Heatwaves and Revelations

I'm going to master the Fezenska Technique if it is the last thing I do; it's a vow that I carve into my soul with each passing day at Rushing Water Temple.

Advisca and I are considered one and the same. Wherever I go, he goes. Our movements are synchronized and we no longer sleep apart - Agmito has allowed him entry into my sleeping quarters each night. I find myself restless if we're more than a few feet apart, that's how bad my dependency on him has become.

Today is the day I sit beneath a willow tree, stuck in the First Level Rapture Position as I vigorously attempt the Fezenska Technique for the hundredth time, but as with all my past attempts... I'm hit with staggering disappointment over my lack of progress.

My Thrinskar grazes on a bag of roasted chestnuts that I've tossed his way. His incessant munching sounds are a blight to my concentration and I can't help but let out a breath of bottled frustration.

"It's been five days!" Sweat clings to my back as I vent to Advisca.

His answering snort is met with a glare when I throw my hands up. I'm sitting here, legs crossed, bathed in the shade of this generous willow tree, not to mention the way I was forcibly adorned in my master's assistive morganite rings sometime ago... however, I'm still no closer to casting magic. Hot air tickles my cheeks as I mutter the same recitation in the Forgotten Tongue, the conversation I had with Totoya still tumbling around my head like a taunt.

'Master is not aligned with her spiritual energy. She is not focused. She is doing this for the sake of accomplishment.' Advisca mutters.

Annoyed with his sudden interruption, I pick up a handful of grass and lob it at his head. The sleek, pale beast side steps my shower of grass blades, pointing those opal eyes at me in the process.

"Agmito has gone away on a holy excursion. Master Totoya is busy with temple duties. I dare not ask her for any more help - especially after she's already given me her rings to aid with the configuration of my unstable casting... I can do this myself. What's so hard about the Fezenska Technique, anyway? A little migraine is nothing." I rant out loud, smoothing away a piece of flyaway hair.

The voice of reason in my head, dressed as Advisca, goes on to say, 'This kind of magic was barely able to be cast by accomplished Sages, and to presume yourself more capable than they were at this age... it's pure vanity, don't you think? Master, we need to re-evaluate your abilities.'

He hasn't ceased in trying to talk me out of this. I grimace at his reasoning. He's right. I know he is, but I can't seem to stop myself from attempting to do the impossible, regardless. It's more than than just a want, it's a debilitating voracity that yearns for completion at all costs.

This fixation is so potent and addictive, and it remains embedded in me like a thorn in my bloodstream, creeping closer to my heart with each trifling breath. I shut my eyes and stubbornly increase my chants, "Aterra Fezenska!"

The sensation of the wind sluicing around the back of my sweat-slickened neck draws me into a trance of sorts... My senses are briefly heightened for a millisecond, the sounds of nature pouring in with ground-breaking perspicuity.

But it takes me a second to realize that Advisca is still speaking. 'Did you say something, Advisca?' I ask him, a jolt of alarm striking me out of nowhere.

My Thrinskar's emotions are positively chaotic. His much larger body is taut with the need to lash out and all of his usually calm features, joyful on any other day, now seem twisted in assessment of something. I jump off the ground and stand beside his stern, unyielding stance.

'Master, we are not alone.'

'I can't see anything.'

'I will lend you my eyes, master.' Without explaining anything, he purrs at me in a low range... and all of a sudden, my eyes roll back into my head.

When I refocus my eyes, I can't help but notice the change in everything around me. From the rugged trees and trimmed hedges to the shallow, mucky pond subsisting around the skirts of the Rushing Water Temple. The world drips in hues of sparkling seafoam, depicting a mystical landscape with tiny, airborne creatures who bask in the sunshine unseen, and it's offset by a few different shades of emerald, black and red that buzz around the tree line. The blobs of erratic colors appear to be coming toward us.

"Is this how you see the world all the time?" I ask aloud, quizzical and awed at once by his sight.

"Yes, Master Belsifear. You can too, if that is what you wish. Our sights can be joined at any time. You need only call out for my Divine Eyes when you wish to activate them.'

Advisca's heightened feeling of urgency builds at whatever he's seeing from afar. I'm also at a loss for words. The red, black and green figures seem to flare ominously, so I take a step back, determined to relay this curious sight to my master.

But before I can make it far, an explosion of air waves hit the spot behind us, sweeping everything around me away. Birds take off in screaming masses, and their agitation is nearly impossible to miss from here.

'Master,' Advisca is back to headbutting my leg, persistent on nabbing my attention, 'My analysis of the incoming auras lead me to believe that we should leave immediately. A red aura by itself is not a bad thing as it can mean someone who is troubled by low-level anger, but combined with a black one... I fear someone intends to cause you harm, Master Belsifear.'

It can't be me who they're after, can it? I'm just a new resident at Rushing Water Temple - basically a nobody who has just arrived in this fantastical realm of floating islands, mountain-based temples and trickster gods who mischievously steal inter-dimensional souls as Divine Punishment.

I don't stay and fight with Advisca on the matter. My mind is too fuzzy to comprehend what this might mean as I run back into the creaky gates of the temple grounds. The shaved heads of the devotees perk up as I run past them, their solemn faces alight at the sight of my Thrinskar who breezes after me.

