Later that day, the Goddesses would begin Izenakee's training.

Yes, the Goddesses Themselves were training Izenakee, and permanently, apparently. Izenakee felt thoroughly spoiled. This whole thing was an embarrassment of blessings.

"You are the first red mage in many centuries," Izena had said. "No other alive is qualified to train you, and you are too important to entrust to anyone else."

Izenakee was too important. To the Goddesses. Unbelievable.

"And in the future, We will need you to be close to Us almost all the time, and if you are always with Us anyway, We may as well train you."

That sentence was a thing that had actually happened. Izenakee was numb now, in a haze. Something had broken in her sense of reality.

Altogether, it had been more than enough to convince her parents to leave her in Their personal custody. They would return home for now, to prepare to move to Rokesha as soon as possible so they could see her more easily.

And then, both at last and too soon, it was time to start.

"Are you ready to begin?" the White Goddess asked. She and Izenakee had just entered Her Sanctuary after passing through the multiple layers of Trusted Guards standing watch outside.

Yes, Izenakee was in the Goddesses' Sanctuary. Alone, with Them, in Their Sanctuary. This was too impossible to be a dream. What was even the point of being starstruck now? The world wasn't real anymore. Just go with it. It would be too exhausting otherwise.

"Yes, and thank you." Izenakee was proud that she was speaking clearly, and making eye contact. Eye contact! With Her! Alone!

"You are welcome, and thank you for your enthusiasm. We love to see people who desire so strongly to be Helpers." The Goddess sat down at a small table and indicated for Izenakee to sit across from her. "We wish to begin with some important history of red magic, that ought to be passed on to its only living practitioner."

Izenakee was hanging on every word. The Goddess usually had a gentle smile, sometimes an amused grin, but now She looked deadly serious.

"On the final approach to Solenn at the end of the ancient war, the world was not yet aware of the nature of the threat in the laboratory."

Izenakee knew that it was a monster that used red magic. She was even more intrigued, now.

"In the time immediately after Our family's Sacrifice, the Solenn Guard and their amulets did not yet exist. The world was vulnerable, but the monster in the laboratory was cautious. It was afraid that My Sister and I might still be in the world, and might come for it if it revealed itself. So, it hid. But when the coalition army approached the laboratory, it felt forced into taking a risk, and checked the minds of those approaching. 'Did the Goddesses still live?' it wondered. 'Can I strike safely?'"

Salvation grimaced.

"One of the Goddesses did not live, and the Other had left the world to grieve. The monster could strike safely, and surely would have done so if but a few more moments had passed. It could have dominated the entire army, plucked a new Oscanion from among the mages present, and restarted the war. We were gone from the world. This second phase would likely have ended in total extermination."

Izenakee's eyes were bulging. This was not part of the well-known history.

"But there were four master red mages, the last of the ancient world, still living. They had ordered their surviving younger pupils to take the much less dangerous job of remaining at headquarters, and marched with the army to provide communications. They had no training or experience in anything like red magic combat; such a thing did not exist. And yet, as soon as they felt the monster's touch, they immediately sounded the alarm and within moments, found a way to suppress its magic to within the laboratory itself. They continued to contain it, around the clock, by themselves, in shifts of two, allowing no other red mage to take the risk, for eight months, while blue mages frantically worked with those off shift to develop the amulets that would relieve them by equipping the Solenn Guard."

The White Goddess stared straight into Izenakee's eyes.

"With their quick thinking, incredible skill, and tremendous exertion, these master red mages saved the world. We owe them a debt that can never be repaid. None now alive but My Sister and I, and eventually you even better than We, will ever be able to appreciate how truly magnificent their accomplishment was. It is frankly incredible that they pushed through the mana exhaustion and maintained between them continuous coverage every day for so long."

She leaned to the side and opened a chest next to the table.

"They would have wanted you to have one of these. In all likelihood, you will be the only significant red mage of your era. You are sole heiress of their honored history. Their love for their pupils passes to you."

