Millennial Mage

Tala and Rane weren’t in a hurry with their brunch, and as such, most of those that Alat had reached out to had gotten back to them by the time they were finished.

The responses to Tala and Alat’s inquiry were…incredulous. Though they did come in quickly, taking less than an hour for most to be entered into the Archive.

Even Mistress Ingrit—with Tala’s memories in hand—seemed to have a hard time believing that Terry had somehow gotten the baba yaga’s teeth, let alone a leg from her infamous house.

Alat told Tala in confidence that Terry had grudgingly admitted to her that the baba yaga had likely allowed him to claim such prizes just to get rid of him.

He’d made that much of a nuisance of himself, which was honestly an achievement in its own right.

The terror bird seemed to take a bit of pride in that very fact, even if he didn’t trill it to the stars.

Regardless of their credulity, several of the Paragons and Reforged that they’d inquired with had vouchsafed the iron, saying it shouldn’t have any lingering hostile affects.

To most, it would just be iron.

They did counsel against binding it directly—as they instantly assumed she was considering—due to its ties to Reality. They advised folding it into something already bound and stably intermeshed with her soul. That should be safe, though they didn’t have any guess as to exactly what doing such would accomplish.

So, while sitting on the throne in her sanctum, Rane at her side and a temporarily satiated Terry looking on, Tala held the iron teeth in her open palm.

“My soulbound companion won you and presented you to me. You are mine.”

There was a ripple as Tala felt her authority take hold.

There was a truly odd feeling of duality. The iron became hers in every sense, not just bound to her, but a part of her as all her iron was.

It was her authority, her power, her self.

At the same time, it shed all ties that tried to bind it… except those to itself.

Her iron was now one with it.

It was now one with her.

They weren’t two distinct things that needed ties to one another.

But if it was her, then she was it, and it would not bear being linked to anything else.

Tala’s eyes widened, and the Reality threads connected to her came into sharp focus, their usual mere background presence falling away to leave them in stark relief.

The iron—her iron, her self—was working to sever all the ties that bound them in any way.

She could already see the threads straining under the weight of Reality’s pressure, guided and enhanced with her power and authority, that of a Paragon.

Tala’s will bloomed, her focus narrowed, and her Paragon might came to bear.

More than that, she felt her husband and Terry at her side. They had clearly realized something was happening, and they wished to be of help, even if they did not know how.

That was enough to lend the weight of their power to her authority, her will.

No. You are mine. You are me. I am connected to the world. I am Maternal Iron, I am the Ravenous Jealous Devourer. I am the Iron Matriarch.

Even as she expressed it, she felt both her self-imposed distance from the assumed label and the rightness of it all over again.

I am one. Iron and all. She would never sever her ties with those she cared for. She would never deprive herself of them nor them of her.

She once might have welcomed such a severing, such a breaking of ties. She might have seen such as freedom, as a loosening of burdens and restrictions.

No longer.

She was who she was, soulbonds and all.

-A Creator and a Destroyer-

A Nurturer and a Devourer

-A Sanctum and a Sword-

A Defender of Humanity and an Eskau of the House of Blood

-A Hope and a Terror-

Mine,

-everything shall be MINE and be better for it.-

Her soul practically sang with the truth of who she was and her knowledge of it, with her power as a Paragon.

She was not the scared teen who was afraid to let anyone close any more, pushing others away as she rushed headlong toward self destruction or glory, hardly caring which she achieved.

She was more than herself, now. She was how she affected—how she connected with—the world around her.

And the nature of the Reality iron calmed, not changing, but molding to her will, bowing to the truth of how their natures fit and were one.

Those connections weren’t ties between herself and other entities in need of severing; they weren’t invasions of her sovereignty of self.

Just as my own power can act upon my iron. The connections I allow are a part of me. Why would they be rejected?

With an almost visceral click that seemed to resonate within her soul, the teeth melded with her iron, changing it and being changed in turn.

The impurities that had been a hallmark both of the dasgannach and of the iron which she, herself claimed were shed away in a conflagration that burst from her like an ice-nova.

A great outrushing of freezing air poured off of her skin, followed by an odd sort of sparking or reheating as the freed material reacted and combined with itself in new configurations now that it was free of the iron.

Rane and Terry stood beside her, hair and feathers ruffling, eyes squinted against the outpouring from her as she sat atop the throne.

Forgotten were the jerky beside Terry and the half-carved figure of stone in Rane’s off hand. They were both fully focused on her at that moment.

Her threefold perspective showed herself as readily as everything else around her, and she saw her eyes glowing fiercely with a savage power.

