114 days, 7 hours, 23 minutes, and 8 seconds, that’s how long had passed since they came for him. Celian was never surprised that they came, only by the disorganized ways they reached him.
Had he wished to avoid them, there would have been weeks for him to prepare.
Then again, the Watchers had never been quick to act, and Celian himself had only seen the fluctuations in fate as they already lay before him. It was understandable — most of them were young — if inconvenient. Inconvenience, however, he could live with.
The grand flow of events was not a rapid, rushing to its destination. It was a meandering river, taking the time it pleased. The Watchers’ only task was to ensure that it never became stagnant, and that external forces were never allowed to alter its course. The latter, Celian had now done to an irrevocable degree. He’d broken an oath he swore eons ago.
Even with his inner eye shut off, he could sense the course of history flicker back and forth around him — a murky collage of incomplete impressions. Fate had been stable for millennia, now it was no longer. Dark clouds rested over the horizon.
Today, he would rattle things just a little bit more.
Calmly, he strode towards the door that had sealed him inside that sterile room for 109 days, 16 hours, 47 minutes, and 2 seconds. In one sense, to the ancient Luminesari, the time had passed in an instant. In another, he’d seen a million futures crash and burn while being unable to do anything.
The room for inconveniences was slipping by.
He reached those doors as the Thrigur guards outside unlocked them, leaving him to slide straight through their ranks before they could notice. As such, it took the armed tree-folk a second to react, and by the time their metal staves were pointed towards the Luminesari to cautioning barks, he already stood before their leader.
Elder Minerosa was a gnarled, unassuming thing with a mossy beard. Only those with talents in the mental arts would ever notice a strange absence in her presence, notable only in its non-existence.
Even so, the Elder Psycher calmly lowered her head towards the Luminesari standing before her. “Master Vilcalori, the Council is now ready for you.”
𐫰 𐫰 𐫰
Untethered, he stood before the Watchers — a thousand powerful minds probing his from across the galaxy, present only through the shimmering lights that shifted around him. They’d taken their precautions, yet now, they saw only what he allowed them.
Time had not only made them disorganized, but also complacent. No one but Elder Minerosa and her guard were there beside him within the dark hall. His absence had made them forgetful. Or, perhaps, it had made them afraid.
“Where?” a booming voice echoed though the dark space.
They already knew the answer he would give them, yet Celian still dutifully followed through, “When the time comes, she’ll let her presence be known.”
This was not something he’d ever intended to hide, and so, they would’ve found the same response within the surface of his mind. They knew fully well what he wished to tell them, yet being here still told them it wasn’t just trickery on his part.
With their fears confirmed, a few of those lights had already flickered out as the fire of changes began to spark across the galaxy. Fate could not be contained. Only the stubborn and slow moving remained behind. The majority of them.
“You have gone against the creed of our order. She was never to be set free!”
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“Even weakened, she could not be contained for any longer than she wished to,” Celian calmly spoke, watching as more lights still flickered out. “They are returning.”
Even without the ability to sense their minds in turn, their need to object was heavy in the air. Still, they would have noticed it as well by now.
Nearly a year ago, something had changed. It had only been a ripple, disappearing as quickly as it had come, yet the cautious had still paid heed. It had sent Celian traveling across the galaxy.
No matter what it was, it was aware, and powerful enough to stay hidden.
Now they all knew, she had sensed it, too.
𐫰 𐫰 𐫰
It wasn’t long after those last lights had flickered out that Elder Minerosa came striding over.
“Which of the Seven is it?” she asked in her usual, creaky voice – like an old willow bending in the wind.
They’d thought themselves clever, sending only the ancient Thrigur here, whose mind he couldn’t control. Even without his influence, however, she’d caught onto the crumbs he’d left out, understanding more than the rest of the Watchers ever could. She was wiser than most.
Still, as Celian turned his inner eye toward a raging river the Watcher had overseen for millennia, that same darkness still loomed over the horizon. It grew darker the further he looked, and before the end of the decade, everything had gone pitch black.
“Maybe one,” Celian said, disappointed by what he couldn’t see and, subsequently, would never be allowed to see. “Maybe all. Just know that the Reaper is in pursuit. Be careful where you put your allegiances, Young Minerosa, for she has chosen a curious host this time around.”
Celian turned his attention towards the sapling he’d once planted, just in time to see the Thrigur raise her iron staff towards him. “I will, Master Vilcalori.”
Even the Seer’s promised heir was defenseless against the flash of light that washed over his mind.
Still, Celian Il Suen Vilcalori met nothingness with an eerily human smile. Of a thousand different ends he’d foreseen for himself, this one wasn’t all bad, and his seeds were still sprouting across the Galaxy.
𐫰 𐫰 𐫰
“Here, is where you will find the answer.”
She focused on that same spot on her forehead, eyes closed and breathing out her frustrations. For, in a sense, she might as well have been trying to keep her heart from beating.
A thousand thoughts, worries, and unanswered questions would always flood her mind, making singular focus impossible to achieve. Indeed, Ilyana’s brain was a tireless machine, made to process hundreds of things at once.
To try and slow it down was like spitting on a raging inferno. Especially these days, when she barely had a minute to spare. “You could have just told me what I wished to know and saved us both a lot of trouble,” she vexingly mumbled, getting to her feet with a click of her tongue.
These alien practices are a waste of time, she told herself for the hundredth time. The Luminesari are a bunch of loony eccentrics, and even if I had possessed the unaltered mind of a human, these techniques are simply not suited for me. Else, I would’ve made some progress by now.
No matter what that smiling Luminesari had wished for her to see, it was clear it wasn’t working.
Wiping the sweat from her neck, Ilyana was just about to go take a shower before bed as she paused mid-step. Noise was carrying in from a door slightly ajar, straight from her private training area outside.
It couldn’t have been anyone but her sister, but it was still with a frown that she made her way towards those sliding doors. Discounting the fact that it was almost in the middle of the night, Vinyera had her own personal gym, and if she’d wished to talk, she would have come inside.
“What are you doing?” Ilyana asked as she saw her sister pummeling one of the leather dummies out there. She wasn’t using her sword, just fists and knees and shins, and there was an unusual fury to her movements.
Then, she remembered.
Right, today was another of those days…
That was the first part of her mind that Ilyana had shut off during her meditation. Else, she would’ve been too occupied worrying for her sister to think about anything else. Now, however, the force of the recollection, along with her sister’s appearance, came like a gut punch.
Vinyera was wearing a split dress that clung to her figure all too tightly, and as she snapped around to throw herself around Ilyana’s neck, she could tell that her sister had been crying. There were poorly concealed streaks in her mascara – it might have fooled a normal person, but not Ilyana – and as was pulled into a painfully tight embrace, Ilyana could feel how her sister was quivering ever so slightly.
“I’ll get us away from here,” Vinyera said, barely keeping the tremor from her voice. Another detail her sister noticed all too well. “I swear that I’ll get us away from here…”
No, I’m the one who will save you this time, Ilyana silently thought as she squeezed her sister back, knowing full well mere words would be wasted.
Sleep forgotten, her mind was racing across a hundred different scenarios instead. Her plans were already in motion, all she needed was time — time where her older sister would have to keep suffering, and where she would have to change the entirety of Wochir-11 from within.
And it would all begin with a strange girl a smiling alien had dropped in her lap.