Mother of Midnight

Chapter 116 Memories Memories Hunger Memories

Vivienne’s song faded into the ether, the final notes hanging like the remnants of a storm. She exhaled, her colossal form trembling as the strain ebbed away, her voice quieting until only the sound of her own heavy breathing remained. The battlefield was still now, save for the faint hiss of molten rock cooling beneath the wreckage of the titan she had felled.

Her gaze turned to where Rava stood, victorious over the amalgam’s shattered remains. Relief spread through her chest, her shoulders dropping as her towering figure began to shrink, the colossus receding into her smaller, more familiar shape. Black eyes scanned the scene, and for a moment, she allowed herself a sliver of satisfaction.

But then Rava raised her hand in that casual, ever-so-cocky wave, and before Vivienne could offer a smirk in return, the brawler collapsed.

The air felt as though it had been pulled from her lungs. Her chest tightened, the weight of aether exhaustion forgotten in an instant. A sharp urgency bloomed in her gut, not fear but something adjacent—an instinctual drive. Her claws scraped the dirt as she moved, a blur of dark scales and flowing hair, her tail lashing behind her to propel her faster across the distance.

“Rava!” Her voice rang out, the usual lilt edged with sharp concern.

She dropped to her knees beside Rava’s crumpled form, her fingers hovering for a split second before settling gently against the brawler’s shoulder. The coppery tang of blood filled her nostrils, and Vivienne’s stomach twisted. Rava’s skin glistened with sweat and was streaked with dirt, but beneath it, fresh wounds marred her body—deep gashes crisscrossed her arms, chest, and sides, some still sluggishly oozing blood. A jagged cut on her brow leaked crimson down the curve of her cheek.

“You reckless, stubborn…” Vivienne bit back the rest of her words, her claws curling in frustration before softening. This wasn’t the time.

Her hands hovered again, uncertain where to start. The wounds were everywhere, each one looking worse than the last, but Rava’s chest rose and fell, slow and steady. That was enough. For now.

Vivienne tore a strip of fabric from her own sleeve, her claws slicing clean through the material. Pressing it against the worst of the wounds—a gash along Rava’s side—she applied pressure, her movements deft despite the tremble in her fingers.

“Hey,” she murmured, leaning closer, her voice softer now. “Don’t go falling asleep on me. You hear? I didn’t summon all those damn crystal beasts just to have you ruin the victory lap.”

Rava stirred, a low groan escaping her lips, but her eyes remained shut. Her lips quirked faintly, as if she’d heard Vivienne’s teasing and found it amusing even in unconsciousness.

Vivienne’s tail flicked sharply against the ground as she worked, her mind racing. She wasn’t a healer—not in the traditional sense—but aether was a resource she could bend to her will. Magic was real here, so surely there were ways to heal with it.?She reached deep within herself, feeling the ebb and flow of the energy she’d drained so heavily during the battle. There wasn’t much left, but it would have to do.

Placing her palm flat against Rava’s side, just above the torn flesh, Vivienne hummed low in her throat, a melody meant to weave rather than summon. The sound was quieter, intimate, the notes threading through the air as faint pulses of shadow emanated from her touch.

“Come on, you damn brute,” she muttered, her brow furrowing in concentration. “You can’t just worry me like this and get away with it.”

The wounds began to knit together, slowly but surely, the bleeding easing under her efforts. It wasn’t perfect—her aether reserves were too depleted to fully mend the damage—but it was enough to stabilize Rava, enough to staunch the bleeding.

Vivienne groaned, her entire body aching with an insatiable hunger that burned like a fire beneath her skin. It wasn’t the dull, familiar pang of an empty stomach; this was sharper, deeper, a need that clawed at her essence and left her trembling. Aether—she needed it, and soon. Her gaze swept the battlefield, landing on the lingering forms of the four large aetherbeasts. Their dissolution was painfully slow, their energy still tethered to this plane. She hesitated only for a moment before gently laying Rava down, her claws brushing against her companion’s blood-streaked skin.

Her form wavered as she straightened, scales slipping into a dark, liquid mass as she relinquished control over her structured body. The shift left her smaller, her once-imposing frame now a shadow of itself, but she welcomed the simplicity. She surged toward the serpent’s remains, her motions fluid and unsteady as her hunger took the reins.

Reaching the corpse, she stretched her amorphous body across it, her form rippling and dark as obsidian. She pressed into the aetheric remains, wrapping herself over the serpent’s jagged edges and torn sinews. Its residual energy called to her like a siren’s song, and she devoured it without hesitation, her body swelling and shifting as it absorbed the creature’s essence. Her movements were frantic, urgent, each pulse of energy siphoned from the serpent soothing the gnawing ache within her bit by bit.

Vivienne's essence drank deeply of the serpent, and as the aether coursed through her, fragments of something not her own seared into her consciousness. She wasn’t just consuming energy—she was devouring what was left of the lives, memories, and souls that had been twisted into this abomination.

