Chapter 46 - Vulnerable

Ash and Luna left for the grove almost as soon as Sidus took his leave. Ash sighed roughly and sat on her bed, looking out on the pond and the display of magic that danced in her haven. So long as she looked towards the pond, she could almost convince herself that she was actually awake, that it was her home she'd spent over a thousand years creating just the way she wanted it.

Luna settled beside her, the way she jumped on the bed making it sway slightly as she joked, "Most creatures with hooves don't like their beds off the ground, you know."

Ash rolled her eyes slightly, it was a joke she told often, but didn't bother to fuss at her over it. It had been centuries since Luna had been able to say those words. Ash's hibernation spells required stability, which meant her bed had lain on the floor for a very long time on the off chance she had the energy to make it up the stairs to it. More often, she slept on the couch or in her unicorn form by the pond itself. She'd missed the gentle sway of her bed in the wind.

"So," Luna said softly after a while of enjoying the gentle night, "Do you want to start with what exactly I do for you or with discussing your routines?"

"Let's start with you, Luri," she said quietly, not yet wanting to face how they'd navigate the list of things Ash was supposed to do daily.

Luna spent a moment gathering her thoughts. Being the guardian priestess for a Starborn was often compared by outsiders to being an attendant to royalty. It wasn't the same, though, at least not to her.

Slowly, she explained the surface part, that she took care of things Ash would have trouble doing without expending magic: trimming horns, mane and tail as needed and brushing and braiding them as needed to keep them in good condition as well as helping with baths in the larger form that would have to wield magic in order to get properly clean.

"All of the various trimmings are gathered and used for the temple. You already know what everything is good for so I don't need to go over the list. I also watch after you because certain things make you vulnerable. Trimming your main horn makes you vulnerable to mental magics. Thankfully your mane and tail don't provide a ton of protections or you wouldn't be able to wear your hair as short as you do. I'm also bound to your magic," she made a slight move and plucked at the strand of magic that connected them, something Ash felt from time to time when Luna was checking on her, "It lets me ascertain how you're doing even if I'm not at your side. It also gives me some of your immunities, like making me able to handle the water from the starseeing pond without injury. Generally speaking, I can teleport to you wherever you are. After you've drank from the starseeing pond and bathed in it, I remain for a while because your magic…lapses somewhat. You are not nearly so strong at casting as normal and I need to stay close to protect you."

The bath was less what most people would think of as one and more of a ceremonial thing. Ash disliked it because the water was always frigid, even in her unicorn form. She'd also always felt out of sorts for the time Luna spent with her after, though she'd never really questioned why. She'd always just obeyed the orders she'd been given as a creature made by a god's power.

Luna went on to explain that drinking the water slowly increased her personal mana pool, which in turn made it easier to manipulate mana that wasn't her own. The ceremonial bath, on the other hand, helped her form and maintain the legendary resistances to status effects that unicorns were known to have. Most unicorns observed a ritual specific to the god that created them in order to maintain those resistances.

Curious, Ash asked what Starlight unicorns did, considering they did not carry the resistance to the chilling cold of the starseeing ponds.

"They spend the nights where there is no moonlight in their true forms, basking in the starlight near a starseeing pond. I suspect it would work for you as well…But just like a Starlight unicorn, your protections would be slightly less than they are normally."

"Considering most people from our world think of this as a game, wouldn't drinking from a starseeing pond be considered something like cheating?"

Luna spent a moment contemplating that before shrugging slightly, "Perhaps, but it's not as if it's a quick progression. Certainly, in a month or two worth of time, you might be able to maintain a spell for a minute longer," she conjured Starsoak in her hand as if to demonstrate, "But since holding spells generally doesn't drain much mana to begin with until you start adding more, it's not as if you'll be able to cast more spells. After about a year, you might be able to cast a single extra spell beyond what a normal magic user could. The reason you are so powerful in our world is because you've had over a thousand years of gathering a single extra spell per year."

Ash didn't bother to finish the train of thought, to acknowledge once again that she didn't have a thousand more years ahead of her as things stood. Instead, she moved on to the important part of the discussion.

"The hour spent in the pond and dipping my horn in it and the like are all easy enough. I can do them myself. I can also start handling the bath with magic," Luna interrupted with a firm denial, "Luri, you don't have the time of day to care for me twice over."

"Then I will pass off some of your care to my children while you are living in two worlds, Ashterra," she said softly before wrapping her in a gentle embrace, "I will not leave you alone…Not even in the far future when we are forced to part. My children will watch over you after me and their children after them. Eventually, mixed in among them will be a little scamp of a child that reminds you ever so much of me and we'll be reunited. Sidus made certain that all of the attendants of the Starborn remain with the ones they hold dearest."

Ash rarely acknowledged it, that she knew herself to be the most important thing to Luna, that she knew she came before everything else. Ash was Luna's first love, before the young ones had understood the different forms love could take. Luna had once promised to marry Ash herself, to stay at her side forever. The young Starborn, already wise beyond her years, had begun by then to understand that Luna didn't love her in that way but knew also that Luna had to discover that herself.

She sighed slightly and leaned into Luna's embrace, idly wondering at all the types of love she knew of, at all the things she hadn't experienced and might not have the chance to. She'd likely keep herself too busy to contemplate it in the future considering it also brought with it the reality that the world would slowly fade from existence without her kind.

Magic would eventually become unusable to the races, belonging only to monsters and dungeons would grow larger and more dangerous. Without magic to strengthen them, the races would likely be unable to stand against the monsters and her home would become a haven for them until they eventually faded as well, unable to sustain themselves on their own incomplete emotions.