Music Choices: Born of Blood, Risen from Ash by Varien, Children in the Dark by Tristam
Eclipse
Chapter 42
The Mirrorways
The Present…
The dark was alive with sound. It made her think of a gigantic, hollow stringed instrument, one that she was somehow crouching inside. It made her bones hum, and for a moment she was almost overwhelmed.
Inhale. Exhale.
Anxiety, spiking and then fluttering back into the cracks it crawled out of. Ghostly touches were brushing over her shoulders and neck, before suddenly disappearing; and all of her focus finally managed to zero in on the fingers laced with her own.
Blake inhaled cautiously, instinctively trying to draw as little attention to herself as possible. She imagined for whatever reason that something immense and unknowable roamed this place, hunting for intruders; and that, despite Raven's protections woven into the ward on her wrist? If it detected her here, it might harm her.
However, that might also just be her mind conjuring fears in the face of something she had never expected to encounter in her entire life. Blake could admit she was pretty good at imagining variations of danger. It had kept her alive all these years, after all.
Her imagination was promptly interrupted by a pair of extremely luminous eyes, which briefly made her heart stutter. Ruby's eyes were silver lanterns in the darkness, trailing ethereal mist as she gaped at their new environment. Blake couldn't even see her pupils, they were so bright; and in that moment felt that something neither human nor faunus had sparked awake inside the other girl.
Blake noted that this new development did not make her afraid; in fact she was tempted to reach out and run the tips of her fingers through the mists, to see what they felt like.
"Your senses should be adjusting," a hollow voice came from their left. "Keep taking deep breaths. It will help with the vertigo."
Blake glanced over Ruby's shoulder and nearly jumped, ears flattening in shock.
Raven looked different here, different in a way that made Blake's hair stand on end. The helm had taken on a life of its own, no longer a flat metal Grimm mask but something that was sharp, living bone. The eyes were red fires, and black feathery shadows trailed across her form. Despite this, Raven did not smell like Grimm nor did she give off the same aura of menace.
This was something new. And yet, somehow, deeply familiar.
"Wooooa," Ruby exclaimed as she stared upwards, though more quietly than she would have normally. "What is that? Wait - what happened to you?!"
"Do I look spooky?" Raven asked, her voice amused. Blake stared as the magic 'helm' moved like a beak might.
"You look SO spooky what - oooh, Blake, you look cool too! How are you doing that?"
A flash of panic.
What's happening to me?
"I do?" Blake asked, her nerves skittering under her skin as she stared at her free hand. As she did, she noticed shadowy waves rolling rhythmically over her skin; almost like an inky camouflage.
Briefly, she was reminded of her friend Ilia; a pang of grief rolled through her heart, before drifting away, replaced by something she couldn't quite name.
"Your spirit is attempting to conceal your presence, and you apparently have a natural aptitude for spellwork. How are you feeling otherwise?" Raven drifted closer, still keeping an eye on the environment as she apparently checked the ward at Blake's wrist.
"Nervous, but ok? I think?" Blake said, still staring at the indigo force-field rolling up and down her body. "How am I casting a spell? What am I using, I'm not drawing on aura."
Raven gestured laconically at the oppressive, dense dark, which was so full of noise and unknowable forms.
"You're pulling it from your environment," Raven circled them carefully, inspecting the shadows. "Everything here that you're sensing and perceiving is living, magical energy. You are breathing it in, it is the sound shaking your bones, it is the ground beneath your feet. We are swimming in magic right now. You're just redirecting some of it to cloak yourself."
Blake watched the whirling ink in mounting curiosity.
"O...kay. This is kinda weird," she admitted dryly.
Briefly, she imagined what Weiss's reaction to all this might have been, and she had to withhold a chuckle.
"It will get weirder," Raven warned, her tone flat. "That ward should keep you sane, but nothing here is a given. Protect it, because if it becomes damaged or you lose it? The mirrorways will make you pay. Never forget - this place is dangerous."
Blake nodded, lowering her free hand as she glanced at her teammate. Ruby was practically beaming at her, apparently unintimidated by their ominous environment.
"This is awesome , you can do magic, too! That is so cool - crap, I'm not being sneaky, am I?" Ruby lowered her voice suddenly.
"You are not being sneaky, no," Raven agreed, peering about their dark, humming environment.
"Sorry," Ruby whispered, and Blake's lip twitched in a slight smile.
