We fly fast through the sky following the slight embers of magic I could sense hours ago. It feels like Ruby isn't on the other side anymore but I won't stop until the trail is stone cold dead. The Red Mage and I haven't spoken since we started flying, our concentration purely on travel—or at least mine is, she seems to be keeping herself preoccupied with tinkering on Bloob.
At last I finally catch the trail head and deactive [Fly] letting myself fall naturally before reactivating it at the last moment, catching myself just before the thick forest trees. I see MM has a particular taste in where she hides out.
We had passed several different biomes on our way here, but it was mostly meadows, farmland, or forest. The vastness covered with green and healthy lands.
I gently land at the tree where I begin to look around, trying to see if I can spot anyone but I'm alone, save for Ruby the Red Mage. That's when she points out something to me. Something burned into shallowly into the bark of the tree. It says, "only my one and only can complete this circuit."
My face flushes at the implication. Is this her asking me out?
I stick my finger out and touch where the first letter starts, slowly dragging them over each and every curve, tracing exactly where her finger must have been, only hours ago. I lightly expel my magic into each letter and they soon begin to glow. They jump off the tree and as they do, remove all sign and trace of their previous existence, completely healing the tree. Dancing in the air the letters pull themselves apart, reassembling each line and curve into the shape of a rune magic. It blasts itself into my head before whisking away into the ether, long lost down the mighty river of magic this world is constantly churning.
But the message is loud and clear in my head. I start to run in the direction I'm somehow now perfectly sure of.
Ruby the Red Mage floats beside me through the air, her back turned to the direction we are heading a smug grin on her face.
We come face to face with a massive moose. It's standing at an unbelievable 8 feet tall, puffing thick breaths from it's wide nostrils. I turn to Ruby the Red Mage and point at it, my eyes wide with disbelief, "Th-That thing is our destination. What the hells does that mean?"
Then I quickly put a finger up silencing her. No, if this puzzle was left for me, I'm gonna fucking figure it out. Because that's badass and that's what I set out to be.
I cautiously approach the large creature, it stops eating and raising it's head staring directly at me. Not good at all, this thing is pissed at me. Which fair enough, who am I to come up and start fucking with it. What was I planning on doing? Petting it, maybe singing it a song and it would sit down and explain what the fuck I'm supposed to do to me?
Yeah I mean pretty much.
Is that so wrong??? I fucking transitioned, can't I have a magical moment with nature. Can't I go a damned day without some reminder that the creatures of this planet don't give a fuck if I'm a woman or a man. Huh, that's kind of affirming in a weird way.
Argh, back to the situation at hand. This moose is now super wary of me. I've tried taking a few steps backward but it's just smacking it's lips at me like I'm some kind of asshole. You know what, fuck this. I charge at the moose and it lowers it's head stampeding forward and slamming it's horns into me, flipping me high in the air. I spiral pathetically through the sky before descending upon the moose with a vengence.
I grasp onto the moose's short tail with both hands and it begins to run wildly through the woods, smashing me into trees and branches as it desperately tries to loose it's new friend. I pull my right hand up grabbing a handful of moose butt hair before doing the same with my left, eventually crawling up to where my hand's clasp evenly onto the scruff on it's neck.
This certainly does not calm the moose down as it being to wildly buck, jumping fiercely through the air, taking several opportunities to slam me into trees.
Hahaha, this fucker has an attitude. Well I have thoroughly not thought this through. I have no fucking clue what I'm doing up here. But I know in my heart this moose is the key to finding Ruby. The other old lady, Ruby the Red Mage, is floating next to me. An eyebrow annoyingly raised.
"Look, I fucking know I'm being dumb, but it's all I know how to do. And to be fair this asshole started it. I just wanted to pet his nose and ask him where MM was. He's the one who made it into a wrestling match."
She looks at me like I'm a complete moron, "He's a fucking moose. He's territorial. This is absolutely your doing."
