“What do you think of me getting cursed now?” I asked Iona, delighted by the surprise she was trying to hide from me. [The World Around Me] meant the number of things that could surprise me up-close were minimal!

She frowned. I knew what she thought of Immortals, and my heart fell.

“I’m not the biggest fan of Immortals in the first place, but what you’ve told me, it makes sense now. With that said, I’ve got a bigger concern.”

“What’s that?”

“Please stay old enough. I’m not sure we could be dating if you were suddenly a child. Just… no. It doesn’t work for me.”

Oh thank the moon goddesses. I sent them a quick prayer of thanks, donating a hefty chunk of mana. Iona’s concern was about us dating, and not breaking up or anything.

“But you think it’s wise for me to trigger now?”

Iona thought about it for another minute, mulling it over.

“Yes. What Professor Marcelle said about it makes sense to me. Here!” She tossed her ‘surprise’, a mango she’d found. My face lit up as I caught it.

“You’re the best.”

“Elaine! Elaine! ELAINE!” Iona shouted as she burst through the doorway, the poor hinges never having a chance against her.

I closed my book with a sigh, my other thought process wavering at Iona’s interruption, but gamely still tracing the array I had mentally assembled into my spellbook.

[Gust] was a classic. Weak, but it could have a wide variety of uses.

“What’s up?” I asked, using [The World Around Me] to continue my perfect view of my array even while looking away from it.

Iona waved a piece of paper in an envelope at me, a little box tucked under her other arm.

My skills would let me be a great… mediocre… spy. I could read what was in the letter, closed and waving around.

Understanding the language was a different hurdle.

“The Valkyries! I got a letter!” Iona slammed down next to me, bouncing me up and out of the sofa.

The poor sofa never stood a chance, giving up the ghost with a resounding crack.

“Stop breaking things!” I complained.

“Sorry.” Iona was sheepish as she put the box on the table. “You can fix them, right?”

“Yeah, but that’s not the point! I don’t want to figure out the right array for however the sofa’s broken this time. I have better things to do.” I complained, then seized the moment. “Like kissing you! If I’m working, no cuddles.”

Iona pouted, but the message got through. She eagerly tore the missive open, her eyes scanning it so quickly her pupils blurred.

She was done in seconds, leaning back on the broken sofa.

Something else went crack, and I gave her the Evil Eye.

[*ding!* You’ve unlocked the General Skill [Evil Eye]! Would you like to replace a skill with it? Y/N].

Not the time System.

“What’s up?” I prompted her, since she wasn’t speaking.

“It’s… a lot to take in.” She said. “The short version is this. Sigrun has declared that we’re going to return to our ancient roots. We started off as [Knights-Errant] wandering the world, doing what we believed needed to be done. It’s how our tradition of acquiring squires came to be. We’d pick up anyone interested while we were on the road. We were poor by virtually every metric, but usually there’d be a farmer or innkeeper who’d be willing to feed us for the day, in memory of a time when one of us had helped them in the past. Eventually Rolland offered us territory and a place to stay, you know the rest. Well, Sigrun’s declared that we’re going back to that model. Only beholden to our conscience.”

The implications of that were getting me excited for selfish reasons.

“That means…?” I asked.

“It means I’m free to do what I think is best.” Iona said.

It was rude to be happy because of Iona’s misfortune. I tilted my hat down to hide the beaming smile I couldn’t control.

“Why are you - HEY!” Iona wasn’t exactly born yesterday, and was way better at people than I was.

“You JERK!” Iona complained as she jumped on top of me, her hands finding my sides and mercilessly tickling me.

“Ahahahaha no stop nooooooooooooooooooooo!” I protested as I squirmed under Iona’s assault.

I rested my head on Iona’s naked chest, tangled in the blankets, tickling having led from one thing to another. I idly traced one finger up and down her body, from her chin down to her navel.

Iona shivered with delight. She reached over, grabbed a slice of mango, and slowly, sensually, teased me with it before feeding it to my grasping mouth.

