Nyal opened her eyes to the sight of a hastily-made fire pit before her, the flames still going but the twigs and logs that made it up having nearly burnt. It should have been big enough still for the heat to touch her face, but from the position she was in, laying on her back, it felt like nothing. It wasn’t just that she didn’t feel the heat of the fire, but the cold of the night air seemed to also be dulled. If her mind wasn’t groggy and a strange feeling of distance covering her entire being, that might have been the first thing she had asked herself.
While she had managed to open her eyes, the rest of her body felt as if it was frozen. She felt like she had no control over her limbs, and the simple action of trying to open her mouth was all but impossible. She could twitch her talons a minimal amount, but she couldn’t move them. The same could be said for her wings, who laid uselessly along the dirt in a sprawled out state. This alone should have woken a groggy mind for slumber, but Nyal wasn’t waking from one’s standard sleep.
While a piece of her wished to panic, everything about her being felt unnaturally dull. She couldn’t feel the ground below, emotions felt distant and hard to grasp, and overall she didn’t feel connected to her own body. Even who she was, what she was, and why she was there all felt hard to pull together. She couldn’t be sure if what she was witnessing was some bad dream or something else because even the concept of dreaming was hard for her mind to grasp at the moment.
Yet, as laid there trying to piece so much together, parts of her started to form back together. The sense of disconnection from her body seemed to be reconnected cell by cell in an agonizingly slow process she couldn’t describe. The sudden noise of the fire before her made her realize that she had not just lost touch but also sound, if only for a short period of time. Much like sound, feeling also returned to her little by little. First in the chest, spreading out along her neck and stomach, then across her wings and legs, and finally to her talons, tail, and head. Those alone took about twenty minutes, but it quickly dawned on Nyal that something felt different.
With her memory and identity still jumbled from having just returned to life, a lot of things were confusing. She was pretty sure her tail wasn’t supposed to look the way it did. Sitting up and looking behind her, Nyal found herself staring at several long, red ribbon-like strands instead of one long black feathered tail. It was the only part of her that hadn’t returned to normal after… something had happened. The memories were there, coming back to her in drips like raindrops fell from the side of a roof, but everything still made zero sense.
That was when Nyal looked to one of two girls currently asleep on other sides of the campfire. She realized she recognized them both from somewhere, but she wasn’t quite sure where that was. Were they friends? She felt something akin to a friendship with the Acamian, but everything was still forming back together. Still, seeing them made her smile happily at the thought that they were still… alive.
“This isn’t going to be pleasant Darling, this isn’t going to be pleasant,” Pho called out, more than aware that Nyal wouldn’t know her but feeling obligated to help in some way. The jump the hen had at hearing a voice coming from inside her head made Nyal’s surprise clear enough. “I’ll explain myself after your memories fully return. I just ask you to be prepared for the most recent ones.”
“The… the wh–”
That was when everything seemed to come back, and Nyal’s eyes immediately went wide with fear. The blood, the pain, the feeling of everything slipping away including her own self due to a sword that had ripped its way through her heart and out the front of her body. She started to panic, leading to her looking downwards in an attempt to tell herself that it wasn’t real. She felt her chest, no pain from a wound and her heart beating like it should, if perhaps a bit fast due to the state of her mind. Part of her wondered if it was just a dream.
Yet she looked directly across the fire to the sleeping Numaran, and came to the realization nothing about that day was a dream. That left the question of how in the world she was still alive. By all means she shouldn’t be, for even with no medical knowledge her heart should have been destroyed by the blade. There was no way anyone could live without a heart.
“Is this… is this because I’m a vessel?” She asks herself, not expecting any response at all.
Much to her dismay, she got one.
“Less because you are a vessel and more because he only killed one of us,” Pho explained.
Nyal turned around, trying to see where the voice was coming from. Yet as she looked in each direction possible the truth became clear to her. The voice was in her head, which meant she had gone crazy. With Pho feeling awkward about trying to introduce herself to her vessel it only seemed more clear to Nyal she had been hearing things.
“You… you are not,” Pho said in a desperate, poorly thought out attempt to assure the hen. In the end it just made Nyal more certain that she had gone off the deep end. “No, I’m serious, you aren’t making me up. I’m just not entirely sure how the heck to go about introducing myself and I am just now realizing the moment for that has passed.”
