25,000 Years post detonation

‘Great wings of golden flame, I see them now! They offer us freedom! They offer us salvation! Grovel now pilgrim for her love has yet come!’

* Stories of remembrance, as spoken by the valley preacher.

Circa; The Era of Predation, year 1.

Naofa had always known The Thane of the Wisp, Niag Tyvolin, as a man of great rage and brutality. In the over forty years that he had spent ruling over the recently booming trading district he had gone through a great deal of attendants. Dozens, and dozens more, would have tales to tell about his heavy hands, his penchant for the obscene, his wastefulness, and his love for collecting things. A dozen scores further than that would have tale to tell for life lost, taken by his fits of insatiable anger. The team forced to staff the Tyvolin bank were often regarded as a desperate fool's last chance; a death sentence in the lesser communities.

‘The lucky ones escape’, they would say, although Naofa knew that once you bartered for a contract within his staff, or were - god forbid - sold to him, you were indentured to his whims. The ‘Lucky ones’ were the people he beat so badly, so close to the lines leading them to the afterlife, that he let them go, for their broken bones and tenderised flesh no longer served well enough for his catharsis.

A week ago, the Thane, in one of his many fits of drunken idiocy, had sought to send her out to purchase something on his behalf. She had tried to explain that her appearance would draw unwanted attention, that her species would earn her denial of goods, that her status was far too low for her to even enter the establishment that he was asking her to visit, but he had insisted on sending her anyway.

When she had returned empty handed, his reaction had been… less than pleasant. His rampage had cost more than one person their lives that night. A common occurrence that never failed to shake her. She had been locked deep within the bowels of their complex, lightless and without sound; it'd felt much longer than a week, but her trip up had given her access to the lobby's large decorative calendar. It really had only been a week.

Niag had called her into the study maybe an hour ago, dressed in all of his finery and regalia, likely having just returned from some sort of ostentatious dinner, and sat her down at the side of his desk with nothing more than a mumbled explanation as to why he had decided to let her out. It was late into the night, nearly the turning of the morning. As he locked the only door to the room, he told her that she was to sit there silently, she wasn’t to move, and she wasn’t to touch anything unless he gave her his express permission. Naofa, with nothing more to do than stare idly at her scar speckled hands, hoped and prayed that he would spare her from the tempest she could sense brewing behind his eye, evident in every rasping breath from his chest.

Naofa studied the man for a brief second. Tyvolin himself was a homely misshapen creature, his face once hawkish now bending in all sorts of different directions. His pale red skin, marred and splotchy, was the first indication of his fiendish nature. The horns rising some foot and a half above his head, adorned with jewellery of all sorts, was the second, each one twisting like some rotten gnarled tree branch. Short, and spatially unimposing, it was these things that made him the terror that he was. Naofa attempted to banish the newly committed image of his face from her head, instead looking around to regain her bearings, reevaluate the state of the room.

The study itself was spacious, if not over-decorated. She spared a troubled glance for the room, reminding herself that it had been close to a week since he had locked her in the lower chambers. The room was large enough to occupy an entire quarter of the floor they were on, towering above the street below. Two colossal unlit chandeliers ate away at most of the space above them, the ceiling further than that painted in intricate winding patterns, an artistic representation of the settling of Qik’alyn. While caricaturesque in nature, each of the peoples that had originally planned the colonisation of the continent were represented in some way, all barring those that had already lived here. It was a point of pride for these species, these peoples, that they had ‘tamed’ the land. The walls were a mess of haphazard bookshelves and candles, desks and cupboards. There was a method to the madness of their construction, but it gave the room a grotesque feel, like it was cobbled together as an afterthought, instead of as the main office of the man that ran the entire building. Paintings and banners of foreign-makes draped and covered the walls above, some hanging so low that they covered the cupboards and desks below them, a hoarder's den of trinkets and bobbles.

Further inspection of the room helped dissuade the idea that not much else had changed. The Lycanthrope pelt rug that usually sat at the very centre of the room had been shifted, revealing older dents within the smooth wooden floors. She assumed that the pelt must be covering newer, deeper gashes. To her right, a pile of neatly stacked books lay next to their newly-empty shelves. She didn’t know what they covered, but she could make out the wine stain that peeked out from beneath them. Naofa peered up from beneath matted strands of silver hair in an attempt to reaffirm the fact that more had changed. To confirm that things weren’t as she had left them. She was right.

Desks and bookshelves alike had been shifted to hide what she assumed were holes in the intricately carved stone reliefs along the walls. She hadn’t been able to tell at first, but from where she was sitting, she could see the scuff marks along the floor. She shivered at the provocation it must have taken to prompt him to destroy one of the most expensive things in this office. With a glance from the corner of her eye, she could see that even the far window, once a stained glass relief of the Thane himself, was covered by cheap wooden boards. This one she had expected. Naofa knew that they hid the hole that her former apprentice had created. It was her fault. She’d been the one to break the candle. He didn’t survive the fall, diving hundreds of feet head first onto a busy commercial street. She had been locked away for it, yes, but the master's favoritism was evident in the fact that she was not yet dead.

