Most of the rest of the Witches out flying take this development with disbelief, then joy. Some of them shout out thanks, for old scars disappeared. The rest of the army is cheering as well, when people start to realize what's happened.

They want to know if he can do it for more Witches, and if he can do it enough, regular humans.

Some of them are a lot more worried, though. If it can do that with a wave of its hand... Athrai don't kill, Tiro says. But it's still worrying.

"...I'm sure that will be a great help," says Tiro.

The athra changes its expression to a pleased, hopeful one.

"Can you create something like a fountain of youth, that does that for anyone who touches it or drinks its water?"

"Yes!" says the athra. "That is certainly within my power, and I am happy to help these poor people."

It puts on a look of concentration and holds out its hands. A beautiful fountain rises from the ground, huge and complex, sheets of water cascading from tier to tier and then sweeping back up in high arcing jets at no discernible provocation.

"Now you have a fountain of youth," Tiro explains to the escort. "Anywhere in particular you want another one? This athra is really eager to help you."

...They're already planning to move the fortifications forward twenty miles, and build a city around it. Literally. They called the Chiefs of Engineering just now and said they needed to build a new port and airport and railways, closer to this thing to get as many hundreds of thousands of people to visit it as possible. This place is going to be a global treasure. It'll probably be renamed.

Plenty of places could also use one, depending on how long the athra will tolerate spending traveling to them.

Tiro asks. The athra smiles glowingly. "I will go wherever I am needed!"

"Tell us where to go and we'll make more fountains," says Tiro. "It doesn't seem to care about travel times." He explains to the athra that it should bring him with it as a translator, and it agrees.

First go to Benghazi. Due west about a hundred fifty miles. After that, well, they're having someone write up a travel path for more cities as we speak and will probably know by then.

They'd appreciate it if they brought a flight of Witches on courier-wings following. It will stop the locals from being suspicious, and those machines have radios built in so the local commanders can be contacted if something comes up. Gren begs off, saying the Athra overwhelms her copysense. They have her stick around and confirm that the fountain works as described instead.

Tiro and the athra agree to this plan. Off they go.

The fountain works pretty much exactly as described. It dispenses the same magic that the athra spontaneously gave to all those Witches - eternal youth and health, with the 'health' part imposed vigorously enough to get you pretty close to true immortality. Not all the way, but pretty close. It also has an infinite supply of water; if you drain some water out of it, it will refill itself very promptly, and drinking any of the water or touching the structure of the fountain confers the benefit.

Some of the UDF High Command want to wait, keep operating as normal, do their due diligence of paranoia at anything new. They're shouted down because are you mad every minute we keep this from people is a crime against humanity.

By the time they get to Benhgazi, scratch courier-flight, here's a bunch of different teleporters hopefully one of them can move the Athra.

The second fountain is just as elaborate as the first, in approximately the same style but with a different exact design. It's beautiful.

Tiro explains teleporters to the athra. The athra says that teleporters should be able to teleport it. It's unclear whether this is a prediction or a statement of intent, but the first teleporter they try succeeds at moving the athra. Tiro comes along.

London, Moscow, Mumbai, Jakarta, Seoul, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro.......

After a few hours the entire world is talking about the strange visitor distributing fountains of youth.

Each city gets a fountain, every one with a unique appearance but the exact same magical effect. Tiro is delighted. The athra also seems to be delighted, as far as it's possible to tell.

Once they arrange for every city of any significant size to have a fountain (which does take a while), the offensive part of the war is going to be on hold for a while while everyone celebrates.

The Neuroi always take a month or two to adapt to anything new after all.

Gren finds Tiro sometime in the aftermath and barely doesn't straight-up hug him. Her mom, the last family she has left...

"The last day has been more good news than we've had in twenty years. Is it wrong to thank whatever brought you here?"

"No, I don't think it's wrong at all. I'm glad I could help," he says.

...You know what, screw it. Hug. Gentle, nonbreaking hug.

"The fountains saved my mom. Last family I have left. She was... Sick. And there are millions of the same story. I'm thanking the athra too of course."

Hug!

"Athrai aren't usually this helpful. Either we got an especially nice one, or it was really scared about the Neuroi trying to kill everyone. Or I'm unusually good at convincing athrai to do things, I guess."

"The second thing seems likely, if they're that big on not killing. I don't really care why to be honest." Endhug. "It's not like this is the end of all our troubles. We have precogs, they say the Neuroi aren't outmatched yet. But there's parties in the streets, every street, you know how long it's been since I saw people this happy?"

"A long time, I bet," says Tiro. "Making people happy is my favourite thing."

"If you still want to go home, I bet the teleporters will have recovered from that spree in a day or two."

"I'll go where I'm needed. Which is probably here for at least a little while longer, while we figure out more uses for a panicked athra."

"Oh, they haven't had someone stick to you furiously learning your language yet? I thought they would've."

"The language honestly isn't going to help that much."

"Background knowledge is important, gotcha. I can't get within a hundred fifty feet of an athra. They hurt my copysense, like a wall of noise. Or a canvas somebody throw every color of paint at and set on fire."

"Ouch. The stuff they do and make isn't as bad, I hope?"

"No, not nearly as bad. Same, flavor? Still confusing, it works on a different level. But so much less intense. A dim mess is much better than an overly shiny one, and it can even start to look pretty if you see the patterns, to stretch the metaphor."

"Well, that's good."