Halcyon Days

I awoke to darkness, not the natural kind. I felt no pain from the backlash, hell I couldn't even feel my body.

Looking down I noticed an ethereal version of my body fully healed, cloak and all.

"Am I dead?" I whispered to myself, "No, that wasn't nearly enough to kill me."

"Yea you're not dead yet," a voice tinged with cynicism spoke.

I swiveled around, coming face to face with a man who I could only describe as vulpine. "Who the hell are you?" I demanded.

"Nobody of consequence," he dismissed my question casually, making me more suspicious of him, "I'm just here to inform you of something I'm sure you would want to know."

"What is it?" I asked, steeling my face into a glower.

"Ooh, scary!" he exclaimed, snickering, "Just know that your benefactors are hiding something from you, something you have the right to know."

I narrowed my eyes, "Why should I believe you?"

"You shouldn't," he answered immediately, shrugging with his arms in the air. "Or should you?" He turned back to me, smiling deviously.

I didn't give him the satisfaction by reacting, "Say I do believe you, what's your reason for telling me this?"

"I just want to see our tenant gods panic." he chuckled to himself, before halting and looking around, "Seems like I have been noticed. I'll leave the rest to you, transcender."

The man disappeared from my rapidly dimming vision.

Heh, who would have thought you can lose consciousness in a dream.

_______________________

"ARGH!" I cried out in pain, the combined effect of my injuries and the backlash making me writhe in pain.

After a few minutes of clenching my teeth in pain, followed by dry heaving, I finally managed to relax.

"How are you feeling?" I heard the concerned voice of Zeke beside me.

"Like someone ripped out my core and mana pathways and forcefully put them back in." I croaked out, cracking open my eyes.

[Be glad, you were way too reckless there. The backlash almost killed us.]

"It was that bad?" I whispered in shock.

"You tore half of your ligaments and ruptured even more muscles, honestly I'm surprised you can even recover from that," a familiar voice came from my left, making me turn my head slightly.

"What about you? How many bones did you break?" I smirked at him, which he reciprocated.

"Guess?"

I burst out laughing, before immediately regretting it as a bolt of pain racked through my chest.

"Ow. That will take a while to heal." I wheezed out, still wincing from the pain.

"You don't say." Arthur managed to croak out.

It was then that I noticed the two other people in the room. "... How long have they been here?"

"Ever since you two lost consciousness," a young female voice answered.

"And how long is that?" I turned my head ever so slightly, facing the small fox form of Sylvie.

"A bit over a day."

"I'd reckon they'd have more important things to do as princesses." I muttered to myself.

"Technically they aren't princesses any longer. And something tells me, they'd be here even if they were still princesses." Arthur, apparently hearing me, spoke up.

"I don't doubt that, but an entire day? That's a long time." I replied.

He shot me a smirk, "You underestimate their love."

"Pot, meet kettle." I refrained from rolling my eyes.

"Hey! I'm not that dense!" he protested.

"You are!" Zeke, me, and Sylvie spoke in tandem.

Unfortunately, that woke them up.

Kathyln got up from beside my bed, rubbing her eyes with her hand.

"Hello princess."

Her hand froze, as she turned her head towards me like a robot.

"Fayden!" she gasped, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine." I waved her concern away, "Just need a few days to heal up."

"The doctor said it's a miracle you even healed," she pointed out, frowning.

"I've been through worse." I threw in casually.

Her eyes widened in realization, before narrowing to a glare, "That does not mean you have to put yourself through that much pain."

"Trust me, it was not my intention. I never thought of the backlash during the fight and overdid it a tad bit." I'm not a masochist like Arthur.

"..." She kept staring at me.

"I'll be more careful in the future." I sighed, making her nod.

Taking a moment, I glanced to the other side, and noticed Arthur in a similar predicament with Tess, although she was more expressive.

Suddenly my vision doubled, and my eyelids became much heavier.

"I should probably rest a bit more…" I muttered.

Kathyln's face suddenly came way too close to mine. "Sweet dreams," she whispered, puckering her lips and kissing my forehead.

Blood rushed into my face, making me blush quite a bit before I lost consciousness.

I could get used to this.

________________________

I didn't have any dreams this time, thankfully, and woke up feeling a lot better than before.

With a groan, I got up to a sitting position, "That healed a lot faster than I expected."

[You're not fully healed, I'd say you're about 40% healed.]

"That's enough for me to walk around." I said confidently, pushing my legs off the bed, and standing up.

That was a mistake, I fell down almost instantly, my legs too weak to hold my weight.

"Hahaha!"

"I'm glad my suffering brings you joy, Arthur." I grumbled, augmenting my legs so that they could hold my weight.

When I turned back, he was still stifling his chuckles.

"I thought I was the sadist here." I deadpanned at him.

"We're both sadists."

