Here is a new short story I've done based on a section I had written from Halcyon told from the point of view of the protagonist Hylen. To clarify the dialogue taking place in this story: whenever Hylen and Rory are speaking to Aramia when she is inside the fox, it is done telepathically. The link between vessels and inhabitants was briefly touched upon in Halcyon part 2. Anyway, have fun reading the story and I hope you enjoy.
Searching
Hylen
“Lay on the ground,” she commanded, pointing at a small patch of open grass. I hesitated. “What? Are you afraid you'll stain your clothes?”
Irritated, I dropped my backpack and lied in the still dewy grass. It seeped through my shirt and clung to my back like droplets of sweat. “Why am I doing this exactly?” I asked, trying to keep my discomfort from seeping into my voice.
“Because,” she said settling in next to me, “you can't keep sliding around so sporadically. Cero tries his best to keep you rooted, but you're becoming too much for him.”
I smiled inwardly. “I told you I was better than you.”
“In your wildest dreams,” Cero hissed.
“I'm sorry to interrupt your gloating, but he needs to be here for this too. Call him out.”
“Cero.”
We waited in silence.
“Well?” she said looking over at me. “Where is he?”
“I don't know; I've never tried summoning him before. He just sort of drops in when he feels like it.”
She sighed, her disgust so obvious it seemed to be written across her forehead. For someone who claimed to be as old as she did, she acted like a three year old. She closed her eyes and put her hands over them.
“Aramia.”
As soon as she uttered the words, a small red fox appeared from behind a tree. She carried a a dead mouse in her mouth and trotted with the pride only an animal could posses without feeling foolish.
“What do you want, Rory? This body is starving.”
“I'm trying to teach him how to call Cero.”
“So you didn't actually want me?”
“Do I ever?”
The fox dropped the dead mouse on the ground between Rory and I and settled down to her dinner. As she crunched through the bones, I was instantly reminded of the dream and the sound of the woman's bones being ground to dust. I flinched away from her.
She looked up at me, her muzzle covered in dirt and blood, her tongue hanging out. “What?”
Rory rolled her eyes at Aramia. “I know; she's revolting. When she's in that body, she refuses to eat anything but what it would naturally. Normally she latches on to me when she eats to try to convince me that consuming vermin isn't all that bad.”
“It's not going well.”
She smiled and patted the fox on the head. It purred. “It's a rare sound for this body,” she mused. “It means I'm...happy.”
“Well, now you've ruined it.”
The fox pawed at her arm, feigning anger. Seeing Rory with Aramia made me a little jealous. The first time Cero had materialized, he had tried to kill me. They seemed like old friends, not a drop of animosity between them. There was a gap between them though; Aramia could occupy any body she wanted and she chose the fox. She respected Rory's identity enough to give over her body to her. Cero seemed quite attached to me.
“Okay, okay; close your eyes, Hylen. Good. Now cover them with your hands, just like I did.”
“I feel exceptionally insane right now; just thought you should know.”
Rory made a little “tisk” sound under her breath. Her patience was wearing. “Be quiet. Now concentrate; think of the first time Cero revealed his true form to you.”
I sighed; this was pointless. I had done nothing since then but think of the moment he weaved together out of the shadows and landed on my bedroom dresser. In all that time, I had never once summoned him willingly. Not wanting to endure another bite from the fox, I tried my best to piece together the details of that night.
I had been dreaming about the fire. The window was closed and the full moon was throwing lacy shadows of tree branches on my wall. My head was buzzing softly and my eyes were unfocused. The sheets on my bed felt damp, probably from my sweat, and there was a painful dryness building in the back of my throat. Air was sticking in the back of my throat, refusing to enter my chest, as though thick iron ropes had been tied tight around my ribs. The wind wove the shadows together with mastery and purpose and before I could understand what had happened, I was looking into the luminous eyes of a great serpent.
“Are you there?” Aramia murmured, trying her best not to reorient me.
“Yes,” I said, forcing myself to be in my bed, to sit just as I had that night.
“Give me your hand,” Rory said softly.
