CHAPTER XII: SUFFERING
"I feel your presence...you don't have to hide," I say sombrely, placing the silver ring back into my belt pouch as the presence rises from the flowers and stands where Demiurge once stood. They don't say anything and I understand why, sharing a silent moment of reflection with them instead of forcing a conversation. There's much to talk about but I'm in no hurry to talk about anything.
I reach with my right hand, awkwardly finding a left elbow covered on scales then sliding my hand along the scales until I find a hand. When I hold the hand and the gesture isn't returned, I let go sadly only to have the hand snatched back. I look over at Isnadra and see tears on her face as she whispers, "I ruined you...ruined your life...so...what are we now...what can we be that-"
"That wasn't your fault," I interrupt, pulling out something from my belt that the dragon had given me before it departed. I hold it between us in my left hand, showing her a green gem the size of orange glowing with corrupted yellow light. I tell her calmly as I feel unease from the sight of the item, "Yamato pulled the magic you consumed from this land out of you to prevent further corruption. They gave me this purging stone to hold it-"
Isnadra reaches over with her right hand and crushes the stone without effort. I smile as the energy is released violently back into the wild, swirling in a small vortex around my hand before flying out like a flock of birds. I wait for Isnadra to let go of the shards of stone before tilting my left hand slightly, allowing the shards to drop into the pool with light splashes.
"Funny. That's exactly what I wanted to do," I say with a smile as I stare back into the pool, Isnadra giving me a light chuckle and joining in my casual observation. My body takes a few steps to the right so that we're shoulder to shoulder and now that we're up close, I snort at being a head shorter than she is. I say to her sarcastically, "You're taller and more feral than I remember. Did you get tired of being a fairy?"
"Did you finally get over your idea that humans are the greatest thing since adulthood?" she snaps back playfully, a brief chuckle escaping us both. But my good mood drops slightly and I hold her hand tighter, sharing another silent moment until saying with certainty, "We'll figure this out-"
"There you go again thinking you're the planner," she replies in good humour, my eyes rolling but my head nodding in acceptance of her words. She turns to me suddenly and I pre-empt her movements by doing the same. It feels like dancing having our movements in sync on multiple levels, my hands automatically holding both her hands as we finally meet face to face. Or rather, face to chest initially because I'm forced to look up to meet her face.
Every time I saw that face in the past, it brought feelings of anger and outrage. Now, with insight and knowledge, all I see is a face with mismatching yellow and green eyes and scales coating half their face. She asks me with nervousness and fear, "Do you...still...I don't know...feel...the same way as..."
I let go of her hands and sigh in frustration, lightly holding her face and pulling her into a kiss. She tenses slightly as I take the initiative and test what I can get away with, something that feels entirely new to me since I'm the first to slide my tongue into her mouth. She doesn't push back and simply replies, returning the kiss and not taking command of the moment. I exhale lightly after a fair amount of affection, Isnadra doing the same as we go back to staring at each other awkwardly. She tries to say something but can't quite manage it, my attempts at speaking just as blunt and ineffective.
One of the fairies among the group floating around us reports to Isnadra that she has visitors to the shrine. In unison and without breaking eye contact, we tell them to have the visitor come back later, the fairy dutifully obeying with their typical joy and excitement. She quickly gestures with her right hand to the fairies around us, making complex patterns and gestures that they obey in high-speed clouds of light and movement.
"I come back from losing a loved one and you're trying to get me into bed already?" I whisper in reply to her gesturing, Isnadra freezing in her gesturing with a look of embarrassed shock. I nod my head once but gesture with my head for her to continue, saying in elvish as she resumes, "I understand elvish, remember? That includes elvish hand signs."
