“That was good, Sprite. Let’s end it here for now,” Dragonfly said, trying to convey as much of the genuine praise as she could into her tone and words as she leaned forward to offer her prone disciple a helping hand as she thought; “Perhaps this will finally be the day-”

  But once again, Sprite insisted on clambering to her feet on her own. In her aura, Dragonfly could feel that while the praise had definitely made the elf girl happy even as it had done little to chip away at the core of fear. While aura-senses weren’t mind reading, context and some conversations skirting the subject had made Dragonfly pretty confident that it was Sprite’s fear of not proving herself worthy; of not being good enough.

  “More time needed then, I suppose,” she thought with an inward sigh even as she outwardly smiled patiently towards her student. “Over half a year is a long time in some regards, I suppose. And you just can’t force someone to open up. Master Force always said that it was important to help someone find their own sense of safety before expecting-”

  Thinking of her old mentor’s words, Dragonfly was suddenly struck by inspiration; a way to perhaps, in time, turn these tendencies to Sprite into something more productive.

  And as she was a woman for whom there was rarely that much distance between thought and action, Dragonfly’s smile turned a bit impish as she suddenly leaned forward and gave Sprite a good poke. It was carefully moderated, of course, and Dragonfly felt that she had found just the right level as the still rising Sprite fell back on her backside, giving Dragonfly a quizzical look.

  “Well, there had been some progress at least,” she thought, noting the lack of actual fright or shame in her student. At least Sprite felt secure in that Dragonfly wouldn’t suddenly assault her or try to humiliate her.

  “You know, Sprite. I just realized that I never actually taught you how to stand up properly.” Dragonfly then said, assuming her best teaching voice.

  “Teacher? There is… more than one way?” Sprite asked, confused.

  “Why, of course. Just think about it; if you find yourself on the ground and your enemy still stands, do you want to slowly rise using both your hands? What would be the downside of that?”

  “I… would be vulnerable. No hands to use in defense,” Sprite eventually answered, the light of understanding dawning in her eyes.

  “Good, you’re catching on. My master had to explain it waaaay more to me before my childish mind caught on,” Dragonfly praised. “There are several ways to do it, and even more depending on your rank and essence powers in the future. For example, if you can fly with something like the wind essence, you can probably just use that. And if you’re a silver like me, especially with Mighty Strength -,” she continued, demonstrating as she laid down and then flipped back to her feet with a small shove of one hand,”- there are plenty of easy ways. But as we don’t know what the future holds for you yet, and silver rank is still years and years away - should you wish to strive for it - we have to be thorough. So we’ll keep it simple for now, and then when Kite comes back he can help me demonstrate. Should be any day now, in fact. Unless he’s been delayed.”

  Even though he had seen it before during their many, many sweeps throughout the compound of the Winter zealots, Kite still had trouble looking away from the utter devastation that had once been the main ritual chamber. Now, it was an uneven and sloping crater, thinning towards one end. It led up to a point where it was easy for him to imagine a single person standing and unleashing a mighty blow; the calm origin of such devastation.

  It wasn’t just the ritual chamber that had been devastated either, as the gold-ranked strike team had done quite the number on surrounding parts of the complex. Where Kite and his team had only been able to temporarily damage the structure, the collateral damage of the golds was on an entirely different level. Here and there he could still see the occasional flicker of the ice trying to rebuild itself and fail, the enchantments, array or whatever else that fueled the process too disrupted and broken for it to succeed.

  From what they had been told, the battle had been fierce; the zealots employing some kind of last ditch effort to fuel them beyond their original means at the end. But their golds had been outnumbered and outclassed, and the Fimbulwinter Herald - as had apparently been the being they intended to summon, discovered among the zealot’s scriptures in the aftermath - had never stepped into their world.

  “It is a bit terrifying, the power of a gold-ranker,” he murmured. Glint, who was sleeping soundly in her bottle atop a new pile of glittering loot liberated from the zealots, gave no reply. But Kite’s other, odd companion did, as he felt a flicker of emotion from the retracted aura of the spear in his hand; polite acknowledgement barely hiding a sense of… was that indifference? Or something similar. Clearly, the being named Laevyeth wasn’t too impressed by the talk of gold-rankers, something which Kite would need to ask her as soon as he could provide a safe enough environment for her to dare talk. Because while she didn’t seem impressed with the concept of a gold-ranker, she most assuredly feared the people themselves and the potential of discovery.

