“Why won’t this work?!” Quartz tried to force her mana into the magic circle by diffusing her, well, quartz into it, but that did not work. “Dammit!”
“You’re trying too hard,” She hadn’t even realized Cira’s presence until she spoke, “In fact. What are you even trying for, anyway?”
The witch was dumbfounded, almost looking like she was slapped in the face. Her mana calmed as did the island with it. So, Cira pressed her, “Do you want to know why little Mudrock, sent to sweep up rocks on the doomed island below, is outperforming you by several orders of magnitude?”
Her staff hand faltered and the rivers of quartz noticeably dimmed. With a fist clenched, she seemed without words—without argument at least.
“Let me show you.” Light coalesced in Cira’s hand, “Prismagora.”
A tear in the sky appeared, like a window with blurred edges and an island came into view within it. Jagged pillars of stone rose high above the treetops while the ruins of a small village could be seen in the center. About a quarter of the entire island was taken up by a piece of another lying on its side and the surrounding rubble. The place looked like an earth elemental went on a rampage.
“What—is this place?” Her eyes went wide in shock. “This can’t be. It… didn’t miss?”
The island they were currently standing on was much larger than the one below, even as they smushed it together, so there was a fair chance much of the falling debris would be way off.
“Didn’t I tell you before?” Mudrock said, “The Hidden Witch stopped it. You should have seen her—”
Cira stopped her by holding up a finger in place. “It was neither easy, nor enjoyable, but my deeds are aside the point. Do you see this place, Quartz Witch?” Cira focused in on the village with the pile of deflected stones and people all gathered around already trying to rebuild. “Little Mudrock herself almost gave her life when that stone fell this morning, and as a result, the villagers survived long enough for the shrapnel to settle.”
“S-so what is this?” The witch snarled, but without any temper. She sounded defeated and tiptoeing around throes of anguish, “Some kind of game to make Mudrock look good? Is your goal to mock the High Coven—”
“Don’t be daft. I don’t know what kind of issues you got going on above, but I have enough of my own. This is my problem with you lot. You only think about yourselves and make no end of trouble for others.” The blood drained from her face at Cira’s tangent, “Little Mudrock is only here because she has people beneath her to protect. Even your apprentice is doing better because she genuinely wants to help, and I got the impression she didn’t even know there was an island below.
“It really makes me wonder, about the difference between this High Coven, and the witches you order around.” Just like Nanri, it seems the younger witches all really want to help, and each one of them blind to the machinations behind Earth Vein’s curtain above. Like the ones in power keep them in the dark of all their most vile secrets. “Or could it be… to survive in these skies and become a great witch, you all have to give up the pieces of yourself that granted you power in the first place.”
Is it those sacrifices which become the secrets they hide from the bright and earnest youth? I couldn’t get a read on Estelle, but this witch seems very conflicted.
Quartz stared at Cira with fists shaking, but when she turned to the ground a tear fell from her eyes. “You… What would you know? The all powerful Hidden Witch! You can reshape a whole island, so why are you toying with us like this?! What do you want? Can’t you just do it all yourself?”
“Look up.” Cira turned her attention again to the catastrophe displayed, “Do I look all-powerful to you? I bet my father would have just teleported the rock a little off course without even getting out of his seat, or outright absorbed it for mana. And believe it or not, I am tired of pushing the limits of my sor—of my witchcraft. I’m supposed to be on vacation right now, not helping out contracted witches who are actually getting paid for this. I believe I mentioned mashing the earth together is useless, but that stops it from falling on the island below for the time being. Now if you would be so kind as to do your job, like you really mean it, I can focus on getting to the root cause of this crumbling earth.”
“W-we have to do our part, Madam Quartz!” Mudrock gave her a bright smile.
“Yeah…” The apprentice Shale said quietly, “If we don’t… people could get hurt! We just need to buy Madam Hidden Witch more time!”
And Cira meant it too. She didn’t want to burn her soul up just to gain ultimate control over yet another island. It was time to offload some work so she could get to the bottom of this without pushing herself.
Quartz struggled after getting belittled like that, but Cira had evidently cut right to the issue. In a roundabout and more immersive manner, she had convinced the witch that her will was paltry compared to the bright-eyed youth whose title was only earned because her precious Adjutant needed someone worthless to throw away.
Tears welled up in the Quartz Witch’s eyes and she appeared to have come to some understanding. she nodded without looking Cira in the eye, “Just…. Just leave this to us.”
Seeing someone so obstinate realize reason was actually moderately heartwarming, and Cira left the witches with a warm smile.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Very well then.” Her body faded away into cerulean light, “I am off to the spring.”
___
Hardly a minute later, the island shook and the three witches’ attention was drawn to the high point of the island, where the ground was more solid and which held the spring. It was like an aurora, or one of those glowing tide events that can only be witnessed once a year or a single time over decades.
Unlike a normal natural phenomenon which often wrought destruction, the witches felt a gentle wave of subtly oppressive mana wash over the entire island as a pillar of pure blue light rose to the sky, originating from the spring.
“What…” The Quartz Witch lost her breath, “What is that?”
Her apprentice watched from behind with stars in her eyes and it was Mudrock who spoke, “That’s her… It has to be.”
“But that mana… It feels like the aether itself is spitting it out. Just how does she do that?"
