When Leon levitated out of his transformation enchantnt’s pit, he found the Thunderbird waiting for him, perched on a nearby cliff. He slowly hovered toward her, then set down at her side and waited for her to speak first.
He stared out at his soul realm for a long ti as he waited, enjoying how the omnipresent light that emanated from the Mists of Chaos so far away softly illuminated this mountain vale. It felt like the mountains around the vale were themselves surrounded by a misty storm, and Leon couldn’t help but relax whenever he took the ti to quietly look out over the place.
Finally, the Thunderbird spoke. “Your soul realm has healed nicely. You need to focus on growing it again.”
“I was thinking the sa thing,” Leon replied, his tone neutral and unemotive. He knew that this wasn’t why the Thunderbird was here—or at least, not the only reason.
“Continue to build up power within yourself,” the Thunderbird instructed, her yellow avian eyes remaining trained on the distant mists. “Exert so pressure on the boundaries of your soul realm and build up the land around this vale. Like a muscle, you can’t overdo it, but the more you exercise, the faster you’ll grow.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Will the enchantnt I made for Xaphan to absorb the Mists of Chaos work for ?”
“I suppose it will, but it would require quite a bit of tweaking. If you pull in too much of the mist, you’ll cause your soul realm to implode, or worse.”
‘What’s worse than a soul realm implosion?’ Leon wondered, but he didn’t ask it aloud. He wanted the Thunderbird to get to the point.
Because of that desire, the conversation died down for a mont.
After that mont of silence, the Thunderbird said, “I felt sothing shift in here, like the tiniest of earthquakes. An imnse amount of force, but not easily seen on the surface. What did you do?”
“Is it not obvious?” Leon asked. He’d been trendously excited when he first saw that quick burst of black fire, but his excitent had died down as the hours passed without a repeat performance. But now that he was speaking with his Ancestor, all of the excitent ca roaring back. “I finally managed to consciously channel so of the Great Black Dragon’s power! I called upon my fire magic and was answered by black fire!”
The Thunderbird finally glanced down at him as he bead up at her, his face alight with delight. Her avian face, however, might as well have been carved from stone for all the emotion it showed.
“I thought so…” she whispered. “That certainly felt like so kind of shift within your blood, so tiny little thing, like a pebble falling down a mountainside that starts an avalanche…”
“Is this a bad thing?” Leon wondered, his tone shifting to anxious wariness. “I don’t really feel any different, stronger or otherwise. It was just a mont, a quick pulse of power that I wasn’t able to reproduce.”
The Thunderbird replied, “Channeling such powers is like flying; when done once, you always rember how. It’s just a matter of getting comfortable with using that ability. That montary summoning of black fire was but the first of many summonings, I think. How did it feel at the ti?”
Leon smiled, relaxing with her lack of concern. “It was… kind of… well, I don’t really know how to put it into words. It felt liberating, though even that isn’t quite the best way to phrase it. It felt like there was sothing deep within , in the core of my being, that slept, but for just a mont, it stirred, its eyes flickering open, and its power was released. But after that, this ‘sleeping dragon’, I’ll call it, passed right out again, and didn’t stir no matter how much I poked and prodded.”
“Interesting,” the Thunderbird whispered. “I don’t think I’ve ever really heard it described like that before. Maybe because of his suppression…?” She trailed off, leading Leon to think that she was mostly just talking to herself as she pondered what he’d said, so he decided to add a little bit more context.
“It was just a feeling I got, I don’t actually think there’s a real dragon in . It’s just… another aspect of , another part of that I don’t have conscious control over. Maybe it would be better to say that I managed to flex a muscle I didn’t know I had, but I’m still not quite in control enough to do it again—though, obviously, this is far more complicated than just a muscle.”
“Indeed,” the Thunderbird agreed. “But have you finally figured out why you haven’t been able to conjure black fire until now?”
“I think I have,” Leon said, pride filling his voice. “It was the simplest thing, honestly. I kept calling for the black fire, imaging that it would be the hardest thing ever to do since I have to actually try to conjure fire when I want to. But that sa effort isn’t needed for your lightning, it just cos naturally. To oversimply, I’d say I was trying too hard, and had to let it co as naturally as your power does when I call upon it.”
