03-03-2018, 03:47 AM
An exhaustion, warm and ethereal, passed through Sonny’s chest as the immaterial blade tore through him. His chest heaved, a harsh gasp forced out through his throat as though the scythe had ripped the breath right out of him, along with the little energy he still had. His body trembled, he wanted nothing more than to lay down and sleep, but he held resolute. Sucking in a deep breath, he regained his composure before he ended up worrying Ebony. If he was being totally honest with himself, he wasn’t ready for this training, but he needed to go through with it anyway, for his student’s sake.
“Nice hit,” the sun spirit praised her cheerfully, voice shaking almost imperceptibly, his demeanor dripping with his usual calmness.
“T-Thanks!” The young mage stuttered lightly, beaming at him with a bright, confident smile, a hint of a rosy blush on her cheeks as she puffed out her chest, clearly elated that she just did something cool.
“... But...” he continued, slowly, his calming gaze settled squarely on his black-clad protege. That one word shattered her confidence, and suddenly she seemed to shrink in on herself a bit, smile falling away and her visage returning to neutral. “This is weapon’s training, not magic training.”
“B-But...” Ebony stammered, wide-eyed, clutching her scythe to her chest. “B-But in a real battle, I won’t just be relying on my scythe, r-right? S-So shouldn’t this be fine?”
“You don’t know that,” Sonny said, his voice authoritative, but still somehow reassuring. He took a step closer to her, coiling his whip back up, tucking it under his bad arm. “What if you end up facing someone who could nullify your magic? Or someone it just doesn’t work on? If you rely on it too much, what will you do when you can’t use it anymore?”
“S-Sorry...” The young mage muttered, averting her gaze from his, her tone that of a chastised child.
“No, there’s no need to be sorry,” the sun spirit’s boots clicked lightly on the wooden flooring as he slowly closed the distance. “It may not have been what we’re supposed to be doing in this session...” He stopped not inches from her, hand lightly touching her chin, and gently turning her head up to look him in the eyes. “... But it was still a good move.” At those words, her scolded frown vanished, an obvious tint spreading through her cheeks. Her deep green eyes flicked away from his gaze, looking off to the side as if there was something particularly interesting in that direction. “Now... how about another round? You’re getting there, I can tell.”
“S-Sure!” Her voice was peppy once again, though she still refused to look the sun spirit in the eyes.
“Good!” His hand slipped off of her chin as he took a few paces back, returning to his spot. With a swift motion of his left hand, he snapped his whip out, letting the plaited leather fall limply to the ground. He smiled at Ebony, and she smiled right back, clearly bracing herself and getting ready for her attack. Well, she wouldn’t always have the luxury of choosing when a fight began....
Sonny suddenly started marching forward in his usual leisurely pace, closing the distance quickly in spite of how slowly he moved. Though he wasn’t the fastest person the young mage would ever face, it still caught her off guard. Ebony stumbled back a step, swinging her scythe down and holding it defensively in front of her, tip pointed at the sun spirit. Obviously, a ‘haha you can’t touch me I have a five-foot pole’ type gesture, though with much less laughing given how timid the mage was.
That would have worked. Had the weapon been a spear or pike, not a scythe, had this not been someone as clumsy as Eb, and had it been anyone but Sonny. The tired spirit, as it turned out, had several options at his disposal. Simply step to the side and let his High Pressure System do all the heavy lifting, grab hold the weapon and pull himself closer (with how he hid his strength, he had no chance of wrenching it free from her grasp), or simply snap out his whip right now and wrap it around her throat.
In the end, he decided to simply slip within range. He continued to storm forward unheeded, his dispersive aura forcing the scythe’s tip to slide away from him. Panicking, the girl took a frantic step backward, turning the weapon over in her hands and raising the weapon high above her head in one hell of a telegraphed swing. The leather whip snapped forward, wrapping around her wrist and preventing her from retreating further. Desperately, his opponent swung her weapon anyway, only succeeding in bouncing the shaft of the scythe off his arm, bruising him a bit. For a quick moment, Sonny wished he’d met her sooner, and turned her off the notion of such an impractical weapon.... But alas, he had to teach her, and by the gods, he was going to.
