Sunny sat with his back against the rough stone wall, methodically running a cloth over the silver blade of Cruel Sight. He did not actually need to clean the Ascended weapon, as it was a memory, but the repetitive motion helped him ground his racing thoughts. The adrenaline of the battle had finally bled out of his system, and the thrill of his new weapon was also calming down, leaving behind a profound, aching exhaustion that sank straight into his bones.
Across the small fire they had built from dry bark, Cielle was watching him.
She sat with her knees drawn up, her chin resting casually on her arms. Her wings were folded neatly behind her back, completely still. She had been staring at him for the better part of ten minutes without blinking. Sunny tried to ignore her clear green eyes, focusing intensely on his new spear, but her gaze carried a weight. Sunny felt like she was dissecting his brain with a tiny scalpel.
"It is wrong," Cielle said suddenly.
Sunny paused his polishing. He did not look up. "What is?"
"The mimic," she replied smoothly, her voice completely flat. "You said it hesitated, and that is why you were able to behead it. Your explanation does not align with logic though"
Sunny tightened his grip on the black wood of the hilt. He kept his expression perfectly neutral, a skill he had honed through endless life and death encounters.
"The logic of a magical shape shifting abomination are not an exact science, Cielle," he said lightly.
"It had the absolute advantage," she continued, completely ignoring his deflection. "It drove you behind the tree. It was faster, and it knew i wont be able to attack. I saw the strike it prepared before you broke line of sight. It was flawless. Yet, two seconds later, its head was on the ground."
Sunny finally looked up. Her eyes were sharp and deeply bothered by the puzzle she could not seem to solve, sunny knew she hated that. She was not pushing aggressively, but her mind simply could not let go of the missing pieces. She was like a dog with a bone, except the dog was an angel and the bone was his darkest secret.
"I am just that good," Sunny stated, offering a confident, arrogant smirk. "I did something which made it stop, and then I took its head. You underestimate my sheer genius."(not a lie :})
Cielle just stared at his smirk with slightly dimmer eyes, clearly recognizing it as a mask.
Sunny realized he needed a better distraction before she decided to directly ask him something too close to the real truth. He quickly lifted Cruel Sight, holding the silver blade up so it caught the firelight.
"Look at this enchantment, though," Sunny said loudly, shifting the topic "The Dark Mirror. It can hold two distinct charges. I can literally store the crushing pressure of your Seraphic Domain and release it on command. Do you understand how ridiculous that is? I am basically walking artillery now."
Cielle looked at the spear. She understood what he was doing. For a long, tense moment, Sunny thought she might actually push the issue. She possessed a stubborn streak that rivaled his own.
Instead, she let out a quiet sigh, filed the anomaly away in the back of her mind, and accepted that he was not going to tell her the truth today.
"It is a very interesting weapon," Cielle agreed, her tone shifting back to its usual deadpan sincerity. "You earned it."
Sunny felt a massive wave of relief wash over him. He lowered the spear, the tension slowly draining from his shoulders.
"Although," Cielle added, tilting her head slightly, "your methodology for testing it was highly questionable. You stabbed your own hand. Then you specifically asked me to crush you."
"It was an essential experiment," Sunny defended himself, rubbing his chest where the phantom pressure still ached. "I had to know if your domain can charge it, guess what… it can"
Cielle studied his face for a long time. Her eyes narrowed just a fraction, weighing his words against his actions.
"Are you a masochist?" she finally asked
Sunny choked on the air in his lungs, coughing violently. He stared at her, completely derailed even after spending so much time with her.
"What?! No!" Sunny protested, his pale face flushing a deep, angry red. "I am a pioneer of research! There is a vast, philosophical difference!"
"The difference is…." Cielle started, picking at a loose thread on her tunic. "You looked very happy when the spear caught on fire. You were bleeding, and your soul was damaged, but you were smiling. It was very strange."
"I hate pain," Sunny grumbled, glaring at the fire. "Pain is terrible. I am terrified of pain. I just happen to hate being weak slightly more."
Cielle did not look convinced. She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward slightly, her green eyes fixing on his left hand. Without a single word of warning, she leaned across the small space between them, grabbed his wrist with one hand, and bit down hard on his forearm.
