Inari’s Gift

The next morning, Cera awoke without her tail up her nose, and without having drooled on it, which pleased her.  She did, however, still want to brush it again to keep it smooth.  After a moment of thought, she grabbed her comb and went to the living room instead.

Since she was so easily distracted, she felt she needed help not getting too occupied and decided on using the dull knife and firewood, setting them up again.  Since she wasn’t specifically trying to repeatedly keep working on her focus, but instead had a simple goal, she only managed to smack herself against the knife twice before finishing brushing her tail.

After putting everything back, she returned to lie on her bed until Falron got up, focusing on her soul once again.  She’d spent a long time altering her soul in her past life, so she was sure she’d eventually manage to fix herself.  Still, she had mostly worked with it well after enhancing herself rather than in such a damaged and unmodified state.

Unfortunately, in this world, she had no enhancements connected to herself, let alone her abysmal mana capacity, limiting what she could do significantly.  Complaining wouldn’t solve the problem, however, so she began working on what she could manage.

Over the next two hours, she slowly smoothed out the damage in one area of her soul, removing the jagged projections from where her modifications had been torn away.  As she removed the damaged fragments, she did her best to fill in the holes left behind, though she was unable to fully restore the damage currently.

Eventually, she heard movement outside her room and nodded to herself, then went back to work as she waited for Falron to cook breakfast for the two of them.  In time, he appeared at her open doorway and announced that it was done, leading to her joining him in the living room.

Once the two finished their meal, Cera collected the dishes and headed to the kitchen to clean them.  Not long after, she returned to sit beside the fireplace again, closing her eyes to focus on her spirit once more.  A moment later, she was surprised to hear Falron sigh and ask her if she ever relaxed.

“Well, I can’t really relax right now, I need to work on being able to use illusions at the bare minimum.  I’m sure the villagers will be curious about the increased food usage, and likely want to meet whoever you have visiting.  So I need to fix my spirit as much as possible, I believe, as I think that is what is stopping me from succeeding in my attempts to use my natural abilities,” Cera explained, shaking her head in annoyance at her failure.

In response, Falron sighed and replied, “Unfortunately, you are right.  I can probably go a few weeks without introducing you to them, but eventually they will want to meet you, and you need to either get your illusions working or hunt for food in the forest.”

“And I’ve never hunted before, nor cleaned a kill, so that isn’t much of an option.  Hence, my constant focus on trying to fix myself,” Cera responded with a faint chuckle.

After a short pause, she continued, “I should probably get back to work on that.  It is very slow work at the moment.”

Following her words, Falron silently nodded, and she closed her eyes to focus again after pulling her tail into her lap and beginning to pet it.  As her focus deepened, she faintly made out the sound of Falron moving from his seat, but paid it no mind as she worked on smoothing out the damage to her soul.

A few hours later, she opened her eyes and felt inside herself, then nodded as she found that she had a slightly higher capacity for mana.  She’d been uncertain if that was the case before, but there was a noticeable difference now.

She did, however, need to take a break.  Inari had helped her with gaining a bit of muscle, but she would lose that if she didn’t exercise at all, so she returned to her room to do some work on her body until her muscles burned.

Following her efforts to work on her muscles, she flopped onto her bed, curling her tail around to hug as she rested, waiting to not feel so bad.  A while later, she returned to the living room and resumed work on her soul, finding it a tiny bit easier now with more power behind her mind.

Eventually, Falron returned from wherever he’d gone and began to make dinner for them, causing Cera to get up and observe, since she still couldn’t help yet.  She didn’t want to try to take over only to burn things, and had more important work to do during the day, so she still lacked practice cooking with a normal flame.

Later, they ate their meals together, and Cera took over cleaning once again.  Upon finishing, she immediately went to her room, tired from focusing so hard throughout the day, and crawled into bed.  As usual now, she pulled her tail around to hug the fluffy appendage as she slowly drifted off to sleep.

The next day was much the same, with Cera focusing on the same area of her soul as the prior day.  She had a feeling it was more important to fully heal part of it rather than make partial progress across the whole thing, and she’d learned to trust such feelings long ago.

In time, she finished with all the large fragments and jagged areas, then moved on to filling in the holes that were scattered throughout the landscape of her soul.  It was a lot of work, but she could feel the improvement as her mana capacity slowly increased alongside her efforts.

