Chapter 232: 58: Moon in Claw

After the rush to get there, it was odd to wait quietly beside the druid's cottage for night to fall. It didn't really take all that long, but the half hour passed slowly. Not that it was all bad, Danika got to cuddle with Aishin who took a seat beside the druid's pond after Mark Bounds suggested it.

The sunsets in Living Jade Empire were a little strange, and like the fourth year rise of the heart moon, it was difficult to imagine a solar system configuration that would give the effect of short days but long sunsets. It was pretty though as the light shifted and turned a syrupy gold that melted into rose and faded.

The seat was positioned so that the light danced off the pond in an echo of the sky, and Aishin went idle sometimes, as he moved around in real life. He sighed when he returned from one of those sessions and reported, "We're stuck in traffic, so I think we're going to take the next exit and eat something before we go on."

"Ok," Danika replied cheerfully. She knew it must be annoying for him, but she was finally going to be able to shapeshift like Kit, and it was hard to worry about Aishin's traffic delays.

She was surprised when he lifted her up and kissed her nose. He didn't say anything, just flashed a grin

Finally the sun set, and Mark Bounds approached and asked, "Well ZipZing, are you ready to take your first step onto the druid's path?"

Danika launched herself from Aishin's lap and declared, "No!" He raised his eyebrow at her. She clarified, "I am ready to learn the Weaving Moonlight skill, but I'm not going to become a druid."

She glared at the elf who chuckled, and said, "Then let's begin." He reached out and poked her with one long finger and a soft chime rang.

While Danika quickly pulled up her menus and examined the new zero point skill, the druid instructed, "Withdraw the essence containing item that you wish to use in your first attempt, but be warned, you might use up the entire thousand before you find one that you have a high enough affinity with to extract it with an unleveled skill."

Danika nodded and withdrew a hair that she knew was human. She might not get it on the first try, but despite the druid's evaluation of how disorganized her collection was, she had kept track of the most interesting and important creature types that she'd collected from. And since she was originally a human, she hoped that this would be one of those lucky learning sessions like her Wind Blade.

Aishin had gone idle again, so his figure didn't react when the Druid reached out and pulled the moonlight out of the air. Danika gasped as everything in the vicinity went truly dark, and the area lost the dim glow of moonlight that had been gently illuminating it. Hikaru and the fireflies native to the druid's pond suddenly seemed to glow several times more brightly.

The druid's long fingers were the only things clearly visible in the dark, where he seemed to be clutching a handful of silver light in one hand. His fingers moved and he pulled a strand from the little glob of condensed light. When the length suited him, he pinched it off.

He reached into a pocket and withdrew a small claw. Then he deftly coiled the strand around the claw until it was just a little ball of light and said, "This is where you'll fail the most often." Then he yanked on the string, pulling from both ends at the same time. The little ball of light he'd wound around the tooth tightened and then suddenly flashed and pulled free into a long golden strand. The tooth was gone.

He stopped and told her, "As your skill increases you'll be able to handle more strands, but three is the base. The two strands representing your own core, and the strand to hold the borrowed essence."

Then he pinched one end of the golden strand in his fingers and pulled two more out of the glob of light before opening that hand and releasing it. Moonlight lit the cottage and the pond again, but the druid still held two silver and one gold strand of light. He carefully knotted them at one and then braided them together and knotted the other end.

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"Most druids find it convenient to have a physical belt to lay it on, but it's not necessary. You can see it any time you have the skill active," Mark Bounds explained.

Danika blinked and realized that her new skill had been active since the Druid had given it to her. She deactivated it and the thin braid in his hands vanished. She reactivated it and the braid reappeared.

The druid held it up and said, "The light will be released if the object it's laid upon is broken or cut into pieces, if the knot is undone, or," he coiled it up in his palm and then tossed it at the moon, "if you give it back to the moon." A brighter ray of light might have flashed for a moment, but the braided string was gone.

"Cool," Danika said happily.

"Now you try," Mark Bounds instructed. "Reach for the moon to grab the moonlight."

Danika lifted her little clawed hand toward the moon and made grasping motions, but nothing seemed to happen. The druid watched with amusement, but didn't add anything. She tried again. Her little hand blocked the entire moon for a moment on her third attempt and when she drew her hand back a little it looked like she'd pulled it out of the sky and she gasped.

When she looked again though, the moon was still there, but like when Mark Bounds had pulled in the light, it wasn't shining on anything nearby. She clutched the silver glow, and tried pulling a thread out of it like he had. When she loosened her grip to get ahold of the little glob, it slid from between her fingers and vanished, and the light returned to the surroundings.

It took her several tries to both catch the moonlight and pull a strand from it. Once it was drawn out into a strand it stayed that way unless she dropped it. She struggled with winding the string of light around the hair without letting the glob of light escape, and had a slightly traitorous thought against VR. She wondered if in the mobile application simply selecting the objects and tapping would implement the skill perfectly.

Aishin returned at some point in the process, but he didn't speak up until the light returned again while she was trying to hold the glob and yank on both ends of her wrapped strand. "From the way you're frowning and it keeps getting darker and lighter again, you must already have learned it?" he asked.

Danika looked around and realized that Mark Bounds was nowhere to be seen and that his sharp sturdy little stone cottage was quiet and dark. "Sort of?" she agreed uncertainly. "I have the zero point skill, but I haven't succeeded yet."

"That's ok isn't it?" he asked with amusement. "Remember how much time you spent slicing radishes to teach me that first skill?"

"Yeah," she agreed after a moment. "You're home now aren't you?"

He grinned at her more naturally than he had before that night and agreed, "Yeah. But stop paying attention to me, you're wasting your limited moonlight."

Danika laughed and reached for the moon again.

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