THREE HUNDRED COMMENTS CAN I GET A WHOOP WHOOP!
Thank you. That is all.
Comment Reviews:
Ebony umbreon - It pains me greatly to say that I can't tell you how near or far you are. Read the following chapter and be the judge of that yourself :) But I will tell you that whenever I input a clue, I always have to think to myself, 'is this going to be too obvious for Ebony? Will I be able to hide this from Ebony?' and whenever I think I've finally got a clue you won't notice you up and prove me wrong. Frustrating, yet endearing.
elveron294 - Oh come now. I am capable of writing a happy ending and making this story end well. Whether or not I WILL is a secret, but the fact is that I CAN. Aww, thanks. Glad that I could inspire you. You'll have to write something and let me know so I can read it! Pssh, we're all eccentric here. Ooh, a club? You've piqued my interest...
CHEESEPUFF - Yeah, he'll be MIA for a bit but he has one of the biggest contributions to the final battle/climax. Hmm. Well, if you're ever sad I'm not all that bad at cheering people up. The new Lloyd is kind of like the old one, only...you'll find out. I guess I'm not saying you'll LIKE him, per se, as much as it is that you won't HATE him. Like I said, basically the old one but different. So yes, still a Dragon Morph. Oh, so it sounds like you're fairly new to the fandom. And THANK YOU for pointing that out, I was wondering when someone would translate that!
TheAmberShadow - That was a joke. I know if I had my way, y'all would get too overwhelmed with the feels and grief with all the mental baggage and issues my characters have that it just wouldn't be sad anymore. I need to work on lightening up a bit. Yeah, they'll all be real sad when they see the video I'm sure.
Ninalb - Well not bye FOREVER. He will make another appearance in the story. Well the potions comment isn't too far off the mark... :) You can wait, I believe in you! Thanks!
Anonymous7 - Yeah, writing the last few chapters my eyes got a little wet. Which surprised me, because I NEVER cry. How about both? No promises :) An essay?! Dang. What's it about? They DO have a ship name, but it's not anything fancy. It's just merging their names together. The catch though, is that it's merging their JAPANESE names together. In the sub version, Jimmy Kudo is Shinichi Kudo and Rachel Moore is Ran Mouri. So their ship name is ShinRan. Till next time!
And...enjoy!
The Golem chuckled. "This place hasn't changed a bit."
"Did you think it would?"
He shook his head and said, "No, but I'm just appreciating the fact that it hasn't. Brings back old memories."
"W-we lived here for what? A month, tops," Nya sputtered. "Not much to reminisce on. Right, Lloyd? Uh, Lloyd?"
The blonde boy jolted, startled. "Oh! Sorry, I was lost in thought. What were you saying?"
Nya shrugged and told him that never mind, it didn't really matter anyways.
Cole slowed his pace to be in step with his Morph friend, with Nya catching the hint that this was going to be a private conversation. She flew ahead to give them their space.
Lloyd kept his eyes on the ground as they walked through the snow, trees that were supposed to be familiar towering over him at either side.
"I know that look," Cole said.
"I'm sure," Lloyd said.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"I don't know what good it will do. I already told Julien, Sakura, and Morro, and none of them could help me." He paused. "Well, actually Morro did a nice job of comforting me because he can relate to my situation, but the feeling is still there."
Cole narrowed his glowing, deep-sunken eyes. "Morro?"
"Yeah," Lloyd said with a nod. "For some reason he's able to empathize with what I'm feeling right now, though I have no clue why." His breath stiffened with a cough.
The rock monster beside him crossed his arms, the jagged edges of his earthen body bulging as he did. "Strange. I'd give my theories as to why that is, but first I'd need to know what it is Morro's empathizing with in the first place."
Before Lloyd could speak, they were interrupted by sounds of bickering. "Are you SURE it's this way? I think we're lost."
"No no, I'm positive. It's this way."
"Why don't we just stop and ask for directions?"
"I can do this, honest. We just need, um…"
Cole rolled his eyes. Were they STILL arguing over directions? Honestly. One would think they'd have sorted that all out by now.
Cole cleared his throat to gather attention. The bickering stopped, and all eyes were on him.
"Take a left," was all he needed to say to cease one argument and start another.
"I TOLD you."
"In my defense, it's been a few years. Guess my memory's not quite what it used to be."
"That's it, I'm navigating from now on."
Then the group kept walking, and Cole and Lloyd continued their chatter.
Lloyd huffed, hands deep in his pockets. "Telling people doesn't change the fact that this feeling is very much still here, and I can't shake it."
"I think I can guess," Cole offered. "Since I've felt it too and I can see it in your eyes, but I'd like to hear it from your mouth in case I'm wrong."
Lloyd let out a small, reluctant noise, but eventually relented. He didn't have much to lose from telling Cole, although repeating the same broken record was sure to get tiresome.
