Chapter 299: The White Dove once again

My day was as typical as my days ever were. Swung by my home right after the Ranger meeting. Said hi to Auri, who was Very Upset that I’d been gone ALL NIGHT! She’d been lonely, and worried, and…

I promised I wouldn’t vanish like that again. That wasn’t enough, so I also gave her a day off from her lessons, after she demonstrated that she’d been learning new things. Like reading! And writing! Plato and Auri had worked out a clever system of carefully burning wood for Auri to write out questions and answers for Plato. Ran through wood like nothing else, but the all-consuming power of MONEY fixed that.

I was starting to see why Autumn loved it so much. Scarfed down a quick breakfast, and with gigantic raccoon eyes, tackled the rest of the day.

Visiting the [Quartermaster] was first on my list. Most of the Moonstones I’d charged up had been used in one mission or another, and their stock was running low.

I wish it was as simple as imbuing the gemstones with a simple “heal”. I could do that, but the issue was size. Gemstones could only hold so much mana. By having a terribly inefficient image, the size of the resulting heal would be small. Instead, for each gem, I needed to sit down and focus, constructing an image that struck a balance between “will heal the injuries it needs to heal with the mana provided” and “I can’t spend three days on every gem.”

[Persistent Casting] didn’t work when charging gemstones. That sort of cheat was reserved for Gemstone Classers.

Oversaw SERE training personally. Helped a few of the Ranger Trainees learn to fly - and fixed a sprained ankle when someone landed poorly.

Swung by the market, and gave Autumn the full rundown of everything that happened. She’d been my advisor after all, giving me the tips and the tricks.

She laughed herself sick when she heard how it ended.

“Ahhahahahahahahahhahaaaaaaaaa oh my gods Elaine, you’re joking, right? You didn’t fall for the oldest trick in the book?”

“What!” I protested, indigent.

“Oh goddesses YOU DID. You fell for the classic ‘nah, I don’t like this so I’m going to pretend to walk away’ trick! AHHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHhahahahahahahahaha”

Autumn wasn’t exactly the picture of dignity, rolling on the market floor as she clutched her sides. I heard some polite snickering from behind me, and turned to see Neptune holding a hand over his face, shoulder shaking in silent laughter.

I threw up my hands.

“So I’m bad at this! So what! I got what I wanted!”

Neptune let out a few more chuckles, before he got himself under control.

“Sentinel Dawn. You are welcome to shop here any time you’d like.”

I threw him the finger.

Autumn got up, still wheezing.

“Ok, ok… I got this hang… NOPE I DON’T!” She burst out into laughter again. Fortunately a bit more restrained.

Autumn finally collected herself.

“Ok, for real. Elaine. That was super cool. Thank you.” She gave me a great big ‘crushing’ hug.

“I can get my own bank account. I can run my own merchant company. I can make my own deals. Spend my money.”

Neptune coughed.

Autumn broke the hug and rolled her eyes.

“Dad! You know what I mean!”

“What do you mean?” He asked, amused.

She sighed, and recited.

“I can open my own trading company, assuming I start off with a generous loan. Trying to start from nothing is a fool’s game.”

Neptune nodded.

“Good. You’ll still have issues with people refusing to deal with you or respect you though.”

Autumn rolled her eyes.

“Sure, and that’ll tell me they’re bad merchants. My money will be just as good as anyone else’s!”

I smiled at the whole exchange, feeling just a small sense of worry.

I’d unleashed a fearsome predator on the world. No purse would ever be safe with Autumn around!

I spent time teaching Autumn medicine, giving her personalized tips and tricks as the slow trickle of people coming to see us increased to a steady stream.

Word was getting around that I was back, and giving free healing - no matter the ailment. This gave me some heartache as I couldn’t fix everything, notably genetic diseases.

It was good experience for Autumn though, letting her tackle the problem before I made sure it was properly fixed.

She was [Dawn’s Disciple] after all.

A few people early on complimented Auri, who always put on a small show. A rumor quickly spread that complimenting the bird was the payment we wanted, which had Autumn grouchy and Auri delighted.

In a blink of an eye, the day had zipped by, and Auri and I went down to Artemis’s school to teach a lesson.

