A set of eight Stone Henge-esque monoliths, set up in a runic pattern that holds a slight healing aura. Animals sometimes come here to sit and refresh theirselves, as a cool creek flows through the middle of it. Radivishe Moorn built this place for a purpose that only he knows.

---

Istan Aiga

---

Radivishe Moorn appears, signature cloaked, a few feet from the stones. He steps warily inside, triple-checking to make certain that he wasn't follow. The healing aura of the place floods over him, but he hardly even notices it.

Sitting upon a fallen stone is Mara-kuru.

"Mara."

"Radivishe."

The Serinian stands slowly, watching him closely as he enters the circle.

"Were you followed?" she inquires of him, ears perking a bit.

"Of course not. I thought that Ting might, but apparently booze is her strong suit as well as yours." The sorcerer's arms lower to his sides. "You nearly gave yourself away, Mara. You must learn to lie better."

Mara-Kuru shakes her head. "I don't want to lie better. I'm not good at it, I never have been." Despite her best efforts, a smile crosses her little lips, and she all but leaps against him. Her arms snag about the sorcerer's waist as his wrap around her shoulders, one hand gently stroking the thick curls of her hair. "I want to tell them. I know Felina will have a hissy fit, but... I'm tired of having to run off every time I want to hug you."

"Fifteen hundred years is a long time to wait, only to have to flee and conceal ourselves, Mara. I agree." Radivishe Moorn tightens his hold upon her, eyes as hard as ever, but his bearing softer. "Soon. This business with Orrin has everyone worked into a frenzy. Soon, I promise."

The two talk quietly together for a while longer, neither really paying much attention to the words.

"Hee...hey, Aunt, do you have any more of the green..." Ting blinks when she appears. She's like Mara, she never knocks. Blinks again. "Aw, how cute!"

Mara catches sight of Ting first, and of course, hears her first too. Her eyes widen. Ting, leave. Quickly! Before he realizes you are here!

The sorcerer turns towards Ting's energy signature, lips drawn tightly together. Almost instantly a static field rises up to envelope the area, one of Moorn's security measures that prevents teleportation and the like from functioning properly. He moves Mara out of his arms.

Ting blinks. Ears press back, and she takes a defensive step back, but mostly she's just confused. "Um...?"

"Please don't do anything hasty, Radivishe," Mara pleads quietly, ears drooping, "Ting won't tell. I promise."

The sorcerer fights the urge to snap successfully, and nods. "You have my word, Mara. I would not jeopardize what we have waited so long to reclaim."

Mara beams, and proceeds to do her typical swaying dance.

Radivishe Moorn heads towards Ting's energy signature, none too quickly, but none too slowly. He wants to make certain that the notion of this being off limits is clear.

"Let's chat, you and I," he calls to the hybrid. "What you have seen must not be repeated. To anyone. Ever."

Ting blinks. She's still...her senses are definitely saying 'danger.' "Why not?" she ventures. "I think it's cute." Or, she did before this got scary. Really, it isn't like Mara to even let someone put her so on-edge.

Mara might be dancing, but she's certainly watching. She knows him well enough to know that he might conceivably harm Ting to keep this quiet, but is quite ready to lay knuckles upside his head should this occur.

"Your mother would not approve," the sorcerer quietly answers. "I am the one who gave her that scar, running upon her body. I am the one who was responsible for the death her lover, who once inhabited your Makyon's body. I have threatened her family and attacked her friends. Nevermind the fact that she killed me." He looks back at Mara, who smiles her pretty smile. She approves so far. "All of this occurred ages ago, but... suffice to say that I have some anxiety concerning the matter."

Ting's more than a little stunned by the string of admissions. Enemies she can fight, and be fearless, but...this is just...complicted. "It's Aunt's business," she notes finally, quietly. "I'll be quiet."

The field relaxes, and dissipates completely. 

"... thank you." He looks again to Mara, who has trotted over to join them by now.