He has already become a welcomed fixture in this place, and anyone who gets an eyeful of him practically showers my companion with food, compliments and just as many pats as I do. Anyone might think that he was born and raised here.

My anxious feet seem to rival the wind, delivering me in due time to the Sacred Pagoda Garden trail, where I find my master washing the face of a Demalrak marble bust. Even before my hurried approach can scare off the twittering animals gathered on nearby benches, Totoya tosses her rag over her shoulder and picks up her soapy bucket, that perceptive side-eye of hers locking onto my expression.

"Little one, you are uneasy. Control your energy lest it manifest itself in unexpected ways." Totoya walks over, deposits the buckets at my feet and smiles at me.

"Master. Advisca and I have seen something. I do not know what to make of it."

"I might be able to shed some light on the situation. Would you mind if I checked your recent memories? It will barely take a moment." Her polite request is non-invasive and I'm quick to lend my hand, dropping it into her warm, wet ones.

Her assessing, hazel eyes cloud over for a moment as she utters a recitation. I wait for her onslaught of panic to come and compound my own, silently withdrawing my hand as soon as she allows.

My master's reaction, however, is not something I've anticipated. There is nothing physical in her demeanor at first, not even a blink that occurs in the aftermath of our transaction.

However, when the change finally does happen, it's gradual and slow, an impactful development of facial features that reverberates across her body. I feel it and Advisca echoes my quizzical sentiment, chuffing at my side. Totoya is merely thoughtful, a pillar of decisiveness that radiates towering spiritual energy.

I'm not quite sure what to make of her unbending tranquility in this situation, so I grab her shoulders, rousing her with my words and tone. "M-master Totoya?"

Her tone wobbles for only a second, and the smile that usually sits on her canvas of sun-kissed skin flickers like a candle in a hurricane, but all she manages to get out is, "I will help you practice casting in the Second Chamber of Worship. Go before me. I will catch up in a minute."

Advisca's tail whips from left to right, affirming my unspoken dissent. I can barely get out my confusion along with my hurt at why she's hiding something from me, but the need to obey her stiffens my back in the end, and seals my lips.

I know that she feels my mixed bag of emotions as I turn and walk away.

When I first opened my eyes into this place, I didn't want to stay at all and realistically, I had no reason to... And while Agmito and Totoya haven't exactly changed my mind about what I'm going to do in this realm, at least my desire to isolate in the First Chamber of Worship is something that I no longer aspire to.

I can make my time here meaningful and significant. My Divine Punishment doesn't have to equal a miserable existence for everyone else, which is why I'm concerned for my master and anything else related to Rushing Water Temple.

The hallowed Chambers of Worship are set up in the furthest courtyard, facing inward at each other. A separate garden with bamboo fencing circulates the area, and I trek through the timid and recently swept pathways that lead into it, reminiscing about the first time I saw my Thrinskar.

He must feel the direction of my thoughts because he says, 'Master was surprised when I first approached her.'

'Of course I was! You came out of nowhere.'

'Endlessly I have searched this world, longing to serve a master, and then one day your physical presence was like a beacon of light in a dark cave. I ventured across deserts for you, Master Belsifear. The sand dunes and the pit falls I've faced, along with all the valleys and the mountains... Nothing could have stopped me.' Advisca blinks his wide and opalescent eyes at me, his voice a pleasant caress against the rigid panic in my mind.

I look down at my feet as I stop walking. I mutter, both to myself and him, "I will never deserve your loyalty, Advisca. You are too good for this world."

'As are you, master.'

He's wrong about that, though. My wrongness and unrivalled depravity is so intrinsic that I've been punished, stolen by trickster gods and forced to serve out an unknown sentence in an unfamiliar realm; my wickedness can't be any more overstated than that. Gloomy once again, I tap his snout with my finger and together we continue towards the Second Chamber of Worship.

We don't have to wait long for my redheaded master to appear. I'm kneeling at the altar of a Demalrak statue, patiently awaiting her instruction when she drops down beside me.

The first thing she does is light a stick incense and place it in a bowl at the feet of a Demalrak statue. It burns idly in front of us, smelling like pine needles, roses and smoky chamomile.

"Palloxe Vienarti. You will undertake his strict study system from now on. I am the last of his disciples. His clan in the Thunder Cloud Kingdom no longer lives. Their forbidden magic style will die with me unless I teach it to you." She talks without preamble while I just stare at her.

I scramble to catch up. "Did you just call it forbidden?"

"Yes. Casting magic in the Forbidden Tongue is a forbidden practice because it is infinitely stronger than any Dedjurian recitation. Once you start casting regularly, you will start to see that your magic configurations are inherently better whenever you recite in the Forbidden Tongue. The language of the Cardinal Sages is just a watered down version of the gods' language. Never forget that. It holds only a fraction of the power that the Forgotten Tongue does."

As her words carefully start to sink in, I turn my head to the side with immeasurable slowness, pointing my now suspicious eyes toward the divine companion at my left. The green, metaphysical thread that randomly likes to appear out of nowhere prevails to link us between the eyes.

