Moments Away
"Nngh-" A strained groan accompanied a loud crash as the captain of the Crow mercenaries slammed into the cold steel floor of his cabin. Clutching his metal arm tightly, he gasped for breath and cringed, his body wracked with pain. Stumbling to his feet, he knocked over a table full of charts and rulers.
"I... don't-" A surge of electricity shot through his body, dropping him to the ground. Garbled words raced through his mind, a mess of commands and impulses that converged into a single, irresistible imperative.
Stop struggling.
He lay on the floor with his forehead pressed into the ground, sweat dripping from his face and chest as he fought against gravity and his shaking legs. As he climbed to his feet, his eyes darted across the room, searching for his sword as darkness closed in around him and his vision faded. He reached out blindly, faltering for a moment as his hand grazed the side of a familiar blade. With his hands trembling and his eyes failing him, he slid his fingers across the ground and found a handle. Gripping his blood-stained sword with the final measure of his fleeting strength, he clenched his teeth together and swung down at the claw on his left arm.
Ten minutes passed in silence. A heavy steel door creaked open at the end of the hallway and the cadence of a soldier's footsteps marched on toward the captain's cabin. Standing before a door that was plain, unmarked, and yet still foreboding, a gruff old mercenary reached out and wrapped his knuckles against cold steel. No response. He waited a few seconds and knocked again.
"Boss! Hey, Boss!"
Again, his own echo was the only answer to his calls.
"Hey, Raven! You in there? We're ten minutes to Velder's border!"
Slowly, a crack of light entered the captain's room as Raven gently pushed the door out of his way. Hanging at his side, the claw on his left arm was clenched firmly around the blade of his sword. His eyes were filled with ice and spite as his gaze cut into the soldier's skull.
"Fine. I'm on my way"
In the absence of day, Bethma valley had transformed into an unearthly place. The rust red of the canyon faded into a deep blue twilight, its plants and features glistening faintly in the broad strokes of moonlight that poured down into the valley, filling the frigid air with a solemn calm. The great lake in the midst of the valley lay still as glass, it's surface painted in violet and it's borders crisp and clean, framing it as the grandest piece in an organic gallery.
With a pack newly filled and feet scarcely rested for more than an hour, Aisha marched on alongside Rena as they traced the lake's shore, the abstract shadows of the moonlit canyon dancing across their faces as they walked. Ahead of them, Elsword stood atop a small outcropping and searched the valley for any sign of movement or hostility. Even in the middle of the desert, the chill of winter was too harsh for most of the canyon's inhabitant and even the hardiest snakes and lizards huddled together in their underground burrows and awaited the end of winter's siege. Once Aisha and Rena had caught up to Elsword, the three of them gathered around the water's edge and assessed their situation.
"Do you think we should stop here for the night?" Aisha glanced over Rena's shoulders at the ragged old map she held. They were nearly past Bethma lake and soon they'd be trudging through a field of jagged rocks and geysers and then along the river until they reached the mine.
"Why?" Elsword glared at her. "We'll be there in a couple hours, let's keep going."
"No, I think we should stop for now..." Rena rolled up the map and returned it to her pack. "We'll be at a disadvantage if we have to fight any nasod at night, and we don't know how long we'll have to spend searching through the mines to find Wally."
Grimacing, Elsword nodded in agreement.
"Great!" Rena grinned broadly. "Goodnight then!"
"Geh... what." Elsword stared in disbelief as Rena unrolled her sleeping bag and hopped over to a soft spot of ground, turning over and falling asleep within seconds. Shrugging, Elsword headed off to gather tinder while Aisha sighed and unpacked their last bit of firewood and piled it together. Within a few minutes, they were both seated around a crackling campfire, its glow casting their shadows across the canyon wall.
"Do elves just sleep a lot or something?" Elsword glanced over at Rena as he pulled a book from his pack.
"I don't think so." Aisha pulled out her grimoire and a sheet of parchment, laying them at her side and holding her palms out toward the fire. "She's probably just trying to be as rested as possible in case things get rough tomorrow." She pulled her hands back and rested them in her lap, wondering if she shouldn't turn in early as well. Sleep would be great right now... but I'm still so far behind... Aisha sighed and drew her hand across the cover of her grimoire. To her right, Elsword was mumbling an incantation under his breath and fumbling his words, ending in a frustrated grunt as he scowled at the notes Aisha had given him the night before. Despite her determination, Aisha found herself hopelessly distracted by Elsword's constant outbursts.
