CHAPTER 24

Seeker rushed through the hustling crowds as quickly as she could. It wasn’t worth the effort of using a spell to travel the distance, even if she had known exactly where she was going, which she was painfully aware she wasn’t. The sudden gale of panic that had disrupted her spell on Lanri had quieted down, and she could only navigate there on dead reckoning.

When she got to the main avenue that bisected Cerene though, that was rectified. Because a few hundred feet away, the city’s guards were all gathered by the gate she’d ridden through a few days ago, and she felt a slight swell of pride at Lanri for knowing to say she shouldn’t come along.

As she got closer and closer, she could see the rank and file with their spears raised at seemingly nothing, while a few officers were speaking in raised voices. Looking down at herself, she was relatively inconspicuously dressed, but the gilded gauntlet that doubled as a sheath for her sword sparkled in the morning sun.

She took a moment to take stock, and looked around at the various market stalls near the commotion. One of them, tended by an elf with orange hair, was selling roughly spun cloaks. Seeker approached her stall, and picked one up. “How much for this?” She absently asked. She was trying to hear what the guards were saying, but she was just a little too far away from them to actually make it out.

“A silver piece,” the elf eventually answered. She’d put far too much thought into that, Seeker thought, but she was hardly in a position to judge if that was a fair price. She produced her purse of coins from nowhere, and fished out the smallest piece of gold in there. An Abanian coin, she noticed distastefully, as she tossed it to the elf, whose eyes went wide when she caught it. “M–my lady, this is far too…”

Seeker shrugged as she threw on the cloak she’d just bought. It was baggy, and easily covered her gauntlet. When she put the hood on, her distinctive red hair should mostly be hidden, too. “I really don’t care,” she flatly told her. She was about to creep closer to the commotion, when a thought occurred to her. Those toys in Yornleif’s display which had been mended with gold paste. “Actually,” she thoughtfully began, “I want you to give me some copper coins, too. No silver, mind you. Just the copper.”

The elf nodded, and eagerly offered Seeker a handful of copper coins that had turned an unpleasant color from oxidation and patina. She stuffed them in her purse, and left the vendor to relish in the tidy profit she’d surely just fluked into.

As Seeker got closer, she was gratified she could now make out what the guard officers were saying, and felt safe in the knowledge they’d pay her no mind in her disguise. “You’re not welcome here, and neither is your friend.”

“Bloody hell, we just want to buy some food for the road.” A soft, feminine voice.

“So you’ve said. But we can’t spare it. Not with these bandits lurking about, and certainly not as much as you’d need. Besides, I’ve heard the stories about his kind.” Seeker slipped between the bystanders that had gathered into a big semicircle around the guards, keen to get a better look at the problem.

“If what you’d heard about them were true, then he’d have forced his way inside, not retreated when told to.” The feminine voice was familiar. It had a pleasant lilt to it that roused an unpleasant suspicion in Seeker.

“If what I’d heard mattered in the slightest, that might be relevant,” scoffed the guard officer. Seeker still couldn’t get a good look at anyone, much to her chagrin. “But his lordship, the Baron Vattens of Cerene has imposed a travel ban. Your very being here is a crime, sprite.”

Sprite. That wasn’t quite full confirmation, but it certainly didn’t disprove her theory. Seeker stepped forward from the crowd, and, fed up with being unable to get to the center of the commotion inconspicuously, decided to be conspicuous about it instead. She bounced on the balls of her feet twice, took a deep breath, then sprinted forward and leapt.

The crowd gasped at the sight, apparently not expecting one of their number to become the new center of attention. And when she landed between the guard officers and their quarrel, she was a little more gratified than she’d expected when the guards all raised their glaives at her, and the officers drew their swords.

“Do you expect those to help you against her?” Asked the lilting feminine voice, sarcastically, confirming to Seeker that it was who she thought. She gave the guards a withering, unimpressed stare, and then turned to fix the same expression on the sprite.

She fixed it on Wynn.

