Pendrago had changed. It was not the places or the buildings, but rather the people; some time passed since Runette ended the continuous rain. Laphicet could see it clearly: men, women, and children were out in force, every street and every corner more densely populated than before. Smiling faces, worried faces, bothered faces, and a volume of conversation that turned into a constant, loud buzz wherever he went.
The young Empyrean did not explore much of this new atmosphere because he had a set destination, though this did carry him through several districts. The shrinechurch was filled with people as well, many still around to thank the Great Lords for the good weather. He moved past them easily and waved to the cat lounging on her throne. "Hello, Morgrim. Do you know where Runette is?"
His fellow seraph peered down at him imperiously, though her words held no hostility despite her posture: "She is in prayer in her chambers at the moment, although I doubt she will mind an interruption from you." His greeting was not returned and neither of them mentioned it. Laphicet thanked the cat, then moved on to find their ally, which took him a while as the shrinechurch was large.
When he did find the place he was looking for, he gave the door two firm knocks before opening it. First he was given an unamused look by the cardinal, kneeling before the window and surrounded by a sheen of light from outside; her head was turned to an almost inhuman degree. "Pardon the intrusion, but I have news for you."
The stare abated and Runette's expression softened the moment she recognised him. She quickly rose, turning around in a single, fluid motion before bowing her head in greeting. "Of course, think nothing of it, oh Empyrean." Laphicet accepted her respect without comment; he knew he was greater than her, but he also remembered his roots and tried to stay humble.
Runette, unaware of his thoughts, asked for what brought him here. Laphicet offered her a smile. "I just returned from Horsa. We made a bit of a detour toward Gododdin and Lohgrin, so it took a bit longer." He could tell her amazement even as she nodded in easy acceptance; those distances would take anyone else far longer than the month Velvet and he needed. "The good news," he continued, "is that both of your sisters are alive and... reasonably well."
Her eyes narrowed as the implication registered. "And the bad news?"
"Horsa village was destroyed by a rampaging hellion." He waited out the initial surprise, if just to give her a moment before adding to that. "Who was, in fact, Rodeen. Enid turned, too. Those two are the only survivors." Seeing her now wide-eyed look, lips drawn apart in surprise, made him feel a little bad.
It was not for long, though; Runette got a hold of herself, expression smoothing out. "I see. Thank you for taking the time to deliver these news personally, even before word of Horsa's destruction reached me. I am glad to hear that my sisters are still alive; will they be alright on their own?"
He nodded at that. "They will. We met a few people on the road who took both of them in."
Laphicet purposefully did not mention van Aifread or his bandits by name. Runette mulled it all over and he could see the faintest smile on her lips. "Again, thank you, oh Empyrean. I begin to understand just how powerful this 'teleportation arte' of yours truly is. To move from one corner of the Empire to another in a few heartbeats." She paused thoughtfully. "I doubt you would allow me to make any more than personal use of it, would you?"
It took him a moment to parse what she was asking; once he did and realised how sneaky she managed to be about it, Laphicet could not help but smile. "We're still setting up the network right now, so it will be a while until anyone but Velvet and I uses those artes; you can visit them whenever you want after we're done with that. But I'm afraid the only schemes we will allow its use for are our own."
His response prompted a huff, almost an actual chuckle from Runette, who bowed her head again. "Very well. I shall wait patiently."
In the meantime, Velvet appraised her student's form after a cheerful greeting. Cynthia stood to watch as well, both women observing how Margaret presented the six basic stances far more securely than she had when Velvet first taught them to her. In addition to her increased confidence however, Velvet took note of how much the girl grew since they met. Margaret stood at a decent height for a girl now. The exercises left her a lean young woman.
"What do you think?"
Velvet eyed her student critically once she asked the question, the girl waiting with bated breath. She idly played with her ponytail before strolling to her backpack without a word; mother and daughter both observed her curiously while she produced a sheathe slightly different from the one her student already possessed. "I think," Velvet began with a smile, "that you are far enough along now."
The implication took a moment to sink in and when it did, Margaret's eyes widened. "R-Really?!" She almost dropped her wooden practice sword in her haste to sheathe it.
"Yes, really. You're a responsible and talented young woman, so let's call this your next test." Velvet drew an iron short sword and let it gleam in the afternoon sun momentarily; taken off a corpse in Horsa and cleaned up, it would serve a better purpose to this very alive girl in front of her. "Treat this blade carefully and responsibly." She sheathed it again and handed it over to Margaret, who took the weapon with reverence; Velvet noticed Cynthia's visible worry and sent a smile her way. It would be fine.
"Next up,", she continued with a weak grin, "Laphi and I are going to stay for a few weeks again, so it's time to get you onto the more advanced techniques. Your basics should be solid enough by now."
A cheer followed.
. .
. .
