Not quite Kamino, but not something you can go out and look up.
Beta'd by Sesparra
"Thank you very much, Captain. Swift winds to you," I said, before hanging up the payphone, passing my wand over it with a muttered word and an effort of will to wipe any sort of mystical traces of my presence and the conversation away. It was probably overkill, but I'd heard more than enough from Harry, Carlos, Yuki, and even Klaus over the years to know that I'd rather have gone to too much effort than to have gotten sloppy and get bitten in the ass over it.
With that said, I didn't really get as much as I was hoping for out of Luccio. I knew that Nicodemus and Dierdre were in play, since the two were damn near inseparable, and that Tessa and her little band of merry men were out there causing chaos. I was pretty sure that last time around she hadn't been a relevant factor here, but that only took Imariel, whoever Rosanna's coin was, and Thorned Namshiel off of the list since neither of us were sure which other Denarians Tessa had managed to drag into her orbit. Otherwise, there was a list of coins, and while some of them had wielders (or skinsuits, as the case may be), there wasn't a guarantee that the ones that hadn't had a host in a while hadn't found one recently.
Aside from Nicodemus, the biggest worry I had was that he'd somehow found himself someone capable of actually synergizing with Lasciel.
He'd found a couple of hosts for her in the future-that-wasn't, and they'd always been absolute nightmares to dislodge. Dad had been able to handle one of them (a man named Johnstone, I think), barely, and if Harry hadn't been there to run interference, I didn't think he would have been able to stop him. The host had only been a minor practitioner, too. Between the Wardens being stretched thin with the Red Court and the Fomor not being around to pick off everyone they could get, especially warlocks, it would be very easy to find a sorcerer who could make use of Lasciel's delicate touch and vast repertoire of arcane knowledge to go from a middling threat to the kind of problem that Kemmler would be proud of.
More relevantly, Lasciel would be the most likely Fallen to catch any kind of subtle manipulations that I'd try to tip the scales against Nicodemus, with the possible exception of Anduriel being a cheating cheater who cheats, on top of being the Fallen whose magic was the most dangerous to other spellcasters, with the possible exception of Thorned Namshiel, just out of sheer versatility.
As far as I was concerned, the more versatile a practitioner was, the less predictable and thus more dangerous they were, and with how long Lasciel had been in the field, any of her hosts would be very versatile.
Still, there was no point in borrowing trouble, and I had some things I'd like to at least try out before I just took my ball and left in the face of Denarians being Denarians.
I managed to slip back into the house relatively unmolested, not even having to weave a veil around me to avoid notice thanks to Hobbit and Amanda being loud at each other about some animated show or another.
I took just a moment to bask in the chaos of the house, leaning up against the wall as I took it all in. After… after, I'd missed both the house and the people in it, once the Fomor had destroyed them, and even before then I hadn't been in the habit of coming home for too long. Dad had changed, after he found the ruin of the house, and Daniel hadn't wanted to acknowledge it, but I couldn't help but mourn for it, even now that I'd gotten it back.
I was shocked out of my musing not by the glimmering of the pedestals, nor by the toy shield with a blue circle painted near one corner materializing near the pedestal with the wooden sword, but by a weight materializing in my hoodie pocket.
The damn thing set my teeth on edge, it was throwing off that much power. Touching it only made it worse, and I flinched back almost on reflex when it sent what felt like a static shock halfway up my bicep when my fingers made contact. I could feel it latching on to me, swaddling me in a cloak of power that tasted like moonlight and smelled like a constellation, before settling down to just a background sensation, and when I touched it again, ready to pull back, it only brought the sensation to the forefront of my senses briefly.
"Everything okay, Molly?" asked Dad, and I jolted, not having sensed him coming through having a divine relic dropped in my pocket.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, it's just…" I sighed, putting on a little bit of a show for him. "I've been doing some thinking, and… I realized that this can't last, so I got kind of caught up in that."
He gave me an askance look, but to be fair, that was the truth, even if the arrival of one hell of a magical item had interrupted that thought a little bit.
"That is…" Dad smiled. "I am glad that you've managed to come to understand the impermanence of life as we know it," he said.
Abruptly, I was reminded of the fact that Dad had been much more affected by Shiro's death than I had, in the future-that-wasn't, even if he had been dealing with some sort of health issue- he was the one who taught Dad how to work with his sword, how to comport himself as a knight, and he'd even babysat, once or twice, years ago, whereas to me all he'd been was Shiro (or "Unca Shiwo!", the first time we'd met), and I wondered if he was thinking about how much more time he'd have with the old man.
I nudged him with my shoulder, and he dragged me into a hug. "Treasure these moments," he said, seeming almost wistful, "when you're just living with the people you love. These are the ones that you can't get back, after they're gone."
Okay, apparently he wasn't thinking about Shiro.
"I will, Dad," I said, leaning into his solid bulk. It had been a long time since he'd hugged me like this, too long if I had anything to say about it, and I'd be sad when I grew up enough that Dad couldn't hug me like everything was going to be okay.
We stood there for a moment longer, quietly taking in the moment of mundane life in the time before Dad was called away again. Then, almost as one, we separated, and he smiled down at me with that "all will be well" smile that he always made a point of plastering all over his face whenever he told the story of how he fought Siriothrax to save Mom.
"No matter what comes," he said, "you will always be my daughter," and I felt the tears start to run down my cheeks before I buried my face in his shoulder.
"Thanks, Dad," I managed, muffled by his shoulder. "Love you."