Nyal blinked several times in rapid succession before looking upwards. She could see the reflective shine of Gis up in the sky. It didn’t really occur to her that being a vessel of an oracle made them family in some distant estranged way. She also didn’t care that, being a lower oracle, it wouldn’t have the intellect to answer what she asked. She just needed to feel normal for a moment.
“Gis, is it normal to hear strange voices in your head after awakening from death?”
“That… For goodness sake Darling I’m not your imagination!” Pho shouted, causing her vessel to tense up and fold her wings in fright. “I’m real. I am in your head, yes, but only because the two of us literally share the same body. So please stop messing around like… like…”
If the sheer anger didn’t make it clear to Nyal that they were real, the sudden fading of said anger into confusion did. Even though they no longer spoke, the Harpen could feel the wonder and worry this voice exuded. In kindness, she stayed quiet and waited for the moment where they spoke once more. It took three minutes for that to happen.
“Darling, do we know anyone named Alexes?” Pho asked her vessel.
“I’m pretty sure I don’t,” Nyal said, talon scratching the ground. “Wait, what do you mean we? Who are you?”
“Well, I guess that question is kind of what I was waiting for,” Pho replied. “The name is Pho’nix’ea, but I prefer Pho. I am an Oracle. The one you are nurturing inside of yourself to be specific.”
On hearing this, Nyal tipped her head to the side. She was hoping the phoenix would give further explanation, but the words that came next were words of contemplation.
“Alexes… the names Reonda and Soliene are also familiar but I know why. Where does Alexes come from? What about Lila or Cala–“
“Um, Pho,” Nyal called out. While she couldn’t see a physical representation of such a motion, somehow she knew she had grabbed Pho’s attention. “Did you just say you are an Oracle? Why are you inside of me? Most importantly though, what happened after I… I died?”
Due to suddenly being made aware of Pho’s existence, the very reason she was suddenly in front of a makeshift fire pit had taken a back seat. Reminding herself that she had died changed that, and she once again checked her chest with her wings. She remembered pain, and the release of it as all she faded away. Given her heart was beating as normal it all felt like a dream. It was strange and oddly intriguing, but any questions she had were taken over by the fact she had died and lived.
“I died. I died!” Nyal shouted in pure shock and, though she didn’t realize it, excitement. She chuckled madly, making Pho slightly uncomfortable. “I shouldn’t be alive right now but here I am. I can come back from death!”
She fell to her knees, chuckles slowly fading away into slight terror. She looked to Soliene, immediately noticing that something was wrong with one of her eyes. Instead of focusing on that she instead looked around her for any side of Makaus. All she saw was an empty field followed by the dark abyss of night. The sound of peeper frogs could be heard, meaning there was likely a pond nearby that she couldn’t see. There were no buildings, however, just like there was no candlelight and the lack of humans talking in the distance.
“Where are we, Pho?” Nyal asked in confusion.
“Right, you wouldn’t know why we aren’t in Makaus anymore,” Pho said, more to herself than to her vessel. “Well, let's just say that is gonna take some explanation.”
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It took about fifteen minutes to get Nyal caught up on everything that had occurred after she died. From the soldier half-blinding Soliene, to Il’jan’i, and how Makaus was no longer a safe place for any of them. When it was all done, Nyal sat in stunned silence at all she had learned. She couldn’t bring her eyes to the sleeping form of Reonda and Soliene, overcome with a feeling of terror. All that excitement she had about returning to life had gone away when she learned that it had been paid in fire and loss.
“I… I killed a man? A human?” She asked Pho, talons twitching restlessly under her.
“No. Reonda claims Il’jan’i is responsible for that, and S-Soliene blames Reonda,” Pho said. There was an audible shiver in her voice at the mention of Soliene that did not go unnoticed by the Harpen. “You need not trouble yourself with guilt, that is someone else’s to bear. I can only assure you that Reonda seems okay after it all.”
“Okay, if you say so,” Nyal replied, her tail whipping fearfully behind her. It contacted her back for a moment, causing the hen to stiffen in fright. She turned to look behind herself, glad that it was indeed her strange new tail and not some unknown figure. “You never mentioned why my tail looks like this now.”
“Only because I don’t have an answer myself. I figured it would turn back after we went to sleep and you revived, but it didn’t,” Pho explained. “A name comes to mind, however. I think it is called Hel.”
“Hel,” Nyal parroted as she moved her new tail around in curiosity. Compared to the rather inflexible one she once had, this one had far more movement in its form. “I guess, if that is all that changed after my death, there is nothing wrong with it.”
