*takes a slow, steadying breath* *steeples hands in front of mouth* I knew as soon as I put them together with the wizard tools, I was going to be irrevocably unwell. Just. I. Akdsjfljasdlk. I am. Going to gnaw on these for days.
Anyway, this is an intentional recreation of this. Astro AU Aeryn is perhaps the most volatile iteration of this character, and she doesn't always cast in the expected way. Especially in ShB (when light poisoning and trauma are really taking hold) she tends to twist her healing magics into destructive forces—usually to her detriment.
Don't ask me what part of the expansion this is from or who they're fighting. (It's probably just a bunch of sin eaters.) Especially don't ask me who's there and who's not, idk except for Urianger. This is just a nonsense snippet of maybe-fic I wrote when I initially came up with this concept. There is nothing else inside my brain.
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The veil begins to descend, and with it, a curtain of blazing fire. The stars pulse and shine amidst the searing heat as the hoard crashes into the shield again and again, snarling and shrieking and pushing hard enough against the magic that she stumbles, briefly, against the burden of holding it stable. The others speak swiftly, riddling out ways of combating this insurmountable force that already has them at the disadvantage—but Aeryn tunes them out, so wholly focused as she is on keeping them, however briefly, safe.
A prison of healing that she can only hold for so long.
She looks around her, realizing the evident. They have no means of escape, no tricks up their sleeves. One or more of them will fall the moment the veil dissipates. And she- And she can't do anything about it but try desperately to buy them more time. Time to figure out a miracle, if only there was one to be found.
Sweat beads upon her forehead with the effort, not only of maintaining the spell's significantly larger-than-normal size, but of keeping control of the wash of celestial fire swirling around it that she-
She huffs a tight breath, looking up.
That she can use.
It's a fool's hope at best, but she-
She doesn't pause to think—there's no time. Her mana is all but spent. The curtain will fall, and when it does...
Though she groans with the strain, she hefts her planisphere up high into the air toward the burning light at the center of the spell, where it sparks and blazes, sending a ripple of yellow-white, hot power across the entirety of the magical veil.
She grits her teeth as the force of it descends around her, spreading out both arms—as if the motion could do anything at all to help her keep the power at bay.
"Aeryn! What are you doing?"
"No. No, this spell is not meant to-"
"Please-!" she gasps, struggling to speak, trembling with the effort of keeping the magic where she needs it to be until the right moment. She half-sobs, blurting out like a plea to the stars swirling around them, "Not them-! Please, not- not anyone! No one else!"
Then she pushes with all her might on the veil of power meant to protect them, thrusting it outward like a flaming celestial hurricane, one with everything she wishes to protect at the epicenter.
The screams without are horrifying, monstrous, and she- she wishes she could cover her ears against the shrieking and sizzling and crackling. The sound crescendos and fades, and when it has passed, it leaves naught but a foul stench and an echo of agony in her ears. Aeryn releases the veil with a quiet wheeze.
A cold, ash-filled wind swirls back on them, blessedly cool against her fire-warmed skin—and it's then that she feels herself falter. Her planisphere clatters unceremoniously to the ground, and then so does she.
She thinks she hears her name on the cold wind, but then all is silent. She knows only a brief moment of not having the strength to lift her own limbs... and then she knows nothing.
How Aeryn doesn't even begin to know how to control the star's power once she awakens it.
How she's casting by vibes alone, how the astrologians who try to guide her—Urianger included—begin to realize they don't have a clue what her magic even is, let alone how it works. How her destructive capabilities as a should-be healer are unnerving, at best.
And how anyone paying attention as she starts wielding increasingly more volatile magic would notice that, at times, she seems... different.
(I wrote a blurb to go with this, but I am so uncomfortable sharing my own writing, so if you happen to read it and then just... pretend you didn't, that would be excellent.)
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The barrier encompasses the entirety of the room, far wider than he has ever beheld; and the curtain of magic has not yet dispersed ere he comes to an awareness of his preoccupation. His mouth hangs agape, and he swiftly closes it before looking down on her.
"T'would seem thou hast grown uncommonly proficient in the wielding of this barrier."
She tilts her head back to peer at the magical field of stars overhead, and there is something - perhaps a tightness of her back, or an odd slope of her shoulder - that concerns him.
"Ne'er have mine eyes witnessed these magics to linger thus. I am most astonished - though mayhap it should come without surprise that thou wouldst once again, and with great ease, surpass all reasonable and previously understood expectation."
"No," she says. The word is little more than a whisper, but it carries through the wide, open space, perking his ears as she turns. She avoids his gaze, but there is a forlorn smile on her lips, and the sight of it permeates to his very core, as surely as any fine blade. "It, um- it took too long for me to learn."
"Aeryn..."
"We- we both lost someone. People who we..." Her brows knit, and she looks up at him. "They could have been saved. But I- I couldn't use magic to save them."
Oh, what twisted irony that he should find himself deficient of words in this moment. What wisdom he might weave into speech he fears would sound perfunctory, at best - and perhaps they neither of them wish to hear it. So in spite of all the many, many words he might speak, he shares none.
Aeryn draws a long, slow breath and a breathes it out again with a quiet nod. She looks away to draw her planisphere close, then extends one hand to catch the cards as they swirl from the air back to stillness. Still, the curtain of power remains. Though etched but ephemerally upon naught but air, it lingers on, much like the echo of pain across the starlit planes of her face.
"It took too long. But not again." She looks up at him, determined. "Not anyone else."
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