“Gotcha.” The sun spirit’s voice was calm and menacing as he planted a hand on her shoulder, preventing further escape. She couldn’t back up without throwing herself off the arena now. Ebony’s deep green eyes flicked around, desperately searching for something, anything, that she could do. But with the warm spirit so close, she found nothing. Her shoulders fell slack, her scythe dropping down to her side.
“This isn’t something I expect you to be able to pick up right away...” Sonny began, still standing so close to her. “But you cannot panic in battle. You’re a lot faster than me, you should have been able to run there, retreat to the side and regroup. Instead, you froze up, and even someone as slow as me can close the distance like that.”
“S-s-sorry....” Ebony squeaked, almost seeming to shrink in on herself.
“No.” The spirit spoke firmly, trying to look her in the eye, though she kept averting her gaze. “Do not be sorry. This is what training is for. Don’t be sorry for your flaws. Right now, you’re trying to fix them, and that’s what matters. Got it?”
“G-g-got it...”
“Alright!” Sonny exclaimed cheerfully, getting into another battle-ready stance. “Now come at me again....”
---
The sun set surprisingly quickly over the Ashen Steppes. Thanks to his natural attunement to the weather, Sonny could instinctively tell that it wasn’t the result of a shorter day-night cycle or anything of the like. The sun above the horizon was still bearing down upon the ashen clouds, warming them. It was simply the fact that said thick cloud of ash always blotting out the sun. Such a thing didn’t do any favors towards keeping the verse lit up. As soon as that brilliant ball of plasma in the sky even thought about dipping below the horizon, the sky already began to darken dramatically, and there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. Sure, the surface was kept marginally lit by the various volcanic eruptions on the horizon, and the glowing flows of lava that occasionally bubbled above the crust, but the lack of sun and moon didn’t really help matters at all.
“I think now’s a good time to call it quits,” Sonny said, chest heaving with deep breaths. He placed his hands on his hips, throwing his head back to look at the ashen sky above them. He sucked in one deep breath after another, his own natural, dispersive aura driving away the ash and soot. No matter where he was, he always breathed clean air.
“O-Okay!” Ebony answered back, her own voice as tired and breathy as his was. Her tone had gotten more... confident through their training, as Sonny had instructed her on what she was doing right and what she could fix. At the beginning, she hadn’t been doing much but flailing, throwing wild blow after blow that the sun spirit easily avoided. But though it had been only their first session, the young scythe-wielder was already showing signs of improvement. Nearer the end, she’d started landing a few solid hits on him. There was still a lot for her to learn though, things that couldn’t be beaten into her head on one day, but rather over the course of weeks, every day until she could handle herself.
“Good work.” With a snap, Sonny curled his whip back up, tucking it way into his coat pocket again.
“Th-thanks,” belts jangled and boots clicked as Ebony cheerfully stepped over to the spirit, twirling her scythe around cooly and vanishing it into thin air. “Did you have anything else in mind today, or...?” She stopped close to his side, leaning over just a bit and looking up at him with bright eyes.
“Oh I don’t know about you...” Sonny began with a sigh, lifting his still-burned hand up to ruffle the young mage’s soft, black hair. It had healed over the hours they’d trained, all his nerve-endings had fixed themselves, but much of the surface damage was still present. All said, that was the last remaining wound on his body. “But these old bones need rest...” he joked. The healing and all of Ebony’s scythe hits had taken their toll on him. He really needed to sleep.
“You’re not that old!” His black-clad protege laughed, surprisingly energetic even after such a long work-out. Sonny simply chuckled and ruffled her hair just a bit more, before dropping his hand down to his side.
“Well, how about we get something to eat,” he changed the topic, removing his hand from her head and stretching his back out. “Maybe see if we can find a bath in here, then head to sleep and do it all again tomorrow. Sound like a plan?”
“Y-Yeah. Sounds good,” Ebony answered cheerfully, voice suddenly becoming just vaguely quieter. The sun spirit grinned a toothy grin, and turned to make his way off the stage, but not before the young mage grabbed onto his hand.
Adorable....
