Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone (Paragon)

[Norani]

Frost 45, 122

Norani, Ruvaf, and Daiknuvo were all sitting upon the high ridge, the arm of the horseshoe shape of the bay, staring out over the ocean that was rough and choppy today. The true darkness was making its way across the waters, and Norani pulled her knees in closer to her chest as a slight chill in the winds came before it. It had been seventy-one days since Yeva had disappeared from the world. Norani had sought help from the others in their little ragtag expedition, trying to find any trace of her best friend.

But none had been able to find out where she had gone to after she had stood up from her favourite seat.

Had she left by choice? Norani didn’t want to think that was the case, because that would mean that Yeva chose to not say goodbye, that she didn’t want Norani to join her. That didn’t feel like something Yeva would do. She hoped.

But maybe something had changed. Maybe Norani had been too open, too forward with how she felt about Yeva. She knew Yeva was particularly private, often preferring her foreign style of seclusion and isolation, and Norani had thought she had been giving her the space she desired. But maybe it wasn’t enough. Maybe Yeva felt stifled around Norani and had to leave.

Just like how Norani had felt with her village.

Tears fell upon Norani’s knees. Still, Yeva leaving like that would be the far more preferable and more likely option that she had been taken away by some creature, some monster. There were so many creatures of fascinating and wonderful abilities here that one could certainly have snatched Yeva from the sands without leaving a trace or trail. And if it had done that, then…

Norani didn’t want to think about that while she was awake, the nightmares that came every night of Yeva being devoured by creatures haunted her enough while she slept. Yes, it was far more preferable that Yeva had simply tired of her and left, somehow. Several members of the expedition had methods of leaving and returning, after all. So maybe Yeva had one as well.

Norani hoped Yeva was alive and well, wherever she might be.

She missed her friend, and her body was sore from pushing through the jungles at a vigorous pace trying to find any single red hair, to find a footprint, to find anything of Yeva. But there was nothing.

And Norani had nothing else left, so every day was spent on what was seeming to be a fruitless endeavour. And she was alone. She looked over her shoulder, as Ruvaf closed his wings more around her, a stiffer breeze waving through. She could see the flames of the unnamed village that was formed along the beach, the shadows of the others going about their evening. She didn’t have to be alone. There were those who would accept her more if she gave them the chance.

But she wouldn’t.

She was beginning to think she was cursed. She was a totem of lightning, and those around her were being struck. Juno was snatched away, Yeva disappeared, her family was in pain back home. There wasn’t anyone in her life that she cared about that wasn’t hurting. It would be better to not create more pain. She cast her eyes back to the seas as the darkness of night, lacking all stars as it always did these days.

Maybe it was better that she was alone. Orkhan, Ecithians, always believed that there was a safety and comfort and love in numbers. But Norani had been the odd one out for so long, that maybe she was always supposed to be. Maybe that was her role in this cosmos. The cursed one. The bringer of pain and misfortune. She sniffled and wiped her eyes, clearing the blur from them.

And then she saw it, out in the east, out over, or maybe past, the water.

A great, shining tree. She tapped Ruvaf and pointed and he squawked curiously, suspiciously. He saw it too. Daik crouched and stared at it intensely, but he did not speak. He never spoke, not once since he joined her in their summoning pact. Norani knew that tree had not always been there. She came up to this spot every night since Yeva had disappeared. This was the spot she had discovered her element of fire, through the love and warmth and friendship she shared with her friend. The same spot that afforded her an excellent view of the beach in case Yeva returned.

There had never been a glowing tree there before.

She didn’t need to make up her mind, she didn’t need to prepare. She always kept her pack and her weapons with her at all times these days. She slept with them so that she could wake and instantly continue her search for Yeva. So that if she heard Yeva’s voice shouting for help, she could come running. And this tree, it was a sign. This unending darkness of the sky happened at the same time Yeva had disappeared.

