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Carnelian Creek curled up in on himself as tight as he could. Breathed in and out, focused on the connection between his tower and his land and his flesh body. Let the power swirl and meld between them.
Let him heal.
The battle had been… hard. He had done his best to help his Master Rasban, but flesh could only warp the land so much so fast. His Master had to leave to take the fight to their enemies directly and--
He could no longer feel him.
He knew what that could mean. But his Master could also have simply gone to ground elsewhere to lick his own wounds. Or abandoned him as useless.
The response to either possibility was the same. Repair himself. Repair the tower and the land around it. Repair his flesh enough ready to face his failures and their consequences when Rasban returned.
He stayed quiet and curled in on himself, leaving just a thread of power available to be aware of the world.
Someone crossed his borders. Magical, but not attempting to use it, or do any harm. Importantly, not Rasban.
If he had the spare resources, he would drive them off. But… he had just the strength in his flesh body to stand and talk, but little else.
Ignoring them was a risk he simply had to take.
An hour or so later, a door opened.
He uncurled with a start.
Power crackled off the intruder. An edge of electricity danced along her finger tips, and a sense of things around her wanting to snap together and grow larger.
He’d felt this before, directed at his land. She’d fought Rasban.
She didn’t look like a powerful mage though, however. She wore an old gambeson streaked with dirt and dried blood, and riding boots. The charms a mage wore must have been hidden under that padded fabric. She was tall, with a noble olive face framed by long black hair, but she slouched like she was trying to make herself shorter. Her eyes skittered around the room before they landed on him. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.”
And yet she had decided to come into a wizard’s tower. “State your business.”
She took a breath and drew herself up, and gave a prepared little speech. “I am Mage Nyiu, Inheritor of Carnelian Creek, granted by King Keltren after the failure of Mage Rasban. If you are his employee, your contract has been terminated, and you are free to leave of your own accord.”
Carnelian Creek stood up, though stabbing pain in his side made him instantly regret it. Still, height and the appearance of strength was an advantage in these sort of conversations, and his flesh body was taller than her. “What has happened to my master?”
Her eyes went so far to the side they threatened to leave her skull. “He’s... not coming back.”
Dead, or lost his magic, or imprisoned. Rasban would find those all equally upsetting. “My master has no employees.”
She pushed her glasses up her nose. “You’re the first person I’ve seen here who wasn’t a cat. Would have felt a bit silly telling a cat they were free to leave. Are you… a family member?”
“I am Carnelian Creek.”
He had had centuries of practice reading his master, and little time to spend with other humans. The look she had now looked most like Rasban’s expression when he cornered, frightened but not willing to show it. He braced himself for her to lash out.
“You’re… Carnelian Creek?”
She was a wizard, she should not need this spelled out? “I am the spirit of the land.”
“And you’re... incarnated?”
“Rasban incarnated me.” If she was the inheritor of this tower, and therefore him… Rasban was no longer his master. He would not use respectful terms for him, lest she take it as a sign of disrespect to her. “—Master.”
The face changed again. It was now like the one Rasban had when one of the cats put a decapitated rat in his bed. Hopefully the consequences would not be similar for the rat-cat case.
She bowed formally to him, nearly as formal as one would for a king. “We appreciate and honour you, but do not expect your service. Be free, and go and do as you will.”
He knew the words. Young mages were taught to say it to spirits. It’d been… some time since he had heard it. Enough for formal language to change slightly, apparently. (Rasban said them once, when he was young and they were first acquainted. He did not see any reason to say it in the centuries afterwards.) “That really is not necessary. You are the new master of Carnelian Creek,” he said pleasantly.
“--I just live here now. You don’t have to listen to me.”
He smiled. Rasban liked his smile, and for him to speak soft, and he had not encountered any humans who were opposed to that. “Being given the land is the same as being given me.”
“This is your land before it’s mine, sir, and you can do what you want with it. Kick me out, if you like! I’ve got my own manses. You don’t have to pay attention or do what I want just because I’m here.”
He continued smiling.
She glanced around the room again, and made a jerky hand movement that made him brace himself. “I’m just-- going to keep looking around. If that’s okay with you?” And with that, she turned heel and left the room.
***
He followed behind her, at a respectful distance. First: this could be a test, and if it was, he would pass it. Second: with mages, knowledge was power, and he did not know her. His ribs ached from the effort of standing, but resting was not an option now.
She jumped whenever she caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye. “Hello, sir?”
He gave a short nod. Enough to be an acknowledgement, but not enough to annoy her.
A cat jumped out from behind a bookshelf. “Meow.” It was one of the younger mousers, a fluffy grey creature that had somehow grown fat purely on a diet of whatever it could catch.
She dropped into a squat, and let it sniff her hand. “Aww, sir, have you not been fed today?”
