CH834

He tried to keep from looking injured as he rushed back, acting like he hadn’t just been briefly crushed by the time he reached the shop door, the new great spirit held in his arms making for a good distraction to keep Thera from seeing any bit of pain when he got in, her eyes locking onto it instead.

“Wait, is that-”

“A great plant spirit. Its name is Bloom.”

“Hello princess,” It greeted, catching her off guard as the first great spirit to refer to her as such and made her stumble.

“What? Um, hello. Please hold that thought for a minute. Ben, what- You’re hurt.”

“I’m just exhausted,” He lied. “I ran pretty hard and well, you know how I feel about that sort of thing.”

“You’re bleeding.”

Am I?

He rubbed at his face, feeling a gash along his forehead that must have come when he was knocked down that he did his best to dismiss.

“It must have happened while I was running, a few branches scratched me along the way, it’s nothing,” He told her, wanting to drop the matter given who else was in the room and how things looked for them.

Mora was curled up in a ball, looking like the only thing keeping him from bursting into tears was the structural impossibility of it while Delair sat by his side, doing her best to comfort him even without knowing what happened and not wanting to put more pressure on the child, he pulled Thera into his mind and increased her thinking speed to explain what happened.

“So Mora was able to turn a group of regular spirits into a plant spirit,” He told her, seeing the shock in her eyes from the very thought of such a thing as he went on. “I saw it in their memories. I don’t know why he did it, they don’t either but the change… Well, it was sudden and unexpected for them and as a result, its mana went wild and caused all of this.”

“And you were hurt.”

“It’s fine. I was knocked down; neither of them meant to cause all of this and I’ll live so it doesn’t matter. What matters is what we’re going to do now.”

“Oh, gods above, what even should we do?” Thera asked him. “Destroying a large part of town isn’t going to be the easiest thing to come back from. We’ll have to-”

“Thera,” He said, cutting her off when it looked like the thought of it all was going to make her panic. “I’ll handle the town, that’s less important right now. We now have not one, but two new types of great spirits that your paternal race never expected to exist. We’ve been doing our best with Mora and we’ll keep doing our best but we need to talk to someone about this too. Your relatives need to meet them, him and Bloom.”

She took a deep breath, trying to calm down before resting her head on his shoulder. “I really should have made the time to talk to them about Mora by now.”

“It’ll be fine. It’ll be… Maybe a bit uncomfortable and awkward depending on how things go, but it will be fine. I’ll do my best to sort things out in town and then we can-”

“I’ll go with them now. I shouldn’t have put this off as long as I have, I’m not going to put it off anymore. Do what you need to do and then come find me when you’re done.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, the sooner I get this over with, the better.”

He released her from his mind when she said it, leaving her to try and put on the most comforting face she could before turning to her ward, still sitting to the side, still completely withdrawn into himself while she crouched down and reached out a hand.

“Mora, it’s like Ben’s told you. Everything’s okay, we’re here for you but now we need to go talk about all of this, can you do that for me, sweetheart?”

“…Okay.”

“Alright, we’re going to meet a bit more of your extended family as well. It might be uncomfortable at first but they’ll all love you just like we do, don’t worry.”

He took her hand as she said it, a smile being his reward as she turned back to Ben.

“And are you going to manage Delair right now or want to make her an amulet so I can take her with me?”

“I’ll make sure she gets home, don’t worry.”

“Alright, in that case, Bloom, come with me too,” She told the new spirit, offering her other hand for it to fly over to, out of Ben’s grasp and with one final look at him she stepped through the gate to her family home, leaving Ben to get a handle on the aftermath.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Myriad Myriad Myriad Myriad Myriad Myriad Myriad, it’s not exactly a code red anymore but I need your help for a bit to sort some things out.”

<Hmm, what is it… It’s barely been an hour since we’d last talked.> The god said, at a loss as it surveyed the surrounding town.