Chapter 22: 22: Ulterior Motives

“I’ve been thinking, with the addition of Ryn to our group, we might want to get our hands on some of the local literature, if we can,” Troy said to the group gathered under my new tree. “Wait, can you read Anve as well as speak it?”

It was pleasantly cool in the hollow space under the branches, just as I’d predicted, so we’d chosen to talk about our next move here.

“Yeah, I can,” I nodded.

“Good, good,” he nodded, then continued. “Our plan was to visit this city since we heard it was a major trading hub for this region, then figure out our plans from there. Now though, since we’ve been exploring, we’ve seen a lot of that magic technology stuff around. I reckon we should get our hands on some, as well as some books on the subject.”

“My mentor told me a little about that,” I supplied, trying to remember the broader lessons I’d gotten on the subject. “They use a few different magically charged ores to get power. Kinda like uranium and those other radioactive elements, but this stuff doesn’t kill you by proximity. It does give off magical energy though, I can feel it sometimes when I’m near the stuff.”

“Ah, that’s good to know,” Troy said, going quiet as be began to think.

While he was thinking, Grace asked, “Well, we came all this way for a trading capital right? What if there’s also like, a magical tech capital around somewhere?”

Troy looked up, staring at her for a moment. “Yeah, I like that. Since we have Ryn around, we might also be able to get a concrete answer on the subject too.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

“He means that none of us speak the language around here better than a two year old. We’ve had more than enough issues getting lost and mistaking directions, shit like that. With you around, our job just became a hell of a lot easier,” Adam said with an appreciative smile. “I’m glad we found you Ryn, we’ve all missed you.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling embarrassment rising all over again.

It was seriously confusing to me why they cared so much about me. I mean, we’d only known each other for like a week. Sure, it was an intense week, but still.

“Well, now that we know what we’re doing, let’s head back into the city before it gets dark and they close the gates for the night. Can we use this place anywhere that we won’t be observed entering it?” Troy asked me with that ever serious expression of his.

“I’m… not sure. It leaves a mark out in the real world that other mages can see. I’m pretty sure they might be able to sense it even through walls,” I said cautiously, because in truth I didn’t know. I’d never met a mage in the outside world before.

“Understood, we’ll use the inn as we’d planned then. Although, we’ll need an extra room now. We’ll put you and Grace in a room together, give you girls some privacy,” Troy decided, already moving to leave the shelter of the tree.

“But boss, this chick was a guy!” James called after him, then adding under his breath. “Fuckin’ pussy one too.”

My arm moved quickly to wrap around Grace’s bicep in an attempt to keep her from smashing the shit out of the dude. I had questions though, his words made it sound like James had known me before… but how? I certainly didn’t recognise him.

Troy turned back slowly to stare at James, and there was a light in his eye that chilled me to the bone. “James,” he said quietly, menacingly. It was just a name, just a simple word, but the cold, raw anger in his tone was more than enough to get the point across. Holy shit, Troy might seem like a calm dude… but what if he wasn’t? What if he was just good at hiding it?

With James cowed, we set off, leaving my Grove and making our way back into town. The sun was still a ways up in the sky, I figured we had a few more hours before sunset. Halfway back to the city though, Troy pulled me back out of range of the others to talk. He seemed calm again, but I was worried and wary now. Grace was sending me anxious glances as Troy and I slowed our paces to get out of range of the others.

“Um, so what did you want to talk about?” I asked, a slight tremor in my voice.

“When I offered to come out here. I had… ulterior motives. Motives I didn’t want to disclose to anyone,” he began quietly, and my gaze snapped to meet his when I heard his tone. He sounded… worried?

“Um?” I was unable to manage any more than that.

“I worked hard to get to where I am now, to make it through… the military and all the garbage that entails. I was lucky to get out before that bastard started shit too, I might not have gotten my scholarship if I’d waited a few more years,” he told me, his worry turning to a hint of anger.

“Who started what shit?” I asked, curious now. Why was he telling me these things?

“The president,” he spat, like actually spat on the ground. “Fucker started shit about transgender service.”

“Wait…” I blurted, really staring at Troy now. “Y-you?”

“Yup,” he nodded, taking a deep breath to calm himself. “Which is why I’m interested in you.”

It took me a moment to realise what he was talking about for a second, and then it hit me.

“Wait if you’re here on the ring now… you can’t get any more meds!” I gasped, the blood draining from my face.

