Tales of Fa'Diel

by Niana Kuonji

Come, gentle reader, and enter a story that begins, not with 'Once Upon a Time', but with 'In a place that was empty of anything but the name Fa'Diel...'

36. The Mana Tree

Hello, everyone. I know it's been a good four years since you've heard from me, and for those of you still following this story I can only apologize for the long wait. It's taken having surgery and forcibly taking a week off from two jobs to finally finish this tale, and honestly I'm not entirely happy with the ending. But, here it is at last. The final responses, chapter and the epilogues.

Disclaimer: In the words of another author here, ahahahahaha. No.

Fantasy-Magician: Yep. It takes certain Mana levels to unlock a few of the smaller quests, or a certain number of quests finished. It's simpler to just stick the Sword of Mana artefact next to Domina and be done with it, and just make sure Duma Desert's Gnome level is maxed. If you don't do those things, Elazul's sword will unlock one of them for you when you equip it. In regards to Niccolo's final quest, once you take the amnesiac rabbit to Kristie the first time, take him to the Cancun Bird's nest in Geo, then go pick him back up in Polpota. Repeat until the quest ends.

Meerf: I think I did Wimpy Thugling, at least as a side mention? Somewhere? Possibly? Drat, now I have to go read through the whole thing again. If I haven't, well, I'll have something else to do when I get around to reworking the Faeries arc. Infernal Doll was the adventure mentioned in the chapter Daddy's Broom. (Pearl might be canon, but I feel worse leaving Elazul to get eaten even if it is only temporarily.)

Reiko x 3: Yep, time for the tree. OPOS, that's a good acronym.

Airess Byrd: 1)Thanks. Yeah, Mephianse's second quest always depressed me as much as the Faerie arc. 2)Major nightmares, indeed. I love the dialogue that changes depending on who's with you. 3) Thank you. And enjoy the rest of the story.

Fyuro: Heere, bunny-bunny. :) Yes, fighting scenes are my absolute least favorite to write. And I don't know about you, but when the story's MC has no personality, it just isn't any fun to read. (Gundam Wing aside. Sorry, Heero. I watched it for Duo and Wu Fei.) I'm glad you enjoyed what you read.

TheMoonClaw: Play the game anyway. It's fun. I apologize again for taking so long. As for Rei's name, ding-ding! You're absolutely correct. It is short for something, and you find out what in Epilogue 1. The Venstrys have a tradition of giving their children names that are easy to shorten.

Tiamat42: 1) -hugs- Thank you for being one of my most loyal readers. (Even if you tried not to be, heh.) I'm glad I didn't bog folks down with minutiae. Gods only know we only need one Robert Jordan. As for Gilbert and Monique...I think I'd rather not consider the results of that relationship. 2) -laughs- I think I answer your question about Rei in this chapter, but if I don't, it's a little column a, little column b. Matilda never really did make a lot of sense, but I think it was more Irwin being her best friend/would-be-lover that let him keep up.3) He took her power even when he knew it would hurt her, because it was her spiritual powers that were putting her in succession for Abbess-hood. And then he tried to fix it. Badly. Because it was a world that was hurting Matilda and he wanted her to be happy and live her own life. The four of them being idiots, however, it didn't work out so well. Still not sure on the Wisdom thing. 4) I tried, but my love in this game was the Jumi, hands down. As Dragonseer once said when I finished the Jumi arc, "Well! The game's over. Let's head for the Tree." 5) I'm glad I got Florina's dream to make more sense. 6) Olbohn is fun to mess with.

Shadowstar: I honestly liked the knives best. They let you attack constantly if you time it right and the final attacks were some of my favorite. As well, swords and pole-arms tend to be used much more often. I figured I'd try something different. (I have a notebook filled entirely with game-script. Let me know if I can return the offer of help. -grin- )

Shadowzerover5: Thank you!

Kahran042: -eyebrow quirk- Then speak up when a vote's being cast. It now stands at 7+ responses to two, negative majors. Did you like or care about anything else? Comments, criticism, questions, anything?

Athina. na: I'm sorry? It's finished now, promise. Mm, chocolate and biscuit cake. Num. It took me a bit longer than you wanted, but here's the last bit. And I'm glad you enjoyed the story and my writing. (As far as the order goes, this appears to be one of the most common. Even the strat guide I borrowed once had the quests in similar order.) Enjoy!

Nana-chan21: -blushes- Thank you! I'm afraid Xan's wrath will likely end up a side story if I ever have another chance to get back into writing, and I hope to eventually include at least some of those images as other side stories. But no promises on those, I'm afraid.

For everyone else who did not raise their voices, in positive or negative response, but keep your eyes out for me, thank you. You are not forgotten.

—

Parchment crinkled dryly in the desert heat as Rei stepped through the gates of Etansel and onto the busy streets of the lowest tier. It was a letter from Xan...sort of. He'd never written her anything so short. It was little more than a couple of sentences and one post-script that had prompted her to come back to the Jumi city less than a month after she'd left it. 'Rei,' it went, 'meet me ten miles south-south-west of Domina tomorrow about twelve. Trust me, you can't miss the place. I know you've picked up on the new Mana signature. Xan. PS. You can bring someone if you feel like it, but I gotta warn you now. If you bring that Lazuli you're so sweet on, I have a few words to say to him when we meet up.'

Well, Rei had a few things to say to her brother, starting with a vehement denial that she was sweet on anybody. But since her foster-children were busy preparing for the summer exams held in the Geo Academy, Elazul was as good as anyone to bring along to whatever wild adventure that Xan had in mind.

The exams. Rei swallowed a grumble and kept her expression pleasant as she passed a number of Jumi who waved and smiled at her, calling greetings and welcomes. The twins had found out that the Academy had tried to blackmail her into forcing them back thanks to a rare, careless slip of the tongue, and there hadn't been peace in the cottage for a week until she'd agreed to let her apprentices sit for the exams. They were, as they'd told her—in unison, no less—going to show those stuffed shirts just what they were missing out on, and then they were going to come back to the cottage and let Nunuzac and the rest keep on missing out.

"We love it here, Master Rei," Lisa had explained patiently to her rather shell-shocked teacher. "We'll take the exams so that you don't have to keep hunting for the books we need to keep learning." She hadn't spared her teacher's pride either, stating that Rei was starting to look a bit frazzled over it and the twins just hadn't wanted to say anything sooner.

Well, what could Rei say to that? She had gone to see Kathinja, and had endured the ten minutes of gleeful cackling that the basilisk-woman had indulged in when the knife-fighter had explained that she'd come to get the registration forms.

Warmth and irritation swirled in her stomach, causing Rei to discard that line of thought entirely before she either burst out laughing or cursing. The Jumi already thought she was crazy for being willing to sacrifice her life for them; she didn't need to go and give them any proof of it.

A cheerful hail rose from the ruined courtyard where once only illusions held sway, bringing a real smile to her face as she found herself amongst familiar faces at last. Her arms were abruptly full of laughing girl when Esmeralda flung herself at the knife-fighter for a hug, with her sisters smiling indulgently on. "Hi, Rei!"

"Hi, 'Melda," Rei chuckled, giving her friend that hug before disentangling herself. "Have you seen 'Lazul?"

"Oh, he's over there," came the answer, Esmeralda turning to point towards the far end of the courtyard. Elazul was leaning against a broken arch, wearing a small, contented smile as he watched Pearl mingle with the other Jumi relaxing in the open space. He flicked his gaze up when he felt their eyes on him, that smile warming several degrees at the sight of the knife-fighter standing with one arm wrapped around Esmeralda's shoulders.

"Rei."

The golden-haired sprite reminded herself again very firmly that she was not sweet on anyone, let alone stubborn, stupidly noble, brave, grumpy, overprotective Knights who didn't have the common sense the Goddess gave a Popo bug when it came to their own safety. And stomped very hard on the shiver that the warmth in his voice sent thrilling up her spine.

Okay. So maybe I am a little sweet on him, Rei sighed to herself as she walked up to her closest friend. But looking up into deep blue eyes that had the first unfettered, unshadowed glints of happiness glowing in their depths that she had ever seen there, she wondered if there was a woman in Etansel who would blame her. "Hi, 'Laz."

"I'm shocked your watchdogs let you out of their sight so soon," he joked, settling his shoulder more comfortably against worn stone. "It's barely been a month."

She waved a hand carelessly. "I got booted out of the cottage for the next few days. They got it into their heads to take the Academy's summer exams and they've been doing nothing but study for the past two weeks. And constantly complaining that I am underfoot and making a downright nuisance of myself."

Elazul quirked an eyebrow. "After all we've been through, you can't expect me to believe that's the only reason you're here."

"You know, there was a conversation we had a few weeks ago where you complained that I knew you too well," Rei shot back, propping one hand on her hip and ready to indulge in one of their verbal spars. "Don't I get to complain about the boot being on the other foot?"

"Extenuating circumstances. There was a hunter after my core and the core of every Jumi she could lay her hands on. I was trying to keep you from dying, which, as you may have noticed, didn't work out terribly well." Which reminded Elazul of something rather important. "If you happen to see your brother before I do, you might want to explain things to him. I like my neck and he might decide to hug it really hard the next time he sees me."

"Funny you should mention Xan." Rei pulled out the note and handed it to the Lazuli Knight. "And people he gets pissed off at usually get fed to Shard, anyway."

"Reassuring," Elazul drawled, glancing at the page before he passed it back and levered himself off the pillar. "When do we leave?"

Rei glanced up in startlement from tucking the paper away. "You're coming with me just like that? I mean, this is Xan we're talking about. Remember my birthday two years ago? That whole conversation of big monsters and looking for them and how with him, it's never 'or not'?"

"Yes, I remember," Elazul told her with long-suffering patience as he took her by the elbow and began leading her up the road. "I also distinctly remember that you have this distressing habit of finding the biggest pile of trouble there is within a hundred miles and jumping straight into it feet first. At least if I'm there, I can grab you by the scruff of your neck and haul you back from rushing in headlong. That way, I have you to help me do the same with Xan."

"Me? Rush in headlong?" Rei sputtered, freeing her elbow to tug on the nearest strand of deep green hair. "That's the pot calling the kettle black as coal! And you're being optimistic on this whole 'haul Xan out of trouble' idea. The man lives for it."

"Whereas you only have it land on you whenever you leave home," the blue-eyed man retorted, laughter rising from the other Jumi as they chimed their agreement. Rei protested her innocence to her friends, knowing that neither they nor the other Jumi of this city would ever believe her.

