>>5816124You took a deep breath, and you began again—organized, methodical, point-by-point. Your journals helped you along, and as you explained your readings, and your theories, Izirina frowned thoughtfully. She took them from you, flipping the pages and skimming your notations and formulae as you gesticulated and articulated your way through your burgeoning theory.
“You think that there is something in the material realms, or in beings from these realms or connected to these realms and the flow of life and death, that isn’t present in the Elemental Planes?” she asked.
“Yes!” you exclaimed.
“And the way to uncover what that is… Is to merge something of those planes with something from THIS plane?” she continued. “Am I understanding correctly?”
“…It’s stupid, sin’t it?” you groaned, running your ahnd through your hair. “It’s nothing. It’s… It’s crazy,.”
“No.”
You looked up and the softly-spoken refutation, and saw in Izirina’s eyes that same excitement you’d seen when you told her of the Fairy Court—the same fervor you’d borne witness to when she told you of her plans to transcend this reality and her body.
“It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for,” she said, and took both your hands in hers.
All at once, you realized why you’d sought her out and not Pearce. Pearce was reliable, stalwart, your best and oldest friend… But he loved you more than he loved knowledge, more than he loved the hunt and capture of secret truths. Only Izirina Henzler was like you in this regard, of all the people you knew—except perhaps for her mother, whom you didn’t trust in the least. Only SHE could help you with a matter like this—because she knew the ways of the outer planes best, but also because she was LIKE you in this way, maybe even moreso.
“You have to try it,” she said. “We need only to develop a spell to merge the two aspects and—”
“I’ve done it.”
She stopped, looking at you, and you cleared your throat, suddenly feeling self-conscious.
“I… I’ve created a spell. <Elemental Infusion>, I call it. It… Should do the trick.”
“But you haven’t cast it,” she deduced easily.
You shook your ehad.
“Why not?”
“I… I’m worried what would happen to the animal I cast it upon,” you said. “It’s my first attempt. They could… Get really hurt. Maybe die.”
Izirina said nothing for a time, and you began to feel dread—for her response, for her judgement. This was a sort of weakness in you, even if it was one you would not readily relinquish—a weakness you treasured, a softness you cherished. How would this strange, detached girl—so UNlike you in this way, just as she was like you in others—view this quandary?
