The next couple of days were uneventful. Celestine was still struggling with the light crystal. Every morning when Warran would make his rounds to the kitchen for something to eat, he would ask her if she made any progress and wouldn't press further. Letting her learn at her own pace. He did raise an eyebrow when she mentioned she would be learning how to carve at the same time, but he didn't comment on it. So in the mornings, she would struggle with the crystal after waking up, then Mother would tell her to get downstairs for breakfast. During the rest of the day, she would seclude herself in Daemon's library and continue to read the various works of fiction he had, most of which were odd for a man to own. A lot of romance novels that seemed more geared to young adult women if I do say so myself. At least there wasn't one about a vegetarian vampire and a stoic reader proxy.

She would also read with her half-brother when he had free time, too. Seems like Sullivan was always depressed right before he started interacting with her. He also spoke little, preferring to just listen to Celestine and respond with hums and yeses when pressed. Daemon's lessons couldn't be that rough, could they? She decided she would sit in on one of these lessons one day just so she could offer some kind of moral support if needed.

It was on the fourth day after Mother and Celestine's meeting with Duc'kaal that the serpentine man visited the mansion. He knocked on the door, Mother answered, and Celestine was called downstairs. She heard the commotion and was already preparing to go downstairs. Sullivan was still in the middle of his lessons with Daemon, so she had been alone in the library upstairs.

Celestine was walking downstairs when she heard Duc'kaal talking and stopped halfway down the steps. "Sylv, imagine my surprise when you're all living here. You moved up in the world! Though I did know Daemon was here, I didn't think the others would disappear. My brother tells me nothing. Where did that obnoxious group of women go that lived here before?" He was talking cheerfully with Mother. He had a different air about him today and Celestine could better hear his voice. It sounded very rough and raspy. Like he needed something to drink. He was sitting on the red leather couch with his tail on the ground beside the couch coiled up and out of the way from the walking path.

"After Sullivan was born, they all up and fled from what Daemon told me. He deserved that, if you ask me." Mother was sitting in an armchair opposite of Duc'kaal.

"I take it the boy is one of theirs?" Duc'kaal asked, which prompted a nod from Mother. "Yet you're here acting as maid instead of wife? Did something happen to earn Daemon's displeasure?"

"He earned mine." Mother worded strongly. "And I'm only doing this so he can't turn around and say I owe him anything."

"Hummm... OH, that's right, you humans from Sirius prefer to stay monogamous. I'm sorry to hear about his betrayal. I shall look at him from a different light if you'd like." Duc'kaal hummed a bit and chuckled at the end. More pieces to Mother's past are starting to fit into place. I just heard the name of a new place in this world. Adding to my repertoire. Now if only I could see a map somewhere...

"Don't worry about it, Duc'kaal. If he's given more trouble I fear he might run just like the others before Sullivan's training is complete."

"Aye, that wouldn't be good. If he does try to run, let me know and I can try to convince my brother to chase him down. Only so fast your two feet can carry you in the sands of the desert. Celestine! You don't need to stand there gawking. Sit sit, we can get started right now! I bought you brand new tools and I have some specimens here to teach you with. Did you want to keep this all a secret or is it okay to just learn here in the main hall?"

Celestine spoke while walking down the rest of the stairs. "Um, it's fine here. It would be hard to practice and keep it secret from bu-Sullivan." She almost messed up and called Sullivan Bubby in front of Mother. She caught herself quickly though.

"Right right." He hoisted a bone crate onto the small table between the couch and armchairs. The bone crate was loaded with all kinds of bones ranging from tusks, antlers, ribs, pelvises, and leg bones. All of them were bleached to an off white color and picked clean of any meat or other flesh. Then he lifted a metal box next to it. It was reminiscent of a tackle box from Earth, but was much larger. Not as rugged as a tool box, though. Something simple, probably cheaply made just to carry tools.

"I'll go prepare some tea for you both." Mother said with a smile as she stood up and disappeared into the dining area.

