005: Pure Again Daylight- Chapter 3

[beautifultragedy]

Fandom: Breath of Fire
Story: Pure Again
Summary: Very Bad Things happen when rogue demigods try to reverse time.

 

From the Eyes of the Father

 It didn’t take long at all for someone to find me. He was a young man, a little younger than I- around his mid to late twenties, I guessed, in human years. Then again, that was simply an appearance: he wasn’t human. No human could have naturally blue hair. “Thank goodness,” he said, running a hand through his hair in a gesture of relief. “I was starting to panic, Destined Child. I was starting to think you really had been destroyed in the disaster.”

 “Disaster…” I said carefully, looking at him. “What exactly happened?”

 “Someone tried to reverse time.” The way this man said it, brushing it aside as unimportant, was almost comical. As I was about to point out that no one could do that, it was a pitiful waste of magic to try, so that couldn’t have been what happened, the man smiled. “It kind of is unimportant at the moment, Ryu. The fact that the end result of that attempt is the utter destruction of mortals is what’s important right now.”

 “Wait, what? The utter destruction of mortals?”

 “Yes, it sounds ridiculous. This particular goddess is only a demigoddess; her attempt should have done nothing at all. At worst it should have exhausted her. First things come first; we need to figure out how the hell she did this, and then we need to figure out how to undo it.”

 I’d seen some very strange things in my time, but this blew my mind. “Okay. So the situation is that someone tried to reverse time, but rather than actually reversing time or exhausting her, it destroyed the world.”

 “That’s the gist of it, yes.”

 “How?!”

 “Did you not hear the part where I said we have to figure that out?” the man retorted.

 I put a hand to my head, reeling. “Okay. You don’t know how this demigoddess managed to destroy the world. Or rather, of mortals,” I said, realizing that he likely hadn’t used that specific word to mean “the world.” “So if mortals were ‘utterly destroyed’, how am I here?”

 “The Destined Child is divinity as well as mortal,” he replied, without hesitation. “There is, however, another mystery involving that. Another mortal is here, although he should have been annihilated along with the rest of mortals.”

 “Who?”

 “Your son.”

 Relief lanced through me as he soothed a fear that had been only subconscious, until that moment. Garr had survived this catastrophe, whatever it was. But he shouldn’t have, if I was to believe this man. “So,” I asked next, “why exactly should I believe you?”

 “You don’t recognize- of course you don’t,” he muttered. “You’ve only seen inaccurate depictions of my draconic form. Well,” he said directly to me, raising his voice to a normal volume again. “It certainly has been rude of me to carry on this conversation like this, without introducing myself. My name is Ladon, Destined Child. And this is Infinity. Welcome.”

 ~*~

 Ladon- or the man who claimed to be the Dragon God- led me through the star-speckled darkness to a great palace, built entirely of obsidian and fire opal. There were four spires on each corner of the fortress-like castle, each constructed of a different semi-precious stone: Amethyst, ruby, sapphire and jade. All but the amethyst tower was smashed and crumbling. Ladon saw my gaze, my inquisitive look, and said grimly, “Infinity, purgatory, the dream world, and the mortal world. All but Infinity, gone.”

 “Those towers represent the different planes of existence, then?”

 “Indeed.”

 I said nothing as Ladon led me into the palace; it was just as ruined inside as it had been outside. Whatever had happened, they’d felt it here. The marble floor was dusty from crumbled tiles fallen from the ceiling; a mural had fallen from its place on the wall of the hallway we walked through. Decorative silk screens and valances were torn and ragged. As we turned a corner, I saw a mahogany table, upended, the contents of its drawer spilled on the floor beneath the remains of a flower vase, the strange and unfamiliar flowers strewn about the ruins.

 The hallway led to a set of great, oaken doors, gilded with gold and platinum; he gestured at them and the doors opened before him. These doors led into a huge chamber and it, too, was in ruins. Standing in the center of the room, around an altar-like table, were several other beings. A blue-haired girl with great, snow white wings mounted on her back; a heavy-set, muscular woman with jet black hair and dark skin; a youngish-looking man, brown eyes and brown hair that reached halfway down his back, and a man who looked like a wolf, yet on two legs and the glitter of high intelligence in his eyes; a boy- girl?- with earthy green eyes and dark brown hair down to his shoulders. And Deis and... and... "Myria," I hissed, every nerve in my body suddenly screaming.

 Everyone in the room turned to me in alarm as Myria looked at me, surprised at my tone. I started to move forward, intending to finish the job I'd clearly left unfinished nearly two decades ago. "Easy, Ryu," said Ladon. He laid a hand on my shoulder as he spoke, restraining. "She's no threat to anyone."

