Marcus had been invited up to the Crystal spires by VRPI earlier that day. With a specialisation in humans and found human technology and relics, getting some one on one time with the newest human had been ideal for them. Marcus just wanted to know what Thalia was considering to work with.

Br1n sat snugly inside his wrist, watching and observing. She had indicated she was all around the rest of the city, but both of them considered it strange that Br1n had no terminals inside the Crystal spires buildings.

As they ascend the floors, pressurised air pushing a platform up a chute, Marcus sees so many experiments and relics - things from humanity's past, present and weird mimicries between them. The looks on faces all around signal that too many of these projects have been less than successful.

"Br1n, when was the last time Valtor's company actually released a product?"

Br1n appears on his wrist with a helpful but also distinctly smug smile. "VRPI last helped construct the sky terrace four years ago, as a donation to the alumni of the academy."

"But no discoveries lately?" Marcus says with a growing suspicion.

"Not in the last eight years, no. Just projects and construction with a lot of flair. And the fact that the solar cells are of VRPI design."

"Royalties then?" Marcus asks with a dark tone, the lift still going up.

"Y0u W1sh." A new voice echoes from all around them. Marcus looks for speakers but cannot see anything remotely foliad tech or human floating the void with them. 

"Y0u sh0uld s33 y0ur fac3." The voice says, even as Marcus begins a heavy scowl across his face. More digital sound - another AI in a world full of magic?

Marcus looks to Br1n, while subtly bringing up a code scanner incase the researchers here had developed wi-fi. Nothing was pinging yet, but they had not met their floor or their foliad contact.

The ground comes to a stop and Marcus steps off, still not used to being barefoot but careful to respect this society. The voice still follows them, asking inane questions about human life.

"Br1n, do you understand what is going on here?" They step into a hallway lines with transparent plant matter that acts like windows, an experiment on actually tattooing their circuits to their bodies on one side, while on the other they seem to be trying to engineer a horse. The tattoos seem to be leaving behind charred scarring though why you'd want a permanent one when paint on works so well... and the horse looks like a Geiger like facsimile of the animal.

This place does not seem to know how to build on what it has, and Marcus grows increasingly worried that Thalia joining this place will power up that side of her mind rather than working with the materials she has.

Maybe even the radio was too much, despite on the front end it only enhancing Br1n, the back end was a Frankenstein of discordant parts, and stolen favours. He loved waking before dawn to get it set up, and working with people to develop their version of vinyl was so much fun even if it is not perfected yet, but the difference between homage and straight up transplanting and forcing the realms together.

"The tower seems to be a mash of overreaching projects with some ideas that skirt right up against laws prohibited by the council, dear" Br1n is oddly sweet, as if uncannyness of this place is hurting her to think about as well.

The invite had said the meeting was at the end of the hall and he starts towards it when he distantly hears a commotion from below. He is still not used to the reduced noise reduction of foliad buildings, or how quiet everyone is relatively to Tyr, and he swivels to catch a listen. 

"You can't stop me. I have every right to see the human."

"I repeat, there is no human here and I firmly believe you are trespassing."

A guard and someone else Marcus guesses, the someone else sounding hostile. That cannot be good. He gets ready to flee to the emergency stairs, incase he needs to get around this voice from below coming up the elevator.

There's the loud sounds of a fight and then the sound of wet tearing before the screams start.

"What is going on below?" Marcus calls up quietly to the AI.
"Th3r3 1s a fir3 start1ng bel0w. I would evacuate the bu1ld1ng." The voice says at regular volume, as the walls of the building start to pulse red.

The elevator drops away behind him as the sound of crackling of a steady fire starts to permeate through the building. He is moving now, as the floor starts to crackle behind him, making for those stairs like a man possessed. "Can you not do some magic on this?" Marcus screams to Br1n and the strange AI, hearing more screams join the first. This is a disaster, a travesty, malicious.

Marcus makes the stairs, pressing a hand to the membrane and watching his open easily. He goes to make his way down but instinctively looks up, seeing smoke rising up and around him as the floor behind him burns.