I held my hand out to her; she laid her small, delicate hand on mine and pushed my arm down so that we contacted Aramia's back. Suddenly, I wasn't alone in my room. Aramia and Rory sat next to me, holding my hands. Aramia was not in her regular fox shape, but was rather mirroring Rory quite seamlessly. Cero looked back at me with his glowing eyes and asked me the same question he had been asking for the past month: “Can you hear my name?”
I opened my eyes, my hand still clutching Rory's. I hadn't noticed when I was sliding, but I was breathing frantically. The canopy of the trees overhead threw intricate patterns of shadows across our bodies and, for a moment, I wasn't sure if I was still in my memory or the present. My heart thumped wearily against my ribs, pounding out a message of surrender.
“Call him,” Rory commanded.
“C...Cero.”
We were again met with silence.
“That's not the first time you met him,” Aramia whined. “Try again.”
“Wait...a minute. You might...be able to do this all day, but I...can't.”
“Oh, suck it up,” Rory chided. “I walk everywhere even though it feels like I'm going to be crushed by this planet's gravity. You can suffer through another slide.” She reached over and covered my eyes. “Go again.”
I fought hard to remain in the grass, but she wouldn't allow it; she reached inside my mind and dragged me in with her. It was an uncomfortable feeling, very much like when Cero first made me lose consciousness in the street. It was like diving into unfathomably deep water; my ears filled with a dull hum, my eyes were unable to see anything other than weak outlines and colors, my body became impossibly light. The deeper we descended together, the darker things became. When we had arrived in my memory, everything was dark and silent.
“This is the deepest depth,” Aramia said. I turned to find her in the vast darkness. “I'm in my own form now; I can't hide down here.”
I followed the sound of her voice for what seemed like a very long time. As I wandered through my mind, I would sometimes stumble across some long overlooked memory; I would linger there until I felt her growing impatient with my sentimental longing. Eventually, I found her sitting with Rory, both of them looking positively bored with my memories.
Aramia was a head shorter than Rory and considerably lighter in color. She had large, lamp like eyes that reminded me of Cero. She was wearing a flowy white dress that seemed as fluid and soft as the white caps on waves in the harbor. Her hair was long, wavy, and the color of the noon sun. Her body was delicately shaped and small. She smiled at me; it was a sweet and innocent thing. She was the epitome of female grace.
“Thank you,” she said modestly.
Rory rolled her eyes. “Think a little quieter, Hylen. Her opinion of herself is high enough already. If it gets any more inflated she may float back up to the surface.”
Aramia shot Rory a glare unlike any I had seen before. Her face remained soft and gentle, but her eyes seemed to burn bright, fueled by venom. Rory brushed it off as though she had seen it a hundred times before, sticking out her tongue in a crude, childish way. Aramia shook her head in fake disgust.
Rory rose; in this place, she dressed very plainly, free of her normal opulence.
“Opulence, huh? I never thought of my style as opulent; flashy maybe.” She walked over to me and ruffled my hair like my mother did when she thought I was being 'precious.' Instinctively, I slapped her hand away. Taken aback, she hesitated a moment before returning the slap on my arm much harder than I thought possible or polite. “Come on. We've gotta keep looking.”
“Um,” I said, looking around at the vast emptiness, “where?”
“Think of something,” Aramia said, wiggling her feet back and forth. “That's how this place works. It's pure memory.”
I crossed my arms and closed my eyes, trying to think of when I first met Cero. As I flicked through my memories, I came back to the day I fainted in the street. The image of the small, golden snakes working themselves into the double helix danced in front of me. There was no feeling of wonder or even fear when I gazed at them anymore. It had become part of my past; there was nothing new to discover here.
“Move on,” Rory directed.
I let us float in darkness once again. It was an odd feeling, knowing that this place was only as stable as I allowed it to be. I could yank us back into the grass any moment I wanted.
“No, you can't,” Cero taunted. “You're abilities are still too dull to even reach this place without help.”
