The obrec were pretty happy with their new accommodations, but less happy about the crowd of staring university people. I wasn’t able to stick around and smooth things over unfortunately, because I was dead tired by that point, the day had been way too long.

Once everything was sorted in the mundane world, I took Mer, Otho, Grace, Adam, and Duncan all back into my grove for the night. We could start doing work stuff in the morning.

“What a nightmare of a situation,” Adam grumbled as we made our way up into my tree.

Mer blew out a long breath, then shrugged and gave us all a wry smile. “Not the worst reception we’ve gotten trying to trade with other cultures.”

“I’d hate to see what a worse reception looked like,” Duncan said with a dark chuckle. Poor dude was still in the staring at the horns phase of meeting an obrec. At least he was being chill about things.

“Usually involves a lot more death,” Otho replied with grim amusement. “They were lucky that Ryn was there.”

“Leaving them alive was a bit of a surprise, for sure,” Mer agreed, giving me a look.

“The stain on my conscience would have been there for the rest of my life,” I said soberly, and then a thought occurred to me. “And… I honestly have no idea how long that is going to be.”

“Mages are long lived, but not overly so,” Otho told us, brows furrowed in thought. “But there have been many who lived for a very, very long time. Longevity through the nameless garden does exist, but not many know its secret.”

“I have a feeling you might want to get on that Ryn,” Grace said quietly, her hand finding mine. “Being linked to a goddess of youthfulness and spring as I am… I think I might be living a long time.”

“Yikes,” Adam muttered, giving us both a sympathetic look. “Being immortal scares the piss out of me.”

“Me too,” his friend agreed.

From there, we went up into the tree and found everyone else, making quick introductions where needed before we all rushed for bed. It wasn’t even the end of day freaking one back at Avonside and so much had happened. I really hoped things went a little more smoothly from here on out.

The entire next day proved that to be a false hope as I helped figure out the logistics of getting the CEO and her supporters out of Avonside. I was a little wary that she’d agreed to leave so readily, so I turned to Kit to research a way for us to keep an eye on them after they had left. Well, more than just recreating the ring thingy and throwing one in her pocket or something.

I didn’t even get to see my friends that much, but apparently they were doing pretty well. Kit was able to ferry people into the nameless garden too, so we had two different ways in and out. This meant that we were able to begin unloading all the materials and supplies I’d brought.

Another day later and the CEO and her goons were gone, along with way too much of the university’s dwindling stores of food. They set off to the north, opposite to where we’d come from. Kit didn’t manage to find a more elegant method of tracking them in time, so we ended up repeating the ring idea with an innocuous buckle in one of the food packs. They’d never suspect anything and we’d know if they were doubling back to attack us again.

As for the food situation, I had an excruciatingly long meeting with a few members of the horticultural department, where I had to list in detail what I thought I could provide. Explaining that I could basically summon food from thin air with the power of thought didn’t go over particularly well at first. Their tune changed when I also explained that with their help I could make all sorts of crazy new plants… well they got very excited.

That was the reason the meeting went on so long. I had to explain how I could create new plants and what I’d need to know in order to do so. The idea of designing food crops had the head of the department bouncing excitedly around the room, which was rather comical when you considered that she was a diminutive indian woman.

Day three saw Troy gathering a great many people into my tree to discuss things, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t extremely curious.

Around a large table on the balcony sat sat Troy, Esra, Kit, Mer, Otho, Duncan, Adam, Claih, Kelsey, Melody, Bray, Grace and myself. Pretty much everyone I considered to be trustworthy, minus Claih who I still wasn’t sure about.

“Thanks for coming, everyone,” Troy began once the last of us was seated. “I wanted to discuss something rather important. Now that we’ve had a few days to settle into life back at Avonside, I think it’s time we get serious about the Order of Eleos.”

“How so?” Grace asked, then shook her head and clarified, “I mean, what do we do first? How do you even like… start something like this?”

“First, we need an objective, a purpose,” Troy replied, giving my girlfriend a nod. “I’d like to put forward a bunch. First, a more abstract one, but it’s in our name. Compassion. We want to go out into the world and help people with their problems. I don’t just mean the kind that you can swing a sword at either. Next, equality. Specifically, equality among thinking beings, regardless of any number of circumstances they find themselves in. Things like sexuality, race, gender and species.”

“Species, huh? Is that being added because of the recently departed security forces?” Claih asked dryly.

Troy gave a gentle snort of amusement. “Exactly, but it’s important to be reasonably specific here. Oppressors often try to claim they are the oppressed in order to muddy the waters.”

“What about religion, culture and all that?” Kelsey asked carefully, gaze focused on Troy with vivid intensity.

“Religion and culture is… more difficult. Not every religion is equal, and the same for culture. I’ve run into too many cultures that glorify violence and too many religions that codify the abuse of others,” our leader sighed, eyes haunted. “We will fight those while protecting the ones we like, to put it frankly.”

Her expression easing, she smiled and leaned back in her chair. “Good.”

