This story is part of the Wanderer series.
Rushing past Weststar, Nozomi leaped down the steps to the center. Seeing her eagerness, the high elder made haste to follow her, clacking his staff loudly as he moved at a faster pace than usual.
“Wait for me before you start, my friend,” he called after her.
“I know what to do!” Nozomi confidently declared.
“Let me make sure, for your own safety.”
Running up to the stave, she skidded to a stop behind it and planted her feet down, squatting into a battle ready stance. She raised her arms to grip the stave together right in front of her face, left hand on top of the other.
The high elder joined her side and lightly touched Nozomi’s hands with his free hand as he patiently corrected her. “Not so tight, my friend… And stand up straight… Bring your feet closer together…”
Nozomi followed his instructions one by one, remaining restless but tempering her excitement as the high elder instructed her to loosen up in several areas.
“Lower your hands to chest height. You will want them to be limber… Keep your hands apart, one below the other… Perhaps step a little closer… Both feet…”
It took Nozomi several attempts to correct herself properly as she did not understand some of the high elder’s instructions. Once he judged she was sufficiently stanced, he gave her entire posture another examination just to be sure.
“Remember to remain limber with your stance, but do not let go of this stave,” he reminded one last time. “Otherwise you may hurt yourself.”
Nozomi beamed, briefly clenching her fingers tighter. “Okay!”
With one last glance, Weststar nodded, beginning to turn. “Wait until I return to the top before you begin.”
Nozomi shouted another confirmation as the high elder walked away. She restlessly waited in anticipation, watching him take each step. Sitting by the measuring stave, her friends watched her stand there, with Rin now sitting in Nozomi’s spot. She wore a slightly amused expression as she gazed over her friend, who, although her posture was sufficient enough, still appeared awkward, with her elbows far out to the side and her knees locked underneath. Chiara smiled along, while Alisan sat with composure, yet with a small shade of curiosity in her lifted brows.
Reaching the top and briefly glancing at Northridge, who nodded, Weststar turned around.
“You may begin, my friend.”
Chest puffing, eyes widening, Nozomi took a deep breath in. Clenching her fingers tightly and raising her elbows a tiny bit, she pressed her separated hands together on the stave, sliding the side of her left palm down into the pocket of her right thumb. Brows furrowing, she abruptly released her energy in a rapid burst, her silhouette suddenly shining brilliantly.
Over at the measuring stave, the octagram quickly glowed whitish blue and transitioned to sky blue, then to teal, all in a matter of seconds. The elders at the top of the hill lifted their brows as they watched this rapid transition. Alisan too blinked in surprise, even though this was not her first time observing Nozomi resonate. Chiara simply giggled, while Rin kept a calm gaze on the measurement.
As the color transitioned to grass green, however, it started to hold steady, the changing color slowing significantly. Rin expelled a breath, almost chuckling. Face slightly turning towards the other two, Rin commented over the pulsing roar.
“Yeah, she released everything too quickly and exhausted herself.”
Chiara and Alisan glanced at Rin.
“Still, though!” Chiara exclaimed. “Look how quickly she did it!”
Rin chuckled. “Yeah, she’s good at that, for sure.”
Nozomi held steady, keeping her gaze locked on her hands. She felt her resonance swell up to full charge, the sensation of a vortex swirling within comfortably familiar. Though there was a rod of metal in her hands, it felt just like it would if she had resonated with her hands gripped together. Yet, not satisfied with simply meeting her usual standards, she continued to push, resolving to test her limits.
Very slowly, over what felt like a lengthy period of time, the measurement continued to progress. It transitioned out of grass green to lime green. Half a minute passed, and then a minute. Slowly, Rin’s enthusiasm faded as she watched her friend continue. She had not seen Nozomi resonate this long in a while, and, seeing Nozomi’s determined face, her gut told her she was up to something rash.
Feeling comfortable with the stave, Nozomi sustained her resonance. Similar to Rin, Nozomi felt overwhelmingly reassured by the support the stave gave her, feeling like it was an extension of her vessel. She felt very little strain, and so she kept going.
A minute became a minute and a half. The measurement still continued to shift, starting to take on a yellow hue. She was now matching Rin’s performance, but over double the length of time. The elders at the top began to shift in place, their impressed expressions becoming tempered. Mirroring them, Alisan too began to express worry as her eyes darted between Nozomi and the measuring stave, eyes beginning to squint against Nozomi’s bright silhouette.
