Seven woke to the sounds of harmonized bird chatter, mixing with the morning activity of nature. A symbol of a fresh day and a fresh perspective. Mana was more pronounced, the wind carried its breath in all things.
Siren sat next to Seven, staring caringly at him as he woke. She seemed different, more alive… tangible.
"Good morning?" Seven asked rather than stated. The prior night feeling more surreal, like a dream, than it did as reality.
"It is indeed, a good morning. A threshold awaits you in the trial ahead. One where you'll first learn what you hold inside you. A spiritual baptism if you will." Siren looked away, towards the door, a sudden recognition in her eyes. She stood up and began to bow towards the door.
Almost immediately after, it opened up and Elvidia stepped in, the scent of autumn carried in with her. Mana hummed lovingly with her approach. Her words froze before they could form when she saw Siren.
"Faeori?" Was all she managed to breathe in response to the child.
"It is a pleasure to meet you finally, Lady Elvidia. Symbolic Mother of the Covenant. My name is Siren." Siren greeted her with reverence and elegance. Elvidia looked sharply at Seven, the look in her eyes spoke of reverence, fear and reprehension.
"You named a Faeori? This- no that's- the repercussions will be irreversible, cosmic. You gave a being of mana a name, and you live?" Elvidia's logic could visibly be seen breaking down.
"She didn't have one, I couldn't just address the entirety of Faeori to speak to her. To me, she felt deserving of a name. Come the cosmic repercussions, I will bear it without regret." Seven swung off the bed and sat up all at once.
"You speak as if you don't fully believe in the cosmos." Elvidia sighed, a breath of one who just found out how arduous a task they have ahead of them.
"I don't. As a matter of fact, I don't believe the cosmos have anything to do with what I feel. The cosmos sound like a distant whisper, a false prophet. Something to be blamed. I've lived my life the same way, blaming only what has a presence, something I can see and feel." Seven explained with reverence as he stood up, a defiantly confident look in his eyes.
"Words have power, Seven! Don't ever, defy the will of the cosmos. Your fate, your destin-"
"Don't define my fate or destiny by your flimsy law! I am my own, I make delicious, not the cosmos." Seven cut Elvidia off, further solidifying his stance against their faith.
"Boy, you test my patience. I started too kindly with you. This isn't about you, but that which is greater than. Hold some respect for that at least." Elvidia's face had turned red with anger and trepidation.
"If the cosmos is me, then I am the cosmos. The message stays the same, I make my own decisions, I decide my own fate." Seven's mana pulse turned violet with his conviction. Siren smiled in response, a smile of understanding, not of agreement.
"Why do you deny the divine? If the mana inside you is the very product of it?" Elvidia slowly lost the momentum to continue, resigning to quiet resignation, but not surrender.
"You mistake mana for divinity's approval, at least that's my perspective. Mana is not unbending law. It is breath, it hold consequence, but not cosmic law." Seven spoke, notwithstanding his emotion, but with his heart. This statement sung louder than the nature outside. The silence that followed almost seemed to confirm it. Elvidia's hand flinched briefly, her obvious disagreement evident in her stiff posture.
"Hah, fine. Believe what you want now. The trial will prove you wrong, and you will understand the depth if your arrogance." Elvidia sighed, straightened up and beckoned for Seven to follow her.
Dante sat at his desk, his three piece suit pristine, his hair neatly combed and his posture poised for action. In front of him were two stacks of manuscripts. One stack, the earliest recorded history of humans and the other, the first recordings of the elves.
"Alright Seven, let us find out who you are. Human, yet not. Devine, yet flawed. A contradiction of purity and corruption in one vessel." Dante opened the human records first, the book cracked as it opened, betraying its age with ruin.
Inside told of the rise of the kingdom, Auroras. The discovery of elves and the desirable energy known as 'Mana'. The hostile enslavement of elves in order to learn how to harness the energy. It was gruesome, detailed, and despicable.
"Nothing I don't already know." Dante tossed the aged bookings a furnace, the brittle pages caught fast and hot, turning to ash in mere seconds. The second human history book followed suit, then the third, fourth and finally last.
