Ryn of Avonside

“Ah, and while we walk… my name is Nofrei,” said the strange mage woman as she turned and took up position at the head of our little parade.

Now that we'd agreed to follow along behind her, some of the overly calculated intensity was gone. Honestly, I was glad she'd relaxed slightly — people who drove that hard towards an agenda were exhausting. It made me wonder though, why did she care so much about supposedly showing us her shop — or rather, what did she actually want?

Had she realised I was a mage? She must have — it was obvious to me that she was magical, after all.

Feeling a brush at my sleeve, I felt Grace whisper into my ear, “I want to see you in robes like hers.”

Looking at the clothing in question, a butterfly riot of apprehension took me. Phew. I wasn't sure I was elegant enough to pull it off, but if I did, my ego would forever be the size of a small moon.

As if to tempt me, or perhaps intimidate me, a large section of the robe fell briefly to the side. It revealed a long stretch of olive skin from the small of her back, down over the curve of her ass, and then over her hip and down the side of her thigh. A little more movement and her whole ass would've been uncovered for all to see, and yet it held for a second before just as suddenly, it was all covered up again.

“Fucking hell,” Grace muttered.

“The locals are certainly giving her a wide berth,” said Eilian, who'd sidled up on my other side.

With that statement as an aid, I turned my attention to everywhere other than the mysterious mage and her smooth skin. My obrec friend wasn't wrong. The crowds, whenever they got too dense, parted before her like she was royalty — many going so far as to give a little bow in her direction.

“They're not properly scared, either. Just… like, respectful? I don't know exactly what the vibes are, but it's something like that,” said Grace.

I gave a soft grunt of agreement. If I was a bit more analytical, I'd say that the city had one or two resident mages, with more passing through regularly.

Eventually, she pulled to a stop outside… well, it was definitely a clothes shop, but behind it was a four storey tower, and then behind that was a modest estate. All up, the complex took up half of a city block.

“Welcome to my shop and my family's estate in Cyotfar,” Nofrei said, giving me another welcoming smile. “Come in, we can talk more privately.”

The storefront was mostly glass, but with thicker supporting beams than you'd see back on Earth. Inside, arcane lights hung around several mannequins that wore various colourful garments — all of which looked incredibly well made. The rest of the store had a similar thing going, except that unlike the clothing, it was mostly various shades of chromatic black or grey. It made the whole place really focus the eye on the displayed clothing.

Looking at what was on display, I could see that long tunics with belts around the waist were in style currently. Some had these big wide-brimmed hats with long colourful feather crests curving around and back from the front of the brim. There was also a section specifically for coats, which generally stopped just above the hips and had a lot more muted colouring than the tunics.

Oh, and then there were the dresses, which resembled less… magical versions of what the owner was wearing. They were actually really cool, because they had these various draped stripes of complementary colours that flowed almost like rivers down and around the body.

Despite how pretty everything looked, I found myself enjoying the soft grey-green and silver of the Order's colouring on us. It was a nice rest from the peafowlery in the shop.

“What do you think?” asked Nofrei, once we'd had time to process.

“I think that the clothing is gorgeous and that the wild variety of colour is hurting my eyes and my brain,” I said truthfully.

Her eye turned critical as she looked me up and down again. “Hmm, yes I can see that wherever you are from, you're not afraid to appear dull.”

My eyebrows shot upward. “Uh, what?”

“Oh, I mean no insult,” she said without any rush. “A year or two ago, Prince Fravar remarked that he hated ‘boring people,’ and since then the fashion of the families has trended more towards the colourful.”

“Okay then,” I said, still very unsure of what to think.

“Now,” she said with a clap of her hands. She began pointing at us one by one. “You're a mage, and so are you. I'm not sure what you are, and you two have some very magically active armour. Who are you? I'm very intrigued…”

Oh, she'd clocked us alright. Now we just had to figure out what to actually tell her.

Hoping he'd have a better idea of what to say, I looked at Dr. Ross.

