Aetheric Collapse (Closed)

[Niyaya]

(( This is the consolidation of a threaded RP from Tumblr that began here: http://nilalanila.tumblr.com/post/74025689900/dinozih-mohk-aetheric-collapse))

 

Di’nozih had had it with the Grindstone and overdwellers in general.  What point was training to fight where magic was prohibited but bows and arrows were not?, she wondered to herself.

And those people!  They’re all so incredibly rude!

 

She decided to redouble her efforts recently in an effort to become as proficient as possible in the art of thaumaturgy, so that she could quickly return back to her home. Underground. Where people were normal.

 

She had even begun reading the texts.  All hundred plus of them, because she knew this is what stood between her, and many others of her kin, and normalcy.

 

Lately she’d been becoming more and more light headed, however, while training, but she knew it wasn’t anything serious.  Just a little aetheric sickness, probably.  She needed to learn to deal with it.  Push past the lightheadedness, the queasiness.

 

As she ticked down the list if creatures in her hunting log, she came to the location the next set were, and began to channel a powerful fire spell, aimed betwixt them.

 

Suddenly, however, the spell seemed to collapse within her.  Not as a spell does when it’s not cast, but it was as if all the aether she had been collecting for the magic suddenly imploded within her.

 

The feeling barely even registered before shell fell to the ground unconscious.

 

---

 

The implosion pinged strongly on Midra’s aetheric radar, even from her room in the Hourglass.

 

Aether knew no distance, after all, no concept of malms denying intimacy, and she had known her sister since her birth. Known her in many ways, subtle and basic, that had intertangled their aetheric webs.

 

And now something had torn a hole in that, seemingly from the inside.

 

Fool, was her first thought. What did you do this time? She’d dabbled in just about every magical discipline she could get her hands on— from the stonecraft of home to the radically different thaumaturgy, and the surface arcanima that seemed to bridge the gap between— but she’d never felt anything like this. It was as if the aether had been sucked out of the world, right where her sister was standing; at least, metaphysically speaking.

 

She waited for the feeling to right itself, for this to prove a momentary shift in the aether, a crossed signal. But time wore on, and all she could feel in the aether that had bound them was a giant sinkhole.

 

Night veiling her from surface eyes, she stole out of the Hourglass, and followed the ruptured aether-threads to her sister’s fallen form.

 

She shook the body, rapped it sharply on the forehead with two fingers. “Nozih?” she called, switching to their native tongue. “Nozih, wake up.”

 

---

 

Nozih didn’t respond right away, and when she did start to wake, her actions were slow and awkward.

 

”M-mi-midra?” she asked as she tried hard to sniff the air.

 

Another few moments passed and Nozih tried to lift herself, but she felt so very heavy.

What’s going on, she wondered.  ”Is there something on top of me?” she asked her sister in their language.  ”Help me push it off so I can get up,” she added, her speech slow and drawn out, though she seemed to have no awareness of it.

 

"Did you just happen to be nearby?"

 

She paused again and said, “Time is so strange here.  I thought it was midday but then suddenly it’s night.  I don’t think I can keep up with these weird surface changes like that.”

 

---

 

"What did you do to yourself this time?" said Midra, but her tone began to change as she realised just how much trouble her sister was having getting up.

 

She doesn’t seem wounded. There’s no blood… Was that aetheric burst really the cause of this? What kind of technique… She frowned, shaking her head from thoughts of the particulars, kneeling by Nozih’s side and sniffing her over.

 

"No, don’t try to move. There’s nothing on you… you just took a blow. A deep injury, to be precise, from what seems to have been magic."

 

She paused to let Nozih’s slowed reactions take that in, then added, “I felt the disturbance in the aether and came to hear what was going on. —Do you remember what happened? It wasn’t that Viqqoh bitch, was it?”

 

---

 

"What?" she asked at the question of who did it.  "No one did it.  I was casting a spell, a strong fire spell, and …"

 

She paused, not quite certain herself what happened.  ”The spell didn’t go off right.  I think it failed and I must have blacked out briefly because of it.”

