of eager, cautious emotion. There were no words, this wasn’t anything like telepathy. Instead, it was empathy. A gentle embrace of the mind, stripped bare of any erratic, noisy internal monologue.

“M-mmmm,” Grace sighed, low and happy, her arms encircling me and pulling me closer. “Exactly like that.”

Her hands trailed up and down my back, then suddenly she made a noise of frustration and pulled back. “Can you take your shirt off?”

I laughed, but did as she requested, temporarily severing the emotional communion in order to pull my comfortable T-shirt over my head. I didn’t sleep with a bra on, like ever, so I was topless now.

Watching her drink in my feminine body was… it was a shock of gender euphoria straight to my brain. I felt a blush coming on, but I couldn’t stop gazing into her roving eyes, watching her pupils widen and widen as they thirsted for the light that bounced off my body.

She stopped when she noticed something down near my waist. Leaning sideways, she asked, “Wow, is that your tattoos? How have I not noticed them? They’re huge now.”

“Wait, they are?” I blinked, twisting to try and see. That was obviously a fruitless endeavor, but I had magic for a reason. That reason being primarily to admire my own back, obviously.

Summoning a little mirror viewing spell thingy, I gave a gasp when I saw it. Grace’s sharp intake of breath told me she was seeing the same thing.

Simple, abstract floral patterns started down near my butt, like roots framing the gentle curves there. They narrowed as they climbed, following my spine up and up, tendrils knotting together into a tree trunk that then burst into bloom as they reached my ribcage. From then on, it was a riot of black, twirling lines and shining magenta flowers, with the top of it spreading slightly to cradle the base of my neck.

“God damn,” Grace whispered reverently, her fingers trailing over the patterns. I watched her do it in the mirror while a million different half-formed thoughts crashed together like bumper cars in my mind.

Tattoos had never really been a thing I thought about, but seeing mine… it did things for me. They were elegant, feminine, and so pretty. I could see how it vaguely represented how my grove was laid out too, which was cute.

“Wow, that’s… I need to find some backless dresses, huh?” I asked, feeling a little giddy. There was no other way to describe seeing your own absolutely fucking gorgeous back tattoos. I was giddy with happiness and… well, a lot of other emotions besides.

“Hell yes,” she said, leaning forward to put her head on my shoulder. It blocked my view of the recently discovered artwork, so I swapped the spell to a normal mirror so I could see my girlfriend in it.

She smiled at me when it flicked into place, then circled her arms around me and cuddled closer so her chest was snug against my back. “We’ve gone a long way from batronaught jokes, huh?”

“Yeah,” I sighed, leaning back into her strong, soft frame. My vines wrapped up and around to return the embrace, binding our emotions together again.

The love she was feeling for me blew me away. It was so strong, so open and trusting. As she tasted mine in turn, it flared like a stoked forge, burning bright in my mind’s eye.

“Feeling how much you love me…” she whispered, voice choked with emotion. “I can’t even… it’s…”

“It’s okay,” I murmured soothingly, reaching down to thread our fingers together. “You don’t need to talk about it.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head slightly against mine. “I want to tell you.”

I waited patiently, watching her in the mirror as she visibly ordered her thoughts. Internally, she was a mess of stagnant pain and stale heartache.

"I started dating when I was about fourteen," she told me quietly. "I dated two boys before I realised at age fifteen that I just wasn't interested. Heteronormativity is a bitch. Anyway uh… it took until I was like seventeen before I found myself with another girl."

Confusion and pain without closure bubbled up from her heart, and I used a budding flower from my hair to tentatively caress her cheek in sympathy.

"We danced around each other for months, never official but obviously more than friends," she said, closing her eyes and leaning slightly into my touch. "One day we finally took the leap. We agreed to date. Three days later, she ghosted me without warning or explanation. Just gone, poof. None of our mutual friends would tell me anything."

Well, that explained the pain-sans-closure I'd felt from her. "Silly girl," I replied mildly. "Her loss is my gain."

Her answering smile was just as radiant as the love in her heart. "Thanks. After her, I met another girl really quickly. We hit it off as friends, then almost immediately things went further. Except, turns out she was just a little curious, and one day she suddenly announced on Facebook that she was dating one of our mutual guy friends."

