Left to his own devices for the first time in what felt like months, Ulric found himself struggling to find any motivation to move. He was safe. Actually safe, not the pretend kind you convince yourself of when you're alone in the wilderness surrounded by things that will kill you and suck the marrow from your bones, if you're fortunate enough for them to do it in that order. He was in a relatively modern setting, in that he didn't need to spend hours preparing firewood or gathering water. Or making his own food. Or hunting, or weaving rope, or however the hell else he'd been spending his time doing the million tasks required to pull himself out of the stone age, alone, with nothing but himself and the raw stuff of the glade as a resource.
"Watcher's tits, being a bush hermit was a little more involved than I'd thought in the Before." Ulric drily informed the immaculately carved woodwork of his apartment.
He'd fantasized, frequently, about leaving it all behind to live out his days in the ravaged remains of wilderness and to hell with the radiation or inevitable starvation. What he'd not quite realized fully until now was how imminent that fate would have been in his crippled condition. It would have taken two, maybe three weeks, tops, before his body shit the bed and he froze and or withered away in some half assed lean to. Ulric gave himself a double handed slap on the cheeks to draw himself out from remembering the Before.
With his safety assured, and his needs met, he found himself able to simply sit and be for a moment, absent external force. It had all the liberation of zero gravity. Unmoored, his thoughts drifted and Ulric lost himself fully to the twisted webs of his own mind. Images of battles fought zipped through his closed eyes. Strange, beautiful fey forms of Elves slid one past the other. He thought of Hal'et and her infectious laugh. Conversations rewound through his memories and he tried to figure out exactly how close he'd come to fucking everything up through an ill worded gaff or an offhand comment in the heat of one of many tense moments.
Magic and a timeless dance of many Elven feet as they drummed magnificent death to their enemies filled his thoughts. He saw Geyrt's naked form in his mind's eye, soft where it should be and deliciously firm elsewhere. Abruptly Bald'rt was in his consciousness with his leering grin and his waggling eyebrows, so incredibly similar in feature to his daughter. For a moment Ulric's brain tortured him with a nude Lord of Iriel until he banished the intrusive thought and turned for an untold time to planning petty revenge for the children's class.
When next Ulric pulled himself from the labyrinth of his musings it was because he had felt the presence of the Winter storm and could smell rain. The sounds were greatly muted by Elven witchery, the citadel Irielhos absorbing and deflecting the vibration of the storm's pouring rain alongside the thrashing winds. Thunder could be faintly heard to boom and luminescent flashes of lightning poured into the room from the balcony doors. It was most certainly those searing brilliant lights that pulled him free of himself.
"Wonder how my shelter is doing…" Ulric wondered aloud.
It had been well within his planning to have been absent two weeks. Today marked the, what, tenth day since leaving? No, not even that long, four days of travel, and today marked the end of the third day amongst the Elves. Right? He wasn't entirely sure. There had been so much. This must be where the lost time of the fairy folk myths come from. Just here in this room he felt like he'd lost a few hours.
Rising from the chair into which he'd collapsed as soon as he relieved himself of his gluttonous burdens, Ulric ran briefly through the steps of the Elven dance, both the ones he had practiced and the ones he had witnessed. It made for a nice calisthenic routine.
Get your cardio and slay your enemies all at the same time! He laughed to himself.
Mana exhaustion's headache still pulsed and a quick check of his status revealed himself to only be at around three percent, not enough to push back against the ailment. Normally, the worst of the effects wouldn't go away until five percent and it wouldn't completely vanish until ten percent. He wasn't just imagining it then, he recovered more slowly in this place than in the glade. Probably thirty or forty percent slower too, it was not a small difference. Having experienced the sheer density of mana inside the Arcanum, Ulric was now positive that the disparity was in the availability of free mana, the natural flows of it through the environment.
On the Ancient Plateau the air was saturated with magic, thick with it. The deep wood was still no doubt a magical hot spot but it paled in comparison with the untouched land that had been guarded for an eon by the Forest Lord. Perhaps it had been chosen for a lair specifically because of that mana density. Could be that those deep places in the world cultivated monstrous beings as a pond bred mosquitos, which beings not being present on Varda was proof alone that its gods still lived.
With that difference in arcane recovery in mind, Ulric decided that the best use of his time now was unconsciousness. It had been a long ass day. And not a ton of sleep the night before, a fact which Ulric regretted not at all considering the company that prevented it. Hell, the day before had been equally jam-packed. No, at this moment Ulric was feeling the exhaustion of body, mind, and magic. Committing to his plan, he stripped out of his clothes and piled into bed. Sleep took him in moments.
It was dark out when Ulric awoke. No birdsong. The absence of glade sounds was slightly jarring, he'd become accustomed to the sounds of the forest in these last few months; their vivid racket greeting him upon rising. The only sound that made it into the room was the faint roaring hum of wind. Winter's Herald had arrived in full force. Branches of the towering tree fortress Irielhos was built into swayed with it. The entire tree rocked gently in the gale force winds. Ulric had exactly no clue as to what time of day it might be. He didn't need as much sleep as he had in his previous life, only five hours at maximum, but he'd driven himself pretty hard the day before. Black, rolling clouds with whisps of white blitzing beneath made figuring out much beyond past daybreak impossible for him. It was nearly enough to send him back to his dreams, and the cozy warmth of the blankets.
But only nearly.
Rolling out of bed, Ulric had learned both a lot and precious little about magic the previous day as he resettled the sheets and blankets into something approaching order. He was aware that that meeting was very much an introduction and a sounding board. The Dragons of Iriel who would be teaching him had needed to know where to start. Ulric was confident that his combination of near hopeless ignorance and impossible knowledge had thrown a wrench into their planned course of instruction. Just as well, he hoped it confused them as much as it did himself, he hated being the only one adrift on the open ocean.
Towards the end of making sure he didn't waste his gift of safe harbors here in Irielhos, Ulric decided today was the day he would work on magic. The main problem with that plan was, however, that he was in a borrowed room made of wood, with fanciful carvings of priceless worth everywhere, and the only spells he could practice would destroy it. Not a fantastic starting point. However, there was something on which he could work that wouldn't set the walls on fire.
Bathe Iriel had jumped a solid thirty meters through the air. At least six body heights high. She had struck her husband and sent him crashing across a great hall with enough force to bounce. Clearly, she was stronger than she looked, just as her husband had demonstrated a phenomenal robustness to escape her ballistic scolding relatively unharmed. Judging by appearance alone was just not even close to seeing the full picture.
Vedyr had mentioned something about reinforcement of oneself. Shor had then implied that gaining strength in one's ability to handle and refine mana was the only way to avoid eventually destroying one's body through weird mana interactions that resulted in turning into an elemental. All of this pointed to a more internalized way of using mana than he had thought about before. Some body magic equivalent techniques or a way to infuse oneself with mana instead of merely storing it in the core or moving it about mana channels. Where to start Ulric had no immediate ideas but that was the direction he intended to go with this day of solo play.
