Hello! Your friendly neighborhood author here with another chapter! It's got quite a bit of dialogue but it'll also explain a few things. Also it's longer than the amount I usually write so there may be more errors. Eh, whatever I'll fix them later. As always, leave comments, criticism, etc. when you can and thank you for reading. Without further ado...
Edit: Oh yeah, forgot to mention, but now that the two main characters are introduced the story will now shift over to third person perspective with the exception of other people's POV.
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Inside a cave located within the Sangin Wilderness, a small campfire flickered brightly. Next to it on a rock sat a man, or rather, skeleton donning a black and gold robe. On the other side of the campfire, lying under a fur pelt, a young girl could be seen sleeping.
This man’s name was Cyrus. With a large pile of fur from magical beasts lying right next to him, this once majestic ruler was now… sewing. With a magical needle he kept in his spatial ring, he was sewing some of the fur next to him into something resembling a tunic.
As he finished up the tunic and was about to move on to the next piece of clothing, the girl stirred awake.
“Mmmnnnn…. HM!?” the girl rubbed her eyes from sleepiness before instantly jolting awake. Frantically getting up and turning her head left and right as she tried to get her bearings, she spotted ‘him’.
“Morning princess, hope you slept well.” Cyrus spoke back in an amused tone of voice.
“…” the girl simply stared back at him warily. Unsure of what to do or say she just silently sat there.
“Oh, how cold of you! To look at me in that way even though I saved you, I’m hurt!” Cyrus spoke flamboyantly while putting his bony hands to his chest as though he were wronged, all the while keeping that amused tone of voice.
“Hm, well, considering the situation you are in right now, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” Cyrus continued.
“Alright, I guess I’ll be taking the lead in this conversation, though that may not matter much if you are the quiet type. Let’s see… First off, how about we introduce ourselves? My name is Cyrus, your friendly neighborhood skeleton.” Cyrus spoke and then looked at her expectantly with the golden lights in his eyes glowing a bit brighter.
“… Saphiron… my name is Saphiron.” The girl, now Saphiron, slowly replied.
“Saphiron, huh? Quite the beautiful name if do say so myself. It nicely complemented the blue eyes that you had before.”
At this Saphiron gave him a confused look. “Had before? What do you mean by that?”
To this question, Cyrus simply replied, “It’ll be easier just to show you.” After which he turned one hand towards the side of the cave and blasted it with searing hot flames, startling Saphiron in the process. After the flames cleared away, what was left was a giant wall of glass.
As Saphiron looked at the reflection in the glass, her mind nearly stopped working. What she saw stunned her as she looked at her own appearance. It was like staring into the eyes of a stranger as her new form looked back at her. Her previous shoulder length wood-brown hair was now completely blonde and gave off a golden, lustrous shine, all the while flowing down her back and swerved softly as she moved her head. Her previous dirt-covered body and disease-ridden scarred skin were nowhere to be seen as it was replaced by pale, snow-white skin that had no blemishes anywhere and looked to be as soft as a baby’s. Much like the rest of her petite body, her face now gave off a white shine as it radiated life, no longer thin and starved like before. Her rosy red cheeks that contrasted her smooth pale skin only served to enhance her beauty even more as they adorned her well sculpted face. Her sharp eyes were no longer the sapphire blue color that they previously were and they now shined with a glowing golden color.
However, even though those changes alone were enough to make a person’s jaws drop, they paled in comparison to the biggest change of all. From her back, a pair of large black wings sprouted from the just below her shoulder blades. As they shifted a bit from movement, their soft black feathers rustled gently.
Saphiron just stared at the reflection, jaws agape. Her mouth then closed and opened again and this repeated for quite a few times. Her eyes were blinking rapidly as she stared at her image.
“Wh- wh- wh- WHAT IS THIS?” Saphiron yelped loudly.
“Well, obviously that’s you. We’re the only two people in this cave after all and I certainly don’t look like that.” Cyrus replied trying to keep himself from laughing.
“No! Bu-But! This! This is!?” Saphiron madly stuttered to which a fur tunic was thrown over her face.
“Since I’m a bit chatty after having no one to talk to for so long, I’ll explain it to you so calm down. Also, put on that tunic. As much as I enjoy the view of your body, it wouldn’t be too good for you to stay like that forever.” Cyrus told her.
