Opening the door to the library, I see the familiar, purple sort of haze that fill the entire room. Mother enjoys using Aeternum as her personal power source for her library, saying that it allows her to control the light much more freely compared to normal lights. It gives the entire library a much more eerie feeling that I think she prefers, maybe to maintain the whole mage stereotype of stuffing yourself in a tower all day without any human contact. The library has hardly changed over the years, and everything seemed largely in the same place that they were decades ago. I had only a limited aptitude with magic compared to my mother and sister, so I rarely needed or wanted to climb up here to find a scroll or book about how magic works.
I start walking forward, taking hold of the familiar yet alien surroundings of the library. She still had something like 30 shelves across the entire first floor, and after my conversation with her in the kitchen, I could now see that of those thirty, twenty one of those exclusively covered a lore of magic. I run my hand down the spines of some of the books of one shelf, recognizing that each of them had a distinct symbol at the very bottom that looks like some elaborate apple tree. Even the scrolls had a sticker on the shelf itself that had the same tree marking, and I hazarded a guess that this shelf covered the Lore of Nature. I also see a small stool that sits at the edge of two shelves holding about six books, all of them having the same spine marking. A delicate, cursive note lays on top of all these books that read simply, “Do not reorganize these, mother, I need them,” and I smile, knowing Selene left the note.
The next shelf has an identical organization, only this time the spine marking had a large, blue, wave-like engraving in place of the tree from the previous one. I take a closer look at one of the books and quickly see my suspicion confirmed. First I find Fundamental Basics to Water Thaumaturgy, then Augmentations for Water Runes, and lastly Water, the Most Versatile. I never bothered to take a look at these books since I tended to play in the courtyard more often than not as a child, while Selene preferred to stay up here much more often. Curious, I take out Water, the Most Versatile from its place in the bookshelf, and open up book to see what it exactly had to say about the only element I knew how to use.
Out of the six elements, Water occupies an extremely interesting place among all of them. Water cannot buff or brighten her allies as strong as Light can, damage and destroy enemies as Fire, defend stalwartly as Earth, offer as much offensive utility as Air, or even debuff enemies strong as Shadow. However, it is through Water’s ability to perform almost all of these tasks that make Water truly the most beautiful, and by far the most versatile. Whereas the other Elements may excel in their own strength, Water’s strength is spread out, and only becomes stronger if the mage should surround himself with a powerful water source. No rival mage can defeat a Water mage that fights by the ocean, no matter their skill.
I couldn’t help but smile as Stefans’s words echo in my head. He gave the same opinion to me when he first taught me how to utilize Water as a weapon. He first told me to always keep a phial of water on my belt, which I still do to this day, in order to freely manipulate the water whenever I needed to.
A regenerating tide, a brisk slashing current, or a frothing wall, even a simple vial of water is more deadly than a master swordsman in the hands of a master mage. A sword, a shield, and a potion, all at once, how Water is used depends entirely on its wielder. Water’s most basic spell, the simple Flow I, gathers a small stream of water into your hand from a source, allowing you to manipulate it in any way you see fit.
The book reflects everything I had ever learned from Stefans, each one of his descriptions lightly ringing in my mind. Most of the time I used water as a sort of protective barrier, forming a light ring around me, or as a light little ball. It’s easy to manipulate that way, either to strike, or to shield myself from an attack. If I get the chance though, I like to use the water to empower any of my strikes, placing it right before my spear point or axe. I also tend to use water like a sort of distraction, since you can make it like some sort of familiar or ally if you use it effectively enough. Strike once with water, then strike with your own weapon, or vice versa. I found it immensely useful, and I have a lot of gratitude to Stefans for teaching me it instead of air magic, which the vast majority of dragoons tend to use.
“Younger mistress...” A baleful voice calls out from above me, breaking me from my thoughts. I immediately look upward, knowing who the voice belonged to.
Above me, a strange, insect-like humanoid kneels atop one of the bookshelves to my right. His body easily stands just shy of three meters tall when fully straight, and his butterfly-like wings about twice that when extended. His compound eyes blink as they examine me slowly and analytically. Everything about him has a sort of iridescent, crystalline sort of appearance that makes him look absolutely alien. His tubed, insect-like mouth sucks upon a jar of honey that he holds with one of his scaly, crystal-like hands.
“Lamorak.” I say, a bit reservedly. “Have I done something wrong?”
“The younger mistress…should not be up here…at this hour.” He says with the same cutting, whispering, and threatening voice. I knew he would never harm me, but his voice remained scary all the same. “Why are you…here in the library?”
