Her True Form

Yvette sat down on one of the beach’s many rocks, her vision returned to normal and no longer able to make out all of the details in the dark. Instead she had to resort to making a small, glowing light that hovered a little overhead. Occasionally the bursts of lightning could be seen in the distance, but they were now far enough away that Gervas seemed confident they were safe. The weird thing was that every so often she could see the clouds above twisting and writhing before they unleashed their thunder, almost as if they were alive.

Gervas was sitting besides her, looking through the map and trying to determine the proper route for them to take in the morning. She couldn’t help but be thankful that he had deemed traveling through the night as too dangerous despite her earlier desires. Whatever was going on out there she wasn’t sure they’d have been able to survive if they drew their attention. She wasn’t sure her dragon turtle form could survive a lightning bolt like that, let alone Gervas.

“Are you sure we’re far enough away?” Yvette asked, barely suppressing the urge to jump when three more blasts tore through the night. She would have sworn she saw a small pillar of fire up in the clouds.

“I’m hoping. You set the wards?” Gervas asked.

“Yeah. But I’m not sure they’d be effective enough,” Yvette said. Suddenly fierce winds washed over them and she grabbed his arm tightly, looking around nervously for any sign of trouble. Fortunately the winds died quickly and it didn’t seem to be a sign of new danger. “Do you think it was happening last night as well?” she asked.

Gervas said. “If it did, we were too far away to notice.”

Yvette nodded before glancing back out over the water. She couldn’t help but imagine all those sunken ships, how many had been hit by those bolts? “What do you think is going on out here? What do you think that cry is?”

“They’re fighting someone, that’s for certain,” Gervas said with a soft sigh. “Whatever it was is probably the cause of the mountain. Mage battle of some sort. Excessive, inaccurate, bright, flashy, not actually doing anything useful. Sounds like mages to me.”

Yvette gave a light snort. “Yeah, sounds like how you’d see it. You don’t think I’d be doing something like that, do you?”

“You’re not the kind of mage to get dragged into that kind of thing,” Gervas said.

“I am a fallen mage,” Yvette said.

“A clear sign that, once again, most mages are idiots,” Gervas said. “Anybody who’s known you for more than a day should know you’re incapable of doing anything that a fallen mage should be punished for.”

Yvette felt her cheeks go a little redder. “It was your grandmother who marked me, you know.”

“And I’ll call her an idiot again,” Gervas said before he reached out, gently ruffling her hair. “You may be a bit dense, reckless, borderline suicidal and a lot of other things that aren’t polite to say. But you’re not a danger to anyone unless you have to be. I wouldn’t be here if you were. Neither would you. Though, speaking of danger...”

Yvette waited for him to continue, but to her annoyance he just stopped. “Speaking of danger, what?”

“It won’t work right now, anyway,” Gervas said with an exasperated sigh.

“What won’t?”

“I need to continue your training. You handled yourself well enough, but I don’t like the idea of you running into anyone else who wants you dead with the way your skills currently are. These people may not have been the best, but-- hey!”

Yvette had cut him off by leaning into him, hard, nearly pushing him off the rock. “Seriously? There’s a literal magic storm within viewing and hearing distance of us and you’re worried if I can fight with a knife? I’m going to tell you now. I am nowhere near powerful enough a mage I could fight whatever is doing that. How about we worry about my knife skills AFTER we’ve gotten away from whoever is doing that?” she asked, trying to sound stern but unable to keep the smile off her lips at the almost pouting look he was giving her. “Don’t look at me like that, you know I’m right.”

“You need to be better with that knife, there’s no telling when danger will strike,” Gervas said before pulling himself back up and giving her a light bump when he sat down. “Besides, you’re more likely to run into someone swinging a sword at you than trying to hit you with a storm.”

“That’s fair. But my point still stands, now isn’t the time,” Yvette said, trying not to snicker. “Tiring ourselves out in the middle of a journey like this isn’t smart and you know it. We’ll have time for more practice. Eventually, once everything is over, we can practice all day, every day, if you like. Who knows? Perhaps one day you’ll be asking me for tips on how to better stab the sharp, pointy bit into the other guy before they stab their sharp pointy bit into you.”

Gervas gave a light chuckle. “You wouldn’t last a week training like that,” he said before shifting around a little bit, an arm wrapping around her and, very gently, pulling her against him. “Though, neither would I. After a while it would get boring.”

Yvette chuckled and closed her eyes. “I could teach you a bit of magic if you like, we could trade. I’ll learn to stab things better, you can learn to light them on fire. Or whatever it is you wanted to learn.”

Gervas gave a light shudder and gently pinched her side. “I don’t know. I think I know more magic than I’ve ever wanted to know. Besides, I doubt you’d be the ideal teacher for me.”

Yvette gave a light snicker. “Oh, I don’t know. I put up with you for weeks at a time without trying to turn you into a frog yet, I think that alone makes me more qualified than most.”