The little pixie glowed the hot pink of confidence and grinned at her, which Seeker thought was entirely uncalled for, given the circumstances. The guard officers started to demand Seeker explain herself, and, unwilling to entertain that at the moment, Seeker briefly flared her aura. It lasted only a fraction of a second, and she knew from experience it would stun them for a moment.

“If you had any sense, you’d leave,” Seeker said after a moment of consideration.

“Andorf’s hungry,” Wynn said with a shrug.

“So I heard. These men weren’t lying, though. They really don’t have the food to spare to feed him.”

“And they’re also telling us it’s a crime to travel onwards. That doesn’t leave us with many options to explore.”

Seeker crossed her arms, and smirked. She had just the barb for this. “Unpleasant, isn’t it, having no good options to take care of those you care about?” She was, to put it mildly, angry at Wynn and Andorf. They had promised to be as benevolent and merciful as Shala’s Gilded Ones, to pay a king’s ransom to make sure she and Lanri would be spared whatever the other auction goers had planned for them. Instead, the Abanian had won, and Lanri lost her foot.

Wynn turned dark blue when she heard the remark. “I tried to talk your Dear into fleeing when she had the chance. I’m very sorry she–”

“Oh, she isn’t dead, no thanks to you. Just maimed beyond my ability to heal.” Wynn literally lit up at that, becoming a slightly brighter blue. Seeker knew she could easily fudge the color shifts, and that they weren’t necessarily how she truly felt. But even if she didn’t really care that Lanri had survived, she was at least bothering to lie about it, which flattered her. “Now begone.”

“Y’know I can’t do that,” Wynn said. “We’ll pay our way, if need be. Plenty of coin to restore whatever provisions we need three times over, once these guards secure the roads, and restore trade.”

“If they had any mind to do so,” said Seeker with a scowl she aimed squarely at the perplexed senior officer. Her aura had hit them a little harder than she’d meant to, it seemed. “One of the few survivors of the explosion is drilling a militia to deal with them, but they’ll probably need weeks for that. And right now, a bowl of stew already costs as much as an over cloak here.”

“Oh, is that what that is?” Asked Wynn, innocently. “A militia? I saw them while scouting ahead. I–” The pixie was cut off mid-phrase, by a different commotion. A thunderous crack like Ishara giving Hayer’s whip an earnest try, pulled everyone’s gaze away from this gate, and to the north. It carried with it a pulse of ragira as impressive as Ithella’s lightning spell, and Seeker suspected it was the same culprit.

She didn’t waste time to explain herself. She knew where the militia camp was, it was a little beyond the next gate into the city, the one that guarded the most useful road north. With a grunt of annoyance, she darted through this gate, and ran there, along the western wall.

________________

When Seeker skidded to a graceless stop on the trampled farmland Ithella had commandeered for her militia, she was perplexed by what she saw. The majority of the volunteers stood in a semicircle. Unlike the bystanders who were gawking at Wynn, however, these men and women were solemnly silent, listening to hysterical sobs with their spears held amateurishly at rest.

Seeker worked her way through them, ushering them to the side to get closer to the center of attention. Ithella knelt in the dirt, cradling a young man with skin almost as dark as her own, as he wept. Blood was streaming down the left side of his head from a wound that seemed to have taken off a big part of his ear.

And, about fifty meters away from them, a corpse lay, smoldering. The flesh had been vaporized off of its bones from the sternum, upwards, leaving an intact body below, and a pile of loose bones vaguely in the shape of a person above.

“What did you do?” Seeker asked, quietly. She was trying very, very hard to give the priestess the benefit of the doubt, and assumed she would have a valid justification to smite someone with such a ghastly spell. But she couldn’t imagine what it might be, despite the effort.

Ithella’s eyes met hers, mournfully. “She and five more were chasing this poor thing like hounds, Your Grace,” she began, stroking the back of the young man’s head. “They wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t heed my warnings. My lord Daray granted me the restraint to slay but one, and the rest fled.”

“Like men, possessed,” said a deep voice, solemnly. Seeker turned to look, and saw the orc, Millan. The one her Dear had apparently arranged a successful date for, judging by the tall dwarf by his side. “That vile mage’s doing, I’m sure of it.”

