Note: Although this chapter has all of the added detail of the Tala race and plot supporting detail of future chapters and characters that will make it seem less of an etch-a-sketch in the long run, it ran way over in my word count goal at 5,180 words currently. I still have more story progression I wanted to include in this chapter but it will blow this up to over 8,000 words. I will make a decision soon but I do not want to delay this chapter any further in it's final release. I do believe it will stay abridged for now, and i will add the missing section on to the first of the next chapter.

Happy reading and feel free to DM me in Twitter Malec_wolf // or Telegram: Malec Wolf if you do not want to comment here. Be nice though and try to keep it SFW I have a job to keep and a nosy cube-mate.

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2
Ascending Cont'd

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ꕥ
The following week would prove to be most anti-climactic to say the least. True, I was a bit freer to do as I wished outside of chores, but I still had lessons to attend and lycanthropic tomes to go cross-eyed at. I wasn’t officially a Master Meldr till my ascension ceremony next full moon esbat. Our high sabbat ritual of Mabon (autumn equinox) would be the week afterwards. I would be a fully vested Master Meldr at that ritual, meaning I would have my ceremonial armor and my ear sigils in both ears and my snug chit piercings would be augmented. That was two weeks away still. I would still need to learn about even more aptitudes and their specific properties and receive them as melds at a near feverish pace now that my practical lessons up to the Master level were now over. My mother was at her healers practice doing the morning rounds. As Tau-Bindr of the order of healers, she was the teacher of the next generation of healers that would work alongside of her. In a settlement with nearly 1,200 Wieldr or above Tala, most things they treated over a period of days was majikal maladies, mostly caused by Bindrs or Meldrs practicing. Physical injuries were usually fixable in minutes if you had a skilled melded healer, or someone like me that had a great deal of practice on myself. I violently sneezed into my sleeve while poping my back. That one rattled my snug chit rings this time, for what felt like the worst one yet. I held my head noting that I may never want to tend to books as a profession on account of the dust. I was sitting at the table just after breakfast and reading my assignment of the morning from father. He had left for his duties at the village council earlier on. I was now learning by tome more, and at this moment to do with Meldr customs of other peoples as far we have record of. It was rather bland to say it nicely, but I know I needed this information, so I kept at it. Every race had rules and rites to follow for trading aptitudes and so on. Not even one was the same as language always was the difference if there were similarities. Language, yeah, every race had a different one. Our religion and sense of reverence for the majikal arts and sacred protection of nature was nearly the same, with cultural dissimilarities mixed in. The basic theme each shared was receive one, give one. We could not remove an aptitude from a Meldr by force, but one could from a Bindr. The common practice was to copy with ones Melding aptitude an aptitude you wish to trade in reception of another. At least we had that. I just hoped I would never have to put this knowledge to the test though. Finishing that subject, as there actually was little more than bare mentions and speculations, I put the book down. I used my element-earth aptitude to put the tome back on the shelf but missed its place by a kilometer due to me sneezing while forming the thought. It shot across the room like an arrow and nailed the nearby wall centimeters from our kitchen window. Good thing they had ward charms on them to make them indestructible. I sighed and stood up from the table to stretch and fetch the book. My tunic, I found had deep creases in it already and I had a migraine from the two hours I was reading and sneezing. It was not even mid-day yet. Yet I had a task for father, so I set about that. I put on my white coinin (rabbit) fur cloak Gisha made for me last winter as this autumn day was colder than I’d like. With my staff in hand, I went for a walk around the village to try and simply kill the headache with a different vantage of things while out for my father. Not everything needed a majik fix. We were taught that early on to discipline our need to use it needlessly. I stepped out into the sunlight and let my eyes adjust to the slanted bright but cold sun. That did nothing good for my head. I set out on my task for my father to the settlements armorer and weapons smith Shepher. I met the eye of many people in my village that I knew by name. Some I knew more of than that, and we exchanged pleasantries and news of current happenings. Nothing out of the usual. What stuck out now to me though as talk spread, is the slight bowing or deeper nods to me every place I went during my social engagements. I was not used to the reverence for a station I was not fully installed in yet, and it made me feel off-center. Also, as this was a Saturday, many shops and artisans were out on social