Upon awaking, Kiko wao go back to sleep. Pain, was everywhere. In a cramping sort of ache, as well as a sharp stabbing feeling elsewhere, she decided to quickly give up on the pn to move and just id where she was with a grumbling exhale. Bloody...thing. She'd been injured before - o this scale, but still - and the recovery was always the worst part.

  "Heh. So your father's daughter" Yeni ented from the bedside. Kiko would roll her head over to frown, not quite sure her speaking muscles worked yet. "A long time ago, when we were both part of the Assault Team, Drax nearly got his leg bitten off. Dangling by a thread, that thing. So he was in the hospital rec, but was adamant he was getting out by the day. Loopy on pain medication, half-mad from the experience, and uo do anything but hobble, my mad little love Borroell to keep his leg intad stormed off to the mess hall, where a world famous Chef had been brought in to cook for the agents. I had to some bandages around his leg while he was walking so nobody saw the gaping hole that was there" Yeni would finish the tale with a soft, mirthful ugh that got a smile from Kiko as well.

  Such a thing was so like him. And it was really o see that Yeni had good memories of Drax. Even calling him 'my mad little love'. They did love each other, once.

  "I kind of hate him" Kiko spoke, a little croaky but she was using tenacity to overe her issues. "I don't uand your culture or why you are so strict to it because I never lived it. But I also hate the fact that he made such a massive decision for me. That was for me to decide, either way. In SIR, I sort of just went there through a twiion of fusion and burning revenge. But I stayed there by my choice. They would never have stopped me if I walked out of the door auro my school life.

  But, Dad...he didn't give me that. I know why, it's kind of very self-evident right now with the whole nearly 't move thing" Kiko would exhale in pain, and then push herself up a little. "If I could have kept you together, th-" Kiko was cut off by Yeni putting her finger on Kiko's lips before she fihat line.

  "You were doing well, don't ruin it. We split up of our own accord, for our own reasons. And stayed separate from our own problems. That is nothing to do with you. It was bound to happeually, we were too different. He's not even a City Kitsune, but from Skivoa, of all pces. And the Ator basically rule Jomsburg, so he's a member of exalted peerage. Why he fell for me and not Tai, I 't say" Yeni seemed to sort of stagger off course a into a despairing headspace as she tried to fort Kiko.

  "You were doing well, don't ruin it" Kiko replied with as much of a coy voice as she could manage, getting up and putting a hand on her mother's shoulder.

  "Hmm. Maybe. But get ba bed. You might think you are moving through grit and tenacity, but you are actually burning Mana to stay up like this. And you don't o run dry of that on top of everything else" Yeni warurning around to give Kiko a terrifying motherly stare. It was something that she obeyed without question and got bato bed. Ohere, however, she'd raise an eyebrow in askance.

  "...I have Mana now?" she asked. The st time she tried to use that there was a blockage. And she hadn't done anything to overe that.

  "Everyone has Mana. It's more a question of being able to ect to it. Apparently, when the mortals first came into their power, it was a tragedy. Nobody had trol, and cataclysm reigned. So the benevolent Moddess separated mortals from their power with three metaphysical 'Gates'. You little trick with the Sword has smashed your First Gate into splinters, so now you are a Mage"

  Kiko would listen, but then her eyes went wide and she looked around.

  "Sword. Where...where, is...my sword?" Kiko asked, her voice quickly getting pahough Yeni's hand grasped her and cooled her heart, leading her bato a calm half-sleep.

  "Don't worry about that. You'll be seeing it again, though you'll not be able to activate it like you did before until you are much better at magical trol. Magic is dangerous when misused, by malice or inpetence, so yoing to have to get used to aricter schedule than before. Until the some sleep" Yeni finished, kissing Kiko's forehead and then standing to leave the tent.

  Kiko, for her part, did not get some sleep. Magic was dangerous when misused, but she got a feeling that she knew how to use it. Za...did things that she could remember doing. And so casting her mind back, she would repeat the as. Nothing happened for a few hours, but then a gentle swelling inside her came. Her lungs expanded with the fn power, and then diffused it into her body. A highly disf crackle spread across her body, her ribs giving off a popping feel every time she breathed in. A few minutes of this followed, with Kiko suffering in silenot wanting to alert anyone or make anyone worry.

  And then, she was sitting up. Fully fine. Not even staying on her feet with a stubborn will, but totally, actually, fine.

  'If you were curious as to what Borrowing was, it's basically that' came the voi her head. Somehow more...stable. More, there.

  "Right. Spooky, head voice. I fot about you for a moment" Kiko excimed, pulling on her shoes.

  'Va. If you doubt me then you go touch the statue in the big red tent' she replied. It was quite a strange invitation, but not ohere was a real reason to ignore.

  "It's not going to blow me up, is it? Or like, catch fire or something?" Kiko asked, feeling a little mad to be talking to the air but otherwise shaking her head to get out the cobwebs and then releasiails again. She could feel a third there, which sort of made sense. Being almost killed by a Minotaur retty stressful and traumatibsp;

  'Not going to blow you up, no. Though if it does catch fire, you'll be breaking the rules. Bzetails, and ihe Five Great Mikos, have not been a thing in yeics for a long time'

  "I have no idea what you just said. Is that in a book or some weird Vauff?"

  'Weird Vauff. It's not no bearing on current day, so not really worth knowing'

  "Right"

  Madness set aside for a moment, Kiko would step out of the tent and into the bright sun. Today, was a new day.