[Aster]
It was all a mistake. It was all a stupid, reckless mistake. He should have listened to his mother and stayed at home, sleeping in bed. He felt so sick, so weak that his legs could barely support him, let alone carry him through the deep snow. Every step forward was a struggle, every breath a painful wheeze, his body trembling from the fever that seemed to worsen by the minute.
His limbs kept twisting in unnatural ways all on their own, joints screaming with pain whenever that happened. And his heart... it beat so fast he was sure he would collapse and die at any moment, the sound of it's erratic beating echoing in his ears, making them ring. His vision was getting worse, too; his eyes were barely able to distinguish the blurry shapes of the trees and bushes around him. At some point, he simply remembered which shape meant what and just walked on.
The only thing keeping him alive was the strengthening spell he kept burning in his muscles, and his iron will to bring his mother and sister some food. And maybe a tiny little fact that he had spent so much time, almost half the daylight, trying to find something, and by now, his mother had likely woken up, furious that he hadn't listened to her. Just imagining the earful and the possible spanking he'd receive upon returning made the boy shudder. 'No,' he thought, 'too late to go back, I'll get scolded regardless. Might as well get spanked with food.' His throat hitched with a weak, breathless chuckle.
'Just a bit more, a little longer, you can do this, keep going,' he repeated to himself, pushing his body forward one stubborn step at a time. His eyes darted from one tree to another, searching for any sign of something edible, whether an animal or a plant. "Haaaah..." he exhaled, the mist of his hot breath mixing with the frigid winter air. His ears caught nothing but the rustling of the wind through the branches of the trees around him.
Deciding to take a small break, Aster slumped against the nearest tree, letting his head loll back to rest on the cold, rough bark. 'What a nightmare...' he thought, a miserable sigh leaving his mouth. Fumbling around his waist, he took out his mother's knife and began carving another cross into the tree. He had lost count of how many of these symbols he had made since setting out from the hut. They were all over the forest now, pointing toward one another and toward home.
After finishing the drawing, he tucked his knife back and slumped further down, sliding onto the snow-covered ground, his legs sticking straight out before him. Closing his eyes, he tried to catch his breath, but the short rest did nothing to ease the pain in his chest. His heart continued to race, each beat throbbing against his temples and causing his vision to swim even with eyelids tightly shut. No matter how long he sat there, it didn't get better, his face scrunching from the discomfort. 'It's just a little sickness, calm down, stupid heart,' Aster thought as he pressed his palm against his chest and gave it a light slap to calm it down. It didn't work.
With a frustrated groan, he opened his eyes to a blinding brightness, squinting against the morning sun shining directly in his face. Raising a hand to shield his eyes, he slowly stood back up, taking a moment to steady himself before continuing his slow walk through the forest. However, just before he took that first, most difficult step, a sudden noise reached his pointy ears, causing his entire body to freeze mid-motion.
A faint, almost imperceptible sound of a bird chirping, somewhere not too far away, amongst the trees. He had to strain his ears to catch the sound again, the soft, melodic notes echoing through the woods. The boy's feverish, unfocused eyes snapped toward the chirping, and a small, hopeful smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
Lowering himself to a half-crouch, he slowly and carefully began moving toward the sound. His pale skin and silver hair made him almost invisible against the white landscape, the only giveaway being the old half-cloak around his hips that dragged in the snow behind him, and a small, empty bag on his left shoulder, flopping back and forth with each step.
After a few minutes of stumbling through the forest, the chirping got louder and clearer, and Aster stopped, crouching even lower. His breath came in quick, shallow puffs of white mist as he scanned the surroundings for the source of the sound, but saw nothing but the same scenery he had been walking through all morning—trees, bushes, snow.
To make himself even quieter, he took off his bag and covered his mouth with it, muffling the sound of his breathing. Then, he sat there completely still among the white, trying to spot the bird in the blurry mess that was his vision. The chirping continued, drawing his eyes upward until they finally locked onto a small bird shape sitting on a branch in a nearby tree.