 I wanted to tell him to shut up and I wanted to attack Myria- I could have sworn she was dead- but I also felt compelled to obey him. Myria just fixed me with a sad, sympathetic look. I scowled at her.

 "I wonder why Teepo isn't back yet," the blue-haired girl said softly. I started at the name, a thousand questions in my mind.

 "He will be back, Mina,” Ladon said. "He'll get tired of looking for Ryu eventually."

 "Who are all of you?" I interrupted, my voice blank, and Ladon chuckled.

 "I still haven’t remembered my manners yet! Ryu, meet Mina, Karn, Bo, Namanda, and Yggdrasil- you know my daughters already, Deis and Myria."

 I stared at him. He'd just named all of the Gods, except Evan, Death and the Phoenix. "You’re serious,” I said in a deadpanned voice. “Someone did just destroy the world.”

 The one Ladon indicated was Yggdrasil spoke: “That isn’t quite accurate. The mortal plane hasn’t been destroyed, it’s gone," he said with a helpless shrug of his shoulders, "and so are the other planes of existence; this is the only one left. And no one knows how this happened," he concluded, sounding very puzzled and concerned. And then, hurt: "Our companions are gone, too. I can't feel them anywhere."

 "Peco?" I said cautiously, recognizing his voice somehow. The boy nodded, smiling sadly, and I stumbled forward to embrace him; he returned my embrace eagerly, laughing.

 "It's been a long time, Ryu," he said softly.

 "Indeed it has. You're not an onion anymore." I laughed as he swiped at my arm. And then his explanation hit me. "Our companions are gone?" I asked, bewildered. He nodded. My stomach twisted. "As in, dead?"

 "No. As in, never existed."

 My jaw dropped. "How?"

 "We don't know yet," Ladon repeated, again, his tone grim rather than annoyed this time. "We're hoping that little hellspawn grandchild of mine can answer it, since you don't know..."

 Myria sighed. "Why do you hate her, Father?"

 "I don't hate her, you just have a habit of producing unbalanced children, that's all."

 "Well, I'm sorry I don't meet your standard of perfect parenting, Ladon."

 Ladon snapped. "Yes, Myria, I messed up," he hissed. "And I admit it, and I have apologized to you over and over and over and I've begged you not to repeat the mistakes I made with you! Yet you continuously damage Evan and Serra-"

 "Do not bring my son into this!" she cut him off loudly. "You damaged him more than I ever did! I didn't destroy his body and isolate his soul!"

 "And neither did I," Ladon said, his voice low. "Evan did that himself."

 I was stunned by this show of temper on both their parts, almost as much as the other deities in the room, who looked at each other nervously. Karn averted his eyes. "Please don't bring up Evan," he said softly, and Deis laid a hand on his shoulder as Bo nodded in agreement.

 There was a moment of awkward silence and then one of the great doors at the end of the hallway banged open. "Lookie what I found! Can I keep him?" The newcomer looked from Ladon to Myria. "Uh-oh... Someone's been arguing." His gaze fell on me the instant I recognized him, and as the youth he'd brought with him to that place came into the room behind him, Teepo strode forward and practically swept me up in his arms, hugging me with close to all his strength. I returned the embrace, and a tear tracked down my cheek.

 "Teepo- how?" I choked out. "I- you- we- I saw you die!"

 "Did you really think I'd give up to Death that easily?" he returned, and I could tell by his voice he was just as emotional as I was at that moment. "I'm hurt, brother."

 I pulled away from him, forcing a giggle to try to banish the tears. "We're gonna have to have a nice long chat," I said. "We have so much to talk about."

 "Agreed," he said simply, with a smile, and hugged me again.

  I looked past him at Garr, and as Teepo stepped away from me, I managed, "Are you all right?"

 He nodded, in a weird trance-like daze as he looked around. "This place is awesome," he murmured. "Have you seen it from the outside yet?"

 “Yes,” I replied. “It’s fantastic, isn’t it?"

 Just as Garr was taking my hand to help support me as we explored, a powerful yet gentle female voice chimed, "I wouldn't if I were you. She's decided to come here, and she's very, very angry."

She flipped a lock of raven black hair over her shoulder and looked over at the gods. "Did you find her, Mother?" Ladon asked eagerly.

 The woman nodded. "Yes; she was with Garr, until Teepo found them. I can't subdue her like I could Evan. She doesn't look up to me. She thinks I'm evil; I wasn't going to even try to communicate with her. But she's firmly convinced that you're responsible for this, my son."

