With a grimace plastered on his face and his teeth stained with blood, Elach forced himself to turn over in midair and stare down at the endless void of debris that stretched out below him. The two closest pieces were a rock that looked like it would impale him if he so much as touched it and a small square of dirt with a petrified bush that would be about as comfortable to land on as a pincushion. Elach grunted with effort and squeezed at his container, feeling the barest amount of Issi still in him, and using it for the smallest pull he’d ever managed.
His trajectory shifted slightly, the rock slicing a thin line through his pants and just barely against his skin. He hissed in pain that seared into his mind, amplified by the lack of Issi to dull it, but shifted his attention back to living through this fall. He could probably squeeze three or four more tiny pushes out of the last of his Issi, but one of those would have to be to break his fall, so he only really had two or three more chances at this.
Wind bit at his face as his clothes slapped harshly against his body. Elach tried to take a deep breath but coughed at the invasive winds that forced themselves into his throat, his concentration shattered for the briefest moment. Flow’s worried song became a loud and frenzied mess of notes and caws as they felt Elach falter, and Elach felt them offer their Issi up to him. A cool pool of relief right on the other side of his link.
All he had to do was take.
“No, buddy.” He croaked through clenched teeth. “I’m not hurting you.”
More cacophonous noises came through Elach’s bond, Flow desperately insisting that Elach wouldn’t kill them. The amount of trust and love that spilled forth overwhelmed him, years of built up feelings that he didn’t have pushing him towards Flow’s offering.
All he had to do was take.
Elach reluctantly reached out to grasp his bond with Flow, feeling the offered Issi on the other side shoved down towards him. He pressed his mouth into a tight line and began humming once more, reaching into Flow’s song and overpowering their notes with his own. Flow never once relented their song, keeping strong as Elach took the center stage, placing himself in the path of their collection technique and reaping the benefits they offered.
Taking Flow’s potential for his own.
He gasped as Issi trickled into him, stretched thin and diminished by the effort to push it through the bond, but still there. After just a few short seconds, Elach had enough for one more short pull. It would take hours to gather enough for a full chain, but he didn’t have hours. He’d have to make do with the dregs he could strain through Flow.
Three small links of chain was all he could manage, and Elach ground to a halt from freefall. If his Issi didn’t protect him from the other effects of stopping immediately, he would have found most of his organs smashed against each other, but instead he simply hung by his little chain subsisting on the trickle of Issi he was taking from Flow.
“Thanks, buddy.” Elach sighed, dangling from his chain while he studied the abyss below. He needed to find a piece of debris that he could comfortably land on, then take a good long rest to recharge himself. “Don’t overwork yourself. I’ll find you soon enough.”
Elach eyed a piece of debris that looked like it would be big enough to hold his weight, then let go of his chain. He plummeted for a dozen seconds before chaining himself once more, slowly descending at a pace that didn’t risk giving himself a heart attack or greatly overshooting his target.
A whisper spoke nonsense to the edge of Elach’s mind, and he slapped at his face like there was a mosquito biting him. He felt something bite at the connection between him and Flow, but in the way a curious puppy nipped at someone’s fingers. But just as a puppy could break skin, the trickle of Issi between him and Flow immediately broke.
“What the hells?” Elach muttered, dismissing his chain then and there. He angled himself to fall over the piece of debris and plummeted, catching himself at the last moment before he slammed into it, then gently dropped onto the dirt square. “Flow? Are you still there buddy?”
The song continued, but the trickle was gone. Something had come between him and Flow, but that should have been impossible. This was Elach’s headspace. He was alone with Flow.
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Exhaustion suddenly overtook him, and Elach fell backwards into the soft dirt. It was as if all the remaining energy in his body had been consumed, and he took a long breath while staring up into the abyss. He wasn’t going to get anywhere without Issi, and his eyes fell shut before he could think another thought.
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Sentence watched as his bond with Elach was tested. It felt as if something was trying to insert itself as an intermediary, but that should have been impossible. The stain was locked away, any hope it had of further influencing Elach stymied by layer upon layer of Issi.
