Zodiac Academy 8: Sorrow and Starlight

My eyes stung like a swarm of bees had taken up residence beneath my eyelids, and they would only be quieted by me closing them.

Oh, what a fate that had befallen me. I was a dust mote cast awry on a breeze, and as I battled my way through the second day of my aerial escape, I had to wonder if the stars had forgotten about me altogether.

The parachute my queen had constructed for me from great leaves cast from her earth magic still held true, despite a few holes which had been punched into it by the wild magic of the creatures who chased me.

The Nymphs crowded below me, a swarm of them like a moving forest of rot far beneath my feet, their gnarled features twisted with bloodlust as they chased me over rough and barren terrain. Waiting.

They were waiting for exhaustion to claim me and drag me down to their clutches as they kept up this hunt. There must have been fifty of them down there, a host large enough to easily take out a small town. And though I feared for my own mortality, any time I had spied lights or signs of civilisation on the horizon, I had tugged on the vines which supported me and turned away from such salvation. I wouldn’t lead this hoard of monsters towards innocent Fae, no matter the cost that incurred for myself.

I was living on borrowed time, uncertain what hope I could even muster with the small amount of magic lingering in my veins thanks to the trusty nummy pouch I had strapped to my chest.

My momsy had always made sure I carried it with me at all times, the little leather pouch containing the leaves of aconite my Cerberus form required to replenish my power. I slipped a leaf from the pouch as I thought on her soft face and stern words. “Never leave the nest without a nummy pouch.”

That ethos had served me well through the haunting hours of my escape, keeping my power replenished just enough to allow me to craft a flame above my head, the heat of which kept my parachute aloft and my heart still beating. The only other magic I dared waste these final dregs of my power on was the odd wakefulness spell, though I hadn’t cast one in over six hours now.

The exhaustion from the battle was pressing in on me like a weighted blanket, urging my tired bones to rest despite the peril I found myself trapped in. The memory of Roxanya Vega shooting me into the sky, like a star bound for the heavens, played over and over within my mind. My queen had valued my life enough to save it when certain death had loomed all around us, valued my sorry soul highly enough to craft this method of escape for me while she fought gallantly on. What fate had befallen her now? What destiny had I been forced to abandon my sovereign to?

Shame tugged at my gut even as the undeniable honour of fighting at her side in that battle gave me the strength to carry on, to lead these heathens far from hapless, innocent Fae with the last of my strength.

I had succumbed to sleep once and jerked awake just in time to stop my descent onto the probes of the vicious creatures below me. Adrenaline and fear unlike any I had ever experienced had jerked me back to consciousness as their screeches lit the air. A blast of fire magic had torn from me just before their deathly rattles could block my ability to cast at all – the heat sending my parachute skyward once more while the exertion of power ate away at my measly reserves.

The Nymphs hungered for my end just as I hungered for the power I would need to strike at them, to go down fighting for the good of Solaria like I had sworn I would do if my fate called me to. But I had lost that strength along with my weapons when my lady sent me skyward to save this unfortunate A.S.S. man.

And so I waited. The small flame flickering and burning on above me, keeping me aloft while I scanned the horizon for the only hope I could still cling to. Clouds. I just needed to find some cloud cover and perhaps I could give the Nymphs the slip. Perhaps I could get free of their relentless pursuit. Perhaps I could evade them, refill my magic and live on to re-join the army of my ladies and fight another day.

I didn’t allow my thoughts to linger on my nummy pouch. Only three aconite leaves left now. I was running out of time. And all around me, nothing but blue sky stretched in every direction as if the stars themselves had abandoned me too.

A day so full of grief and loss had no right to shine so brightly, and yet here it was, filling the world with light when all that should have remained in the wake of that battle was darkness.

Onwards I would flounder, to the edge of the world and beyond, and perhaps if I was lucky a cloud may yet appear, but as that blue abyss stretched ever yonder before me, I gave in to the reality I had been dealt. Master Masters would die this day, at the gnarled fingers of my enemies I would meet my end. Yet I held on to the sweet scent upon the air and the chance my queen had given me with this method of escape. One nummy leaf at a time, I would munch my way towards my destiny and face it head on when the time came.