Chapter IV

Memories that can't be memories, things that can't be real... What has Kaili gotten herself into?

“Why is everything so crowded here?” Kaili said, exasperated.

 

“Just because you live on a private estate with a maximum of twenty five people on it at every given moment doesn’t mean everyone does,” Heber chuckled. The young man straightened from where he had been leaning over an open air counter, speaking to an aging man with lean muscles and thinning hair.

Kaili punched him in the arm. “You know what I meant, you smart-aleck. Why are the buildings so close together? There’s nothing for miles around. All of the buildings are right up against the river. I feel like a sardine in a can.” As she said this, a swiftly moving group of pedestrians shouldered their way past her, knocking her off balance and leaving her with a slightly dazed look in her eyes. 

Heber looked at her from the corner of his eye as he handed a small stack of papers to the man over the counter. Kaili had been acting strangely ever since they’d come into Matrom, the riverside settlement that had exploded into a small, thriving port on the Aythni river in the past fifty years. Things were indeed crowded"it was the middle of the day and the open-air shops had just gotten into full swing. But that was what bothered him. Kaili had come with him and her father on several shipping or delivery trips. Normally, she relished the close proximity to people and things. She could walk through the crowded market place and smoothly dodge anyone or anything in her path while holding an uninterrupted conversation with another person. She could ride a squirrel through the thickest part of a forest and not even hit a falling leaf. Crowds had never bothered her before. But today, she kept looking around her, like some part of her couldn't reconcile where she was with what was around her. She tripped over stones and stumbled if someone came within an arm’s length away. She had a vaguely confused look in her eyes, and frequently didn’t hear Heber when he talked to her.

 

Putting her strange behavior from his mind, Heber smiled. “Here’s something you should always remember. Where there’s water, there’s life. Even if it’s the most simple of things, there will be life. Now here, it’s even more than that. People here are drawn to the water’s edge because everything they do revolves around the river. This town is an important stop along the Aythni. It has factories powered by the current. It has way-stations for shipping companies that use the river as transport. It has inns and shops for travelers that come through here on their way to the other cities along the water. The town doesn't spread out because there is no point to it. The water holds everything the need. It brings everything they could want to them.” He winked. “It’s got just about anything you could ever dream of right here, because there there’re people, there’s someone wanting to sell you something.”

He deftly dodged the indignant punch she threw at his arm. “Anyway, I’ve got you a place for the night.” He gestured behind him to the older man behind the counter, who nodded politely. “This is Aison. He runs one of your dad’s way-stations. Alec says here whenever he comes through this way, as does every body on the team. Aison’s got stables that can hold Zee perfectly. I’ll be heading along without you to catch up with the others and make arrangements with the other way-masters. You’ll only have to go like this for a few more days, because your dad sent word that the school will be sending a runner for you. He’ll meet you at Riverside and take you straight to the last destination. The team and I will have your stuff there waiting for you.”

 

Kaili nodded, realizing just how close she was to the last place she wanted to be. That sobering thought temporarily cleared her mind of the haze that had filled it ever since they’d left the trees behind. She had felt like some part of her had been stripped away, that she was exposed to anyone and anything that cared to look. She had been seeing things out of the corner of her eyes all day, which was part of the reason she had been off her game and her balance ever since they’d come into the city. It had seemed like there were strange symbols everywhere, just like the ones she remembered from the memory-that-wasn’t-a memory and the box that was tucked snuggly into her rucksack.

 

But they always disappeared whenever she tried to focus on them. Worse than the symbols were the people she kept seeing for split seconds before they melted into the crowd. They were always cloaked and hooded, even in the broad daylight, and were several inches taller than anyone else. She felt like the way they melted away at will should have seemed sinister to her, but it seemed more…urgent… than anything else, but that seemed entirely more distressing to her for some reason.

 

As Aison led her up to the rooms of the way-station and Heber stabled Zee for her, Kaili couldn’t help but wonder who these people were and what they could possibly want from her.

