Treasured Breath

After Fridle left Loali, a slight grimace on her face, handed me a couple of charcoaly boxes.

"Since you don't have to worry about degrading organic magic devices, you should be able to use these more quickly than I can. This one will shoot out a pressurized stream of water, only once, and this one is another barrier. It should last a minute. Go ahead and take them out, but hold them in different hands."

I immediately followed her instructions, and held the slightly reddish hollowed longbone, the "water laser," in my left hand prepared to aim and wrapped the long, blue fuzzy cord around my right arm. I noticed as I did that Loali took a moment to blink.

"I guess that'll work for someone like you. Might as well accessorize."

"What do you have?" I glossed over the comment with a question of my own, and she looked at the large box in her hands. Hers wasn't charcoaly, which told me it likely wasn't organic, but she didn't yet take it out of the box.

"My favorite."

"But what is it?"

Eventually, I heard fighting directly outside the door, getting closer and closer. Loali and I each decided to take a corner parallel to the door, so that we had a chance of running or taking a scoriad by surprise if they came through the door or wall. I could feel the heat of the scoriad's magma seeping through the wall where it hit beside me. I moved a bit away.

"Loali..." I quietly called, barely at a mumble, and as I expected she heard me. She passed me a reassuring nod as she gestured with her eyes to the mess of metal vines and gray gemstones she held like a crossbow in her hands. She'd told me to activate the barrier the moment I thought something was coming in, and to trust her to make the first attack. The water laser was meant as an extra personal defense measure, and she warned me multiple times to make sure I didn't aim anywhere near a person.

When the heat intensified and I heard a fierce caw outside I took several strides back, and watched as part of the wall began to melt along with a few shelves. Stone began to slide and goop down the wall, and soon a hole formed about half my height, but nothing came through it. Instead, the hissing of steam and unidentifiable magic, bestial howls, and cries from several cawing voices became clearer, indicating to me that others had joined Fridle to fight.

I stared at the opening, tensely waiting for anything to move through it as I watched shadows and lights pass it. I couldn't see well past the glare of the melting stone and the low angle, but I could see shuffling cloth and feet. I wasn't sure if they were fighting one scoriad or more, and I couldn't understand the instructions in their calls, but it felt like they were winning. The cries of the scoriads became less frequent and more distressed to me.

A scoriad finally decided to use the hole they'd made, and as I watched them scamper through a litany of croaky calls followed. Without a second thought I felt for the magic in the fur around my arm, and a buzz swept over my skin as I held my breath. Nothing physical that was less powerful than the magic I activated could come through now, for as long as the barrier lasted, including air. Sound had been muffled around me.

The sight of the scoriad was a lot like Itelber described, with dark pumice skin. It resembled a rabbit and was the size of a pitbull, with particularly large, scooping claws on its forepaws.

I barely got to absorb any other details, however, as the beast had locked eyes with Loali on the other wall, and a stream of magma shot from the large hole in its forehead Loali's way. The shot was immediately cut in half by an invisible blade, though its trajectory continued, and behind it the scoriad shore in two and burst into shrapnel. I reflexively closed my eyes and covered my face in my elbow.

"..Ga-"

Loali's muffled scream barely made it through the barrier, and as I realized I was fine I turned my head towards her. Her right shoulder had been hit by the magma, and after she jerked a step away from the remnants on the floor she fell to the ground.

The door opened, but I’d already ran past it, and with the barrier still on I jerked the small lump of magma left on her scalding shoulder away. I could instantly tell the wound was serious.

Sound came back to me more clearly as I let the barrier go. I called out for water as I took Loali, who'd luckily passed out, in my arms. Water rushed over both of us and the remaining magma on the floor, likely from one of the seraphids calling behind me.

It's bad, it's bad, what can I do-

Then I felt it. Magic. Like I had each time I tried to charge a material Loali'd given me, magic began moving from me to her. Whether she was absorbing it or I was giving it to her by instinct, something was happening. For a few moments the magic continued to move, and all I could think was that I hoped it was helping her somehow.

