I finally have Word again so it makes crossposting from ao3 less of a nightmare.

I really like (love) high fantasy but I feel pretty alone on that, so here I am, uploading my unwanted high fantasy genre Vocaloid fanfics. This story started off as a mess, but I think I've finally got it to a reasonable place, so sorry if you looked at the disaster it was on ao3 prior to me revising existing chapters/rewriting the summary and title. On that note, it's far from perfect and is still kind of vaguely like a trip, so, er.

I'll update this when I remember, which may as well be never at this stage because my memory has dingdonged right into the fifth dimension and I have to rely on my reminders app to function the bare minimum as a human being. Lmao. Alternatively you can read the next three chapters on ao3, if you're really that keen.

the keepers

Everyone talked about the girl who absorbed a fragment of nox, but no one would utter her name.

It had happened the year before I transferred to Crypton. The reason why I moved all the way from the humble countryside to the big city, was because my father was offered work in the crystal mines beneath the outer suburbs. Although I was reluctant to the change, it was inevitable, given we were starved for income in the village. Besides, my grandmother had passed years before, and it was just my father and I, so there was nothing left to hold us back.

So we left the countryside bittersweet, and I started to attend school in the city. I stupidly expected prestige and shining marble and wise-beyond-their-ears lecturers on my first day, yet came face-to-face with the aftermath of what historians dubbed The Worst Nox-Related Accident in Recent History.

Nox was one of the many crystals mined from underneath Crypton, and was one of the many crystals that supposedly granted a person magical abilities.

I hadn't heard of it until I moved, because magic wasn't something that could be afforded outside of the city, or was really necessary to possess. I only knew of terra, the crystal of earth, and aqua, the crystal of water, because the local mage in my village used them to 'maintain harmony'. (But, in retrospect, it was more so just for show.)

I hadn't used magic myself, not until I attended college in Crypton. My father had told me it would be good to learn how to use it, considering it was so essential in our new home.

"Your mother had a talent for it, so maybe you will, too."

He forgot to mention that my new school would look like something post-apocalypse.

It soon sunk in that I knew nothing about this strange place; where kids could grow plants and set fire to them, where a girl my age could send an entire city into lockdown.

Although some people had taken pity on my lack of knowledge about magic—having explained the troublesome past of nox, what had initiated the accident—they clammed up on the subject of the girl, the perpetrator. All I could devise was that a student—who was, although now a criminal, still regarded to very highly—absorbed some nox during an experiment, and consequently blew a hole into the side of the school.

But her identity, or her whereabouts, or anything else about the event was forbidden to mention.

When I tried to pry about who she was, Miku, the class president, had rattled off something along the lines of a name is very important, as well as very dangerous. She was forced to spoon-feed me because of her position as class leader and my position as a clueless new student, thus all I ever did was ask her tedious and blatant questions.

"What do you mean?" I'd asked. She had rolled her eyes, and told me to drop the subject.

I thought it was strange, as I'd thought about most new things that came with city living, but I decided to keep my curiosity on the subject to myself.

Most of the time.

My tutor in magic, Luka, lead me down one of the far-east halls to her laboratory. Her heels clicked noisily against the stone floor, disturbing the morbid silence between us. The east wing was mostly abandoned due to some damage from the accident; only some professors kept their labs, but the classrooms were ruled inaccessible.

I attempted to peer through the boards covering the windows of the classrooms we passed, catching glimpses of the charred remains of desks and chairs, tattered textbooks abandoned in a rush of panic.

"Keep your eyes to yourself, Kagamine," Luka snapped over her shoulder, having sensed my ogling at the windows.

I straightened and dragged my gaze back to the floor while the blood rushed to my cheeks.

Upon reaching her lab, she instructed me to sit in a chair facing her desk with a warning not to touch anything. She took a seat across from me and began to rifle through some paperwork, humming to herself.

Once Luka found whatever she was looking for, she looked back up at me.

"Show me your hand," she ordered. I obeyed, and she sighed. "No, your other hand. Your rune, Len."

I blinked, exchanging hands and placing my left palm out in front of her. My birthmark, consisting of a strange circular pattern, stared back up at us.

They called them runes, here, the birthmarks; in the village no one cared much for them, besides the few fortune tellers who used them for reading your 'future'. In the city, however, your rune defined the kind of magic you used—and how powerful you were, or at least that was what Miku had suggested.

