In the throne room of the Moon daughter's Palace, Yan Ailing stood before her ancient stone canvas, her eyes fixed on the intricate formula etched into its surface. She was shrouded in the shadows of the dimly lit chamber, her face drawn tight with concentration as she prepared to unleash a powerful spell. Everlyse, the Cinder Moon's daughter herself, stood at her side, her pale hair glowing like moonlight. Tonight, was the night that they bring their dream of motherhood to fruition. As they stood before the pulsating circle of power, they could feel the ancient energy of the moon vibrating in the air, ready to unleash its full might upon the world.
Yan Ailing scanned the surface of the magic circle for any mistakes. The spell formula was as intricate as it was precise, the foundation of the spell consisted of complex etchings that glittered and rotated around the center in perfect harmony. With a glimmer of red and blue light reflecting in her eyes, she completed a mental double and triple check for every last detail, she nodded to herself in satisfaction and let out a deep breath.
“It’s done, Everlyse.” She said placing a tattooed hand on her chin.
It was her finest work. Perfection lay within these lines and curves. Every inscription, every rune, and every line of the spell was placed without any margin for error.
“Place her in the center,” Ailing said to her counterpart.
Everlyse stood tall beside Yan Ailing, her silvery hair emitting a dim moonlight as she took a step forward. She was a stunning and powerful figure, but her face was etched with concern and worry as she took her position at the center of the magic circle. She took one last moment to gaze upon the intricate formula, feeling an immediate sense of trepidation at the immense power they were about to unleash. But she knew that she had to trust in Yan Ailing's expertise, and her desire to finally achieve motherhood was far more overwhelming than any of her reservations.
"Grant her your protection, my mother. . . my goddess," Everlyse whispered as she placed a large crystal into the center of the circle and moved back to her partner's side.
“Are we ready?” Ailing asked, taking Everlyse's hand in hers.
“Yes,” Everlyse replied, her voice tight with emotion.
“Should we . . .?” Ailing hesitated, unsure of how to proceed.
“Let's do it together,” Everlyse said, determination in her voice.
They locked eyes, each finding strength and comfort in the other's gaze. Ailing gently kissing the goddess on the cheek, then she closed her eyes and turned her head, allowing Everlyse to kiss her softly on the lips.
“You sure you want to do this?” Ailing asked, her tone excited but tinged with fear.
“It is my only wish, my love,” Everlyse replied to her, tears welling in her eyes.
They were minutes away from realizing their dream of becoming mothers together. A dream that they had nearly abandoned when it was stolen from them before.
“Eevee, save your tears for the good part.” Ailing teased.
“No, I’m not… Hmph!” Everlyse pouted, pursing her lips in irritation.
“It’s all right, darling. I swore to you that I would grant you this wish.” Ailing whispered, "your love, is my only wish."
Ailing released Everlyse’s hand and kneeled to place her hands on the edge of the circle, and with a nod the two began to chant the activation for the spell.
"Allibera el nen. Crear cos. Transferir anima...." They said in concert.
As they repeated their incantations, a pillar of pure white light emerged from the inscriptions on the floor, slowly raising the sapphire crystal into the air. With the crystal floating at chest height, the light intensified and the surrounding air began to stir violently as mana erupted from the magical circle. Shimmering moonlight burst from the ground like a fountain, surrounding the crystal in a glowing sphere.
The crystal began to vibrate, emitting a soft hum, as the light grew brighter and brighter.
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Ailing glanced down at the runes of her spell formula.
“Honey…” she said while passing an accusing glance at Everlyse. “Your seal was four percent stronger than you predicted it would be.” She batted an eye and gave a snarky grin.
Everlyse just laughed.
“Oops. Tehe.” She replied.
“Darling I may have underestimated my strength, but surely that won't cause any issues.” She replied with a sickeningly sweet smile on her face.
Ailing’s eyes jittered around as she completed a series of calculations.
“It won’t affect the transmutation spell or anima transfer, but… Wait. I see.” Her eyes continued to dart back and forth.
