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T'hörel, sometimes known as the Star-Singer (tuh HOO rel)
Bonded to: . From:
Age: over 20000 Born in: n/a
Soul Name: tria Known By: several long-dead, some quite recently discovered Found: n/a, it is her true name and has always been with her regardless of the languages spoken
Sex: female Mate Status/Sex Preference: mostly straight, currently raising their child and lovemated to newly Recognized mate Starward
Children: living - Aura, daughter with Starward; likely many prior deceased
Parents/Relatives: unknown, numerous descendants
Original Tribe: first-comers, predating any tribe. Arrived to Bald Mountain: 300ish along with the strays of Mother Moon
Height: 5'8" Build: curvy and muscular from millennia of wandering and activity; considerably taller than most current elves, she is very human-sized though more lithe even with her muscular body
Hair Color, Length, Style: richly black that is voluminous and needs to be kept away from her face with a sash, tie, or band; it's not very curly except when humidity is high, but it is definitely nowhere near straight; if let loose it will fall to her mid-back or slightly above her waist, so she often additionally braids or binds parts of it for ease of motion
Eye Color, Size, Shape: violet shaded with a darker purple iris, large and heavily lidded under even and strong brows
Skin Tone: olive tan, darker than a typical first-comer due to actually being under the sun all this time, but not as deeply tanned as plains or desert dwelling elves, since she tends to remain in the highest mountains and northern climates
Voice Quality: rings with an eerie sort of echo if she is using her powers, otherwise is a rich alto, not high nor squeaky; has a full laugh and a strong sharp shout
Clothing -- Summer: generally the gold-colored halter top, with shorter leggings of leather, woven cloth if she can find it anywhere
Clothing -- Winter: as shown, with a long and stylish brown suede and fur long sleeved shirt under the halter, black fur leggings and a leather bottom to attach them
Jewlery Worn, Made: while she doesn't have much, she collects sashes and headbands, and has tiny beads that she strings onto her braclets - no one knows the reason she keeps adding to them, it's certainly not hands-of-years because she'd be covered in them
Tatoos/Markings/Scars: none known, even after this long she has no residual scars from the survival and actual combat she's been in
Pets/Animals Kept: she easily trains and keeps flighted creatures, part of her choice of name meaning 'arrives riding her beloved mount' so it's clear that at some point she had resided with the Blue Mountain Gliders and may have had an expert hand in developing their giant birds as bondable mounts - they were not wild nor that size when she started noticing how others could also hear their minds
Notable Posessions: just a bunch of shiny beads and some scarves; she has a hidden stash in a distant mountain cavern with her last bird's harness and gear, though she isn't sure she'll be able to use it here with these dragons?
Holt Function: long distance sending, not particularly a duty-required tribe at this point so she will aid with healing, spot distant elves in need, and help train the animals they bring, in addition to 'controlling' in heavy air quotes, the Preservers that came with her among any others as they will remember her from the palace/ship
Strength: high, mainly due to her long life and ceaseless wandering
Dexterity: medium-high, her bead work is about as good as it gets, but she still loses thumb fights
Agility: high, considerably more agile than her fingers, her body is flexible and she has an excellent sense of balance which helps tremendously when riding an eagle - and not having levitation to rely on if she falls...