Squinting as hard as he could, he saw it was about the size of his forearm, its feathers a mixture of brown, white, and gray. Its head was cocked to the side, and it seemed to be observing its surroundings, oblivious to the fact that it was being observed in return. 'How I wish Silvia were here... she'd probably shoot that thing down even from here,' he sighed, waiting for the bird to look the other way so he could sneak closer. It was probably the closest they had ever gotten to one of the birds without it fleeing, yet it was still not nearly enough for his fire to reach it. 'I need to get way, way closer.'
One careful step at a time, Aster approached the tree, his heart pounding in his chest, his breathing muffled by the bag. His legs trembled from having to crouch for so long, the muscles in his thighs and calves burning from the effort. But he pushed on, igniting more mana inside his chest as he slowly crept forward, snow crunching under his boots ever so quietly.
Ten steps. Five. Three. Aster was now close enough to see the bird's little black eyes, its tiny beak, and its delicate claws digging into the bark of the branch it was perched on. It was still chirping, still unaware of his presence. Then, it suddenly stopped and looked straight at him, its head tilting the other way in confusion.
In that very same heartbeat, Aster lunged forward with his right arm raised, his scarred palm facing the bird. A large burst of mana shot from his chest to his shoulder, then down his arm and to his hand, making his muscles tremble uncontrollably in its wake. For a split second, the air in front of his palm shimmered and distorted under the intense heat of his mana, creating ripples like those seen above a campfire.
Then, with a sudden roar that made his ears ring, a bright flash of orange erupted, temporarily bathing the snow-covered surroundings in a warm glow. The flames lunged forward, hissing as they burned the air. However, even after all that sneaking, the distance was still too great. The fire died out before they could even come close to the terrified creature, which immediately took flight with a panicked flutter of wings, a bit of smoke coming from its tail feathers.
— "Wha...? No!" Aster cried out, stumbling forward with his hand outstretched as if he could somehow grab the bird from the air. He chased after it for a few steps, his legs sinking into the deep snow, before stopping with a frustrated gasp, his chest heaving.
Falling to his knees in defeat, the boy watched the bird disappear into the distance, his shoulders slumping. Without moving, he remained there for a long moment, just breathing and staring at the white sky above. After a while, came a faint whisper from his lips, "Fuuuck," that somehow still managed to echo around the quiet forest.
After spending the next minute just sitting in the snow like that, Aster finally took a deep, shaky breath and let it out, a white cloud forming in the air in front of his face. He then pushed himself back up onto his feet, his knees popping in protest, and dusted the snow off himself. "Alright..." he muttered to himself, his voice hoarse, "...I need to figure something out." Right as these words left his lips, he noticed that the tree the bird had been perched on, high above him, was a tiny bit on fire.
The last thing he needed right now was a forest fire. With a gasp of panic, he scooped a bunch of snow with his hands and threw it at the tiny flames licking at the branch. It was pretty high up, so it took him more than a few tries to reach it, each throw sending a shower of snowflakes through the air until they finally died down with a hiss. All that was left behind was a patch of blackened, charred wood, with smoke still rising from it, curling into the cold winter air. "Damn..."
Aster let out a miserable sigh and started walking again, leaving behind the smoldering evidence of his failure. While his feet struggled through the snow, his mind struggled with itself, replaying the scene in his head. The bird. His flame. The miss. All of it. Over and over again.
His fire is super nasty up close, yes, but almost useless at a distance, since it dies out merely a few steps away, unless he poured some ridiculous amounts of mana into it. He needed something more. Something that could hit from afar and didn't require a week's worth of mana. Something like his sister's icicles.
A fireball immediately popped into his mind, naturally. It seemed like the most logical solution, so annoyingly obvious and simple, and yet, so distant. He had tried many times before to create one and had never succeeded. It's just not how fire works. How can you throw something that has no weight, doesn't have a form, and is not even tangible? It's just... heat and light. You can't. You just can't.
