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Winter 2, 124
Kage wasn't particularly fond of surgeries, and yet he often found them necessary to explore the extent of what the mortal body was capable of. Sometimes that required transplanting pieces of other races into himself. He had gone through great lengths to obtain the organs that he had before him, and with the help of the new surgeon he'd hired, he believed that he would become even stronger than he'd ever been before.
The surgery was not something that he cared to watch. It involved making incinsions in his palms to grant him the ability to emit energy from them more efficiently and produce whatever kind of energy he ended up being proficient with. He would have to incite the powers of the transplants to figure out exactly what powers he'd have.
The surgery took less than a day and cost him a healthy chunk of change, but he wasn't too worried about the cost. He had a lot more money nowadays than he knew what to do with, which most would consider a good thing.
When he woke up in the morning he noticed that his wrists were really the parts that had taken the brunt of the surgery. He could see little holes in them now that he imagined would allow him to use his newfound powers.
"Inciting… gods how long has it been since I've done that?" He tried to think then shook his head – he didn't want to waste all day going through his memories. He instead focused on the implants in his wrists and surged his magical energy inside of them. He felt something, almost like a spark. It didn't feel… normal which made sense. He would have to get used to using this new power of his.
The spark produced nothing, so he tried again. He had a wealth of power within him, but he was careful not to exert too much energy at once. The doctor had warned him not to.
In his dimly lit room, Kage could just barely hear the chirping of birds out in the distance. He sat cross legged. His wrists didn't necessarily hurt but there was a dull throb from the procedure. He shut his eyes and drew his magical energy into the implants. It felt strange like trying to direct water using only his mind.
Kage took a long breath, trying to get a focus. A second time he tried, imagining the energy as a thread of light reaching in through his veins and pooling at his wrists. A faint warmth spread through his forearms, the implants reacting to whatever it was. At the edges of the holes, a very faint but unmistakable flicker of light danced.
The light just faded the way it came, but it was progress. Over and over he repeated the process, each time it slightly improved. It lightened, and lightened and lightened again until the room was drenched in gold. Experimentally Kage flexed his fingers and watched the light shift and shimmer with them. The room felt... alive, something that responded to his will, maybe better than he'd expected. It was something that felt a little unsettling and exhilarating at the same time.
Kage experimented until his abilities would push no further. He found that the light was not only to look nice — it had a tangible force. He thrust his wrist forward, brightening his light in the direction of a nearby wall. Doing movements like this tended to make the light stronger. This time, he actually saw a scorching effect on the wall.
Kage widened his eyes from surprise. "I knew something was up, now we're getting somewhere."
The next hour was spent on targeting and focusing the light's intensity. He sometimes tried short bursts, then he moved onto long beams, and then scattered flashes, each needing a different level of concentration and energy. The implants were efficient, channeling his power with little expenditure of energy but with so much repeated use he could feel the cost to his reserves. He would have to be careful not to over exert himself in a real fight.
Kage decided to test the implants' limits after meditating and drawing some energy from his surroundings. He tried to create more light from his palms but his energy reserves plummeted and the light went out, sputtering, leaving him gasping for breath. He fell back and crumbled into a chair beside him.
He wiped sweat from a damp brow. "Too much." If he wished to wield this power effectively, it would need to be something he could build endurance with.
The next day, Kage awakened with good intentions. He was aching less in his wrists, the implants no longer feeling an extension of someone else, but instead like an extension of his own self. He spent the day polishing his abilities and he discovered that he could bend the light to make shapes, to make patterns, even to form basic shield formations to deflect attacks.
At midday, Kage decided to see how well they might work offensively. He set up a series of targets in the area around his house, each one designed to mimic a specific challenge. His accuracy was tested on a moving treant, his blast strength was measured with a reinforced shield, and his precision was measured with a cluster of smaller targets.
The dummy proved an easy moving target. Short bursts of light strafed every direction with pinpoint accuracy. The reinforced shield, was hard. His blasts held more energy now, the light was more focused, hotter. After several tries the shield finally broke and made a satisfying cracking sound.
The real test was the cluster of smaller targets. Kage had to be focused on multiple beams at the same time. But it tired him out to the point that he nailed each target impeccably. Before the end of the exercise he was covered in sweat.
He rang a bell and Fluffy came in from another room. "You summoned me, Master?"
