Maeve landed in the front yard of her house, light and silent as a falling feather. The energy comprising her wings submerged into her backside. She hurried inside.
Orrillimmirr’s, Asammirr’s, Nuurr’s, and Lua’s sights whipped toward the opening front door. They were all hiding out in the general room. The edge of one of Lua’s swords of light flashed into existence at Maeve’s throat the moment she entered. The two kids took shelter behind the cape of Orrillimmirr’s robes.
Maeve’s hands raised in non-hostility. “It’s me, it’s me,” she urged. “Maeve.” She looked at her partner with a pitched brow, clarifying, “Your wife?” then at her son, the other brow following the first. “Your mother?” They didn’t immediately recognize her with all of her featural differences. Her hair was blonder, longer, and more voluminous. Her eyes were a faintly luminescent pastel pink. Her face had somehow become even more… not beautiful, but ethereal, felt like the word. It’d become a softer, more nurturing, more perfected version of itself. The shape of her face, eyes, nose, mouth, and eyebrows had all changed in slight, otherwise insignificant ways which added up to a glaring difference when amalgamated. The kind of doubletake someone had to do when a friend they hadn’t seen in a month showed up with a new nose. Then there were the long, wispy ears resemblant of an Asuuriian Elves’ and the wings fluttering behind them.
Lua glanced Orrillimmirr’s way. The Elf nodded. He had always known it was Maeve. He never so much paid attention to her appearance as he did her mystic aura. It was many, many, many-times denser and tightly interwoven with the mystic signature of some other mystic entity’s, but it was still hers.
The light sword vanished. She exhaled, progressing inside. “Thank you.”
He met his partner halfway. Before any words were exchanged, they embraced. Asammirr ran and joined in.
She caressed her son’s head. “Sorrinn?” The worry was palpable in her voice.
“Safe.” Orrillimmirr assuaged, tone of voice calm and in control. “He’s resting in the study. He burned himself out saving what of the villagers he could.” He sighted an inquiring look at her, almost child-like in its keenness. “It would appear you’ve been blessed by a mystic spirit since I saw you last, my dearest? Would you care to regale me with the details?”
She scrutinized his charming, boyish features sideways, laughing in a series of exhales. “This is hardly the time to entertain your knowledge obsession, Ori.”
A shifty-eyed pout from the Elf. “I wouldn’t call it an obsession… A mild intrigue, really.”
Lovingly she set her hand against his cheek. “No need to be modest, love. I chose you because of your quirks. I’ll regale you to your heart’s content—later. That spell I cast will keep that thing at bay for the time being, but it’s not permanent and it won’t make it go away. Life and death are still at stake.” She left him and walked toward the rest of the house, saying, “That’s a conversation for a peacefuller time.” Hurriedly she went to the foyer, down the right hall to the study to have a peek through the door. Sorrinn was just as he said: snoozing soundly in the chair. She smiled before returning to the foyer, looking into the general room from behind the balustrade dividing the two sections. “So what’s the plan? There has to be something we can do before that thing destroys my Preservation magic.”
Asammirr had returned to the dining table, where Nuurr sat drowning in his silent consternation over his father. He patted the boy on the back. “It’ll be okay.”
“I am afraid not,” Lua said. “The Silhouette has fully forsaken its Origin. It is at this moment where it rapidly spirals toward nonexistence that it stands closest to The Void and is at its most powerful. Once your magic falters, this entire continent will cease to exist beneath the flood of Absence.”
“…Are we gonna die, Mama?”
His mother’s staunch gaze fixed on him. “No. Absolutely not. We would never let that happen.”
“Your mother’s right, Asammirr. I’ve earned The Sustainer’s right to conjure Radiance. If it comes to it, I’m prepared to do what I must for your sakes.”
Grief already sponged into Maeve’s expression. “But doesn’t that mean you’ll—”
A nod. “—Yes. I’ll be engulfed by the storm without a doubt.” He neared her, fingers skating across her cheek, and peered into her eyes. “But what is a world to live in where your tales have been concluded before their natural ends? To preserve your futures, I would offer my eight centuries of wisdom up without hesitation.”