“I actually wanted to speak to mother about an issue I’m having, though this book started to interest me and I lost track of time.”
“So I see…be on your way then…do not stay up too late…”
The large insect leaps down from his perch, and takes the book with a single movement, surprising and reminding me about how much strength he possesses. He swiftly places the book exactly where I took it out from, and then pushes towards the stairs leading into the astronomy tower. He gives me a single, inquisitive glare as I look behind me momentarily.
“Be on your way…” He repeats as he fades, suckling once more on his jar of honey, before he camouflages with the environment, becoming effectively invisible, leaping back up on top of one of the shelves. I knew better than to go against the will of my mother’s familiar, and obediently I climb up the spiral staircase onto the third floor.
Mother is already by the central telescope, hard at work, pressed against the lens. The telescope itself hangs from the ceiling, but the seat she occupies is situated atop a large pedestal, with stairs leading up to her seat. All around her are large shelves filled with various instruments and sheets of paper with elaborate scribbles, each of them probably a sketch of a rune she intended to make. Other shelves had some other books she had personally taken from her lower library for research purposes, and the table immediately next to the large telescope had several open books that she kept open. She quickly notices me as I climb up the stairs around her.
“Lauriel? Is that you?” She yawns, leaning back from her telescope. She rubs her eyes, weary. “What are you doing up here this late? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
“Hi mother, I actually wanted to talk to you about a few things, is that okay?”
"Oh, of course! I am a bit busy but I’ll make some special time just for you.” She stands up and pulls up a chair from the railing, placing it across from her as she spins her chair around to face me. I take my seat at the chair, and she sits directly across from me. “What did you want to talk about, sweetie?”
“Well, I’m not really sure how to start this…”
“Is it your nightmares again, dear?” She asks with eyes full of concern. I forgot that we’ve had this conversation before.
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“Yeah, but they’ve gotten a little bit worse…they’re different now.”
"How so dear?” She asks, very concerned.
“You know how my nightmares early on were all about like…my father? My real father, right?”
Mother nods. “What about him?”
“Well, this time it wasn’t about him. In my nightmare I had this…twin, or really like, a doppelganger. So I guess I want to ask, do you know about anything like this happening before? I know you said my nightmares were like…memories of the past, to some extent, but this was like…”
“Hmm…” Mother taps her cheek, deep in thought. “What did this twin say to you, if anything?”
“She wanted to kill me, and she tried to do so in the nightmare.”
“Oh honey…”
“I wasn’t that scared, but I never had any reason for someone to want to kill me in like peacetime. It was so strange.” I tap my foot nervously. “Do you know anything about my real father that you haven’t told me already?”
She shakes her head. “I wish I could say yes, but you know everything about him that I do. We met at the Academy in the Celestial Empire almost two centuries ago now. He studied engineering like I did, and we were pretty close, but I chose to travel to Ilmeiya after Academy life was uninteresting, and I didn’t hear from him since until…”
“He showed up on your doorstep looking like an absolute mess, right?”
She nods. “It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve had my fair share with familiars.”
“Why was it so scary?”
My mother shivers. “He had this…wild look to him. Like a bear or wolf cornered and out of options. He had a desperate look to him that made him look like he was teetering on the edge of madness, yet the child was entirely unscathed.” She looks into my eyes.
“That was me, then.”
“Yeah. I saw cuts all over his clothing, clear sword slashes that barely grazed him. Yet you had no injury at all.”
“So he protected me through everything, even as he himself got wounded…”
“He was a devoted man and father, even if only considering how far he traveled to bring you here.”
I nod, as bits of my dreams of him flit in and out of my memory. Most of them were nightmares where I simply saw a man slashing and parrying against various soldiers, all of them having the same face. As a child I always thought they were dolls of some sort that I had a fear of, but my mother explained that they were android soldiers that hunted down my father. “My father really was a bit of an incredible man, huh?”
“He was, always was.” My mother smiles nostalgically.
“What about the rest of my family? Do you know anything about my mother, or a twin sister?”
“He didn’t say anything about his wife, and nothing about a twin sister. It made me assume that you were an only child and that his wife was dead, because I would have thought he would mention his wife or another daughter, if anything.”
“Mmn…what could my dream mean then?” I ask, bringing the main subject back.
“Well…I imagine she was the one that claims you’re her twin sister, right?”
“Yeah, and she looked literally identical to me. It was like looking at a mirror.”
