Chapter 18: Chapter XVII – Jessica – Alone For A While

Three months in to living alone and Jess was still not used to the new apartment. It was so foreign compared to the home that they were used to. Every time they thought that they were starting to get the hang of things, something else would trip them up and they were back to trying to adjust to something. No matter how much they adjusted to, there always seemed to be something new.

It didn’t help that they were likely spending only about an hour of their day in the apartment. The rest of the time was being spent on the training grounds, honing their skills, meditating, or even just sleeping. They had found that the ground in some of the spots were actually very comfortable.

On one such afternoon, they were woken by a group of searcher candidates preparing for their trial. They insisted that Jess was likely to get injured if they were to continue sleeping there and as Jess noticed what group this was, they were quick to agree. Thanks to their extended time spent here, they had become rather familiar with all of the various groups and individuals who trained together for the searcher trial. Of all of them, this specific group was one of the most destructive and rowdy. Jess enjoyed training with them, from time to time, but they were by no means their favorite.

As they got up and headed out of the training grounds, Jess wished the group luck with their training for the day. Once they had exited and were heading back to their apartment, a realization suddenly dawned on them, today was their birthday. This became even more apparent when they returned to their apartment and were greeted by their mother standing in their living room, a large present sitting on the counter in the kitchen.

“Good birthday, darling~!” Silvia explained as Jess walked through the door.

A soft smile crept on to Jess’s face as they stepped forward and hugged their mother. “Thanks, mum…”

They remained in the embrace for some time, Jess enjoying simply being close to their mother. Since they had moved out, their contact was much more minimal which was nice sometimes, but they did miss her quite a bit sometimes. Eventually, they broke and Jess offered their mother another soft smile.

Silvia returned the smile, stepping over to the kitchen where Jess finally noticed that there was a rather large meal ready for they including all of their favorite foods. “It’s always nice to see you smiling these days… I certainly hope that you aren’t working yourself too hard, darling.”

Jess nodded as they sat down at the counter, digging in to the food that had been prepared, eyeing the large present slightly. “I’ve been taking it… relatively easy, mum…”

“Good. I’ve been hearing such positive things from all of the trainees that you’ve been helping out. You ever think about maybe becoming an instructor? I’m sure you could pass the exam with flying colors, if you wished,” Silvia offered.

Jess shook their head, slurping up some noodles and frowning slightly. “I owe her this… I have to become a searcher…” Jess sighed, tears forming in their eyes, but they quickly regained their composure, shaking off the thoughts and turning back to their mother.

“How about you? How have things been going with you?” Jess asked, shifting the subject.

“Oh, well, things are going rather well. I must apologize though, I did attempt to invite your Aunt Avery, but she is absolutely swamped with everything going on with Arclight. She sends you her best wishes and her condolences for what happened. Oh, and she also said to let you know that, if you wished to come, Tyel is getting married in a few months and she would love to have you there, but she understands if you can’t because of your budding searcher career,” Silvia relayed.

Jess sniffed and nodded. “I’ll have to get back to her on that, but I’m happy to hear that Tyel is getting married… Did she say how Analiese and Aunt Lilith are doing…?”

Silvia thought for a moment before shaking her head and sighing softly. “I’m sorry darling, she didn’t…”

“That’s alright… Maybe I’ll try and visit her while I’m out in the world… Although… I’m unsure when I’ll be in Omnia…”

“I’m sure she’ll be happy to have you whenever you do go see her,” Silvia offered, smiling wide. “Now, would you like to open your present?”

Jess’s eyes turned to the present, a little confused. Usually, their mother would get them much smaller gifts than this choosing to wrap them in something with gold or tin in it so that Jess could eat the paper. However, this present seemed to have simple paper as the wrapping. Jess had no problem with eating this, but they were a  little less enticed to do such. Taking the present and carefully removing the paper, they found a simple brown box about the size of a shoebox. Opening up the box, they were greeted by something a bit unexpected.

Resting inside of the box, there were two wooden bracelets with a metal band running around the center. On the top of each of the bracelets, there were three circular gems. As they removed the bracelets from the box, Jess turned to their mother, a look of confusion on their face. The bracelets were very nice, seeming to even be made using the mystwood from the Great Spirit Tree much like their arm, but it was a very unusual gift. Jess had always been rather confident in their body, despite their identity, but they were not one to actively engage in femininity, especially things like jewelry and makeup. That was something their mother was fully aware of, so receiving such a gift was throwing them off a bit.