"Well girl, hurry hurry," Duc'kaal said, patting the couch space next to him. Unlike in the artisan shop, the serpentine man didn't have the monstrous air about him. He had a half-smile on his face when he looked at Celestine, his yellow eyes were droopy like he was tired, and his face would distort very slightly every so often as if something was prodding him.

Celestine did as she was told, hopped over and sat next to him.

"Now, let me introduce to you the bones we'll use for carving!" He leaned over and pulled out a selection of bones that he had, at least one of each type in his crate. First he picked up a white antler. It was a nice bright white color, but it was shaped oddly, doesn't look like it belonged to any animal on Earth, at least. "Here we have antlers. They are perfect for carving because they are solid bone. No marrow or anything to pick out and they are usually already a nice color even without needing to leave them out in the sun. Next we have horns."

He leaned over and picked up a black horn about a hand long. "These might look promising to carve, but unlike antlers they are not solid." He turned it so Celestine could see the hollow inside. "They have marrow in them, I already cleaned this one. They make great noisemakers, though, if you hollow them out and carve them correctly. Ah, actually, I should start by saying what marrow is. Marrow is a fleshy bloody substance in the bones. It's edible, but not something I like to be honest. It just complicates things for us bone carvers."

He lifted up a leg bone that had been sawn in half lengthwise. He held the two halves together. "This is what a leg bone looks like before you would have a chance at processing it. After the outside is picked clean, you saw it in half with one of these." He laid the leg bone down and opened up the tool box. It was loaded with tools like little knives, picks, gravers, and files. All of the tools had bone handles. There were a lot of tools in there that I recognized and many I didn't. He took out a tool with serrated teeth. "You use this to carefully cut the bone in half so you can get to the marrow and clean it out. After that you can leave the bones out in the sun and it will dry everything out. You pick what little you couldn't get off of it, and then let it sit for a few weeks for the sun to do its magic and bleach the bones. Though you can use certain potions to bleach them, they leave the bones brittle and they break easily. That's why you see all the best white looking bones used as decorations while the ones used for things like carts and crates are brown or yellow." He pointed to the bone crate, which was a shade of yellowed brown. The bones looked solid enough and they didn't leave many gaps in the crate like you would expect. It was held together with twine.

Mother showed up shortly and left two cups of tea for the two of them. Tea was something Celestine had gotten used to drinking while living in the mansion. She didn't drink it at their house in the slums, but she got her first taste of it while living here. I don't even really know if it is tea. Celestine never paid much attention to how it was made. Could be closer to coffee for all I know. I just translate the word to how the liquid tastes. Watery with a slightly bitter taste, supplemented with a bit of sugar for Celestine's preference. Served warm and has an invigorating effect similar to caffeine.

"Now then, this here is a rib. These have marrow, too. So you need to scrape it out. Usually these aren't very useful when it's a small animal, but the larger animals and monsters have huuge bones that are very useful." He put the rib bone back on the table.

"Lastly, the sternum, shoulder blades, and pelvis. All useful for plates, knives, and other things you can think of. The larger the beastie you get the bones from, the more useful they can be. Now, bones to avoid. If you can, avoid messing with the skulls and spines of freshly killed things. Sicknesses tend to be carried from those parts of the bodies. If you find the bones long picked clean by the elements, then they should be safe to use then." He said that while pointing to the various bones. The enormous vertebrate bone he pointed to was most interesting. It looked like it could have belonged to an elephant, it was so huge. Well he did say monster several times. I guess this world isn't as peaceful as living a sheltered life in the city was. Celestine seemed to pick up on that, too, but she didn't want to ask about it and delay the lesson.

"Any questions? Hope I'm not getting ahead of myself." He asked.

"When can we start!" Celestine's eyes were glued onto the antlers. Those would be perfect for making the white chess pieces and if there are black antlers like the horns, they would be good for the black pieces.

Duc'kaal laughed and pat Celestine on the back. "So eager! But you can't be impatient! If you work on something too fast, you make mistakes. This will be an activity to teach you patience! No giving up on me, now. I won't allow it!"

