The vastness of the o was hard to uand until you truly saw it. Kazue mused upon this thought as she and Moriko walked slowly along the beach of this port city. It was the third and st day they would be spending here before they moved on. Sihey had left the capital, they had been much more careful about how long they lingered in any one loost pces they gave no more than one non-traveling day to, but this city was Kazue's first visit to the sea, and there was much to see and learn here.

  Though somewhat surprisingly, her of the spirits she currently had boo her reted directly to the sea or sand, or other such o themed cepts. The first of them was a rather esoteric, ephemeral entity; a creature of light and shadow, of liminal pces and the borders between. Kazue still didn't know why this was the spirit that responded when she was seeking a solution to how the sun readily burned her skin, but she suspected it had more to do with the light and shadoects than the liminal aspects, even if these things wereirely separable. And it had provided her with the spell she needed.

  Of course, the reason she was that Moriko had insisted they buy dresses in the local fashion, though Kazue had insisted that Moriko join her in wearing the short pants that were only paired with the lightweight dresses that barely fell to mid-thigh. The fabric was thankfully thicker across the chest because it was borderline sheer in other pces, and it was only held up by a thin pair of straps for the shoulders.

  And this exposure was no doubt a good portion of why Moriko had insisted on such flimsy casual wear. Not that Kazue had mupin about, as it did give such a wonderful view of her wife's legs and the way the sun shone on Moriko's skin as the muscles beh flexed. Yum. While the wide-brimmed hat that Kazue was wearing did make it harder to look up to see people, it did help hide her gaze when she wao admire her wife's figure discreetly.

  That figure had been such a beautiful sight st night, when Moriko had recklessly chosen to dan the air with the thuorm. It had been both enthralling and terrifying to watch the half-elf ughing almost maniacally as she leapt across the sky; wind, rain, and lightning swirling about her lithe form. While Kazue might have been able to pull together enough spells to enable her to at least join her wife up there, it wouldn't have really been dang the same way. Kazue would have been movie the elements, not with and because of the elements, and she would have had to put a lot more effort into ensuring that lightning didn't strike her.

  Not that Moriko was immuo a direct hit from a natural bolt of lightning, no, the reckless woman was entrusting to her trol of the elements to keep such a strike from hitting her.

  But if Moriko hadn't go to dan that storm, Kazue wouldn't have met the sed spirit she was keeping bonded right noirit of lightning and storms. While not so esoteric as her liminal spirit, it could be almost as ephemeral. She khat they would tio exist as discrete entities so long as they were bonded with her, but they were the sort of spirit that might otherwise dissipate when ditions were no longer optimal for them. Especially the liminal one; Kazue thought it might have e ience because she'd been putting effort into finding something that could help her out.

  What she was hoping was that if she could keep them bonded long enough to give them a stronger sense of identity ahat they'd be able to exist indepely. It was limiting for her to keep them bonded; she could only keep two bo a time, and it took several minutes under optimal ditions to bond with a new one. But she didn't mind and thought that her liminal spirit worked really well with her ability t dreams and imagination briefly to the surface of reality. Her triaking it briefly hard to tell where she was as random images of might-have-beens flickered around her could be amplified along the edges of spaces, letting her slide through reality a bit more. She could move further so long as it was along a border and squeeze through gaps she otherwise shouldn't be able to fit through.

  Her lightning and storm spirit did not synergize quite so well, though it could speed her up and that did help, and its bolts of lightning were probably her most powerful ranged abilities at the moment. But she hadn't had a good ce to test it out yet, not inside of city limits. But maybe tomorrow while they were on the road.

  For now, Kazue was listening to Moriko ret yesterday's events bae.

  "So after breakfast, Mordecai tormehe kids by waiting a while before asking if there was anything that wao talk about. Then he just houghtfully when they spoke and asked things like 'is there anything else?' while smiling patiently and encingly. The two of them spilled their guts." Moriko was having trouble not ughing while she reted the tale, and it made Kazue grin.

  Nothing truly inappropriate had happened, but it they were at the edge of different social rules. There was a differeweehree of them sharing a room with well-uood rules, and very different for one of them to spend the night iher's private room. And it certainly wasn't the dungeon's pce to 'punish' them for any sort of indiscretion, perceived or otherwise. But as the adults in charge of the area, it certainly fell to them to help ence a healthy amount of responsibility. Thus Mordecai 'f' Derek and Shizoku to tattle on themselves and expily why that wasn't supposed to happen.

