Fly Free, Little Kite

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"To speak of the dead: cry not for the bad things done, but for the good things left undone." - Anonymous

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Death was about as bitterly cold as that little village was on that night. It wasn't a large town, but it wasn't an infinitesimal, piddling place either: just, it was a little community where many of the people knew each other and everybody understood each other. Darkness was not their enemy here: except for the occasional thief or bandit group here and there, the little village was remarkably safe. Lanterns hung along the main roads, and many of the city's magic-users lit their ways with torch staves or light from a fire tome. Light was nice here; light was kind.

It was a cold, cold night indeed. The village lay within the limits of Lycia, and under her guidance it flourished. Tonight, the cold made the village feel like Ilia: both frigid and barren as all hell. No one in their right mind would have trudged from elsewhere to flounder in this weather.

In one house, a cozy, warm little cottage on the corner of two quaint little streets, a tall man cradled his little girl in his arms and tossed her into the air. In their study, the man sat in a thick, plush armchair aside his wife, a beautiful woman with lime-green hair and bold, expressive eyes. A fire sizzled and cracked in their fireplace; it was remarkably warm and remarkably enduring. By the great light, the woman perused a thick tome bound by words and ideas and laced with arcane knowledge and magic. Many of the words were writ in a strange, ancient language that would have seemed unintelligible gibberish to the common man but were astounding bits of information to her.

Simply astounding.

The woman, Iris, and the man, Juge, doted on their infant child relentlessly. Iris, noteworthy not only for her unyielding kindness and respect but also for her poise and patience, would often stand in the doorway of little Nino's room and watch her sleep. The baby was like a little angel, a little bit of heaven granted to her. Iris was a quiet woman, and stood there in stoic silence, a quiet smile pressed onto her face. Sometimes her husband would creep up behind her silently and wrap his arm around her and pull her close in a playful display of love. She was inseparable with her child and with her husband.

Juge, the man with the soft, unassuming figures, the lush pine forest on his head, and the chubby, clumsy fingers, saw his daughter as the greatest gift he had ever been given. The child was conceived, his wife excited and hopeful, and Iris' magical abilities slowly surpassed those of her husband until his skills were dulled as a knife. She still studied, the tomes continuing to imbue her with wisdom and inner strength. But to him, a tome brought none of the fatherly love that a child could. Every waking moment, when he was not teaching the fine arts of anima use or the history of anima in Lycia to his classes, he was with his child- playing with her, holding her, spinning her around and crowning her a little queen. He was inseparable with his child and with his wife.

"Wheeeee!" Juge said as he threw Nino gently into the air. "Pegasus knight Nino, soaring through the air! Fly free, free through the air! Wheeee! Whooooosh!"

Nino giggled happily, and Iris couldn't help chuckling, a broad smile spreading over her face like wildfire. She turned back to her tome and traced her thin, pillowy fingers across the words. A lullaby. An anima lullaby: a tribute to thunder. A perfect song to sing to little Nino if she couldn't sleep, if she lay there and cried and cried and cried…her heart sunk at even the thought. She would sleep well tonight, no matter the circumstances.

"Hey, darling!" Jude said, smiling widely and looking at her through his brilliant azure eyes, "Tomorrow, let's take Nino on a trip! To…Azari, over the hills! We can show her the waterfalls there…I'm sure she'll love it!"

"You don't have to teach tomorrow?" Iris asked. Her voice was gentle, and warm; warm like the glow of the fire, warm like the soft yellow walls of their study, gentle like the faded colors of the spines on the tomes sitting in their bookshelves. She took time to look up from her tome, already three pages past the lullaby and onto the next intriguing lesson. Her hand brushed the gleaming gold locket around her neck and held it close.

"Oh, I think I do. But I'll tell the Sages' Council I have something important to do!" he replied in his proud, energetic chirp. He threw Nino up in the air again and caught her in the air again. He couldn't help but share in her laughter. "Being with my family is more important than teaching…"

Juge cradled her closer, stroking her face and touching the bits of green hair beginning to form on her head. "These are moments you can't take away, that you can't live again…"

Iris flipped the next page and looked over, and she placed a hand to her heart, seeing the big man Juge cry, tears running down his face, a hand clenching his forehead and wiping the tears away with one quick stroke.

