Legend of Ransera

The room into which Arry was led was simple, spartan, austere. There were no windows, fake or otherwise- Just stone. In the centre a slab carved of the same stone as the tile the composed the floors and walls was raised and covered loosely by a thin, white satin sheet.

"Well, at least it's clean..." He observed aloud, casting a glance over his the shoulder of his silken, black and gold tunic to regard his mother's face- Cool as the stone all around them appeared to be.

"Disrobe." She prompted, turning to close the heavy, wooden door behind them. "The environs may seem unwelcoming, but this room was prepared with purpose." She placed a hand upon the nearest wall and, though the grey bricks were cold and unmoving, they emanated a placating energy.

"I don't hate it." Arry replied, unfastening his golden braid belt, "It's just..." He paused, considering. "Well, actually it isn't properly cold, is it?" He bit his lip, contemplating as he placed the belt down on the slab. "Is that the warmth of the volcano?"

"No." She replied, with no further clarification and turned to help him pull the tunic over his head. "The shoes, as well." She instructed as she folded up his garment and collected the belt.

He sat down on the slab to loosen the straps of his sandals. If the stone beneath his bottom was cold, the satin sheet was enough of a buffer that it felt as lukewarm as the air around him. He noticed belatedly that, even though it was a mere, bed of stone it didn't feel rigid or uncomfortable. Without feeling anything like a mattress, it was no less comfortable. Cithæra knelt to collect his shoes.

"It's odd to see you gathering up my discarded clothes." He noted, forcing a smile in hopes of easing the awkwardness of being an adult man standing nude before a mother who likely hadn't seen him in this state since the day she laboured him to life. "Almost... motherly."

Cithæra sniggered,

"Had you been raised here, there'd have been servants enough to pick up after you." She placed the folded items on the floor in front of the exit, and turned back to face her youngest son. Arry smiled faintly as he reached to fondle the simple, wooden charm that hung just above his sternum from a string of twine.

"I still wear the necklace you gave me last time you bequeathed me with a Cardinal Rune..." He offered, "No matter how angry with you, I haven't taken it off."

"I'd have noticed ere now if you had, sweeting." She replied, her tone softening slightly. "I'm sure you'd have preferred a more dazzling piece, but know that it was out of practicality not frugality that you came to be adorned so subtly."

"Heh." Arry glanced down at his hands, now fidgeting in his naked lap, "Well, no one tried to rob me of it, at least... Not even in the poorest slums of Antiris. Not once."

"And thus a little part of your mother and your motherland was with you all the while." She smiled, and Arry returned it in earnest. Perhaps whatever magicks had been plied upon this little corner of the Palatium Umbrarum were even enough to soothe the friction that lingered between the long estranged mother and son. It felt nice.

"When I got my Masquerade Rune, you seemed cross..." Arry noted, "I've been meaning to ask what that was about. It sounded as though I'd thwarted some grand plan you devised, but that perplexed me at the time... the suggestion that you were concerned enough about my future to have designs for it."

"Well, I hope at this point you realise that you were, indeed, heavily and frequently upon my mind and ever in my heart." She sat beside him on the slab, "Turn toward me, Arvælyn." Arry lifted one leg up onto the slab with them, letting the other dangle, so he could turn his torso toward his mum, as she produced a small vial of crimson and a brush.

"Aurin used a knife when he gave me this one..." He raised his wrist and Cithæra let out a soft sigh.

"I see that. And marked you with more than your own magic in so doing." The Master Sembler removed the cork from the vial, "There is a piece of him in your Aura, like a claim staked." She dipped the brush into the vial, "Alas, 'tis a feral thing." She began to paint his golden chest red.

"What is that? Blood?"

"Aye." She replied, though her focus was fixed upon her work. "Your grandfather's." Arry arched a brow. The sanguine paint felt warm against his skin, as she went about her work. "One thing you were wise to do was to balance your Mesmer with your Masquerade. They are complementary Runes." She knitted her brow as she concentrated on the work at hand.

"It is little discussed how pivotal the placement of a Cardinal Rune can be. You are tapping into yourself as much as, if not more, than you are the Aether. Wrists are good for sharp, sudden movements, but they are weak and slender. I am placing this Rune on your sternum, because it requires more than instant access. It requires force. It is, after all, the manipulation thereof."

