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After letting me briefly explain the expedition’s intent to Kiki and the Nanas, Mireia and my husband made me take a break from focusing on the events in the Kasarene Highlands.
But I was not going to be denied my attendance when they arrived at Mother’s current resting place, no matter what my husband or my dear Servant decided. Ceria, Melione and Chiara were all present, so I could ‘ride’ with any of them. But I also worried for Shindzha, so I decided that my first stop would have to be either her or Kiki.
As I had a pretty good idea of when they should arrive at the summit, I summoned my determination to become implacable when I noticed the time was approaching, no matter how stubborn they became about it. But, it turned out that I didn’t have to beg or plead. In fact, Mireia dragged me into the bedroom after banning Benedetta, Genette and all others from bringing any business to me.
Did she understand what sort of misunderstandings she created when she did things like this? Yes. She probably thought it was funny. I was beginning to understand how my incorrigible little Servant thought.
“They’ve arrived already?” I guessed as she turned to face me and take my hands.
“Almost,” she verified. “Serera and Hiléa have overflown it. The rest are approaching.”
“Send me there,” I told her. “Or I’ll use the [Blood Presence] spell again.”
She nodded. “Yes, My Lady. The goddess told me to do so. I’ll undress you now.”
I confess, although I knew her intent was to avoid wrinkling our Atian-style dresses, I momentarily felt a twinge of suspicion about her motives. Well, I’m sure a lewd ulterior motive was slightly present anyhow, because this girl has proven to be somewhat ravenous in that respect. But I let her help me out of my afternoon dress and in turn helped her out of hers. Once down to our chemises, we retired to my bed.
She pressed her lips to my cheek, then asked, “My Lady, who do you wish to visit first?”
“Shindzha, first,” I told her. “I want to be sure she’s okay.”
Mir hesitated, then replied, “The goddess says she will handle the transfer for me. It seems she wants to have a broader view of the situation through you. We’ll start now.”
She rested her pink tresses on my shoulder as I relaxed on my back, and then I began experiencing Shindzha’s senses.
<Mistress?> she asked as she felt me arrive.
<It’s me,> I confirmed as I took in her surroundings.
Being daytime, she should have retired to a dark hollow again, but instead, she was simply crouched in the shadow of a rocky outcrop, far less secure than the last I had seen. I felt a moment of concern, then noticed that the Nanas were gathered around her, using their stealth to conceal her.
<What is your plan?> I asked her.
<I have completed my role, Mistress,> she replied humbly. <They are about to arrive at the destination. I will stand by and wait in case they need my assistance, but I will otherwise stay out of sight.>
A strange memory passed through my mind as I heard those words, the image of a proud Hellspawn with a boastful air, clothed only in manifested Darkness and riding a nue while controlling the horde of gidim and threatening my castle in Narses.
I shuddered, recognizing the possibility that this was a leaking memory, and tried to put it out of my mind. But was that really a memory of this same meek Servant?
(“Don’t dwell on it,”) the goddess warned. Understanding the danger, I returned my focus to the situation.
Across a short ridge, on the higher of the two peaks, the summit of this mountain, Shindzha was watching the expedition approaching the silvery half-dome that I knew marked Mother’s place of death. I felt another shudder, and again fought to focus.
(“You have confirmed that she is okay,”) Rhea stated. (“It’s best if you let her stay out of the action and join either Kiki or a Servant closer to the goal.”)
I agreed, told Shindzha to stay low, then let Rhea transfer me to Kiki.
I deliberately avoided trying to sync too closely to her thoughts, so much so that I did not immediately take in her surroundings. To be frank, it’s a little scary how easily I slip into pixie mode. Is it something to do with my personality?
(“In a way, yes, but it’s nothing to do with her pixie nature. It’s because she and you were once the same person.”)
That reassured me, but I kept my thoughts separate anyhow.
As I took in Kiki’s surroundings, I saw that she had secretly taken up a position within the expedition. Specifically, she had slipped her little body right into Serera’s cleavage!
<Big Sis comfy?> she teased, sensing my arrival.
<Is this really the best place for you?> I wondered. Serera’s bandeau top did squeeze her bosom together into a fairly secure pulpit for the pixie, but the fairy knight surely could feel Kiki nesting in the tight spot, despite the stealth! Wasn’t Kiki embarrassed at all?
<Sylph lady safe!> she assured me. <Friend friend!>
That makes it okay, I guess?
Despite holding my thought process separate from hers, Kiki’s feelings still leaked across to me. Apparently the springiness and warmth of fairy breasts are just right…
I shoved Kiki’s frank assessment of Serera’s bosom out of my mind as too embarrassing.
The fairy knight currently hovered above the silvery dome, and below her, a presence circled it that I recognized via aura as Lhan in [Vampire Cloak]. Kiki’s [Sight] barely revealed her form, which seemed to be much too small, but her [Sense] felt her presence clearly.
The expedition members approached the dome, spreading around it as they inspected it. I doubt any of them had a good idea what to expect, but they made preparations anyway. With Serera, Kiki and I watching over them, they took pains to detect any and all potential threats, and set up magic defenses.
Ceria had preloaded her staff with an amazing number of spells. What level mage was this girl? And Chiara also set up several spells in her focus, while Arken and Amana performed the elven and fairy parallels, holding the spells within their own circulating mana, ready to release. Only rare, very high-level human mages could accomplish this feat, but it was a racial skill for elves and dwarves, which some fairies could emulate.
Mathias, a great sage but only mid-level as a magic user, only loaded his shield with personal defense spells and cast a damage increase on his ax. He had spells operating within his mana pathways, but those were recording sight, sound and mana readings into crystals. His role here was scientific, after all. He wasn’t here to fight.