Lloyd closed his eyes. His breaths were shallow and broken, his skin gleaming artificially under the cloudy sunlight. His soft golden hair was still as tousled as ever, but now in a much more kempt way. Cole knew exactly what those turning gears in his mind were thinking, because they were doing much the same in his own.
"It started when I woke up." His voice was hollow, hollow, much more hollow than Lloyd was feeling or even the mysterious emptiness balled up within Kai. "I didn't think much of it at first, but now I'm starting to realize there may be something to it."
Cole said nothing, but the anticipation on his face was easy to read. So Lloyd continued.
"It's like…" Lloyd started, before pausing to gather his thoughts.
"Like what?" Cole prompted.
"It's like you know you're you," Lloyd said. "But you don't feel like it. All the ticks and tocks inside your brain are all in tune, but you feel like it's the wrong tune altogether. But then again, you never paid this much attention to the tune before now - you didn't even hear it before - so you can't say for sure. Either way, now it's so loud you can't hear yourself think. And when you can, all your thoughts are about the tune. It's so foreign, so-"
"-Haunting," Cole finished. His joy had faded out, replaced with a somber look and a darkened voice. This was a bit too close to home for comfort, but then again, everything about Lloyd was.
"Y-yeah," the Morph stammered.
This was certainly troubling, if nothing else. Cole had a similar experience to share, but at least he knew why he felt that way.
"It started when I woke up, too," said the Golem. "But I didn't wake up on an island like you did. I was in my kitchen. It was strange at first, and the 'tune' as you could call it was a bit shallow then. Didn't have much time to dismiss the tune, because straight across the table was my own dead body."
Lloyd shuddered, but tried hard not to let the sensation linger. He ran his fingers through his hair to soothe that dark image out of his mind, but all that did was notify him of how dishonest his hair felt. How could hair feel dishonest? That was something he would have liked to know.
"That must be hard for you," Lloyd said.
"It was, and it is," Cole answered. He wasn't going to lie to the kid. "But you unfortunately get used to it."
"That's not something you should get used to."
"That's why I said it's unfortunate."
Lloyd gave a breathy, superficial giggle, but his mind was too occupied to make it genuine.
Crunch, crunch, crunch went the icy ground beneath their feet, a frosty breeze nipping them as it meandered past. It took its time in their presence, spending long enough with them that it could almost hear their conversation.
The two of them followed their team as they took a sharp turn, though the new direction did nothing to ease the labyrinth feel this forest gave off.
"I did my own research," Cole said. "I wanted to know if the sensation was natural or if I was going crazy. Turns out, a lot of Ghosts and Golems deal with this same issue. It's called Spiritual Dysphoria. It usually occurs after you die, and are brought back in a new form."
"But why am I experiencing it?" Lloyd almost shrieked.
A few suspicious looks turned down at him, and he made a mental note to school his volume from then on.
Now more hush, Lloyd murmured, "I mean, I didn't even die-"
It hit them both in an instant. They snapped their necks around to face the Fire Fairy limping and lurking behind them. A newfound cynicism swirled in their chests at the sight of his face. He was hiding something. That had been apparent from the start, but now Lloyd feared the true gravity of that secret.
"Do you think…?"
"It would explain why you walked away unscathed."
"But I can't remember dying that day."
"You can't remember anything from that day."
If only he had a snappy rebuttal to that, but Cole was right. "So I died."
"I guess you did."
His hands were cold and unnatural, and no matter how hard he fisted them or how tight he shut his eyes he couldn't imagine him being dead. His heart was beating, his lungs were breathing. His hands had the right amount of fingers and worked the way they always did. But here he was, faced with an impossible truth that he had no choice but to accept. He died; how was one supposed to reconcile that?
"I don't suppose you know how I survived, well, death," Lloyd said.
Cole shook his head. "I'm afraid I don't...although…"
"I'm all ears, Cole."
Lloyd's Golem friend tossed the idea around in his rocky brain before actually speaking about it. "I read a book once."
"You read a lot of books, Cole, you'll have to be more specific."
Cole did just that. "It was talking about this cool deviation from magic called 'alchemy'. Apparently, masters of the art called 'alchemists' are capable of transmutation. Before you ask, transmutation is the process of changing the form, nature, or substance of something. They can transmute dreams, memories, even souls. Sometimes into gold or valuables, sometimes into essence-less entities made from mirrors and memories called Homonculi. And sometimes they transmute souls to create 'Philosopher's Stones'. Those grant immortality, achieved through rebirth into a new body. Most of the time, they use Stones to put their own souls into already dead bodies. But when that happens, they unconsciously assume the life of the body they stole. So if my theory's right, it appears body-snatchers might be more than fiction."
"And you think…"
Cole looked away. "It's possible. But we'll have to grill KAI about that later."
"Why not now?"
Cole turned to look at what was in front of them. It was a tall, fat, seemingly dead birchwood tree, one with the faint outline of a door etched into it.
"Because we're home."
