Wind howled all around, white snow whipped through the air dancing around the trees. The darkness of night was complete below a blanket of impenetrable clouds and snow so thick that light couldn’t pass more than a few paces.

In that cold darkness marched Leon, cloaked in his shade that held the heat around him like a shield. The snow buffeted him, but in doing so droplets of water fell away as the tiny flecks of ice met the warmth he held around himself. Though he barely noticed, his mind fixed on a singular goal ahead.

One foot in front of the other he marched, the snow around him sucked heat from his shield. The heat leaching away to warm the snow he passed, and as it did the snow melted to water, flowing into previously dry soil. Carefully he gathered more heat into the bubble of warmth around him. What would have normally been second nature for him, he did with careful precision, for it wasn’t himself he was worried for.

Finally he sensed what he was looking for, still invisible in the darkness around him, the aura showed him the way. His goal lay there, a small cottage near one side of the small village nestled into the woods an hours walk from his own home.

Leon pounded on the door with a fervor.

The cottage door would have been secured by snow hours ago had it not simply melted at Leon’s arrival. The path behind him showed where he had come from, ground covered in grass, everything else as far as the eye could see still lay below a blanket of snow feet deep.

Leon glanced down into his arms, a tiny bloody child lay clutched in his arms, exposed now just as she had been born before he had come down from the mountain. In his panic he had rushed from his home without even considering a blanket, or anything more. But he was Leon De’Heron, no mere Huma, he was a Magus, and even then not just any Magus. He was once the strongest Magus of his class, and he had only gotten stronger since leaving Vanshimer academy. It was simple to keep this babe warm, and nothing else would interfere with his mission.

The door slowly creaked open, “Who in their right mind is pounding on my door in the middle of a blizzard?” Demanded the woman who finally got a glimpse of Leon, his fine silk coat spattered and smeared with blood. “Leon? What under Syl is going on?” she asked a note of panic in her voice. She looked at the child, and she gasped, “What are you doing out there in the freezing cold with a babe?” She reached for the child, but half way there her hands reached the warm air that Leon held around them. She paused for the bareest of moments, her mind clearly shocked by the reality not matching her expectation.

Leon had tried to keep the air the same as the babe in his arms, more carefully then he had done anything in his life, and it had been draining to be so delicate while trudging down the mountain. But he spoke, tired as he was from the days events he had come here with purpose. “Anara… I need your help.” He said, taking a step forward, the bubble of warm hair fully encompassing Anara’s small frame.

She visibly stiffened at the sudden warmth passing over her, but she had to ask, “Leon… What are you doing?” She looked into Leon’s eyes. Eyes red from tears running down his cheeks. Anara slowly began again, “What happened?”

Leon held out the child carefully, “She won’t wake up… She won’t cry...” His words barely more than a whisper, as though if he spoke too strongly he would snuff out what life there was in the tiny body.

The words took only a moment to settle into Anara, and then she was moving, she called out to her daughter, even to her son. Her daughter was already a young woman, and had passed the village’s rite of passage, her son was the younger, still a few years away.

Leon however half fell into a trance as Anara took the child away. He barely had the thought to step inside and close the door behind him. it wasn’t as though he didn’t want to help, but his muscles ached, his mind was soggy, and from what he could sense in the child told him that it was too late to save it. That he had been too late, or more so, that he would always be too late. The gloom of the situation floated around him like a cloud of certain failure.

The thought of the child dying would be the end, he glanced down at his hands, blood covered as they were. Pluan’s blood. There wasn’t anything left anymore. Her words echoed in his mind, the last whisper before the screams, “Leon… Save our child. No matter what, I know you’ll be a good father.” The fleeting image of a forced smile, and a few tears dripped to the floor from his cheeks.

Leon shook his head trying to bring himself to the present, and looked up to Anara trying to tend to the child, she yelled to her son, “Water in the kettle, we need it hot enough for tea!”

Leon took a breath, unwilling to simply watch, and stepped forward pushing the child who was floundering to help to the side gently. The kettle sat on the counter. He snatched it up, and shoved his way back out into the cold that he naturally blanketed himself from. He shoved handfuls of pristine snow into the kettle, when he moved the warmth from around him deftly into the snow inside the kettle, and in moments it melted. From there he gathered up more aura from around him, pushing it into the water, doing so put a chill into the air he had been keeping warm until now. Water always demanded more aura than you expected to heat, yet all the same overdoing it would simply produce steam, not boiling water.

It was done in moments and he pushed his way back inside, setting the kettle down. “It's ready.” He noted simply to Anara. As he released the air around him letting the it free to rejoin the air in the cottage around them.

She glanced at Leon with an unreadable expression before reaching for the kettle. Her hand moved to test the temperature. She was obviously surprised at the realization that it was so hot, but Anara knew her craft, and a few moments later she set about her work, pouring leafs, stems, and other items into the water.

Leon let her work, he had little else to do, so he watched. While she did that her own daughter was carefully trying to clean the child, from the way she worked, it was obvious this was not the first time she had done this. She wiped the blood away and revealed the soft skin below. Once that was done she delicately used the wool to soak up blood that clung to the child's short hair, dying it red. Using water to rinse the blood away, she continued, as she went the process revealed the silver strands that matched Leons.

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Leon was terrified, too scared to even reach for the child, he should have done more. But for the first time in his life he was petrified, his life had been a long road of always putting one foot in front of the other, but now he faltered, unable to move. He was glad he had someone else to turn too in this moment, otherwise he would have crumbled apart already. For now he had to trust Anara, there was no one else he could turn to.

He couldn’t tell how long it had been before Anara poured the kettle water into a small cup, and she held out the steaming liquid. “Leon? You can cool this, yes?” She asked carefully.