“They’re… pretty…?” Jess offered, adding in a forced smile.

Silvia seemed to finally pick up on the confused and her eyes lit up. “Oh! Dear… My bad… I suppose I should have explained… or left a card or something…”

“No no… I get it… You want me to have something pretty… I… don’t really… mind…?”

Silvia shook her head, sighing. “They aren’t fashionable accessories, dear. Well… mostly. I did request that they look good when they’re like this, so you wouldn’t have to deal with the hassle of taking them on and off, but uh… well… come here…” Silvia stood up and moved in to the living room.

Jess followed behind, still holding the bracelets. Silvia motioned for them to put them on and Jess did so. Silvia then backed up and motioned towards the center gem on the top of the bracelets. “Tap the center one.”

Jess did as they were instructed and suddenly green energy surged all through the bracelet, causing Jess to hold it out away from their body. The wooden frame of the bracelet began to expand and grow more complex in its mechanism. The wood formed in to a large cylindrical base which seemed to have an odd weight inside of it. The metal band expanded and wrapped around the whole of the newly formed gauntlet. To finish off, a thin layer of wood that acted almost like cloth encompassed their hands. Once it was finished, there was a smile hum of energy from the gauntlet that Jess could feel pulsing softly through their whole body.

As they examined the gauntlet, their eyes lit up. They began to move their arm around, feeling the added weight, realizing that this would be something to adjust to for certain. They then remembered the other bracelet and tapped the center gem on that one, watching as the bracelet underwent the same transformation. Once both had fully formed, Jess turned to Silvia eyes wide and a big grin on their face.

Silvia met them with a soft stream of tears as they saw the happiness on their child’s face. Jess gave her a concerned look, but they were quickly met by Silvia leaping forward and draping her arms around her child, sniffling quietly.

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen you smile like that…” Silvia muttered through tears.

As she said it, Jess’s eyes widened and they realized that this was the first time that they had felt like this in so many months. Sure, there were brief moments of joy here and there, but this was the kind of excitement that had been so missing from their life. They felt warm and for the first time in a long time, their hair turned a bright yellow.

Eventually, Silvia pulled back, wiping the tears from her eyes and smiling brightly at Jess. “So.. I take it that you like your present?”

“Of course I do, mum… Thank you… I love you…”

“I love you too…”

Silvia took a step back once more. “So uh… These are apparently called… ‘impact gauntlets’. They have bearings inside of them that are supposed to make it so that you can hit harder. On top of that, they’re actually made of the exact same wood as your arm… The exact same part of the tree…”

Jess moved the arms around a bit and nodded, noting the weight they felt earlier and finding that it was moving. With that out of the way, they tapped the gem on the top and the gauntlets collapsed back in to bracelets.

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“Oh, she also told me that you can actually transform them by passing a small essence current to the top gem as well, in the event that actually tapping it is inconvenient at some point.”

Jess nodded and took a seat on the couch, staring at the bracelets, their hair having returned to usual, now a slightly more blue shade of green compared to what used to be the usual. Silvia took a seat next to them, giving them a slightly concerned look.

“Is everything alright, darling…?”

Jess didn’t look up, still examining the gauntlets, their mind running back to their earlier reaction. They took a deep breath and sat up slightly.

“It’s been… a long road of recovery… And… I know I’m not perfect yet and… it’s going to be… a long time until I’m okay, but… I think… I think I’m pretty much as good as I’m going to get while I’m here…” Jess began.

Silvia’s eyes widened. “Are you saying that you’re going to leave?”

Jess shook their head. “Not yet… I still need to train with these new gauntlets, but… I think… Five months… I’m gonna leave in three months…During these next three months, I’ll work on finding some leads to where a fragment might be and then… I’ll go there…”

Silvia smiled softly and nodded. “That sounds like a really good plan. Please don’t push yourself too hard and remember that you can always come to me if you want help with leads or fragment information.”

Jess nodded. “Thanks, mum…”

“Of course…”

---

Five months later and the day had finally arrived when Jess was ready to leave home for the first time in their life. They had taken small trips on occasion, but it was never to anywhere too far. They had no idea when they would return. Most searchers only rarely returned to the Great Spirit Forest, if at all. Due to the nature of the work, it was beneficial to be elsewhere for long periods of time.

