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Nigredo made a concerted effort to never look to his right when he left the camp to go to his greenhouse. The massive ribcage that stood there was just another painful reminder of everything that had been taken from him. He had no intentions of going to that place until he knew he would be able to bring back the dragon of Dragonspine as he was before Corruption poisoned him.
But one day, Aether came to visit with a peculiar-looking blade. Silver lined with a familiar but sickly fuchsia pattern, with what appeared to be an eye embedded in the guard of the hilt, dulled out and lifeless. The whole time the outlander was speaking, Nigredo couldn’t take his eyes off of the sword. None of Aether’s words registered in the alchemist’s brain as something within the sword was drawing him in, stealing all of his focus, as if the eye in the hilt was coaxing him into a trance.
There was something about the sword that he recognized, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He just needed to look a little deeper, and the answer would surely come to him.
Deeper. He could see the door beginning to crack.
Deeper. He was almost there.
Deeper… Just a little deeper…
“Hey! Nigredo!”
The gardener yelped at the shrill sound of Paimon’s voice, the door slamming shut as he was suddenly back in his greenhouse.
The tiny floating guide huffed and crossed her arms. “Hmph! Paimon knew you weren’t paying attention! How rude!”
Aether was, as always, a bit more understanding. “You were staring at Festering Desire the whole time I was talking,” he said. “Is everything alright?”
Nigredo’s eyes drifted back to the sword in the outlander’s hand, the pull of something familiar but unknown still there.
“Festering Desire?” he asked, forcing himself to engage with the other lest the eye in the hilt begin to hypnotize him again. “Is that what it’s called?”
Aether nodded, lifting the blade up to inspect it. “It…was supposedly made using some of Durin’s remains. At the very least, it was exposed to the same power that corrupted him.” Golden orbs lifted from the sword to meet teal stars. “Nigredo, do you…feel strange at all in the presence of this blade?”
Nigredo gathered his thoughts, took a moment to figure out how to put his feelings into words, eyes shifting between the sword and its master. “I feel…drawn to it,” he answered finally. “It feels like a contradiction. Like a voice I’ve never heard before calling me home. Something familiar, yet I can’t name it. And the eye… There’s something within me telling me that if I just look deep enough, I’ll be able to make sense of it all…” As he finished his explanation, his eyes fell once again to the sword’s hilt before he shook his head clear, forcing himself to stay focused. “Maybe my connection to Durin and my status as a fellow victim of Corruption is somehow tying me to this sword.”
“That’s my line of thinking, too,” said Aether.
“My condition isn’t reacting to it, though. And no offense, but it doesn’t look very…vibrant.”
“Oh!” Paimon piped up. “That’s because Albedo extracted the energy from the sword right before he gave it to Aether!”
“Albedo gave this to you?” Nigredo asked. “And how did he get his hands on it?”
“It was confiscated loot from a band of Treasure Hoarders after they were apprehended by the Knights of Favonius,” Aether explained. “No one came to claim it, so—“
“So my brother just took it,” Nigredo finished, sighing when Aether nodded. “That Albedo… Though I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing. Especially if it was made with…” Teal eyes brimmed with sadness, as his voice softened and wavered. “Can I…hold it for a second…? Please…?”
After exchanging a look with Paimon, Aether held out the sword to Nigredo. The gardener’s left hand wrapped carefully around the hilt, as if he was afraid the sword would shatter, and held it up with the tip pointing to the ground. He gazed into the eye in the guard once more as his other hand ran down the blade.
“This eye…” he breathed, tears stinging at the corners of his own. “His were a lot bigger, but other than that, it looks exactly the same. Brother…” Carefully, he hugged the sword close as if it was a stuffed toy, hilt pressing against his cheek as he pressed his back to a wall and slid down to the floor. “Is this all they see you as now?” Nigredo choked out. “Raw material? A thing to be crafted into tools and weapons?” Tears spilled down his cheeks as hiccuping sobs wracked his entire body. Aether feared he would draw blood if he clutched the sword any tighter.
