Meteors
”Katherine mentioned once that deflecting meteors was one of her training regimens in Schrodie’s Realm…” ~Kristel Irista
Katherine breathed out and opened her eyes. She found herself sitting on the floor, leaning on the foot of her and Frein’s bed. Five meiyal-charged materials, and already, she felt like her Exhibit would explode at any moment.
“Remember, these things were made by gods and myself. And while my influence will help protect you from theirs, one wrong move and you’ll be torn apart from the inside. It’s not a matter of their cooperation, but your ability to keep them contained.”
Brymeia’s words whispered from inside her Mind Palace. It sounded all too familiar.
“Feels like managing the Nightmare Influence,” she whispered, but it was enough to stir Enza and Elizzel into action.
“Correct. Which is why only the strongest among Lords and Ladies of the Void can be entrusted with this Exhibit.”
“Kat, are you okay?” Elizzel said, kneeling by her side and holding her hand.
Enza whined and placed her snout on her lap. “We need to get to Frein, but I’m worried about you too.”
She patted both of them on the head. “I’m alright. Way better, actually. We should go catch up to Kristel.”
“Kat,” Elizzel started, reaching up to the Lady’s head. “Your hair.”
Stray strands of her hair had turned white.
“I was born with white hair just like my mother,” Katherine explained, wondering at her own transformation. “My Siffera turned it brown because I thought it made me look old. I… I’m not sure why it’s turning back to white.”
She could only point towards the Exhibit as the cause. It wasn’t something to blame, per se. At one point in her life, she had wanted her white hair back. But whether it was her indecisiveness, or regret, or the Exhibit, it didn’t matter right now.
“Eli, I want you to Tether with me.”
Unlike before, when she had outright denied her, Elizzel simply stayed quiet. She knelt down, eyes meeting the Lady’s without hesitation. It wasn’t as if a faunel could only Tether with one person, but mortal people who made that bond couldn’t carry the burden of another. If anything else, Katherine would be helping her out.
“This can’t be just because you’re jealous, isn’t it? Pretty awkward timing if you ask me.” The faunel managed a thin smile amidst the heavy desperation in the atmosphere.
“Half of it still, yeah,” Katherine admitted. “But I have more reason to help you out now. Just look at you.”
The Lady of the Void gestured all over the faunel. They were almost imperceptible, but Elizzel was suffering from a sort of Art fatigue state. Heat haze outlined her entire body, and extremely thin lines of smoke hissed from her back. Not to mention her sundress was turning awfully translucent.
“Frein can’t supply you with his meiyal right now. And whatever that faunel did to you back in the library, drained you just enough so that you can’t recover without eating.”
Katherine smiled and reached out a hand to feel Elizzel’s face. The faunel held it like a treasure.
“I know you made a promise to me and Frein, but we both know he’ll understand. We don’t want to see you hurt, Eli. So go ahead. You can eat me.”
Katherine’s meiyal core was special. It floated outside her body like a hair ornament. Because of this, Elizzel couldn’t sink her teeth into it like whenever she fed on Frein’s core. The workaround, however, was extremely intimate.
The faunel sat on Katherine’s lap, while Enza moved out of the way. The young yuma had some understanding of what was to happen and made herself scarce, embarrassed.
Elizzel pulled the Lady’s head back to her.
“Focus on me,” she whispered. “Tethering with Brymeia’s subjects isn’t the same as with a Visitor.”
“Why’s that?” Katherine frowned, but she didn’t turn away. Her hands held the faunel’s waist, pulling her closer.
“Because,” Elizzel started, leaning closer, their lips almost touching. “Brymeia loves you more than she loves a Visitor.”
The faunel’s kiss was deep and affectionate. It was also filled with meiyal, demanding an exchange of equal measure. Katherine drowned herself in pleasure while providing her own meiyal. It wasn’t like meiyal resuscitation where only one was providing for the other. This was a mutual trade.