One of the fairies shouts that the guests don't want to wait and are burning their way into the chamber. Our embrace ends and both of us take a similar combat stance, left arm drawn back to strike while the right arm is in front to defend. I feel a pulse of energy from the centre of my chest, exhaling in excitement at the feeling of electricity coursing through me and collecting on my scales. Isnadra tells the fairies in elvish to let them in, the growth of dense plant life blocking the entrance opening outwards to allow the intruders inside.
There was at least thirty of them of all shapes and sizes. Each one wore a different set of armour composed of a variety of materials. Staffs, swords, spears, maces, hammers, shields, and a host of other weapons formed a forest of defiance aimed at us. The intruders broke into teams as they enter and see us, all present wary and prepared to face us as a clear threat. Yet what draws my attention the most as they form into groups is the polished plates they wore on various parts of their bodies, ranging from dull orange to bright white.
"So the adventurer's guild wants this place for their own?" I whisper to Isnadra, my eyes taking a quick enough glance over to her to see her nod. She taps the front of my chest twice with her left hand, whispering back, "You know how to use that thing? I mean...really use it?"
I nod and cross my arms over my chest, exhaling as I call upon the magic of my third lung. More and more electrical charge flows through me but as I build up a charge, I exhale ruefully and stop my progress when I notice most of it going into the ground under my feet. I draw my knife from my right hip sheath, focusing a charge into it to make it glow and spark. As I move back into a combat stance with the knife pointed towards the enemy, I whisper ruefully, "I need shoes to hold a charge..."
Their leader, a platinum-ranked adventurer with a crested white helm and white armour, signals his group forward with a gesture of his mace. As he trots forward with his shield in front, his band of warriors in plate armour march alongside him brandishing their two-handed weapons or shields. The other groups move to respective positions in the cavern, bracing bows or preparing magic to engage us at a decent range. The tactics feel incredibly blunt but against typical foes, this level of tactics is sufficient.
An idea strikes as combat is about to occur, a new and profound event that makes me smile like a madman. I sheath my dagger and place my left hand across my chest, turning to Isnadra and offering my right hand theatrically. She seems confused until I say with just as much ceremony, "Madam? May I have this dance?"
"Yes, you may! Voices of Spring Waltz, if you would!" she replies excitedly, taking my offered right hand and extending it outwards. Our opposite hands lightly move to upper backs as gentle music fills the cavern, the beautiful and ominous melody projected by the fairies around us. We slowly move into the swaying rhythm and slow spinning movement even as the warriors reach us, their intent plain as they ready their weapons to strike.
I let my third lung release its charge into my flesh, feeling the magical energy course through us as Isnadra does the same to me with her organ. Her level of control is superior to mine so she manages the charge to remain stable, a powerful electrical field building up around us. Our dance remains calm and unhurried as bolts of electricity start to lash out from our flesh at the adventurers. Most of the adventurers that are too close are either hurled away or felled by electrical discharge, those sent flying impacting walls with titanic force.
Some of the warriors continue their attack, evading the worst of the storm and even attempting to land weapon attacks. However, plate mail and weapons blessed to resist magic crumple under the kiss of the heart of the storm, dragon lightning flaring across our skin and turning their flesh beneath the metal into charred ruin. As the most stubborn champions either fall back or fall to the ground in agony, those at range try to lay down a curtain of magical and physical projectiles to cover them. A magnetic field springs up around us to repel most of the physical projectiles and some of the magical ones. The projectiles that make contact are easily absorbed by scales, adding extra volatility that's redirected back in exotic ways.
"You stepped on some of the flowers..." Isnadra whispers lightly, my face embarrassed as I whisper a quick apology. She smiles as we continue our dance up towards the central tree even as men and women die with agonized screams around us. We didn't even care if we got them all and simply waltzed over the corpses, content with projecting waves of destruction around us to kill our foes. One or two adventurer's retreat cautiously as their allies start to fall and we let them go, the remainder finding sense and giving up similarly.