"This was meant to be my Rune before Masquerade?" Arry inquired,

"Masquerade was never a priority to me, but I was, at the first, a Sembler. Ours is to see through façades, so their usefulness is lost on us." She grimaced at herself, "I say this not to criticise your choice. In the role you held... as a performer? Gods, Masquerade is incalculably beneficial. It is an absolute staple of the Solunarian arts, but amongst the scions of the Varværyn Founders, there are two Runes which are almost a requirement. For those of the Unbroken Line, to live without being marked by both of these Runes is to renounce one's position in the line of succession." She withdrew her brush and regarded her handiwork.

"Hic vetus sanguis novas suscitat vires." She whispered the words into her palm, and then blew into her hand toward his chest- a glitter of silver-gold stardust seemed to burst forth and leap into the marking on his chest, as it sunk into his flesh and bubbled into perfect symmetry, where before it had only been very close.

Arry winced at the pressure he felt beneath the light wooden charm of his necklace.

"So..." He rasped, "Now I am a Kineticist?"

"If you are worthy." She nodded, placing a kiss in the centre of his new Rune. "If not? You die."She rose, stroking his face and hair as she stepped backward. "I will send servi with food and drink, but you should try to rest. The walls of this room will assuage the pressure of the threshold." She looked at him a bit sadly. This would not be his final visit to this particular threshold, and the next time would go harder by far. All of his Runes would come for their reckoning. She made for the door, but Arry's voice from behind halted her gait.

"But wait..." He furrowed his brow, "Kinetics is one of the royal requirements. What is the other?"

She cracked a crooked smile.

"We are all of us children of the Volcano, Phædryn. Deus Aværys, He of Fire and Fury, lost his firstborn to the maw of Sorokyn, but never shall he lose another heir to flame. We are Kineticists and Elementalists." She tilted her head, "Pyromancers, to be exact." With that, she crouched down to collect his clothes.

"Kinetics and Elementalism." Arry considered the implications, with a faint smile. "Force and Fire."

"First the force." Cithæra's wan smile faded as she opened the heavy wooden door, "Soon the fire."

Arry whimpered and rolled from his back onto his side, drawing his knees up toward his chest. Finn's little joke had fallen on unconscious ears softly enough not to stir them. The dip into Arry's Symphony told of chaos whirling in the Land of Nod. The theme of his dream was pressure. When he'd been warned of the Kineticist's threshold, he'd been told of pressure and thought it literal- like the weight of an anvil crushing him into the ground, but in his present dreams it came figuratively.

First it was the pressure of the theatre- Being thrust, unprepared into a role last minute for a full house. Then it was the pressure he put on himself to succeed. Then another kind of pressure more familiar to his subconscious mind than its waking counterpart: The pressure of guilt. The moment he heard that Wylan Royce had taken his own life, after losing his role to Arry. The realisation that it was because of what Arry had done to his mind...

Finn's kiss woke him with a start, and the figurative pressures gave way to literal ones. His neck tensed and his fingers clenched like claws, as he let out a bellow and the walls began to ostensibly drip with blood in streams that started at the ceiling and poured down to the floor, forming puddles that began spreading toward the centre of the room where Finn stood and Arry writhed. Finn would recognise the familiar notes of Masquerade intruding upon his chaotic Symphony. He wasn't conscious of engaging his Rune, for he wasn't conscious of much other than the feeling that he was imploding in on himself. He felt as though he were at the bottom of an abyss in the middle of the ocean, and all the weight of the water was pressing down on him- Not just from above, but from all sides.

As he struggled to breathe, the bloody on the walls started to glow orange. It felt as if it was emitting heat, as blood gave way to lava that seemed to melt the very stone that composed the walls of the small chamber.

Arry's body wrenched, and contorted as he gasped for air and unwittingly he superimposed his own struggle onto Finn, as if he, too, was suffering the threshold sickness. Masquerade and Mesmer now worked in concert against both Finn and Arry, as the latter vied with the new Rune that adorned his chest.

After his bellow, Arvælyn’s mouth hung agape and his body contorted upwards. He sat up, staring above and ahead as his arms fell limp onto his lap, palms up and expression twisted like some Re’hyæan pietá. The eyes that stared blankly ahead were pits of roiling lava- yellow, orange and crimson swirling like the projections that seemed to be melting the walls.

