Night of Endless Portals

Yierie and I spent the night wrapped in each other’s arms. We didn’t make love, though the temptation rose high in my mind. I was still a virgin and had no idea how long we were supposed to wait, or if my human ideas of courtship even applied here. Cuddling and snuggling into Yierie was more than worth it though. As I lay with Yierie breathing into her hair, I discovered I would not mind cuddling with her forever.

Tia woke us up early the next morning. We had breakfast together and my sister and I ventured off to our Elven classes. Today I felt even more motivated to learn the tongue. Nothing would please me more than to be able to converse with my lover in her native language.

We broke for lunch, I finally remembered Alaric. “Hey Tia, you want a surprise?”

“Oh my god, yes! What is it?! Can I have it now?” A few of the other students noticed her shouting in the halls, but none of them stopped her.

“Let’s go find Yierie and bring her with us. Then I’ll show you my surprise, what do you say?”

“Okay!” Tia hopped up into my arms and I carried her off to meet up with Yierie. The ease with which I managed to lift and carry Tia continued to amaze.

“Hey Yierie, can we have dinner with our fancy new guest?” I winked at her and held my fingers to my lips as I mouthed “Alaric” over Tia’s head.

Yierie’s eyes widened and she nodded at me. “Of course. I take it this is a surprise?”

“Right! No sense in spoiling it, right?”

Tia twisted in my grip and poked me in the nose. “You’re both so mean! Just tell me!”

“Nope, when we get there, you’ll know.”

Tia squirmed and begged the entire time we walked toward Alaric’s part of the ship. I kept using that word, but nothing about the Crystal Orchid suggested movement. If not for our occasional meals in the open glass dining room, I would never have known we were even in a flying ship.

Usually a good sport about such things, Tia had taken to outright pouting by the time we made it to Alaric’s door. The organization of the ship was such that it would have been incredibly easy to get lost. Corridors wound down and around, fouling all sense of direction and elevation. Despite that confusing system, I managed to lead us to Alaric’s room with no assistance from Yierie.

I knocked on the door and waited. We hadn’t warned Alaric we’d be coming, and it only then occurred to me that he might be out or involved in some other project. No one answered the door for almost thirty seconds and I began to worry.

When the door finally did open, it slid into the walls like a mechanical door from a space show. And like the ur-example of all such shows, Alaric appeared with a towel wrapped around his legs and three attractive young elven women draped over him like groupies. “Oh shit, you’re not… Hey Tia! Hey Harriet!”

“Alaric! You’re better and you have friends!” Tia leaped at him and Alaric caught her with both hands.

The three elven women filed out from behind Alaric, all of them in various stages of undress. Alaric nodded to them, but spoke to Tia. “Man am I glad to see you, squirt. Are they feeding you something magical cause I swear you’ve grown a foot!”

Outside of the circle of reunion between Alaric and Tia, the three elven women looked down their noses at Yierie and me. As they waved to Alaric, who mouthed something to them I couldn’t catch, they flitted off. They covered their mouths and laughed with their eyes on Yierie and me. It was clear to me that Yierie and I were the object of their ridicule.

“You didn’t introduce your friends, Alaric.” I said when Tia finally wriggled out of his arms.

He winced. “Yeah, I met them this morning at mess, they were trying to entice me to join their hunter training group.”

Yierie cocked her eyebrow and leaned forward. “Did Sedge speak to you about that yet?”

He waved Yierie off and said, “yeah, kinda. I mean he didn’t get specific. He said I needed to join a training crew before they’d let me head out.”

“Wait, are you saying that’s how you’re supposed to serve?” My tone did nothing to hide my surprise or irritation. “You’re going out hunting?”

Alaric winced at my words and shrugged. “Let me put on a some clothes and then we can talk about it? Maybe over lunch?”

The three of us waited for him to dress, but didn’t speak of anything of substance. Tia gushed over how happy she was to have Alaric back, which amused me to no end considering he’d never left us. When he finally emerged, he wore a pair of light blue pants that billowed in the elven style and a v-neck cream shirt. A pair of bright yellow and red ribbons hung from his left arm. I noticed Yierie staring at those ribbons with a raised eyebrow, but she never made a comment.

We traveled back to the viewing room to eat suspended over the countryside.

