For the past half-decade, Ergen has been studying the chaos of the storm and the sporadic natural occurrences that it has. In his time in the Wardana academy, all of the elders would always inform the apprentices and students that there was no pattern to the storm. That no one could ever record it. Standing in the large room underground in the forgotten city beneath the ground layer of the Nameless City. He stood on a 2D white-chalk replica of the city above him. His hand on his chin while he paced around the area scanning his eyes to everything he has recorded from the storm over the years. How much it moved with each storm surge. How many storm beasts came from that singular surge and all the different variables he could get out of his observations. Data points. All of this was important even if it looked like a jumbled mess on the floor. It was a chaotic mess only he could decipher. His usage of his own language caused it to look like some ancient ruins except it was current —- the current state of the city.
A moon cycle.
Why the hell is the storm been delayed for a moon cycle? and there was no feeling of a storm surge coming. Throughout the years, he looked at each layer he placed about the storm. How it affected the mass of the fourth ring, how long the surges were for, and so much more information but he was standing there bewildered. “”It doesn’t make sense…” Mumbling to himself as he bent over to place a finger under some undecipherable words. One week and three days. Was what the words said and that was currently the longest time in between storm surges the city has ever seen or at least has seen in a little over five years.
The man sighed heavily while stroking a hand through his hair and closing his eyes, “You have been working on something for the whole month the storm hasn’t happened. It could happen any minute and the longer you are down here, the more unlikely it is you activate those ikons in time,” Ergen decided that he needed to get back to the surface because the Forgotten City was actually underground which seemed protected from the storm. He found that he could wander to where only ruins under the fifth and sixth could be seen. Was that a smart thing to do? No. He did it for research. The storm did not touch the undergrounds and if everyone worked together, they could live down here, but he knew that was asking too much of anyone in any ring.
Plus the majority of people were terrified of the underground city because of the ethereal under it. If you fall into the void… you never return. It wasn’t like the storm. It wasn’t like the sun. You could see reflections of yourself that you didn’t want to see in its water-like appearance. The only thing that it brought was uncomfortability and anxieties to boil up in individuals. Staring at it too long would cause madness.
Going through the passageways, Ergen knew of the rare few entrances to the underground city from the fourth ring. There were slightly more in the third. A few more than that in the second. Only two passages that he knew about in the first. This allowed him to get from point to point with ease and not be captured by the Wardana or Regia Guard.
Climbing up an uneven stonewall, it was slippery, and icky in texture. Bumpy and slimy. Stretching his body to press something that looked unmoveable, it shot back within the stone it was in as he put his middle finger in the finger-sized hole. A click could be heard and a turning of dials was sounded before he quickly took his hand away and the stone began to move on its own. Before it was done opening, Ergen propped himself up and pulled himself to the surface. His hand stroking stone that appeared like it had nothing as slightly covered ikons began to glow from his touch. The stone door began to close.
He wasn’t able to stand up in the area that he was in and if he tried, he could only stand on his knees, so he stayed sitting. The floorboards above him allowed ikon-induced lights to peak through and dance across his face. Whispers from a handful of people were muffled through the floorboards. The man crawled for about ten minutes before gently moving a false floor. A false floor that had a rug on top of it and was in a room. Standing up, he seemed surprised, “I didn’t realize you would be waiting,” Ergen let out a smile as he hoisted himself up into his room and put the false floor back. Lifting the rug and doing something with a personally made ikon that caused it so it appeared like there was no false floor at all.
Dusting himself off as he finally could stand up straight —- Ergen asked Alora to wait for him. It wasn’t like she just magically appeared in his room or came in without permission. No one came into his room except a select few and those select few were not allowed in his room without permission. Ergen did not want anyone coming in and taking his work or what not even if it would be very difficult to find. “Are you ready?” The man began to move his shirt. He needed Alora to write a string of ikons from shoulder to shoulder on his back and he probably could do the ones on his front. The trick he was going to pull when the storm surge happened… it had to happen, was not one that anyone would probably do. He calculated his chances of living through that much electricity going off even with the protection ikons he had, Ergen discovered he probably had a fifteen percent success rate. It was worth taking!
Going and sitting on the stool in front of his desk which had a mirror attached, he looked over to Alora with a mischievous and almost smug smirk. He knew she didn’t want him to do this. Multiple people didn’t want him to do this but he needed to do it.
Sitting on the edge of his bed, Alora let the faintest close-lipped smile linger as Ergen pulled himself up from the hole in the floor, her heart fluttering with relief. She trusted him to be careful in the Forgotten City, but that didn’t mean it didn’t make her nervous for his return every time. In fact, she was nervous for him most of the time, but especially today. “Of course I waited.” She said softly, watching him cover up his little secret tunnel once more.
