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

Maletta truly did favor Katarina.

Her almost white hair, the pale blue glow of her eyes, the way she stood, all of it gave echoes of The Mother in Blue.

There were differences of course. Lun's strongest moon was much taller. Her body did not carry the same graceful might that the lost Mother moved with naturally.

Katarina, when I had seen her through others eyes and been her myself through her memories both, always felt like she was in the middle of a well practiced dance.

Maletta always looked like she was waiting for the dance to begin.

"Listen, Ire, if you can't break through her defenses, you withdraw. This is not like dueling the half moons. I did not plan for you to face someone as powerful as she is. Understood?"Precept Zetta asked as the three of us took up the places we were supposed to take.

"I think so," I said, my palms turned up to the unblanketed ceiling in doubt. "Am I just supposed to hit her?"

Maletta answered for my teacher. "You are supposed to try. And please, do not be timid. I am only interested in seeing your absolute best."

Moving very carefully, she drew an imaginary line across the stones of the floor in front of her with her pointed toes.

She had never looked more like Katarina than she did right then.

I knew what it felt like to do that very movement. Seeing her doing it and knowing that we were about to participate in a half hearted duel together gave me a small worry that I was about to meet my bitter end.

That would be funny if there was literally anyone else alive that could understand it if I told it to them. I thought to myself as Precept Zetta shouted out the beginning of the match.

The shape that Maletta had traced with her foot froze into a perfect line of pale blue frost.

I put my mind into bending branch and felt my aura begin to build behind all of my channels, but could not make myself do anything no matter how hard I tried.

I sighed in frustration after failing to so much as make my palm glow. "So you are just going to stand there?"

"My wounds are grievous, girl. There is little else I can do," Maletta answered just a little too quickly. "Now hurry up, show me one of your little balls of sparkles or that string of yours."

I don't know why, maybe it was because of how mean she had been to me on our first meeting or what she had done to Reese before the new moon ball, but her impatience rubbed me the wrong way.

The way she spoke about my workings felt like silk on my skin, and whatever hesitation I had felt before was wiped away by it.

"They aren't balls of sparkles," I muttered to myself as more of my aura formed beneath my left palm. "They are fireworks. They explode. And they hurt. I would know."

Maletta rolled her eyes "Then stop talking and show-"

My firework hit her before she could finish what she was saying.

Azure embers burst in every direction and dimmed to dust before they could fall to the floor.

I did not think I had thrown her against the wall like Underwitch Ailin, but what I saw when my light faded made me wish that I had.

Her pale blue eyes shimmering behind a wall of glassy frost, Maletta let out a little laugh. "It was as I thought. Cold and bright, but they fade all too quickly. Just sparkles."

I hit her again and did not wait for the dust to settle to form my whip.

Lashing it out at her, I felt it strike something hard before my firework could begin to fade.

"And it's a whip! Not a string!" I shouted, remembering all the times that Maletta had shown up when I was with Nami.

Her frost had risen up along her left side and showed no signs of damage from my wild strike.

Just like I had done with Tana, I struck at my opponent's shifting frost like I had the honey haired underwitch's watery waves as fiercely as I could.

Her head, her chest, the places on her sides that I had seen her bleed from not very many days before, everywhere I could think to hit her, I tried.

Once I had begun to think about it, I could only remember a single time that I had been around her and she had not been unpleasant. Even then, it had not been her. It had been Echowalker. It had been the best of her, like Goldluster was for Azza.

When every single lash of my whip was met by her rising frost and made useless, I stopped to let the burning in my arm go away. My breaths were ragged and heavy, but I had never done quite so much with my aura in one day. It was inevitable that I would eventually grow tired, I just wished it had taken a little longer.

Maletta's frost collapsed back down and she let out a disappointed sounding sigh. "Whips are weapons, girl. You would be hard pressed to tickle someone with that."

My jaw dropped in disbelief. Not because I had not been able to so much as dirty her robe with my dust, but because she was enjoying watching me fail.

I could see it in her eyes

A quick glance at Tana showed me much the same about her.

I did not think I had been tricked, but k had no doubt as to why Maletta had brought one of my sisters to the special dueling day.

"Is that it?" She asked as she made a show of being taken by a deep yawn.

"Underwitch, Ire?" Zetta said with an eyebrow raised.

I twitched my left hand and made my whip do the same.

Maletta's frost rose up from the line at her feet and fell back down when it became obvious that I was not striking at her again.

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A path became so clear to me in my mind that I wondered how I had not thought of it before.

Without having any reason to think what I was about to do would work besides my will for it to succeed, I swung my towards my opponent once again.

Her wall of frost crackled up from the floor and hardened into a sheet of pale blue glass, but I did not hit it.

I was not trying to strike Maletta.

I was trying to trap her.

My azure coiling around her defenses, I sent a burst of aura through my whip and kept my focus on it as I let it fall from my fingers.

The distance between her and I was not great, but I had to move faster than I had ever moved before. In those hurried steps, while I was building my aura beneath my then empty palm, all my doubt left me.

I would follow the path that had opened for me in my mind because I wanted to.

I would break her frost because she was far too confident for me to not find a way through.

She would learn what my sparkles and strings could do because I was the only soul in all of chaos that could show her.

Her face would be painted with the shock and pain that my victory would cause her.

I would will it so.

Leaping into the air, I slammed my left palm against the frost that came crawling up to meet me.

"Oh, so you have decided you are an acrobat now?" Maletta sneered as she turned to face me behind her freezing glass.

