Story Flame's Stupid scriptures

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

This is where I shall put all of my context-less one/twoshots. Maybe one of them will evolve into an actual story; who knows?

Spoiler: Fantasy!Verse. "Healer"

~Based on a Tumblr prompt~

No.

"No, no, no. Please. Please, please, please. No. No!"

Jet pleaded. He begged, clawing at the ground as he willed his soul to work up any semblance of magic he could summon. Something. Anything. He went so far as to trace the trailing, spiraling warmth coiled around his heart into the very energy his body was using just to get the power required for just one last healing spell. Just one more. That's all he needed.

Spells that he'd had in place for decades snapped under the pressure, the taut strands of magic he could feel abruptly vanishing without a source of energy. Even as Jet shook from fatigue and sobbed from how much everything in him hurt, he grit his teeth and reached out to feel for magic in the environment. The grass. The trees. The air. Even microscopic organisms got caught in his sweep, and everything in almost a mile radius began withering, curling in on themselves and dying.

Black swirled across his skin in response, crawling up his neck and under his eyes as bright, blinding blue overtook his vision. The cyan was painful, grating on his retina to the point where he lost track of everything but the two entities beside him.

"Please," he ground out, reaching to the very depths of his magic reservoir. "Save him. I don't care what happens to me. Just help him. Please." He didn't know who he was talking to. He didn't even know if they heard him, because the moment he released his hold on the spell, he was gone.

It was like floating in a void being completely unaware.

At first, he struggled and thrashed, a sense of urgency buzzing under the skin he was no longer sure he had. His whole existence was in pain. It swirled throughout him, and he didn't know why. It wasn't even blurry. He could feel the answer somewhere in front of him, but everytime he reached, it felt like touching dry ice.

So he didn't, letting his mind drift away slowly and losing awareness over himself over time. It was comforting, in a way. Nothing was there to bother him and he could let the warmth build slowly and send powerful energy through his bones—bones... why did that sound familiar?

The feeling of weight overtook him, and Jet dimly recognized the feeling of waking up. Jet. Jet was his name, was it? Or was it Arian. Kadoshi? No. He remembered Jet strongest. Arian and Kadoshi came after. Jet Arian Kadoshi. Master Kadoshi. Archmage. He was an Archmage. He got his diploma? When? He was still in third...

Third year.

That was past, already.

Names flooded into Jet's mind, scenes and memories came with them.

Flame Drayceon. Platinum Valaeris. Sanguine—

Platinum.

Suddenly, Jet was back in the field. That damn field... but then... he couldn't remember why he hated it so much, his face tucked in the crook of Platinum's neck as he drew magic circles on the ground. Yes. It was comfortable there. He liked it.

But then he remembered. As the buzzing panic shot up his spine, Jet remembered. Ice. Blood. Choking. He couldn't breathe. Tears. Tears ran down his face, and his hands shook. Why were his hands shaking? A heavy exhaustion was setting in, and yet still, he pulled at the warm energy centered in his core. He pulled until there wasn't anything else he could pull, but he still found something. Something. It swirled in the world around him, so full of magic and life.

And he pulled it. He pulled it from everything, including himself. The only things that were spared were living souls.

His soul was not spared. He drained his magic until there was nothing left to drain, and then he drained his body and everything around him.

So why was he alive?

And why did he feel like an overcharged battery?

A soft buzzing under his skin—which was rapidly getting feeling—answered his question.

''Rias?' he inquired slowly, having to get used to living in his own skin again. There was no way he was going to be able to speak verbally anytime soon, but mental speech was easy.

A relived feeling bloomed in his mind, no-doubt a product from Arias—or, rather, Flame.

'You saved me.'

Satisfaction.

Jet twitched his shoulder, feeling something warm under it. Warm and moving. He reached out with his mind tentatively, brushing against a familiar soul. A soul that was still thrumming.

A breath of relief followed.

He was okay. Platinum was okay.

Jet cracked open an eye, the dimness wherever he was a great mercy, despite the aching—oh, yes, everything was beginning to hurt—setting into the organs.

Green rose up to tower over the two figures, massive vines weaving together with thorns digging into the plants' bodies to make an almost-waterproof ceiling. It was dense to the point of being startling, and Jet even registered some of the vines wrapped around his and Platinum's bodies, with Jet's—thankfully—shielding Platinum from the brunt of the pain.

