A myriad precious soul pebbles

“Please tell me this isn’t your main house” Opal commented, eyeing the room critically.

Celsian snorted, getting closer to a pile of clothes that may or may not hide a chair. “Nah, my actual home is way brighter.” She didn’t say anything about the chaos, which didn’t bode well for her at all. “This is just for when I’m in the capital and I need somewhere safe to crash out.”

“I see…”

“Anyway, try this. You should have more or less the same size as me.”

“What?” Opal refocused just in time to see a heap of clothing getting hurled in her direction, and caught it before it could land on her face. Upon further inspection, she recognised it as a dress. She was so taken aback that she didn’t even have time to feel embarrassed. “What is it that you don’t like about my uniform?” she asked with a frown, looking first at the dress in her hands and then at the other girl.

“Apart from the fact that no-one else apart you wears something like that, which makes you extremely recognisable, and that it probably has to be washed?” She briefly glanced at Opal, looking at her up and down, before returning to whatever she was doing. “Nothing, I guess. It’s not really my style, though.” She had given up with the fabric mess on the probably-chair and was now rummaging through a small wardrobe, where the clothes were folded, for one, and arranged in a relatively tidier manner.

Opal’s frown deepened, while the line of her mouth thinned, and her gaze trembled and got lost. The dress was akin to a dead weight in her hands. Celsian had a point, especially because, in all likelihood, they were now the two most wanted individuals in the whole capital, but Opal didn’t want to let go of her uniform just yet. Couldn’t let go, even though it probably seemed stupid and childish. Her school uniform was, after all, the only physical thing she had left from her world, and changing it for something else felt like a betrayal of some kind. Or, worse, like resignation. She clenched the soft fabric of the dress, and she must’ve been too silent for too long, because Celsian glanced again at her and that time her gaze didn’t leave her, morphing into understanding.

“Listen” she said, abandoning for a moment what she was doing. “I’m not telling you to throw your clothes in the trash or anything like that. You can put them in a bag or something and wear them again when we’ll be in another city, where we’re not at risk of having every citizen know about you and what you look like, but while we’re in the capital and its surroundings it’s really better if you change into something else. I don’t care what, but like that you’re way too recognisable.”

Opal hated the fact that the other was right, but she didn’t have another choice: that option was already the best thing she could get, in that situation. Fighting against her own reluctance, she nodded slowly. “… okay.”

“Good, choose whatever you like more. You can change… uh, let me see…” Celsian’s gaze roamed the room and got pensive. “… I was sure I had a room divider somewhere here, wait a second.” She put on the side a piece of clothing and went to search through her scattered belongings, although it seemed like a doomed quest. “The last time I saw it, it was around here…”

Despite everything, Opal had to hold back a small laugh at the scene.

“… Well, okay- I mean, not okay, I can’t find it. Maybe I sold it? It is something I would do, after all, but…” Celsian brought a hand to her mouth, talking to herself out loud and unknowingly striking the pose of a detective trying to solve a crime, and Opal couldn’t decide what was funnier in that whole situation.

“I don’t know buddy, I’m not a professional but it doesn’t seem like it’s hiding anywhere in this room.”

“Oh, you of little faith, no, no, trust me, I’ve found stranger things in stranger places, it must be here, somewhere.” She went back to her search, giving Opal a front row seat at a free comedic show.

“If you say so.”

“I do, I do, watch me.”

“I’m doing just that.” It was the main reason why all that was so entertaining.

Celsian searched for some more time, making even more of a mess of her room in the meanwhile, but then her whole body slumped in defeat, her eyes downcast. “… I think it isn’t here” she admitted at last.

Opal snorted despite herself.

“Hey!” Celsian crossed her arms over her chest with a huff. “In my defence, I haven’t come here for some time.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine, you did everything you could.” Opal’s eyes were still crinkling with mirth, but she abstained from pointing out that she doubted the other could’ve found something anyway.

Celsian looked at her with suspicion, probably sensing the humour in her words, but she let it go quickly, relaxing her posture. “Whatever, I’ll just do it the old-fashioned way and turn around.” She got pensive for a moment. “I mean, technically speaking, you could raise a wall of stone with your magic, but it would also destroy my floor and my room in general as a consequence, so it’s better not to.”