calls. I was talking to more mated couples out for a stroll clutched together for the cold, than not. Their name sigils/glyphs next to each other in the center of the circular formation of sigil tattoos in both ears that described them as a person. Their scents identical after a mating bite that sealed their bond. Their matching colored upper-snug chit rings in their left ears signifying their matting bond for life for all to see. Their claim bites on each other’s shoulders hidden from polite view on this cold day. The gentlemen mated couples I spoke to them longer out of our shared interests and I felt the return of my feelings of longing and want for. I wanted all of that too, but. I was all too familiar with this confused emotion stirring up the memories of a warning and its lack of closure to it. With a sigh I carried on with my task, that was something I wanted to be changing soon enough, I had to figure this riddle out. A mate of my own was what I wanted, finding him though, well; there in laid the issue. I put that away for later as I nearly missed my turn while dwelling. I stopped in to the smith’s workshop with my fathers sealed letter and heavy parcel he bayed me to deliver to the master-craftsman Shepher ShortHammer. I hailed him from the workshop by his Craftsman-apprentice/nephew and proceeded to wait as he was in mid-lesson with his apprentices. I marveled at the presentation of finery on display in his reception room. Examples of his craft were lit up by maji-tech torch-light here and there that were powered by smaller amber colored Lycan-stones at there base. A few of them were out so I obliged in energizing them for the smith, so the torches showed brightly once more. There was a mirror in the far corner that now illuminated, gave the impression of a second Tala in the room. I looked over my tall and slightly muscled black and gray furred frame dressed in my pale tunic and green simple pants. I was draped over by my white coinin cloak that was slightly too big as it hung off my right shoulder. I needed another button there. My white right paw and the other black, same as my birth father’s markings. My erect ears were majikally tattooed with a large formation of lycanthropic sigils forming a large ring in the very center each of my ears. In the center was my name in a bright orange sigil or glyph that incorporated my LongFang family name in the bottom right corner of it. The color was of my station of a Meldr. Around my name in a ring was the traits that described me. Kind, smart, talented, lonely, brave, caring, and loyal. My station snug piercings at my mid-height outer ear in both ears were bright orange chits and three in quantity signifying that I was a journeyman-apprentice Meldr. I would have four there soon to mark me as a master level. Being a Majik user, our ranking in learning was a bit different from non-Majik users. We skipped from apprentice to journeyman straight to Master and then beyond that. Grandmaster and High-master were next if you were the highest ranked user in the settlement and had all aptitudes. High-masters were likely the settlement minister or an adviser to him. Father was one of the masters and Ferget StarGazers adviser and was also a council member. I would be too one day. Father had five chits as snug piercings, Ferget had six. Losing myself in thought, my blue eyes were squinting back at me, as I was drifting again. With my thoughts once again wandering to that which tormented me, I tried to picture another man, my one-day mate, happily and proudly holding me to him. He was proud, kind, thoughtful, smart, caring and madly in love with me, and I him. You see, this was the source of my distress as of late. The major development in my training brought bare a new milestone to bring me closer to adulthood and I was heavily required, though I would have anyhow; to take a mate. This was the issue, I saw our oracle before the council when I was twelve. I had a curiosity to ask her to look down my path for guidance. Keesley LongSight had a warning for me instead. She said that I would not find love easily. Though I’d search, yet in time it would find me instead. Also, when it did find me, I would fall madly for the one man fated for me, but not instantly. He would chase me, and I would resist with caution of a nature we would figure out and resolve together. What a wonderful way to tell the “entire council” I was gay! I was mortified at the personal invasion of my privacy of something I myself was still figuring out! It’s not an issue with most races but I would have been appreciative of the nature of the warning privately. Keesley continued telling me that we were still traveling towards each other in a somewhat wayward path. Years later I am still rolling those words of cautioned love around in my head. What was she trying to say then? No Tala has left us to not return, who would I travel to then? Damn metaphor of growth I gathered. I had to stop myself from dwelling on it, but I was lonely and thinking about it more often apparently. This riddle I was still unable to solve, and it was bound to drive me mad. When I was made a master, I would be freed of my bonds that prevented me from seeking a mate. Maybe then my path would clear so I might see. My life would be allowed to develop further as a newly installed elder of my people.

