POV Sephiroth
Sephiroth was happily watching Aron getting a great familiar when she sensed his inner world tremble. A rollercoaster of emotions crashed through their bond, culminating in betrayal, anger and hate.
He had been poisoned! Who had done it?! The callous facts convened in her mind. Someone had forced him into a core burn-out! That should be impossible! Core burn-outs only happened because of control loss! No known power should be able to force someone into one! Yet Aron’s emotions had broken her reality. The betrayal alone strong enough to squash her believed truth. But who?! Mors wouldn’t do it. Donald had been acting strangely lately, but her gut told her he wasn’t the culprit. So who?!
The water-bottle! Sandra! That piece of… The servant had been acting fidgety during the morning, but Sephiroth hadn’t paid attention to it. Liquid fire flowed through her veins. Sandra would pay for it. Sephiroth knew that she couldn’t help Aron at this point. The only hope lay in himself and the healing abilities of his mother.
No. Sephiroth’s task was another. One she was much better equipped for. Revenge. Sandra had been left outside the hall cramped with people. Sephiroth raised herself from the chair, the movements so smooth and slow, nobody caught her as she vanished from the hall.
There the perpetrator was! She leaned against a pillar in one of the side-rooms prepared for the servants. Sandra moved restlessly from one foot to the other, impersonating the anxious servant to perfection. Not knowing the facts, nobody would ever connect her with Aron’s plight. They’d only see the devotion in her behavior, not the fear of discovery.
Mid step, the connection between her and Aron ripped apart, leaving her reeling.
Nnnooooo!!
Emotions so raw and wild they could have been made of fire flowed through her whole being. She needed to kill, claw, rip apart! The demon in her wanted nothing more than go on a killing spree. But it was not yet time for that. With an iron will, Sephiroth pushed the emotions down. This would not happen in form of an uncontrolled outbreak of violence that she wouldn’t survive. If the magicians found her in the middle of their sanctum, they would make short work of her. No, revenge would come, but cold and complete. She would find the perpetrator and utterly destroy them! Rend everything apart they held dear. There would be nothing left of them, their family, their associates, their pets, home, everything!
Sephiroth needed to find the real culprit. The servant obviously too ignorant to have the means to procure nor produce such a highly unique poison. Sandra had to be questioned but the way Sephiroth planned to do it didn’t allow for spectators.
No. Her entire being demanded blood! Sandra would not get away with this.
Her inner turmoil hidden behind uplifted lips, she strolled towards the person she once considered a friend.
“Ah, Sandra, there you are. Can you please help me? Something came loose in my armor on the back. Can you check it? I think it is better if we move to an empty room. I am not sure how much I have to undress for you to fix it.”
“Naturally Sephiroth, lets go. How is Aron doing? Is everything going well?”
“Yes, he is doing great. I am sure he will become a great magician and push our house to new heights.”
Sephiroth lead Sandra away from the others. During their passing through earlier, she had seen deserted storerooms. They would come in handy now.
“This place looks alright.”
The longer they had walked, the more fidgety Sandra got.
“I know privacy is important, but why did you have to choose one so far away from the rest? We shouldn’t be in here.”
Sephiroth patted Sandra’s shoulder in a supportive gesture.
“Nobody will find us here. Everything will be fine. Relax.”
They stood in a mostly empty and dark room apart from wooden storage-boxes next to the wall in the back. Obviously nobody had been here for an extended period, dust had settled everywhere. This was an excellent place for what she had in mind.
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POV Aron Brightcloud
I hung in complete darkness. The connection to my body broken, my soul slowly dispersed into nothingness. I had made piece with myself.
Help me! It is cold here, please help me!
What was that? I was not alone?? I used my remaining strength to scan the surroundings.
There was a planet, completely shrouded in darkness! The whole piece nothing more than a gigantic rock, no plants, no light, no animals. On the entire plane, I felt exactly one lonely soul. Its presence cold to my mind. Due to the absence of light I couldn’t make out its appearance. I had problems sensing it, sometimes it was nowhere sometimes everywhere.
Please don’t leave! Help me, I am scared!
I didn’t know what it was, but I sensed the heartbreaking loneliness it radiated. This soul was a child! Left alone for an eternity in darkness. I wanted to help, but I was dying.
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“Hello little one, I am sorry. I want to help you, but I can’t. Feel my soul. I am dying. My core has burned out and has ripped a big part of my soul apart, I am unable to recover. I am sorry.”
I felt the other soul scan my own. Then it suddenly expanded, appearing right next to me.
Two broken souls we are. Let’s become one and whole. Support each other for all eternity.
The foreign soul leaned into me, pressing into my very matter. I could feel it. On one hand cold, calculating and destructive, on the other hand juvenile, warm and accepting.
I wanted to help it. Yet, I knew a contract was not enough. A contract connected souls by a tether. It didn’t fuse them. Otherwise, I would have tried binding myself to a familiar already.
Open yourself, invite me in. I will do the rest.
With a shrug I complied, I had nothing to lose.
The foreign soul flowed into me like cold water. Through every crack it forced its way in, filling me to the brim. The lower part of my core chamber got jammed full with it, sealing the vast hole shut.
