“You were always like this.” Ral tried to shove her away but the claws crushed down with incredible strength. “You always had to win. Isn’t that what this is about?”

“You were the same,” Aris spat back, smoke coalescing around her head churning angrily with her words. “We are two sides of the same coin.”

“Yeah, but people grow,” Ral panted. “People change. What about you, little moon?”

“Don’t fucking call me that,” she screeched down at him. The smoke covered her form and molded itself into the shape of a huge angry bear. It reared back several stories up in the sky in an otherworldly howl. However, the effort used by Aris to do that lessened the pressure piling down on Ral and he was able to twist himself free. He burst away from two, three more columns of solidified smoke trying to swat him back into place. Although she was now hiding in what looked to be a massive bear form, Ral had an approximate idea of where her real body hid - he could feel where her malformed, mutated solute was hiding. He scampered up a nearby tree to gain some vertical distance and propelled himself into the air with staff pointed forward again.

Again, wayward tendrils knocked him from his trajectory. It wasn’t enough to knock him to the ground, but he crashed ungracefully into a tree and a broken branch tore a long gash at his arm. He ignored the pain and dipped back under the cover of trees still standing to avoid Aris’s next attacks and tried again.

Three times he tried to strike her at the center and three times he was thwarted. It was strange since the smoke-projection of Aris’s bear was slow, as were the movements of solidified smoke tendrils. He was definitely faster and more nimble yet she was able to intercept him at every turn. It was as if she knew where he would be.

He thought of her glowing green eyes. She did, after all, absorb the powers of a god. This smoke, these unholy powers - all of it was probably from the Part. Perhaps she was already too far gone. Maybe the only thing left to do is to stop her and that could only mean her death. She was no longer listening to reason. Ral wondered how much Aris was left inside her.

She was trying to kill him. If he didn't approach this with the same intentions, she may be successful. So Ral swallowed the lump of guilt and gathered his wits about him to strike again. This time, when something tried to knock him away again, he made a bone-aching twist with his body and glanced the staff off the surface of an attacking column of solid smoke. It propelled him into an unplanned direction - slightly off the mark but close enough to where he knew Aris was hiding. The throat of the bear-projection disappeared to reveal Aris’s snarling face and torso. The cruelly pointed staff had missed her ribs and grazed the skin, blood blooming into her already filthy tunic.

Aris’s hand - her normal hand - shot out and disappeared into Ral’s torso. Sharp pain shot through him as her hand seemed to have plunged right into his internal organs. It was as if her hand turned into a ghost and phased through his flesh. The staff snapped back together, metal caps cracking shut. He melded the metal into the sharpest blade he could muster and welded it like a short dagger. The edge rammed into Aris’s very solid wrist, drawing blood. She immediately withdrew her spectral hand, spewing curses.

Ral immediately reared back to strike her again. The wind was knocked out of him as a tendril of solid smoke crashed into his side and sent him flying back into the trees. His arms came up in time to prevent himself from going headfirst against a trunk, but the impact blacked out his vision for a few heartbeats before he could dazedly open his eyes again.

A screaming mass of smoke and green gemstone hurled at him, knocking him sideways again. If only he was faster. If only he was stronger. But he couldn’t die here, not with the people of Sansre, of Gaia, depending on him. He was able to open his eyes again to see eight cruel gray-white claws fan out and come for him. His hand reached for his staff but came up with nothing. It was knocked out of his hand and lost somewhere in the forest.

There was a shout and something else ran at him. A flash of metal and Ral saw Rasks’ staff defend them against the eight claws. “Up, Ralos,” Rask huffed over his shoulder. “Up!”

Hazily, Ral could see over the freerunner’s shoulder that Aris was still floating in that strange cloud of smoke, now only half in bear form. The claws had stilled for some reason, a tortured expression crossing his sister’s face.

