《Soulmage》Loneliness is Vuliel
Advertisement
"...Yeah, okay, we might as well." Lucet exhaled, fists clenching and unclenching. "What's first? You getting mindfucked by Zhytln? Sansen limping off into the pier to die alone? The sinking feeling that nothing we've done has actually helped—"
"I want to get cured by Zhytln," I interrupted, soft and firm and deceptively quick like an avalanche down the Silent Peaks. "And I want you to get cured too."
Lucet stiffened. The room dimmed three shades as blood spurted out of her soul.
"I can't let you do that."
"Sansen warned us—" warned us for the last time— "that we'd fight. That it had to happen. I don't—I don't want to hurt you."
"So you're going to press me into getting operated on by some shady witch we met two days ago?"
"If that stops you from going the same way Sansen just did? Yeah."
Lucet shook her head. "I don't want to hurt you either, Cienne. You can't make me let Zhytln into my soul."
And maybe if it wasn't for Sansen's warning, I would've pressed harder. But the barely-capped well of oil in her soul would geyser if I struck one wrong stone, and so I stepped down.
"Okay." I held up my hands, pouring misty calm around me, dissolving the fear that was gushing out of her. "I'll... agree to disagree. I'll tell Zhytln you're not interested."
I turned my back on Lucet and jiggled the door.
The handle was frosted over, stuck solidly in place.
"Where are you going?" Lucet asked, her voice strained and resigned under the weight of a question she knew the answer to.
I closed my eyes.
"You can't stop me from getting cured, Lucet," I whispered. "Please. Just let me go."
The crystals of sorrow spearing cold through the door handle were the only answer I got in return.
And some part of me understood that Sansen didn't even have to be an oracle to see that this was inevitable. Lucet and I had tried talking out our positions time and time again. We understood each other—how could we not, after everything we'd been through? We just disagreed on where to proceed from here.
Advertisement
I just hoped she forgave me.
I grabbed the slick, transparent insecurity from my soul and hurled it into the doorframe, sprinting through a gateway into a hall of stained brick and gears. I heard Lucet curse and scramble to her feet as I left afterimages in calm behind me, collapsing the gate—
The gate's decay froze, quartz forming in the memory of a doorway, determination slowing down time around its edges. Lucet held out a hand, and multicolored paint streaked from her soul towards my feet. I had no idea what that spell was supposed to do, but I wasn't letting it touch me. I stacked coal-bricks of exhaustion into the memory of a moonlit, frosted tower; the paint-spell splashed off the memory in soulspace, while in realspace, the ceiling collapsed inwards as exhaustion magnified its weight.
"That's enough," Lucet snapped, and a flurry of feathers blew the debris of the ceiling out of her way. Unfortunately, that meant it was barreling straight towards me—hurriedly, I repurposed my half-formed portal into the Plane of Elemental Void, stacking petrified wood above me and forming a vacuum that tugged me up and out of the way.
"You're right," I found myself saying. The Silent Academy had warned us that in a battle between witches, our words could be just as potent as our spells—draining your enemy of their most potent emotions could be the difference between life and death.
But more than that, Lucet was my best friend. Even if we'd taken the opposite conclusions from everything we'd been through, we were still bonded by it.
"This is enough," I continued. "I've had enough fighting. Enough violence. Enough death." I dropped into the Plane of Elemental Void, weaving spells of freedom around me to provide me with air. For some reason, a faint stench of rot permeated this plane, and I tried not to gag.
"I get that you're scared!" Lucet leapt through the ceiling portal after me, and though she'd expended all the freedom in her soul while blowing debris apart, she dragged atmosphere from outside with her, distorting space with arrogance wrought into armor. Our atmospheres mingled, carrying her voice. "I understand that you don't want to die. But you're making a worse mistake by trusting your fate to Zhytln."
Advertisement
"I know she won't kill me, and I know I'll live in a city away from that fucking war." I twisted mid-air, shaping hope into the flame beneath a bubbling soup cauldron, sending feathers dancing on the soulspace updraft towards Lucet. She swore as airbursts threatened to knock her away from her pursuit course, then made a slashing motion with one hand.
Blood fountained outwards from her soul, given no shape or memory to hold it, and utterly smothered the light from my portal. Her soul was difficult to target through the mist of fear, so I cut off my attack, dismissing my memories of freedom and hope.
"What about everyone left behind?" Lucet thundered, and her passion formed rivulets of heat like demon's eyes, superheated air sending her rocketing towards me. "What about when war reaches Knwharfhelm? Someone has to keep people safe!"
I tried to track her, tried to throw up walls between us, but when I sifted through my soul I found no arrogance to deflect her path, no joy to cut through her darkness, no fear to hide myself with.
I couldn't even cast my oldest spell.
And with that final realization, Lucet crashed into me, ripping open a portal with the oppression in her soul and sending us flying over the port outside Knwharfhelm.