Getting a bit red at the ears as she finally realized that she was butt-naked, she quickly put on the fur tunic which, surprisingly, was pretty comfortable. She now finally noticed what Cyrus was doing this whole time. She watched the surreal scene of this skeleton sewing what looked to be a pair of fur pants. As much as she would like to retort about how weird this whole picture is, she simply decided not to, after all, that was the least of the strange things about this skeleton.
“Geez, you won’t believe the trouble I had to go through to clean all that grime and blood off you and don’t even get me started on all those scars. Had to burn those rags you were wearing as well. I can only imagine how badly those waste-of-air bandits treated you.” Cyrus rambled on.
“Umm, about that explanation?” Saphiron replied rather wearily despite just waking up.
“Oh right, sorry, it’s a bad habit of mine to go off on a tangent. Let’s see… where should I start?” Cyrus pondered.
“Um, if I may ask, can you tell me why I am still alive and also why I look like this?” Saphiron asked carefully.
“Ah right, I suppose I’ll start off with what happened after you passed out.” Cyrus replied nodding.
“Well then, first off with why you are alive. I’ll begin with the fact that you did indeed die as you lost consciousness before, well, your body at least.”
At this Saphiron shuddered a bit before asking him to continue.
“Luckily for you, before your soul had the time to dissipate and enter the abyss, I tethered it to something to keep it in this world”, I spoke on. “Now before you ask what I tethered it to, I’ll tell you a bit about how souls function. In this world when a person dies, their soul that has nothing to connect to naturally dissipates since there is nothing keeping them in this world. When a souls dissipates, it enters something known as the abyss where they are broken down and recycled to form new souls which will then be sent back to this world as new life.” Cyrus kept going.
“The soul itself is made up of something I’d like to call ether and it essentially is a storage space for memories and emotions. It is also what controls a person’s ability to manipulate mana. It works on a completely separate energy system from what we use in this world which is mana. This being the case, it isn’t possible to use mana to affect the soul which is why something called soul magic is extremely hard in this world that only knows how to manipulate mana. The only way to manipulate the soul is by using something of a similar structure, namely your own soul. To do this however, you put your own soul at risk as one mistake can drastically damage your own. That is another reason why soul magic is extremely hard found in this world if at all; it is simply because you need absolute control over your own soul to be able to influence other’s.” Cyrus rambled on.
“Now back to the topic of your soul. Since your body died, I had to tether your soul to something to keep it in this world. From what I just told you, you should be able to deduce as to what it is. I’ll tell you in case you can’t. I tethered your soul to my very own in what is known as a soul link.” Cyrus finished.
“Basically, what a soul link entails is that we essentially connect our souls together and have the option of sharing memories, emotions, thoughts, etc. and it can even allow us to feel each other’s location if we are near. For very obvious reasons, I’ve disabled the first three options for now.”
“That’s good and all, but it still doesn’t explain why I’m still alive, after all, I’m not just a floating soul.” Saphiron asked confused.
“Yes, yes, I’m getting to it. Now then, after I made sure your soul won’t just disappear. I had to work on your dead body. I’m sure you’ve already noticed, but I had to modify quite a bit of it. The reason I had to do so is because the only way to resuscitate your body from death is to rely on the regenerative properties of my blood to restore it.” Cyrus said as he took out a vial of his blood.
“Even though I do have some spells that lets me regenerate or even revive people to an extent without using my blood, those spells require me to be extremely familiar with the other’s body structure. As such, it would take an extremely long time to use since you would have to learn everything about the structure of the other person’s body, time I did not have at that moment.”
“You’re probably wondering why I needed to modify your body to take in my blood. For starters, I’ll say that my blood is very mana potent, extremely so if I do say. As a result of this, normal people can’t handle the intake of my blood since it essentially overloads a person’s mana and they die from mana poisoning. That and also the fact that my blood and the body needs to have a good deal of resonance otherwise the person will also die from the blood rejecting the body. The form you are in right now is something similar to my own back before I was a skeleton so that my blood will have a better time acclimating to you. Of course, there will be differences in appearance since you are a different person as well as female, but that’s not as important. After everything is said and done, I simply inserted your soul back into your modified body.” After that long explanation, Cyrus simply sighed as he stopped.
