Won't repeat

She leaned into me but said nothing further.

The message was clear she was here if I needed her, whether or not I opened up.

" Surprised Kay didn't come with you, did you not tell her you figured out where I was."

" We both knew where you were almost immediately, we decided to give you some time, I decided you've had enough already. Kay tends to think everyone handles anger and frustration the same way she does. "

" How did you know, " I was touched, they both cared in their own way, I don't know why that kept surprising me.

'may the stars guide me to my beloved,'

With that incantation the tattoo on her left arm symbolizing our bond grew bright and a direction on her Palm was indicated.

A built-in compass that always led us back to each other.

" We will always be here for you Miranda."

" I know but seeing her like that, I couldn't keep my temper under check"

" If anybody understands that it's Kay, I get it too but mostly just from watching her deal with her own anger."

" It was my mom."

"huh?"

" The one I lost, the one who gave too deeply."

"oh Mir"

I pulled her closer to me, holding her was something I needed to finish this.

" My mother had already been healing the normal influx of patients, tired from the day, when a quake hit. The town hall collapsed, she didnt hesitate, she directed the men how to unbury the victims without hurting them and then her and her assistant went about healing every last one. She hid how much she had drawn from herself, hid it from everyone, she fell over right after the last victim was out of critical condition, she... she never woke up."

" How did no one notice, how did she keep going?!"

"When you run out of your Divine Essence for the day, most people know that you can use your own essence and willpower to push through. What most people don't know is when you run dry, you've not used all of it, that's just what your body and the ritual have access to normally. Your pool of essence goes deeper, but when you start pulling from here you can't tell how much you have left and you're literally spending your remaining life. As long as you have the willpower to push through, you can keep pulling and pulling until there's nothing left. It's rare for someone to have enough willpower to harm themselves like that, rarer but not unknown for someone that can push all the way to death. My mom was special for a lot of reasons, the one that got her killed and would have me hunted are the same. We will do what we think is the right thing, till the bitter end. I saw that same trait in Kay today, she likes to pretend that she doesn't care, that healing is something she does out of obligation, but I saw her attempting to drink too deep of her Essence to heal that man. If there's anyone I know now who had the willpower it would be her. She was so out of it she didn't understand I was there to take her place, all she saw was the person that needed healing."

"Mir, we won't let her die, not like that, not any other way, hear me, neither of you are allowed to die."

"Then we better prepare for what's coming because none of us have decided to walk a safe path."

"Considering how much you've grown just since I've met you, I think you've got that handled, Kay being the best Healer of her tier dispite being an actual decent frontliner... I think the weak link here is me. "

" Roxy you're not weak. "

" Compared to our peers? No, I'm slightly above average for a caster type but compared to you two? Way below the curve. Admit it you're probably the type of student that liked to wreck the bell curve."

" I probably would have been if I wasn't too busy stubbornly walking this path. Heh"

" I knew it!" She sent a playful shove into my arm, "but how can I be satisfied with slightly above average low tier, when my teammates are so far ahead?"

"If you're the Roxy I know, you aren't going to be, "

"Exactly, even with this armor ritual, I can't do my job better, it keeps me safer but my job is to deal damage, crowd control, and emergency first aid. I need to find more about my Goddess. "

"We'll help, but that's difficult with you being cagey about her name."

"I'm sorry, too much bad reaction before I left home over it, I should have gotten over myself we're supposed to be betrothed and I'm hiding such a important thing."

"It's okay we both just assumed you needed time."

" I did but times running out, I won't be the thing that drags us down. inhale Her name is Freya"

'Finally! Her gias will help you again, you might actually find something that wasn't destroyed now.'

"Thank you, I know that was hard for you."

The lack of a negative reaction was enough for her to melt into your embrace.

It spoke ill of her family but so had almost everything you learned about them.

"I think I found a lead but I'll tell ya tomarrow." yawn

She fell asleep like that in your arms, you carried your back to camp and laid her down next to a sleeping Kay.

You had all agreed to keep things professional while on mission but they needed the comfort.

You'd join them but you knew if you did, Kay would order you to do something when she woke up.

Before realizing where she was, as she always did the few times she woke up and you weren't already up making breakfast.

No reason to give the other Adventures a show first thing in the morning, because you knew if she ordered it, while you were both laying down, your mind would default to the bedroom and you would do it even if there were watchers.

Going days without that release was getting frustrating, it was half the reason you wanted to go a the teir, more variety and choice, you could pick the types of missions that would let you indulge without affecting combat readiness.

The other half was, you know, trying to push back the Darkness and succeed at your chosen job, all that stuff, but mostly it was getting to sleep with your hot fiances.

---

Turns out Roxy's lead was more solid than you expected, turns out she overheard one of the other Adventures talking about the black market and when she asked him questions about it, he got a little handy, so she got a little vindictive.

Apparently you can turn the tables on someone trying to intimidate you by literally freezing their balls in your hand and explaining how you could shatter the ice turning their bits to dust.

The man who had to be a near decade our senior, but still a low tier like us, had been put in his place fairly easily.

He had sung for her.

---

You were in one of the shops on the outskirts of the Frontier Town you've callef home since you got here.

Small and sold the right type of goods to fit into the area.

" We'd like to negotiate for a piece of your private collection?"

"Oh, everything for sale in on display young lady,"

" I highly doubt it this item i'm looking for is considered contraband"

" That's a dangerous thing to be asking for"

" No it's nothing too dangerous, it's just a fine if you get caught, and I can afford the fine," *thump* " and now you can too."

" I always do enjoy doing business with people who understand how things really work, what specifically might you be after"

"Books on lost gods, goddess if you can find them, my cousin is a noble and when we have holiday later this year I would like to show up everyone else's gift. He's a collector of rare books you see and he can definitely afford a fine or two."

" Not the first time I've helped an adventure get in good with their more well to do family members. Word of warning, buying your way back in doesn't always work, but if you're going to do it do it with style. "

" That's the plan, do we have an accord? "

" Yes I'll check to see what we might have in stock, in 3 days time, if I have what you want, and our agents verify you're not with an Inquisition or some such, there will be a newspaper under the trashcan in front of the mission office. You'll barely be able to see it. "

" Thank you for your time, hope to do profitable business with you. "

" You as well "

---

3 days was just the right length of time to be annoying long enough that the wait was frustrating but not long enough we could sneak amission in.

The black market had already chewed through a decent amount of our money just with the 'for the fine' bribe.

If he had it, no mater how much it was, we would figure out how to get it.

Or at least that was our train of thought, instead of the newspaper under the trash can, a man I'd never seen before shoved a paper bag into our hands before leaving.

With a quick demand as an explanation, "take this, you never saw me, we don't want your money, and never speak to the shop keeper again. Whatever strings you pulled we don't want anything to do with it."

We hurried home after that, worried somebody might have seen that.

I had a sneaking suspicion what had just happened but it was my Goddess that confirmed.

'That has Freya's fingerprints all over it, I was right, her Gias is trying to help you, but it's likely taking most of her strength to maintain. She was a master of setting human Domino's in place, they didn't require specific people like most manipulators of that variety, but instead types of people, she knew that whoever I picked would likely be drawn to whoever found her. I wonder what mechanism she used to trigger this specific contingency, I always enjoyed her explaining it after the fact. I miss her.'

Relaying that to your partners it brought them a small amount of peace but the anxiety was still high from possessing a piece of contraband.

You needed to find the right instructions in the book get all the regents, layout the line work, and perform the writ.

All before somebody started asking awkward questions.