That was horrifying. I’d known vaguely what the options were for transition and what it entailed. Couldn’t go through with anything because of raw terror and an empty bank account, but I’d been aware. I was surprised that it was this effective though, he looked… well, like more of a man than pretty much every guy I’d ever known.

“Correct again,” he responded. “To make matters worse, I have had all… useless parts of my body removed long ago, which means that once I run out of my supply, I’ll begin to weaken. Health problems will start to manifest in various ways.”

“Crap, crap, crap,” I frowned, thinking hard. Could I help him?

“It’s not just me either, there’s others back at Avonside,” he said, blowing out a weary breath.

“I could try and find something with magic… but I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m a complete novice… I’d need like, books and stuff,” I told him, trying to think about what I knew was possible with my plant magic.

I could follow up on the strange ever changing plants of the void in the Nameless Garden, that might help. They had almost looked like spell plants when I was observing them, but I still needed a little theory to help me along.

“I figured,” he sighed. “I’ll see what I can do to help out on the magic front, as well as keep James off your back. In turn, can you look into my problem for me?”

“Definitely!” I said emphatically. “I um, guess it’s… obvious about me?”

“You would be a hell of a lot less functional if you hated what had happened to you,” he shrugged. “It isn’t hard to connect the dots, for someone who knows what it’s like.”

“Well… okay,” I sighed, already trying to think of some way I could twist a plant into being helpful.

Maybe I didn’t need a magical solution, but a scientific one? I could essentially custom design plants with incredible speed and ease, so what if I figured out a way to like, magically engineer a plant to create the hormones that Troy needed? Shit… I could do that with other, more mainstream medicines too!

“You look like you’re having ideas,” Troy chuckled, watching me as I spaced out into the realm of thought.

“Yeah… I am, but I’d need to be back at Avonside to make good on any of them,” I said distractedly, my mind still whirring with possibilities.

“Right. We’d best get our objectives completed quickly then.”

The rest of the walk back to their inn was quiet. I handed over some more coins I didn’t know anything about to help pay, because I don’t know, it just seemed like the right thing to do. I’d have to ask if they’d figured out what everything was worth. Troy got a second room rented for myself and Grace with the money, and we all hung out in the guy’s room until it was time for dinner.

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It occurred to me at some point during the time where I was sitting against the wall watching the rest of them play cards that we could use English to stop anyone understanding us. When I asked about why we’d wandered out into the middle of the forest to talk, other than transfer into my Grove, the answer was just as simple. They didn’t know how magic worked. I was pretty sure only the magefruit could give the gift of language, so tentatively Troy gave the all clear to talk about matters vaguely, so long as it was in English of course.

We ate our dinner down in the common room, but it was a quick affair. I think the others felt uncomfortable around the ring’s native population. Probably something to do with the fact that a bunch of them had attacked Avonside, but… these weren’t the same ones. The Anves, from what I had seen, were almost welsh in the way they did things. Their language was certainly a mess of consonants that shouldn’t belong anywhere near that close to each other.

“You ready to go up?” Grace asked quietly from beside me as I spaced out thinking about languages and cultures.

“Go up where?” I blinked, trying to play mental catch up with whatever context she was speaking through.

“To our room,” she said, giving me a playful smile and a nudge with her shoulder. “What were you thinking about that had you so spacey?”

“Oh uh, just dumb stuff,” I shrugged sheepishly. “Typical um, I don’t know... stuff?”

“Oh yeah totally,” she nodded with mock seriousness. “The fate of the world, alien races. The geopolitical landscape. That kind of thing?”

Once again, my cheeks were flushing red. “How did you know?”

“It’s a very, uh… Ryn thing to do,” she chuckled, then patted my shoulder companionably. “Come on.”

I pushed myself to my feet and followed behind her as she said goodnight to the rest of the group. We’d already dumped our bags in the room, so when we arrived there wasn’t really much to do. It was a small room, hardly large enough for space to move around, two single beds somehow crammed into it. There was barely a foot and a half of room between them.

As soon as we were in and the door was closed, I was kicking off my boots and throwing off my coat. My pants followed quickly after, and I was just taking off my top when I heard a strangled gasp from behind me. I turned to see Grace staring at me, her face flushed and her armour very much still on her.

“Uh, Ryn?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yeah?” I asked right back, trying to figure out what the hell I had done this time. My shirt was halfway up me still, held there by frozen, confused hands.

With a tone so low it was almost a whisper, she said, “You remember I’m a lesbian right?”

