Ryn

The Order decided pretty quickly that we liked the offer from the Avonside folks. That meant we needed to put together a team for the first official mission of the Order. The concerning part of all this was that Troy had put me in charge of the whole operation. I wasn’t a leader! I was barely functional on my own!

Feeling overwhelmed already, I dragged Grace to the balcony cafe and grabbed myself a coffee from Crash, the bunrista who was on duty today. She handed it to me in one of the grove-grown disposable cups we were using now, complete with a little smiley face drawn on the lid. Once Grace had her own cup, we settled down into a nook to talk.

“So who do you want to bring?” she asked me, taking a sip from her drink. Her eyes rolled closed while she savoured the coffee, and I did the same. Not before admiring the expression on her pretty face, though.

“I’m not sure, I guess we’ll see who wants to—” I began, only to be interrupted by Cream, who came bounding into the cafe on all fours.

“Ryn, Ryn!” she exclaimed, rushing over. To my surprise, she had Eilian in tow. “Look, I made a friend!”

I glanced up at the obrec mage suspiciously and made a humming sound of question while raising an eyebrow.

Eilian raised her hands defensively. “Hey, don’t look at me like that! She’s a kid!”

“Okay…” I said, still wondering what was going on here.

“I found her down in the village!” Cream explained, oblivious to the undertones of the conversation. “She was asking how to get up here, so I let her through the upper grove’s barrier! Wait… is that okay? She’s really nice and she doesn’t smell evil.”

“No it's fine,” I said, giving her head a quick pat while she hopped up onto the sofa beside me. “Eilian is a friend, so— hold on, she didn’t smell evil?”

“Yes?” the small humanoid bunny asked, tilting her head in confusion. “She smells like a good person, although she might need an emotional support bun because she’s also very sad.”

I stared at my little bun for several long moments in consternation, then turned my gaze on the obrec. Who, it turned out, was blushing in embarrassment, but not the cute kind. Evidently the comment about her mood wasn’t entirely off-base.

“Good to hear she’s not evil,” Grace said with a smile, saving everyone from the awkward moment. “What can we do for you, Eilian?”

“I was actually coming up to ask about formally joining the Order of Eleos,” she said, flopping down into one of the new cosy armchairs we’d had made. It engulfed her lithe frame, until she hooked one leg over an arm rest and lazed backward like a bored queen. “I’ve been thinking, and running around like an unruly vagabond is getting boring… plus, I need something to do to take my mind off… things.”

When I frowned and opened my mouth, she raised a hand to stall me. “Please don’t ask. I— well, it’s painful. Let’s just say the idea of going around trying to actually do good on this gods forsaken ring has, well, a nice ring to it.”

Grace snorted at the pun, but I was thinking back to the story Otho told us about her. Eilian had lost her life-partner to an arranged marriage, which for obrec meant that she’d never again find deep love. Their species bonded once and forever. Sure, they might have other lovers—they weren’t exactly a prudish species—but that’s all they’d be, a side lover.

“Yeah, that’s cool,” I replied. “You’ll have to do a bit of training with Troy, though. He’ll want to teach you the ins and outs of our operation and stuff.”

Eilian’s face scrunched up into a grimace, but she nodded, “Makes sense.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ll learn a thing or two,” Grace said. “You’re extremely skilled with magic and your sword, but us Earthborn folks have a lot of knowledge about combat that you might not have. Ask someone about our world’s history sometime.”

“I’ve heard rumours,” Eilian said with another grimace.

Grace grinned. “Exactly. It’ll help.”

“I agree,” Eilian said with a wary sigh, staring at the floor. Then she lifted her gaze and grinned. “I’m not reluctant because I think it won’t help. I’m reluctant because taking orders from others is very much not my style.”

The three of us laughed, and then I realised that there were supposed to be four of us. Where on earth had Cee gone?

“Where did Cee run off to?” I asked, glancing around.

The other two were just as surprised as me to find that the small bunny girl had vanished into thin air. Grace sat upright with a start and pointed out the window, and when we looked outside, there she was just trotting off into the forest with a small gaggle of normal buns behind her.

Oh no. Nothing good ever came of Cee rushing off with a group of her fellows to do something without a word. Okay, that was a lie. Many good things had come of Cee and the rest of the buns getting up to shenanigans.

“Well, I’m sure we’ll find out what she’s up to soon enough,” Grace laughed, and we shared a look. You know, one of those looks where something is funny and you look at someone you care about and share the amusement between you.

“Yeah…” I said slowly, watching the spot where the buns had disappeared into the forest. “Anyway, Eilian. Go find Troy and let him know you’re interested in signing up. Something you should know, however… The Order isn’t just an organisation that makes demands of its members. We’ll help you with anything you want to try and get done, okay?”

Eilian brushed a lock of pure golden hair out of her face and smiled across the coffee table at me. “There’s not much I want to do, these days. Other than fuck beautiful people and drink.”

