"But well." 

Her hand flattens, flaring open to show off the ring nestled inside. 

It's silvery and shining radiantly, the sourceless trickles of light from the industiral theme park of the room coming back out as shining coruscating crescents of light, countless intricate facets reflecting a radiant, pure moonlight. Atop it lays a complicated seal, sketched out in curving streaks of the same material. 

"This is a mm promise ring?" 

I blush terribly and blink confusedly as my brain stutters at parsing how she would ever be nin a position where that makes any sense at all and starts formulating a counter-response and - 

She raises a single finger, and waggles it. 

I breathe out, sagging a little. 

"It is an mm promise ring, not a promise ring, yes~?"

I chortle softly and nod a little, and gesture for her to get on with it. 

She lets herself laugh, just faintly, lips tugging up into a smile. 

"It's a traditional gesture, from master, to student. I do not believe your traditions quite have a parallel and the translation system doesn't quite like what I wish to say but..." 

She thumbs along the perfectly pristine surface - ignoring the motes of dust hanging as ever in the air as she thinks of a way to describe it neatly. 

"It is many things. It is a... maker's mark, an assurance of the quality of the craftsmanship of the one wearing it, a seal proving the providence of the goods and skills. It is a mark of a lineage, traditionally, the way of indicating the path of creation and the endorsement of the guilds within the city of night. But it is mmmm not that, not really. It is a mark of protection, more generally - an insurance policy that their effort will not be needlessly wasted on someone killed by some thig, when they will see the wrath that will befall them. It is a servant's crest - marking who they owe for their life, their mind, their soul. It is a masterwork, a taunt, a little trick, that those who wish to inspire or quash ambition alike play, to show off the quality of their workings and leave them wanting more, when so often such things are designed to improve ever onwards." 

She tosses it up, letting it soar perfectly straight through the air, unbound by the constraints of heaven, perhaps - before landing back in her hand still perfectly posed. 

"Here. It is my promise, to you, that you will be trained, and taken care of. That you are a thing under my domain, my concern, a flame that I stoked, and that it will stay that way, for as long as you wish to bear it. The metal is... I would call 'Moon-aspected Mirroring Mythril'. It can reflect some enchantments and workings of the will, alongside some deeper truths. It is 'enchanted' for additional durability alone, for now, aside the properties of mythril itself, that is all." 

"Please. Take this with my blessing." 

...I laugh, chortling heavily as I take her offering, eeling the way that my cock bounces in her hands as my chest rises and falls. 

I sigh wistfully and shake my head. 

"Thank you. I know I've said that a lot but really. THank you, especially given how just... bizzare this has gotten." 

"'tis no burden to play with a cute girl and a cute cock." 

She flicks her finger up, and withdraws her hand, watching her length jiggle up and down. 

I laugh a little shyly, and then glance over my shoulder. 

"So..." 

"That's goodbye then?"

"Yes. Goodbye, heart of blue." 

"Goodbye, sly, slight, and steely." 

And yes that's a bit of ruby in there. 

I turn, and walk away, lost in thought, for a while.

Time passes... looser, after - the moments bending like the halls of the ship as I strode through it, the passage of them slipping through my fingers constantly as the days turn into weeks rather readily. It's hard to tell if it's the same mechanism, in the end, or if it's something more... holistic. Jirachi's running strong, and her sense of time has always been something so clinical and sharp that it's hard to render into the rhythms of the body and the breathes and being of Sapphire's ticking heart in our mind, for on, and the shift of my skin and form from the pills slowly taking effect, the hair growth concoctions letting our hair reach out shoulder makes the cues so bent, even as each day I feel better in my skin, and see it being better and softer and... sweeter, almost? The rush of the hormones from the new puberty is a distraction from the anchoring too, even before I get to the more esoteric things. 

The training experiences are... bizarre. Sure, I'm basic enough at swordplay for my work to be mostly involved in drilling and seconds of frantic work with my reflexes, but the resplendence of her transformation and her earthpower had it's own interaction with skipping time, and gave another thing to lose myself in, especially after everything that I developed from Amaya's practices.

Her learning is... exhilarating and exhausting and sometimes even a bit exasperating and simple and plain, all at once. Some of the lessons are the basics of the sort of metal working I'm familiar with  - the process of hammering, heating, handling and other things besides with the simple metals she shows, the ways to get the right geometry and the simple production of the metallic items with even some more detached methods of casting and 'printing', which is a far odder thing indeed when it's done through her own system of golemancy and conjury that I can feel distantly but not even remotely comprehend for what would be a long time to come for someone who wasn't about to get a long long sequence of power ups. 