Ulric grabbed a chair, wondrously carved and cushioned by what felt like some kind of springy material covered in a soft leather, also heavier than he could have picked up in his old life, and moved it one handed to the balcony door. The whipping, roiling clouds made for a majestic sight. To that marvelously rampant backdrop he horked down a few portions of meat, bread, and cheese washing it all down with water. A shame to treat such excellent food that way, but Ulric wanted to get on with figuring out how to wrap his head around internal magic.
Thus sated, he sat in his chair and closed his eyes.
The most natural starting point had to be the core. Without even checking his status Ulric could tell by the mental clarity and light feeling of his body that he was at mana saturation again. Seems his natural regeneration while sleeping was still fast enough to return him to full, even if it was slower in Irielhos than the glade.
If he were doing this in the Arcanum from yesterday, he'd be willing to bet it would have been a solidly even pace compared to the glade. Environmental mana density was definitely a thing and highly variant.
Ulric put that on hold though, before he burned an hour trying to outline the relationship between mana density and biomass. Instead, he concentrated on his own core, that second beating heart through which fire and ice alternated. Delicately, he took up mana like clenching a muscle, squeezing the metaphorical fist of his Will to hold a tiny portion of the cosmic vitreous or whatever the hell it was. It was real was all he could attest to with certainty, but only when you reached out and touched it. Like a collapsing wave function, it transformed from indefinite and ethereal to definite and material.
Now firmly in hand, so to speak, Ulric began to harmonize this raw magical essence, tuning it to the elements with which he was familiar. At first, he tried direct transitions, water to air to earth to fire and so forth. It wasn't possible, at least not for him. The mana rebelled against such attempts, the discord between wave forms being incompatible. It felt a little like molding clay, the raw mana took shape easily to his efforts obtaining the specific mana type was a little like becoming a shape that fit with his feeling of an element, like Incendere's playful violence.
Once in that shape though it solidified to concrete and no amount of pushing would force it to obtain another shape. The attempts saw him at one moment struggling against the tuned mana he held and the next a dangerous feeling of instability, like cracks in the ice beneath his feet that sent alarm bells trilling in his lizard brain. He pulled back from the attempts to transition mana directly and, instead, reversed the tuning to return it back to its neutral form, the unfolding of the origami he'd produced back to flat paper. From there it was easy to mold again into a new shape, to attune a new elemental form.
For an hour, as best he could judge, he harmonized mana to the elemental forms he had practiced, these basic elements, simply holding and feeling them. He had practiced these types of manipulations before, in his calm evenings in the glade, but his familiarity had improved substantially. Never did he externalize the mana, use his core to manifest it outside of himself as he would for a spell. He simply held, shaped, and felt it. In so doing Ulric was certain that he was starting to find similarities between some elemental forms, like finding underlying notes shared between different chords. Incendere, Caelum, Ceraun, the elemental forms of fire, air, and lightning, they all held a distinct note of mobility. To a lesser extent Aquae had this same note but it rang not nearly so loud, as if the water would also be very happy to simply sit if left undisturbed. Terra and Infrig though, these were distinctly sounding for stability, for immobility. Ulric was starting to think that what he was observing was the underlying primordial elemental forms, the ones he'd been warned against touching directly. Motus then and Dissidia, motion and stillness were prominently related to the distinct difference in these elemental forms.
Ulric cycled between Incendere and Infrig, so very different that the contrasts could be, now that he was concentrating on them, parsed out. The difference in static and nonstatic layers aside there was a second buried note underpinning them, diverging them so heavily. A heavy component of Infrig felt…empty, as if it were a jar that deliberately poured out everything placed inside. Not a hole in the jar, it wasn't so passive, it actively tried to eliminate, a vacuum erasing whatever could not resist its impulsion. That was Nihil then, the primordial elemental nothingness. The infinite void. Ulric shuddered at the feel of it, instinctive revulsion making his skin pucker.
Incendere carried the flickering flashing undercurrent that suggested destructive brilliance, what could only be Lumen, light, energy. Terra, when he cycled it between the other elements, held most strongly the influence of weighted inertia that was Res, matter, that was so strongly dominant in its notes. Aquae held nearly as much of this firmament as Terra, which made some sort of sense in Ulric's mind, liquids being of equal substance to solids only vibrating along a higher octave, so to speak.
On and on, Ulric cycled elemental forms to peel them apart to compare their make ups. As he did he gained a greater insight into why they did not mix, or where they might. He reasoned why they could not be transformed from one to the next, and it seemed obvious. They were differently structured and different things needed to be rendered to a precurser to be formed into something new, akin to proteins obtained by consumption being degraded by proteases into amino acids that could then be used to produce new proteins.
"Or no... more like light." Ulric mused.
Mana wasn't just some blank entity, the raw mana of the world was a white light, a rainbow consisting of all things. The core then, acted as a prism, to extract only specific wavelengths which could then craft the basic elemental forms.
Ulric had the sudden intuition that the reason his brain kept turning to music and light in his internalized conceptual interpretations was that it was because the truth most closely matching reality was that mana was, in fact, a field. He remembered the bone shaking utterances of the Watcher, when the Impossible had said FIELD and how it had seemingly touched everything. Then mana reacted, somehow along a similar conceptual premise as if it held resonant nodes, harmonies, disharmonies, and interferences.
The mana was an infinite wave, an overlap of primordial fields. The primordial fields must unify, somehow, to create reality. If he tried to extend the analogy to his old theoretical physics days, the Field, aptly named now that he was coming to understanding, was an interference pattern, a perturbed wave that manifested from those component vibrations. Accelerations from the interactions between fundamentally divergent forces, that propagated through reality. Each specific type of mana resulted from a different interaction of the fields that produced it.
No wonder he'd been warned against touching primordial magic. Interacting with mana was fine, no problem, it was a transient localized energy free to be moved and changed. Interacting with primordial mana directly was trying to change the entire universe. Ulric decided then and there that he would never attempt to reach through and grab any one of the underlying notes. Taking in the ambient mana, sure, manipulating it to achieve his desires, absolutely. But never to take hold of the stuff beneath, that was playing god.
Ulric had a distinct impression that when a mortal played with godstuff, they got exactly what they wanted and were unable to handle it, not being equal to the task.
Ulric remembered the emptiness of Nihil, and that thing scared the shit out of him. It wanted to devour you, that was its nature. The others weren't much better. Lumen was bright, but so was the sun, it would burn through your existence with as little trouble as a blow torch popping bubbles. Motus would scatter you through the galaxy and Dissidia would entomb you in time, like sitting on the edge of a black hole.
None of them were safe, and, yet, all were at his very fingertips.
He was suddenly very glad for the Watcher's oh so brief warning and the gift of elemental knowledge, without it he might have found annihilation through ignorance.
It occurred to him that he hadn't even attempted touching the magics that were more complex, things like growing plants or healing tissue. Ulric had a theoretical idea of how that might work, he'd read the textbooks on biochemistry and cellular growth, but how easy would it be to try to heal a wound and instead cause cancer?
Not something he had any interest in dicking with, at the moment. Maybe not forever and certainly not without someone to show him the ropes. The peoples of this world might be ignorant about the scientific principles of physics and chemistry but they had eons of what he lacked: applied practice. They had already found methods that worked and worked well. Maybe, like their lightning magics, there were improvements to be had. But they had it all down already and Ulric would waste his entire life reinventing the wheel if he didn't pay attention to their instruction.
