(10) The work of an imager trainee -Working the body and as well as the mind

Horizons of the Heart

By Melange
Copyright© 2013-2014 Melange
All Rights Reserved.

Synopsis

Concluding the six chapter Etrana arc, Jaden finally returns to the palace to deliver the shocking news about who was working the strings behind the plot against the eternal throne of the grand herself. Only by trusting in her friends, and calling upon a favour of an unlikely ally can she hope to finally put an end to the rising threat before it consumes them all.

Flashback: Before he was the living legend he is today, he was just a humble man who braved the roads armed with little but his own magnificence.

Part (6)

The island of imagers - Even a new family is still made up of individuals

Capt. Steinert and her crew continue their first mission, but what does the future hold for the crew of the Sand Dollar as they make their way home to Pearl Harbor?

“I come to play,” he said, holding up the cards and fanning the deck to show the faces. “Do you care for Six-Card Pitch?”

Their faces were suddenly avid. “Nay, Six-Card Pitch is a game for fools. Let’s play a round of Tentstakes,” said the dark-skinned tall woman.

“And the stakes shall be...” the most buxom of the shorter women said, frowning as if she were trying to remember something.

“Ourselves!” another cried.

Horizons of the Heart

By Melange
Copyright© 2013-2014 Melange
All Rights Reserved.

Synopsis

After a arriving to the golden city of Tier, Jaden and her friends make a point of looking up the man who is most likely able to tell them a thing or two about the various smuggling operations working the midland area. Meanwhile, dark forces move according to their hidden design.

Flashback: Being the smallest and most agile of the group, Oleander is sometimes sent into unknown situations. This time she brought a friend along.

“I’m not a woman,” he said in a low voice. “I’m a man, but a wicked alchemist did this to me. Can you tell me anything about the sorcerer who did this to you?”

A haunted look came into the eyes of the women for a moment, but quickly passed. “We have ever been thus,” one of them said.

“I know what it’s like to be a slave, and I don’t want you to be slaves. But I’ve run the numbers; I can’t afford to free all of you at once...”

For himself, he didn’t mind losing a huge sum; but he knew that if he looked like he was running the organization into the ground, his lieutenants would challenge him, and sooner or later he’d lose a challenge.

In his years in Madam Esgara’s house he’d seen too many men who thought themselves tough and smart make fools of themselves over women and boys. He wasn’t sure if he would have become like that if he’d gotten his male parts back, but he suspected it was likely. It was probably best this way, having the appearance of masculinity without the vulnerability to women or the urgent need for them.

Pengram ushered in a young woman, or effeminate young man, about fourteen or fifteen years old. She wore a man’s overcoat, threadbare and dirty, that concealed her figure, but the face and hands were feminine enough; her lips, cheeks and eyes were heavily made up in a way no respectable woman would decorate herself, but her hair seemed to have been recently and incompetently cut short.