I noted that Misha was in the audience, along with a pair of other unnaturally pale people sitting next to him. Probably vampires, given the sheer amount of sun that everyone in Remus had. I idly wondered if this was one of the first places where mortals and Immortals learned together, but dismissed the idea. Surely the elves had something similar…

Either way, more rich patrons of the school were good for Artemis and Maximus. I tried to stop by and visit Artemis after the lecture, but she was buried under dozens of scrolls, catching up on things that only she could do.

“Elaine, I’m eternally grateful, but help or shoo.” Artemis flatly told me.

“Brrrpt!” Auri protested. Artemis put down her charcoal stick and stared at Auri.

“You threaten me one more time, and we’ll discover how well Lightning works on scruffy birds.” She threatened Auri.

“Brrpt…brrrpt” Auri hunkered down on my shoulder, protesting that the MEAN LADY WAS BEING MEAN! Elaine, get justice for me!

“If you’re mean to other people, they might be mean back.” I wasn’t exactly on Auri’s side here. Better to get slightly burned here, and learn, than to raise a total brat.

“Brrrpt…” Auri half-cried. I turned to leave, and Auri singed the door on the way out.

I ducked a pebble that Artemis shot at me - not nearly fast enough to be lethal, just enough to sting.

“OUT!”

I did have business elsewhere. Auri and I left, and I had to admit to myself I’d been stalling somewhat.

“Auri, want to come with me for this next part, or go home?”

“Brrrpt!” She scolded me. She wasn’t letting me ditch her again.

“Alright, but no burning anything here.”

“Brrpt. Brrrpt?”

“Ok, fine, if they’re Bad Guys you’re allowed to burn them.”

“Brrrpt!!”

I prayed to Ildia, Goddess of Fire, that Auri wouldn’t interpret politicians as Bad Guys automatically, no matter how accurate the statement.

Or maybe I should be praying to the god - or goddess - of Deception. That divine entity was a real pain in the ass. Seemed to revel in constantly tricking people as to what their name, gender, symbols of worship, desired offerings, and more were.

I thought it wasn’t funny - just frustratingly annoying.

I flew over to the Senate, going slowly enough that Auri could keep up.

I landed and tried to enter.

I got ambushed by my dad!

“Elaine!” He called out to me, staying ram-rod straight at the entrance to the Senate.

“Dad!” I’d recognize him anywhere, even under all that gear.

“Super proud of what you did kiddo.”

I gave him my best bear hug.

“Thanks dad.”

“No really. One of the youngest Sentinels. The best healer in Remus. Yet, you’re still a great daughter, you make your mom happy, and you’re not content to just sit back and enjoy it. You’re making the whole country better for everyone.”

I wasn’t crying.

Nope.

I hugged him a bit more, a bit tighter.

“Love you too.” I whispered to him - hopefully quiet enough that his fellow guard wouldn’t give him grief or tease him about it later.

I entered the Senate and was quickly before Emperor Augustus and his advisors, along with the usual mishmash of Senators, runners, hanger-ons, and the like. Even at this late hour, it was busy. I saluted upon entering.

Didn’t hurt to be polite.

“Brrrpt! BrrrrRRrrrrRRrrrpt!” Auri thought the digs were nice, and wondered when I could get a home this nice.

I resisted the urge to facepalm.

“Auri, this is the Senate. Not a home.”

“Brrrpt.” Auri remained unimpressed, and thought I should spring for something like this.

“Sentinel Dawn! Welcome, welcome. This is the famous phoenix, Auri?” Augustus asked, smiling and beckoning me over.

I approached, as Auri flitted over.

“Yes! Isn’t she just the cutest?” I cooed over Auri a bit.

“Brrpt! Brrrrrpt!”

“A magnificent creature, burning with the light of a thousand stars.” Augustus praised.

“Brrrpt!” Auri was naturally in love.

“Onto business!” Augustus clapped his hands. “I’m sure you have a thousand things to do Dawn, and I apologize for stealing some of your time.” He weakly chuckled at his own joke. “If we can clear the room?” He ‘suggested’, and his order was promptly followed by nearly everyone.

“Oh, and grab the offerings!” He shouted after one of the servants leaving. Said servant turned around and bowed, before carrying on.