Seeker considered that, then joined Ithella in kneeling in the dirt, close to the young man whose blood was ruining her cloak. “Is that true?” She asked him, but she could see he didn’t have enough of his wits about him to answer. She considered casting a spell to calm him, and that would get her an answer. But she hesitated. If Millan was right, any magic touching his mind without thinking it through would probably only hurt him more, in the long run.

“You’re safe now,” Ithella assured him, and Seeker was again struck by the contrast of how ruthless the priestess was in battle, compared to how gentle she could be outside of it.

“When he’s calmed down, Ithella, would you please bring him to the Monastery? I’m sure one of the priests there is particularly well suited to helping him recover.” Seeker didn’t have a specific one in mind, but she’d known of enough priests that took pride in helping sexual assault survivors reclaim their taste for intimacy. Seeker wasn’t sure anything like that had happened to him, but it was more likely to help than a hastily cast spell.

“As you wish, Your Grace.”

Seeker remained there for a while, despite knowing she wasn’t going to be able to help much on this end. She would be much more useful if she dedicated her efforts to–

The body.

It obviously still laid there, even if Seeker didn’t much care to look at it. But she did so anyways. She got up, and as she approached it, she was struck by how unsettlingly clean it was. The exposed bones were all pristine, with the skull uncannily grinning at the sky. And the rest of her was dirty, but untarnished by magic.

An unpleasant thought intruded into her mind, that Lanri might well have wound up looking like this if she’d fumbled even one of the spells. There wasn’t much to see, and Seeker was halfway through kneeling to search through her pockets, when she noticed something. A bit of shiny metal stuck out from between the skull and dirt.

She cautiously picked it up, and was found it to be a little loop of fine, silver chain that thrummed with the magic of an enchantment. Two little circles of metal hung on it. With pronounced raised edges, they looked like a leatherworker’s grommets. “Shiny,” came Wynn’s lilt.

Seeker sighed. “I’m not looking for a familiar, you know,” she said as she got up, eager to be away from the corpse.

“No, but I am looking for a way to get this nonsense all dealt with. If this militia is what’s going to be what opens the road to me and Andorf, then I reckon this is where we should be.”

“You don’t owe me the sales pitch,” Seeker said, dismissively. She looked over the fine metal, trying to find any engraved runes she could read. “The good Daughter of War there is in charge.”

“Aye, an’ she defers to you. All those priest types do.”

Seeker rolled her eyes. “I don’t intend to involve myself in the militia, or their campaign against this bandit,” she mumbled with a frown. She’d always had a special resentment for obtusely laid enchantments.

Wynn sighed, and – surprisingly – said, "bi dìleas mar chù.”

That made a surprising amount of sense, Seeker quickly realized. “Where did you see that?” She asked. The phrase she’d said was a spell that compelled loyalty. A repugnant bit of magic she’d heard of soldiers being subjected to.

The pixie fluttered a little closer, and pointed at one of the fine links. “It’s engraved there, but was covered and polished.”

Seeker squinted at it, and could just barely see an imperfection in the metal. She could only take it on faith that Wynn spoke the truth, even if what she said seemed closer to right than wrong.

“I could see what else I can figure out about it,” Wynn began, utterly failing to seem casual. “If Andorf and I could count on a safe place to sleep, and a meal per day.”

“You presume too much if you claim there is such a thing as safe for those who attempt to purchase the divine like chattel,” Ithella growled. The young man’s sobs grew a little louder at that, and she clearly had to strain to swallow her next threat.

“We weren’t there to buy her, Daughter of War. We were there to pay her ransom. Just like now we aren’t here to make things any worse. I’m sure Andorf and I can be of some use. I already deciphered the bauble, didn’t I?”

Ithella looked like she considered that for a moment, then held out her hand to Seeker. “May I see the bauble she speaks of, Your Grace?”

Without any hesitation, Seeker stepped forward, and put the little bundle of silver in the priestess’ hand. It was a bizarre sight, such a serious warrior on the ground, comforting a man without letting it seriously distract her. With her one free hand, she manipulated the chain for a while, seemingly lost in thought.

