Secrets of Life
Prologue
The Mysterious Girl
Needles icy cold and wet struck what felt like every inch of her body from above in a rapid, unyielding pace- cringing with every blow. She wanted to get up and away from the pain response it triggered, but her movement was hampered by the thick, chilling substance she was lying on top of. It covered half of her face and made any part of her body was not exposed to the attack from above shiver in discomfort.
She knew not what was striking her, or what impeded her attempts to flee. Opening her eyes only filled with cranium with more pain still when her vision became overwhelm with a myriad of sensations- moving, bright, dark- that her mind was unable to translate into comprehensible image. Every nerve in her body felt raw; every muscle weak.
Her mind could not process the length of time that passed before unconsciousness claimed her. It could not process why she was there. It could not process what events had transpired prior to her current predicament. It could not process the dark blotch she saw approaching her before everything in her line of sight faded into black…
Her ears registered the sound of something… crackling from a location in close proximity to her. A few moments later, her nose twitched as it detected a variety of scents flowing through her nostrils. Feeling started to return to her limbs: letting her know that something soft and warm was wrapped around her body, and another source of warmth coming in the direction of the noise…
…It did not take long for her to realize that, while not painful last the last time she was conscious, none of those stimuli seemed familiar. The sound she had registered did not seem to match anything she had encountered before. She did not recognize any of the scents her nose detected. She did not know what she was touching. The warmth she was feeling seemed unfamiliar to her.
Regardless, she did nothing to react to this unfamiliarity. It did not feel right to do so. With pain not interfering with her thought processes, she remembered that she was anchored to one prerogative: wait for an appropriate response before taking any action. When that response came, she would know what she was required to do. All she needed to do was return to an unconscious state and wait for it.
…Or at least, that was what she was supposed to do. No matter how hard she tried, unconsciousness could not claim her once more. The closest she had managed to accomplish in reaching that state was dulling her response those outside stimuli. The response she was meant to wait for would not come to her, either.
Something was clearly wrong. She was not supposed to have been conscious until a response arrived, nor be considering possible alternate courses of action. There was a reason she was meant to wait, but she could not remember it. Considering that this was not the first time she had awakened without a response prompting her to, the window of time for her to return to dormancy had long passed.
The prospect of diverging from her prerogative made her body react with a tightening of her lungs and throat. She felt her body temperature rise. A cold, unsettling feeling grew in the depths of her stomach that threatened to overwhelm her senses... but she had no choice. Fully entering a conscious, active state was the only logical course available to her.
Though she hesitated for a moment, remembering what had happened previously, she allowed her eyelids to slowly flutter open. Though her eyes once again could not translate what was before her into a coherent image, this changed in only a few seconds. What was once chaos was becoming…
…A vast black space indiscriminately filled with dots of light. She did not know the proper term to describe what she thought about what she saw at the time, but she would soon know it to be "anticlimactic."
Regardless, her lips curled into a frown when she realized she did not how else to describe the dark space. It likely had a proper designation, and it was likely that the lights were not called dots, but the proper terms for them seemed to escape her. Not knowing seemed to fill her with a different sensation from the cold, uncomfortable one from before, but she could not quite identify that either.
Unable to reach a consensus on what the lights were, her lips returned to their default position as she directed her attention to a sensation far easier to identify: heat.
She tilted her head to the right she discovered the source of the heat that seemed to originate from some sort of glowing light. Wishing to investigate the light more closely, she used her left elbow to push herself onto her stomach- wincing when her muscles proved to have been sore after the events of her prior awakening, and then shivering when, all of a sudden, she felt more exposed and significantly colder than before. What just changed…?
…Only upon looking down did she notice that there was some sort of brown… cloth underneath her. It felt very familiar.
…She would wonder how the large brown cloth had escaped her notice despite it having covered up her body moments before later. In the meantime, she crawled off of the cloth and used it to bundle herself up before approaching the heat source.
Once she was only three feet away, she began her close examination of this heat source. The light was being emitted from a pile of… Sticks? That was the term her mind was able to produce, at least. Sticks made of wood… though she could not seem to remember what wood was, either. Looking up above it, she saw that a stream of gray… smoke, rise into the darkness above. She felt like she should know what this light was… it was…
"Fire…" She whispered to herself- wincing at the sound of her own voice. It was not unpleasant; it just did not sound… right.