"It's so good to have everyone together!" laughed Esmeralda from where she now stood amongst her sisters. "But Rei! I was so surprised by you! Maybe teardrop crystals are inside everyone."

The sprite shifted uncomfortably and shrugged. "Of course they are, 'Melda. The crystals are...they just are. If you can feel emotion, you can cry if you let yourself. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise." Esmeralda smiled and nodded, not bothering to argue. She knew that if she tried to point out that she'd been unable to cry for her sisters, Rei would only point out that the entire Jumi race had been able to cry for the knife-fighter, so what was stopping her now?

As an attempt to divert attention from herself, Rei ducked over to the half-crumbled stairs where Rubens oversaw the workings of the city. "The Bejeweled City..." the Ruby Knight sighed quietly between them. "It seems brighter than I remember. Florina has cheered up, too." The grim expression softened. "She even laughs once in a while."

"I'm glad to hear that," Rei told him with one of her gentler smiles. "How's Diana?"

A sandstone-pale hand gestured absently at nothing. "Better. I have to remind her that even we older Jumi still need sleep every once and a while, but she's more hopeful now than any of us have been in decades." A pause, and then Rubens' mouth crooked into a wry half-smile. "You know, only Jumi have been allowed in Etansel since the walls were built. I suppose we'll make an exception for you, however. It would hardly be fitting to ban the person who saved us all."

Rei only grinned at the dry joke and tilted her head amidst the soft chime of her pipes. "I didn't do it alone."

Crimson hair dipped in agreement. "No, you didn't. Which makes you even more remarkable."

The Jumi savior opened her mouth with puzzlement knitting her forehead and had a sun-brown hand come to rest on her shoulder. "A wry face as usual," Elazul observed with light-hearted sympathy from just behind Rei, leaning around her to give his elder a half-smile of his own. "Is it that tough to be one of the Lucidia?"

Rubens let out a sigh and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Yes. We must protect the city and bring our friends together quickly. No telling how many people will be after our cores once word of our revival gets out."

"Just don't overdo it like Diana," the younger Knight chided, a gentle squeeze of his hand stopping his friend's reflexive motion towards her knives. "Don't forget you have us, too."

The Knight of Ruby looked down from his height and recalled a sunlit, windy day much like this one, where a crown of gold had placed itself between himself and his doom before he had foolishly sent it away. Eyes the color of bright moss had burned then in fierce protection...just as they burned now, as that same crown placed itself as shield and sword between his people and the rest of the world.

Beside the most generous heart he had ever known stood the one Jumi to survive against everything that Sandra and her master had thrown at him, still wearing a half-smile as he gently patted invisible hackles down on the back of Rei's neck.

Lips curving into a rare smile of his own, Rubens gave them both a deeper nod of his head, thinking to himself, how can we fall to ruin again with hearts like these fighting for us all? Out loud, he simply answered, "Alright. I'll remember that."

Satisfied, Elazul turned and went to go say his goodbyes to Pearl and the others, leaving Rei alone with Rubens again. "I know that look you're wearing," she said in an undertone, obviously trying to change the subject away from death and trouble. "It's the one that says you have something else to say."

Crimson eyes warmed a little at the easy way she could read him already. "And you wouldn't be wrong...Rei, I sense a sparkle from you, even though you've told us yourself that there are no Jumi in your family. It's a warm, strong light. That strength is what saved the Jumi. Saved me," Rubens added in a quiet murmur that barely reached across the distance between them. Years of cold, lonely waiting lurked beneath the words, burned to ash by the music he could hear in the soul before him. "Do not lose it, that sparkle."

Rei looked over her shoulder at the small crowd mingling in the courtyard a few dozen yards away, laughter and gossip rising to fill the air with life. Watched for a moment the cheerful interaction of Elazul with Pearl and Esmeralda, and then turned back. Tucking her hands behind her back, she rocked forward onto her heels and beamed at the one who'd given her hope in the Underworld. "Yeah, I don't think that'll ever happen. Nothing to worry about there, so don't. Okay?"

And then she bounced off with a wave, calling back that she would say her real goodbyes on the way out once she'd finished popping in on Florina.

A strange, fizzy sensation bubbled in the older Knight's chest as he watched a grinning Rei pounce on an unsuspecting Pearl in an enthusiastic 'hello', sending them both over in a pile of tangled limbs and breathless giggles. The sensation expanded outwards, growing until it burst out in the first real laugh Rubens had had in over a century.

—

"It's nice to see everyone so happy," Rei commented as she and Elazul climbed the last stairs to the Chamber of the Clarius. "You know, I've only seen Rubens smile once or twice since I met him? I never heard him laugh before. Even Diana's smiling!" And hoping, she added silently to herself, remembering what Rubens had told her and the surprisingly upbeat—if brief—conversation she'd had herself with the Diamond Jumi not more than fifteen minutes ago.

"We have you to thank for it, wildcat," Elazul told her affectionately, stretching a hand out to rumple at her hair. "Because of you, the Jumi have a future again. It does a lot to improve our outlooks on life," he added, voice and step light.

Rei chuckled, acknowledging the truth in that. They hit the top landing and the knife-fighter's hand was reaching for the knob to Florina's door when a sound caught their ears.

The easily-recognized, sharp plap of heavy cardstock falling onto cobblestone.

Elazul was closer to the note and scooped it up, breaking the wax seal while Rei looked up and around for any sign of a certain jewel thief or where the note could have been dropped from. But she gave it up after a moment or two, knowing perfectly well that it would take her a few more years before she caught up to Sandra's level of speed and agility. The fact that it had taken Sandra a couple hundred years to reach her current abilities soothed Rei's irritation somewhat.

A little.

Her friend's face was a study of bemusement as he read the note's contents out loud. "'Take care of Florina for me!' Sandra the jewel hunter was thinking of the Jumi in her own way, I suppose," Elazul sighed, tucking the note away in a belt-pouch.

Rei growled. "If she ever thinks of them that way again I'll do worse than kick her ass from Eastern Sea to Western! That woman is not allowed to lay a hand on the Jumi again. Not while I'm still breathing."

Well accustomed to her temper, Elazul just patted her on the shoulder with his unarmored hand. "I didn't say that I agreed with her course of action, wildcat. But people will do just about anything for the people they love. I'm including you in that statement, or have you forgotten that mess with your dragoon friends?"

That won him a rather impressive blush and a grumpy mutter of 'cheap shot' from the knife-fighter. And with the matter settled, the two went in to say hello to Florina and her Clarius companions.

—

"I mean it, 'Laz," Rei continued once they'd gotten outside Etansel's main gates, though at a much calmer degree than when they'd first read the note, "if Sandra comes back around to try and use the lives of the Jumi for her own ends, then I'll have to apologize to Florina for doing something violently drastic to that woman."

"I know, Rei, I know." Elazul offered his hand to her, palm up, and gave her an encouraging smile. "But if that happens, you know that I'll be right there with you." He'd already let her damn herself once for his people; he'd be twice damned and shattered before he'd let her do it alone again.

For a moment all she did was blink at him before an answering smile bloomed and she slapped her hand into his. "Right. Always and ever. We'll hit Sandra so hard we might actually knock some sense into that thick skull of hers."

The pair shook on it, and then Rei whistled for the young dragon napping on a sand dune close by. They and Spark vanished in a swirl of sand and magics without ever noticing the cloaked figure leaning against the wall less than fifty feet away.

They were covered in heavy fabric against the sun and windblown sands, battered stone armor peeking out here and there amidst the folds. Face shaded by a deep hood, the newcomer regarded the place where the trio had vanished only a moment ago, a brief smirk flashing out of the shadows. "Pretty damn mouthy for a Guardian," they chuckled. Then they turned, banging the stone of the open gates with an affectionate fist, an open grin now shining white as the chime of a core sang out in greeting to the ripples of energy tied into ancient stone. "Wonder if one of us married into your clan, Jak. Girl looked the spittin' image o' you."

A shrug beneath the cloak. "Ah, well. Doesn't matter. Time to go scare the whey out of Rubens and that shrew Diana. I'll scare that bratty kid of mine when he gets back."

—

When the companions appeared back in the solid world again, it was in an unexpected tangle of bodies and limbs. Elazul spat out a wingtip and some of his own hair and shoved a golden-scaled muzzle out of his face, searching for the owner of the arm currently flung across his chest. "Rei, you really need to work on your..." He trailed off when a gentle shake of the offending arm earned him not so much as a twitch. "...Rei?"

Nothing. Not even a whisper of a complaint when Spark extracted himself from the pile, accidentally stepping on Rei's hip.

More worrisome still was the absolute quiet that suddenly ruled the back of Elazul's mind, where the white noise formed by that slender magical bond between himself and Rei had fizzed with the music of her emotions. Her soul song—as familiar by now after more than a year of listening as the music of his own core—had vanished.

"You had better not be dead again," he whispered fiercely, swallowing back panic to pull himself upright before rolling Rei onto her back. Stripping off the crystalline gauntlet that he'd worn for so long, he used that hand to check for the rise and fall of her breathing while the fingers of the other sought for the pulse in her throat. "I will be very upset with you if you're dead again. And your brother with have quite a few things to say to me as well."

There. Palm resting just under her collarbone, Elazul murmured a prayer in thanks to the Goddess when he felt Rei's chest expand in a shallow breath. Her pulse was slow as the seasons against his fingertips but just as steady.

That was the moment that Rei let out a near-soundless moan, stirring under his hands only to fall still once again. Elazul waited a few heartbeats to see if she would repeat the effort, then sat back on his heels. "Making noises means she really is still breathing, which means she really isn't dead," the Jumi male sighed to the dragonet that had come around to huddle against his shoulder, "which is reassuring, at least. Goddess, but this woman is going to give the both of us heart attacks if she keeps pulling stunts like this," Elazul added, absently rubbing Spark's nose to comfort the anxious cub.

Skrrik, was the dragonet's wholehearted agreement.

—

The sun had ambled an inch or so along its path by the time Rei stirred and fought her way back to consciousness. Elazul was right there, helping her sit up with his brow furrowed in concern at the way a whispery noise of pain leaked past gritted teeth.

She swallowed after she was upright—fighting nausea or working to dampen her throat, he wasn't sure, and gave him a half-hearted smile with eyes closed to near-slits. "I'm going to find the Du'Inke that keeps stepping on me and skin it."