Leon simply nodded, reaching out with his hand, then extending his shade he took the heat away, he released the warmth into the air removing a small bit of the chill around them.

Anara only waited a moment, seeming to realize that he was done, and tested the water with a finger, then moved on, happy with the result.

Leon watched on as Anara carefully, slowly, administered the liquid to the child. After that it became a blur, the boy warmed water in the cauldron over the fire that was already burning. They used the newly warmed water to clean the wool cloths, and Anara’s daughter finished cleaning the babe.

Leon let the moments flow around him as he sat there, a stone in a river. His life had been a series of obstacles to be knocked over, to be beaten or to be burnt to ash. Never once had he ever stopped to do the opposite. Besides dealing with battlefield trauma he had never seen a reason to study medicine at all. He could have done more, he should have done more. But now it was too late, a life doing nothing but destroying, surely this was Nol’s curse upon him, for his lack of balance, not that he cared much for the church's teaching. In a sense the teachings themselves revealed their own pointlessness, yet isn’t that where the mind goes during these moments? To find answers to even the unanswerable questions in religion, faith, or to simply cast blame? It was all pointless, the thoughts solved nothing, and his inaction now solved nothing.

Now cleaned but barely breathing, the child was so weak that she was struggling to suck in the vital air she required. Anara was trying to help the child breathe, carefully pushing air into the small thing, but it was clear that it was probably going to end soon. The child simply lacked the strength to live, and no one could give it that.

The moments drew on, and as despair pressed in on all sides a strange thought occurred to Leon. A thought that by rights had no reason showing itself. Somehow years since he had left the academy, years since he had stared at books about Magus theory, a single string of thought snapped into place inside his head. Nothing else to do, he didn’t even consider he just acted.

He reached into his pocket, and pulled out the gemstone he had pulled from the shelf in his home. A momentary panicked action that had been the actions of a man losing the woman he loved, It now glowed in the aura with a strange mixture of colors not unlike a person’s shade, and he had never seen another aura within a crystal like it before this day. “Pluan... Are you still in there somehow?” he asked in a quiet whisper, as though he expected the crystal in his hands to give some faint indication back to him. There was of course, no response.

He had never been good with investing his will in enchantments, his skills were good for one thing, winning battles. Investing will was a subtle art that was the furthest thing from his skill set. But staring into the gemstone urged him forward. The aura within had its own will still, he was certain of it. He stood up, and made his way over to the chair where Anara was holding the child, still trying to coax the babe to find the strength to live.

Anara looked up at him, her expression tired, and worried. Somehow her eyes seemed to be looking to him for something, perhaps she too had realized how dire things were now, and was somehow hoping for him to have some trick up his sleeve.

Leon carefully scooped what remained of Pluan’s shade from the gemstone and into his own, by all rights she was nothing more than aura now. But if shade was nothing more than aura with will, then this was Pluans last will, and he knew exactly what Pluan’s final will was, she had spoken it to him, and it had pushed him to act to charge down a mountain without even thinking. The gentle glow vanished from the gemstone as he drew his hand away, the glow in the aura shimmered through the air, and he set it upon the child's head, gently forcing its way in. The child’s shade was so weak it couldn't even resist the effort.

Anara stared at Leon, unable to see what he was doing, “What? Are… you?” Her attention was drawn downward, though not by anything visible.

What was left of Pluan’s shade permeated the child, covering, and clinging, wrapping up the child, and like the warmth of a mother, spreading out and holding fast. For the barest moment the child seemed to glow with an unusual light in the dim room, something even Anara could see. Then to Leon’s Aura sight he saw the mixture of auras that was within the child snap into one single shade.

A weak breath was followed by a stronger breath, then a whimper.

“What?” Anara said, glancing down at the child, surprise clear in her voice.

Leon looked down at the child as she opened her eyes just a bit, and only for a moment before they closed again, too tired or weak to look upon the world, then the whimper became a cry.

Leon stared in awe at the child as the voice gained strength, building to a piercing yell. “Pluan… You did it…” he uttered as a whisper. At the same time the patched over damn within him burst anew, tears flowing freely again. Yet he couldn’t help but to smile. He had lost everything, but one woman had saved him not once, but twice.

Carefully he let his hand run back along the thin silver strands of hair on her head. Past the two triangular ears on top of her skull that matched her mother so well. Small bits of silver hair starting to cover over them. She was so delicate, so fragile.

She opened her eyes once more, violet gems glittering in the firelight, and looked up at him. In that moment he finally accepted what Pluan had said. He would have too, he would never think to betray Pluan, she had entrusted him this one final task, and this singular child between them. After all this child, his daughter was Pluan’s last wish, her legacy, and more than anything, his future.

“Leon?” Anara asked carefully.

Leon smiled sadly through the tears, joy and heartbreak consuming every corner of his being. “Amanda… My daughter.” he said, as though uttering it as an oath.

He took his daughter, gently lifting her away as Anara offered her to him. While she had been so weak before she suddenly seemed so much stronger, as though that little bit of Pluan was still in there, pushing for her baby to live. For all Leon knew, it was true to some extent, what he had done was nonsense from an academic standpoint. Yet the tiny hands trying to grasp at him, the little face looking up at him, this life he held in his arms was self-evident.

Anara finally asked, “Leon? What did you do?”

Leon replied simply, “I didn’t do anything… Her mother saved her.”

“Pluan?” Anara asked, clearly confused.

Leon nodded solemnly.

“Where is she?” Anara asked hesitantly.

“She's gone now...” Leon admitted with great pain.

Anara seemed to take his expression as a cue that he was done talking, and she left him with his daughter. He would tell her everything eventually, but not now.

Soon there would be more problems, his daughter would need to eat, he would need to bury her mother. But for now, it was all he needed to simply hold the newborn in his arms.