A tinge of red blushed Violet's cheeks as she blinked rapidly. "...What?"
"Uh..you're aura!" I stammered. "Not um…It's just—the runes…" I tried to explain. "The runes floating around you…they're…beautiful."
Violet looked at me, a hint of confusion tinging her aura.
"Ah…I can see it…" I stared at her shifting aura in awe. The fixed rune points that hung all around her changed slightly in shape and color. "Are these…your emotions?" I reached out to see if I could touch the rune shapes, but disappointingly my hand only passed through them insubstantially.
"What…" The confusion in her aura deepened. "Are you referring to?"
"The runes that make up your aura—err, well the ones that you fix all around you? I don't know how to describe it, the others didn't have this, but you…" I paused trying to collect myself. "Your emotions change the runes…I don't know how to describe it any other way. I felt it just a bit before, but now…I can see it." I said, still in awe at my newfound powers.
"Oh…um…" More red flushed her cheeks and she looked away at the floor. "Is it really that obvious?" She muttered to herself. The orderly grid of runes in her aura fluctuating unusually.
"Ah, sorry, is that uncomfortable for you?" I scratched my head. Perhaps for someone like Violet who was this good at hiding their emotions, any hint of showing what they were thinking could be considered a weakness.
Violet took a long breath. "Perhaps." She admitted. "Let's…ignore that for now. Is there anything else you need from me? I need to return to my rest."
"Ah." I twiddled my fingers trying to think of something. "Damn I'm really here aren't I?" I sighed after a moment, looking back up at the ceiling. Being here, talking to Violet made me want to forget what had just happened, think this was some crazy gaming-infused dream, or some short-lived delusion that'd I'd soon snap out of.
"Well, I can't really think of anything else right now. I'm safe in here, right? Is that beast tide still going on?"
Violet shook her head. "All the beasts inside the forest have been taken care of, and the usual determent circles are once again functional. I'll come bring you to the druids when I wake again."
"Speaking of, you kind of shooed those two out, are they going to be coming back to check on me, or…?"
"Only if you wish it," Violet said simply, pulling out a small wooden token from a shadow. "This is a communication token. It will allow you to call on them, should you need it."
"Thanks." I took the token. "Well, get some good sleep! Or whatever. Do vampires sleep? Is it the same as humans?"
Her aura took on a slightly amused color as she replied. "Yes, vampires sleep the same as humans, only we require far less of it and have excellent night vision, which makes us often mistaken for nocturnal creatures."
"Hoo? Any drawbacks I should know about? Sounds pretty powerful."
Violet's aura dampened a little as she replied. "The only sidebacks are we are hunted wherever we go, and we require the blood of the living to sustain our suspension of death. The Mage Tower and their puppet church do not like those who have transcended the rules they have established."
"I see," sensing the mild melancholy under her words. "Well, good night then, I'll just be here, probably studying this new rune vision thing."
She nodded, and let shadows wrap around her, vanishing from the room.
I chuckled. "She likes her dramatic exits, doesn't she?"
I layed back down on my bed and stared up at the ceiling, watching the runes floating through the air. "Just what the hell is this power?" I muttered. I held up my hand and could see runes pulsing through my fingers like blood, though they were far less dense and chaotic compared to the runes in Violet's body.
"I must be less powerful than her…" I chuckled, sitting up to look at my chest and abdomen to study the runes further. After a bit of observing I could vaguely make out two or maybe three systems of rune movements in my body. The first was the most obvious—my blood, specifically centered around my heart. Curiously, runes seemed to pulse continuously away from my heart, but never towards it—as if it was an endless font of new runes, never diminishing.
The second system of rune movement seemed to be my lungs, runes floating in the air would occasionally follow the inhalations of my breath and make their way to my lungs where they seemed to gradually accumulate, chaotically swirling around somewhat similar to the mass of swirling runes that had composed Violet's whole body, but on a far smaller scale.
And the third…well I couldn't be sure, because it was far fainter than the other two, but it seemed like there was a slight build up of runes around my navel area. At first glance it seemed like the effect of the lungs just extended downwards a little past the physical organ, but looking at the swirling patterns for a few minutes I couldn't help but wonder if there was more to it than that.
"And what happens when I use magic?" I wondered finally moving my stage of inquiry onto the next step. I still didn't know any spells, but working with runestones had taught me a very basic method to channel magical power.
I got up from my bed and walked over to my desk to grab a rune stone for testing. Quickly I channeled some magic into it to see what the effect would be on these floating rune shapes.
Immediately I saw runes from the swirling vortex in my lungs flow out towards my finger tips, entering the rune stone, where, following the flow runes of the battery circuit, they began rotating slowly around the stone.
"Woah!" My eyes lit up watching the whole process. "So the magic I use seems to be from the system in my lungs—the heart runes don't seem to be affected at all…And when the runes enter the stone their movements are controlled by the flow runes. Is this…magic then? Is that the nature of these little rune shapes?"
I still wasn't totally sure, so I decided to begin the next stage of the experimentation. I picked up the heating runestone I had just poured some magic into and activated it, still closely watching the movements of the rune shapes.
Immediately upon activation, the rune shapes began slowly flowing towards the center of the stone, where they would gradually enter into the spell rune at the center, slowly changing shape to match the shape of the spell rune before vanishing into the stone.
"It's—This is…Is this the nature of magic?!"