Millennial Mage

Tala and Rane each immersed themselves in their various pursuits, only coming together for meals and to be together at night when the world slept.

Rane set about a project that he’d been considering for years—temporarily taking a break from his work with conveying translucence in a stone medium. He began a creature garden, creating sculptures of the various beasts he’d encountered, starting with the arcanous ones.

They added on a chunk of dimensionality to the sanctum for him to arrange his finished works within. The plan was to augment his work with similar ‘aura’ trickery as with the few statues that he’d made in memoriam, causing any given statue to actually give off a feeling like the beast it represented.

That was the plan, anyway. It was to be a very long running project, but Rane was undaunted.

Tala, on the other hand, dove head first into working with the Talons.

Alat was polite in not pointing out that Tala’s fervor was an obvious attempt to keep her mind off other things, and Tala managed to only spend a bit of time each day in melancholic contemplation.

Rane was obviously concerned about her, but he didn’t press the issue. Sometimes, she wished he would, but she also was self-aware enough to realize that she’d likely have resented him if he had. Regardless, so long as she was able to keep functional, he seemed willing to let her take her time.

Alat was less polite about expressing her thoughts on that. She did not think that Tala keeping herself busy to keep from addressing something with her husband was good in the long term.

Tala ignored her alternate interface for the time being. It’s working. It’s fine.

-...It’s really not, but I don’t see forcing the issue as useful.-I’m glad that we are agreed, then.

Terry seemed to be enjoying his own oversight of the Talons. Though, Tala suspected that part of that was their honoring of him with their choice of name.

-Yeah, that tactic worked with Terry beautifully.-

I’m still not letting them call me ‘Mother.’

-And that’s clearly not necessary to secure your involvement.-

…Right.

Regardless, Terry continued to be engaged with at least the most advanced of the Talons, overseeing expeditions to engage arcanous creatures and retrieve harvests as well as training the various Clutches directly.

Truthfully, the improvement of the most advanced Clutches was likely as much due to his haranguing as Tala’s sparring sessions.

Tala’s work with the Talons was only occasionally broken up by sporadic requests for observations, various specific magical analyses, or workings of specific detection and information gathering from the area that Tala had enacted her working upon.

While her training was scheduled and organized, Terry had no such compunctions, his “lessons” occuring at almost any time of the day or night, further sharpening the sharpest Talons and keeping them on their toes.

It’s a good thing their enhancements drastically reduce the amount of sleep they require.

The committee was still in deep deliberation, both incredibly excited by the possibilities and hesitant to advance too quickly, as doing so in the past—when those same council members thought they had found solutions or fixes—had resulted in net worse outcomes.

The result was Tala and Rane actually remaining in place for longer than they had in a long time.

It was three months before Tala was cleared to enact her connection amplification on a slightly larger rent in Reality.

That irritated her because she had been hoping to use the rend-fixing work as distraction, but she understood the caution, and she had other distractions to hand.

Regardless, the time had come at last.

Tala once more piloted one of the fliers to the chosen area of damage.

Honestly, it wasn’t much larger than the area she’d worked in before, but this time there was a jagged branch in the small space beyond where she would enact her magics.

They were all curious how such branchings would affect the repair work.

Once the flying device was hovering near the area to be affected, Tala began to enact her working.

She was an hour into the amplification when Alat made the sound of a clearing throat within her mind. -Tala, I have a question for you.-

Yeah? What can I do for you, Alat?

-How are you enacting your magics on those nodes?-

Tala huffed. Come on, Alat. You know the answer very well, and that’s without you simply pulling the information from my head. There is intrinsic acceleration due to the connection between two reality nodes along the vector of any reality thread that connects them, in magnitude related to the strength of the connection. This is generally so miniscule that it is impossible to feel on a physical level—rust, even at the maximum I’ve ever amplified it to, I don’t think it’s ever been physically detectable—but on an existence level, it draws them toward one another. I amplify that connection via altering the constants involved. This is essentially identical to how I can amplify the gravitational acceleration of one object toward another.

Alat chuckled meaningfully. -Yes, Tala. I am well aware of that. I meant how are you enacting any magics at all? You don’t have aura continuity. You specifically have your bloodstars anchored to the flier so that you don’t have to use aura manipulation to hold them in place.-

Tala froze, her magic stuttering even as it flowed in through her gate, her very soul hitching at the break in her mental understanding.

Alat didn’t leave Tala in that state of mental disconnect. -Look. Your bloodstars are generating a sort of aura around themselves. It’s faint, only there in the most basic sense, but it is there.- Alat made a huffing sound. -You couldn’t contest even a mageling with the authority that you have there, but it is there.-

Then, Tala did see it, and she understood.

Alat was wrong.

The bloodstars were hers; they were her in a very real sense.

If she planted Flow in the ground and walked away, Tala would still be able to affect wherever the blade touched as she could alter Flow’s magics even at a distance, and that would exert her will there. In a very real sense, she would have authority there.

Moreover, if she called the sword to her, everything between her and the sword was under some threat of her action.