Elizzel moaned and gasped in reaction to Katherine’s meiyal, but her greed got the better of her. She attacked and demanded more.
Katherine didn’t back down and gave as much as the faunel needed. Her desires were about to overflow. She kept telling herself that Frein wasn’t around to stop or satisfy her antics. There was no time for sex, and this was all so that the both of them could save him together.
The moment the Tether formed, Katherine’s mind immediately understood how Frein treated himself as the same person as Elizzel. It was an odd notion at first, and quite frankly, the bond was too fresh for that realization to take proper hold.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
But she could see herself in Elizzel now. She was Elizzel, and Elizzel was Katherine.
They both smiled.
----------------------------------------
Katherine, after finding some proper clothes, made her way out of the High Palace. She still chose her trusty white, tank top, layered with her trademark black coat. But instead of shorts, she wore a pair of combat pants that Frill had made for her. It was based on the actual pair she had brought from Earth, but with sturdiness and flexibility enough to benefit from her Siffera.
The faunel stayed in her Mind Palace. It was an odd, yet wonderful feeling. Finally, she could take part in something only Frein and Elizzel had once shared. Already, her mind was filled with possibilities and theories of how the Dream would work for the three of them now.
Focus, she reminded herself while pulling over Enza’s saddle. We need to bring Frein back first.
The launching docks of the High Palace bustled with the intense activity of everyone present. A.I.R. ships were being prepared and manned. Far less than what she would have expected, however.
“Why so few?” she asked Jaylene. The felintine showed surprise and relief at the same time.
“Everyone with a Purifying Stone has already left,” she explained. “This batch is for rescue efforts for anyone who got out of the Nightmare.”
“It’s an Incursion,” Katherine said dryly, implying that there would be no survivors.
“That won’t stop us from trying, won’t it?”
“It sure won’t,” Admiral Garm said. He placed a heavy hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Trying a new hairstyle?”
“Not sure if I like it, yet.” Katherine shrugged. “When are we going?”
“We’re good to go now,” Scuti said this time, joining in last. “I might not be able to get close, but I want to help if I can.”
Katherine didn’t deny the Second Princess this request, but she asserted her role in the situation.
“I’ll take command,” she began without preamble or breath. Her voice carried throughout the entire docks, making everyone pause in attention to her.
“Everyone who flies towards Eastrise will either listen to me; no questions asked, or will not fly at all. This situation is now under the Order of the Void’s jurisdiction. Understood?”
Everyone, including the Second Princess, even her father and adoptive mother, stood firm and made their Iristan salute.
“If I tell you ‘run’, you run. If I tell you to close your eyes, you close your eyes. If I tell you not to breathe, you’ll hold your breath even if you go unconscious. If I tell you anything, you will do it without question, or you will either die, or worse, become a Nightmare yourself. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am!” everyone said with a resounding roar.
----------------------------------------
Kristel could see the devastation even from the distance. The entirety of Eastrise Region, named after the beautiful mountains that surrounded its main city, was engulfed in a red void.
A half-sphere of crimson blood throughout the entire horizon.
Nightmare Incursion.
They flew just underneath the clouds to gain enough of a vantage point to see what they were dealing with. It was grim. The skies above Eastrise had turned black and red. Rainless storms caused lightning strikes to constantly barrage the ground outside of the sphere.
The only good thing was that it wasn’t spreading. Not yet, anyway. If Elizzel’s warnings were to be believed, the Incursion could easily move and take the neighboring regions. That meant Northsnow, Southshore, or Central.
Not to mention that they were expecting to have three…
“I don’t think anyone could survive that,” Xiv said. It caused the rest of the people inside, all of whom were Iristans, to turn to him with judging eyes. “Sorry.”
“He’s my retainer,” Kristel reminded them before turning back to the devouring sphere. It was still far away, but the scale was already daunting. “You guys can trust him. But Xiv, even if there are no survivors, we still have to stop it from spreading.”