Maybe Yeva could see this tree too, and would make her way there.

In a moment, Norani was upon Ruvaf’s back as Daiknuvo slipped inside of her shadow as he preferred to do. Two flaps of the wings and they leapt from the cliffs and were flying over the choppy ocean, on a direct course for the tree. They flew high above the waters, for Norani knew there were beasts there that would certainly snatch them from the depths. She urged Ruvaf on at his fastest pace, leaning low against his body so as to greatly reduce the drag.

Yeva would be there. She had to be.

Norani hoped she would be.

[Paragon]

P A R A G O N

The waters of the ocean were blacker than they had ever been. Like a swirling pool of liquid pitch, the dark waters showed no sign of anything that lurked below. The normally tropic winds of Ecith were colder. The elements seemed in disarray as though they were calling out to Norani, warning her, urging her to be wary of the impending dangers of unseen things.

The further she flew from the shores, the more turbulent the dark waters became. At first it was simply an unsettling of the surfaces. The inky black liquid rippled and churned. As she flew further, those ripples began to become small waves.

Further still, those small waves became walls of towering black water that were crashing upon each other.

Yet there was not a cloud in the skies. There was no stormy wind. There were no hurricane gales attempting to blow her off course. There was only the pitch black waters that rose and fell in ever growing mountainous tidal waves that crashed upon each other. Like the fingers of titanic hands rising up out of the obsidian blackness to grasp at her.

All the while, the crystal tree remained fixed on the horizon. It grew neither further nor closer. It seemed to just be suspended there. Waiting.

The shoreline was no longer in sight.

There were no lights to guide her back to the beautiful beach where she and Yeva had found warmth and solace in one another.

There was only the mountainous tidal waves of churning darkness.

And the tree. Ever still. A beacon in the Darkness.

It was either press on, turn back, or be consumed by the waves of black water that seemed to be reaching for her.

[Norani]

Norani had not been raised by the ocean, and much of her experience with water was limited to the lake Nora back home, and what little experience she had at the Expedition site. But her gut was telling her that these waters weren’t simply unknown to her, but rather were different than they had ever been.

Such darkness seemed unnatural here, even the night sky, before the eclipse, did not stay so dark.

As she traveled, the waves grew bigger, stronger, choppier, and it sent a pit in her stomach. It reminded her the night of the storm that came to Nora. She rubbed at her arm that she broke while saving Yeva, remembering that was the night she learned of her family’s deception.

She wondered if there was a storm or other unnatural phenomenon the day that Juno was taken by the Unknown. Such things seemed to happen around Norani’s traumatic moments in her life. As though the world itself was against her. Or rebelling against her own Fate.

She guided Ruvaf into a higher climb, not wishing to get caught by any of the pitch black hands climbing out of the ocean. But everything about this was setting her on edge. The waves were tumultuous but the winds were nonexistent. There wasn’t a singular cloud in the sky. This was not natural, the elements were confused or altered.

Reaching inward, Norani pulled her aether through her Elementalism rune, and she sent out several small feeding tendrils. These were how she called to and coaxed the elements to her, she’d feed them a little to open the conversation. She reached for the winds that weren’t there and for the waters below. She needed to hear them. She knew that the coastal winds around the Expedition site were joyous beings, happy to move along at great speeds between the warm land and cooling ocean, whereas the waters in the bay were calm, relaxed, almost lazy.

Part of her was afraid of what she might hear, but she called nonetheless. Norani looked back over her shoulder, keeping her thighs in place so that Ruvaf didn’t try to turn with her body. She could not see the coast line anymore, and this became the time she was the furthest from any haven, land or ship. She felt so small. She closed her eyes, taking in a few deep breaths, trying to not let it take her over. She needed to stay focused, to find Yeva.

She cast her eyes forward once more, finding that even though the coast had disappeared, the tree remained fixed, never seeming to grow larger as she approached. That was… strange. Norani could tell she was advancing, somehow, for as she flew, the ocean grew more and more restless.

