The Slayers : Legacy of Darkness

          A cloaked figure stood before her with a hood drawn over his head and a mask which concealed the lower half of his face. He appeared rigid but sullen; though he wore a stone-cold expression, his blue eyes showed the world everything he wished to keep hidden. He was a pitiable fellow, years of anguish and pain apparent in his eyes.
          “I am a monster,” he repeated over and over again, seeming to be unwilling to accept the fact as much as he was unable to deny it. He lifted his hands before his face and looked down on his fingers, and Lina noted with only slight alarm that they were not soft fleshy human hands. Instead, they appeared to be made of stone.
          She stretched a hand to him and spoke in a cheerful, soothing voice. “If you have no where to go, why not come with me?” she asked, not knowing who he was or why she desired his company.
          He glared at her suspiciously though did not specify a negative response immediately. She noticed this hesitation, realized that it meant he hadn’t made a decision yet, and added, “You should at least join me until you find your way again.”
          Lina-san…
          He scoffed at the way she treated him. “I’m not a lost puppy,” he replied, though it was apparent in his tone of voice that he was not angry about this. Though he tried to hide it, his interest was apparent when he asked, “…Where were you headed?”
          She smiled. This was the response she wanted. “Atlas City. I have some business there.”
          He pondered briefly--very briefly, in fact--and answered, “Might as well.”
          She nodded in turn and extended her hand to exchange a casual formality.
          Lina-san?
           “Yoroshiku ne¹, Zel!”

          “Lina-san!”
           Lina continued to stare at the space in front of her for a few moments more before she absorbed her surroundings and situation slowly. “What…” she began, but then her eyes flew wide open as she realized where she was. Nervous and embarrassed, she slowly raised her head to meet the eyes of her mentor.
          He saw her frightened-helpless-puppy face and sighed. After placing a small bookmark between the pages of the text he was reading and explaining to her, then putting the book down, he folded his hands upon the wooden table and looked at her over the rims of his glasses as if to say: “I’m waiting.” She squirmed under his gaze, trying to think of what excuse or explanation she could offer, but instead found herself too timid to even open her mouth to speak.
          He shook his head. “It’s alright,” he told her. She let loose a breath but still looked to him to see how he would react. He simply smiled and asked, “Have you been having trouble sleeping these past nights? You’ve seemed less energetic recently.” He paused before adding, “Are you having strange dreams?”
          She dropped her head and focused on tracing the swirls in the wood with her thumbnail--anything to distract her and remove her mentally from her seat--tuning out her waiting listener. She had indeed been having interesting dreams over the past few weeks--dreams of a different life in a world built upon magic and fantasy. She pondered a bit about how to explain this to her tutor, but then she simply answered his question with a “yes.”
          While waiting on her to elaborate, Cless took his reading glasses off and rubbed them gently with a small cleaning cloth he pulled out from his chest pocket. He then carefully placed both objects away in the same pocket. He noticed how she nervously played with her hair: twisting it around her left index finger, weaving it between the fingers on the right, and then finally letting go of her hair after realizing her unrefined habit. Her hair was becoming quite long and unruly, now reaching down to her waist in length. Though her maids worked hard to keep it tamed, the nature of her hair refused to allow that to happen. Like her own nature, Cless mused.
          He sighed, stood up from his chair as he tucked his textbook away in his brown canvas bag. “You are dismissed, Lina-san. I hope you would be willing to share your dreams with me someday, though,” he added with a tone of tenderness to his voice.
          She watched him leave, feeling somewhat guilty about not being able to share her concerns with her tutor who shared his own experiences daily with her. Her mood was hardly shattered, though, since now she was free to go on the adventure she had planned with Gabriel and Sophia. As she walked towards her room to change into a pair of pants (skirts were hardly hiking attire) she imagined all sorts of things she could find in that cave. The most impressive lead she heard about from the castle guards, however, was a rumor about a book of spells that was being protected by a strong magic which turned docile critters into ferocious beasts. But even that didn’t phase her--no, she found joy and excitement in it instead.
          Lina shut the door gently behind her as she entered her room and immediately began to undress, beginning with the annoying ribbon which held her dress tightly around her waist. She slipped out of the garment and hung it up properly in her wardrobe. The full-length mirror to her right caught her attention as she smoothed out the wrinkles in the fabric. She looked at herself--now a blossoming young lady of eight years of age, beginning to sprout upward as most kids did her age. Her body looked oddly put together due to a tiny face combined with longer, lanky arms and legs As with most children, her physical appearance was maturing much more quickly than her mental state was, for she still acted like the feisty young child she was, but nevertheless she was more or less growing up.
          She frowned at the idea, for it meant that sooner or later she would have to face her royal duty. But for now, she could continue being the rogue princess she had been. Lina reached in her wardrobe and pulled a pair of pants out from its concealed spot in the back. If the maids found it, the rumors of her unfeminine hobbies would fly, and her family would be very shamed. After slipping into the brown pants, she pulled a weathered tunic over her head as well and finally stuffed her long flaming hair into a medium-sized hat, donning the appearance of a young clerk boy. She had received these garments as a gift from her tutor who wholly encouraged her adventures, and because of this she once again felt guilty about not returning the favor earlier when he had inquired about her dreams.
          Putting her worries aside for the moment, she pulled her hat lower to shield her eyes from onlookers and carefully snuck out of her room.