“That makes sense,” the Thunderbird said, though her tone was sowhat subdued and almost morose.
Leon’s eyes narrowed and he felt suddenly awkward at her relative lack of expression. “Is that… all right?” he asked, feeling almost like a child asking an adult if he’d done sothing bad.
“It’s quite all right,” the Thunderbird imdiately responded. “Objectively, this is sothing to celebrate, but…” As she trailed off, her body shifted and in a flash of light, she was standing beside Leon in her human form, her bronze face not looking all that thrilled. “But I can’t help but feel so jealousy at all of this. It’s a good thing that you have such power in your blood, especially since you’re finally starting to co into it. This is a good thing.”
“You’re not saying that to ,” Leon observed.
“No, I’m not,” the Thunderbird replied with a mysterious smile. “It often requires to repeat it to myself.” She turned to face him completely, then laid both hands down on his shoulders. “You are my last living descendant, the last person who carries my power. If you were to die without ever having children, then my power and legacy will vanish from the universe. I will die my final death, and there would be no one left who could carry on my mory.
“Because of this, I think I’ve grown kind of possessive of you, Leon, and protective. You are all I have, while the Great Black Dragon has so many descendants that he can afford to ignore you completely. I’ve put much effort into training you, and it brings no small amount of joy to see how far you’ve co in the past decade-and-a-half. Your command over my power would’ve made you a rising star in my Clan just a universal cycle ago, before the Clan fell from grace. All sorts of rewards and resources would’ve been thrown at your feet to encourage your growth, and power and position within the Clan would’ve been yours for the taking; whatever position you might’ve wanted would’ve been yours.
“But this isn’t a universal cycle ago, and my Clan has been reduced to just you. You, and so long-forgotten and long-abandoned ruins, picked clean or fought over by carrion. And you have often professed your lack of desire to reclaim through birthright what once belonged to your ancestors—to and my descendants—while simultaneously striving hard to claim the power that the Great Black Dragon has denied you. It… makes happy to see you starting to succeed, but I also can’t help but wish you had the sa willingness to invoke your blood claims on what used to belong to my Clan.”
Leon went quiet for a long ti when she finished, though while he wanted to step away from her to think for a mont, her hands remained on his shoulders, keeping him right there in front of her.
“I… get what you’re saying,” Leon replied. “It’s not an indictnt of you—far from it, actually. I value your power and your lessons beyond asure.”
“But you don’t seem to value what my Clan left behind. You moralize over it and reject what should be yours by right.”
Leon grimly smiled and said in a self-deprecating tone, “What right do I have to do that, hm?”
“You have all the right to do so, it’s up to you what help or resources to make use of. The claims are yours to press, and if you don’t want to, then so be it.”
Leon’s smile thinned. “If I had to say why in any objective sense, I suppose I just don’t like being handed things.”
“A foolish attitude for soone in your position to have.”
“Maybe, but it’s just how I’m wired. Sothing that’s held away from , that’s been denied to , I will exert great effort to unlock. But if it’s handed to , well… I don’t know, really. I know that I’ve been harsh on the Clan in the past. For good reason, I think, but I won’t reject it outright—I’m still trying to rebuild it, after all, for however much I might not be naturally inclined to do such things. But the Great Black Dragon just kinds of pisses off, and taking his power that he’s tried to deny gives such a visceral feeling of pleasure that it’s hard to compare it with anything else.
“But give it ti, Ancestor. When I get this thing figured out and use it to the point of nausea, when it no longer becos new, when it no longer becos sothing that has been denied to , then I think my fascination with it will ebb. It’s just behind a big, locked door with an irritating sign on it that says, ‘No Leons allowed’. Honestly, fuck what’s actually behind that door, I just want to get in there because I’m not supposed to!”
The Thunderbird finally cracked a smile and chuckled under her breath. “Maybe I should’ve been more aloof, then?”
