Chapter Twenty-Two:
Tales of a Sparrow
III
|i.|
Every bit of her body screamed. Her brain buzzed inside her skull at the resonating silence that struck her. Warm blood marred half of her face—surely from some injury she failed to notice or chose to ignore—painting the left side of her vision and her surroundings a vibrant and murky red. Pain she had ignored now battered her whole body with a vengeance that didn't allow her to lift a single finger.
It barely allowed her to breathe.
What...what just...happened?
Everything had been such a blur.
All fifteen hellish minutes of a jarring battle that felt like a torturous eternity.
Brutalized bodies, ragged breaths and disturbed hearts were only the surface of what the recorders suffered while guarding the bordering tribes from the infernal beasts that the black borg birthed. An endless horde of seemingly invincible monsters that ravaged through their numbers on all fronts. It was an enemy never before seen by any of them, magicians and species alike.
Those unfathomable hellhounds...if the Orthodox Church had deployed them from the start there was no doubt in Noé's mind that the Resistance would have had no chance whatsoever of survival.
That along with all kinds of mortifying thoughts sped through her riled brain in bits and pieces as she struggled to stay alive against the unthinkable.
Stopping such a massive horde was not something they could single-handedly do with just the two of them. It was obvious the instant they reached them that all she and Euphemia could do was struggle to stay alive while the rest jumped off the cliff to rapidly climb through the crevices eastbound. There was nothing either of them could do despite Euphemia's desperate cries. If she'd had the time or energy to, Noé would've cackled in her face.
Protecting the tribes? What a joke. What sane mind would preoccupy the survival of others above their own in this situation?
At that point, their survival was all that mattered.
And somehow—by some curse or blessing—they lived.
After those fifteen minutes that had appeared never-ending, the hordes vanished into thin air like flakes of snow fluttering in mid-winter alongside the dark barrier that had surrounded the Church. With them gone, Noé and Euphemia could do nothing else except collapse from the exhaustion that ravaged their bodies. The rough dirt dug into her knees and the palms of her hands as she fell down gasping for every breath she could muster to take. Her bow was broken and in tatters, lost some time ago amidst the battle. Arrows were strewn across the ground around them, piercing it or in pieces. Crimson steeled feathers pierced the ground, makeshift grave markers of beasts she'd slain only to have them return twofold.
But even in their livelihood, Noé found little respite.
"Miss Noé! Miss Euphemia!"
Noise soothed her ringing ears, the silence too devastating to consider peaceful, and forced her to muster the strength she could if only to lift her gaze away from the floor. A pair of bare feet was all she saw before the ifrit's face came into view when she crouched before her. She didn't protest with Shuri, not even as she somehow hauled her up to her feet and onto a carpet. The pain mingled with the rushing air that shot past her ears. Where they were going she didn't know, but even with everything that her brain still had left to process, one thought came to the forefront.
You look almost human when you show emotion.
Noé knew that if she had been in her right mind she would have mocked the undeniable agitation marring Shuri's usual stone expression.
Now all it caused her was fear.
A fear that was all but confirmed by the harrowing sight that welcomed them upon arriving at their destination: the scorched remains of their home base and all the scalded corpses that remained.
Emerald eyes shook at the appalling scene. The poignant stench of burnt flesh that permeated her nostrils had bile rising to her throat and retching it upon the ground. Shuri's delicate footsteps brought her attention to the ifrit as she left ashen footprints on her ways towards...something.
A carbonized pile.
Noé, out of her sheer will to do so, stood and staggered over to Shuri and the heap that stood before them. It was as tall as her and barely appeared humanoid. But Noé could somehow make out the shapes of them. A body that barely reached her shoulders seemingly embracing a slender one that knelt.
Protecting them.
All of a sudden, Shuri dropped to her knees and clutched at her face as what Noé could only construe as weeping surged from her throat.
"...I'm sorry…" she cried with tears streaming down her face and dropping onto the ashen ground. "...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry—!"
The words resonated in Noé's mind for a solid second. Nothing else took precedence. Not the magicians that arrived shortly after them. Not the dying words of an innocent boy. Not the shrieks of a devastated mother. Not the ragged and disbelieving breaths of an older brother. Nothing except the name that Shuri had cried out with so much remorse.
Ignis…? But if that is Ignis then...?
It was then that Noé saw it. Strewn and broken in half like a meager twig was a staff, its crescent shape in tatters and the gem it'd held aloft shattered and lifeless.
"...meistras…?"
There was nothing recognizable about her anymore. There was no breath-taking beauty. No overwhelming kindness. No giddiness in her laughter. This couldn't be her. It couldn't be. The tears that streamed down her cheeks, however, were telling her differently. The broken staff next to the two immolated corpses told her everything she refused to believe.
This was Teosa and her daughter. Her master and her friend.
And they're—
Overwhelmed beyond her breaking point, her eyes rolled to the back of her head as she collapsed, blood mixing with ashes and the tears that never stopped falling.
|VII|
Unpredictable. Bitter. Merciless.
That is how the young Vastagian came to define it.
That is how she came to define fate.
|i.|
Chaos.
That was the only word Shuri could think of to describe what transpired after that decisive battle. The end of a long and cruel war ended in liberation...and in tragedy. Shuri couldn't partake in the joy of the species at gaining their long sought-after freedom, and neither could she join in the mourning of the magicians who had lost their loved ones to that fatal attack. It wasn't her place to be, and yet, as one of the few recorders remaining now, she needed to bear witness to what the magicians would do.
That was the chaos she referred to. The anguish that begot regret. The regret that birthed resentment. For others and for oneself. It was a melting pot of so many negative emotions that even Shuri saw herself affected. She hated that it had to be now that her ailment failed to work as it had so many years before.
What she hadn't anticipated was the madness that followed once King Solomon woke up from his injuries. Where they went, Shuri could not follow. Their search for that so-called 'meaning behind the tragedy' led them back to the Orthodox Church, a place she could not go to without asking for their aid. And interrupting them in their process of mourning was something she would not do for the sake of her work.
This search for meaning was as sorrowful as it was pointless. They had to have learned at some point in their lives that sometimes things happened and there was nothing they could do to change them.
But even her usual cynicism failed to quell her disquieted thoughts now. Losing Ignis to such savagery...Shuri couldn't accept it.
Gripping her chest at her own exasperation, her slender fingers grasped at the small pendant that hung around her neck. The small jewel was cool against her fingers and brought back words spoken to her in secrecy by her friend.
"It's how Sol and Ugo did it before. So I suppose that in theory, it could work again. Since we're not…"
Crimson eyes speckled purple suddenly widened and her mouth fell agape at the realization that struck her.
"...that's it."