“If you wanna know what I think.” Mudrock giggled, twirling her staff around to bring in a gust of sand from the edge, “It’s her unfaltering will. Is there any other witch in the sky that would burn her body and soul in place of an aura to save an island with less residents than a single city block in Port Gandeux?”
Quartz couldn’t think straight as she stared up at the ephemeral column of cerulean. There had to be more mana within it than most springs she had ever laid eyes on.
“No.” Her voice trembled, “I really don’t think there is…”
___
“Back at it again, are we Aquon?” Cira was half submerged in the shallow spring lake. The spring itself, she could nearly wrap her hands around when she hugged it. Granted, it was water so she could have passed through it anyway, but the hug test seemed adequate for sizing up small springs. It wasn’t that it felt unexpectedly comforting or anything.
Aquon sat above her opposite shoulder as Nina, who had reappeared from the raw cerulean gem not long after. She seemed curious, so Cira offered her a grin before getting to work.
“It will be different this time.” Water wrapped around Cira’s arm like a snake and her outstretched hand glowed with power. “Spring Sense.”
It felt a lot more like the first time she tried it all those years ago rather than the second, more recent attempt. Unlike Fount Salt, this island was one of those disk-shaped ones, sometimes referred to as slate-type, so most of the rivers ran above ground.
In layman terms, this meant she did not become an island with water in her veins, but instead, spread her authority throughout various pathways with the spring as an anchor point. The way this sorcery was supposed to work.
Her soul didn’t shatter, nor did she come close to losing consciousness, but a deep pain stabbed her chest this time.
It hurts… What is this?
Even a minute in, this burning twinge was dreadful. Cira couldn’t imagine feeling it for decades, or even hundreds of years, but somehow, she knew the pain had been gathering for at least that long.
This poor island. Do they all… feel such pain?
She was not the island this time, but the spring was basically an island’s heart.
I have seen a fledgling island before with a spring just beginning to gain vitality, but this is altogether different. I can feel not just the absence of vitality, but its loss. How… How very dismal.
Her mind was essentially interlinked with the spring. Its woes were hers, and vice versa for what it’s worth.
It felt like death was impending, like she were covered in wrinkles and the sands had almost settled.
Could it be, this island is just too old? But… this isn’t some fragile lifeform born of flesh and bone. This is an island—islands can’t grow old, get wrinkly, gray-haired. Could this storm it sits upon like a sea of ink in fact be its deathbed?
Her feelings resonated with the spring and only hopelessness was returned. There was nothing to be done about it. A light rain started to fall over the land.
No. I can’t accept that… I don’t know why that old man stayed alive long enough to bring me a letter, but I refuse to make the final words he ever heard a lie.
Cira told him she would fix this island, and she meant it.
I’ve seen a girl turn into an island, but has an island ever turned into a girl?
All the components were there. Body and soul, island and spring.
I’ve done this before… Haven’t I?
The primary hurdle was that islands were not kept alive by life, but by the synergy of reality’s components within the bounds of this world’s workings. Unfortunately, the specifics of which were remarkably difficult to study but this was her understanding.
I don’t get why a spring and its spot of earth stay aloft, but it’s a fact. There’s no reason I can’t do the same thing with this island as I did with Kuja. I just need to find an analog. What is life’s equivalent in this context? What binding factor allows the phenomenon of perpetual levity?
Perhaps Cira had never thought thoroughly enough about the phenomenon of life, but it seemed there was a common denominator she had overlooked. A concept that had been dancing around her lately with no lack of blatancy.
It’s willpower. That’s the answer. Islands don’t have wills like people or spirits, but perhaps something more like the bird young Pita crafted… It simply wants to be.
How lonely… must it be to sit out here in the sky with but a single resident tending to a broken tower?
As if something was missing, Cira felt a hole in her chest. Something fundamental that she had always known, at least since Gazen passed away, yet the condition of the spring was transposed over her soul. It took a while to narrow down, but the difference between the two images that made up the unnamed waterways that were Cira was plain as day now. Like a thorn in her palm, it couldn’t be less subtle.
This island…
It’s lonely.
Part of her felt sad just lying there. Her currents were weak and dreary, while many of them dried up in a shallow pool halfway before they reached the shore. She just felt so pitiful. Even looking at the ragged lighthouse sent her into hours of depression per second like she had reentered the void.
Could it be… if the ruin eaters came and devoured it all away—would it feel like a fresh start? Would someone… one day… found a village on this island? I have lots of land. Perhaps, it could be even larger than the one below, larger than even Heron Village.
Honestly, I think I could become a regular Plackelo. I’m no stranger to civility, and this spring on a high mountain has lots of potential. Water could reach anywhere I please—there’s even plenty of debris stones lingering in the storm that could easily widen my shores. There’s something tranquil about the jet-black sea of clouds upon which my rocky underside rests—
Cira felt a tremble in her soul.
Wait.
It was almost too comfortable.
Don’t…
Sometimes the simplest solution was the best—
No… I don’t want to!
A storm of aether had accumulated overhead and it started sucking up the storm, turning black and ominous, throwing a cage of tumultuous rain over the island. There was a sense of peace sitting there in the sky, beckoning the coming days, but the storm threw that all into chaos.
If I just become this island—I can make it all stop.