Ryn of Avonside

From the Perspective of Catherine 

Mer was hiding from me, and it fucking sucked. Ever since she noticed the strange patterning match up between us, she was jittery and confused, and made excuses to run away whenever possible. They weren't very good excuses either — I could see right through them, like they were lab grown sapphires — the ones made to be extremely clear and tough for use in delicate instruments. Actually, that was a pretty good analogy, because no matter how transparent they were, I had no way of breaking through them.

Meanwhile, the scouting crew was spending a couple of days in the grove while Jenna healed up from her wound. Having Ryn around during the day to distract everyone meant that I was mercifully alone in the library usually. Except when she came in to uproot my perfectly comfortable route — she came whirling in like the recent storm, and using the energy from that same storm, extended the library up two whole floors. She just grabbed the tree and stretched it to make the room— actually, you'd probably just call it growth, now that I think about it. Still, it felt like she stretched it when she casually walked in that morning, waved hello, then lit up like a magical Christmas tree.

The library, new and expanded, now had multiple circular galleries that looked down to the base floor. Connecting each gallery were twisting branches with steps carved into them and handrails made of straightened, polished woody vines. Those stairs only appeared when Troy pointedly asked how a non-mage was supposed to get to the next floor up.

I was in the uppermost gallery when Eilian came in, so she didn't notice me. Curious, I peeked down over the railing and watched as she carefully ran a finger over the various bookshelves. After a minute of perusal, she found the book she was looking for and pulled it, then retreated to a reading nook.

Slumping into a sofa, she began to flick through it — a wee frown growing on her brow as she did so. Leaving my alien code work on the desk, I hopped over the railing and wove my hand in a gesture — casting a spell that slowed my fall.

Silently, I drifted down to the bottom floor. Oh crap, too quiet. Startling a proficient combat mage was probably bad for your health. I cleared my throat. “Eilian. Do you need help?”

She looked up, then brushed a lock of shining golden hair out of her eyes. It was honestly mesmerising — her mage colouration. Something about gold, true gold, it drew the eye like nothing else.

“Catherine,” she said with a faint smile. “Not at the moment. I'm just attempting to read up on more of this… physics stuff that you advanced humans know so much about.”

“Ah,” I nodded, and glancing at the cover of the book, I saw it was a copy of a fairly dense textbook about the fundamental forces. Dense in like, a physical way too — it was bound in leather, and written on heavy Post-Ring paper. As far as books went, it was a chonker. Thanks to some very industrious and curious buns, many such textbooks were finding their way onto the shelves of the library — hence the extension.

Rather than go back to reading when I gave my abrupt one syllable answer, the handsome obrec mage cocked her head at me. “Catherine… forgive me if this is rude, but are you alright? Your eyes seem… tight.”

Tight eyes? What did that mean?

“I'm okay…” I said, but then a ping somewhere in the halls of my memory pulled me up short. Carefully, I sat down on the sofa opposite her. “Actually… can you explain something to me? What's the significance of an obrec’s patterning, and what does it mean when it… matches someone?”

“Patterning…” Eilian murmured. The book dropped into her lap, instantly forgotten as she rubbed her hands up and down her bare firearms. “Yeah. Patterning… it's like… how do I explain…”

Her expression was distant, but she visibly ordered her thoughts and switched to the obrec language. “You're aware of the circumstances of my banishment from obrec lands, yeah?”

I nodded. Eilian's falling in love with the Cherrinbrook princess was pretty much common knowledge — actually, it was more than that, if I remembered correctly. Some sort of magical bond that linked the hearts of two obrec, or something.

“Well… every obrec has a unique pattern to their fur. They're all fairly similar of course, like the lines on your palm and the whorls on your finger, but with enough variation that everyone is unique. Unique unless a pair has bonded. When that happens, their patterning will change to find common ground between their two previous patterns, and they'll match from that point onward,” she said. Her voice grew softer as she spoke until finally, without any of her usual confidence, she murmured, “Out there, a woman named Shevaren bears identical patterning to my own.”

My gut dropped to the floor in slow motion as she spoke. A large part of Mer's behaviour suddenly made sense. She realised she was bonding to me when our arm patterns matched— but hold on, I wasn't an obrec?

