Discordant Note | TBATE

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Aurora Asclepius

My talons tore into the flesh of the monster as I fought to press it to the ground. Though my plasma burned and shredded the flesh of the venator, its claws still tore rough gouges across my bronze form.

I pinned the creature, unable to feel pain through the stark metal of this Vessel. Then I allowed the mana afforded to my brass form to build along my maw, before a beam of white plasma erupted from my beak.

It took precious few seconds for the heat to scour through the S-class mana beast's crocodilian hide–but its struggles weakened as my mana arts scoured a molten hole through its skull.

And from the watchtower-thick trees nearby, my son blurred from the canopy, using telekinetic pushes and pulls—alongside his beautiful wings—to freefall close to the ground. Wind trailed in his wake as Soulplume brightened his eyes. Feathered runes burned along his arms as he twisted supernaturally.

Half a dozen bone spears erupted along the path he'd just avoided, thunking into the underbrush as he rolled and zipped like the phoenix he was. He was covered in half a dozen cuts, each weeping blood. A few fingers on his right hand were missing, replaced by shrouded replicas. His shrouded armor struggled to rejuvenate, his heartfire pounding and heaving.

And high above him in the canopies, half a score S-class mana beasts–all part of a wretched pack–squawked and hollered down, bones stronger than steel growing supernaturally along their hides. Whenever they grew large enough, the quadrupedal creatures would grab them, snapping them off before hurling them down like ballista bolts from a godbow. And whenever they hit the ground, they exploded into a thousand storms of shrapnel that shredded nearly anything.

"They don't allow me to get close," Toren thought quickly. "I'm having a hard time focusing on just one when nine others focus in whenever I'm on the brink of tearing out their throats. I'm thinking Operation Throw-Feather?"

I felt a bit of annoyance build in my metallic chest at the title given to our team attack, but there was no time to push against it.

Very well, my bond, I thought, feeling the heartfire that linked us and gave this Vessel life. I am ready.

Over the past month of our journey through the treacherous Beast Glades, my son was not the only one to grow in his abilities. While he focused on a specific ability with heartfire, his shrouds, and put his everything into assimilation, I opted to seek deeper understanding of the energy that bound my soul.

And thus, no longer was I limited in Toren's ability to connect me to my relic. I could spread my wings as I pleased, seeking the skies at will.

I pressed my will into the long vein of heartfire that bound this Vessel to my feather, and the connection fuzzed, then dissipated. My shade floated out and away from the relic as it shrank inward on itself, becoming a feather once more.

Just in time for Toren to swoop in like a falcon on the wing, snatching the bronze brooch from the air. A dozen more spears of bone tried to strike Toren as he settled on the ground, but with a twist of his mana, a rising vortex of fire and telekinetic power diverted everything like twigs thrown into a hurricane. Some were caught in the tempestuous flow, whipping around like fish in a slipstream. A few exploded in waves of shrapnel, but those innumerable shards of bone were caught in turn.

This was another avenue Toren had sought to improve on. The synergy between his regalia and other powers allowed him a distinct avenue of growth.

The mana beasts howled in anger. More and more attacks pelted his vortex of fire and force, but that only served to fuel the white flames higher. Our minds were nearly perfectly in sync as I kept my distance, careful not to influence his soul as he drew on my common understanding of insight.

A few ribbons of telekinetic force appeared around Toren, before they all corded together in a result greater than the sum of its parts. It became a familiar accel path, one primed for a lance of light or for he himself to throw himself into it. He shifted, lining up his sights as he focused on the heartfires and sonar outlines of the distant S-class mana beasts.

They were moving closer, I knew. As I laid a phantom hand over Toren's shoulder, I gazed upward, sensing the intelligence of these creatures as they shifted tactics.

And finally, one peered over the edge of the swirling tornado of fire. Quickly, I extended the shades of my hand as I brushed them against the relic, drawing on the heartfire pulsing within.

Toren let the relic accelerate within the line of force he'd created at record speed. The sound barrier cracked as it shot through the skull of the arrogant beast.

I emerged once more in my Vessel Form, fully in the midst of the pack of monsters. My bronze wings glistened in the low light of the orange-leafed trees. For an instant, I felt the majesty of what it was to be free again.

But I was no longer flesh and blood. I would never be again.

I flapped wings coated in white plasma, sending a hundred tiny arcs of burning energy into the disoriented bone-covered mana beasts. They howled and raged, priming spears to try and pin me like a snapdragon wasp to a board.

But they'd let themselves be distracted.

