20/06/337

Vasuki

Jerking awake Vasuki quickly looked around the room. He could have sworn he heard a raspy old voice, as if the speaker was getting used to speaking again. He looked at the other side of the large bed to see Audra still sleeping peacefully. She had been sleeping since her fight with Noelem earlier that afternoon. He sighed and went to the bathroom.

The bathroom was large, a stone cubicle tub adorned with runes lay on the far end across from the entrance. To the right side was a toilet, with running water, and to the left was a large mirror with two sinks, again with running water. Vasuki didn’t know how running water worked, all he knew was that he turned a valve or, for the toilet, pulled a lever and things happened.

As he washed his face with cold water he heard the same voice, this time like a whisper in his ear.

“She’ll be after you next.” He turned quickly and found the room empty.

“Vistrata.” He thought. It had been a long time since he had heard from the man. It seemed whatever he was planning on doing he had wanted Vasuki to be in a safer environment, which was his current situation. He planned on talking to Noelem about it later.

The bedroom was silent and dark, though not much of a problem for any Dragon Variant. To the right of the bathroom was the entrance to the room, across from it was the queen sized bed where Audra slept peacefully. There was a soft fur rug on the stone floor in front of it, that his feet welcomed when he walked over it. In the far left corner, adjacent to the bathroom door, was a fireplace, though going disused at this time of year.

Vasuki climbed under the blanket, he felt his face getting warm. He had been in this situation before. He knew what he was feeling, he felt fear when she fought against Noelem, he felt secure, yet worried, when he was taking care of Audra in the cave. His heartbeat was already a little bit faster. He looked at the girl in the bed across from him. He felt the urge to reposition a few strands of hair but he ignored it. He had this feeling a few times during his life in Nevenal, once with Mai, another time with a girl who frequented the Dragon’s Dinn. Both of which had rejected him, for their own reasons and he had moved on with his life as they had.

“I’m not going to make the same mistake another time.” Vasuki berated himself, before putting his back towards Audra, and trying to sleep.

21/06/337

The bath was warm against Vasuki’s skin, the runes giving a warm glow every few minutes. Audra had been sleeping when he awoke from his dreamless slumber. He could only imagine what was going on with her body, he had never seen someone with enough physical strength to do what she had done. Noelem had revealed it was caused by small bursts of Etherea going through her limbs as she attacked. Was Etherea really that much more powerful than magic though?

Vistrata’s voice echoed in Vasuki’s ears as he washed the paste off his scales in the sink.

“Only a matter of time before she recovers and comes after you, kill her while you have the chance!”

“Get out of my damn head!” Vasuki yelled, slamming his fist on the counter. He looked up at the mirror to see a swirling darkness behind him. It was all gathering in one spot, then solidified into a humanoid shape. An old balding, clean shaven, man wearing a long black robe stood behind him. His eyes were blue but they were far too bright. Vasuki stood frozen, something about this weak, and innocent, looking old man made every primal alarm ring violently. Vistrata put his hand on Vasuki’s shoulder and gave it a light squeeze.

“I’ll give you some time, but you’ll come to understand my view of things.” He claimed, vanishing into thin air.

Vasuki waited for something to happen, anything, but nothing ever came, no old man speaking in his ears, no shock of pain. The suspense was killing him. He let out a long exhale when he realized he was holding his breath, he gripped the sink counter. He felt his body shake but calmed down as the fear that clinged to him slowly let him go, so that he could finish his daily hygienic routine.

There was a knock on the bedroom door, but no smell came from the other side. He looked through the peephole to see Noelem leaning on the wall across the hallway, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. Vasuki opened the door and let him in.

“Any progress with her condition?” Noelem asked.

“Good morning to you too.” Vasuki replied.

“It’s the afternoon.” He retorted. Vasuki rolled his eyes.

“I was tired alright. It’s morning for me.” Vasuki claimed. “There hasn’t been any changes yet. She woke up for a moment but went right back to sleep shortly after. She will get better right?” Vasuki asked.

