"You utter, fucking dick!" Malzkael shrieked at the stone door that had just been slamd in Ferro’s face. She didn’t say it, but she couldn’t help but think What the fuck would the gods want us to have to do with that kind of demon asshole?
Her nerves were frayed from the hike. From the battle just days ago.
Ferro looked at Anko, who was having trouble breathing. "We need to stabilize her... start getting her to concentrate on her magic."
The girl had at least a broken arm - cracked at least, along with her ribs. She’d spent a lot of her mana trying to heal faster as they’d kept moving to get as far from the slavers they’d encountered as possible.
If Malzkael was at full form, she might have had the mana for healing, though it wasn’t her strong suit. But even with her reserves nearing two-thirds, she had experienced only pain-filled flashbacks when reaching for her magiform. The mory of having three of her four wings ripped off... The last one had beco Maledict’s little reminder of her loss, as well as a branch from which to harvest her feathers.
Those feathers were growing back, and helped her absorb just a little more mana, but her wing was useless for flight. Just like she was being useless... Useless enough that she’d needed to trick Anko into helping her escape Maledict’s clutches.
Malz shook her head and focused. As much as she hated what had brought them together, Malz knew that she had more rapport with Anko than Ferro.
"Set the tent up over us. I’ll talk to her." As Ferro quickly got to work, she put as much calm into her voice as she could. "What you’re feeling is a large amount of foreign mana. You need to push it out - but don’t try to mix yours with it. Alternate pushing and stopping with your breath." After repeating herself a couple of tis, Anko started to focus. The demonkin started to breathe, even though every other gasp made her body flinch with pain.
Her mana would be fighting hard to resist the demonkin’s, Anko realized, which ant they must be highly incompatible. It also ant that whatever fine control her mavenry gave her over her body, including the ability to block pain, would be to her detrint to use, given the sheer weight of the foreign mana attacking her. She would need all of it to resist long enough to be tempered.
Even as she did her best to guide Anko, she pondered what the black-quality mana around them ant.
That demon could just stand in a square of mundanes and barely-awakened and it would be a slaughter. Weaklings and the untempered would be crushed, their bodies exploding or even twisting apart at the whims of their internal magic getting a sudden, unstoppable injection of power.
Part of her wished for it. If she could absorb this kind of power, maybe it would break whatever ntal block was keeping her magic weak. With all the food she’d been able to eat once freed, she should have been physically fine enough to perform magic, even with a missing wing. But all she could manage were tiny spells.
What hope is there for a one-winged angel?
She sighed in relief as Anko finally found a rhythm.
"Thanks..." the demonkin girl said weakly.
"What kind of demon did Maledict make you? Do you need a certain flavor of mana to eat?" Malz hadn’t been able to recognize Anko’s type of demon, though she’d guessed a gnossinian. She’d never brought it up before. "Try not to say to much," she added, seeing Anko’s breath catch a little.
"No type... made unique... for his son..." she groaned. "I don’t know what I eat..."
For soone nad Kir, Anko rembered. Anko had said his na, thinking the demon in the stone house was him. She’d half expected the man to be Maledict, until she’d seen his face. He said he wasn’t him though.
Anko had likely been more pained than she let on - the girl had a stubborn streak Malz only discovered because she was injured. Malz thought it was entirely possible the girl might be at a hallucinatory stage.
"Need to tell him... I was... Nona..." Anko jerked and Malz held her down.
"Focus, Anko. Keep breathing. Just keep doing it until I say stop, and warn if you think you’ll fall asleep." She slipped her hand into one of the demon’s. "Just squeeze and I’ll wake you up. Try not to speak." It could take hours or days for soone to beco tempered.
Assuming Anko was close to what a pre-training Executioner would be like, it should take hours... But she’s injured. This might kill her even if she does succeed.
No. Don’t think about that. Just focus on what’s in front of you...
She focused and resud guiding Anko, occasionally drifting into silent thoughts of what she would to do the asshole demon if Anko died. She let the thoughts pass through her no matter how unrealistic the punishnts were. If he was as powerful as the abundant mana around him made him seem, he should have been perfectly capable of containing his own mana...