Besides being the heat source she felt before, the fire was otherwise unremarkable. Having obtained all of the information she possessed the context to deduce for the time being, she turned around and prepared to crawl back to her previous location and resume slumber for the time being…
…Until she noticed a curious glint of light out of the corner of eye coming from her the right side of the fire.
Curious, she crawled closer towards the source of this glint and found a sharp metal object with a wooden handle reflecting the fires light; an object she identified as a dagger.
Upon grasping it and looking upon the surface of its flat blade, she became mystified by pale face its reflection revealed to her. It possessed a pair of curious, golden eyes and pale skin, and messy teal green bangs over its forehead. Noticing that it appeared to blink whenever she blinked, she raised her hand and saw a very similar hand appear in the dagger's reflection as well. She felt around her face- the reflection circling her index finger around her eyes, mouth, and nose in tandem with her own movements.
She continued to stare at the image the dagger showed her intently. She knew its reflection was showing her own visage; that much was clear to her. As she What she could not seem to place was the familiar cold feeling from before that rose up again when she recognized the image as herself. Something was about what she saw was strange. Why would it conjure up this sensation? What was wrong with it…
She could see her own eyes widen as the realization struck her.
This… was the first time she could remember ever seeing the image of her own face. There were no prior memories she could draw upon to give her a frame of reference.
As a matter of fact, there were no recollections of anything available to her prior to her painful first awakening. That was why everything she had seen, heard, and felt was as indescribable as it was. She seemed to have no small shortage of words in her vocabulary but no context she could use to match them with.
Now knowing the cause of her difficulties did not comfort her. In fact, it only exacerbated the chilling sensation to the point it was overwhelming.
She did not know how long she had sat there, half-paralyzed and lost in thought attempting to conjure a solution to this dilemma. What she did know was that she was broken out of this trance when her body began to respond to her newfound situation. She was uncertain as to what it required, but it was demanding her attention. Nothing she had found in the area illuminated by the fire seemed well-suited to satisfy these needs, so there was no other option for her than to leave for this search.
It was odd. There were even more unknown variables to account for now than there was when she made the choice to awaken, yet this information did not cripple her. Rather, having a new prerogative to follow provided a focus to her thoughts and actions she was unaware she needed. Before she could set out, though, she examined the area beyond the fire's light to find something that would determine a good starting point.
A few minutes later, she did find something… And froze when she saw that this "something" was moving.
She could barely analyze its appearance in the darkness, but she was able to make out a couple details. It appeared to be a humanoid figure that was wearing something similar to her blanket- a cloak, if she was correct in matching it to a word. In its right hand, the figure held some sort of four-legged creature smaller in size to it hanging limply in its grasp.
When the cloaked figure turned its head to look directly at her, she felt her body become tense up in response. Her heartbeat spiked, her throat had tightened, and everything but the figure fell out of focus. It was like the cold sensation that had being looming over her had been increased a thousand fold… and while it was somewhat different from the feeling from before, she finally realized what the term matching both of them was: Fear.
She knew instinctively this cloaked figure was dangerous just by looking at its gaze, and it left her completely paralyzed in fear. Said instinct also told her that she needed to flee since her body's current state would put her at a disadvantage if she attempted to engage, but she was incapable of doing so. Her only option was to cautiously observe.
The figure held her gaze for a minute or two before taking a seat to the right of the fire. Her body tensed when she saw that its gaze was still on her. The figure had not otherwise taken any sort of hostile action against her, but she needed to be careful.
"What are you doing?"
She was not certain where the context for knowing this came from, but the figure's tone of his voice suggested that its sex was male. With the flame's light making the figure's features easier to discern, she was able to confirm this. His species was… human? She was pretty sure that was the term she was looking for, at least. This man's mouth was obscured by a brown scarf the same color as his cloak, with what appeared to be black clothing underneath. This obscured much of his head, but his pale-brown hair and the pale-blue eyes that had frightened her before were still discernible. Though the figure's gaze was no longer fixated on her, she could tell that he still had her within his range of vision.
"I asked you a question. What are you doing?"
It took her a moment to recognize that the man was speaking to her. He wanted a response.