Back before they were stuck in those tunnels, back when his hands weren't as scarred, he tried it many times during his magic practices with Silvia. Not so much afterward, as throwing fire around in a confined space wasn't the best idea, and with all that, "try not to freeze during winter" and "good luck melting through the rocks," he didn't have much mana to spare on something that never worked. Besides, he kinda just accepted that fire magic is like that—short-ranged, and that was all it would ever be.
Every single ball of flame he had ever created was no match for even the weakest gust of wind. It shrank faster than it traveled, often dissipating before reaching its target. And even when it did, it just sort of washed over the thing instead of exploding like he always imagined it would. Impressive if you need to tickle your enemy to death, but useless otherwise.
For a moment, Aster paused, leaning against a tree to catch his breath. "No," he whispered, shaking his head, a determined frown spreading across his face. There had to be a way. There had to be. Magic without fireballs didn't make sense. 'Okay, so... maybe if I stretch my mana out as far as possible, and collect enough of it at one spot before...' he thought, his eyes narrowing at nothing in particular. He had tried this one before as well, and it even worked to a certain degree, but... it was such a pain in the ass.
The problem was that the farther his mana moved from his body, the harder it became to control. It dissipated into the air, forcing him to push out even more just to keep a weak flame alive. Up close, the same fire would take almost no effort. At a distance? It drained him completely—nearly all his mana for a single, pathetic burst. It was why he kept pressing his fingers against the stone back in the cave to heat it, to be as efficient as possible.
It's just not worth it. Besides, it's not even technically a fireball. 'Still, I should've tried that with the bird instead,' Aster sighed, kicking the snow at his feet before forcing himself to start walking again. The little game of tracking the sun and carving crosses into the trees continued, the faint hope of finding something edible still pushing him forward, one painful step at a time.
Another break, another tree, another moment of his heart nearly exploding. Up until a spark of an idea hit him, so unexpected and simple that he almost felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner. "I'm an idiot," Aster whispered, slapping his forehead with the palm of his hand. "My... mist!"
The pale-golden mist he made, the one that kept his family warm every night? It didn't dissipate like fire. It lasted, it traveled, and it obeyed him, spreading out or clustering together, all with a single thought. Back in the cave, he was so desperate to warm the girls that he forced his mana to behave in a way most unnatural for it. It didn't wish to be a smoke, but a raging fire that would consume everything. And yet, his stubbornness and desperation made it so.
Aster stopped dead in his tracks, his breath catching in his throat. 'But what if I... could change it again? Adjust it a little bit to make what I want?' His mind raced while his arms tried to bend backward once more. He fought the discomfort by tensing his muscles. 'Maybe try to make a really hot mist and try to condense it? Shouldn't be too hard,' he pondered, watching white puffs of air escape his lips with each exhale.
After a minute of igniting more mana inside his chest, Aster raised his trembling arm and pointed his scarred palm at the empty space between the trees. A familiar mist with a golden tint began to rise from his hand, swirling in the air like smoke from a fire as he filled his mind with mental images of what he wanted to do.
Then the mist changed under the force of his will. It stopped flowing out lazily and instead condensed, gathering into a small, unstable ball that hovered right in front of his palm, wobbly and almost shapeless. 'Now... I have to make it hotter,' Aster thought, his brow furrowed from the effort.
He mentally squeezed it, trying to make it denser, while at the same time pushing more mana into it, willing it to get hotter. Feeling the heat wash over his face, Aster watched the swirling mass turn from pale golden to a vibrant orange as it thickened. When it seemed as hot as he could make it, he simply let it go, launching the unstable mist toward a pile of snow a few steps away from him.
Just as his lips curled into a hopeful smile, the wind picked up, and his creation dissipated like the smoke it was, never even reaching the snow. "Damn it," Aster muttered through gritted teeth, his shoulders slumping as he watched his spell fail. He remained there for a moment, scratching the back of his head as he tried to figure out how to make it work.
'Alright, mist was a bad idea. I need it to be heavier,' Aster decided after a moment, turning his gaze to the nearest tree. 'What if...' He reached up and grabbed a handful of pine needles from it. The sharp scent of pine filled his nostrils as he clenched his fist around them, crushing and pressing them together until they formed a rough, unstable ball in his palm.