“It’s still changing,” she remarked to herself.
Hearing this and growing more concerned, Rin remembered the feeling she had during her trial, in which the stave made her resonance feel too easy with all the support it provided.
“Maybe we should stop her?” Rin openly questioned out loud.
Seeing both of them express concerns, Chiara became anxious. “Is this normal? Is she going to hurt herself?”
Rin leaned forward on the edge of her seat, unsure of the answer herself.
One of the unattached elders walked over to Weststar, muttering something indiscernible to him. He nodded, turning over to Northridge, who had stood poised the entire time.
“Perhaps that is long enough.”
Just as the high elder commented to stop the trial, Nozomi gave one final push.
Suddenly, and violently, the vortex of energy within her speeds up, unraveling and widening in width. Her vessel swells with power. Individual streams fade away. Details disappear. Pink light washes over.
Deeper within, beneath the tidal wave of energy, the pink glow fades to black. A void of nothingness. The pulsing roar of resonance dies to a whimper.
From the dark, a faint shape emerges. Glowing soft white, with a hint of teal. An outline of a circle. Contained within, a diagram. A complex diagram. Intercrossing lines that made up a star. A ten-pointed star. A seal.
Glowing brighter, it suddenly stops. Then, in an instant, a crack of light propagates from one of the outermost lines to the circle. Time freezes again.
With a droning roar, rays of amber light shoot through the seal. The world violently rumbles. The darkness illuminates, becoming wash in amber white.
Without warning, Nozomi’s silhouette erupted. Her glow intensely magnified. The pink light became amber pink, shining like a brilliant rising sun.
Stunned by the bright light, the girls flinched, raising their arms over their eyes. Then a booming gust of air swept past them, causing them to duck down. Chiara and Rin screamed loudly as their clothes and hair flapped wildly in the wind. Alisan loudly gasped, ducking her head under her robed arm, the loose sleeve blanketing her face.
Nozomi’s silhouette became lost in the flood. Eight pillars of amber light were shooting into the sky, telling that one of the seal’s caps had been blown off. Yet, hidden in the blinding light, the measurement still dangerously morphed to a deep orange. As the other elders ducked down, Weststar hollered to Northridge over the roar, who, gripping his stave tightly, shoved his stave deeper into the ground.
“Open!”
A ninth and intensely bright beam of light joined the other eight, ripping through the air with a thundering crack, rumbling the grounds. All around the city, citizens gazed up in shock as this bright beam shot high into the sky, dissipating high up in the stratosphere. The air condensed around the beam high up in the sky, forming an unnatural ring of clouds. Gradually, the column of light silently receded, flickering right before it disappeared.
Peeking out from behind her elbow, Rin squinted. Out on the platform, Nozomi’s silhouette reappeared as the light dimmed. Still gripping onto the stave and standing, she was now hunched over, caving into herself like she had a cramp. As the glow of the stave subsided, so did hers, her resonance having lost the energy to sustain itself any further.
Muscles finally loosening, Nozomi’s hands slipped down the stave, and she suddenly collapsed to the ground in a quiet heap.
“Nozomi!”
Darting forward, Rin leapt off the terrace ledge onto the flat-topped stone ring below. Hastily stepping down from it, she stumbled uncontrollably down the slope for a brief second before regaining her balance at the next row, palming the surface with both hands and swinging her legs over.
Chiara took off after her, nailing her landings more nimbly as she kept her eyes on the ground. The two quickly made their way to Nozomi’s side while Alisan remained where she stood near the measuring staff, still in shock. She stared at Nozomi’s collapsed body with muted dread, drawing her arms into herself.
Crouching down, Rin hesitated as she raised her hands above her friend, unsure whether it was safe to touch her. Then, gently laying her hands onto Nozomi’s shoulders, she gave her a very gentle shake.
“Hey! Nozomi! Nozomi! Hey!”
Chiara stood on the other side of Nozomi, eyes wide staring with terror. Weststar, having rushed down the steps without his staff in a hobbly sort of manner that was afforded by his long robes, made it to the girls and crouched down with Rin, lifting a hand to Nozomi’s back. It glowed a warm teal as he began to tend to Nozomi.
“Is she going to be okay?!” Rin demanded.
Weststar’s brows subtly furrowed as he gauged Nozomi’s condition.
