"I will! Hey, do you want to see the rig I made to help me study?"

Ala takes her back to her disordered room, and shows off some of her little DIYs. Wire has a few pointers, but mostly she serves to bolster the girl's confidence. It's easy for Sleepwalkers living among mages to grow jaded and small, something she'll need to watch out for with Ashlyn.

Eventually, Ikenga bids her goodnight, and gives her the guest room. They're going to head into the Redwoods in the morning. Ethan, who is not invited to a sacred Forge Masters ceremony.

The following morning, after a dream of hammering at a celestial forge, Ikenga helps her into her truck, and the two of them start North. The Golden Gate Bridge is crowded as ever on a weekend, and they're stuck in traffic for a goodly while. She gets an email as they leave - Grease.

I started cutting myself. I haven't done that in a long time. I stopped, it doesn't help anymore. My body is just cold matter.

The psychological hypothesis is gaining a lot of ground.

Ikenga sighs. "I'm not sure which is more tragic. We know we can help her, at least, but if we can't find her we can't. At the least, they'll probably find her with Space... barring unforeseen circumstances."

I want to believe you, but it's so hard. I'm scared, I know they're looking for me. They want to hurt me, I don't let them so that.

Swipe errors on her phone as are.

There's so much that's bright and beautiful to the young Obrimos that it's easy to forget that she's presently buried in a cruel world watched over by cruel gods. Pain, hurt, and suffering are the norm, not the exception.

I want that, too.

They cross into Redwood National Park, taking narrow roads that lead higher and higher into the mountains, where low clouds turn to mist and brush the leaves with a fine layer of dew. Hah, mountain dew.

They come to a stop at a rest area.

"How're your legs doing today?" Ikenga asks. "Do you think you could walk with assistance?"

Ikenga helps her out, her big smith arms as hard as the bars at the PT office. Slowly, carefully, she lets Valerie take her weight.

A little thrill leaps in her heart as she finds that, so long as her arms do a lot of the work, her legs actually stay up. They tremble something fierce, and they feel emaciated and thin in her baggy jeans.

"There you go," her mentor says tenderly. "We'll rest often. You say when."

They turn to the trail between the massive, almost unreal trees, and start walking.

Arielle sends a big smile back, and Ethan and Ashlyn cheer her. The latter will fly in after she gets back tonight, after a long ass trip.

They have to stop, often. She's out of shape in every way she can be.

Eventually, finally, they come to a private cabin in a secluded part of the woods. Valerie is puffing like a bellows, enough that she almost can't appreciate the artistry of the beautiful oven overlooking a wide swath of forest at the edge of the cabin. Ikenga built it with her own hands, searing the rocks and mortar until they became glassy and glazed with beautiful colors. She marked it with signs from her ancestral West African home, including the god of fire and volcanoes.

"To think, I will destroy it afterwards. This is your forge, Wire Nest. Your soul will be reborn here, and no lesser purpose will sully it on this earth."

She looks over it proudly, the air rich with pollen as it stirs around them. She pulls the door, a heavy thing of solid dark iron, open. A siderite nail awaits her. "Whenever you're ready. Do you need help getting undressed? I feel like you might like to do this part yourself, though."

Her forge is there to help her her you, but this is for her. This is the baby chick getting out of the egg herself, and the glassy forge is her egg.

Ikenga takes her clothes, putting them at the cabin in case it rains while they're busy, and then she begins to chant in High Speech.

Valerie pulls herself inside with the nail. There's no handle on her side, though there is a narrow chimney. Good thing she isn't claustrophobic - if something happens, she always has her magic to free her.

Ikenga's strong voice begins to blend with other voices, High Speech spoken with hundreds of individual accents. Thousands.

The Forge was born with civilization. It girded it in copper, bronze, and steel. The mysteries of what happens to metal, what magic changes it, was theirs to know and master

They are the metal. Her soul is raw ore.

It begins as embers. Her sweat drips down, forming sparks. Ikenga ignites her mana, and then the room starts to get hot. Her skin burns.

The flames set, crawling up her body with terrible, burning heat.

After the fire, it's almost a relief, and it only gets worse as the blue-white fire engulfs her. Her blood hisses as it mingles with Ikenga's cup, and it's all she can do to meditate on the flame, to embrace its divine power within herself.

Then things get a bit odd.

A weird sort of hollow resonance within herself, her heart. Distantly, she hears Arielle screaming, not that their voices are all that distinct.

No, it must be her voice. She's screaming, her voice becoming the shriek of metal.

Slowly, the pain fades. The blood and fire are spent, and yet the oven still glows, its glassy surface shining with High Speech lettering.

Comprehension comes slowly, the memory of Ikenga's words. She glows the white of superheated steel, and the iron door melts before her, hissing red as she touches it and running like wax. When she steps out, she finds that she's perfect. Her legs strong, her back erect. For a few moments at least, she is pure.

Ikenga raises her hand, a rush of flame embracing it as she forges a hammer of light beside the trough of water she brought for her - and she hesitates, staring.

Wire is literally high on divine fumes, but faintly she's aware something is funny. Extending from her back is a shining wing of brilliant sunlight, from her scar. Huh.

Ikenga almost doesn't finish. This is strange, unmentioned in the annals of her legacy.

The moment is fading, though, Valerie's heat slipping. Raising her hammer, Ikenga gives a great cry and strikes her.

Lightning splits the clear sky, terrible and bright, channeled down her wing into the earth. It's all she can do to make herself leap into the trough, nearly blinded.

A hiss of steam, coolness filling her.

A dazed, thoroughly hammered Valerie curls up in the bare wood, all the water boiled away. Her legs aren't working again, returned to their nearly-healed state, but she can still feel Lakshmi's magic on her.

Ikenga stands there, her hammer gone. Arcs crackle off her, but her Prime shield keeps her safe. "Well... that was intense," she breathes.

Her mentor offers her rough hand, smiling. "It's a Mystery. Part of your nature that begs discovery. Welcome to the Forge Masters, my friend."

With her other hand, she makes a sign, and the stones of the Forge themselves ignite. It becomes a blaze, a torrent, and then nothing. The place of her second birth exists only as a symbol now, and shall never be corrupted.

The woman squeezes her hand. "You deserve this. Now, let's-"

Valerie's phone starts ringing loudly. Ikenga, primed after everything else, jumps. "...phew, just your phone. Actually, I'm impressed you have signal here. Verizon?"

That moment where she realizes she could have TKed it over to herself. Rachelle's voice comes through.

"Valerie! Thank god. Arielle was hit by lightning! And then she just... got up. Oh god, I'm freaking out - she started screaming a whole ten minutes before and started rolling on the ground, then this bolt just struck her and knocked me on my ass! Now she's run off and I can't find her! She left her cell."

"A little lightning?! It could have stopped her heart, it could have stopped my heart sitting across from her! It burnt a hole through her chair, how is she still moving...? Hold on, I'm trying to find her. She cried out your name, Valerie, what the hell is going on?"