A woman’s scream echoed through her mind, high-pitched and desperate, the sound of crashing waves roaring behind it. A fleeting image of a sunlit shore shimmered in her thoughts before it was snuffed out by darkness. The scene was replaced by the feeling of suffocating heat, the sharp crackle of fire, and the taste of smoke filling lungs that weren’t hers. Then came another—rough hands clutching a steel blade, fear radiating from a face reflected in the dull metal before it was swallowed by an unbearable agony.

Memory after fragmented memory surged into her, vivid and raw. Each one clawed at her sense of self, pulling her through fleeting moments of other lives, other deaths, and the endless torment that had shaped the serpent into the monstrosity she had slain. There was no narrative, no logic, just an overwhelming jumble of fear, desperation, and pain.

Her coils tightened involuntarily, the flashes ceasing as quickly as they had begun. She felt no pity, no guilt—there was no room for sentiment when she was this starved. These lives were gone long before her hunger touched them. What remained was nothing but a cursed shell, and she was stripping it down to the last fragment of its existence.

As the serpent’s form began to disintegrate beneath her, its energy spent, she felt the hunger still gnawing at her, relentless and unforgiving. The aether she had consumed was not enough—not even close. Her body, though reinvigorated in part, still craved more, the emptiness within her as vast as ever.

Without a second thought, Vivienne uncoiled from the dissipating remains of the serpent and turned her gaze to the molten giant. Her formless body shifted, oozing across the battlefield with unnerving fluidity, black tendrils stretching forward as she advanced. The giant’s still-fading corpse radiated heat, the molten surface glowing faintly as it cooled. It would suffice—no, it would barely begin to satisfy her.

She surged toward it, her dark form expanding to envelop the massive frame. The giant’s warped limbs jutted out awkwardly as her body pressed against them, smothering the last vestiges of its power. Energy began to seep into her once more, and with it came another wave of broken memories. This time, she braced herself, knowing what to expect but unable to stop the tide from crashing into her.

As Vivienne fed on the molten giant, the memories came harder and faster, a deluge of fragmented experiences that flooded her mind. The molten titan’s remnants were more chaotic, its soul fractured into countless shards, each one carrying echoes of lives devoured by its fiery wrath.

A child’s laughter twisted into screams as walls of fire consumed a small village. The memory surged, bright and vivid, her formless self recoiling at the intensity. A warrior stood defiant, his sword raised against a wall of flame, the heat blistering his skin before everything turned to ash. Another memory—this one quieter—was nothing but a long walk through a barren desert, heat shimmering in the distance, and the weight of unrelenting despair.

Each fragment burned as it passed through her, like tasting molten metal, the emotions sharp and acidic against her senses. Unlike the serpent’s memories, which had been raw and desperate, these were tinged with rage—searing anger that had bound them to the molten giant’s form.

She pressed herself tighter against the cooling husk, forcing the remaining energy into her being. Her hunger ebbed slightly, but the void within her was far from filled. Vivienne pulled back, parts of her formless body swirling and crackling like the molten heat of the titan itself. The edges of her mass wavered, unstable, as she wrestled with the power she had absorbed.

The aether gave her strength, but it came at a price. The memories of the titan's victims, the burning rage of its creation, all clung to her, lingering like smoke in the back of her mind. She shook herself violently, the obsidian tendrils of her form snapping and twisting as if to shake off the residue.

Still, the hunger persisted.

Her gaze darted across the battlefield, settling on the quadrupedal amalgam. Its body was already starting to dissolve, the edges crumbling into faint motes of light as its form unraveled. If she didn’t act quickly, that aether would be lost.

Vivienne surged forward again, her form blurring with urgency. As she reached the amalgam, her body expanded once more, wrapping around the dissolving beast in a frenzy.

The amalgam’s essence tasted different—alien and disjointed, a patchwork of memories and sensations stitched together without rhyme or reason. The minds that had been forced into its creation were shattered beyond recognition. Flashes of alien skies, incomprehensible machinery, and strange, twisted rituals bombarded her. None of it made sense, but the sheer force of the memories threatened to overwhelm her nonetheless.

Her song, now a faint hum in the recesses of her mind, faltered entirely as she wrestled with the amalgam’s chaotic essence. Each memory clung to her like a parasite, their confusion and pain gnawing at the edges of her consciousness.

And still, she devoured.

As the amalgam’s form collapsed into nothingness beneath her, Vivienne’s body began to reform, solidifying piece by piece. The aether coursed through her, filling the cracks in her being but leaving her with an undeniable ache—a reminder that no amount of consumption could truly satisfy the hunger that defined her existence.

Vivienne’s hunger was all-consuming, an insatiable, gnawing force that drove her forward. Her body, a formless shape still vast in its scale, rippled with urgency. The last remnants of the amalgam dissolved behind her, but that was not enough. No, there was still more, something that called to her, something she needed.

Her attention was fixed on the beacon’s broken body, now fully visible in the distance, the shape of the avian creature still towering above the battlefield despite its destruction. Its once-pristine wings were tattered, its limbs bent and twisted, but its chest—still marked with that strange beak—remained a source of trembling energy. The orb-head flickered weakly as the remnants of its consciousness bled away into the ether. The dying light it emitted was faint, yet unmistakable, and it seemed to pulse with an urgency that mirrored her own hunger.

