“I´m done!” I exclaimed and threw the third bottle of magical ink away into the forest. Luckily environmentalism wasn’t invented yet, otherwise I would surely be apprehended by the police … who didn´t exist on Solaris either.
“That´s what you call done?” Hannah asked and pointed to the rock which was completely covered with blue ink on top. I needed to overwrite everything multiple times, which made it look as if someone spilled a whole lot of magical ink out on it.
“Yup, yup. Hey, Hannah, you can supply it with mana, can you?” I asked hopefully. If not, this whole endeavour would be kind of pointless.
“Wait, you still cannot use mana?” She asked me surprised.
“Not a single bit. My magic works differently.” I claimed happily.
“…how much does it need?” She asked and pointed at the circle once more.
“Dunno. You got this though.” I said cheerfully.
“Will I die if I activate that?” She questioned, slightly worried about the probability of being shredded into pieces.
“No … the probability is rather slim.” I told her proudly.
“Slim? How high?” She asked while opening her eyes wider.
“That depends on a multitude of factors like how often I messed up in drawing that thing.” Or the weather. Or the humidity of the air. I seriously hoped the lower layers of the ink had dried up enough before I overwrote them.
“… how often?” She asked in regard to the number of mistakes with the circle.
“Yeah, I kind of freestyled at the end. I seriously couldn’t remember if it was ‘sever connection once done’ or ‘once done, connection sever’.” That circle was messed up from the core, and probably intentionally so as normal materials failed to handle the stress of the language of the gods without fault. And so, the gods had to mutilate their language to make it work with mana.
“Will it explode?” She asked while stepping backwards once.
“No, its going to be fine. Trust me, I´m an expert in magical circles.” I claimed.
“You need mana to activate a circle to be an expert at it … and you just admitted you couldn’t use any … fine.” She said and walked towards the circle once more to touch it with her hand.
“Oh, we need to step onto it.” I said, stopping her before she could activate it.
“Lucinda, if I am going to die because of one of your experiments, I´m going to take revenge as a ghost.” She claimed while looking into my eyes to gauge if I made fun or not.
“Don’t worry, the last one who did it with me didn´t die either.” He went crazy instead. Maybe I should have stopped him from looking too deeply into the abyss though.
“Okay … then let us do it.” She said after I hopped onto the stone. She followed suit unsurely, but also not willing to show me a lack of courage which was honestly sweet. I really loved how her eyes were so honest with me. “Go on, activate it.”
The ink to our feet glowed gently while I carefully examined it. So far, it didn´t seem to explode.
“It didn´t work?” Hannah asked as we stood on the glowing patch of ink for several seconds. Truly, except for the glowing ink, nothing was different from usual.
“That’s nothing happened is a good sign. I want you to close your eyes, to ignore the weight of your clothes on your shoulders, to ignore the wind blowing gently against us … I want you to shut down every sense you have to the best of your abilities while keeping the circle up and running.” I explained and closed my eyes in an attempt to ignore my own senses to the best of my abilities which worked pretty well because they were all incredibly dull.
“Under no circumstances are you allowed to open your eyes again, move or to do anything else except fuelling the circle.” I explained.
“Okay.” She said while steeling herself.
“Are you ready?” I asked once more.
“For w-“ I reached out for her hand and gently touched her skin with my index finger. Something was immediately fiddling with my soul, and this time, I allowed it. I even helped the connection to form between our two souls as Hannah gasped, probably overwhelmed by all the sensations washing over her. I had a hard time controlling myself as I felt the senses of a second body and how my own hand was touched in the exact same spot I touched hers.
“All of our senses are linked together as long as we touch each other. I want you to show yo-” I explained, but was interrupted by Hannah quite quickly.
“What is that?” She exclaimed surprised.
“What do you mean?” I asked concerned as I haven’t even started yet.
“That strange feeling … to my right? Outside my body, I can fee-“
“Ignore it.” I interjected.
“What is that?” She still asked.
“I´ll tell you later. But first, I want you to concentrate on your, or rather my index finger. What do you feel?”
