Ignis of Animi
Member
Ignis opened her mouth before her eyes. It stretched wide in a silent scream. Amicus’ stasis spell had worn off and the two had returned to their own bodies during their blackout.
Amicus rustled, startled awake. He rushed over to Ignis, hurrying to stabilize her injuries and ease her pain. They locked eyes, minds still somewhat tangled. They shared a thought.
The mons infans guided Ignis through a prayer to Castus, helping her focus on pleas for healing. It took little prompting for the enlil to beg for help, some sort of relief. The hard part was focusing and channeling that request to the proper deity. Having her injuries reset was helpful, but clinging to the meditative state was still no easy task.
When her prayers were finally answered, Ignis gasped as the sensation of ice water engulfed her. She panted quietly, shivering on the cave’s frosty stone floor, nose flaring after each sharp intake of breath. A tight sensation on her leg elicited a raspy groan from the enlil as her leg began to set itself, the bones squeezed back into place by Castus’ power.
Her fingers curled as if trying to grasp Castus’ grace and keep it from leaving her. Despite her best efforts, the cold, tingly sensation faded from her body, leaving Ignis cold and exhausted. Ignis’ eyes fluttered closed. Her body felt heavy, as if she were weighted down. Each eyelid was like a brick, each limb a bag of wet concrete. Amicus lay on her chest, curling up to watch over Ignis until she recovered.
Unable to speak properly, the engineer simply pushed her feelings of relief and gratefulness towards Amicus through their empathic bond. The mons infans rustled in response.
A ghost of a smile crossed her lips before fading along with Ignis’ consciousness.
When Ignis next opened her eyes, her body ached, but the pain wasn’t as overwhelming or intense as it had been before. Her tongue had swollen to fill her mouth and her lips were dry and cracking. She rolled to her stomach and pulled her arms and legs beneath her. With difficulty she pushed herself up to her hands and needs. The avian began to crawl towards the water, speeding up once the rock beneath her palms was wet.
Ignis dipped her hands into the water, ignoring the way the cold sent sharp, stabbing pains through her fingers and sipped at it. Her teeth ached, but the avian was just so thirsty she kept drinking and scooping water to raise to her lips until her throat was numb and her head throbbed dully. Roughly, she dragged her hands against her cloak to dry them, fingers stiff. Then, Ignis withdrew her hands into the folds of her cloak and tucked them beneath her armpits to warm them. She winced at the sensation, but kept her hands in place until her fingers could move.
In the dark, the enlil could only make out vague shapes. She closed her eyes and began to mumble a prayer to Aquila, “A heavy pall yields to the warmth of light, amid piercing chill a strong heat burns bright, the moral world fades to bare mystic rite.” Hands clasped within her cloak, head bowed, Ignis concentrated on the deity, mind drifting to memories of her mother leading her in prayers to Aquila.
Ignis stood before a small alter her mother had constructed, a nest of twigs and fur, and bits of leaves. In it, a stone figurine of Aquila perched, surrounded by berries and flowers gathered by Ignis.
Corvis wrapped an arm around her daughter, hugging the small enlil child to her side.
“Aquila the Bulwark, master of the skies, we thank you for your gifts. You bless our hearths with warmth and our wings with flight. You shield us from harm and steady our steps along the rocky path.”
“Thank you Aquila!” Ignis chimed in, excited.
Corvis lit a stick of incense and set it on the altar.
When she opened her eyes, the cave was bathed in shades of blue and purple. A glance down at herself showed that she glowed a variety of red and oranges. Similarly, Amicus glowed with warmth from his body heat. She fluffed her feathers and drew him into her cloak to keep them warm, noting the weakness of their colors.
Looking back down the tunnel she’d used to get to this part of the cave system, she saw nothing but blues and violets. Cold.
Ignis closed her eyes once more, focusing on the prayer again for a few moments. When her lids lifted, she could see visae swirling around herself and Amicus --their magical energy. The pool she’d drunk from was dull. Vague traces of magical energy lead back out of the cave. She began to walk towards the swirling “light”. Perhaps it would lead her to a being that could be convinced to help her out of this icy maze.
