The Near Infinite Names of Autumn Aubrey (Psychological Fantasy Progression)

I watched Nami and Anna take their first bites and silently refused to take my own.

"Well, you didn't lie about this. It is good." Anna said as she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand

"You should be suspicious of," Nami began through her mouth full of stew before she swallowed and spoke much more clearly. "You should be suspicious of anyone else who ever says this to you, but both of you can trust me."

Anna took a long drink from her wine and shook her head from side to side. "No. Maybe when Autumn stops getting kidnapped and tortured every few months, or when she isn't threatened by all of just for existing, but not before then."

My hand started to reach up to the little silver moon that Nami had hung from my ear, but I forced it back down to my lap.

The contents of the steaming bowl before me looked and smelled like nothing I had ever had before. Flakes of white fish swam in a thick red broth that was filled with all manner of what looked like vegetables. Its scent was so strong in my nose that I felt like I knew what it would taste like without ever having dipped my spoon in it.

I wanted to trust Nami, I even felt like I had good reasons to, but Anna was right. No matter how easy it would be, I couldn't, not right then at least. I wanted to eat and drink what The Mother in Blue had brought for me, but I couldn't. I could not let myself be distracted once again.

"I understand. If I were in either of your places, I would feel much the same. Time will cure that I hope, but what I said still stands true." Nami answered Anna as each of them took another bite.

"Why did he transform like that? Alexei, I mean. It was so different." I asked with one hand in each of my white haired guards swords.

I could not explain it, but feeling the roughness of the thin rope that was wrapped tightly around the handles gave me the strength to ask my question again.

Nami met my eyes with the same amount of patience and politeness that I was used to getting from Precept Seram. "Because he is a sorcerer. Using aura is different for them."

She lowered herself to the floor from the bricks of the fireplace and a small amount of her ocean blue came swirling up above the bowl from her middle.

"Some say that it is a curse that was put on them for stealing our magic however many centuries ago. That it is the cost of using power that is not truly theirs. I don't know if that is true, but I do know that it is different," She explained as her little working spread out into a thin line. "When you or I or any other sorceress uses our blue, we feel the willful high of our power."

The little line stretched at its end as Nami used it to reinforce what she was saying.

"The same is true with your red, only it brings your passions to bear. Grays become more empathetic, yellows become so filled with joy that you would think they were going to burst, and browns reach a place of balance within themselves that I wish I could feel for myself. The more of your power you use, the stronger your will becomes, right?"

The line grew taller and taller as I nodded in agreement. I had felt what she was explaining before.

"And when it is done, when the need to use our aura is no more, we release it," The end of the blue line dipped back down and slowed when it reached the height that the back had never left. "Only, we don't just go back to being how we were before. We have used part of ourselves. Part of us is gone, and that comes with a cost."

The end of the glowing line dipped below the back's height and ran down in a steep arc.

"The loss and afterglow." I said under my breath.

Nami gave a small smile as she opened one of the bottles she had brought. "Sorrow. Both of you saw what it does to me when I came into Jasna's quarters. With all that I have been told about your growth over your time here, I know that you have felt its weight as well. Rage for reds, contempt for yellows, a purple will sink into a state of obscene dishonor if she uses too much of herself."

I thought about all the times I had felt either of my afterglows. I thought about Gwyn's fear and Azza's very real desire to end my life when we had been in the sea of red dust at the base of Vowkeeper's Anguish.

"It's awful. I liked it better when she would just get angry." Anna said quietly, the spoonful of stew she had taken absentmindedly spilling back into the pot.

Nami nodded. "Each are difficult to deal with in their own ways. There was a sorceress by the name of Enna that had to keep me from jumping off a roof or in front of a carriage for a full month after I came to rescue her."

The memory of uncountable voices chanting excitedly for the birth of a new sun rang out in my mind at Nami's words.

"It can last that long? Hers have never been that bad." Anna said as she took the bottle from Nami.

Nami nodded after yet another spoonful of her stew. "If the working is big enough, yes. But that is the trouble with sorcerers. It is the opposite for them."

Her little blue line snapped straight again.

"That is what makes them so dangerous. When they perform a working or use aura, the best of them is not brought out-"

The end of her working plunged downward once again.

"-it is lost. With all of the troubling things happening in Hymneth, and what is being said about those things, Alexei lost control of himself. Which I know you have not know him very long, but if you had, you would know that never happens"

I thought about the sorcerer Eames and how all of the emotion had left his face as he fought one of the lich's hand horrors. Garm, the sorcerer that had been with a young Katarina had lost control of himself as well. The person whose lullaby sounded in my mind every time I climbed the singing stairs had been the only reason he had calmed down.