“I am touching something warm.” I reached out with my senses further and even went as far as feeling the spot I touched with my other, less common sense. “What is that …”
“That warm, gentle feeling spreading through your hand is your soul, or rather how I perceive it. This is you, Hannah. You are warm, full of life with so many emotions that I can barely feel them all. Hatred for those who wronged you, a hint of love for me, a bit of motherly care for Marc … it is beautiful.” I said and stopped intruding into her body with my senses.
“It felt good.” She said after a short pause.
“Life always feels good.” I claimed. If it wasn’t completely overwhelming me like the goddess of life usually did, it truly felt great, like … sweets that were a bit addictive.
“Can I … can I somehow feel your soul as well?” She asked, which did surprise me somewhat.
“I´d rather have you not.” I told her. The last guy who did didn´t end that well.
“Why?” She asked, still not giving up.
“No good will come out of it.” I explained. “It is dangerous.”
“Please. I want to know how you feel as well.” She said, adamant on getting what she wanted.
“… fine.” I said, and directed my soul feeling sense a bit inwards, only to stop touching her a mere millisecond later, which wasn’t exactly necessary though. The magical circle failed immediately as Hannah couldn’t concentrate on supplying it with mana. Feeling my soul was a bit too much for her.
I opened my eyes and saw how she stared into the distance with wide open eyes, shocked by what she felt.
“Hannah.” I snipped in front of her eyes and touched her shoulders to shake her out of her daze. “HANNAH!” I shouted loudly and finally, she blinked a few times.
“I …” She muttered quietly.
“Relax. Sit down and take a deep breath.” I told her and gently guided her to sit down on the stone. I could only pat her back gently in an attempt to sooth her somewhat.
“That was … what was that?” She felt death and a whole lot of it. This was something nobody should ever feel mostly because it wasn’t exactly pleasant.
“Me.” I explained. My soul consisted of death and death alone. It was sewn out of the fabric of reality itself, using only the yarn dripped in Aska himself.
“I felt like … like drowning … and at the same time, I could feel pain all over my body as if I …” She muttered, still clearly shaken by the experience.
“In short, you felt like dying.” I concluded.
“That is your soul?” She asked in astonishment.
“I am death´s daughter. Death is … normal for me, on more than one level. I don’t care if most humans die, I am not particularly bothered by dying myself … or rather I seek death out. And thus, my soul is, unlike yours or anyone else´s, consists of death instead of what your soul is made of.” I explained.
“That is … do you always feel what I do when you sense your own soul?” Yeah, I did feel like drowning when I went into me. But strangely enough, there was a stark difference between actually feeling water and feeling myself. It may have been something to do that I could control it and stop sensing myself whenever I wanted, or maybe it was because feeling myself, feeling death felt just a bit too good, completely unlike water on my skin.
“I do. But it gets easier with time.” I tried to explain without sounding crazy.
“You are …” I clearly failed at sounding sane.
“Mentally ill? Insane? Crazy? A bloodthirsty monster?” I proposed to complete her sentence.
“… special.” Special in a good or bad sense? Well, I obviously took the good meaning.
“Nice safe … Hannah, could you activate the circle once more and close your eyes?” I asked with a bright smile on my face.
“… I will truly go insane when I feel something like this once more.” She truly would, but that was something I knew to prevent.
“Don’t worry.” The circle glowed gently once more, even though I could already see some cracks forming on the stone. Hastily, I touched Hannah´s hand once more and opened my eyes.
“Wow, your vision is really blurry.” Thank you for reminding me about my shortcomings during the day, my dear friend. I smiled wryly as I extended my other hand forwards with the palm directed upwards.
“Rise.” At first, nothing happened as my magic began to alter reality around us. Then, a small gate to purgatory opened below the earth, and a single, dead soul escaped through it, travelling upwards through the ground until it surfaced right beneath my hand. It instantly levitated upwards while glowing gently and soon rested in the palm of my hand. I didn´t extend my senses towards it at all, and thus, I felt absolutely nothing on my skin. But I could see it.
“What is that?” She asked in wonder as she perceived the soul through my very own eyes.