.:*:.:*:.:*:.

 

Kaili was sitting on the edge her temporary bed when Helen, Aison’s short, stocky wife, poked her head through the door. “Supper’s ready, dearie.” The gray haired woman’s voice had a lilt to it that Kaili couldn’t quite recognize, but it was soothing, in a way.

She got to her feet. “Thanks. I’ll be down in a minute.” Helen nodded, smiling briefly, and turned to walk back down the flight of wooden stairs. Kaili knelt to quickly pull her boots, which she had shed the moment she walked in the room, back onto her feet before following Helen out of the room.

Kaili looked around her at the darkly stained mahogany that made up the wall boards of the staircase. She could faintly remember staying here before. Most of the times when she had joined her dad on work trips, it had been a simple drop-off or pick-up job that never took very long. They hadn’t really needed to use the way-station for anything other than temporary stables. But somewhere in the back of her mind, she could see a younger version of herself running up and down the stairs and sliding down hallways in her stocking feet. Even fainter was the memory of her mother chasing her through the way-station to the deep laughter of her father and a somewhat younger Aison.

She paused for a moment when she realized that she hadn’t thought about her mother like that in over a week, ever since leaving home. All of her thoughts of Destinæ had been warped by the thought of the unknown that seemed to swirl around her at all times.

 

But even more surprising was the ease with which Kaili was able to call her mother’s bright smile to mind. Some darker part of her had been scared that the pain and uncertainty that filled her and tainted her memories had burned away any good thoughts of her mother. Her heart latched onto the image of her mother’s smile, letting it push back the shadows that filled her mind like the sun burned away storm clouds at dawn.

She had reached the bottom of the stairs and was halfway towards the large double wide door frame that led to the kitchen before she saw it.

All other thought driven from her mind, Kaili crossed to the small table that stood against the wall of the wide front hallway, her eyes locked on the silver photo plate that sat propped up on a black wire frame. Her hands shook slightly as she reached out to touch it.

Hearing footsteps behind her, Kaili turned slightly to see Helen standing a few feet away. Lifting the plate from its frame, she held it up for the woman to see. “Is this… Is this of my parents?”

Aison, who had walked in to see what the delay was, answered, “Yeah. That’s one we took for them at their wedding.” Kaili looked down at the silver plate in her hand. It was a close-up picture of Alec kissing her mother, both of them still managing to somehow smile broadly. From what she could see of it, her dad was wearing a fancier set of clothes that she had ever seen him wear"or even own, for that matter. Her mother had let her long hair hang down her back with a tiny string of flowers woven into a small braid in the center. She’d never seen them look so happy.

She looked up, trying to find the words to voice the question that was screaming in her head. “Can… Is it alright if I… Could I…” She trailed of, staring at her feet in embarrassment. How could she ask this of them? It belonged to them!

She felt a hand rest gently on her shoulder, and another come to sit on the hand that clutched the plate. She glanced up to see Helen’s bright eyes looking back at her, a kind smile on her face. Aison spoke, his deep voice drawing her attention. “If you’d like it, it’s yours. We offered it to your parents when we took it, but your mother asked that we keep it for a while. After you were born, she said she wanted you to have it when you got older.” Kaili looked down at the silver plate in her hand, hesitating for a moment longer. Helen’s hand pushed it towards her, gently but firmly. “Go on,” Aison said. “It’s all yours.”

Kaili bit her lower lip, trying to keep from crying. “Thank you,” she whispered, giving Helen a quick hug and casting a grateful glance in Aison’s direction before running upstairs to put the picture on her bedside table.

.:*:.:*:.:*:.