  “Don’t worry,” Kite said in the same low voice, feeling the slight anxiousness of the weapon which followed as she too apparently had the same thought. “The golds don’t have the time for something as menial as guard duty. We won’t find them lounging around here.”

  Sensing the spear’s aura so clearly while in contact was still odd and intimate in a way that was a bit too intense for Kite’s taste, at least with someone so unfamiliar to him in most other ways. But the thought of leaving her alone made him center himself and once again shove the slight, buzzing discomfort of her contact to the back of his mind.

  “Hopefully it won’t be too much longer until we finally make our leave,” he eventually said, moving on with his patrol. “And besides, at least it takes us away from the bickering researchers for a time.”

  “Lord Van Sztramm, thank you for taking the time to see me,” Lady Ljublia said, giving the gold-ranker a deep curtsy. While she felt terribly underdressed in her society robes before the other noble, Ljublia thought that donning anything else while still out in the field would risk showing a lack of dedication.

  “Lady Ljublia, please come in. You’ll have to excuse the simple accommodations for the moment. My actual field pavilion has already been stashed on the skimmers. Really, one might have thought that Melordrian could have shown some consideration and stayed around long enough so that we could travel back in a way more befitting of our stations,” the man in question retorted, gesturing to the other chair next to his, only a small table with some refreshments separating them.

  A privacy screen had sprung up around them, shielding their little meeting from the hustle and bustle that was the joint strike force and research division packing up their equipment and preparing to leave the now empty complex of the offshoot cult of Winter’s church.

  “Of course, my Lord, of course. One could hardly demand anything else after having spent nine days in this frozen wasteland. Alas, what one won’t suffer for the name of progress and the magic society,” Ljublia replied, taking a moment to glance and take in her host and superior as she got herself seated.

  Lord Basilev van Sztramm was a human like her, and shared the pale complexion and fair hair of the region. Or at least the civilized parts with connections to the actual world of power, rather than the more fringe city states priding themselves at their ‘independence’. But unlike Ljublia, Van Sztramm came from even higher up in the nobility, having been raised up to gold rank through cores. Even for the nobility, such a thing was an economic strain few could just shrug off, and Ljublia had to admit that the man across wore the improved looks very well with his chiseled jaw, powerful frame and perfectly groomed blonde mustache.

  “I’m glad you understand then. Now, pray tell me what had you come seeking my time?,” the gold ranker asked, returning his cup of tea with a soft yet distinct clink to its tray, the gesture being a clear gesture for Ljublia to get on with it without him needing to be so base as to put the command into words. “As you no doubt know, my team has been hard at work in studying the remnants of the gold-ranked ritual. Those rubes of the adventure society might think that interrogating the survivors will give them enough answers, but as always it is we of the magic society who will find the actual truth of things.”

  “Of course, my Lord,” Ljublia said, straightening in her chair. “In the briefings before our departure, you warned us how the adventure society and their goons might attempt to steal opportunities away from us. Well, I might have witnessed something along those lines which I thought might warrant a moment of even your precious time.”

  A carefully measured sip of tea was Ljublia’s response, but in the subtle language of local nobility, the command to continue was clear as day.

  Sensing that this mere information was an opportunity for her to maybe get the gold-ranker to take proper notice of her, Ljublia started her telling, leaving out nothing. “You see, at the end of our perilous gauntlet towards the ritual chamber, one of the adventurers got the order to charge ahead and disrupt the ritual. Those brutes thought the ritual close to completion, and didn’t even consult us. And oh, what a mess he made of things. Barely left anything for my team to study. But while you already know of their incompetence in any delicate matter, what truly made me take notice was something I caught a glimpse of right there at the end when we finally made our entrance into the chamber…”

  “This, my bond, is markedly a step down in quality of our conveyance. This young mistress is of half a mind to just have you bring out the ship and take us the rest of the way myself, if only to shorten the indignity of it,” Glint complained sullenly where she stood next to Kite at the railing of one of the heavy-duty skimmers making up a convoy, the vehicles zooming across the tundra at a steady if somewhat slow pace compared to what the pair were used to by now. The going was rough, to say the least, with harsh winds adding to the rumbling and shaking of the skimmers themselves, and Kite knew that most would agree with his familiar’s sentiments. Himself included.

