I breathed in the applause, and I wiped the sweat off my brow with my scarlet sleeve as Vitali darted past me and came panting into the dormitory. He saluted me the moment he was inside, and it was so cute of the ‘legionnaire’ he was dressed as that I had to stifle back a chuckle. I returned his salute, and with a smile struggling not to rise on my face, I said to him,

“Good hustle there, soldier. You are to report to Mother Olga for dessert in the mess hall. Dismissed.”

He dropped his salute with a ‘ma’am’, but before he’d taken two steps he turned back to me and made sure I knew the proper form he’d picked up from Gramps,

“It’s to report for a debriefing, Miss Arianna. And thanks, you did good too.”

‘Cheeky kid,’ I laughed to myself as he left with a thumbs up sign to the next child in line. I looked over to see which child he’d signaled to, and it seemed like Elissa was up, but she was fidgeting away with enough nervous energy to restart the Electric Age. She wasn’t going to do at all well like that, and I knew she needed a little boost to her self-esteem, so I tried to encourage her a bit,

“Hey, don’t worry so much about how they’re gonna see you, okay? You’re going to do great, I promise.”

She let go a single shaky laugh, as if she didn’t fully believe in me, and she asked with uncertainty dripping from her voice,

“What makes you so sure, Miss Arianna? I don’t feel like I’ll be great; it feels like everything is pressing on me, and I really don’t want to ruin everyone’s efforts.”

As she admitted the extent of her stage fright to me, I searched my mind for a solution, and naturally I found a great idea pretty quickly, so I brought my idea to her,

“Well, you’re already super cute, but I’ll tell you what, Ellie: how about I make you literally glow with cuteness? It’s something only you can do, and I’ll definitely make you look amazing, so even if you fumble like Damien did you’ll still be received really well! I mean, if you’re alright with it anyways; oh, and it won’t hurt at all, I promise!”

Elissa furrowed her brow as she deeply considered my proposal, then she raised her shining eyes back to meet mine and excitedly asked me, “Then, have you done it with Miss Mira?”

“Umm….” My eyes unconsciously drifted over in Mira’s direction as I had to think about it. Had I done it wi- an awkward giggle fell out of my mouth as I very suddenly remembered that I should answer her quickly because she was soon to go on, so I brought my eyes back to her with a smile that I hoped wasn’t at all cramping up,

“Of, of course I have! I think… And really, it won’t hurt at all, here I’ll show you real quick what I’m thinking.”

I strung the aether inside me into an image, and I directed it to form into a scaled down model of my thoughts inside the dormitory. A dimly shining angel shaped roughly into Elissa’s simplified appearance appeared floating in the air, and I could feel a pair of eyes looking on from among the remaining kids with jealousy. I did my best to ignore Anastasia’s gaze on my back, and I hurriedly told Elissa,

“I’m gonna make your skin shine like this, only about maybe fifty times brighter okay? Ah, but all the shape modifiers are just going to be all me this time, alright Ellie? Otherwise it’d probably hurt a lot, I think.”

After she’d looked it over a few times, she’d nodded her acceptance for my plan. I quickly burned out the aether I’d used to represent the changes I was going to make on her, but I couldn’t bring much of it back into myself. Elissa was so much easier to change than the already aether-filled air; she was literally a perfect conduit with nothing lost to the transitory state at all, so I was sure I could make hers the act of the night, and it wouldn’t even cost me any additional effort, since I could pull it all back to myself in the end too!

My smile grew wide as I anticipated our awesome coming act, but in the corner of my eye Anastasia’s arms were crossed, and I felt cold sweat forming into an itchy bead on my forehead. I wiped away the discomfort I suddenly felt on my dress sleeve, and although she’d just agreed to our impromptu adjustment, I hurriedly put Elissa into action,

“You’re up, Ellie. No pressure, okay? Just say your lines and you’ll be great! I promise!”

She stepped out with a marginally more confident nod, and unlike the others I didn’t bother to set up a spotlight for her as she crossed the dark stage, since she really wouldn’t be needing it. As she stepped into position, I encompassed her in a shell of my aether, and the whole of it sank down into her skin, which shortly took on a shining luminescence that glowed so brightly that she was hard even for me to look upon!

I just relished the perfect efficiency and effortlessness that working with someone aetherless provided, and it was a total success this time too! Cheer flooded through my mind as my eyes were completely glued to her stunning figure, and I was definitely thrilled to see that the effect was totally consistent with my intent! Or, mostly anyways, but what mattered was that what I expected to happen actually happened and she didn’t react poorly at all.

