Lemons
Cyadical
Damycles
Supermaxx
Izurich
pkken
Noctis
Yankee
Asura
Mira Grace
Dɪᴀʟᴏɢᴜᴇ Cᴏʟᴏʀ ✦ #8AB8E6 || Tʜᴏᴜɢʜᴛ Cᴏʟᴏʀ ✧ #EBB40E
No matter how much preparation she might have done, it couldn't possibly have been enough to set her mind at ease.
She paced back and forth across the darkened room, taking great care not to stumble over the great many old books and sheets of parchment strewn across the floor, their incomprehensible diagrams and inscrutably scribbled footnotes laying bare collecting dust. She scratched at her temples with a nervous frenzy, wracking her brains to make sure a single thing wasn't amiss. No matter how much she told herself that she'd already done everything she could, she couldn't escape the nagging sensation that there was something she hadn't attempted yet, something she'd missed. She'd tried so hard... had researched everything that her mother had left behind to the best of her ability. But nowhere, within any of her books of magic, existed any mention of a ritual anything like that which had selected her to fulfill its function. A battle between legends called up from the distant past? A game of life and death in which the winner took all? A cup that granted wishes? It was unmistakably the setting of a fairy tale, or some great epic - nothing like the isolated, tranquil life which she had lived up until now. And yet, here she was, acting in accordance with vague commandments she'd managed to gather up from her own investigations into the ritual.
She had done everything in her power to strengthen her manor's Bounded Field. In these past two weeks, she'd used up almost all of the vials of her own blood she'd saved up in advance to protect her in an emergency. She'd called upon new familiars, created new dolls, and tested the effects of curses and spells engraved into the Magic Crest over her heart which she'd never even thought to use before. Already, her flock of ravens was circling the city to gather information on the battlefield, having left her manor for the first time in years to do so. She was doing everything she could to prepare for the war to come, and yet...
Mira froze at the center of the room, her arms going slowly slack and falling to her sides. She could feel the power coursing through the stones of the chamber, converging in the magic circle beneath her feet. All throughout her manor's grounds, her Bounded Field was isolating the power of the leylines and drawing it to this spot to begin the final stage of her preparations. In the end, this was really all there was left to do. It was a simple ritual that would achieve the impossible, creating a magnificent fiction that would transcend all of this world's "reason" in order to actualize that one "miracle" that was antithesis to her very being, yet essential to her future. Then, if that was the only course of action that lay ahead of her... There was no way she could turn back now. She would die if she hesitated. If she retreated, she herself would turn the key to unseal her own ruin. If she gave up, all her tomorrows would lie barren of promise, and her yesterdays carry nothing but regret. The only path ahead of her was...
Ink for our contract - the blood of a witch.
She winced as the knife cut across her palm, feeling warm blood trickling steadily down, sinking into the channels carved into the granite of the cellar floor. The anthame clattered to the ground as she cast it aside, and she held out her bleeding hand, letting the circle drink its fill of the scarlet claret that fell from it.
Let us now inscribe our marks upon this blank canvas. A quill pen as an offering.
The raven feathers strewn beneath her soaked in the blood, their black strands turning to crimson red, then beginning to glow with an eerie light as scarlet radiance began to spread outward through the lines of the circle, then pulsed once more inward with redoubled luminosity like a wave crashing back upon the shore.
The name I bespeak unto thee is that of Grace - know you my birth, and bear that heritage as testament to my good faith.
The light began to rise, filling the room. She could feel the very essence of the air around her changing, the isolated space connecting to a "something" that defied the world - a mystery separated by a degree even greater than her own. This great will would work in accordance with her own, and would surely bestow her with a miracle!
"See now that the door lies open before you. I would ask that you loan me your strength. The future and past I offer as collateral, if it please you. Let these moments only remain, arising from and descending into nothing. I ask only for the present!" The light beneath her felt as though it was seeping into her bones, into her very blood, but she continued reciting her spell, praying that the result would uphold all that which she sought. "I hereby propose: My will shall create your body, and your sword shall create my destiny. In accordance to the summons of the Holy Grail, if you will accede to this will and reason, then answer me!"
The parchments covering the floor scattered outward, away from the circle, as at its heart, "something" began to take form. Even here, beneath the ground, a wind was blowing wildly, sending feathers dyed in darkest crimson fluttering madly into the air. It was almost here!
"I hereby swear: I shall attain all virtues of all of Heaven. I shall have dominion over all evils of all of Hell! From the Seventh Heaven, attended to by three greet words of power, come forth from the circle of constraint!"
The light swelled to a fever pitch, and Mira drew back, raising her bloodied hand over the circle as a flash like lightning split the chamber.
"Guardian of the Heavenly Scales!"
The chamber shuddered. Smoke filled the room. Mira clung to the brim of her pointed witch's hat with her uninjured hand as she struggled to retain her footing against the mighty wind that buffeted her. Then, all at once, it stopped. The light vanished, and the dust began to settle once more. She rubbed at her eyes, squinting to see through the darkness, where she thought she could make out a human shape rising up to meet her.
She stared down at her hand, only to find a strange crimson marking inscribed upon the back of her palm. Then... it had worked! She had done it! This was... this was...
"My... Servant..."
@VitaVitaAR
