Eleeria Silverwing

Like a Shadow

3 - Masks

(Set in the present time.)

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She felt the heavy helm settle over her head, the uncomfortable stillness as it blocked out her measly sight from her injured eyes following swiftly after. Eleeria took a deep breath, trying not to let her anxiety get the better of her. She was not in the dark, alone; she was standing in the Cove, Ismene standing a few feet away from her. The older woman’s arms were crossed, her expression severe – or they had been, before she placed the suffocating contraption of leather and magic over Eleeria’s head and taken a step back.

Eleeria didn’t quite understand why Ismene had shown up in the Cove. She rarely understood what the older woman did on a good day – like a feral cat, she seemed to keep her own company. Weleria often joked that the two of them were much the same: solitary creatures, moving through life at their own speed, stopping for only those that they deigned excellent enough to speak to. Eleeria didn’t think the comparison was terribly fair, but then, she acknowledged that she too often disappeared without warning.

I am here to help you embrace what is yours by birthright.

That was all she had said. Eleeria couldn’t help her conflicting feelings about her mother, if she could even be called that. Showing up like a maelstrom of void and secrets the year prior, she had inserted herself forcefully into Eleeria’s life without a second thought for how she had been so very absent the four hundred years prior. It was a bittersweet feeling, as the woman who had abandoned her to die now showed back up on her doorstep, and Eleeria had kept a distance between them ever since their first encounter. But she couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief at the idea that Ismene may be able to help her control her strange and uncomfortable new magic. Lyctora’s teachings were instructive, but sparse – some difficulty with the Shadowlands, was all Eleeria managed to gather. It had been some months since their last contact, and dead silence was all she received when she tried to contact the mysterious woman.

“Let go of the idea that your eyes are for seeing.” Ismene’s voice was sharp and instructive. Eleeria’s ears flicked back as she heard – nothing. Her mother was as quiet as the dead when she moved, and the long hall in which they stood for fighting practice echoed enough that it was hard for her to pinpoint her direction. Eleeria swiveled her head, and stumbled – a sharp prick of her mother’s dagger finding her shoulder.

“No.”

“Motherfuck.”

“I don’t fuck my own daughter. Pay attention. Your eyes are a farce now. You do not need your eyes to see. By layering your magic in front of your eyes, you’re limiting yourself. Relax, and let the magic and your other senses inform you of what’s around you.”

Ah. That was the reason that she’d put the overly large helm on her head. The leather sat completely over her eyes, preventing her from using her eyes as a medium with which she perceived the world. Though Eleeria was, by all acounts, very nearly blind, more than once she found herself trying to see with her eyes rather than with her magic. And in some ways, she realized she had limited herself in such a way. Magic did not need to settle in front of her eyes to see. Magic could go anywhere.

Ah, shit. She’s right– right beside me.

Eleeria clumsily dodged the dagger headed towards her face, stumbling back. She moved on instinct, letting her ears and – slowly, cautiously – her death magic inform her mother’s movements. The chill that came with her new magic filled the room with a sudden rush, and Eleeria swore she could hear her mother’s huff of approval.

“Perfect.” Ismene’s whisper held small traces, for the first time, of absolute pride.

Seeing really was a farce. Had she ever needed to see, in order to be so…present?

By letting her magic channel a visual plane into the Shadowlands beyond, much like a death knight traversing through reality into eternity in the visual sense, Eleeria could sense the things around her. The difficult part was telling the specters from the physical; by letting her magic expand naturally, rather than keeping it reigned in, it became much easier to tell who was a denizen of the land beyond and who was firmly moored in mortality. If anything, it was as if she straddled two very different places that happened to be focused on top of one another.

Briefly, she wondered if she might be able to use that to her advantage one day; Eleeria didn’t stop to consider it however, as another swipe of her mother’s daggers had her hastily drawing her own. The next slash, she parried with the sharp sound of steel.

Eleeria didn’t even notice the physical changes: the lessening of her breath, the chill of her skin, kept only ambient by the persistent connection to the Sunwell nestled deep in her chest. She didn’t even bother to turn to Ismene as she held her daggers at the ready.

“Alright, minn’da. Let’s dance.”