He sees a membrane 3 floors up struggling and raises up the stair, the plant matter bulging with each push of the people trapped behind. He grabs the clasp from his belt, finding a sharp edge and tearing into the door, digging and ripping as viscous plant matter coats his arms. He reaches for the nearest person once her gets a hole, pulling them through in a messy birth, as smoke and soot featherdust them working three employees free from their trap, before trying to guide them down the stairs.

"Get behind me, I heard someone downstairs start this mess." Marcus commands, heart racing in his chest - afraid that whatever crazy bore this mess into the world will take it out on someone other than him. He's not brave, but he could not live with the guilt of his existence getting someone hurt.

The four of them go down, through that layer of deep, burning smoke, pushing curled material out of the way as one of the researchers touch his shoulder. "Just two more floors and we should reach one of the fire suppression rings." Marcus can't think past getting these people to safety even as there is a massive concussive sound as an explosion catches something above and he hears startled screams from behind him.

His lungs feel on fire as he looks back, getting the others to cover their mouths and noses with their clothing, realising from the lack of those glowing tattoos Yarrow and Thalia sometimes sport, that these aren't even mages he is protecting, just the regular researchers and support staff he would expect to see around any engineer, and a small rage builds in his chest. "Where is your engineer - your mage?"

"Dead. Missing. I don't know." One of the assistants says, even as they dip past the line of deepest smoke. Marcus gets ready, belt buckle gripped in hand like a weapon, ready for the previously shouting person as they all try to escape this rapidly becoming disaster zone.

They all see a line of blue on the wall of the building, watching plant veins snake over and around the ward as char bounces against the ward, holding the burning away. The patter of non-combustibles and half burned things bouncing off the warded floor hits their ears, and Marcus hopes none of the sounds are bodies making the journey from the upper floors. He sees a group of people, directing his charges towards them as he decides to make his way all the way down and out, if VRPI want to reschedule the meeting that badly they will find him.

Marcus is almost home free when he reaches the lobby and hears that voice being loud and fake in the centre. "I have to get up, I have to go find my girlfriend, she was up on the upper floors when it started." The voice is male, with a thick beard and earthy hair on that traditional foliad green skin. His muscles tense as his gaze meets the gaze of the voice and the man pushes past the second guard than the one he had heard before.

Marcus tackles the voice-wielder, throwing to the ground and just wailing on them without skill or aim. "You hurt so many, you evil malicious little worm."

The man looks up at Marcus, grinning darkly and snarling as his face and shoulders are punched. "And you think your kind would do any better? My people will end you, and all your kind from the face of Levis."

Hands drag the two men apart, even as pain lances his side, and he looks down past the now ruined foliad clothes he had been bought earlier that week, watching blood begin to soak into them from beneath his ribs. Oh. That can't be good.

Thalia was feeling a hot mess. Her wardrobe was growing into this chaotic creature she no longer recognised, even as Syn had come back with a corset and smile. And a hickey behind those gorgeous ears that Thalia ached to nibble on herself, though there was no jealousy that Syn had had her fun.

The stain was slowly coming out of her scarf, and her room was resembling some sort of order, and on the heating device is a heavy vegetable stew, mixed with beans, eggplant, okra and garlic, among other things. Syn sits upon her bed, even as she is trying to do a couple of trades - to get her small bed out, and a larger one in, something filled with plant fluff packed tight, something she can share with Syn or Yarrow, maybe both if they enjoy her company. She is just about to tell Syn that the meal is ready when there is a knock on her door as a bedraggled messenger knocks on the membrane of her apartment.  

"Miss Honeysuckle wishes for you to come to the art department, she needs a model."

Syn waves her on, promising to leave some stew for her after - if Yarrow doesn't get there first.

An hour later there is one advantage Thalia has about her stew and about the chaos of her life - neither Syn, nor Yarrow would be able to steal the stew. They were getting pinned and pulled and formed into outfits beside her.

"Would not one of the more famous socialites be better as your model?" Thalia asks Honey who is trying to pull something sheer right across her bustline, as the material refused to give.

Honey growls and just shoves her foot directly onto Thalia's spine and pulls. "I would like to peak where I started - send the academy a message about how I should be allowed to reach Primus on this medium instead of the sculpture they keep saying I would be better suited to ascend on."

"So are you showing the outfits off at Moonlit Melodies again then?" Yarrow had asked only for the designer working on them to swat them on the back of the head.