She had come to learn in the years that lead to her becoming the head of the Thanes servants, that she was widely… hated, by the rest of the staff. She hadn’t understood - perhaps at first she had refused to - why they hated her. To Naofa she had always been their protector. She couldn’t count how many of them she had taken beatings for, couldn’t remember how many times she had covered up their mistakes. Seeing the terror in that young man's eyes, however, had reminded her of just how inconsequential her attempts were. He hadn’t even been with her long enough for his name to have stuck in her mind. The last week had been hard, and their hate seemed well earned. Naofa let her back rest against the chair behind her, inhaling deeply, and closed her eyes. She supposed she would just have to learn to live with it.

When she opened her eyes, she found her master regarding her with a disdainful expression, his breath seemed even heavier than before, and she could scent the wine that hid within it. The silence ticked on, and on, and on, and on, and on. The only thing left to break it was the crackling of the far fire that lay just out of sight, hidden somewhere within a nook of the room.

He spoke before she could, his accent rich and earthy, saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth. ‘Is something the matter, girl.’

There was violence in his words.

Naofa simply shook her head, eyes returning to the floor.

His throat buzzed with a deep rumbling, ‘You have nothing to say about your week in the basement?’ More violence hidden, more fear given. Naofa’s palms began to sweat.

Naofa shook her head once more, refusing to speak.

‘Do you feel no remorse for what your actions forced me to do? Does it not sadden you that you brought such rage upon that young man?’

A single shake of the head, and a continued refusal to speak. Naofa began to panic, her chest tightening, refusing to rise. She could feel the ire radiating from his body. Her entire body tensed, her breath shallow, growing shallower.

‘A see…’ He tapped a fat, burnt, finger on a paper in front of him, staining it with grease. There was a momentary pause before he spoke again. ‘Quit yer shakin’. Yer making me nervous.’

Naofa didn’t speak, couldn’t speak, her tongue refused to move. Tyvolin raised a fat finger to his face when he realised that she was going to continue to stew in her silence, and began picking at his nails. Naofa could see that he was peppering her with stolen glances, the rage now hidden beneath a facade of curiosity. Plainly visible, despite his attempt to act as if it weren’t. She couldn’t figure out what he was building up to.

‘Am a an unfair master?’ he asked, ‘Do you find ma methods tae be… cruel?’ He gently lifted her right hand from hfer lap, placing it flat on the desk in front of him. He enveloped her wrist and hand, boney and thin from her confinement. Confinements. ‘Av heard, from some of the staff… that you have been inciting feelings of discontent.’

Naofa’s breathing all but stopped as she slowly raised her head to meet the singular eye of her master, bulging and furious. Her shallow breathing picked up speed. Her fists clenched, tears rolling down her face. For the first time in a long time, she would be stalwart. They may hate her but she didn’t hate them. Silence would bring about his anger, yes, but she would not rat out the staff.

Tyvolins upper lip began to twitch, his brows slowly arching downwards towards one another. A command. ‘Speak.’

Then words, motion.

‘No Thane.’ She bowed her head, practically tucking it into her chest. ‘I didn’t say anything to the staff - I promise - I hadn’t even heard of it before now.’ Her words came out hoarse from disuse, the entire room was spinning around her, her eyes wouldn’t focus. Maybe she was swaying, she couldn’t tell. The Thane remained silent, the already far away bustle of the street outside seemed to fall ever farther, drowned out by the sound of blood rushing in her ears. The silence dragged on again.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Three minutes.

Then the sharp sensation of metal against her middle finger. Her eyes darted first to his face, sadistic and snarling, and then down, to her finger. He had placed the tip of an ornate dagger just above her knuckle, his eye gleaming in the waxing torchlight. His face contorted into a feral snarl as she looked at him, his words came out in a cloud of spittle.

‘A will give you ONE last chance tae tell ez’ the truth or a swear tae the maw that a will take this freezing digit.’

Naofa began to hyperventilate. ‘Sir.. sir please, I wouldn’t have even thought of it II promise it wasn’t me I promise, sirplease.’

The tip of the blade broke her skin, drawing blood. ‘Aye? Then who was it, Naofa?’ He asked.

She could feel the blade begin to heat up against her skin. The dully lit rock buried in its pommel began to glow with an increasing intensity, matching the growing temperature of the weapon.

Her eyes narrowed, the expressions somewhat hidden by her hair. This weapon was new. She knew that he’d owned weapons with finite enchantments, but none that… none that had lodestones attached.

She knew she hadn’t been the one that had said anything, she knew that he had to have known that too, she’d been locked in a four by four room for the last six days. This wasn’t an interrogation no. He was doing this for fun. Naofa screamed at herself for the fact that she had allowed her sickened mind to cloud his cruelty.