Izenakee looked inside the chest. Inside were many disks of silvery metal about the size of her palm.

"Are these, the amulets?" Izenakee asked, breathlessly.

"They are," the Goddess replied. "They are very low on charge now, many are empty, and of course they won't work for you or any other mage. But, they contain the most powerful red magic enchantment of any item ever produced. They are priceless. Take one, and let it remind you of what your predecessors accomplished, what they did for the world."

Izenakee took one into her hands with careful reverence. It was impossibly heavy, for such a small thing.

"Now," the Goddess changed topics, "I'll let Izena take over and teach your first lesson."

Izenakee sat up straight.

"As you felt keenly during your activation," Izena began, "the closest metaphor to mana usage, both taking it in and using it for spells, is breathing."

Izenakee nodded. She would not soon forget that urgent need to 'breathe.'

"For your first lesson, we're going to try to change the mana levels in your pool on purpose. Right now, it is oscillating slightly around its equilibrium state, like lungs that are neither fully inflated nor fully deflated, just breathing normally. As My Sister knows well," Izena paused pointedly, "fully inflating can be harmful and painful if not precisely controlled, so first let's try to fully deflate. Try to recall the feeling of your first gasp earlier."

Well, that would be easy enough.

"Now, take those 'lungs' that breathed in a big gasp of air, and squeeze them as if to exhale. Force the mana out."

Izenakee did so.

"Good, you got it on the first try. That's remarkable. You have the mark of someone who will have excellent 'breath control.' Now keep going as far as you can."

Eventually, she felt...strained, drained, collapsed chest, uncomfortable pressure. She needed to breathe, so badly.

"Haaaaaaaht," she gasped. She gasped in both ways, actually. Both with her real lungs, and her mana 'lungs.'

"That was well done, you're a natural. It's very unpleasant to hold yourself at minimum power. That gasp is a natural reaction that only a lot of practice and habituation will overcome. But, the only real reason to go to that state and hold it is if you're trying to hide, and you will always be with Us, so that...won't often be necessary."

Izenakee giggled. Izena was grinning. She had Izenakee repeat the exercise a few times.

"Minimum power used to be good for stargazing, too," the Goddess said ruefully. "It worked alright for a while."

Izena snorted. "That was My Sister. She misses when Her glow didn't stop Her from seeing stars."

Huh, Izenakee thought. She had never considered that. Being a radiant perfect Goddess wasn't all good after all.

Izena had her repeat the exercise a few more times.

"Alright, stop there," She said.

Izenakee felt...magically wheezy.

"Every time you breathed out in those exercises, it was the equivalent of just exhaling, without making any particular sounds with your voice. Using spells is like breathing out while activating your voice. They cost mana, because you need to breathe out to activate them. You can breathe in to regain mana, and out to recast, in, and out, repeatedly, and keep casting spells for a while, but eventually, if you do this too many times in too short a window, you 'hyperventilate.'"

That precisely described how Izenakee felt right now.

"In mage language, this state is called mana exhaustion, a state where your pool is too destabilized to cast spells well, like trying to speak after having sprinted half a league. It's too soon to try casting spells, we will start that in a few weeks once you are more accustomed to the inflow and outflow feeling, but you can still get mana exhaustion by doing that inhaling and exhaling process rapidly. What you have right now is a low-grade version of it, so we should end things here today. That was remarkable for day 1. Even managing to activate your 'lungs' on purpose would have been good progress."

Izenakee was in the Goddesses' Sanctuary, alone with Them, receiving one-on-one mage training from her namesake, actually manipulating real mana flows, and then was praised for being a good pupil, by the Goddess of Justice.

A few days ago, she'd been the only daughter of a family that owned a local courier service, and had asked for an unusual birthday present.

This day was definitely too impossible to be a dream.

"So do you want to sleep in here, with Us?"