Her white-furred ears flicked backwards as he spoke, portraying her negative emotion as he asked her if she was ready for what he had planned. “Ergen…” She sighed heavily, “Please don’t do this.” Her voice was faint and somber; she was not looking for an argument with him, though she fully expected him to push back on the matter. Typically she had been known to bicker with him, but this time felt different than the other times. The risk was so much higher now. “What if something goes wrong? What if -” Alora’s piercingly blue eyes locked onto his green eyes, her vertical cat-like pupils dilating just slightly as she stared back at him. “How am I supposed to live with myself if….” She trailed off, unable to bring herself to talk about his probable death.
The protection ikons have already begun to form on his skin while his finger danced around his collarbone. Shaping. Moving. Connecting. How he worked looked perfect and easy when in actuality it was a dangerous game with ikons —- ikons being placed on the body was even more dangerous. If you placed one wrong or accidentally made a symbol with another one. Everything could go wrong. Ikons activating on the body that shouldn’t be attached could be fatal and more times than not it was.
Listening to Alora caused his expression to fade even more than it was. It was sometimes hard to tell if he was positive or negative since his face of thought was so neutral. Glancing up when she began to change her tone and act as if he had no rate of success at all. The man stopped writing the ikons on himself and he grabbed a rag to wipe his hands off. Placing it back onto the desk before standing up. “If you believe I won’t make it. That slims my chances,” He uttered in a soft tone before standing only a few feet in front of Alora.
Before the storm-touch woman stood a man of dedication and he knew he couldn’t run away or ignore something that could possibly help the city. Gently reaching out and placing the curved knuckle of his pointer finger under her chin. He led her to look up at him even with her ears forced back in such a distasteful way, “You know your ears tell me a lot about what you are thinking and feeling —-” Ergen gave her a faint smile of reassurance, “ — I promise that I will come back. I cannot promise that I won’t be hurt in the process but that’s what healing ikons are for, no?” His tone of voice became lighter with a playfulness. Clearly aiming to calm her spirits. That reassuring smile grew on his face to show his teeth. “Though, I will not force you to help me. If you do not wish to, the door is right there,” Ergen gestured since he was going to need peace and quiet while he applied these ikons. If he did any of them wrong, it could go very wrong for him. A reason he was being extremely careful with what he was using to write them on his body and how he was writing them. Shoulder to shoulder on the front and back of his body. Each decorative band would start from the center of his chest and then work to the left before coming back and working to the right. Same for his back except it would start in the middle of his spine. All of this would hopefully save him from the electric shock. If it didn’t. Oh well… that would definitely suck. Definitely hurt.
“Tch…” Alora clicked her tongue and tilted her face away from his hands. Had she not been so worried for him she might have blushed when he touched her, but her anxiety was too high to think of anything else but his safety for the moment. “I'm always going to help you.” She muttered, her voice still soft but this time laced with a touch of sass.
Walking back over to the desk and sitting on the stool, Ergen began to focus on writing the symbols that he was connecting with himself. “[color=aa36a]You cannot think of what-ifs in this life unless you want to be fearful and do nothing at all, Alora. I’ve been planning this since the last storm surge and if my calculations are correct —[/color]” The man used his other hand as he grabbed a notebook on the desk and flipped in the pages. “ —- the next storm surge should be happening at five fifteen this afternoon meaning that we have a few hours,” Glancing over his shoulder at Alora, he flashed another smile before it turned into a serious expression and he went back to working on the ikons on his front. “I have to help the city. If I am able to help the city. I might be able to help Zavala not turn into his father,” Ergen knew from the readings of the past that there were two vessels that kept balance. The balance was fine. The two individuals were sometimes siblings, friends, lovers, or enemies but they kept balance beside each other. When the royal family in those days began to fight, hell broke loose, and Zavala’s ancestor failed to protect the other vessel. A tragic death that caused the ancestor to go mad —- sorrow, rage, and not wanting to replace his counterpart. The ancestor began to sacrifice each possible vessel of the other god to the Great King for guidance and help. This continued for the man’s whole life till he died sometime in his eighties and his eldest child took over. His daughter.
She was the first individual to lose consciousness and become a lifeless husk. Being in her forties made everyone think that she would live a decent life like her father. No. She ended up passing because of ‘natural causes’ from harboring the Great King at the age of sixty-eight. Her son died in his early sixties. His child died in his late fifties. It began to dwindle and dwindle more. For the past while it has been a variable of the Regia dying in between thirty-five and forty-five.
