Astéri
seek what sets your soul on fire

Astéri gives the chrysalis a single, long, inquisitive sniff, before sitting back on his haunches and sighing. It smells normal, now—no smell of magic, no smell of ozone. Just a plain old colorful rock.

Even its pretty colors can’t dissuade him from his solemn mood.

Before him lies the ashy, crushed remnants of what was once an evil bug; he knows Elroy is gone now, and all that’s left of him is this chrysalis, placed between the shards of the other rocks that somehow crumbled away and vanished between one visit and the next.

He wonders, dimly, what happened to them. Did they break on their own? Did something decide to take them, leaving only remnants?

He won’t let anyone take this chrysalis. Even though he knows Elroy is… is… (he can’t bear to even think the word, the concept; he doesn’t want to cry again) gone, the little lump of his gem that barely goes up to the top of his paw is special to him.

He likes bringing bugs here, killing them in front of the chrysalis; he thinks Elroy would have liked that, that Astéri continues to fight them even after he’s gone.

He misses him a lot. He was a good friend—no, a best friend.

He’ll stay here for a bit longer before moving on; he likes to think that Elroy is still hanging out with him while he’s here.

It makes Astéri feel better about missing him so much.

Astéri
seek what sets your soul on fire

There’s an abrupt crunch—a crackle, even, of breaking stone, a sound that stirs a brief memory of his hatching in this very cave in what feels like an eternity ago, and Astéri looks so sharply up from the crushed remains of the bug in front of him that his neck aches.

What…?

“Elroy?” he asks, softly, one paw lifting to reach out to the stone, cracks spiderwebbing across its surface, and his heart flips. Is this—is this what happened to the other stones? Is this it?

Is he going to lose Elroy’s stone, too?

But, no—there are perforations in the rock, little holes, and the chrysalis shifts ever so slightly to an internal flurry of movement and Astéri realizes with a gasp that those are talons.

Elroy was simply sleeping in his chrysalis—Elroy was alive all along—Elroy is—Elroy is—

The bird all but forces his way out of the gemstone shell, each crack forcing the stone open wider and wider and wider—Astéri springs to his feet without even really realizing it, tail rising slightly in anticipation as he stares with wide firelight eyes at the chrysalis—and there’s a wing and there’s another one and then—

—and then Elroy is out, and Astéri can do nothing but stare.

After all this time pacing in front of the chrysalis and visiting it lots and lots and leaving dead bugs in front of it—there’s a slight stain on the rock in front of him, a testament to just how many times he’d done so—and—and thinking he was dead…

He… he’s not dead.

He’s not dead!

Elroy is here, alive, in front of him, facing the crackling tower of blue rocks and energy that sends prickles across Astéri’s fur—he’s here, and all Astéri can do is stare at him and take him how much he missed him, Elroy’s absence hitting him all at once.

After what feels like a period of forever spent staring at Elroy’s back, Astéri makes himself speak.

“...E—Elroy?”

He almost doesn’t want to say his name; as if acknowledging his presence will make him disappear back into his chrysalis once more, never to be seen again—as if this is just a dream, and doing so will wake him up, and Astéri will find that he’s fallen asleep in front of Elroy’s chrysalis and dreamed about him again.

Please, please—let this be real.

Let Elroy be back.

Please.

Astéri
seek what sets your soul on fire

The lack of response, a widening of eyes—Astéri doesn’t know what Elroy’s thinking at this moment, but he thinks that he just hatched (re-hatched?) from his chrysalis, and maybe he’s just a little confused—he seemed really distracted by the big blue spire—so he takes the moment of shocked silence he gets from Elroy and fills it with a word of his own. “H—hi.”

What happened? When he first visited his chrysalis, when he first discovered it, there was—there was—don’t think about that don’t freak out in front of Elroy he’s already confused it’s okay just think about something else—

’Something’s wrong.’

The statement snaps him back to reality in an instant, Elroy’s panicked voice causing his protective instincts to flare up like wildfire. What’s wrong? What’s going on? There’s nothing around here that Astéri can see, nothing dangerous—in fact, the only things of note around here are him, Elroy, and…

...and the spire, which Elroy seems to be staring up at, feathers puffing up and flaring, and—

—and he’s trembling.

Something’s wrong, indeed. Something’s wrong to make Elroy act like that; something is very wrong indeed.

And when he turns to look back at Astéri, his eyes shine in the light with wetness, and he looks so, so scared.

Astéri takes a step forwards, then another, fur puffing as he looks up at the spire, and he tries to draw himself up to look strong and brave and to be a protector, to protect Elroy from whatever’s scaring him. He spares a quick glance around, although he already knows what must be wrong—the towering, floating rocks, right? There’s something wrong about them, maybe something only Elroy can sense—

—he shifts to put himself between Elroy and the spire, making sure that if something does happen to hurt them, he’ll be protecting him, and then looks down at the little bird once more, eyes wide with worry, tail twitching with anxiety.

“What—what’s wrong?” he murmurs, as if speaking too loud will draw the attention of the unknown threat.

Who knows; maybe it will. He has to be careful, to keep Elroy safe.

Astéri
seek what sets your soul on fire
’It’s stolen my magic.’

Astéri’s fur bristles in shock, fear, and alarm at the tone in Elroy’s voice—the pure fear at the very sight of the Spire. To him, it just seems like a bunch of crackling, floaty rocks, but…

...stealing magic. The thought seems impossible—of course magic can’t be stolen! It’s a part of him, just like it’s a part of everyone else; even without casting a spell, Astéri can still feel the fire burning at his core, the flame that makes him feel alive.

But, somehow, Elroy’s is gone. Missing, like dust brushed away as easy as a thought.

Astéri’s eyes go wide as he takes in the Spire’s aqua glow, the crackling in the air he can feel, the oily cracks at its base that seem as if they would devour him whole if he dared touch him. A chill runs down his spine as he sees it in a new light.

Carefully, he backs up, glancing between the Spire and Elroy, taking in the terror in his eyes—an expression which only acerbates his own fear.

This thing, it—it destroys.

“Let—let’s—we should—” Astéri begins, stumbling over his words, struggling to convey the weight of what Elroy has brought to his knowledge.

“We should get away from here,” he says at length, and even though his words are strong as he tries to stay like a stoic protector for Elroy, his voice is trembling.

It stole someone’s magic.

What else could it do?