Millennial Mage

Chapter 528: To Help Pass the Time

Tala appeared next to Rane, opening her mouth to speak, but she saw that he was working on something that looked incredibly finicky.

She almost tried to look closer, but then she realized that Alat was blocking her threefold sight of the area, and so he must be working on his secret project, which he’d requested she not see for the time being.

She turned her back immediately, trying to honor his request to have her not look. “Sorry!”

He grunted, glancing her way. “You’re fine, thank you for turning away, though. It’s almost ready for you to see but not quite.”

She shrugged, still facing away. “You’ll tell me when it’s time. I am capable of being patient.”

“That I will, and that you are.” He chuckled as he came up behind her, wrapping her up in a hug.

Terry—who had been lounging nearby—trilled lazily in their direction. “Hi, Terry. Are you having a good morning so far?”

He trilled again, shimmying a bit against the grass beneath his back, reveling in the sunlight.

I swear, he is so cat-like at times.

-Aren’t we all?-

...Fair.

Tala leaned more fully into Rane’s embrace, shifting to get into a preferable position. With that done, she let out a contented sigh.

“Long day already?” he inquired.

She laughed at that. “A bit, yeah. There’s an enclave of fox-kin in Astraya... Well, it’s more a waystop for most of them? Regardless, I think at least a few reside in there full time.”

He gave a rueful smile, clearly already guessing at the tenor of what had happened. “And you went and kicked the door in?”

A huff escaped her nose. “Not quite. I just dropped through for a chat... do you know anything about beast-kin Primacies?”

Rane frowned. “I can’t say that I’ve heard the term, but it sounds important and impressive. Why do you ask?”

Snuggling a little deeper into the embrace and shifting to press her back against him more pleasantly, she conveyed the broad details of her morning meeting with Primacy Noc.

When she finished, Rane finally broke his silence. “I can’t say that I’m glad they tried to paralyze you, but it’s hard to be upset, considering they failed so catastrophically.” RåƝőBĘꞨ

“Yeah, it’s a bit like someone walking up to you or me and demanding we give them our money. When we say no they grimace and walk away disappointed. Did they just try to rob us? I suppose so? But the attempt was so laughably inept, it’s hard to take it seriously.”

Rane grunted. “Oddly specific analogy, but yeah, I suppose so. In both cases, it’s easy to see how some could be taken in by the method, though.”

It was her turn to grunt before moving on. “I don’t suppose that you want to try the toxin?”

He shook his head with a chuckle. “Not even a little, but thank you.”

She shrugged again. “Suit yourself.”

They stood there in silence for a long time, simply enjoying the contact and the company before Rane bent down and kissed the top of her head. “What’re you thinking about?”

“Hmm? Oh, nothing really...” She frowned, sighing. “But now I am... We’ve been away for a long time. We’ve advanced quite a bit too.”

“Do you want to go back? Have your siblings out? Something else?” He shrugged. “I’m open for a change.”

She chuckled. “Yes to both ideas. Those are great thoughts, but I want to find Howlton first. I think after we leave here, we’ll transition to the flier. Enar and Alat can fly search patterns out wide even while Alat flies the one with Kit anchored in it at the safer—non-reality-harming—slower speed.”

Rane gave a slow nod. “That way, we’d be able to find it sooner. At the same time, we can be reaching out with the communication device, too. That way, we should be able to hunt down Howlton one way or another in a pretty short timeframe.”

Tala leaned back, letting out a long breath. “That sounds good to me. Are you okay with that?”

He grinned. “Absolutely. I don’t much care where I am. I’m finding myself and solidifying that, and I don’t feel like it has to do with a location on Zeme.”

That got a smile, and she leaned back, pointing her face up and prompting him to lean down and kiss her. “You are wise, my husband.”

“I do try. But beyond cementing my foundations as a Paragon, I’m working on Reforging. Building on the foundation toward Reforging can be done anywhere, given our shared resources.” He gave a small frown then. “It’s funny. I feel like there is something about being Reforged that we’re missing.”

Tala spun around at that. “I know, right? Things just don’t add up. Master Xeel doesn’t carry around all the material he needs to make a new body, and I don’t think he is actually turning his entire mass into light and back again. That...” She shook her head, puffing out her cheeks even as she blew. “That would represent so much power—used so easily—that he should be able to crack a planet if he used his full might.”

Rane gave a wry grin. “Yeah. He’s strong, but not that strong. He’s like a star, not a death star.”

Tala frowned, pulling back slightly. “What?”

“Well, he’s all light and bright, like a star. He doesn’t kill everything he shines on, like some sort of death...” He grimaced, rubbing his forehead. “It made sense in my head...”

She chuckled, going up on her tip-toes to kiss his cheek. “Your head must be a lovely place, my dear.”

He gave her a fake glare. “You’re a jerk sometimes, you know that?”

She pulled back, matching his playful tone. “Oh, well, if you want me to go then—”

She cut off when he caught her up, easily lifting her—despite her increased weight—and kissing her as he spun her around.

After a long kiss, she pulled back. “So, you don’t want me to go then?”