But that wasn’t her aura. It was something less… Magical.

It was something more fundamental to Existence itself.

Around the bloodstars, her ability to act was more nebulous. She could see through them, which meant that even if she had to run over and deal with what she saw in person, the very fact that she was watching meant that she could exert her influence there with greater ease than elsewhere.

That—likely due to her level of advancement—was still a thing of significance. It represented a certain amount of authority over all that she saw, even if it diminished the further from her point of view or field of vision an area was.

Alat had been wrong.

-Yeah, yeah, you don’t have to rub it in.- Despite her words, Alat was clearly as excited about what they were realizing as Tala was.

She was enacting her magics through her authority rather than her aura.

For a Mage, the two were generally considered identical, to the point that authority wasn’t even addressed, generally speaking.

Rust, Tala had only really come across it because she’d been delving into the differences between human and arcane magics.

It would be like talking about how loud a sound was and then talking about the amplitude of the sound-waves separately. They were the same thing.

True, magic could make sound easier to hear or discern, but if it increased the volume, that was an increase in the amplitude of the waves.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

-I think they aren’t perfectly connected? Relative volumes and all that.-

Then it’s an even better example. Our authority is acting beyond our aura. She hesitated, then laughed. That’s what we’ve been doing within Kit for years now…

Her eyes widened as she actually processed her own expressed thoughts.

Has our work within and with Kit flexed this ability for us? Has it allowed us to stretch our authority beyond our aura via our soulbonds until it was able to be effective even outside our soulbound space?

That made a lot of sense as they both thought about it, that was probably why there hadn’t been more than a miniscule progression toward Paragon. They were just realizing something that they’d been doing all along.

I need to finish this test, but when we’re done…

-Yeah.-

It took a bit more than a day of dedicated amplification for the two nodes to start moving toward one another, but once they started, they clicked together almost instantly.

Just as before, the portion of the damage right next to the forcibly rejoined nodes came together as well, unifying with a visceral click that Tala could feel within her very soul even at her rather considerable physical distance.

The natural reunification continued out and away from the artificial fix. Once again, this only happened on the ‘short’ side of the damage. This time, however, the fixing stopped at the branching in the break in Reality.

Reality seemed to heal well up to that point, leaving a ‘V’ shaped segment of damage separate from the other abrasions in the area.

That had been… unexpected.

Tala and Alat watched the area for nearly two hours, taking careful readings and observing the best that they could, but there was no further change.

Well, next step then?

-I think so, yeah.-

With an act of will—and a shift of mentality—Tala broke the working, allowing the two reality nodes to spring back apart minimally.

There was an odd… straining, and one more reality node beside those artificially drawn together pulled free, but the rest seemed to remain unified.

Impressions and data cataloged?

-Of course.-

Alright, then. Let’s get it to the council, and let me get back to training.

-Or… and hear me out here… you could talk to your husband.-

Tala grimaced, not at the idea of talking with Rane—she loved doing that—but at the obvious implication of the subject that discussion should involve.

Still, Tala wasn’t an advanced Archon for nothing, and Alat hadn’t chosen that moment to make the suggestion out of frustration or ignorance.

Finally, Tala sighed. Alright.

A moment later, Tala flickered into being beside Rane.

He was in the middle of perfecting the curve on a thunder bull’s horn, but as soon as she appeared he stopped, orienting on her.

He gave a sad, knowing smile. “You’re ready, then?”

She let out a single, barked laugh, water welling up within her eyes. “Am I that obvious?”

His smile grew slightly in return. “Not to most, but I know you, my love.”

She stepped forward, letting him infold her in his massive arms, letting herself become lost against him.

They stayed there for a long time as Tala just let herself actually process the ending stick that had been shoved against her plans so many months ago.

Finally, she pulled back and wiped her eyes. “Why did I ever want children?”

He smiled down at her. “I’m happy to listen or respond, which do you need right now?”

She huffed a little laugh. “Respond, I think? I might change my mind later, though.”

“That’s fine.” His smile diminished slightly. “To answer your question, I think it’s because it’s important in our society. On one level it’s expected, and you didn’t really have a reason to go against that expectation. So, knowing that, you approached it in a positive light, and the idea grew on you.”

She blinked at him a few times. “That was quite the put-together response.”

He quirked a smile. “I’ve had months to think through this too. I feel like that’s one of the main reasons I want children, too. So, I might be projecting. It’s not the only reason for either of us, though.”

She grunted. “It does feel a bit like I was told to walk down an alleyway only to run face-first into a wall, dispelling the illusion.” She looked down. “There was nothing wrong with the alleyway, and I could even see some really interesting things on the far side, but I hadn’t really planned on going that way, not soon.”

He nodded, before posing a question. “So you don’t understand why it hurts so much?”

“Yes!” She threw her hands up, pacing back and forth. “It’s something I hadn’t considered overmuch, so why? Why is the lack of an option I hadn’t planned on choosing so hurtful?”