Without missing a beat, Shuri turned tail and ran towards the inner parts of the magicians' palace, and headed straight for Lord Ugo's private study. Now would be the only opportunity she would have. Now while all of them were gone and there would be nobody to see her come or go. Entering the mess of a study, Shuri headed straight for the older journals stacked at one specific corner. Quickly, she skimmed through them, setting aside the ones that didn't possess the information she was clearly searching for to search elsewhere.
It wasn't until she held a leather-bound and handwritten journal that she found it. Her eyes grew at the sight of such detailed notes, her hope alongside them.
This is it.
Her fingers gripped the pertinent pages and without hesitation ripped them off their bindings. Tossing the book aside, Shuri held onto the pages for dear life before leaving out of the study and rushing for the opposite direction next. Towards the only one who would see this as the opportunity of a lifetime.
Because with this, it was plausible.
They could do it.
Shuri and her.
—{i}—
Noé couldn't function. Two days had gone by and she had yet to stray from the room she'd been placed in to recover. She hadn't risen from bed nor spoken a word to the recorders who had come to visit her after she awoke a day ago. Which in reality were far fewer in numbers than she remembered.
Euphemia. Arikos. Saffiro. Tanvi. Morrigan.
They were the only recorders that remained now. Everybody else had seceded their positions. It had been a choice they had all been given but one that she never thought would ever be taken by anybody. How wrong she had been. Now that they could relish in their newfound freedom, most of the recorders from the other species had left. As for the magicians who had joined them, their reasons were understandable albeit no less painful to accept. All of them had just lost those they loved most to senseless violence. That they wanted nothing to do with others, especially those that lived freely with their families at the expense of theirs, was something Noé could understand.
But now leaderless and in tatters, the Archives were left incomplete. There was not much six of them could do to continue the work they had given so much for. Not when even she was having qualms about continuing herself.
Bandaged hands gripped the cool blanket draped over her legs tight enough for her knuckles to turn white.
With her meistras and Ignis gone, Noé saw no reason to continue as a recorder. Or to continue living with the magicians at all. They had saved her. They took her in when she had no one and nowhere to go. They had brought her back from the depths of her misery. Now Noé felt herself at the cusp of an even deeper chasm with them gone.
Without Ignis…
Without her meistras…
What's the point of living now without her?
A soft gasp exited her at her realization. Her mind worked a mile a second until it reached the most logical conclusion to her then.
"The Vastagian lands aren't far…"
What had stopped because of them over a decade ago would finally have the chance to resume now with them gone.
All she had to do was step beyond the boundary.
"Miss Noé!"
Emerald eyes snapped up to the bursting doors of her room and to Shuri running through them. Through bated breath she spoke but unable to understand her and with no patience to even try, Noé snapped at her with the venom of old and of her own remorse.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT!?"
Brow furrowed but determined, Shuri didn't falter. Instead, she slammed her hands down on the bed, putting in full display a pair of yellowed journal pages.
Noé scowled at her actions, feathers bristling, and growled, "What the fuck are these?"
"It's the way."
Shuri took a moment to catch her breath before lifting her head to meet Noé's furious glare. Through crimson speckled purple eyes, a stout determination was etched into her puffy red irises as her dainty hands gripped the old pages.
"The way to bring Teosa and Ignis back."
|IX|
But it was also among the ashes left in the wake of that cruel fate that they found it.
A small sliver of hope.
|i.|
"You want to perform what?!"
Emerald eyes veered upward to the stone ceilings that shook at the mighty roar of the Asterius chief, Orias, and tilted her head away from the sand that trickled down at being disturbed. Vigilant, she watched as fury marred the partially animalistic features of the once grand chief as he scowled down at them from where he rested high above the ruins of what once was his glorious abode.
What very little Noé knew of the illustrious Asteri tribe was from the hearsay that came from other tribes. Information was scarce even then. Renowned as a sort of intelligentsia, it appeared that the Asteri were an erudite species whose intellect compared to that of humans. Rumors from those who interacted with them considered the tribe practically superior to humanity which served only to fuel the fairytale of an uprising that filled many with hopes of liberation before the existence of the Resistance.
So their eventual eradication by the Orthodox Church came to many as no surprise.
The threat of a species overthrowing work 800 years in the making must have caused the Church to target the Asteri back when they first established themselves. If they were as extraordinary as others claimed them to have been, they were too much of an outlier to keep around. According to the records they gathered throughout the years of destroying gunuds, their eradication was dealt with within two years of completing the mind control magic.
Except that they never accounted for the survival of one lone Asterius.
Noé didn't know how Chief Orias survived the cull of his people or why, despite having the freedom to leave the necropolis that remained intact even years after the Asteri had gone all but extinct, he chose to remain behind with the ghosts of his people.
Teosa appeared to pity the lone self-proclaimed Chief of the Asteri when Noé first was introduced to him, and she supposed that had been the reason why she allowed Orias to aid them with the Archives. Now instead of an empty city, Orias was kept company by the insurmountable knowledge that she and the other recorders had gathered and transcribed over the years and by the one who had been assigned to work alongside him as keeper.
That same person now stood without any damn hesitation before the Asterius chief after having spoken of something that Noé could only guess she wasn't supposed to.
"Soul transmigration."
The way Shuri so nonchalantly repeated that and sent Orias into a frenzy had Noé taking a precautionary step behind the ifrit in case any meteorite was sent flying their way.
"Such kind of magic—the magicians won't allow such a thing to be performed so precariously. Grand magic like this takes a toll on the caster; it's a price we know nothing about. Which is why I imagine Lord Ugo kept it hidden away. Could you imagine what the magicians would do if they knew this kind of spell existed? Especially after what happened? They would be running around recklessly just as you are now."
His point was plenty valid. Noé wouldn't deny him that. When Shuri explained to her the kind of spell this thing she'd ripped from Ugo's journals was, Noé could only think of what the other magicians would do with it. Magic to bring back a soul into a new body was a powerful thing. Almost unbelievably so.
It only came to reason that the price to pay for using it would be just as hefty.
But that doesn't matter.
Noé had been ready to lay down her life more than once in the past before. The only difference between then and now was that she wouldn't be throwing it away for nothing this time.
"We know," Shuri admitted without missing a beat. "We've already come to terms with risking whatever it takes to bring them back. And don't worry about the magicians finding out either. You're the only one we've told this to."
A terrible silence bounced against the unstable sanctuary for a long minute. Noé didn't know why they had come to the Asterian city, but Shuri had insisted that for them to do this, they would need Orias' help. From the looks of things, though, he wasn't about to comply easily.
Stepping forward, Noé turned her stern gaze upward in the direction of where Orias' figure hid somewhat in shadow.
"Chief Orias, we might not be well-versed in magic or what price performing this particular spell will cost us, but if there is a way to return his mother and sister to King Solomon, then shouldn't we at least try it?"
Noé didn't know how loyal Orias was to Solomon but it was way likelier that much like the others, the Asterius owed a great debt to the Resistance as well. Which was why appealing to his loyalty towards Solomon was Noé's best bet.
