Trial By Fire (Imogen, Talisman)

[Norani]

Norani's tired, blood shot eyes looked over at the exhausted lemur upon the back of a great shadow cat, a smile slowly creeping on the elementalist's face. They survived. That was a good start. At the elder witch's comments, Norani could only nod a bit in agreement. Norani couldn't even begin to truly fathom about what had just happened here, she had acted on instinct and a very limited amount of magical experience.

Imogen called it a spell, but Norani wasn't sure if she could replicate that again. Or if she even should.

"I've never been to Atraxia before... Heard so many stories though."

Shielding her eyes, she glanced upward, "Do you know why the sun is wrong here? It's not ours."

At the request, she shook her head, "I do not have anything like that but maybe with all the fire and sand.."

She heard the fire spirit now, heard that voice again, and she cast her eyes on it as the sands began to shift. She could see that it was flourishing, tired, but alive. Her heart swelled seeing that the corruption was gone. She reached out to it, a bit of her aether tinged into her hand, caressing the flames that were fed by the winds that were starting to return. "I'm so glad we made it in time..."

As the tunnel opened, and the foursome began to descend, Norani relaxed, her trust purely in the elements now. As they slid down, Norani closed her eyes, fingertips gliding through the granules of sand, feeling them beginning to shift to stone. And she could feel a bit of a difference there, one she hadn't realized before. Sand was certainly of earthen structure, but it carried the song of the winds within it. It was not as water oriented as the earth from back home, but didn't seem to call for it either.

Fascinating.

Once they settled at the bottom, Norani looked around in wonder. Water was prevalent here, the air cool and humid, a cave of some sort. A soft whistle went out, and she could hear the water and the winds born from their coolness calling back. Her eyes widened. There was a huge spring of some sort down here, they were simply in a small branch of it. She could hear the calm heartbeat of a large lake and the powerful rushing of a river.

She reached down into a puddle at her hip, scooping up perfectly clear and cool water, bringing it to her dried and cracked lips. Draining it down, she felt it refresh and bring some vigor back, not easing the pain, but at least distracting it for a moment. She watched as the elemental did what she thought may have occurred topside. Sand and fire make glass, she smiled, finding it curious to feel how these elements shifted in such a way.

She would have to try making glass sometime.

But for now, a question posed. And there was only one person in the entire world that she knew would take this rescue mission with no questions asked, one who was beyond capable of finding them and getting them out, one who had flown missions against the Imperium, one who helped to evacuate Ailos, one who would always come, though Norani had never called.

"Ourha Q'uvi, Sky Dragoon Major, Orchid Brigade, Air Corps of the Shield 3rd Army of Central Ecith."

A pause, as Norani closed her eyes, and continued, "My mother."

She sighed, knowing that her mother would most certainly come, and she was grateful for that. But she wasn't ready to see her family yet. Or she was, but wasn't. It was still so.. difficult.

She turned to the elemental now, reaching out to it. She was drawn to it, ever since they had shared a bonded bridge, the three of them, and unknowingly a god. "Do you have any more corruption? Are you in pain? Do you know of any others that need help?" Not that she was in any position to give it at this moment, but it was simply her nature.

Smiling softly at it, "Thank you for bringing us to safety. Do you have a name?"

[Talisman]

"No more. I am free," Aetu tried to reassure Norani. The spirit was small, but what glow there was to the flame within was strong. It was still here. In time... it could recover. In time. "Small... but free. There is no more pain. No more torment. Others... Others have fallen. Others have been found. Some survived. Some did not." Chaotic clouds had been chased and purified and fought back from the seasons prior, but some little pockets had managed to survive, and when they had gotten into Aetu, or others, they had created very big problems as they fed and devoured on the natural aether around them.

"I am Aetu," the elemental offered Norani when she inquired as to its name. It was less concerned with the lemur and what the lemur was doing with the mirror, though it was somewhat curious despite all that it had gone through in the last couple of seasons. Fighting off the corrupting influence that had eaten away at so much of it had taken a great deal out of the spirit. Aetu did not mean to be rude, but she did not speak the language of the spirits. It wasn't that it was ungrateful for the help that Imogen had provided it at the elementalist's behest, but it was indeed tired. They all were, it was understandable. And hopefully, they could have enough time to get to safety from here. Hunters would come, those who sensed the intrusions into their homeland, and they would come to deal with it. The great kingdom of the Solunarium was not one that brooked the violations of trespass, even if well-meaning, lightly. There would be investigations; the only question was if they would be able to escape with their lives after everything they had just endured.

