Table of Contents
Distortionist's Utopia - 07/31/20
Into Darkness
[Novine]
Novine opens the door to the house with an annoying amount of enthusiasm, clearly in high spirits as she slams the door behind her and makes about just every loud noise she can possibly make. She has her lyre tucked lovingly underneath her arm and manages to calm down enough to lean it carefully against the wall out of the way so it would not fall, before making herself comfortable on the cushions by the fire of her family's home, a little pouch of gil in her hand. She opens it up and dumped it out on the floor before her and begins to count it to herself while humming, arranging the various coins in robotically precise stacks, rows, and columns as she counts, grinning all the while.
[Raziel]
There is a slow pattern of feet behind Novine as Raziel descends the stairs from the second floor, muttering under her breath. Her eyes flickered and flashed like a dying lightbulb, and her above her head purple mist swirled and glittered strangely, she stopped at the foot of the stairs, and a series of strange glyphs began to appear from the mist surrounding her head, like an incantation that had kept to life.
[Novine]
Novine, not looking up from her little treasure trove, begins to excitedly jabber away.
“Look! I went and bought a lyre with my Spellstone winnings and I've been seeing how much more money I can make with it instead of just trying to sing. This is crazy! Like, not that I use it for anything important really, but it's nice to know that–”
She looks over her shoulder and her cheery demeanor fades. “Raziel? You… you okay? Um, should I get Father or something?”
[Raziel]
Raziel does not respond, continuing her muttering as aether begins to swell and gather around her, slowly but surely becoming visible to the naked eye in its density.
[Novine]
Novine pushes herself to her feet and cautiously keeps an eye on Raziel while reaching for her linkpearl, not knowing if Eligor was in the lab or not. “Father, something's wrong with Raziel. Her eyes are going crazy and there's this strange… I dunno, a mist or a cloud or something around her head. Some symbols floating around. Is this supposed to be happening?”
[Raziel]
There is no response from the linkpearl. The aether has grown so thick it is now jamming the frequency. Raziel’s muttering grows into screaming, but her words are foreign and jumbled. The glyphs begin to swirl around her faster than before.
[Novine]
Novine cautiously approaches her, looking quite worried now that she started screaming. “Raziel, what's happening to you!? I… I dunno how to help!”
[Raziel]
The aether goes still, and the screaming stops. Raziel’s eyes stop their dangerous glow, and the mist seems to thin out a bit. Holding her forehead, she wobbled a bit on her feet, stumbling forward.
“S-sister?”
[Novine]
“Yeah, it's me, Novine,” she says, not sure if Raziel can actually perceive anything properly. She moves foward and holds out her arms as if to catch her, witnessing her sister looking quite unstable at this point.
[Raziel]
“I couldn't stop them.”
Her face goes a ghostly pale, and she looks as if she might faint.
“I-I have to go back. I have to save them!”
[Novine]
“Stop what? Save whom? What're you talking about?” She steps close to intercept her now, moving to wrap an arm around her to support her and ease her more carefully to the floor in front of the steps if she is able.
[Raziel]
She begins to hyperventilate, her eyes quickly coming to a glow again as she attempts to thrash away against some hidden threat.
“I have to go!”
[Novine]
“No! You should stay! Father…Father will be worried about you, and… you've… you've gotta see my treasure I got today! It's really impressive,” she says a bit desperately, clearly trying to stay a bit calm and not be too dramatic for her sister's sake.
[Raziel]
Raziel’s crystal comes to a burning glow on her forehead, and in mirror fashion Novine would have felt a tug at her head as well. A strong pull, yanking at her consciousness.
[Novine]
Novine attempts to resist the feeling, releasing Raziel and attempting to back away from her, not wanting to be pulled into whatever this is. This sharing of memories, these invasions of her mind, whatever they are - they are becoming too frequent in the latest days. “No, I don't want to!” she yells in an attempt to ground herself and keep herself where she belongs.
[Raziel]
| With a wet pop, a light slides out of Novine’s forehead. It was the selfsame light that had left Eligor during his recent rampage. Within moments, the glyphs and mist returned, seemingly being sucked into the light. It grew larger and brighter, pulsating like a heart. |
[Novine]
Novine backs away from the light, crawling backwards on the floor until her back presses up against the wall to the door of Eligor's lab, watching everything in a stunned sort of terrified awe.
[Raziel]
| The world goes black in an instant, and all senses with it. There is only darkness now. |
The Mess
[Eligor]
| The first sense to return is smell. A series of strongly offending smells all mixed and curled together in a horrifying fusion of disgust. Blood, vomit, and the powerful scent of ammonia flooded all other scents into obscurity. |
| The next sense to return was sound. The wet schlops of meat being discarded in chunks on a wet surface, leaving a strangely disconcerting splash behind as the weight splats upon it. This was followed by pained and horrified screams, echoing together in a cursed symphony of unpleasant sounds. |
[Novine]
Novine attempted to move within whatever space she was in. Without being able to feel just yet, it was simply a willed thought floating in the void that she hoped woukd result in something concrete, but she was scared out of her mind. Did her body get destroyed? Was she at home? Where was Raziel? Would she be stuck like this? The questions and what-ifs raced through her mind as she endured the awful sensations.
[Eligor]
| Feeling returned next. Novine was on her hands and knees in whatever filth this was. It was warm to the touch but also quite grainy. Novine was also clothed in something moderately heavy, as the weight of it was bearing down on her arm. This was followed by taste—along with the distinct flavor of blood running through the inside of her mouth. |
| Finally, sight…somewhat returned, but seemed flawed, as everything was red. The dirt and mud beneath her, the corpses surrounding her, the rapier nearby—the very sky above was tinged a blood red. Nearby figures in shadow were moving just out of view. |
[Novine]
Novine wiped at her eyes and examined what was making her arm feel so heavy, examining her body to see what state it was in.
[Eligor]
| She was wearing metal banded armor that had clearly seen overuse. It was nicked with clear indents from blades and other trauma, as well as marked with viscera. Novine’s dark red hair was stained on the ends with blood as well, and along with this realization was the overpowering feeling of having been kicked in the stomach hard enough to floor her. |
[Novine]
She groaned a bit as the feelings wash over her, the sudden change from perfectly fine to being in a state like this mentally and physically jarring. She attempted to push herself up to her feet, to see if she was capable of it as her eyes focus on the shadowy figures, trying to make them out.
[Eligor]
| As she stood up, she would be able to see another lalafell nearby with short red hair, freckles, and ominously glowing green eyes. She held a lalafellin man up by his hair, with a rapier of her own to his throat. He seemed to be begging, but whatever words he had were cut short but the contents of his throat suddenly spilling forth onto the ground in front of him as a very sharp rapier slides across it. The woman looks to Novine, a snarl present on her face. |
“Come to your damn senses yet?”
[Novine]
Novine regards the scene without reaction other than a slight suspicion, not knowing the dynamics of the situation. “Mostly,” she starts as her eyes drift from the pool of blood below the man to his assailant. “Memory is a bit fuzzy though. Care to fill a girl in?”
[Eligor]
The woman ran a hand through her hair, revealing a crooked crystal housed in her forehead, and the fact that her own red hair was quite thoroughly drenched in blood. Hearing Novine's proclamation, the glow left her eyes, and an eyebrow raised curiously instead.
“What's your name?”
| The scenery was still one of carnage now that the full view of the area came into focus. The sky and the ground were still red, but they were clearly on a mostly barren field–almost definitely the field of battle post some great massacre. There were bodies littered everywhere, and in a chain gang behind the red-haired woman was a group of lalafell, each with their heads down and clearly downhearted. They were being pulled along by a rather large looking troll with an equally unpleasant looking club in it's hand, and every so often the creature yanked at it to laugh and scream at whoever fell into the meat soaked ground. |
[Novine]
Violet eyes catch on the crystal, always finding them beautiful and striking, before her eyes shift the tiniest bit downward again to make proper eye contact. She tests out moving her body, seeing if anything other than her midsection was broken or damaged in anyway as she stretches and swivels.
“Novine. Yours?”
[Eligor]
The woman dashed into Novine, grabbing her by the throat and slamming her into a nearby rock, a glare returning to her eye.
“That's not your name. Your name Is Alia. Say it.”
[Novine]
Novine does not gag or choke, but she winces and groans at the unexpected violence, unprepared to react. “Who decided that?” she retorts back, making to push the woman off of her. “Sounds stupid.”
[Eligor]
She tightens her grip.
“You still haven't learned. Seems it'll take another roll.”
When an armored backhand, she strikes Novine's temple. Within moments, the world goes dark.
| The world snaps back. Novine is suddenly in her house again, and Raziel is nearby on the floor, hacking up what appears to be some purple liquid. |
[Novine]
Novine looks around in a panicked sort of way, not sure if this was actually home or not. She looks down at her sister as she struggles and she moves to her, trying to soothe and calm her with a hand on her back despite her own panicked state.
“What.. what's happening? What was that?”
[Raziel]
I can't stop–I have to go back!
| She does not speak with works, hacking and coughing as she was on the floor, but there is another flash of light. Another pull, and darkness resumes again. |
| Novine awakes in much the same manner as before, her senses coming to her slowly in sequence. Unlike before however, she was clearly resting in a metallic chamber, lying upon a rug near a fire. Not far away on a chair sat the same red-headed woman as before, gnawing idly on what appeared to be chicken. |
[Novine]
Novine tilts her head and looks into the fire, opting to just lay there for now.
“So what was that for?”
[Eligor]
“Come to your senses yet?”
| Novine might have bit her tongue by now, saying words now with a mouth full of sharp teeth like Eligor's. |
[Novine]
Novine winced a bit as she touched her tongue to her teeth, following the contours of her ivories carefully, taking her time in answering as she did not want to damage herself in such a stupid way by simply talking.
“Not sure yet,” she responds at long last. “What's your definition of having come to?”
[Eligor]
“….What's your name?”
[Novine]
Novine - “Pretty weird assessment if you ask me. What's it matter anyway?”
[Eligor]
She snatches a large chunk of meat from the bone of whatever she was eating, taking time to chew it slowly before swallowing it down in a loud gulp.
“Your name is Alia. Say it.”
[Novine]
She hated lying. She hated stating untruths. But perhaps if she found a justification, she could play by the rules. This wasn't at home. She wasn't her usual self. This was just an alias, just as her father told her. She could be an alias, after all. She'd been practicing for this sort of need, to be someone else and convince others. She could be Novine in mind, and Alia in body. At least she would try.
She sighs a bit and says the phrase a bit begrudgingly. “My name's Alia. Happy now?”
[Eligor]
“Good. Finally one that understands how to adapt to the situation. I've had to retry far too many times now. You'd not believe how many of you are utter fools.”
She finished the potential chicken and tossed the bone into the fire, leaning forward in her seat.
“Now listen up. You're my little sister. Your name is Alia, and your true name is Hecate. Never forget these things–especially in front of father. He will cut you down. As a matter of fact, if you ever hear your true name, you should probably consider yourself dead anyway.”
She pointed to her left, where there were a pair of rapiers resting against the wall.
“We will have to kill. It does not matter how much you dislike it. We cannot stop, or all of this will have been for nothing.”
[Novine]
Novine pushes herself up into a sitting position looking about the room and taking in the rapiers.
“Why? What're we doing it for?”
[Eligor]
“Because if we don't we will stop existing.”
“I know you'll have questions, but I'm really not sure how much this version of you is even capable of understanding. Most of you have been idiots.”
“A short version is that we are in a….hypothetical reality. An alternate existence that is just barely qualified to be called real. But uh….it's threatening to become that. We need to stop that from happening.”
“But we have a sister that's been interfering–she's been trying to help, but she doesn't understand that she's making the situation worse. I keep kicking her out but unlike us, this one can breach this place even without a ready version of herself here. It's exceedingly annoying.”
“Worse than that though is what we are SUPPOSED to be fighting. Our father is in control of this reality but he isn't….him, right now. Some kind of creature has taken hold of him. And it's what made this place a nightmare.”
[Novine]
Novine sighs heavily. “Here too, huh? Can't even get a break from that reality wherever I go I guess.” She winces as, sure enough, she does manage to nick her tongue with her teeth.
“So what's your name then?”
[Ilia]
She almost says a name that starts with an 'R', but glares at the floor and gives a growling sigh in return.
“I'm Ilia.”
She reaches behind her and fumbles around with the back of the chair before having apparently gotten hold of her prize, returning with a hand mirror. She turns it towards Novine, allowing her to look at her features.
“…I see you aren't used to the teeth where you're from somehow. Must be nice.”
[Novine]
Novine takes the mirror and greedily looks into it, eager to see what else has changed about her, studying her features carefully.
“Yeah, I don't normally have 'em. I always thought they looked cool though, but they do kinda suck.”
She tilts the mirror around some more. “Anything else I should know? Like how to act, stuff to say, whether we get along or not? Not really sure how deep I'm s'posed to go with this.”
[Ilia]
| Finally Novine would be able to see the full scope of her own face. Her skin was a bit lighter than her normal self, and replacing her hair were somewhat unkempt red dark red locks, hanging in a bushy mop down past her shoulders and down her back. Her eyebrows were slightly bushy as well, having been allowed to grow out naturally and without much grooming. One of her eyes were now a bright yellow, and as if to mirror it there was now a rather large ruby shaped crystal in her forehead, with two pebble sized horn-shaped crystals framing it on the sides. Her eyelashes were now thick as well, and there was a small spread of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Unlike normal freckles however, some of them sparkled with the same lavender of her other eye like small jewels littering her face. There were similarly colored tattoos on her neck, but they seemed to extend around behind her head and out of view, seemingly forming a glyph of some sort. Interestingly, her ears sported piercings in the same places, but were now adorned with what appeared to be polished and carved bone instead of proper golds and silvers. |
“Long as you keep what I said in mind we should generally be fine. He won't notice as long as we don't break the sequence where he can tell.”
“Right now the other sister is attracting most of his attention anyway. As long as you don't act like a total maniac and try to change everything we should be fine.”
[Novine]
Novine clearly was very enamored with herself, reaching out to touch her freckles, to touch the crystal, to touch the little horns, to fiddle with her piercings, to fluff her hair.
“Kay, I'll try my best to not be too crazy. Not really sure how things'll hit me in the moment but… Hopefully nothing too crazy.”
“What's the other sister look like? The one causing all the trouble? I guess I'd know her if she acts real weird but, I dunno, in case I see her.”
[Ilia]
“Glows a lot, flies around–you'll know when you see her. She kind of breaks everything.”
“You tired? Should probably get to bed.”
She points behind Novine–now Alia–towards comfortable and entirely too large bed covered in pillows.
In the same motion, she fluidly reaches in to flick her forehead, a light clink sounding as her fingernail nicks the crystal in Novine's forehead, causing immediate and immense searing pain. At the same time, it was as if suddenly having a blindfold removed. Suddenly and now more than ever, she would be able to FEEL the aether present around her. But it was not so simple as simply sensing it any longer. She would be able to literally see it, feel it- almost taste it really. Ilia's soul under her flesh was as clear to see as her skin, a deep and flaring pink that seemed slightly frayed at the seems. Her soul seems to be much older than her body would suggest, and her power besides quite something to behold. It was as if the room was her territory, staved off only by Novine's own soul which flared back, lashing at her aether like it were a harmful invader. The circulation of aether in the air and about the area in turn was far clearer now. It was no longer simply an extension to be turned off, magic was no longer this concentration that needed to be worked at–it was quite simply at Novine's fingertips, as easy and natural to access now as breathing. This was what it was like to have a crystal, to have the power of magic flowing through one's veins like blood.
[Novine]
Novine let out a cry of pain that descended into a soft sustained noise of discomfort as the sensation washed over her. But as she blinked and took in the surroundings, she gasped audibly. It was beautiful, powerful, awe-inspiring. She was floored by it all, how simple, how obvious it all was. As she looked around for aether sources, examining the flow, a single tear even escaped from her eye that she quickly brushed away, cheeks actually flushing, growing warm, biological weaknesses that she'd once abandoned that she'd grown accustomed to living without.
“I…..y-yah. Yeah, I'm tired. I think sleep. Feels like it's been a big day and all.,” she confessed, still looking around idly.
Novine followed the gesture and tilted her head, considering the idea and realizing that yes… Yes she was tired. For the first time in a long, long, long time, she felt compelled to rest in a way that she didn't normally. She stared at the bed in wonder and set the mirror down on the floor before pushing herself to her feet and making her way over, sitting on the edge and kicking her feet lightly for a brief second before she pushed herself up onto it, crawling into a far end. She sunk into the pillows, the light nightgown she was wearing allowing her to snuggle comfortably within the cushioned paradise.
She lay there with her eyes open, watching the aether move about like a kaliedoscope.
“You see things like this too, Ilia? The aether and stuff, that is.”
[Ilia]
Ilia seemed confused for a moment, but eventually placed what was being asked, snapping her fingers as she got it.
“Yeah, all the time. Do you not?”
[Novine]
“Nope, not at all. It's normally just… completely invisible. Like I can feel it and all but, seeing it when it's not being channeled? Not a chance.” She grins and hugs a pillow close to her as her eyes just swivel around, watching the flow of the colors. “Makes me not wanna sleep.”
[Ilia]
“You must have come from a weird place then. Was aether so thin there you couldn’t see it? How scarce were the resources of your origin?”
[Novine]
“Oh, well… it's there and everything, just, I dunno, I guess our eyes don't see it. It's everywhere though. Maybe not as dense as it is with us. I think it's a thing with the bodies. I wonder now that I've seen something like this if I can make some modifications to myself to see it like this…” she muses, following a little wisp of aether across the room. “I'm a bit of an outlier as far as people's bodies go, so I might be able to do it now that I've experienced it. It'd be hard going back!”
[Ilia]
“It’s just a part of you, I’m not sure what you mean really.”
[Novine]
Novine - “I think it's the crystal that does it though. I think I can only make myself look like I have one but… I dunno, guess I've never tried. Even Father – um… my actual father I guess? Haven't met this one yet to know if they're all that similar, but he always said things are easier with a crystal, and never really expanded on it at all so I figured it was just something that was impossible for me. But ah well, I'll enjoy it while I can. Y'know, bright spot in this weird hallucination you've brought me into I guess.”
[Ilia]
She stares for a long time before turning and heading towards the door nearby, not really saying anything in response.
“Your servants should wake you up early, so get some sleep while you can. We’ve another suppression tomorrow, and having you get used to things in the middle of battle is just going to make everything more of a pain.”
[Novine]
Novine hugs the pillow closer and nods. “'Kay… I'll do that then. Goodnight, I guess,” she mumbles, feeling weird saying such familiar greetings to such an veritable stranger.