"What in the name of the Goddess happened, Rei?" Elazul demanded in a low voice. He wanted quite badly to shout, but Rei was pressing the heels of her hands against her temples in the fashion reserved for someone trying to keep their brains from leaking out their ears, and he had the feeling that one good shout at proper volume would do nothing but send her unconscious again.

She made a noise of discomfort anyway despite his admirable restraint and squeezed her eyes shut again as she answered. "Mana overload," Rei told him, as if it explained everything.

Elazul reminded himself again that yelling really would not do any good and watched as Spark waddled over to shade Rei's head with a wing. "Mana what?"

"Overload." Shielded from the sunlight pooling around them, Rei was able to look at him without wincing for the first time since she'd woken, though one hand was absently kneading the muscles at the back of her neck in an attempt to loosen them. "Never heard of it?"

"No."

"Oh. Well, I'm not really sure how to explain it..." They were silent for a few moments as she thought before Rei tried to help Elazul understand. "Best I can come up with is a comparison. You told me a few weeks ago that Jumi can hear the songs of stones, right?" He nodded. "Mana overload is like someone taking that song and increasing the volume to deafening levels."

The young Knight didn't even have to think about that to shudder. Being struck with a near-concussive wall of sound made from someone's or something's soul was nowhere on his list of things he wanted to experience firsthand. "Are you all right?"

Her answering grin was lopsided and nowhere near its usual bubbly levels, but steady nonetheless. "I have a headache the size of Fieg and a mild case of the shakes. Most of it's from losing control of the teleport spell and it backlashing on me. A few more minutes and a drink of water and I should be fine."

Elazul gave her a look that he had found himself using at least once in each encounter with the golden-haired sprite. Usually after instances like this, now that he thought about it. It was a mix of dubiousness, concern, and exasperation. "Fine? You were unconscious for nearly ten minutes, Rei."

"And I'm awake now," she countered, starting to sound grumpy. "My body isn't glass, 'Laz, I can take a few hits and not shatter. Xan trained me, after all, and he can sense Mana even better than I can. I mean sure, I wouldn't be able to feel a Stone if it was two feet in front of me right now, but that'll go away in an hour or two. Probably."

"What?"

"That signature was powerful," Rei went on like she hadn't even heard his verbal knee-jerk. "I won't be surprised if you can't hear a damn thing from the rocks, even. There's so much Mana around us right now that you'd be lucky to hear a spell go off at all; it's got to be muffling anything even remotely magical in nature in the area."

That might explain why he couldn't 'hear' the soul-link between them right now. But that wasn't important at the moment. "Rei..."

"I mean, I've even been to the Junkyard, and you haven't felt Mana until you're walking among giant piles of abandoned artifacts left over from the Wars..."

"Rei."

"...even Jajara's Stone wasn't that strong—"

"Rei."

"What?" Rei scowled at him for the interruption.

"You can sense Mana?"

She blinked at him, headache evidently already forgotten along with whatever she'd just been saying. "Yeah. I've been able to my whole life, though I've gotten a lot better at it since I started practicing flow-meditations. Rosiotti taught me about those. Why? The way you look it's like it's important or something."

Would not shout, would not, even if she deserved it. "That's because it is, you crazy wildcat. The ability to sense Mana is really rare. The Jumi are the ones who have it the most often, and never more than perhaps three or four in an entire generation. All of them have been Clarius. We see it maybe, maybe once or twice in a generation in the other races, and never more than that many people at a time. And even they usually have Jumi blood in them from somewhere."

"Okay. And?"

He sighed. "Are you sure you don't have Jumi blood in you? At all?" he asked plaintively.

"Positive." She reached back a little and rubbed at the heavier scales around Spark's eyes, the dragonet shoving his head against her hand in encouragement. "It's a Venstry thing; everyone in my family's had it to some degree or another since the War of Eyes."

"Even your relatives on the East Continent?"

Rei shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know, I've never asked."

Now Elazul was the one with the headache. Goddess save him, but Rei didn't seem to have any idea just how powerful that ability made her and her family. "Rei..."

"Look, 'Laz, it really isn't that big of a deal," the knife-fighter interrupted, rising to her feet and stretching stiff limbs. "Mostly it tends to be an inconvenience when you're trying to get around areas where Mana's concentrated. When I first went near a Stone? I couldn't even see straight because that much energy went and put the whole world in a kaleidoscope."

"Remind me when we've met up with Xan and he's done feeding me to Shard to tell the two of you about a couple of Jumi legends that talk about Mana sensing," Elazul said, giving up on trying to explain for the time being. He rose to his own feet and dusted bits of grass off his cloak. "Maybe then you'll understand why I was so surprised." Though I don't know why I am, really, he added to himself, feeling a wry sort of self-mockery begin to quirk at the corners of his mouth, considering how much they've done since I've met them.

Rei merely made a noise of assent, going through her things to make sure that nothing had been lost during the botched transit. She was still a little pale, sweat a thin, gleaming layer quickly evaporating under the heavy sunshine, but he knew that his companion would have a fit if he tried to delay them any longer than they already have been.

He merely let her take the lead when they started walking again, going back in his memories and mulling over what had just been spoken of and prodding at the bits that didn't make sense. Like what she'd said about there being so much Mana in the air that it was muffling everything else. Wouldn't be surprised if I can't hear anything from the rocks even, hm? Well, it was worth a try, anyway.

So he stretched the innate sense that wasn't quite listening and wasn't quite feeling that every Jumi possessed, and found the music of the rocks and earth around them with no effort at all. Though their songs were quite a bit more boisterous than he was expecting. "Wildcat, what kind of signature did you say it was?"

Rei glanced back at him over her shoulder. "Hm? Oh, I have no idea. Xan didn't tell me, either. But it's certainly strong, whatever it is. Felt like more than a dozen Stones all in one place before it up and smacked me silly."

Here at least he could offer an opinion. "It's not a Stone. I've encountered them before, if only once or twice, and they've got their own soul-song that's as loud as any Jumi's. I'm not picking up anything other than normal rocks and earth."

Very happy rocks and earth. Gnome save him, but now that he was listening to them he was having a hard time tuning them back out again.

Rei gave him a shrug. "I don't know what it could be, then. All of the artifacts left at the Junkyard had their own signatures, even if they did tend to blend a bit, and I'm not sure what else besides a Stone can hold that much Mana without going ka-blooey. Nothing man-ma...made?"

Elazul couldn't blame her for her voice going high in disbelief when they topped a last rise and the ground fell away before them into a grassy bowl. Not when they were presented with an impossibility hovering above a sea of mist in the depths of the bowl. An impossibility nearly cloaked by a dome of clouds that almost buried the sun's light, if not its heat, that reached innumerable branches towards the sky.

Beside him Rei let out a joyous whoop and took off running. "It's the Tree! Look! It's really the Tree! It's come back!"

"That...it can't..." Elazul forced himself to take a deep breath around his shock, elation uncurling its first leaf at the back of his mind the first hint that his unique soul-bond with Rei really had only been muffled. That what he was seeing was the Mana Tree was not possible, could not be possible—it had burned down centuries ago, before he was even born!

Floating serenely above the landscape, the massive trunk and spreading canopy chided him for his disbelief. It was the Mana Tree, for how could it be anything else? No other single plant in the entire history of Fa'Diel had ever matched the girth of their Goddess' physical shell, nor, to be frank, had there ever been another spectacle of Nature to come close.

He was still standing there trying to wrap his head around the concept that the Tree had returned by the time Rei came running back amidst exasperated laughter to pull him into motion. From there it was a race between the two humanoids and the young dragonet that soared around them to the base of their goal, the place where massive roots drifted down to sink themselves into the earth.

And there they were met by a familiar, lanky figure dressed in bright colors, who spread his feathered arms and welcomed them in a far more solemn voice than they were used to, to the Sanctuary of Mana. "The Mana Goddess is the light, and thus She could not see Herself," intoned Pokiehl, sounding truly serious for the first time since Rei had met him. "She used Her light to outline Herself in shadow. Her visions began the creation of this universe. Everything in the world has a common beginning: Her light.

"But the desire to know one's self became shadow, and separated us. Do not detest the darkness. That is all you need to know. Words are your powers. The Goddess will speak to you with Her powers. If you know you can handle that power, then proceed."

Rei nodded once, and the Wisdom stepped aside, gesturing for them to go on with one arm. Without a moment's hesitation the knife-fighter stepped out onto the lowest part of the root, head high and eyes shining. Elazul snapped to his senses then, remembering that they were supposed to wait, they were meeting someone here and it wasn't just Pokiehl, and opened his mouth to protest.

A feathered hand on his shoulder silenced him, and he looked up into compassionate, dark eyes. Pokiehl shook his head a little and told him softly, "You cannot stop her. This is part of her destiny, as it is her brother's, and it is what they are. Go. She will welcome your help, and you will find him already waiting for you."

Well, when it was put that way...Elazul nodded and broke loose from the light hold, jogging a bit to catch up to the vanishing heels of his companion and her pet. He never looked back, and so never saw it when Pokiehl smiled and disappeared from sight.

—

They didn't make it very far in before Elazul caught up; it was because Rei had stopped to stare up in delighted amazement at the way the space around them went up, and up, and even father into darkness when the path led them into the hollow trunk of the Tree. Starring the velvet depths were enormous shelf-fungi, none of them smaller than their heads and some of them bigger than the top floor of Rei's cottage, all glowing a beautiful amethyst hue that lit the inner curves and whorls of trunk a deep blue-green.

"It's incredible," Rei breathed once Elazul had taken his place beside her, never breaking her gaze away from her surroundings. "Look at them all; and just think, we're the first people to set foot here in nearly a thousand years."

"First, barring Xan," Elazul told her. "Pokiehl says he's already waiting for us, I assume somewhere near the top."

"Ah, figures." The knife-fighter shook her head with a rueful smile. "I sometimes think I'd be outrageously jealous of the man if I didn't love him so much. I guess we'd better hurry or he'll start wondering what's taking us so long to climb a simple tree."

The Jumi Knight snorted at the joke and they resumed walking, Spark flying in circles around them as much as the curving spaces of the hollow would let him, only coming back down to their level when the shelf-fungi led them to a hole back into open air.

