It had taken a single brief encounter to tell Two all she needed to know about Lux. One he was Igni’s brother and Two he’d have no problem killing her.
The latter was hard to tell from looking at him. He smiled at her and Abery and the people standing conspicuously near to their carriage. He smiled at the world in general, and the world smiled back.
He glowed in a way unconstrained by light. Brightening the world without adding luminosity. She could taste the change he caused. Moods lightened, and tempers softened in those his halo touched. A balm to the tumultuous emotions of those sending and being sent off.
“Hey, what’s up.” He asked Igni.
“I offered to let Two and Abery ride with us. Do you mind?”
Lux cocked his head back and took her in, with an expression that would scream arrogance on any other face but on his spoke only of confidence. “Hmm.” He pursed his lips.
The weight of his attention grew. An added heat rolling across her skin. A faint singing of the essences she tasted. Her vision swam as she baked beneath the sun’s uncaring attention.
The beginnings of sunburns bloomed across her skin. Numerous pinpricks of damaged skin that flared with pain and didn’t care if they formed on parts of her untouched by the light. Like her clothes were only a suggestion. Then As Lux’s gaze grew more curious. Her skin became a suggestion.
Then the cloaked angel knocked him in the back of the head. “Rein in your aura, you’re cooking her.” Lux blinked rapidly a blow she hadn’t noticed leaving his eye.
A cool breeze informed her she was soaked in sweat. She took a deep breath of the blessedly cool air. She sh dared to look down she found her hands faintly discolored. The anomaly not immediately obvious. Was that why no one reacted to her near immolation?
“Sorry,” Lux provided an embarrassed smile. The honesty of which she highly doubted. “Ya, you can sit with us.”
“Thank you,” Two managed a polite tone. Largely by directing her words to the third angel, cloaked in grey robes.
“You are welcome child.” He said in an oddly soft grating tone, like crushed stone filtered through water or silk. His presence tasted equally odd. She could ‘taste’ the rustling of old books stacked atop weary shelves. All mixed with a hint of old rusted blood.
A single step took him into arms reach and covered her in shadow. Once again she was left to wonder if all angels were so tall. The thought helped distract from the pain, She stared up into his hood but found only shadows and the jingling of chains.
“Your bags.” He said in the same strange tone.
Without thought she offered the item in question. Whereupon he took her belongings and, as she followed him with a bewildered stare, took Abery’s things too. Then sat in the driver’s seat.
Two and Abery stared at the driver of the horseless carriage. She could say nothing of Abery’s thoughts but only one seemed pertinent to her. “Is that our driver?”
She had the same question. She had seen Lux Turn a block into a memory in less than a second and he had just knocked him over the head. Then he took her luggage.
“Yes.” Igni supplied easily. “His name is Curiosa Somnia Historiae but you can call him Curio.” He said while ushering the pair into the carriage’s sedate interior.
“Curio,” Abery muttered in an awed tone. While two had another thing on her mind entirely.
She took her time getting seated to gather her thoughts and luxuriate in not being killed by an over-eager stare. She found herself on the same bench with Igni. She watched Lux wander off into the crowd of students. No doubt making the guard’s lives harder, or almost kill someone.
“Is your brother always so… intense.” She hedged in case he was listening.
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Igni sighed. “Yes, though normally it’s not a bad thing.”
“I assume almost killing me isn’t normal.”
“He didn’t almost kill you Two.”
She glared at him to mask the pang of hurt that ran through her. “Boiling me doesn’t count?”
He began to reply but paused. “Was that what it felt like? I thought you were anxious.”
“Yes, anxiety was one of the emotions involved”
Igni stared at her a frown creasing his brow and the reddening spots on her skin. As he stared at the sweat beading her brow. “I apologise Two. I didn’t know he was hurting and I have no excuse for that.” With a light touch of his hand on hers and brush of calm mist. The pain and remnant heat vanished.
Two blinked and hissed in distaste. Her anger unmoored from him twisted into frustration. All the while another warm emotion found its place in her chest, one she had far less practice in controlling.
Annoying Igni, predictably kind Igni, insufferably sincere Igni. She sighed and gave up being mad at him. Though she reserved the right to loath everyone else..“I think there’s been a miscommunication. Can you explain yourself?”
