Magically Appeared (TFF Royalty RP)

[Merlin]

Yuuna blindly rushed through the dark of night, stumbling over roots and shrubs as she made her way deeper into the forest. After a few moments of struggling, she found a path through the flora. The dirt road was clearly man-made, the stumps along the edges marking where felled trees once stood proud amongst their companions. With only the moon to guide her movement, Yuuna slowed her pace, walking casually along the dimly lit roadway. In the distance she could see a small clearing to the side of the path. The area was aglow from a warm, inviting campfire. She carefully approached the clearing, leery of whom the creator might be.

A man clad in heavily-plated, pitch-black leather armor waved to Yuuna as she drew closer. His whole attire seemed ominous, for every square inch of his body was hidden from view, the clothes of an assassin. His head was concealed inside a hood and his face behind a black scarf. Only his piercing green eyes could be seen through the garb. He motioned toward Yuuna, who seemed hesitant to come over. “I got tired of waiting on you to and started without you.” In his left hand was a long stick, the bark removed leaving a smooth, wooden surface, perfect for cooking. He sat down on a stump next to the fire, pressing the stick into the blaze and turning over a piece of meat that was cooking on a hand-made rack. “It’s not really safe to go wandering off in the forest like that, young lady. The legends of this forest say that demonic creatures live amongst the trees and feed on the travelers who become lost in the wilderness. They have a particular fondness for the flesh of children, or so I hear.”

Yuuna rolled her eyes at the man in a condescending manner. “Ehhh? What are you trying to say, Shadow? That I’m a midget?”

“Your words, not mine.” He glanced down at her as she walked closer towards him. Her tear-stained face and red, swollen eyes caught his attention, but not enough for him to acknowledge it openly. “So where’s your boyfriend? I’m leaving shortly, and I don’t have time to wait.”

She blushed, turning away from him and fiddling her fingers behind her back. “He’s… he’s not my boyfriend. He’s my brother.”

“Oh? You could’ve fooled me. I see the way you look at him.”

Yuuna turned around sharply, flustered at his comment and said, “Shut up! That’s none of your business!” She folded her arms across her chest in defiance. She couldn’t understand why this man needed to go with them anyway. She already knew where they needed to go and she felt she was more than capable of defending herself. The whole situation reeked and she wasn’t about to get chummy with some masked-man she knew nothing about. She looked over at the fire and saw the food he was cooking. There was only one serving of meat on the fire, not three. Yuuna peered at him conspicuously, unsure of what it meant. “So… you just figured you’d make yourself something to eat and not bother to cook anyone else anything? That’s pretty rude, you know.”

Shadow focused intently on the fire, watching as small embers of wood sparked and flew upwards, disintegrating into the night sky. It was as if he hadn’t even heard her, or was simply ignoring her. Either way, he continued to turn the meat, making sure each side was seared to perfection.

She rolled her eyes again, becoming increasingly annoyed with the man. “What, not got anything to say? I bet you had no intention of cooking us anything and expected us to go fetch it ourselves. I swear, if it was Tyrbane he would have made you something to eat, even if he didn’t like you.”

The man paused, turning his attention toward her. His brows scrunched down slightly as he looked sternly at the pink-haired girl. He placed the stick firmly in the ground and said, “Sorry, but you won’t be dining tonight.” With that, he formed a seal with his hand, his index and forefinger pointing upward, his thumb perpendicular, and the remaining fingers curled under. With a quick sweeping motion of his hand in Yuuna’s direction, a small violet-colored vortex began taking shape. The dime-sized magical emanation seemed harmless from a glance, but its true power was something quite unexpected.

Suddenly, the general area in front of the vortex began to heave violently towards the small opening. The shrubs and nearby trees started to contort, bending towards the singularity. Yuuna was directly in front of the vortex and felt the effect the most intently. She fought desperately against the invisible force pulling her closer to it every moment. Her body felt as if it was three times heavier, as if the gravity itself had increased three-fold. In fact, the vortex was exactly that: a gravity well, or mini-black hole. Everything within the conical area in front of it was being aggressively pulled into the singularity. She placed her hands directly in front of her, arms outreached, and screamed. A shield-like magical barrier formed in front of her, its center-point at her hands. It seemed to calm the area behind it for a moment, but the effect was short-lived. The barrier began to buckle from the stress, the edges sheering and twisting. She concentrated, placing all of her focus on keeping the barrier up. To her dismay, the gravity well was increasing in diameter, its power growing much faster than magical shield she had created. The more energy she drew in to keep it up, the stronger the opposing force was.