The electrical field around us diminishes incredibly slowly, giving the adventurer's enough ground to reclaim what bodies they can and flee from the cave. Their retreat is organized by a mage, a woman who keeps control of the situation but wishes to leave no one behind. With no resistance, they make a clean escape and the fairies start cleaning up the debris and battle damage of the chamber. Their song finishes and devolves back into the background hum of chatter as they work. I allow my third lung to relax and still, preventing further release of magic to dissipate the field completely.
"How long have I been out?" I ask as we dance in silence, Isnadra giving me a rough estimate of a few weeks. I ask her how many attacks had occurred before now, the number something around four attacks of varying strength including this one. It made me disappointed that some of them are platinum ranks and it angered me that such high ranks would bring lower ranks to such a dangerous task. Weren't their rules against that? What has happened to the guild's quality?
"How much do you...remember?" Isnadra asks cautiously as if afraid of the question. It's a question I knew she'd ask eventually and had prepared for it. I keep up our dance, not breaking eye contact as I reply, "I remember how I was born. You and Thamus merged New World magic with that of Yggdrassil and neither of you thought it would work. Neither of you was prepared for what came out, an unstable infant born of two worlds-"
"You can read your code history..." she replies with unease, my face smiling sadly as I nod my head. We reach the great tree in the centre of the grove and I stop our dance there, keeping us close but not bringing us closer. I answer her unspoken question, saying in a sad tone, "I'm not a guardian nor a supreme one. I'm some sort of abomination of both mixed with magic from two worlds...it took me a bit to calibrate my psyche after death...I'm surprised I didn't explode, implode, or some other horrible fate initially-"
She brings me into a closer embrace, my arms reflexively moving around her as she hugs me tightly. I can hear her breath heaving slightly as she tries to control her rising anguish but I tell her to let it out, wiggling my toes and not too surprised that I'm no longer on my feet. I remain silent as her sobs fill the cavern, my eyes closing as I rub her unkempt hair with my right hand.
"I was lost...I was unwise...I did what I felt like doing...I...I never thought it would hurt someone so deeply...I...I feel terrible..." she says between sobs but I remain silent, letting her vent the sad thoughts in her mind. However, her thoughts jar some of my dormant memories and I calmly let her know what else I remember. "There was no way you would have known that Thamus would abandon you...he's a ronin, a swordsman without a master... it makes sense that he wouldn't stay in one place...but we have to deal with his children that he-"
"Children!? He has other families!?" she shouts at me furiously, her arms breaking my embrace and pushing me back so she can glower at me. I land deftly and give her a reluctant nod as she turns away in disgust, my thoughts tumbling out of my mouth now that I can speak them. "Though the memories aren't truly there, I still remember rough traces of what Thamus remembers. He's travelled all over the New World in the centuries-"
"Centuries!? That lying, backstabbing, polygamous bastard!" she shouts more at my father than at me. Hearing her talk of polygamy triggers my anger as well and I clench my fists as something finally clicks inside my head. I look away from her and stare at the great tree, hissing out, "It wasn't the dragon's influence...it was my father's influence that made me the way I was...and he didn't even tell me in the end..."
Anger flares and I lunge forward, punching the tree casually in frustration. I make sure not to damage anything with my aggression, another new and alien thought to handling aggression. The alien reaction brings a smile to my face as I exhale lightly and return to smiling, turning back around and catching the tail end of Isnadra's short, silent ranting to herself. I calmly say to her, "That's in the past now...sort of. He's dead and I've been remade in your image this time. We can deal with his legacy as we progress."
"He shouldn't have a legacy! None of us should! Our worlds aren't meant to coexist in the way that they are currently but every supreme one that comes to this land thinks the opposite! I'm so tired of being on the moral high ground!" she rants at me, my head nodding since only a few could understand what she means. I let her have her space as she walks away, leaving me alone in the cavern but not uncomfortably. Or so I think as she half turns and snaps at me to follow her.
I keep smiling as I rush to obey, my new master angrily leaving a path for me to walk.