Chapter: 512 – The Momentousness

Tala had pushed herself up to her hands and knees before she remembered that she was still unclothed.

With an act of will, a small portal opened beside the small of her back, and her elk leathers grew back across her skin, pulling her various accessories—including Flow—out along with it.

A moment later, she was outfitted as she usually preferred to be, even while still kneeling.

She’d even replaced her iron to rebuild up her pressure-cooking. The Baba Yaga had shown that she still had room to grow.

-I don’t know that more power would have made a difference?-

Well, it wouldn’t have hurt, and it’s not like I can work on other aspects at the moment.

-Fair, fair.-

Rane landed beside her, stopping instantaneously and without even ruffling her hair with the speed of his arrival, though his clothes had whipped around a bit in the wind of his passage. “Are you going to be alright? Alat and Enar have been keeping me in the loop.”

Tala grimaced, then pushed herself to her feet. She did not want to be kneeling at the moment. “I’m… I’m going to be alright. That creature was”—she breathed out a long breath—“she was a rusting pain to fight.”

“That’s the truth. I could tell that the one I was fighting wasn’t real, but the energy in her attacks was real enough, so I couldn’t just ignore her. What was with her aura? Her authority?”

She groaned. “Like water, flowing around any attempt to push it back. I think we might have been able to hold her at bay if we pushed back uniformly in all directions at once, but I don’t know that I’ve ever done that.”

“Exactly, yeah. I thought we were pushing out uniformly with our auras in all directions… it seems I was mistaken.”

“You and me both. In considering it, though, I think I have simply been reaching outward generally, and letting my aura balloon from there.”

Rane pointed at her with excitement on his face. “Exactly, yes! It’s like a balloon. I was simply inflating or deflating it, only rarely specifically directing it to have other shapes or to act like tendrils, working around defenses.”

“It seems we still have more things to work on.” She gave him a small smile that he returned in kind.

“Clearly… You were able to drive her off, though. That is a plus.”

Tala sighed. “I was, but…”

He gave her a searching look when she hesitated. “What is it?”

“I don’t think she was actually trying to attack us all out. She seemed to be seeking to do enough damage to get away. Killing us would have just been a ‘bonus’ to her.”

Rane grunted. “Yeah, that does seem like it would fit with what she did.”

Tala sighed, aspect mirrored the features that she needed, then hopped up and down to free any lingering grit and grime from herself, causing a mini-cascade of detritus to rain down around her.

“Back to traveling?” He didn’t sound too enthused at the idea.

She grimaced, glanced toward the sun. “I just want a bath and a nap.”

He shrugged. “That sounds great to me. We can pick up the search for a mobile village after. Who knows, maybe Terry will come back with her head by then. I know that I’d feel better if so.”

Tala huffed a laugh. “Yeah, that would be nice. If anyone can do it, I believe in Terry.”

-We can keep searching for the moving towns while you sleep.-

Rane nodded, clearly having heard something similar from Enar. “That sounds good to me, but I have a slight modification to our end of the plan.”

Less than ten minutes later, Tala and Rane were sitting down to a beautifully prepared meal, Mistress Petra retreating to give them privacy.

The dissonance of going from such a fight in the middle of nowhere to a decadent meal in their own home was jarring. Though it was made less so by how often they’d done similar—if not exactly the same—things in the past.

Even as Tala ate, she couldn’t help but notice how much the meal was not a bath and a nap, but Rane had had a point. With the injuries that she’d given herself, she needed the food.

She had also needed to step through the reinscriber to ensure that none of her inscriptions were in danger of eroding to a dangerous level. That had pulled a bit more from her reserves to heal her up.

Her dissolution field was almost as unpleasant in its consequences as in its execution.

Still, that was in the past, and the food was excellent.

Ham and sweet corn risotto, broiled broccoli, heavy bread—the recipe apparently absolutely stuffed with butter and eggs—seasoned carrots, a light salad, and roast that practically fell apart when she tried to pick it up with her fork.

The gravy was a wonderful addition as well, and she applied it liberally to various dishes.

Rane’s food was essentially the same, even if it had been made separately in order to incorporate and maintain a different set of magics. In this case, it had been made by Mistress Petra’s assistants, a married couple of gateless, who had shown both aptitude and interest in the preparation of magic-laiden meals.

Tala got the uncomfortable feeling that Mistress Petra was training her successor in the couple, just as Master Simon seemed to be doing in Adrill and Brandon.

But that wasn’t pleasant to consider, so Tala didn’t.

Once the repast was finished, she got her bath, with Rane joining her.

It was a bit less relaxing, or more accurately it was relaxing in different ways, but it still did what she’d hoped such would accomplish. Soon enough, she was curled up in his arms, drifting off to sleep in their massive bed.

* * *

Master Grediv still hadn’t responded to Rane’s inquiry when Tala woke. So she sent a message to Mistress Holly that she asked Alat to mark as urgent.

She wanted to know how to Reforge.

The Inscriber got back to them within minutes, allowing Alat and Tala to read through it together.

-I do wonder if Master Grediv just didn’t read Enar’s message.-

Yeah, that’s probably likely. But her focus was on Mistress Holly’s response.

-Should… should we tell him?-

You know, what? We don’t need to right now. If he still hasn’t read the message when we get back, we can mess with him because of it.

-Yeah, that could be funny.- She reached out to Enar and coordinated with him and Rane.

No one would tell Master Grediv explicitly, nor mention the message they’d already sent.

If he read it, he read it. If not?

Well, then what happened after would be on him.

As to what Mistress Holly said?

Well, Reforging was both immensely simple and frustratingly convoluted.

Reforging was a thing of two parts. First, a remaking of the body to match what the soul wanted. Second, an establishment and deepening of authority over every aspect of the body’s physical makeup.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Progress toward being fully Reforged was simply progressing along those two paths, with the fulfillment of both requirements being what stepped you over the line in the end.

Tala grunted. That was pretty much exactly what they’d expected and been told, even if it was more explicitly stated in this latest message from Mistress Holly.

So, she had to be exactly how she wanted to be, and she needed utter authority over her own body’s makeup…

But the message went on.

Mistress Holly wanted to emphasize that she did not say that the body needed to match what Tala wanted. It had to match the soul’s desire. The soul that was bound to objects and companions and a spouse.

Tala instantly hated that. She would have to be approved of by Terry? Kit? Rane?

-And you’ll have to approve of him, if it’s actually like that. It doesn’t sound like it, though.-

Alat was right, of course. It wasn’t anything so crass as having to change to meet her spouse’s desires or him having to change who he was for her. Instead, it was a sort of harmonizing of the soul with the physical. Her soul was now influenced by Terry, Kit, her elk leathers, Flow, and, yes, Rane.

-Do you see?-

Yeah. It’s not him telling me what I need to be, it’s how I want to be different due to his influence, and he mine.

Alat chuckled. -It’s a spouse literally inspiring you to bring out your best self. It’s not about bending to the wishes of another. It literally can’t be-

And that wording really drove it home for Tala. Alat was right. It couldn’t be about someone else. That would be a surrendering of authority over her physical form which was the exact opposite of the other part of Reforging. Balance.

-Precisely. In this one, you’re on your own. It has nothing to do with us, mentally.-

Hold on, now. I’ll need your help interpreting our soul, resonating it with our body. You can absolutely help with that.