§
The fairy warrior circled around, and her companions fanned out to surround the space. Meanwhile, I was wonderin’ why I even bothered in dodgin’. Worst case would have been the very same result as dissolvin’ the image like I had just done. Although, thanks to the simulation of nerves and the like necessary for the [Blood Effigy] to operate in the form of a natural creature, I’d’ve felt what an osprey bein’ skewered by a spear would’ve felt before it dissolved, so I s’pose it was the right call.
[As much mana as she put into her weapon, it might have disrupted the effigy itself, Captain. You chose well.]
As the old hag’s voice filled my mind, I felt in [Fairy Sense], since I had no vision at the moment, the fairy circlin’ around to face me. Cleary, she could sense the position of the discorporate effigy.
[Why’re you here, old hag?] I demanded, more than a little annoyed at the distraction. I was a bit busy choosin’ the better response between a rapid retreat and a confrontation.
[To prevent an unreasonably violent woman from turning an ally into an enemy. Fairy Falerè has encountered this scholar previously, in circumstances that arguably left her indebted and positively inclined toward us.]
For just a moment, thanks to my mind nearly bein’ made up for a fight, I hesitated. But, I hadn’t lost my good sense, and the old hag was right, so I surrendered the technique to her.
Coalescing from the immaterial [Blood Effigy], the image of Fan Li, complete with [Sky Lotus Technique], a fan in one hand and the [Qi Sword] in the other, appeared before the charging fairy. The sword remained in a low side guard position and the stance remained upright, presenting the appearance of a scholar ready to defend herself but not threatening for the time being. To underscore non-aggression, this scholar’s eyes remained averted.
Fairy Falerè, the captain of the squad guarding the Narses sky, immediately flared her wings and pulled into a hover. Her eyes were wide and her spear remained raised and charged with mana, but she had halted her charge.
“You again!” she accused. Of course, it was actually just a declaration, but she spoke it like an accusation.
“Please grant forgiveness for causing you alarm, good Captain,” this small one stated, giving a deep bow of apology.
Falerè scowled, and replied cautiously. “I don’t understand what manner of being you are, but… what were you doing in the castle?”
“Meeting with the Castle’s Lady, good Captain,” was this scholar’s perfectly honest reply. No reason existed to hide it, after all.
Her brows bunched up as she sized up the lotus blossom, the scholar standing upon it, the foreign clothing– although not that foreign, as there are cultural similarities between Doria and Huajie. But her [Fairy Sense] and [Fairy Sight] were telling her I was nothing like a normal being, and she could see my [Sky Lotus], floating without visible means of support mid-air, behaving nothing like any blossom from the world she knew.
“What in Heaven’s name are you?” she asked, her voice still sharp with suspicion. “The thing I tracked from the Castle had the appearance of a bird.”
“Your kind are capable of growing tails, or wings, or transforming entirely into animals once they are sufficiently mature, are they not? This one also possesses that sort of nature.”
Her eyes narrowed, then she asked, “Do you also have the ability to disguise your aura?”
It was this small one’s turn to be cautious. Suddenly, the assumption we had been making, that a true fairy who could be tasked with leading a squadron of fairborn and lesser fairies would be young and less skilled, stood a chance to be wrong.
“Exactly how do you mean, Captain?”
“My [Fairy Sight] is better than these young ones, Oh Miss Mysterious One,” she declared, tossing her head to indicate the circling warriors as ‘these young ones’. “A signature of the soul hides beneath the mana signature. Only fairies with stronger senses can perceive, so I’m the only one here who can see it.”
She shifted her grip on her spear to assume a less threatening posture, but she continued to speak without taking her eyes off of this one.
“The Fairy King ordered me to protect his granddaughter, so I made a point to memorize her aura when I first met her. Somehow, you seem to have the exact same aura. I wondered if I saw wrong after the last time we met, but I am quite certain of it this time.”
Letting out a sigh, this one let the [Qi Sword] dissolve and closed the fan, slipping it back into the pocket within this one’s sleeve.
“I shall explain fully, then,” this scholar declared. “This one exists as many different individuals, from many different worlds. It is due to the actions of your gods that we find ourselves currently present in your world. The princess… is one of us, but currently separated from us, so she is not aware of this fact. It needs to remain a secret from her for now. Thus, she has the same aura as the rest of us, as she also shares our soul. Being a vital part of us, she is a person we deeply care about, and whom we protect, with the approval of those same gods. Please protest to the gods, if you object to our presence.”
With that statement, this scholar assumed the image of Sirth, and went through a reasonable approximation of her heavily stylized bow.
“I am Captain Sirth, atcher service!”
[What are you playin’ at, Old Hag?!] protested the actual Sirth, as this scholar was merely borrowing her form.
[Enlisting an ally for a certain unreasonably violent woman.]
Sirth’s image metamorphosed back into that of Fan Li, converting the bow into this one’s more reserved and appropriate one, with palm over fist, then rose back to a standing position.
“And this small one is Fan Li. We exist in a number of other identities as well.”
Fairy Falerè’s eyes were staring at this small one with blazing intensity, possibly due to an effort to push her [Fairy Sight] as far as it could go. Or possibly, she was simply that astounded.
At last, she asked, “You change from one person to another?”