"There's…no magic in the world that can bring back squandered time. Magic can only do so much, huh?" he sniffled and choked through the words. "That's right, little Nino. Magic can do a lot of things, but it can't love…" He held her closer and her little eyes looked up into his. "Magic is no substitute for love!"

"You're right, honey. Childhood is only so brief, and then it is gone."

Iris sank down into her chair with her tome settled comfortably in her lap. In the fire on the kitchen, a delicious pot of stew sat, caressed by fire, stoked by thunder and chilled with the mystical powers of ice. Now she sighed and let her fatigue slip away. The tome in front of her was an escape, a portal to a new world where her mind walked many miles and never tired. She was a woman with a strong heart in a frail body.

"Maybe we'll see Kai tomorrow," Iris said, turning a new page. "He's been studying there in Azari…I wonder how his magic studies are going?"

"I'm sure they're going great," Juge insisted, tickling his child's nose and eliciting a giggle. "That's your brother, Nino! Your brother Kai! Remember him? He's a good young man!"

Tomorrow, we'll go out to the waterfalls, and we'll go see him!" Juge continued, cradling his daughter in his arms and holding her closer. He spoke with the same playful, childish voice he always used to talk to his little joy. "And we'll go out, and we'll see the butterflies, and listen to the water rush, and we'll see the city, and all the interesting people! We'll go out, and we'll have a such a good"-

There was a rapping on the door. Juge stopped, holding the giggling infant Nino in his arms. Iris looked up from the inviting pages of her book and towards the door.

Another rapping, followed by another in quick succession, and another, and another in a frantic beat.

"I'll go see who it is," Juge started, but was stopped when his wife rose to his feet and extended a soft hand.

"No, I'll go see," she spoke gently. "You've done so much tonight. I've barely done anything…"

She slipped over to the door and opened it, cutting the hastened raps short. Standing there, in the cold night, with rain beginning to patter and threatening to downpour, were two people. Their silhouettes were dim, lonely beacons in the great night.

One was a tall, sensual-looking woman with long black hair and a deep look of concern lashing her eyes. The other was a man with a billowing black cloak and a large hood concealing his face. In the woman's hands, a bawling infant wrapped in black cloth was cradled like a little mail bundle. Quickly, the tall woman's concern melted into a frantic near-hysteria.

"Aaaah, please!" the woman sobbed, stumbling forward and nearly knocking Iris over. Juge looked up from his chair with a horrified stare, both he and his child deathly silent.

"M-my child!" the woman continued, thrusting the infant in the bundle forward suddenly. It cried: loudly and uncontrollably. "I-I don't know what's wrong! It just started crying, and it's ill, and- oh, please, help me!"

"Please, calm down!" Iris pleaded, holding out her arms. "Here, here, come in. We'll help you."

"I'll heat some water!" Juge said, rising to his feet, placing Nino in his great seat, and dashing into the kitchen. Iris briefly looked back, then took the poor little child in her arms; she nearly had to wrest the child from her mother's crazed, quivering arms.

"Shhhh…" she cooed to the child, whose crying seemed only to increase at the soft voice whispering. "Shh…it's alright, dear child. Shh…" - Iris turned to the frantic mother- "Do you have any idea what may be wrong?"

"I-I-I don't know!" the black-haired woman insisted, exchanging hurried glances with the hooded man beside her. "The thing just started crying, and it's ill, and- oh, please, please help me!"

"Ah, here!" called Juge from the other room, dashing in with a pot of hot water clenched in his hands. The long strands of forest green hanging from the back of his neck flew out behind him. "Ah, oh damn it…I don't know what to do! Will this help? Aaaah, just- here's the water!"

Handing the woman the child, Iris took the water and set it on the floor at her feet. "Here, let me feel the child's fore"-

"Oh"- a voice bit with such sharpness that Iris stopped in surprise and straightened up -"that won't be necessary."

Nino's mother and Nino's father both looked toward the strange woman. From her royal throne, the infant Nino looked on, clueless. Mother and Father stood silent, the two visitors still in the open doorframe, the rain now streaking down behind them.

"The only thing wrong with the child is that it's a worthless rat that won't shut up," the woman spat, her lips curled into a sickeningly frustrated smile. Juge stood frozen several feet behind his wife, hands shaking, his eyes wide with surprise, his lips agape helplessly. Iris looked on with her melancholy green eyes, those that expressed so much but were now simply blank slates, analyzing everything with a dull haze settled over her. The woman's hair…it was jet-black, and her eyes…her eyes!