"We are trading to briefly own the carpet that was made for the time the king of Solaris came to visit, and we will be tracing it from Moonlit, all the way to the entrance of the Arboretum. We will then use hand dyed petals to extend the carpet all the way to the base of the Great Sakura Tree." Honey had said, biting her knuckle in nervous energy.

Professor Claypot is on another side of the room, moulding  a tall and lithe woman into something of a stunning navy hue that shimmers like hundreds of hand crafted fish scales, a perfect recreation of one of the pieces from Honey's portfolio. Beneath the open suit lays the exposed front revealing hundred of tattoos across her barely covered torso, and her hair had been curled into gentle waves of almost icy blue - she was Kay Yamoto, the super elite socialite whose parents had developed the wind platforms that centred most of the taller buildings of Natare.

Thalia feels a welling of dread forming inside her, closing her eyes as she trembles within the ensemble fastened to her form. "You are planning to invite the assessment committee. This isn't just a show, its your attempt to force a graduation."

There's a dark growl in Honey's voice as she thinks she sees more white feathers surrounding the ones adorning her dress, painstakingly collected over the years Honey has been working on this project, tips painted in a mixing of paints that remind her of a yellow version of all the metals she's been seeing lately. Her back and across her arms have been painted in circuits that she's been asked to press when she reaches the sakura tree.

All of this is riding on her - being seen and being accepted and being. Bile rises in her throat and it takes all her effort to push it down. She needs more time being a model for the classes, she needs more time finding her own footing, she needs more.... she hears a squawk and then hands are holding hers, and she slowly opens her eyes. She half expects to see Syn, or Yarrow or even Professor Claypot, but it is Kay, giving Thalia a deep and honest smile. "You're panicking, and that's just going to cause you to spiral. All you have to do is walk from here to the club, then walk to the sakura tree. You'll have a bevy of support and some bad ass women all around you to make you look good. I can even walk with you until we get to the club, will that be ok?"

Thalia closes her eyes and nods, letting Honey pin and sew and heat and mould her into the dress as afternoon becomes night. She's aware of further things being arranged, and as the first of the blooms start to light up above them and outside, a black cloak is draped over her so that her and the other shadows can be guided from the academy to Moonlit Melodies for the start of the walk.

Each model is handed a gourd of water, attendants on hand to take care of any spillage. There are 21 dresses in all, the first 8 made by other designers in the style of Honey's portfolio, sent off into the dark ahead. Thalia can hear the claps, an occasionally the glow of a binding as someone marks something down and the hologram lights up the distance.

As night progresses to dusk she waits, Yarrow in with the first of the final thirteen, then Syn, Deluna, and then she is trembling and alone with Kay and some of the light staff and Honey. Honey seems distracted though, trying to wiggle Br1n to work with all the technicalities of her show, and with arranging the attendants at the other end to get the models out of their clothes and the outfits to safety. The models will keep their outfits of course, but only after the assessment committee get to see her works up close.

She starts to move, the fake bird claws on her feet causing her to stumble again, as they help her from the robe. She watches Kay go, disappearing into the dark before Honey comes close. "You have this, I have my trust in you." And then Honey is gone.

The darkness sprawls before her as she hears a voice in the back of her head, low and familiar.

<This is not how I thought this would go, little mage. But I can only see so far and you have so many options available to you.> It is Xylos, not visible, but just sitting comfortably in her mind.

<I don't, I'm not letting you free. Just as I'm not letting humans into this realm.> Thalia says, trembling now with rage instead of fear. 

<Little miss. I'm not here for another tempting, I'm here to support the powerful woman I know you can become, and you are growing into. Look at your eyes, you can see what gifts I bring.> She looks at the reflective membrane of the club wall and sees black orbs staring back at her, and the rage and fear are swirled with the bright gold emotion of enjoyment as the tiniest mote of glimmer springs to life beside her.
She should not enjoy the support of the incubus inside her head, but to be told she is worth it, after a week of returning from her journey into the drudgery of this group work academia. That fills her with joy.
Motes of glimmer start to spring around her as she walks the carpet in her white and gold feathered dress, the neckline plunging to her navel as some see-through fabric holds it tight over her skin. Something sparkling and white in a shell is temporarily adhered to her belly button, and her arms are once again bare along with her shoulders. A mask rests atop her head covering down to her cheeks in the visage of a cat, as flaring up in a massive fan behind her is a tail made from a material similar to her new corset.

