Trapped Without Aether

Reliya didn’t know much about medicine. She didn’t know how healing worked, or why the ointments and medicines she was given helped, but she assumed that injuries were supposed to heal themselves eventually. Still, somehow the hopes of the entire resistance stood on the shoulders of… this girl, whose body couldn’t heal itself. She had to be dosed with a variety of medicines, every day, and most of those days she could barely even stand anymore. She was in no state to be on a battlefield, but she still insisted on it.

The girl in question, some Arina that said she was from a different world, was drifting in and out of consciousness in front of Reliya. A slash across her chest, multiple cuts on both sides, A puncture wound through her arm and leg, and bruising all across her body were signs that something was wrong. Most of these were from ages ago, and thankfully had stopped bleeding, but they were still very much there.

Arina way laying across a bed against the wall of a square stone room that was really not fit for anyone to be sleeping on. It was made of a very thick, hard wood, with the thinnest of possible mattresses and the thickest blanket Reliya could locate. On the same wall was a stone door to the outside, with a handle that only kind of turned. On the opposite wall was a door of the same thick wood that lead to a bathroom, with some kind of minor magic that could create water and multiple places that lead into the underground.

Neither Arina nor Reliya had said much of anything in the hour. Reliya occasionally dabbed some of the ointment, a clear watery substance that smelled of alcohol, on the various wounds. Arina winced, which was a good sign that she was still alive, but made no other response.

A knock on the door. It was barely audible, but Arina’s silence meant it was enough to be heard. She stirred a bit. She was in no condition to be talking to anyone. Not for a long time. The knock repeated itself, this time louder. Reliya stood and leaned against the door.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Reliya called through it. “General’s not in any condition to speak to you.”

“I need to talk to Arina,” a roughly male voice called back. He didn’t seem like much for yelling, so it was a miracle that Reliya could even hear him. Arina’s attempt to sit up meant she also heard him, somehow. Reliya motioned for her to lay back down, but that didn’t stop her attempts to get to her feet.

“Like I said, she’s not in any condition.” Reliya jumped back to Arina to stop her from falling on her face. “She’s busy being near death.”

“Then it’s vitally important that I talk to her now, instead of after she dies!”

Reliya looked at Arina, and the longing in her eyes told her something that she couldn’t have known alone. “If I’m letting him in, you’re going to lay yourself back down,” Reliya whispered to her. Arina kept looking at her, but before long she nodded and let herself collapse back into the blanket. She didn’t even bother trying to cover anything.

“Fine, fine,” Reliya called through the door again. “Apparently she wants to see you, so I’ll let you in. No one else that’s with you, though.” As she punctuated her sentence, she yanked the heavy door open. There was only one man outside, dressed like someone who had never seen an Interan outfit before. He had what looked like a jacket on, in spite of the warm weather this time of year, and wore almost entirely black. He had a bag around his shoulder, a light silvery glow illuminating what little of the inside Reliya could see. He didn’t look that far off from how Arina was dressed when Reliya met her.

“I’m alone,” he said. “My name’s Fulmen Delcarlo. I’m Arina’s final partner.”

Reliya rolled her eyes and motioned for Fulmen to step through the door. The moment he followed her instructions, Reliya pushed the door closed. “Right, she’s in the bed there. She’s badly wounded and not especially dressed, but—” Reliya turned back around, and it had seemed that Fulmen didn’t need to be told that. He had already found her, and was wide-eyed absorbing every imperfection he could find. His eyes and Arina’s connected for a moment, where she tried to smile with what energy she had.

“When was the last time you did an IE analysis?” Fulmen asked. Reliya wasn’t certain if that was directed at her or at Arina. Arina stirred more as she seemed to be trying to respond.

“No point…” Arina managed to get out. “Low.”

“So you do have a voice still,” Reliya mused. “Would’ve been nice to have known that.”

