Me: I know that I promised this chapter would be up sooner than it is. Lots of problems in the immediate family are cropping up now. And there’s the matter of one of my friends suddenly turning into a preppy bitch…I know that nobody wants to hear about it, so I’ll leave it mostly at that. Suffice to say that I WOULD talk to her if I gave an ounce of iota-ing damn. It’s just been a really shitty month so far, even exluding the drama-queen-ness of highschool (it’s stupid, why can’t they just get over themselves?). March sucks. Never liked it anyway…(sigh) I’ve just been avoiding writing altogether for awhile... Also…this whole section in the game is just BLAH. It’s boring to write for. Except for the Ranch. That part will be sorta fun because Kvar dies and I like killing Kvar. :D But I haven’t gotten to it yet, because other stuff has to happen and…margh. It’s annoying and boring. So I’m going to make it more interesting by screwing up the plot further. :D

On a more relevant and happier note, I think I might be explaining some things this chapter. I can’t explain the real source of Stella’s powers yet; that’s scheduled for a later chapter. But be it any comfort to know that there is a real reason behind all of it. I’m not dishing out spoilers but…Ummm… don’t take anything Stella says or thinks as…final. That’s all I can say. Hehehehe…you guys are going to hate me by the end of this fic, I can tell…but I’m going to get a kick out of it. Ah, I love torturing OC’s…

(Moonshine’s Guide requested that Rufus Shinra be the muse today, and so it shall be!)

Rufus: …How is it possible for you to torture an OC that’s based off of yourself?

Me: …Good point.

Rufus: And furthermore, how can you actually enjoy it?

Me: …O.o You’re right... Would that make me sadistic when it comes to OC’s, or rather masochistic because she’s based off of myself…? Whatever. My brain hurts. Say the disclaimer.

Rufus: Mandrakefunnyjuice does not own me, thank Minerva for that. She does not own Tales of Symphonia either, as that belongs to Namco. Nor does she own Indiana Jones, or Jurassic Park. If there were any further references she makes in her writing here, she would like to state that she does not own them either.

---

“Do you see anything?”

“That,” I pointed.

Lloyd squinted. “I don’t see anything…”

“It’s not my fault you need glasses.” I jerked his head down to my eye level and pointed directly at the rippling water.

“It’s just ripples in the water,” he said slowly. “What’s so special about that?”

“Because it’s been going on for the last five minutes that I’ve been sitting here.”

“It could just be leftovers from the boulder,” he shrugged.

I groaned. “You’re never going to let me live that down…”

“Nope.” He squatted and stared at the increasing ripples in the water. “Maybe it’s just drippings from the ceiling.”

“That could be the case,” Genis stated. “But it’s unlikely. The ceiling is too far up for stalactites. And water droplets don’t make huge ripples like that.”

“Well,” Lloyd stood up, stretching, “like I said, maybe it’s just remnants from that BRR.”

“BFRR,” I corrected. “That thing looked like Paul Bunion got giddy with his ax and chopped off the top of a mountain, it was so big.”

“BFRR?” Genis stated confused.

I hesitated before answering. “Uh, Big...Freaking Rolling Rock.” Raine would get mad at me for using the real F in there. Plus, Genis was still a kid, right?

He stared at me dryly. “You mean ‘Big Fucking Rolling Rock?’”

I stared at him before patting him on the head. “I’m proud of you, Genis. You said a cuss word. But…don’t tell Raine or she’ll have my head because I’m rubbing off on you guys. I think she thinks I’m some kind of bad influence on you. So don’t pick up my bad language, okay?”

“Whatever,” he rolled his eyes. “I know and am aware of more than you guys give me credit for. Anyway…we should keep going, right?”

“Yeah.” Lloyd blew on the torch a little bit to spread the flame. He gave me a hand up and we started to walk. But not before I kicked a rock down the big chasm, just to see how long it would take and how big a ripple it would make. It took about four or five seconds. I peered down at the ripple it had made. It was minimal compared to the one that was in the center of the underground lake…right where the boulder had fallen…I shrugged, figuring it was best not to dwell on it. Hopefully we’d get out of there before whatever-it-was revealed…um…whatever it really was. Huh. We were really out of the loop without Raine or Kratos around.

You were born out of the loop, Stella, Noishe snickered in my mind.

You would do wisely, Noishe, to shut your face before I permanently damage it.

I suppose a brief explanation is in order, no? See, we’d entered the Balacruf Mausoleum half-past noon, give or take a few hours. We’d slapped Colette’s hands on the Oracle Stone and a big hidden stone door slid open, revealing some winding, dusty old passages. Raine’s staff lit the way, and she read various drabbles off of the incoherent ancient scribbles on the walls. I would’ve been interested if I hadn’t been so claustrophobic. The door had slid shut behind us, and it was making me nervous. What if there weren’t any air openings here? What if we didn’t get out? What if we suffocated from lack of oxygen? What if the walls collapsed! What if we got attacked! The passages were too narrow to escape from! …As you can see, I was a bit scared. More like about to die from panic kind of scared, not ‘OH MY GOD LOOK I’M SCARED RUN AWAY’ sort of scared. More like my stomach was in knots and nervous kind of scared. The kind of scared that makes your intestines wind up and gives you a queasy, uneasy feeling.

But back to he point. Raine led the way, and we eventually came across a semi-circle like room with a big stone table in the middle with no legs. Turns out that the stone table was actually Cleo the III’s coffin, so we had to move our lunch elsewhere before we gagged. Raine flipped out about the whole ordeal. Eventually we finished our makeshift lunch got really confused because we couldn’t find a way out. Even the mighty Kratos was at a loss. But, Lloyd, being the wonderful idiot he is, accidentally leaned against a hidden switch, and yet another obscure wall opened up revealing itself to be an actual door.

That’s when we weren’t in the Balacruf Mausoleum anymore. It wasn’t a tomb. It was like catacombs, but without the ‘graveyard’ feel if that’s at all possible. Raine had described it as the remains of the Wind Temple, from which the Mausoleum had been built. Apparently it’d been destroyed in prehistory, so why she even knew about it or why it was still existing was beyond me. But it was surprisingly clean, for being ancient ruins. The whole thing looked like a giant underground domed aqueduct, but there were still passages that were intact that formed some kind of maze. It was actually very irritating, since we really had no way of knowing if we were going in circles or not. The only landmarks we had were little collapsed columns and such. There was a lot of rubble around that we tripped over.

Speaking of tripping, that’s how the BFRR came about. They claimed they said something about it, but I swear to God nobody said anything to me. Maybe they were whispering and I wasn’t clued in. I’m frequently out of the loop from a lot of things, if you didn’t notice. So I tripped over a fucking trip wire and a big badass boulder came rolling along. I still wonder if Indiana Jones is somewhere nearby, because I could swear that I could hear his damned theme music in my head. But oh well.

The BRR came down a steep hill, crashing through most of everything behind us. Eventually we came to this big huge chasm that looked really out of place amidst all the ruins, so we dived for the sides, hoping the boulder wouldn’t spontaneously switch paths. It didn’t, but it left quite a bit in its wake. We’d actually been in the middle of this relatively unstable passage at the time, and there was a T-intersection at the end. I’d made a random dive to the left on instinct (despite that I’m right handed, I do everything left handed - that includes pitching, eating, and diving for my life from BFRRs), along with Lloyd and Genis. When we got the nerve to get up and have a look at the damage we (I) had caused, there was a general outcry of dismay. We’d been separated by yet another chasm. Apparently nothing more than stilts held up the bridge that we’d been walking down. Imagine my reaction to that. The whole passage had collapsed on itself, not being able to bear the weight of the massive rolling rock. There, where the passage had been, was an impassable chasm about half the size of the Mississippi.

Lloyd and Genis said they didn’t blame me for it. I didn’t blame me for it either. It was just a tripwire, how bad could it be, right? Wrong. Memo to me, never underestimate a prank. I blame the Sylph since it’s their Temple…they have a sick, sick sense of humor.

Anyway, so there we were, trying to wind our way around the huge chasm and get back to the others. We couldn’t see where they had ended up, but we all hoped they were okay. I’d caught sight of the ripples ten minutes after we’d started making our way through the maze around the edge of the big chasm. That’s when I’d seen the water at the bottom and began to suspect that, despite the fact we hadn’t been attacked yet, there were monsters in here. It seemed unlikely that anything could survive in the airtight place, but it wasn’t completely impossible. Sure, oxygen was relatively low, but there were other ways of living.

It did strike me as odd that there was an underground lake of all things in the Wind Temple. Wind generally projects the image of being free and wild, but here we were, trapped several feet beneath the earth in a small mountain, trying not to fall into this giant chasm and subsequently find our friends and way out.

“Okay, this officially sucks,” Lloyd announced.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

“Woo-AAAH!” Genis suddenly yelped, tripping over something on the ground. Pssh. And they think that I’m clumsy. Little did I realize how close to the edge of the chasm Genis actually was. He fell backwards, waving his arms like a hyperactive windmill. Lloyd made a dive for Genis, clinging to his hand as he dangled off the edge. I panicked, not knowing what to do.

“Don’t look down!” Lloyd warned. Never tell somebody to do that. They always look down.

“U-AAH!” Genis cried, looking straight down. “I’m looking down, I’M LOOKING DOWN!”

“Stop looking down, then!” Lloyd grunted, trying to pull Genis’ arm up but instead sliding closer to the edge himself. I grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him back. Genis grasped the edge with his other arm, reaching up slightly himself. The rocks beneath his fingers slipped, earning another yelp of fear from poor Genis. Lloyd slipped from the weight, landing on his back but still clinging to Genis with one hand. Once again, I was at a loss. I didn’t know what to do.

“Stella, grab my hand,” he ordered. I reached and pulled him away from the edge, in the process pulling Genis. Think of it as some kind of human rope. Genis popped in a rather comical way from the edge, sending him careening through the air and right into Lloyd, who crashed into me, and we all landed in a heap some six feet away.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow!” I hissed, pulling my legs from underneath the mini-dogpile.

“Genis,” Lloyd pushed the little half-elf off of him. “You lied to me.”

“W-huh?” Genis pushed himself up into a sitting position.

Lloyd glared. “You weigh WAY more than ninety-eight pounds! That was more like two hundred!”

“I said that two years ago! And I do NOT weigh two-hundred!”

“Okay, maybe a hundred odd-something. But not ninety-eight!”

“Ahahahahahaha!” I started cackling, surprising them.

“What are you laughing at?” They said at the same time.

“Hahahaha. You. Ahahahaha!”

Before we really knew it, we were all laughing. It shouldn’t have been funny, but it was.

Our mirth didn’t last very long, though.

BOOM.

“…What was that?” I whispered nervously.

“I don’t…!” We all dropped to the floor, covering our heads.

“EARTHQUAKE!”

The shaking suddenly stopped.

“…What the hell?” I stood up, confused. There was another boom, and the floor shook. And then it stopped. “What is this, Jurassic Park?” I murmured dryly. I crouched to avoid falling over when the shaking started again. Then something else was shaking.

When we’d stopped there because Genis almost fell, it’s a shame we didn’t bother looking up.

“Oh…my…Goddess…”

“GENIS!” Lloyd suddenly yelled. “YOU SAID THERE WEREN’T ANY STALACTITES!”

Genis didn’t say anything. We were all staring at the shaking stalactites on the ceiling, afraid beyond words. Then, the shaking stopped. And one of them fell.

“MOVE!” Lloyd shouted. I dashed away, tripping over my own shoelaces. I looked up again. There were stalactites everywhere across the ceiling.

I tried to think of something smart to do. I really did. Give me credit for trying at least. But all I ended up managing screaming, “We’re gonna DIE IN HERE!”

Lloyd looked around frantically, searching for cover. There was no light from the torch; he’d dropped it down the chasm accidentally when Genis fell. Great going, Lloyd. Now we’re nearly blind, AND we’re about to get crushed into tiny piecesby falling rocks.

“Hey! Do you guys see that light?” He pointed off in the distance to where, indeed, I could see a faint flickering light in the darkness.

“Yeah, it’s across the chasm, so what good will that do while we get CRUSHED by these things!” I continued to stare upward, watching for the falling stalactites

“You can see in the dark!” He shook me. “I’ve seen you do it before!”

“What! No! I can’t!”

“Then how did you make it through that mine shaft back in Ossa Trail! Just do it, Stella! You have to!”

