The smoking mirror
Rosario turned the flower of black stones in his hand, moving it around. It didn't shatter or dissipate; it held its shape as he swept it through the air. He threw it up into the air and caught it, twisting it. He jumped out of bed, opened his door, and ran down the hall to the stairs and down into the common area. He passed a maid cleaning a table, “Where is Ryvr?” the maid said, “He's still down at the bathhouse with his wives.” He ran off, and the maid said, “Wait, I think he might be otherwise indisposed.” he yelled back, “I'll knock first.” He ran out to the bathhouse. The cold ground beneath his feet crossed the grounds until he arrived at the bathhouse and began banging on the door. The sounds coming from inside ceased, and wet footsteps could be heard nearing the door. Ryvr opened the door. “Why is it always when I'm in the middle of something that you need me?” Rosario held out his hand, and the black jagged stone rose in it. Ryvr picked it up with two fingers, twirling it around. “This is solid, you made this very well. I'll discuss it with you after training tomorrow. I'm a little, kinda super busy right now,” he smiled at his brother and turned back around, closing the door as he went.
Ryvr stood watching Senarre and Rosario, legs crossed, and eyes closed, sitting on the cold stone ground. After the morning's training, he sent Kian away to assist Carmilla in the archives. He circled them, “You still can't use total Physical enhancement, but you're almost there, but that's not the objective of today. If you can consciously reach past the wall of sleep, then we're in business.” Ryvr sat down as they were. “It's an old story, Originates from the isolationist elves and we rightfully can't ring one up or walk into one of their grottoes, so we test every theory here and maybe make a discovery along the way, and maybe if it's real ill get my money back from Carmilla.” Senarre with her eyes closed said calmly “why am i here? I haven't had an experience like his, and my gift isn't even a physical type like his.” Ryvr thought for a second, “Doesn't matter, we don't have a source of your power as we do with Xue or Carmilla, so you're the closest specimen to him to test this theory, just try your best.” Ryvr pulled the dragon off his shoulders and set it down in his lap. It curled up like a cat and let out a small purr. He quietly watched eyes wide thinking “please give me something to work with here.” They sat for nearly two hours with no result.lt “Ryvr stood up. The dragon climbed back up to his shoulders. He pulled a small piece of bread from his pocket, and the dragon caught it out of the a.ir “All right then, and that didn't work now, let's try a different strategy tomorrow.”
After a quiet dinner, Rosario walked up to his room in the manor and put on the silk pajamas and lay down in the bed. After a few moments, he closed his eyes, and when he opened them in the field of flowers again, as he had the night before, he walked around running his hands through the flowers, a sensation of relaxation, a serene energy as the wind blew petals around the field. He shouted, “Hello, is anyone there?” He stopped walking, crouching down, seeing a flower of jagged black stone growing out of the ground as the other flowers that encircled it did. He reached out his fingers, touching the flower. When his fingers touched the flower, he heard a voice, “Who are you?” Rosario stood up, shouting in the field of flowers, “Where am I?” The voice came through in a cracked, shivering tone, “This is the great duality, the field. I know why I'm here, but who are you and why are you here?” Rosario plucked the flower from the ground, holding it in his hand. “I am Rosario Itzcoyotyl Lorea. Who are you? Are you a god?” He continued walking through the field until he saw a figure in the distance. And began walking to it, the voice called out again, “A Lorea, huh? And a male one at that, you all are healthy stock, and as for God, I don't know, a good amount of my memories are scrambled, missing, or out of order. The anchor in my existence right now is my beloved.”
Rosario, walking towards the figure in the field, said, “Is your beloved a tall elven woman with magic that looks like white fire?” The voice picked up excitedly, "You've seen her? Is she alive? Where is she?” Rosario closed the distance to the figure in the field. “I don't know her, but I think I've got some of your memories kicking around up here. I've seen a war, felt fear and longing and loss all in the course of milliseconds.” The voice stopped for a second and then picked up .“That sounds like my memories, but I can't piece together even my name. I can feel it on the end of my tongue, but I can't say it.” Rosario arrived at where the man was standing in the field of flowers and walked up a white shimmer between them. They both arrived at the wall between them. Rosario said, “You're me?” The figure on the other side of the barrier looked like him facially, but his body was covered in a fine armor of black stones, smooth and refined. His hair was longer, sitting at the shoulder and braided with beads of black stones and feathers, the upper part of his face was painted an ink black with trailing downwards into three deep red streaks on either side, directly under each eye, his two eyes were a sharp and glowing Purple-Crimson. Rosario held out his hand to the shimmer between the two of them. The man on the other side did the same when their hands met the shimmer between them trembled. They both stopped the man generated a Chair of black stones, and sat down, stepping back from the shimmer. “Hmm, this must be her doing. When we touched the barrier, Lorea i saw flashes of memory, both yours and mine.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Rosario sat on the flowers across from the man. “Do you know who you are now?” the man rubbed his chin. “no but I see my memories to some extent. I'm not sure who I am, but I know I'm no god. I see my memories and feel fear, hate, discontent, grief, and anxiety. Why would a god feel those things?” He held his hand out and moulded black stones around as if flipping a pencil on a desk. Rosario asked, “Is the power yours? The black stones, I mean, I couldn't do it before a couple of weeks ago, and my mana perception is enhanced too.” The man leaned forward, “Hmm-” he began to speak, but Rosario was overcome by the falling sensation and found himself back on his bed in the Lorea clan manor.
