Story Mystic Nan

[marmar158]

Mystic Nan is now on Wordpress! Feel free to come by and tell me how much you like or vehemently despise it.

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Spark I
​

“I know you’re awake, you stopped snoring a few minutes ago.”

The gig was up. Nan was on her way to see the Grim Reaper. Or Saint Luke. Saint Luke was the one that acted as border security for the Pearly Gates, right? No, probably not, Nan never paid much attention in church, the pastor’s voice just had a way of lulling her to sleep. Saint Luke, however, wouldn’t sound like a female schoolteacher with a permanent honey-dripping smile etched onto her face.

Nan opened her eyes.

The woman hovering above her couldn’t have been past her mid-thirties. Orange hair, freckles, green eyes. Classic ginger. Completely normal. Not a saint or a devil, but…

“You have cat ears.”

Her left ear, as orange as her hair, flicked twice upon mention, as if bracing itself for some moronic barrage of questions. Nan would have obliged, had she not felt so bleary.

The woman smiled. “They’re closer to bat ears, actually.”

Nan blinked. “Whua?”

“I have a tail, too. And wings.” The bed creaked as she stood, revealing a thin tail with a tuft of fur on its end. Her dress had a black sleeved mantle that spanned from shoulder to sternum, splitting into a shin-length draping of fuzzy cyan material.

“I’m Izusa Keme, Soother and named Mystic.”

Something itched at the back of her senses with the last word, like a breeze felt with a new body part. It was more than language, verbal information delivered by sound. The sensation cried out under a sheet of sand that she was too lethargic to shift through. Nan pushed the thought away.

“Nan Beauchamp, College Student?” She reached out her hand.

Izusa did the same, though haltingly. She wavered between looking at Nan and her offer like she wasn’t sure if she should take her hand or not. She ended up pressing lightly against her palm and letting go. Weirdest handshake of the century.

“By far, you’re the calmest arrival I’ve had this year. Are you feeling alright? No wooziness?”

“Only a bit. My eyes are a little blurry though.” It was like someone smeared all but the center of her vision with murky water. The girl found herself blinking rapidly, then moving her eyes around in an attempt to clear them up.

Vaguely familiar splotches of brown and white surrounded her. A simple cube-ish structure sat aside the bed, a drawer or a desk of some kind. The thing snaking up from its center was decidedly not a wood eating superworm with a glowing blue eye, but a curly lamp.

“That’s normal, just tell me if it worsens or doesn’t pass in a cycle, okay?”

“Okay.” Nan sighed. An entire day? Did they take her under the knife or something?

Izusa gave a light hum of approval. “I have to do a quick spot check, then we can roll you out of here for something to eat.”

Nan let herself fade along with her crawling suspicions. She was in presumptively good hands, strange mutations or not. It was a relief, to be honest. The faintest bit of dread nipping at her heels must have been misbegotten; some lingering sentiment from a dream long lost to her conscious mind.

She lifted her arms when asked, only flinching slightly at the cold touch of something that at least looked like a stethoscope. The room was warm and smelled faintly of cinnamon. She felt safe, but a bit sluggish, a bit confused. She recognized exactly none of the instruments mounted to the walls, one of which looked like the unholy child of a curved scalpel and a reflex hammer.

“I don’t have any money on me, do you need to call my parents?” Nan grimaced, if this was going to be like any of the other times she checked in at the hospital, quiet would be at a premium. Ma and Pa doted on her entirely too much, confinement to a bed meant no escape from their affections.

“Don’t worry about that, even if you came with coins, we couldn’t take them.” Izusa yawned, hiding her mouth with a hand. “Repeat your ABCs, please.”

That was worthy of a raised eyebrow, but Nan did as told. She was probably just testing her for a concussion or something similar. Her memory was kind of hazy, the last thing Nan remembered was walking her way home from Mona’s ice cream place. Pavement to hospital building was quite the transition.

“Hyulic…” That was not a letter. Another foreign sounding bit of gibberish danced at the tip of her tongue, though she opted to look up at Izusa rather than let it spill out.