That was where they encountered the first monster, a Marlboro waiting in patient ambush on the main part of the outer trunk. Rei froze for a heartbeat in utter denial at what she was seeing before her knives flicked out and pinned the unwary creature to the wood behind it. It vanished in a puff of spores as Rei stalked over and reclaimed her blades. "Monsters!" she growled, whirling to face Elazul. "There are monsters here, waiting to prey on travelers. On the Tree!"

"Everywhere has monsters, wildcat," Elazul reminded her, although he too was shaken at the thought of such aggressive creatures being here, of all places. "This is just another place for them to live."

Rei's expression told him that she wanted to protest, but his logic made too much sense for her to actually try. Instead, she simply kept her blades out and resumed walking upwards, much of the joy at her surroundings gone.

But even monsters couldn't keep her spirits down for long, and soon she had rejoined Elazul in staring in open wonder at the sheer volume of life covering practically every inch of trunk and cradled farther out amongst the larger branches—the least of which would take more than twenty people with their arms outstretched to touch fingertips. Ferns, grasses, and epiphytes like bromeliads, pitcher plants and mosses abounded, nestled in the grooves of the Tree's bark, while the larger ferns, shrubs and climbing vines were those that lived amongst the branches in soil that collected there. Orchids and other flowers bloomed wherever they pleased, adding splashes of color to the green chaos.

The monsters and a few rare treasure chests were hardly noticed and gone from memory the moment they were dealt with.

It was only when they came near to the very top of the Tree that they found the first signs of mortal hands; a stone archway with railings on either side, nearly overgrown entirely by vines and roots. Elazul didn't think much of it and began to walk through it when he was stopped by a draconic chirrup.

He found Rei simply standing there when he turned back, running her fingertips across greens and grays like she was afraid it would crumble to dust beneath her touch. Spark was crouched on the ground behind her, looking back and forth between the knife-fighter and the swordsman. "Rei?" Elazul called gently, rewarded by a deep sigh.

"Do you know what these stones are, 'Laz?"

"Granite, it looks like."

A chuckle swept the air between them—she turned her head and Elazul found with a jolt that tears were running down her cheeks in glittering trails. He would have asked what was wrong if she hadn't been beaming as big as he'd ever seen her. "Very funny. I meant besides what kind of rock they are." When he shook his head, she twisted around and spread her arms wide in unconscious imitation of Pokiehl. "This is the entrance to the main Sanctuary, where thousands of pilgrims traveled every year to pray to the Goddess. And thousands of years ago, my Tribe carved these very stones and laid them here in a time when we still had our own name."

She laughed, rich and joyful and bright, spinning around in place a few times. "This is one of the starting points for my family's entire history, and I'm standing right here! In a place I thought I'd never see! Where no one has been for nine hundred years! It's incredible! I don't know whether I should go for a book or pray or dance or anything!"

Her joy was infectious even without the tickling fronds of it at the back of his head, and Elazul found himself grinning in response even as he walked back and caught her by the hand. "Well, for starters," he chided the pair of wide emerald eyes that had fastened on him in surprise, "for all the historical significance, it's still a door, little wildcat. Doors are meant for walking through."

And he drew her through the archway and into a realm filled with unexpected sunshine. It blazed down on them, fierce as a hawk and somehow gentle and welcoming as a favorite blanket by the fire after a snowstorm, lighting up the verdant plant-life around them into a dizzying spill of greens.

There were monsters here, too. Spark warned them of it as they approached a raised stone platform, its edges worn and chipped away by the years, by folding himself into a shallow dive amidst a flurry of hisses. Rei's knives were out and nearly blinding in the golden light, the knife fighter already up the steps and engaging their opponents by the time Elazul could draw his sword. Even as he mounted the steps the Knight thought the fight would already be over with by the time he could see what they were fighting, only to have Rei go flying back over his head with a startled yip scarcely before he could finish his thought.

A duck born purely from reflex let him avoid both flailing limbs and a swing from a heavy wooden branch at the same time, Elazul's sword coming up to bite into the offending extremity of a rather grumpy-looking Wooding with a dull thunk. The Knight had enough time to frown before he was ducking another swing—his blade hadn't gone nearly as far into the tree demon as he'd expected from prior encounters with its type. What exactly was this thing made of?

A soft patter heralded Rei's return to the fight, hair ornaments chiming as she went airborne in one of the techniques Elazul was familiar with, something she called Moonsault Stomp. It involved a flip kick and a ridiculously high jump, and ended with Rei in the perfect position to carve away pieces of wood in the monster's blind spot.

Which she did, with a fierce scowl of concentration as she took out flailing branches intended by their owner to crush their skulls. Elazul moved easily in tandem with her and her weapons and soon the Wooding was a fading pile of broken splinters. The two never missed a beat when they moved to take out the Punkster that Spark had been keeping busy.

Dizzy from a chain of hits that had sent it rolling through the air, the imp simply couldn't put up the same fight as its companion had. Then again, it was only a construct bespelled into flesh and not far more durable wood.

Knives sheathed for the moment, Rei dusted her hands and frowned at their surroundings. "I don't like this," she said after several moments. "Those monsters were a lot stronger than they ought to have been."

Elazul nodded in distracted agreement, pulling several bits of Wooding out of his hair and clothes. "We'd better check the rest of the place out. If we've somehow missed Xan on the way up, the Goddess only knows how he'll fare if he gets caught in an ambush like this one."

Coral lips quirked into a wry smile. "Probably fine, knowing him, but still..." Anxiety knitted her forehead as Rei trotted down the steps that led deeper into the Sanctuary. "Let's see if there are any more monsters around. I'll never hear the end of it if one eats his notebook or something when he isn't looking..."

The half-hearted joke did nothing to fool her companions. Spark let out a soft creel and took off, flying above their little group. Elazul simply fell into step beside her once he'd caught up to Rei, knowing full well that it wasn't just Xan's safety that had her worried. The creatures they'd just encountered had been strong—worryingly so, compared to every other example of their respective species that he'd ever had the poor luck to meet. If there were others monsters here the odds were good that they would be just as strong.

That certainly didn't bode well for his little band.

And even less so for the Tree.

—

Their concerns only proved to be well founded when they finally found the resident Sproutling. It greeted them with far more clarity than most Sproutlings seemed to possess, then told them about a large monster that was coming to drain the Tree's energy. No, it didn't think it was here yet, but there were other, smaller monsters already lurking in the Sanctuary that were doing much the same.

It was an automatic response by now for Elazul to simply pivot in tandem with Rei and head for the next part of the Sanctuary, weapons out and ready to deal with those monsters foolish enough to lay siege to the symbol of their world.

Including the first ambush, nine of the platforms had creatures on them for the group to fight. Rei sent a mental apology to Fuzzbucket at home when she dealt the ending blow to an older relative of his, a Gray Ox that came close to disemboweling both herself and Elazul with horns scraped to wicked points. Spark showed no hesitation at fighting beside them even when the ninth platform held three of his own cousins—a Baby, Sky, and Land Dragon that did a fair chunk of damage to all parties involved.

Nor were they allowed to recover after that skirmish; the moment that the last scale vanished into thin air, so did the three companions, caught up by an implacable swirl of magic that deposited them neatly somewhere else. Somewhere vastly different from where they had just been standing.

Together, Elazul and Rei stared around them at the seemingly-endless stretch of water that surrounded them with identical expressions of disbelief. The soft violet of deepest twilight, the water's mirror-smooth surface barely betrayed any ripples around their feet even as the open space in the middle reflected a vast, single moon glowing fat and full.

It was impossible to tell if the area so far above their heads was sky or ceiling, even with the thin clouds veiling the edges of the moon hanging low on the visible horizon. And there was horizon here, unlike the spaces where Drakonis and the Lord of Jewels had met their ends—ringed here and there with what looked like the uppermost branches of the Mana Tree itself in the partial light.

And then they looked closer, and behind the clouds and silhouette of the Tree was not sky, but the universe full of stars.

After that realization, the flowers barely a few shades paler than the water were anticlimactic. Less than a handful of them but all were big enough that Rei could easily sit in them if she chose. Prehistoric cousins to roses that reached skyward on single stems that curved and bent, forming tiny islands in the water for ferns and mosses to throng to. And scattered in numbers fewer than the massive blooms were what looked like ordinary trees, their gnarled roots spread above the shining floor before burrowing deep.

The sheer vibrancy of the plant life shook Rei to the core. There was less light here than could be found anywhere in the Twilight Lands, and her family's library had long ago taught her what it had cost the mages of Leires to enchant the flora to flourish without the touch of the sun. Her books said that it had taken the entire Tower's worth to do it, and only that with the world's Mana rich and deep, the Tree still a steady presence in the flows.

A feat impossible to match in this day and age.

"I'm beginning to worry just how far in over our heads we've gotten," she murmured, mostly to herself.

Elazul heard her anyway and shot her a wry half-smile. "If you're only starting to worry now, then you haven't been paying enough attention."

Spark stretched out his neck and chirruped, the sound echoing back oddly, almost distorted in the way it rippled through the quiet. The young dragonet promptly hid behind Rei and expressed his unhappiness through a series of clicks and whistles. She patted him on the head absently and blew out a long breath. "If it makes you feel any better, I think I might know where we are," the knife-fighter offered.

Elazul tilted his head towards her to show he was listening, never taking the brunt of his attention off of their surroundings. She could almost hit him for it, considering where they were. Did he really expect a monster to attack them here, of all places?

"'Laz...there isn't going to be a monster. If I'm right, and I'm betting I am, there's only going to be one being here other than us, and that's the Goddess Herself."

Well. That was a color she'd never gotten him to turn before—sort of palish, ashen pink, like his face hadn't known whether to pale or go red or what and had gotten itself stuck in the middle of all of them. He stared at her with his jaw half-unhinged for almost an entire minute before he seemed to snap out of it, and even then it took another few moments before he got anything out of his throat. "Are you serious?" he squeaked.

Rei nodded. "I read about an inner Sanctuary in one of my family's books in my study. Very few people ever got to see it, and no one described it the same way twice, but...This is it. I'm sure of it."

"And if you're wrong, and there is that large monster that the Sproutling we left behind spoke of?"

She gave him a lop-sided shrug. "You've had plenty of practice with 'I told you so'."

That won her an involuntary snort of laughter from her Jumi companion as his hand relaxed around the hilt of his sword at last. "That's true enough, I suppose. Though now what, I wonder."

"Your guess is as good as mine," she told Elazul, and gestured for Spark to stay where he was while she went to go check out the nearest of those prehistoric flowers. She had barely gotten five feet when a pressure wave of Mana rolled over them, sending the Jumi leaping forward to catch a certain wobbling sprite before her buckling knees dropped her into the water.