He was scarcely awake for more than five minutes when a rustle behind him has him turning his head in a half-circle to look. bright blue eyes narrowing in on a strangely-clothed figure carrying a sleek, black... something that, from the buzzing of anxiety around his spine, he figured was a weapon.

It looked like a pair of rectangles with a cylinder slapped on the front, and it was about the size of Jet's arm at full extension. The figure was a human; no doubt, but almost all of it was covered in a black cloth, with some sort of lens in front of its face, attached to a smooth helmet.

Jet's feathers bristled, his crest rising up along his head involuntarily. "St—sta—stay a—away," he rasped, his only free wing flaring and twitching. He clutched Platinum tighter, thanking the skies that he was regaining feeling in his muscles.

The figure tilted its head, bringing the weapon up to point the cylinder at him. It spoke something in a strange language he didn't recognize, syllables heavily annunciated.

For a moment, he focused back inward, pulling at his magic—his magic, which came as easily as water and all-but overflowed into the spell he began whispering under his breath. "Show me how long I've been dormant."

Jet's eyes glazed over as the spell took effect, a number coming to mind easily. 1, 752 cycles.

Well, that's...

Inconvenient.

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

Spoiler: Ghost!Verse. "Pilot"

It was cold. So cold.

They were too weak to even shudder, the frigid numbness slowly making its way up their limbs even by the light of a fire and all-but smothered under heavy blankets.

They were huddled in a nest of bedding, clinging onto Jet for warmth they could no longer feel, face tucked into the crook of his neck. Even their breaths were cold; they were acutely aware of that, every time they exhaled their father going rigid beside them.

"You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay," he whispered, desperation weaving around his tone and causing Arias to duck their head under his chin. Jet always knew what to do, so hearing him scramble for the only comforting thing he could think of solidified their knowledge that they were not, in fact, going to be okay.

Not that it needed any more validation. They could feel it in their chest; how much harder it was to breathe. As it was, they couldn't move, frozen stiff. If they were moved, pain immediately launched up their veins, digging its claws into their flesh and spreading the icy feeling more and more.

It wasn't even hours later that their breath slowed and inhaling wrought pain down around their ribs, millions of stabbing needles impaling their lungs and causing pain every time their heart beat.

It was slowing, anyway. The pain would be over, soon.

Jet brought them closer, as if that would help, breath hitching in his chest. "You're gonna be alright..."

It sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than Arias.

"'M not cold anymore," they mumbled, letting out a painful, breathy laugh. It was true; the cold no longer felt all-encompassing.

But they couldn't feel anything besides the pain, either. "I'm okay."

They had to pause to take a long, breath, feeling as if they'd run miles even though they hadn't moved in days.

"I'm gonna sleep, now... 'kay?"

Jet let out some noise between a sob and a laugh, ruffling their hair. It felt so very far away. "Alright, Baby Bird. I'll see you in the morning... then we can go get some fruit from the market, yeah... since you're okay, now?" A lie.

Arias' hum grated on their throat like sandpaper, eyelids drooping. "Mh, hm."

Jet Kadoshi would lie for few people.

Arias was proud to be one of them.

Darkness had overcome them moments later.

It was jagged, angry darkness that stuck needles in their arms and bled them of all they were worth.

The cold was back, too, more like a cool breeze compared to what it was, though.

They spent a long time like that.

It felt like decades had passed by the time light flooded their vision, again. Blessed, safe light.

They knew full-well they were dead; everything still felt wrong. Their limbs were too light, and they could feel themself drifting slightly with the ever-present draft. But they could see.

They could smell.

And slowly, they could hear.

The first thing they heard were awful, keening cries that were all-too familiar. They were the kind that, despite the cold, felt like they were tearing Arias' ribcage open, letting their blood spill to the floor.

Under the cries, the 'tip tap' of water managed to just make itself heard.

But there was no rain.

Arias focused in on their surroundings for the first time in what they could only feel was eons, turning on nonexistent feet to the door.

There, Jet sat on the floor, his head ducked under his arms and behind his legs. He shuddered and keened, the unnatural noises ripping themselves from his throat in a violent outburst of heartbreak.