That was very much going to depend on what happened on the other end of the mirror.

Of all the things Ourha might have expected to have happen today, a window appearing before her while she was tending to her pterodactyl was not one of them. But she was not surprised; one did not accomplish what she did without being summoned and approached regularly by whatever means were necessary to communicate. Even if she, herself, had no Runes to speak of. It was, however, unexpected. "Greetings to you. How may I be of service?" If she was being sought out specifically... there was sure to be a reason. Otherwise this might not just be some sort of social call...

[Imogen]

The exhausted little lemur focused on keeping the Window open as the spirit and Norani spoke. It was the easiest of all the overt acts of Traversion, and something she'd have felt confident keeping open even after a full day of travel or long fighting... but the magic Norani had cast had almost literally flash-converted all of her stores of Aether into nova flame, a quantity far beyond any amount she'd ever tried to summon before. Even calling this "fumes" was probably pushing it.

"It can't talk, I think." Imogen said, in response to Norani's query, "Or... maybe it can, but its words can't come through the mirror. It's one of the things trapped in Slipspace a long time ago, and since it was trapped by the act of a God, nothing it does or says can cross the veil. My teacher specializes in communing with them, which always perturbed the Kindred."

Understandable; the mirror-spirit was unnerving. But it was also enormously useful for Ansel Gerhard's duties, and even the famously risk-adverse coven didn't really fear that any individual witch was going to somehow unseal Slipspace. Some doors were stuck so fast, they might as well be walls.

Speaking of...

Mirrorgen took hold of the Window, dragging it through Slipspace, and Imogen was unlucky enough not to be looking away. Moving a Window was weird (and kind of nauseating) at the best of times, when one was in fine fettle and form. The nullspace beyond the veil did not have anything approaching a one-to-one correspondence with the material realm they inhabited, which meant Mirrorgen's relatively straightforward path through Slipspace caused the image shown within the Window to flash wildly, displaying scenes from near and far.

A flash of the sands above; or rather, below. The Window was suddenly located on the underside of a cloud above the Atraxian, the ruddy light of the Scepter all the more intense for the closer perspective. From this vantage, the false sunlight cast a deeply ominous pallor across the whole of the land.

Imogen's fur stood on end, succumbing to feelings of wrongness, before the Window suddenly shifted anew. Doubtless whichever great mages had constructed this enchantment were elementalists and sages and thought the benefits worth the risk, but she did not like it at all. The light was missing something crucial, though she did not know what.

The Window displayed now the trees and sky of Northern Ecith, opening in the midst of some pool surrounded on all sides by great jungle trees and thick brush. A capybara continued drinking, apparently totally unperturbed at the magical power suddenly evinced by his watering hole. It took more than sudden dimensional portals to perturb a capybara.

Capybara? Was the window near Gihah, then? She thought those swamps and lakes were the prime habitat in Northern Ecith for the huge rodents, but the witch wasn't really a biologist in any sense of the word. For all she knew, they were super-common throughout the whole continent.

The Window re-opened below a dock, the surface of the image rippling as a ship passed by. The sailors were largely human, though there was the flash of an elf- not an Ork in sight.

Could that be Drathera? No... the ships were wrong. It was nowhere Imogen had ever seen. Perhaps the dock belonged to the nearby nation whose borders they had just teeeechnically violated, but certainly neither of the girls present could confirm that.

The scene was suddenly from another cloud, this one high above a truly enormous city, a metropolis to rival any of the great holdings of the Commonwealth, sweeping away from the base of a huge, dark mountain. Sadly, there were no details- the Window fuzzed and blipped.

Lemurgen's eyes widened with nervousness. Not because of the city--she didn't know enough about Solunarium to even recognize it-but because the fuzzing was a tell-tale effect of warding. If Carina were here, she could have used the Railrunners' secret arts to bypass the wards in an instant, but if the spell got close enough to be completely Negated, the witch really wasn't sure she could conjure another just now. Thankfully, that scene too passed by after a matter of seconds.

Finally, the portal stopped before an Orkhan woman who the witch did not recognize, shining from the wall of a pterodactyl stall. Several of the huge lizards turned their heads to watch as light blossomed from the Window, and Ourha turned. The other woman spoke: "Greetings to you. How may I be of service?"

From Ourha's perspective, it surely looked as though part of the wall had simply opened up, showing a sandy tunnel largely concealed by the concerned lemur-face pressed up against the Window. The monkey in question spoke, saying: "Sorry to call on you this way. I'm Imogen, uh, a witch. I was traveling with your- with Norani, and we've gotten a bit stuck. In the middle of the Atraxian Expanse. Underground."