Her eyes were wide and unseeing, her instinctive clutch at his shoulder barely there at all in strength, too caught up in the crooning spell of a woman's voice that echoed from everywhere and nowhere all at once. "I am the light. I am the darkness. Half of myself is what you have fought in the past. I create, I destroy, and I create again. I...am...love. Not all of me is just. Not all of me is pure. That is only half of myself. Those who desire my other half cross their swords. People's freedom is lost and my truth is buried." The pressure thickened, nearly pushing Elazul to his knees and dropping Rei to hers despite the grip he had on the golden-haired sprite.

"Rei!"

Around them, the voice spoke on. Beautiful. Implacable. "I shall show you my darkness. You must defeat me. You will become a hero. Open the path to those who search for me."

Rei wasn't being pushed or forced down, Elazul had a brief moment to notice. She was trying to fold herself down into a genuflection he hadn't seen anywhere but inside history books on ancient culture, forehead pressed to the backs of her hands with her hair spilled into the water around them. Words spilled with equal abandon from her lips, some of which the young Knight recognized as the language of Rei's Tribe.

That was when Elazul decided even if Rei was praying, enough was enough, and dragged her upright by the back of her outfit just in time to avoid a ball of overwhelming power coalescing in the spot where she had just been. He hustled them both back a few more steps for good measure, trying not to trip on the dragonet pressing himself against their legs as he screeched his terror.

The air flashed blue, flashed gold, and then blazed into white, leaving an afterimage of the Tree in miniature dancing across Elazul's retinas. Rei was straight and blinking beside him as though she was only now just waking to the danger—he had to suppress the ridiculous urge to shake her until her teeth rattled, leftover habits from long years with Pearl rearing their heads—and suddenly staring at a point in front of them.

Elazul turned in time to catch sight of the being phasing into existence not ten feet from them and felt his skin go cold.

Her form was monstrously beautiful. Clad in a leotard made of a single violet bloom, curves swelled those places marked with black swathes and golden stamens. Long silken hair writhed across Her shoulders in tandem with the broad leaves spreading out behind Her in a dangerous mockery of wings or a peacock's tail, purples and greens mixing with every heartbeat of time. Her skin was bark, caramel brown and glossy...and Her face was shrouded behind a cruel visage of bone, glaring fierce and frightening at those who had entered Her sanctum.

"Rei?" Elazul tightened his grip on his sword, drew it free from its sheath with barely more than a hiss of enchanted stone on leather.

She was right beside him, knives in her hands gleaming bright as the moonlight. "Yes, 'Laz?"

"I bloody well told you so."

Rei sighed, and steeled herself to battle the living symbol of everything her family had sworn to protect ages ago. "Yes, 'Laz, you did."

The Darkling Goddess set hooved feet against glimmering water and charged.

Spark snarled, launching himself airborne in tandem with Rei while Elazul went low, sword lashing out at their opponent without a moment's hesitation. He was not going to disobey a command from the very life-source of their world, especially when his life and those of his friends were on the line. She wanted them to defeat Her? So be it.

Rei, on the other hand, was having problems. Not only was she fighting against the Goddess Herself, but the sheer intensity of the Mana unleashed here was making her do so half-blinded by swirling colors that she was pretty sure existed only in her head. Despite the earlier overload that had fuzzed her magical senses to cotton. It wasn't even including all of the odd little flickers and whispers she was catching at the edges of her senses, distracting her at crucial moments.

Elazul saw her faltering but could do nothing, too busy keeping his head on his shoulders and his core undamaged against whiplash-quick talons that wounded the air itself with every swing. He caught glimpses of her around the Goddess with each dodge, green eyes squinted and almost entirely unfocused, sweat already dripping off her nose to join the treacherous footing beneath them.

When green leaves wrapped forward around the lithe form they were fighting, Elazul's hoarse yell of warning gave the others enough time to scatter to the farthest edges of their bizarre arena. Just enough as a new form emerged from the shroud of leaves, golden-masked and crowned with amethyst petals where hair had been. A cloak of deep purple fluttered as a golden hand was raised, displayed a crimson hem and wickedly-sharp nails in tandem before they were eclipsed by a lightning-wrapped ball of green-black energy.

The explosion when the sphere landed where they had been fighting but moments ago was impressive, flinging up a ring of water easily as wide as Rei's own bedroom in a wall fit to bury either mortal if they had still been in its path and shattering the floor's reflections.

Reflections...Rei dashed the sweat out of her eyes and caught the tail end of a whispered warning, her eyes being drawn to the reflection of the moon marred by flickering hooves. An image that was being slowly, steadily devoured by shadow. An eclipse!

"Elazul, the moon! It's eclipsing!"

The Knight spared a heartbeat to glance down, already reengaged in the fight, and let out several curses that Rei hadn't realized he knew. His efforts increased, aided by a certain dragonet's tail that caught at the legs of the Goddess and spun Her until She dizzied.

Rei let out a curse of her own and snatched her panpipes from their pouch, trusting that Salamander would be able to see well enough to attack even if she couldn't. The melody that poured from her new instrument was sharp and fierce, and she could have sworn she felt the touch of a scaled hand on one bare shoulder; energy tingled across the scars on her back as a hissing voice told her, "Now."

Built-up power tore loose with a banshee shriek, echoed a moment later by the Goddess as She was caught in an detonation of flames that were on par with the energy ball She'd thrown only seconds before.

The knife-fighter flung up her knives immediately after as what looked like an armored female knight came after her with vengeance somehow writ across the face-plate, leaves transformed into floor-length tresses for the agonizing moments that the Goddess focused entirely on Rei alone.

Elazul and Spark drew their opponent back into combat with them, letting Rei catch her breath and catalogue the hits that had broken through her guard. One arm ached with what felt suspiciously like a fracture. Pink fabric and the flesh beneath was torn in several places, dripping blood from cuts that had been kept down to only moderate. Good, Rei thought absently to herself as she yanked her flute back out from where she'd hastily stuffed it into her belt and brought it to her lips again. I'm not sure any of my potions are up to reattaching limbs.

And it was simply unfair that their Goddess could fight with and produce random blades at a second's notice. Wasn't nigh-limitless magical power enough?

Apparently not.

—

They weren't able to win before the eclipse swallowed the moonlight. In that instant, gone was armored knight and masked demons, and in their places was a creature that resembled a Faerie in build—if not in size—colored a solid cherry-blossom pink. It raised a taloned hand and screeched, and the shadowed moon glowed crimson.

None of the fighters were spared by the energy that lanced down from a single bright spot on the scarlet orb.

But that, it seemed, was Her final defiance. Rei dared a Pouncing Cat, Elazul the rapid drawing blow that he called an Iai Strike, and the Goddess wrapped herself once more in her shrouding leaves. But instead of emerging in an alternate form, She stayed hidden, and the fighters were left to stand in bemusement.

Though they did not remain that way for long. Energy began to coruscate over the cocoon of greenery as a shared vision struck the three companions of the world outside their arena. The haze of ominous clouds that had been spread above the Tree was blown apart on a spreading wave of Mana, darkness vanishing from amidst the enormous boughs and foliage of the Tree itself. And when sky and Tree glowed brightly in their proper colors, the cocoon vanished without a trace.

Rei took a breath, bracing herself for pain—and blinked when she didn't feel so much as a twinge. Pushing down her arm-guards showed her whole flesh beneath. Not so much as a scratch.

She started to turn to Elazul, opening her mouth to tell him...and left it open when a small ball of leaves came floating in on a puff of pink flowers. It landed gently in the water in front of them and promptly unfolded into a Sproutling, who grinned at them and declared, "I'm a Sproutling! I came to heal the Mana Tree!"

Elazul almost managed to stifle a twitch.

Rei bit her lip. She wanted oh, so very badly to burst into laughter, but she knew perfectly well that she owed Elazul for dragging him into the biggest fight of their lives, bar none and laughing at him would be a poor way to start repaying him. (Though judging by the sideways glance he was giving her, he fully expected her to fall into a fit of the giggles.) Instead, she just leaned against him as the adrenaline they'd been running on for most of the afternoon began to drain away along with the suffocating blanket of Mana. "Don't bother yelling at it, 'Laz. It's just doing what it believes needs doing."

Said little green construct was making straight for one of the larger tree roots curving while humming a cheerful little tune. It ducked under the gnarled arch—and disappeared from view.

"Ah-hah," the Jumi youth sighed, reaching up absently to pat her head in wordless reply. "The exit. Thank goodness. It was starting to feel claustrophobic in here, somehow." He slanted a tired smile of his own down at her. "Well, since it looks like Xan never made it up this far after all, what say we go find him and tell him what he's missed?"

"You go on ahead without me, okay?" was his friend's response as she turned her head to look up at the clearing moon. "I want to stay here and pray for a little while."

Elazul blinked. "Are you sure?"

A nod. "Yeah. Take Spark with you if you like." The dragonet was all for this idea of leaving the large space. He flitted over to the root-door in question and perched on the knotted surface, hissing and trilling in an urgent request to go back to real sky.

The Jumi Knight hesitated for a few heartbeats longer...and then shrugged, remembering that even if Rei herself wasn't a formal Priestess, she was still standing in the literal center of her people's religion. He told her that he would meet her down by the Tree's roots where they'd first climbed and headed for the exit.

There was silence for a few moments after he left...and then came the soft noise of bare feet on water. Rei turned around with a half-smile and sank to one knee, bowing her head before the one now standing before her.

"You needn't be so formal," a woman's voice chided with gentle amusement. "Come now, we can't have a proper conversation with you all the way down there." Slender fingers that were pale as milk and softer still curved under Rei's chin with the barest hint of pressure, urging the knife-fighter onto her feet. "There now," smiled the woman as green eyes met warm violet, "that's better, isn't it?"

The woman—or rather, the Goddess—was dressed now in cloth instead of bark, a teal gown that poured down Her body with panels of elaborately-embroidered white on the sides, though the back trailed longer than the front. Bare toes peeked out at the front hem, splayed for balance on the wet floor. Teal circled a graceful column of throat while white circled proud shoulders in a brief hint of sleeves. Rei saw her own gloves echoed on the Goddess' own arms, and the generous froth of chestnut half-curls were mostly pinned up by a crown of ivory flowers.