Health: medium, she is bigger than most elves but those who were born on Abode tend to be at least as hale in a smaller package
Size: large, a human-sized elf though much lighter than any human
Intelligence: very high, her memory is as long as her life, and she seems capable of sorting through it in ways that the modern elves, or indeed many of her peers and age-mates, are unable to; she is clever about technology but since there is little of it around she's just waiting for a chance to show it off again
Appearance: very high, she is not the typically wispy or gangly first-comer or 'high one' in appearance, but there is no denying that she is among the most beautiful elves that anyone is going to encounter
Charisma: high, particularly with anyone bearing interesting powers or strength in their magic, she is an encouraging and supportive presence; alternately she can be incredibly persuasive even without using any mental powers, as she is a very good judge of personality and mood
Magic Power: extremely high, as an alien being here from distant travels, she's all but made of it
Magic? How Powerful? Sending 14/10 - T'hörel is keenly able to communicate with telepathy and does so with gusto, however she is also aware that not all elves can handle the full force of her mind, and unlike some first-comers, she tones it down around them to accommodate their needs; her range even with just sending is stunning, up to a day's travel away from her immediate location, which is why she knows to 'whisper' nearby
Astral Projection 10/10 - this ability allows her to send her spirit away from her physical form, and expands her sending and perception range (for magical or mental energy only) up to five full days worth of travel, though briefly at that range; she usually limits this to about twice her normal sending range, as it does both tire her out a bit, and leaves her body vulnerable during that time; either way she must rest conventionally after doing any active searching, though she can also (around 1 day out of 10) find herself sleep-projecting rather than dreaming
Empathy (Deep Sensing) 5/10 - at close range only, less than 200 meters, she can sense moods, emotional states, group health and mental trends of up to 16 elves or 4 humans (they're more difficult to pin down, lacking magic after all), and if used on a single elf she can detect their history and traumatic events, and whether they have spiritual connections (recognition, children, parents) among the locals nearby
Magic Feeling 2/10 - surprisingly 'low' for a first-comer, she can sense where magic has been performed, and whether any is in progress within about 20 meters total or by touch. She tends to focus on people and physical aspects of life, but this power could still grow in strength if needed she doesn't think it will be required
Healing 8/10 - mainly herself as practice, since yes she has in fact fallen from giant eagles into the woods or on stones or even into deep water, she can heal even life threatening injuries or long-term illnesses with effort. She doesn't have an inexhaustable supply of magic for this purpose, but can focus both herself and other healers together to work at once on a near-dead elf or a badly injured animal or human.
Flesh Shaping 9/10 - though she has always tended to use this power on local animals, an oddity since it is considerably harder for elf magic to work on things that way, she is remarkably talented in figuring out what needs to be moved around. Producing long term results among the giant eagles, for instance, was not a one-and-done process, it was both selecting larger and tamer birds at the start but also adjusting their breeding genes and brain size. She has a strong association with medical needs, but knows how genetics works with mortal as well as immortal life, and as such when she does detect 'good genes' she will offer to help nudge offspring out of a pair. Including herself... ** Note that flesh shaping used without also Healing is incredibly painful, so she will always want to take it slow, utilizing both abilities at once; the exception is when attempting to prod Recognition out of a pair of elves, if they're both willing this seems very pleasurable!
Bonding 7/10 - while some elves have an 'animal' or 'wolf' bonding power, hers is able to encompass preservers, birds, insects, humans, and even elves. Her power is somewhat unique in that it can urge a bond to form between virtually any two beings provided they're alive and can accept it. Any form of resistance to it, emotional or magical in particular, will cause her to balk at forming it, but she could force the issue on a pair if truly necessary - and then break it later, this is not always a permanently formed pairing. If used by less scrupulous people, it could be horrible, but thankfully she's one to ask first and pair only when approved, or in a very dire situation 'as needed' mainly to cause a sudden realization or sooth angry enemies away from warlike fighting (both of which she's had to do more than once in her travels). The power works equally well across all living things, only elves or those with magic power (a couple humans here and there, one or two trolls, perhaps even the preservers?) could hope to resist this outright. No animal could technically resist it, but she still accepts that some animals are just not interested and moves on to another that will accept
Climate/Locations Preferred: enjoys chill and high mountains, winds, and snow, though not to the point where she is snowbound like the Ice Gliders. Equally at home on the plains or marsh, mesas or canyons, she still would much rather be where she can pile on or remove layers of clothing rather than suffer in endless heat
General Likes: high winds and a variety of people around her
General Dislikes: bad moods in groups, very stubborn enemies
Fears/Worries: greatly stressed by being entirely alone, or in an area where there are no or very few sentient animals, they're a comfort for her and she knows that if they're missing from an area there are other concerns to be addressed such as drought or danger
Special Strange Info: yes, she absolutely comes from another planet, though she was born aboard the palace-ship; and yes... She recognized a version of Keenan on his visit.
Basic Personality: curious and smart, technically adept and every bit the 'explorer' who loves being able to come home and show off what they've found
How they feel about
Humans: they have so much potential, hopefully they will not waste it fighting against one another
Elves -- herders: a good adaptation, as long as it's not over-doing it
Elves -- magic users: they need to diversify! flesh or plant or rock or water it's all basically the same to their magic
Elves -- bond-riders: she was among the first, so she's very proud of the fact that it 'caught on' among many different elf tribes. She has used her healing and flesh shaping on every one of her bond-birds, and a few elk or other animals along the way while going back up to Blue Mountain to seek out another bird - healing and flesh shaping them to last quite a bit longer than normal, it's possible that some of her work on their bred-birds formed other partnerships with the bird riders of Twin Peaks, where Apogee and her group had lived! But mainly this would extend the lifespan of her bond animal sometimes up to ten times as long as normal, which is why she's still riding a bird from Blue Mountain when she reaches Bald Mountain!
