Few nations made their mark across the world, and fewer held a moniker.
Ciazel, proud in its red, white, and black civil colours, was one of them.
Many ran to hide within its forge-like walls when wars struck and more ventured past dangerous wildlands to study in the illustrious institutes stationed seemingly in every city, accepting of every culture. As such, styles of magic and ethnicities melded to form the strong mixture that made Ciazel what it was.
Known as the Alloy Forge, Ciazel continued to stand tall whether she was fractured or full; victorious or vanquished; and whether in peril or peace.
Very little of that mattered, however, when you were stuck in a bus more packed than a can of sardines. Worse off when there was not one, but two mages on said bus.
Val stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Caro and a random commuter, holding on to the safety poles as she reigned in the expletives prancing on her tongue, directed to none other than the two Novices. That would earn her a fireball to the face, one which Miss Peppers held no control over.
The first one sat by the window right in front of her. He was Kidraan, dark-skinned with sharp blue eyes, and wore nothing besides a scarf and a hat to battle winter's wrath. Hunched over in his seat, his shrunken stature betrayed the height natural to his kind.
His outfit wasn't what gave him away, plenty of wealthy travellers able to afford heating enchantments in their clothing. It was the aura hovering around him that let Val in on his rank, alluding to an aether strand count—ASC—twice that of Caro's, doubling the pulsing along her brow to that of a migraine.
Besides her and maybe a few others that glanced the man's way a couple of times, he blended in perfectly.
Then there was the Auricean lady in the back, brown curtain bangs failing to cover her closed eyes and rosy complexion evidently glowing.
The lady was in a lotus position, doing something to coerce the permeating aether towards her.
From what Val's sensed ever since Deduction Day, unprovoked aether was stagnant. It held no flow whatsoever, not even the whimsical motions of floating dust motes.
Now though, aether streamed like a trickling creek towards the Novice and the action churned Val's stomach, sloshing as if it wanted to join the movement.
Today's ride on the metro was one of the rare times where she wasn't the only one able to sense the absolute magnitude behind a person's presence. The entire back of the vehicle remained empty despite it resulting in an overcrowded front, nobody daring to distract the cultivating novice.
Two mages of the same rank, two Novices that held completely different atmospheres.
Two problems.
The edges of her vision began to darken as the nausea reached a crescendo, the objects in her vision blurring as if they were out of focus. 'Concentrate,' Val thought to herself, 'concentrate.'
Massive relief filled her as the bus unloaded, dropping the two elementalists into the heart of Wyn. Snatching one of the empty seats with vigour and picking up the stray newspaper left behind, Val skimmed through headlines to pass the time.
'Tripartite Trial Tomorrow!
Institutes and guilds alike awake with bated breath for upcoming talent.
~New IBR-Tech~
Illusions simulating reality! Starting price is—'
Val blinked at the number of zeros the lone number held, skipping right past it.
Too busy winking the obscene price away, she failed to catch the way the letters rearranged themselves, a tint of fuschia-pink emanating out of the newspaper.
When Val deemed herself ready to look down again, new words caught her gaze in such an unfailing way she paused everything—breathing, blinking, and thinking.
AETHER FRUIT
The words branded themselves in her mind, and Val found herself believing that this generically named plant of a thing just might be the answer to...
To…
ǝɹnɔ ǝɥ⊥
A notion pierced through her stream of thoughts. Val scrutinized the eleven letters, determining the decidedly unknown object was a puzzle she couldn't leave unsolved. 'I need to know more.'
Val whipped the flimsy paper in Caro's face, stabbing a finger right where the words lay. "Cee, could you search this up?"
Caro's nose scrunched up, eyes right where Val wanted it. "Search what up?"
"This." Val flicked the words with her thumb. "Right here."
"Girl, the place you're tapping is blank, but I couldn't do it for you anyway." Caro raised her phone. "Dead as a cooked Windsnapper."