“Yeah, no doubt about it. Ethereal Exhaustion is ten times worse than Magic Fatigue. So it could take a while.” Noelem pointed out leaning against the wall next to the door.

“Why is it so much worse?” Vasuki asked, sitting on the edge of his side of the bed.

“Where magic comes from the body,” Noelem began, creating a small flame in his hand, “Etherea comes from the soul.” The flame vanished, then reappeared as a large black ball of fire surrounding his hand, thin black lines of embers began to crawl up his arm. Vasuki felt his breath drained out of him, like he was in a desert with the sun at it’s peak. Noelem extinguished the hellfire by balling his fist.

“Sorry, went a little overboard.” Vasuki did his best to summon a cube of ice, but all of the humidity in the room had vanished. He opened the window and summoned ice from the air outside.

“A little?” Vasuki asked. His throat was dry and it hurt to speak, he quickly shoved the cube into his mouth and began to suck on the ice.

“Etherea usually requires two souls in one person. Such as yours and Audra’s case.” Noelem claimed as Vasuki retreated to the edge of the bed. “But in mine and Lusalene’s case our souls are powerful enough to generate Etherea on it’s own.”

“You know I can Ascend too?”

“People who have already Ascended, or Descended in my case, can see the others that can do it. I know yours as well but that isn’t my place.”

“Any relation to Lusalene?” Vasuki asked.

“Something like that. He was a friend of hers, wanted me dead after I killed Lusalene.” Noelem said sadly. “It wasn’t really me though.” He added.

“What do you mean?” Noelem sighed and fluidly pulled off his shirt revealing a white scar on his chest right over his heart, he turned and showed a similar scar a bit lower on his back, as if something had went through his chest at a downward angle.

“Lusalene killed me, then my body was taken over.” Noelem explained. He looked behind Vasuki at Audra’s sleeping body. “You listening Lusalene?” He asked. Audra’s lip twitched in response. “Good. I didn’t kill Lusalene. She was the victorious one in our last fight.”

“What do you mean by you were taken over?” Vasuki questioned.

“The Ancient of Chaos, Zaurah, he knew that I’d lose and took my body over and used it to kill her. I recovered from my injuries because of his actions. I never did it to her. And because I had actually died for a moment, the bloodlust Runahera put in me faded away. In a way, she saved me, and humanity.” Vasuki looked back at Audra and saw a small smile across her lips. After a moment of silence Noelem pushed himself off of the wall.

“I’ll get us food, definitely not from here though, I’m not a walking wallet.”

“We have rations.” Vasuki claimed.

“Don’t waste those, something tells me you’ll want to keep them.”

After Noelem left the two of them alone the voice of that old man came back stronger than ever.

“What would your family say about you working with a demon?”

“Stop talking to me Vistrata!” Vasuki ordered, though fear had his throat in it’s grip.

“What would your mother say?” Vasuki unconsciously let cold air seep from him.

“Leave her out of this!” He yelled. He looked around the room until the swirling darkness revealed itself and he found himself face to face with the old man.

“Why, what are you going to do about it? Kill me?” Vistrata asked as he leaned against the windowsill. “Going to throw me out the window? Bah, there’s nothing you can do to actually hurt me, and you know that. You are too weak.” Vasuki ran towards him, reeling his fist back and throwing all of his weight behind the punch at the man. It was like punching a brick wall. Vistrata caught his punch with the palm of his hand.

“Much too weak.” Vistrata lightly squeezed his fist but the pressure felt like he was crushing it. Vasuki grunted in pain as Vistrata pushed off of the windowsill, opened the window and casually threw Vasuki out of the second story of the Rising Bull Inn.

Vasuki saw the ground coming to him quickly, he tried to grab the chains of magic to summon ice but the unexpectedness of being defenestrated had his mind jumbled and his magic unwilling to listen to him. He tried to position himself as best he could to land properly but he knew he wasn’t going to get out of this without an injury. He felt something ram into him spin around before he hit the ground.