Trolls, etc: how she misses them being allies! She understands their 'side' of all of this, and why they plunged the ship into the planet. In fact at least one time she's 'forced' a link between two beings was between a stressed troll and a belligerent high-one back on that ship to make him understand their plight. Sadly it didn't work or at least didn't work broadly; she'd rather see them as allies than servants any day, as their mechanical brilliance was so important
Bond Animal Info if any: she has had many bond animals over her life, the last of which is Wingsong, a male giant hawk, however he's aged quite a lot and is now being tended to by the local dragons, and will likely not live a few hands of years more
Skills: Since she has lived almost entirely 'awake' in the ten thousand or more years since the palace-ship fell to Abode, she has had to hone a great many skills that might have been lost in other situations. Exploration has meant that her knowledge of local plants, animals, and humans have expanded greatly, as well as the abilities used in creating homesteads, weapons, and other survival skills.
Animal Lore - comes very easy to her mind, she has a large array of mental notes and even written ones about their locations, habits, and their usefulness to the people living around them; she can catch virtually any small prey in small traps and care for them if she needs to keep them alive to re-release
Communication - whether it be to humans who cannot pronounce elfin speech, or other elves and trolls with their own cultures, she is extremely good at getting her point across, and prefers to communicate rather than hide or fight
Elf History - while mainly knowledgeable about the ancient first-comers and the groups she's specifically lived with, any elf is easy for her to get along with and understand, there's always some way to relate and learn from their tribal stories
Human Lore - having been exposed to the humans since their earliest and most primative state, she's made the effort to understand them though it's always more difficult since they do not send nor have other magic; she must observe at a distance for the most part but knows just how distant that must be easily at a glance at their location or grouping
Troll Lore - as with the elves, she knows more about them from their palace ship days, but also has encountered their wildly varied descendants both in the frozen mountains and in the plains or woodlands; she would want to establish more contact if she could, and appreciates the fact that there are a couple here at Bald Mountain; equally she appreciates that they escaped from their own kind
Healing Lore - adept at examining wounds or illness on anything from a deer or wolf to human, troll, and elf flesh, and helping to bind wounds or cure sickness with the use of bandages or herbs, but she does fall back on her own magical healing ability so she's not exclusively a manual healer
Language Lore - has studied the human languages when possible, and knows that they have sign languages that even help each different tribe communicate; it's nice to see some of that in use here at Bald Mountain too; she can convey the basics of 'don't mean harm, do you need help, there's danger near,' and the like to pretty much any human tribe around
Mechanical Lore - markedly good with tools, machines, and strucutres, and had been working on these things on their ship; she's started recognizing that the humans are learning to emulate or invent on their own, and watches this with tremendous interest; she feels the same about the Trolls as they invented and maintained the ship's actually-mechanical structure, and hopes to continue her work with them some day
Manipulation - items and tools go directly along side the mechanical lore, and her fingers are adept with those things (though less with unfamiliar tools); if you give her some supplies and tools she'll be able to assemble whatever is needed, including traps, nets, and even communication aids like a cone for broadening a shout!
Mineral Lore - a modest amount of knowledge, can understand the differences between one ore and another, and a rudamentary ability with mining, forges, and alloys
Plant Lore - doesn't concentrate much on plants save for whether they're edible and useful, but among those she is good with finding, cultivating, and using those for herbalism, weaponry, and home building, as well as feeding domesticated animals and creating good food for elves, trolls, and humans alike
World Exploration - in her time here on Abode, she has extensive journeys and has created maps from memory, which she's been moving from her hidey-hole in another distant mountain into Bald Mountain's 'Cave of Stars' to aid in their own wanderings; she knows climates change and features may slowly vanish or appear, but also how the mountain range is dominated by several volcanoes that have changed those features rather rapidly!