Toren surged into their midst a moment later, pulling on the branches they used to balance themselves. Even as I tackled a few of them, the majority of the mana beasts were ripped from their posts, falling with screeches and angry eyes down and down.

One of them managed to claw at my son as it fell, drawing a bloody gash across his torso as it punched through his weakened armor. Unperturbed, Toren swiped at it with a shrouded saber, stealing some of its vital energy in that quick intersection of lifeforce. Without wasting another moment, he slammed half a hundred telekinetic punches—each coated in reverberating sound spells—into its armored hide, shattering and breaking bone as they carried pulping vibrations deep into its body. The blood that sprayed onto Toren's skin sizzled away as he absorbed the energy inside by second nature.

His wounds healed over in a wash of light, and his fingers gradually regrew as the shrouded variants dispersed.

The rest of the S-class beasts fell into the forty-foot-tall vortex of white fire and force below and were utterly torn apart. As they were drawn into the tempest, the very bone spears they'd thrown into it before proved their downfall as they were accelerated into each of the creatures with the force of a thousand bow-shots.

In my beak, I held the corpse of one of the monsters, while the other two lay broken on the ground. I heard the mechanisms making up this strange Vessel creak as I turned to observe the aftermath of our fight.

Toren pressed a hand into my side, funneling some of the excess lifeforce he'd drained into my structure. I was somewhat aware of the soulmetal shifting and reorienting, fixing itself as it was provided sustenance.

"Thank you, my son," I said fondly, "The metal of this frame has undergone more trials than I ever expected."

Toren looked down at the ash of the mana beasts far below, lost deep in thought. I could not sense it, but I knew he was using the art of mana rotation. When I entered my Vessel Form, Toren could not rely on the constant stream of mana that emanated from my feather, as it was redirected to my metallic body.

As I released my hold on the Vessel, becoming a shade once more as I hovered by my son's side, I felt the resonant focus of Toren's mind even as he let Soulplume drift back into his core.

"These mana beasts were guarding something before they started to chase me," Toren thought, not showing the exhaustion that plagued his body and core. "I caught a hint of it, but there was something about its blood that called to me. I'm gonna go back to see what it is."

I settled my ghostly, transparent hand on Toren's shoulder, holding it there in the way I knew he found comforting. He couldn't see me right now, as I did not allow it. But he was reinvigorated by my presence.

As my son zipped back into the watchtower-like trees of the deepest parts of the Beast Glades, I allowed myself to think of all that had transpired this past month. Day in and day out, Toren trained himself as a hunter of the Asclepius should. Every morning and every evening, he worked through his assimilation, absorbing knowledge from our Will. And when his soul was stretched to bursting, he engaged in combat with the countless mana beasts that roamed this deep in the Glades.

It had not been easy. There were very few beasts that could pose a threat to my bond's life in single combat on this continent, but the monsters of the Glades did not work alone. Rarely did he get the chance for rest or recovery, which pushed him to rely even more on mana rotation and his new life-siphoning technique.

But we were close. So, so very close to my home and Hearth. With every step closer we weaved, I felt my very soul tremble in anticipation. A growing joy—and twofold fear—gripped me as I guided Toren closer to my home. To his home.

They will think him mighty and great, I thought, watching the young man as he weaved through the trees, retracing his steps. He has grown from my teachings, becoming more. A true phoenix. They will accept him as their own, of that I am certain. He is my son, and he has undergone his First Sculpting, after all, but…

I feared to tell Toren the worry gnawing in my stomach. I longed to meet my family so dearly. Longed for them to meet him. Deep in my soul, I waited for my sons to finally meet.

If there was anything Toren knew, it was brotherhood. I had left my Chul, abandoned him in grief when the opportunity for an envoy to speak with Agrona had arrived. Yet still a child, I had left him alone, hating myself for the sense of loss I experienced every time I looked at his beautiful eyes.

Toren slowed in the air, twisting slightly as he turned toward my invisible form. "Aurora," he thought worriedly, that scar over his brow wrinkling in turn, "are you okay?"

I pushed away my reminiscing. Toren had taught me long ago the importance of change; of growth. It had taken much for me to finally grow past the prison I had been in.

Past the prison I'd placed myself in.

I am well, my son, I thought, knowing he could sense the melancholy pervading my soul. I am simply allowing myself to remember what is lost. But also knowing what is to come soon.

Toren smiled slightly. His hair had grown now, reaching to the top of his chest. He'd lost his hair tie somewhere along our constant battles, and now only wore it loose. Something in me melted at the simple expression.

He looked so much older than he had when I'd first brought him to this world.

