“So, what is this Bhai Giya thingy anyway? It sounds like it doesn't have to be permanent, with the way you said only one could be maintained at a time.” Arthur asked. "I'm guessing you can get new ones and overwrite the old, right? As long as I have a way out, I'm up for anything really. Especially if it'll be as useful as you say."
"It's Bhai Giya. Not Bhai Giya thingy, just Bhai Giya, you insufferable bastard,” Alyssia angrily snapped.
She was mortified. Here, she was, offering a sacred ritual to this strange human, and the first thing he asked about was whether or not he could break it. Did he not realise how rude he was being? No, Alyssia, he doesn't. He doesn't understand how significant this ritual was in our culture. She tried to calm herself down. In her bout of rage, she'd almost missed what else Arthur had said. He was up for it!
“Wait, does that- does that mean you accept,” “I mean why wouldn’t you,” Alyssia quickly tried to cover her incredulous expression with one of nonchalance but wasn’t altogether successful. Her excitement was as easy to read as a dog wagging its tail at the sight of food. She tried to calm herself down when she saw Arthur’s smirk of amusement. Something about the young man’s smile infuriated her. It resembled those worn by girls who had teased her in her childhood for being so boyish, and yet Alyssia couldn’t detect any malicious intent behind it, almost as if Arthur was treating her JUSTIFIED reactions to his rude laughter as something minor and small.
Calm down, calm down. Remember, he’s human, she reminded herself once again. He doesn’t understand how rude he’s being right now. Despite her defence of Arthur's crude behaviour, Alyssia couldn’t quite quell the indignant feelings of embarrassed rage within her. He should be honoured I offered Bhai Giya. People have killed for less, Alyssia shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts and focus on the situation at hand.
“You said I’m leaking aura like an old pot?” Arthur asked, a single eyebrow raised in question. I’ve always wanted to do that, Alyssia randomly noted. “And you're saying this Bhai Giya will help me stop that?” Arthur’s voice sounded a little sceptical, almost as if he didn’t believe what she’d told him. Alyssia couldn’t help it. She laughed in his face.
“I’m not sure how to tell you this without hurting your feelings Arthur, but frankly, your aura control is worse than a baby Thunder-Ducks.”
“And I once saw one knock itself out with it, which is quite literally impossible by the way. Those little buggers defy all the fundamental laws of reality,” she shuddered, “They shouldn’t even exist in the first place, and god help you if you meet one that managed to survive its stupidity till adulthood.”
Arthur was a little confused at the moment, his eyebrow furrowed as he tried to understand the meanings of Alyssia’s words. He was pretty certain his myriad tongues skill had mistranslated what she’d just said. I mean what does my aura have anything to do with overcooked chicken. Or was it pheasant? And why did Alyssia seem so revolted by it? She’s not a vegetarian or anything, or does the prospect of bad cooking really disgust her that much?
It wouldn’t be the strangest quirk Alyssia possessed. After all, the woman hated cheese, of all things. “I’m not gonna even pretend I understood anything that you just said, except the fact you hate bad food with a passion.” He shook his head in exasperation, mumbling under his breath. “How was that even relevant to our conversation.”
"So, about this ritual of yours. How exactly will it help me control my aura? No offence to you, but that monster was something else. I don't think a bond with will do anything to help." He said.
"Well, for starters, Bhai Giya brings a stabilising effect onto an individual's soul," Alyssia answered. "It's not something people normally take into consideration, but considering the nature of your personal issues, it'll do you a world of good. People with the bond tend to have better aura control than normal folks. Not always, but enough that it's been documented in our books. And yes, it doesn't have to be permanent," She explained.
“There is something I've been curious about though," Alyssia continued. "Nightmares come with a little variation. They have a few subtle differences. I've analysed your aura, but I'm still not one hundred percent certain. Did the panther- did it have an aura that made life feel helpless? Like it no longer had any meaning?”
Arthur nodded his head.
Alyssia breathed out sharply, her heart's rapid palpitation load and clear in Arthur’s ears, enhanced as they were with 92 points of perception, which still made absolutely no sense to him scientifically. Not that anything had since the system's arrival. It didn’t really matter right now though, Alyssia looked like she might actually start panicking, for one reason or the other. Or was she just getting frustrated? He couldn't quite tell. It took her an entire minute to bring her breathing under control, during which Arthur wondered what was so special about that particular aura to get Alyssia in such a twist.