"It went on like that," she continued, scrunching her eyes shut against the memories. "The best of them being a cute bi girl who I still remember somewhat fondly. By that time, though, my heart was a mess. My insecurities and trust issues poisoned the relationship. We're still friends… I think. She's back on Earth. I guess it doesn't matter anymore, I'll probably never see her again."

Turning my head, I pressed a kiss to her neck and tried to throw as much love and affection at her as I possibly could. No wonder she's been so hesitant with me.

"I can see why this emotional communion is so important to you," I murmured, nuzzling at her neck with my lips. "I hope you can feel how much you mean to me."

"I can," she smiled, leaning into the attention I was giving her. "Thank you so much."

"I love you," I told her, as though she couldn't feel it.

She whispered her reply into my ear, too overwhelmed to add more volume, "I love you, too."

Shifting, I turned around until I was facing her, and gazed directly into her wonderful green eyes. I'd intended to kiss her, but the eye contact became heavy, spurred on by the exchange of emotion between us.

We stayed like that for a long time, stuck in a blissful trace. I had never felt anything like this. The awareness that another whole, glorious mind was right there, it robbed me of my thoughts. The fact that Grace loved me… it was never more apparent, more tangible than right then.

"We're going to be together forever," she croaked, voice thick with emotion.

"Beyond the heat death of the universe," I agreed, although the words were barely a breeze from my lips. It was hard to make any real sound with my heart so full of love.

One thing was for sure, though. I wasn't tired anymore.

Grace must have felt the little spark of lust that sprouted within me, because she smiled and said, "Not tired after that, huh?"

"I've gained a bit of a second wind," I agreed, and leaned in to press our lips together.

Grace held me with such tender love that I was almost incapable of moving my body. Her lips were on my neck, pressing wet warmth to the soft skin there, and it was heaven.

Gods, being tired and horny was such an issue. I wanted to drown my girl in tender love, but it was all I could do to slowly trail my fingers up and down her abs.

"I'm so tired," I mumbled, even as my brain buzzed with another of her kisses.

She made a throaty, thoughtful sound and paused her exploration of my collarbone. "We can stop, if you like."

I shook my head as an idea came to me. "No… my body is much more tired than my head. Which uh… you can say no if you want, but can I use my um… my other appendages?"

My cheeks flamed up with embarrassment after I'd finished speaking, because it was… I mean it was so pornographic, what I wanted to do. It was the type of thing that people way more kinky than me were into, and yet, I could actually do it. I tested my idea with an experimental flexing of my will.

One of my hair vines thickened and became smooth, along with taking on my magenta colouring. I hovered it experimentally into the air so Grace could see and watched carefully for her reaction.

She took in a sharp breath, eyes wide, and glanced between the vine and me. "You… you want to use that on me?"

My little nod of affirmation was shy, but hopeful. The idea was gaining traction in my mind, making other parts of my body react with eager anticipation.

Grace blinked several times, staring at it with an almost intense level of consideration. The expression was somewhat undercut by the rising blush on her cheeks, though, and it was the blush that won out. "Yes… that… okay. It's not something I ever thought I'd be into or have the opportunity to try, but… yes."

I opened my mouth to tell her that she could tell me to stop at any time, but she captured my lips in an urgent, messy kiss. I forgot all about my vine for several moments as I rose to match her. Each hot little brush of lip and tongue did more damage to my concentration, until I was wrapping my legs around one of hers so I could cling to her. I needed as much contact with her incredible body as possible. I needed to feel her, to claim her, and to allow myself to be claimed by her.

My vine, freed from my imperfect conscious control of its length, became just another limb to me, and it dove down to my lover’s eagerly parted legs. She was still wearing underwear, but that was easily pulled aside with a few thinner vines.

Her heartbeat went triple time as I did so, while her breathing grew slow and erratic. “Oh god, why is this so hot?” she asked into our kiss with a nervous, excited laugh. “I always uh… thought this kind of thing was sort of gross.”

“Maybe it’s because it’s almost never depicted with consent in mind,” I murmured, knowing exactly what she was talking about.

“Probably,” she said, leaning back to give me a warm, trusting, adoring smile. “But you, though. You Ryn, are so fucking wonderful. I love you so much. So uh… please…?”

“Grace,” I whispered, lost for words. That look, oh my god, that look.

I was so hesitant with my new vine, just carefully caressing her at the junction of her thighs. I didn’t want to mess this up and hurt her, but more than that, I wanted this to be good. I wanted it to feel amazing.