My magic doesn’t hurt things. It won’t hurt her.

For another few moments I silently hoped, tuned completely away from anything except Loali. She was still unconscious, but I could see her breathing and watched the distress morphing on her face, and my eyes were soon drawn back to her shoulder. The wound had started to glow with sunset hues, and began to close before my eyes.

"...What?"

"Danny?!"

Fridle, who'd been trying to get my attention for a while and had started to tend to Loali, called out for me again with wide eyes. We both watched the wound come to a close with a large, dark purple scar, and with the relief came a creeping sense of fatigue.

"That-" Fridle sputtered, shocked, before she took in a sharp breath. "You can heal," she stated with a shaky voice, and gestured with her arms. "Give me Loali and help them outside. Please!"

"I- I'm-"

"Please, a few of them are hurt." She insisted, and though I hesitated a moment longer while I tried to process what had happened, I eventually handed Loali to her and did as she asked.

"Danny? What're you-"

The first person I saw out the door was a familiar face, Byza, and I could tell he'd been hit in several places on his body by the way he limped my way. He may not have been burned, but he'd definitely been wounded by claws.

"Fridle asked me to help," I interrupted, and quickly placed my hand on his outstretched wing.

"Wha..?" More quickly this time my magic moved through Byza, and somewhere beneath gentle green flames several spots of orange and purple light emerged.

Despite his surprise, Byza was quick to catch me in his wing when I stumbled forward a bit, suddenly woozy, and the light continued for just a few more moments before fading away. I might not have healed him entirely, but it should’ve been enough to help.

"Ah! Hey, Danny, you okay?"

"I'm fine..." I replied, a bit breathless and nauseous from the strange feeling of magic from Byza’s wing. I looked past him to the two people laying on the floor, who were both seraphids. One was groaning and clutching his side, and the other looked unconscious but clearly in pain from several wounds I could see. "They're hurt too."

"They are, but..." his voice trailed, but soon he adjusted his wing to support my back. The leather seemed to block at least some of his magic, and I felt a bit of relief. "I'll help you."

I wasn't about to fall anytime soon, but I was sure that would change if I healed anyone else. I'd been warned that using a lot of magic could exhaust someone. Byza seemed to understand that too, but like me he also understood the situation we were in.

When I was done healing them, I fell unconscious against Byza. My sleep wasn't peaceful.

Loali is hurt. What if..?

I remember how it feels, being hurt so bad-

The foggy, racing thought barely swirled into existence before it halted, giving way to further thoughts and accompanying visions. Loali’s wound kept coming to me, but there was something else I was barely beginning to remember. Despite the fact that I was dreaming at the time, some part of me recognized that the thought that I’d been hurt was wrong. I didn’t remember anything like that ever happening to me. I never even broke a bone.

I’ve never been hurt that badly, right? Why did I think I was..?

An accident. I could hardly make out details, and I tried to push away the ones that flashed across my mind. I was hurt. I was alone.

Those were my last memories in my previous world.

My ears were ringing, distorted with my heartbeat, and at the same time static buzzed from the back of my skull.

I felt like my body was in the middle of rapidly assessing itself, but only returning to me one message.

You are dead.

I wasn’t. Not anymore. But I knew that I once was, somehow. I could feel what that felt like, and recalled vaguely a sense of pain beforehand.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

I thought about my parents. My brother. My aunt and uncle. All of my family.

All at once, again I remembered I would never see them again, and again the pain on Loali’s face came to mind.

Loali... I can’t lose her too. Itelber, Fridle, Zida, Illose, Creyna, Biarn, Byza- everyone I’ve met here, if something happened to them too, if I lost the only people I have now, I- I-

Back and forth, nightmares cycled between the family I’d never see again and the people I was starting to love. I’d already lost everything once. I’d been warned I could lose it all again.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

“Child... to... live?”

“-lace... chosen carefully... happy.”

“Do what... keep safe.”