Luna was doing the hardest thing she had done in her entire, presumably, centuries spanning life. It was a task that needed to be completed, her new friend told her, if she wanted to explore some of the theoretical possibilities of her new body. Even though half of the words that came out of her mouth were needlessly complicated, Luna still knew that Ythane was right. For that reason, she was sitting on the floor of the church-like building, holding a rock, and devoting every ounce, every drop of focus her mind could bring to bear to her task. She knew she was close to completing the task and unlocking her true potential, but there was one thing that stood in her path like a wall. Her attention span.
‘Argh! How does big bro do it!? These imbuement things are so dumb! Every time I put too much Ether in it might go boom but I won’t be able to ever finish if I go slow! Why does Ythane want us to do this alone!?’ she thought to herself.
At that moment, Ythane turned from her discussion with Luna’s big brother, Kain. “If you want to know why I am making you do this alone, then it’s because you need to be able to make imbuements like that if you want to use it with your body,” she said, catching Luna off guard.
‘Did she hear me!?’ she screamed in her mind.
“You probably just thought I could hear your thoughts, didn’t you?” she giggled, “No, I cannot. I have trained thousands of students, and I know what they would usually ask and when. Think nothing of it,” Ythane said, almost as if responding.
Luna decided to stop her big mind-mouth from retorting and let the small serpent go back to talking with Kain about Ether theory. For the past week, she had been training him in sigil casting and he had been learning the skill quickly according to Ythane.
‘I knew he could do it! He can do anything! Right? He did tell me not to idolize him, but he’s still my big bro, so I can’t not have high expectations!’ she told herself, ‘If only I was half as good with this as big bro…’
She decided that, instead of moping, she would ask Kain for advice. She picked herself up and walked over to Kain, plopping herself down next to him. “Hey, big bro, can you help me with this imbuement stuff? I don’t get it…” she admitted, cheeks flaming with embarrassment at being unable to do something that came almost naturally to Kain.
Kain looked at Luna’s cheeks and chuckled, rubbing her head in a way that made her very happy. “Sure, I’ll help. It’s good that you came and asked for help, no matter how long you have been trying something. It’s a sign of maturity,” he praised.
“It is a sign of needing growth,” Ythane countered, “Needing help is an admittance that you have insufficient skill for a task.”
It took Luna a moment to figure out what the dragon was saying due to the unfamiliar words, but she got the message loud and clear. It hurt a bit, and her ears dropped, showing her mood. Kain turned to give a half glare at the small dragon, “It’s not important whether or not you can do something now. What matters is if you are willing to work to be able to do it tomorrow,” he said to both of them. Luna, hearing that, perked up immediately.
Ythane sighed, admitting defeat. “Fine… I understand that, but I just want to give her more drive to understand runic casting and imbuements. And before you say it, I know I was not born into the world a master of imbuements. I apologize, Luna. I can tell that you are actually quite talented in this. I have been watching you while you work and see that you have avoided most of the pitfalls that plague beginners. What you have been able to do in a couple of days outshines what some of the brightest duvalad and duvalid could do in weeks. I am sure you are doing fine,” she reassured, her soft voice almost catching with the mention of her people. Luna remembered what happened when the dragon saw the state of her home. They had traveled to the edge at one point and showed her what her tower had become. She asked to be left alone for a while while she explored it and came back to the church extremely sad. Luckily, Kain and Luna cheered her up.
“Anyway,” Kain said, “what do you need help with?”
It took Luna a moment before the problem came rushing back to her, “Oh, yeah, I don’t get it! The Ether is too wibbly wobbly for me to make a real shape!” she explained emphatically.
“‘Wibbly wobbly’… that’s a new one,” Kain marveled, “But I think the problem lies in your focus.”
“My focus? But I have been focusing the best I could for a while now! Why do I have to stick with pure Ether runes, Yth? Can’t I just skip to normal runes?” she complained.
Ythane sighed. “I knew that one was coming. The reason why you can’t use normal runes yet is because you need to get a feel for how the runes work in an environment where you can bend and shape them however you like,” she explained.
Luna gave a short but understanding huff. “Fine… So what is wrong with my focus?” she asked.
“It’s the same as how it was back when we first had this discussion; you’re too jumpy. You have to relax to be able to put all of your focus into the imbuement,” Kain stated, “If you want me to make you a safety blanket or something like that, I can.”
