Frost 62, 122 immediately following viewtopic.php?t=4378
Soon after cuddling for a while, the little earth elemental grew restless. He grumbled, the sound of boulders sliding over pebbles, hopping out of Norani's lap, dashing out from under Ruvaf's wing. Norani smiled as she watched him, letting herself be pushed upright by the soil she'd been sat upon. The little elemental spun at her, looking at her with angry eyes. "No!"
Norani's eyes went wide and she pulled her aether from the soil. The little elemental gave a nod, and then began to march on, and Norani followed after him, waving at Ruvaf who cawed lightly before returning to his nap. The little guy led her off the beaten path, trudging through the undergrowth loudly. He was harrumphing and grumping as he went, stomping on sticks and beetles and splashing out puddles, carving a very obvious path. Soon, they found themselves in a small grassy clearing beneath a fruit tree. He moved over to a large stone, climbing up on it clumsily, and sitting there.
Norani went over and sat down next to him, seeing his little pebbly eyes staring up into the branches. She followed his eyeline and watched as well. Hours went by, and they continued to wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And then a beautiful bird, with flourished feathers across the entire spectrum of colors landed there. But as Norani watched more closely, she could see it was injured, some sort of spine stuck into its side, a splotch of old blood. It coughed once. Twice. As it went to cough again, Norani heard a whistling sound through the air, and watched as a pebble crashed into its skull, making the entire head disappear from the force. The body fell limply to the ground below.
Eyes widened once more, she looked over at the little elemental, confused. He hupped up and off the rock, leaving dents in the ground as he dashed over to the bird and Norani followed after him. She crouched down as the elemental stared at the dead bird. He hovered a rock in front of him, point first at Norani, then the bird, then the rock. The orkhan looked back and forth, entirely unsure what he wanted from her. She reached out with her aether to take the rock, and she felt her aether swatted away with his own. Nope, not what he wanted.
He rumbled, sitting down, his rock gone. She mimicked him. He held his little dirt arms out and she watched as he forged a lodestone there in the air, he'd done it so much faster than Norani herself had ever been able to do. She watched as it shimmered and shifted, appearing to be earthenly charged. Then he pointed at her, then the bird, then back to his lodestone.
Norani reached out, picking up the still warm corpse. She held it out in front of her, closing her eyes. She pulled at her aether, focusing it on the bird, just as she did when making a lodestone. She used her Enmesh ability to hold that in the bird, as the lodestone usually required an empty space to form a single focal point from which to grow. She began to flavor her aether with the properties of the earth she knew, the mud back home on her lack, the soil that gave life to the grass.
Thump!
A pebble bounced hard off Norani's forehead.
"Ow!"
She glared over at the little earthen elemental that glared back twice as fierce. He pointed at the ground then at her again. She stuck out her tongue at the little elemental, who stuck out a smooth stone in a similar gesture. She turned away from him, focusing again on the beheaded bird in front of her. She continued to try and weave her Enmeshing and her Lodestone abilities on the corpse, but rather than flavor it with the earth she'd known, she sent out another tendril into the ground around her. She attached her influence into it, flooding the ground with her aether, and she heard the little elemental coo happily. As she did, she began to understand the difference in it, she could feel the changes in texture, water content, the different scents and the lives wiggling through it. Incredibly different from the mud she grew up knowing.
Taking that flavor, she pulled it through herself, without disturbing the actual soil, and she began to charge and sculpt the Enmeshing Lodestone in the bird. And she watched as the shininess of the lodestone began to form, crafting the crystalline structure. A grumble was heard nearby and Norani poured in more of the Influenced aether into her Enmeshing. The crystalline sheen dissipated, turning more into a matte stone grey. Cooing followed. Norani's brow grew damp from perspiration, she'd never tried mixing so many abilities together at the same time. But she poured and poured her aether into it under the watchful eye of the nearby spirit. Soon, the bird turned entirely into stone. Norani didn't know it, but many archaeologists back home would know this as fossilization, a process that takes hundreds and thousands of years.
And still, she continued to pour in her aether, not afraid of draining herself. She knew that in the upcoming battle for the Seasons, she'd have to give everything she had, everything she was, everything she wished for in order to have a chance. Her jaw chiseled as she grit down, watching the fossil turn black and shiny. It continued to change into this state, turning into a stone that Norani had never known before, but reminded her of charcoal. For it was, in fact, coal, which any true Zaichaeri would know on sight, though they'd probably grouch about using personal magic to create it. She was getting ready to sever the magic when the little elemental climbed into her lap, touching her hands, keeping her at the task.
Nausea began to wrack through the Elementalist, but she pushed further and further. Her eyes tunneled in on her hands which were now hovering around the specimen she was working on, and the rest of the world around her went quiet. It was just her and her task. Her vision began to double and wobble, and her Orkhan scales and claws began to sprout all over her body, a response to the stress she was under. And the coal began to change more. It went translucent, shining, with sharp edges and bright facets, until light pierced through it, sending out a rainbow on the other side.
A diamond the size of the bird had been formed.
Bile rose in Norani's throat, her arms began to shake, but still, the little spirit kept his hands on her arms, helping her to focus. Norani's scales were turning to stone, mud perspiring all over her body, but she pushed and pushed and pushed. The diamond glowed first, then turned matte. A cascade of cracks appeared into it and with a loud twinkling, it shattered into a million dust sized pieces, and Norani's magic was severed, as the diamond dust fell to the ground.
Norani's eyes rolled back into her head as the world went back, and she collapsed onto her side.
She awoke the next morning, a blanket of flowers and Vomi Vani were draped over her. Her entire body hurt, her skin felt heavy, and her Orkhan scales and claws hadn't retracted, them changing to stone forcing them to stay out. It felt like her skin was trying to pull itself off of her bones. She winced and groaned as the little earthen elemental sauntered around into her vision. He pointed at the pile of diamond dust as Norani gasped, pained, as she pushed herself upright. She looked at the dust, shrugging her shoulders. Then the elemental pointed at a bare patch of dirt, one carved from where Norani's claws had scarred the ground as she writhed in pain while she slept. Her vision, still blurred at this distance, she shook her head.
"I don't understand."
The elemental raised up a small bit of dirt, hovering it, floating it closer to Norani's face, touching it to her nose. She stared down the bridge of her large nose, eyes crosseyed. And there in the dirt, small little glittering specks, just like those she'd made. Her face pulled back, her eyes widening in surprise. Her eyes dashed back and forth from the diamond dust to the small sampling of dirt. "But... I thought life came from earth?"
The elemental nodded its head, as Vomi Vani joined in, chippering and dancing about, tossing petals into the wind. "But this means earth comes from life, even the stones, the gems?"
The elemental nodded again, as Vomi poofed a cloud of pollen around her.
"But which came first? Life or earth?"
The elemental shook its head, pointing at her. She cocked her head sideways, confused. "I can't have come first."
The being grumped, and hopped up in her lap, poking her hard in the hard with a stony finger. A long silence. "Magic?"
A somber nod as Vomi squealed, now dashing off into the brush, being chased by a swarm of bees. "So magic made the world and the world makes life?"
A nod.
Norani slumped back, not sure what to do with this information. Was magic the basis of everything? Earth and life were in a constant pull for balance to make one another, but magic is what started it? What all could magic do? What all had it actually done? Were the gods simply just powerful mages? Were the spirits the same? She looked down at the little elemental, "Thank you for teaching me. I still have much to learn." The little guy nodded his head twice, "May I have your name, so that I may call upon you?"
"Urgurg."
And she reached out, initiating the bond with Urgurg, adding his visage to the collage upon her back.