 

"Wait," she said after a moment more.  "What do you mean there’s nothing on me?"  Despite her general confidence and desire to project herself as confident, a slight pang of panic began to creep into her voice.

 

She pushed and pushed, her teeth gritting in pain, but she managed, somehow, to get her body into a sitting position.

 

"S-s-see. N-no p-prrrooo", she said, drawing sharp breath before repeating, "Problem.  I’m f-f-fine," she continued, her brow furrowed and breath shallow and uneven. 

 

---

 

A strong fire spell. “Like that time we were fighting Viqqoh,” she said, quickly putting the picture together. “Something… someone… set us all on fire. And it wasn’t her. She was casting another spell at the time—”

 

Noting Nozih’s attempts to get up, she paused, grunting her disapproval. “I told you to stay put, didn’t I? You don’t know how you’re injured.”

 

She had to admire her sister’s grit, but this wasn’t the battlefield: whatever Nozih had been trying to kill, it wasn’t here now, either scared off or vaporised by the spell’s backfire. She could— and should, if she were smart— allow herself time to heal.

 

"How often— does this happen? Your thaumaturgy going wrong?" If this were to be a recurring problem— well, it would mean an end to her sister’s studies for certain. Wrecking her body aetherically was something she just couldn’t afford.

 

---

 

"How often?" she asked.  "Not like this before, but this overdweller magic is weird, isn’t it?"

But as she said it, she began to wonder.  ”Don’t you also get light headed or nauseous using it?”

 

She paused to take a few deep breaths before she said, “I was sure it would clear up eventually, so I just worked harder at it.”

 

Her tail began to twitch uncomfortably as she asked again, perhaps a bit more eagerly than she had hoped, “You too, right?”

 

---

 

Midra grunted in the negative, emphatically. “Tired, occasionally, if I use too much,” she said. “And it sounds like you’ve been using too much, amongst other things. How long have you been on the surface now? Barely a tideturn*, and you’re throwing around spells that should be far beyond your skill level.”

 

"If you ask me"— she reached a hand over to absently pinch her sister’s ear, following it up with a little rub right at the sweet spot —"that’s your problem. Too much too soon. Strength is pacing, Nozih, not blowing your load all at once because you want results now. Magic’s like a muscle, like anything: you build it over time.”

 

She couldn’t believe she was having to give Nozih this lecture— again —but even as she did she couldn’t help her tone shifting from irritation to affection, noting her sister’s fear. “But no. I don’t get nauseous, and if you have been… well, you really need to speak to the Guild about this. You’re probably doing something wrong, and you’ll wreck yourself if you keep going this way.”

 

She gave Nozih’s hair a firm ruffle, purposely flipping one ear inside-out as she did. “You’re a good candidate for the priesthood. You passed your ritual tests with aplomb. You fuck yourself up over this, you’ll have me to answer to in Thal’s realm.”

 

---

 

Nozih reacted to the scolding and affection with a mix of joy and pain, but, being a good Speaker in the process of seeking priesthood, she continued to do her best to hide the latter.

”I know,” she admitted. Her sister was right.  Her sister was usually right, she thought back on not exactly fondly.

 

"It’s just, I wanted to learn, improve my skills, and go back underground away from these people."

 

She closed her eyes once again and focused herself through steady, deliberate breathing, eventually willing herself to stand.

 

"You’re right.  I’ll…" she said speaking slowly and deliberately as she worked to ignore what her body was telling her.  "I’ll go back to the guild and explain it to them."

 

She gave a parting swish of her tail, though it too was labored and jerky, rather than the fluid motion it normally was, and began to use return magic.

 

Her body floated slightly upward, finally beginning to feel light again, but then, suddenly, she let out a cry of pain and fell to the ground with a dull thud.

