Ryn of Avonside

On the day we were getting ready to continue our journey, the Jagdar came to see us off personally. We stood outside the palisade gate that spanned where a heavier stone gatehouse used to be, while the foothills extended down into the haze of a dew-filled morning.

“Here, I have something for you all,” the Jagdar said, dismounting from his horse. He pulled something from his saddlebags and handed it to Dr. Ross.

It was a book, and Dr. Ross took it carefully, turning it over with interest.

“It is a bureaucrat’s guide to diplomatic relations with the Anve. It has many sections written in both Ghraial and Anve, along with a helpful glossary of translated words and phrases. It should help you begin your journey of language, just as you begin a physical one,” the lord of Neub said, smiling broadly. The man had definitely taken a liking to us over the last couple of days.

“Oh, that is an excellent gift,” Dr. Ross said, smiling broadly. “I'll be sure to match it when we next meet.”

“I look forward to it… now, be off on your journey before you lose more of the day. Farewell.”

“Farewell.”

A river curled and twisted down from the mountains, passing Neub as it raced to join the great Adurapan river. The smaller one was very helpful — guiding us towards the larger one, where we'd be able to buy passage on a boat.

It'd been months since I saw the plains, and don't get me wrong, they were pretty… but I also killed my first humans last time I attempted to cross them. Even now, I shuddered at the knowledge that I'd taken lives… while also knowing that I could do it again if the need arose. I wasn't entirely sure if I liked that specific change in my character.

"Why do you have such a serious face on?” Grace asked me quietly as we trudged along. “What's going on?”

I gave her a quick smile and tried to put my morbid thoughts away. “Nothing, really.”

“Uh huh?” She didn't look convinced, but she didn't press me. Instead, she took my hand. “Well… guess what I found on the share-hub.”

The share-hub was one of Avonside’s most important institutions. A venerable inheritance that was passed from generation to generation like a prized family heirloom. The share-hub was an illegal peer-to-peer intranet application used by Avonside students to share movies, tv shows, games, and anything else that could exist digitally. It'd started as a solution to the fact that torrent websites had been banned by the university firewall. So, more technically minded students could break through, torrent the latest movies, then host them on the share-hub for all the other students to download and watch.

Since our unannounced move to the Ring, it had become more official and the IT department had stopped their efforts to destroy it. Now we had a large library of Earth culture that we could browse in our downtime.

“What did you find?” I asked Grace, looking sidelong into her gorgeous face.

“A whole bunch of board game rule books, scans of their boards, pictures of their pieces and cards, all that stuff. I was thinking we should recreate them somehow — play them in our downtime,” she said hopefully, eyeing me to get a read on my thoughts before I could say them.

“That sounds like an amazing idea,” I agreed, but my mind had already jumped far beyond personal use. “We could make a whole bunch of sets and hand them out. I'm sure people could do with some entertainment— oh. We could export the sets.”

Grace blurted out a laugh. “Seeing the obrec learn to play Elder Sign would be hilarious.”

“I love this idea,” I said. “Sucks that we never have enough time to do the silly fun things.”

“We'll get there,” she murmured, love in her eyes. Her hand shifted and caught mine.

I looked down at them — her calloused fingers on my soft, long ones, and I smiled as affection pulsed a little dose of warmth through my veins. Threading them together, we held hands as we walked, chatting and enjoying one another's company.

As the sun began to set, I noticed that it was dropping in a different place to where it did the last time we were on the plains. Actually, now that I was looking, it was noticeably further south than I remembered it.

“Hey, Eilian!” I said as we were slowing to find somewhere sheltered for our magemarks.

The obrec's perfect golden eyebrow arched. “Yes, gorgeous?”

I pointed towards the vibrant red sunset. “Why is the sun setting further south?”

She turned and glanced at it, thought for half a second, then chuckled. “We're halfway through a fading year. The Ring is turning, and so the light fades until it is only barely visible for many months.”

“A fading year…” I murmured. My brain was ramping up as I parsed the information. “So… a fading year is like autumn but it lasts for a whole year?”