One thing I had learned very very quickly about sex, was that you didn’t just shove things straight into a girl. Arousal and the general build towards climax were entirely different when your brain ran on estrogen. It needed a careful build up, almost like you were stimulating their mind as much as their sensitive nerve endings.

Another vine tentacle grew down out of my hair and wrapped around our intertwined legs, connecting us, gently restraining us. Our kiss broke off when my hands began to roam, Grace letting out an adorable little gasp when I tweaked her nipple. Everything I was doing was slow, soft, and sensual, while my senses were trained on her, watching to see if she liked what I was doing.

Fingertips danced over tense muscles, easing the stress of the day, all while they raised goosebumps and small noises from her. Then, I opened my emotions back up to her, letting her feel just how much I cared for her.

“I love you,” I whispered into her ear. “I love you, Grace, can you feel it?”

“Y-yes,” she nodded breathlessly, and opened herself up in turn.

Her arousal hit me like a physical thing, washing out from my mind and down my spine, setting my skin to prickling with anticipatory pleasure. Goodness, I was really doing that to her? I had to throttle the incoming stream of emotion and sensation before I lost myself, it was so powerful.

She cuddled closer in against me, pressing her face up into my neck. There was a smile on her lips as she haphazardly kissed me there, but she quickly lost focus on that when I positioned my vine at her entrance. I held it there, waiting for permission to enter, seeking confirmation that this was what she wanted.

Her hand, which had slipped inside my shirt, found my nipple and pinched it. “Give.”

I squeaked, then laughed, then thrust the vine tentacle inside her. “I thought you said you weren’t interested in receiving a strap?”

“This-” her breath hitched as I pulled it out, then gently dove it further inside. “-is nothing like a-” she let out a stuttering gasp and gently bit the soft skin of my neck. “-nothing like a strap.”

The warm heat that had pooled low in my stomach threatened to ignite then and there. I had apparently discovered a fetish, because seeing her like that… it did things for me. She’d placed herself at my mercy, trusting that I would take good care of her, but she was still Grace, still as defiant and proud as ever. It was like petting a wild tiger, knowing full well that it had the power and will to turn the tables on you in an instant, and the only thing keeping you from being mauled was the pleasure you were giving it.

“You still haven’t used it on me, by the way,” I told her, placing a kiss into her soft hair.

“Used what?” she asked, distracted for obvious reasons.

Breathing the smell of her hair in, I closed my eyes and said, “That strap on. You said you had one.”

“Don’t-” she began, before being interrupted by a quiet moan that bubbled up out of her throat. “-Don’t know where it is. Please go- go harder… and stop distracting me.”

“Or what?” I asked, powerless to stop a cheeky grin from spreading over my face.

The grin vanished as quickly as it had arrived, my mouth opening into a wide O of surprise. She’d just… oh fuck, she’d just slipped two of her fingers inside me. “Oh,” I gasped, the muscles down the inside of my thighs quivering as she slowly, gently began to work me towards my own orgasm.

“I asked you to go harder,” she chuckled, licking at my neck. “Please.”

So I did, all while she used her strong, lithe fingers on me. It didn’t take long for us to fly off the edge together, down into the realm of lightning-struck nerves and wordless, heartfelt cries of passion.

****

Four hours later, and my body was in open revolt. Spurred on by muscles that sang with my girlfriend’s touch, I’d mustered the energy for the most intense, messy, and sexual experience of my life.

Now I was paying the price for that borrowed energy, as my tired body ached and complained, all while my thoughts floated in a sea of love and bliss. Grace’s hand was in my hair, gently teasing out the mess she’d made of it. It felt so fucking wonderful, especially with how hyper sensitive my skin was.

“I never expected you to be so… kinky,” Grace murmured, squeezing me for a brief moment.

I hummed agreement, too tired to show my amusement externally. I just flashed it briefly through our empathic link instead. “Me neither. That was fun, though.”

“It really was,” she said, nuzzling the top of my head. “Best sex I’ve ever had.”

“Same, although my sample size is limited,” I giggled. I loved the cuddling part after sex as much as the event itself. I mean, how could I not love snuggling up to my absolutely fucking beautiful lover like this?

“It’s good to know I’m improving, though,” she chuckled. “It also helps that I have such a wonderful partner in crime. Are you sure you’ve never done anything like this before?”

I knew she was joking, but I answered her truthfully anyway. “Nope. My brain was so muddled back then that I wasn’t even sure if my attraction to girls was envy or not. Then there was the whole thing with guys.”

