Florian inhaled. Rickter was a well known fighter, and he could see as the man prepared his magic through his aether sight. The flow of magic into the familiar fractals of wards, and the unfamiliar-but-expected floral smell. He wasn't overflowing with aether, but that pointed towards other solutions, other sources of aether — his vitality, his divinity. His divinity, so fresh, so unexplored, so unknown. It scared him, and that fear was another chain that held him back. How could he preach what he feared?
Florian took a step towards Rickter, and then dashed towards him, closing the short distance and swinging with force the right aetherite-fist towards the wolf's chest. It was an easy, telegraphed punch, and it was likely Rickter could sense the aether being channeled in it. But Florian was prepared — no, expecting Rickter to block the punch with his arm. His eyes lit up in something akin to joy when the block happened, and then the true magic happened.
—
Aether siphoning was, primarily, a magic of reaction. It did not function well on its own, without outside aether — unlike most mortal races, Lysanrin were cursed from channeling any inborn pools of Aether. World magic, which took aether from the environment, was not bound by this curse. But it prevented them from taking runes, and from using their own inborn magic at any given moment. No, it was a magic that could only be practiced in the presence of outside aether, that which the Lysanrin could steal, siphon, absorb, consume. Aether that they made their own, that risked corrupting them, that could overflow if they drank too deeply. It was a line to tread that Florian had not tread yet so dangerously.
The aether that made up a negation ward was exceedingly orderly. Negation was a magic that followed rules, and followed them explicitly. Aether did what it was told to do, and it complied, exactly as it was instructed. It did not allow much room for user error, but for a masterful practictioner, it was a truly versatile use of aether. The aether that comprised a ward was patterned, and though those patterns could be layered and creative, they did not act outside of their scope.
—
At the moment of contact, Florian siphoned the aether that comprised his weapon in a fraction of a second, his fist completing the punch and making contact with Rickter. He saw the ward then, the spiraling fractals, and grabbed the aether in his fist, as if it were a mutable object, and caused a Disjunction in the magic. It was not just disjunction — no, this aether was orderly, compliant, and he forced it to defy not only the task it was set to do, but the structure, the flow. The disrupted, rebellious ward returned to an unstructured aetheric state, and pushed back against Rickter with a wave of force, like a broken dam.
At the same moment, Florian punched with his left arm, only to open his hand and touch the other ward, siphoning what he could in the brief moment that Rickter was stunned by his own magic rebelling against him. He smiled in that moment. Rickter would have difficulty recovering his magic for at least a few seconds as the anti-magic pervaded his aether. The wolf's plan worked under the assumption that Florian was a predictable being, that he would fall in line with a predictable habit.
Rickter did not know what Florian would fight like, and he had not revealed what he knew, what he had even thought he could do, until now. Not even to himself.
—
Florian was no longer a mortal. This was a fact he struggled to consider, that this Way shown to him by Mother Fate was his own. Aoren spoke truly - he was not just someone rebellious. He was Rebellion. His mother, dear Ava, had encouraged such temerarious behavior. From his early childhood he had the burning ember of rising above his circumstance regardless of what was expected for him. But he was childish, immature, and he struggled to truly grasp his domain for what it was. He oscillated between fearful and fearless, the struggling confidence of a man unsure of his place in the world. But he had been given a place in the world. How could he preach breaking free of chains if he struggled to break free from his own?
When he was a child he had been afraid of the dark. That very dark now provided him comfort. When he was a child he had been afraid of Kalzasi. That same city now provided him safety. His scars were now golden, cracks in his skin shown to the world for their beauty. Ever chain made him stronger when it was broken, every scar made him more beautiful when it was healed. It was not just the liberation that was vital, it was the process, the defiance of circumstance. He was not as concerned with the freedom it entailed as he was with the deliverance.
