A Cracked Star

[POV Arya]

 

As I’m about to answer her, I feel a stabbing pain spread across my head. Once again I find myself holding my head as memories from Dawn’s life start playing, showing countless pictures moving on a screen. Eventually it stops, allowing me to catch my breath, I look back to Taleah to see her looking at me worried over what happened. 

 

“Are you okay? Whatever happened your eyes were changing back and forth from gold and purple.” Taleah asks.

 

“My eyes changed colors?” I replied.

 

“Yes, we can come back to the topic of mana, I want to ask if it’s fine if I look at your soul. I gained the ability from my goddess and some people take offense if I don’t ask beforehand..” She suggests.

 

“I uh, sure, go ahead.” I agreed.

 

Hearing my agreement, Taleah's eyes start to turn black as they glow slightly before she starts to look me up and down. Slowly her face starts to show surprise before changing quickly to worry. 

 

“In all my life, I’ve seen souls in multiple states, newborns, dying patients, people suffering from curses, but I must say, your soul leaves me confused. It’s like your soul is a puzzle, having clear sections that have been reconnected and put together.” She says. “One section glowing brightly, another section in between the other two and doesn’t stay a certain color. And the last, while glowing in parts, is devoid of anything everywhere else.”

 

She starts to walk around as she slowly inspects me. At this time, Stella floats beside me onto the couch, gaining Taleah’s attention. Her eyes widening as she continues to stare. 

 

“She knows it’s rude to stare right?” Stella says, getting a small laugh out of me.

 

 

“She is staring at you isn’t she.” I point out, getting a look from Taleah.

 

“Are you possessed?” Taleah asks me.

 

“No? That’s just my other half.” I say.

 

“Other half, like a split personality?” She replied before moving her hand to her chin as she thought to herself. “But how could she be outside of you like this? Strange.” 

 

“I haven’t put much thought to it, it just happens.” I shrug.

 

“Think she can hear me?” Stella asks.

 

“With how she’s acting, I’d assume not.” I replied.

 

“Are you two talking to each other? Fascinating.” Taleah says as she starts to write something down on her desk. 

 

Hearing her words, Stella starts to lightly shiver and enters back into our body to hide from her. “I don’t want her to go crazy with ideas and start to experiment on us, so if you can, hurry this up.“

 

“Well to answer your original question, not much.” I say before continuing to think about mana. “Really all I know is that you can manipulate it to use spells within different elements.”

 

Getting a nod from Taleah as she takes over the conversation. “You’re not entirely wrong, mana is manipulated to create magic, mana is everywhere, from the trees in this forest to the sea life deep within the ocean. Even the very gods; see, everyone has a connection to mana, whether they can feel it or not.” 

 

“So then how do people use it, the system?” I ask.

 

“Yes actually.” Taleah looks surprised by my question. “I didn’t expect you to catch that. What the system does is help people use mana, even if they don’t realize it. Meaning some people will have a stronger tie to mana and a specific spirit type, giving them the ability to do so. Usually it will be listed like, say, earth magic.”

“Wait.” I cut her off. “If it’s listed as magic, why does my status show affinity beside an element?”

 

“Oh.” Is all Taleah says as she scratches the back of her head. “You’re a sorcerer huh. . . we’ll come back to that. Your connection and use of magic is a bit different from most.” 

 

She goes towards her bookshelf once more to look for a book, continuing to talk while she does so. “Mana itself is a topic that is still being heavily researched even today. The gods have come to call it the Weave, something that is woven into the very reality. Mana seems to just flood out of it and is absorbed everywhere.”

 

Quickly, she finds whatever she looks for, pulling out what looks like an old worn down book. No title can be seen on the cover. After she looks at it and nods her head, she places it on her desk before sitting down and facing me again.

 

“That brings us to the system, honestly all I know is that it exists and helps people use mana for their abilities.” Taleah says. “Some really old stories, ones before I was alive, say that the system wasn’t always a thing, that it’s artificial. ”

 

“If it’s artificial, then who or what created it?” I ask only to receive a shrug from Taleah. “Okay, then what’s so special about me being a sorcerer?”

 

Taleah takes a look into the journal she brought out before flipping through some pages. “Sorcerers are special in that they're usually stronger in the element they use, but that is because they have the downside of being able to only use that specific element. How they came to be is that a wizard must grow close enough to an element they use, that the properties of the element are combined into their bloodline. This way they can pass it on to their descendants. It’s rare enough that they usually only have one or maybe two elements.” 

 

"I never knew our family had a strong wizard in the past." Stella says, amusement pouring from her words.

 

“That’s not what you should be focusing on Stella, something happened to our bloodline and it’s pretty obvious when it did. Clearly having four damn elements from our bloodline isn’t normal.” I whispered to Stella.

 

“Then what do you think we should do?” Stella says.

 

“For now, we don’t say anything, how much do we want to show though? She’ll know something is up if we say one thing and show another down the road.” I point out.

 

“We can use fire for now, since it’s something I grew up with even if I didn’t use it often.” Stella says.