He picked up a notebook and some char bone, which is essentially burnt bone used for cheap writing here, and held it in front of her. "Each design begins with a drawing. When you get better you can skip this step and just carve freehand, but for anything concrete you need to make a plan! How long until your brother's birthday?" He asked.

"Umm, Summer 45?" Celestine said. Basically the years are divided by the seasons and numbered. Each year is made up of these huge months. Like I said, one hundred and thirty days in a month, five hundred and twenty-eight days in a year. So four months of one hundred and thirty days followed by eight days of festivities for the end of the year. Sullivan was born in the Summer month, day 45, year 1569. I don't know what big event the year is based on, though. I'm sure we'll find out eventually, though. Celestine was born Winter 115, 1568, by the way. So by what the conversation between Mother and Duc'kaal said, and what I already knew, Daemon must have abandoned Mother about half-way through Celestine's gestation, that is if humans in this world require the roughly two hundred and seventy days in the womb to be born here. Opinion of Daemon is at an all time low right now.

"Ah, plenty of time then. We'll start with making a pendant for your mother." He picked up a leg bone and placed it in front of Celestine on the table. "We'll make it out of the leg bone. It's a nice hard material, so it can help strengthen your arms a bit while carving. First draw your design out."

Celestine did what she was told and drew out a design for a pendant on the paper. Her first design was something way too complex, she didn't even have an idea, she just scribbled out a design. Duc'kaal looked over and expectedly told her to draw it again, simpler this time. She went through three iterations of designs before Duc'kaal accepted the last one. The design was something she saw in the cabin in the dream world. It was a bear pawprint design that was carved into a wooden table.

"Alright. Now keep that page open and take your tools." He handed her a small saw. "Cut it to size. If you mess up, we'll start over. I have all day. Hells, I might ask for a spare room here. I'm going to teach you everything I know!"

That caused a shiver to run down her spine, but she did as she was told. What kind of monster did her mother hire?

She ended up spending the rest of the entire day struggling to cut the bones to size, slipping and messing up the cuts. When she finally got one to size, she failed at carving the bones. They still used the failed cut bones for practice, of course. No use in wasting them. The bones were a lot harder than she was expecting them to be. She was introduced to a bone mallet, metal gravers, small metal picks for carving details into the bones, and knives for carving away at the bone tissue. He taught her how to sharpen the knives after use and how to clean them. They ate dinner in the main hall and quickly got right back to work. In the end, little of anything was gained except the feeling of her arms about to fall off.

Duc'kaal convinced Mother to let him use a guest room so the nightmare of today can begin sooner rather than later come tomorrow.

Now that she was cleaned up and ready for bed, she sat on the edge of her bed performing her nightly ritual of trying to get the light crystal to light. She wanted to just go right to sleep, but I convinced her to keep trying with the promise of another night of chess.

After a long time of trying, her body basically just gave up and she feel asleep sitting up. So I ended up making good on my promise and played chess with her again in the dream. Not before moving her body into a comfortable sleeping position, though.

The cycle of waking up, trying to light the crystal, breakfast, bone carving, dinner, trying again to light the crystal, and sleep became her daily routine for about ten days. I'll try to spare the details. A lot of arm pain, bleeding fingers, and she almost threw the light crystal through her bedroom window in a fit of rage.

You might think I'm exaggerating things here, but you need to keep in mind that she is young and bones are very hard when they are dried like this. She would have picked up woodcarving by now, but the bones are much harder to work with without the upper body strength of an adult. Unfortunately wood is a commodity that cannot be easily wasted here for her to learn carving. Stone is another option, but that's even worse for her to use.

So that was the story for the last ten days. But on the eleventh day she finally had a breakthrough with the light crystal. In the morning after another troublesome day of bone carving, she could fully feel the sprinkling sensation on the bones in her arms. It was the only thing she could feel because her muscles were numb, but she could feel it. With some thought, she managed to manipulate the countless prickles in her bones into a stream of particles flowing from her arms to her fingers. And when she picked the crystal up, it lit up as bright as you would expect a sixty watt bulb to be when you turn it on.