Val cursed under her breath, a chime ringing throughout the vehicle as she requested the next stop. Gathering her things, she headed to the front. "I'll meet up at your house!"
"What about the celebration?!"
"Tell your brother to pick me up at the library!"
"But this bus is going in the LoW's direction!"
"I gotta meet someone else first."
...
The heat of Restore Health washed over her as she stepped inside the high-end hospital. The foyer alone boasted of fine calibre, its checked marble floor so clean Val could use it as a mirror. With chandeliers of runic radiance for lighting and azure tempered glass guarding a carpeted staircase that lead to the lobby, Val questioned why a hospital needed to be so… loud. It screamed money. Unfortunately, this was the only hospital in the vicinity able to handle the special case surrounding her mother's condition.
After a check-in with the clerk upfront, an elevator ride, and a trip through corridors glistening blue with myriad enchantments, Val entered her mother's viewing area.
Light from Mom's quarantined chamber bled into the room Val currently occupied by way of panels of plexiglass, illuminating two office chairs, the glistening tiled flooring and an old foldable table.
Val didn't know when she moved from the doorframe, nor when she walked over to the glass. All she knew was that she was now touching the pane with all five fingers, imagining Mom awake.
Her green-viridian eyes alight with inborn warmness, her pale pecan complexion glowing thanks to the inherent exuberance healers carried. Her dark-brown hair thick and lucious, not thin and untaken care of.
Almost a direct mirror of Taylia Efron and most definitely a descendant, Val's life was forever changed when her mother's condition, Aether Incontinence Syndrome, took her away.
She was willing to change everything and more to reverse it.
The entrance flew open and Val jumped.
"To what honour do I owe the presence of the one and only Valerye Efron?" Doc kicked the door shut behind him and sauntered inside the dim room as he flipped through a file fastened onto his blackboard. "From what both you and I can see—" he gestured towards the one-way glass "—your mother's condition remains the same, meaning my presence is not needed whatsoever.
"However." He collapsed onto one of the office chairs and gave Val his best smile—one that contrasted against his dark, Kidraan skin. "If you want to talk, I'm right here."
"I do want to talk, actually." Val took the seat opposite of him. "I know it's said that all Aetherial Vessel Abnormalities are largely incurable by means both outside and within the Laws of Secrecy, though I have no way of verifying the latter."
"Indeed."
Val leaned in closer. "What about—and this might sound ridiculous, trust me—an aether fruit?"
His eyes, sea-blue in colour, enlarged to the sizes of plates.
"Doc?"
Doc jerked, his head snapping away the next second. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Val surveyed the man before her. Arms crossed, fingers drumming the armrest, eyes flitting everywhere with no sense of direction. 'He's not telling the truth.'
"Doc, you're a terrible liar."
He winced, face still averted. "I can't say anything."
"Can't or won't?"
"I won't say anything, not with the measly piece of information you have." He finally faced Val in full. "It's a wild drake chase that'll have you journey across the whole continent to end up with what? With nothing."
Val inhaled a hot breath.
It existed.
A cure existed out there, and she was clueless enough to believe otherwise.
"It's still my right to decide whether or not I start looking," Val said, "and you robbed me of doing so by omitting the fact that I even had a choice. That has to be a violation of some law out there."
"It was your parents who wanted to hide it from you—and for a sound reason. With your father dead and your mother unconscious, I cannot in good faith share any details with you when I know the outcome. It compromises everything I stand for and the law."
"Fine." Ignoring the avid sting that came with the mention of Dad, Val raised her hands in exasperation and got up. "If I can't have your help, I'll do it myself."
"Tell no one else of your quest, not even those closest to you," Doc demanded as he, too, rose from his seat. "You do remember what could happen to your mother if word of her disease leaks out to the streets."
"She'll be a target. Yes, I heard you the first time."
Doc sighed and he massaged his scalp through a layer of black, curly hair. "I am not your enemy, Miss Efron. I sincerely hope that you prove me wrong."
"Oh, I will," Val promised. 'I will.'