She blinked and opened her mouth to speak, "I…" She winced at the sound of her own voice leaving her lips. Realizing she had paused for a considerable amount of time, she finished her response as quickly as she could, "I am doing nothing."
The man raised an eyebrow at her words, but said nothing more. Instead, he slipped a bag that wasn't visible to her before off his shoulder and used his left hand to retrieve a metal rod it held within. He skewered the creature he held in his right hand, and reached into the bag again to grab two other rods which he used in conjunction with the first to form some sort of makeshift apparatus. The figure placed the apparatus over the fire and began to turn the rod around…
…And around… and around... and around… and around… and around… and around… and around… and arou-
"Here." The girl blinked, and turned back to the man to see him reach into cloak and pull out some sort of container with a narrow neck. "Drink this," He ordered as he handed it over to her, "From the sound of your voice, this is something you need more than I do right now."
Curious, she carefully analyzed the container she now held in her grasp. Whatever substance it was made from felt soft like the blanket, but cool to the touch rather than warm. She gave it a small shake heard something swishing that for whatever reason caused her body to draw attention to its physical needs; urging her to do as the man said. The girl complied and put the opening at the container's neck to her mouth, and found herself ingesting some sort of cool liquid. It tasted like nothing, but it did much in relieving the discomfort of her parched throat.
"Feel better?"
After wiping trace amounts of liquid left over off of her face, she replied "Yes" and handed it back over. "Where…" She briefly paused again; her throat no longer hurting, but the sound of her voice still awkward and unfamiliar, "…are we?"
"The middle of nowhere." The man gruffly responded, still not looking at her.
She furrowed her brow in confusion, "…Nowhere is not a place."
"You don't say?" The man murmured, his tone shifting slightly.
She was even more confused now. "I did not say anything…"
The man's right eye twitched, "This isn't going to lead anywhere. Who are you?"
"Who… am I?" She repeated aloud to herself. "I am… me?"
The man just gave her a flat stare, "…I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, or you're just stupid. What is your name?"
"Name…" Taking a moment to determine what he meant by name, she told him: "A word or set of words used by which a person, animal, place, or thing is known, addressed, or referred to."
"Mm. Do you have one of those?"
The girl opened her mouth to give him a reply… for but closed it when she found that information was unavailable to her, "Words appear to be the only things I can recall… but if I have a name, I do not know it."
The man went silent at this. She could have sworn she heard him mumble something along the lines of "What does this remind me of?" but since it wasn't worded as a question she assumed it must have been ineligible gibberish and it was her imagination.
"What… What is your name?" The girl asked haltingly, "Do you… know who I am?"
"I discarded my name a long time ago, but for the sake of convenience… You can call me Shadow."
"Shadow…" She repeated to herself aloud. She knew that word, but the man did not match its definition at all. She knew nothing of names, however, so she would have to take his word on it.
"I can't really answer your other question. I found you about a week ago out cold in the midst of a rainstorm. That's where what I know about you begins and ends…" Shadow paused to eye her over, "Not really sure why your circus would have ditched you out here."
"Out… Cold?"
"Unconscious, it means unconscious."
"What does being cold have to do with…?" The intense glare Shadow gave her midway-through voicing it made it perfectly clear that pressing it any further would end badly for her, so she wisely switched to a different source of confusion, "What is a circus, and why do you suggest I came from one?"
"Well, look at yourself."
Still confused, she looked down and noticed she was indeed wearing some sort of green outfit herself. She still was uncertain to what the man was getting at, however, "Clarify."
"Not a whole lot of people go around in green strapless leotards adorned with stars, or wear… draperies over their gloves, kid... What do you even call that outfit?"
"Um…" She searched her brain for an answer to his question, but found herself forced to admit, "Clothing terminology seems to be one of the many pieces of data left unaccounted for."
"Kind of proving my point."
"I lack the memory data needed to contextualize whether what I am wearing is normal or not… but I don't believe I appreciate the way you are referring my… my…"
The girl dropped her previous statement; feeling something in her mind surfacing to the fore front of her mind unprompted. "…Robes."
Shadow raised an eyebrow at her answer and looked her over once more. "Robes."
"Yes. I believe I remember now: these are robes."