“An unborn child. A dead soul, wiped of its memories like every other soul leaving purgatory. This one will be …” I let go of Hannahs hand for a second and extended my sense towards it. I felt its instinctual desires and smiled as soon as I touched Hannah´s hand again, naturally after taking back my sense of death. “he will be a demon.” I said and lifted it up in the air. It immediately shot north through the forest, leaving my vision before I could even let go of Hannah`s hand again. “You have just seen how a new life is being born.”
“… beautiful.” She was still a bit mesmerized by the sight and probably even didn´t notice as the stone we were sitting on had the surface split in two by the magical circle. “… did you just say demon?”
“Yup.” I answered dryly.
“You are reincarnating demons?” Yeah, at least somewhat. I could bring this dead soul back into purgatory, but it wouldn’t make much sense, would it?
“The soul usually decides where it wants to head.” I explained.
“And you have no issues with reincarnating a demon?” She asked while raising her left eyebrow a little bit.
“Do I have an issue ending its life again?” I asked rhetorically.
“I see. So you really don’t bother with them?” She asked while biting her lower lip, probably thinking about the time where she lost the majority of her forces.
“No, not at all. And besides, if I would have stopped this soul from going towards its destination, another one would have taken its place.” I explained.
“So the gods do want the demons to exist …” She concluded. Truly, only Aska and Irminsul were capable of stopping these demons to produce offspring, but neither did so.
“That is the only logical solution, yes.” I said bitterly.
“We are truly their toys.” She said while running her fingers through her hair.
“Precisely … and we will be forever.” I admitted, as dispirited as she was. The only person on this planet who could somewhat hold a candle to them was me … but I was sure that I would lose against every single god in existence, no matter if they were origin gods who had control over their domain, or their children who could see the fabric of reality itself.
So far, I could only feel death. I knew I was somewhat close to seeing life, to feeling fire and water with my senses, but I wasn’t there yet. I had the feeling that I needed something to become a real goddess myself, but sadly, I had a hunch that Aska had no intention of supporting me in that endeavour, and neither did I know anyone else who could.
“I´m done!” I exclaimed and threw the third bottle of magical ink away into the forest. Luckily environmentalism wasn’t invented yet, otherwise I would surely be apprehended by the police … who didn´t exist on Solaris either.
“That´s what you call done?” Hannah asked and pointed to the rock which was completely covered with blue ink on top. I needed to overwrite everything multiple times, which made it look as if someone spilled a whole lot of magical ink out on it.
“Yup, yup. Hey, Hannah, you can supply it with mana, can you?” I asked hopefully. If not, this whole endeavour would be kind of pointless.
“Wait, you still cannot use mana?” She asked me surprised.
“Not a single bit. My magic works differently.” I claimed happily.
“…how much does it need?” She asked and pointed at the circle once more.
“Dunno. You got this though.” I said cheerfully.
“Will I die if I activate that?” She questioned, slightly worried about the probability of being shredded into pieces.
“No … the probability is rather slim.” I told her proudly.
“Slim? How high?” She asked while opening her eyes wider.
“That depends on a multitude of factors like how often I messed up in drawing that thing.” Or the weather. Or the humidity of the air. I seriously hoped the lower layers of the ink had dried up enough before I overwrote them.
“… how often?” She asked in regard to the number of mistakes with the circle.
“Yeah, I kind of freestyled at the end. I seriously couldn’t remember if it was ‘sever connection once done’ or ‘once done, connection sever’.” That circle was messed up from the core, and probably intentionally so as normal materials failed to handle the stress of the language of the gods without fault. And so, the gods had to mutilate their language to make it work with mana.
“Will it explode?” She asked while stepping backwards once.
“No, its going to be fine. Trust me, I´m an expert in magical circles.” I claimed.
“You need mana to activate a circle to be an expert at it … and you just admitted you couldn’t use any … fine.” She said and walked towards the circle once more to touch it with her hand.
“Oh, we need to step onto it.” I said, stopping her before she could activate it.
“Lucinda, if I am going to die because of one of your experiments, I´m going to take revenge as a ghost.” She claimed while looking into my eyes to gauge if I made fun or not.
