Sunlight bounced off of the snow, sending a flare of white that forced Leaf to close his eyes. Normally, it was a sensation that was only bothersome, but under his newfound sensitivities the light now stabbed into his pupils like ice picks.
“Bloody hells!” he cursed. “I can’t see how Wardens get used to this.”
Merida turned from the tree she was studying, “They eventually adapt.” She made an uncertain gesture, “Though how long that can take varies from person to person.”
“It better be soon,” Leaf grumbled. “I can hardly focus on anythin’ if the Sun is going to be diggin’ into my eyes all day.”
“The more you practice, the quicker that you will get used to it,” the Druid explained. “You’ll just have to weather it in the meantime.”
The archer frowned, but raised no further complaints as Merida returned to looking around the forest. It may have only been a day after he had agreed to assist with her investigation, but she spared no time in taking him deeper into lands that she had not already explored. They had ventured far enough that Leaf could not spot or sense Geldervale out in the distance even with the assistance of Ether, which in turn made the forest around them feel all the more imposing in its snow covered state.
Another stray glint of light pierced his eyes, bringing about another pained yelp. It was enough to make him let go of the power flowing through him, and as he did looked up into the trees. Without his enhanced sight, the branches above all blended together into a formless mass, nebulous enough that his eyes had no choice but to relax.
As he was lost in his mental recovery, the sound of footsteps remained ever present in his ears. Not from Merida, but rather Geroth and Romina, who accompanied them on their investigation. The wolves were deft in their movements, but Leaf had gotten used to them enough that he could distinguish the soft patter of their paws against the forest floor.
“You know, I would think that your companions could be better at sniffin’ the stag out than me,” he said.
Merida cut a glance to the wolves and wrapped her hands around her staff, “Their magical boons do allow them a heightened sensitivity to alterations in the environment, but I would say that it is equivalent to my own perception in that capacity. Beyond that, their senses are similar to any other wolf, which, while keen, appear to be insufficient in finding the stag.”
“Right… so I better start getting used to this quickly then.” Leaf sighed and slapped his cheeks, “Run me through it one more time.”
Merida nodded, “First, take in a deep breath, gather yourself, then let it out. As you do, push your Ether out with it. Imagine it like a wave that is washing over everything, but keep your senses connected to it.” The Druid scratched her chin, “It’s much like how a spellcaster would reach out to Aether, but rather than trying to sense that just the energy you are trying to sense everything within the environment and take it all in at once. I admit, it is a lot to process.”
“It is,” Leaf admitted, “but we need to make haste, right? I’ll just have to grin and bear it.” He centered himself and breathed in, keeping his eyes closed as he tapped into his Core. When he exhaled, he forced his Ether into the breath and opened his eyes. A red aura flowed from his body, but it did not touch the air around him as it warped and folded upon itself, forming a haze that was much like a mirage. It pulsed outwards, washing over the environment and wrapping all of it in a small haze as his power’s influence grew. As it did, Leaf could feel everything that it brushed against: the softness of the moss that somehow lived under the snow, the harshness of the bark from trees sheltering themselves from winter’s chill, the panicked breaths of the small woodland animals that were frozen from fear as they looked upon Geroth and Romina. These details, and many more, flooded into Leaf’s mind, bringing about an ache to his forehead as he tried to process them one by one. It was all felt in that same, disconnected way that he had sensed the chill in the air the previous day, but that did not stop them from overwhelming him.
Merida seemed to notice this and placed her hand on his shoulder, “You must take it all in at once,” she said, “do not try to control the waves, let them carry you.”
The archer clenched his teeth, “Easier said than done.”
Regardless of his irritation, he tried to follow what the Druid suggested and let down any mental barriers that he put up. He drowned under the flow, feeling all sensations blur and mix in his mind. The bark around him started to feel like fur, and the fur of Geroth and Romina softened to reflect the touch of moss. The ground beneath him scratched against his psyche like splintered wood, and this time when the light bounced off of the snow and into his eyes he instead felt a chill instead of the harsh stab of its radiance.