Eyes opening, the light available to the room had grown substantially. He would have guessed sometime around midmorning, midsunsrise the Elves had called it, so maybe, approximately 10:00am old time? He supposed it didn't really matter anymore. What did matter was that he had been lost in thought and experimentation for several hours by this point and hadn't made even an iota of progress towards body magic or refinement. Damn it brain.
He couldn't call it a total loss though. More like a side-grade. What he hadn't progressed in internal magics, he had greatly enhanced his understanding of mana as a whole and its individual constructs in the elemental forms, which might make his next lesson with the Dragons a bit more productive. Totally worth it, if only to discover that trying to touch a primordial mana form directly would be a hilariously misinformed suicide.
Rising from his seat, Ulric decided that a break was necessary to reset his brain. He went to his table and pick some jamfruit, peeling it with happy memories. That sweet giggling lady had completely ruined this particular food for him; never would he be able to have a meal of it that didn't lead to impure thoughts. Impure and hilariously fun thoughts.
Humming and eating he grabbed a slice of roasted meat that reminded him of duck, with its rich fattiness. Ulric had always enjoyed the gamey flavor of his hunted meats. A good thing too, when everything you ate for months was either freshly killed or dried game. The animals of Varda were patently delicious though, probably thanks to magic, for which Ulric again was infinitely grateful. Water to cleanse his pallet and he was done with brunch.
He briefly considered leaving his apartments for a jog around the corridors of this housing complex but discarded it. The Elves were holding vigil for their fallen, it would be rude to go parading around, even if he didn't strictly have to observe the same customs that they did. When in Rome, he told himself again. Instead. he settled for another two hours of stance work. It wasn't as good as with Idra'se's guidance, or even Geyrt's brusque commentary, Ulric was sure he was out of alignment, even while he tried to be diligent about the small details.
All the same, hours of practice was making him more comfortable with the motions. Soon, all conscious thought faded to the background, the steady movements became trancelike. Calmly, he found a zen, the absence of thought while the body ran through cycles of movements at a constant rhythm. Awkwardness couldn’t be avoided, especially those cross steps and back steps that left his knees feeling like they were pointing in odd directions. The discomfort faded as the cycles of stance, hold, and return to ready polished the rough edges.
Distantly, the cataloger of things in his brain started to draw connections between the act of taking a step and its purpose, its role in the grand scheme. He was starting to see why they were as they were and to find a logic in their sequence. The Dance of the Elves was exacting and each step was taken to lead to the next, and to the next after that, with the ultimate goal to land a killing blow. Small angles, incremental advantage, it was meant to be taken together as a comprehensive whole.
Ulric imagined fighting Idra'se would be like playing chess against Bobby Fischer. The openings might not make sense, but that was because they were twenty moves ahead and had already cornered you, you were just not aware of it. Even knowing that he stood no chance, Ulric got a fleeting urge to spar against the man, just maybe he could see the height of the tower from its bottom. Not yet though, he was still clumsy, still uncomfortable with the foundational steps. The flowing dance of some two score elves, feet so lightly and gracefully drumming, bodies weaving, all with perfect control, balance, and in unison, flashed into his mind. Nope. Not even close to ready to spar with Idra.
It did bear some further consideration that Ulric had been ultimately fortunate that Geyrt had thought so little of him. She'd basically considered him the same way he'd consider a Bolt Deer. They could be dangerous, maybe, if you were very stupid, but the objective reality was that they were prey and no real threat.
If she had taken him even remotely seriously, if she hadn't effectively ignored her own [Scan] and let him provoke her to unreason, there was a good chance she'd have gotten her wish about the drought under his feet. He was fast, and damned strong. But he'd never even see the strike that killed him if he tried to fight her straight up, that was no longer in question. The ambush with a bow, from significant distance, was now, in Ulric's estimation, the best-case scenario for having met his Shadow.
More luck than a man had any right to, that was what he had.
Exiting his ready stance Ulric stood up tall and raised his arms overhead to stretch his entire body. Bringing his arms down together he folded himself in half with palms on the ground next to his feet, his hamstrings and tendons stretching pleasantly. Even lower he went until forearms and elbows lay flat, the tension in his legs now reaching that almost pain that had been so familiar with his old body. Ulric raised back to lay palms to the floor and shifted his weight to his hands and, slowly, spread his legs to rest his body's mass completely on his arms. He raised his legs over an even, gradual, minute until he had assumed an arrow straight handstand. It made him want to laugh, the ease of it. He bent his arms bringing his face to nearly kiss the fragrant wood of the floor, before a violent shove of his arms launched him upwards and he rocked his weight around his center of gravity bringing his legs easily underneath him in a slight crouch as he landed.
Now he did laugh. Unreal. This must be how Spiderman would have felt.
Following the remembered motions of various Olympic events he stretched himself out of his stance funk, limbering the muscles of his limbs. It was only then standing in the room with slightly cool air on sweat slicked skin that he realized he had completely forgotten to clothe himself at any point that morning. Oops. He dressed himself in the blacks of the Elf warriors, blaming his oversight on the weeks of nudity he'd spent on the Plateau of Ancients when he'd first arrived. Clothes were a very secondary consideration to fire, shelter, and remaining unconsumed. Ulric was willing to put his lack of body modesty over in the same category of changes he'd undergone as with his near instinctive heightened aggression.
Maybe his new body was secreting über testosterone. It was not an incredibly unlikely scenario that the glandular functions of his reforged body were dissimilar to his original. He ate a metric shit ton of calories daily. Muscle tone like his should have been accompanied by near constant hunger, like a body builder preparing for a show.
Normally those athletes were under fairly strict dietary patterns, sustained for only a few months, and only following an intense bulking period. Ulric's body lacked the gross bulk of such individuals. He was probably a lean eighty or so kilos. Hard to say though, despite how easily he moved there was a feeling of density to his body that might indicate a significant underestimate on his actual mass.
Enough of that though. Ulric wasn't here to hit the gym, this day was for magical bullshit. He had tentatively arrived at some solid conclusions regarding fundamental aspects to what mana was and how it was rendered into mass. In all likelihood, mana was mass in potentia. It could be matter, if it was arranged properly. Just like it could be plasma or electric potential or kinetic energy. It could be anything because it was everything.
Heavy stuff, philosophically.
He wondered how close he was to the reality of things. Those quantum physicists would probably laugh behind their hands and bark about things like Hilbert space or some such shit. He was an engineer, those nerds were way too abstract for his tastes. Just knowing was useless to him, he needed an application. In this case, just knowing that mana could be tuned to different forms was imminently applicable. It was how he fabricated tangible spells. Even the term "spell" was sort of a weak way to describe it.
What he was doing was more like composing music or coding software. Take the raw mana, harmonize it to a specific elemental form, and then guide it through a series of patterns and rhythms to give the abstract form a specific, tangible outcome, well defined sequences and processes, just with the aether instead of sound and programming logic. Far from being a Hans Zimmer he was currently playing Greensleeves.