“I think you were plenty aloof,” Leon disagreed. “Only appearing to when I finally reached the sixth-tier isn’t the sort of behavior I’d like to encourage. If anything, I would like it if you were a little more open and ‘around’, so to speak.”
She chuckled again, but louder this ti. “Are you saying that you want to appear more often in your soul realm?”
“I’m saying that I’m hoping when I finally do get around to having children, that you won’t be quite as aloof as you were with . I can’t imagine I’ll make a good father, and they’ll need a better example than I can give them. I’m sure you’ll prove a greater ntor than I could ever be.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, boy, and don’t make assumptions about how you’ll fare as a parent until you have so experience as a parent under your belt,” the Thunderbird said as she finally took her hands from Leon’s shoulders. “Speaking of children, what kind of titable are you looking at? Building the Clan isn’t just retaking all of our forr holdings, you know…”
Leon’s smile dimd slightly into sothing that more resembled a grimace. “Honestly, I don’t know. All of this recent business with Amon’s vampires has shown that things still aren’t safe for and mine on this plane yet, and if I were to have kids, I wouldn’t want to leave this plane until they were adults who could accompany . And what if they were to marry before we left and started having kids down here? I would worry incessantly about them when we reached the Nexus! I… I don’t know.”
“You’re overthinking things. I’m sure your mates would like to have children soday, perhaps even soon. That water girl of yours has even researched it quite a bit, hasn’t she?”
Leon quietly nodded; Maia had morized every single book from his family’s archives that contained even the slightest trace of information about typical reproduction rituals that his Clan partook in. Having even a single Inherited Bloodline made it harder to have children, and Leon had two, so he’d long made his peace with not having kids for a while, yet, but Maia had done all she could to figure out how his more imdiate ancestors had gone about solving this issue.
“I’ll talk it over with my… mates, then,” Leon said. “In the anti, there’s a certain research facility north of here that needs my attention, so I should head out and start planning that out.” He gave the Thunderbird a beatific smile. “After all, I need to show you that I value your—our—Clan, and that I’ll strive to take what’s been left behind, don’t I?”
The Thunderbird just smiled back him. “You don’t have to show anything to . I’m just an old bird who’s proud of what you are, already. But… I suppose I would like to see a little more effort on your part to reclaims what was once mine…”
Leon laughed and said his goodbyes. It was ti to compound his success with the black fire with planning out his expedition to the Sacred Golden Empire.
—
“All right, tell about this place in detail,” Leon said, gesturing to the map of the Sacred Golden Empire on the table in front of him. His only company was Anna, whose extensive hunting and traveling experience, and childhood spent in the Sacred Golden Empire more than qualified her to tell him about the region they were about to venture to.
“First off, the most important feature of the Sacred Golden Empire is the Neilos River, running down the entire length of the Empire from north to south, right into the Central Sea. Nearly all of our most important cities are located along the river.”
“That makes sense,” Leon replied, staring at the map. The Neilos River was dotted with settlents, whereas more outlying areas of the Empire were sowhat more sparsely populated. “It’s a lot like the Ilian Empire, in that respect, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Anna hesitantly agreed, averting her gaze for a mont. “However, maybe don’t say that to anyone in the Empire? They don’t much appreciate being compared…”
“Ah, I don’t an any offense…”
Anna furiously shook her head. “No, it’s fine for , I don’t much associate myself with them anymore. But there are quite a few people who take their citizenship in the Sacred Golden Empire very seriously, and even insinuating that the Ilians are anything like, or anywhere close to them, can be enough to provoke a fight.”
“Consider that duly noted,” Leon whispered with a thoughtful look. “What else can you tell about your people that you think I should know?”
“You, specifically?” Anna asked with a cheeky smile. “I’d recomnd staying away from most of our leaders, but I think you’re already going to be doing that…”
“Without a doubt.”
“Good. Our city administrators are known as ‘druids’, and aside from administration, their most important duties are to tend to our sacred trees that form the core of our civilization. They’re an often depressing, and usually utterly boring sort, who won’t even give us the ti of day when we pass through, I think.”
