Flaming Heart
No matter how tightly you locked away memories, they always came back sooner or later…
Flames. Licking up the homes around her. Everything was either on fire or in danger of burning.
"Mother!" she yelled in a panic. Her crimson-haired mother had collapsed limply to the ground for a second time.
"Rydia, be strong for me…" Arya breathed, her hand reaching up to caress the emerald-haired girl. Her body shook violently and went limp, her hand falling to the ground, eyes glazed over.
"Mother!" the girl screamed, staring into her mother's glassy eyes. The flames came then, licking the warm corpse's fingers, singeing them. Her mother's dead body was soon swallowed by roaring maws of fire.
Another memory struggled to break free of its bonds.
The ship! The floor was slippery with ocean water, and it was getting harder to hold on to the edge of the ship as Leviathan, the Lord of all Seas, rocked the boat violently. Then suddenly, the floor disappeared below her feet, and she tumbled, the world around her a blur, suddenly on the wrong side of the rail. She tried in vain to climb back around as she tightened her pale, ivory-colored fist on the rail. But it was no use. A sudden feeling of weightlessness overwhelmed her as she started to fall.
"Gaaah!" she shrieked.
"Rydia!" the grandmaster monk Yang shouted. There was a splash as Rydia hit the water, an icy wave crashing over her head, swallowing her into the mysterious deeps of the ocean. She couldn't think, couldn't breathe. She wrenched her jaw open to scream and swallowed water instead. She doubled up and coughed, choking up water and swallowing even more copious amounts of the salty liquid. The salt burned her throat, a different fire than the one she was used to. It was a watery sort of fire, icy flames searing her lungs. The salt scraped at her throat on the way down, rubbing it raw. She desperately wanted out of this dark, gloomy water world. But how could she escape when her thrashes grew steadily weaker and her strength and energy reserves grew ever smaller? They shrank like the bubbles floating toward the surface, getting smaller and out of reach.
A strong arm suddenly grasped her around the middle, yanking her back up to the surface. Rydia's face broke the water first, tiny face scrunched up into a grimace, bright emerald curls floating in the water around her. Turquoise eyes opened to watch the choppy, foaming waves rock a gigantic wooden ship, the wind tearing and snatching at the sails, whipping it around, pulling it further away from her. Cecil!
"I've got you, Rydia!" Yang growled, towing her towards the ship. At the same time, a sharp tug dragged her downward, loosening the monk's grip.
"Yang, there's something in the water with us!" she said fearfully, just as a miniature whirlpool started to form around her, spitting white foam, constricting her. A massive, hot…thing wrapped itself around her and wrenched her out of the water. She squeezed her eyes shut. Rydia reopened them to find herself in a large, dark, hot cave, filled with jagged teeth-like stones around the edges. She could feel a heartbeat, a pulse through the slimy, fleshy surface of the…floor? The truth wrapped itself around her mind with an ominous tone. She was in the mouth of Leviathan!
Rydia could remember another one, with such clarity she almost surprised herself.
Flames. For an instant, she was back in the village of Mist, watching her mother burn up again. But no, that was 10 years ago for her in the Feymarch, only 6 months in the Overworld. She was in the cave of Eblan. Flames. They danced around the lithe silver figure of the ninja in the midst of it all. Flames. They roared into a burning inferno as Rubicante, the elemental archfiend of fire, used his signature finishing move on the ninja prince of Eblan, Edge. Rubicante gave one more chilling laugh and vanished, leaving a singed, limp form on the rocky cavern floor. Flames.
Rydia's eyes flew open, and she opened her mouth to shriek an unearthly scream, one of pain, loss, and torture.
o.O.o.O.o
An unearthly shriek echoed through the dark Lunar landscape. A lithe, silver figure snapped his stormy-green eyes open, breaking his meditative pose next to the crackling fire. The ninja turned to the tent, where the scream resonated. Silently, he rose and walked over to the tall dragoon on watch. His dark dragon helm covered the most of his face, concealing his eyes to the world. Edge had never really liked Kain. You never knew what story his eyes were telling you…
"Will she be alright?" Edge whispered, forcing himself to set aside his disgust for the dragoon in front of him.
"She will never be," Kain whispered so softly that for a moment, Edge wondered if he was imagining things. "None of us will ever be all right again." There seemed to be an ominous message to his words, and Edge pondered that in silence. The two of them stood for a while like that, each immersed in their thoughts, as the silvery dust swirled around their feet.
Across the empty, barren Lunar Surface, against the silky black sky sprinkled with handfuls of sparkling stardust, a soft gentle breeze whispered, whispered to the creatures on the moon. It whispered to its friends, to the dark one who waited below, carrying news that the ones in the prophecy had arrived at last…