"Well, daughter," smiled the Mana Goddess, "it's nice to be able to see you face to face at last, instead of sending whispers through dreams."

Nine centuries ago, the Mana Tree burned to ashes...

Take this sword, close your eyes, and imagine...

"That was you!" Rei burst out, remembering those snatches of dreams that had never failed to leave her more tired or off kilter than when she'd gone to sleep, and the time when she had gone searching in the land of dreams for her poor lost Sproutling. The voice was the same, rich, beautiful and full of affectionate warmth. "All this time, that was you!"

A slight dip of the regal head. "Yes. I apologize if they were confusing but I didn't have the strength for anything more. Nine hundred years beyond My realm have allowed Me to heal but did very little for My Powers, you see." One pale hand clad in teal fabric gestured towards the nearest of the earthen knolls. "But please, come sit with Me. You have had a very long journey. You must be tired."

Understatement of the century. After the trip from home to Etansel to here, between her spell backlashing, the Mana overload, the long climb and the fierce battle with senses nearly drowned in power, Rei's request for a few moments up here had been for more than simply praying. She was exhausted.

But not so exhausted that she didn't have the energy to note that the flowers she'd wanted to investigate earlier glowed like lamps in the presence of their Creator. It was a very soothing kind of light, almost like looking out of her upstairs window at evening time.

The Goddess seated Herself on a gnarled, moss-laden root with a careful twitch of skirts, mouth set in a wry smile as though She was still getting used to so much cloth. She waited until Rei had settled before speaking again, voice still the same warm music it had been since the end of the battle. "Rei, I know you have so many questions. I know that you've wondered why all of these strange, wonderful, painful things have happened to you. Why you're always there in the middle of them, participating and observing and doing your best to help." Rosy lips bent into a more sympathetic curve as the knife-fighter startled, staring at Her in shock. "I also know it hasn't been at all easy for you. But all I am able to tell you is that it is because little Esmeralda named you truer than any realized when she dubbed you a Knight."

Rei blinked. Tilted her head to one side amidst the jingle of her hair-ornaments. "That's impossible, isn't it? There are only two kinds of knights, the ones that serve Irzoile the Undying Idiot and the ones who protect Jumi Guardians."

"Now, yes." Chestnut half-curls whispered in another brief nod. "But long ago there was a third kind. If you look, you'll find their name in some of your family's oldest manuscripts. I'm sorry, but I really can't tell you more. Even goddesses have to follow rules you know, like being mysterious and cryptic when they talk."

The knife-fighter found herself giggling a little at the unexpected joke, relaxing even farther in her deity's presence. "It's all right. It'll be more satisfying to learn the answer for myself, anyway."

"Perhaps. Though I can't help but wonder if you'll wish you'd remained ignorant after all..."

The murmur was so quiet that half of it was more reading lips than actual hearing, and even then Rei wasn't certain that she'd really heard right. After a moment she decided to let it go. If it turned out to be really important, well, she knew where to find the Goddess now. She could always come back and ask.

Violet eyes crinkled a little at the corners at that, making Rei wonder if her thoughts weren't written all over her face. Or if the Goddess could simply hear them clear as day.

Instead of asking that, however, Rei tilted her head the other way and asked something that had been bothering her since halfway up the Tree-trunk. "Xan's already been here, hasn't he?"

"Yes. He passed My test the same as you did, though I will admit to going a little easier on him since his only company was that cute Rabite of his. You'll see him again after you go back to the ground."

There was a pause as Rei tried to figure out what she could possibly ask next, the historian in her warring with the story-teller and both fighting against the little girl who'd been told Faerie tales ever since she could remember about a girl and a boy and a sword long, long ago. And just when she thought her control might slip, that she might start burbling nonsense just to get all of the voices in her head to shut up, Rei heard the Goddess speak again.

"Dear one, I'm sorry, but our time together is running out. Mortals can only stay in My Sanctuary so long before the Mana begins to wear them through." A slender hand cupped her cheek this time, bringing her gaze back into focus. "But before you go, I do have one more thing to say, and a gift to offer. I want you to know that above all else, I am proud of you and everything you have accomplished. Even when it's hurt you, left your heart bleeding and your soul in pieces, you have never faltered in restoring the light of hope to people. You have never stumbled in your tasks, and the only faith that has wavered has been in yourself. Never in Me, and never in those around you.

"And so I can grant you one gift, whatever is in My power. You need only ask for it."

It might have been habit. So much time spent worrying over him. But the first thing that popped into the knife-fighter's head on being asked that was a pair of deep blue eyes shining with glimmers of real, unfettered happiness. And what she wanted more than anything was to see them glow, really shine with it, when their owner could be confident that his happiness would not be stolen away like so much of his life in the past.

"What I want...I wish..." Rei pulled her eyes away from the fingers she'd twisted together in her lap, and, to her shock, found tears running down ivory cheeks. She made a noise rather close to a squeak when she was engulfed in a hug a moment later.

"Precious, dearest child," was whispered into her ear, "can you not, even now, think only of yourself?"

"Well, no," the golden-haired sprite admitted sheepishly. "It's just not the way I am. Besides," she added, gently nudging the Goddess upright again so she could wipe away crystalline (but thankfully not crystal) tears with the fabric of her gloves, "seeing Elazul really and truly happy is honestly the thing I want most. He's worked so hard and so long, he deserves it. Whether or not he's happy with me."

There was a heartbeat of silence before low, rich laughter bubbled up from the Goddess. With a bright smile despite Her tears, the immortal woman leaned forward and pressed a hand to Rei's sternum even as Her lips pressed against Rei's forehead in benediction.

Power rushed in from nowhere, flooding through the sprite's veins until her bones sang with it. Voices pulsed from within the unseen river, "need a map/you stand accused/how have you been?/don't think the originals were built for this" and on.

As darkness pulled her down, one voice soothed her way like a lullaby, rich and just a little mischievous. "Maybe you should try kissing him."

—

Feathered arms caught the unconscious sprite before she could tilt back more than a couple of inches, a small half-smile lurking around the edges of a long yellow beak. "I've been meaning to tell her that for years," Pokiehl told the Goddess with no little amusement as he settled their younger champion in his arms. She never stirred, Mana busily forging new paths under her skin, not even when pale fingers reached out to gently brush strands of gold from her forehead. "She would never listen to me on matters of the heart, perhaps, You know how stubborn children are. But You? You, she might listen to."

"Of course." Deep rose pink curved into a wry smile. "Mothers know these things and are far more trustworthy than some eccentric old bird."

Pokiehl clacked his beak in reproof. "You wound me, My Lady."

"If only," rumbled another voice. Rosiotti padded forward in the dim light, Xan a boneless sprawl across the muscled fur of his back. The Jungle lord gave Pokiehl a measured look before tipping his head up to the Goddess with a care for the caramel ball of fluff perched between his horns. "By all means, Lady, feel free to abuse him to Your heart's content. He enjoys being mysterious entirely too much."

"This one would agree with you, no doubt." Pokiehl smiled down at his armful of unconscious sprite. "She has never followed the paths of philosophy like her brother. But come, let us away. The day passes as we linger here, as does the mortality of these two."

The Mana Goddess dipped Her head in a nod and reached up to brush fingertips against feathered brows and deer-like horns in blessing. "Go safely and well, and watch over them."

"Lady." The two Wisdoms bowed and vanished, leaving behind an empty copse and a full moon reflected on water.

—

Elazul had been expecting a few things when he reached true solid ground again with Spark on restless orbit around his head. For Xan to be waiting for him and Rei, yes. To be beaten within an inch of his life for ever letting Rei lose hers, most certainly. He prayed—quietly—that a beating would be the worst he could expect with maybe a thorough chewing out afterwards. Rei was alive and well, after all, despite all her attempts to the contrary, and if Elazul was lucky she'd catch up before Xan got into the more painful parts of Elazul's beating.

That part he wasn't expecting, but he was hoping quite hard that she would. Rei in full blazing temper was a frightening thing. Xan in the same state was bound to be terrifying.

But instead of a new set of bruises waiting for him when he stepped at last from root to firm earth, he found instead two Wisdoms and both Venstry siblings, the latter quite firmly out cold—Rei for the second time this afternoon.

Spark was a squawking golden shadow at his heels as he rushed forward with his heart in his throat yet again, unreassured by the rise and fall of chests. Warm flesh met his touch with Rosiotti a calm rumble in his ears. "Peace, boy," the Jungle lord grumbled, not unkindly, as Elazul's hands smoothed golden bangs from sweat-damp skin and stuttered to a halt at an unexpected discovery. "They have received a blessing and a gift from the Goddess Herself. They only sleep as their new gifts settle."

Elazul wasn't paying much attention to him, too busy tracing a delicate path around the edge of a five-petaled blossom glowing ivory-pale across Rei's forehead, no bigger than his thumbnail and—he swiped the pad of his thumb across the mark—very much a part of her now.

Mana fizzed up towards his wrist at the touches, sparking playfully in what felt like recognition.

Two seconds later Rei was dropped into his arms by a beaming Pokiehl, whose only comment was, "Here, Elazul, you hold her. I'll pop ahead and let her apprentices know what to expect, hmm?"

"Better you than he, I wager," Rosiotti huffed as the feathered Bard vanished from sight. The red-furred Beast let a few moments pass in silence as Elazul hastily shifted his armful of sprite so that the jewels on his gauntlet wouldn't dig in uncomfortably, and then rumbled, "I hope you know a transport spell, lad. It's been too long since I've set foot within the gate of Haven Tree Cottage and I might land us in the well or somesuch. If you don't I'm afraid we're in for a long walk."

The Jumi youth blinked. Eyed how big Rosiotti was, Spark's size, the watching Shard, and the two unconscious sprites, and hesitated. "I don't know if I have enough power to get us there."

A toothy grin. "If it's only the energy you're worried about, don't. The Tree and the Goddess have returned to us at last. We stand on the edge of a wave that will wash over the whole of Fa'Diel. Plenty more Mana than you're used to, lad."

Elazul looked down at shuttered, dusty gold lashes and sighed. If he couldn't trust a Wisdom to tell him the truth about Fa'Diel's Mana, then he was in even more trouble than just having to worry about Xan when the swordsman woke. With a wordless prayer, the Knight reached out with a mental hand wreathed in Mana, and pulled.

—

She had been told that these passages were gloomy. And maybe they were to the shades who wandered here in their state of between. But to her and her husband these were only passages. Tunnels carved into strange stones with stranger decorations worked into the walls, but simple passages nonetheless.

