As the World Caves In [Mythica]

A cold, bitter gust of air ran through Althea’s hair as she hoisted herself higher on the sheer mountain face. She clung to the pale gray rocks jutting out from the cliff and nestled her bare feet into its small crevices. If she were ever to lose her grip and slip, the only thing that could soften her fall was the pine trees miles below. However, rather than hazardous, the spirit found her mountain climbing to be purely recreational. It had been a very long time since she last wandered through a land with a blue sky and yellow sun, let alone her ‘hometown’ of the Phoenix Mountains. Although her work as an ace of Fairy Tail was enjoyable for her in the past, it hadn't left much free time for trips back to the lands she grew up in. Nothing in particular directly prompted her to revisit the same mountains she scaled in her childhood, but even with the sheer amount of time elapsed, she didn’t need to search the rocks for footholds. Althea simply guided her limbs across the familiar stone, quickly making her way up as she drew upon her years of prior experience. Many things had changed during her disappearance from Earthland, but she found solace in the fact that mountains seemed much less permissible to change than people.

However, more than anything else, Althea found the most change in herself. She had long since eclipsed the need to ever know how to climb up 90-degree slopes, watch out for avalanches, or gauge the weather. If she so wished, nothing was stopping her from clearing the height with magical flight. Bone-chilling winds that previously required several layers of animal furs to block were now impeded by nothing but a white dress with athletic shorts underneath. Any last figments of her “human-esque” biology had been scrubbed away, leaving behind a full-fledged spirit in its wake. There were certainly upsides to the change, but… Well, the past year of her life had been far from pleasant.

However, there was no need to dwell on those less savory thoughts– Althea had finally reached a plateau. Swiftly heaving herself onto the edge, she let out a sigh and took in the scenery. The sun was preparing to sink below the horizon, and wispy clouds drifted across the warm, orange sky. The clearing she found herself on was dusted lightly with shimmering snow. This place was far from any human settlements, but it wasn’t like the ledge was completely inaccessible to methods other than rock climbing. In the past, Althea opted into taking the most dangerous paths for training purposes, but one could simply walk up the mountain path and find themself in the same area.

However, as Althea watched the sun lethargically sink further into the sky, she was suddenly interrupted.

“...Nngh!” The blonde couldn’t help but let out a grunt of pain as she folded over, hand clutching her chest. The sudden, splintering pain coursed throughout Althea’s body. In an instant, just the task of standing up straight became taxing. As she limply fell to her hands and knees, her mind was muddled with confusion. However, as the woman assessed her body, she quickly found her answer. Her right hand had already started becoming opaque, particles of light rising from what was previously solid skin.

“N-No…” Althea raised her trembling hand to her face, eyes wide. “No, no, I-I should have more time– Ugh!” The spirit was wracked with an even stronger jolt of pain as she was overcome with the sensation of being slowly ripped out of her current dimension. Despite her vocal protests, she was indeed running out of time, and the clock was ticking down to when she would run out of energy to resist the counter-summon.

She had historically proven herself capable of maintaining her nonchalant attitude in the most stressful of situations, but this was not one of them. Upon realizing the situation, her first impulse was… to panic. A haze of magic erupted from Althea, splattering onto her surroundings like black, murky paint. Thankfully, the viscous liquid wouldn’t be hazardous to any plants and animals in her vicinity. It was just high-concentration mana and dream essence that she used to cast magic, albeit dyed by her current state. Her breath was ragged as she attempted to keep a reign on her erratic emotions, but she was fighting an uphill battle. Even more than the pain, her heart’s desperate throbbing reverberated throughout her body. Every fiber of her being was screaming for her to do something– to do anything to not return to that torturous hellscape. But the only thing that could save her now would be to get a contractor, and turning a mountainscape into hilly plains would be the opposite of help. Of course, it wasn’t like she was in any condition to actively move, and wasting additional energy would only quicken the process.

Before she knew it, Althea could feel wet tears rolling down her face. Pathetic… She was being crushed under this pressure. The spirit wanted to laugh at herself, but she also wanted to scream and writhe in opposition to her impending fate. She hated weakness, but here she was, too paralyzed by fear to do anything more than persist for some kind of miracle.

