“The false arts are named so largely as a deterrent. On the surface, they seem incredibly convenient. Imagine: an arithmancer with no need for formulas or the stylus, a thaumaturge who did not have to undergo the risks of baptism, a forecaster foregoing their stellascope and pictographs as they peer into the future. Now consider the reasons why these arts need their tools and the utter rarity that is a successful false arcane artist, and study your field of interest the proper way.”

- "Beginner's Survey of the Basics", a lecture course conducted by Applied Arithmancy Professor Jude Monroe of St. Melantha’s University

Nemira crashed against the dirt field with a cry of pain and woe. Grit embedded itself into her bruised and burning skin as she bounced — one, two, three — before rolling to a stop right where sedge met compact earth. She let herself fall spread eagle, and considered the sky above her with a dizzy sort of appreciation. The clouds were thin and tinged a pretty pink in the light of the falling sun. She didn't blame aetherians for favoring the sky with sights like that.

The top of the hill of Broadleaf Way looked as though someone had sliced it off at the tip. At some point in the past, someone had cleared a wide space in its center for what seemed to be a playground. The long pitch of dirt often had various sports equipment and toys scattered about, waiting for their owners to come back and resume whatever games they had brought them out for. It also made for an excellent practice field for martial arts.

"I'm calling it here."

Mila strode toward her, her pneuma almost painfully dazzling through her adamant. She found thaumaturges the most annoying to gaze at through the Firmament. Just a handful of them in the same room could be near blinding to witness, which was one of the aspects of living at the Temple of Our Kin she would never miss.

Nemira's pneuma, on the other hand, had been reduced to a few sputtering embers inside her. Every muscle in her body ached, but there was an undercurrent of satisfaction to it. She still had a ways to go in her secret mastery, but she felt progress with every training session she conducted with her mom.

"Not a bad round this time, but you're still tired," said Mila, crouching down near her head and giving her an appraising squint. "Don't push yourself, Nemi."

Nemira gave a vague hum in reply, not enough energy left in her to deny the assessment. A few geo sprites crept toward her in the shape of large snails, their spiral shells encrusted with glittering gems and their feelers reaching out to her body in ponderous curiosity. "I'm still surprised you even agreed to this."

"You're the Kha-hesh." Mila frowned down at her and tried to toe one of the geo sprites getting a little too close to Nemira’s mouth with an eye stalk away. Her foot passed right through its body. Her mothers had spent so long in Nemira’s proximity that they could see aetherians so long as she was nearby, but they would still never be able to touch them. "If you ask me, you need all the advantages you can get."

She stood up and offered her hand. Nemira grabbed it readily and let her mom haul her to her feet as though she weighed nothing at all, causing the geo sprites to scuttle away. Her pneuma snapped into Nemira's flesh as she rose, but its teeth were blunted several times over. She let her hand linger in her mom's, enjoying the freedom of carefree contact for a while longer.

"Still, remember that this is a last resort," she continued, letting go of Nemira's hand to brush off all the dirt smeared across her exercise clothes. "You have the love of IWA's first children. Ask them for help in battle first."

"I know, I know," Nemira sighed, allowing her mom to straighten her out without complaint. "I'm not doing this for exercise or competition, Mom. Like you said, I need the advantage."

"If you're lucky, you'll never need to use what I'm teaching you. And if ya aren't, be as careful as you can."

If Nemira had to guess, she would not be lucky. She could only hope it'll be quite some time before she had put her mom's teachings to practice. "Speaking of dangerous combat tactics, I have a favor to ask of you.”

Her mom crossed her arms over her chest, a pose that emphasized her impressive biceps. “Let’s hear it, then.”

“If you or Mama get the chance, ask around the merc union about any kind of infernal instrument black market going on in the city.” Nemira continued dusting herself off, her mind turning over the encounter with Lord Black. “It seems someone might be distributing bottled aetherians as weapons. I need to put a stop to it before people get killed.”

Mila clicked her tongue. “The Council wants you to break up a black market ring now? That sounds out of your scope.”

“Not the Council,” Nemira corrected. “I’m doing this on my own.”

“Nemira,” said her mom, placing calloused hands on Nemira’s shoulders and giving her a stern shake. “Don’t push yourself. Look at me and promise that you will not.”

Nemira looked up at her mom without hesitation. She had a very striking face, with high cheekbones and thick, angled eyebrows above her intense light eyes. Most people were intimidated by her. Nemira was not. “I can’t promise anything when I have no information.”

“It may take a bit, but I’ll see what I can do,” said Mila softly, her hands slipping off Nemira’s shoulders. There was nothing Nemira could do to ease the sad twist to her mouth. Her mothers knew her duty almost as well as she did. “C’mon, my girl, we don’t wanna keep your mama waiting.”

“Wait…” Nemira looked around Mila at the field behind her. With the increase of skill came a marked increase in her destructive potential. Deep, smoldering potholes riddled the dirt pitch like pockmarks. She could all too easily see a child tripping in one of the holes she had left behind and twisting their ankle.