 

---

 

"I know," said Midra, her tone calm and soft. While she’d been more successful than Nozih in making friends on the surface, home was home, and deep down she was as eager to return as her sister was. "But you can’t force it. We are here to learn. We will go home when we have learned, and learned well, and our people will be better off for it.”

 

She let out another uncertain grunt at Nozih’s declaration that she was leaving right now: at best, it seemed unwise. Still, she wasn’t prepared for what was about to come: the magic, so basic even a spriggan could use it, flickering to an ember in her aetheric sight, and letting Nozih fall to the ground.

 

She ran over to her, kneeling beside her once more, racking her brains for the solution to this puzzle. For now, at least, one thing was clear.

 

"Don’t try magic," she urged, pulling out a voidal resonator— nifty little device it was, she’d come across it in Haukke Manor— and striking it once. "I’ll take us back to Ul’dah."

 

Within moments, the air began to ripple, vibrating more and more violently until it parted with a rush of dark aether and a cackling sound. Through the tear in Eorzea’s fabric flew an ahriman, its single eye rolling deliriously around, its leathery wings beating the air.

 

As she slung Nozih up onto the voidsent’s back, she glimpsed at the chasm with her aetheric sight— so similar to that which she had sensed within her sister— and, for the first time in her life, wished she hadn’t. Turning her aethersense away from it with a shudder, she urged the ahriman on.

 

---

 

The natural destination for the pair was, of course, the thaumaturge’s guild, and upon their arrival the five brothers, hearing the commotion, and needing the distraction from one of their countless ongoing arguments, came over to investigate.

 

”AH!” one brother said as soon as they set their eyes upon Nozih.  ”I’ve never seen anything like this before!”

 

Another brother turned to him and said, “Don’t say that! It’ll make her nervous!”

 

Yet another chimed in and said, “Oh, I’ve seen this happen a thousand times.  Countless times really.  I think that every thauma-“

 

But the second brother cut him off and said, “NO! Now you’re making me nervous!”

 

At this point Cocobuki began to speak up and the others decided, for one reason or another, to remain quiet.  ”Her aetheric levels are incredibly low.  I’ve never seen anything like it.”  He looked up from Nozih toward Midra and continued, “She’s been a dedicated student, deciding even to take up reading the texts that we studied.  She,” he said as he briefly looked down at Nozih again, “seemed to be doing well, but there’s no way she should be a thaumaturge in her condition.”

 

There was quiet for a brief time before someone added, “Complete aetheric vaccuumization.”

"What?"

 

"That’s what we should call it!  It’s like the aether got sucked out of her!"

 

"Yes, but that doesn’t help the situation now!"

 

It was suggested that they take Nozih to the back room, as to not alarm any of the visitors who may be seeking funeral arrangements, and administer several vials of hi-ethers.

 

Bells continued to pass, however, and while Nozih seemed to be still alive, she remained unconscious.

 

---

 

“Aetherrric vacuumisation,” Midra mused aloud. There was precious little else she, or any of them, could do, save pace around the room waiting for Nozih to wake up.

 

"It issss… what I felt also. Like a void… a voidrrrift in herrr aetherrr. But what does it mean?"

She turned to Cocobuki. “Did thaumaturrrrgy cause thissss?” Voidrifts and thaumaturgy… the two did seem to share a close relationship. Yet they’d explored voidrifts at home without anything like this happening.

 

---

 

"Indeed it seems that thaumaturgy brought this upon her, but the question is how and why."

 

”Indeed,” Cocobuki continued, “her situation now is not unlike our youngest sibling, Cocobusi. You remember meeting him, do you not?”  The lalafell turned to face the still unconscious Speaker and continued, “Though when she joined us she seemed perfectly capable of becoming a powerful thaumaturge, I must say that, given these readings, she should likely never attempt to practice it again.”

 

He turned to look back up at Midra.  ”She has, essentially, become like Cocobusi, though I have no idea how it may have happened.”

 

It was then that Nozih began to stir, seemingly in much less pain now than before, though disoriented all the same.

