"Good, yes, hold that shape! Remember, some of the mist will drift away over time, you have to continually replenish your mistform. It'll be easier in time, for now you'll have to concentrate."

  Cerulean and Amethyst pushed and prodded at me with their stubby little arms, gathering and sculpting my green energy into a ghostly body simir to theirs. It felt like watching children building snowmen in the street, the way they would compress my mist together until it took on the appearance of a head, arms, even tiny legs. I didn't really understand the need for the legs, being that the mistforms floated in the air, but I didn't question their methods as I watched their work from the confines of my sphere. We'd spent hours practicing exercises focused around mist control to get to this point, as even though I had plenty of transformative practice with my 'flux-metal' as the professor had called it, crafting something out of swirling mist required constant attention. After a few attempts, I managed to keep the body they molded for me from immediately disintegrating.

  "That should do it, it's a lot more stable this time," Cerulean said, nodding. "You'll find that it doesn't take a lot of mist to reach steady-state, but it does require you to emit more energy than when idle. Like I was saying earlier, the mist is central to every ability we Silvaln Spheres possess, it's an extension of ourselves and we can burn through a lot of it at once. Don't worry about running out, we're constantly regenerating it, though you might have to wait a little while if you use it all up at once before you can do much else."

  Amethyst tapped at my metal cage to get my attention. "Try to move your senses outward, into the mistform. It's going to feel strange at first, you'll feel your consciousness move out of the relic and into the mist—it'll almost feel like you're disconnected from the relic. Try not to panic when you feel it for the first time. If anything happens to the mist body, your mind just returns to the sphere, you can't be harmed by this. Ready?"

  Right. I just need to focus.

  I'd always 'felt' the mist, able to sense a wider environment around me, but this concentrated mistform body represented a step into a new chapter of my life—one where I could be recognized as more than a pretty accessory. This was what I'd dreamed of, my excitement welled within! And yet, I froze... why?! What was there to be afraid of? That newfound agency would come with consequences along with freedom, like some sword of double-edged sword? I'd already spent plenty of time as an actual double-edged sword! I was ready to finally be heard. I focused my mind toward the cluster of green mist before me and pushed toward it.

  After a moment, my mind seemed to slide away from my metallic cage, tumbling out into the ether before nestling into the mistform. I gnced around, feeling my head turn as I looked toward the two other relics, finding the movement effortless in a way I'd not expected. I wiggled my little arms, pushing against Amethyst's purple mist in wonder, and they chuckled in response. I could sense the whole of my surroundings still, but my 'eyes' focused my attention in a way that I'd not experienced within the relic. I looked at the sphere I'd been caged within for so long, seeing my reflection in its polished exterior. It no longer caged me.

  "You're doing so well," Amethyst said in a reassuring tone. "How does it feel?"

  I drifted for a moment, unsure at first how to respond, but inside this shape, crafted to resemble a living thing, the movement of this complex shape somehow came so easily to me, it felt...

  "...Natural," I said, to my own surprise.

  Cerulean bumped into Amethyst in a gesture that resembled a hug, but it was hard to tell with how the mists swarmed together. "Aha! It's just as I'd hypothesized! The avatars must be a natural mode of the Silvaln Sphere for speech to be unlocked so quickly! Remember when we first learned? All the months humming and buzzing we did with our mist before developing the mistforms? That was wonderful to see, truly wonderful."

  "Of course I remember," Amethyst said, before turning to me. "You'll have to forgive Cerulean, you're the first 'new' sphere we've met. They have as many theories about sphere relics as there are stars in the sky. Before they suggest another one to test out, what would you like to be called?"

  I didn't answer for a moment—I'd forgotten for a moment that now I had to actually participate in conversation. "Oh, uh, Janine calls me Viridian."

  "Viridian! That's an excellent name, Janine chose well for you," Cerulean said. "As stated by the professor, I'm Cerulean, I'm what you might call a wizard-augment sphere, and Amethyst here is a druid-augment. I take it since you were able to craft a sword from your exterior, you're something like a knight-augment? Yes? Viridian?"

  The thought of gaining the power to converse with Janine filled me with such a newfound excitement that Cerulean's words didn't even register with me. I sped toward the corner of the dispy case to get a better look at the Berin Mountains and the path home, but before I could reach the gss, my mistform shredded into nothing.

  For a moment, I thought I'd died. Instead, I found myself back in the familiar confines of my sphere.

  "Ah, yes, about that." Cerulean pulled at my core's mist again, extruding a new shape for me to inhabit. "We are still tethered to our spheres, even if it doesn't feel like it at times. But the mist is like a muscle, you can train it to become stronger, or to extend further from your core, or to coalesce into fabrics, whole outfits even. Amethyst and I can use the mist as a conduit for our magics, mind you we're not very powerful on our own, but even a little wizardry—or druid magic in Amethyst's case—can go a long way. Of course, there's more to our powers than all that, as augments we—"

  "Tell us about Janine?" Amethyst had been quiet as Cerulean rambled on, but they tapped their stubby arms together, their voice ced with longing as they cut through the academic lecture. "I'd love to know more."

  Once I'd reentered a mist-made avatar, I pointed toward the mountain range outside the window. "Quinn's Peak is just a few days of riding from here. Janine is my champion, we live in a magic shop up there. I'd been with her for years now, she's the reason I found the ability to become a sword at all." I told the other two relics everything about the town, the Denholms, the Py'riel attacks and how Janine and I saved the Quinn's Peak together after I became a sword that could slice through the monsters in a way none of the other Passguard bdes could achieve.

  Cerulean nodded along with my story. "Your shapeshifting has certainly piqued the professor's interest. Mine as well, if I'm honest. We're aware of perhaps nine Silvaln Spheres including you, and none of the others ever reported anything quite like flux-metal."

  "What's so special about that?" I asked. "Wizards have transfiguration spells, don't they? Can't other relics change shape too?"

  "All of that is true, but when coupled with other abilities of an augment relic like us, it grants you an extra dimension of potential. I imagine even Crimson would be jealous."

  Of all the questions I could be asking in that moment, I could have asked more about the spheres, our powers, our history... and yet... "When you say Crimson, do you mean the Crimson Archer? That Crimson?!"

  Amethyst ughed. "I wouldn't say we know them, but we've at least met them. They came to Berindal academy for about a week, not long after we first arrived. They're the one who gave us the idea about the mistform bodies and mentioned others like us. We never had the opportunity for a long chat before Promell ushered them away, they haven't been back since. But from what they told us, Crimson and Indigo are in Kingsne, there's a few out in Runecastle Harbor, I think one is somewhere in the Hush. And of course, we're here, we're always... right here."

  "I do have a theory where we might find more," Cerulean said.

  Amethyst rolled their eyes—at least, I assumed that was the gesture they intended. "I think it's best if we save the theories for tomorrow, if it's all the same. Surely there's more than that we can discuss with our new friend."

  "Of course, of course. Hmm, something else to discuss. Something else that isn't a theory on Silvaln Spheres. Well... Viridian, would you like to see my button collection? It's grown a lot over the past year."

  "How about Viridian tells us more about those mountains, instead?" Amethyst said, turning their ghostly head to me. "Ever seen any strange-looking mushrooms up there?"

  We talked through the night about the nds we'd seen, from my time in the Berin Mountains, to Amethyst's journeys in the wilds of the Enigma Gardens, to Cerulean's search for lost historical archives in Reverie City, finding no shortage of conversation and stories to share between us. I guess the professor was right—once we start talking, we never shut up.