[Lera/Missie] - Fat and Adorable

[abyssalis]

Who: Lera and Missie
When:, Tuesday August 23
Where: Nenakret Paris!
Before/After: --
Warnings: Length is all I can think of! Maybe a hidden pun.

In which Missie gets a lot more out of "sight seeing" than she expected she would.



Lera still resided in Bastan, at least for another week. The spellswords needed her -- or so she liked to tell herself, though it was questionable -- and they were genuinely busy. She still traveled between Bastan and the Nenakret some, though, especially as more and more of them went home. Today, though, she cleared her schedule and made time to take Missie to the Nenakret.

She met her at Nadir's house and walked with her to the warps. Embarrassingly enough, Lera got pseudo-lost once on the way there because of the combination of Bastan (which she hardly knew) and Fall City (which was different enough to be baffling once everything was put back together). She managed to find her way, though, and get them to it. They stopped on the warp platform, Lera waiting in line.

"We're about to go through the warp, once the mages get to us," she said. "There's a lot of traffic between the Nenakret and here right now." She could see it and Missie could hear it; merchants were mumbling and off-duty spellswords and Amber Gaze soldiers were joking about.

Lera sounded suitably sheepish when she reflected on it. "I think it's my fault, deciding to stay in the city."

Her words drew a few glances. She dressed up like the Mazda today, too -- she wanted to be left alone, and the large greatcoat and uniform helped with that because of the intimidation factor -- but it did draw some attention to her. The Nenakret was her city, though. She could dress up fancily there if she wanted to.

Missie was in no position to comment on getting lost. Even with sight, getting lost was a habit of her own. Although, getting lost with sight was a lot more fun. And a lot less terrifying, even within the bounds of Nadir's apartment. Sometimes she wanted to climb into whatever cabinet she had found and wait for him to find her, but there might have been a family of spiders in there she would crush.

But with Lera, none of that was applicable! Getting lost wasn't an issue because Lera could protect her from whatever they got lost with. She was a spellsword, like Nadir. (She was also the Mazda, but these were Degrees of Things.)

"Ooh, I've never warped before," she chirped. A pity she would never see what it would look like. Would it feel like anything? Did it even look like anything? She was afraid to ask and mention that elephant in the room-- was that even the appropriate expression?-- and focus on listening and feeling.

... What would a warp sound like?

"Oh! It feels whooshy," Lera said. She flushed after she said it, realizing that it sounded utterly silly, and one of the paladins near the warp gave her a brief look. She laughed nervously, her arm shifting and tensing with the look that the guard gave her. It was easy enough for Missie to feel.

It made Lera realize she should explain what it looks like. She felt briefly guilty for that omission, but decided to not dwell on the thought. She could rectify that easily enough.

"Um, it looks like a flash of green-blue. It sort of has a spiral pattern and the edges are swirling, but not blurry," she said, as she looked at the warp being held open. She tilted her head. "Though for me, it has a lot of intricate gold threads all through it. It actually puts a pattern over it. It looks kind of like a swirly magic hurricane otherwise."

The mage looked at them. "Ready for you, admiral."

"That's us," Lera said. She led the way into the warp. It had a distinct sound, in fact, which Lera hadn't really appreciated; the world washing out into gold and blue-green was enough to distract her. It sounded like a rush of wind, but without the same feeling, and smelled slightly like ozone. It also caused a noticeable shifting or falling feeling, until they were suddenly standing up straight on the Nenakret warp platform. Lera returned salutes being fired off at her, while blinking her eyes to clear them.

Wooshy is the best kind of description, what are you talking about! Missie went blank, trying to imagine blues and greens-- and golds, too, because Blue Eye gave her something to work with. Though Blue Eye may not have been exactly like being a spellsword...

Missie tensed herself when it was their turn, choosing that very moment to consider what if you warped and part of you didn't make it. It was too late to back out once the thought hit her, because it was already happening.

Wooshy really was the best way to put it.

Without swirls and color, there was the sense of weightlessness, and the sense of wind and the smell like she was thousands of feet in the air and maybe not traveling dimensions, but flying through the sky instantaneously. She barely wobbled, lacking the sense of suddenly being somewhere new without the ability to see the jarring shift.

"Oh!" she said, sudden and then quiet with one hand at her mouth. "Oooh we flew."

Her face slowly turned bright. "Again!" It was not a serious request.

"Mazda on deck!" one of the Saftan guards said.

Lera never had that fear. She blamed the lack of it for the time she had to jump out of a hovering helicopter in the army and someone had to claim that the intake could suck people up into the rotors. It got the fears about travel methods out of her system, at least!