Only his advisors and a few people I didn’t recognize stuck around.

“Leandros here will be the first.” Augustus announced, and the [Lawyer] from the other day approached.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. Like, yeah, I had complete confidence in my healing abilities. I knew I was good. I knew I could do what I said.

But ‘what if’ kept cycling through my head. What if my skill was still on cooldown? What if White Dove’s curse was so vicious that the Emperor backed off from the deal? What if my skill decided to only rewind a few years - after all, at level 2 with “improved accuracy” being one of the things improved by leveling up, it wasn’t exactly a tight and narrow target.

I decided to take it slowly, partly to cover my nerves, and partly so I could check that Leandros knew what he was getting into.

“Right. You’re aware that my skill is going to make you younger, yeah?” I asked him.

“That’s the hope!” He grinned.

“You’re aware that you’re going to get cursed by White Dove as a result, and I can do absolutely nothing about it.”

Like they’d been waiting for me to ask, a few servants opened the doors, carefully wheeling in a few tables loaded with a stunning array of foods. Fried meats were next to steaming, fresh-out-of-the-oven bread, seeds were next to fruits, amphorae of wine were arranged next to bowls of clear water.

I did a double-take at the fruits.

“Are those apples?!” I asked, distracted.

“Apples.” Augustus said, like he was tasting the word. “We’d been calling them something else, but the word works.”

“Yeah, apples.” I said, all sorts of distracted. I’d only seen them in the dwarven lands, which had all sorts of implications as to what the army and Emperor were, doing, and-

“Auri! No.” I sternly rebuked her, catching her in [Mantle].

“Brrrpt!” She protested. She wanted to taste the delicious foods!

“Listen to me.” I said, all too aware of the sheer number of eyes watching me, judging my parenting skills. I wanted to scream to myself that this was not the place!!

“Brrrpt.” Auri was giving me some sass.

“No, listen.” Something in my tone got Auri to perk up. “That’s for White Dove.”

“Brrrpt?”

“The personification of death herself.”

“BRRRPT!!”

“We absolutely, totally, for certain, under no conditions, want to mess with her.”

“Brrrpt!!”

“Which includes eating the food meant for her.”

“Brrpt!”

“Oh little one.” Augustus interrupted. “Once White Dove has had her fill, the rest is intended to be a celebratory feast for us.”

“Brrpt!” Auri liked the idea.

Leandros coughed into his hand.

“Yes, I’m aware that I’ll be cursed.”

“Ok, are you aware that curses get as bad as ‘turn to stone when sunlight hits you’?”

“I didn’t know that, no.”

“Sure you still want to go through with this?”

“Naturally. The gift of life, the gift of time, is quite literally priceless. There is nothing in the world that can compare. Three hundred more years to live? I’ll adapt.”

Right then.

“How young would you like to be, keeping in mind that my skill is still low level, and you might end up a fair bit older or younger than your target age.”

“What’s the youngest you can go?” Leandros countered with.

I grimaced.

“Eight.”

He glanced back at one set of hanger-ons that I didn’t recognize, and traded nods with them. Given the ages and people involved, I was guessing they were his family. Made sense that they’d want to see this in action, but ugh.

The cat wasn’t just out of the bag, the cat was out of the bag and yodeling from the highest tower.

“I’d like to do that.”

I wasn’t thrilled with that idea.

“Right, let me try to talk you out of eight for a moment here.” I crossed my arms.

“First, you’re going to have the mind of an eight year old, and all that entails. Immaturity’s going to be a big issue. You’re going to have to go through puberty again. Nobody’s going to take you seriously. Your parts aren’t going to function. There’s a high chance you’ll be mistaken for a changeling, and killed out of hand, ‘just in case’, and that’s what I can think of off the top of my head! It sucks!”

The last bit had been from the heart. I remembered being a… kinda adult in a kid’s body.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

I’d be dreaming if I thought Augustus didn’t know about me being god-touched, with priest Demos having had a whole conversation with me about that, Ranger Command knowing, most of the Rangers knowing, the Sentinels…

I was terrible with secrets. Then again, being open and honest had mostly worked out for me, with only a few hiccups here and there. This current situation being one of them.