“More than one of us can appear if necessary,” this small one stated. “But it requires far more effort. For example…”
After expanding the [Sky Lotus] to sufficient size, this scholar brought in one of our more efficient compatriots. Lhan, she of the hard-to-pronounce name, short stature and petite body, appeared to one side, her enormous coif of royal blue hair and her simple light dress blowing in the breeze.
Her breath caught as she saw her location, a hundred bu above the rooftops. She immediately grabbed onto my sleeve, her free hand clutching at the cloth over her slender bosom.
“Why did you pick me?” she demanded.
“You are less of a burden on Her Highness’s resources than anyone else,” this small one explained.
After all, it was our fault Her Highness was having to take blood daily, unlike her normal need when not using significant magic. The expanded spiritual vessel was the precise culprit, combined with her lack of efficiency, managing the mortal blood she ingested only with her body, failing to utilize her blood core and spiritual vessel in the process. But we could not stop. We had to continue to be such a burden until we could get Lydia involved, assisting and teaching her.
Likely, Lhan caught all of that in the memory of this small one’s thoughts, but the additional reason was, “And you haven’t had an opportunity to come out into the world, except in the simulations of the spirit core. Would you like to try out that [Air Step] Talent?”
“Starting from this high up?” she yelped, looking down at the faraway ground again. “Let me try it from down there first, please!”
Rhea had deduced all of this girl’s Talents, the unique magics that people in her world inherit at birth, since she had never had the opportunity to learn those Talents during her life. The foolish slave owner who killed her through pregnancy in her early teens had squandered a rare Five Talent individual with his lust. She’d had the Water element as her affinity, but one of her Talents involved turning the water in the air into a hard surface to step upon, something like Sirth’s ‘kicking the air’ technique or her bizarre variation of my [Sky Lotus].
The child stared at the fairy watching us, then asked, “This is a fairy? She’s bigger than I expected.”
“Did you just call me fat?” Falerè retorted, astounded.
“The fairies of her world are creatures halfway between this world’s fairies and pixies,” this scholar explained while endeavoring not to laugh. “She’s expecting a creature at most perhaps two-thirds of your size. Many are smaller.”
Like most of us, Lhan diverged from the normal human being of her world. The one who charted the path through our many lives likely had arranged things that way. In Lhan’s case, the divergence came from her fairy father, but the fairies of her world were considerably different than those of this one.
Falerè looked from Lhan to this one and back again, then shook her head.
“It’s true. You two have the exact same aura.”
“In Her Highness’s mind, Captain Sirth just visited her, so that is what you should confirm when you ask her. She currently does not remember us, so to her, Sirth was a mysterious stranger, whom Miss Mireia had vouched for.”
This scholar turned to the one beside her. “Lhan, prepare yourself.”
Once she’d had just long enough to comprehend the words and grow wary, the [Sky Lotus] vanished and we both plummeted. The petite girl yelped, but then summoned her Talent and landed, somewhat hard on one foot, on an invisible surface midair.
This scholar created a new blossom underfoot as Lhan’s knee bent to absorb the speed built up during her brief drop, then she hopped off, bounding down to the next step. Rather than being like a stairs, her motion was like leaping down a series of rock ledges.
By the time she had made it halfway to the ground, she was very obviously having fun. It had been the right decision to make her do this.
“You’re watching her like a proud mother watching her child at play,” Falerè commented. She was holding formation with the [Sky Lotus], her wingtips a few chi from the tip of the outermost petals as we followed Lhan down.
“That child did not have a pleasant life in her own world,” this scholar explained. “It’s good to see her getting a little of what her old world denied her.”
After remaining silent for a long space, Falerè commented, “When I reported to her about my previous encounter with you, Lady Serera told me that you were trustworthy and not to concern myself with you. I suppose I shall have to do that. But I still have many questions. No matter what my eyes are telling me, it’s difficult to accept such a bizarre claim.”
This small one saw no need to reply.
“Where are you two going?” she asked.
“That fortress ahead,” this small one replied. “We shall meet Lady Benedetta so that we can go see the hellspawn prisoner.”
Another long pause, as Lhan reached the ground and turned around, beaming up at us with a sunny smile. I bowed in return, to acknowledge her accomplishment.
“The shadow woman, is it?”
Her dark tone reflected the general distrust that fairies have for elementals. Two highly similar races with completely different origins, they rarely get along in such an amicable fashion as Princess Deharè and her two contracted shades did.
“She’s Her Highness’s trusted Lady-in-Waiting,” this one reminded her.
“Of course,” Falerè conceded, still clearly a bit bitter over the idea. Then she grumbled, “Well, I suppose choosing to trust you means choosing to trust you that far. Can you assure me that you don’t plan to remove the prisoner from there?”
“Currently, it seems like the safest place for her, Captain,” this small one replied as the [Sky Lotus] sank into the ground underfoot near Lhan and the landing fairy. “It would be inadvisable to bring her anywhere else.”
The fairy captain scowled, then cleared her throat. “You don’t need to wait for her. I can get you in there.”
“You can?”
This scholar did not mean to make the words sound doubtful, but it seems they did. The fairy scowled deeper, then noted, “One of my warriors stays with her at all times, Miss Fan Li.”
“Ah,” this small one nodded. “Of course.”
After considering it for a moment, this scholar than nodded, bowed and stated, “Then, Captain, please escort this child in to see the hellspawn Shindzha.”
A space of about three seconds passed before Lhan yelped, “What?!”