It ripped the control of his Ether from him, slamming him back into normalcy like he’d struck the ground after falling a hundred feet. His stomach lurched and bile rose to his throat, but he kept down his breakfast as he fell to his knees. His guts clenched, sending a wave of goose flesh and cold sweat trailing across his arms and down his spine. Nausea followed after and buckled him over with its punch. He dry heaved, but kept the forest free from his stomach’s contents.
“That…” he gagged again, “was terrible advice.”
Merida knelt down next to him and placed her hand on his back. Warmth flowed through her fingers, washing through him like he had just taken a drink from a hot cup of tea. Sickness was cleared from his senses he could feel them start to correct, which brought a relieved sigh from his lips. He remained on the ground, but gave the Druid a grateful expression.
Merida flashed him a smile back, but her brow furrowed with clear concern as she stood back up. “I’ve never seen a reaction quite like that from the other Wardens,” she observed.
“You said they were trained from childhood, right?” Leaf asked, “That probably has something to do with it.” He stood up and gave his head a quick shake to right his senses.
“You could be right… now that I recall, much of a Warden’s training focused on training the senses individually, then processing it all at once.” Merida drummed her fingers along her staff, “Gouge a Warden’s eyes and they’ll still hear you, cut off a Warden’s ears and they can still feel you.”
Leaf gave her a sidelong glance, “Don’ you think that’s just a bit morbid to be tellin’ children?”
The Druid shrugged, “If anything it excited them. Children tend to get quite motivated when they are promised extraordinary abilities.”
The archer snorted, “You’re not wrong there…”
“What were you taught? If you wish to talk about it, of course.”
Leaf fingered his bow absentmindedly, “Somethin’ similar, but my father never told me to train each sense one by one. Instead, he told me to use them all to paint a picture.” He knelt down and picked up a handful of snow before letting it fall, paying attention to how the breeze pushed it off to the side. He stood up and closed his eyes. Without channeling Ether, he shut out all of his senses as he went through the steps his father gave him.
“Touch to set the canvas.”
A gust of wind swept by, brushing against Leaf’s skin as it flew eastward. Its cold touch created a blank white space in his mind, one that had swirls of soft gray rolling through it.
He tapped the point of his ears, “Hearing to draw the outline.”
Leaf leaned in to listen to the breeze sift through the branches. They were without the rustle of their leaves, but he could hear the bare limbs scratch and shift against each other, bringing thin black lines tracing around the white space in his mind. They crossed and streaked over one another, forming a mess of irregular strokes and dashes that sketched the bare image of the forest around him across the canvas.
He opened his eyes, “Sight to fill it in with color.”
The outline in his mind overlaid the forest he saw, making each of its trees stand out from one another instead of blurring together into some background mass. Even the snow looked more distinctive, shimmering instead of glaring under the stray rays of sunlight poking in through the canopy above. It had been so long since Leaf broke down these steps one by one that he was taken aback at how much of a difference it made. It could have been due to his nature as an Awoken, but as he was only a Journeyman in the lower layers and was not channeling Ether, he knew this to be a result of this method alone.
“Smell to-”
As he spoke, a glint of blue caught his attention. It was far off into the trees, a speck of light that was no different than a star in the night sky. Yet still, the color pulled him from his method and he stood up, narrowing his brow as he tried to determine what it was about that shade of blue that pushed all other thoughts to the side. When it dawned on him, his eyes widened and he took off, rushing towards the color with enough speed that it startled Merida.
“What’s wrong?” the Druid asked. No answer followed, prompting her to follow after Leaf.
He skipped through the trees, weaving through their branches and the brush alike with the natural grace granted to him by his elven blood, but he came to a rather abrupt and ungraceful halt as he stopped himself from trampling over the source of the color. It was a plant, one who’s stem shot up from a base of thin, sharp leaves that were spread out like a fan of knives. From the stem hung numerous small, light blue flowers that pointed towards the ground. Their wrinkled petals curved down until they made a quick upturn near their edges, giving them the shapes of bells that had been granted the intrinsic flourish that belong to all of nature’s creations. A small layer of ice had formed over the bells, catching the rays of light hitting them in such a way that the flowers now glittered like pale sapphires. Leaf knelt down and stared at the plant, losing himself in its color for just a moment.