 "Me?" Ladon said incredulously. "How does she figure? She's the little idiot who decided to try to reverse time!"

 "I don't know, but you're who she blames." The woman shrugged.

 "Death," Yggdrasil started uneasily. "She tried to reverse time- that's what did this?" He shook his head as Death nodded again. "Impossible. She doesn't have that power. It should have done nothing at all. She can't change time."

 "Well, it did do something."

 "Why would she, though?" Karn asked.

 "Apparently this one," Death explained, nodding her head in Garr's direction, "expressed a desire to see what would have happened if his parents had never broken up, and she took it upon herself to try to do that." Then it was my fault. Nina and mine's- but Nina wasn't around to take the blame anymore, was she? Guilt poured over me.

 A somber silence descended. "She's coming here?" Mina prompted. Again, Death gave the affirmative.

 "How about we go down to meet her, then?" the dark-skinned woman said quietly.

 ~*~

 We stood, waiting for the pale-haired child, in front of the Palace of the Gods- a name I'd called it and gotten several glares and Teepo muttering, "Shut up," so I guessed that it was a name that wasn't exactly liked in their ranks. I asked what they called it. I was greeted with silence.

 The air around us seemed hazy, almost tangible. And heavy. We stood just beyond a garden that literally sprang up from thin air; it was absolutely breathtaking, although Deis told me that the blossoms weren't supposed to be black; their abnormal color was another aftereffect of Serra's actions. But I marveled at how the petals sparkled. It was still the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

 Teepo and Ladon stood off to the side, arguing softly; clearly over the fate of the teen girl we were waiting for. Their voices rose steadily, although we all tried to ignore it, and Teepo finally shouted, "She's my daughter, Ladon!"

 "And my granddaughter!" he spat. "But we have no other choice!"

 "Like we had no choice on how to deal with my son," Myria interjected angrily.

 Karn raised his head and glared at her. "Myria," he said sharply, "what happened to Evan was your fault. And I still haven't forgiven you for it!"

 "Oh, who the hell asked you, Karn?!"

 "Stop bringing up our child as a guilt trip and I'll shut up. Until then-"

 "Silence!" Yggdrasil sshouted. And everyone was silent. I marveled. How much power did that little onion really have? He glared at the verbal combatants. "For shame. Evan's irrelevant to the situation."

 "Thank you, Yggdrasil," Karn said softly.

 "Shut up, Karn. He's irrelevant to the situation, but need I point out that you've turned him into a 'dirty little secret' as it is? No one's allowed to talk about him, to make sure that your feelings don't get tread on. We all loved him and miss him and none of us have been able to mourn, because of you." Karn's jaw and fists clenched but he offered no argument. "What do we intend to do with Serra?" Yggdrasil asked after a moment.

 "Seal her," Ladon replied flatly.

 Myria shook her head. "You've taken one of my children away from me. I won't let you take another-"

 Death was the one who interjected this time. "Unless you have an alternate plan, Myria, I suggest you try to leave your emotions out of this. Most of us know how hard it is for a parent to stop sheltering their children." Death cast a purposeful look at Ladon; he met her gaze for a moment, but quickly turned away. Death continued, "Serra has the mindset that she's on the same level as Yggdrasil and I. She doesn't understand that she's only a demigod. She can't do half of what the two of us can, or even what Ladon or Namanda or Deis or Myria can. Yet she insists that she can do more. She's dangerous, and we're not going to be able to tell her otherwise. Yggdrasil and I will restore the world; after she's out of the way. The ten of us have a lot of work to do to fix what she's done."

 "There are eleven of us," Garr said cautiously, probably guessing that he was the odd one out.

 Death turned her gaze to him. "You won't be doing anything, child," she said gently. "You're causing problems just by being here; your father is the only mortal alive who is also divinity," she explained, "so his presence here is not surprising, even expected, even though he most certainly is not a god. You, on the other hand, should not be here. You should have ceased to exist with the rest of the mortal world. And then there was your unexpected presence in my realm; you weren't supposed to die of Dragonplague. You should have survived it. But you didn't. We can't even let you go back to the mortal realm until we know why exactly you've caused such a disturbance."

 Garr didn't quite know how to take that. "I... I'm sorry- I didn't mean to-"

 "It's not your fault," Yggdrasil cut him off. "We know you mean no harm; you have one of the purest hearts to grace mortalkind, and I'm not exaggerating there," he said with a reassuring smile. "We don't even know if you're causing any harm. But even if you're not damaging anything, you're still disrupting the way things should be, and we need to know why and how to deal with it. Once we've done that, we'll send you back."