The monkey scurried backwards a bit so that Norani and her mother could see one another.

[Norani]

As the spirit spoke, Norani felt relieved. They'd been successful. But at the mention of others having died, some having... fallen? What happened if the corruption took over completely? Norani thought back to those moments where she was bonded with the spirit and Imogen in tandem, thought to how the imbalance had felt. A spirit corrupted... in constant pain, spreading pain and chaos through its companions, through its friends, through the very elements themselves.

Torment was a very correct word.

"Aetu," she uttered in a soft breath. She could still feel the remnants of the bond they had built in that contentious moment over the sands above. And through that tired, burnt bond, it would feel the absolute truth in Norani's heart as she spoke. "I will fix this. I will free the seasons, then I will free all of you from the touch of corruption. Until my final days." And then she smiled softly, "Aetu, will you join me in this quest? Will you come if I call upon you?"

And she awaited the answer, patiently, hopeful, as Imogen managed to connect the call. She watched the lemur-witch shift, and she saw her mother for the first time several seasons. Tears sprang into her eyes, a million unprepared emotions surging forth. And as her mother saw her firstborn, she took a deep breath through her nostrils, her throat constricting. Norani had not even said goodbye when she left for her Och'uvnai. Ourha gave Imogen a polite nod, "Thank you, Imogen," The tear filled eyes cleared as ones more focused and severe fell upon the elementalist.

"Hello Norani."

Norani swallowed hard, unable to look at her mother, in her thick dialect from her village, "Heja, Mamma."

"I understand you're in hostile territory. Can you give me more to go on?"

The young woman nodded, another shaky breath inhaled, "We were traveling home when I felt a disturbance in the elements here. We came and we helped to save this fire spirit, but I..." she paused, looking down at her fidgeting hands, "I used up all of our magic. We're stuck."

Her mother nodded, "Where's Ruvaf?"

Norani looked up now, vision blurred, "He's taking a friend to a place called Agst'rasera. He's safe."

Ourha nodded once more, "Are you still on Och'uvnai?"

Norani nodded in reply, "Declare it finished. Your soldier markings will allow me to find you."

"I..." Would declaring that mean she would have to return home, for good? Would she have to give up her mission in South Ecith, in Agst'rasera? Would she.. "Norani, we will figure the rest out once you're safe. If the Solunarians find you, they will kill you. All of you."

"I declare Och'uvnai completed."

Norani's citizenship markings glowed briefly, and in the mirror Norani could see Ourha moving. She spoke to her second in command, a woman Norani had known most of her life, "Tell Boraba I'm going out for a walk."

The other woman smiled slyly, "How long?"

"A few days at most."

She nodded and left.

Now that they were alone, she smiled at Norani, a most genuine and loving smile, "Only you could end up like you are, and I am so proud of you. Hold your position, hide, try to avoid conflict if you can. I will be there soon. We've flown through more dangerous storms than this, together. Although you were just a babe then." A somber sigh and a stare, "If the Solunarians find you, kill them. They will not extend you any mercy, there will be no quarter. They are just as likely to experiment upon and study you as they are to kill you where you stand. Do you understand me, soldier?"

Norani nodded.

Ourha leapt upon her mount, and looked at Imogen, "Do not open communications again, they've likely detected this one as it is."

There was a flapping of wings and Ourha left the field of vision of the mirror.

Norani pulled her knees into her chest, now allowing the tears to flow, unspeaking.

[Talisman]

"I will come, Lightningrider," Aetu agreed. Norani had saved its life, after all, and the spirit understood the concept of returning the favour. The hopes that the young Elementalist could do what she was intended to do was worth the venture; because doing nothing meant that the situations plaguing the world would never change. It was clear that something had to be done, somehow. Then the ecology could return to normal. As much as the Sceptre of Avaerys helped strengthen the fire spirit, even it knew that balance was necessary in the world. The environment of Atraxia was suffering greatly, even if it was in Aetu's favour. All the same, the orchestra of nature was out of sync, completely out of harmony, and the damage was undeniable. Without the return of the seasons and natural order, the ecology would be beyond repair, even by the multitudes of mages that resided within the desert kingdom.

There was only so much one could do to stave off devastation.