Unless he couldn’t. Or if whatever he was doing inside the house necessitated a lack of containnt...
Malz looked at the falling motes once more, noticing how they curved away well above them.
He is keeping them out... she thought as Ferro fussed about with the canvas of the tent. She remained where she was when he finally pulled it over her and Anko, before slipping inside and producing a small true fla. Her experience of them was unpleasant - like having an icicle pass through where they touched. They’re not particularly harmful... unless there is so harm the stranger knows about?
Although oxygen was thinner up here, they were unlikely to suffocate. After only a few minutes, she started to feel warr, exhaling a surge of relief as Anko’s struggles eased.
Ti fell into a rhythm of keeping Anko awake, eating, and having quiet conversations with Ferro. The more Malz learned about the strange catkin, the more she liked him. His ability to continuously maintain a fla impressed her enough to ask about taking a longer look at the book he considered so precious.
"The notetaker was ticulous, but so of his musings seem to be the reverse of what is true," she comnted when she felt too tired to reread through the eighth experint in the book. It was a verification that gravity on Ayther was exactly ten ters per second squared - he used the word instead of asures, even though they ant the sa thing. And why wouldn’t it be? He seed to think it too much of a coincidence when it was obvious to her that the standard asure might have been partially based on gravity’s acceleration. What followed the experintal notes was ideas on applying acceleration equations to magic that any combat angel worth her wings would know from tertiary education.
"The opposite of what you know may also be true," Ferro said. "It’s sothing Aidaeb said to ..."
"What were they like?" Malz asked. "Truly." Before, Ferro had kept his descriptions few. If he was right, the thought of one of the creator gods being insane left an anxious feeling in her heart, especially since the sky tore open.
The catkin’s ears drooped as he thought. Malz recognized the look of soone readying to ease bad news. She took the chance to return his book.
"They were... relieved. They talked about starting over a lot, but never told what it ant. Sotis it felt like they were talking about Ayther, but then they would stop and wonder about ’finding a new star’." He sighed, turning his attention to the compass, which was simply pulsing, as if happy to be in the field of black mana. The star in its cage gave off light in the colors of magic, but not enough to see by.
Malz refrained from comnting. There was speculation that all stars were like the sun, but no angel was seriously interested in investigating, even out of boredom. It was just common knowledge that they were too distant to care about.
And then Ferro continued. "Sotis... they talked about their children... them and Eyko."
"Do you an specific children or the angels, demons, and myriad?" Malz asked.
"Humanity," Ferro said, almost a sigh. "Humans were the template. The first and oldest... we we all ca from them." He looked her in the eyes, "Including the angels. Including the demons."
"That is... not what I was taught," Malz said. Humans had been considered the progenitors of the Myriad, but angels were above the Myriad. That was what Heaven’s wisdom dictated. Malz realized that even though she’d been highly critical of Heaven’s so-called wisdom, she’d accepted so truths without question. She’d actually thought herself a superior being, despite intellectually understanding argunts for fundantal equality.
After explaining her thoughts to Ferro, she concluded, "... and here I am. Less than a demon..."
"Magic isn’t everything," Ferro said sincerely. "It wasn’t power that drove Aidaeb and Eyko to create everything. It was love. And that sa love drove them to keep Shin’Gir dead... until Aidaeb was finally ready."
Malz found Ferro’s idea captivating. "Ready for what, though? The end of the world?"
"They didn’t say. I’m just the ssenger, and I don’t know what I’m delivering or who it’s for. But the man in that house is a part of this... Even if he’s not the man I wanted to et." Ferro’s hands tightened around his book.
Malz inhaled a long breath, letting her swirling thoughts stream until she was ready to breathe again.
"Alright. I’ve decided," she said. "As soon as Anko is tempered, I’m breaking down that door."
"Why?" Ferro asked. "Maybe we’re just supposed to wait."
"Because I want to know what the fuck is going on. And because you deserve to."
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