"I'm here to talk if you need me," he thought back, raising a hand and squeezing my arm. "You know that, right?"

Toren's sense for the soul had only grown this past month as he grew more and more accustomed to it. Now, I didn't even need to push at his essence for him to see me. He could sense my ghost as it wove about him.

Focus on your task, Toren, I chided in turn. We are almost upon your destination.

Toren's face evened out again. "Of course."

It didn't take us long to find what we were looking for. Though I bore no flesh and blood Vessel any longer, I was certain my son could smell the carnage from where he hovered in the sky.

Two creatures lay slain on the forest floor, their once-pristine pink scales darkened to purple by blood. Their beautiful wings were sundered and torn, the flesh ripped apart by half a dozen bone spears that thrust from their bodies.

Toren slowly set himself down from across the dead mana beasts, hesitating on the sidelines. The entire forest was covered in shadow, but it seemed darker still at that grim center-point of death.

"Phoenix wyrms," the young mage said aloud softly, saddened by the display of broken beauty.

I strode forward, kneeling by the broken bodies. I ghosted a hand across them both, feeling a different sort of sorrow in my gaping heart.

"How were they killed?" Toren asked himself as he strode forward, the forest eerily silent. "Phoenix wyrms should be able to teleport when close to death, shouldn't they? Or something like that?"

I closed my phantom eyes. They can, Toren. When near their end, these beasts can elongate their pink scales, crafting a cocoon around themselves. And when that cocoon shatters, they use all that is left of their mana to teleport elsewhere, I thought to him mournfully. But this phoenix wyrm would not risk fleeing. They had something greater than their own life to protect.

Toren came up short, realization dawning as he looked between the two broken bodies.

A mother and a child, wrapped in a broken embrace.

We were silent as we stared at this tapestry of sorrow, each of us feeling something different. The beasts Toren had slain earlier were worthy prey indeed, but this was not the skillful strike of a hunter. This was the cowardly attack of creatures who knew their quarry would not risk their fullest abilities.

Take their cores, Toren, I thought to him, turning away. You have told me of what can be done with them. Take them.

Toren looked at me hesitantly. "I didn't win this victory," he thought. I had taught him much of the arts of the hunt these past few months, and he knew that the greatest of us never took what we didn't slay ourselves.

This isn't just a hunt, I told my son, ghosting my fingers along the pristine white scales of the fallen mana beasts. This is war. There are times for honorable contests between predator and prey. And sometimes…

I turned away, falling back into my thoughts.

—

It was evening again when Toren was finally finished processing the corpses. The retrieval of the beast cores—both still brimming with mana—was a simple thing. But my son did his due diligence in stripping the corpse, taking apart everything he could use.

Now he sat by a small fire, watching a filet of meat he'd sliced as it slowly cooked. The trees loomed high above us, stretching hundreds of feet into the air.

A few mana beasts—easily S-class—had attempted to ambush my bond as he'd worked. But with the growing bloodlust and anger that suffused his soul, he'd scared most of them off with a simple flex of his intent.

The sight of the dead phoenix wyrms had affected us both.

"Aurora," Toren said, looking deep into the fire, "what will happen to you when I reach the Integration Stage?"

I didn't respond. I wasn't ready to, yet. Instead, I stared at the fire.

"I can still feel my core purifying, but it's not… the same as it was before when I was at the yellow or silver stage. And it's even stronger with the effect of mana rotation." He looked up at my shade. "When a mage undergoes Integration, their core shatters. Their body becomes their core. But what does that mean for you?"

I chuckled lightly, dismissing his worries. "I don't know, Toren," I responded honestly. "You know how unique my circumstances are. Perhaps I will drift away on the wind, an anchor point gone. Or maybe the feather that reflects my soul will meld with you in full. I cannot be certain."

My words did little to assuage Toren's fears. "I'm learning more and more about the soul every day," he said, a swell of resolve burning over our bond. "I'll find a way to keep you here when the time comes. I promise."

I settled down next to my son, kneeling in the traditional manner as I wrapped an arm around him. "Remember to tend to your food, my bond," I chided lightly. "It will burn without steady care."

Toren blinked, then cursed as he finally realized the filet of meat he'd been cooking was beginning to blacken. He haphazardly adjusted it with his telekinesis, ensuring the spread was even.

I smiled slightly. "Integration is a mystery even to we asura, Toren," I said in a careful tone. "It is the pathway to becoming more, this much we know. All I can say for certain is that your magic will change, and the heavens shall open for your future insight."

Toren was silent for a time, prodding at the fire. The lingering embers that sparked and danced from his fire made him look melancholy: a single traveler hunched around the only source of warmth. "Aurora… what was it like for you, growing up in Epheotus?"