“I’m… sorry,” I said absently as I processed the information. “Uh… is it possible for a human and an obrec to bond?”

Eilian's wistful, melancholic gaze sharped and began to bore into me. “Yes… and no. An obrec can bond with a human… the human cannot bond back. It's pretty rare anyway, because we're not the same species, and despite how socially compatible our two kinds are… well, we ain't the same. The magical phenomenon that altered the obrec didn't do the same to humanity.”@@novelbin@@

I was risking any plausible deniability I might have, but I had to ask, “What if the human is a mage?”

Eilian's stare was like the focused tip of a diamond drill. “Of the Nameless Garden? That's anyone's guess, I'm afraid. Magic can be very unpredictable.”

Aware that she was putting two and two together, I didn't bother trying to hide my concern and instead summoned my hafornsu. Looking down at my arm, where threads of bronze wove through dark green skin, I considered the pattern there. It hadn't changed since I came out of the fruit… but if I remembered right, Mer's arm pattern was looking similar these days.

Oh, Mer… why didn't you explain? Why did you just run and hide? That didn't make any sense.

“Is it possible to stop bonding when it's happening?” I asked, looking back up to Eilian.

She very obviously saw the concern in my eyes, because she sighed and took my hand. Her strong, calloused fingers traced the pattern on my forearm. “Yes… but by the time it's showing up in our fur, it's too late.”

Her touch tickled, and I giggled slightly, pulling away. She relented but held on to my fingers, and when I didn't look up from my arm, she ducked slightly so she could look into my eyes. “Beautiful Catherine, is this about Mer?”

I flushed at the compliment and because… well, someone had openly mentioned Mer and me in the same sentence. Placing us together like that felt like it had the same power as a film framing two people close together in a shot. It wasn't some sort of binding contract, but you could tell what was being implied.

“Yes,” I agreed very quietly. “I noticed she was a little shorter, and then when I pulled my hafornsu out, she realised that her pattern was changing to match mine.”

Eilian let go of my hand and winced. “That's unfortunate. I'll have to reach out to her.”

“No!” I blurted, suddenly very alarmed. “Don't tell her that I know… she hasn't told me, and I don't want her to—”

“I mean no offense, but I don't particularly care,” the other mage said apologetically. “I know what it's like to live without your bondmate at your side. I'm not going to let Mer go through what I did without help.”

“But I'm here,” I said insistently. “She's not without me…”

“Will you commit the rest of your life to being with her?” she asked, raising an eyebrow that felt almost… condescending. “Then, say you did — say you pledge to an undying relationship with her. Even if you did, in the back of her mind she'll always know that her love is augmented by the magical curse of our species, while yours is not.”

Fear and doubt constricted around my thoughts, and I was forced to concede that yeah, I wasn't ready to commit to anything. My head was just too… messy.

“What do I do, then?” I asked softly, heart aching for my friend. Mer was probably hurting so badly right now…

Eilian shrugged and stood up. “Nothing, for now. I'll see if she's in the grove somewhere — talk to her. Then, if she wants to see you, she'll seek you out.”

“Oh,” I muttered, watching as she smiled, placed a hand on my shoulder, then left.

My thoughts whirled while I sat there for several minutes, until with a frown I stood and returned to my work in the gallery above.

I didn't want Mer to go through this alone, or if she didn't choose it. Was there a way to reverse the process? It was magic, right? Surely…

It took me a while to regain control of my thoughts and return to actually deciphering this code. Unfortunately for me, making sense of ancient alien code was as confusing as my feelings for Mer.

Most of the ‘work’ I was doing here was just noting different clumps of binary with the initial impressions my magic brain offered up. Apparently, the observations were helping the xenology folks though, because they got very excited whenever I emailed them a new set of notes.

When I asked how any of my guesswork was helping, one of the scientists likened it to a sudoku. I was providing them with vaguely accurate indications of what each tile might be, and using that data they were able to extrapolate further. Every time I sent them a new set of data, it narrowed things down just a little more.

Thankfully, it was also work that distracted me from my current problems. A little.