A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

Taking his eyes of the final door, Erik panned his gaze towards Eira. Her face was quite pitiful, and he couldn't help but summon some pity for her.

Luckily for her, he wasn't planning on insisting. He still wanted to see exactly what was behind that door, but there were other things that took priority.

So he nodded, "Alright, Eira, I wont ask you to open that door."

Relief flooded Eira's expression as her body sagged a little from released tension. "T— Thank you!" she smiled.

She also quickly recovered her enthusiasm and floated up to the spatial orb in the middle of the room. "So, uhm," she started a little unsure. "I don't know… what exactly happened to you since the awakening, or why you only arrived now, but you seemed interested in the affinity seed earlier. Does that mean you already know what it is?"

Erik smiled slightly. Elora knew quite a lot about the subject, but he wanted to hear if Audumla, or at least Eira, knew something they didn't. Or if Eira would lie to him about the specifics.

After all, there was one thing that Elora was particularly worried about regarding all this.

So he nodded slowly, "I have a general idea, but why don't you pretend like I have none and give me your explanation."

"Alright," Eira nodded, taking on a surprisingly serious expression. "Affinity seeds are rare treasures formed after being nurtured by a primordial source of one such affinity for thousands or tens of thousands of years."

Naturally, those among them who were still used to pre-awakening periods of time were unable to properly imagine anything taking that long to form apart from actual planets.

Eira held up her hand and conjured a visual aide in the form of a small plant seed floating above her hand. "After it is formed, such a seed supposedly has a great many uses, but personally, I only know of the one Mistress used it for: inducing an affinity in a newborn."

As she continued, she changed the projection on her to match her words. "When merged with a newborn soon after birth, the affinity seed will suppress whatever affinity the newborn was originally supposed to have, and replaces it with its own.

But, this only works if the newborn actually lives in an aetherium-rich environment. If this requirement is not met, the seed will simply lie dormant until activated by aetherium."

Her face lit up with pride when she continued, "Mistress figured out a way for these dormant affinity seeds to be passed on to a carrier's firstborn child, which is how this particular affinity seed ended up with you, Harbinger."

Returning to a serious tone, she explained further, "However, since it has the spatial affinity, your seed works slightly differently.

Anyone with the spatial affinity has a personal dimension within themselves from which they actually draw their power, but this dimension simply appears naturally when someone is born with that affinity. Unfortunately, with a spatial seed, a catalyst is needed to form that dimension, before you can access the affinity."

At this point, she squashed the projection in her hand, and a wide smile appeared on her face as she spread her arms to indicate the space around her. "And, well, ta-da!" she giggled. "Guess what we're standing in!"

Eira looked like she had been practicing this particular speech for quite a long time, just like she likely had with her entire tour. Having finished it, she looked quite proud of herself, making Erik chuckle.

So far, Eira hadn't said anything he and Elora didn't know already. That said, this did finally offer an explanation about why Erik didn't have an affinity before he met Elora. A problem that was solved by Elora giving him the Raiju and winter wolf bloodlines, but one that had confused them to this day.

Erik's original affinity, whatever it was, had simply been suppressed by the spatial affinity seed. At the same time, a spatial affinity seed was usually only marginally connected to its host, as it existed in what could only be described as the larval form of a separate dimension.

A larval form that should sprout into something real with the help of a catalyst like, for example, the spatial orb in front of him.

Yet, there was a problem. Something that Eira hadn't mentioned so far, either because she didn't realize, or because Audumla had ordered her not to.

"So, come on, come on," Eira almost bounced up and down in excitement with a wide smile on her face. "Touch the orb, and we can start merging it with you, so that you can make this dimension yours and start using the spatial affinity!"

She puffed up her sizable chest in pride and looked at Erik with confidence as she continued, "You'll have me as a companion to help you manage our dimension and home while you find Mistress!"

Erik looked at her with a complicated gaze, before sighing. Eira was confused about his apparent reluctance, so her pride deflated a little and she used her large, innocent eyes to look at him with a slightly worried gaze.

His brows furrowed, "Eira… do you realize what you're asking of me?"

Eira's eyes shifted back and forth, a mix of genuine confusion and worry evident on her face. "I— Y— Yes? I thought you liked my home? And... don't you want to unlock your affinity?"

"I do, and I do," Erik replied, nodding. "But it's not that simple. This place relies on essentially two things: the structure and the dimension. They're not the same; your home exists within the dimension but isn't part of it. If I absorb the dimension, yes, it will become mine, but the structure will still essentially be yours."

While Elora had severely limited her use of omnisense, she'd still been able to pick up on the massive amount of sigils encapsulating the entire structure by the sheer power they gave off.

Many of those sigils were unfamiliar to Elora, leaving her unsure of their purpose. And that didn't even consider the sigils missed or those shielded against conventional detection methods.

The main issue was that all those sigils, and the entire structure, were under Eira's control.

And that, unfortunately, wouldn't change if Erik absorbed the dimension…