An absolutely angelic figure graced our audience in a silvery gown that looked fit for the seraphim, cherubim, and all the rest of the heavenly host combined! I couldn’t resist, so I added the image of great feathery white wings unfurling from behind her, and I was able to bring it right up against her body without even the slightest interference! 

Stark and snowy white hair like my Mira’s flowed out from beneath a similarly-colorless bonnet which covered the upper half of her lengthened ears… Elissa’s personal decision, though I really thought she should’ve let the cute things out of hiding, but every time I’d suggested it to her she’d told me I was just biased, which was total nonsense anyways! Like Uncle used to say when I was a kid: ‘Cuteness is Justice!’, and she had presently become the very picture of both terms!

She glowed with such a beautiful effervescence that it actually sort of surprised me. The aetherial adjustment on her side was perhaps even a little too effective, as if it had even been magnified severalfold beyond my original intent, and I had to hold my breath to see if she’d give me a signal to stop the flow of aether between us.

Elissa radiated like a miniature sun sent down from the heavens themselves to alight the Earth all aglow! Or even ablaze, and it looked like it could be painful, but she didn’t seem to be hurting at all, so perhaps I’d accidentally overdone it myself? But a voice soon broke me out of my reverie, and it cut through the shocked silence that Elissa’s shining presence had spawned in the wake of her sudden appearance.

“That’s my girl! Elissa, papa’s so proud of you!” I heard Gramps crowing joyously, and as I averted my eyes from Elissa’s nearly blinding figure, I saw that tears were streaming down his cheeks like two snaking rivers that reflected the shine from the stage! Geh, he was beaming so brightly at his only beloved daughter in all the world that he might even upstage her for the sheer vibrancy that had taken his expression! ‘It’s her performance, Gramps, so shut up already!’ I thought, but I wasn’t going to say it out loud.

Instead, I gathered some aether into a construct to blot out his disruption, though I was a little distracted as I felt my desire being drawn towards doing something cruel, so I had to double check my work for errors. His mouth opened again to sing further praises for his Elissa before she had even spoken the first word of her lines, and as this happened before I was quite done reexamining my spellcraft: annoyance settled into me.

But since my eyes were already on him, I saw when Mira suddenly pinched his arm so tightly that all that came out next was a strangled yelp! Heh, I figured it served him right, and I thanked Mira in my heart as I brought my construct back to me.

Gramps turned towards her with reproach laid deeply in his eyes, but he was quiet as he saw Mira’s finger upon her lips, and his eyes finally registered the signal for his silence. This was his daughter’s stage after all, and Gramps would probably regret having interrupted her performance at all later, so really Mira had just done him a big favor.

“Um, I a-am. I am remaking this world!” Elissa’s nerves were definitely frayed as she began, likely in part due her initial stage fright, and it definitely hadn’t been helped by the embarrassment her father put on her. She took a moment to steel herself again, and after a few deep breaths she put out her jaw and completed her lines,

“Into a safe Eden for all people! With endless food and by sharing the rigors of life between everyone: I shall stave off the specter of death for an eternity!”

She gave a sort of clumsy curtsy, so I made an angelic yellow halo sprout up above her head, which was like the wings in that it actually cost me quite a bit of aether, but there was just no way I could avoid doing it! After a moment spent like that, I’d released all of the magic I’d stored within her back into myself. To others, it must have seemed that she had disappeared in a brilliant flash of light, and applause absolutely rang out for her as Gramps resumed his cheering.

Elissa had a deep blush on her face as she stepped past me into the dormitory, and I gave her a quick and hopefully comforting pat on the shoulder, as her head was still covered with the bonnet, before I went back to work. This was going to be the hard bit, really. I brought a number of white spotlights down to shine upon a brightly lit hospital. It was a neat trick I’d figured out in the last month, since actually all of it was just light that would glow perfectly fine by itself, but by adding the static spotlight from above I’d been able to give it a more realistic kind of feeling, another layer of ‘definition’, which was going to be totally necessary in this next part.

I sent forth an image as far from cute Elissa as I could imagine, of hopelessly sick young people laid down in hospital beds. I’d had to ask Mira a few weeks ago about the worst diseases she could think of, and all of their symptoms, and here I’d arrayed them all as realistically as I could between what she’d told me and what I’d seen for myself. Some really awful ones were laid out before those present, and I quickly looked Mira’s way to see what she thought of it all… and I saw her rising in horror towards the scene I’d created.

Ah… damn, that must’ve really shocked her, so I guess I sort of overdid it, but Gramps brought her back to Earth with his arm before she could fully rise and rush over, so even he could be useful sometimes! Sure they were realistic enough looking, I’d worked really hard on that actually, sculpting the scabs of scurvy and the marks of smallpox. But the last one in particular seemed to be really holding Mira’s attention, and her face had gone even more pale than usual.