That got all of Opal’s attention, and her eyes zeroed in on Celsian. “I could?”

“You could do that, and a whole lot of unimaginable things. That would actually be one of the simplest ones.”

“Like what? You said you would explain.” If it wasn’t already clear enough, she added: “When we were escaping from the castle.”

Celsian looked at her. “That I did.” She made a vague gesture in the direction of the clothes. “Pick what you want to wear in the meantime, it will take more than a minute.”

Opal shrugged. “Sure.”

“So.” Celsian put her hands on her hips, and her whole demeanour subtly shifted, all of a sudden screaming ‘professor ready for a three-hours-long lecture’. “Kristallia is a land powered by the particles of what we call ‘krystageia’, a preternatural energy that allows life to thrive, and all of its people possess a ‘minerallos’ factor that they more or less consciously use to create a link between them and the krystageia, in order to tap into magic. They can’t really do that without a medium, and that’s why we carry stones with us, to reach and channel the krystageia, but I’ll return to it later. Now, although naturally there have been different schools of thought, the principal explanation for this phenomenon, supported by the grand majority of researchers and scientists, is that over the centuries human beings have become accustomed to live in a land impregnated with this energy and therefore able to channel its magic. Speaking of this, however, there is a big group of scholars that propose a more philosophical view of it all and that, in their papers, discuss of-”

“Okay, okay, halt, stop, time-out, please, before my brain starts melting.” Opal hurriedly made the universal – at least in her world, she hoped it was the same in that one too – time-out gesture, as if she was the referee in a sports match, only that she was the one getting defeated.

Celsian, who had begun to excitedly gesticulate to emphasise her discourse, stopped and crossed her arms over her chest again, looking at her like Opal was the strange one. “You wanted an explanation, I was explaining.” Oh no, now she was pouting.

“I know, and don’t take me wrong, I’m very grateful for that, but you were speaking way too fast and I think you lost me somewhere between the krystageia and the schools of thought.” In her defence, she had tried to follow – first while looking at the clothes as promised and then while focusing all of her attention on what was being said –, because someone was at last telling her something concrete, but she would’ve needed a notebook, a textbook, a whiteboard, or something.

“I see, I guess I got a touch too… excited.” Celsian’s features arranged themselves in what was a mix of a pensive frown and a perplexed expression.

“I mean, it’s fine, just-”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it. Let’s start again, from a different beginning.” Celsian took a small yellowish pebble, a bit jagged at the edges, from one of her numerous pockets and showed it to Opal. “This is what we call a ‘soul stone’. The name is maybe a bit misleading, but it’s of immediate comprehension. Everyone receives one at birth, the very minute they come into this world, from their family, and the stone attunes to the newborn’s magical wavelength” she said, going a bit slower in her explanation.

“I see.” Opal began to look at the clothes for the second time, now that it was easier to follow and understand.

“The stone is one and only, attuned to one and only one person at a time, so for example if it breaks violently the wearer won’t be able to use magic anymore, and if the wearer dies the stone loses its magical propriety, until it’s given to another newborn and the cycle restarts.” Celsian played a bit with the pebble she held between her fingers, launching it in the air and catching it a few times, observing it as it travelled up and down.

Opal nodded. She had decided that she actually liked the blue puffy dress that the other had previously tossed her, and was now searching for something that could go well with it.

“The type of power and the magical force both depend on the stone and the wearer, but the magic can only originate from the stone and from nowhere else.” She stopped for a moment to look at Opal. “Oh, in the wardrobe I should have a few shirts that you could pair with that dress, if you want.”

“Ah, thank you.”

Celsian nodded and then returned to her explanation. “Anyway, the sole exception to this rule has been the Saintess, capable of doing magic without the use of a stone. Without even possessing one, if certain sources are to be trusted: that’s why hers is called the ‘Untethered Magic’. She could create anything and everything she wished for, she just needed the presence of a few particles of krystageia in the land surrounding her, and the same thing goes for you.”

Opal’s eyes widened and she turned her head in Celsian’s direction, surprised. “I feel like a broken record by this point, but, really?” She was in front of the wardrobe and had found a candy pink shirt she liked, but that was now hanging uselessly from her hands. “I could really do that?”

“Yeah, you could.” She shrugged. “And, well, you did.”