That night at the dinner table, Kaili didn’t talk much. She sat quietly at her place, eating the food that the couple had cooked for them. But even if she had felt like speaking, Kaili somehow didn’t think that there would have been much point to it. Aison and Helen were carrying on one of the most animated conversations she had ever seen on the subject of food. Aison seemed determined to make Helen accept a compliment about the quality of the roasted chicken she had made, and Helen seemed just as determined to ignore any such comment, calling him an “old fool” just as often as he called her a “culinary angel.” Between anyone else, this would have seemed like a perfect recipe for a no-holds-barred shouting match. But what held Kaili’s attention was the lively twinkle in the aging couple’s eyes. Somehow, she knew that this was a regular occurrence in this household. The lively way that they spoke reminded her of the way that her parents had interacted with each other: always laughing, always teasing. This, she thought, this is what Mom and Dad would have looked if they had grown old together. In her mind, she could see her father, hair slightly streaked and peppered with grey, his muscles still just as lean and defined as ever, and her mother, her shiny brown hair ever so slightly duller, with laughter lines creasing her eyes, both of them still dancing and laughing the days away.

Her mind continued down this path, and one thought led to another before she realized that she was speaking. “How well did you know my parents?” The two adults looked at her, and for a moment she felt embarrassed for interrupting them, but Aison’s hearty laugh and Helen’s gentle smile made her feel less uncomfortable.

“I’ve known your dad since the day he was born. I used to be one of the stable hands at the estate. I worked for your grandfather, and I practically helped raise Alec. I moved here when the hands on work became a little too much for me, but I’ve been working this way-station for close to 20 years.”

Aison put his chin on a closed fist, looking off into a memory that Kaili could only guess at. “I remember when he first brought your mom to the ranch. It was about a year before they got married, but anyone could tell that he had it bad for her. She was radiant. There was something about her that made you want to trust her, no matter how little you actually knew about her. She never tricked anybody. She was the sweetest, kindest person I’ve ever met after my own Helen”"he spared a quick glance for his wife, a small smile dancing across his lips"“and frankly, she was the best thing that ever happened to your dad.” He smiled sadly. “You and your dad weren’t the only ones who cried when Destinæ died.”

Kaili looked down at her hands, laying to either side of her mostly empty plate. She excused herself quietly, and headed up to her room. As she walked through the dimly lit hallways, one wouldn’t be able to tell if her unsteady footsteps were from the unfamiliar surroundings or from the watery haze over her vision.

.:*:.:*:.:*:.

 

Destinæ is walking through tall grass, letting her arms hang loose and her hands brush the tips of the stalks. She looks behind her, meeting his eyes with a bright smile on her face. A strange necklace hang from her neck:  a silver crescent moon inlaid on a black onyx circle, with an eight-point diamond star set in the center. The points that are straight up and down, as well as those pointing to the sides, rest in front of the crescent moon, while those pointing diagonally pass behind the decoration. The slender silver chain it hangs from is an intricate weaving of tiny circular links, tucking in and out of each other until they look like a single magnificent braid. She is wearing a steel blue shirt, the long sleeves flaring slightly as they reach her wrists, the thin v-shaped neck cinched tight with a simple leather thong. Around her waist is a wide leather belt with pouches at sporadic intervals, filled with anything she had found that day that had made her eyes light up.

To the left, Alec appears, reaching for her hand with a smile on his face. He drinks in the sight of her, eyes soaking up every last detail. Only she can make the ordinary look like a gift from heaven. The small, circular object on the chain around his neck reminds him of just how much he loves her, and just how much he wants her to stay with him forever.

The scene changes, the tall grasses replaced with a cliff top covered in a thick blanket of flowers. The setting sun lights the fading sky with an ethereal fire, giving each the feeling that they had long since left the rest of the world behind. Alec stands behind her, long arms wrapped around her shoulders, knowing that surely, no moment could be better than this.

"There were sunsets like this at my home. I hadn't  seen one in years before I came here," he hears her murmur. She is leaning her head back against his shoulder, looking out in front of them towards the flaming sky.

His brow knits, slight confusion dancing across his face. “You’ve only been away from your old house for a few monts. And I’ve never seen a sunset like this anywhere near the northern river crossing. Did you used to live somewhere liek this?”

