The Trial of Strength: And I Shall Move the World

Prompt: Depict your Aqrion proving their strength while clearing debris from the cave in

Word Count: 1797

 

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There was a subtle change in the way Erestel interacted with Asbjorne. He tried to reflect back, figure out when this change occurred. It hadn’t been sudden, he realized, it’s been happening slowly over the course of his life. He had simply only now noticed it when he had been away from her side for days and she didn’t comment when he returned. When he was a pup, he couldn’t be out of her sight for longer than thirty minutes before she sought him out. 

She laid in the elder’s wing of the ice caves. It was quiet and the elders kept to themselves. Or perhaps they simply avoided Erestel, Asbjorne thought as he noted that old toothed singers and other polars would convene during the day to play low energy games and reminisce. He wondered if perhaps it had something to do with her and him being strangers, but that was shot down when an elder invited him to a game and spent hours telling him stories to pass down some wisdom.

He didn’t get back to the den that he had carved out of the ice until late at night. Erestel was sleeping, perhaps napping. She raised her head to his presence, but said nothing. Asbjorne laid next to her side and rested his head in his flippers. He hadn’t realized before that he was almost as large as she.

“G’night,” he bid her knowing he wouldn’t get a response back. But that was okay, he knew she loved him even if she never said it.

He knew not of what he could have dreamed that night when he was roused by a deep rumbling in the ice. Asbjorne perked his head at the disturbance. It became especially unnerving when Erestel had awoken through her slumber. Frequently, glaciers and ice sheets would collide, creating shrill songs that echoed throughout the sea. But this was different. This was close.

Erestel left the cave to investigate. She hadn’t protested like she once did when Asbjorne followed along. They weren’t the only ones checking out the commotion. Many elders had left their dens and crowded the open areas. There were murmurs in the makeshift pod as everyone wondered what happened. Even in this situation, Asbjorne watched as other aqrion shied away from Erestel.

The largest tunnel had caved in. While there were some indirect tunnels that the polar aqrion could travel through, the toothed singers would be stuck. There were already a few polars scraping away at the ice that tumbled, but Asbjorne could see that their age had made them less efficient than they could have been.

Asbjorne looked to Erestel for a moment. He could see the worry, subtle as it was, on her face. He turned to look over his shoulder where he could see the toothed singer elder who invited him to a game earlier in the week was drifting. He looked on the verge of tears as he talked about not being able to see his grandchildren. Asbjorne scanned the crowd and found that he was probably the most able bodied.

He left Erestel’s side and joined the elders at the blockage. He used his tusks as he had done several times before to scrape away at the ice. It was thicker ice, but his tusks were strong. With his clawed flippers, he channeled his ice magic to thaw off chunks. The elders slowly backed away, seeing how much more Asbjorne was able to get done than they were.

“Willing to handle this, sonny?” one of the polars asked. Asbjorne looked at the task before him. The tunnel was far larger than anything he’d ever carved before.

“You don’t need to do the whole thing.” the polar added. “Just enough to let the toothed singers through.”

“I’ll do it.” Asbjorne confirmed. 

“Lua bless your soul.” the elder thanked. “And may Proluo give you the strength you need.”

Within the hour, he managed to dig a hole big enough for him to squeeze all the way through if he laid his spines down flat and sucked his gut in. He considered getting some help, but there was a strong sense in his mind or soul or both that he needed to do this alone. 

It would take him three days to clear out the ice and another week to pull away the smaller boulders that came with the collapse. Plenty of room for the elder polars to swim through with no discomfort. Even sea skimmers could make their way through if they really needed to. But a large stone, easily thirty feet round, stood in the entryway, still making passage for the toothed singers impossible.

Despite this, the emergency of the situation had passed. With the polars freely able to move through the main tunnel, they were able to bring food back for the trapped tooth singers. There was help on the way to move the boulder, a giant aqrion from the nearest town who had earth magic. He did everything he could and he was given praise, but it didn’t sit right in Asbjorne’s soul. 