“I guess you ran out of native letters. Just go with what feels right and don’t think about the translation spell too hard until you can re-do it yourself, it’ll cost me an hour and you a headache.”

“Gin and… Pylt?”

“Yup.” Izusa clapped her hands together, “That’s all of them. I need you to sit really still for a second, okay, Nan?”

Nan held up her palm, halting Izusa’s approach. “You messed with my brain?”

“No no no no. I wouldn’t poke around with a kid’s brain, I messed with your soul.”

…

“My what?!” With a burst of fright, Nan managed to bolt upwards and swing her legs off the bed. Bare feet met the wooden floor, and promptly gave out as soon as she stood. She teetered, but found little control over the motion. She tried to realign herself on the frame of the bed, only to barrel forward. Her muscles coiled and uncoiled almost uncontrollably. ‘this is wrong,’ she thought. Every impulse she sent through her lower body returned more motion than asked for. The most that Nan could do was shift the path of her fall into Izusa’s arms.

“What’s wrong with me?! What happened?! Where’s my mom an- “

“Hush.” Nan found her head gently buried into the space between Izusa’s shoulder and neck. The mantle of her dress was as soft as it looked. A hand stroked idly at the top of her head. A faint warmth that was a bit too much for skin accompanied the same something she felt earlier for an instant.

Like a cool breeze, the panic washed over and around her, leaving a drowsy feeling in its wake. After a while, Izusa detangled herself and gently helped Nan back into a seated position.

She felt better. Fully aware of just how peculiar the sudden shift in emotion was, but unable to care about it overly much. Much more pertinent was erasing the image of herself blubbering like a child in front of a stranger. She considered kicking her legs nervously, but common sense murdered the idea immediately.

“Are you calm?”

“Mm.”

Izusa kept a steady grip on her shoulders. Nan preferred it that way. She didn’t trust herself to not fall again.

“Are you certain?”

“Mm.”

“Alright, Nan. I’m going to dispel your whym restraints. Stay still, okay?”

“Mm.”

A collection of golden cogs and turning rods jutted out in a bell-shaped mass. Nan felt it. An intangible breeze. The unplaceable something waxed beyond her ability to glance over. The scent of cinnamon grew with it, rushing to press itself into her.

On impulse, Nan’s breeze— Nan’s whym accepted. A reserve space swelled, now a full breath of air where a pitiful wheeze in the depths of her being once stood. Her entire body tingled, it was like stretching out after a cramped tram ride.

“Did it work?”

Nan, nodded. The least, and most she could manage at the moment.

“Hah! That makes twenty-six without a knock out!” Izusa’s hands trembled slightly, Nan failed to notice her words, or her letting go. Whym signatures flowed through a great portion of things. The blue curly lamp thingy, herself, Izusa, and whatever, or whoever lingered outside of the windowless room.

“Do you think you can channel?”

Nan blinked, drawing her attention from the network of whym surrounding her. She wondered if what she felt was similar to someone getting their first pair of hearing aids. There was just so much that she failed to notice before.

“Like this.” Izusa held out her palm. This time, she could feel a tiny piece of Izusa’s whym separate, a storm of sorts parting with a sliver of itself. The piece fell into her palm with a flash of light, revealing a single slow turning cog.

“Oh, that. I can try.” Nan copied Izusa’s gesture, squinted, and let out a breath. She imagined a cog appearing in her hand just like the other. Nothing. She frowned, looking inwards like one of the corny Japanese tv shows her brother was addicted to.

Her palm flickered, a bright purple splotch that refused to settle into a coherent form rested just above her skin. Nan felt for the current of her whym. Imagined it rushing outwards into the splotch.

Purple flames danced above Nan’s palm, three of them, circling lazily around a much larger fourth. More whym flowed out of her and into the flames, feeding them in turn, hastening their lazy path around the formation’s center. In a few heartbeats the little burning solar system dwarfed Nan’s hand. The smaller bits spun themselves into a blur.