She sees Marcus first, a city council guard to his left, hand bound to his. But still here, smiling encouragingly. Mote motes float into the air like a cloud of spores and she walks a little taller, a little brighter. She sees Yarrow next, feeling the joy and love from them through the rings like a jolt of reassurance.

Her face falls with who she sees next, the unmistakable face of the hunter Thane, his retinue either side of him, looking cool at her while he stands there in carapace armor with a blade at his hip. He must be here to investigate Marcus and the fire and her heart starts to waver in her chest.

Her strides shorten and she has to stop herself grabbing her arms, even as she sees Orion, leaning on a cane with a mask over one side of his face but she knows it hides the burns beneath.

<You can't help them until you finish the walk.> Xylos whispers in her mind, trying for support but just reminding her of all the danger she has brought into all their lives with her actions.

She sees a group of 5 people with bindings, constantly making notes and judging the outfits as she passes the edge of the arboretum as blossoms start to rain on her. She navigates the winding path as her hands stray to her shoulders. She can feel one of the headaches building inside her and she feels so self concious that she would have a seizure before everyone. 

She can feel Xylos in the back of her head arcing up in alarm. <We can finish this. You can do it. Just get to the end.>

And then she sees Verdan just casually talking to one of her new team mates and she knows she cannot finish, cannot stand there and make a mockery of herself when the pain strips her of her dignity, and she takes off, leaving the petal path and pushing through the crowd to seek an exit that is a little darker, a little cooler.

She can hear Xylos frustrated in her head, imploring her to go back that she can have her powerful moment, even as she grips her arms and holographic wings spring from her back in that ethereal light.

It is the academy library where Thalia ends up, finding a corner as her mind rushes with so many images - echoes of the realm of Infernus now, all its stone and iron and emotion and both her and Xylos are forced to stroll through the cities, see massive Brutes and delicate families, even knowing how much it doesn't change her thought that bringing him through will murder Levis.

And even all those thoughts are a distraction from the fact she let her friend down.

Some time later a pair of hands find the glossy floor beside her as a derriere soon follows. "Well it is not all ashes. Homey has been given a year to make another show, though the council's nature conservation are looking into the feathers, so there is that."

She looks to the voice and sees Yarrow in street clothes. "You'll be staying with her instead then?"

"I'm not not staying close, I'm just going to keep company with the woman in tears. You pushed through a lot of people, how damaged is the piece anyways? "

"I was selfish, not dumb, I even removed the tail without damage." Thalia says, resting her mask less face in her hands.

"And that will be lovely for her to display at another time, but like how half your assessment comes from the presentation, so did hers. The assessors kept using lines like 'art is a feast for the eyes'. Your professor Verdan was actually the one who got them to accept the redo. Otherwise they were gearing up to force the medium change."

She nods mutely, of course this man would be helpful to every other student except the one he kept under lock and key. Thalia internally screams, giving a shaky laugh to Yarrow as she gets out of the dress and goes down to a set of panties. "Can you get this back to Honey. I don't think I can see her right now."

Yarrow shrugs out of their top, passing it to Thalia. "Just keep yourself safe. All of us would fail a million times just to not have you hurt." Their hand reaches for hers and their rings clink together and she looks up into the make-up clad face of Yarrow, the most feminine she has seen them since they met. "Looks good on you."

"Looks fantastic on me. I will be close if you need me." Yarrow says, gathering up the outfit and departing. Leaving her alone with her thoughts once more.

<So. Does Levis have therapists?>

Thalia is across the bridge in Natare now, hunting down one of two renowned apothecaries, for the sleeping. She wanted a dreamless sleep - at least for the next few days, and being knocked out cold was looking pretty appealing. Especially after the fights she has gone through, and where she is headed forwards.

The area around here is a lot more tight packed apartment buildings skewered by green space public gardens, a lot of community style projects for people not directly connected to the treadmill of academy life. It is also alot noisier, with open chatting and people getting much more in each other's space than she is used to.

