As Above So Below

It was too early in the morning for Lynn to be intoxicated, but she was. Since her alcohol tolerance was quite high by now, she had an idea of what was happening in the guild, but she could not bring herself to interact with anyone, something was bothering her immensely. She was the only one at the bar, but she couldn’t care less if someone was watching and judging her for that. The cause of this situation was something she couldn’t identify herself, but it was the first time something like this had ever happened to Lynn. Well, the first time that the guild has seen anyway. After all, she was always the cheerful one, lifting people’s moods and bringing life to the guild. Zlatan couldn’t make her admit what she was feeling, either, so it was something that was really affecting her. After the job that she took with Deniel, she had returned to the guild as if she had lost her soul, not drinking like she usually did, but going to bed immediately. Not many people noticed this, but this was what had happened. She wasn’t feeling like herself these days.

“You look a bit down,” said a familiar voice.

Lynn raised her head to stare at a face she recognized, a face she probably wouldn’t forget even if she was drunk as fuck. Fred would continue to say that she should not be drinking this early. The Ice wizard scoffed, saying, “Is there such a rule?” with an irritated voice. “Sorry to disrespect, but I am not in the greatest mood,” she would add to give Fred some kind of a warning even though of course she could do nothing to him. It was the negativity she was feeling that was making her talk that way. Hopefully the guildmaster would not take it seriously and leave her alone. All she wanted to do today was drink and drink and drink more until she could find the reason of this strange feeling she was having. With that being said, she finished another glass.

It seemed Fred wasn’t being himself that day, too, because instead of ignoring her, since she had given him an impolite reply as well, he stuck around, awkwardly standing there like he wanted the drink...or worse - talk to her. Lynn almost groaned at the thought of this. Why was Fred being like this today of all days? It wasn’t that he had anything important to say, because if that was the case he would have said it and left already. The Ice Dragon Slayer gave a look to the bartender who immediately poured her another glass, which she downed as quickly, then looked at him again. By now the bartender knew exactly what she wanted by her facial expressions and that was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because she didn’t have to waste time explaining, and bad because this showed how much she was drinking now. It was bad for the liver, and it wasn’t like she didn’t know that.

A while later, Fred began to speak saying that if she was going to drink anyway, she should do it with the ‘good stuff’. This made the puzzled drunk woman turn and raise an eyebrow. She grabbed the bottle she was drinking from, a Jack Daniels and pointed at it as she said, “You mean you have better than this?! Well I’m down for that!” Hopping of the barstool, she grabbed the arm of the long-haired man, dragging him out of the guild like she knew where he was taking her, completely oblivious to the stares that she received from almost everyone in the guild, not like she cared anyway.

Obviously unaware of the hundreds of heads that turned their way, Lynn dragged the long haired man roughly outside the guild, and once they were outside, she would realise that Frederik had removed himself from her grip and was telling her she was drunk...which was obvious? Where was the ‘good stuff’?! Angered by the result of bringing him outside, which was nothing, the Ice Dragon Slayer began to make a fuss, telling him how she should not have trusted him, making her face even more red than it already was. She threw her fists at him, which weren’t exactly going the right direction, so she missed his face everytime. Then they would start losing their balance...on the teleportation lacrima that Lynn didn’t know she was above, and fell into it, vanishing from Ace of Spades and appearing on a...hard surface. Her guardian wasn’t with her! Oh no...what if she was in danger! WHERE WAS SHE!?

“WHRE AM I!!!???” Lynn screamed, a familiar scent entering her nose as she did. Turning, the woman realised that Frederik was with her as well. With an eyebrow raised, she got up on her feet, patting the back of her shorts. Being incredibly immune to the cold, she didn’t shiver in the slightest, looking around to study the environment. Then, as if she had not been drinking like a madwoman, something took away the drunkenness from her immediately when she realised where she was. “Where have you brought me!?” she shouted at Frederik who was laying on the sheet of ice, surely puzzled. Lynn’s furious eyes glared into his soul, the anger fueled by the alcohol that was slowly fading away now.

The anger smoldering beneath her translucent skin began to subside, giving her a clear mind and vision. They weren’t here because Frederik had willed for it, but because they had accidentally fallen into the lacrima that teleports to where they wanted to go...and the Silent Glaciers - exactly the location on her mind. She was reminiscing the times she spent here with her teacher, the dragoness who she sought out and pleaded to be taught by her. Lynn turned her face, ashamed of what she had just done: yelled at someone who was completely free of fault. “I’m sorry,” she said in a soft, apologetic tone. Then she looked up at the sky, a small chilly breeze lifting her hair to fall on her back and fondling her face that had lightened in color, only leaving cheeks tainted with a light coral flush.

Lynn let herself fall on her rear onto the sheet of ice, folding her legs into a meditating position, breathing in then breathing out to collect her mind. She didn’t know what she could do now that she didn’t have Zlatan to take her back home and Fred definitely couldn’t fly or carry her on his back. Her head was filled with thoughts now, however, pushing back the voice that told her to leave this place now. Thoughts that she did not want to hear, chanting over and over again as if someone had cursed her to hear her own fears. “I’m sorry,” she said again, obviously troubled - proven by the saddened expression on her face.

