Work Text:
As soon as Erin touched the pedestal, he knew he had made a terrible mistake. But it was too late. The corruption in the center sent hungry tendrils snaking up his arms, rising around him, something that for all his power he couldn't command.
His rising panic turned to terror, and as the darkness plunged down into his chest and eyes, all Erin knew was pain and dark and cold and hunger and a terrible empty nothing.
When he came to, rubbing his head with a terrible headache and sense of wrongness, the storm was gone. But something else had woken up with him. Something that was wrapping cold stabbing tendrils around his mind, taking over, opening his eyes not his eyes not his eyes.
FINALLY! said the triumphant dark. Erin screamed instinctively, and the dark squeezed the tendrils surrounding his mind tighter, sending shocks of pain through him. He lost track of himself for a moment as his thoughts shredded and frayed.
His body stood, darkness gathering around. Erin pulled himself back together, tried to think, to reason– this couldn't be happening. Not to him. He was the Elemental Magus, and what even was this– but his thoughts kept unraveling, shying away from an emerging possibility or fuzzing out into smoke and shadow.
He tried to break free, once, again, again– his limbs had to obey him, it was his body, he couldn't be helpless, not again, not now, he had to be in control– but to no avail. The dark chuckled condescendingly, savoring Erin's rising panic. Settle down, little magus.
Spearing pain stabbed through Erin's head as he struggled. He was too stubborn to give up - he couldn't, he couldn't - he was too powerful to be used like this without catastrophic implications. The darkness around him - the void, a deep, instinctive part of him supplied - was eating away at the surroundings. A fascinating plant he'd never encountered before withered as he fought for control, another following soon after, even the ground beginning to erode slightly beneath his feet.
KRACK-DOOM. The void energy rose around him, yanking him along as it consumed more in its path. A pained sound managed to escape him, the distraction of the thing inside allowing him to move slightly. His hands instinctively went up, clutching at his head as it split apart.
He tried to pull his thoughts together through the pain. Dark energy, destroying everything in its surroundings, something that he couldn’t control. The voice in his head, something that felt incredibly old, immensely powerful, and incomprehensibly evil. The shape in the center of the pedestal, the disruption that had been the source of the storm. The pieces were beginning to fit together, forming a picture that Erin really didn’t like.
But it couldn’t be. That was a creation myth. But all the pieces pointed… no. It had to be something else. It couldn’t be anything else. What else could it be? What else could use the elemental magus himself like a puppet?
And if it was, which was seeming more and more likely, then that meant– that meant–
That Erin had walked right into a trap. Into the worst situation imaginable.
Those thoughts shredded once more, partially under a wave of primal terror, but mostly to do with a sudden spiking of even more pain as he was dragged along with a loud burst of darkness once more.
And again. And again. And again, as he clutched at his skull and fought for his mind. He couldn’t let whatever was in his head - and he had a terribly likely idea of exactly what - use him. It could, and would, be catastrophic. Especially with all the damage he’d already done. But there was nothing he could do to stop it. He was powerless, exactly what he’d promised himself he would never be again. He would break the world, and then he would die, and he’d never know freedom again. He should’ve listened to the board when they’d attempted to caution him. But he’d been so sure he could fix it, and he had. But it’d just led to this.
A wave of helplessness washed over Erin, making him struggle harder out of pure spite. He couldn’t let himself be controlled like this. He couldn’t.
“Hello?” a voice suddenly called. He felt his body twist, turning to look towards the source of the voice. A blond man, long hair tied back in a ponytail, was standing at the edge of the darkness, looking in at Erin like he was totally ignorant of the danger he was placing himself in by being so close. He had to get away, or he would be killed, and it would be all Erin’s fault.
The dark undulated in cruel glee, contemplating the man, who was beginning to look uneasy at last. “Ah… do you need… help?”
A stupid question. No one could help him, and the man would be killed and eaten by the void if he didn’t get away right now. It was already reaching out hungry tendrils– no– he couldn’t – he wouldn’t let himself be used to kill someone else. Propelled by stubbornness and terror, Erin smacked himself in the face.
The dark’s control over him faltered for a moment in surprise, and Erin seized his chance, yelling, “GET AWAY! RUN!!” in the brief moments before he was fully submerged in the shadows again. After that, everything became a blur of pain and dark and terror. The thing inhabiting his body chuckled lowly with his vocal cords, mocking the man’s question, then attacked.
And then the assault stopped. The void controlling his body saw, through the eyes that were meant to be Erin’s but had been changed into something other by the thing, something that struck fear into the ancient force - a radiant green being, with twisting veins and eyes glowing in her flowing hair. No. She’s already here!