“ALRIGHT! Okay, okay…deep breath, calm down…whew…” I tried not to think about my imminent doom and focused on deep breaths and calmness. Think of nothing, be calm, be still…be still my soul…eh, clichéd line, but it worked. I willed it to happen, told that power in my head that it was going to do what I wanted or else. I opened my eyes.

Everything outlined in indigo, just like the mines when I was stuck with Sheena…I wanted to stop and stare at everything in that special sight, but right now, we were going to die if I didn’t get moving. I looked up, staring in horror at what was about to happen… “Genis! Move!” I ran for the little magician, dragging him backwards. A second later, a stalactite came crashing down in a rain of damp rocks and dirt. I pulled him up, brushed myself off, and started to run.

“C’mon!” Lloyd actually picked up Genis under his arm and started to run after me. Genis eventually wriggled out once he got his sense knocked back into him and ran as well. I tried to squint and see how we could get to that light that Lloyd saw, whatever it was. It was green in my purple-sight. I wondered vaguely why it was different than the star-vision that I’d used…or maybe it wasn’t at all. Ah, too many things confusing me…no time to think, just get to safety before more stalactites go suicidal and fall down, crushing our puny little brains…

“WHOA! Stop!” I skidded on my feet, scrambling to stay on the edge. Another little hidden chasm. This place was loaded with them! I backed up, hoping that Lloyd and Genis could see that I had stopped. Of course, they couldn’t, and slammed right into me.

“YAAAH!” Now I know how Genis felt when he was about to fall. Somebody caught me, though, and pulled me back. I didn’t have time to thank them. I looked around, still in the weird night-vision, trying to find another way around. Then I found it. Why I didn’t see it before was beyond me…Not looking back, I ran towards the little bridge. Hopefully it would hold our combined weights.

“This way!” I jogged towards it, running across without a second thought. Little chasm passed, I continued to run straight towards that light that Lloyd had pointed out. We were getting closer.

“Stella! Stop!” Lloyd yelled from behind me. I stopped immediately, turning around to face him.

“What? Why?”

“Shh!” He pointed across the bridge where the ugliest thing I swear I have ever seen was waiting, growling menacingly. The three of us stared in horrified silence, slowly backing away from the bridge. I was going to ask ‘what is it’ when I realized that would be stupid.

It was huge, gnarled like wood but I could see that it was hard as rock. Beady black eyes and yellow pus-things on its back. That’s what it looked like in my night-vision. I wondered how Lloyd and Genis could see through the darkness what it really looked like, but maybe we didn’t have it. It’s presence was enough. I recalled Noishe telling me that some monsters could sense panic and fear. I had a mental picture of how that worked, sort of like sonic waves. This thing wasn’t projecting thoughts or anything, or if it was, I couldn’t hear it. I could only hear Noishe’s thoughts. But this ugly thing was projecting some kind of emotion. Panic? Disgust? How about both? Malevolence. Fear. It made you want to run away. But maybe that was just me, because I could swear I saw Lloyd start to approach the thing. That made me really worried. Didn’t he get the bad vibes here!

“Lloyd!” I broke the silence. I snatched his arm, dragging him along. This time, Genis was ahead. Of course. Stupid elven sight. He could probably see in the dark, too.

“What is that thing?” I panted.

“I don’t know, but it’s freaking ugly!”

“Do you think it can cross?” Lloyd bothered asking.

“Pray that it can’t!”

Why, oh why, couldn’t this be like it was in the game? Easy going, avoid traps, and enact the windmills. No, we were underground, getting chased by a fugly monster that we thought was a boulder when I tripped over a trip wire. Damn it.

“Wait a sec--FO-AAAHHH!” Genis was falling, once again. At least it wasn’t down a dark pit of despair with no way out. He just slid down the side of an unforeseen slope. We tried to stop in time, but we slipped and started falling as well.

“AAAHHHH!”

THUD!

I blacked out briefly on the impact. Man, I was getting into too many situations like this…

“Uhngh…” I muttered, finding myself crawling out of yet another human pile. “Gitoffomeee….” I muttered, collapsing to the ground.

“Oww…” Lloyd groaned, rolling off the top of the dogpile. With that big weight off, I pushed Genis off and rolled onto my stomach, gasping for air.

“Lloyd…was…right…” I breathed. “Genis…you’re…heavy…”

“Shut up,” the little magician mumbled. I rolled onto my eyes, clutching my head. It hurt.

“At least we’re alive,” Lloyd said. He winced and hissed in pain, clutching his knee. “Man…how far did we fall?” He looked up, squinting.

I tried to look up but found I couldn’t see anything. My night-vision was gone with the impact. Plus, my right eye felt all puffy. Oh shit.

“Dude,” I muttered deliriously, “I feel like I have a goldfish in my eye…” I poked my own eye, wincing at the pain. Big, puffy black eye. Perfect.

“Hahahaha,” Lloyd laughed, “you look horrible.”

“Ehh…how bad is it?”

“It’s disgusting,” Genis muttered, staring at my face. I glared with my remaining eye and pulled my hair over the right side of my face. Sure, it looked emo, but at least it covered it.

“Where are we?” I asked vaguely, trying to get the attention away from my black eye. It didn’t actually hurt that much, just only when something touched it.

“I think…we slid down the little slope…” Lloyd squinted back up. “It doesn’t look that far up. Genis, can you see anything?”

The little half-elf took one glance up and said confidently, “twenty-five feet, give or take an inch.”

“Okay.” I looked around, finding it odd not being able to see out of my right eye. I reminded myself that it could’ve been worse. Behind us there was the slope we’d ‘slid’ down. Before us there were more ruins. No random passages through it. All of it was leveled down. It was strange. It looked like some post-apocalyptic thing. Lloyd started walking through all of that, wincing with every step on his hurt knee. Genis seemed overall okay, but my eye throbbed with every step. It was like gravity itself was hurting it, and every step’s vibration made it worse. I stayed at the back, looking back occasionally to see if the ugly thing was following us. I didn’t dare try to enact that night-vision power. I was afraid it would hurt my eye even more. I just followed Lloyd. He seemed to know where he was going.

Eventually, on our way through all the rubble, we came across that light source Lloyd had spotted so far back. It was just a torch, hanging on the wall. Lloyd grabbed it, confused. “Why is there…!” He looked at the ground, startled by something.

“What is it?” Genis asked.

“C’mon! We need to catch up!” Lloyd bolted off. Genis and I stared after him, confused.

“Hey, look,” Genis said. He pointed at something in the dust. It was a footprint.

“You think the others might have been here?”

“It makes sense. Torches aren’t found just lying around. Let’s catch up with Lloyd before he gets lost.”

We were out of breath by the time we caught up with Lloyd. My legs hurt like hell, Genis looked like he was about to die, and my face was killing me. I kept my hand over my right eye, letting the cloth of my hoodie keep it still. Stupid Wind Temple…if I ever met the Sylph, I was killing them for building this stupid place.

“Genis! Stella!” Colette exclaimed happily. She looked like she was about to hug us, but reconsidered the thought at our impaired state. I breathed deeply a few times before collapsing on my knees to the ground.

“Where the…hell have you guys…been?”

“Making our way to the Seal,” Raine answered calmly. She walked over to Genis, checking him over and muttering healing incantations under her breath.

“Raine, I’m fine,” Genis said. The little brat looked at me, though, and started laughing. “You should heal Stella, though.”

“Shut up, it’s not funny!” I growled. I stood up, huffing still from the run we’d just endured.

“Yes it is,” Lloyd snickered. I resisted the urge to kick him in his injured knee.

“What happened to all of you, anyway?” Colette asked.

The three of us looked at eachother, unsure if we wanted to answer. “Uh, we fell down a little slope,” Lloyd said for all of us.

Raine eyed us dubiously, but nevertheless said nothing and went over to me. “Let me see your eye,” she demanded.

“No.” I kept my hand firmly over it.

“I have to see it to heal it,” she said and firmly pulled my hand down, looking at my puffed up eye. She touched it briefly with cool fingers and murmured something under her breath. A faint green glow overtook my vision, and then the eye felt better. She frowned in disapproval.

“It’s still shadowed…it’ll be like that for a time. Don’t touch it,” she slapped my hand down as I went to rub my eyes. She turned around to face Lloyd who was standing over by Colette. “I—”

The floor started shaking again. Genis, Lloyd and I were instantly aware, looking around in fear.

“Wha-what’s going on!” Colette gasped.

Lloyd looked at me accusingly. “You said it couldn’t cross the chasm!”

“I said ‘pray it doesn’t’! I didn’t say that it wasn’t possible!”

“Guys!” Genis snapped us out of our potential argument. “Shut up and start running!”

Kratos, who had said nothing upon our arrival, led the way. We followed him, panicking.

“I take it you three have come across this before,” Raine panted. “Meaning that you didn’t just fall down a slope!”

“Long story, keep running!” I yelled.

Run, run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man…

“Archway, up ahead!” I heard Kratos yell. Indeed, there was a bit stone archway up ahead. I hoped it was a seal-able door, otherwise we were screwed. We all ran a bit faster, aware of the new intensity of the shaking. Whatever that ugly ass thing was, it was apparently intelligent enough to realize that we were escaping, and it was freaking pissed. I pushed my legs and lungs to their full endurance, which, sadly enough, is only slightly faster than Genis. Great. I’m faster than a thirteen-year-old. Dammit, I should’ve tried out for track when I had the chance! (I honestly don’t know how many times I’ve regretted not doing that.)

“Get in!” Lloyd ushered, and I ran without hesitation into the archway. I heard a heavy thunk behind me, and I whipped around, almost completely winded and heaving like I was in labor or something. Ugh. Bad comparison. Ignore that. Heaving like there wasn’t enough air for me to breathe. Which was actually the case, considering that the whole place was underground…or something like that. I collapsed to the ground, not really caring any more about lack of oxygen or the completion of the Seal. My brain just didn’t feel like working at the time.

“Lloyd!” Raine said sharply, panting heavily for breath. “Now is the time for you to explain.”

“Wait,” Genis said breathlessly. “Is that door solid?”

Colette knocked against it, and it made no echo. “Yeah,” she nodded. “We’re safe.”

“That thing…is so…pissed at us…by now…” I breathed.

Lloyd nodded. “How did it get across the chasm, though?”

“T’soesn’t matter…” I coughed. “What matters…is that…it did.”

“Lloyd,” Raine tapped her foot impatiently.

“Okay, okay,” Lloyd said, bending over from exhaustion. “I’ll explain just…lemme catch my breath for a sec.” He breathed a few times before standing back up straight, breathing slightly better. But he still coughed here and there. “Remember when Stella tripped over that wire?” She nodded. “Well, apparently it wasn’t a boulder…I think it was that thing, because we looked over the chasm after we got split up and stuff, and there was this rippling in the water where the boulder fell. So we ignored it and kept walking, the floor started shaking, stalactites started falli--”

“WHAT!” Raine screeched, her voice echoing painfully off the stone walls, loud enough to make all of us flinch. “Stalactites…and…AUGH!” I couldn’t tell what she was getting so pissed about. Maybe it was her time of the month. Sure, shallow thing to blame it on, but I’d never seen her that mad. Maybe she was mad because we’d managed to nearly kill Genis in the process of this whole thing, and she seemed to be ultra-sensitive to the most miniscule of problems concerning him…that would make more sense.

…All I can say is thank HERA Lloyd didn’t mention when Genis nearly fell to his death…man, and I thought I was a magnet for random disasters.

Raine was still frustrated with the three of us. She targeted Lloyd mostly with her insults on his “carelessness and negligence” regarding her little brother, and even yelled at me for a little bit. I was still laying on the floor trying to regain my breath to even care that she existed, let alone was speaking to me.

After I’d finally gotten the will and strength to stand back up, I found that my legs were sore and stiff as hell. Some people say their legs ache the day after they exercise, but mine ache about ten minutes after and they feel stiff in the morning. Maybe my DNA was mutated when I was a cell...It would explain a lot of things.

Anywho…while we waited for Raine to calm down so we could get moving again, I started humming some more stuff under my breath, which only ended up winding me even more. But I couldn’t really help it. I had to hum something. It was instinctive. It was written in my blood. Well, not really. But it might as well be.

“When do you think…she’ll tire of calling you a ‘careless moron’?” I asked Lloyd dryly.