"It does feel sort of like that!" she said. "Flew without flying--ah, as you were." The last part was addressed to the spellsword guards standing at attention and saluting her. She gave her own crisp salute, before she looked back at Missie. She grinned. The brightness was certainly welcome, especially after the last time she saw her, and the sad state that she was in. "We'll do it again on the way back!"

Even if it wasn't a serious request.

She walked past the guards and to the steps. "There's five steps," she said, as she started down them. The Nenakret spread out before them; lots of sounds, smells of fresh baked bread from the French bakeries, and the strange mix of first millennium Persian-esque and modern French architecture. Lera wrinkled her nose and sighed, before she stretched out her free arm. "Home sweet home!"

Five steps. Missie was supposed to be memorizing space in steps, but it seemed so.. clinical? She was a nurse, but...! For one set of stairs, and being told, it easy. Count and don't fall. Her sense of moving through space was getting easier in general, too. She may not have been able to see how fast she was moving, but she was beginning to feel it better.

Feeling, in general, had become important. It had always been there, but had always been so easily ignored. They warped to another city entirely, and Missie couldn't see it, but she could tell. New noises and sounds, and a different way the air hit her skin and the changes in temperature. He world could feel terrifyingly dark and huge, but there was something... nice in the hugeness of it all. Maybe. She wanted to try to think of it that way, anyway.

She couldn't help clinging just a little more to Lera in her awareness of such an unfamiliar place. She didn't ask to leave with Nadir much, and when it was, it was around places she could still visualize from memory. Now, Missie was truly blind.

"It smells tasty," she said. "Are there a lot of people with golden eyes here?"

"There's a lot of incredible food here," Lera said with a proud nod. She felt like she won the lottery with the city merged into her new Zenderean home; it was Paris, far more vibrant than Fall City, and the Nenakret was much more her speed than Bastan, She sighed happily and looked sideways at Missie -- relieved she made it down those steps -- and grinned.

"A few! Besides yours truly," she said. "Some spellswords retire here after awhile. Most people don't have golden eyes, though."

She walked along, slowly, up the sidewalk. The streets were cleared of cars now; rationing gasoline for the war had taken care of that, which left only the city buses (some of which were now alchemical constructs) and trolley lines running. A trolley went swooping by, making her look after it.

"I was thinking we could to the river, then go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower," she said. "I know you can't see the city from there, but it might be fun? And there are birds up there. Some really big fire birds started making their nests and they're friendly to people."

She had always wondered how it would look outside of the game. Were people everywhere in their flashy gear and magical buff halos? Did druids wander the streets with spirit companions? Did people ride up to mailboxes on glowing mounts? It seemed too extreme for the real version. She had heard Zenderael was much bigger than the game could show them. It certainly hadn't been able to show the Dark.

The sound of the trolley had Missie tense and chase after it instinctively with her head, but it did her no good. She couldn't fathom what it was, considering more of the magical world than Earth that had merged with it. It was Paris, but it was also the Nenakret, city of alchemists and spellswords and mages!

So the mention of fire birds caught her attention. That was the kind of world she had imagined. "Friendly? They don't burn anything while they're there?"

"Oh, no, they can just breathe fire--well, sort of. Spit fireballs, really? And they have really pretty red plumage," Lera said. She had a hat with a few fire bird feathers as decoration, which she felt quite proud of. It seemed depressing to admit after saying they were friendly, though.

"They like to beg people for food. Bread and stuff, meat if you sneak it up there. The guards--" Her guards, Lera reminded herself. "--don't like people doing it, though, since they'll cook the meat before they eat it."

She kept walking down the block. The Seine was up ahead, with a few row boats in it, which made a splashing sound.

Birds that cooked meat! Missie followed along in wonder, but found her thoughts frequently distracted by every little sound. She kept trying to picture where and what and how, her mind coming up with infinite possibilities. Splashing water from boats could have easily been monsters or people splashing about, and it was hard to say how big the water was. Ooh falling in water would be bad right about now too.

"That's too bad," she said. "I could probably feel them cooking."

Maybe it was warm just getting near them...!

"How big are they? Are they like pigeons? Or is everything in Zenderael big like a monster?"

"They're huge! Like albatrosses. Or condors. Or eagles. But pot-bellied," Lera said with a nod of her head. She led the way across the street and then slowed down. "Just to your left is a railing -- a stone railing! We're walking over a bridge now. There's a rowboat down there, too."

Lera waved at the people in the rowboat, before she looked back at Missie. She grinned sheepishly and looked back at the street, watching the people walking to and fro. The Eiffel Tower was up ahead, but a bit to their left. She could mention it was there when they were a little closer.

"The fire birds sometimes toast the bread," she said. "We'll get some before we go up!"

THEY MAKE TOAST.

