UPDATED!
Soft light surrounds her as she travels in the stream of light between the second world and Alma Torran. At the end, the light drops her off in a chamber within the dungeon. The chamber was completely made of mirrors that reflected her. She looked around and noticed a clear tiled bridge that leads out of the room and into another one.
"Well, this is where it begins" Shirin says as she stands up, mentally preparing herself for what was to come.
She steps onto the bridge, the first tile under her shining with a brilliant light. As she starts for the second title, a rush of memories comes flooding to her head.
Happy memories … Everyone is still alive, everyone is still at home … The fragrance of a field of flowers behind the palace...There's a smile on everyone's face … When everything was so much simplier. I can still see them, the people .
"Big Sis Shirin!" "First Princess Shirin" "Shirin!"
"Stop. STOP. STOP!" Shirin says with a murmur that quickly becomes a hoarse yelling contest. The happy memories opening the small cracks she had tried to pretend didn't exist, the ones that had started her on the path she was now. They were the happy memories that had disappeared so quickly, so fleetingly, and they always made her unsure of what was right. "Please don't do this to me, I don't want to doubt the path I have chosen, I have taken" she whispers.
This is your past, a single point that led to the current you. Is your answer to forget it all and leave it behind? To forget and pretend that none of these matter to you anymore?
A voice echoes into her head, clearly cutting through the thousand of points inside her head that were spinning around in dizzying circles.
"When I pretend it never happened, it doesn't mean I forget! I keep it inside, to tell me that I have something I'm fighting for, that there's more than all the pain I feel. But it would be suicidal to keep the memories open all the time. I would start doubting the good things, the right things. It helps me remember that I can be happy, that there is always something for me to go back to, even when I don't believe my own words" Shirin says pleadingly, trying to convince the voice to stop the images from continuously appearing in her head.
With a soft sigh, the memories disappear and she shakes off the prickly feeling on her skin,
"What type of dijn controls anything remotely like this" Shirin mutters under her breath, mentally preparing herself for what was to come if she continued down the bridge.
As she steels her mind, Shirin takes the next step down the bridge. The moment her feet touches down on the next tile, the second wave of her life comes rolling through.
"This is our daughter Shirin, we hope she will be enough to convey our sincerity in this alliance" the queen of Samarkand says as she, her husband, and her daughter bow in front of Kou royalty.
"She should be fine, Judar, do you think she has the makings?" the emperor says as Judar steps forward, his gaze slowly calculating the site in front of him.
"She'll do" he says with a flippant wave, "I'll be back later" and then walks out of the throne room.
The memory then flashes out and another replaces it.
" Let's see … What should I make you do first. " Judar inquires as he smirks as Shirin, the young girl cowering in front of him, scared of their first official meeting as another candidate for Judar to train. "Ahhh … Of course, let's go conquer a dungeon!".
The memory flashs forwards and suddenly,
"So weak! Is that all you can do" Judar says as he snarls at the fallen girl. They had been in the dungeon for weeks, battling the monsters inside non-stop.
"There's only so much I can do" Shiriin says warily, the cuts on her arms and knees still bleeding. The next thing she knows, she's fainted, everything that had happened too much for her growing mind to take in with one go.
When she recovers, Judar is sitting next to her. "Nice going, brat" he says as he ruffles his hair, a snarl laced into his voice, and then stands back up. "No time to waste, you still have to capture this dungeon." he says.
"I forgot … " Shirin starts as she stares at her hands as the teardrops formed. "I had started to forget that I used to care. I forgot that the war was to save both Kou and Samarkand, that we were all once friends who fought and laughed for each other. I forgot how tainted I had become." she whispers. "Why did so many things change, how did it change. Does the world always head towards the same point?"
The voice comes back to divide her once again.
Will you put down your sword now? Will you change your path, you have nothing to fight for. Are you even the right person for this path?
"You're wrong. I'm not only fighting for my revenge, if it was only that, I wouldn't have gone as far as I have on this path. No matter how many memories you throw at me, I will continue. And I think we can all be friends again, someday. This is more than my path, this is the flow of the Rukh." she says, first weakly, then with more defiance.
As you wish.
"How deep will it dig through my memories? Don't tell me it'll dig far enough to memories of the soul and not just this life … " Shirin says desperately, not wanting everything to be revealed so easily. "I'll make a run for it, hopefully that will decrease the number of times I have to go through this".
She starts running, only to be thrown back to the ground by the next tile, even more shattered moments coming back.
"No, no, not again, no more … " she whispers before falling back into the haze of memories.
"They're planning something, I don't think the peace and our alliance will last for that much longer" the king and queen of Samarkand whisper frantically.
"Do you need a hand?" a man cloaked in green says as he suddenly appears out of thin air.
After a small conversation between the three, the queen leaves to bring their young daughter over and the man cloaked in green transports the two of them to a dungeon.
"Please, no more dungeons" the girl whispers, a haunted look appearing in her eyes.
"No worries, I'm not Judar, though we both are magi. I'm Yunan. It's nice to meet you, child blessed by the Rukh. " he says, a soft smile gracing his face.
"Yunan really did teach me that my potential is limitless and that I can grow and learn. He had a teaching style so different from Judar's. Both of them have left a mark that has helped me become who I am" she says with a soft smile. "Honestly though, I don't think there's anything I regret about this. I've come to terms with what happened in the dungeons and become a better person from each trial I encountered. "
As the memories start filing into her mind, her eyes widen out of horror. "Not that night" she whispers hoarsely, already regretting her previous confidence.
She was waiting, waiting to fight her friends in the last battle, to determine everyone's fate. But luck wasn't on her side, like always. A third party has taken advantage of the war and stole into the palace, kidnapping an unaware princess as she slept. She had ended up in country that had so much money that they wasted their money for everything and anything. All that money had lead to a forever changing government and overthrown royalty. She had been sent to the just overthrown royal family, who treated their slaves as decorations for when guests came and dirt when there was no one to show off to. All the slaves had become blank shells of their former self, leaving Shirin in a battle against her very nature. Her way of dealing with people like this had always been to argue back, to have a larger personality than they did, or at least it had always worked against Judar. Now, it was her downfall.
"If you step out of line one more time, the punishments won't be as nice" one of the masters said as they had poured boiling water over back where she fresh wounds from being whipped continued to bleed.
Shirin blinked as the images slowly faded away, her body sweating heavily from the fear. She hurriedly grasps at all of the scars lining her arms, the markings echoing the former pain. " No. no. no. no." Shirin says in a shaking voice as each of the images flashes through like stray lightning from Amdusias's magic. "I don't want anymore of these memories" she says and starts crying, the tears falling down her face.
Do you give up. Are you unable to overcome the past? Will you stop here.
Shirin doesn't answer, her sobbing filling the air. Then, with a trail of tears on her face, she stands up, a little too far lost for proper judgement.
" Spirit of of Madness and Judgement, I -" she begins before the voice interrupts her again.
Do not take the easy way out and hide behind the power you wield.
The equip slowly falls away and Shirin stands there, frozen as she stares off in space. "I can't escape that past no matter what, so I'll continue running" she says. "Running until there's nowhere else for me to run". With shaking movements, she steps towards the last section of the bridge, the djinn of the dungeon letting her through.
She closes her eyes and waits for the next flow of memories. All she wanted to do was get past this last tile and stop the memories from returning.
Suddenly, with a jolt, her eyes open as her face pales, the image of two people, their eyes mirroring her own, sapphire to sapphire, seared into her brain.
"Don't tell me that you can see that far … It can't be, it can't be - "