“I don't know this word — autumn,” she shrugged. “Let me get a little more technical here. One year is a blooming year, the second is a fading one. At the junction from blooming to fading, the ring is at its warmest, and when the fading turns to blooming, it is coldest.”

I snapped my fingers as I grasped what she was saying. “So the Ring's seasonal cycle happens over a two year period. Each season will last for six months— holy shit. Winter for six months…”

The rest of us Avonsiders exchanged alarmed glances. That was a long time to not be growing food. Oh goodness, and because of how seasons happened on the Ring, it would mean arctic temperatures for a month or so as it rotated over the highest point.

“We'll have to warn them,” Jenna said, her face ashen.

Dr. Ross didn't look so shaken, and he said, “We suspected something like this. The faculty council has discussed what we might do in such a scenario. I suspect that some older buildings may need extra insulation, and our efforts to stockpile food will need to be increased further… but we will last.”

With his reassurances, we hopped back into my grove and split off for the night. Grace and I went to the girl's common room for a while to hang with our friends and have a quiet dinner. Kelsey, Cat, and Mer were in there, while Melody was missing. Eilian had retired to her own grove when we shifted to the Garden.@@novelbin@@

Grace and I relayed our seasonal discoveries to Cat, who pulled out a notebook and scribbled in it for a moment. She muttered something about talking to Dr. Rivas, the head of horticulture at Avonside, then nodded and indicated she'd take care of it.

Mer, who sat in a nearby seat — a respectful distance away from the small mage — mentioned that all the plants that were on the ring would survive. They had adapted — or been adapted — to life here on the Ring. We should worry about anything that we brought with us from Earth. Cat noted all of this down too.

To my delight, Cee also turned up, and promptly hopped over to flop on one of the sofas. She didn't say anything, not even a greeting — she just watched with soft interest while the rest of us chatted.

“We finished another set of apartments down in Vurburch today,” Kelsey said as she sipped some fruit juice.

It took me a second to recognise and place the name of the Order’s town in the lower caldera. When I did, I nodded happily. Troy was still rolling with my idea to give all the knights a little more space and freedom.

“We find a bun today,” Cee said suddenly, causing us all to focus on her.

“More buns in the grove…?” I asked, confused. It wasn't normally news when the grove spawned new tenders.

“This bun is a mundane bun,” she explained, her little button nose sniffling as she did so. “It is not a tender.”

“We released cottontails into the woods—” I began, but Cee hopped up and stood in front of me.

She was only barely taller than me while I was sitting, but her frustrated glare gave her a few extra inches. “Not cottontail. Is normal bun like tenders, but not tender. They call it… yes, they call it domestic bunny. She has lop ears, white fur with big black shapes on her bum and around her eyes. It is hard to talk to her because no mind talking, but she says her name is Cookies and that she is girl. We gave her treats and invited her to the hill-dens.”

Wait… so somehow we acquired a regular household bunny? How odd. It was nice to know the buns were already caring for her though. She might not be a tender, but she was welcome to live here. All good buns could live in my grove without worry.

“I'm glad you're treating this mysterious Cookies well,” I said finally. “How is your training with Esra going?”

Cee puffed up her little chest proudly. “She always talks like she wants to thump, but she is very smart and has much wisdom. I learn as hard as I can!”

I couldn't help it, I reached out and pulled my little bun onto my lap and into a hug. She squirmed and grumbled for a second, but eventually she succumbed to the cuddle and nestled herself in on my lap.

“I'm so proud of you, Cee,” I said. “You'll be an amazing mage in no time.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Plus, I make— have made, more bun mages.”

“She certainly has.” Esra's voice from the doorway caused Cee, Cat, and me to twitch in surprise.

The old mage strode into the room with a lot more vigour than she used to have. Her anti-aging spell was doing wonders — she looked like she was about forty now, but with her hair still silvery and her eyes still carrying the weight of her years.

“I'm teaching a whole gaggle of little bunny mages now,” she said, sounding both grumpy and pleased. “Which brings me to the point of my visit. Ryn, we will require facilities for this class of mages.”

“A magic school…” Whispered Catherine excitedly. She gave me a look. “Can I take point on the construction?”

I shrugged. “Sure, why not?”