“Well, when Lux focuses his aura on me. I notice it but nothing more. It doesn’t hurt. We were instructed to contain our auras before we came to the land due to possible adverse effects on mortals. Lux has been having lapses in control, you experienced one.”
To sighed and wondered if there would ever be a day random threats to her life would stop popping up. “So you’re saying he could accidentally kill me.”
“Yes.”
She sighed again but didn’t feel fear. Rather annoyance dominates her thoughts. “Is the first horrifying part of angel facts, beautifully horrifying and horrifyingly beautiful. Next you’ll tell you eat souls.”
Igni chuckled, the sound a gentle breeze. Her annoyance ebbed. “No, this is more a general fact. All powerful entities have an aura, including you though it’s too weak for most to notice. These auras are means through which we affect the world, but if we don’t control them.” He gestured at her sweat soaked form.
Two rolled her eyes, and filled the information under the mounting pile of cultivation mysteries. “So you all go around holding your breaths.”
“Not quite,” he pauses his drifting to idling students and the visible wave of clamour that represents his brother. “It’s closer to whispering. Whispering when you breathe. Being light with your steps. walk when you think.”
“As poetic as that is it doesn’t explain the current situation. Is your brother just loud.” Does he not know how to shut his mouth, she grumbled internally.
“In a way yes. There are a great many similarities between cultivation and how we operate. Though the lack of detail in public libraries obfuscates things, nonetheless there’s enough to compare.” His tone kicked a tone higher and Two settled in to listen. He got exuberant when talking about his interests.
“The first cycle of cultivation focuses on emotion. The latter focuses on ideas. You’ve recently begun the first cycle but there are already notable changes to your behavior.”
“Like,” she said, her attention suddenly turned to her face, but she felt her muscles set in the same impassive mask. She frowned.
He glanced at her. “Like that you’re more expressive.“ Two’s eyes flew open then narrowed just as quickly. Igni had the audacity to smile. “Though it could just be I’ve learned to read your expression.” He chuckled and Two smothered the wave of embarrassed amusement before it surfaced.
“You digress.” She said evenly. voice a still frozen lake.
“I digress,” Igni agreed. “The point is that after a certain point cultivators inhabit an idea and that changes them. As angels we come into world already having some of that. Fire burns, the wind must move to be wind and Lux must shine. He can whisper, but it’s a near thing.”
Comprehension provided comfort, but left Two with new uncertainties and questions. The most immediate concern was whether this made Lux less dangerous because he wasn’t actively trying to kill her, or more because killing her was in his nature. She sighed and closed her eyes. Turned her thoughts to lighter contemplations. Like whatever idea or ideas could linger in Igni
She sat and mused. Her thoughts drifted to rain, clouds and other gentle things. She took a deep breath Igni’s mist sufficed the air. Quite she added, gentle quiet things.
She cracked open an eye and peeked at Igni. He leaned out the window his body half obscured by the bed of feathers that were his wings. A smile played on her cheeks. “So Igni what do you repre-“
Lux threw open the door. A wide grin on his face. “We’re setting off!” She stared at the unwanted company as they sat on the opposite bench beside Abery. She regained control of her eyebrows after the third twitch. A great success in her books.
Abery giggled and she turned her flat stare on hum. He promptly found the floor wood grain very interesting. Returning to his silence that had begun when they entered the carriage. Her gaze slid into a glare. He’d watched her entire exchange with Igni.
The horseless carriage rocked to a start without a sound. Two held her glare a moment longer before huffing and turning her gaze outside.
The procession trundled forward. It was a collage of colours person lites that could not have clashed more without divine intervention. There were a great many vehicles of good taste. Both drawn and self powered. Some chugging with mechanical power. Other listed silently like her own under what Two. deemed to be magical motion.
But for every sleek black or well composed flare of vibrancy. There sat an awful contraption attempting a poor mime of Two’s previous transport. As the progression left the crowd and the city gates Two was left incapable of appropriating the new sights. Her eyes had been scarred. Beyond the garish, the gaudy, or the poor taste. There existed the simply bad.
A wonderful start to a new chapter of her life.