  Moriko tinued happily, "After he'd gotteo give themselves their own guilt trip, Mordecai gave the pair heavy head rubs and ughed at them before letting them know they weren't in any trouble. His only real was responsibility, ahought that they were both pretty responsible overall but that going forward they should be more careful. He didn't say it directly, but he implied that being responsible might be harder as time went on."

  Which retty fair assessment. The Azeria worried about it a lot less thaher kitsune s as all pregnancies were causes for celebration and there lenty of support for the girl without a need for the father to be in the picture. Kazue had no illusions that this meant her was some bastion of enlighte. Part of the reason that Shizoku leaned so heavily on her grandmother and the forest spirit for parental guidance was that her father had five wives who also wanted his attention and Shizoku's mother hadn't felt the o be very responsible when there were other women who were happy to spend time g over Shizoku and taking care of her. Kazue was fairly certain that this was also the reason that the young kitsune had a tendency to crush on older men, but hopefully, that was taken care of now.

  "So after that, Fuyuko decided she wao make her tract with the dungeon official. Mordecai made sure to write everything up with her being our ward and after it was done he sent a copy of it to both Riverbridge and Azeria to get her status recorded. And then it was on to training! Geraining this time. Well, mostly. For Shizoku and Fuyuko it was focused around marksmanship practice, mixed with switg their ons out on the fly. He doesn't think that Shizoku would o s between gun and staff quickly very often, but there was no reason to skip that part of the training. For Fuyuko, he's popping up surprise targets for her and mixing them up with some 'targets' that are actually is. He says that it should help her get her battle rage under trol. Oh, and the swords that came with her bracers are falcatas. They aren't good for fancy sword work but he figures that sometimes she might just o hit things hard, so these will be better than her long daggers. I have to say, the only reason those things are 'daggers' is because of how tall she is. They'd probably feel like short swords for me, and almost certainly be swords for you, aer."

  Well, Kazue wouldn't mind biting Moriko, but that was a slightly different topid she had her honor to defend. "Careful what you say, my love. This little aer has very sharp teeth and knows exactly where you sleep every night. And she might just think you are tasty enough to take a big bite out of."

  "Eek, I am terrified," Moriko said while ughing, "oh please do me all up scary fox dy, I don't know what I'd do." Ign Kazue's threatening gre Moriko tinued passing on the dungeos. "Anyway, the bdes are heavier than Fuyuko is used to aed a little strangely, but Mordecai says she's adapting fast. Now, as for Derek, well, Mordecai is pushing him a little bit more. Our husband has seed off part of the arena to be aal testing and training ground. It gees random sparks and bubbles of different elements whiaturally drift toward any living thing in the area and speed up as they get closer. Derek has been sitting in the middle of it and his training is to use only his elemental abilities to push them away. And Mordecai has made sure to lean heavily on fire and lightning as those seem to be Derek's weakest elements right now. Man, the poor kid. But he at least has some moral support, Bellona is right there with him. She's taking more of a beating actually, she doesn't have any influence over wood and only i influenetal. She's not going to be there every day though, and Mordecai pns on this being the majority of their training to finish out the first month of the exge program."

  Given how long it had taken the kids to get through the dungeon, there wasn't a lot more time to finish out a month, so everyone had agreed to just start the program early. After this, Derek and Shizoku would arrao travel with roups back to his home and after a few days of rest head back to the dungeon, where Fuyuko would rejoin them and they would all head to the Azeria to begin a month of training.

  "Everything else has just been going smoothly. With your non-bat path, we've been attrag a lot of people who are willing to spend weeks to get through the dungeon instead of the days it takes the bat teams. Though there aren't a lot of teams clearing the wetnds, most of the ones who finish the river zone don't even try it. The people on your path usually only give up if it's taking too long. Oh, and Mordecai says he'd like you to practice w with enting crystal-focused items, especially anything that involves altering the crystal itself. He's hoping that the two of you bined might be able to manually vert ems and crystals into atrix, though it will probably take both of you to figure it out."

  Well, as much as Kazue admired their husband, she did have to admit to herself that it was kind of o see that he wasn't as all-knowing as he sometimes appeared to be. And that wasn't a bad idea, it could make a nice project over the winter, when they weren't occupied by other things. Warm thoughts and feelings flowed with that idea, only to be dashed by a suddeion of dread and danger. Kazue spun to put her baoriko as she frantically searched for the source of that sensation.

  A few moments ter she realized that the source was inside her, a tug and pull toward her faraway home. She crushed down the panic that wao bubble forth and turned baoriko, who had goill and pale.

  Moriko met her worried gaze and firmed Kazue's fears. "We're utack."

  Zagaroth