The last was said with a pointed examination of my body from head to toe, and I rolled my eyes. “Okay, calm down there. Taking the horny thing a little too figuratively, aren’t we?”

She laughed. “Very funny.”

Catherine

Picking up the sheet of paper on the library desk, I held it up to the afternoon sunlight that shone through the high windows of the room and considered my work.

“Your spell still giving you trouble?” Mer asked, looking up from the lesbian romance novel she’d found somewhere. It was so cute how she was diving into Earth culture the way she was. The other night I found her in her room laughing over a bollywood action movie.

"Yeah." I nodded, letting the paper fall back onto the table. "I can do simple materials like metal easily enough. A lab assistant called Hue helped me figure out vacuum welding. That spell is already installed in a flower in Bray's workshop. It's things like stone and wood with more complex structures that are giving me the most trouble."

"Sounds to me like you're running into limitations with Garden magic," Mer said.

I blinked at her, trying to understand what other types of magic she could mean. As far as I was aware, Garden mages were the only ones with powers this versatile.

"Do mages from other realms exist?" I asked sceptically.

"I've heard stories." She watched me with open amusement and paused for several seconds. "You're very cute when you get excited over something."

Pouting, I waved for her to please continue talking.

"I've just heard of mages from way further spinward that carve gemstones to create their spells," she shrugged apologetically. "I don't know what realm they're from. Unfortunately the further anti-spinward you go, the more people hate magic. There were vague mentions of a catastrophe that made everyone start killing mages regardless of how many died trying."

My whole body shivered at the implication. What kind of event could cause a reaction like that? "That's terrifying."

Before Mer could keep up with the scary rumours from faraway lands, the door to the library opened and Ryn strolled through.

“Hey Cat, Mer, do either of you want to come along for the next scouting expedition?”

I didn’t even have to think about my decision. “No, thanks. I have too much work to do here.”

Ryn nodded in understanding and turned her attention to Mer, who looked more than a little conflicted. “I’d like to…” she began, but glanced briefly in my direction before shaking her head. “But no, I think I’ll stay. Maybe the next one?”

“Fine by me,” Ryn smiled, turning for the door. “So far we have Adam, Duncan, Eilian, me, and Grace.”

Twisting to crack my stiff back, I asked, “That sounds like enough, right? Five people?” Mer’s eyes traced my movements, and I stifled a smile. At least I knew for sure she found me attractive.

“It is, yeah,” Ryn agreed.

She made to leave the room, only to twist out of the way as a small bunny girl with lavender-pink fur trotted purposefully into the room. We all watched Cee while she tottered over to a bookshelf and began to run a fluffy, chubby little finger over the spines of the books. Her mouth moved as she silently sounded out the words, until finally she came to a stop next to one of the beginner tomes. Delicately, she pried the book off the shelf and flipped open the cover to scan the contents page. She appeared to have found what she was looking for, because she nodded decisively and turned back for the door.

It was about then that she noticed we were all staring at her with bemused expressions. “Oh! Hello! I am going to take this book. Esra said I should use it to, uh… kill two birds with one arrow? I’m not sure why I’d want to kill birds, because they are very important to the ecosystem, and the book only has words about arrows. I am going to try and understand the words of the teacher with this book I hope.”

I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from laughing. Ryn was having almost as much trouble with her own amusement when she responded, “That is a figure of speech, Cee. To kill two birds with one arrow, means to achieve two goals with one action. I think what Esra meant was that you could strengthen your reading ability and also learn about magic.”

Cee’s little bunny mouth opened in silent understanding, revealing her frankly terrifying teeth. God they were big.

“Oh! That makes big more sense!” she smiled. “Thank you Ryn! You are so wise.”

With that, she was off again out the door, probably to commit more bunny mischief.

“You are so wise, Ryn!” I teased, grinning teasingly at my friend and her reddening cheeks.

Shaking her head, Ryn sighed, “I hope she starts to realise I’m not the goddess she believes me to be. It’s exhausting and kinda… strange.”

Mer and I shared a look of barely contained laughter. That whole encounter had been too funny. Cee was such an earnest little bun, but she could be very literal sometimes. All the buns struggled with subtext and metaphor like that. It just made them even cuter, though.

“I guess I’ll go… uh, let the others know we need to start planning our trip,” Ryn mumbled, finally exiting the room.

Once the door was safely shut, Mer and I devolved into fits of giggling.

QuietValerie

Sorry for the wait on this chapter! Been stressing out over things like the big girlfriend move and paying rent (My problem roommate moved out, so now we're saddled with 50% more rent, wooo!) and so I've been playing the new pokemon and bingeing supernatural to try and distract myself. On a more positive note, how has everyone been finding the new pokemon? Bugs aside, I loved the story. It felt really genuine at parts. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter and have a good day/night!