The rest of the day Fern and Ravenna spent pag for the trip - leisurely, to avoid fetting anything - and then had a filling meal and a good night's sleep.

  The day, they woke up early. A little too early for the fallen hero's taste, sidering how leisurely she'd been taking it; but eventually she mao slide out of bed and into the traveling ensemble picked out for the trip. Lightweight leathers all of bcks and browns, a thin charcoal-gray cloth yer underh to avoid chafing, a roof grayish cloak to around it all; perhaps a little less sturdy of a feel than her old hero outfit for adventuring, but movement was the focus after all, not just surviving blows. The traveling pack added a good bit of weight to it, but surprisingly not that much, despite everything inside.

  For her part, Raven her ary bck bodysuit, this time adding taller, sturdier boots (the heels no quieter, however), an almost militaristigcoat (if it wasn't sleeveless) in midnight blue with matg caster-gloves, and her own all-cealiher-cloak of gray. Apart from a few ostentatious bracelets, her jewelry stayed hidden uhe coat. Even the addition of her own traveling pack didn't seem to shift her poise o.

  And so, after a light - but still filling - breakfast, and a final load of fresh foodstuffs for both adventurers, they set out on their journey.

  "There are many ways to dismount from on high, darling. I'll leave the method to you."

  So saying, Ravenna had stepped off the edge of the bridge and simply floated her way to the bottom of the steps. Fern chose a more tactile method - ohat took a little less aether - and sprinted vertically down the side of the tower instead, kig off he bottom in order to miss the water and skidding to a stop a handful of yards from where the dark mage stood, quietly .

  "serving already, are we?"

  She shrugged. "I don't have quite the wellspring you do, I think." They began walking along the riverbank, far enough from it to avoid the wetter, stickier bits.

  "Ah, well - I suppose that's true. A little practice will help stretch your limits - and personally, I think that sort of thing is best dodoors, in an open enviro. The tower has its near-infinite supply if you know how to tap it properly, of course; but I don't want to limit you to those walls when there's so much more to see. And so, learning how to read the flow of nature, drawing from the movements that already exist within it, allows you to sustain yourself for far lohan... drinking from your personal supply."

  "That's certainly a way to put it." But Fer her senses expand just a little as they walked onward, ending herself too much - expanded perception didn't draw much aether, but it was tiring - and simply seeing the flow of things. The movements in the air, through the water; around the trees, even in the prints they left in their wake.

  It certainly trasted sharply with the tower interior, where most of the movement was limited and predictable - really only what she or one of the other residents created on their own. But out here, the aether moved by itself, without needing prompting at all. She'd had to expend a little on her dest, but at a ghe river fairly glowed; whatever she needed could easily be drawn from its turbulent expanse.

  A disturbaned some distance ahead, off to one side, and she shifted her enhanced seo a direal e. Two- no, three things. The pnt creatures, apparently, ohe aether sharpened just enough for her to pick them out. "pany," she said simply, drawing her sword. "Pnt... things."

  "Oh! The messy ones, you mean."

  Fern shuddered a little, remembering the feeling of sticky sap or whatever the fluid had been - and how it had sted an unreasonably long time on her skin, even after multiple washes. "Yeah. Those."

  Ravenna grinned brightly. "Well, I'm sure with your training you shouldn't have the slightest trouble defeating them. Let's see..." She tapped two fingers against her cheek, the two that the caster gloves left uncovered. "Go and dispatch them in, say, three minutes. Without getting any sap on you. I'll be watg."

  She shifted her shoulders a little, sighing quietly. "With the pack still on, I suppose?"

  "Well, I wouldn't want to make it too easy on you, darling. Off you go now."

  Three mier - acc to the dark mage's little eter, anyway - Fern was slinging the viscous bits of the st target off her bde with a long-suffering sigh. "Was that sort of exercise really necessary?"

  "Perhaps not," Ravenurned as she strode up as casually as ever, a slight lift ieps; she was using a little ambient motion to keep from sinking into the perpetually moist forest floor. "But perhaps so! Tell me; what did you learn from fag your floral foes with fancy fleeting footwork? Hmmm~?"

  Her lips twitched. No no, she wasn't giving that one a rea. "They move a little too quickly for my taste. And staying took a bit more aether out of me than I was expeg; it's a good thing I've been paying attention to how you're moving on those heels of yours, or I'd surely have gotten stuck, and spttered with something."

  "Hm hm, indeed!" Her teeth fshed. "Su atteudent you are. Your potential was wasted on the light, holy; as capable as you already are, we'll bring you even further beyond. But even though you pushed the deadline a little, you did e in u; bravo, darling."

  Ferhed her sword, tent with the -up once she'd lightly scoured the bde with a few swift streams of darkness - arick she'd picked up from observation. No wonder her instructor always looked her best. "Do I get a prize?" she asked, only half serious.

