you're not going to slow it down

Passing through his unkempt and overgrown fields, she suspected the man was also not a farmer. For a quiet, sleepy farm town with no manners, it seemed full of curiosities. She stepped beyond him as he moved to let her inside, and it was almost worse within than out. It was clean, at least. The bed neatly made and the hearth swept. She couldn't detect any odor but fresh straw an damp earth. She stepped carefully around the wet patches of floor, Harry shifting his balance expertly on her fingers to keep his footing.

There was one bed. Singer felt no remorse at ousting it's owner for one night - after all, he had offered her the hospitality - but she worried the straw ticking in the mattress would be infested with insects. There appeared to be no chance of a proper bath. From the man's current appearance, she wouldn't be surprised if he bathed in the local cow wallow.

"Acceptable." She assessed. With a flick of her wrist, she sent her companion fluttering to perch on the sole windowsill. Harry shifted his feathers comfortably, and began to run his beak along the long quills of his tail. Singer understood how he felt, gritty from travel.

"Citizen," She found herself asking, uncertain why. "What is your name?"

"Conlan, Lady Hunter." He peered in the door cautiously, somewhat cleaner. The rag he held was now burdened with much of the mud from his face and hands. "Though I haven't been a citizen in some time.

Looking around, Singer supposed not. He probably had just enough money to live by, and a head not to spend it on frivolities. She lowered her rucksack from her shoulder to the floor without answering. She suspected whatever conversation he could make would bore her, and instead settled on the edge of his bed. She could feather arrows in the slim hour of light left, then sleep. She suspected the rest would do her some good.

---

Conlan was on the barest edge of panic. He didn't know how or why the Thuss woman had been directed to his care, but it could not be coincidence. The wolv had tracked him here by sheer luck and intuition. Records showed his disappearence from Tura, certainly. Mezzan kept no such records but in faulty human memory, too caught up in crops and cattle to write tomes of comings and goings. His arrival was not traceable, nor was his presence outstanding. Yet, all of a sudden, his past was arriving at his door - accidentally or not.

The Thuss hadn't been seeking him, or he would already be in custody - or worse. For now, his best option was to play along. Whatever her errand, he doubted she would stay more than the night. She seemed anxious, flighty. Above all, she seemed ready to return to her comfortable life in Tura.

She hadn't stilled since she'd arrived, working long shafts of wood between her deft fingers and knife, coaxing them into the smooth regularity needed for arrows. His bed, he suspected, would need ridding of wood shavings.

He kept busy, too. His stores had yielded just enough for a decent supper, and he worked silently on that. His thoughts turned to Thenotay, hoping his friend would find decent shelter for the night. He doubted that he would have any of his own.

With so much trouble visiting him recently, Conlan wondered if it wasn't time to move on.

---

Processing the world in a wash of colors and sound, Thenotay enjoyed wandering the fields surrounding his home. Especially, he enjoyed the creatures that roamed around, birds and beasts and bugs. He found that he could sit perfectly still and become so un-threatening that birds would land on him.

He was watching dragonflies move over a puddle that was dark with soil when she approached along the path. Already unmoving, Thenotay froze. Experience taught him that lying still meant many disregarded him as nothing more than a dead animal, long forgotten.

He could hear his master humming as he worked, and he watched her pass warily. She was burdened, and carried a hawk, but did not seem to have harmful intent. Still, he kept track of her with his senses, in case the need to defend Conlan arose.

Not only the alchemist's kindness served to make Thenotay so loyal. The chimera was deeply terrified of losing his master - the one person he had ever spoken to. Years ago, when he was newly created, he had happened upon some children at play. His approach had caused them to flee, screaming. Conlan had explained that they probably thought their mother's warning stories had come alive. Since, Thenotay had avoided contact with others. Humans feared what they did not understand, and he could not blame them for their ignorance in his case. Often, he suspected he did not even understand himself. The nature of thought was to consider it's self, and the chimera was uncertain how much of a self he could truly have.

So he looked for a self whenever he found opportunity, reflecting on the actions of things around him. He suspected it would be easier with more people to speak to, but some things weren't possible. He expected that eventually, things would change - better or worse. If there was one thing the chimera was certain of, it was his patience.

He heard the woman addressing his master, and slowly crept to his feet, slinking through overgrown fields to get a better look. The woman was fascinating. She bore a hawk on her gloved fist, but it was not tethered there, instead keeping still of it's own accord.

When she spoke, she commanded attention, and Thenotay found that the sound of her voice seemed unique. Most everything about her was different than the farmer women he had seen. She was slim, her shape curved in ways he had not witnessed in the plump wives or stick thin daughters of the village. Her hair was straight, pampered. There wasn't a hint of kink or curl in it's wheat colored length. It was bound up at the base of her neck, and the chimera supposed it would be truly long when released. He was curious about her, but as he shifted to begin creeping closer, the hawk turned it's head to regard him icily.

Looking into it's eyes, he could not believe the creature was unintelligent. Thenotay froze, his attention locked on the bird. They both went still, the chimera readying to bolt through the field he'd come by should the woman turn in his direction. Luckily her attention wasn't on the hawk, but rather his master.

When she stepped into his cottage, apparently to stay, Thenotay slipped back through the fields, but kept close.