"Will they need jam? Or butter?" Even Missie was not sure if she was being serious at this point. Birds making toast! Large ones, too. Which Missie had imagined. That made her feel a little better, for some reason. Although pigeon sized phoenixes would be cute, too...

All of Lera's waves and sheepish smiles were lost on Missie. Her head still turned now and then, trying to catch a sound or two, but it never really helped. She began to wonder if anyone was staring at her. She wouldn't know if she put her shirt on backwards, or if her eyes were funnily blank.

Were they funny in general? She'd never asked. ... Maybe she wouldn't! She'd never have to know.

"Can I have some too? It still smells good."

"Yeah, of course! We'll just get two baguettes, they're big. It'll be enough to feed them and have some ourselves." Lera tapped a finger against her chin, thoughtfully, and looked sideways at Missie. She couldn't smell the baked bread here as well; it seemed like her sense of smell must have gotten sharper. She looked ahead, peering at the cart ahead, which had one of the local baker's breads for sale.

"I don't know if they like jam and butter," she said, "but we could try it! Maybe they'll like it, right?"

Was it safe for birds to eat? She saw no reason why not! Lera kept walking, until they got over the bridge and to the baker's cart. A couple of people were in front of them. "I'll get the baguettes," she said quietly. "I get a discount at basically every store in the city ever. It's one of the job's perks."

She paused. "Some of the French ones wanted me to do ads for them, though."

It was a sense she gave much more attention to. Baking was a hobby she felt out of touch with, but maybe if she could go by smells, instead of cute appearances, there would still be something to appreciate. This led to a lot of smelling things when she thought Nadir wasn't looking. Soap choices were going to be very important.

"If they don't like it, will they burn it to ashes?" This sounded like a win-win situation right now.

Missie tensed when Lera offered to get them. Would she just... stand here? She could just stand here. That would probably be okay for thirty seconds. Nervousness or no, she beamed toward Lera. "Oh. I can see why they would want that."

Long pause.

"Oh! Oh no. It's such a shame that cars aren't really being used as much..."

"They do! I tried to give them a carrot once and they just burnt it to cinders. It was kind of cool," Lera said with a grin. She felt Missie tense, though, and the grin faded with some embarrassment. She could only guess why Missie tensed. Sometimes predicting what could remind her of bad things or be a problem was hard to guess at; she had never been blind (in fact, her eyesight improved a lot).

"The cars are my fault," Lera said. "I ordered gasoline rationing--which is really weird, by the way, being able to order that an entire city not use gasoline--so we could use what we had for tanks during the war."

She laughed sheepishly, before she walked forward, towards the baker's stand. She seemed intent on leading Missie up with her; the baker at the stand called her "madame Mazda" when she approached.

The other reason that she offered to order became apparent when she started talking and it had little to do with Missie being blind. "Je voudrais deux baguettes, s'il vous plaît," Lera said. Her accent was still halting and awkward; she tensed up nervously, too, and tried to not stumble over the words. They were basic enough and she had even practiced this sort of conversation with Villiers before. "Et un peu de beurre et de confiture de fraises, aussi."

"Oui."

Lera looked at Missie. "Um, strawberry jam okay? They have grape and cherry too."

Hehehe, Mazda ads with the Mazda. Missie kept her laughter to herself as she was lead forward, when suddenly, French! Was that Lera's voice? Missie blinked several times at nothing (a new kind of nothing). She didn't know enough French-- any French-- to know if the accent was off or if any of it was spoken poorly.

"Strawberry is okay," she said, bewildered. "You speak French."

Her tone made it sound like those two thoughts were somehow related, but she hadn't meant to.

Lera took the two baguettes and a small paper bag, which had the containers of butter and jam in them. She grinned proudly, still not quite realizing that Missie couldn't see that (though she could hardly help it). "I know! I learned when I started working here. So many French people live here, it seemed like a good idea. Oh--"

She paused, awkwardly. "Want to carry one of the baguettes? They're pretty big. They smell good, too."

Both of them were presently leaning over Lera's shoulder. She moved one forward, though, and into Missie's hands if she made ready to hold it.

Missie reached at the air, managing to get her hands around one of the baguettes with Lera's guidance. Once she had it, she didn't have to worry about fumbling with it. The sense of touch was just fine!

But... baguettes...

If she was holding it, she did not have to see it to understand the all too powerful urge that came with holding a baguette.

"I want to wield it as a weapon."

Lera paused for a good few seconds at that.

"Are we swordfighting with baguettes in the park, Missie?" she asked. "Because I'm okay with this."

Missie you are an adult.

...

"It would be good awareness practice."

Lera looked around. Some people stopped to watch. She shrugged her shoulders and put the small plastic bag on the ground. Plenty of grass was nearby, so she walked into it, until they had a good bit of room about them in the park area. Then, she looked at Missie and grinned. "I'm gonna move about three paces in front of you, okay?"