“That is a good idea,” Ythane affirmed, “Most battle imbuers have some sort of charm or keepsake that lets them feel safe while they put all of their focus on their work.”
Luna had a thought at that. It was probably selfish, but she really wanted to figure the runes out, so she asked anyway. “Hey, big brother?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you… hug me while I do this?” she asked. She was not embarrassed because she was asking him to hug her, but was embarrassed because she was distracting him from his training, so she felt like a hindrance.
The young man gave a chuckle. “That’s fine. I’ll rub your ears while you do that,” he said. She didn’t say more, slid next to him, and savored the warm feeling she got when he hugged her.
With that, she tried to create pure Ether runes once more. It was different that time, though. She could almost feel the world around her melting away —almost feel it fading into irrelevance. Suddenly, it all clicked. Every bit of Ether that slipped through her net of control was righted. Every loose end was tied. Everything made sense.
‘I’m… doing it… I’m doing it! What should I do, what should I do!? I can’t let it be something meaningless or normal! Let’s go with… this! Feed activate into time… run a connection between time and push… link time with gather… feed gather into everything else… and done!’ she thought triumphantly.
She opened her eyes and the world faded back into view. The old walls of the church reflected the dull light of the ‘red pillar’ as Kain called it. Ythane was looking at the pillar vacantly, a tendency she had developed after her first glimpse of the structure. Kain was still hugging her, but he was also creating sigils in the air above her head. She had been so engrossed in the runes that she had ignored the bursts of Ether that came from a shattered sigil piece. Seeing that Luna had opened her eyes, Kain stopped casting. “Did it work?” he asked.
She gave the biggest grin she could muster. “Yep!” she cheerily said, handing him the rock, “I made something cool!”
Taking the rock from her hand, he examined it, exclaiming when he saw the imbuement. “Ohh! This is good. A kind or repulsor grenade. Though, I think that it will basically tear itself apart. Remember our experiments with shields?” he asked. Luna facepalmed, she had forgotten that the target had to be designated. Before Kain could react, Luna snatched the rock and got to work. She tried to remember the feeling of safety that came with Kain’s hug, but couldn’t grasp the feeling until she pressed her back against Kain’s torso. It all suddenly clicked once again, and she was able to make a few adjustments. Once she finished, she handed it back to Kain. “Hmm… I think it looks good,” he said, “Ythane, you want to look at Luna’s first Ether imbued item?”
Ythane took a moment to respond, snapping her head to the side once the words finally registered. She took a second to respond, “Uhh… maybe later. I’m getting close to figuring this out.”
Kain tilted his head almost imperceptibly, but Luna saw through it and thought it was cute. “Okay. By the way, what have you been working on about that?” he asked, pointing to the pillar, “You’ve been almost obsessive about it.”
“I… guess that’s true. It’s just… this thing here, it’s made of soul energy.”
“You already said that, so what’s got you so enthralled?” he retorted.
She finally turned back to him and gave a short sigh. “It’s just… you said that you created a way to travel into the… worlds? That these connect to? The only problem is the inordinate Ether cost necessary to perform the jump. I think I have a solution…” Luna stopped paying attention at that point, she wanted to think about how to apply the runes to her body’s ability.
‘Hmm… She said that normal runes can be made out of anything, so why not bone? If I have some sort of soft bone with a high Ether capacity and strong enough to be able to be tiny, could I make the push blast on my arm? If I can, then why can’t I make a three dimensional…’ her thoughts stopped in their tracks, ‘Is that… No. No no… NO! It can’t be… how?’ her mind both raced and stood still in terror. She could feel it. It watched her. “It’s coming,” was all she could squeak out.
*=====*
Kain heard Luna’s ominous remark and knew exactly what was coming. In the time they had spent together, Kain had figured out her ticks, and there was only one thing that could cause her to freeze to that degree.
“Ythane,” he said.
“Hm?” she asked, taken aback by his sudden seriousness.
“That one that killed you? It’s back.”
Before she could retort, a piercing cry rang out and wind whipped the building. Looking up, Kain could see the roof tear in two. The pieces fell down and crashed into the floor, revealing the beast that lay beyond.
If Kain were to use a word to describe the abomination that was flying above them, it would have been ‘draconic.’ Instead of an eastern, more serpent-like dragon, this one was a massive, four armed lizard with wings, clawed feet, a blocky head, deep blue skin, and resembling more of a western dragon. On its head was a singular black eye.
