[ Veilon. ]
On a bench by a crystal clear pond sat two: a girl with long, silvery-golden hair and a boy of large build for his age. Despite being peers, the boy looked a couple years older.
"Apolline, why does Arthur hide his gender?" — throwing a pebble into the water surface, the boy asked.
"So you know? And for how long?" — the girl was surprised.
"Found out from the beginning, by smell. You think a werewolf can't tell a boy from a girl?"
— "So why didn't you ask him? He still thinks you don't know anything."
"If he's hiding it, then it's necessary. And you know..." — the girl sat closer, out of curiosity.
"Watching his face when he's called a girl is quite amusing. Like he ate a lemon."
"Aha-ha-ha, you haven't seen how he looks when invited to the communal bath! Like a cat whose sour cream was taken away," — melodious girl's laughter and rougher boy's laughter rang by the lake for a long time.
***
[ April 17, 1966. ]
Almost a year later, I sat in early spring on that very clearing in the forest where I scattered my organs during transgression training, and still meditated using yogic practices. This is slow, tedious work, and I even thought of stopping yoga classes due to too little effect for such a long time, until one episode in my life happened that changed absolutely everything. Of course, I didn't know that then.
"Hi, gray," — I said to a little rabbit that ran up to me, limping on his right paw. "Hurt yourself again?"
As I said, I love animals. They're more honest than many people — help them once, and they'll never forget. For example, I once pulled this cross-eyed one out of bindweed he got tangled in, and since then he often comes to me and nuzzles.
Of course, my prematurely awakened veela aura influenced this, which was actually empathy turned inside out, broadcasting not lust but love and sympathy for the veela. Others add lust to this feeling themselves. If it were otherwise, because of this aura people would walk around with wet pants for obvious reasons and try to gang rape veelas, but this doesn't happen.
So, love magic practices apparently entered synergy with my innate abilities. True, no one in Veilon noticed this. The aura strength and other veelas' resistance are so great that for them my powers are like a breeze against a hurricane.
No, Ariel and Apolline understood this immediately, feeling the changed sensation from me, that's exactly why I sat at home for two months until I took this ability under full control.
Fortunately, fears weren't justified and I attract exactly girls. Tried once, spending a nice night in the embrace of a beauty who wasn't against it anyway, but under charms went almost mad.
Had to erase her memory, or she would have gone crazy over me. Good thing obliviate with mind magic addition allows doing this without consequences. Tested on drug dealers — I don't pity them.
So, this aura can be used not only for sex. With training, you can evoke different feelings — anger, fear, apathy, joy, sorrow, even lust, though I don't recommend it. Last time I did this, all animals within three hundred meters had an orgy. Moreover, their partners' species and gender didn't worry them at all, brr. Had to transgress away from sin.
So when I'm in the forest, I broadcast such joyful peace. Pleasant for me too, and little animals don't go crazy and don't try to attack. Moreover, while I healed the rabbit's paw by infusing a small amount of prana suitable for him, a wolf lay next to me, exposing his neck and not paying attention to the tasty rabbit nearby. And on the other side a fawn chewed grass. I feel like a druid.
Finishing treatment, I was about to fall into trance again when I heard a voice in my head.
"Why do you meditate so strangely?" — I almost blasted fire in all directions, honestly. Because I completely didn't feel how the interlocutor approached me. And moreover, they bypassed my carefully built mental defense as if it wasn't there. And in aura sight I didn't see her, judging by the female tone.
"In what sense strangely?" — it's better not to argue with such beings. I opened my eyes and saw before me a girl about twenty in appearance, whose clothing consisted of intertwined vines, leaves and flowers, not hiding all charms. Her skin was green, and hair looked like small tree roots. Nymph, I remembered descriptions from books bought a year ago. More precisely her variety — dryad.
I haven't read everything yet, but what I know is enough. Nymphs are almost immortal semi-spiritual essences of trees or forest they're bound to. Almost, because when the tree from which a nymph was born dies, she dies too. So the girl before me could be twenty years old or twenty centuries. These magical beings aren't exactly rare, they just really don't like showing themselves to strangers.
— "Am I meditating wrong?"
"I said strangely. After all, there are no wrong meditations, there are wrong goals. You desire strength, and you get it, right?" — I nodded in agreement.
Sitting next to me, she took the drowsy rabbit in her arms.
"But yoga isn't intended for that."
"Then for what?" — I was torn by curiosity. Could Lerach's records be wrong? Or did I understand them incorrectly? After all, the artificer himself wasn't a yogi and left no explanations.
"No, no, no. You didn't think I'd just tell you like that?" — the girl laughed, making the whole forest seem to echo in response: leaves rustled, birds sang and a brook's babbling was heard. Perhaps that's how it was.
"How do you people say? You to me, I to you? I haven't communicated with other intelligent beings for a long time."
"Then why did you approach me?" — I asked in bewilderment.
"I've been watching you for a long time, you're very kind to animals, don't kill them and treat them with kindness. I haven't seen such a thing for a long time. You did throw fire at the lake several times, and caused disorder once, but let's write that off to your youth. Especially since after the last time, animal population sharply increased," — I blushed, that happened.
"Then what should I do for your help?" — I asked.
"You don't owe me anything. It's your decision whether to fulfill my request or not. Just as it's my decision whether to help you with yoga or not. My request is this: help the forest, and I'll help you. You can decide the volume and type of help yourself.
Want to — plant saplings, want to — continue treating animals or sick trees, punish bad people who come to the forest not from need but from greed. Freedom of choice is one of the greatest riches of the intelligent, it's a sin not to use it," — stretching, she released the rabbit and stood up.
"Is this a test or check?" — I asked.
"How strange you people are. You invented words but don't listen to them. I said it's a request. When you finish — call me, and I'll come," — after which she simply... disappeared.
This wasn't spatial magic, she seemed to just dissolve into the forest. Then I understood I still knew nothing about magic.
***
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