And as such they were fair game to any heart sturdy enough to go without the sun's touch for days at a time.

It did help that her husband was as enthusiastic about this idea of hers as she was. They'd already walked the breadth of their portion of the world, from eastern shore to western, knew almost every tree as well as they knew each other's faces and still had a good century left in which to explore and live. They had already made plans to sail to the Western Continent as soon as one of the local heroes got around to dealing with that pesky water-wyrm wreaking havoc along the shipping lanes.

But in the meantime, she and her husband were bored. They needed something to do.

Which would be why Aion, deposed King of the Faeries and Lord of the Underworld, was scowling at them over the rims of his wire-frame spectacles.

She gave him a beaming smile in return. "My Lord! What a pleasant surprise to see you again!"

"I fear, mortal," he grumbled, "that I cannot say the same about you or your mate. This is the eighth time I have found the two of you in these tunnels in this month alone. I have begun to expect you at this point." He blinked and frowned, looking between the two of them. "What are you even doing down here? Both of you are quite a far cry from dead."

"Getting a head start," her husband replied cheerfully as he brandished a piece of charcoal at what she thought was his fifth piece of parchment today. Scribbling in a few short lines, he added with an absentminded gesture at the ceiling, "We've explored pretty much everything that can be explored at the moment up there, so we're killing time by mapping down here."

"...You. Are exploring?"

"And making maps," she reminded the Faerie elder, amused at the puzzled look behind circles of glass. What, did he think everyone shuddered in horror at the thought of being down here? "We need a map or two just to tell us where we've been. What with the way passages lead into caves lead into tunnels and all. It's a terribly inefficient way to run things, you know."

The rotund little oddity floating behind Aion's shoulder muffled a snicker behind stubby almost-hands.

One silvery eyebrow rose, the scowl returning. "Yes, I am aware. I am the one who has existed here for quite some time. Several of the passages of which you speak are of my creation."

Her husband grinned from where he crouched over his work. "Then when we've finished with this sector, how would you like a few maps of your kingdom, your majesty?"

Slender, elegant fingers pinched at a thin blade of a nose below the glitter of wire. "You twain are of flesh and blood and still require the necessities thereof. You cannot go without food, water, or rest and therefore most certainly do not belong in a realm that has been made solely for the use of the dead. Go. Home."

The gold and jeweled splendor of the Circle was cold beneath the thin leather slippers on her feet, cold as the iron shackles clasping her wrists with implacable strength. She had stood here at the beginning of her career and spoken her vows to Tower and peers, had stood here at every milestone of her craft.

It was fitting that she would stand here for the end of it all.

Thirteen mages—the full council of her peers—ranged before her. The man she had once counted as the closest thing to a friend their kind could have sat in the golden throne of the Archmage, six mages on their feet at either hand. Behind her stood those who had gathered to watch her downfall; the curious, the aggrieved, the few remaining who had not already severed their alliances with her.

The Archmage rose to his feet, signaling the start of her trial with the motion. She gazed impassively at him, peeling away the image of the storybook mage with a long, flowing beard and eyes that had seen the ages and replacing it with the face of the boy who had learned incantations with her at their master's knee. And kicked herself again for not seeing the fool that he had allowed himself to grow into.

Her name and title fell from his lips and were lost in the mutterings of the crowd behind her. He raised his hand in a command for silence; kept talking after he had gotten it. Everyone here knew her, anyway. "You stand accused before we, your peers, to answer for laws of this Tower broken by your hand. What say you?"

She snorted, spreading age-gnarled hands just to hear her shackles rattle in cruel emphasis. "I say you are fools for laying your blame at my feet. If you and those hidebound old turtles would poke your wrinkled noses outside your laboratories once in a while—"

The Archmage's voice cracked like a whip, slicing through her rant before she could build up a proper head of steam. "The subject of this hearing is not the intelligence of this council or the lack of it that you perceive in us. You are accused by your fellow mages of interfering in a Tower-wide project, the result of which is corruption of any further information and the outright ruin of several lifetimes' worth of research and study. The evidence gathered supports this accusation. If you wish to claim innocence, this is your final chance to do so."

"Why bother?" she answered with another shrug. "It's simple enough to say it. Yes. I have changed the land," she raised her voice as loud as it could go over the tumult that had broken out at her blunt confession, "and I did it for the land, you blind fools. Thought it was a grand idea to still the sky at twilight and channel the Mana from our cheated sun into your reservoirs, didn't you? Fifty mages all told it took to cast that spell, and none of you good for anything else for weeks after. And meanwhile crops and grasslands withered, the creatures of field and farms dying or fled."

She raised her voice louder with what little magic she had left, riding over protests and demands for order. "An entire ecosystem on the brink of ruin for your petty pleasure, and naught that we few left who still work with herb or waters could say of it that you'd hear. Too busy playing your childish games of Divinity."

One of those gathered behind her stepped forward, his hands crooked into enraged talons. He had been the one to start this whole mess, him and his insidious suggestion of 'wouldn't it be fascinating if we did this?'. "That's it?" he demanded, barely able to make himself heard. "You ruined all of our efforts for a bunch of weeds and vermin?"

"Yes, you little twit." She gestured outwards as much as her iron tethers would allow. "Use the brain you claim you have. We are living, breathing beings who cannot live on dew and moonlight. If the crops die, we starve. So what does that make you, boy, that I have saved you? Are you weed or vermin?"

"You dare—"

"MAGI!" The Archmage's voice thundered through the room, magically enhanced as she had made hers. His face was red with temper as he gestured at them all. "You will show proper decorum for this trial or you will leave and return to your studies! You—" and he pointed at the twit, "will restrain yourself from further outbursts or I will personally turn you into a rock. And as for you—" he pointed at her, still unrepentant, "—you will cease provoking your peers while we stand at your trial."

"Why should me being on trial change my behavior?"

He ignored her. He'd gotten good at it over the years, stubborn old codger. "You have admitted your guilt and thus our decision is clear. Before we announce your sentence, however, I have one last point I would have clarified. You said you changed the land. How?"

Hmph. Nice to know he had enough brains to pay attention sometimes. She just wished he'd done it a great deal sooner. "I cannot return the sunlight to the land. I am a biomancer, not a weather-worker. But I can change plants."

Several mages—all of them older, experienced ones—murmured briefly amongst themselves at that, turning appraising eyes on a body gnarled by the passing of decades. A body that still stood tall and proud against the weight of all those years on her bony shoulders. "You have changed all of the plants within the radius of the original spell?" one inquired. When she nodded, the other frowned. "Impossible. There has been no evidence that any other mage in this Tower or any other has helped you and such a spell is beyond your abilities alone."

An eerie, ululating wail rose through the air from outside Leires, crooking her mouth into a wry smile. "Now, when did I ever say I did it alone?"

She only had eyes for the Archmage, watching him as his face went pale beneath his beard. "What have you done?" he asked softly, fear in his eyes for the answer.

Her smile gentled now at the last, turned sorrowful, but with no hint of regret. "The Faeries have never left the heartbeat of the land, old friend. What did you think was going to happen after you did your best to smother it?"

It had been many years since the First War. He could count the eras by them if he tried. The War of the Mana Tree. The War of Eyes. The Artifact War, sometimes called the Faerie Wars, still ongoing as mage fought against mage, Faerie against human-kind for the power of Mana renewed after the rebirth of the second Tree. Sometimes it seemed that war was all that he knew.

Well, he amended to himself with a chuckle, perhaps he'd learned a few other things in his years as a wanderer. Such as how to use the flows of Mana to see the world after a battle had stolen the sight from his eyes. He turned his head towards the sounds of approaching footsteps and grinned. "Halciet."

A warm laugh reached his ears as his fellow wanderer and battle-mage stopped a few feet away from his perch. "It always surprises me when you do that."

"But it's fun," he mock-whined, playfully tapping the heel of his staff against his current seat. "Are you trying to tell me I should stop?"

Halciet's laughter blended with Gaeus' own, both nearly drowned by the sound of grating stone as the living hill lowered his massive hand down to the ground. "Goddess forbid I deny you one of your few pleasures, my friend."

"Should hope so." An imperious gesture with one hand. "C'mere, it's been a while. How have you been?"

"Busy," the older man admitted. "Tired."

He could tell. The peculiar Sight he'd learned to use years ago showed him the other man's weariness in the way green rivulets of energy flowed dull and sluggish in the translucent crystal of Halciet's flesh. He stood, reaching out and finding warm, living skin under his palm, felt the way Halciet gratefully leaned into the contact. "I've heard. The stories from the battlefield say that you went toe-to-toe with Anuella herself."

A shudder. "Don't remind me. It ended up as a giant mess and you would have hated every minute of it. I know I certainly did."

He patted the mage's cheek and sat down again, beckoning for Halciet to join him on the warm rock of Gaeus' hand. "That's why you're here instead of back in that rat's nest camp, listening to those fools bicker amongst themselves for more power. And, no doubt, for some advice in hiding that little ball of sunshine in your front pocket."

Crystal fingers moved to cover the lump in the pocket of a worn traveling coat, a lump that shone bright and warm to eyes that could only see Mana, and fell away with a rueful laugh. "Damn, but I wish I knew how you do that."

"Magic," he quipped.

Halciet laughed again and dropped onto the stone beside him with the mage's energies picking up into a shining stream as he watched. "It's good to be home," the older man sighed after a moment, and felt a callused hand squeeze his shoulder in agreement.

The wards of Etansel thrummed. She would protect her children as best as she could, whether it be from the army approaching from across the burning sands or from the one camped at her shuttered gates. It was what she was made for.

He stood on the ramparts of the wall diving the Clarius Tier from the ones below and looked out towards their oncoming doom. There would be many mages in that army, thirsting for the Mana held in his people's cores or for that thrice-damned stone that everyone seemed convinced his people had.

The army below belonged to Etansel. Was made up of Jumi, those who had taken up the mantle of Knight and the Guardians sworn to them. It was augmented by humans, some of whom were even mages that didn't rely on the cores of his murdered kindred to power spells, and Faeries, which honestly surprised the hell out of him. When did Faeries bother to tell the difference between different types of humans, let alone Jumi?

Well. They were here now and for that he was grateful.

"Out here again?" asked a quiet voice from behind him. He suppressed his initial reaction of wanting to whirl with his sword drawn by the narrowest of margins; jumpy as he was, it was considered poor manners to pull a weapon on one's twin. "Staring at them won't make them arrive any faster. Or slower."