We had combined, at least partially. The soul had taken a part of itself and patched me up with it. The rest of the soul was now tightly connected to me. We were still two separate entities, yet we were more. I had never felt like this.
The other soul suddenly spoke.
Don’t fight the pain. Simply let yourself be carried by it, accept it. Everything will be fine.
What did it mean? Then my soul crashed back into my body and an all-encompassing pain washed over me.
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POV Sephiroth
Sephiroth didn’t like to talk about her past, yet it had certain benefits having grown up how she had. For one, she had extensive knowledge on how to lock a place with magic to not be found by scrying or other means. This came in handy now.
Nobody would disrupted their talk.
“Heeelllpppp, heeeeelllpp! Please, someone, Heeeellllppp!”
Sephiroth gently caressed Sandra’s cheek.
“Shh, my dear. Nobody is able to hear you. Relax.”
Her fingers slowly moved down and around her captive's head.
“Yes, this is the way. Chill, you will cry more than enough later. Don’t overspent yourself too early, my dear.”
The demoness smilingly gazed into Sandra’s eyes. Still in her human form, Sephiroth appeared to be an attentive, beautiful woman taking care of her friend. Had said friend not been bound to the wall, nobody would have ever thought something horrible was going to happen.
“Please, I beg you! Why are you doing this? I have always been kind to you. Why?!”
“My dear, shh, don’t ask questions, they won’t help you any longer.”
She moved closer, even cuddling up against the other woman.
“Tell me, why have you poisoned my dear Aron? You are his personal maid, why would you do something like that?”
Sephiroth’s sweet voice carried through the room, the tone so disproportional to its content, it felt grating to one’s ears.
“I-I didn’t do anything, I promise! Aron is my beloved master, I would never hurt him.”
“Shh, don’t try to deny it. You don’t have the skill for it. You are like an open book to me. No, I know what you have done. I only want to know why and who has ordered you to do it. Let me help you.”
With that, she grabbed Sandra’s head and forcefully kissed her. At first nothing happened. Suddenly the servant began to trash wildly, a gurgling noise escaped her mostly closed mouth. Smoke leaked through the pores of her body and the slight gabs between eyes, eyelids and nose.
The demoness stopped her kiss.
“My, dear you don’t seem so well. You know, it is important to breathe deep breaths.”
Sephiroth cut herself with one of the daggers Aron had gifted her and let the blood flow into Sandra’s mouth.
“Now, now, don’t be so uptight. Relax, don’t you want to tell me more?”
The blood worked its wonders. Soon Sandra opened her mouth, inhaling the air in deep breaths. She coughed up a lot of burned flesh and blood.
“W-Who, what are you?!”
“Dear, that is not what I want to hear, it looks like I have to take care of you some more.”
Following her words, Sephiroth stepped closer. This time her knife went to work.
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POV Aron Brightcloud
When I regained consciousness, I felt only pain. Foreign energies drilled through my body, repairing the damage. Opening the eyes, I came face to face with two unknown magicians that were pushing even more energy into me.
“Patient has regained consciousness.” The left one said.
“Lay still, boy. Everything will be fine.” Commented the second one.
I forced myself into immovability, my body too hurt to risk any additional movements. I let my eyes roam over the surroundings. They must have transported me to the medical wing. At least this place had certain similarities with the med-bay I had lain in before my first death.
“Good boy, rest. Your body will need time to heal. Your core and pathways have been severely damaged. Differently to the rest of the body this sort of damage can’t be healed quickly with light magic.”
Having made sure that I was in a more or less safe place, I focused on myself. I didn’t pay attention to the healers any longer; they were not important for the moment. What was vital was how much of my core chamber had been left. Would I ever be able to use magic again?!
I tried to connect to my core chamber, at first nothing happened. Only after exerting a worrisome amount of will did my mind arrive at its destination. Or let's say what was left of it. The entire lower part had been replaced by a tumor of something. It didn’t matter how I prodded; I got no feedback from it, like I had a piece of void in myself. It didn’t end there. After further analyzing, I concluded that something akin to a root system had grown its way through my whole body and soul. I only found it due to the absence of any feedback I got from the immediate areas it had burrowed its way through, like negative resonance.
There was one bright spot in this whole cluster fuck. I still had my arcane core. It came even better. The affinities from my light-core had converged and connected with it. That meant I had now four affinities supporting my core.
That was also all of it.
The core chamber wall resembled swiss cheese, and my pathways had been severely damaged during the emergency outlet of my light-energy. Even after all the healing, they had the appearance of cooked shrimps. Additionally, they looked like they had been cut at some point and put together anew. Where before I had a few wide and durable pathways now I had a second mesh of roots through my entire body, and not a well constructed one at that. It reminded me more of loose spaghettis than anything else. I felt highly doubtful of the energy I would be able to push through. Arcane energy leaked unhindered through the core-chamber wall into my body, slowly dissipating the further it got away from the core.
With a sigh, I ended my introspection. At the moment, no options were left. My body needed to heal. Only after could I check the real extension of my injuries. I felt very thankful for my iron will and discipline. An hour earlier the entire world had been waiting to be conquered by me, now I had to hope to even be able to use magic again. In the end it didn’t matter. Whatever the world threw at me, I would survive, grow and thrive. The hunter in me roared in challenge. Some people were going to pay dearly for what they had done.
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