Early Morning - Early Spring : Year 24 : Ampelos
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- Krystallo Ragnarok ~
*WOOM* A reality warping shockwave... The scream of the sky as it tore apart an ocean...
Such a display of power was leagues beyond anything my mind could even begin to comprehend...
But after experiencing it again and again.. that display imprinted itself on my soul...
Every time I closed my eyes.. every time I fell asleep.. I felt it. *WOOM*
It repeated...
It.. made it hard to sleep... "Nngh..." But such was the cost of understanding.
Hearing my groan as if it were the chime of a bell, Maria entered with a whisper, "Another nightmare..?"
Rolling onto my side, I let out a slow, heavy sigh before finally opening my eyes. "I told you it's not a nightmare..." Dragging my gaze to her as if it weighed as much as a mountain, I struggled to hide my exhaustion...
Despite having gotten a solid few hours of sleep, my mind was submerged in the sublimated mist of lethargy.
And the sharp, focused glint in my eyes told Maria exactly why. "Krystallo..." Her voice grew heavy as she continued into the room with a gilded chest in tow. "Why are you letting your brother pressure you like this..." She spoke as though she was ignorant.
"He isn't pressuring me." Sharpening my tone, I watched her quickly set down the chest before retrieving several others from around the room.
"You don't realize it, but he is, even if its unintentional." Flinching as she finally caught my gaze, she rushed to elaborate. "You're letting his troubles poison you as if you can shoulder some of the burden."
Her words struck my mind like a sledgehammer.
But she wasn't wrong. "You need to focus on yourself, Krystallo. I know this stuff with the Spathi family your choice, but subjecting yourself to your brother's burdens is different." Continuing more gently, she walked up the steps to my bed before beginning to clean and polish my horns. "Just because he sees a storm coming doesn't mean its yours to face."
"He's a god, Maria..." My tone settled as I finally gave in to try and relax my nerves. "If the storm he sees makes landfall, I guarantee you won't escape it either. We need to heed the warning and prepare while we still have the chance..."
Her hands paused briefly as she tightened her fingers around the cloth. "There is no amount of training that could prepare me for what he sees, Krystallo..." She hesitated as she lowered her gaze.. not wanting to speak the words I already knew. "Look... All I'm saying is you shouldn't burden yourself with things out of your control-"
"So I should just give in and die if I'm not strong enough when the time comes?"
Her voice softened in an instant. "Your brother would never let-"
My gaze sharpened with an irritation deeper than anything I'd ever shown instantly. "I know you mean well, but I refuse to be his burden, Maria." My voice soft yet chilling, echoed like the ring of a church bell. "At some point, the weight of protecting everyone will crush him, and I'm not going to ignore the fact my straw is the heaviest."
Finally falling silent, Maria's movements grew gentle.
"You know just as well as I do that he would kill himself if it meant saving me." Watching her clam up, my mind finally loosened.
Staying silent, her hands slowly continued, gentle, but hesitant—as if wanting to speak, but afraid to do so.
But being left to my own thoughts was what I wanted...
Or at least, I thought that was the case...
*Creak* Just as I sat up, Chloe entered.
She heard everything, I knew she did.. but despite that, walked up to my snout and began cleaning my teeth with a silent smile.
At first, I found it troubling, thinking she was going to restart the lecture I didn't want to hear.. but as the silence stretched, her touch brought on a cool chill impossibly reminiscent of brother's aura.
With every stroke of the damp cloth she wiped across my scales, it felt like dirt was wiped off my mind.
Perhaps.. unlike Maria.. she too felt the burden I did... The burden of being a straw weighing down the one you care about most.
Feeling that echo, my body finally found ease, and before I knew it, the morning had passed. With each clasp of jewelry around my horns, each plate of inscribed armor locked across my neck, the mask formed piece by piece—cold, heavy, and flawless.
Today was the day I was going to meet with the Spathi family's heir, in their eyes, for a marriage proposal, and while Hera would be watching me, I was on my own.
