This realm was dying. Thirsting for magic. Looking at the city of Shiranu, one would have thought the opposite.
The ruins of the ancient human city were brimming with life.
Moss as thick as bushes covered the manors and palaces, ran up the trees that competed with high towers of old. Tall grass and vines hanging from the terraces while sedges, cattails and waterlilies filled the marshes underneath.
And on most nearby hills the white weaving strings of a mushroom's stems, like muscles, held firm on it all, deployed their caps and spread their peaceful toxins.
My mistress' mansion was spared. The parasite had grown around it, wrapping the hill to hang on the two high towers. From up there, on the flat surface of its caps, moist air turned to water, trickled down and rained.
"I want to go there!" My mistress pointed.
She was sit near the edge, as much as the slope would allow, and looked beyond the city's hills into the plain. The young lady was looking at me as if seeking approval.
"That's a floating island." I noted. "It might be Kunshu, I think."
No idea, actually. How would I know? I had never left the city as far as I could remember. But Kunshu was one of the first islands mankind made float, so... as good a guess as another?
"Okay cool, can we go there?" She pouted.
"Of course."
That didn't seem to satisfy her? Human wisdom was truly out of reach.
Still, leaving the Amber pavilion could only be healthy for her. And for the realm. Wherever my mistress was, everything breathed life. But the vegetation only stretched so far.
As if the city dampened her influence, the jungle diminished hill after hill, a meadow before its edges, a steppe past that. The sharp mountain she pointed at was still rocky and bare. One slope mostly flat, the other filled with massive eroded stalagtites.
Like a monstrous maw frozen in time.
"It is safe..." The parasite chimed in. Of course it could hear us, we were on its body. "I will guard your house... while you are gone..."
"See? Even gramps approves!" She smirked.
"Sekres..." The parasite corrected. "My name is Sekres..."
"Ah, sorry! And I'm Ji-Ah, nice to meet you!" She got up and bowed to the mushroom cap she was standing on. Then, turning to me: "Man, even gramps has a name, you should hurry and get one!"
"As you wish."
My mistress wanted to go there on horses. I did not know where to find... horses. So instead, the parasite provided an obedient wilhorn, the... cutest one it had entangled with its poisons. I helped the young lady mount the elephant's shelly back and on we went.
Pacing between the hills, looking at that false peace on the terraces, the monsters erring with empty eyes. Spores filling the air.
Then, the countryside!
I had been busy tracing glyphs on the beast's forehead. Turns out it was for nothing. Where only dry yellow grass lay in front of us, tall and grassy ones grew around and on our trail. Why did I keep forgetting that humans were amazing?
So once reaching the base of the mountain, its slope was already regaining life.
Above us that slope was full of hills and broken ruins. The island probably had fields and villages but only traces of them remained; hard to tell what was a road and what a stream.
My mistress had planned to climb all the way to the top. She got bored halfway through, tired of looking for low slopes and flat surfaces. Around us bushes turned to trees, pushing their foliages ahead.
The young lady rested against a trunk. Her long black hair looked less vibrant, tangled by the effort. It felt weird, as if a human could not possibly look less than divine. After all, her pale skin resisted the sun warmth and her rugged face, all her efforts to bathe.
"I give up!" She complained. "Let's make a camp here."
"Will do." And I offered my arm to get her back up. "May I also put a barrier?"
"What for?" She wondered, then looked where I had turned my head.
Monsters. Of course.
A human knew better than to imagine monsters were confined to the city. As for me, I had never seen one like that. But I knew what it was.
"No way, it's a slime!" The lady excitedly said. "Can I touch it? Can I? It's so cute!"
I supposed a human could do whatever.
That thing, however, only looked like a slime. A watery mass in a slim envelope, but that was just one eye of the mantaras.
It drew a circle on the grass and my master only got more curious. Triple row, earth, fast, time. Oh, I knew that one!
Petrification.
And the human was petrified. And my mistress got petrified?! She punched greyhounds for breakfast, how!?
I got no time to ponder: the mantaras had turned on me now, the lesser menace. It leapt, turning its body to acid. I braced for it!
My master's arm cracked free, caught the acid with her glove. "Oy." She groaned. Stone faltering from all over her body. "I'm trying to be friendly here."
She clenched her hand in a fist and far away, down the slope the monster shrieked. Birds fleeing the trees around it.
"What was that?" My mistress wondered aloud.
I was slowly learning how facetious she was, so I played along.
"A mantaras. You just destroyed one of its many eyes."
"And it had to be downhill, of course!" She moaned. "You don't mind setting the camp up while I go introduce myself?"
"It will be ready when you return."
She looked at me, sighed then gave me a grin before departing. I could feel from the vibrations alone that the mantaras was now trying to escape. An eight-legged creature that could dig would have good odds of doing that.
If its pursuer wasn't a human.