“Well…” He hesitated. “From what I know of your upbringing, I think that you wanted to prove you could do better, at least at some level.” He gave her a sad smile. “You still hold an undercurrent of bitterness at your father and step-mother, and part of that is rooted in a belief that you could do better.” He held up his hands to forestall her. “I don’t disagree, but it is part of the foundation. Now, rather than being able to be a better parent than they were to you, you have been told that you won’t be a parent at all.”

Tala felt a tightness in her chest at his words, the idea clearly hitting close to the truth. She stepped back in for another hug as the emotions rolled through her.

She hated feeling this way, but it felt better, exposing this to Rane.

She almost laughed. He was doing more of the talking than she was, yet it still felt like she was the one exposing herself, her thoughts and feelings.

It felt like taking off a sweaty, encrusted piece of clothing. Sure, it felt painful, gross, and frustrating getting it off, but the feeling of cool, clean air on her skin was well worth the effort.

But the core of this short conversation forced her to realize something. It was something that should have been obvious, and something that had come up before, but she hadn’t really inculcated the truth behind it. “This is affecting you, too.”

She looked up into his eyes, and she saw wetness there as he returned her gaze with a sad smile and a nod.

“I’ve been so focused on how I feel—and on distracting myself—that I left you alone in this, didn’t I…” It wasn’t a question.

He shrugged lightly, glancing away. “I didn’t want to add to your burden.”

“So you shouldered yours alone.” She closed her eyes and swallowed. “That’s not how this is supposed to work, is it.”

“No, I guess not.” He hugged her tighter.

“I’m here, Rane. I’m listening.”

“Are you sure?” His voice was small, uncertain.

“Yes.”

And so they talked, time passing like water beneath a bridge as they came together over their shared disappointment, over their shared brokenness.

* * *

Another two months passed with Tala doing various small tests and taking magical readings at the behest of the oversight council. They verified that the second set of nodes healed just like the first, with a similar delay before natural restoration continued.

One of the tests involved closing up the separate V rend, and that went completely smoothly, mirroring the previous two tests.

Rane continued his work on statues of various beasts, but he also took some part of every day—beyond the meals that they shared—to sit and talk with Tala about all sorts of things.

She had missed that part of their relationship, having withdrawn after the news. She hadn’t even really realized that she’d been doing it, and the relief of being unified with Rane in the mundane act of just being together once again was hugely stress relieving.

She and Terry continued their work with the Talons, but she definitely let Terry take even more of a lead on that project, and he did so with gusto, clearly enjoying the new challenge.

Tala’s revelation around enacting her magic within her authority, not just her aura, led her to another realization. Mainly, the iron that she kept within Kit was frequently outside her aura, but not her authority. Thus, it wasn’t voided.

This led to another task on her plate that she approached with relish.

Tala sat on the plains outside of Kit, away from the still-open portal to Ironhold.

She was cross legged, with a lump of iron on the ground in the space surrounded by her legs.

This is a good first step. It makes sense.

-Oh, absolutely. Even if your aura is retracted, it is inarguable that the iron is well within your range of action. It should be unquestionably still within your authority.-

Yeah. This is good. She continued to work herself up to the test.

It was odd. She had a mental barrier that she hadn’t really encountered or acknowledged before. She didn’t want to let go of her iron.

This isn’t letting go. It’s still mine.

Yet, even so, the idea of purposely pulling any part of her control back, away from the iron was viscerally distasteful.

It seemed that the dasgannach had had more of an influence on her than even she’d realized.

Still, she was the master of herself. She was no mindless devourer of iron.

This iron was still hers, and nothing so simple as the absence of her aura was enough to change that.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she retracted her aura from the iron, leaving it in a sphere of ‘non-aura’ space, entirely surrounded by her physical body and her aura.

The iron seemed almost to waiver, her soul seeming to cinch up in horror for the briefest moment before… nothing.

The iron remained.

It remained in place.

It remained physical.

It remained hers.

A broad grin spread across her face. This should be a violation of her merging choices, but it wasn’t.

At the time of the merging, she simply hadn’t understood the distinction between aura and authority, and she’d conceived of it as one, when it really was the other.

Her iron had to remain under her authority, or it would be voided. This was the final proof of that fact.

Tala gave a slightly mad cackle.

True, iron outside her aura would be far easier to overcome—her authority only existing in the most tenuous senses—but it was still there.

The iron itself extended her authority, just as Flow did, just as her own gaze and perception did.

In the case of the iron, if someone was able to affect it against her desires, her authority would be disrupted, and if that happened to a sufficient degree, the iron would be voided, but until then? The iron was suddenly a far more useful tool than she’d ever dared to hope.

Rust, she could project her aura through it, even if she couldn’t affect the iron itself with the aura it projected. There would be no iron spikes propelling themselves around a battlefield.

But I can create a rolling field of spikes, with planted ones helping to push those still airborne forward.

-That will be nightmarish to control.-

Are you up for the challenge?

-Oh, unquestionably. There will be a significant learning curve, however.-

There usually is. Tala quirked a smile. For things worth doing, there usually is.