Inari’s Gift

As Cera returned, Falron looked up at her and, in a carefully neutral tone, remarked, “This business of creating and altering souls sounds disturbingly like the work of a god.”

With a sigh, Cera responded, “Many of my creations and other beings considered me one, despite my efforts to stop them.  But I’ve met and worked with true gods, and they were further beyond me than I was from a blade of grass.  Granted, I did end up stronger than some beings I had previously thought were gods.”

After a moment to close her eyes and think back, she added, “That said, belief influences power.  And with so much belief that I was a god, I gained a great deal of power that I don’t think I should have had.  And regardless, now I am very much a mortal, whether or not I was before.”

Suddenly remembering something related to the topic, she continued, “That said, I did create a god.  Celenia was my attempt to bring forth something superior to myself in every way, and I devoted a great deal of time and effort to elevating her, even beyond my work on myself.  In time, she became so powerful, I couldn’t even comprehend the power difference, which is how I defined gods.  I consider myself lucky that she still followed my requests and helped me, especially given how little time I spent with her in my final years.”

Cera paused for a moment before finishing, “In fact, she’s probably watching me right now, ready to act if needed, though I’m never going to rely on such a thing, and could very well be wrong.”

Falron nodded and asked, “How about the threat you faced?  With the power you held, couldn’t you have just obliterated it?”

Cera shook her head and explained, “I could do immense damage at specific locations, but it is like throwing a fireball into the ocean tide.  I had frankly horrific weaponry, but my true calling was creation and control, along with defense.  I raised fortresses that are hard to even imagine, and sent forth swarms of warriors along massive battlelines that constantly shifted.  Even now, they continue onward without my influence, part of why I was willing to try a new life.”

“And it still seems weird for you to have existed in two realities at once.  And you said you were unable to do anything of value in your own world?” Falron inquired with a slight frown.

Nodding, Cera replied, “Indeed, it was incredibly rare in my experience for beings to exist both within a plane and within the greater astral at the same time.  I think perhaps it was something to do with the plane I was born within.  And unfortunately, my world didn’t want me.  I’d rather not get too much into it, beyond that.  It isn’t important anymore anyway.”

“I suppose that is true if you have a new life, though you have remained pretty closed off so far,” Falron responded.

With a sigh, Cera stated, “I’ve always been a loner, though I intend to try to change that in the future.  I also didn’t do well with being told what to do without being given a reason, which made people dislike me.  I hope people are different here.”

Her ears drooped slightly, and tail twitched as she added, “I suppose we’ll see if I can handle it when I leave and head to a town or city.  There aren’t nearly as many people here.  But unlike my previous life, I doubt there is anyone who can help support me, aside from you.  I might just need to learn to hunt and farm, then become a hermit if things go poorly.”

After shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Cera remarked, “I think I need to go to bed to try to get some rest; I’m making myself depressed by thinking this way.”

“Alright, Cera, I hope you feel better.  I’ll just consider what you’ve told me for a while.  It’s a lot to take in,” Falron replied.

After nodding to him, Cera headed back to her room and promptly began brushing her tail for a while before crawling into bed.

Eventually, Cera got back up, realizing she’d failed to go to the village today to see if anyone needed healing, when she was supposed to go daily.  She swiftly dressed, grabbed her staff, and began the trek to the village.  Fortunately, it appeared there were still no injuries, though someone’s child was sick, so she went to see that family.

Fortunately, the sickness didn’t appear major, so she wouldn’t have to try to work over multiple days to prevent mana overload in the child.  Instead, she simply spent a small amount of mana on boosting the strength of their immune system, accepted two iron coins from the mother, and returned back home.

With little time left in the day, Cera decided to work on maintaining her mana constructs passively, spending the few hours before sundown on it.  Once it became night, she returned to bed for the evening.

The following day was relatively relaxing, starting off with more practice before heading to the village around noon.  Once again, no one was injured or sick, so she simply walked around the village a bit before heading toward the forest for her walk back home.

Along the way, she heard rustling and breaking branches in the forest, so she prepared herself to fight if needed, forming a blade atop her staff, but nothing emerged, and she made it back home unmolested.  It did, however, ruin her enjoyment of the nature around her, since she had to be on guard.

Two more days were spent on practicing her ability to maintain her constructs, slowly moving toward her goal of keeping at least one going at all times.  This time, however, her trip back from the village was interrupted.  She’d been walking alongside the forest when two men had raced out of it, one in front and one behind her.

Both moved to attack immediately, so she quickly formed a shield covering the entire arc behind her as she flung herself forward at the man ahead of her.  As expected, she heard a blade scraping off her defenses as she thrust her staff forward, nearly catching her target, though he managed to dodge to the side just in time.

Unexpectedly, he dropped his sword and gripped the staff, ripping it from her hands before moving to strike her with her own weapon.  Unwilling to test her own ability to dodge, she quickly threw her foxfire, as well as a bolt of ice toward him.  A crack behind her signalled her distraction had weakened her shield, and she leapt to the side and turned to face both men at once.

Now that she wasn’t trying to defend from both in front and behind, however, the fight was essentially over already.  She blasted one over with a burst of air as he went to take a step toward her, then turned back to the man with her staff and carefully directed an ice spike into his throat as he tried to dodge her foxfire.

The other man didn’t get the chance to stand before she repeated the action.  Examining them more closely, she found that they were the two bandits who had fled after failing to burn down the home she shared with Falron.

She carefully set aside the swords of both men, along with her staff, then searched the men.  She found a pair of daggers, a bottle of what seemed to be poison, judging by the skull on it, and two coin purses.

Unfortunately, they barely had any money, only giving her another five iron coins between them.  After kicking them in annoyance, she sighed and began attempting to use her magic to create graves for them.  Even after pulling on the mana within her body, however, she was only able to manage one hole, though she did expand it a bit more before running out.

After dumping both bodies in the hole, she found herself with a bit of a problem—she had an empty hole with two bodies in it, a big pile of dirt, and practically no mana to fill it back in.  Several minutes of cursing followed before she began digging with her hands, throwing the dirt between her legs and into the pit.

Much later, an exhausted Cera arrived back home and immediately went to take a bath, her continued cursing attracting Falron’s attention.  Since she trusted him not to come in, she left the door open and explained what had happened in a voice loud enough for him to hear in the other room.

Falron, however, had no solution to her running out of mana, simply saying that she ought to work on her earth magic if it was so difficult for her.  He received more cursing in response.

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