“No… No, absolutely not. I won’t—”
A certain venerable, feline-adjacent entity grumbled in the background. “I see you Asuuriians are still as eager to abandon your lives for the greater good as your forebears were.” Every eye turned toward Izebeus—and the then lucid Sorrinn, whose shoulders served as his perch. “One has always failed to fathom why The Sagacious Mother modeled Her kin to be so detrimentally altruistic. If the original Nine weren’t so easily provoked into traps by their inherent goodness and overactive empathies, they wouldn’t all be deceased or otherwise unspecified.”
Orrillimmirr immediately kneeled in Izebeus’s presence, head low, eyes closed. “You honor me with your presence, Illuminated Muse—Ninth Witness of The Ancestor.”
“Hm? Another mystic spirit?” Maeve questioned.
“He’s not any mere spirit. He’s one of the oldest and wisest who swore loyalty to The Ancestor and aided Them in bringing Order to The Mystic Force. He’s guided and observed the stories of every Luminary of Creation to ever exist. Now he bestows such time-honored guidance and wisdom to our son.”
“Woah…” Asammirr said. “That cat is talking. Cool.”
Izebeus huffed as he glared at Asammirr. “Cat? Have some respect.”
A dubious hand perched on Maeve's hip. “I hope he does a better job guiding Sorrinn than all of the dead ones…”
Izebeus passed the woman an incredulous side-eye. His many-tails annoyedly lashed behind him as his whiskers twitched. “Those were all tales designed to conclude in tragedy. Not even a Paragon is perfect in every decision. Sometimes principle surmounts optimacy, so one has been told numerously. But that’s neither here nor there.”
Sorrinn progressed into the general room, to his father at Izebeus’s signal—a tap on the head from his paw. Knowing just what awaited his father if he unleashed the mystic storm within, tears were already pooling in his eyes as his inward-pursed lips quivered. But Izebeus had told him to be silent and allow him to take care of it before they entered the discussion.
“Discard such dull trifles as noble self-sacrifice, child of one’s dear companion. It is one’s sworn duty to nurture this boy into a great tree that shall bear many resplendent fruits of progression and evolution unto this world. That is bound to never come to fruition if your hand is not present to enrich his soil with the nutrients of parental love and fatherly guidance, so one shall not permit any altruisms to come to fruition on this day. Even if it lies in defiance of how you were created, be selfish for his sake; live for his sake.”
Orrillimmirr posed no rebuttals or objections. He simply dipped his bowed head in acquiescence. “Then, if I may inquire, what is your answer, Illuminated One?”
“A mystic transfusion. One shall enter your vessel, absorb the bulk of your wealth, and act as a catalyst in allowing the child access to its abundance. With one acting as an intermediary through mystic equilibrium, the child shall be at no risk of suffering mystic erosion.” Izebeus smirked. “His capacity of Origin, merged with your capacity of mystic energy, it will make that Silhouette lament and repent in its final moments.”
The Elf ascended to his height. A nod. “Very well.” A pair of smiling lips descended upon Sorrinn. His hand fell onto his son’s hair and tousled it well. “I have faith in The Ancestor’s foresight, and I have faith in my son.” He offered his opened palm to Izebeus.
Izebeus gracefully mounted onto it from Sorrinn’s shoulder. His form dismantled into rushing ribbons of The Mystic Force. They spiraled around Orrillimmirr’s body before delving into his deepest reaches, surfacing a short few seconds later. It felt like a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He snapped his fingers and conjured a small flame above their tips—the first spell he’d cast in centuries. It was only a matter of time before his ruinous wealth replenished, and he would have to seal it once again. Until that moment, he’d enjoy every second of being able to weave spells again. Those neon ribbons rushed from him, into Sorrinn’s body.
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An ocean… Crashing. Violent. Howling with blustering force, skyscraper-sized waves, and eternal rain. That was what he saw when Izebeus transferred to him. All of that was what his father kept suppressed inside his body every waking moment? It was incredible. It was terrifying. He couldn't fathom going a day bearing its weight. His eyes lifted toward his father, hosting a deepened sense of awe and admiration. He had every excuse to be a hundredth of the father, partner, and person he was, but went above and beyond every day despite. Just when he thought he couldn’t possibly grow to love his father anymore than he already did.
Orrillimmirr returned the current of adoration and grasped his son’s hand. Maeve hurried and grabbed the other. Sorrinn peered up at his mother sheltering a sea of questions behind his scrutinizing eyes. That was best saved for later.
“Keep an eye on the children, will you, Lua?” she asked.
“I shall.”
