Throughout her many existences, Yeul never made a choice of her own. Not without disrupting the timeline, causing paradoxes, and ending lives, at least, and not without changing the fate of her world and giving up what remained of her life. Not without saying goodbye one more time. She never lived on her own terms.
Yet here she stood in the practice field for young mages in this beautiful village, straining to conjure a simple fire while Leonora reminded everyone the importance of how they chose to see the flames.
Etro showed her many things, like memories of puffy trees and towering predators. Of prophecies and the work of a Seer. But she never trained to cast magic or call on the mystic energies within her and Etro didn't deign once to enlighten her on the subject.
Yeul bit her lip when yet another spark died to nothing in her fingers. The other mages of Mysidia showed no trouble at all with the exercise. Her leg hurt from standing so long and she yearned for a break.
Which Yeul was she, anyway? She liked to believe she was the last, the one from the end of the world that never was. The one she remembered best. The Yeul who had Noel and his kindly words, his strengthening presence, and that laughter so contagious she would cry tears of mirth.
She groaned and rubbed at her temples as Leonora called out changes to the group exercises. Switching from casting fires to blizzards.
Yeul tried for a moment to picture cold, to feel it drifting down her limbs and stiffening her fingers. She felt the chill of bleeding out, the chill of a final vision vanishing from her eyes, taking her life with it. She felt the chill of death, Caius' warm hands meaning nothing to her corpse.
She felt an energy rising to her, taken from the grass beneath. It came within reach and, as always, dissipated before she caught it. Instead, dark memories composed of hundreds of lives rippled to the surface of her mind and the smell of morning dew overtook her.
She dropped her hands in frustration, closed her eyes, and took a moment to feel the refreshing autumn wind. It wouldn't last much longer before winter crept in.
No one else struggled except for maybe Corlie over there that always took longer to get started. It shouldn't be hard to channel it, not with the full moon that passed beneath the horizon only two hours before.
She worked to smother her agitation when Leonora came her way. Their teacher moved slowly, of course, pausing to check each mage's work. Ice clawed up Yeul's arm, but it evaporated after a short moment. Didn't even generate icicles in the air.
She tried long enough, lost herself in memory long enough. Yeul dropped the spell and watched others in the practice session. Most of the mages managed thin, shining icicles that crisscrossed out to the sides. The air felt crisper for it and provided a stark contrast to the previous heat of the flames.
"Nothing yet?" Leonora asked. Yeul sat in the corner of the field for newer mages. The novices, most of whom were years younger than she.
This section followed a softer set of rules than the rest. After all, most of those around her had yet to reach ten years of age.
Yeul avoided her gaze. The first round of icicles melted in the sunlight and the magi prepared a second volley. The crystal-clear water droplets reflected the early morning sunlight in radiant sparkles that danced around the village.
Up until the later spring, Palom and Porom ran these exercises. The change to Leonora proved an odd adjustment – Yeul enjoyed being with her outside of class, but here in training, she proved far more demanding than Yeul expected despite her soft voice and deceptive patience.
Leonora stood beside Yeul for a long moment without comment or question. The silent proximity left an uncomfortable fluttering in her stomach.
"Nora!" Ava, a girl about eight years old, hurried to Yeul's spot, brittle icicle of her own frozen in the air between her hands. "Look what I got!"
Leonora gave her a warm smile. "That's amazing, Ava. What about melting it down without shattering it?"
Ava frowned in concentration and stiffened. Yeul saw this a hundred times before and couldn't help a flicker of anticipation.
A drop of water slid down the oddly-shaped icicle and Ava narrowed her eyes in concentration. She held it longer than most.
But it shattered. Yeul watched the pieces fly and some pricked her skin. Ava yelped and jumped back.
"That's something to practice, isn't it?" Leonora touched Ava's wrist. "Slower, next time. You've almost got it."
Yeul watched the ice drip into the unnaturally dry grass beneath her knees.
Ava flushed and left grumbling.
"Did any of that hurt you?" Leonora asked.
Yeul shook her head and Leonora went quiet for a moment. Eventually her instructor sighed and said, "There are other things you can do if you can't cast."
Of course, there were. Yeul was never a mage, not once, in all her lives wandering Pulse. Magic back then was reserved for servants of the fal'Cie, not Etro. Not to the soul that lasted forever.
"I'll do what I can for the village." She tried again to chill the air, but nothing happened. "But I want to know why it doesn't work." And why plants died around her sometimes, but she didn't feel comfortable asking about that just yet.
"Maybe you're physically challenged to it." Leonora leaned in. "I don't want to waste your time if you can't pick this up."
"But if I try hard enough-"
Leonora shook her head. "It won't be worth it. At this rate, it'll take years for you to reach even basic mastery."
Yeul chewed on her lip and let her hair fall to conceal her face. "I'm Mysidian. I'm supposed to be a mage."