“Wait, what’s this?” she asked, intrigued.

“Ah, it was… confusing,” I shrugged, trying to sort through old memories. “There was a guy in my junior year who took a liking to me, just friendship though, he was straight. He did protect me from a few bullies who were sniffing out a potential new target, though. The way he kept me safe was… I thought I was crushing on him.”

“But you weren’t?” she prompted.

I let out a long sigh and allowed myself to bask in her warmth for a moment before replying, “I wasn’t. One of our mutual friends joked one time that I should have been a girl so I could date him. Once I had pulled myself back together from that little comment, I had an epiphany. I wasn’t crushing on him, I just really liked the feeling of being protected, of being placed in a traditionally feminine role. Not very feminist of me, I know, but… it felt good, nevertheless.”

She laughed and patted my head affectionately. “Ryn, nobody who is even close to a good person will blame you for getting what little gender feels you could, back then. So, don’t be silly, it’s a non-issue.”

“Is it though?” I asked, realising that this was actually something that had been stuck in the back of my mind like a burr.

"Yes," she said firmly. "You're a woman, and whatever and however that manifests itself is your business alone. Wanting to be small, loving, nurturing, and in need of protection is just as valid as me wanting to look hot and shoot baddies with magic guns. That's feminism, in my opinion. The freedom to choose whatever place in society makes us the most comfortable."

"Oh," I mumbled, her speech almost too much for my tired, blissed out brain. "I like that… I hope I remember it in the morning."

"I'll remind you of it, but tomorrow," she yawned, and that was apparently the call to go to sleep. A call I gladly and rather instantly answered.

Catherine’s Perspective

I sat in the rear of the cafe and watched the barista work with my mage-sight. The good thing about my bronze coloured hair was that it wasn’t immediately apparent that I was a mage, which made it much easier to blend in.

The awful girl behind the counter had spotted me, but since I was so far away she couldn’t do anything. I wasn’t here to get coffee anyway, no matter how much I wanted it. Interacting with that evil girl wasn’t worth it. Not even for coffee.

My concentration wavered as I watched Rhea smile, watched her serve an Avonsider girl with the good natured laugh I remembered. To think she’d been a vindictive, awful monster the whole time I’d known her. Shows how good I was at judging someone’s character, I guess.

I shook my head to clear it of thoughts from the past and turned back to the barista. It was the pretty blonde girl this morning. She was quick and efficient with her movements, evidently practiced at her craft. The machine was only part of the process, I was discovering.

Scratching out some more notes into my notebook, I sighed and wondered how on earth I’d get this to work. Maybe it would be better to ask Claih to make a magitech machine, rather than trying to figure out a spell-plant to do it for me. Surely, though, it couldn’t be that hard to make good coffee with magic? Maybe we could teach the buns how to make it? I should ask the blonde girl one day… assuming she hadn’t already bought into Rhea’s lies.

That was the biggest problem, unfortunately. This was all because Rhea hated Ryn and me. If she wasn’t so nasty to us, I could have just quietly lined up with everyone and gotten a coffee no problem. Instead, I was sitting here like a creepy stalker, using my x-ray vision to understand how yummy coffee was made. All so I could avoid talking to Rhea and her brainwashed friends.

God, it was scary how many people she’d turned. Like a zombie infecting a healthy population, she was spreading her transphobic views to as many people as she could. She and her friends had been talking about finding their own magic, of throwing Ryn, me, and the rest of the order out. All so they could be free of, what… a few girls who at one point looked like boys? I wonder what she’d think if she knew about Troy?

She probably didn’t even think about it. When we’d been friends, all she ever talked about was how guys were too gross to date. Each time had been like a little knife to my heart, but for some fucking stupid reason my crush on her hadn’t died. Not until I volunteered for the scouting expedition.

Turns out she hadn’t been a real friend. A real friend would have sought me out when I returned, regardless of what I looked like. A real friend would have picked up the friendship where we left off. Instead, she’d given me the cold shoulder. Ignoring me for a while, before she’d started her little campaign of hate.

It was odd, though, because I didn’t really mind. I’d found real friends out in the chaos of the ringworld beyond the mountains. Hell, even a family, of sorts. A family… and Mer.