"Hooh..." Looking into the ornate mirror before me I found a figure I almost didn't recognize—a dragon draped in elegance, and adorned with just enough gold and filigree to pull others attention away from the sharpness in my eyes.
Today, I was on my own, but rather than stepping forth with shaky paws, an unusual calm found itself draped over my mind—not from fog.. but from clarity.
The storm I was stepping into wasn't small, but after Brother gave scale to what was coming, rather than being overwhelmed by the winds around the eye, my focus sharpened—bringing forth a confidence that wove into my mask like golden thread.
All that was left was to put it to use.
"Lady Krystallo, the carriage has arrived." Motioning me forth with a deep bow, Chloe finally brought me out of the room, allowing Hera to give me a brief look over before passing me on with a reassuring nod.
It wasn't confirmation I thought I needed, but as I walked by, my wings perked and a smile found its way onto my snout.
One that wouldn't just push me forward, but coat my mask in poison.
Today was the day I was going to resolve my burden, and take my first steps up the mountain without anyone's help.
It was time I made myself useful.
Unfortunately though.. the invisible clock ticking over our heads was already far beyond what any of us could have imagined...
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Early Morning - Early Spring : Year 24 : Center of the Death's Gape
(Back several hours)
- Vasilias ~
*Rumble...* The low, marching hum of the relay's core rolled through the abyss like a heartbeat locked in a coffin, each pulse vibrating the water that was thick as ink.
Though ordered to stand silent, its purr mocked me, ticking like an insubordinate machine that failed to hear its order.
But, I wasn't totally convinced that was the case.
Sweeping my gaze through the darkness, my eyes pierced the abyss, tracing the faint glow of the relay's circuitry hoping to find where the orders to march came from.
But it eluded me.
Thinking it could perhaps be an error, I dragged the edge of my wing along its side as I descended, weaving my aura through every circuit, and tracing every electron firing like a neuron carrying a command...
But I couldn't find anything wrong.. nowhere stood a broken circuit, slipped seal, or clogged rune causing a malfunction.
Even stranger, after clawing through the Acardi Laboratory's archives off Siratha's coast, the AI was spotless, holding no traces of the maps it should have transmitted, or even records of the piston in the pylon being used. The system registered seismic activity in the area, yes, but it was littered with inconsistencies I couldn't explain. -What the hell..? Is the pylon firing at lower power or something?-
It was like it was stuck in a loop... Like it was caught in the trap of broken programming...
But that was when I found it...
The clue...
Buried deep in the logs of the communications tower, there was a list of errors, each indicating a shift in the pylon's gyroscope of a degree large enough for the AI in the laboratory to order an auto-correction. -Presumably with the piston...-
By itself, it wasn't too shocking. Being embedded in a glacial slurry, little shifts, especially from the shockwaves I was creating with my recent training, wouldn't be unexpected.
However, only half aligned with me.
The other half?
No correlation. No logic.
Though smaller at the source, the 'localized quakes' the labs reported tilted the entire tower by whole degrees, rotations that could only originate from a continent-shifting amount of force.
And yet none of the laboratories budged.
It was almost like.. something was nudging it. -Could it have been from some monster swimming around it..?- With how little of the ocean I had explored, it was certainly possible that there was a creature large enough to push over the tower somewhere in the abyss.. and with the constant purring of the tower's reactor, it'd make sense if it agitated something.
So I waited.. watching...
As hours ticked by, I watched the logs like a hawk, keeping my aura spread.. looking for a ripple.
Until finally, it came. *Thum...*
Feeling the pylon's thrum echo through the planet's crust after another error populated the logs, I jumped to it through the void, expecting to be greeted by a titan in the depths, or a surge of current from the towers thrash.
But.. the water was still.
Watching the tower plunge and bob in the icy slurry as it's gyroscope spun up to correct its tilt.. I found nothing...
At least nothing.. above the ice...
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