The horror of her realisation must have shown on her face, because his feral snarl became a satisfied grin, she tried to tear her arm away but his other hand caught her wrist, pinning it to the table.

Tyvolin spun the blade, dragging it edge first up her exposed arm, over her tattered dress, and then over the exposed skin of her neck, placing the tip in the hollow of her throat. Naofa pushed against the stout man instinctually but he kept her in place with a meaty hand placed against the top of her throat, letting go of the wrist he had previously captured. His blade left a trail of red-welted flesh. Naofa screamed, the noise shrill, hoarse, but Tyvolin swept her off of her chair and onto the floor placing the hand that had been on her throat over her mouth, covering the sound.

‘They hate you girl, no ones coming to save you.’ He got closer, his breath scraping her nubbed ear. ‘And even if they did, who would risk angering me.’

She had faced enough beatings to know he was intent on scarring her for life this time. Even if she fought, what would the point be, where would she go? What would she do? The beast on top of her would win, regardless.

‘Naofa you have to fight.’

The words petered into her mind like the dying embers of a great bonfire. She clung to their warmth, their push for self preservation. They were her instincts, screaming at her to survive. Naofa’s breath became a burning rage in her chest, and even in her frailty she heaved against his excessive weight, pushing and pushing with uncharacteristic resolve. Niag simply righted himself with a small hop, landing down hard on her stomach.

‘Keep squirming rat, it’ll make things fun.’ He spat.

Tyvolin stabbed the dagger dowards into her chest, digging into her lower shoulder with a wet thud as it pinned her to the floor. The wound began to gurgle, he’d nicked an artery. Naofa sobbed as she tried to pry the dagger not only from her shoulder, but from his hand. The wet gurgle became a hissing, the blade becoming hot enough that it was boiling her blood. Searing her flesh. That urge to fight intensified, the heat became motivation. The smell of burning flesh, charring bone became purpose.

More words scrambled her mind, filled with a renewed sense of urgency. ‘The candelabra to your right, slam it into his skull, make a break for the door!’

Naofa flung her hand out, listening to the words. Cool metal met her hand as Tyvolin twisted his burning blade, forcing another pale scream from her lips. She grasped the candelabra, one that she didn’t even remember seeing, and swung it into the side of his skull, the resonating clang drawing blood from his temple.

He swore as he sat back, raising both hands to cover the gash. Naofa swung her entire body a hundred and eighty degrees under him, leaping at the opportunity that he had presented to her. With a defiant bellow, she got her legs under her and pushed against him, dislodging him enough that she was able to scramble towards the door, a small triumphant noise escaping her throat.

Naofa foolishly turned back to see that Tyvolin had come back to his senses much quicker than she had expected. He balled his right fist as he carved a rough rune into the back of his hand with a rock, similar in colouration to the one embedded within the pommel of his dagger. Tyvolin was a smart man in many ways, his runecraft the most evident example. None native species to Firma couldn't truly influence Aether. Naofa was aware that if he was back within his home realm, he could influence the Aether there, but here, he would have tor rely upon runes to funnel his magic. He was weaker in this realm, but his murderous intent and sharp mind more than made up for it.

His fists both began to freeze, flakes of skin slothing off under the weight of the frostbite that consumed them. A lazy trail of mist emanated from each hand, hoarfrost beginning to spider out across the room. The imp gritted through the pain, his eyes almost seemed jubilant.

Naofa was quick to move towards the door, but he got his hand on her before she managed to reach the door, and she was forced to fight. She slammed him with the candelabra again, but it seemed to be having less and less effect the more she attempted to use it, as if the strength that allowed her to hit him the first time was being drawn away. Tyvolin, battering her hand hard enough that she dropped it, rounded on her with a concise blow.

The first swing went wide, missing her head as she batted it away with the top end of the candelabra still held in her hand. The second was luckier, as he caught her beneath the ribs, directly into her liver. The frost ate away at the tattered blue dress and froze her skin beneath. Leaving it dead. Disconnected from the rest of her body. Tyvolin let out a gleeful chuckle, his other fist slamming into the side of her head knocking her to the ground again. He grabbed her by her hair, before palming the back of her head, and dragging her over to his desk.

‘Y’ken what?’ He said as he hefted her up, snatching the dagger from her chest with a suctioned shhlup, ‘Ma wife was always so jealous of yer pretty blue right eye. A shame that the other one is such an ugly shade of orange. A wonder who’s on the other side ay it. A mean it’s no like yi ken what am even talking aboot. Nae matter.’

‘No… No Niag you can’t do this to me! I’ve done nothing wrong, I promise!’ She screamed, clawing at him. ‘Leave me alone! Leave me alone!’ Naofa’s sobs were falling on deaf ears. The panic began to set in again, untold fear gripping her heart. ‘PLEASE JUST LET ME GO, PLEASE NIAG WHATEVER I’VE DONE I’M SORRY.’ She screamed again, so loud that the inside of her throat had begun to bleed.