The spell that had set her broken bones was beginning to wear off, Ignis could feel it. The sharp pain in her ribs grew with each inhale, hardly subsiding as she released visible puffs of warm air into the dark and cold. Each step aggravated her leg.
The engineer slowed her pace, body sagging. She fell backwards, caught by a familiar floating platform of vines, twigs and leaves. She nodded towards her familiar in thanks.
Amicus merely rustled his leaves and pulled himself up onto the floating platform. They continued further down the long, narrow stretch of rock and ice.
Ignis released the spell that had allowed her to track traces of magical energy in the icy caverns and turned her attention to prayer. She asked Castus for healing and relief, to reset her injuries and knit her back together. Typically, the pale woman was more attuned to Aquila, however the eagle’s protections and gifts had limited applications in the caves beneath these frigid Arctoan ruins. No, that wasn’t quite right, it had been a Aquila spell that allowed her to find any direction down here. Perhaps this situation was more than what one of the Vis could handle. It required the attention of two rather than her usual aquiline patron.
Her prayers had been answered at a cost. The pain of her injuries had been dulled and the worst of her flesh wounds vanished, bones set, and path found for the low price of her energy. The constant use of vigor to main the spells keeping her going had taken its toll. She needed rest. However, now that she was no longer walking, warmth would be difficult to maintain. Ignis’ feathers insulated her well, especially with the heavy basilisk skin cloak adding another layer. Even so, sitting still meant she would stop generating heat from movement and slowly grow cold.
Summoning the strength from the dregs of her energy, Ignis began to pray one last time.
“Banish the frostfall and invigorate the circulation, where sweat beads upon the brow let fever know abjuratio, thunder rolls the sky but deny the bolt its fulmination.”
Her brown knit as in concentration as the red-feathered enlil murmured the words. Her focus started to drift, but the avian persevered through sheer bullheadedness until she felt a warm aura surrounding her. With a sigh of relief, Ignis relaxed and her world went dark once more.
Throbbing pain woke Ignis from her heavy slumber. A sleepy sound rasped in the back of her throat. Despite the spell she had cast, the engineer was cold and stiff again and dangerously so.
“Aquila,” she called out before reciting the prayer again.
Nothing happened.
“Don’t leave me here where I can’t even see the sky!” the enlil cried out in a cracked and pitiful tone.
Tears forming and freezing as they reached her cheeks, the pale woman tried again, begging for warmth and protection. For a blessing, to escape this dark pit alive.
The pull on her magical energy was something Ignis felt quite intimately, followed by warmth. As is common when one has gotten too cold, reheating sent sharp pains shooting up her finger tips and across every bit of her skin. It felt as though every part of her were shut in a door being pressed closed as tightly as possible. A thousand imaginary pixies pinched her with thin, spindly fingers.
Ignis screamed.
Once the pain faded, she panted raggedly, collapsing to the floor. She had been writhing without noticing. With a grunt, the enlil righted herself and began more prayers to Castus, promising the Immaculate One an altar in her home if only it would make it go away.
By the time she finished begging Castus for help, Ignis’ protective aura from the Aquila spell was fading. However, her leg only ached vaguely and her ribs were mostly healed. The red-feathered enil returned her attention to Aquila to restore her magic-enhanced sight. Finding the source of that visae was her only hope. She had a gut feeling that it was the only way out.
Ignis released a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding when the reddish-purple hue of the magical energy came into view. She walked forward as if pulled by a string.
Each time the magic began to fade, the engineer recast the spell and trudged on. It went like this until her eyes burned from the strain and her breaths came shorter and quicker. Yet, her body kept moving almost against her will.
The compulsion became more obvious when at last, Ignis could no longer see that purple and red trail, yet continued to follow the magic to its source.
Amicus clutched at her feathers tightly with worry.
Ignis paid him no mind.
When she began to see light again, faded as it was, the enlil squinted. Was she dreaming? No, her eyes stung sharply. It had to be real. Dreams didn’t hurt. Numbly, the engineer stumbled into a well-lit alcove to see a simple room. The walls were stone, but they were smoother than the craggy sides of the tunnels she’d wandered through to get here.
