--- AYMIAE ---
Aymiae really should have expected all sorts of things to go wrong now that Fari was back. They’d always gone wrong before and there was no reason that they should stop doing so. What she hadn’t expected was for Fari to keep popping in randomly after days of personal isolation, asking Aymi for things and barely ever giving anything in return.
It was almost like dealing with Harrel, actually.
Earlier today, Fari had opened a portal in the basement of the Ayfel and innocently explained to her that her friend needed a place to stay for a couple of days while the whole thing with the queen died down.
Aymi had been planning on going out to watch her majesty’s arrival, but Fari was involved, so of course it couldn’t be that simple.
Aymi watched dubiously as Fari and her friend tried to threaten a possessor entity through the gate, and then decided that she would have to supervise this entire operation lest the entire building somehow get leveled.
“Niun, give me that rod there- yes that one.” Aymi took it and wielded the rod in both hands while giving the creature a look. “You are going to get in here, and you are going to stay in here.”
--- FORA ---
Foralen stood three hours later in the Ayfel, wearing the gown her original self had purchased for the occasion. It was elegant, at least that was the best word for it. It was a deep red, a stark contrast to the blue tint of her skin, it had long sleeves that billowed about her hands and would probably be catching on things all night long. The skirt was thick and white lace was sewn into it. It made her feel like a queen.
The clone was still getting ready though, her hair refused to behave and her mind kept focusing on the little imperfections, she covered her Tuvei markings with makeup -a common enough practice- but then ended up scrubbing her face for twenty minutes when she changed her mind. Tonight was her one chance to talk to Steris about her plan without going to the capital. It was the best time to convince the queen to help her and the clone had no idea if it would even work if everything was in her favor.
She wanted it to be perfect, if it was perfect then the only things she had to worry about was her own incompetence and the stubbornness of a Queen.
--
I gripped Hivren’s arm and stepped through the fifth gate, practically pulling him behind me. Hivren wasn’t happy about the massive things I’d told him, and he seemed to be getting more out of sorts with each new gate we passed through. To my dismay, it wasn’t just from the physical effects.
I hadn’t memorized the landscape when I’d been traveling from Ceruleia to Reiaran as Eliax. She hadn’t known to even do that. But thankfully the gate spell could work around that since I’d been there before. I could barely tell what time it was, but during the breaks between gates I could see the sun steadily moving downward.
It felt agonizingly slow as I collapsed to the ground again and started the process of recharging the ability once more. Hivren collapsed beside me and barfed all over the path from the strain of crossing such vast distances. Traveling through the between was a common enough practice, but I’d never really done it on this scale before and in my incompetence I kept on messing up the spell. It disrupted our bodies and minds, our souls growing chaotic with each gate.
It wasn’t the first time he’d barfed and we both knew it wouldn’t be the last. “So...you do this a lot?”
I grunted, feeling the magic begin to flow into me again from the Between. It was starting to hurt. I made sure to memorize each spot we ended up in so that the return trip would be more pleasant, but I didn’t even want to comprehend how far we still had to go. “If I did this a lot -huff- do you really think I would be so bad at it?” The reply was sharper than I’d intended, but we were both tired and annoyed so he didn’t seem to take it personally.
He barfed some more and groaned slightly, laying there for several heartbeats.
After a moment we both stood up in unison and I cast the spell again, my motions jerky and out of sync with the heartbeat of the world. I still ended up watching the golden surface of the gate materealize though. After three heartbeats to give it enough time to stabilize, we stepped through and started the process all over again.
If I was sure of anything it was that this was what Hell felt like.
--
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Foralen peeked out the window, concerned at the darkening sky. It was becoming increasingly obvious that her original would not be returning on time. The important part of this night though was that she would talk to the Queen, anything more than that was a blessing but not necessary.
She focused back on the mirror, putting the finishing touches on her makeup and finally settling on how her hair would be held; all the while listening for the carriage the Queen had sent for her. It would be any moment now, any moment and she would be on her way to fulfill her one purpose.
--
I lost count around the twentieth gate. The movements were automatic, the mana sickness apparent. The things I do to prevent disaster.
“So, you were reborn?”