"That makes sense?" I asked aloud, talking to myself more than I was to either of them.

"Too much, actually. That explains a lot." Anna agreed.

I retightened my grip and shifted both swords further up my hip. "You mean Azeralphane. That's what made Alexei lose control because Azeralphane killed his brother and took The Mother in-uhm-took Katarina."

Anna's dark eyes flicked over to mine and I hoped that I had not just made a mistake.

Nami's expression shifted from wide eyed surprise to obvious confusion and then settled into a small laugh. "Bellis's black maw, I guess I shouldn't be surprised at you knowing things you shouldn't. Yes, I mean The Blue Death."

"And he said that he was bonded to her, and that he wasn't just her son. He was her knight, right?" I asked, finding that the jittery feeling in my stomach had turned from nervousness to excitement.

Nami sighed and offered me one of the bottles she had brought. "There is no was. He still is."

I took it but did not drink. "And he is half a man because of it? Where is she? Alexei is right, I know she is still alive."

Anna looked at me again with heat in her eyes.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The corners of her lips were turned up just enough to be considered a smile.

I recognized that expression, and what we normally did after she looked at me that way, but could not understand what I had done to earn such a glance.

"That is something I cannot explain at this time. I wish I could, trust me, but I-" Nami started.

"You have been bound?" I interrupted her and asked.

It had only been a matter of time before I asked something that could not be answered, finding what that question was had not surprised me in the slightest.

"Yes," Nami laughed and nodded. "How long has it been?"

I could not hide my confusion.

"The barriers in The Well, you have gotten past them haven't you? You have been kept under lock and key far too long for you to have learned as much as you have in passing." Nami said as she continued to eat.

I felt all the warmth drain from my body like the water from a bath. Anna and I looked at each other. All the fear I felt cut back at me in her dark eyes, and my stomach began to turn.

I had made a mistake.

"Settle down, I told you, you can trust me," Nami said as she took my spoon from my hand and dipped it down into the bowl. "I'm not here to cause you trouble or tell your secrets to my sisters. I'm just curious."

She offered the stew filled spoon back to me and gave me a smile that almost managed to calm my fears.

"But why? Why would you keep things from them for her? Aren't you all supposed to be one big happy circle of sisters?" Anna asked, her voice quiet, but her eyes full of the steel that her mother had passed down to her.

Nami shrugged. "I love them all, but maybe I disagree with how certain things have been handled. Maybe I have too many questions about you, Autumn Aubrey. I wasn't a mother when it happened. I knew about The Well of course, but I did not know that it had been stolen until that day in the dark room. When you asked me my name, do you remember?"

"I do." I said in the same quiet tone that Anna had taken on.

"I was not born in Zenithcidel. The circumstances were far different, but I know what it is like to have a burden placed on your shoulders before you are old enough to truly understand it. I know first hand what it is like to have everyone that should care about you hold that burden against you. You were a child, and not in the way that sorceresses think about children. You were an actual child. What happened with The Well was an accident, and you are the last person that should have been made to answer for it." She continued as she joined Anna and I in speaking quietly.

Nami was an ocean, I had seen it in her eyes and watched her show that strength with her aura, but right then, she brought a different thought to my mind. It was like when I had been taken to Silkcradle and I had spent a wonderfully quiet moment on the beach alone.

Sitting around a still steaming bowl of stew in my quarters, she was like the foamy waves that had washed up against me before Taloo had arrived and taken me into the sky.

She was a comfort, and all the fear I felt washed away at the gentle honesty she had been speaking to me with. Feeling tears brimming in my eyes, I swallowed and took the spoonful of stew that she offered into my mouth.

I knew I was hungry, but I had not realized just how hungry I was until I took that bite. It was light, spicy without being hot, and felt warm all the way down my throat.

"Thank you." I muttered as I took the spoon from her and tried to get as much of the stew in my stomach in the shortest amount of time possible.

After a moment spent looking at my devouring with loving disgust and a long drink of her wine, Anna continued asking her own questions. "So you are a new Mother? Like The Red Mother?"

Nami opened the final bottle of the white drinks she had brought and turned it up before answering. "I don't follow."

"There are old Mothers and new Mothers. Red, Yellow, and you are all new as far as I can tell. Brown, Green, and everyone else are the old ones. All the new ones don't hate Autumn. The old ones do," Anna explained and used another drink of wine to hide what I knew to be embarrassment on her face. "It sounds stupid when I say it out loud like that."