 Garr cast a hesitant glance at me; I nodded. "It's okay," I said weakly. "You... you're not in trouble. You haven't done anything wrong. It's all okay." He grinned, sickly, and I knew that I'd done little to appease his worries, and I wished that I had more experience in being a parent. Valerie had done most of the emotional parenting with Sorrow. I had no idea how to ease a child's mind.

 We didn't have to wait for Serra much longer; she announced her presence with a yell. "Who did this?!" she demanded, flouncing up angrily. She glared at us all. "Who screwed everything up?!"

 "You did," Ladon told her calmly.

 "Bullshit. I did nothing but use my powers-"

 "To try to do something you couldn't do," Yggdrasil said wearily. "Serra, we've been over this. Your powers don't extend very far. You're immortal and you can resurrect mortals, but that's it-"

 She laughed. "If you're telling the truth, and Grandfather's telling the truth, then how do you propose that I did this?" she asked with a wild gesture outwards to our surroundings.

 "By trying to use magic you don't have," Teepo snapped. We all knew that they had no idea how her doing that did this, but if they tried to explain that to her, she’d merely deflect responsibility; if it should have done nothing, it should have done nothing, and there was no way it could be her fault.

 Serra shuffled a foot, suddenly silent. "I wanted to help," she said finally.

 "By trying to undo time?" Death asked, arching a brow.

 Serra glared. “Well, since Garr wanted his parents to have never broken up,” she bit out, “how else do you propose that I could have done it?”

 I didn't know how I felt about that statement, having it put so bluntly. I ignored the chaotic mix of longing, flattery, hurt and confusion and focused on the conversation in front of me. "Serra," Myria said in a tired voice, "you could have handled that any other way. Seduce Ryu and dump him once Valerie was gone." I glared at her as she continued. "Convince Valerie that she didn't really love him, or that he didn't really love her. Or, if you wanted to do things the easy way, a simple love spell would have sufficed. You didn't have to reverse time to get them back together."

 "None of those options undoes what went wrong,” Serra replied, frustrated. “I could have, if I merely wanted them to get back together! No, I wanted them to have never broken up!”

 The Gods all exchanged looks; Namanda was the one who finally spoke, cautiously: "It's going to take us some time to undo the damage you did, Serra," she said, ignoring the girl’s insistence that there was nothing she could have done differently. "Can we trust you to stay out of the way?" Ladon grunted, a fist clenching, but he said nothing; sensing his discomfort, Namanda added: "If you interfere, we'll have to seal your power, at least until we're done, possibly longer."

 Serra shook her head. "No, reverse time. What happened wasn’t fair to Nina and Ryu, and it certainly wasn’t fair to Garr- he’s been punished for his parents’ follies enough.”

 "We can't do that, Serra," Teepo said.

 "Yes, you can! I read about it in your books, Father- the Creators can reverse time!" she replied stubbornly.

 Death gasped in exasperation. "Serra, we can't," she snapped. "Yggdrasil and I individually don't have that power. Together we don't have that power. We need Phoenix to do it!"

 "You 'need' Phoenix to maintain life in the mortal plane, too!"

  "Serra," Yggdrasil said in a soft voice. "Phoenix is still present. He's simply impotent. His physical body was destroyed and his magic was drained from him. All three of us are required to maintain any of the planes at any given time, yes, including Infinity. And all three of us are here. However," he said firmly, in a tone similar to one I'd often used when I needed to scold Sorrow, "he is impotent. He cannot do anything. That means that he cannot help with any magical workings that we may do."

 Serra looked as if she was going to argue with him further, but only for a moment, and then, quite cheerfully: "Okay. Fine, I'll stay out of your way."

 It was clear from their expressions that everyone but Garr and Myria didn't believe that she would; neither did I. So I was watching, very carefully, as we started talking about how exactly to go about reversing the damage she'd done, and I saw her treachery before anyone else did. "Ladon," I said, stepping away from them and towards her. With a wordless cry, she let loose her spell.

 I was able to stumble out of her spell's path, as were Death and Yggdrasil, but the others present weren't so quick, and her magic wove around them swiftly, forming a globe of energy around them. Death yelled in fury and moved to strike her, but Serra thrust out a hand, palm up. "One step closer and I'll crush them," she hissed.

 "What's to stop the Gods from destroying that field?" Yggdrasil demanded.