She let go of Missie's arm and took a few steps, before she turned to face her. Hopefully it did not make her feel too on her own. To demonstrate where she was, she moved her baguette and gently tapped Missie's with it. Then, she got a proud smile on her face.

"Okay," she said cheerfully, "let's do this. En guarde!"

She held her baguette out in front of her, in a defensive sort of posture. It was something of a fake; she planned to parry even if she could dodge, because it was good awareness practice. It was also more fun that way.

It was true that it was more than an urge to swing bread around. This was a safe spot for Missie to get a sense of herself. Once, the sword fight aspect would have been an added layer of fantasy, but not it was precisely the sort of thing she might need to know. It hadn't been a sword that killed her, but that might be a danger in the future nonetheless.

But there was also that urge to swing bread around.

She wasn't sure on the proper way to hold a baguette for combat purposes, but that wasn't necessary right now. Three paces. Missie tried, for once, not to visualize it. It was important information, but her mind's eye of space was normally wrong. She had been trying to replace sight with imagination, and that was a failing game.

Baguette to baguette, Missie tried to feel out her space instead of see it, and she made her trust at Lera. Her motions were timid and careful, which might have been a mistake, but she was at least aimed at the general area.

"Good!" Lera called out, even as she moved her baguette to block Missie's. Lera's cracked slightly, which meant she got some more of that fresh baked bread smell. Feeling hungry during a sparring match was a tragedy.

It brought a sense of deja vu and a sense of how much had changed. She could remember goofing off with fake swords with people before, but now it brought to mind actual swordplay. She instinctively held the baguette at the right angle, with the right grip. Those instincts, it seemed, could not be turned off. She saw Missie's thrust come in and realized it would have hit, without parrying it. She deflected it to the side, before she took her own thrust with an instinctive grunt that warned it might be coming.

"I think you knead to hit a little harder if you want to roll me," she said. Then she giggled, because puns fun. "But now you know what to dough!"

Missie could not rely on the smell of delicious bread to alert her of successes in any sort of real self-defense situation. WHAT ABOUT BLOOD Missie that's gross even for you

The bread on bread contact was satisfying, even if it had been Lera with the parry. There was a sense of motion and contact and doing things. She knew a melee class was out of the question for her. If she could learn to move around and heal, that might be enough to not be dependent...

But then Lera made the most devastating counter of all.

"No!" Missie nearly shrieked. "No! Why!" This time she gave the bread a swing-- still on the gentle side. She wasn't trying to send half of her loaf flying.

But only because she wouldn't have been able to retrieve it herself.

"Don't get all cinnamon twisted up!" Lera shot back with a poorly suppressed giggle.

Missie's baguette hit her arm. She made a face, before she looked back at her. "I guess you really rose to the occasion," she said, before she took a step forward and jabbed her bread at Missie. She grinned and waved at a couple of kids who watched; she could make out something mumbled in French about the Mazda fighting with bread. She hardly cared.

"Can you feel it coming?" she asked. "Like with the wind of my blow or something?" She certainly had to be able to smell it. It was making Lera hungry.

The pun combined with the strike for a critical hit. Missie was exceptionally dramatic about, letting out a quiet, but desperate, "Noooooo!" as if the impossible had just happened and her body slumped while standing up. She had forgot to decide before if she was the hero or a villain, but only villains thought their defeat was impossible. So it was dark side Missie!

For all of two seconds before her thoughts were on less dark things.

"There's a little wishy woosh," she said, feeling over the crust of the bread and how it came off in flakes. She couldn't see if food was the right golden-brown color, but she could feel it, she realized. "But I didn't really think of it until you asked. I think it would hit me before I felt the air."

Maybe that could change in time...? Oh, but she couldn't wear a lot of clothes. Hm.

"Probably so, though--oh, if you can hear it!" Lera said. "That must be how Morvarid does it." And she still wore armor, too, like the other spellswords. On the other hand, she had decades of experience in wielding a sword, so learning how to do it without eyesight was entirely different than learning it while blind in the first place. She grinned sheepishly.

Then, she cracked off one end of her baguette and took a bite. Swordfighting made her hungry. "You were pretty good, though. I think we made some kids pretty happy, too. Not every day that they get to see their glorious leader fighting with a baguette in the park, you know?" she asked, before she waved at the kids again.

Lera thought about that for half-a-second.

"Maybe I should institute rules about making spellswords spar with bread for the kids," she said. "Or practice swords. It might go over pretty well."

Missie swung the loaf by her head a few times, trying to listen for the sound. It was subtle, and there was so much else going on. She wondered if it were really possible to learn to react so readily to something so soft.