"Get it right or keep it down!" She stood and threw her hands down in protest.
"Shut up!" Elsword glanced away indignantly. "It's not my fault the words are so lame. What the hell's a 'bequeath' anyway?"
Aisha glared for a moment before her frustration melted into a sly grin. "Oh~? You don't know all the words? You'll have to bow your head and ask 'Miss Aisha' for help~" She laughed deviously and Elsword scowled back at her.
"Forget it." He turned his back to her and resumed mangling an elaborate incantation. "...capricious lord's dame bee's toe... rrrrgh... this doesn't make any sense!"
Stunned by his 'creative interpretation' of her notes, Aisha burst into a fit of giggles. "It's 'deign bestow'... pfft..." As she gripped her side, Elsword huffed and glared at her from over his shoulder.
Sighing happily, Aisha walked around the fire and sat down beside him. "If you don't want to say it out loud, you can just say the incantation in your head, but you'll need to get the words right first."
"That's your fault." His eyes bored through the crumpled sheet of notes Aisha had provided him with. "Your handwriting sucks, I can't read any of this."
"It's not like I can do anything about that, all I had to write with was charcoal." She closed her eyes and breathed in softly. "O solemn Auster, may thy capricious lords deign bestow upon us their ardent brand"
A small circle of light appeared in the air in front of her, shimmering as a small, translucent blade shot forth into the air and then vanished in a shower of sparks. As the glow of magic faded, a stern resolve spread across Elsword's face. Facing the waterfront, he breathed in sharply, closed his eyes, and focused his thoughts. A second later, a small ring of light glistened in the air before him. As he opened his eyes, a tiny, shimmering knife poked out of the circle before fading into the night.
"Haha, yeah!" Ecstatic, Elsword grinned and summoned another tiny blade.
"See, you got it." Aisha smiled lightly but her assurance went ignored. Enthralled by his success, Elsword continued calling forth small knives and daggers, his blades becoming brighter and steadier with each casting. Pausing for a moment, he pulled a loaf of bread from his pack and set it out on the rock beside him, summoning a small butter knife that cut off the heel in a clean slice. Triumphant, he grabbed the heel of bread and tore it in half with his teeth.
"M'm gonna uuf dis for eberyting."
Aisha glared at him, annoyed. "At least finish chewing first..."
Elsword swallowed and looked up to Aisha. "Huh? You say something?"
She shook her head and sighed. "Alright, now try making something bigger."
"Right." Elsword hopped up to his feet and turned to face the lake, taking a wide stance and closing his eyes and holding his hands out in front of him. A moment later, a circle of light formed in the air in front of him and shot out yet another tiny sliver of a blade. Grumbling, Elsword breathed in and was about to try again when Aisha stopped him.
"No, you can't do it with the same incantation, you've got to use another one!" She walked over to him, grabbing his tome along the way. "Once you form the intent, you have to channel it with the right incantation, see?" She traced the formulas along the page as Elsword looked on over her shoulder. "The words you use aren't as important as what they mean, so you can use different words if you want to as long as they mean the same thing. When you want to change a spell, you need to change the meaning of the incantation around too."
Elsword grimaced and nodded. "I kind of get it, but... why's it gotta be this complicated?"
"Oh? So you can't do it then?" Aisha smirked at him and he scoffed. Breathing in deeply, Elsword centered himself and drew his fists back to his waist. Silence. For almost a minute, nothing happened as Elsword wrestled with the flurry of words racing through his head. Then, once he finally had a grasp on his new incantation, he opened his eyes and a massive glowing ring formed over the lake, erupting in a colossal blade that sliced the surface of the water and nearly spanned the entire lake. Side by side, he and Aisha stood with their eyes wide in awe. As soon as the giant blade faded, Elsword's shock was replaced by a sudden surge of confidence.
"Heh... See? No swe-" Just as he puffed his chest out to celebrate his victory, Elsword's vision faded and his legs wobbled. A moment later, he feel forward and Aisha just barely caught him before he toppled into the water.
"Idiot! You can't use that much magic all at once yet or you'll pass out!"
