Chapter Text
Nova woke slowly, groggily, and covered in sand, and immediately began to shiver. She rolled over, towards the nearest warm body, and latched on. The body shuddered as they too, came to consciousness.
“Nova?” Sorrel mumbled.
“When’d it get so cold?” Nova whined into Sorrel’s jacket.
Rosso's face appeared over them. “S’what you get for being born in a rain forest.” He grinned. “C'mere girls,” he said fondly, lifting the still intertwined pair into his arms. Nova immediately shifted to cling to the genasi. Through his thin shirt, he radiated heat. Perks of being made of fire, she supposed.
Poe’s worried voice pulled her properly into alertness. “Merin, Zuriel’s not waking up.”
Nova peered around Rosso’s broad shoulders to where Zuriel still lay. Her hood had shifted back, and her brow was furrowed deeply, as if sunk in a nightmare. Tolmerin knelt by her head and began muttering, only half of which she recognized as spellcasting. Zuriel began to shift and struggle, and then, after a tense moment, gasped awake, panting.
Poe laid a hand on her shoulder. “Zu, you good?”
Zuriel slumped down into Poe’s arms, resting her forehead on the other’s shoulder.
Merin shifted closer. “ Zuriel , what did you see?”
Zuriel shook her head. “Didn't get to look around. Had to help Selune. She needed an anchor to pull herself into this world.” She sighed. “It was exhausting. I’m nearly out of magic for today.”
Tolmerin watched her, worriedly. “It worked though, right? Your magic still works?”
Zuriel nodded. “I can feel her. She's here.” As if to prove it, she grabbed hold of her amulet, and it began to glow with a familiar, radiant light.
Merin nodded, satisfied. “Good, that’s good. We’d have been in trouble if you- We’d have been in trouble.”
“Do we know where we are?”
On cue, they all looked around. The sandy dune they’d woken up on was not tall. The area around seemed, if not flat, then similarly shallow, but there were mountains off in the distance in one direction, and in another… “There’s a huge structure over there,” Poe pointed. The structure in question rose abruptly from the sand, like a mesa had been painstakingly carved into an enormous fortress. A boxy tower rose even higher than the surrounding walls.
Nova shifted in Rosso's arms. “Is it a city? I think I see buildings on top.”
“If those are buildings, then we’re way further away from it than I thought.” Poe sighed. “Did any of you see this place in your visions?”
Nova frowned. The visions had faded to the back of her mind, foggy and indistinct, but she could vaguely recall… “I saw a desert planet, but I'm pretty sure it was hot, not cold.”
“I saw it.” Sorrel's voice was flatter than usual, still wrapped in her grief. But her voice became stronger as she continued. “There was something about it that reminded me a little of Candlekeep. People were coming in and leaving constantly, a lot were meeting with monks that lived near that big tower. I think it's a temple. Or, a place of learning?” She glanced around at the group. “There were a lot of different types of people, dressed in all kinds of different ways. I don’t think any of us will look too out of place. Although… I didn’t see any armor in the same style as yours, Zu.” She considered for a moment. “Its kinda hard to explain, there was some armor, but a lot of it was painted, and had more straight lines, less… organic. But there were so many different types of people. Some might look twice, but I don’t think they’d find it too odd.”
Merin nodded. “Then that, at least, is good news. I have no idea how common dimensional travel is here. Best not to raise too many questions just yet.”
“Can we make it there before nightfall?” Rosso asked. “Think the girls might freeze if we can’t.”
Sorrel huffed softly and leaned away from Rosso, brushing snow white hair over her shoulder. “I’m fine. I'm built for winter, at the moment.” Naturally, at that moment, she shivered violently.
He grinned. “Built for winter my ass. Your jacket needs sleeves.”
“Maybe you should wear a jacket,” she grumbled, but moved back into Rosso's embrace. Nova couldn't help the grin that brushed her lips as a bit of the familiar light returned to Sorrel's eyes.
But equally importantly, that was probably her cue. “I could turn us all into eagles, then we could get to the city faster, and it would keep us all warm!” Nova announced brightly.
Poe crossed their arms and glowered at her. “Okay but like, half-assed, polymorph eagles who couldn't intuit their way out of a paper bag, cuz we tried that before and it didn't work out super great.”
Nova winced. Guess he was still having nightmares about that one. “That was one time, and it was frogs. Eagles aren't that dumb. But no, I've got the good spell, I promise.”
Merin stepped forward. “I'll set up a telepathic bond, so we can split up more easily once we’re in the city.”
Plan in place, Merin cast his spell, wrapping the magic of the weave around them, tethering each of them together. He shook his head as he cast, and the spell seemed to take a second longer to latch on.
