The Eyes of Nothing (2)

(Leo)

***

In the tense moments before the casting of magic began, the glittering stones reminded me of something Sinclair told me a while back—before even Ophelia and Koharu began dating.

"Quartz," Sinclair mused, holding the rock up to their eye and looking through it beside a bush.

"Unlike all the other opaque stones around here, it's clear like water. When used in a spell, it clears the haze of the mind and allows the caster to see things for what they are."

They twirled another speckled rock in their hand, tapping it against the crystal. "The dalmatian stone, while not visibly clear, emphasizes childishness and the connections we hold with people, and it lets us view them clearly like dogs who see the pure and loyal bonds with their owners."

I wanted to ask something, but they continued, kicking a purple rock from its place in the grass. I frowned as I figured I'd have to rearrange the courtyard later.

Sinclair tilted their head as they glanced at the stone. "The amethyst isn't really needed for any spells, but it enhances the mind and calms the soul, making it a dire booster to the other kinds of gemstones for some. It's a good balance."

"You sound like you're trying to sell jewelry to me," I said, and we both chuckled as they hit a piece of what I presumed to be an opal—the same as the centerpiece on that bracelet they refused to talk much about.

"Why are you telling me this?"

They shrugged, picking up the rock as it continually shifted colors in my vision. "I don't know. Maybe you'll find a use for it someday. You seem to lack knowledge regarding many areas of magic."

***

I rolled my eyes with a smitten grin as I remembered that odd day through a lens of fondness rather than annoyance. Taking it as if this was the reason Sinclair told me that a while ago, a warm feeling consumed my heart because they were considerate enough to go out of their way to procure amethysts for me—knowing the stones were catalysts to the reaction of magic and mind.

A clicking noise followed by a loud hum distracted me from my train of thought, and I turned to face the center circle surrounding Algor. I saw a grim, irritated Sinclair out of the corner of my eye.

I didn't know how to describe the flurry of arm motions Algor proceeded to make except that they were both fluid and jagged all at once. It was like a garbled performance—one by a dancer out of practice—but he seemed confident when he stopped with his hands in a triangle over his heart, yelling with the kind of fire I didn't know he possessed.

The stones encircling my feet glowed in an ominous color—given life by the sound of gasping in the audience—until all three of us were glazed in lavender. We became embedded in columns of light, and soon, I could not see the gaping faces of the aristocrats and servants around us.

Before I was consumed, two voices whispered, "Good luck."

I smiled in the direction of them, knowing very well Sinclair and Akiyoshi couldn't see me. Their sentiment gave me a joyous feeling that counteracted the exhilaration coursing through my veins.

The rush was indescribable.

A succinct explanation would have been that of a sensory overload.

However, to put the intricacies of it into words, I was blinded by the dazzling light before my consciousness appeared without a physical form above the expanse of the Terrestrial Kingdom. The realm was several times larger than the Galaxy Kingdom and quite imposing because of it.

Perhaps an equivalent was a floating brain in the sky—a set of thoughts that left their owner long ago.

Not long after, I could not control my vision, and I swooped closer to the ground, moving at a pace even flying could not achieve. It was impossible to detect either Algor or Sinclair around me, so had I had a form with which to express them, the physical symptoms of anxiety would have ravaged me.

With only my sense of sight as a lighthouse, I became ultra-perceptive of the details below me: the dark green lines of the maples, the little rugged trails in the country, and even the motions of small bugs and magnificent elephants as they trekked along the grass and bark of the plains and woods.

The constant jittering motion caused my mind to swivel—to fold over on itself—but my focus could not be shifted to any other task. A severe migraine inside an opera production when the tickets were too damn expensive to justify leaving was physically comparable. (No, I *totally* didn't have personal experience with that.)

Occasionally, another blinding spire of light built itself from a pinpoint on the ground. Like a magnet, I was drawn to it, explored its contents, and moved away as if by electromagnetic repulsion to the next prospective site. Each one had trace amounts of magic or uranium, which could be swiftly scanned. Almost every place I searched was some kind of abandoned cavern with no pragmatic materials.

What most sites had in common was that they were devoid of people—barring the shops run by blacksmiths. These were easily identifiable from a distance, and I spent even less time exploring them.

The flashes appeared and disappeared like the periodical blossoms of a mimosa tree—there one second and then gone the next in my bodiless haze.

When I noticed other lights I hadn't visited dim, I only slightly realized I wasn't abandoned by my senior fairies and that they followed me—protected me—the entire time.

The black spots of the dalmatian stone dotted my vision as I pondered this, further assuring me we would be all right. I would be able to make it through with just some more persistence.

The speed and sensation of my surroundings flooded my mind, manifesting in a fog. I couldn't see any single thing on its own, but I could see everything all at once. The rules of eyes and vision didn't apply when there were no organs through which to process the information.

The same was true of time. I had no way to tell when a second or hour passed as everything rushed by me. The only sense of it I had was from the speed of my flight, and with that disrupted, the yardstick by which I defined my existence temporarily ceased to exist.

However, the haze over my mind was not omnipresent. When my vision turned completely black and gray, a purple jolt was my panacea. It cleared my view so that I could focus on my target, turning the muddied glass into quartz. Such a miracle even took away my perceived motion sickness and relieved me of the cumbersome daze that prevented me from concentrating on the goal at hand.

Unfortunately, the colors alternated my existence between two opposite points: one of utter health and one of near collapse. As such, the turbulent sequence threw me off the main course many times, and I wished for the disturbing sensation to halt itself—if even temporarily.

If I had eyes then, I thought I would have cried. It was all so overwhelming that I could hardly bear it, and I could have practically kissed Sinclair (well, that wasn't anything new) for being so considerate of me—for warning me and making sure I was completely safe in such an unfamiliar situation.

After what I presumed were hours of being unable to talk to my fellow fairies (or speak in general) and flitting between useless pillars of purple light, the phenomenon stopped as quickly as it started.

I didn't find anything, but perhaps my mind became assimilated within my body once more because Sinclair or Algor did.

That would have been the best news—fantastic, wonderful news—I thought, as I felt my hands and feet through the numbness of physical touch. The grass tickled my toes while the wind twirled my hair, and after what could have ranged from minutes to days, the search was over.

My turbulent brain finally had a second to rest amidst all the mental chaos, but a searing headache then took root. Even the brilliant light of the sun burned my dark eyes and skin, and I crashed down to the soft earth and sobbed in my overwhelmed state—not knowing whether I was back to normal or permanently altered.

***

And the worst part about everything was: For all the suffering and confusion through which I persevered, Koharu and Ophelia were absolutely nowhere to be found!

*Gah!*