“This is amazing.” Alaric gushed over the room. “I mean, Sedge told me this was a flying ship, but there’s no way to tell we’re moving. And he’s an incorrigible prankster.” Alaric stared down between his legs and shook his head at the sights below. “Incredible.”

We hung suspended over a mountain range that filled most of the territory to the north and south, at least I assumed they moved north and south. With the sun almost directly overhead, I couldn’t say which way we were moving with any certainty. Far in the distance, smoke rose from a peak, billowing from a red glow at the crest of the far mountain.

“Is that a volcano?” I pointed to the smoke. “And it is erupting?”

Yierie nodded and said, “Yes, portal activity is not confined to the surface of the planet, though most of the time the portals go inert quickly if they open within solid rock. If they open into magma or a fissure, then things may turn out differently.”

“So that could be a portal to a realm of fire? Alaric leaned down to get a better look at the mountain.

“Or one of the hells, yes.” Yierie spoke casually, as if mentioning an actual realm of demons meant nothing to her.

I shivered. “Let’s hope it’s the former.”

Yierie raised her glass. “I second that.”

Most of the food remained fruits and vegetables. But Alaric scarfed down a plate filled with sliced and roasted meat. Yierie didn’t touch the platter and Alaric didn’t bother trying to offer the meat to me. Tia ignored anything that wasn’t dropped on her plate. Fortunately, she wasn’t a picky eater.

With everyone fed, Alaric leaned back and said, “so about the hunting crews…”

Yierie leaned forward. “I do not recommend you join Sylvestrina or her group.” She motioned to the ribbons on Alaric’s arm. “They are more than adequate spell casters, but their methods are… less than cautious.”

“They seemed nice enough.” Alaric wasn’t quite defensive, more like he waited to see what Yierie was getting at.

“I lead a hunting crew and you would both be welcome to join us, if you decide to serve, Harriet.”

Alaric tapped the table. “Heck yeah! I was going to try to broach the subject with you, Harriet, but I wasn’t sure you wanted to.”

“What about me!?” Tia raised her voice then, looking between the two of us.

I ruffled her hair. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come with us, squirt.”

Alaric shook his head. “Me neither.”

“But Grandpa said…”

Alaric cut her off. “Grandfather said a lot of things. If you’re up here while we’re down on the ground, you’ll be safe. We’ll be returning to the ship no matter what anyway.”

Tia opened her mouth to lodge further protests, but Yierie said, “we do not allow children to accompany hunts regardless. If you stay aboard the ship, you will be able to play with the others.”

“Okay…” Tia narrowed her eyes and conceded the point. I had a feeling she would try something if given the chance.

“What does hunting entail anyway?” I changed the subject slightly, I wanted to know more about this.

“We take on commissions from the elders, especially the council of the hunt. As a part of those commissions, we defeat powerful monsters, collect their parts, and rescue any sentients we can.”

“That sounds like adventures from a roleplaying game.” I snorted at the thought.

Yierie shrugged. “I do not know what you mean.”

I dropped it. In all truth, it sounded like it might be the best option for me, though Yierie had mentioned healing as a way to perform service for the Orchid at one point. That might be safer than most of the other options, but also way less interesting.

“I’d like to think about it. At the very least, I need to be able to speak the language before I do something like that.” It was true and it gave me a nice cushion of time before I had to make a decision.

“That is wise,” Yierie opened her hands and pointed to Alaric. “My hunting crew is currently bound to the ship until I decide otherwise. We would need to train our members to work together before we disembark and you would not be obligated to any other form of service in the interim.”

“Huh, that actually sounds like a good idea.” Alaric raised his silver arm and flexed his hand. “I got a little practice in under Sedge, but I could really use some dedicated time. I feel like a rusty blade after all of this… stuff.” His face darkened with those words and I had the feeling he referred to the events prior to our time on the Orchid.

“Then let’s make it official.” Yierie carved a short set of runes in the air I recognized as a spell of making and shaping. A small red ribbon appeared in her hand and she tossed it over to Alaric. “You would need to remove those other aspirant badges and don my own official badge.”

Alaric shrugged and pulled the two ribbons off of his arm. When he tied the red one on, it shrank to fit his arm and a small white chalice appeared on the side like an emblem. “Cool. I guess the girls won’t mind.”

