What Little Remains Of Terpsichore Ironheart

Despite the occasional bouts of doom and gloom that were an ever-constant companion in the mind of politically-conscious High Elves, being back home was, by and large, intoxicatingly joyous. I got to see my family again! I got to see neighbors I actually liked and respected! I could go down to the cafe on the corner and get a maple cake! Oh, I was loving it. I'd been planning to kick back and catch up on my reading after New Year's was over, but if my break so far was any indication, I'd be too busy getting around and talking to people and catching up on the latest happenings around town to do much reading- not that I would complain that much. Having finally known what life was like outside of Greenwood Village, I cherished my little slice of heaven on earth all the more.

Robert and Amelie were doing well, and Emily spent nearly all her daylight hours with them. Their apartment was more lived-in these days- I had not been joking about the two of them having ornamental knickknacks and tchotchkes foisted on them by all their neighbors.

Emily had come home, the evening before New Year's Eve, absolutely ecstatic, and wearing a sweater in autumnal colors with a forest across the middle, bearing a light dusting of snow. She'd given Amelie and Robert a gift of her own- one that I had helped with, but not too much. A clock, mounted in a wooden housing with a hand-carved faceplate, of Emily's own creation. I'd made the actual clock bits, and enchanted it to run indefinitely without winding, but that'd been it; the rest was all Emily.

Because the next morning was New Year's Eve, and I got to see everyone's faces as they opened their gifts from me- the final step of any craft or artifice, the reception of the piece, delayed for so long, but finally here...

"Anyone mind if I go first?" Dad asked.

"It's your house," Antiope said with a shrug.

Dad handed out boxes wrapped in patterned paper, and with each gift handed out, paper was torn and the appropriate noises of gratitude were made. Faith's box somehow contained a simple, unadorned set of High Elven full plate armor whose enchantments would resize it to fit her perfectly, while Talia received a potted orchid of some rare, exotic variety- of alchemical significance, perhaps, but also maybe just pretty. Emily got a set of traditional High Elven traveling clothes, complete with boots, and Volex got an old High Elven dress that I suspected had already belonged to her once before, if that look in her eyes was any indication. And I got...

"You said it took twenty years to make one of these," I said, staring at the regeneration talisman inside the box.

"It's not like the first one I gave you," Dad explained. "This one is much more resilient, but it also requires you to feed it vital essence to power it, rather than having its own internal power source. You're getting this now, rather than back at the start of summer, because you weren't a cleric until quite recently, and it wouldn't've done you any good at the time."

Antiope and Tim went next, handing out gifts that were equally well-received, including a beautifully hand-woven Horn of Plenty that had been shaped into a cylindrical jar, and which would produce an effectively unlimited amount of dried tea leaves. The name on the box may have been Catherine, but this gift was for everyone.

I let everyone else go before me, volunteering to go last, and in the meantime, simply drank in the love that hung in the air, occasionally playing my part by opening gifts.

Finally, though, after I'd accrued a pile of books- including a spellbook from Mom which could hold an entire library's worth of pages and magically sort through them all- and a kit for building a ship in a bottle from Faith, who thought she was hilarious, it was my turn to hand out gifts.

I'd chosen to go last, not because I wanted an uninterrupted stream of presents to open as ASAP as possible, but because I wanted the festive reckoning I was about to unleash to loom large in everyone's memory of this joyous day.

"Antiope, Tim, you get a joint gift, but also the gift is two gifts," I began, handing them a pair of boxes. "You two have been wonderful to me over the years, and I'm glad I get to spend today with you."

Paper was torn, and the first box was opened, to reveal-

"An enchanted carriage?" Antiope demanded, staring at the vehicle now sitting in the middle of the living room.

"How did you fit that inside a cardboard box," Tim asked, his voice quiet and his eyes haunted.

"Magic. Antiope, if you'd open the other one?"

"...A trade agreement with House Valentine to sell elven tea leaves at eighty percent of the current market rate of- eight thousand dollars a tin?!" Antiope's eyes nearly popped out of her head. "It's leaves! How the- what the- Catherine, did you drug these people?!"

"They were like this when I found 'em," I said, grinning. "Anyhow, that doesn't take effect until you sign it, but, uh... Well, I reckon that's gonna cover your bills for a while. Let you take a nice vacation, maybe. Anyhow! Mother dearest, Father vaguely acknowledged, you're next."

More boxes were handed out, and Mom audibly gasped.

"Now that is a beautiful crystal," she said, pulling her new Power Crystal out of the box. It was truly enormous, with the rough size and shape of a wheel of cheese, and the entire crystal had formed without flaws, leaving the sharp blue color completely unmarred. "This is... a YAG garnet, if I'm not mistaken? It'll quite literally glow in sunlight."

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"It can also hold an absurd amount of magicka," I added. "Empty at the moment, but not for long, I imagine."

"A very lovely gift," Mom said.

"My turn," Dad said, tearing open his own box to find- "Oh, nice, another long-gun."

"This is an improved version," I said. "The scope is better, the enchantments are stronger, and it also comes with a hundred bullets that contain half a ton of fuel oil that'll vaporise and ignite into a nasty dust explosion on impact."