Climb, Jump, Ride, Swim - any and all exploration methods are at the very least 'adequate' to this long-lived elf, swimming the least of them but even then she's able to hold her head above the choppiest or rapidly moving water; she can leap from a treetop to a flying or running creature and land flawlessly, reach heights in those trees or on cliffs, and manage to move across a chunk of landscape quickly; obviously her strongest skill there is riding, particularly if it's one of her bonded mounts, but even if not, they'll still move well enough
Dodge, Perception, Stealth, Throw, Weapon Use - her power to hunt and survive in the wilderness as well as versus more than mere elemental challenges is obvious, after all she's lived eleven thousand years on this planet, not hidden away or sheltered from it! Her senses are remarkably keen, she can hear the difference between simple wind and the flapping of owls wings, sneak through an open plain carefully, and confidently move around blows from human or troll weapons. She hunts generally from the air, or above if there is no flighted bond available, usually a javelin or a spear, she can throw well with either hand; she uses a bow when hunting smaller prey; since encountering her share of dangerous and intelligent people of a variety of breeds, she's also picked up a shield, usually ones made from wood and hard leather, but she's also able to heft heavier Troll-made metal ones; with her added size and strength, even some trolls aren't able to penetrate that defense
History: alive on the ship that was doomed to crash both in the wrong era and the wrong part of the world, T'hörel was actually a student of the Trolls learning about the workings of their ship and a strong opponent of keeping them as 'pets' like some members of their elfin group. This fact may have spared her a terrible death in any of the early moments of that crash landing, since she was well liked among the Troll population. They had not exactly told her what they were planning, but she knew that there was enough dissent and unhappiness among them that she'd had to negotiate between elf and troll on more than one occasion. Thus, when they effectively crippled the ship and threw it out of the timestream that the group of preserver-cocooned elfin navigators guided, she had been pulled aside and somewhat unceremoniously shoved into a capsule designed as an escape ship. She landed apart from the ship, but could see it from her landing point, as it was turned into the 'Palace' that would have been their home among humans - in the deepest future.
She spent a good number of years attempting to locate the elves that had scattered, but since their magic flowed quite poorly here her range was sorely limited. The fact that she was never a glider and lacks any kind of telekinetic ability meant she couldn't easily fly to intercept them, nor had her astral projection ability formed at that point. Alone and only with the gear that had been stowed in the capsule with her, she disassembled it and hid the remains of it from the humans that then began hunting those elves they could locate.
T'hörel did have her healing power, and made sure that it worked more than once. Blistered feet and hands from hefting the heavy tools and lugging them around, her delicate clothing didn't last and exposure was likely - but she spared herself from death with liberal doses of magic. She did also learn how to manifest the flesh-shaping ability on her own skin, though not going as far as self-shaping like at least one other member of the surviving elf population used.
After many decades of moving around the mountains, she began to note that the air was chiller than before. The great ice wall was growing, descending from the north pole and would eventually overtake the palace, leaving it encased for thousands more years. She was never one to claim to be so connected to it that she 'needed' to return. T'hörel wandered southward, carefully moving along the mountain ranges, into woods, and over the plains.
This lasted for a thousand years before she even saw another elf. They formed the basis of the Blue Mountain gliders, she may have even Recognized and had children there, though now obviously all of those elves are long gone. Breeding their giant birds took another thousand years of slow and steady work, and she began to grow closer to the birds than to the elves residing in the mountain. Finally able to explore without having to lug herself through the marshes and thickets, T'hörel took her bonded eagle and left the area to explore even across the great oceans. She would return now and again, making sure that their eagles were well tended - and to find new ones, when her bird had aged and could no longer be healed into an artificially induced 'prime' any longer.
She'd done so for so long that she hardly remained in one place for more than a few hands of years, but always enjoyed meeting the new people and even descendants of those long-scattered elves. With a rekindled interest in learning how others have adapted to the world, she found a spot in the northern plains far to the east of the palace and Blue Mountain, and settled in for a longer period. That amount of time could barely be comprehended by the humans that wandered around now, even if they'd advanced from their brutish origins when they landed, they didn't do math beyond looking at their fingers yet.
It was there in this mesa that she encountered some scattered Wolfriders for the first time, including Tineaus First-Hunt, the wolf-born elf that later was captured and held enslaved by humans along with Squall. It was also the area a good number of days wolf-ride east of what had been the original Mother Moon holt! Which brings us...
***
"And they left, like that?" Apogee and the others at Bald Mountain finally learned more, the history of their own people was scattered at best, extra scattered now that the Palace, their ship, had vanished. "Did... you know them?"
"There may be others, but those I knew are - all but one - spirits, now," T'hörel said, of Timmain and those first-comers who had perished and gone to the Palace. "And that one living is still yet living." She gazed around the aerie, "somewhere, anyway. I cannot reach her mind any longer, it was ... garbled after she joined all of our minds."