 

“Sounds good.” I said.

 

Taleah finally looks up from the book after reading through some of it. “One thing I will let you know on, is that your bloodline will probably have abilities within. What there is I don’t know, that’s for you to find out and from the few sorcerers I talked to in the past, the best way to figure them out is through long periods of meditation. Though I have heard that sometimes the abilities just seem to awaken.” 

 

“Anything else I should know?” I ask.

 

“Not really, though I would like to ask you if you could do something for me in a few days.” Taleah says. “I know Turgis already told you a little bit about what’s going on in the forest. Creatures that lose all intelligence seemingly mutate and start to seek destruction to anyone and everything.” 

 

“I’ve heard, even helped treat some of his injuries.” I say.

 

“Thank you for that by the way.” She says nodding her head. “Now, what I need you to do is to go to these ruins deep in the forest. There should be an arcane focus that I can use to power a spell I’m testing against those creatures.” 

 

Tilting my head I ask her something that doesn’t seem to sit well with me. “Wait, if you’re so much stronger than me then why can’t you get it yourself if it’s so important?” 

 

“Normally I’d agree with you but I messed up a spell when capturing one of the creatures. Now I can’t leave the area around my house without the spell breaking.” Taleah says.

 

“This works out in our favor anyways, if we can get her the focus she could potentially figure out a way to stop whatever is changing the wildlife here.” Stella says.

 

“Are you sure? If you didn’t notice what she said, but it sounds like she doesn’t know if the focus is there.” I point out.

 

“What are you muttering to yourself?” Taleah asks.

 

“Just thinking of your request.” I said.

 

“Do you have any other ideas then?” Stella remarks.

 

“Haah, I don’t.” Scratching my head while growling quietly to myself. I don’t want to see the wolves get their daily lives messed any more than this. We know that whatever is happening isn’t natural. So something is creating this mess, but what could it even be? Taleah clearly outmatches us in personal strength but even she doesn’t have a clue as to what is happening. 

 

Eventually I turned to Taleah to give my answer. “Doing this will help the wolves in the long run, correct?” 

 

“I don’t see why it wouldn’t, my objective as of now is to return life in the forest to normal. You might have not noticed while staying on the outskirts of the forest but deeper within the natural ecosystem has been torn apart.” She says, her face growing stern with each word. “I aim to fix that, with or without your help.” 

 

“Fine then, I’ll wait till you tell me it’s time to head out.” I say.

 

A smile quickly takes Taleah’s face. “Great! I’ll have Turgis show you the way in a few days, it should give him time to rest up and heal from his wounds.”

 

~~~~~

 

Stella and I spend the rest of the day relaxing with the pack after finishing our talks with Taleah. The puppies snuggled up close and I even found a few of them sleeping on my tail. Making it hard to shift around without waking them. 

 

"Little squirts, do they even know how uncomfortable that is? How did they even get attached so quickly?" Stella says. "Don't know what they'll do when we have to leave this place."

 

"Yeah" My voice grows soft as I sit, eventually I find myself holding my arms out a little bit in front of me as I grow sleepy. My left hand slowly moves up and down in a diagonal way as my fingers change which presses down into my palm. 

 

“What are you doing?” Stella asks, pulling my mind out of its blank state. 

 

“Huh?” I look down to see my arms in their current position. “I don’t kn- hnng.” I quickly move to catch my head as a few images flash. I can see Dawn practicing something on an object with a long neck, with multiple strings flowing down it. Just as quickly as it appears, it disappears just as suddenly, leaving me gasping for air. 

 

“You alright?” I look up to find Stella with her hand on my head. 

 

“Yeah, just, a lot to take in with what happened just now.” I replied.

 

Really I don’t know how I should interpret it. One moment I’m relaxing, the next I find myself doing practiced motions on something I’ve never seen or touched before. I’m worried about what will happen in the future with objects I have in hand. Will I find myself mindlessly using them without control? 

 

“Let’s get your mind off that for now. What should we do about the wolves?” Stella suggests.

 

“I suggest for now we just continue to interact with them. I don’t think they’ll push us away, especially with how they allow the pups to be around us this closely.” I say slowly moving my hand through the fur of some of the pups in my lap. 

 

I notice that the mana that has been gathering on top of my hand has started to finish. Looking down I see the gauntlet starting to finish materializing. For some reason I can’t imagine many things being able to break through the plating on it. 

 

“So all this time it’s just been forming outside our soul?” Stella says.

 

"It appears so, I wonder if it reacts when I put mana in my hands?" Saying that, I push mana into the white gauntlet before eventually the ends of my fingers start to glow, sharpening as a light extends out from my fingers. They aren’t large but the light only extends about an inch from the edge of my fingers as it forms into claws.

 

"Oh that's going to be handy" Stella laughs. 

 

"Really?"

 

"What?" 

 

"Sigh, I'm gonna take a nap. Just take over for now or join me" Saying so I head into our soul space to go sleep.

 

"I'll join, but seriously, was it something I said?"