Her hand reaches up to gently squeeze his. “Somewhere like this.”

Everything shifts slighty, and they are on another part of the hill. An old dead tree hangs out over the edge, twisting intricately around the sharp drop, a small bird rests on one of the outer branches, just barely out of easy reach. Destinæ reaches for it anyway, streatching her slender fingers out towards the tiny creature. Unable to quite reach it, she tries to take a step forward, trist to lean against the tree, but the old tree creaks and bends away slightly, leaning out further over the drop. Alec steps forward quickly, placing his strong arms aroud her waist. “Careful, Des,” he cautions. “There aren't any flyers down there to catch you.”

She uses him as a base, leaving against his arms to get closer to the bird, who hadn’t moved witch the tree’s angle. When her fingers are a few inches away, she extends her first finger, and the little bird hops onto her hand.

They step back together, Destinæ looking down at the bird almost guiltily. The bird, a 

brightly colored animal with a red breast and dark, jeweled eyes that twinkled with a hint of green, hops back and forth along her finger, looking content, never once making as if to fly away.

"Some times I dream of flying," she murmurs. "No flyer, no one, not anything but myself. up there among the clouds and the stars. The seconds of weightless free fall just before you catch yourself..." She looks back at Alec. Her eyes shine with moisture. "When I think about my home... I wish I could do more than just dream." With a flick of her hand, the small bird flies away into the sunset, singing brightly.

Another change. The sun has set, covering the small grove where Alec and Destinæ now stand in a shroud of darkness. The moon, having risen moments before the scarlet sunlight faded from the horizon, shone down on them, illuminating everything in beams of silvery white. A steady breeze blows in from the south, pushing tall clouds stained blue-black with the night towards them.

Alec has timed it perfectly. Just as the moon crests the tops of the trees around them, he pulls the chain from around his neck and brings into view the silver band that he has worn, hidden beneath his shirt, for the past two weeks, just like her mother asked him to. The engraved markings catch and reflect the moonlight, accenting the tiny diamonds that lay embedded into the band, refracting the twilit beams into a thousand miniature rainbows.

As he falls to a knee, looking up at the glowing face of the only person in the world who has ever made him feel alive, the only person he ever wants to love for as long as he lives, words fail him. He stares into her eyes, praying she knows what's inside him, and pleading with whatever higher power that happened to be listening that inside of her was the same sweet fire.

Destinæ sinks to her knees in front of him, hands clasping his  and the ring he is holding, eyes shining above moist tracks that slid down her face. "I love you, Alec," she whispers, barely even audible. "I love you so much. I want to be with you so much. I would give anything just to be able to say yes right now."

She squeezes his hand, but his heart has started pounded. If she would give anything, he wonders, why doesn't she just say it? What is going on?

She has to see the frantic look creeping into his eye. She speaks quickly. "Alec, I have to tell you something. I'm not exactly who you think I am."

WHAT?

She continues, speaking faster and faster, holding on tight to his hands, her eyes never leaving his for a second. "Everything I've told you about myself is true... at least to a point. But there is so much more to me than just what's in front of you. I've never told you before... because I thought you would run away. I selfishly kept you here, never telling you who and what I really am."

She blinks, and a fresh wave of tears slide from her eyes. "But I can't keep it from you anymore. This ring you're holding... It means more than just a question from you or a simple answer from me. If I take this, if I say yes, I am promising you that I will stand by for as long as you will have me, but it also means I expect you to do the same."

Alec tries to speak, but Destinæ puts her hand over his mouth before a sound can escape. "Please, let me finish. I know what you want to say. You were going to say that you would stand by me for as long as the sun still burns in the sky." She smiles. "You say that every time. But I can't, in good conscience, ask it of you until you know everything. I have to..." She swallows hard. "I have to give you a chance to run away."

Alec pulls her hand away and speaks before she can stop him. "I don't care what your about to tell me. I love you more than anything on this earth. I love you more than anything that's not on this earth. You are my reason for living now." He leans in to kiss her gently, tasting the slick, salty tears. Pulling back, he looks her in the eye. "I'm not going to run away."