At the current moment he could handle a single type of mana and make it do relatively simple, if sometimes subtle, shenanigans. Travel in a straight line, compress, spread out, that kind of shit. He couldn't juggle different types of mana or make highly complex forms. The strength of his core let him "play" loudly for his level of experience but a novice still he would remain until he had better hold of the basics.
So. Before he got lost on another tangent he was going to sit down and try to figure out how body magic worked. Deed followed thought and he was soon seated cross legged on the floor, hands resting on his lap. Ulric turned his thoughts again to his core but instead of taking hold of any mana and doing something specific with it he stilled his mind and listened. Figuratively listened of course. His own mana pulsed to a beat alongside his heart. As Ulric's mind fell inwards, he started to pick up on his own distinct mana signature, a unique pattern of notes that fluctuated with the rhythm of his core. It coursed through his channels so quietly that he had a hard time noticing it when he wasn't absolutely still like this. Especially quiescent as it was, since he wasn't actively pulling his core to draw out the reserves inside himself. This subtle harmony was his baseline.
For a while he just sat and observed himself, trying to pick out his own flow at will. It was hard. Any movement drowned the impression of his own mana out. The sound of his own breathing made it difficult to perceive the mellow tones. Slowly it got easier to find and hold the melody, to hear its variations. Like picking out an individual instrument in a complex orchestra, it took a practiced ear to find a specific flute in and amongst the other woodwinds.
It was necessary that he figure this out. How else was he going to control fine mana flows in his body if he couldn't even detect it at rest? It was much easier to tell what was going on when he was dealing with huge flows that were obvious in their motion, but Ulric had a feeling that internalized magic was going to require finesse. Best to go slow and do it right the first time than hurt himself, somehow, by hurrying. The lightning incident came to mind, only body magic was going to be inside himself with nowhere to go if he cocked it up.
Hours passed by and Ulric ever so steadily improved his perception. Eventually, he managed to hold the tune while he rose to his feet, though moving washed it away again. A stroke of inspiration came to him. Why not just do more Elven stance work while he learned to recognize the feel of his own mana? The movements were familiar and it was light work so he could pick out the baseline of his mana while his body made regular, methodical movements with frequent pauses. Genius! If the old slug in his skull had arrived at that conclusion a bit faster, that is.
"Always an asshole, Ulric, even to yourself." the Reforged man sighed, shaking his head at his bouts of hypercritical thinking.
Rather than dwell on it, he focused his energy on being better.
He was another couple of hours into this newest meditation before he felt comfortable with finding his own mana signature while slowly moving through the dozen steps of the Dance with which he was most familiar. At last, satisfied that progress had been made, he released a heavy breath and decided it was time to take a break. The light had changed again with his concentration, it must be well past Sunscrest. Perhaps even Midsunsfall? Four or five p.m. by his old reckoning, if he had to guess. Hard to tell with the clouds.
The howling storm outside was beating against Irielhos with fury. Brighteyes had laid the understatement of the year on him back then: "Unwise to be caught in the storm". You said a mouthful with that one little buddy, Ulric thought, before his laughter echoed in the empty room. Rain sleeted heavily against the balcony doors which, powered by the magical protections of the citadel, did not so much as vibrate, nor allow the humidity of the storm into the room. Lightning roiled now in the clouds. Peals of thunder booming with muted intensity from the warding spells of the fortress.
Glad he was at that moment that he wasn't huddled in his shelter within the burned-out cave of the fallen godtree. It had been a structurally sound shelter, well built, given his materials and available time. But it would be damp in there and the wind would have made it drafty. Ulric would have had to burn his fire indoors at a heavy wood consumption to offset the loss of heat through such air movements. Given the sheer strength of the gale outside, it was even entirely possible that his shelter would not survive the storm unscathed, though the enormous trunks of the elder trees should break even a wind so ferocious as this. No indeed, he was happy to ride this out in the comfort of his apartments and in the generous hospitality of Iriel.
It was no wonder that the Elves here would choose this time to make remembrance of their fallen. What more stern reminder of the smallness of a human, or, well, Elf life than that raging storm? Ulric briefly thought of his sister, buried in an avalanche far too young. A loss that had badly hurt him and his parents. He then thought of his parents, well advanced in age who had lost their last child when he was taken away from his old life and delivered to Varda. That was essentially the only regret he had about this entire experience. His folks were solid people, loving parents, and they deserved better than to bury their children, he thought bitterly. A lot of people deserved better. Most of them didn't get it, just like people who actually deserved to taste all the suffering of the world rode Scott free of anything close to justice. Sour thoughts, Ulric. Too sour. Leave the past where it belongs, leave that life behind. Dragging its corpse behind will achieve nothing but sadness, to taint your second chance he told himself.
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Rousing himself from such brooding he returned to his hoarded wealth of food. Since it was close to dinner time, he had a heaping portion of the various offerings and drank away several cups of the provided pitcher of juice. Pitcher must have been ensorcelled too, the juice it housed was still cold. Good food did its work on him, restoring his cheer. He really had grown to appreciate his change in demeanor with this new lease on life. Where he might have let that down mood extend for days prior to, he was now able to shrug it off and turn his thoughts towards more positive things. Like the prospect of one day jumping tall buildings in a single bound.
As he sat, Ulric looked at his status. He had a class, with class skills and traits. There were skills there listed. Whether he had those competencies before the skill or it only updated to reflect his abilities afterwards Ulric did not know. Maybe there was a little of column A and a little of column B, the Akashic stuff had demonstrated elements of both, of feedback and two-way interaction. He had a core which had three significantly powerful properties: the ability to mana saturate, which passively boosted his entire body; the ability to overcharge spells, raising their power as he fed them more mana, so long as he didn't fumble it; and the core capacitor, which allowed Ulric to completely discharge all of his mana in a single fantastically powerful burst.
These modifiers to his core were what allowed Ulric to boost his combat potential. He could refrain from casting, maintaining his saturation for a physical and mental buffing effect, increasing his stamina and sharpness of mind. He could manipulate the amount of mana utilized in spells, so long as they weren't dependent on external factors like [Lightning Strike] which needed to achieve a breakdown potential in air or do nothing, or even worse, backlash.
His instructors in the arcane arts, along with their husband, had told him his core had tier three traits and Ulric was guessing they must have been speaking about the additional mana modifying traits. He'd have to verify his suspicions later. The real curve ball had been all that awakening talk. Pure, unaspected mana was reactive eh? That was not a way Ulric would have described it, but, now that he had delved more deeply into the relationship between pure mana, its analogues to white light, and the “color” of the specific elemental forms, he could see how that might arise.
If the pure mana, with no particular primordial harmonies dominant, were exposed to an aspected mana where there were distinctly emphatic primordial chords, those might induce a resonance with the unaspected mana, encouraging their shared waves to build on each other, like ocean waves meeting, combining to make taller waves. Ulric was starting to get a clearer picture for how a dense pocket of pure mana could interact with a sort of priming mana and kickstart some kind of resonant node that could become destructive. Like the wind through a suspension bridge at just the right frequency can build a sway that brings down the entire structure. Ulric's core was, currently, able to put down such interferences. Until it couldn't, and then he was in serious trouble.