  "Well..." Ravenna paused for a moment to sider it, then started walking. "Not here, perhaps; we'd best keep moving. But I'll add a little shiny star o your name, since you did so well - and so early in the m, too. Once we get to our turnaround point for the journey, we see about a proper reward for your... performance."

  The fallen hero bliaking a few seds to process this before she started moving almost automatically to keep up. "O-oh. I suppose that's... fair?"

  "Yes, darling, I do believe you'll find it that way."

  For the rest of the m the Wicked Wild Woods turned out to be retively tame; certainly pared to Fern's st trip through it. This, Ravenna expined quietly, was due to multiple things: their movement downstream instead of upstream, the way they had moved on quickly from the disturbed aether of the sin pnt monsters, and of course the way she was subtly masking their presenbsp; "Darkness is the essence of subtlety, after all; when I told you a cloak of shadow lets you avoid fights, this is primarily the sort of thing I meant."

  "Just this? 't you, I don't know, bee invisible right under someone's nose?"

  "Did you want to?" the dark mage teased. "What sort of thoughts prompt a question like that, I wonder~?"

  Fern blushed. "I-it's theoretical! If I could just disappear without a trace, it'd get me out of a lot of danger."

  "Mm-hmm~." Ravenna fshed anrin. "Well, the answer is yes, you - bee invisible, that is. Bend the light around yourself in every dire, just right. But doing it in every dire, when you're on the move? There are better ways to disappear that don't drain your aether as quickly as that will. And that's just speaking of sight; don't fet, you still make noise, you still probably smell too. No matter how fancy you get, there's iably a ter - and the more plicated your craft, the more likely it's got some holes in it somewhere."

  "Huh." She mulled over this for a while. "So - what do you do, then, to get out of danger?"

  "The best way to avoid danger is to avoid getting into it in the first pce, darling. But apart from that? Stick to the shadows, create a distra, cause fusion. And when all else fails - be very light on your feet."

  It felt absolutely surreal to Fern when she saw the woods thinning out, and beyond the line of trees, the shape of the proving grounds in the distanbsp; What she'd taken almost two miserable days to traverse one way, they'd covered ihan a day - and it hadn't even gotten dark yet. To be fair, they'd eaten their lunch sandwiches on the go after a very brief moment to unpack them; but still, the differeunned her whehought about it.

  "That's the power of darkness, darling," Ravenna said flippantly, when she brought it up. "Making the hard things easy, instead of suffering through them and pretending it's iable."

  She chewed on that thought for a while as well, before filing it away for ter. "Think we make Jun by tonight?"

  The dark mage hummed as they passed the treeline and stepped into the open. "It's certainly possible if we push ourselves, but I think we might draw a bit too much attention if we e barreling into town at full tilt. Plus, we'd be dreadfully worn out, and that's no way to treat yourself when you're on an adventure, where the ued could e upon you at any moment."

  She paused, and both of them immediately looked around, casting about with their senses; but fate - and Ravenna's cloak of shadow - dehem a ter, however amusing it might have been.

  "Anyway. I wasn't sure whether we'd get quite this far, but once again you've exceeded my expectations a a marvelous pace, darling. So; the pn as I see it is to tiil we're within sight of the town - which should put us a handful of hours away - the up camp for the night, and start early again tomorrow. Perhaps with a midm repast in Jun before we move on."

  Fern nodded, resettled the pa her shoulders, and started walking again. "Sounds reasoo me."

  That night, Ravenna stayed up a little ter once her partner curled up in the sleep-sabsp; Her mind was full of thoughts - and the moon was such a lovely sight. But not as lovely as you, darling, she mused silently with a little smile, taking in Fern's sleeping form - well, her head and shoulders anyway.

  How lucky could one womao have someone so perfee right to her door and just fall into her p? And right into her heart, even? As dense as the fallen hero could be sometimes - sidering how she'd had to practically drape herself on the woman's back while she was reading, just to get her attention - the dark mage ted it as another of her many charming points. Certainly it was frustrating to be deo have to hold back when she wanted nothing more than to wiggle into the sack along with her, snug and hot and barely able to move, and just-

  Ravenna bit her lip softly. She really shouldertaihoughts. Especially at night, whetle circution of darkness inside her grew a little more pronounced, when she could - if she allowed herself to - get up to all sorts of mischief.

  But she couldn't. Not to this precious darling; not before she was ready. She'd been so... aodating already, so obedient aive. An absolute treasure. Even after being badly shaken by her brief tact with the Leviathan, she'd simply accepted the handwaved expnation of leylines having 'plicated' properties - a half-truth that still mildly displeased her internally, but saved her from expining everything.

  As. Perhaps some day, she could share that secret; just not yet. They had so much to do before then, and they would do it together. What a lovely word that was; together.

  Ravenna slid bato her own sleep-sack with a little smile, and closed her eyes, hoping dreams would provide the pleasure she kept denying herself, for her darling's sake.