 

 

She sniffed the air.  ”Midra?”  But there were others.  ”The Arrrrrzaneth Ossssuarrry?” she asked.  ”I feel so tired,” she added in their own tongue.

 

---

 

"Like Cocobusssi…"

 

She remembered well the aspiring thaumaturge whose aetheric reserves had been so scant that the art was impossible for him. She took in the sounds of her sibling, her pulse fluttery, her breathing shallow, and could not deny the likelihood of Cocobuki’s words; and yet until the guildmaster himself had spoken, a part of her had hoped to deny them.

 

She herself pursued thaumaturgy out of a search for magical knowledge of all kinds: she would have been as happy being a conjurer or an arcanist, if it were not that her people had specifically asked her to seek knowledge unknown to the subterrane. But Nozih… she seemed to love thaumaturgy above all else. As much as she’d lectured her sister on how her health came first, she was loath to see her actually abandon her studies.

 

And there was another matter at stake. Nozih had little talent for the martial arts, and now it seemed that her aether ran shallow too. With neither magical nor physical strength to her credit— and her disability likely to turn her, abruptly, from the path of priesthood, raising questions— she would struggle to survive on a very real level. Not only would she have no path to status, but those who knew her weakness would hunt her down— if she did not offer herself first.

 

Her thoughts were cut off by Nozih’s stirring, and she moved to place a hand on her forehead, smoothing her hair back from her brow. In that moment, she was achingly aware that she might not have, for much longer, the feel of her sister’s skin; her hand moved down her face on impulse, tracing the grooves and puckers of those scars she’d left so long ago, remembering.

 

 

"Yes, you are in the Ossssuarrry,” she said softly, mixing the Common tongue and their own. “You will be tirrrred,” she continued in Common. “You have sufferrrred a grrreat aetherrric drrrain.”

 

She tilted her head in Cocobuki’s direction, a silent request that he explain the details. Suddenly, she was finding her courage very lacking.

 

---

 

Nozih felt comforted by her sister’s touch, but her words, and speech, made her begin to worry.

 

Cocobuki did his best to explain what had happened, at least as far as they could figure out.  That her aetheric reserves had somehow dropped to be incredibly low, not unlike Cocobusi’s. He tried to reassure her.  Tried to tell her it may only be a temporary situation, but then as Nozih explained her previous symptoms, Cocobuki’s concern became more serious.

 

It was at this point that worry, however, turned to full on panic when Cocobuki explained that he recommends that she stop practicing thaumaturgy immediately.

 

"I can’t ssstop!  I mussssst be a thaumaturge!" Nozih protested, no doubt reminding Cocobuki and the other brothers of their sibling.

 

"If you do the only place you will achieve mastery of it will be Thal’s domain," he answered bluntly.

 

Nozih replied flatly saying, “If I do not, I am alrrrready dead.”

 

---

 

Midra’s expression tightened at those words. To choose her own death because of her weakness would have been one thing: one that, though it would sorrow her, she could respect. Yet to give up on life for the love of a surface art…

 

She quickly switched to the Speaker tongue, not wanting to say the next part so brazenly in front of the brothers. “We have magic of our own, Nozih. Magic that will not ravage your soul! There are many disciplines, many paths left to you to explore. Does this one have your heart so strongly that you would die for it?”

 

She wasn’t going to bring up, not yet, that many of those paths might also be closed to her. If she couldn’t even teleport, then could she conjure? Manage an aetheric figment? And as for continuing her studies at home— the prospect seemed unlikely at best. Yet some part of her balked that Nozih might die to this outsider path, when her life at home had held such promise.

 

 

If I hadn’t left home, would she ever have come? But no— she’d set out on this path for the sake of her people. Their physical and spiritual survival took precedence over one life.

 

She just wished that Nozih had not followed her here, into this surface world’s suffocating grip.