Tyvolin did stop. He moved her head to face him, regarding her with what she perceived as a sympathetic stare. ‘You want to be let go?’

Naofa nodded enthusiastically, ‘Yeah– yeah you can just let me go… We can just forget this ev–’

Niag brought her head up, her body all at once, and slammed her down onto the corner of his desk, the blow landing just above her right eye. He looked at her again and grunted, unsatisfied with his handy work. He reared her up again and slammed her down, this time the blow slipped into her eye. She felt and heard the bone creek and bend underneath the pressure of the blow. But he wasn’t finished. Again and again, he brought her head down onto the table, his pace never decreasing, not until the right side of her skull caved in, and she all but lost her vision. Niag began to laugh to himself as he once more turned her to face him, a serpentine tongue running across her cheek.

‘You taste foul,’ He said, ‘so putrid and overly sweet. Like a rotting apple.’

Niag threw her back to the floor, her head colliding with the wood with a sickening clack. Naofa caught the edges of his mouth curving upwards as he turned towards their right, aiming for something on a shelf she assumed. She raised a quivering hand to her face, and quietly sobbed at what she felt.

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Her eye had popped out, and hung limply across her cheek, the vision in it having left. Warm blood trailed lazy rivers across her face, dripping onto the floor, filling the room with the musk of iron. She moved her hand up further, her body spasming slightly as she knocked her eye, sending waves of pain across her form. From her eyebrow to just before her temple, her skull was all but gone. Niag approached again, standing over her as he himself assed what it was that he did. He nodded to himself, grinning. He took the stem of her eye between two fingers and tugged on it gently, Naofa squirming in response. Then he spoke.

‘A think a’ll keep it, actually.’ He said, ‘At first a wisnae gonna. Wis just gonnae leave it in yer head, wioot getting it healed or nout but… it’s just so pretty.’ Niag knelt down on top of her, positioning her face carefully as he brought up the same ornate dagger from earlier. ‘Now A’d be very, very, still. A mean c’mon, yer aether cursed. It’s no like you e’en need it.’

Despite the pain, Naofa still felt the shame of his words burning red trails across her body. Yes she was aether cursed. Yes, she was powerless… Surely she didn’t deserve this though? Surely she was still worthy of some decency.

‘Niag– I won’t survive this please.’ She said between rasping sobs, ‘We can– We can come to some sort of agreement right? Right? You wouldn’t throw me away over this right? You wouldn’t throw me away for an eye right?’

Niag got close to her face, her ear, and whispered with scraping breath, ‘Am awfy bored of yer voice now.’

Naofa whimpered, squeezing her remaining eye shut as tight as she could, as she felt all of the fight remaining in her body leave. More words came to her, angrier this time, somehow more forceful than before.

‘YOU HAVE TO FIGHT NAOFA! DO NOT LET THIS BE THE END OF YOUR STORY!’

They went unheeded. Naofa hadn’t the strength to care, nor the will to listen. All she could do was silently sob, her chest heaving with the effort of lifting him up.

Without moving back, Niag brought his dagger up to the dangling stem of her eye. With a quick swish of his wrist, it was severed.

Naofa felt the world fall away around her, the distant visage of Niag examining his newest prize moved away as if she were tumbling down a deep tunnel, that final pinprick of light the only indication of her motion. Then beneath her, solid ground reappeared, an infinite expanse of red, and nothing else. The space undulated all around her, gently swaying and rising like the soft motions of low tide. All she could make out was that red. It fuzzed in and out of existence, her eyes felt heavy, her mind heaved as a migraine set in. Something in Naofa told her that she shouldn’t be here, wherever she was, that this place was hurting her.

Movement dragged her vision forwards as everything readjusted. Initially it seemed as if she were on her back, now she was on her feet. The thing that had moved fuzzed in and out similarly to how the rest of the space she was in did. Whatever it was, however, did not clear up, it simply vanished from sight, leaving a soft afterimage, before reappearing fuzzy. It was vaguely humanoid, although that was all she could tell, barring its small stature.

When it spoke, it did so with soft recognition, former reckless rage abandoned. Naofa found herself… shocked. For it was a voice so much like her own, yet underneath it lay something different.

‘Oh my pretty little flower.’ It said, words soft spoken and gentle, sympathetic in every way. ‘Without that eye I am afraid you will break even more than you already have.’

For a moment it did clarify, yet all she could see was a form covered by jittering flame, ethereal, beautiful. Naofa felt it behold her, a slithering gaze like a passing summer breeze, familiar in every way.

‘If you cannot bring yourself to fight this man you must let me.’ It said.

The voice continued to take on a distinction, accent and intonation rapidly built before her. She couldn’t shake the fact that it was her voice. She felt like she was going insane, that she was finally being crushed by delusion and hatred. Naofa felt as if she was slipping away. Dying, yet her heart refused to stop beating.