“When she dies,” Lloyd said sadly. “Or when pigs fly. You never know.” I laughed at that, but ended up coughing some more. I’d actually managed to keep standing for a couple of minutes. What can I say, I’m a total wimp.

“Ugh, I’m so sick of this place,” Genis muttered darkly, glaring at the surrounding walls.

“I feel you, man,” Lloyd chuckled. “I feel ya.”

“I feel you, Johanna!” I started singing. “I feel you…do they think that walls can hide you? Even now I’m at your window. I am in the dark beside you…buried sweetly in your yellow hai—” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I took one look at Colette, choked, flushed, and started laughing. I couldn’t help but mutter an “ew” at that. Raine even stopped ranting to stare at me, slightly frightened. Colette looked like she was about to die, and Lloyd looked horrified.

“I’m sorry! It popped out! A guy was meant to sing that song!” I nearly choked, and then I laughed again. “Oh God, somebody shoot me, holy Hercules, hahaha! I am so, so sorry, Colette!” I fell to the ground, laughing at myself, but horrified at myself at the same time. “Oh my God, aaah! Hahahahaha!” Before I knew it, Lloyd and Genis were laughing beside me, and Colette managed a sheepish giggle, still embarrassed. Memo to me: NEVER DO THAT AGAIN. EVER. EVER.

“Yeah, you scared us there for a second,” Lloyd said after we’d gotten over my singing-spree.

“I scared myself,” I laughed, but then made another “ew” sound. “Holy crap, Colette, I am SO sorry, ahahahaha! I didn’t mean it, I swear…hahahaha…that song is supposed to be sung by a guy…” Anthony, in Sweeney Todd, if I remembered correctly. Oh god, oh god, oh gaaaawwwddd…hahahaha.

“Stella,” Raine said gravely. “Never do that again. Please.”

“I won’t, I SWEAR…oh my god, hahahaha…”

“I tho—nevermind. Just don’t.” She shut her mouth firmly and started to walk ahead down the stone passageway. I started laughing again and apologized once more to Colette, thoroughly horrified and yet somehow incredibly amused with myself. Not sure how that works out.

Anywho…they decided to get moving at that point. My legs were still stiff, but I didn’t complain. I was still disgusted, amused, angry, and horrified with myself for singing that song. But mostly amused.

“You know,” Lloyd poked me, “I’m never going to let you live that down.” He cackled. It was weird.

I groaned in self-pity. “Dammit…I can’t believe I started singing that…”

“Seriously enough, Stella,” Genis interjected, “where DO you come up with all those songs?”

I bit my lip, not sure how to explain it without arousing suspicion. “You ever heard of a musical?”

“You mean something that has music in it?” Lloyd looked confused.

“Um, how about a play?”

Genis stared at me like I was stupid. “Who doesn’t?”

“Apparently Lloyd,” I muttered. “Well, anyway, a musical is just a play, but with music. The people randomly break out into song and dance.”

“That…that’s horrible!” Lloyd stared at me, wide-eyed in seeming terror. I glared at him.

“The music helps express the character’s emotions, the plot, helps the audience understand it better. And it’s not that bad. If I ever get the chance, I’ll show you one.” As if that were going to happen, but I had to say something promising. “That’s where I get my songs from.” Not entirely true. Only some of them. But it was easier to explain.

“…Are you sure you’re not an alien?” Lloyd asked dryly. I could tell he was being completely sarcastic, and I tried not to start laughing hysterically. Yes, I was an alien.

“Perhaps,” I said mysteriously, trying to sound like I was joking. I don’t really know what kept them from pestering me about my origins. Maybe it was the way I’d reacted outside of Izoold. I felt bad about that. But that could have been the case. Maybe they felt like it was a sensitive topic. It wasn’t, not really, I just wanted to keep it a secret. Why exactly, I’m not really sure, but I felt like I had to…and I tend to go along with my feelings more than I give myself credit for. But that’s not the point. The point is that I didn’t want to have to deal with it. Too much trouble. It’s better if they think I’m a native Sylvarantian, though I’d admit I wasn’t a very good actor.

“What?” I heard Colette gasp from up ahead. Our attentions were immediately directed at her. She was pointing at something, what it was I couldn’t tell; it was too dark in the passage.

“It’s sealed,” Raine murmured. Oh. Another door.

“Great,” I sighed. “Just what we needed. More roadblocks. Yippee.”

“Lloyd,” Kratos said seriously, “Do you still have the Sorcerer’s Ring?”

Lloyd was a bit stunned by the sudden question. He seemed about to splutter ‘no’, but decided honesty was better when concerning the scary mercenary. “Uh, yeah, hehe.”

“Lloyd!” Colette admonished. “You stole the ring from the Temple!”

“N-no, I didn’t! I just…borrowed it. Uh, permanently. I’ll return it when we get back to Iselia, I swear!”

Colette softened, something in her eyes melting like butter. But it wasn’t something happy. Lloyd sighed in relief, not catching the Chosen’s little glitch. Kratos went on: “Then see if it affects the door. Perhaps it is merely a magic seal, otherwise we’ll have to search for manual methods.”

I stared at him for a bit. “You know, big words are nice and all, but Lloyd’s brain doesn’t function on that level half of the time. Why couldn’t you just say, ‘hey, kiddo, chuck the ring at the door and see if it sparks, if not we’ll go find a nifty switch to open it’. Because that would’ve made it easier for poor Lloyd’s brain.” I patted Lloyd on the head. He twitched. “Look, see? He’s twitching. You made his brain go into overload.”

Lloyd whapped me upside the head, red in the face. He grumbled something under his breath and went to the door ahead. Genis pointed at me and laughed like the little punkface he is. I thought about smacking him, but decided Raine’s wrath wasn’t worth it.

There was a little flash of light up ahead that seemed to come from Lloyd’s left ungloved hand, and then it sort of…poofed. There was a little ‘swoosh’ sound, and then it was gone. I walked up closer to take a look at the so-called sealed door. Lloyd was frowning, staring at the garnet ring in his hand.

“Stupid thing,” he muttered, tapping the stone and aiming it again at the door. The door wasn’t glowing or anything. Maybe it wasn’t magically sealed. Maybe it was just another find-the-stupid-hidden-switch thing.

“Okay, now we have to find the switch,” Genis bowed his head in anguish. “Argh, I hate this place…” Colette looked a bit downcast at that, but nobody seemed to notice.

“Damn! This is going to take forever if we have to find more of these dumb switches!”

“Not necessarily,” Raine lectured. “We came upon those previous switches by accident, and besides, this is the last door we have to enter before the seal.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because it says so.” Raine pointed to another ancient bordered scribble on the wall.

“Still, though, everyone start looking for a switch,” Lloyd sighed and started pressing against the walls in hopes of finding something. I approached the door instead and--

ZHAPPP!

“UUWHAAH!”

“What the-!”

I twitched on the ground, twitching convulsively. It hurt. Like hell. Though I wasn’t yet sure how bad hell hurt, so I guess I can’t say that. But it hurt something bad, probably like hell. “D-damn…d-d-d-door…” I mumbled through numb lips. I imagined my hair looked something like Einstein’s at that point, or maybe Frankenstein-ish.

“Stella, are you okay?”

“N-no….F-f-f-fuc-k-k-king d-door…” I tried to move, but I couldn’t help the shaking and the twitching.

Lloyd started laughing at me. I glared black death at him. He stopped laughing. “It…is-is...n’t f-funny, ass-h-hole!”

“It was until you scared me,” he admitted fearfully.

“G-good…y-you s-should b-b-b-be.”

Raine muttered some obscure healing incantation under her breath, and I could feel my tense nerves calm down, and some sensation came back into my arm where I’d touched the door.

“Hey, look, the door’s open!” Colette exclaimed.

“Looks like your electrocution did the trick,” Genis said.

“T-the door is all you c-can think ab-bout at th-this p-point!” I struggled to get up, falling down a few times, but managed to keep standing with some of Raine’s help. I was still shaking like mad. I’d been shocked a few times in my arm when I’d gotten my surgery for carpal tunnel when I was twelve. They had to test my nerves to see if it wasn’t carpal tunnel, but that turned out to be pointless. They stabbed a needle a few times in me and sent a few electrical pulses into my arm, my arm going nuts when they upped the voltage. In other words, yeah, it hurt. A little bit. Right now, I felt like I’d just been shocked with one of those cardiac arrest things that they use in ambulances. Yeah. Those things. Or an electrical fence. The kind that send you flying and leave you dead if you get shocked by them…unless you’re already dead, of course. My heart was pounding and I felt like I had no control over my body.

“It appears all we needed to do was spring the trap. I guess small spells didn’t cut it,” Raine mused.

“F-fucking…crazy-ass…door…”

“Watch your language,” she said absently.

Number two nearly fatal incident of the day…I had a feeling this wasn’t going to be the last.

“Hehe, another thing to add to this list of ‘things I’ll never let Stella live down’,” Lloyd chuckled evilly. I glared at him, but wound up making instead a rather disturbing face and falling to the ground, twitching again. I got back up, though, shaking a bit. It happened more than a few times, I can say that much. Being electrocuted is…not a sensation I’d like to describe or ever experience again. The aftermath isn’t that pleasant either. That door was like a tazer. Do not ask me how I know how a tazer feels.

“Hehehe,” Colette giggled.

“What?” I glared blearily at the cheery blonde.

“Your hair looks awful.”

I patted the top of my head shakily, noting with a groan of despair that yes, indeed, it was standing on end, and it felt gritty and singed. I pulled a strand down from its stiff post, and it broke. Yep. Charred hair. I sniffed it. Smelled singed. Well, my head was definitely toast. I looked at my arm hair out of curiosity. It was gone. Well, I thought, this means I don’t have to worry about shaving. I tried to puff my hair back down, but it was worse than Frankenstein’s wife’s was.

“Colette, do you have a hair tie?” I asked sheepishly.

“No,” she shook her head. “I like having my hair down.”

“Here,” Raine handed me a long strip of cloth. “Use that as a makeshift hair tie for now. Now hurry, we have to reach the Seal.”

My heart was still racing from it. It made me panicky. I tried to calm down, deep breaths and all that, but it made me jittery and jumpy. My nerves were completely fried. I forced all my hair into a ponytail, not caring what it looked like so long as it was out of my face and not standing on end. I could observe the full damage later. Raine was right. We needed to get to the Seal, and quickly. I was getting fucking sick of this place.

“Is that…?” Lloyd sniffed sharply. “I smell fresh air!”

“We’re nearly out!” Genis gasped happily. We all moved much quickly then by the light of Raine’s staff. After we turned a corner, sure enough, there was the fading light of day outside. I had to squint; it was the kind of bright you saw when you came out of the movies. It looked like the sun was right in the doorway. Sunset…we’d been in there a long time…how long was it going to get back out, I wondered. And how hard was this Seal Guardian going to be to kill? We couldn’t all fight by nighttime. Too dangerous. And the platform itself was rather small. Thousands of little problems cropped up in my mind, making me worry even more and my heart pound even faster. Before I knew it, I was hyperventilating.

“What in the worl--? Stella, are you okay?”

“Fine, fine, I’m okay.” I breathed in slowly, breathed out, breathed in, breathed out…I started shaking again. When I cry hard, I start to hyperventilate. When I get an anxiety attack, I start hyperventilating too. That’s why I try and forget about things. Apparently, when I get electrocuted, I hyperventilate as well. Hmm.

“Colette,” Raine urged gently, and the Chosen nodded her blonde head in response. Colette approached the altar tentatively, her chakrams at the ready. Any second now, that thing was going to pop up. Man, I couldn’t do this…

Sudden, a piercing cry split the air. I clamped my hands over my ears in a gesture of pain. “What the hell!” We all looked around frantically, unsheathing and readying our weapons. I didn’t, though. I was too busy trying to calm down and think things through. Do not panic, do not panic…what was the Wind Seal’s Guardian? Wasn’t it that bird thing? What’s its name…started with a E or an I or something. I couldn’t remember. But it had an X in it somewhere, right after a Y, that I remembered. Eh, it didn’t matter. I looked up instead of looking around, searching the skies.

