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now don't fool yourself
in thinking you're more than a man
because you'll probably end up dead.
I visit these mountains with frequency,
and I stand here with my arms up.
in thinking you're more than a man
because you'll probably end up dead.
I visit these mountains with frequency,
and I stand here with my arms up.
The portal opened in the frame of Lord Torin's manor house in the valley had had been given by her lady mother.
Aurin preceded Kala and the elf, Sivan. She left her retinue behind despite mild protest, but it wasn't as though they could actually gainsay her. If Indric opened a portal high above in order to keep an eye on her, she wouldn't protest that, but she was hardly made of spun glass and she was accompanied by two powerful mages that she trusted.
Well, she trusted Aurin within reason. She knew he didn't want to ruin things for Torin, which included the daughter of his liege lady and the young goddess who was pulling worship from Aurin himself.
"Right-o," the redhead said jauntily. "I'll leave you to it. I'm just going to check on a few things. Shan't be gone long. You'll be home in time for supper surely."
Sivan waved and Kala bade him a polite farewell. When he was out of earshot, Sivan murmured, "I have an artefact from Torin. If you need to leave before Aurin returns, I can send you back to Kalzasi and say Indric came to fetch you for some important business."
She favored him with a quiet, conspiratorial smile, and nodded. They stepped down, then turned around to see how Torin's home was shaping up. It was slow going, mostly because he had so many things going on. He could have help from anyone, but everyone seemed content to let him do things at his own pace. It wasn't as though he didn't have a roof over his head, and several others that would be happy to have him.
"We can fly if you like," he suggested.
"You can fly?" she asked, intrigued.
He colored slightly, nodded. "It will just take me some time to prepare wings."
"For me as well," she assured him quietly.
Her gaze was curious and certainly not lascivious as she watched him remove his shirt and kneel in the grass. The sunlight loved his skin, no doubt due to his Hytori heritage. While nothing happened to the naked eye, she could sense the rune between his shoulder blades engage, aether running through its primal passageways to unlock some creature's wings.
There was a different sort of magic for her, manifesting her wings upon her mortal seeming. The body she had cared so much for was only real now when and as she willed it to be. That was a mindfuck, so she hadn't explored it too much, no farther, in fact, than conveniently calling or releasing her wings at will.
Her wings were present and her light kimono carefully draped over the railing, fingers tying off little bits here and there on her clothes to prepare them for flight, when Sivan emerged from his trance and rose gracefully to his feet. A part of her envied him that elven grace; she had spent countless hours training her own in the dance studio. She could understand why Torin shone like a newborn star when he looked at the elf.
"They have to be rather large," Sivan said apologetically, glancing at his dragonfly wings, which were, in fact, quite large compared to his body. "I make my bones lighter like a bird's, but still..."
Kala nodded. "I did study some physics at the Academy. I even tried my hand constructing devices to help Kaus fly more efficiently." She spread her hands. "But Avialae flight is more magic than physics, in the end."
"So I gather," he said quietly. The huge, iridescent wings vibrated. Kala unfurled her feathered wings, the gold patina showing over the snowy white in the summer sunlight.
They looked at each other, nodded, and then they were aloft. From standing on a flat surface, she found it much easier to give her wings a short, sharp gust of Wind to catch, while also pushing off from the ground from a deep plié. Sivan concentrated, wings vibrating quickly enough that they became a blur, but he also cheated a bit, calling one of his elemental familiars to help him up.
Once aloft, though, they moved under their own power, and she let him lead the way. Below a few villagers saw them, pointed, waved. She waved back to them while Sivan remained oblivious, and then she kept up with him as he led her away from the small settlement toward the other end of the valley. From what she gathered, Torin's Fae'ethalan friend had planted a sapling from Ecith there along with the remains of his clan, all with the consent of the local gritaeri who seemed quite active now that there were human settlers and a spirit-walking elf of enough power and knowledge to speak to it.
Eventually, they landed in a bit of a meadow and she quickly sensed wolves in the underbrush. One was familiar, though—ah!
"Huntress!" she called by way of greeting.
The wolf emerged, and was followed by quite a few pups. Kala's eyes went wide with delight and she dropped to her knees, hoping the wolf would cajole her pups into letting her pet them. As Huntress approached, a pair of pups barreled straight for Sivan. There was something about them...
Kala had known all along that Huntress was a wolf and not a dog, though there was more of the wild to her out here, even in this protected bit of wilderness. There was something about the pups, though, and then she felt how the aether connected the two pups to Sivan, how they immediately tried to climb him and nip at his face. Oh! she realized. Then, eyes widening more and cheeks flushing. OH.
Well, that was none of her business.
The pups eyed her curiously, but all made a relative beeline toward their sire. Huntress came up and bumped her head against Kala's shoulder. She gave the wolf scritches and embraced her a bit. That was when she noticed another arrival, who was not a pup at all, but a rather large rabbit, its fur a golden yellow, albeit not the gold she saw in some of the pups that was quite reminiscent of Sivan's hair.
"Hello," she said. There was an intelligence to the golden-brown eyes. "He's not yours, is he?" she asked. Huntress stared at her for a moment. "I thought not."
"So, the gritaeri brought him to my attention when I was here scouting the area for Destyn's tree in the winter. He was nearly starved, but, well, as you can see, he's quite a large rabbit..." He was trying to play with the insistent pups while expositing for her. "I thought he was possibly a rathari given his size, especially now that he has been eating and he's intelligent. We can communicate... Well, I can sense some of his thoughts and he can respond as if he understands some of what I'm saying, but he doesn't change shape. I thought... Ah, I think I have heard it call a waer, when a rathari has sort of given up on their bipedal form and ways of thinking, but it seems almost like he's cursed. Similarly to my friend Flower, though... well, not the same at all, really. Then again, I'm not a curse-breaker."
"Neither am I by trade," Kala admitted, "but..."
She offered her hand to the creature—large for a rabbit, but small compared to her—and its twitching nose took in her scent and then he took a few tentative hops toward her. That Huntress hadn't fed him to her pups was a sign that she was extraordinary. Perhaps that was why Sivan— No, she wasn't going to think about that.
Kala sank her awareness into the beast, even as he climbed into her lap.
"Hm, no, this isn't natural..." she murmured. Her eyes were closed. She wasn't using them to see what she was Seeing. "Hm... blockage..."
Sivan knew a trance when he saw one, and so he kicked off his boots, doffed his trousers, and became a great golden wolf. Huntress watched avidly as if she were studying him.
"I just have to..."
And then she changed.
And then She changed.
The wolf pups had already watched with some interest as their sire changed from elf to golden wolf. Now, they watched winged woman turn into goddess. Sivan could hear the songs of stellar spirits, hidden behind the cerulean sky, a chorus praising their One. Keen-eyed Huntress observed as well, though she knew what Kala was already, at least in the way a beast knew things, and whatever else Huntress was.
Her feathers were sprays of ice trailing a burning comet. Her skin was translucent, which only served to reveal that she contained light.
I apologize, quoth the Goddess. This will hurt.
The rabbit screamed. It was consumed by starfire.
When the light receded, she was Kala again. Dazed, a young man's tousled hair lay in her lap. His chest heaved, though he didn't scream again.
"Th-th-th-" he attempted. She nodded encouragingly, caressing his brow, which made him shiver, but then he steadied himself and managed, "Th-there are o-others... G-goddess..."
