Page 1 of To Free a Soul
A time unknown, but near the beginning
With a world-rumbling, desolate roar, Weldir threw himself against the confines of his enclosure. The obstacle, the very hindrance to his escape, thumped from the impact and then undulated outwards like rippling water.
He rushed to the other side of the fortification and crashed into the barricade there. The confines that kept him here, seething and storming, rippled again, and no matter how hard he shoved and shoved, they wouldn’t relent.
With another roar, the sound beastly and inhuman even to him, he darted down through the ether of nothingness to find a weak point. He had no idea of the shape that kept him in – whether it was round, enneagon, or even rhombus. He’d never been able to find a corner, no matter how he tried.
“Let me out!”his impalpable, incomprehensible, discarnate essence bellowed.“I tire of being in my prison!”
He tired of being stuck here with nothing but himself and his disjointed thoughts!
“Hushhh, little one,”a weak, feminine voice cooed at him, anda set of brown hands touched the outside of his prison.“Shh. Shh.”
She spun it, brought it closer to her face, and the darkness gave way to dim light on one side. He did not feel his world shift or rotate in her space. Like the movement evaporated more of the darkness, a section below him glowed with life, revealing some kind of bed of thick, leafy vermillion-coloured vines.
The soft mound of a bosom pressed against his prison, as if she brought him closer to cuddle whatever shape he was in. Only then did a hard edge – revealing he wasn’t in some kind of sphere – show itself. No matter how thoroughly he felt along that edge, he couldn’t perceive it.
Weldir held back a growl, hating how she’d once stated it sounded like a cute, mousy squeak, due to their differing sizes. She was huge in comparison to hisprism, as she was able to gather it in her arms like it was precious.
Her palm rubbed the edge of his prism, momentarily obstructing his view of her haggard face as she attempted to soothe him without ever touching his very form. He often wondered if she truly did it for herself, pacifying her guilt and regret in a falsehood of trying to ease him.
Nothing would ease him, not in here.
Once the shield of her palm was gone, he peered into her eyes. They lacked pupils, making her golden irises appear like discs that flickered over his crystal entrapment, unable to see him.
Although her eyes were utterly mesmerising, the rest of her features were drained and worn. Like every bit of liquid and fat had been sucked from her very body, her brown face was gaunt and her skin loose, wrinkled, and ashen. It made her nose, cheeks, and arching brows more prominent in an unhealthy way, showing just how sickly she’d become since he’d been trapped here.
This wasn’t the face of hismotherthat he remembered.
Her youthfulness was still apparent, but her skin had once been plump and vibrant.
Her lips had been full, and so ample that just the minutest flick of her tongue against the seam had them dipping as though unbelievably malleable. Now, they were thin, dehydrated, and cracked, surrounded by wrinkled lines that made her mouth droop.
Her hair had once been a magnificent cloud of springy, corkscrew golden curls, so tight they haloed her head. Now they were white, brittle, and lacking in volume, as if the very health of them had been sucked away – just like their golden colour.
Behind her, iridescent wings unattached to her back flickered before quickly sagging upon the vermillion vines and the silver bedding. They once glowed a glittering gold, much like the crown that still floated above her head like an angelic halo, but both had dulled immensely.
The whites of her eyes reddened and her bottom lip shook.“You just need to control your form, and then I can free you.”
Weldir, unable to hold it back any longer, let his growl reverberate all around him.
“I know I’ve been saying that for so long,”she croaked, then glittering water brimmed her eyes. She pressed her forehead to his prism and gave a shuddering sob.
His growl ceased when one of her tears, clear like water, fell upon the bed below her. It met a dried pool of flaking gold – the evidence of other tears she’d long ago shed.
Her eyes no longer leak gold,he thought, observing the fresh tears she shed.Crying is sapping away the little mana she has left in her reserves...
Well, other than keeping him here.
His prism, the prison that kept him in this darkness, was all she could muster. Her mana was dependent upon her life force,and as her eyes drooped, she continued to waste a little more in crying... forhim.
It wasn’t enough to pacify his fury, but it was enough to keep him quiet about it.
“I’m so sorry I did this to you,”she cried into the glasslike barrier keeping him in. A few of her tresses snagged on the vines, straightening their lengths before releasing and springing back into curls.“I’m so sorry that I can’t help you.”
Her tears, pity, and apologies did much to soothe him further, and he grumbled as he brought himself closer.
“I know you did not mean to do this,” he stated, pressing himself against the barrier right where her cheek was.