"I care not what benefit it would bring King Solomon." His confession came as a shock to her after years of witnessing so much devotion towards the one magician by so many other chieftains. And though it was hard to tell for sure, it didn't seem all that shocking to Shuri who simply lowered her head to avert her gaze. After a long pause and an even longer sigh, Orias spoke again. "However, the debt I owe to his mother is a great one I find myself obliged to repay."
It was then that the Asterius descended, shrinking from his massive size as he did so until he stood before them cloaked and two heads taller than Noé. Despite being unable to see most of his face beneath his hood, she could see the long strands of ebony that spilled over his shoulders and catch the small glimpse of his eyes.
They were the darkest of blues, cusping at an inky blackness whose hint of light came from the specks of gold and silver that swam in them. It was like staring at a night sky full of stars.
"Does that mean you will help us?" Noé felt herself snap out of a trance at the sound of Shuri's voice so close next to her but brushed it off to focus on the Asterius before her instead.
Orias reached out to Shuri with his palm extended. Shuri didn't hesitate in giving him the torn journal papers as both waited with bated breath for him to inspect them.
"This could barely be considered a backbone of a spell." From this, Noé couldn't help but notice the deepness of his voice and how the sound itself resonated in her head. So sultry and lethargic; definitely different from how he sounded a second ago before taking that form. "Even if hypothetically speaking the spell is complete as is and could do what is intended of it, you would still need someone to cast it. And I fail to see any magicians here with you."
"That's why Miss Noé will cast it."
Emerald eyes open so wide that she swore they'd pop out of their sockets. "What do you mean, me?"
Shuri's crimson speckled purple eyes locked with hers with a subtle determination in them that quieted Noé long enough to explain.
"You're half-human. Even if your Vastagian blood overrides it, there's still that human part in you. That magician half."
"You're staking an impossible task on a novice who you're not certain can even perform magic," Orias countered with a huff.
"If it's cast with enough magoi, even a novice can do it. That's why Lord Ugo wrote it the way he did. That's why multiple people are needed to cast it. And that's why I will go with her too." Shuri reached out to the pages and grasped them in her hands but didn't altogether snatch them from Orias. The gesture was simply used to get his attention, something she accomplished by how that gaze met hers. "Which means the two of us can do it. With Miss Noé as the caster and myself as the conduit channeling magoi to her, we have what's needed to perform it. All we need...is to know where their souls are."
Those galaxies for eyes narrowed and his head fell pensively. The motion itself told Noé all she needed to know about why they had gone to Orias in the first place.
"...you know where they are…"
Orias clicked his tongue and released the torn pages before spinning on his heels and giving them his back. He seemed conflicted. Too much so.
"Please, Orias." Noé didn't fail to notice the way Shuri's voice softened with her plea. "You're the only one who can help us get them back."
It almost appeared like a lost cause. Almost. But thankfully, Noé was proven wrong for once in her life.
"You have to make haste if you want to reach the other side of the rift without being noticed."
"What?"
At her puzzled tone, Orias glanced over his shoulder with a slight glare to his eyes. "For a soul to be transmigrated into a new vessel, the soul must still be in a plane where magic can manipulate it undeterred by Ill Illah's influence. Luckily for us, where the lady's and the little wisp's souls are kept guarded beyond the great rift lies exactly at the border of those boundaries."
"Guarded by what?" Shuri inquired.
"If it's beyond the rift, do you mean the Origin Dragon?" Noé inquired. She had heard plenty about them from Teosa, Ignis, and Solomon; a dragon that, much like Chief Orias, was the sole survivor of their species known to them. "But why would such a being guard them?"
Orias shook his head slowly. "The information your leader made me privy to was very limited in scope. All she ever told me was that they were imprisoned by the leader of the Orthodox Church and placed there where no one would dare enter out of fear of the chasm and what dangers lurked within."
"Then we have to go now before King Solomon and the others return from inspecting the cathedral," Shuri quickly noted.
"That's way too far," Noé countered. "Even if we take a carpet and by some miracle reach the rift, reaching the bottom could take days. We don't have enough time to go and cast the spell without someone finding out."
"There is a way."
Both turned to Orias who despite having spoken wasn't even looking at them and was instead gazing pensively at the ground beneath his feet. After a moment, he lifted his gaze and took a step towards Shuri who despite being towered by the Asterius chief didn't falter in the slightest. Instead, she remained still as a statue at his approach and even when he reached a perilous hand closer to her neck. His fingers grazed her neck to grasp the thin chain resting around it and pulled it out from beneath her clothes until the small gem came to rest in his hand. Noé watched as the small jewel emitted a faint golden gleam, mimicking a flickering star in the midst of burning out.
"I can still sense the magic Ignis used on this," he proclaimed. "The connection you two shared is still intact even after her death. I could send you both to where this connection leads with the magic of my divine staff."
Without hesitation, Shuri's blackened hands with crimson and gold fractures reached up to wrap around his much larger one that held onto her necklace. "Would you do that for us, Orias?"
Strange. There was something about the way they carried themselves in the presence of the other that threw her off. They seemed rather...close. Perhaps having worked together had done that. Whatever it was didn't matter, though, because Noé couldn't help but think that for as against as Orias was about what they planned to do, he would not deny Shuri her plight.
"Take each other's hands and don't let go no matter what you feel."
Without hesitation, Noé and Shuri both did as they were told, grasping one hand with the other with a grip tight enough to whiten their knuckles. Taking the divine staff that King Solomon had given him, Orias created the teleportation spell that cast them out without warning.
Pressure surrounded them, pressing down on their bodies as they rushed through whatever had taken them. But no matter how uncomfortable it was, Noé held tightly onto Shuri, not daring to let go. Luckily, the sensation left her as quickly as it had come. Even after hitting solid ground with their backs, she didn't dare let go just yet. Instead, she took in her surroundings as both rose to a seat while keeping their hands linked together.
Noé had never accompanied Solomon and the others to visit the Origin Dragon's abode. Going had never been a necessity for her, especially when neither her meistras nor Ignis went. Now that she was in such a vast open space without any idea of which way was up and which was down, she kind of wished she had.
Thankfully, Shuri wasn't as lost as her. The jewel that had been giving off all but a faint glimmer of light before was now shining as bright as a beacon at sea. And from how the light intensified by simply facing a certain way, it was the clearest compass they could have hoped for. Without letting go of one another, the two followed the star's guidance in the vast whiteness that enveloped them. The more they traversed the colorless planes, the more Noé found it odd that they had yet to encounter the Origin Dragon. Especially when Chief Orias mentioned that they had been specifically imprisoned here for it to guard them.
But no news was good news.
With the magic's help, it took them only a short while to find what they were searching for.
