Legend of Ransera

"Actually," he considered thoughtfully, "as the search for a proper spirit is a separate endeavor until the time comes where there is a form for them to inhabit, I might start that immediately. I will do my best to vet likely candidates and only introduce you to those I think might be best suited for this sort of a situation. I don't know if it is unique to me as a summoner, but the spirits that I work with over longer periods of time... Well, they seem to grow. Not only or always in power, although they do that sometimes, but certainly in mental complexity."

Another reason to check on Hilana: to see whether Sviras was growing in partnership with her; and Athalia: to see whether his relatively short amount of time with Kalor continued his trajectory while abiding with her. He had never anticipated being so occupied with concerns in so many different places. He had just longed for one place where he could feel at home.

"My thought is: if I find a spirit you like early and I can afford you more time to grow familiar as the body is being constructed, then I might be able to mediate some growth whereby it grows in a beneficial direction. I don't like forcing my will on them, even those who barely have what we would consider a mind. But I think guiding the development of a personality to make its life among elves happier... That respects its free will while also getting the job done."

As for the rest, "I could certainly build the skeleton of a winged horse and breathe artificial life into it. I would have to give schematics to another maker, either here or another one if you prefer, to create the softer parts. While I probably could manage it, I would not feel confident that it was the best work you could receive, nor would it be on par with the rest of the work."

If Sivan was waiting for the other slipper to drop when the princess was around, it was only because things went far more smoothly than he had any right to hope. She was demanding of excellence, but he was already more demanding of himself than anyone else. When she was rigorous in her critiques, he took it as the help he required to ensure the end product was exactly what she wanted rather than as some deficiency in his skill or work ethic.

As they changed directions toward the equine experiment, he flipped the page in his notebook and wrote down the names. If he took notes for two separate projects on the same page, he could separate them later, but it required more effort. Here, at least, he would have the names of possible collaborators specific to the collaboration.

Kinryn Len'Aldris, he wrote. If they didn't work out, he would ask if she had another preference before sticking to the makers he knew at Tavárinoikos. Agora, Dancing Needles, Vathi Street.

"Mm," was his eloquent response, though he was taking thoughtful notes.

"When would you like to see initial plans and, perhaps, meet a potential spirit?"

Sivan himself was quite busy, but the workshop would help him make client deadlines. And there ought to be plenty of stock back in Kalzasi that he wouldn't need to run home to fill the storage with high-traffic goods and respond to special requests. Timon kept looking at him funny when he was leaving for Silfanore, but he and Torin had agreed that new apprenticeships would only be good for business in the long run.

Of course, Timon was now a partner so Sivan was trying even more than he had before to treat his requests and suggestions with respect. He would just figure out what he was going to do if Tavárinoikos or even just a select few clients in Silfanore wanted to engage his services when he completed his artificing apprenticeship.

The princess' suggestion made his shoulders relax; he hadn't even realized they were tense. That would certainly give him time to make some significant progress that he could share without unduly taxing him given all the other things he had up in the air, trying to juggle. Sometimes scheduling everything was the real magic that happened at Tavárinoikos.

Sivan smiled.

"Excellent," he said. "I will send written updates every fortnight to keep you apprised of my progress. If anything seems amiss, please let me know and I can change course. I will block off the seventh of Searing to ensure you have time to recover from the revels. Whenever you decide works best for you, I can make myself available."

With that decided, it was up to her whether she had more input to give him now. He made no move to hurry her along and hurry her out, but it was his assumption that her time was far more valuable and in demand than his own.

Perhaps the masters at the workshop did not built him up as much as they did their apprentices of purer blood. Perhaps there was lingering resentment that he had been the one chosen to accompany the great Tavári'nar on his last walkabout. In any case, it might nettle the princess, though he did seem more sensitive than unctuous.

The stylus remained poised over page, ready to take down dictation of her will, but he was silent.

Were she not a princess, he might have made a friendly inquiry into the state of the wedding planning, but she was a princess and while he had met Prince Rhydian on several occasions, he knew he was not their intimate. The last thing he wanted to do was overstep, making himself or the workshop look bad.

That would be akin to the faux pas by that fleet-footed fool last fall.

"Oh," he said as he considered how to answer that. "Variably trained, I should say."

After another brief pause to collect his thoughts, he explained. "I was six when I was initiated in the Rune of Semblance." His hand came up to brush the back of his head. Underneath golden hair was a Rune, which she could surely sense if she had scanned him at all.

There were many magical traditions that one could call "traditional" in Sol'Valen. His runes aligned with the vertices of his aura naturally lay. Semblance at the anterior "third eye," for example. Were he to take the Rune of Mesmer, it would be inscribed on the back of his neck.

"Not long after that, my mother was recalled to Dalquor. She was a diplomat here and her relationship with my father did not survive her career, I suppose, though they both had different versions of the story. In Dalquor, I was not considered Dratori enough, much as I was not considered Hytori enough in Silfanore. I showed a talent for spiritwalking, which led to training as a summoner. It wasn't until I was a young adult and returned to Silfanore that a more classical training ensued. I relearned much of what I had learned. That seems to be a cycle for me. I started an apprenticeship at Tavárinoikos, and then Master Tavári'nar took me abroad. I learned alchemy from his friend in Kalzasi, and then returned to Tavárinoikos to learn it all over again.

"I suppose I am nothing if not thorough."

His smile was soft, but it was most likely an attempt at humor.

Sivan was a careful man; that made him good at his work, if not the most exciting conversationalist. But the Princess lived at court and had a surfeit of interesting conversationalists when that was what she desired.

"The story of my Animus might possibly be interesting to Your Majesty, and the placement of the Rune follows the classical lineage in which I was first initiated, though my teachers have been spirits more than people."

The halfbreed demurred over her compliment, but tried to accept it with a graceful, grateful nod.

"There are esoteric meanings to the placements of my runes," he added. "I don't know whether I believe in them, but there might be a sort of sacred geometry to it all. I would have to seek out some obscure scrivening texts to know for certain." But he smiled at the thought; seeking out obscure texts was enjoyable for Sivan.

When she did express interest in his Animus story, he gathered his thoughts for a moment and related it in brief.

"There was a break-in at my home, hm, in Ash of 121. In Frost, Laurevere Val'Istra came to Kalzasi in order to oversee his family's business interests and, hm, I believe my father must have been working for their family when he died because Laurevere—ah, Lord Val'Istra—did me the favor of carrying those dark tidings to me. In any case, he decided to move into my neighborhood while in Kalzasi and I felt compelled to warn him of the break-in. His response was to start teaching me swordcraft."

A bemused, grateful smile was all he had to add to that for context.

"In any case, the following year, I was outside the city, collecting reagents and sparring with a friend—the variable terrain was another element to work into my training—and a, hm, I suppose I would call her a druid, she came out of the trees and offered me the Rune. It was strange to be sure. Apparently, the wild spirits in and around Kalzasi spoke well of me and, ah, perhaps they wanted me better able to defend myself.

"The druid was strange, but so was my initiation from what I understand. There was a hair from a wolf, but she also invoked a spirit of Wolf," he said, the capitalization all but evident in the weight he put upon the word, "and, well, that first transformation under her guidance and that of the Spirit was total. They took me away to experience the forest as a wolf for a short while. My friend and my aidolon awaited my return and, when I did return, in my normal form, they helped me home. I was quite exhausted."

Half a smile remained. That initiation had sat well with his Dratori blood, though it was perhaps a bit primal for the Hytori. All the same, it did seem unique from what he understood.

"I don't actually remember the Rune being inscribed, but it is there upon my back now."