Blood Shaper

The hunt for the eldritch nanomachines spanned several days before Alahna started having people head off the island of Sel to broaden the search. With no known dopplegangers to test the blood Kay gave them with Purify Blood in it the people involved in the hunt were unable to know for sure if it would reveal any fakes. They resorted to the other option of making small cuts into people, which made those that were being investigated unhappy, but the attached healers sealed any injuries caused during questionings. Apparently several other criminal acts were uncovered and perpetrators arrested, but there were no nanomachine replacements discovered.

As hunters, trackers, and others with discovery, finding, or tracking Skills were able to make it to Sel from other islands, they were set up into teams and sent to scour everywhere. Teams were directed to cover areas that had been already covered using new Skills or methodologies to recheck over every inch of ground. Investigators that had already been used were sent outward in an expanding circle, covering areas measured in feet over the course of several hours, carefully checking over every inch of sea floor and beneath to make sure nothing was missed.

With the exception of a few trips to covertly check powerful adventurers that Alahna’s government didn’t want to offend, Kay was mostly left alone. The first two days he sat on edge in between hiding in shadows to drip blood on adventurers from a safe distance, waiting for the next shoe to drop. When that didn’t happen he slowly let himself relax, settling in to wait for a later occurrence. He spent a little time trying to figure out what was up with Miri, which continued to elude him since no one was being helpful, but most of his time was divided between working with the negotiating team he’d brought with him on the trip, who were creating and dealing with trade proposals with Alahna’s government, and training. His training heavily focused on Purify Blood. The part of it that allowed him to purge eldritch corruption had come straight from the System, and he had no idea if it could be taught. Many hours passed in both his suite and the training grounds with Kay trying to break down the Skill so he knew how to pass it on to others. He wanted the powerful weapon against the eldritch to be accessible to more than just him.

Eleniah worked with him on trying to figure out which parts of the Skill had the effect they did on eldritch corruption on some days, but she also spent a lot of time with Alahna when the queen wasn’t working. They apparently had the long talk about Alahna’s past behavior that they’d been planning and Eleniah had accepted her apology. After that they’d chatted and shared stories, getting to know one another again after so long apart. Kay was grateful that while Eleniah was definitely going to be visiting Alahna and the rest of her family much more often than she did in the past, she wasn’t going to be leaving him. Alahna made multiple comments about it, but it felt like she was joking to bleed off her actual desire for Eleniah to return permanently, rather than seriously trying to convince her.

“I wish I had a cellphone,” Kay muttered to himself. “Then I could ask Alice if that sword I made her was still working.”

“What’s that?” Eleniah asked him.

“Nothing, just complaining about how things could be better for me.” Kay dropped another sample of blood that he’d melded Purify Blood in to and dropped it in a container. With no eldritch subjects to test it on he was resorting to preparing for when a subject did appear, whether that was a vampyr, some nanomachines, or something else. The jars ended up in his Inventory, since it slowed down time inside. Time wasn’t perfectly stopped, not until he leveled up the Skill a lot more, but slower was better than the regular flow of time.

“Isn’t that true always? Something could always be better for everyone.”

“Sure, but I was whining about a specific thing I’d like improved right now. It isn’t going to happen though.”

The training area they had been given was attached to Kay’s suite through a short hallway and consisted of an open pavilion surrounded by reinforced stone walls. It wasn’t massive, but it was more than enough space for most people under tier five to spar without causing any issues. For Kay and Eleniah it was fine because they weren’t doing any sparring, but it would be too small if they wanted to. Kay made a mental note to double check that the guest housing in his palace was at least approaching how nice this was. He knew without it being said that Alahna would be visiting at some point, and it wouldn’t be good if he couldn’t match her level of hospitality. He trusted his people to design and make nice suites and layouts, but double checking never hurt.

Eleniah stood by quietly while Kay stored the jars away and grabbed his arm when he was done. “Can we talk?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“I’ve been talking to Alahna recently…”

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His mind jumping to the thoughts he’d just been having, Kay panicked. “You’re not staying here, are you?”

“What? No. I’m just as committed to Avalon as you are I’m not going to just leave.”

“Thank goodness for that.”

Eleniah’s serious expression was brightened by a smirk. “You’d be sad if I left, huh?”

“No, I’d be devastated. Losing you would be terrible.”

Her smirk became a full blown smile. She took a deep breath, settling her face while she did. “Kay, am I your teacher?”