“Your people didn’t seem quite so dour back in the Scorched Fields,” Leon mused aloud.
“Those were courtiers around the Imperial Princess, not druids,” Anna explained. “There are other public offices other than druids, but since druids are both political and spiritual positions, they tend to have more than enough concerns as it is. Best not to add to their headaches, else they’ll add to ours in return.”
“All right, I got it: leave the druids alone.”
Anna smiled and nodded. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I think we should talk a little about where you want to be going.”
“I’m all ears.”
“How many maps of my holand have you seen?”
Leon frowned and thought about it for a mont. “Many, I suppose,” he replied.
Anna humd in thought. “This ‘lab’ you’re looking for is located in the middle of a deep forest, the Prota Forest, you know that?”
“I did,” Leon said, having to contain his excitent. “I was actually looking forward to getting back into wooded lands, if I can be honest.”
“Maybe temper that excitent a bit.”
Leon sighed. “I’m guessing this forest is haunted? Or infested with dark and dangerous creatures? Or just really rough and hard to move through?”
“Yes.”
Leon fell silent, his smile frozen on his face, neither growing nor shrinking.
Almost every single point on Nestor’s map had turned into a city. If he had to guess, it was because the infrastructure left behind by his Clan made settlent in these areas much easier than they would otherwise be.
’Or maybe they just built their facilities in already settled locations…’ Leon theorized.
Regardless, only a small handful of the most important sites established by the Thunderbird Clan on Aeterna hadn’t beco cities in the millennia since, and the lab that Nestor had told him about was one of those few.
“What sort of dangers exist in this forest?” Leon asked. “Is this map accurate for scale?”
“The map’s reasonably accurate, yes,” Anna replied.
Leon lightly frowned. The forest that contained the lab was quite large, being perhaps as big as the Bull Kingdom’s Central Territories. While it was only a small portion of the Sacred Golden Empire, it was still a large region by nearly any other tric.
“Many creatures call this forest ho,” Anna explained. “It’s the one place other than the uninhabited regions in the far northeast of the plane where manticores still freely roam. Other than that, there are nurous species of venomous snake of varying sizes, owls and other birds large and powerful enough to threaten arks, and protan foxes, incredibly intelligent creatures with great power over fire.
“And all of that’s not even getting into the more exotic dangers.”
Leon cocked an eyebrow in interest. “Exotic?” he echoed, his tone packed with intrigue.
“This region is infested with tree sprites, tribes of goat n, and green, man-eating giants.”
Leon blinked in surprise. “All right. I know what tree sprites are, we had those where I grew up. But what in the hells are goat n and these giants?”
“Myths, mostly,” Anna admitted. “However, no one’s ever been able to settle in that forest, and all attempts to clear it out have been t with failure and death. Often, entire work crews sent to try and clear out portions on the periphery, or try to set fires to burn the forest, are attacked and killed by sothing. There are occasionally survivors, telling of n with the legs and horns of mountain goats, and of giants four or five tis the height of n made of leaf, vine, and wood.”
Leon’s eyes widened in understanding, and then narrowed in greed.
“Have you heard of the stone giants in the north?” he asked.
“I’ve heard a few things,” she said. “Mostly from you and your people from the north. I admit so curiosity, but I’ve never really given them much thought.”
“What may not have been shared,” Leon responded, “is that those stone giants—yes, they’re real—are very similar to these ‘green giants’ you describe. Maybe they’re related? So kind of golem?”
Anna smiled and shrugged. “You’re the expert here, not . Just because no one lives there doesn’t an that the forest hasn’t been explored, though. It’s just that no one’s ever found any lab, or any other man-made structure, really. Just a lot of things that are really fucking powerful and really fucking hate humans sticking their noses in their woods.”
Leon nodded and turned his attention inward. He knew from Nestor that the Thunderbird Clan hadn’t thought much about the local resources of Aeterna when they arrived, but established this research facility to study the local flora and fauna anyway. It didn’t have any golem manufactu
User Comments
0 comments from readers