TBATE | Lingering Flames

Unguided Purpose

ARTHUR LEYWIN

She wasn't calm.

Her massive, bulky legs were straight and properly spaced. Her back was as straight as an arrow while her head was slightly tilted down to meet my eyes. The length of her arms were flat against the armrest of the jagged stone throne she sat on. Strong fingers tipped with deadly claws gripped the end of the armrest, forming slight cracks causing a bit of debris to fall towards me. Every muscle in her towering figure was twisted in tension, ready to explode at a moment's notice.

Compared to the nonchalant and carefree posture she presented herself with the first time I met her, the gaze of her eyes are slightly hostile, a hostility so foreign to me when it came to Sylvia. 

The armored beast rose, the tip of her horns scraping the top of the cave's ceiling. Sparks flying from the top of the over ten meter tall figure. The large gaping hole in her chest stretched from her left shoulder to her right hip, with a constantly flowing trickle of blood leaking from the wound.

"Speak child. Why do you know my name? For what ends do you seek me out?" Just like I remembered it, Sylvia's voice was smooth and gentle, like the grace of a benevolent queen. Yet I could tell from her tense jaw and thinly pursed lips she was moments away from stepping on me.

"I know your name because you are the one who told it to me. As for why I searched for you, I've come to ask if you could tell me your name one more time." Tears still falling down my cheeks as I answer her questions in full. While a part of me wanted her to treat me as nothing more than her grandson, I was here on a mission, a mission that couldn't proceed if she treated me like a child. 

"I believe you realize I've been trying to probe your mind and search in your past for answers, but you have rejected my entrance. Such a thing requires a near perfect control of mana or..."

"Aether" I cut her off, knowing I'd have to tell her everything she wants to know, something I was fully willing to do, but also something I probably shouldn't do.

"Yes, I can influence aether, but I'm no remnant of the ancient mages nor am I a forgotten dragon. I am something... a bit more realistic." I patiently waited for her next question while I wiped away my tears. Sylvia paused for a few moments before she let out mountain shaking laugh, which sounded more like a roar.

"Realistic? Surely you jest." Giggling to herself for a few minutes, she finally calms down enough to continue. "Tell me, what is realistic about a young human child prancing around these deep woods, killing every mana beast in sight, as he deliberately draws closer to my dwellings only to randomly blurt out my name and claim to be someone I can trust."

I keep quiet with a blank expression before she says, "I'll ignore the grandmother statement for now, so tell me, in direct words, who you are and what do you want."

With a slight smile, I hold my hand out to her, as I prepare my mind. With hesitation in her movements, Sylvia brings her finger to rest on my small palms.

In the next instance, Sylvia and I open our eyes to be met by an endless void. We were no longer in the barren cave, now resting in an empty mindscape that awaited input. Both of us stripped down to our bare essentials, appearing to each other in the way we view ourselves. Our ethereal projections bursting into shape in front of one another.

To me, I saw Sylvia in her colossal dragon form, her glistening white scale shimming even in this lightless void. Her wings stretched with her feathers rustling in empty winds. To her, I appeared as a man in his early twenties, light blonde hair and golden eyes contrasting against the colorless abyss. I could feel her consciousness focus in on the shimmering gold and white marked horns that crowned my head.