With every second that passed, Althea’s grip on her current reality only slipped further. Even the tears she shed disappeared in a small glitter before ever even reaching the cold, uncaring ground. What could she do now? The fact she was silently crying while half-resigning herself was quite unsightly. Perhaps there was something she could’ve done to prevent this from happening in the first place. Maybe if she reached out to someone for just an inkling of help – if she was willing to acknowledge her weaknesses and shortcomings – the spirit would’ve formed a contract by now. Well, it was too late to regret it now.

Or at least, that’s what Althea believed until a frosty voice cut through the desolate silence. She struggled to raise her gaze from the ground, finding its source to be a black-haired stranger emerging from the shadows. The first thing she felt was an intense relief, but that was soon followed by a creeping suspicion. When taken outside of the context of their location, there was nothing wrong with the woman’s attire. In fact, the only truly significant characteristic to be found was her strange, clock-shaped iris. However, anyone so casually ill-prepared for the inclement weather likely wasn’t just an everyday mountain climber. Her words further cemented this idea in Althea’s head, them being some vague, confusing lines about… time? The youth wasn’t even sure if she was talking to her, the woman hadn’t given her even a glance upon appearing. The searing pain she was currently in certainly didn’t help her attempts to understand the sudden intrusion, but she remained slightly suspicious of this person’s agenda. How long had she been watching her? The blonde was incredibly vulnerable in her current state, and one act of ill will could result in irreparable damage to her. When given the choice between that or simply returning to the spirit realm sooner than she already was, she would gladly spend her remaining mana on self-defense. However, any tension dissipated upon the mention of a single thing: Fairy Tail.

The right hand bearing her guild mark has long been reduced to nothing, so the only reasonable explanation was that this woman already met her beforehand. The spirit desperately scanned the woman’s face along with her memory, and suddenly she was struck with the realization that her face was indeed familiar. She was… Mura’s fiancee, Mythica, right? Or at this point, she’d likely already be his wife. Althea had received an invitation to their wedding ceremony but was unable to attend thanks to her initial disappearance to the aetherial spirit realm all that time ago. The woman’s behavior was strange considering the situation, but she was gladly willing to dismiss any signs of something being amiss about her. Mura had acted as a mentor of sorts to her, and she had absolute trust in his judge of character. Additionally, this was her one and only path to concretely escaping from the hellscape that was the aetherial realm, and the ideal situation had presented itself to her. Such a thing was unlikely– the perfect person came to the perfect place at the perfect time. But evidently, nothing but chance and circumstance could stop such a miracle from happening.

“I… p-ple…” Althea attempted to speak, but her body was clearly in too poor of a condition to be capable of speech. At this point, she was already accustomed to enduring the pain of being torn between dimensions, but it seemed that actively speaking at the same time was too much to ask for. It was a rather frustrating conclusion, but there was thankfully an alternative method available to her. Wielding some of her last remaining traces of magic energy, Althea would attempt to telepathically transmit her words directly to the clock-eyed woman. “Hello. Mythica, right? My name is Althea. Please sign a contract with me.” Her voice would be cold, but a sense of desperate urgency was evident in her tone. “I’m a fairly strong spirit, and we can make whatever deal you want. I’m the kind that doesn’t directly need mana, energy, or lifeforce. Just the connection itself will do. You can trust that I’m not an evil or malicious being, I was a bit like… Mura’s apprentice in Fairy Tail at some point. Please.” She skipped over answering the question, the current situation was too dire for her to give a complete explanation at the moment. Afterwards, maybe, but currently Althea was absorbed in preventing the worse case scenario before it was too late.

Good, the telepathy seemed to have gone through. Althea hadn’t considered the possibility before using her magic to transmit her voice, but Mythica could’ve possessed some form of ability, item, etc. that automatically blocked her attempts at communication. The spirit never knew the other woman to be capable of wielding any form of magic, but she wouldn’t be surprised if she could. Either way, being a mage wasn’t a requirement when it came to her forging a contract. So, details such as that were not really any of her business. Pursing her lips through the pain, eyebrows furrowed, the blonde gazed upwards toward her potential savior with a stern yet heated gaze. Some may call her naive, but there was already a glimmer of hope in her otherwise tumultuous psyche. This was her last chance to avoid confronting the agonies she suffered in the past, so she would be as sincere as possible with her potential contractor. And hopefully, she’d be rewarded in turn.