A grateful smile. “Thank you.”
“Now, how about we bring this chapter to an end, little one?”
Smiling big, Sorrinn bobbed his head. “Kay, Paba.”
The three of them walked outside together, hand in hand.
Expanding cracks like golden lightning bolts cast into permanence painted the barrier above. The fleeting shapes arisen from the Absence rammed into and clawed at the barrier. An image kindred to millions of damned souls trying to break free from eternal torment.
They made some distance from the house, further along the path. Sorrinn walked forward by himself from there, conjured his wand, and pointed it high. He checked over his shoulder for his parents. They were right there with him; he wasn’t alone. A light spell would be the best element for the task—Highbeam. He could forget about the shadows in the flood of Absence. Once he did away with the Silhouette, The Sustainer’s Radiance would return and purge the grunts. Something concentrated and focused was ideal—straight into the heart of the falling darkness.
Directing his sights heavenward, he breathed in deeply. His Origin Flame roused and grew ardent as a blue-green aura washed over him and animated a dancing aurora upon his irises. The grain of sand balanced atop the needle’s point. His wealth, his father’s wealth, and The Mystic Force coalesced into a singular energy. Hair dancing atop his head, that aura of shifting blue-green dyed prismatic.
“Discard your inhibitions. One shall help modulate the outpouring of your progenitor’s wealth. Do not hold back. Mark this day as the dawn of a new era. Shall it be the Silhouettes’ time to cower in the shadows from which they rose. Shall it be our turn to hunt them to extinction.”
With his exhale, the calamitous flood of mystic energy crashed through his pathways. A galaxy’s worth of iridescent light particles like innumerable grounded stars sparked into existence in the surrounding space. They converged before his wand’s tip in a grand, nebulaic maelstrom—a breath-pilfering sight unlike he’d ever seen. Brighter it became. Brighter. Brighter. Brighter until it shone over the village akin to a fallen sun. The village and plain began to tremble. First faintly, then violently. The full extent of Orrillimmirr’s and Sorrinn’s merged wealths funneled into that lone spell. The sheer power of it weighed the wand heavy against his young arms. Despite his efforts to uphold its position, it started to stray from its target.
His father was quick to grasp his hand from behind and help hoist the wand back into place.
Sorrinn passed a smile over his shoulder. The many Calebs offered their phantom hands as well.
The spell actualized. A flash of heat warped the world it washed over as it explosively dispersed. A fleeting silence. Then a burst of wind roared. At that moment, a colossal pillar of Origin-infused light streaked above from below and skewered a gaping hole through the titan’s chest. The encroaching Absence fled from the point of impact like a retreating shockwave. Radiance descended over the land once more. All of the creatures of the End burned to falling ashes in the late morning’s sunlight. The weight of the spell bore down on the father and son’s feet with what felt like the weight of the world. Orillimmirr braced Sorrinn from behind, gritting his teeth, becoming the unyielding net for him to fall back upon. Their amalgamated resolve wouldn’t allow the weight of the wand to get the better of them.
The draconic titan born of Absence refused to be smited. Wildly bellowing, it grabbed at the light pillar lancing through its tar-ish torso. But with Radiance descending from behind and Origin filling its void from within, it was only delaying the inevitable. The Origin within the spell obliterated its hands the moment they made contact. Offshoots of light pierced its form full of holes until all of its Absence had been smited. All which endured was a clear blue sky. A clear blue sky, and the restored pieces of Falthoth the Drakonid slowly burning to ash beneath The Sustainer’s emanations.
His halved, colorless body plummeted somewhere in the northern plain, lost of its arms and lower half. What remained of his torso and head agonizingly burned away like the receding corners of smoldering paper. In his final moments, he watched the white-splotched blue hanging overhead. Regret and grief were his sole companions at the precipice of end. “My brothers and sisters… This fool will never know the chance to join you in the next life…” He closed his eyes before Finality’s visage. “I hope you’ll be able to forgive me for reneging on the promise we made back then…” A lone tear arose and fell. Soon, the last of him went up in a hiss and a puff of whispering smoke.
The tower of light faded until it flickered out. All of his father’s wealth had been spent. There was a large hole punctured through the sky where the beam ascended. An aqueous curtain of flowing deep purples, reds, oranges, blues, violets, and greens, embellished by the cosmic image of the night sky cascaded in from the other side. It remained visible for five seconds, at which it mended itself back into the shape of the sky.