"AAA I don't want to fucking hear it."
I want off this ride. I cast a [Sleep] spell on the moose and it limply falls, sliding off the grass into a tree where it stops.
I slowly get up, my joints aching from the ride and dust myself off. Like a fucking pro.
I turn to Ruby the Red Mage, "What now?"
She mocks, "I thought you wanted to do this on your own."
"Can I have a hint?"
"No. You made this a mess, clean it up."
This is extremely unjust. But now that the moose is calmly sleeping I can take my time and care with the inspection. I go up to the moose, placing a hand on it. I can feel the lingering of Ruby's magic, brushing up against his fur. It trails up the moose's body before going into his left ear. I lift the ear up and finally feel the presence of the rest; MM, Sir Kahlin, even the farm girls, whose flower names I honestly cannot recall.
I turn to Ruby the Red Mage and she just gives me an unhelpful shrug. I squint my eyes in careful thought. I did see her use a [Shrink] spell earlier on Bloob and it comes to the forefront of my mind. There's only a few minutes left on my [Sleep] spell and I don't really want to just keep casting it. Oh well.
I [Shrink] myself down and [Fly] into the moose's left ear, immediately finding myself transported to another world. It's a small clearly fake world, the edge's of it, obscured in a strange darkness. But there's clearly about 40 acres of land with scattered small homes across it.
I SEE HER. I fly directly towards Ruby before I'm rocked with an absolute piss missile of a spell drilling a hole through my right thigh. I can see MM glaring at me with a hateful scowl. I'm coughing blood up as I fall into the gro-. No this is a gentle embrace. Ruby caught me! I look up at her, "I'm an angel from heaven. I was sent here for you."
She laughs and smiles deeply at me, "You're such a loser, I love it. You're gonna have to deal with MM before I can really sweep you off your feet." She helps me up and I wince before throwing a [Heal] at my leg, closing up the wound.
MM has stomped up to me and is now crossing her arms angrily.
I snap, "What the hells was that for?? Some type of greeting you bitch cake."
Her forehead wrinkles with age but mostly disgust, "You dipshit, you'll have led anyone who can follow a magical trail worth a damn here. We're gonna have to re-hide and you don't wanna know how fucking hard it was to get Ruby to cast this spell. It took FOREVER."
"Sounds like her teacher sucks smelly eggs."
I feel MM spark with energy before I interject, "I thought you were still recovering, how are you doing all this?"
"I am still recovering jerk off. I need another week to get my river fully back. I got plenty to take someone like you apart."
I equal the magical pressure she's putting off, "I wouldn't be so sure about that anymore there, teach."
Her eyes go wide with shock, "How??"
As if answering her question the miniature Ruby the Red Mage descends from the sky coming to rest, sitting upon my shoulder, "Hey, you called her teach! What's that about?"
"It was like ironic or something, I dunno."
"That's not what ironic means, you meant sarcastic."
"Yeah whatever."
MM loudly exasperates, "Who the hells is this??" She leans her head back gripping the bridge of her nose with her fingers.
Ruby the Red Mage crosses her arms and pouts, "I'll have you know that I took the liberty of erasing our trail, both magically and physically."
Ah that explains the gap in her entering. I definitely didn't make her job easy with the whole impromptu moose wrestling. A feeling of guilt and shame wash over me, but I quickly overcome it through the power of being a youth. Who can blame me for the mistakes I make? Only the Devil himself and that's only until I beat the shit outta that bastard.
Ruby the Red Mage continues, her arrogance and smugness increasing with each and every word, "Your former student was kind enough to be the first wizard in history to complete my rune. So I took her under my wing as the first official disciple"—woah, dunno if I agreed to that specific terminology, but if it's to stick it to MM I'll let it slide this time—"of Ruby the Red Mage." She turns coyly to the side a sparkle of red lights glittering down from her hair.