He shook his head and sighed, rising from his rocking chair with a grunt. He’d hoped it would never come to this, as there didn’t seem to be any other beings of his strength remaining that still offered to bond with the people of the world.
“There are still other mementos.” Sentence spoke to empty air, letting his words settle in his headspace with the weight he knew they held. “But why would they have any interest in Elach?”
Sentence shouldered open a heavy wooden door, stepping through to a plain stone room with a furnace on one end and a grindstone on the other. If he lay down and stretched out his arms, Sentence would be able to touch both walls at once. He stepped to the exact center and leaned over, wiping his hand across empty space to reveal a blackened anvil with gouges and scars from overuse. A remnant of a war that had gone on far too long.
His own weathered face stared back at him, and Sentence hated what he saw. Guilt. Worry. And anticipation. Ever since Prisoner disappeared without a trace, he’d begun to hope again. And hope was a very dangerous thing in his hands.
“No. I must believe in him.” He mumbled, reaching into the fire and palming a glob of molten metal that shimmered like the rainbow. It slammed down onto the anvil with significance that would be lost on anyone but Sentence, his hand quickly following to give it shape. “Elach won’t fall to temptation. But if he decides to fall, that is his decision to make.”
The shimmering metal curved between his fingers like putty, sparking into a wicked edge as Sentence ran his fingers down what would become the blade. It had been millennia since he’d forged anything, and even longer since he’d forged with anything but cold calculation. The warmth of hope and worry were as foreign to the memento as freedom. But he’d gotten a taste of freedom from the miracle of Prisoner’s departure.
Somewhere, somehow, a chill ran up the spine of something that knew itself immortal and all powerful. Sentence’s gentle caress sculpted a weapon that would bring its end, and somehow, it knew. But like all things old and unchallenged, it ignored it.
The memento trusted. The memento hoped. The memento wanted.
Greater beings had fallen to less.
Calloused fingers shaped a handle to fit the blade, long and slender with enough ridges to fit all the materials he would later fill it with. Sentence traced words in languages long forgotten through the very being of the handle, carving it into the bones of existence in a way very few others had. This weapon would not be forgotten.
He then shaped the guard, whether it ended up being needed or not, leaving gaping holes in the guard’s physical form so that it could fit whatever weapon the blade ended up becoming. If it became an axe like him, the guard would become twine and rivets to cement the head in place. If it was a sword, the guard would protect the hands that wielded it from the bite of the blade. And if it became a spear, the guard would dangle down in strips of colour to remind every living being who witnessed it that the end was near.
But the blade remained unforged. The edge was sharp, yes, but that was all there was. And until Sentence was utterly sure which type of weapon was needed, he wouldn’t finalize the blade’s form. It would be a disservice to a weapon such as this to be anything but perfect.
Staring down at the three pieces, Sentence knew there was far more that would go into this weapon than he could make with the rainbow metal. But instead of frustrating him, the thought filled him with joy. He had something to work towards. Something to put his everything into, instead of letting time flow past him like a stone in a river, slowly worn down by apathy until nothing remained.
Apathetic was something Sentence now vowed to never become once more.
He trembled with anticipation as he left his forge, his heart pumping a dull grey fluid through his veins that hadn’t flowed in as long as he could remember. The weapon wouldn’t be ready for a long while, as the ingredients he needed to complete it would need to be grown and harvested. His gardens would need months, maybe more. And to mine all the needed resources from the mountains on the outer edge of his headspace would take countless days of meticulous scouring of every vein and cavern.
“I’ll need to ensure the stain is properly bound before I venture out.” Sentence mused, scraping his fingers clean of the rainbow metal. Bright sparks spiraled into miniature supernovas, creating tiny implosions that tried to draw everything towards their centers. Sentence allowed none of it. “If I remember correctly, I stored all of my seeds under the sundial for preservation’s sake. I’ll have to carve out quite a few new plots of land.”
With a wave of his hand, Sentence split his headspace in two along a glistening rainbow wound. How long had it been since he had to take caution with something? How long had it been since he’d had to isolate his safe everyday life from the existential threat he knew he was?
“Too long.” Sentence rumbled, a smile cutting through his face accompanied by the din of sharpening blades.