In that breath, he remembered a flower just like it; one that sat in a small pot on a window, bright and brilliant like all the plants that were under his mother’s care. He remembered his own reflection then, that of a teary eyed youth who was held by a woman only three quarters his height, but possessing a spirit far larger than his could ever be. Her mouth moved as if she was talking, but he could not hear what was being said. He did not need to, because he knew the feeling that those soundless words had brought in the past.
The warmth in his chest was proof enough of that.
He heard the footsteps of Merida’s approach, ones that were joined by the soft gallop of Geroth and Romina. The wolves kept to the trees around him, but he could feel the Druid’s presence right behind him, no doubt waiting for an explanation for his sudden fascination.
“Sorry,” he said, “I just didn’t expect to see a Skybell out here, especially so deep into winter.”
He shifted to the side, letting Merida see the flower. The Druid joined him and knelt down in front of the plant, a curious look in her eyes.
“This is quite a unique shade,” she observed.
“Nothing quite like it in the Glasswood, eh?”
“No, actually. There are many flowers of similar shape, but none hold this color, even in our arboretums.”
Leaf raised an eyebrow, “Druids have greenhouses?”
“Why wouldn’t we? While the Glasswood is home to all sorts of plants it is impossible for it to accommodate everything within Ellios.” Merida snorted, “It would also be quite a pain to walk halfway across the world just to look at a single plant, so we do tend to pick up a few children along the way to bring back for examination.” A ring of light blinked into existence around her wrist and sent a trail of orange-red Aether into her fingers. She tapped the Skybell, melting away the ice around its petals before flourishing her hand around it. The red aura around her digits flashed blue, then yellow as she pulled her hand up. As she did, the flower stood more upright, and its petals unwrinkled, letting its colors flare with a brilliance that it did not possess before.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
The Druid smirked at her handiwork. “Of course, we treat any plant with the utmost care.”
Leaf shared in her smile, but it faded as he looked at the Skybell, “I suppose you’ll be wanting this one then.”
“Normally, yes,” Merida admitted, “but given the way you are looking at it… I will leave this one be.” She gave him a knowing look, “Would you mind if I asked why you find it so important?”
He shook his head, “It's my mother’s favorite plant,” he ran his finger along one of the petals, “She’s a woman of the woods, no doubt, but she always had a fondness for the sky. ‘There’s nothin’ more free than the heavens,’ she always said,” he tapped the stem and watched the flowers shake, “Whenever one of these sprouted, she would go and plant it somewhere in the woods, ‘just to spread a little bit of that freedom around.’”
“So she grew many of them?”
“No, just one a year,” he said, “anymore and she would be too selfish - according to her at least. Probably helps that Skybell isn’t good for anything anyways.”
“I don’t know about that…” Merida ran a hand, alight with red Aether, around the flower, clearing the snow around it and revealing the still green grass beneath, “Sometimes beauty can be its own reward.”
He looked at the Skybell, remembering the peaceful smile it would bring to his mother’s face, one that cleared the wrinkles on her brow and filled her with a brightness that washed away the worry that sat under her eyes. It was a memory that had a smile of his own tugging at his lips.
“I suppose it is.”
Leaf stood up and let out a groan as he stretched his back, “Still, I didn’t expect one to be growing in the middle of winter. Is this the stag’s doin’?”
Merida tapped her staff on the ground, her eyes alight with a purple glow. “Given the abundance of power coursing through this area… it is possible.”
“You know, there is something’ about this that confuses me,” he leaned against a tree, “if this stag is usin’ Ether, and everythin’ is made of Aether, then how is it keepin’ so many things alive? Is it mixing the two somehow?”
The Druid scratched the side of her face as she stood up. “That would be impossible,” she made an uncertain expression, “well, improbable. Ether and Aether are like water and oil.” She held up two of her fingers, producing a small bead of red light over one and another with a blue glow over the other. As she brought her fingers together, the two beads pressed against each other before bouncing back. “If we were to force a direct union…” she crossed her fingers, slipping the red bead into the blue one. Their combined form stood still at first, but soon started to shake. The bead bulged and twisted before finally bursting, producing a flash of white light, “then the two energies would destroy one another, often bringing about catastrophic results.”