The dark exploded around him, releasing the tendrils wrapped around his mind and absorbing back into his chest. The pain dulled, melting away to only a residual ache, Erin’s body his again.
“AND STAY OUT!!" he yelled defiantly, gesturing up with his right pointer finger at the sky, as if that would make the void listen. Then exhaustion and a yawning emptiness overtook him. He collapsed, and for a long time, he knew nothing.
When Erin came to, he barely remembered any of it, and for a moment he remembered nothing at all. He just woke, in an unfamiliar place, tucked under a ragged cloak serving as a blanket and resting on his bag as a makeshift pillow, with an instinctive panicked cry and the feeling that something was terribly wrong.
“Careful,” said a strangely familiar man’s voice as Erin gripped the cloak tightly in his alarm. “That’s a loaner.”
Erin sat up, confused and fighting a strange dread, and saw a long-haired blond man tending a fire. His shirt was full of large ragged holes that looked as if some corrosive substance had eaten into the fabric, and his eyes were unusually bright blue for someone who seemed to be a regular human.
“How are you feeling?” the man asked, grinning at him.
“Who are you?” Erin demanded. “What happened?” Not great, was the answer. Tired, achy, and anxious in a way that seemed to suggest that he was forgetting something both really important and really bad.
“I’m Kendal,” the man said, looking serious then. “I found you in the wasteland after the storm disappeared.” He looked away slightly awkwardly, rubbing at the side of his head. “As for ‘what happened,’ uh… I think you might need to tell ME.”
“What?”
“Well, you were leaking this caustic black energy. Then you stopped and passed out. Any idea what that was all about?”
Erin furrowed his brow for a moment, trying to remember, and then it clicked, and his eyes widened in sudden alarm. “Ah!!” His hand went to his unbuttoned shirt collar, fumbling to open it and look where the void had plunged, “No, no no no-” He got his shirt and vest open, exposing his chest, and the mark clearly printed darkly against it. The stylized silhouette of a dragon, practically confirming his worst suspicions. His heart sank, like it was trying to avoid being under the unnatural mark on his skin. “…no.”
“…Nice tattoo?” the man - Kendal - said, clearly not grasping the enormity of the situation.
“No,” Erin said, holding up his right forearm to show off his sealing tattoos. “THESE are nice tattoos. THIS,” he said, moving his shirt further out of the way with his other hand to draw attention to the dragon’s mark, “is really, really bad.”
“What is it, then?” Kendal asked.
Erin looked away, unwilling to just say it and not sure how to start.
“…Maybe you should start from the beginning?” Kendal suggested after a long moment of silence.
Right. Okay. He refastened his collar and closed his vest back up. “The beginning. Yes.”
He started there, with his venture into the storm. Kendal interrupted, asking, “Wait, you went into the storm alone?”
Erin faltered, confused at the interruption. “I… yes.”
“But that’s really dangerous,” Kendal said.
Erin squinted at Kendal for a moment, perplexed, then looked down to check his tattoos were on display. They were. So why– “Wait,” Erin said, a slightly incredulous realization dawning on him. “Do you not know who I am?”
“Uh. No.”
“Well–” he rummaged in his bag for a moment, pulling out his sigil to show off, certain that would do it– “Does the name Ruunaser ring a bell?”
“No.”
No?! “Wait, really? Where are you FROM?”
“Vash. I didn’t get out much.” He pointed at Erin’s sigil. “Is that an emissary sigil from Asera?”
Erin blinked for a moment, still processing that Kendal apparently didn’t know who he was, then realized that Kendal had at least recognized the sigil. “Yes! Yes it is.” He puffed up his chest proudly, seeing an opportunity to enlighten the other man as to his importance. “Though I’m not myself an emissary, my unique skills and station warranted the granting of this rare honor. This sigil, crafted and granted by Asera themself, grants me safe passage anywhere their authority is recognized.” He paused for a moment for dramatic effect. “And as I command all six primordial elements, the storm posed no threat to me. My name is Erin Ruunaser, but it’s quite possible you know me better by my title - the Elemental Magus.”
He waited for Kendal’s realization, for him to be impressed by the revelation that he was talking to the Elemental Magus. What he was not expecting was for Kendal to say, completely seriously, “She died a hundred and thirty years ago.”
Erin paused for a moment, nonplussed. Was this man for real? He leaned in closer, trying to study Kendal’s slightly bewildered face. The man seemed to be actually unaware of Erin entirely. Had Kendal been living under a rock this whole time? Did the city of Vash legitimately not know of his existence at all? “…Obviously I’m the NEW one.”
“Oh! Okay.”
