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Blodwyn, The Bloody Palm
We spit out a glob of flesh, the blood and meat freezing before it even hits the ground. The agony of frost radiates through everything as I slide back from sharing control, focusing on revitalizing our body. Meanwhile, Wyatt slams his fists into the earth below and forces himself back to a crouched position.
Flint is not far away, walking toward us slowly as she slams Bonfire away with a wave of pure cold. The man practically turns into a doll as he bounces across the now-frigid plains of Green Hallows. Each bounce hurts me to my core, but I don't have time to be distracted. He's my friend. One of few, but he can take it. Bonfire's tough, no matter how much he jokes.
Reconnecting the tendon in our heel, I push more Ether through our body, reigniting Blood Nexus as the cold momentarily shelved it. Wyatt uses the help to rush for Flint, sliding under a raised avalanche before running alongside and leaping at the God.
He's quickly batted into the earth again, with scores of internal damage running through his system, but there isn't much he can do other than this. Flint is not giving him any time to use Bone Orchard, so he has to rely on our physical body while Bonfire can keep up with his flames. Furthermore, he can't even get close. Shiver only helps him reduce damage, like my Dominion, but there are limits to them.
As such, we're not making much progress.
We've been fighting this bitch for... a long time. On and off, of course, retreating whenever our saturation gets too far along. After all, Flint might be a God, but she is one of winter, not speed.
We can run and reengage practically whenever, but any time we do...
There is so much death. I know we can't keep running; the cost is too high. Wyatt hasn't said it to me or aloud, but it is eating at him. And as such, it is beating me down, too.
Diving into the Ether within our shared body, I allow my mind to wander, finding solace in the hardened focus while Wyatt continues to fight alongside Bonfire. I think back to the last few hours and the devastation we have seen.
Flint's authority spreads across the land without pause, even while we strike at her, that cold touch transforming entire regions into landscapes of ice and snow. Whole forests are reduced to frozen skeletons, their branches encased in crystal. Villages are left desolate, with every living creature frozen into statues if they can't escape in time. Most of them are evacuated, but there are always a few who don't want to leave their homes. Nevertheless, it hurts. It hurts so very bad.
The sight of these icy memorials, of people and animals forever locked in their final moments, strikes deeply into my core. I see their struggle. Their last attempts at life were raised arms and petrified screams.
I watch the cold creep across the world while pushing Blood Nexus to its limit, knowing that every moment we rest is another moment Flint can spread her endless winter. The struggle of the countless lives imprints itself into my mind.
And it refuses to leave.
Something resonates within me, though I do not know what. It is an odd feeling. My Sigils, Power, Virtue, and Dominion are all about life and struggle. The Power is about how important surprise is for survival in the wild, while my Virtue consolidates my life force, making it more potent and hard to diminish. Even my Dominion marks on life, with the ability to directly take it from a struggle.
I've thought about my nature for a long, long time. There isn't much else to do during the long periods of silence, after all. Most of my Sigils are Occultists, and those focus on the might of the blood and the sanctity of the internal body.
With the other Sigils added and the skills I've learned alongside Wyatt, I arrive at this weird position. I am a heart, a supremely vital organ, and as I feel myself beat, a standard sensation for me, I feel connected to all those dead creatures and people.
I can practically feel my heart connect to theirs. The subtle thumps within the ice reach me with each passing moment. I focus on the struggle of each living thing, drawing strength from their will to survive.
With it, my Ether changes. It's a slight change, hardly noticeable at all, as the color and texture are all the same, but it makes Blood Nexus quite different. Each injury we receive, each crystal of ice that deepens into our flesh, and each time Flint makes Wyatt stumble in pain, I feel my Ether correct the failures on their own.
The secondary heartbeat of Blood Nexus bolsters the flesh that was frozen. It toughens the bones that were broken. It elevates the balance that was offset.
It is... bizarre. A feeling that I cannot control, only perceive. With every passing second... we adapt just a little bit more to the effects of the cold and the piercing ice.
With the sensations running through me, I stare out of Wyatt's eyes, watching him break through a wall of ice. Bonfire is just beside him, spewing a burst of invisible inferno through his lungs at Flint, yet the Goddess smiles and opens her mouth.
