PSTH: Chapter Thirty-Seven

Immortality. The goal of countless Obsidian Kings, research groups, and wood magians. But is it actually possible? Even if you look at the issues with biological immortality, such as telomere shortening, there are issues with the ousia. It begins to fray into threads that require constant maintenance after roughly a hundred and fifty years. The Obsidian Kings drained the ousia of others to repair their own, but that was a patchwork with efficiency drops each time it was used. And that’s to say nothing of the moral issues. No, I think the only real option is to accept that immortality is impossible at our current technomagical level. But that does not depress me. Instead, I use that as motivation to grasp my best life possible.

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Inspirational speech by Mrs. Woolworthy at Slate University, 456 Modern-Era

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After Gabby had finished fixing up my leg, I was utterly exhausted, and ravenously hungry. That tended to come with most sorts of magical healing, at least when it was done on people or things with biology. A Primal might only need to repair the underlying ousia in order to heal itself, but humans also burnt some calories in conjunction with the anima for the spell itself. I absolutely tore through one of my bean soup food cubes before crawling into my tent and passing out. The following morning, Gabby checked over my leg one more time and checked that I was sure I didn’t need to head back or be flown back, before we finally set off on the next branch of our hike. 

Gabby was very clearly taking it slower, just in case things hadn’t healed right in my leg, despite the fact that I felt entirely fine, and over the course of the hike, every other member of our collection came up to check on me. Gabby did so to ensure she didn’t need to call for me to be flown out, while Isabella and Alberton checked on me with a kind of grandparent-like energy that only seemed to be capable of being cultivated by the elderly. 

River and Laurel were more friendly, making sure that I really felt like I was up for this, and not just pushing forward because I felt like I needed to. I reassured them that I was fine, which I really was. Laurel offered to help carry my backpack, so I didn’t have the weight of it on me, but I waved her off – I really was feeling fine. Gabby might not be a professional doctor, but she was still a level sixty wood mage, and it had been a simple enough healing. 

Gawain approached me, his lavender eyes cutting through the air as he looked me up and down.

“Gryphon and I working together have enough anima to sustain his flight for a while, if you need to take a break from walking. He can probably only maintain an hour, but it’s something.” 

“I’m really okay, I promise, but thank you,” I said, giving Gawain a grateful smile. “It’s sweet of you.” 

“I was arguably the reason that your leg was injured,” Gawain said flatly, shaking his head as if to deny the accusation that it was sweet. “Though Tro– Galling does share some of the blame.” 

“Trogalling?” I asked, blinking in confusion. 

“Galling,” Gawain said stiffly. “I had a brief consultation with my mother this morning. We agreed that Galling would be the best suited synonym for Troublemaker while maintaining the G theme for names.” 

“That theming,” I said, rolling my eyes. “For what it’s worth, I do put most of the blame on Troublemaker, or Galling if it’s actually the name that you would prefer. It’s hard to act logical while under the influence of fear magic. I don’t think you’d have used your flash spells normally.” 

“Creating a cohesive theme around something like a letter, color, or gemstone has been shown to–” Gawain started to say, apparently more intent on being annoyed by dismissal of his overwhelming need to brand than he was interested in discussing what had happened.

 I cut him off before his rant could really get going. It was true that theming in names could be important, but he acted like it was needed, which it definitely wasn’t. Worse, he’d picked probably the worst possible kind of branding to go with. If he’d gone with a bunch of names around gemstones or the planets or something like that, it might at least be cool. But everyone who used a letter for everything just became that letter and nothing more. 

“Suck. It sucks. If I have Linus, Liam, Lincoln, Lestat, and Lawrence, then I’m just going to confuse people. I might get a bit of recognition as the L-Team, but people will just start calling my Primals by their species, rather than looking at them as individuals.” 

“That can happen, but I just have to ensure that it doesn’t happen to me,” Gawain said stubbornly. I grunted and walked ahead, confused by the whole interaction. How had him coming to apologize for the part that he’d played in last night’s events turned into an argument about naming? 

“Alright everyone, we’ve got a pair of cool things coming up,” Gabby announced, clapping from where she stood at the front of the group. “If you turn your attention to the left as we come around this bend…” 

I turned as she’d suggested, and as we moved around the bend, I saw it. There was a massive waterfall, towering taller than most of the skyscrapers in Tourmaline city, sourced from a river that flowed over the mountain high above. Over countless eons, it had worn a large, horn-like groove into the stone at the top of the mountain, creating a splitting effect where the water cascaded down in twinned pillars. It struck the gray and brown stones of the mountain, where it broke into further streams, fanned upwards to spray free droplets into the air, and swirled into small pools formed from indentations in the stone. When they finally struck the ground, they pooled together in a divot formed over endless years, before flowing out in a river that looked entirely too small to have come from such an enormous waterfall. It wasn’t, of course, but it sure seemed like it was. 