Sunny let out a loud, undignified yelp, violently jerking his arm back.
"What the hell?!" Sunny yelled, clutching his arm and staring at her like she had grown a second head. "Did you just bite me?!"
Cielle sat back, looking completely unbothered. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and nodded slowly to herself.
"You did not seem to enjoy that," she observed " Im beginning to doubt my theory.. I need more data though"
Sunny stared at her, absolutely dumbfounded. His brain struggled to process the absurdity of the last ten seconds.
"You bit me," Sunny repeated, his voice cracking slightly, "to test if I liked it?"
"It was an essential experiment," Cielle replied smoothly, echoing his own words back at him flawlessly. "I was curious of your nature"
Sunny opened his mouth to scream at her, but the logic of her statement completely paralyzed him. He just sat there, rubbing his arm, defeated by a girl with no humor.. No humor at all!
"A masochist with a justification," Cielle concluded finally. She nodded once, satisfied with her own assessment. "I will make a note of it."
Sunny just let out a long, exhausted sigh and rested his head back against the cold stone. He was too tired to fight this battle. He turned his attention back to the cave floor, trying to find some semblance of peace in the quiet crackle of the fire.
His eyes locked onto the stone floor beside Cielle. The firelight was casting a sharp, elongated shadow of her seated figure against the cave wall. But as Sunny watched, the shadow on the wall shifted subtly, independent of her actual posture.
Cielle casually lifted her right hand. Her shadow on the wall did not immediately follow. Instead, the shadow slowly raised its own hand, completely detached from its master. Cielle looked down at the dark silhouette on the ground and then lowered her palm, the shadow met her halfway.
She gently high fived her own shadow.
The shadow seemed to vibrate with a feeling of accomplishment, a sensation Sunny recognized intimately.
Sunny felt the blood slow in his veins.
He stared at Cielle. He knew she copied Aspects, but seeing her literally interact with the shadow as a sentient entity sparked a new, much darker thought which he had not thought of before. An Aspect was not just a collection of power. It was the fundamental reflection of a person's soul. It was tied to their nature, their history, and their destiny. The Nightmare Spell did not hand out powers without attaching a heavy, iron chain to them.
If Cielle copied his Shadow Control with such perfect fidelity that the shadows themselves developed personalities, what else did she copy?
The thought bloomed slowly in his mind as a chill ran down his spine. His Innate Ability was Shadow Bond.His divine, inescapable curse. It was the darkest, most closely guarded secret of his entire existence.
Does her mimicry copy Innate Abilities?
Sunny stared at the fire, the flames blurring slightly as his paranoia took over. If she copied his Aspect, did she also copy the deeply ingrained Flaws that came with it?
If she copied his Innate Ability, did she temporarily become a slave to anyone who knew her True Name? He did not even know her True Name, assuming she had one. But worse, what if her mimicry somehow interacted with his own bond? If she became a perfect mirror of his soul, did she feel the invisible chains wrapped around his throat? Would she become a slave to nephis as well?
The questions piled up into a suffocating mess. He could not ask her. He could not form a question about Innate Abilities without risking a direct question from her. If he asked her how deep the mimicry went, she might ask him a question in return, forcing him to spill his darkest secrets into the quiet cave.
He had to protect himself. He had to ensure that she never learned the words he had whispered to the mimic.
"What are you looking at," Cielle asked. She had caught him staring, her green eyes fixing on his pale, panicked face.
Sunny forced his expression into a mask of mild annoyance. He swallowed the suffocating dread in his throat and pointed a finger at her.
"I am looking at a person who just high fived the floor," Sunny said smoothly, masking his terror with his usual sarcastic bite. "I am beginning to think the soul damage I took is contagious. You are losing your mind."
Cielle glanced down at her shadow, which was currently behaving perfectly normal. She looked back up at Sunny with a completely flat, unbothered expression.
"My shadow did an excellent job today," she stated simply, as if discussing the weather. " You should try it with your gloomy one. It always looks… gloomy."
"I am going to sleep," Sunny muttered, closing his eyes to hide the deep, lingering fear. "Do not let the shadows convince you to do anything stupid while I am unconscious."
"I make no promises," Cielle replied quietly, she licked her lips. "They are very persuasive."
Sunny Shivered.