What Little Remains Of Terpsichore Ironheart

The back half of our first semester went a lot smoother than the first half, now that our adventuring obligations had been met, which left me with some free time to pursue more fun and low-stakes projects.

"Holy shit," Talia said, as I twisted and turned a cube of synthetic crystal in my hand, the facets reacting vibrantly to the light. "That fucking color..."

"I asked what crystals worked best as power crystals," I said. "As it so happens, that was the exact subject of your professor's thesis, and I was walked through the exact steps to create this stuff: yttrium-aluminum garnet, doped with a tiny amount of manganese, cobalt, and neodymium to produce this purple color. Professor Smith was confident that this was not in fact the best possible power crystal, and that there remained some as-yet-untested formulation that was even better, but she was also quite confident that I'd still be very happy with this one, being as it was the best power crystal that was known to science."

"Yeah, I'm happy with it, and I'm not even a Wizard!"

"You wanna keep this sample?" I asked.

"...Cat, this is a two-inch cube of garnet."

"Is that a no?"

"That's a 'how the hell is this just a sample?'" Talia demanded.

"The final power crystal is going to be a lot bigger," I said. "Because. You know. I'm a Wizard who specializes in pocket dimensions, and making big things fit inside small things."

Talia waggled her eyebrows at me.

"Fuck off."

"C'mon, you walked into that one," Talia said.

I rolled my eyes. "Anyhow, Professor Takeda gave me a book on reliquary creation, which I'm pretty sure is wildly illegal, but none of us care what the Emperor says, so we're just gonna move past that. The book says that, for a reliquary meant for binding a Succubus, you need a figurative representation of the Succubus, visibly contained within... well, a container, and that they usually also come with metal reinforcements to protect the container itself, which typically have runes engraved into them to enforce certain restrictions on the Succubus contained within."

"So, you're gonna make Volex a whole new reliquary?" Talia asked.

"Pretty much, yeah," I said, nodding. "Her current reliquary is a work of art, but it's also an antique, and it's probably the same one she was originally bound into by Terpsichore when they first met and Terpsichore didn't yet trust her. Between modern technology and the fact that I do trust her now... well, I'm confident she'll end up liking this one better."

"How confident?" Talia asked.

"Confident enough to spend upwards of a hundred hours making her a new reliquary out of gemstones and precious metals."

Talia hummed quietly.

"Yeah, that's pretty confident."

---

I hummed quietly as I set up my typewriter on my desk, and loaded in a fresh sheet of paper. I typed a few letters, realized I had the wrong typehead loaded in, and grumbled quietly as I dug out the High Elven typehead to swap out for the Hikaano typehead- I swear, any educated person should be at least conversant in High Elven, considering just how fucking many important documents are written in the language, but noooo, I had to write everything in Hikaano, because fuck elves I guess.

With my typewriter once again ready to write in a real language, and the Hikaano letters magically cleared from the paper, I was ready to write.

Hi Mom, hi Dad,

I'm not dead. I did die three times in one day, but I'm fine now- by the way, Dad, you were right about it being a bad idea to go through the Black Desert.

Things have been insanely busy ever since I left. Most of the trip up here was pleasantly uneventful- I met a few interesting people, broke bread with a few farmers, and did some minor favors like finding a lost cat or fixing a broken reaper-binder, but nothing too exciting.

Then, while we were crossing the Black Desert, we were attacked by the new Cult of Paimon, which killed me and kidnapped the others, and used Emily's blood to bring Demon King Paimon into the world. I didn't stay dead, however, thanks to The Father's direct intervention, and with his blessing, I was able to slay Paimon permanently.

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You can understand how that would leave me pretty busy, and how I wouldn't have much time to write home while I recovered from dying three times in one day.

So of course, immediately afterwards, I had to go on an adventure with Helen's new apprentice to help her get up to speed on doing violence in a professional capacity, which ate up rather a lot of time, and after after we finally got done with that, classes were about to start and I had to take a bunch of placement exams and pick my courses for the semester and-

(I earned a Bachelor's in Arcane Arts, by the way. Congratulations, Mom, you did an excellent job preparing me for this. I'm currently working towards a Master's in Arcane Arts, as well as a Bachelor's in Bardic Studies, with a few weird electives thrown in to taste; who knows what bizarre constellation of degrees I might pick up by the time I graduate?)

I'd hoped that things would slow down enough for me to relax and remember that I have parents who might like to know how I'm doing, but on the first day of the semester, Helen saddled our party with an inversion of the usual mentorship scheme, where we had to whip an underperforming senior party into shape, which was...

