Outside of the entrance to the crowded airfield of the firebase a glowing disk of swirling color appears, only a few meters across, between the arched 'horns' of the larger gateway. Waiting outside of it are a large, gray-furred Karnor and a smaller, red-furred female in a jumpsuit decorated with the logo of the Expedition. She looks like Tasha, if Tasha were a Karnor. Ironically or coincidentally, this new incarnation of Nora Argentine is the same age as the original was when she died.
And out pop two quasi-Karnors, adding to the collection of lupinity. Both young women are large and of sturdy frame, expansive wings, and color ranging from deep red to pale ash, with the (relatively speaking) slighter of the two leaning toward the ash and the other towards the red. Fiera has her arms up, hands folded behind her head, eyes pointed skyward while Ashera leans against her in a gesture of unmistakable affection. "God I hope there isn't a celebration part--" The two freeze, ears up, upon spotting the two Karnors waiting for them, and then immediately step apart, with Fiera brushing her hair back and Ashera coughing as she looks around a moment.
"Father," goes Fiera, while Ashera just offers a finger-wiggle wave and seems to be fighting off a self-deprecating laugh, adding a moment later, "Professor," in greeting.
"Captain," Nora corrects. But her expression is soft when she sees the girls. Probably wondering if her daughters would have had the same colors if things had gone differently. "Your peers are in the base, and I can't say if there's a party waiting or not."
Gabriel just sweeps both of the girls up into a hug, since he's still bigger than them. "I'm glad you're back," he says.
"Yeeeah no, we're just going to go take a walk -- if that's alright," Fiera states. States, not says, as is her typical formal speech. Things are for Fiera, and that's how it is. She maintains her stoic, somewhat detached expression up until she gets hugged, at which point her expression collapses for a moment. Ashera, who had been putting less work in to her everything-is-alright-face, steps in to the hug and lays her head against Gabriel's chest. The two hug back, and their hugs are strong. "I don't know if that went good, bad, or... I don't know. I don't know, dad. I feel like I failed... us, them, everything," Fiera admits, and Ashera frowns, shifting to lean against Fiera. "I don't think we failed we're just... Just not built for it. And maybe success would have been worse."
"I'm glad," Gabriel says. "I want you to make your own way in life and... and stay my girls," he adds. "Having adventures like I did."
"And me," Nora chimes in. "I had adventures too! Before dying. And since!"
"How are we supposed to live up to dying," Fiera laments, but she chuckles, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. Never good with outward emotion, the bigger sister just smiles awkwardly, then lays her head on her father's arm, closing her eyes. Ashera pets her head. "Poor Fiera. Emotions. Along with failure and patience, her worst enemy." And this gets her swatted by Fiera's tail.
Laughing herself, Ashera dances away, then turns to grin lopsidedly at Nora. "Well. For my part, I guess I'm relieved. I can't say I didn't see this coming, and, you know, it feels weird. Nice, maybe. It feels like being... free? I guess I never knew what that really felt like, before. The weight's almost gone. Now we can do our own thing, right?" And then she leans in. "And wow, you're actually here! That worried about us, Captain-Professor?"
"Hey, I can be here for multiple different reasons," Nora says. "And one of those is 'borrowing' Katherine's motorcycle. I might need some help liberating it though, Fiera."
Fiera pulls herself away, sucks in a deep breath, gives her father a brave smile as the meet eye to eye -- and then she steps back. "A mission? Professor Vesuvius's motorcycle? Sounds dangerous; I'm in." She stpes over to Nora, then smacks her shoulder good naturedly before standing beside her. It's like getting gently swatted by a roll of iron shekels.
"What, no mission for me? Dad, Nora's being mean," Ashera says with another chuckle.
"It's one of her favorite pasttimes," a voice from above intones before Aldara Tasha Argentine alights on the ground. Alights, because she does not exactly fly or land anymore. Here, with no need to hide her power, her head glows with a halo of light, the temperature rising simply by her presence alone. She hovers a moment before stepping on to the dock, looking somehow too young to have an expression so old, and too old to look so young. Under her arm is a holder for drinks, which she pulls out and holds before her. "Peace, sister."
"We're still going to fight though, aren't we?" Nora asks, but takes one of the drinks. "I hear you have a special arena."
"Ahem, no talking about that in front of the girls," Gabriel growls, and hugs Ashera. "You can come fishing with me while the fire-brands go zooming around and disturbing the local monsters."
"Hey fishing with dad? I'll take it. It's not easy being the level headed one, you know? Exhausting, really." Ashera returns the hug, then wraps her arms around Gabriel and leans on him in a overt display of daughterly affection. "How long has it been since everyone was together like this? Eh, I guess I can party later. After fishing." Ashera glances at her mother, eyes meeting the older woman's for a long moment, before Tasha nods. "Go rest. You've earned it." And so Ashera nods. "Mother." Tasha's face isn't one that smiles easily anymore. She tends to look like she's evaluating everything, weighing the world against some unspoken balance, and often not liking what she sees. Yet, this time, she smiles. It makes her look tired, but at least it also makes her look happy. "Momma," she corrects. Then she waves her hand in a shooing motion. "Go on. I need to menace my sister with my competence."
"C'mon then," Nora says to Tasha. "I'll show you pictures of my new Titan. It's got flames painted on the side."
"I need to talk to your mom for a moment," Gabriel says. "You two go with Nora. There's pizza in the cafeteria, and I want some before setting sail."
"That sounds like the work of a certain Phin who had better be here," Tasha replies, handing Gabriel, Nora, -- and Fiera and Ashera -- a drink as she passes. Their mother's movements are strange in this place. She moves with purpose, yes, but there's a dreamlike quality to them. Not an afterimage, though perhaps closer to a heat haze. Far in to her own studies, rich with magic, and touched by powers both fell and mighty, she seems not quite real, and so her movements. An angel, taking a day off. She steps to face Gabriel, then waits for the others to depart with a patience but expectant authority that comes from both motherhood and years of leadership. Even Nora gets the look.
When the others have gone, Tasha looks back to Gabriel. "Gwen isn't with them; they didn't pass the test. It's as we suspected. And besides, the resemblance is uncanny." Her gaze turns slowly to the gate, and then back, and for just a moment there's a crack in the iron and worry touches her face. "Gweneth, then."
"I suspect they would have passed if they'd been to Hell," Gabriel says. "So let's keep that secret from the kids for a few more years, at least."
"I'm not so sure," Tasha admits, taking her own drink and putting the case down on the docks. "Their interdependency has been both a great strength and a weakness. Well, we knew it could happen, and I wouldn't change them for the world. I can accept this result. In truth, I'm relieved." The red woman never quite sounds relieved, but Gabriel knows her well enough to know that she is. And she sighs, which is unusual these days. Aldara Tasha Argentine meets their troubles with a stubborn, immovable single-mindedness that's developed over the years in to a nigh-unstoppable force. "And yes, let's keep the Arena a secret for a while longer. It's been hard enough watching and waiting all of these years to see which, if any, would pursue the path. I can't help but wonder some times if we would have been better off never setting it at all. But what's done is done."
"No reason it can't skip a generation," Gabriel says, hugging Tasha around the shoulder and shaking her a bit. "And Kainudy is more likely to be gentle with Gweneth."
Tasha stares ahead as she's hugged and rocked, blinking but slowly, her angel's gaze seeing now the landscape, nor the buildings, but in to the far off expanses of time and consequence. She seems to realize how she must appear, and makes an effort to turn and push a smile to her face. "Yes. The resemblance, you see? Galatea notes it, too. They look so similar. They are similar. And..." Tasha hesitates; she does not hesitate often anymore, either, "... her own child. I wasn't sure I should allow Gweneth to go. It felt unfair, manipulative. But I suppose things worked out for the best, coincidence and natural consequence, perhaps even fate. For all our planning, the surprise child was the one who found her way, without ever being told, nor asked. Though..." Here her gaze returns to the distance, focusing on the buildings there rather than some abstract prophecy of what may come, "I have my suspicion."
"Well, I figured she'd be treated kinder because she doesn't take after you very much," Gabriel jokes. "Other than Whisper, she's always brought out the gentleness in others."
"I wonder about that, some natural rivalry, perhaps? Or just Whisper's way." Tasha huffs a ghost of a chuckle. "Well, no matter. As for Kainudy, well, we get along better than we used to. She agrees with my choices and the way things have proceeded, and I in turn support her effort to rebuild. It is the right path, and I don't need her to tell me so." And then she leans in to nuzzle Gabriel's muzzle, nose to nose, taking a moment to enjoy the gesture and looking, for a moment, like her old, younger self. "Thank you for being here, all these years."
"Don't worry, I won't leave you for Nora," Gabriel promises and kisses Tasha on the side of the head. "Though we may need to protect Sasha from her. "Especially after she's been drinking. So, join them for some pizza before Fiera becomes a delinquent?"
Tasha's chuckle is warmer now, some of the ice falling off from long hours and longer journeys. It's been a while since she was home. "I wouldn't miss it." She kisses right back, then, like the old days, tucks herself under the man's arm. "Sasha can handle himself. And besides, I just need to mention she's essentially sleeping with me, and that'll end it. Speaking of which, I still owe you a son..." She winks a tired but genuine wink.
The two walk back, together.
"Can you sing?" Kainudy asks Gweneth, as she places a plum-sized golden orb onto the table between them.
Gweneth cocks her head to the side, seeming to think about it, then opens her mouth and emits a long and yowling noise that ends in a little dragon's rasberries. This amuses her greatly, because her tail wags and a big grin crosses her face, as if some tremendous joke had been imparted and shared.
Her mother never was much of a singer, perhaps that's it. Or maybe Fiera or Ashera can't sing.
Possibly, none of them can.
"Mmmm," the elder dragon reacts. "We'll have to work on that. Are you an artist then, perhaps? Drawing or sculpting?"
Kainudy's mind is inundated by a panoply of scenes: There are stacks of rocks placed across a peaceful meadow, boulders perched on boulders in tower cairns scattered across the landscape; high upon the mountains overlooking a distant castle a single rock sits in a circle of cleared dirt, troughs in circles surrounding it, the rock small, the circles filled with rain water; an old shirt hangs upon a tree, weather worn and billowing in a gentle breeze; a dead monster, something between a centipede, a boar, and a raven has been put just so amid growing rose-like flowers with thorns, hand-like leaves, and petals like eyes in a dimly lit, purple tinged forest; the scenes go on, typically natural using materials from the landscape with the rare addition of something made by civilized society.