For many hours a day, he struggled against the boulder. Shoving his shoulder against it. Trying to carve around it. Anything to get it to move, but it wouldn’t budge. Many aqrion would approach him, tell him it’s fine. He’s done enough. Asbjorne didn’t believe this. He hadn’t done enough. He didn’t do everything he could. He felt it, deep in his soul- he wasn’t done. He needed to do this.

Erestel was there for him, in her own way. She watched from afar as the young polar she raised struggled against this obstacle. Asbjorne desperately shoved against the boulder in the final hours before help would arrive. He grunted and groaned, shoving all of his weight and muscle against it. And then he gave up, letting all of his muscles loosen. He floated pathetically in the water, upset and not even sure why.

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” Erestel had moved to Asbjorne’s side. It wasn’t often that she would talk to him. Often she’d demonstrate the skill Asbjorne would need in life and have him repeat it. For her to give advice, cryptic as it sounded to him, it was something he could do that she couldn’t.

“What do you mean by that?” Asbjorne asked, knowing well that she wouldn’t give a straight answer.

“You have everything you need to pass this trial.” Erestel answered. She gave Asbjorne a familiar look, one she gave him every time he felt like he faced an impossible task. Asbjorne looked back to the boulder as Erestel retired back to their den. He drifted to the seafloor as he reflected on her words.

He frowned as he looked at a few stones he had pulled away earlier with brute force. They were heavy and large, and strained the capacity of his strength. Asbjorne created a plank of ice and placed it on a smaller stone, tipped it down and rolled one of the larger stones onto one end. Once it seemed secure, he swam to the other side suspended in the air and shoved down. With some effort, the stone on the other end lifted.

With some experimentation, Asbjorne learned that the effort to lift the stone with this seesaw method was reduced when the fulcrum was placed closer to the load. Now to apply this to a larger scale. He took several minutes finding a suitable stone to act as a fulcrum to the thirty foot boulder. And then took several more building another ice plank. Not only did it have to be larger, Asbjorne put in the effort to make sure it was compact to make it as sturdy as possible.

In the tunnel, he set up the stone and the plank, digging a little under the boulder so that it would fit. Everything was ready and with not much time to spare before the stone magic aqrion arrived. He went to the other end of the seesaw and pushed his weight down. Barely, he felt the boulder shifting on the other side. 

Asbjorne didn’t make any progress when his muscles gave, making him slip and the boulder fell back into place. He rested on the plank, catching his breath and heaving. He moved it! Even if only a little bit, he moved it. With renewed vigor, he tried again. He shoved his weight down, pressing with all of his might. He felt the boulder shifting, trying to roll away from the plank he made.

He was halfway down to the ground when his muscles burned and ached. He felt his arms trembling, begging to let go. Just give up and let the other aqrion handle this. For a moment, Asbjorne swore he saw another aqrion with him- a subspecies he couldn’t identify.

“Breathe. Your muscles need oxygen.”

Asbjorne obeyed, inhaling deeply. His breath was shaky and his body began to tremble more. The plank was shaking with him. But he was able to delay how quickly the boulder pushed against him. A few more rounds of unsteady breathing, he took a final deep breath and pushed with all of his might. His end of the plank touched the floor and the boulder tipped off, rolling away from the entrance. He released a load and pained grunt before allowing his body to sink to the floor. The aqrion had disappeared before he could thank them.

 

 

Asbjorne followed Erestel as she left the wing that night. She didn’t tell him where she was going and she didn’t have to. He wanted to be by her side. Asbjorne hadn’t been paying attention to where she had been leading him.She had left the ice caves ands she began to swim out in the open ocean, he halted. 

Asbjorne didn’t want to leave the ice caves yet. Erestel swam on. At any moment, she would stop and call him to follow her. She was several yards away, soon to be out of earshot, but she didn’t stop swimming. Even if she expected him to swim after her, she would have slowed by now.

Asbjorne felt something- a lightness as everything clicked. It was time for them to go their separate ways. Erestel had taught him everything that he needed to survive. She was waiting for him to show that he could handle himself on his own and with this trial of strength- Asbjorne had proven himself.

“Good-bye, Mom,” he said more for himself than for her. She hated when he referred to her as such. Asbjorne knew the words couldn’t reach her, yet for a moment, he swore that she looked back at him. And smiled.