The crystal’s vibrations gradually grew more and more violent.
"What is it dear?" Everlyse said, with a sudden burst of seriousness.
“Relax, Eevee-love.” Ailing replied, “it’s just a minor hiccup. We’ll break the seal, and she will be free any moment.”
With a thunderous crack, the crystal shattered into a cloud of glowing dust, revealing a newborn baby within.
*******
Allibera el nen. Free the child.
The first stage of Yan Ailing's spell was complete. For any other mage, crafting a spell capable of breaking the seal of a demi-goddess like Everlyse would be a legendary achievement. But for Yan Ailing, it was just a bump in the road. A mere four percent difference in Everlyse's seal was hardly an obstacle – it could even be considered a boon. Her spell would use that extra mana to create an even more powerful vessel.
The next part of the spell involved creating a physical being from the leftover mana of the seal that had once encased the body of their child.
"Crear cos. Create body," Yan Ailing said, her voice firm and confident.
The pair looked back at the magic circle. The glowing dust had floated away from the baby and formed itself into a ball.
“Our daughter is free!” Everlyse said giddily, looking at the baby. “Can she hear us?”
“Of course not,” Yan Ailing replied curtly. “She’s completely unconscious…”
Even with the crystalline seal gone, the magic circle provided a powerful stasis effect on their child, keeping her from waking for the remainder of the process.
"If she were conscious, we'd be dead," Yan Ailing said, her tone matter-of-fact. "You sealed her yourself to prevent that, besides we’ll be having twins."
“You see there? The ashes are about to begin transmutation.” Ailing pointed out in giddy excitement.
The glowing dust blinked rapidly and shifted, transforming into the shape of an egg. From there, it condensed into a single lump and then split into two identical lumps, followed by four and then eight. After a few more seconds, it finally resembled the shape of an embryo, gradually growing limbs and eyes until it took the form of a human baby. It stopped blinking and solidified, becoming an exact copy of the original baby beside it.
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The magic circle pulsed with energy; the ancient runes etched into its surface glowed brightly. The air around the baby shimmered with the moon’s power, and the goddess's protection enveloped the newborn child.
“You did it, Ailing! She's perfect,” Everlyse said, tears of joy streaming down her face. She picked Ailing up and swung her around in a circle, then pulled her in for a kiss.
“Well, well, well… Aren’t we in a celebratory mood,” Ailing chuckled, holding her wife in place with one hand while wiping away her own tears with the other. "But we aren't out of the dragon's nest quite yet, Eevee-love."
The two women embraced, reveling in their success and the love they shared. After all the hard work and sacrifice they had put into creating a second vessel for their child’s soul, it was a moment of pure joy and triumph.
*******
Transferir anima. Transfer anima.
Yan Ailing was quite certainly the most brilliant mage of all time, but splitting a soul between two bodies required magic that was nearly beyond her comprehension. One thing she did comprehend was it was dangerous. Anima was incompatible with the material world, and must never touch it. The seal preventing the anima from leaking into the world took tremendous amounts of mana, so Everlyse the living daughter of the moon and queen of all that bleeds, the vampire god herself had powered the spell.
The complex nature and immense effort of sealing a semi-divine soul – let alone her own daughter – had taken its toll on Everlyse's mind and body. For countless millennia, she had regarded the world with nihilistic abhorrence, living only to satisfy the most base and temporal desires of her heart. That was, until she met Yan Ailing. Ailing promised her the impossible, and through sheer determination and cunning, she had delivered, granting Everlyse her own child.
But the world had the last laugh. The cursed world had imbued her daughter with a dangerously unstable soul.
Ailing would need to cheat the world again.
*******
“You know Eevee. I’ve been thinking. . .” Ailing said, her face close to Everlyse. “How does the name Evelyn sound? We can call her original body Eve and the vessel Lyn. You know, Evelyn!”
Everlyse furrowed her eyebrows.
