--- TURSTE ---
Turste screamed as he felt the fire, he tore at the walls and raved his madness to them, feeling as the primal terror of the flames enveloped him. The fear was so horrible that Turste could barely contain himself from it. It weakened his limbs as he pulled at the rocks around him, feeling the once strong body betray him as it tried so hard to escape anyway.
This wasn’t right though, Turste remembered. He remembered winters spent as the ash started to fall, he remembered the heat of the volcanoes after they’d finished spewing their contents across the land. Turste remembered when he’d become a ferien, he remembered how friendly that fire had been to him.
He tore at the walls anyway, the body of wood betraying his mind as it convinced itself there was no life to be found if he was reduced to ash. There was no way that he could live if his soul was burned to a crisp.
Terrible, horrible death that would destroy his weak weak body. He was too weak, he needed a stronger body, he…
Memories accosted Turste, two women in this house, if one of them died could he grow on them instead? He wasn’t sure how mushrooms worked but he was pretty sure he could do that if he went carefully.
His body didn’t want to listen though as he told it to attack the door instead, to find them and uh…figure it out? Oh winters and stars above he was doomed like this. He wasn’t sure how long he slashed at the stone, fighting for control of the wooden body as it continued to panic, but he couldn’t see any progress on his own part.
He was better than this though, majestic, beautiful, he was the flame, the ash, the hunter of the desolate winters. He was a ferien, he’d only ever been happy as a ferien. He remembered watching as the seasons moved onward. After the ash there was always the spring, life always grew from those ashes even if cities were burned to rubble. People found a way.
Turste growled as the door opened, he narrowed his gaze at the person there, a descendant of the Alanerea. The one who stank of far off winds and subtle illusions. She was tired, covered in burns and scrapes. She gazed at him with a lost look. “We can’t get out.” She explained, watching him as he snarled at her and continued scraping at the stones. He heard a loud, terrible cough from her direction
But…
But…
There was a door right there. The one that led up the stairs and out of the ground. Couldn’t he tear past her and find a wall of wood to destroy? Couldn’t he find a place away from the flames.
But…
There was more fire in that direction, he could see it curling around the stairs.
He tore at the stones, growling in pain and terror as the illusionist approached him. The wind did something strange around her, it blew the flames, strong enough to put most of the nearby ones out. Others it only strengthened, it might have bought time though.
With effort, Turste managed to speak, “I’m…dying.”
She coughed, “Yes, so am I. I can’t find Fari but someone put up a dimensional barrier. With luck she wasn’t here when it started.” She gazed up at the ceiling, where there was more fire. She started muttering to herself. “I tried breaking down the door, I tried opening windows, I tried blowing up the wall with my explosives, but there’s a ward against those somehow. My wind affinity is being impaired, and I can barely shape it. How the sparks didn’t I feel them set all this up? Even the walls are burning far too slowly to be natural. The stone is on fire but it’s not breaking down as fast as it should…”
Turste snarled and pulled at the stones again as the illusionist spoke. One of them toppled out of the wall. Finally there was some progress, but the fire would get him before he could make any more.
“You’re the mushrooms, right?”
Turste glared at the wall, slashing at it, “I hate mushrooms.”
“I can tell, but you’re still the sandfrost.”
He whimpered as the flames only grew hotter, he spoke faster. “Yes, I’m the poison.” He was pulling at the stones, screaming as his wooden claws splintered at the abuse. “I don’t SUPPOSE you’ll DIE before I do so I can take your body?” He stared at the broken claws, flexing the darkness beneath them that refused to interact with the rest of the world. He tried again not to think about the flames around him.
She paused, “Can you possess someone who isn’t dead? Keep my soul alive like your own when my body fails?” The wind stirred again, pushing the flames back. This time it didn’t stop for several moments, the illusionist lowered herself to her knees and the wind finally halted, the heat returned quickly.
Turste was staring at her, deciding she was the source of that wind. But oh stars was that an offer? “I don’t know…if I can.”
She grunted and leaned against the wall behind her, “Well-” She coughed again for several moments. “-I give you permission to try whatever the sparks you need to. Doesn’t really -cough- matter anyways. Even if only you live, I’ll count that as a win.”
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Pulling back from the flames and cringing the whole way, Turste padded over to her side, sitting on his haunches. He proffered his head and she rested her hand there.
A certain loyalty he’d first felt during those wonderful days in his homeland bubbled up to the front of his mind. The loyalty he remembered feeling as a ferien, the same one he’d felt towards the strange necromancer just days ago.
Turste then realized that he would do everything in his power to make sure that this woman would see another sunrise.
--
Hours later, under the light of a halfmoon, Turste felt himself dimly shift in his lesser form as someone coaxed him forward. A tall albino knelt beside a patch of mushrooms, gently prodding at the two souls in front of him. It was the most gentle push that Turste could remember in the state he was. The facts of his mind didn’t line up in every case but this he knew, this man was familiar.
