At the Beach - Part 2
Date Posted: August 16, 2020
This chapter was written in collaboration with Scylla.
“What’s this?” Scylla wrinkled her nose, as she looked carefully into his eyes, and then down to his choker, running her fingers across the stones to check for aetheric fluctuations.
Amon seeing things was one thing.
But Amon trying to be nice?
Scylla put her hand on his head with a worried gaze. “Something must be wrong… Ben said to get in contact with him if your aether starting getting unstable.”
“Unstable? No… no. I feel fine. I just…” Amon peered past her again, eyes softening as the colorful wisps of aether danced for him. “I know you cannot see it, but the aether is very lovely today. Perhaps ‘tis a consequence of the happiness of this event.”
“Amon…”
Scylla looked at him, eyes growing more worrisome. She turned his face towards hers again, trying to get him to focus as his gaze turned away again.
“You’re not well.”
She put her hand on the choker again, hoping to find some cause of the hallucinations that were plaguing her patient. But everything was stable, at least on the surface. The white mage would have to try to keep Amon well, at least until Ben could be summoned back.
“I don’t understand.” Scylla leaned forth, and tried to hold a conversation with him, hoping that would bring him out of his daze. “What exactly are you seeing?”
Amon’s brows lowered a bit as he was forced to focus on Scylla’s worried face. She was genuinely concerned by this.
“Hey, now. ‘Tis all fine. ‘Tis just aether,” the Elezen made an elaborate gesture in the air with one hand, poorly reproducing the flow and patterns of energy that clung to everything living around them. “When I don’t see the aether flow, then you need to start worrying.”
Good.
Amon was focused.
He was responding to questions in a coherent manner.
Though she was worried that the direction that the conversation was taking.
“I don’t understand… Seeing the aetherflow? What do you mean by that?”
He took a long deep breath, trying to muse how to explain this. He rarely talked about it, so this was not a conversation he had scripted for in the past.
“Ever since I’ve known, I’ve been able to see aether. ‘Twas so natural to me that for a long time I didn’t know that other people didn’t see the world as I do. Not until I arrived in the city as a boy, and was tested by the Academy for my aptitude. Only then was this labeled a phenomenon and I was informed that what I saw ‘twas out of the ordinary,” Amon told her.
“What do you mean you can see AETHER?” Her voice hit a crescendo as she gave him a flustered face. “AMON?! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Scylla! The topic never came up! Why would I have reason to talk about it?” The Elezen motioned with frantic hushing hand-waves in her direction. This wasn’t something he wanted the whole Faire to hear about. “Besides, I was warned ‘twas better to not make it known.”
“Did Father know?” She huffed at him, going back to wiping his face.
“Aye, of course. He was privy to all my tests and records, I assume.” Amon shrugged.