“Oh, turn me into a frog? That’d be new. Better than being run down by a golem at least,” Gervas said before reaching up and gently stroking her hair. “We need to get food ready then ready to sleep. This area is clear enough, if we hide the bag we--”

“We’re not going to sleep in the bag again, are we?” Yvette asked, looking up at him.

“Would you prefer the stone beach?” Gervas asked.

“Yes,” Yvette said softly. “At least we won’t suffocate.”

Gervas gave a soft sigh before shaking his head. “Yvette, you worry too much. It’s fine. We slept in it easily enough yesterday and--”

“We shouldn’t make a habit of it,” Yvette said. “It’s dangerous.”

“I think almost everything we do qualifies as dangerous,” Gervas said. “Today we literally just walked on a beach and still had to fight for our lives. Not to mention we’re still within sight of whatever that is.”

“But it’s more dangerous than what we usually do,” Yvette said. “Besides, whoever is doing all of that doesn’t know we’re here. That’s random danger, sleeping in a bag is direct danger.”

“You literally went to the bottom of the sea and annoyed a leviathan,” Gervas said with a roll of his eyes.

“Well, okay, sure. But--”

“And we had to fight a giant turtle the size of a mountain,” Gervas said.

Yvette’s cheeks burned a little redder then. “Okay, also true. But then—”

“You robbed one of the most dangerous and well protected arcane vaults in the world,” Gervas said.

“Okay, fine, I do a lot of dangerous things. But what if it closes?” Yvette asked.

Gervas shook his head. “We’ll do the same thing we did before. Lock it open. Just stop worrying about that. Trust me, there are a lot of other things you should worry about first, like--” Another wave of lightning in the distance cut him off. “That. Let’s eat and then turn in, I don’t want to be here any longer than we have to be once the sun comes up.”

Yvette gave a small sigh before nodding. “Right, fine,” she said before reaching for her bag and pulling it open. She knew why it was the best decision, it was more comfortable and possibly safer than anywhere else. But all she could think about were all the stories of mages who had their bags close on them, eventually causing them to suffocate entirely. Even if they did force the mouth of the bag open, how could he be so sure it would be safe?

Still, he was probably right. She was being far too paranoid and, in the end, it wasn’t like there were a lot of better places to sleep.

------

“They should make homes like this,” Gervas said.

Yvette glanced over at him. Due to the magic space of the bag, things had been simple to re-arrang as needed and shove to the side, the internals of the bag shifting around at their direction to give them space. “They’ve tried. Kind of.”

“Oh?” Gervas asked. “Tried how?”

“Well, I’ve heard of some mages who made entire buildings like this,” Yvette said. “Buildings that are bigger on the inside than the outside, kind of. But the problem tends to be that they’re unstable. Like, right now? The bag is only a few feet deep and wide enough for us to lay down side by side, we can get up and easily crawl out. But before, it was far deeper and not very wide. It shifts around as needed. But the bigger it gets, the more unstable it gets. On top of that, if the enchantment ends up cracking or breaking, it will send everything out right away and cause a lot of destruction. It’s why, in most cases, mages won’t use anything bigger than this. They can also be incredibly unstable if they touch each other. The magic interacts poorly, so if you accidentally brought a bag like this into a building with one of these enchantments, it could just explode and send everything flying out. The last thing you’d want is ten rooms worth of your life’s work forced to occupy a small single room area. Especially if you’re inside it at the time.”

Gervas gave a shudder. “You make it sound like you’re carrying a dangerous weapon slung over your shoulder everywhere you go.”

Yvette snickered and shook her. “No more dangerous than some of the things you’ve used. Besides, you carry a sharp metal stick around, those are dangerous I hear.”

“I’ve never carried bag that is anywhere near this large,” Gervas said. “I’ve never had that much that needed carrying. Swords don’t explode, either.”

“Smaller ones are a lot more stable,” Yvette said, quickly trying to cut off any worries before they got too severe. “For example, there are some mages who make their money pouches like this. They wouldn’t have nearly the same reaction as one of the size of a room. But in the end, the shifting nature of them means it’s really hard to stabilize them as well. So you don’t want to put anything inside them that’s too delicate or it will likely break when the walls of this reality crush it.”

“You know more about this kind of magic than I would have expected you to,” Gervas said.

“Magic like this is connected to magic for teleportation or even going to other worlds. Well, in theory,” Yvette said.

Gervas gave a light chuckle, eyeing her for a few moments. “Oh? Other worlds?”

“Yes, like the fay realm,” Yvette said, giving a soft sigh before she started picking at that particular wound. “Though that’s also just a theory. The fay live in an entirely different world from us, but it’s incredibly hard to get into it without their aid. While there have been thousands of mages throughout history who have tried to actually go there on their own, or other worlds, it’s unknown if any succeeded. Most just ended up disappearing, never to return.”

Gervas was silent for a few seconds and she could almost feel him processing what she said. She felt a small moment of dread when his hand took hers. “Yvette? What’s wrong? Did you know someone who tried that?”

“Of course not, I never had any talent for that kind of magic,” Yvette said, struggling to keep the disappointment out of her voice and sound as cheerful and casual as she could. “Though it was one of my first attempts to kind of fix myself.”