With a flick of his wrist, the ball burst into flames like a torch, crackling as the needles burned. Before the heat could reach his fingers, Aster drew his arm back and, with a strained grunt, threw the burning ball through the air. If anyone had been nearby, he most surely would have been mocked for throwing like a girl, but there wasn't, so it was fine. The shame was his alone to bear.
The burning ball of pine needles spun through the air, leaving a small trail of smoke behind before hitting the snow with a wet hiss. Instead of sinking into the snow, however, it simply fell apart upon impact, the needles scattering around in a small circle. He watched them burn for a few seconds more before they died out, leaving nothing but blackened remains on the white snow. "Dunno what I expected..." Aster whispered to himself.
That also wasn't it. Though it looked a little closer to the fireball, there was no way it would do any harm to whatever it hit. It was just... a burning ball of pine needles.. Throwing a rock would have been more effective, not to mention that he couldn't go around grabbing pine needles every time he wanted to cast a spell. 'Okay, forget the mist. Forget burning things and throwing them. What else?' he wondered, staring at his scarred palm.
A different idea came to mind, a weird one that made him feel a little silly for even considering it. It was a long shot, probably just a waste of precious mana that he couldn't afford, but... what if? 'If my mana can be a mist, can I just... do something else? Something terribly hot that can be thrown?' he kept thinking.
Something thick and sticky like oil? The very thing that is used during sieges to kill people in a very nasty way? If he could make his mana behave like that—thick, heavy, clinging—it would be even better than a fireball. It would stick to whatever it hit and keep burning.
His eyes widened at the possibility, and a small, hopeful smile spread across his pale face. With a deep breath, he raised his trembling hand again, his scarred palm facing the sky, fingers slightly curled. 'Alright, let's try.'
Aster closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to recall the desperation that had led him to create the mist to warm his family, that feeling of helplessness and need. But this time, he pictured something different. Not smoke, not wild flames, but a thick, viscous substance that burned slowly and relentlessly, clinging to everything it touched.
His mana resisted; he felt it with every beat of his heart. It wanted to be hot, free, and wild, not this heavy, liquid form he was trying to force it into. 'Come on... come on...' he pleaded with himself, his heart pounding against his ribs as he pushed back with his will, forcing the mana to obey, to change its nature. 'Be oil. Burn, but be heavy... heavy...' he thought, his brow furrowed from the effort.
Minutes passed as the silent struggle within him intensified. So much so that he began to tremble from a sudden cold, as if the mana within him was refusing to give him any warmth for what he was doing to it. Every single hair on his body stood on end, goosebumps erupting all over his pale skin. His breath hitched, teeth chattering, but he didn't stop. He pushed harder and harder until finally, he felt a change. Slow, reluctant, but still a change.
He dared to flutter his eyes open for a second, just enough to see what was happening with his mana. Instead of a golden mist or bright orange flames, a thick, gooey substance was oozing from his palm, merely a droplet of it. It didn't seem real, somehow looking both translucent and not, like heat-haze but with a more defined form. Dark, golden-red bubbles swirled within its depths, barely visible to the naked eye.
It was incredibly hard to describe, even more so when the whole thing caught on fire, tongues of flame suddenly lashing out from its surface as if trying to escape, become what it wished to be, not what he demanded. It was hot, so incredibly hot that the passing by snowflakes that came too close simply vaporized with a faint sizzle, leaving behind no trace.
The sight made Aster's concentration slip, and before he could stop it, the weird droplet of oily mana fell down and landed on the snow right between his feet; only by some miracle, it did not get onto his hand. "Holy crap," he whispered, stumbling back a step. The snow beneath the droplet began to melt with an angry hiss, the sound echoing softly in the quiet forest. It kept sinking deeper and deeper, boring a small, perfectly round hole into the ground, until it vanished entirely from sight.