“Right… but that still doesn’t explain how the stag is keeping everythin’ all healthy, or how Ether can be used to heal someone.”
Merida held a searching look in her eye as she scratched her chin. “Just because the two cannot mix does not mean that Ether is unable to influence Aether in some way. Take your arrows for example; if you were to loose one of them without the aid of your power it would bounce off a rock, but with the use of Ether it is able to find purchase.”
“But you can do the same thing with magic.”
“You can, but it is two different pathways to the same goal. With Aether you would be focusing an abundance of power to punch through what is constrained by natural law, but with Ether you are pushing aside those laws and substituting it with your own. When you channel your will into the arrow, you are doing so with the intent that it will make your next shot more powerful, and as such your Ether adjusts whatever it has been infused into to do just that.”
Leaf ran a hand through his hair. “Hells, this is making me crosseyed, but against my better judgement I’ll ask again, how does this apply to healin’?”
“Well, using Aether to heal works by similar properties,” she held up a hand again, producing a chain of white orbs stitched together by thin lines. All except for a gap at the center of the image. With a flourish of her fingers, a line of blue orbs appeared in the gap, connecting to the rest of the orbs by newly formed lines.
“We ‘fill in’ what is missing, whether that was caused by injury or sickness, with enough Aether to replace what is lost, but it has to be done with a true excess of energy,” she twisted her wrist, switching orbs to a uniform look, but with cubes of yellow interlaced across the lines connecting the. “In the cases where the body, or soul, is corrupted by some unknown form of energy, then we are using our abilities to pull that energy out of them, but to do so requires a deftness and control available to those that possess more Circles than most.” Merida reached out to the image and plucked the cubes from the line one by one until it was clear. “The process is exhausting, and, in the case of Camilla, this corruption will restore itself if not fully removed.”
The Druid waved her hand and produced the image of orbs with the gap again.
“If we were to use Ether to heal the wound, we would instead force what has been broken back together,” she clenched her hand into a fist, producing an aura of red around the orbs before they started to press against each other, forming new bonds between them and sealing the gap, “it is easy for Awoken to do on their own bodies, given that is what they are most in control of, but to do so for another requires training one’s will specifically for such a task. Such requirements make Awoken healers exceedingly rare, but their abilities can be seen as going beyond that of Clerics, or even Chosen, when fully mastered. To use the corruption example again…” she opened her hand and produced the image of the orbs and cubes. With a gentle tap of her finger, Merida sent a pulse of red through the image, one that carried away the cubes like they’d been caught in a wave, leaving the orbs free of their influence. “For an Awoken healer, cleansing such energies can be a much simpler task.”
Leaf nodded, “I assume if an Awoken tried to do the opposite, and were trained in it, that would also be simple for them to do.”
“Far simpler than a spellcaster trying to do the same thing, yes.”
“Is that what’s happened to Camilla then?”
“Whatever brand she and her husband have on their necks prevents them from saying what could have caused such a thing, but given how much it has corroded her… yes, I suspect that is what’s going on.”
“What of the cub? What could have caused that?”
“That… I don’t know, and truth be told I was so concerned with cleansing her at the time that I didn’t spend much time studying the energy itself. It felt like Aether but… twisted, alien somehow. I have my suspicions, but I would wait till we investigate further before coming to any conclusions.”
“Got it, I don’t think I could take much more information anyways… well, I do have one more question.”
“Does it concern Helbram’s Ether Stagnation?”
Leaf’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Your concern for your friend is obvious, but admirable,” Merida said with a smile, but it shifted to a frown. “Unfortunately, there is not much I can tell you of it. We know that it is the inability to manipulate Ether, but what causes it has not been set in stone. The most common theory is that it is the result of some aberration in the Cycle, similar to Shades or Wights, but it could also be the result of some other mechanism that we are not aware of, or have yet to consider.” She muttered that last part under her breath.