“Arthur, you're going to have to bear with me for a moment, but how the FUCK did this world already produce a primordial nightmare- a standard one is insane enough, but just... How?"
"Actually forget that, You managed to kill it?” Her voice was oozing disbelief, the emotion so thick and evident, its presence was almost liquid.
“That's impossible- no, I shouldn’t be thinking like that when it comes to you.” She rubbed her temples, the muscles flexed in her forearms, the pressure she was exerting on her skull enough to crush a coconut. That must be a killer headache, Arthur thought.
“So what level was it, again? I can't remember if you told me.”
“Eleven.”
“And you were?”
“Level one.”
The Alverin woman started to laugh, a low chuckle that quickly developed to hysteric proportions, until Arthur started to wonder if Alyssia would pass out from a lack of oxygen. She wiped tears from her eyes and looked back at him.
“I don’t know if you're lucky or unlucky. What you did, should frankly be…” she paused for a moment. “Possible actually, now that I think about it. Extremely unlikely, but definitely within the realms of probability.” She sighed in resignation and shook her head in dazed amazement, mumbling something under her breath far too fast for Arthur’s under-levelled myriad tongue skill to translate.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"My initial predictions may have been a little off. Mastering your aura will be far harder than just fixing up your soul. But the rewards you'll reap when you finally do will be quite the sight to see. Primordial Nightmares are feared across the cosmos for the despair their coming heralds."
“That being said, it explains why the title you gained is so abnormally strong. You faced a monster most veterans would flee from, and somehow best it in combat. The fact that it was only a baby doesn't detract from that accomplishment.” She smiled, her eyes twinkling. “You should be proud of yourself. You saved the lives of millions by killing the beast before it could grow into It’s a force to be reckoned with, and I’m sure that must have been difficult at level one.”
That’s an understatement Arthur thought to himself, but chose to remain silent. Alyssia’s praise, though Arthur didn’t want to admit it, made him feel a lot better than he had in a long time, and he didn’t want to ruin his few moments of happiness by running his mouth. It gave him a strange sense of pride, that his difficult battle was being acknowledged, not by a human whom his actions had no doubt saved, but by an alien from a land so far away, that the distance couldn’t even be measured.
He hadn’t had a choice when he fought the shadow panther, or rather, it had been his only choice, but it was something he could be proud of. His reverie was interrupted when Alyssia suddenly knelt on the ground, almost as if she was praying at an altar. She had a solemn expression on her face, one completely at odds with her usual joyful countenance. Arthur didn’t know how, why or even what he was doing, but the the next thing he knew, he too was kneeling in front of Alyssia, his eyes resting on the crown of her head, and then downwards to meet her own gaze. She looked vulnerable.
“You have many secrets, your powerful aura, your incredible healing skills, your absurd physical capabilities.”
She smirked at him. "Even if I've figured most of them out. They were supposed to be secrets.
“You have many secrets,” she repeated, once again solemn. “But so too do I.”
The eyes were the windows of the soul, at least that’s what Arthur had been told, and yet as he looked into Alyssia, he couldn’t think of any falser words that had ever been spoken. They were fathomless, alien… animals. He couldn’t make heads or tails of what the person behind them was thinking. If eyes were indeed the windows to the soul, then Alyssia’s were in need of a spring cleaning with how opaque they were, or maybe it was Arthur who was simply blind.
She took a deep breath and let it out, centring herself. If she was doing this, she’d do it properly. It was the least Alyssia could do, to honour a tradition as old as the alverin themselves. Maybe older. The origin of Bhai Giya was one lost to time, and if any of the elders in her village knew of it, they kept it to themselves. Alyssia could feel her heart rapidly palpitating in her chest.
Fear. Confusion. Weariness. Excitement. She took a deep calming breath, entering the meditative state her grandmother had taught her. It wasn’t necessary, but the familiar feeling of ambient ether blanketing her helped her calm down. She closed her eyes for the span of ten heartbeats and then opened them again, to look at the strange man known as Arthur Ward. A man whose presence in her life had changed everything. When Alyssia finally spoke, her voice sounded nothing like her usual self, almost as if she was calling out from within a cave buried within the earth.