When the communication ended, the mirror returned to being a mirror, cool to the touch and quite light. The water trickled along, but when Norani drew her knees to her chest, Aetu approached her and just sat with her. The elemental did not speak, but seemed to commiserate with her all the same, offering warm comfort. Pain tended to be the best teacher, and taught the lessons that stuck. With luck, Ourha could get there before the hunters came that Aetu warned them about.

***

In the cloudless skies above, the Praeventores were hunting. Riding their wyverns, the Sembler of the group was scouring the land, from the blackened earth to the skies. "Modo occidens huc pervenerunt. Ostium ibi apertum est. Non Viatori. Subscriptio alia est." Clouded eyes scanned the area. "Hie erat. Arcas. Quam vim sentire possum. Scrutans scrutabor ego. Hoc certamen tenebrarum energiae facit."

"Nulla porta aliquam erat?" another masked figure wanted to know, scouring the aether flux. Much like the Sembler had found, the energies here made their senses feel off. It was a matter of pushing through and focusing, and they would get the job done.

"Nullus," confirmed the Sembler, as his wyvern turned in a slow circle, allowing them to scour the land below before starting to decrease their altitude to head to the ground.

"Deinde hic sunt alicubi. Miserae Orcani. Quaerere exemplaria." A third Praeventore muttered.

"Procul a domo. Ista volent," the second hunter agreed. They could not have gotten far.

[Imogen]

Once Ourha's image faded, the lemur witch let her hand fall slowly away from the thin plane of black glass, letting out a heavy breath. Heavy for a lemur, at any rate, which was still undetectably minute to Norani's ears. She took a few steps backward, to the wall of the little tunnel, and slid down onto her monkey ass, rubbing at an eye with long-fingered hands.

"Are these desert-folk really that aggressive?" Imogen asked aloud, an involuntary yawn creeping across her tiny face, "Even the blighters back home weren't so uptight as to monitor the whole of the wilderness for signs of magic..."

Of course, the amount of power Norani had unleashed in her purifying spell had been pretty significant. Maybe even the Order would have taken note of a pillar of silver fire connecting the vault of the firmament to the ground like that.

Troublesome. If they sent a patrol to investigate, that meant... well, what could it mean? A mage who could track them, or at least one with a proficient auraglass scope, certainly. Probably guards, anywhere from one or two to a dozen, she had no way to guess. Maybe mages in their own right. Under ordinary circumstances, the Sunsinger could probably engage a patrol on her own, mages or no, but given how much aether Norani had used...? She'd be lucky if she could manifest a pact weapon by the next sunrise.

"Ill luck to kill someone for what you fear they might do, that's what my father always said. Much better if any hunters would pass us by without ever knowing it."

True, but a tricky proposition all the same. If the spell had attracted hunters, they would be hunting via aura. Imogen was no Sembler, though she expected that it would take some time for even an expert mage to pick out their auras--drained as they both were--amidst the spell-charred wastes above.

Perhaps that was it, then?

"If they hunt for us by aura..." the Ork-lemur said, words coming slowly, "Then there is a window of opportunity for deceit. Yes, we might be able to prepare a diversion. Have you an elementalist's stone with you?"

[Norani]

Norani nodded and smiled through the tears at the elemental, wiping clear her eyes. Norani looked over at Imogen, wondering how to answer the question posed. She knew very little of Atraxia, just the general words of caution passed around by the odd merchant, soldier, or traveler that came through her village. "I... don't know. Maybe. I know the Commonwealth occasionally receives refugees escaping from there, but I've never met one."

She nodded in agreement that going unnoticed would be far better than ending up in a fight. She had next to nothing left in the reserves, probably just enough to keep her alive. However, at the asking of her preparedness, she shook her head. "No, I don't have any nor the aether to make more." The girl was young, she hadn't thought to be prepared for combat, or finding a spirit in need of aid, or anything. She had the clothes on her back, a couple of weapons she barely could use, and a small pack. Nothing magical such as being asked.

A painful lesson this could become. She'd never thought to keep lodestones on hand. She could see the merit in it now, without knowing Imogen's plan for it. She closed her eyes, dwelling on her own foolishness. How could she have taken on this impossible mission so unprepared? She was barely a soldier, hardly an adult, a passable mage but still raw and unfocused. Everything in this world was still new to her, she was not seasoned, not experienced, not wise like Imogen and so many others.

But while her eyes closed, the fiery lotus marking over her heart began to glow a bit brighter, as did the swirls in her citizenship markings denoting her family. Imogen would feel a stirring, surely, as the accomplished and incredibly observant witch that she is. Perhaps in the memories of those she loved and those who loved her.