The current Regia and royal family were not that old. They had Zavala young. They had to have him young. His father could die tomorrow if fate had that in store or another five years maximum.
Alora frowned as she listened to Ergen. He was right, but it hurt her to think of what might happen not only to him, but to the entire state of the world without him in it. She couldn’t argue with him, though. She had always believed in his cause and had grown to admire him for how selfless he was at heart. Grew to love him, even. “I guess someone has to look out for you, if you won’t look out for yourself.” Standing, Alora joined Ergen at his desk and dipped her fingers into wet grey clay that had been gathered into a container. Stepping behind him, she carefully began to draw an ikon symbol with the clay along his shoulder. She had been up-close and personal with his body many times, covered him with protection or healing ikons more times than she could count, but still she felt the butterflies swirl in her stomach any time she touched him in such a delicate way. The luxury of intimacy wasn’t something she had allowed herself to have, this was always as close as it got, so she took quiet appreciation for his physique.
“I’ve spent years trying to keep you alive. Don’t go messing up all my work, all right?” She teased, running her fingers down his back gently as she moved on to the next ikon.
A smile followed along with the woman’s words since he appreciated her, “You know you do not have to do that though I do appreciate your dedication and believing in me,” Someone had to believe in him because he did not believe at himself in the moment. It was an understatement in both categories — he had no words to show the woman how much he appreciated her being by him — and he had no words that explained the anxieties coursing through his blood. He spent the whole month going around the outside of the fourth ring, praying the storm would not come till he was done, and a few days ago that prayer came true. The storm still has not come. His calculations meant that it would be coming today and he had to get ready.
Ergen had been waiting for an outlier in the pattern that he had recorded from the storm and it did not feel like he had enough time. Going around the whole outer ring of the fourth and writing ikons into the stone for the past month, praying, and hoping that the storm would stay delayed. It was an odd thing to pray about. A storm to be delayed when everyone knew the storms were always worse when they were delayed. It’s been a month… a sigh left his lips as he thought about that. A whole month where a surge hasn’t happened. What would happen? How strong would this surge be? All the variables that dealt with the storm were terrifying to a point because a storm surge hasn’t been delayed like this in a long time. It was a thing in history books.
“Alora,” His tone was soft when he spoke her name. Softer than usual. It might have caused the opposite effect that he wanted; comfort. “If this doesn’t work and you are not able to heal me. Burn my room. Burn everything,” Glancing over his shoulder and connecting their eyes. He was being very serious about this. The man needed to know she would do this for him. “Promise me you will burn everything in this room without hesitation. No one should ever find my journals or anything, especially the royal council and guard,” His voice turned stern when he stated these words. He needed to know that she would do this. If she couldn’t. He would have to think of something.
Alora looked up from her ikonic symbols to meet her eyes with Ergen’s as he looked over his shoulder. “I promise, Ergen.” She said softly back to him, holding his gaze for a few moments to affirm with him that she was taking his last wish seriously. She hoped it would not come down to it, but she would do what he asked of her. Even if it would kill her inside to erase everything they had worked on together for years. Everything would be lost to flames should something go wrong, she’d be sure of it.
Turning her eyes back to the symbols, Alora carefully finished drawing out several more until the string of ikons crossed from one shoulder to the other. With the last ikon done, Alora steeled herself to the emotion that suddenly threatened to rise to the surface and make her cry. She did not want him to leave, but she knew he had to. What else was all their work for if not for today? Feeling a grip on her heart, Alora thought about pulling him into a hug from behind, but she did not want to accidentally smudge any of the ikons. The risk was too great. Instead, she took a step back from him to give him some space. The strain on her heart grew tighter and the feeling of weight on her chest only grew heavier as she put distance between them.
“Promise you’ll come back to me alive?” She asked quietly, knowing that she was asking him to make a likely impossible promise. Still, her heart wanted to hear it more than her brain could reason her out of it.
For some reason, her promise did not simmer in him properly and he would do what he always did when leaving his room. Set up a trap that would burn the whole room down if someone entered it improperly. When he was being hidden from the government figures of society, most did not ever try to enter his room, but he took precautions. If his life's work got into the wrong hands — he had no idea what would become of anyone or anything.
“You know I cannot do that,” Ergen stood up when the woman asked him to promise such a thing. Shrugging his shoulders while he turned towards the blonde-haired woman. Looking into her eyes. The man seemed like he was trapped in thought but he was still focusing on her. “Though, I can promise I will always come back but it might not be in the form you wish for me to be in,” Ergen was hinting towards other forms. Death. Cremated. In pieces. Not alive. Alive but okay. He knew that she had feelings for him so he didn’t want to keep her hopes up with promises that he knew he couldn’t keep.