ꕥꕥ
The droning din of the larger and more numerous Lycan-stone powered maji-tech machines in the shop was an unfamiliar sound to me and I wondered if the master-craftsman and his apprentices were all deaf by now. Not many smiths were majik users, so they took their time and pride in producing their craft to perfection as artisans instead. As they were not Wieldrs, their life spans were limited to about 180 years if they survived the hazards of their trades to be healed. Shepher ShortHammer was no exception he was the maker of Telars last set of ceremonial Meldr armor. I admired it every time he wore it for rituals and the craftsmanship showed. He came in from the shop leaving the door ajar with an ever-watchful eye on his shop and apprentices working with his machines and active forges. Injuries for non-wieldr’s could be fatal if a healer was not seen quickly. I clutched my sigiled amulet on reflex to check its ward charms to be sure they were in place. “Ah, thank you sir, it was getting rather dim in here”, he said nodding towards his showcase. Slightly put off by the over the top ”sir” comment attempted to not make a face. I handed him the letter and the large parcel that my father had instructed me to deliver. Shepher cracked the seal with his claw and read it quietly. His eyes went wide, and he looked up at me half way though and then back to finish the letter. When finished, he turned on his heal back through the heavy door to the forge fire on his left to where he tossed in the letter and the large and heavy parcel. Shocked, I nearly fell over while trying to reach the fire, as Telar said nothing about burning it! Shepher caught me in his arms and said “Whoa, whoa! take it easy now I just did what your father instructed, I take it you have no knowledge of the letter then?”. “None sir”, I admitted. “Oh, get off it with this sir business, it’s you I should be calling “sir””. “Okay, yes, but not so loud just yet. okay?”, I said. “I have no official title as of yet, so that makes you the highest station in this room with five chits in your ears as master of this shop and your craft”, I said with well-meant respect. He made an expression of thought but only for a moment, “Oh? see here then young sir, your father has given me some pretty specific instructions that says otherwise. The letters contents were to be non-spoken of, sadly, so I burned it and the parcel was silver-platinum bullion that he sang out of the ground himself which is why it is in my fire to smelt.” I looked one more time at the forge fire to see that the large parcel was reduced to brick-like items in it and it was indeed melting down. “The rest is my secret other than my saying “well done”, sir”. He said this while looking directly at me and not bowing this time which felt better somehow. Shepher cleared his throat, “I have my instructions and if I am to not honor you so highly yet, young sir, may I ask of you as something of a slight favor, young sir?”. “Go on”, I nodded and chuckled at the obscene levels of reverence he was showing me only because he knew it bothered me still. “Thank you, young sir”, he said. “My mate and his apprentices have only arrived back on their two-month trip from the Skree settlement with a new lathe”. “As you know, they do not provide the Lycan stones to run them…” Already aware of what he was getting at, I held my hand up and I said, “how many?” “Four if you do not mind, young sir”, he said with a smile. “look, please stop, you are being obnoxious”, I said. “Yes, if young sir wishes it” he said. I just rolled my eyes to that. The Tala make and trade Lycan stones, although we prefer the phrase Tala Stones. Every cursed race insists on calling us Lycans from legends of wolves that could shapeshift into any other animal races. Well, they were not wrong, my birth-father had that same aptitude and so would I eventually. We just simply did not demonstrate this in front of other races along with what Shepher was asking me to do as well. Shepher was asking me to craft him four Lycan stones which wasn’t an issue and well within my ability. I went outside and sat on the dry ground and laid my staff down in front of me and closed my eyes. Most aptitudes did not require such large amounts of animit energy if they did at all, but elemental aptitudes had the potential to require tons. Having an elemental aptitude ties one into everything that is made up of it. That is how I could move a book with my mind but not water with my elemental earth aptitude. No race as far as we knew had the ability to manipulate water outside of a spell or a charm, as an actual aptitude. Having the ability to freeze things, including water did not count. I started to reach with my mind to the balance of life and creation around me and drew it to me. This time it was oddly too easy. I opened my eyes to see why. I had an audience. “Sorry, young sir”, Shepher said, “they wanted to watch you summon the stones, if that is alright?” “Yes, that is fine as long as they don’t try and lend me a paw too”, I said. I closed my eyes again and practiced what I learned last week. I summoned just enough animit energy for what I knew it would take for one stone with anticipation to retain it to make four total. I called to the earth and sung copper, sandstone, iron, quartz, and a little lead into four individual swirling balls in front of me. Being oh so carful to measure the different parts correctly in my mind as my eyes were still closed. The excess I let fall to the ground. I instructed with my intention to the elements and materials to form together in specific patterns smaller than then my eyes could see like a puzzle. They started taking shape as perfect spheres. When they were complete they were solid opaque stones of the color of deep cream amber. The stones perfectly round hit the ground in thuds, one after another. Aware of my audience, I then said the spell out loud instead to summon a magical fire with additional animit energy to fire them. ”Bright and hot as my heart, Summoned forth to do its part. Too cure these stones and break them not, place them complete upon this spot” and super-heat them till they were their required amber-clear form to become majikal load stones, or Lycan stones. The stones were still on the ground when I was done. I opened my eyes to see Shepher with a bucket of water waiting, I nodded, and he squelched the stones and let them settle. One of