The ground shook, and the sky darkened in seconds. Eleftherios was less than pleased with the idea. He was about to rage but then held it.
"Fine, but you go without me, and if things go too far I will come to pick you up, in full gear." He said and kicked both of them out.
Ciaran had seen him mad, but he had never seen him so mad he would need privacy to calm down.
"Am I allowed to know, or is this a 'We will tell you when you are older' kind of thing?" He asked, and to his surprise, he got an answer.
"I am taking you to meet Mother Nature. You are about to meet your first Magus kid, and if things go wrong your Master will come swinging. Believe me, a fight between Gods is not something anyone wants." Verdania said while trembaling.
Ciaran just froze and looked at her, or more accurately, he looked through her into the distance.
"Excuse me, but did you say Mother Nature? Like, the ancient Goddess that rules the natural world? The thing I believed to be a fairy tale meant to insight me into studying biology. That Mother Nature?" He asked. And when she nodded he cursed out.
It was hard to forget that in normal circumstances, Mages were extremely rare. Only in places like the Academy could one meet so many of them. And Verdania and Eleftherios were ancient beings both on top of the world.
"So is a God just another word for Magus, or do the Rank Tens also enjoy the privilege?" He tried to rationalize things.
But his mentor shook her head.
"No, we call Gods those who have crossed beyond the Devine Ciaran." She said, and the confusion in the eyes of the boy didn't lessen at all.
"Look, don't worry about it, you will learn rank theory later on in class anyway. Now let's go meet your, ah, third grandmother. And don't ask about relationships in dryad society either, I don't want to talk about it." She said, suddenly getting annoyed.
Then, before he could ask any more questions, they teleported. Now they were in a jungle. Then there was another teleport, and they were over the sea. Then another, and they were in a desert, and then finally they were in a land covered in ice.
"O yeah, you are going to absolutely hate this with every fiber of your being, for the rest of your life. Just to let you know." The dryad said and walked forward.
The boy could take a guess where this was going. He had no problems with the drawing and the steam baths anymore. In fact, Verdania even said he had aced them. The Ice, however, now that was a different story.
No matter what they did, he always came out shaken from the experience. Forget about hearing the voice of the Ice, he barely survived with his mind intact.
Every time it got a little bit better, and he could take it for a bit longer. But it never got easier, and the only thing that improved was his tolerance for the abuse.
They walked in silence, neither wanting to acknowledge what they were about to do. She was still ridden with guilt from the last time things went too far, and the boy was simply afraid.
Then they saw a woman sitting on a block of ice, just watching the snowfall. She was, in manners of speaking ordinary. She wasn't beautiful like the dryad, nor was she majestic like her brother. She had no mystery to her like the aura Camille presented, nor was she shocking and playful like the sparks he had seen on the beard of Alaric.
She was just a woman, sitting on the edge of the world, and she was waiting for them.
"Mother. How have you been? It's nice to see you." Verdania greeted.
Ciaran just looked at her and shook his head.
"No, it isn't. Why are my mentors acting like you are their estranged parent, what's the story here? Please spill the tea, and don't hold back on any of the details." He just walked up and sat next to her.
Verdania wanted to grab him back, but her mother was already patting his head. Now he was under her protection, even from his mentors.
"Stop acting like she would appreciate the courtesy, because if I read her correctly, and I think I do, she just wanted to see you, and could give a shit how you speak to her." He said, and the dryad was about to cry.
He was right, but that was just the problem. Both she and Eleftherios had cut their ties with him, and neither wanted to rebuild them.
"No Ciaran, we can't cheat like that. If you want to fix our familiar bond you will have to get what you need from Eleftherios. It's not my place to tell his secrets." The manifestation of nature spoke, and unlike everything else about her, her voice was anything but normal.
It sounded like everything, all at once. It was male, female, human, and all the animal sounds combined, and yet the kid understood her perfectly. Just a few casual sentences from her, were enough for him to understand why Verdania was so tense.
They had no control here. The boy was sure she was no Wind user, and that she, theoretically could use the element but could not rip the control out of his hands, no matter the power gap. Even Verdania couldn't, and she was the strongest Mage he knew.
"Are you going to help me, and if yes, can you please be gentle. I am a very fragile and untalented individual, so can you please show mercy to this speck of dust." He begged in an exaggerated manner, but he didn't fall to his knees. Somehow taking the joke too far against this woman felt wrong, even to him.
She smiled, and Ciaran just stood up and walked away.
"Nope, nope, hell no. I know that smile, and I am not sticking long enough to find out what it means this time. Let's go, I quit." He said and got frozen.
Nature just looked at him and sighed.
"If eighter of you two were half as forthcoming as this boy, we wouldn't be in this mess." She said, her tone turned into that of a mother scalding her children.
"And don't you give me that look, young man, the only reason you aren't here is that your student would rip the truth right out of your silence. And then what, you two can't ignore him as you do me, and he is the kind of boy who likes to, as he would put it, stir up a shitstorm." She was done being nice, now that the child was asleep.
Most would assume the Gods were above mortal pettiness. Most people would be wrong. Verdania was about to intervene when Eleftherios came crashing down from the sky.
"Tell me you didn't Mother. Tell me you didn't give him to us." He said his voice cracking.
Now both women were stunned, Verdania because she had no idea what he meant, and their Mother because she had no idea her son could read her at all.
"I did, and I should have done so sooner. You had him for less than a decade, and you are already free of both that bookworm's and even my influence. So what if I broke a few rules, the world would eventually balance itself out anyway." She said, and by the look on her face, she was expecting gratitude.
What she got instead was a spear to the face. Verdania was startled, but they shouted at them.
"Not near Ciaran, you can kill him if you aren't careful."
Mother Nature chuckled and flew away, and Eleftherios followed.
Only one of the dryads was left to guard the frozen coffin of their boy. She was starting to understand what their mother had done, and Gods forgive her, she was thankful for it. She could never admit it, not in front of her brother, but she was.
The mother and son fought relentlessly. They could go on for months of fear combat, but they came back only a few minutes later.
"Keep the boy safe, and bring him back straight away when he wakes up. I thought our mother was a control freak, that she was simply insufferable, but she proved me wrong. She is so much worse than that, and I am not having my family anywhere near her any more than it is necessary."
He said to his sister and dashed away.
"Don't worry sweet girl, he will come around, they all do eventually. And I won't tell him about your feelings, because in time he will come to understand that we were right all along. Now, let's get Ciaran through his Ordeal before he goes mad completely." She said while isolating the space around them.
Now they shared a secret. One she couldn't share with her brother and Ciaran. One that would bind Verdania's fate to her mother's.