 

---

 

Nozih frowned at the words her sister said, though the other could not see, and she answered in their own tongue.  ”Other paths? You know I’m not as strong as you, and even you have been walking the path of magic. You know what I mean,” she said stressing the word.

If I can’t use powerful magics, nor can I fight with my strength, I am a burden on people.

The younger one turned back to the the siblings and asked, “What about teleporrrrting?  I rrrrrememberr trying to come back herrrrre when everrrrything went black.”

 

When the answer didn’t come right away, Nozih couldn’t help but let out a sarcastic laugh, almost spitting out the words in her own tonuge, “See! I am so far gone I shouldn’t even teleport!”

 

"Y-you probably will be able to again soon.  Cocobusi’s levels are similarly low, and he has no trouble with those magics."

 

She wasn’t sure whether they understood.  Or rather, she was certain they didn’t.

The only person who did was Midra, and so her sister turned her head to face her, realising then how blind she was at this moment with only her hearing working properly.

 

It figured, she thought to herself.  Her sister was always so beautiful, when she looked at her with her aetheric sight.  Naturally even that comfort must be stolen away too.

 

---

 

Midra began to protest, to still her sister’s words, but in the end it was she who fell silent.

 

Nozih had the right of it. The magics of the subterrane were not combative ones, despite their people’s martial history. A priest who showed no physical strength could still earn respect, but they would have to be, and stay, exceptional. And Nozih, for all she tried, was not exceptional. Indeed, if her aetheric reserves had been permanently depleted, she would have trouble rising through the ranks at all.

 

Sensing Nozih’s struggle to see her aetherically, she sat down beside her sister, running her fingers artfully through her dense, wavy hair. She recalled how, when they were kittens, she’d stick leaves in it in a circlet shape and proclaim, “Now you’re a priest!” The compliment was always backhanded, as Nozih being the priest meant she’d be the voidsent, who’d tie her to a rock and devour her. The privilege of elder-sisterhood. Yet she’d always assumed they really would be priests, both of them, studying together to further their society; and the memory of their little game seemed suddenly tinged with sadness.

 

Still, another thing Nozih had right, if unspoken, was that in this state she could only be a burden. It wouldn’t be right of their people to carry her along, nor would it be dignified. And Nozih, at least, who had fought so hard to come this far, deserved to die with dignity.

Her hands left her sister’s hair and snaked down her arm, taking one hand in both of hers.

 

"You are right," she said in their language, letting out a sigh. "But I would not have us give up just yet."

 

She swiveled her ears to regard Cocobuki, returning to the Common tongue. “Iss therrre no way we can heal herrr? The etherrrssss do not worrrrk, yesss… but perrrrrhapsss conjurrrry? Perrrhapsss they would know what isss causssing thisss… leak of aetherrr. Perrrhapsss it could be fixed.”

 

---

 

"Conjury! Of course!" one of the brothers shouted.

 

”Do you really think it will work?” another asked.

 

"I don’t have any idea how conjury works!" the first replied.  "But maybe if she tele-"

 

"Took an airship?"

 

"Or a chocobo!"

 

"…to Gridania, they might be able to answer the question better."

 

Nozih took a deep breath.  They’d given her several ethers at this point, though by now the sounds they made as she downed them, while not having much effect on her, caused her to stop and switch to nursing a couple hi-potions, which they seemed to hold little regard for.

 

"I guesssss that’sssss where I need to go then," Nozih said, her physical strength, at least mostly returning.  At least enough where she felt she could walk to her inn room.

She turned to look again at her sister and seemed to ask the question, can we leave this place?  Suddenly her favourite place in Ul’dah was the source of only bitterness and disappointment.

 

---

 

The trip to Gridania, they decided at once, would be by airship. Midra disliked chocobos at the best of times, and even if Nozih seemed largely physically recovered, she felt it unwise to entrust her to the surface-dwellers’ bone-jarring method of transit.

 

Why can’t they build a decent cable-car network, she’d thought more than once in the past; now she wished it more than ever.