I didn't respond for a time, sensing my bond's emotions as he asked the question. The uncertainty and worry pervaded him like a fog, all the questions about how his family might be his finally bubbling to the surface.

"It was far from lonely, my child," I said quietly, kneeling by my son's side. "But, in a way, I was still… alone. I never earned the privilege of meeting those who brought me into the world. For all intents, Mordain did what he could to raise me, the elder brother protecting his vulnerable little sister against the cruelty of asuran politics."

Toren's face wrinkled slightly in consternation. "I can't really imagine you being a child," he said, sounding genuinely amused. "I'm trying, but I just can't form the image in my head. You're too… you."

I ruffled my son's hair as I chuckled lightly, feeling a smile creep onto my face. How selfish I am, I thought morosely, the emotions in my chest so coiled and pained. I want him to be like this forever. I want him to look to me as he does now. But he can't.

"Perhaps the elders of our flock can give you a better vision," I said with a gentle laugh. "I was far from a problem child, my son, but neither was I easy to raise. I was quite… headstrong and fiery. Those beyond me said I kept my head too far in the clouds to care for what was down below."

"I think you're still very fiery," Toren muttered, abashed as he fixed his hair. "When we're in my soul, all I can ever see you as is a rising dawn."

Memories of who I used to be bubbled to the surface, flowing upward like a deepscape drowner as their fingers breached the surface of the sea. Of that brash, volcanic nature that I'd learned to harness in my plasma arts, honed by my brother's teachings and the ways of the pantheon as I sparred with their martial masters.

That fire… it wasn't what it used to be. Not since Agrona. I opened my mouth to speak, to say something that would change the topic. Something that would shift away from wounds that I wasn't ready to address.

"It's a fine night for a fire," a voice said from nearby. "Would you mind if I join?"

Toren leapt to his feet, his mana burning as a person appeared across from us. Their features were masked slightly by the flickering flames, creating strange shadows in the glen. My son cursed as he summoned his power, caught entirely off guard by the sudden presence.

But I froze, my thoughts grinding to a halt as I stared at the lounging figure. At his long, feather-red hair—the same shade as mine. At his loose, relaxed robes that seemed to sigh with the energy of the solemn forest. Their burning orange eyes and the featherstem runes that shone beneath them simmered with old wisdom.

I didn't hear what Toren said. I only stumbled forward, crossing the fire without care as I approached the lounging man.

He looked up at me. By all the asura in Epheotus, he could see me. He could see me.

His eyes wrinkled fondly. "Hello, Aura," he said softly. "You've changed quite a lot, haven't you?"

Distantly, I was aware that Toren was watching us, realization thrumming across his mind. But I couldn't think about that now. I reached an arm out, burning tears simmering at the corners of my eyes as I tried to touch the man I called my brother.

"Mordain," I exhaled like a tragic song, my voice trembling. I wanted to say something else. Something more. About how I was sorry it had taken me so long to return to my family. How I was sorry I'd abandoned him and our Hearth. How I'd missed him for so, so long.

I'd rehearsed what I would do and say for months. For over a year as I'd slowly grown to know and love my new son. One day, I was certain I would return to our home. But the speech I'd prepared in my mind fell apart like molten glass seeping through unsteady feathers as all abandoned me.

My brother stood slowly, the patriarch of the Asclepius Clan burning starkly against the grim shadows around us. He held out his arms to me, his eyes soft and inviting.

And suddenly, I remembered. I wasn't flesh and blood any longer. I was a ghost, a phantom. A shade. A shadow on the wall. There was only one in this world who could feel my touch, and I theirs. And Mordain, for all his power, was not Toren.

My lips trembled as I retreated slightly, feeling ashamed. "You won't be able to," I said weakly, feeling my emotions crack. "I am a ghost. A wisp of flame. I am dead, brother. You cannot–"

My brother laughed, the same laugh he'd always had since childhood whenever he thought I had missed some sort of point or done something slightly foolish. It wasn't condescending, as one might expect. It was a gracious sort of sound.

And then his arms wrapped around me—and I could feel my brother's heartfire pulsing as he held me softly.

And I wept. Tears of fire trailed down my cheeks as uncountable years of loneliness and solitude burned away under this simple, familial embrace. I remembered the days when I was a chick amidst the Starbrand Sanctum as my older brother protected me from all that would harm me. I remembered how his steady hand and wise words helped me choose what was best for me.

"Welcome back, Aura," he said softly into my ear as I cried. "It's been far too long."