A blush crept up my face at the thought of her, how we’d spent yesterday evening on the shores of the larger lake in Ryn’s grove. Nothing overtly romantic had happened, obviously, but it had been nice nevertheless. Mer had hit on me a ton when I was Kit, but she had cooled down somewhat now that I was Catherine.

I didn’t know what to think about her anymore. When I was Kit, I’d been reluctant to start anything. After we’d found Ryn on that trip, self reflection had begun to eat away at me, even as I failed to understand the reasons. Seeing her like that, so obviously happy with her beautiful feminine body, it’d messed with my head. Mer coming after me with all cylinders firing had made it so much worse.

Still, she was so good to me, and I was grateful for her attention. It was her kindness and patience since I’d come out of the fruit that had steadied me through everything that had happened since. I only hoped it wasn’t just me who—

“You’re being a fucking stalker, Kit.” Rhea’s harsh, hate-filled voice caused me to jump and stare up at her where she now towered over me.

I pushed my glasses up my nose and tried to figure out what to say. Was I being a stalker? Oh, she meant stalking her.

“The only thing I’m stalking is that coffee machine,” I told her, quietly but with a hint of amusement. Everyone had always assumed that because I was quiet, I was a pushover when it came to conflict. Now that I was a small, unassuming looking nerd of a girl, that had been amplified tenfold. It appeared that Rhea had fallen into the same trap.

She gaped at me for a second, only barely concealing a sneer. “Are you calling me a thing?”

“No, I’m not,” I sighed, wishing she’d just go away. God, conflict was exhausting.

“I can’t believe you let yourself become corrupted by… by that witch,” she said, evidently unable to think of a way to twist my clipped response. “Look at you now, Kit. A parody of femininity.”

Frowning up at her, I tilted my head in curious bewilderment. I didn’t really hate my old name. It was gender neutral enough to not bother me at all. Hell, it was part of my new nickname, Kitkat. I loved that nickname so much. I guess she was trying to hurt me by using it, though?

She opened her mouth to speak again, no doubt another nasty comment, when a wailing siren began to go off. It was so loud I flinched. “What was that?” I asked.

“It’s an attack,” someone nearby answered, a guy who wore the green and blue armband of the militia. “The three chirps at the end, they mean an attack. Two for natural hazards. One is for internal.”

“Shit,” I swore, and leapt to my feet. “Bye, Rhea.”

She didn’t reply, instead spinning on her heel and rushing off. The look she’d given me was no more friendly for the new common danger we were in. How in the hell was she still fixated on me, rather than the ongoing blare of the siren? That was a lot of hate to be carrying around.

Whatever. I rushed out of the cafe like the tiny, fearful child that she thought I was, and headed for the obrec lodge. They’d know what was happening, I hoped. Mer might be there too, and I wanted to be beside her for whatever was coming.

****

The obrec lodge was a hub of frantic activity as they geared themselves up to fight. Evidently someone had decided that they were going to side with Avonside in whatever impending conflict was on the horizon.

I dashed through the cloud of busy people until I found Otho directing a bunch of rangers to get their gear ready. I noticed something strange as I came up to them. They were unpacking crates of intricate looking crossbows, while their normal bows sat abandoned in a pile against the wall.

“Otho, what’s happening?” I asked urgently, still breathing heavily from my run over here.

He glanced over to me and nodded a greeting, although it was a grim one. “Steel Ones. The outer perimeter just sent word. We have about half an hour before they arrive.”

“How many?” I asked, stunned. What the hell were Steel Ones doing all the way out here? Had Grace’s hypothesis about technology drawing them in been correct?

“At least six dozen basic units, called Crawlers, then fifteen Armourclasts, which I believe you have encountered before. Finally… There are two Kingbanes. These are massive, about the size of a small fortress,” he explained, even as he scooped up a large canvas sack from a pile and tied it to his belt. “The last time a force of this size gathered, the Empire of Anve was toppled.”

I felt all the blood drain from my face. Fifteen of the things we’d fought all those months ago? How were we meant to win this? Ryn had improved a ton as a combat mage, but she was only one girl. As for me? All my spells were based on utility and stuff. I only had a few basic combat spells and a shield spell.

“O-okay,” I said, taking a long, calming breath. “Where do I go? Where is everyone meeting?”

“Out by the gate, I think the idea is to go and meet them in the valley rather than let them take aim at the town,” he said, pulling a small orb out of the sack at his waist to inspect it. It was made of glass and wrapped in twisting wire. One side had a little protrusion that I realised was meant to be fitted into an arrow or bolt.

