Zalia sat, back against the Ancient of Life, staring up to the sky above as the canopy of the Grove slowly healed. The emotions inside of her were in turmoil, spinning around themselves in a tangled web. Nothing had changed, yet she felt different.
Ember had gone to do what she felt was right for her and had given Zalia the freedom to do what she loved. It was good, it felt great even. Yet there was a part of her that felt strange, conflicted.
“What do I do Boreal?”
Her friend was there, snuggled up against her, their bond a reflection of the one leading off to Endaria where Ember was starting her journey out of Nature’s Reclaim. Zalia could feel her still, her emotions and the echo of her thoughts that came down the bond. Her feelings were much as Zalia’s, confused but hopeful. This was a new direction for their relationship, one that moved away from the groove they had found themselves in. It wasn’t a bad thing, but it was different.
Boreal was purring a deep and rhythmic sound, helping to calm Zalia. It was nice, spreading a warmth through her body
Aylie walked up from somewhere else in the Grove with Lumin by her side, looking worried as she spotted Zalia.
“What happened, are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Ember has gone back to Nature’s Reclaim and is going to spend some time helping people rebuild their lives there.
“Oh.”
Zalia shrugged as nonchalantly as she could manage, trying to compose herself.
“I guess it’s been coming for a while. She knows that I’ll return to Cormaine and she doesn’t want to go there. I don’t think she could stand waiting at home for me to return, either, so she’s gone to find a life for herself outside of us. It’s good.”
“I still want to come to Cormaine with you when the time comes. I think.. I think I have to, for myself and for my family.”
Zalia knew Aylie wasn’t talking about her, Ember and Boreal, but her birth family. The ones who had been slaughtered by demons when they had invaded Endaria. Aylie arguably had more invested in taking back Cormaine than Zalia did.
“If you go now, you can still catch Ember before she gets too far out from Nature’s Reclaim.”
Aylie shook her head.
“I can speak to her in my dreams, the next time she sleeps. Don’t worry about me.”
Zalia couldn’t help but worry, though. Ember was as much Aylie’s family as Zalia was. She got to her feet, squared her shoulders and took a deep and centering breath.
“I’ll be fine, I just need to focus my mind on something. I have to set up a Herbal Nexus in one of the Groves but I’m not sure if I should wait and set it up in Cormaine as a way to reinforce our defences there faster or put it in Nature’s Reclaim.”
Aylie stared at her. Zalia knew that Aylie could see the turmoil that she was trying to keep inside, but didn’t balk from changing the subject.
“Can you move it around, after you’ve set it up?”
Zalia focused her mind on the new effect of Herbal Magic.
“I… think so. It feels like I can move it around but it will definitely take some time. All of the benefits it would be giving to the previous Grove will be lost as soon as I move it, though.”
“And is that easy to do?”
“Yes, it will just require some focus. That’s what it feels like at least.”
Aylie stood and held her hands out to help Zalia up.
“Well, let’s go do it then. Set it up in Nature’s Reclaim and we can see how strong it is.”
Zalia took her offered help to stand, and walked over to the portal. She opened it up, before realising that she should let Glemp know where she was going. The ritual might be able to sustain them, but it wouldn’t be nice to just disappear.
She went over to the building that they were working in, then popped her head through the door.
“I’m just heading over to another of my Groves for a bit. I’ll get Boreal to stay here with you.”
Glemp, who was bent over a bench working with immaculate neatness and a steady hand, didn’t say anything. She shrugged.
“Boreal, can you just watch out for Glemp while I’m in Nature’s Reclaim please?”
Boreal got up from where she was still laying by the tree, then sat herself in the doorway. Zalia scratched Boreal’s head a bit, before heading back and through the portal.
The familiar sights of Nature’s Reclaim greeted her as she stepped through, the trees, grass, overgrown buildings and the strange mixture of people and animals that lived together. Her house, her home.
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Aylie followed her through, asking a question pointedly.
“So, how do you get this going?”
Zalia looked away from the house, to the tree of life rising far above. She knew that the three ancients would be a large part of the ability when she activated it. The power of the new effects would be intrinsically linked to all three.
“I just do it.”
Power surged out from Zalia and the Ancient of Life in front of her began to change. It grew taller, wispy mist in colours of green and blue swirling around it as the house nestled beneath its roots melted away. The multiple trunks that had previously spread around the house formed into one, central trunk of massive proportions.
A crow, the Ancient of Wisdom in Nature’s Reclaim, flew over to land atop one of the giant rippling roots of the Ancient of Life. It was growing in size to match that of Boreal, emitting waves across the astral that Zalia could just barely feel. Aylie felt them much stronger, so far as to be physically pushed back by them like a strong wind.
The final ancient, that of war, padded up to sit in front of the thick trunk of the Ancient of Life. It was growing too, reaching twice the size of Boreal as its coat faded from the tawny colours of a plains cat to black and red; the colours of blood and death.