He gestured for her to come closer. "Yes, Fluffy. Sit here." He pointed at a stool beside his chair. Without hesitation Fluffy obeyed, landing gracefully upon the stool.
He raised his wrists to show the faint glow of the implants on his skin and said, "I've made progress today. These things they are working with are unlike anything I've worked with before. They need more control than I expected."
She tilted her head a little and furrowed her brow a little. She held out a hand and traced her fingers along his wrists. "It looks like the surgeon did a good job."
His expression becoming hard, Kage yanked his arm back sharply. "I didn't ask for your opinion. You're here to listen and do as you're told."
Her hand immediately withdrew as Fluffy bowed her head submissively. "Of course, Master. Forgive me."
He dismissed her apology with a wave. "Enough of that. I'm dropping you a list of things I need you to handle. Clean the equipment in house first. It's a mess after today's experiments and I just can't have it looking like that. Secondly, write a report on all the materials we have in storage. I need to know what things we are running low on."
She nodded at him with her usual attentive posture. "Yes, Master."
"I'd also like the guest quarters cleaned up and ready. I could possibly have visitors soon, and I don't want them to see this place in a mess. And finally…" He pointed at a small table beside him with a bottle of oil on it. "Give me a massage."
Without a word, Fluffy stood up, and snatched up the bottle of oil. Behind him she moved her hands togther to warm the oil in her hands.
Kage leaned a touch forward, elbows resting on his knees. Her fingers pressed into his tense muscles at his shoulders, and he started to let out deep breaths. Her touch worked in slow, deliberate circles easing the stiffness as warmth spread.
Kage's instructed, "harder," at her.
Her hands kneaded deeply, adjusted the pressure. She began methodically at the bottom of his neck, making her way out to his shoulders. Her fingers find in the knots of tension that they had built up through the day and pressed them over and over again until they started loosening.
Kage give a grunt of approval, but his face was still focused. "Better," he said. "Don't stop until I say so."
Obeying her, her hands travelled to the middle of his back. Several minutes passed and Fluffy was working her way down to his lower back, fingers pressed into the muscles either side of his spine. Fluffy moved to his arms once she finished his back and then she moved to the wrists… Toward the implants area. That was where she concentrated her attention the most. At the end she knelt beside him, and laid one of his hands in hers.
"It will do for now," he said."And don't forget the rest of the tasks I gave you. Do them and make sure they're done properly."
"Yes, Master." She bowed again, then left the room.
Fluffy did her chores, not all of them she could finish in one day. The bulk of the work was going to need to be completed the next day.
Fluffy had a pretty rough morning, but she was happy that she had found something productive to do in the meantime. She ended up going to talking with one of Kage's assistants and quickly ended up in the forest looking around for some materials. She didn't quite remember what she was after until she looked at her instructions. "Oh yeah, potion ingredients, that's right."
Fluffy rubbed her hands through her hair and kept looking around. "Flowers are probably what I should look for first. Herbs would work too, I guess. Yeah, there it is. A flower." She plucked it from the ground and put it in her pack. She wasn't great at fieldcraft, but Kage knew this and didn't send her after any rare stuff.
Fluffy looked into the sky and almost tripped over a rock as she walked around more or less aimlessly. She almost forgot to look back, and she then noticed that she had actually tripped over a small chunk of wood that would probably be useful.
"Huh, I need to get my head out of the clouds," she said while shaking her head. She picked it up and looked around, but no immediate other ingredients were visible to her. She yawned and wondered how much longer she would be out here. She didn't think she had it in her to spend all day out here. That being said, she had all day at her disposal.
Fluffy encountered yet another useful-looking material not too long later. There was a vine growing alongside a tree that matched what she was looking for, so she cut it down and pocketed it. She liked the way it felt in her hands in the brief time that she did hold it. She smiled and noticed how she was almost done with her short little task.
Fluffy made a lap around a couple of the trees in a wide area and was unable to find anything worth using. She wished that she could jump atop the trees and maybe get something up there. If only she wasn't so lazy, she might actually try! She passed by what looked like a play area for children and wondered if she was even anywhere close to where she needed to be.
"Have I gotten lost?" she asked herself while checking her map a few times. She'd wandered a little off course, but she found the path that she needed to take to get back to the right spot. She felt like she was walking through a lucid dream as she went back to the foresty area, like she was moving through old memories of her past. She'd lived here for oh so long.