When Naofa tried to reply, no words came out. It was as if she had no mouth, no vocal cords. The idea, however, was broadcasted outwards. Her thoughts were given form, and she spoke without words.

I just want to let go– I don’t want to continue, even if, against all odds, I were to win the fight.

‘Naofa you would condemn yourself to becoming a footnote.’

I can live with that - die with that - I suppose. I just want to rest. I’m tired of begging.

The flames shifted, the fuzzing of the world around them calmed, although not to a point where Naofa could make anything out.

She felt a wave of heat as this other her sighed, ‘I thought you’d have felt it by now.’

Naofa herself sighed, exacerbated already, What am I supposed to be feeling?

‘Your destiny I think. Our destiny, perhaps. The universe has become so much more fickle, recently.’ Each word the being spoke carried weight, more character and personality appearing with every breath.

Our destiny? Surely you are no more than a delusion– I just had my head split open, I’m dying… I think.

‘A delusion? Maybe. But even if I am, doesn’t some part of you want to keep fighting? Doesn’t some part of you want to sunder this freak for what he did? Come, let me help you. If I am a delusion, there’s no harm– you’ll have done it all yourself.’ Its words were gentle, yet a quiet rage seethed within them.

I will have done it all myself. Naofa said. I don’t understand what it is that I’m not understanding, I want this all to be over. Rakkions beard– I want to be dead. I don’t want to keep going, I don’t want to fight. All I have ever done is look out for other people, beg for their lives, beg for my life. Enough. No more.

The being in front of her quivered at the words hurled at it. The world around her still wouldn’t focus, the fuzz was giving Naofa’s migraine a migraine. They sat in terse silence for what felt like forever, before it spoke again, words coming like a flash flood. Its accent had almost thoroughly diverged from her own, this one was lighter, more airy, yet Naofa could still hear her own voice every other word.

‘Do you remember when Aldalmo would take you down into the gardens, and tell you about who you were to be.’ It said, ‘It was so long ago now, I know, but do you?’

The memory caught Naofa off guard. Roving fields of flowers, forever moving and undulating of their own free will. A shifting sea of pollen and fragrance. It forced Naofa to pause, all of that hate and frustration ebbing away, replaced by a quieter, more uncomfortable resolve.

I remember.

‘What is it that they would say to you?’ It asked.

They told me that what I was, what I was to become, would make me a target for beings far more powerful than I could fathom, that they would vie for my soul but it…

The being placed a gentle hand on Naofa’s shoulder, the flame ebbing away as it did. Although only the hand was revealed, Naofa could see that it had skin like porcelain.

‘But it would always belong to you.’ It finished. It prodded Naofa gently in the chest, before dragging her down to the ground by her hands. Only the right arm of the being was revealed in their proximity. ‘We can’t let Niag end our story like this.’

Naofa couldn’t help but pause at the frankness in its voice. It held her hand with such… it was so gentle. That fuzz had begun to fade away, revealing more of what lay around them. Even though it was still covered by an ethereal filter, like rainbows liquified, she could make out what they sat within. A field of effervescent sunflowers, each one swaying in a gentle breeze that she couldn’t feel on her skin. They themselves sat within a small clearing, the plants towering around them. Sunflowers didn’t have a particularly overpowering smell but… Naofa loved them. Loved them more than she could possibly begin to put into words.

Who are you?

‘I am you.’

You… Naofa found herself trailing off, before continuing, I want to kill him.

‘Then I will kill him.’ It said, yet Naofa could almost taste the discomfort it was radiating.

You’ll kill him?

‘You will suffer no longer, so long as you believe I exist. If killing him is all that will bring you peace, I will end his life with apathy.’

And if you lose?

‘I won’t.’

Naofa studied the words. Studied the small fiery being before her. Between them she felt a kindredness, a love, that she hadn’t felt in a very long time. Her better judgement screamed at her not to listen to a delusion, a figment of her own imagination.

Yet…

Do it. Save me.

The being pulled her in close, resting her head within its lap. Warm hands brushed her hair aside as it enveloped her head, caressing her, holding her in a gentle hug. A loving embrace that she could feel within the very heart of her essence. For a moment, she could feel the love from its perspective. She could feel its need to protect, to nurture. Despite it, she felt an apathy begin to develop, a hatred for the world that would dwarf the love before her.

‘I’ll protect you from the world you so desperately hate.’

Her mind was dragged down somewhere deep, coddled and protected by a presence that exuded a natural love for all things that lived. A presence that no matter what, would love her, and her alone, so long as Naofa needed it to be that way.

Naofa inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of the being before her. Pleasant woodsmoke, incense, and lavender.

‘I will save you.’