  “While I understand the need for the change of transportation, I will admit that I do miss the flying fortress. But they can’t have golds with paths like the Viscount just waiting around for too long, and we did spend a good number of days at the site. And you know as well as I that we are supposed to protect the convoy and be debriefed in Svyatograd once all of the gathered artifacts and other pieces has been properly stored and gone through initial categorization,” he said with a rueful shake of his head. “Honestly, I have trouble understanding politicking at a level like this between the societies. But I do believe that I can imagine the dissatisfaction of my superiors when they had to essentially extend our services as some glorified guards for a while even after the mission itself was finished.”

  “Well, this young mistress will at least cut her losses and retire for now,” Glint answered, her draconian snout curling in discomfort at a particularly strong gout of wind which managed to penetrate even the environmental shielding of the skimmer. Without further ado, the familiar changed back into her carp form and returned to her bottle, her dissatisfaction clearly felt through their bond.

  “I will do the same once my turn keeping watch is over. Because there is currently more than one intangible feeling demanding some privacy,” Kite thought to himself, sensing the clear restlessness from the spear slung onto his back.

  During the days spent keeping watch and sweeping the rest of the compound of the Everfrost Order, as they had learned the zealots called themselves, there had been little to no moments of peace, quiet or actual privacy. As such, there had been no opportunity to further inquire with Laevyeth in any substantial way except the occasional short exchange of whispered words. Because while Laevyeth could talk through her aura even in her spear form, she rarely did due to fear of being overheard by the other silvers around. And as it turned out that she couldn’t - and most assuredly did not want to - be deposited into Kite’s void sheath, he had been stuck carrying the spear that was Laevyeth around for days on end.

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  During those days, he had continuously seen Lady Ljublia eyeing the weapon, but as they were now all packed up and the convoy skimmers were now drawing closer to the city of Svyatograd by the minute, that was a potential problem Kite thought would at least disappear sooner rather than later as their paths diverged. Fortune had favored him in that the researcher in question wasn’t even on the same skimmer as his team.

  Half an hour later of Kite letting his mind wander while watching the landscape zoom by around them, Linger eventually came to take over as their team’s lookout, and Kite gave the celestine a comforting pat on the shoulder as they walked past each other. Through his expanded vision, he managed to glance the man transform, the towering shape of the lurker huddling down before the door leading down into the skimmer’s interior close behind him.

  Each of the skimmers felt more like a barge compared to the sleek crafts Kite had occasionally ridden when on contract with gauntlet. But while their size meant a much slower speed, it also meant that there was at least a modicum of space left for some creature comforts among the bulkheads of their interior.

  “Finally,” he sighed, the door to his team’s cabin closing behind him and gently laying the spear slung onto his back down on one of the cots. None of the others were present at the moment, with Linger being upstairs while Ryker, Christine and Mtanga were off on other errands. “Probably liaising with the magic society or trying to sneak their own look at the cargo,” Kite thought with a smile as he imagines Ryker’s stoic, stern face trying to remain polite in the face of bureaucratic posturing which still seemed to take place between both the two factions and among the magic society research teams themselves.

  And while he would usually find the lack of company to be a bit dull, with Glint now being thoroughly asleep, as things turned out, Kite wasn’t actually alone.

  “The formation is active now, Laevyeth. Unless someone barges in most unexpectedly or one of the golds happens to visit, we should have some time,” Kite said, and he didn’t need to turn from finishing the activation of the privacy formations to see the form of the spear shift and change, revealing Laevyeth as she had appeared before him almost two weeks ago at the rather rough conclusion of the Order’s ritual; stark naked where she sat on the cot, seeming lost in the moment as she let one of her hands play across the fabric while looking fascinated at the feeling of the texture beneath her hands.

  “Well, from what little she has told me, it seems like the very concept of having hands is a rather novel experience for her,” Kite thought, deactivating his expansive vision to at least make a bit of an attempt at politeness as he gave her a moment to - well - enjoy the moment. Instead he began looking through one of his less used dimensional bags, and soon found what he was looking for.

  “Here, put this on,” he said, holding out a simple silk robe to her without turning around. “You’re about my length, so I figured it would fit you better than one of Dragonfly’s spares.”