Restless, just like her. Angry and in pain. Unbalanced.

She ripped a large chunk of aether through her rune, sending it out to the waters below, flavored with an intent, with a question. “How can I help?”

[Paragon]

P A R A G O N

Tethering her aether to the turbulent waters of the dark below, Norani would be able to sense an amalgamation of things. Fear. Rage without end. Desperation. Confusion. And a hunger that was without boundary. Hunger, endless hunger. It gnawed at the aether that she poured into the waters and they roared back at her. An anger that clawed at the soul and sought to rip into the very fiber of her being was palpable. Were it not for the fact that her rune was merely translating the whispers of the element, it would feel as though the ocean was ready to tear her apart.

RETURN THE TEMPEST

Rising out of the waters was a tidal wave of black fury that climbed higher and higher. Onward and upward it rose until it was a mountain of water in front of her. Whether up, down, or to the side, there was naught but the furious black wave. It rose as a wall of pitch darkness that hung there for a moment. Visible through it was the glowing crystal tree.

There was only one direction for her to go; through the wave.

The top of the tidal wave began tumbling down.

[Norani]

With the connection with the ocean established, Norani found herself overwhelmed with emotion, but many of them were regular inhabitants within the young Orkhan woman.

Fear.

Norani knew that she had let fear govern much of her life as of late. She was not ashamed of her fear, for she had been taught that fear kept Orkhan alive, a powerful tool. She embraced the fear that washed over her, letting it mingle with her fear that her family, her old life, would never find a semblance of itself again. Fear that she would never find Yeva. Fear that she would be alone, forever.

Rage.

Another familiar feeling. She had known rage so well. It was a storm within her, ever since the night she had learned about Juno. She had unleashed her rage at her family, for their transgressions, for their lies. She had set it upon her chieftain, upon her people, upon Ecith’s very foundations for allowing that pain to be inflicted upon her. She embraced the rage of the dark waters as well.

Desperation.

That one was born from her fear, and it was wrapped up in Yeva. She was desperate to find her dearest friend again, her greatest companion, and the woman whom she loved. She was on this journey because she was sure that it would lead to Yeva somehow. It had to. It must. And the ocean’s desperation filled her as well.

Confusion.

This was one that she had been trying to ignore lately, but it was there. Presented by the younger, more naive Norani that had not yet been hurt. She was confused as to why her family would ever lie in such a way. She was confused as to what it meant to love unconditionally as she felt to Yeva. Was the love she felt right? And if it were, why would the world, the fates, the gods, allow Yeva to be taken? And she was confused most by why the world constantly sent massive signs when traumatizing her. The hurricane the night she learned about Juno, the eclipse starting when Yeva was taken, and now, an ocean of blackness trying to pull her in. What trauma would come with this?

Hunger.

That one though. That one was new. Norani had had a comfortable life in Ecith. She never knew hunger, a desire for something more, a yearning to reach, never in any true and meaningful ways. And as this hunger washed in, far more dominating than the rest, it began to awaken things in the young woman. The yearning to grow so powerful in her magics that she could rip apart the heavens, the worlds, to find Yeva, to find Juno. To be strong enough that none would dare take from her again. An image flashed before her, Yeva, smiling, the sun streaming through her curls and her dress, beckoning Norani forward, a smile on her lips, telling Norani that she was ready for what Norani desired within.

As this image faded, Norani could see the giant wave growing, an impossible mountain to climb. She felt the thought, the answer to her question. Return the Tempest. Something had been taken from these waters. She wondered if it meant the winds that were quite obviously missing, or something more. But through the wave, she saw the tree that she had made her goal.

Return the tempest.