"Well, you seem to have a firm grasp of the Golden Ratio at least," Kainudy says, and ponders. She taps at the teacup set before the girl. "Please study this. With all of your senses," she requests. "You can touch it and taste it too."
Kainudy is momentarily treated to the image of golden radios perched on top of each other in a expanse of tarmac with trees replaced by light posts, hen the girl scoots forward and looks down at the cup. For a moment there isn't much, she just stares at it, then she reached out and picks it up, licking the cup as she feels it, then she nuzzles it, bites it, smells it, yet her senses extend far beyond that of the obvious movements as Kainudy feels her aura flare up.
There it is, that sense so like her mother's, the sense of flame and heat and motion, creation and presumably, destruction. The knowledge of a thing from the viewpoint of the Flame. Gweneth's flame is stronger than her mother's, even with Tasha's growth over the years, that much is clear. Yet unlike her mother it sits placid, burning, almost sedate in its quiet inferno.
The second impression is far stranger, if fire-sense could be considered anything like a normal sense. There is a sense of time. Of anticipation. A fascination with the ineffable sense of the proceeding of things, yet, also of its whole, as if it were a single thing. One moment; every moment. There is a flash of the stone. Rocks, in a field. Weather. Weathering. A pebble, motionless. Lifeless. Unchanging. Eternal? Ah.
The third sense is familiar enough to those that practice it: Magic. Kainudy had felt the probing of the girl since she arrived, felt her touch upon her realm's web to shake the threads and so follow them to the spider at the center. She sees it so clearly, it's hardly a wonder she's so distracted, there is so much to see everywhere for her. The motionless, watching girl, yet ever busy, ever journeying through her myriad senses. A moment, a tale, something new. A lesson, perhaps.
There are the usual senses, of course. Some usual for the Universal Animals, all. Fiera and Ashera have them as well, and to a far lesser degree, a sense of magic. The spore, others. Gweneth's spore is more diffuse, less centralized. It is in all of her. And perhaps that is a explanation for the last.
There is another. There is something else there behind and through, subtle, quiet, whispering, an ineffable, inexplicable element, core to her existence. A foundation lost to the background of her other traits. There is something. It defies explanation -- even for one as traveled as her.
There is something inexplicable at the heart of Gwenetherion.
Once Kainudy thinks Gweneth has fully kenned the cup, she says, "Now, observe closely. I'm going to dip into the Monad, also called the Unformed and the Vague and probably other things. I'm going to ask it for something, and my request must be very specific." And then some inherited fey part of Kainudy reaches into someplace other, and produces a teacup, complete with tea, just like the ones on the table. She sets it down next to her own. "Did you get a good look?" she asks.
The response is an older Sidhe girl -- Whisper -- reaching her hand in to forever to pull a cup from and endless sea of nothing and everything that a forest and a house and many things beside float upon. Of course, her home sits upon the Monad, the Unformed. her mother can see past the fae's creation to the endless void that the Shadows perceive the Unformed to be. Gweneth, then, perceives the Sidhe and her creation, the tapping of her power to create something from nothing. At the same time, overlapping this memory, is Kai doing the same thing, though Kai takes force where Whisper scoops without even seeming to notice it.
Gweneth does not appear to be any sort of fae, though she is some part a Shadow, and she seems to see further than her mother can the movements of power among those around her who reach in to the Monad.
The dragon watches tensely, ready to intervene if anything goes badly. But also watching the girl's technique, as it will determine who her teacher for this skill will ultimately be.
Gweneth doesn't seem to catch on at first, only seeming to observe Kainudy's technique, to think upon it. There is the impression were Kainudy not watching her expectantly, she might well stare at her for hours. Or days. At the cup. At the ideas presented.
But with the expectant look, Gweneth does indeed catch on -- and hesitates. So, she probably hasn't tried to copy what she's seen before. And then she acts.
Copying Kainudy's technique, but clearly missing some portion of it -- the face nature of it, the fairy-source? -- she approximates in her own way. The little dragon ghost fire descends upon the Monad like a spiral sewn in the unknowable, and then Kainudy sees something very interesting in that spiral-fire. For a moment it's like Gweneth isn't there, she is only the spiral inferno-fire, as if her form and her physical existence were the equivalent of liquid settling in to a solid as its motion slows and it comes to a kind of rest. This fire touches the Monad, and like a finger to water, sends a ripple. What echoes back appears before them.
It is good Kainudy has provided this lesson, because she's sure her mother couldn't see the thing before her completely. It is the idea of tea and a cup. And it is... Is it alive? Maybe, though perhaps it's closer to the precursor of life, the could-be, the maybe. It isn't physical, perhaps closer to memetic. To dwell upon it is to be inundated by the experience of tea, that comprehending it is to live a moment where tea has been had, pleasant feelings experienced, memories solidified, a moment had, satiation and fullness in truth. It is the potential of an experience and a moment and a time. To gaze upon it is to make it be, as if she had experienced it herself.
And it may be alive.
Kainudy thinks she will definitely need to explore this form of spirit-flame further, so different yet so similar to her own. This will become Gweneth's pencil, she thinks.
Gweneth meanwhile drinks form her memetic tea cup entity, its not-quite real, and difficult to perceive nature leaving it little more than a shimmer in the air that lures the observe with senses, smells, and simple nostalgia. It may actually provide sustenance, the act of accepting its pro-offered truth making it so with audience participation. If it is alive, it seems serenely content with its lot and its offerings.
"Interesting," Kainudy says. "We will definitely need to tailor your magic technique to your flame." She then rolls the golden orb towards the girl, expecting her to try and examine it.
The ball rolls past The Potential To Have Tea, across the table... and in to her lap. She watches the whole thing, then keeps watching it in her lap with a gormless focus bordering on simpleminded -- at least to the uninitiated observer. Instead she focuses her senses on it before, like a wolf that has caught the scent and sound of something and has turned on it with all their attention.
"This time, use your flame," Kainudy suggests. "It isn't made of matter, so you may not get a good feel for it otherwise."
There's some delay; Gweneth seems to need to ponder the question at length in whatever way she processes these things. Not a fast-acter, she has an almost serene, sedate approach to her reactions sometimes, not unlike her flame.
The spiral-flame that is somehow all of her moves, if hesitantly, slowly, like a stem rising to meet the moon over many hours. It reaches out in its tendrils and enormity to encompass the orb without burning, the orange-light and silver-blue fires rolling over it, around, gentle.
Connection. Galatea, Tasha, Kainudy and even Melchior and Kai. And more. There's infinite depth in the tiny ball. Depth to easily get lost in if she's not careful. And this is just from the surface of it.
Gweneth at first flows to enwrap the tiny ball, the spiral-flame that is her reaching with all its eldritch and arcane senses to encircle and then cradle the object. Her flow is soft, fluid, like water, but like water in sufficiency, powerful. A tidal wave that tip toes in deliberate motion, seemingly cautious to disturb anything -- because it will change the thing she observes? Whatever the case, she lingers, clearly observing with all her might, until the flame pauses, then quickly scrambles part of itself away. Ah, that most be the moment she caught the depth of the thing and stepped back.
"All the knowledge and power you can imagine," Kainudy says. "Legacy. Your mother's, Galatea's and even mine. Your sisters were not going to be ready for that. You still aren't, but at least you recognize that fact, and that is the difference between you. You have a lot of learning to do first. But if you accept this, you won't have access to everything right away. Only what you're ready for when you're ready for it."
"It's a lot," Gweneth says, actually says, ears up, eyes wide, tail up and wagging. She must be overwhelmed if she's defaulted to the slowness of the verbal option, although it does suggest she knows how, not that she's been exactly verbose. Her voice is strong, clear, forthright and intensely direct, without fear and without any hint of personal deficiency, shyness, nor doubt; the dragon side, certainly. Gwyndrael's. "How is it?" A pause as the equally forthright, eye-to-eye without fear or the usual awkwardness of humanoids when they meet gazes girl meets Kainudy's gaze. "Please." That does sound a bit awkward, and uncertain, though Kainudy knows enough dragons to know the uncertainty is likely on the 'why must I say this' side of confusion than apology for being rude.
"It is never being alone, always having someone to help you," Kainudy explains. "And also feeling like you're walking a tightrope over an abyss. Knowledge is tied to experience, and some of that experience is painful. It is inheriting trauma, and being very aware that all of your own experiences are being added. Even your sisters will be in there. But that's yet to come, if it comes. Even if you accept the ansible, it is not the same as taking on the responsibility. You aren't ready to decide on that yet."
The dragonling, or Tashaling, the Universalis Animalis Draconis, watches with an intense focus that might come of as challenging, rude, or even sarcastic in its intensity if not for what Kainudy already knows about the girl; she also listens, as her long, pointed ears are not rotated fully towards the pseudo-dragon's head. If she has thoughts on the matter she doesn't share them, or, perhaps doens't know how to share them, even potentially that sharing her thoughts is not something she's experienced the need for. Self-sufficiency. The drive to stand alone. An army and a nation of one. Definitely the dragon-side; Tasha has her moments of hermitage, emotional and physical isolation, and else besides, but she was never so completely singular, nor as singularly complete.
"There's also one more thing to consider," Kainudy warns. "You will see your mother and I in a very different light the more you learn. Not a pleasant light. And if you take up the crusade, you will need to weild the same power you're fighting against."
At that, the girl cocks her head to the side. So familiar, yet so different. Even without her active telepathy conveying messages Kainudy can feel a momentary burst that conveys the emotion of confusion, followed by a question, except in broad and encompassing strokes. I don't understand explain the whole thing, would be a good interpretation if Kaiundy had to put the feeling in to words.
And then there's an image.
That pond again. The spiral bonfire rests upon the rock next to a flame that is like unto the sun: warm, bright, harsh, dangerous, bringing life but also the potential of death and ruin. This second flame is Tasha, whole sits on the rock, her daughter's head in her lap, gently stroking her hair. The red woman has calmed and become more mature with time, yet her intensity has not diminished, even having become sharper, brighter, more dangerous. Controlled. Whether the girl knows this or not is not conveyed, only the idea of her mother, and her, together. This mother? it seems to ask.
"Your mother is... complicated," Kainudy explains. "You aren't experienced enough yet to understand certain concepts. I'm easier. I'm the host for an eldritch monster, and you'll need to make a contract with that monster."
"I'm a monster in my own right as well," the dragon adds.