“Yeah?” I was still pretty confused by what was going on. Was she going to like, ask to sleep with me? Where was this going? Oh gosh, what if she actually did? What would I do then? Would I say yes? She was really cute, and pretty, but I was definitely sure she wouldn’t be interested in me, even if I might be a little interested in her.

“You’re stripping,” she stated, waving an erratic hand in my direction. Her eyes were down near my navel as she spoke.

It was embarrassing how long it took the gears and wheels in my head to turn. Then when I realised that yeah, I was getting naked just, casually right in front of her… I could see where the problem was.

“Um, sorry!” I squeaked, trying and failing to figure out where to hide my half naked body. I settled for crouching behind the bed, my head poking up over the top in wide eyed embarrassment.

“Oh my god,” she said with a nervous, hiccuping laugh. “Get changed, I’ll turn my back. Just… remember next time, if you don’t want me seeing you naked I mean.”

She did as she’d said, turning her back on me to face the wall.

“Right, sorry,” I mumbled rushing for my back and taking off my shirt and bra in the same jerky motion. Well... I tried, but this medieval bra was laced tight, and in the process I managed to pull all the knots into an almost locked state.

“Shit!” I muttered, struggling to bend my arms into a position where I could get proper leverage on them. It was.. Well, a failure. My fingernails were well trimmed because of my time spent helping Esra in the garden, which meant I couldn’t get any sort of purchase on the knots. “Fuck, damn!”

“What? What’s wrong?” Grace asked quickly, almost turning around before she remembered not to.

“The knots in this damned bra are too tight! I can’t get… I can’t get them off!” I whined, staring down at my almost naked body in frustration.

“Wait, the knots on your bra?” she blurted.

“Yeah the bras I was given… they’re lace up ones, like shoes or whatever, but I tried to take it off without untying them and now it’s all… tight,” I said, my voice strained as I continued to struggle with the knots, only succeeding in making it worse for myself. “Grace… please can you help? You’re allowed to look, I guess.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, her voice sounding weirdly breathy.

“Please!” I begged. “Get this bra off me, it’s starting to cut into me.”

“Alright, alright,” she agreed, turning around. “I’m coming.”

Her eyes when she saw my barely covered body were… I watched her visibly swallow, then move over on unsteady legs. Lifting my arms up to allow her to get at the laces, I watched as her hands hesitantly went for them. Her expression was one of intense control and concentration as she fumbled with the laces.

“Fuck, you really pulled these tight,” she gasped after straining at it for a moment.

Our eyes met as she looked up at me from her hunched over position, and I just knew my cheeks were colouring. This was an exceedingly embarrassing situation, and worse, I could tell that she was making a heroic effort not to sexualise me… despite, well, a bombshell body to look at.

As if to avoid looking at me directly, she went back to worrying at the knot, until she finally gave up with a groan. “We’re going to have to cut it.”

“What? But… I need my bra! I don’t have many!” I said mournfully.

“Okay, well… I’ll give it another go, I guess,” she shrugged helplessly.

Her hands went in again with determination, pushing and pulling at the knot and by extension, my body. I was jerked around slightly, her long, strong fingers pushing and brushing against me as she tried to get the knot undone. I was beginning to feel strange, the bra must have been cutting off circulation or something, because I felt so warm, especially in my stomach. It was the weirdest feeling, but also very oddly pleasant.

“I got it!” she exclaimed triumphantly, and then… my bra fell off my shoulder, exposing a boob in the process. “Oh fuck!” she exclaimed at the same time that I squeaked and pulled it back up.

We stared at each other again in mutual, wide eyed embarrassment. Like, we stared and stared and stared. I felt like I was going to melt into the ground all over again, and damn but she was close. I could feel the warmth coming off her, and my whole body tingled with the sensation.

“Uh, I’m going to… um, go and get changed… over there,” she said, pointing to her side of the room, which was a whole whopping four yards away.

“Right, uh, good luck,” I nodded, my head still spinning with about every emotion I was capable of experiencing.

“Thanks, I’ll... yeah,” she nodded, then promptly spun on her heel and retreated.

I dove for my pack like my life depended on it, fishing out a fresh shirt to sleep in and throwing my bra off. With the shirt on, I dove for the covers of my bed and burrowed underneath them.

I listened, my back turned as Grace went through the same motions I just had, extremely, excruciatingly aware of the fact that she was probably half naked behind me. Far out, how was I going to survive being repeatedly roomed with her in any inns we stayed in? This was going to drive me insane.

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