“Up there!” Colette suddenly cried, pointing. There, just barely below the orange clouds of the sunset, a green and blue figure wove its way through the colored sky. It would’ve been beautiful if I wasn’t sure it was an enemy. I-uh something. Dammit, what the hell was its name? Man, this was going to bug me all week long…

“Iafig? Iamittin? Iamuffin?Iapyro? No, no… Iapinhead? Ianfyx? Iaphoryx? Iapy-pyx-Iapyx--IAPYX! Haha, I remember!”

Genis looked at me, confused. “What the heck are you talking about?”

“Uh, nothing. Just remembering something.” I shook it off, staring at the blue-green bird in the sky. Quite suddenly, it did a U-turn…and then it disappeared. I was confused. I looked across the sky, spinning around, trying to spot the blue-green dot again—

“Stella!” Lloyd nearly screamed. “Above you!”

I looked up just in time to get the worst scar of my life. I put up my arms defensively, but it was pointless – it just mauled my arms as well. I fell to the ground, crying out in pain. I couldn’t see anything at the moment; I’d closed my eyes in a feeble effort to protect myself. It raked its claws across my face, over my head…It felt like a simple scrape, and then it killed.

I heard something small clatter to the ground, like beads or rocks or something, but I was too busy writhing on the ground in pain to really care. I could hear footsteps approaching me, thunk, thunk, thunk on the stone floor…but then they stopped. Everyone went quiet. Then there was a gasp, and ‘swoosh’ noise went by my ear. I scrambled to my feet and stumbled backwards, eventually falling down and scooting as fast as I could away while keeping my gouged arms over the claw marks that were surely pouring blood down my face. I began to feel slightly faint, but I wouldn’t allow myself to pass out. I couldn’t. I had to ignore it, I couldn’t let it…it hurt too much too…

Another bird-like cry split the air, making me sob from the sheer pitch. It was high, and it was loud, and it hurt my ears enough to almost make them bleed. I probably wasn’t going to be hearing right at least for a month after this fight…if I even heard at all.

“Get away!” Lloyd yelled, and I heard a rustling sound. If he was talking to me, or to Big Bird, I honestly couldn’t tell. Either way, I continued to scramble backwards until I hit something solid. Person? Stone? I didn’t know. Another bird-cry resounded, but I put my hands over my ears in time. I looked around blearily, trying to figure out what was going on through my fog of confusion. There was a blue-green thing at the other end of the platform thing…it was blurry. Everything was a bit blurry. I could barely see anything anymore. I wiped my eyes, noting with a hiss of excruciating pain that blood was all over my jacket and in my hair…I was disgusted. I wiped my eyes again, trying to ignore the constant pain. Red blurry figure…Lloyd, something shining orange in the sunlight, was that his sword? Swords…he fought with two…he waited. Why was he waiting? I wiped my eyes again. He took one step towards the bird, and it’s neck snapped forwards, beak clacking. Lloyd jumped back, and paced a bit. Circling. Waiting for the first real strike. This was pointless. I tried to stand up, but ended up clutching my face in pain and falling over again.

I looked around for Raine, but she was far away. Colette was the nearest person to me. Why wasn’t anyone moving? I fumbled for my knife, thanking the powers that be that it hadn’t slipped from its sheath. At least something was going right this day. I wiped my eyes, grimacing and hissing from pain. I couldn’t cast anything, no, not like this, and I was still recovering from the electrical shock of that damn door.

…Ever have one of those days where you could swear that everyone is out to murder you on sight and make everything as painfully difficult as possible? I blame the Sylph. This is their freaking Temple. If this was their idea as a joke, they have a sick, sick sense of humor. I swear to God that if I ever met those stupid fairies, I was killing them.

Suddenly, there was a clashing noise, the sound of something clattering and scuffling. I squinted to see what was going on, scrambling to my feet again. I kept my hands over my face, stumbling around like a madman. I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t see…I cried out from the pain, it was spreading…

I began to feel faint. I couldn’t comprehend what was going on any more. It was all some big red blur in my sight. I tried to keep my senses, but I couldn’t…why weren’t they…I had to get to Raine. She was…where was she? I crawled on the edge of the platform, the Bird emitting ear-splitting cries, but I was numb now. I crawled over to where I could see Raine, keeping one arm still over my face and—

“First aid,” I heard her yell. I sat back, letting the glow come over me, keeping my eyes closed. To be truthful, it didn’t help it all that much. My arms were still bleeding like crazy and felt like I had knives sticking out of them, my face still ached and stung, but I could see. About time, I thought to myself. I took a deep breath and looked to where the Iapyx was still struggling with Lloyd and Kratos. It tried to take off from the ground several times, but each time a blow to its wing delivered by one of the two swordsmen kept it from flying too high. Genis helped by sending wave after wave of fireballs at it, with the occasional lightning bolt. I reached for my knife and it appeared ever faithfully in my hand. But then I looked at the bird, and my shadow as it was…directly to the right of me, ninety degrees…maybe…? I could appear behind it…

No, I had a better idea.

I focused on my shadow and it gave a nod of understanding. I don’t know if she could read my mind or what, but we must have been thinking the same thing. I focused on what I wanted it to do, and then I turned my eyes towards the Iapyx’s shadow. There. That’s where it was going. Right there. I took a deep breath…

And chucked my knife straight at the ground.

I expected it to clang and hit the stone, but my shadow completely absorbed it, and then disappeared. Out of the corner of my vision I saw a brief glint of it emerging from the Iapyx’s shadow, and then it went flying into the back of the thing’s head. It screeched in pain, stumbling around, feathers flying everywhere…I wondered why it didn’t have any blood, because I did…blood…all over my arms…I fell to the ground, no longer caring if we’d won or not. I was too dazed. Somewhere on the edge of all thought, I heard footsteps frantically coming towards me, and then they stopped, and everything went red for a moment. I closed my eyes, blotting out everything.

And then it suddenly felt a bit better. I sat up slowly, keeping my arms over my face even though that only made it worse. There was a painful throbbing, and then a cool sort of feeling came over me. I blinked, opening my eyes to see what had just happened. Raine was kneeling in front of me, staring intently at the scratches up my arms. I cried out in pain. She stood up and muttered something under her breath, and it felt better again. I felt my face, waiting to wince in pain and find huge gashes, but all I felt were little lines that stung on touch.

I looked up at her, smiling a bit sheepishly. “Took you long enough. Sheesh. I’m such a wimp.”

“Yes, yes you are,” she agreed with a slight smile. “Don’t over exert yourself, however. It was no minor injury. You lost quite a bit of blood.” She glanced at a red line on the ground jagged. I realized quickly that this was blood…and it was mine? I stared, wide-eyed, fingering the lines across my face. I realized that a portion of my eyebrow was gone. Oh well. That eye had already been beat up, anyway. I was still sore all over, and my arms ached with every little movement and strain on the new scar tissue.

“Be careful,” she warned. “They might reopen. It’s the least I can do on a short notice.”

“Why didn’t you heal me before?”

“If I had, the Guardian would have noticed the mana usage and attacked you. Be thankful that it didn’t.”

I nodded, not really caring why or why not anyone did anything. I walked over to the Iapyx’s corpse, glaring at the wretched thing. I kicked it in satisfaction. “Stupid magpie.” I looked at the back of its head, noting that my knife was still imbedded in the back of its skull. I decided to leave it there. Better safe than sorry.

Raine followed behind me, and we all crowded around the thing, staring at the object of so much trouble. “Why was this was so harder to defeat than the others?” Genis asked. It was the question I think we all were asking. Well, except Kratos, but that’s just because he’s Kratos.

“I think…” Colette began. “I think it was expecting us. Somehow.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Lloyd shook his head. “It couldn’t have.”

A thought entered my mind. “Maybe…well, it was a mana-created thing, right? All the Seal Guardians are like that. If they all have the same creator, which would make sense.”

“…That doesn’t explain why it was so much harder to kill than the rest,” Genis said dubiously.

“No, actually, it does,” said Raine. “Just as siblings resemble eachother because of their parentage, these things were all made by the same creator…It’s not impossible to assume that they’re all connected. And they were all created for the same purpose – to guard the Seal from intruders. This one may have been prepared for us, though, simply because it took us so long to get to the actual Seal.”

Kratos’ eyes narrowed as he examined the creature. He walked around to its head, looking at my knife in its back. He opened his mouth to say something, but appeared to consider it and then stood back up, remaining silent. We turned away from the dead giant bird and watched on as Colette approached the altar. I almost absently put up my shield, not wanting to ever feel the pain that exposure to angelic mana inflicted upon me ever again. That was another thing I didn’t get – why was I sensitive to it? I assumed it had something to do with my powers and the fact that my shadow was animate…but still…ugh, so many things I didn’t know. All of it made my head hurt…and none of it made any sense! It just didn’t equate out, and there was nothing and no one to explain it all to me. It’s like someone gave me a card-less solitaire game that was bent on losing, and then forgot to tell me the rules while subsequently turning off the lights so I couldn’t see what I was doing. Yes. It was worthy of that obscure comparison.

Colette stood before the altar for a few seconds.

Nothing happened.

We were all a bit bewildered.

I quickly found out the reason for the delay.

It was a big black talon protruding from my abdomen.

“Ah-!” I cried out in pain, choking off the cry from the sheer shock of what had just happened.

I’d just been stabbed. I could feel my shield flicker and fall around me like tinsel on a tree.

The bird gave a little cry of pride, of victory. There was a horrible ripping sound, something grating and scratching against my back, leaving deep gashes. I couldn’t feel it anymore. My back had gone numb. Face felt like it was splitting in half.

Pain blossomed in my back first, I think, but it’s hard to tell exactly what came first. I knew the actual pain once the bird ripped it out, and I fell to the ground, keeping my hands over the wound in a feeble attempt to stop the bleeding. Blood, blood, blood, it was everywhere. People were crying out in dismay. I couldn’t remember exactly who they were. Only red, red, red, everywhere, and it was coming from me like a bleeding flower. It was painful, a fire, and then it was cold, icicles, and that made it even worse. I tried to breathe, but I choked on it. I touched my mouth with my spare hand, and found blood on it.

First thought: Splendid. Here I die. Time to find out if there really is an afterlife.

My vision dimmed over. A strange new sensation overcame me, a painful wrenching sensation, and then a quick and sharp release. Everything clouded over in red, but this time, it wasn’t because the sunset was filtering though my eyelids or a wound was bleeding down into my eyes. It was just because everything was fading into red and simply that. I couldn’t remember exactly what I was anymore. There was just red, and pain, and more red on the ground.

People were yelling around me, maybe at me. I didn’t know. I just lay there, slightly horrified, yet not really knowing why. Somebody yelled something familiar, but I wasn’t coherent enough to recognize exactly what it was.

Finally, something snapped me into my senses. I cried out in pain, the wound bleeding even more. I was feeling very faint, and I tried to sit up, but wound up falling down again. Rushing of footsteps.

“Stella, are you-!” They gasped. I wondered why, and then I looked down at my stomach, and then screamed. “Raine!” I started hyperventilating. All I could think of was ‘ohmigodI’vejustbeenstabbedholyfuckingshitwhatamIgoingtodoaaaahhhhhhI’mmagonnadie’.

“Stay calm,” she ordered frantically. I didn’t listen. I just panicked even more, realizing truly what had just happened.

“I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die,” I moaned.

“You’re not going to die,” she said.

“Professor, heal her!” Someone urged.

I imagined that she shook her head, even though I couldn’t see her. “I can’t, not fully. My healing arts will work on her minor wounds, but because she doesn’t have an exsphere, I can’t heal her fully. That will take time, and that’s time we don’t have.”

“Then heal her as best as you can and we’ll get out of here. We can set up camp outsi—COLETTE!” Now I knew who that speaker was, it was Lloyd. I heard a thumping sound. I didn’t care. All I could focus on was the blood coming out of my stomach. It didn’t seem like it was mine. This body didn’t feel like it was mine anymore. I didn’t bleed like that. I couldn’t. Or maybe that was just denial talking.

“This Seal has been much too taxing,” I heard a deeper voice mutter. Kratos? Probably. “Lloyd, carry Colette. They both need rest and time. We’ll set up camp on the outskirts of the Seal, preferably away from the tourists who will wish to catch a glimpse of the Chosen of Mana.” The ground suddenly left from underneath me, and I cried out from surprise and pain. Someone had picked me up. It was jostling the wound and it hurt like no other pain I’d ever felt, even the one in the Martel Temple. I nearly passed out, but I forced myself to stay conscious. Had to stay awake. Had to stay awake. Had to stay awake. I repeated my mantra until I believed it.