The tilted head turns the other way; maybe she learned that from Tasha. Kainudy perhaps pictures Tasha attempting to figure her daughter out as they cock their head at each other; certainly, of what she knows of Tasha's various Universal Animal children, Gweneth must have been the hardest for her to fathom, which does explain why Gweneth is here and Tasha is not. Kainudy is certain Tasha would be here if she felt she wouldn't be interfering. She can sense Tasha's eventual question on the horizon, about her daughter, about what Kainudy senses, what she thinks, and advice. Some day soon, most likely. The aura of uncertainty remains, like a fog, appropriately enough. Then, an image:
There's a book, and within it, images. The book is old and dusty and large; a tome, really. One of those stodgy scholarly works, though Kainudy can tell it's unlikely to be from Tasha's reality, but form more magically inclined one. Within are all sorts of creatures. A bestiary, then, ad given the types of creatures, a bestiary of monsters. At least, classical monsters in words inclined to a certain classical bent, even Earth, though there are some oddities and outliers, the core univerals are there. And then there's a dragon, a sword-wielding goat standing off against it, sword pointed at its neck. A shadow passes as younger versions of Fiera and Ashera lean over to look you in the face, brows up, clearly having seen it. A moment later there's a loud clap and the faces jump out of view, Tasha's voice with a motherly and commanding, "And what are you three up to in my study?"
"Not that sort of monster," Kainudy chuckles. "I'm the reason why Gwyndrael has her injuries. And a lot worse. I've hurt a lot of people to achieve my goals, Gweneth. I used people. Even used my friends. I've manipulated empires for personal reasons. I'm not a nice person, even if I'm pleasant."
To all this, Gweneth is motionless. Intensely so, with wide eyes and... is that a tenseness? And there it is, her aura flaring; it's a threat stance, and she's felt enough of them, certainly from enough dragons. A dragon sensing danger and rising to the challenge with its own aura-pressure. Is the girl challenging her?
Or did she just challenge the girl?
She did say she's a terrible monster after all ...
Tasha once told Kainudy she wasn't sure Gweneth had a malicious bone in her, or at least seemed so content with her life maliciousness never occurred to her. A girl raised in a kind of paradise, self-sufficient, strong in body and magic enough to stand alone. She told Kainudy Gwyndrael suggested raising Gweneth like a dragon and letting her chose her own activities and destiny, though she also admitted she was worried she'd coddled her children and kept them from real danger and real suffering so much that she feared they might be soft as a lot. There were a lot of fears, back then, of child rearing, her choices, and the results.
At least it seems, like Fiera, Ashera, and others, Gweneth is no coward, even Tasha would have hesitated to draw against Kainudy. Bold, then. Perhaps to a fault. The daughter of two dragons, and a great much else besides. Other than a few around her home, it is unlikely she's encountered much in the way of opposition nor real threat.
Kainudy grins. "You need more challenges in your life," she notes. "Going to the academy will help you with that, I think. You need to be more socialized. It's something your dragon heritage won't help with, but it's important. Your mother got where she is by gathering people to her. I'm not going to challenge you back." Her aura is calm and controlled. Almost as if it's not even there, but it's really like a suit of armor. "So, what is your decision?" she asks. "Or do you want more time?"
The girl lifts her head with... indignity? Her nostrils flare, and her aura flickers uncertainty. Maybe this is the first time someone has ignored her challenge, or worse, smiled in the face of it at it. She seems and feels beside herself for a moment, not sure what to do. Then Kainudy starts talking, she watches, she listens, and bit by bit she ramps down, as if nothing at all had happened and she hadn't just been embarrassed, if the girl even understands what being embarrassed is. Dragons.
The aura does flare up at "I won't challenge you," her head lifting up a bit higher, nose in the air; well why not practically written on her face.
Gweneth maintains those pose for a long moment, then she huffs blue-gold fire from her nose, reaches out, and claims all of the scones and tea for herself. And with that she seems satisfied, scone in mouth, tail wagging. Dragons.
While Kainudy has no clear sign she understands any of what she's said, she does get the scene of her trying to shield the dolphin, unable to hold change the world to avoid the storm, so she flies at the storm to change it instead. This is then followed by a bright golden thumbs up as Gweneth reaches in to the Monad and manifests it. At first it seems like projection of her thoughts but, no, well, yes, but it's also here and radiating game positivity. Whatever the game is, Gweneth is in.
"Alright then," Kainudy says, and the golden ball levitates into the air in front of Gweneth's face, and changes form into a spike. "You should close your eyes for this, otherwise you might find yourself resisting," she instructs. "Galatea did this for your mother, but I'm not Galatea."
The little dragon looks up at the floating spike, scone in mouth, chewing. Occasionally a crumble will fall only to be scooped up by her odd and strangely alive fire, returning it to her mouth and preventing the buildup of crumbs. Well, it's efficient, anyway. Otherwise she doesn't appear inclined to close her eyes, look away, or do other than eat and watch the floating object.
"Well.. I see where this is going," Kainudy says. "At least you aren't likely to move." And then the spike penetrates her forehead like an icicle. It feels like when she eats ice-cream too fast. And then it's just.. gone. Something feels different but she isn't sure what.
Gweneth makes a sound like strangled raspberries when the spike hits. She loses her scone for a moment, her aura breaking apart in shock at the sudden stab to the forehead and with it the flame which scatters from her mouth. Yet, she recovers quickly enough, catching the scone without looking, then rubbing her forehead with her free hand. "Ow," she goes as she continues to rub all while giving Kaiundy suspicious look.
"Congratulations, you're now a demi-god," Kainudy claims, and waggles her hands and goes 'ahhhhhh'. "I'll turn it on and tune it now." Soon Gweneth is able to feel the contact-list of who she can communicate with. There's also something called The Sea Without Lees.
The newly made demi-god returns the scone to her mouth, then pushes it all the way in with a finger until the fire inside breaks it apart and draws it down in to the darkness. Then, as her first act of demigodhood, Gweneth reaches over and starts pouring tea, with her mind.
As her second act, she tries to communicate with everyone.
"Hi!"
"Hi!"
"Hi!"
"Hi!"
"Hi momma!!"
"Hi uncle Mel!"
"Hi Galatea!"
"Hi Kai!"
"Kainudy!"
The list goes on.
"Hello, Shimmer Girl," Kai responds. "Welcome to the club," Galatea replies. "Hello, Gweneth," Melchior answers.
The inevitable response comes in to Kainudy a second later. "I see my daughter has an ansible now." Dryly amused with the slightest hint of panic and concern. "You might want to stop her before she tries to talk to everyone for the next few hours."
And, of course, Tasha replies to her daughter. "Hi, Gwen. I see you did it. Congratulations. We're all very proud of you -- and myself most of all."
Kainudy is certain that somewhere out there Tasha is walking toward a liquor closet if she hasn't already poured herself a drink.
"She needs practice talking to people though," Kainudy responds to Tasha, with an implied smirk.
"That's... true," Tasha admits, less certain than she usually is by a degree. There's setting up a legacy, then there's seeing one bloom before her very eyes, or mind at least, and clearly Tasha needs a moment. "Well, I won't stand in the way of my daughter's growth -- and now I get to announce the results. There's a table full of my daughters all staring at me right now, they know when I'm communicating like this. Time to break the news."
"I smell pizza through your nose," Kainudy remarks. "I hope you remember the pizza tax I'm due!"
Meanwhile, everyone gets a bevy of questions, though not everyone gets one -- perhaps because Gweneth already knows them well enough? Or thinks she does, at any rate. "What do you do here why does my head (?) is Kainudy evil she won't fight me I have scones I'm a demi god now am I going to the Academy can I bring Goldie what's space like there's two pools with infinite thought water who are you what's a Sea Without Lees what's a Lee--"
Tasha endures the onslaught with motherly patience, but Kainudy can hear and feel its effect on her. "Yes, I haven't forgotten. Why not come to visit? You never come to visit. Besides, my sister finally came to visit, and you don't want to be outdone by her. She'll never let you forget it. And I need you to menace her."
"The Queen of Demise warps reality," Kainudy reminds. "I'd only be able to come as a projection or a... remote body."
"I feel my reality warping already," Tasha admits to Kaiundy under the storm of excited inquiries, questions, statements, and quite possibly nonsense. She's probably rubbing her temples about now. "But send something, you deserve to get out once and a while like anyone else, and the family's mostly here. We don't get together as often as I'd like anymore, so take the opportunity while it's present."
"And Kai doesn't count anymore?" Kainudy asks, before relenting. "Fine, I will send something back with Gweneth."
"No adorable dragons. We both know how that will go." Kainudy still remembers Tasha chasing her tiny dragon remote form around to snuggle it. Her young daughters are unlikely to be any better, and highly likely to be a lot worse. "Besides, Kai's Kai. We both know she has her own agenda, even if she acts like a remote. And even Kai needs a day off."
"--would you like a scone I have them all I made a thumb and tea is there any pizza left are Fiera and Ashera sad I'm sorry--" Was that an I'm sorry? "--can I turn in a space ship now is my forest OK did Nora come--"
"I'm wondering if she added something extra when she helped you conceive Gweneth," Kainudy ponders. "I'm not going to ask though. Sometimes results are unexpected."
"I've wondered the same thing, but like yourself, I prefer to leave things alone. She's my daughter and I love her, whatever she may happen to be. And now she's a demigod." There is a long sigh in that last statement. "I'm glad I got over need to compare myself to others with Nora. Seeing how those two get along should be entertaining, at least. She's already conspiring with my eldest."
"Stealing Fiera is Nora's revenge for you stealing Gabriel," Kainudy suggests. "Nothing to worry about. How are the kids taking the news?"
"Please don't put the idea of Fiera and Nora dating in my head..." Definitely drinking. Tasha pauses in her reply, probably looking around, and then answers, "Fiera and Ashera look unsurprisingly supportive on the surface and like they're hiding their embarrassment, rejection, and self-disappointment. This one's going to sting for them for a while. Our little bunny is smiling -- she waved, she's adorable, you should see her -- Gabriel brought me another drink and has one himself, Kala... I may need to talk to Kala. Something is off. She's not usually so... involvedly nonchalant, And she's trying to hide it. Sophia is looking at me like she knows what I'm thinking and probably does. How did I ever end up with such a mixed bag of children?" It's not the first time Tasha has admitted her wonderment at her own kids, which continue to surprise her.
"You are a mixed bag yourself," Kainudy says. "And it's not like the others can't try again. There's no rule that says there can only be one per generation. I think I'll create a remote that is my bipedal form. I'll even have clothes for her. That should be safe, right?"