Fleshrot, the worst disease known to man, it was absolutely unstoppable once a person was infected. I felt really bad about how much this was affecting her, I mean, I didn’t think it would be that realistic to her! A bit of fury started to grow in Mira’s eyes, so I knew I probably did something really wrong with that patient, but it was a little too late to adjust my course now. I was going to show them being healed anyways, so she’d probably forgive me, right? Well, at least until the ghoul bit.

Faceless masked medical doctors were sent by me all around the beds in silence, and I had them ‘inject’ the ‘patients’ with all sorts of strange colored liquids. The medical assistants brought in a flurry of exotic fruits and brightly colored candies to each of the patients, and I was pretty confident that only a handful of people present might recognize what each of them were. I was busy with my performance when I saw Gramps lean over to speak with Mira, and he even had the nerve to stick his arm around her like he was making a move!

‘I take it back, Gramps, you’re useless, just the worst kind of person!’ I raged to myself. But what was worse was that she leant against his offered shoulder for a moment, shut her eyes tightly, and even said something softly in return to him! I felt my aetherwork unraveling from my surging jealousy, and this was too important a scene for me to stop, so although I kept one of my eyes on them I still managed to adequately show the patients picking themselves up and out of the medical beds with their health all restored.

Gramps wiped back some tears as he watched my scene of healing and celebration, and I quickly poured aether into my ears so I could hear what he was about to say with a sniffy chuckle, “Something you got a lot of experience with, Long Ears?”

My blood froze and I had to fight like hell to keep my scene from freezing up too, but I heard Mira scoff and my eyes were drawn to her directly as she elbowed that nasty legionnaire in his ribs! Hah! Satisfaction soared within my chest as I heard him sharply suck in air, and saw him clutching at his side with reproach in his eyes. Laughter sought release from within me, but I had a really somber scene coming up, and the next kid was beside me now.

“Hey witch, do what you did for her to me!” Anastasia had spoken each word like a hammer striking a sheet of metal right into my ears as she demanded the impossible of me. ‘Damn, my ears.’ I thought as my head rang from the overwhelming speech, and I dropped my hearing construct with extreme prejudice. I knew she was old enough to see my spellwork with her eyes, and sure enough: there reflected in them was a basic vision enhancement!

My irritation just surged to life as I finally untangled what she’d said to me too! I ground my teeth at her often repeated ‘mistake’, and I was damned sure that she did it just to annoy me, but I answered her with both the correction and a refusal in one,

“How many times do I have to tell you, Anya: I’m not a witch! I’m the most powerful sorcerer you’ll ever see! But I’ll tell you what: not even the evilest uses of aether could make you like Ellie, and you’re not a dummy: you know this!”

She held her arms crossed around her chest and tapped her foot with dissatisfaction apparent all across her face in a scowl, “Well, why not then? I’ll let you have free reign and everything. That should make it easy right?”

I shook my head as I focused my attention on the previously healthy people on the stage, and I turned them dangerously fat, withered with age, and just about as pathetic and deathly as I could make them. I returned them to their old hospital beds where I again had them stuffed full of medicines and exotic foods, and I even leaned on forbidden techniques like transfusions from the emaciated youth that were gathered around those elderly wretches.

The young ones were soon destroyed under the weight of carrying those miserable old lives along for even one moment longer, but I had to answer Anastasia before she missed her own role,

“Give it up, Anya. You’re not aetherless, and you should be very glad of it. Now hurry, you’re up okay? I’ll do my best to make you awesome anyways, so get it together!”

She stuck her tongue out at me cheekily, and covered her face over with a veil. Anastasia then walked across the stage such that the light appeared from just behind her for the audience, dimming her short profile in a dark silhouette against the less than cheery scene I’d set behind her. Sweat poured across my skin as I tried to bend the shadows to wrap around her dress, but they could only come so close to her skin of course, and the effort really took quite a lot out of me.

Her well-fitted black-laced gown went to her ankles, and her black hair tumbled down in a curly mess, and I made sure to set a light breeze to blow across her in as haunting a manner as I could muster. This next was going to be our masterstroke, and it was by far the most difficult part yet even without the extras Anastasia had insisted upon.

She spoke her first line through her veil with a bored irreverence for the horror that I was unfolding behind her, “But death cannot be forever stopped by man, and the pursuit of immortality has always ended in failure, leading to the Foul aspects that now torment all of the living.”