“Lloyd,” I heard a rather childish voice say. That had to be Genis… “What if we run into that…thing again!”

“Then we’ll run from it,” he said firmly.

Raine or Kratos must’ve been muttering healing spells along the way, otherwise I wouldn’t have been conscious the whole way. It was painful, and I was barely conscious. I couldn’t tell where we were, and my eyes didn’t seem to want to open or work when I did open them.

“Stella?” I heard a small voice say from somewhere near me. I tried to open my eyes, to see who it was, but I couldn’t. Something silver. I tried to make a noise sounding like I could hear whoever it was, that I knew who you were, that I was listening, but nothing came out. “Stay with us, okay?” I could, even in the state that I was in, sense the hesitance in that voice. They didn’t know if I could understand them. “You’re going to be fine, just stay awake.”

No, I wanted to say. I’m not fine. I didn’t know if I’d been crippled for life or what. I wasn’t okay, and I was pretty sure that I was going to die. I don’t know what you’ve been smoking, but whatever it was has clearly kept you blind from what that fucking magpie did to me.

Suddenly I heard a thumping noise. I tried to listen, but I only knew hurt at the moment. That and a blurry red image of everything so obscured that I couldn’t tell what anything was. It kept throbbing, the pain and my vision. Like a heartbeat. What was wrong with me?

“Lloyd,” Kratos stated quietly.

“…” Another thumping noise, shaking the ground. “RUN!” Lloyd yelled.

Once again, I only knew pain. I kept my arm around my stomach, trying not to scream from the shaking of the footsteps. I couldn’t remember what they were running from, or why they were carrying me with them. Should’ve just left me up there. Anything was better than going through this…Coherent thought stopped, and I couldn’t think anymore. Brain stopped functioning. Vision went black instead of going red. Maybe I was finally dying. Was this what it was like to die? It wasn’t spectacular.

Some thought in me seemed to skip over that roadblock of pain. Some coherence came back into my mind, whispering you’re not going to die. You’re going to live. You’ll be fine. Stay awake. So I stayed awake, clinging to the only thing that I knew at this point. In the little empty space that was my mind, that was all I cared about because it was the only thing there.

“It’s gaining on us!” Someone, probably Raine, cried out.

“Make for the chasm,” Kratos commanded.

“What? Why!” That sounded like Lloyd… “We can’t cross it. The bridge was destroyed!”

He didn’t answer. I could feel the vibration of footsteps, and it hurt. Every little movement hurt. Then, suddenly, the pain stopped. They’d stopped moving. I tried to move my head, tried to see, but there wasn’t anything. I groaned.

“Wha!” There was a communal gasp. A flicker of pain went through my body, but it was very brief. It wasn’t from my wounds, though. It just hurt all over, and then it didn’t.

“Is…is it safe?” Someone whispered. I barely heard the whisper.

“It is,” someone replied. The footsteps started again, and I tried to shift so it wouldn’t hurt…but it did. I gasped a bit from the sudden pain, and decided not to move at all and let them deal with it. I didn’t want to try anymore. I was tired, and…no, I wasn’t going to die. But I felt like it. It wasn’t necessarily a stabbing pain anymore, though occasionally it felt like someone was driving a knife into it again. Just a painful throbbing, like my heartbeat. I sighed, not fighting the sleep that I knew was coming. They told me to stay awake. I tried. That’s enough for me. I tried. And if I slept, I wouldn’t hurt as much.

I let the waves of exhaustion and pain come over me. I didn’t care. I tried to sleep…but something kept me awake. That persistent voice in the back of my mind. Stay awake, damn you, stay awake! No, I don’t want to. Let me sleep. I’m tired. I don’t care. You’re going to stay awake, even if that means I have to reopen that wound on you. No, don’t…don’t…I’ll stay awake…I’ll keep awake…I’ll…

I feel asleep.

It didn’t last long.

I woke up screaming in pain.

I told you to stay awake. You forced it on yourself, Stella.

“It’s reopened,” I heard Raine say.

I cried. I couldn’t help it. I whimpered from the searing pain. It gently faded away, though, and soon it was back to the throbbing. I tried to open my eyes and see what was going on, I was so confused…I couldn’t see anything still. Just some blurry blob. It hurt to open my eyes.

“Did…did it follow us? Is it gone?”

“No. It’s not gone. But it’s given up on persuing us for better game.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it implied. Come, we must make haste.”

More footsteps, more pain. The pain kept me awake.

There was the sound of a slamming door, like stone, and then the place smelled different. Older.

“Let’s rest here,” someone panted. I groaned a bit as the pain started throbbing again, and then ground came up under me. I, once again, tried to figure out what was going on, but I couldn’t see anything. It was all just a blurry blob of red with some faint outlines.

“Grab the bandages from the pack,” Raine commanded. I tried to turn my head in the direction where I could hear her, but I didn’t see her before my vision got all blurry again. My head rolled from side to side listlessly. Whatever I was on, it was hard and cold. I didn’t like it. I tried to say that, but words came out with some warm liquid. So I said nothing and let them do what ever they wanted to do.

“Here they are, Raine.” I think that was Genis. There was a rustling sound. I winced in pain, biting back the whimper I was going to let out as something shifted underneath me.

“Why, again, can’t you just heal her?” I heard Lloyd ask. “You’ve healed worse stuff than this on us.”

Raine sighed. Another shifting, but this one put something else underneath me. It was strange, that total lack of knowledge of what was going on. I tried to listen to them, tried to concentrate on something other than the pain in my abdomen and all across my body. There was another rustling sound, and something shifted under me again. I whimpered at that.

“She’s unaltered,” Raine said. “We have exspheres. She doesn’t. Exspheres are—” shifting, I whimpered again, “—mana-based. They strengthen us, enable us to do things normal people at our age or skill level would otherwise be unable to do. They alter our mana to be more receptive to mana that way we can cast higher spells, and beneficial spells are augmented when cast…especially by another user.” Another shift. I tried not to cry. “If you had a wound like this, I would be able to heal it with a tertiary healing spell. However, because of her lack of expshere…she’s not as receptive to healing spells like you. It would be like me, exsphere-less, trying to heal a dwarf. The mana doesn’t equate unless there’s another exsphere to receive it. Understand?”

Shifting again. I whimpered.

Lloyd, at least I think it was Lloyd, sighed. “Somehow, you manage to turn everything into a lesson. So it would be, like, Kratos training Colette, but they don’t have the same weapons, so it wouldn’t work as well. Right?”

“Not exactly,” Genis said dryly. More shifting. I stifled a whimper, but I couldn’t help the grimace. “It’s more complicated than that. What Raine said is a simplified version of the actual reason, but I don’t think you’d get it.”

“Oh?” Lloyd challenged. “Try me.”

I imagined Genis gave a shrug, but I didn’t know. He just paused. “Ok, fine. I’ll teach yo….” The voice trailed off, along with the sound of footsteps. They walked off. I shifted my head, keeping the rest of me still. It throbbed, but it was feeling a little bit better. Raine must’ve still been nearby, for I heard her mutter a familiar healing incanatation under her breath. The throbbing stopped. I opened up my eyes, wincing in pain. At least I could see now.

“Wh…shd…” I mumbled some incoherent words, not really conscious of what I was saying. I was tired, so tired. I wanted to sleep.

“Stella?” Raine asked quietly. Her face bobbed into my vision.

“…Yeah?” I managed to get out.

“Good. You’re feeling better. Do you know where we are?”

“N…” I couldn’t say the whole word without another grimace.

“Don’t move,” she rushed, keeping me still. “If you do, it will re-open. I managed to administer some minor healing while we were on the move, but it will be all for naught if it re-opens. Colette has to rest, as do you. She’ll be fine, it’s just the Angel Toxicosis, and I think she can live without healing. She’ll recover by tonight.”

“Tha…nks…” I mumbled. It was hard, keeping still. It wasn’t that it hurt to speak, it was just hard to focus on anything with all the pain. “What did…?” I left the question hanging. Raine caught on.

“The creature at the Seal is dead. Genis made a pyre out of it.” Her eyebrows knit together in thought. “It appears that the Seal Guardians can only be defeated by the destruction of their body…but I wonder why it was after you more than the others. Lloyd had been attacking it the most, but it seemed adamant about chasing you around, as we saw.” She looked down at the wound. I winced a bit at the memory, and from the pain. “Perhaps it sensed that you were the one who destroyed the last two Creatures. I do not know. I’ll have to investigate it. We’ll wrap your more permanently once we get out of here.” She stood up, brushed herself off. I rolled my head around, looking at the room. It was the room before the Wind Temple, we were back in the Mausoleum. The stone door had closed.

“Wait,” I said quietly. “The…Remiel…”

She nodded. “Remiel appeared, yes. He said nothing, merely afflicted Colette once more. No words were needed, since we know from the Book of Regeneration that the Tower of Mana is the next Seal.” I could tell she was bitter about this, even if her tone didn’t say it. It’s because she said ‘afflicted’ instead of ‘gifted her with more angelic power’. Colette, the Chosen…the station was a curse. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, least of all Colette. I felt guilt again, and it must have shown in my face, because Raine looked away.

“I’m going to check up on Colette. I’ll come back in a minute or so.”

I nodded, a bit sad. I didn’t want to be left alone, because I could only move my head so far without it hurting a bit. I felt up for my face, wincing at the sudden pain that it caused. Okay, don’t move too much, don’t strain your stomach or it’ll re-open. I reached up and felt my face, my head, making sure I was still at least a little bit intact. There were the three lines on my face, alone with a few new ones as well. I grimaced. It hadn’t just stabbed me, it full out attacked me. I had been too focused on the fact that I’d been stabbed to care. I reached around for the back of my head, and found a scratch right on the back soft spot. It stung badly, and the hair was missing from that spot. I put my hand back down, glad enough to be alive at least. What the hell was that bird-thing’s problem? Maybe it was like Raine said, that it…maybe it sensed that I’d been the one who had destroyed the other Guardians. And it was true, I had. Whatever that magpie’s problem, I was glad that it was dead.

I kept an arm around my stomach, making sure I wasn’t straining it, and shifted to see where I was in relation to the room. They’d put me on the platform next to Cleo the III’s coffin. It was more or less just a step leading up to it; I guess it was the most convenient and easiest place to wrap the bandages around me. Colette was near the wall, and Raine knelt beside her. She’d been propped up, her having no serious wounds. She was merely sick. She looked dead, though. Her lips all blue and skin so pale. It scared me to see Colette when she got sick. It wasn’t like her. It wasn’t right. Colette was made for smiles, not sickness.

“Stella?” I heard someone say nearby. I looked around, eyes trying to find the speaker. It was Lloyd. He grinned. “Hey, you’re coherent and conscious!”

Genis stared at his friend, wide-eyed. “Lloyd…you…you know the word ‘coherent’? AND ‘conscoius’!” He walked up to Lloyd, examined him in the eyes closely. He grabbed Lloyd by the suspenders and shook him mad. “Who are you and what have you done with Lloyd Irving!”

I laughed, but then gasped in pain. The blood under the bandages had spread. The two of them looked to me, worried.

“Are you okay? I’m sorry.”

“You sound like Colette,” I said with a little smile. I grimaced at a little stab of pain. “Just, uh, no making me laugh, okay? Even deep breathing…hurts to some extent.”

“Hear that, Lloyd?” Genis said dryly. “No acting stupid.” I didn’t laugh, I smiled. No laughing, laughing hurts too much. Lloyd glared at his little elven buddy. Genis snickered.

“We thought you were going to die back there for a bit,” Lloyd admitted.

I nodded seriously. “I did too.”

“Lloyd,” Raine called over and then approached. She examined the newly bloodied bandages with disdain. “I thought I told you not to move, Stella.”

“I did on accident, and then I laughed. It’s okay, though.” I put my arm back over it, wincing at the pressure.

If she were a mother hen, she’d be clucking. She turned back to Lloyd. “We’re leaving. Carry her, Kratos already has Colette.” Sure enough, the merc had already picked up the comatose blonde Chosen.

“”kay.” Lloyd made to pick me up, but I cried out in pain. Moving at all, even the slightest, hurt. “I’m sorry,” he said, backing off immediately.

“It’s okay, I’m fine,” I said through clenched teeth. The bandages bloodied a bit more. I bit my lip and bore it. He tried to pick me up as gently as possible.