“This is wicked!” Nonchalant, chill Nan, let out a rather uncharacteristic shriek. One could call it girly even. At this point Nan didn’t care about the weird nagging sensation that nestled in the back of her head. Here in her hand were freaking purple orbital fireballs created with minimum effort.

“Okay, good, now stop.”

“Stop?” The flames went from a circular path to a more pronounced elliptical one. Nan lifted her chin, the air around her took on the pleasant chill of peppermint. “How do I stop?”

One flame escaped its orbit, then the others. They burst against the ground, the wall and Izusa’s face, each with a sharp crack that made Nan cringe.

She shut her eyes. Izusa was dead. After being shown nothing but kindness, she burned her to a crisp, she didn’t even have time to scream. The fire would spread, it would kill her, and probably a lot of people in the building, too. In what twisted circle of hell was it okay to let a kid experiment with magic? Why did she let herself do it? ‘Nan, what have you done?!’

A hand, surprisingly uncharred, found its way to Nan’s shoulder.

“Well, that could have gone better. You’ll gain more control over your whym as you work with it.”

Nan’s lips felt like gelatin. “B-b-but, the fire! It was everywhere! I hit you in face!”

“You were going to commit arson and manslaughter with your invocation sigil?”

“What?”

“You can’t do anything by just expelling whym, silly!” Izusa patted Nan’s head.

Izusa had one of those snortling laughs, just like Gina. It was annoying and endearing at the same time. When was the last time she saw Gina? Right before she woke up?
Odd. Gina was the forgetful one, not her. In fact, the last thing she could remember doing with her was pushing her out of the way of an oncoming semi when she tried to go for some pinned insects that fell on the road.

Warm.

Wet.

Her leg muscles twitched only to invite the sensation of broken bones sliding against one another.

Warm.

Wet.

She couldn’t see. Couldn’t let out anything more than a wordless gurgle. Not in pain, but in sheer incomprehension.

Warm.

Wet.

It was her blood! Her own blood soaking through her clothes! Choking her! Shattered ribs flailed against the ruins of her chest cavity!

“Are you with us?” Izusa pawed at Nan’s cheek. Her voice retained its chipper tone, but she furrowed her eyebrows in concern.

The gig was up, the illusion shattered, the reality that mirrored the strangest of delusions thrust into plain sight, as irrevocable as the swelling store of whym that continued to grow within her.

“I died.”

“Yes, you died.”

(Oo/\oO)​

Author’s note: The initial version of this chapter was ugly beyond belief, and thus, saw many editing passes. My apologies to whoever had to shift through it.

If you missed the atrocity and feel the need to whet your curiosity, you can find it here

I’ll comb over the other chapters momentarily, then upload the newer ones.

 

[Hall Kervean]

Pretty good.♥

 

[Cosmos]

So long~…..


Very cool. :3  (I think- I haven't actually read through it yet. XD) 

 

[marmar158]

This... took much longer than expected. You have my apologies for that. I found a natural stopping point and wrote a little beyond that, thinking that I could dely I'd fleshed every bit of it out. Instead, I ended up rewriting the thing and getting caught into an editing cycle while I lost track of time. "I'll put out something tomorrow" became "When it's done" but with these things, I never feel quite done. I still yearn to make everything look a bit more pristine, perhaps add some more descriptions or go hunting for redundancy, but if I gave in, it'd be another six months before I deigned anything halfway worthy for your eyes. I need to get into the habit of telling myself that something is "good enough" to avoid development hell. But that's my problem.

Thank you for tolerating me. As always, don't hold back on the criticism, no matter how scathing; I get bonus exp from it.

Spark II
​

A deep breath. Air in her lungs, not blood.

Nan considered her hands, opening and closing them deliberately. They were off, too. Not nearly as bad as her legs, but they lagged behind her commands for less than a moment. It became noticeable when she stopped abruptly then started again.

“Dr. Keme?” Nan looked into her eyes. Doctor, soother. The only difference was that one used magic to help people get better and the other didn’t. “Dr.” was a valid title for both. Nan frowned. That bit of information was new. Common knowledge like cycle = day were useful for both her and wherever she was now, they wouldn’t have to completely reeducate her. But what else did they give her while she was out? What happened to medical consent?

