[Cynthine] - Two Weeks Prior
A bewitching enchantress was captured betwixt the mirror's four corners. Long, violet locks. Full lips. Timeless skin. Everything was perfect for another day as the most gorgeous woman in Belza Hill.
First, I'll purchase several pounds of prime steak for my fanged devils. Then a spare sweater for Milo, since his half-birthday approaches. Next-
My heart fluttered past a beat, a distressing sign for a woman of my years. I adjusted my hand mirror - a gift from a certain ill-mannered skeleton - noticing the appearance of an unsightly obscenity.
An unwanted needle of hair grew against the grain of my brow. A non-issue to some. The same "some" who wore an appearance nearer to that of an ogre than a human. I lifted my hand, summoning the energies of glamour magic to erase it forevermore. That was when the words inscribed on the mirror's rear halted my hand.
"Glass reflects your outer beauty," it wrote, "but what's inside you shines ever brighter."
"…What a childish platitude," I smiled.
Ultimately, I let the matter drop. As tiny as it was, perhaps I didn't need to worry about erasing the hair so soon.
The rare imperfection only accentuates one's beauty, I suppose.
A spirited knock put an end to my thoughts.
Strange. I turned. How long has it been since I've received a visitor?
Rising off the couch, I made for the door, leaving the mirror aside.
More knocks sounded as I approached. They were light. Patient. Whoever was behind them likely lacked a concerning presence.
I reached for the knob and opened up my home. Under the sun shined a very familiar smile.
"Hello, Miss Cynthine!" beamed a freckled young man.
…Perhaps some concern was warranted.
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"The skeleton did what now!?" I leaned over my glass table. "I called upon decades of experience to perfect his glamour, and then he decides throw my masterwork away to become a Templar!? He may as well traipse blindfolded into a lion's den!"
Ansel's boy laughed nervously on the opposite couch, raking his hair. "Skell was real sold on the idea. There wasn't any budging him. Amara tried, believe me."
She clearly didn't try hard enough!
I sighed. "Don't misunderstand, dear, I see his intent. I don't necessarily doubt the Citadel has secreted away something or other to aid his quest. But some risks are too great. Dying in those Ordeals is problem enough, but the scandal of an undead infiltrating the Order? It would be unimaginable…"
Remembering his scent, a number of my cats surrounded Oliver. He nuzzled each and every one, not appearing the slightest bit concerned. "Skell won't get caught. Amara's there, training him right now. I can't imagine anything bad happening when those two are together."
As easygoing as his grandfather…
I sank back in my seat. "I suppose it's good that at least one of us keeps the faith." But there's more, isn't it? I can't imagine you went through the effort of traveling all this way simply to update little young me."
"Well… there was this evil wood lady, and a jail-license thing, and this cool guy who held his sword backwards, but I can tell you about them later."
…What ever is he talking about?
"Really," he went on, "I came here for one big reason: grandpa."
I sat taller. "Ansel? What about the man?"
His expression sharpened into an uncharacteristic pensiveness. "Can… can you tell me what he was like at my age?"
"You wish to learn of his past? Did he never tell you himself?"
I realized my folly before the words finished escaping my lips. Ansel kept many cards close to his chest even in his youth. Some secrets even I was never told. It would follow that his grandchildren weren't subject to any unique treatment.
"He only gave bits and pieces. I know he ain't from Lumerit. I remember too, something about distant islands separated only by the Abyss. That," Oliver's eyes held mine," and the close friends he explored them with."
Distant islands? Now that brings memories flooding back.
"You have the right of it, though if that's all he ever told you then I'm afraid you've received the abridged version of the abridged version. I can remedy that. Give me time to reminisce on the olden days and I could recount tales for hours. Days, even. But I get the impression you seek something specific. Your interest in his past, would I be correct in assuming it isn't merely innocent curiosity?"
"No," Oliver inspected the air overhead. "I reckon it ain't. I'll put it like this: Amara is this hard-working Templar with a sunny future. Skell is fighting tooth and… uh, bone, to find out who he is and take his life back. I'm happy I could be there for them. But I think I need something to push me on my own way."