She places a hand onto her forehead, rubbing it. “It makes complete sense as to why you would experience vague memories about your father since you were about one year old when he had to flee, and those memories slowly started to come back to you…but I don’t think this is a past memory at all. Could it be…”
“Could it be what, mother?”
She shakes her head again. “I don’t think it’s from magic either. Influencing dreams is not unheard of, but on this side of Flua, there are absolutely zero Shadow mages, and you haven’t angered any either.”
“Shadow mages can control dreams?”
“Rather easily, but most find it useless. Shadow mages in history are always deranged and insane due to the corrupting power of that branch of magic, and would find tampering with dreams trivial and beneath them.”
“So then what could it be, mother?”
"I hate to say it but…” She heaves a sigh. “I really don’t know sweetie. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of something like this happening before.”
She rubs her temples for a moment, in thought again. I grimace, wanting just some sort of answer. “Is there anything you can think of at all though, mother? I know it’s just a nightmare, but they’re really draining on me. This time I think I had a seizure.”
She gives me a pained expression. “I wish I could help but, there is simply nothing conclusive about it that I can give you. I can’t think of anything that can concretely explain it.”
“Well…is there a possibility that maybe it is my twin, and that somehow I’m seeing…dreams of her?”
“Mnn…there is a possibility…” She trails off.
“Where, mother? In what way or manner?” I ask, excited.
My mother straightens her posture. “The night when your father arrived here, after he gave me to you, he told me he was going back to the Empire.”
“Mn…isn’t that a bit odd right?”
“It is, and it gets a bit stranger the more and more I think about it over the years. Why would he go back to the place that had hunted him for almost a year?”
“Do you have any theories, mother? I feel like you would know him best, after all.”
“Hmm…your father always focused on the horizon, and…I don’t feel like he would go back just to find his wife.”
“So maybe he did have a twin that he left behind or something?”
“That would be my guess, but it still sounds so contrived and wishful. Maybe he just wanted to find her body, but prioritized getting you out of the Empire over seeing his wife again.”
I nod. “Yeah, I feel like that’s the more believable story, but what if I really do have a twin? Like, mother, forget about the probabilities of it, but just what if that’s true? Would there be any explanation for that?”
“I’ve only heard of people having visions, but none of them ever really led to anything definitive or particularly scientific. None of them lead to this either.” She rubs her eyes, weary.
“Please, mother.” I press her. “Is there anything you can think of at all? No matter how farfetched?”
My mother places her head into her hands, and slumps. She looks defeated in every way. “I’m sorry dear…I really don’t have any rational explanation. Honestly, it could have just been a fluke dream, but I feel like it has to be something Flow related. Something just doesn’t feel right it, the way you describe it. You wouldn’t come up to me talking about just a bad dream. But yet…I’m really not the person to ask for this. It’s something that’s just…not magic, or rune based, and I don’t know anything more than that. I’m so sorry honey.”
My emotions flicker between a mix of fear and anger, I’ve never known my mother to be incapable of answering anything incorrectly. She was always the bastion of knowledge that I relied upon, and I found it incredibly scary that not even she could figure out that dream. Maybe it really was just a dream then? Somewhere in the back of my head though, I knew it wasn’t a dream. It was something real, yet unreal.
Mother suddenly stands up and walks over to me, squeezing me into a tight hug, rubbing against my cheek with her own. “Stay safe, sweetheart. Please stay safe. I’m sorry I can’t give you anything more than that right now.”
I brush my cheek tenderly against hers. I know she worried deeply for me, and treated this as seriously as I did. “I will, mother.”
"Promise me that.”
I snuggle deeper into her embrace. “I promise.”
We share the intimacy for a few more seconds before pulling apart. She kisses me on the forehead, and pats me on the shoulder. “Well, you need to leave early tomorrow, don’t you? You should get to bed, we’ve talked long enough.”
I nod solemnly. “I will. Thank you for everything, mother.”
Slowly, I make my way down her observatory and then from her library. No matter what I feel that I had come close to uncovering something, but it remained completely out of reach to me. Perhaps I should ask someone else about these nightmares, someone more specialized in it, but I knew none as knowledgeable as my mother.
After a few minutes of pacing downstairs, I finally make my way down to my old familiar room, where my sister slept on the opposite wall. I sigh as I quietly strip myself of my clothes, and collapse into bed. I know I have to put these thoughts of my dreams to the side because I have to wake up early tomorrow, but a worrying sense of dread fills me as I worry the same dream would haunt me again soon. I’ve remained safe for the past few days, but that fear of death, that came so close to me two days ago, remained ever on my mind.