Bond Breakers

Monsters and Magic

The Aradian climate meant she normally couldn't sleep in, that mixed with living in a fishing town meant that earlier than early mornings were what she had grown up with. However, Aradia itself was different. The king had spelled her chambers, an enchantment that regulated temperature based on her body's reactions. And that was all she knew and understood on that front. Enchantments had always enthralled her. So, had the magic in the gift-stones. Ever since she was a little girl, she had wondered what she could create with it. What she could share. Cooling rooms in Temis would've been a blessing, but she doubted it'd keep her asleep. She was just used it, a routine of seventeen years that no magic could stop.

As always, she found new clothes neatly folded and bundled within a ribbon of purple-gold flowers. She stripped off the pyjamas that had been there last night and left the comfortable bed behind her. Her chambers were laid out the way one would expect the architecture of a circular building to permit, her room was the centre circle and surrounding it was a larger circle that ringed it. The entrance to her chambers revealed a sitting area, decorated with overlarge beanbags. Here you could turn either left or right and walk all the way around and back to where you came from. But parallel to the entrance and with no doors was her favourite part of coming to Aradia. Another enchantment. She skipped to a section of cobblestoned flooring and spoke the spell Erya had taught her what felt like a lifetime ago.

"Waters warm and waters cold,

strip me of all this mould,

Come out warm and soapy too,

Make me feel brand new."

A second later a spray of water splashed against her skin, it seemed to read what she liked from her mind, it got warmer or colder, harder, or softer as she bathed. The soaps turned different colours and the room became a silhouette of steamy hues.

When she was done, every trace disappeared, leaving her clean, dry, and ready to get some answers...

She moved through the castle quietly, her new boots clicking off the floor were the only sounds as she strode towards the captains' quarters. The humidity engulfed her as soon as she left the castle behind her. Droplets of sweat coating her skin within seconds of the air touching her. But she didn't mind. Even uncomfortable, the outdoors beat being stuck inside. In Temis, she doubted she'd spent more than a few hours a day in-door. The ocean was just too tempting, always lingering below the boardwalks. Just one step away. Aradia wasn't far behind in terms of scenery. The sun was getting out of the ocean as if it too were awakening, the light hit the terraced city making it impossible to make out the levels below or the sparkling sea beyond. But Merran wasn't heading in that direction, instead she angled herself, so she was walking parallel to the terraces, and when she passed the perimeter of the castle she turned and walked away from the sun, away from the light and into the still shadowed mountains, home of the Whirbeasts and a lonely, and brave captain of the guard.

The Aradian forest wasn't much of an attraction, it ran the length of the Divide; the mountain range that separated the continent right down the centre. The Myre forest was shadowed in rumour and legend, but wasn't so much a forest anymore, but more a graveyard; a skeleton of once great trees that housed the most amazing creatures known. Merran wondered through the remnants of Myre, the limbs of towering ancient trees were crooked and deformed, like monsters reaching for a sun that had deserted them. This place used to terrify her, now, she noticed a certain beauty to it. It was a dying forest holding onto life. Ever so slowly, little vines with buds of different colours were growing over them, twining between the old, knotted limbs as if to decorate them, or hide their fading life.

Her destination was quite the trek, through the Myre and then a tricky ascent to the first look-out and the captains' quarters.

Luckily her enchanted outfit was well equipped for the journey, sturdy dark leather boots, tight-fitting white leather pants and a light silken blue sleeveless top that helped against the heat but wasn't too exposed in the cold shadows.