"Irrelevant, useless, self bragging history. Pathetic." Dante moved onto the Elven stack and opened the first. It was a complete mirror to the human records. The book opened with the fresh sent of a meadow in mid-summer, a metaphorical laugh of children with each page turn as Dante greedily read each excerpt with eyes full of wonder.
"Fascinating, how exquisitely beautiful. Perfect record, not bragging, just order and calm recollection. 'Mana chose them next, after the fall of the last.'? What does that mean, who was the last chosen by mana? More questions than answers again!" Dante yelled out in frustration, yet gently closed the Elven record with a tender gentility.
Melrod stood nearby, watching, listening. His eyes reflecting with the flickering flames of the furnace. The shadows seemed to cling to him as he peeked from around the doorframe into Dante's office.
His mind replaying the scenes of last night, finding out that Seven was alive through his eavesdropping. Then this morning, Dante telling him and the Thieves Guild that Seven was dead, and that there'd be no more requests from him.
"Why? Why must I be left out? He wasn't just your son, he was also my brother." Melrod clenched his fists as his whispered his silent rage. The fire in the furnace grew hotter, the flame burst forth slightly beyond the furnaces mouth.
"Blasted furnace!" Dante shouted, startled by the surge and hurriedly slammed the furnace grate shut. Dante straightened his suit and looked towards his doorway. The shadows seemed a little darker than usual, but it was empty.
"I swear I felt someone there… Perhaps I should get some rest, too much drinking and reading must have made me paranoid." Dante rubbed his eyes wearily.
From the small hut, to wherever in the densely packed forest they were, took an hour of walking.
"This is when I miss my runner, or a horse. Where even is this trial at? Across the continent?" Seven complained after stumbling over another root hidden in the underbrush.
"Patience Seven, I thought you had some based your earlier outburst." Elvidia took the moment to quietly berate him.
"Are you sure you're an elf? Cause that was a fairly human jab." Seven returned with his own silent verbal attack. ThIs made Elvidia slightly twitch with a brief reflection of agitation.
"Both of you are rather quick to dispose of your earlier refined demeanor huh?" Siren ended their quips with truth.
"I've always been human, I'm just trying to adapt to the new… world I've been thrust into." Seven pitifully attempted to defend himself.
"We're here." Elvidia instead chose to delegate to a new subject as they arrived in a clearing. In the clearing, water flowed into a circle around a tower of trees and machines. The light the shine upon it was all too bright, yet the shadows cast beneath eerily dark. Vines spread in a disorganized order from the tower out to the edges of the circling water.
"What us this?" Seven asked, his eyes full of wonder and repulsion. It was disgustingly beautiful, terrifying entrancing. Nature perfectly melded with machine. Familiar and foreign mixed into one functional system.
"It is the Tower of Elements, built here long before us. We use it to house the trial, as it shows us what we are at our core. It's mana that breathes through machine. Both beautiful and ugly at the same time, like the mortal body." Elvidia explained with awe and fear in her voice.
Seven stepped forward, staring at the tower, his foot crossed over the water circle and life burst forth from the tower. Gears ground to life, hoses hissed as something began pumping through. The sound of the leaves rustled in non existent wind. The water rushed, it's current increasing with rhythm.
"Is it supposed to do that?" Seven turned to ask Elvidia, but both her and Siren were gone. It was just a densely packed forest behind him. Seven spun around, looking for them. Even the environment seemed different, the trees had more life, the metal on the machine held a polish, and the trees and vines had order. It was no longer contradicting itself, the tower held contrasted beauty.
"Why are you here child? It is not time for your reflection yet." A voice spoke from behind Seven as a hand grabbed his shoulder. Seven followed the hand up to its owner, a grown man with a full black beard with streaks of red. Seven felt, child-like, which he confirmed by looking at himself, he was indeed the size of a child. Younger, smoother skin, the number 7 on his arm held a steady blue glow instead of a pulse.
"Come with me, Aisrin. We cant have you getting lost." The man called Seven an unrecognized name, but what shook Seven to his core, was the number 5 on the man's forearm, in the same spot as Seven's own number. But this mans' number glowed red instead of blue.