Chapter Text
The first thing she remembers is a companion. No words are shared between them, because she wouldn’t understand, but it comforts her. It hums to her, deep as her bones and warm as her own breath. It appears around her whenever she’s hurt, softer than it would be later in life when she calls on it. Less rock and more moss. She always welcomes it, and wants it to stay longer.
When she’s a little older, it whispers to her, fresh rain in her mind that washes everything else away. “Aesling, tiny Aesling, don’t you want to play? Don’t you want to see wonderful things?” And she calls on it, trusting it. It’s part of herself, after all, as much as her body and her heart and her memory. She summons it forth, and lets it carry her higher into the trees than anyone could hope to climb. High enough that she feels dizzy from the air and can see the sea stretching out even further than the forest, both so expansive that she can barely comprehend them.
That’s the first time she’s scolded. Father says she can’t, that it’s irresponsible. She has to ask him what that means. That jolts him out of his anger, and makes him see her for the child she is. He tells her, slowly, uncertainly, that she can’t use those powers. It’s something that will eat her up and consume her, take away her humanity until there’s nothing left.
She runs from him, into the woods. The other townsfolk try to catch her, but she asks her friend for help. Energy pours into her body, charged like the air before a storm. Even with her short legs she manages to make it under the trees, and then no one can catch her. The wood and soil bend to her will, with the help of her friend, and help hide her. It can’t be right- her friend’s always there to help her, from the tiniest scrape to the biggest dare, and she can’t imagine that it would hurt her.
She doesn’t let them find her until Father’s calling out apologies in his searches. Only then does she appear, and let him carry her home. He tries to make her promise not to use her powers, but she won’t abandon her friend. Eventually Father gives up, and merely says that she’ll understand when she’s older.
A few years later, she does.
The other children are running around the street, playing tag. Ashe sits on a crate against a building, confused. Why put in so much effort in chasing only to be chased a second later? She says as much.
“It’s fun!” one of the boys insists. “C’mon, don’t you wanna play?”
She shakes her head. She played with them yesterday, and only felt tired from it all. Maybe a bit of happiness, in having more friends, but nothing from the game itself.
“Aw, just leave her!” a girl says, stopping just long enough to grab the boy’s shoulder. “She’s always boring anyways.”
Ashe bites her lip, but stays there until the game’s done. Once everyone else has gone home, she stands and heads into the woods. She needs time to think.
“Why don’t we go into the sky? Where no one can bother us,” her friend whispers in her head.
“I’d rather not,” she says. “It’s better to be around the trees.”
“True, but it’s almost sunset. Wouldn’t it be lovely?”
“Go yourself. I just want to think.”
“You can think in the sky, with me holding you up.” It’s always eager, but now there’s something else there. It almost sounds hungry.
“I don’t want to!” Ashe shouts. Some birds startle out of a nearby bush, and she sighs. She knows she could just think at it, but talking out loud seems more fitting. Easier for her to keep things separate. “Just leave me alone.”
“But dear Aesling, we’re always together.”
“Because of these, right?” She touches the blue lines on her arms, at her throat. Father’s started to explain some of why she has them, but most of it is beyond her still. She stops, her blood suddenly running cold. “Why don’t you go to the sky yourself?”
“I want you to come with me.”
“No. You want…” Things finally click into place. “You want to take me up there. You can’t do anything without my permission, can you?” Bindings, that’s what Father calls the lines. It makes sense now. “And you- if I use you enough, you get more of me. That’s why I can’t have fun like the other kids.”
Her companion sighs, a sensation that rumbles through Ashe like thunder. “You just had to be a smart one, didn’t you.”
“You’ve just been using me!” She reaches for the bindings, an energy that’s always buzzed around her. She never relies on it, because why should she with her friend? But now she sees it all. It fulfilled her every want, gave her so much that others couldn’t, just so she would never force it to leave her alone. She won’t have it anymore; she reels the bindings in, ice and steel and all the things she hates the feel of, and starts wrapping them around herself.
“What are you doing? I’m a part of you, don’t you see? You’ll never be able to survive without me.” Even as it tries to persuade her, the voice is higher-pitched, suddenly afraid. It’s losing it’s calm, the solid comfort that made Ashe trust it from the beginning.
The frightful magic snaps into place for the first time. Ashe winces, because it does feel like some part of her suddenly went numb. She looks around, and realizes that she can’t feel the pulse of the woods around her as strongly. But in its place is the wind over her skin, something she usually ignores, an insignificant sensation, now a refreshing delight. She pulls more of the bindings around herself, feeling it like so many aches and cramps but also like a fright and cry that makes her feel calmer afterwards.
The other being screams in pain and rage. “You can’t! You can’t you can’t you can’t!” But then it realizes she’s not stopping, and growls. “You’ll see, just like all the others. You need me, tiny Aesling. Dear, sweet, helpless Aesling. Something will come along that you need my help with. We could’ve been friends, I would’ve left enough of you to share this fragile body until you let me have my own. But now I think I’ll devour all of you, just like I devoured each of your ancestors. One of you will end before passing me on, and I think there’s a good chance it’ll be you.” It laughs at her, the noise suddenly cutting off as the last binding slides into place.
Ashe feels cold. She shivers, and turns towards home. She has to apologize to Father for not listening. Her thoughts are in a whirl, wondering how she didn’t realize before, and how much of herself is already lost. They pound through her head, almost too loud in the absence of her friend.
No, not friend- her prisoner, she corrects herself. Her own monstrous self, trapped inside. Ready to destroy her. She would just have to never, ever let it out again.