She smiles sadly, reaching up to put a hand on his cheek. "I still have to tell you."

She pulls in a breath, preparing herself. "I'm not normal. I'm not like anything you've ever seen before, and I mean that in the most serious way possible. I am not normal." The breeze that had been all but forgotten suddenly swirled around them, pushing clouds over the moon. Flickers of lightning crackled on the horizon. "I'm not even-"

A sharp flash of lightning and a ear-rending crack of thunder rend the air, completely obliterating her words. The heavens split above them, pouring out the rain they had barely contained all day. In the distance, another lightning strike briefly illuminates the sky, and a single detail draws the eye.

A sharp angle on what is normally a gentle curve, the pale skin of her ear stands against the dark shadow of her quickly dampening hair, a testament to the words which no one but they can know, is all too quickly plunged into darkness.

.:*:.:*:.:*:.

 

Kaili jerked upright, her sweating limbs tangled in the bedclothes. She was breathing heavily, her mind reeling from everything she had just seen. The dream had seemed so real... and yet, it was still just a dream, right? There was no way she could be seeing the day her parents got engaged. Her parents had barely talked about it that she could remember, and  even if they had, she had only been six when her mother had died. There was no way...

Even as she thought it, Kaili remembered her father mentioning the moonlight and the sudden rain, as well as his promise to Mona, Kaili’s grandmother, to wear the ring under his shirt for at least a week before giving it to Destinæ.

She looked to her left, where the photo plate lay on the bedside table. Surely the wedding picture had been what had spurred her strange dream. That had to be it...

But why had it seemed to strange to her? As if her mother was trying to tell her something, but couldn't. And what had she said to her father just before that lightning strike? If Kaili had just been imagining everything, why hadn't her mind supplied that last detail? And that last moment just before she had woken up... What had been different about her mother? There was something strange, as if she wasn't the same person as just a moment before... It was almost like there was something that actually looked different.

Something caught her eye as she stared at the photo plate. A strange flicker of light from across the room glinted off the polished metal surface. She turned to look, and had to stifle a shriek.

The figures.

They were there, in her room.

Seven of them.

They were all scattered about the room, not seeming to follow any kind of reason. There was one that stood next to one of the windows, the light from the moon going right through it, as if the figure was as transparent as glass. Another stood in a dark corner, a faint purple glow emanating from under its hood.

Across the room, next to a washbasin filled still with cool water, the moon beams cast shimmering reflections up onto the wall, and onto the cowl of yet another figure. The rippling light seemed to make up the entire cloak, extending farther than the light itself could cast. By the window on the opposite side of the room, an especially tall figure stood by the long drapes, the whispering folds of its cloak mimicking the breeze-blown movement of the cloth.

Next a table in the by the door, another figure stood over a candle that Kaili could have sworn she had put out long before she had closed her eyes, but the wick still glowed with dying light. The pulsing red aura continued up and down the edges and contours of the cloak of the figure standing above it. Another, crouched to the floor, hid beneath a cloak that spiralled out around it, seemed to grow out of the wooden boards themselves.

But none of these were so disconcerting as the final figure. It stood at the foot of Kaili's bed, and had one hand on the bedpost. The entire figure glowed with an ethereal blue light, the visible hand seeming filled with nothing but swirling energy.

Kaili's eyes were wide with shock and fear, but the overriding thought in her mind was that all of these figures seemed familiar to her.

And that was perhaps the most terrifying of all.

We are threatened.

They could talk.

Their voices were filled with pulsating power, different tones and pitches ebbing and flowing like the tide. It was distracting, and yet at the same time, riveting. Kaili found she could not look away from the faint, powerful glow that filled the shadow underneath the cowl of the figure in front of her.

You must save us. Find us, and find yourself.

Confusion and fear swelled up inside of her, filling her heart and mind until she felt she might burst from the pressure.