When he spoke to me this time, he wasn't a distant voice in my head; here he was as real and solid as Aramia was. If I wanted to find him, all I'd have to do is search the indefinite space of my memory to find him; it wasn't much comfort, but it was something to pour faith into. He was real here, tangible.
“Oh-ho-ho! Figured it out did you? Well, Yuri, your little fox wanted to be found; she was tamed centuries ago. My spirit has never been broken, not by any who I have possessed, and they were all considerably more talented than you. It was rather sad to see them age, they were such young, delicate things when we bonded; when I consumed them, they were practically dust already, no flavor or spirit left, not even the will to fight me remained in them.
“No, boy, I think you will not find me, but if you do manage to uproot me from this place do not think you are safe from my influence like Aurora is. I will never submit this body to you fully. Some part of me will always live in you.”
Rory winced at the use of her full name. “Who said you could use my name, Cero? I see you do share your name with us, not even Hylen.”
“He doesn't have a real name anymore,” Aramia said softly. She cast her eyes downward and focused intently on her toes, trying to keep her emotions hidden. “When he was cut-off from Halcyon, he left his old identity behind. He chose Cero because he 'zero's' his host out; he feeds on them over their life span and when their will to fight disappears and they submit to him, he reduces them to nothing and moves on, like a parasite.”
“Old age has made you so idealistic,” Cero groaned. “And I thought you were insufferable before.”
As he became more and more irritated with the us, I could feel myself pulled forward. As Aramia continued to lecture Cero on the nature of their existence, the darkness began to subside; all around me I could feel a gentle warmth; it enveloped me like a cocoon. My eyes blinked into focus and I found myself peering into the ethereal morning light filtering through my bed sheets. I took a deep breath to steady myself; all the reorientations of up and down were making me nauseous. In the distance, I could hear my mother barking out orders to the morning cooking staff. We were expecting three new guests on the morning ferry.
The morning ferry. That had been where I was heading when I fainted in the street. I shook off the urge to go back to that moment once again, rooting myself to this joyous moment. It felt as though this morning happened a thousand years ago, but in reality it had only been a three weeks ago. My life, what had happened to it? I used to spend hours wrapped up in my sheets, not a single care in the world. I hadn't slept in my bed in over a week; I hadn't had a real shower in longer. So, lingering in these fleeting moments wasn't strained or even difficult; I longed to hold on to them forever.
I can hear my mother calling me down for breakfast and my mouth moves independent of my brain, shouting back an irritated “Alright, alright!”. “No, no,”I pleaded as my feet propelled me out of my bed and down the stairs. “Let me stay here.” The more I tried to deny the flow of my memory, the faster it seemed to move. Before I knew it, I had my hand on the door knob, my hat hanging awkwardly in my face.
As I opened the door, the wind whipped rushed past me. Funny, I didn't think it was a particularly windy day, but I guess it had been. The rich taste of sea brine and moss filled my mouth as I gasped from the cold; it hadn't been cold that day. As I stepped out the door, I felt a cold hand grab my wrist. Without warning, I found myself being yanked back inside; however, it wasn't my home. It wasn't anywhere.
Before me I saw a a vast expanse of whiteness. It was indescribably bright and for a moment, I forgot that I hadn't entered this space willingly and simply marveled at the angelic light. “So, you've managed to find me,” a clear, bright voice whispered in my ear. The sound of his voice broke the hypnotic spell of this place. “Don't be frightened, boy. I do not wish to consume you yet. We've only just met, after all.” His hand still clamped to my wrist like a vice; with surprising strength, he turned me toward him. “Look at me,” he commanded.
I glanced up for the first time into the face of Cero.
“Not quite what you were expecting?” he asked.
“N-No. Not at all.”
Before me stood a small black haired man. His face was as beautiful as Aramia's, but distinctly more masculine. It seemed to be peppered with scars, the remnants of long forgotten battles. Most prominent of all his wound was a long, pink, jagged scar on his right cheek that ran to his jawline. Where once two large moonlit orbs had been there was now simple green eyes which stared back at me with cool indifference.
“Come,” he beckoned, extending a long white hand to me. “We have a much to discuss.”
