A Cracked Star

[Arya]

 

Morning rolls around and the group is gathering by the entrance of the cave. Taleah over to the side talking with the party leader, whose name I still haven't heard. The rest of the guy's party is securing their bags to the carriage.

 

Taleah decided to show me a few ways to use earth magic, how to construct the spell and the different effects some of the runes have. I find myself taking a long time to absorb knowledge from her, usually needing my notebook to write things down so I can read over and remind myself of them. 

 

But in the process of making the carriage, and a golem to move it with, she explained how while the image the user has when performing a spell is important, knowing how a spell forms itself from the weave is equally as important. 

 

"Alright everyone, it's time to leave." Taleah said, climbing onto the carriage, pulling me out of my thoughts. "The city isn't going to save itself and we have a long ride ahead of us."

 

"What made her so pushy this morning?" Dawn asks. 

 

I whisper back to her. "We learned there is a potential poison being spread through the elves' capital, at least according to Stella and Taleah." 

 

"Yeah, that's a valid reason to be rushing. Did she say how long the ride is to the capital?" She asked.

 

I shrugged as I walked towards the carriage. "Hey Dawn, you want to take over for the trip? I'd rather not be disturbed while working through my study time.

 

"Mhm, why not, I haven't talked much with Miss guardian." She says before taking over, once in control she calls out Rosa who takes her small form, allowing her to take her position around Dawn's neck. 

 

"What is she, a pillow you use on airplanes?" I say letting out a soft laugh.

 

"How do you . . right, shared memories." Dawn says, face in her hand. "I keep forgetting that, haah, go bug Stella, she's still in bed" 

 

As Dawn gets closer to the carriage I overheard the elf party leader before his little sister punched him in his side, "Will you quit staring, if they don't want to talk about it then leave it. We should be thankful they're even agreeing to help us. And don't think I haven't noticed you staring at her tail; besides she won't even be interested in you."

 

I hear him start to stutter I think as his face is filled with shock..

 

"Woman's intuition and who wouldn't stare, it's probably one of the fluffiest tails I’ve seen on a beastkin ever." She says with a small blush as her brother rolls his eyes before saying something back.

 

"Yes, her tail is very expressive.” She says, making me turn my head to look at our tail freely swaying side to side as Dawn climbs into the carriage. “There, happy?."

 

He stares at her for a few seconds before turning away.

 

Dawn, once situated on the carriage, grabs Rosa to place her in her lap after setting her ax down to get comfortable. "Taleah, how long is this going to take?" She says coldly. 

 

"I don't know, we have to cross through mountains which will take a while because of the creatures that are there." Taleah said.

 

"So at least over a month." She says, before giving a flat stare to the group of elves. "You really came this far for a herb that probably won't help?"

 

As Dawn scoffs at them, I tell her I'll be messing with spells in our space, so to not be surprised if she feels low on mana later.

 

"Go enjoy yourself, I'll just talk with Taleah and Rosa for now." She says out loud, getting weird looks from the elves.

 

"You know you don't need to speak out in the open right?" I say only for Dawn to shrug in response.

 

Making my way to the library and lab room I glance at my status page. 

---

Arya Vamir/Campbell

Titles: 

Children of the Stars 

Broken Soul Anew

Iron lady

???

 

Race: Astral Wolfkin

Racial Skills:

Space Affinity: I

Ice Affinity: I

Solar Affinity: I

Earth Affinity: II

 

Class: Entropy Moon

Level: 3

 

Skills:

Mana Overload: I

Detect Magic: I

Sense Soul: II

Inspect: I

 

Unique Skills:

Time-Locked Library

Soul Dominion

---

 

Oh, the little lesson from Taleah actually leveled up Earth affinity. The idea of golems seems okay, but I don't know if that's something I want to take the time to understand. From what Taleah showed, the intricacies of it runs deep. I mean I have the time but I could probably use that time more efficiently for now. 

 

My control over mana has gotten better, and the inspiration I have from how I attacked that one elven scum yesterday is a path I'd like to look more into. Locking down space in sections could be a big advantage. Maybe if we take our perception spell and include that sort of function, we could catch attacks thrown at us if needed. 

 

I start writing down ideas, crossing out the ones that either prove too difficult or wouldn't help in the long run. 