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Having his head smacked so many times ironically led him to be able to achieve stillness more easily. He saw it at the moment Rask arrived: the opportunity. This was the kind of stillness the Somas sought for. The pure clarity in the middle of a fight devoid of emotion and pain.

He did it in one swift movement. First he pushed and tripped Rask such that he would fall safely on the ground and avoid the brunt of any attacks. Next he took the staff loosened from Rask’s grip and anchored a hand against a claw to pivot and push himself behind the cruel talons. Then he had enough momentum to drive the pointed end of the staff right into his own sister.

ARIS

The world was filled with brightness and flashing now. She had been in the dark for so long and now she could see. Swimming glowing spots, all meaning something. Aris had to play it by the seat of her pants but for once she could do things without pain and it was exhilarating.

But most importantly there was a reason. Moon’s blessing she had a fucking reason to use her powers. For so long she sat in this endless pit of nothingness but now… now she had something to do. Yes, Ralos had to die. His form flitted around her ‘vision’ and she sent out long tendrils of herself to target him. He abandoned her. Ral had grown up to be yet another man trying to tell her how to live.

Stupid child…

The sound of a baby crying filled her mind and she needed to drown it out. Moon as her fucking witness she was going to put and end to it. Her heart pumped too fast as a bright, burning energy filled the pit of her stomach. The desire to raze it all to the ground punched out from deep within her at the beat of her erratic heart. Death was the only answer now. Crazed death.

There are no gods. There is no fate. This world was going to see her hateful demise along with her brother’s. Aris wanted it to all end. That’s all she thought about as she tried to kill her brother. The one person she thought would understand turned out to understand nothing at all. She had no one now.

He moved so fast she could only barely keep up. He almost landed a fatal blow. Aris considered how he could kill her: she welcomed that idea. Then for once she could get what she wanted. But at some point she was able to overwhelm her with sheer anger and she thought she had him cornered and dazed.

But then someone stood between them. A solute that was both different yet familiar to Aris. She heard his voice telling Ral to stand and Aris immediately recognized Rask’s voice.

Close your eyes…

There was a sudden pull in the Solvent, like Ral was drawing on it. Aris knew it was over. He moved at such an incredible speed that she wasn’t even sure when the weapon pierced her. She wasn’t even sure how much it hurt.

She blinked and two other solutes stood between them - Camaz and Verne. There was a violent movement and whatever weapon that pierced her was suddenly removed, a rush of disappointment going with it. Holding her bleeding side, she mustered up the storm of emotions again: the resentment, the frustration, the incredibly overwhelming loneliness. She drew on the powers of what could have been if it wasn’t for fate. And then…

She felt arms circle around her firmly. They were not threatening or oppressive, just… desperate. It was Camaz, she realized. Aris froze, shocked at the touch. Everyone in the Academy had long considered them to be parent and child, but Camaz had never shown a modicum of affection to her. It was as if he wanted to keep people guessing - were they related? It was another one of his stupid spy games.

But his hug was warm and reminded Aris of Nilda. For once he held her like a parent would.

“I’m sorry, my child,” Camaz rumbled in her hair. “I am… I am so sorry. I should have known you were suffering. I should have listened. I should have helped you.”

Her chest heaved at his words. How dare he. How dare he. But the anger never came. Instead, her heart broke and she sobbed into his shoulder. He clutched at her harder to his chest, squeezing her tight.

“You are more than what the Parts say. You are more than prophecy, more than what remains of your childhood home. I wish I could prove it to you.” His hands were firm around her shoulders, firm against her back as if grounding the words into her solute. “You don’t need to destroy everything to make a change - you don’t need to end your life or your brother’s life to prove the gods wrong. You and your brother will lead your own lives, make your own decisions, forge your own paths. It will be alright, little moon. Everything will be alright. I promise. I promise.”

Aris cried like the day she first met him. All the horrors of the days before spilled over and she laid her heart bare while she cried and cried and cried. When she slowly slipped into deep, exhausted sleep, Aris found herself realizing that for once she believed in her mentor’s words.