"And you believe this 'push' could be uncovered in Ansel's history?
"Venturing, hunting, sightseeing, we love so many of the same things. And now that I've left Sienna Village, the world is so…" he never found the right word, instead opting to spread his arms as if failing to contain an explosion.
Oliver brought back his hands, as if harnessing the feeling into his beating heart. "Whatever passion he found when he was young… maybe we can share it."
My eyes narrowed. He seemed different from last we met. Not because of his glitzy new armor or neat haircut, but because of the fire in his gaze. A purpose flickered in them.
One that exuded a familiar heat.
"Hm. Perhaps you can." I laid palms on my knees and laboured to rise once again.
The adolescent tilted his head as I beckoned him to follow me to the front door. "I've devised a way to aid you: I'll tell a tale. One that will tell all you need to know of your grandfather's path. And if you're of the right sort to walk it."
"A story!?" a hunger pulled him off the couch as if a drawn by a hook, startling Maya in the process. "What's it about?"
"How Ansel and I met. But it won't be recounted here. A tale like this is better told where the winds can be tasted. Follow me."
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The serpentine streets of Belza Hill, winding and wending, were exceedingly familiar to me. Not so much for dear Oliver.
He didn't seem to mind. Every street we passed he stared down like a missed opportunity. My eyes knew what lay down each; I'd engraved the town's layout into my mind over the course of twenty-ought years. But in his, each road was a route to an unknown adventure.
Nevertheless, we soon reached the grand steps and scaled the town's towering hillside until we set foot onto the Upper Layer.
In one of the small parks near the the Layer's edge, I seated myself on a wooden bench overlooking the endless waves of green sweeping into the horizon. Crossing his legs in the breezy grass, Oliver dropped in front of me like a child gathered 'round the fire.
Although, this wind is quite nice. I let my eyes flutter closed. A minute or two to slow and enjoy it would be-
"Are you ready!?" Oliver clearly strained to hold back his enthusiasm.
I sighed, and smiled. "…For you dear, of course. But first, a question: have you ever tell of the Wayfarers?"
"The Whatfare?"
"As I expected. Well, it's no matter. You'll know of them soon enough."
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"Best turn that frown to a smile, quick," demanded the tattooed carriage driver, a man cursed with the voice and appearance of a wrinkle-choked bulldog. "The Curator likes his dolls happy-lookin' when he plays wiv' 'em."
"Don' think she's understandin' you," the one-eyed woman beside him turned back, scanning me up and down as I tried to look anywhere but forward. "Guess she ain't half bad for a concubine, but look at her - staring out the window like a twit. Prolly gots a bag of rocks 'tween the ears, this one."
Though we shared the same face and body, the woman I was then and the woman I am now are tremendously different. Speaking back or even speaking up was the last thought to grace my mind. I could only gaze outside the carriage window at the floating islands and drifting clouds that peppered the blue skies for miles, wishing desperately to be anywhere else.
To an outsider's perspective, the carriage was a dream that soared on romantic winds. Golden wings sprouted from above, catching the air underneath. Crimson coated the cubic exterior and collected sunrays like a net.
A beautiful facade.
Behind the doors were wooden seats both roughly-hewn and splintered. The two ahead, pressed close to my knees, were slightly askew as if kicked repeatedly. Those I sat on, chipped into by marks as narrow as human nails.
I wasn't restrained; they must have figured I wasn't the type to struggle. They were right. To escape would be unthinkable.
Ignoring the carriage's durability and the endless fall underfoot in the case that I did get out, freedom would be quickly stamped over by the brand of fugitive. The "esteemed" Curator of the Arvess Islands hadn't coined his name off letting go of that which he believed was his. There would be no returning home to the family that let me be taken, and no other place to take refuge in. Recapture would be inevitable.
In essence, my fate was to inhabit that of a gilded birdcage. Resided in by a bird who would soon be forced to strut until the end of her days.