Fluffy's eyes glazed over when she was busy walking along and didn't notice any other ingredients for the time being. She was far too focused on her thoughts anyway. She snapped out of her memories and found that she had been walking up against the side of a tree. "Oof, just one of those days, I guess," she thought. "Well, I might as well make another lap around. I'm sure I missed something or another on my last lap. Or maybe I can go find another area to look in. I'm not too picky."
"Woah!" Fluffy shouted when she turned a corner and spotted a flower blossoming in the middle of a bunch of weeds. "What luck!" she said while scooping it up. That meant she only needed one left. Now that she thought about it, she missed wandering around the forest from time to time. It was a fairly enjoyable hobby of hers that she picked up in her childhood.
Her mind filled with nostalgia, and familiar words repeated again and again in her head. These mornings she needed a friend to chat with, but there wasn't much else she could do about that now. "Okay, no more negative thoughts. I have a job to do, and do it I shall."
Friends were fickle things. She never really fit in anywhere. She was an inari with a gorgeous human figure, but she had a tail and was obviously not human. Most of her friends were just faelnir employed by other aelves. Those tended to die before she could really get to know them. It was pretty common to meet people and then never see them again because aelheim was so large. For all she knew, they'd passed on to the afterlife.
Not two seconds after Fluffy found the last herb, she spotted a chunk of mushrooms on the ground that looked like they might be useful as well. "Yes! that means I'm good to go!" she shouted while fist-pumping the air.
Having little else to do except kill time, Fluffy decided to go off to a restaurant and get a drink. She knew Kage wouldn't want to see her back at his house for a while longer – he never did when he sent her off on these sorts of tasks. There weren't many drinks that were standard that she enjoyed that even existed in this part of the forest, but she made do with some run-of-the-mill juice, which satiated her stomach to some degree. She sat next to someone who had some kind of cloak on, who was keeping to herself and not talking at all.
"So, you come here often?" she asked.
"Nope. Leave me alone. Can't you see that I don't want to talk?" the stranger asked. She let out a low growl and looked over Fluffy with an evil look in her eye.
"Geeze," Fluffy said while leaning back in her chair. "So, any reason you're so grumpy, or do you just spend your whole life not talking to people?" Fluffy wanted to throw something at the woman to get her attention because she just ignored Fluffy for a while.
"I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you," Fluffy said as she scooched even closer to the woman.
"Will you piss off?" the stranger said angrily. It was a faelnir which was the only reason why Fluffy bothered with her antics.
Fluffy got out of her seat and stretched a bit. She was tired of annoying people and wanted to find something else to do. She heard some people discussing crafting and she rolled her eyes from a distance. She didn't understand people that wanted to make clothing or armor in general. It was pretty boring stuff. Why not just get whatever you needed from the marketplace? It wasn't like money was all that hard to come by.
Fluffy thought about what was really necessary for someone to go and make their own clothing with their own patterns, like Abraia did. She was sure the knowledge to do so was already out there for the masses to pick up on, but she did not know where exactly to look. Would she have to go look up some books? Or maybe ask around? She guessed she was thinking a little too hard on the subject.
"Oh gods, what did I do to get cursed with this bore of a day?" Fluffy asked while walking out the door. That was it, she was done with this restaurant. If she heard another word about fashion, she was going to throw up. She wanted to go out and practice some sort of combat if only she would be so lucky as to encounter something worth fighting that she could actually handle.
Fluffy decided against it and headed on back to Kage's home so she could get ready for her next set of chores. Along the way, she heard some old faelnir talking about medicine. It was an interesting conversation, though Fluffy did not understand a lick of the jargon. She knew how to wrap a wound, but that was about it—not that she ever needed to do that anymore. So many skills she'd built up over the years just never ended up being useful to her. She did not like the idea of doctoring anyways, since she felt like it was playing god. If it was your time to go, it was your time, in her opinion. The aelves would save you if you deserved it.
Fluffy yawned as she moseyed on into her room and tried to plan out her day for tomorrow. "So I'll go seek out that fisherman, maybe try fishing. Can't be too hard, right? Plenty of people have learned how to fish over the years, so I shouldn't have anything to worry about. I just don't want to have to touch those wiggly worms. I hope I don't have to do anything like that." She yawned again and soon she was off to sleep.