“What did I say about the term vessel?”
“Vessel is a term to describe inanimate objects, not our precious little girl.” Ailing quoted.
“And?” Everlyse chided.
“Don’t refer to our daughter like you would an inanimate object Ailing, please and thank you.”
“What’s happening to Eve and Lyn?”
“The vess- homunculus, err… Lyn’s body is being prepped for the final step. Anima transfer.” She explained. “Her mind is being conditioned with instincts, and autosomatics, which normally occurs during fetal development I've also encoded her mind with a repository of my techniques for good measure.” She said while pressing her glasses to the bridge of her nose, giving the Everlyse a knowing smile.
“A repository of your techniques––? That sounds very dangerous, dear.” Everlyse said with a concerned frown.
“Quite true, my love.” Ailing agreed.
Everlyse shook her head, resigned. Inserting memories of techniques into her child was completely inelegant, to say the least. Perhaps as an immortal being with an infinite lifespan, she failed to see the urgency in passing on her techniques, but she was also very much looking forward to teaching her daughters everything she knew herself.
Then again, stuffing her decades of experience into the mind of an unborn child was so delightfully pragmatic– a prototypical trait of Yan Ailing who wasn’t shy about scraping out every possible advantage she could muster.
Her former slave masters had inscribed her upper left quarter extensively with runic tattoos, and following a self-awarded emancipation, she fully embraced further magical augmentation to ensure her freedom. It was natural that she would instill the same philosophy into her design for their daughter's body.
Ailing's worry was cut short by her excitement. Her daughter – soon-to-be daughters – would be taking her first. . . breaths.
Lyn began to stir, and a shimmering bubble began to form around Eve.
“Good. Now her mind is ready. We're almost done," Ailing said, placing a nervous hand on her tattooed chin.
“What’s wrong, darling?” Everlyse asked calmly.
“Any moment now, the anima transfer will begin. If anything goes wrong. . .”
“Nothing is going to happen Ailing.” Everlyse reassured her. “I saw you check everything.”
Ailing didn’t make mistakes, but the stakes had never been higher. Besides, she had made her choice. She wanted her daughter to live. Damn, the world should something go awry.
She felt a cold shiver travel down her spine and smiled.
I could stop it now, she thought to herself.
“No.” She told herself, silently.
She had spent her entire life dancing at the edge of death. This was no different.
The pair looked up to see new activity in the magic circle. Four glowing red embers levitated from the ground just above the height of the babies. The embers zipped around at incredible speeds, forming a persistent image of a twelve-sided star.
Spirits existed in a place orthogonal to the plane of space and time. After extensive research, Ailing found a way to connect this place between two spaces using a magical singularity, so she named it “the fold” and the connection “anima transfer.”
With the sound of a drop of water reverberating through the air, a vine of moonlight grew out of Eve till it connected with Lyn, linking their hearts.
*Thump* *Thump*
The connection writhed and pulsed as anima flowed from Eve to Lyn. Lyn stirred but the other newborn remained still.
"Thirty more seconds." Ailing whispered as she gradually relaxed her clenched jaw.
The spell was almost complete, and the seal had held. As she had predicted, the vine had contained the fold and prevented anima from leaking into the world. All that remained was for the process to finish balancing the anima between the two newborns.
*Crack!*
The shattering roar of crumbling stone echoed throughout as a wall of the throne room burst open and a thick mist began pouring into the room.
“Intruder!” Everlyse screamed as a thick cocoon of fire sprang up from the floor surrounding her.
Ignoring her partner's cries, Ailing moved to the center of the room to protect the magic circle.
“Everlyse, We need more time,” she said, her voice calm and steady.
She had absolute confidence in her partner's abilities. Any intruder who dared invade this space would pay the ultimate price.
“Damn it! Damn it all! I can't see him!” Everlyse roared; her eyes wide in fury as she desperately searched for the source of the chaos.
“Wait. . . There's someone, no something in the fog!” Everlyse said.
