Chapter five
The frozen face of Isaea remained untainted in the divine Dimension she had been brought into. Indeed, her entire body was ensnared by the effect, taking heed of none of the understood elements of reality, like gravity and time. Here, in the land upon the other side of the world, such concepts were rendered irrelevant by the area's inhibitors.
The Fae warrior dragged the statuesque Isaea from the cosmic door they had entered into a traveling array used to touch all realms. Doors that led to every single realm were fabricated anew each time so as to not have the worry of being found and worshipped. This was necessary as to be worshipped was to commit a violent sin against the world who had forgotten the heavens.
Now in front of a door that led personally to the arch magus of the abyss, the Fae woman placed her hand on the marble slab that lay where the door's entry would be. Light spider cracked through the slab, consuming the individual to open the pathway. On the other side of the door, a display of the Magus could be seen. A golden sage bathed in rays of light and youth, blonde hair comfortably strewn about over his shoulders with only a white blouse visible from behind his desk. The Fae warrior stood there for a moment, holding her hand to her chest. The increase of her heart rate always came as she gazed upon him. A light blush formed on her cheeks.
~I need to finish my contract.~ She thought to herself as she centered herself once again. She returned her face to its stoic form and pushed into the doorway, leaving Isaea just in front so as to not immediately squander her meeting with the man.
Everything froze around her as she entered the realm, except of course, the arch Magus who was still diligently writing away at his desk. The Fae warrior stood in the silence, shooting her eyes down to her right.
~I wouldn't mind if things stayed like this for a bit.~ She thought to herself as she struggled to maintain her professionalism in front of the man who had not yet even acknowledged her.
"Theta, won't you relax while you're here? You hardly ever visit me after all." The arch magus said as he continued to write, not even sparing a second to look up at her. For him, meetings with people were secondary to his work, but he still felt as though they could wait in their own comfort while he finalized his actions.
Theta squeezed her right hand as she felt her heart fight her desire to listen to him.
"I cannot do that, Lord Tryamon. My presence here is already disturbance enough for the world." She said, bowing her head
"Please forgive me."
Tryamon looked up from his notebook and frowned.
"Who do you have to apologize for? The world? You're no longer part of it anymore, for it has forsaken you. Regardless of whether or not you are responsible, please take to heart that you are free to do as you'd like around me, you've earned at least that for what you've done and what's been done to you. You need not worry about dissenters. After all, who would dare to stand against the wishes of mineself? Now, please raise your head. I would much rather see your beautiful face."
Theta did just that, her heart beating hard as she once again laid her eyes on him.
Tryamon smiled and set his pen down in the center of his notebook, interlacing his hands with one another after folding his waist-long hair behind his ears.
"So, to what do I owe this visit?"
"I have come to deliver a holder of your protective pendant."
"Hoh. Wonderful, thank you for personally overseeing this."
Theta placed her hand over her chest and made to bow, but Tryamon raised his hand.
"Please, do not bow."
"As you wish, Lord Tryamon." She said as she fixed her posture, returning to her neutral stance.
Tryamon got up and walked past Theta, leaning on the rail that overlooked his study. In the center of the study, a great ball of nature energy floated with multiple rings gyrating around it, running an impossible amount of calculations per microsecond. At the sides and back lay an assortment of bookshelves containing all the earth's knowledge that Tryamon had uncovered over his long time of being.
Theta turned and looked from her side at Tryamon as he sat there watching the gyrating rings. Feeling the draw of Heaven, Theta decided to pull through Isaea, who had been frozen inside the array the entire time.
"When I had arrived, there was an anomaly-affected vortex that was engulfing an entire river along with another fairy."
Tryamon simply continued to stare at the sphere, pondering on the information that he had just been informed. It was not unusual for such things to occur, but usually, guardian beasts of the forest would have chased away any would-be hero from such dangers.
"Was there not a nature Golem in the region? It should have protected them from the anomaly."
Theta shook her head as she began to make her way to Tryamons side, dragging the frozen Isaea through the air by her wrist.
"The one I presume to be the Guardian of that region was in route, but still aways away. I can only guess, but perhaps they had managed to escape the guardian by jumping down the tree side."
"Could be. Well, no matter. Thank you again for bringing her back." He said, turning to face Theta. He extended his hand out and placed it on her shoulder.
"The Draw of heaven must be weighing heavily on you now. I don't want to keep you any longer."
~That really doesn't matter. I wish I could stay more for longer myself…~ She thought as she nodded
"I'll be taking my leave then. Till we meet again, Lord Tryamon."