Norani ripped all of the aether she could through her Elementalism rune, as she leaned down into Ruvaf, giving him the command to fly like an arrow. He tucked his wings, speeding forward and a bit down, slicing through the air toward the wave. Norani took her aether and she created the winds that were missing, and she sculpted them around her and Ruvaf. She carved them so that they raced over and under and around the pair, starting from nose and shooting out over his tail. The winds spun and rotated, and Norani poured more and more aether into this vortex she was trying to form around them both.

She could see the winds yanking and pulling at Ruvaf’s wings, and she ordered him to tuck further, less flying and more so as a spear thrown now. The winds threatened to yank the hair from her head, to send the pair into a roll that would rip Ruvaf’s wings from his body and smash them both to pieces against the wave.

As they neared the wave, Norani continued to try and sharpen the tip of the winds, to punch right through the wave, and she felt the exhaustion coming on rapidly from such an immense use of her magic. She’d never used so much before. She continued to send the winds spinning around her, both a barrier and a blade to cut through this wave. To find Yeva, to get them forward. To keep moving.

Moments before impact on the wave, keeping her eyes locked on the wave that would destroy them or let them pass, she whispered to Ruvaf, a whisper also sent to Yeva wherever she might be.

“I love you.”

[Paragon]

Like a spear, Norai urged both herself and Ruvaf forward. She fed the confused currents of the air her aether and in so doing, gave them direction. Around her, the winds almost seemed eager to cling to a form of guidance. They gathered to form a whirlwind that propelled her forward. The winds slammed into the wall of black waters creating an indentation in the tidal wave. It was barely enough to push through the outer layer of the water. But there was no turning back now.

Slamming into the surface of the cold waters, Norani was forced to hold on to Ruvaf with every ounce of strength that she possessed. The freezing waters chilled her to the bone. The raging tidal wave began to collapse in on itself. The force of the water’s pull was ready to rip her from Ruvaf and the loyal pterodactyl was struggling to resist the currents of the water as the winds dissipated, unable to withstand the awesome power of the waves.

But the tree was getting closer.

If Norani could just hold on. If she could just urge the winds and water to make way for her. If Ruvaf could just push a little further.

Blackness began to creep into the edges of Norani’s vision. Everything inside of her was being pushed to the limit as she stressed her magic and her companion to the brink. But the waters were growing brighter. Clearer. Not the pitch black of a murky void but the crystal blue of a tropical coast.

Just a little further.

The tree was beginning to come into focus. She could see…she could see…

Norani’s head would spin as unconsciousness took her. The last thing she would feel is the rush of air as she burst through to the opposite side of the massive waves.

And then she and Ruvaf were spiraling out of control toward the ground.

---

Pain. That was the first thing that would greet Norani. Aching. Throbbing in the skull. The next thing was the fact that there was sand in her mouth. Opening her eyes, Norani was greeted by the sight of a blindingly warm sun that filled the skies with light. Once her vision came into focus, there waiting for her was a clear blue sky. The kind that existed in Ecith along the tropical coasts before the Eclipse. The gentle lap of waves came to her ears. Looking around she was..somewhere. The beach was filled with glittering white sands along a tropical coast. Crystals jutted out from the ground along the treeline and extended partially into the waterline. Motes of water drifted through the air almost lazily.

Rising, just off the shore, on an island of its own, was a colossal tree that extended high into the skies. Its roots wound down from the edge of the rocky island it occupied. Each root was big enough to comfortably seat a family of grown dragons. The tree rose higher and higher, its branches able to support entire villages, if such a thing were to ever be done. A gentle breeze blew along the coast, making the leaves of the tree sway in a gentle dance. Exotic birds flew in the skies, birds that were otherworldly but no less beautiful in their colorful plumage.

Beside Norani, Ruvaf lay sprawled out upon the beach. One of his wings was bent at a slightly odd angle. Alive but unconscious.

[Norani]

Norani felt the impact through her Aether, sending many of the winds in her command scattering, before Ruvaf’s beak and her own head struck the water. She knew from her lessons from Chieftain Boraba that hitting anything at that speed, water, mountain, whatever, would absolute result in a very brief and extremely painful death for flyer and rider.

