Days passed. Or perhaps centuries. Time had little meaning in the silent world Lucretia now wandered. The pale sands were unchanged, her steps endlessly retracing paths no one else would walk.
Then, without warning, the sky cracked.
A hum pulsed through the air, different from the quiet thrum of mana. It was vibrant, alive, foreign. Lucretia looked up, shielding her eyes as radiant light poured through the sky, no, through a rift. A vast magic circle spiraled open in the void above her, its glyphs rotating with celestial grace.
And from that breach descended a figure.
Wings aglow with the brilliance of untouched snow, golden hair cascading like starlight spun into silk, and eyes as blue as the summer sky. The figure descended slowly, her form ethereal and radiant, yet her descent was anything but divine. She wobbled midair, caught a bit of her own robe on a breeze, and spun slightly off-balance, flailing gently before landing with an unceremonious thump in the sand below. Her foot clipped the edge of the rift, and she spun awkwardly midair with a surprised yelp before finally landing in the sand with a soft thud.
"Ow… I mean, Ahem!" She sprang to her feet, brushing off her robes, which had tangled around her legs. "Dignity intact! Totally intentional descent!"
Lucretia blinked. Was this a memory returned? A fragment of her forgotten past?
The angel straightened and gave a sheepish smile. "I was not expecting company here," she said, her voice still graceful despite her clumsy entrance. "You're... not from Asgard, are you?"
Lucretia shook her head slowly. "I don't know where I'm from. Or even where this is."
The angel tilted her head, squinting at her. "Hmm... you're an elf, right? I can sense something strange, like a spark trying to hide in a pile of leaves. You've definitely got some hidden talent in there somewhere... probably. Maybe. I think."
She stumbled slightly as she stepped closer, kicking up a bit of sand before regaining her balance and offering a hand. "Name's Nigihayami. I was fleeing, well, it's a long story involving divine politics, explosions, and me maybe sort of yelling at a demigod. May I sit?"
Lucretia nodded, bemused.
They sat together in the white sands, two beings from two worlds. Nigihayami, wings slightly askew, dug her heels into the sand with a contented sigh.
"So," she began, pulling out a snack from her sleeve, a cookie that promptly crumbled apart, "I guess you made all this, huh?"
Lucretia blinked. "I... what?"
"This world, or realm, or unfinished dreamscape, or however you want to label it," Nigihayami gestured with a dramatic sweep, then sneezed as the motion flung sand into her face. She coughed and tried again, more gently. "This place. It's yours. You created it. are you not? Maybe not consciously, but it responds to you. Your mana, your longing, it built this. I can see it."
"I don't remember creating anything," Lucretia whispered. "I just woke up here. I don't even know who I really am."
Nigihayami shrugged, taking another bite of her crumbled cookie. "Creation isn't always about knowing. Sometimes, it's about needing. Wanting. And look, "
She pointed behind Lucretia. "Well, eventually you'll be able to make things grow," she said. "Right now, it's more like... potential growth. No sprouts yet. Just mana waiting for the right nudge."
Lucretia glanced behind her. The sand remained undisturbed, no greenery in sight. She frowned slightly.
"Don't worry," Nigihayami added quickly, waving her hand. "The fact that nothing's sprouting yet just means your magic hasn't fully awakened. You're still running on instinct. Once you learn to direct it, really direct it, you'll be surprised what you can do. Maybe even grow a tree."
Lucretia tilted her head. "A tree?"
"Yup. Big. Shiny. Probably sparkly."
It wasn't long after that Lucretia focused, breathed, and, with Nigihayami's guidance, created her first deliberate piece of life: a tiny sapling.
"See? Even without trying, you're making things grow."
Lucretia stared. Something stirred in her chest, not memory, but feeling. A warmth she couldn't name.
"You're like a sleeping seed buried in rich soil," Nigihayami said, brushing cookie crumbs off her lap. "You just need someone to water you. And lucky for you, I'm good with watering cans."
So began their time together. Nigihayami stayed, not out of duty, but out of curiosity, and maybe a bit of mischief. She taught Lucretia how to harness mana, though her lessons were often interrupted by minor accidents: a spell exploding in her face, a summoned chair that vanished mid-sit, or tripping over her own robes.
Yet through her clumsiness, her wisdom shone. Nigihayami spoke of Asgard and the wars waged under Odin's rule, of magic woven into laws, and laws twisted into weapons. She'd escaped that, slipping through a crack in reality, and stumbled into Lucretia's fledgling world.
Under Nigihayami's guidance, Lucretia learned to shape her mana. She focused, breathed, reached into herself, and created her first deliberate piece of life: a tiny sapling. It emerged trembling from the sand, green and bright. But the sapling, small though it was, hungrily drew upon Lucretia's mana, more and more with every passing second. Her body trembled, her breath grew shallow, and her vision blurred. She barely managed a smile before her legs gave way beneath her, overcome by exhaustion.
Drained beyond her limits, Lucretia collapsed in the soft sand, succumbing to sleep as if pulled into a dreamless void by the very roots of her creation.
Nigihayami caught her before she hit the ground, gently lowering her to the sand. "Hmm... looks like her mana pool's still a baby sapling too. Oh well, she'll get there. Eventually." she whispered with a smile.
She stayed by Lucretia's side, wings folded around them both like a shield. Watching. Waiting. Knowing her time here was borrowed.
"Oh no. Oh no no no! Crap!" Nigihayami jumped to her feet, nearly tripping over the hem of her robe. "I completely forgot, I left something important behind in Asgard! Wait, no, not something. Someone! My friend! I was supposed to grab him before Odin's patrol showed up! Ugh, how do I always do this?" She began pacing frantically, wings twitching with exasperation. "Okay, okay, think, Nigihayami. You left him mid-nap... or was he brewing a firestorm? Either way, if he's awake, he's going to be really annoyed. If he's asleep, he's going to be even worse when he wakes up. Great. Perfect. Just perfect."
With a sigh, Nigihayami stood. She clumsily patted herself down, muttered a half-remembered incantation, and with a flourish far too big for the situation, waved her hand.
A large magic circle burst into view above the ground, humming with power. In the center, a cracking dimensional rift opened like a doorway of light and shadow.
"Right... let's hope he's still napping. That would be ideal. But if not, ugh, I swear, if he starts flinging fireballs again, I'll just have to resort to extreme measures. Tie him up with a mana rope, stuff him in a dimensional sack, and apologize later. Very politely. Probably with cookies."
She took a breath, then jumped through the rift, back to Asgard.
To kidnap her friend.
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