We walked up the mountain, looking about with caution and curiosity.
Caution from Korven, mostly just curiosity on my part.
Main reason? Ruins.
FINALLY! I stumbled across some good-old fashion RUINS in this fantasy world!
They aren't big or impressive, just a few obelisks worn smooth by time and maybe the remains of a building or two, but still!
[So... the Fallen races were once intelligent?]
[Yes.]
I looked at Korven. [Are these their ruins from before they...] I cast for a proper word. [Fell?]
Korven shrugged, walking alongside me.
Well alrighty then.
~ ~ ~
We reached the lowest peak, and the ruins of some kind of temple lay in shambles.
[Hey this is the closest thing to a workable shelter on this mountain I've seen. Should we stay?]
Korven looked at me. [It's barely evening!]
[Aren't raccoons nocturnal? We should sleep and rest while we can here and move out under the cover of night if we want to avoid any others later on.]
Korven thought for a moment.
[Ohhhhh... right. Light fusion will let us see them in the dark when they can't see us.]
We walked over to the ruins and hid under a bit of roof, shade over us.
[You sure you can react in time to an attack?]
I nodded. Time to test some magic...
I created circles of faint light in rings from us, embedding them in the very surface of the ground with a thin shimmer of air magic over them.
Light is the opposite of darkness. This is a simple phrase that could be used to the absolute death in any form of ANYTHING.
But it's so simple and stupidly obvious that it flew right past me.
How is "darkness" as a magic different from what I call and see as shadows?
It's empty.
Darkness magic consumes everything because it is a magic of "void". Emptiness.
So if light is the opposite of darkness, light magic is the opposite to this void, this emptiness.
Light is fullness.
Go back to the Big Bang, or look at black holes, I don't care.
In the void of emptiness, it's opposite is the fullness of creation. A black hole consumes all matter, and a white hole constantly spits out nothing but pure matter and energy to the point of its creation of everything becomes pure white, just like a black hole's absence is a absence of anything.
Now maybe a white hole is what a black hole eventually becomes or doesn't even exist, I'm speaking theoretical science just by acting as if they exist because we have no image nor proof of a white hole's existence... or rather humanity didn't when I left.
Not we anymore.
So light magic can heal because life is full?
Or... agh how to say? The soul is the pinnacle of creation? Sure.
So light magic is fullness... which both makes no sense and all the sense.
So my light magic is now a constant stream, a loop of a ring(multiple rings means multiple spells I suppose) feeding into itself to sustain the duration of the magic's half-life.
However the actual defense is the air magic, meant to electrify anything that passes through the thin barrier.
Before you argue I'm killing wildlife, I'm not. I'm freely releasing my presence as a predator so anything bestial in instinct will stay the absolute hell away unless it feels like challenging another predator...
'In which case go die to my electric fence you fuckers. I'm the boss here.'
'Whoah!'
I paused mid thought.
'When did I start thinking like THAT?'
I couldn't think of why exactly... but something stuck out to me as different about how I felt about causing another's death now.
Before it had been survival... then I was hunting and instinct guided me.
It's the circle of life, it's only natural as a predator that I stand above and take sustenance...
But... why do I feel like this way of thinking has something...
It's not wrong. It feels right.
But what's bugging me?
Alright, well I got the air magic and the light magic feeding it to keep it active for hours so it doesn't fade within a few minutes.
Now... better... sleep.
~ ~ ~
I open my eyes to the same dark space as last night, with the star and the surrounding elements as the only thing within the space.
'So... this is going to be a constant thing huh.'
I cast out my "senses" to check.
'No that Kire guy isn't here this time. Why?'
I flew over to the light... area? I dunno what to call it.
I looked at the prisms and the images flashing by too fast to see.
Full. Life. Soul. Memory? Time passing to become memory.
I reached into the light... and grabbed a tiny fractal in my jaws.
Spitting it out I looked at it as I let it go, floating in the empty darkness.
Small and separate, I could finally see the images inside.
A speck, which was buried.
It absorbed the water and dirt and split, with shoots of green growing out!
Slowly it grew, the shell shed as roots grew...
I watched as the magic of light, the concept of soul and life and fullness, fulfillment and in opposition to emptiness or absence, showed me... the simple sprouting of a tiny, insignificant plant.
A mere dandelion.
How powerful I was didn't matter... it was alive.
Alive.
Living, in a cycle.
I watched it grow to it's full, I watched the yellow petals bloom and then fade as it turned into the white fluff it's so well known for by children.
I watched the seeds scatter on that fluff, more specks that planted themselves and grew.
As they grew, the life cycle didn't stay equal.
Life... spreads.
1 doesn't stay one, it becomes 2, or 4, or even 7!
And as this happened, the fractal of light I was observing actually grew as well!
I have died.
I have felt the slow death of disease, a poisoning of my body against me... and I revel in this new life.
I am alive, a dragon. I am filled with the power of magic and the joy of life!
I am alive and I like being alive! The nature of life will continue, I will grow old and someday day to a disease or weapon, but right now I'm young! I'm at the beginning of my life!
Could I ever describe that strange feeling of seeing all the potential of your own life ahead of you?
So much possibility... it's almost like a seed isn't it?
But light doesn't create that seed... it fuels it.
And as soon as I thought that, that light was not the creation but the fuel allowing it to spread... the fractal of light before me, ever expanding, merged into me.
My body here is my will, and somehow light fused with that will, even if only this tiny aspect.
I spaced out, aware of what was happening but not able to really even think or act as I felt a burning in my flesh, not the will-self in this dreamworld but my real self!
My star brightened, the light magic within aligning with something somehow, and the star... grew.
The barrier expanded, and my star drew in energy from the light element outside, letting some of it in only to seal once again.
My body burned and it hurt, like a fire in my bone marrow and lava in my veins!
The realm of my magic fell apart as I woke up, unable to even scream from the pain locking my jaw!
My muscles tensed as if undergoing a seizure, and a white light began to glow from within me, making my bones visible through my flesh!
Korven woke up.
[Why do I smell cooked meat-HOLY SHIT!]
He threw himself away from me as smoke literally rose from my flesh, my body almost set through to the bone!
I wasn't thinking 'oh this hurts'. I wasn't thinking 'I must push past this!' with much determination.
I wasn't thinking at all, because the pain wouldn't allow it. The pain obliterated everything, my thoughts, feelings, everything just blanketed out by the white noise of agony.
My awareness hid, trying to hide in a shell as the pain raged as an ocean outside.
Not even a thought, just a mere instinct.
'I want to live.'
That is what I clung to so desperately in face of the feeling of pain, of the certainty that this was going to kill me.
I wanted to live.
Eventually I suppose the glow started to be less bright, as my almost-meted body regrew it's flesh and bone with the light magic still coursing strongly throughout it.
My entire body was destroyed and reforged in the light, and I wasn't even conscious in any way for it anymore.
Korven stood still when finally after hours, the glow was gone, and he looked at my altered body.
[H... hey?]
Silence.
Korven looked around in concern.
'If I'm not mistaken, that was an EXTREMELY violent form of fusing magic to flesh... but he's already awakened isn't he? Is his awakening unfinished somehow?'
Korven suddenly looked around with fear.
'Oh shit! Someone definitely saw this guy turn into a second sun!'
Korven jumped out as darkness and light began to bleed off him.
[Wake up soon my friend, we need to get out of here!]