Ash 71st
Alphonse longed for excitement. For all its strangeness and wonder, magic wasn't so stimulating in the fun it provided, and Vesta was the equivalent of wet paper when it came to companionship. "How much longer you reckon before we run into Halamire?" asked Alphonse.
Vesta shrugged and shook her head. "I would hope not. It would be a roll of the bones to divine whether or not they would be hostile; do not tempt the fates, Alphonse."
"My sword arm is probably getting weak with all this... blah," growled the young and tall Rathor. "You're no fun," she accused.
"No, I am not. I have had a very long time to have 'fun' Alphonse," said Vesta dryly. "Why don't your practice magic some more to keep busy?"
"I've been... I'm bored of it all!" huffed Alphonse, ducking beneath a branch. She swatted at the next that brushed by her face. "Pfft! The forest's thicker here. I hate it."
"Every day I spend with you, I reconsider naming you my Kin, oh 'special' daughter of mine," savaged the old crone with her words as she crested a tangle of tree roots stretching over the game-blazed trail they both walked. "You cannot fathom my pity for you."
"You better pity me, I'm too damn tall for the woods!" hissed Alphonse. "And I never named you my Kin back!" she puffed. "I mean, I might, and you've done a lot for me. I just... I'm not about all that sappy shyke."
"I know, Alphonse," sighed Vesta. "Why don't you practice the Raven before you forget your Immersion?"
"Hm, probably should," replied Alphonse. "Okay." As she walked, she winced down at her arm, feeling around in her own noggin for the presence of that black-feathered bird Template. She could feel it, and she seized the sensation, letting it spread over her limb. Imagining the texture and appearance of feathers, she started growing them up her arm starting from the wrists, envisioning in deeper detail as she met her initial success. Layering over the very alien shape of a wing against her own limb, she opted to instead grow the appendage from her forearm to her elbow, much like a fin.
The feathers seemed strange and droopy, even floppy like a fine down. Alphonse winced at the sight, and focused on adding a very important missing detail: quills. The thin tubes of keratin helped her feathers to stay firm as they jutted from her arm like little fans. "So, uhm, these look a little off still," she remarked to herself.
"Birds have different feathers for different purposes. Soaring feathers are different from flight feathers." Vesta shrugged. "Do not yet worry about being perfect. Accuracy will come with time."
Scrunching up her face, Alphonse kept walking as she finessed and played with the feathers, trying her best to get them to look right. After some time, she figured out the larger feathers belonged towards the edges of the wing, while the smaller ones were closer to the quills. She even figured out she needed to make the bones beneath, her nerves tingling with a bizarre, painful sensation as they spread through the modified limb. "Hrk. That smarts."
"Don't push it, Alphonse," cautioned Vesta, stopping. "If you feel too strange, stop. It isn't worth it incurring corruption at this point." She turned, looking over at Alphonse. "Or maybe I should let you make your own mistakes," she sighed. "I can't be there to stop you when you do every time."
Alphonse stopped just short of Vesta, still focused on her arm. "Nahh, I know my limits pretty well."
"Yeah, no you don't," growled Vesta. She kept walking, spite in her eyes as they turned away.
"I mean, I guess you're right," said Alphonse as she pondered her transformation and how to improve it. "But I'm willing to risk a little bit of corruption if it means getting somewhere."
"The issue with doing that, is the corruption will hinder your training. You will not be able to learn at a steady pace if you do not take breaks," replied Vesta. "You can't front load the corruption, or your wagon wheels will break--if your wheels break, you can't push along the wagon easily. Do you understand?"
Alphonse huffed. "Yeah, I understand. I think I've got enough in me for just a little more though."
Thinking to her ermine template, Alphonse marveled over the white fur it possessed, and she wondered if she could get the color to spread over the feathers. Breathing softly, she concentrated, and lo and behold! White! It spread over her arm like a dirty white snow, the black patches steadily absorbed by the white tide. Even the quills began to turn milky white, made of the same stuff. Her own coarse fur beneath the feathers changed color all the same, and soon her entire arm was completely white.
Snorting as she ran her fingers through it, she looked to Vesta. "Yeah, I don't feel any different. No corruption so far, and I'm done." Like a child with a new toy, she lifted her elbow and thrust it out, letting the feathers chop the wind. She felt how they each caught the weather, the newer nerves tingling for lack of Synchrony. "It feels kinda weird though, like it's not quite there yet?"
"Synchrony," replied Vesta. "You'll develop that familiarity as you use it," she said. "Just keep utilizing the form--but not just for shifting. Let it feel, and adapt your mind to the way it feels."
"Ah," replied Alphonse. "Then that's what I'll do, I guess." She held her arm aloft, letting it feel the breeze, picking up on how the feathers tickled with the puffing rise of every trill of air. Like a bird, she tucked her elbow in and lifted, raking the wind with the mock wing and getting used to the resistance. She'd never fly with a wing like this. Not in a million years. But it taught her a lot about how a wing worked, and that was enough.
"Things are not as they appear," said Vesta up ahead. There was a hint of concern in Vesta's voice, her little hands rising up above her shoulders in a stay of force. "We are mages." Alphonse looked up with a startled fright. Halamire. And a whole lot of them, too. They stood in formation, and movement in the brush nearby revealed yet more hidden away, their crossbows trained on the pair of them.
The tallest, most decorated among them held his palm on the hilt of his sword, looking between the two Rathor. His eyes kept glancing to Alphonse's arm. A silence hung among the group before the knight finally spoke, cutting through the silence. "Explain yourselves: Rathor, your arm first."
"I am a student of Animus," grunted Alphonse with a weariness. Vesta had warned her not to provoke these men already.
"I initiated her into the discipline. We had only Lorien Ravens to observe at the time," said Vesta. "We flee the persecution of mages by Lorien as free mages, and we do not support the Lorien regime. The Omen of Uleandraism call to us, and we pledge our abilities to the interests of Daravin as Valran once we have earned our status."
Alphonse shot a weary gaze at Vesta. "Are you sure about this?" she asked.
"Shh," hissed Vesta. She looked to the leader of this small force, who seemed to be waiting for more answers. "We are not tainted by the spirits of Lorien, we are divinely gifted in proper ways. In fact, Lorien hunts us with their Hollows."
The knight's nares flared from beneath his gilded helm, his face a passive state of contempt. "Satisfactory," he said. "Ulen guide you both on your travels, and do not let me catch you upon the border again, or I will have cause to interrogate you further," he said, nodding to another man who strode forward to offer a stone token. The pair took the wooden tokens, Vesta holding hers while Alphonse pocketed her own.
"Thank you, Halamire," said Vesta with a respectful, if slight, bow. It took Alphonse a second, but she too bowed, following close by as the knights parted, letting them both through. It didn't matter if they'd granted them both passage: Alphonse felt unnerved by their scrutinizing gazes. They were weary of them both. Rightfully so. The kerfuffle between Daravin and Lorien was a bloody one, and they were the two imposing; they were traversing the border upon which the two factions waged their pissing matches.
Alphonse finally breathed with a sharp exhale as they gained distance from the knights, her heart racing. "I don't like 'em, not one bit."
"You like the Ebon Knights, don't you?" countered Vesta.
"...That's different," growled Alphonse. "They consider me one of their own."
"And if you weren't?" Vesta had her by the nads.
"Pfft," huffed Alphonse. "Doesn't matter." But she couldn't stop thinking about it. What if the Daravin Halamire had attacked, or if she'd never met the Ebon Knights and joined their revolution? Things would be so different.