The celestial door slipped into being behind Theta.
"Till we see each other again," Tryamon said as he waved goodbye.
Theta's brow V'd as she half pouted. Tryamon chuckled a bit as he saw this rare flair of emotion on her face.
"You look cute like that, you know." He said.
Before Theta could respond, the door passed through her, leaving her alone in the array once again. She stood there for an immeasurable time, waiting for the next time she'd be summoned.
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The hum of the gyrating sphere filled the silence of the study. It had been an entire day before Isaea had awoken. Upon awakening, Isaea debriefed Tyramon on the ongoings of the whole scenario over some morning tea.
"You two… I think I urge caution to the point of it being a form of tinnitus for you youngsters of mine, yet we're here."
Isaea could only listen to her master with her head down. She had known that what they did was well beyond reckless, but she wouldn't let Poppy go about on his own. If she did that and something happened to him, she'd never forgive herself. Of course, her presence hadn't helped in this most recent case and that was hurting her dearly. Why had she even bothered? The only thing that came about from her was her friend missing and her master disappointed.
"Well you two certainly won't be receiving any accolades or ascensions, but I'm not too concerned about that right now. What I am concerned about is that troublemakers student. I don't doubt his ability, but I've never heard about anyone being taken by a spirit vortex like that."
Tryamon began to walk down from the top of his study to a small room just adjacent to it, inviting Isaea to come along.
"Just let me go ahead and get dressed, then we can go out and look for Poppy. You can sit over there."
He pointed at a chair in front of a mirror with an assortment of self-care and beautification products. Isaea took a seat and began to look at all the items.
~He has a lot of things… that girls usually use? I guess that isn't too strange since we are inherently genderless.~ she thought to herself as she began to look around the room.
~seems like his personal bedroom.~
"Isaea, should I go for practicality or something more awe-inspiring?" He shouted from behind a screen covering what she assumed to be his wardrobe.
"Probably something simple with low maintenance."
"Gotcha!"
A few minutes passed before Tryamon came out from behind the screen.
"Well? What do you think?"
Isaea squinted her eyes and poked him in his side harshly.
"You literally didn't even change anything! You're still wearing the same blouse and trousers! Are you just trying to waste time!?"
Tryamon covered the area she had just poked with both of his hands and laughed.
"Of course not, and to be very clear. These are completely different, you know." he said as he pulled out his previous fit.
"If you don't believe me you're welcome to look behind the curtain."
Isaea placed her hand up. She was in no way interested in whatever craziness would be inside her Master's wardrobe. She instead took a double-take on her own clothing. Aside from being mildly dirty, her woodland traveling gear was still intact. The only thing missing was her travel pack and her spellcasting glove.
Suddenly she broke out into a cold sweat. Her Master had given that to her as a reward for making it into the junior mage ranks. If he found out that she had lost it then surely she'd be done for.
Inside Isaea's thoughts, an evil version of her master spoke.
"If you can't take care of something as small as a casting glove, how can I trust you with anything? Just go ahead and withdraw from the academy and spare me the disgrace of having a student like you."
No way…! I can't let him know that I lost it!~
Tryamon had moved onward and upwards, slipping on his sandals as he made his way out of the room. Now back in his study, Tryamon placed his hand to his chest and exhaled. Both his chest and hand-turned a deep crystalline purple. With closed eyes, he reshaped his chest into a bountiful bosom. His hair changed from a yellow-ish blonde to Nearly silver and a mole appeared underneath his left eye. His shoulders shrunk down and his height dropped a few inches. Suddenly, the rather innocuous attire that had been okay while in his male form was considerably more lewd with, now her, bust pressing tightly against her blouse. The only thing that was left unchanged was her Purple Ovals that lay where an Iris would normally be which echoed the shade of her true form.
~I suppose this should be good enough to greet that fool~ She thought to herself as she pulled her hand away, causing her skin to reform back to its previous pale form. She made her way back to her desk and sat down.
Isaea came up from her master's room in an awkward fashion. She was still worked up about wanting to go find Poppy that she felt silly for her thoughts earlier. She honestly knew that her master would understand, but she just felt bad about losing it.
Tryamon noticed how her apprentice was acting and raised her hand up with her fingers pointed like a gun.
*Spew spew*
She shot two small balls of water at Isaea who was caught off guard in her thoughts.
Isaea yelped as the two blobs slapped her in the face.
"What the heck was that for?"
"Well, something seemed to be bothering you, so I decided to bother you instead to take the spotlight." She said as she made a heart with water
Isaea wiped her face with her sleeve and made ready to be snarky, but stopped as she noticed the change in appearance and voice.