We were about to leave through the door when we found that it was locked.

“What?” Raine checked the stone door. “This doesn’t make any sense,” she murmured, searching for a switch on the wall. I was confused as well, but then…wait a second. Wind Seal. The stuff before wasn’t supposed to happen, but if the timeline was still in order then Sheena was supposed to—

“You’re not going anywhere,” growled a voice from behind us. Lloyd nearly dropped me in surprise. I winced in pain. They whipped around, coming face to face with the one and only Summoner of Mizuho. Sheena Fujibayashi. She appeared in that infamous puff of smoke that seems characteristic with all ninjas. It was fairly dark in the room, but there were just enough torches to make out the form of something behind her. Looming and big. I panicked.

“Oh,” Raine snapped snippily. “It’s you. If you don’t mind, we have two members of our party currently incapacitated, so maybe you could come by another time when we’re less of in a hurry…?”

Sheena didn’t pay her any attention other than a brief glare. She looked at Colette’s form. I thought I caught a flicker of something in her eyes, but I didn’t know what. Her eyes made contact with mine and then I saw what it was. A little doubt. A little remorse. And then they hardened, and she was the assassin once again.

I wanted to say something, tell her to stop all this stupid crap because there was another way, but words failed me. That, and I couldn’t concentrate because the pain in my abdomen was getting worse and worse now that I was off of solid ground. I bit my lip until it was bleeding so I wouldn’t say anything.

“This place,” Sheena gestured around the room, “will be your grave.”

“Technically,” Lloyd said offhandedly, “it’ll be our tomb, not grave. Unless you’re willing to, you know, take our bodies once we’re dead and scratch up enough of the stone so there’s enough to bury us in. Also…I don’t think Cleo the III is going to take too kindly on us intruding on his grave when we meet him in the afterlife, so I’d like to request that if you do happen to kill us, please, bury us outside and don’t leave us decaying in here. That’s kind of gross.”

I looked up at Lloyd and sighed. Yeah, I was definitely rubbing off on him. That was a very me-ish thing of him to say. Lloyd muttered a quick apology to me and gently set me back down on the ground, next to the wall. I grimaced in pain and then closed my eyes.

I heard the hissing of swords coming out of their sheaths, the klink of a kendama, and the tapping of a wooden staff. I watched on, making sure not to move so it wouldn’t start bleeding again and re-open. I felt so helpless, though…Positions. Ready? Steady…Set…

Go.

Sheena barked out a command to the hulking guardian behind her, and it loomed forward menacingly. I felt so useless. Damn fucking magpie. I hope it burns in catholic hell. And then I hope it gets resurrected, so I could send it there again. I could do nothing but watch and observe…I didn’t dare try to cast anything. Not in these close quarters. I’d kill everyone in the room, me included.

There was a moment of awkward silence in which the guardian stopped moving. The room went silent. Then, it jumped forward in sync with Sheena, and the battle began.

Sheena was a darting line of lavender. That’s all I could catch of her. I guess being trained a ninja does that to you. Kratos stood in front of Colette, fending off the guardian that was attacking her. It would occasionally swipe a claw, dart back, and then Kratos would launch a few fireballs at it. I assumed fire was his forte, since I’d never seen him cast anything else besides the occasional healing spell. Lloyd was fending off Sheena and Genis was concentrating his spells on the guardian, deeming Sheena as the lesser threat.

I watched helplessly from my position on the floor, willing myself to move but knowing that if I did, the wound would only re-open. And besides, I’d began to grow very queasy about monsters from the Seal Guardians…Raine said they were mana-created. This guardian could be the same way. I know angelic mana was the thing most deadly to me, but I had a feeling it had to do with mana altogether. I blurred my eyes for a bit and looked at Sheena’s guardian as it attacked Kratos and Colette. It’s aura was almost exactly like the Seal Monsters, but it had a…a strange overlay. Something weird. Little colors mixed in that weren’t characteristic of the others. If and when Sheena joined us, I’d have to ask her why that was.

I’d swear that Lloyd was a ninja if I didn’t know better. He was equally matched against Sheena. They were both just blurs, swiping, hitting, dodging, ducking. I tried to think back to when I’d played this part in the game. I couldn’t remember anything about Sheena in particular, I just remembered beating the crap out of her and getting it over with. This battle wasn’t ending any time soon, however. That much I could tell.

A little lock of hair fell into my eye, and I tried to move it.

I couldn’t.

I panicked.

I couldn’t panic.

So I mentally freaked out.

But I couldn’t do that either.

Conclusion?

I’d been frozen, just like outside the Martel Temple.

Dammit, why!

There wasn’t any answer.

I felt calm, subdued, but it frustrated me a little bit that I couldn’t move. That much emotion I retained. I was stuck, unable to move my head to shift my gaze elsewhere. I rolled my eyes, trying to see something, but I couldn’t. I had a strange feeling of being in a cast, but over my whole body. Finally I simply closed my eyes and tried to think of something else. Tried to think of something that wouldn’t give me a headache. Tried to remember something distracting, but found that I couldn’t. Dammit. It wouldn’t let me remember anything.

Why are you doing this? I asked my mind. Nothing was going to answer of course, but it was a bit comforting to know that I’d tried. I didn’t really care who it was anymore, because I’d already debated that in Sunday Schools way back when. I didn’t believe them, but it’d been the cause of many arguments. I just wanted to know why.

There was no Fate, was there?

Well, was there?

As far as I was concerned, this timeline had been screwed from the beginning. You can’t get transferred into a world and expect things to turn out the way you expect them. Hello. Spanish Inquisition. Reality has a funny way of slapping you in the face when you expect something to turn out the way you think it is. It’s not possible to predict what happens. Maybe you can get a general idea of something, but you’ll never know the details. It would be trying to predict déj vu before it happens, which makes no sense at all. So why, then? What was binding me here? What was it?

Me, came a whisper. I opened my eyes in a bit of astonishment. What? Who? I asked. There was no answer. It was just a thread of thought, like the faint whisper the spider-creature in the Martel Temple had shown me…speaking of that, I’d have to ask Noishe about that. I wanted more solid answers. I made a mental note about that before returning to my original train of thought. Me, it had said. As in ME me, or the other me? Or the…oh damn I was so confused. I needed to get my thoughts straight.

There was a low shouting noise. I snapped my eyes open, coming face-to-face with Sheena’s guardian. I held my breath, unable to do anything, completely immobile. It was ugly, up close. Bird beak, strange mix-matched feathers, human-feather hands…it was the kind of thing that everyone instinctively reacted ‘what the hell’ to. I kept as still as I possibly could, not even letting myself flinch or blink from the pain in my abdomen. I couldn’t see its eyes, they were too black for pupils. It was just a creature, totally emotionless, only attacking what its master ordered or what it deemed a threat.

It took one look at me, and then floated away.

For once, I was glad that I’d been stabbed. It completely ignored me, I suppose viewing me as a cripple at the moment. Technically speaking, I was.

“Denkou Hogosha!” I heard Sheena screech. The thing drifted off towards Sheena where she was desperately fending off Lloyd. Sheena, it’s cool that you’re a ninja. It really is. But Lloyd is getting trained by Kratos daily. Translation: you’re WAAAAY out of your league, girl.

I shifted my head a little bit, and then breathed a sigh of relief. I could move again. It had passed. Maybe that’s what I’d been ‘frozen’ for. Maybe because if I hadn’t, the thing would’ve attacked me, and I would’ve been completely helpless. I didn’t know or care, though. I watched the battle wordlessly, Sheena’s sudden outburst echoing in my mind. Denkou Hogosha. What the hell?

“Genis,” I said as loud as I could. It wasn’t very loud. If I yelled, my wound started bleeding again for stressing the diaphragm. The little magician was, conveniently, standing next to me. I racked my brain from that Japanese class I’d taken over two years ago. What did I learn? Next to nothing. But I was sure that what Sheena had yelled was Japanese, at least in my ears. Denkou…I had no idea. Hogosha referred to guardian, I was sure. I’d actually just taken the class so I could understand the little snippets of sound effects written in the manga that I’d bought…I transferred out after a semester, though, to take a different language class – French, because it was easier – but the class was full and I got stuck with Welding I. Lame, eh? But back to the point. I tried to remember something seemingly useless from our half-Japanese teacher back then…nothing came to mind.

You have terrible memory, you know that? Noishe suddenly interjected. I mentally cursed at him and went back to my train of thought.

Then it hit me. First day. It was raining outside, and somebody asked her what lightning was in Japanese. Denkou. Or something starting with a D. Or maybe that was just the electrical lights above that she’d been referring to. Whatever. It was close enough to work. Plus, I remembered in the game that Sheena had a ‘lightning’ guardian during one of her fights. Maybe that was the last one, and this was a different one, but I didn’t care. I wanted to at least try and be helpful from my incapacitated state, and even if I was wrong, I could deal with that. Blame my bad memory.

“Genis,” I said a bit louder. The half-elf broke his concentration and opened his eyes, slightly annoyed that I’d interrupted his casting.

“What?”

“It’s a lightning guardian.”

“…What?”

I sighed gently, making sure not to sigh too hard. “Denkou Hogosha. I think it means ‘lightning-guardian’. I’m really not sure, but that’s what I’d bet she said. Maybe that’s useful.”

“Even now, you’re thinking about linguistics. You’re weird, Stella.”

“I’m trying to help you, impudent little brat. So pay attention and cast some…uh…what’s opposite of lightning?”

This time, Genis sighed. “Volt’s opposite is Undine.”

Now it was my time to go “…What?” Oh yeah, she was, wasn’t she? Damn I’m stupid. “Wait, why is she the opposite of lightning? Water conducts lightning, it doesn’t snuff it out. Water and fire are supposed to be opposites.”

Genis’ eyes flashed in annoyance again. “Okay, quick explanation – it’s the stuff that’s in the water that conducts it, not water itself. Celsius is Efreet’s opposite, so Efreet was taken,” he added exasperatedly. “It’s just weird that way, I don’t know, go ask the Summon Spirits.”

I’ll take a mind to do that, Genis. Seriously enough…that made no sense. Water has always been Fire’s opposite. Fire melts ice. Chuck a block of ice at fire and it doesn’t do anything. The ice just melts. Dump a bucket of water on it and it snuffs it out. So why the hell was Volt Undine’s—oh forget it, I could ask Raine later. She probably knew.

“SPREAD!” Genis suddenly shouted, nearly throwing his kendama in the air. There was a little rumbling sound, and then it started to get wet right around the weird guardian-thing’s form. It didn’t move, it didn’t stop attacking Lloyd. Lloyd ran away from the area, knowing what was going to happen. Then, suddenly, a great geyser of pure water erupted from underneath the guardian, leaving it squealing in pain. It flew up with the water, hitting the ceiling, and then fell to the ground once the water was over in a puddle. It was dead.

“Damn,” I heard Sheena mutter from somewhere nearby. Well, there goes your only ally. Now you’re screwed. Lloyd made a dash for her, swords drawn at an angle, both at the ready. Sheena surprised us all, however.

She threw something at her feet, and smoke puffed up like a firecracker of some kind. She disappeared instantly. I stared, wondering what had happened when—

“Ugh!” Sheena cried out in pain. She fell to the ground at Kratos’ feet, bleeding profusely. He hadn’t stabbed her, merely sliced her. I felt her pain, however, having a similar wound. I shifted uncomfortably and winced at the stabbing pain. Sheena must’ve appeared behind him…probably aiming one last shot at Colette. She coughed a bit, bending over in frustration, and then punched the stone beneath her.

“Why!” She yelled. “Why can’t I beat you!”

Genis made a fool of us before we could shut him up. “Dwarven vow number eight: Justice and Love always prevail!”

“Genis, I told you never to bring that vow up again,” Lloyd said darkly. “Besides, it’s number seven, not number eight.”

“Shut up, Lloyd.”

“Justice? Love?” Sheena spat, slowly standing up. She glared at all of us with the most venom I’d ever seen in anyone. “If that’s your cause, then mine is just as noble! I’m more than a match for any of you!”

“Perhaps,” Kratos said quietly. “But our strength is in our numbers and organization, something which you lack. Your strikes are erratic, and chaotic. If you had allies, perhaps at least three more, then perhaps you would have been able to defeat us. As it stands, you have lost twice and are now at our mercy.”

