Unbeknownst to Nova or Beil, Wanita silently stood and walked away in a daze back up the hill to her home. Her anger would soon return once the shock wore off and she would start to feel that Nova was simply a very lucky child who would most likely stay at her level forever, but her denial gave her the excuse to remain as stubborn as she wanted. After all, she was still phisically stronger. That wouldn't change, right?
It took Nova a second to look up and see that she was gone and sighed in relief, Beil was more important and now she could focus on him.
"Are you alright? I never meant to say your name out loud. I didn't think that it would have such an intense effect."
"While I do remember warning you before you were so much more powerful than I am, you had no ill intent meaning that there was no way it could have hurt me, it only felt like a wave of heavy pressure. Be mindful of it for your future's sake, especially if you go to the Land of the Yggdrasil. The Fae take names very seriously, and I mean it when I say they take them."
"What? You know that, nevermind. As long as you are okay that's all that matters. Why did she leave? I thought she was going to keep badgering me until I gave up, like my grandmother."
"Though she backed down this time, Nana will never change. She has no power over you, Nova, no matter how much she tries to think that she does. You more than likely surprised her with your sheer potential and mental strength, and the reason I do not seem as surprised is that at this point I think you could surpass the nobles."
"The Hidden Realm has nobles? Does that mean there's a King of the Ayakashi and Yokai?"
Beil chuckled with an exasperated expression. "You love learning, maybe Nana was on to something about taking you to the University."
Nova realized that she had let her curiosity take control again and nervously laughed with him before looking away in embarrassment.
"For now, tell me how you feel."
"Annoyed, mostly," Nova started, but Beil shook his head. So not her emotions, her body? Oh right. She took a moment to enter into her meditative state and looked at her spirit energy core. It was the same as before, yet somehow it didn't feel like it was as threatening. That didn't make sense, it didn't look different. She approached it and placed a hand on it.
Instead of intense heat or backwards pressure, it was almost acting like a tentative animal, like it wanted to trust her but it didn't know how to feel about her yet. She decided to push it a bit and took a step forward, sliding into the core like a very hot bath, if the bath were vertical and made of cream that felt like waking up after a power nap and drinking a double expresso. She gasped as it danced around her, biting her skin a little before cooling off a bit at a time. She held her hands together to feel it pool in them like cupping liquid only to creep up her arms softly.
"Do you like me now?"
It flinched and she winced as it burned like fire for a second before settling back.
"Sorry, did I surprise you?"
Why did it feel like this energy had its own consciousness? Was that normal? She thought Beil said it was supposed to behave like an extension of herself and her will, and it sort of did. She asked it to move a certain way and it listened after a moment, but that's just it, she felt that it could choose not to comply.
Waking herself she looked at Beil with a face filled with resolve and curiosity. "I feel... connected. I can sense my own energy now, and there's a lot of it. I wonder if I could-"
She cut herself off and tried to squeeze herself down, like taking all the free roaming energy in her body and coaxing it back into her core. What happened next felt very uncomfortable. Her limbs started to shift, retracting her wings back into her arms and shortening her neck. It was mildly painful, like the burn and aching from a heavy work out, but once she was done doing whatever that was she opened her eyes and looked down at herself before shreaking and turning around.
Beil for his part, who had long since realized that she had figured out how to revert back to her human form, had promptly turned around the moment she had started to shrink. When he heard her squeak in surprise he broke down into chuckles. "It is good that you have a connection between the body and the soul now, but could that not have waited?"
"I didn't know!"
Beil laughed harder as Nova panicked behind him, but he made sure to cover his face with his wing as she flitted about. "Just turn back."
"I don't know how, I was just trying something!"
"Take a deep breath and relax first. I can not see you and no one else is around."
Nova fought through her shame and embarrassment and swallowed hard before trying to relax. It took a moment but she regulated her breath and tried to reverse what she had just done for a moment before realizing something. If she could revert back into a human, could she go further?
Calming her mind she tried again, compressing her energy even further. She tried to feel out her sense of self and remembered that she was told her true self was now a snake. Her rebirth was not a Wyvern, it was not a human, it was the body of a pure white ball python. She felt the pain and burning again but she paid it no mind, she shrank as her limbs retracted, as her body lengthened, and opened her eyes to a vew much lower to the ground.
Spinning around Nova was thrilled. For some reason this body felt right. It confused her with just how correct it felt even when she had spent most of her memories in a human body, but that's just it, she wasn't human. Not anymore. It wasn't just not being in human form, it was like an instinct that humanity wasn't quite right anymore. She was a snake. An Ayakashi. This was who she is now.
Feeling content and resolute, Nova wrapped herself around Beil's legs. He blinked, looked down, and his eyes squinted up in a smile as he clacked his beak
"Well would you look at that, hello. You look like yourself again."
"I feel like myself," she broadcast with her mind, after all snakes don't have teeth or tongue muscles, or even vocal cords for that matter, but who cares?
"So about your Nana, does she always treat you like an afterthought?"
"Yep." He said it with no hesitation and no dampening of his mood.
"Wha... how can you say that so lightly?"