That did not last long, however. Seeker could see the elf’s face light up with inspiration, and she gently moved the man’s head to expose his wounded ear. “Daray favored us all by sparing this from my spell,” she said. She held the two grommets on the chain up to the ear, and they lined up almost perfectly with his wounds. “This one was hers, of course, but I…”

“Were they all wearing them?” Seeker asked, both of her, and the militia in general.

“The silver doodads?” Asked one of them. Seeker recognized him as the – evidently very poorly trained – mage from the tavern. “Don’t think so.”

“I think you’re mistaken,” Ithella corrected him, with the tone of a teacher who is used to harsher language, but won’t resort to it where her pupil’s parent can hear it, and most of the militia seemed to agree with their leader. “I’m quite sure they were all wearing them, Your Grace.”

Seeker considered that. “So, these bandits’ leader uses these… ear cuffs to control her little army.” She turned, and looked at Wynn. “How much do you know about that spell?”

“Enough to know it’s always a right nasty trick to play,” she said. “I’ve never heard of such an invasive focus for an enchantment, though. This is… This is villainy.”

“Too kind a word for what this bitch does,” came an angry voice from the militia.

“You’re both right,” Seeker said. “It’s villainy, and worse. Much worse. But… knowing about these, however cruel they are, is a boon.”

“A boon indeed,” Ithella agreed. She urged the by now mostly cried out young man off of her, and moved to stand at parade rest to address her troops. “When we attack, and attack them we will, these little things” – she held out the earring for all to see – “will help us distinguish between the troubled, and the wicked. Those wearing this mark are not those we seek to slay. We will dispel this curse from her victims, even if we have to tear the ears off of them to save them. And then, by the war god’s spear or the law god’s rope, the ones who did this will die.”

________________

Lanri didn’t have much to do. She didn’t have much to say, either. She didn’t even have much to think. She simply laid there, waiting for Seeker, unbothered by burdens like discomfort or boredom. Instead, she was wrapped up in a beautiful blanket of vaguely pleasant fuzz.

One part of her mind knew she was a little cold, and another part knew she had to pee, but those weren’t problems that the whole of her concerned itself with. It was far too much effort to reach out to the peripheries of her consciousness and collect herself. No, she’d just wait, and let Seeker do it for her, or teach her how.

So, she laid there, staring at the door, occasionally blinking. She didn’t wonder how long she’d been there, or how long it would be. Even the worry about how Seeker would react wasn’t worth thinking about. First, she wanted – needed the Heartwarden to come back.

Which is why the sound of hurried footsteps echoing through the stone halls roused her a little. Not enough to gather her wits, gods no. But enough that by the time the door swung open without knocking, she’d at least gathered the strength to focus her eyes properly, and lift her head.

Seeker’s eyes were wide with fright and shock, and Lanri saw, felt, and heard her drop several sacks of… stuff. But she didn’t care about the bags, nor the contents that sprawled out. All she cared about was that beautiful face, with those gorgeous eyes.

Seeker said something. It wasn’t something, wasn’t a spell. Just something. Just words Lanri had failed to parse, and it made her faintly sad. The Heartwarden dropped to her knees in front of her. From down here, all Lanri could really do was look up at that awesome face, and the magnificent body underneath it.

A single finger hooked under the… The thing around her neck, and she said something again. The pressure was a little uncomfortable, and it tried to trigger a recent memory she couldn’t quite recall.

All she could recall was… Was right now. Seeker, this… This magnificent creature she sincerely loved, and the fact that they were paying attention to each other. But she wanted Seeker to pay more attention to her. She wanted Seeker to stop focusing on whatever was so interesting about her neck, and to focus on her.

Through a monumental effort of will that was a little funny for just how hard it was, Lanri managed to move upright. She groaned and giggled as she moved to mimic how Seeker was sitting, but was grateful she had a bed to lean back against for support. Seeker looked worried and confused, she realized. She wanted to rectify that. Talking was far too difficult right now, but… But she could think.