Raven paused for a moment, her eerie 'mask' cocking as she listened to something in the dark. A far away melody, something that Blake only half caught herself before it faded into the background of deep, reverberations. After a moment, the dark, aural feathers seemed to relax around the strange woman's form and she started speaking again.
"Being sneaky is a tall order right now, and not really our priority. Your abilities are currently waking up. So the realm is going to try to convey an absurd amount of information to you. It can be a lot all at once, so staying grounded will keep you from becoming overwhelmed."
Staying grounded was also perhaps a tall order, because Ruby was already bouncing on the tips of her toes, looking around them energetically. She seemed energized by whatever she was experiencing far more than overwhelmed; Blake assumed that was a good sign.
"Ok, what information? I'm seeing - string thingies? Random images, really...really big structures? Like architecture? Woow, this place really is gigantic , isn't it?"
Raven huffed in amusement, but said nothing.
Briefly, Blake thought about how some faunus could utilize sonar to perceive their environment beyond what they could perhaps see in front of them, and wondered if what Ruby was experiencing was something similar; a magic sonar or radar, capable of transmitting images and sensations over a great distance.
Blake's own hearing and senses were currently struggling with the noise that shook the bones of this bizarre place; it made her feel like a bag had been placed over her head. A dark, vibrating fog that she couldn't really see through and seemed nearly alive, like living shadows that breathed inside a person's lungs with tiny mouths and listened to their heartbeat.
She squeezed Ruby's fingers a little tighter at the bizarre imagery.
This place might eat me alive if I was alone. I feel like an exposed nerve right now, and this is with 'protection'.
Blake glanced surreptitiously at her glowing companion, whose features were alight with a familiar childish enthusiasm as new information, sights and senses bombarded her, enveloped her; welcomed her home.
She's not afraid of any of this at all, is she?
Blake wasn't entirely sure if that was comforting, or a little unsettling in itself. Because despite it's unusual familiarity, this place felt more and more alien the longer she perceived it. She considered her own unease and decided that, if Ruby was comfortable here, then it couldn't be that bad. It would just take some getting used to.
She shook the ward at her wrist to reassure herself.
"Everything you're perceiving currently is your domain," Raven said at last, trailing shadow-feathers. "The mirrorways connect to physical reality as well as the other spiritual realms, and they are showing you images from those regions. Those 'string-thingies' you are seeing are, well, a lot of things. But their most basic description is the manifestation of the border between life and death, from which all aetheri channel their abilities. They will even allow you to control your environment, with practice."
Blake's gaze drifted upwards. She wasn't sure if she was imagining that they were standing in a great dark hallway, or if she really could see the distant, lofted ceiling miles above them. Considering she could barely see a few feet away, Blake was hesitant to trust in her natural eyesight.
Perhaps the key to this place was to not see with one's eyes.
"That sounds, um, intense," Ruby muttered, glancing at Blake. "How do I use the border-strings to do stuff, or practice?"
Raven looked up, the fires of the helms eyes fixing on something in the dark. Blake could hear fluttering, like insect wings, and reached instinctively for Gambol Shroud; she did not, however, let go of Ruby's hand.
"Imagine….a wave," Raven rolled her gauntleted fingers. They were clawed here, dark and dangerous. "Of light, or sound. Rolling out from you and striking an object in the distance. Then imagine whipping that object back to you."
Ruby gave her a befuddled glance, before inhaling, closing her eyes and focusing. A few seconds passed, and in the unnatural darkness Blake could swear things were darting about. She could smell burning metal.
"Uhhh. I'm trying."
Suddenly, Blake spotted something, a nearly translucent form nearby, that faded away the moment she laid eyes on it.
We're being circled by predators…
"I mostly just feel kinda queasy?"
"Try to focus only on your breath and Blake's hand. Close out everything else. Staying grounded is essential," Raven continued to watch the things moving in the dark. So far, nothing was daring to approach them.
Yet.
"You should be hearing, or feeling, something like music," Raven prompted.
Blake's heart sped up a little as Ruby squeezed her hand. Something skittered softly nearby.
"I - oh. Yea! Yea, I've heard this...I know this! What is it?" Ruby asked, her voice changing a little. Growing almost more powerful, more resonant.
"You," Raven quipped simply.
The cool, callused fingers in Blake's hand suddenly tensed, and a rush of silver engulfed the area. A strange series of musical notes preceded the light, or perhaps was the light itself.