Everyone is stunned silent. Ruby is looking back and forth frantically between me and Ruby the Red Mage. A sheepish grin flashes across my face at her.
MM sputters, "I-That can't be. Jessica please tell me this isn't true."
I delightfully break the reality in for her, "Oh, it's most certainly true."
Horror fills her eyes.
Ruby the Red Mage tilts her head to the side, a scowl appearing, "Moonlit Maiden. We have got some things to talk about. I was only upset with the lack of proper training you gave this girl. Practically sending her to her death against The Wizard of Ames. But now you don't trust the words from my mouth. Sister I'm going to break you in two. But just know, that everything I do. I do to help."
Ruby the Red Mage hops off my shoulder and floats over past MM where she grabs the back of MM's head, tightly holding her hair in a clenched fist. She drags MM, kicking and screaming off into on of the houses. The screams ominously cut off entirely the moment the door shuts.
Ruby turns to me, "Probably some type of [Silence] spell, to allow MM to keep whatever little dignity she still possesses."
I shrug, "Fair enough. Though I would say it's more likely that she just doesn't want us to know what type of torture MM is being put through."
We both laugh and finally share a warm embrace.
"I want to ask you about the note you left."
"Sorry, I'm not taking questions about that."
Hmph. So she's playing hard ball. Wants me to be the one to come out and say something. Fine. Works with me. I've never had an issue running this motor mouth.
I look Ruby deep in her gorgeous eyes, "It can wait till we're truly alone."
Ruby is shocked and twirls around—so cute—to see Sir Kahlin walking up to us. He's meet with a nasty death glare from her, which nearly makes him stop in his tracks.
Sir Kahlin continues to approach—his shame tolerance knowing no bounds, scratch that, he's rubbing the back of his head, so it knows some small undeniably inhuman bounds.
"Congratulation Jessica. You managed to lead Prince Rythel to victory?"
"That I did, beat up all Prince Leon's old farts. Felt almost a little cruel doing so, until I remembered they either want me to give up my awesome magic or to go back to being a boy." I fake gag.
Ruby chimes in, "You were never a boy, Jessica. You were just told you were. Society's stupid conventions may have accepted trans people but that type of thinking is transphobic at it's core! People don't know someone's gender until that person does."
My ears turn red as I gracefully accept the scolding. Honestly, it's making me swoon a little.
I can see Sir Kahlin is trying desperately not to say anything wrong, which he's determined the best foot forward is to just not say anything at all. While I do want to help him, seeing my mentor squirm is just so fun. Eventually he says, "I agree. I think... people should be allowed to come into themselves. Telling someone what their plot in life is, or who they should be. It robs the world of the true spirit that lies within each child."
"Good work champ", I jab at him. Sir Kahlin immediately starts to pout, which draws a laugh out Ruby and I.
Sir Kahin then says goodbye and begins heading back to his little stone house.
Ruby asks me if I want a tour and I happily accept trying to work up the courage to tell her how I feel. She leads me around the acreage, it's so unnerving going out to the edges of it where there's nothing but black void only a few feet from you. Luckily there's a shoddy wooden fence that separates the land from the void, it helps my mind wrap around it.
We go over and visit a small stables, there's only 1 slot inside. I've never seen something like it before, the royal stables, the one at MM's real house, even stable at my birth town had several sections to it housing 4-5 horses. There she is, her pretty white wings tucked into her body. Artemis pulls them out flapping a strung gust of wind at us and neighing happily upon seeing me.
I walk up to her and give her a nice gentle rub on her nose, she proceeds to give me a hell of a tongue bath leaving my face soaked.
"I'll come back and give you something real nice for supper ok, Artemis."
She seems contented by this.
Ruby and I now walk to where her humble stone house is, walking inside to see it's just one large room containing the kitchen, bedroom, and even the bathroom and dining area.
She turns to me smiling with both her arms outstretched, "This is the place!"
The bed looks big enough for two. That gives me just enough to courage to put it all on the line.