She turned around and the entrance she’d walked through was gone.
“What…?” Ignis gave the room a closer look, taking note of the green banners with swirling, golden patterns. Blue symbols were etched into the ceiling, glowing mysteriously. Was it some sort of enchantment? Stone benches along two of the walls held various scattered papers and covered in some ancient scrawl like the markings she had seen in other parts of the ruins. Deep green rugs were placed in front of the benches, as if to help someone stand there for long periods of time without discomfort.
A rectangular stone altar sat in the center of the room. Its smooth surface appeared to be made from quartz while the short pillar supporting it from below was some dark grey stone much like the cave system’s walls. In the center of the table sat what appeared to be a circlet. The circlet was made of a smooth, white material, resembling thin branches stripped of their bark.
Ignis approached it carefully, the call of this object even stronger than before. She narrowed her eyes.
Come closer.
“What are you?” the avian asked aloud.
I am of the Good People… the Sidhe…
The circlet glowed a bright white color and transformed into a tall, slim young woman. Her hair was silver and gold, brushing the tops of her feet and she was swathed in fine fabrics that accentuated her figure with gathers and overlapping layers.
I have been waiting a long time.
“What for?”
The creature came closer, leaning down to peer into Ignis’ eyes with pale, tawny colored ones.
Yes, you’ll do. Take my hand. If you help me, I’ll help you escape from here.
“What do you want?” Ignis stepped backwards.
I need to get away from here. There is an iron deposit below this chamber and it makes me sick, but you, you’re strong. It has no effect on you or your companion. You’re the only person who has been able to hear me in ages. I never thought I’d see another planes walker.
“I’ll help you,” the enlil heard herself say.
You promise? the being grasped one of Ignis’ cold hands between her own smooth ones.
“Sure.”
Great! I’ll repay you this favor, you won’t regret it.
The ethereal woman faded from sight, leaving behind the wooden circlet, which floated down to settle atop Ignis’ own head.
“Wait a minute! You never explained how we were going to get out of here!” Ignis shouted, but the room was empty, echoing her own voice back to her. She reached up to take the circlet from her head and inspect it, but it wouldn’t move.
“Vis-dammit.”
[2139]
Amicus rustled, startled awake. He rushed over to Ignis, hurrying to stabilize her injuries and ease her pain. They locked eyes, minds still somewhat tangled. They shared a thought.
The mons infans guided Ignis through a prayer to Castus, helping her focus on pleas for healing. It took little prompting for the enlil to beg for help, some sort of relief. The hard part was focusing and channeling that request to the proper deity. Having her injuries reset was helpful, but clinging to the meditative state was still no easy task.
When her prayers were finally answered, Ignis gasped as the sensation of ice water engulfed her. She panted quietly, shivering on the cave’s frosty stone floor, nose flaring after each sharp intake of breath. A tight sensation on her leg elicited a raspy groan from the enlil as her leg began to set itself, the bones squeezed back into place by Castus’ power.
Her fingers curled as if trying to grasp Castus’ grace and keep it from leaving her. Despite her best efforts, the cold, tingly sensation faded from her body, leaving Ignis cold and exhausted. Ignis’ eyes fluttered closed. Her body felt heavy, as if she were weighted down. Each eyelid was like a brick, each limb a bag of wet concrete. Amicus lay on her chest, curling up to watch over Ignis until she recovered.
Unable to speak properly, the engineer simply pushed her feelings of relief and gratefulness towards Amicus through their empathic bond. The mons infans rustled in response.
A ghost of a smile crossed her lips before fading along with Ignis’ consciousness.
When Ignis next opened her eyes, her body ached, but the pain wasn’t as overwhelming or intense as it had been before. Her tongue had swollen to fill her mouth and her lips were dry and cracking. She rolled to her stomach and pulled her arms and legs beneath her. With difficulty she pushed herself up to her hands and needs. The avian began to crawl towards the water, speeding up once the rock beneath her palms was wet.