The dark-garbed man held her gaze with an incredulous expression for a full minute. Eventually, he ended it and with a shake of his head, "Fair enough. I can't say that's the… strangest thing I've seen."
The girl tensed at the hostile tone present in those last few words, but relaxed when it became apparent that they were not directed at her. What they were directed that, she did not know; but she got the impression that was probably a subject it would be best to remain ignorant of.
"So, what do you remember?"
The girl closed her eyes and bowed her head; attempting to recover any data that would apply to that question, "Nothing… There are words and definitions, but I have only been able to match them together as I find the context for them. The only memories I appear to possess are of waking up just now."
Shadow started scratching his chin, "So you do have amnesia, then."
"Amnesia…" She thought that term over for a moment until she found the definition that matched the term. Once that was turn, she looked up at Shadow expectantly, "You are familiar with my condition?"
"'Familiar' might be stretching it… not even sure I'm qualified to help you." Shadow muttered to himself. Seeing her confusion, he continued, "Amnesia cases aren't something you hear of often in my previous line of work, but I was… acquainted with someone who had it. I'm not sure how much that helps given it wasn't exactly a normal case."
"I see…" If the amnesia of the person Shadow knew differed from hers, a comparison may very well be fruitless, but a non-standard example was better than no example at all, "What was she able to recall?"
The dark-garbed man only shrugged, "I think it was her name, Terra, but I'm not sure. I only really knew her after she regained most of her memories, so there wasn't really a reason to bring it up." He paused for a second before finishing his statement, "Like I said, saying I'm 'familiar' with amnesia would be stretching it."
Something about what Shadow told her troubled her; making her robotic tone break slightly as she asked him, "But I do not remember my name… Does that mean my memories cannot return?"
A thoughtful expression graced Shadow's features as he turned his gaze upward to the dark space above them, while the girl's contemplative gaze turned earthward. A dishearteningly long stretch followed. It was incomprehensible that a conversation that gave her new data would increase her distress rather than lower it… and yet, there was something that had been mentioned that seemed to be important. Not knowing what that something filled her with more fear and anxiety than merely not knowing her location ever did.
She looked back at the man and saw that he was still looking into the black space above also was. How that black space could hold the answer to her concerns was a mystery to her.
Shadow sighed, "I guess there's no helping it, is there?" For the first time since they had started talking, the man looked the girl straight in the eye, "How about I take you to her?"
"To who?" The girl asked.
"The woman I mentioned earlier… Terra Branford. I can't really help you, but she's been in your boots before. If there's anyone who can help you, it would be her."
The teal-haired girl opened her mouth, but found herself uncertain as to what to say. The man had just given her the opportunity to recover her memories and obtain the information on them she sought. There was an emotion welling up inside of her in response to this, but she did not know how to describe or express it.
Seeing the trouble she was having, Shadow replied, "I'm pretty sure the words you're looking for are 'thank you'."
The teal-haired girl looked back at him and blinked, "Thank you?"
The man smirked, "A verbal, customary expression of gratitude."
"Gratitude…" The girl mumbled to herself. That seemed to match the emotion she was feeling right now quite nicely, "Thank you."
"No problem, kid." The man answered before turning back to the fire.
Again, she thought she heard him say something to himself- this time sounding like "I'm not exactly doing this solely for your sake"- but since she did not understand what that meant, she again assumed it was gibberish.
The girl looked up at the device the man set up above the flames, "What is this apparatus you're using?"
Shadow turned his eyes back to the apparatus in question and calmly explained to her, "It's called a spit. It's used to roast meat over an open flame."
It took her a moment to match the word "meat" with a definition, but once she did the purpose of this "spit" made sense. She closely examined the man's hand movements and watched as the creature's skin darkened to a brown hue. "The spinning distributes heat evenly throughout the… meat?"
The man nodded- a gesture the girl assumed meant "yes". After a minute or two, the man nodded to himself and withdrew the rabbit.
She looked at the leg meat blankly and looked up at Shadow- wanting him to explain what she was supposed to do and saw him taking a bite out of his leg. Watching until the man acknowledged her staring. He swallowed and explained, "What are you waiting for? Eat."