But it seemed death wasn’t coming just yet.

Norani was clutching as hard against Ruvaf as she could, harder than she ever had before. Her Orkhan scales were flaring out all over her body and she had to make sure to adjust her gripped hands so that her Orkhan claws wouldn’t extend into Ruvaf’s body. She peered from underneath her flying visor, refusing to lose sight of where they were flying, even if it no longer seemed to matter. A deep chill ran through her body, a cold far worse than any other the tropical Orkhan had ever experienced.

But she could see the tree through the waters around her, barely held at bay by the winds swirling around them. The winds were fading away, her aether dwindling dangerously low as they departed. And the waters crashed all around them. She could still hear the pain and hunger and rage in the waters, she could still feel it deep in her soul in the way that only the Elementalists could. She snarled as she urged Ruvaf forward toward the glowing tree.

Her vision was starting to fade.

The waters were tearing and pulling at her, trying to rip the two of them from one another, to crush and batter and break them.

Her limbs were growing numb from the cold and the force with which she was holding on.

The world was blacker still, her vision tunneling in on the barely glowing tree, her body trying to communicate the direction to Ruvaf through their touch.

She reached down deep, scraping out the last of the aether she could muster, and she screamed it out from her chest. And with it, new Winds and Waters manifested. She cast them into the raging currents around them, asking them to fight for her, to will the waters that were trying to destroy her to instead fight for her, a friend of water and wind and fire and earth alike.

The winds and waters swirled and the pressure alleviated some, a froth of bubbles and currents tearing through as the pair of adventurers were nearly out of strength to go on.

The last thing Norani remembered was the darkness fading to light and the apology to Ruvaf and Yeva both that drowned her consciousness.

——

Norani’s eyelids slowly crept open, her eyes burning from salt in them. She blinked several times before realizing she was face down in sand. As she tried to move, she gasped loudly, her entire body pained and bruised and battered. Her chest was heaving against the sand as she moved to get an arm beneath her, every muscle sore, every spot of skin throbbing in pain.

She managed to push herself up a bit on shaky arms, spitting and sputtering out the sand. Then she noticed the warmth. And the shadow beneath her. She looked up from her half prone position and saw a magnificent tree. And she was awed. It was every bit as beautiful as the tree back home, but far larger than any she’d ever seen, larger than even those in the central jungles.

Norani cast her gaze around her. She was on a beach, again. She could see large crystals strewn about and water was floating about in ways that water typically did not. And then she saw him and her heart broke.

Norani snarled through the pain as she crawled over to Ruvaf. She could see that his chest was rising and falling and her panic eased a bit. He was alive, but unconscious. And as her eyes scanned over him, she saw his bent wing and she felt instantly nauseated.

She knew what a damaged wing could mean for him. She knew that the vast majority of their blood vessels flowed through their wings. She knew that without the ability to fly they could not feed, they could not defend themselves, and that many that became flight crippled would wither away in depression.

But even worse was the fact that she was no healer. That part of her education came later in her time in her village’s forces. Something she’d skipped in order to come on this Expedition that seemed destined to just bring more heartache to replace that which she had been trying to escape.

She pulled herself up on her knees as she looked at his wings, taking in deep breaths to calm herself. She could hear the words of her chieftain, “A rider must always be calm around their Ci’uvan. They know themselves better than the rider ever will.” Norani closed her eyes, breathing, focusing, and she reached out to Ruvaf, touching him on the neck gently, just as she did that day as a child when she picked him to be her partner, just as she did every single day to wake him, or to ask his permission to ride him, or to bring him comfort, to tell him a job well down.

In her native tongue, a bare whisper, “Ruvaf, I am here with you. I need you to wake up. You’re hurt and we need to take care of you. Please, wake up, my love.”