"You can change your appearance?" Now it all made sense. It was something that was pretty rare, but she should have guessed that her master could do it. She was an elder Fairy after all.
"I'm honestly surprised that you didn't consider that sooner! I've only been training you for, I don't know, two centuries?"
"So all those times when I saw women's clothing strewn about in our travels… that was you? I just thought you were an unapologetic womanizer!"
Tryamon shot the last bit of water at her apprentice.
~I'm not a damn womanizer! I didn't and don't even care about things like that at all. All I wanted to do was spend time conducting research and having a male form just seemed helpful for fieldwork since everyone would recognize me otherwise!~ she thought to herself as she suppressed a flourish of color on her face.
"Can you stop blasting me?!?" Isaea hollered out.
"You deserve that last one for sure!" called out a young man's voice.
Both master and apprentice turned their heads to look at where the voice had come from. A head with ash-blonde hair and yellow-green ovals for eyes peeked out of a hole in the ground.
"Yo!"
Bulging stress marks formed on Tryamon's forehead as she realized who it was.
"Why are you IN my floor?"
"Well Titania was pretty heated about me coming to see you and she kinda kicked me into the ceiling."
Tryamon nodded her head, now taking aim with her finger.
"Hey HEY! Don't you blast me!"
"Well then, Oberon, GET OUT OF MY FLOOR!"
Oberon climbed outta the hole in the ground and brushed himself off. He looked at Isaea for a moment before looking back at Tryamon with a gleeful smile. He skipped over and jumped over the desk, trying to give her a diving hug, but Tryamon scooted to the side and watched him face plant into the ground.
"Che. You're no fun Trya." Oberon said as he got up, dusting himself off once again. He wore a gaudy-looking silver and white fur inlaid coat on his shoulders over a black dress shirt and black jeans. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows and clicked his black dress shoes together, freeing them of any dust that would ruin their splendor.
"Well, It's whatever, yeah? You're still as stupid as you've always been. It's no wonder your apprentice is currently either dead or lost in the ancient forest." She said half-heartedly. She and Oberon had something like a complicated past. Oberon was the Fairy King and his bride forevermore was Titania. That didn't stop him from changing his face and seducing Tryamon though. Funnily enough, It was actually him who taught her how to be able to do such a technique.
The time they spent together wasn't bad, but the ensuing chaos that arose after Titania found out about his infidelity was a scarring memory for Tryamon. Still, she did love him, if not as a lover then as a fool-hearted friend.
Tryamon reached up and pinch-held his ear, pulling him down into a hug.
"How long has it been?" she asked
"About three centuries or so. I've had very limited time to do things since Titania was all over me, trying to make sure I didn't do anything stupid again."
Tryamon let go of him and grabbed him by the shoulders.
"I see you've not let that ruin your terrible sense of fashion." She said in a playful manner as she pulled on the shoulders of his gaudy silver and white fur coat.
"What? My taste is immaculate." He said in a petty but wholesome tone as he looked down at the coat.
"Well you've always been a dreamer"
She patted him on his head and got up from her seat.
Suddenly the gyrosphere in the center of the room slowed down to a halt. The core in the center was focused on the forest. Isaea, who had been watching silently, turned and pointed at the gyrosphere.
"Hey. Is that supposed to happen?"
Tryamon looked over at the gyrosphere and smirked. It had reacted to a distress pulse and was showing them the location. All that was left was for them to head out and retrieve the boy. Oberon noticed this too and Stepped back.
"You gonna cast teleportation magic?"
Tryamon shrugged her shoulders as she rolled up her sleeves, walking clear around the table. She held both of her arms out and began to speak aloud a short incantation.
"With mine will, rend asunder causality and open the gates in my mind!"
A circular portal that led to the Expanse opened before them.
"Amazing as always Trya." Oberon said as he caught her stumbling form.
"I appreciate it. That always puts a lot of strain on my body. Gaaah. I think I have a migraine now." She said as she nursed her head in her hands.
"Welp, want me to carry you?" Oberon offered as he knew how taxing such a legendary spell was. She was the only one who was capable of doing it amongst the Fairies of the abyss after all.
"Just for a bit, and don't get any ideas!"
Oberon chuckled a bit as he swooped Trya off her feet princess style and made for the portal. Isaea Just watched dumbly as they passed through, completely blown away by her master's prowess. Only after a minute or so did she come back to her senses and just in time. The portal closed right behind her as she jumped into it.