I decided to redesign the tree slightly using a little of the growth energy I had laying around, as the residence floors were a little too roomy and were proving hard to heat with the enormous central room being an almost cavernous space. That didn’t even count the bathroom and toilet floors, which were using a whole lot of space for not a lot of utility. It was pretty evident that I was not an architect.

Thus, I’d shrunk the common rooms considerably and moved the bathing and toilet areas up with them. Each floor now had two bath and shower combos, plus four toilet cubicles. All in all it was a much better use of a seventy foot diameter space. What on earth had I been thinking originally?

Life wasn’t all about interior design, though. On the fifth day, after another successful round of sourcing materials for Avonside and my grove — and finally getting the doors installed — the local magical practitioners found me. They arrived with a large group of their followers, all wearing stoic, slightly anxious expressions.

The street we were on began to empty of random passers-by almost immediately, as they saw the impending confrontation. Soon, it was just us and the other mages standing there, staring at each other. At my side I had Grace, while Troy, Kit, Mer and Otho had all moved out in front of us. Had we really shaken things up enough to warrant this kind of response? Surely not, right?

One at the front, an obrec man with wild, metallic green hair and matching fur stepped forward. He wore a strange formal garment that reminded me of a suit with tails. Except, instead of the big padded shoulders that most suits had, this one had weird droopy spikes made of fabric. It looked vaguely like an anime artist had designed a bulter’s suit, then combined it with a clown outfit. Sure, the colours were all muted blacks and golds, with green accents to match his mage colouration… but damn.

“Greetings,” he began in the anve language, a stern but reverent expression on his face. “I am Carac Batrmaul, mage and chancellor of the Millowhall Association for the Practice of the Magical Arts.”

He was looking right at me as he spoke, ignoring everyone else, so I sort of shyly stepped forward and gave him an awkward wave. “Hiya, uh… I’m Ryn… of um, of Avonside.”

“And the woman in charge of everything magical within the Order of Eleos ,” Troy interjected, once I’d finished. Oh no, he was talking me up.

“Ah… yes,” the man nodded, looking somewhat taken aback by Troy. “In any case, the Millowhall Association for the Practice of the Magical Arts would like to humbly request a meeting with the esteemed Ryn of Avonside.”

“Uh, sure… I guess,” I said, feeling extremely uncomfortable with the whole situation. Why was the dude being so… polite? I thought mages were meant to be dickheads? I mean sure he sounded like he had a stick lodged firmly up his ass, but he wasn’t being mean or anything.

“If it would suit you then, we would like to offer the Soaring Rest Inn as a neutral venue with which to conduct this meeting, what time would suit you and your retinue?” he asked, continuing in that weird tone he kept using. The one that was both arrogant and subservient at the same time.

I just shrugged. “So long as it isn’t the middle of the night or anything, I don’t mind.”

One of his eyes twitched for a moment before he took in a deep breath to say, “Midday then? Does that suit you, my lady?”

Oh no… did he have a fedora I couldn’t see? Wait no, this was a medieval setting and I was sort of like a noble, so it actually made sense in this context. Still, it made me cringe pretty hard.

“Yeah, sounds good,” I smiled instead. This was such a fucking weird conversation. I was just a girl from 21st century Earth, but it felt like I was talking to someone’s butler from the 1800’s, making arrangements for tea with the lady of his house or whatever.

“It is done then,” he nodded sombrely. “With your leave, we will retire for the night and make preparations.”

“Uh, sure,” I waved. “See you tomorrow then.”

As a group, they bowed, so I did the same. That seemed to confuse them further. Then they turned around and hurried off in a big clump. If they wanted to appear all impressive and stuff, they might want to get out onto the parade ground for a week or so, work on their turns, because like… that was a shambles.

Grace and I exchanged a look as they left that said something like, Oh my goodness, that was weird and awkward and uncomfortable.

Then she blew out a sigh that was all, Damn, I’m glad that’s over now, can we get out of here and back to the grove?

My reply was a weary smile that said, Yeah, no arguments here.

“Well, there goes our evening,” Troy sighed, rubbing at his eyes. “I guess dinner just became a strategy meeting. Otho, Mer, can I interest you in coming back to help us figure out what to do with that lot tomorrow?”

“Our pleasure,” Otho smiled, glancing at his sister for confirmation, who gave a nod.

Decision made, we wandered back down to the inn on the bridge and all piled into the room we were renting there. The patrons had gotten used to us by now, and I saw a few who even gave me hesitant smiles. Was the local population starting to like me? This whole semi-public figure thing was so confusing.