We smashed into the harbor like a meteor come to earth, and I saw the darkness and flame wrapped around Lucet fade as the shock of the cold water hit her.
It felt like aeons, but both of us broke the surface.
"Someone has to keep people safe," I repeated. "And someone has to be kept safe."
Lucet stared at me. "What are you—"
"I can't keep doing this." I gestured at the slowly mending rift in the sky. "I just... can't keep being the fighter that you want to be. But... I can be someone who you're fighting for."
Hesitantly, Lucet swam closer to me. Placed one hand on my shoulder.
"You... you really would be happier here. Trusting someone else to heal and protect you. Trying your hardest to forget what you've seen."
"Not everything. Not you." I put my hand over hers. "But... I do think that whoever Zhytln really is, she truly wants to help us. Even if it's out of purely rational self-interest." I chuckled. "And if you don't trust her, well... having a friendly soulmage keeping an eye on her to make sure she doesn't step out of line can't hurt."
The corner of Lucet's lips quirked up. "I... I still can't make myself let her operate on my soul. Not when she's enspelling an entire city for her own calculations."
"I can't force you to trust her. I just... want you to trust me. And watch over me. To make sure I'll be okay."
Lucet took in a deep, ragged breath. "I thought that's what I was already doing."
"You were. In your own way. Now I'm asking you to do it my way."
She exhaled.
"Then take me to Zhytln. And if she changes a single second of your life more than necessary, I'll redesign her interiors."
I smiled and squeezed Lucet's hand, and she squeezed mine back. And together, we began the long swim back to shore.
Advertisement
Chronicles of Elseria: A LitRPG adventure
What would you do if you suddenly found yourself transported to the middle of nowhere in a world full of magic and danger? For Derek, the first thing to do is try not to strangle the annoying familiar he is apparently stuck with, the second is find food, water and shelter. He must learn to survive in this new world where danger lurks behind every tree.
8 185Traveleyan
Traveleya (more often referred to by her accomplice as "Miss Cleyne"), is an otherwise plain and ordinary twenty-seven year old woman in every aspect save one: she can see things that others can't, a skill that makes her an invaluable asset to one Millenia Eizenstrauss, a young necromancer with whom she works alongside unofficially. After taking on a particularly lucrative side-job as a courier for Lady Eizenstrauss, she is unwittingly (and often unwillingly) dragged into the strange noble-woman's odd occupation and becomes as essential to her work as Lady Eizenstrauss herself. Together the two make a potent team in solving supernatural cases that plague the haunted countrysides and decadent cityscapes of Svietsylvania, all with the help of Einen, the ghostly spirit of Millenia's departed brother who is bound to his sister's service.
8 100Neither Snow Nor Rain
Humanity is impotent, no magic can be found in their blood. The hordes of Beasts lack no such problem and wields magic as one would breath. Fortunately for Humanity, though they lack in the spirit, they are adaptable and resilient, because of course... magic isnt the only way to kill a man. This will be a story of betrayal and love. A tale of the most pious kings and of rightous revolution. The world isnt as it seems and the old order is collapsing. What was once buried, will come to the top for the whole world to see.
8 202The One, The Enlightened
@ito_michiaki IG. Be There. The truth will prevail........ Everything you need to know....Michiaki Ito and Raiden Ito are two inseparable siblings. They and their childhood friends Hikari, Akihito, and Miyuki can accomplish anything together and back each other up. However, something would put their friendship to the test. It all started when their school mysteriously gets closed due to a publicly announced fire breakout. The group instantly realizes that this is not true and while they try to figure out what is wrong, Ito's parents are called to the school and never come back. At that moment, the group decides to secretly enter the school to investigate. Will their findings bring anything to the table? Searching through the school, the group stumbles across a scrambled note and a mysterious crystal. The school is empty and they could not find anyone else. Returning from school, they meet Kyouko, a girl who experts in those kinds of strange disappearances. With the help of Kyouko, they learn that the crystal is a part of the 9 Rivals, which are 9 magically powered crystals each one having a unique effect. Kyouko decides to help the group resolve the mystery of the school's incident and rescue Ito's parents.
8 127"Into Your Arms" - A Thorin Oakenshield Fanfic
●Completed● Thorin Oakenshield, the surviving heir to the Lonely Mountain, has resigned himself to a life of solitude, with his sister, nephews and friends his only light.When an opportunity to take back his home arises, he jumps at the chance. But when someone from his past makes a comeback, everything he has ever known falls into disarray. In a tale of adventure, desperation, lost love and redemption, forces will collide with apocalyptic consequences. And will love conquer all in the final battle?
8 64I want to restart my world but still have my knowledge and a few cheats
I HAVE REACH BOUNDLESS INFINITY AS A GOOD FOR NOTHING. NOW I WANT TO RESTART IN ANOTHER WORLD BEING THE ULTIMATE GENIUS alternate story. Still another OP story. Same cutivation stuff from the other story.
8 92