Do not doubt, child. Your destiny is before you. Find those who will protect you, and your fate will be assured.

The light grew to blinding, and Kaili knew no more.

.:*:.:*:.:*:.

His first clue was the lack of fish.

More specifically, the lack of his fish.

Aquianos opened his eyes, looking around through the stream of bubbles rising from the bottom of the volcanically heated spring that he was meditating in. Normally, the only creatures that could survive in these waters--the temperatures got well past boiling in the dead of winter--were strange crawlers and jellyfish that were just weird like that. But his fish... now that was a different story.

“Kai! Where’d you go, boy?” he called in his mind, searching for the connection with his spirit familiar. He could feel it somewhere, but he couldn’t pinpoint it, like it was really far away.

Opening his mouth, he sent out a series of high-frequency chirps that resonated through the water. They were they only kind of sound that would carry underwater, not to mention it was a language all of the tiny creatures around him could understand perfectly. "Fish! Where are you? Fishy!"

Several of the weird slug crawlers sitting next to one of the bubbling vents  lifted their heads towards the surface. Using that direction as a guide, Aquianos tried again to locate his companion. He felt a faint shimmer in the hazy connection above him, sending slightly distressed signals down to him. Barely taking the time to nod his thanks to the water creatures around him, Aquianos used the upward thrust of the steam vents to propel himself up out of the volcanic hot spring and onto the baked clay of the ground above him, the water shedding from him so completely that it was as if he had never been in the water at all.

A quick glance around him soon located the spirit, a long shimmering animal with several diaphanous fins trailing behind it. It was floundering amid the heavily steaming air just above the spring. The ends of some of the long tendrils seemed damaged, almost like they were dissolving. Tiny lines of steam looked to be coming from the fish itself, as if it had been badly singed while in the water.

At the sight of his master, the fish swam towards Aquianos, leaving tiny, glittering points of light to fade behind him. Aquianos reached out to bring in the injured creature. “Hey, what happened to you, bud? How come you left me down there?”

The normally short thoughts of the spirit fish came in disjointed chunks. “Too much... not strong... wrong, wrong, wrong...”

It didn’t make much sense, but the frightened distress and steaming fins told him something fairly important. An Elemental spirit familiar was a creature of pure magic, an external manifestation of a connection with the Gods. Aquianos hadn’t noticed anything wrong while he was down in the water, but if Kai had been unable to alter the conditions of the element around him as Aquianos himself could, then there was something seriously wrong.

Kneeling down, Aquianos put his hands in the water, calling--very carefully--on the magic running through him. As easily as gravity pulled it down, his inate abilities pulled the water up into a elongated circle in front of him. Sending a small burst of power into it, it fogged over, turning an opaque silvery-blue. After a few moments, it cleared again, but no longer showed the barren landscape that surrounded him. Instead, it showed a thick, healthy forest, and a tall, brown-haired person in long tan robes.

“Zeph! I need to talk to you.” Aquianos called, drawing his older brother’s attention to the water-window that had appeared in front of him as well.

The blind eyes turned towards him, a broad smile on Zephyrious’s face, while a small flicker of concern passed over his expression. “Of course, brother. What do you need?”

“Have you sensed anything different with your connection? I think something might be off. I can’t sense anything directly, but my familiar wasn’t able to protect himself from the extreme heats in the water here. He actually started to dissolve. I thought you might have some ideas.” Zephyrious had always been the best at sensing fluxes in normal magic beyond his own--his reliance on magic for limited sight made him more receptive.

Aquianos’s brother heaved a sigh, a look of intense weariness filling his milky-white eyes. “Something’s wrong, alright.” Zephyrious turned his head slightly, as if hearing something out of Aquianos’s hearing. Turning back to his brother, Zephyrious spoke quietly. “The Prophecy is in play.”

Aquianos’s eyes got wide. “Wha- are you sure? How can you be sure?”

