Junior Brother Lǐ had summoned us some transportation, it seemed. Not in the magical sense, but in the used-a-bird-as-a-courier sense.

István and I were still the only two that were up, although Viktor had twitched his arms a few times and I could see his eyes moving under the lids, so we could probably get him up if we really needed to… which we probably would in order to move him. I didn't know how heavy he was but considering the footprints he left when we were walking in the sand and in the cave, he had the approximate density of concrete. So, yeah, not moving without some form of heavy machinery.

"How is it you are talking to them," István asked me, looking around at the Stormwing Circle members. "I can not parse their language, whatsoever."

"Wait, what?" I asked, surprised. I understood them just fine, and couldn't figure out why he couldn't. Was it because I was here as a bird?

Kekekee went Steeve, and then her tail twitched. All of the sudden, everyone around us was conversing amongst themselves in gibberish. I could tell they were saying words, but I couldn't tell you what they were. At all.

Then her tail twitched again, and István's looked like you could knock him over with a light breeze. I'd never seen the man so surprised. All the things Steeve had done and 'magic translator tail' was what surprised him? Sure.

"You have to let me study her," he immediately said, gazing at the fox like he'd eat her hairs one by one if it would give him more information.

Fur-induced indigestion notwithstanding, I wasn't about to let him harass her endlessly for her secrets.

"I'm quite comfortable with her remaining a little mystery wrapped up in an enigma. If you can persuade her to generously donate her time of her own free will, then that is between the two of you." I gave him a serious look, tilting my head forward like I was looking over a pair of glasses I didn't have. "Deal?"

István nodded from a very close range, looking extremely genuine. "Yes, of course. That is only fair."

Then he turned to the side, probably already coming up with methods to persuade Steeve to be his research 'pawtner'.

I left him to ponder, using my aura vision on different people around me, watching how they moved their Nebula. I was relieved to see that none of them had the mutated form of power we'd seen out of the people from the Umbral Veil. Or maybe calling them people was a little too strong of a word. Hard to say - I'd never really gotten the time to examine the people we'd fought. We'd left the rest of the crew to clean up the battle field and 'scavenge' us some gains while the three of us went to the base and ransacked it for BeetleMechs.

Anyway. Back to the present. I noticed that unlike István and Viktor - and myself, or so I assumed, since looking down at my Core was just blinding - they didn't have a Mote. Instead, they all had these gentle swirls of Nebula that looked a lot like the galaxy-thing I could make between my hands. Only behind their navels. It was interesting watching all the different galaxies move around and converse.

Then I looked at Junior Brother Lǐ as he walked back into view, and he was different. He had a mote, but it was fuzzy and indistinct. I could tell it was some sort of Nature Aligned one. At least I was pretty sure. It was hard to make out.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I followed his gaze and was able to spot some movement in the distance. There was some sort of procession coming down a path out of the clearing - well, it bifurcated the clearing, meaning we probably wound up half-exploding a road.

Well, may no one ever say that I'm not on brand.

It took a minute or so, but I was eventually able to see that there were some wagons trundling down the path, seemingly self-moving, but a closer inspection revealed that the practitioners driving them were using their Nebula to motivate the contraptions along.

They came into the clearing, and I got a good look at the first one. The design was very ornate, a with a top that looked almost like a squat roof, but with curlicues in the corners, and what I swore were slate roof tiles. It reminded me of what I'd seen in the Circle proper. Could even be the same artisans.

The wagons had these cool looking wheels too, with the hub hidden behind a grate comprised of cross-linked wooden pieces, which was mesmerizing to watch as it turned. The reminded me of something, but I couldn't place it. It was right on the tip of my brain.

'Squeee squeee squee' came a sound from one of them in the back, as it came to a stop. For some reason the particular orientation the noisy wheel stopped in jogged my memory. Waffles, that's what it reminded me of. So, it was a not very oiled waffle wheel.

Mmm, waffles. Now I was hungry for them, I knew what I was asking Gran to make next time she had the opportunity. Thanks wheel, your squeaking was much appreciated.

Eventually, we got everyone loaded into the wagons, even though it was a bit of a person puzzle to figure out how to get everyone placed so no one was crushed. Thankfully things were made easier when Viktor woke up, which saved us the trouble of having to try to move him, and he was able to easy and gently carry everyone else.

Our guests could not stop staring at him, though, which did make things a bit awkward. Most of the people from this area seemed slender, even if they were relatively tall. Viktor was an entirely different dimension, however, both vertically and horizontally.

He respectfully declined riding in a wagon, as did István and I, choosing instead to walk near the back.

"Glad to have you back with us, Viktor," I said, meaning every word. Definitely felt more secure to have his impressive strength available should anything go south. A problem he couldn't solve percussively was probably one none of us could handle, so it was a definite reassurance to have him available.

I looked at the trees on either side of the stony path as we walked - they were immense and knurled, reaching towards the heavens as if fighting each other for the light. They must have been thousands of years old to have reached those heights and to have that weathered look.

Back home, it was rare to even see a living tree, much less some of this age. It took a far better set of environmental conditions and lack of a pollution to sustain that sort of growth. That said, I knew that Motes and Nebula had a definite effect on plant growth, what with me creating a microcosm of the forest in just a few minutes the first time I came here.

It was a wonder that the 'shrine' I'd made had survived to my time, to be honest, but I honestly suspected greater forces were at play, or perhaps something similar to the device we'd used to arrive here, for the simple reason that none of the geology lined up. The area I'd called home was fairly flat, with some desert canyons, not super deep and clearly carved by their long-since dried rivers.

The terrain here, though, I recalled having immense verticality. Even now I could tell we were walking through and around towering spires of rock that reached even higher than the trees, while the water was confined to narrow streams and creak beds where it wasn't already absorbed by some sort of lush greenery. It had a certain serene feeling about it, but I couldn't fathom it being flattened so thoroughly now that I was looking.

I'd originally thought that Celistar just waited in place until my time, but now I wasn't so certain that was the case. Certainly, there was more than what she'd told me, although I had no reason to doubt what she'd said. It was also possible that even she didn't know the truth of things.

She was far from omniscient, after all.

On the horizon, I could see the crackling clouds of a thunderstorm, something that, like the trees, was also pretty uncommon. When we had gotten precipitation, it was weak and listless, falling out of the sky like liquid depression.

Judging by the towering clouds and how dark they were, we were in for quite the weather. Hopefully we'd get where we were going before it did.

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