That train of thought had some deep implications. Ulric had noted that Brighteyes was moon aspected, he had a Lunar core. Even young as he was the Elven kid had a tier three, an awakened core? Was that the mark of an accelerated training regimen or did all Elves aspect early? Was it an indication of how powerful the individual core was, that it could condense mana more stably and thus took longer to make awakening happen? More questions. Everywhere Ulric turned, he was bombarded by unknowns. He would have to put that on his list of things to ask the Ladies of Iriel.
For now though, Ulric had an idea for how to ready his body for internal magic: pushing large pulses of tuned, elemental mana, through his mana channels. Much like he had learned he could do with [Voltaic Riot] Ulric was going to push the mana through his body in cycles. Unlike the active spell though he wasn't going to do anything external with it. He'd have to remember that trick for coating his channels too, that seemed to assist greatly in reducing a curiously uncomfortable pressure or not friction he'd felt in them at the act. Perhaps this was a necessary thing, using unaspected mana as a lubricant to prevent tuned mana from unduly effecting the body, avoiding that spooky turning into an elemental problem, perhaps.
Resuming his seated position on the floor Ulric began, using very small pulses first, to cycle each elemental form he had mastered throughout the channels of his body. Core to stomach, stomach to left leg, left leg to heart, heart to right leg, right leg to lungs, lungs to left arm, left arm to head, head to right arm, right arm to core. Over and over. It reminded him of some of the Tai Chi breathing exercises he'd refused to do during rehab over his shattered knee.
He'd thought it a foolish waste of time back then. Breath into your organs? Phooey. Well, the joke was definitely on him, Ulric could distinctly feel, with the mana pulses through his system lighting up the channels in his mind's eye, clusters of channels around each organ. The pulses widened the channels, stretching them as he increased the amount of mana in each pulse. It was supremely uncomfortable, like sinus pressure. After a few pulses though the sensation of pressure went away and instead, the mana flowed more easily, smoother. Like stretching the tendons in his legs, there was a way to build resilience to how much energy he could push through his body. The type of mana used appeared to change nothing. Within his body, absent any specific construct or intent, it would seem that one form of magic was just as good as another. Energy was energy. And "breathing" the energy through the channels around his organs and through his limbs was helping their function.
Timeless hours Ulric sat, dragging different types of magical squeegee through his internal systems. Larger and larger he was able to form pulses that would pass, uncomfortably at first, and more easily later through those arcane vessels. There was a distinct stopping point though. The first pulse Ulric tried at that level felt like when you swallow a too large chunk of food, a desperate moment where he wasn't sure whether he'd simply choke on it. Firming his will and increasing the density of the coating on his channels helped and he managed, with great pain involved, to finish the cycle. But no more, his body felt raw. That was the upper limit then. He noted that this limit was not far greater than what was required to cast [Voltaic Riot] so he was pushing a little with that spell at this point in his development. Good. It meant he was finding his limits, testing his capacity, and, hopefully, surpassing those limits in time.
Ulric rose and finished his plates, ravenous for so little physical activity that day. Ancient magic breathing techniques took the piss out of you, it turned out. Speaking of which Ulric realized he was holding a bladderful of it and had, after eating, a resounding need to do the do. Elven bathroom facilities were, thankfully, somewhat normal. Think Asian squat toilets with a flush handle. He took a prison bath with a rag after that, missing greatly the glory that was the Elven bath hall, and tucked himself into bed.
Tiredness leaded his limbs. Greater tiredness than he'd known following many days in the glade chopping wood, hunting, and doing any number of camp tasks. Magic is hard, he thought before sleep took him, the hushed thunder and flashes of cloud burst lightning making for a turbulent lullaby.
Ulric jerked to waking, his body tense. He'd dreamed vividly last night and often, a rarity for him. Before coming to Varda dreams remembered were unheard of. Since his arrival, he dreamed much more frequently but they were mostly harmless things. Pizza, a strange interaction with a coworker at a job long since forgotten to his waking mind, sex. Sometimes nightmares of the Forest Lord. Most of his nightmares had that fell beast in them somewhere, frequently including it peeling his skin off. It helped soothe him afterward to remember that he had eaten the thing and wore its own hide as his breeches and coat.
This dream had straddled the line between nightmare and abstract unreality but with such an intense presence that he had trouble shaking it off. He remembered still the pelting rain on his skin. He'd been caught out in the storm, tied to the top of the great tree that supported Irielhos. Winds laden with ice raked him viciously, and thunder deafened him. And through it all the lightning. Striking his form to a cinder. But he didn't die, instead, the falling rain rebuilt him piece by piece, the droplets made of tiny fragments of himself. He'd dreamed that he could see himself as if by an outside observer and that the falling rain was made of his own substance at times. Then again the lightning would shatter his being. Over and over. Through it all, the man tied to the tree laughed insanely.
Shivering slightly, Ulric released a held breath and extracted himself from the blankets, damp from a cold sweat.
"The hell was that all about?" He asked the room.
No answer was forthcoming so Ulric relieved himself in the bathroom. Standing before the elegant curves of the polished wooden throne he took a moment to thank all of the gods and ancestors of the lands that the Elves were masters of the mundane magics of the toilet. The majesty of plumbing operated simply, using a pulled lever that "flushed" by power of a magitech device to stream a pulse of water, and disappear waste into a sewer whose design he was sure he'd be fascinated to have described to him. Ulric gave himself a smell test and grimaced slightly.
Definitely he was in need of a bath. For now, he satisfied himself with a cloth and a bucket of water, scrubbing rigorously and ridding himself of the smell of sweat. Cleanliness had returned his awareness of body odor, no longer did his brain ignore the scent of humanity on him. Probably just as well, hunting when you stank to high heaven was made far more difficult than it needed to be.
A glance through the woven veranda doors revealed darkness, indicating he'd woken pre-dawn, as had become his norm back in the glade but which habit had been disrupted these first few days amongst the Elves. Blame their booze. And their women.
Ulric stretched, arms overhead, and ran his fingers through his long hair, down past his shoulders now and still tied in a loose tail. Something would need to be done about the hair. he was finding it obnoxious. Same for the beard. He didn't mind the extra hair but it definitely needed some attention. Ulric had taken to trimming his beard with a particularly long, straight section of glassresin, near to a straight razor. He'd left that fortunate piece behind in his shelter and now regretted it. His knife was sharp enough to cut hair but didn't quite have that narrow blade geometry that made shaving easy. It would have to do though, the beard was now a soup strainer.
Pulling the bone knife free of its belt sheath Ulric used a bowl of water as a mirror and trimmed the beard back to reason, leaving its thick fullness to curl three or four centimeters from his skin. Briefly, Ulric considered completely removing the sideburns but that was a job better saved for when he had access to his razor. For now, he settled for a trim. On his hair, he enacted a solution for which he had long resolved to avoid. A braid. The loose hair of the tail was the issue and so Ulric wove the hair as he had grass, forming a tight weave that left little in the way of free strands. Ulric thought of the wooden ring that had terminated the complex braids of Geyrt and her mother Vedyr. No telling if that had some sort of cultural significance, so Ulric simply tied the end of his own far simpler weave with a leather thong to secure it.