---
Sonny plopped himself back down on his borrowed bed, mattress sighing as his weight compressed it. Though he’d just gotten out of the castle’s bath (a tub that you needed to bring your own water to and heat manually, of course), other than the comfy white robe he now found himself wearing, there weren’t really any other tell-tale signs he’d just gotten out of it. Thanks to his own, natural dispersive magics and his unusually high body temperature, all the water that had been soaking his hair and his body had already been either shunted or evaporated off. But even so, the bath had already worked its wonders on him. He felt so clean.
Leaning against his hands propped against the bed behind him, the sun spirit looked up towards the ceiling, heaving a deep sigh. Gods, the Omniverse was one hell of a hectic place if he didn’t have time for that luxury nearly as much as he would have liked. He could have counted the number of baths and showers he’d taken since arriving in this universe on one... finger. Disgusting. Sure, he may have spent more than half his time here embroiled in one pointless conflict after another, unable to do so much as rest between them, but still....
Well, it was what it was. The blonde flopped backward, spreading his arms out across the bed, the mattress causing him to bounce a bit. Ah... He was completely and utterly drained. There was nothing he’d like more than to roll over, pull the blanket over him, and pass out. But his deep green-grey eyes stayed wide open, carefully studying every rough imperfection in the dusty brickwork above him, his mind still wound up in thoughts and deliberations. He already knew this day wasn’t over, not for him, at least. He still had to set up those observational spells, see what exactly it was that ailed Ebony.
Sonny hummed in an annoyed tone, slowly working up the willpower to pry himself free from the bed. With a deep grunt and an aching sigh, he sat up once again, before immediately studying the wall across from him with tired eyes, the very same way he’d just been gazing at the ceiling. It was going to be a rough night. “Okay....” He mumbled to the empty room, desperately trying to spurn himself to action. The mattress strained as he pushed himself to his feet, his body suddenly feeling heavy. “This has to be done, no slacking....”
---
Some indeterminate amount of time later, a creak resounded through the otherwise silent room, the wooden door swinging open just enough for a head to poke through, black hair still damp from the bath. “Sonny?” The soft voice of Ebony called out, timid green eyes and a cute face peering past the door and into the room. Glowing, arcane words lined the walls. Words that had no doubt been written by magic, not through any natural writing implement.
“Yes?” The sun spirit’s tired voice called back. The blonde man was seated on his bed, staring almost blankly at the wall. His work wasn’t done just yet, but the words weren’t coming to him easily. He really needed to rest....
“U-Um...” Slowly, she made her way inside, still dressed in her usual attire. “C-Could y-you um...” The young mage fidgeted nervously as she shuffled into the room, blushing and averting her eyes. “B-Brush my h-h-hair?”
“Sure.” Sonny said without really thinking, turning towards the welcome distraction from this mess of spells and arcane words. Any excuse to not deal with this.
“I-It’s just that I don’t have a mirror a-and that makes it hard to get it to look right and...” Ebony let loose an embarrassed avalanche of words, her voice forceful enough to almost echo through the room before she caught herself. “... A-and d-d-did you s-say ‘sure?’”
“Of course.” Though the spirit spoke cheerfully, his voice notably lacked enthusiasm. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to; he was perfectly ambivalent about the whole situation. It was just that, of course, he was Tired. With a capital T. The scythe-wielder blushed brightly, shuffling in just a bit faster as she did, spurned on by the spirit’s words.
Unfamiliar feelings bit into Sonny’s heart, a little green haze floating over his vision. His chest emptied, becoming naught but a profound hollowness, and the very blood pumping through his veins felt... warm, suddenly. He shouldn’t have said that. But why? The sun spirit blinked rapidly, scarcely noticing the bouncing of the mattress as the light mage plopped herself down right beside him. Was this...
Envy? Why was he feeling it towards himself? Why did he suddenly want to tell himself to step off? How was he feeling this simmering anger and jealousy towards himself? Could one even be envious towards themselves? He could feel it, in the walls, the arcane, pulsing words scribbled along every wall telling him exactly what he needed to know. Even though they were incomplete, they still could at least pass on some of the info.
