Private Tales There is Only One Motion

[Samantha Black]

Her dark blue gaze followed his own up to the skies and the moon in its heavy and slow ascent of the night. Ralene wasn't sure she had much opinion one way or another when it came to stargazing, but she did know that she preferred the open sky over her head to the confines of the academy. Missions had given her that much and she was counting down the weeks till graduation.

Soon she would be gone from this place, but not soon enough.

"Hmm," Ral looked back to Eli, eyes traveling his height as if she hadn't seen him a hundred thousand times before. He was always handsome, but he looked particularly striking under the silver moonlight.

"Looks pretty appealing to me," she smirked and stepped toward him, squaring up to the taller Initiate at his front and closing the distance. Ral tipped her head back to look up at him, her hands snaking forward to lightly clasp the waistband of his pants and draw him to her.

"I have a new spell to try."

 

[Elias]

Elias, whose gaze remained firmly fixed on the moon, slowly shook his head. A tiny frown pulled at the corners of his mouth. It was an ill omen for him, a body in the sky that drew his powers out—left him weak and helpless.

He only looked away from the moon and found Ralene's eyes as she pulled him in. He shuffled his feet forward through the soft sand until the space between them was thin, and he uncrossed his arms to gingerly grab hold of Ralene's wrists.

"What kinda' spell?"

 

[Samantha Black]

"Something fun," Ral smiled and gently tugged at him, stepping back to lead him into a circle drawn in the sand, "promise."

Her prior experiments on the beach would probably not have been defined as fun, per say. Unless one liked the challenge of defending themselves against her outside of the usual sparring sessions. Though Ralene was not entirely aware of all aspects of Eli's powers, she was aware that his power waned at night. As evidence of his often sullen moods in the twilight hours, it seemed his personality was also driven by the cycle of the sun.

Once standing at the center of the circle, Ral held him in place by his hips as she took one step back and began to utter the activation words of the runic formulaic spell. On the ground around their feet runic symbols magically appeared, glowing white with each additional word. When she finished, they were surrounded by complicated patterns and sigils that all began to glow together.

A flash came next.

Then the pair of them began to lift upwards off the ground, as if gravity had suddenly been shut off.

 

[Elias]

"You sure are getting a lot of help out of me today. Good thing I'm so generous," Elias grimly remarked, not returning her smile but letting her string him along without any resistance. The word fun passing between her lips was ominous. And she promised? Elias probably should've been shaking.

She did remember that he wasn't the same at night. She did, right?

Elias nervously shifted his weight between his feet as they stood in the circle. His heart rate increased with every symbol that lit up beneath them. When the entire array lit up with magical light, illuminating the secret cove, Elias sharply held his breath.

And gasped as their feet lifted off from the sand. Elias tightly clutched onto Ralene to keep his balance as they were suspended, the lithic mask he'd worn as she prepped the spell cracking away into a wide, awestruck smile.

"Woah!" Elias laughed. "You... fuckin' genius."

 

[Samantha Black]

It wasn't often that she allowed herself a genuine smile. Wasn't often that Ralene felt genuinely happy, either. Elias had a knack for making it easier in his presence - he didn't judge her for it and often enough, he joined in. A breathless laugh escaped her as they continued to slowly rise upwards in the air, weightless and without hardly a care in the world. The white glow continued to illuminate from below and she watched as stray sections of Eli's hair started floating about his face as though he were in water.

But the higher they went, the more concentration it took from her, and it was taking much more than her initial trials of the power done on her own.

Ral wanted to go higher.

Her arms flexed within his grasp, not pulling free but channeling the energy necessary into the base circle in the sand. Up they went with some added momentum.

 

[Elias]

Elias was content with their slow and steady ascent and slowly adjusted to the weightless feeling. But when their climb sped up, the initial increase in their velocity caused them to jerk up, which had squeezed a noise of mild alarm from Elias. Not quite a shriek or a yelp, but it was clear he'd been startled by it.

The Initiate quickly glanced down, and squeezed Ral's arms tighter. As if letting go meant he would plummet into the beach.

"You're somethin' else," Elias said shakily. His heart raced with excitement and a small amount of fear. Height had never been an issue with him, but he'd almost always had solid footing under him. "How'd you think this one up?"