          “You there!”
          Peace disturbed, Cless sat up from his lounging position with a long yawn, an action that ended up bringing tears to the corners of his eyes. He rubbed the side of his head in annoyance and looked up to see who was shouting at him.
          Apparently the source of the call was none other than the wicked witch of the west. He sighed and asked the predator, “Must you be so boorish? It truly ruins the atmosphere, you see.”
          Insulted, Elinor fumed. “WHAT!? Boorish? A member of the family that has served the royal family for generations? Impossible.”
          As she emphasized each syllable of the word “impossible,” Cless flinched slightly. A small bit of spit flew from her mouth to his left cheekbone, which he wiped off with his gloved finger. He looked at her attentively, expecting more from her rebuke, but when he realized she was busy boiling in her own anger he took the chance to speak up. “Perhaps the reason for the princess’s rash behavior lies in the stewardess who takes care of her, hm?” he suggested mockingly.
          “Rubbish!” she spat at him in return, and steamed for a second or two longer before reaching the topic she had originally come to him about. “I’m so sorry that I interrupted your afternoon laziness, good sir, but I am short one hand today and your assistance with the rearrangement of the Legacy Hall be much appreciated.”
          The word “appreciated” was laced with so much hatred that Cless could even see the sparks flying from it. He shrugged. “Alright,” he agreed, musing with a mischievous grin, “At least there will be entertainment.”

          Lina arrived to see the usual scene. Sophia was obediently helping her mother with household chores around the house, specifically helping her by sweeping the floor of the smithy. Gabriel had developed a newfound interest in swordsmanship, practicing with his father’s weapons daily as well as forging newer weapons. When Lina arrived, Gabriel was testing out a short sword, swinging it against a dead tree trunk to judge the weight and shape of the metal. His mother was taking a break, and thus was the first to acknowledge Lina’s arrival at the smithy.
          “Gabriel! Sophia! It looks like you two have a visitor.”
          Gabriel wiped the sweat off his brow and glanced over in her direction. He had grown to become a tall, handsome young boy, and his blond hair now fell on his shoulders. Furthermore, his bangs charmingly covered part of his blue eyes, the most attractive feature of this eleven-year-old boy. His nine-year-old sister Sophia, on the other hand, somehow inherited her grandmother’s dark hair and her great-grandfather’s green eyes, so the two hardly looked related at all. They both welcomed her with smiles and called her name as she waved and pranced over to them: Lina!
          The children laughed and talked for a while until their mother retired to check up on her weak husband, then immediately shifted topics to their adventure at hand. “What do you think we’ll find?” Gabriel asked Lina curiously.
          “No monsters I hope,” answered little Sophia, looking a little worried.
          “I hear rumors that an ancient text full of magic spells is hidden in the cave somewhere,” Lina answered with a sparkle in her eye.
          “Magic!?” both Gabriel and Sophia exclaimed, exchanging glances of excitement and surprise. Sophia, however, was somewhat skeptical of the situation. “What if this book was hidden away for a reason--you know, if it holds something evil…”
          Lina contemplated the idea. “It could…” she began, then rebounded off that idea with “Wouldn’t it be fun to find out?” along with a wink. Apparently age had made Gabriel none the wiser, for he seemed unaware of the danger and agreed wholeheartedly to this trip. Sophia, at a lack of options, simply surrendered with a sigh and went to grab a lantern and flint while Gabriel tied his small short sword to his belt. He carried it more because it seemed cool to him than because he thought he would actually need it, so it acted more as a piece of décor rather than a weapon. With that done, the children sprinted off towards their destination, eager to find out what was in store for them.