Shadow watched in interest as Yuuna struggled against his attack. “Interesting. Very interesting. I was unaware that you could use rejection magic. So much for being curative worthless trash. You’ve got some spunk in you!” He returned his focus to the miniature black hole, increasing its diameter to the size of a fist.

Yuuna knew there was no way she could keep up the barrier at this rate. There was only one way she could think of to save herself, and the idea was frightening. If she drew in a large quantity of magical energy at once, she could increase the barrier’s strength enough to hopefully reflect her opponent’s task. Due to her inexperience, she knew the risk to herself was unbelievably high, but she felt she had no choice. Yuuna’s body began emanating a magical aura, the color of cherry blossoms. The aura grew larger, blanketing the surrounding forest with its energy. The ground around her feet began to deteriorate, pushing outwards in a circular pattern from her position. Yuuna struggled against the sheer amount of magical energy rushing into her body. She was never trained in how to control such a massive burst in power and as such, the energy was leaking out in every direction like a broken faucet. She screamed out in pain, the blood-curdling noise sending a shiver down the back of the unwavering Shadow.

Shadow knew full-well what she was trying to do and that she would soon go into a state of Mental Chaos if she did not stop. Yuuna’s mind would be obliterated by the overload of magic energy, leaving only an empty shell, bent on killing anyone and destroying anything that stood in its way. Shadow reversed the spell, forcing the singularity to instead push everything away from it rather than towards it. The sudden change in magic flow shattered Yuuna’s defensive shield instantaneously and sent her sprawling back onto the ground with a thud. Shadow gave her no quarter, taking advantage of the situation and closing the gap between them. He snatched her up by her hair with his right hand, wrenching her from the hard ground below. She tried desperately to swing her fists at him, but it was a waste of energy. She was doing all she could to even remain conscious after the hard blow to the ground and backlash from the spell. He placed his left hand around her neck, his fingers reaching most of the way around her small collar. With the other hand he stripped her of all of her weapons, tossing them aimlessly to the ground.

Yuuna struggled against his hands, gasping for breath and fighting with all her might. She had fruitlessly overloaded her body from the stress of magic and was too weak to put up much of a defense against his strong hands.

“Who sent you here?”

She gagged, saying, “Alastora told us to come here!”

“Lies. You were using Alastora as an excuse to come here. She was just a pawn in your game. Who sent you here and who do you work for?” he said vehemently.

“How… how do you know that?”

“Answer the question!” He tossed her against a nearby tree, her body going limp from the impact. He marched over to her, placing his hand around her neck again, this time looser so she could still breathe easily.

“All right! I’ll tell you, just let me go!” Yuuna cringed as his hand pressed against her neck, forcing her head against the rough bark on the tree behind her. I was sent to keep an eye on Tyrbane in Pilner.”

“Who sent you?”

“Doctor Silverhand.”

“Dammit!” Shadow let go of her neck and struck the tree trunk at a point directly above her head. “That son of a bitch is alive. Only he could come up with something so convoluted as that.”

“Wait, you know him?” Yuuna looked up at Shadow questioningly.

Shadow calmed himself and said, “Tell me everything about the missions.”

Yuuna really didn’t have much of a choice. If she refused to tell him anything, she knew he would kill her. She wasn’t even sure he’d let her live if she did tell him. In the past she would have refused without hesitation, sacrificing herself to keep the secret. Unfortunately, all the time she had spent with Tyrbane had started to change her heart. She knew she wasn’t his sister. As much as she cared for him now, she knew it was true. She would never be his sister, just a cohort of his father. She turned her gaze away from Shadow, saying, “I don’t know the whole plan, just what parts I was in charge of!”