She has not travelled that often south of the bridge, indeed her interactions with many spaces outside of upper Natare is limited if you don't count the forests as a significant location. She still vaguely recalls her childhood trip to Brambleberry to learn about the creature-kin, but most interactions have been outside cultures coming to her - like Marcus.

So when she comes across the shop, and young children are milling all around her, playing their games and not caring that she is in their way, or they are in hers, Thalia feels just a touch claustrophobic, pulling her shoulders into her self to take up less space.

She breathes deep again, drawing herself up and rolling her shoulders before striding through the eclectic mix of children (including a young troll with mushrooms across her shoulders), towards the shop. It is a set of tables pushing out from a building with a door that rolls up and out of the way, like a leaf curling in on itself. A badly cast circuit causes a holo to flicker the words "Agava Treats".

The tables are laden with candied and dried fruits and vegetables, with a selection of small vials made from hollowed peppers with liquids floating inside.

One of the city's flightless wrens hops around the tables, simple and red, its head watching the goings on on the street. It sees someone inside the building and hops to the edge of the table and up a delicate hand. The person behind the hand is an older woman, with open age lines and chestnut locks streaked with grey, wound into a bun at the back of her head. Purple eyes watch Thalia from beneath many layers of hanging cloth and pendants and bracelets and bangles. She almost jingles as she moves, with an energy that is at odds with her chaotic community.

"Ah, hello dearest. What brings you to mah shop?" She watches Thalia fret with her cloak, as the wren tilts its head from the woman - Agava's shoulder.

"Dearest be, come closer, you'll have to shout from all the way over there. And then you'll just wake up your ancestors and mine." Agava gives a big grin and picks up a dried apricot and pops it into her mouth. She'd seen one such tree on the way in over the bridge, and her mouth does water as they do look delicious, but she only brought enough to trade for a potion.

"Take one," Agava says grinning, "you can pay me back next time you visit, you see. I don't have many one time customers - not because I don't solve your problems, but because if it was a one time thing, you'd go to one of those academy types." She sucks on her upper as she fixes at her display, waiting for Thalia to speak or act.

Still gathering her nerve, now that she is confronted with a person, Thalia takes a dried apricot, nibbling on it mouse-like in an effort to not have to speak. Soon however the fruit is gone, and her problem, and miss Agava, are still here.

"I'm having nightmares, and I need a potion to help me into a deeper sleep. I know the healers could diagnose my life away until they had what they needed to try and magic this away, but it doesn't feel...."

"Like magic will end your problems, hm?" She pushes another apricot over to Thalia. "Eat. You'll worry your cloak into an early grave if you keep fussing that thing. I have heard your plight, I have seen your heart-tree, and I will make you your draught. I hope you weren't silly enough to expect Br1n to help you pay down here. The digital mother visits, but she holds no sway here. Trade is the currency we choose."

"I brought some bindings, a couple of rings, and a squash I just grew. If any of those are to your liking. I can also do some magic circuits, like fixing your sign."

Agava grins wide, "Hard work will get you points around here, dear. Though seeds beat fruit, mk?"

Thalia relaxes and smiles back. "But if I bring seeds, what do I bring next time? Can't pay you in the same seeds twice. Not if you're as good of a gardener as you are a potion maker."

Agava moves to leave to start the potions, before turning and narrowing her eyes. "Show me those rings. Just for curiosity."

Thalia reaches into her pack to bring out the stone rings that she usually kept in her private stash. She offers them palm out to Agava. The old woman squints at them, thinking for a second before snatching one up and slapping it against the corner of the table.
Thalia winces, expecting it to crumble away, before watching as the layer of stone flakes off, revealing more of that metal she keeps finding beneath.

Agava hands it back to Thalia with a wink. "There was something magical clinging to you. Play with those, they sing with a song quite sweet - surprised your little bug friend didn't try to go for them."

Thalia stops, realising she can hear the bug chittering under the sounds of everything, and gives a guilty smile. "I was seeking..."

"You were hunting magic, you're a mage, it's what you do and you shouldn't be ashamed of being yourself. Just long as yourself hurts noone. Mk? Mk."

And off she goes, to make the potion. Thalia watches the street, rolling all the knowledge and advice she seems to be collecting, because of the sources and sometimes in spite of them. It frustrates because everyone seems to know what THEY are and then seem to want to imply that she should know too. She thought she did, fragile, easily breakable, easily mouldable - but now?