“I haven't grasped the language well enough to make a call, Ryn,” he said in English, correctly reading what my look meant. “You understand the tonal and subtextual elements, whereas I do not.”

“This lady is extremely difficult to read, Ross,” I sighed. “Should I just go with the truth?”

He nodded. “Sure, it'll get out eventually anyway.”

Refocusing on Nofrei, I banished my illusion, revealing my true hair and eye colours. “Yeah, so we're from a new arrival to the Ring — Avonside. Those of us in the armour with the matching scheme are from an order of knights we created to protect the town and just generally do good. The others are ambassadors sent by the council of Avonside.”

“Goodness, that's a rather succinct explanation,” she chuckled. “I'm going to request a more thorough one, but first… I suspect we'll need refreshments. Come, we'll retire to my back room.”

With that, she led us through a door at the back of the shop, down a hallway, and out into a gorgeous sunlit room. All along the opposite wall were windows with the largest panes of glass we'd seen made by people from the Ring. Well, except the Umare, but theirs tended to have cracks or chunks missing these days.

The middle of the room held three coffee tables in a row, quite close to each other, but no seating of any kind. Along the walls, however, was a smorgasbord of fabrics in neat little wooden shelving alcoves. With a wave of her hand, Nofrei summoned a strange multi-hued light and tossed it absently towards the stacked fabric.

With a lazy twitch, several folded sheets of the stuff unfurled and whisked across the room. As it did, the mage silently looked over us and counted out our number. When her unnaturally deep green eyes fell on me, she winked and twirled with a flourish of her hand. The fabric twitched and in the space of a single second, formed the outline of several sofas. It looked like the sheets had been draped over the furniture, except there wasn't any underneath.

Very purposefully nonchalant, Nofrei approached a large fabric-formed single armchair and sat down in it. I'd already picked up on how this magic was gonna work, but my hindbrain still expected her to fall right through and land on her ass. Instead, the fabric caught her as you'd expect a sturdy, comfortable armchair would.

“Please, take a seat,” she said, failing to suppress a satisfied smile.

Oh, it was on, lady.

“Thank you,” I said, returning her smile with one of mischief. I sat down on a sofa, prompting the others to do so.

It felt so damned soft. Like, if ever there were a perfect chair, this was it. It supported me perfectly, while never once compressing my muscles in any way that would start getting uncomfortable. The bar had been set.

Twirling my hand in the air, I imagined the idea of a mango — its texture, what it tasted like, and the gorgeous orange hue of its skin. It was difficult without the comfort and control I had in my grove, but with a slight exhalation of effort, I summoned the seed and tossed it to the table in front of me.

Growth magic followed, so that as it landed, a bonsai-like tree had already formed. Since it had no soil, the roots were instead just there to support the trunk as it creaked and twisted its way into existence. Soon, small branches, then flowers appeared, and finally, with a burst of green light, a whole host of flowers.

The petals very quickly fell away, while the base bulb of the flowers began to swell before our eyes, like some sort of analogue time lapse. In short order, the green shifted and ripened to orange, until the tree held one mango for each of us. Beyond that, though, were the equal number of knives and small bowls that grew out from the roots. Eating mangoes was a messy business without utensils, after all.

Then, when it was all finished, I used my telekinesis to snap the mangos, bowls, and knives off and floated a set to each of us, including Nofrei. One sofa over, I heard the tiniest snort from Eilian. She gave me an amused smile when I looked over.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, and then tapping her chin as if it'd just occurred to her, she said, “Oh, I think we'll need something to drink, yes?”

Twirling her fingers again, more of that threaded, multi-hued magic sparkled off and infused itself into a folder section of fabric. With a twitch, it came to life — almost literally. It formed into the vague shaped of a humanoid, but made of twisted cloth.

“Fetch us some ekah,” said Nofrei, then after a moment as the fabric golem was beginning to leave, she added, “Nothing too heavy, nothing too sweet. We're already having fruit.”

Another nod and it was gone, out the door and onto the grounds of the enclosed estate beyond the windows.