“Like I said… tell me what you know!” Shadow was becoming impatient with her squirming. He kneeled down in front of her, placing his hands on her shoulders and forcing her against the tree. “Either you tell me willingly, or I’ll force it out of you. Either way, you will tell me!”

“Ok! I was sent to Pilner back when Tyrbane was released from jail for being a magic user eight months ago. We replaced his fiancé with a clone and sent the real one to Haven, where she couldn’t possibly ever leave. We accused the clone of being a magic user and the townspeople had her beaten in the square. While Tyrbane’s mind was devastated from the loss of his fiancé, we implanted memories of me as his sister, using a clone of Sizuru. All I was supposed to do was keep him away from Haven! That’s it! But now, everything’s all wrong. It’s all wrong.”

“What do you mean? ”

“The whole plan is falling apart. It must be for you to have found out so much. The clones are all going insane!”

“The mountains…”

“Yes! Tyrbane went to go investigate the church attack and the clone of Sizuru and Alastora attacked him! He must’ve known they were clones… with his eyes, he would’ve known it the moment they tried to attack him. I don’t know why he didn’t say anything though…”

“Stop digressing and tell me what you know.”

“To make matters worse, that stupid bitch Falaris had to butt in. I don’t know how the hell she found out, but she tried to kill all three of them to cover it all up. Maybe she found the clone of herself? I don’t know… When Tyrbane brought Alastora back to me, she was a total mess. I did the best I could, but there’s no way I could fix her degrading mind. Neither clones realized that they were, so I couldn’t exactly ask Sizuru to fix her… so I sent them off.”

Shadow sighed, releasing his grip on her neck again. “That’s what you get for playing with copies of people. It’s not possible to keep a magic spell up forever. The farther it is away from the caster, the faster it will dissipate. How much power can he have to even control that many clones at once from that distance? That’s ridiculous. Frankly it’s unbelievable. There’s no way anyone could control a spell from that distance, let alone several.”

“I swear it’s the truth!”

“Why did you decide to come to Haven then? Isn’t that violating your mission?”

Yuuna frowned and turned her head down towards the ground. “I fell in love with him. I’m stupid. All I had to do was do my part and then I could go home… but I can’t. Gwinnyn belongs with him, not some replacement sister. I…I can’t bear to see him in so much pain, so I talked to the clone of Alastora. She agreed and gave me your name as a contact.”

“Aww. How touching. Seems like your clone betrayed you. How do you think I found out about your plan? She was most helpful.” Shadow stood up, placed his left hand behind his back and unsheathed a long, slightly curved blade.

Yuuna panicked, looking up at him in fear. “I… I thought you were going to let me go!?!” Her body was frozen in place, all of her muscles past the point of exhaustion. In the back of her mind she pleaded desperately for Tyrbane to intervene. She knew it wouldn’t happen, not after how she left things between them. Even so, she still hoped deep down that he would come for her.

“I never agreed to those terms…” With a swift flick of the blade, the assassin cleanly cut through her neck, lopping her head off like a spinning top. The pink-haired mass rolled off her shoulders and onto the dirt below, bouncing a few feet and laying to rest against an adjacent tree. Her crimson blood was splattered across the tree behind her, trailing along the forest floor as well. Shadow removed a small engraved cloth, similar to a napkin from a pouch on his belt. He wiped the blade clean and tossed the cloth onto the dismembered body before him. Returning the blade to its home, he turned around to head back to the campfire. Before Shadow could even make one step, his face was confronted with the blade of Tyrbane Silverhand.

Tyrbane was shaking slightly, looking at Shadow with a mixture of pure hate and utter shock. “What have you done… Yuuna. You killed her! You sick fùck!” His eyes began to fill with tears as he glanced towards the lifeless body of Yuuna. “What did she do to you? She’s just a girl. What kind of man kills a defenseless girl?!?”

Shadow’s eyes peered intently into that of Tyrbane’s, their eyes locked in a miniature battle for dominance. “Every muscle in your body wants to strike me down… but you can’t.” Shadow laughed heinously at Tyrbane. “No matter how much you want to do it, there’s something inside you preventing you from laying a single finger on me.”