“You good?” A strained voice asked. Vasuki looked at the source to see a man, around his age laying on the ground. He had deep purple eyes and short black hair and a thin beard.

“Yeah, thanks.” Vasuki said, helping the man up. “Vasuki Odol.”

“Zadkiel Agano,” He replied, shaking Vasuki’s hand. “did you just get thrown out of a window?” He asked. Vasuki looked at the window to see Vistrata chuckling to himself before vanishing into thin air. Vasuki looked around to see more than a few people staring at the situation.

“Something like that. I gotta go, thanks again.” Vasuki said running into the building.

“Just don’t make a habit out of it.” Zadkiel commented.

Vasuki took the steps, two at a time, back to the room he was just thrown out of. He burst open the door to see it was empty, except for Audra still sleeping despite the commotion.

“You really are out like a log, huh?” Vasuki said walking up to the window. He gave a thumbs up to Zadkiel who was still standing in the street he returned the gesture and began to go on with his day.

Closing the window, Vasuki gave out a sigh before laying next to Audra on the bed. He looked over at her and felt his heart begin to beat faster. He sighed in aggravation before rummaging through their bag and bringing out Cabana’s Journal. He turned to a random page. There was a writing of some kind of prophecy. He thought it was interesting and so began to read.

“The Storm, a weather phenomnom. I don’t know how to write that word. The prophecy is mostly gibberish but we can tell that it says something along the lines of ‘The chosen will be among those that know the Storm is coming, they will be handpicked to release the Storm and every demon it brings will be filled with bloodlust, killing all that dare be.’ I thought it was a load of bullshit until a dark cluster appeared above Trinity, it poured black rain and purple lightning ran across the sky. Darkness creeped up from the rain and formed the demons. The cluster lasted for only a few minutes but it was enough to create a problem. That’s enough evidence for me to know that it’s coming, the second War of Dominion is at hand.”

“Well that didn’t clear my mind.” Vasuki thought as he closed the book. He continued laying there, fear of Vistrata coming back around kept him busy enough to not get bored.

It took nearly an hour for Noelem to get back after he had left. He tossed the paper wrapped sandwich to Vasuki. Again there was no smell coming from Noelem.

“Eat up. You need as much energy as you can get.” Noelem pointed out. Vasuki stared at him, confused, he didn’t seem like a demon at all. Audra’s Ascender seemed pretty convinced about it though.

“Are you really a demon?” He asked.

“Of course I am. With Lusalene being the daughter of Nuul she naturally has an ability called Truesight, same goes for me as the son of Runahera, if you had it you'd be able to see my true self too.”

“Truesight?” Vasuki questioned.

“We can see the truth of things. For example, when I look at Audra I can see Lusalene fading in and out of my sight. Audra will most likely get this ability as well..." Vasuki gave Noelem a look. "You’re still questioning me being a demon aren’t you?” he asked.

“You don’t have the smell for it, we were attacked by a pack of Varulv and a Shallow, they all had this rotten smell, I don’t smell anything from you.” Vasuki pointed out. Noelem gave out a long sigh.

“Fucking dragon’s with their pride of smell. I’ll humor you.” Noelem complained, he held his arm out as black flames surrounded it. One moment they were there, the next they were gone and his arm was replaced by a dark cracked obsidian one, claw-like talons replaced his fingers and a pointed rock passed down his elbow, the rotten smell of decay quickly invaded Vasuki’s nose stronger than ever.

“Okay, yeah I believe you now.” Vasuki said covering his nose.

Another smell came to Vasuki’s nose, one a bit more feline. He smelled it coming up the stairs, he began to walk towards the door to go look downstairs but quickly thought better of it and turned towards the window just in time to see Cabana sitting on the windowsill, her legs still phasing into existence.

“I finally caught you. You have to tell me how you do that now.” Vasuki claimed. Cabana smiled before happily replying.

“One of my trademark secrets.”