Completed There beside the Fire

[Lazule]

Pouring rain. The day made a species of night by the dark stormclouds overhead. A cabin in the woods, up a long and gradual incline of hills, nested in the flat ground at the top. Better days have departed the home, for now one of the massive trees of the forest had since fallen upon the structure and bifurcated it, the family who once lived there gone for reasons perhaps obvious or for reasons wholly unknown.

But the small woodshed near the cabin remained standing. It had no door, and the thick linen curtain that served as one whipped with each strong gust of wind.

Lazule sat in the corner of the woodshed. She'd made a small firepit ringed with rocks, and the gentle flame within brought light and warmth. The walls of the shed caressed in cascades of shifting orange. The rhythmic tapping of rain upon the roof of the shed.

She sat. Her clothes, her hair, both still damp as the heat of the fire worked to dry them.

With her right hand she fanned her fingers in sequence, glided her wrist back and forth. Her magic toyed with the light of the fire, bending it in concordance with the casual motions of her hand, her eye tracking the swaying luminescence and accompanying shadows against the stacks of chopped firewood and the walls of the shed.

She contemplated herself. Her way of being. Her place within the order of Arethil.

Once she had a purpose so clear. Her reverence and love absolute, there for her Father and extended to all Mankind through him. She was the Hunter, the Slayer, and there was nothing but that. Now--since her Breaking--she was afflicted with a daunting freedom, the weight of choice, and a lack of guidance and insight. And she sought the answers of others; how it was that they accorded themselves in the world and why.

The linen curtain flapped up once more, but it was not the wind this time.

Lazule looked up. Her eye meeting her visitor here in this small refuge from the rain.

 

[Harrier]

Lazule

Rain slicked the ghostglass in Harrier's hand, cradled between thumb and forefinger. Water made the cloudy quartz lens even less reliable, its images less distinct. But she still knew that some unusual being, perhaps haunted or undead or possessed, could be found inside the woodshed. She'd followed that hope for twenty miles.

She ducked through the sodden curtain that served as a door. The ghostglass confirmed that the unusual being in question was the blonde woman by the improvised firepit.

Harrier coughed and waved away smoke. "Can I share your fire, stranger?"

 

[Lazule]

Lazule stared for a moment at the visitor, her hand stopping in its gliding motion and the manipulation of her Luminomancy ceasing. A woman. Though of an appearance unusual.

A miniscule arch of Lazule's brow, the smallest trace of receptive interest working through her expression. She did not consider the possibility of company, but such was promising. Though she had not asked many her questions, the few answers she had collected thus far were all unsatisfying. Yet the potential for a true insight existed.

"Yes," she said. "You may."

The steady drumming of rain upon the small shed. Peaceful, in its way.

 

[Harrier]

Lazule didn't strike Harrier as especially malevolent, which was disappointing. The malevolent ones were always fun. She tucked her ghostglass into its padded leather pouch and applied basic College magic to a trio of firewood billets. Without fuss or fireworks, they became a crude stool. Harrier took a seat.

"The magic you were using just now to play with the fire. I've never smelled anything quite like it. You're not a pyromancer, are you."

 

[Lazule]

Lazule watched the magic of the newcomer morph some of the firewood into a stool. It always fascinated her to varying degrees, other disciplines of magic. How they could be used. How they were most often used.

"No. I am not a pyromancer," Lazule said.

She looked back to the fire, crackling softly in the pit, small but steady. One tenet that remained a constant since her Breaking was her adoration for fire. A clarification, even, in the wake of her Breaking: that she felt more kinship with the writhing, thoughtless, soulless flame than humans, elves, orcs, living creatures in general. Was she not sister to the fire in this pit, as the fires which have burned, which are burning, and which will burn? Was she not the very same, blessed with--and separated only by--consciousness?

She stared at the fire.

Said at last, "Father calls this Luminomancy."