The outlander and his guide stood there in silence so he could let everything out, chests aching at the display of raw grief, before Aether finally spoke.
“Would you like to keep it?”
Nigredo’s head shot up to look at him, eyes red and puffy and so, so vulnerable, his voice thick with lingering tears as he answered, “R-really? You’d let me…?”
Aether nodded. “He was your brother. And besides, I have plenty of other swords. Even if you never use the sword…you deserve to have it more than anyone.”
“Thank you…” Keeping one arm around the sword, Nigredo hastily wiped at his eyes, sniffling like he’d caught the flu. “Sorry about that…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Paimon said. “We understand. This must be a lot for you to take in.”
Nigredo nodded and rose to his feet. “It is, but… This sword could propel me so far forward in my quest to bring him back. Even if the life force is gone, just having some piece of Durin with me… Thank you again. If there’s anything I can do to repay you, just say the word and consider it done.”
“You really don’t need to,” Aether said, rubbing the back of his neck, “but I’ll let you know if I need anything botany related.”
“Alright. In the meantime, I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me. This is going to occupy me for quite some time.”
“Just remember to eat, okay?” Aether said as he headed toward the door.
“I’ve got plenty of food in here! I’m not Albedo!” Nigredo shot back, revitalized and seemingly back to his usual self. Content that the alchemist would be okay, Aether headed out to his next adventure.
—————————
Nigredo shot upright on the mattress, cover slipping down to pool in his lap. The siren song invaded his mind once again. Ever since Aether had given him Festering Desire, he’d been hearing something calling out to him. A deep, rumbling voice from deep within the mountain. A familiar voice.
Durin’s voice.
For weeks, he tried to ignore it as another anomaly of Dragonspine attempting to lure him into danger. He refused to fall prey to call of the Lotus Eater carried in the wind, reverberating through the snowy ground, sending a strange tremor up his spine, as if the feeling was trying to concentrate itself in the birthmark that rested between his shoulder blades. It only ever swept him when he was alone, and every time he heard it, it left him reeling.
After a few days, he began to have lapses in his memory, finding himself beneath Durin’s ribcage, far closer to that red cavern where his heart rested than he ever cared to be, with no recollection of even leaving the greenhouse. He began keeping a record of every time it happened and rigged up a trap for himself so that a bucket of ice water would spill on him if he tried to open the door and wake him up from whatever trance was pulling him toward that place.
Nigredo tried to block out the noise. It had to be some cruel trick of the mountain. Durin was dead. There was no way he was speaking to Nigredo. And yet, when Nigredo decided to listen to what the voice was saying, he could faintly recognize the words as the code they would use to protect Rhinedottir’s research. It was a language no one other than a child of Gold could possibly know. Still, Nigredo ignored it, grounding himself to reality by burying himself in his work.
But as his older brother’s voice brushed against his brain, making the inside of his head itch and tingle, right there in the presence of Albedo and Rubedo, the Erdeprinz could no longer ignore it. Slowly turning to his right, he observed his family. Albedo had taken one of Nigredo’s sleeping elixirs. He wouldn’t awaken even if you screamed in his ear. And Rubedo, with no sunlight to fuel him, would be out like a light until sunrise. Nigredo slipped out of bed and dressed himself, lining his coat pockets with extra anti-venom. Something compelled him to grab Festering Desire as he walked past it. For the first time since moving in with Albedo, Nigredo stepped out of the camp and looked to the right.
In the dead of night, with clouds blocking out the stars and moon, the glow of the red cavern was like a shining beacon, and Nigredo was a ship being pulled toward the shore, toward home. Steeling himself and tightening his grip on the hilt of the sword, he descended the mountain, slipping between massive bones, toward the red light of the cavern, the warmth of Durin’s heart. Once his free hand met the mouth of the cave, he felt his body weaken as his Corruption was drawn to the surface, and he quickly uncorked and downed a vial of medication before stepping past the threshold, breathing in the metallic scent of blood and the familiar, comforting warmth of his eldest brother.