 Serra smiled sadly. "Garr." I felt my blood run cold as I limped to the edge of the field that encircled them; Garr put a hand against his side of the field, trying to look brave. I put my hand against his, and discovering that it didn't hurt, tried to push through; but I would have had better luck trying to push through a concrete wall. "You see, Garr is mortal. I may not be able to kill the Gods, only destroy their current physical bodies. But I can kill Garr. The force field is reflective, so perhaps if they were to attack it with magic from the inside, Grandfather and Namanda could survive physically, maybe, but no one else; and again, once Garr's dead, he's gone. None of them would risk his life, not knowing how he can be present here.

 "I had actually expected to trap all of you, and release just Death and Yggdrasil, but I underestimated you, Ryu," she continued in a musing tone. "But maybe this is a good thing. Death and Yggdrasil say that they need Phoenix to actually reverse time, but you are divinity; and if I could annihilate three planes of existence simply by trying to do so, I'd say that that's pretty powerful. Maybe the four of us could do it, together. You and I, Ryu, could make up for the power that Phoenix would provide."

 I looked at her over my shoulder. "And you could shove a spear up your backside, but we all know you won't do that," I snarled. "I will have no part of your little scheme to reverse time. What's done is done, and it's wrong to just take it all back on a regret and a whim."

 "Pity," she replied sadly. "You could have actually been a part of his life since his birth, Ryu," she said. "Can you imagine how happy that would have made you? But, I suppose you wouldn't change anything that you did, because that's the way things were meant to be. Isn't that right? You're a follower of destiny. Of course you wouldn't want to go back and do things differently, that's not how it was destined to be," she said slowly, as if she'd been struck by some kind of revelation. Then she shook her head. "It doesn't matter, Ryu. Look at your son. Your child." I obliged her; Ladon had wrapped his arms around Garr's shoulders protectively, even as the others glared at her in open defiance and anger; yet I still had yet to see one flicker of hatred amongst them, any of them. "Look at how your god is so protective of him. Look at how they all refuse to risk his life to save themselves."

 "Look at how we would if we knew how Garr could exist in Infinity," Myria said coldly.

 Serra laughed in response. "That's right! It's a purely selfish desire to protect him. Perhaps his death would be worse than having your bodies crushed until they're destroyed. But, now I wonder what would happen if he did die?" She twisted her outstretched hand slightly; Garr jerked, stumbled, and then gritted his teeth and lowered his head slightly, glowering at her defiantly. I watched in mute horror as his breath quickened, and his hands clenched into fists; within seconds, his fingernails dug so deep into his palms that a thin trail of blood seeped through his fingers. Then he broke, screaming in agony, writhing in Ladon's embrace as the god struggled to keep the young man on his feet.

 Frantically, I punched the field weakly, jarring my arm. "What are you doing to him?!" I screamed, glancing back.

 "I don't want to do this!" she responded.

 "Stop it! You're killing him!"

 "I know! I don't want to! Please- Ryu-"

 "Stop it!"

 Garr wrenched away from Ladon, throwing himself at the force field. "Serra!" Ladon yelled over Garr's tortured screams; Namanda, Teepo, and Mina were clearly trying to interfere with Serra's magic, but to no avail.

 "Ryu, please!"

 "All right!" I screamed. "I'll do it!" Serra jerked her hand back, wincing; Garr fell to the "ground", convulsing and moaning still as Myria and Deis knelt next to him; I felt multiple attempts to raise enough magic to heal him, individually, but it wasn't enough. "I'll do it," I repeated, feeling weak and defeated.

 Serra released her hold on the field just enough to let them heal Garr; Myria appeared to be helping with it, but then suddenly hurled herself at the shield. Serra gasped and threw off more magic, violently, reinforcing the barrier. Yggdrasil and Death were on her, then, and the words to Paralyze on my lips. Serra and the two Creators struggled for a few eternal moments. It seemed that she'd given up, and just when Yggdrasil and Death loosed their grip on her, thinking that they might be hurting her, she drew magic from the shield in an arch back at her. The two gods released her abruptly, yelping in surprise, and my concentration on my spell was broken as the magic struck me, as well. Before any of us could recover, Serra'd thrown all of her magic back into the force field, and stood panting. "That was stupid, Mother," she rasped. "Very, very stupid."

 "We've never reversed time, Serra," Yggdrasil said slowly, trying to reason with her again. "We don't know what will happen."

 Serra turned to him, near tears. "I don't care! Nina and Ryu had no right to deprive Garr of his family! It was a mistake! They all deserve another chance!"

 I was getting tired, and I felt so weak. I put my back to the force field and leaned against it, breathing heavily. "What about me, Serra? Don't I get a say in it? You're asking to do something that affects me, too! What if I don't want to be with Nina?"