“Yes, Nan?”

“Is this the afterlife?”

“Afraid not. You’ve been reclaimed.”

Izusa must have caught on to Nan’s bewildered expression. She took a step back, running a finger along the twisty lamp before placing a palm in her fist.

“When you die, your soul separates from your body and goes wherever it goes, right?” Izusa made an upward wavy motion with her hand, leaving the closed one behind. “Reclamation is like casting a net between the physical world and their destination. Souls that get caught are stuffed in artificial bodies that take on the appearance of their occupant’s old one.” Izusa, “caught” her fleeing hand and made the palm in fist motion in a new location. “Does that explain it?”

“I think so,” Nan said. She wasn’t going to glare at the morality of interfering with a person’s soul at the moment. Not while she had no inkling of where she was or what the whym signatures surrounding her would do if she tried to raise a protest.

“I can’t ask you to send me home, can I?”

“I don’t deal with the reclamation process, just rehab, but I know we can’t just put you back where you were. I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” Nan deflated. She expected the answer, but actually being told that there was no way to see her family and friends again made her die a little inside. This sucked. She wanted to drink for the first time at Uncle Richard’s bar. She wanted to finish her criminal justice degree and become a game warden. She wanted to fall in love and have two kids. How could she keel over before her folks? How could she leave Mom, Dad and little Greg?

Nan’s breath hitched. A warm feeling wrapped around her again. She lifted her chin to see the other side of the windowless room. Izusa, having kneeled to her level, covered her foggy peripherals. For a moment, the soother was content to let Nan ruin her dress with her quiet sobbing. Nan had no way of judging how long it took for the worse to pass, but eventually, when all that was left was the occasional sniffle, Izusa spoke up.

“You’re a trooper, you know that?” Izusa rubbed circles into Nan’s back, earning her a strangled hiccup. “A lot of people, older than you, can’t even talk after they wake up. It’s going to be hard to just jump right into a strange place, but I’ll stay with you to help. Come see me as often as you want, as long as you want, okay?”

Nan squeezed back. Izusa’s wings fluttered a bit in response, tough bumps against the soft fuzziness of her dress. “Mm.”

At times, Nan wondered if she ever got the science behind the whole big sister thing. This position though. It was the gentle sanctuary she gave Greg after his first rejection from a pretty girl. Needless to say, the sensation was much more calming than screaming into a pillow. At least she got something right. She should have done this for him, and her parents, more.

Another moment passed. It would be easy to let herself fall asleep, to deal with reality another time, but that would be lazy of her. Nan loosened her grip on Izusa, allowing her to stand and dust off her dress with one hand and flick the other at the desk. Whym flowed. One of Izusa’s cogs flashed over the handle of the lowest drawer, extending it. Another emerged, lofting a tissue box within reach.

Nan pulled a few out. Bolted over a sink in the wall, a mirror reflected brown eyes that were red rimmed along with a small nose on the verge of dripping. Nan looked very much the part of a kindergartener post-tantrum.

“Sorry, Dr. Keme.” She scrubbed at both the moisture and the embarrassment on her face.

“Just call me Izusa, Nan. And there’s nothing to be sorry for. I may look scary, but I actually enjoy a hug or three in the morning.”

The half giggle wasn’t quite as happy as she wanted it to sound, but it helped. “You don’t look scary at all.”

Izusa laid a palm over her collarbone in a faux-shocked expression. “Really? Not even with these?” She opened her mouth a bit wider, giving Nan a view of straight teeth surrounding four sharp-looking but underwhelming fangs. At that moment, Nan was very thankful for whoever gave Izusa her job.

The next half hour or so passed with small talk and jokes. Izusa’s favorite color was indigo, not blue (“there’s a substantial difference!”). She wanted to do theater before the government found her to be a mystic of high potential, and she had an aunt in the military. In the meantime, a golden, cinnamon scented, cogwheel contraption about half Nan’s size spat bits of light that trickled through her loose patient’s gown. A minimally invasive whym assisted screening, or MIWAS, Izusa called it.