And then a portal opened up in their little cave, silent. A tall, even by Ecithian standards, Orkhan woman passed through, wearing a robe of living wild flowers. She was green of skin, with horns sprouting from her head, reminiscent of the Lysanrin people, with angular eyes. As Norani looked upon her, her mind flooded her with memories of her brothers and sisters, her parents, of Yeva. A smile was given as she stepped aside from the portal, and Ourha stepped through, chakrams similar to Norani's own, touched by age and use, strapped to her body around her flying leathers.

"Let's go, before they find and sever this."

Norani's jaw dropped, and her eyes passed over to Imogen. Surely the ancient witch wouldn't be surprised by this, but Norani didn't know it would be this easy for her mother. And who was the woman in flowers? She sluggishly climbed to her feet, looking through the portal. In it she saw a large stone cavern, hand carved decor, cascading plantlife and a wading pool in the center, and was filled with various Ecithian peoples naked and bathing and embraced in other endeavors.

The strange woman smiled again, "I sense those with just as much hatred as they are filled with love nearby."

Norani swallowed and stepped through the portal, guiding Aetu through as well. She stopped and waited for Imogen and the others. Once everyone was through, the portal closed. Ourha turned to the woman, "Thank you, Camelia." Camelia turned to look at Norani, "Those who love will always find one another." Then back to Ourha, "Anything for an old friend. Let us fly together once more." Glancing at Norani and Imogen, "When you're less busy."

With that, she turned from the group, shed her flower robe and stepped into the water to join the others. Ourha gave both Norani and Imogen a once over, "Can you walk? We should get you to a healer." She looked at Norani first, but then cast her gaze to Imogen, "Would you mind filling me in on how you two ended up in the middle of Atraxia? Talk and walk." Norani dipped her head, knowing her mother's behavior, a sign for her to not speak and to just listen.

She knew that one all too well.

[Imogen]

No, that would have been too convenient, the witch supposed. Well, no matter. In her experience, there was never only one way to accomplish your goals. They'd just need to-

Imogen, in her ruminations and plots, failed entirely to notice as Norani's tattoos began to glow, her little monkey face turned away from the light suddenly filling the dark hole. By the time she'd turned back, a hole had already blossomed in the air, and two women had stepped out of it.

If she'd been in Ork form, the witch's jaw would probably have hit the floor, but a lemur's mouth has much less range of motion. When Norani glanced back, the only apparent change on her face was that her eyes had widened almost imperceptibly. The lemur forced herself to an upright seated position, hoping to avoid looking too unpresentable.

Ourha she recognized, but not the horned woman wearing flowers; from Norani's reaction, she didn't know her either. Not that she intended to look a gift horse in the mouth, but this was a lot faster than she'd feared. Could it be a trick? A trap by the desert-people, perhaps?

Probably not. It wouldn't occur to her, anyway, to lure anyone via a sudden portal to an orgiastic cavern. That seemed like the sort of thing too strange to be illusion.

"Walk...?" Imogen repeated dumbly, before her mind caught up to the present moment. "Oh, I see. No, but no issue. Kitty, up, please."

The shadows in the hole shifted, congealing. The lemur, still a little droopy, was lifted into the air by the coalescing form of the young leopard, which shifted its stance thoughtfully to make sure that Imogen was draped evenly across itself before it advanced towards the portal. Though cats express themselves quite differently from humanoids, each onlooker could still see that the young cat was almost full to bursting with self-satisfaction at his ability to be of help.

"Well, I was doing some work for a client down south," said Imogen vaguely, in response to Ourha's query, "And Norani turns up this morning to ask for assistance with freeing the missing seasons from some sort of monster. First, though, she wants to get back to Drathera, to raise an army. Alright, I say, sounds like a plan- but we're barely halfway there and she discovers a grand conflagration of corrupted fire in the heart of the Expanse, so we make a detour."

The witch's words were laconic, devoid of any hint of condemnation, but the entire situation surely sounded like the fever dream she'd earlier suspected Norani of.

"Corrupted spirit isn't usually a problem, the Kindred and Grimalka used to call us for that sort of thing all the time, but this turned out to be a pretty big one. Purifying spell wasn't working nearly fast enough, so Norani improvises something which pulled every ounce of aether from the both of us and burned away every scrap of wild magic in the desert." There was a certain amount of satisfaction, there. Norani's spell had been far too reckless and draining for serious use, but the effect had been quite impressive. She would have to endeavor to find some more efficient way to achieve a similar effect.

"I believe that covers the last couple hours."

