Chapter 35 - Holding me together

Fourth day since I started working on the reactor.

This is too slow. I think we’ll bypass the creation of a proper reactor for a potential long-term blast furnace.

Yes. We’ll just use the lone shot we have with this one to create the material needed for Vi’s project.

At this pace it would take at least 14 days to create Vi’s surprise, which was clearly too long for what we had in mind. We could always work more after the end of this project, but putting Vi back on her feet was the number one priority.

After yesterday’s dinner and the vast impression Charlotte let on me, I had had a difficult night, my stomach hurting just enough to not let me sleep.

Not sure all this cheese was a good idea… urgh…

Indeed, but holy shit it was good!

True…

So, yeah, I did not sleep well.

Luckily, Noa was a very sweet brother, and he changed me the three times needed during the course of the night. I know it’s not very glamorous, but life is often, hum, disgusting?

Yeah. Disgusting.

Whatever.

I did not eat a lot the following morning, making Mom and Dad worry a bit. I was nearly forced to stay home but the trio convinced them somehow that I may be better staying with Vivianne, in part for Vi’s own sake and, after having her swear she was going to properly take care of me (not that it was necessary to be honest), I finally was able to follow Vi outside.

Funny, since she was technically the one following me. Or taking me where I needed to be?

And so I ended up, a bit tired, in the large warehouse.

Today was the last part of the process: Creating the Mana extractor.

The extractor needed to be built at the same time from the Void and the Reactor, so it was a tiresome process and, worse, it needed to be completed in one go.

You couldn’t let the metal cool, and since you were basically fusing the two parts by crafting the third, you needed to finish the work or everything would be wasted.

I never really had difficulties doing it, even on my own, in the past, as I had a lot of tools and much more power and magical stamina to work with.

Now it was just hellish work.

I turned my gaze towards the worried eyes of Vi. I think I looked like shit.

Work…

…

She was now accustomed to the slowness of our exchanges.

Today…

…

Difficult.

“So what you’ll do today will be difficult?” She asked me to confirm if she had properly understood.

I answered with one nod.

“C-can I do… something?” She was soooo cute.

Be…

…

Here

She frowned. “I need to be here?”

I nod.

Love…

…

You…

She froze a second, then hugged me slightly stronger than usual.

“Of course!” She answered with a huge smile. And a tiny tear in the eyes.

Those eyes sure are beautiful

I’m not sure everyone will think like that.

I don’t care. I love them.

Ah. You should. You’re not the only one around her, you know? I mean, we need to care, after what she said, about being bullied.

Oh. Of course. You’re right…

And I’m sad to be. Let’s love her and, when she faces people that reject her, we’ll be there.

Yes! Though I’m not sure we can help her deal with other people through something other than stomping on them, you know…

...Sadly true. You do lack common sense to deal with normal people.

You’re no better.

...Let’s get to work. If Psaï had had a body, I think she would have blushed under how shamefully she redirected the discussion.

Okay. I let it slide. I’m such a good Mother, right?

We picked up where we had left it yesterday. The air cushion I had created for the Reactor in itself seemed to have disappeared before the complete cool-down of the piece of metal, and the table was quite a bit burned.

We’re lucky.

Indeed. Any more and a fire would have started.

I made the Reactor float and frowned when I saw its bottom, slightly deformed.

However, I couldn’t do anything. Re-heating this particular place of the piece meant reworking the whole structure, as the tiny heat fluctuation would impact the whole metal in unforeseen ways, not just the part I wanted to change, so we resigned ourselves to have a warped Reactor.

We’ll need to be careful when powering the furnace.

Yes. If not, this thing will explode when we’re still near it.

My mood was a strange mix of love and affection, coming from and going toward my sister, and of frustration, pain, and angriness toward myself.

Overall, I think I was in a pretty bad mood, even if Vi was soothing me.

We started working, making the two parts float with another pig iron ingot. Heating it, we started very slowly dividing it into three parts, parts that needed to be worked on at the same time. The only solace was that they were exactly the same, cylinders with rows of concentric mobile circles encircling them.

We cut each of the parts in two and, one against the Reactor, the other against an Anchor, we slowly carved, cut, stretched and tortured the metal to give it the form it needed.

Hour after hour, we kept our focus, one taking the process in hand when the other wavered.

All along, I sporadically asked Vi for food, drinking my milk and eating what Dad had cooked us without taking my eyes off the Mana Reactor. Vi even made me chew herself, her sole hand moving my jaw until I realised that I had food in my mouth.

Time passed, light flooding the interior as the Sun brightened in the sky, then dimming as the day star quietly fell behind the clouds.

Changing, modifying, keeping the heat perfectly stable, extruding metal through air mold and aligning all the extraction matrices properly.

Testing if everything could move, work, injecting mana in the red-hot metal at a very precise instant, creating a complex mechanical web of mana meant to support a particular spell.

A bit more. Still more. Again, just a bit more…

Finished.

The whole Mana Reactor, at least the physical part, was done and, creating a better cushion than yesterday, all the while cooling the piece actively, I let it gradually float down.

I released the spell and all went black.