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“…” Saphiron was deep in thought contemplating everything she just heard. After finally coming to terms with it, she looked up and asked.
“In that case, since I look like this, what WERE you before you turned into a skeleton?”
At this, Cyrus just tilted his head. “What do you mean? Isn’t it pretty obvious? What did you think I was?”
“I don’t know? A male harpy?” Saphiron replied also a bit confused.
“Huh? Why do you think I was a harpy? Obviousl-… Wait.” Cyrus stopped.
“Tell me, do you know of the beings known as Celestials? This is important.” Cyrus inquired.
“Ummm, my… parents… once told me a story about an ancient race known as the Celestials. Though they also told me that they all died off long ago before the birth of this continent during something called the Primordial War.” Saphiron hesitatingly answer, pausing as she mentioned her parents.
“…” while also taking note of Saphiron’s hesitation when talking about her parents, Cyrus contemplated her words.
‘So they all died off, huh? Well, it doesn’t really matter much to me I suppose, since I’ve long cut ties with them. I’m curious about this so called “Primordial War” and the creation of the continent though.’
“Hey, Saphiron, tell me, who are considered the strongest beings in this world right now?” Cyrus asked.
“Well, they would be the seven elemental gods that reign over this world, umm if I remember their names correctly, it would be Solaris of Light, Eldrich of Nature, Cereia of Water, Infernius of Fire, Wynfa of Wind, Ingum of Earth, and finally Umbriel of Darkness, though I think she was sealed away by the other gods long ago.” Saphiron spoke.
‘… Well then, this is interesting.’ Cyrus silently thought to himself as he slowly pieced the puzzle together.
Saphiron, noticing that Cyrus has been quiet for a while, asked, “Umm, are you alright?”
“Huh? Oh yeah, I’m fine, I was just thinking about something.” Cyrus quickly replied.
“You still haven’t told me what you were though? But I guess if you want to hide it then I won’t ask any more.” Saphiron spoke up again.
“Oh no no, it’s nothing of the sort. Alright, listen up girl. I am a Seraph, a being of the highest order within the Celestial race. Well, even if I say that, they’ve long disowned me, and now that they’re dead, it matters even less. Though I suppose it’s hard to believe since I’m a skeleton, haha…”
“Well, the other things you said were hardly believable either, but I don’t think you would have any reason to lie. And even if it was a lie then you suck at it.” Saphiron retorted.
“Hehe, already at the point of mocking me huh? I expected it to happen sooner or later but not this early. Oh well.” Cyrus spoke amusingly once again.
Cyrus was now finished sewing the fur pants which he then threw at Saphiron to which she graciously put on.
Now she had her lower part covered as well, she quickly stood up and examined her new body once more.
“Now that I think about it, you seem to be accepting everything fairly easily, especially the part about your body and me looking like this.” Cyrus noted.
“Well, it’s not like I have a choice do I? Even if I don’t accept everything you told me, would it make any difference? My body now is proof of what you have said and I have to live with that fact. Besides, there’s hardly any reason to complain about how I look after all. As for you being a skeleton, I’ve seen worse to be honest.”
“Hey! I don’t look THAT bad! Just look at these finely chiseled cheek bones! These nicely sized arm bones! And this well shaped round cranium and also this white-washed ribcage! I swear your bones won’t be this good looking even if you had all the calcium in the world!”
At this Saphiron let out a small giggle. As much as she tried to hide it, Cyrus already saw it.
“I see you’ve finally cheered up a little. To be honest, you were rather glum the whole time and it’s even making me depressed and I’m a skeleton!”
“Hehe, sorry about that. It’s the same as you, I have a lot on my mind.” Then, as Saphiron quieted down, she asked a question that has been on her mind since the beginning.
“Hey, why did you save me?” She spoke.
At this Cyrus quieted down a little. He paused before he finally answered, “Well, to be honest, initially the reason I saved you was mostly out of pity.”
“Though after looking at you more carefully, it may be because you remind me of someone that I knew a long time ago. That and that you also remind me a little of myself.” He spoke honestly.