A ball rolls past her and under one of the tables, far back enough that it is deep enough you need to crawl. Thalia does not stop to think, just getting under there, squeezing her form to get the children's ball and slowly and carefully wiggle out so she doesn't damage whatever is atop the table.

She holds the ball victoriously as she sees the children approaching, kneeling down to hand them their ball without being too imposing - being a stranger and all. She sees one of Br1n's town-guides nod to her, ready to help the community and be Br1n's hands, but not needed here and now.

She sets her pack down and gets out her circuit paint, and some solvent, and starts to find handholds to make her way up to where the circuit for the sign is set. She finds the glowing markings and traces the circuit out with her fingertip, checking intent and execution. It is a wily little thing and she finds the problem in the third phrase, wiping the solvent across the phrase and waiting for it to dry before dipping a hand into the plant matter/soil mixture and tracing out the replacement phrase. Once this is done she presses a clean palm to the source of the circuit, watching the sign flare to life beside her.

She wipes her hand clean, packs up her supplies and makes her way down to put everything back in her backpack. When she finally looks up, Agava is looking at her, appraising her. "You have a smudge of your mage paint on your forehead, dear." The apothecary makes her way off and wipes off the smudge. "Hard work suits you dear. Have you ever considered something more practical?"

Thoughts and images of her working basic spells throughout the city and surrounds instead of being caught in the back room of a laboratory fills her mind and she feels both a warmth and a dread. The idea is nice as a potential escape from this cycle and spiral she is on, but she would be giving up her last few years and she would be admitting that she has nothing more to give.

"Your effort can be enough if you give it to people who accept it for what it is, you do not need to push for an approval that will never be satisfied." Agava hands over the pot of potion and a vial. "One of these before bed. When the vial darkens, eat it, and come back for another, we will talk then."

And then it is time for Thalia to depart.

Two goals, one journey, well a compound journey. A three day loop if you will. She could get away from the city, achieve her goals, and clear her mind - all while avoiding what she thinks Honey will bring. She hates her cowardice as she leaves - not even letting dawn break before she is out of there. 

Yarrow can feel her, and Syn has a message back at the apartment, but her stuff is gone, the relic is stashed and she is on her way south to the Ruins of the Oracle. She picks up a piece of driftwood as a hiking stick about an hour in, going up the river a touch before finding one of the many trade paths down towards Vertus. Noone is out this late at night, the creatures of the forests keeping most from making any smaller manned journeys, but Thalia has places to go, people to see and decisions to regret.

She is still going by dawn, collecting a few nuts from a tree that is safe to eat before continuing on, cracking them open and eating as she walks, careful to stay to the side of the path in case any transport is used on this thoroughfare.

She skipped her potion from Agava, not bringing any with her, plus her life can just spiral - that's fine, she's fine, honest.

<So that's why you are headed to the Ruins of the Oracle? Because you are fine?> Xylos has been back since last night, and the stress, guilt and lack of sleep are not helping her resist hearing his voice. Even if he is right.

<Shut it.> She thinks back tiredly, walking on, despite her energy, just to mitigate if someone has decided to follow her, to tell her this is all a bad idea, which it was, but good ideas could sink to the bottom of the river for all she cared - she just wanted to do something that made her feel like she felt any contrition.

It starts to rain about the third hour, Thalia reaching the edge of the forest that surrounds Natare and feeling the canopy above leave her so that the full rain can soak through the academy robe she chose to wear for the 'adventure'. She should have brought her travelling cloak, but she had thought.... no that was a lie, it was forgotten based on the fact that this is all impulse.

She crosses into the path through the low scrub and sparse trees, wild grasses and rough, ugly bushes lining the path. She's always found it strange that the colloquial name for the forest surrounding Natare is the Forbidden Forest - as if any child or youth going outside the walls has anywhere not forbidden within their average patch that they were permitted to go to. 

Sure they were 'better' than humans with respecting their world, but darkly Thalia wonders where the line between respect and fear lies. <Like you respect my lieutenants.> Xylos says, listening in to her wet and dark musings.