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"Miss Cynthine, I'm awful sorry to interrupt, but…"
How adorable. All this talk of winged carriages and islands that hang in the sky must have set his mind utterly ablaze. It's not as if he'll come across such phenomenon in a realm like Lumerit. I suppose I can answer a few of his curiosities.
"…are you okay?" he finished, frowning. "You must've had such a hard time, back then."
I blinked. "Am I… dear, this happened decades ago. Were I not so keen of mind, I would've long forgotten these events."
"Oh, okay," he nodded. "Well, then there's something else I wanted to know."
Ah, here it is.
"What's a concubine?"
I blinked twice. "…A fate worse than death. That's all you need to know, for now.
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"What're you on about, 'ain't half bad'?" the man focused on spinning the large wheel that directed us through the blue skies, but he spared a moment to glance back at me through the mirror that rose from his footboard. "That must be the finest vixen on these islands. Were she not goin' straight to the Curator's doorstep, I'd almost consider…"
"Consider what? You pretend like I'm no looker myself! I still got some years in me yet!"
The man lazily brought a bottle to his frown. "…All I'm sayin' is there's a reason you're on pick-up duty."
"Like I'd ever want different!" the greying woman banged a fist on a board of levers.
"Watch yerself! I prefer soft landin's to crash landin's!"
She ignored him. "Bein' locked up in that palace, never allowed to leave, always being prepared to be his plaything? Sounds like bloody dung to me even if he showers me in his stupid gifts. Rather be on his payroll any day o' the week."
The man noticed his drink was empty as a breeze started to whistle off its lip. "Quit blabbering, will ya? And- ah, look what you've done, now you got the girl sobbin'!"
It was true. I bottled up my tears when I was torn away from my home isle. But now the Curator's vast island floated into view, held aloft by nothing. And somewhere on it, my prison, garbed in a gorgeous exterior.
That was when the glass cracked.
"Can it, lass!" the woman's face reddened. She snatched the empty bottle from the man's stubby fingers and pitched it at the carriage walls. Glass snapped behind my ear. Yet the cascade of tears only flowed stronger. I curled into a quivering ball, hands and knees cradling my head, heart pounding so strongly it sent pulses through my tongue.
"Hey!" the man's knotty hair billowed in the growing winds, "don't damage the merchandise!"
The woman unlatched her flight belt, rising out of her seat and bursting into the carriage interior, fury pulling her features taut. Her associate didn't move to stop her; he became suddenly more focused on the wheel as we soared over the tip of the island. She didn't notice.
"Look, lass!" she pushed around the seats, crossbow jostling at her side. "Fuss all you want; your life ain't yours anymore! Now if you don't-"
I never learned what manner of threat she intended to weave. Quite frankly, whatever it was couldn't possibly have compared to what followed. Her voice, along with everything else, was swallowed whole by the howl of the wind.
Our carriage lurched aside as the woman and I were thrust into the windows. Only because of his belt had the driver not been propelled into the sky from the sudden twist in direction. But the gale grew sharper. A narrow blade of green wind sliced through a wing overhead and we went tumbling onto the roof as the carriage flipped upside-down.
Fortunately I'd cradled my head. Unlike the woman, who cursed up a storm until her head collided with the new floor and she collapsed awkwardly into a silent pile. Far more hectic was the driver who wrestled with the wheel to bring our vessel back on course.
We nosedived for the land below. Panting and huffing, he fought to spin the wheel. It refused to move an inch. The trees rushed closer.
In what was likely the first and only moment of wisdom in his life, he rolled the wheel the opposite direction.
The flying carriage twisted back on course right as we crashed into a sea of canopies.
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Splinters and shattering and screams.
Those are what crowded the next ugly moments. I pressed my eyes shut and compressed myself into the smallest form possible as the world quaked around me.
In the next instant, everything became eerily still. I peeked through the limbs wrapped around my body. The carriage was devastated.
Broken shards of glass sprinkled sunlight across the floor, alongside branches, leaves, and splotches of blood. But not the woman's. She'd landed rather luckily onto the wooden seats as we turned. Unconscious she may have been, but spared from the worst of the crash.