She heard Lera eating, but waited a moment to make sure that's what she was hearing. It was permission to devour a piece of her own bread, and once she felt it was suitable confirmed, Missie dug her fingers into the crush of the bread and pried it open to its softer insides.

Monsters at the bottom of the ocean probably couldn't see with the lack of light in the abyss. This must have been how it felt. It was the simple-- or, er, eccentric-- thoughts that made her feel better.

"Won't their parents be upset?" she said, but then she remembered this wasn't how Earth rules worked. "Or... No. I guess it would be important to teach kids self-defense. Especially Earth kids who aren't used to the reality of monsters."

"Right!" Lera said. "It's a good way to inspire them to self-defense and, most importantly--"

She had been talking with mouth full, like any good Mazda did. She stopped and swallowed, which meant she was silent for a moment, and held a finger up without realizing that Missie wouldn't be able to appreciate the gesture. The knowing voice, however, was a tone of voice she used often. Especially when Lera was suggesting something ridiculous as a known, unquestionable fact.

"Make sure they choose the best guild," she said. "It would be a tragedy if they all went to join the druids or rogues or something. Spellswords are winners. Who never do drugs. And get into the best colleges. And woo comely young men and women alike. I'm thinking of the children, Missie."

Missie was busy enough with her own omnomnom that she didn't need the gesture to appreciate food was happening, and sometimes that made talking hard.

For a moment, there was a bright smile at Lera's dedication to her ridiculous cause, but it suddenly fell."... I bet rogues do all kinds of drugs. Don't let them fall in with the rogues!"

"Yeah! See? They'd be a bad influence." Lera nodded her head firmly at that. "I'm responsible for making sure they don't grow up to be drug-using capitalist running dog lackey thieves. It's in the job description of being Mazda."

At least, she thought so.

She looked up at the Eiffel Tower, her expression going thoughtful. She bit into her own husk of bread, before she looked back at Missie. "Wanna go up and check out those birds, now?"

A world where children would do drugs and fall into a life of crime for a living! ... Well, Earth had that too, but it wasn't so well advertised. There wasn't a standardized profession for it.

But it was probably better than assassins.

She had made an assassin!

Oh no she was a terrible creator-mother to Iravati! (Also, deja vu.) She would have to apologize when they met. If they met.

"Yes," she said. She could not see most birds, but these ones she could feel, and that was exciting enough. "Thanks for the bread. And the fight."

Lera grinned and slid her arm forward, through Missie's. It no longer felt quite as awkward to her; at first, moving with Missie suddenly involved much more locking arms and hand holding (literally but hopefully not figuratively) than she was ever used to. Now, it started to come naturally, and was awkward only when she thought about it. She did right then, but she pushed that to the side. She just had a fight with baguettes. She had no room to be sad.

"Oh, no problem!" she said, cheerfully. "I always wanted to fight with them. I'm glad you had the idea. Too bad my real swords aren't half this delicious. Or delicious at all. I've never actually bitten them, of course. They're steel--well, one's actually got enough magic to not count as steel, and the third is just a mana construction that--you know, maybe it would be edible if I put my mind to it, but I--" Her face screwed up and she reddened. She stopped rambling and let out a long sigh. "I don't know where that was going."

She munched on some more bread and waited for Missie to adjust herself, before she led the way. She scooped up the bag with jam and butter after they got off the grass.

Missie had skipped most of the awkward stage by necessity. There was a lot of fear when she wasn't arm locked and led, like flailing in black space. Which she was. She wanted to be able to move without it, but couldn't yet. For now, it was better than the fear.

But that fear of unfamiliar spaces was far from her mind. Things were getting so normalized, and she was being treated as normal in spite of it. It was something that helped more than Missie could understand-- thankfully because she did not have the alternative to compare it with. Missie had found good people.

And Lera's thoughts were not as difficult to follow as she thought. Or, well, Missie followed them a different way. "If it's possible to eat mana," she said. "Is it? People have mana in them, and there's mana potions... Could you make a sword out of a mana potion?"

"I guess I sort of do!" Lera said. "A spectral saber's, like--it's an ability where if I draw a weapon, it just shows up, but it draws on my mana, so if I drink a mana potion before hand, then it's made of mana. I had to make sure I didn't summon it when I used the baguette. It just floats next to me, but it'll kinda mimic me and stuff--" She laughed aloud and would have buried her face in her hand, if she had one free. "Actually, one time, me and Iravati were hanging out..."

Ravindra was there, too, but she decided to leave that alone. Her relationship with him still wasn't the best.

"I kinda picked up a marshmallow roasting thing like a sword and the spectral saber just appeared and chopped down! And it was funny but embarrassing," she said. "And Iravati said, all nonchalant, 'Did you just make a deadly weapon appear out of thin air?'"