“Don’t worry, the last one who did it with me didn´t die either.” He went crazy instead. Maybe I should have stopped him from looking too deeply into the abyss though.
“Okay … then let us do it.” She said after I hopped onto the stone. She followed suit unsurely, but also not willing to show me a lack of courage which was honestly sweet. I really loved how her eyes were so honest with me. “Go on, activate it.”
The ink to our feet glowed gently while I carefully examined it. So far, it didn´t seem to explode.
“It didn´t work?” Hannah asked as we stood on the glowing patch of ink for several seconds. Truly, except for the glowing ink, nothing was different from usual.
“That’s nothing happened is a good sign. I want you to close your eyes, to ignore the weight of your clothes on your shoulders, to ignore the wind blowing gently against us … I want you to shut down every sense you have to the best of your abilities while keeping the circle up and running.” I explained and closed my eyes in an attempt to ignore my own senses to the best of my abilities which worked pretty well because they were all incredibly dull.
“Under no circumstances are you allowed to open your eyes again, move or to do anything else except fuelling the circle.” I explained.
“Okay.” She said while steeling herself.
“Are you ready?” I asked once more.
“For w-“ I reached out for her hand and gently touched her skin with my index finger. Something was immediately fiddling with my soul, and this time, I allowed it. I even helped the connection to form between our two souls as Hannah gasped, probably overwhelmed by all the sensations washing over her. I had a hard time controlling myself as I felt the senses of a second body and how my own hand was touched in the exact same spot I touched hers.
“All of our senses are linked together as long as we touch each other. I want you to show yo-” I explained, but was interrupted by Hannah quite quickly.
“What is that?” She exclaimed surprised.
“What do you mean?” I asked concerned as I haven’t even started yet.
“That strange feeling … to my right? Outside my body, I can fee-“
“Ignore it.” I interjected.
“What is that?” She still asked.
“I´ll tell you later. But first, I want you to concentrate on your, or rather my index finger. What do you feel?”
“I am touching something warm.” I reached out with my senses further and even went as far as feeling the spot I touched with my other, less common sense. “What is that …”
“That warm, gentle feeling spreading through your hand is your soul, or rather how I perceive it. This is you, Hannah. You are warm, full of life with so many emotions that I can barely feel them all. Hatred for those who wronged you, a hint of love for me, a bit of motherly care for Marc … it is beautiful.” I said and stopped intruding into her body with my senses.
“It felt good.” She said after a short pause.
“Life always feels good.” I claimed. If it wasn’t completely overwhelming me like the goddess of life usually did, it truly felt great, like … sweets that were a bit addictive.
“Can I … can I somehow feel your soul as well?” She asked, which did surprise me somewhat.
“I´d rather have you not.” I told her. The last guy who did didn´t end that well.
“Why?” She asked, still not giving up.
“No good will come out of it.” I explained. “It is dangerous.”
“Please. I want to know how you feel as well.” She said, adamant on getting what she wanted.
“… fine.” I said, and directed my soul feeling sense a bit inwards, only to stop touching her a mere millisecond later, which wasn’t exactly necessary though. The magical circle failed immediately as Hannah couldn’t concentrate on supplying it with mana. Feeling my soul was a bit too much for her.
I opened my eyes and saw how she stared into the distance with wide open eyes, shocked by what she felt.
“Hannah.” I snipped in front of her eyes and touched her shoulders to shake her out of her daze. “HANNAH!” I shouted loudly and finally, she blinked a few times.
“I …” She muttered quietly.
“Relax. Sit down and take a deep breath.” I told her and gently guided her to sit down on the stone. I could only pat her back gently in an attempt to sooth her somewhat.
“That was … what was that?” She felt death and a whole lot of it. This was something nobody should ever feel mostly because it wasn’t exactly pleasant.
“Me.” I explained. My soul consisted of death and death alone. It was sewn out of the fabric of reality itself, using only the yarn dripped in Aska himself.
“I felt like … like drowning … and at the same time, I could feel pain all over my body as if I …” She muttered, still clearly shaken by the experience.