"Just watch out for Nora, she might make a move just to try and rattle me." But Kainudy can feel the laughter. "I'll inform the others you're coming. I know most everyone have been dying to meet the mysterious Kainudy, I've certainly spoken of you enough all these years. I'll make sure you have a seat at the adult's table."
"--is this magic how deep is the well what time is it when do I fight how do I get home--"
"As long as I don't get a marriage proposal," Kainudy remarks, without context.
"I can promise exactly nothing," Tasha assures, then she adds, "See you soon, hopefully by then Gweneth will have exhausted some fraction of all questions known to man and god and focus on pizza."
When the portal opens again, Gweneth steps through with an elegant-looking dragon-woman in an odd outfit that consists of a square poncho and a long loincloth. "Did you see how the portal works?" she asks the young hybrid.
The questions have indeed stopped by now, largely because few answers have come back and there was a walk and a portal to distract Gweneth. As an answer, Kainudy is subject to Gweneth's experience of the portal to her own senses, along with a subjective abstract rendition of the flow of energies. It's certainly more detailed and informative than talking, and perhaps she's out of words for the moment. Or once again bored with them.
"Soon you'll be around people that only use words," Kainudy points out, looking around. "Also I don't know where to go. Where do you all get together to eat?"
Gweneth makes a show of looking around; they're in the middle of a forest, and an interesting one at that. The entire pocket reality is run through with Sidhe magic, created from it, yet this section feels different. More like Gweneth, featuring a colorful and peaceful arrangement full of life and color, yet serene, with a cool gentle wind, nothing outwardly threatening beyond the usual flow of nature, and no urban development to speak of. The feeling extends for a few miles in all directions, unevenly, and marked by streams, almost like a state or fiefdom might be. There are monsters here, but they keep to the deeper parts of what feels like her space, with others existing further out, on about their own business.
After a moment Gweneth points in a direction; that way.
They go in the indicated direction, until their passage is blocked. A girl that looks about the same age as Gweneth appears, wearing clothes familiar to Kainudy. "Hey! You're supposed to stay in your forest," Whisper accuses Gweneth, before noticing Kainudy. "Who are you?" she asks.
"I'm Kai's master," Kainudy responds. "So your grandmother, after a fashion."
"You aren't supposed to be gathering your own dragons," Whisper whispers to Gweneth. "I.. don't think. Is this going to be a thing now?"
Gweneth makes a show of hopping back, hands in the air, all raspberry sounds. "It's the Princess!" There an air of performance here, as if this has occured many, many times before. her hands and 'surprised' reaction fall immediately and without any intermediate step down, hands going behind her back. "I don't know momma invited her," she steps forward to whisper back, not unlike two people behind the stage talking where the audience isn't supposed to hear. "She's teaching me things and gave me scones and tea. I'm a demigod now. You should know about that, too. I'm supposed to talk more so that's what I'm doing right now."
Overhearing, Kainudy produces a platter of scones and offers them to Whisper. "For the Princess," she says.
"Hmm," Whisper goes, then takes the platter. "Well, if it's Bird business I grant you passage," she says, in a magnanimous tone.
"I can make things from the deep water now, too. I made a thumbs up and tea," Gweneth elaborates. Gone is the initial conflict and surprise, the two talking like girls who share a room more than Sidhe and Dragon. She does eye those scones, and there's a menace in that hunger, but she doesn't try to steal them, at least not yet. Then it's back to business. "I have a thing in my head now I'm part of a club. Momma is waiting and knows we're here. Kai already knew. This way." And then the silver-white girl starts moving without further ado.
Whisper follows, and nibbles on a scone. "So you live apart from the others?" Kainudy asks Gweneth.
It seems to take Gweneth a moment to process the question. As they've walked and talked she's slowly shifted to talking more and, with that, relating in a way more akin to her mother, siblings, and other mortal hominds. It must take her some effort and adjustment to switch modes of thinking, or perhaps she's just distracted by everything that goes on. "Whisper gave me the forest so I wouldn't be the Biggest Princess. This is my forest. I live here. It's nice. I like my forest." As they walk past a large stone boulder, long and flat, she points at it. "That's my rock. I sleep on that sometimes. It doesn't move, ever. At noon, the sun comes through the trees, and the rock is warm."
"You really do live like a young dragon, from what I know of dragons," Kainudy says. "I hope we don't run into Gwyndrael though, at least not yet."
The apparently young dragon living perks her ears up at the mention of her second mother; Gweneth's ears are long, pointed, and intensely furry, with a bit of feather thrown in. At least twice as long as her mother's when she was younger. Momma said you know momma--" The girl wrinkles her face, then tries again, "My momma that's here said you know my momma that's not here, Gwyndrael. She doesn't come very often. I don't see her very much." And those ears droop a little, but the girl walks on unabated.
"I try not to interact with my old soldiers," Kainudy says. "I don't think the Harlot exposed my secrets, but one can never be sure. It's a nice forest. Do you have names for the monsters?"
"Names?" Gweneth looks over, then to Whisper, then back. "Names... No? They are what they are, and, sometimes they're not. Usually, after a while. But not all of them aren't. Most of them are, all of the time." Apparently finding relaying the concept difficult, Gweneth then projects a sense of life, with each creature she's come across, and the various attributes, behaviors, colors, scents, and all the senses including magic, though never the Universal Animal's Shadow-eye sense. Each is this collection of what it happens to be, her feelings about all of it, and her subjective and objective knowledge of a thing. Their name is all they are to her.
"What's a soldier?" Gweneth then asks, having relayed her explanation about naming.
"So, you understand their Names then," Kainudy says, and frowns at the question. "A soldier is someone who fights in a group against an enemy, and has to follow directions from a leader. Sometimes they are killed."
"Yes? Maybe?" Gweneth thinks about Kainudy's summary, then tentatively nods. She listens to the second explanation and nods like she understands. "Whisper has many soldiers. Sometimes, all of them are killed. But then, they aren't. They're not dragons that look like dragons, too, so maybe you can be friends? Fiera and Ashera and Sophia and Kala all follow instructors. Kala says she wants to die because of something called 'homework' and 'study,' but Sophia love study, so maybe she's already dead?"
"Kala sounds dramatic," Kainudy says. After a walking for a bit more, she asks, "Do you like to fly?"
"Yes. But if I fly, I'm above my forest, so I usually walk. Sometimes I travel to the hills and the Great Rim and sleep up there for a few days. That's where I found my first rock. Do you know rocks change very slowly? But they're not alive. I think that's weird. My forest extends from the Y river split to the runoff from the Great Rim that runs down the mountains. There are rivers and ponds up there. It's dry and there's not many trees, but sometimes I like to be there instead, so I fly," is Gweneth's answer.
"Would it be alright if we flew now, to get to your family faster?" Kainudy asks. "If we take too long, there won't be any pizza left."
"What, they're having pizza and I wasn't told?" Whisper says, aghast.
This doesn't seem to have occured to Gweneth, because her ears go up. "They're fast," she states, and then her wings are out. "We must go now." There's a quite unnecessary sensational feeling of urgency, as if we must go now didn't convey it well enough for Gweneth, and then she's running to get speed.
The pizza party is in full swing when Gweneth and Kainudy arrive. The cafeteria is much fuller than when the base was first created, as the population has waxed and waned over the years. The Vartans (Vasha, Shona and Desdi, who came back with Nora and the others) are loudest, while the Karnors are relatively subdued, save for Nora. The Lapi twins are quiet, but still having a conversation with Beth, while the Tashans are.. well, themselves, given how different they all are. Melchior's avatar sits with Gabriel, Katie and Hakeber at the 'grown ups' table.
Gweneth walks through the center of the double doors, pushing both open, each with a hand, as she walks through the center of them. The doors are moved without effort and practically fly open with the shove from the girl, as if they were weightless to her. This makes a lot of noise, and she makes more by walking in and clapping her hands together while bouncing a little on her toes, excited. Behind her walks an imperious and gloomsome older dragoness, whom she looks back at in a 'come on, come on, this way' near, but not quite, impatience.
Kainudy eyes the building suspiciously, and then looks out at the assembled folks. She seems particularly interested in the Vartans, and this makes Shona puff up a bit.
"I thought she'd be bigger," Gabriel notes to Tasha.
Tasha sits up from where she'd slide in to her chair, drink in bith hands and resting on her stomach. "Oh, Kaiundy." She glances at Gabriel a moment, and then across the crowd to gauge reactions before she replies, her gaze settling on Gweneth for a long moment before landing on the dragoness is question. "She usually is bigger, although not by much, as she is not large physically. And physicality is not that which makes her potent, nor dangerous."
"Woah," goes Kalalani, her pizza dropping from her mouth in surprise. "Hey, is that her? And Gweneth's back!" She sags, exhaling a sigh of relief.
Next to her both Fiera and Ashera sit up, exchange glances, and then Fiera admits, "We didn't expect to see her again so soon... " To which Ashera nods, tipping back her drink in a long, long sip, which seems to be a gesture of her opinion on the matter.
Sophia, who sits a little ways off from her sisters with a book in her hands, looks up, and her ears follow, brows too. The book is carefully and deliberately closed on its bookmark and the young woman settles her head on her folded hands to watch Kainudy with interest.
"Pizza!" Gweneth hurries forward, dragging Whisper along for the ride. The girl's pink-salmon hair trail in a wild flow as she races forward. "Hi momma!" Tasha gets a kiss along the way, on the cheek, "Hi daddy!" Gabriel gets one too, and then the little dragon arrives at the pizza and proceeds to cram an entire slice in her mouth, cheeks bulging, while she gives her sisters a suspicious look.
And this causes Beth to giggle profusely.
Kainudy clears her throat, and asks, "Which one of you is Kalalani?" She's look right at Kala though when she asks.
Lad scoots his chair away from the targeted girl just a little.
Both Fiera and Ashera slowly turn to look at Kalanani, while Sophia mouths what might be a "oh no" and leans in that much more. and
Kalalani a loud and very strangled fluting noise noise as she sits ram rod straight, followed by a declaration of "OH SHIT, and I CAN EXPLAIN EVERYTHING!" while throwing up her hands to, presumably, avoid being blasted out of existence, cursed in to a frog, or otherwise bedeviled and admonished by the intimidating presence that is Kaiundy.
Tasha, meanwhile, settles back in her chair with a quiet utterance of, "Uhh-huh," in that air of knowing. She turns her attention now on the two, while Gweneth races to see how much pizza she can eat in the span of a minute. As it turns out, the answer is a lot.