“Come on, Turste and friend. I promise I’ll take both of you somewhere better.”
The two fungus cultures slowly and ponderously inched forward into the proffered box.
--- FORA ---
In the darkness, a blissful calm embraced me.
I was dead. I was dead but I didn’t feel bad about it. Sure, I hadn’t gotten as far as I’d wanted but that didn’t matter. My time had come as sure as the sun did rise.
A form appeared in front of me, made of golden light it was draconic in shape but wingless, floating in the vast white expanse around us. Its form was almost completely without substance, but it somehow felt more real than anything I’d ever seen, it peered at me, at my soul, examining the little pieces I’d painstakingly forged together over the last ten years of my life.
“Last time I saw you.” The strange dragon said, “You were broken. Curious. I can’t do the same thing as last time…”
“Who are you?” I asked quietly.
The dragon puffed itself up, rising on six mighty limbs and curling its tail like a snake. “I am greater than you can comprehend. But you asked me that last time.” He pointed downward and disappeared from view as I saw the world. Melor, Aulous, Yera, a cluster of islands far far to the west, a continent I’d heard rumors about to the south... I could somehow tell though that he was still there, observing me. “You have an ability I’ve never given to anyone, the dragons had to resort to trickery to get it. Betrayers they are. Not as bad as some people to their gods, but betrayers all the same.”
I peered at the world and then found that I was watching myself. Laying in the ashes of the Ayfel. I barely looked like a person anymore. I shuddered and tried to look away, but found that I couldn’t. “What ability?” I asked slowly.
The dragon hummed, “That doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t have it.”
“...why?”
“Because that’s how it is. I locked up this ability at the beginning of time itself and it has never before touched a mortal.”
“Then how did I get it?”
“Trickery, through no fault of your own.”
The body before me changed somehow. The world around it was becoming less…real. “Is this the between? Is my body in the between realm right now?”
He didn’t respond, but that was all the answer I needed as the body began to heal.
The moments passed but somehow I knew it was longer than moments. Hours, days, months, years. My body healed as I watched it, the clock reversed faster than it passed. “Why eight? Why was I eight?”
He didn’t answer, but I somehow knew that he was still watching. Finally the body in front of me stopped changing. Barely eight years old. I felt myself drawn toward it at last. Part of me didn’t want to go, but another part of me was too curious. I wanted to know what else the world had to throw at me.
--
I opened my eyes to the cold, feeling the winter breeze blowing at the rags covering me. They still somehow smelled like smoke.
I got up onto shaking feet, marveling at the snow around me. Sparks I hadn’t thought I’d ever see snow again. I had no idea how long I’d been in the Between, but when I looked up I saw a building where the Ayfel had been. It seemed newer than I’d feared, but the elegant sweeping roof and the stained glass windows that fit perfectly felt more like something Raia would have liked than the ugly tower she’d gotten.
When I peeked in the window, I saw little girls in warm clothes sorting stacks of letters, I saw older girls with messenger bags arguing over a route, I saw a human man sitting at a desk, carefully transcribing some faded words onto a new page. There was a human woman calmly negotiating with two little Tuvei.
I pushed open the door, feeling the cold winter air and wanting the warmth of the hearth I saw in the corner.
Everyone looked up when the door opened. After a moment of shock, the woman quickly pounced on me, fretting over my torn and soiled clothes that were several sizes too big. “Dear! Where are your parents!”
I looked up at her but once again I couldn’t meet the eyes. “Dead.” I answered simply, and really it was simple. I had all my memories, everything seemed right. My mind though wasn’t as sharp as I remembered it, my thoughts took longer to form, but I remembered that from the last time I’d died, my mind would catch up eventually. I looked over and met the eyes of the man, squinting.
Wait! That was Hivren! I felt my eyes widen before I looked down again. He was so much older. At least thirty now. But...if he was involved, it made sense why they’d replaced the stained glass windows. I glanced over at them, frowning at the two faces on it. Foralen with a scar on her face...and Eliax.
The woman knelt beside me, putting her hands on my shoulders, “So you’ve come to the Ayfel for shelter. Don’t worry, we can help you. What’s your name?”
“I’m Fora.” I said, I looked over at Hivren whose face was all scrunched up. “I’m going to just be who I actually am this time. No more worrying about who I used to be.”
I smiled at him.
Yes, it was alright. This wasn’t exactly what I’d wanted to happen, but it was alright that it had.
--
Over my long strange life, I’ve been exiled, worshiped, executed, ignored and loved. I’ve been a leader, I’ve been a villain, I’ve been everything in between. I’ve been to worlds, planes, and realms without number.
This is just the beginning.