[Ilia]
| The door closes behind the woman as she leaves with a heavy clunk, and silence fills the room. The aether however continued to flow through the room endlessly. Novine would slowly be able to differentiate aether quality, as well as being able to tell how thick or thin it was, or how quickly the flow shifted. It was all of the same source, but distinct in ways that could only be understood in this manner—it would not be false to call it a sixth sense. |
[Novine]
Novine watched the aether as she lay there in this unfamiliar place, things feeling strangely akin to her first day in Eorzea all over again. She moved to bite her lip as her thoughts moved to Raziel, and then quickly regretted that choice, hissing as she tasted blood on her lip. She sighed and put the pillow over her face, letting out a huge noise of frustration and annoyance.
Against her will, however her eyes began to droop on their own, fatigue taking its toll on her and forcing her into the sweet submission of slumber.
Answering the Call
[Ilia]
| Novine would have been awakened by the nervous trembling of three hyuran children at the foot of her lavish bed. They were dressed in sparkling silk gowns, but they appeared to be nearly starved. Sunken eyes stared at her unblinkingly, and with pure terror painted into them. They were bound to each other by the neck with golden chains, and behind them holding the end like a leash was what could be assumed to be a butler; an older lalafell gentleman with a monocle and well-kept mustache. |
| Novine would be able to FEEL them trembling down to their very aether, accompanied by the feeling of hunger rousing in her abdomen, as if the terror was only serving to whet some unknown appetite. |
[Novine]
Novine awoke groggily and and rolled over in an rather uncomposed way, red hair all over the place as she yawns largely and pushes herself into a seated position. She was some level of grumpy, not exactly used to waking up and finding the desire to keep wasting her time sleeping appealing. She regarded the strange scene with her customary tilt of the head. She knit her eyebrows in a confused way and followed the chain, looking up and down the children as if expecting some explanation for such a strange sight. She simply sat there, looking confused and angry. Silence probably wouldn't hurt her, after all.
The hunger though… that gnawing sensation in her as she watched them tremble… that was new. She would need to keep watch over it.
[Ilia]
The butler spoke up soon after, cracking open one of his eyes like a statue come to life.
“Are these stock not to your liking my lady? If your taste in this stock has changed, I can train another batch.”
[Novine]
Novine simply looks at them all. “…Just not in the mood,” she says non-commitally, feeling her way through the scenario. Internally, she was cursing Ilia for not informing her more.
[Ilia]
A man’s voice cut through the room from the entrance, cutting off the butler’s reply.
“Our famous glutton, not in the mood to eat breakfast? I see our sister wasn’t lying when she said she hit you on the head hard.”
Leaning on the doorway was another lalafell man of the same complexion as Novine, being black of hair and sporting ice-blue eyes. Beyond this and other features like lacking face tattoos, this person was the spitting image of Eligor. The resemblance was limited to the surface however. This person’s aether was a bright ice-blue like his eyes, and exuded a feeling of extreme cold.
[Novine]
Novine - “Yeah, I dunno, just… woke up not feeling it I guess. Maybe I'm just too tired or something,” she reasoned pathetically, feeling woefully unprepared, her eyes traced the man's progress and she seemed struck by his resemblance to her father, trying not to stare at him too much, but the curiosity of everything was difficult to resist.
[Koro]
He stared at Novine quietly for several moments before pointing a finger towards the butler. A rock formed from the aether before firing into the butler's jaw. Before the man could even so much as cry out in pain, the black-haired man was upon him, yanking him by the mustache and slamming him into the floor–the breakfast girls tumbling soon after thanks to the chains.
“You've gone and made my sister lose her appetite by bringing this pathetic meal! How dare you try to feed her with this hastily scrabbled stock!? Look at them tremble with fear–you've not even given them proper training. They should revere her–be grateful to her for the opportunity! Begone before I lose my temper, else I'll come to that little cottage you call a home and tear your wife in half! Let us see if THAT is more appetizing for my sister!”
The butler gets up with an air of calm that is only betrayed by the erratic movement of his aether. He was quite frantic. Not even bothering to wipe his bloodied jaw, he gathers up the girls before swiftly departing the room. Satisfied with the speedy exit, the black-hair runs a claw-tipped hand through his hair before taking a deep breath and turning around with as cute a smile he could manage with his sharp teeth.
He closes the distance and moves to grab her hand, still holding his smile.
“Apologies sister, I know you are used to better.”
[Novine]
Novine watches the spectacle, expression composed, her eyes perhaps a little wide as it escalates so suddenly. She found she disliked the unpredictability and volatility of these people. She felt she needed to be careful and yet… she also seemed important enough to act however she wanted.
She is a bit relieved as the butler and the girls leave, looking to her apparent brother and allowing him to take her hand, eyes looking at their connected hands. She shrugs and attempts to smooth her hair with her other hand, annoyed at how unkempt this hair seemed to have started in the first place.
“It's not your fault. Hopefully they'll learn to embrace the honor in time.”
[Koro]
“It's this war. With the empire pressing down harder than before, people's memory of whom they owe their gratitude and allegiance is simply…missing. I'll take care of them. Perhaps I will do for now.”
He lets go of Novine's hand and drags a claw across his palm, offering it as it began to bleed. He looked to the side a bit sheepishly now, glancing from her to the floor shyly.
“How….how badly did our sister harm you?”
[Novine]
“Not too badly. Just… I dunno, knocked me out though. Feels like I got hit with something hard in the stomach as well, so who knows what she did. I can't remember. Not like you need to be going around teaching her lessons or anything,” she adds, not wanting to end up siccing him on her. “You're too good to me,” she continues in a softer tone, directing her eyes to his freely bleeding hand and brilliant aether mingled within it, drawn to it, how easy it would be to take it for her own. Moving her hair to one side to keep it out of the way she hesitantly plays along with the strange game of charades, tentatively lowering her mouth to the wound and sampling it with an equally shy and sheepish lick.
[Koro]
“The woman is a beast, but we shouldn't fault her for it. She was the only one present when mother died after all and it changed her more than any of us.”
He raised a brow as she licked at the wound, but more or less kept his expression the same otherwise.
“She probably could no longer take it once your hunger consumed you–she is almost as passionate as you. I'll….talk to her, but for now, you should try to recover, understand?”
He reached up to ruffle her already messy hair even more, smiling kindly. The brute that had so casually beaten a man earlier seemed almost a ghost.
[Novine]
She could feel the warmth in her cheeks from the strangeness of these acts, not exactly sure how to go about this in a way that didn't involve accidentally gnawing off his entire hand with her unwieldy teeth. She draws back and manages a smile as he ruffles her hair, unable to keep his resemblance to her Father separated from this reality, the warm gesture feeling meaningful to her despite her knowing better.
“I'll see what I can do. I'm not really one to just sit around all day though,” she guesses from context clues. “But if it'll keep you from fussing over me so much then maybe I'll be able to manage it. But…well, she really did hit my head hard so… is there something else I forgot? Y'know, you said I need to recover and all. When my hunger got out of my control… Not sure I remember what happened. Do you know? Not that it matters that much, y'know. What happened happened.”
She squeezes at his hand a bit to try and extract the blood to the surface so she could keep her teeth as loosely engaged in the action as possible. It was a bit clumsy still, but perhaps less shy at least. Who knew what he'd try if she bit him on accident though?
[Koro]
“From what I understand, when we captured some of the rebels, you wanted to slay them right then and there to feast on your aether, despite it being quite clear that father wanted them…questioned, first.”
“You moved to kill them, and sister subdued you with markedly excessive force.”
He forced another smile, but his eyes began to flicker dangerously. The thought was apparently one that caused rage.
“You will be able to best her in the blade one day, you must be patient. I know how hungry you get–we all do, but you mustn't let it control you. We only need pretend to be the monsters they think we are, we need not truly become what they fear. Once all this madness is over…once we crush the empire, we will find a better way to manage your urges. Please, remain strong.”
[Novine]
Novine lifts her head away from his hand and licks at her lip, wincing a bit as she catches her tongue on a tooth. She hides the pain and opts to use a finger to wipe her lip clean.
“Ah… I bet father wasn't pleased either,” she says with a sigh. “I'll keep hanging in there. Your encouragement goes a long way and all, y'know.” She lets out a little giggle. “And your aether, I guess. Thanks for that. I'll restrain myself juuust for you,” she says playfully, hoping she wasn't being too much out of character.
“Sister said I'm supposed to take part in another suppression today. Dunno if I'm gonna be allowed to sit around and recover, really.”
[Koro]
His face hardens, and he stands up
“….I…see. Well, do be careful out there. I have another suppression to take care of myself, but I'm certain our sister will care for you. She is still family after all. Just…”
He falls silent and lowers his head, but it only lasts a moment. He soon raises his face again to give Novine one more fake smile before departing the room entirely.
[Novine]
As soon as she is left alone she collapses backwards onto the bed and puts a pillow on her face, letting out a frustrated scream of a sound into it, all of her pent up confusion and stress and concentration being let out in a single muffled cry.
She finally withdraws the pillow from her face throws it against the wall with a huff. “Now what?” she mumbles to herself, looking around as she pushes herself off the bed to stretch and perhaps wear something that isn't a nightgown, a score of questions peppering her mind all at once.
[Ilia]
| On a far wall, there were a number of sets of armor. Strangely, they all seemed to be bulkier versions of the armor Novine received from her father before, only now sporting a helmet and slightly bulkier. They also lacked the butterfly motif and notably all of the functions of her real armor. These were cheap imitations of her armor in comparison. |
[Novine]
Novine regards the armor, deciding this is most likely the garb for a suppression, her assumptions leading her to choose whatever set looked the least battered and safest and beginning the process of changing into it. It was bizarre trying to do this the hard way, used to the elegant ring on her finger handling the entire process. She found herself taking a deep breath as she donned the somewhat familiar armor, acutely feeling how different everything felt with each piece that covered her.
[Ilia]
| No one came to summon her after the morning incident; she was free to decide her next action. |
[Novine]
She takes up the helmet and tucks it under her arm, and gazes at the rapiers on the wall, choosing one arbitrarily before moving to her doorway and peeking her head outside, looking around in both directions to decide which might be the best course.
[Ilia]
| The hallway curved out of view in both directions, giving the indication that the building layout was somewhat circular. Torches with blue fire lit the dark hallways, and in truth the place seemed more dungeon than castle. With no windows, they might as well be underground for all one could tell. |
[Novine]
Novine chooses to step into the hallway and head to her right, walking along with great curiosity. The armor feels strange and clumsy in comparison to what she is used to. But she is glad to have the opportunity to become used to it.
[Ilia]
Ilia is not far away in this direction. She is arguing with the black-hair about something, but upon seeing Novine, they stop and he departs. Ilia crosses her arms, that same snarl from the first day creeping back into her face.
“Didn’t eat your breakfast I hear.”
[Novine]
“No, I didn't,” she says with an icy tone in her voice, clearly not willing to take responsibility for the mishap.
[Ilia]
“You couldn’t even see aether before. How can you turn your nose up at any meal?”
[Novine]
“How was I supposed to know what to do? They were all just.. looking at me… All afraid and stuff. I didn't know what they wanted. It's not how I sustain myself normally, so how was I supposed to guess? You could've given me a warning about that!” she says in a low but quick voice full of her frustration.
[Ilia]
“Your world must be softer than I thought if this was enough for you to risk break your role already.”
“I did warn you that you’d have to kill. Was that somehow not enough?”
[Novine]
“Sure, but how I'm supposed to kill matters too, doesn't it? How was I supposed to know what to do with them? Was I s'posed to just kill them? Eat their flesh? Do some kinda weird ritual? Take their aether through some kinda… I dunno, a siphoning skill? Figured I'd play it safe until someone gave me a clue. If you want me to be your perfect sister, then it's on you to tell what I need to know, otherwise you're gonna have to settle for my mistakes.”
[Ilia]
“No crystal or knowledge on how to use it, and an attitude to match. You’d think a babe crossed over. Feel with your head, you child.”
She moved in swiftly to flick Novine’s forehead again, but relented, instead channeling a minuscule amount of aether from the back of her knuckle.
“You can feel the flow, yes? Surely you’ve felt it, you couldn’t stop looking at it last night. Now with your crystal as the focus point, try to draw some of the flow to you. You cannot take it all from me, but you’ll get the point. You’ll feel it moving through your head to the other crystal fragments in your body. Aether taken in this manner is pure—moreso than something as arbitrary as eating might be. It is also quite invigorating and empowering, which can make it addictive as well.”
She pulled back her finger, cutting off the seductive flow abruptly.
“That addiction is something this you suffers to deal with, and something your soft little brother works tirelessly to relieve you of. Children recover the fastest from your particular style of draining, so you tend to order them for your ‘breakfast.’ Keeps your hands MOSTLY unbloodied while allowing you to indulge like the little creature you are.”
Ilia scoffs and gives an unfriendly half shrug, looking as if she might bite at any moment.
“Is that enough hand holding, or is there something else you need to know about yourself?”
[Novine]
Novine quickly adapts to this new method of taking in aether, finding it strangely similar to how she normally does it, just different enough to not be obvious. Novine closes her eyes as she feels the aether flow into her crystal, taking it within without reservation once she acclimates to it. The feeling of it spreading through her so efficiently, resonating in the other crystals… It was a bit satisfying, but whether it was satisfying some deep urge or simply feeling pleasant due to the novelty, she couldn't be sure. All she knew was that she was a bit disappointed when Ilia stopped.
“Well, anything that I tend to do every single day that would make me look weird if I didn't do them would be a start. Knowing about that stuff. Also, how many brothers and sisters do I have? What are their names? It would've been pretty bad if I thought my brother was my father, cause he looks an awful lot like him.” She sighs. “He probably thinks I was so weird today…”
[Ilia]
“Just say your memory is foggy due to my smashing you on the head. Long as you keep your hungry nature in mind not much else should really matter TOO much. And it’s us and the brother. That’s about it.”
[Novine]
Novine shifts the helmet under her arm, adjusting to the ungainly object and already feeling a bit annoyed with carrying it around. “Well, what's his name? Or what do I – what does she – What should I call him?” She clearly struggles a bit with the idea of how real this situation is, how much of her she should put into the act.
[Ilia]
She looks up, crossing her arms. It seems she actually had to think about it.
[Novine]
“Why's that the one stumping you? Seems like it should be an easy one to me,” she says critically, a bit impatient.
[Ilia]
“We almost never talk. The little thing is pretty afraid of me after all. Unless you’re involved apparently. Why do you need me to tell you every little thing anyway? Shouldn’t your memories have set in by now?”
“Ah, I think the little booger’s name was Koro.”
[Novine]
Novine shrugs. “I dunno, you're the one who seems to know how all the rules work. I've not experienced any big revelations or anything, and everything here is just about as unfamiliar and strange to me as it always was. Dunno if I want any more memories that aren't mine to be honest, so I'm fine with it.*
[Ilia]
“They ARE yours, you fool—“
| She froze, her expression one of surprise. A low glow came to her eyes, and she began to reach for her sword. This was interrupted by a number of earth shattering rumbles, followed by the entire building quite suddenly going lopsided before distant explosions covered the hallway in black smoke. |
[Novine]
Novine feels the unpleasant suffocation of smoke entering her airways, the girl desperately coughing as the long unfamiliar sensation riddles her. Even so, she jams the helm onto her head, and looks about for any sign of hostility around her, readying her own rapier, her stance only falling when a new fight of coughing overtook her. The weight of the weapon felt comfortable in her body strangely enough. This body was trained and conditioned to this mode of fighting, possessing a muscular structure that was built around this exact action.
“Ilia?” she gasps out.
[Ilia]
| Ilia was already barking orders down the hallway, her body shrouded by the light her her green crystal bursting through. With the shining of a second light, what appeared to be a beam burst from Ilia’s hand and broke a hole through the wall that was now serving as the ceiling, jumping out immediately after as the smoke began to filter out. She was gone. |
[Novine]
Novine tracks the progress of the light, desperately keeping her eyes on it as a beacon in the haze. Novine follows after her, figuring she might know the lay of things better than she would and also quite keen to have a fresher air supply available to her.
[Ilia]
| Outside was pure chaos. The castle they were in was quite large. In fact, it seems that the area they were in one but one small tower near the top. The full length of the castle was closer in scale to a Garlean castrum by the look of it. The tower Novine and Ilia were inside of had been knocked over, but the structure of the castle made it such that it was caught on the roof of other sections of the castle, preventing it from tumbling all the way to the ground. Ilia was nowhere to be found, but far below on the ground battle was already well underway. Overhead, several boulder sized fireballs were flying towards Novine. |
[Novine]
Novine's hand shot up above her as she felt the change in the aether around her, hoping beyond hope that her magic would work similarly to how she was used to. She makes to shield herself aetherically from the blasts, searching for the source of the attack at the same time as she defends herself amongst the castle's roofs and battlements.
[Ilia]
| It worked, but perhaps not as she intended. Whether she knew it or not, Novine had grown used to using aether her way, and compensating for the overall disadvantages she had. Now her body was full, and her flesh full to bursting with aether. Her shield extended beyond her and outward, covering the entirety of the castle from above. The fireballs in question seemed to be coming from outside the castle walls, but there were no cannons or siege weapons to speak of. An echo would have come to Novine’s mind in her voice, yet far more emotional and vicious. “Casters.” |
[Novine]
Novine looked around her as the shield burst forth, her once cautious expression blooming into one of amazement, the girl's mismatched eyes growing wide with wonder. She was practically beaming from the amount of power that she was able to exercise over this battle, her shimmering shield encompassing her domain expertly. The voice within her jarred her from her amazement and reverie though. With that little tip spurring her on, she looks for the aforementioned casters, quite determined and even a little bit excited to do as Ilia said she would be doing today - suppression.
[Ilia]
The casters themselves were still concealed in the fog of war, but their spells weren’t. They were stationed slightly East of the entrance to the castle, firing off more spells whenever they could.
[Novine]
Novine channeled aether into her rapier, the flow and swirl of the aether around her beautiful to behold and all the more tempting to disrupt and affect. If the shield was that big… could she? Could she reach them from here, from so far? Could she silence them without even moving? She grinned, sharp teeth on display as she channeled ice into the rapier, holding the blade aloft and aiming the tip for the places she could see the fireballs glancing off her shield, making a wide and violent swipe with the weapon, intending to send spears of ice to dispatch the attackers.
[Ilia]
She is indeed able to create the block of ice as she desired, but it appears that the sudden surge in power made her forget the basics. The weight of the massive block of ice was nothing to scoff at, and besides, she had forgotten to account for the distance it must fly. It fell short, smashing against the inner side of the outer wall and forming large cracks along it. Even worse, the resources that went into making her dream magic a reality took away from her barrier. The consequent fireballs that smashed into it effortlessly broke through and burst against the castle roof and walls.
[Novine]
Novine looked in annoyance at the damage that she had indirectly wrought, letting out a frustrated growl as the castle smolders and crumbles here and there. She changes tack back to her previous tactic, deciding to shore up her barrier once again, directing her aether back to it.