The MIWAS decided to have mercy on Nan’s sides and collapsed. A section of the wall, just over her bed, slid away to reveal a tablet with a blue feather icon on the back. A cog held the device up, while Izusa used both hands to type at it.

“Well, your soul isn’t rejecting the new body, but it looks like you’ll need to learn how to walk again.”

“That isn’t normal?”

“We don’t really have a ‘normal’ as far as rehab goes. There is a strong correlation between problems with a new arrival’s body and the circumstances of their passing, though.”

The door slid open with a two-toned chime, ushering in a floating chair with a back tall enough to reach at least a few inches above Nan’s head. It was silver with a red cushion that covered most of the front, yielding for a control stick on the left armrest. It advanced with a dull hum until it met the edge of Nan’s bed.

“You’ll have to use a wheelchair for now, but I’ll get you up and running as soon as I can. Promise.” Izusa sounded apologetic, like her loss of mobility was more harmful than a minor inconvenience.

“I don’t mind.” Nan wrapped her arms around Izusa while she hoisted her into the chair. “Why is it called a wheelchair though? It doesn’t have wheels.”

“Why would a wheelchair have wheels?”

“Because it’s a wheelchair.”

Just outside was a cul-de-sac of doors with nameplates bearing flowing letters that she had no hope of making out. The ceiling had plain beam lights running from one place to the other, no whym passed through them like the lamp in the room she just left. Affixed to the walls were the occasional poster or painting. A hazy green sunset over a beach with three moons on the horizon, someone in a space suit shaking hands with a giant spider, an eel, lamprey, thing coiled around an underwater lightning rod. Or maybe it was shooting lightning through the rod? Nan didn’t know.

“That’s nonsense. What part of the word ‘wheelchair’ makes you even think about wheels?”

“Bu-”

“Zip” Izusa looked back so she could accurately pinch the air just past Nan’s lips. “The translation isn’t perfect, let’s just leave it at that. Ask me anything else.”

“Okay.” Nan buried the issue. The last thing she wanted was for everything to start sounding like gibberish. “Where are we?” So far, magic proved intuitive. She could stretch her senses like a muscle, picking up traces of motion above or below her. Still signatures laid just past the closed doors, easier to track, but dormant. There would be no real way to completely describe the sensation had she not been privy to it. It was almost like sticking her hand out of a window to feel how drafty it was. Past a certain point, say more than several dozen paces in any direction, she couldn’t quite gauge how dense the signatures were, only that they were there. Had she been able to stretch farther, she could probably get a feel for the building’s dimensions. Judging by the hallways tall and wide enough to make two lane roads, her best guess was: “not small”.

“You’re aboard the LVV Vespa, a research and development vessel contracted to the Lian Consolidated Worlds Emergency Abyssal Defense Pact. We build stuff that blow up, and keep our guys safe from getting blown up. Yes we are in space.”

“Huh?”

“That’s usually the answer to the next question. After that, comes we do have energy shields, faster than light travel, and giant robots. Did I miss anything?” Izusa turned on her heels and stared at Nan for all of three seconds before letting out a defeated sigh. “You’re not making the face. The face is the best part.”

Clawed feet pattered from the right side of the intersection they were halted at. A mop haired man in a lab coat with boxy ears laid flat and a long, bushy tail of brown darted by, clutching a stack of papers to his chest.

“What face?”

“A disbelieving gasp would also work, or you could laugh and say space travel’s impossible.”

“Magic is real, and I’m back from the dead. I'd believe you if you told me you rigged a cow to make chocolate milk.”

“Hmmm. I’ll try harder next time.”

Onwards they went. Nan stopped counting the number of turns at fifteen. Izusa seemed to know where they were going, she could bug her if she got lost on the way back. Nan was about to channel her inner child and ask “Are we there yet?” when they passed through a sliding door that lead to a dead end with a circle cut into the ground. Beside it, a platform with a flat projector lamp protected by a metal grate lazily guided motes of glowing blue dust up another hole in the ceiling. She couldn’t read the sign between the two holes, but by the yellow “X” over pictures of a stick figure entering a hole upside down, on its back, when another stick figure was already using the hole, and while surrounded by fire, it probably said: “don’t do stupid things”.