“With all that said, yes. I do.” Leandros answered. “There are twelve years between eight and twenty. Those twelve years are worth almost thirty years of time. Thirty years. Look at what you’ve accomplished in twenty, look at what I’ve done in ninety, an additional thirty years is nothing to sneeze at. Even if they’re subpar, they’re all when my body is in its prime, and they’ll build an even stronger foundation for me to enjoy the rest of my life. The maturity thing is new, but I have a Mirage class. Good for exhibits and demonstrations as needed. It’s easy enough for me to create, and maintain, an illusion of myself. The gods know I’ve done it often enough to look presentable.”

Leandros’s passion was evident, and I mentally shrugged.

It was his call. I gave him the best advice I could, and it wouldn’t harm him.

“Approach then.”

Leandros got close, and I mentally cursed my short stature. There just wasn’t the same gravitas with him towering over me.

“If you could kneel, that’d be great.” I said, and Leandros promptly complied.

Helped hammer home just how desperate, just how badly, he wanted to become young again.

I put my hand on his forehead and focused on [The Stars Never Fade]. Pressure started to build up in me, as I constructed my mental image of what I wanted to happen. I pictured Leandros, then imagined him younger. From his current early-70’s healthy appearance, to a hale 50. A vital 30. An energetic 20. The pressure continued to grow.

I was stretching the imagination as I tried to picture him as a kid, and I had a feeling that my image probably wasn’t all that great.

Then the pressure inside of me exploded out, and the room went entirely dark. The vast, endless void of space was all around us, swallowing us whole. Not a single shape could be seen in the darkness.

Then, like a hundred thousand fireflies, small specks of light, every color of the rainbow, erupted all around us. They danced and swirled, a grand cosmic waltz across the heavens. They formed into clusters and clumps, then started to spin, creating galaxies and nebulae.

Then the entire universe started to move around us, as we zipped through the grand fabric of space. We passed by planets, and plunged through stars. We surfed along the rings of a gas giant, and watched in awe as a small blue marble, teeming with life, passed us by. We watched comets with their sparkling tails, and detoured around black holes and their glorious glowing coronets.

We witnessed the end of a star, as it went supernova. A bright flash of light blinded us all, and got an outraged “Brrrpt!” from my shoulder.

Sights weird and fantastical passed us. The one that struck me the most was a shimmering blue crystal spinning through space, with a skeletal person ‘swimming’ away from it, heading to a nearby planet.

Space here was weird.

Time was impossible to track. After an eternity, a second, we stopped at a white dwarf, an aged star still barely hanging on.

As we watched, the star expanded, material being quickly drawn in from around the solar system. The star expanded, and in a burst of darkness, an enormous red star was spinning in front of us.

That wasn’t the end, not by a long shot. The star compressed, becoming a bright blue giant. We stayed at that stage for a moment, before the star seemed to ‘breathe out’, turning into a swirling mass of gas, on the cusp of allowing gravity to finish collapsing it. A deep glow came from deep within, lighting the gasses.

The scene froze, and we got to watch it for a moment before everything slowly faded out, returning us to normalcy.

[*ding!* [The Stars Never Fade] has leveled up! 2->3]

The first thing I noticed were a half-dozen guards surrounding Augustus, having sprung out from I-don’t-know-where.

Whoops. Should’ve told them that they’d completely lose sight of him.

The second was the boy standing in front of me. I’d kind of missed the mark, he was more eleven, maybe twelve, rather than eight.

Still a stupid number of years.

He was looking with fascination at his hands, and the whole hall was silent for a moment.

I felt the weight of a second bird alight on my shoulder, making me feel balanced.

Even though I knew it’d happen, I still felt my mouth go dry. Something about the Grim Reaper being on my shoulder, able to end me with a thought, did that.

“Cousin.” White Dove broke the silence as she addressed Auri.

“Brrrpt?!” Auri didn’t understand at all, but White Dove was already moving on.

“Manius Leandros Secundus. [Meticulous Solicitor of the Twelve Tablets]. [Curiosa Philosopher].” White Dove listed off what I assumed were his classes.

Leandros bowed, the solemn look on his face contrasting with his youthful features.