Okay and love.

Those were the words she managed to actually consciously think, out loud, in the part of her mind that could hear the words she read on a page. And Seeker heard them, she knew, because the Heartwarden’s face softened ever so slightly, and Lanri smiled at her. She’d made Seeker feel a little better, but she wanted to make her feel good.

Clumsily, Lanri leaned forward. She put her weight on her arms to support herself, then pushed a little past that, until she could press her lips to Seeker’s. Seeker’s lips were wonderful, tasting a little of sweat. But she wanted… she wanted more. A need was slowly rising, slowly building between her legs, and she knew Seeker could help her sate it.

When they broke the kiss, it was all she could think to do to crawl closer, to press their bodies together into an embrace. “I…” She started, then paused to think about it. “I love…”

She was cut off by Seeker’s strong arms pulling her up, and lifting. In seconds, she was off the ground, and exactly where she should be. A wave of euphoria washed over her, and she giggled until she was put back down. She felt her weight shift back onto herself, now placed sitting on the edge of… She looked away from Seeker for a moment, and at her surroundings. She was on the edge of the bed, and Seeker was kneeling in front of her, holding one hand in both of hers. That serious expression was still on her face, and again, she said something Lanri couldn’t make sense of.

One of Seeker’s hands slowly trailed up. She kept talking as she did so, and soon, that hand took hold of the thing around Lanri’s neck. “Why do… iz fine… leave,” Lanri mumbled. She didn’t like that Seeker kept paying attention to it. She wanted Seeker to pay attention to her. Seeker’s face softened for a moment, then shook side to side. She kept talking, and Lanri kept not understanding it, and–

The snug pressure around her neck went away.

“Is anyone home?” Seeker softly asked as Lanri’s mind came back to her, like a fever breaking. She could remember things again. She remembered that she’d been stupid, and played with something dangerous. She remembered she’d destroyed her wand, and crippled herself in the process. She remembered people she’d thought her friends had tried to rape her. She remembered her husband was dead.

And she remembered that the collar Seeker was now holding had made all of that go away. “Give it back,” she mumbled, and she reached for it. It immediately moved farther away, beyond Lanri’s reach.

“What?” Asked Seeker, sounding dumbstruck. “Dear, it… You can’t have it back.”

Lanri glared at her. “Give. It. Back!” She spat. All of those bad memories had been gone, along with all of the bad feelings that bounced around in her mind. She hadn’t been uncomfortable, or sad, or lonely, and now she was all three. She didn’t want to be. She wanted it all to go away again. She wanted to just be at peace, and for… For however long she’d worn it, after the fear went away, she’d had exactly that.

This constant background noise of depression and grief that being with Seeker helped with immensely had just been gone. It had gone away like tinnitus that was suddenly cured, and she’d not even noticed, but now that it was back it was crippling, and she wanted it to be gone. “GIVE IT BACK!” She cried at Seeker, as she lurched up from the bad, and tried to snatch it from her hands.

That was a mistake. She didn’t have her crutches to catch her, and the collar in Seeker’s hand simply went nowhere when she came close to grabbing it. For a brief moment, the panic of falling rocked through her, and she brought her arms up to shield herself, but she never hit the floor. Seeker had caught her.

The Heartwarden let out a soft grunt, and Lanri could only let it happen as she put her back on the bed. The difference in strength between them was insurmountable, and she didn’t really want to fight her anyways. But she was angry. She was furious. Seeker kept doing this, kept taking away things that made her feel good. First the dress, now this collar.

With one hand, Seeker took Lanri by the cheeks, and forced her eyes to meet hers.

“Are you okay?” She asked. There was a cold, harsh edge to her voice, and her eyes held an expression she’d only seen once before, as a toddler. She’d seen it in her father’s eyes after he’d had to let a pair of wild chickens he’d caught escape because she’d fallen into a pond, and couldn’t get out on her own. It was the look of an authority trying to crush you with its disappointment, and it was working. She nodded.

“Good,” Seeker said, and her voice and expression both softened a little. “I’m not going to give it back, Dear. I’m never going to give it back.”

