Danika rolled herself off of the cat who hissed and stalked off. She watched it go with a sigh of relief. It didn't seem to be injured at all from her short but heavy landing.
She turned and held the heavy round object up to the wizard who said softly, "No, that's for you to keep. You can store one illusion, one memory in its heart, and it will keep it alive. Well done ZipZing, and now I'll bid you goodnight." The soft chime of a skill learned rang as he reached out and touched her forehead gently, and then he vanished and the light from the windows of his tower did too.
Danika knew before she looked that she'd just acquired the illusion spell, but she hadn't even asked what had happened to Heftybookboy's party, or why he'd had her catch the falling star. The round stone in her hands still glowed very faintly. More softly than Hikaru, who circled her curiously.
A moment later the snow leopard cub arrived with a message from Kit. He looked so much fluffier and rounder than the leopard cubs from the edge of the plains. Kit's worried message read: "Where is everyone? I know I'm late this morning and I don't have much time, but Shrubbery said she'd wait?"
Danika realized suddenly that she hadn't seen Shrubbery, MatchlessMinion, or SaltySiamese's names online all evening. She gazed at the heavy but small fallen star in her little clawed hands with an ominous feeling. A heart that would store one memory. She shivered, and checked her health out of habit. It was slowly rising.
She took a deep breath and messaged Kit: "You didn't miss her, she hasn't been on tonight."
The little snow leopard bounded away and then returned almost as quickly as he'd gone, since they both had him set as their messengers. Kit replied: "Oh, are you doing anything you need help with? I probably shouldn't spend more than half an hour."
Danika sent back: "Not really. I just got the illusion spell, and I figured I'd try that next."
Kit's next message said: "That sounds cool, I'd like to see it! Let's meet up?"
Danika replied: "OK, I think Kalunay is the closest place that I'm sure has a portal."
Kit sent back, "Great, I can even get there easily."
Danika blinked. She'd meant to take the portal back to the capital, but after a moment she shrugged. That was where Aishin had logged off from too. She looked at the softly glowing stone and tried to carry it into her garden. There wasn't any resistance and the stone seemed just as small as it had looked outside of the garden. She set it on the lowest of the stone dragon print seats and exited her garden again.
She flew swiftly toward Kalunay, but hadn't yet reached it when Kit's message announcing her arrival arrived, and she saw that Shrubbery had logged on. But Shrubbery logged off again a minute later, and Danika was puzzled until she pulled up the guild messages.
Shrubbery had posted: "My mom, Eyes on the Sky passed away tonight. I'll tell you all more later, but I won't be playing for a few days because of all the stuff we have to do now, and don't want to leave you worrying. The last thing she said was, 'You know, somebody should tell Kit Tay that she's not getting fat, she's just pregnant?' Ah, don't worry, she told us she loved us lots and talked a lot before that too. Um, so, congrats Kit?"
Kit posted underneath that as Danika watched, "I'm so sorry! And that's impossible!? But it's ok, I'm so honored that she thought of me."
Danika had no idea what to write, so after a moment she continued on. It felt like such a shock. Eyes on the Sky's message about getting a castle still hovered there in the visible messages. Of course, they'd all known she was dying, but somehow Danika had just expected that there would be more time. She'd seemed to be doing so well.
Kalunay wasn't busy, and the traveling merchant who wasn't usually wandering at night was there in the town square beside his wife anyway. They were sitting together instead of standing there holding hands as usual. Kit was leaning on his shoulder and sobbing.
Danika had half expected Kit to be in tears, so she wasn't too surprised, until Kit looked up at her hesitant approach and cried out, "I was wrong! Eyes on the Sky was right even though it shouldn't be possible! What do I do now?"
"Um…" Danika replied blankly.
The traveling merchant looked up at ZipZing and said gently, "I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your friend."
"I don't know what to say," Danika admitted.
He gave Kit a squeeze and told her, "It will be fine my love, and our child will be very cute."
"Oh," Danika said suddenly, "your character is pregnant!"
Kit looked up at her again and laughed shakily through her tears. "It would be even more impossible outside the game! I don't have ovaries there!"
Danika slapped down her flighty imagination that immediately presented Kit as an effeminate middle aged man, and asked instead, "Why is it impossible in the game?"
Kit blushed and looked away from her husband. "We've only ever kissed at most," she muttered.
The merchant gave Kit a puzzled look and said, "I don't understand."
Kit gave another tearful laugh, and agreed, "Me either."
The merchant told her gently, "When two people love each other very much…" but Kit stood up abruptly and he stopped. The merchant struggled to his feet beside her, looking very ordinary and human for a moment.
"I'm going to go wash my face before I leave for work. It's okay, it was just a shock. Everything was a shock," she said quickly.
"Yeah," Danika agreed.
Kit hugged the merchant and then turned back to face her again and said, "You don't have to say anything cool or meaningful, just something to let her know you're listening."
"Okay," Danika replied, as Kit logged off and left ZipZing hovering alone in front of the merchant.
"Can I assist you with anything tonight, ZipZing my friend?" the merchant asked politely.
Danika shook her head and he hefted his pack and walked away as usual. As soon as he was gone she regretted not asking him about Kit's new pregnancy. Her head was a confused jumble.
She pulled up the guild messages again, but she still didn't know what to write. After a moment she swiped over and messaged Aishin: "Do you know how babies are made?"
After another minute she removed the pebble that held her garden and set it down beneath one of the trees that Kit had once told her belonged to the local flock of little birds. She whispered "dragonheart" and flew over to sit on the stone seat above the one that held the fallen star.
Then she pulled up her skills and read the description on the spell called Illusion. In some ways, it wasn't as cool as she'd imagined, but in other ways it was quite powerful. You couldn't conjure the illusion of something you'd never seen, but you could conjure the illusion of pretty much anything that your character had ever seen.
The size and duration of the illusion were based on the skill level, so Danika could only make an image of something very small. It wasn't based on her own size though, so the spell counted Eyes on the Sky as 'very small'.
Her character had seen Eyes on the Sky laughing, eating, posing dramatically, and even sleeping. The first level illusion could only last for a second, but the wizard had said the fallen star could keep an illusion alive. It felt like it was meant to hold Eyes on the Sky's image, like the game had known before Shrubbery had posted. Danika just didn't know if it was a good idea, or which image to use.