Eli's arms slid up Ral's arms to latch onto her shoulders with a strong grip. His gaze rose and settled on Ralene's face.

"Is she pretty? What's her power?"

"Yeah, she's real pretty. Good with runes—well, the best with runes."

Elias' face lit up with a bright smile as he looked at her, brighter than any magic circle, and brighter than the moon above them.

 

[Samantha Black]

Leveling her concentrative efforts inwards and down to the runic circle, Ral closed her eyes. The higher they went, the more the difficult to maintain both of them became. Many knew her to be physically strong on a level that was beyond human capability, and that was before a single utterance of magic had been used. Though she was sharp of wit and deeply intelligent, Ralene had not worked this level of magic before. Not on two people at once - all of her magics were solely focused on herself.

Making herself strong, faster, more resilient and impermeable to other magics. Giving herself the necessary elements to power through the churn of battle when most all others would eventually fall. This was the first instance of any magic use of hers being shared with another and it was ... thrilling.

"I've always wanted to fly," she said to Elias, her voice now carrying in a strong cross wind at their steadily growing elevation. When her eyes finally opened, they found his bright smile. A startling expression to see on him for certain, but somewhat infectious as her own smile grew on her face again.

"This is the closest I can get," she took a slow breath in through her teeth and ventured a look around. It was the highest she'd gone yet and she still wished to go higher, "I thought you'd like to see."

 

[Elias]

Elias blinked, and his toothy smile waned. His lips pressed together in a gentler smile, and he earnestly nodded his head at her in response. Elias couldn't count the number of times he had shown up in front of Ral to voice his frustrations. He could be open with her and honest. And physically they had made themselves vulnerable with each other too many times to recall. But to open up the heart? To share a moment like that? He was touched, even if he couldn't find the words to relay it.

Then something over her shoulder caught his attention.

"Look. You can see the Academy," he said with a nod.

 

[Samantha Black]

Sharing such things with him was freeing in a way she'd not felt before. So much that it made the strain of her magic all that much lighter. What was this curious thing that raised her spirits higher than she could ever hope to achieve through magic alone? An element the Academy and its foundations had sought to sever and outlaw from the very beginning.

Ral's hands shook from the continued effort and she ignored them.

"I don't want to look at the Academy," she was all but sick of it, truth be told. Every part of her ached to be gone from it, to move on with her life.

To rise above what it had made her.

"I want to be free of it," the words struggled through her teeth as she tried with every fiber of her being to do just that. To go higher.

 

[Elias]

Elias quickly blinked and kept his gaze trained on the distant structure for a moment longer. He closed his eyes and leaned into Ralene, nuzzling into the base of her neck. His hands squeezed her shoulders, and his heart thump, thump, thumped as the heat of a star coursed through his veins. And into Ralene.

A bounty of warmth filled her from where his lips brushed against the skin exposed beneath the collar of her tunic and began to flow through her body. It likely wouldn't have been too different from when she became empowered and enhanced by her runic tattoos. But it was electric. Stimulating. The sudden surge of power that flowed within her convinced not only the body but the mind that she could reach beyond her own capabilities.

Elias had no dream of his own to share with her. No beautiful sight. Nothing that he had just for himself that he could show her. But what he had was power to spare. She wanted to fly? Eli would do all he could to help her.

He opened his eyes, which had become lucent as his irises became gold-speckled. It cast a dim glow against Ralene's skin, growing in brightness as he channeled more and more of his magic into her. Her body was strong. She could handle it.

"Touch the fuckin' stars, Ral."

 

[Samantha Black]

The initial flush of power saturated her body like a wave slowly surging along a shoreline. The cascade effect shifted through her veins, steadying her hands and calming the quake of her muscles and psyche. Compared to him, or Edric, or even Henk and Noel, Ralene's magic was not that powerful. As hyper-focused as she had been in her life on the physical aspect of things, the others had far exceeded any level of power she could have ever hoped to achieve in the arcane. Ral instead pushed to excel in the the complex and the forgotten - bringing back a study of magic long since left to the annals of history and the eddies of time.

So few delved into the secrets of the ancient runes and fewer still had sought to combine them with the mechanism of alchemical formulas and processes. In this, Ralene had seen a great deal of success.