“Hey! Answer me!”
“Your friend will be fine,” the high elder finally replied with a level tone as he let go of his resonance and reached for Nozomi’s shoulder, gently turning her over onto her back as he supported her neck with the other hand. “We can stabilize her. She is exhausted from the life force she had to carry.”
Becoming silent, mouth slightly agape, Rin turned her attention back to Nozomi, anxiously watching her expressionless face for any sign of life. The high elder lifted his hand to Nozomi’s abdomen and began to heal her again.
Shoulders easing, Chiara looked up as she heard the other elders approach. Alisan stepped out from behind, eying the girl on the ground.
Looking up, Weststar addressed them with a slight dip of his chin. “Inform the priests to prepare a bed for our friend. We shall carry her over once she is stable, to be certain.”
Affirming, Northridge reached a hand out to one other elder’s shoulder and beckoned him to come with him. They made haste up the stairs, leaving the group of individuals huddling around the unconscious girl.
Crickets chirped. Afternoon turned to dusk. The flames of a burning torch flickered as a gentle breeze swept through the steppes. Inside a small yurt, three girls sat on the carpet floor around a straw bed. In the bed, covered up to her neck with a wool blanket, Nozomi remained unconscious, though her peaceful expression, along with the slow rising and falling of her chest, could have made anyone believe she was asleep. Nearby, there was a bowl of water sitting on top of a knee-height table, along with a wet rag laid out, slightly damp and quickly drying. A single oil lamp accompanied the bowl, providing the only source of light for the occupants. No one else was in the shelter.
Rin, sitting right next to Nozomi’s side with arms crossed, was hunched, chin dipped down as she began to doze off. Chiara and Alisan were on the other side, Chiara lying on her belly with her chin tucked into her arms crossed in front of her face. Her eyes were slit, also beginning to doze off. Alisan sat upright, legs tucked under with her hands gripped together in her lap. Though her eyes were closed, her posture did not falter. She was offering a silent prayer.
A quiet grunt roused the three girls. Lifting her chin, Rin saw Nozomi lightly furrow her forehead, lips drawing in. Underneath the blanket, she shuffled her arms a bit, a hump appearing as she brought an arm up to her abdomen.
Chiara and Rin let out quiet closed-mouth gasps. Rin, uncrossing her arms, dropped her hands to the floor as she leaned forward.
“… Nozomi?”
Blinking her eyes open, Nozomi sluggishly turned her head towards the voice, peering through slit eyes.
“Hm?”
Suddenly meeting her gaze, Rin straightened, slightly flinching.
“What is it?” she asked in a very sleepy and drawn out tone.
Chiara got up to her elbows, drawing her knees in to sit up. Alisan stayed seated, but, along with everyone else, shone an expression of silent relief as their friend finally awakened.
Nozomi then straightened her neck out of her shoulders, as if realizing something. “Hm? Why are you out of bed? Is it morning already?”
Rin blinked. “Huh…?”
Seeing her confusion, Nozomi opened her eyes some more, reflecting her own confusion.
“You mean, you don’t remember?”
With another blink, the light returned to Nozomi’s eyes. “Oh… Right. We were doing a test.”
Though fully roused now, her voice remained languid, revealing her weariness. Seeing movement out of the corner of her eyes, she turned her head to the other two girls, realizing they were all here.
“Did I faint?”
Chiara nodded three times, grunting along with each nod. She leaned forward, eyes widening. “You suddenly got bright, then falled to the ground! It was scary!”
Nozomi drew her chin back in surprise. “Did I? … Sorry.”
The apology drew its own surprised reaction from Rin. She abruptly leaned forward even more, palming the straw bed.
“You idiot! Why are you always doing reckless things like that?!”
Alisan and Chiara flinched from Rin’s sudden and muted explosion, loud enough to startle but not loud enough to project out of the yurt. Nozomi simply closed her eyes, eyebrows slanting out in embarrassment, and laughed it off with a breathy laugh.
Receiving no pushback, Rin tempered her frown and sat back up, crossing her arms and ejecting an annoyed click. “Anyway… are you hurt at all? Does anywhere hurt?”
Nozomi drew her chin in to take a deep breath, then eased as she let it out, drowsily opening her eyes again to peer down at the soft blanket right under her chin with blissful happiness.
“No… I just had the best nap ever.”