Then he stepped closer to her and looked down at her. His arms wrapped around her and he pulled her tight against his chest. “Do not worry about me. Everything will be fine. Worse comes to worse. You might have to be healing for the next few weeks. That’s if these protection ikons don’t hold up against lightning or copious amounts of electricity running through a human body,” He chuckled at his own words but that chuckle sounded more nervous than relieved. A part of him was constantly hoping that he did not get these protection ikons wrong or it was going to hurt. Hurt a lot. A lot more than he wanted to feel.
Alora let herself be pulled into him without resistance at first, closing her eyes as she buried her face in his chest and wrapped her arms around his torso - careful with her hand placement. For a few moments she let herself enjoy the moment for what it was and listened to his breathing and heartbeat, took in his scent, and tried to imprint in her memory what his body felt like against hers. The moment was short lived, however, as logic and reason began to set into her mind again. This was torture. Over the years she had never been very physically affectionate with him and often purposely put distance between them, despite wanting the opposite. She had seen Ergen reject many women over the time they had spent together and she expected the same fate should she ever voice any sort of love that was deeper than friendship level. She had slipped up here and there with certain things she would say, but had never allowed herself more than small missteps. Ergen was too focused on the bigger picture to be thinking about trivial things like love. She couldn’t blame him for it - it was one of the main reasons she admired him.
Feeling the emotional wall build up around her once again, Alora pulled out of his embrace as he nervously laughed. Ergen had never been great at being comforting. She shouldn’t have wished for him to comfort her - it wasn’t in him and she had known that for a long time. Stepping away, Alora walked to his desk and made herself busy by putting the container lid on the clay they had used for the ikons and wiping her hands clean with a nearby rag. “Hmm…” Alora forced a smile on her lips, trying her best to entertain his “joke” although her ears pressed back against her head said otherwise. “I’ll be here when you need me, then. Like always.” She grabbed the container of clay and started to walk for the door. “What else can I help you with, before you have to go?”
Seeing how her ears folded down was a clear indication that she wasn’t pleased with something he said or did. Dammit… you idiot… Ergen stroked both hands through his darker hair and forgot that he had clay on one of his hands. Feeling how the strands of darkness stuck to his hand as he slicked them through. Glancing over at the mirror, he had a gray streak of clay through his hair.
Glancing back at the woman, he shrugged, “No. I don’t need anything else for the moment. You did a wonderful job. Thank you. I really appreciate you,” Ergen didn’t like seeing Alora’s ears go down. It always bothered him. For some reason, he found himself in this position a lot. She usually never vocalized any complaints or issues, sometimes negative emotions would dance with the silver specs of her eyes, but her ears made it the most clear that she was displeased.
Ergen was never good with personal relationships or communication. He was no stranger to love on a platonic level and maybe even a sense on a romantic level but he was horrible with social cues. Even with all of his awful observation skills with certain things, there was no denying that Alora had feelings, and he didn’t know how to approach those at all. Through about a half-decade of interactions with the woman working closely with him, Ergen only discovered she had feelings after a little fight they had in the gray market a few months ago. Someone else pointed it out and that connected the dots.
“Alora,” He grabbed his chin with this thought. Getting more clay all over himself. “After this… do you want to have a conversation? We can’t have it now. I… it’s stupid. I know. I think we need to have a talk after this,” Ergen was feeling guilty but he knew that he needed to discuss it with her even if he didn’t know how to necessarily do that. He would figure it out when he gets there. First, he needed to see if this theory of his would help improve the Nameless City at all.
"A talk?" With her hand on the doorknob, Alora paused to look over her shoulder at him, feeling her emotions switch to defensive now. There was nothing to talk about, not to her at least. Her brows furrowed as she fixated her icy eyes on him, "About what?" She questioned, turning her body to face him again, bracing herself for what he would say next.
"Oh- Ergen…" She lightly smiled, noticing the clay smeared in his hair and on his face which relaxed the tension building inside her. She shook her head and set the box of clay down next to the door before moving towards him again. "You've got clay everywhere." She giggled a bit, her fuzzy white ears popping back up into their normal stance now. Reaching behind him, Alora grabbed the rag on his desk and then stood on her tippy toes to reach his hair and gently wipe out what she could. Moving down, she used one of the clean edges to gently wipe his chin. As she searched the rest of his face to see if the clay had spread elsewhere, she found her gaze lingering just a little too long on his lips. Her heart was shouting at her to kiss him while she still could, but her mind would end up winning the battle for the millionth time. Upon realization, she took a step away and pushed the rag into Ergen's hands so that he could use it to clean his hands off. "There." She said, quickly turning from him and heading for the door again. The situation Ergen was putting himself into was making her feel desperate and she hated it. Since she became storm-touched she had worked so hard to never feel desperate again, yet here she was. Her heart was in agony while her mind screamed at her to save her dignity for someone who could feel the same love for her.
