From Ashes
2303 words
2303 words
To her own surprise, Ignis woke up. She had been so certain she died. That the draconic hellfire the enlil failed to cure herself of consumed her. Contrary to experience and expectations, her eyes opened. Was this the afterlife? The familiar sight of budding voroflammae bushes, soil darkened with ashes, and charred, crumbling wood suggested otherwise. This was Natum, the natural plane. A place she had infected with demonic dragon fire and one of the largest casualties of Ignis' impulsive behavior. What kind of person dragged an entire plane of existence into their problems? She did, apparently.
The air was cooler than it had been on previous visits to the natural plane. The lack of smoke was strange. The absence of the crackling sound that accompanied most fires was strangely loud. A thick pile of cooling ashes served as her only cushion on the hard, cracked soil. She sat up gingerly and lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the light filtering through the dense canopy above. Why was she here? Ignis had feared she'd wake up in Infernalis once those accursed flames caught up with her. Instead, the natural plane was yet to give up its claim on her soul.
“Now what?” Ignis asked aloud, not speaking to anyone in particular.
She climbed to her feet with stiff, clumsy movements. The engineer observed her half finished project and tried not to think of all the unfinished devices and experiments she left behind on the mortal plane. The voroflammae had spread, adding color to the charred landscape. Large, barren patches of dry and cracked soil still stretched out yet to be claimed by the fire eating plants. Had they finally consumed the last of the hellish flames? That didn’t mean her work here was done. The trees were still sparse this close to the top of the hill she’d crashed into like a burning meteor of hellfire. A patchy layer of ashes scattered between the shrubbery and few remaining trees.
Ignis dusted herself off and shook out her feathers, emitting a sizable cloud of ashes. That made the avian cough and then frown. Coughing should have hurt. A lot. Ignis' feathery brow furrowed. She recalled the injuries she suffered before going up in flames. Slowly, the avian woman flexed her limbs, hands, and feet to check for any signs of injury. Nothing.
“That's not right,” Ignis muttered, “I should have bruises, burns, scrapes, something. Maybe I am dead.”
She regarded the shrubs with more scrutiny. Thin branches with thick, fleshy leaves crept across the ground. Their vibrant, red leaves shimmered with a hint of gold. Some of the shrubs had golden leaves with a red tinge. Had they evolved in the short time since the Black Poral? Was this a natural variation of the new species of shrub? The avian peered at the pile of ashes she'd climbed out of with renewed attention. Ignis' breath caught in her throat.
“Bone fragments… are those mine?” a light breeze drowned out her horrified whisper.
Ignis didn't notice her knees growing weak until they buckled and deposited her on the ground. She landed with a mixture of rustling leaves and snapping twigs.
“Is this it?”
Only moments before, she had been talking to Deni about the consequences of her own actions finally catching up with her. Ignis somehow didn't expect this to be her fate. Maybe she'd die and never see or feel another thing. Or she'd wake up in hell for her criminal negligence. But this? What was she supposed to do now? The enlil reached up and plucked a sooty feather from her head. The stinging pain was faint. She held it between her forefinger and her thumb and stared at it.
“What am I now?”
Ignis sat quietly, unable to put together a single coherent thought. Tears streaked her cheeks with grey smudges.
Some time later (the day-night cycles of Mortalis were meaningless here) the avian sniffled and wiped her face dry. As much as despair weighed her down, inaction was starting to feel itchy. There had to be something she could do. She just needed to figure out what. Her life depended on it. Then again, her life had been hanging in the balance for months without motivating Ignis to find a solution. Guilt twisted in her stomach at the memory of Deni’s pained face and Amicus with his outstretched arms. What about Aeria? Could she really accept leaving those three behind without a fight?
Once more, she regarded the fire eating shrubs and recalled the desperate fervor with which she tried to propagate the voroflammae. The lack of in-depth understanding of plant life frustrated her and gnawed at her sanity in those frantic, manic moments. It only served to fuel the panic and frustration pushing her along. Countless books and articles about gardening, botany, and even alchemy failed to give a clear answer for how to make the plants grow faster to soak up all the flames. Information about Natum’s environment was even more scarce.
When had she given up? Did her desire to repair the damage her mistakes cause burn up bit by bit with each visit to Natum, burned away by the sight of those horrid black flames? Amicus would've yanked out another handful of feathers for her self-pity were he here to see it. A hoarse laugh slipped past her dry, cracked lips.
Finally, the avian stood. With shaky steps, she wandered down a series of large stone steps jutting out from the hillside and in the direction of a river. Her time in Natum had always been short, limiting any exploration of the natural plane. Distant birdsong and the rustle of a brisk wind through the branches above her head slowly gave way to the sound of rushing water. Ignis whistled a melancholy tune she'd heard somewhere before. When she broke through the treeline, a steep drop off met her as the forested hill transitioned sharply into a series of grassy hills.
When she approached the river, scaly winged creatures scattered from the shore and flew away. Compared to the dragon that nearly burned her to death, these were little more than brightly colored geckos with wings. Sunlight glinted off their scales and feathers as they fled her cursed presence. A rainbow of fish flitted away, disappearing beneath rocks or fallen logs. The water was still green. It reflected daylight with enough intensity to make Ignis squint as she approached.
The cold water shocked her. Ignis waded in until it nearly reached her chest. Dark streams trailed away from her body as the ashes in her feathers loosened and slipped free. She aided the process with several handfuls of coarse sand. Much preening and flapping followed, not unlike a bird in a puddle. When the bird-like woman finally returned to shore, she was shivering but clean. Ignis found a large, flat rock to perch on while she finished preening her feathers. Excess moisture plastered the rust colored down on her torso to her skin. Unlike the smoother feathers that extended from her upper arm to her hip, these feathers would need quite some time to dry properly without a towel.