 

---

 

Midra was not, by nature, a hoverer. There was nothing about Nozih’s condition that could be fixed by standing over her, hands wrung, knuckles bloodless; and more, she did not wish to insult Nozih by showing her pity. So for a time, even though she preferred to travel beneath a solid roof, she left Nozih on the lower deck and walked the top, feeling the heavens’ turn reflected on her skin in cycles of warmth and chill. Eventually, though, the open sky and shifting weather drove her belowdecks, where she sought out Nozih by scent.

 

"What will you do?" she asked in their tongue, sitting down next to her. "If the conjurers can’t fix it. Will you go home?"

 

The question, if unspoken, was clear in her words. Will you surrender yourself to judgment?

 

---

 

Nozih, of course, understood what was being asked, and clicked her tongue in that way that meant no, her tail matching the reply with it’s similar gesture.

 

But as she did she reached into her bag and placed a knife, a dagger, really, in Midra’s lap.

The weapon was clearly a compromise between two very different attitudes about crafting with metal and stone.  The blade itself was smooth and, while Midra wouldn’t see it visually, was polished to an almost mirror finish.

 

Far too overworked for their aesthetic, in other words.

 

The handle, however, was different.  Tracing her finger around it, the shapes the uneven metal, and even bits of stone, would be reminiscent to Midra of their home; the shapes reminding her of the tunnels the two had played in more times than she could count.

 

Places she could, literally, move around without looking.

 

But it was more than that, because when held, the texture became something else.  It was also an offering to Wawa Ghaya, and designed in the self-same way of the tunnels.  Holding it, for a speaker, would invoke thoughts of Her, while simultaneously being only like the tiniest point of a grand mural, and the beauty of it, if one saw it, came from the mind of the one appreciating it filing in the missing details.

 

At least, that’s what she hopped it conveyed.  She was still new to the art of truly manipulating metal and stone, and so, likely, many of the details would be more crude or amateurish than she intended, but, of course, there’s more to a blade than how sharp it’s point is.

 

Nozih felt the blade itself, which she fetched when she gathered her things from her room, would speak for itself, and so she let it.

 

She made no effort to retrieve it either, hoping that message was also as clear.

 

---

 

Midra didn’t need to touch it to know what it was: the weight of it in her lap, the scent of metal and the aetherglow of stone, told her everything. But she did so regardless, running her hands over her sister’s creation, a lump forming in her throat as her fingertips explored, through its ridges and crags, familiar tunnels of their past.

 

Though Nozih may not have been certain of its worth, Midra was awed by the knife: an artful blend of the two styles, sacrificing nothing. She had clearly had to fashion the blade to impress her guildmasters, yet the handle still sang of the stone, told its intricate story to anyone who held it in their grip. If Nozih could be nothing else, she could be a master smith; turning the knife in her hands, of this she was certain. Her art would be a credit to all Hohk-Zahr.

 

Yet smithing would not keep Nozih alive; nor would she wish it to. To be deprived of the hunt, of battle’s rush, and to never scale magic’s heights… a fluke of skill in one lesser art could not substitute for that loss.

 

Her hands contemplated the knife again, admiring the transitions from rough to smooth, a perfect reproduction of the caverns of home. She nicked her finger against the blade, and felt the blood well: a fine edge, too, more worked than necessary, yet not so much that it became brittle, lifeless.

 

She clicked her tongue in the affirmative. “It is beautiful,” she said, “this gift. I am honoured.”

Honoured to be the one you would allow to guide your passage.

 

---

 

Nozih didn’t say anything more, and the airship soon made it’s approach into Gridania.

Despite their urgency, and Nozih feeling better than previous, she was still tired after the flight and convinced Midra to allow them to get a room and meet with the conjurer’s guild the following day.

 

To be continued…

 

---

*A month. Underdwellers, not being able to see the moon directly, tell months by measuring the fluctuations in tides, as derived by lake researchers and water magic users.