Just as she had earlier, Nyal looked up to Gis and the stars that dotted the sky. She reflected on how much she had experienced, how much she had been through, in the span of a week. Klaus trying to kill her, meeting Reonda and Soliene, and now having experienced death firsthand. A once simple life had turned dangerous and strange in moments. A part of her wish she could go back to that, but she not only knew she couldn’t, but that it wouldn’t do anything.
At the end of it all, she would have learned about what she was eventually. Not only that but when the world did find out about her, Klaus would once again seek to kill her. Perhaps it was better to get it all out of her life sooner rather than later, but her parents were arguably in more danger from the man holding them hostage. It had to be Klaus who had taken them hostage. There was no one else it could be.
“We really can’t go back to Makaus?” Nyal asked Pho.
“Not for some time,” the pheonix answered. “I know you wish to confront Klaus, but knowing all we do it would be too dangerous to pursue him in such a populated environment,” Nyal’s talons curled in frustration. “I know you wish to find where your, no, our parents are, but we must consider those who could get hurt if either of you died. Besides, I’m sure he will find us. He did yesterday, after all.”
“We can’t use our Historia to find vessels, so he most likely can’t as well. He must have some other means of finding us,” Nyal reasoned, getting the mental form of what she would consider a nod from Pho in response. It then hit her that something was missing from her person. “My Historia! Where is my Historia?”
As she had turned her focus to the ground, Nyal did not realize that Soliene had shifted and groaned. The Numaran’s eyes opened just enough to make out the harpen’s figure. She did her best to push herself up into a sitting position, watching from across the firepit as Nyal started to search the ground for her book.
“The Historia is safe. Do not worry, Darling,” Pho told her vessel. Though her words calmed Nyal somewhat, she could sense a panic at not knowing where it was. “Here, follow my lead. Hold out your wings and focus on the Historia. Wish for it to show itself.”
Nyal made to ask how that would work, only to remember the magic she had seen both Reonda and Klaus use yesterday. So, as Pho’nix’ea had told her, Nyal held her wings out and closed her eyes to better focus. She turned her thoughts exclusively to her Historia, tuning everything else out in the process. Soliene looked at the scene, confused at what the hen was doing at first.
Then she felt a slight breeze hit the open plain, coming in the direction of the Harpen before her. Nyal felt no wind, however, for it was from the tips of her wings that said wind formed. That wind was then followed by flames, cackling as they formed from nothing and spread over Neal's Feathers. At no point did the main body of the fire touch her, and what sparks hit the hen’s form died instead of igniting against her body. Then, as quickly as it formed, the flames faded and something heavy fell onto Nyal’s wings.
“Congrats, my vessel. The power of the deathfire, the burning remains of the souls of the damned, is yours to control just as much as it is mine,” Pho told her cheerfully. At her words, Nyal opened her eyes to see her Historia now safe within her wings. Her mouth was ajar, realizing what it was she had just done. “Sadly it is weak right now, especially for you. Our power comes from the souls Hel has collected, and at the moment the total is one.”
“I… see,” Nyal said.
The hen was not listening to Pho’nix’ea as she stared at the Historia in awe at what she had just accomplished. It was at that moment that Soliene realized exactly who it was before her, the shadow of night making it difficult to tell if it was Pho or Nyal who was before her. As the Numaran got to her feet, Nyal turned their focus to her and let out a small gasp of surprise. She could just barely make out the smile hidden under Soliene’s hood. Soliene looked up to Gis to gauge around what time it was, and then back to the Harpen. Nyal could feel a bit of fear from Pho as she stared at the Numaran.
“Good morning, Nyal,” Soliene greeted.
Nyal returned the smile to Soliene. “Morning. Sorry to wake you up.”
“It is fine. Always been a bit of a light sleeper,” Soliene replied. As she got closer, Nyal glimpsed the empty eye socket that her killer had caused. It sent a shiver through her, the sight making her reflexively avert her eyes. “Glad to have you back in the realm of the living.”
“It is… good to be back,” Nyal replied, a bit unsure as to if her casual words really fit for something as unnatural as what she had gone through. “Pho caught me up. I’m sorry about your eye.”