Flopping onto her back, Ignis closed her eyes and tried to think. It was a shame she didn't have a notebook. Or clothes. The latter would've been a bigger problem without feathers. Was trying to fashion clothing from the local plant life worth the effort? Probably not. At least, not before she had a plan. Priority number one was….
Where do I even start? she thought to herself.
Her eyes opened and then squinted under the bright sky and scant clouds above. They shifted back and forth, tracking the movement of a particularly wispy cloud. Did the clouds here form when water vapor condensed around bits of whatever happened to be in the air in the natural plane? Or was that a phenomenon limited to the mortal plane? It didn't matter. Getting out of here mattered. Finding out whether leaving mattered. Tracking down the strange and alien creatures that confronted Ignis the second time she'd come here mattered. Well, that probably mattered. It was her only lead, after all.
The oak ent seemed confident she could deal with the flames. The centaur doubted her. He probably found some satisfaction in her demise. Her alleged demise, Ignis amended the thought. There wasn't solid evidence she was dead. Could she die? The ent mentioned something about being half mortal. Was only her mortal half dead? Could her fraying connection to the mortal realm be repaired? If it was gone…
“Wait.” Ignis’ racing thoughts slowed after she spoke.
“Amicus isn't here,” she mumbled. A hand lifted to fuss with her head feathers. “Is he my only connection to the mortal plane now?”
The enlil began to pace while she contemplated the significance of leaving her familiar behind. In hindsight, there wasn't any reason to believe that was possible. Every other time she'd come here, Amicus had gone with her. The flames didn't hurt him. Why had she thought this time would be different? That wasn't a thought so much as a hunch. A feeling.
“Was that my mortal body then?” Ignis wondered aloud, recalling the bone fragments.
Technically, as long as Amicus remained in the mortal plane, she was alive. Well, connected to Mortalis was probably more accurate. Alive or dead meant a lot less right now. If she could return to the mortal plane such intricacies wouldn't even matter. Did she need a physical body to return?
Ignis tugged at her feathers. It didn't give the same sense of clarity as when Amicus did it. She missed that chubby shrub. All the same, the enlil found it hard to regret leaving him with Deni. Better to keep him safe than risk her best friend going up in flames alongside her. The fire that consumed her this last time felt wrong. Reckless as she was, Ignis couldn't bear the thought of putting Amicus in harm's way yet again. Not after they'd barely survived dragging Deni out of that burning building. Even then, Ignis was the reason the fire existed to begin with.
Maybe there was some value in learning to be more responsible and less impulsive. Ignis discarded the thought in favor of trying to recall where she'd last seen the oak ent or its birch friend. The ents were probably the friendliest creatures she knew of in this plane. The centaur was just as likely to put her down as help. Probably more likely to end Ignis. The Sidhe were… she just didn't know enough about them to even try searching. Even if they appreciated her freeing one of their kin, Ignis was in no hurry to see Arlene again. The dog (it probably wasn't a mere canine) didn't express hostility. The dog…
Ignis' brows furrowed while she tried to remember something important about the massive dog.
A low “woof” startled her.
With an undignified squawk, the enlil scrambled to her feet. Her talons scraped against the stone as she worked to gain balance. She had to look up to meet the dark creature’s gaze as it loomed over her.
“Ah…” Ignis remembered why the dog was significant.
Its emerald eyes bored into hers.
“I forgot you've been watching.” The enlil shuffled her feet awkwardly.
The dog continued staring.
“Could… could you tell me about what happened this time?”
It sniffed her, then made a sort of chuffing sound. Despite the lack of discernable expression on the beast’s face, it seemed to be weighing its options.
“Oh. That's going to incur even greater debt, isn't it?”
Another chuff.
“I should have done more research when I had the chance.” The enlil sighed.
Ignis had done some research but detailed information about the planes wasn't so easily found. Most books accessible to the public gave general descriptions of one or more planes of existence. Some described theories about the planes aside from the mortal one. Others claimed to describe detailed information but presented limited evidence at best and conflicting evidence at worst. Publicly available sources could only tell her so much. The research hidden away within the Arcanum’s tower was more convincing but difficult and expensive to access.
The engineer squinted as if the action would help her recall some of the better research she'd read. Weren't there a few unusual articles discussing the connection between planes? The paper described a handful of case studies involving inter-planar travel. Most of the cases weren't well documented but the analysis of possible mechanisms for moving between planes of reality had been…
A bark interrupted Ignis' thoughts.
“Sorry,” she muttered, blinking rapidly. “I assume you're here because there's something I need to know or need to do.”
The dog's tail wagged a few times. It turned and trotted up a grassy slope and towards impossibly dense foliage. Ignis followed for lack of a better plan. The avian allowed her eyes to wander, taking in the massive ferns, even larger trees splashed with glowing moss, and thick shrubbery. Then, she noticed a new yet familiar plant. Short shrubs with sparse, red and gold leaves dotted the landscape. Faded memories of the twig Amicus had given her over a year ago surfaced.
Ignis crouched near one of the little plants and traced a leaf with one finger before yanking her hand back.
“It’s hot to the touch…” she mumbled to herself, wondering how the bush ended up here of all places. The voroflammae only seemed to extend to the edge of the area originally affected by the demonic hellfire. They’d slowly thinned out before disappearing as she left the burned area and entered the untouched parts of the forest on the hill. “Strange,” the engineer muttered. When she looked up, the dog was gone.