"Because I do not care. Is it not her job to be critical? To bring up the slightest of mistakes in order to make their student feel like they must try to fix it?"
"No." Nova shook her head. "I get where you are coming from, but a mother is supportive and favors their kid above themself, teaches them how the world works with examples and guidance, not punishment and turning away from them."
"Yes, that they should, but Edna Wanita is not my mother figure, she is my Trade Master, and as her ward I failed dramatically and jeopardized my chances to be greater than I turned out to be."
"What do you mean," Nova asked with a worried tone to her projected thoughts, climbing his torso like a tree to sit on his back.
Beil sighed and started to walk, heading down the mountain as was the original course they were taking. "I put myself in danger for a childish reason and managed to become so extensively injured that my core stopped accepting me as it's true master. Sure I can cast spells, but if I attempt more than two at a time or anything too powerful, my soul will detach and move to the afterlife."
Nova tensed up and nearly fell off before she caught herself. Well that was one heck of a bad situation. "What did you do?"
"I failed to uphold a duty I was assigned and I was promptly turned over into the mud with broken wings, a dislocated jaw, and a third of my soul corrupted by his mana."
Nova was cringing so hard about the description of his injuries that she almost missed that last word. Almost.
"Mana? You mean you were defeated by someone from the Fae?"
He nodded. "That is correct. I successfully prolonged our peace treaty only because the Fae in question was merciful and took pity on me after I showed how willing I was to sacrifice myself not for the conquest of Ayakashi and Yokai, but to simply prevent unnecessary deaths on both sides."
"Really? What were they trying to start a war over that they'd just stop like that?"
Beil looked at her hesitantly for a moment, but seeing the earnest concern in her eyes glistening with held back tears, he sighed.
"After having been captured by the opposition, the Queen was publicly executed."
"They didn't use her as a hostage?"
"She was dying anyway, no one knows for sure in what way as she refused physicians, and there was also the matter of her adultery."
"She slept with other men? Is that really a crime punishable by death?"
He shook his head. "Maybe for human customs, they sure have a thing for monogamy and loyalty, but not for Ayakashi and Yokai. When you are able to live thousands of years it is practically expected that you pick up a lover or two every few centuries."
Nova didn't know how to feel about that, but she wasn't going to judge. "Then what was it?"
"It was the fact that she was royalty and therefore obligated to bring forth an heir for the king, and instead of doing so she refused to consummate her marriage with His Majesty for nearly four hundred years and chose to instead birth the offspring of his riveling kingdom's prince."
"Ouch."
"That was just the tip of the iceberg. The true issue with this poor choice of hers was that the prince in question was from her own kingdom."
Something sounded really warped about that for a moment. "What nobility was the Queen before she married?"
"Princess."
Nova moaned, feeling disgruntled and disgusted. Incest could cause some real issues with offspring after enough generations, was it the same with those of the Hidden realm?
"What about stuff like inbreeding too much, is that a problem here?"
"Not exactly, but as a princess she basically wasted her lineage and failed to uphold her duties properly, especially when her marriage was supposed to be the link between the two kingdoms."
"Ah." Nova noticed the scenery had changed somewhat, less walking down the mountain and a lot more foliage. Wait, what had brought up this part conversation? Oh right. "So when did you get involved?"
"I was working in the court as a cartographer, since I can fly and the Kingdom needed as many people as it could find to map out details after the borders needed to be reestablished, and I had happened to overhear a very private conversation. Someone in the court had let me know that the King had left for his chambers to unwind, but I was late to hand in my final report stating extensive deforestation, something he banned when the land was drained of wild game. I knew it was information he had specifically requested be brought to his immediate attention so I chose to go to his chambers. I should have waited, but if I had I would not have known of the imminent war."
"But why did that lead you do be so heavily injured?"
"I burst in on his argument with one of his advisors after learning of the Queen's capture and His Majesty was furious. In exchange for his understanding I offered myself to his service to help rescue her from the other side, but when I came back with news of Her Majesty's execution he tried to kill me in turn through an official judicial challenge as I had not fulfilled my mission. If I lived through the fight I would win my right to continue living, if I died or became crippled it was deemed as justice. A damaged soul is to some extent crippling. The fact that I can no longer maintain my own longevity and can only cast minimal spells was punishment enough, he let me live."
"I see," she said softly before asking, "so what stopped the war?"
"Well the fact that they executed their own princess for basically treason, since she had neglected her duties and committed adultery and incest, and to top it off bore her brother's daughter instead of an heir for the king, he decided not to pursue the war he thought was necessary. After all, he only thought about it under the impression that she had been kidnapped, not just chose to run away on her own."
"And the child?"
"The daughter was sent to live a quiet life at a villa somewhere, she was not held responsible for her parents mistakes."
Nova sighed in relief and they settled into silence for a long time before she tipped her head forward to look him in the eye.
"So what's the plan?"
"I am taking you to the University of Youto, the
city capital of the south-eastern province."
"Already?"
"No time like the present, you really enjoy learning, we spent the whole trip down just talking about a political conflict. Do you have anywhere else to be?"
Nova blinked and went still.
"Actually, yes."