A grandiose white oak appeared as if from nowhere all at once before them. Its trunk was ghastly ivory whose thick roots weaved through the white scape where they stood and ran as far as the eye could see in every direction. Its canopy towered over them and much like its roots reached heights so high above that it almost seemed to go on forever into the sky. The leaves that stirred under an intangible breeze shimmered a bluish-white hue. The few that fell under the breeze that blew by fluttered slowly to the ground where they simply dissipated into bright bluish-white particles that disappeared into the air. It was a breathtaking sight to take in but one that they had little time to grasp when what they had come for appeared to lay at the heart of the great white oak.
A gilded cage laid ingrained within the oak's base. Golden bars melded together with the white wood and although they were unhindered from view, nothing could be seen through the open gaps of the cage. Only a vast sallowness with golden lights flickering within like fireflies.
"Do you sense that?" Despite having whispered, Shuri's voice echoed in the emptiness they inhabited and had their heads turning every which way at the oddity.
"Yeah."
Shuri didn't have to explain it to her to know what she meant. This familiar sensation that was coming from the cage…
You're there, aren't you? Meistras…
"We should stop wasting time," Noé said before turning to Shuri. "What do we do next?"
Releasing her hand, Shuri knelt down and took the torn pages to lay them on a thick root on the ground. Noé crouched down beside her while she busied herself with taking out some kind of wrapped package she'd brought along with her. It wasn't any longer than her forearm, but it was twice as thick wrapped the way it was. Not to mention that one end seemed to bulge even more than the rest.
"Read this over. Since you'll be performing the spell you need to know this."
Noé became flustered the moment Shuri passed her the pages she'd placed on the floor. "W-Wait a damn second. I don't know how to read magic formulae. I'm not a freaking magician."
"Neither am I but I managed to understand enough with how much we've transcribed. If I could, then surely you can too." Shuri didn't lift her gaze to argue and instead went about unwrapping the package she'd brought along with her.
Groaning under her breath, Noé busied herself with reading over the jutted words from Ugo's journal. That man wrote as much gibberish as he talked about and it showed in how unorganized the thoughts seemed to be. There truly was no making any heads or tails of it at first but as Noé recalled Teosa's lessons over the years, she came to find a bit of magic theory mixed in somewhere with the miscellaneous junk she set aside within her brain. Who knew that mildly paying attention to the boring logistics of magic would serve her one day?
So… I'm guessing that if this is how she explained it, then this here means this and I have to do it this way for this to work how he writes it down in this part.
Goodness it was like deciphering a damn riddle with no answer. But with the bits of pieces she managed to understand, Noé could more or less see how to cast the spell that was written on the pages. It still felt like a long shot, especially when she doubted herself so much as only a halfbreed, but this wasn't the time for that. Now more than ever, that same doggedness that had kept her alive all her life needed to surface and bring her the confidence in herself to do this.
If not for herself, then for her meistras and Ignis.
The thought itself was all she needed for it all to finally land home with her.
"Alright, um, I think I got it. So now I just need to cast it, right?"
"Yes, but you'll need this."
Before Noé had the chance to ask her what she was going on about, her emerald eyes grew wide at the sight of the unwrapped package that was now laid before her. Broken in half like she remembered it being was Teosa's staff. Her hands shook at the memory it brought back as it froze her in place. Warm hands rested suddenly upon her trembling ones and waited there until the trembling subsided.
"You're going to need a staff to channel the magoi for the spell to work," Shuri spoke softly, a tender expression coming to her usually nonchalant expression. "This was the only one I could find that they wouldn't think it strange if it were missing."
Ridding herself of the leftover shock the best she could, Noé nodded and gave a shaky smile in an attempt to be reassuring. Shuri nodded in return before holding out the top half of the broken staff towards Noé. Her hands still somewhat shaky, Noé reached out and grasped the thin golden staff before their trembling became too much to hold it.
It was cold—strangely so—but Noé couldn't deny the way it felt light in her hands despite being nothing but metal. Keeping the other half with her, Shuri helped Noé to her feet as both made their way up to the heart of the oak tree, stopping a few feet away from the gilded cage trapped within.
Shuri motioned for her to hold out her end of the staff towards the cage; Noé listened, keeping one hand towards the top where the crescent moon was and another inch above where it'd broken off. Stepping closer and with the other half ready, Shuri held it against the top half of the staff, holding the bottom of it steady while her other hand flimsily joined both pieces together. Seeing how unsteady it was, Noé lowered her hand until it came to be over Shuri's and adjusted her grip until the staff could be held together by both of them without much trouble.
"I'll help you with the magoi to cast the spell. All you have to do is focus on what you want it to do. Imagine it in your head. And once you have it, cite the incantation."
Just like shooting a bow and arrow.
Focus. Noé held tightly onto the staff between them before closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths to settle her heartbeat into a slow and steady thrum.
Aim. Imagining it was a bit tougher than she thought it'd be at first. But just thinking of Teosa and Ignis made it easier somehow. The way they met, how they became closer, and all the time they had spent together. Despite it being years, it still felt like such a short time. Nonetheless, every little second had mattered to her. Every tiny memory etched into her mind that involved them had made her into who she was today.
And the mere thought of having to live on without them pained her to the point where those memories would not be enough. She would need more—so many, many more—before she would ever think that she'd be happy to let them go. They needed to see this dream of theirs come true. Even after all this tragedy and loss, they deserved to see it.
So please, Noé prayed. Please work!
Fire.
"Alrukh Mustansikh!"
A sphere of light so much whiter than anything else blinded them when it appeared at the end of the staff. A moment later the sphere began to take shape. At first, it was nothing but an amorphous mass, almost like a baby kicking through its mother's womb to be set free. Despite how eerie and unsettling the sphere was, Noé didn't let go of the staff, and neither did Shuri. In fact, it was when the sphere appeared that Shuri began her part. Noé couldn't tell how she was doing it but she could definitely feel it. Somehow, Shuri was channeling energy through the staff and feeding the amorphous being. More and more it grew in size until it was large enough to be double their sizes combined all around. The moment it stopped growing and wouldn't react to any more of the energy given to it, however, Noé grew worried.
"What's happening? Why did it stop!?" she shouted.
"I-I don't know!" Shuri's voice shook with how exhausted she'd become. Panting through her words, she appeared to force more energy through only to start gasping for air the next moment. "It's not—receiving any more of the magoi I'm giving it!"
"What?!" Her emerald gaze frantically switched between the amorphous mass and Shuri before saying, "How do I give it mine!?"
"You can't anymore!" Shuri cried out. "You used what little bit you have from being half-human when you cast the spell. You don't have any more to give it!"
No, that can't be.
She refused to believe that they had come this far and be at the cusp of accomplishing their goal only to fall short in the end. No, whatever energy—whatever magoi this thing needed from her in order to grow and exist again, she would give it. To hell with what could happen to her.