'Why didn't you tell me that speaking in the Forgotten Tongue of the gods is an outlawed practice? For goodness' sake, the High Priest knows how to speak it fluently! What if he gets in trouble over this?' My voice attacks his mind like a war-hammer.

Advisca flinches. 'Is my master's memory so short that you've forgotten all of my protests over the past five days? Have I not tried to talk you out of reciting in the Forgotten Tongue?'

'You... Sly beast! You said that my spiritual energy was lacking and that I should have started off with a Dedjurian configuration. Why didn't you bring up the laws of this land, Advisca? I am just a newcomer here, damn it! Are you on my side, or are you simply here to watch your new master suffer?'

'Knowing the consequences of the law would have led you to question the motives of your master. Putting your relationship with her first was my only intention, Master Belsifear. You also need not worry about your friends. The priests of Rushing Water Temple are wise enough to not advertise their knowledge of the Forgotten Tongue.' It's as he speaks that a flickering of sincerity shines through our bond, and I realize that rebuking him serves no purpose to either one of us.

He is my divine companion. A friend, an ally. My spiritual beast and staunch defender who will protect me at all costs. I can no longer muster up any semblance of negative emotion when he prostrates himself on the ground, a giant beast that is willing to lower himself for someone as lowly as me.

There is nothing between us that needs to be said. His reasons are his own and he did what he thought was right. I will not continuously admonish him for his prerogative; I just hope to be warned in advance the next time he does something in regards to my wellbeing.

Totoya clears her throat, sensing our discord to be over now, "This morning I gave you the morganite rings to wear. Have you felt the boost in your spiritual energy when attempting to cast?"

I turn back to her. "Yes. I feel... like there's a smoother transition of magic within my body. I just can't seem to channel it appropriately when I recite. It goes nowhere, does nothing."

"Your understanding of magic configurations is almost perfect. Palloxe Vienarti used to always tell my master that magic must always go somewhere. It can never stop. It's in everything. So I want you to try casting the Fezenska Technique again, but this time I want you to do the recitation in Dedjurian."

"Dedjurian? But I don't know the equivalent...?"

"Aksanna-mera, Fellion," She faces forward, hands braced in the First Level Rapture Position and I quickly do the same, "Speak the words and prepare for a squeezing sensation inside of your chest. Not all configurations demand a price for magic. For trapping time within the barrier of the Fezenska shield, you will learn to tolerate this pain in particular."

Oh, gods. What am I getting into?

No, I can't be this fickle when it comes to my training. She has a reason for doing this; I'm sure of it. I don't want to question the viability of what we're doing or why I need to learn Dedjurian in the first place. Advisca's reasons for not telling me about this either might shake my foundations about this world, and I'd rather not open myself up to that.

I take a deep breath as the first coils of spiritual energy move around my body like an excitable whirlpool, and after a beat of hesitation, I shove my hands down into the final formation of the First Level Rapture Position.

"...Aksanna-mera, Fellion." I whisper.

I am... stricken with needles from within.

I have not experienced anything like this pain. I've not lived for very long in this body, but something tells me that in my past life, I didn't have to suffer any cruelty such as this pain. It is an indescribable twisting of the blood... Something that claws and digs at my heart and latches on.

At first, I cough and nearly break my posture, but Totoya warns me not to.

"Focus, Belsifear. Remember: The magic has to go somewhere."

A hint that is not a hint sings into my consciousness just as I think about giving up. I readjust my thoughts and practice breathing shallowly, the taste of metal hitting my mouth as I register the still burning incense.

The magic within me is chaotic and untamed, tangled in a pile of directionless strings. It takes all of my spiritual energy to unravel it and force it outwards... projecting a capsule of impenetrable magic around me.

The Fezenska barrier is barely big enough to cover me and the incense stick, but at least I can tell Totoya that I halted time momentarily - the smoke lines wafting from the incense stick are stuck in motion, smeared in the air like a grey smudge.

Advisca pops into my head, 'Master, you have succeeded in casting your first configuration.'

This doesn't feel like pride stabbing me in the chest, though. I can barely breathe and speak. Sweat hangs from my top lashes and a headache supersedes my ability to see straight. How much longer do I have to maintain this magic?

"Master?" I gasp.

"Reciting in Dedjurian is hard for a Demi-Urgaen. But I will prepare you for anything. You will see. You will learn the ways of a Vienarti successor."

I drop my hands, unable to hold up the magic any more. The minute the Fezenska configuration breaks, the smell of incense smoke sails straight into my nose and I can feel a looseness in my chest.

Air. It rips through my lungs and feeds me. My heart is skipping with gratitude and I'm weak in the legs as I kneel beside my master.

She looks at me, her pensive eyes and red lips weaponized to their fullest potential. "Again. You will do the Fezenska Technique until it is as natural as breathing."

I gulp. I don't refuse; I simply can't. She's offering me knowledge and power. Advisca knows that I'm weary and physically overwhelmed, but the chances of me walking away are zero. I can't leave the Second Chamber of Worship without overcoming this configuration.

I vowed that I would learn it and I will.