“MEOW,” it said, at the top of its kitty lungs.
“Even if you have, I can give you a little secret treat, can’t I?” She held a finger up to her mouth. “Shhh, keep it quiet.” With a flick of her hands, she conjured an oily fish (conjured something biological) and dropped it in front of the cat.
The cat grabbed it, and darted back behind the bookshelf.
She wiped her hands on her pants, and looked up at him. “I haven’t just overfed him, sir?”
...it was her cat. She could do with it what she liked? Feed it until it was the side of a bull shmeerp and he would not object to it. She owned both him and it!
And even if she did not-- the smell of ozone in the air was not real, but lingered nonetheless. For all her twitchiness, she was a mighty mage.
He shook his head.
She nodded, and kept exploring the tower.
***
Night fell, slowly colouring the sky outside the window in pinks and purples.
Carnelian fought to keep his eyes open. He could not sleep standing up, but if she believed he was giving her anything other than his full attention...
“I should turn in. Do you… have somewhere to sleep?” she asked.
He pulled his mouth into a smile. “I sleep with you, master.”
“...is there anywhere else you… like to… sleep?”
“I sleep with you as a necessity.” It was how Rasban had shaped his flesh body (Rasban had enjoyed the power, and that was fair enough of him.)
Nyiu made a high pitched noise in her throat.
He closed his eyes and hunched in on himself.
The noise cut off quickly and she ran her fingers through her hair. “Okay. I can’t fix that for you tonight, but tomorrow, I can try.”
“It does not bother me, master.”
She walked towards the bedroom. “We’ll work something out.”
He followed her.
The hole in his ribs made its presence very felt, the exhausted throb of torn muscle and bone turning into something wordless and unignorable.
Nyiu stood in front of the bed, very still.
For several minutes.
...if she wanted him in bed first, he would of course do his utmost to fulfill her desire.
He climbed onto the side, leaving her as much room to take whatever part of the bed she preferred.
She climbed onto the opposite side of the bed. So far on the opposite side, that her leg dangled half of the edge. It wasn’t a particularly large bed-- Rasban saw no need for it to be-- and yet she left enough room between them for at least three Pure Priests of Nashtal.
If she wished for space, she would receive it. He rolled over, and put his back to her. His ribcage made it clear it wished he would not, but it did not get a say in matters.
Her weight on the end of the bed felt a ton of earth pressed up against him.
He closed his eyes, and willed himself to relax. ...he doubted she would do anything dramatic on this first night. But he’d only known her for twelve hours, not centuries.
“I really can go somewhere else,” she said, quietly.
“And then I really will not sleep.” And he needed it, even if he would not voice it.
She shifted behind him.
Ah, he had displeased her.
Her voice was soft and quiet. “If you want-- and only say yes if you actually want it, I do not care either way-- I can do something that helps me go to sleep.”
Her tone belied her stated lack of caring. “If you wish to.”
“You don’t have to play guessing games with what I want.” She sighed. “I would actively like you not to do that.”
So, she favoured impossible tasks. ...sleep would be more strategic than spending a night staring out into space, and whatever she wanted him to say yes to could be effective. “I would like it.”
She reached out.
He took a deep breath, and prepared himself--
--She lay a hand on his shoulder blades, and drew gentle circles with the flat of her palm, with just enough pressure to be not ticklish, but no more. Her hands were warm-- warmer than him.
It was… not painful.
Muscles unlocked without him willing them. That warmth spread from her hands through to his skin. He sunk deeper into the bed.
This maybe counted as ‘pleasant.’
This was not literal mage work, but the effect of her hands was just as unnatural as conjuring that fish. How was she doing this? Even the muscles in his neck relaxed, driving his head into the pillow, and she wasn’t even touching them.
He could hear a small smile in her voice behind him. “Knocked me out every time I was too rattled to sleep.”
His tongue was too relaxed for him to say the words clearly. “I can see how this would be effective.”
Her hands strayed lower, towards the hole in his rib cage.
He tried to stay compliant. A hiss forced its way through his mouth, anyway.
She drew back, making the bedframe creak. “Are you-- okay?”
He smiled. “I am fine, master. It is just a recent injury. It will heal shortly.”
“Reeeeecent?”
...he would not hide things from his new master.“Two days old.”
A pause, just long enough to do the calculation. “I am so, so sorry.” The cringe was obvious in her voice.
“It’s fine. You did not do it directly.” It felt strange speaking ill of Rasban, but he was no longer his master and… she would probably prefer it, to the alternative.
“I know, but…” she trailed off, hand on the bed halfway in between them. “I really can stop, and there will be no consequences if you want that, but-- I could touch your hair instead? It works well for some people, too.”
‘It’s your hair, master, ’ died on his lips. He nodded, instead.