"So does that make you a sadomasochist?" I grinned at him.

"For the last time, I'm not a masochist!" he complained.

"Whatever lets you sleep better at night." I snickered in response.

He shook his head in exasperation, letting the matter drop.

"On a more serious note, how's your body?" I let the mirth drain from my face.

"I'm much better than before, it doesn't hurt to move any longer. But I'm still far from 100 percent," he answered truthfully.

"That's because you two have been asleep for the last three days." Zeke's voice suddenly cut in our conversation.

"Three days?!" Arthur exclaimed, surprised by the amount of time we spent unconscious.

"That explains why we feel so healed." I mused.

"Ellie came to visit a few times, along with the princesses, but you two never woke up for three days." he continued, "Seriously, you guys need to learn how to hold back."

"That was me holding back." I pointed out.

"Wait, you were holding back too?" Arthur turned his head towards me.

I nodded, "Yeah, I didn't want to destroy the castle. You held back too huh?"

He nodded back, "We've never really gone against each other, no holds barred have we?"

I shook my head, "No, maybe we should someda-"

"No!"

"Hehe…"

________________________

The next few weeks went by swiftly, I didn't pry much into the politics of the council, nor did I attend a single one of their meetings. For some reason, I feel like I'll piss them off and we won't have any progress.

In this time, things in the war calmed down a bit, and my team was finally seen together more often. They were absolutely livid when they found out that three of us went to face a Scythe of all people, the fact that we didn't actually fight didn't seem to cool them down at all.

As such, I had to go through an hour of reprimanding, and a lot of ear pulling from Kathyln. I shuddered at the memory, yeah I'd rather not go through that again.

After that, we continued our usual sparring sessions. They had all reached the high-silver stage, with the exception of Zach, who was in the mid-silver stage. Claire's high-silver core had cracks in it, blinding white light seeping through them. She was close, very close to being a white core mage.

They had apparently been practicing their deviancies, Owen had reached a respectable level of mastery over ice, and was nearing Kathyln's level. Brandon and Kara often teamed up, making full use of their sound magic, hell some of their illusions were so realistic that I would have fallen for them if not for Zeke and the voice warning me.

Zach was able to use gravity magic a lot easier now, his axes now having their own attractive force, making it a lot harder to score a hit on him, since everything veered to his axes. The only way to wound him was to take him by surprise, avoiding his axes completely, or straight up overpowering the gravity he could generate.

Which was not as hard as it sounds, fire, lightning, and sound would stay unaffected by his conjured gravity, rendering his new gimmick useless.

Speaking of sound magic, I had Brandon and Kara train me and finally unlocked my sound magic. I could think of multiple ways to use it.

Now? I had been invited to a diner which I had no intention of attending, but that doesn't mean I couldn't mess with the ones who are.

'Father…'

[Great idea, I approve.]

Chuckling silently, I blended into the dimly lit hallways of the castle.

________________________

Watching from the 'shadow realm', as I had dubbed it, I was practically invisible to everyone. And I was free to move around the room. Zeke had refrained from accompanying me, instead choosing to spend his time in my room.

With my field of vision greater than it was last time, I could now see the entire room. It was… a strange sight as if the light and shadows had switched places. The areas covered in shadows were 'bright' to me, and the areas lit with light were 'dark for me.' It was a bit trippy, but I soon got used to it.

Approaching one of the butlers, I grabbed one of the purple drinks on his tray, my hand coated in nacht. He looked down at his tray and widened his eyes as one of the glasses disappeared, almost as if it went through the plate.

Chuckling at his reaction, I took a sip from the alcohol, relaxing considerably at the burning sensation going down my throat. By the corner of my eye, I noticed Arthur, Ellie, and Emily by the fireplace, and proceeded to walk towards them.

"I can imagine how 'comfortable' it'll be with the Council, the Lances, and the elders all gathered in one place," Emily remarked, already dreading the diner.

Exactly why I didn't want to come here… visibly that is.

Arthur suddenly broke off from them and walked nearer to the fire, sitting down on a chair.

Soon Kathyln and Hester entered the room, both wearing evening gowns that, while minimally adorned, still looked undoubtedly elegant… and expensive by the looks of it.

[Stop staring.]

I flinched and shook my head, glad that no one could see me.

It was a tedious job to stay in here, I had no one to talk to apart from 'the voice,' neither did I have anything to do. I couldn't even strengthen my core here, the area was flooded in nacht and that does not help in it.

Thankfully, the rest of them arrived not much later. Tessia hadn't come, but the rest of her family had, and so had the Glayders and the Lances.

But one thing made it worth waiting so long, Arthur had drunk a bit too much liquor, and was now facing the consequences for it.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that Arthur would willingly hug Bairon. Him muttering about there being 'no hard feelings' made it even better.

I'm saving that in my long term memory.

[This… is certainly amusing.]