"urrrrhhh..."
Aisha sighed and tried to carry him but couldn't manage to lift him. She shifted around to his back and wrapped her arms around his chest, dragging him over to where he had tossed his bedroll.
"Stupid Elsword..." Aisha blushed slightly as she pulled him across the campsite. "Why do I have to be the one to drag you off to bed?" Grumbling to herself, she propped Elsword up against a small outcropping and rolled out his bedding, pushing and pulling him until he lay flat on his back and more or less beneath his blanket. Aisha glanced down at his face, still painted with the huge grin he had just before he fainted. Brushing herself off, she rose to her feet and headed back to her grimoire, settling in for as many hours of study as she could manage before sleep overcame her.
Just after midnight, Aisha was still pouring over diagrams and formulae. With the campfire long exhausted, she read by the light of a swirling fire floating overhead as she scribbled notes and drafted incantations onto parchment. As sleep's encroaching grasp reached out to take hold of her, a soft footfall just to her right caught her attention and her drowsiness faded.
"Still up studying?" Rena's quiet, lyrical voice drifted through the night as she took a seat next to Aisha.
"I just wanted to get through this part before..." Aisha rubbed her eyes as she fought against a yawn and lost. "Before I went to bed. What about you?"
"Ah, I just couldn't sleep." Rena smiled and leaned back on her hands. "At least one of us seems to have no trouble with that." She giggled as Elsword gave a low grunt and mumbled something, flailing his hands about before collapsing quietly back onto his pillow.
"He's been doing that for the past hour..." Aisha frowned as she scrawled a line of notes.
"Well, at least the two of you seem to be getting along better now."
"No we're not." Aisha looked up from her grimoire and glared defensively, "It just takes too much energy to get mad at him every time he does something stupid."
Rena chuckled lightly and stared up at the sky, drowning in the sea of stars and moonlight overhead. "Hey, Aisha... What are you going to do once we return Ruben's El?"
"I guess..." She paused, sliding her hand over her grimoire as she considered her answer. "I don't know. I'll probably head to Velder to meet the mages there, and then go off to Fluone."
"Are you looking for something or somebody?" Rena tilted her head to the side curiously. Closing her grimoire with her right hand inside to hold her place, Aisha dropped her head back against her shoulders and gazed at the moon.
"Not... exactly. I'm just..." Another yawn interrupted her. "I'm just traveling as much as I can..." Another, smaller yawn escaped Aisha's mouth and she tried to blink the sleep from her eyes.
A bittersweet smile spread over Rena's face and she closed her eyes. "That sounds a lot like me then. Once we're done here, maybe the two of us can keep on traveling together. What do you think?"
"Mm-hmm." Aisha nodded absently.
"And maybe we can ask Elsword to come along too. After all, it's nice to have him around since he always keeps everything lively."
"Mm-hmm."
Rena turned to Aisha, grinning. "So you really want him to stick around then, don't you?" Just as she had gotten herself excited about the prospect of teasing Aisha again, she felt a light warmth fall against her. Breathing softly, Aisha had fallen asleep and toppled over onto Rena's lap. Sighing fondly, Rena reached down and stroked Aisha's hair. "Well... It would be nice, if things worked out like that."
On an island far across the sea, a whirling breeze drifted down the plains and across a steep mountainside, blowing an errant cloud through the mountain's rocky facade and through a cleanly cut steel vent. Just inside, the cloud poured into a dark, dust coated chamber and filled the air as fog. A tangle of cords and wires littered the wall, sprawling out across the steel plated floors and ceiling as they spread through the room and retreated down an adjacent corridor. Sparks flickered into the air from torn wiring, casting a pale light on the serpentine sea of cords and power lines spilling from the walls and converging in dense clusters that all led to a single, silent capsule. Though some dozens of dozens of cords and wires fed into this device, it remained entirely still, its lid bearing a thick covering of dust and debris as though it were a coffin left in the midst of burial. As the wind outside picked up, a steady current spilled into the vents and stirred up the dust and debris left behind by the years. Eventually, a strong draft swept through the halls and over the darkened capsule, clearing away the dirt and revealing its occupant. Through the murky glass, A young girl's face rested in solemn repose. Inscribed on the lid of her casket, her name: Code Eve.