Inari’s Gift

The man remained quite cooperative over the rest of the day and night, spending some time speaking with Cera about why he’d become a bandit, and then going to sleep in one of the chairs near the fire.  Cera pondered his words about being unable to make enough money to survive, suddenly worrying about herself, as she didn’t intend to stay with Falron forever.

This worry kept her wide awake until Falron awoke again in the morning and was able to take over the duty of watching their prisoner.  Shortly after breakfast, he left, prisoner in tow, and stated that he’d be back soon.  Cera spent the time trying to figure out what skills she had that might be in demand, and that she was good enough to be paid for.

In the end, she found that her list of skills was alarmingly small, due to her intensive focus on magic in her prior life, having given up doing nearly anything else.  She was good with dogs, but they might not agree with her current form, according to mythology.  She could work on things that didn’t exist here and could build things poorly, but about the only thing that might be of use that she was good at was trying to optimize things.

With a sigh, Cera shook her head and decided to wait for Falron to return so she could ask him for advice.  Some time later, he arrived back at their home, and Cera waited patiently for him to settle down into a chair before asking about her problem with trying to find something she could earn money doing.

After some discussion, they were unable to find a good solution, though Falron said that when she left, he’d give her a fair amount of money, since he didn’t need it much in his current situation here at the village.

Cera nodded and resumed working on her damaged spirit.  The next several days were peaceful, letting her continue practicing magic and working on mending herself.  But it wasn’t to last.

Around two weeks after the attack, they had unexpected visitors, a duo from the church of order who immediately focused on Cera as soon as they saw her.  Fortunately, she’d gotten skilled enough with her illusions to put them up almost instantly, and could move around more quickly without breaking them.

As the two heavily armed and armored men entered, they demanded to know if anyone else was present, and Falron quickly denied the query, stating that he could guess why they were there, and they could check if it would help them leave quicker.

As one of the men cautiously began digging through the house, peeking into each room and even cupboards, Cera stood and remarked, “Let me guess…  Two ‘concerned villagers’ told you that there was a red-haired demon staying with the mage here?  We just so happen to have been attacked by bandits recently, and a number of them tried to burn our home down.  While I killed most of them, one screamed, ‘demon’ at me before two got away.”

After a pause, Cera focused extra-hard on her illusion, tucked her tail tightly against her leg, slowly spun in a circle, and continued, “I dunno about you, but I don’t see any horns on my head, wings on my back, or spade tail.  Or are there other types of demons that I don’t know of?”

Hearing her speak, the man who’d remained with them sighed and responded, “Why does that story sound so damn reasonable…  Yes, that’s exactly what happened.  They claimed you had a tail and claws, and were scratched up pretty badly.  I sure don’t see a tail, but could you please show me your hands?”

Cera then did as he asked, and held out her hands to the man, letting him feel her fingers, where he obviously found no claws before releasing her again while she pondered aloud, “Well, I guess I could have had claws, as I did use ice magic to freeze a blade to my staff, no reason I couldn’t do that to my hands.  But with such short range, I’d be stupid to do so.  Far more intelligent to turn my staff into a spear, after all.”

“Well, it appears to me that we were fooled with a false report.  My apologies.  Just allow my companion to verify you are the only ones here, and we’ll be on our way.  It isn’t impossible for an imp or something to be hiding somewhere, after all,” the inquisitor remarked with a sigh as he visibly relaxed, clearly doubting such an occurrence.

After a few more minutes, the other man arrived from his check of the building, having obviously not located anything else.  After another apology, the two men turned and left, leaving Cera and Falron alone once more.

“Well…  That was fun,” Cera remarked dryly, the illusion falling away to reveal a twitching tail and ears flat against her head.

After shaking her head, she added, “On the plus side, that’s solid verification that my illusion holds up under observation.  Not sure I could have done much to those two if things had gone poorly.”

In response, Falron remarked, “Well, I could have stopped them if needed, but there’d be problems from that.  Inquisitors are generally sent in force well exceeding what they expect to find, and if a group is lost, they don’t screw around.  Instead, they send a far larger group with someone capable of their truth spell to see if anyone knows what happened.  And I’d really rather not have to go on the run.”

He sighed and leaned back before continuing, “So it is a great thing that your illusion held up.  And since they’ve verified you aren’t a demon, they shouldn’t return unless multiple others declare that you are.  Even then, they’ll be wary of being fooled into examining someone they’ve already checked.  You did great by cooperating when they asked; otherwise, they would have gotten more insistent and suspicious.”

Cera simply nodded, slowly relaxing now that the men were gone, her tail slowing its agitated twitching as her ears straightened out again.  She then walked back to one of the chairs and sat down, curling her tail around to hug it.

After some time, she felt more relaxed and let go of her tail before trying to focus on her work of mending her spirit, only to find herself too worried to do so.  After bringing it up to Falron, he decided on making an early dinner so they could head to bed early and see if some sleep helped.

Not long after, Cera had to admit she felt better with a full stomach, and was looking forward to getting some rest.  As usual, she went to bed hugging her tail, incredibly glad to have such a lovely, fluffy thing in this life.

A few hours later, she awoke with a start, recognizing that she heard something, but unsure what it was.  She carefully crept toward her door, wishing she’d slept in clothes, forming an ice dagger as she did so and putting up an illusion to hide her ears and tail.  Opening it, she found everything as it should be, and Falron’s door was closed with no noise behind it, so he should still be asleep.

Straining her ears, she heard faint scratching outside and began to make her way out, circling to the side of their home where she heard the noise.  Upon seeing the source, she laughed and shook her head, having found a lone rat digging against the side of the building.

She shooed it away and filled in the hole before returning inside, adding her now-melting dagger to the ice chest, then headed back to bed for the rest of the night.

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