Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was nightfall by the time Ataya found the house. Or, he was fairly certain it was. Details of the surrounding physical world and the extent to which he could judge them accurately seemed to shift periodically, fading in and out. But the bells sounded crisp, and clear. He followed them through the walls of the house, down the halls and past the room where his father had laid out his body on his bed, into the cellar of their house, deep in the mountain, where he knew precisely what he would find.

When he had brought home the staff that he found, some year or so prior, on an adventure with Dysarrin, his parents — his father in particular — had been leery of it, and wanted, at first, to have it disposed of immediately. At Ataya’s multitude of objections and insistences that it had saved him, eventually his father consented to having it merely put away for the time being and stored in the back cellar of the house until such a time as Ataya at least became more of an age to understand his magic better.

So, there she waited. Tucked amongst other things, out of sight and leaned against a large stack of shelving, gathering dust: Eurielle.

How Ataya knew in that moment as opposed to any other that she was a she and possessed a name of her own was a question he had no answer for, but he didn’t seek it. All of his focus was on the rippling, entrancing pull of her bells, and the powerful presence of her magic. When he reached her, he ‘reached’ out, their energies meshed, and in a moment, were as much one the other, subsumed by each others’ presence like two raindrops gathering into something larger.

In that moment, to Ataya, the physical world ceased to exist.



Upon feeling his son’s pulse, the terror that had momentarily swamped Detraeus’ heart had edged back, tempered, and temporarily restrained. When Ataya did not wake, however, and no amount of speaking, calling, or shaking could rouse him, the same terror nipped back at the heels of his conscious. He gathered his son’s body — his live, breathing body, he reminded himself — into barely shaking arms and took him to their tethered hastar, and rode him home. His mind, all the while, spun over possibilities of what might have happened, how they might try to rouse him, what he might tell his mate and his daughter when he had no idea how to explain the situation to himself.

By the time he made it to the door of his home, however, Ataya cradled limply in his arms and still solidly unconscious, his thoughts had coalesced into but one coherent conclusion to voice to his mate upon stepping through the door: “We need a healer. Immediately.”

Detraeus shook his head. “We walked. There were dragons ahead…close enough they would have smelled us either or, so I had Ata wait behind to keep him out of it. The dragons were hunting a baowi cave…one of the beasts must have escaped early. When I got back, I—” Detraeus frowned, tongue flicking against the backs of his teeth. “I killed it. But Ataya was sprawled out, and I…when I saw him like that, I thought it had…” He grit his teeth, gathering his words and shoving away the memory of panic. “He isn’t hurt…I checked, of course. He’s not even bleeding…I don’t know what happened to him. But he won’t stir, and I don’t…I don’t know what to do. It could be nothing…just a rough scare, but he won’t wake and…if we don’t go to fetch Lithian now…”

It could be too late fetch him quickly enough by the time they truly needed him.

Detraeus didn’t force the words out, his throat already tight and hoarse with guilt. But he knew Ara understood, and as he propped a fraction of his weight against the bed, he reached out, brow furrowing as he brushed his fingers over his son’s forehead. “I’m sorry,” he whispered beneath his breath. “This is my fault. I should have…not left him, or…turned back immediately or…” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have left him…”


Ataya sifted through reams of energy. Eurielle’s magic and her presence itself was, to him in this state, like being suspended within a map of stars — pinpoints and rivers of energy which floated or shifted this way and that, amidst which he could move and explore endlessly. Complex, old magic, far beyond his understanding and a great sense of huge expanses of time. Memories not his own and fragments of the spirit imprints from previous wielders. She allowed him some period of time — if ‘time’ existed in this state — to explore unimpeded, stretching the bounds of his ceaseless curiosity. Afterward, though Ataya had no sense of how long or brief it might have been, something shifted and he felt a push of communication.

Less like words and more like a thought impressing itself on him as the star chart of energy around him coalesced, she asked if he would like to play a game.