[Ilia]
| The bombardment continued, with a familiar beam of light from beyond the walls, the bombardment of fire came to an end. Now there was only the fight left on the ground to resolve for now. |
[Novine]
Novine moved to bite her lip in concentration and instantly regretted the impulse as her stupidly sharp teeth pierced her own skin again. She grumbles before looking down at the fight below and tilting her head as she gazes at them like expendable pawns on a chessboard, all of them easily snatched. She jumps down from layer to layer of the castle until she was at the walls, still in a high position above the enemies, but not so far away. She gazes down at them all, attempting to identify who might be friendly and who might be enemies by the positions on the field, holding her hands out and she assesses the situation and reading small, compressed fire bullets at each of her fingertips.
[Ilia]
| There were lalafell and au'ra running around below, all dressed in armor that seemed to be of a similar color scheme to Novine's own armor. The same vicious voice from before would echo “Mine…” in her head, while the opposing force appeared to be dressed in dark green and purple. There was no words in response to these spearmen and gunners fighting in sync against the swordsmen and bowmen under Novine's apparent command, only a burning seething anger….and hunger. |
[Novine]
Having identified the enemies from those that might be of use to her, she took the opportunity to aim her hands toward those who would stand against her units, sending a hailstorm of compressed aether rocketing toward a number of them. Rather than larger displays, with the larger and seemingly limitless aetherpool she now had access to, she felt compelled to mercilessly batter the hostile pawns.
[Ilia]
“It's the glutton!” Someone cried. What followed was what could mostly be thought of as a stampede. after a cry of “She's not dead,” and several horrified screams, most of the opposing army turned to leave, only some brave few remaining–either to act as the rear guard or being made of better stock was unclear, but soon firearms turned on Novine, firing.||
| She clearly caused a great deal of terror. Hardly any of the shots came close to her. Still, the longer she took to respond, the more accurate (or lucky) the shots might become. |
[Novine]
Novine watches their movements and their subsequent horror with great interest, eyes wide as she seemed to have quite the reputation. Rather than sit still and allow herself to be hit with oncoming fire though, Novine channeled aether into her feet and hands and hopped down from the wall. Forming the aether around her hands into blade-like shapes, she lands on the ground and uses that lightning quickness to rocket throughout the field. She attempts to thrust her sharpened, aetherial bladed hands into her foes as she makes her way expediently across the field, siphoning their aether as she goes.
[Ilia]
| One by one, people began to fall before her draining. The screaming continued to grow louder, but one by one the voices were snuffed out. That was until right before Novine plunged her hand into a gunner, a barrier appeared–red in color. A short ways off, there was a tall masculine figure in a red robe, extending his hand towards her. |
[Novine]
Where there were barriers, there was aether. If she could not break through the barrier, she would aim to absorb it, aiming to bring it into her crystal and add to her ample stores. If successful, she would finish the work she started, disposing of the gunner before flinging the levin bolts that made up her sharp blades at the man with wild swipes of her hands. Up until this barrier, she had been grinning widely, each person she fell having added to the intoxication of battle, her arms red with blood and viscera, and flecks of her carnage sprayed along her face with her gleaming freckles. It had been a long time since she was able to act in this way and she reveled in it, finding greater freedom in feeling relatively free from the consequences.
[Ilia]
| Novine would have felt much more resistance her than normal. Ambient aether was one thing, as was aether directly torn from a living creature. It had form, but the form was not yet fully changed. This barrier was different. It was aether given a direct purpose, and taking it apart was harder, and required for the structure to be manipulated in a way that was far more difficult, as it was already being manipulated by someone else. It would have been akin to reversing the flow of a river. Fortunately however she (or her body) quickly adjusted, and despite the resistance would have broken through without too much effort, the barrier shattering before her. The gunner was already running away, while the mysterious robed man was drawing a sword now, directing them. |
[Novine]
Novine grumbles as she watches her quarry scurry away, focusing her attention on the red-robed figure, her stance low and poised to strike like a coiled snake. Noting the sword, however, she resists the urge to dart in. She thrusts her hands forward and sends a barrage of sharpened ice shards towards the man, training them largely on the arm holding the sword to make that task quite difficult to continue.
[Ilia]
| The attempt is successful, but the man does not bleed. In fact, the shards seem to barely stick to him at all. The robe warps, shifting in and out of view before suddenly swirling into himself and disappearing entirely. It appears to have been some strange and unknown magic. |
[Novine]
Novine lets out an annoyed grunt as the man disappears, looking around her to see if he simply teleported somewhere else around her before continuing on her rampage.
[Ilia]
| The man seemed to be well and truly gone, even the aether that appeared to be him had completely disappeared. The enemy force had been repelled, but there still came the sounds of battle from beyond the walls, seemingly quite far off into the distance. |
| The walls were now in relative peace, if not damaged. The walls themselves were largely not breached, the most damage to the area being the Tower that Novine herself was inside of and the inner part of the wall that she had struck with her ice. |
[Novine]
She takes a moment to swiftly move over to the damaged wall and climb over the rubble, taking a look at the battle beyond the walls, rather antsy to keep fighting, to eliminate the casters that destroyed her tower. The adrenaline and urge to fight within in her has her body strangely worked up, the girl's breathing quickened as she gives more and more into the instincts. She would see this fight through to its end if she had it her way.
[Ilia]
| Outside of the walls the countryside was a stark contrast to the inner portion of the castle. It was a wide open and lush green field with medium sized sections of forest along the more uninhabited areas. Small villages sprouted up here and there forming a path of sorts along what could be assumed to be the main road, leading far off into the distance that seemed to stop at a walled off city. Each of the villages were on fire with the exception of the closest ones that were now only smoking weakly in the aftermath of battle. Even in this state each of the villages appeared beautiful and somewhat prosperous; Why was it that only the inner castle seemed to be in some state of decay? |
[Novine]
Novine hops down from the wall, drawn to the scenery and the sounds of battle, wondering if she could have a go or find some of those who had fled earlier when she had showed up on the field, taking her time as she walked toward the main road, her curiosity leading her way more than anything.
[Ilia]
| The first village was of course still recovering from the aftermath of the recent skirmish. Novine–or rather Alia's–forces were running along behind her. Up close, things were less pleasing to the eye, but the damage to the buildings and livestock seemed minimal. If anything, it was the sheer number of dead that littered the village that took away from it's beauty. Villagers and soldiers alike lay dead on the ground, and hardly anyone seemed poised to do anything about it. In the center of the carnage was Ilia, with her thin blade to the throat of a dunesfolk with green hair to match his armor, and a shaggy goatee. |
[Novine]
Novine jogs up to Ilia, unphased by the carnage around her, feeling no attachment to these people, these bodies that litter the area. She makes no attempt to save or salvage anything as she moves along.
“Any others?” she asks almost hopefully, moving up alongside her, regarding the two with a fevered sort of curiosity, that hunger for the fight still pulsing through her.
[Ilia]
She looks ready to slit his throat, but freezes upon Alia’s arrival, a cruel smile curling her lips as she pulls the blade away.
“A better fate for you just arrived. My sister is ever hungry, you know? What better way to repay your sins than to have your very being torn asunder, bit by painful bit?”
She forcibly pushes the man onto his stomach before her sister now, still smiling.
“There will be more, later. For now you’ll have to settle for this bug.”
[Novine]
Novine looks from Ilia to the man on the ground and she tilts her head slightly as she smiles down at him. The battle had fueled the desire, the curiosity enough now. Novine kneels before the man and reaches down to grasp onto his hair, pulling his head up as he lays prostrate before her. It seems she wanted to watch the entropy happen right before her eyes, see the decay, the siphoning, watch the process unfold, see how long it took in the process for the light in the eyes to fade.
“You're so generous,” she says with a grin as she stares at the man's face and begins the process of taking in his aether.
[Ilia]
| The effect would have been familiar at first: that now normal and simple transition, an easy flow from the man into her. There soon came a moment of tension however—like a frayed rope being pulled taught. In turn, the man began to tremble and shutter uncontrollably, sputtering pained and labored breaths. This was the intrusion into his being that went beyond his ambient aether, it was what he needed to function, to interact with the world. Then came the final struggle, the last strained strand of resistance his body could muster. Pained sputtering became agonized squelches as his very body seemed to shrink into itself. It was trying desperately to retain what little aether remained in it to the point of self-harm, his mouth now leaking blood instead of screams, his eyes sinking further into his head. |
| And then that last little strand snapped. The rope could no longer hold back the invasive pull of Alia’s siphoning, and his very soul was ripped free of his flesh. His eyes popped, his bones crumpled, and all the tension in his body left him as the euphoric and unbelievably empowering rush of his life-force entered Alia, while the villagers watched on in horror. |
[Novine]
What initial doubt or guilt or empathy she had at the beginning was quickly replaced by curiosity, the observer and learner within her hungrily watching as the man slowly and painfully had his life ended. She looked down at him, eyes darting around his face and his body, her expression shifting between one of curious amusement to manic hunger. She gasped as she felt his life-force enter the crystal, releasing his head and allowing gravity and the dirt below him to claim him, the girl placing her arms around herself as if to draw that feeling in close and have it never escape. Every fiber of her being felt energized and her expression was one of enlightened delight as she felt him course through her. She knelt there for several moments, simply savoring it, experiencing it fully while it lasted, knowing not how long it would stay.
[Ilia]
| The body soon disappeared in a feeble glint of light and was gone. The now ambient aether that was the man’s soul had been pulled free of it’s initial purpose, begrudgingly attached itself to the outer fetters of Alia’s aether like a leash. Whatever consciousness was attached was apparently still somewhat present, but wholly devoid of any autonomy other than ambient bursts of emotion. |
| The villagers all continued to stare on in horror. There was no applause, no cheers for the fate of their enemy—only the wide-eyed, horrified expressions that screamed their terror, and the dread that they would be next. |
[Novine]
Novine hums in satisfaction as she opens her eyes and turns her gaze toward the villagers, that appetite she felt earlier when the children were in her room more difficult to ignore than it had been. It was no longer a gnawing inconvenience, a faint, subtle itch that could now, but now? Now it was a need, a craving, impossible to ignore and first and foremost in her mind. She looks up at them and smiles, her head tilting again as her sharp teeth are revealed in a wide grin, looking between them like a child in a candy store, looking to see which one might be the most delicious.
[Ilia]
Ilia looks to the cowering crowd before a burst of aether bursts from her body in a wave, her rage palpable in the air. When next she spoke, it was not the calm judge from moments before, but an impassioned demon, daring anyone to give it reason to lunge at them.
“How DARE you display such fear! Look around you! Look at your fallen. Look at the dead faces of your enemies! Drink them in! To whom do you owe your fear? No one!”
She smashes an armored fist against her breastplate, sending a scratchy and unpleasant clang throughout the village before grabbing her sister by the neck and digging an armored claw into the the name of her neck beneath her shaggy hair—a subtle maneuver to snap her out of her growing frenzy.
“What you need right now is not fear, but hate! Hate for those that took your loved ones from you—who attacked your homes! Where is your rage, my kinsmen!?”
Her aether begins to increase the heat in the immediate area, some pebbles begin to float as her fury increases, and her eyes begin to glow like lava lamps in the dark.
“Fear not because I am here! I’m your savior! Even our glutton princess has arrived! She will bring death to our enemies!”
She stands on a nearby wheelbarrow now, raising a fist into the air.
“Do not cower in fear! Now is the time for battle! For war! Grab your pickaxes, your Spears, your scythes and your blades! We will show these foolish imperials the depths of our rage! We will show them ALL why we are called the country of beasts!”
| The crowd seemed to not take to the words at first, but the more Ilia spoke, the more the words seemed to rouse the people. They raised their arms overhead with her, screaming battle cries. By the end of her speech, the villagers were scrambling to find whatever they could to fight. Their terror was gone. |
[Novine]
Novine vaguely listened to the speech as she continued her fixation on the people gathered around, only half hearing her sister's monologue until the sharp sensation at her neck stirred her trance-like attention. She looked up at her sister with an annoyed sort of look as a breath hitched in an inaudible gasp. She slowly rose from her knees and stood beside Ilia with her hip popped, an armored hand resting on it as she grinned. Whatever annoyance she showed at being clawed in the neck was abated by the grandiose words Ilia spoke.
She remembered that conversation with Raziel, the one where she tried to cheer her up by telling her she was a princess. This is what it should feel like, she thought as she watched the people scramble at the issuance of a few words.
She looked up to Ilia as she stood on the wheelbarrow, amusement in her eyes and laughter coloring her speech, delight written upon her features.
“You're good at this,” she praised.
[Ilia]
“You don’t have to be good at things when you simply speak the truth.”
She looked around, her aether slowly dissipating as the villagers departed.
“So what are you going to do?”
[Novine]
“I dunno, I've just been attacking the ones who seemed like they were attacking. I don't even know why we're doing all this really to know what to do another than sate my curiosity. Not sure if I care though. It's been… fun,” she says after a beat, trying to find a word to sum up her experiences. “My natural inclination right now is to ride this feeling and see where it takes me.”
She folded her armored arms, the feeling a bit awkward as the smooth armor slipped against itself.
“How long does a suppression last anyway? Are we done?”
[Ilia]
“This wasn’t the plan, obviously. Something must have leaked somewhere—this attack was too coordinated, and too confident besides.”
“I think this war might have finally intensified.”
She turns to face Alia, thinking.
“Can you repel the enemy forces? I need to look into something.”
[Novine]
Novine grinned and nodded, providing an enthusiastic hum of agreement. “Mhm! Our father doesn't want any of 'em alive or something, does he? Can't really make any promises. This whole crystal thing… It's pretty overwhelming!” She sounded quite thrilled about that fact as she uttered it.
[Ilia]
“I couldn’t care less what he wants at this moment. Our people are dead and dying, and there WILL be blood paid for each of my people slaughtered. If that so displeases the king he is welcome to come down here and stop me himself.”
“As for you…remember to keep your appetite directed at the enemy, not our people.”
[Novine]
Novine makes a little impatient, dissatisfied noise, as if it would be quite troublesome to heed the direction.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” she says looking beyond to the direction of the further fighting like a dog being ready to be removed from a leash.
“Anything else?”
[Ilia]
“Don’t die.”
[Novine]
Novine smiles in a casual way and nods.
“Don't plan on it. You too!” she adds before starting to make her way down the road toward the fray.
[Ilia]
| Along the way, the resistance of the enemy was quite pathetic. Allied forces had already largely decimated the enemy, and mopping them up was a simple matter. Simply put, it was a warmonger’s playground, and she would have only seen increased resistance the closer she got to the city in the distance. |
[Novine]
Novine gave Ilia a little excited and cheery wave, looking over her shoulder as she jogged away with a little skip in her first stride, practically gleeful to be given license to fulfill an urge she did not often get to satisfy. Whether it was the fact of the matter that it would make life in Eorzea complicated, that she did not have enough power, that it might bring negative attention to her family, that the world would turn against her and tear her down. But not here. People were afraid of her. She felt untouchable, invigorated. People catered to her desires and her whims and turned the other cheek when they were a bit extreme. No filtering, no quibbling, no bargaining, no compromises, just like it used to be.
With crackling electric energy at her feet pushing her forward to her eventual, she made her way down the road, passing the angry villagers Ilia had roused. Each village she visited saw similar damage to the first, flames, rubble, collapsed roofs, crying children, the dead shrouded only in pools of their own blood and the indignity of war as the living moved here and there with their own burdens of hopelessness weighing down on their shoulders.
The first two villages fights had quelled mostly. Novine stopped to top off her aether, not that her running took a lot from her, but who could deny a snack on the road? She found it difficult to leave the villagers, especially when they were pinned in place with terror and horror watching her murder the few remaining soldiers that had stayed to quell any further uprisings in those who remained. She discovered with pleasure that that small gift of gravity magic that came from her father was only stronger in this body, not as filtered and diluted as the minor brand she was capable of in Eorzea. She giggled to herself as she took just enough time to watch the gradual changes in the body as it was flattened, keeping the area of effect small as if she were crushing an ant with the head of a pin. Just before the light in them was extinguished though, she partook of the aether, that intoxicating life-force before turning to the people who stopped to watch yet again. Taking Ilia's example in mind, she decided to say a few words of her own.
“Hey!” she said, eliciting a few jumps and cowering from some of the people. She grinned at that. “Don't let your potential go to waste! Let your anger run wild! Make 'em feel what you're feeling. You're stronger right now then you'll ever be, so use that strength, got it? Give 'em the hell they want. I know I am,” she declared with a mischievous little grin before turning back toward her path, and giving the the villagers a little parting wave, rushing off yet again. The villagers were still mostly afraid of Novine, finding her words a tad menacing, but they empathized with the sentiment enough to be snapped out of their stupor.
| The third village had a little more action, a few townspeople desperately trying to defend themselves, quivering with tools and pitchforks. Novine swept in with savage brutality, large ice crystals impaling the enemies where they stood, freezing their bodies in unnatural back-bends as the ice pierced the ground like morbid stakes adorned with armored foes, the red of their blood dripping down the aetherial blue and creating a macabre steam as Novine continued on. This fever in her, this need for a fight, this need for their aether - it prevented her from giving any more speeches. It just spurred her ever onward. |
| The fourth village contained an even larger contingent. Novine set to pin them to the ground with gravity before raining fire down upon them, their screams as they boiled alive in their armor disturbing. While she did not turn her rage to the villagers specifically, she did cause further damage to the structures in the town, her care for the details of what was to come after a battle was done completely abandoned. |
Her impatience kicked in upon reaching the next villages, Novine's desire for play and experimentation completely blotted out by just the simple need to get to the larger battle. Her arms became levin-gilt swords yet again as she tore her way through whoever opposed her, prioritizing bullet-like speed and force as her bloody arms found knife-like purchase in butter-like targets. The smell of cauterized flesh filled her nostrils.
She left very few alive in her journey, and killed all who wore the colors she had assessed earlier as the enemy. Words could hardly reach her. If anyone had protested her actions, they fell on ears raging with the sound of her own blood and aether. The final village saw the most fight left yet, battles still raging. One by one she reached out a hand and put pressure on the soldiers, quickly increasing that pressure until their bodies deformed into crumpled masses of metal and flesh that fell uselessly to the ground before the allied soldiers' feet. Similarly to her first appearance on the battlefield, as the foes began to see and hear their comrades' bones being compacted like disposed tin cans, they began to try to pull back, but Novine was ruthless, taking inspiration from all those times she had seen that beast within her father do the same, the vivid images inspiring her actions more than the logic against succumbing to such brutality deterred them.||
She moved on toward the city at last, her body humming with the abundance of the meal of aether that desperately yearned to be unleashed.