[Talisman]

When Camelia opened her portal, that attracted the attention of the Kineticist before the Sembler sensed it, but the both of them honed in, circling on their wyverns. "Abyssus abyssum in terra. Duo nova, quattuor ante." Had it not been for the opening of the portal, the depths might have kept Imogen, Norani, and their two companions safe for a bit longer. But it did open, and as two new presences made themselves known in the aether flux, it helped the hunters hone in on them. Three of the praeventore hunting party landed, and one of them crouched down.

"Est cuniculum. Quarta fortasse miliarii sunt. Possent pertinere ad unum punctum animalis, sed est ibi apertura." The uniformed mage warned their hunting party.

"Apera porta." The sembler commented, their eyes white as he stared at the ground from overhead. "Unus Orcana et unus draco. Obclude illud."

Yet another praeventore began to activate wards and anchors in order to try to lock the Orcani and their companions in place. Camelia's portal flickered as the negator sought to shut down the way home, and keep the group of them trapped there. An excursion into Solunarian land would not be tolerated. Not close to the border, and certainly not this far away. They needed to shut it down, and capture or kill those who had broached the desert Kingdom so that reports could be made. But one thing was certain; it definitely came from Ecith. They'd need to be able to get at it in order to feel where they came from, but with a little more time, those details could be gleaned from the auras of the invaders.

The cave's sandy ground rumbled under them, and it felt like for a moment they were starting to be pulled up. "The hunters have come," Aetu informed Norani. They needed to get moving, as the portal flickered again. The wards were in the process of being charged, and time was now of essence. If they lingered, they might well be trapped here and facing an unknown number of hostiles.

[Norani]

Once the two exhausted mages were through the portal, Camellia smiled, "Let's give them some fun. There's one in Atraxia who might just come to find me from this. If she's clever enough..." A hand reached up into her messy, earthen locks, and plucked out a seed. She reached through the portal and planted it, and fed it a bit of her draconic aether. The tiniest bit of a sapling was forming when the portal shut closed.

It grew rapidly, reaching maturity far faster than it would in nature. And rather than feeding upon sunlight, as many plants opt to do, for it was indeed in a cave underground, it fed on its preferred nourishment. It drew in the ambient aether from around the cave. It consumed the traces of Norani's spent elementalism that had been leaking out, it gobbled up the auras left behind by Imogen and Kitty. And it was hungry. Ravenous, as it was a growing girl. It consumed every last scrap of aether, aura, and any magical trace left behind by those that were here and the portal they left through.

The flower grew fat, the petals fell off, dissolving into aether before they hit the ground, leaving behind a beautiful crimson stem, crystallized similarly to a dragonshard, with a fruit hanging from it. This fruit was bright pink, with small blue teardrops inset into it, spiky but not sharp. And there it remained to be found.

Back in Camellia's Lair...

Ourha took the information that Imogen gave her in stride. "I see. Quite a lot to take in, and a lot more details to gather. It's good you two were resourceful enough to survive that." As they walked along, there was the tiniest, nearly imperceptible turn of Ourha's head toward Norani, the barest rise of a corner of her lips into a ghost of a smile. Norani didn't see it, too tired to keep her gaze up as they trudged along. But those who knew Ourha well would know that in this moment, she was the proudest mother in all of Ransera.

She truly is my daughter.

And so, something changed in her. She let the smile grow and show. "Norani, you look healthy. Stronger. Carrying yourself better."

This caught the young Orkhan's attention, and she looked up through tired lids. "I look forward to hearing more of this story. But this army you need, is this real?"

Norani nodded.

"Urgent?"

Another nod.

"I'll rouse the Senate then."

Norani nodded again tiredly. She was losing track of how long they were walking, climbing stone stairs, until they turned into a landing and appeared in a healer's abode. "Kachka, two tired witches for you. Take good care of them, Senators will be coming by to speak with them soon." Norani was guided into a comfortable mattress of furs as the healer set to work.

Ourha walked over to Imogen, "Be prepared to name your price for saving this spirit and for bringing Norani home. The Commonwealth will pay it." She paused, "Thank you."

Back to Norani, who was on the verge of passing out from exhaustion, Ourha bent down low, touching her forehead to Norani's, "I am so proud of you, Norani Windwalker." Ourha closed her eyes, "And I'm sorry."

A small nodded answered in kind, the barest of whispers, "I forgive you, Mamma."

Tears were flowing from Ourha now, for despite the thoughts in the family, she was the one Norani inherited that particular trait. "I love you."

"I love you too."

And with that, Norani's world went dark.