Bright gold…!

While the green-haired woman stood motionless, the man in the large black cloak moved over to Nino's seat swift as lightning and swiped her from her throne. She immediately burst into tears, matching those of the fellow infant, which was now held like a tattered book in the strange woman's hands. Their tears created a painful, dull backdrop to the rain-shattered outside and the uncomfortably warm inside.

"N-Nino! No!" Juge exclaimed. "No, what are you doing? What are you doing with our little darling?"

"No…who…what are you?" Iris merely muttered, her modest, lovely pink lips mouthing weak words.

"We're here for one reason," the man said. His voice was a bold, outstanding rasp, a tremendous shell of something infinitely more tremendous. The voice was a shadow, much as his face was; a hood sheathed his visage, a power held the voice back.

"No…don't play games with us," Iris said, as calmly as her trembling nerves would allow. "What do you want of us? Why do you want to hurt our baby?"

The man smiled under his hood. "Idiots. You may have intelligence, but you've no common sense, apparently. We wish the secrets of the old world."

"Old world?" asked Juge, his eyes darting to and fro, his fist balling into a useless display of outrage.

Iris tilted her head down and pretended her daughter's uncontrolled sobbing did not pierce her like a knife. She stumbled over the answer in her mind. No longer was this terrific thing a great asset to her, but instead a stumbling block, a misty mass of obscurity, an esoteric thing that didn't matter an inch. Her mind, the great champion; her mind, the useless, terrible thing. "Arcadia," she said.

"Yes, Arcadia. We wish to return the great beasts of old into the world. Surely in some of your ancient texts, you have that knowledge?" asked the man. He held the bawling child Nino in his arms, as close to him as he could bear.

Juge trembled. No…one quick movement and Nino…no…no no, no…no no…

"We…we have no such knowledge," Iris explained calmly, swallowing stress in her throat, her heart pounding away like a hammer. "That is heretic's"-

"You lie!" the woman spat, rising herself to a terrible height and towering over the real mother. She tossed aside the child in her hands and it tumbled against the floor, an ocean of wails and tears still pouring from his eyes. "You're the most vaunted magic family in Lycia! You do know! Lying won't save your worthless child!"

"Hush, beautiful Sonia," the hooded man said, placating her. He placed his right hand over Nino's mouth and it hovered an inch away. "The secrets of dragons. To bring dragons into the world. Tell us!" His hand clamped over her mouth and her wild screams became muffled.

"No!" Juge blurted, reaching for a tome on the table beside him. "No! You won't hurt my daughter, you damned fiends! Let her go! Let her go! Please! Please! Iris, please!"

"Tell us!" Sonia screamed. "Tell us everything you know!"

"We-we don't know anything!" Iris blurted back. "The secrets of dragons…we know so little! Nothing about…reviving a dragon has been intimated to us! You must believe us, we know noth"-

"Liar!" Sonia said, stretching a hand out to throttle the fellow woman. Her comrade grabbed her arm and wrenched it backwards- nearly out of its very socket.

"I will tell you for the last time, Sonia," the man said, with extraordinary command. "Be silent."

The man turned back to the two parents, his hand again hovering inches from their child's face. He took his time while Iris and Juge stewed there in their fear. The tome trembled in Juge's hand and Iris merely stood, looking as if all the world hated her for everything she ever was. The fire blazed warmly.

"Truly, you know nothing of dragons?" he asked, knowing that with his tone he would receive truth.

"We-we don't know anything!" Juge blurted, his voice trembling and now teetering dangerously close to tears. "We don't know anything about- about dragons! Please, just don't hurt our little baby girl!"

Sonia's mouth again curled into that sickening sneer. Under his hood, the man smiled also. He spoke.

"Then…die."

He spoke with such malice- then came the tome from a seemingly gaping void in the fold of his robes. The woman Sonia pulled a tome from her robes and cackled.

"No! Iris, look out!"

Juge dove forward and pushed his wife out of the way. A quick chant, and a terrible swirl of ice appeared and darted its way around the black-robed man. He swung the robe, and the ice was blown apart. Useless to him now, he threw the young green-haired child in his arms aside. She cried, harder and harder and harder. The child's father looked on in horror and helplessness, and turned back to the assailant.

