#I literally fistpumped when I saw deiform as today's prompt

[idanwyn-et-al]

(XIV||22-16): Deiform.

(Continued from here.) (♪)

Seeing as Oakmoss was often considered untrustworthy by many---a reputation she’d earned thanks to her sticky fingers and general indifference towards the law---she thought it wise to bring some manner of proof of her discovery to Miovont. This largesse served a dual purpose; it could also help her verify her theory that his chalice and this laboratory were related. If there was no reaction from his strange curse, she didn’t necessarily need to reveal the Allagan ruins to him. Though...there was a conundrum, she realized with a frown; he was apparently some sort of spy. He liked to trill a little line about “wherever Duskwights are” when asked how he collected his information, and she and Fotiá hadn’t been very subtle about uncovering this place set within Gelmorra’s labyrinthine tunnels.

A problem for the near future. Far more pressing was her need to gather up her piece of proof, return to her current base camp, and set out to find Miovont. After searching the assembly line for a quarter bell, she discovered half of a mold used to cast the chalices within the forge. Tucking it away within her sleeve, the gems from the door rattling against the dense alloy, she gave the chimerical dragon one last uneasy look before leaving the Allagan facility behind, her Sophic eidolon sent back to the aether in a shower of golden sparks.

Within her cave behind the spilled rivulet, she dismissed her summoner’s garb, opting for the prosaic method to dress for travel. After securing her pouch-laden belt and tucking her ears through the serge-edged slits in her hood, she retrieved her staff from where it rested against the wall. It was not a traditional summoner’s arm these days, but she was not a traditional summoner; in Meracydia of old, her foremothers had wielded spells of destruction to aid their eidolons in battle.

Oakmoss wasn’t as powerful as those deiform ancestors, but her line had kept the old ways alive. As the broken caves of Gelmorra led her out into the Shroud, she paused for a moment, tapping into the aetheric tie she’d affixed Miovont with some time ago. He, too, was an inheritor of a skill writ in blood; one far more lethal to him than the Veena’s was to her. This thought stirred a thread of...something...deep within her. Sympathy, perhaps? She didn’t really recognize it, whatever it was.

All she knew with certitude was that he was to the North, and that she would go find him. So he could help her, of course. Maybe...so they could help one another. The quiet thought nurtured that foreign feeling inside of her; she found herself more welcoming of it the further north she went.

(Continued here!)