After escaping from the swarm of golems that had followed them for days, Cleo and her friends spent the time on the airship catching their breath, resting and preparing for the next section of their journey. She was surprised when Law brought them out of the minor world he had made, and even more so when they ended up not only in a safe place, but also on a ship with people crewing it. She could not believe that anyone had actually survived the horror that was the mana eating soldiers of Qema Firus.
It was only when she sat down with Captain Grikor that she heard about the natural barrier that was formed by the bottomless marshes and the Deliverance Plateau. The fact that nature could block such bizarre monstrosities did not really sit well with Cleo, in fact she found it profoundly unbelievable, but when she saw the fortress that had been made to defend the bluff from the stone soldiers was relatively untarnished she relaxed a little. There was only weather-wear on the stones, and the mana here was positively affluent compared to the mana that had been in the region before. She was worried that the golems would one day tire of the sparse mana and move on, desperately. Law had said they were like some kind of hive mind, that they communicated with each other, and that the whole was far, far smarter than the parts. It would not take them too long to realise that the mana of the region was quickly drying out.
The land Cleo had come from was considered an impenetrable fortress by most, and was the bastion of safety within Biqiril before the soldiers had swarmed and killed everyone inside it. It was near impossible to get in and out of without the use of ships, be it flying or seafaring, so for the moment the world was safe from the golems. They would not attempt to leave the peninsula of Biqiril before they realised that the mana had run out, sadly it was only a matter of time before that happened. Perhaps they were already looking for a way, but whatever their plan was it had obviously not succeeded yet, which allowed Cleo to relax for a while.
The fortress was their first point of defense, but was not their final stopping point. Captain Grikor insisted on taking the whole group to the headquarters of the anti-stone soldiers organisation that had been set up in the wake of the catastrophe. Biqiril’s greatest minds came together and began working within a mountain base to find anything to end the threat that was breathing down their backs. The entire building complex was set up by the man in white that Law talked to constantly. For some reason the attention that Law was showing over the man infuriated Cleo. She didn't understand why he would spend so much time talking to a random man and not his friends. It was not like the man would come with them when they left these lands. Every time she thought that way she had to take a deep breath. It was unbecoming of a lady, even if she was no longer a member of the Ignis family. The feeling she was experiencing was something that her grandmother would have frowned upon, even though she never really treated Cleo much better than any of the other children in the clan.
As she stared at the quickly approaching fortress Cleo relaxed. They were finally out of the clutches of the horrifying golems, but she only truly felt safe when she reached the first real bastion on the thriving civilisation of this world, the one that was still thriving despite everything that she had seen the monstrosity do back over the mountain range. The fact that someone could create a creature that consumed mana horrified her beyond speaking, because the implication was that those creatures could destroy mana. They could do something innately that not even masters of the Book of Destruction could perform. The thought alone would send her into a slight sweat, but the cool, mana-rich wind would calm her down. She felt the wind brush past her as she relaxed and let the world pass her by. The rippling streams of air lifted her hair and let it flicker wildly behind her, making her look much like the figurehead on the prow of the ship itself.
As her form cut through the air, she began realising something. She had never had much of an issue with earth and air as elements of understanding, but water was her weakness. Everything about it escaped her, simply because her family was so predisposed to their natural understanding of fire. She could not look at water because it was her natural opposite, but she could look at earth and air. She could understand those, and as she let the air rush by her with the earth miles beneath she slowly began to realise that the earth and the air, while natural opposites on the four points of the chaos star, they were not actually opposites. Just because they never truly touched, they still both had roles they needed to perform to keep the world working. Earth gave the world form, but without air there was nothing to breathe. Without air, there could be no life on the earth, but at the same time without the earth, the air was lifeless, stale and inert. The air could not rush through a mountain, but it could wear one down given enough time. There was give and take in all elemental relations, and the epiphany Cleo had just gleaned from the feel of the wind and the sight of the earth quickly rose to a fever pitch. She could see everything that connected the earth and the air, and her vision was quickly coming to a connection with the concept of fire. Both could feed and smother fire with equal strength, both needed heat and movement to be anything more than they were, and yet could also be consumed and destroyed by the flame.
With each moment there were new revelations popping into her head like bubbles, moving through her mind and letting her understand even more about the surroundings she experienced. The moment of enlightenment only ceased when there was a thud and the ship grounded itself within the spotless fortress, signifying they had completed the first section of their journey and that it was time to disembark. They funneled off the ship one at a time, with Jim kissing the ground beneath them as he removed himself from the ship. Cleo smiled, he had taken to turning up on the flying ship the worst, with severe sickness from the incessant rocking that only he seemed to experience. He claimed that thanks to an extremely sensitive inner ear, his sense of balance was set completely off kilter by the odd rocking that the ship made in flight, but as no one else experienced the same sickness as him there could be no corroboration. Cleo thought that his reaction upon landing was rather believable for someone who was more scared out of their mind than sick, however.
As she stepped off the ship and onto the ground she felt a rushing of energy through her. The other side of her moment of enlightenment came to fruition and there was a bursting sensation within her. She felt her aura improve by a whole fold and then again as Fenrir’s form within her spirit reservoir seemed to warp and change. He was still the same giant dog within her, but there seemed to be three colours within him now instead of the single colour flame that he had been made of before. She gazed in wonder within her as she began to realise that this was almost her final form when it came to the Book of Chaos. She had become one with three elements, and if she could do it with the fourth, then she would ascend to Heaven. There was a snap within her as Fenrir’s change completed and she began to feel that what had escaped her was no longer so mystical or distant. She could see that with a couple of years of focus she would without a doubt be able to make that final leap and put the detractors of the Ignis clan to shame. She could not help but swell with pride at the thought, grinning slightly as she strode away from the ship, back tall and full of purpose. She saw Law looking at her as she walked, with an odd look on his face. His eyes were wider than normal and she could tell he had been looking at her for a while. She wondered why.
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