§ Fan Li had called herself ‘quite anxious’.  Those words reflected her bad habit of seriously understating matters. “May I ask what is wrong, My Lady?” Aenëe begged as we rushed back at the fastest speed she could fly… which was quite a bit slower than my maximum, even though wasp-winged Aenëe was doing her fastest. Our after-lunch foray had …

§ As this small one settled once more into meditation, Oranos spoke again. “Do not attempt the entire translation, Little Sen. Only deduce the broad form of the language and test your translation on a few lines.” Confusion could cause my thoughts to lose their order. For that reason, despite the arrogance in questioning his wisdom, this small one had …

§ Aenëe did not stop trying to fool around immediately, but I managed to get her to knock it off and get some sleep without too much trouble. She really did need it. She had suffered significant blood loss, and [Healing] could only restore the physical blood, not the missing pneuma and mana. [Restoration] could insure that the remaining pneuma …

§ Toward the end of my lifetime as an Enhanced Human, I came with great difficulty to value the part of me that fit the ‘Human’ half of that description. That fact differentiated me from the great majority of my kind. A society that used ‘defective’ infants such as myself as raw material for human-shaped machinery offered no particular incentive …

§ I had broken through a defensive barrier into this protected space upon entry. Naturally, the residents had alarms. And naturally, they had an emergency response, in the form of this group of warriors, classically kitted out in leather armor, heavy helmets and battle axes. I wanted to rise and confront them, but my continued deep fatigue argued against it. …

§ I didn’t turn back to fight Trisiagga because I still had a gigantified wolf to worry about. With an Orestanian army to protect and a titanic creature of utterly unknown capabilities, I couldn’t remove potentially the only thing keeping it in check. Yes, I was well aware that paralyzing us like that might be the creature’s actual purpose. But …

§ Although I was once more paying attention to my surroundings, I let Kwelabi and Sirth continue to handle things for the moment, as I caught up on the situation. We were actually flying away from the camp, although on a dogleg. Once I became aware of that, I fully understood why. The flow of information is weird between mental …

§ I didn’t have a specific objective in mind when I put the [Blood Sigil] on Trisiagga’s back. Generally, I wanted to have a means to track her down no matter where she went and I wanted to eavesdrop when she met with fellow demons, revealing her real plans, rather than whatever nonsense she was handing the Hamagaarans who believed …

§ I won’t repeat our briefing with the staff officers word-for-word. I would mostly just be repeating what I’ve already written. My news that the wolf was no illusion did change the attitudes of several. They decided to have Thuriben send in a magic unit specialized in large creature suppression to deal with it, in addition to the forces currently …

§ Lady Aenëe stood next to the entrance of Ged’s command tent, waiting for me while still in stealth. I uncloaked as I approached, landed and strode confidently toward it. The Royal Army privates standing guard crossed their spears to block the entrance instantly out of trained reflex, but then seemed to think better of actually challenging me. The older …