Ailing didn't hesitate, mana pulsed into her arm.
"Llamp!" She shouted unleashing a crackle of lightning into the air.
A dozen bolts of pure electricity shot into the fog, causing it to flicker and dissipate, revealing a figure in the opening of the wall.
*******
The silhouette in the throne room was tall and thin, and its features were shrouded in smoke and ash. Despite its indistinct appearance, the figure exuded a menacing presence. It stood motionless, staring at the pair with an almost knowing gaze.
"Too late," the figure said in a low, gravelly voice before turning to flee.
Everlyse, furious at the intruder's intrusion, gave chase. But as she tried to grab the figure, her claws slashed through nothing but mist. The intruder had vanished.
Panicked, Yan Ailing turned back to the spell circle. The energy had weakened, and most of Eve's excess soul had left her body, but the transfer was still incomplete. She checked the runic timer inscribed on the circle's perimeter, and her fear only grew.
Something was wrong - very wrong. She frantically searched for the source of the issue, and her eyes fell upon a tiny defect in the spell formula. A single drop of red liquid had been placed on a rune, disrupting the delicate balance of the spell. She looked up in horror as the connection between her two daughters rapidly expanded, threatening to burst and spew out the anima contained within.
She knew she had to act quickly to prevent disaster. With a fierce determination, Yan Ailing activated a magical circuit that had been grafted into her body as a child. Though incomplete, it was her ultimate trump card.
As Yan Ailing focused on finding a solution to the spell, her perception expanded until time seemed to stand still. The duration of a single blink of an eye felt like a thousand millennia, and then ten thousand-fold still. For a billion-billion eternities, she poured all her attention into unraveling the spell formula, her eyes scanning the intricate runes and etchings etched into the ancient stone canvas.
As Yan Ailing searched for the key to completing the spell, she could feel the weight of her daughters' lives hanging in the balance. If she failed, not only would they be lost forever, but their anima would destroy everything.
With every passing eternity, her determination grew stronger, and her mind sharpened until, at last, she found the solution she had been seeking.
*******
Everlyse snarled as she dug her claws into the stone wall, tearing through it as if it were made of butter. She reveled in the destruction, her fury at the intruder who had dared to invade her home fueling her strength. She longed to rip him limb from limb, to resurrect him and do it all again, sending a message of terror that would echo through the afterlife. But the puny human child had vanished into the fog, just out of reach.
As Everlyse took deep breaths to calm herself, she remembered what she and Yan Ailing had been doing before the intruder interrupted them. But when she turned to face Ailing, she was horrified to see a bloody statue in her place.
"What's wrong?" Everlyse asked, frantically rushing to Ailing, who stood with her arms folded, gazing down at the spell circle's runes.
But there was no response.
Ailing's tattoos were glowing, and blood dripped from her eyes and ears. She appeared confused, lost in thought about how this could have happened, so Everlyse moved around behind her, gently rubbing her shoulders as she continued assessing Ailing's condition.
Her skin was hot to the touch, dangerously hot, to the point that her clothes were probably moments from bursting into flames, but Ailing continued staring at the circle as if she were completely entranced.
"Darling? Are you alright?" Everlyse said, her voice thick with concern as she gently shook her.
Ailing didn't seem aware of anything else besides the spell. As if every cell in her body was possessed a single purpose, she stood statuesque, unmoving, till suddenly she acted.
Her hands moved slowly and deliberately across each of the rune's symbols. Her fingers ran along the tiny lines of energy carved into the stone and they shimmered faintly like stars twinkling in the night sky before disappearing. The air grew warmer and thicker, forming a cocoon of smoky mist that swirled around them like a storm cloud gathering force in preparation for a thunderstorm. A low hum resonated through the room as Ailing channeled mana into the runes until their surface was as smooth as glass.
*Thump* *Thump*
The vine between the two babies writhed a few more times before stopping yet again.
And Eve and Lyn took their first breaths, as Ailing collapsed to the floor in a pool of her own blood.