Camp! I didn't move, just let the ground mass work for me. Swallowing the wood around, to pasta, to thread and logs, to a tent and a nice fire. And... the camp was done.
So, I could just stay there and wait for her return. Follow through the ground her epic hunt. I looked around instead, for a flat surface. A bit further up, what had been a fancy garden wall. Due to the slope, I hopped past a breach and worked from the other side.
I had already picked up a stone, turned it sharp. Why? To write. Why? No idea.
My mistress is on a camping trip. I still fear that she will leave.
Fear? What was I even writing about?
If she leaves, the realm is lost. But that's what our masters did. Leave. So is it not natural to conclude that she will do the same? Every single instant of my life I fear the moment she will abandon us. I have to trust in human wisdom but is it not wise to let go of worthless trash? That's all this realm is to them. That's all we are. A waste to the mighty humans.
I held the stone above the sloped surface. My other hand holding the amber bead on my necklace. Ready to engrave more words but all that was coming to me was "she will leave", repeated time and again. I was not going to write that. No matter the urge.
A broken clay golem that could not let go of old, bad habits.
Earthquake. My mistress had found her prey. Time to go welcome her.
The young lady came back pouting, more used to the slope but annoyed all the same and keeping a hand on her forearm.
"The rabbit bit me!" She complained.
"What rabbit?"
I looked for the wound. There was none.
She did not even bother answering, looked at the camp and just threw her hands in the air, almost resigned. I knew her by now, it wasn't because it was too paltry. Too much broidery, maybe?
"So, how do we make that island float?" She offered a smile.
"If it is Kunshu, then it has magical slabs, like float bags." But much, much bigger. "With enough magic, they'll reactivate by themselves."
Meaning all my mistress had to do was enjoy the day and the island would solve itself for her.
"Why wait?" She grinned.
The human crouched and put her two hands deep in the grass, to touch the ground. Magic pulsed in colorful streams, spread wide and deep. Vibrations dying down kilometers below.
The whole mountain slightly reacted.
A massive giant shaken from slumber, struggling under its own weight. The young lady could probably feel it too, the ripples, the shockwaves as she fed the land with her mana.
Yet it would not budge. She spent minutes trying, pushing hard and causing only the mass growth of vegetation. I could even feel some ruins getting rebuilt in the distance and still, the island could not break free from its torpor.
My mistress relented, huffed a bit and rubbed her forehead.
"One more time!" She put her arms back on the ground.
"Mistress, please!" I approached. "You don't need to strain yourself!"
She tried for a few seconds, then let go. Looked at me with a worried face. I crouched and asked again: "You should enjoy the day."
"I don't know why, I can't fix the island, I..." She stammered.
"Mistress." I held her hand. "It's an island. It is heavy." Some hundred billion tons or so. "You are asking too much out of yourself."
"But I should be able to do it, that's why I am here, I can..."
"Also, it may not be Kunshu and the island's floating mechanism may be actively working against you. I will go and check for you."
"No! No," she held me back, "it's fine. I just need some rest, that's all."
She did seem tired. Concerned, too. Too late to go back to the mansion and I suspected that she looked forward to camping, so I let her lay down in the tent and kept guard.
In the evening she scolded me for bringing baguettes and salmon, ordered to cook sausages over the fire and once the night was on us she asked for spooky stories. It kept going for a while.
"... She appeared, bearing the skull of her closest friend, and approached the voyager lost in the woods. You will obey, she slowly said, and the horde around her chanted. You will obey, she repeated, approaching with her sacrificial knife in hand. You will obey."
"Okay enough!" My mistress pushed me back. "It's not scary, it's awful!"
It was hard to scare a human.
She stood silent for a bit, then noticed me looking up. The night above veiled three stars.
"Can you see them?" I asked, and pointed to each one in turn. "Here, and here. And here."
She looked at my finger, then at me again.
"What? I don't see anything."
"The stars. You brought them back. They may be weak but they are there."
"Liar, I don't see them!" She complained, pushed me again.
"In fact, you brought the night itself. Before you, the day and night cycle had stopped."
I realized she wasn't answering, realized I was not paying attention to her. Too busy admiring some distant light on the cosmic ceiling.
"Your hair are unkempt. Would you let me brush them?"
Her curious expression broke into a chuckle that she struggled to hide. "Sure!" No idea what was so funny about it.
As I brushed her smooth black hair, she put her head on my shoulder. No matter, I could keep working like that.
"I had forgot how nice it was." She dozed off. "Camping like that. I want to do that forever."
No matter how much I tried, I could not bring the brilliance back to her hair. It was getting upsetting, my constant state of failure.
"I'll save your world, Kaele." She muttered. "I promise." And awakened for a second: "Kaele, that's the name I came up with for you!"
"It is a lovely name."
"I knew you would not like it." She whispered, her head back on my shoulder.
Then on my lap. Now to bring her to the tent without waking her.
Or I would just stand there and wait for the stars to die.