The duo marveled at the sight for as long as they could in mutual curiosity and fascination.
That pretty much confirmed the Elves' theories about the world’s constitution. The sky truly was just a massive curtain hiding the Paragons’ secrets.
“What was that, Paba?”
Orrillimmirr embraced his son from behind before hoisting him onto his shoulders. “I have not an inkling, little one. Not an inkling at all. Some things aren’t for us to comprehend, and that’s okay. Although, it’s believed beyond this world lies many others.”
Sorrinn slumped over onto his father’s head while his gaze remained angled heavenward. “Do you wonder what’s up there?”
The corners of his father’s lips turned upward. “Once upon a time, yes. I would stare at the sky at night as a boy and dream of what lay beyond. Yet, we Elves were born in our forebears’ footsteps to chart and illuminate this world. When the Nine descended, they did so knowing they would never return to the realm above. Our place is here—not the stars.”
Maeve stepped up beside her partner, wearing an eased smile. “You both must be in good shape if you’re already back to pondering about everything after that. Let’s grab the others and see how the village is faring. I should get out there and help Opal tend to the injured.” She turned for the house.
Orrillimmir, with Sorrinn in tow, followed.
“Mama?”
She glanced up toward her son as she walked. “Yes, lovely?”
A somber frown subjugated Sorrinn’s lips. “Nuurr’s papa turned into a monster and died. I burned him up.”
Maeve’s expression concernedly cringed. “…I see. I’m… sorry you had to do that.”
“Can we go find his mama so he isn’t all alone?”
His mother looked toward Orrillimmirr, hesitation in her eyes.
They paused in their steps. His father lifted him to his feet, lowered himself to his son’s height, and cleared his throat. “Mm… You see, little one, Elves aren’t quite like Humans in regards to creating offspring. We Elves are able to perform something called asexual reproduction. Asexual reproduction means you can create a life without needing both a mother and father present to produce a child like you. Unlike Humans—or Half-elves like you and your brother—full-blooded Elves only have a single parent. I’m afraid there is no one else to find. His father was all he had.”
Sorrinn’s wettening gaze was downcast. “He’ll always be all alone then?” And he was the one who’d sentenced him to such a cruel fate. Unforgivable.
A smile, as uplifting as it was beautiful and loving. Orrillimmirr wiped his son’s tears away. “Not at all, because he’ll now have all of us.” He checked with Maeve. She returned a nod. “That is, if he’ll accept us. As living things, we must all lift one another when we fall. The Ancestor wills it—and it’s the right thing.” He offered his hand to Sorrinn. “Shall we go inside and tell your friend what’s happened?”
Sorrinn dipped his chin.
Thus they did just that. They informed Lua, Asammirr, and Nuurr the danger had passed. That everything would be fine. Lua took the opportunity to return to her abode on the outskirts to calibrate. Then Maeve sat Nuurr down and broke the news of his father’s fate. The news wasn’t the only thing that broke. The five-year-old’s quavering, mournful sobs brought tears to the whole family’s eyes. Sorrinn sat beside him on the floor. He hugged him how he imagined he would want to be held if he was left in similar circumstances. Tightly Nuurr embraced him back, head lay on his shoulder, never wanting to let him go out of fear of being abandoned in a world void of his sun.
How they were was how they remained for tens of minutes. That was until Nuurr’s tears had run their course, and he simply stayed latched to Sorrinn’s side. That was where it felt safest and comfiest. Sorrinn had saved him from the monster trying to hurt him—the same monster that hurt his father. Sorrinn was the one who assured him he wasn’t alone because he was there. Sorrinn had been smiling at him all along from the moment they first met. Everything in his mind was chaos, but at least he could have faith in his trust in that boy.
“You can stay here with us from now on, if you wanna?” Sorrinn offered.
“…Really?”
Sorrinn rapidly nodded. “Yeah. My paba said it’s okay. You don’t have to be alone. I’m right here. I’ll always be right here.”
A droplet of ease rippled across the chaos of his mind. Nuurr looked at Sorrinn and held out his pinky. “Promise?”
Sorrinn hooked his pinky with Nuurr’s. “Promise.”
That didn’t lift the frown from his lips or quell the wetness of his eyes. All he could hope was that it dissipated some of the fear in his heart. The grief by itself was enough to bear.