“Yes.” I rasped, laying there in the grass. There was a rock poking me in the thigh and a spider crawling across my hand but it still felt so nice to just lay there...my breaks between gates were getting steadily longer as my body started refusing to process the magic I was shoving into it. We had to at least be halfway though, right?
The sun was almost completely set by now, and I’d given up all hope of making it back before the ball. “I pissed off a dragon and she didn’t let me live to regret it.”
I stood up shakily and started casting the spell again, half sure that I was going to completely ruin my ability to cast spells if I kept at it. No one really knew what happened if someone kept processing magic after it started to hurt. For some reason I couldn’t get myself to care that I was probably about to find out.
--
Foralen stepped out of the Ayfel and into the carriage that was waiting for her. It wasn’t nearly as fancy as the one Steris had ridden, but it was up there. She nodded at the driver and the vehicle began. The horses pulling it eagerly moved forward into the night, following the streetlamps and watching the small groups of dressed up youth make their way toward the palace.
There was a strange terrible feeling in the back of her mind, but she wrote it off as anxiety. I mean, it had to be anxiety, right?
She tapped her finger slowly on the side of her seat, wishing she was just there already. She’d rehearsed what she would say to Steris a million times over the past few weeks. I am Foralen dei Imal and I need help contacting the dragons.
It was starting to sound like a stupid idea to ask for anything though. Did she really need to find out that badly if she would be reborn again and again? She found the pace of her tapping increasing as the moments ticked by. How could she-
Pain. One moment of incense bitter pain along her throat. She cried out, her voice a scream in the night. But then it was over, the clone dissipated, not even leaving a corpse to remember her by. The driver looked back at the scream, but he didn’t see anything. He stopped the carriage and looked around, puzzled as to where the Hero had gone. He saw a dark figure running away and figured she had probably forgotten something important.
Oh well, she was a dimensionalist, she’d probably make it to the party perfectly fine.
--
I gasped as the memories flooded into me. She was gone.
It was over.
I stopped in the middle of a stroke to summon the gate, the lines of connection between different types of matter fizzled out and I sank to my knees in shock. Hivren gave me a concerned look, “What?”
I shuddered and feverishly started painting the lines again, refusing to fall all the way to the ground, “My clone was killed. I don’t know who did it, it felt like an assassination.”
The gate started forming and fizzled out halfway there. I cursed, catching the stray magic before it could do something stupid. I started again, “We need to hurry.”
Hivren stood up, “Eliax you need to breathe, take a break.”
“I’m not Eliax…”
“Yes, I know, that’s what you said. But just because you have the memories of some dead person doesn’t mean that’s who you are. Remember what I said? Who you are now takes precedence over who you used to be.”
The gate fell apart again.
Eliax...she was distant. She was the kind of person who liked to plan, to get things done, to have a reason for everything she did. Eliax was productive, straightforward, and smart. Eliax was capable. She lived in the future, sacrificing her joy for the sake of her future self.
Fari on the other hand was sociable, she knew how to talk to people, how to see their motives, feel their desires and use that to her advantage. She lived in the moment, in the here and now because she didn’t know how long it would be before it was taken from her again.
Eliax was everything that Fari was not, and Fari was everything that Eliax was not. They were opposites in almost every aspect, and if they were different people who met one day they would either be best friends or worst enemies. Mirror images cut from the same cloth.
Hivren was telling me I didn’t have to be both.
I still didn’t believe him, but everything was falling apart. I let my hands fall to the ground and tried to just react. To do what I would do. It was a lot harder than it should have been.
“We’re staying here then.” I found myself staying. “But just for an hour. I need to think.”
--- AYMIAE ---
Aymi watched with a frown as the possessor asked the same question again.
“How long?”
She sighed and finally met his scuffed white eyes “Since what?”
He shuddered and looked down, “Since we were cursed. Since the Alanerea ceased to be.”
Aymiae tilted her head, “It’s been seven hundred and seventy one years, if I’m right and your people are the ones that destroyed the old empires. But we don’t exactly have accurate records from back then.”
“It felt longer.” There was a pause. “But that makes sense if no one remembers, he keeps doing that.”
“Who?”
“Your god. He keeps erasing everything. Next time it will be worse, because there are still things you remembered.”