I cannot say the same for the driver. My eyes followed the trail of red through the thrown-ajar door to find him. What I saw of his body is better left unspoken. I will only remark that the trees were not merciful. And that I did not pity him.
My mind attended much more to itself. Auspiciously, my injuries were reduced to a few scrapes and a number of manageable aches. But I knew that could change in the span of a breath. Although terror-stricken, I rose and crept a peek outside the shattered windows.
We ran aground near the island's rim: a broad strip between thick bundles of forest where carriages were intended to land safely. My head hung over the edge of this trail as I stared unblinking back toward the tip, where the island-spotted sky stretched into infinity. Blocking the endless reaches, however, was a fiendish excuse for a woman.
Floating at ten feet tall at the edge of the path, this "woman" had no skin, or even flesh. Instead its body was that of a verdant cyclone of dust, leaves and rocks in the faint shape of an unclad lady with six, insect-like wings of wind protruding from its back.
Its featureless, ever-shifting face snapped to mine and it slowly hovered closer. My heart sank. Much like my body.
I cowered in the carriage corner, mind sweeping away countless questions to grapple with what truly mattered: survival. Could I tuck myself away and hope it would forget me? As much as I desired to, I couldn't delude myself. Then the woman's crossbow stole my panicked gaze.
In a stroke of desperation I reached for it to find the weapon already loaded, alongside a number of additional bolts. Sweat rolled down my temple. I had never held one before.
Yet even a fledgling young me could pull a trigger.
Hurried footfalls over glass and blood led me through the door and past the scene of splintered crimson. With rickety steps I dropped onto solid ground and threw purple hair out of my face. The winds grew strong enough to whip leaves and sway branches; I lifted the crossbow to my eyes all the same.
The creature - a sylphid - approached the battered carriage with feet floating over the dirt path. I chewed my lip and stilled my pounding breaths. Sweat-slick fingers let the arrow fly.
I aimed for the chest, but the winds carried the bolt to the center of her swirling head. It ripped through with ease. Horror pulled my jaw wide. It was as bothered by the bolt as the sea when fingers run along its surface. A creature of pure wind, you see, cannot be harmed by such tangible action. Not harmed, but certainly angered.
Internal winds quickened their circulation and darkened into that of a raging thunderstorm. Its body shifted and transformed, expanding from the shape of a lady into a whirling tempest, spinning like a boomerang as it took flight into the sky.
Beheaded trees plummeted below as she swerved overhead, dropping chunks of wood and greenery onto the ground around me. I scampered from the falling shadows as thick bundles of greenery were moments too late to crush me.
But an outstretched branch caught my ankle. I tripped and hit the center of the path as the spinning creature swooped back down to ground level. Its shape changed again, condensing into that of a towering humanoid once again - albeit this time with arms that widened into spiraling twisters. It stood over me and howled at a pitch that rang my ears like bells.
A concoction of sweat and tears drenched my face as I looked up at certain death. The crossbow was ineffective, and I only knew the most basic of arts - equally as worthless.
All I could do was watch as the arm-cyclones rotated quicker and quicker. Confusion came first; nothing hurt, there were no blades of wind or powerful gusts of air. My first breath after the realization clued me in.
Air didn't fill my lungs. I trembled, focusing on pulling in a deep breath.
Yet with each moment, I only felt myself shriveling up further inside.
My chest constricted to the extent that it throbbed; my brain spiraled into hysteria. I wasn't the quick-thinking mage I'd become in my prime, then. I was ill-prepared for such an encounter, and as my vision darkened, I used my last puffs of breath to choke out final words.
"Help!" I flattened onto the unforgiving dirt. "Someone… free me."
Just as two axes split the creature in twain.
"Haha! Flawless strike!" said the voice of a young man. "Should've paid greater attention, my tempestuous friend!"
A proper angle was obscured behind the stormy surface of my aggressor's body, but I saw enough: pointed hair like uncut grass, his needle-thin mustache, and a broad, unforgettable smile. I could finally breathe again.
"Ah?" Ansel dropped his hand axes, peering past its split form. "A lady?"