She ran her fingers through his hair, starting from the part on his scalp down to the ends--It was divine. Phantom trails of fingers tingled down his scalp. The gentle stroking pressure that stayed present even as she reached the ends. The slow rhythm of it, in time with her breathing. If what he felt before with her hand on his back, if what he had ever felt before in his life, counted as ‘relaxation,’ this was something exalted above it.
He was going to become spoiled and useless.
He made an embarrassing high pitched noise.
Nyiu chuckled behind him. Not cruelly, he was fairly sure, and if he was allowed to hope he would have said it was in shared joy.
The only fault with this sensation, and equally with his body, was that he was unable to savour it. After a few scant minutes, he fell asleep.
***
Something honked next to him.
He leaped out of bed, and fell into a kneeling position. His knees slammed against the stone floor. Had his new master… vengefully summoned a goose into bed?
She scrambled out of bed, and knelt next to him. “I am so, so sorry, sir” she said, her voice blocked up.
Awake now, the evidence became clear. “Master, I cannot fault you for… sneezing?” His knees ached, and he hoped they would not bruise.
“I think there’s just something in the air. ...which is not a criticism and I am not holding you at fault, sir.” She stood, and offered a hand to help him up off the floor.
He took it.
She patted his hand, and then walked over to the open window. She paused.
Carnelian counted the breaths it took for her to turn and face him again.
“Do you know about this?” she asked.
He walked over, braced for an actual vengeful goose or an inquisition or however she chose to punish those under her. He joined her at the window, and looked out.
His fields around the tower were still rocky with sheer drops, and little soil and less vegetation. (It was tactical, in all the ways it was not aesthetic.) But now, tough, weedy flowers, those first movers that gripped onto the loose soil as tight as they could, bloomed bright purple in the vain hope their seeds would grow somewhere better.
Nyiu looked… awed. “They’re beautiful.”
It was not the reaction he expected.
She sneezed, muffled by a handkerchief this time. “– even if my nose does not like them, which is no fault of them or you, sir.” Their shoulders pressed against each other as she tried to get a better look at the flowers. (How was she so warm? ) “Has this happened before.?”
“It’s been years, master. They’re… frivolous.”
She gave him a shoulder bump, like a friendly cat walking in between your legs. “Life is never frivolous.” It would have come across as more of a mighty mage’s proclamation if she didn’t still sound blocked up.
“That’s a nice philosophy, Nyiu.”
She twitched next to him.
He had assumed from her aggressively calling him sir, but he had obviously miscalculated her desires.
“Thank you, sir.”
...she was incredibly unpredictable. “You are more than welcome.”
“Feeling okay, rib-wise? And... otherwise?”She gestured towards the flowers. “I don’t want you to overexert yourself.”
“They are growing with no particular effort on my part.” It was strange, changes like this usually did, but these just-- happened.
She looked back and forth between them and his flesh body, her brows furrowed. “If I asked you to do something you didn’t want to do, would you tell me ‘no?’”
He had the sensation that the floor was about to lurch out from under him as he spoke. “You would want me to say no, and thus I would, Mage Nyiu.”
“There’s something I want to test.” She reached up, her hand hovering halfway in between them. “I promise on my honour and skill as a mage that this will not hurt.”
He nodded. That promise could be meaningless... but she was his master whether he trusted her or not. He was willing to risk trusting.
He carefully telegraphed her hand as she moved it towards him, and stroked a thumb along his hairline.
It felt just as good, even when he was not exhausted and in pain. That warmth and gentle tingle and contact.
A new line of plants sprung up, bursting into flower in an instant and flinging golden pollen into the air.
She looked to him, and then to the field, then back to him, torn. “So that is why it’s happening.” She pulled her hand rapidly back.
It was understandable. Even if she was offput by the idea of effecting a landscape through an incarnate spirit, he could not complain about this particular method of doing so. It was-- far too forward, but it seemed worth it to try and communicate this to her.
He leaned his head into her hand.
She stroked his scalp again. “Oh my goodness, this is so cute.” He couldn’t tell if she was looking at his fields or his flesh body, and the distinction didn’t matter. They were both him, and in either case he was too busy melting. His whole scalp tingled, the only point of solid sensation being the tips of her fingers.
She paused for a moment, to conjure a pair of chairs for the both of them. “If you would not mind me--”
“I very much do not mind, Nyiu.”
They sat down, and he took the next bold move of leaning his head on her shoulder. To put himself in more convenient reach, of course.
She started stroking his hair. “Thank you for letting me do this, sir. Carnelian. Whichever you are more comfortable with.”
He let the question of his name slip by. “I believe I’m getting more out of this than you.”
She stared out the window, at the growing field of flowers, even if they were not the elegant garden flowers most preferred. “No, I’m getting a lot out of this too, sir.”