 "But you do! I know it!" I'd struck a nerve with my question, it seemed, as the tears she was holding back suddenly erupted. "You're making it sound like I'm doing something horrible! Why do you hate me? If I'm so bad, then why did you trust me to stay out of the way in the first place?!" she shrieked.

 A flicker of pain etched across Death's face; Yggdrasil simply looked sad. "You're doing something against the will of those affected, and that's horrible, not your intentions. You just want to help. We don't hate you. If we hated you, we wouldn't have given you a chance. We trusted you because... We..." He couldn't find the words, clearly upset.

 To my surprise, Karn was the one who spoke: "We trusted you because we don't want to screw you up like we did to Evan."

 He had her attention. He had everyone's attention, now. Uneasily, he continued: "Your mother and the rest of us... we haven't always been on such good terms. In fact, most of the time, we're at odds; she has an... unconventional... philosophy." He took a shuddering breath. "I didn't know who she was when Evan was conceived. I did know when he was born. And because of who his mother was, I did as little as I could do, fearing him. Assuming that he would be just like her. He turned to the others, as he grew, looking for guidance. When he found none, he hated himself so much that he wanted to die, but he discovered that he could not. No matter what he did to his body, he would always exist, never be free of the pain we caused him. And then he went insane," Karn finished, a tear escaping his eye. "He wanted so badly to die that he felt that it was evil to continue life on the mortal plane- if life was so painful, wouldn't he be doing a favor to those who could die to end their torment? That's how he thought. Because none of us trusted him enough to even try."

 There was an uneasy silence, and then Namanda put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. From the sympathetic looks they all wore- except for Myria, who was weeping quietly- it was probably the first time he'd talked about it. But Evan had been sealed two Destined Cycles ago, and Karn was from the Cycle before that- how long had he kept that bottled up? And suddenly, the stories of the third Destined Cycle didn't seem fair anymore. Deathevn had been portrayed as pure evil.

 Serra took a few moments to absorb what Karn had just told her. "I'm not doing this out of pity for mortals," she said finally. "I'm doing it because the way things turned out wasn't fair. Ryu and Nina broke up because of someone else's error. That's not fair." She looked around. "So how about you let me prove that I'm not like my brother or mother?"

 "We're not going to help you reverse time, Serra," Yggdrasil said. "We don't know what will happen. We could blink us all out of existence. Everything could just cease to be, Serra. Everything."

 Serra gasped in exasperation. "I won't let it!"

 "You can't control that!" Death snapped.

 "I'm going to try with or without you!" Serra snipped back. We all watched grimly as she summoned her power, concentrating; Yggdrasil and Death both shook their heads, and I could tell by their expressions that she wasn't going to get anywhere on her own. Suddenly I felt a tug at my own magic, and Yggdrasil gasped. "What the hell do you think you're doing, girl?!" he demanded, as I choked in surprise.

 "He said he'd help," she said simply. The tug became a violent yank, and I gasped in sudden pain as she steadily drained my magic into her own.

 After a few moments, Teepo spoke: "Serra, stop it. Divine as he may be, Ryu's still a mortal and you will kill him if you try to do this."

 "I won't let him die," she responded. I felt thoroughly empty, now, void of magic, and yet there was another tug inside of me, and more draining.

 I rapidly became too weak to stand, my heart was racing and I couldn't seem to breathe deeply enough, no matter how hard I tried. I slid down against the force field. "What are you doing?" I murmured, feeling like I would fall asleep at any moment.

 "Serra, stop!" Death yelped in alarm. "He's out of magic! You're draining his life!"

 Everything started to sound faraway, hollow, and I closed my eyes. "So tired..." I could still hear shouting, but it sounded so distant. "Want to sleep..."

 "I can't! I can't control it anymore!"

 "Open your eyes, Ryu! Don't go to sleep!"

 "Serra, release the force field, you're trying to maintain too much at once!"

 "I can't! Help, please! I can't kill him! I-"

 "I'm losing him-"

 "Death, help me sever their connection!"

 "How is this possible?! We can't!"

 "Help!"

 "If we don't intervene now-"

 "I know, Yggdrasil. We have no choice-"

 The tugging on my soul slowed down, but continued. Frantic shouting became screams of pain and fear. "No! We're losing control of it again!"

 "The force field’s down- help us control this!"

 "It's too late- we're-"

 Something broke around us, and a presence that wasn't there before was suddenly very present...

 ~*~

 I looked back at the ruins of Station Myria. How we got down safely before the floating castle crashed back to the earth was beyond me. Garr was dead. Peco was missing.