<You would invade us, given the chance.> She rolls tiredly towards him, a thought and a sigh as the rain abates to a fine misting, which is worse in its own way as it just keeps everything damp without wringing the last of the water from the sky.

<I know what your council would do to me, and I would do it first. Your Marcus is locked up and you barely lift a hand to help. Your Orion is scarred. And your Yarrow is... No. You are much too much a mess for you to learn that one. Don't go guessing - you're too far from the city but to overthink it.>

Thalia bristles, then actively curses as a fast moving cargo carrier splashes past her, drenching her in a puddle as her next thought is driven from her mind. She coldly shivers as Xylos tuts. <Did you at least bring your circuit paint?>

The silence drags out as she plays her answer along hearing exasperated sighs come from Xylos inside her skull. <You are going to percolate ill, if you're not careful. No, no. Hop off the road, we are going to learn you some learning.>

Thalia pushes into the grass, and under instruction, moves a small area away, leaving just the soil beneath. It was a small destruction, but it pains her just a little. Soon though, Xylos is teaching her about rune magic. How it needs connection to something from the earth - metals or soil or stone, and it needs a rune, spoken or etched. She is soon huddled around a rune of fire, shivering as the bite is taken away each time the rune flares.

<So you cannot etch the runes you need on your skin for time?> Thalia asks through chattering teeth.
<Runes on your body are not for magic, they are a stain of a compact, or declaration of ownership. You'd have to soak in dirt just to get the runes to catch and then you'd need to infer intent.>

<But things made of a connection to the earth->

<Your mines, stone constructions, metal weapons, all of them could hold magic easily. And my touch into your memories shows times when I have seen our runes in your lands.> Xylos gives a teacherly chuckle.
<Of course you've been into my memories, why does that not surprise me?> The fire rune is taking the wet off now, and with the rainy mist abating, she feels a touch closer to being whole. Guilty, but whole.

Soon she is back on the path to Vertus, staying away from the larger puddles, her toes feeling like they need a good trim, as she works her bare feet through the slosh.

The next few hours continues in academic smalltalk, discussing her 'failures' and Xylos chiming in with how he might have presented each one so that they could be used in the future rather than Thalia's tendency to just tell what a relic does in the here and now.

<You are a technomage, with the breadth of knowledge at your fingertips. Next time, look at all your collective know-how and tell the city how they can use the thing you are presenting. Force them to listen to your hard work, rather than pat you on the back and go there-there.>

She nods, knowing he is right as the plains give way to a looming wall of trees, a new forest, this one tighter, more darker and dense at least to her eyes. Vines drape the pathway, showing signs of being pushed aside by some of the larger and faster transports, but returning in a heavy curtain. They are as thick as her arm as she approaches and she has to push with all her might to make them part, toes digging into the sopping earth to leave scratchy rents behind.

Eventually, after travelling through this dark and heavy forest, with trees more foreign to her than no trees at all, she reaches the part of the path where there is a tighter deviation, a second path off the main one and the 'road' she must go to reach her first goal.

This side path pushes in on her, scraping and pulling at Thalia's arms as she seeks to walk the path without making her way in a way that damages the path itself. 

<You are allowed to take up space. Even the predators through the brush leave their mark. And the bushes themselves design for a little damage, some even spread their young in the fur of creatures moving by.>

She shakes her head silently. That may work for forest creatures, but her life is proof that each time she takes up space she makes a mess of it. She grabs her head to pause as another headache pushes through her, causing her to drop her stick and stumble from the path, hands scratching right up as she tries to right herself in the mud and muck and sharp sticks.

She pushes back up, searching for the walking staff as blood drips down her arms from scrapes all over her bare skin. Moving slower, more carefully she journeys that last hour in pained silence.

At last she reaches the clearing. Broken carved stone etches random shapes and hills through the space with a pyramid of stone steps in the centre leading up to a broken cresent - like an arch cloven down the side.

She drops to a squat, waiting on the help she hopes to find here. Throughout Levis this space is known as the Ruins of the Oracle and it is mythologised that when you are in greatest need, assistance will be provided here.

<For an all answering place it is very empty.> Xylos pipes up after some long breaths. 