"Ting, things were different at the end. He had changed, he had, was just starting to realize the legacy he'd left for his daughter, and how everything he had ever touched was ruined. But by then he and Felina were in it too deep, and there was no way it would have ended without..." she looks down. "What happened. I just don't want her to be upset. Are..." she looks at Ting again. "Are you okay with this?"

The half-dumen's ears are still back. She's quiet a few moments. "I'm keeping my aunt's secrets from my mother and my brother and realizing that the guy my twin is apprenticing with is scary, all while I get to pretend that everything is right and I'm just my cheerful self on what really should be a happy day." Ting bares her fangs a bit. Not really at them, so much as at the world. "I'm going to go play in your liquor cabinet some more." And then she just vanishes without further pomp. She doesn't know what to do.

Mara's ears couldn't droop lower even if she wanted them to. She slinks back to the stone and sits, head in her hands.

"Yeah, maybe the truth is a bad idea," she sighs. "They say that every girl wants someone like her father to be her male interest. My father was a maniac, so I guess I chose well."

Moorn chuckles a less-mocking-than-usual chuckle, lays his now-clawed hands upon her shoulders. "Things change. Felina would never believe me to be capable of anything like us, Mara. Even knowing how my daughter feels about me, she refuses to believe it. At least now only a few members of that family will be surprised."

"Yeah..."

"Go see to Ting. I know you Serinians and your pitiable alcohol tolerance."

Mara grins at that. "Okay. Meet me here later?"

The sorcerer nods. "You have my word."

Mara vanishes, headed of course for Mara-Kuru's Estate.

Radivishe Moorn shakes his head. "Give me overseers over confused young girls." And he vanishes as well, heading back to Istan Aiga without any kind of pretext.

---

Some time later, Ai has finally tracked down her father. The sorcerer has built a field around the stacked stones, and is apparently venting. The blast of elemental lightning he is hurling at the field could topple buildings if he were so inclined, but Ai knows that her father considers elemental sorcery the most basic of arts.

"Father...? Are you alright?"

"What is it, Ai?" Another blast, another earth-rocking tremor. The goddess steps next to her father, holds her breath a moment.

"I wanted to talk to you about Dewei."

"Yes, I know, I have been lax in training him. I will get back on it-"

"No, father," Ai shakes her head. "No, I wanted to ask your permission to... hm. Father, what would you say if, hypothetically, I was in love with him?"

"Hypothetically, a sensory-deprived mosquito could see that, Ai."

She blushes. True enough. "Then... what if I asked your consent to ask for his hand?"

"What do you need my consent to take his hand?" The sorcerer stops throwing bolts quite suddenly. Figuratively... oh. He considers her question for about two seconds, black eyes streaming like the boil of thunderclouds. "No."

Ai's lips part, as they do whenever she is thunderstruck. "No? But... why? I thought you liked Dewei, Father?" She cannot believe that he would negate her so quickly. He rarely ever tells her no about anything.

"For your own good, child. You know his family's history with me."

"What does that have to do with us?" Ai steps in front of him, her expression boring a hole into him. Her voice rises with every word.

"Everything," the sorcerer calmly answers. "What would happen if Felina and I were at odds again? Dewei would be my enemy just as quickly. You know that this 'friendship' exists on a taut, tensile line."

"Well, yes, but..."

"I will not have it. You may do whatever you like with him except that."

"Father!" Ai stamps her foot, just like a teenager. "Please reconsider, please! I love him, I am-"

"Blinded to the long term. I was blinded like that once, with your mother, and just as quickly she and her entire divine family turned against me. For the last time, no."

Tears well in her eyes, but Ai fights them off. "Selfish asshole! You can't think of anyone but yourself, just because you fight with Felina! I can't have Dewei? I don't fight with them! I won't!"

Radivishe Moorn ignores her, and throws another bolt. Then, "I only want to protect you, sweet child..."

"I don't need your protection. I don't need your permission, either." And just like that, she fades away, headed... anywhere else.

Moorn goes back to his venting, with all the more vigor.