Take it! Whatever you need, even if it's all that I have. So long as you bring them back, I don't care if I die! So please!
"Just bring back my meistras!"
Everything happened all at once yet distinctly separate.
A sudden surge of something she'd never before felt coursed through her entire body in the blink of an eye. Almost like a surge of strange vitality that had been missing from within her. But despite that vitality coursing through her, it wasn't going anywhere no matter how much she forced it. It wasn't until something else occurred—so briefly yet so critical—that she finally felt that vitality flow outwards.
The faint semblance of a sturdy hand that rested upon her shoulder and the hint of a whisper that reached her ears.
"Take care of them for me."
A single tear ran down her cheek at recognizing Solomon's voice—so distant, so pained, yet so hopeful.
Don't worry. I will.
Her determination renewed, Noé let those floodgates run free and take their due course through her. The newfound magoi flowed from her to the staff and entered the amorphous mass, getting it to grow just the tiny bit more it needed before it began to take a more solid shape.
To Noé, it looked like an egg at first. Then it broke apart, blooming outward like petals from a flower and leaving in its center shimmering shapes that shrunk into form. They shrunk smaller and smaller until they resembled more humanoid shapes.
Those of a mother dearly holding onto their small child.
Exhausted beyond reason, both she and Shuri collapsed to their hands and knees gasping for every bit of air they could manage. The staff that had been held together by their joint hands fell back to pieces not far ahead from them. Slender legs came into view as she kept her head down, still unable to raise it. Noé only forced herself to do so when the figure bent over and a pair of familiar hands took the two pieces of the staff into their grasp.
Emerald eyes watered over as tears built up at the sight before her.
Mending the broken staff and uniting the two broken halves, Teosa set the blunt end upon the ground and created a new gem from thin air that sat neatly between the ends of the crescent moon. The faint bluish-white glimmer it gave off cast some sort of magic that encompassed her body in white again and this time dissipated into the clothes she used to wear. Added to that this time was a robe with long sleeves that hung from her wrists while the blood-red shawl she remembered her meistras always wearing over her arms was now laid across her back and tied over the front where something else lay within.
Taking a few strides forward, Teosa knelt before the two, her mercurial eyes shimmering in the white space as she looked over each for a brief second before a tender smile spread across her face. Gently, she took both her and Shuri into each of her arms and embraced them.
Noé did the only thing she could do at that moment. She cried. Beside her, Shuri trembled in the embrace but couldn't keep the tears that fell nor the sobs that tore through her either. Both wept from the joy of having her back as Teosa tenderly stroked their heads.
"The two of you went through so much," she soothingly whispered. "To have put you through this as well… Forgive me…and thank you."
Hearing her voice made it that much more real all over again and had Noé's tears coming back with great force. The sudden groan from something beneath them stopped both of them in their tracks and brought out a soft chuckle from Teosa. Carefully, she leaned back from their embrace and reached over to undo the knot that kept whatever she held against her bosom hidden.
Emerald eyes widened as tears quietly streamed down her face at the sight of a young Ignis stirring awake. Cerulean eyes fluttered open and slowly peeked from over the blood-red shawl. Noé didn't understand how she'd regressed in age, but having her back as a six-year-old was better than not having her at all. And she could be thankful for that small miracle at least.
Under her breath and through the grogginess of just having woken up, Ignis's soft voice called out to all of them.
"...I'm hungry…"
She couldn't keep from laughing. Neither could Shuri. Teosa simply smiled.
"Shall we return home then?"
—{i]—
'What to do now,' that was the question of the last hour.
After the shock and slight exhaustion wore off, Noé suggested returning to Chief Orias's abode where they could better gather themselves before dropping on them the fact that Teosa and Ignis had somehow returned from the dead. Teosa agreed and with the young Ignis in arms teleported them all to said location. Almost immediately, Noé felt sick to her stomach upon arrival and hurriedly sidestepped from the group to empty her stomach.
"You better tidy after yourself, Vastagian."
Noé groaned and wiped the saliva that dripped down her chin with a disdainful scowl. "Sod off, Asterius."
The chief and grand librarian of their Archives huffed at the backtalk but dismissed it in favor of lowering himself to meet with the other three. Under his hood, those star-filled night eyes scanned them all until they rested upon the much smaller figure of Ignis in Teosa's arms.
"Huh."
"What is it?" Shuri inquired, notably curious.
"I was just thinking how reassuring it is that a pygmy is still a pygmy regardless of size." Ignis's six-year-old stubby hand jutted out from Teosa's hold and yanked a long ebony strand. "You prove my point," he grunted and pried her tight grip off of his hair before turning to Teosa. "So, what are you going to do now, lady magician?"
Hearing that, Noé returned to the group that stood idly by with that question now hanging heavily over them. It was the same exact query that was sure to be in all of their minds. It wasn't like they could just strut into the most inhabited city where the magicians now resided and announce her revival. It would cause head-splitting chaos that none of them would be able nor willing to deal with.
Lowering herself on the nearby stone parapet, Teosa lowered Ignis who, once used to the sensation of her feet again, walked over to Shuri's side as the ifrit took a seat alongside the same parapet. Noé, much like Orias, took to standing around instead as Teosa pondered over their options.
"For the time being, let us account for our current position. Quite the fissure must have been caused after the genocide at headquarters and we must take that into account before we move forward." Those mercurial eyes veered to one side as she tapped her lips with a slender finger. "Noé, what is the state of the recorders right now?"
Noé turned sullen at the question but answered it all the same while keeping her gaze averted. "Aside from Shuri and I, there are only five others who stayed."
"Bring them here."
Despite thinking it odd, Noé did as she was told and with Shuri's help had the five remaining recorders together only a few hours after nightfall. Noé warned them ahead of time that they might be somewhat shocked by what they would see and to braze themselves, but she supposed nothing would've prepared them for seeing those who should've been gone back in the flesh. Much like it had been for them, Euphemia and the others shed tears of relief and joy at the sight of the person who had united them all once again with them. Noé knew that there would never be any as devoted to her meistras outside of herself and Ignis, but the admiration was a close second for them.
Once all their emotions were dealt with, however, the expected question arose.
"How?"
Shuri and Noé shared a hesitant glance but Teosa didn't hesitate in explaining to them what had happened. There wasn't a detail that she excluded, sometimes even referring to them for the ones she wasn't quite sure of. It was while explaining to them the spell they had used that Euphemia sprung up with a different query.
"Soul transmigration magic, you say?" Almost instantly, her eyes widened and her expression brightened at the thought that surely crossed her mind. "B-But wait! If that kind of magic is possible, we should let the lord magicians know! Surely with it, those who were killed at headquarters can be—"
"That's not possible." The recorders Noé had brought back turned to Ignis at her quiet yet blatant retort. Those cerulean eyes that shone like a pair of shiny jewels now fell and pensively stared at nothing.