 

[Harrier]

Lazule

The linguistic roots were obvious. The magic they defined, anything but.

"Fascinating," said Harrier, and meant it. "You can warp light? Maybe draw from it, release it - darken and lighten environments? How far does it stretch? If you paid a price, could you make it dark at noon, or bright at midnight?"

She offered no identification and no apologies for her curiosity. The question was more important than...manners.

 

[Lazule]

Her eye up from the fire and back to her visitor's own. She sought insight, the visitor. In this a degree of kinship--similar to that with the fire--for both Lazule and the visitor carried a shared interest in growing one's knowledge of the world.

And Lazule had no problem in answering.

"Yes, I may warp existing light. I may darken environments by coalescing and containing the ambient light, lighten such environments by returning it." She thought for a moment. "Three kilometers; the Javelins I may forge from light fly that far, before dissipating."

And the last question.

"I do not know. I have not tried."

A small moment.

And the words of her own question were threaded with a thin tether of interest. She asked, "Does it satisfy you? To acquire insights into the arcane?"

 

[Harrier]

Lazule

"Satisfy? Oh yes...but also never. I never stop." She leaned across the fire and extended her hand. "Harrier Wren, exiled Maester of the College of Elbion and professional necromancer. So you're saying you can actually forge light itself into a long-range precision weapon? That's absolutely remarkable. Did you develop that technique yourself or is there a school somewhere for magicians like you?"

 

[Lazule]

Intriguing, her answer. Lazule had not considered the pursuit of knowledge--the endless pursuit of knowledge, to clarify--to be an end in and of itself. Perhaps it was in error that she assumed the acquisition of insight ought to serve as solely a means in the continual fulfillment of another purpose? It would bear further thought to discern the potential value, or lack, of this.

Lazule looked at the visitor's extended hand for a few seconds longer than social norms dictated. Then she reached out and shook hands with her briefly. Introduced herself, "My name is..." Hesitation pulling at the edges of her eye. "...Lazule."

It rang hollow. False. But she let it be.

Harrier Wren. A necromancer. Father would have classified her as a monster. Something to be slain without question nor mercy. Yet, as with Leyus the shapeshifter, Harrier appeared to exhibit qualities of personhood, even as all of Father's teachings and mantras declared otherwise.

Questions began to coalesce in her mind.

As they formed, she answered those asked of her, "Yes, I am saying that I can actually forge light itself into a long-range precision weapon." It didn't occur to her that repeating the entire phrase was awkward as well as unnecessary. "Father taught me how to utilize Luminomancy."

In an attempt to anticipate some of Harrier's future questions, she volunteered more information, saying, "He on several occasions described himself as an Archmage. I do not know if he, too, once attended the College located in Elbion."

 

[Harrier]

Lazule

"Remarkable," said Harrier again, and this time she didn't mean the light-magic. "So here we have a woman who turns up though a ghostglass's view as something special, perhaps possessed or a specialized form of undead, who has unusual mannerisms, who learned from an unknown archmage she calls Father, whose name has etymological connections to her unique magic..."

She leaned forward on her stool and rested her forearms on her knees, regarding Lazule with immense interest.

"This is a guess, but it follows. Did 'Father,' in some sense...create you?"

 

[Lazule]

Ghostglass. Lazule was unfamiliar with the term. A small curiosity, but one mostly irrelevant for the time being. Though this "ghostglass" had led the woman Harrier to believe that she was possessed, or undead, or something else under the purview of special. It was not incorrect, this thing called a ghostglass. Yet it stood out to Lazule that special did not inherently mean good. And questions yet deeper seemed to rise up out of the black from that.

And then Harrier said: Did 'Father,' in some sense...create you?

This was the point in which ordinarily Lazule would lie. For the safety of herself and the safety of those she was speaking with, for it was from Father's warnings--and often in her own experience--that the fear of the unknown led to rash and irrational behavior in humanity. She had previously made an exception to this with Rebecca Fourtuna, but in so doing the rule was thus proven.