“But I–”

“No buts,” Seeker hissed. “You don’t know what you were playing with. That collar could have subdued me. You have no idea what it would have done to you, how damaged you might become if I let you keep wearing it.”

“It was making me feel good,” Lanri whispered.

“It wasn’t making you do anything!. It took you several minutes just to muster the wit to say I love. I cannot, will not give something like that to you. I don’t want you to be some mindless pet that shuts down when left to your own devices, Lanri!”

That word, pet, hit a nerve with Lanri. “That’s how you see me, isn’t it? Just a pet? Some toy you can play with until you get bored, or I get old and d–”

The palm of Seeker’s hand struck her face. A stern slap that shut her up, and made it clear that line of thought wasn’t welcome. “You are not a toy! You’re not just along for the ride until I get bored, I never get bored. A pet? Maybe. We’ve both had that word bounce around in our heads for a while, and I admit it’s apt, but we mean different things when we think it.”

Lanri looked at Seeker, at those awesome, passionate eyes, and despite the sting on her cheek, she just wanted Seeker to keep talking, so she could keep listening.

“You think it means you’re lesser. That you’re inferior, and just here for my amusement. That you’re a gimmick, a brief show put on as entertainment. And you’re fucking wrong, Lanri. You’re a whole person whose adoration I fluked into. You stare at me with those doe eyes, and that delightfully bizarre head of yours just bounces from one place to another over and over again. I can read your mind like it’s written by the finest scribe in the land, and get to see myself and the world through it, and it’s all I can do not to start sobbing at the thought of that being gone someday.”

Seeker sighed, and took a deep breath. “And I don’t want to let you wear a bauble that addles that mind so heavily. You were barely conscious before I took it off, Dear, you know you were.”

“But it was nice,” Lanri quietly said. “I… I didn’t think about the bad things that have happened. I didn’t think about Faron, or my wand, or my foot. I just thought about you.”

Seeker’s face softened a bit, into a sad smile. “Dear, you… You don’t really want to be like that all the time, do you? To forget your husband completely, and be a… thrall?”

Lanri considered it for a moment. It was so, so nice to just not care. Her damp underwear certainly seemed to testify to that. But she didn’t want to be completely numb to the world, or herself. If she did want that, she’d practically be suicidal. After a moment, she shook her head.

“Good,” whispered Seeker, as she pulled Lanri close, and put a kiss on her forehead.

The two stayed like that for a while, close and comfortable, silently feeling each other’s warmth. The sting of her cheek faded to a warm glow, and the shock of her thoughts coming back to her faded with it.

“I’m sorry I tried to take it by force,” Lanri whispered.

“You’re more than forgiven, Dear,” Seeker assured her. “You weren’t thinking straight, and…” The Heartwarden trailed off, and snickered slightly.

“What?” Asked Lanri. She broke the hug, and gave Seeker an indignant look.

“Well, I’m hardly at risk of you overpowering and injuring me, am I?” She answered, meeting Lanri’s expression with one of delightfully arrogant superiority. “If I lent you my sword, and gave Ithella a week to train you? But even then, knowledge of the attempt would hurt more than whatever injury you manage to inflict.”

Lanri looked down at Seeker’s gauntlet, with the hilt sticking out from it, and the blade impossibly disappearing into nowhere. “Why do you even carry a sword?” She asked her. She’d seen Seeker use it once, when she tried to stab it through the door of their first room, and into Gorance on the other side. But she couldn’t imagine she needed it often.

“It’s mostly ceremonial, Dear. It was a gift from the Valkyries I trained with.” Seeker paused, and drew the blade from her gauntlet in one smooth motion. Then she handed it to Lanri. “The ones they carry look just like this, but of Daray’s bronze or steel rather than Ishara’s rose gold.”

“I didn’t know you could make swords out of gold,” Lanri quietly said as she held the blade, and studied the engravings.

“You can’t,” retorted Seeker. “Crucible laid all manner of enchantments on it when he made it. It was perhaps his best work, but that still yielded his worst blade. It’s almost half as heavy again as the others.”