"...Holy shit, Catherine."

"For when you absolutely, positively, need someone dead."

"Now I'm scared about what I'm getting," Uncle Frederick said, before I handed him another box. "It is..." He blinked. "...Where did you get this?"

"Professor Takeda had it," I said, as Frederick stared at an old, worn inkstone, which had, supposedly, been a gift from the old Shugenja who'd first trained him. "Beyond that... she said the story wasn't hers to tell, but yours."

"I..." Frederick trailed off, his eyes misting up. "...Thank you, Catherine. I mean that sincerely."

"Aunt Rebecca, Silas," I continued, handing out another pair of boxes.

"Oh this is adorable," Rebecca said, as she opened the box to behold a stuffed dragon. "Did you give Silas one too?"

"Let's see," I said with a shrug.

Silas opened his up, and the first thing that came out was another stuffed dragon, which he set to the side. The second thing that came out was an enchanted duster fashioned from black leather, just like my own, but fitted to Silas' frame. He slipped it on almost immediately, elevating his simple outfit of loose pants and a t-shirt massively in the process.

"Catherine," Silas said, finally. "I have chosen to forgive you for viciously murdering me."

"Truly, this is all I can ask for," I said solemnly.

"It was self-defense," Talia pointed out.

"No, it was military action," Faith said.

"Do you want to nitpick, or do you want to open gifts?" Silas asked.

"I've taken enough High Elven Culture courses to know everyone in this room is capable of doing both," Faith said, folding her arms.

"Silas does have a point, so, let's move on to the people I lived with all semester," I continued. "You might already know what you got- pretend to be excited anyways, please."

"...My own motorcycle..." Faith whispered, opening her box. "And another duster?"

"If you're gonna be a knight, you're gonna need one," I said.

"What, a duster?" Faith asked.

"No, that's just to keep the dust off your clothes while you're riding the motorcycle," I said.

"Oh fuck yes," Talia said, as she started adorning herself in brightly-glittering jewelry covered in an absolute rainbow of gems.

"Oh!" Emily squeaked, holding a painstakingly-restored first edition copy of The Arcane Surgeon. "Catherine, this is- how did you find this?" It had come inside a larger box, and been placed atop a custom-fitted sweater- one which I'd made myself with mage-knitting, and also one which she would be politely ignoring while my parents were in the room, on account it had an obvious cleavage window because I'm horny and like looking at big boobs.

"It took some doing," I admitted. "Now, I've saved the best for last. Volex, my dear friend, who has taught me so much, and stuck by my side through hell and high water... would you do the honors?"

Volex accepted the box from me, and, noticing the weight, immediately set it on the floor, unwrapping it from the top. The box was tall, but thin in the other two axes, and after the paper was torn away, all that held the box in place was a single loop of string. A single tug, and the ectoplasmic box unraveled in a sparkly lightshow, as the contents of the box grew to their full size.

"...What the hell are we looking at?" Antiope whispered.

The overall form of the thing was cylindrical, about two meters tall and one meter wide. At the top and bottom edges of the cylinder were precisely-wrought orichalcum wire, inscribing a sequence of Occult glyphs that conveyed a simple sentiment, over and over and over again. Under the wire, though, the cylinder itself was made from a perfectly clear, perfectly smooth crystal, wrapping around the core like amber around a spider.

At the center of the cylinder, sculpted by the hands of a meticulous beginner who made ample use of all available resources, including Occult skill-manifesting magic, was a statue of a woman. It was life-sized, and carved from a purple-tinted crystal so finely that not a single toolmark could be found. The woman was beautiful, seated upon a plinth, a large book held in one arm and clasped to her breast, a warm smile on her face, curved horns upon her head, and leathery wings upon her back, wrapping forward to hug her own shoulders.

The statue was of Volex, in her usual form, and styled after the funerary effigy of Terpsichore Ironheart, which sat in the corner of the room, the comparison plain to see.

Volex sniffled, blinking away tears, a weak smile wobbling on her lips.

"It's a new reliquary," I said mildly.

The glyphs capping the ends of the cylinder encoded a simple binding- three sentences, repeated as many times as they'd fit: 'I want you to be happy. I want you to be free. I love you.' An end, at long last, to Volex's days of her soul being bound within an easily-stolen reliquary, and forced to obey whomsoever might hold it. All that was left was to transfer her soul into it, which would take a few days, but... well, hell, we had time.

"Only the best for Volex," I added.

Volex clung to me like a drowning cat as she began to bawl, her wings and tail wrapping tightly around me as she sobbed her heart out. I held her close, patting her back gently, and whispering gentle, affectionate coos into her ear.

"...So, do you like it, or...?" Dad trailed off. Volex let go of me with one arm to give him a thumbs up, and then went back to trying and failing to kill me like a boa constrictor or a busty rockslide. "Alright. Well, she really likes it."

Grandma Terpsichore, I hope you're seeing this. I hope you can see how happy Volex is, now that the work is finally finished. I hope you still love her as much as you once did, because she definitely still loves you.