“Ah,” a faint voice suddenly said. We all darted our eyes to Colette. Sheena took advantage of the distraction and darted towards the opposite wall nearest to Cleo the III’s grave. Colette opened her eyes, looked at Sheena. She seemed about to say something, and opened her mouth to do so, but only a faint little whisper came out, and then she passed out again. Lloyd was immediately there, attending and worrying like a mother hen.

“You think you’re fighting for a noble cause, eh? Regenerating the world? You think that’s going to save everybody!” Sheena snapped. We turned our attention to her. “You know so little. When that girl,” she pointed accusingly at Colette, “-completes the regeneration ritual, my country will be destroyed! Where’s the universal regeneration in that, huh! Tell me!” She threw another smoke-bomb thing at her feet and then she was gone.

“Wait--!” Lloyd cried out just too late. He stared at the spot where she had disappeared sullenly. I could only imagine what was going through his mind. In his mind, there wasn’t a Tethe’alla. He didn’t know about stuff like that. He only knew confusion from Sheena’s bitter accusation. I turned my eyes away from him, not wanting to think, not wanting to go over that internal debate in my mind again. But then…right then…I don’t think I’d ever wanted to get back home so bad than right there at that moment. I didn’t want to be here anymore. These people were my friends now, but I didn’t want to be here. This wasn’t my world. My home. It wasn’t anything like that. I wanted to go home. Home, where I didn’t have to deal with stuff like this. Home where I wasn’t required to have morals for the sake of others. Home where people could judge me, but I didn’t care. Here…it was so different. So different that it hurt. It looked similar. But that was all. Despite the fact that I loved all of them – yes, even Kratos, despite his jackass-ness – and they were my friends and had saved me numerous times…there was a chasm greater than the one’s in the Wind Seal that separated me from them. I wasn’t of their kind. I was alien.

At that moment…my homesickness overwhelmed me. At that moment, I’d never felt so alien before. Despite all the welcoming arms that enfolded me here, I felt no warmth from them. Despite the fact I was with others, I felt incredibly and fatally alone. It…it didn’t hurt, but more of a sad realization. Something that was there. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just the mood. I really couldn’t tell the difference.

“Lloyd,” Raine said softly, putting a hand on the young swordsman’s shoulder. Lloyd flinched a bit at the touch, looking at his teacher a bit wounded.

“Why?” He asked. “What did she mean? Why is she after Colette?” He shook his head. “I…I don’t understand why anyone would want to stop h…What did she mean, it’s not going to save everybody? Why would her country be destroyed? We’re regenerating the world, everyone’s going to be saved…right?”

Raine looked a bit startled at his last question. She opened her mouth to say something, and I bit my lip, praying she wouldn’t let anything slip. Keep the secret from him. Out of respect for Colette, Raine. She closed her eyes, and then sighed. I took that as a resign. “Lloyd,” she murmured. “If…in regenerating the world, we somehow redeem our actions, it’s worth it, in the end.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why that girl is so intent on killing us, but she failed. I can only hope that’s enough incentive for her not to do so again. If you wish Colette to regenerate the world, you have to believe in her, and in her ability to save others.”

“Why?” He asked bitterly. I was a bit shocked at this. It’s not…it wasn’t like him to say that. Everyone else seemed to think so, too, so I know I wasn’t just imagining things. “If Colette has to suffer for the sake of others, why can’t I protect her from that? Why is she always sacrificing herself for something she shouldn’t have to do!” His voice rose to the point of yelling. The room went quiet with his little outburst. Lloyd looked on the verge of tears. Pent up emotions spilled forth like a bean bag with a hole in it. He grasped his head in frustration. “If I…am I that weak, am I…”

“No,” I said, suddenly getting mad at him. “And shut up before I think you do.” I was a bit surprised at myself, and I really didn’t know why I was mad, but I was. I was mad at him for being depressed. This was Colette’s trial. It’s her burden to bear, not yours. Be glad you’re not going under that kind of pain, and be glad you can support her. “Stop wallowing in self-pity, Lloyd, and get your facts straight.”

I didn’t pause between there and the rest of what I said, but in my mind it seemed like I did. He had pent up emotions. So did I. I’ve been wanting to say some things to him for some time, and it felt a bit odd to be doing so from my own helpless and immobile position on the floor, but I wasn’t about to let this drop without saying something.

“Do you want to know why Colette’s suffering?” Raine looked panicked at what I was about to say, but I didn’t pay her any mind. “She’s suffering because you don’t have to. Because that’s what she was born to be. That is what she is meant to do. She’s…she’s…she’s taking on the world’s pains…the sins of everyone so that this world can be regenerated.” It…it sounded like Jesus coming from my mouth, and that’s why I faltered in speech. “She’s regenerating the world for you, Lloyd. She’s doing it in your name because she loves you. She loves all of you. It’s not a matter of being blind to her suffering. It’s a matter of her trying to hide it from you. If you want to save her, then do something about it. But you can’t bear her burden. If it’s too much for you to bear your own emotions, don’t even try and think about what it would be like to bear another’s. And then think of Colette, who’s so caught up in what everyone else is worrying about and her own worries that I wonder if her brain is going to explode sometimes. I don’t know how she keeps it in. Maybe it’s because she knows what she has to do. The question is, Lloyd, what do you have to do? And what are you going to do?” I said the last very quietly, not really believing my own words. I was rubbing off on Lloyd; he was slowly picking up my sarcastic habits. I was slowly picking up on his idealism.

Lloyd stared at the floor at my rebuke, and then his head perked up at my last statement, as if he was suddenly surprised that I’d said something like that. Yeah, kid, I was too. He looked at Colette, and there came a determined sort of expression across his face. That was the Lloyd we knew. That’s where he went. He must’ve been cowering from that last bout of anger. “I’m going to help her,” he declared. “I’ll help her regenerate the world. And after this, I’ll make sure she doesn’t have to suffer like she does again.”

Raine looked at the floor guiltily, and I nearly did the same, but another thought came over me. As long as Lloyd was around, there was still a little hope for Colette in the end. She didn’t have to die, not completely. She didn’t have to suffer. There was another way, I knew it…but…could I do it? Knowing what was to come?

The answer was simple.

No, I couldn’t.

And I knew that, but I had to.

I have to.

That was the most agonizing statement in the world.

“We should leave here before that girl returns again,” Kratos suggested.

“Yeah,” Genis nodded. Kratos picked up the still-unconscious Colette and Lloyd gently picked me up again, this time a bit more careful about the still-hurting wound. The bandages were only temporary, I had to remind myself. Raine said she’d attend to it better once we made camp outside. I grimaced and prepared myself for about a week of walking in pain.

I’m sure there’s another way, the voice of my shadow echoed in my mind.

Quiet, you, I scolded. Then I looked down and glared at it. I’ve been meaning to ask you something. How is it that you—

No.

…What?

Just kidding. Ask away.

…If I could smack that thing, I’d bash its head in with a pimp cane I SWEAR TO GOD.

How is it that you still play fucking charades with me if you can talk to me like this?

It’s a matter of interest. Sometimes I feel like it. Other times I don’t.

I didn’t know you could feel.

Yeah, I didn’t either.

I stared at it blankly until it gave me a suitable answer. It sighed. Sometimes you’re more susceptible than others. Like at times when you talk to yourself or have a little philosophical discussion with yourself. That’s where I find I can insert a little thought. You and I are the same, you know.

No, I don’t, and that’s what’s confusing me. You say you’re a separate entity, but you’re not. That doesn’t make any sense. Make sense, dammit!

Jeebus, calm down. You’re getting into an argument with yourself. This is stupid.

One again, I stared at it until it ‘fessed up an explanation. It sighed again. Fine, fine, I’ll be straightforward for once, is that okay?

It’s perfect. Now explain.

Okay. It took a deep breath. This’ll take the rest of your little hike to explain, though.

I said nothing and waited. It sighed yet again.

Alright, you can think of me as…um…you’re clone. But I’m not really your clone. Argh, how to explain, how to explain…damn this is confusing. Okay, I’ve got it. You know your cat, Tiki? The little annoying black furball? How she can actually speak, but you can’t hear her? And then you could suddenly understand Noishe. Our communication is on the same level as your lack of communication with your cat. Does that make any sense at all?

I glared. You said you were going to be straightforward for once, not complicated and vague like you always are.

It rubbed its forehead in thought. It’s just that it’s so hard to explain. Look, you’re an alien to this world. I’m not. I’m from…well, here. Everywhere. From this little corner of the universe. This is like…the…argh, ignore that. Okay, better explanation. On Earth, you have light that comes down in rays. Electromagnetic rays. There’s all sorts of different forms, some are deadly to your skin. Rays hit solid things and it makes shadows where it can’t penetrate because something’s in the way.

I stared at it impatiently until it continued. Okay, so what does that have to do with anything?

I’m getting there. Look, you have to understand, you and I share the same brain patterns because I’m your shadow. I’m you in the sense of…argh, this is so hard to explain.

It’s a bit hard to understand.

I know. If it helps at all, don’t think of me as your shadow. Think of me as…as…as you conduit! Yeah, your conduit of power. Or something. See, I’m you in the sense of identity and flesh. Our minds may work in similar ways as well, but we’re separate. We know the same things.

No we don’t, I interrupted. All this is news to me.

I was just getting to that. We’re actual separate beings, but I’m tired to you because we move by the same means. Er, by means I mean like energy. Like those ‘mana-signatures’ you see. We’ve got the same one because…well…I’m you.

…You do know that you’re only succeeding in confusing me even more, right?

It sighed. I’m trying, I really am. Okay, here goes the technical version. I’ll try and simplify it. The very selfsame power that brought you into this world is what animated me. You are a vessel of power, and I’m a bit like your spin-off. But see, when everything else is dark, I can be solid. I’m very real. But I’m still you. The power that you possess is what brought me into being. Or rather what brought us into being.

I paused, letting it sink in. So you’re basically saying that…the…weird power that…wait, vessel? Vessel for what!
I don’t know, it replied simply, and I knew that to be an honest answer. It frightened me a bit.

Wait, hold up a sec, I stopped. You said before something about my cat. What does Tiki have to do with this? And you never did say why or how you know this.

What do you think you cat is? A piñata? Your cat is probably more intelligent than the both of us combined, and then add the Sages. Cats, dogs, protozoans, hell, all animals understand things differently. They see things on a different plane. She’s been guiding you this whole time. If you ask Noishe specifically about it, I’m sure he’ll let something slip. As for that other bit…It took a breath and sighed. Well, you know how to breathe and think, right? You were born knowing how to do both. I was created, brought into being, knowing this because that’s what I’m supposed to do. You were born knowing most of the functions in your body, like how to breathe and think and do figure things out. But you can’t explain it, can you? I was created knowing this but not knowing how to explain it because…well, I don’t have a need. At least until you asked. So that’s why it’s difficult for me to explain. How would you feel if I suddenly asked you why and how you think? How you breathe?

I’d say it’s through various cranial nerves that the thought process goes down and I breathe through my lungs.

Why? And how?

…Because it’s necessary, I finished lamely. And that’s just the way it is.

What’s in a thought?

I don’t know. I didn’t take psychology. Do you know?

I was actually hoping you might.

I paused, letting all of that sink in as well. So…do you think and breathe?
I have no need to breathe. I’m not solid. I don’t have blood and flesh like you. But I am you, so yes, I think. But I don’t know why.

Hold on a second. I paused it all to think things through. So you were created from me? So you’re like a clone, but made of mana?

No. I’m your shadow, you dumbass. And I’m not made of mana. I’m made from an absence of electromagnetic rays because that’s what shadows are.

But you said…the mana signatures… I was confused again.

It sighed, prepared to launch into another explanation. No, I said ‘like those mana signatures that you see’. I said nothing of the sort that in any way implied I was created of mana. I’m just you. Simple enough. I was animated by the powers that be in you.

…What?

I was brought into being by that power that you have. When you were dragged here or however you ended up here – I have no idea what happened – I was animated. Think of me as like…oh! Good example – you remember in the game of this world that Shadow’s mana had leaked from the seal and taken form outside?
Yeah.

Think of me like that. I’m the little bit of power out. But I’m not really. But if it helps to clear some things up, it’s best to think of it that way.

This is so confusing… I groaned. I closed my eyes, still thinking. Wait, if you’re not mana-created, than you’re not magical. So how can you even exist?