Kiki’s pixie senses could not penetrate the silvery dome, even after Serera descended to come closer to it. And as the expedition discussed it, with Serera adding her words, I learned that nobody else could do so, either. Mother’s defenses were perfect.
“If nobody objects,” Amana stated at last, “I shall see what happens when I touch it. It’s supposed to open for her daughters as I understand it.”
Every one grew tense as she reached out and laid her palm on the silvery surface.
I didn’t know what to expect. Would it pop like a soap bubble? Open slowly? Burst in a brilliant light to a fanfare and a heavenly chorus? Mother did have quite the sense of humor…
The last thing I might have imagined was for the dome to rise slowly, pouring like mercury upward to condense into Mother’s form.
The surge of hope that came with that sight died just as fast, with a sense of foolishness over feeling it. I knew very well that Mother’s tiny life slept safely within my womb, and this could not be her living body. Mother’s aura was in this magic, but this image was not a living fairy.
Besides, beneath her feet…
“Huh?” Kiki wondered in a sobbing voice, and then I felt her recognition that my emotions were pouring into her. She quietly endured them as tiny pixie tears emerged from her eyes.
(“You are crying here in your bedroom, Little One,”) the goddess stated softly. (“You cannot feel my embrace right now, put please know that I am comforting you.”)
The body of Uncle Owen did not look like a thirty-six-day-old corpse. It appeared that mummification had begun, rather than decay. The evidence of severe chest trauma and facial trauma ruined his handsome looks, as did the horrible quantity of blood staining his clothes.
(“A preservation spell, cast by your mother,”) the goddess stated. (“The cold is likely to have something to do with it as well.”)
<You can see this?>
<Melione is here with you, after all.>
And Mother’s body, that I had avoided looking at first…
Imagine a mummy dead for thousands of years. Half of it had vanished in the first half-hour after her death, as the mana portion of her body evaporated. The same process carries much of the physical water away as well. Even mere days after the death of a fairy, what is left is mostly dry bones and leather. She had only worn her raiment when she died, so naturally her body was naked, but of course, there was nothing erotic about the shriveled remnant of her once-voluptuous corpse.
Yet traces of mana even persisted now, and they certainly had her mana signature. Traces of her aura persisted as well. I could feel fully confident that this was surely her.
“Mother…” I heard Amana whisper.
My sobs again threatened to break out of Kiki’s chest. The evidence of the last wounds she sustained were not hidden by the desiccation. She had died a painful death, her heart completely destroyed.
She is well, I reminded myself. She is sleeping safely within me.
But she would never again be this fairy beauty, now so tragically diminished.
The image of her, floating in the air, had waited patiently for several seconds while we took in the scene, but then revealed itself to be an animated recording of her. How she made it, I have no clue. Her image showed no sign of the wounds visible on her corpse, so this was an image she had created in advance of the attack. However, once it began speaking, her words showed that she had recorded them after, while she lay dying.
“Ëi onar lâ,” she greeted, and continued in Dorian, “My precious daughter, I pray you have been well. I do not know which of my daughters has come to find me, so I shall speak in the one language I am confident all of you know.”
I blinked at that. Wouldn’t all her daughters know High Fairy? I guess her words meant that they didn’t.
“Inda and Tiana are my best guesses for who you are, but forgive me if it is you, Amana, or any of the rest of you. I am pretty sure it will be one of the younger girls, so please forgive me for leaving you behind far too young, my daughter.”
She stopped for a moment, then smiled. “I am told I will see you again, although I may not remember you then. The wheel of rebirth does not allow us to bring our memories along to our next journeys. Even so, it warms my heart to know that I have not left you behind forever. When you meet the young me again, please do not be upset that I do not know you. Be happy for me.”
She paused again, as if she were gathering her thoughts, then stated, “My precious husband lays here with me. He has already passed away, so I know I am not leaving before him. If you cannot bring us both home, then bury me here with him. Leave me here and, with Heaven’s Blessings, be well.”
Although that sounded like a farewell, she wasn’t quite finished. During the remainder of her address, her lips trembled, and she heaved deep sighs. No other visible evidence showed, but I sensed she was laboring with her last breaths and thoughts to finish.
“The demonic entity that delivered the final blow is not an opponent any of you can handle on your own. If you choose to avenge us, then bring help. Bring your sisters, bring help from my father, bring help from my divine ancestors if they will provide it. Do not attack out of emotion. Be cold, careful and cunning when you go, and until then, aid those that oppose Cullen, for it is certain that entity seeks to place him on the throne. If my dear stepsons and stepdaughter survived these attacks, protect them. The children of my husband and our precious lover, his first wife, are precious to me. She could not bear them herself, so I bore them for her, out of the same womb that bore you. This is why, although they are only distantly your blood relations, they are nevertheless your siblings, whom you should guard with love and devotion.”
I heard a few sharp intakes of breath from those around me. Not from Amana, but from some of the others. I wonder if she intended for so many outside the family to hear this? Maybe she simply didn’t care anymore.
“A record stone should be in my hand. Perhaps it fell from my fingers and is resting nearby. It carries a longer message for all my daughters. Take it and go, or make sure you bring it as well before you carry our bodies down from here. See to it your sisters all view it.”
With no warning at all, the image then drifted apart, as if its substance had been nothing but a cloud of dust. It dissolved and vanished so suddenly, I suspected she had died upon uttering that last sentence, because it had not seemed like an ending.
After silence reigned for several long seconds, Ryuu Kowa spoke.
“Let’s unpack the litters.”
I would say he was being insensitive in this sad moment, but I recognized that nothing better could be said. Others made mute noises of agreement and prepared to unlimber the wicker frames from Graham’s back.
Then Serera called out a warning. In the same instant, Kiki’s senses screamed and my hackles rose.
