The Ascension

"Oh, a berry." Aila remembered that word from before, but like before, she couldn't stop herself from swallowing the 'berry'. It was like an overwhelming instinct, but one in which she immediately regretted.

"REALLY!" She swore in a way that her parents wouldn't be upset with her, and watched flaming red energy roil in her belly. Just like the green energy earlier, but this time, her small belly swelled out violently fast as the energy was tyrannical and explosive in nature.

"Calm down! CALM DOWN!" She ordered angrily, and the energy that was once explosive, started to roll slower through her belly and middle. That gave her body the time it needed to suck that energy away as quickly as it could, although it was quite slow at first.

The flaming red energy was so strong and fierce, it took her a while to get it under control enough to begin to suck it away, and store it. Once it was controlled enough to drain some of its strength and pressure, it still resisted her absorption of its energy.

"Get to where you're supposed to go!" She growled. Her small belly was still swollen up as the energy stayed in place, and took up space. Although it was quite hot, she still felt comfortable in spite of the heat.

"Why won't you go where you're supposed to!  Oh, the berries I ate!" She closed her eyes and consciously pulled that energy towards her chest. She remembered the berries also had the same type of comfortable heat, and when it got to her chest area, it was pulled and stored away.

Her assumption was dead on, but not for the reason she thought about. The energy did not disperse, but it was pulled into the space her energy pools currently existed within.

As it was pulled away by this space, Aila had her eyes closed, and watched it move. She tilted her head and followed it along until it went towards her heart. Once at her heart, she noticed something that made her quite surprised.

"What is that? It looks like a drain vortex." Her mother had showed her when she was young what happened when water was drained from a tub. She showed how the water followed the shape of the drain and because of the entrance, it would generate downward pressure that could form a swirling vortex. The vortex was similar to a tornado, or a hurricane wind pattern, and had more pressure than the drain itself could create. The shape was a necessary part, as was the area it was drawn into.

"If that is a drain, where is it going?" As she whispered those words, her vision followed the red energy inside the vortex and spilled into a place she had never seen before.

"Oh wow. It's so beautiful. It's like outer space." In front of her eyes was a wide open place, as black as night, although it seemed to have a lack of stars. Her eyes tried to find a star, and that is when she saw them.

"A green star?"

* * *

Aila was a little bit shaken by what she had witnessed. She saw a green star with green colored energy, with bursts of energy like solar flares of a sun. Not long after she arrived in that place, a red star formed as well.

When she came out of the space, as she wanted to come out due to a bit of fear, she noticed small match lights in the air. She frowned and held out her hand to touch one.

"Eh? It was drawn into my hand? Wait, all of them are being sucked into my hands!" She said, and felt a bit of heat within her chest until it was sucked away.

She calmed down a bit, and sat down on the stone. Her eyes reflected a bit of confusion as she tried to muddle through the information she had. She heard a gurgle.

"I'm really hungry now."  She hadn't felt hunger like this since she was young.  "I better try to fry this liver up. Maybe I'll put the kidneys and heart in there too, and eat what I can. Ah, I wish I had some spices, or salt!" She sighed, finished cleaning the heart, and put it on the frying pan. The pan was heated up and made the meat sizzle.

"Sizzle sizzle! I haven't heard that sound, and smelled that scent of cooking meat in years!" She was quite excited, and finished washing the rest of the organs so she could cook her food more easily.

An hour later, when she ripped large pieces of the liver off with her teeth, Aila sighed softly, and grinned wide.

"It's a stronger flavor, but a good one. I like it."

* * *

Fanged rabbits moved under the moonlight, searching for field mice to eat. Unlike Earth, mice and rabbits were omnivorous, and could eat plants as well as meat. Rabbits loved to eat mice, while mice ate bugs, and anything they came across.

This made an interesting food chain. Bugs were mostly poisonous, but mice were immune to poisons. They ate the bugs, and rabbits ate the mice. There were no owls, or simple hawks.

There were harpies, or bloody bitch harpies as the locals called them, and razor tipped hawks, whose talons and beaks were razor sharp, and they ate rabbits and mice as well. The smaller bird species stayed out of the primeval forests, like the one near the manor, and stayed in a more weakened state. They never evolved into elemental beasts, and neither did the domestic cows, pigs, or chickens.

This is what normally happened, but tonight, rabbits stayed hunkered down in their burrows, and caves. The dark elements which normally blanketed the forest at night, and provided a thick gloom in which to hunt, all rushed towards the manor.

This thick blanket of gloom covered the manor from the last of the light in the sky, until the early morning when the sun rose. The gloom did not disperse like a fog, as when the light came out, it would sink back into the soil.

During this night, Aila laid upon her sleeping furs, flat on her back, inhaled and exhaled once every ten seconds or so. This slow breathing made her look almost as odd as the swirling vortex of dark elements that were being sucked into her hands, feet, and chest while she slept.

All beasts of the forest avoided the manor that night. Dark elements were strange in nature. They could drain the physical strength from any beast, disorient and confuse them, as well as steal their morale and mental strength.

Possessing a dark elemental affinity was rare, but it was also frightening to many enemies. Even the bravest of warriors would hesitate to attack a practitioner of the dark elements because their attacks could be weakened into something a child could deflect.

As the dark elements thinned and the sun began to rise in the sky, the light elements, as well as flame elements, began to swirl around her body and were sucked into that same vortex.

Aila's passive elemental absorption was incredibly powerful, and would make many high level elementalists soil themselves.

She was someone that only a fool would mess with.