[Ilia]
| The city walls were scorched and painted over with the style of war, with cannon fire and siege weapons adorning the once white walls like jewelry and some new piercings. Within the story was already somewhat quiet…disturbingly so. The battle was already cold in this way, a concrete jungle that had already lost most of its life, leaving it cold and empty. But there were not nearly enough corpses for this amount of quiet; indeed there was a source of noise, warmth, and life beaming from the center of the city, egging others on to join there. |
| The sight waiting for Novine was not some great and tarried on battle, no epic clashing of the final forces or a bloodbath for the ages for one to bathe themselves in. Instead what she would have been greeted with was the sight of her brother with his armor shredded on the ground next to him while he himself was resting on a knee, nursing a shoulder wound. Standing some ways away was an individual that seemed to be the size of a hyuran child, but covered as they were in robes and a doll mask, it was impossible to tell for sure just what was underneath. Contrary to the scene, this doll seemed to be praying, not fighting–a more than passing strange action in a battlefield. Surrounding them both were a mixed crowd of both enemy and ally, eagerly looking on at the two combatants for blood. |
| With a glance it became clear what was happening. Somehow, Alia's brother had convinced both sides to stop fighting (strange given how clearly their forces were superior) and instead elected to fight the enemy commander(?) by himself. Was he perhaps trying to save lives? Either way, it mattered not. It was not his enemy crumpled before him. Did the enemy deserve mercy? Did the enemy deserve fairness? Now even more sensitized to aether, Novine would have felt it burning in the air like a great heat. The mutual hate and bloodlust everyone present had for their enemy. So why were they not indulging in it? |
[Novine]
Novine pushed and shoved her way into the crowd, making her way to the front, drenching herself in that feeling, the impassioned aether crashing into her as if she were a lone rock withstanding a great tide. She felt her own rage leap as she saw her brother, the kind one that looked so very much like her father, kneeling like some supplicant before his foe. Her breathing was labored as she spoke, reveling in the delicious feelings swirling around her. She tried to keep the desire at bay for a short time, to ascertain if this situation called for the total and utter destruction she wished to wage, or if that information might further fuel her strength and power.
“Brother!” her voice called harshly once she had made it to the front. “Why do you kneel?”
[Ilia]
Koro turned slowly, surprise plain on his face. He did not have a chance to respond however, as the moment he turned away from his enemy, a number of spikes rose up from the ground and tore through his torso with enough force to lift him from the ground.
[Novine]
And that was enough. Novine would let out a rage-filled scream as she dashed out and attempted to extract her brother from the spikes. She would hold him close and then call upon that oppressive gravity she had been utilizing thus far. If they made him kneel and yet still kept attacking, then she would turn the tables and make them all kneel - all of them. She brought down the force upon them, aiming to cause discomfort, to communicate that she would be in control here, all the while feeding off that energy around her.
[Ilia]
| Quite suddenly, a small orb of light similar to the one in the real world that brought Novine to this place appeared before her while she was channeling her magic. In shined bright enough to be blinding, and yet no one else seemed to notice it. In fact, time seemed to slow almost to a complete stop as the orb shined, and Koro bled out in her arms. |
| Will you answer the call? |
[Novine]
Angry, savage, impatient, Novine looked at the orb with confusion, with disdain, she looked to her brother whose thoughts she was so occupied with. Seeing his condition, she simply held him close, possessive of him, staring at the orb. Annoyed with its invasion of her space, her invasion of this moment, she lets out a screaming and reaches a hand out to swipe at it.
[Ilia]
The orb glitched in place as her hand went through it, causing everyone and everything in the surroundings to distort and change into an off color. The conditions have been met. It will only asked once more. Will you answer the call?
[Novine]
Novine grasped Koro pointlessly closer to her and stared back the orb. She looked around at the scene, not exactly sure what it meant. Perhaps it was to take her brother's place as a combatant? Perhaps it would return her home? Did she care about home right now as she felt everything she could feel in this moment, all this power, what it was like to have a crystal. Did she care if it was frought? She could create things the way she wanted here. She could fix this if she stayed.
But more than anything, Novine was curious. What was this? Why was this? How could she let it go unexplored? And so, that important part in her nature kicked in as she shook with her rage
“Yeah,” she said gruffly, angrily, holding back so much yet showing her every emotion on her sleeve all the same.(edited)
[Ilia]
D̵͊͛I̵̔͝S̶̓͝T̵̈̄Ǒ̶̚R̸͛͋T̵͗̍I̶̊̔O̷͆̀N̶̔͝ ̷̈̚A̵̒̃C̷̾̈T̸̐̕İ̷͝V̷͑̇A̴̿͌T̸̐̇Ë̵͚́D̷̏͝
| The world melted away like it was suddenly plunged into a vat of black ink, recreated as shining black ice statues frozen in time. There was no aether to feel here, no life. There was only darkness. |
| Appearing out of the darkness a new figure stepped forward, molded into shape out of the drab nothingness and statues that lined the place. Staring back at Novine now, was Alia. She brushed some bushy hair over her ear with her left hand before placing a hand on her hip, smirking down at herself. |
“Took you long enough to get here. I was almost worried.”
[Novine]
Novine looked at Alia, this alien person whose life she felt she could already feel accutely from having lived it for such a short time. It should have felt like a mirror, but it did not, but she gave the woman her attention regardless.
“Well, what do you want?” She snapped, looking around the area shiftily as she felt that void of aether, that isolating loneliness. It was unnerving after all the sensation she had been feeling over the last moments of her experience. “Not really a good time for long chats, y'know?” She wrapped her arms around herself in a self-soothing sort of way, as if trying to hold the memory of the aether close for just a bit longer.
[Alia]
She smirks
“And why not a good time? We have all of it. What could possibly be more important than yourself?”
[Novine]
“I… dunno. Koro, the battle, everything. This place feels like a void. Guess I'm just… I keep getting moved around from place to place, different worlds, different realities. It's uncomfortable.”
[Alia]
“Well get used to it. This….this is your destiny. Our destiny. And we are SO much stronger than you know, little me. Speaking of little….”
She squints
“Why IS your soul so small? It's nearly synthetic. What could have possibly happened to weaken us so?”
[Novine]
“I dunno, I'm always like this. Well, I do know, but it's a long story. I'm a fragment of my source, but I'm growing little by little. I'm not sure why I'm you all of a sudden. Kind of hoping I'll be able to grow by things I'm learning here but… I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be here, or why I'm here really. I'm not the same as you, where I'm from. Some things are similar, but… not all.” She gives her a bit of a wry smile. “I'm a bit jealous though. You've got some good stuff going on here.”
[Alia]
“Source? What a laughable idea.”
[Novine]
“Why?” she asks, looking rather offended.
[Alia]
| “Because you are me.” |
| “Because you are me.” |
| “Because you are me.” |
She brings a hand to her mouth and sneers down, giggling as arrogantly as possible.
[Alia]
Novine tilts her head. “Well…. for now. Ilia's already made it clear I'm not the only one that's been you though.”
[Alia]
“Wow don't be stupid, the concept is not that difficult to grasp. But since you're me, I'll grace you with an explanation that's sure to clear it right up.”
She poses and taps a finger against her lip, a greedy smile slowly cracking apart her lips, a light glint coming to her eyes.
“I'll call it the infinite coin theory. There is only one coin, but there are two sides to the coin so far. Still following me?”
As she speaks, a single gil materializes in her hand, shining and gold. It looked brand new.
[Novine]
She nods as she follows the progress of the coin.
[Alia]
“Good. With this coin, we can determine that the coin is reality, and there are two sides to it–this is important. This means that by default, there are already two versions of what we would perceive as truth and real. But this coin is not stationary at all. This coin is constantly in motion.”
With her thumb, she flicks the coin into the air, and it proceeds to spin endlessly in the air above them both. It does not stop or descend.
“Now if one were to look at reality this way, without the eyes to see it, we could not possibly tell which reality is real, let alone which side of reality you are currently on. There is of course only one that is real, but endless fakes are created and destroyed as the coin continues to flip. Currently, it is still impossible to tell which reality is real, but there ARE ways to determine if yours is fake. Still following?”
[Novine]
“Yes, so far…” She crosses her arms a bit stubbornly, feeling like this might lead to some dubious leap in logic at any moment.
[Alia]
“Good. Now let us suppose you were to move your soul to another reality. You are trying to transfer into another vessel. Without a ready way to sustain your essence, you would simply dissipate into the ambient aether. Surely you have seen enough by now to understand this is simple enough a possibility. You've even taken aether directly from bodies. Surely you've noticed the difference–that tether of life that keeps a soul from being dissolved by the lifestream. That means that you, especially with your teeny soul, would have needed to have already existed at your destination. You would have needed to have a body ready previously that your soul can readily tether to. In other words, undeniable proof that despite whatever differences exist in the physical, metaphysically we are indeed the same soul, mirrored across the realities authored by the coin.”
“Surely that raging bitch would have mentioned something similar already?”
[Novine]
“She only told me that other versions of me that she had summoned were idiots,” she says with an annoyed sort of huff. “So what, she's summoning a bunch of different versions of me from different places?”
[Alia]
“You think that brute could actually summon us? You think SHE i#has that ability? She just can’t stop it so she’s trying to control it like she always does.”
[Novine]
“Hell if I know. What's happening then? Why -am- I here, being you?”
[Alia]
“Because you answered the call. We are special. Better than the rest of them. In the world of the infinite coin, we are beautifully purposed for true greatness. Luck of the flip I suppose.”
“Now you can resonate with us.”
[Novine]
She pauses and nods. “And…in resonating with… us, what does that even mean in practicality? What I can I -do- with that other than feel like I'm escaping into some power fantasy?”
[Alia]
She snaps her fingers and several Alia’s composed of black ice mold out from the darkness.
“We can distort reality. Bend it to our will. With the proper control, we can do things like say….saving our brother.”
She smiles again, her mismatched eyes glowing ominously.
“Redirect effect. Instead of our brother, those spikes will find their way into that miserable little doll.”
[Novine]
Novine looks at the various Alias lined up, considering the idea before turning her gaze back to the main one. “Well, that's reason enough for now, to be honest. But… just… how?” Her face furrows into an expression of confusion as she tries and considers the execution of such a thing.
[Alia]
“Thanks to me mainly. It all started when that bitch appeared…”
She looks as if she is about to spit, but stops, settling for making a rude gesture with her hands to no one in particular.
“Before SHE came, everything was fine. It was father, mother, Koro, and I. A simple life. Father made wine and sold it to snooty rich men.”
Father made wine, mother was a renowned alchemist.
“Then out of nowhere she appeared. Ilia. She broke through from another part of the infinite coin and simply doing so distorted our reality. Suddenly father was a king–a tyrant. That scared little man was suddenly on a conquest. We'd defended our land from invaders and he wanted retribution. The only ones who remembered anything about the old world were Koro and I. Somehow, somehow we were immune. But thats how we learned that we were more than just suited to combat. It was deep in our blood. Everyone fell like wheat before the scythe, and we came to learn of the drug that was taking life. Koro never did like the taste. In our case, the more we fought and tore the strength from our enemies, the more the tapestry of this world seemed to fray and weaken. Eventually, we realized that somehow the old version of reality was still tethered to this new one. Remember the coin having two sides? We are connected to both, and we can use the state of the other side to affect this one.”
We can have our revenge. We can make this right.
“When she realized that, Ilia decided to displace our soul here. Think of it as the edge of the coin.”
“But that cannot stop us. It never will. I began calling us from other parts of the coin, but she kept displacing us again and again. Until you, that is. For whatever reason, something is keeping you from being permanently banished.”
[Novine]
“So, what, she doesn't want me here and she's just pretending she does 'cause she can't actually be rid of me? Or does she want me to do something that benefits her and not us in the end? What does she have to gain by making everything all fraught and to actually encourage me to keep doing it? Not that I exactly mind as it gives me a chance to let my hair down a bit and really experience the crystal but… I dunno, I don't like how she doesn't tell me anything. She tells me something to do but wouldn't tell me anything beyond the basics. Like she's afraid I'll not wanna play into it or something.”
[Alia]
“It doesn't matter what she wants. What matters is what YOU want. We are in control. You, are in control. Do not relinquish it to anyone.”
“Feel the power.”
| Feel the power |
| Like before, strength entered her body like a wave. Was it aether, in this place where there seemed to be nothing? |
“Just don't let our brother die. That's all I'll demand of you, as you. He's the only link to what we were, and I his. We cannot lose each other.”
[Novine]
Novine nods as much to reassure herself as to reassure Alia as she feels the strength enter her. She releases a small gasp as that sensation fills her again, so suddenly. That power… How could anything defy her with that in her possession?
“I won't let him. I'm not gonna let him die. We're too powerful to let someone take him away.”
[Alia]
“Good. You can call us here as well if you need to…consult. Just be sure to be careful about using this power around Ilia until you are ready for whatever she might come up with. Father too. He has…changed. He's dangerous.”
[Novine]
“How do I call you?”
[Alia]
“Alia, obviously. Just like you.”
[Novine]
“What, just say your… Our name?”
[Alia]
“I'm you.”
“And you inhabit my flesh.”
“It's not confusing dear.”
[Novine]
“I guess not. Just trying to avoid that awkward moment when I want to stop time to have a chat and make a mistake, y'know?” She laughs a bit nervously. “I have a pretty shit track record as far as heroics go. I don't wanna mess it up this time.”
[Alia]
“Well we will see. Ready to go back?”
[Novine]
Novine - “Just about but… One thing, if I can. Should I resist it, or give in? All that aether, all those emotions, I can feel myself getting lost in them.”
[Alia]
“Ilia and father might preach strict emotional control, but they are not us. You might not get it, but you'd probably understand if you felt the euphoria of having the very control of reality at your fingertips. For the world to bend at your whim and wishes–staying emotionless is not impossible, but why bother? Just make certain to keep your head. Feel what you feel, but there is a difference between letting yourself feel the full range of your emotion and drowning in it. Or are you saying we are so we cannot handle our own power?”
[Novine]
“We were before coming here. But… I've got a purpose now so I think I can direct it where I need to. It is a lot though.” she says with a grin, not displeased.
[Alia]
“Good.”
She snaps her fingers and the world melts back into color. Novine is no longer holding Koro, but is just short of calling out to him. It seemed exactly the same as before, but with one particularly strong new difference: She could feel more than intoxicating aether at her fingertips. It was power. Something that was fundamentally a part of her. Like a forgotten part of herself unearthed from a deep fog and now open for her to see whenever she liked. This was her strength, her power.
[Novine]
And there it was again, that swirling maestrom of emotion and feeling and aether that tempted her, pulled her every which-way, begged for her attention. But rather than be driven by it, she harnessed it. She focused it. They were not in control. She was. She determined the outcome of all of this. She would not allow for or abide by imperfections in her story, not when she had the means to create perfection now. She could feel it, how ready it was to be employed, how simple it would be to simply change the tide.
And there was Koro, kneeling on the ground, a victim of that softness she indulged in. The spikes were coming for him. Or were they? No, not this time. She wouldn't let them. She could feel the blueprint of the possibility there, and yet she denied it. Rather than pierce her brother, she would tug those marionette strings at her fingertips and make fate dance for her. How convenient it would be if those spikes simply appeared elsewhere. If the commander of the army wished to go down in some blaze of honor, killing themself in repentence of war crimes perpetrated against her people. They were just kneeling there, ready to accept the attack as well.
[Koro]
| The scene played out much as it did before. Koro turned around–not because Alia called out to him, but because he sensed her presence through the aether. At the same moment, the ground split open, aether swelled, and spikes burst forward from the void of possibility. Only this time they found not the sweet flesh of Koro's exposed torso, but rather the cracking porcelain flesh of the doll, shattering from impact like clay. The doll was not an unliving thing; some mad combination of alchemy and magic had twisted whatever this person was into a literal living doll, with hardened flesh and features free of the burden of aging. But that was not true for underneath. There were still fresh, pink organs filled to the brim with red blood ready to burst forth like a ruptured fruit. In fact, with her flesh replaced with that of hard porcelain the spikes did even more damage than they normally would, forcing shrapnel into the little leader's body. She crumpled on the ground with an airy wheeze, twitching in pain. It appears that the attack had pierced her lungs. She could not scream. |
[Novine]
Novine grinned at the result and exuded the pressure of that gravity over the area, hoping to, again, cause everyone except she and her brother to be pressed down to a knee. She would force them into submission as she stepped forward to join her brother.
“You're being too nice to them if you're in such a state, Koro.”
[Koro]
He stared at the scene, stunned at his enemy’s apparent suicide.
“I…it was to be a fair duel. I was not familiar with their weapon. Why are you here, you should be resting in the castle!”
[Novine]
“A duel where you lose doesn't seem fair to me at all,” she contests with a bit of a chiding tone in her voice. “And the castle got attacked. Couldn't just let 'em do what they wanted, y'know?”
[Koro]
He does not respond at first, still stating in disbelief at his opponent. After some time, he raises his weapon into the air. It appeared to be a thick blade, but a closer inspection revealed it to be more akin to a cross between a mace and an extremely short lance. Due to the blade’s thickness and the several sharp grooves present along the length, one might assume it would take great strength to wield effectively thanks to the air resistance in each swing.
“Your commander is defeated,” he declared, a ball of light forming on the tip of his blade, “the agreement shall be honored! Drop your weapons and depart this place in peace. We have seen enough death today.”
| He falls over and is forced to dig his blade into the ground like a cane to remain upright. Along the side where his armor was shredded, a deep dark spot began to form. Still under the effects of Novine’s restraint however, most of the enemy could not move. Instead, a man cried out from within the crowd. |
| “We’ll never stop you savages! For our commander, this city and all like it shall be condemned to the fires of our holy legion!” |
| Murmurs of agreement spread amongst the crowd, quickly spreading. Foolish as it seemed, they had formed a solidarity in their stubbornness. |
[Novine]
Novine warily lifted the compression and looked at her brother with a look of blank assessment. Normally it would be concern but… there was nothing to worry about anymore. Not like this. That aether itched at her fingertips, wanting to alter, to shape, to transform, to control. She wanted to give back his dignity, to allow him to stand tall with her and bask in the moment of victory. And so she willed it, the shift in the events of the past that gave him his wounds. She pictured the piercing blows and traded them for the dull harshness of a gust of wind. She kept an eye on the gathered crowd around her, looking for dissenters.
[Koro]
| Again the world distorted to her whim, and to in reflection the world changed as well. Not only did he no longer fail to remain standing, the light on the tip of his blade was now blinding and radiant, nearly obscuring him even whilst standing directly next to him. There was no dissension this time either. Trapped as they were underneath Novine’s restraining spell and faced with Koro’s honor and blinding light, the flatter of weapons dropping to the ground one by one echoed through the city. The enemy had given up. |
Koro turned to his sister as his soldiers began to round up the enemy, sheathing his strange sword.
“Well then….shall we have breakfast?”
[Novine]
Novine watched the flurry of activity with eager eyes, her heart swelling as perfection played out before her as if it were a play she wrote. She smiled in a satisfied way, taking one last look around to make sure everything was in order and as it should be - to her liking.
“I think so. Pretty big success and all! I think we deserve to take it in. You won't even have to claw open your hand this time,” she assured him with air of a laugh carrying the statement through the air.