Yierie sniffed at his words, but didn’t comment further.

We led Alaric back to his own room and departed. Tia begged us to let her stay with Alaric for the night, so we left her in his care. I knew he’d treat her well and the fact she would effectively cock-block him with her presence amused the heck out of me. Though knowing Alaric, he would find a way to use Tia as a lure for the attractive elven ladies who’d seen him as a strong protector. In fact, he probably had that exact plan in mind when he agreed to watch her.

“Hey, how close to training am I?” I squeezed Yierie’s hand with my own.

She grinned and said, “Depends on how language good you make.”

I tilted my head at her and snorted. Without knowing how the magic worked, I could only guess at the method she used to shift from English to Elven. “I guess I have a ways to go still. Is there any other training I can do in the meantime?”

“Of course. Do you possess any martial skills?”

I shook my head. “I trained in hand to hand when I was really young. But I am ten years out of practice and really bad at it. Like almost worse than an amateur bad.”

“Then that would be a place we could start. I am not the most proficient warrior in my crew, but I know a good teacher.”

“Is it Madame Renrara?” I wouldn’t mind spending more time learning with the kindly old elf.

“Unfortunately, no. But I think his style would suit your own.”

“Why does the way you say that make me think I won’t care for him?”

Yierie grinned at me. “Because you are wise for a human and because I don’t think anyone likes Garaghan.”

“When should I meet him?” Yierie had successfully made me nervous about meeting the fighting tutor now.

“I think before dinner would be fine.” She paused as she walked down the hallway. “Would you care to stop by our room first? I…” Her skin flushed and she hung her head in mock shame. “I cannot come up with a sufficiently coy excuse to make out with you.”

“Oh gosh,” I laid my hand on my chest, “do we really need excuses already?”

Yierie laughed without covering her mouth in the moment and blushed again. “I suppose I deserve that. Let’s hurry before I decide to throw my lover over my shoulder so we do not end up making out in the middle of the hall.”

We kissed and lightly petted each other for almost an hour. The subject of sex loomed over us as I worried internally. But rather than alter the mood by bringing it up, I just sat in Yierie’s lap and enjoyed her mouth upon my own and her hands upon my head.

“Garaghan is very old for a an elf.” Yierie clutched my hand as if she were afraid I might be snatched away from her. “But do not mistake his age for frailty. Elves do not become frail as we age. Some of us become very grumpy.” Yierie tugged at the edges of her robes as we walked down the hallway.

“You make him sound like he might be a monster we’d conquer as part of our hunting service.” I made it a joke, but Yierie turned to me and nodded with a solemn air.

“That is a very good way to think of him. Garaghan thrice refused the mantle of Elder. His form of service is to train hunters, but he is under no obligation to accept any students. He is a great warrior and a powerful spellcaster.”

A part of me waited for Yierie to list his weaknesses and blindspots, but instead she continued to pull on the hem of her robes. “You look really nervous.”

“Garaghan was one of my masters. We did not part on good terms.” She forced her hand to her side and cleared her throat. “But he is the best. I would not refer you to any substandard trainer if I could help it.”

“So I should try my best with him?”

Again, Yierie’s hand moved to her robe and she turned her gaze to it. With a effort of will, she forced her hand to her side. “There is no trick to getting Garaghan to accept you, other than to be honest with yourself and with him…” she bit her lip to hold back whatever else she’d intended to say and I decided not to press her.

We stopped before a large black iron door. It wasn’t a double door, but rather half again as wide as a standard door and taller than any of those I’d seen in the Crystal Orchid so far. Yierie hesitated before she knocked on the door.

“We can go to someone else if you’re this worried about him.” I felt the need to give Yierie an out.

“No, as I said Garaghan is the best trainer on the ship. He might be the best on any ship of the Elven line.” Yierie nodded and clenched her jaw as she knocked on the door.

As with Alaric this afternoon, we waited together for the door to open and nothing happened for almost a minute. When the door did finally open, it sank into the floor. A tall elven man who’s hair almost brushed the top of his unnaturally tall door stooped low to look at us. He had no facial hair, but the black hair around his head stuck out in every possible direction. His skin was smoother than Yierie’s skin, but his lips looked cracked and stained. “Oh, it’s you.”