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Niag slammed his foot down onto her left hand, the entire thing snapping and breaking. Fingers were pushed into unnatural directions as blood began to pour from it at a profuse speed. The girl didn’t react, much to his dismay. Niag knew that beating her further would be no fun if she remained inside her shell so he stomped again, this time aiming for her lower arm. It bent and snapped with a gleeful noise that sent shivers down his spine. He loved these sounds, loved the breaking of bones and glittering of blood when under firelight. In a way, they were all he lived for anymore.

Naofa’s arm began to shift under his foot. He peered down to see her other arm, unbroken and functional, clawing at the wooden surface beneath them, completely disjointed in its movements. From the way that she lay on the floor, with her head to the right, he could catch the twitching motions of her remaining eye, still empty, still absent, yet it moved as if she were in a deep sleep. Although it only lasted a few seconds before the movements changed, becoming more deliberate, as if she was rousing. Niag slipped his boot under her head and forced her to look up. He was disgusted by what he beheld.

Her remaining eye, once a muddy orange, had become bright and blazing. It didn’t cast any light itself, yet the vibrancy of its pigmentation was startling. This however, wasn’t what had elicited his disgust, Instead, it was the fact that her eye was now two colours. The bottom half had begun to shift in a familiar glittering crystalline blue, the other remained the newly formed orange, each one bleeding into the other. She had become something unnatural. A bonded, with the traits of a fused.

Niag removed his foot from under her head, stepping back to consider his next moves. Naofa had seemed to rouse completely, as she got her right arm under her and heaved her body upwards onto her feet. Blood and gore continued to spew not only from her eye, but her broken arm. Each and every one of her movements came as if she was spasming, her form twitchy and hollow. Niags feet came out from under him as he attempted to scramble backwards, a noise akin to something of pure surprise echoing out from his throat. He had seen the foulest depths of the maw, but something in her spoke to a greater evil than he was capable of truly recognising.

The ground beneath Niag began to rumble softly, at first, before picking up in intensity at an alarming rate. Books, glasses, entire shelves began to tumble at the roiling display of movement. Tapestries and paintings alike were thrown from their moorings, dust and mortar were shaken from the ceiling, entire chunks of the mural falling and crashing, shattering across his floor. The torchlight around the room dimmed and was put out, the far away fire coming to a halt. He could hear screams not just from outside his door, but from outside the window, down on the street. It wasn’t the right season for Micrea to be shaking. For a tense moment, he found himself surrounded by pitch darkness, the only indication of Naofa’s position in the room, her silhouette, outlined by the soft drip of moonlight beyond what remained of the window.

Then, brilliant white light, enveloping the entire room.

The blood and gore that coated not only the floor around Naofa, but Naofa herself, rose away in great mounds of steam, as a blazing bonfire consumed her entire body. Faintly visible between the roiling flames, Niag watched her back arch as she rose some five feet into the air. Her screams choked out all the noise that had been snaking its way into the room from the spaces around them, the smells of burning flesh and cindered ash coated every facet of his nose, poignant in their odour. The fire began to spread in a loose circle around her, intricate runes forged along their paths. The flames took on more light as each aspect of what he could now recognise as a runic circle was completed, the growing intensity of their heat lashing out against the cold of his hands. Pressed into the very front of the circle, two runes emerged, overlapping one another. The flames arced out across the room like great bolts of lightning, striking and marring all that they touched. In their wake, more runes were burned into the surfaces that they slammed. Niag could discern nothing more than their primal intent, the root of the magic that fueled them. Imbuement.

Something akin to begrudging awe settled in his heart.

All at once, the flames were sucked inwards towards her body. The edges of her hair were smoking, most of its length having been burned away. Her skin was charred all over, dull red splotches like second degree burns dotted what he could see of her. Naofa’s right hand flew towards her face, almost seeming to shove the fire into the hole that he had left within her head. When it fell away, all he could see was an impossibly dense ball of energy, left smouldering within the wake of her eye, it roared dully, and constantly. The same hand then moved towards her mangled arm. Her fingers grasped the dangling flesh initially, pulling at it. It tore away slowly at first, as if she was in some great deal of pain, but she eventually removed the entire thing in one fluid motion, before dropping it to the floor. All that was left was protruding bone, which she too snapped, shovelling it into a pocket sewn into her now charred dress.

Her hand, now shaking, once again rose to the tiny ball of energy. Niag watched as she plucked a string of flame from it, gently wrapping it around the nub of flesh just below her elbow. The room was filled with the hiss of burning skin as she brought her hand away, letting it fall limply to her side. Her head lulled, what remained of her once back length hair now rested over her eyes, falling just below her neck. Her chest had stopped moving, no breath drawn into her lungs. Naofa’s entire body, in fact, had gone still.

Niag held his breath as he waited, a slight tremble creeping into his already shivering hands. He wanted to get the jump on her while she stood inert, for fear of what it was that had just been imbued into her, yet he couldn’t compel his body to move. Every muscle across his form locked up at the mere thought of approaching her, so he stood and waited instead. Not once did she move. Not once did she draw breath.