That much she had deduced, but it was not what she wanted to know. She considered asking him personally, but she could tell the man was in no mood to answer her inquires right now. Still, her body did require substance, and ingesting the meat did not appear to harm the man.
The girl took a small bite out of the rabbit leg. Chewing it felt strange and required some effort on her part, but nothing her teeth were unable to handle. Once the meat reached her taste buds, however…
"Mmm…" The girl found herself groaning in pure bliss. New words came to answer her desire to define the euphoria it filled her with, but it still seemed as if words would not begin to do justice to its taste.
The girl proceeded to tear into the leg with ravenous delight; relishing every single bit with a rigorous fervor. Shadow looked at this messy spectacle with a disturbed expression on his face. He should probably have intervened and corrected her behavior…
… Then again, this was the first thing she had eaten in a week; possibly even longer. She would need to regain all of the energy she could if they intended to travel all the way to Mobliz. Teaching her proper table manners would be put on his to-do list, but for now he would let her enjoy herself and enjoy his own meal.
Neither the mysterious girl nor the man without a name would know this, but this would be the beginning of a beautiful partnership.
After almost two years of development hell, here it is. The spiritual successor to Neo Dissidia: A New World, A New War...
...I know what you're thinking: why did you pull the plug on said story and go on a total hiatus for nearly two years? First of all: suck it- this isn't anywhere near as bad the three-year one at Lemmy's Land. didn't die in the interim :P... Though activity in the Dissidia section does seem to have died down a tad; case will probably change in a year or so when the arcade release hits consoles and, as a result, come overseas.
I'm joking, of course. I can't remember if I've already talked about this or not, but it's centered around poor planning in regards to my three keystone fics: Neo Dissidia, The Misadventures of Mike and Mew, and Kingdom Hearts N-Side (which is gone now). See, they were all going to share the same universe centered around the life journey of a couple of assholes you'll be reacquainted with later. Two things I did wrong there:
1. Releasing them all while Neo Dissidia wasn't finished with its first arc. Yeah... Probably should have waited a little longer to do that, but unfortunately characters needed to be introduced from those stories beforehand. Which leads into mistake number two below.
2. Putting them all in the same universe to begin with. Yeah, what was going to be a selling point became my worst nightmare. I never lost track of when and where everything takes place: even with Neo Dissidia's multiple story threads. No, the problem came in regards me not being able use Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts N-Side like I wanted to without making things needlessly complicated, and realizing I had drawn myself into several boxes as to what I can do with all of the characters I was working with and the stories I could tell.
So yeah; besides undergoing a lot of lifestyle changes and transitioning to college, those two years have been spent reworking what was once Neo Dissidia from the ground up. That should answer that unvoiced question of "wait, didn't he promised a reboot or something?", too. That being said, if you enjoyed Neo Dissidia, you should enjoy Secrets of Life as well. Tone's more focused and not trying to get a laugh out of you as often, but it still has that same charm to it.
The kind of charm that Stockholm Syndrome is made of, but charm nonetheless ;) If there's one guy you really want to drop down to your knees and thank for keeping me from giving and suffering through the whole process with me, you can thank The Unknowing Herald. I hear he's got a fic or two on this section that's worth checking out if you're a Terra fan. If you're looking for Clerra action, you'll be looking in the exact wrong place, but its answer to it isn't all that bad. He's also been generous enough to host my two bastard children in his Normalcy trilogy and Radiant Fantasy so if you want to get an additional fix on them before they make their Michael Mario return in Secrets of Life, they're also worth checking out.
Don't worry for all five or six of you who checked out Kingdom Hearts N-Side before it went bye-bye: I'll bring it back under a new name some time soon. Probably going to put it in a section with a bigger audience, though. Also don't worry about Misadventures since it isn't getting a reboot- edits, yes. It'll be picked back up and King Ratigan will begin his war, but his bloodlust will need to contain itself until Pokemon Sun and Moon come out... That's two generations that will have come to pass since that story last updated. Damn.
Cover image is not mine: credit goes to autumn sacura at DeviantArt who made this for entirely different purposes and much earlier than this story. Go check her out as a favor.
As always, be sure to favorite and follow the story if you like. This story has a FEVER, and the only prescription, is your reviews. So do that too; I may very well have gotten rusty considering how long I've been away, so getting your input would be highly appreciated.