Her iron shifted from dull gray to a red reminiscent of dried blood.

It made no sense chemically, but it somehow fit her connection with—and dominion over—it more fully. Still, the color change didn’t last. It was a temporary visual manifestation of the reality of her self and the iron being inseparable, being one and the same.

And then it was done.

Her open palm was empty even as she held it out before her. The teeth had been subsumed into her other iron wholly and completely until there was no distinction between them.

She couldn’t have pulled that specific iron forth if her very soul depended on it.

With a moment of excitement, she once again rolled her iron over her inscriptions, hugging them as closely in every dimension she safely could, far more perfectly than ever before.

The inscription lines on her skin became momentarily a uniform dull gray as her iron fit over every swirl, jog, and turn like a perfectly created sheath.

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By the nature of the thinness of the shell, it remained permeable to any significant amount of power, but it did require that for power to come through.

That threshold was crossed with ease in barely a breath as her Paragon power density echoed and resonated with itself.

Immediately, her spell-lines manifested anew as variegated lines of light in Reality itself, her power roaring through her like never before as her iron was able to perfectly align with her inscriptions.

She pulled in a startled breath, her pupils dilating at the sheer pleasure of the renewed power.

Her aura shifted marginally toward blue, the act of so totally harnessing her own inscriptions within her body causing her to Reforge herself just a bit more.

Her through spike hid the light almost instantly, as usual, but it was still a stark reminder of how she’d caught up to Rane’s level of natural magics—surpassing him by quite a bit even—despite him having essentially his set of inscriptions for almost twice as long as she’d had hers locked in.

Rane smiled broadly, the expression pulling her focus back to the present moment. He then laughed in delight as he clearly noticed the change in her aura. After a moment's hesitation, he caught her up in an embrace, lifting her from the throne and spinning her around in joy. “I thought we might have lost you for a second, but then you turned it toward your own advantage.”

Tala found herself laughing in his arms even as the single spin came to an end. “You dared doubt me?”

There was no bite to the playful question, and he responded in kind. “Never again, my love. I don’t know what you just fought through, but it is clear that you did so with skill and strength.”

“And with your aid.” She reached out toward Terry, and he flickered to her shoulder. “And with yours.”

Terry chirped happily, headbutting her cheek.

“Thank you for the gift. It has added to our capabilities, though I don’t know exactly how.”

Rane nodded. “I felt much going on that I couldn’t truly perceive. Is there anything I can help with?”

She shrugged. “For me personally? No. It would help me for you to continue working on your own advancement. I want you with me every step of the way.”

His smile softened. “I will do my utmost, but do not linger on my account. We’re both Paragons now. I’ll not die of old age. Advance as you can, and I’ll do so as I am able as well. No matter how that goes, I will be with you as long as I can be.”

She regarded him for a long moment as he held her, her own arms up on his shoulders, fingers behind his neck. She pulled herself up to kiss him, then nodded. “As you say, husband.”

In that moment, she clarified something that she’d probably always known. It didn’t manifest as any sort of advancement in her aura, but she felt it was critical nonetheless.

Reforging as regards to her soulbound with Rane wouldn’t be an issue in the slightest. All that he wanted for her was that she achieve her true potential. All that he desired was that nothing would hold her back.

He was no chain or weight on her advancement. He was solid footing from which she could lunge ever higher.

In that moment, more than ever, she wanted to be the same for him.

She kissed him again, and the world apart from the two of them faded from her focus even as Terry flickered away, giving them a few precious minutes of privacy.

* * *

Tala sat in a meditative pose beside her river within the sanctum. Rane had requested a bit of time to work on a sculpture that had been hanging in the back of his mind for nearly a week—he’d used nearly every free, waking moment in Sunnydale to absorb what he could from that place, be it culture, sights, or magical insights—and he wanted to get it into the physical world.

Since they’d already stopped, he wanted to take a couple of hours to sculpt. She didn’t begrudge him that in the least.

Terry was splayed out in a glade about half a mile away from Tala—across the center of the sanctum—sunning himself after having gorged on the baba yaga’s house chicken leg and helped her absorb the teeth.

So, Tala was taking the time to address something that had been annoying her more and more of late.

-We are overestimating what our threefold sight is capable of.-

Precisely.

Her threefold sight was, effectively, three things—hence the moniker.

First, it was mundane vision.

Simple, effective, and useful.

Second, it was her magesight, highlighting magic, sources of power, and the advancement of beings.