          “Whew!” Cless breathed, exasperated from all the lifting and moving he had to do. He wiped the small beads of sweat from his brow with his sleeve and stretched a bit before looking over in Elinor’s direction. He watched as the other workers slaved at her every command, rushing here and there to reposition things and relay messages to the king for approval. “At least I’m not one of them,” he thought with an uneasy feeling in his stomach.
          He turned to look at the display cases that lined the large corridor. The word “hall” was a very misleading word, for he had imagined a small space with a few stories to tell. On the contrary, this huge area honored many men who laid down their lives for this kingdom.
          As he walked down the corridor, he stopped in front of a certain statue that was modeled after a certain princess. He stared at it for a moment before stooping over to read the description embedded in a bronze plate attached to a plaque of ivory.
          “Ameria wil Tesla Saillune.”
          Cless glanced up to see Elinor standing next to him, wiping her hands off on her cream-colored apron. “She helped build this kingdom, you see,” the maid explained.
          He didn’t say anything. Apparently, she wasn’t finished talking. “She was a distant relative of mine. A great-great something of mine through my mother’s side of the family. I’m not quite sure.” She turned to him. “You’ve heard of her, have you not?”
          “I have,” he answered, looking back to the statue of the princess. So that’s where you get that authoritative personality…and that incredible bust, he thought wryly. The two stood silently and appreciated the stone replica of that person for a while, and then Cless spoke up. “By the way, what happened to the maid that was supposed to be working today?” he inquired out of curiosity.
          “I’m not sure,” Elinor answered, rolling her sleeves up as she prepared to get back to work. “When I went to her room to find her she had disappeared already.”
          “Oh,” he replied, looking back down at the engraved name on the plaque at the foot of the statue. He ran his thumb across the portion that held her name, and noted with disgust how much dust had gathered on the bronze.
          “Is that so?”