  “I thank thee, even though I still find this whole sense of propriety a bit… perplexing,” Laevyeth replied, but Kite could feel her take the garment and heard the slight rustling as she was apparently struggling to put it on properly. “Purity is a thing of spirit and purpose; of the fearless stride towards the valorous ideal. Perhaps I have yet to truly process what knowledge thou hast shared with me, but it still feels odd to somehow have mixed it up with the matter of covering one’s form.”

  “Well, I suppose that receiving the theoretical knowledge of social norms and actually making sense of them are two different things,” Kite thought at her reasoning.

  “But I thank thee nonetheless, Kite, for this opportunity” Laevyeth continued. “While I remain most at ease in my original form, I would be remiss not to experience what is now available to me. I don’t know for how long I was strapped to that wall, but the freedom to move about is… Something else. Even limited as this space may be,” she finished, and Kite turned to see her gazing around the cabin. He didn’t know if it was mere instinct, acting or just her nature, but Laevyeth somehow managed to look surprisingly regal even seated in one of his spare robes on a cot in a cramped cabin, her back straight as a - well - spear as she stood up to once more test her legs.

  “From what little you have told me, I can imagine that it is quite the contrast,” Kite remarked, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips as Laevyeth was once more lost in fascination at her perambulatory state. “Would you mind if I asked some more questions of you while you stretch your legs? The concealing array should keep us safe enough, even though I am quite sure that the team would also help you, should I explain-”

  “No!”

  The outburst was sudden, even seeming to surprise Laevyeth herself as she turned to him. The terror visible on her features was pure and unadulterated, in many ways similar to a child who had yet learned to school them. Even a bit of her tightly controlled aura slipped free for a moment, matching the emotion, and Kite was once more glad for the aura shielding which Christine and Mtanga’s simple arrays provided to their living quarters, lest other nearby silvers might have sensed the unfamiliar presence.

  “No. Please,” she continued, collecting herself. “Thou know how I feel on the matter. I have felt that thou trusts them, Kite, but your knowledge of them of which I have partaken is too incomplete. I… would not want to risk my freedom. Even coming with thee was a risk that might have been foolish, even though I was fortunate enough that the first one I encountered was at least a kind soul.”

  The argument wasn’t a new one, and Kite had thought that the odd woman might have started warming up to the idea over the days spent together as she had processed more and more of his understanding of the world and the people he knew. But as it turned out, her lack of a more vocal reaction before might just have been due to the risk of being discovered.

  “I understand, I understand,” Kite replied, raising his hands placatingly. “What I actually wanted to ask of you was of your nature. Were you truly created as I’ve seen you? A spear? You have referred to it as your original form.”

  “Yes, thou hast surmised correctly,” Laevyeth responded, seeming to be a lot more at ease to get on with the actual question.

  “But… how?” Kite couldn’t help himself. The question might be ridiculously basic, but it still just kept boggling his mind when he thought of it. “You- you have an aura. And, I assume, a soul. While I might not be the most powerful or knowledgeable of individuals, according to my understanding you don’t just make a soul. It’s inviolable. And to somehow shape it into a weapon…” he said trailing off.

  “Alas, of this matter I know little,” Laevyeth admitted, brows creasing over silver eyes in a show of pure concern. “I only remember coming into being and from what my creator showed me. At the beginning, she even called me her pinnacle creation, the first of a line that would shake the cosmos,” she continued, voice growing wistful. “Even though I was but a silver ranked seedling, the lowest of the low and a bud yet to bloom into actual usefulness, she spoke so highly of me. ‘A proof of concept’, she said. Isn’t that the highest praise? To embody something so fundamental?”

  Kite could hear the warring emotions in her voice, both pride and bitterness, so he held his correction of what the term ‘proof of concept’ actually meant for now. Also, her mention of silver rank as something puny and diminutive gave a clear hint that her creator was much, much more powerful.

  “But then she… left me there. Cast me aside when I couldn’t find a bond who could live up to my ideals. And I… knew only silence and loneliness after that. My creator said she would return. She promised. But…”

  “She didn’t,” Kite finished, having heard enough snippets of her telling before to know the ending. “And you’re saying that whatever prison you were trapped in eventually collapsed, leaving you here?”

  “Yes, as thee can surely guess,” Laevyeth replied, even if there was no sarcasm in her tone. “Somehow. I don’t know how. And from the knowledge of thine which I have sifted through, thou knowest not either.”

