In the steps of Eternity

Forward: Part 1

Faint light shimmers across my skin as warmth circulates my whole body. I feel what it is like to be alive. With a deep breath I exhale and the shimmer turns to grand luminescence. The world around me is bathed in what seems to be an endless sea of shifting colors.

Minutes trickle by as a great pain seizes my chest before a muffled beat resounds through my ears. Ba-thump. What could this be I barely manage to think beyond my rising pain. Ba-thump it sounds again before my vision fades to black. Feeling myself slip before landing into comfort.

My eyes open to find an endless expanse before me. Darkness stretching for an eternity in all directions. “Ah. Here again.” I think to myself before I catch my very thought echoing through the void in hushed whispers.

As I lay drifting in the darkness I feel a warm current pass by my skin. Turning to look at the source I find a trickle of light starting to pierce through the dark depths of the void. Shifting myself I wish to approach the light but I feel a hand clasp my shoulder.

Turning back to see who or what is stopping me, I come face to face with a pure black silhouette. This time however something is vaguely different. I feel a faint shroud of death permeating though the figure. “What is so different from the last time?” I think out loud.

Hearing the thoughts echo through the world the shadow tilts its head as my skin starts to crawl. It smiled in a twisted and creepy manor as if to mock me and my question. But before I could think anymore, the warm current pulled me back, and towards the light. My vision is flooded with blinding light while I am whisked away to where ever I am being dragged to.

Wincing at the light it begins to fade away slowly. Wishing I could sigh at my current predicament I find that I can't even do that.

Bound by Transparent crystal I can't do anything but look at the scene in front of me. Crystals embed the walls of the room I am bound, the crystals seem to spread from where I am. Taking a moment to remember the lessons that I have been given.

Closing my eyes I begin to circulate the Essence of Anima from within my body. Feeling returns to my skin and I realize that the Crystal seems to be more like ice. As it is freezing to the touch and yet it is far more durable.

Forcing the Anima through my body to generate heat the crystal begins to fog and muddle as cracks and fissures begin to wed out from my body. With a c***k, snap and a boom there after, I fall from where my body had been confined.

Exhausted I look around to find that I am in the room given to me by Elvithal.

Taking one deep breath after another I absorb the ambient Anima from the air to replenish what I burned from my own body before standing up and checking myself for any damage.

Looking over myself I realize, that the fabric of my dress had undergone quite a change. The threads themselves pulse now with Anima. It was almost as if the threads of the dress was completely remade with solidified Anima.

Turning towards the door I wander down the halls expecting to meet Elvithal in the main roost. I thought the loud sound would bring him to me, but since it hadn't I worry there might be something wrong.

Each of my steps echo through the quiet halls. The Magic lamps remain dark unlike their usual grandeur. The Halls have become increasingly eerie. Almost like it is an abandoned castle.

Coming to Elvithal's roost. I am greeted with a mortifying sight. Elvithal had been turned into a crystalline statue. Almost as if he was carved from the stuff. Shaking I can't help but slowly step up to his figure.

“My child. You have awoken at last I see.” His voice echos through my mind. My mood soars, hoping that he would be able to just stand up and free himself from his confines, much like I did. Only to find myself to be wallowing in sadness. “The elements have consumed my body and have sealed my soul and essence here. I am Neither alive, nor am I dead as I am. But I can not move from here even if I wished.”

How did this happen!? What is the reason for this? I can't help but wonder over and over as I cling to Elvithal's figure. I am not aware of how much time has passed, but I truly did come to think of him as a Father. Before I could think any further I started circulating the Anima around me unaware of what I was doing.

“Calm yourself child. Now is not the time to lose yourself to emotions.” Elvithal called out to me. Resting myself against his figure I collapsed and cried. “Know, that this is not your fault. I have stepped into a place where even a progenitor has no right to intrude.” he continued with a tone that sounds almost like he was laughing at himself.

As he finished speaking he shared with me the visions of what had happened. That he might save the words. After I had blacked out while training my Anima control, my Anima began to go berserk, releasing Elemental essence of a shocking number into the world around me. Elvithal braved it all and used his own Anima to calm my power. Linking our Anima together he cycled mine and his to calm the flow.

Calming the flow of Anima he had left me in my room, and as he took each step farther and farther away from me. The remaining Anima he had cycled through his body began to change. As his Anima changed it corroded his body and crystallized his body and organs. Laughing at himself as he sat upon his roost, he had barely gotten comfy by the time it finished solidifying.

He was not aware of the fact that I had been sealed in the very same material. As it turns out it was crystallized Anima. But why would my Anima do such a thing? I could only stop to wonder.

“Your Anima, is beyond even my understanding small one. Never have I seen anyone or anything with such vast and even pure Anima, let alone of so many elements.” Elvithal said, but the thing that concerned me the most was that he was sounding weaker every time he said something.

In a very Elvithal fashion he had already caught on and read what I was thinking. “I cannot absorb Anima as a trapped soul. Communicating is taking its toll. And soon I must rest. Whether I wake up again or not I don't know. But know this. Though we have been together for a short time. I am happy to have been able to call you my Kin.”

After he finished talking. No matter how many times I tried to get a response. I was greeted with nothing but silence. Left alone in the Darkness of what was once a Warm and happy place.