Fuck yes. Mangos. Hit almost as hard as sex, just in a different way.

“More?” I pleaded, already knowing I’d eaten the last slice. Iona knuckled my forehead.

“You know we’re out.”

“What do we want to do?” I asked Iona, switching the subject away from the last mango I’d eaten.

“Well…” She playfully growled at me.

I flicked her nose.

“No, for real. After the School. Do we want to take Iya’s offer? It looks acceptable from where I’m lying. Do we want to explore the world? Settle down somewhere? I think the School’s also willing to offer me a job. We need to start thinking about this. We need to discuss this, seriously. I don’t want graduation to come around and we’re suddenly separated because we didn’t communicate.”

Iona was silent for a moment.

“Do you really think Iya’s offer is good?” She asked, turning over a bit to look me in the eyes.

Goddesses, her eyes were beautiful. Emeralds and stars.

“It’s… alright?” I was hedging here. It sounded decent on the surface, but Iona’s reluctance had me sensing a trap.

Iona shook her head.

“Elaine, I love you to pieces, but you’re charmingly naive at times. I’m good at this, I sometimes miss or don’t realize just how naive. I’ve been willing to go along with Iya so far because there’s no reason to piss off a powerful family for literally no reason, and because you’ve been having fun, but she is a master manipulator and liar. After seeing her retainers and how she treats them, and how they treat her, can you really believe that Raith was acting on his own? That he didn’t have orders to see if you were susceptible to intimidation? Deliberately ‘missing’ that there were three of us, then correcting herself? Iya knows how much you like Auri, and that you two are bonded. She’s drawing attention to Auri, and how she considers Auri a full person. Boom! Deeper in your good graces. We’d be immune to fallout if she loses the succession fight? HA! There’s no trust there, they’d throw a noose around our necks in a heartbeat if they didn’t poison us in our sleep first. There are thousands of other small things Iya’s done. Each and every single one of them is designed to make her likable, improve her position, and manipulate every single person around her. She sees the world in levers and pressure points, and found yours years ago. She’s been carefully pressing and manipulating them ever since.”

My mouth was forming a perfect “O” in outrage.

“What! She’s been manipulating me!? Why didn’t you say anything!?” I was mad at Iya and myself.

Iona pressed one hand to her eye. I was lying on her other arm.

“I did! I tried! Quite a few times, subtly! And less subtly! I called her a snake, how much more obvious do I need to be? I thought you knew, and were going along with it for whatever reason!”

Uhhh… all of those had gone completely over my head. I thought it was because Iya was a naga, and Iona was being a little rude.

I patted Iona’s arm.

“Well, let it never be said that you’re not extremely supportive, although you need to work harder to get through how dense I am with people. I take it you want to decline?”

“Yes. It’s one of the few places I won’t follow you to. I am willing to take a tour through the country to see if there are any problems that require a Valkyrie’s attention, but I will not make it my home.”

I nodded, nestling deeper into Iona’s chest.

“Great, that’s one option down. What do you want to do?” I had a half-dozen half-baked plans. Eradicate diseases. Find Auri’s family. Find Night. Make sure Artemis and the rest were safe and secure. Go out and heal people.

I had a few more ideas in that vein. There was a drought in the Silver Horde, although I wasn’t sure how much I could do against that. The challenge would be worth some levels. There was a civil war in the Han Empire. Endless casualties, but dipping my toe in a civil war was dicey. Suen was having a terrible outbreak of the Pekari, although there was no telling if it’d be over by the time we got there.

I wanted to make a home. A base. A place to feel safe and secure.

In short, I had a hundred ideas, and no big flashing arrow telling me which one to pick. I’d been driven by something or given direction nearly my entire life. The whole world being open to choose was strange. Opportunity overload.

“Find problems and smash them. Preferably problems that respond well to being smashed. Find the injustices in the little tucked away places in the world, and be the sword and the shield. Preferably somewhere near Rolland, where I can see if I can bump into other Valkyries. Find a way to feed Fenrir. Now that I know what the other Valkyries are doing, I feel like I can make plans.”

