Awakening of the Shadows [COMPLETE]

Antares

 I sat on the bed, awestruck and incredulous, eyes wide with amazement and lips parted in surprise.

"I... I don't know what to say, I guess," I said. "Nothing like this... even when I was made the CEO of OA at 16... nothing comparable to... this... has ever happened to me." I shrugged helplessly.

"I imagine it's a lot to take in," Vulcan said. "Being told you're the brightest of all Lights would shock anyone to their very core." I felt an extreme urge to say No shit, but miraculously, I resisted.

"So... what happens now?" I asked. I was met with a confused look spreading over Vulcan's face, as if it was obvious - which it wasn't - and I was entirely fed up with that reaction given the number of times I'd been met with it today.

"Well, I'd think it'd - " I quickly realized what he was saying, and what the rest of his sentence would be, and swiftly cut him off:

"It's... nope. Definitely not obvious." Vulcan blinked, probably unaccustomed to being interrupted. I wondered whether or not I was about to be blasted into cinders. Thankfully, he showed no signs of "shifting" - at least, ones that I'd read about in fantasy novels - no glowing eyes, no ripple of energy through the air, and no piercing shriek that deafened anyone in the vicinity. Though those were fantasies - so what an actual "shift" was like, I had no idea. Hell, until today, I'd never seen a Dragon, much less a Dragon "shifting".

"Well," He said. "I guess that would make sense; you don't realize how much time passed while you were in Ethersleep."

"Ethersleep?" I asked, annoyed at the yet another unfamiliar term.

"When a creature expends too much magic, or Mana as it's called, the body will shut itself down, almost like hibernation or a coma," Vulcan explained.

"But... I've never used magic - sorry, Mana," I said, shooting Eternity a questioning glance.

"You did, actually," She said. "When you awakened Alaspakta, you blasted out Hierokinetic power in all directions."

"Hierokinetic?"

"Light magic," She explained simply.

"Oh," I said. "Great. So seriously though, what now?" This time I directed my speech to Vulcan, indicated by my turning my gaze to him and giving him a look of supreme exasperation.

"So... you've been in Ethersleep. For a while. Seventeen hours." Vulcan said, and my jaw dropped so hard it almost dropped off from my skull.

"That means... oh, shit," I swore under my breath. "I have to get back to Horizon. Now."

"That's why I figured the answer to your question, What now, was obvious," Vulcan told me. "But I guess you were unaware of Ethersleep, so I imagine what may have been obvious in my mind wouldn't be in yours." The guy was irritatingly reasonable - nothing like the Dragons I'd mostly read about. Though I suppose some Dragons in said stories were wise and even, like Celestys was.

"So... how do I get back to Horizon? Am I going to... teleport, or whatever Eternity did to get us here?" I asked. I shuddered at the thought of doing that again, it was disorienting, slightly painful, and generally a pain in the ass.

"No, you're not," Eternity said, and I relaxed, relief flooding through me. "Teleporting so soon after Ethersleep... probably a very bad, and very dangerous, idea."

"Oh," I said. That I understood, the consequences of a teleportation gone awry in stories I'd read were always terrible and usually involved some sort of bodily distortion. Usually fatal bodily distortion. "So, how am I going to get back to Horizon, then?"