There's no pride in this life. There is nothing the Council can give me that'll make me entertain the idea of helping them in this crusade. I have no attachments here. I have no reason to try.

Nothing to believe in.

Stuffy know-it-alls such as him grasped onto the material belief of the next point of progress, but he barely found the motivation to take the next step, to 'play with fire' as people claimed he had a penchant for doing. Primordial fire was not a simple element to employ. From the birth of its flames — to the remnants of its ashes. It had a purpose, to be sure, as all things in the world would have from start to finish. Him? He was unlucky to have magic dictated by the people who sought only its use. People decried his luck for it. Another curse. Moonlight shed through the half-open blinds of the window, in the silence of the apothecary below the alchemist's store. The cobbled floor glowed silver, and he held out the ashes in his palm, to catch the dregs of the night. He straightened out his staff, where the ebony wood curled around the opal conduit. His grip slipped off of it, where it remained straight, unwavering as the old tree the seed came from. Phial uncorked, he poured out the ashes of the Council's ultimatum.

Dust mixed across the conduit and hovered in a magnetic pull, split in two different directions. Ashen rings. He grabbed his staff into his hands. Power coursed through his ears, and he tapped the bottom against the moonlit stone. Let the cover of night spread the ashes. He brought the conduit close to the ground, and focused on the dwindling fire inside his veins. The rings scattered when he swiped the air, a shimmering lie of moonlight. He retracted his staff when the conduit glowed, and he got to work while the spell took its hold.

For an occasion such as this, he readied his good travelling cloak and bag long before he received the message from the Council. They were nothing if not utterly predictable. Another lie to call it interesting, their penchant for doing exactly what he predicted. In truth, it bored him. He grabbed light reads for the road — if one considered a five-hundred page monolith of several variants of medicinal herbs native to Abraxa and their uses a light-read at all. Though within the tower's library sat tomes of magic theory that reached thousands of pages. He had to memorize those, paper-cut curses notwithstanding. Quite an impossible task, but the weight of expectations broke the best of Magi — broke their potential before it had time to bloom.

It can't break something that was already a little too shattered to begin with.

He grew numb to it all.

Buttons done, he adjusted the cuffs of his travelling cloak and kept his bag of goods at his hip, where the strap wrapped around his shoulders. Things he couldn't afford to leave behind to shatter the illusion of the ashes he spread along the room. Any remnants of sentimentality scattered as dead embers. Unable to create a campfire, let alone a Great Inferno to end the world. He drew his hood up to hide himself away from the problems refusing to leave him alone, and left the apothecary and into the night. Abraxa slept soundly in the housing districts, but the markets never quite slept for those with the same night-owlish ways he employed. I just need to get out of the main heart of the city. I'll keep drifting. He tucked himself into his shoulders and trained his gaze at his boots, a slow crawl to the quietest parts of the sprawling labyrinthe of white streets. A city to never end, but he knew the extent of their walls. Knew how to slip away without detection, but until the message, had no reason to try.

That's what happens when you play with fire. You can still get burnt by a single ember. His pace quickened at the fresh breeze in the cloudless sky. A walk to clear the head and to escape the problems they continued to saddle him with. He checked behind him, the path empty of people. Lights dimmed inside houses for the outreach of night, the colours of twilight long gone. Stars sprinkled across the abyss and tangled across distant auroras. Flames all around him. Desert suns. Reyes squeezed his brow when the pain intensified into a headache of inconvenience, but he pushed through his lack of sleep. He'd get some out of the claws of the Abraxa Magi Republic, out of the thumb of their chosen nags who believed him the answer to their issues — issues born of ignorance and a refusal to change their ways.

Not that he was any better, but he never claimed to not be a hypocrite.

A stuffy know-it-all and a hypocrite.

Gods.

Reyes pressed his index and thumb into the bridge of his nose to push out the pressure in his cheeks. Rivers to douse what little embers left in him. Air brushed against his face, and he found himself adrift at his first hurdle. The walls of the capital city. Watchtowers sat along the line, to the closest gatehouse leading outside — the last thing he needed were guards preventing his escape into the wider world. He came closer to the stone. Wards rippled and tied it all together on a level those unpracticed, or even normal Magi, could never hope to break the thread apart, but if there was technique he learned over his life, it was how to thread needles. Staff in his hands, he came closer to the hum of energy, the woven blanket of magic to add another layer to the stone wall. He raised his fingers to the tendrils, and twirled it around his hand to pull himself through to the other side, through the stone as his conduit glowed with magic. Out of the confines of Abraxa, he slipped out his map to double check his destination.