<We seek help from our communities first, and this is a one time use thing. At least all the stories say so.>

Xylos sighs as they wait. <Well at least you are using this on yourself and not a wish for.>

<You are the one who wants me to have therapy. I want the ability to undo breaking Honey's chances. But since time magic does not exist - you are the creature I am trying to please.> her voice is sharp and manic in her head, the headaches and pain and pushing insistence of him just fraying down her last nerve as her hair falls across her face like a shroud or veil.

She hears a growl in her skull from one if the lieutenants, and Thalia chuckles aloud, gleeful that she would illicit some response in those in her mind.

A shadow starts to emerge from the forest opposite her and she stands slowly, warily. 

The shadow sensibly wears a heavy cloak to protect against the rain, as it approaches. The voice it utters is female and full of mirth.

"You are a long way from home and quite bloody, stone-noodle.  And you seem not to have the correct number of appendages." The hood of the cloak comes back and long emerald hair spills out, each tip adorned with turquoise shells.

Thalia bristles slightly at being compared to a mammal who lives in rock even as she shakes the sand from her mostly bare scalp. OK, point to the stranger.

"I am here for..." Thalia begins even as the cloak opens revealing a body clad in a shoulder less white gown, criss crossing across her form and accentuating it before dropping flat across narrow hips.

"I know you are here for. I would not be here for you. You tries to call to the oracles for the impossible. Your head guests on the other hand are welcomed by the women of these Ruins."

Thalia is a little stunned that the oracles would see that much into her life that they would see Xylos and his cohort.

"Your skirmish with the witches is not our purview either. Our magic comes from knowing, and while they are capable of divination as well, their rituals and goals are not ours. I am Kopal, and you are Thalia. My sisters will watch this place and I will meet you in the city in days hence, for a boon."

"That's it? If you knew all this, could you not have met us there?" Thalia's shoulders come up and she chews on her lip in nerves.

"The journey was needed for you. You were always going to flee something. Stay, relax a moment. If you wait I might even get you some wine to enjoy." There is a slow smile, supportive but aloof coming from Kopal, and stars dance her eyes a moment as she starts back for where she came from.

<She is going to get a few of the men in Natare in trouble.> Xylos chuckles in her head. It is a dirty chuckle and Thalia has not even heard that kind of reaction around Miss Yamoto which she thinks would be entirely a woman he would go for if he had a body on Levis.

<Behave>, she chides, thinking of Syn and Yarrow as desire not her own flash fires her body. She slows her breathing, finding a meditation as she flushes the emotion from her body. Her cheeks are flushed, and she curses the man inside her head.

<I don't control you. I'm merely the voice in your brain.> Comes the sweet words hiding the sour reminder of her own actions these past weeks.

She moves to the pyramid of stone, up its 6 steps to sit upon its hardness. Her hands trace its surface, working across worn down markings that remind her of all the magics she knows now.

Her mind wanders and wonders, even as she peers around the clearing.

She hears his voice. <You'd be making a choice.>

<I'd be making part of one, connecting dots that are obvious.>

<But obviously untouched. Deliberately so.> Xylos counters, longing in his gravelly voice.

Thalia steps down and finds a stone with edges that match the cracked face of the upright top of the cresent. "I can put it back. Noone will know." Her eyes sweep the clearing as she bends her knees and lifts, slow steps up towards the altar to powers unknown.

Strength finds her bones as she lifts, holding it up and seeing how easy the piece would slide in place, several scripts aligning in their worn dance across the stone carcass.

She hesitates, wanting to press forwards, construct the arc and then explore the ramifications, but the actions of everyone else of late strum discordance in her brain.

She traipses down those steps again, carefully placing the piece down into the upturned earth and sitting down with a massive sigh.

<I can wait the months you need to get to the right place to do this properly. I've been trapped longer than you think.> Xylos says, voice calm though she can feel the disappointment tracing it.

<I just.> She wants so much to know if the door is a door - even if that door doesn't lead to where anyone thinks it does. Even if the presence of foliad circuitry, and infernal runes tells her that she should be right. She only knows two runes - fire and cease but she saw them both on the stone and that was enough data to guess at something.

<You are still not ready to disappoint, even after last night and what you did to Honey.>

Her hackles flair up, hand slapping roughly against the stone. "I thought we were connecting there, mine-breath."

<It takes more than pity to connect > and then Xylos goes silent.