"Mages can be ignorant, too. Not until you Ascend, I guess!"

She wraps her tail about Valerie's, smiling brightly. "They'll understand."

Gliding through the trees, they find the town an armed camp, but Arielle isn't sitting around waiting. She's marching determinedly towards the Dark Realm, blasting vines and brambles out of her way with enhanced punches like some sort of low-grade One Punch Man. Her tied back hair lashes behind her like an angry cat's.

...could Ari actually fight her Lady?

Looking up at the call, Arielle sets herself ready in an easy stance.

"Sis. God damn - they weren't kidding."

Arielle crosses her arms.

"Words of Truth. If it's really, really true, you'll have no problem proving it to me."

"...Oh, Val..." Arielle comes up to her, taking her shoulders, the mirror to her own. "You can fight this. I know you can. I know you struggle so much with your body image... but you can lean on me. You're going to be just as beautiful without this. You don't need to accept a lie when the truth is so much better."

"Not with me helping you. I'll grind you to dust with Life magic, challenging you and helping you grow. You'll put on muscle like you never have before. I'll give you back everything I stole." Tears fill her eyes. "Come back to me. If I gotta be separate, you gotta be my mirror. You're my heart."

Taking her hands, Arielle places her forehead against hers. "I love you, my heart."

Ashlyn leaps down, going for the flowers, but she's transfixed by what she sees.

They're glowing.

This isn't unusual to them of late. When they truly express love, touching one another, they shine with an otherworldly light.

It burns through her scales, her wings, her talons and fangs. It burns away the illusion around herself, revealing her troubled form, for she can't lie. They burn with a pure white flame, and with them the touch on her mind. Her lone wing blazes like sunlight.

Lines form on their skin, but do not open. Not yet. They're only getting started.

The effect on Ashlyn is a lot more subtle than it was on Valerie, but it is no less beautiful for all that. Her words carry the grace of the divine realm, and her changes begin to recede, flowing back into her natural human body. Tears flow freely from her cheeks, and she throws herself at them, weeping with awe and need.

Arielle rubs her back, smiling at them.

"C'mon... let's get the hell out of here."

If there's one thing Valerie learned from her time here, it's that maybe the villains are a little lonely, too. She can almost feel the Lady of Silk's regret as her champions are defeated.

Ethan practically tackles her when they meet again, holding her until she aches and then some.

"I'm going to the Stone now and none of you can stop me," Ashlyn declares. "I can stay there for at least a day, and we won't be there that long!"

Arielle grins, cuffing her back and making her wheeze. "We totally can stop you - but we won't. You need to make your own decisions on some things if you're going to be a mage. If we tell you to leave, though, you need to go. You could become a dangerous liability."

Ashlyn nods, rubbing her back. "...point taken. Man - I haven't even held any spells yet."

Hurrin lands nearby, sighing. "I'm sorry I couldn't help. I... I don't know. I'm starting to feel like maybe the others have the right idea. I need to stay here and keep things running, though. Someone has to."

Ashlyn goes over and hugs him again. "You're not inadequate. You're beautiful and now we're best friends!"

He sniffs, hugging her back. "...if you can help us, I'll be forever grateful. Go on... I'll be here."

There is no need of a connection, but Valerie knows there will be a task. They pick a direction, seeking to elevate their minds once again. They leave the realm of the Forgotten behind, and travel through a place of mist as they rise from the collective unconscious to something deeper - the dream the world's soul has.

"To cross from the Temenos to the Omphalos stone," Arielle says in memory, "the travelers must confront something drawn from humanity's collective imagination. Surviving is all that is required, though each one is a Mystery that can be confronted."

As if called, the mists part to reveals a gaping chasm - and boy, them without their wings. The bottom is lost in churning mist, maybe nothing at all, and the other side is far away, at least a quarter of a mile distant.

"Oh come on," Ethan groans.

"Don't call it shameful. We're still young yet," he'd murmured, keeping his hand in hers as they went.

Arielle crouches near the edge of the cliff, peering down. The wind is intense, almost burning their faces and making it difficult to look directly into it and billowing Arielle's hair. "Gonna bet we can't climb, either. So this is drawn from the collective consciousness of Man - what does a chasm mean in this context?"

"An obstacle," Ethan deadpans.

"I don't think any of us are experiencing the latter right now," Ethan says, his fur stirring. "We are kind of here because of lost relationships though, aren't we? Lethe. Your mother."

There's a brief moment where Valerie begins to plummet with gravity's grip and the terrifying feeling of falling overcomes her. In that wind, she hears the doubts, the whispers, the deep-seated emptiness that stands between people.

A recluse like her understands how terrifying and exhilarating it is to breach that barrier between people, how it feels like plummeting off a cliff... and how much of a wonderful rush it is when you've made a connection.

Drawing on her need, her desire to finish this, she's rising up, buffeted by the powerful winds and sent careening to the other side.

The others thud next to her. Arielle rolls to her feet, while Ethan lands on them. Cat.

"Ow." Ashlyn groans. "I was expecting the Indiana Jones bridge... but it makes sense now."

(Gain a Gnostic beat!)

The Omphalos is, as it turns out, right past the trees.

It exists, at least in this shared vision, in a large crater bounded on its rim in moist, as though it had fallen from the sky. The wind has followed them, a faint, haunting whisper that urges them to listen, to give in.

The stone itself is enormous. A huge pale rock written over every square inch with letters in an unfamiliar dialect of High Speech.

Here, then, is the symbol of mankind's power over the universe. It caps the spot between the human world and the dream of nature. To go down through it is to rise higher in the world's soul.

The word Omphalos means navel - and this is the navel of the world.

Arielle and Ethan raise their Amnions here. They could have at any time to add personal defense, but it only really becomes necessary facing the Ecstatic Wind.

In Ethan, it takes the form of subtle armor, similar to the cosplay piece she made for his FF14 cosplay last year. She never got to see him wear it in person before.

You know, didn't he play a Miqo'te guy?

In Arielle, golden light shines from her, her wing forming and remaining as she asserts her divinity.

Ashlyn, of course, has no defense, but she's not afraid yet. She won't be following them beyond the stone.

After the initial drop they need to take in stages, the crater levels out. Words spread across the floor, looking as if they'd formed naturally. They aren't alone, either - there's a small group of Australian aboriginal mages.

They seem deep in their own thing, walking the lines around the stone. A woman among them nods to them in acknowledgment - fellow travelers, friendly but with their own matters to deal with, their own mystery.

Ashlyn rubs the parts of the stone that she can reach, tracing the words. She goes quiet here, just absorbing things.

"Mother's journal suggested that we just need to order the stone open in High Speech," Arielle says, looking up at it.

There are conversations written here. Words, names, dates. Streams of numbers, equations, ideas.

"I know where to go if I ever need to understand High Speech better," Ethan says. "Of course, I spent several months speaking nothing but."

The emotional weight of it is immense, but it's their weight, their power.