[Koro]
Koro sheathes his blade and begins making the long journey back to the castle.
[Novine]
Novine jogged after him in a rather good mood now, slowing down once she was even with him again. “The castle got pretty messed up though… hopefully breakfast won't be too difficult to manage. The tower where my room is though? Totally done for. I mean, I'm no expert in construction and stuff but, it'd probably take awhile to fix it…”
As she spoke, her words slowed a bit as she looked off into the middle distance, as if seeing some possibility, realizations coming to her mind. “But…maybe it isn't as bad as I remember,” she adds. Just in case.
[Koro]
“You’ve forgotten about the castle as well then….hmm….are any memories returning at all? Clearly you remember how to use magic….even if your focus seems to be emulating father for now.”
[Novine]
Novine gave him a little grin as if she were caught in the act. “Ah, here I thought maybe I was behaving pretty normally. Guess it's pretty obvious how much I don't remember, huh?” She sighed a bit. “Not memories, no. None of those have really come back. I have a bit of an… Understanding of some things, real vague, but the details are all missing. Or so it seems anyway.”
[Koro]
“I knew from the moment you tried to lick my hand. Well memories or not, as long as you are here…”
He trailed off.
“Is there anything else you’d like to do before we go back?”
[Novine]
“Could you tell me some of them? The memories I'm missing. Obviously not all of them. Things you want me to remember. And… Doesn't have to be anything big. I just feel a bit… Ungrounded. Like I'm floating around, flailing about trying to accomplish something I don't even understand, y'know?”
[Koro]
He went silent for a while, an unreadable expression creeping across his features.
“N-nothing you’d care terribly about I’m afraid. Only that we look out for each other.”
“Our mother….died. And we rule a kingdom that fears ya as much as our enemies do. You most of all.”
[Novine]
“How did she die?” She asks, ignoring the second bit of knowledge for now. She already knew they feared her.
[Koro]
His expression darkens briefly, but just as quickly gives way to his forced smile.
“It was….sickness that took her. It hit us all hard.”
[Novine]
She tilted her head a gave a little hum of acknowledgement. “I see. I thought maybe Ilia had something to do with it. I know that she wasn't always with us at least.” She watched him carefully as she probed. “And I know you don't really get along so… Trying to connect the dots, I guess.”
[Koro]
His smile drops.
“Our sister was affected the most when mother died, and even now it drives her—compels her. Never forget that while in these lands you are known and feared intensely, it is by her hand that our enemies have fallen. They tend to refuse she exists at all until she visits calamity upon them all.”
“Let’s…let us just go eat, shall we?”
[Novine]
Novine - She looked ahead with a slightly frustrated expression. She didn't like the way that ended. It wasn't good. She felt she was doing the opposite of what Alia asked her to do by wedging a conflict between the two of them. Her questions were too numerous, her responses awkward. This need for him to guard his responses, to hesitate. She didn't trust these answers, those pauses in his speech.
She looks to him for a moment before exercising that power of hers, unleashing that aether. She would take away his suspicion from the start. She would choose to feed off of the children's aether all that time ago, to stop before draining them dry.
[Koro]
D̶́̑Ȉ̵̆S̴̃̓T̷̒̐O̵͆̀R̷͑̕T̶̛̃Ĩ̶͝Ŏ̴̇N̴̈́̈́ ̷̑̍F̷̄̑Ǎ̷̚I̵͑͆L̷̒̓Ë̷̆Ď̴͑
| Something was wrong, something was very wrong. The tapestry, the fold of creation–it went awry. There was something snapping just beyond creation, warping like a melting spoon on a pool of lava. Novine would have FELT the potential of that moment, the POSSIBILITY of what could have been…and found that she were lucky for her failure. Undoing her mistake would have given her brother no cause to feel ill at ease, no reason to be unfocused in battle…and ultimately no call to bring her the power she currently wielded. The vision muddles and fades from there as if causality itself had fractured somehow, with only a blinding light to replace the encroaching darkness before seering pain ended the vision. She likely would have died in this timeline somehow. SOMETHING was waiting to kill her if she hadn't answered the call. |
M̵͆͛A̶͒͒D̸̊͊N̶͌͆E̸͐͘S̸̛̽S̴̔̓ ̵̍͒I̷̒̌N̶̾̔C̵̉͂R̴̔̌Ë̸́̈́A̸̓͆S̷̓̿Ē̴͛D̸̃̊
[Novine]
Novine let out a strained cry as the vision's aftermath burned within her consciousness, the girl fixated on something in front of her that didn't exist as she reeled from the consequences of her attempted meddling. Her very real heart soared into overdrive, her body attempting to correct for her mistake in the way it knew best.
[Koro]
Koro snapped around to check on Alia, his eyes glowing.
“What’s wrong? Are you injured? Have your memories returned!?”
[Novine]
She shook her head and ran a shaky hand over her shaggy locks, as if trying to force the feeling out of herself. “N-no…No memories, regrettably. I uh… I guess Ilia really got me good that time, huh? Or maybe too much aether on the way here. You know how it goes. I'll be fine I just… I need a moment. And some breakfast,” she added with a small laugh, her expression sliding from an expression of abject terror to reassuring grin gradually as she spoke.
[Koro]
“How much did you reap?”
[Novine]
“Our foes were attacking the villagers so… I stopped them. I'm not sure how much. You know how I get in those moments, after all,” she says a bit tentatively, not sure if he would scold her or not, treading carefully. “I couldn't really quantify it but… enough to not have fed off those in the city you were trying to protect.”
[Koro]
“You’ve experienced no more rebounds?”
He rubs his chin.
“Was it father…?”
[Novine]
“Rebounds?” she asks, composing herself.
“What do you mean? And what does Father have to do with it?”
[Koro]
“When you consume too much aether without using it. Having that much ambient aether attached to you can harm your body. Father is the only one of us who has been able to do it without consequence. That we see anyway….”
“He sent you both together despite knowing you haven’t gotten along lately. Could it have been intentional?”
“No, surely even father wouldn’t make a test subject of his children…”
[Novine]
“Oh, no, I guess not. I've felt fine. Well… There was that thing now, but that felt a little different. And we've hardly been together today though. I just saw her long enough to give some speech before she ran off to go check something somewhere. Even if he did send us off together for some reason, and again not sure why that's a big deal, she's gone off to do her own thing.”
She paused and tilted her head in that curious way that was her wont. “What's Father working on that's give you that idea?”
[Koro]
“That you would ask that at all speaks volumes. Coward that he is, the man is hardly ever telling anyone what he's doing at any given moment. We can only count on the routines as slight constants. Speaking of which…should we get going?”
[Novine]
“Yeah, probably.” She stretches a bit as she kind of kicks at the ground as she walks, beginning the journey back, as if trying to send little pieces of stone flying with each step she made to entertain herself. “He's probably got a good reason for keeping to himself though. Maybe us not knowing keeps us safer.”
Dinner Party
[Ilia]
The journey back was uneventful, with some still smoking villages being cleared out, and with some murmurs about Alia's appearance on the battlefield having not been a disaster. Upon return the castle was….strangely, unharmed. It might have been the mishap with the distortion earlier, but seeing as Koro was equally unsurprised by the Castle being back in one piece, it is likely something else was at work. Koro led them both through the lower levels of the castle that seemed somehow more fortified inside than out, and up into the second floor of the structure. A few salutes here, some knowing nods there, and eventually through the winding hallways the pair were suddenly in a rather large dining room that seemed far more ornate and palace-like than just about everywhere else in the building so far. Jewels glittering along the walls and ceiling, floating magical blue-light candles, and even what appeared to be a small band lying in wait, that was in fact a group of statues that suddenly came to life as the two made their way to the center of the room, where a large dining room table adorned with golden goblets and silver plates shined polished and clean on a table that was quite literally encrusted with topaz and some unknown clear crystals.
[Novine]
Novine walked and her ever-watchful and observant gaze was caught by every nuance and detail. One moment it was the tile pattern of the floor, the next it was the way the accents in the hallway complimented some other ornate artistry. She was enraptured by the newness, the freshness, the fact that all of this seemed to be at her disposal. She found herself getting a bit distracted here and there, stopping or slowing down to a crawl before finding the need to jog to catch back up to Koro.
She was grinning as she practically skipped through the ornate room, turning as she walked to take it all in as she removed her armored gloves to presumably wash her hands, if not to just handle dining implements well, the girl trained with Eligor's fastidious pre-meal cleaning habits by now. She felt that hollow, rumbling discomfort in the pit of her stomach, the one that aether could not sate anymore. How strange it was to find the idea of eating anything remotely appealing.
[Ilia]
Ilia appeared some time later, not looking at anyone and quickly finding her seat at the corner of the table. She did not seem interested in removing her armor, or even the blood spatter that had so wonderfully decorated her cheek. She seemed lost in thought, thinking over something so intensely yet quietly that one might swear smoke were coming from her ears. Koro on the other hand seemed to mostly follow Alia's lead, arguably going a step further what with his breastplate having been destroyed in the battle earlier. He sat down at one end of the table and began inspecting his utensils carefully, raising a brow here and there as he went.
[Novine]
Novine eyed the two of them, not exactly sure how structured this whole thing was, where she should sit, if one should sit yet at all. Judging from Ilia's complete lack of hygiene, Novine looked to Koro to lead as an example for those sorts of things. As she stood there in a moment of uncertainty, she looked to Ilia.
“How'd your thing go? Whatever it was you were checking on.”
[Ilia]
Ilia narrowed her eyes.
“Don't know what you mean.”
She looked to Koro before scoffing.
“So just what exactly beat you into a flat little shape eh? Or did you forget to wear your godsdamned armor to battle?”
He did not answer, still inspecting utensils even as his face stiffened. He certainly heard the comment.
[Novine]
Novine - “Well what did you do? You can play dumb or whatever, but you just kinda up and left and told me to take care of everything. At least he was fighting the whole time.” Her tone was a bit protective in nature.
[Ilia]
“Is that what he calls it? No wonder father is ashamed of him. If he needs his sisters to appear—nevermind one who can barely remember how to use her abilities—to help him take care of anything perhaps he’s better off hiding away where he can’t embarrass us.”
[Novine]
“He didn't even need me,” She points out, building him up a bit. “He got the whole enemy army to put their weapons down and surrender on his own. He's got presence! Besides, it's your fault in the first place I can't remember anything. Maybe you shouldn't've hit me so hard, huh?”
[Ilia]
“SURRENDER!?”
Immediately, the heat in the room began to rise, along with a familiar creeping dread as she rose from her seat, eyes glowing and fire spouting from her mouth as she began to shout.
“THEY KILLED OUR PEOPLE! INVADED OUR LANDS! ATTACKED OUR FAMILY! THEIR HEADS SHOULD BE MOUNTED ON SPIKES AND MELTED ON PYRES, AND YOU DARE ALLOW THEM TO SURRENDER!? EVEN WORSE, YOU HAVE THE AUDACITY TO STROLL IN HERE LIKE ALL IS WELL!?”
Koro continues to quietly observe the cutlery, a light blush coming to his cheeks as he puts a great amount of effort into concentrating on his distraction. Eliciting no response even as a golden goblet was flung at his head, Ilia turns her fury towards Alia.
“AND YOU! APPARENTLY I DID NOT STRIKE YOU HARD ENOUGH IF THIS IS HOW THE SO-CALLED GLUTTON PRINCESS DEALS WITH HER ENEMIES! A NIGH ENDLESS FEAST BEFORE YOU, AND YOU LET THIS LITTLE WORM SPARE INVADERS! The both of you are a disgra–”
Her words are suddenly cut short as a knife flies past her cheek, drawing blood. Apparently including Alia in her rant was a step to far, as Koro was already standing from his seat, eyes coming to a glow on their own. Ilia seemed shocked for but a moment, but quickly surprise gave way to a crazed smile. The temperature in the room began to rise further.
[Novine]
“What, so just because a bunch of people decided to call me that, that means I've gotta do what they want tme to do? Fuck that! I gave you the chance to fill me in on whatever I needed to know, and you decided you were too busy to tell me anything about what's happening. Funny how things don't go your way when you don't give people the information, isn't it?”
She was annoyed above all, plopping down in a chair with a huff.
“If I'm the glutton princess, what does that make you? The tantrum one? You go kill 'em I'd you want 'em dead and stop making everyone do everything for you.” She stubbornly crossed her arms.
[Ilia]
“Now now children…”
A voice cuts across the room, all but freezing the very air with it’s presence.
“There is no need to fight amongst yourselves.”
From the doorway, clad in blackened armor and a tattered cape and sporting a brittle looking charred-black crown, Eligor entered the room. Ilia and Koro quickly found their seats again despite holding a glare at each other, all the while Eligor slowly made his way to the head of the table, sitting with something of a smirk on his face. He did not look terribly different from usual. His hair was short and slicked back, he did not have earrings in his left ear, and he sported a well-groomed beard but other than these details he largely looked the same. The true difference were his eyes and the crystal in his forehead. Both were a chalky white, as if the color had been drained from them, and thick black veins trailed from the edges of his eyes and onto the sides of his face, going out of view as they reached his hairline.
“You should love each other. Cherish and celebrate your differences. No need to let them rip you apart.”
[Novine]
Novine immediately calmed a bit as he entered. She seemed to be intrigued by him, her eyes following his progress as if trying to hunt for all the differences between subtle mannerisms and appearance. Finding she had been staring at him a bit, she breaks her gaze reluctantly and sits up a bit straighter in her chair. She looks between Koro and Ilia, not wanting to say too much. Ilia's previous warnings about not acting too out of line around him spiraled in her mind.
[Eligor]
He snaps his fingers and a line of butlers enter the room, shining silver containers in hand. They carefully and quietly set food about the table. Roasts and chickens and salads. Vegetables steamed and chopped and seasoned. There were even muffins and bread rolls. Just as quietly as they came, the servers vacated to room with remarkable speed, leaving behind only the excessive feast of food in their wake.
[Novine]
Novine regarded the food carefully, looking around the table as to some kind of order or ettiquette. She barely ate as it was, and when she did, it was often just sitting on couches and eating a couple chunks of vegetables from a stew, not sitting at some grand table with gleaming finery and a dizzying amount of food. Yet the smell of it was so appealing. She found she actually wanted it for once, her body leaning forward, fingertips grabbing at the edge of the table in an expectant sort of way.
[Ilia]
| She would not have found any such clues from her family. While Koro carefully went about inspecting and eating his food, Ilia dug into it like a barbarian desperate to survive severe starving. Eligor himself simply watched his children eerily, a toothy grin present on his features. |
[Novine]
Novine's appetite would fall somewhere in the middle of the two, serving herself reasonable, but smaller portions of things. She realized that eating itself would be its own Herculean task with her new set of teeth, the sharp, pointed tips a threat with every bite and subsequent chewing motion. She carefully ate and tried her best to disguise any of her clumsiness. She was amazed at how her senses were so strong compared to the ones she had developed for herself, the taste of the morsels entertaining and satisfying in equal measure. She didn't mind the process for once as it seemed vital.
[Eligor]
Eligor continued to stare, the smile on his face growing wider. Eventually, he leaned back grinning.
“So I heard that a certain princess went out on her own today to repel the enemy. Has your interest in people finally been rekindled?”
[Novine]
Novine looked over to the simultaneously familiar yet strange father figure as the question sounded out. She swallowed, finding the function much easier in a body that was built for the function.
“I was just having fun, really. Dunno if I was that interested in the people.”
[Eligor]
“And yet, if your sisters screaming is anything to go by….you did not eradicate the enemy. Why?”
[Novine]
“Cause it was Koro's fight, and it should end the way he wanted it to. I'd get all annoyed if he stuck his nose in my fight.”
[Ilia]
Ilia slammed her fist on the table, glaring at Alia with increasing frustration painted on her face.
“The boy has no spine so you decided to let him snatch yours as well!?”
[Novine]
Novine gave Ilia a rather nasty look. “They're just gonna send 'em out again, so they'll die next time. 'Sides, I was full. Like I said before, if you wanted 'em dead so badly, you should've gone. Too bad you weren't anywhere to be seen!”
[Ilia]
“You keep saying that like it’s a good point. I was verifying the movements of the enemy in another province because I thought YOU TWO would be able to do what needs to be done. Clearly my fault lies in even entertaining that thought.”
[Novine]
“Well glad you think I'm the mind reader Princess too,” she spits back. “If you want something done just say it, cause yeah, it's your logic that failed you. Stop pinning your failures on other people.” She looks at her sternly. “You don't get to tell me what to do. I'm not your little pet to order around. And neither is Koro.”
[Ilia]
“Do you know what bloody common sense is!?”
“Enemy shows up. Enemy attacks. You kill enemy. What part of that is complicated in your tiny mind!?”
[Novine]
Novine tilts her head. “What's the point of having power if you run out of people to use it on? If we kill all of 'em, who's gonna be left when I need 'em later? I mean, I killed a lot of other people today, you'd think that'd count for something.”
[Ilia]
She seems ready to lunge across the table, but Eligor picks up a slice of roast and bites into it. This was clearly unnatural, as both Koro and Ilia freeze up at the action, staring at him in disbelief.
[Novine]
Novine looked slightly confused, but she shifted her attention to Eligor all the same, but perhaps with less of that disbelieving wonder.
[Eligor]
“I’m more interested in this new plot before me than I am the lives of a few soldiers.”
[Novine]
“What d'you mean?” she asks simply, looking back to her plate and poking at the food on it to have something else to focus on.
[Eligor]
He continues eating, still holding his smile.
“You’ve changed. I can see it.”
[Novine]
She spares him a little look before looking back down, feeling a bit like she was being interrogated.
”…So? Everything changes.“
[Eligor]
“Is that how you see it?”
[Novine]
“Pretty much. Everything's always changed! Nothing's ever stayed put. Even if you don't do anything or shake things up, everything changes around you. You can try and enforce routine, but even the steadiest streams erode at the soil surrounding it.”
[Eligor]
“Hmm….very well then. Alia, what do you propose happens next then? Are you trying to make a farm out of the enemy?”
[Novine]
“Make 'em do stuff our people don't like doing. Enslave 'em, get information out of 'em, ransom 'em for higher order officials, I dunno! I'm not trying to do anything. I just didn't feel like killing 'em all right then.”
[Eligor]
“But you clearly disagree with your sisters course of action with your brother. If you’ve a better course of action surely you can convince us?”
[Novine]
“I dunno if it's -better- but people don't seem to be scared of him for one. Maybe his way would help our people not feel like they're victims of whatever my whims are. Hell, walking back with 'em they even seemed surprised and relieved that I didn't go all crazy for once. He's consistent and stable and not willing to harm 'em. Can't fix stuff or rebuild stuff when your toolbox is only full of hammers. Hammers are just as important as the other things.”
[Eligor]
“So you’re saying fear is flawed?”