Lamentably, however, the sylphid quickly pulled itself together and spun around. An arm flew for Ansel's surprised face and the incoming squall hurled him down the path like a stone skipping across water. I watched my savior with horror. Surely a point-blank blast like that would kill him? Injure, at minimum?
Yet after coming to a stop, he rose and merely dusted himself off. "Well played!" he smiled through his grimace and rushed back to the creature. "But you'll need more than a soft breeze to knock the wind out of I!"
The creature howled in response, and I slowly crept out of its peripheral, nearer and nearer to the carriage. Terror still wrapped cold hands around my world. Yet I found a finger or two loosening.
How can he look this thing in the face… and not be horrified!?
"Get serious, Ansel!" chided a strict voice.
My attention flicked to a man exiting the western tree line. A high-collared longcoat rested on his shoulders and a pointed, wide-brimmed hat on his head, working in unison to obscure much of his brown-skinned face. Bright yellow eyes glinted under the hat's shadow, glancing at the many-paged tome he held before clasping it shut.
"Blindly attacking it last time did us no favors," his cloak drifted behind his buckled boots' steps. "You do realize that repeating something whilst expecting dissimilar results is an exercise in stupidit-"
"Move, smartass!"
A woman sped out of the treeline and barreled past him, nearly knocking his hat into the wind.
In her grip weighed a large stick with an even larger slab of stone at the end. Red warpaint cut across honed cheekbones. Pelts and hide clothed… some of her body, leaving much of her limbs, neck and midriff exposed. Thrown around her back was a thick fur shawl, which bristled in the air as she leapt.
"Smash anything hard enough and it'll die!" her hammer slung past cropped hair. "Even air!"
"Lyra, wait a tick!" Ansel insisted, realizing he ran directly into the crossfire. But Lyra never stops. He made the wise choice and elected to dive away from her and the creature.
Gravity and unbelievable strength came down in tandem toward the sylphid. When it connected, the ground would've been rent asunder. Yet she never came close.
Warping again, the sylphid revolved into a full-blown tornado larger than the carriage. Rotating winds caught Lyra mid-descent, flinging her around in dozens of dizzying revolutions. Then the wind stopped. Lyra didn't. Momentum launched her out of the tornado and into the leafy crown of a distant tree.
Watching her soar behind him, the man with the longcoat massaged the bridge of his nose. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. This is where over-reliance on brawn gets you."
Then he stared down the creature, who had returned to its original form. "Understand this, sylphid," he held out his book with practiced flair. "Years of study at Albright College has taught me much about your kind. Namely, the distaste you have for the element opposing your own: earth!"
"…Now, just let me find the right page…" he added sheepishly, flipping hastily through his book.
The sylphid - unable to so much as understand him - wasn't intent on waiting. As it moved to blast him, Ansel blindsided the monster with a flurry of ineffective axe strikes. Ineffective, but distracting.
"Memory issues? Now?" he asked in-between attacks. "Quite inopportune timing no!?"
"Yeah, Gremory!" Lyra dropped down from the tree she flew into, several twigs and leaves having found a home in her hair. She spat out a wad of blood and stepped over it as she came closer. "No other mage I've met needs instructions for their own arts!"
Gremory groaned. "Don't patronize me! Ah, good, I've found the relevant pages. This one's hard to aim, Ansel! Watch it!"
Morphing her arms into blades of crescent wind, the sylphid would not allow Ansel to disengage so easily. His long white scarf danced in the air as he eluded rapid swipes. Each attack slash came closer and closer to scything him like wheat, yet despite the danger, his smile spoke of exhilaration.
Billowing from proximity to the sylphid was his white-and-green waistcoat, open to a lean chest. Similarly freeing were sandals and shorts, clothes worn not for fashion or function.
But because Ansel loved to feel the wind as he passed it by.
"Flit!"
I blinked once. Ansel was an inch from a severance at the waist.
I blinked again. Ansel slid into place casually between Lyra and Gremory.
Never had I witnessed such advanced magic before. My people and I were never aware that it could accomplish more than tasks of convenience. Somehow, my fear was beginning to take a back seat.