”Aster,” the whole cave rumbled with the voice, an embrace that carried all the tension away from Nigredo’s body like a warm breeze. ”At last, you’ve come.”
Nigredo stepped closer to his brother’s heart, a faint, rhythmic thumping echoing around the cave, lulling him into a nostalgic sense of security. “I wasn’t sure if it was actually you or another trick of the mountain.” Finally, his boots landed on the rocks that cradled Durin’s heart, heat swathing him like a blanket. “And I go by Nigredo now. I’m no star…”
”To me, you will always be little Aster,” Durin said. ”That sword you carry… Hold it up and let me take a closer look at it.”
Nigredo had almost forgotten he was holding Festering Desire. He brought it up to rest at his eye level, a tremor passing through him as his brother hummed in thought.
“It is dull and lifeless,” the dragon observed.
“Our younger brother extracted its power a while back after he had the Traveler purify it,” the homunculus explained.
”I see… Then it is indeed the residual Corruption that binds you to this mountain, to me.”
Nigredo closed his eyes in thought. “Then being in direct contact with your remains in the form of Festering Desire must have deepened our connection, which allowed me to hear you. Or, well. I suppose it’s more accurate to say I felt more so than heard.” His eyes opened as his thoughts began racing. “And yet, I could only truly hear you when I entered this cavern. I can’t linger here, lest my own Corruption overtake me, but if I leave, then…”
Durin easily followed Nigredo’s line of thinking. ”I could restore some of the blade’s power. Just enough that my energy will not overwhelm you. Then you will always have me with you.”
Nigredo perked up. “You could do that?? I— Yes! What do I need to do?”
”Plunge the blade into my core, and remove it when I tell you.”
“Y-you want me to…stab you in the heart?” the gardener asked. “Won’t that hurt?!”
A deep chuckle shook the cavern and left Nigredo’s back arching at the strange, weightless sensation. ”How do you think the blade was forged in the first place, little Aster? I will be fine.”
Despite his brother’s reassurance, Nigredo still hesitated, clenching his eyes shut before stabbing the blade into the glowing red muscle before him. An intense tingling sensation almost like electricity shot up his arms as he felt Durin’s power seeping back into the sword. His body began to feel weak again when he heard the other call out.
”Aster, now!”
With some effort, Nigredo yanked the blade out of his brother’s heart and immediately fell to his knees, coughing and fumbling for another vial of medication. Durin waited patiently for him to empty the vial down his throat before speaking again.
”You should not linger here much longer. The energy I dispelled into the sword should be enough. Go back to the others and get some rest, little one.”
“Right…” Nigredo said. In his scramble, he’d dropped the sword next to him, and when he moved to pick it up, he saw that the eye in the hilt and the center of the blade were aglow with the bright fuchsia glow of Durin’s power. He could feel a slight thrum through his gloves as he took the sword back in hand and rose to his feet to make his way toward the mouth of the cave.
“I will find a way to bring you back in full, brother. I promise.”
”Ambitious as ever,” Durin teased. ”I look forward to it…Nigredo.”
Nigredo brushed some stray hairs out of his face. “You…can still call me Aster,” he said softly. “Good night, Durin.”
”Good night, Aster.”
Nigredo turned away from the warmth of the cavern and headed out into the freezing night air of the mountain. He was about halfway home when Durin’s voice cut through the silent chill of the night.
”Incredible. I can see through the eye in the sword’s hilt now.”
Nigredo shrieked and dropped the sword in the snow before rushing to pick it up. “Durin??” he asked, eyes wide with wonder and disbelief.
”You can still hear me. Good. Then it worked.”
Tears brimmed at the corners of Nigredo’s eyes as he stared directly into the eye in the hilt. “I can finally talk to you again…”
”Please do not cry, little one. Regrettably, I have no limbs to wipe away your tears.”
Nigredo let out a raspy chuckle and dried his tears with his glove. “I can do it myself, you big dork,” he said before tucking the sword under his arm and resuming his trek back to camp. “Come on. Let’s go home.”