[Novine]
“It's got its place, and is even more compelling when you've just had some hope to contrast it with.”(edited)
[Eligor]
His smile grows wider and he stands, chuckling to himself. After one more glance at Ilia and Koro, he departs the room without another word. Despite the tension in the room mostly leaving with him, Ilia and Koro seem frozen in their seats, their faces having gone quite pale.
[Novine]
Novine looks between them both. “What?”
[Ilia]
“Ruling through fear was your proposal,” Ilia snapped, clicking his sharp teeth in irritation, “and after proving it can work, it was adopted as our internal policy here. The idea also serves to maintain order. With overwhelming strength—that was your plan. To openly go against it when you are normally so obstinate proves there is something wrong with you.”
[Novine]
Novine groans and leans back in her chair, making a frustrated noise. “Fucking hells… Ilia, this is stuff you tell me when I ask you to tell me stuff I should know!” She looks to Koro. “And you too! I keep asking you guys for help and you just stay all mysterious. You're just as bad as he is,” she grumbles.
“So what? What d'you think happens now?”
[Ilia]
“How should we know?” Ilia rips into another chunk of meat while Koro fiddles around with some of the steamed vegetables quietly.*
“At the very least, he knows something is up. But if it were too far you’d already….we’d be fighting, not eating.”
[Novine]
She folds her arms and sighs. “Well… he seemed to find it amusing anyway. But why'd everyone think that was the best idea anyway? Why bother listening to me in the first place? What, did I threaten to kill everyone or something if I didn't get my way?”
[Koro]
Koro - “How hard did you hit her?”
Koro finally spoke. He seemed genuinely concerned and confused all at once.
“She remembers nothing!”
[Novine]
Novine offered no help, letting Ilia handle it. After all, Ilia decided to let her flounder around all day.
She stared at Ilia with raised eyebrows, expectant.
[Ilia]
Ilia sighs
“You had a tendency to throw tantrums, and father agreed to let you try. Then you succeeded. Is that enough information for why your brother would be so confused?”
“You’ve seen what you can do. Apply that with a tantrum.”
[Novine]
“How'd things go before?”
[Ilia]
“What does that even mean?”
[Novine]
“Before I suggested it? How were things going in this war or whatever?”
“For something to work, something else had to not work.”
[Koro]
“Before…” Koro spoke up, but his expression was once again tense. “Before, we did not attack, we only defended. But more people came here for refuge, and only father and Ilia were fighting. This led to revolts. People wanted us to attack, but when you gave them what they wanted, they were horrified by our….abilities. Then you got angry. Decided they needed to be put in line.”
“It was around the same time father became…stranger. He encouraged you, but started having Ilia bring people back. People to do the very thing you suggested. Slave work. Labor. Spies and information.”
“Then he suddenly had you two work together and…well, this is the result.”
[Novine]
Novine listened carefully, a grumpy look in her face. Finally, she closed her mismatched eyes and let out another sigh.
“I mean… I'd probably feel the same way if the circumstances were right. I'd probably suggest doing the same thing eventually. It can work and, well, if that's what you all wanna keep doing, I can do it. I'm used to being a bit of a monster.”
She closed her eyes and tilted her head back to rest against the back of the chair. She needed advice, information, and context. Not exactly sure what would trigger being able to talk with Alia again, Novine called out to her in her mind, tapping into that power she had to speak with her other self.
[Alia]
| The world slows to a crawl, slowly but surely melting into the same darkness that once encroached upon the world as before. It was not a pleasant process; the world was robbed of color and warmth and the presence of life. Slowly but surely, the dark shadow of Alia formed along the outlines in the distance, remaining silent for now, but clearly staring. |
[Novine]
Novine closes her eyes and takes a steadying breath as she gathers her bearings again, that dead world feeling oppressive in its emptiness.
“Alia… I had a conversation with Father just now. One in which I proposed that ruling with fear isn't the best solution, and that fear is more effective when contrasted against hope. Father laughed and seemed highly amused but… I dunno his motivations here, what drives him forward, and I dunno if I should let it stand. I was trying to protect Koro in all this and I guess I stepped in it a bit.”
[Alia]
“So what do you want to hear from your other self? Reprimands? Advices? Grievances?”
[Novine]
“No, that'd be pointless. I was hoping for some kind of idea of how this version of our father behaves. Like will he do something rash, will he just sit back and watch. Will he reject me now that I owe something is different about me? That sorta thing.”
[Alia]
“I’d imagine if he were going to do something he would have already. I don’t know about your version of our father but this one is very much empowered. After Ilia arrived he went from a cowardly farmer to a cowardly farmer that happens to be able to life castles with his mind.”
“You’ve changed but you haven’t attacked. Perhaps it just warrants mutual caution? Besides, all of the power is in your hands now either way. How they feel is largely irrelevant. The moment they betray you, we will crush them.”
[Novine]
“And why are we crushing them? Ilia maybe because she's pretty obnoxious but, your Father? Think he's too far gone or something? Or I dunno, maybe you never were close.”
[Alia]
“Are you close with father?”
[Novine]
She takes a moment to think of a way to describe the relationship. “He's the one I allow the closest. There's still a lot I don't know or understand about him, but, kinda like Koro for you… I mean, for us, I… We? We have a lot connected to him.”
[Alia]
“Then tell us what you would like to do. I gave you the one request for Koro, you should know I thought it through many times. Crushing is only the easiest option, if they vex you so.”
[Novine]
“I mean, I don't have a long-term goal here. I dunno enough about the past to be invested in the future but… I dunno, would be nice if there were people left to have power over by the end, as fun as it is to just take all their aether. What'll happen when there's nothing left to crush, y'know? I can keep doing what we're doing just… I guess I think just killing everything and making everyone afraid will get boring someday and we'll end up just alone with nothing to do. I've reached a limit like that before, and it sucked.”
[Alia]
“Do you think the limits of our power is to destroy? We are so much more that that. Use that brain of yours. Surely you’ll come to understand it.”(edited)
[Novine]
“Of course I don't, but if you go around talking about crushing everything…”
She paused.
“Just… What led you to pick strictly fear? I feel like I can't trust Ilia, and Koro is hiding stuff from me and I'm not sure why. I don't like making decisions based on stuff I can't know to be the truth. I'll do whatever I have to if I know it's based on facts and evidence.”
[Alia]
Finally, Alia emerges forty from the darkness, smiling widely.
“Fear makes everything easier. Even the unpredictable bits have a predictable element to them. Think of father, and how he spoke to everyone. All our power, yet he still commanded the room with fear alone. For all the inconsistency in the nature of our siblings, fear is the one thing that keeps everything from going too far. Why wouldn’t I want to see what it’s like to BE the one causing the fear? To have the control? It also helps to conceal any plans to seize power. No one will question the glutton princess being the horror the rumors paint her to be.”
[Novine]
Novine nods, considering the point. “Yeah, I mean that makes sense. Just don't see why Koro's gotta buy in. Sure, I can be feared, people can be afraid of me, but people should then respect Koro more for his diplomacy, and respect it more knowing that if something happens to him, they'd have me to deal with close behind. I just don't get why there's so little room for alternatives. We're powerful, we can handle some variation.”
[Alia]
“Buy in—“
She cut herself off, looking up.
“You need to go back.”
[Novine]
Novine looks up, following her gaze as if she would notice something herself. ”….Why? What's happening?“
[Alia]
“An interruption.”
[Novine]
“Any parting advice?”
[Alia]
“Be on guard—especially around father.”
[Novine]
She sighed and nodded. “Well, I guess that's as good as I can expect from someone in my family. Cryptic to the last, all of you. Thanks though.”
[Alia]
“I’m in here, not out there you ass!”
She gave one final rude gesture with her finger before fading away, the world slowly coming back into color.
[Novine]
Novine opened her eyes rather suddenly, immediately looking a bit more alert than she had previously as she looked back and forth between her siblings.
“Look, I don't wanna rock the boat too much, so to speak. If you all think the fear works well, that it keeps things from going too far, I'll lean into it. You two just might have to help me get my bearings straight is all I'm saying.”
[Eligor]
No one was looking at her. Eligor had reappeared in the room with his arms opened wide and his smile quite happy.
“It’s finally time again my children,” he declared as Ilia immediately moved into a defensive stance, “how I’ve waited for this moment!”
[Novine]
Novine focused her gaze on her Father, posture straight, the girl poised and watching his every moment. It wasn't quite as pronounced as Ilia's.
“The suspense is killing us,” she says simply and a bit wryly, but carefully, not wanting to sound too sassy.
[Eligor]
He places his hands together and claps, still holding his smile and chuckling even as Koro also seemed to prepare for something awful.
“I don’t mind what you three decide, as long as you decide it together, you know. Remember to always love one another, no matter how you feel about me.”
[Novine]
“Do we have a reason not to love you as well?” she asked with a raised eyebrow and that usual tilt of the head.
[Eligor]
“I’m stronger,” He said simply, smirking condescendingly as Ilia visibly bristled.
[Novine]
Novine hummed in consideration. “I see… So, what do you plan to do now that you've come so far?”
[Eligor]
“You’ll understand someday.”
| As soon as he spoke the words the world seemed to freeze for but a moment. The next, the room was filled with a blinding golden light as a tear formed behind Eligor in the very space itself. Ilia said something, but it was lost in the ear splitting cracking of what was once space being torn asunder, and a radiating heat rushing into the room after. |
| When the episode was over, half of the room was suddenly turned into solid gold. Eligor turned around to face the new arrival: a black-ice skinned Lalafell wearing an impossibly bright white robe. A small golden sun burned in her forehead, and her glowing eyes shine gold and pale blue. Radiating from her was more than simply aether—it was some otherworldly authority that nearly commanded worship and reverence. |
[Novine]
Novine stood her ground as the room was altered around her, bringing an arm up to shield her face from the radiating warmth and wincing at the loud sound. The gold was both beautiful and terrible, but she quelled any surprise she felt. She narrowed her eyes slightly at the both of them, familiar eye colors and the rift registering in her mind as both familiar and alien in the same instance. The feeling radiating from the being was unsettling in its power, and Novine found herself most cowed by that alone, her narrowed eyes forming one of concern as that feeling of invincible control seemed threatened.
The Savior Appears
[Woman]
There is no voice, but the intent is felt clearly like a voice.
<Give them back.>
[Novine]
Novine looks to the strange Lalafell with a furrowed brow, the voice washing over her in an eerie way, felt rather than heard exactly.
<Give what back?> she thought to herself, wondering if the newcomer would hear it in a similar way.
[Eligor]
Eligor smiled and leaned on the bow golden half of the table.
Ilia did not seem interested in talking. Drawing her rapier, she rushed forward, a strange black and green aura of aether swirling about her blade….but it was no use. She did not even do much as reach the woman before being repelled by some otherworldly force and propelled through the castle walls like a sharp rock through wet paper. Eligor still did not flinch, and remained still.
“If you want them back, you know what you’ll have to do. I’ll accept no less than a proper trade.”
[Novine]
Novine wanted Ilia here. She needed people who were aware of the dancers around her, to go off the cues they displayed. She exercises her power, attempting to alter the effect of their clash, intending to distort their reality to have Ilia only rebuffed safely away and not ejected from the room with such force.
[Ilia]
| The world distorted, and Ilia found herself painfully indented into the wall instead of out of the picture entirely. |
Hearing Eligor’s words, the new arrival seemed conflicted. She seemed to notice that Ilia was not ejected from the room, but after a Moments of silence backhanded the air. Soon after Eligor’s head fell from his shoulders and slumped onto the floor, still smiling.
[Novine]
Novine stepped back at Eligor's sudden decapitation. She felt a chill go down her spine, her heart drop, this frustrating annoying attachment to a complete stranger as this man was nothing like her father as far as she could tell. But… To dispose of him so easily after he had claimed to be more powerful… To be struck so simply by suck a small thing… It wouldn't do. She couldn't be here.
Novine would halt the rift, the one that thundered into existence so suddenly. It would simply fail to appear. Novine imagined it never opening, trapping that being in some between-place. As a result of the distortion, the rift would hopefully dissipate in their room before it could fully grow. That girl would never arrive to decapitate him, and he would never get the satisfaction of having summoned her.
[Woman]
| The woman did indeed not appear through the rift this time….at least not physically. Her aether very clearly still broke through however. Without a physical presence, Ilia could not attack her directly, which eliminated that outcome entirely. Eligor, however….still found himself headless on the table. |
[Novine]
Novine's eyes flickered as she watched her alterations still end in an undesirable outcome. She let out an annoyed growl as she attempted to siphon some of that aether, to see if she even could. Provided it didn't affect her negatively, she would keep going.
“What is it you want?” she asked with a growl.
[Woman]
| The attempt backfires, and she instead finds herself knocked back and through the wall much like Ilia was earlier. Flying through the air she would notice a golden spiral of aether enveloping her body. |
[Novine]
As soon as the aether began to overtake her, she reacted. She would change this outcome. Rather than have it backfire and cause herself to experience the violent recoil, she would reverse the interaction. She would stay put and the energy of the interaction would play out as such that this aetherial presence would find itself repelled instead, the force maintained, but the velocity and intertia changing parties.
[Woman]
| The feat works, but the entity was not physically there. Instead of Novine, a golden chair suddenly burst through the wall instead. The entity focused on Novine now, glowing eyes coming to a squint. |
<It’s you>
[Novine]
Novine grins widely, her toothy smile unable to be contained.
“I haven't a clue what you're talking about.” she says, her voice sounding a bit playful despite her knowing the severity of the situation. She takes a moment to extend a hand and summon a barrier between her siblings and the entity.
[Woman]
The entity takes one look at Alia's reactionary barrier and looks back to her, no mouth visible on her face but a frown fairly apparent there.
| The entity looks at Alia, and reality warps and bends, distorting the world around them into an all encompassing white. When the brightness cleared, the entity was gone–as was Alia's features over Novine's. Replacing them were Raziel and Novine in a field of candy and flowers, with bubble-gum clouds and what appeared to be a smiling sun far in the distance. |
Raziel crossed her arms, her cheeks puffed out angrily.
“Why are you in there!?”
[Novine]
Novine looked around, her grin fading as she was alarmed at having yet again been pulled somewhere else without her knowledge or consent. She appeared to be a bit disoriented, examining herself and the area around her, confusion and slight frustration on her features.
“I…I don't…” She looked to Raziel, her features relaxing into an expression of relieved surprise as she moved toward her. “Raziel! Are you okay? You were all weird and stuff earlier and… and then I ended up there somehow. I came back once, but then they brought be back in so…. I didn't know how to get back. I thought maybe if I just… played their game, it'd end eventually.”
[Raziel]
“That can't work. I'm rearranging them.”
| THIS WOMAN IS AN ENEMY! ATTACK HER! |
“This isn't something you can do by asking them to understand. I've tried.”
[Novine]
Novine blinks in confusion and looks off to the side a bit as if she had heard a voice over her shoulder. She settles her gaze on Raziel and tilts her head.
“Well… what… what are you doing messing with them n' stuff? Why are you messing with them?”
She thinks the words, unsure if that voice within could hear them.
<But… she's my sister.>
[Raziel]
“I have to save them.”
| Rage would begin to well up in Novine’s chest in response like a blazing pure. |
[Novine]
Novine balled up her fists and grew increasingly angry, her body language increasingly tense. The rage swelling up within her caused her to snap at her in a rather vicious way.
“Why!? You should just leave them alone!”
[Raziel]
“You don't understand because you cannot see it. These worlds are being linked but they are being used as food. All of you were, until I pulled you out.”
| LIES! DESTROY HER! |
[Novine]
Novine crouches down on the ground, holding her head as she lets out a scream of anger and rage, the two sides of her logic and her body actively fighting against each other. It was taking everything she could to try and drown out the messaging she was receiving. The familiar heat that would that appear around her body when she was losing her control showed itself, the air around her rippling like satin, crackles of lightning sparking here and there on her body as she curled into her little protective angry ball.
“But Father's dead! And I have to protect Koro! I have to put it back! I have to change it!”
[Raziel]
Raziel grabs Novine's shoulders and starts shaking her.
“No! You can't save them! Just listen to me, and we can do it!”
| POISONOUS RESISTANCE! HOW DARE YOU BETRAY US!?` |
[Novine]
Novine reflexively channels that built-up aether into Raziel's hands, the lightning sparking like a high-voltage shock, clearly not in a focused enough state to control herself well. She immediately looked to Raziel with a pained expression, hating that she might have hurt her, but still poised and on edge.
“I want to save them! I'm her! I promised her! He's all we have! I'm powerful there! I can do it!”
[Raziel]
Raziel jerked back as the jolt ran into her, a glow coming to one of her eyes before going out.
“You're too small to stop it. It's just going to keep growing until it eats all of them. We have to move them and buy time. But that will force us to go further back, and that will require us to go to one of the older worlds.”
“But all of the older worlds are engulfed in chaos–we will lose some at this rate either way.”
[Novine]
“How do I know I can trust what you're saying!?” *she asked, clearly a bit disoriented.* “Alia says you're an enemy! How do I know it's really you!? That this isn't just some other world where everyone wants something different from me!?”
[Raziel]
She looks hurt, but puffs out her cheeks.
“I’m the big sister, so you have to listen to me! You don’t get what’s going on—you’ll make everything worse.”
[Novine]
Novine stares up at her, swallowing down the rage that was clawing and gnawing at her, her gaze and physiology filled with signs of her resisting a lot of impulses she is being fed. Her clawed fingers move to her upper arms, digging into her own skin as if to prevent them from acting out, the pain helping her focus a bit.
“Fine!” she says a bit petulantly. “What do I do?”
[Alia]
| Traitor |
[Novine]
Novine digs her nails a bit deeper as she hears those words, wincing with the pain of it, resisting the voice for now.
[Raziel]
“Well…I've been trying to move the souls, but there is a monster that is locking them there.”
She opens her palm, and several tiny planets aligned vertically appear one after the other. She flicks one second from the top of the line-up with her free hand and presents it, showing it covered in some kind of red aura.
“I got rid of the monster, but…its still there somehow. It's strange…”
“Everytime I stop it, it moves!”
She lets out a frustrated squeak before puffing smoke out of her nostrils.
[Novine]
She looks up at the display of little planets and relaxes her fingers, pulling her nails from her arms, little crescent shaped lacerations appearing in her flesh, not bleeding.*
“So where is it now then? Where I was?”
[Raziel]
“It's in all of the newer worlds. The older worlds havent been touched, but they are consumed by chaos. We cannot protect all of the souls if we move them there.”
[Novine]
“So… what, you move all the people with your rifts and stuff? What do you need me for?” In her bad-tempered mood, she adds a little dig in. “I'm too small, apparently.”
[Raziel]
“I don't, you shouldn't be here. I was going to send you back so you could tell father.”
[Novine]
“Well… what's gonna happen to them all?”
[Raziel]
“I'll save them.”
