“I killed so many of them.” The princess cried out, inconsolable. Her friend just stroked the top of her head gently, knowing she was right, but also knowing it was all she could have done to stop the creature. “Hush, little bird. It will be fine. But you need to fly. Far away from here. Do you understand?”
“I can’t. I’d rather stay here and die. What’s the point? I can’t atone for this.” The fledgeling guardian argued. Her friend lifted Freya’s head to meet her eyes for what she was to say next. “You know that’s not true. You did what you could. There’s more important things for you to do, clearly, and here’s not the place for you right now. I’ll explain everything to them as best as I can when you’re gone, but you have to go before they get here. I’m asking again, do you understand?” Drying the young regent’s tears with a finger, Orchidea smiled.
Freya swallowed her tears for a moment, briefly coming back to her more confident usual self. She pondered her friend’s words in silence, trying to control the dreadful self-loathing that washed over her body and soul. After a handful of awkward hiccups, she managed to compose herself enough to regain strength to her legs. She tried standing up, and was of course aided by the very nurturing presence standing before her.
Still drained of aether after the unbelievable feat of magic she had just performed, her head spun despite rising to her feet at a considerably slower pace than usual. Leaning onto the soft embrace that enveloped her, still she managed.
It was all enough to stave off despair for a few seconds. To deafen the sounds of horror and pain all around.
“W… Where do I go now?” Asked Freya, having lost not only her way, but some of her sense of self.
“South? Maybe hide out in Nebel for a while. Cool off, find a new heading.” Orchidea chuckled at her own unintended pun for a second, then continued. “Who knows. The Rothbarts were always on good terms with yours. ‘Tis doubtful they’ll deny aid to a friendly royal.” She finished her advice with a peck on that dear friend’s cheek.
Freya blushed, touching that cheek with the tip of her fingers. She quickly turned around, attempting to hide her reaction. It was not agile enough, and so Orchidea chuckled. “Very cute. Now get going.”
The princess glanced back, cheeks fully flushed and eyes swollen. Without much hesitation, she turned back towards her intended destination. Power and experience not entirely her own washed her soul, and she could feel the potential for one more stupendous act of magic already flooding her being.
It was a dangerous balancing act of protecting herself and applying a ridiculous amount of force to her body, but she figured it was worth a try. At least as far as the outskirts of town, she thought.
She kneeled down and touched the floor of the tower, which seemed to respond with a bright golden glow. First, she assembled the protective fields that would keep her bones and organs from turning into paste. When those were ready, the potential energy accumulated under her feet was next. After a few seconds, she heard the noise of her friend wishing her safe travels, muffled under the humming noise of gathered aether. Rising in one powerful movement, she was propelled into the air with a force much greater than she anticipated, which she had to adjust to in an instant to avoid an untimely death. She crossed the distance of half of Madain Nym in but a few seconds, and continued on an ascending path long after she’d crossed the city’s edge. This was almost a mortal stunt, but she managed to survive, so all was well.
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Even with that considerable initial boost, it’d be another dozen days before Freya would be able to reach the black fortress in Schwarzer Stein. On her way, she’d fight more than a few sizable threats to her life. Not an entirely unexpected outcome in the wild borders of the Empire, but fully different from the peaceful status quo of Lindblum. Her power seemed to grow day by day, and she was somewhat aware of the reason why. Guardians like her mother were formidable fighters even before the beginning of their watch - but the towers amplified that potential tenfold as the tower’s seemingly-infinite potential seeped into the user’s form.
What seemed somewhat contrary to those well-established facts, however, was the fact that she had been drawing herself apart from the tower. While aether permeated the whole of Gaia, the vastly concentrated wellsprings that constituted much of the crystalline towers themselves could only be tapped into while standing on those very structures. In that sense, Freya’s growth, or what could be caracterized as such, was at that point something she could not explain. In her wandering, this was chief among her thoughts.
Deciding she would avoid the usual roads that led to the main valley that gave entry to the country of Nebel, Freya crossed the northern mountains with the aid of these newly-found powers. Obstacles that in the past would be the source of some inner debate in regards to exhaustion were now akin to child’s play. While the feeling was similar to small hops, she would in fact leap great bounds and ignore natural barriers that would expend too much of one’s time and aether to overcome.
As such, it took her half of the expected two-weeks travel time to reach the outskirts of Schwarzer Stein. The cold was unforgiving, but she had prepared herself appropriately for such weather before her departure from Lindblum, both sporting heavier clothing and elemental-aspected magicks that kept her body safe from hypothermia. As her mentor often drilled into her thick skull: ‘preparedness is all, and repetition legitimizes’. She knew not what the second part meant, but it sounded important regardless. At the very least, it made her sound smart - in her mind, if nowhere else.
After crossing the last great bend in her path towards her goal, Freya could see the great fortress that composed much of Schwarzer Stein, standing pitch-black in clear contrast to the surroundings. While not standing nearly half as tall as Lindblum, it nevertheless gave off an oppressive aura seen from up close. A shard of black, crusted into the ground, unyielding, refusing to be covered - even temporarily - by constant snowfall.
Freya had read about this effect in a book before. The stone that fortress was built out of was a particular mineral found only in that singular, very specific place - an obsidian mountain carved into a structure, becoming the perfect definition of an immovable object, as it shrugged off most magicks and even particularly powerful siege engines. Again, this seemed to be a property of the stone itself, which left doubts as to how it had been carved into that shape in the first place.
She made her way arround the fortress in a wide arc, such as to avoid suspicion. She could feel eyes on her from the battlements above, ready to transform her into this world’s most beautiful (and bloody) bailean pufferfish.
As she approached the main gate to the east, Freya unveiled her visage. The snow slightly burned her soft and unblemished skin, and she stood there in silence, waiting for the customary first contact.
It came mere seconds later. A man fully clad in a remarkably stylish black outfit, his sidecut helping make light of his gray hairs and more than a few wrinkles besides, which evidenced his age.
The man came within just a couple of steps of Freya, towering above her by a considerable margin. He smiled widely, and his deep voice was quite audible even over the gusting wind. “Them’s be quait fency qlotes ya haff dere, mizsi. I taik you’s one of dem impertent ones, yak?”
Taken aback by the unusual accent, Freya struggled to find her next words. “Y-yes. I’m of royal descent, in the line of Hosstt Vayn himself. I require shelter and parlay with the lords of this land. Would that be possible?”
The man clapped his gloved hands together a few times as he laughed loudly. “Ay, yong lede! Kommt, kommt. Inhehr!” He stood by her side briefly, rushing the princess inside with a small and gentle pat on the back.