But with this fount of power, she suddenly felt her limitations dissipate. For too long had she pushed herself to the boundaries of her own magic and reaped the consequences. Ral knew when to stop before her body gave in - but this?

Touch the fuckin' stars, Ral.

She took that fount and she drank it in and let it flood her entire being to fuel her desire to reach the skies far beyond what she ever could have dreamt. It began as a warmth as they climbed, and it slowly evolved into the lick of a flame, searing into her very core. Ralene grit her teeth against it and pushed on. Pain was nothing but an obstacle to be overcome.

So they went higher still, and soon the Academy had begun to shrink below them and the air grew colder. They were picking up speed, the air beginning to whip past their bodies. The flame slowly became an inferno and Ral could feel it ignite within her, bursting forth through every fleck of ink on her skin and illuminating her tattoos from within. Was this how Eli's power felt? Was this his pain?

He'd feel her hands wrap up around him, her fingers dig in to his back.

L e t ... m ... g o ....

She couldn't let him go. Not after everything they'd been through. But this fire inside was becoming unbearable... Ralene's grimace split into a yell that turned into a wail of agony.

A black aura grew around them as they pushed upwards through the skies and into the clouds. The air was bitterly frigid this high up.

L e t m e g o ...

Ralene felt the very fibers of her being begin to tear as something within desperately tore its way out.

She let go. Of Elias. Of control. Of everything.

 

[Elias]

Elias whooped with laughter as they shot up... up... and... huh! They were still going up.

"That was a figure of speech!" He called out to Ral with a nervous chuckle. "I think we can... we can stop here, Ral."

The ground below them grew smaller and smaller. The air, colder and colder.

"Ralene! Stop it!" His fear and urgency was clear in his tone as he shouted. Then he felt her fingers claw into his back. For a moment, his grip on her relaxed. He began to adjust. Had she finally come back to her senses?

"Ral?"

He was released. Slipped right out of her grasp. His arms flailed to grab hold of her. Anything at all. His fingertips brushed against her ankle as he missed her and began a rapid, fatal descent.

"RALENEEEEEE!"

Elias tumbled through the air, wildly twisting as he fell back to the earth. The world spun about him. The distant cove was a blur. His heart hammered in his ears.

Fuck. Like this? No, no way. Couldn't die like this.

He tried to call forth any last drop of power. Anything to soften the landing. Just needed that bit of reinforcement. If anyone could survive it, he could. But no matter how deeply he reached, there was nothing to grab. He'd given it all to Ralene.

That was when the fear of death struck. Elias let out a worried groan, then panicked, shallow gasps. His hands desperately flailed and grasped at nothing. He opened his mouth to let out a cry when he collided with something large and heavy.

"Oof!" he grunted as he clattered against whatever it was he hit, or rather, whatever it was that hit him. He felt several small, hard protrusions jab into him. Spikes? Reaching out, he grabbed hold of a larger one with both hands and held on for dear life. As the wind whipped against his face, Elias could only squint and see whatever it was he held onto as a blur. But he felt the heat of life against his body.

 

[Samantha Black]

F r e e ...

A raucous guttural screech filled the air as a beast of gargantuan, wild fury unfurled through the skies and broke free of the final barrier that had held it imprisoned. Broad and powerful wings stretched outwards, clawing at the cool air and raking through it with a thirst for flight. When the small body of Elias collided with its back, the massive black dragon never even felt him.

With a roar that clapped like thunder in his ears, it curled its great head of frills and spikes toward the sea and the endless expanse of open night skies beyond. Yawning into a rumbling dive, it slowly drifted beneath the clouds, dropping lower until the landscape of the Academy was at its back - the little fire of the cove quickly becoming a dot of light among the darkness.

 

[Elias]

The Initiate held on with all of his strength, bracing himself against the strong gusts. A vulgar exclamation blew away in the wind behind him.

It was all so surreal. Perhaps this was a dream? Had Elias dreamt walking down to the cove? Was Ral still waiting for him there? Fuck, she'd sock him one good later.

The deafening roar that had left Eli's ears ringing and head throbbing told him that no, this was no dream. He was on the back of a dragon and had no option but to see where it would take him.

But what happened to Ralene? Had she plummeted, while Elias caught a ridiculous stroke of luck? A fluke of chance meant that he lived and she died? A nauseating lump settled in his gut.

