The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2
Chapter 45

Part 8

"I'll ask Grandfather Yazadril for special magic training." Helemia added. "I'll ask him for training on magic techniques that get the most results from the least magic power by focusing on precision and efficiency I'll be asking Bekamil of The Atoned about that too; he only has a tiny amount of power but he's over three thousand years old, and he's gotten really good at using the little bit of power he has. Knowing this should help us a lot in the void when we're a long way from the sun, and it might help me and Reggie when our own magic starts to work. We might get it all at once like Valentia, or we might get just a little that grows with us, like most elven kids. If we only get a little bit at first we'll still be able to do a lot with it, even if we can't get power from someone else when we need it.

"I'm also going to ask for Healer's training from Hilsith so I can help with her research. And I'm going to ask Quewanak to help me understand more of what we know about demons from Somonik's memory." "We'll make way better use of our time by splitting up like that." Reggie added. "We both pretty much learn what the other one learns anyway, so we might as well. And it's not so hard to be apart anymore. We figure we'll spend about two hours every morning on this extra stuff, until Valentia's ready to do it with us. We'll do it more after that, but she doesn't like being apart from us either."

"Well, that all seems like fine thinking." Talia smiled as she gave them a kiss goodbye.

"Will you be back for lunch?" Mark asked as he came over and knelt down for a hug.

"Yup." Reggie nodded. "Mother's making berry pie. I'd never miss that!"

"Good. There's something I want to ask you before you go, though." Mark said as he stood. "As far as I know, no one outside our house knows about the prophesies you made about your destined loves, and we think it would be best if it stayed that way. We also don't think it would be good for Valentia to know, if she doesn't already. It might become a self-fulfilling prophesy before it's meant to happen, if indeed it is meant to happen, or it might drive her away from you if she feels that her choices are being made for her. I'd also like you to make an effort to not treat her any differently than you would have if you'd never had the prophecy. As you said, maybe you're not meant to be together for twenty thousand years or more from now. History is full of people who caused bad things by trying to make a prophecy happen too early."

"All right father." Reggie nodded. "Valentia doesn't know, I don't think. I can't say for certain; we've been Linked with her a lot so she might have seen something we haven't showed her, but we haven't showed her that."

"I don't want anyone to know that I know about my destined love either." Helemia stated with determination. “I wish I didn't know. Now I have to do the same thing; act normal as much as I can so the prophecy doesn't come early or get messed up. We still don't know if Reggie's really a prophet anyway. Him and Kragorram aren't even best friends. We were already planning on killing demons anyway, we'll probably never know what the demons actually call us, and us destroying their homeworld is already starting to be what you said; self-fulfilling, because we're already working on it just because he said so. The only thing he's said would happen that did is that Alilia named Valentia that after he said so, but he might have picked it up from Alilia's mind, or she might have done it because he said so right to her. If he hadn't said it to her and he'd written it down in private and showed it to someone else, and Alilia named her that without knowing about it, then we'd know. Now we have to wait until he says something we can prove. "Anyway, we haveta go if we don't want to be late back for lunch. Love you!" she added as Reggie opened the door.

"Love you! Have fun!" Mark returned, then turned to Talia.

"You know, now that the kids are off to school, so to speak, we're going to have more time available." he thoughtfully stated. "And it strikes me that they're improving a lot faster than we are, so if we want to stay ahead of them, we're going to have to start working harder."

"Why?" Talia giggled as she floated up to give him a hug around his neck and a kiss. "Will your manly pride be insulted if you're bested by your children?"

"Of course!" he laughed. "I'm only human after all, and while I don't mind being surpassed by my children when they get to be adults, I don't want it happening when they're two! And besides that, we won't be able to provide them with very much guidance if they're better than us at everything and know more about it, now will we?"

"That's a point." she nodded with a smile. "But what will we work on? It seems of little use to study the same specialties that they are, simply to make sure that we're better at everything than them, and it would be somewhat petty as well."

"Would it? They're studying things with other people because those others have skills or knowledge that we lack. Otherwise they could just learn it from us. It seems to me that their choice of outside studies presents us with a neat list of our own deficiencies, and the reasons they gave for wanting to learn it are all compelling. A better understanding of the rules of reality, improving our capability to make war in the void, being able to make more precise and efficient use of our power, improving our knowledge of the Healers' arts, and improving our understanding of the demons. I think they've hit the nail on the head better than anyone else when it comes to seeing what's gonna be important for the next few years. And I won't mind telling them that they inspired us to follow their example.

"On the other hand, all of those are very broad fields of study, and it would be petty of us to work on exactly the same material that they're working on, and a waste of time besides. We should do the same as they're doing; all of us should get together at the end of the day and pass each other what we've learned that day."

"All right." she agreed with a smile, and released him to float down and start putting her shoes on. "In that case, we should go join Alilia at Yzell and Theramin's house. We'll want to see what she thinks of joining us in this, and besides, Theramin and Yzell are both near six thousand years old, and are extremely knowledgeable. And since Theramin is one of the world's premier horticulturists, I think he may be able to help us a great deal in improving our void warfare techniques."

"Oh? I don't follow you." Mark said as he put his boots on.

"Ah. Well one of the great problems with the void is that there is no air there, and air is made by plants."

"I didn't know that!" Mark responded in surprise. "You mean if there were no plants, there would be no air?"

"There would be air, but it would be unbreathable." Talia informed him as they shut the door behind them, and left for the short walk to their destination. "That's why Quewanak had those water plants in the cavern in Blenda. There's no air on Blenda, so Quewanak must have brought the air there, but without the plants to make the air of life from his stale breath, it would have become unbreathable and he would have suffocated. Similarly, the plants would not have survived there for all those millions of years if he hadn't been there, for the plants needed his stale breath, just as he needed the air of life from them. Plants need animals just as animals need plants, for both food and air. All must be in balance.

"So, if we will build vessels to fight in the void as Reggie said, and we wish to have them function with the minimum of magic spells, they'll need plants to purify the air and water, and to provide food for the crew."

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