Nan leaned so she could peer into the hole without sticking her face in it. The edge of another projector greeted her at what she could see of the bottom. Unlike Izusa’s signature or her own, the whym flowing through the projector had no scent up close. Nan was unsure if magic meant more stability than conventional technology, or less.

“Come on, we’re taking the grav-shaft down.”

“I don’t want to jump into a hole in the ground.”

“Your room has no fridge, the breakfast train won’t make its rounds for another five hours, and I’m not carrying you down a flight of stairs.” Izusa stepped around her, turned, and backed into the hole, waving on her descent. The dust shifted colors to yellow, letting out the same dull hum as her chair before returning to normal.

Nan let out a defeated groan and pushed the control stick to its limit. Inching her way in was liable to tip her over. The inside of the shaft wasn’t unpleasant, just odd. It felt like she was sinking into a pit of ooze that clung to her everything. Breathing against it was a bit difficult.

The floor below was clad in cold metal rather than wooden boards, the ceiling seemed to stretch on a bit higher and the regularly spaced art pieces were missing from the walls.

“See, that wasn’t bad, was it? Sometimes the shaft misjudges a person’s weight and they break a few bones on the way down, but it seems to be working just fine today.”

“Wh- what?!”

Izusa looked back, lips curled into a smile. “Kidding. Just kidding. Turn left, we can take a shortcut through here.”

The next stop was behind a door that was at least half as thick as she was tall. Rather than sliding open, Izusa had to turn and push against a heavy wheel handle that sounded like it could use an entire quart of grease. She was met with hard, grainy flooring that smelled heavily of salt. In the middle of the room, steam rose from a rectangular pool bordered by tall yellow guardrails at all sides.

“You have a community bath?”

“That’s a purification vat. It’s full of tiny robots that strip organic contaminants from our machines and converts them into soil. If you try to wash in that, you’ll be ripped apart.”

Nan inched her chair away from the pool until it nearly hugged the wall. “Not a community bath, then. Got it.”

“We do have a hair salon though. We should go when you're done with rehab. I’m pretty sure they'd kill to know what you put in your hair to make it that smooth.”

“This?” Nan ran a hand through her black, face hugging bangs. “I just pick up any shampoo that has aloe in it.”

“I have no idea what that is,” Izusa chirped.

The cafeteria (or was it a galley?), reminded her a lot of her elementary school. Long tables with integrated seats made up two aisles with plenty of room to shift about in a desperate search for a familiar face. On the outskirts were smaller setups with actual chairs. Sectioned away from no man’s land was a serving line with no attendants, most of the platters were empty or reduced to bits and pieces of various foodstuffs.

It wasn’t entirely barren, people with at least one kind of animal feature occupied pockets of the room. More than a few cast her long glances, and it likely had nothing to do with how underdressed she was. She was among pajama-wearers and t-shirts. On their way past a group, Nan swore she heard someone mutter “humie”.

Izusa lead her up a ramp off to the side that curved until it met a raised platform that overlooked the assortment of tails and ears and claws.

“Here’s fine.” Izusa hooked a chair away with the arch of her foot to make room for Nan at a strangely curved table. “What would you like? Something sweet? Bread? It’s a little early but they usually serve breakfast dishes all cycle.”

The odd scene around her and quick change of pace may have been enough to blind Nan’s stomach before, but at the mention of food, it cried out in realization that it was empty. Completely empty. Suddenly, Mouthland witnessed a surplus of saliva.

“Pancakes and bacon?”

Izusa gave Nan a light pat on the head. “Sit tight, I’ll see what I can do.”

Food, Nan supposed, was universal. There were only so many ways one could cut, cook and display products. If one civilization was similar enough to the next, then a translation thingy, spell or not, wouldn’t really have trouble lining up one thing to its analogue.

A certain fuzziness sprouted in her head. A thread of whym that was coiled around her trembled within her reserves. She couldn't see it, but it gave off the impression of gold rather than her shade of purple.