Garaghan didn’t speak another word. He stepped back out of the doorway and the black metal door slammed into the ceiling. I glanced over at Yierie and for the first time since meeting her I saw her in the full bloom of her rage. Her arms shook, her hands clenched, and her mouth opened and shut as if she were trying to form words but the white hot rage prevented the sound from escaping.

“We can find someone else…” Before I finished my words, Yierie spat into her palm.

Immediately after, she began carving runes that blazed into life before doorway. I recognized the first few as runes to manipulate sound. Her voice rose as she continued to carve fiery runes into the air. “Garaghan Tovenar, you have five seconds to return or I swear upon the First Seed I will obliterate your doorway!”

Yierie’s voice blew my hair back and made my legs shake with the vehemence in her words. She cut the final rune in her phrase with a curt gesture and her head trembled as she thrust them forward with her palm. The door slid open before the fiery conflagration of runes struck the surface.

Garaghan caught the flame in his palm, but cursed in Elven as the words seared his skin. Rather than try to hold the runes, he wheeled his arm behind him. The course the runes blazed through his chambers revealed all-black decor as the runes flew to the opposite side of the room. They exploded with enough force to shake my chest and make me take a step back. Fading wisps of fire from the explosion lit the crater Yierie’e spell left. The shockwave blew Garaghan’s hair forward, but he didn’t react when he looked over his shoulder. His face was the same placid lake it had been when he first saw us. “What do you want?”

Yierie continued to shake. “This is my Kara,” an Elven word I didn’t know, “she requires combat training.”

“And you brought her here to me? Why, child?”

“Because, despite your attitude, you are the best trainer I’ve heard of.” The words appeared to bring Yierie physical pain, but she fought through them.

Garaghan snorted. “Fine, she can come in. Not you.”

“Fine.” Yierie leaned toward Garaghan and lowered her voice. “If you permanently injure her, I will find you and kill you, father.” She spun on her heel and stalked out of the room as Garaghan raised and eyebrow and shrugged.

“Wait, father? You’re Yierie’s dad?”

Garaghan looked at me through the side of his eyes. “Indeed. Now get in here before the door crushes you. Don’t want to see Yierie upset at me for your own foolishness.”

I skipped over the door while I tried to process the intense animosity between Yierie and Garaghan. The door slammed into the ceiling right at the edge of my heel, as if it had been aiming for me.

Garaghan’s room was made form the same black metal as the door. I couldn’t see a bed, dresser, or any furnishings in the room aside from a short desk and simple chair. Both of them were made from the same black metal as the rest of the room.

“Now Yierie wants me to train you to fight, not teach you how to dress properly, right?” Garaghan stood at least three feet taller than me, though I had trouble being sure about that due to the darkness of his room.

His gruff attitude and the way he spoke scornfully of Yierie got my dander up. “You know, people need to shut up about my robes. They’re not just decorative and I don’t see how what I’m wearing matters that much.”

Garaghan raised his eyebrow, it made him look like Yierie. “Not just decorative, eh? What do they do?”

“Protect me.” No sooner had the words left my mouth than Garaghan tilted his head and flicked an incredibly tight set of runes at me.

The motion of his fingers was so quick I couldn’t see any of the runes he’d carved. They flew toward me with impossible speed and crashed against my blue barrier. Garaghan whistled in response. “You’re a priestess then. You should stay up here with the other nuns and keep yourself safe. Don’t be joining them fools who put themselves at risk for show and a few bits of fur.”

“That’s not why… is that what you think Yierie is doing?” I swallowed the “you jerk” trying to claw its way out of my mouth, but only just.

Garaghan snickered with a remarkably human sound. “You’re defending her choices. What are you some stray little kitten she’s picked up and is fucking back to health? You wouldn’t be the first you know?”

I blinked at him and shook my head. “Fuck you old man, this was obviously a mistake.” I spun away from him, gathering Roo around my arms as I did.

Faster than I could track Garaghan sped around me and closed within my personal space. All I could do was make an “erk” sound as he tapped me on the forehead.

