Page 60 of Forging Bonds: Part Two

I am also aware that this is a Choosing trial and we’re being watched, I don’t want to get all mushy, and we are trying to keep the more romantic side of our relationship under wraps, which means I can’t kiss him stupid.

“We know,” River grins. “Right, let’s see what this thing is.”

“Wait,” I say as River moves out onto the trunk, balancing where I was moments ago.

“Yeah?” River asks, his eyebrow raised curiously.

I swallow slightly nervously, “Erm, I know this is a ridiculous question, but how the fuck do I get back down?”

“The same way that you got up,” he replies. “I have every faith that you can make it down the same way, you can absolutely do it, but if you need help, I can carry you.” His smile becomes full of mischief as his eyes sparkle, “Hell, any excuse to have your legs wrapped around me.”

I burst out laughing, and his eyes light up with an entirely different emotion, so much for keeping the romantic side of our relationship quiet. To be fair, people probably won’t think much of it.

I want to reply with something that is definitely not appropriate to be overheard by anyone but River, and possibly the other guys. Thankfully, my brain to mouth filter seems to sort of work.

“You have no idea how difficult it is for me not to say what’s on my mind right now,” I say, which is only marginally better than just saying it.

Actually no scratch that, what I was thinking would make a pornstar blush. So maybe that was better, yay, go me.

River opens his mouth before thinking better of it and shaking his head instead.

“Is everything okay up there?” Doc calls up, a knowing lilt in his voice.

“Yep, all good.” River calls back down. He levels me with a look and gets us back on track, “I would be willing to bet that this has something to do with Choosing, but we need to get it down to the others so they can have a look and see what they think.”

“Good idea,” I agree. “Raiden will probably know what it is, or at least what it’s made of.”

“Exactly,” River replies, he begins to reach into the hole to grab the gemstone ball.

“Hang on, don’t you think you should check if it’s got any spells on it that are guarding it. You know ones that trigger when the thing is moved and then the whole tree blows up, or you grow an extra head,” I ask, in my rambling kind of way that I know River can follow because his brain goes off on tangents just like mine does.

His eyebrows rise, “Great description. You have a point.” He glances down, “Ransom can you . . .”

Before he can finish his sentence, Ransom throws something up to him. I have to admit that I’m impressed that Ransom manages to throw it, and it doesn’t go in the completely wrong direction, and I am even more surprised that River manages to catch it without nearly falling from the tree.

It doesn’t take a lot to impress me.

“What’s that?” I ask, swinging my legs on either side of the branch that I’m sitting on.

River holds it up so that I can see the little vial better, “It’s a spell that Ransom has designed. All I have to do is open it near the hole and if the misty stuff inside turns a different color then it means there is a spell protecting it.”

“That’s really cool,” I reply.

River nods, “Yeah it is. Ransom’s a genius when it comes to spells. This one is even cooler because it changes color depending on what kind of spell is guarding the object, or space, and how dangerous it is.”

“That’s really clever. For the obvious reasons, but with the color coding it means that there is less risk involved when you come to disarming it.”

River opens the little vial and holds it up to the hole, “Exactly. Ransom makes a small amount of them for SID, it’s not easily replicated, which means that he’s the only one able to do it. He makes as many as he can without depleting his magic.”

I smile, and open my mouth to reply, but immediately get distracted by the changing colors. It seems to cycle through a couple different ones before it settles on green.

“What does that mean?” I ask, far more excited than I probably should be considering it could mean that we’re about to blow up.

I don’t know why I always go to blowing shit up, probably because I like explosions so much, even though I now have first-hand experience of exploding. What can I say I like big bangs and fire.

“Green is good,” River replies with a smile as he corks the vial again and drops it back down to Ransom, who catches it with ease and pockets it.

With no more hesitation, River reaches into the hole and pulls out the gemstone. I’m calling it a gemstone because that’s the closest thing I know of that matches its description. It could be anything, but until I know differently, I’m going to go with a gemstone. A super fucking pretty one.

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