He would worry later. For the time being, Elias just focused on keeping his grip.

 

[Samantha Black]

The dragon flew on for a short while before suddenly lurching sideways, its neck twisting. Through its thunderous growls a discomforting screen picked up that slowly filtered into a howl that sounded terribly close to the sounds of a young woman howling in agony on the winds.

Make it stop.

A voice cried into the nether through the snarling beast's gaping maw.

The fire...

With a jilted stutter and crackling call, the dragon shuddered suddenly as its wings seized. It seemed to be having trouble controlling itself.

STOP!

 

[Elias]

Elias didn't relax for a moment. He clung to the beast, straining every sinew of his body into holding on. When it twisted, because of an itch, or because it felt Elias on its backside, or whatever else, the Initiate somehow managed to keep his grip. A pitiful shriek had been lost in the wind. It was a noise that Elias would never allow to escape his lips around his classmates.

The cries into the blackness of the night sky fooled Elias the first time. Was it his imagination? But they continued and he came to recognize the voice. How could he ever mistake it?

And then the strength of his hands was tested again as the beast trembled, its mighty flapping wings seized, and it began an uncontrolled descent.

Given the absurdity of the situation, the boy thought thus: There was only one explanation. The beast had eaten Ralene out of the sky and swallowed her whole. But in her toughness, the girl survived and was fighting from inside the dragon.

With his face pressed against the titan's thick hide, Elias screamed out for his comrade as if she would hear his voice through a wall of flesh and bone, "RALENE! KILL THIS FUCKING THING!"

 

[Samantha Black]

ELI?

Ral's voice called to him, sounding distantly but strangely also echoing within his head.

The dragon issued a ruptured roar as it began to further plunge through the air, writhing and seizing.

ELI!

Another snarl burst forth in a spewing fount of flames as the dragon wrested control of itself, wings flaring outwards to bring its descent to a sudden swooping halt. It arched into a glide just before hitting the water and skated awkwardly along the surface, as though one wing were lame.

I CANT SEE

Ral's voice broke into a keening, grating sound of pain.

TELL ME WHERE THE COVE IS

 

[Elias]

Eli's body lifted off of the dragon for a moment as it maneuvered, then suddenly slammed down against the creature's back as its descent abruptly stopped. It knocked the air out of the powerless Initiate, and he groaned, gasping for his breath back.

He rolled onto his side and lifted his head up to scan the surroundings, which was a lot of... expansive blackness. But he caught the distant flicker of light from the cove.

"Back!" He strained his throat to scream out, "The cove is behind us!"

Elias again held onto the beast and pressed his ear against its armor-like scales, "Ral! Where are you!"

 

[Samantha Black]

The dragon sputtered at his response, keening and shivering as its glide staggered hither-tither over the water's surface. The rush of air brought further sounds of pained cries on the wind that grew louder and more bloodcurdling as the beast beneath Eli wrested control of itself once again with a roar.

But the power of its wings had begun to fade and though it made the effort to thrust itself higher into the skies, its climb was slow. Catching an updraft, the dragon glided easily, almost sleepily, before very suddenly seizing and collapsing back into a free-fall. Ralene's voice could be heard tearing through a low snarl.

I'm HERE she called back to Eli.

"Where?!" he yelled in confusion.

A growl shook the dragon back, wings catching mid-fall and scaled body curling around in a twisting corkscrew before flinging out in the opposite direction, back toward the cove.

HERE

The dragon gently shook its head.

Eli I'm fading...

Dark smoke began to trail along the beast's form like a strange fog, beneath it the smoldering remnants of Eli's power like a forest fire dying out.

When we get close to the cove you need to jump.

 

[Elias]

"Fffuuuck," Eli growled as hung to the dragon as it performed another maneuver to point them in the right direction.

Leaning forward on his arms, Elias managed to sit up on his knees and squint at the nearing light from the cove.

"What about you?" He called out.

....

"Ral!"

I don't know.

The boy hissed a curse and clicked his tongue. So he waited several seconds more until the dragon brought him to a spot out from the cove that was safe enough to drop in. Wouldn't want to have made it this far just for a wave or current to carry him out to sea and to his death.

Elias did as told and jumped from the dragon's back, crossing his arm and straightening his legs moments before hitting the water. Rather than a frigid bath, the water was comfortably warm. Not at all like he'd expected.