"I love you too, Molly," he rumbled, one broad hand landing on my head to ruffle my hair as the vibrations of his voice reverberated through his chest and into my entire body in the way that I've only half-jokingly said comes from wielding the Sword of Love, in the past.
I stayed there for a little longer, basking in the sense of security that always came when Dad was around, before pulling back and smiling up at him. "Hey, do you mind if I, ah, monopolize your workshop for a little bit? I had an idea and I want to get it at least started while I still have the chance.
"I suppose I could be persuaded," he said, gently and with a hint of a smile playing about his lips.
"It's for the family," I said, and it was even true, partially- I'd made a couple of coasters carved with Star Wars characters, and I could repurpose those carvings and one of the drafting spells I'd learned from Klaus to put the sketches and the start of a carving together for us while I got started on carving foci worth the name.
"If you promise to be careful," he said, ruffling my hair again from where he hadn't moved his car tire of a hand.
"Dad, I'll be fine," I whined, dislodging him gently. "I'll make sure to use goggles and gloves and everything, at least once I break out the tools properly."
He gave a put-upon sigh. "I suppose this is how Shiro felt." Then, to me: "If you promise to be safe, and you come back inside in time for dinner, you can go out and work with my tools."
"You're the best, Dad. Love you!" I dragged his hand down and pressed a kiss to it, leaving just an echo of soulfire on his palm, before I turned and strode out of the house and across the backyard to the shed that Dad keeps as an at-home carpentry workshop.
It only took a moment for me to pull a sheet of drafting paper from the folder of loose leaf that Dad kept on hand and set a pencil dancing across it, marking out enough designs for a full dozen coasters, and with that done I sat down at his table with my notebook open to one of the rune sequences that I'd settled on for a secondary focus. Being stuck with mostly wood, paint, and maybe metal if I could sneak over to Mom's forge for a little bit, I couldn't do something like the jewler's loupe that I'd preferred for light-based magic in the past, or a proper defensive talisman like Yoshimo's, but I could get away with a little medallion of a rainbow covering an eye to run a veil or some less intensive photomancy off of and maybe a more refined wand focus than the literal toy I'd resigned myself to using for the next while.
I felt the pedestals start to glow, and sucked in a breath to try and wait out whatever was coming for me, then released it slowly as nothing came of it. Then, I pulled the spherical relic out of the pocket of my hoodie, having been reminded of the thing by the process that had dumped it in my lap to begin with.
It was a sphere the size of my fist, roughly, the kind of dark blue that you'd expect out of Homer's wine-dark sea. There were faint etchings in the crystal, but I couldn't tell what they were just from touch and they were too shallow to be able to tell what they looked like. The magic within, though… It was powerful, primal, and ancient, but limited, most of the power dissipating out into the universe through links that felt like they were supposed to be hooked into something else. Some of the energy was latching onto me, but I wasn't sure what it was doing, aside from something generally positive.
"The Starsphere," I said, with the absolute certainty that would come out of Dad declaring that the Lord was his shepherd and that he would not want.
Then, I shivered, stuffing the orb back into my pocket. Dad might be able to handle being the servant of a higher power and being steered around by the power of an archangel or three, but that wasn't something I'd been comfortable with ever since the first time I'd soulgazed a Denarian. Magog wasn't nearly as bad as Ursiel to his hosts, according to what Sanya and Harry had told me about their experiences with the respective Fallen, but he was still one of the thirty Fallen, and they all shared an interest in eroding the will of their host to act upon their own agendas, and I couldn't help but compare the sensation of whatever power had imbued the Starsphere with its power dropping its Name into my mouth to my memories of Magog's chained host.
Benevolent as it may be, I didn't want to think about it, so with an effort of will, I banished it from my thoughts and turned to the wood pile, selecting a long, straight dowel to trim down into a wand and a cast-off section of two-by-four to carve into the amulet. Ideally they'd be actually important wood, but I wasn't in a position to complain about a freebie.
The amulet didn't take very much of my personal attention, and after carving out the rough shape I managed to scrounge up enough brushes to set to painting on their own. I'd probably need to find some time after the Denarians left town to refine it into a focus worthy of Klaus' exacting standards, but for now, beggars couldn't be choosers, especially since I wasn't sure how long I'd have before shit hit the fan and/or I'd have an opportunity to… intervene.
With that handled, I turned a couple of pages in my notebook to the rune schemas I had sketched out, before reaching for the little knife I'd used for the medallion once the chisel work was done.
For a while, I allowed myself to drift, taking pleasure in the act of simple creation. It had been too long since I had just sat down and made something for myself, even if it was a new primary focus, and though I was trying to impress some Soulfire into the process the spiritually soothing aspects of how I was doing it would probably help me make up for whatever little I spent on my first foray into crafting with the literal power of creation.
"Young Carpenter, dinner is-" The voice stopped, and I looked up to see Sanya standing in the doorway, eyes darting first to the pencils drafting the coasters on their own and then to the brushes painting the amulet without a human hand directing them. "Hm. Interesting."
Fuck.
And that's that!
Perks earned:
Starsphere (Fire Emblem: Archanea, 400CP): A dark blue orb on which the twelve zodiac constellations are etched upon. This is a copy of the Starsphere, one of the orbs on the Fire Emblem. The Starsphere is remarkable for significantly boosting the growth of the one who has it-they grow much stronger in a short amount of time if they carry this sphere close. Experience sticks around longer inside their head and they develop in power and skill, magical, physical, or otherwise, at a faster rate than usual. It also gives a minor boost to the owner in general. It's not much, but it could mean the difference between an enemy barely alive or completely dead on the battlefield.
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