?Finally!? I couldn't help yelping with a whoop of joy as my opponent's legs buckled, and a notification chimed in my head.

  ─◇────────────────────────────────────────

  Tail of Poison Empress

  General Weave

  12 glyphs - ?

  ?

  Death awaits everyone, but for some, it comes earlier in the form of a blazing orange cloud,

  may your prey find solace in knowing that the sweet scent is something in which to be proud.

  ??

  Being a poison empress doesn't mean working with papers and quill,

  if anything, it is about being able to bend your poison to your will.

  ─◇────────────────────────────────────────

  'Yep, nothing new.' Though I held my breath, half-hoping for some new ability, what I saw didn’t disappoint, though - it was proof. Proof of what I had trained, of what I had learned. And yet, a doubt gnawed at me. What if it was just the beast doing all the work? Truth be told, I had no way of knowing.

  With that last burst of poison, I tried like hell to keep the beast out of it - to make sure I was the one in charge. Hard to tell where I ended and the beast began, but it was my hand on the reins this time. I controlled the poison. Granted, though, I didn't quite know what I was doing and was just copying the beast’s moves, clumsy as a child tracing letters for the first time.

  But apparently, I copied it right.

  "What’s got you so happy?" my human asked as I emerged from the healing moss, good as new, still wagging my tail. "I mean, you did great. I’ll give you that. You won, but... that's not it, is it?"

  "No," I admitted, glancing at my paws, already wondering if I could control the poison in my human form, too. I should... but trying it was the only way to know for sure. Annoying, that. "No. I… I got another circle with one of my weaves."

  "You serious?" His brows shot up. Didn’t think I could surprise him anymore.

  "Y-Yeah?"

  "Then congrats, girl."

  "It's just the second circle, though." A big deal for me, sure, but for him? It couldn't have been worth a second thought, could it?

  "Don't look down on it. In my eyes, every circle is worthy of celebration."

  "Really?"

  "Really. You know I was looking for an apprentice, don't you?"

  "Would you believe me if I said no?" I didn't. Signing up for his lesson was the first I'd heard of him.

  He laughed, a sharp bark of sound. "Something tells me I should. But tell me, do you know why I'm looking for one?"

  "To pass on what you’ve learned," I tried the obvious, though I had a hunch that wasn’t it.

  "Sure. If you want a pretty answer. Truth is, I’ve hit a wall, girl—a bottleneck in most of my weaves."

  "O-Oh, shit… I see - and those bottlenecks are?" I blurted, thrown. Not what I was expecting to hear - not from my mentor. He was supposed to be the one to teach me just that, how to break through with my weaves and stuff?

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  "Weave circles," he said flatly. “And not as uncommon a problem as you think. Actually, one of the main reasons is that someone with my number of sigils is rare to see. When your weaves hit a wall, your whole array stops growing."

  "The two are connected? I mean, I just got a few sigils and I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with my weaves."

  "You’re half-right and half-wrong. I won't go into the slave stuff, but take the baker, for example. To earn more sigils, he can’t just bake the same bread day in and day out. He needs to make something better. That takes finer ingredients - and to handle those, he needs weaves with more circles. It’s the same for every array. I can’t push mine further without the right weaves to back it up."

  "Couldn't someone else help him with the ingredients? You know, prep them and all that."

  "Good thinking - sure, they could. It wouldn’t impact your array quite the same, but that’s what most folk settle for."

  This world wasn’t mine - I had barely scratched the surface of it. Still, what he was saying sounded logical to me. It seemed impossible to have one person master everything. Surely the said baker could not be expected to be able to make a rolling pin or grind his own flour. That was why folks had their trades, their specializations - different arrays for different work, right?

  Granted, though, this was coming from a chick who came from a place where folks seemed to enjoy making life as convoluted as possible.

  "But for someone with my number of sigils and glyphs, it's a lot harder to find someone with the right kick - even fighting that adult mossbear didn't do anything for me. And that's where you come in, girl?"

  "Wait, what?! You want me to be your flour girl? Yeah, no. I’m more of a flower gal, you know."

  His eyebrows went up. "With all that body language of yours, I still wonder what’s rattling around in your head. But hey, in my experience, being a little crazy is a good thing."

  ?I am NOT crazy!? The bark left my tongue a little sharper than I wanted it to, but it couldn’t be helped. I wasn't crazy - albeit; I was sure some of the doctors back on Earth would argue otherwise.

  "Don't get your tail in a twist, girl. It’s all about perspective. To the common man, any seeker venturing into Fallen's Cry has lost their wits. In the eyes of seekers, I'm the crazy one for doing it solo."

  'Wonderful.' So my human - my mentor, no less - was crazier than the rest.

  'Did he hope to find someone as cracked as he was? Did he think that was me? Fuck, no!'

  "I still don't see where I fit in."

  "Oh, you fit perfectly," he said with a grin that made my heart race, yet I couldn’t help but take a step back. Confusing? Yeah. "Since it is almost impossible for me to find someone like Esu to give me a hand, I was told by a man whose advice has helped me more than once to find someone to teach, to help me think about my weaves in a new way - how to pass them down."

  "So, you ARE looking for your successor, disciple."

  "When I said no, I meant it. I WAS looking for someone to shake up my thinking, to make me step outside of what I know."

  "Oh..." I struggled, not sure if I should be flattered or offended. Basically, who he was looking for was someone really, really weird. Well, what could I say? He found the biggest freak far and wide. "...to think outside the box?"

  "Weird way to put it, but - yeah. Actually pretty good advice, girl," said my human, obviously hinting that I should follow it too. "Helped me with some of my bottlenecks - before I hit the ones I’m stuck on now."

  Listening to everything he had to say, to his advice, the old human with the books, Sandoval, came to my mind. "Well, I've already been told to keep an open mind - besides, I'm one of the Lost."

  He raised his eyebrows again, a bit impressed this time. "Keep that attitude, girl. Seriously. Better to take what’s thrown at you than lament over it. Speaking of - how do you plan to deal with that mossbear? Your poison’s losing its bite."

  Glancing at my opponent still munchkin on fluffy moss, I couldn't help but agree with my human. There was no way I could pull off what I had barely managed in the last round again. In fact, I was almost sure the young mossbear would find a better way to filter out my poison this time.

  "It's huge, but I was thinking of slamming it in with my poison."

  "That's... not what I expected to hear..."

  "It worked on that thought fuddler, the Cognizant. Back when I ran away, I sent her flying."

  “Well now, I sure as hell wanna hear all about that. But that can wait ‘til we're back in Castiana," he said, eyes drifting to the starry sky. "The night’s still young, and I can't wait to see what else you've got in store for me, girl."