Or something like that. Lera couldn't remember the exact words. "Mana potions taste gross, though," she said, "so I hope my spectral saber doesn't taste like one."

Missie snorted a giggle. There was a certain novelty in hearing about Iravati from Lera. There was a comment here and again about her, and it all seemed to reach the same happy conclusion: Iravati was doing pretty well. (For an assassin who fell into possibly drug heavy guilds.) And that was nice! She liked the idea she had made her friend a friend, too, if indirectly and unintentionally.

"Maybe it'll taste like bread now," she chirped. "... But if you eat it, are you eating a part of your own mana...? Of your soul?" Is that how that worked? Mana seemed so easily explained as "soul power", but it was only an arbitrary logic Missie was giving it.

"Could you devour the souls of other spellswords by eating theirs?"

This was hardly practical in any world that wasn't Missie's head.

"Aaaah, no, Missie!" Lera said, making a disturbed face and shaking her head quickly. "Mana aren't souls--it's, um, it's more like... actually, I have no earthly clue what mana is besides some sort of internal power that lets me do crazy things."

She shook her head. "But nope, can't eat souls. My own or other peoples. It isn't how it works. I suppose I could make the sword, um, turn into something edible with a lot of work. Like--"

She paused.

"Like a baguette!" She said. She took a bit of her baguette. "I bet I could do that. With a lot of practice. Spellswords are bad at that sort of control but I'm a super spellsword."

Sorry Lera, Missie just wants to eat souls okay. Not for real.

"You could make it look like anything!" she said in realization. There was a bit of bounce added to her step with that. Then she paused. "What does yours look like on its own? Is everyone's different?"

"Everyone's is different!" she said, with some emphasis, because it was nice how Missie just got it like that. "Mine is a blue-green, kinda fat and straight sword with a single edge. It has a lot of ornate golden patterns that are sort of swirly and--"

This felt hard to describe, she realized. She stopped walking, without warning, giving Missie a slight yank. "Here," she said, "hold on."

She drew the shorter sword buckled at her side. The spectral saber came into existence next to her, floating and overing in the air. Lera sent a mental command to it, ordering it to be completely still so that there would not be any accidental chopping. "I could just show you. I mean, let you feel it. The patterns are all raised and if we're careful, you won't cut yourself," she said. "Lemme take your hand?"

It all fell back on the idea that mana had something unique about it. Something soul like! Maybe you couldn't eat people's mana souls, but Missie liked the idea that there was some unique representation.

The description did not seem much a loss to Missie. She felt Lera might have been describing something that spellswords could see where others didn't, so it was easy to think that, blind or not, she would have had similar understanding. (Could spellswords see souls!? Let it go, Missie.)

But the offer to feel it seemed... suddenly fascinating. The Mazda's spectral sword, made of mana. "Oh," she said. "Sure." It seemed no more dangerous than Lera showing her how to use a kitchen knife.

"All right, check it out." Lera did as advertised, placing Missie's hand on the spectral saber and taking hers away. It had actual golden patterns wrought into the blade, which were raised and impossible to miss. They consisted mostly of swirls and curves that formed a line running along the length of the blade. The sword itself felt cool to the touch, but too smooth and perfect to be metal. It felt like metal should feel like, as a sort of ideal, rather than with the imperfections that were inevitable.

"It's a spooky ghost sword," she said. "I know it feels solid, but you can actually just see through it a little! Like looking through really darkly tinted colored glass?"

Missie was attentive in her exploration of the blade. She trusted herself to not be cut, letting herself trace over the swirls and curious at the cold, hard surface. It was a spectral mana sword, but it felt so solid. Were ghosts like this too...? Some of them. There were ghost monsters in the game, and they could hurt. She always assumed it was some kind of spirit attack, but maybe there were factors like this.

It was mana, not a ghost, but ghosts and mana being similar sounded much more fun. She went silent, both from her overactive imagination and the strange sensation of the magic blade. If she were a mage, or one of the other classes, could she sense something in it...?

It was too bad the sword mimicked instead of acting on its own. Personal sword bodyguard! Ah, but she wouldn't want Nadir to feel replaced.

"It feels fancy," she finally said, smiling. "You must have very lovely mana."

Lovely mana? Lera had no idea what her mana looked like -- she could really only see the glows of buffs and enchantments upon people, and it did not reflect in a mirror -- but it was a nice compliment, if not one that made a lot of sense.

She grinned sheepishly. "I've never seen it directly, just what I made with it. Thanks, though." She focused and made the spectral saber vanish with a thought. It simply winked out of existence underneath Missie's fingers. "I've heard some of the spellswords wax poetic about what it means, what your spectral saber looks like." Of course, some did not have them; support ones almost never did. "Maybe I'm fancy at heart."