Finn’s pitiful plea seemed to pervade the catatonic state, and a heavy leaden gasp was drawn between his already parted lips. As the air filled his lungs, the false images seemed to be pulled from the very walls- as if swallowed along with his deep breath. When he exhaled, the room was as it had been when Finn entered.

Arry groaned and lifted an all too heavy hand to press against his aching temple. He felt so weighty he might break the very stone of his catafalque. The air itself felt like a millstone, and all at once he realised why his mother had taken his clothes. A square inch of fabric might have felt like a tonne in this state.

“Finn…” He rasped, a weak smile spreading but quickly falling flat as if even that was too demanding a task. And besides, Finn looked unwell.

“Why are you… What happened to you?” His leaden lungs forced him to pause between nearly evert syllable. He sounded like an old man on the brink of Wræden’s release. He didn’t recall what had happened between rest and wresting. Finn’s gasping was a concerning mystery to eyes that had returned from merciless magma to static, solid gold.

After a moment he let his body melt back down onto the slab. Lying on his back he felt like he might melt into the marble, even though it was smooth enough to have no discernible grooves.

"Good..." Arry tried to forced a smile, but his lips couldn't seem to fight the uphill battle to fully manage it.

"It doesn't hurt..." He replied, "It's hard to describe. I feel as though... Everything is impossibly heavy, but it doesn't crush me, it only... restrains. I don't feel... weak, per se, but the effect is the same. Languor and..." He wheezed a bit, "Mobility doesn't come easy. I do hope you haven't come to take advantage of me..." He fought hard enough, this time, to achieve at least a smirk- though it pulled strangely at his left eye- causing it to twitch.

"Oh, gods no... No food." The smile fell like an act curtain, heavy and fast. "If I feel like this on an empty stomach, I think I might break the bier on a full one." The fingers of the hand nearest Finn, which was upturned at Arry's side, stretched toward him.

"Sing for me, my minstrel..." He paused, to take a slow, strained breath, "And when I wake, I will be able to..." He paused for another breath, "Do filthy, filthy things to you..." The grin was in his voice, if not upon his weary face. "...from aaaaalllll the way across the room." Leave it to a twenty year old to acquire a miraculous new ability and immediately just think of ways to use it for sex. Alas, even in this state, it seemed Finn brought that out of him.

It pleased him that it was still thus, after all this time together. Having met glorious, fantastical creatures- Demigods with sculpted forms and bulging muscles- still, Finn was his preference. Sweet, guileless Finn- Too good for this world, and certainly too good for an urchin of Antiris. Perhaps soon, with these plaudits and a pedigree with its own pantheon, he might begin to feel worthy of Finn's love. Maybe even worthy enough to believe that it would not be wrested from his grasp by some feckless wanton.

Arry chuckled weakly as Finn orated the full extent of his latest set of names. Was this the third or fourth by which he'd known the lad raised as Arvine Venasyr?

"And I you." He rasped. Truly he was still exhausted and a broad yawn pursued the response to Finn's call, as he scooted to nestle closer to his human lover.

The half-elf shut his eyes and took in a deep, deep breath as Finn began to hum. He reminded himself of exercises he'd learnt amongst the repertory company at the Golden Peacock. They'd never bothered with any such thing at The Velvet Cabaret, but at the more refined theatre amongst more focused, serious actors he'd learned to manage his breathing in ways that favoured restfulness and reduced strain. Just the sorts of thing he needed just now. And so he took in air and held it in his chest as though all his cares were whirling within him, and then he breathed them out and let them dissipate into the air.

With his eyes still closed he smiled.

"Are you..." He hadn't recalled Finn bringing an instrument with him, and yet it sounded for all the world as though his voice was being accompanied by the tender tones of an harp... or was it a dulcimer? "How are you doing that?" He wasn't fully conscious as the music filled out, now a chamber orchestra layering melodies as complex as Finn's capstone symphony.

"Beautiful..." His final word was voiceless air and his head slumped to the side as he fell back asleep, and Finn's melodies guided peaceful dreams into his stormy symphony.

Perhaps Finn would feel a faint, æthereal caress upon his neck as Arry drifted to the Land of Nod.