He lay in the bed and closed his eyes, opening them up again in the field of flowers, the man that bore his face painted sat on a chair like a throne of black stone. He twisted a needle of black stone between his armored fingers. “You're here again?” Rosario sat in the flowers. “Been thinking about it, are you some sort of inner demon that's gonna take over my body or somethin'?” The man in the throne, looking bored, said, “No, I'm not about that kinda thing. Truthfully, if I could die, I'd just like that. I want to die so I can be with her again, but this place is stopping me. I don't know why.” Rosario waved his hands through the flowers, “Maybe you got some sort of unfinished business like a ghost story or something.” The man stood up out of the throne. “Can you make stuff other than the blades with your version of this power?” Rosario shook his head, “No, I can make a sword, scabbard, or recently make it into a greatsword of some sort. It's not quite right, though, because its handle is longer than a greatsword should be. “Show me?” Rosario obliged and generated a scabbard and sword and slammed them together, shifting it into a longsword with a handle too long for a greatsword, its guard a twisting jagged rose. He slammed it down blade-first into the ground. The man stood on his throne and excitedly leaned over his glowing purple-crimson eyes, wide with excitement.
“Beautiful, she resembles my own blade, or rather one of them.” He jumped off the throne, held out his hand, and said, “Come forth, Coatl.” Holding his hand behind his back and raising his hand as if drawing it from a nonexistent sheath, he set down the blade as Rosario had, digging it into the dirt. Its blade was sleek and black, its guard bore a brilliant red circular rose with a pattern like thorns snaking down into the pommel, but curiously, its handle was too long for a greatsword like Rosario’s version. The man on the other side said, “Curious you've never seen mine, and yours came out like a less refined version, like a Gemini.” He fell back into the throne of black stone, holding his head. “You remember something?” the man resettled on the throne. “I was a Traitor i think, but the Gemini. I said it once, Gemini two as one, but not in reference to myself, it was in regards to power, the blackstone blade, and the burning purity when I fought her, we fought for 15 hours straight at the end of that fight we were both exhausted laying side by side in the rubble of what was once a mountain, in the centuries of my life to that point i never felt anything more strange i felt light my heart fluttering.” “So what or who are you?” the man on the other side said. "I've no clue still, but do things, and maybe it will jog my memories.”
“So what about that armor or making stuff other than blades with the black stones?” the man on the other side thought for a brief moment. “To me, it's nothing but a reflex. I can make it and destroy it on thought, look, try this." The man pulled the sword out of the ground and swung it downwards. And upon touching the ground, he disintegrated it, covering the ground with a thin layer of black stone, and then tapped his foot. Two large pillars of black stone shot out of the ground. He then placed his hand on the floor and created a bird of prey of black stones and held it in his hand. The whole thing is nonsense right now, but I used to use it to run rituals without needing to do the drawings for the magic circles, meaning I could cast without needing to stop fighting, pretty useful.” Rosario looked confused. “You can use other kinds of magic? Like the stuff that needs rituals and the likes?” The man fell back into the throne. “You can't?” Rosario shook his head, “Nah, I can't. I can use basic fire, detoxification, and some ice needles, although I can use contact lightning, but I can't figure out the mana barrier, so it shocks me, too” the man paced for a moment “Think of it like this all the mana that flows in your body is yours it has no difference from you blood or your bones your mind wills when you walk when you eat, feel its flow how it moves every blood vessel in your body.”
“Feel every breath in your lungs, every muscle fiber.” Rosario extended his arms out and lay back in the flowers, eyes closed, inhaling the sweet aroma of them, watching every breath carefully. He felt a tingle in his left hand, followed by his right, then his arms and legs, leading back into the base of his neck. He stood up, held his arms out in front of the man on the other side, and forced them downwards. His forearms were covered in a fine layer of black stones, semi-jagged but more refined, the armor spread across his hands mimicking a venous pattern. “Good job, Lorea. You still have some work till it's like mine, but it's a good start.” Rosario could feel the strength in his arms where there was obsidian. “Is this what physical enhancement feels like?” The man on the other side fell back into the chair. “Pretty much during the fall I used it as such because I couldn't use physical enhancement, so I crutched on it, still cant but if you could master both, it would be a boon.” Rosario looked confused. “The fall?” The man reached for his head, gritting his teeth.
“I remember who I am, at least one of my names doesn't feel quite right, but it's better than just being nameless on the other side of the wall of sleep. So my name is the Smoking Mirror, or at least it's a title, not sure.”