Before Kain could even move, Ythane’s form grew to her original size, her massive bulk coiling around the church and through the forest. With nothing but a glance, the two began their battle. The beast flew straight at her and tried to cleave her head off, but was caught off guard when the ethereal serpent dodged the attack and counterattacked with an ethereal arm. At that point, Kain stopped staring and sprang into action. He may not have been the smartest when it came to brawling, but he knew a losing bet when he saw one.
Ythane was going to lose.
Kain decided to put the theory that Ythane came up with minutes before into action, consequences be damned. He pulled the Ether collector out from his amulet and sucked Ether from it. Using his newfound wealth of Ether, he began his work.
‘Good thing we updated our wardrobes’ he thought, as he looked at the ring wrapped around his finger and the one around Luna’s finger.
*=====*
Rage. That was all Ythane could fathom. Her destroyer, her killer, her ender had arrived. The beast was as unsightly as she recalled from her final moments. As the rage grew, the beast, who’s attack she had dodged, reeled from her counterattack. It was theatric, though. Grandiose movements and massive balance shifts. All the while, it kept its wings ready to whisk it away in case she decided to fall into the trap. She let it have its moment, she would strike the killing blow later.
The beast ‘regained’ balance and glared at her. It was a glare of both recognition and annoyance. With lazy movements, the beast flew to her side, trying to strike for her head once more. It had, however, underestimated the duvalad once more. Ythane swerved under the clawed strike and unleashed a blaze of fire into the beast’s face using one of her hands.
The beast, being hurt for the first time in a long time, did not scream in rage like every other animal, but flew backwards and reexamined the duvalad in front of it. Ythane saw its one massive eye, surrounded by burnt flesh, dart around and lock onto something. Without giving her time to react, it charged at the church and aimed for one of the cloaked figures.
Kain.
Just as the tips of the beast’s claws were about to pierce the man’s head, a young, hooded figure ran up in front of it. The young girl unleashed a blast of Ether strong enough to throw the beast off balance, but the damage had already been done. A violent gash, running down her arm, spewed red blood on the ground.
The beast, once pushed back, was set upon by Ythane. Her claws glowed with various forms of Ether, from fire to gravity itself, as she began to strike it. The beast, seeing the strikes, mustered up great strength and threw the ethereal dragon off of it. Before it could turn to find the man who was trying to escape, the claws came at him once more. The beast was put on the defensive, clashing with the claws continuously. Finally, it had enough. It broke her guard and rushed to pierce the chest of the assailant.
The clawed jab struck true, as the hand ripped through Ythane’s form with the sound of wood shattering. Looking down at the arm that pierced her heart, Ythane growled slowly, then began to disappear. Her body, beginning from the wound in her chest, began to disintegrate into blue motes of light. From her body, the effect spread, it took every part of her until the last thing to break were her eyes. The red eyes became light and shot down to the church and into a green gem. Into the green gem the hooded girl with the gash on her arm held like her own child.
*=====*
Kain was close, so close. It was within his grasp. He could see it, the dark alleyway, the light spilling into it from the street. It was as if a sheet of paper thin glass was the only thing separating him from it. With one final push with his Ether, he tore open the veil and opened a corridor between that world and theirs. He turned to yell at the others, to tell them the good news, but all he saw was the massive beast with a hand plunged into Ythane’s massive form. Slowly, her body began to crumble, and once her eyes shot to the soul gem Luna was holding, he decided to act.
He sprinted up to the girl and pulled her by the arm, sprinting back to the portal. He pushed his legs to go as fast as they could, but he could feel the beast catching up to him. Eventually, he made it through, with Luna following shortly behind. Before the beast could reach the portal, he did away with subtlety and yanked the portal closed behind him, baring the entire dimensional corridor from being accessed.
With the portal gone, Kain fell backwards, catching his breath. He turned, seeing Luna slumped on the ground, breaking down into tears. He hugged her, pulling her in close and letting her hood fall down. “It’s all right, everything is fine. It can’t get us now.” he reassured as he slowly rubbed her head.
*=====*
Alright, let’s go… after I get back from vacation. I know, a weird month for a vacation, but it’s been planned already, so whatever. I won’t be posting until Wednesday, so keep an eye out for that. Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and get ready for the People of Power arc. After a few sides probably. It’s kind of tradition.