Pointing to the orb, I asked, “What is that?”

“It’s a fairly simple magitech arrowhead,” he explained, pulling a bolt from the quiver at his waist. “You replace the normal head with the orb, and it will explode when the glass breaks. Metal tipped bolts do nothing against the Steel Ones, so we use these instead. They’re expensive, but we keep a supply on hand during every expedition.”

I nodded, interested in the orb but not enough to keep me there asking questions. I was so lost in my anxiety over the coming battle that I forgot to say goodbye. Instead, I just hummed thoughtfully and turned away to rush out towards the gate. How were we meant to fight the incoming death robots when they were so overwhelmingly powerful? Would I even live through the day?

Catherine’s Perspective

I arrived at the gate to find a growing crowd of Avonside militia and Eleos knights. In the middle of the knights, Ryn, Grace, Adam, and Troy all stood, having an intense discussion with a guy in the militia uniform.

“Hey,” I called as I trotted up to them. “Steel Ones?”

Troy cleared his throat and nodded affirmatively. “Yes, They’re about two hours away from arriving here. We plan to meet them out in the valleys, keep them from destroying anything important.”

“Okay,” I nodded, glancing anxiously from face to face. “What do I do?”

“Did you ever finish that big shield spell you were working on?” Ryn asked hopefully. “If you can take care of shielding our people, it’ll free me up to fight properly.”

“I did, yes,” I said, relief flowering in my stomach. Thank god, I didn’t have to teleport around throwing explosions and shit. That was definitely Ryn’s wheelhouse, despite how bad she was with conflict. Since these were just dumb robots, I was actually rather excited to see her unleash her full potential.

*

“Awesome!” she grinned, turning to everyone else. “We have a plan, then?”

“I don’t know why you’re smiling,” Otho called as he arrived with the obrec rangers. “We’re all about to die.”

“Very optimistic!” Ryn snorted sarcastically. “I have faith in everyone here. Plus, all of our combat-ready knights have prototype magitech rifles equipped with canisters from the uh… what was it called again?”

She asked the last of Claih, who stood with her finely crafted rifle on her shoulder. “Faerah Conflagration. They explode in fire and molten iron shrapnel.”

“Yeah, those things,” the magenta mage smiled, and with a flourish, she formed a blade of darkened energy. “Plus… I don’t have any quandaries about unleashing everything I can possibly throw at mere robots. I am… excited, honestly.”

“Let’s rein that enthusiasm in just a little,” the older looking dude in charge of the militia said seriously. “This is a battle for life and death, not a game.”

“For you, maybe,” Ryn muttered under her breath. I think I was the only one who heard her, and I found myself nodding slightly. The way she and I had been working our butts off for all of these people, and then the reception some of that help had received… it made me want to disappear into my grove for a few months. Let them see how long they lived without us.

Carefully, I stepped over to my mage sister and took her hand, then leaned in against her arm. Ryn was just a normal trans girl underneath all the power, same as me, but she was under so much more pressure. Everyone looked to her for this and that, for medicine, for safety, hell, even for mundane shit like coffee.

“It’s time to get moving everyone,” Troy called to the massed crowd, taking the reins. Everyone seemed to be looking to him as our leader, even the obrec and avonsiders. “We’re going to make our way down through the southwestern valley for fifteen minutes. Once there, you’ll get your orders regarding the ambush.”

His little speech done, he turned and began to walk, confident that the rest of us would follow.

Ryn turned to me as we walked and gave a grateful smile. “Thanks, Cat.”

“We’ll teach them,” I whispered. “We’ll teach them to treat us with kindness or to fear us. They get to choose which.”

“Oh, trust me,” Ryn muttered cynically. “After this, it’ll be the second one.”

Ten minutes later, when we were almost to the site that Troy and the militia guy had chosen for the ambush, both Ryn and I twitched. We shared a glance, and I saw her eyes cloud with mage sight. Something ahead of us had used magic.

The valley was like many in these mountains. A fast-moving river twisted its way across the bottom, carrying snowmelt from the high peaks to either side of it. From that river, the ground rose, the picture of an exponential curve, until the rock and earth could no longer sustain the ascent against gravity. Hardy pine trees clung to the river, while the slopes housed tough scrub that sheltered within any available depression. Then there was the wind, which scoured the upper faces clear of anything taller than a foot.