But now, her circumstances had changed since Amygdala and Leyus. And this rule did not hold much value to her anymore. Necessary violence, the right of self-defense, could be invoked if her answer brought into being from Harrier that same rash and irrational behavior previously witnessed.

"Yes," Lazule said. Calm and quiet. "I was not born. I was created."

She tapped the breastplate beneath her tabard with her left hand. The soft tapping of her fingernail on the metal, kin to the steady tapping of rain upon the roof above their heads. Her index finger pointing at her heart. Where normally one would be.

"This body is not mine. I was placed into it, where once there was a heart. And here I reside."

 

[Harrier]

Lazule

Excitement drove a wide, wild smile across Harrier's face. "Gods below but I'd love to dissect you. I wouldn't, don't worry, not unless you're done with that body...and do let me know if you're ever done with that body...but mmh. You really are something special, aren't you."

She pointed at Lazule's chest, where the sound of metal had originated.

"What are you in there? If you opened up, what would I see?"

 

[Lazule]

Dissect her. It made sense that Harrier would love to do so. Such was a tool of acquiring insight, her professed ceaseless calling.

Lazule eyed the smile Harrier displayed with a distant manner of forlorn longing. Though Lazule herself did not completely understand it, Harrier had for herself a purpose so clear. A purpose which readily brought her joy. Perhaps she had her own mantras she followed, some guiding light. Or maybe she had discerned her purpose through the immensity of endless and daunting freedom on offer, crafted a way of being that brought her satisfaction and contentment.

And it was this discernment that Lazule knew she herself currently struggled with. An opportunity in this chance meeting, to glean what details she could from Harrier's own experience.

An aside: Lazule had not considered "being done" with Lena's body. It stood to reason that it might be possible for her to be transferred out and into a new vessel. Yet she knew she could not do such by herself. Something to note.

Lazule answered, "Beneath my armor is a small metal plate, bolted into the chest of this body and over the top of the wound. I have not attempted to remove this plate, but..."

Her eye drifted down to the fire in the pit.

"I know what I am. I would have known, even if Father had not told me, for I can feel my own warmth."

An admiring gaze, the miniscule tug of a smile.

"I am a Life Fire. This, at least, is something that I know without doubt."

 

[Harrier]

Lazule

"A Life Fire," Harrier echoed. Here eyes tightened in thought. "I spent, oh, fifteen years in the library at Elbion. I was a Maester of the First Order, and since then I've sampled traditions from across the length and breadth of Arethil. And I still have no idea what you and your father - does he have a name, by the way? - mean by that. A disembodied and re-embodied soul? A summoned being - a fire djinn if Amol-Kalit, maybe? Or something stranger? What is a Life Fire?'

 

[Lazule]

Does he have a name, by the way?

"I assume that he does."

And yet he had never told her. Nor before had she ever questioned it. When he first indicated that she call him "Father", that was simply that. And she was content. When he first bestowed the name "Lazule" upon her and explained its origin, that was simply that. And she was content.

Now she had the capacity (though truly the freedom of mind) to critically examine both. Why Father had never told her his real name, and why he saw fit to bestow an acronym upon her as her own name.

It would, like a great many things, take time to contemplate.

What is a Life Fire?

Lazule looked up from the flame in the pit. Said, "A magical fire that has been given life. Spontaneous consciousness and self-awareness in that which normally has neither. There were...sacrifices to create me, in accordance with the Rules of Magic upon Arethil. But I am not those who sacrificed, and they are not me." A pause, filled with uncertainty, and she added, "I lack the insight to speak on the matter of souls."

The fire crackled. Thin wisps of smoke rose, trailed up and along the roof of the shed in the wake of the preceding wisps, leaking out through the open doorway in the gaps left by the hanging linen curtain.

