Askeus

Asaki stood without moving any limbs during minutes, his gaze lost inside of one of the largest paint of the church : The paint of the Nine Lords walking together.

His mind however, was lost into a tremendous storm of thoughts, trying to figure out what Celia wanted him to guess by teaching him about The Letatras.

... And how she knew it, since an old Letatras evangile was literally worth more than a house.

'She's an Aurora, so, depending on the family she's the descendant... She may be, or have been, pretty rich.'

But if she was one of the type of Aurora without any Aurora's family, and just chosen by pure skill, then...

"It's another kind of story..."

The man kept looking at the paint for even more minutes, still lost about what she wanted him to guess. It proved that he really wasn't any type of quick thinker nor genius, just reading novels over and over, and copying some thinking schemas...

It gave him some tools, but mainly a tremendous imagination filled by delusions, rarely becoming truth.

And for once, it had worked.

"So..."

'The red-haired girl is Asea, followed by the man with a white hood being her husband, Askeus. Both look at their only daughter, Edda. And then, there are the others lords...'

But why beginning to present the lords, and stop after those three ? In The Letatras, although those three were the most well known, there weren't really the "more important". There wasn't any lords, except for Asea, more important than any other.

'Meaning that the answer is hiding within those three...'

Askeus, Asea, Edda... Asaki was still holding the sea lord's dagger, his gaze slowly glancing at it as he kept thinking about what could be the answer.

'This dagger is surely used for Askeus's rituals, or stuff like that. But why, if his weapon is the axe, is he the only one possessing such a weapon on his altar ?'

But, come to think about it... He hadn't carefully looked at that altar this much, strangely hypnotized at this moment by the strange dagger.

Steps silently echoed inside the church, as a white form carefully walked to the bottom of the building once again, trying to not awake Celia. As the man walked to the altar, a strange and slight burning sensation suddenly began to emanate from the dagger, warming little by little at each step.

'Hmm ?'

The burning sensation soon, gently started to spread through his hand, forming a strange and long vein crossing his whole arm to his solar plexus, where a burning circle gradually got turned on.

It wasn't... That warm nor burning, just hot, as if something was circulating between the two warm organs : the circle and the dagger.

"I'm really gonna sleep after this, sleep hallucinations are already back..."

Ignoring the small sensation that was crossing his body, Asaki finally arrived to the dark altar, beneath long and large spikes of stone covered by a pristine white surface.

The Altar was white, although it was surrounded by darkness. Golden and purple lines were crossing its wide form, that of a sort of desk where stood amethysts, chalice and candles. One of them, was moreover, burning.

'Weren't all of those off when we arrived ?'

The color pattern of the altar really looked beautiful for Asaki, these were the same colors as him, pretty rare to see.

The dagger kept sending almost nonexistent waves or energy through his arms as he looked at the altar more seconds.

Inside of the chalices, dressed water and sometimes some crystals or golden coin inside of it. Next to those chalices, also stood a small book covered by leather, its title being : "Askeus, prayers to the sea Lord."

And so, Asaki did something that he never thought he would do one day...

Opening a Letatras prayers book.

°°°

Silently, and helping with the only burning candle, Asaki tried to describe what could be written inside of the book. The first pages were some sorts of general prayers, to all of the lords and not especially the sea one.

But after some seconds, Asaki finally saw a different page, which had a title above its text, written in a completely different police, way more...

Old...

'Son of the sea. Father of the crystal.

By this flame, guided by your wife.

Whose called Asea, the Lord's general.

Please be brought back to life.

And may your follower's prayers...'

Asaki stopped reading a few seconds, looking once again at the pristine white altar. The tiredness had started to spread during a small instant a black screen, so the man needed to retrieve a bit of his mind.

After a deep and long sigh, the lavender eyes directed once again to the small black letters covering the deep brown pages. Since he didn't know where he exactly stopped, Asaki instinctively rode what sentence stood in the middle of the thin paper.

"And close by your crystals, your follower's wounds.

As, you, Askeus, closed by diamonds the Vanea's hole within the dirt..."

The book fell on the ground a few seconds later, as the man's hand started to slightly shake, unable to move at all. This... This recalled Asaki of something... Something which also happened to him...

His gaze quickly moved to his torso, where, beneath his clothes, stood a wound covered by small crystals.

'Lord of crystals, lord of iron... A man followed by a snow storm in the middle of the sea... Snow Lord, Sea Lord... Crystal healing a wound... Wound as hard as iron...'

And Celia, in her unbelievable gigantic faith toward The Letatras, instantly guessed what could be the truth from her point of view... That the Letatras was, indeed, the truth, and that they got healed by the Lords.

"There must be something else..."

Being the "god's chosen ones" wasn't the type of scenery Asaki actually liked. It was too simple, easy, and never coherent... Like, play he could understand why Celia would be chosen. But, him ??

"Pfff.."

Science already explained Stormheim in the past, being a storm continuously alimenting itself because of the warm and cold wind bringing and creating without any break electrons and cloud, the sea beneath it reaching tremendously high temperatures.

So, if someone had healed once using crystals, and so got called lord because of that, it could happen again ; And so, without any religious interpretation.

Maybe that inside of the river, just happened to have some kind of new bacteria, which formed crystals while increasing the speed of a healing process because of the contact with blood.

Everything but not being chosen by some almighty entities, which didn't exist.

"Ugh...? I'm feeling kinda dizzy..."

Tiredness only grew stronger by each second passing by, and Asaki really started to feel like fainting on the ground. Maybe that he misread, or this was actually a part of his dream... After all, why both of them suddenly started to be so tired ? They hadn't even made the night guard plan...

Celia and Asaki weren't really that sleep-deprived, they... They could stay awake a bit longer...

So, why, after a long and deep yawn, Asaki suddenly felt his legs disappearing beneath his body ?

"This..."

His torso quickly joined his legs on the ground, a burning sensation stills slightly spreading across it. Come to think about it... It wasn't normal to feel a burning circle inside his torso, even if he was holding some kind of religious dagger...

And, after just a few more seconds, the man's eyes closed, now, both of the survivors unable to protect themselves in the middle of the church.