Aeonian Black

‘’You sent him away.’’

‘’And now you’re sulking ‘cause I didn’t keep your new toy for you,’’ brother responds dismisively.

‘’He was interesting, and I found him so he wasn’t yours to send away.’’

Huff, ‘’he could have been a danger to my people. He is clearly a spy for someone and he dabbles too deeply in sorcery for me to ever trust his words at face value.’’

‘’You don’t trust anyone’s words at face value,’’ I needlesly remind the stubborn bully.

‘’That’s not the point. Look, this is an important mission, we can’t afford to take unnecessary risk this time. Do you even realise how far behind we are compared to the others?’’

Castro shakes his head and starts pacing around his tent disturbing his little druids with his agitation. They come out the water dripping, naked, oozing sexuality, purity, calm. He swats them away as they touch his face, they persist.

Eventually he calms, easing into a seat with the half-naiad creatures draped all over him caressing him expertly. I wait it out, no point talking to him whilst he’s still worked up. More than for sexual enjoyment these three are here to keep the too serious bore from having a meltdown.

‘’Eldest is a Saint, Cyrus has founded an organisation to take advantage of the Change, Damian facilitated the Gate openings. Do you have any idea how much energy that produced? Even if he got to keep only a fraction of a fraction he’s practically a god-tier being now, and he’s younger than us!’’ Brother Castro shakes his head, unaccepting of the current status que in the family. ‘’We should be ashamed.’’

‘’I don’t know why you all feel the need to compete with each other. Eldest has been a Saint since forever, he isn’t getting any better. Cyrus didn’t found the Conclave alone, he has lots of friends. Damian is very likely dead after what he did with his Circle of sorcerers.’’

Clearly we are the better off amongst our brothers anyways.

‘’Not a risk I’m willing to take either way. If we don’t find the library we’ll have to go to mother with tails tucked between our legs, we’ll forever be inferior siblings. With nothing of our own, relegated to performing tasks for mother and the family.’’

‘’We do that anyways,’’ I throw my hands at his twisted logic.

‘’Yes but by choice, not because we’re good for nothing else!’’

His insecurities bore me, and I’ve given up on trying to show them how futile competing with each other for mother's approval is long ago. *sigh, maybe I should change the argument.

‘’Brother, you can’t rely on outside sources for ultimate power. Regardless of what we find in the Library it doesn’t guarantee us power nor-‘

‘’Don’t you dare!’’ He stands scattering his playthings about.

‘’Power is whatever you can take, whatever you take and make your own regardless were you find it. Everywhere in everything there is power to be taken by those with the way and the will to take it, don’t come here pretending otherwise.’’

All your power is taken you mean.

‘’And what if the Library is just that, a library full of books, old scrolls with treaties and stories and such. What if we’ve come all this way for fairytales and fables?’’

The tent and everything in it rattles as though a storm has been conjured within as brother’s anger turns to rage suffocating the area suppressing everyone for 30m around.

‘’Get out!’’

He’s such a bore!

I leave him be, disappearing from sight floating through the camp to go find the interesting curiosity.

I find him walking painfully slowly leaning heavily on a walking stick gawking at everything he sees like a bumpkin in a sparkling city. How did he manage to stay alive down here if he couldn’t see at all before I came across him, why didn’t the inhabitants eat him?

I get closer and take a whiff, he seems edible enough to me. No poison in his blood and he’s rich in mana, would make for good healthy eating as far as I can tell.

I stalk him for a while watching him pick up rocks and throw them at things that get too close, sometimes picking up rocks just to look at them before losing interest. A strange fellow Steel, like a child with his curiosity but a strong determination to keep going.

He reaches a cleft too large for him to cross and gazes at it for some time before sitting on his but and closing his eyes.

He just sits there doing nothing.

Will he just keep sitting there forever? Has he given up?

This is getting boring.

He stands slowly, takes off his clothes and starts stretching into yoga poses out of the black. Moving slowly he struggles from one pose to another to another to another.

Truly baffling person this. Is he... training?

He pulls and relaxes his muscles, pulls and relaxes ligaments, pulls and relaxes tendons. He even does some poses I’ve never seen before.

He goes on and on for over two hours until he’s drenched in sweat with trembling muscles and a raggered breath a far cry from the steady rhythm it was when he was starting out.

Maybe I should go find something else to do for a while, maybe this guy isn’t that interesting after all.

He just keeps going, stopping occasionally to drink a gourd of tea before switching to a different set of poses. Some he uses the walking stick to perform, slow but tense movements that have him trembling halfway through a single movement.

A masochist maybe? A nudist masochist.

We all have our vices but why of all places would he come here to get his rocks off? He could have hurt himself anywhere.

Initially I though he had a destination in mind, the way he’s been moving uneeringly straight I suspected he might have a hidey hole to retreat to. Or better yet, he has a map that’s leading him to the Library entrance that’s being eluding our search of the area these past two months. But now... Now I don’t know what to think.

He stops after hours of doing the same thing over and over again on repeat. He sits to meditate again after emptying the gourd and emptying his bladder, still completely naked. Seating on his clothes instead of wearing them, maybe he’s simple minded.

I leave him be, exploring the crevices of the underground. I spy lava salamanders in their fiery nest jostling each other for the best positions by the molten fluid.

I spy a settlement of gnome variants hidden within the hard rock floor of the underground but their settlement is too well warded and tight to get a good look into, shy buggers. There seem to be hundreds of them though, a curiosity for sure.