Tyrbane grasped his sword tightly, preparing to strike down the man in front of him with all of his strength. Yuuna had been by his side all this time, fighting for him in her own way. He knew she didn’t have the guts to fight a true battle. Her weapons were more for show than anything. She was stubborn as a mule and a bit annoying, but he cared for her just the same. He had already lost Gwinnyn, and now, Yuuna. Even though he had no idea she wasn’t his sister, the pain was too much for him to take anymore. The pent-up anger was enough to make him blow a gasket. “I’ll make you suffer ten times what she went through, you son of a bitch!” He raised his sword to a striking position but stopped. He regained his composure and said, “Tch. No. I’m not like you, Shadow.” Tyrbane returned the sword to its sheath. “The law will punish you for your crimes. I won’t stoop to your level for revenge.”

“The law… your laws mean nothing here. Who do you think you are? Eh? Tyrbane Silverhand?” Shadow formed a seal with his hand and placed his forefinger on the edge of his opponent’s blade. As his finger touched the cold steel, the entire blade crumpled into a ball and disintegrated, being replaced with a gravity well the half the size of a person’s head. Shadow motioned with his hand towards Tyrbane, the lavender-colored vortex moving forward with extreme velocity, penetrating Tyrbane’s forehead and exiting the other side. Magical waste, the byproduct of the use of magic, began emanating from Tyrbane’s body, focused mostly around the skull. The corpse seemed frozen in place, defiant even after death. “Disgusting.” Shadow kicked the corpse to the ground, saying, “You’re not Tyrbane Silverhand. I am.”

[Andromeda]

Ice and snow, that was all he could see anymore on the mountain climb from Pilner. The trek that he had to endure on the way back did not seem to be nearly as bad as he remembered. Yet it also felt worse than before catching his view back behind him seeing his heavier leather coat on the woman that would not stop following him. He asked her several times to her reasons, but she remained stubbornly monotone with her constantly vague answers. Wihnem could not understand her following him all the way that she had, but he could not let her freeze even though it meant that he would. ‘It doesn’t make sense, she must be a following me as a trap.’ Unfortunately, he had tried to lose her several times, but she always managed to find him no matter how hard he tried to avoid being seen. The fact that she could follow him by his magic seemed to be the only answer, but it did not make any sense to him.

All his knowledge in magic use, for as much as he could understand of it, did not explain how she could track him so well. Magic was around them not within them. He could technically store some inside for a quick use, but that was a risk if left held for too long. However, that was not the answer as he knew that he was not holding any reserves. There was no magic on him to trace even if she had incredibly keen magic sight. Magic was drawn in from the surrounding and then consumed almost immediately in the use with the remaining expended as magic waste. The more in control and concentrated the less waste created. He knew that the magic waste and magic expended would leave a signature that with even someone with hardly any magic sight could pick up. Wihnem knew that the light magic he used on those two Pilner knights could be traced, but any magic he had left around him would have dissipated beyond any levels someone could see. She would have to have an amazingly sharp skill with magic to track him on simply that alone. He knew that could not be the answer, just from the movements that she had weak and unfocused even clumsy. She did not have that level of training. ‘There’s something I’m missing, but what?’ The woman did not make any sense and thinking so much in circles was starting to make his head hurt.

Wihnem turned his eyes forward now rather than inward seeing the thick sheet of snow being blown around preventing him from seeing deeper. He rubbed his arms up to his shoulders trying to stave off the cold. If he was wearing any less he would not have been able to brave the trek, but he needed out of Pilner and this was the fastest way for him. ‘Wish my chivalry didn’t have to get in the way…don’t know why I care about her. She’s only a stranger.’ A blast of snow pushed him forward taking his mind away from stray thoughts.

The constant slope up the mountain continued for the remainder of the day until night began to fall. It was the first night on the snow caps reminding Wihnem how cold it was on his journey south only a few days ago. As the temperate dropped even more without the light of the sun the empty blanket of wind enveloped him tightly keeping his arms wrapped around him. Being the man he tried to keep it to himself how much it was getting to him knowing that the nameless woman was still following him.