his journeyman picked up the stones with tongs and loaded them into another’s waiting apron. The whole procession went to the new lathe at the very back of the workshop where they performed finishing’s. I quietly said a spell to null out the din of the room. The scent of burning metal was none too pleasing but I left that alone for now. The stones usually were to be placed in the stone cistern. Shephers mate and his apprentices were in the process of the final assembly of that piece. They would be affixed in sockets set in an open-faced cylinder that rotated quite fast when the machine was activated. This was so the stored Majikal energy would be distributed evenly. There was an issue straight away though. The sockets were cubed shaped, and not able to take the traditionally proportioned globes we made the stones in. Annoyed at this, I inquired for the manual. Expecting as much when it was produced by Shephers husband, it was written in Skree (or rat). I noted this was Shepher’s mate by the fact that they had the same blue chit piercings etched with the ShortHammer sigil in the upper snug section of their left ears. He had five green chits snugs in both ears depicting him as a Master-Craftsman smith. His scent as well was the same as Shepher’s, and his sigil ring in his ears had both his and Shepher’ names. He stepped back and then behind his husband Shepher as a show of respect as we were still talking. I didn’t get a good look at him though I did know that they were newly mated as of last autumn and he was Shepher’s ex-apprentice as of about that time. It was usually no one’s business of who was involved with whom. Although, sticking to traditions meant that you did not have sex till you were mated meaning the ex-changing of claim bites from one to another. This sorted many pesky things like un-mated pregnancies and un-claimed offspring. Gay Tala were not as strict about that, but it was seen as disrespectful of our customs and no one really sought that mark on them. A handfasting or marriage was just a formal ritual that was also expected but not required. I cheated and read his name off Shephers sigil ring of tattoos in one of his ears and said, “Ah, Jase ShortHammer is it?”, I stuck out my paw, “Well met”. He stepped out from behind his husband again and took my paw and forearm in a forearm shake and squeezed it hard and nodded to me. I do believe a few things popped as well. He then brought my paw to his muzzle and sniffed if to remember my scent as it is our custom. He stayed near Shepher but stood even with him this time with a grin and a nod where he was. I returned to the issue at hand. I was displeased at the turn of events thus far, I called to myself more animit energy. With the permission from Shepher, I transformed a scrap wooden plank into several pages of thick scribing paper. At approximately four times the length of the original instructions, I bound it like a small book with a wooden cover and scrap chord. With my knowledge of the Skree language, this was necessary. I transferred a complete copy of the Skree glyphs by spell to the blank tome. I performed a charm to change the properties of the glyphs this time to word for word translate them. Most races used the same sigil glyphs and sounds, but they still made totally different words in foreign patterns. At least they spoke in logical word order or we would be here for many hours. Their language was quite odd. Each word could easily contain from three to about five of ours. They could be terribly more descriptive at times than we could be in the same breath. From my reading about them, we commonly would have to ask them to talk slower and in complete sentences. Without that we could understand them very little. I handed the translated manual that was considerably more useful and heavy to Jase. “Thank you, young sir”, he said with the most over the top bow and knowing grin having likely already talked to his husband. This was the first time I have heard him talk so I let it slide. The honorific would be true soon enough. I rolled my eyes and said, “yes, well this should help you shed some light on the matter. I do need to be getting on home.” “Thanks for the stones young sir”, Shepher said. I just groaned, as they were just being obnoxious now together. They were definitely a match. “It looks like we have a conundrum here as to what changed in the last three years since we bought our last lathe”, said Jase. They thanked me in turn again and I departed without further delay.

ꕥꕥꕥ
With more questions than answers at just what my father had commissioned the smith, I returned to my house to find a fresh meat pie on the table and a list from my father for my next assignments. With a heavy sigh, I collected the next tome from our bookshelves. I took the book outside on the porch with a fresh cup of tea to try and keep the headache away with better light and caffeine. The learning would never really stop till my death, I reminded myself once more. These next two weeks was what we called the cram. I had my father’s list in hand that detailed the next dozen or more aptitudes I was to be melded soon. These were not the most useful ones either. “Here we go”, I thought as I settled in for the long haul as this next two weeks would prove to be interesting. The list of aptitudes I needed to have knowledge and eventual control over would get longer as the days went by before my ascension. Our people had a great deal of diverse number of aptitudes. Not all of them were particularly useful but we were tasked with preserving them from one Bindr generation to another. I was reading up on my latest aptitude from my family’s tome, “Solas”. It had a lot of good uses and recorded applications from its wielders in the past. It was an aptitude to produce light or to project it from a source near you. I was not too intrigued by this one as I was a Tala, our word for land/earth and the name of our people, the “Talee”. Our species being wolf meaning I would likely never need it except for if mother-moon fell out of the night sky or if I were in a cave in its basic form anyhow. I was a bit offsides as to why this one of all other useful aptitudes I was to learn this one first. Rather than risk the annoyance of my father when he was sure to review this material with me, I read on. I was still of the opinion that I was taught how to fly, but somehow was put back on the bench with a manual.