‘I love games,’ Ataya thought in answer, and though under normal circumstances it would have felt grossly surreal, it seemed only natural in that moment, and her answer came back to him in but a fraction of a moment:

They were going to play a game. The goal, she impressed upon him, was to get ‘in’.

Before he could communicate confusion, ask, or receive any input on what ‘in’ meant, suddenly he was out. In a single, abrupt shift, everything that was him as opposed to her, was back suspended in the physical world without body. It took a moment for him to ground himself. He was still in the cellar, in his home, hovering before Eurielle herself.

‘In,’ he thought, and abruptly it made sense. Had he a physical body, he would have grinned. As it was, he pushed his energy at Eurielle. Unlike last time, she did not let him in quite so easily. It took him a moment of metaphysical exploration before he found the path in that she had left for him. Once back, his energy stirred pleasantly, highly pleased with himself.

Good, she impressed on him. Again.

And just as abruptly as before, Ataya was back out.

Ready this time, Ataya began his search immediately. He lost track of how many times they went — back and forth, in and out, there and back — but quickly realized that the first ‘puzzle’ she had presented to him was, though confusing the first time, childishly simple in comparison with how complex things could get. Like learning to set a single square block into a square hole instead of a round one, whereas soon, she was presenting him with intricate patterns which forced him to rearrange his own energy in order to ‘fit’ into the one she presented. It was a game. A twisting, shifting puzzle game with infinite possibilities and infinite potential levels for complexity.

During the course of it, all sense of time was lost on Ataya. Moments, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years or centuries could have passed, and he would have been none the wiser. His physical body was forgotten.

Detraeus argued briefly, insisting that he had let it happen and he ought to fetch the healer, but Araceli was faster — being able to fly with the wind under her, thanks to her clan choice — and could likely quarter the time it would take to get down there on hastarback. That, and Detraeus was not intent on leaving his son alone for a moment himself. So, eventually, he conceded, Ara prepared for departure, leaving that night. In her absence, Detraeus closed up the house, locking and barring it up at every opening before preparing a small excuse for dinner and bringing it in to Kara, who refused to leave her brother’s side.

Detraeus slept in the room with them, and spent the vast majority of the following day there also, leaving only for the time it took to prepare meals and climb up the watchtower Casseth had fashioned for him, built into the mountain, to scour the surrounding area. Ataya did not wake. He did not so much as stir, his body eerily still but for the minute, barely visible rise and fall of his chest. His breathing remained constant, slow and light, his pulse faint, but steady, as though all of him were functioning on the most minimal energy level possible to retain vital functions.

Detraeus’ concern hiked by the hour, gnawing at the edges of his conscious and threatening to spill. But he tempered his fear, unwilling — unable — to let it override him when he still had a daughter to care for. He filled his spare thoughts with prayer to whatever god would listen.

Late that night, with Lithian and Casseth in tow, his mate returned. Having already had the situation explained to him, Lithian went immediately to the children’s room while Detraeus saw to his exhausted mate and followed her in behind him. After a gentle greeting to Akara, who had been laying curled asleep beside her brother upon his entrance, Lithian began a cursory inspection of the youngest Doryu child, his magic glowing a soft, luminescent blue as he pulsed it through the boy’s body.

Detraeus watched, nerves brittle and strung to the snapping point, but temporarily manageable. Then, Lithian frowned, and Detraeus’ shoulders bunched. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Well,” Lithian said, brow furrowed, “his body is unharmed…there isn’t a scrape or a cut anywhere and he’s not sick—”

“We knew that.”

“—but he’s not here.”

“…what?”

“Ataya is gone.”

“Gone,” Detraeus repeated blankly, and then sharper. “Gone…dead?”

“No,” Lithian cut in quickly at the rising snarl to Detraeus’ voice. “No, his body is alive, as I told you. And here. It’s Ataya that isn’t. His…energy, his magic, his essence, his soul — whatever you would call ‘it’ that makes Ataya the person he is, is not here. He is…out.”