Thus groomed, Ulric returned to the main room of the apartment and dressed. Hints of daylight, an ever so slight brightening, told the story of sunsrise not far away. Ulric opened the balcony door and was greeted by bitterly cold air, as it had been before the sudden warming, the false summer days preceding Winter's Herald. Skin prickled and Ulric basked in the refreshing flow of chilled sky around him.
The forest was transformed. Trees now denuded of their leaves stood stark. Golden browns littered the forest floor, now visible below. Only the ever-green coniferous stands kept their fir-like needles. It reinforced just how high above the ground Irielhos stood now that the woodland canopy no longer acted as a raised roof. They were way the hell up there, maybe half a kilometer. Rolling hills and running creeks stretched away in the predawn twilight, still mostly hidden. Sunsrise would bring a marvelous vantage. There wasn't enough light to be certain but Ulric thought it smelled like a frost might be on.
If the grandiose trio of moons had been in the sky he'd have been able to see as if by silvered daylight. When the full coven was on display, night was exceptionally bright on Varda. Come to think of it, he still didn't properly know the names for the stars this planet orbited or the moons that circled it. The suns were called The Twins and the moons were referred to as a group as the Coven, but not so much as a mention of the other bodies in the night sky. Interesting. It may have been that the Elves, with their myriads of terms for the trees, the skies, and the creatures were simply not so very interested in the heavens beyond.
Closing the balcony doors and cutting off the gentle gusts of winter air, Ulric turned back to the table holding the last of his spoils from the kitchens. Precious little compared to the original heaping contents but a light breakfast of fruit, juice, bread, and a last sliver of cheese was sufficient to tide him over.
The room was currently not quite as dark as the outside, there being a set of lamps, magically driven to produce a soft orange light. It was interesting that the mechanism to control the lamps was completely analog, a simple wooden switch that was pulled horizontally to dim or brighten the lamp. The resemblance to a rheostat switch was almost jarring in its familiarity. The variable mana flow device perhaps indicated something about physical mana circuits that made Ulric have to resist an intense urge to disassemble the lamps when he was first shown their use. It was curious, the fluid combination of medieval technology, candles, torches, fire pits, etc. with the obviously magical lamps, heated stone griddles, and perfectly controlled bathwater, to say nothing of the arcane insulation of the citadel's structure to produce airtight seals and temperature control.
The results were impossible to deny, he was comfortable. The Elven kingdom had achieved a semblance of modern convenience that was equivalent to, even surpassing, many remote hunting or fishing cabins in which Ulric had stayed. If there was a phone somewhere, Ulric would have been hard-pressed to point out a significant difference. Other than the long-eared beautiful folk who roamed its hallways, of course. In stark contrast to the efficient, functional nature of the facilities of Irielhos was the absolute wonder that was Elven carpentry and artistry, applied to every surface. Ulric's ceiling appeared to be a forest canopy in full flowering bloom, with vines interlacing between branches, mossy trails falling from limbs, and leaves of various types filling the spaces between. It gave an appearance of depth that Ulric would have thought impossible if he weren't right there experiencing its spectacle.
Between the self-care and the enchanting vista of Irielhos, Ulric had mostly shaken off the remnants of the night's disturbing dreamscape. He was in the middle of a set of stances, preceded by the same stretching routine as yesterday, when a forceful knock sounded on his door, the wooden echo tearing the peace of the morning.
Ulric rose and went to the chamber door, pulling it open with suspicion. Geyrt didn't knock like that. More rap-tappa-tap-tap than thud-bang. At first, he thought he was wrong, that his Shadow had sprung an overly enthusiastic knock on him. But no, the first impression left and Ulric beheld the Lord of Iriel, his mortal enemy in casual buffoonery, grinning in his usual, resplendent, finery.
"Welcome the morn Glade Chief, you rise early do you not? When busty circumstances do not conspire to keep you abed." Proclaimed Bald'rt, winking at him.
Ulric suppressed the sigh that had been building as soon as he saw the man. Game face Ulric. He smells your fear.
"My thanks to you, Lord Bald'rt. It has long been my habit to begin my day before the suns begin theirs. I hope that you haven't been troubled out of your own blankets on my account, or perhaps, on account of difficulties of the estate? Please come in, and be at ease. Perhaps I can provide some safe harbor against the circling troubles." Ulric said easily, opening the door wide to grant his sponsor shelter.
The Elf waved him off easily but with a put-upon expression.
"We are a lively pair this morning, I see. You have my gratitude for the kind offer but no, no, no, I cannot burden you so my guest. My difficulties weigh too heavily, even a mighty back such as mine risks harm driving them before me. I'm afraid you would come to grievous harm attempting such challenging terrain. Perhaps when you've matured." Beamed the Elven Lord.
Ulric had to concede that point, the damned Elf was a slippery one. No doubt, he had spent centuries honing his craft of implication and double entendre.
"I have come to personally extend an invitation to the festivities of Iriel, now that Winter's Herald has gone and the vigil is done. This year is sadly lacking, given most of my kin have assumed a war footing in preparation for a no doubt busy spring. The Sanctuaries will be holding their own festivals in absentia, while we here will celebrate heartily all the more for looming threats. The better to cast them aside when the time comes." Carried on Lord Bald'rt, his voice took on a faint edge at the last.
Like a sword checked in its sheath to be ready for drawing. The [Lord of the Deep Wood] was prepared to go forth and bring woe to his enemies. Ulric's estimate was that it would be about a metric fuck-ton of woe too. The Elf was going to have to leave someone alive this time to carry the story or they'd be doing this again in another couple of centuries. If history was any indication at all, it was absolutely mad hat that anyone would think to try these folk after even casual exposure to them. Then again, perhaps that was the problem. Humans didn't get to experience the deep wood peoples, they only saw the softer outer layers of Orlethrem. Of the hardened Iriel'en they only knew when it was time for the knives to come out. Still. You'd think somebody would have written it down somewhere: "Do not fuck with the Elves. They'll kill ya to death."
Ulric turned his attention back to matters at hand.
"I will run out of thanks if you keep this up Iriel Chief. It would be my pleasure to join your people in their celebration. Ah. I am afraid I lack the knowledge of proper protocols. Shall I await a certain time to attend your hall, is there a specific location to which I should go? I am afraid I have only my loaned blacks, courtesy of Idra'se, and my fighting gear for dress. Either of these is fine by me, I would attend as best fitting as possible." Said Ulric with gratitude.
He wasn't even exaggerating really, it was an incredible courtesy for Bald'rt, Lord of the land, to personally act as a bellboy to give Ulric an invitation to the festivities.
Bald'rt merely smiled away the thanks.
"It is no such great thing, Glade Chief. You returned my son to me and you have managed to corral my dearest, if most troublesome, daughter away from the coming conflict. I could ask no better keeper to see to her safety, not when all of my most trusted kin will be tasked towards the defense of home. My stubborn, headstrong, wonderful little Shadow Panther would have hunted her enemies ruthlessly and no doubt carved terror into their pitiful hearts. But she would have driven too hard and too deep and I fear she would have certainly been slain in her fury. Better to have her by your side Ulric, even indentured unto the lifespan of one such as we, than that." Bald'rt admitted growing rarely serious and sounding utterly sincere.