He grunted and kissed her again, planting kisses down her neck.

She laughed, starting to squirm and trying to reposition. “Love. Love! RANE! That tickles!”

He laughed in turn, pulling her back into a full kiss.

Terry opened one eye before squawking in mock outrage and flickering away, giving them privacy.

* * *

As Tala and Rane ate, they fell into playing a game that they’d picked up since leaving the Lunar Hunt to help pass the time while also training their soulsight.

Terry was off hunting in the wandering wilds around Astraya, even as it continued its meandering course southward.

The game was a simple one, meant to help both of them train their soulsight, and it was one in which Tala did not let Alat assist. Rane had the same policy with Enar, so it was fair across the board. Though, fairness wasn’t really the thing at issue. They both wanted to master their own soulsight, not rely on their alternate interfaces.

Rane set his mug down and smiled. “Shall I go first?”

Tala shook her head. “Well, it was my turn, right?”

Rane nodded. “You were about to give me your second ‘fact.’”

“Right. So, second, I had an imaginary friend as a child named Doris.”

And on their game went.

When they decided to give Terry a turn just for fun, neither Tala nor Rane had any idea what he was actually saying with his long series of chirps, tweets, squawks, and trills, but Alat assured them that he was playing correctly.

Regardless, the exercise actually helped them both incredibly, as they were forced to rely entirely on their soulsight, rather than just putting together a good guess based on what was said.

Needless to say, they added in Terry turns after that.

A few rounds later, Rane would not let one of her ‘facts’ go. “What do you mean that ‘you were led to believe’ that you had a cat as a child named Claude. How could you not know?”

“Well...” Tala cleared her throat before deciding to ‘punish’ his rule-breaking inquiry by turning the truth of Be-thric’s deception into an outright ‘lie’ for the game. She justified it as good training, too, which it was. She was sure it was. “Cats wander a lot. I kept putting out food for the cat, and it seemingly kept getting eaten. My siblings asked what his name was, so I said Claude. As it turned out, their parents were just finding the food that I left out and tossing it.”

Rane laughed. “You didn’t notice the missing dishes?”

“I... I usually just put it on the ground?” She tried to fake embarrassment.

“Why did you think it was a cat?” His eyes were dancing with mirth, clearly guessing that this was a fabrication.

“Well, I saw some cats wandering around, and I figured it had to be one of them.” She shrugged.

“How long did this go on for?” He raised one eyebrow.

“Well... I was seven at the time... and eight.”

He chuckled. “A whole year, eh?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Ahh, love. That’s... that’s amazing.”

She grunted. “Back to the game?”

“Sure.”

“So, Brand once tried to murder me.”

That brought another smile to his lips. “You’ve used that one.”

“I have? Right, a week ago, sorry.”

He shrugged. “It’s fine. This is always a hard game for me too, and after playing it so much, I’m starting to run low on random factoids... my creativity is slipping too.”

“You can’t be referring to your completely believable lie about having three arms?”

“It was a good baseline test for your soulsight,” he said with joking defensiveness.

“Sure, sure. Justify it all you want.”

He huffed a laugh, then gestured for her to continue.

She frowned. “Oh! I was once told 'A woman like you should be naked, but you’d cause a riot.'"

Rane barked a laugh. “I could see that.” Then his eyes twinkled. “You could say that I have seen that.”

“No interrupting!” She grinned despite her protestation. “Third...” She frowned, tapping her chin in thought. “Oh! I once shoved my arm down the throat of an arcane and blew him up from the inside... he was about to insult me at the time."

“I did see that memory... yeah.” He shook his head. “That seemed like a rather violent way to go.”

She grunted. “Fine then. Actual, third, I once poked a thunder bull in the head with a stick and almost died.”

Rane snorted a laugh. “ With a ‘death stick’ right?”

“I told you that story too... that’s right.”

“Well, yeah, but the caravan guards did first.” He gave her a huge grin. “You were the talk of the wagons much of that first trip.”

She colored at that, though she wasn’t that surprised. “Fine. I once tried jumping between sections of Makinaven and almost fell off the city."

He narrowed his eyes. “I did not know that... so a lie? Wait... This is the third one, and it’s replacing a truth, so it has to be true... Right?”

“Soulsight. Remember? We can have up to three lies in this game.”

He grunted. “But it’s called two truths and a lie...”

“Eh, our version is better.”

Rane chuckled. “True enough.”

The next round, it was Tala’s turn to stop him mid-triad. “Wait... no. There’s no way that’s true.”

“So, you’re saying that my very first one is a lie?”

“There’s no way that Chloe once convinced you to steal Grediv's coffee for her when you two were growing up."

“I guess you’ll have to wait and see then.”

She chuckled, waving him off. “Fine. Keep going.”

They whiled away quite a bit of time just being together, laughing, and learning ever more esoteric facts about each other and each other’s lives.

As they really did know each other rather well already, they were almost to the point of having Alat and Enar sequester their memories to make the game more interesting when it was their turn to guess, but that was still at least a few more days off, yet.

Regardless, they simply cherished the time together.