"Not necessarily. We also need farmers and bakers. Who's going to do those? You know, I was always meant to be just a healer, but I found how much I liked black magic and learned it for myself."
Yeul kept quiet.
"Think about it." Leonora touched her shoulder. "Some of the best are late bloomers and you're aren't all that old yet, but I also don't want you pushing yourself for nothing."
Only, late bloomers tended to mean ten at the latest when they started casting. And the best in the village started closer to five or six.
"Thank you." Yeul didn't know what else to say. She missed having Caius or Noel to talk to – people that understood what this felt like. Noel always knew what to say, and Caius would remind her of her true goal in life. They chose what to do for her and took away this disconcerting burden of decision.
Another round of ice started as the previous one melted. Drops of water that fell moments before flitted up and recrystallized in the air.
Yeul tried to gather the moisture into one place, but no water came. Instead, a blade of grass beneath her hands, one that survived relatively well in the previous attempt, bled color out before wilting.
"Leonora!" The spells stopped and melted back into puddles in the grass, as a mage clad in white robes hurried onto the field. Emala, who rarely came to the field anymore for practice. "Something has appeared on the fields nearby! Near to the twist!"
Leonora tensed. "Was the Elder informed?"
Emala took quick gasps of air, fitting words in between. "Of course. Palom and Porom as well and they've sent for you."
"An… object?" Yeul asked.
"What's the running theory so far?" Leonora asked.
"None, ma'am. Palom's quite irate about it." Emala wrung her hands. "All I can say is that it looks like a magical artifact. There's a central orb standing in what looks like twisted metal."
Yeul's heart skipped a beat.
Leonora strode toward Emala. "Free practice!" she yelled to the students. "One hour!"
The magi around her hurried to resume casting, though the spells stuttered and broke in places. The moment the two left sight, the magi slowed their spells and murmurs filled the space. Gossip and speculation ran rampant.
Yeul stood and stared after Leonora. Twisted metal and an orb in the center.
Took hesitant steps forward. They expected her to remain and summon her magic. Yet she was no mage and if this was a time gate, she could work with that. She knew time gates.
The walk bothered her bad leg, the one people said suffered an attack when she was a baby, but she recalled the same pain in past lives and she remembered pushing past it. She remembered adjusting to her limp and not allowing it to hinder her.
After about half an hour and a stitch in her side, she crested a hill and froze when that unnaturally familiar sight came to view.
Ahead, indented into the ground, floated a shining spire of elaborate metal and frosted crystal. A gate through time and space.
She shuddered. Time and space manipulated – and it couldn't even be Etro working to rearrange this. Those memories of decline and death, clearer than before. The feeling of her heart stopping, again and again. Noel's last words before they separated in the cosmogenesis.
The ground beneath her bled color, grass turning lifeless and brittle.
Mages bustled about the ground and formed a quiet din of conversation in the afternoon light. No one noticed her and Yeul took advantage of that to find a quiet and safe place to watch from a distance.
She wasn't going to let this chance pass her by.
Palom needed something to take him away from this crappy town and all its crappy people. Up until this morning, he was ready to pack a bag and send himself on his own quest to somewhere else. He didn't know where, but he knew he would find something.
And now he stood with folded arms and tapping fingers, squinting at the hunk of metal that floated above the ground.
He felt the arcane emanating from it, but it wasn't quite black, and it wasn't quite white. It felt a little more like what wisped away from Rydia when she summoned.
… No – stupid! – that still wasn't it!
His skull throbbed with overuse from his headpiece, as even it didn't help him settle on an answer for the powers in charge. Quite the mystery that Mysidia found itself with, yet he couldn't summon back the initial excitement that he felt when it cropped up on their doorstep.
"I hate this," he grumbled under his breath. "We can't get close to it."
"The barrier warps about here, so this is the closest we'll get," one of the mages explained to Leonora, who stood closer to the thing. Palom gave himself a push and glided down from his vantage point atop the small basin to get a closer eye on the barrier line that kept any of them from touching the thing.
When they first found the artifact, they threw sand right around the barrier to map it. That being the best they could do left a sour taste in his mouth.
Leonora came to stand beside him, never taking her eyes off the gate. Porom stood on the other side of the thing, making her own observations to those around her.
"Shell or protect?" Leonora asked.
He looked her way. "Which do you think?"
She beamed at the question. "None?"
"Or both." He stuck out his free hand and Leonora tapped it with her first. "It blocks all physical movement – ask Leilam what it was like to creep near it – and moderate magic doesn't faze it."
"Have you tried flying over it?"
"Barrier curves over."
"Oh."
Porom glanced their way. Palom pretended not to notice.
"Do you think there's any way to get through?" Leonora asked. "I want to get closer."
"Oh, really? I thought you would prefer to keep your distance and admire its elegant shape."
"No, I-" She looked up at him and frowned. "Oh, quit it."
He grinned at her. "We'll find a way around this. Investment still bothering you?"