It had been an hour since the last time he checked on her. Each time that he would confirm her presence she was always the exact distance from him as before. Whenever he changed his pace she seemed to immediately match not missing a step. She remained a mystery to him. One that he was growing tired of having in his shadow. However, there was a sudden change that he felt, but before he could turn around to learn what he changed he found his coat placed over his shoulders. The warmth of the coat poured into him easing the chill that hung around him. He turned around stopping in his tracks to find that the woman was back at her same distance staring back at him. Wihnem met her eyes trying to read into her, but found nothing. She was blank, almost unsettling. He let out a small sigh walking down the slope to the woman pulling the coat off of his back. “I gave it to you. I don’t need it.”

The woman backed away from him refusing the jester from him this time. Wihnem moved towards her again attempting to get the coat on her, but she kept just out of reach. Their game of chase continued for a minute before Wihnem gave up. “Fine. But I’m not letting you get cold on my account. Come here.” He motioned to her trying to have her come next to him, but she refused or did not understand his intentions. “Next to me…we’ll share it.” Wihnem reached out with his arm quickly enough that she did not have the time to react and pull away. His hand grabbed her wrist roughly handling her pulling her in against him. He threw the coat around her half way leaving the other half on him. ‘Not how I imagined returning to Jumin…’

Together they marched up the mountain through the night reaching near to the peak, but at that point they could finally start down the mountain finally reaching the border into Jumin. It was not as though Jumin tried to claim this half of the mountain range, but once the slope changed it was considered to be Jumin territory. The ground downward was difficult to see, but they would soon be approaching it. Wihnem pushed forward not wanting to rest at the peak. As they stepped ever closer they suddenly lost their footing when the ground dropped out underneath them. They tripped over each other rolling down a deep pit in the snow that fell outside of the wind.

Wihnem came to a stop near the lowest point feeling his head spinning and legs a little sore from the misstep. He slowly got to his feet while his eyes scanned the view looking out at the perimeter of the pit. The more that he looked at the terrain the more he thought it to be a crater filled in with snow. There was something about the shape and the outward lining of the stone at the edge that led him to believe that this was not a natural formation of the rock.

The woman made a low grunting noise being slow about regaining her senses. Wihnem turned away from his investigation to aid the woman up to her feet letting her stay close to him in case she had injured anything in the fall. The assessment of her only took a moment as he could see that she was in no immediate harm. His eyes turned back to the strange terrain that was already buried underneath a heavy layer of snow. It was only at the edges where the wind could not reach that any definition could be found. Wihnem slowly walked the woman with him over to the edge of the pit. The last few steps slid in the snow as the angle increased, but it also worked to clear out a little snow. He let go of the woman allowing her to keep the coat while he knelt down examining the ground.

Through the snow he could see more clearly the terrain and how unnatural this was when it happened. There were clear signs of a great force being applied to the earth to be carving into the solid rock side of a mountain. He knew of nothing technological that could cause this and apart from nature doing this to itself the only remaining possibility was magic. If it was strong enough this could have been caused by magic. ‘This could have happened days, weeks or even months ago for all I know. Though judging by the amount of snow it is unlike it was months. If it was any longer than a couple weeks the entire area would have been buried from the changing winds. But what would someone be doing on a mountain casting such a powerful attack?’ Wihnem could speculate all he wanted, but knew in the end there was almost nothing to go on for clues. He did the only thing he could to verify his theory.

If there was magic used here on this scale there might be a signature left behind if it had not been too long. This degree of an attack would have pulled in an eminence amount of magic to meet the requirements and there would have been a large amount of magic left in the air and gathered around the point of impact. However, this close to nature it could have absorbed too much for him to find a trace. He had to try regardless as he began opening his mind. There was no obvious magic trace or he would have noticed it immediately. This was going to require concentration. ‘Nothing…I’m not finding anything…maybe this wasn’t. But nothing else fits this well. I have to look deeper. Something this big had to leave enough to be found this long.’ Wihnem hardened his focus no longer hearing the wind brushing his hair or the cold eating through his ears. The deepened state finally registered the woman as he detected low traces of magic stored inside her. However, he pushed that aside trying not to become distracted further. ‘Still nothing…wait…’ Wihnem had picked up something very small for only an instant and tried to narrow in on it when he was rudely pulled out of his trance by the woman grabbing him from behind. “What?”

