Columbina looked at the wing-flapping "water pigeon" in her hand, then gazed in the direction where the real bird had flown away.
"I just... want to bring these little animals to life."
"Then it's fine." The lines of Coppelia's shoulders relaxed slightly.
It was at this moment that Columbina seemed to notice the looming silhouette of Celestia, visible yet indistinct in the distant blue sky. Her body unconsciously leaned back a little.
"Is what I'm doing... dangerous?" She turned back to look at Coppelia. "You looked very nervous just now."
"It's fine now," Coppelia waved her hand. "I just got a bit triggered hearing the word 'Creation'... It doesn't matter. As long as it doesn't involve the level of creating 'humans,' it should be fine."
Columbina seemed to accept this explanation and nodded. "Then can we go now?"
"No rush," Coppelia said. "I'll go pack up the tent and our things. You can also take this time to think about what exactly you want to ask the Oceanid when we see it."
"Okay."
Coppelia turned to tidy up the camp. As she dismantled the tent, she pondered how to communicate with that Oceanid. During their last encounter, the other party had attacked them before they even met face-to-face.
Should they just capture it directly? That didn't seem too reliable. First, it wasn't certain they could catch it; second, how could they ensure they wouldn't hurt it?
While she was dismantling the tent poles, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Columbina was unknowingly surrounded by a circle of animal forms made of liquid Lunar Force. Water birds, pigeons, squirrels, forest boars, swimming fish...
They hovered quietly above the grass, distinct in shape, reflecting fragmented spots of light under the morning sun.
Coppelia stopped what she was doing and asked, "Why did you suddenly think of creating so many animals? Do you want to learn from the Oceanid and use them for combat?"
She immediately added, "However, those hydro-form creatures look scary, but they are actually quite easy to deal with. A fire attack can evaporate them instantly, Electro can disperse them, and if it's Cryo, it can freeze them directly..."
Columbina shook her head. "It's not that..."
Without Coppelia needing to say it, she knew clearly that the attack power of these "water animals" was probably inferior to the water bullets she fired herself. She had never thought of using them as weapons.
"Purely for fun?" Coppelia pressed.
"Perhaps..." Columbina's gaze swept over the circle of motionless "animals" before her. "I feel that if they could all move on their own, I would definitely be very happy."
Coppelia looked at Columbina, who was clustered in the center of these static "animals," and suddenly felt that the scene before her held an indescribable sense of familiarity.
Deep in her memory, an image surfaced: a group of glowing Moon Spirits surrounding Columbina in just the same way, quietly listening to her tell stories.
If she replaced these water-shaped animals around Columbina with Moon Spirits...
A thought became clear. She guided the conversation, asking, "Do you... wish to have more living companions around you?"
She paused, adding a more specific visualization, "Some little ones that are alive, can move on their own, can play with you, and can make you happy?"
Hearing this, Columbina looked around at the quiet "animals" beside her once again. She leaned down, cupped the "water pigeon," and gently stroked its smooth "back" with her fingertips, recalling the real pigeons that had just been startled and flown away cooing in the woods.
"Yes," she raised her head. "I want that!"
"Then why not try creating Moon Spirits directly?" Coppelia pointed out. "Those are your kin."
"Right..." A look of realization dawned on Columbina's face.
She certainly knew what Moon Spirits were. Coppelia had told her before that they were her kin, that there were many of them, that they liked to stay by her side, and that they also liked helping humans find treasure...
She immediately waved her hand, and all the surrounding water-shaped animals dispersed, turning into pools of flowing moon-glow. She then regathered this moon-glow into her palm, condensing it into a richer ball of liquid light, and began to attempt the shaping. Following the description Coppelia had given in her memory, she outlined the silhouette a Moon Spirit should have.
Coppelia guessed what she was going to do and stepped forward, intending to offer some tips on the Moon Spirit's general appearance. But before she could speak, Columbina had already turned around, her hands carefully cupping an already formed "Moon Spirit," holding it up in front of her.
"Do they look like this?" Columbina asked expectantly. "I referenced the appearance of the Oceanid, and also that Seelie, the one we met underground..."
Coppelia stopped in her tracks and looked down.
There was a bright, soft point of light in the center of the head, decorated with symmetrical wings. Two slender "braids" hung down from the sides, and the body extended into a flowing structure like translucent gauze. The entire form radiated a tranquil moon-glow from the inside out...
Except for the texture looking more solid and less transparent, the appearance of this "Moon Spirit" was almost exactly the same as the Moon Spirits in her memory!
Coppelia forgot to speak for a moment.
Columbina lowered the "Moon Spirit" slightly, observing the expression on Coppelia's face.
"Does it not look like one?"
Coppelia snapped back to reality.
"No... Moon Spirits look exactly like this."
"Really?" Columbina found it somewhat hard to believe. "But I only made it for the first time..."
Only once... She had only tried once, and she had shaped it so similarly? Wait, if my future self knows what Moon Spirits look like because I saw them, then by her shaping this form right now, doesn't that mean... the future determined the past?
Thinking of this layer of temporal causality, Coppelia roughly understood what was happening.
"Perhaps, precisely because you shaped the Moon Spirit into this appearance 'now'," she said slowly, "the ones I saw in the 'future' looked this way. If you had molded them into a different shape today, maybe the future would have changed because of it?"
"Changing the future..." Columbina was a bit uneasy. "Will it be dangerous?"
She once again involuntarily looked toward the silent floating island in the distant sky.
Coppelia followed her gaze, understanding clearly in her heart. If the timeline underwent changes it shouldn't, the heavy hand of "The God of Time," Istaroth, might just come down.
"Maybe... there will be," Coppelia did not hide it.
"I like the way they look now," Columbina said immediately, hugging the "Moon Spirit" in her hands a bit tighter. "I want them to look like this. It's just..."
She gently shook the "Moon Spirit" in her hand up and down. With the movement, those two slender "braids" broke off from the connection point. Several tiny droplets of moon-glow flew from the fracture, and the broken "braids" hovered in mid-air along with the droplets.
The current "Moon Spirit," in the end, was still just a mass of "water" whose shape was forcibly maintained by her power.
Columbina silently reattached the broken "braids," letting the droplets merge back in, and the "Moon Spirit" returned to its original state.
"If only I could make them... truly come alive." Her voice was very soft, full of disappointment.
Coppelia walked closer, reached out, and gently patted her shoulder.
"It's okay," she said. "We will find a way."
____
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