"Why not?" Arikos questioned with a sneer. "If Miss Noé and Shuri could do it without even being magicians, why wouldn't the lord magicians be able to cast it?"
"Because those souls have already returned to Ill Illah." This time the one who replied had been Orias who stood as far away from the rowdy group as possible without being far enough not to hear their conversation. The chief lifted his hand and seemed to stare at it for a good second before continuing, "And after what King Solomon has done, it is as impossible as the pygmy claims it to be. Magicians or not, they cannot transmigrate a soul they cannot reach."
"What King Solomon did?" Noé repeated. Noticing the sudden awkward atmosphere that came over the rest of the recorders, she asked again. "What did he do?"
Most of them stood stiffly in place, fidgeting at the uncomfortable question. It wasn't until Morrigan heaved a long sigh that he finally turned to look at Noé and the other three who had been absent during that crucial moment.
"King Solomon brought his will upon the world and divided all rukh equally amongst all sentient species. He fulfilled his promise to all of us...but..."
What a cruel joke.
The more Morrigan described what had happened in their brief absence, the more Noé couldn't help but laugh at the callousness of it all. Now that they had what they strived for all these years, the magicians were discontent with it.
"Isn't this what they fucking wanted?" she growled through gritted teeth. "They're just blaming this on the damn brat because it turned out unfavorably for them in the end! What fucking nerve—!?"
"It's not completely unjustified." Her emerald glare turned to Ignis who sat with the most apathetic expression she'd ever seen from the girl.
"What…"
Instead of answering, her tiny hand reached up to the eye marked on her forehead, the third eye that allowed magicians to receive magoi from god itself.
"They were just illuminated about the existence of something that trivializes the deaths and suffering of their loved ones. They discovered the existence of destiny as Ill Illah had set it to be. Even if Sol has taken its place and replaced its will to serve the dream we all wanted... it won't be easy to accept something that makes their sacrifice insignificant and erases their will. It might actually be impossible for them to accept such a thing exists only to govern and trivialize their lives for a greater plan they know or care nothing about."
Though it came as just as much of a shock to her, Noé could still objectively see the kind of hypocrisy they were spouting.
"The injustice of it all is what will keep them from accepting it." It didn't surprise Noé that Shuri agreed with Ignis despite her reason being nothing short of illogical. "I imagine it could even drive someone mad, the thought that our lives don't matter in the grander scheme of an all-powerful god."
"It wasn't all-powerful." Teosa's proclamation astounded them, especially when she spoke it so easily and without hesitation. "Had it been, David would never have been able to steal from it like he did nor would Solomon have been able to override its will and seal it away. At best it is a deity that lost its grandeur to time and abuse, at worst it was nothing more than a clump of magoi that acted out of instinct."
"R-Regardless of which it is, the fact that the magicians are at odds with one another doesn't change," Euphemia pointed out. "It's been especially hard for Queen Sheba herself who seems to be struggling with what to do."
"What do you mean?" Noé asked.
"She's holed up with King Solomon since the magicians dispersed after their argument," Tanvi replied as she climbed on Saffiro's back. "Things are really tense up there in the palace."
"Truthfully, after what we witnessed with the magicians, I fear that all that which King Solomon strived to create will fall apart before long," Saffiro concluded.
A heaviness came over them as the conversation quieted down at last. So many things had happened in the span of just one day and it had been enough to collapse everything that had been built over their years together. That tight-knit family had been cracked by tragedy and undone by this so-called shoddy destiny. Noé couldn't believe their convictions were fragile enough to so easily fall apart like this. She'd always thought humans stronger than this; that despite how weak they seemed, god had chosen to give them power for a reason.
Because their formidable hearts and will would be able to withstand what their body couldn't.
"If that is the case then our goal is clear."
Emerald eyes watched intently as Teosa rose from her seat, tunic flowing down along with her hair and the red of her shawl contrasting with the brightness of her silver eyes. She looked at all the recorders present before addressing them all equally.
"We have prepared ourselves all these years for a crisis such as this." When their confused mutters arose, she continued. "We may not know the kind of suffering they are experiencing but it is our job to keep the memory of those they have lost and their past intact in order to help them and their future along."
"Meistras?"
"Euphemia, Arikos, Saffiro, Tanvi, Morrigan." The five stood at attention at being called. "You are the last of us that can help uphold the legacy we fought to protect. Rotate the prior responsibilities between the five of you but keep in mind that our objective has changed. Preservation is now our prerogative, especially that of the magicians who were lost in the attack of headquarters. It will be arduous now more than before but I trust those of you who have chosen to stay are more than capable of accomplishing this."
Their voices called out a resounding 'yes' in unison.
Without missing a beat she turned to Shuri next who despite flinching in her seat listened intently to what Teosa had to say.
"Shuri, you're the one who is capable of managing the Archives better than anyone. I entrust you to continue your task here with Chief Orias and safeguard them." She then turned to Orias as he took a step closer to the young ifrit. "Chief Orias, is there a way to transform and save the written and oral histories we have into physical records that could be seen and heard?"
"What for?" he bluntly inquired.
"Paper and objective stories will do for prosperity's sake, but they won't hold a light for those who have suffered losses in such a pivot in history. If there's a way for them to remember their loved ones and their stories in a more vivid and respectful way, I wish for them to have at least that much."
Orias averted his gaze while massaging the back of his neck before groaning, "Hard to say, but I'll research it and see what I can do."
"I'll leave that to you then." Finally, Teosa faced Noé who instantly felt her feathers preen expectantly at her meistras' sudden approach. Now this close to her, she could feel the warmth of her body as she rested her hand upon her shoulder. "Noé, you're the one whom I trust most with the magicians themselves. I know it's a tough task to leave to you but could I ask you to record their stories and those of their loved ones who've passed?"
There was no hesitation from Noé who easily bowed her head with a smile. "Of course, meistras."
"Thank you, little sparrow," she whispered with a gentle smile. At last, she turned to everybody as one. "As for myself and Ignis, we will aid Queen Sheba in weathering through these times. We all will get through this bitter strife. We will come to see the day when she and my son can reign peacefully. And for that purpose, we recorders will be the mediators between all sentient species from this point onward."
The small roar of their agreement rang through the walls of the desolate city and through Noé's chest making it swell with pride and hope. This was a unanimous promise that they were all vowing to uphold. Not just as the keepers of the history of all living creatures but as the ones who would help arbitrate unbiasedly now when others couldn't.
It would be their mission and their hope to finish bringing about the golden times of peace and unity that everybody had wished for.
The same golden times that she would forever remember fondly as the ones of that little quaint family of magicians that had saved a pitiful sparrow like herself.
|X|
Queen Sheba was first to know.