Gervas gave her hand a little squeeze. “Attempts to fix, wait, how would that even work? Did you hope that by going to another realm you’d become a girl?”

“No, nothing like that!” Yvette said with a shake of her head. “That’d be silly. I just thought if I could make it to another world, perhaps there would be a way to fix me without causing so much trouble. But I couldn’t properly do the most basic of spells even with weeks of practice, actually going to another realm would be all but impossible. I’m kind of trapped here.”

“I’m sorry,” Gervas said and, judging by how sad his voice sounded, she hadn’t managed to hide the disappointment in her voice at all.

“What? What are you sorry for? It was just a silly dream of a young mage, that’s all,” Yvette said with a nervous chuckle.

“I’m sorry you ever felt that way,” Gervas said gently. “Didn’t you say nobody ever came back?”

“I mean, nobody has ever been recorded returning,” Yvette said with a shake of her head. “They might have died. Or maybe there was no way back. Or maybe they just didn’t want to come back, nobody knows. But with the way magic spilled into our world, it had to come from somewhere. So there has to be other worlds out there. Different ones.”

“The fact you felt you would be better off going to another world so you could be yourself. Nobody should ever have to feel that way,” Gervas said.

Yvette flushed then rolled over, laying her head against his chest. He jumped a little, but didn’t pull away. Instead he reached down and gently stroked her hair. “It’s okay,” Yvette said softly. “I made a lot of really silly decisions then, hoping to get this fixed. In the end, I think this is the correct one. Was the correct one. I’ve got the spell, I’ve already got a few of the components. So all I need to do is finish the job and then, bam, I’ll be a girl. Nobody will be able to say otherwise. Then it’ll all be worth it.”

“And the Mage’s Association?” Gervas asked.

“Once I’m a girl, I’ll just disappear. As long as I’m with you and I can be me, I don’t care what they agree or disagree with. They won’t be able to take it away from me. It’s not like they can just magic me back to being a boy, they’d have to break their own rules. Besides, once it happens, maybe I can get them to accept that it’s okay. I’m sure there are other people who would love this chance to be themselves. No, I know there are. I’d like to be able to help them, if I can.”

Gervas gave a soft sigh, though she could all but hear the smile in his voice. “You know it’s not going to be that easy.”

“Since when has anything I’ve done been easy?” Yvette asked. “Besides, if everything worth doing was easy, then it’d probably be boring.”

“Nothing more dangerous in the world than a bored mage,” Gervas said with a soft yawn. “Put out the light and let’s go to sleep, okay?”

Yvette nodded before glancing up at the small orb of dim light hovering a few inches above them. She glanced at the opening of the bag once more. It was held open with a small bundle of tied sticks that Gervas had made. The bag itself was hidden amongst the rocks, with a ward outside so if anything came near them then she’d know. It didn’t make her feel perfectly safe, but it did help.

Yvette snapped her fingers and the light went out. She pulled off Gervas’ chest and laid down besides him, pulling her cloak over herself and glancing over towards him. “Hey, Gervas?”

“What?” Gervas asked.

“When you say things like that, about mages? When you talk about how dangerous they are, how they behave. You don’t mean me, do you?” Yvette asked, nervously licking her lips. She felt a small ball of worry forming in her stomach, anxiously awaiting his answer.

Unfortunately, he didn’t answer immediately. Instead he was silent for a few seconds before sighing. “No, not really. If you want my honest opinion, I don’t think it applies to every mage. Sometimes I doubt it applies to most. I’ve known quite a few it applies to, but I’ve met a few like you. Those who don’t make things worse. There’s just not nearly enough mages like you, to be honest.”

“Thanks. I know there are some pretty bad mages out there,” Yvette said with a small sigh. After a few moments she felt his fingers wrap around hers. “Gervas?”

“I really don’t mean you,” Gervas said softly. “If those comments are upsetting you, let me know. I’ll try and make less of them. Okay?”

Yvette felt her heart skip a beat, a small smile forming on her lips. She shook her head. “I don’t mind. I really don’t. I think…” She stopped for a second before she leaned in a little closer and gave him a soft little kiss on the cheek. She felt his fingers tighten around hers. “I know what happened to you means that you have some pretty bad feelings about mages. I don’t blame you. I think anyone would. But I’m really happy you’re giving me a chance anyway. I know a lot of people wouldn’t.”

Gervas gave a small chuckle. “Well, I’ve had worse relationships. Mage or not.”

Yvette gave a light snort and squeezed his hand once more. “Go to bed, we’ve got a long morning tomorrow. Well, I’ve got a long morning. You’re going to be just relaxing on my back while I do all the hard work.”

“Mmm, you say that, but it’s hard work up there. I have to make sure to navigate us. Who knows what could happen if we got lost? Not to mention every time you hit a wave I get splashed.”

Yvette chuckled and almost responded with a sarcastic comment before she considered it. So far they’d seen some strange lightning, run into sirens and been attacked by men who were possibly from the Eterna Empire. The last thing she wanted to do while on these islands was get lost.