He also straight up admitted using Ulric as a convenient excuse to tie his daughter down and out of direct action. A halter made up of her cultural obligations to protect her from the consequences of pursuing their vendetta. Ulric found he could not be angry with the man, who had only done as any father might when faced with impossible decisions. He chose the one that would let his daughter live and perhaps live long and happily. That didn't change Ulric's situation; he'd been effectively forced into some kind of fucked up lord-to-vassal arrangement with a notoriously difficult to get along with, if gorgeous, woman who would no doubt outlive him by centuries. But at least he could understand why it was happening to him, shallow solace though it was. The Elf King's posture and tone said that he regretted nothing. Ulric's said he couldn't blame him but he felt like he needed to make sure to clear the air between them. There probably weren't many that Bald'rt Iriel would trust to keep his little girl safe; why he'd thought Ulric, of all people, would do it remained beyond him.
"I had suspected as much with regards to Geyrt and this whole Shadow arrangement. Hal'et also suggested this to be the case in passing. Just so you know you're an absolute dickhead for doing it, especially since you left me with no room to escape." Ulric spoke his mind evenly.
"But I understand why you'd do it and it doesn't change that I'll honor my commitments. I like your people, Bald'rt, and even if you are a flagrant asshole, I find myself liking you as well. You are a good sort and I wish you lose not a one of your kin in the thrashing of those bastards who would war monger and hurt a little boy. I'll take care of Geyrt, best as I can if we don't strangle each other first." he finished.
Bald'rt's grin returned in force and he clapped Ulric on the back, which nearly sent him stumbling out the apartment door.
"It is good that you see with clarity Ulric, and can ride the currents of life without drowning. You are a good man, from all I have heard and seen of you; it would have been a tragedy to have slain you when first we met, at Geyrt's insistence. Let us allow the water to flow down the river unfettered."
The Lord of Iriel intoned somewhat excitedly in his deep voice, "Today is a day to celebrate life, the living, and the bounty of the year past. You have my gratitude for releasing her to her family yesterday, it was not a thing you owed. A Shadow is part of her Honor, before previous obligations of kin, but I did enjoy pampering my daughter once more before she must become again yours. I will leave you to gather yourself as you see fit, you may wear anything you wish although I would recommend comfort, above all. Your Shadow should be readying herself to return to her duties and will be able to escort you as needed. Well enough then, I'm away, Glade Chief to tend the house and prepare for events. Good morning again and I will see you at the festival." the Elven chief said, departing swiftly as he'd come.
Ulric stood in his doorway for a few minutes processing the encounter. Always a wild ride dealing with the airy [Lord of the Deep Wood]. At least he had some confirmation about hows and whys things had played out as they had. Say what you would, Bald'rt Iriel loved his children deeply and would do whatever he had to, to see them safe.
Since the cloistering was at an end and Ulric had already eaten, he resolved that he was going to go for a real bath. That brief scrub earlier was not going to scratch the itch after all he decided. Besides, a good soak to help think things over would do him wonders.
Ulric made his way down stirring halls in the early dawn's light. The Twins had only just started to crest above the distant horizon of Iriel's forested hills, casting the frost in golden light. The mixture of warm pinks and oranges in the sky contrasted magnificently with the dense, crystalline frost that lie thick on branches. Unlike the day before, there were already Elves up and moving through the halls. They were preparing for happenings it would seem. Ulric thought he recognized some of the craftsmen from pavilions through which he'd roamed during his previous days. He still got the odd look every now and then from Elves who seemed surprised to see a human in their halls but such glances were brief as they recognized him. Easy to recognize the only Human for a solid five hundred clicks, especially when he was maybe a head taller than most all of them.
The baths were their usual steamy perfection. Ulric soaped, scrubbed, and then soaked letting the tension in his form leave him. There were only a few of the natives at this hour, most preferred to bathe in the evening, after the rigors of the day. In Ulric's mind, why not before and after? Por que no los dos? Surely the glory of this place should not be worshipped a mere once a day.
After a calming hour, he was ready to return to his rooms and see about a meal. Perhaps he could gather some intel on what exactly was going to be happening during this festival Brighteyes had spoken of with such anticipation. He entered his rooms to find Geyrt almost lovingly stroking his bowstave.
Get your minds out of the gutters, the lot of you.
She jerked upright and let the bow clatter to the floor as if burned. The reddish hue in the tips of her ears made obvious her shame at having been caught with the goods. It brought to mind that Ulric had destroyed her own bow during their fight and Brighteyes had mentioned that she was fond of the thing.
Chance! Ulric might be able to bank some goodwill which he was going to blow doing or saying something criminally stupid at an inevitable time in the future if he got her a bow to replace her old one. Best to play it slow though he didn't want to push her when she might be defensive, as her now familiar glare indicated she might be.
"Good morn Geyrt, I hope you were able to enjoy your family gathering. I met your father this morning he was enthusiastic about the day to come." Ulric greeted in his still barely adequate Elvish.
The frown was replaced with a neutral expression as if she'd forgiven him his ambush of her in his own rooms.
"And to you Glade Chief, it was a bittersweet day, as it always is. Especially so in these times with the conflict ahead looming. I must thank you, myself, for giving me this time to be with them. It was with dread that I awaited this day when Lumyt'seit was missing." Geyrt responded, actually sounding not so irritable.
She was fidgeting too, something that she didn't do much of that Ulric had noticed. Clearly, the lady had something on her mind so Ulric took a chair and decided to wait her out. His patient consideration actually seemed to make her even antsier. It didn't take long for her to break, unable to withstand basic courtesy overlong without finding a way to display her thorns.
"You were not here when I arrived, it is no easy thing to fulfill my duties when you go haring off before the suns are even risen, so I waited. I see now you were soaking in the baths again, it is a surprise that you don't just put your bed there." She grumbled in what Ulric was learning to recognize was an attempt to deflect him through orneriness.
Instead of taking the bait he merely continued his passive observation, having decided that whatever her actual problem was they'd be coming to it before long. Silence could prove as adept an instrument of browbeating as sarcasm. It was working, if the twitch in her ears was anything to go by. She apparently noticed him noticing because they stilled so suddenly that she might as well have yelled. It only took a few moments of withstanding his steady gaze for the cracks in her demeanor to show. Instead of open hostility though this odd paragon of Iriel'en virtue turned away from him entirely, showing her back before speaking.
"I am sorry, Glade Chief. I have…forgotten…to thank you for returning Lumyt'seit to us. It was difficult for me, for all of us, to face the thought of another lost brother a lost son to foreigners. That is no excuse for my behavior or my attack and what followed. I am poorly suited to such a role as Shadow. I have had little interest in anything that did not involve being a Hunter for my people for many decades and those attitudes will not change with a few turns of the Twins. My Mothers Shor and Bathe reminded me of this and my responsibilities to be…less harsh…while you were learning from Mother Vedyr. I will try to improve, and thank you, that is all I had to say." his Shadow concluded, sounding almost lost at times.
Poorly suited, now that was the understatement of the year. Might as well say that sand is unsuited for machine lubricant. He couldn't deny that he felt a little better for her acknowledging how utterly abrasive she could be, even if it had taken her Mothers to set her to rights. Kettles couldn't call pots black though. Ulric couldn't honestly say how he would respond to having his entire life turned into a service to a stranger, let alone one with whom he'd had a near-fatal grudge. Empathy was hard but he'd try to keep a gentle hand dealing with his Shadow. Being a hundred-plus year old meant some habits were going to die hard.