Emotional, Magical, and Physical state, the three most important things he could look at in a person. There were a few more minor spells that were tripping him up, but he had the basics down at least. With all three involved, he could at least get a general idea of what was going down inside a person, and right now all of the glowing words on the wall were telling him something about what was going on in his body. His sleep-deprived mind went into overdrive.
“S-Sonny?”
The sun spirit didn’t hear Ebony’s words, zoning out entirely as he tried to make heads or tails of the pure, unadulterated magical information being poured right into his mind. Envy, plain and simple, was suddenly surging through him. Spawned from the furthest reaches of his mind, where his consciousness couldn’t touch. The spells told him of a magical barrier there, something separating his mind from something else, though they could still read either side of it. Just not through it. The Split. The very thing that had plagued him all these years. Despite never being able to so much as touch it before, now he could witness it in its full glory. And revel in one of its failings.
“Sonny~!”
Somehow, it was letting emotions through. Perhaps only strong ones, since he’d never felt all of Summer’s littler emotions before. Maybe that had been the uncharacteristic rage he’d felt twice before? Either way, there was a method to bypass the split. Emotions. Emotional Magic. Volatile, something he really didn’t want to fuck with but had to anyway, by the looks of it.
But how?
“Sonny!”
The sun spirit suddenly heaved himself off the bed, falling to a crouch, finger outstretched. Emotional Magic required Telepathy, the most dangerous form of magic. He’d never dared touch it before; one fuck-up would render someone immobile and unconscious for the rest of their natural life, and given how long he lived.... His hand moved with a speed unexpected for someone as slow and deliberate as him. Glowing, arcane words were etched into the very stone just in front of him, every observation he could muster in his sleep-deprived state. Everything, right down to the smallest surge of emotion he could feel or observe through his spells.
He witnessed, but did not interfere, as his other half, no doubt envious over Sonny being the one propositioned to, began to weave together a spell to separate the two, if only for a moment. The same thing they’d done previously, materializing outside their shared body. The sun spirit merely observed and scribbled, paying no heed as Summer materialized and helped Ebony brush her hair, he had more important things to deal with. Notably, even in separate bodies, he still read their mind as one single entity, just with a magical barrier carving it in twain. Two bodies, one mind, the two could never truly be apart. Absolutely intrigued, the sun spirit wrote until he passed out, something that didn't take more than a few minutes given his fervor....
“Nice hit,” the sun spirit praised her cheerfully, voice shaking almost imperceptibly, his demeanor dripping with his usual calmness.
“T-Thanks!” The young mage stuttered lightly, beaming at him with a bright, confident smile, a hint of a rosy blush on her cheeks as she puffed out her chest, clearly elated that she just did something cool.
“... But...” he continued, slowly, his calming gaze settled squarely on his black-clad protege. That one word shattered her confidence, and suddenly she seemed to shrink in on herself a bit, smile falling away and her visage returning to neutral. “This is weapon’s training, not magic training.”
“B-But...” Ebony stammered, wide-eyed, clutching her scythe to her chest. “B-But in a real battle, I won’t just be relying on my scythe, r-right? S-So shouldn’t this be fine?”
“You don’t know that,” Sonny said, his voice authoritative, but still somehow reassuring. He took a step closer to her, coiling his whip back up, tucking it under his bad arm. “What if you end up facing someone who could nullify your magic? Or someone it just doesn’t work on? If you rely on it too much, what will you do when you can’t use it anymore?”
“S-Sorry...” The young mage muttered, averting her gaze from his, her tone that of a chastised child.
“No, there’s no need to be sorry,” the sun spirit’s boots clicked lightly on the wooden flooring as he slowly closed the distance. “It may not have been what we’re supposed to be doing in this session...” He stopped not inches from her, hand lightly touching her chin, and gently turning her head up to look him in the eyes. “... But it was still a good move.” At those words, her scolded frown vanished, an obvious tint spreading through her cheeks. Her deep green eyes flicked away from his gaze, looking off to the side as if there was something particularly interesting in that direction. “Now... how about another round? You’re getting there, I can tell.”
“S-Sure!” Her voice was peppy once again, though she still refused to look the sun spirit in the eyes.