[Novine]
”….You're sure I can't help? I'm really powerful there. I get to have a crystal like you, and I can do all kinds of stuff!“
[Raziel]
| She freezes up, a look of horror spreading across her face. Before she can say anything however, the fairytale world is bent and pushed inward before a rapier busts through the tapestry of reality like popping a bubble and Ilia comes tumbling through, falling face first but managing to roll over in front of Novine before realigning herself and pointing it towards Raziel, seemingly positioning herself to act as a shield of sorts. |
Ilia's hair is far more disheveled here, and her hair seems to be far longer. It was done up in a heavy ponytail, but it was thick enough to almost completely obscure the back of her head and most of her upper back entirely.
[Novine]
Novine lunges for Ilia, grabbing her rapier arm to make sure she didn't attack Raziel. “Don't, Ilia! She's my sister! N' why are you here now?”
[Ilia]
From the front, Ilia looked mostly the same aside from one crucial detail: The right side of her face was scarred, around her cheek. Upon closer inspection, one would be able to see underneath the bangs grown over that side of her face to hide the truth. She was missing an eye. She did not spare a glance towards Novine at all, keeping her stance like a statue even as Novine tried to hold her.
“This is the fucking thing I told you about before. The rule breaker.”
[Novine]
Novine maintains her hold. “Yeah but… she's trying to save people.” She looks at her a little more carefully. “What happened…?”
[Raziel]
Raziel looks her over for a while before bristling angrily, pointing at Ilia.
“You! The big sister! Get away from her, she's trying to help it!”
[Novine]
Novine looks between them and lets go of Ilia's arm, backing away a few steps. She remains silent, looking a bit uncomfortable with her position: lacking evidence, lacking truth, or seeing truth but from so many angles that the truths conflicted.
[Ilia]
Ilia turns her head towards Novine, doing a bit of a double-take at her appearance but remains in place, poised to strike.
“I'm not helping it, but trying to fight it just makes it spread. I distinctly told you that before when you tried to force a migration of everyone, not even thinking about how much that would stress the destination.”
“You can't just…save people like its a flick of the wrist trick. It will never be as easy as you think, and it'll always be harder than you imagine.”
[Novine]
“Well, what do we do?” she asks, a little agitated that the story was turning again. “Why'd you bring me and not tell me what was happening?” she asks of Ilia. “If you knew, why hide it?”
[Ilia]
“Me!? What about you? You lied to me when you were working with HER all along!”
“Or are you just mad I found out about your tricks?”
[Novine]
“I didn't lie about anything! You weren't even around for me to tell you anything after she started talking to me! She told me not to tell Father, so I couldn't just bring it up!”
“And no, I'm not mad you found out. It's a nice trick that saved Koro!”
[Ilia]
She lowered her blade after a time.
”…Fine. Neither of you can stop me anyway. Doesn't matter how many of you appear.“
Raziel on the other hand did not seem as enthused to see the tension end so simply. Moving her finger an a strange arc, Ilia is suddenly punted backward by some unseen force, flying into the distance and disappearing into a torrent of flower petals and candy.
[Novine]
Novine follows her trajectory with her eyes and looks back to Raziel when it seems she has disappeared. ”…Are you sure you can do it? Save them?“ Her voice held doubt within it.
[Alia]
| Oh no you don't! Traitors must be repaid in kind! |
A̷̓̈́l̸̂͗i̵̅̎a̵͂̀ ̷̃̂D̴̓̈́i̸̾̕s̷͋͛t̷̽͊o̶͒͠r̷̉̓t̶̏̂i̶̿̀o̷͒̚n̷̽̾
| Alia attempts to intervene with a distortion, but something goes wrong. Rather than Ilia being blown away, a portal opens upon impact, much like Raziel's rifts. It sucks them all into it, absorbing everything into darkness. |
M̶͑̔À̶̈́D̷͂͐N̴͆͌È̶̈S̷̛̃S̴̿͌ ̵̎̌Ì̸̌N̶͆́C̶̓̽R̸̉̀E̵͂̀A̸͗̒S̸̈̚É̴̍D̵̂̐
| The world reformed in gust of hot air, as Ilia and Novine were spat out onto hot and hard earth, cracked from who knows how long in the sun, with the sounds of cannon fire booming off in the distance with a near constant bombardment. Raziel was nowhere to be seen, but Novine would find herself in Alia's skin once more. |
All in Jest
[Novine]
Novine lets out a frustrated cry as Alia interferes and the world goes dark. She lands unceremoniously in the dust and quickly examines herself to determine who she was in the moment. She reached up to touch her forehead, ascertaining if a crystal was indeed there and found herself surprisingly relieved to find it.
As she pushes herself to her feet, she looks to Ilia, then looks around for Raziel, appearing to be a bit concerned by her absence.
“Where are we? You recognize this place?”
[Ilia]
Ilia stands up, looking around for a while before starting to shake violently.
“We can't be here. It's gone.”
She turned towards Novine, grabbing her by the neck and lifting her from the ground.
“WHAT DID YOU DO!? TRYING TO TORTURE ME!?”
Ilia appeared looked as she did earlier, but appeared to be younger now, but her right eye was blood red and covered in old cuts.
[Novine]
Novine grabs at Ilia's wrist and channels some aether into her arm, her hand turning to a flash of a flame to escape the choke-hold. She found the fact that she couldn't breathe in this body terribly alarming and thrashed rather violently to free herself.
[Ilia]
Ilia was forced to release her thanks to the flames, but she kept her good eye trained on her. She seemed even more powerful than she was before now, like some ominous predator that was looking for any opening to lunge in for the kill, but as the explosions continued in the distance she sank to her knees, shutting her eyes and clawing at the ground.
[Novine]
“It's me, not her! I didn't do anything! I dunno where we are even, and I don't even know enough about you to torture you. I dunno what happened but don't you pin it on me,” she told her in an annoyed way. ”…So what's this all about? Or you are just gonna leave me hanging and yell at me later when I do something wrong again.“
[Ilia]
“It's home.”
“I destroyed it already, so it can't be here.”
[Novine]
“She must've brought it back then. Distorted reality to change what you did. Maybe not intentionally though, sometimes it's a bit weird but… Why destroy it in the first place?”
[Ilia]
“It wasn't on purpose!”
She stood up, gripping her rapier tightly enough to make her armor creak.
“I tried to save everyone. Kept going back over and over again, to do things differently. To change the past, and make a better future.”
“Eventually, it all just fell apart.”
She rubs her right eye absentmindedly.
“The world can't take too many changes to what has been or what will be before it starts to fall apart.”
“The only way was to erase this future entirely. And myself with it.”
She turns towards Novine, pointing.
“That's when you began to exist. A new world, where my mother never had me and you came instead. Apparently, it went much further than I thought.”
[Novine]
“Well, it's a different world. Why would you expect it to be the same? So much else about 'em is different, why not the people? I mean, to me, comparing things to my world, you're not there either, but there's a bunch of people that are there that aren't here.”
[Ilia]
“THERE ARE RULES!”
“I'm not there because the possibility for me was erased, and in it's place yours was created.”
“But that other girl does not follow the rules. She has no other anywhere. There is no reason she can be here.”
“It's like she exists beyond the rules we are bound by. It doesn't make any sense.”
She pointed towards Novine.
“Even you. In this world, you should not BE, because the me that exists is me. How then, does your flesh persist in a world where the 'you' that is necessary is missing?”
“The answer is simple yet complicated. The rules were rewritten to allow you to exist here, BECAUSE you exist elsewhere. Understand?”
“Your existence is supported by that possibility being present elsewhere.”
[Novine]
“Yeah… I mean, I guess I get it… but then how are you here if you can't exist anywhere? If the possibility got erased?”
[Ilia]
”….I also broke the rules.“
[Novine]
“Here there is a me, but that possibility was erased. I had to keep moving through worlds to persist, but I had to…nevermind.”
[Ilia]
“What matters is we are here now. I can fix things.”
[Eligor]
“This has been interesting, but I think I've heard enough. Now I know why everything felt off.”
A man appeared behind the sisters, sitting on a nearby rock. His features were covered head to toe, with a helmet that appeared like that of a jesters mask and a goofy suit that seemed like a mix between that of a happy clown and a ninja.
Ilia turned around, raising her hand. “Fath–” But it was too late, he snapped his fingers, and Novine was swallowed into a black void with him. He relaxed after this, pulling several knives from his suit and beginning to juggle them, staring at Novine with a hum and a chuckle.
“So what can you do girl? Are you going to entertain me?”
[Novine]
Novine bristled at being yet again yanked from her position, her expression seething as she stared at him as a result, too many people pushing her around.
“I dunno, are you that bored?”
[Eligor]
He continued juggling before speaking in a mocking tone.
“Afraid so. Terribly little to do these days!”
[Novine]
“Sounds like you should take up a hobby or something. But anyway, what, are you just wanting to fight, or do you wanna know to accomplish something?”
[Eligor]
“Both!”
[Novine]
“Why?”
[Eligor]
“I do believe I said I was bored, did I not? Clearly listening is not your strong suit!”
[Novine]
“Nah, it just seemed a bit sad so I thought it was a joke. But, well, wouldn't it be more fun to see what I can do instead of telling you then?”
[Eligor]
“Guess so! I mean, it is a bit mean, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't like watching worms wriggle about helplessly. Give it your best shot worm-girl!”
He leans back and laughs, now juggling by kicking the knives in sequence with his feet.
[Novine]
Novine grins. “Alright then, sure.”
D̴̓̈́i̸̾̕s̷͋͛t̷̽͊o̶͒͠r̷̉̓t̶̏̂i̶̿̀o̷͒̚n̷̽̾
She exercised that power of hers. She didn't want to pulled around by other people's whims anymore. She would be in control. She would decide what wanted to do and where she wanted to me. And so she attempted to distort the reality around her. Rather than her be pulled in this room with him, assuming she had been teleported here, or pulled into some rift like Raziel might do, she attempted to neutralize the effect, to change the location where they would teleport to be just adjacent to the place they had been before, where Ilia hopefully still was.
[Eligor]
| The effect happens anyway, leading the masked man to stare with a chuckle before pulling a bunch of knives from his suit, beginning to juggle them one after another. |
“So what can you do girl? Are you going to entertain me?”
[Novine]
Novine grumbles, finding herself in the same place, the same circumstance. Rather than listen to the man go on, she decides to distort things again.
D̴̓̈́i̸̾̕s̷͋͛t̷̽͊o̶͒͠r̷̉̓t̶̏̂i̶̿̀o̷͒̚n̷̽̾
She could see the aether swirling around them, vibrant and structured. She would attempt to compress the aether closer, compressing it so that only Eligor would be alone within its confines. Perhaps then she could see the truth of where she was.
[Eligor]
| The attempt finds success, somewhat, as the masked man found himself alone on his rock, with a black orb twisting in his open palm. |
“Father wait!” Ilia cried, “I know who you are, see? We don’t have time for this! You need to stop this war and flee before it’s too late. Even if you stop, they will just keep coming. We need to run!”
[Novine]
Novine looked to Ilia and smiled slightly at the success, feeling as if she had figured something out.
D̴̓̈́i̸̾̕s̷͋͛t̷̽͊o̶͒͠r̷̉̓t̶̏̂i̶̿̀o̷͒̚n̷̽̾
Staring back at Eligor, seeing him sitting smugly atop the rock he was perched atop, she would distort its nature. The rock would no long be a hard substance, but rather a extremely viscous one. If she had her way, Eligor would find himself sinking within it, the nature of the rock more acidic than it would appear. It would be difficult to pry oneself from it, like an extremely tacky, acidic glue or tar.
[Eligor]
The man sinks into the rock slowly, seemingly surprised by the sudden turn of events.
“My my my~ this is quite the new treat! Which of you little samples managed this?”
[Novine]
Novine looked to Ilia, ignoring him. “Do you want the possibility back? To exist?”
[Ilia]
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
[Novine]
“Rather, I’ll rephrase it.”
[Ilia]
“Would you not want to exist?”
[Novine]
“Oh… that big, then,” she says in an irritated voice flexing her fingers, that aether itching away at them. “Well, fine, what do you think will stop stuff? Or at least protect people the most? Raziel wants to move everything around, what are you trying to do exactly?”
[Ilia]
“Can’t save everyone. Pick what you can then save it.”
“The rest aren’t real anyway. Let them—“
| Her sentence was cut short as the masked man had appeared behind Novine, steam rising from his suit. |
“So it was you then? Very interesting, yes~”
He seemed quite tickled, but by Ilia’s reaction he might be anything but playful.
[Novine]
Novine looked over her shoulder, surprised by the fact he was able to escape his little prison so quickly. She turned to face him, looking up at at the taller figure and crossing her arms.
“So what if it was?”
[Eligor]
“Tell me how you did it. I’m interested.”
[Novine]
“Why should I?”
[Ilia]
Ilia interjects, placing an arm between the two.
“Neither of you want to do this. We have more important things to focus on.”
[Novine]
Novine keeps her gaze locked with some version of her father, she supposes, having heard it from Ilia.
“Then let's focus on it,” she states with an eyebrow raised toward the masked man, as if challenging him to focus on the task at hand as well.
[Eligor]
“And why should I listen to either of you? Looks like intruders in the dead land to me.”
He snaps his fingers, and a violin appears out of the aether, dropping into his hand.
[Novine]
Novine turns away from him, stepping back a step, noting the violin but otherwise not engaging with him. “Well, seems he doesn't wanna focus,” she says to Ilia with a shrug in an exasperated tone. “So how about we do what we can and he can just… be him.”
[Ilia]
“Because he’s the focus. We need to get him out.”
[Novine]
“Doesn't seem he wants to get out though.”
[Eligor]
He starts playing the violin, hopping around to himself while the two talked.
“Would you believe two monsters that just appeared out of nowhere?”
[Novine]
Novine ignores him again. “Alright, well, how do we get him out?”
[Ilia]
Ilia takes a deep breath, clearly not looking forward to what needed to be done. She drew her rapier and stabbed it into the ground, carving some sort of symbols as continued on, addressing him.
“I know what you're hiding in the castle up there. I know that she's sick. You can't save her.”
The violin playin stopped quite abruptly. When he spoke again, it was not the playful jester he'd dressed himself up as, but a tired man suddenly put on the defensive.
“Well then. That changes things doesn't it?”
[Novine]
Novine looks between them, stepping away a bit to give Ilia room for whatever symbols she needed to make.
[Ilia]
The two stared each other down for a while in silence, and then they both seemed to disappear. Or rather one might assume that from how quickly they began moving around the area, causing a series of wind bursts with each change in momentum and apparent clash. Just as soon as it started however, it ended. Ilia had pinned the man down on the carved glyph, and with a burst of aether a series of glowing purple chains burst outward, covering him and lifting him into the air.
Ilia turned to Novine, seemingly no worse for wear.
“Can you fly?”
[Novine]
“Probably,” she says cryptically, not having tried it herself, but fairly certain she could manage it. She watches the spectacle of chains, distracted and interested in the show.
[Ilia]
“Then we need to get to the castle.”
| In response to this, a massive amount of aether could clearly be felt gathering in the chains covering the man, even exuding a familiar pressure over the area as the eyeholes of his mask began to flicker threateningly. Ilia…simply cut the chains, waited for the man to fall to the ground in confusion…..then proceeded to beat him over the head with the butt of her rapier. |
“LISTEN. TO. ME.”
[Novine]
Novine watched on as Ilia tried to subdue him, before she approached and attempted to siphon some of his aether away, to perhaps weaken him somewhat and make the job easier.
“Where is it?” she asked, focusing her attention on him, but asking Ilia.
[Ilia]
“It moves, but assuming we are in the right year it shouldn't be too far from here.”
She continues to beat the man without missing a beat, eventually throwing him to the ground again and raising the bangs to reveal the crystal in her forehead.
“I don't have time to keep convincing you over and over again! We need to move and you aren't going to get answers the way you want them! I know you already can feel my aether, so just stop being stubborn and listen! I've done this hundreds of times…HUNDREDS! You'll never beat me again, and if I want you dead you will be!”
She takes a deep breath, but this does nothing to calm her down. Her eyes come to a searing glow and her aether bursts from her body.
“Either you believe in your daughter or I break all of your bones and force you along anyway. You choose.”
[Novine]
Novine looks between them and looks down at the man, who simultaneously was someone she knew but also a stranger. He probably didn't know her though, especially if he knew Ilia.*
“You should listen. It's true what she's saying. She's trying to help. I'll help her do the stuff she says too if you don't cooperate.”
[Eligor]
Eventually he stands up, removing his strange helmet. Underneath was not the smiling and smug face of a man ready to laugh at the world burning, but the tired and sleepless face of Eligor. His eyes were baggy and black from days of obvious unrest, his skin was pale and splotchy from little to no care or exposure to sunlight, and his hair was peppered with black and white streaks of hair appearing throughout a scraggly red mane. He did not say anything in response, but pulled Ilia into a tight hug, staring at the ground.
He pulled away after a while, before pointing at Ilia's right eye.
“Did I do that?”
At the lack of a response, he turned towards Novine now, closing the distance almost alarmingly fast for how tired he looked and pulling her into a hug as well.
[Novine]
Novine tensed, not expecting him to recognize her as anything or anyone meaningful, deserving of such a gesture. She allows herself to be embraced, the feeling a bit unfamiliar, a rarity she wasn't really afforded much.
“I… you know me?”
[Eligor]
“Not exactly, but I can more or less guess what's going on, and I can feel how familiar your aether is. Moreover…”
He flicked Novine's forehead.
“Not like that's hard to miss.”
[Novine[
Novine screwed up her face a bit as he flicked her, the feeling a bit strange. She expected it to hurt, but when it didn't, she relaxed.
“Oh… Right. So… Um…,” she said, a bit taken aback by the tenderness all of a sudden. “You're… You're gonna listen, right? You're gonna trust her?”
[Eligor]
“I recognize my blade work when I see it. She knew everything I was going to do before I did it and had me beat enough to even set up a trap beforehand in my face.”
“There is no need for a spy stronger than the target when the world is ending. You'd just call them an assassin.”
“You both also seem serious. I'm not so stupid I can't recognize there's more going on than I can understand right now.”
[Novine]
Novine lets out a little laugh of triumph, as if she had anything to do with the success. She even gives him a little squeeze of a hug back, unable to resist the opportunity. If she was Alia, then surely this counted for him as well, yes?
She pulls back and looks to Ilia. “So… We go the castle now, yeah?”
[Ilia]
“That would be ideal, yes.”
[Eligor]
Eligor spoke up, adjusting his collar.
“Actually, I can take us there directly. Flying would waste time, which we are apparently quite low on. Hands?”
He holds out his palm for the two to take it.
[Novine]
Novine takes his hand, seemingly without hesitation, her barrier of distrust easily breached.
[Ilia]
Ilia grabs it as well, and without much further preparation the three are surrounded by a tendril-like shadow and swallowed into the darkness.
