Verita - The Guardian of Darkness

66

Finally, the winds ebbed away, leaving the Deep in a state of devastation. Boulders the size of Elanthin herself had been torn out of the abyss' walls and thrown onto the empty Plains. The dark veins in between the barren ground had been emptied; in their stead, deep cracks remained.

The dust began to settle around Aetrian and Elanthin, finally allowing them to properly look each other over. Besides the fact that he was covered in the Plain's dust, Aetrian seemed to be perfectly fine. She felt quite alright herself; if a little shaken up over the prospect of being crushed between layers of abyss stone.

Aetrian visibly breathed out before loosening his grip on the mechanism – and on Elanthin's arm. The device had once looked similar to the one he'd thrown inside the pit of darkness but now it was all melted and blackened. The stone inside had split into shards, which gave off no more than a few weak flickers of ice-blue light.

After helping each other up, Elanthin was the first one to break the silence.

"I truly despise you", she said firmly. She could barely hear her voice over the beating of her own heart.

"I know, I know. But thank the Graces, it really worked. Can you believe that this thing was made to breathe underwater?" Aetrian threw away the melted mechanism without a second thought and started to laugh maniacally, while his eyes were wandering over her dust-covered body. "Oh my ... I really thought that's it. That I've finally done it this time."

Just a second ago, she'd seen her life flash before her eyes. Hearing that he'd felt the same, Aetrian's recovery from what had been a near-death experience was astoundingly fast.

"You ... I have no words for you."

"Oh, but I have quite a lot for you and I know exactly which ones you'll have to hear first", promised Aetrian with a suspicious twinkle in his eyes. Catching her around the waist, he pulled her towards him. "I love you, do you hear me? You can hate me all you want but I'm so glad we get to–"

"Please." Embarrassment washed over Elanthin before she could remember that they were all alone out here. Still, she pushed Aetrian's hands off her leather corset. None of his words could be trusted as long as adrenaline was rushing through his body. "Has the magic turned you mad?"

"It might have, who knows."

His laughter was contagious and Elanthin felt the corners of her mouth rise against her own will. Laying down her arms, quite literally, she gave up on her frown. Her swords met the dirt below their feet with a muffled sound.

"I'm the one who's most relieved", argued Elanthin, while a strange feeling spread from the center of her body.

A soothing emptiness, lacking anything harmful, dispensed the cold which had been part of her for as long as she could remember. All it left behind was a sense of tranquility and a light, engulfing her with warmth. Slowly, it spread out from inside of her until her surroundings became obscured and vague.

"It's good you're alive", she added softly. "Because I haven't told you enough how much I hate you."

While she was speaking, the strange light grew until it swallowed Elanthin whole. Feeling as if she'd been dissolved into a million particles, floating away on a soft sunbeam, she closed her eyes in contentment. From a distant place, she could hear a distressed voice calling out to her, but it didn't matter any more than the passing of the clouds above her.

– FIN –