“Yes,” Xiv said. “I understand.”
She looked back to her retainer. “Besides, if none of us can pass through that sphere, I’ll have to send you, since you have more experience in the Nightmare Lands when compared to the rest of us.”
It wasn’t exactly true. Many knights from the Atlas Sid had joined them, but no one could dispute the innate resistance against Meiyal Arts and Nightmare Influence that the Lord Knights of Vyndival Kingdom possessed.
“I’d really rather not, Princess.” Xiv worded his response slowly. “It’s not that I don’t care, I just think it’s too much for one person.”
“I was kidding,” Kristel clarified, but she wasn’t smiling at all. “Only half kidding. I’ll join you. And Frill, maybe.”
“We’ll join you too, Princess,” Maffelyne said. Her companions, Sharon, Darrofille, and Bartholomew shared her enthusiasm. The rest of the knights on the ship didn’t want to be outcompeted.
“I appreciate that. All of you,” Kristel said. “But truth be told, if the Nightmare Influence is too strong, it’ll turn any of you who can’t withstand it into a burden. Not just in terms of manpower, but morale as well. If you turn into a Nightmare, we’ll have no choice but to kill you. And we don’t want that on our conscience.
“So please, if you’re unable to steady yourself against the Nightmare Influence, stay back. If you can’t do it because of your pride, do it for your loyalty to the Crown.”
Silence filled the air. Kristel couldn’t blame them. Before they had left for this fight, she was encouraging them to join her. Now it looked like she was pushing them away.
“Sorry,” she said, hiding her clenched fists behind her back. “It’s the truth of the matter. If there was a way to help you increase your resistance against the Nightmare, I would’ve suggested it. But I’m not a Void Mother.”
Maffelyne was the first to recover. “We understand. We’ll do our best to support you, Princess. If we can’t fight in the Nightmare, we can make sure to help you from the outside anyway we can.”
Kristel smiled at that. “Thank you, Maff.”
“Something’s wrong,” Frill said, interrupting the discussion. She arrived atop Stiry, dismounting with grace while the yuma flew to the back of the A.I.R. ship. “Look up.”
Everyone did, but only Kristel and Xiv knew what it was that they were looking for.
The unmoving clouds.
Frein had pointed them out to Kristel, and she in turn, to her retainers. Frill was right. Something was wrong. It wasn’t just the fact that the clouds weren’t moving. Meiyal from them were stretched, as if…
“Oh, no.” Evanclad’s gasp escaped along with Kristel’s as they both understood. It was different for the First Monarch, however. “Go down! Go down now!”
Kristel moved like a blur, reaching for the communicator. “Everyone, fly low! Fly low now!”
Ashtine and Smyl, who were piloting her ship, didn’t even hesitate. But the others weren’t so lucky.
Strands of meiyal shot out from the clouds, wrapping the unfortunate ships. They couldn’t get away, stuck like insects caught in a web.
“We need to help them out,” Kristel said without hesitation. “Smyl and those of you without a yuma, stay with the ship. Land. The rest of you, with me. On your yumas. Use your observation Meiyal Art and dodge the webs. Cut the webs off, or pull the men out.”
“You’re coming with me,” Frill said, throwing Xiv out of the A.I.R. ship. He screamed until Stiry caught the both of them.
“Spider webs in the sky,” Evanclad said. “This can’t be good.”
“What is it?” Kristel asked as she got on Testra. Before the First Monarch could respond, however, something bright caught their attention.
First was flame. Next were the large rocks, hurtling down towards them and the ships. But atop was something even more disturbing than the meteors hurtling towards them.
It was a spider. A spider hiding beyond the unmoving clouds. Upside-down, melding out of its Nature’s Favor, its scale was beyond belief. So colossal that Kristel couldn’t even find the ends of its legs.
“Velruzenshup’nertoroliz.” Evanclad said clearly, despite the confusion it caused the Princess. “One of the Four Sealed Ones.”