For some reason Beth scoots just a little further behind her bigger sisters, perhaps feeling vulnerable by mere proximity if not actual guilt. "What's going on?" To which Sophia answers, "The natural flow of cause in to effect."
"I charge you with looking after Gweneth's social education," Kainudy says, blinking at the odd reaction. "You are the one that has mastered that, aren't you?"
Lad looks like he's trying to inhale his own lips to keep from saying anything. Shona has the advantage of a beak, making his expressions harder to read.
The Lapi twins remain inscrutable.
"OH GOD NO NOT--" Kala pauses, as if she hadn't quite thought about the order before speaking and had assumed, perhaps, something much worse. "Wait, what?" Said in utter confusion. Sophia actually snorts a laugh, leaning back to a more neutral position. The laugh is contagious and then both Fiera and Ashera are laughing. "I knew something was up! You conniving squeaky fish, you!" And then Fiera swats Kalalani on the back so hard it spills some of her drink to the table.
"Uh-huh," utters Tasha again, who inhales, exhales and then takes a sip of her rather expensive wine before turning to Gabriel. "Where there is smoke, there is fire. Well, the kids had needed a grandmother; it seems we've gotten the bossy kind. I'm of a mind to let this follow its course. But, Gweneth to the School... I suppose it was inevitable. I'll make the arrangements with the agents and the board." And sos he turns to regard her second youngest who just gives her mother a thumbs up and a face full of pizza.
The blue dragon finally takes a seat, looking at Gabriel and Melchior with.. approval? "My understanding is that Kalalani is the closest to Tasha in terms of gregariousness," she explains, and pulls the platter with the remaining slices of pizza towards her, before carefully selecting a slice and taking a bite.
In the kitchen Kai and Samael prepare another pizza for the oven.
"Gregarious," Lad teases Kala.
"That is uncomfortably accurate and and generous assessment," Tasha replies, sitting up again. She puts her glass aside, shakes her hair and head out, and gestures across to Kalalani who is still looking around like she isn't sure what happened and if it's over yet. "I know you are aware of each other but to get formalities out of the way: Gabriel, this is Kainudy; Kaiundy, Gabriel. Or, at least she is an avatar there-of."
The chosen one and carrier of Tasha's legacy continues to try and eat a whole pizza like it might vanish at any moment. Challenges are, it seems, hungry business, and she is a growing dragon.
"Hahaha wow the look on your face-- wait hold--" Ashera fishes for her datapad to try and get a shot while Kala tries to hide her face with a spare plate that Ashera is pinning down with a finger. Beth giggles, scootching back from behind her sisters, then scootches more to go join the Lapi and sits with them instead.
"Hmm, easily flustered though," Kainudy observes, and looks to Gweneth. "Try not to fluster your sister overmuch," she instructs. "Always wear clothing in public. Don't stare at people. Avoid sticking things into your mouth that aren't food." She pauses, and puts her free hand to her stomach. Then decides her organs are working well enough for a rush job and indelicately devours the rest of the pizza slice she was holding.
"Oh, except for sex on that last point, I suppose," the dragon amends. "I'm not familiar with the biped way of going about that sort of thing."
Nora snickers from the Lapi table, since the twins are the oldest (and she's most familiar with them).
"Aren't you a virgin still, Nora?" Zachary asks Nora, who suddenly stops snickering.
"Ooooo," Rebby crows at that tidbit.
Gweneth listens and may or may not understands, but she does look over as a pizza slice is delayed in transit on the way to her open mouth, moving but slowly.
At the mention of sex and Gweneth Tasha gets a distinctly pained expression, reaching for her wine again, and seemingly distracting herself by turning on Nora. "You know that's right, I handled that first day when I was reborn, and then again later. A surprisingly slow performance, sister. Little, dear sister." And then she beams, a very rare expression indeed. Politics have made her cattier, an aspect she doesn't show in all those media performances and meeting rooms.
"I just haven't found Mr. Right yet," Nora claims. Only for Zachary to say, "But you're Ms. Right, because you're never wrong, aren't you?" That earns the big bunny a punch in the arm, which he takes in stride. Tasha remembers what she found in Nora's quarters all those years ago on the Orpheus.
Lad is hugging Kala around the shoulder, telling her, "You're finally being recognized for a talent other than flying spaceships, you should be happy!"
It's Galatea that brings the next pizza to the (older) grown-ups table. "Don't upset Tasha, mother," she tells Kainudy. "It will be a long time before Gweneth will be past the staring stage."
"She's had all these boys around her though," Kainudy points out as she grabs the first slice. "And she's pretty. Maybe there's something wrong with them?"
"Nora's what you might consider self-sufficient," Tasha says, head tilting down, brows up, and tail wagging.
Gweneth, having finished the entire pizza by herself (with Whisper having moved to another pizza, as she knows full well dragons do not like to share their hordes), proceeds to reach in to and between the thin spheres of layered realities to that common membrane that binds them and attempt to traverse it in an effort to reach her sister's table.
This naturally cause the area around the girl to roil with magical and less certain, more arcane -- more eldritch -- powers, which turns Tasha's head, followed more slowly by each of the Universal Animals in the order of their sensitivity. Yet, each of them have shadow-eye, and at least a few of them must be seeing the bend in local reality against the back drop of the formless.
"Hah!" Rebby barks, and elbows Lad in the ribs. Shona is out of elbow range. Those three are the only ones that don't have any sort of magical senses.
A quick internal zot from Gweneth's ansible interrupts her attempt at opening a local inter-table portal. "Just because you've seen it once doesn't mean you're ready to attempt it. Not before dessert," Kainudy chides the girl.
"Wait what the heck, do you see that's like staring at the sun but not really more like--" Kalalani and Fiera both stop fighting with the place to watch. "I don't know what that is... And there it goes." Ashera nods. "Whatever it was, shut down. I think that was Gweneth. So that's what her power looks like when she actually uses it for more than sunbathing and sleeping... Huh." Sophia, who had been observing, reaches to her datapad and begins furiously scribbling down what appear to be notes. "It's something akin to teleportation, or point to point gates. Yes, that one, the gating..."
Tasha, between being teased by Kainudy and her second youngest attempting to trans-locate across the galley, takes another long sip of wine and turns to Gabriel. "Do you think time travel really exists?"
And Gweneth, at the zot, jumps, emitting a sound like strangled raspberries, before turning to Kainudy with a highly affronted look of nose up in the air, eyes wide, ears up!
"Well, I'm looking at a mid-twenties Nora," Gabriel points out. "So maybe."
"The more things change... " Tasha watches Gweneth for a moment, and her smile deflates the offended dragonling who proceeds to walk over to her mother instead and get her hair ruffled up. "Perhaps in another twenty to couple hundred years from now I'll return to my twenties. Different ages, different looks, different times and different situations."
Kainudy sighs. "I'm going to have to restrict your power access a bit," she says. "Or rather, Galatea is, until you can be a bit less impulsive with it. For now, we're sticking with just communication. Trying to open a gate with just your innate magic is very dangerous. Bending space takes a lot of energy, physical or magical."
To explain herself and her use of tremendous energy, Gweneth points over at the empty pizza tray that once held the pizza she just devoured, and with a look that might be translated as how about that!
"You can just pick that up and carry it where you want," Kainudy points out. "You don't use magic for things you can just do normally, Gweneth. You don't see Kai floating around or conjuring things willy-nilly now do you?"
"Willy-nilly-ness would be showing off," Kai says. "I only do big things, generally. Like.. oh.. maybe I'll get Sharon pregnant!"
The lone Human sits up and says, "Um, no thank you. I've had to babysit my nieces and that was enough I think."
"Maybe Kai isn't a good example," Kainudy says, and raises a finger. "But, if you make a mistake you could kill everyone here with radiation or gravitational shear."
"To be fair, we don't see Kai at all when she doesn't want to be seen. For all we know she's juggling furniture and floating all over the place," Tasha points out. Meanwhile Gweneth stares at Kainudy throughout the lesson, then stares at Kai. Then she picks up the empty tray and brings it over to her sisters, which causes Fiera to accept it awkwardly. "Er, thanks. I don't think that's what the big dragon lady meant--" She gets elbowed by Ashera. "What I mean is thanks, good job bcak there, we're all proud of you and come let us give you a hug." And so the plate is handed over, then handed to Kala who wears a 'what am I supposed to do with this' look while Gweneth crawls in to Ashera's lap like a cat, to be petted by Fiera and Ashera. "Man, having her at school... Is the world ready?" Ashera, head shaking.
"I started out like that," Galatea says. "Well, the Envoy version of me did. I still remember trying to eat something for the first time without knowing what a stomach was. It ended in a mess."
"Gweneth needs to learn how to function in an environment that will over-stimulate her," Kainudy says. "And around people that can't pick up her mental vibes."
"Is that so?" Tasha looks at Galatia with a thoughtful expression, as if seeing her again anew. As they've been working together for years now, it's a uncommon way to be looked at, certainly. "Gwen has always been a mysterious child. She was unexpected, unplanned for, and we were all not at all sure how to raise her. All our careful family planning went out the window. No one planned for a child who is also a dragon. It was Gwyndrael herself who suggested we let her chose her own path and destiny. She seems very sweet, and she is, don't doubt it. But she can be immensely stubborn and prone to challenging anything that goes against her intentions, whatever those might be. I don't believe she yet comprehends the need for 'please' and 'thank you', saying them because we told her too and she wants to please us, than because she inherently understands such things. I suspect she also finds talking slow -- and therefore, boring. At least school should be interesting to her for a while."
"Well, there's nothing wrong with being part dragon," Kainudy claims. "Lothrhyn developed quickly while still remaining fairly innocent, but she wanted to please people when she wasn't thinking of eating their brains. I'm sure Gweneth can be brought up without having to kill her at regular intervals."
"But, Kala will be her role-model," the dragon notes. "She will see what sort of behavior to follow to get what she wants from people, be it attention, respect or praise."
"Mmmm," Galatea says. "I raised myself by watching others. Gweneth is observant, she'll pick it up quickly if she thinks of it as a game, I think. With prizes."
Tasha frowns darkly at the mention of killing her daughter, looking down in to her glass, surely seeing herself -- and remembering. "I don't think that will be necessary. We do suspect, but cannot confirm, she may be immortal. There is something about her, her magic, something essentially deep down we haven't been able to deduce. And, you've surely seen her flame -- that assumption of life, different from mine or for that matter Pheeny's and the other girls. Her forest always feels, to me, as if it were in peaceful and serene anticipation of something. Like somehow standing in a moment before a moment. Of the sound before the echo of now. I suspect , given her original the combination of two dragons, the Flame of Life and Destruction, the Shadow, and all else, that Gweneth touches upon the ineffable. Of a place beyond these things I cannot fathom." She looks up. "Oh, she definitely feels life is a game. And she certainly loves prizes. That would be the dragon part of her. I haven't seen her amass a horde, but perhaps it's somewhere in the forest. Or it is the forest.