---

Conlan lay curled on the hearth where Thenotay so often slept. There was little enough room in the place to begin with, if he did not want to risk getting stepped on in the middle of the night he'd had two options. One was outside. With the seasons moving on, COnlan found that option an undesirable one.

Yet inside, even with the warmth of the fire at his back and the makeshift bed of spare clothes and some hastily cut grass, he was still unable to sleep. Thenotay hadn't returned - he suspected that his companion had noted their home's occupancy and decided to lay low. The alchemist only wished he'd had that option.

He and the Thuss had eaten dinner in tense, uncomfortable silence. She'd proclaimed it 'acceptable', in her regal way, and gone back to fletching arrows. Conlan had quite forgotten how tiring it could be simply being hospitable. When she'd at last retired, he'd banked the fire with a grateful heart.

Her companion, the hawk, was still awake. Or sleeping with it's eyes not only open, but fixed in Conlan's direction. It's closed animal expression seemed mistrustful. He supposed that he would not trust himself in it's situation, either.

No one gave up Turan citizenship without good reason. Running or money were common, anything else was suspect.

Turan life was rich, cultured. The city was powered with alchemic technology that lit homes with brilliant light that never went out, wheeled carriages went to and fro without horses to draw them, instead powered by oil. The very rich had water that drew it's self, lines that conducted speach from far away, and a million unique niceities brought about by alchemist manufacture. Magic allowed t hem to design parts too msall for the human hands to make, out of materials too complex to mix by conventional means. The city was a glorious, glittering curiosity.

Or at least it had been, before he'd left.

Now, rumors said that alchemic technology was under strict regulation and control. The Overmages claimed it was to prevent a second disaster. It also had to do, Conlan knew, with the rapid deterioration of alchemic devices. They needed upkeep to continue functioning. Magic did not like to stay fastened, and needed to be reattached as it came loose.

With no remaining alchemists, Conlan suspected the most widely used wonders in Tura would not outlive him. Preserved artifacts would decompose in a span of a hundred and fifty years by his best calculation. Then, alchemy would be truly dead.

He wasn't sure he could really say that was for the worse, either. Alchemy was fast and easy, leaping forward and upward in advancement before humanity could truly grow up to support it. They'd progressed irresponsibly, he realized when he looked back.

He himself was guilty of allowing his morality to fail in the light of his curiosity. Back then, he was proud of his accomplishments. While others had found ways to make life simpler, Conlan had found ways to make life.

Years later, his pride haunted him, a harsh flaw in himself that he could not forgive or escape.

---

Ch. 3

It was so close now. He was certain that somewhere in the mess of notes that lay at his fingertips there was an answer. When he'd discovered the resistance of living things to magical alteration, he'd known that he could find a way to circumvent it. He'd been meant to find a way. Humanity rejected magic, bodies pushing it through into whatever it could gain contact with. It had long been accepted that a human being - an alchemist - could channel magic but not contain it.

Except for one race.

Many had written the beast-bonded off as barbarians. Certainly, they had close bonds with their animals, but they weren't sophisticated enough to direct magic. Cade had agreed with his colleagues, too young to know any better.

"Magic directs them." He said aloud, considering his pages of research.

"What?" Jessa leaned back in her seat, catching his gaze. Her hands were bloodied, all the way to her elbows. She was working. Designing. It was a gory, intense process, but she was brilliant at it. She had a deep understanding of how muscle and bone went together to create swing, pull, pivot and motion. "You were speaking out loud."

"Oh?" He laughed, "I suppose I was. Just thinking."

"Think quietly." Jessa chastised. She reached up, tugged her failing ponytail back into tight submission and streaking it with gore. "You're interrupting my art."

"Your mess, you mean." Train of thought lost, he rose to get a better look at her progress. It was starting to come together, but he wouldn't have called it 'art' on his own initiative.

"It's only a mess until I finish." She corrected, her hands deftly maneuvering muscle, combining, removing, sculpting separate into single. "Then, I promise you'll like it."

"Oh, big promises." Cade admired her work, watching her, too. Her long lashes were narrowed over her clear blue eyes as she concentrated. Wisps of her hair, darker thane even usual with blood, stuck to her cheeks. Even smeared with the efforts of her work, her skin seemed to glow. She was beautiful.

"And..." She said, pushing him away as he leaned into her light, "If you stop distracting me, I can deliver on those promises sometime this year."

He gave her space. So far, alchemy had been about combining inorganics into new substances, forms, and uses. Of course, there was an interest in what it could do for living beings - alchemically repaired injuries, solutions for insanity, elimination of defects in babies.

Unfortunately, living beings appeared to reject magic, except the beast-bonded. Alchemists dismissed them, until he had met one. The bond had proved to be magical, and it meant there must be a way to overcome the natural ejection of magic.

While others had laughed, Cade had investigated, tested, dissected when necessary. Months of failure had left him disheartened, but then Jessa had come. She was just as fascinated with organic alchemy as he was, and had far more extensive knowledge of physiology - in both man and animal.

She had discovered that the magical tie between the two beings in a bonded pair could be, in theory, severed and then connected again. This resulted in a body that was receptive to magic inserted between the two reaching ends of the tie.