 

~~~~~

[Dawn]

 

I'm so bored, a month long carriage ride, at least a month long according to Taleah. The most fun I've had was recreating our inner world and re-learning to control my body again. I always enjoy physical activities, even if it renders me useless on anything else.

 

I need to start over to regain the control over my body I had like before. I can run now after working on my sense of balance again, but that will only take me so far. Just don’t know if I should start learning to handle my ax now or just my body.

 

This trip is going to be more boring than I thought huh, I hope I can at least get some training in whenever we stop. I hope the mountains we cross through prove to be anything enjoyable, so far the woods have shown nothing fun to fight. Even if the hunting in the woods has helped with everything physical wise for me.

 

"Haaaah." I sigh, scooping up Rosa into a hug as the carriage starts to take off.

 

"Hug? Are we going somewhere? Can we play?" Rosa says, tail wagging happily as she barrages me with questions, making me laugh a little as I run my hand through her fur. 

 

"Not now, the ride just started so we can mess around during our stops, best bet is to take a nap for now. Maybe go to your actual size and I can lay down with her, how does that sound?" I say as I give her a soft smile.

 

"The trip just started and you want to sleep already?" Taleah grumbles from the front of the carriage. 

 

"I could use it honestly, besides, what do you want me to do then?" I replied. "Do you have any games we could do to pass the time? Or a book you find interesting? Please just do anything for me to pass the time." 

 

"I have a few books in my bag but most of them are just magic theories or history books." She says, before looking away slightly, "I have a few romance books but I don't think you'd enjoy those." 

 

"Can't sleep, rather not personally." I say quietly, "I'll take a look at the history books and magic theories then, it wouldn’t hurt to learn about this region." 

 

"Fine, but don't come running back to complain when your boredom grows even stronger than before." She says before pulling out a stack of books to hand over.

 

Looking over the book covers, I quickly realize that she gave me the wrong books. Finding all of them to be some sort of smut or romance title. I can feel my face heating up extremely fast when I read titles like 'The Bound Fox' or 'The Seamstress and the Blooming Rose', there's even one called 'Tied up and Awaiting my Mistress'.  My face is completely hot as I throw the books back at Taleah's head getting a small yelp, making her turn towards me. "What was that for?" 

 

"Y-y-you degenerate!" I say, completely flustered before grabbing Rosa and going to our inner world to hide away from them. 

 

Eventually after close to an hour, I calmed down enough for me to come out. "The teapot is awake it seems." Taleah calls out. "You should sleep more, you know, it's not good to skip out on it."

 

"Oh shut it, I don't need you worrying too." I say motioning towards the books, "Make sure you give me the right books this time." 

 

~~~~~

 

A few days pass by and we're left the forest finally. The entire trip has been simple so far, it's just been riding in the carriage through the day, camping out at night where I train my body movements. 

 

Arya has stayed in our inner world the entire time while Stella has joined every once in a while to chat with me. I've been able to get closer to the two since waking up slowly. 

 

I've learned that Arya truly is like an open book from what Stella has told me, she gets excited at any new idea she comes across or thinks of when it comes to magic. That a lot of her likes come from both Stella and I, to her own dismay though. 

 

The thought that someone has their entire likes and dislikes from other people and not their own opinions scares me. I don't know what I would do if everything I think of my life is from someone else's memories.

 

"I wonder how my family is doing." Stella says, floating around me aimlessly as I sit by the fire. The elven party went out to get food tonight since it's their turn. "My leave was so sudden, and with how it happened too? I bet they're worried."

 

"I can agree with you. Outside of Rosa and my pops,  I can't help but think back to my friends who were with me when the spell that dragged me here activated." I bring up, "Did I ever say how the spell looked when it happened?" 

 

"No, only that one second you were standing with your friends, the next a giant magic circle lit up underneath you before you passed out." Stella says.

 

"The spell. . . it looked like it had cracks in it, with sections straight up missing." I say, "Whatever happened to the spell, I don't imagine it was supposed to look like that. I might be wrong too, I wasn’t able to exactly see correctly during that event."

 

"You're probably right. I think after we finish up at the elven city and the ruins back in the forest we try to head back to my family's home." Stella says

 

"I'm fine with that, my home is really now just in our inner world." I say as my ears start to droop, "I do want to put some effort into finding my friends. If the spell messed up and caused us to appear in the forest then who knows where they ended up at."

 

"We'll find them." Stella says, "You have Arya and I, we're in this together even with how crazy our circumstances have been. Though I will say I've greatly enjoyed my time with you and Arya."

 

"Yeah" I said softly. I don't remember the last time, except for my few friends, where I thought of someone besides Pops and Rosa as family, but the more time I spend with them, the more I start to see them as such. Let's hope they're doing good alright in this world, Katherin will probably be fine though.

 

"Hey Arya!" I heard the party leader call out to me, I decided against telling them my name, to not add anymore confusion to them. "We caught some fish from a stream nearby, can you help us prepare them?" 

 

"Sure, just bring them over." I say while making my way over to a smooth stone to use. "We'll continue this later Stella, and thanks."

 

"Taleah, do we have any spices I can use?" I asked Taleah who was currently laying down on the carriage's driver seat.

 

 "It's in the back, don't go too crazy with it.” She replied.

 

"Yeah, yeah, I'm not planning to suck you dry of your spices." I said.

 

I scratch my head as I try to remember the recipe pops liked to use when preparing fish. I just hope we have everything for it, or if needed, stuff to replace in the recipe.