"I know." He turned and gave his brother a wry and unhappy chink from his core to go along with the twisted mockery of a smile. "It's just...I'm sick of waiting. Sick of people treating us like mobile batteries that double as pretty baubles. I want this to be over. I want our city to be peaceful again."

Warm arms enveloped him from behind, smooth stone a comfort against his spine. "Me, too. But we have help now. We'll survive even with an army coming for us."

"But what if the walls or wards can't withstand the attack? I don't think the originals were built for this. Not on this scale."

His brother's core chimed reassurance at him, easing a deep-rooted feeling of despair he hadn't even realized had taken hold. "Well, then it's a good thing we aren't working with just the original wards, isn't it? Listen." Hands that lacked his sword-calluses guided him back down to sun-warm stone and prompted a joint chime from their twinned cores.

Light bloomed behind his eyes as Etansel immediately responded with a litany of names. Each one belonged to someone who had given of themselves to strengthen their beloved city; Malachi and Selene were only the first and most worn of them. Every Jumi who had any talent at all for the arcane arts had built onto the protections that had been laid down with the city's foundation to the point that it was said that after so many years of dwelling here there was a name for every stone.

He listened to Etansel croon the names of her people and let his despair fall away entirely. Yes, there would always be those who would rather steal another's strength than stand on their own. Yes, the Jumi would always be desired for their cores, for the restorative tears that they could shed, for every gift that Gnome and the Goddess had blessed them with that had not been granted to another race.

But they were of earth, of stone. And like stone, even if they were broken, they would endure.

—

In a place that had once been empty of anything but the name of Fa'Diel there had grown a world to replace the void. People had walked the length and breadth of it, learning its terrains, finding those places vibrant with life and those places that Fa'Diel had feared lost to time altogether.

Amidst the resewn quilt of stories that made the land there was a tall tree growing on a small hill with a cottage built snug against its trunk. There were more than a few of Fa'Diel's stories seeped into aged beams and hanging from sheltering branches with the summer leaves, for Haven Tree Cottage had watched many generations of lore-keepers and adventurers born and grown beneath its golden crown of thatch.

For with every generation had come the tales of the world beyond the little hill, told and retold to each new life and written down in the books it held protected.

And the Cottage was content. For it had everything it needed to take care of the lives it sheltered. It had a garden and a well. It had a barn and corral for smaller lives, those that grew and fought alongside its family. It had a set of workshops to keep idle hands occupied during the months of snows.

And most importantly of all, it had a dreamer.

A dreamer who awoke to sunlight pouring across polished wooden floorboards and birds singing carillons to the morning sun, and wondered if all of it had been a dream. "That's it," the dreamer mumbled to the little cactus sitting in a pot by the hearth, "I don't care how good they taste or how hot it gets during summer. No more fruit smoothies before bed."

"Smoothies," agreed the little cactus with an impressive amount of cheer for the early hour.

She paused in the act of swinging her feet off the edge of the bed, struck by a nagging sense of déjà vu. "Waaiiit a minute..."

The cactus merely beamed at her and squeaked, "Awake!" at the tops of its chlorophyllic little lungs.

There had been movement downstairs until that moment, movement she hadn't registered until it went silent. It was replaced in a heartbeat by a rush of footsteps as someone bolted up the stairs to the second floor. Wide violet eyes in a young Elf's face peered around the banister, lighting up at the sight of her peering out at the morning. "Master Rei!" came the relieved squeal as the pink-haired girl flung herself across the room and wrapped the dreamer into an energetic hug. "You're awake! How do you feel?"

"Strange," was her admittance, returning the hug as memories began to slot themselves back into their proper places with the voicing of her name. "Like my head's a glass full of fog."

She knew this girl-child. This Elven girl had a sharp wit and sharper tongue when it pleased her, needed work on closing defensive holes around her right shoulder, and made an apple-sock and peach-puppy cobbler that was quite frankly addicting. There was an herb garden somewhere below that belonged to this girl who wanted more than anything to be a healer-mage.

But she could not remember the child's name. There was still too much in the way, the fragmented dreams of what-had-been were a thick barrier of dust and cobweb between the past and now.

Her...student?...didn't seem to notice the lack, only tightening the hug for a moment or two longer before letting go. "Rosiotti said that there might be some side effects from the Goddess' blessing. That's probably it. How do you feel otherwise?"

Rei wiggled her toes and thought a moment. "Like I've been in bed too long."

"That's because you've been asleep for five days."

"Fi...!? Why have I been asleep for five days?!"

"Because the Goddess gave you a gift and Her blessing," a new voice said from the by the stairs, this one male, older, and liberally dosed with relief and irritation. "And then you nearly gave me a heart attack. Again. When Rosiotti and Pokiehl met me at the bottom of the Tree with you unconscious in their arms."

"And Xan," her apprentice chimed in helpfully. "He's asleep in our room."

Rei had stopped listening by this point. She was too busy staring at the newest arrival in her bizarre morning—all near-six-feet of him—drinking in the sight of tanned arms bare of armor or adornment, deep blue core shining bright and whole in the early sunshine. The mixture of relief and annoyance in eyes just as blue were ignored in favor of reminding herself of their shapes, of the curve of the jaw, the color of sandstone lips.

I love you.

It rang through her unimpeded and louder than Domina's church bells, whatever thoughts she had used to chain it before still lost amidst the shards of her memory. And in this moment she knew the emotion better than her own name: a rush of joy at seeing him whole and sound, of affection, of desire all mixed up until it blended into one thought, three simple words.

I love you!

Chimes sang in her ears as light rippled out from beneath her shirt.

She blinked, peering down at her hands to reaffirm that they belonged to the life that went with this cozy little cottage and not a war-scarred youth's, barely registering a responding echo from a lazuli core and the flummoxed expression that accompanied it. Instead, she hooked a finger beneath the threadbare collar of her shirt and squinted curiously beneath.

"...I'm still a little muddled, but I don't remember having this before," she said after a long moment's study.

Tanned hands were suddenly there, shooing hers away to tear a careful rip down the front of her shirt with a rather adorable frown of concentration on the young man's face. She stifled the urge to smooth the lines on his forehead with her thumb, and watched him instead as the frown vanished into a bloom of shock when his ministrations laid bare the oval curves of a Jumi's core growing from the flesh over her sternum. A core clear as first snowmelt and the warm gold of a summer afternoon's honeyed sunlight.

Elazul glanced up at her for permission before he ran a hesitant fingertip along one edge, too absorbed in the sight of it to notice the shudder that ran through her at the touch that seemed to reach all the way down to her soul. Nor did he notice the blink when his name locked itself back into its place in Rei's heart with a firm click. "It's real," he breathed, sitting back on his haunches. "But...how?"

A woman in white sitting beside her in the glow of a single full moon. "Our cores shine brightly..." More memories from her life now. More pieces of herself settling themselves into their proper places. A tilt of her head. "I made a wish."

"A wish?" he repeated, brows drawing back down into his customary scowl. "What kind of wish?"

"Seriously?" a second, much younger male voice butted in. "Are you seriously that dense?"

The two adults startled and twisted around to stare towards the banister where Lisa had lost her fight to keep her brother from interrupting. Rei grinned in the face of Bud's glare as the names of her students shelved themselves neatly back into place and blushed when he added, "You've known our teacher for three years and you have to ask? Aura's ti—"

"Bud!" Scandalized, Lisa clapped both hands over her twin's mouth.

He glared, yanked them away, and finished with a sour, "—tiny golden crown. You're hopeless, Lazuli." And then he stomped out of sight downstairs, hands flung up in a gesture of utter disgust.

Elazul twisted back to Rei, scowl lost to confusion. "What is he talking about?"

"That you even have to ask," she told him with no little resigned amusement, "means that you really are hopeless, 'Laz."

The Jumi Knight, however, did not share in her amusement. "Rei, I don't understand! Why would you make a wish to be a Jumi? Have you forgotten how dangerous our lives are even without Sandra? This will just—"

Rei sighed to herself, wondering what would be the best way to put the brakes on Elazul's rant and get the real nature of her wish through his stubborn, thick head. That was when one last shard of her dreams—or maybe it was a memory—spoke before it joined the rest in the shadows of forgetting. It was a woman's voice, rich and a little mischievous that sounded kind of like how she remembered her mother talking, and it gave her six little words. "Maybe you should try kissing him."

Sounded like it might work. Maybe then she could get a word in edgewise.

Her fingers tangling themselves in the silk of his vest did little more than slow him down—at least until she used her grip to pull him up and met his lips halfway with her own. That was when his words stuttered out into wide eyes and complete stillness beneath her hands. At least I will always have this, Rei thought to herself in a corner of her mind worried about what would happen after while the rest of her was too busy carving this moment into her heart. And then she pulled back, giving her frozen captive a gentle shake of admonishment. "You, idiot," she told him, putting as much of her feelings into her words as she could. "My wish was you. I want you to be happy. I want to grow old watching you be happy. She was the one who decided that I would be a Jumi to do it. Got it?"

There was a long, long moment where Elazul just stared at her with his hands frozen where they had landed on her shoulders and his jaw on the floor. It lasted so long that Rei started to worry she had broken more than possibly the man's brain, that she'd gone so far as to maybe break the relationship she'd already had with him. She tilted her head warily, repeating 'got it?' one more time just to make sure he'd heard it.

And then those blue, blue eyes lit up like the sunrise. "Got it," sandstone lips murmured huskily as she was drawn so very willingly into a second, deeper kiss.

There was music in the back of her head. It was riotous, a thing of crescendos and grand flourishes that shouted happiness for anyone to hear. Rei felt her mouth curving into a smile to match as she kissed the one she loved most, wrapping her arms around him to catch her fingers in long silken hair and letting her core ring out in echo of the sheer, unrestrained joy.

CHING!

The two paused at a muffled yelp and a thud, turning their heads towards the screen that hid Bud and Lisa's room. "Um, Xan, are you alright?" came the muffled voice of Pearl. Lisa was nowhere to be seen.

"Reiii?" Xan called out in confusion a moment later from what sounded like floor-level. "Why'm I in your room? What am I doing on the floor?" A pause. "And who's the pretty girl?"

"You're fine," Pearl sighed in a familiar tone of resignation.

Elazul and Rei turned back to each other, shared a look, and fell into a laughter-flavored kiss.

—

On to the Epilogues!