 I sighed heavily, trudging up to the cliff overlooking the desert that Rei and Momo were currently standing on; I passed Nina and my spirit lifted the instant I saw her beautiful face. I would find the courage to tell her that I loved her tonight. She fell in step next to me, so close that our hands brushed together; it sent a little shiver of delight up my spine. We stepped up between Rei and Momo together, looking out over the desert. "Magnificent," I breathed.

 "Indeed," Momo agreed.

 Rei looked disturbed. I nudged him; he glanced down at me. "I know Myria needed to pay for what she did to the Brood, Ryu," he said quietly. "But... what she said about holding back the desert-"

I looked back over the sand. "Will it overcome everything now that Myria's not here to stop it?" I mused, finishing his thought for him. Nina took my hand and gave it a comforting squeeze; I squeezed back gratefully.

Momo shook her head. "She may have been holding the desert back," she said, "but remember, she was holding back technology, too. We can advance now. For every hardship we'll encounter that Myria was defending us against, we'll find a way to fight back. And maybe we can move faster than the desert can and hold it at bay ourselves."

"And Wyndia will be at the top of the world in technology," Nina announced proudly.

We made our way back to Oasis. Instead of travelers with only a slight chance of succeeding in our mission, we were cried as heroes and saviors. They were free of that cursed castle in the sky. We weren't sure of the superstitions they held about it, but they made no qualms about treating us as if we'd liberated them from some horrible oppression. We even got that night's stay at the inn for free.

My heart was pounding as I tried to work up the courage to go to Nina and Momo's room to talk to Nina. I paced restlessly, feeling as though no matter what I did, my world would come to an end. If I told her, I'd die. If I didn't, I'd die. I'd just figured it out, why my body and soul reacted so strongly to her; I loved her. If I'd only love one thing in the world, it was her. I felt disconnected from everything when Rei found me in the woods and took me in, ten years ago; disconnected and empty. And when Garr found me, in my simplest Draconic form, on a mindless rampage in Dauna Mine, I'd felt even more desolate. My sole purpose for existence was to get revenge for the destruction of my race; now that I had that vengeance, I thought I would have nothing more to live for. But whenever I thought of ending my life, I saw Nina.

A knock on my door shook me from my thoughts. Wondering who it was, I walked slowly over to the door and opened it. My heart leapt into my throat as she smiled shyly at me. "Hiya."

Sure my face was probably bright red at being caught in such an agitated state, I tried a small smile back. "Hello, Nina. Is everything okay?"

"Just... just fine," she replied hesitantly. "I was just lonely and wondered if you wanted some company?"

"Sure," I said, moving from the doorway to let her in. She closed the door behind her and turned the chair by the desk to face the bed and sat on the chair, as I plopped down on the edge of the mattress. "Anything particular on your mind?" I asked conversationally.

She frowned. "Just that I have to go back to Wyndia now," she said. "I really don't want to- I'll get the lecture of a lifetime, for one," she sighed. "And second, they're probably gonna be busy arranging for me to be married to some over-stuffed, pea-brained noble."

 I cringed inwardly and tried to joke, "But you're the only heir, you've gotta have at least one kid to continue the line, right?" I winked at her.

 She cracked a grin, and said sweetly, "Who's having kids? I'm sure as heck not. If they want another heir, they can make one," she said matter-of-factly. Then her tone sobered again. "But they're still going to try to arrange a marriage, and I can guarantee that it's not going to be the man I want to marry."

 I raised an eyebrow. "Really? Do you mean that as in, you're sure that you won't love them, or as in, you already have someone in mind?"

 "I already have someone in mind," she said, breaking eye contact with me. I felt my heart shatter.

 "Oh." I smiled weakly. "Well, maybe you can ask your parents. They didn't seem too unreasonable..." She set me with a look. "Well, maybe not," I chuckled, rubbing the back of my neck. "But, who is he?" I asked in mild confusion. "You've never talked about anyone, really."

 She blushed. "Oh... he considers us 'just friends'."

 "How do you know that for sure?"

 "Well... because. I try to flirt with him, and he just seems to ignore it, acts like its all innocent." She sighed. I felt her pain, really- I'd tried to flirt with her, but couldn't seem to get it right. It was hard to learn how to be a teenager when you spent your adolescence trapped somewhere in your own subconscious. "And... this is a little embarrassing," she giggled. "But, he also just doesn't respond to any of the little touches- I'd brush his hand with mine, and he'd pull away and apologize for bumping into me. That's just an example of the things he just flat-out ignores." And then her green eyes met mine; so beautiful...

 "Nina," I said softly. "If... if he wants 'just friends' then screw him. He's an idiot." She giggled, sounding a little shocked- and then a dawn of realization hit her, and her laughter abruptly stopped.