"It really was to everyone, wasn't it?" Squall asked, "all elves minds?"
"I imagine so," T'hörel said, "it was not merely her, though - someone else, someone of a very strong mind, helped her. After that," she shrugged, "I don't know what happened. I've been wandering, still.
It was Awlvon, another of the earliest elves, though not one she'd been familiar with, that asked, "you didn't heed its call, it was difficult wasn't it."
As one that was of an age with him, she slowly nodded and smiled, "to return to that place and time, yes. But we still have that choice while we live."
It was Starbright that perked up with that, her sister Soulbind echoing it, "but the spirits, they do not, it's strange. I felt their connection to it, but ... I've never thought much of the idea of being dragged along for a ride like that."
There was a pause, and then T'hörel said, "now imagine being forced to fix the palace's machinery long enough to evolve from simpler forms, and serve cruel masters that whole time."
The group realized, one at a time, that she meant the trolls. She added quietly, "I wonder, do those elf spirits understand now the damage they did to other sentient minds?"
It would remain a subject up for debate for another ten thousand years or so.
They brought the conversation back to the here and now, however, when she spoke once more. "I went back to Blue Mountain, one last time," she sighed, "found the birds scattered, but at least alive and still laying eggs worth tending." They did know there were still great birds, several of the Gliders and an assortment of others had brought information back over the course of a hundred winters since the fall of their home.
Everyone was still a bit on edge. They could all sense it, or at least most of them. Something else that might be 'up for debate' was how this all had attracted the attention of the Rookery leadership. Not entirely outside of their knowledge - Ainea worked with (several versions of) Keenan Lane and the Zekirans at Carramba, who had helped with Starbright's creation and birth. He'd noticed the amount of energy that was moving around, echoing through various dimensions.
They had been taking 'dead' elves, snatched just before their own spirits would flee their body (with permission), healed, back into this era. While the dragons were now used to it, they were also apt to talk while they were heading through the void or between. Or time. Word, apparently, eventually got around.
Clearly it was odd for him to just show up out of the blue, like that, materializing through a green-tinted energy orb nearby. Thankfully not in their meeting chamber, though there would have been room. But anyone with the magical perception to detect it, immediately winced with the power of it.
And T'hörel suddenly straightened up, staring through the mountain's thick, shaped walls. Anyone else who had experienced it knew what was going on in a moment, just by the look on her fine features. As if drawn by a magnet, she stood and simply walked out to the ledge nearby, easily remembering the path around the aerie.
He was out of place, out of time, but not... not in any way out of synch with T'hörel and the other elves.
"I know this place," he whispered, "only... distantly..."
"Who are you?" T'hörel asked, still unblinking and walking slowly almost in a trance.
Keenan had the same look on his very human face when he noticed the elf standing quite close by. "oh," he said.
**
"You are actually telling me that this was possible?" Apogee seemed flabbergasted. Perhaps even more so than the pair in question. She knew Keenan, or at least knew of, from her brief forays to Carramba High, which was still linked to the Aerie in its own slightly-sequestered chamber deeper within the mountain. Perhaps he'd sensed all their efforts to move the Mother and Child Moon tribe nearby, through that odd portal? And as always, the curious sort he was, he chose to investigate. Which led him to be in close proximity to another ancient (though not nearly as ancient) being in the form of T'hörel. His presence was noticed not only because he was human in form, but because he was absolutely not human.
He wasn't currently an elf either, but what he was, was something much deeper than either living form. What he was, he explained carefully, was, "from another earlier split, of the population that became yours long before now." His words and thoughts brought Timmain's broad historical sending to mind, and they shared that history with him. In their 'scroll of colors' he realized was a physical and metaphysical record of the entire history of... "Ah," he spotted something, "perhaps some time between learning to leave their bodies, and the choosing of flesh," his fingers very faintly moved to indicate their own flesh, "my group, my 'pod', on its journey... chose to abandon their flesh once and for all."
"But you're alive, aren't you?" Apogee queried, faint worry over her brow.
"Of course I am alive, I have been in a body for at least as long as you," he smirked, "and many more before this."
He continued with his own Convocation's tale, adding how he was always a little 'odd', he enjoyed creating bodies and lurking on worlds to observe them, just like their own ancestors had intended to do on Abode. He was of their breed. He was one of them. Only wearing a different skin, and considerably older than the rest, possibly due to having drifted across numerous dimensions. So of course, it was 'possible' for their spirits to meet, and, as was evident, to have joined already to create a new one.