Troy opened his mouth to continue when Melody spoke up, “Sorry to butt in… but what are people like me doing here? I’m no good at anything that you will be doing.”

“On the contrary, that’s what I wanted to talk about next,” he smiled.

“An organisation like this will need a support structure. People to craft the things we need to do our work, people to manage our food, people to train new recruits… the list goes on. Administrators will be invaluable to our success,” he explained, sketching randomly on the table with his finger.

“I was thinking about that,” I said, leaning forward. “What if we used the second tier of my grove for the knights? Out in the real world it’s a lot harder to create things with my magic, but here... I am close to a goddess in power. The knights would never lack for anything that can be created with my magic. We’d never have food problems, all that jazz. Could even make pastures for grazing animals.”

Troy perked up. “Indeed, I was hoping you’d make that offer. We’ll still need chapter houses out in the real world though. Using your grove is also contingent on us both finding a way to come and go as we please without your help, while also protecting your grove from any who might potentially do you harm.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” I said with a long sigh. “Unfortunately, I have no idea about leaving the grove, but I know I can defend it. I have the shield…” I trailed off as a thought hit me. Oh, this could be good. “But, I also just had an idea.”

Esra, silent and watching until now, bolted upright in her chair and threw me an acidic glare. “Oh no you don’t!” she blurted urgently. “No, young lady, if you go recklessly breaking the rules of magic again…”

“What’s wrong?” I asked her sweetly, batting my eyelashes at her. The effect was probably diminished slightly by the way I couldn’t keep a cheeky grin off my face.

Her answer was a suspicious scowl, but she turned to Troy instead. “I have a solution for your problem with access to Rynadria’s grove. I have been researching teleportation for too many decades to count, and while I have not had much success there, I have learned many things. It is possible to create an artifact that will allow a bonded user to shift to a specific point in the garden and back.”

“What would that require?” Kit asked, excitement overriding her shy nature. “How does it work?”

Esra gave the smaller mage a gentle smile. “We would create a central node of magically resonant crystal. Pieces of this node would be bound to the intended user through a ritual, requiring contact with their blood while inside their natural aura.”

“English Esra, for the non mages,” I sighed, indicating the confused expressions around the table.

Another dirty look shot in my direction and she turned to the audience at large. “Imagine, if you will, a pillar of crystal set within a central square. Any who have a bonded fragment of that crystal structure would be able to shift between that waypoint and mundane reality, much like a mage does, complete with their own mage mark. That fragment would be bonded to them by allowing it to come into contact with the intended recipient’s blood while within their body. I suggest a small cut to the tongue or lip, followed by placing it in their mouth. That fragment could then be set into a ring.”

“Well, holy shit…” Troy grinned, leaning back slightly, eyes on the older woman with a look of gratitude. “I could kiss you right now, that is absolutely perfect.”

“I will have to turn you down on that offer,” she replied, although her eyes sparkled slightly as she spoke. “However, I believe I can be of much use to your fledgeling order, and I look forward to helping where I can. It is a noble endeavor, and just perhaps… you may be able to succeed where myself and my coven failed. You have my roguish daughters on your side, after all.”

That had my eyebrows rising. Was this what hetero looked like? It had been a while since I saw it, so it was hard to remember. Wait… also… did she just mean me, when she said daughter?

“We can restart the coven,” Kit murmured, looking hopefully at Esra. “I want to be part of a coven. Not for any like… proper reason, but it just sounds cool.”

“Covens are not to be joined or started just because they sound cool, young lady,” Esra snapped, tone failing to give any real edge to her words.

“Scalmeis coven does sound pretty cool,” I said, agreeing with Kit. “How about it mum? Want us in your magic gang?”

“It is not a… a magic gang!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air in frustration. “You two… by the gods…”

Kit’s eyes flicked to meet mine, and there was a spark of understanding, or more specifically… a spark of sibling mischief. In a surprisingly gruff voice, she said, “Ain’t nobody messin’ with the Scalmeis gang. We own this ring, don’t let anybody go forgettin’ it.”

It took Troy way too long to get the meeting back under control again after Kit’s little improv session, but it was totally worth it to see the look of confused frustration on Esra’s face.

QuietValerie

Guess what, I have another chapter in the works. Expect it to drop in like... 48 hours. Depending on how my stupid brain is, I might even try and start up a 2 day routine again. We'll see how things go.

If you're after more of my stories, I have a few patreon exclusive stories one of which is called Digital Galaxies! Set in the troubleverse a year after trouble with horns, it follows a band of players in a sci-fi mmo as they explore the (fake)universe in their scrappy little frigate. It's very fluffy, with a main character who has a whole host of neurodivergent issues to deal with on top of the usual shit my protags go through.

If you're still interested, here's the links to the first two chapters that are open to the public:
Digital Galaxies Chapter 1
Digital Galaxies Chapter 2

Thanks for taking the time to check it out, it means a lot. I'm a full time author now after all, that patreon is what feeds me! xP

Also, if you'd like to chat with other people who enjoy transgender stories, you can visit the Valyn Storyverse discord server.