‘Oh. That’s probably the translation spell.’ Nan kicked her shin against the nearest chair. ‘Think of something else, anything else.’

She occupied her senses with the varied signatures around her, feeling out Izusa’s weaving through the others. It wasn’t hard. Everyone else was a light breeze. The only ones that came to even a close comparison was hers and… Nan frowned.

There was another raised platform diagonally aligned to their own. It held a white-haired woman with glasses and long curly horns that rimmed floppy ears. She had her nose buried in a green book, a steaming mug laid untouched at her side. Her whym was odd. Not as big as Izusa’s signature but denser by a wide margin. If Izusa’s whym was a twister spread freely about a space a little larger than her body, than hers held the same severity shoved into a thumb-sized vial. Nan ‘reached’ towards it like a child discovering a rare letter in a bowl of alphabet soup.

Faster than Nan could gasp, the vial erupted, smacking away her glance with a stinging sensation she felt outside her body.

And ram lady was leaning in Nan’s face, grouching.

“That.” She scowled, prepping her glasses a bit higher. “Was incredibly rude, you know?”

 

[marmar158]

Spark III​

One time, and one time alone, Nan suffered the “creeper shoulder brush” in a packed metro car. It aroused a thirst for vindication that would only be slaked with every pint of the offender’s blood had she the displeasure of seeing his face again in a quiet alley. Nan had very good reason to believe that she stumbled upon the magical equivalent in her ignorance.

Ram lady was at least a half-head shorter than herself. A prime height to impale her from jaw to skull with her lowered horns if she decided to coil back a bit before lunging. A twang met Nan’s legs, “nope” it seemed to tell her. She couldn’t stand and run.

“You appear surprised. Why would I catch you in such a foul act with my miniscule reserves? I’m named, the same as you. Tell me, how many others have you casually probed? To abuse your power is such a way, are you addle minded? If you are that curious to see someone’s sigil, you should scrape up the decency to ask!” Throughout her spiel, the woman worked herself up; from a stern, measured tone to the verge of shouting. Whym swirled past the reestablished vial. The tiniest bit spread out to an honestly intimidating degree. Nan compared the feeling to a bear standing on its hind legs. See how big and threatening I am? Back off.

Nan bit her tongue. She did get the impression of some shape before her “probe” was deflected. So it was peeking, not touching? Still bad under most contexts. She opened her mouth, only to trigger another bout of reprimands.

“I detest you. I detest all of you! How arrogant must you be to just… to just- augh!”

Three times, slipper clad feet stomped against the ground hard enough to jar the bottles of condiments on the table.

How hadn’t this drawn more attention? Nan spared a glance outwards. Indeed, there were onlookers; a man in a disheveled lab coat and fuzzy ears that may as well have been a pair of radio dishes, stood out from a similarly dressed gaggle seated under them that decided to look away rather than answer her silent plea. They were just going to let her get clobbered? Where was Izusa? She couldn’t sense anything but the encroaching field of whym. It smelled sharply of daisies and cut grass.

“I uh- didn’t mean to? I mean I didn’t know that I probed you. It was my first time.”

Ram lady’s scowl deepened. The bear stood taller, opened its jaws in the anticipation of a roar. Nan's breaths grew short. The tiny bit of whym surrounding her seemed to get heavy enough to crush her lungs. She considered pushing back with her own reserves. “I’m a new arrival?”

A heartbeat passed. The stifling pressure ebbed, leaving only a dull ache behind. She did her best to not gasp in relief. Ram lady let out a sound that was suspiciously close to a soft baa.

“Truly?” She stammered. The vial reclaimed its contents and even shrunk. “Oh, I did not kno- I said such mean things!” A short flare of whym. Ram lady sat astride her, one of Nan’s hands gingerly held in both of hers. “I rescind my insults.” Ram lady’s breath got caught in her throat. “I’m… sorry, I mean. I- I can go away if you wish.”

