The sensation of expansion was as frightening as it was thrilling. She ignored the fear as her 'self' stretched and ignored it again when her magic began snapping through restraints she hadn't realized were there. She and her power soon became gargantuan. It was effortless outside of the fear, like stretching out after a long sleep. What she could perceive changed with her, this foreign magic no longer seemed never ending. Instead, she realized, this was a very finite piece of an ancient magic. She didn't bother to try and guess at how or why such a magic would be tangling her brother and Owain's souls together, and instead pressed herself against the power she'd fallen into. It was still huge, and powerful, but with her resolve it was no longer insurmountable. She surged farther and farther out until she could feel the power around her trembling from the effort of resisting. The moment that she broke through was anticlimactic. With little more than a small pop, she was free from the maw and back in the chaos of the storm.
Marcel's magic was the first she encountered on the outside. Rather than trying to keep her 'self' from interacting, this time she encouraged their mingling. It was an invasion, she knew, to go so close to Marcel's soul, however she didn't know how else to find the places where he and Owain were caught together. She flowed through his magic, just skirting the soul she could sense nearby. His magic rippled and shuddered, trying to recoil from her intrusion, but she persisted. The only indication of Owain she could discern was the subtle shift of Marcel's magic from icy to tepid, where the heat of Owain's magic was pressed against it. She stopped at the second intersection she found and pulled herself away from Marcel. Where her magic had been, Marcel's magic was once again much changed, and this time she could sense the way it slowly returned to its normal state. As she drew closer to Owain's magic, the same thing occurred. The closer she was, the more intense and potent his magic became. But where Marcel had seemed to begrudgingly accept her intrusion, Owain bristled in a clear warning. As she approached his magic not only met her head on but slammed against her in a wave of fury. She lost her bearings in the onslaught and struggled not to be pushed away entirely. Owain was relentless, lashing out at her as though she were the one who'd put him in this situation to begin with. And perhaps, she realized, he thought she was. As his fury continued, Reverie tried to use her magic the way she had at the Garden.
It was difficult in this strange place, where she was and also wasn't her 'self'. She couldn't see him the way she normally would have, as she had no physical anchor to attach him to. She relaxed against his magic, embracing it rather than trying to resist it. The anger and defiance seething in him was only more intense as she sank into the magic. Reverie forced herself to ignore the pain of it and traveled closer to where she could feel his soul. It made her sick, thinking about what she was doing, but she promised herself that she would confess it to him and hope her apology and the situation would be enough to excuse her actions. The closer she came, the more intense the heat but she continued on. Reminding herself that here she had no flesh to melt, that the pain could not do any true harm. At least, she hoped it couldn't. When she thought she could not endure any longer, the pain and heat abruptly stopped. She had gone too far, she realized with dread. This was Owain's soul, and she had just crashed through it like a wall. She was so busy fretting over this grievous mistake that it took her several long moments to realize what else had happened. She was standing, on her feet, pinching her left thumb between the fingers of her right hand as she often did in thought.
"What?" She whispered to herself, looking around her in shocked wonder. Where everything had been simply sensation and impressions, she could now see. But she was not simply awake in her body, standing at the foot of the bed where Owain and Marcel lay. This place was dark and made entirely of metal. Beneath her bare feet she could feel faint vibrations, as though she were standing in a tunnel beneath a stampede. There was nothing to indicate which direction she should go, but she had to assume if she wandered, she would eventually find the owner of the soul. She relaxed her magic, as she would do in life, and was startled to see wisps of her physical form wafting away like wisps of smoke. She gasped, and the wisps returned to her. Tentatively, remembering her intent to be bold, she relaxed again. As the wisps left her, she realized it was simply that her body was an illusion made of her magic. Even as it drew away, it was still a part of her.
Comforted by that thought, she sent her magic out in one direction, as she began walking in the other. Everywhere around her, she could still sense Owain's anger and, even more vaguely, his fear. But it was a surprisingly muted sensation, she thought though she had nothing to compare it to. It seemed odd though, that his emotions would not be stifling inside his very soul. She reached out and ran her hands along the metal walls as she walked. They were neutral, no temperature or texture, but unmistakably they were from the ancient magic outside. Had she crashed into the prison Owain was being kept in? Would it be so easy to enter, and would that ease apply to their exit as well?
"Who the fuck are you?" Rumbled a hoarse baritone. Reverie whipped around and gaped at the person glaring back at her. As she had seen him before, he was near death and lying down. Here Owain towered over her and he looked full of enough energy to strangle her to death if she didn't give him a satisfactory answer. She gulped once, twice, three times before she could speak. His dark brown waves hung loosely to the tops of his shoulders, and his finely made mouth was pulled into a frown. His eyes were like raw amber, and they seemed to glow as he watched her. She shifted from one foot to the other and pinched her thumb again, before remembering herself and straightening her back and lifting her chin.
"Your father brought me here, to save you. I am Reverie." She answered, impressed by how steady her voice sounded. His eyes narrowed in thought and he crossed his arms over his chest. The movement drew her eyes to his bare chest, and she snapped her eyes away. She didn't like being near naked men, no matter how attractive they were. Beau had been attractive too, right up until he wasn't.
"My father sent you? You're a child." He finally said. His suspicion was evident on his face, and Reverie swallowed a fast retort.
"Yes, well he was very desperate. You are currently awfully close to dying, after all. I have Whispered magic, which is what has caused this." She said, reaching out to tap the wall. He hissed as her hand contacted it, and to her alarm, seemed to become even more suspicious of her.
When Reverie awakens to her magic, she is hurtled towards a journey fate is determined for her to take. As she leaves behind her life as an orphan in a brothel, to learn painful truths about her family, Reverie can only trust in what she's been taught all her life; "If you want to survive, you must be useful and make use of others." Reverie soon finds herself allied with a group she wouldn't have chosen for herself. Can she survive the gauntlet of trials before her, and learn to take the hands being offered to her? Or will her own doubts be enough to hold her back, and pave way for a calamity several hundred years in the making?
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