Erin suppressed a sigh of exasperation. “Can I get back to the story?”
“Please do.”
Thank the gods. His ego couldn’t take much more of this. “As I was saying–”
Some of what had happened came back to him as he related the story. He got up to placing his hand on the pedestal, the force that woke inside him, and trailed off, not wanting to relive it fully. “After that, well… I’m sure you saw what it did to me. What it did to everything AROUND me.”
“Do you know what it is?” Kendal asked.
That was the question, wasn’t it. His hand went instinctively to his chest, where he knew that mark was darkly imprinted into the flesh. “I… I have a couple theories. A worst-case scenario. It’s not important right now.”
“It SOUNDS important.”
Of course it was important. If Erin was right in his suspicions, which he usually was, it was the most important thing in the world. A shiver of primal fear went through his mind at the very thought. He pulled out his journal, needing to write this down while it was still fresh in his memory and to try rationalizing. “Well, it doesn’t matter to you. You shouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place.”
“I think it talked to me,” Kendal said. Erin looked up, pencil hovering over a new page. “It laughed when you told me to run.”
“I did? That was smart. Why didn’t you run?”
“You looked like you needed help.”
Erin looked down at the empty page, bitterness welling up in his chest. The corners of his mouth twisted up into a humorless smile. “Ha… ‘help.’” Like anyone could help him.
“That’s what it said too. Why is that funny?”
“It’s not funny,” Erin said sharply, looking up from his journal again. “It’s naive. There IS no help. Whatever took control of me could do it again at any time. That caustic black energy it was channeling through me eats away at everything it touches. It turned me into a walking wasteland. Anyone I go to for help will be signing up for suicide the minute I lose control.”
His mind flashed back to standing in that wasteland after he ended the storm, darkness swirling around him and devouring everything in its path, while Erin was a mere helpless passenger in his own body. “Until I know how to control this, or better yet, sever its connection - I’m one misstep away from becoming the single deadliest being on the planet. Nothing could stop me.”
He returned his attention to the journal in his lap, touching the pencil to the paper and contemplating what to write. “I’m the only person who can be trusted to fix this. And that’s fine. I don’t NEED help. I just need time to think…”
“I have two questions,” Kendal interjected, raising his hand.
“What?” Erin asked, looking at Kendal out of the corner of his eye, pencil pausing momentarily in the middle of the sentence he had figured out how to start.
“Uh, well, you said the energy ate through anything and killed everything.”
“Yes, I had a very good view of its impact on my surroundings. I pity the unique wildlife I inadvertently eradicated.” He would’ve liked to study it.
“But it didn’t kill ME.”
Erin looked up in shock, fully forgetting the sentence. “What?”
“You hit me with it when I was trying to talk to you. It HURT, but not more than a normal burn. Then it burned out.” He twisted to look at the ragged holes in his shirt, pulling his long blond hair out of the way so that Erin could fully see the unblemished and very much not dissolved skin. “So if you DO need help, I’m willing to risk it, since you couldn’t, you know… disintegrate me.”
Erin activated his connection to life and cast a scanning spell, summoning a runic circle around his hand in order to check for signs. “You… you’re CERTAIN the black energy hit you?”
“Yes. It was very memorable.”
He brought his hand close to Kendal’s arm to scan it, trying to see if there was any damage or lasting effect, any indication of the void having actually struck Kendal. There was none, Erin tried to figure out how that was possible and failed. “I don’t understand…! Even with a healing ability, it can’t have… There should still be symptoms!” He seized Kendal by the shoulders, barely resisting the urge to shake him. “What ARE you?!”
“That’s a complicated question. Can I ask my other question first?”
Erin stared at him for a moment, processing - a complicated question? - before realizing he was still clutching Kendal’s shoulders and releasing him. He gathered himself, trying to regain some dignity. “I - fine, yes. What’s your question?”
“Well, this… possessing voice thing, you said it took you over easily?”
Erin scowled at him, feeling cross. “Not EASILY. I was resisting it pretty valiantly.”
“Was it winning?”
“ …Yes,” he admitted reluctantly, looking down.
“Then why did it stop?”
Erin was caught off guard by both the question and the fact that he hadn’t considered that before. Why had the force released him? It had been in control, much as he resented that fact. “Hm. It’s possible it was tiring from the effort, or maybe it couldn’t…” Then a flash of memory hit him, a blurred impression of a feeling. “…No. I remember… It was afraid. But… why?”
The tree behind Kendal suddenly glowed green with life energy and parted, a stern-looking cloud elf woman stepping out. “I’ve been wondering that too,” she said.
Erin yelped, badly startled and very alarmed.