"Your apology is accepted. I do not expect you to become some kind of model for whatever makes a perfect Shadow, certainly not in the bare few days we've been here. So long as you're trying as hard to make things work smoothly as I am I'll be satisfied. As far as Brighteyes is concerned, it was the right thing to do and I am glad it is done. Now, I see that you are absent a bow and I am afraid that it is my fault. I am obligated to provide for your kit and that means finding you a replacement for your weapon. Take the bowstave I brought to use for negotiations, I will be teaching your bowyers how to make more of them soon enough. I would rather you have it to use than for it to sit idle propped against my apartment wall." Ulric said, hoping he wasn't stepping on her toes somehow, now that she'd settled down.
It was going to be on him, to a certain extent, to help this young, according to Deep Woods Elf standards, woman adjust to her new position. Think of it like onboarding a fresh engineer, Ulric told himself. They know a bunch but they can't do anything right, yet, and you have to help them get comfortable or they'll just get in the way. Sometimes you had to throw them a bone, and give them a win to find the courage to take another day in the meat grinder. Perhaps getting a fancy new bow would be the lift the Young Lady Iriel needed.
Ulric knew he wouldn't be handling such a shift with anything close to as much grace. For one thing, there'd probably be way more cursing. So, he could handle the dirty looks and the pissy tone while she figured things out. Just so long as she was down for being on the receiving end of some sarcastic commentary, he wasn't Saint Einar the peace crafter over here. He would, however, do his best to be slightly less of an asshole if at all possible. Should be workable, the educational program he'd been handed was robust and he'd have little time for planting barbs on top of everything else.
Geyrt was clearly conflicted regarding the bow. Desire warred with pride across her face, and she looked from the instrument to him several times while whatever odd thoughts roiled around beneath her hair. Eventually, she made a decision and bent to take up the bone and glue laminated steel wood stave. Standing she ran her hands across its smooth surface appreciatively. As well as she should, Ulric had sanded it fine with incrementally smoother stones over the course of many hours. A very light flame treatment burned off the wood dust as he went and made it more resistant to the influence of moisture, though not completely impenetrable. That was where the glassresin finish coat came into play. Exceedingly thin, brushed on by a fine fur cloth. Heat glassresin nugget, rub the stave, wipe with fur. Rinse and repeat until a smooth coat was formed. Sand it down again with the smoothest stone to achieve a final product. That bow was a source of great pride for him. Best not to let that show though, she was already having trouble.
Not poking fun at her for lusting after his wood was already causing potential internal bleeding. Damn it! He'd tried so hard not to reach for the low-hanging fruit. Some temptations Oh Watcher, are far too great.
"String is right over there in the pack, right on top. Forest Lord sinew so it won't ever break as far as I know. Give it a pull and see if it works for you." Ulric suggested, clearing the litany of sarcastic jokes and dry observations that would ruin any and all attempts at being a decent person.
She hesitated only a little before digging out the braided sinew chord and stringing the bow with difficulty. She was as unprepared for the resistance as had been Sinna, Bald'rt's guard who had attempted its draw during his demo. With a more concentrated effort, Geyrt worked the string backward a few times to limber the cold stave and then brought it up smoothly to a full draw, imagined arrow held in fingers that pressed into her chin. His Shadow held the draw, unshaking, for a full count of ten in Ulric's mind, a fairly impressive feat of strength. He knew how much it took to hold that thing like that too well and he'd have to ratchet up his impressions of her athleticism. A forceful expulsion of held breath accompanied her controlled relaxation of the string. She was in love, Ulric could tell.
"…It is an acceptable bow Ulric Glade Chief. Yes, very acceptable. Not a gift though, we are both in agreement. A replacement for my own weapon was needed and you have done your duty to see it set to rights. I will use this bow in place of my own, as part of my service." Geyrt said with pretend nonchalance, belied by her inability to stop running her fingers over the glossy surface of the weapon.
If this dark beauty were a normal person, she'd be giggling instead of faking dispassion. Brighteyes and his joy over a mask came to Ulric's mind. Sometimes being nice was nice. Especially if it made his life with her around even slightly more pleasant. Now don't fuck it up, like you always do, Einar, he warned himself.
"The draw, Glade Chief, you were able to manage it?" Asked his Shadow, looking at him with slight skepticism.
Hey now! Ulric felt a little insulted. Manage it? He'd hunted beast and man with it. Hell, he'd put six arrows on target from sixty meters away and done it fast enough to make a fast-shot team. Manage it, the nerve of her. Clearly, the woman wasn't trying to be insulting though so Ulric just set her straight.
"Lady I don't mean to brag, but I'm a damn good shot with that bow. That bow is more than half the reason I was even able to get Brighteyes out from under those dickhat poachers." He told his Shadow without even the slightest exaggeration.
"From about the door to these apartments to the far end of the hall I put an arrow through the heart of one guy standing guard, another through the head of a guy just a few meters closer, and another three into targets that were moving all in maybe half a minute. Trust me, I can handle the draw." He said laughing.
Geyrt stilled suddenly, her skeptical twerk of eyebrows turning into a near-expressionless mask.
"This is the same bow you used to save Youngest Brother Lumyt'seit?" She asked, voice heavy with some emotion Ulric couldn't identify by tone.
Had he stepped on a landmine? Ulric hoped there wasn't some Comanche blood rite involved with swapping weapons that was going to torpedo this little path to peace. The damned Forest Lord core had backfired marvelously on him.
"Please do not fuck me on this", he prayed silently to any passing divinities that might take pity on a foolish man, before he gave her his reply.
"That it is Geyrt, that it is. And, happy as I was with it, I think it's got a better master in your hands. I'll get another when your folk figure out the crafting process." He told her reassuringly.
Looking down at the bow in her hands with something close to worship she closed her eyes for a moment. Was he losing his mind or was there moisture in her eyes? Ok, the day Geyrt Iriel cries is the day He'd sound the horn for the end of times himself.
Ulric felt like he should give her some space. He wasn't a sentimental type, and the Elves didn't come off that way either, especially not this one before him. When in doubt, shut your mouth, he recommended to himself and so he just studied the floor for a minute.
"This is a weapon that has avenged my kin, Ulric. You do not share our customs, you would not know this but such things are not done lightly. Normally it would mean a commitment between Hunters to slay each other's enemies. A pact. We are already committed thus, your enemies are always my enemies now. Even so, I gladly will use this bow to end any threats. Thank you, I will take care of this Blinder and put it to work on your behalf." His Shadow spoke solemnly.
Blinder? Oh, the bow, Ulric realized. She was naming the bow. He wondered, why Blinder? Curiosity was taking at least three lives from this cat.
"If you don't mind me asking, why call it Blinder?" He asked gently.
Geyrt's lips turned up in a fierce grin and her eyes glittered emerald.
"Because it brings forever darkness to all who face it, Glade Chief." She promised, and that was why Ulric was glad that this murder machine was now on his side.