He stared at her for a minute after he tried to pull back his anger from being disturbed. It was difficult for him to tell what was wrong with the woman, but she let go as soon as she had his attention. “Something wrong? You hurt?”

“I felt it,” she said continuing to be as cryptic as always.

Whether this was intentional or not he had to press on for more details. “What did you feel?”

“I felt it…” The woman went quiet again, but the stare from Wihnem pushed her to say more. “Magic. It was used here.”

‘This strange untrained woman found it? How can she be certain? I barely felt anything and for all I know it was a blimp in my mind.’ He stepped forward grabbing her by the shoulders looking straight into her eyes. Those empty eyes stared back not answering his silent questions. “How can you be sure? When did you notice?”

“Before…before falling.”

‘Is that even possible? How attuned to magic sight is she? Might explain tracking me then.’ Wihnem stepped back trying to give himself some room to think. If he could trust what she said then she just confirmed his theory. Unfortunately, aside from knowing that it was magic that did little good to him. He was still no closer to knowing what happened here than a minute ago. ‘This is not getting me anywhere. I’m just freezing up here.’ He pulled the woman along trying to get her to move again, but found that she had become stubborn. “We’ve wasted enough time here. Nothing more can be gained from staying. Come along.”

The woman tripped a little against his pulling. She came to a stop a little too close to him. “I sense someone…” After the soft spoken words she backed away from him pointing in the direction with her index finger extended to a place out of the pit.

He was willing to get out of the crater and start moving again even if he was humoring her. ‘If she found me then I can’t really doubt that she found someone. But what do they want? Best be cautious.’ Wihnem walked with her slowly out of the crater helping her carefully up the last few steps. Once she was out he took the moment to gather a little magic in case he was going to need it. Nothing that would be normally detected, but he was not going in unprepared. Now ready to approach he took a quick leap up and over the lip of the crater slowly stepping towards the spot that he was directed to. All that he could see around was snow, not even a rock to hide behind. ‘Could she be tricking me?’ Wihnem turned his head just enough to glance back to find that she was unmoved waiting on him. ‘Doesn’t make any sense. There’s nothing here unless they are hiding in the snow.’

The approximate point that he was directed to by the woman proved to be as empty and barren as it looked from a distance. There was nothing here but snow. He turned around not interested in digging through the layer of snows that were pressed and compacted together. However, when he started to move back to the woman she pointed again insisting. He shook his head back at her causing her to walk over to him. When she met up with him she point down at the snow. “There’s nothing here but snow. You’re mistaken.”

“Someone…” She saw that he was not doing anything and knelt down into the snow beginning to push the snow aside.

Wihnem could not let her do this alone and gave into her helping clear away snow from the other side. After a few minutes he hit something harder and different texture than snow. In a couple swipes of his frozen hands he found a body. It took a few minutes to clear away everything, but what was left certainly used to be someone, a woman. Whoever it was she had clearly died some time ago buried under the snow. He searched for any markings or symbols that would identify the woman, but she had nothing. ‘A little strange that someone out here is dead and that crater. She has nothing on her to determine nationality or allegiance. If they are related then the person that caused the crater could have killed her and removed anything that could put her with one of the kingdoms. There’s something familiar about her though, wish I could remember why.’ She was not going to be able to receive any more of a burial than she already had, but it was another puzzle piece. Though he could not understand how she could detect someone that was dead. ‘Perhaps she was a magic user and there was something still left behind.’ He did not want to think on it too much longer knowing he could not survive on this mountain any further. “Time to go. We’ve stayed too long. I trust you are satisfied now with your curiosity.”

They left the wind to rebury the dead woman and began the cold bitter trek down the Jumin side of the mountain. Once they had reached a warmer air he opted to rest having traveled without stopping for nearly two days. He knew that he could not be avoided though with the mountain crossing. The woman went to her side and he got his coat back. Life seemed to be normal again, given the circumstances at least.