Three similar days later, that patch of her soul was finally fully restored, and she began to search deep within, attempting once more to find any hint of her natural abilities.  Several hours in, she was still unsuccessful, instead resuming work on her spirit, feeling discouraged.

Eventually, Falron began to gather their dirty clothing, and Cera quickly joined him, remarking that she would help as much as she could.  In the end, she was unable to heat the tub of water even a single time before running out of mana, let alone the half-dozen Falron could, and she quickly found herself too sore to continue scrubbing the clothes, but she did her best to help before he needed to take over.

Another three days later, she had finished work on another patch of her soul beside the first, just in time to hide in her room again as the villagers returned with more food.  Once they had left, she returned to the living room to talk to Falron again.

“Why do you seem to spend most of your time idle?  I’ve been wondering that since I arrived here,” she asked, tilting her head to the side without noticing.

Falron shook his head and remarked in return, “I have spent a long time rushing and trying to do things without end.  Eventually, after Cera left, I found myself growing incredibly tired.  For the last several years, I’ve tried to spend time just relaxing and reading.  I’ve learned quite a bit, though I wish more of it were about magic.”

He paused for a moment and sighed before continuing, “I’ve lived here for nearly thirty years now, after being driven from the cities and towns for refusing to follow the new god of order who began to take over.  I was too powerful to be easily killed, but its followers informed me that if I didn’t leave, they would find a way.  So I made an agreement with the village here, after a few others rejected me.  They provide food and fulfil minor requests, and in exchange, I keep them safe from bandits and monsters.  They just need to delay anything that attacks until I get there, rather than trying to win any battles, letting them focus on keeping everyone alive.”

After another pause to catch his breath, he resumed, “There was a lot of disagreement with the decision at first, but their tune changed after the first bandit raid with me present.  A few died trying to fight them off, but the majority listened to what I’d said and slowly withdrew to the center of the village, simply delaying the attackers as best as they could.  Then I arrived, drove off the bandits, and informed the surviving raiders that they should spread the word that this village was to be left alone.  Sometimes people disregard that warning, but I’ve managed to save nearly everyone in the village since then.  They’ve been grateful for the significantly improved safety of their homes.”

“I see.  So you’ve had several years that Cera could visit before she left, and afterward, you didn’t feel as good?  I can’t blame you, losing friends is difficult at best,” Cera replied, finding it odd she was talking about herself, in a sense.

A moment later, she finished, “Thank you for sharing your history with me, Falron.  I’ll do my best to be your friend as well, if you want.”

“That would be nice.  The villagers are frightened of my power, and just see me as a protector to be left alone until needed, and no one visits me anymore, not since Brendan was killed for not converting…” Falron responded with a sad frown and shake of his head.

“While I’m asking questions, would you be willing to explain how the truth spell works?” Cera asked, already thinking of ways to possibly trick it, since she was sure it would be a problem in the future.

In response, Falron nodded before answering, “The one I use has a faint form of mental magic involved, using your mana and the fluctuations in it to determine whether or not you are confident and relaxed about your words.  It is mostly only useful on those without magical skill, but I decided to trust at least a little of what you said, and assumed it would work on you back then.”

He sighed and leaned back as Cera pulled her tail around to stroke before he continued, “And then there is the other one…  The priests of the god of order can call upon its power, making a zone where the god itself determines, using its own power, if you speak truth or lie.  No one I’ve known of has successfully fooled it.  That’s how they got Brendan: they sent a priest to question him, and then they killed him.  A mutual acquaintance shared the news with me.”

“I see…  I’ve heard stories of similar things; perhaps I can get around it, though I certainly won’t actively seek out such a situation.  It is possible to be totally honest while misleading people, that was a trick the fae were known for, especially,” Cera remarked with a short laugh and shake of her head as she thought of all the others who hadn’t been careful enough in their dealings with the fae in her prior life.

She sighed before saying, “Thank you for the information, Falron.  It really is very helpful.  Now I should probably stop bothering you and get back to work.”

After the man nodded to her and leaned back again, she got up and went to her room, lying on the bed before focusing on her spirit once more for several hours.  Eventually, she heard Falron head to bed and decided she should probably get some rest as well, quickly shedding her clothes and crawling under the covers.

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