A wooden bridge with grit glued to the planks stretched over the pool, letting us walk out and get a direct view of the waterfall, and I only realized that I’d stopped halfway down the bridge when Gawain slammed into my back. I stumbled and he groaned.

“Imbecile,” he muttered under his breath. 

“I’m sorry, is it a sin to take in nature’s beauty?” I asked, whirling around and stepping closer to him irritably. 

“It is when you’ve got people behind you!” he snapped back. “We could have plummeted off the side. I didn’t realize you were so eager to have another bone broken – or worse, if you couldn’t gather your pneuma in time.” 

Isabella stepped between the two of us, giving me a glare that reminded me of an angry and disappointed grandmother, before turning to level the same gaze at me.

“I get that you two have some sort of rivalry, and it’s probably not been made any better by what happened recently, but I’m putting an end to this right now. You two are acting like squabbling children.” 

Gawain turned on her, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at her. 

“I’m sorry, what? He stopped while I was walking right–” 

“Young man, I do not care who started it,” Isabella said, cutting Gawain off. “I’ve seen four year olds argue with more maturity than either of you. Both of you are going to apologize to one another, and then both of you are going to keep walking normally. If one of you wants to walk ahead of Albert and I, then you’re welcome to.” 

“Whatever, sorry,” Gawain said, turning and walking away. Before he could get more than a step away, Isabella snapped her fingers and shook her head. 

“No. That was not an apology. I’ve also seen four year olds give a better apology than that.” 

Gawain turned, gritting his teeth. The frustration rolling off of him was palpable, and it seemed like his essence was going absolutely buck wild. 

“I am sorry that I snapped at you,” he said through gritted teeth. Honestly, I kind of got it – Isabella was treating us like children, and that could get infuriating. Isabella turned her head to me and arched her eyebrow. 

“Thank you. I’m sorry I didn’t move out of the way to stop,” I said. It was the most truthful apology that I could come up with that was also a real apology, and not a half-hearted attempt. Gawain nodded and turned, walking away again. This time, Isabella let him go, before shaking her head and walking to join her husband. 

“Wow,” Laurel said, siddling up to me. “She would have been a terrifying magian. Shame she never cultivated.” 

I snorted before murmuring my agreement. Our group spent a little more time on the bridge, and I took a few pictures of the waterfall to send to people when I boosted my signal this evening. On top of that, we took a group photo with Gabby and everyone, I took a picture with my Primals, and Laurel, River, our Primals, and I all took a picture together to send to Vince. 

After some time we moved on, hiking through a less commonly used trail toward the second site for the day. The trail was maintained reasonably well, with paint on trees in bright blue to indicate the path, but given how many miles out it was from any of the paved trails, and the fact that it wasn’t super commonly used, there was some overgrowth. We pushed through it, though at one point Gabby did have to stop to relocate some poison ivy that had grown over the trail. With her wood magic, it wasn’t an especially risky proposition for her, but it still took a bit of time. 

The infrequently crossed through area gave us a chance to spot a few animals, and I snagged a few pictures. Most of them were fairly off in the distance, but on top of the usual squirrels, chipmunks, and small birds, there was a flock of wild turkeys, a copperhead sunning itself on a rock, and even a red wolf out in the distance. 

As we continued down the trail, I felt something in the air, as the essence concentration began to rise. We were clearly nearing an essence heart, and with that came a commensurate increase in the number of Primals in the area. Squarrels, Sparrunks, and Kirows darted all over the place, and I even spotted several Shawks in the air. The lightning-aligned hawk Primals were rare and notably powerful, but a bad pick for my team. Their innate gift granted them access to the ability to cast the Lightning Dash spell without it counting against their core slots. Hex would render their innate spell essentially useless, which would make me feel bad for the poor Shawk, and would put us in a rough spot in actual fights – Shawks needed the spell to make up for their lacking pneuma levels. 

Before long, we arrived at a small rest center with long, low stone benches, and a set of steps leading down into the earth next to it. Gabby gestured down the steps and smiled at us. 

“How many of you have seen an essence heart before?” 

Everyone put their hands up, and Gabby’s smile grew wider. 

“Alright. How many people have seen a double essence heart?” 

I put my hand down, as did everyone but Isabella and Alberton. 

“And how many of you have seen a triple?” 

They put their hands down, and Gabby began walking down the steps. 

“Well, come with me, and all of you will!”