"She probably doesn't need one to gather energy," Kainudy says. "I never did, beyond finding certain metals very.. useful. I'll be focusing her training on using her flame in new ways, and accessing the full spectrum of spirit-flame. But I'm also going to have to break her of trying to challenge me, unfortunately."
To this Tasha looks up, and actually laughs. "You, too? Oh, those times were fun for everyone. At one point Gabriel and had to convince her to come inside due to a disturbance passing through the plane, something akin to a storm that Whisper weathered with an actual manifestation of a storm. She refused to leave her forest. Nose in the air. Huffing. We were drenched, and she's much stronger than she looks. I had to muster my aura and have a two hour long staring contest with her before she relented. Then there was the time when she decided she would sleep on one of the shuttles and Sasha tried to dissuade her from this for a better part of an hour, nose up, staring him down from atop the warm engine. Sometimes Goldie will join in -- or they'll do it to each other, which is adorable I might add."
"Goldie, the manifestation of Galatea's subconscience?" Kainudy asks. "She didn't have a proper childhood."
"The two of them have hit it off. Goldie responds to those with a draconic aura, as she did with me, and as she now does with Gweneth. I think, when not controlled directly, Goldie models herself after Gweneth and she in turn with Goldie. They've become unexpected siblings. Sometimes you can see her carrying Goldie around like a sack of grain, or the two of them napping on a rock for days," Tasha explains.
"Well, they're both children," Kainudy says. "I expect Gweneth to mature more slowly than others. I also expect her to act mature anyway. Being prideful is fine in an adult dragon, but hatchlings are vulnerable. The environment here has spoiled her a bit." She then slides the platter towards her again and announces, "I'm eating this whole pizza myself!" Probably just to see how Gweneth will react, even while she's sitting in her (literally) big sister's lap.
Gweneth's pops up from under the table, looking to the sound of the noise. "Uh oh, look out Gwen, grandma is going to eat all of the pizza," Fiera remarks, causing Ashera to roll her eyes at this goading and grin. Kala... Kala scoots back a little.
It's then Gweneth's hand-paw reaches out from under the table and begins to slowly, inexorably, slide the pizza towards herself. So slow, perhaps, a person might not even notice it.
"Well you two are going to have fun, I see," remarks Tasha, who leans forward and hands her glass to Gabriel, perhaps glad to see a situation like this when it's not her or one of her having to have the battle of egos.
Kainudy smiles, which is a disturbing thing. And keeps a firm grip on the pizza. She is not slow in her end of the tug-of-war though, and yanks it away from Gweneth.
"I hope this isn't a repeat of the whole Copernicus dynamic," Galatea says, putting a hand to her forehead and looking down.
"Hey, he turned out to be a good leader after my teaching," Kainudy counters.
Galatea just purses her lips and makes the 'mmmm' sound again.
Gweneth leaps with stunning speed, jaws on the edge of the pizza tray, both hands on it, pulling with teeth and claw and much more force than such a little body aught to be able to muster; she is superhuman, perhaps beyond even that, but what Kainudy also notices is she does not yank, only oppose, pull, with steady effort. There are not rash violent movements in the contest, just her getting in to position quickly. Even in a war over pizza she seems somehow sedate, like a flowing river rather than a lightning bolt.
Gweneth says, "Sometimes she reminds me of our old and new cats," Tasha says with a sigh of melancholic indulgence, taking her glass back from Gabriel and drinking as she watches. "There will be teeth marks in that tray, I hope you know.""
"More like a wolf, I think," Kainudy says. "I've known quite a few wolves." Holding the pan with one hand, she takes a slice of pizza and eats by first curling her long tongue around it before slurping it into her mouth, and making happy sounds.
Galatea just looks surprised by all of it. Her mother fighting with a child over food?
Gweneth responds to this by opening her mouth and trying to eat all the pizza closest to her like an ancient Terran game about hippos in need of food. "Yeah! You show her, Gwen! Eat it all! Fight destruction and oblivion itself -- for pizza!" "FOR PIZZA!" most of the rest of the Universal Animals howl in declaration. Sophia merely raises a fist in solidarity, while Tasha, feeling a moment to support ehr children, also declares, "FOR PIZZA!" and then downs her wine before tossing it to Galatea without looking.
"Ack!" Galatea goes as she tries to catch the glass. But Gweneth finds the slice she was going to bite missing, as if the pizza had spun around so the missing slice was there. Kainudy takes another slice from her side, and makes om-nom-nom noises as she eats it. It's like watching the cups-and-ball trick, but with pizza.
Gweneth actually lifts her head back and stares at where the pizza was with a look of deeply offended affront, ears up, nose up, head back, as if existence itself had sided against her in this battle and she cannot comprehend it. This makes Tasha cover her mouth as she chuckles at the expression, and Ashera lean in and declare, "It's just a trick, she's messing with your head, Gwen! Playing mind games!" Sophia arches a brow at the mysteriously vanished slice, but watches intently as two magical beings via over a play -- or not so play - battle for the pizza pie.
It's then Gweneth's draconic aura flares up and she huffs her fire across the plate, trying to cover all of it. Fire dances and rushes about on flame-lick legs, phantom hands grasp and pull before roiling back in to the serenely colored yellow-blue flames, as much fire as it is a kind of roiling, task-originated nebula.
"Oh cool, it's that stuff!" Kala scoots back in to watch. "Man why is it all alive and stuff, it's weird, like, you know, weird, right. And magic. And stuff. Right Sophia?!" And so Sophia snorts in amusement at the attempt to rile her through inanity.
Kainudy was waiting for the aura, and carefully releases her own, trying keep it just on Gweneth. It's something she hasn't done in a very, very long time. At least, not while being in control of herself. It's not challenging, like other draconic auras. It's not one of fear. Just crushing, paralyzing pressure made of emotions Gweneth can't understand: regret, pain and overwhelming anger. It's like being kissed by the Queen of Demise herself.
Gweneth's freezes, her mouth opens in a slowly widing gape and her ears fall. The aura collapses inward, then begins to build within the girl as her engine of power and strange forces begins to awaken, and build, the silverware and plates beginning to rattle vibrate and then lift off to tumble in the air -- and the sisters panic.
Tasha sits up immediately, hands to the table. "AHH SHIT--" Kala, who leaps out of her chair and staggers away. Fiera grabs Ashera and pulls her back and away, and Sophia kicks her chair against the table hard, sliding it back several feet as she lifts her book between her self and the table. The magical pressure is immense as it rises, Tasha standing up and calling out but Gweneth doesn't seem to hear it. The anisble connection goes silent. The well of the Monad rises, but it's Gweneth herself that begins to change. Like energy compressing she begins to alight in a scintillating energy, growing brighter, like star. Blue energy, swirling in a golden light, until her form ceases to be distinct and a bow wave forms behind her, causing the sisters to grab people and retreat further.
A star forms above Gweneth's head for the brief moment before she converts in to something some roiling, star-bright energetic essence -- and then it is gone.
The energy wave from its departure trails towards the doors outside, which are now also gone from their connections, the two pieces hurtling far in to the distance with a melted half circle cut in to them.
The implosion comes right after.
"She's going to take on her dragon form, I suspect," Kainudy says calmly, and eats another slice of pizza. "A defensive response, hopefully."
"I have to fix those doors you know," Kai complains. Whisper, who has been quiet all this time gets up and runs out after the streak.
"Was that really necessary?" Galatea asks, someone angrily.
"Yes," Kainudy says. "She's going to face this sort of thing. She needs to realize it before progressing further. There aren't any convenient pits with captive outer beings for her to fall into here."
"What just happened?" Lad asks, looking to the sisters.
"She didn't cry though, which is important," Kainudy notes. "I'm impressed by that."
Galatea storms out after Whisper and Gweneth.
Tasha... Tasha shakes for a moment, her hands gripping the table. There is a controlled intensity to the woman as she stares straight ahead and where her daughter departed. "What. Did. You. Do," she demands of Kainudy, her own aura up now, the halo that always encircles her when she isn't hiding her powers is brighter now, but measured, in check.
"AWW MAN MY EARS --- HELLO!?!" Kala, to FIERA. "WHAT??? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Fiera, to Kala. Ashera is busying herself checking on people while also grabbing her ears, answering Lad with, "I DON'T-- I. Don't. Know. Sophia?" Sophia looks back to Ashera, opens her mouth, but it just hangs there. She looks dazed. For a moment, she looks lost, and then she turns to her father in askance -- as if seeking him in a moment of weakness, wondering in a glance what happens and why it bothers her.
Beth, who has Lapi ears, is scrunched down and gripping them tightly. "Sharon? Sharon, could you check the Lapi, Beth was closest," Ashera directs.
The stunned Human blinks, and then goes to check on Beth.
Outside, along the distant horizon, a star glimmers. It's arching procession pases over the lake, beyond the castle, a comet of light and energy moving at hypersonic speeds, careening towards the distant mountains.
"I challenged her," Kainudy says. "As a dragon. Well... as a monster, to be honest," she admits. "She didn't break, I don't think. And it wasn't enough to really hurt her, just a little taste. I had to be careful in case it spilled over to anyone else."
"Now we see if she can grow some armor," the dragon adds.
"Was that really necessary? Here? Now?" Tasha echoes Galatea's words, pushing off and standing up. She looks torn between laying in to Kainudy and chasing after her daughter. She choses her daughter, quickening to a run until she sees Beth and her other children stumbling, and stops. "Sharon and I will tend to any wounded, Whisper's already after her. Galatea, you're fast, go with Whisper."
"TAKE ME, TAKE ME," Kala goes,m staggering over to Galatea. "PICK ME UP I DON'T CARE." Fiera follows, nodding to the sentiment. "We"RE FINE LETS GO."
Kala does indeed get 'picked up', levitating and then being flown out.
Fiera makes a 'me too' motion, gesturing at herself; she looks impatient, and like her mother, her expression can carry an easy imperiousness of expectation and judgment.
"This is what it means to take up the crusade," Kainudy says calmly. "This is why the others were rejected. I need to know how she reacts to... horrible things... before letting her go after monsters."