Here was one of the first issues. She’d known that people could appear as less advanced than they were, but now that she’d actually learned about veiling and things of that nature, it showed just how unreliable that could be.

True, for most creatures in existence, it was more than sufficient to suss out the truth behind their power, but it was starting to fall short.

…No, that isn’t true. It’s still working exactly as it always has.

-We just need to remember it is still a sight. It is a perception of what we come across, not necessarily the truth of the thing.-

Precisely, yeah. She wouldn’t throw out the tool for lack of precision. She simply needed to remember what it was useful for.

Third was her voidsight, which highlighted distinct things. Specifically, she had bent it toward the seeing of reality nodes due to the gaps between them, and that view of reality nodes brought with it a sense and sight of the threads that connected such across existence.

This likewise was incredibly useful in all that it could do and all the information it provided. The issue was, illusions could still have reality threads connected to them, they could still be crafted as ‘distinct’ enough to have their own reality nodes.

She had mitigated many of the shortcomings of her threefold sight by use of her bloodstar clouds, hovering within her extended aura, both stone- and starward of her superficial position at all times, each drop providing the anchor for an aspect mirrored threefold sight.

With that, she was able to give herself a depth of perception to see past what would have easily blocked her vision on the superficial.

This was excellent at piercing illusions, and she’d even used it to see Rane’s true advancement through his veil… at first.

Lisa was an early indication that even this deeper sight was not as all-seeing as she treated it, but she’d been slow to adjust her assumptions.

-And now we add soulsight into the mix, which the baba yaga already proved could be deceived.-

With the right skills, yeah… Tala considered. But, that’s the point, isn’t it? We’re never going to see existence exactly as it is. No matter how many layers we add, no matter how powerfully we enhance and augment our perception, we will still just be seeing things from our perspective.

-Well, we can add in Rane’s and Enar’s now—Terry’s too—but yeah. those are still just perspectives, and nothing guarantees that such is the truth.-

So… what does this mean? Tala felt her mind uncoiling just a bit, and she nodded to herself. It means that we need to keep this in mind. We can improve, but we must remember we aren’t ever going to achieve perfection.

-And remember what level we are operating on. Like with Rane’s sculpting. He can make something smooth to the touch, but is it actually perfectly smooth?-

No, but it’s simply smooth enough for his purposes.

-Exactly.-

Yeah… Tala considered, remembering passing a worker in Sunnydale. That man used a bubble level to make the shelf he was mounting useful, but to call it ‘true level’ would be ridiculous, even if such a concept had a useful meaning.

-Precisely.-

So, the solution—at least for the moment—was to remember that her threefold sight was not a perfect revealer of the truth.

Even with soulsight and her growing sense of authority added in, her perception was better than ever, but it was still her perception.

Alright. I’ll try to keep that in mind.

She checked, and Rane was still working away, Terry still dozing in the warmth of the false-sun’s light.

Well, we have time, and we wanted to consider more powerful attacks, and other ways to use the power that’s in here.

-I’ve been considering that. I do have one idea, but it isn’t actually something that uses more power—I’m not sure your magics are geared that way regardless, if we’re being honest with ourselves—but we can use the sanctum for something more.-

Oh? Tala began considering, trying to see if she could come up with it herself.

-Yes. Honestly, the artificial lung gave me the foundation of the idea.-

Really? So, something that we build up in here and release? She frowned, unable to think of anything offhand.

-Precisely. We have the siege orbs ready to hand, how do we use them?-

Well, aside from occasionally shoving them down an arcane’s throat, we amplify the gravitational attraction of two of them toward each other, then shift the target of that attraction to ‘fire’ them forth, like a guardsman might shoot a crossbow.

-Precisely. But they are starting from a dead stop, which makes them less powerful and reliable than they might be.-

Of course they are. How else would… we… Tala’s eyes widened. Orbits.

She almost slapped herself in the forehead.

We’ve even used orbits for our early bloodstar perspective mirroring.

-Yup. But it was a pain to maintain them, because we were moving around, and that constantly changed the forces that were needed to keep a stable orbit.-

But if we created an accelerator in here, a tight, fast orbit for the siege orb pairs?

-We wouldn’t even have to keep them in pairs, but that would add to the speed and targeting if done correctly.-

Tala slowly shook her head in awe. How did we never consider this?

-Honestly? We were content with our uses of power. Now? Now we want more.-

Shall we get to experimenting?

-Absolutely. I think the space needs to be well separated from the artificial lung, and similarly isolated.-

Agreed. Tala felt herself grinning. Then, let’s get to it.