Ergen noticed the switch in demeanor and atmosphere between him and Alora. The man began to majorly regret in an instant saying anything. He shouldn’t have spoken up. They didn’t need to talk about anything. Maybe he was thinking too much into it and someone got him hung up in his own head. There was nothing to talk about, right? How she seemed to become suspicious of his breakage of words caused him to have slight anxieties boil. Anxieties that he never really felt before and it caused the center of his chest to feel like there was phlegm in it. Stuffy in a way.
As she approached him, he stepped back only a half step, and he looked at her while she reached up to his hair. Then he noticed she was doing this because he had clay all over him like a child. He probably looked like a kid getting out of pottery class for the first time in their life and he settled down. His shoulders relaxed at that realization. A faint and awkward smile happened when she began to wipe the clay off his face, “You don’t have to do that…” He mumbled while she finished up. She was so motherly and caring sometimes. It was hard to tell what she was feeling. Ergen thought of Alora as a very caring person — a caretaker. She was. That’s the main reason he thought she was nice to him. Not because they were friends or she had potential feelings but because he felt like she felt like she had to help.
Yet out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed how she lingered on his features, and being this close to her caused him to freeze sometimes. It was an odd sensation being stared at like that. There. That was what he wanted to talk about. “That. That’s what I want to talk about. You stare at me like that.” Ergen was pointing out the look she was giving him. He didn’t necessarily know the exact location she was staring at his face but she was so focused on him. He didn’t mean to blurt it out but his mouth took over his mind for a second. She was already heading towards the door and he understood that there was business to attend to.
Alora's heart sped up in her chest as he spoke. 'Don't….' She thought, pleading both for him to not pursue this conversation as well as with herself to not have an outward reaction to him. She pulled the door open, feeling a tinge of anger bubble up inside her. Did he really not know why she looked at him the way she did? After their spat at the grey market, he still couldn't wrap his mind around it? He could be so smart and so dumb at the same time. "You-"
“Nevermind. We will talk later. I need to get going… I have to make it to the mother symbol before the storm surge starts,” Ergen went over to his bed and began to gather his outside clothing. Putting it on. Covering himself from head to toe in the yellow-moss-made fabrics. His whole face was covered. Scooting past the woman and into the hallway of the hiding house they were in. “Make sure that door knob clicks when you shut it,” Ergen quickly moved down the hall as he found himself in a damp and dreary alleyway within seconds.
Alora stepped aside as Ergen moved past her, feeling second in the list of priorities again. 'As it should be, considering… don't be selfish. ' She reminded herself, shoving her emotions away as best she could. Silently, she nodded in response to his request and pulled the door shut, hearing the click, and watched him leave without a second thought. Dutiful Ergen was off on a mission once again and Alora was left alone to wonder if he'd manage to make it out alive this time.
People were staring and darkness was growing in the sky. The moisture was almost too much to bear from how aggressive this storm surge would be. The static electricity was building up in immense ways and winds were gusting and whipping around the corridors of the city. Mothers and fathers and caretakers were beginning to call children and others into the houses and ruined buildings for protection. This was going to be bad.
The beginning signs of the storm surge were already forming and that meant he had less than fifteen minutes to get to the old statue of the Great King. Shit… Ergen thought as he began to pick up the pace and run through the slippery alleyways as splashing could be heard from others running the opposite way of the storm. He was heading right into the darkness. Everything was becoming heavy with chaos and the sugary sweetness of the storm touched his lips as he found himself standing only a few feet away from a wall of pure black. Void of life. Looking up as far as he could see clouds of gray began to fill the skies even more than they usually do.
Ergen began to run to the right to get to the old statue of the Great King, a landmark that he used to know where the mother symbol was, and he could feel how his heart rate began to pick up from keeping a solid pace to get to his position. If he did this. He would be in danger and everyone else that was attached would be in danger as well. Zavala would know he is alive. Sliding to a stop at the half-standing statue of the Great King. Part of his face was gone and a hand that reached out once before was a stump and depleted to dust long ago. An ikon has hidden under moss as he began to dig it out. The moss wanted to consume everything in its path. A reminder that the storm would do the same.
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