I dropped into the Void instantly and fell through it. For a moment, I spotted Garaghan’s form in the Void. He looked like a satyr with with a long wickedly curved staff in his hand that swirled with magical power as he stared at me. The black-blue light that shone from his form was the brightest and strangest I’d ever seen. It bore into my retinas and left trailers behind as I struggled against the magic he’d cast on me.

At once I fell back into Garaghan’s black metal room. In the time I’d been gone, he’d somehow managed to lay his hands on Malia, Tia, and Yierie. I had no idea where he’d found the former and I didn’t care as I watched him circle around the three. Their eyes were closed and their head fell forward as if they’d been placed in some kind of magical sleep.

“What did you do to them?”

“Nothing as bad as what I am going to do to them if you don’t get out of my room now.” Garaghan flexed his fingers around his staff, a mirror of the one I’d seen his satyr form holding in the Void.

At a glance I knew he was lying. If I left this room, all three of the people I cared about would be left to his mercy. And I knew he had no such mental baggage. I tensed and his fingers slid around Tia’s neck.

“I said I would kill her…” Before he finished speaking I sprung forward, powered by coils in my legs and aimed myself for Yierie. She was the furthest from the old elven sorcerer and in order to stop me he would have to shift himself.

Alternating blue and black bolts flared out at me. Both varieties rang against my barrier magic and dissipated against the surface. As they did, my barrier shrunk like water into sand. I didn’t know if I had enough power in me to save any of the three and in that moment I did not care.

I pivoted away from Yierie at the last minute and let my focus wan. I dropped into the Void and called forth one of the runes Amanda had taught me along with a rune Yierie had shown me. I combined the two into a ward against Elven magic users.

It might hurt Yierie and I would have rather avoided it, but Garaghan’s sudden attacks left me with no other choice. In hand to hand, he would devastate me. The rune flared to life as I cut it in the air faster than I’d ever moved before. I would have said desperation spurred me on to impossible speeds, but that would have been incorrect. The runes formed without me tracing them, blazing out of the void and into the real world at the speed of thought.

Garaghan shouted in fury as my ward expanded outward. Out of position to grab Yierie, I jumped at Malia in the center and tackled all three women. They vanished into threads of smoke as I crashed through them, biting my lip as I hit the ground with my chin. A great metallic clang accompanied my fall as stars burst around me and my neck ached from the shock.

A pair of hands took me by the shoulders and magic flared to life from behind me. For the first time, I received the benefit of healing magic rather than the other way around. At once the stars faded from my vision and my neck stopped hurting.

“You are a madwoman.” The voice echoed once as my head cleared. I turned around to find Garaghan holding my shoulders. Still disoriented from my fall, I leapt at him with a shout of my own. The elf grunted as he dropped his staff and deflected my sad melee attacks. In two moves, he pinned me to the ground and held my arm behind me.

“I won’t let you hurt them! What did you do to them you prick!?” I jerked at my arm where he held it and shook myself.

Again magic flowed into me, this time chasing the rage away as Garaghan chanted. From my vantage on the floor, I could see his staff floating in the air next to him. Calm pervaded my mind as the magic insinuated itself into my consciousness. As it took hold, I knew I could resist the magic, could force it out of my mind if I chose to. But at the same time, the calm gave me the perspective t realize this had been a test. The three women had been sendings, illusions meant to mess with me.

“There. You understand now, don’t you?” Garaghan released my hand as I panted on the ground and regained a semblance of peace.

“Yes. You’re still an asshole.” I put my hands under my shoulders and heaved myself up into a kneeling position. “I guess you don’t want me then. Good riddance…”

I hopped up and started out of the room. Once again, Garaghan moved like he road a piece of the lightning. He put his hand on my shoulder and spun me around. “You love all three of them, the girl as a sister and the two women with something more intimate, don’t you?”

I swallowed. I hadn’t spoken of Malia to anyone. For Garaghan to know of her existence, he would have had to read my mind. Or his magic called forth the people I cared about. It didn’t matter which, but I had to remember not to speak of Malia to him if I could help it. “Yes. It’s true. Why does it matter, are you going to hold them over me?” Though I’d let Garaghan’s spell in, the rage I’d felt at almost losing the three prowled under the surface of my thoughts.

“No you foolish child. I wanted to confirm my spell worked properly.”