She kept grinning and then started walking again.

"Do you think you'll take a guild?" she asked, after thinking about it. "I'd offer you a spot, but I don't know if you want the two years of service. I can't make exceptions for friends, unfortunately."

Missie followed along with Lera as they moved. Lera was absolutely fancy at heart! That made sense to her. Lera was a good person. Not just a good roommate or a nice friend to have. She was a really good person, and that much she could appreciate, even without any darker comparisons.

"I don't think I'm qualified for two years of service," she said. It came with a weak smile, but she was quick to try to find something else to say-- a buffer to prevent Lera from having to think of encouragement. It was difficult to explain that being a spellsword felt losing out on its one major benefit. Even if the Vice Admiral was blind too... She had been someone for a very long time before being blind, and that someone Missie was not. "Ah, but I think I'd rather be a healer now. I don't know if I could, otherwise."

Lera started to open her mouth to protest that, even if she knew it might be true. Missie probably could do the service, but military work of that sort hardly seemed like it matched her personality. There were days where it hardly matched Lera's, but those were just days. She thought that it would probably grate on Missie in the end.

"A healer makes a lot of sense," she said. She had even suggested it once, though it was back when Lera first went to visit Missie. She looked sideways at her friend, before she looked back forward. The Eiffel Tower wasn't too much further away.

"I suppose that leaves cleric, druid, and paladin." But probably not paladin, she thought. It involved some of the same problems. "At least, once Medena gives the womb to someone--oh, uh, crap, that's a state secret. Shh."

Missie's thoughts were similar. Not paladin. They had swords, and Missie wasn't sure how she really felt about using those, bread duels aside. They also had heavy armor, which was worse.

She brightened at the mention of what became of the womb, and further when she learned now she had a secret. Oh, ho, ho. "I won't tell anyone," she said, but there was a coy edge to it. "It's good to know it's an option." Missie pressed her lips together in thought.

"Druids get spirits, don't they...?"

"Good. I could get in a lot of trouble." Her cheerful tone suggested that was not that true. "Elementals!" Lera said. She still had a lingering dislike of some of the druids -- she fought too many and killed too many in the war -- but it was hard to not find some of their abilities impressive. And, of course, she doubted Missie would be like Aerveas in any way. She just had to hope Medena picked the right person. "I wish I could have a spirit buddy, sometimes."

She looked sideways at Missie again. "The exact sort varies. One friend has a fire one, but I saw the other types too." She did not elaborate on how she saw them or think too hard about how she had killed those elementals, too. "I think it depends what sort of druid they are."

Some of the crowds underneath the tower were murmuring. A few guards were looking at her, too, and Lera couldn't help but notice that some of the guards were making sure that she was rushed forward. Lera hadn't gotten used to that; the strangest part was how the crowds seemed to not mind and murmured more about how she was the Mazda than how she was being allowed to cut in front of the line.

She stopped walking as they reached an elevator leading up. One of the guards looked at her and said something in French, which Lera replied to in kind. She looked back at Missie. "We're waiting on the tower's elevator to come down, then it'll take us up."

"And alchemists get constructions..." That one was a thought she had before, thought not without complications. But everything had complications. No matter what she chose, there was something to work around, and even the healing magic of a cleric, she knew, required a bit more finesse than blasting someone with light.

She knew both the Vahishta and the Khshathra-- but... Nova was an alchemist. What an oversight! Would she have to see him? ... Or would she know potions well enough, even without sight, to be safe?

These were serious questions for another more serious time. Missie was supposed to be distracted thinking of what wasn't, not what was. Unless what was was visually interesting, which, well. And that made the murmurs seem so much louder! Did they realize how loud they were talking?

"Oh!" There was the smallest bounce on her heel when she remembered where they were. "And then firebirds. And being up high. Oooh... am I immune to vertigo?"

"True.... both would give you a little buddy." Lera quieted down, though, because Missie had quieted down. She looked up, as the elevator came to a stop, and then grinned at the ding. "I think you're about to find out!"

She led the way to the elevator. The guards were not about to put members of the public in a closed space with the Mazda. The door slid shut and Lera let out a sigh. "You know, I'm not really used to this whole V.I.P. thing in the Nenakret."

The elevator started up with a lurch, and then a quick enough motion that Lera felt it shift herself up suddenly. "Whoa."

"It hasn't been very long," Missie said. She mused further on that thought. She wasn't used to Lera being the Mazda, either, but she didn't think much about it, and didn't have to live with people giving her strange looks (well) and murmuring. Maybe it would be bad to mention Lera would have 100 extra years to cope with it...? "If you get tired of it, there's Pakerion, right?" It was a cheerful, helpful offer, she thought, despite knowing vaguely how terrible Pakerion was actually thought to be.