In an almost instinctive motion, Soliene’s hands went from rest at her side to gripping at where her left eye should have been. A piece of her hated that it was the first thing Nyal brought up, but she couldn’t blame them. After all, the loss of an eye wasn’t an easy thing to hide. In an attempt to go against her anger, she smiled wider and hoped that Nyal didn’t see how fake it was. The Harpen wasn’t fooled, though instead of anger she saw sadness hiding behind Soliene’s facade.
“Don’t apologize. You are not the one responsible for it,” Soliene said. She didn’t notice the melancholy that seeped into her words, her remaining eye glaring at Reonda and Teolus. “Besides, losing an eye is far better than dying. Unlike you two I can’t exactly come back from the dead.”
“That’s right, you're not a vessel,” Nyal replied. Another shiver went through her, and her wings immediately went to her chest, pressing her Historia against herself in the process. “I’m really glad you are still alive. You are the first person I’ve actually been able to talk to outside of my mom and dad.”
Soliene’s attention snapped back to Nyal, jaw hanging open. “Truly?”
At the odd and rather terrifying sight of a face with only one eye, Nyal once again looked away. It was like a vision out of a nightmare, yet she knew for a fact that this was no dream. At the sight of Nyal’s shifted gaze, Soliene looked away and pressed her fingers against each other. The knowledge her face now scared Nyal just made her more disgusted at the knight, at Il’jan’i, and at Reonda, who was the one at the forefront of every bit of anger, guilt, and pain she had experienced in the past twenty four hours.
“I-I-I don’t exactly understand how Acamese works. I’ve lived here in Reine my whole life, but there are so many different sounds that the language has and I just don’t understand them,” Nyal explained, feeling more than a little embarrassed at admitting her incompetence. “I try to latch onto words, but it is all so hard. Everyone talks too fast.”
“Her entire life was spent here, and she still doesn’t know the language?” Soliene whispered, using Acamese in hopes that it would keep Nyal from hearing what the Numaran saw in hindsight as a harsh question. It did make the most sense, considering the travel one had to go through in order to completely pass the northern barricade. After a moment of weighing her options, she spoke to the Harpen. “Hey Nyal, I’m not exactly a teacher and I can’t really say I’d do a good job but if you want, I could teach you some basic Acamese.”
In the span of a second, Nyal had forgotten completely about how uncomfortable Soliene’s face made her and faced the Numaran with excitement and shock. Completely abandoning the concept of personal space, Nyal let go of her Historia, closed what distance was between them and placed her wings on Soliene’s shoulders. While briefly stunned at how quickly the hen’s emotions had turned around, the Numaran couldn’t help but smile at what she saw. Before her was not some vessel of a godly being with the power of death in its talons, but a child. A child with wonder and excitement at something they had been wanting for years.
Soliene knew at that moment that, while her reasoning for wanting to teach Nyal came from a place of concern, the excitement made her realize just how much better this suited the hen. It was something she couldn’t help but feel a slight bit of jealousy towards, but she shoved that heinous jealousy aside in favor of simple happiness. She imagined that, in a better world, she would probably be incredibly similar to Nyal. While she unfortunately wasn’t, keeping that smile on the harpen’s face was something she found herself desperate to protect. She would make sure that they wouldn’t become an emotional, jealous, hateful wreck of a being.
She wouldn’t let them become like her.
“You mean it? Are you willing to teach me?” Nyal said in pure, childlike excitement. Soliene nodded without a single bit of hesitation, something that led to a strong hug from the girl currently sitting on her legs. “Thank you, Professor VerBansk.”
Soliene’s eyes went wide as she heard the title Nyal had said. “Professor?!”
“Oh, uh, do you not want to be called that?” Nyal asked, letting go of the hug in the process. “I mean, I don’t exactly know the Acamese terms for addressing a teacher so I thought it would be okay.”
As Nyal had looked away in childish embarrassment, Soliene silently mouthed the word the hen had used. Soliene had never imagined she would be called that, and she couldn’t help but admit that it felt right in some way. A smile once false had turned genuine the more she toyed with the idea of being a teacher. It was fitting, and empowering in a way that she didn’t know she needed.
“Professor is fine. Just don’t expect me to live up to it too well,” Soliene told Nyal.
The way Nyal’s face glowed at hearing that, the look of joy present before her, made Soliene glad she had enough fur on her face to hide her blush. She wasn’t quite sure why she was blushing, but Oracles damn it she couldn’t stop it or the goofy grin her smile had morphed into. Without another word Nyal returned to hugging the Numaran before her, Soliene nervously returning it back.