Well, that’s what she was thinking, but what followed next was far out of Althea’s set of expectations for how the encounter would develop. A burst of magic erupted from Mythica, the sheer scale of which immediately set off alarm bells in her head. Under more typical circumstances, she would’ve drawn a weapon already, but that evidently wasn’t possible at the moment. It wasn’t that the spirit wished to harbor any ill intentions, it was just that her gut reaction to the sudden use of magic was to get in a… preemptive strike of sorts to level the playing field. Either way, all she was capable of at the moment was watching as an arcane marking spread across the earth, fists clenched in anticipation as she felt a cold sweat drip down her back.

But what followed could be considered even more concerning. There was a loud gong, and then… it was gone. The soft yet deeply chilling mountain breeze, the scampering of animals, the distant sound of rustling trees– they all came to a stop. The setting sun that Mythica had been gazing off towards was unmoving in the sky… and the pain that had been ruthlessly tearing apart Althea’s body had completely disappeared. No, that wasn’t right, it felt more as if it had been put on ‘pause.’ The spirit’s amber eyes widened in shock upon realizing the situation, but she didn’t hesitate for a moment before focusing the arcane energy she’d been investing to resist the interdimensional pull into her physical body. In a golden glitter, her arm returned to its former state, and enough strength to at least stand on her two feet once again dwelled in her. However, with this investment, she had truly placed all her eggs into one basket. The only thing between her and the Aetherial Wastes was whatever presumably arcane phenomenon was currently at play.

Unsteadily getting to her feet, she faced Mythica with rigid continence. However, the shaking hands hanging at her side would be enough to betray her extreme nerves. Was control over time something that should even be possible? And what if this woman, someone who she was just now having her first proper conversation with, simply canceled the magic? Althea’s mind was a mess, but as she opened her mouth to talk, she forcibly silenced her racing thoughts and coldly steadied her shaking hands. “Thank you. I… don’t know what you did. And I won’t ask. You prevented my return to the wastelands of the aetherial spirit realm. It’s a place I… wouldn’t be very happy in.” She replied, this time without telepathy, a more somber expression permeating her face as she mentioned the Aetherial Wastes. ‘Wouldn't be very happy’ was an understatement. Althea would rather die and go to hell than return to that nightmare again. Sadly, experiencing true death wasn’t a choice she could make for herself at the moment. No matter how mortally injured, damaged, or tattered she was, she’d automatically be restored to her previous form.

“Naughty…?” She couldn’t help but be dazed by Mythica’s words. “No. I’ve never had a contract before. I don’t know about other spirits, but aetherials such as myself are set to be ‘reverse summoned’ after a set amount of time spent not having a contract.” The blonde spoke in a resolute, slightly-too-fast voice. Usually, such a volume of questions would only elicit annoyance from her, but in these straits, any inconvenience she suffered was completely dwarfed by her fear of once again being pulled out of Earthland. “Your concerns are fine. I’m the one who asked for a contract in the first place. Either way, I doubt that punishment for breaking an agreement exists for spirits of my kind. Something like that is impossible in the first place. We must abide by contracts, even if we don’t want to… Well, at least that’s what my instincts are telling me about the natural laws.”

She shook her head, slightly miffed that she’d need to rely on second-hand information. Granted, a spiritual instinct guided by nature itself was much more reliable than hearsay. “I’m fine. Resting at this time would be a hindrance to me. So, would you like a contract, or do you have more questions…? Wealth, fame, power. I can do it... No, I’m not actually sure about those first two. I just included them to try and sound more convincing.” Althea said plainly, her eyes narrowing as she entered deep thought. “You can already control time… but I suppose the ‘power’ offer is still valid. However, if you need someone to make your bed every day or do your laundry, I’d be willing to do that as well.” She didn’t have knowledge of the vast majority of household chores apart from those two, but she opted to omit that fact.