Zalia felt the true strength of the Grove come alive as a door unlocked in her mind. Where the Grove and nature had been two separate ideas, now they were one. She could will the very earth and air around her to take on the properties that she wished them to. Should the Grove need to defend itself, the air could form into a barrier as strong as any her ritual magic was capable of making. The earth beneath could be changed to provide nutrition to the plants and nature of the Grove, or it could turn to the reverse, barren and lifeless.
The flora around them, the fruit trees lining the streets, the grass padding sprouting from between cobbles and the vines that grew from branch to branch to provide shade to the people of the Grove, whispered of secrets and answers to the questions of life.
She heard exclamations of surprise and awe as the magic of the Grove changed in an instant. It felt fresh and powerful, the new magic flowing through it a binding of two Gold rank abilities and three other beings.
Her eyes were inevitably drawn to where her home had used to stand. It had been consumed by the ancient of life, the entire thing vanishing through the powerful use of magic. The house had been a comfortable place, one of many memories, yet she knew that it wouldn’t be of use any longer. Neither she or Ember would be staying there for a long time. Zalia might even end up in Cormaine before staying here once more. She could always recreate it, but found no need for it now.
Instead, she focused on creating something new, something fresh to her senses.
Zalia liked nature, the wilds, living rough in the forest without the comforts of a constructed home. Instead of creating a house, she made a forest of normal sized trees around the Ancient of Life. There would be no huts here like the other Groves had, no paths or other features that could be found in a city. Instead, she coated the ground in thick grass, then other undergrowth plants. Some patches of ground cover vines appeared, then various bushes and saplings.
Layers of magic folded over the circular patch of land that was her plot in the city. First protections from senses, hearing, sight and even smell. Then physical protections came next, barrier after barrier that defended against different types of magic, until she had a place of safety. Nothing short of an Emerald rank of higher being could enter or leave without her permission, nor could they see into the space. She mentally commanded the invisible ritual magic to allow a few people in and out automatically, including Boreal, Boreal’s children, the ancients, Leyra, Hedion, Glemp, Zen, Hildebrandt, Ro, General Faian and Ember.
With that done, she focused on the city’s defences as a whole, and began to layer very similar rituals over everything. These were a little more comprehensive in who or what they allowed in, with rituals that could determine the intention of a being in control of whether it was allowed past the other defences or not.
It struck Zalia that creating these effects manually would be nearly impossible. The sheer amount of plants that it would require to set up the effects as compactly as they were simply wouldn’t be possible without the Gold rank effect of Herbal Magic, let alone accomplishing the same thing with a town still inside of it. She considered it a good omen for the success of their invasion into Cormaine when it happened. With Hildebrandt to create her dome over an island and then Zalia able to create the Grove inside of that, they should be able to safely establish a foothold in the place.
Aylie hadn’t been watching the changes made to Nature’s Reclaim throughout the process so much as she had been watching Zalia herself.
“It feels different to before, very different.”
Zalia knew she didn’t just mean by normal senses, but to her magical ones too.
“Yeah, some of the protections are against your type of magic too. One of the barriers is against astral perception, something that I can apparently do with the right type of ritual. It’s strange, there are more than a number of them that I haven’t ever even considered or figured out how to perform, yet a stray thought managed to do so. It’s so… instinctual.”
Aylie nodded agreement.
“I could see that. I can’t read your thoughts as I can many others, but it was as if you weren’t putting thoughts out into the astral but the power inside you was forming them instead.”
That interested Zalia, though not enough to push thoughts of Ember to the back of her mind. Instead, she looked around at the comfortable but alien appearance of Nature’s Reclaim. Maybe a few weeks or months spent fighting off the warped creatures of the far north were exactly what she needed. Some time to clear her mind, help deal with a problem and really sort her priorities would be good for her.
She hadn’t really had a plan for life in general ever since leaving her parents house behind and wandering out to the wilds of her own world. Most of her time and thought there had been focused on surviving and a lot of it since entering Endaria had been the same. There had been a few less busy years with Ember in which she had passed the days with a constant feeling of restlessness.
As it finally settled into her mind that she might be living for hundreds if not thousands of years, the realisation that she might need to actually set herself some real goals set in. Surviving wasn’t enough anymore.
Yes, time in the far north would be good.
“I think I’m going to go north, sort myself out while I help deal with the infected animals there. I understand if you don’t want to come with me and it’s not too late if you want to stay in Endaria to go catch Ember before she gets too far away.”
She turned to Aylie, who met her eyes with an intensity.
“I think Ember wants to be alone for a while. You have a way of sweeping people up in the wake of your convictions that causes people to either get lost in them or become aggressively opposed to you, and Ember needs to find her own path more than you do, I think. I’d like to stay with you, for now. I can always come back easily.”
“Alright then. I’m sure there is more I can do with this power but I think it’s best that I push everything over the edge to Gold rank now. I’m close, so close. Let’s go.”
She stepped back through to the Aurora Grove, feeling at least a little purpose for the future. Yes, this change would come with some discomfort and confusion but it also came with freedom. She would make use of that freedom as she could.