Several days after the Crowes returned to Lastonbell, Minkkubi and Innominat reached the heart of the world. Earthpulses in red and blue and brown and green ran both above and below them when they emerged; they spread outward in every direction or ended in a myriad of colours, some of which Minkkubi knew she had never seen before in her life. Shades she was not even sure one could observe anywhere else.
What was more however, the liquid core of mana was already partly filled with the four they were meant to meet. She did not need any introductions, it was clear who was who just from their colouration alone.
A serpent dragon with six wings coiled around himself and studied them curiously; he had no legs, but quietly burning flames sprouted from between the deep red scales lining his entire body. A quadrupedal dragon perched further below, having no wings but two heads to watch their approach with. Her scales were the deepest blue Minkkubi had ever seen.
Where Musiphe and Amenoch appeared atypical in their forms, considering the dragons Velvet met so far, Eumacia and Hyanoa seemed closer to what she knew. The Empyrean of Earth was a quadruped with one pair of wings, structured just like Minkkubi but over five times her size and covered in scales of grey stone instead of her obsidian. Hyanoa, then, held scales of a viridian green. He stood the tallest of the four, for he was bipedal and the only Empyrean with actual hands. A greater pair of wings framed his back and a pair of horns crowned his head
All four were dwarfed by the giant that was Innominat, but they all dwarfed Minkkubi in turn despite her recent growth; the closest in height to her was Eumacia, who might still be the most massive of his peers.
Innominat had kept at least one of his eight heads right next to her at all times as they got closer, ready to defend her if need be. He need not have bothered. When they reached, the other four broke up their close formation; Amenoch bumped a head against Musiphe, who bumped back and hissed at her. While they squabbled, Eumacia swam forward to peer at the new arrivals.
"At last," he began with a gravelly tone that somehow convey warmth which might have been actual joy. "Greetings, Innominat. And welcome, Minkkubi." He leaned closer to take in her young form, then chuckled as if he saw it in detail for the first time. "Well, well, it seems we finally have our answer as to what the superior form is, hmm?" The long neck turned his head away from Minkkubi and to the other three, of which serpent and hydra stared back; their own squabble was forgotten.
"That ain't true and you know it," Musiphe fired back immediately, surging forward to tackle Eumacia aside; he then proceeded to spread his wings and, impossible as it may have sounded for a dragon, grin at her. "We're gonna talk about that later, Eumacia. Heavens and earth you're tiny, girl!"
"As are you," Innominat threw in from the side as he slid one of his heads next to the fire Empyrean to compare; Musiphe was about as long as his neck, though it did not seem to bother the burning serpent.
"Bah, there's being a decent size and there's compensating! I know what I am," Musiphe called up confidently; Minkkubi belched a flash of fire out of her nose, a snort. She received another grin from the serpent, who quickly coiled out of the way when Amenoch made to headbump him aside. The hydra paddled effortlessly with her four legs despite her comparably large body and took Minkkubi in with two pairs of eyes.
"I concur with Musiphe on this," she began. "Quadrupedal you may be, but we all know the number of your legs is meaningless in the grand scheme of things." The black dragon eyed her curiously while a watery chuckle escaped her.
Another voice chimed in before she could finish the statement. "Yeah, it's obviously the number of wings!" Amenoch kicked out when Musiphe surged by just behind her back, but missed him. He laughed at her. "What, were you about to say 'heads' again? Because that makes none of us win!" A six-throated laugh answered them from all around. Innominat appeared to have calmed down somewhat and floated aside to give everyone some room. Three of his heads turned away to explore the area while the rest remained focussed on the other five Empyreans.
Minkkubi, meanwhile, turned her gaze to the last of the four with a bit of curiousity. "I haven't heard you say anything yet, Hyanoa," she challenged the biped who had spent the time so far with watching her quietly.
Their eyes met and he held her gaze without even blinking, but also without a word. The other elemental Empyreans chuckled in the background as neither of them gave in for a while. Then Hyanoa shrugged in an almost human way and reached up to give her a pat on the head. "The others have more to say than I do, but I appreciate your presence." His voice was rich and almost seemed to echo on its own.
"That's Hyanoa for you," Eumacia commented from the side. Musiphe snorted, which came out as a firestorm, and Amenoch chuckled again.
The avatar of the sea turned her attention back to Minkkubi at that point, her heads still floating before and behind her. "Either way, I welcome you as well, young Empyrean. I look forward to our future together."
"I am not sure what to make of all this." Minkkubi's gaze went from one Empyrean to the next, uncertain but also humbled; for the last few months, she had always been the most powerful being in a given room. Now, she most certainly was not. "What do you mean with 'our future together'?"
Musiphe appeared to her right at that. "Simple, you can hate it as much as you want, but the four of us are the only people who'll stay around once you grow older. First thousand years will be easy for you, but after that?" He waggled his first pair of wings while peering at her. "I think you get it." She did; odd, how these beings could think of a millennium as but a moment. Minkkubi figured she would do the same, in time.
