Light Up The Sky

My dark magic slowly flowed across Rune's whole body, significantly limiting the leakage of manna. Then just as it finished covering all the way to the tips of her ears and tail I sent my manna rushing out over the top of it, but in doing so my whole body went cold and felt empty inside.

"So hot…" She groaned.

'If she can talk at all that means it's working though… Just… Have to hold it…'

I was holding my eyes open at that point to tell when they turned orange, but before they did everything went black. My soul left my body entirely and entered into hers, splitting her inner world in two, with my soul suddenly taking up half of it to myself. I stared across the invisible wall that separated my abyss from her soul, and instead of a beautiful grassy field with a white marble gazebo… It was a dreary hellscape… Stone streets were deformed by trebuchets and slabs of cracked rock sticking up from the ground, rain coming down in heavy droplets that almost hurt, and yet phantoms of people were everywhere, going about their daily lives as if it were normal. In the midst of it all was Rune, hunched over, shivering in the cold, and holding onto her tail, wrapping it around her side as if she was afraid someone might cut it off.

'Well… This is a nice place…' I lifted my hand out and sure enough there was an invisible wall. "RUNE!" I shouted.

First one ear perked up, and then another, both of them turning towards my echo before she slowly raised her face from her knees.

"OVER HERE!" I shouted again. 'Maybe sound can travel through then?'

She hesitantly stood up and slowly walked over to me, looking like a newborn taking its first steps, tripping and catching herself on broken street tiles more than once. "Who are you? How do you know me?"

'If Rune hasn't projected herself here, then this is probably like… Her subconscious?' "I'm a friend. I'm here to help."

"Help? I-I don't have anything to pay you."

"Don't worry about that. I pay myself."

The rain stopped like the last drum beat of a song as she tilted her head until her ears drooped to the side. "You'll pay… Yourself? But what do you mean you'll help me?"

I chuckled. "Well I already stopped the rain didn't I?"

"You… You did that?"

"Yup… So don't you worry, everything is going to be just fine."

Her eyes started to sparkle as she looked at me more closely.

'What I really need to do now is figure out how to fix this mess I made…' I closed my eyes and focussed projecting my soul outward, and in the strangest sensation yet I was sucked out of her body and left out in the open space between us. The process had already begun. Just like I had planned I completely sealed off her ability to leak manna, and so her gate was slowly closing, 'come on…'

She started to whine softly, groaning as if she was in pain. 'Great… now there's too much manna in her body because she never stopped making more…' Her gate finally closed, allowing me to relax, but I was so worn out that my body had gone completely limp, my soul slowly trickling back into me and my manna dispersing into the air around us. I was too exhausted from trying to manipulate both at once to bring it back in… But that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

My body was completely drained of nearly all manna, and hers was now overflowing as it tried to adjust to suddenly not having to produce so much. The solution at that point was simple. I took manna from her, siphoning it off until I was overflowing as well, but that seemed to only make a dent. 'I need to speed it up…' I slowly did my best to try and grab her, and drag her off the bed toward the window.

Mo picked up on it and quickly helped. 'Ok… What's one thing that will cost a tremendous amount of manna and not let the world know someone used magic… I think the obvious answer here is illusion magic right? Ok… So… Let's just replicate the northern lights or something.' I held the little girl in my arms, sitting next to the window and as I siphoned more and more manna from her I lifted my hand to the sky and began to cast. The whole sky lit up with beautiful streaks and rays of light that illuminated the whole landscape far off into the distance. It was more silver than green for some reason… But I didn't really care if I'm being honest. 

Rune's body finally relaxed in my arms as it began to stabilize, but she had passed out long ago from one thing or another. 

"Siya…What happened… Was that light you? Did you?"

'The concept of what is and what is not magic is so stupid… I might as well just say that…' "It's not magic, I just used my dragon's blood to control her manna and sent it far away before it hurt someone." 'In other words, it's magic… But like so is our freaking running water since it works because of dwarven runes…'

"Right… And… Does that mean it worked? Are you both ok now?"

"Kind of…" I sunk down lower to the floor. "I can't move my arms, and she's unconscious… But she shouldn't be sick anymore when she wakes up, although, she'll probably be really sensitive to… Well, everything."

"Ok… So what now?"

"We should try not to move her too much. Her body is still stabilizing, even though it is mostly there…. Just lay her on my bed… And then go tell Bear it worked out and he should go home…" I slowly sunk even deeper, falling down and feeling my heavy eyes want to close like shutters. "I'll be fine… After some rest…" 'My eyes are still white… So either the dragon has become docile, or I didn't stretch too thin. Either way… It's time to sleep…' "Oh, and Mo… Don't tell anyone what you just saw… It could put her in danger." 'Not to mention me… But if I say that it makes me more suspicious…'

She nodded, her eyes telling me she understood completely.