“Good!” His hand slipped off of her chin as he took a few paces back, returning to his spot. With a swift motion of his left hand, he snapped his whip out, letting the plaited leather fall limply to the ground. He smiled at Ebony, and she smiled right back, clearly bracing herself and getting ready for her attack. Well, she wouldn’t always have the luxury of choosing when a fight began....
Sonny suddenly started marching forward in his usual leisurely pace, closing the distance quickly in spite of how slowly he moved. Though he wasn’t the fastest person the young mage would ever face, it still caught her off guard. Ebony stumbled back a step, swinging her scythe down and holding it defensively in front of her, tip pointed at the sun spirit. Obviously, a ‘haha you can’t touch me I have a five-foot pole’ type gesture, though with much less laughing given how timid the mage was.
That would have worked. Had the weapon been a spear or pike, not a scythe, had this not been someone as clumsy as Eb, and had it been anyone but Sonny. The tired spirit, as it turned out, had several options at his disposal. Simply step to the side and let his High Pressure System do all the heavy lifting, grab hold the weapon and pull himself closer (with how he hid his strength, he had no chance of wrenching it free from her grasp), or simply snap out his whip right now and wrap it around her throat.
In the end, he decided to simply slip within range. He continued to storm forward unheeded, his dispersive aura forcing the scythe’s tip to slide away from him. Panicking, the girl took a frantic step backward, turning the weapon over in her hands and raising the weapon high above her head in one hell of a telegraphed swing. The leather whip snapped forward, wrapping around her wrist and preventing her from retreating further. Desperately, his opponent swung her weapon anyway, only succeeding in bouncing the shaft of the scythe off his arm, bruising him a bit. For a quick moment, Sonny wished he’d met her sooner, and turned her off the notion of such an impractical weapon.... But alas, he had to teach her, and by the gods, he was going to.
“Gotcha.” The sun spirit’s voice was calm and menacing as he planted a hand on her shoulder, preventing further escape. She couldn’t back up without throwing herself off the arena now. Ebony’s deep green eyes flicked around, desperately searching for something, anything, that she could do. But with the warm spirit so close, she found nothing. Her shoulders fell slack, her scythe dropping down to her side.
“This isn’t something I expect you to be able to pick up right away...” Sonny began, still standing so close to her. “But you cannot panic in battle. You’re a lot faster than me, you should have been able to run there, retreat to the side and regroup. Instead, you froze up, and even someone as slow as me can close the distance like that.”
“S-s-sorry....” Ebony squeaked, almost seeming to shrink in on herself.
“No.” The spirit spoke firmly, trying to look her in the eye, though she kept averting her gaze. “Do not be sorry. This is what training is for. Don’t be sorry for your flaws. Right now, you’re trying to fix them, and that’s what matters. Got it?”
“G-g-got it...”
“Alright!” Sonny exclaimed cheerfully, getting into another battle-ready stance. “Now come at me again....”
---
The sun set surprisingly quickly over the Ashen Steppes. Thanks to his natural attunement to the weather, Sonny could instinctively tell that it wasn’t the result of a shorter day-night cycle or anything of the like. The sun above the horizon was still bearing down upon the ashen clouds, warming them. It was simply the fact that said thick cloud of ash always blotting out the sun. Such a thing didn’t do any favors towards keeping the verse lit up. As soon as that brilliant ball of plasma in the sky even thought about dipping below the horizon, the sky already began to darken dramatically, and there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. Sure, the surface was kept marginally lit by the various volcanic eruptions on the horizon, and the glowing flows of lava that occasionally bubbled above the crust, but the lack of sun and moon didn’t really help matters at all.
“I think now’s a good time to call it quits,” Sonny said, chest heaving with deep breaths. He placed his hands on his hips, throwing his head back to look at the ashen sky above them. He sucked in one deep breath after another, his own natural, dispersive aura driving away the ash and soot. No matter where he was, he always breathed clean air.