“White Dove.” His eyebrows quirked in surprise as his voice broke, and I had a small wave of schadenfreude. This was what he wanted, after all. “I have prepared a number of offerings for you.” He straightened up and gestured towards the table.

“You attempt to show me respect in one move, as you perform the greatest disrespect possible by stealing time from me.” White Dove practically spat at him, and I felt a shiver go down my spine.

Perhaps it was worth testing a few different things, to see if anything could mollify White Dove. Use the rewinds I was doing for some test cases.

At the same time - I knew exactly what I was doing. Why hide it? Why pretend to be doing something else? I was stealing time from White Dove, and I was proud of it.

“You came to this, fully knowing what you were doing, and chose to do it anyways. Trying to steal as much as you could from me.” White Dove’s words reverberated in me, striking deep at the very core of my being.

“I curse you.” She said, and the world trembled at her power.

“You believe yourself to be so smooth. So perfect. Always having the right words. Well now. I curse you to be able to only speak the truth. To speak the entire truth, actively making sure that there is no misunderstanding, and to correct twisted words wherever you see them.”

The words settled around Leandros like chains.

“I only partially understand you, White Dove.” A grimace twisted Leandros’s face as he said that.

Oh, if only I was a spectator, and not the creator of White Dove’s wrath. This would be endlessly entertaining.

Still, I had a half-plan of my own, that I needed to enact before White Dove left. I twisted my head just a bit, enough to be able to look at White Dove while keeping her perch entirely still.

“White Dove. Would you like to sit and chat? Perhaps have a fruit?”

I was unashamedly stealing time from her, but there was no reason we couldn’t be cordial at least.

She’d be one constant in the centuries and millennia to come. Unlike normal Immortals, I’d be meeting up with her regularly.

Her eye locked onto mine.

“With the one who steals time from me, again and again? Your attempts at appeasement are futile.”

My gaze was steady.

“Yep. I’ve stolen time from you before, and I’ll do it again. We’re going to meet many times over the eons; must we meet as mortal foes? You come for us all in the end, after all.”

White Dove said nothing. She took off from my shoulder, flew to the table, grabbed the apple, then transformed into Black Crow before flying and fading away.

I’d had the presence of mind this time to try and study her flight. I had no idea if it’d upgrade [Scintillating Ascent], but if I ever pulled it off?

Whoof. I had to imagine that it’d be an amazing upgrade for the skill. It might even evolve the skill to a new one! [Flight of the Grim Reaper] or something.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine what such a flying skill would do, but White Dove//Black Crow seemed to be an omnipresent force.

I snapped out of my daydream. I hadn’t succeeded yet.

“Sentinel Dawn. I am extremely grateful for what you’ve done, enough so to do you a few favors. As long as they appear to be legal, I’m not quite grateful enough to do you some illegal favors. To be clear, there are illegal favors I trade - oh fuck.” Leandros slapped a hand over his mouth, but couldn’t stop talking.

“Usually around bribing small official - fuck - and often with the records - changing the subject I find you very attractive. Not in a marrying way, but I’d love to -”

Blessedly, his family came over, and one of the burly men slapped his hand over Leandros’s mouth, properly muffling him.

“Sorry about that. Dunno what came over gramps.” He said.

I was going beet red from everything Leandros had said, and Augustus was giving us a thoughtful, measuring look.

“Leandros, why don’t you go home? Stretch out a bit, figure out the ins and outs of your curse. We can discuss more in the morning.”

Leandros nodded, and shuffled out with his family. I heard muffled words the entire way.

“Well!” Augustus got up, clapping his hands. “That was quite the performance! Leandros is young again, White Dove made an appearance, and that is one of the most fascinating curses I can think of! It’ll be hard for him to adjust, but once he does? Once it’s known that Leandros must tell the truth? Why, his reputation will skyrocket!” Augustus started to pick at the food, popping a grape into his mouth.

“Mmmm. Simply divine. Come, come, let us celebrate the second life Leandros has gotten, and the marvelous abilities of Sentinel Dawn!”

“Brrrrpt!!!”

Auri wasted no time, moving at top speed to the table and claiming a jug of juice. She started to noisily drink as I grinned at her.

Might as well enjoy the party.