          Lina stopped at the top of a hill and peered out at the lands before her. It was all territory outside of the kingdom--forbidden territory, in other terms--and it all seemed far to inviting to logically be able to resist. To the west was a dense forest covered by a thick fog, and towards the east lay the cave of their search. With a smile and huff of excitement, she stated, “Here it is.”
          The two siblings both looked in the direction of interest with anxiety in their eyes. “Isn’t this far enough? Our parents will be expecting us home shortly…” whined Sophia.
          Lina spun around to face her. “Don’t tell me you’re scared!” she griped at the girl, who cowered behind her bigger brother.
          Gabriel, sensing his sister’s fear of this place, made an attempt to stop Lina. “By going into the cave, aren’t we looking for trouble?” he asked, making a point.
          Lina scoffed at the two, casting them off as crybabies, and made her way down the hill by herself. When she realized that they really weren’t following behind her, she frowned in disappointment, but kept moving forward. Her pride was too stubborn to turn around.
          The cave loomed ominously over the girl as she approached it, forming a peak at the topmost part of the blackened rock. The rocks jutting out of the edges on top seemed to form a pair of large, bulging eyes. Lina swallowed nervously as she walked in through the, almost literally, mouth of the cave. She was engulfed.
          Light was so dim within the cave, but somehow she found herself able to see at most a foot or two in front of her as she walked. Consequently, her strides became shorter and shorter in length as she progressed, taking a likening to the pattern of her breath. The ground beneath her seemed to swallow up her feet as she moved forward, and far off in the distance she could hear the echo of water dripping into a small pool. The moisture in the air settled on her skin, weighing her down like heavy molasses. Though she wanted to turn back, she resisted the urge. Though she wanted to cry, her tears would not fall. Though she brought friends, she was alone.
          Off in the distance, a light bubbling sound could be heard. She stopped moving her feet and held her breath, trying her best to focus her vision on the object that was splashing. The sound seemed to be approximately fifty feet away…thirty…then fifteen before it faded to silence. Lina listened intently to try and identify the location of this oncoming threat the next time it moved, but it failed to reappear.
          But her uneasiness did not fade. Rather than taking a step forward, she took one back, and her body went cold as her heel came into contact with something rather large and slimy behind her…
          “Look out!”
          Lina crouched in defense and closed her eyes tightly in fear. She heard the sound of shuffling feet, then silence followed by a thud. When she realized that she was still in one piece, she slowly turned her head and glanced over her shoulder.
          Sophia, lamp in hand, was cowering on the floor, eyes fixed on the monstrosity before her. Tears were brimming in her eyes, and her bottom lip trembled as she cried, “H-…Help!”
          It was then that Lina realized the thud was the sound of the giant mass as it planted its head on the ground, engulfing what could be none other than Gabriel underneath the mess. Her foot had apparently contacted the tail of the monster, and the targets of the beast had apparently been the other two children. She watched wordlessly as the giant gooey mass…apparently a gargantuan slug, attempted to engulf her friend.
          Sophia cried and sobbed as she watched the monster swallow her brother slowly. His legs, which were still outside of the monster’s body, kicked and thrashed for only a mere moment more before going limp, the oxygen supply in his body depleted. Sophia’s scream finally brought Lina to her senses, and she dashed over to grab the fallen sword next to the slug. The smell of the thing was nauseating, and Lina felt a swoon almost overtake her, but she clutched tightly onto the hilt of the sword and lunged forward, stabbing the cold iron into the body of the slug.
          The slug seemed unbothered by the small prick in its side. It continued to digest the body of the young boy until only the ankles were still visible. Lina, in an act of desperation, grabbed Gabriel’s feet and attempted to pull him back out, but to no avail.
          Suddenly, the monster bit onto Lina’s hands, pulling her into its body as well. Sophia’s wails grew louder in volume as Lina panicked, attempting to free herself from its prison hold on her. Seeing that her efforts were futile, she calmed herself down and shouted mentally at herself, “Think! Think! Think!”
          Her arms were almost completely sucked in when an idea finally came to her. Cheek pressed against the cold slime, she turned her head and yelled, “Sophia! Use the lamp oil and set it on fire!”
          The sobbing girl forced herself to her feet and staggered backward. She took another look at the large monster before her and cried, “I can’t!”
          “You have to!” Lina screamed in return, struck once again by panic. The top of her head was already absorbed, and her eyes were next to go. She tried to rack her brain for another idea, but failed to do so. All she could do was pray for a miracle.
          But what she got was a curse. Her heart sank as she heard the sound of glass shattering--the sound of the lamp as it collided with solid rock. Sophia screamed and screamed some more, but the screaming came to a halt as the slime surrounded her ears and moved on through her neck.
          Her mind flew through a million images. She wished and prayed, then wished, and then wished once again to be saved, hoping someone would hear her. Her wish reverberated in her head, starting at a soft rumble and then increasing to a mellow roar.
          Another voice pierced through this, introducing silence. “Lina-san…”
          She felt the jewel on her necklace slip out from its spot tucked safely inside her tunic, its peace disturbed by the prying motions of the slug’s mouth. Almost as if it were angered, the ruby began to glow an intense, relentless red, shaking within the cavity of its constraints. Lina felt as though the core of her body was burning. Her heart sped up to nearly twice the speed, pumping adrenaline throughout the veins of her body and sending her mind into a spinning vortex. The pain she felt was so unbearable, and she remained stuck on the edge of passing out, but mercy did not grant her that sort of relief.
          What only took seconds seemed like hours to her. As the slug once again probed the jewel with his mouth, the catastrophic energy from within it was released, sending out a huge shockwave that disintegrated the slug into a small mound of dust. Lina and Gabriel both fell crashing into the stone ground, the latter of whom was still unconscious as a result of his valiant efforts. Lina gasped for air and clutched her chest tightly, feeling the remains of the energy fade as the jewel came clattering to a rest.
          For minutes the two girls only stared at one another, one still with tears in her eyes and the other recovering from an obvious pain. Then, out of frustration or anger or simply to satiate her own need for consolation, Sophia began screaming at Lina.
          “This is all your fault! If you hadn’t brought us here… If you hadn’t brought us here, then we wouldn’t have been hurt! Gabriel wouldn’t have been…” she broke off the last sentence with more uncontrollable sobs. Though her brother was still alive, he looked as though the monster had completely destroyed every limb from head to toe, and the chances of any substantial recovery seemed fairly slim. The boy was robbed of any future he might have dreamed of, doomed to suffer the rest of his days handicapped and strapped to a bed. Not only that, but how could her family even dream of making it by now…?
          Lina had no words to offer her comrade, unsure what she, herself, should be doing at this moment. She knew that it was her own doing--her own misjudgment--that dragged her friends into this irreparable situation. She then scorned her own weakness, thinking back to how her own defenselessness was made up for by the sacrifice of her dear friend. And because of this, she wanted dearly to cry.
          Sophia wrapped her arms around her brother, attempting to pull him back out of the cave. She cried as she felt his shattered body slump against her, a dead weight between her arms. Lina got up to help, but Sophia snapped at her before she could get any closer.
          “You’ve done enough damage! Don’t come near us ever again!”
          That seemed to deplete all the air that was contained within her lungs--it was simply that loud. Lina had never before seen Sophia so upset with anything, and watched her speechlessly as she dragged her brother’s living corpse out of the cave. Hot tears brimmed at the edge of the young princess’s eyelids, but she blinked them back stubbornly and sprinted out of the entrance of the cave, running anywhere--running nowhere at all as the sun fell below the horizon.