Brandishing her hand outward from her mouth, she mimics Bonfire's breath and releases a wave of flaky snow that devours all the heat in the air. Wyatt backsteps, attempting to retreat, but he quickly fails as the frost runs up his legs and eventually even reaches our shared eyes.
Wyatt rages against the cold, but it's not enough to break out immediately. Each beat of Painsforge and Blood Nexus cracks a bit more ice away, but time is not our ally. It has always been our enemy.
For a second, I can see the whole of Green Hallows in peace as Flint walks toward us while we are frozen. The ice-covered fields, the frozen rivers, the lifeless statues that used to be living creatures...
What a hypocrite. Flint spoke of the ruin we 'Voyagers' bring to the worlds we inhabit. But is this not ruin? Maybe to Winter herself, it's not, but for the rest of us... this hellscape of ice is not much better than Vincent's Wastes.
Wyatt grunts, not even asking me for help, as he knows I'm already doing my best. Still, as Winter strides toward us, I can feel his alarm rise to infinite heights. Finally, he turns to me for aid, seeking advice on how to proceed.
"Anything we can do!? I can't move an inch! My Ether won't go past the skin, either! Accretion and Bone are useless right now!"
I don't have a reply for him. I can't think of anything we can do.
"Blodwyn!? Any ideas!? Lily!?"
Lily shakes her head in our shared connection as I repeat her mental emotion. Wyatt often relies on me for ideas as he's the one physically fighting and too distracted to think, but there is nothing I can come up with here. Even Bonfire's flames can't burn through the ice...
Suddenly, Flint's hand presses against our chest, and I feel the ice tightening its grip through our muscles and pushing deeper into... our heart, into me. Wyatt screams inside our ice statue, not managing to break through despite his prodigious strength.
I fall into a backseat, watching him rage while I observe the scenario from a detached gaze. I don't know why, but it... just feels... comfortable right now to do within the ice.
Winter's voice is a low whisper, her words dripping with condescension as she watches me struggle against her icy curse. Flint's transparent nails dig into our chest, sinking toward our heart, toward me. And yet... I am unafraid.
"It's over. You are nothing more than a momentary spark destined to be snuffed out. You and your friend both."
Our destined death is not all that is on the horizon, however. Without Bonfire and I to impede her, the frost spreads across the landscape, turning everything into a bleak, frozen wasteland as far as the eye can see.
Barely surviving trees crack under the weight of the ice, their branches shattering like glass. The ground becomes a sea of white, with no signs of life, only the eerie stillness of a world encased in frost.
I feel the cold reaching deeper, our body numbing with each passing moment. But as I watch Flint's frost devour everything in its path, something begins to stir within me: a memory, a fragment of thought, an idea.
It is the Ether from before. It... contains a thought, a feeling.
My Ether knocks upon my mind, having something to show me. And... I allow it to as time seems to slow. Whether that is due to the cold or because of our approaching disease, I do not know.
Nevertheless, my vision from Wyatt's eyes vanishes. In its place, sights come to me, replacing the cold. These images flicker through my mind like hallucinations, the very kind that I used to give to my closest friend.
I see a tiny sprout pushing through a crack in the concrete, its green leaves reaching for the sun, undeterred by the oppressive gray around it. The sprout is alone; it is a first, the only one within a wasteland, and yet it thrives where others see only desolation, its roots sinking deep into the earth, finding nourishment in the tiniest crevices.
I feel the sun's warmth on my skin as if I had my own body separate from Wyatt, imagining the slow but steady thaw of a glacier as small rivers of water form and trickle down the mountainside. Within these rivers, tiny fish swim, enduring the frigid waters despite their nature.
I hear the distant call of birds, their wings beating against a stormy sky. They navigate through fierce winds and harsh rain, finding shelter in the trees, their feathers slick yet not broken. Songs enter the thrashing winds as the birds call to their loved ones just as man would.
I smell the damp earth after a hurricane, the scent of renewal as plants spring back to life. I imagine the roots of ancient trees slain by the awful winds hosting life to new species. Even in death, there is life to be found.
I taste the sea's salt, imagining a tiny turtle making its way across the beach, struggling against the waves that threaten to pull it back. Each step is a battle; each inch forward is a triumph for the newly born creature. Eventually, it enters the waves, and all the struggle it had endured bears the fruit it desired.
Life is tenacious, resilient, and enduring. It adapts, evolves, and refuses to die simply.