...I mean, I had to convince three twenty one year old women that they did, in fact, have to care enough about adventuring in order to graduate, and THEN I had to refit their airship into the deadliest ship in the skies for a pirate-hunting expedition that was sufficiently dangerous as to warrant a ten million dollar contract from the Joint Admiralty of the Republic and Imperium that was formed specifically to deal with the emergence of a fleet of unusually well-organized pirates.

I was quite busy, is what I'm trying to say here.

However, after spending a week and a half learning an absolutely tedious amount about boats, followed by twelve hours of drawn-out large-scale violence, I fully discharged my duty to The Harpies, and now, at long last, three months after the last time I saw you, I have time to write a letter to let you know how I'm doing.

And, uh. Well. I've been better.

I did realize I was transgender, though; apparently Talia was right, and I'd known it since I was fifteen, which was also when I started abusing autohypnosis to repress it because I was terrified of human misogyny. These days, however, I'm a charismatic murderer who has literally ripped a man's throat out with my teeth, so that kind of worry is no longer terribly persuasive to me, and being a woman is a lot more fun, especially with the typical High Elven disregard for gender norms. Pretty much the only change I've made to my wardrobe was just re-tailoring my clothes to accommodate breasts and larger hips. I'm butch as all hell and we're all loving it.

Volex is also doing well. She's taken on a sort of matronly role with the group, and has been getting her daily recommended dose of hugs and cuddle-time from everyone. As far as I can tell, she's genuinely happy to be here, and her good mood is pretty infectious. I've been working on a new reliquary for her, which should hopefully give her more personal freedom and independence; she's more than earned my trust by now, and I'm also having fun with it, now that I finally know how to conjure those giant crystals like Mom does. I'll be giving her this new reliquary as a New Year's gift, so you'll get to see it then- it's already looking phenomenal, and I think she's going to love it.

Talia's studying alchemy, and has been having fun with that. Mount Fate doesn't really offer a Druidcraft program, on account it's not the sort of thing you can really teach, but she feels that making potions will be a good supplement to her spellcasting.

Faith is now a priest of The Mother, because Hano told her to kill me and she told him where to shove it. She seems a lot happier now that she worships a god that doesn't think gay people should kill themselves.

Emily is still learning the basics of Wizardry, but I think she's got a lot of potential, and she might spark a new movement of Healers cross-training in the Arcane for its utility in precise surgical operations.

We'll be back in Redwater the day after the semester ends; The Harpies still owe me a few favors, and a ride back home on their airship has already been negotiated. I'm ready for the semester to end, and I can't wait to get back home.

Your very swamped daughter,

Catherine Ironheart.

I sighed happily as I finished typing out the letter, pulling it out of the typewriter to reread it, and make sure I hadn't made any spelling mistakes. Once I was satisfied, I set it back down on the desk, and leaned back in my chair, letting my eyes close.

When I opened them again, I was in the lightless void of The Father's domain, where he stood patiently, wearing Napoleon's face like always.

"Father?" I asked, tilting my head to the side. "Is there... I didn't die, did I?"

"No," The Father said, shaking his head. "But... There was someone who wanted to speak with you, and I decided to indulge them."

"Oh?"

"Hello, Sir Ironheart," Mario Bowser said, stepping forward out of shadow. "I have been... thinking, this past little while. Hardly much else to do when I'm dead."

"Thinking about what?" I asked, a bit nervous about my deity making me talk to someone I'd killed- or at least, whose death I'd ordered, when Faith blew up the Respiro's conning tower.

"What you asked me," Mario said. "'What do you want me to tell your family?' At first I thought it was simply a self-important threat from a child, but... Well. Then you actually killed me, and I found myself wondering, what would I want you to tell my family? And... I think I have my answer."

"Yeah?"

"If you ever meet my wife or my son... Tell them that I realized I was wrong," Mario said. "Tell them that I understand, now, that my Grigian bravado had led me astray, and that... That I should've welcomed a more peaceful future for my son."

"Your son is dead," I said. "Assuming you mean Silas, or Mario Junior- whichever name you called him. I didn't know him very long, honestly."

"...Tell his mother that I'm sorry for my foolishness getting her son killed," Mario said blandly.

"Do you have any idea where she is?" I asked.

"I don't," Mario said. "But, Sir Ironheart, I promise you this: if Rebecca Ironheart is still among the living, then she will most certainly know where you are."

I blinked, and found myself back in my bedroom, sitting at my folding desk, with a letter to my parents sitting in front of me.

I considered, briefly, amending it to include the bombshell of "Aunt Rebecca might still be alive, and also I killed her son, we should maybe look into that."

Then I decided that some news should be delivered in-person, and began folding up the letter to put it in an envelope. I'd see my parents in person in a month, anyhow.

"It'll all be fine," I lied.