Ignis dipped her hands into the water, ignoring the way the cold sent sharp, stabbing pains through her fingers and sipped at it. Her teeth ached, but the avian was just so thirsty she kept drinking and scooping water to raise to her lips until her throat was numb and her head throbbed dully. Roughly, she dragged her hands against her cloak to dry them, fingers stiff. Then, Ignis withdrew her hands into the folds of her cloak and tucked them beneath her armpits to warm them. She winced at the sensation, but kept her hands in place until her fingers could move.
In the dark, the enlil could only make out vague shapes. She closed her eyes and began to mumble a prayer to Aquila, “A heavy pall yields to the warmth of light, amid piercing chill a strong heat burns bright, the moral world fades to bare mystic rite.” Hands clasped within her cloak, head bowed, Ignis concentrated on the deity, mind drifting to memories of her mother leading her in prayers to Aquila.
Ignis stood before a small alter her mother had constructed, a nest of twigs and fur, and bits of leaves. In it, a stone figurine of Aquila perched, surrounded by berries and flowers gathered by Ignis.
Corvis wrapped an arm around her daughter, hugging the small enlil child to her side.
“Aquila the Bulwark, master of the skies, we thank you for your gifts. You bless our hearths with warmth and our wings with flight. You shield us from harm and steady our steps along the rocky path.”
“Thank you Aquila!” Ignis chimed in, excited.
Corvis lit a stick of incense and set it on the altar.
When she opened her eyes, the cave was bathed in shades of blue and purple. A glance down at herself showed that she glowed a variety of red and oranges. Similarly, Amicus glowed with warmth from his body heat. She fluffed her feathers and drew him into her cloak to keep them warm, noting the weakness of their colors.
Looking back down the tunnel she’d used to get to this part of the cave system, she saw nothing but blues and violets. Cold.
Ignis closed her eyes once more, focusing on the prayer again for a few moments. When her lids lifted, she could see visae swirling around herself and Amicus --their magical energy. The pool she’d drunk from was dull. Vague traces of magical energy lead back out of the cave. She began to walk towards the swirling “light”. Perhaps it would lead her to a being that could be convinced to help her out of this icy maze.
The spell that had set her broken bones was beginning to wear off, Ignis could feel it. The sharp pain in her ribs grew with each inhale, hardly subsiding as she released visible puffs of warm air into the dark and cold. Each step aggravated her leg.
The engineer slowed her pace, body sagging. She fell backwards, caught by a familiar floating platform of vines, twigs and leaves. She nodded towards her familiar in thanks.
Amicus merely rustled his leaves and pulled himself up onto the floating platform. They continued further down the long, narrow stretch of rock and ice.
Ignis released the spell that had allowed her to track traces of magical energy in the icy caverns and turned her attention to prayer. She asked Castus for healing and relief, to reset her injuries and knit her back together. Typically, the pale woman was more attuned to Aquila, however the eagle’s protections and gifts had limited applications in the caves beneath these frigid Arctoan ruins. No, that wasn’t quite right, it had been a Aquila spell that allowed her to find any direction down here. Perhaps this situation was more than what one of the Vis could handle. It required the attention of two rather than her usual aquiline patron.
Her prayers had been answered at a cost. The pain of her injuries had been dulled and the worst of her flesh wounds vanished, bones set, and path found for the low price of her energy. The constant use of vigor to main the spells keeping her going had taken its toll. She needed rest. However, now that she was no longer walking, warmth would be difficult to maintain. Ignis’ feathers insulated her well, especially with the heavy basilisk skin cloak adding another layer. Even so, sitting still meant she would stop generating heat from movement and slowly grow cold.
Summoning the strength from the dregs of her energy, Ignis began to pray one last time.
“Banish the frostfall and invigorate the circulation, where sweat beads upon the brow let fever know abjuratio, thunder rolls the sky but deny the bolt its fulmination.”
Her brown knit as in concentration as the red-feathered enlil murmured the words. Her focus started to drift, but the avian persevered through sheer bullheadedness until she felt a warm aura surrounding her. With a sigh of relief, Ignis relaxed and her world went dark once more.
Throbbing pain woke Ignis from her heavy slumber. A sleepy sound rasped in the back of her throat. Despite the spell she had cast, the engineer was cold and stiff again and dangerously so.
“Aquila,” she called out before reciting the prayer again.