He'd done a lot of pacing, and it was a good thing that there were elves that needed the head space in the chamber because he was certainly the tallest creature that had been there shy of the dragons themselves. "This certainly won't work well... as we are," he said, and T'hörel appraised that idea as well as the man. She knew he meant because he was currently human.
"You are not a shaper," she said, having carefully assessed his aura. He chuckled and glanced away.
"Oh, absolutely not, I'm dreadful at it, really." He then paused, sensing T'hörel's mind giggling and the slight overtone of 'you are fine at it now'. "But... It is hardly out of the question that I could ... arrange something."
Even Apogee was a bit confused about that, but then realized, remembered. "Wait," she glanced toward her daughter, "I remember how they..." Had Ainea been there too she would have supplied the missing information herself.
Keenan aimed a careful thought, containing quite a lot of complex information and memories, toward T'hörel. Carefully avoiding mixing into her spirit, she noticed. Any more than they had, already, anyway. It was mostly second-hand information to him, after all. He'd heard how they'd brewed up a new breeding method using fakeouts, shapeshifting Zekirans, genetic engineering, and clone vat technology. It was actually impressive, all that effort to allow one elf spirit to be born into her world properly at long last.
T'hörel sorted through it, filtering odd events and very strange places. "Is that... a human world? How...?"
"There are many," he replied, "but yes, the potential for many of their incarnations is limitless." He stretched out that last word, and straightened his tie - something he hadn't done in quite a while, and yes he was wearing a suit and tie which also made him stand out tremendously here. "What may happen on this world of theirs might differ, obviously."
"So what are you showing me," she asked, flickering a memory back at him. "And how exactly is this relevant?"
"Paragon City, where I have... multiple forms to choose among. And," he added another more familiar to a few of their group, "Carramba High School."
"Multiple forms, high schools, I don't ..." T'hörel had been born on the ship, not on a world, he knew that much. This planet of Abode, the World of Two Moons, had been her only true exposure to other cultures and societies, and it was primative at best.
Equally as fast, he supplied the information she needed, and since they already had a bond - more than just her magic power might connect them, anyway - she understood both of those things. More than one body that his mind and aura could leap into and out of. And more than that: parts of him that had grown into their own full being. Enough so that they had their own families. Living in complicated realms where so many children existed at the same time (humans bred so fast, so often!) that they could be taught information and skills all at once in big structures, gathering places for humankind - and apparently lots of other breeds, given both of his favored haunts - called 'cities'. She noticed several elves among the 'instructors' that could also be detected in the memories of Apogee and... Starbright. Ainea by name, apparently, had played a very large role in Starbright having a body after hundreds of years existing as merely a spirit.
"Intriguing!" T'hörel breathed, growing excited about it. "But do you ... do you have an extra body?" It sounded completely absurd as she said it.
She caught the half smirk on his face, "not right now, but I know where I can get one."
**
The look in the yellow eyes on his Leggy Blond Conscience suddenly brought a worried crook to Keenan's brows. "Oh, oh no," he chuckled mostly to himself. "I know that look all too well. Tell me when you need me to pay attention." He turned a little to find something to do in the meantime, but then held up a long warning finger and waved it at Melissa. "Don't you dare lick her."
T'hörel looked on in confusion, but knew by their connection that this human woman with the volume of honey blond hair and eyes almost the same shade had played an extremely important role in ... well, in her newly Recognized mate's life. He loved her with all his heart, though they were not more than lovemates... or perhaps they'd Recognized numerous times already, they had children. He loved his family so much, but not at the expense of... another one forming.
Before she knew it, however, this odd jumpy and all-too-active scientist had popped over to T'hörel's side, and - while staring directly at Keenan - licked her cheek and lips. T'hörel was both confused and amused at it. The Wolfriders or even the cat-blooded elves among the Bald Mountain holt population would 'kiss' in that manner, it was hardly anything new! What was new was that this human woman sent her thoughts clearly, that will do, I can make this for you. Oh! she paused, and was actively moving her tongue around, as if still 'tasting' T'hörel's skin. "You have this power too, sort of, don't you?"