I closed my right hand around its edge and let my firework loose.

It was good that I had grown used to blowing myself up, because being struck by my own power that close would have knocked me out if I had not known what to expect.

Bright blue flash, my hair whipping back, the feeling of my whole body being slapped all at once, I felt it all.

Then the light faded and I found Maletta smirking back at me through her unbroken working. "And what was the point of that? Did you really think you could break my frost with brute force? How silly."

I was barely able to hang on to her working, but I did, and doing so had a point.

It wasn't silly.

Neither was the firework, my jump, my mad dash, or leaving my whip on the ground beside me.

It all had a point, and Maletta had fallen for it.

I could not keep the smile from spreading across my face.

"Have you gone mad? Did you rattle your mind with-" Maletta began to demand, but her eyes glanced down at the coils of my whip that had fallen around her feet and saw the azure mass moving through them.

"Dummy." I laughed as the mass reached the tip of my whip and the firework I had sent through my whip before I had let it go burst bright blue behind her wall.

That one didn't hurt as much, but I had reached my limit. I collapsed to the ground and had to close my eyes to try and stop the dizziness that washed over me. I don't know how long I sat there because the room had gone silent.

It stayed that way until I heard Maletta ask me a question. "Are you done?"

Her frost was cold on my hands and knees, but after what I had just done, I did not mind the chill.

As exhausted as I was, I thought I might be done for good. Through the heavy breaths that wracked my chest, I forced myself to look up at her and nod.

Crystalline frost covered every part of her that I could see. It was not her true self, she had not changed into Echowalker, but as it fell away and joined the rest on the ground, I understood that my surprise working had not truly hit her.

As soon as I could speak again, I would do what had been agreed upon and withdraw. But, only if I found a way to not faint first.

I had done well. Even though I had not found a way to break her frost, I had caught her off guard, and I thought that was something to be proud of considering that she was Lun's strongest moon.

"How pathetic," Maletta whispered as she knelt down and took my chin in her hand. She snatched my face up to hers and I found it to be twisted with anger. "And she thinks she can make you The Lady."

I was wrong.

Maletta did not favor Katarina at all.

It was a beautiful mask that hid the ugly thing staring back at me.

"I have been a moon longer than any of your teachers were made precepts. I had my third crescent when Nami was still a stranded savage on that little island of hers. And still, I am being made to be passed over once again," She snapped as she stood up and loomed over me with violence in her pale blue eyes. "I can barely walk without blood soaking through my gauze. A strong wind could bring me to my knees because of the state I am in. But you, you could not so much as touch me. How could someone so weak gain so much time and attention from her betters? How are you worth all this when there are far more promising moons to care for?"

For a moment, I thought she was talking about herself, but then I saw her glance over at Tana.

"Underwitch Maletta, that is enough." Precept Zetta said from my left. Any trace of the kindness and encouragement I had come to expect from her was nowhere to be seen in her sapphire eyes.

"That is not for you to decide. She needs to hear these things, none of you are doing her any favors." Maletta answered without so much as looking at my teacher.

Tears fell from my eyes as the weight of my afterglow settled over me, but not even that crushing sorrow was enough to bury the other things I felt.

"Nami was like you, you know? Everyone around her spent far too much time telling her how strong she was and how much talent she had. So much so, that she was foolish enough to start believing it. And now she is The Mother in Blue. She can keep no one safe and she is failing in her duties, if those that were meant to guide her had been honest, she would have never made the mistake of becoming The Lady." Maletta continued, her frost freezing up my legs and bringing aching cold up my middle.

Precept Jasna appeared in my peripherals, her fists clinched and a threatening tone in her voice.

"Maletta. Stop this. Now." She commanded through a furious growl.

Maletta did not stop. "Honestly, do not pretend that you have not felt these things like I have. We all know that it should have been you, you should have been The Lady in Blue. But you were born to the wrong father and that was enough for you to be passed over, as if you had any control over who your parents were. If anyone should share in my frustrations, it is you."

Her frost had spread all the way up to my neck. The cold stung the skin under my dress and full on hurt everything that was exposed. The tears falling down my face felt like they were freezing into trails of thin ice, but not even that was enough to cool the furious heat I felt building within me.

Maletta turned her eyes back down to me. "Take this personally, girl. Maybe then you can avoid becoming a fool like The Mother in Blue."

My left arm broke free of the frost and went to the little silver moon hanging from my ear. Its points dug into my palm and gave me the strength to shake my right loose as well.

It did not go to my piercing.

As hard as I could, I swung my arm and drove my fist up between her legs.

As long as they were not wearing a metal plate, I had never met anyone who could stay standing after a strike like that.

There was nothing beneath Maletta's white robes but what I had meant to hit.

All of her folded around the place she had been struck and she collapsed to the ground in front of me. Slowly, red began to fade up beneath the whites of her robe. All of her frost melted into damp spots in my dress and the floor.

"Someone call for a healer," Precept Zetta shouted as she went to Maletta's side. "Jasna, help me keep her calm."

Both Precepts crowded around Maletta, but I did not know what to do.

I did not know what to feel.

I had hurt her, but what choice did I have? How could I sit there and let her talk about Nami that way?

I turned around to find Anna, but she was already behind me.

"Come on, stand up," She said as she pulled me to my feet. Making like she needed to hold me up so I would not fall, she whispered in a tone that I knew was only for me. "I have never wanted anyone to do anything more than I wanted you to do what you just did."

I let out a relieved sigh at her words and let her hold me as my afterglow turned me into a sobbing mess.