***

I was sleeping, the deep, evil sleep old memories created when they grabbed you, anchoring their traumatic tendrils into your soul, feeding on your tears, regrets, on the people you loved, on those you hated.

Who could be the same people, sometimes.

Screams all around. Screams of fear, screams of despair, hinting to sorrows and sadnesses so deep, one could drown just touching their black, inky surface.

In this black mirror, images flashed, appearing and disappearing.

A beautiful girl, her red hair floating in the wind, the sun setting behind her shoulder, making her scales glimmer like red jewels..

An old man, tiny, his large hands and pianist fingers working on his next invention, his gaze fixed on it with eyes that seemed to have seen the whole world, yet kept the agelessness of a young, curious boy.

A bright, pale girl exuding light, her white skin-tight suit in the process of being covered by a gorgeous magical armour.

A man with a smile to kill for, eyes that could read people and battlefields alike, cards in his hands and feet on a table representing the whole world, a constant frown incrusted over his forehead as he was once again trying to kill the fewest people to save the most.

A woman, mature, her lavender dress floating as if unrestrained by gravity, her feet anchored on a flying platform of the same colour, a humongous magical armour surrounding her from all sides, flowing like water under her will.

But one image, in particular, burned in my mind. Two great towers, twins of design and creators, falling down…

***

I woke up screaming, screams of pain, my pain, their pain, everyone’s pain.

Psaï was curled up in a corner of my mind, weeping, our shared soul crushed by so many people’s wounds, in their body, in their mind.

I could feel Vivianne taking me in her arms. Her heart was beating fast. She was afraid, she was confused.

I could feel Cris and Noa’s gaze, worried. I was screaming so much, crying so much, they did not know what to do.

As my sister was rising, the door of our room opened, a dishevelled Mom looking all around till her eyes found me, her gaze anchoring itself to my body.

“What happened?” She asked as she was walking in, without a hint of accusation, only genuine worry.

“I… I don’t know!” Answered Vi, Noa and Cris shaking their heads.

“S-she just started screaming out of nowhere!” She quickly put me in Mom’s arms.

“By the Goddess, she’s burning!”

I could see Dad just behind Mom as she moved toward the first floor.

In my head I was watching the two towers falling in slow-motions, engulfed by flames.

People were falling, some death already from the stress, some being burned alive, some looking at the ground.

All.

Screaming.

Behind me, Vi started to cry, followed by the two others, Dad trying to comfort them as he tried to follow me and Mom as fast as he could.

Mom opened the door of her workshop with a kick, leaving a visible trace in the dense wood, and made a cradle out of bundles of clothes, diving in her potions reserves afterwards.

Dad entered. “I need one of you to go to Meredith! Tell her that Elayna has a fever and that I need her now!”

Noa wiped his tears and answered. “I’ll go!” Before Dad could grab him, he slipped away. I saw Dad shrugging and focusing his attention back on the two other children.

“Daaad…” Vi was the most impacted. “I-is iiiit, snif… bec-cause of m-me, snif?”

“W-what? Why?”

“B-because I t-took her ev-en if s-she was, snif, looking b-bad this m-morniiiiiiiiing!” She was crying all the while talking. It was heartbreaking, yet I was lost in my delirium, my own tiny personal hell of man, woman and children from all races dying before my eyes, because of me.

The fever took hold of my thoughts and my nightmare, my reminiscence really, became a blur of sadness, of guilt, of remorse.

The big hole in my heart, the one I had walled up, re-opened just a bit, the tiny crack like an immense abyss of darkness, like a black hole of longing and abandonment, a hungry monster of mistrust and broken promises.

This was the kind of hole only a loved one, one you cared deeply for, was able to let in you, and only with the worst dagger coated with the worst poison, backstabbing and betrayal.

I needed something, anything to hold on, something to grab, lest I would fall.

In a flash of lucidity, I called.

Called the only one.

Vi...vianne… The only one that could hear me.

My hand was extended toward her and, as if moved by pure instinct, under the incredulous gaze of Dad, she jumped forward, tears still in her eyes and on her cheek although she wasn’t crying anymore.

She took me and I grabbed her, as hard as I could. I think I was slightly hurting her, even if I was a baby, but I needed her to hold on to.

Mom turned her head back to me, potions in her hands, and her mouth opened, ready to ask what the hell Vivianne was doing but, suddenly, my sobs diminished.

Mind you, I was still crying, but in Vi’s arms, rocked by her slow back-and-forth, by her heartbeat and her soft voice, I was not as much in pain as I had been.

Mom shut her mouth and, taking a tiny bowl, took advantage of my calmer state to feed me something.

I felt myself drift away. I was going back to sleep…

Another set of arms sheltered me. Noa was helping Vi.

Two heartbeats that, slowly, started drumming together.

Between Mom’s potions and the twins' unnatural harmony, I slowly let go of Vivianne’s clothes and skin.

Noa. Vivianne. Forehead against forehead. Two gazes over me, the same emotion, the same worry.

One, then the other, back, and forth, like a breath, like something slowly seeping into me, from both sides, mixing, fusing, linking.

An image floated in my mind. My siblings, grasping each others’ hand through my tiny, feeble frame, their care holding me.

I love them.

I love them…

I love…

I…

love…

them!