And Lazule asked Harrier, a core of interest beneath the solid blue of her eye, "Are you human?"

 

[Harrier]

Lazule

"Remarkable," said Harrier one last time, softly. She put a log on the fire and took off her sodden cloak at last, draping it over the woodpile to steam.

"And yes, I'm fully and simply human. There's nothing special about me except my interests. For example..." She pulled out her ghostglass again and held it up over the fire so Lazule could see, quite clearly, that Harrier was plain human without a wisp of ethereal strangeness.

Then she conjured a small mirror behind the glass, so Lazule could see herself.

 

[Lazule]

Human. That was good. Relevant. For Lazule in the time before her Breaking had viewed Father as if he were a divine being, a God. And it was extended through him that she harbored the notion that all humanity were as Gods, for Father was among their number and they in his company.

That notion was gone. But it was persistently intriguing to compare her insights of now to her notions of then.

Harrier held up a lens of some sort. Held it before herself, such that Lazule saw a portion of her through it. She didn't understand what the purpose of the lens was, slight confusion furrowing her brow.

Then Harrier conjured a mirror. Held it up behind the glass.

Lazule's eye widened with a dawning awe. A true emotion, all her own.

She saw Lena's face--her blonde hair and her blue eye and her dark lips and her earrings. She saw the blue robe and the tabard and parts of the breastplate underneath and the left plate spaulder, all gifts from Father before he sent her off to train with an assumed identity at the Monster Hunter Academy in Elbion.

But there in the center of Lena's chest, as if a suitable portion of her body and the armor and clothing above it had all turned translucent and then almost entirely transparent solely out of the kind grace that she might see...

Herself.

A tiny ball of blue-green fire. Writhing as gently as the flame in the pit. Calm and serene and warm.

Lazule's breath caught in her throat. She brought a hand to cover her mouth--a gesture striking in its humanity. Tears of joy, raw and powerful, clung to the edges of her eyes, her blind eye behind the lock of hair and her visible eye alike. The tears spilled over, running down her face in a swift stream.

"I..." Her voice quivered with a quiet and breathless delight, astonishment. "I am the color of the sea..."

It was the first time in the whole of her life that she had seen herself.

Her true self.

 

[Harrier]

Harrier would never call herself maternal, but moments like this resonated in unfamiliar ways. The smile she offered Lazule had more in common with a mother figure than a proponent of dissection, and she found that she meant it.

"Here," she said. "Any mirror will do, or still water." The conjured mirror faded back into thin air. She handed the ghostglass through the smoke. "It's as old as the Age of Uroghosh, but I have three of them. Take this as payment for my questions and your fireplace."

She hesitated.

"I have one more question, and don't feel any pressure or obligation to answer. If I was to go looking for your father, or a place where you were made, where would I look?"

 

[Lazule]

It was a profound moment. One she never would have expected to occur tonight, or, in fact, at all. Yet now that she had experienced it, seeing herself for the first time, the moment--small and overwhelming as it was--would remain hers to cherish. This, until the Fire faded.

And the moment, like all things, passed.

Aware now of the tears, Lazule wiped her face with the backs of her hand in a careful and dignified manner. She almost dropped the magical lens Harrier presented to her when first she grasped it. But Lazule took better hold of it, and placed it inside her traveling satchel resting beside herself.

"Thank you, Harrier..." For the ghostglass. For showing me the self I have always known to be true, but have not before seen.

Her mind spun in a spiral of elevated emotion, her own questions lost for a time in the aftermath.

But Harrier had another.

"He..." Lazule thought back, to her earliest memories. "Father lived in a Tower in the mountains of the Spine, more north than west of Belgrath. That is where I was created."

A realization.

"I have not been back there in many years. Once I left...I never returned."

For she had been set forth on her task. Her sacred mission. Guided by the mantras Father bestowed onto her.

To bring forth a righteous reckoning upon the wicked of Arethil.

To hunt. To kill.