Whiteraven, a quaint little town on the edges of Tervale and Abraxa both — though its actual quaintness was left to experience when he arrived to it, having been there himself save for a long time ago, a faded, burnt memory. If there was any freedom he had to gain, he'd find it in the no man's land between the terse countries, a boat to the other continent, the edge of the desert called Zurisal. As long as the moon stayed in the sky, the ashes would cover his tracks, but the spell wouldn't last any longer than the gloam before morning. I need to find a carriage, and make sure they don't ask any questions. He flipped out his bag of crowns to count them out in his palm, hidden in the shadows of the wall he walked through. It'll have to do me for the trip. Though he barely trusted himself not to act on impulse to throw his crowns at whatever caught his fancy, he tucked the pouch of crowns into his bag, out of accessible reach until he needed to pay someone off to pretend he didn't exist.

Starborn's with a name became infamous in a lot of words. The thought of changing his name crossed his mind, but it left a bitter taste in his mouth to consider the notion. A name was all he had left of the desert suns, and he was loath to let people who wanted to use him take that away from him. I'd much rather give it to a fairy. Whatever mischief they'll concoct will surely be more entertaining than having my name used as a badge of power for others with the lack of sense. He kept himself hidden in his hood to step onto the path to the closest town to Abraxa. With a little luck, he could strong-arm a carriage to carry him halfway to Whiteraven.

Though, his penchant for bad luck didn't instill a sense of enthusiasm in him.

'You can't run forever, Reyes Drazir.'

I sure can try though. Your problems are yours. I am not a cop out for them. I don't care enough. I don't believe enough. You can't pay me enough to care about whatever inane issue you have. Wherever life's current swept him, he resolved to land feet first instead of on his head, disoriented. Crowns clinked on his hip, but he swaddled himself in his traveling cloak and sped up before the morning light crawled over the horizon. Another burden to add. His body needed as much sleep as a regular Magi, if not more, and he hadn't slept a wink since the meeting with the Magi Council about the two Tervalen princes.

They'll figure it out, not my problem.

Lamplight guided him into the small town nestled in the forest. Music rang out from the tavern off to the side of the road, where people's shadows danced in drunk merriment through the night. His saving grace, a carriage driver sat on their seat, dozing off from the tilt to their head. He wandered up to them, then said, "Oi."

The driver lifted their head with a weary blink. "What?"

Reyes held out some crowns, a tempting taste for some. "I need to get to Whiteraven as fast as possible."

"Do you know what time it is, fellow? I'm trying to get some shut-eye before I move on around Abraxa." The driver folded their arms and made a deliberate attempt to ignore him.

"It is currently moonpeak," Reyes said. "Is the trip to Whiteraven so above your abilities?"

"It's called I haven't slept, Magi."

"Ah, we're of one mind then." Reyes threw the bundle of coins straight into his lap, and the driver groaned and grabbed the reins to his horses, who huffed in confusion, awoken from their own slumber. If anything, he felt worse for them than he felt for the driver, but the taste of freedom drew him out of the iron claws of the council, too close for his comfort. "You don't even have to get me all the way there. About halfway will do me enough." He left no room for argument to climb inside, but hesitated to lean around. "And if you wanted your beauty sleep so badly, you should've slept in the tavern — people wouldn't ask you to carry them everywhere. It's not like it's your job or anything."

The driver threw an obscene gesture his way, but didn't attempt to remove him by force. Reyes settled himself on the seat to dig deeper into his cloak as the horses' hoofbeats clopped against the gravel. Map flattened against his lap, he traced the inky lines of the area of focus. Abraxa's capital sat in the middle of its borders, with Tervale stretching upwards and through the painted mountains. Outside the window, the tower gleamed in the moonlight, a bright falsity to the underbelly beneath. A single path of isolation forced upon him by his magic, and no amount of belief sparked the fires of the plane it burned.

It left him a dead piece of coal, good for nothing but kindling for the next flame. Stupidity abound, he stretched his legs out to take up the most space without any extra baggage before folding his hands in his lap. Sleep called out his name of power, but he fought off its own need to nip at his heels. He rested his elbow against the window to rest the side of his head in his other palm. Moonlight weaved through the thick oak forests of Abraxa. Its shield rose high into the sky, a well-worn carriage trail guided them out of view of Abraxa, around the flowing knolls, and he dared to let himself relax with the fires from the watchtowers out of sight, but never enough to let his guard down until he spotted the hue of Whiteraven.

If I can reach it without issue, I'll be free to do what I wish, float upon the breeze if that is what Fate decrees for me. He pulled out one of the books he packed — a strange sense of sentimentality. One thing he refused to let out of his sight. A simple children's tale told underneath the frozen nights among the sands and oasis'. Admittedly, a little childish of him at twenty-three suns old, but it was a gift.

It was rude to discard gifts.

And he was loath to let this particular story burn to ashes with the remains of what he remembered of her voice before the wildfire raged and stole him from underneath the desert suns.