  “No, unfortunately astral magic is far, far from my field of expertise. If that is even what’s at play here, although many summoning rituals do incorporate it to at least some extent,” Kite said. While he wasn’t prone to bluster in the first place, there was little point in trying to hide the fact from someone with whom he had literally shared his knowledge of the world. “But even if you don’t know how your creator did what she did, do you know why? What was her purpose for you? Because from the sound of it, I suspect it wasn’t just to throw you out into the world, or whatever place this workshop of hers resided in.”

  “In that, thou hast also surmised correctly. My creator did speak of a purpose. I was to be bequeathed to a wielder of her choice, someone who closely matched my nature and ideals. We-”

  At that moment, the door to their cabin rattled once as someone outside tried to open it, only to find it locked. Even so, Laevyeth had started and returned to her spear form at the moment she noticed the interruption, and Kite barely managed to snatch the weapon from the air before it clattered to the floor while he simultaneously rose to unlock the door.

  “Sorry, was I interrupting you in some private time, Junior Brother Kite?” Christine asked with a teasing smile and a raised eyebrow as she entered, the blonde elf giving Kite a good-natured pat on the shoulder as she slunk past him and unceremoniously threw herself onto her cot.

  “If you must know, honored and most dignified Senior Sister, I was merely changing-” Kite began, before realizing that the robe he had loaned to Laevyeth - part of his hastily thought out cover-story - was nowhere to be seen.

  “- clothes,” he finished quickly, trying to cover up his odd pause by leaning over and stashing the spear in one of the weapon racks close to one of the bulkheads while thinking; “Got to remember that she actually has a dimensional storage of her own. And to ask what Laevyeth was about to say when we next find the time.”

  Given Christine’s arched look and amused smile in return, his attempted excuse just seemed to cement her previous assumptions, but she did let the matter drop, Fortune be praised.

  “How fares your studies? And liaising with the magic society?” Kite instead asked, sitting down on his own cot.

  “Oh, it’s been a fun pastime, even if the good stuff is on another skimmer,” Christine replied with her usual casual tone, stretching where she lay. “It’s mostly to see if me and Mtanga can manage to sneak past the so-called defenses of our ‘colleagues’.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to just… ask?”

  “In our defense, we did try. But from your question, it once more shows that you really aren’t a part of the magic society. Just giving away opportunities to rivals like that? Unthinkable!” Christine said, mock indignation in her voice. “That would just sidestep all the hard work, maneuvering and general sycophancy that has already gone into establishing the pecking order of the expedition and thus the access to any particular finds. And we can’t have that now, won’t we?”

  “Your sarcasm when speaking of them so far does make me question why you are actually a member,” Kite noted. “Surely, there must be some upsides?”

  “Sure, sure,” Christine said, waving away his concerns. “There are plenty of good people and amazing minds within the magic society, and for me who's also an active adventurer, it is a lot easier to find opportunities in the field. These kinds of problems mainly show themselves during prestigious outings like these, where the ambitious hog the spots and the actual competence stays inside their workshops and studies. They will still get their look at it, of course. Who else will write up all the actual findings for the more pompous, well-connected ones to cram their name onto? I’m… not selling this very well, am I?”

  “No, but your point sure has come across. I’m not sure if it is comforting or troubling to see the nature of people and their ambition in all the stratas of the great organization like this,” Kite said with a rueful shake of his head.

  “If anything, Ryker is the one who has it the roughest, caught in between as he is right during this contract. Each time he returns from being called over to the lead skimmer where all the important people are, he looks like he is about to have an aneurysm. And as we silvers are long past such things, it speaks for itself. At least Sir Ilmaril is with us, which means that their gold-ranker can’t attempt to just bully us around however he wants.”

  “May the gods have mercy on me during our next practice session then, because from the sound of it I am unsure if Teacher will be able to refrain from taking some frustrations out on me,” Kite said, rising and retrieving Laevyeth’s spear form from the rack again. “If you’ll excuse me, it might be best for me to find him and deliver my watch report. Should only be a day left on this trip now, right?”

  “Yep. Then hopefully just a few more in Svyatograd before we’re portalled home. Here’s hoping that it will be more like a vacation!” Christine cheerfully called after him as the door to the cabin closed.

  “Here’s to hoping indeed,” Kite agreed, murmuring softly. Both to himself, and the restless spear now slung across his shoulder.