“Out. Out where?” Detraeus snapped. “And how do we get him back in? How did he get…‘out’? And—”

“I don’t know,” Lithian said. “I don’t know the answer to any of those questions. I don’t know when he left or how or where to. I didn’t even know it was possible until now, other than mention of such things in older spell tomes…” He trailed off briefly, tone going quieter and deathly serious. “And I don’t know if he will ever find his way back, or be capable of getting back in even if he did—”

When Detraeus snarled and stepped forward, Lithian stood, pivoting to face him head on.

“—but I can keep his body alive in the meantime,” he said. “Hydrated. And fed what nutrients we can get into him. It will take constant care—”

“Anything.”

“—but we can hope, and pray, and keep his body safe…give him time to return to us if he can.”

“…that,” Detraeus said hoarsely at length. “That. We’ll do that.” At Lithian’s look, and after an extended pause, Detraeus shut his eyes, voicing a question he wasn’t entirely certain he wanted an answer to. “How will we…know when, if…he…can’t…?”

“We won’t,” Lithian said. “I know nothing of spirits, nothing of energy outside of the body in which it belongs. It should be possible to keep him healthy enough to function for quite some time…but we will not know if he will ever return unless and until he does.”

Detraeus wasn’t going to fall apart. He couldn’t. Not here. His family was around him, waiting, watching. He needed to hold together for their sake as much as his.

He dropped to his knees at his son’s bedside. Though he had waited through the time it took his mate to fetch Lithian all with Ataya at his side, it wasn’t until this moment — hearing, knowing what was wrong with him and being told that there could very well be no point at which his child would return to him — that his world tipped on its axis, crumbling at the edges. Rising just enough to do so, he gathered Ataya into his arms. After gently, gently pulling him in and cradling him to his chest, he went back to a kneel on the floorboards. His shoulders shook as he kissed the crown of Ataya’s head.

“You’re a smart boy,” he whispered, voice hoarse and tight with the push of emotions trying to overwhelm his chest and throat. “A very smart boy…and you’re going to find your way back to us. We’ll be waiting for you…as long as it takes.”

A week passed without change.

Lithian and Casseth remained in the house, Lithian tending hourly to Ataya and at least one member of the family always on watch. The atmosphere was heavy, quiet, and uncertain, for what else was there to do? When the only solution was to wait on an unanswered question…and pray.



‘Again, again!’ Ataya insisted eagerly, his energy humming with anticipation within the inner meshwork of Eurielle’s magic. The puzzles had become infinitely more complex than he would have been prepared for at the game’s outset, but at this point were — in his mind — all the more fascinating due to the challenge of each new one presented. This time, however, Eurielle did not immediately push him back out. Instead, he felt a sense judgment, a weighing feel, as though he were being analyzed. Then came her answer:

‘I have but one more puzzle for you, Ataya.’

Ataya stirred, his consciousness rippling with puzzlement. ‘Only one…?’ Attempting not to seem disappointed when one’s only form of communication was a direct, intertwined mental link was an exercise in futility.

‘Only one,’ Eurielle confirmed. ‘But this is the most important…’

Before Ataya could communicate his question, she was answering it, impressing onto him a string of images: himself, lying still in the soil beside a baowi; himself, tucked into his father’s arms like a puppet as he was carried towards his house; himself, prone on the sheets of his bed, still, surrounded by the figures of his anxious family.

He shifted uneasily. ‘Back in…to me?’ he asked. ‘But…the world out there hurts. Bad things happen, and…what if I can’t do it?’

‘It is not your time to be gone from that plane yet, Ataya. The world’s hurts are there for you to experience during the time allotted to you, alongside its great many pleasures.’

‘What about you?’ he countered. ‘Will I ever get to speak with you again?’

‘I will be here. Seek me out, when you have a body to do so, and I will fight beside you.’

‘My weapon?’

‘Yours. Until the end of your days,’ Eurielle promised. ‘Now go.’

