In the following month, still timid at the prospect of this newfound proximity, the two of them instead focused on training. Velka honed her control over magic while Keela explored the possibilities brought by the new interaction she had discovered in the outer plane between magic and space time. Pouring hours into her research, she would often forget to sleep, concentrating on what this new form of magic could do. With enough practice, she managed to play with space time at her leisure. At first sticking to portals between locations in the material plane. Then, she tried, after researching other planes, to open portals to smaller more accessible realms of existence. Some were less friendly than others since her method was so brutish. Tearing space time with ones hands was a feat of magic but also extremely unstable. She always hid her notes with extreme caution, often taking them to bed. It was a trying magic but was powerful enough to tinker with gravity and the likes. It could not possibly fall in the wrong hands. Her notes contained detailed explanations of her discoveries, with a map to different planes and the means to reach them. Close to the end of the month, she had an extensive map that was still incomplete as she kept discovering more.

Losing track of time, sometimes meals were secondary to understanding this magic. More often than not, Saphielle would come with a simple meal, just to make sure Keela stayed in good health. As soon as there was a knock on the door, she would close any portal and hide most visible papers, almost paranoid. One day, following one of those knocks, it wasn’t Saphielle who entered but Velka, sheepishly peering in from a slightly ajar door.

“You can come in you know”, said Keela, taking off her reading glasses and sitting down.

Another side effect of her prolonged time in the void was her sight losing precision. Such small problems could not be healed with magic, so she settled on glasses after her eyes were damaged by six years in absence of light; although they were only needed for reading. Luckily, she had lost her stutter though. Velka opened the door, entering with two plates of food on one arm.

“Dinner’s here. Like old times”, she said, walking in and gracefully shutting the door with her foot.

“I don’t think it would be, no. You’re a better cook than most in this place”, replied Keela, getting up and helping with the plates.

Looking at the plate surprised her. It was quite a hearty meal, warm with potatoes and meat.

“Any reason for the size of the portion?” said Keela, her eyes shifting between Velka and the plate.

“You need energy for tomorrow”, replied Velka with a smile that didn’t show how much she had changed; a warm nostalgic smile with a touch of motherly instincts like she used to wear so much at the old house.

“What’s tomorrow?” asked Keela, cocking an eyebrow, slightly puzzled.

“You’re getting crowned tomorrow. Don’t tell me you forgot?”

The realization hitting her, Keela laid back in her chair, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

“I totally forgot”, she said with a long sigh.

“How could you? This is important for your country!” replied Velka, clearly the more excited one of the two of them.

“Well, it’s only been a month.”

“You mean it’s been a whole month.”

“I suppose. My perception of time is a bit jaded.”

The two of them ate in comfortable silence for a while, fueling after a long day. They had grown accustomed to this awkward silence, neither of them having the courage to take their relationship further. After a month, there had been no progress; which made both of them slightly upset but as they didn’t hate their current state enough to act upon it, the stalemate remained. Or so Velka thought.

“I want to show you something”, said Keela, getting up from her chair, having already cleaned her plate.

“A surprise?” asked Velka, slowly putting aside her plate -- which was as cleaned as Keela’s.

“Of sorts I suppose.”

“Is it in the room?”

“Definitely not, no.”

Taking in a deep breath, Keela composed herself, putting on her reading glasses again.

“So I have a lot of explanation to do but, to make it short, I was mapping demiplanes and I found something you might like”, said Keela, rapidly flicking through pages of the book.

“Mapping what now?” replied Velka, cocking her head to the side.

“Remember that place I was trapped in? It was a plane of existence; an outer plane called limbo. It’s a despicable place that represents emptiness. Well there’s a lot small planes that are called demiplanes scattered about in the fabric of spacetime. And they’re usually very unpredictable in their contents. So I’ve been mapping them”, said Keela, finally finding the page she was looking for.

“This is a lot of technical stuff. How did you even learn to… travel between planes?” asked Velka, getting up and trying to peek in the book.

“I had to, else I wouldn’t have gotten out.”

“Your notes make no sense.”

“Better if no one else understands. Stand back.”

Concentrating, Keela focused her magic into her fingertips, making it unrelated to any element to achieve utmost purity of mana. Green and white runes spread across her hands under Velka’s confused gaze. Taking in a sharp breath, she dug her hands into the air, making a visible crack in space in front of her. Flexing her shoulders, she forced it open, causing loud cracking noises. By this point, Velka had backed up to the opposite end of the room, looking extremely nervous. As Keela finished making an opening, she wiped the sweat off her forehead, picked up her book to put it in a satchel she now carried and stepped aside. The ‘portal’ was about six feet tall and three feet wide, the edges jagged like broken glass. On the other side wasn’t the room they stood in, but a field of colorful flowers at the bottom of a hill.

“Shall we?” said Keela, trying to act as if the display wasn’t extremely strenuous.

“That’s terrifying”, replied Velka, slowly coming closer.

“It is at first but this is probably the 100th rift I’ve opened this month.”

“Doesn’t look safe.”

“You don’t trust me?”

Velka looked at Keela for a moment, then at the portal, then at Keela, pensively.

“Fine”, she finally said, taking the hand Keela was offering.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Keela stepped into the portal, dragging Velka with her. The temperature was drastically different on the other side, the warm breeze making their hair sway with the currents it made. The field was bright, like the middle of a sunny summer day, but the sky was that of night; stars strewn about the horizon with clarity neither of them had ever seen before. The field of flowers was all around a central hill, atop of which stood a tall oak. Dragging Velka with her, Keela went to sit under the tree, inviting Velka to do the same. As they both sat down, Keela let down a sigh of relief, laying against the tree calmly under the shade it provided.

“What is this place?” asked Velka, looking around at the flowers.

“No idea. It probably has a name but I’ve yet to encounter anyone in it or find one so I just wrote it down as ‘pretty flower place’ in my book.

“It sure is.”

Closing her eyes, she took in the soft breeze, smiling as it tussled her hair and swayed the flowers.

“I figured you’d enjoy it”, said Keela, smiling along.

“It sure is serene”, replied Velka, thoroughly enjoying the sight.

“Time is a lot slower here than on the material plane, we can stay five days and it’ll probably be only a minute back home. So enjoy it as much as you want.”

“What’s at the edge over there?”

“It stops. This place has only about 200 meters of radius. It’s a wall at the sides, peering into the nothing.”

“That’s a lot more ominous than poetic, you know?”

“I know.”

After five minutes of silence, Velka got up.

“As much as I love this place -- and I really do --, we have to sleep back home or I’ll end up all unbalanced”, she said, turning around to face Keela, hands behind her back.

“Yeah, that can happen. I can bring you here any time you want but you can’t really talk about it because this magic would be dangerous to spread”, replied Keela, getting up and dusting off her clothes.

“And to what do I owe this gift?”

Keela blushed heavily, looking off to the side.

“I j-just wanted to do something nice for y-you since you’re always at my side…” she mumbled, avoiding eye contact out of embarrassment.

“You worked that hard and found this for me?” asked back Velka, taking in the landscape again.

“Maybe.”

“I love it. Thank you so much.”

As Keela looked away, too sheepish to make eye contact, Velka closed in the distance between them and hugged her warmly, putting a hand at the back of her head, gently stroking her hair.

“You’re really sappy when you want, you know that?” said Velka in a hushed tone, smiling.

“Shush you”, replied Keela, happily giving in to the hug.

“I can take a hint; don’t worry.”

Even though they had decided to go back, the hug lasted a while, both of them wishing it could be forever.