“Troy,” Ryn called, drawing his attention from the militia dude. “Magic ahead, powerful.”

“Friend or foe?” he asked, striding across the windswept mountain grasses towards us.

I shook my head and glanced up at Ryn. "We can't tell. It was a single spell."

"Felt like teleportation, though," she told us, opening her mouth slightly as if she could taste the scent of it on the wind. “Short range, obviously. Possibly a combat blink.”

A tiny drop of cold water hit my cheek, and I glanced up at the overcast sky. Was it going to rain? That would definitely make things difficult. Well, for everyone else anyway. My skin had just absorbed the droplet.

Troy didn’t waste time with a reaction to the news. “How far?”

“A kilometer, maybe more, maybe less,” she replied, and I found myself again amazed by how strong her magesight was. I hadn’t gotten more than a direction from the short burst of energy.

“Fuck,” Troy swore, and turned back to the militia leader. “Less time than we thought. We need to get everyone up onto the slopes. Now.”

The slopes were littered with rocky debris from the high basalt mountains, many of which were perfect for use as cover. That’s where the massed defenders of avonside hid now, waiting for our mechanical enemies to arrive. Everyone except Ryn, who stood down in the center of the valley, her green and silver robes flying in the wind.

Time to do my job. It was a simple one, really, but crucial. Closing my eyes, I felt out with the thinnest tendrils of my power, touching on each and every boulder that was being used as cover. As I gained mental contact with them, I cast a spell, imbuing them with unnatural strength and resistance to heat. It would keep them from exploding under the assault of Steel One lasers, and any impacts they took would be similarly shrugged off.

Ryn saw me working, and when I cracked my eyes back open, I saw her nod in approval. There was no way I could have created actual shields of energy, but this? This I could do. I had to maintain contact though, and each hit would drain energy from my reserves. Eventually, the protections would fail. The rest of the battle was up to everyone else.

I could feel a tremor in the plant life around us now, they could feel something coming. Brushing a hand through the coarse grass at my feet, I asked it what it saw, like Ryn had taught me. I received flashing images of steel feet crashing down, crushing the vegetation indiscriminately, trees falling, life-giving sod flying.

Withdrawing my hand, I glanced down in the direction of the approaching enemy. Several hundred meters down the valley was a gentle curve and a dip that blocked our line of sight even up on the slope. Not that it mattered.

The kingbanes slowly came into sight, first with the shine of steel above the trees of the river. Ice filled my veins as the scale of the colossal robots really dawned on me for the first time. They had to be at least five storeys tall. Four legs supported their massive bulk in a square formation, connected by a small pelvis section that rose into a squat, bulky torso. The top of the mech, which I hesitantly labelled as the shoulders, was a massive slab of pitted steel. It was bevelled to deflect projectiles and housed a sensor array in its center.

Two short arms protruded from the sides of the upper portion, each one ending in an array of terrifying looking cannons. All over its metal body were even more weapons, smaller ones that would probably defend it against any attackers that tried to scale it. It really was a walking fortress, and there were two of them.

Not just that, though. All around its feet were several of the class of robots that we had seen and fought previously. They looked sort of like miniature versions of the bigger ones, but rather than flat angles, they sported curved hulls. I shuddered as I remembered just what a single one of them had done to a village full of people and the soldiers sent to protect them.

The smallest ones, which Otho had called crawlers, were the most surprising, however. They were squat, quadruped things like their larger cousins, but where they differed were the obvious heads on their shoulders. They were flat things, with what I assumed were eyes on the side of their heads, but it was hard to tell from this distance.

It raised so many questions, and I almost lost my concentration as a rush of thoughts came to an obvious conclusion. Somewhere, in the vast reaches of space, a race of sentient, probably biological beings had created the steel ones. They weren’t just an evolution of some machine intelligence, long gone rogue from its original creators. No, these things still bore the hallmarks of their creators.

When humans create robots, a great deal of the time, they try to make them humanoid. Sure, there are others, ones that look like tanks or dogs or whatever, but… these things. I could think of a few much more optimal designs and shapes right off the bat. Surely a machine intelligence wouldn’t make something in an image that had so obviously… evolved. I mean shit, they looked like crab-centaurs!

My observations would have to wait for later, though. I had shields to maintain, and I knew right away that I’d need all of my concentration and strength to withstand what was about to happen. God, so many people were going to die.