The fact that Frederik was acting natural seemed strange to her. Couldn’t he feel this immense load of emotions weighing her down? Obviously not, but Lynn knew that already. With a frown on her facial features, the Ice Dragon Slayer did her best not to break apart in front of the guildmaster that she very much respected. She didn’t want him to see her as a weakling, because she was not. She was stronger than she thought she could ever be, more confident than any woman that existed and a daunting army of one to her foes. There was not a time in her life that she had cried, she wasn’t going to do it now, not that she knew how to in the first place. But why?


A few moments later Frederik would disappear after discovering that he had a communication lacrima device on his person, meaning he was going to contact the guild. Lynn paid no heed to the situation around her, but as soon as the man was out of earshot, she would rise to her feet abruptly and roar the word:


It was the name of the Ice Dragon who taught her how to use dragon slayer magic. She wasn’t the one who raised Lynn, like most other dragon slayer stories go. Lynn was the one who ventured to the North to seek out an Ice Dragon, specifically, to train her. It took her an incredible amount of time to find Einar’s humble abode, but she was persistent and it would be a shame to go back without learning anything. Einar welcomed her like an adoptive parent, realising that Lynn was capable of using the magic that could slay a dragon with the lacrima that was installed in her being. Why did Einar accept her? Didn’t she have another human under training, who didn’t need to install lacrimas and the like to use dragon slayer magic, you may ask. The answer would be no. Einar accepted her because she found that Lynn had potential, and a long journey ahead of her that dragon slayer magic could help her get through more easily.

But Einar was gone, and the only thing that could connect her to the dragon that was no longer in existance was her magic, and the North. Here she was, at the Silent Glaciers once again, one of their training sites. Einar’s words rang loud and clear in her mind now, causing her brain to feel compressed yet thick, her vision blurring from the liquid that oozed out of her tear ducts and froze in a trail along her flushed cheeks. The trails went further down her cheeks, making it look like she had two frozen rivers sourcing from her eyes. Lonely, blank ruby orbs stared into the sky emptily. An unknown force was clouding her mind, an aura of gloom surrounded her and she felt like there was no escape. Whatever she did to force it out of her mind, it seemed like she was running into a wall, every time.



She wanted to say the last two words out, she wanted to beg her mentor to take her away, she wanted to be free from this burden, a burden that she herself couldn’t identify. Lynn fell back to the ground on all fours, crown of azure tresses lowered as the liquids that were produced from her eyes fell to the ice sheet below her as tiny snowflakes. Einar wasn’t there for her now, like everybody else. She was always alone in this world, she didn’t belong. She should have gone ahead and returned to her world when she had a chance, but now it was too late. The humans despised her. Why was a non-human like her doing on Earth? Who did she think she was? What was she thinking when she thought she could fit in with the humans? Stupid. All. So. Stupid.

Frozen fractals rose from the glacier, connecting and constructing with the energy that Lynn channeled through the ice below, forming the infrastructure of a castle, all from ice. A piercing feeling bit into her eyes as her vision shifted.


An echoey metallic voice spoke in her head. In fact, around her. Lynn blinked rapidly in an attempt to rid the stinging in her optics, a blurred sight before her. Her head felt heavy. She could tell that where she was now was neither the Silent Glaciers nor anywhere she had ever been to. It was a reflective, flat landscape, one void of vegetation and elevation. When she was granted vision with crystal clarity, she was almost blinded by a brilliant light at the far end. What separated her from the light seemed to be a glassy river of black water. It was not flowing.


The sound of water trickling down into a puddle rang loud and clear within her ears. She listened on, guessing the voice had more to say, when...distorted figures emerged from the river, limping almost in slow-motion towards the light. Lynn flinched, widening her trembling eyes and gasping in shock at the sight of such hideous beings. Goosebumps broke out all over her pale skin as she stumbled back, falling on her rear. She carefully observed as the foreign figures reached the light, and at that very moment, if her eyes were not playing tricks on her, the light flooded into their bodies, filling them to the brim and spreading out. The creatures became the opposite of what they were previously. Now they were even beautiful. Even from quite a distance, Lynn could see their beaming faces, now lit up with happiness of freedom. Recalling the question that the voice had asked, Lynn began nodding her head eagerly.

Lynn gasped once again as the heads of said creatures turned to her with reassuring smiles before the edges of their bodies began blurring and blending in with the light as she was brought back to reality. Her head started hurting, causing her to grunt in frustration. The voice was barely a whisper now while she transitioned from the otherworld-


-back to the Silent Glaciers, Earthland. Holding her head between her ice cold hands, Lynn lifted herself from the glacier and there stood a magnificent castle of ice before her very eyes, the burden vanished and a new path set for her by fate.