The month neared its end as Val carried on in her training.

She had figured out a cool way to bolster the potency of Keep the Peace. The answer was pigeons. They were the most common animal to find around Brillion City, after all.

Val could walk around the city until she found a cluster of pigeons loitering about. Then, all she had to do was activate Keep the Peace, reach out to the minds of as many pigeons as possible, and walk through the center of their group.

Many flew away, but over time, Val managed to keep more and more at her side. She felt pretty powerful, standing with a group of pigeons casually bobbing their heads in a circle around her. She was Valentine, demigoddess of the pigeons. Due to the oddity of its appearance, Val only did this once before sharing the experience with others.

She picked a bench and sat there, watching the pigeons gather to eat the seeds that she had flicked across the ground. When someone approached, she cast Keep the Peace while she pretended to scroll through her phone.

"Stupid pigeons, why won't you move?" one person muttered. Even as he tried to nudge them aside with his foot, the pigeons stayed stoic under Val's control.

Their agitation had definitely increased by the man cursing at them and trying to walk through them. In kind, Val needed to up her emotional output of Keep the Peace to make the pigeons stay put. By the time that the man had walked past, she was panting and had beads of sweat dripping down her forehead.

It was mid-September—not very hot yet—so Val looked out of place. Whenever something might look off about her, she made sure to leave the location and rotate to a new one. The last thing that she needed was to be found out as a demigoddess by malevolent observers. Then, she might just disappear along with Ross, and their mother would be left all alone.

Like Keep the Peace, she also kept up with her training of Past Insight outside of school. Her painful, futile search for Ross continued. Val had added another twenty seconds onto her limit from staying in the construct of time. Nevertheless, she could not manage to figure out the puzzle of the icy barrier.

To gain more time for her training, Val ditched school. Phone calls would come home from school then, informing her mother of her unexcused absences. In order to avoid that, Val would pretend to be her mother and call herself in as sick. Already in September, her truancy teetered at the maximum days allowed. If she kept this up, then her mother would start feeling the backlash since Val was her child. The rules were dumb, but Val could do nothing about it at present.

Her eighteenth birthday arrived at the end of September. For the occasion, her mother baked a cake from a mix and topped it with chocolate frosting and strawberries. Val liked that. She might go so far as to say that those flavors together were her favorite.

"Happy birthday, Val!" her mother cheered. Despite the weary appearance that had only worsened since Ross's disappearance, her eyes had lightened up for her birthday.

The candles dazzled in Val's own eyes as she thought of the best use of her birthday wish. Sometimes, wishes like these came true when addressed to Adelaide, goddess of wishes.

If she had the luxury of only worrying about herself, Val would want to wish for the location of the Summit of Ascension or to receive guidance in her journey of becoming a goddess. There happened to be a more pressing matter in her life right now, though.

Adelaide, the Wish Fulfiller, goddess of wishes. Today is my eighteenth birthday. My brother Rosamer went missing almost three months ago and I have no idea how to find him. I just want to be reunited with him, so if somehow you could help, I would be extremely grateful. That is my wish.

Normally, Val did not send many prayers to gods. They were busy people and did not have enough time in their lives to answer everybody who asked for their aid. Her mother always said that only certain gods were worth sending prayers. It did not pay to bother with any of the other gods who left all of their prayers unanswered. Adelaide happened to be the exact opposite of those unresponsive gods. As a goddess who constantly traveled around the world, Adelaide tried to help as many mortals as she could.

Val pursed her lips and blew out the candles. The hope remained in her heart that maybe she could find Ross yet.

She closed her eyes and smiled, reflecting on the fact that she had turned eighteen. Val had officially become an adult today. These early years of her life made for many milestones, withstanding her immortality.

While she planned for the future, Val took big, fluffy bites of cake. The strawberries gushed inside of her mouth, and she savored the way their juices complemented the chocolate frosting.

New privileges came with the age of eighteen that Val could now use to her advantage. No matter how many big, fat pigeons she gathered in the park, she found them not posing much of a challenge anymore. Val needed to expose herself to larger, more hostile creatures, and she could think of just the place.

"Hey Mom, do you remember that thing I have been doing with animals?"

"Yes! You have been developing a new ability called Keep the Peace. I am so proud of you for choosing an ability with good intentions like that. Rosamer would be happy too."

A somber pause held throughout the kitchen. The void in their home had been exacerbated at the mention of his name.

"Well, I just wanted to let you know that it has been coming along nicely so far. I can control a whole flock of pigeons now!"

"That is wonderful, Val!" Her mother had not much to say about her abilities aside from blind support and positivity.

Val smiled broadly, because she knew just how wonderful her progress had been.

Now that she had turned eighteen years old, Val could volunteer at the local animal shelter around a lot of dogs big and small, and she most definitely planned to use that to her advantage.

Character Update:

* New information is marked in cyan.

* All entries are based on what Val knows.

Valentine (Val) Title: None Rank: Demigoddess Attributes: None Abilities Name Class Description

Keep the Peace

tactical

- calm agitated creatures

- can sense the baser emotions of others

- only works on small animals like squirrels

- can manage multiple animals at once, according to their strength

Past Insight

cognitive

- watch a replay of the past

- four pieces of initial information are required

- can stay in the tunnel of time for up to thirty seconds

- real time passes slower in the vision

- one day cool down after a failed vision