“Arthur Ward, you don’t entirely trust me right now and that feeling is reciprocated. But the little I do know of you tells me that you are an honourable man, and I hope you feel the same about me.”
Arthur nodded his head, though he wasn’t sure how much of it Alyssia saw, what with her eyes glowing with an eerie yellow luminescence. He didn’t know much about Alyssia, but he liked her anyway, which was all that mattered to Arthur Ward.
“Bhai Giya is not binding in any way. It isn’t much of anything, and yet it is everything.” Alyssia laughed. “I’m only repeating what my mother told me. I’m not sure she understood it, and neither do I.” She paused for a moment. “What I do understand, however, is what Bhai Giya represents. It’s friendship, companionship and trust. It means I have your back in everything, from life and death combat to getting you a suitable mate, and it means I can expect the same from you.”
Her eyes were fixed on his, fixed with determination and resolve, no traces of the earlier vulnerability present.
“Do you accept?”
Arthur took a while to ponder the question and all the implications it might have, even though he already knew what his answer would be. In the end, it all boiled down to whether or not he wanted Alyssia as a friend. A simple question to which he had a simple answer.
Yes.
It didn’t matter if this Bhai Giya pact used Ether to reinforce the bond in some bizarre way or anything and as long as it wasn’t intrusive, then he was perfectly fine with it.
“Yes, Alyssia. I accept your Bhai Giya.”
Maybe it was a little too formal, but Arthur felt that such a momentous occasion needed at least this much professionalism. Though Alyssia’s low chuckle told him that he’d definitely used the word in the wrong way. She reached out and grasped his forearms in her small hand, her fingers unable to fully circle it.
“Thank you, Arthur Ward.”
Her voice too, was formal. She began to squeeze his arm, first so softly that Arthur could barely perceive the sensation, and then strong enough that it actually began to hurt, even through his considerable constitution.
“C’mon, Arthur,” she whispered.
Unsure if he was doing the right thing, he copied Alyssia’s actions and clenched her much smaller forearms in his hand. “I’m sure you’re not so weak. Put a little strength into it.” Arthur complied and brought his full 122 attributes of strength to bear, pitifully low as it was. That was when everything changed. He was no longer in the locus of power, or anywhere on Earth for that matter. He was in a forest filled with trees of giant magnitude, towering hundreds of meters into the sky. The massive trees instilled a sense of calm in him, and he felt at home under their vast shadows.
The scenery suddenly changed and he was now in a massive hall. Everything was blurry, the details washed out like he was viewing it through half-lidded eyes. A baby started crying and it took him a moment to realise that the noise was coming from his mouth. The scene changed again, and again, and again, each of them shorter than the last, until he could only feel the emotions they inspired in him, or rather, had inspired in Alyssia.
Arthur realised he was viewing snippets of the world from her perspective. Happiness. Excitement. Joy. Anger. Frustration. Anticipation. A teenage crush. Anger. Contentment. Loss. And finally, a sense of inadequacy so crushing it left the world enshrouded in darkness, as she could do nothing but wait and watch as her brother wasted away from an injury she should have prevented.
The Ether within the Locus began to act in strange ways, but neither of its two challengers were proficient enough in its usage to notice. It swirled and twisted through the air, almost as if it was dancing as it bore witness to the ancient tradition taking place.
The experience was over as soon as it began, though it felt like an eternity had passed. Arthur wasn't surprised to find tears staining his cheeks, and he couldn't help but mirror the grin Alyssia was giving him, her own cheeks positively drenched. That tracked. She'd experienced a little of his past too, he was certain. He’d been one hell of a depressed kid.
The system had no notifications to give either of them, the Bhai Giya a ritual far older and more subtle than anything the system was designed to interpret. The serenity of the moment was of course ruined the moment Alyssia decided to open her mouth.
"Wipe that grin off your face, you buffoon." She smirked. "You're family now, and I'll be damned if I let you leak your secrets all over the place with your terrible aura control."
"We've got plenty of time on this layer since these horses aren't aggressive. It's finally time to get this show on the road."