Nothing happened.
“Don’t leave me here where I can’t even see the sky!” the enlil cried out in a cracked and pitiful tone.
Tears forming and freezing as they reached her cheeks, the pale woman tried again, begging for warmth and protection. For a blessing, to escape this dark pit alive.
The pull on her magical energy was something Ignis felt quite intimately, followed by warmth. As is common when one has gotten too cold, reheating sent sharp pains shooting up her finger tips and across every bit of her skin. It felt as though every part of her were shut in a door being pressed closed as tightly as possible. A thousand imaginary pixies pinched her with thin, spindly fingers.
Ignis screamed.
Once the pain faded, she panted raggedly, collapsing to the floor. She had been writhing without noticing. With a grunt, the enlil righted herself and began more prayers to Castus, promising the Immaculate One an altar in her home if only it would make it go away.
By the time she finished begging Castus for help, Ignis’ protective aura from the Aquila spell was fading. However, her leg only ached vaguely and her ribs were mostly healed. The red-feathered enil returned her attention to Aquila to restore her magic-enhanced sight. Finding the source of that visae was her only hope. She had a gut feeling that it was the only way out.
Ignis released a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding when the reddish-purple hue of the magical energy came into view. She walked forward as if pulled by a string.
Each time the magic began to fade, the engineer recast the spell and trudged on. It went like this until her eyes burned from the strain and her breaths came shorter and quicker. Yet, her body kept moving almost against her will.
The compulsion became more obvious when at last, Ignis could no longer see that purple and red trail, yet continued to follow the magic to its source.
Amicus clutched at her feathers tightly with worry.
Ignis paid him no mind.
When she began to see light again, faded as it was, the enlil squinted. Was she dreaming? No, her eyes stung sharply. It had to be real. Dreams didn’t hurt. Numbly, the engineer stumbled into a well-lit alcove to see a simple room. The walls were stone, but they were smoother than the craggy sides of the tunnels she’d wandered through to get here.
She turned around and the entrance she’d walked through was gone.
“What…?” Ignis gave the room a closer look, taking note of the green banners with swirling, golden patterns. Blue symbols were etched into the ceiling, glowing mysteriously. Was it some sort of enchantment? Stone benches along two of the walls held various scattered papers and covered in some ancient scrawl like the markings she had seen in other parts of the ruins. Deep green rugs were placed in front of the benches, as if to help someone stand there for long periods of time without discomfort.
A rectangular stone altar sat in the center of the room. Its smooth surface appeared to be made from quartz while the short pillar supporting it from below was some dark grey stone much like the cave system’s walls. In the center of the table sat what appeared to be a circlet. The circlet was made of a smooth, white material, resembling thin branches stripped of their bark.
Ignis approached it carefully, the call of this object even stronger than before. She narrowed her eyes.
Come closer.
“What are you?” the avian asked aloud.
I am of the Good People… the Sidhe…
The circlet glowed a bright white color and transformed into a tall, slim young woman. Her hair was silver and gold, brushing the tops of her feet and she was swathed in fine fabrics that accentuated her figure with gathers and overlapping layers.
I have been waiting a long time.
“What for?”
The creature came closer, leaning down to peer into Ignis’ eyes with pale, tawny colored ones.
Yes, you’ll do. Take my hand. If you help me, I’ll help you escape from here.
“What do you want?” Ignis stepped backwards.
I need to get away from here. There is an iron deposit below this chamber and it makes me sick, but you, you’re strong. It has no effect on you or your companion. You’re the only person who has been able to hear me in ages. I never thought I’d see another planes walker.
“I’ll help you,” the enlil heard herself say.
You promise? the being grasped one of Ignis’ cold hands between her own smooth ones.
“Sure.”
Great! I’ll repay you this favor, you won’t regret it.
The ethereal woman faded from sight, leaving behind the wooden circlet, which floated down to settle atop Ignis’ own head.
“Wait a minute! You never explained how we were going to get out of here!” Ignis shouted, but the room was empty, echoing her own voice back to her. She reached up to take the circlet from her head and inspect it, but it wouldn’t move.
“Vis-dammit.”
[2139]