Astonishment and slight joy were what the Vastagian garnered from her expression the day she and Shuri brought both Teosa and Ignis to her chambers. As ruler of their new world, she was told everything. No detail was spared in recounting what they had done...and why it couldn't be duplicated with those lost to David's murderous hand.
Their queen regrettably accepted their actions, mostly gladdened that not all had been lost that tragic day.
Telling the rest of the magicians was a much taller order. Because they could anticipate the utter chaos it would cause, a choice was made as to what to say. They would be told as much of the truth as humanly possible, and only be spared the cruel reality that even with this magic their loved ones couldn't be brought back. It was a cruel decision to not even offer them the choice to try, but an understandable one no less.
What was the story left to tell them in that case? It had been a spell that Teosa had placed long ago on herself and her child in case something were to occur to them. One similar to what David and his magicians had done to fake their deaths the day of the attack. It wasn't easy but bitterly over time, the magicians came to accept their return as fact.
Initially, the inner disputes continued on. There appeared to be no end to them or those that wished an audience with King Solomon. Former allies who once shared laughter and joy now only spat discord and ill intentions.
But as vehemently as they came, they suddenly stopped.
It was then that Noé once again saw the peace and joy they once shared. One that she could finally find joy in now that all was well with those who had once helped her and with herself.
This was home—these people and this place. It was what as a young naive fledgling she had never had and what she had obtained after so much suffering. And it was finally theirs.
|i.|
"A vow of loyalty, you say?"
Noé nodded and watched as Teosa reached for the cup of water before her. Rapidly, she rose from her seat across from the table and helped her meistras as her hands trembled with the measly weight of the ceramic cup.
Her feeble state concerned Noé but Teosa paid it no mind, chalking it up to nothing more than exhaustion. It was true that since returning she had not been the same as before. It hadn't started outright but over time it was more than obvious that something just wasn't right. Noé blamed herself quite readily thinking that perhaps they had committed some mistake when performing the spell that brought them back. Teosa, however, always assured her otherwise.
"You gave me a second chance, and for that, you have nothing to be remorseful about."
Noé couldn't have been less convinced. For her meistras' sake, though, she remained quiet and simply aided her however she could during her sickness.
Taking the cup, Teosa smiled over its rim and drank, her sleeves slightly slipping to reveal bandages wrapped around her arms. Noé's stomach churned at the sight of them and couldn't help recalling the first time the wounds beneath them had appeared. Not even weeks after she'd been back, skin that had been once so fair and smooth began to fall. Like the skin of a reptile, it began to peel away and leave only the reddened flesh underneath. Flesh that bled black.
Mercurial eyes caught her peeking and smiled as she carefully placed down her cup. Her hand reached out and caressed Noé's cheek tenderly, her hands somehow being spared most of the damage so far.
"It's quite alright, little sparrow. It is not as bad as it appears."
"It looks painful," Noé retorted with a grimace as she leaned into her meistras' touch.
"It is uncomfortable." Teosa's roundabout way of describing her crude wounds did little to appease her nerves. Knowing this, the woman chuckled. "Nothing I can't handle, I assure you."
"Still…" Her emerald gaze lowered, concern still marring her features.
Teosa waved the subject away and though it was a tough thing to do, Noé listened as she redirected the conversation elsewhere.
"Now about what her majesty said," she began. "This vow of loyalty, what will it entail?"
Easy enough.
Queen Sheba had personally explained to the recorders what it would be since they would be the emissaries in charge of relaying the message to the species. Dividing such a task between the seven of them left each individual task quite loaded though not impossible. Quick as she had been, Noé had returned first, hence her presence in her meistras's chambers now. Even though she had not gone public with her sickness, there was little to be done about who volunteered to serve her, the mother of their king. Or more like who didn't.
This was an unknown disease and no one knew how infectious it could be or even how lethal. It left the number of people who would help her limited to a handful which very much included the recorders. They cared not what happened to them so long as they could be of service to her after all.
"Quite an event, it sounds like." Teosa daintily tapped her lips as her eyes veered off. In the end, she laughed and pushed herself back from the chair as she stood from her seat. "I should probably start looking for an outfit then."
"O-Outfit?"
"I can't attend in my nightdress, Noé." Without another word, Teosa headed towards her wardrobe and opened it to look inside. "Now, what would be appropriate?"
"Wait a minute, meistras. You can't attend as you are now." It took a simple jump out of her chair to reach Teosa where she stood across the room. Teosa paid her no mind, instead taking out a robe and setting it aside in the meantime. Noticing she was being ignored, Noé did the unthinkable and forcibly closed the wardrobe's doors to have her attention once more. "You're not well enough to stand out in a crowd!"
"You worry too much."
"I worry enough." Her apprehension only grew at the sight of Teosa unable to lift her hand away from the wardrobe's knob. "Have some consideration. If not for us then yourself. This isn't something to just brush aside like you're doing."
"I'm fine, sparrow." Teosa latched onto the fist that held onto the knob and attempted to pry it off to no avail.
"You say that now but you've been sick for months now. What you've been doing to treat yourself is doing little if anything. How can you not expect us to worry about you when you could very well just faint on us in public?"
"No such thing will happen." Her weak attempts continued throughout her tirade but Noé refused to budge. No matter how frustrated she appeared, she refused to let her just set this aside and forget about it. "Release the door, Noé."
"I'm being serious! This isn't the time for you to be playing dress-up, meistras!"
"I said, release it!"
Noé didn't know what occurred in that split second afterward. All she could figure was the way her body was flung across the room only to collide with the opposite wall, destroying all that she crashed into. Her vision blurred and white spots burst in its field as she tried sitting up from where she landed. A ruckus of doors and sudden voices didn't help in settling down her bouncing brain either.
"Noé—you alright?"
Understanding the necessary bits and pieces, she gave a lethargic nod. With it, her vision returned after a second. The first thing she noted was the presence of Shuri kneeling in front of her now. Had she been the one asking about her wellbeing? Sounded like the most plausible.
What about the other voices then?
A quick scan of the wrecked room answered her question. Shuri had come in with Euphemia and Ignis in tow. While she had come to her aid, it appeared Ignis had gone to Teosa who now sat on the floor in front of the wardrobe disheveled and disoriented while embracing the child. Despite being in her arms, all Ignis could do as she calmed Teosa down was turn her head to check on Noé. Euphemia stood at the threshold of the door still shocked at the aftermath of what they had just missed.
"I-I'm sorry." Teosa's hurried whispers echoed in her head as her brain still tried to settle itself in her skull. "I don't know—what came over me."
"You're alright," Ignis' hushed voice rose over her cries for forgiveness. "You didn't mean to hurt her."
"I didn't." Her cries faded off the further she got as Shuri took her away from the room for good. "I truly didn't."
