She nods, and smiles. 

"Take your time, and then we shall disembark together. There is much to do, and much to watch."

I blush brightly as I scrub all along her skin, making sure to make every bit of her legs shine just right. 

Soon enough, it's time. 

I clothe myself once more - complete with the full set of accoutrements for a long walk into their city, a crudely worked mage-apprentice's-steel wire reinforced femme cut suit in navy and white and a touch of silver. The underwear is slightly lacy, if an eminently practical cut given that, and the breathable matching socks and flats mingle nicely with the whole feel of it to make it something I feel I can wear without pretension. 

She dresses herself in a catsuit - copper and gold and bronze slipping together into a dazzling series of highlights on a jet black canvas hugging her skin, the barest suggestion of the color of her skin visible beneath it. A sheathed blade rests at her hip, and an elaborate monocle peeks out of a small bag lashed onto a belt on her hip. 

"My hand, if you'd please?"

"But of course, Amaya." 

My hand entwines with hers, and 

I breathe, and feel the moment - the chain of events that lead from the crunch of the ground beneath my feet to countless futures unfolding, the way that my breath twirls with the currents of the wind to form the weather system here, the way that my passion blooms in my chest and entwines with the story of the world, welcomed with the warm embrace of a silently listening sage, recording every thought and feeling I project out into the world. I can see the pebbles, the ground, the fresh pine-scented air and the vast verdant forest laid out before me on the path.

It's rather beautiful...

"A Mythic realm, it seems, but one bound rather directly to the World itself..." 

She shivers lightly. 

"Fascinating."

"I can't say I'm too familiar with what this all would look like - I know it would be intuitive and natural and accommodating, once the moment came, but this..." 

I shiver back. 

My skin feels at one wonderfully smooth, sublimely even and fading into a pure perfected gradient of a gorgeous hero's depiction, while still feeling the waves and waves of goosebumps coating my skin, the rush of blood that would ordinarily leave me pale or pinkened simply existing as I breathe, and step forward, hand locked tight with her.

"It's something well-described in my studies, though not something particularily that I've put much thought into. To see a world wrought of this, rather then the steel of the City..."

I squeeze her hand, and I can't quite tell if it's to reassure her or to reassure myself that she's still there and listening.

"Myths are in a sense, anathema in the Black City. A myth is forged in the future, the past - something less controlled by the reigning shadows of the Night of the Now. A myth is of prophecy, comers, shakers and movers of the rolls and randomness of an evolution, a shift. They cling to their eaves of eve, and they will not be moved lightly. So the forges of fantasies within their range are largely constrained - the firm and finalized legends inside the measured metal, to create the wonders beneath their whims, they hope." 

"But there are many things to create beyond their imagining, and multitudinous metals that may reflect yet more possibilities." 

She shakes her head. 

"But this..."

Her hand squeezes back. 

"Constraints can make you stronger yes but..."

I sigh lightly, and fidget my hand against hers idly. 

"The idea of the myth in my head has always been more immediate - the existenc of someone who ought to be able to reach out and do those things, through the exertion of their soul and identitiy. It doesn't quite... have to matter, in the myths, if it's a character who only exists in a single fable, who appears only once, briefly, without fanfare, that doesn't have to stop them having the powr to do profound things, if the story requires it or the simple truth fo waht they are can overcome it." 

I tilt my head to the side, and watch the forest for the trees, for a while. 

"There are other truths and paths to undertake as well. The Knowledges are not something simply suppressed, and I hope to find a path for building something aside and beyond that." 

She nods curtly. 

"I know." 

The silence lingers like the chill of a winter's gale. 

"It buds, you know." 

This shiver is colder, and the place that my head hangs is lower, now. 

"The Saremite project shows that it can be passed on - even if that's isn't quite the way that it'll work, at first, even if at first such a thing is about being able to create the things that I'll be able to again, and have that be a rule set in stone aside simply replication. You can make something..." 

I let the words fade on my tongue. 

Her smile is dry, and her words come out in a soft conversational lilt, even as the tension stays in her shoulders. 

"'Special', you are thinking, yes?" 

My eyes dart down, and my head inclines in acknowledgement.

Her lips quirk up into a light smirk. 

"I've always enjoyed my work. It can be complete in and of itself. The broader remit of such at hing is not required, and I need nothing aside my own strengths to escel and grow to become the woman I wish to be." 

"A mythos isn't something seperate from the self, they told me." 

"That is true."

"It's not seperate or seperable from your talents - there's no sharp line between the workings of your will and magic and what it accomplishes." 

She inclines her head in acknowledgement once more in silence.

"You clearly want it. It's viscerally important to you, your work, your development, as you envision it now. It's fitting, and exciting, and it makes your heart race at teh prospect of seeing it, hearing it, at getting a chance to experience it like this. I can feel that, and you know - you knew that, from the beginning." 

Her eyes flutter shut and she breathes out, humming thoughtfully after a moment of tranquility. 

"Well said, Heart of Blue." 

They wander onwards, for a long while. 

"It would be... proper, for me to be placed inside a story. For the I I am to be a reflection of the stories told amongst the trackless terror of the Sea of Stars, for me to smelted and refined like the workings of my will." 

She shakes her head, a little, and purses her lips.