Blood Shaper

Eleniah stared at the letter to her cousin and debated sending it yet again. She loved her cousin, and getting Kay connections with a powerful adventurer, the kind she felt he was going to become, would be good for his future. But… well there was a reason that she split off from her cousin. Some of the people she spent time with were not the kind of people Eleniah wanted to be around, and she wasn’t sure that letting them meet Kay was a good idea.

She sighed and put the letter back in the top drawer of her dresser. It could wait a while. It might even be better for her cousin to hear about Kay further in the future, when he was more settled into his life. It wouldn’t do to have her cousin sweep in and upset all the plans she had for Kay.

As it always did, thinking about her plans for Kay gave her a twinge of nerves. Not because of any Machiavellian scheming or anything, just because she wasn’t sure where things were going to end up. She didn’t have some detailed laid out map of the future, just a few general outlines of what she thought might happen. Kay had the potential to become someone truly powerful in this world. Whether he became the kind of adventurer that nations begged to come solve their problems, the leader of his own nation, or even just a powerful scholar, digging into the ways The World worked, like the Rune Master, he was going to be someone with physical, social, and political power galore. She was doing her best to give him the most solid foundation she could, while also keeping him from thinking too deeply about it. Over the months she’d gotten to know him, Eleniah had realized that Kay wasn’t comfortable with the idea of being powerful. She wasn’t really sure if it was a personal trait or something that came with him because of his history in his home world, but letting him know that he almost definitely would become a powerful figure would probably freak him out. Which wouldn’t be helpful. It would just slow things down and make him an even easier target for anyone that would want to prevent the rise of a new power.

Even with massive tracts of land unexplored and unclaimed, leaders and powers would want to stop a new one from arising. Greedy bastards. Kay becoming a power, of any kind, predicated on him living, after all, and if those who would want to stop him got a hold of him…

It was about time for her meeting with Guildmaster Caruion, so she cleaned up and left the house. As she left, Eleniah glanced around the house, but Kay had already left, off on another job with what she’d been calling “Alice’s Harem”. Alice had thought that was hilarious the one time Eleniah’d accidentally let it slip, but Korz had scowled at her for quite awhile. It was fairly easy to see where his feelings were.

Eleniah tried to soothe the unending surge of worries that came every time Kay went off into danger alone. She wasn’t going to make her personal problems his problems. He was as well trained as she could make him with the time she’d had, he was with trustworthy allies, and he wasn’t putting himself in danger above his level. He would be fine.

She paused in the entryway and closed her eyes, a flood of memories making her grimace. There were others she’d thought would have been fine too, and they never came back.

She shook herself and kept walking. Smothering Kay like some kind of overprotective mother would hurt his growth, and destroy her real overall plan. She locked the door behind her and started strolling to the Adventurer’s Guild.

At a base level, Eleniah had a very simple motivation. She was lonely. Over her life, for one reason or another, she’d been left alone. She had chosen to leave her cousin because of the people that had started flocking to said cousin’s metaphorical banner. After that, things had just not worked out. Eleniah had traveled, made friends, grown stronger, and then for one reason or another her friendships had broken up. Many of the people she’d met during her journeys were still her close friends who she regularly traded letters with. But they didn’t go with her on her travels, and she missed them. Many had chosen to leave the wandering adventurer’s life aside. Through marriage, finding a place to set their roots, or other considerations, they’d stopped, and Eleniah had kept going.

Many, Eleniah’s students included, had died. Which was why she incessantly worried about Kay. Even one student dying was too many for her, and she’d lost more than one.

And so Eleniah Selthoran had continued to wander. Eventually she became a power of her own, with two different tier five classes. Then, one day the Adventurer’s Guild asked her to head to Tumbling Rapids and start poking her nose around. And that had led to her meeting Kay.

That had been the start of another cautious journey to learn about her newest student, without him figuring out the trepidation she felt. She’d given up on taking new students decades ago, scared about losing them. But Kay was an Outworlder. He was in the kind of position that would break many, and Eleniah couldn’t turn him away.

And she was glad she hadn’t. Kay was a good student, and he was becoming a great friend. The student-to-mentor relationship was making the friendship develop slowly, but she was patient. That was the whole point of her goal after all.

If she wanted a partner, someone to travel with her, someone to be with her, why not just make one?

It sounded a bit… creepy, maybe? When she thought of it like that at least, but that was her goal. It might not be Kay, she wasn’t going to force anyone into something they didn’t want, but she was going to succeed eventually. There would be someone out there who wanted to be with her, and would send her loneliness away. She would find them, and get then strong enough to walk by her side.

She hoped it would be Kay though. He was… good, in a way that drew her in. He’d also seen past her shield just a bit, and looked at the lonely woman she really was. He’d seen her, and not had a problem with it. He’d even told her that he wouldn’t go anywhere.

Eleniah looked up at the top of the Adventurer’s Guild doors and schooled herself. Time to dive back into the strange and twisty plots of the Nelamian government.

Kay would be fine.

He would be fine.

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