Inari’s Gift

After a few hours of being unable to sleep, Cera rose from bed, got dressed again, and headed to the living room.  Falron had already gone to bed, apparently, as he wasn’t sitting beside the fireplace, and it had gone out.  She shrugged and decided to go for a walk outside instead.

Outside, the moon was shining, providing plenty of illumination for her to see, especially since her new eyes were far more sensitive than her old human ones.  She did keep in mind that there were apparently wolves in the woods, and didn’t venture far, instead just going halfway between the cabin and the woods before circling back around.

After several laps, she went back inside and returned to her room, grabbing the comb as she moved to sit on the bed again.  As she began to brush her tail, she focused inward and examined her soul once again.

Just as before, the majority of her soul was a scene of devastation, though she had at least made some progress on healing in a limited area.  Focusing on that, she sighed and went back to her work of attempting to heal more of it.

Several hours later, she finally began to feel tired, the excitement from earlier finally fading away as she worked, so she stopped her efforts and focused on her tail for a short while.  Eventually, she set the comb aside and prepared for bed once again.

This time, it only took a few moments for her to fall asleep, curled around her tail with the tip below her head.

The following morning, she was awoken by the smell of cooking meat and swiftly got dressed before heading to the living room.  Not long after, Falron brought out food for the two of them, and Cera thanked him for his work before beginning her meal.

Not long after, both of them had finished their meals, and Cera took care of the dishes once again before informing Falron that she was going to focus on her soul once again for several days.  He simply waved her off, continuing to mess around with the idea that she had shared with him about how to use external energy.

For the next several days, each focused on their own tasks, Cera finding herself able to handle more mana as she restored more and more of her soul, and Falron finding himself able to maintain simpler spells with mostly external mana.

Eventually, a loud bell rang out one morning, resulting in Falron leaping to his feet and rushing to the door, warning Cera that there were either bandits or monsters about and to stay safe.  Wanting to be careful, she decided to sit facing the door with a bucket of water nearby so she could create ice if anyone appeared.

It was quite boring, waiting like that, but Cera didn’t want to risk being caught off-guard and lose this second chance.  Around an hour later, she heard movement outside the door and dropped to a crouch in front of the chair, tail twitching in agitation.  Once she’d minimized her size, she threw up a shield that fully covered her from the doorway.

Her caution proved unneeded, fortunately, as it was just Falron returning.  Upon seeing him, she dropped the shield and asked him if he needed anything.  Amusingly, he wanted a bucket of water to wash off, and she just happened to have one sitting there.

Falron explained as he cleaned his hands and face, “It appears some of the bandits are actually intelligent.  This group sent a probing force to the village and kept the majority of their people back.  Once they saw me, they immediately fled.”

He then sighed before continuing, “I suppose they will be a problem for the village in the future when I can no longer protect them.”

In response, Cera shook her head and said, “Very little lasts forever, and I’m sure they are thankful for your help while you are here.  They’ll just have to deal with things on their own again eventually.”

Nodding, Falron replied, “I know, it’s just that it is going to cause lots of problems since they’ve become used to me being here…”

“I suppose that is true, but you can’t be responsible for how they handle things once you are gone.  They’ll just have to go back to the old ways,” Cera remarked before shaking her head again and stating, “I think I’m going to get back to work on myself now that the danger is dealt with.”

She then took the bucket of water to dump as Falron went to change his dusty clothes.  A few moments later, the empty bucket was back where it belonged, and Cera was lying on her back on her bed, tail twitching beside her as she focused inward.  Over the past days, she had begun making more progress each day.

By now, nearly ten percent of what she could currently sense was healed, though she knew from long experience that what she saw was but the tiniest part of her soul.  With a sigh, she returned to her work, hoping that it wouldn’t take too many months, or, more likely, years, to recover fully.

Several more days passed uneventfully with Cera occasionally taking breaks to work on her illusions, finding them slowly improving as her soul healed.  Her direct focus on them still didn’t seem to help, however, and they were still mostly only useful for hiding things directly against other objects.

Eventually, she decided that these illusions were more of a subconscious thing based on the soul, and thus wouldn’t improve except by healing herself further.  That determined, she asked Falron to teach her more magic, especially things she could use at range, such as throwing ice spikes.

These other forms of magic were far more complex than mere spin, compression, and vibration, instead requiring complex three-dimensional shapes drawn within the mind before mana was pushed through them and outward.  Apparently, most of the magic she’d used before was intended for basic learning of the principles of mana manipulation rather than being fully developed spells.

After several days, she succeeded in being able to control ice darts and blades as they flew through the air, though it was a rapid drain on her limited mana pool.  Still, she at least had a way to defend herself now if there was water nearby, without trying to manually stab someone by hand.

Having spent so long working nearly nonstop, Cera decided to take a day off to relax and spent most of her time playing with her tail, still finding herself obsessed with how soft and fluffy it was.  Eventually, however, she had to return to her efforts of healing herself, unable to remain idle for an entire day.

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