In quietude, the two made their way to the med bay that was thankfully empty. Noé, still dazed, could do nothing more than sit and patiently wait as Shuri went about treating her for any wounds she might've gotten. It was while treating a scratch on her back near her wings that Noé finally snapped out of her stupor.
"What...just happened?"
"It's the illness." Despite how reassuring she might have wanted to sound, Noé noticed how half-hearted her reply was. Practiced, even. "She's lashed out before. Not as violently as she did just now but it's happened."
"Have you figured out what's wrong?" No answer. Brushing aside her treatment, Noé turned in her chair and locked her emerald gaze with Shuri's crimson speckled purple eyes that averted themselves. That she had none gave her pause and reason to ask again. "Shuri."
"We...do not know." Her grip tightened around the bandages she'd been using and her gaze met hers briefly only to fall once more. "Euphemia says that she's been helping treat her with Ignis's help but it's done little aside from slowing down its progression."
"Is it because we lack knowledge?" Noé asked no one in particular. There was no one there who knew the answer anyway, of that she was certain. But maybe—just maybe—the rukh would answer her. "Or is it something we did? Something that went wrong with that spell…"
Maybe Solomon would have had an answer.
"I do not know." Crimson eyes finally lifted and focused on the cut on Noé's cheek instead, slowly using a rag to clean it before applying some ointment. "All I do know is that we mustn't provoke her. Ignis says that it's just the illness; it's causing some disconnect with her control and causes her to lash out using magic without her knowledge. We must avoid angering her from now onwards."
"So what?" Noé gripped the edges of her robes, her feathers bristling irately at how hopeless their situation was. "Do you expect me to just stand by and act like nothing is happening? Act like her body and mind aren't falling apart on themselves?"
"Yes." Shuri laid a gentle hand atop of hers and somehow lessened Noé's knuckle-whitening grip. "For now, that's all we can do."
|XI|
Playing house.
That it's what it felt like after a certain point. Past the day of the ceremony where Sheba gave all chieftains their sacred metal treasures, it all felt like an enormous facade.
What happiness they had scrounged from the ashes appeared little more than an illusion now. But one that Noé had to maintain for her meistras' sake. For the happiness of the one that mattered most to her.
|i.|
"What a wonderful world these children have created."
Noé hid her unease behind a bright grin.
"Isn't it?" She paced around the room and ended up in front of the window in Teosa's chambers. Parting the heavy curtains, the sunlight entered, parting the heaviness that nowadays settled in the air around her. "That brat's vision really came true, huh?"
"Yes, what little Sol wanted came true. What she wanted...came true."
She?
"Who're you talking about, meistras?"
"Who?" Teosa tilted her head to one side as her fingers mindlessly scratched the back of her bandaged hands. "Who indeed? I can't seem to recall."
"Do you mean Ignis, maybe?"
"No, not the wisp. Someone else. Someone...important."
A groan left her then and Noé flinched at the atmosphere changing around them. That feeling—sickly and tense—was one she had sadly gotten used to. Offering her a cup of tea and some treats, Noé took a knee before her meistras and smiled reassuringly.
"How about some tea?"
Her fingers suddenly halted and the hint of a smile crossed her lips once more. Gently, Teosa picked up the cup, her strength somewhat better despite the wounds that marred most of her body now. Lifting the cup to her lips, Teosa inhaled the aroma deeply before taking a sip and smiling in a way that reminded Noé of the woman who had once kindly offered her a hand after saving her life.
The beautiful ghost of a smile.
"What wonderful taste," she offered kindly. "It feels like flowers blooming in my mouth."
Noé smiled back widely, the gesture accentuating the sunken shadows of her dull emerald eyes.
"I'm glad you like it."
|XII|
A facade that shattered the day of King Solomon's death.
How peculiar…
Overwatching the current state of things from up high on one of the many buildings of the city was Noé who couldn't quite ignore the uneasiness that crawled under skin. Though it had become quite a normal sensation to live with during the last few months, there was something about all this that didn't quite sit well with her.
True, it could simply be the fact that King Solomon was reaching his final days, perhaps hours, and that was starting to affect her. She doubted it though. Seeing others die was something she became accustomed to long ago. It wasn't anything new. And though she would admit that she was saddened to see the brat begin his journey to wherever he might go next, Noé also knew that whatever odd sensation was festering in her had nothing to do with death. At least not Solomon's.
Something felt off. Almost like a calm before the storm.
I hope I'm wrong.
The bristling of her feathers at the imminent sense of danger startled her to attention. The mutterings from the crowd below that grew louder by the second and only intensified when looking back confirmed it. Spinning on her heels, emerald irises widened at dark clouds that rushed towards them. A dark cloud full of nothing but monsters—
And magicians.
Why does this shit fate insist on proving me right?
Noé had never seen war erupt so suddenly before. It was like one last drop had been dropped on a cup at the cusp of shattering and Solomon's eleventh hour had been that drop. There was nothing for her to do except fight. Even without weapons at the ready, she still possessed her feathers. Yet against magicians and creatures that were seemingly invincible, dread began to bloom in her heart.
All this senseless death—what is it for? Why now? Why would you do this…?
It was idiotic to question their motives. Much like Ignis and Shuri had foretold all those months ago when they first brought Teosa and Ignis back, perhaps they had truly gone mad, unable to accept this so-called of their motive, it still didn't justify this massacre. In Noé's eyes, they were no different than those who had killed their loved ones.
So Noé fought. Her pride and strength held steadfast as she took steeled feathers in hand and fought onwards, sending those she could underground to evacuate. Their foes were relentless and their attack even more. Small as she was, insignificant as her prowess was, Noé didn't let herself fall. Injury after injury, defeated enemy after defeated enemy. Even when her vision tainted, even when her muscles and lungs ached, even when her blood tainted the ground she stepped on—Noé didn't stop.
She wouldn't let them stop her.
Her willingness to protect these people was too strong for her to stop. To protect these people and the world they had created—the world her meistras loved so much.
"I'm not letting you take this away from me!"
|ii.|
Flames. Blood. Screams.
A scoff escaped her, her mild drunken stupor enabling her cynicism to rise to the surface. "I remember that day. On every corner of every edifice, on every face—that's all I saw. The sight of it is ingrained so vividly in my mind that watching this is almost comical."
"Onee-san…"
A tender hand touched hers. Her fingers flinched and her feathers bristled in startled response, yet she didn't pull away. A part of her yearned for that warmth. It yearned for the security of knowing that all of this—all that she was seeing along with everybody else—had already happened.
It couldn't hurt her.
Even when it clearly did.
"It was the day I failed to protect them and lost the things I cherished most." Her other hand reached over her left shoulder and touched what she could of her back. Of what was painfully missing. "My wing, my home...and my meistras."
A/N:
First part of a two chapter upload! Hope you guys enjoyed it! I'll go ahead and wait to give my spiel on the next chapter so that you guys can just go jump right into it :D