[Paragon]

P A R A G O N

Ruvaf’s eyes were slow to open. He was exhausted. He was injured. When the eye that was facing Norani did focus, it was still bleary and tired. The pterodactyl let out a small chirp and briefly tried to lift himself only to limply fall back onto the sands. Ruvaf let out a weak call, his head falling back into the sands as he was struggling to even stay awake. Looking around, the various crystals on the beach were alight with aethereal power. Some glowed brightly. Others dimly. Drifting through the skies were motes of water that were trailing their way to the tree, a path of them converging upon it from many directions in an area that Norani could not immediately see. The beach itself was thriving with all manner of tropical forms of life.

And out of the corner of her eye, there was movement. It was quick but Norani would see the shifting of a figure’s form to more solidly conceal themselves behind the trunk of a tree and greenery growing up from the ground.

Norani was not alone.

[Norani]

As Ruvaf’s eye slowly slid open, Norani exhaled deeply, not realizing that she’d been holding her breath. Good, he was alive. He was injured, exhausted, but he was alive, for now. She touched her forehead to his, “We’ll get you better,” her words heavy with the guilt of having put him in this situation. She knew that he was free to do as he wished and if that meant flying into a tidal wave of darkness for her, he would choose it every single time. But that didn’t make it even remotely easy asking it of him, of seeing him sacrifice himself.

Norani looked around her once more, she knew they were in an exposed position in foreign territory with minimal supplies and no access to support. In her breathy tone, “Vaka.” Her shadow twisted and changed until the raptor of darkness stepped out once more. Just calling him from where he slumbered within her shadow caused Norani’s hands to start shaking slightly. She was still greatly depleted of her energies. But she couldn’t leave themselves exposed and alone.

And so she did what all of those who had taught her magics had warned her not to do. She pushed past that natural barrier. She ripped more aether through her Rune of Summoning, to feed it to Vaka through the words she spoke, the aether rolling from her tongue naturally, “Guard the territory around Ruvaf, he must be protected.” As the aether left her, she could feel it burning at her, deep inside, and she saw her vision wobbling a bit.

She nearly toppled over as Vaka solidified from the aether he had accepted. He sniffed at the air, and let loose a series of chirps. Norani looked up, trying to shake her vision straight. She saw the crystals about, dimming and glowing, seeing a shaky few lines of the motes of water heading off into the distance.

Something moved in the corner of her vision.

She knew she was in no condition to fight and she hoped she wasn’t going to have to do so. She shakily unclipped her chakram from her waistband, standing up on wobbly legs. She shouted in Common, “Whoever is there, show yourself.” She remembered the words that had seared themselves in her mind earlier, “I am here to help return the Tempest.”

If it was an animal, it wouldn’t matter what she said. If it was a person, maybe they’d have some idea of where she was, why she heard that voice, and what all was going on. It mattered not, she was not in a position for conflict. She tightened her grip on her chakram, wobbling into a defensive posturing, “But if you come with harm, you’ll find I wield it with the furies of the winds.”

[Paragon]

P A R A G O N

There was a shifting of the shrubbery, accompanied by a soft warbling sound like the burbling of a running river. From behind one of the large bushes, a bluish green face peered at Norani. Wide sea-blue eyes blinked at the Orkhan woman before the creature made itself more visible. It appeared to be made partially from water, with bits of seaweed and flora sprouting from its form. Watery bubbles floated around its form in small motes. It shuffled forward, quirking its head curiously. It remained partially concealed by the bushes but was now visible enough to clearly distinguish from the scenery.

The strange warbling bubbling came again, this time clearly coming from the creature staring at Norani. It hobbled forward tentatively on stubby legs with webbed feet. The creature likely stood no taller than Norani’s knees. It stood just a few feet away from Norani and where her conjured spirit stood. The odd little creature quirked its head in the other direction and again made that weird warbling bubbling noise before pointing at Ruvaf.