Niag waited for a solid ten minutes, before he’d managed to pluck up the courage to move even vaguely in her direction. He worked his way somewhat counter-clockwise, winding inwards towards her with an outstretched hand. His fingers contorted, his wrist winding in a cylindrical pattern, as he began to mutter under his breath, preemptively prepping an abjurer's cloak. More icicles clambered up his arm, but held at his shoulder, the spell halted in its casting process. The faint afterimage of the spell circle held some five inches from the tips of his fingers, a decorative figure eight that had followed his movements. Niag slipped his other hand into a pouch strapped to the back of his trousers. His fingers met the craggy surface of an imperfect Lodestone, it would have to do. He would make it work. He eventually stopped directly in front of her, that outstretched hand close enough that he could feel her breath on the tips of his fingers. He swallowed hard, inhaling to speak.

‘A dinnae ken wit game it is yer playing girl, but it ends here.’ He said. ‘A dinnae ken how you managed to summon any aether tae yi at aw, actually, but a promise all it’s done is make you an even more tantalising prize.’

The sound of his voice rang out into the room and he found that his tone was remarkably more gentle than it had been before. He hadn’t noticed it, but she was just barely visibly trembling. The motion radiating out from her shoulders, her chest. He ruminated for a second, an uneasiness falling over him. He decided to be cautious once more, crushing the Lodestone. The aether that rushed into his body filled him like the rushing waters of a flash flood. His body felt fluid, his fear buried under temporary bravado. He raised that hand to her face, cupping her under the chin. Gently, he lifted her head, letting his eye meet hers.

Naofa’s face was contorted in a feral, predatory smile. Her mouth split wide to reveal a row of sharp teeth. Tears continued to stream from her eye, continued to stream from what remained of her other tear duct. At this distance, he could feel the heat pulsating from that little ball of energy in her head, from the string of fire that was still cauterising the wound left below her elbow. He could see clearly the pain that was etched behind her eye, yet all she did was smile. His uneasiness grew to such a degree that he began to close his fingers to complete the spell, yet his fingers did not close with the speed he knew that should have, as the world seemed to move so much slower for just a fraction of a second.

Naofa slipped her remaining hand up under the one that he had cupping her face, slapping it to the side with enough force that he found himself reeling. Her mouth opened wide as her body lurched forward towards the hand holding the spell. Niag scrambled backwards, his free hand balled into a fist that he was throwing towards her head. Naofa’s stumped arm moved, that string of fire branching out from the flesh that it had sunk into. Bones of flame came first, muscle and vein followed. An entire appendage constructed out of fire, meticulously rebuilt layer by layer. Her newly forged limb slipped into the front of his clothes behind a loose button, the other she flung upwards, palm open, towards the fist that he had thrown, catching it. Naofa yanked him forward, the cloth of his clothing holding out long enough that his body fell forwards, all of his backwards momentum mitigated. Niag didn’t have the mind to drag his open hand back, still thinking that against all odds, he could finish his casting. Naofa got her jaws around his index and middle finger before he had the chance to truly reconsider.

The soft tearing and crunching of his bones, the popping of his joints, followed shortly after his fingers disappeared into her mouth. They balled up between her teeth as she held his arm in place with both hands. Even as she wrenched her head backwards and forwards, it took her a solid effort to tear free both of the fingers that she had bitten. Niag roared, his fist finally colliding with her body as she was rocketed backwards across the room, skidding to a halt before the window. Tears were welling in his eye as he looked down to assess the damage. His middle finger had been sundered from the middle, his index had been completely removed, the ichor that dripped from it had already begun to freeze as it ran down his hand. All of that residual spell energy had been diffused, rejoining the aether that he felt gathering in his stomach like a lead weight. All of that initial bravery was gone, replaced by a familiar boiling anger. The girl was already moving before he had a chance to direct that anger. In two swift moves, Niag’s feet were torn out from under him, sending him careening into the floor, Naofa having perched herself atop his chest moments after he hit the deck. Her knees were up, tucked into her chest, and most of her face was hidden behind her hands. All he could see was her eye, large and doe like in the moonlight, and the gentle afterimage of that ball of energy, shifting as she swayed from side to side.

Naofa leaned forward, her mouth hanging limp as his two removed digits plopped down onto his chest, a mix of saliva and blood staining his shirt. She shot him a placid smile and ran her tongue across her lips, her head tilting to the side.

‘You taste foul.’ She said into her hands, ‘Like spoiled milk.’

Niag heaved, his breathing becoming increasingly more laboured. Naofa was so heavy on his chest, almost impossibly so. Even still he began to struggle against her, spittle forming in the corners of his mouth as he spoke.

‘Yer a nasty wee cunt, ‘n’ yer gonnae get what yi fucking deserve.’ He said.

Naofa brought her head up, pursing her lips, ‘What exactly is it I deserve, Niag?’ She asked, her tone jovial, ‘If anything, I deserve an apology honestly.’