Arias hesitantly took a step toward him, reaching out a hand and forcing themself to pay no mind to the fact that they could see the floorboards through their own arm. When another—startlingly loud—shriek all-but rattled the rafters, they darted forward on instinct, ducking under his arm and pressing up against his side...

Only to discover that they phased right through him.

Now on his left instead of right, they repeated the motion, only stopping just as they touched him.

"Bloody draft," the doctor whispered, all-but hissing it out with more malice than they'd ever heard him use.

They recoiled, nearly phasing through the opposite wall. They didn't want to make his anger worse. An angry Jet was an unpredictable Jet.

A rap on the door made Jet look up, and his expression had ice reforming in their nonexistent veins. Not because he glared such ire at the wood of the door that it should have withered. Not because he bared his teeth at the door. No.

Because they could see the saturated, clawing pain in his eyes.

"Get the fuck off my property, Victoria!" he snarled, venom in his voice.

"I just thought you'd want to—"

"For the last time, I'm not interested! Now leave!" He all-but roared, pushing himself to his full height and yanking the door open. "Get. Out."

All the residences of Northchurch were used to Jet being... well, Jet.

But whatever stood at the door was not Jet. There was lightning in his blood and death in his eyes. His gaze was a weapon and he was using it."

Victoria fled.

It seemed the fight drained out of him all at once, and Jet made his way back to his desk stiffly, letting his head hit the surface with a dull thunk.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, drawing his journal to his chest and digging his nails into it. "I should have never left you alone in this damn house."

They wanted to speak; wanted to say it was okay—they were okay even if he didn't hear them... but they couldn't bring themself to do it. It was like they had something wrapping around their throat, preventing them from speaking altogether.

He set it back down with a shaky breath, opening it up to the next blank page and picking up a pencil.

And with that, he started writing.

Jet spilled his soul into that journal, writing for hours until he passed out, Arias standing by his shoulder but never moving to touch him.

"I'm so sorry."

Days passed quickly for the new ghost, having no circadian rhythm, they couldn't really tell how much time passed unless they looked at the sun. Fifteen years passed in a flash and they learned they could pick up small items and drag larger ones.

They would sometimes push at a tool on Jet's desk if he needed it, trying to get it over to him... and failing.

Jet, for his part, took items moving randomly quite well, though that wasn't exactly the reaction they were trying to get. Their father's drive for knowledge seemed to have burned out from the wildfire it used to be to barely a spark. Instead of researching when he got home, he either wrote in his journal or just curled up in a blanket and did nothing.

He was never the same.

Or even close, really.

It was "Work until he got kicked out then go home and write or try and sleep". Years passed like this.

Decades.

Jet Arian Kadoshi died at age sixty four.

The last thing he did was tuck his journal under a floorboard in the house in a large wooden box and cover it back up with a note to whoever found it.

'Dear traveler,
This house has been in my family for generations. I hope you take good care of it. I have left this note to inform you of an irregularity. It will occasionally move things around the house. If you feel an unexpected still, cold spot that's probably them. They have been a great help to me, so do take care of them, as well, would you? They don't like the dark, so leaving a candle burning would be fine.

Best regards, Jet Kadoshi.

He didn't join Arias.

The house got sold, and with their mobility range now limited to the property, Arias went sort-of dormant.

No one really wanted to buy the house, seeing as it was quite a nice property that was a little pricey, so they weren't disturbed for a very long time.

When they were, it was because something smelled like it was burning. Something weirdly sweet.

Jet had never smoked, and refused to let others smoke up the house because he didn't want to be trapped in it.

So, Arias did something very decisive.

They hunted down the culprit through the achingly familiar halls until they spotted an old man smoking a pipe under a shelf.

A venomous hiss welled up in their throat and they searched for something along the shelf to throw.

They chose a picture-frame of some holy figure they couldn't give half a damn about and rammed into it with their full strength.

It rocked back and forth once...

Then tipped and hit the man on the shoulder.

Repeat process.

The man eventually fled, screaming.

That's how Arias' (not so)life went for a long time, scaring off people that tried to harm their home and keeping people away from Jet's things, which they discovered, amusingly, were squirrelled away within the walls and floors at random points.

That was something he would definitely do.

I'm sad and I'm going to make that EVERYONE'S PROBLEM