The other part of her lessons were more heart-to-hearts, and some odd lectures and fiddling with the forged tools - I've gotten something of the power imbued in the concept of the edge of the a simple hoard-steel knife, and I can tell that there will be more to come, once I get to understand and train more but right now the experience of the actual memories causes 'soul dissonance' that makes remembering it all smoothly a headache. 

Lumen's illusion work is lighter, but the trickier illusions that play on things more complicated then the normal sense are unmooring, and even the methodologies of creation that are apparently supposed to help with that sort of thing don't do too much to dull the edge of the perputual prism of shifting illusions that they gave me to train with. 

All too soon, Goldenvale approaches.

There's still more people to talk to, of course, but it feels like there's just so so much going on already, right now, so... 

I call up Amaya, again, and hang with her for my final thoughts.

"Good day, Moonsilver. Planetfall comes, yes?"

She sits upon a simple bench, casting aside her clothes, as is customary. 

I trail up behind her, and nod a little, as I palm the little massager - an odd mass of silver, the gradiations from the finely-spun wire to the solid block atop it making it pretty interesting to control. It's still a focus of the art, but the degradation she designed into it hasn't been a problem so far to let it run just right over her lovely back, sliding smoothly down her spine. 

"Soon, yes. After we finish this even, I'd expect." 

"Quite close indeed. Have you come to your conclusions as to your journey?"

"Much to do, though I don't think it's too wise to linger. I want to find something... golden, perhaps? You've mentioned having some issues with creating the more advanced associated materials, and I think it should still be workable and 'on theme'. Maybe grab some other things in-line with my affinities that you end up dowsing but..."

I shrug loosely, and stroke my hands down too, just to be feel it all. 

"And you have your 'friends' to meet to as well, do you not?"

She sighs contentedly, leaning into the touch. 

"M-hm!" 

I trace my hands a little flirtily down to and along her distractingly slappable ass - which is really impressive given how svelte she is, overall as I lean into kiss the back of her neck. 

"She doesn't want to think about it, but we kinda feel like it makes sense to go and socialize there. That's..." 

I laugh shyly, and press up against her back. 

"Quite a few things to do!" 

My hands slip along her hips, now, letting the muscle ripple around the massager as I take the time to think and feel. 

"Lumen's a bit of a square? They've been helpful, but I really wanna go and get them sorted. That's probably goingn to involve the trip down- the enviroment's good for that kinda thing, I think. Plus, they wanted to go andn see the festivities too, so they'll be a part of the whole thing too! I dunno who else exactly is gonna tell the stories, but I think it'll all work out well enough. I've gotten used to them enough that should be pretty handleable." 

I nose up into her hair and breathe in, smiling a little blissfully at the way that ends tickle up against my nose. 

"Alena'll be down there too - I think she wanted to try out sparring with the Samarites and get a feel for the way that the mythic terrain works there. The material stuff is a lot easier to do with what we have, so that'll be fun to try out." 

I wiggle down so I can rest my chin against her shoulder, hiding in the dark cloak of her hair. 

"Tenshi's definitely still something for later, but um." 

I sigh, and trail the lil toy up her lovely form. 

"Enna's gonna be a bit complicated to introduce. She seems like she'll be nice, but it's really really hard to get a feel for the pitch? I get all worried that she doesn't want to work uner some other cosmic lord, or there's some sort of personal loyalty or general commitment to be done with this stuff that means that I'm just wasting my time wanting ot make her stuff work. But really..." 

I hum lyrically, parsing out a little something that reminds me of the thrum of magic inside the massager.

"No point in not just jumping in!" 

I peck her cheek. 

"Serai'll be weird, but meeting her in her element 'on the ground' was the idea? I don't know how much sense it makes sense to throw in all of this but I don't want this to be sometime where I don't think that I should take my opportunities."

Her eyes flutter softly as she listens, flushing at the affection faintly.  

"You sound like you understand your plan well enough for yourself, though I'd question what you wish to arrange for your flock, and how you wish to play it, between all the trips of the travellers here." 

"...Yeah." 

I fuss over her a little, not really paying attention to what exactly I'm doing. 

"I'm not natively that-that social? I do kinda just want to whirlwind tour it - do the initiation then all of the little games and social startups and then curl up in bed for a while after each. I don't really want to make it more of a thing then it has to be, any of this? A lot of the kinda oppportunities that I could get here, are also the kinda things that I could go and get later just as easily. I don't want to waste time, of course, but..." 

"That's alright - though you should of course be mindful of when you can arrange for others to take those steps."

"...Yeah."

I rub up a little tiredly. 

"It'd be nice to get some connections to the mage-y types here, for trading metalwork and supplies and stuff? Tech isn't something we can make much use of yet but..." 

I trail the massager down, rubbing between her pretty pale toes as I watch her feet swing back and forth