"Horrible things at her celebratory pizza party with children and guests present?" Tasha's counter is hard and unapologetic, hard edged and strong, from years of facing politicians, monsters, and worse. But there is the gentleness of motherhood, and a desire to protect. She is, in some ways, the would be angel of her reality, aspiring to be that which she has long lamented lacking in the universe: a being that can answer prayers on mortal terms, and supply kindness and fury as needed. Different from Kainudy, she, like Kainudy, has become karma itself: the flame of Life and Destruction, bearing the power of Creation and new life, in myriad forms. And she will not back down, from anything, knowing she may be among the last bulwarks against the end of days. She has confided in Kainudy an intention toward immortality, to fill a role that is needed, mend a distraught universe, and play angel, for if someone mist, then it may as well be her. Though she abandoned her crusade she took up another, life itself, and unity, to clear the way and ensure the fields prosper, the cities fill with cheer, and there is life and hope to return to.
Tasha has no fear of Kainudy, though she knows full well her power. And through the years Tasha has honed herself, in secret, to this great plan of her's, cultivating herself in her own way, for her own role. A flag planted at the end of the world.
"It's important to be afraid of this moment," Kainudy claims. "For everyone. Fear keeps you safe. But you should go find your daughter. Be her mother. That's important, Tasha. You have to be the counter-balance to me. I will always be the taskmaster. I will always be the magnet for Gweneth's anger."
"A martyr, then? Or afraid of what happened before, happening again? I saw it in your eyes. And I see the resemblance. A fear to protect us all, it would seem." But Tasha stands up after healing Beth's ears, her glow dying down, but always, the halo. Like a crown and a duty, it sits upon her head and shoulders, always. "I'm going. Fiera, to me. Sharon, handle the rest. Nora, what are you doing? You're an instructor. You should come too, and see for yourself what this means. You may face it again."
"I don't have wings," Nora points out, just before Vasha picks her up. "You're skinny and light," the Vartan claims.
"Thankfully ego does not weigh in pounds or we might get nowhere, the lot of us," Tasha declares. She then levitates both Fiera and herself and begins to accelerate towards the door.
"That was scary," Gabriel notes. Melchior also gets up and follows the others.
The orange-blue-yellow comet streak that is Gweneth arcs across the horizon with astonishing speed, clearing the lake in seconds, disturbing the clouds, and sending a echoing hypersonic boom rolling across the landscape. From the vantage of those pursuing, it's as if a star-bright comet had shot from the cafeteria across the valley. And then they see the flash, hear the explosion moments later, as the arc impacts the far mountains leaving a cloud of debries, obscuring normal vision.
For those that can see beyond the fog of debris, dirt and dust, the entity -- for Gweneth no longer seems to have a humanoid shape -- appears as a senses-achingly bright point of light, awash with power, condensed with life. A sense of, at first, of aradiating power that quickly turns to an accumulating one. And then, the sky begins to darken. Not all at once, but as a rolling spheres from the point of impact, perhaps the first time most, maybe all, have seen light itself be sucked in to a point, falling away in streaks that scintillate only dimly, little luminescent energy escaping these inward falling beams as illumination across the valley falters and dies. What may be more astonishing is that it is not simply ambient light, but all light, regardless of its source. The sun, real or illusion, quickly grows dim as it is siphoned away and in to the cloud.
But the assault on the senses doesn't end there. As the group makes there way there is a change in the accumulation all of the ansible holders feel the young dragon's mind against the limits imposed on her, aggressively trying to find a way past the barriers to draw power from the device. Other senses are piqued; Whisper and Kainudy feel the disturbance against the Monad, they and others the weave of this place. It's as if a vortex had crash-landed across the lake, consuming in to itself toward an end.
"Hey, she's messing with my stuff," Whisper complains as the group approaches. The only flightless member, Nora, remains quiet as Vasha carries her. "What is she doing? Trying to make something?"
"I'm.. not sure what's going on," Galatea admits.
"Nor am I, but what Kainudy said concerns me," Tasha remarks. Her ears have been flicking, eyes twitching, as she reacts to the senses she has, the efforts to process what's going on clear on a face that has, for years, given away little of what she's actually thinking.
"Hey mom, can I do that?" Kala, floating, beside her mother asks as they move across the lake at a cautious approach speed. "Probably not," her mother says, distractedly. "Aww man! Hey am I in trouble?" The red woman flicks a gaze to her daughter, who throws her hands up in surrender, and then she's back to puzzling over the light in the distance that is also her daughter.
"She's trying to draw power from the ansible," Galatea notes. "And the environment. Be careful approaching her! If you feel yourself getting weaker, pull back."
The attempts against the ansible abruptly cease, the inhuman mind roiling across the securities relenting all at once. It's like a hundred grasping hands trying to open a puzzle box; in failing, it recedes away, leaving only empty stillness where once there was frenetic motion. But Gweneth has not relented, a fact that is made clear as she redirects her focus deep in to the endless sea of power and potential that is the Monad, the unformed. Without anisble limitations, she draws deeply, a funnel cloud, a hurricane above the ocean, her tempest-spiral circling down and in to herself. The point of light becomes a heavy space, strange and hazardous, reality twisting and roiling with the accumulation of power and creation. There is the Flame of Life, the power of magic, the Unformed woven in on itself, potential being made in to actual, and the act of making sending shockwaves well beyond the localized storm, to pass across this reality, as powers collide in ill fitting clashes, energies do not mix, and shapes and colors dance and swirl.
Galatea's warning proves to be sound: as they approach the inward vortex of energy can be felt as they pass the lake, and so Tasha descends and pauses. "I don't like this. If that had been me, I know what I would have done, when I was young." "Drink?" Kala asks, which ears her a gentle swat across the muzzle, Tasha not diverting her gaze from the nexus of power. "Galatea, that's just an avatar, correct? Kainudy cannot alight upon this realm safely, as I recall."
"No, she can't," Galatea confirms. "The Queen of Demise would distort this place, and all of her restraints are built into her private reality. I don't know what Gweneth is trying to do here, I haven't tried contacting her yet."
"I see..." Tasha has a way of quietly stating something in just such a way as to make a short note of observation sound like a death knell, or a grim tiding indeed. Years of facing the worst horrors across realities, technologies, magics and more beside have lent her a gravitas in her disapproval, a terrible heaviness to her brief utterance. Such is the case with her words now.
The storm lashes, a vortex, a funnel in reverse without restraint nor any acknowledgement of such trivialities as real-world physics and the barriers against the beyond. It accumulation builds and builds, amassing like a weight, like a black hole.
And then... it stops in one final, enormous pulse. The sun flickers and dies, the lights go out, those whose power might be drawn upon feel a enervating drain for a moment all across the land. All that power, all that creation, collapse to a point beneath the dust, the light, the everything, all in a mass at the center of Gweneth's being to that impossible, unknowable part of her that, and to the light inside.
Tasha winces, averting her eyes as her senses rest upon something they cannot fathom and to a light that is so very familiar to her own. Not since Pheeny has she sensed it's like, but the Flame of Life -- the idea of light and life itself -- is no pure mercy. It is a power like any other, and this she knows well. Galatea, she remembers, knows it too.
The lights return in flickering starts, sun returns to the land, and something rises from the cloud. Great, massive salmon-pink feathered and furred wings with glinting scales of silvered crystal and luminescent white stretch from the tempest's interior, reaching for the sky as if to pull it all down. Two points follow, crystalline, silver like the scales of the wings, leading to a head that is at once canine and draconic, wreathed in fur, attached to a barrel, serpentine torso that lifts the massive body toward the heavens. The being's clawed hands, stretching from the upper portion of it's body below the head, not unlike that of the humanoids present, rise, glinting silvered claws and hands that could grasp the dropship like a toy model.
Gweneth -- Gwenetherion -- towers over the mountains some forty feet tall. Eyes like pools of yellow light scan the horizon. A star forms above her head, blue, settling between her antler-like horns, shining to compete with the rekindled sun, shining brightly, shining to sear the eyes as Gwenetherion's entire body glows pink-bright--
"GET DOWN--" Tasha, barked with no room for disobedience, the woman immediately descending to the ground and throwing up a barrier of flame-light before yanking Fiera and Kala behind herself hard enough to hurtle Kala back and stagger Fiera.
"Ow what the hell--"
"Mom..?"
Galatea puts up a wider area barrier to make sure the others are protected.
"Gwen doesn't know fear. She's never been opposed by anything that could hurt her. And Kainudy isn't known for her restraint and self control..." Tasha. Tasha redirects Melchior now, back to the cafeteria, and to everyone else -- evacuate who you can.
Get away from Kainudy.
And to Kainudy, she tells her to ascend -- rapidly.
"She doesn't know how to fight, she doesn't know what 'enough force' means, she only ever known peace and safety," Tasha tells the other in a frantic, strained voice of distraction as she maintains her own barrier. "If it had been me... I'd have... "
They don't need to wait for her words to tell them what's going to happen, it all becomes obvious as Gwenetherion rears back, head up, nose up, defiant -- and deep inside of her light traces from all within her, racing to her mouth, gathering between her teeth, something like molten light, but to those who can see, stranger still. The Monad is drawn upon again to power the new gathering of energy, to shape the potential. A dragon erupting with power from between its jaws has meant one thing more than any other to all the worlds and all the peoples to ever have encountered one.
Galatea knows a fire like the one Gwenetherion is building, it blew her apart so many years ago. But it is only similar, the last had no intention to attack, no will to strike at her. This does. It feels like the gathering potential of destruction through the wrath of life -- no, of the very idea of light itself -- woven form Gwenetherion's own power and that of the Monad being funneled through her and in to it. Destruction through making, through heat and light and so much else, woven through with the ineffable essence of Gweneth that lurks at her core. An eldritch power for an ethereal dragon, an idea, potential, paradox, the impossible.
The girls can see Tasha shouting but the sound of the gathering power drowns out audio; the great dragon is turning its head down, seeking something in the distance -- and settles on it.
There is little time now.
Another light rises up. Orange and red, a tiny sun. Pheeny spreads her wings, as she stands in Gwenetherion's way. "Gwen," Pheeny calls. "You look pretty. What are you doing?" The Phoenix's voice is calm and friendly.
Back at the base, as people scramble, Kainudy walks out onto the airfield with the last slice of pizza in her hand. "Quite a tantrum. Self-control and shielding will have to be a priority," she mutters.
