A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

Erik, wearing his new armor, walked up to the core in the middle with a calm expression. Elora, having switched from his head, back to his shoulder, looked around the room with tired curiosity.

Erik understood this was a big moment for the construct, but to him, it just meant that this place could become a true home, while Elora could finally get some rest.

"You're up, little ember," he smiled an said to Elora when they stood in front of the core.

Elora, too tired to properly respond, simply flew down to Eira's core and frowned, before taking a short pause. This would require a lot of concentration, so she had to fight to focus her exhausted mind.

Finally, she put her tiny hands on the core, before using her skill and knowledge as a third-tier sigil crafter to carefully start dislodging it.

Dark green energy flashed, and one by one, the light brown lines leading to the core started to be disconnected. At the same time, inside the core, Eira trembled and shivered as it felt like Elora was severing her limbs one by one. It didn't hurt, but she could feel herself losing connections that she had known all her life.

She was slowly becoming blind, deaf, and dumb.

Previously, she had resolved herself to simply closing her eyes and waiting to wake up in Erik's armor… or, as a tiny voice in her mind had been constantly whispering in her ear for the last few weeks, not wake up at all.

But now, her resolve wavered.

Suddenly, she couldn't take it anymore, and her, now slightly flickering, construct form appeared in the core room once again. Find your next read at mvl

Erik looked surprised at her appearance, but became even more surprised when the shivering construct dove into his arms and sobbed softly.

"It… It doesn't feel good… I— I didn't think it would feel like this…" she mumbled with fear in her voice.

Erik felt pity when he looked at her like this, but didn't tell Elora to stop. Instead, he simply wrapped his arms around the construct, soothing her quietly.

Her slightly transparent form started flickering more while she could clearly feel her connection to the structure she had been guarding for 8000 years being slowly severed. Her expression showed clear fear.

Even if she was 99% sure Erik would keep his word and transfer her to his armor, she could only imagine that what she currently felt was the equivalent of dying. And she was scared.

"Please…" she whispered while clutching Erik's body with her shivering arms. "Promise me again, that this isn't all for nothing… Promise me you'll put me in your armor and take me to see the world… to follow you in your adventures…"

"I promise, Eira…" he whispered back, which seemed to calm Eira down a little, even though she was still shivering.

Seeing that Elora still had a little ways to go before severing the core, he decided to distract Eira a little. "You know, I never asked why you want to go exploring so badly. Why don't you tell me?" he asked, realizing he didn't know how a construct who shouldn't know any better than the task she was assigned could long for the outside world.

A distant look appeared in Eira's eyes as she mumbled her answer in a distracted tone, "I— I remember… when I was little… mom and the old man talked about all the things they did… the hidden worlds they explored… bad guys they defeated… and ever since I've dreamed of leading a live like that…"

Immediately, Erik frowned, "Wait… mom? When you were little? And wasn't Ymir already dead when you were created?"

Eira blinked a few times, before trying to answer, "W— Wha—" but before she could finish, her form disappeared.

Suddenly, Erik found his arms to be empty, while Elora was proudly smiling while holding a light brown core in her hands. "Look!" she exclaimed, some of her exhaustion having disappeared from pure excitement. "First time handling a sigil core, but it went flawlessly, despite my exhaustion!"

Erik groaned as he looked at her, "Couldn't you have waited a second longer?"

"What? Why?" Elora asked in utter confusion. Clearly, she had been far to preoccupied to hear anything of Eira and Eira's conversation.

"Never mind, we can talk about it later," he answered while shaking his head. He realized Elora was far to exhausted to deal with this new information right now. Plus, he wanted to try and ask Eira some more about this first.

"If you say so…" Elora mumbled with strange look in her eyes.

"Anyway," she continued while holding the core up and looking at it with a hint of greed, "I think I know your answer to this, but I wouldn't be the voice of pragmatism in our little family if I didn't at least propose it, so here goes: while I can't create a sigil construct from scratch, because I can't create a sigil core, I could scrub Eira from this core, and then create a new sigil construct, entirely loyal to us."

Hearing her proposal, Erik smiled slightly at the fairy. He knew Elora was a cold hearted bitch when it came to these things, and he liked that about her. Her pragmatism had saved them plenty of times in the passed. Still, he had to reign her in sometimes, for the good of his own principles.

So he shook his head. "Sorry, Elora. I think your initial instincts were correct on that one. I don't want to break my word to Eira…" Before he continued, a thoughtful look appeared on his face, "Plus, the things she just told me make her all the more interesting…"

"Oh?" Elora raised an eyebrow, curious what he was talking about, but the exhaustion she was fighting of convinced her to let it go for now. Still, she had to argue her point at least a little, "Interesting also means more complicated… are you sure you want to deal with it?"

"I know you just want to keep me safe, Elora," he chuckled at her. "But the failsafes we put in place will take care of that. Let's just do as we promised."

"Fine, fine," Elora sighed. "I won't argue with you."

With that said, Elora carefully removed the green core in Erik's armor, and replaced it with Eira's. At the same time, she put the green core where Eira's was before, causing the entire room to light up with a dark green glow.