Keenan, off in the corner of this lab, slowly turned and watched as his old lover and his new mate animatedly chatted about how flesh could be moved, how genes and their visible features could be made flexible. "She's just another one of you," he muttered, but no one - perhaps not even he - knew whether he meant the elf was like the human, or the other way. Melissa had flesh-shaping magic all her own, but used tools and devices for bigger 'projects' like this. T'hörel after all was quite familiar with technology and machinery, just in a different form and fashion from their long journey in the palace-ship. And she... was a shaper of flesh. Then again so was Rhea, and he prayed to any or all of the Mad Gods of Paragon that she was not going to show up to join in.
"We have a plan!" Melissa chittered loudly, and even T'hörel laughed with her.
**
That plan was for Melissa to grow 'Yet Another' cloned body for Keenan. However this time, with the bodily tweaks needed to effectively create an elfin one. With the slender frame, three-fingered hands, long wing-like ears. Otherwise they were already remarkably similar. After all, in his deeply-distant past, that of his 'parents', they were of this flesh.
They hated that idea, denied it as fervently as they could, until of course he could... Possibly present them with this union as an example. Oh, his Convocation would seethe at that. His grin broadened. He discussed it verbally with T'hörel at length.
"But I cannot keep you from your duties, you have so many worlds to protect, vahh," T'hörel spoke the name that she knew, and realized a moment later that perhaps it was hidden like the Wolfriders' soul-names? No - no, she'd actually heard Melissa blurt it out along with a tirade of not-quite-elf words, a language that he'd mentioned was 'Vort'.
"That is why we have other means to reproduce minds," he commented, flickered his turquoise eyes between the elf and the human, and said her own name, her true born name aloud, "tria, we..."
At that breath, that speaking of truth, their Recognition was completed, and Melissa watched the complex dance of their auras with a smile. T'hörel's soft shades of violet and purple, expanding and contracting like a heartbeat, collecting his turquoise and aqua shades as if a plush garment or halo.
She had seen her own aura doing this, with him no less. It was a contract, that spoken component. As Mel would frequently speak those words in Vort, zurr chaa-bim gaharra gaka'kih, Nach'lih kallah-vahh; mah'chackt ha-dim. She carried the debt owed to him with pride, eyes-open, knowing the consequences. She spoke it out loud just to make sure he knew it still applied, sometimes. She said nothing just now, however, preferring to watch this interaction. Maybe it was prying, but then maybe neither of them cared who saw them mixing together like that. Lih to lih. Melissa didn't know that the elves had a phrase, "eyes meet eyes". She loved Keenan's eyes. Who wouldn't?
But Mel busied herself instead by thinking on the situation from her own experiences. She'd met his kin, didn't care for most of them - they didn't care for him or her, tolerating their presence among them with disdain. Like all of his kind, the Convocation relied on terms and conditions. Formed into solidity, made into the physical. She absently wondered whether they wanted to be purely spirits, purely energy beings, because they didn't like commitment. If they couldn't speak in the realm of the physical, they couldn't be bound to the consequences themselves--
Keenan's unabashed stare was echoed on T'hörel's face, she sensed his astonishment through their bond. "How are you boiling down their entire method of operations for two billion years, in the span of five minutes of daydreaming? It took me millions of years to get even one of them to admit that." He was at a loss for words, which wasn't entirely like him. "No wonder they kept changing the goals before I could reach them. Even they didn't speak their own agreements but I did."
Melissa looked smugly on, as she often would, and T'hörel appraised her with a grin.
"I can see why he loves you," she admitted.
They got to work more in earnest when Keenan opened a doorway to a Vortal construct suitable for it. A similar location to the lab that they were in (they'd stepped through another door to it) which itself was not anywhere near Abode - it was in another dimension, on an Earth that had been ravaged by the Combine. But it was a very functional spot, filled with all the tools and equipment they would ever need. He copied parts of it as requested, he would give them this place to work in peace while he got back to his day jobs. When they were done with the creation and 'growing' of this new body, he'd return.
T'hörel stood in the doorway, the threshhold between two realms, and looked like she'd Recognized all over again. "This - is like moving through timespace with the ship," she breathed. It was an immensely old sensation to her, it had been ten thousand years since she'd felt that.
"It's a temporary construct, yes," Keenan said. "I suppose that it is similar to the way that you and your people guided their pod." Using their mental energy, but with practical tools such as electricity, doors, lighting, in the meantime. Not all of their people were so gifted with one or another power. Like most of the Pantheon residing now at the Rookery, children with power over fire or air or earth rarely had all of those things at once. T'hörel marveled once more that there were humans in such high concentration that could do any of it. Keenan however explained that this construct would remain nearly-outside of the passage of time, for the duration.
