It all came back to me when Father knocked me out with his staff during training.
Everything hurt. Father can be hard to me sometimes when we're dueling, even practice.
The last thing I heard was the sound of my little sister, Mist, running towards me, I think reproaching my father yet again for his harshness.
Mist's scolding faded into silence as unconsciousness drew me quickly into a dark sea of black.
Then...I hear singing.
Soft, lilting singing, the kind that mothers sing for lullabies. It's almost mysterious, the melody, and possesses a strange mystic quality.
Or maybe it was just the concussion.
Turning my head in the dream just a little, I see a face I never thought I'd see again.
My mother, stroking the blankets, singing softly the song with an almost angelic beauty. She looks so different than the pale, bloodied corpse I remembered from that fateful day.
She notices the movement, however slight it was, and stops singing to look at me with a motherly smile and a little wink.
"Don't stop singing." I mentally protest, trying to touch her, to feel her soft hands. "Mother, please..."
"I love you, Ike." She whispers, very very softly, and I know I'm waking up. I try to see her face again, but to no avail. She was gone. The song, however, was still being sung.
The sunlight hits me full blast when I awoke and opened my eyes. Sitting up painfully, I notice a little cloth that drifted off my forehead. I pick it up, looking at it curiously, recognizing it to be my sister's.
Then I heard my mother's lullaby. But that's impossible. She's dead. She has been for years...
Then, when I sit up, I see my little sister, kneeling in a field of wildflowers and plucking them to admire. Mist. My sister.
Singing my...our...mother's song.
I scramble to my feet as fast as I could to look down at her, my voice struggling to work. When it does, it sounded a lot smaller than I wanted it to. "Mist...that song."
"Ah, you're up!" Mist said cheerfully, stopping her humming to give me a mischievous glance that all little siblings are capable of delivering. "About time!"
She smiled widely, and the radiance of her smile shook me to my core.
I had to turn my head and hide my face while replying gruffly to disguise the tears in my voice.
Because she could not see why my father keeps her so close, and why I protect her at all costs.
For one simple reason...
When she smiles, Mist looks exactly like my mother.