Nami laughed, and how much I was beginning to like that sound scared me.

"Not stupid, just wrong. I am the newest Mother, but Rhiannon is one of the oldest." She said

"Who is the second youngest?" Anna asked, her eyes drifting towards the notebook she had left laying on the bed.

One of Nami's eyebrows raised. "In age? Me. Being a Mother? Gwyn."

"And the third?" Anna asked again.

"Forgive her, this is what she does," I said in the brief moment between my last bite and the next. "She drinks and thinks about things."

"Ahhh," Nami nodded. "There are far worse past times than that. I am the youngest by a handful of decades. Then it is Gwyn, Ali, Grey, and Azza."

My spoon scraped against the bottom of the pot and I slowed down long enough to ask. "Rhiannon?"

Nami shrugged. "All the others were Mothers long before any of us were, and I'm not sure who is the oldest. It might be Glim, that seems like the sort of thing she would say to surprise someone."

I stopped my single minded consumption and tried the milky drink I had been given. It was cold, sweet, and went perfectly with the stew. I drained it in one long gulp and stared at the small amount of stew that was still left.

"Finish it, Autumn. I have had enough." Nami encouraged me.

Anna nodded and smiled when I looked at her and I needed nothing more than that to take the pot into my lap and begin to clean it clean. "What was he like before?"

"Who? Alexei? It is probably hard to believe, but he was loud. There would be whole months that Mother Katarina forbade him and his brothers from being in Lun because of how much trouble they would cause. All the moons loved him of course, and he took great pride in that." Nami said as she laid down on her side and rested her head on her hands.

Anna shook her head in denial. "Who, the creep? I don't believe it."

"Honestly? You can't tell me that he isn't handsome. The hair, the eye, the way he carries himself, and how he looks like he could kill you but you know he won't. Girls faint over men like that." Nami said through a deep sigh.

Anna wiped the wine from the corner of her mouth and smirked. "You may find this hard to believe, Mother Nami, but men aren't really my thing."

"Mine either. But my dislike for paintings doesn't mean I can't appreciate one that has been painted so beautifully." Nami said, her sigh having turned into a yawn.

Anna laughed and choked in one violent outburst. The way her nose scrunched and her eyes went wide made me laugh, and before I knew it, all three of us were. For a moment, it felt nothing but good, but then the strangeness of it all brought my laughter to an end.

Taking a deep breath and feeling the humor leave my body, I put the bowl down and asked another question. "Why was he made my guard if he is in the state he is in?"

Her eyes heavy and breathing beginning to deepen, Nami spoke slowly as she answered. "He wasn't ordered to be your guard. He volunteered. Insisted on it. And all of us were shocked that he was willing to come back here when he did."

"Oh." I had not expected to hear that.

"Why?" Anna asked.

Nami groaned and threw herself back as another yawn took her. "I believe I have answered enough questions to earn the right to ask you for a favor. Would you agree?"

I did not answer and evidently, she took that as agreement.

"We were supposed to speak about your desire to leave Lun, but I need you here, Autumn Aubrey," She continued as became The Mother in Blue once again. From the floor to the fireplace, she pushed herself up and then stood fully. "He would never admit it, but you have brought more life back to Alexei than I thought was possible. The way you have been running away from him? Jasna says that he won't stop talking about it. Zetta has told me that the other new moons in your circle are growing twice as fast as they would have just because they are trying to keep up with you. And with everything I am doing poorly, helping you master your twinsoul would be a much needed victory for me. So for my benefit, I ask you to stay, just until the end of the semester."

After a long moment of silence, what I said was truly the only thing I could have said because it was the only thought that was clear in my mind.

"You, need me?"

Mother Nami gave me one sharp nod. "Of course. But you can say no, I will not punish you for it."

"I. . ." I started, but I could not find the words.

She continued with a dazzling smile spread across her face. "I will not punish you, but I will try to persuade you. I will make it worth your while. More jewelry? A week off from class? It is easy to forget, but I am in charge here."

I looked to Anna for help.

"Don't look at me, I'll never trust any of them," She said with a hard eyed glance up at The Mother in Blue. "But out of all of them, she may be the one I distrust the least."

"What a nice thing to say, Anna. Thank you, I am honored." Nami said with a playful bow.

I thought, and thought, and thought before I finally found my answer.

"Okay, I will do it, but I want one thing in return." I said as seriously as I could.

Nami could not hide the relief that settled over her at my agreement. "Name it."

I did as I was told.