Fulmen didn’t give Arina any time to answer Reliya. “How are you still alive? You’ve had no aether for…”

“Three years. Mostly spite, as far as…” Arina seemed to lose her sentence. “A desire to go home again.” Arina’s eyes connected to Reliya’s, as if trying to instill some kind of guilt in her. Meanwhile, Reliya was spending those three years trying to prevent the rest of Intera from dying to whatever the hell the Interlopers were doing.

The Fulmen man opened his bag the rest of the way, retrieving a large cylindrical canister of some silvery blue fluid. What could that be? Whatever it was, Arina instantly recognized it, and her hand seemed to reach out for it on its own. Fulmen set it on the bed by her side, roughly in the path of her hand. His hands weren’t even away from the canister before a shard of ice roughly the side of a small bird flew through the canister and was accompanied by the sound of shattering glass. A puff of silvery gas shoved itself out into the room, lingering in the air. Arina’s breaths went from shallow and weak, gradually picking up strength. She made an effort to breathe, which Reliya hadn’t seen from her in ages.

“Fulmen, you came…” Her voice was still as weak-sounding as before, but it actually held itself this time. “How did you—”

“Save your energy, please. You need to let your body pick up the aether again, since we’re not getting any of that from the outside.” Fulmen was back to digging through his bag. “I’ll explain in a moment.”

So this was aether, the supposed “required” substance for Volarian life. Why were Volarians so weak, such that they needed yet another resource to survive? Perhaps this was what kept her alive. The interlopers seemed to use a very similar source of energy. Reliya could barely see, almost like a patch of fog had descended on the room, but she could see well enough.

Fulmen returned from his bag with a glass-stoppered vial of bright yellow-glowing fluid, to which Arina’s eyes widened. “You remembered…” she said. She sat up, with much more ease but a similar amount of wincing, and reached her arm out. Fulmen unstopped the vial and handed it to her. She took a deep breath and drained the fluid into her mouth. Unlike any natural fluid, none of it stuck to the side of the glass. What was this vial?

“Yeah, of course I remembered the things you literally had to carry all the time,” Fulmen said. He retrieved the now-empty glass vial and slipped it back into his bag. He seemed to have forgotten about the larger shattered canister. “I came here ready to stop you from dying if I had to.”

“And stop me from dying you have done.” Arina and Fulmen connected gazes again. Now it was Fulmen’s turn to smile as Arina reached up in an attempt to wrap her arms around him. He kneeled down to her bedside to make her job easier.

Reliya stared at the wounds on Arina. They weren’t getting any better. What was the point of that? “Do you mind explaining what the hell you’ve been giving our general?”

“Volarian restoration serum,” Fulmen explained, though not without cutting Arina off. “Arina’s body can’t do the recovery thing on its own because of some bioaetherics stuff, so she carried around a lot of these vials to give her body the energy to do that.” Fulmen looked at Arina. “I’ve got four more. Please try not to die more, okay? Let me get injured, you need to stop.”

“Please do not die.” Arina… were those tears? From the unbreakable Arina? “You are the only reason that I am still alive.”

“You can speak Ancient,” Fulmen said. Was she speaking a different language? “I understand it, remember.”

“I… right.” She stayed silent for a moment longer. There seemed to be no difference in the way she spoke, or the language that she spoke. “I… I need you to stay alive. I’m only here because I needed to see you again. To go home again.”

Fulmen looked up at Reliya. “I’m told you’re the cause of that,” he said, like he was going to start to say more.

“Right you are,” Reliya replied sharply. “The entire Interan resistance is relying on the fact that she...” Reliya forcefully jabbed a finger in the direction of Arina, “... exists. I know how planeswalkers work. You come in, say you want to help, and then screw off. No. Whether you do anything or not, I don’t care, but I’m not bringing it down until they’re gone.”

“You’re just going to get my Arina killed. She needs contact to aether to survive.” Fulmen glared at Reliya, who did her best to properly glare back.

“Looks like it’s in your best interest to help me finish this then. Don’t mistake me helping ‘your’ Arina for genuine care. This is for my world and my people.” Before Fulmen or Arina could try to say anything, Reliya moved towards the door. “I’ll leave you two alone. If you’re interested in helping me actually fight these things, let me know.”