With that, Ataya was out. Back in the cellar, Eurielle’s physical form before him. Anxiety. Uncertainty. Fear. All these things became him as he ‘looked’ to the cellar’s exit, through which he knew he would find the room where his body waited. With breath, though, came pain. Hunger. Cold. And heartache. At nine and a half, he had not yet experienced but a tiny sliver of what the world had to offer him, but diving back in still seemed such an ominous task, now that he had known the feeling of an existence without such things.

When he pushed through the wall and into the room beyond, however, the sight that greeted him gave him pause. His mother, waiting beside him at his bed, her energy bright and complex. Out here, he had a sister. Mother. Father. Family, waiting for him. And as little as the promise of pain and hurt to come appealed to him, he couldn’t leave now. Not yet.

He turned his focus to the body on the bed. His body. On inspection, it startled him how simple it all seemed. The last time he tried to enter, the task had felt all but impossible. No end and no beginning; no hint as to how to start or where to go. Now, the puzzle struck him as elementary level. He approached, shifted his magical signature, aligned, locked, and dropped.

Ataya opened his eyes.

The first breath came to him raggedly, scratching and dry. He gave a heaving, shaking cough, pushing up to a half sit and then whining mutely when his head swam with dizziness. So weak. If he had thought he was weak before, all of his limbs now felt like dead weights strung onto his body, barely willing to move, let alone function helpfully. He collapsed back to the sheets and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Mamaaa…” he fussed, layering a hand over his stomach. First things first. “I’m hungry…”

Ataya blinked, startled by the sudden string of actions. Mama was crying? Why was she crying? Still feeling heavy all over, Ataya found movement difficult, but managed to wrap his arms around her in a weak hug as she held him. “Don’t cry, Mama,” he murmured, voice still scratchy and soft from misuse as he rested his head against her chest. What he really wanted was food, but somehow another insistence on that immediately seemed out of place, so he contented himself with resting in her arms.

Until the door burst open.

Detraeus, upon hearing Ara’s cry, had stiffened immediately. Tense and fearing for the worst, he’d gathered his sleeping daughter up, setting her in the chair he’d been in before darting for the twins’ room. What he saw — his mate holding their son — wasn’t instantly comforting, given that there was no sign off the bat that anything had changed, and his mind was already busily providing potential reasons for her panic, the worst of which being that his pulse had stopped.

Then, halfway to her, Ataya’s head peeked over his mother’s shoulder, eyes large and surprised. Everyone seemed so upset. What was going on?

And Detraeus’ tension broke like glass on granite. “Ataya…” Moments later, he had joined his mate on the bed, opposite their son, his fingers brushing over his cheek, through his hair, barely capable of convincing himself he wasn’t dreaming.

All the while, Ataya blinked, absorbing the attention appreciatively but wondering what all the fuss was about. He’d only been gone… He squinted indecisively, thinking as his father ushered him over into his lap for a moment and a clinging hug. How long had he been gone? When his father kissed his forehead, Ataya glanced up, opening his mouth to ask — and possibly to remind them both that he was still hungry — but then, more people were in the doorway.

He peeked around. “Uncle Lithian!” Ataya coughed immediately after the statement, having used a little more volume than his throat was used to. “Uncle Lithian…what are you—” Ataya cut off mid-thought. “Eurielle.”

Detraeus blinked and frowned down at him. “Eurielle? Who is—”

“My staff,” Ataya insisted, as though everyone ought to know this already. “She’s trapped in the cellar. We need to get her. She helped me find the house! I would have followed the baowi otherwise, when he went with the mountain spirits. But she made music with her bells so I could follow them home, and we played games, and she taught me how to get back in.” He rubbed his nose, frowning as his previous question returned to him. “How long have I been sleeping? And where's Kara?”

Ataya nodded at the question, humming happily at the various sources of attention. So much attention. Perhaps he ought to try scary things more often, if it got him this many hugs and kisses.

“She…well.” Ataya thought about it. “She didn’t talk. Not really. Her magic…put thoughts into my thoughts and helped me understand.” He paused, considering the full implications of the scenario, and what Eurielle had promised him. After, he grinned. “So, I’m a warlock now.”