“O-Okay!” Ebony answered back, her own voice as tired and breathy as his was. Her tone had gotten more... confident through their training, as Sonny had instructed her on what she was doing right and what she could fix. At the beginning, she hadn’t been doing much but flailing, throwing wild blow after blow that the sun spirit easily avoided. But though it had been only their first session, the young scythe-wielder was already showing signs of improvement. Nearer the end, she’d started landing a few solid hits on him. There was still a lot for her to learn though, things that couldn’t be beaten into her head on one day, but rather over the course of weeks, every day until she could handle herself.
“Good work.” With a snap, Sonny curled his whip back up, tucking it way into his coat pocket again.
“Th-thanks,” belts jangled and boots clicked as Ebony cheerfully stepped over to the spirit, twirling her scythe around cooly and vanishing it into thin air. “Did you have anything else in mind today, or...?” She stopped close to his side, leaning over just a bit and looking up at him with bright eyes.
“Oh I don’t know about you...” Sonny began with a sigh, lifting his still-burned hand up to ruffle the young mage’s soft, black hair. It had healed over the hours they’d trained, all his nerve-endings had fixed themselves, but much of the surface damage was still present. All said, that was the last remaining wound on his body. “But these old bones need rest...” he joked. The healing and all of Ebony’s scythe hits had taken their toll on him. He really needed to sleep.
“You’re not that old!” His black-clad protege laughed, surprisingly energetic even after such a long work-out. Sonny simply chuckled and ruffled her hair just a bit more, before dropping his hand down to his side.
“Well, how about we get something to eat,” he changed the topic, removing his hand from her head and stretching his back out. “Maybe see if we can find a bath in here, then head to sleep and do it all again tomorrow. Sound like a plan?”
“Y-Yeah. Sounds good,” Ebony answered cheerfully, voice suddenly becoming just vaguely quieter. The sun spirit grinned a toothy grin, and turned to make his way off the stage, but not before the young mage grabbed onto his hand.
Adorable....
---
Sonny plopped himself back down on his borrowed bed, mattress sighing as his weight compressed it. Though he’d just gotten out of the castle’s bath (a tub that you needed to bring your own water to and heat manually, of course), other than the comfy white robe he now found himself wearing, there weren’t really any other tell-tale signs he’d just gotten out of it. Thanks to his own, natural dispersive magics and his unusually high body temperature, all the water that had been soaking his hair and his body had already been either shunted or evaporated off. But even so, the bath had already worked its wonders on him. He felt so clean.
Leaning against his hands propped against the bed behind him, the sun spirit looked up towards the ceiling, heaving a deep sigh. Gods, the Omniverse was one hell of a hectic place if he didn’t have time for that luxury nearly as much as he would have liked. He could have counted the number of baths and showers he’d taken since arriving in this universe on one... finger. Disgusting. Sure, he may have spent more than half his time here embroiled in one pointless conflict after another, unable to do so much as rest between them, but still....
Well, it was what it was. The blonde flopped backward, spreading his arms out across the bed, the mattress causing him to bounce a bit. Ah... He was completely and utterly drained. There was nothing he’d like more than to roll over, pull the blanket over him, and pass out. But his deep green-grey eyes stayed wide open, carefully studying every rough imperfection in the dusty brickwork above him, his mind still wound up in thoughts and deliberations. He already knew this day wasn’t over, not for him, at least. He still had to set up those observational spells, see what exactly it was that ailed Ebony.
Sonny hummed in an annoyed tone, slowly working up the willpower to pry himself free from the bed. With a deep grunt and an aching sigh, he sat up once again, before immediately studying the wall across from him with tired eyes, the very same way he’d just been gazing at the ceiling. It was going to be a rough night. “Okay....” He mumbled to the empty room, desperately trying to spurn himself to action. The mattress strained as he pushed himself to his feet, his body suddenly feeling heavy. “This has to be done, no slacking....”
---
Some indeterminate amount of time later, a creak resounded through the otherwise silent room, the wooden door swinging open just enough for a head to poke through, black hair still damp from the bath. “Sonny?” The soft voice of Ebony called out, timid green eyes and a cute face peering past the door and into the room. Glowing, arcane words lined the walls. Words that had no doubt been written by magic, not through any natural writing implement.
“Yes?” The sun spirit’s tired voice called back. The blonde man was seated on his bed, staring almost blankly at the wall. His work wasn’t done just yet, but the words weren’t coming to him easily. He really needed to rest....