In that moment, she understood just why those four appeared so happy to meet her. Why they did not want to fight. While this calmed Velvet, it still left her with another question: "You sleep most of the time anyway, don't you?"
Musiphe had no shoulders to shrug, but his tone implied he would have if he could. "Yeah, we are. Kind of have to to conserve strength, and you wouldn't get up to do things either if volcanoes broke out the moment you make two steps, or the sea gets into unrest from you breathing too hard."
"...point taken." She could imagine just how complicated that would get. Then however, another thought presented itself. "Will that happen to me once I grow into my power?"
Her gaze went up to Innominat, who looked back with several of his heads; the other Empyreans glanced between each other, but it was her brother who answered the question in the end. "Yes and no. It will take at least a few hundred years until you need to be really careful, but you aren't bound to the elements like those four are. At least I hope so, else you would command Malevolence with every motion."
All the elemental Empyreans shuddered at the thought and Minkkubi took the time to roll her eyes. Innominat curled around himself idly. "But it should be the same as myself, seeing that you devoured parts of me to ascend. I can enter the surface of Desolation without destroying everything around me if I am really careful, but this is usually left to my core body."
A muttered "Damn cheaters" interrupted the explanation, which brought Musiphe several unamused stares. He did not even flinch. "I stand by what I said," he shouted at the siblings, "You're cheaters, both of you!" There was no real heat in it, but this did tell Velvet something new.
"So the other four don't have those separate bodies?"
"No. Only we do. Or, hm." One head turned to Amenoch at that. "Can Maotelus project a separate body?"
The other Empyrean shook both of her heads. "No, it was a common complaint of his," she told them. Then her eyes focussed on Minkkubi. "Do keep in mind that those bodies of yours contain your essence, though. They are your cores; if they die, you die as a whole. They are a great deal more vulnerable, too."
"Ah, yes," Innominat agreed immediately and recited a familiar line: "'The nameless Empyrean hath one heart', no?"
"Quite correct." Amenoch glanced from Innominat to Minkkubi, then retracted her heads from the latter's personal space as she finished her warning: "And as you so clearly showed us, it is possible for your core bodies to be defeated, under the right circumstances."
Minkkubi nodded her head and beat her wings once to turn, then beheld Amenoch in full again. "I will keep it in mind. Though I was thinking, the two of us won't sleep as much as you four, will we? Unless Innominat suppresses mankind, we have Malevolence to sustain us."
"That is correct, young one," Eumacia offered from the side, his head tilted so he could look at them more closely. "You two will be a lot more active than the four of us can be. More so than even Maotelus, who has not retained his original form."
Minkkubi made to respond, but was stopped from that when a green-scaled, clawed hand wrapped around her. She let out something between a roar and a squeak, tried to thrash in surprise, but despite his care not to injure her, Hyanoa's grasp was firm. She was pulled down somewhat and held around the waist, his fingers circling her body just beneath the roots of her wings. Giant, slitted eyes took her in calmly. She could see how the other Empyreans were watching from her greater field of vision, but no one interrupted whatever was going on.
When the Empyrean of Wind spoke, it was with an odd mix of thoughtfulness and reverence. "A monster of Artorius' making, a saviour of man yet also its destroyer in a way. Zui Fuu woke you in the hopes of preserving the world. But you are not preservation, you are change." There was no doubt in his words, only certainty. He paused for a moment to consider, eyes never leaving Minkkubi's smaller form. "We have always desired change, yet it never came. Always the same, always a cycle. Perhaps you and this last incarnation of Innominat will break it for good."
Then, much to her surprise, he hugged Minkkubi to his chest.
A moment passed before Amenoch began to chuckle. Eumacia shook his head at the sight while Innominat watched on in wonder; Minkkubi herself felt oddly warm, her scales resting right against Hyanoa's far bigger ones. She ended up not minding this much, if at all.
"Well," Musiphe summarised their consensus, "no matter what, things are going to get interesting."
They spent a while reminiscing about the past as well as discussing the present, then the Empyreans saw them off warmly. Now that they made sure Minkkubi was one of them and could be trusted, they would return to their resting places; they promised to wake if the sibling gods did need help later, though.
"I still wonder why they accepted you so easily," the golden dragon told his sister as they swam back up through the earthpulse. "It doesn't make much sense to me, considering your nature."
Minkkubi, who decided to ride on one of her brother's heads for a while, gave him a pat. "I get it just fine. Just think, it's always been the four of them and you. Tens of thousands of years. Now, in just a thousand years, two more were born. Kin, in a way. People who will live as long as they do, perhaps forever."
Innominat stayed silent for a long time after that.
. .
. .