When the elevator moved Missie tensed and let out a squeak. She went very still a few moments before her body recognized this was a Normal Thing and they were not all going to die. Her stomach made a bit of a jump, too. "Oooh I bet I can still get vertigo..."

Lera laughed. "I'm definitely not a V.I.P. there, that's true." She wasn't popular with some people -- though quite likely with others. Aerveas had imposed rules in a society that hated such rules. She frowned and took a bite of her bread, before she licked her lips, and then looked out the window. She grimaced, deciding that it was a mistake to do so. There was nothing down there if the elevator broke.

Which never happened. But it could happen.

The elevator stopped with another shifting motion. "I definitely have some vertigo, now," she said, as she stepped out of the elevator. Wind from the observation deck blasted them both in the face; it was chillier up here. "Here we are! Top of... uh, France? Former France. France of the soul."

Missie ventured out with Lera, quiet again to listen and feel. She had not been expecting much. Lera could have put her on a hotel elevator, made it colder on the roof with ice magic, and told her they were on the Eiffel Tower. Not that Missie believed Lera would do that, but in theory...!

In practice, her imagination was already at work. There was all of France-- or what was France-- and much of the Nenakret, an actual magical city, below them. Her mind's eye was weaving together images of the buildings and how they might mix. Suddenly more excited, she gave a another step ventured ahead. "Can you describe it?" She said, before her mental picture got too far away from her. She wanted to add dragons in the sky, but that might have been a problem.

She clutched her bread too, and felt a bit of warmth against the chilly air. Missie tilted her head toward the heat, bouncing again. "Ooh. A firebird?" She asked. She broke off a bit of bread and heard a squawk of anticipation. A firebird!

"Of course I can!" Lera said. She looked around for a moment. "We're on an observation deck, with huge steel beams all around. There are rails all around, with a grating surrounding us. The grating is wide enough to see through, and there's holes up above." She looked up and felt the heat of the descending firebird.

"It looks like that's where they make their nests--ah, here's one!" she said. She stopped the description, as the bird landed in front of them. Lera stared at it for a moment, before she started talking. Her voice was more hushed now. "It's fat, Missie. Like a big pot belly and a skinny neck, with a big beak. The feathers are all orange and yellow, with little whisps of fire coming off the crest of the head and wings."

The fire was magical, she could see, thanks to the natural outpouring of golden light like waves. Lera omitted that fact. The heat was impossible to not feel, though. It rolled off the bird, enough to make the late summer day feel more like something in the middle of summer.

The firebird walked up and squawked, before it held its beak open expectantly. "It's waiting for you to throw a piece of bread!"

She pieced the thoughts together as Lera spoke, letting the cage around them form in her mind. It sounded safe, too, so Missie let go of any worry she might wander off the building. She was allowed to be that much more lively for firebird. Pot bellied adorable firebird! With wisps! Orange and yellow mixed into a fiery gold in her mind's eye, and the wisps were bright and glowing and majestica. Her imagination filled in the gaps and then some, and what might have gotten an observational glance while sighted was getting fuller consideration, down to the last detail.

Missie rolled her chunk of bread into a ball (because balled bread was better!) and gave it a toss toward the heat. "There...!" She said, but she had undershot her toss just a little. The bird would have to move forward to get it.

The bird not only moved forward, it shot a bit of fire from its beak into the bit of bread. It made the bread crispy without quite being charred, making the smell of fresh toast fill the air. Then, it reached that long neck down, and scarfed up the bit of crumbly bread.

Lera would never get tired of that. She clapped, pleased by what she saw, and and grinned at Missie. "It likes it! It wants more. Uh, they'll actually--" The bird squawked loudly, clearly impatient for more bread. "They'll sort of just hang out here forever and harass you for food. Some people say they're pests, but yours truly is the one who has to approve forcing them out. And I think they're fat and adorable."

She looked at the bird. "So, you know. You can thank me any time."

The bird squawked again.

Missie clapped her hands together, muffled by her bread, when she felt the hot, sudden burst of dry air. She was already rolling up a ball to toss again when it squawked, and her head gave a small tilt toward Lera to try and hear over the bird's fussing.

"She's a good Mazda, isn't she? Very diplomatic to make space for your kin. You should remember that, Ambassador Firebird."

Missie smiled faintly. She had been worried she wouldn't be able to enjoy sight seeing, but that wasn't quite true. She did miss her sight... and she did still hope she'd wake up to find it again. But there were people to lean on, and other senses she could be grateful for. It was enough to keep putting one foot in front of the other.