"Don't you know?" the black-robed man spoke, muttering dark nothings under his breath, "You were dead before we even began." He began to mutter something in the words time more ancient than time itself. The words unfurled around themselves, trundling and overlapping in a rising cloud of disgust. Juge placed himself in front of both of the visitors and urged his wife back, back away from them.

The dark-robed one's chant rose to a great crescendo, then with great clarity, he bellowed, "Tremble before your master!"

The room went pitch black. The fire seemed to extinguish itself in a burst of dark, all lanterns doused in perfect synchronization, every last light anywhere near them died on cue. Only Juge's keen vision let him see the silhouettes of his killers, and the dark waves of energy forming around him. The whole world seemed to be slowing down, and in that moment he could see everything.

"Iris! Love! Please, save Nino"-

Iris saw through the darkness. She cradled a tome in her arms, a tome from times past, the last of its kind, a valuable piece. It truly was worth more than its weight in gold, now. She held it as she would her daughter, and at the same time, it was her daughter. Her beloved husband lay facedown on the ground, bleeding from every inch of his body, popping and sizzling unnaturally, and- her daughter was in her arms, not lying there crying on the floor-

"Evil spawn of darkness!" she spat through all the emotion she bore in her breast. "Be gone, back to the pit of hell from which you crawled!" A wave of her arms, a hurried chant, and then there was a dot of fire suspended in midair, slowly growing and gathering energy. The robed man stood immobile, and the woman named Sonia looked on with a crazed, gluttonous look devouring her impure little face.

The dot took on a larger form, and a beam of justice and flame shot outward toward the cloaked man. It exploded with a great and terrible sound, and the golden eyes of Sonia widened in a strange, disgusting fear. The man stepped back and grunted, the tails of his cloak burning.

Iris breathed, and took in every last breath. Now the air here was cold, and mildly damp- but also hot, and smoky, and suffocating. She could almost feel the life draining from her. How many more rays of light could she summon? Very few…

"Nino…"

"Aaah! You- little- bitch!" Sonia yelled, a crazed rage illuminating her golden eyes, visible even through the piercing darkness. "You little bitch!" She held her arm, nursing a large wound on her side and burns that scorched her body.

The cloaked man stepped forward, threw his hood back. His face was the climax of hate, of crazed emotion. His head was wrapped in a turban, one eye patched and hidden, the rest of the face death.

"No last words."

The man chanted again, Sonia nearly squealing with glee. Iris chanted again herself, trying to form another ray of flame. Too late. She saw the darkness swirling around her and could feel nothing but pain. Pure pain. Every inch of her body screamed in utter pain, it was if every inch of her being was crying. Blood oozed down her body: her face, her arms, her legs, her chest- and she fell, robes in tatters, book lay beside her. She came to a sudden, painful end.

"What a waste," the man spoke, looking down at the bloodied, still writhing bodies. "Such a powerful family, and they had to die."

"What should we do with their little thing?" Sonia asked, gesturing to the green-haired child lying over…somewhere, her tears still defiling the air. As she spoke, she grasped the fallen mother by the hair and yanked the golden, bloodied locket from her neck. She squirreled it away.

"Ah, the child. Mm…take her. The daughter of a great family. She could be of use to us."

The mother's trembling hand rose up, inches off the ground.

"W-what? Of use to us?" Sonia blurted, incredulous. "But, Lord Nergal, it"-

"Sonia," Nergal said bluntly, "You'll raise the child like a mother. Understand?"

A hatred like none other sprang onto Sonia's face, then: "Very well. I will, then." She took the child in her arms, and held it close, as close as she could. The infant girl continued to cry, cry harder, so miserable and unhappy.

"What should we do with the other child, the one we brought?"

Nergal stopped, his back to the woman, his eyes peering into the rain-soaked blackness outside. "Kill it."

Sonia's face lit up with glee. A quick chant and the deed was done, the child gone in a swath of ice and cruelty. Still holding the little girl in her arms, she stopped in the doorframe to take one last look at the dead.

The mother's hand was fully outstretched now, as if to reach for the child. The father's blood-soaked face was turned up, his lips eternally curled into a resounding "Nino". They were poor reminders of what once was and what might have been.

Sonia scoffed and turned away, the surviving child clenched roughly in her arms. A last word lingered in the bitter, deathly cold air.

"Worthless."