/ That was. A bit odd. The magic feels strange here. But we're good to go. / Merin’s voice reached their minds. / Nova? /
Nova leapt down from Rosso’s arms. The cold cut through her thin tunics immediately, layers be damned, but it wouldn’t matter in a moment. She raised her hands and reached out, nudging the weave around the six of them. It responded eagerly, more than she was used to. Almost… curious. That was familiar. She reached out with her mind and nudged at the Weave in the friendly way she now remembered she'd done in her vision. The Weave nudged back, making her grin, and allowed her to shape it into her spell. Sand swirled around them as she pulled them all into their preferred eagle shapes. Nova shook out her feathers, pleased with the extra down she’d stuffed under them. Each of her friends made similar movements, adjusting to the new forms.
/ Well, you didn't seem to have any trouble / Merin said, a bit petulantly.
Nova nudged him with her beak. / You just gotta listen. The Weave is perfectly cordial if you introduce yourself. /
/... What? /
/ Let's see if we can find shelter for the night before launching into another debate about arcane versus divine versus druidic magic, alright? / Zuriel said. Merin shifted a bit, but settled. / All ready? / They nodded and each leapt into the air.
_______
One thing about giant eagles is that they are, well. Giant. It makes them useful for eating up miles quickly, but not so useful for avoiding attention. As the city drew nearer, Nova took a moment to exchange their eagle forms for the more innocuous (hopefully) pigeons. Diving through the city, though, they saw no other pigeons.
Merin landed on the edge of a rooftop and warbled softly. / Probably should have gone with more of a desert bird, like a quail, or a cactus wren. /
Nova landed beside him and smacked him with a wing. / Coulda said something before! /
He pecked at her. / I didn’t think of it before! /
/ Then don’t complain. I think we could explore better as dogs anyway. Let’s go find an alleyway. / She took off again.
The alley they found was near the center of the city, almost equidistant from the maybe-temple and the landing platforms where those great metal airships were landing and taking off. Nova spent a while staring at them in awe before being called back to the ground by her friends.
/ A couple of us should go ask around, see what we can learn about this place from the people who actually live here. / Zurel said once they had gathered in the alley.
/ Sure thing! So who wants to be people and who wants to be animals? / Nova asked.
/ Me, Merin, and Poe, I think, will be the most efficient and innocuous people. /
Nova bobbed her head. / Can do! / And with that, checking briefly for prying eyes, Nova reverted the trio back to their regular forms. In the same breath, she transformed the rest into their preferred exploration forms. Sorrel stretched out her new spine in typical liquid cat fashion, and Rosso leaned down and licked her head aggressively, nearly fitting her entire head into his big toothy mouth.
She swatted at him with a paw. / That wasn’t funny the first dozen times, Rosso, cut it out! /
Rosso wagged his tail and gave a dog’s dopey grin. Nova leaned into his heavily muscled side, head barely high enough to rest along his back, and wagged her much fluffier tail into his legs. Even as a dog, Rosso preferred to be twice her size and beefy. Nova would always prefer a slimmer, speedier form to explore in, even if she couldn’t quite get behind the pure liquid that was cats.
Zuriel tugged her mask and hood more firmly into place, her eyes glowing brighter in the deepening shadows. “Let’s meet near the temple at sundown. That should probably give us a few hours of exploration.”
“Hopefully our money is worth something here,” Poe grumbled.
Rosso gave a couple breathy huffs, laughing as best as his form would allow. / Always the optimist, there, Poe . /
/ Don't worry, Poe! I'm sure we have something valuable to sell or trade. You and Merin and Zu will figure it out! / Nova licked their hand consolingly.
Poe's face twitched, and they moved their hand behind them to subtly wipe it off. Rosso gave another huffing laugh. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, I guess.”
“Oh wait, wait! Tongues! I need to cast tongues!” Merin hissed quickly. “I don’t know what language they speak here.”
Poe frowned and reached for his shoulder. “That’ll use up a lot of your energy though, won’t it? Can you afford that? We have no idea what things are like here, what if you need those spells later?”
Merin gripped Poe’s hand. “I’ll still have my most powerful spells, and if I get into something I can’t handle,” / I’ll call for help. /
Poe’s frown didn’t lessen, but he released Merin’s arm. “You better.”
Merin muttered the words of the spell under his breath and touched each of them in turn, the magic still not quite responding to his call like usual. Tonight, Nova thought, I’ll have to talk with him about it.
/ Yeah yeah, everyone keep your eyes peeled for danger, same song and dance as always. / Rosso griped. / Now let’s go! I smell something really good and I wanna go eat it!! /
Poe rolled their eyes, and sighed. “Fine.” / Stay safe /
/ Stay safe / they all responded, and ducked out of the alley, headed in different directions.