"Hop to it!" Lyra demanded of Gremory. "Our prey's wide open!"
The scholar grimaced, but focused his attention away from another argument. "Boulder Salvo!"
Rumbling violently, the ground before the Wayfarers spewed a dozen human-sized rocks in rapid succession. By the time the sylphid finally processed where Ansel had gone, it stared down a volley of furious rock.
I peeked from behind the carriage. Are… they about to defeat it?
Then the creature changed again.
Returning to its tornado form, the swirling winds it wrought were conjured just in time to catch every single incoming stone. Gremory's confident smirk fell off his face. In a reversal of his art, the sylphid spat the rocks back at the plucky Wayfarers.
Ansel weaved around the stones like silk in the breeze. One stone that passed him struck a thick tree, ripping through the bark with ease.
Lyra stood head-to-head with the amplest rock of the bunch. With a beastly heave of her hammer, she roared her favorite art as stone struck stone: "Super Crusher Smash!" Two powerful forces collided. But a much larger boulder would be required to overpower Lyra. The earthen chunk was smashed to smithereens by the woman's aura-emitting hammer, broken pieces and dust settling at her feet.
And finally, Gremory grabbed onto his hat and dived onto the grass. He got lucky.
The final rock came to a rolling stop past the treeline. Around them, the land was gashed in massive divots.
"We're making zero progress!" Gremory spoke the obvious, rising to his feet.
"I hate sayin' so," Lyra glared at the reforming sylphid, "but you're not wrong. If we can't hit it, how'll we kill it, and if we can't kill it, how'll we get paid?"
Ansel stroked his chin, even his carefree confidence wavering. "A way will have to present itself. Otherwise," his eyes flicked to mine, "it will surely harm more than us."
My heartbeat quickened. Even these - in my mind - heroes were having difficulties with this creature. It needed to be stopped somehow, else it wouldn't merely kill me. My savior would be felled as well.
But what could I accomplish? I did not wield mighty magics like Gremory; I did not possess the freakish strength of Lyra, and I lacked the effortless agility Ansel boasted, and all proved useless against the sylphid, regardless. Neither could I escape. Without a flying vessel, there was no route off the island. I was bound between the choking grasp of either the sylphid or the Curator.
Helplessness was the emotion I expected to assail me. And of course, it did not hold back.
Envy, however, snuck in right behind it.
An envy for the sylphid hovering in the center of the path. In a way, it personified freedom. Flight carried it away from the same burdens that kept me grounded, its intangibility allowing it to remain unshackled by the whims of others.
But is its freedom truly absolute? Perhaps… even air could be ensnared.
The people of my floating hamlet were simple and pragmatic. Magic was only used insofar as it could improve our lives. Fire arts to cook food and bring light, bio arts to encourage plant growth and heal scrapes, and water arts to cool rooms and form ice from liquid.
That final one stood out to me.
Liquid, and gas. Perhaps in that way, they may not be so different.
I slinked from behind the carriage, desperation and determination pushing my steps. "You three! Do any of you know an art that can freeze?"
"Who is that!?" Lyra's eyes snapped to me before her chin did. "Talk about a stunner."
"Her appearance matters little," said Gremory. "If she knew any better, she'd understand that water isn't wind's opposite - earth is."
"At this point," Ansel interjected, "any suggestions are welcome - including our friends' here. What have we to lose?"
"Our lives…" Gremory sniped. "Fine, I'll bite. I know an ice art. But if this fails, Ansel, it's on your head."
Howling winds came from the creature. It noticed me once again.
Quickly, I spoke. "A-Ansel, was it? I've watched you three fight. You're great at keeping its attention and not getting hit! Maybe… you should distract it, while Gremory prepares his art and Lyra defends him. Then when its frozen, one of you strikes the final blow!"
"I'll try anything once!" Lyra said excitedly, "I especially like the 'final blow' part!"
"Why are we allowing some girl to delegate orders?" Gremory muttered.
"There's little time for debate," Ansel raised his axes, "the sylphid comes!"