"All this, just because our bodies are so very slightly different from one another," T'hörel said quietly, touching his face gently, "it does operate on a very slightly different... frequency, than mine."
"We will give this new one the right hum," he assured her.
**
T'hörel had taken a long look through Melissa's memories. Both of these women had astoundingly long, and complete, memories. Mel's brain or perhaps her spirit alone was able to tuck away other people's minds or entire realms of thought in her own; truly magical, or as they called it, 'Vortal'. T'hörel's was more conventional, but well-organized, strong in ways that most others of her kind lacked. As they worked, they 'browsed the Keenan catalog' - Mel had created numerous bodies for him, to replace the one he'd made himself. Even T'hörel admitted - no, he was definitely not a shaper. His first human form was seriously flawed though not overtly - he'd given himself lung cancer by not realizing it wasn't supposed to be there.
Mistakes made, erased by this brilliant genetic engineer's work, and replaced with a hardy, self-sustaining form. "Oh," T'hörel said, at looking over one particular half-joking Paragon 'costume'. "I... I like that one."
'That one' became the basis for the newer elfin shape. It would be slightly shorter than his normal, but since T'hörel was effectively human-sized it wouldn't be by much. Ears, fingers, larger eyes, lighter bones. More athletic, though truth be told he was quite the walker-around anyway, even in his original body. The beard was a feature on rare elves, more the Wolf-blooded or other such mixed-breeds on Abode. But T'hörel always had a fondness for the exotic; and, she realized only later, it would serve to keep at least one annoying elfess away for good: Yasheel was growing less and less comfortable with the arrival of the Wolfrider tribe. Let her squirm. T'hörel thought this was quite the handsome new form for his mind to rest in.
And about that - eventually he brought them out of the timeless bubble, into another location - where a copy would be made of his memories, specific ones anyway, an imprint on the body that he could ease into. It would still be him, not a brother or a sibling, or even a clone like his first, Wilson; just as much as 'Nachos California' was still him. He had also explained more about their other other incarnations: dimensions existed where he was born mortal, or where their Convocation had perished, or where he was a very different personality. But there were always similarities, and one of them...
"It is so odd, though... coincidental, or conditional I suppose, that there are worlds where that name, your name, is also beloved to another of me." He added in a mutter, "no wonder Etan is so annoyed. Triia's existence coincident with mine always seems to break his stride. Any world we both exist, we ... fight about it." He was fairly certain that Etan didn't exist as an elf, however. But even if he did, or even if, under the extraordinarily improbable case that the Combine would arrive to Abode... Their world and their people would have not only a new child in a couple years, but a specific protector of that world.
He did at least lay down and seem to sleep for the process, moving his spirit, his Vortessence onto the newly dried and waiting - and fully adult - body. While the clone vats had grown the new body quickly, it was an aching number of hands-of-days for T'hörel. Their need to procreate was growing stronger since they'd established the verbal 'contract', there was a spirit waiting for them to do this act. But it would require that hum, that specific frequency of flesh-and-spirit, to achieve.
His own Vortigese name, his title nach'lih kallah-vahh could be understood as imprint of spirit on the flesh. With the memories they had already embedded electronically onto the brain, such as speech and motor skills, he imprinted the rest. His personality, his mannerisms, a chunk of his own energy, his lih, on that body the kallah. Melissa and T'hörel could both see the moment that the spirit embedded itself in that flesh, not like a burrowing creature, but like settling into a comfortable cloak. He would wear it well.
The two bodies woke with a long gasp, he always seemed to revel in taking a deep breath ever since that first time. This time though, Melissa just left them alone, or as alone as they could be, given how broadly visible their auras were as they mingled. One version of Keenan also slipped out of the lab, he'd wait for his twin to complete this genetic duty before sitting down and talking.
He'd been given this treatment himself at least once before, too; a fresh body, an eager woman, energy to spare. This time, the energy between T'hörel and himself had already produced a new life in the form of a tiny pinpoint of teal-shrouded purple. One which Melissa knew would need a 'home'... She laced her fingers into 'her' Keenan's. They remembered, they knew how hard it could be if there was no body to anchor this spirit to - like Apogee's daughter Starbright, like their own 'alternate pair from other dimensions' Ruby. But this time it was not an issue: their Recognition was fulfilled, producing just the right combination of flesh and spirit.
In another two years, there would be a family - for the time being, "you need a name others may speak, vahh," T'hörel whispered, and the bearded elf Keenan chuckled the same as the human did.
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