Vivienne's formless body flowed across the ground, dark and fluid, her movements a seamless blur as she closed the distance. The earth seemed to bow beneath her, the ground rippling like water as she moved, leaving no trace of her passage except the vibrations she sent through the air. She could feel the pulse of the beacon’s fading energy thrumming in her veins, urging her forward.

There was a strange sense of urgency as she approached it, the powerful taste of its aether so close now. She was close enough to feel the heat rising from its still-glowing orb, like the last flicker of a dying star. She extended herself, the black, undulating mass of her body flowing over the beacon, encircling it completely. She pressed herself against the still-warm corpse of the creature, her form expanding, folding in on itself as she devoured.

The taste of the beacon was intoxicating—raw, primal, and incredibly potent. It flooded her senses, filling the cracks in her being. But even as she consumed it, the hunger did not subside. It only intensified, twisting deeper within her, gnawing at the corners of her mind. The orb, despite its crackling death throes, was rich with the raw, untamed aether she craved—memories and fragmented consciousness, flickers of its once-vibrant power, and the pain of its final moments. They all merged into one heady mix, but none of it was enough to truly fill the void within her.

Vivienne’s formless body surged around the beacon’s broken form, feeding, devouring. Her essence became a part of it, and yet it was still not enough. The fragments of the beacon’s energy swirled inside her like a storm, but the emptiness inside her stretched endlessly, a dark abyss that no amount of consumption could fill. Still, she continued, her hunger unrelenting, her form flickering as it absorbed every scrap of the beacon’s remains.

The cracks in the orb deepened, spilling a final surge of aether, but Vivienne's body was already pulling the last remnants in. The essence of the creature clung to her as it dissolved into the abyss of her being, its final remnants unable to do anything but add to the gnawing hunger that filled her. For a brief moment, the hunger ebbed, as if the consumption had momentarily quieted the gnawing ache inside her—but it was fleeting, and the emptiness surged back, as strong and demanding as ever.

Vivienne exhaled a long, slow breath, her formless body curling in on itself as she surveyed the avian body of the beacon. It was now just a husk, its once-mighty form reduced to broken fragments and fading energy, the remnants of its purpose long gone. And yet the hunger remained, still stretching, still aching inside her.

She straightened, her body solidifying once again, taking shape and form as the last of the beacon’s power bled into her. Her mind flickered with fleeting visions—shattered memories of creatures that had once been alive, their thoughts and desires long since erased. It was a taste she was growing used to, the remnants of a life snuffed out by her insatiable need.

Despite the power that flooded through her, she felt it—the gnawing emptiness that would never truly go away. The hunger that defined her, that shaped her existence.

It was a familiar feeling, but no matter how much she consumed, it would never stop. It was always there.

And so, she moved away from the remnants of the beacon, her body now restored, her base form larger than it had ever been and more dense, more solid. Yet her hunger still there, lurking beneath the surface, pushing her forward into the next feast.

Vivienne grumbled under her breath, her frustration a low hum in the back of her mind as she let the hunger settle, her senses sharpening once again as she shifted back into her prime form. Her obsidian scales slid into place, and her tail swished behind her, flicking the air with a soft snap. The power of the feast had filled her body, but the gnawing hunger still lingered, unyielding. She suppressed it, though. It was an ache she had come to know all too well, but there were more pressing matters to attend to.

Her attention turned back to Rava, still sprawled on the ground, unmoving. The towering lekine was a mess of battle-worn flesh and blood, and though Vivienne could feel the faint traces of life still pulsing within her, it was clear that the fight had taken its toll. Rava’s body was covered in deep gashes, the jagged wounds no longer bleeding like they had before..

Vivienne crouched beside her, her large, clawed hands hovering for a moment before she carefully slid her arms under Rava’s body. With a gentle but firm grip, she lifted the lekine into her arms, holding her as if she were nothing more than a child. The contrast between her size and Rava's was almost absurd, yet Vivienne had done this multiple times now.

She muttered under her breath, the words soft, almost affectionate, though Rava was still unconscious, unable to hear her. “Seems like this is becoming a common occurrence, darling. Can’t stay out of my arms.”

She paused for a moment, looking down at Rava’s sleeping face. The lekine’s expression was peaceful for now, free of the tension and determination that usually marked her features. Vivienne’s eyes softened, and she let out a quiet sigh, the ache in her chest not from hunger, but from something far deeper.

But there was no time to linger in the moment. Vivienne shifted her grip, adjusting her hold on Rava as she began to move, her footsteps deliberate as she made her way through the remains of the battlefield. There was still much to be done, and Rava’s wounds would need attention. As much as Vivienne longed for a respite, the urgency of their situation was never far from her thoughts.

Her eyes flicked to the horizon, where the dim light of the fading day cast long shadows. The battle was over, and for now, it was her responsibility to carry them both forward.