“You were sitting alone, right? You can stay. I’d be mad, too if some stranger just brushed up on me. I’m Nan, by the way.” Her aching chest protested, but Nan was the one at fault in the first place. She took a deep, blissful breath; sweet, sweet oxygen. Never again, would she disregard its beauty.


Ram lady blinked. Her large pink eyes held peculiar rectangular pupils that stayed perfectly horizontal even when she tilted her head. “So kind…” She spoke just past a whisper. Another flash of nature scented whym. Her book and mug of coffee settled on the table. “Yaranessli Vo Vannon, second daughter of Amir Vo Vannon. It will be fine if you simply call me Yara.”

Yara wore a blue button-up shirt that would have made her look like a boy if her hair wasn’t twisted into an intricate bun. “Cute” would sum up the bits of her first impression that didn’t include choking her with thin air. She thumbed the handle of her coffee mug “Just don’t do that again, even if you can get away with it.”

“I’m confused. Don’t we cast spells with sigils? Is it indecent to look?”

Yara shook her head. “Seeing one and probing are completely different. An invocation sigil is your will given form, a reflection of your soul.” She lifted a finger in the air. A green scroll winked itself into existence and opened with a fwap. The bit of whym she segregated to bring it up was like a single rain drop. Negligible, if she wasn’t paying attention to it. “Calling them for their own sake is a sign of trust, or respect. You’re literally bearing your soul. If you go deeper than the surface, you can pick up memories or emotions. Intimate things. Spreading your senses is fine but, if you must cast to do so, do not. You may overstep.”

Nan nodded. So “feeling” harder would reveal someone’s sigil without their permission. That may present problems down the road. When she picked up Yara’s odd signature, zeroing in was almost a knee-jerk reaction. “I didn’t cast anything, you felt unique, and I kind of wanted to know why. Sorry.”

Yara grimaced. “Oh dear. You have a natural affinity for it then. That is unfortunate.” Both of her hands clasped over her mug. She drummed her fingertips against the plain white material, mulling something over. “In any case, someone should have told you. How long have you been… alive?”

“Nan got out of medical stasis an hour and a half ago. Thanks for not killing her, she’s a good kid.”

She didn’t notice the soother coming up the ramp. Cogs deposited two plates stacked with bacon and pancakes covered in syrup and a blue fruit-like thing that was too large to be any berry she knew; grey seeds ran along one half of its heart-shaped form. Glasses filled with chocolate milk trailed behind.

“Izusa, you are mistaken, I would never!” Yara’s gaze shifted to the chair. Her expression changed from one of shock to horror. She pulled at her horns in distress, the sound she made was most definitely a baa. “Nan, are you in a fragile state? Did I hurt you?”

“Naw, she’s fine. I’ll savor that reaction of yours though, thanks.”

Yara’s cheeks turned an interesting shade of pink. “Soother Izusa Keme. That was low of you. Your cruelty is boundless.” Her admonition had no bite behind it, just disappointment. Given what she’s seen of her in the past few moments, Izusa was simply being Izusa, and Yara had long adapted to her ways.

Nan would have found the exchange humorous, had there not been a giant hairy spider in polished blue plate mail stalking behind the good doctor.

(Oo/\oO)​

Sometimes I feel like I'm cheating you out of entertainment when I end a chapter without glorious evisceration, or hand wrenchingly painful revelations, but character setup takes precedence before action. How are you supposed to care for what may happen to anyone if you haven't seen them do anything but fight? Even Tekken and League of Legends have dialogue bits that serve to humanize the characters. That aspect is even more important in written fiction, especially with my low level of experience. For those of you that want to see lobbed off heads and force lightning, hold fast, we are getting there. I just feel like I would be doing readers a disservice if my writing was all flash and no substance, no emotional weight.

On a side note, I had quite a bit of fun with Yara's dialogue. I had a dream some time ago about a woman with a frilled shirt and a ruler saying "I am very cross with you" and felt the need to try out a character that spoke in a faux Victorian English ever since. I had similar plans for a character to use it in Incursion, but I've had little motivation to do fandom writing recently.

On a side, side note: thanks for the kind words you two! You help me beat back my doubts.