          At the same time, in a somewhat shrouded bushy area near the cave, two characters were exchanging a few formalities.
          “My, my, what have we here? A mazoku?” the first character, someone who appeared to be a man, said.
          Startled, the female figure swiped at the source of this voice and staggered backwards as he evaded her attack. Aggravated by his agility, she raised her claw to attack once more but paused as she laid eyes on her attacker.
          “You…why are you here!?” she demanded to know, cursing the gods for her bad luck.
          “I could ask you the same,” the former responded, eyeing the mazoku standing before him in human form. “I would say ‘It has been a while,’ but I’m afraid we’re unacquainted.”
          She hissed at him, but the gesture only served to entertain him. She stood wary, ready to flee at a moment’s notice. “Fighting a mazoku of his sort would be like asking for death…” she thought, responding to her fight or flight instinct.
          He shook a finger at her, a signal she took as a threat and immediately began to retreat into the astral plane. She paused with her arm and leg midway through, glaring suspiciously at his annoying little smirk.
          She cursed again and took on her mazoku form, an unattractive being with long hair that seemed to writhe about her head and long, slender limbs. Her appearance was purely black, and she was generally hunched over on all four of her enormous hands and feet, though one of her arms was much larger than the other slim pieces of her body. In her eyes were spirals of a dark crimson at the center of a white spot, and when she opened her mouth to speak, she revealed teeth that seemed to simply form a horrifying net of saliva and fangs.
          He grimaced slightly. “I have to say, that form is hardly flattering at all,” he said as though it actually mattered whether her appearance was easy on the eyes or not. He opened his palm to her, indicating that she should speak. “And your name is?”
          “Lanazra,” she answered, still watching him skeptically.
          “Well then, Lanazra-san” he began, stepping forward. “I hope it was just by coincidence that you happened to be in the area, and that accident with Lina-san and the slug had absolutely nothing to do with you.”
          She kept her mouth shut, unsure how to respond. He chuckled and added the comment: “Did you know?” He paused as he rolled his staff in hand between his fingers and thumb, watching the gleam of the large red orb that adorned the long wooden shaft as it reflected the orange light of the sunset. “Lina-san absolutely hates slugs.”
          The female mazoku was unsure what exactly this mysterious visitor was getting at, though she imagined that she should have high-tailed it out of here by now already. Too late… she thought, and hoped for the dark lords to work the fates in her favor.
          He bathed his mind in her anxiety, feasting on the collection of negative emotions brewing within her. Suddenly though, he turned his attention away from his guest and looked off toward the cave as if something had come to mind. “I wonder what book it was that Lina-san was searching for in there…” he wondered aloud. He turned back to face Lanazra. “I hope you don’t mind if I take…”
          “…it?” he finished, though apparently the girl was already gone. He sighed and shook his head, grinning a bit at the situation. “She got away,” he stated disappointedly, as though someone was listening. The mysterious character then took a step in one direction, paused…and turned back around, walking toward the cave.
          “Almost forgot to pick up Lina-san’s gift,” he remembered with a chuckle.