Mila looked around and uttered a startled laugh at the sight. Much like the way Nemira tended to get lost in an engrossing book until she found herself staying up to the wee hours of the night to finish it, Mila possessed quite the blind eye when it came to the collateral damage that happened during a good fight."I'll get Heteti on it. She'll fix this up in a jiffy before the neighborhood kids can hurt themselves up here."

Nemira raised her eyebrows. "Mama will not be pleased about this."

"As if I can't smooth things over with my own wife!" Mila puffed out her chest with a confidence Nemira did not feel nearly as strongly. "I'll prove it to ya. Let's head back."

It was a short, easy walk down the hill back to their house, which Nemira and Mila took in companionable silence. The cooling air and the setting sun brought with it a touch of melancholy. After she bathed, she'd have to take off for the city again. Outside of any recovery she needed to undergo after a mission, she received two days of rest a month from the Council. Time always passed in the blink of an eye, especially when she visited her mothers. At the same time, however, every time she tried to imagine living permanently with her mothers in Broadleaf Way, her mind came up distressingly blank. What that meant, she didn't want to contemplate.

"Heti doll," sang Mila as she opened the door. "We're home!"

The living room smelled of sharply clean, bitter herbs that made Nemira's nose twitch. Heteti stood at the stove, boiling something in a pot that Nemira doubted was edible. She looked over her shoulder and gave them one of her sweet smiles.

"There's my two meatheads."

"Please refrain from lumping me in with Mom," Nemira protested, though she smiled a little herself as she took off her scuffed and dirtied shoes. "I am a scholar first and foremost, and can hardly even think to compete with her in enthusiasm for wanton kicking and punching."

Mila snorted. "Don't pretend you don't enjoy a good scrap every now and then, Nemi. It's good for your health!"

"How very thaumaturgic of you."

"All that mother-daughter bonding time for nothing." Mila shook her head and pushed Nemira away with what she most likely meant to be a gentle hand, but with her strength the force of it was enough to make Nemira stumble. "Go take a shower then, you little bookworm!"

As Nemira headed toward the bathroom, the beginning of her mothers' conversation floated into her ears.

"Heti, beautiful sunflower of the islands, you’re even more radiant today than ya were yesterday!"

"Thank you, my dear...so, what did you break this time?"

Nemira could barely smother her laughter as she closed the bathroom door behind her.

---

When Nemira emerged from the bathroom some time later, still quite sore but much more clean, she found Heteti sitting at the living room table and Mila in the kitchen, washing dishes with a distinctly chastised air about her. Heteti looked up from her book and crooked a finger at her. "Sit down, honey. I have something to give you before you start packing up."

"I'm already packed," Nemira told her, padding into the living room and settling on the cushion in front of her. She had few excuses left to linger with her mothers. The delay filled her with equal parts relief and restlessness.

"Here." Heteti slid a dark, corked medicine bottle at her. Curious, Nemira took it and examined the pills within. "If you are so keen on keeping Sir Sai-em as your dayam, then I can't let you go without making sure you have something to protect against any venereal diseases he might have."

Nemira nearly dropped the bottle. "Mama!"

Heteti's expression had all the seriousness of a doctor giving her patient strict care instructions. "Don't act like that. You may not be able to have children, but that still does not mean you can be completely careless with sex."

"Hey, ya wanna know the difference between a merc and a knight?" asked Mila above the sound of the running faucet, startling an already startled Nemira.

"Mercenaries are more honest about which brothels they waste their money at," Heteti finished. It was a well known Coinish joke. "Both of you are supposed to take one pill each before engaging with each other, and if he were a man of any worth he wouldn't think twice about it. If he gives you even a tiny bit of trouble, don't hesitate to throw him out of your store and come back here."

Nemira stared at the bottle rather than look her mother in the eye, willing her sizzling face to cool down before she spoke again. "I highly doubt Sir Sai-em intends to uphold old-fashioned dayam traditions with me, Mama, so these might just end up gathering dust on a shelf if I take them."

Heteti observed her with a tilt of her head. The look wasn't judgmental, but Nemira withered under it all the same. "Did you talk to him about this? Do you want to?"

Nemira bit her lip, rubbing her thumb distractedly over the bottle's smooth glass. This was much easier to ponder alone, or in front of the man in question with that utterly disinterested expression on his face as bathed her. 

They both looked over at the kitchen area when Mila turned the sink water off. She turned around to face them, wiping her dripping hands off with the kitchen towel. “I don’t like the guy, but I can’t force ya to deny him your bed if that's what you two want. Your grandparents tried that on me, and now all we do is argue whenever I visit the mountains.”

“Right,” Nemira mumbled. Mila was the scandal of the Bizen family. The most promising warrior of the Yraka clan’s thaumaturges running off with a visiting foreigner rather than accepting the arranged marriage her parents had set up for her had been the talk of Yet-daka some time. If some of Nemira’s older cousins were to be believed, more friends than blood relations had attended Mila and Heteti’s Rhuzian wedding ceremony.

Heteti uttered a heavy sigh. “Honey, speak to Sir Sai-em about this when you get the chance, alright? Be clear with him, as a summoner always should be with their dayam. All your mom and I are trying to say is that if you want him and you trust him, then you have our blessing.”