“In short, you felt like dying.” I concluded.
“That is your soul?” She asked in astonishment.
“I am death´s daughter. Death is … normal for me, on more than one level. I don’t care if most humans die, I am not particularly bothered by dying myself … or rather I seek death out. And thus, my soul is, unlike yours or anyone else´s, consists of death instead of what your soul is made of.” I explained.
“That is … do you always feel what I do when you sense your own soul?” Yeah, I did feel like drowning when I went into me. But strangely enough, there was a stark difference between actually feeling water and feeling myself. It may have been something to do that I could control it and stop sensing myself whenever I wanted, or maybe it was because feeling myself, feeling death felt just a bit too good, completely unlike water on my skin.
“I do. But it gets easier with time.” I tried to explain without sounding crazy.
“You are …” I clearly failed at sounding sane.
“Mentally ill? Insane? Crazy? A bloodthirsty monster?” I proposed to complete her sentence.
“… special.” Special in a good or bad sense? Well, I obviously took the good meaning.
“Nice safe … Hannah, could you activate the circle once more and close your eyes?” I asked with a bright smile on my face.
“… I will truly go insane when I feel something like this once more.” She truly would, but that was something I knew to prevent.
“Don’t worry.” The circle glowed gently once more, even though I could already see some cracks forming on the stone. Hastily, I touched Hannah´s hand once more and opened my eyes.
“Wow, your vision is really blurry.” Thank you for reminding me about my shortcomings during the day, my dear friend. I smiled wryly as I extended my other hand forwards with the palm directed upwards.
“Rise.” At first, nothing happened as my magic began to alter reality around us. Then, a small gate to purgatory opened below the earth, and a single, dead soul escaped through it, travelling upwards through the ground until it surfaced right beneath my hand. It instantly levitated upwards while glowing gently and soon rested in the palm of my hand. I didn´t extend my senses towards it at all, and thus, I felt absolutely nothing on my skin. But I could see it.
“What is that?” She asked in wonder as she perceived the soul through my very own eyes.
“An unborn child. A dead soul, wiped of its memories like every other soul leaving purgatory. This one will be …” I let go of Hannahs hand for a second and extended my sense towards it. I felt its instinctual desires and smiled as soon as I touched Hannah´s hand again, naturally after taking back my sense of death. “he will be a demon.” I said and lifted it up in the air. It immediately shot north through the forest, leaving my vision before I could even let go of Hannah`s hand again. “You have just seen how a new life is being born.”
“… beautiful.” She was still a bit mesmerized by the sight and probably even didn´t notice as the stone we were sitting on had the surface split in two by the magical circle. “… did you just say demon?”
“Yup.” I answered dryly.
“You are reincarnating demons?” Yeah, at least somewhat. I could bring this dead soul back into purgatory, but it wouldn’t make much sense, would it?
“The soul usually decides where it wants to head.” I explained.
“And you have no issues with reincarnating a demon?” She asked while raising her left eyebrow a little bit.
“Do I have an issue ending its life again?” I asked rhetorically.
“I see. So you really don’t bother with them?” She asked while biting her lower lip, probably thinking about the time where she lost the majority of her forces.
“No, not at all. And besides, if I would have stopped this soul from going towards its destination, another one would have taken its place.” I explained.
“So the gods do want the demons to exist …” She concluded. Truly, only Aska and Irminsul were capable of stopping these demons to produce offspring, but neither did so.
“That is the only logical solution, yes.” I said bitterly.
“We are truly their toys.” She said while running her fingers through her hair.
“Precisely … and we will be forever.” I admitted, as dispirited as she was. The only person on this planet who could somewhat hold a candle to them was me … but I was sure that I would lose against every single god in existence, no matter if they were origin gods who had control over their domain, or their children who could see the fabric of reality itself.
So far, I could only feel death. I knew I was somewhat close to seeing life, to feeling fire and water with my senses, but I wasn’t there yet. I had the feeling that I needed something to become a real goddess myself, but sadly, I had a hunch that Aska had no intention of supporting me in that endeavour, and neither did I know anyone else who could.