A final vision sputters into my soul as I experience who I once was. A struggling, stumbling, and bleeding fool who wished to go against the heavens and all those who controlled the world collapses in a forest. He rolls onto his back, staring up at the sky through the canvas of leaves. The canopy drips water onto him from the recent rain, giving tears to a man who had cried them all out.
Cassidy Monroe. Who I once was.
I pay full attention as the scene only continues to solidify, some esoteric and brutal meaning passing through the two of us, the same soul rewritten by Ether. The man coughs out more blood, choking on his own essence before shifting to the side. He gains some relief, even if only momentary.
"Just... a little more. C'mon, Cassidy. Not today. Not fucking today."
The words are painful and agonizing to speak aloud, but Cassidy manages anyway. With a body beaten, stabbed, and shot all over, he rises once more. He reminds me of... of Wyatt. Far too much that I can feel the watery tears in his eyes. An ankle gives out, and the man simple drags the shattered limb along with him, continuing his escape. No matter the trials that may come, he will adapt.
Even come Death herself.
Darkness consumes the vision as I return to myself. The understanding is not lost. It was always within me. I simply... did not remember.
I see now. I see why there isn't an 11th Sigil. There doesn't need to be one. With these Concepts, there is no limit to how far one can go. This is simply the starting line.
Wyatt and I have always been so alike. It is clear why we acclimated to each other so quickly compared to others. Sure, things were bumpy before I gained my spirit, but... we have always been similar.
My being is devoted to survival at any cost, to growth and adaptation. It stems from who I was in my past life and has only been enhanced by the Sigils granted to me.
Meanwhile, Wyatt... thanks to him, I've met many now, and I can see some things he cannot. Namely, the vitality within someone. Sensing such things as their remaining lifespan and their body's resilience is not difficult. And yet... when I look at us...
I see an overflowing river of life. I find only a being that is so vehemently dead set on life, on living to the fullest, that I cannot determine the time he has left. It could be centuries. Milleniums, perhaps. Or it could be a fleeting second.
My mind flakes back to another memory I should not have, one that comes from before I earned my spirit. The memory plays through even as the cold delves into our heart, freezing me from the inside out.
Wyatt, who has been on the Pale Lady's doorstep for days thanks to the fight with Alexos and my own robbing of his nutrients, stumbles through the forest, wherein he is utterly lost. One foot after another, he continues through the maze of wood.
He has no reason to continue. Edmund is dead. His Ma is dead. His father had long abandoned him. And yet... the young man repeats a mantra and drags his legs regardless. No matter the trial. He adapts and finds a way forward, even if there is none.
Another strand of something connects me to this ephemeral sensation as I can pinpoint what it truly is now without confusion. A Concept. Conceptual Ether slides into my being, the heart that Flint is attempting to freeze wholly.
I fight back against the icy tendrils as Wyatt wrestles with bewilderment, overjoyed yet confused at my sudden strength. Nonetheless, he quickly joins me, determined to reclaim the warmth that belongs to all living things.
At first, nothing changes. The ice continues its slow invasion, creeping through our veins, locking our joints, freezing our breath. But as each second passes, as I concentrate on the resilience of life, the cold begins to slow. The ice finds pushing further challenging, as if something within me resists, refusing to yield.
Using a Concept is... interesting. It doesn't come easily, and yet the tiny bits that flow into me are absurd.
Flint notices the change, her dark eyes narrowing as she sees the frost slowing.
"What are you doing?"
Winter hisses with frozen mist, her voice sharp with irritation. She presses her hand harder against my chest, trying to force the ice deeper as her hand wraps around our heart, but it meets resistance, struggling to spread as life adapts to her touch.
Then, the ice begins to crack, and Painsforge beats alongside Blood Nexus's new glow. A hand reaches out and pierces into Flint's chest as the God gapes at us, her expression filled with astonishment. Wyatt's entire body Shivers, literally along his bones and his Ether, but also with a newfound power.
"I don't know what you did, but good shit. Can you do that again?"
Wyatt praises me, and a rush of pride flows all over. It warms me, and yet... I don't think I can do as he asks. At the very least... my augmented Ether still remains within our heart, even as Blood Nexus begins to fade while my mind stutters with a lack of energy.
"No... Concepts are... tiring..."