I started up in the middle.

“Fuck it. Let’s go to the Han Empire after we graduate. Civil war. Near Rolland - even near Castle Valkyrie if I remember my maps right. People for me to heal. Injustices for you to fix. The whole place is a mess. Wouldn’t surprise me if the Valkyries scattered through the area.”

Iona gave me a long kiss on my head.

“Let’s think about it. Jumping into a civil war after a five minute conversation is stupid, but I’m open to the idea. Let’s make sure we’ve planned it out properly, but as ideas go… it works.”

“Brrrrrrrpt!!” Auri yelled from the other room. I threw a pillow at the wall.

“Stop eavesdropping!” I shouted.

“BRRPT!”

I grumbled as I nestled back down into Iona’s arms, and sighed.

“She’s got a point though. We should get a home and a base first. Make sure we can feed Fenrir. Have a place to retreat to and lick our wounds.”

Iona pursed her lips a bit.

“I… yeah, alright, she’s right. I’m trying to jump into this a little too hastily. I’ve always had a base of operations, I shouldn’t just assume I can work without one. Where are you thinking?”

“We should have Auri in this discussion. Fenrir as well, if we can manage it.”

Iona grimaced.

“Fenrir… I’m not sure he’d care enough. Food, a hunt, a shelter, and he’s happy as can be.” She said.

Fenrir did sleep a lot.

“Right. Auri, wanna join us?”

The little phoenix zipped in, trailing flames that briefly hovered in the air, then burned out like an afterimage.

“Xerius would be nice.” I said carefully. “It’s where mangos grow, and I think it’s where Remus used to be. Or, errr, the Remus I knew. Sadly…” I trailed off, and Iona picked up right where I left off.

“It’s mortal territory, and we were just talking about you becoming Immortal.” She finished off.

“Right. Would love to travel now and then, but I don’t think I can set up a home. Not without stepping on too many toes.”

“Please don’t.” The very idea of it seemed to pain Iona. “Unless it’s Nippon-Koku. They’re much more tolerant of Immortals. Practically cater to them. They’re right on the border, and they know Immortals have serious coin to spend on their shows.”

“Right, I’ll put them on the list. Humor me for the sake of completeness. Nippon-Koku. Jurcor. Draakveld. Exterreri. Tympestshard. Golden Courts. Urwa. Modu.”

“BRRRRRRRPT!” Auri protested. Modu was cold. And dark. It was where Iona had found Fenrir.

“I just asked you to let me finish my list for completeness, then we can start crossing things off.” I scolded my little friend.

“Brpt.” Auri had done No Wrong, fighting against the evils of Cold and Snow. How she was BFF’s with Fenrir, I’d never know.

“Modu,” I said with a pointed look at Auri. “Bhutai, and Penujuman. Am I missing anywhere?”

“Gwyllt.” Iona promptly replied. I smacked my forehead.

“Oh yeah, Gwyllt. Is… that even an option? Do apistles let other people settle there?”

Iona shrugged.

“Dunno, but it is classified as Immortal. Draakveld is right out.”

I popped out a notebook into my hand, and Iona snapped a quill out from our desks in our other room into my hand.

“Fancy.” I commented on Iona’s control and being able to hit things accurately without line of sight. I wrote down the list, crossing Draakveld off.

“There is no way I could tolerate Urwa from what I’ve heard of it.” I crossed the desert country off my list. “My understanding is Lithos isn’t an option, although I could try to make it work if you want to go back…?” I trailed off. I knew Iona had been born there, and grew up there, and it was filled with Immortal trolls.

She shook her head.

“It’s not home, and it’s firmly a mortal country. They wouldn’t like you there.”

Well, that answered that.

“BRPT.” Auri nearly blew out my eardrums with the force of her shout, and Iona clapped her hands over her ears, bumping me. I was slightly exaggerating Auri almost blowing out my eardrums, but she’d earned the name Stentor.