“But it has been cured, right?”
“Minor cases, yes, usually by having an Awoken assist in circulating one’s Ether through their body until a Core forms, which then gives the afflicted a means to better control the Ether.”
Leaf rubbed his chin with a calculating look on his eye.
“Minor cases,” Merida emphasized, “Helbram’s affliction is much larger than that, and you both would need to be studying the same Technique in order for you to assist with circulating his Ether anyways.”
“Shite… but that doesn’t explain why he can’t use magic well either.”
“It does, actually. Ether Stagnation may result in one being unable to use their Ether effectively due to the inability to form a substantial Core, but that does not mean one’s Ether does not grow. Think of the power as water running through rivers spread across your body. The Core can be considered the outlet for that energy and its growth, but if an outlet is unable to be formed…”
“Then the rivers start to flood.”
“Yes, and the excess Ether then saturates through the entire body.”
“Then why can’t I see it? If his body was filled with Ether he should be casting a glow like a lantern when I look at him.”
“It is because the Ether is still inert, unable to be used. If anything the void you see should tell you how extensive his condition is, and, if you remember, when you try to cast a spell, part of the process uses your body as a conduit to process the required Aether, and if you recall what happens when Aether and Ether try to mix…”
Leaf remembered the small explosions of force that occurred whenever Helbram tried to cast a spell.
“That’s not fuckin’ fair,” he snarled.
“It isn’t,” Merida admitted, “but that is what’s happening. Perhaps the stag may be able to help, but with such a drastic condition I can’t say for certain,” her eyes grew serious, “We need to focus on finding him first.”
“Right, right,” he sighed, “just tell me, if Helbram’s Ether is still growin’, what happens when even his body can’t contain it anymore?”
“I don’t know,” the Druid said, “I have never seen a case as severe as his, but if we continue with our river example,” she pressed her lips thin, “then eventually the foundations start to erode.”
Leaf slammed his fist into a tree, sending a crack up its bark and producing a snap loud enough to make Merida jump. Ether flowed through his arm, fueled by the frustration that ground his teeth together. As he let it go, he could feel a sting in his hand, but ignored it.
“It’s only a possibility, not a certainty,” Merida reassured.
“It’s bloody worryin’ anyways godsdammit!” Leaf closed his eyes and gathered himself, “But you’re right, we need to focus.” He turned his frustration into intent and channeled his Ether into his eyes. Regardless of what they would react to, he vowed to keep them open. He would find something to latch onto, or he’d start to go mad.
He repeated the steps his father told him and when he opened his eyes his vision settled on a tree that was only a stone’s throw away from him. To the naked eye, it would have looked like any other cedar or pine that populated the forest, but under his enhanced vision he could see a pattern to one side of its bark that looked too orderly compared to the craggy lines through the surface around it. He walked up to the tree and move his Ether into his hand before he ran it along the pattern. It was smoother under his touch, but if his fingers strayed too far from it the rough texture of older bark returned. This let him outline an area around the tree that, according to his empowered senses, was clearly younger than the rest.
As if something was quickly grown over the area to hide something.
“It’s a deer rub,” he said. He funneled more Ether into his eyes, letting him see the energy that radiated through the forest. When he looked at the spot, he did not see any change in the tree’s aura.
Merida walked up to him, peering at the area he was holding, “Are you certain? I can notice a few oddities now that you’ve pointed it out but it doesn’t have the usual smell.”
“Well, I imagine that’s because he’s not in rut,” Leaf said, “but he still needs to mark his territory, or if he’s not marking his territory then he’s leavin’ a trail, one that he thinks only he can follow. What it could lead to, I don’t know, but I say we follow it.”
“I agree, but there is something else to consider now,” Merida said, “While the stag may be able to heal injuries I’m not so certain it would be able to promote growth in vegetation quickly as this…” she ran a hand over the spot Leaf touched, “we may both be of the land but a plant’s structure is vastly different from an animals.”
“Which means something else may be doing this, aiding the stag in some way.”
“Yes.”
Leaf sighed, “This just gets more complicated by the day.”