Because you’re not from this world. You’re from Earth. They don’t have magic back at home. They do here, though. I don’t really know why this world has magic and it doesn’t, but I have theories.

Wait, by energy and ‘means to move’, did you mean like auras? Wait a second, you’re not living!

Get with the program, Stella, it scolded. Do I look living to you? My thoughts are you thoughts. My ways are your ways. I don’t have flesh. I’m an echo of you. If it helps at all, think of it as a dream. That you’ve been in a dream before you came to this world. And now you’ve woken up.

But I haven’t been dreaming, I said.

You’re right – this is all more like the dream, isn’t it? But I believe it’s called inductive reasoning. Sometimes you have to look at things backwards and opposite to understand them. Sometimes you have to be at a point of view you’d rather not be to figure it out.

It made no more further comments and returned to being the former, docile, and inanimate shadow that it’s supposed to be. I mulled all of what it had said over in my mind.

What had been cleared up? Or rather what hadn’t been. I still didn’t know what this power was. And that was scaring me a bit because I didn’t think I could control what could happen like I thought I could. That meant that the will it took, or rather the will I thought it took, didn’t matter. And my shadow implied that it came from an outside source. Well, I knew that, but…none of it made sense to me. The voice in my mind that showed me what to do, told me the word to do it, used me to use its power, I knew that’s what it was. But I didn’t know what it really was, if that made any sense at all. The cloaked figure in my dreams was just a representation. Teresa was right. I was drowning myself in all of it.

Dreams…they hold no real meaning to the conscious mind. You have to fall asleep, pretend to understand to understand them. Had to put yourself in Alice’s shoes to dine with the Mad Hatter. Had to pretend to go along or you’ll end up ignorant of what they’re saying. Half the time I was convinced that it was all a coma and I was just going mad. But I couldn’t help it if I wasn’t. I had to believe in the reality of it. Had to believe that I was real, and that something was wrong. Otherwise I wouldn’t know how to fix it.

But I didn’t need fixing…I was fine…I was me…

There’s that stubborn seed of doubt coming into play again. I had to stick to myself. Stick to me. I…I didn’t want this power. If it meant that I was…was…I don’t know what I was. But I was scaring myself.

“Ll…oyd…” I heard a gentle voice murmur. My eyes shot over to Colette, and they all crowded over, Lloyd still carrying me, but nearly dropping me in the process of the excitement.

“Colette!” His exclamation was a bit gentle. But it was hopeful. “Are you awake? Are you okay?”

I could swear I heard a faint chuckle. “No…I’m talking…in my sleep…” Then she drooped off again, a dreamy smile on her face. Good. She wasn’t vacant anymore. Colette was Colette again. She didn’t have that sickly dead look that I despised on her face. Lloyd was grinning like the sun.

I looked around, noting that it was now nighttime. There were a few lights outside of the Mausoleum. We’d just passed the Oracle Stone and exited the door…I’d been so caught up in my thoughts I hadn’t noticed. I peered over at the thing, carefully, making sure I wasn’t straining the wound. Aer Silfa Templum. Odd. Sylph was spelled funny. But things are always bound to be lost in translations.

“Lloyd,” Raine waved her hand in front of the swordsman’s face. He tore his eyes away from Colette. She smiled gently. “Call Noishe. We need to set up camp out here. Set Stella down and you and Genis can go look for a spot to set up. Colette will be fine.”

Lloyd gently set me down and then reached in his pocket, sifting for something. He pulled out a small metallic object and blew into it with his hands cupped. A sharp whistling sound, like a dog whistle but not as sharp and piercing, reverberated through the air. I heard the thumping of four feet, and Noishe was suddenly there within seconds.

“Whoa, that’s a new record,” Lloyd smirked. “You’re getting a lot of exercise, Noishe.”

You have no idea, boy, Noishe said with a wolfy grin. I heard a little meow and suddenly Tiki jumped out, a little black patch of fur in the darkness, jumping over to me with speed and a sense of worry that I hadn’t seen in her before. I stared at her, rubbing her head softly.

“I’m okay, Tiki,” I said. She rubbed her face in my palm, rubbing against my neck and nuzzling. I tried not to laugh – it tickled, but laughing hurt too much to be worth it at the moment. She eventually settled right next to my ear, curling up and purring loudly into my ear. I reached up and stroked her, smiling a bit. I hadn’t seen her that often, and I missed my cat. She was nearly my only connection to back home besides all the stuff in my bag. Even my knife wasn’t actually from Earth…that reminded me, I needed to figure that one out as well. Why would an enchanted weapon from this world be at mine? Or maybe it wasn’t, maybe it’d just been engraved with enchantments from this world but the creator hadn’t known it…that would explain a lot of things, actually…hmm.

“Found a spot,” Genis said, jogging up to Raine. She stared at her little brother, surprised.

“Already? You’ve barely had time to search.”

Genis shrugged. “The whole Balacruf Mausoleum area is closed off from the sea by mountains. It’s not that hard to find a nice spot to camp down.”

“We should be wary, however,” Kratos warned. “This is a very common tourist attraction. Bandits have a notorious affinity for waylaying innocent visiting passerby, even on Church pilgrimages. We should be careful and put up a night watch.”

“I assume, then, that you’ll volunteer?” Raine said dryly, already knowing the answer.

“I will take the first watch, yes,” Kratos nodded, eyes narrowed.

“Very well then. But don’t stay up all night.” Like a mother, Raine. Like a mother. And she kind of was, now that I think about it. The mother of the little group. Kratos was sort of a fatherly figure, no pun intended. The other three were like brothers and sisters of some kind, but I don’t think they thought of me like that. Maybe like the fun and amazing aunt. Haha, I’d like to think so. No, I was probably the annoying and loved-to-push-everyone’s-buttons-to-the-brink-of-brain-explosion sister. Sort of.

“Did you set up the tents?” Raine asked archly, knowing that they hadn’t thought of that.

“N-no,” Genis stuttered.

“Then you might want to get on it.”

“Okay. LLOYD!” Genis yelled and ran off in search of his friend. Raine looked down at me and then crouched to my level.

“Are you feeling better at all?”

“Not really,” I admitted sullenly. I touched the bandages, noting that they were slightly wet. I looked at my fingers and sighed. Blood, of course. The wound didn’t freak me out, but I was still slightly astonished that I’d actually lived instead of, you know, dropped dead like they do in the movies a lot.

“I’ll redress the wound later,” she assured. She lifted up my head and examined the back of it, giving a sigh of relief. “Everything else is fine. No sudden bouts of fainting? No shocks or anything?”

“No,” I replied warily. “Should there be?” I felt for the back of my hand, noting a scab there.

“Don’t touch it,” she slapped my hand back. “The creature targeted you with most of its attacks. After that,” she pointed to my bandaged stomach, “it was merely scratching at you frantically. You now have a whole new collection of scars.”

“Fantastic,” I said darkly. I felt my face, and yes, the ridges were still there. Part of my eyebrow was never going to grow back. Oh well. More scars for more stories when I get old, I guess. I tried to think of it on a lighter side. Scars didn’t scare me. It’s just the healing process that got me worried.

“Raine?” I suddenly asked, noting a distant look on her face.

“Hmm?”

“You look rather depressed. Just thought I should distract you. You usually don’t look like that.”

She sighed. “You always state things rather bluntly, never try and mince words for others’ benefit.” She looked off somewhere, I couldn’t see where because I couldn’t turn my head in that direction. “I’m…worried. About that assassin. She’s getting better, not as clumsy as she was in Ossa.”

“Are you worried that she might end up killing us?” I asked. “Because I seriously doubt that’s going to happen, no matter how many buddies she gets.”

“No. I’m worried that we might kill her, and still remain ignorant of her true intentions. What did she mean by…nevermind. I’m sorry.”

“You sound like Colette,” I grunted. I paused for a second, and then said, “She has a name, you know.”

“Oh?”

“Her name is Sheena. Sheena Fujibayashi. I asked her back in the Ossa Mines.”

“Why didn’t you say something before?” She flared.

“I didn’t think it was important,” I admitted honestly. “It’s not, is it? I just thought that you might want to refer to her as named rather than some nameless girl trying to stab you at a moment’s notice. So it’s Sheena.”

“Sheena…Fujibayashi?” She said that last name slowly, wondering if she got it right.

“Yeah.”

Raine assumed the thoughtful expression again. “And what was that guardian being of hers? She had one of them before…and her clothes, they were very…”

“Foreign?” I suggested. I looked down at my own, slightly tattered jeans, dirty hoodie and shirt, and trashed converse. “Like mine?”

“No, not like yours.”

“I mean ‘foreign’, like mine, not that we’re from the same place. Because I’ve never seen her before she attacked us that first time.” I said the last a bit too quickly, but thankfully Raine appeared too caught up in her thoughts to notice that.

“It’s strange…” she murmured.

“What’s strange?”

She looked startled that I’d heard her. “I thought I recognized her clothing. It seemed very familiar. It’s probably just my imagination.”

“Maybe you read it in a book somewhere…?” I shrugged. I regretted shrugging. It sent a painful spike through my body. I winced.

“Stella!” Raine exclaimed. Suddenly I was afraid.

“W-what? Whaddyidoo?”

“That’s an excellent suggestion!” She immediately stood up, completely ignoring me, and went over to our communal suitcase that was Noishe. I looked over my shoulder, wondering if she was going to come back, but I realized that she wasn’t. She was too caught up in the euphoria of discovering new information. Damned teacher. I looked over to Kratos, who looked at me wearily.

“You had to say something,” he accused.

I sighed and returned to staring at the sky. There was nothing I could do at the moment. Eventually Kratos spoke again.

“Do you think you can walk?” The way he said it, it was more of an order, not a question.

“Walk? Walk! I can’t even get up!”

“If I got you up, would you be able to walk?”

I bit my tongue before I could say something sarcastic. “I…I probably could, I think.” He offered me his hand, and I slowly took it, bracing myself for pain.

Surprisingly, there was little. It was quick. He just pulled me up, and I landed on my feet, wincing only slightly in the pain that it took to stand. I kept one arm around the now-wet bandage and looked at him and nodded. He picked up the comatose Chosen again and started to walk off, leaving me to fend for myself. I gritted my teeth and started to walk.

Every step hurt worse than the one before and every little stretch of my torso made it bleed even more. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I had to stop every now and then to take a few breaths and keep on walking. I followed Kratos and eventually came across the little makeshift camp. The smell of food made my eyes water even more. I discovered that I was really, really, really hungry.

“Stella?” Lloyd sounded shocked. Yeah, I was a bit too. “You’re…you’re walking.”

I was going to say something else, but choked on the words. “Not anymore,” I mumbled, and then collapsed to the ground, sending a spasm of painful ripping through my body. Alright, God. I’m done. I want to die. Let me go already.

“You made her walk?” Raine turned on Kratos, fuming.

“She chose to,” he said calmly. “I offered to help her up if she wanted to walk. She could have said that she was incapable.”

“He’s right,” I sighed, and rolled onto my back. I grimaced. “Remind me to never do that again.”

“Okay,” Genis piped up. “’Never do that again.’”

“Shut up, shrimpy,” I grumbled. “I’ll sarcasm your face in if you make a joke about this.”

He merely snickered in response.

“Lloyd, help her into the tent,” Raine ordered. Lloyd did so, making sure to be careful where the wound was concerned. I still winced with every step. The pain had gotten worse ever since the Sheena fight.

I entered the tent that Raine had set up for me, and a strange scent came over me. At first I wrinkled my nose, but then I thought it smelled nice. Nice and sweet. A bit tangy though. I felt rather relaxed. I tensed up a bit when I realized it was a kind of smoke-induced sedative – something to help me sleep, but then I felt calm again, not really caring. I ignored the pain in my stomach – I didn’t feel it. It smelled too nice to focus on that. I drifted off to sleep with a dreamy smile, untroubled. Sleepy time.

My dreams weren’t as pleasant as the falling-asleep part.

It was the repeating dream again. I should’ve expected it. I should have. But it hit me right on, the same thing over and over again…

This time I was me again. I was the one pounding on the ice. I tried to save myself, I did, I really did. But in dreamtime, if you stay there long enough, you can’t think straight anymore. The cloaked figure reached towards me, and I expected its hand to be a claw. But it wasn’t. It was warm, and it was flesh, and it was human. I looked into the hood, expecting to see the face from the Dragon Tarot card. But I