Auri conjured a small fireball, slowly bringing it towards ‘Modu’ on my list.

“Alright, alright, I get it.” I crossed the country off the list.

“I’m not big on trying to live with elves. Petty I know, but have you been around elves a bunch?”

I thought back to my travels with Awarthril, Serondes, and Aegion. I imagined living like that forever, not just a few months.

“Yup, nope, say no more.” I crossed off the Golden Courts and Tympestshard. “Any other obvious exclusions?”

Nobody said anything for a minute, all of us thinking.

“No obvious issues. Less obvious issues?”

“Just thinking about Jurcor and all the paperwork they flash around gives me headaches.” Iona flopped back. “Please, spare me from a lifetime of paperwork.”

I crossed the country off with a flourish, and decided to address the elephant in the room.

“I’d like to take a serious shot at Exterreri.” I said. “Marcelle suggested it. My reading, as much as you can read about a country, suggests it’s similar to where I came from. It has vampires, and maybe my old mentor. It protects people like me.”

Iona shrugged.

“I have no problem with that, as long as you’re willing to look at other places if it doesn’t work out. Yeah?”

“Brrrpt!” Auri trilled her assent.

“Yeah. We’ll have more information to work with then.” I circled Exterreri, leaving the rest of the list untouched. Our other options if things didn’t work, and countries and places we could revisit if things went poorly.

The two of us chatted a bit more, then got up.

“Oh yeah, there was that box.” My eyes widened as I saw what was inside of it, seeing straight through the walls with [The World Around Me].

Iona opened the box, sucking in a cold breath as she saw the bounty inside. She picked up a handful of the ruby coins and let them fall back into the box, each one glittering like a drop of blood.

“Elaine! Just the elaine I wanted to see!” Marcelle ambushed me after one of my classes.

“Professor. Is there anything I can do for you?” I was extra-conscious of being a student, and wanting to make sure I didn’t get an overly swollen head.

“Yes. We’re still working on your final thesis presentation. We’re convincing a few people at a time, and as the pool of people who know what’s going on expands, it becomes easier. However, a few people want to meet you and talk with you. Mind giving us a few minutes of your time?”

A few minutes of my time here and there was a pittance compared to how hard a full thesis was to normally write.

Then again, I’d spent accursed months aboard a ship editing. I’d paid in blood, toil, tears, and sweat to write the manuscripts in the first place!

“Sure, lead the way. Anytime, anyplace, I’m at your disposal.” I told Marcelle.

She beamed at me.

“Excellent! We’re talking with the Dean of Medicine today.”

That meeting had been a little more tense than I’d expected. Grilled, sliced, diced, and fried. Dunno why my mind was on barbeque, maybe it said something about my mental state. Or my own musings were an attempt to distract me from what I was about to do.

I took a deep breath, and quintuple-checked my gear. A nervous tic I’d developed as a Ranger. If my gear and training were good, I’d be fine.

Not that any of my preparations could help against White Dove. They were simply to bolster my own confidence.

“Now Auri,” I said. “This is an important meeting with White Dove. Please don’t be rude to her.”

“Brrrpt!” Auri claimed she had learned her lesson from last time.

I entered the dangerous workshop building - the privacy and protection on the rooms were second to none - and had a quick conversation with one of the student workers manning the desk.

His eyebrows were missing, and his clothes had a distinct blast pattern on them.

“Rough day?” I asked.

“Rough week.” He complained. “It’s just not worth replacing robes until they’re shredded beyond repair. Special permission and all that. Right, have you reserved a room?”

I nodded.

“Name’s Elaine. One of the black rooms. I think that’s the classification I need?”

The colors of the rooms corresponded with the estimated danger level, similar to the School robes. Black was the lowest level, then purple, blue, etc., all the way to red and white.

“Elaine, Elaine…” He muttered, running his finger down a schedule. “Elaine! Ah, here you are. Right, got a few questions for you before we begin.” He pulled out another piece of paper.

“Sure, shoot.”

