Tala descended Howlton, unescorted.

She appreciated the gesture of trust for what it obviously was.

Even if Paresh could likely fight her off, if not outright defeat her with his unknown abilities within his own domain, Tala could cause considerable damage, if she wished.

She did not wish to do so, but it wasn’t like they had a long history to lean on between them.

I suppose out in the plains like this, you have to be good at reading people. That was a somewhat self-aggrandizing assumption, given that it meant that she was inherently trustworthy.

She hoped to the stars that that was actually true.

She had so much blood on her hands these days.

Rivers of the stuff flowed in her wake as she’d stood within a House built of it.

-Tala?-

I’m… I’m okay. I’ll have a lot to process, once I’m home.

-You didn’t kill those men. You could have, but you chose not to.-

Sure, but I wanted to. It would have been so much easier if I’d just killed them.

Alat didn’t respond with the trite aphorisms that they both knew would have been standard. Instead, she simply sent a single sentence. -You chose to let them live.-

Nothing more needed to be said, not at the moment.

It was easy enough to retrace her steps down past the once again mostly silent clinic and on down to the still bustling marketplace.

The dark, slanted staircase led to the exit right about ground level.

As she walked down, she had a realization. Huh, they have both arcanes and humans here, but they are all what I would consider standard size. There were not the smaller or larger varieties, and the sizing of this hallway and these steps seems to support that. I wonder why that is?

She obviously didn’t have the answers, and she likely wouldn’t until she came back.

-I’ll make a note to ask Paresh if and when we come back. There might even be some info in the books we have within Kit.-

That’s true enough. Tala had flipped through many, if not most, of those books, but once again, using that to copy them into the Archive was vastly different than actually reading and absorbing the content. For that, she needed time that she’d yet to have.

The end of the stairway came soon enough, and Tala pulled open the door back into the bright light of day.

The guard acknowledged her but didn’t communicate further, beyond giving her a parting wave.

Tala waved back and began jogging almost due north. She’d decided to go that way, then follow the forest east and north until she reached the place that she could cut through with the least forest to traverse.

-Still fifty miles or so of potentially Leshkin filled terrain.-

Yeah, but there’s not much of a better idea available.

-Oh, I know. More that I don’t want us to forget to plan for that eventuality.-

Fair enough. We are better trained, better equipped, and more powerful than we were last time that we faced them, but we’re also alone. That caused a pained emptiness to resound within her own chest.

She was alone, aside from Alat and Terry.

Well, and that silly cat. She wished she had enough confidence in the containment of the dasgannach that she could snuggle up with one of the animals. Not that the cat would let me do that.

Still, the thought brought a smile to her lips.

The other groups of scouts seemed to notice her, but let her pass unmolested.

I wonder if Paresh can communicate with them directly?

-That seems highly likely, yes.-

Passing out of Howlton’s aura was once again a tingly experience.

She glanced backward and found the village mostly hidden, but still discernible as a hazy impression against the otherwise mostly clear sky.

Easier to see than before.

-Yes, easier than impossible. Do you think Paresh granted us some sort of ‘allowance’ to perceive it?-

If so, it was a pretty rusting useless one. It’s still a pain to see.

-Well, it’s meant to be a kindness, not a beacon.-

That’s true, I suppose.

-It also might be the nature of the defense. Even the guards had to use a device to find their own village, after all.-

Yeah.

She continued on her way, and once she’d run for another hour or so, she opened Kit and called out to Terry.

Tala didn’t stop moving.

Terry, for his part, flickered out and glared, squawking irritably even as he fell into step nearby.

“I’m sorry, buddy. There was some difficulty. But it’s been dealt with.”

He gave her a skeptical glare, then trilled questioningly.

So, as they ran just out of arms’ reach, Tala told Terry what she’d learned.

Oddly, Terry didn’t really seem shocked by the presence of humans and arcanes out here, but it was difficult to decipher Terry’s emotions at times, so it could have been news to him or something he’d known about for decades.

In either case, it didn’t take her long to convey all there was to convey, and Terry seemed satisfied.

He flickered off to go hunt once again, signaling that they were to fall back into their previous pattern.

Now, the dasgannach.

They were in a tenuous balance, but Tala had learned her lesson on waiting for an ‘assured’ solution. Be-thric was supposed to take me to the human lands, but Noooo, that would have been too easy.

The teleporter should work to remove the conceptual creature, but like most of her ideas, it wasn’t a sure thing, and even if it had been, in theory, she wasn’t going to depend on it.

Focusing inward, she sent her will through the Archon star. Join me?

There was no response.

-I don’t think it can grasp such advanced concepts.-

Tala grimaced. You’re probably right, yeah.

-Do we really want to use a bond on this creature?-

Well, I have Flow for offense, the elk-leathers for defense, the Archive link for information—

-We need to get that upgraded, by the way. We should never be outside of connection range again, even if we go to the moon.-

That… that would probably be a good idea. Expensive, though.