She found the will to sit up in bed and picked up on the sensation throughout her body. Every finger, toe, leg, arm, vertebrate, rib, and even her skull. Now that she knew what to feel for, she easily figured out how to manipulate the flow of energy. There's not much I can say on the method because it was almost instinctual. Like learning how to move a limb she didn't know she had. She now had full reign on the power flowing through her body. The pain from the bone carving lessons faded from the distraction and a bright smile was plastered on her face. She got dressed and ran to Warran's room.

Warran's room was just an unused office next to Daemon and Sullivan's rooms on the west wing of the mansion. Celestine and her Mother stayed on the east wing. The guest room Duc'kaal was staying in was also on this east wing.

Celestine knocked on the door as hard as she could, which wasn't very hard with her aching arms. She waited, tried again, waited, then she just opened the door to the office.

The sun was already illuminating half of the room through the window. In the middle of the room was a huge wooden desk. Surrounding the desk were hundreds of loose papers, books, and scrolls. Celestine had never seen this much loose paper before in her life. Did he carry this all in with him when he showed up? Laying on the desk, with his arms folded up as makeshift pillows, was the upper body of an aging elf man. At least he was clothed, but the room had the smell of him already. Well, he did seclude himself in here most of the day, only leaving to eat and bathe.

"Warran!" Celestine shouted when she saw him. He mumbled a bit, but went back to sleep. "Warran! I lit the crystal!" She shouted, walking over to the side of the desk to stand beside him, not worried about stepping on the papers on the floor.

"Alright..." He slowly lifted and turned his head to look at the overeager girl. "Where is it?"

"Uhm, uh..." She looked down at her hands and checked her pockets.

"You forgot it. Nevermind." He picked one of the crystals up off his desk and held it out to her. "Light it." He said.

She took the similar crystal in her hand and forced the energy into her fingers just like she discovered how to do. The light crystal flashed on. Celestine held it back up to him. He took it from her, then placed it back onto the desk.

"Good job. Took you a while. But I'll just blame the church for that." He took a deep breath and sighed while lifting his body up off the desk. A pool of drool was staining a paper he had likely been reading the night before, but he paid it no mind. "Guess I have to negotiate some time from that $%&$# now that you can channel magic. I need to start your lessons again. Daemon was getting fussy the other day about me not holding up my side of the deal." He stared off into the distance for a while before he turned to see Celestine still standing there staring at him. He put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her lightly away. "Go eat breakfast. I know you're eager, but we'll start lessons tomorrow. I need to prepare now."

Celestine nodded and walked to the door.

"And close the door!" Warran shouted at her back. She did as he told her and closed the door.

Celestine was halfway to the staircase when she moved her shoulders a bit. She lifted her arms up and opened and closed her hands. All of the pain was gone. None of the dull achy pain from just ten minutes ago was there.

I said, to stem her curiosity and to get her moving again. It really was the simplest answer. It's not like simply channeling magic cured her aches and

She cried in her head while running down the stairs cursing me in her head. I guess she was just getting over her first heartbreak and I stabbed needles into the wound, huh?

The day continued after breakfast with her continuing her bone carving. Warran appeared in the afternoon and spoke briefly with Duc'kaal just to finalize Celestine's new schedule. Her attention was on the pendant she was working on, though. After Warran healed her achy muscles, it became much easier for her to carve the bone. So he not only healed the muscles, he strengthened them? Or would this have happened even if he didn't heal her? I was never one for muscle building on Earth, so I wouldn't know.

The bear paw pendant was slowly taking shape. She cut it to a rough shape, filed the sharp edges down, and used gravers of various sizes to carve away at the bone and to let the bear paw shape reveal itself in the bone. She managed to finish it by the end of the day after the sun had long set, but she wasn't satisfied with it and asked to redo it, which Duc'kaal allowed but forced her to bed after they cleaned up the chips of bone on the table and floor.

What, you thought she would just leave all that for Mother to clean up? She's a good girl and cleaned up for Mother. Also Duc'kaal wanted to collect the scrap pieces and shavings for something. Not sure what he wants it for, but she didn't ask.