Sharith knew this was coming. The central eclipse was supposed to be a time of transition, preparation, exploration, and celebration, but ever since Sifa’s first birthday, things tended to be more chaotic.
He’d moved them from the center of the holding to the outer edges in the vain hope that being away from others would lessen the spectacle. When that didn’t help, he moved to the very fringes of elven lands, perilously close to where humans hunted.
Sifa’s displays of uncontrolled power only became stronger with every year. The days leading up to the central eclipse saw her growing increasingly agitated. She might exhibit sudden seizures, give off brief flashes of energy attuned to one sun or the other—more often the waning one than the primary, but even that was unpredictable.
The eclipse itself, though…
That’s when things exploded. Sharith’s baby girl would raise her fists to the sky, screaming and screaming, power pouring off her strongly enough to leave a crater by the time it was done, and he could only stand back and watch.
Trying to hold onto her the first year had left him with layers of scars across his face, chest, and arms. In subsequent years, the pure force of the expelled energy was enough to physically push him away even if he tried to brave the storm of magic.
During her fits, she couldn’t hear him, his words of comfort falling on deaf ears as she wailed inconsolably. She showed no sign of control over the pure destructive elemental magic that burst out of her in waves. A powerful bestowal from her mother, he could only assume, but discovering what form it took would have to wait until Sifa was old enough to harness it.
In the dead of winter, she burned like the eclipsed Apexellon. In the desert heat of midsummer, she emanated frost as though trying to replace Ovizion for the hours it hid behind its brother.
Seasonally inverted mages were uncommon but far from unheard-of. Indeed, often competitions between similarly-attuned magi would take place specifically when their practitioners would be at their weakest.
But this? This was something entirely different. The scale alone was staggering.
Alas, whatever answers were to be found, Sharith failed to discover them. He’d returned to the deepwood many times, searching for any sign of the girl’s elusive mother. He found nothing. No track or record of the woman he’d loved so intensely that the absence still ached. If she’d at least told him they were over, it would have been easier to bear. But, no.
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She’d given him Sifa, talking as though they’d see one another again in a few days and raise their daughter together, and disappeared without a trace.
Four years later, he had more questions and no answers.
Sharith stood at the edge of their crater, hardy summer plants beginning to reclaim the edges. He held Sifa close, murmured to her calm and comforting, hoping against hope that this time it would be different. That her uncontrolled outbursts had happened for the last time, and everything would be peaceful this time.
His heart knew it to be a false hope, beating fast with traitorous fear.
She’d be fine.
She’d be fine.
If he repeated it to himself enough times, he might be convinced.
He climbed the steps to the lone pillar of stone at the crater’s center, wooden stairs that he replaced each year, as nothing permanent could be expected to survive the eclipse in such close proximity to the explosion of power to come.
Sharith lay there, legs hanging over the deepest part of the crater, arms around his sleeping daughter on his chest, hoping she didn’t wake, fearing the inevitable, watching as the frostsun slipped further and further out of sight.
Maybe this time…
Sifa’s whole body tensed, frost forming across her clothing in an instant, cold enough that Sharith felt it even through his own protective layers.
A tear slipped free of his eye without his permission as he pressed a kiss to his daughter’s forehead, then jumped down and left her there. Hating himself as he did. Every iota of his being screamed that this was wrong.
His reluctance made him slow. He wasn’t halfway out of the crater before the wave of pure cold hit him from behind. It slammed him to the ground and shoved him up the incline and out, as easily as the wind might move a leaf. His armor cracked and steamed, the intense conflict of temperature wreaking havoc on the reinforced materials.
The crater expanded, inch by inch, hour by hour, deepening and broadening as the uncontrolled magic ate away at reality. The plants growing within the crater itself didn’t last a minute. Nearby trees snapped and cracked. It took all Sharith’s strength to even stay close, the constant wave of wind pushing and pushing and pushing, stealing his breath and evaporating his tears.
He stood against the gale, fists clenched as tight as Sifa’s, listening as her wordless wail of lament echoed through the forest.
Elsewhere, his people would be celebrating the transition, the peak of summer, the advent of coming harvest. There would be games, contests, dancing, and singing. The whole community coming together.
Things Sifa would never get to experience unless they found a solution.
As soon as this eclipse was over, he promised he would take her and find someone who could help. Even if he had to cross the world. Regardless of whether he had to recruit beastkin, or even humans. He was past caring about the who or the what.
Someone, somewhere, had to have an answer.