Alat sent over the impression of a greedy smile. Even after all these months, such things were still odd to Tala. The ‘greedy smile’ wasn’t actually some sort of visualization of such an expression, it was more the feeling that Tala herself would have, were that smile to be on her own face. As usual, it was odd to experience such things from Alat. -I have some ideas on how to get what we need. We can go over the possibilities, when you’re not otherwise focused.-

That’s fair. Where was I? Right. The ring Archive link for information, and I want to soul bond Kit for utility, storage, home, etc. That’s four. Terry would be an interesting possibility. It would give more power, while also tying us closer, so he’d be less likely to get bored and go on a murder spree.

-Plus, his teleportation should be usable by us. I still don’t understand how he sheds things that aren’t him in the transport.-

Yeah, that would be a benefit for sure. So, that’s five.

-The one you don’t like thinking about.-

Tala blushed slightly. Yeah, I would like to get married someday. Moving on!

Alat chuckled. -That leaves two to stay within the safe limit. Do we really want to use one on the dasgannach?-

Tala nodded, finding a sort of calming influence from the steady repetition of her loping run.

-Why? I mean, I can read your thoughts, so I know but I want you to talk through it.-

First, control of iron.

-Obviously. Never have to buy or apply iron paint again.-

It should be better, too. No medium of application required, a covering of pure iron, without the inflexibility.

-Assuming you can get that to work. That’s a big assumption.-

It’s motile, isn’t it? When outside a person? But it’s pure iron, therefore it has to be able to do what I’m hoping.

-That’s fair.-

Plus, there’s the fact that it is a concept, Alat. If I can incorporate that, I’ll be able to do something that no one, I mean no other human seems to be able to do, directly.

-Alright. It sounds like it could be a good choice, if you can make it work. So, what’s the last thing?-

You know what it is.

-But you need to express it.-

Tala groused slightly, but eventually acquiesced. Tali would just kill it, if she could. Rust, I want to just kill it, but… I’ve been killing so, so much of late. Her eyes started to water slightly, but she had her mirrored perspectives in her orbiting Archon stars, so she didn’t slow.

-You want another way.-

I want to at least try. Killing is going to be required, I know that, but it shouldn’t be my first choice. I want to be better.

-Like with the guards of Howlton?-

Yes.

-So, better than who?-

You know, Alat. I’ve already said it.

-You have, and you haven’t. Better than who?-

She grimaced. Tali. I want to be a better person than Tali.

-You are, you know.-

I hope you’re right.

They fell into silence, and Tala turned her attention inward once again.

The dasgannach hadn’t responded to her attempt at communication via her will. Even so, she tried again, attempting to send impressions or instincts rather than words. Eat this?

No response.

Become one?

No response.

What does it want? She bounced ideas around within her own head, her thoughts in words once again, the steady cadence of her movement centering her mind.

-To consume? To acquire? That’s why you got the iron, right?-

Yeah…

She focused on projecting her will through the Archon star in her finger once again. Share?

That got a response.

NO. MINE. The visceral interpretation was impossible to mistake.

Share more? She tried to include in the concept of more the idea that it would get more by sharing.

No response.

Tala sighed. Well, here goes nothing.

She sheathed her hand in white metal and fished a piece of scrap iron out of Kit even as she kept moving north.

The dasgannach didn’t react.

The iron wasn’t in direct contact with her skin.

But it takes more than physical contact, or the restraining band would have been subject to the dasgannach immediately.

-Conceptual contact? The spells owned the band until they were deactivated?-

But I’m Bound. Rust, I’m FUSED. My body is mine, pure and simple, so how is it able to invade and take over part of me?

They both considered for a long while, before Tala had a realization, or at least a guess at a realization.

It’s using basically all its power to enforce its concept of ownership on my flesh. That’s why it can’t take anything else that’s contested.

-By that logic, no one around us should be in danger.-

That’s true enough, but I’d still not like to risk it.

-There’s wisdom in that, but that’s not the point.-

Oh, I understood the point. Iron, otherwise claimed, was impervious to the dasgannach, but if it wasn’t conceptually claimed? It could be subsumed even while the creature remained within Tala.

So, the test, then. She locked in her mind the fact that the small, distorted lump of iron she held was HERS. She couldn’t manipulate concepts directly, but just like she could have thrown the bit of iron an incredible distance, even without being able to magically manipulate kinetic energy, she was able to naturally interact with concepts.

This iron was hers by request.

It had been granted to her as a gift.

It had been freely given by one who originally had authority over the iron.

In every sense, this scrap belonged to Tala and no one else.

She somehow sat on that feeling with her magical weight even as she continued to run.

There was precedence to the action, obviously. There was reason to believe that it could work.

Flow had iron in it but hadn’t been subsumed.

