Together Aedmorn and Ivkarha grasped the sword, pulling it free of the grip of the green statue. As they held it, they looked around, waiting for anything to happen. There was nothing to behold.
“He did say to wait for a moment,” Aedmorn noted.
“For this long?” Ivkarha asked. “Perhaps it was meant for one after all.”
“Give it a bit longer,” Aedmorn said. “And if still nothing has happened, we can reconsider.”
Ivkarha nodded, though her expression was troubled.
For a while still they held on, waiting, watching. And then a glow began to come from the sword, faint at first but growing ever more in intensity, a warmth seeping from the sword into their arms.
Ivkarha looked at Aedmorn and gave a brief nod; no more than that was needed.
The light glowed ever brighter, soon too bright to look upon and they averted their gazes from it, and still yet it grew, swelling outwards from the sword to embrace them.
They could feel the light upon their skin, seeping in and they opened themselves to it, surrendering control, for it wanted more than to just trickle. It flooded into them and they felt it through their entire bodies, infusing them with the light, and more than the light. It burned without pain, every fibre of their body being touched by it, reformed and renewed and reborn. They felt an exhaustion beyond imagining, their heads drooping but they did not relinquish the grip on the sword, gripping tight to it as if a raft on a storm-tossed sea.
Through their minds ran a myriad myriad images, flashing one after the other too fast to see or make sense of as their brains pounded away, their skulls feeling too tight, pressing against it.
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Muscles twitched and spasmed and cramped and all was a confusion of light and colour, sound and smell, touch and taste, growing ever more pronounced by the minute. Nevrer had their senses been assailed thus before, overloaded with experiences and impressions. All was glorious and chaos.
Slowly, gradually the light began to fade, as a tide easing out across the shore. They felt exhausted by the experience, elated, invigorated and weary. Their senses were overloaded by all the new experiences around them, for everything was brighter and sharper than before.
A newfound clarity of mind came upon them, an awakening that they had not expected. They knew much that had before been hidden from them but had now opened up to them.
The light ended and the sword that they held faded away and was gone once more, to return to its errant flow through time, beholden to greater purposes than theirs.
And the statue had changed as well, for it no longer showed the figure that it had once been, but now showed them, bonded together, a single figure with a face on either side of its head; their faces. More than just their faces, but their essences as well.
They looked one upon the other and noted that it had changed them as well. Aedmorn’s eyes were now a solid green like the man's had been, but hers were different, for they were like shadows and darkness.
Still perched upon the shoulder of the statue, Ivkarha held forth her hand and upon it a flame of grey and mists appeared Aedmorn did likewise and a flame of green sprung forth.
“We have become aspects of our masters,” Aedmorn used. “Life and death, death and life.”
Ivkarha closed her hand and the flame vanished. “I understand it all now, the void and the darkness, the realms that exist within it, the Stairs of the Night and the Uttermost Stars. Vast they are, and endless and much there is to see. What then shall we see?”
Aedmorn did laugh as he answered. “All of it.”
For a time they walked the world and then were gone, called away to a place beyond to become more. And forever did they walk the stars and the darkness, life and death entwined. And none could say where they went, for they passed beyond the understanding of men. Yet some have said that they make their way back to the realms of men for a time and then are gone once more.