The shadows dissipated before the light instantly. Flinching back from the resonant silver crouched a horde of creepy-eyed mimics, all quietly baring their teeth. The nearest mimic, who had been trying to creep closer to them, glanced down at a silver orb that had arisen in its translucent chest. It blinked in confusion, before bursting violently like a glass bubble.
The silver orb rushed directly into Ruby's outstretched hand and disappeared into the ethereal aura rolling off of her.
Thus was the start of the stampede. Blake could hear the smirk in Raven's voice.
"Ok then. Go wild."
The feeling she got from Hunting was something Ruby had often struggled to put words to. She'd technically only been on a few real hunts before now, unofficially accompanying her dad and Uncle Qrow during her training at Signal, so she could learn the basics; but she remembered each of those encounters in crystal detail, and what she had felt. Apparently, hunting brings out something different in every person. In fact, according to her dad, hunting alongside someone is how you most quickly learn who that someone really is.
For example, Yang treated a hunt like it was a celebration of life. She became all joy and fire and revelry. Hunting with Yang was loudly burning down the countryside so everyone knew that you were alive; it was announcing that you had been there and had been victorious over death and darkness. It was how Yang left her mark on the world. They had their similarities, but ultimately Ruby's reaction to Hunting was still different from Yang's and even their father's.
There was joy, but it was a lower frequency almost, closer to ferocity - a feeling that she didn't typically associate with herself, but it was definitely there. A powerful instinct would take hold, grounding and guiding her. It was as if all her parts, all traces of her mind, coalesced into one moment and entered into a really intense trance. It sounded strange, perhaps, but it felt almost more natural to her than breathing.
When Ruby was hunting, she fell into a rhythm where she did not need to think. She didn't need to analyze her emotions, or parse through the feelings she gleaned from other people. All the awkwardness that came with being a teenager, or stressing about making other people comfortable or worrying about her responsibilities - all of that fell away, and in that moment she was totally free.
Everything narrowed down to the microsecond, to the motion that she fell into as she tore through a field of Grimm, creating a whirlwind of rose petals and black ink. The only thing that mattered was the action, was the motion, was staying alive. It was violent, yes, but it wasn't barbaric. It wasn't carnage, or even revelry. For Ruby, it was a dance, to a song she had been unknowingly singing her entire life.
This moment was like those previous. The only genuine difference now was that Ruby was using an instrument very different from her Semblance and Crescent Rose, and was hunting something new instead of Grimm. That, and she had total control of the killing field. She knew that she did the moment she let the song out of her throat.
One second, she was standing next to Raven and Blake, staring out at a swathe of mimics.
The next she and Blake had stepped across to the other side of the horde, the shape of the space changing to her whim. Song waves and threads rippled and tore through the mimics who were panicking, trying to flee once again into the darkness; but the darkness betrayed them, offering them up to her immediately. They glowed in her mind's eye, unable to hide. They were full of stolen magic, having siphoned it from unwary spirits, the mirrorways and even people in the physical world; Ruby knew this like she knew how to bend the mirrorways about like a child's puzzle, and how to break about the mimics cloaking matrixes with her voice. She also knew that she was returning that stolen magic to where it needed to be as she tore it out of them. Somehow.
She felt like a white blood cell attacking an invading parasite or virus.
Meanwhile, Blake had Gambol Shroud in hand and was shooting entities trying to flank them. Silver puddles sprayed across the stone floor as Dust rounds obliterated flat, angry faces. Ruby stepped again, warping the mirrorways around them. The mimics' translucent flesh, or spell matrixes that concealed them, were powerful defenses; but her song was ripping their matrixes apart, revealing their little stick figures as they darted across the cold stone and leapt into the air in an attempt to escape her.
However, there was nowhere for them to escape to. Ruby reshaped the hallway, pulling the chords that connected everything like a brilliant map her mind and restructuring it to corral the panicking creatures. Bursts of glassy, silver mist rained down in a glittering shower, as dozens of orbs returned to her.
Tension in the hand holding hers. Ruby paused, the vibration in her throat and chest slowing to a less dangerous frequency, as she glanced at Blake.
The faunus had paused from taking pot shots at stragglers, and was instead watching Ruby work in blatant fascination. Realizing she'd been caught, Blake quickly tried to save face and went back to shooting straggling mimics, doing her best to look too cool to be impressed and totally indifferent.
Ruby giggled, smiling as she went back to work. She couldn't keep the warmth from her face or chest, and honestly? She didn't really want to.