ꕥꕥꕥꕥ
Nearly two weeks past and my mind was still numb from all the reading. I honestly preferred the pain of hitting my head on my parent’s bedroom wall when I learned levitation. I was much more powerful now compared to two weeks ago in knowledge and in aptitudinal abilities. I was quite excited as tonight was our esbat ritual of the full moon in which we celebrated the rise of the new full moon. The ceremony would be held over for my ascension announcement. The esbat itself was a rather large ceremony that all Tala attended, majikal or no, we were all one people. It was usually held in one of our laid to fallow fields that we were allowing the soil to rest. The idea was that the animit energy we attracted there while in ritual helped heal the dirt better. Father and I were out in the back yard testing my grip of my latest melded aptitudes, lancing and vaulting. “Again”, Telar said. I once again with my earth-elemental-aptitude grew a sapling in front of us. I allowed it to make it to one revolution of our sun and released the thought and it stopped growing. “Good, I see we’ll never be out of trees, now cut it down”, Telar said. I trusted my lancing aptitude now to draw what it needed in animit energy and felt its effects flood me. I formed the thought cut in my mind and didn’t slow it down with any intention, careful to keep my eyes on the sapling. I released the spell and an ark of blue translucent energy shot from my torso straight at it and sliced it diagonally in half. The trunk, or what was left of it was on fire. “Damn it son, that was still too much energy you leveled at it”, said Telar. “Sorry father, it made me angry”, I said. Knowing that I had learned my lesson already and was just annoyed at the repetition. He thankfully did not make me repeat it, instead… “Let us review…”, “Telar no, I got it. I was using too much energy as I let my annoyance at the repetition multiply my energy, I am not a pup anymore” I said in a wee bit too much attitude than needed. “Okay”, Is all he said. “Okay?”, I asked, “No reprimand?”. “I do not feel the need to, you fulfilled what was necessary of the task. You can cut things with your mind and make fire wood. That was not the goal of the lesson of course. It was to help you understand that emotion can be useful in multiplying animit energy but to also not waste it”. “I would still caution you boy to not take that tone with me as I am still your father no matter your rank, tittle or age”, he said with a serious look. “Yes father, forgive me for I am young and will do it again”, I said with respect and no smirk for once. “Yes well, you are that and even though I am not your master anymore, I am still your teacher. I ask that you please learn more patience, I know it comes with time, but make better use of it”, he said while punctuating it with a stamp of his staff. I smiled and nodded, and he embraced me. Comforted by this contact, I hugged him back and breathed in my father’s safe and concerned and nervous scent. Wait, what was he nervous about? I reached through our Meldr’s bond and felt his emotional distress, suddenly the link between us went cold. He was blocking me! With annoyance my intention formed on its own and forced the link back open between us. The Meldr bond only really allowed us to find each other and discern emotional states and little more over a short distance. I felt his shock and saw it on his face. How was I doing this!? He was forestalling a decision to tell me something about my future. What was their secretive about me and my future. Now I was confused. Attempting to not show his shock, Telar simply said, “well that was new, you may have developed a brand-new aptitude there Kells”. “Now, Gisha has drawn a hot bath for you and you need bathed before the ceremony”, he said. Yes, of course the sun was starting to set, so I went inside and up the stairs behind the kitchen. When I got to the top of the stairs, instead of heading to my room I went to the wash-tub in the wet-room where Gisha was laying out my vestments. “Ma?”, I said. She turned around and smiled at me and walked to me. She cupped my muzzle and cheeks and kissed me on the forehead. “I love you my pup, don’t you ever forget that”, she said. No matter what happens and what tittles you gain, you will always be mine”. She embraced me, and I returned the gesture. I smelled the same nervous scent from here as well. I was not able to tell more since she was not a Meldr. This set me more on edge than before as I now knew they both were holding something back from me.