To be fair, though, Flow was magical and soul bound to Tala, making the concepts claiming the weapon much more potent than her claim on the iron scrap.

Even so, Tala had to test it.

The white glove of metal faded back into the elk-leather sleeve of her clothing, and the dasgannach clearly detected the iron now contacting her skin.

There was the feel of something orienting on the iron, and Tala had the horrifying thought, What if it just leaves to get the iron? What if I’ve just killed myself?

That shouldn’t happen, it was obviously an irrational fear, but there was always the possibility.

A long moment passed, and nothing happened as Tala continued to lope across the plains, heading north.

Finally, the concept within her flexed, trying to seize the iron, but Tala pushed back, willing herself to believe that the iron was hers.

She didn’t think in words, but the dasgannach seemed to read her intent as she was reading its own.

It was not happy.

MINE.

No. Mine.

MINE.

No. Mine.

MINE. GIVE.

That was new, and Tala actually felt an odd solidifying of her conceptual hold on the iron. It had unintentionally acknowledged that the iron was hers. After all, she could not rightfully and truly give what was not hers. That act had, on the part of the dasgannach, actually made it more hers.

It somehow noticed the change. NO! MINE.

But it was too late for that.

Tala grinned, then very carefully made her play. She offered both the Archon star and the iron scrap as a set, not each individually. It was both or neither.

Ours?

The dasgannach didn’t respond for a long, long moment.

What finally came back was the equivalent of desperate frustration, an animalistic whining, and bitter regret. NO. MINE…

With that final instinctual attempt—which slid off the iron like rain off of glass—the dasgannach settled back down in focused, resolute regard of her Archon star.

That first attempt complete, if failed, Tala refocused outward, and found herself coated in sweat and pulling in huge, gasping, lung-fulls of air even as she continued to shakily run across the plains.

Woah! She slowed, putting the scrap away, then bending over, hands on her knees. That was insanely difficult.

Alat grunted in sympathy. -That was fascinating. You were clearly having some sort of communication, but it was more like a farmer ‘talking’ to a stubborn stump than even a rancher moving an ornery cow.-

Yeah, I’ll accept that metaphor.

Tala straightened, putting her hands behind her head and spreading her elbows wide to expand her chest and allow better airflow. That was harder than running a couple hundred miles.

-It seemed like it. Like jumping on a beast to ‘Crush’ it instead of using your magics. It’s much harder when you can’t actually work with concepts directly, I imagine.-

No rusting kidding.

Terry flickered back into being near her, and she reassured him that she was fine.

He looked rather skeptical, tilting his head back and forth as he flickered around her, checking for injuries.

It was sweet, especially since he knew she could heal. Tala smiled at the gesture and appreciated it for what it was.

Thankfully, she recovered her breath rather quickly and took off once more, Terry falling in nearby rather than flickering off once more.

Nothing for it but to keep trying. I think I’ll give it a gift next, and see what I can do with that. There’s definitely some parts of my iron defense that need some patching. I bet I can be strategic and make something of this.

-Well, it’s definitely something to distract us while we travel. I suppose it’s time to experiment.-

Together, they ran.

Tala wasn’t willing to randomly add iron to her body on the move, not yet at any rate, so despite Alat’s words, they actually read, instead.

Alat was able to project a book before Tala in a way that didn’t inhibit her vision, especially with the mirrored perspectives, and so Tala began the process of actually reading the materials that she’d made off with.

Eventually, darkness fell, and Tala decided to pause for a brief time to try her next angle with the dasgannach.

She pulled out a different bit of scrap iron, and once again solidified her conceptual ownership of it to the best of her meager ability.

She then used her mirrored perspective to find the largest gap in her iron paint, and carefully pressed the scrap against that.

The dasgannach immediately tried to claim the iron.

MINE!

Tala rebuffed it once again. Then, she pushed the instinctive feelings towards it. Share?

MINE!

No. Mine. Share?

There was no response.

Then, smiling to herself with unfounded hope, she acted. Mine. Share. Yours.

MINE.

The bit of iron slipped from her ownership, and as she moved her hand away, in an action that should have let it fall away, it instead seemed to liquify and flow outward to press as close to her skin as it could.

The action seemed to have fragmented the scrap iron into powder, so it didn’t jab or cut or scrape as she moved.

MINE.

Yes. Mine. Share. Yours.

No response. Alright. Time to try again.

She pulled out the original iron scrap, the one that was unequivocally hers, and once again extended the offer of it and the Archon star within her finger, as a set.

Mine. Share?

The dasgannach’s concept slammed into her ownership, and was rebuffed.

Ours?

NO. MINE… Once again, it came across like the grinding of gears, like a machine trying to go against its design and failing.

It was another failure, but somehow, Tala didn’t mind.

She would keep trying.

She would find a way around killing this concept within herself.

But not right now.

Right now, she needed to keep running.