Luka's eyes traced the lines and she would look away every few seconds to check her book, jotting down notes. She mumbled things like, "The moon in vertex…" and, "Yes, the sun is in dextera." I understood nothing.

Eventually, she set down her pen and looked up at me. "Will you be alright if I leave to grab some crystals from down the hall?"

I nodded, although I didn't see the need for her to ask.

When she left, I leaned over in curiosity, trying to read her notes upside-down. Most of it was indiscernible scribble and magic lingo I didn't understand, at least not yet. Her desk was covered in notes similar—probably other student's runes, as she was in charge of that department in the college.

The door clicked open. I sat back in the seat as Luka walked in holding a black box.

"We only have some temporary gloves for students to use with the crystals," she said as she took her seat again. "You'll need to talk to your father about maybe purchasing a proper glove for classes, though. For the time being, you can borrow ours."

She opened the box, pulled out a piece of black fabric and held it out for me to try on. It was a glove for my left hand, the hand with my rune, and had the style where the fingers were exposed; fabric ending at the knuckles. On the back of it was four pockets, arranged over each knuckle. I guessed it was for the crystals.

"I think ignis, fulmen, ventus and stella will do best for you," Luka continued, gesturing to the crystals sitting in the bottom of the box. When I gave her a blank look, she clarified, "Ignis, the power of fire, is the red one. Fulmen, the power of lightning, is the yellow one. Cael, the sky, is cloudy, and stella, the star, is white."

Most were easy to guess what kind of magic they granted by her description. I pointed to stella. "What power does that one have?"

Luka eyed the crystal, mulling over her response. "That one… is more so spiritual. I'll teach you about it properly, later, but first you should focus on understanding and controlling the others."

I wasn't a very spiritual person, so her word choice concerned me a little. My only experience with spirituality was religion, and I did not consider myself religious, nor did I believe in any gods or omniscient beings.

"I chose these crystals according to your rune; your affinity to the sun and its elements is strongest," Luka went on, plucking ignis from the box. "Can I have your hand, again, Len?"

I held out my left hand for her to slot the red crystal into the innermost pocket. It grew warm, triggering a similar sensation within my palm. I squirmed in my seat, disturbed.

She scanned my face. "Do you feel it?"

I assumed she meant the heat, so I nodded.

"First, we'll start with ignis," she told me, turning to the bookcase behind her. She reached up and plucked a book from one of the shelves, setting it down on the desk between us. After sifting through the pages, she stopped on a page with a detailed illustration of the red crystal.

"Ignis is one of the four main elemental crystals—all beginners learn with and use an elemental crystal. The other elemental crystals are called terra, aqua and ventus, respectively. I'll teach you about them later, but right now we'll focus on ignis. With ignis, you harness the ability to create and control fire."

She bookmarked the page she was on. "Your homework tonight is to read about ignis and become acquainted with it. Fire can be dangerous when used immaturely, so it's best you research it, Len."

Luka then closed the book and handed it to me. I put it away in my satchel.

When I looked back up at her, she held out her hand. "You can't keep the glove and crystals until I feel you've developed your abilities, so I'll look after them for you until the next lessons," she said.

I glanced down at the glove on my hand, a tad disappointed, before tugging it off and handing it over. She placed it back in the box, along with ignis.

"When is the next lesson?" I asked as she put the box in a drawer.

"At the moment, every afternoon after school, if preferable," she answered, turning back to her desk top to stack and file her paperwork. "Does this suit your schedule?"

"Yes."

"When I feel you've learnt enough of the basics, I'll organise for the lessons to be once every week, and then eventually once every month to check in," she continued. "Hopefully you'll be up to date with your magic classes soon enough."

The first magic class I went to, I stood there, completely stumped by the teacher's instructions. He soon realised I had no clue what was going on and sent me to the school advisor, who organised Luka to be my tutor until I caught up. The whole ordeal was a little humiliating.

It seemed I'd missed a lot, though, so I was uncertain about Luka's positive outlook.

I reached down for my bag, slinging it over one shoulder. "That sounds good."

Luka smiled at me, the corners of her blue eyes crinkling. "I have faith in your talents, Len. See you tomorrow."

"Thank you," I said, before leaving.

Miku cornered me when we crossed paths at the front gate of school. "How was it?" she asked. She must've had to stay late for class president duties.

"How was what?" I asked back, before realising what she was referring to. She quirked a brow, and the tips of my ears burned. "Oh, um, it was good."