Opal was reminded again of spikes of stone emerging from the walls, floor and ceiling of her previous room. From her point of view that was already unbelievable, and Celsian was saying she could basically command the earth itself to do her bidding? It didn’t seem like something she should have been capable of doing. While she was thinking about that, however, she was also reminded of an armour and arms of stone, as well as of a wall that opened itself at Celsian’s touch. She frowned. “Wait a second, though. I saw you using more than a single stone to do magic.”

Celsian’s whole demeanour, instead of closing off as someone could have expected, brightened up. She seemed a proud teacher whose student had just made a clever observation. “Right! I’m so happy you noticed.” She grinned, her eyes shining with excitement, and then added, with the air of someone letting in their friend on a secret: “The thing is, I broke my own birthstone and split it into a myriad small pebbles.” She said it with levity, as if she hadn’t implied just a few minutes earlier that a stone was somehow directly connected to the wearer’s soul. It wasn’t exactly like that, apparently, but still.

“What? Didn’t you say that if the stone breaks the wearer can’t use their magic anymore? Why would you even risk that?” Opal’s eyes were as wide as saucers.

“For science, of course!” Celsian replied happily, crossing her hands behind her head. “Also, I had a hypothesis! The loss of magic happens if the stone breaks violently or unexpectedly, you see, but I speculated that if I broke it in a methodical way, I could just multiplicate the power instead.”

“If something had gone wrong, you could’ve lost your magic! Forever!”

“Sure, but it didn’t happen. And now look!” She took other pebbles from her pockets, proudly showing them to Opal. “A successful experiment: soul pebbles!”

“Celsian!”

She rolled her eyes, putting back the pieces of her birthstone. “Oh, come on, now you just sound like my old professors.” She made a face and lowered her voice, evidently imitating one of the people she was talking about. “‘Miss Felspat, a similar behaviour goes against the principles of our illustrious and esteemed institution’ and blah blah blah, so on and so forth. They complained a lot, but I was just putting into practice the scientific method they taught me.” She pouted, crossing her arms over her chest. “And besides, it wasn’t as if I was using other students as lab rats!”

Opal shook her head. “You’re unbelievable.”

That put a smile on Celsian’s face again. “Well, thank you! I’m happy to know that someone else thinks that too.”

Opal didn’t have the heart – or the energy, for that matter – to tell the other that, actually, she didn’t mean it like that, so she returned to her previous search.

Her explanation probably finished for the moment, Celsian got closer, fishing out a pair of black leggings from the pile of clothes and giving them to Opal. “Here, try these, they could complete your outfit. I’ll just look the other way.” She made a big show of turning around, and Opal smiled.

“Thank you” she said, appreciating the courtesy, even though Celsian’s attention had already been caught by something she’d remembered all of a sudden and she’d got promptly engulfed by a fraction of chaos on the other side of the room. Opal light-heartedly laughed at her antics and tried on the new clothes, without thinking too much about her uniform and all the feelings attached to it. She folded it neatly, putting it on the top of the pile, and tried to focus on something else.

“So? How is it?” Celsian asked after a moment, without even stopping doing whatever she was up to.

Opal turned a bit on herself, making her clothes swoosh: they were soft and comfortable, and she felt like she could move easily in them. “Well, you tell me.”

Celsian first glanced behind herself, and then turned with a smile. “Hey, you look pretty!” Opal didn’t even have the time to feel a little bit embarrassed at the honest compliment that the other had already switched to push an oval something over a section of the wall that had stayed miraculously free. “Here, see for yourself!” She took off the dusty curtain that covered it and revealed a mirror, only slightly cracked. “I’m so used to always wear different versions of my favourite outfit that I nearly forgot about its existence.”

It kind of showed, even without the need to say it, but Opal didn’t point that out. Instead, she got closer to the mirror and looked at herself: Celsian was right, the clothes were nice on her – maybe just a tiny bit too big, because the other was taller, but it just made them more comfortable –, and she liked the colours. She smiled softly. “Thank you.”

Celsian returned her smile, putting a hand on her hip. “Don’t mention it.”

Opal took a much needed settling breath, while her mind helpfully reminded her why she even required new clothes. “And now? What’s the next step?”

“Eh, now we wait, so you might as well want to get comfortable.” Celsian stretched. “We’ll enter the cathedral at night.”