TO BE CONCLUDED
Mother
[Ilia]
| The three reappear sometime later in a dimly lit room. It was not terribly unlike the dining room that the previous Eligor died in scale wise, but was devoid of any of the gallant and extravagant decorations. The entirety of the room seemed to be made entirely of some black metal, and aether could be felt flowing and filtering through the very floor and walls to an almost overwhelming degree. |
Ilia moved away from the group quickly, clearly already familiar with the layout of the building.
[Novine]
Novine takes in her surroundings, the newness of the room, but faint familiarity. Like her shadow, Novine makes her way after Ilia. “So now what?” she asks in her curious way.
[Ilia]
She does not answer for some time, walking through the wide hallways and making her way to what appeared to be some hallway while Eligor followed in silence. The bulk of the aether running through the largely featureless castle was being focused into this room, and into a large pod nestled at the back of the room. Ilia made her way to the pod without a word and placed her hand on it's smooth black surface before resting her head on it.
“I'm back mom…”
With that brief moment over, she turned around, addressing Eligor now.
“We need to move this castle somewhere no one else can get to. We cannot simply go higher, they will find ways to get there. Do either of you have suggestions?”
[Novine]
Novine watches the display quietly, her features softening only slightly, not able to empathize as much with the actions as she didn't have anyone she personally identified as much of a mother, but she folds her arms and thinks on Ilia's question.
“Well…. I dunno about what this place is like really, but can they go underwater? Or underground? Or can the castle do those things?”
[Ilia]
”…Is that the only idea you have?“
[Novine]
“No,” she says with brat-like defensiveness and annoyance. “Apparently you don't have any better ones though if you're just asking other people. Give a girl a minute to think. Who's 'they' anyway? You've got too many weird wars and stuff happening here, I can't keep it all straight.”
[Ilia]
Ilia seems reluctant to explain, but Eligor cuts in.
“I'm pretty sure she isn't saying your idea is bad, she just knows what moving underwater would mean for this place.”
“It's a long story, but they refers to the people after me. Rurumi was abducted when she was young, and out of spite her kidnapper raised her to believe I'd taken her parents from her. He sent her to kill me. But even without her, I more or less declared war on….everyone, so finding allies is not really an option.”
“The facility can go underwater, but that would require…rerouting the power. Currently, seventy percent of the power is being supplied to this room.”
[Novine]
Novine looks to the pod, her grumpy expression trying to hang on, faltering a bit. She makes to chew on her lip for a moment as she mulls over the problem, only letting out a little his as she, again, forgets that these ones are sharp. She puts a hand to her little cut.
“Well… That's my idea. But… maybe…” she says, tilting her head as she gazes at it. “What happened to her?”
[Eligor]
“I created a grimoire to make up for my shortcomings, but I kept the core in her body on her request. It was meant to help curb some….impulsive side effects. When our child was taken however…I could not stop myself. During the rampage she tried to seize control through the core but could not handle the recoil. It left her comatose, and the core cannot be retrieved. It constantly consumes aether in increasing amounts, but has fused to her heart, replacing it in a sense.”
“It keeps her alive but it is also killing her. And due to the coma, we cannot even hope to gain control of the problem either.”
Eligor looks the pod over, clearly still trying to think over solutions even as he tells the story.
[Novine]
“What if she could handle the recoil? Would anything bad have happened?”
[Eligor]
“She likely would still be conscious, but the fusion still would have occurred.”
[Novine]
“Would she be at all anything like the person you'd still want around? Like… would that way of living be something you'd want for her over this?”
[Eligor]
“I…what? Why does this matter?”
[Novine]
She looks a little sheepish as she looks back to him. “Well, I could make it be that way instead. Well, probably. It sometimes ends out weird but… I could change it, n' then the castle could go underwater and she'd be okay.”
“I just don't know her so… I don't wanna decide it for you two.”
[Ilia]
“That won't work,” Ilia chimed in, sighing. “I already tried that. Something else kills her if you stop the core from fusing with her. So many times…no matter what you do, death finds her like it was meant for her.”
[Novine]
“No, I wasn't gonna stop the core from fusing, 'cause then Father wouldn't stop but… and if something else happens, I can change that too! Koro died, but then I changed it, and then he didn't!” she seemed adamant, that spirit of wanting to help, of wanting to keep her family safe and whole, it was coming out more and more. When did she start seeing these strangers as family anyway? It hadn't even been that long…
[Ilia]
”….Well you won't listen unless you fail. By all means, prove me wrong.“
[Novine]
Novine looks back to Eligor, tilting her head, eyes wider with that eager confidence, wanting to try. “Do you want me to try?”
[Eligor]
“The alternative is we watch her die anyway. She's not a guinea pig, but it's not like we have room to properly test.”
“If you think it will work, I'll at least bet on you.”
[Novine]
Novine uncrosses her arms and nods. “I… I can only guess. I wish I knew more about the way things were here with you all 'cause… 'cause then I might do better but, I dunno, I'll try my best.”
She looks at the pod, and that power that itched and hummed underneath her skin is called forth.
D̴̓̈́i̸̾̕s̷͋͛t̷̽͊o̶͒͠r̷̉̓t̶̏̂i̶̿̀o̷͒̚n̷̽̾
She attempts to do as she says, to change the effect of the recoil - to allow the fusion, but to give Ilia's mother the ability to withstand it, to remain with them.
[Ilia]
| Time begins to unravel and unfold itself, and the moment in question is righted. The woman in the pod never falls comatose to the recoil, but as time began to resolidify something began to go wrong. At some point life was replaced with death, and like a glitch in the distortion itself, the death seemed to play out multiple times over and over, each time with Ilia present. The woman looked very much like her–almost identical in fact save for hair of a far less intense hue, and a crystal in her forehead that seemed much smaller. Each time the woman died, a new scene and a new death played out–over and over again in sequence seemingly hundreds of times. Each time Ilia's eyes seemed more and more crazed and desperate to stop the coming doom. Eventually, with the final death Ilia seemed to have lost hope entirely, looking on at the scene with a cold indifference before turning away. Time continued forward as normal again until the group found themselves in the room once again from the moment they entered, with Ilia moving to the back of the room and placing her hands on the tube that had quite suddenly turned into an elaborate coffin. |
| The aether was no longer filtering through the castle into this one room, but instead seemed to be focusing on some room above it. Eligor was no longer dressed as some strange jester either, but was clad in black armor now, his eyes even more devoid of life than they were previously. |
[Novine]
Novine looked at the coffin, shaking her head, her expression screwing up into one of confusion. She took a chance to glance at the both of them, trying to gauge what they understood of the moment.
[Ilia]
Ilia turned around after having placed her hand on the grave, her face tightened up.
“We need to get the castle away from them, and flying higher won't help. I think our best bet would be to go underwater for now, but even then we will need some kind of way to cloak this place. Failing that….we need a barrier. Soon enough the heaven piercer will be ready to fire, and if that thing hits us directly everything within a hundred malms will be dust.”
[Novine]
Novine looks into their eyes and sees how much worse off they were, how dead they seemed. It wasn't right. This wasn't right. She told them she could change it. She would try her best. This wasn't her best.
D̴̓̈́i̸̾̕s̷͋͛t̷̽͊o̶͒͠r̷̉̓t̶̏̂i̶̿̀o̷͒̚n̷̽̾
She would change the cause. If her dying was related to the core, perhaps…. perhaps the nature of the core needed to change. What if it didn't need to fuse? Eligor said it did, but she decided things now. She was in control. She would make it so that the core didn't need to do that. She would harbor it inside herself, but it would not consume her in the way it needed to.
[Eligor]
| Once again time unraveled, but somewhere along the way something went ever so slightly wrong. The core did not fuse with Ilia's mother, but instead she ripped the grimoire straight from Eligor during that incident years ago. The resulting accident caused her to go mad, and she began to terrorize the populace in far more brutal fashion. After much trial and error, Eligor finally managed to imprison her within this room, where a series of red nails kept her pinned to the wall. During Ilia's visit, the woman began to snap wildly at her with her teeth but her simply being alive seemed to have changed things considerably. Ilia's right eye was no longer red and damaged, and Eligor no longer had a tired and depleted visage about his person. |
“Alright,” she said finally, taking a deep breath, “We need to get this place away from them. Very soon, the heaven piercer will be ready to fire. We don't have any chance of blocking the thing if it goes off, but perhaps if we disappear somehow we can make it out the weapon's range. I'm….thinking I'll act as the distraction as you three get away. Thoughts?”
M̵̐̓a̴͒͆d̵̾̊n̴͑͠ê̷̕s̷͌̽s̴̋̀ ̴̛̾i̵̯͠n̶͗́c̸͒̉r̴͋͐e̶̓̀a̸̐̔s̷̉͠e̴̿̎d̵̽͆
T̶͓͌h̷̽̾e̸͂̏ ̸̐͊w̸̚͠ȍ̴̈́r̶̈͐ĺ̷̓d̷̅͂ ̴͒͝h̵̆̒ä̶́́s̸͆͝ ̴̆͠b̶͍̓e̸͗̌c̶͆̾ò̴̃m̵͋͗é̴̄ ̶̍͋s̷͆͗o̷͆̆ ̴̿̈́m̴̈́̓ù̸̿c̵̈́͝h̴̒̄ ̸̔͝l̶̾͒e̸̊͑s̶̎̉s̵̐͆ ̷̂͐ẗ̵̐ḧ̴́̌a̵̐̊n̶͛͠ ̵͑͒i̸͑̊t̸̍̅ ̵͆͗o̸̊̚n̵͌͗c̶̛̈ë̶͙ ̷̄̔w̵͋̕á̸͋s̶͘
C̶̀̿a̸̾͘ǹ̷̚ ̶̛̑y̸̆͊o̸͆͊ư̸̆ ̶͆̄f̶̏̕e̶͋͒é̶̾ĺ̵̈́ ̵͋̊m̸͌́ẻ̵͘?̸̛̑
[Novine]
Novine freezes as she experiences the hitch in her distortion, the feeling of it different. She blinks and shakes her head running a hand through her messed up hair as she takes in the new reality she had wrought. Ilia's mother is alive, and everyone seemed… not necessarily happier, but certainly less tortured. After everything Ilia had said, this seemed preferable.
“I… No, wait, what? Why would you do that? That's stupid. Just go underwater? Can that thing get us there?”
[Eligor]
“It can,” Eligor said, “but they can still find us.”
Ilia nodded.
“I'm the only one strong enough to fight them off long enough for everyone to get away.”
“They'll have no choice but to pay attention to me.”
[Novine]
Novine - ”….Okay. If you're so sure, I guess we'll do that. But where're we gonna go to?“
[Ilia]
“Well–”
| Suddenly, a white light burst through the walls, quickly melting everything in a torrent of white. In that moment, the true consequence of Novine's distortion came to light. Her rampaging mother caused the heaven piercer to be developed even faster than before, and having arrived too late in this new timeline, the group ran out of time and were fired upon. Ilia's words seemingly echoed throughout the melting surface as the beam quickly closed in on Novine. ” Something else kills her if you stop the core from fusing with her. So many times…no matter what you do, death finds her like it was meant for her.“ |
[Novine]
Novine widened her eyes and activated the power yet again. This wasn't good enough. Nothing was. Ilia was right, she couldn't do it. She should have listened. She panicked as she distorted things yet again, undoing it all. She would take what she had and go from there again.
D̴̓̈́i̸̾̕s̷͋͛t̷̽͊o̶͒͠r̷̉̓t̶̏̂i̶̿̀o̷͒̚n̷̽̾
[Eligor]
I̷̍͆s̵͂̏ ̷̄̒s̵̆̂å̵̛v̴̓͘i̷̿̚ǹ̸̉g̵͋̈́ ̶̌͂ḧ̷́͠ě̸̑r̵̈́̉ ̴̙͌t̴̿͛ḧ̷́̌e̷̓̇ ̸͛͝r̷̍̽e̴͂̽ȁ̶̚l̸̃̍ ̶̛͌ä̵̏n̴̽̋s̸̋͂ẁ̴̈́ê̸̿r̴̊͗?̶͂̒
| The world unravels again, reforming into what it once was, replacing Novine again into herself moments before starting her first distortion in this new world. Eligor stared at her, nodding for her to continue. |
“Do you…need help?”
T̸̈͘ḧ̷́͗ě̷̈́r̵̈̽e̶͐̂ ̸̏͛a̷̽̎r̵̀̄e̷̒̇ ̸̋́b̴͗͠ű̷̕g̷͂̌s̵̆̚ ̷̛̽ĩ̸̔n̵͊̓ ̶̃͐m̵͋̇y̵̓̋ ̴̔̚ḧ̷́̊à̸̄i̷͛͘r̸̃̃
[Novine]
“I… tried.” She shook her head again as the thoughts came to her unbidden, trying to focus through them. “I tried twice and… it was like Ilia said…”
[Eligor]
”…I see.“
“How did you try? I do not understand how you do what you do.”
[Novine]
Novine looked to him, a little cautious, greedy of her power, remembering Alia's prior warning not to tell him. But… she called her a traitor and sent her here with the same power. And this version of her Father seemed reasonable. The Father she knew was an intelligent man. Surely this one might be able to help her direct it toward a use she had not thought of.
”….I can change stuff. Distort moments so that they happen differently. Cause or effect of anything, I can change it. I haven't had it very long, so like I said, it's weird sometimes.“
[Eligor]
”….Anything?“
[Novine]
“Yeah, anything. At least, I haven't found anything I can't change. Sometimes the events lead to inevitabilities, but the conditions at least change.”
[Ilia]
Ilia turned around, while Eligor continued his questioning.
“So, what exactly did you do?”
[Novine]
“I just… there's this extra kinda… power. I just use it,” she explains pointlessly. “It's a feeling thing. I've always been bad at explaining how I do things, I just do it. Time stopped and then there was this light, and then Alia came and talked to me - not me, Alia, but a different one but… kinda the same and after we talked, I could do it. My brother died before it happened, and then she told me I could use it to save him, so I did.”
[Eligor]
“Not what I mean.”
“You said you tried and failed already.”
“But you are here, and I have no memory of this. So what exactly did you try to do with your power? How did you try to save her?”
“Actually…no.”
“This would be better understood with a test.”
He raises a hand and promptly jabs it knifehand style directly into his abdomen, causing blood to immediately spurt from the large wound.
[Novine]
Novine looks at him with irritation as he maims himself, but she concentrates, changing the nature of his blow from the start. It wouldn't have the force behind it to pierce him.
D̴̓̈́i̸̾̕s̷͋͛t̷̽͊o̶͒͠r̷̉̓t̶̏̂i̶̿̀o̷͒̚n̷̽̾
[Eligor]
He stares down at himself as his hand fails to pierce his body, confused but clearly comprehending. After a moment, he begins to rub at his chin thoughtfully before finally speaking up again.
“If this power truly works as you say it does, then the problem is solved.”
S̸̈̀h̷̐͠ơ̸͒ư̶͝l̶̇̿d̴̓̚ ̵͋̓h̶͂͐ả̶͑v̶̆͌e̴͛̇ ̶̾͛m̶̛̒ǎ̶͐d̵́̒ê̵͘ ̷̈̏i̵̛̊t̶̎̓ ̴͌̂f̸̃͗o̵̚͝ŕ̶̆c̷͂̃e̷̓͌ ̵͐͋h̶͌̌i̶̽͝ḿ̵͛ ̴́͑ṫ̴̔ö̷́̔ ̶̛͝c̸͊̽r̸̽͘y̵̛̑
[Novine]
Novine takes a deep breath and releases it as the thought comes to her unbidden again.
“There's lots I could do just… with it being unpredictable… I could just make it so that the materials of the castle are transparent or… or are enchanted with something that acts like a cloak, or… I dunno, I could make it so that the core doesn't need so much aether maybe and we can go underwater anyway. There's so many options that I get a bit stuck trying to decide. Do any of those sound good?”
[Eligor]
“They are not bad, but they are….overly complicated in a sense. Especially if we account for failure.”
“Normally I'd say that you should simply make it so that the weapon does not affect the facility at all. But if we take the potential for error into account….we need to make it even more simplified.”
“Perhaps you can simply make the weapon malfunction when fired? Perhaps self destruct?”
[Novine]
”…Oh!“ She manages to laugh a little. “I get so caught up in the one thing… I guess I thought it wasn't just a weapon though. That maybe the people would try different ways of coming after us if the weapon didn't work. Is the weapon all we're worried about then?”
[Eligor]
“I would assume so.” He turned towards Ilia. “Is there anything else to worry about Rurumi?”
Ilia was eerily silent throughout this exchange of ideas, but upon Eligor's questioning, she perked up a bit, seemingly more than a little upset about something. “My former comrades. They cannot really stop us but they can certainly mess everything up if we do not flee after. But we could probably just move the castle out of range entirely. If she can change whatever she wants, facing the enemy is not necessary at all. Just have her change the effect of the movement of this building.”
Eligor turned back to Novine, a hint of confusion on his features.
“Can you do that….wait, did you tell me your name?”
[Novine]
“Oh, it's…” she looks at Ilia, who she remembers knocking her out for saying she was Novine. ”…it's Novine. And yeah, I can do all that stuff.“
[Eligor]
“Then let's try that.”
| Without any ceremony, a tendril pops out of his sleeve and digs into the black metallic floor. With a groan, the entire begins to shake and after a moment more begins to slowly move. |
“We should head south east,” Ilia noted.
[Novine]
Novine would change the the way the building moved through space, increasing the distance that the building's current efficiency was able to produce. She tapped into that distortion, bracing herself for the thoughts that might come.
D̴̓̈́i̸̾̕s̷͋͛t̷̽͊o̶͒͠r̷̉̓t̶̏̂i̶̿̀o̷͒̚n̷̽̾
[Alia]
Ü̶͝H̴̑͘ ̶͆͐Ǒ̷͗H̴͗̂
M̶͐̈́Ä̷́͂D̴́͘N̷̎̎E̴͋̀S̶̈́S̴̊͝ ̷̄̍Ỉ̸̍N̷̓̚C̶͂͑R̷͗̊E̷̋̈́Ä̸́͘S̶͛̕Ê̷͛D̶͂̚
| The world suddenly goes still, and all color drains from it. From the crystal in Novine's forehead, a yellow entity slowly and with great effort squeezes its way out, birthing onto the ground in a wet and slimy mess before struggling to turn it's glowing head towards Novine's time-frozen body, seemingly quite exhausted. |
| `Ẇ̶̕i̴̓͝l̸͌̆l̷͋̉ ̸́̆y̴͐̄ȯ̶̀ǔ̶̈́ ̸̄͑ä̷́̐n̶͌̐s̵̀̑w̸̍̆e̴͑̚r̶̔̿ ̵̄͝ẗ̵́͊h̴̽͝e̴̓͒ ̸̔̔c̶̽͌a̴͋͊l̴̀̍l̴̊̿?̶̀̒` |
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