“Well, it did and it was cruel. Now that we’ve established how I felt about your hostages, I should get going. Yierie was right about you. I’m almost glad I failed your little test.” I pulled my shoulder away and found myself bound as if Garaghan had lain an iron straightjacket on my torso.

“You didn’t fail, idiot child. You passed.” He turned me with ease, like a ballerina suspended from a music box. “And you don’t get to leave here untrained. Not with the rune working you just performed.”

“You’re keeping me here?” The fury rose up closer to the surface, pushing up through the murky waters of my doubt and fear at almost losing the people I cared about.

Garaghan leaned in and looked me in the eyes. “I can see the rage within you, the anger you bank and hide. If you let if fester, it will spill out and consume those you love. With the power at your command, the danger is literal.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but snapped it shut. “You’ll teach me, no more tricks?”

“Ha!” He took a step back and shook his head. “I’ll make no such promise to a student of mine.” He snapped his fingers and a black robe appeared at my feet. “I can see the interest in your eyes as well as the anger. Put your training robe on and be quick about it. Your first lesson starts now.”

I hesitated. Garaghan scared me, not just the eery way he read my thoughts, but the way he ordered me around and callously threatened the people I loved. But his skills were beyond doubting. And Yierie had said he was the best teacher she knew. And her father.

“Fine.” I watched him as I picked the robes up and put them on. Roo swirled about me beneath my robes, covering me almost like underwear.

“First lesson: have you learned to control your Nekkethet?” Garaghan folded his arms and pointed at me.

My Elven wasn’t good enough to translate yet. “I don’t know what that is.”

“Your scarf, your fetch. Have you learned to control it?”

“No, I didn’t know it was a fetch to begin with.” I admitted the fact with some discomfort, waiting for Garaghan to find a reason to mock me.

“Hmm, we will work on that first. That and your physical fitness. Perhaps together.” His staff continued to float after him as he approached. With a gesture it tapped the space between my shoulders. “First thing’s first: start with your posture. It’s atrocious.”

For the next hour, Garaghan complained about and corrected the way I stood. Though I wore a new body, I’d fallen back on my old postural habits, letting my shoulders roll forward, my neck crook and my tummy fall forward. Not that I had much of the latter in this new form.

The whole time he used his staff like a laser pointer, indicating which part of my body he wanted me to adjust without touching me with his body. After all of Yierie’s warnings, I expected him to hit me with the staff, to use pain to reinforce his lessons. But the staff taps were gentle and carefully directed.

After that hour, I realized Garaghan’s demeanor changed. He wasn’t rude and didn’t mistreat me, but he was absolutely tenacious and accepted nothing less than perfection from me. Once my posture satisfied his exacting standards, he sent me running through the room in laps.

“Stop!” After a few yards, he shouted at me and ran forward. “I should have anticipated this, but your form is as bad as your posture. We’ll work on that next.”

“Are we really going to change how I run?”

Garaghan tilted his head and dashed away. Once again, he moved so quickly that I had trouble tracking his movements. The all-black metal walls and floors didn’t help me keep my eyes on him. But in less than five seconds, he completed a full circuit of the room. “That is what running properly will do for you.”

I opened my mouth to question him further, but snapped it shut and shrugged. He spoke the truth to me, but I also sensed he held back details. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

As before, he corrected each of my strides, having me run a few steps and then tapped me with his staff. After a few minutes of those activities, he grumbled. “Actually. We should work on your walking first.”

Another hour passed during which I walked and walked. My progress this time was much slower than with my posture. A knock on Garaghan’s door ended the lesson for the day. He tilted his head to me and I followed obediently. When he reached the door, he looked at me and said, “you’re done attending Madame Renrara’s language classes as of today. Instead you will meet me here promptly each dawn and I will release you when we are done. I will see to feeding you. Understand?”

I hesitated again and he leaned into me. “I’ve been indulgent with you, perhaps I think of my darling little girl, perhaps I see potential in you. Regardless, you will either comply with my instructions or you will cease to be my student, understand?”

“Yes, sensei.” I nodded to him with a mockery of a bow, but he smirked.

“Yes, that is exactly the right attitude.” He opened the door, to show Yierie standing outside. “Promptly at dawn. Do not be late.”