#I've had the phrase 'E'Laetum grab him!' in my head for days
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starlitangels · 2 years ago
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Hold Him Together
@ryn-halo26 I brought you more Sovereigns! 1.0k words
“Push him back while I draw the human's consciousness through the hole in the weave. We have to complete this,” E’Laetum said. Min’Ara nodded. With a burst of magic, she shoved the StarChild backward. He went flying. “Too hard, Min’Ara. Too much!”
Min’Ara cursed.
“You can’t have them!” The StarChild’s voice reverberated as a great amount of his power built within him. Even as he flew backward.
A ripple cascaded across his body and out of his reaching hands—fingers straining toward the LandBorn. A lance of magic.
Too much magic.
All of the StarChild’s magic.
“E’Laetum—grab him!” Min’Ara exclaimed.
The magic struck the LandBorn. In E’Laetum’s haste to hold the StarChild together, he released his grip on the human. The StarChild’s magic plunged deep into the LandBorn’s physical form and tore through the fabric of the Meridian.
Min’Ara tried to grab them, but caught only the fibers of the Meridian and a few wisps of memory.
The LandBorn fell out.
Out of the Sovereigns’ grasp.
E’Laetum’s power cradled the StarChild’s form. “I caught him in time. Barely,” he said to Min’Ara. “He won’t enjoy this recovery.”
The StarChild had crashed through twisted, thorned trees when he’d fallen. E’Laetum couldn’t stop that much. Couldn’t physically catch the dreamlike projection of the StarChild’s consciousness in the burning, ringed illusion he wandered in. All E’Laetum could do was hold his physical and astral forms together in phased duality, keeping the StarChild—Avior—together.
Keeping him alive.
“Keep the edges of that tear open,” E’Laetum instructed softly. “He needs to see them.”
Min’Ara nodded. “As long as necessary,” she agreed.
“He will miss them. We will keep the two of them separate until he has to bring the Child of Land back within our folds for sheer loneliness.”
“We don’t do this lightly,” Min'Ara said reassuringly. “We need the Land Child. Different than he does. But we need them both. This is our only course.”
E'Laetum nodded agreement.
“His perception of time?” she asked.
“Slowed to a crawl. As slow as I can make it with what power is left of me.”
“We can only hope this works.”
“We must make it work,” E’Laetum corrected.
Min’Ara watched E’Laetum as he gently held the StarChild’s forms to keep him from falling apart and unraveling. Carefully, and maintaining her hold on the tear in the Meridian, she reached out and trailed some of her own energy into the StarChild Avior’s broken body. The Sovereigns couldn’t heal the projection of his consciousness either. He would have to do it on his own.
StarChildren were originally built to take in the energy of the Sovereigns as their sustenance. Avior’s form, that had never had a taste of true Sovereign energy before, consumed it like a parched human took to cool water after a lifetime of heat and dehydration. Like Avior’s form knew that Min’Ara’s energy was the purest form of nutrition it could get and he needed it like he’d never needed anything else before.
“Keep going,” E’Laetum encouraged softly. “He has enough energy to remain alive—but not enough to heal.”
Min’Ara simply nodded. "Keep him together while I fuel him."
"I am." There was silence while more of Min'Ara's energy siphoned into Avior. E'Laetum sighed. "Poor StarChild."
Min'Ara's emotions, brushing against E'Laetum's senses, softened. "Just a lonely star," she said. "Burning in the dark."
"Not for long. I hope."
"Much longer for him."
"Whatever it takes to make him bring the LandBorn back to us to pass the message. Both peoples need to know. Elegy is in trouble. We need more power to protect them," E'Laetum said. "You feel it, do you not? The separation between you and I weakening?"
"I do. With every incision. We chose to suffer to keep the sky away from the land. To keep the LandBorn safe and keep our StarChildren alive in the absence of the rest of our kin—but I too fear time is running out. For Elegy—and for us. Should this fail—"
"It will not fail, Min'Ara. It cannot. We cannot let it." E'Laetum looked down on Avior, cradled in his hands. "He's recovering. I can take over fueling him."
"Are you su—"
"He is no longer in danger of unraveling. You focus on holding the gap in the Meridian open."
Min'Ara agreed, letting the energy she was pouring into the StarChild taper off while E'Laetum started up.
Min'Ara sighed. "Do you feel that?"
"The magic building in the Darkness? Yes. Our kin are preparing a flood to sweep Elegy."
"Do you think it can be stopped?"
"Not before it's too late," E'Laetum said sadly. “Not this, anyway.”
“What about the flood after the tide? Is there hope for the LandBorn?”
“I wish I had the confidence to say for certain. Anyone who learns the truth and is willing to try to stop our kin from rising out of the Darkness will have to move quickly. But yes, there is always hope.”
Min’Ara’s demeanor shifted. Serenity returning to her. “Then that will be enough. As soon as the message is received by this StarChild and LandBorn, the hope will have to be enough.”
“I have faith in them as well,” E’Laetum agreed. “These two alone have proved that the love between the humans and our daemons can still exist.”
“We’ve both sensed growing resentments between the two.”
“We have. But this may change that.”
“I choose to have faith to believe that.”
“There’s little else we can do.”
Min’Ara looked down. “The StarChild is recovering. See him stirring?”
E’Laetum followed her gaze. In his hands, the StarChild’s stasised physical form twitched and wiggled slightly. The dreamlike projection of Avior’s consciousness in the illusion was healing his broken body. Putting himself back together.
“This will work,” E’Laetum said. His energy continued to fuel the StarChild. He glanced at the hole in the illusion where the LandBorn would appear nearly frozen in time. “This will not be easy on either child. But this will work.”
“The message must be received,” Min’Ara agreed.
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