When he broke for air, Elias immediately turned his head to find the cove and caught a glimpse as the dragon's smoldering form crashed along the beach.

"Fuck," Elias swore and then began to strongly swim back to shore.

 

[Samantha Black]

Upon hitting solid earth the dragon's form tumbled into a roiling mass of hot embers, cinder, black mists and fog - the scale of which quickly filled the small crescent of the cove. The campfire flickered pitifully in the aftermath, choking out until it withered beneath the heavy aura of dark and forbidden magics. When the smog and lingering essence of the arcane began to clear, there was no sign of the dragon.

Instead Ralene lay hunched over in the sand, steam billowing from her figure and the runic sigils tattooed across her body blazing with a furious fire from the inside.

She screamed in agony the likes of which only the Proctors had ever heard her do before.

 

[Elias]

"Ral!" Her distant cries only motivated Elias to swim faster. His arms tired. His lungs burned.

When Elias made it ashore, he sprinted up the beach and through the rapidly thinning miasma to find Ralene in the sand, twisting and contorting and howling in pain. He slid on his knees through the sand to arrive at her side and hovered over her body. Reaching down to grab a hold of her and turn her over, Elias recoiled and groaned as the palm of his hands hissed from touching her skin.

It burned. It burned like hell. He stood there confused until Ralene's scream cut through the air and his thoughts like a razor sharp blade.

"Ral, I'm here," he hesitated a moment before scooping the girl up into his arms. Elias grit his teeth as he tightened his hold on Ralene, the scalding pain searing into his skin unlike anything else has ever done to him before. But there was little else he could do for her except share in her pain. It was a small recompense for what he had caused. And he knew all too well the agony she endured.

"I'm with you," he assured her with a strained voice, "Bear with it. It'll be over soon. I'm here."

 

[Samantha Black]

Though all the Initiates had undergone years of horrific torture under the molding and shaping hands and minds of the Proctors, they all experienced their nightmares in different ways. It wasn't something they talked about. Wasn't something they thought back on now that - for the most part - such things were firmly in the past. Ralene's own journey under the surgical scalpel and heavy hands of the Proctors had been unlike anything else she'd ever experienced since.

No manner of training exercises, missions, arduous survival tests, sparring had held a candle to what they'd put her through.

But this? It wasn't just a agony on a physical level, but that of a soul-rending spiritual fire the likes of which she'd never come across yet. Then the tearing of her mind as she fought for control with the ancient beast within. Separately, she might've endured with gnashed teeth and grit. But all of them at once was unbearable.

The inferno raging from inside continued, searing across all planes of her existence. Ralene could see, hear, and feel nothing else - not even Elias. Her wails continued to echo within the cove and out to sea, but despite feeling as though she would suffer this for eternity, it did begin to wane just as the dragon had. It might've just been minutes or it might've been hours, Ralene lost all sense of time, but eventually her screams turned into gulping breaths for air to fill her lungs. The heat of her sigils died away, leaving them smoking and smoldering like their dead campfire.

She became aware of Eli finally as she caught her breath and her fingers clung to the damp material of his tunic.

"Eli ..." Ral's voice was hoarse and ragged from the screaming and she felt as though she were still breathing fire with each breath, "promise me you won't tell anyone about this."

 

[Elias]

"As long as you don't tell anyone that I hit on my sister," Elias softly chuckled, then sighed with relief and pushed off his knees to sit flat on his rear. He never let go of Ralene. After a pause, his grip ever-so-slightly tightened around her. "I promise I won't."

 

[Samantha Black]

Some part of her wanted to laugh at the joke, but that part presently had been singed to a hellish crisp along with the rest of her. Instead his squeeze did little more than elicit a strained groan out of her. Every part of her body ached, down to her very bones. And while the pain was worlds less now than it had been just minutes ago, it was enough to stay any unnecessary action out of her.

Here she'd been thinkin of spending the night fucking around with him on the beach under the moonlight. Now? Yeah, that wasn't happening. Not with how she felt and the pressure of what the fuck had just happened slowly beginning to fill her thoughts.

She hadn't a clue where to start in delving into that shitstorm of causation, and so the next best thing was redirection ... or deflection. Probably depended on who you asked.

"Was she what you expected? Your sister?"