 "Unless he doesn't realize it," she said quietly.

 "Well, you said that he acts like your flirting is innocent, maybe he doesn't realize it." I frowned. I really had no clue, so I couldn't help. I knew I probably wouldn't have been able to tell if anyone was flirting with me. I was so inept at the whole romance thing, that-

 "Ryu."

 "Yes?"

 "What're you thinking?"

 I sighed, deciding to be honest with her. "That you're probably talking to the wrong person about this. I know nothing about stuff like that. I have no experience, so I don't know how... obvious your actions towards him are. You'd probably have better luck asking Rei about it- why are you looking at me like that?" I asked abruptly, worried that I'd upset or offended her.

 She was silent for a moment, and then, "I'm right then. You aren't just ignoring me."

 "What?" I was confused now. "What're you talking about?"

 She shook her head. "Nothing, never mind- let's change the subject. What're you planning on doing now? Going back to Dragnier?"

 I puzzled over her odd behavior, but I nodded slowly. "Yes... they're probably going expect me to be their prince now that I've avenged them. Maybe help them rebuild and try to find a way to restore the Brood's powers." I sighed. "I don't want to. I know nothing about being a prince- although," I said mischievously, "there is one perk to it."

 "What's that?"

 "Your parents have to be friendly to me, and I can see you without them trying to kill me."

 Nina grinned. "Ryu, are you flirting with me?"

 Her tone was jesting, but her question threw me off guard. I stammered for a moment, and then asked, "Am I?"

 "I don't know if you don't know. Although, I wonder why seeing me would be so great?"

 Her statements connected in my head. Brushing my hand in the desert, and specifically mentioning that as flirting that wasn't responded to- of course, I hadn't pulled away that time, but there were countless others. Pointing out that he may not realize it, my admittance that I didn't have any experience in this field, and then, "You aren't just ignoring me." The abrupt change of conversation, accusing me of flirting with her- and this question was clearly leading.

 I hoped.

 I said a tiny prayer in my head as I took a deep breath, a leap of faith, and blurted out, "Because I love you."

 We stared at each other for an eternal moment. I could actually hear how hard my heart was pounding, and to silence the voice in my head screaming for me to get out before she could reject me, I concentrated on counting the beats. At about twenty-four, she said something. Or tried to. At thirty, I was just about ready to apologize, and I started to- and by thirty-three, she'd gotten up, leaned down over me, and pressed her lips to mine.

 "Because I love you."

 We stared at each other for an eternal moment. I could actually hear how hard my heart was pounding, and to silence the voice in my head screaming for me to get out before she could reject me, I concentrated on counting the beats. At about twenty-four, she said something. Or tried to. At thirty, I was just about ready to apologize, and I started to- but by thirty-three, she'd gotten up, leaned down over me, and pressed her lips to mine...

 I wondered briefly if she knew that I'd never been kissed like that before. I got the feeling that it wasn't a question to ask at that time... When she finally broke the kiss, I actually ached. I had to repress a whimper, and my instincts told me not to let go, but I forced myself to. She didn't pull away very much, though, and our faces were only inches apart. I'd always known that her eyes were a brilliant emerald, tinted with a splash of blue, but it was only now that she was so close that I saw how much blue there really was in her eyes, a kind of ocean-in-the-sunset green-blue...

 "I love you, Ryu..."

 I mentally shook off that strange feeling of déjà vu and smiled, blushing pretty hard. I had no idea what to do or say though. Fortunately she solved that problem by sitting down on the bed next to me and kissing me on the cheek. "Once you're crowned Prince of Dragnier," she said in a sleepy, dreamy voice, "I'll talk to my parents about forming an alliance with your nation. It's not like one is needed, but it would be much easier to push them to let us be together if we did have a treaty-"

 I frowned. "But, that's all politics," I protested. "And they'd be forming a treaty with whoever took over for Jono, not me; actually, we'd have very little to do with-"

 "Hush, Ryu," she chided gently. "We'll find a way; maybe you can spend some time in Wyndia, come as an ambassador as well as their Prince-"

 "Me? Stay in Wyndia? Would they-"

 "No, the palace."

 "What?!"

 "Right next to my room."

 "Your parents would both throw a fit!"

 "I'll find a way."

 "How?"

 She giggled. "They aren't too unreasonable-" I set her with the look she'd given me earlier, and she laughed out loud. "Well, maybe not."

 I laughed and hugged her tightly. "I love you, Nina," I said, the happiest I remember ever being.

 But through the happiness was something else I couldn't quite place. It was more than déjà vu. We'd done this before. I just knew it. This had happened before...