          Somehow, in the midst of her running, Lina ended up back on castle grounds. She cursed. She always ended up running back to the safety of her home whether she realized it or not. It seemed that she was caught in this infinite cycle and lacked the power to break free on her own. She pivoted on her heel and began running off to a different destination, but someone stood in her way.
          He caught her gently as her weight fell against him, and like a pool of water as a small pebble plunges into it he yielded to her firstly, then wrapped his arms around her to steady her balance. Lina kept her head buried in the nice cushion of fabric surrounding his upper body and pressed her hands gently against his chest, using his support to stand. Only when he brought a hand down gently on top of her hair would she lift her face to look at his.
          “Cless?”
          The scholar looked down on her saddened face with a heartfelt sympathy for her. He soothed her distressed mind, pulling her into a small swaying motion to comfort his small pupil. She succumbed to his will, moving her feet parallel to his and pressing her cheek back against the soft cavity formed in his tunic. Her gaze fell on the expanse of the town below, glowing a melancholy blue as it was bathed in the light of the silver moon. The moon bathed her, too, in its soft light, seeming to understand that she was lonely too on this cold night.
          Her mouth hung idly open for a while as she formed words in her head. “I wish I could have done something…” she whispered, feeling the cold chill of the air steal away the warmth of her voice. She dropped her head slightly as she continued, “I always seem to be the one who needs protecting…”
          Cless didn’t respond immediately. He continued using the same motions to comfort her: running his hand over the net of tangles in her hair and swaying easily with her. “It’s fortunate that I found you before any of the maids did,” he said, casually attempting to change the subject.
          Lina did not go with his efforts to lift up her spirits and continued to sulk in her own fallacies. He saw her stubbornness and sighed before saying, “A princess like you needn’t dirty your hands with sweat and blood.”
          With an unnatural rage lacing her voice, she countered his argument by asking, “Then should I sit aside as others sweat and bleed for me?!”
          Cless could sense her distraught emotions, and yet knew there was sincerity in the severity of her words. This put him in a situation where he could not satisfy one end of the scales without completely offsetting the other. On the one hand, he could serve the desires of the king and all the people around her, including himself, by continuing to shelter her, obstructing the full, free development of her personality. On the other hand, he could yield to her desires and grant her the rebellious life she constantly demanded of others, though this would require some skillful tactics to work behind closed doors and keep out of sight of the close watch of the king.
          “Lina-san,” he began, though he already had her attention. He gripped her shoulders reassuringly, though tenderly, and kneeled down to look her in the eye. He noticed, as his left knee touched the soft grass, how much taller she had grown in the past four years, for when he was on his knee her eye level was slightly above his. He cast the thought aside with a tiny upturn in the curve of his mouth, then continued to speak his mind. “I can train you to have basic skills for battle…” he said, albeit reluctantly. He saw the spirit in her eyes perk up as he finished the sentence, feeling a little bit better about giving the young girl this offer. “Although, are you sure about wanting to acquire them?”
          “Yes,” she said definitively. Her resolution was solid and without weakness. Had he not seen her eyes, he would have misinterpreted this as simply a hasty answer, but apparently it was not so. She always meant what she said, and thus said what she meant.
          “Alright,” Cless replied with a sigh, though it was not a gesture of dissatisfaction. He stood up and fished around in his bag a bit, then pulled out an old brown book. It was a bit dusty, but he brushed this off without a thought and handed the old scripture to her. “Take a look at this tonight. It’s the fruit of your endeavors.”
          Lina eyed him curiously. Had he known about her earlier expedition, or was this just another one of his conspiratorial acts of generosity? In either case, he placed a hand on her back and escorted her to her room, avoiding treacherous ground (where the annoying those-who-lack-a-name would be found and would immediately report to more annoying those-who-should-not-be-named), and bidding her a good night before retiring to his own living quarters in the west wing.