A loud gulp echoed in the boy's throat, his aching eyes wide as he stared at the steam rising from the small hole in the ground. "Holy... c-crap," he repeated in a much quieter, trembling voice as he rubbed his arms and legs all over to get some warmth back into them.
Smiling like an idiot, he took a deep, shaky breath before crawling under the branches of the nearest tree and curling into a miserable, shivering ball. There, hidden from the sun's blinding light, Aster waited for the warmth to return to his body, using all of his concentration and mana to heat himself back up again. He also used his breathing exercise to restore the little mana he had left, sucking it in greedily with every inhale. 'That was scary,' he thought as the trembling slowly began to cease. 'But oh so freaking cool.'
After ten whole minutes of just lying there and breathing in and out, the boy finally felt strong enough to stand up. His blurry eyes scanned the forest around him, his ears perked up, and his nose twitched, searching for any sign of an animal he could test his spell on. Naturally, there was nothing but the sound of the wind rustling through the trees. Still, he needed to test it again, to make sure it could actually fly and hit something, not just drop and burn through the ground.
Gritting his teeth, Aster raised his hand once more, pouring everything he had gathered just now into the spell. A few moments of intense struggle later, another droplet formed, bigger this time, but not by much. His heart pounded against his ribs like a drum as he felt the warmth once again fleeing his body, leaving him trembling heavily among the snowflakes.
But he endured; he waited until the droplet was about the size of a grape before he aimed for the tree about ten steps away. With a flick of his wrist, he threw it at the trunk using only his mana, the same way his sister threw her icicles.
The droplet flew in a wide arc, wobbling through the air with a tail of flames following it. It was slower than Aster expected, much, much slower than Silvia's icicles, but it was flying. His aim was slightly off as well, but the droplet still managed to hit the side of the tree, splashing against the rough bark without a single sound, unnaturally so.
Immediately, orange and yellow flames licked hungrily at the wood, blackening it and sending curls of smoke into the air. Their light reflected in Aster's feverish, golden eyes that peeked out from under the blindfold. "Whoa," the boy breathed out as he watched the flames slowly climb up the trunk, forgetting about the cold for a brief moment.
Before the fire could spread too much, Aster gathered another handful of snow and rushed to the tree, throwing it at the flames. With a loud, angry hiss, the fire died down, leaving behind a blackened, charred patch on the trunk. The smoke, however, continued to rise from it, curling into the cold winter air. "That... That is definitely going to hurt," he whispered with a slow, satisfied smile.
Without wasting time to warm up again, Aster began moving through the forest once more; he didn't have much daylight left for that, unfortunately. He slapped his cheeks—once, twice—until the numbness gave way to a sharp sting. His legs, heavy with exhaustion, pushed through the snow while his blurred vision traced the outlines of trees and underbrush. Every now and then, he stopped to carve another cross into the bark of a tree, just to make sure he could find his way back home.
He clenched and rubbed his hands together, exhaling warm breath over his fingers in short bursts. His teeth clacked from the cold, the shivering in his jaw unrelenting despite all the fire mana burning through his muscles. 'A bird, a squirrel, a freaking mouse... anything. Just let me find something,' Aster begged the forest in his mind as he walked, each step requiring conscious effort.
...
Three hours of nothing but wandering through the forest, carving crosses into trees, and pausing to catch his breath. Three hours of shivering, exhaustion, and the constant fear that he might not find anything to bring back. Three hours of his fever getting worse, his vision growing blurrier, and his thoughts becoming more disorganized.
The sun had already begun its descent toward the horizon, casting long shadows across the snow-covered ground and painting the sky in soft shades of orange and pink. So far in the north, the winter days were incredibly short, and the night was approaching much faster than he would have liked. 'I guess this is it...' Aster thought, his head hanging low as he forced himself to turn around, to head back home.
But just when Aster was about to give up and head back empty-handed, when tears of frustration started stinging his eyes, he heard it. A faint rustling came from a nearby tree, high up in the branches. After listening to the wind rustling through leaves all day, he knew this sound was different. This one was heavier, somehow more sudden, not the constant, gentle whisper that annoyed him so much.