"No." She touched the jewel nailed to the side of her head. "The recovery period took forever, but I should be back to a hundred percent now."
"Tested it out?"
"Tomorrow." Her eyes sparkled with excitement and he felt a flutter in his stomach at her energy. "I'll fill it up with so much magic! What should I focus on, though?"
"What do you like most?"
"I like black magic. But I need to keep up white or I'll lose my edge."
"Don't force yourself into something out of a sense of responsibility. It makes for a lot of wasted hours."
"How would you know?"
"I tried it once when I was little and stupid."
Leonora's smile tightened. "Practicing white magic isn't stupid."
"… No, it's not."
"Porom!" Leonora raised her voice and looked Porom's way. "What do you think of the artifact?"
Porom looked up, pretended to be surprised, and made her way over. "I can't identify the type, but it is definitely magical."
Palom rolled his eyes and again reached for the dried reserves in his headpiece. "You spent hours on that, genius?"
"It could be alien in origin." Porom ignored him and stopped beside them with a deep frown. "But I guess you could say our magic is alien too, since it was brought to us by the Lunarians."
"No," Palom said, "a Lunarian taught us how to control it. We had it long before he came waltzing in."
"It reminds me of the crystals," Leonora said.
… That was actually a good point. Palom squinted at the thing – could it be alien tech?
"Why the crystals?" Porom asked. "What do you feel?"
Palom looked to Leonora and she hesitated. "Well, that orb in the middle looks like it could be crystal. It's certainly a lot bigger and rounder, but… that roiling mist."
The thing was so big that someone could stand in the crevice holding the orb. "A new crystal?" Palom asked. "It floats like they did, but the old crystals didn't put up barriers."
Porom turned around and strolled up the hill. Palom watched as she crested it then looked back at the object. She was far enough away that trying to carry out a conversation over the distance would be tedious.
Palom grit his teeth and followed her back up the hill, Leonora behind him.
Porom pointed to the object when they joined her, like that wasn't what they came here for. "The light moves differently inside that thing – look at the way it fluctuates. I remember the light of the crystals. They were… cleanly faceted, I think, and they rotated slowly. More serene, you know?"
"Whereas this is cloudy and chaotic," Palom said. "And there are wisps of light that dance about the outside."
"What does that mean?" Leonora asked.
"Who knows?" Palom tapped a hand against his arm. "Just that it isn't the exact same thing as the crystals, which we already knew. How about we find something useful?"
Porom gave him a look. "We should defer to Rosa and Cecil."
"You want to drink tea with aristocrats and play at ambassador?"
"If it's alien, then the others have a right to be involved in decision making, at least on an advisory level." Even when she argued, Porom kept her voice quiet – a big change from when they were younger. And a habit that brought bile to his throat.
Palom clenched his fists. "We don't even know if it is alien. That's a random guess, making an assembly unnecessary."
"It's a good precaution." Leonora stepped between them. She was like this, any time she thought tensions were rising – stupid peacemaker. He found it laughable how short she looked between them.
She barely came up to his chest yet she acted like she could stem an attack between them.
Palom gave in. "If we're going to do that, we should start with Baron. It's most accessible."
"And Cecil and Rosa would be the first to identify something like this," Porom said.
"The sooner, the better." Leonora looked between them. "We'll send messengers through the Devil's Road first thing tomorrow. But who can we spare?"
"We should go," Porom said and sent him another of those looks that were supposed to mean something.
Leonora paused, mouth open. "Who's 'we?'"
Palom closed his eyes for a moment and fought to control that twitch in his hands. Opened again. "Don't you think it's important we stay here?"
Porom turned to Leonora. "You could handle our responsibilities for a day or two, couldn't you? It's been a long time since the two of us visited them. And it would be more respectful if we went, as we are to take over management from the elder when the time comes. That makes us inheritors."
"Okay, but shouldn't Leonora go too? She's practically one of us."
"Someone needs to stay."
"I don't know them as well as you do," Leonora interjected. "I think it should just be you two."
Palom dropped his jaw. He thought she'd take his side. "I don't-"
"Come on, Palom." Porom sighed. "It won't last long. Just… a day or two."
Palom scoffed and fought for a reason to say no.
Leonora said, "Besides, maybe the change of pace will help you come up with some ideas for this mystery."
Palom gripped his temples against a forming headache. "Fine."
"It's a plan, then." Porom looked up at the sky where the sun moved toward the horizon. Had they really been at it so long? "We should inform the Elder, then get some rest before tomorrow."
Palom bit back a groan and refrained from commenting further. It was just the Devil's Road. Not like it was that important that they get a lot of rest before taking a leisurely stroll through a busy road like that.
Porom and Leonora moved on and carried on some conversation of their own.
Palom lagged behind, the daunting task of the morning hanging over him. What a waste of time – he had to hope that Leonora would make progress here without him.
Not that the thought provided any reassurance.