          After taking a quick bath, Lina sat in her bed with her wet hair dangling down her shoulders, book in hand. Rather than sleeping right away, she opted to read and allow her hair to dry a bit, for her already rebellious hair became a disaster in the mornings when she slept on it wet. She flipped the bound text over first, taking note of the golden letters engraved upon its spine. Though she could not read the words printed there, opening the book unveiled the contents to be in the familiar language. She flipped through the book, glancing through a myriad diagrams and written legends of old. When she found a picture of a large dragon, followed by paragraphs of writing, she put down the book and began to read.
          “Since the dawn of the world, a war has been waged between a race known as the ryuuzoku and another known as the mazoku…”
          The scripture went on about the history of the world, describing a tad bit more than the princess cared to know, but she went on reading it anyway. Further along, there was a section of the text which seemed to have faded over time. The words that remained were: “The…otherwise known as the mother of the universe…”
          Though the topic captured her interest, she found the rest of the text on the page impossible to decipher. Only parts of letters remained, though the letters were far too scarce for anyone to even attempt to read what had once been written there. Disappointed, she flipped the page and continued reading.
          Time passed quickly and Lina remained engrossed in the mystic tales depicted in the book. She read until her eyelids began to sag and her head drooped towards her chest, her physical limits reached. The last words her eyes skimmed across before she fell asleep was the name of the author: “~ Rezo, The Red Priest”

          When she came back to her conscious state, she became aware that she was, in fact, not in her room. Where she was…well, where she was not was anywhere. She was nowhere, to the point that nobody or nothing existed. It was her, and yet it was not her that was there--in nowhere.
          “This must be a dream,” she thought, and indeed it was, for when she reached to pinch her left arm she could not even feel her own skin. Apparently, none of this was real.
          And yet she knew, somehow, that she was not asleep. It was like a sense of being conscious within the unconscious of the mind--awake in that part of the mental being that a person is completely unaware of. And this part of her--this unconscious pool of memory--brought forth this person.
          He began as a simple sound--the sound of shoes against solid ground, accompanied by the tapping noise of a cane…no; by the weight of the sound it seemed more like a staff or measure of some sort. It neared her until she could make out the shape of a man, until she could see his face, until he finally came to a halt approximately four feet from her.
          At first, he simply smiled at her, placing both hands on the staff which he propped up before him. But after a minute or so, he finally opened his mouth to speak.
          “It has been quite a while hasn’t it, Lina-san.”
          She would have responded, but her body didn’t seem to react to the commands she issued it, and her blank stare continued to penetrate him. He waited, as if to give her a chance to try again, but then crouched down and gently touched her cheek, restoring some feeling to her face. She opened her mouth, and without thinking, mentioned the name “Xelloss.”
          He truly beamed this time and replied, “Ah, so you do remember me.” She tried to tell him that he was mistaken—that she honestly did not know who he was—but her mouth once again hung idly open. Besides, if she honestly did not know who he was, how did she know his name? At least that had some familiarity to it.
          He chuckled lightly. “Yare yare Lina-san, I’ve never known you to be the silent type.”
          He removed his hand from her cheek, and she found herself suddenly aware of the lonely cold his touch left on her. As he edged away, a wave of panic overtook her, but her body still refused to move. Sensing her unease, he reassured her, “I will be right by your side, Lina-san.”
          His statement was as comforting as it was alarming, and she felt no better about the situation than she had felt before. However, he turned to walk away, and that was that. She did hear one more thing before she lost herself to this realm, however, and that sentence, however unsure of it she was, was something along the lines of the following:
          “We will take any measures necessary to rekindle the flame that has been too long lost to this world…”

¹Yoroshiku ne – The Japanese formality exchanged when working with partners or such. Kinda means “Please take care of me.”

To be continued...

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