“About how much mana is going to be used in your project?”

“A thousand or so? It might vary, but I’m not spending a ton.”

He nodded and ticked a box.

“Are you involving Spore, Miasma, Poison, or Void elements?”

“Nope.”

“Do you need a healer on standby?”

I snorted, and pointed to myself.

“Do I count?”

“I’ll mark that as a no. Is there any way your work produces toxic fumes?”

On and on the questions went. Self-perpetuating. Fae. Divine Edicts. A question that danced around itself, asking about dragons. Cultivators and tribulations. Anomalies.

“Right, good, good. Are you planning on summoning any extra-dimensional beings?” He asked, already ticking off the box ‘no’.

“Uh.” I awkwardly paused. He froze.

“I don’t like the sound of that…” He glared at me.

“Maybe?” I squeaked out. “Define extra-dimensional beings?”

“If you need the definition, that’s a yes.” He muttered. “Red room 3, subbasement 7. Please wait at least an eighth of a block before starting, that’s when I take my break and I do not need another containment breach.”

“Brrrpt brrrrpt brrrrrrrrrrpt.” Auri was laughing on my shoulder.

“Yeah yeah, real funny.” I rolled my eyes and took the key to the room in question.

Going down the spiral stairs was interesting. The whole place felt and looked sterile, with thick layers of runes plastered on every wall. Runes for purification. Structure. Stability. Containment. And more! I made a new ‘book’ inside of [Astral Archives] and memorized everything here.

If I ever wanted to make my own workshop - I don’t know why I would, but who knew - the runes here, carefully iterated on over generations, would make an excellent starting point. Possibly finishing point as well!

Then I was in the room, and it was time.

I focused on myself, thinking of what age I wanted to be.

I was aiming for 26. My birthday was coming up soon, and I wasn’t quite sure how my differentiated aging worked, I was fairly confident that my internals were ‘older’ than my externals. Aiming for my current age - basically subtracting a day from how old I currently was - should fix any issues internally, while giving myself plenty of padding if I ‘overshot’.

I’d never overshot by more than three years before, and even if I doubled my biggest overshoot, that’d leave me at 20. Minimal risk of ending up as an 8-year old.

No sense in delaying. I opened up the relevant ‘book’ about my biomancy changes from [Astral Archives], and focused on myself, starting to channel [The Stars Never Fade].

The world faded away into pure darkness, even Auri’s flames eaten by the endless nothingness.

Then, in the distance, a single pinprick of light appeared. Then a second, a third, dozens, hundreds lit up all around me, placing me in the center of the vast cosmos. Rocks circled stars, which clustered together into galaxies. Those galaxies formed superclusters, and the entire universe circled around me in a glorious display of light.

Then I started moving through the various clusters, dashing through the display at a speed that made light look slow. I narrowly missed hundreds of galaxies, and was thrown through dozens more until I slowed at a spiral galaxy.

I started ‘falling’ towards the spiral galaxy, near the edge, one yellow sun growing larger and larger in my view as I zoomed in on this particular piece of the universe. Four gas giants circled around the star, but I wasn’t heading towards any of them.

Instead, I was brought to a small blue marble floating in the void, a moon almost the quarter of the size of the planet orbiting around it.

Then the changes started. Mountains receded as tectonic plates pulled away, and others rose up as plates clashed. Dirt and rock lifted themselves up, flowing back into volcanoes, while islands sunk into the ocean. Tons of dust lifted from the planet, forming into one massive asteroid that zipped away into the endless expanse of space. Continental plates shifted, slamming themselves back together in a single mass.

And then it was done. The world looked new and primal, cooled from the fires of creation but teeming with limitless potential.

[*ding!* [The Stars Never Fade] has leveled up! 11->12]

The world slowly faded back into existence, and my old nemesis was back.

White Dove.

I boldly stared her in the eye, back straight, unashamed of my actions and willing to look the consequences squarely in the face. Waiting for her to pronounce judgment.

“Oh great lover of fruit.” She intoned.