“Why didn’t you get one of those, then?” Lanri didn’t look away from the sword. The engraved text – forged with passion, wielded calmly – wasn’t what had her attention this time, though. It was the decoration around it that so captivated her. It was an intricate floral pattern, flawless and subtle. It was beautiful.

“Dear, this was a great honor. Only a dozen outsiders have ever been granted a blade made in their forge, and I’m the only Heartwarden amongst them. It would be unthinkable to ask for another.”

“Don’t you need a good sword?” Asked Lanri, as she offered it back. Seeker took it, putting one hand fully on the hilt, and another wrapped around the pommel.

“This is a good sword. It’s a fantastic sword, even. Daray’s blacksmith does not make anything less. And I only have need of it a few times per year.”

“I guess it must be,” Lanri mused. “It gutted Gorance like a fish. Killing a demon can’t be easy.”

“It isn’t,” Seeker agreed. “And that’s why it didn’t.”

“It didn’t? Then what did?” Asked Lanri. She’d cut him open herself – had thought he’d been dead before he hit the floor. “The explosion?”

“Nothing did. He’s not dead.” The casual, as-an-aside way Seeker said that almost made her laugh, thinking it was joke. But when Seeker didn’t, Lanri realized she was serious. “Oh, you vanquished him. But Gorance is a demon – hubris and arrogance made manifest. As long as people fall victim to those vices, he’ll keep coming back.”

“When?!” Lanri blurted out.

“Oh, twenty, thirty years? He’ll need a long time to manifest again, and even longer to recover his sense of self. But he’ll come back, eventually.” That set her at ease, but only a little. If Gorance would be back in less than forty years, the odds were good she’d still be alive to deal with the consequences.

Seeker cupped her cheek, which drew Lanri’s gaze back to her own. “He won’t be a problem. Ishara will crush him like a bug for what he did to us, I promise.” Lanri believed her, she realized. There was a degree of certainty to her voice that just made her words ring true, and she nodded accordingly.

Behind Seeker, though, she could see the bags of stuff she’d dropped before. A few bottles of wine and some cheese, as well as what looked like a book, a few pencils that were probably ruined by being dropped, and a dark cloak of rough fabric laid scattered about the floor, with more still in the sacs.

“Did you do… groceries?” Lanri asked her.

Seeker blushed a little at that, and looked back at the scattered pile of stuff. “I might have,” she admitted, before she turned to look at her again. “I’ve told you time and again that I adore that magnificent mind of yours, and how it reacts to the things we see and do together.”

Lanri nodded, and hoped it seemed like an encouraging gesture.

“Well, I also told you about this. About how much I like having someone to do the mundane things with, like going on dates or waking up in bed together. Well… now I got to do groceries!”

Lanri smiled at her. It made her feel bizarrely useful, to be an excuse for Seeker to be – or at least act – normal. “Wine and cheese are… interesting groceries.”

Seeker got up from the bed, and after returning her sword to its impossible sheath, she quickly gathered the fruits of her shopping. When she finally sat back down, she had one of the bottles in her hand, and put the pencils and book on her nightstand. “Would you prefer I take these back to the vintner?” She asked, sarcastically.

Lanri feigned consideration for a long moment, then took the bottle from Seeker. “Oh, no. You shouldn’t trouble them on my account. I’m sure we can think of some use for this.”

“Oh, I’m sure we can,” Seeker agreed with a grin. She reached into one of the sacks, and produced a little bronze knife she used to cut the wedge into smaller pieces, and popped one into her mouth. As she chewed on it with a grin, she cut off the next piece. “Would you like some?”

“Yes, please,” Lanri nodded.

“Alright, then…” Seeker trailed off for a moment, before taking aim, and tossing the little piece of cheese at her. It tumbled through the air dramatically, like a lactic siege engine assaulting her. Then it hit Lanri’s cheek, and bounced onto the floor. She frowned, but Seeker just started laughing as she carved off the next piece, and handed it to her. “Oh! We’ll have to work on that, Dear.”