Everyone presents feels the intrusion in their mind, something like a mental gasp, raw panic, the sudden urge to do something and not being all sure what, a choking sense of immediate desperation to change what is in motion. They see a stone, about to be hurled, Fiera's fist rushing forward, they see--
Then most can't see anything all but a wall of white as Gwenetherion rolls her mighty head to the side and her muzzle vanishes -- and everything else -- vanishes in light, thoughts drowned in a scream of rejection, a dragon's roar across the mind.
A bassy, bone deep thrum blasts across the landscape from a flicker of twinkling lance-light.
And then the distant mountain beyond the housing complex loses half its face to an explosion that sends earthquake shivers across the land, boulders like grains of sand hurtle, and fire ignites across the treeline below, soon to be joined by molten rock flowing down the mountainside.
"My mountain!" Whisper cries out. "That hurt!"
"Are you angry?" Pheeny asks Gwen. "Are you hungry?"
The great serpentine dragon's mouth snaps shut and the light radiating from her dies down. It towers still, but there is a change in its demeanor, hands held out, palms up, as if pleading with the glowing figure before it. It leans in, ears back, head... wobbily. It seems to become aware of this fact, the canine-draconic head pulling back, then rolling down to look at its hands, its neck, it flips over upside down to look behind itself, and then the head flops forward with uneven control. The gathered are sent a vision: a bit of pasta, in a bowl; a rope end swaying in the breeze, a flower step touched and let go.
The jaws open again and a great clawed hand points to the being's neck. "My head is like a noodle!" The words roll across the landscape like the rumblings of a high and not unpleasant thunder, young and androgynous, yet deep, loud, and bassy.
"Yes, I noticed that. Your body seems to sort of flap away from it like a ribbon," Pheeny says. "Is it a problem?"
"Maybe?" The neck looks back at itself, head upside down, then lifts to look up each of its wings, down at its body again, and back.
The shield Tasha had been holding drops, she draws in a deep breath, and then she goes and sits on a rock while rubbing her temples. "Is everyone alight? Everyone aside from our lawn, I mean."
Fiera is standing now, staring up at the enormous faintly glowing monstrosity as it converses with The Phoenix. "Our little sister's a kaiju..," breathes Kala from the ground. Fiera simply nods, very slowly. "And her head is like a noodle!" The elder sister blinks. "The Noodle blew up my training spot... That was almost our home..." Disbelief, distant and overwhelmed.
Gwenetherion reaches towards Pheen. "You're small! Hi! Welcome back! Kainudy is here! I don't like her! I missed?" And a taloned hand points across the lake. Echos of the awful feelings sent to her are sent to Pheeny. I don't like it. The last is simply an overwhelming sense of rejection paired with a poorly related sense of mental pain without symbolic representation; Gweneth unable to relate what it is like to fear and be made afraid, her desire to destroy that which made her so, as she had once before. It all comes without a sense of guilt, even its consideration, pure in her rejection and the answer to the problem before her.
"You're younger than you look," Pheeny says. "Still a baby in dragon-years. I suppose it was too much, all at once?"
And then Kai is there in the sky with the two. "Here," she says. "I did this for Pheeny too." She places her hand on Gwenetherion's chest, and suddenly Gwen just understands how to change forms, in a way that's simple and efficient. "No point trying to teach this the long way," Kai notes.
"Why did she hurt me?" Another simple question, as pure as the previous thoughts and intentions. When Kai appears the dragon's enormous head rears back, ears up, molten glowing eyes wide, clearly caught by surprise, then her head goes almost vertical at the sudden influx of knowledge, the coil of her body sinking down as she clearly needs a moment to process.
"Wow!" More words to disturb the sky with their thunder, if not exactly their gravitas.
Pheeny is treated to something like a mouse crossed with a butterfly emerging from a shell, and, for some reason, a sock turned inside out.
"She wanted to see how you react to stress, to resistance and to fear," Kai explains. "It's nice that you discovered your dragon form, but.. you ran away, and left your sisters behind. If you're going to be exposed to the chaos of actual people, you can't react like that. You'll need to be shielded."
The dragon's massive head tilts to the side. Tasha looks up, sees a reflection of herself, and then pulls out her datapad to direct it at the gigantic from of her daughter as she starts a conference call. "Our daughter is enormous; I trust you can see her from there. We may need to scold her later for almost obliterating the base, half our family, and our nice collection of period starships."
Meanwhile Kala's getting back up. "hey, think I can turn in to a dragon, too?" Fiera snorts a laugh. "Maybe in to a squeaky dolphin -- or a fish." But the laugh doesn't quite reach her eyes, and her face is strained. "H-hey, Gwen probably didn't mean to, you know... almost... uh ... You know." The half-dophin waves vaguely back towards the base. "She's just scared, you know? I don't think she's ever really been scared. I mean it was a party, who scares kids at a party? Grandma Buzzkill the Party Demiser is kind of intense..."
"So.. what was all that, exactly?" Nora asks Tasha as people regroup. Vasha still hasn't actually put her down though. "Growing pains," Galataea claims.
"More or less. It's something I've encountered with beings further removed from humanoid and mortal-tiers of power. The growing pain in this case occasionally commensurate with their considerable personal power and ability, which does not always equate to wisdom nor understanding. It is as Pheeny said: she's a young dragon, perhaps still a baby. Kainudy hurt her, so she retreated in surprise, and then she lashed back -- which is why we'll have a nice mountain plateau resort building location once the lava clears and the forest fire dies down. I'm not sure she even considered the idea any of us could die, or the consequences of her attack -- only that she returned both the injury and the slight. I doubt she's come to grips with the feelings Kainudy engendered in her, and likely doesn't have the reference besides." Tasha sets her pad down so it can watch the spectacle with its lens as she stands and turns to face Nora. "Her mother and I have never quite settled on how to raise Gwen, but the idea was put forward she be raised like a dragon, which is to say, left to claim a little part of the landscape and figure out everything on her own. But that has been interrupted now as Gweneth chose to meet Kainudy, however little she might have understood what that means. I'm uncertain," and here her eyes sldie to Kala, who is too busy patting Fiera's shoulder and reassuring her, "... why she did so, but she did and that was that. I imagine whatever reason she saw it as something to oppose. I think Kainudy caught Gweneth off-guard, so she... flailed a bit. Though, I imagine her infinite self confidence is undeterred."
"Ah, infinite self-confidence I can relate to," Nora claims in a moment of self-deprecating self-awareness. "So she's never had to be disciplined for anything? Have any of your children?"
"What's that I think I heard Ashera try and reach us, she must be worried, uh, you, you Fiera should go to her -- and I should help you! You seem distraught. Let me take your arm and there we go off around the lake--" Fiera rolls her eyes at Kalalani's antics, but does not actually resist being directed away from her mother, Nora, and the question of being punished.
Tasha watches all of this with an assessing look. "Yes, of course they have. Some of them are just more resistant to it than others, and Gweneth has, perhaps to your surprise given our new mountain-shaped candle, done very little to be punished for. She has, in her way, remained content to live in her forest, to stare at things for hours or days, and to simply exist at one with her nature -- in both senses of that thought. I know she once killed something like a boar in self defense, but that's hardly something to punish someone over. I thought she'd work out life and death by being so close to nature, but I fear she sees it like an immortal, and that she is too close to nature. Humanity sees itself as separate, while a dragon like Gweneth sees herself as nature, and this is true. Her forest has slowly changed to become as she is. She has understanding, in ways I do not completely fathom in fact, but she lacks a mortal perspective and understanding which will be key to working with, defending, and understanding the motivations of mortals. She does not see the world as Terragens do. She, like Whisper, is more like a small god."
"And you're going to send her to school?" Nora asks. "I mean.. Fiera and Ashera I could see taking on this whole legacy thing. But it sounds like Gweneth is the least likely to handle it. Why'd she throw her hat into the ring anyway?"
Tasha's eyes track Fiera and Kala as they walk away from the group, back around the lake. "I suspect someone put the idea in her head. I've avoided spying on my daughters to give them freedom and to avoid resentment, but Kala's as able to hold a secret as a paper airship is able to fly, that is, badly. It's no secret the girls have been worrying about the matter of my legacy and with Fiera and Ashera having failed to achieve it I imagine those who are 'next in line' have been feeling some pressure, and perhaps that pressure reached Gweneth. She is, despite recent events, not unsympathetic, nor is she unkind. She is simply distant and deep in her own world and way of thinking. And, much to our collective surprise, she succeeded in attaining an ansible. her motivations must be sufficient if Kainudy granted her one." Tasha shakes her head, letting the girls escape her stare, turning back to Nora. "We must understand her and she us. That is why she needs to go to school. In some ways she's the opposite of where I began: she has everything, what she must learn is what having less is, what sacrifice is, and the nature of what we're dealing with. Perhaps it'd be kinder to let her live as she was, but somehow I doubt she'd just go back. We are -- all of us -- immensely stubborn." And so she grins lopsidedly.
"Plus she can turn into a big honking dragon-thing," Nora says. "And airships were originally made out of paper. Anyway, I assume it's the big-honking-dragon-thing part that got her the job."
"If I understand, she didn't know how to do that until, well, now. If the impulse I felt is correct Kai just applied some of Kai's famous direct teaching, so hopefully she'll turn back eventually, though I wouldn't be surprised if she just has a nap like that. It's all very new and exciting for her, so I can't imagine she'll give it up just yet. Perhaps if we declare we're having pancakes, and then explain she cannot fit and no her head doesn't count, she'll be inclined to turn back." But Tasha smiles, just a little. "Kainudy wouldn't give her a thumbs up if it was just about power alone. There has to be more than that. Did you notice that despite being scared -- injured -- she's almost forgotten about it? It may seem like a simple thing, but it can be surprisingly hard to let wounds go. To let go and move on. She's more resilient than people realize, because her merits don't express themselves in ways mortal society, that is, our reality's mortal society, recognize."
"So she's going to be treated as an immortal by her teacher then, and we can't understand just what that means," Nora says, shaking her head. "Did the god version of me have these issues with you?" she asks.
Tasha's smile brightens. "I was an attentive and excellent student. After all, look at how well I've turned out." And so the red woman gestures to all around her: the gigantic dragon that is her daughter, currently playing grab-the-thing games with Pheeny and Kai as she attempts to playfullymouth or hand nab them and they dodge her; her elder children presently fleeing the combined potential wrath of their mother and their teacher; the half melted mountain; the godlike starship presently searching overhead for signs of damage and concern; the pocket universe; the strange copy of an ancient Terran base; and so much else besides, not the lest of which being Tasha herself, mother of strange and diverse children. "Luckily for us both I have some experience with this sort of thing. Unlucky for you, I cannot remain long; the universe doesn't wait."