Disclaimer: I don't own the games. This is just my attempt at writing something that fits.


The Mistress laughed. "Pretty little sunshine, you still cannot see. You wish for a rescue, but you will never get away from me." Suddenly, the Mistress tensed. Her eyes grew wide and scared, and lost the small amount of sanity they held. "My love, my love is gone! Bring him back to me! You know where he is, how he thinks, what he'll do! Bring him back, bring my love back to me!" she screamed. She pushed Xelha away, shoved her hard enough to send her sprawling to the floor.

The two servants came back and took Xelha back to her cell.

Xelha could still hear the crazed sobbing.


Lyude bid Kalas and Arietta good night after their conversation, a pensive look on his face. After having a calling a servant to show them to a room for the night, he retired to his own chambers.

Arietta looked after him sadly.

'I shouldn't have brought it up,' she murmured. Kalas didn't say anything, knowing that his heart would say what his mind couldn't. Arietta felt the comfort and sighed. 'Thanks, blue-head, I needed that.'

"No problem," Kalas replied. He sighed as he flopped down on the bed in the guest room. "Man, this is so much better than where I used to sleep…"

Arietta wasn't listening to him as she stared out the window at the rising moon. The machina gas in the air created a hazy, rainbow-hued ring around the celestial body. She hadn't noticed that Kalas had fallen asleep until he started to dream.

"Come on, Kalas, just try one?" a voice wheedled. Kalas looked around, trying to see where the voice was coming from. It sounded familiar to him, as if he'd heard it very recently. Gingerly, he reached out to the plate of pastries that had appeared in front of him. He was about to touch them, when one jumped off the plate and bit his fingers, the tiny, razor-sharp teeth slicing cruelly into his hand.

He flailed around, trying to shake it off. The more he tried to dislodge it, though, the deeper it tore into his fingers. Suddenly, the rest of the pastries on the platter stood up and followed their comrade's example, latching onto whatever exposed skin they could find.

Two of them were flying at his neck, intent on tearing out his throat—

'Kalas!'

Kalas at up, eyes wild and skin damp with sweat. Panting, he put his face into his hands, trying to shake off the last of the nightmare. Concerned, Arietta gently wrapped herself around his heart; a wall of protection.

'It's alright, Kalas… it was just a dream…' she murmured soothingly.

"You saw it?" he mumbled through his hands.

'Not clearly… it freaked you out, though, didn't it?'

Kalas nodded slowly. Normally, he would have cracked a wise-ass joke about it already, which is how Arietta knew he was still uneasy.

Gently, Arietta sent warm waves of comfort into his heart as she softly hummed an old, forgotten lullaby. Slowly, Kalas drifted back off into a deep, dreamless sleep.


Willow didn't know how much time had passed. Seconds, minutes, hours, none of those had any meaning in the whirling action of battle. The sun was starting to set, splashing lovely pink and burning orange and bloody red across the Sky.

The giant spider still wasn't dead.

Nothing seemed to affect it. Mizuti was the first to spring into battle. The wizard had immediately flung her chakram at the spider's thin legs, trying to slow the monster down. Adena had spun into action next, the wings of a swallow bursting from her back as she used her staff as a base to catapult herself into the air. The blunt, metal ends of her staff kept finding the spider's massive body as she tried her best to weaken and break through the tough, hairy hide. Brennan took to the air as well, flying silently on fluttering moth wings. His wickedly sharp blades seemed to do the only damage as they barely made scratches in the spider's hide.

Willow felt horribly useless. She could only watch helplessly as Brennan's blades bounced off of the spider. Guardian Spirits were supposed to be beings of tremendous power, and yet here she was: just a weak little girl. If only she could help, if only she could DO something…!

She felt a shift from her bond to Brennan. She didn't have time to wonder about it, though, because a bright, warm glow caught her attention. It was coming from the twin swords in Brennan's hands. The blades were both glowing white, as if lit by an inner glow.

"What…?" he said.

"Hit the damn spider, kid!" Adena shouted as she swooped low under a lunge from the massive jaws. Brennan reacted, spinning both blades and bringing the glowing tips down into the spider's eyes. Four of the eyes burst wetly, splattering Brennan head to toe in dark blood. Immediately, he felt the blood burning his skin like acid, and he could smell it eating through his clothes.

The enormous arachnid squealed shrilly and backed up quickly, tripping over its own spindly legs and rolling onto its back. It rolled around in agony as more of its bulging eyes burst on their own.

"My eyes, I can't see, it burns, the light burns!" the monster shrieked.

"The monster be weak in the belly, Brennan!" Mizuti called, already pulling her arm back to fling her chakram. She unsealed a Light Flare, attaching the magic to her weapon. The spiked ring glowed brightly as it flew and sliced open the spider's soft underbelly. Brennan follower her example and plunged his swords into the soft flesh. He could hear the sizzling as the as the acidic blood tried to eat away at the metal of the blades, and he could see the flesh burning away from the glowing metal.

