A Thousand Painted Suns

The evening passed on as restless as ever, the stars were burning their cores and  neon lights were buzzing at the hyper-sound of migraines and ladies in up-tight skirts were dancing across the palm of business men as they threw their money at the roulette -to win or not, which excited them. People sought the glee and wonder of a night-time refuge to hopefully distance themselves from their lives when the sun calls them in.

But one young man could only settle his tired, beaten body on a vacant cold bench that night. The hot flare of turmoil had him stuck at the focal point of crumbling bastions, clustering his once proud brick walls at the edge of boundaries, nearing oblivion. That much felt like enough restlessness to him, as he distanced himself fairly nicely, the old cobblestones of Talonia's local park bringing him tablespoons of simple ease as he stared at the spaces between each one.

It wasn't a cold evening, nor was it a warm one, but it was quiet and lonely, and there were far more whispering breezes over the roar of crowds. Though he had no watch, Terith knew it was well into the eves. Perhaps he'd gotten use to noticing things better as time escalated their processes into varying degrees, and he was sure that he'd found home in mapping the stars to find a location, but all that was beyond him. Terith wasn't a genius, but it certainly didn't call for a rocket scientist to see how he'd eventually run out of trivial things to seek and understand. He'd make his life so much more of a breeze if he'd only face things at a time, and there was only one answer to seek and one thing to understand.

His sword made a metallic hiss as he sunk further into the the bench, the sheathe hitting his hip as if it were prodding at his wits. Surely enough, the circumstances have shifted, and he suddenly felt the weight of dodging the subject like a petty ball game. Terith considered a steady breathing cycle to compensate for the drums in his chest that have gone all the way to his ears, pounding furiously, feeling undone even at the first slip of silver that he unsheathes.

Terith was no man of mystery, but with the revelations that were carefully being layered before him, he'd figure that there was eventually more to the story than what he would have originally guessed on his own. Up until that point, he felt like he was only adapting to his new life in Fiore with the flexibility of a human so far gone, enclosing his heart in a cage of steel to prevent him from breaking down, from missing home, preventing him from hating the priestess even more than he did now, perhaps even taping his tongue to avoid cursing her name even to the remainders of his time.

He'd admit that everything was drawing back now, bending like a thin bow-string, but he wasn't ready to admit defeat from secrets that were already tickling the edges of his rough fingers. Eventually, his lids fell over his eyes as he tore the sword from its case, the familiar feeling of an unknown energy rushing to fill his head with many things.

Terith dug a hand into his temple as he endured a prodding pain at the back of his skull, numbing his current chain of thoughts until there were none to hide his psyche, the spaces in his cranial filling up with voices, some familiar, some were not, but all the more did it settle in that he was no longer a part of his "old" world, he was a wizard of this "new" one.

Once the vertigo-like symptoms died out, he realized that the bench was no longer cold and forlorn. The soft-shouldered figure tossed his arms over the back end, his translucent, glassy eyes weaving through the patterns in the stars.

'What a pretty evening to be out, ain't it, Teri-boy?' the spirit Souji asked, his almost earthly body appearing to have a distinct glowing outline as he sat cross-legged, the voice muddling through his head, as it always did.

'Don't...call me that.' he replied, weakly, his throat drying and his palms wet from slow-beading sweat. 'You know the deal, Souji, it's now or never.'

The spirit sported a smile, the winds blowing his hair as if it were real.

'I do, Terith, I always do.'

At first, he'd imagine the fairest of nights being broken down into nothingness as Souji delivered his final verdict, speaking in the common language but still sounding so distant and foreign to him as the truth knocks him down one way or another. His words gut him out like an animal on a chain, and he'd be left to bleed all over what was left of him, with the wound only stretching and the pain reaching the bottom of his shoes.

But the conversation was less than that, in fact, it was hardly that at all. It occurred in a way that implied it was just as the same mystery to Souji as it was Terith, the only bare difference being how the spirit knew just a bit more. That didn't bother him initially, however, yet it certainly gave him an uncomfortable feeling of false safety as Souji's voice wavered slowly from corner to corner.

'You want to know many things, that I can tell.' the spirit began, shifting his eyes from the stars to the lights reflected in his vessel's eyes. 'I too, want to know many things, as my knowledge is perhaps the same level of scarcity as you deem of holding, and yet, you come to me to ask questions.' His smile is chiseled faintly into his jaw, a sign of a wondering sincerity that Terith might've missed. 'I can only deliver so much to you, for I have no means of verifying what I know, for they are not truths, they are merely beliefs, but perhaps I can consider them my truths, as you consider your beliefs as your truths as well.'

Terith said nothing in reply.

Souji chuckled at the silence, sensing a distress so deep that it could be mistaken for enthusiasm for the less than keen. He threw his vessel a fleeting glance before redirecting his stare back to the stars, finding their lights far too dim to compare to the brightness he was looking into beforehand. 'You are a vessel of power, not just mine, but for my brothers as well. Time may come and go, but your body will house us still, and we will continue to dwell until the day of your last breath, and we will be with you even beyond the void, should you choose to do so.'

The winds whistled a nightly song, ruffling the cloth of reality and dream, allowing echoes on the words that bend both mind and spirit. 'I am not alone, Terith, I know that there are other imprints who are earnestly drawn to your presence, perhaps you could consider this your charisma, yes? Though you'd probably take that with a chuckle, I suggest you shan't. If I were ever to describe you from my point of view as a spirit, you are to be an empty pail, and us imprints flow towards you like an open faucet, and no matter how much space we end up taking, there always seems to be so much left to fill.'

Terith had no weight on his shoulders, now that they had shifted into his arms as his head is pressed quietly against his knuckles. When there had been no sound of opposition, Souji saw no need for pause and continued. 'Consider yourself an empty canvas, if you may. Though perhaps...it'd be more poetic to dub you an artist, for dullness is not your term, and we are your paints, for though you think we command you, it has always been the other way around. Your magic is your canvas, and your blade is a brush, we bring you inspiration as your imprints, and your future is lit with a thousand painted suns.'

The evening passed, and there were but the faint hollows of the midnight clocks as they chimed in the far off distance, causing a small disturbance in the equilibrium that Souji was previously guarding. But then Terith's silence was interrupted by a short, staggering breath, and everything just seemed to have flown back in, the crickets performing their mating song in the outbacks.

And as if it were by the god's amusement, Souji could only laugh at Terith's bewildered expression.

'I have....absolutely no understanding of what you just said.' He made a funny face, one that prompted a bigger, heartier laugh from the spirit beside him. 'D-don't laugh! Hey! It's your fault you didn't use common english! Hey! SOUJI!'

The spirit's arms loop into the cloth of his sleeves, ruffling as if his reality molded into the current one, 'Ahh....what a time to be dead.'

'WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?!'