‘Except that it doesn’t actually end in failure’, I mused to myself as I reduced the number of aetherlights to one, which I dimmed and turned silver to reflect the moon’s light. I dragged the hospital beds with their dead and dying patients down into the stage, and I blew whistling winds all around the monastery for extra effect. I was starting to feel like an athlete who’d run a couple miles without aether as I pulled wretched weeds up from the ‘ground’, and I planted granite gravestones and wooden crosses in the dirt to represent those who had died despite all apparent efforts.

Next, I pushed with much of my remaining aether, and brought bloated hands of the cadavers to each claw out from the stage’s ground. I had to add these in layers up from the bottom as there was no real ‘underground’ here, and keeping them in motion while I did it was a real challenge, but that didn’t satisfy me here: nothing less than perfection was acceptable. Their rotting fingers peeled back as I sharpened their fingerbones upon the gravedirt, and I relished in the sounds of disgust and horror that built up from the audience in the face of this ‘realistic’ scene.

Well, this wasn’t actually how ghouls really formed, but Olga had insisted upon us doing it the manner prescribed by the Vatican, so here we were. I wasn’t really a stickler about it, but it was a bit of a shame not to show how they actually formed out of loose aether over quite a long period of time. Either way, it did still feel awfully good to be showing some of the folks in attendance just what I’d been keeping them safe from; they would do well to remember what was just downriver, and I sure wouldn’t mind getting the royal treatment after so long!

A smile came to my face as I thought about the fear I was about to bring forth in the pews, and I made the ghouls follow up on their digging by bending their limbs to brace against the ground. I then popped their decaying heads up into view, with just enough left of their faces to show the marks of the persons whose deaths had once been delayed by food, medicine, and forbidden techniques.

The couple of particularly portly ones had been a real joy to recreate as bloated monstrosities with half their flesh caving in, and I brought them all to stand up in all their grotesque glory. Even though I’d made them, I kind of had to agree with the audience that ghouls were really nasty. I’d always be glad that I could just burn them to cinders at a distance, unlike Gramps who had to get in close, and he was avidly clapping alone among my mostly petrified reception as he called out to me,

“Great job with the ghoulies, Princess!”

Ahh.. at least I’d made somebody happy with my prettified ghouls; well, these ones didn’t smell at least. Anastasia turned with her arms crossed to glance at the wholly emerged dead, and she continued her performance on with a new element of disgust and hatred oozing out from her voice to a pretty good effect,

“No matter how we choose to live our life: our death was decided from before our birth. Ours is a fragile existence, one fated to suffer and die, and fighting this inevitable fact beyond reason is beyond futile! We must make the most of every moment we have. As such,”

Anastasia lifted her veil, and though I’d just been riding the high built from the fruition of my efforts: my heart sank as I realized what her overwide smile probably represented. I hastily rebuilt the construct I’d meant for Gramps earlier, but I was too slow as she turned back towards the audience and brightly began to sell herself,

“if you’d like to adopt someone as adorable as me you’d better do it soon! Every moment counts! You really never know what might happen! It’s only reaso-”

I hated to do it, but I snatched away the air her voice had been resounding from, and voiding the flow of air from in front of her took much more aether out of me I’d expected. I’d probably screwed it up a bit in my haste, and I even staggered a little from a weakness that immediately pervaded through each of my joints. Anastasia’s mouth continued to move for the moment before I could bring her form and all the risen ghouls back into the obscurity of darkness.

After a moment of silence that hopefully demonstrated to Anastasia, and perhaps some of the louder members of the audience for that matter, my ability to silence a person: I let the air I’d held back go, and it created a brief gust as it rushed back in to fill the emptied space. Despite the returned darkness, I could hear that the monastery was at once alight with chatter and applause… so much for making an impact there, but at least Anastasia was quiet again.

In the darkness, a figure appeared before me dragging a pouting Anastasia behind him. Luca was always so reliable like this, and after he pulled our rogue actress into the dormitory, he turned to give me a once over and asked, 

“Should I take over for the third act, Ma?”

Although I was feeling pretty exhausted, I shook my head anyways and said to him,

“You know, I think I’ll manage, but I’d love it if you stood by just in case. Can you, though?”

Luca shrugged at me and answered,

“He’s stable enough, and we can’t really do anything more until later.”

Luca stepped past me as he went over to where Natalie was checking the costumes of the four remaining girls before they went on. The last kids were all to go on in a batch, and from within the blackness of the main room I could hear Nico clearing his throat. The chatter in the audience gradually faded out, and Nico’s voice came to resound in the resulting silence,

“In this manner, His lifeblood beats within us all, and shall forever wash clean man’s mistakes from this Earth. We must always take heart in this fact.”