Over the last five months, Jess had trained their hardest and become even stronger. They still thought that perhaps they should train longer and forge a stronger connection, but during the five months, they had learned to fight well both with and without it. However, they were aware that they would have time to train while traveling, especially if they were to stay in one place for a more extended period of time.

The second thing that Jess had done during their five months was research, something they were never particularly great with, but it was necessary, as a searcher. They had looked through most of the reports and data that searchers had collected over the past several years on the whereabouts of fragments. They had also checked on the current locations of the searchers. Using that information, they were able to find that the best place to go would be Aeria, the continent of wind. At present, there was only two other searcher teams within and their findings were very limited thus far. By a wide margin, Aeria was one of the least explored locations, so Jess figured it would be best to start out there.

With that established, the only thing they had left to do was figure out where they would go in Aeria and how they were going to get there. Thankfully, Aeria had rather good relations with the Grand Omnian Republic, so transport was easy to arrange. Jess would be taking a ship to the part of Aeria that was part of Aeria and from there, they would be taking an air vessel up to one of the islands, likely starting at the main one, but it was still up in the air.

As they got out of bed that morning, awoken by their alarm which was going off much earlier than usual, Jess was filled with a wide range of emotions, ranging from exciting to pure dread. They had packed all of their things in to a special satchel that was able to compress things inside of it using essence planes to make it easier to carry around basically an entire bedroom of things. It was able to expand in to a large dresser of sorts when needed to give the owner better access to all of their things. They were standard issue for searchers and the bag was actually emblazoned with the searcher insignia as well as a protection enchantment to avoid it being stolen.

Thankfully, at present, Jess didn’t have much to pack as they were never one to have a large amount of clothing. Most of the satchel was filled with training equipment, charts, and first aid materials for when Jess inevitably got injured.

Rolling out of bed and in to the bathroom, Jess took care to enjoy their shower, assuming that they likely wouldn’t be having such high-quality accommodations for some time again. Once they were done showering, they stepped out and dried their hair. As they brushed their hair, they noticed just how long it had gotten. Since they had woken up and even before then, Jess hadn’t cut their hair or, now that they were looking, their horns in likely over a year. Peering at the pair of scissors on the sink, Jess reached over and took them, examining them and taking their hair behind their head in their hands. With a deep breath, they began to clip, feeling as almost half of their hair vanished over the course of only a few moments.

“Oh Masters… Well… no going back now…” Jess muttered before returning to trimming, doing their best to neaten it up as best they could. When they were done, their hair went down to around small of their back, the length that Jess was most comfortable with.

Looking to their horns, Jess frowned. Usually, this was something their mother would do whenever they got too long. Heading in to the kitchen, they grabbed a knife and began to cut notches in to the horns around where they wanted them to be. Once they were happy with the notches, they turned to a wall and took a deep breath, slamming their horns against the wall enough to snap off the parts that had been notched out. Jess winced and looked down at the removed sections of horn.

“Well… I am not doing that again…” the said, now in a good deal of pain.

With that out of the way, they headed back in to their room, getting dressed in the outfit they had picked out for travelling. It was similar to the one they had worn for the searcher trial, but with a few more embellishments and now with the addition of Jess’s impact gauntlets. Once they were all dressed and prepared, they headed out the door, locking it and giving it a last look. They had only been here for eight months, but in that time, they had grown rather fond of the location.

The walk to the docks was only about an hour, so Jess stopped for some tofu before finally heading out. When they finally arrived at the docks, they were greeted by their mother who was already crying. At the sight of Jess, her tears seemed to only grow worse, but Jess met her with a smile.

“Hey, mum…”

Silvia muttered something incomprehensible and rushed forward, throwing her arms around Jess and pulling them in tight for a hug.

“I’m gonna miss you, mum…”

“I’m… going to… miss you… so much…. Please… visit… from… time to… time…” Silvia blubbered through her tears.

Jess nodded softly and patted their mother on the back. “Of course I will… I love you, mum…”

Silvia pulled back for a moment, pressing two soft kisses to each of Jess’s cheeks and trying to regain her composure. “I love you too, Jessica… And I know you will do amazing…”

“Thanks…”

With that, Jess headed off on to the ship, greeting the captain and smiling back at their mother, watching at the island they had called home for so long faded in to the distance until disappearing completely.

“Goodbye…”

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