When we hopped back over into my grove, we headed on up to use the baths before dinner. Since I’d freed up a lot of floors, I’d added in a few more residential ones. This meant more baths, which I offered to our two obrec friends, and after they laid eyes on them, they accepted the offer eagerly.

Once we’d all had our nice luxurious baths, we reconvened down in the common room around one of the new tables, on which was a roast of some meat I didn't recognise. Adam could cook apparently, and not just passably either. He was secretly some sort of food genius. I swear he’d lied about being a terrible cook at one point too… sneaky dick. I also briefly worried if the obrec would like food prepared in our style, but my fears were unfounded — they loved it.

That raised all sorts of questions about why our two races were so damned similar. We could eat the same food, looked almost exactly the same from a cosmic evolution standpoint, or whatever… hell, even abstract concepts like emotions transferred fairly well between our cultures. When I had like, literally any free time, I wanted to pursue that line of questioning. There had to be something more going on with the species on this ring.

“So what are this lot like, the ones we’re meant to be meeting tomorrow?” I asked as our plates emptied.

“Harmless, mostly,” Mer said after she finished chewing. Another cultural similarity, not speaking with a full mouth. “They are a little petty, they like to pretend they are important, but like you saw today — they’re small fry on the regional scale. You’ve already shown yourself to outclass their entire coven of mages.”

“Wait, really?” Grace blurted, giving me a look.

The obrec siblings shared a look before Otho leaned forward eagerly. “It’s true, isn’t it?” he asked. “Avonside is a new arrival to the ring. It’s obvious to anyone native here that Ryn is an incredibly powerful mage. No one can even question it considering the amount or raw plant matter she’s been pumping into the local economy.”

Everyone in our party looked to Troy to answer, who sighed and closed his eyes for a moment — gently placing his cutlery down on his plate. “Yes, we are new here.”@@novelbin@@

“That explains a great host of questions,” Otho said, giving Grace and me a look. “Anves aren’t known for their charitable attitude towards love between two women, for one thing.”

“Wait, what?” Kit asked, staring at us with an open mouth. Had he really not realised?

“Ah…” the obrec man cringed. “...Sorry.”

I turned to see Grace was bright red, her eyes downcast and hands clenched tight. Nuh uh, she was not going to feel self conscious or embarrassed about this. I wasn’t going to let this solidify that notion in her silly, pretty head.

Gently taking hold of her chin, I pulled her head up until her eyes met mine. The look I sent her was heavy, projecting as much confidence as I could scrounge up from every corner of who I was. Then I kissed her, long and slow, in front of everyone. Her lips tasted of the dinner we’d just eaten, but rather than being sorta gross as I’d expected, it was kinda pleasant instead. The kiss itself had things happening inside me, however — warm eager things that begged for more, and were stymied in their efforts.

At least it looked like the kiss had worked — her previous expression was gone, that was for sure. Instead, she was gawking at me with a huge, stunned grin on her face, a full blush lighting her face, reaching all the way down to the hint of cleavage I could see down her shirt.

“Sorry everyone,” I said, my voice husky with the feelings of affection and attraction that were surging within me. “She uh, looked upset.”

“I’m sure,” Adam drawled, amusement dancing within his grin. Big, lovable jerk.

“I guess… um… that… okay,” Kit said, his cheeks also red and his eyes firmly planted on his plate.

Poor Kit. He seemed really innocent. Even more innocent than I was. Not that I felt particularly innocent anymore… you could only be edged so many times before you were uh, changed a little.

“Don’t you worry, Kit,” Mer said, giving him a wink. “A bedding companion will find you soon enough. Possibly sooner than you expect.”

That had Kit gaping at her openly, which looked kinda comical. There was that famous obrec flirtatiousness at work.

“Ah, yes. Well, Grace, Ryn— It's good to know for sure,” Troy said, drawing attention back to Grace and I with a smile and a nod. “You’re good together.”

Otho was still cringing with worry though, as well as ignoring his sister. “I’m so very sorry.”

“No problem,” I said placatingly.

“If you're certain,” he sighed, still looking like he was beating himself up inside. Damn it, why were obrec so confusing? I’d said no problem!

“No, seriously,” I pushed. “There’s nothing wrong, everything is okay.”

“Agreed,” Troy nodded, giving us both a reassuring glance. “Us Avonsiders do not discriminate against any combination of genders in love. At least, most of us, there are still idiots within our people too.”

“There always are,” Mer agreed with an expression that said she wished she could like, suplex every single one of those idiots, or something.

“Anyway, back to those mages from today,” said our fearless leader, diverting us back to the main topic.

Right, we had shit to plan. Too bad my mind and the warmth in my stomach had planted my thoughts firmly in a different grove.