The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 41

Part 8

“We know you’ll be ready for bed soon, so we’ll present your gifts now.” Nemia said as she cleared the low table. “Your gifts are each of a set, and we all contributed equally to making them. Each of us spent six hours working on them, each to our own skills, whether that was crafting, spell casting, or polishing.

“Go ahead Dear.”

Yazadril cast a Summoning that brought the gifts from the home of Sana and Markhan the senior, where the last of the work had been done.

Two baby-sized armor stands appeared with full suits of gleaming steel plate-over-chain-mail armor, each complete from boots to helmet, and each equipped with a sword and scabbard, a round shield, a light lance, a bow and a quiver of arrows, and a pouch of the heavy little darts that were designed to be propelled by Movement. Each item had a few small but tasteful gold accents.

“Oh wow!” Helemia squealed and clapped her hands, just as Reggie said; “Oh excellent, thank you!”

“The swords are a compromise design, since we don’t know yet what style you’ll eventually prefer.” Markhan the senior explained. “They’re light enough to be used with one hand, but have enough handle for two. Same with the shields, they don’t have the coverage of a full line-infantry shield, but they’ll cover well and they’re still handy enough to use for striking.

“They’re beautiful, all of it!” Helemia marveled as she and Reggie bounced from their parent’s laps and drew their tiny swords.

“And as you might expect, they’re all rather heavily spelled.” Yazadril added with a grin. “Perhaps most importantly, they’ll grow with your size and strength. The armor will always fit you, the weapons will grow to match your body and hand size, and the bows will increase in pull to match your growing strength.”

“Of course the armor has added magical protection, and the weapons have added offensive capabilities, but it’ll take you a few days to become familiar with all the spells involved.” Alilia smiled. “There’s rather a lot of them. When my turn came, they already had so many enhancements that I couldn’t think of many to add, so I spent most of the time adding charge and power to the spells.”

“You’ve been hinting for a while that you’ll want to start combat training soon,” Mark added, “So we were pretty sure you’d like these.”

“Do we ever!” Reggie marveled as he tried the pull of his bow.

“Thank you all so much!” Helemia added as she tried the weight of her lance in her hand.

“Okay, hugs for everybody, then I’m gonna put on the whole thing!” Reggie declared as he replaced the bow in it’s carry-case.

The twins each gave everyone a hug and their thanks, then Mark and Alilia helped them into their armor.

As they posed in front of a full-length mirror, Talia had to laugh. “It’s amazing that you look so very dangerous and so adorably cute at the same time!”

“Well as you showed in The Turning of Zarkog’s Commanders,” Helemia giggled, “Being very cute can be an effective offensive quality!”

“It sure can!” Povon laughed, remembering. “I wish I’d thought of this get-up then, it would have been even easier!”

“You sure do look cute like that, all fuzzy and everything.” Mark chuckled.

“Especially Equemev, you look absolutely adorable like that!” Helemia grinned as she took off her helmet.

“Thank you Helemia, but I think Silaran looks cutest of all!” Equemev teased as she nuzzled Silaran’s pink mane.

“So you think Equemev is cuter than me?” Karzog teased as he landed beside Helemia and gave her a playful shoulder-bump, almost knocking her off balance.