“Huh? Oh… I’d say, not anymore? You were my teacher and I think in some circumstances you’re still my mentor at times, but you’re my friend, adviser, and partner more than any other roles. Or relationship labels, or whatever the right word is there. You definitely teach me things, but you can teach things to someone without being their teacher.”

“Okay.” She nodded once. “Do you remember the talk we had when we were climbing the mountain right by Avalon? About why I’d been picking up students and teaching them and how I was looking to raise someone up to be strong enough to be my friend and travel companion.”

“Sure, you lucked out and got me.”

“I did. Do you remember the other part of the conversation?”

“Uh… remind me?”

She pressed her hands into her face. “Oh, this sucks. We talked about how it would be creepy if I was taking students to make them in to lovers!” She half-shouted.

“Oh, that.” Kay looked away, overcome by second-hand embarrassment. “Yes, I remember.”

“Argh! I hate this.” She spun around so that she wasn’t looking at him, then spun again. “Look, you’re one of my best friends at this point, and things have gone beyond where I thought they were going to go. You aren’t a lost Outworlder kid in need of lessons anymore, you’re a proven fighter with responsibilities and duties that you carry out with honor, and all the other good things I like. I know I’m a lot older than you and that it’s still going to be a bit weird because I was your teacher but I was wondering if maybe you’d be interested in maybe going on some dates and seeing if our relationship can develop into something more…” She trailed off at the end, not looking him in the eye.

For a moment, Kay was speechless. He’d always found Eleniah attractive, but the defined teacher-student relationship had held any real thoughts like that at bay in the beginning, then he had problems like suddenly starting a new polity or fighting mutant rat monsters that wanted to eat people. After that he’d been trying to see if he could build a relationship with Murunel, but that had spluttered out before it could go anywhere. To him it felt easy to see how wonderful Eleniah was and his first thought after the shock faded away was how lucky he felt in that moment. He had felt like they were growing closer during the last year or so, and finding out he was right felt nice.

Kay turned to try and look her in the eyes. “I’d love that.”

“Seriously?” She snapped her neck upward to look at him.

“Yeah. I get what you’re feeling about it being weird because of the teacher thing, but you were only my teacher for what, a year and a bit? It would be a problem if you had been trying to mold me so this could happen, but you obviously weren’t. We’re also both adults, and we met as adults, you didn’t partially raise me like most teachers of young children do. That would be creepy.”

“I’m a lot older than you, though.”

“Don’t try and talk me out of it please, we both want the same thing. And I get that too, but I think it’s a moot point, or at least its not as earth shaking as you might think. The main problem with big ages gaps is when it’s evil, or when the two people have little in common and the difference in experiences crushes the rest of the relationship. Sure, you’ve seen and done more than I have, but I think we’ll be alright.” Kay drew out some blood and made a tiny dragon statue that flew around them. “I think what we’ve done together, and can still do together, outweighs a lot of those differences. How many times did you see a dragon simulacrum made out of blood fight a real dragon before you met me?”

“Maybe one or two times.” She joked. “Thanks. This isn’t super easy for me.”

“What, asking someone out? Not a lot of dating experience.”

“No, you jerk, the specifics of right now. I’ve never tried dating someone I’ve taught before. It’s all been people around my age and level of experience before this, and then traveling around a lot cut a lot of relationships short or stopped them from happening at all.”

Kay chuckled and held out his hand. When she reached out and grabbed it he laced their fingers together. “Jokes aside, this feels exciting and wonderful to have you ask me like this and get this chance, but lets take it slow. If we rush there’s a better chance of wrecking things, and I’d rather give us good prospects at making it long term.”

“Have you been talking to Alahna? She’s said a lot of the same things while she was encouraging me to ask you. Even her arguments against my issues were similar.”

“I didn’t expect it before this thanks to your stories, but I like your cousin.”

“Me too, even if she was teasing me relentlessly by telling me she’d set you up with one of her kids or another of out relatives.”

“Not interested, and now its too late anyways. What kind of dates would you like to go on?” He asked, blatantly changing the subject.

“I’d love to go into the dungeon again and try to get the better version of that training golem from the mini-boss.”

“Does that count as a date?”

“Probably not, but it was the first thing I thought about doing with you.”

Frowning, Kay went through his memories of things they’d done together. There were a lot of mundane meals, conversations, and other regular interactions, but the notable events were mostly big fights. “We need to do more date like stuff.”

She glanced over at him. “We just talked about it though, we haven’t had a lot of time.”

“Sure, but I’d like there to be at least some level of parity between dates and dramatic battles.”

“Well then, let’s try and catch those numbers up quickly, because there’s probably going to be at least one dramatic battle coming up here soon.”

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