His heart skipped a beat as he slowly, carefully crouched down in the snow, his eyes scanning the blurry shapes above him. 'Please, please, please,' he repeated as he took the bag off his shoulder and covered his mouth with it, muffling his breathing. He didn't dare to move or even blink as he waited for the sound to come again. And it did—a soft fluttering of wings, followed by a faint, lonely chirp.
Tilting his head back, his eyes narrowed as he searched the branches, trying to spot the source of the sound. It took him a moment, his vision making the task more difficult than it should have been, but then he finally saw it... another bird. This time, it was a large, plump one sitting on a low-hanging branch, its feathers all puffed up against the cold. It was mostly brown with a few white spots and a small, black beak that shone in the gentle sunlight. It was preening itself, completely unaware of the boy's presence.
His legs trembled, his heart hammered against his ribs, and his mouth went dry. 'Okay... okay...' Aster thought, his hand slowly rising from his side, his palm facing the bird. It was quite far away, much further than he would have liked, but it was the best shot he had. He couldn't risk getting closer, or it would just fly away, like they always do. The last time was such a stroke of luck that it probably wouldn't happen again.
Without closing his eyes not to lose sight of it, Aster took a deep, shaky breath and began the spell. His mana flared up, his body tensed, and his palm went numb from the cold as he fought against his own magic, forcing it to behave, to become that heavy, sticky, scary-ass substance he had managed to create back there. His heart immediately started to pound even faster and harder, so much that he began to fear that the bird might actually hear it over the silence.
The droplet formed slowly, reluctantly, wobbling as it hovered in front of his scarred palm, his fingers spread, trembling uncontrollably. Aster felt the warmth leave his body again, the lack of practice with this new spell of his clearly showing, but he ignored it, focusing on the bird, on its round, feathery body, on the branch it was perched on.
He had some mana to spare, so he made the droplet even larger this time, almost the size of a small apple; flame licked at its surface hungrily, trying to break free, trying to consume his mana. 'H-hold on... hold on...' Aster thought, his teeth gritting together, his body tensing even more. Then, after what felt like an eternity, he sent it flying with a sharp flick of his wrist, its fiery tail stretching out behind it as it roared towards the tree.
Aster watched, his heart in his throat, as the droplet flew in a wide, wobbly arc. For a moment, he thought it would hit, that it would actually strike the bird, and that he would bring home food for his family. And not just any food, but a decently big bird, which was something they hadn't had for quite some time. A very long time.
But only a few heartbeats later, that hope vanished like a puff of smoke as the droplet flew right under the branch that the bird was sitting on, missing it altogether. "Nooo!" the boy choked out in a breathless whisper, his hands flying to his head in frustration.
He just stood there, stunned, watching as the bird, startled by the sudden heat and the whistling sound, took flight with a startled chirp and disappeared into the forest. The droplet continued to fly forward past the tree, arching downwards, before hitting a bush with another unnaturally silent splash.
Aster barely registered the small bush burning as his eyes were already brimming with hot tears of frustration and disappointment, his shoulders slumping in defeat. He was about to fall to his knees and just sit there in the snow for a while, to cry and curse the world, when the bush in question suddenly began to rustle violently.
Then came a loud, angry, porcine squeal that cut through the cold air like a knife, the sound of which made his blood run cold without him even understanding why. Aster's golden eyes shot up immediately, his body tensing as he stared at the bush, the world stopping spinning for a brief moment.
Before he could even process what was happening, the leaves and branches parted, revealing a massive, hairy boar, its beady, black eyes burning with pure rage. Its face sizzled and smoked where the droplet of oily mana had splattered, flames still burning through the coarse, brown fur.
It weighed probably three times his own weight, reached his chest in height, a mountain of muscle, fat, and pure, uncontrolled fury. Two long, sharp tusks, yellowish and chipped, gleamed in the late afternoon sun as the creature spotted him and lowered its head, letting out another ear-splitting squeal. And then, it charged, shaking the very ground as it did so.