The monster's screaming turned incoherent, and the rolling turned into convulsing. All too quickly, the convulsing stopped and the monster went limp. Cautiously, Adena jabbed it with her staff. The massive body twitched twice, and then went still.

The spider was dead.

The three fighters wearily put away their weapons. Then Geiyl sprang into action. Whipping out his healing magnus, he went around to the exhausted warriors and started patching up their wounds. Brennan grimaced when he felt the sting of the acid burns healing.

'Are you alright?' Willow asked. Brennan nodded.

"I'll be fine… What was that back there?" he asked.

"What was what? The spider?" Geiyl asked, confused.

"Not you," Brennan replied. Geiyl understood right away.

"Oh! Right. Willow. Got it."

'I don't know,' Willow answered finally. Brennan looked at her, incredulous.

"How could you not know?" he demanded.

'"I am not bound to please thee with my answers,"' Willow snapped back.

"The Great Mizuti may be knowing," Mizuti cut in. Everyone looked at her. She continued, "Arietta be having powerful magic when she be bound to the Great Mizuti as a spirit. Perhaps that magic be passed down to Willow?"

"That makes sense…" Adena added. Brennan nodded.

"It does. It looked kind of like the light spells Mom knows, anyways…" he trailed off.

'Guardian Spells…' Willow gasped. Brennan turned to her.

"What?"

'"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie…"' she quoted. At Brennan's blank stare, she explained, 'I felt so helpless, I wanted to do something to help, and then the light thing happened. The magic was the solution to the problem. "Strong reasons make strong actions," after all.'

"I… guess that makes sense," he said slowly, trying to work through the unfamiliar language his Guardian was using.

"We should get back and report this to Lady Savyna," Adena said. "It's getting dark, and she'll have my hide for being gone so long…"

'Savyna… she was a huntress, right? The one who used to be part of the Imperial Army?' Willow asked. Brennan shrugged, and Willow mentally smacked herself. She forgot that only Brennan could hear her. 'Could you ask, please? Be useful?'

"Hey, I think I was plenty useful killing the giant spider," Brennan snapped back, exhaustion and pain finally getting to him.

'Only after using MY magic,' Willow replied hotly. Brennan had no reason to be yelling at her. Nobody was dead, right? So why was he suddenly so mad?

"Being angry at each other not be helpful," Mizuti broke in. "What be done be done."

Brennan rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything else as the group started to make its way back to Komo Mai.

The rest of the evening was kind of a blur to Willow. She was oddly tired after using the strange light spell, even though she didn't have a body. She hovered near the surface of Brennan's heart, letting him pull her along as they settled in for the night. She vaguely heard something about the Cloudvents before she settled into Brennan's heart to rest.

Brennan welcomed the silence as he settled into his bed to sleep. To be honest, he kind of thought Willow was annoying, and she sounded entirely too condescending when she quoted those odd things at him. When she was still silent when he woke up, though, he was starting to get worried. When he voiced these worries to Mizuti, though, she just waved them off.

"Willow just be tired," she said. "She not be used to using such powerful magic. Arietta be doing the same thing when she first be starting to use magic."

"So she's not hurt or anything?" Brennan asked as he tentatively tried to feel for Willow, not entirely sure what he was doing.

"She just be resting," Mizuti confirmed. Brennan couldn't help but feel relieved.

"Alright," he said. "So, when are we heading to Diadem?"

"Soon," Mizuti replied.

After a moment, Geiyl came out of the palace, looking as bright-eyes and cheerful as ever. Behind him was Adena.

"You're not leaving without me," she said firmly, just as Brennan opened his mouth to ask what she was doing there. "I'm going with you. I need to get away from here for a while." Brennan blinked.

"Okay," he said mildly. Adena looked suspicious.

"That's it?"

"You're not giving us any choice," Brennan pointed out.

"Damn right," Adena said. "Well, what are we waiting for?"

"Off to the ship," Mizuti interrupted.

"Now, apparently," Brennan said.

With that, the motley group got onto the borrowed ship and made for Diadem.


Xelha wasn't sure how long she sat in her cell. Her meager meals came sporadically, and the Mistress didn't call for her again. She could hear screaming, sometimes, and it sent chills down her spine. Other times, though, she heard something that sounded almost like singing. If she listened hard enough, she could almost hear words. Absurdly, the words sounded like a list of sweets.

Sugar, sugar, white and sweet… Chocolate's also fun to eat…

She couldn't figure out why she was hearing such things, but it was worlds better than the heartbroken sobbing and the incoherent screaming.

Turning, she gazed back out at the ever-changing, infinite sky and prayed that Kalas and Brennan were safe.