“U-Um...” Slowly, she made her way inside, still dressed in her usual attire. “C-Could y-you um...” The young mage fidgeted nervously as she shuffled into the room, blushing and averting her eyes. “B-Brush my h-h-hair?”
“Sure.” Sonny said without really thinking, turning towards the welcome distraction from this mess of spells and arcane words. Any excuse to not deal with this.
“I-It’s just that I don’t have a mirror a-and that makes it hard to get it to look right and...” Ebony let loose an embarrassed avalanche of words, her voice forceful enough to almost echo through the room before she caught herself. “... A-and d-d-did you s-say ‘sure?’”
“Of course.” Though the spirit spoke cheerfully, his voice notably lacked enthusiasm. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to; he was perfectly ambivalent about the whole situation. It was just that, of course, he was Tired. With a capital T. The scythe-wielder blushed brightly, shuffling in just a bit faster as she did, spurned on by the spirit’s words.
Unfamiliar feelings bit into Sonny’s heart, a little green haze floating over his vision. His chest emptied, becoming naught but a profound hollowness, and the very blood pumping through his veins felt... warm, suddenly. He shouldn’t have said that. But why? The sun spirit blinked rapidly, scarcely noticing the bouncing of the mattress as the light mage plopped herself down right beside him. Was this...
Envy? Why was he feeling it towards himself? Why did he suddenly want to tell himself to step off? How was he feeling this simmering anger and jealousy towards himself? Could one even be envious towards themselves? He could feel it, in the walls, the arcane, pulsing words scribbled along every wall telling him exactly what he needed to know. Even though they were incomplete, they still could at least pass on some of the info.
Emotional, Magical, and Physical state, the three most important things he could look at in a person. There were a few more minor spells that were tripping him up, but he had the basics down at least. With all three involved, he could at least get a general idea of what was going down inside a person, and right now all of the glowing words on the wall were telling him something about what was going on in his body. His sleep-deprived mind went into overdrive.
“S-Sonny?”
The sun spirit didn’t hear Ebony’s words, zoning out entirely as he tried to make heads or tails of the pure, unadulterated magical information being poured right into his mind. Envy, plain and simple, was suddenly surging through him. Spawned from the furthest reaches of his mind, where his consciousness couldn’t touch. The spells told him of a magical barrier there, something separating his mind from something else, though they could still read either side of it. Just not through it. The Split. The very thing that had plagued him all these years. Despite never being able to so much as touch it before, now he could witness it in its full glory. And revel in one of its failings.
“Sonny~!”
Somehow, it was letting emotions through. Perhaps only strong ones, since he’d never felt all of Summer’s littler emotions before. Maybe that had been the uncharacteristic rage he’d felt twice before? Either way, there was a method to bypass the split. Emotions. Emotional Magic. Volatile, something he really didn’t want to fuck with but had to anyway, by the looks of it.
But how?
“Sonny!”
The sun spirit suddenly heaved himself off the bed, falling to a crouch, finger outstretched. Emotional Magic required Telepathy, the most dangerous form of magic. He’d never dared touch it before; one fuck-up would render someone immobile and unconscious for the rest of their natural life, and given how long he lived.... His hand moved with a speed unexpected for someone as slow and deliberate as him. Glowing, arcane words were etched into the very stone just in front of him, every observation he could muster in his sleep-deprived state. Everything, right down to the smallest surge of emotion he could feel or observe through his spells.
He witnessed, but did not interfere, as his other half, no doubt envious over Sonny being the one propositioned to, began to weave together a spell to separate the two, if only for a moment. The same thing they’d done previously, materializing outside their shared body. The sun spirit merely observed and scribbled, paying no heed as Summer materialized and helped Ebony brush her hair, he had more important things to deal with. Notably, even in separate bodies, he still read their mind as one single entity, just with a magical barrier carving it in twain. Two bodies, one mind, the two could never truly be apart. Absolutely intrigued, the sun spirit wrote until he passed out, something that didn't take more than a few minutes given his fervor....
![[Image: ZpWQiiu.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/ZpWQiiu.gif)