>>6186982“Oh, it’s quite alright. We’ll pull through, we always do.” He then turns to Anya. “Though, I do hope you understand I charge extra for this sort of thing.”
Anya manages to laugh, despite it all, if a crisp and hollow one. “I’d expect nothing less. See us home, and I will see you both richly rewarded.”
All too soon the time comes for the appointed dinner. You might be in no mood to socialise but that matters not - like it or not, you’ll need Lord Stark or some other native lord’s aid if you are to spend any length of time in this world. Even an archmage cannot be independent of space on the ground, though you need but little, and there are avenues which can only be pursued with local aid, and projects which you party no matter how powerful is too small to undertake alone. There too are cultural mores to be learned, not to mention languages if you are to undertake any serious scholarship.
(On that point, translation spells greatly accelerate the process of acquiring a language, and a Permanency spell can extend their durations indefinitely, but the price is high for a boon which could be lost to a simple dispelling ward, and you cannot make such permanent on your companions either. In any event, you did not prepare Permanency today, so it’s a decision for a later date.)
You happen to notice on your way out that Eva is still wearing her normal tunic. “Is that all you have?”
“Well, I have a couple spares, but…”
But she wasn’t to get trapped in another world during a combat expedition. Most of your own extensive wardrobe is still in your tower back in Cuva as well. “No, that won’t do at all,” you say, then pull your own dress off over your head and hand it over.
Eva takes it tentatively, and her eyes go wide as she realises what it is. “Ally, this is your-”
“Pluripotent Shiftweave, yes. You need it more than I do at the moment.”
She hesitates a moment, then tears her tunic off and throws your dress over her head. It’s half a blanket on her frame - you stand well over six feet tall, and Eva breaks five when her posture is good - and the purple gold-trimmed velvet doesn’t suit her in the least, but the moment it’s on it melts and ripples like water, transforming into gown of woven leaves and gossamer that glimmers in the light.
“Waah~” Eva says as she gives the garment a delighted twirl.
“I know styles tend towards the plain in Eryn Talleran, but you are an archdruid now, all but peerless in the world; it is time you learned to walk among the highborne, and presentation is nine-tenths of good birth.”
“I… right. It’s all been so quick though, you know?” She admits. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel quite real yet.”
“I do, as it happens.”
