Chapter Text
For the past three months, Callum had trained under Ibis at the Storm Spire. He'd made substantial progress with sky magic, enough progress that the young mage's attention turned to the question of whether he'd be able to learn other types. After all, he'd already done the impossible once before. Why not a second time? As he'd successfully cast a moon spell with the help of Rayla's necklace, Callum made the Moon arcanum his next goal. He practiced sky magic during the day and tried to understand the Moon primal during the night. But while his sky magic skills flourished, he made no progress on the moon.
Callum sat at the precipice of the Storm Spire on the night of a full moon. His eyes were squeezed shut in concentration as he meditated. He tried to focus on the moonlight washing over him. Nothing happened.
"Think like the moon. Be like the moon," Callum chanted under his breath. He didn't hear the soft footsteps coming up from behind him.
"So, any progress?" Rayla sat down next to Callum.
Callum dropped his attempt at meditation and sighed. "Nope."
"You'll figure it out," Rayla put her hand on his back.
"I figured out sky magic in two weeks, I've been at this for months." He looked up at the moon. "There's got to be something I'm missing."
Rayla thought for a moment. "Well, when ya connected to the Sky primal, how exactly did ya do it? I just remember one moment ya were in a coma and next thing I know, poof, yer a primal mage."
"I had all these weird dreams when I was sick. My mom was there telling me to breathe, and I was the sail on a boat for some reason, and there was a creepy evil me..." Callum chuckled. "Wow, saying it loud makes it sound even weirder than I remember."
Rayla was silent.
"Uh, Rayla? You listening?" Callum waved his hand in front of her face.
She snapped to attention. "Sorry. I was just thinkin' about what ya said." Rayla let out an exaggerated yawn. "Anyway, we should be gettin' to bed. Can't have ya fall asleep mid-flight lesson."
Callum noticed how blatantly Rayla changed the subject, but he was tired and the thought of nodding off in midair and plummeting to his death was a sobering one, so he just nodded and got up. Hand in hand, they descended the spire to the Dragonguards' barracks. Unbeknownst to Callum, Rayla's mind was abuzz with ideas. A plan started to form.
He was falling. He'd stayed up too late and dozed off during his lesson with Ibis. Awake now but too close to the ground to even try to re-summon his wings, Callum's heart raced as he prepared to meet his inevitable demise against the fast approaching ground. Callum tried to scream but by the time he'd opened his mouth it was too late and he splatted against-
Callum's eyes shot open as he writhed around on the floor of his quarters, tangled in bed sheets. He'd fallen out of bed, he realized, then quickly rescinded that conclusion for a new one: someone had pulled him out of bed. Callum glared up the figure standing next to him, the unintentional cause of his nightmare.
"Up and at 'em, sleepy prince," Rayla said. She knelt down and offered her hand to help Callum to his feet. Rayla was already dressed in her new Dragonguard armor. It made her look like her mother, Callum offhandedly noticed.
"I'm awake," Callum rubbed the last dredges of sleep from his eyes. "What was that about?"
"Ya slept like the dead and we've got to get a move on!" Rayla tossed a pile of clothes at him. "Quick, get dressed. If we leave soon, we can make it back before my guard shift tonight."
Callum just stared at her, the many questions about all this obvious on his face.
"It's a surprise. Meet me at the top of the spire and I'll explain." Rayla whirled around and ran out of the room.
Callum stood still for a moment. Then he shrugged and started to get dressed.
At the summit he found Rayla waiting. Her arms were crossed behind her back and she seemed to be bursting with excitement.
"So what's going on?"
"I couldn't stop thinkin' about what ya said last night about the Sky arcanum. How ya figured it out during your dark magic coma."
"Yeah," Callum said. He realized where Rayla might be going with this and held up his hands. "Don't worry though. I would never even think of using dark magic to do that again."
"I'd hope not, dummy," Rayla laughed. "I meant all the crazy visions ya had durin' it. That sounded really familiar for some reason."
"Tha's when it hit me!" She walked over to Callum and slung her arm around his shoulders. "Ya had a vision quest!"
"A... vision... quest?"
"Its where ya go on a spiritual journey to find out some deep seated truth about yerself. Basically what ya did in yer coma, and there are ways to do tha' without dark magic!"
Callum's eyes lit up. "Rayla, that's amazing! You're amazing!" He pulled her close and kissed her.
"I try," Rayla smirked, trying to downplay the blush stretching all the way to the tips of her ears.
"Alright, I'm in. What do I have to do?"
Rayla pointed at the horizon, far off the west. "We'll have to go to the Bewilderness. It's a small forest on the outskirts of the Midnight Desert. If ya fly us there, I can handle the directions."
Callum nodded and summoned his wings. "Manus. Pluma. Volantus."
Rayla climbed onto Callum's back, wrapping her arms around his neck.
"Um," Callum looked back at her. This wasn't the typical position they flew in.
"So I can point where to go," Rayla explained.
"Alright, you just feel a lot heavier this way."
Rayla scowled at him.
"Not like that! You're a perfectly acceptable weight," Callum laughed nervously.
"Consider this strength trainin', then."
Callum never got tired of flying. Well, he got tired from flying pretty frequently, flight used all sorts of muscles he didn't even know he had, but he never got bored of it. He and Rayla had taken off and soared over the field surrounding the Storm Spire. Every once and a while she'd shout out directions or point where and when to turn, but otherwise they just focused on the wind rushing against them and basked in the majesty of the moment. Callum wondered what he'd able to do once he understood the Moon primal. Would it compare to this? Could he do something even more amazing?
"We're almost there," Rayla said and pointed straight ahead. Off in the distance, Callum saw a cluster of trees forming a barrier between the plains around the Storm Spire and the Midnight Desert further to the west.
From the distance of the trees, Callum guessed they'd arrive in the next few minutes. As the quiet resumed save for the sounds of the wind, Callum couldn't help but think he'd forgotten something. Whatever it it was, he was too excited about the vision quest to dwell on it for long. Callum tried to push his concerns to the back of his mind. Surely if it was something important, he wouldn't have forgotten in it the first place.
Callum swooped down. Once they were close enough to the ground, Rayla jumped off his back and landed with a somersault.
"Showoff," Callum teased while doing a loop-de-loop of his own before coming to land a few feet away.
"Look who's talkin'." Rayla sprinted towards the forest edge and came to a stop in front of it. "I present to ya," she did a mock bow, "the Bewilderness!"
From the outside, the forest looked strange. The trees were adorned with large, unrecognizable fruits of all shapes and sizes, while the undergrowth was choked with flowers and weeds equally impossible for Callum to identify.
"This place looks weird even by Xadian standards."
"It's the plants," Rayla explained. "They have strange effects on people. Ya can eat them, smell them, rub them on yer skin, they all make ya see things just like yer dark magic coma. Back at the Silvergrove, the elders would send people with inner turmoil here to help find themselves. And the older kids would sneak off to go on vision quests for um... recreational purposes."
Callum glanced between Rayla and the forest.
"In other words, yer gonna see some serious sh-"
"I get the idea," Callum interrupted. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "I'm ready."
Rayla pulled aside a large fern, exposing a path into the Bewilderness. "After ya."
"Moon arcanum, here I come!"