22:00

Avina stepped into her Mog House, slowly shutting the door behind her. She stood there silently, her hand still on the door handle, listening to the crackling fire in her Mog House and her Moogle humming a sweet toon as he watered her plants. Her mind taxed with events as of late, but nothing had seemed to shake her up nearly as much as her conversation with Aedyn. The way he spoke of his desire for “power” hung on her mind, the very way he had pronounced that very well rang too closely to how she…

…how she had once spoken about that very same desire in the very same way.

Aedyn… he was right about her. Correct in his realization that she knew the path that a Dark Knight walked, correct in her ability to judge what was reaching for too much. And indeed, he was correct, in that together they could possibly be an unstoppable force.

Avina let that thought sit with her for a moment. She shut her eyes, letting her hand fall from the door handle, and felt deep inside of her that throbbing darkness that she knew was constantly trying to get out and unleash itself.

She already knew where fully embracing that darkness would take her. It had led her to draw and lead herself to draw out her weapon and attempt to bring it down on her ally with the intent to kill… and she would have killed Daltan, had her friend Zetireti not stepped in the way, his eyes piercing into hers, speaking his deep disappointment in her with his eyes and his eyes alone.

She need not walk that path again. Once upon a time she had tried to hide herself from the guilt that she felt for allowing herself to be twisted and toyed by the power she had pretended to control. She no longer tried to hide from her previous crimes… in fact, she embraced them, the lessons learned from them having made her stronger and understand what her limits were… and the throbbing darkness inside of her a permanent reminder of what she had to take upon herself in order to learn these lessons.

Lessons that Aedyn hardly understood, and wouldn’t understand until, Avina feared, it was too late.

Avina made her way to her bookshelf and looked over the tomes she had there. She was well aware that Aedyn had very easily controlled her into agreeing to become his mentor, despite her misgivings and her desire to want to have nothing to do with it. And yet she had been manipulated and cornered by her ‘friend,’ although she wasn’t even sure if he was anymore. In her eyes, he was a ticking time bomb… and a time would come when she knew he would surpass her. His physique was superior to hers, his recklessness in his desire for power was greater than hers, and his belief that he had nothing to lose all ensured that one day, he would become a more powerful Dark Knight than she had. And if the light truly faded in his heart, and there was an upset or an argument…

Avina would not train someone who would use her knowledge to bring harm to innocents. Even reckless harm to those who were not entirely innocent. There was enough brutality in the world as it is… and her experience would not be used to create more of it.

She picked up a book and started to page through it. A Dark Knight leeches its power from others, sacrifices its own health to harm others. It would be much easier to stand back and watch Aedyn slowly destroy himself and take others down before he fell. Defeating a Dark Knight before that could happen was a much more challenging matter. She would find a way.



3:00

Avina slammed her fist down on her desk, letting a stack of books fall off the side of the table and onto the floor below. She leaned forward and rubbed her forehead with her hand, the light in the room dim. She could find nothing. There was nothing that she could do that would make her a more powerful Dark Knight than Aedyn would be if his motivation remained unchanged. All of her options and research indicated that in order to overcome him, she herself would need to give more of herself to the darkness than she was willing to… she would not become a monster herself again.

She looked up at her timepiece, watching the moonlight shine through its working gears. It was a little after three in the morning. She sat there looking at the moonlight, her eyes tired. She thought nothing. It was one of those moments where her mind was so spent and exhausted that she could only simply stare into the moonlight. It made her feel almost… warm.

She rubbed her eyes and let out a sigh. She turned to stand up and saw a wide puddle of blood on her Mog House floor.

“Oh my goodness!” She gasped, nearly falling off her bench, and gripped her desk… as her vision became accustomed to the dim light, she recognized it was not a puddle of blood at all, but instead was her Baron’s saio. Her heart pounding hard in her chest, she let out a frustrated sigh and rolled her eyes. Standing up slowly she bent down to pick up the garment, took it in her hands and began to walk towards her dresser to put it away.

As she folded the saio she looked to her left where her Moogle lay passed out on her oak bed. “Forget to put something away,” she grumbled in frustration with the Moogle, although quietly enough so that it would not wake. She opened the dresser drawer and put the saio inside… as she closed the drawer she looked up and on the dresser her chapeau lay. She stared at it for awhile, deep in thought… she had a curious relationship with the Red Mage job. She had originally practiced in the art of it to increase her knowledge in magics, as well as to enhance herself, but also to improve her knowledge of enfeebling magic as a Dark Knight. But she had had little serious interest in it beyond that, aside from the clothes looking rather fashionable.

She narrowed her eyes and took the chapeau in her hands. Something had just clicked in her head, an idea…

Red Mages were the masters of enfeebling magic. The premise behind it being that you could create enormous amounts of damage simply by hindering your foes. That was one of the key reasons she had sought to practice in their art at first.

And their enfeebling magic was powerful. But she hadn’t even come close to achieving its true potential. She had heard rumors of Red Mages being able to single handedly take down beasts of significantly greater strength simply because they could prevent the beast by being able to lay a hand on them.

She turned her head back towards the fire in her Mog House, which were simply glowing coals now. If there was one thing she understood better than anything, it was what a Dark Knight was weak to. She knew what enfeebling magic caused the greatest hardship on a Dark Knight… a well timed silence would remove her ability to cast and drain her foe of their attributes, dispel could remove her dread spikes, paralyze render it difficult for her to swing her scythe and execute crucial abilities…

…all things a Red Mage could do with ease.

She moved slowly, holding the chapeau, over towards where one of her mannequins stood wearing the vermillion cloak that Saerun had crafted for her. She pushed the hood off the mannequin’s head and seated the chapeau on it. She had wanted to become talented enough as a mage to make good use of the cloak anyways since it was a valuable piece… but perhaps she had a better reason to practice in the art of being a mage.

Yes…

Fighting darkness against darkness, Avina would surely lose. If Aedyn were to go off course, she’d need an edge… a trump card of sorts. She understood the Dark Knight’s weaknesses… and a Red Mage could exploit those weaknesses if was ever becoming dangerous.

She frowned. She was hardly talented enough as a Red Mage to be able to exploit anything in a well-trained Dark Knight at all. She even doubted that she was strong enough to take him on as a Red Mage even though he was just beginning. She would have no choice but to cooperate with him for the time being…

It would be a race. Could she develop a weapon in herself to counter Aedyn before the bomb self-destructs?

“Maybe…,” she whispered, and she walked over and dumped a flash of water on the coals.

And filled the mog house with smoke!