She glanced down at my hands, noticing they were bare. Her gaze then flicked back to mine. "So what were the crystals Luka gave you?"

Everyone else in the school wore a glove—in fact, every magic user wore a glove in the city. It was the first thing that surprised me, having only seen it very occasionally in the village. I thought it was something only certain people were allowed to possess, but I was wrong.

Miku had one, too. It was made of a sturdy, white fabric that never stained, with gold ridges over the knuckles—some sort of flexible metal for defence, maybe. She wore hers on her right hand, though.

I struggled to recall the names of the crystals. "Um, ignis… and uh, I think it was fulven? Wait, fulmen, the lightning one. The other was… cael, maybe, and uh… the star one…" I trailed off, looking to her for help.

Her mouth curved. "Stella?"

"Yes."

Miku nodded her head. "Interesting," she said, in a way that suggested she knew something I didn't. I cocked an eyebrow. "So did you use any magic?"

"No," I said. "I have to study ignis first before I can do anything."

She snorted. "Sounds like fun."

"Not really," I told her with a pained expression. She laughed at me and we stopped walking, having already reached the navis terminal nearby the school.

Miku sighed. "Well, I've got to go to the west side. It's south for the mining families, right?" She looked over at me.

I shrugged. "Probably. Is the west for rich people?"

She laughed at me again as an answer, before starting off in the direction of the west-bound platform. "See you tomorrow, Len," she said over her shoulder, before disappearing into the mid-afternoon rush of commuters.

Once she was no longer in my line of sight, I shuffled off to my platform. I still wasn't used to the navis. They were strange vehicles that used the canals around and under the city, made with complicated magic—such technology was unheard of in the countryside.

The navis was akin to a large bubble in appearance, but it never popped and didn't feel wet to touch. Inside had seats lined with scratchy fabric and slippery handles that hung from the ceiling. They always smelt faintly of sea-water and distorted sound in a way that made it seem like you were always underwater.

The first time I rode one, I was confused and terrified. But now, much of that fear had ebbed away to the familiar ache of motion sickness.

I read the book Luka gave me on the ride home. The mining suburb, as people dubbed it, was the last terminal on the south line, so it took around an hour and a half to get home. It was so far away because the suburb was built close to the mine entrance. I didn't mind the commute, despite the distance.

The city was huge, so huge I could hardly comprehend its size. There was the centre, where I went to school, and then the inner suburbs, and the outer suburbs—where I lived, and finally, the wasteland; a mixture of slums, countryside, ruins and industrial.

My suburb was closest to the slums and countryside sectors. Father had told me to never go to the slums, because it was riddled with unspoken dangers. He knew that much to warn me, having heard horror stories from my mother's childhood.

I never knew why she had made the choice to abandon the city for some crummy village off in the middle of nowhere. When I'd asked my father about it, he only gave a cryptic answer of, "There are some things in this world, Len, that you are best not knowing."

She died when I was five, and no one uttered a word of how. I guessed it was something beyond my knowledge—something to do with her magic, or the city, or something like that. As much as I wanted to know what had happened, I kept my mouth shut, for I knew it wasn't something I could just ask.

The temperature had dropped by the time I arrived home.

Crypton winters were notorious for lots of snow and lasting chills, but I didn't know what to anticipate. The village I lived in was far in the north, much warmer and temperate year-round. I wasn't used to the significant temperature difference between day and night, especially as the colder months grew closer.

I checked the message box on the wall near the kitchen for any news from my father and whether he'd be home that night. It was empty, so I guessed he hadn't the chance to send anything yet. Usually, if he wasn't home by the afternoon, he wouldn't be home until the following day.

While waiting, I finished up my reading on ignis and took a bath, changing into some warmer clothes.

When I checked the message box again later, something had arrived, and as expected it was from my father. He'd written that an incident happened at the mine, so he wouldn't be able to come home until late tomorrow morning.

The message finished with, "Just call Lily if you need anything."

Lily was my mother's sister—my aunt—but I didn't know her well, only meeting her a few times prior to moving to Crypton. She was sharp with her words and talked too much, and personally, I wouldn't call her unless the house was on fire.

I frowned at the message. If the incident was dire enough, I would probably hear wind of it tomorrow. If not, my father would probably tell me whenever I saw him next.

Eager to kill the rest of the afternoon, I curled up at my desk and settled on tackling more homework.