Continuing on, he said, “Your eyes have something about them, something that that person and even myself had before. And now that I look closer, I realize what it is now. It’s resolve. You have an unyielding aura about you that can be seen through your eyes. You have the resolution to see your goals through to the end no matter what. You have the resolve to take on all the evil in this world and then spit in their faces. And most of all, you have that determination that will make you yield to no one. Even though we have only known each other for a short amount of time, I feel that we are similar in many aspects…”
“…” Saphiron could only stare at this person that she once thought of as a monster. He had cleanly seen right through her and she could not find any more words to say.
They remained silent for a bit as Cyrus started making shoes out of the leftover pelt.
Making up her mind, Saphiron walked over to the quiet skeleton with clear eyes full of determination. She then asked, “Hey Cyrus, can you please teach me how to fight?”
“Alright, but my lesson fees aren’t cheap. What will you offer me in return?”
Saphiron was a little surprised by his reply, though it’s not unreasonable since she was asking for a lot not taking into account that he already saved her once.
“I… After I get strong enough and fulfill my goals, I’ll offer up my whole being to you. You can then do whatever you want with me. I know that even this may not be enough for all that you have done for me, but please! There is something that I desperately need to finish.”
At this, Cyrus just stared at her silently with his golden light eyes. Fearing he might have rejected her, she was about to add on more before a loud laughter boomed out.
“AHAHAHAHAHA” Cyrus cackled.
After he settled down a bit from his laughter, he spoke, “No, you don’t have to do any of that, I was already planning on training you since the beginning even if you didn’t ask. After all there would be no point in saving you if you die right after.”
At this, Saphiron was a little irritated, “Then why did you ask me that in the first place!”
“I told you, you had resolve right? I wanted to test the extent of that resolve of yours. I wanted to see how far you are willing to go to attain what you want. And with that, you have satisfied me.”
At this, Saphiron had nothing to say. Cyrus then continued, “You see, power isn’t something that is easily given or obtained. It’s something that you have to work very, very hard for. It’s something that you need a lot of resolve to grab ahold of. People with weak or inadequate resolves will often times find themselves crumbling before even getting to the hard part especially if it’s me teaching them. I don’t really want to teach lost causes as that would be a waste of time. Though I had a feeling you wouldn’t disappoint me, better to make sure, am I right?”
Nodding her head in understanding, she agreed to what he just said. Another silent moment soon followed.
“So… now what? I’m sure you must have some sort of agenda that you want to take care of.” Saphiron asked after a bit.
“I don’t know. I don’t really have anything that needs to be done right now.” Cyrus replied, completely throwing Saphiron off.
“Well, technically I do have something that needs to be done right now but that’s mostly just a matter of time. Mainly, I need to wait for my body to finish reconstructing.” Cyrus continued. “Maybe after, I’ll go and gather some information, but that’ll come later.”
“In any case, we start your training in two weeks once I have fully reconstructed my body. In the meantime, you will use that time to get used to your body, especially those wings. I imagine it’ll be quite a while before you are fully proficient in using your extra appendages.”
“Alright. One last question though, why did you not ask me what my goals were?”
“Well, I believe that it’s pointless to pry it out if you’re not willing. If it’s really that important then you’ll tell me on your own. Besides, I feel that it’ll do more harm than good if I just force you to say it.”
At this, Saphiron went quiet once more as she reminisced about her goal and purpose.
“Also, Saphiron takes too long to say. I’ll just call you Seffy now.”
“Hey! Don’t just arbitrarily give me nicknames!”
“Why? Are nicknames not meant to be given? Is there a problem with that?”
“No, it’s just… nevermind. Seffy is fine.”
“Alright then. Also here, put on these boots, your feet must be cold.”
“Thanks.”
“Also, eat some of the stew I have cooking over the campfire. You must be hungry and it’ll warm you up.”
“Alright…”
“Oh yeah, don’t forget to get some sleep if you’re tired. It’s bad for your health if you don’t get enough rest.”
“OK…”
“Also, if you go out, don’t stray too far from the cave. We wouldn’t want you getting eaten or something.”
“ALRIGHT, I GET IT! Sheesh, are you my mom or something?”
To this, Cyrus could only laugh.