“Trust me. I’ve studied this--there’s only one thing that can damage magic to this extent. The Prophecy is in play. I’m headed to the Citadel as fast as I can, along with a friend who will hopefully help me convince everyone of what needs to be done.”

Aquianos nodded, swallowing hard from this unexpected news. “We’re going to find her? Good plan. I’ll meet you there. I can be there in less than an hour--”

“NO!” Zephyrious’s unexpected shout caught him off guard. Just as he was about to ask what was wrong, Zephyrious spoke quickly. “You can’t use a water portal. It takes you through a separate plane. If your connection to the Lord of Water were to unexpectedly fail while you were traveling, you could be trapped there, or even die. It’s too dangerous.”

“Oh. Alright, that makes sense.” Aquianos thought about it for a moment, and then asked, “Do you think I could just swim there? I mean, my abilities to breathe underwater and swim fast aren’t inextricably connected to the Water God, so that should be safe, right? There’s an uninterupted water route from here to the Citadel. That’s how I got here in the first place.” He looked around himself at the tall, ominous volcano behind him. The jagged spires of the Incændys Temple, the Temple of Fire, stood out about the horizon line. He really didn’t like being here. There was very little water in the air except near the hot springs, and that had a somewhat caustic feel to it. While it was entertaining that he and some of the other skilled Water Elves had been called to clean up after a freak accident involving Fire Stones--they got to douse a volcano, for crying out loud!--it didn’t take long for each of them to get extremely exhausted. That was why he had been in the spring. It had been his turn to recuperate from the intense exposure to raw Fire essence that surrounded him here. He couldn’t wait to get back home. There was an entire lake there.

“Absolutely,” Zephyrious was saying. “That should be fairly safe. Just get here as soon as possible without putting yourself at too much of a risk.”

“Alright. See you there, Zeph.”

“Until then, river boy.”

The image receded back into the silver fog, but before cancelling the magic, he pulled up another channel. Breva, one of the other Water Elves that had come with him, appeared in the window. Along with a few other elves he could see in the background, Breva was drenched in sweat, too exhausted to pull it back into himself.

“Breva, I’m going to have to leave you guys here to finish without me. They need me back in the Citadel, pronto.”

Breva nodded his understanding, wiping the sweat out of his eyes. “Alright. We’ll finish up here as soon as we can.”

“Good elf. Aquianos out.” Aquianos let the window fall back into the spring, briefly watching the ripples effect the clouds of steam. He turned towards Kai, who was still floating tiredly in the thinnest part of the steam.

“Hey, Kai. We need to go back into the water for a really long ways. I don’t think I’d be able to sustain a temperature bubble around you for as long as the volcanic spring lasts, so we’re going to have to try something else.”

The fish looked up at him, damaged tail flicking agitatedly. “Inside? But danger... bad!”

“Yeah, I know. We’ve never tried it for long, but that’s the only way I can think of to get you from here to the Citadel safely. Once we’re there, we can go to the Temple and get you fixed up. It’s the only shot we’ve got, Kai.”

He didn’t look too happy about it, but the fish swam towards Aquianos’s chest, his glimmering scales growing in brightness until it was hard to make out the individual edges. The floating light-fish moved into his chest, dissolving into thousands of tiny particles before being absorbed into Aquianos’s body, the elf’s beating heart spreading the spirit magic throughout his entire body, Kai now resting safely within the water of his master’s own body.

Taking a quick moment to get used to the feel of a second consciousness within his body, albeit a tiny fish one, Aquianos stepped up to the steep edge of the volcanic spring, and jumped in.

 

Author's Note

There may be a few spelling errors in this that Spell Check didn't catch... Most of this was written by hand or on my tablet PC, and I make interesting mistakes when I type without looking at the screen or my hands. Also, itty-bitty keys on a 7-inch screen take some getting used to.

P.S.- Yes, Aquianos is a goof ball. He has a different speech pattern than anyone we've met so far. It's a little more like how we talk now, so I had him use a few modern coloquials. If it seems really weird, I'm sorry.