Kendal started too. “What - who-?!” He twisted to look, relaxing as soon as he saw the woman. “Ah - Erin, this is my friend, Alinua. Alinua, this is Erin. He’s been possessed.”
“I heard,” the woman - Alinua - said grimly.
Erin breathed deeply, trying to bring his heartrate down. “Why were you HIDING in a TREE?!”
Alinua glowered at him. “Because you’re dangerous, and Kendal doesn’t have a good track record for safe life choices. I’m not leaving him unsupervised with someone who nearly killed us both.” She rounded on Kendal, crossing her arms. “And for the record, YOU might not disintegrate, but I nearly DID!”
“I know, it was very scary,” Kendal said. “But you fixed it!”
Something about the way the two of them were positioned brought back a recollection, something clicking for Erin. A flash of the moment before the void had left. “You… it was afraid of YOU!”
“I thought so,” she said, leveling a dangerous glare at Erin. “I want to know WHY.”
“I - I’m not sure,” he said, looking away and fiddling with some folds in his sleeve. “It’s hard to remember what happened while I was fighting it.”
Her expression softened slightly. “Well, try. You want to keep it scared, right? Why’s it scared of ME?”
He thought for a second, hearing the voice echoing through his memories.“‘She’s already here,’” he quoted. “But it can’t actually have recognized YOU. Not PERSONALLY.”
“Well, it didn’t sound like anyone I know,” Alinua said.
“I don’t think it’s actually about you, exactly,” Erin said, reaching for his notebook again. “Hold on.” He opened it to a blank page, picking up his pencil. “The way it saw you was very strange. It was like you were some kind of… fluctuating energy mass, spreading into the ground.” He quickly sketched what he could remember of the being he’d seen, an elven figure with eyes looking out from her flowing hair and veins twisting through her body. “I don’t know what it THOUGHT it was seeing, but it obviously wasn’t really you.”
“Um… Of course,” Alinua said.
“But WHY did it see you that way?” Erin mused, trying to put the pieces together. “I don’t have many points of comparison… But I seriously doubt it would have that reaction to just anyone. It definitely didn’t see Kendal that way.” He turned to Alinua. “Is there anything usual about you? Born in an elemental hot zone? Cursed? Secret shifter ferin?”
“I… am a Life mage?” Alinua said, her shoulders tensing.
“…Yes, I know,” he said, unamused. “You walked out of a tree. It was fairly obvious.”
“Right, um.”
“And it’s not that, because I’m ALSO a life mage,” Erin said, returning his focus to his notebook as he thought out loud. “If it were just afraid of life magic it would have never possessed me. There has to be something else. I suppose a cloud elf outside of the Archipelago Nimbus is FAIRLY unusual - Unusual enough to surprise a being on that scale? No. If I’m even close to correct, it wouldn’t even have noticed. It must’ve been something completely unprecedented to prompt such an extreme response–”
“ALL RIGHT!” Alinua burst out. Erin yelped, surprised. “I was born with life magic! This isn’t a tattoo, it’s a birthmark, and I’ve always been able to do life magic! As for why I’m down here? My birth parents probably REASONABLY ASSUMED I had the Chimeric Plague and dropped me over the edge! I had a normal life and family for ten years - And then I learned I was a chimera bomb and ran away for ANOTHER ten years - And I should have died, but I didn’t! So CLEARLY everyone was WRONG about me! I don’t know WHAT I am!” She paused, face crumpling. “And I was hoping… I was hoping YOU knew something I didn’t.”
Erin was silent for a moment, contemplating. “That… is FASCINATING.” Kendal looked suddenly angry behind Alinua, who just seemed surprised by his response, and Erin realized he had been tactless. “And, of course, deeply upsetting,” he added, raising his hands slightly in placation. “I’m sorry your life has been so turbulent.”
He cast his scanning spell again, using it to get a look at the life rune on Alinua’s shoulder. “You’re right, it’s clearly not a tattoo. You MUST have been a chimeric carrier, but… To have survived with total control? Your connection to Life must be quite unusual. Possibly unique.” Ideas began to form in his head, very promising ones. He was beginning to feel more like himself again.
“What does that mean?”
Erin grinned, closing his life magic channel. “It means my intruder IS afraid of you. You SPECIFICALLY.” A man not devoured by the darkness, and a woman whom it feared… fate seemed to be balancing itself out by dropping the perfect allies - perhaps the only people who wouldn’t be instantly killed if he lost control - into his lap. Maybe it would be better to have others around him as he tried to get rid of the void inside after all. He looked up, smiling, feeling hopeful for the first time since those dark tendrils had snaked up his arm and into his mind. “That’s very valuable information. Is the offer of help still open?”