Velvet and Laphi stayed in Lastonbell for three weeks.
Margaret received further tutoring both with the feather and with the sword in that time; Velvet now expanded her regimen from the how of fighting to many areas surrounding it, such as weapon maintenance. "Your weapon is your lifeline," she told the eager girl when they began. "Do not, ever, leave its care in the hands of another, no matter how much you trust them."
Summer had well and truly passed by this point, seeing that the harvest was brought in during their stay. It meant full pantries and a busy market, which Velvet used to stock up on goods she could now get for cheaper than during late Spring and Summer. Thanks to her brother's stasis-arte, even the fruits and vegetables would stay fresh for months at the least.
During the second week of their stay, Minkkubi and Innominat returned to the earthpulse running below Lastonbell; before drawing another connection to the heavens for his draconic body to ascend however, Laphi brought out a lump of mana he gathered from the earthpulses. This, as he told Velvet before, went toward the creation of bullets for Zaveid almost immediately. When he brought his larger body skyward the next day, the rainbow that was seen without any rain in sight remained the talk of the town for a good while.
Toward the end of their stay, Velvet had an idea. She was standing right in front of Randgriz Inn when it hit her out of nowhere. An idea for advertisement which would draw in many kinds of people, all of which they could listen in on.
She immediately went inside and brought out the parchment they used while brainstorming; Laphi was already in their room, having read a book but setting it aside when he saw what she did. "Did you think of something?"
"Yes." She answered absently while setting up, then focussed on her brother and explained. "I told you the old Bloodwings operated out of a tavern in Loegres, right at the heart of the empire. We agreed that would take too long to set up for drawing in people." Laphi nodded, only for Velvet to grin and point at him. "But if, say, people heard that there is a tavern staffed by seraphim, where anyone and everyone can see and speak to them..."
She trailed off and left the thought unfinished, but Laphi caught it with a growing grin of his own. "That would bring people from all edges of Rolance, wanting to talk to a seraph at least once. I like it." He then paused and held up a hand before Velvet wrote anything down. "Just, not in Pendrago. A place like that would also draw attention from our enemy, so it will have to pass muster."
The older Crowe made an agreeing noise and put the feather to her lip in thought. "You aren't wrong. But if not Pendrago, that only leaves Lastonbell." No other town had a decent enough size or the position to serve their purpose.
"And if we do it here," Laphi finished that thought as well, "we might push Cynthia out of business." They already noticed how their current host was living; she did not rake in great profits, though she managed to stay out of actual poverty. "Except... if we recruited her and Margaret, then expanded her tavern for our purposes?"
The question gave Velvet pause. It was risky, involving a common woman like Cynthia while trying to get a shadow guild off the ground. She frowned. "We can't tell how they will react, but the area is perfect; with all those merchants from Hyland coming through here, we can throw out feelers to both sides."
Tempting as it was, Cynthia and Margaret presented a risk. Part of her wanted to just waltz over them if they refused, but the rest ached at that thought. This time, it was Laphi who made the choice: "Let's take the risk," he suggested. "Cynthia helped us out and Margaret is your student. We owe them that much."
Velvet sighed and ran a hand through her hair, knowing that he was right. "Yes. They deserve to make that choice on their own."
She sat down mother and daughter that evening. After taking Cynthia's promise to listen until she was done, she laid it out for the two. The Lord of Calamity they were hunting, the Bloodwing Butterflies, the seraphim, hellions, and lastly their newest plan. Velvet could tell that both of them were horrified but also intrigued by her tale.
When it came to her plan to advertise with the seraphim, Cynthia interrupted her shakily: "Just, how would you do that? Most people can't see them, so staffing a tavern with them can't work." She received an easy smile from Velvet, whose gaze went to the fourth seat at the table, which Cynthia could not see anyone on for now. Until she could.
Margaret watched quietly as her mother blinked a few times before staring at the boy she had been told so much about yet never seen before. "The trick here, ma'am," he told the baffled woman with a bright smile, "is that I have the unique power to boost humans' resonance. I can keep up my domain indefinitely over a tavern, allowing people to perceive us seraphim while inside, but not on the outside or from the outside." Then he held out a hand. "I'm happy to meet you properly now."
Cynthia took it in a daze, still blinking dumbfoundedly; neither sibling made an issue of it, seeing that they understood this was hard to take in. Margaret was another matter; always quick on the uptake, she considered the siblings cautiously, more so than she had been of them in a long time if ever. "What if we refuse?"
Velvet just shrugged at her then, answering perhaps a little more sharply than she would have liked. "I didn't tell you to force you in; you can do what you want as long as you keep all of this to yourselves. I owe you both at least a proper choice for your help." Margaret's expression had fallen back into surprise, so Velvet decided to end the conversation there. "You don't have to decide right now either, think about it and talk it through; we will head out for Hyland tomorrow morning."