I spy some living rocks rumbling grinding into each other, or its a single living rock grinding into itself, I can't tell.

‘’Hello, what are you?’’

The rock doesn’t talk but tries to eat me when I step my foot on it. Not nice.

I find Steel still in the same spot, now in a pritle twist of a position that looks like a snake wrapping around a pole. Maybe his mind is broken. He can’t have come out of the tuning-stone whole, that thing could kill even me and I’m much cleverer than this guy.

I might as well approach him before the buff fades.

*

Sachihiro

‘’Waht you doing?’’

[Hee], a startled squick escapes as I stumble out of position. I catch myself before falling flat on my ass but I’m embarrassed already by my lacking vigilance.

It’s that Aeonian guy sitting on the ledge of the place I want to get to but currently can’t. The man has a curious grin on his face with bright eyes gazing at me in open curiosity. His feet are bare, and clean, there are no visible weapons on his person but he’s too far for me to be sure.

‘’You’ve been following me.’’

Why would an Awakened Imperium be following me around?

‘’Maybe. So what you doing?’’

‘’What’s your deal?’’ I really don’t get it. ‘’What do yu want with me?’’

He shrugs noncommittally then jumps without much effort, covering the distance and landing lightly beside me. He’s posture is bad I notice for the first time, his bent slightly but he moves very effortlessly.

Crouching, he circles around me sniffing like a beast before floating away to look at me from a distance. He has no weapons on him, no equipment at all as far as my awareness is concerned.

‘’I want to know how you survived the tuning-stone, I want to see how strong you are.’’

He turns his head sideways like a camelion looking at me from head to toe.

‘’I don’t get it, you don’t seem that special. It should have ground you to powder and shat you into the lake like everything else that goes inside it.’’

‘’I must have gotten lucky,’’ I say putting my clothes on slowly.

‘’You didn’t get lucky, I watched you for 3 days before I pulled you out of there.’’ He says scratching his neck.

‘’What?!’’ 3 days?

‘’How long was I in there?’’ how much time has passed since...

‘’I don’t know, time doesn’t really matter much since no one can keep track of it internally anymore.’’

Okay, good to know I’m not the only one that can’t tell time anymore. ‘’Why did you wait so long to get me out?’’

He shrugs.

Not that I’m not grateful but fuck! How much time did I lose?

‘’So what you doing?’’

Is this guy for real.

‘’You can fly,’’ I point at his form hovering just few centimetres off the ground.

‘’Just float a little bit, flying is a bit more complicated than I can currently manage. I do know few good flying spells though if you’re willing to trade.’’

‘’Wait, you could teach me to fly?!’’ I shut up, closing off my shocked expression so as not to give away any more of my ignorance. But fuck, there is so much I don’t know.

‘’I can teach you the spell, its up to you if you can use it or not.’’

‘’What does that even mean?’’

Could learning new spells be as simple as learning new spells?

He shrugs, floating further away looking at random things knowing he has my full attention. I’m tired, but I’m interested.

‘’I need to cross the divide.’’ I change the subject.

‘’Where are you going?’

I shrug, knowing I have his attention.

We are at an impasse him and I. I woke in his presence so I feel no need to hide my weakness from him, not that he needs me to be weak to be a threat if he wanted to be. Even if he isn’t an Imperium as he claims the very few abilities I’ve seen him display are too much for me as I currently am, not unless I bring my zanpakutō into play.

‘’How old are you?’’

It’s been bugging me. I pride myself in being able to tell people’s ages, but from him I get nothing. Usually its the hands that give men away, well the bones to be specific but its the hands I and the aura I look at most intently.

‘’Now that is a rude question,’’ he says floating further away. I don’t want him to leave, talking to someone is good, novel.

I turn my back to him, again looking at the distance I have to cross.

In full health I would feel more confident, fuck, I’d have made the jump. Now though...

‘’Can you float me across?’’

‘’I don’t want to.’’

What can I say to that?

‘’What’s your deal anyways?’’ this guy is too random for my liking.

‘’I don’t have any deals really.’’

‘’Right,’’ what the fuck does that even mean?

I ignore him, he ignores me. I can’t cross in my condition, I’m fucked up and not in the good way. Nothing is really painful as such but my body is currently not my own, I’m still adjusting, I’m still getting used to myself again. What the fuck happened to me anyways.

‘’In what condition did you find me?’’

‘’A curious one. You were covered in metal, I’m not good with metals so I couldn’t say which type. It was all over you, moving like it’s living fluid all around and within you. Quite fascinating really, it was your skin but it was also separate. As soon as I took you out it solidified.’’

Does that mean Honour melted? It can’t be. That nodachi was made solid. I was there, I saw it being forged, I lost bones, it was fucking solid. But even if it somehow melted, that thing was made with my soul, fuck whatever anyone says or believes, a soul is eternal. No way can a zanpakutō dissolves, no way!

‘’That’s vague, tells me nothing really.’’ I lost two storage rings and two spirit bound weapons to that thing.

He looks at me oddly.

‘’You’re like a child,’’ he says matter of factly. ‘’I won’t babysit you.’’

Not that I expected you to but good to know.

‘’I won’t babysit you either,’’ he snorts at my words.

I go back to getting familiar with my body, going through the forms one at a time as precisely as I can. Form one, form two, form three, form four, form five. Painstakingly I perform, being precise with each movement for no one but myself.