He almost laughed, ‘Aye? Yer fucking property you dinnae deserve an apology.’

She began to giggle, ‘I’ll even consider letting you up if you do! I promise I’m a very very fair person.’

‘Yer no a person, yer fuck aw. What exactly arnae you getting? Just you wait till a get ma fucking mits on you.’ Niag felt a smile blooming across his face, ‘It’ll be fun let eez tell yi.’

Naofa stopped bobbing, her giggly smile slowly replaced by a disgusted frown. She slipped a hand around one of his horns, forcing his head to the side as she leaned in. The heat from her head singed his skin as she spoke directly into his ear.

‘Niag Tyvolin.’ She said, ‘I don’t appreciate the way you’re speaking to me.’

Niag craned his neck back towards her face, meeting her eye, ‘Am. Gonnae. Kill. You.’ He said, venom burning the back of his throat, ‘’n’ am gonnae make it hurt.’

‘I see.’ Naofa said into the air. The girl sighed, growing more and more exacerbated with him everytime he spoke. Her body was growing heavier, the heat radiating off of her increasing. She leaned back, ‘Tell me Niag, do you know what it means to be scared? Powerless?’

Niag hucked in the back of his throat, and spat all over her face. ‘Nawh. A dinnae.’

‘I see.’

His saliva and spit turned into steam within seconds of her words, and he watched her already disgusted frown become out-right abhorred. The ball of energy in her head began to spark, throwing embers in all directions. Licks of flame were travelling outwards as that dull roar became raging. Cracks were appearing in its form, more and more flame escaping before it eventually unravelled all together. White flames erupted upwards in an ever shifting column. A weaving net of fire interlaced itself between the stands of her hair, returning it to its former length, if not longer. The flame faded into a dull blue towards its ends, both within her hair and from her eye. Her hand, while originally the same pigmentation as her flesh, has begun to shift into a similar blue colouration. She exhaled, and all of the exposed skin of his face dried up, splintering and cracking, suddenly devoid of all moisture.

Niag felt all the aether in his body begin to recoil at her presence. His skin began to feel full, his veins clogged, as if all of his power was desperately trying to claw its way out of him, and away from her. It was unbearable. So he again wrenched his head, this time cleaving it from her grasp. He managed to bring his shoulder up into her knee, throwing her off balance enough that, with his other hand, he was able to shove her fully off of him, sending her slamming into the ground once more with a pained oofmph. He gasped as she moved, throwing himself onto his front and eventually onto his feet. The girl was shaking her head, clutching it with one hand as she propped herself up with the other, Niag threw himself in her direction, but she preempted his movements, and flung her left hand out. In the centre of her palm, coalescing geometric shapes had formed a vaguely three dimensional rune. Her thumb curled in to create a pinching motion with her ring finger, and as she pulled them apart, a small mote of energy sizzled into existence. When she closed them again, it fired off towards him. Niag had seconds to throw up a shield, gilded arcane energy fizzled outwards from a waving arm as a ghostly afterimage, and when the mote met it, the room was doused in pale white fire, as it exploded in a massive ball of flame.

The fires did not recede, not in the way they should. Niag vaguely recognised the nature of the magic she was throwing at him, yet these flames clung to a permeance unfounded in their kindling. Naofa’s will was far stronger than he had ever given her credit for, it seemed. Niag tensed his arms, affixing the shield in the air, using his body as a temporary lodestone, allowing it to feed off of his power, without being connected to his form. With panicked hands he flung off his satchels and began digging through them, rooting through an infinite amount of pockets before he finally managed to get his hands on what he was looking for. A smooth stone maybe an inch in length, and three in diameter. Niag cupped it in his hands and held it up to his lips. His inhaled breath left frost in the corners of his mouth as he envisioned the depth of the ice he was trying to summon. As he exhaled, ice and snow were absorbed into the stone, his breath becoming a raging blizzard, contained only by his hands. The flames continued to roil against his shield, spider-webbing cracks were beginning to form along its visage, each one climbing towards their larger cousin in the centre, were the mote had struck. He slammed the stone against his knee, similar cracks appearing along it. Strands of light emanated from those cracks, wisping their way up past his head, as he readied himself. Niag dropped the shield, and in the milliseconds that he had before the flames reached him, he crushed the stone. All around him, a great rolling wave of cold air and bitter snow were strewn forward, momentarily creating a tunnel through the fire. On the other side, he could see a still reeling Naofa, her hands around her head, kneeling in a pool of vomit and bile.

Niag saw his chance, and he took it. Sprinting forward he could see that his tunnel was rapidly collapsing. All he could do was pick up the pace, slamming at full speed into Naofa’s hunched form, sending them both flying forward. Forward towards what he now realised was his grand window. The stained glass shattered, and he found himself falling hundreds upon hundreds of feet towards the densely populated street below, leaving his still burning office behind.