50. Legends: Thorn of hope

"The Sword of Mana," Daena said, plinking it down a few times as if to reassure herself that it did, in fact, exist.

"The empire spent so much time looking for that…" Thoma trailed off.

Sierra regarded it thoughtfully. "Such a small object, for so many hopes and dreams to be based on."

They had all come; those who had promised, those who she had called for. Her friends, all, and if she needed them ever, she needed them now; in more ways than one, she thought. The twins stood by the table, elven ears pricking, noses leaning in, fascinated with the artifact that had decided to visit their house. Escad held back, somewhat nervously; while Elazul and Pearl stayed serenely removed, he leaning against the couch, she sitting on it with legs crossed.

Pearl was changed, she saw. There was a wisdom in her eyes that wouldn't go away. She had the answers, but she wasn't talking. Not yet, anyway.

"So, we just take this thing, find the tree, and that's that?" Daena was asking.

Sierra only laughed. "Girl, do you really think it's that easy? People have been looking for this thing for hundreds of years. Its secrets will not give up so easily."

Daena bristled slightly at the implied insult. "How would you know?"

Sierra gave the cat-girl a withering look. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-four," Daena announced proudly. "Why, how old are you?"

"Two hundred thirty-five," Sierra announced proudly.

Ariesa was more or less tuning it all out. Her best friend was a little insulted, and she really ought to be bothered by that. But she had bigger things to worry about.

She lounged in a chair by the door, watching the sproutling outside. She caught the eyes of Elazul, briefly, her worry mirrored in his eyes, before he turned to look at his guardian once again. Pearl hadn't moved, eyes focused with an intensity that belied her calm demeanor.

Bud spoke up. "But, I mean, it's still supposed to get us to the tree, and we're just trying to figure out the details? How to bridge it to the Goddess, or something?"

" 'An opening in space, a doorway to beyond, the key to the Goddess,' " Lisa quoted. "That's what Kathinja said it was."

"It's not so simple," Pearl said gently, and suddenly all eyes were on her.

Pearl looked absolutely embarrassed at all the sudden attention, and Elazul quietly moved a couple steps forward, placing one hand on her shoulder to encourage her to continue. That was the Pearl she knew, for sure. And for the rest… Maybe everyone in the room didn't know Blackpearl, but they knew enough to know that Pearl knew a thing or two.

When Pearl spoke, she began hesitantly, with all the shyness she had when Ariesa had first met her. "You can't just find it," she began. "There's… a barrier, kind of, but not the way you might think. There's the magic part, which Anise tried to get through… but really, you need the Goddess's permission."

"Is that what you're saying? We have to sit around and wait?" asked Escad angrily. "We can't just find the tree?"

"We can… a bit…" Pearl continued. "I guess you could say it will meet us, or maybe more accurately, it will look for the one who has the Sword." All eyes turned to Ariesa.

"I doubt that's possible," Escad said sharply.

Daena looked at him abruptly. "After all you have seen?" she said sharply. "You have so little faith?" They descended into bickering, and Ariesa instinctively tuned it all out.

Elazul was the only one who remained silent, looking at her with the same piercing look he always had. At least, superficially it looked the same; but at the same time Ariesa knew it carried much more than that.

Finally, she looked at the Sword itself. Kathinja had told her it was the only hope; and frankly, she believed it. She knew it was hers; hers to take, hers to lead, and frankly, she was terrified. She wanted nothing more than someone to tell her what to do, to save her the trouble of making tough choices and making them wrong.

Sierra seemed to sense her mood, stepping away from the others and speaking so none could hear. "We just make our best guess as to what the Goddess wants," she told her gently.

Ariesa nodded, and stood. "You've been chosen!" the sproutling outside suddenly shrieked, to no one in particular; but she couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling the comment was meant for her.

She stood, reluctantly, feeling the eyes of her nearest and dearest upon her, and strode towards the table where the Sword sat, mindless of all the conflict it was causing. Her hand reached towards it for comfort, and she took a deep breath, gripping the weapon for some sort of reassurance.

"I feel… all I can get is some sort of vague direction," she announced to the group. It was a pull towards the northwest, towards the snow, but stopping before then; some sort of vaguely define halfway point between where she and Elazul had each been born.

She cast a glance over them, the people who had been there through it all. She weighed once again the importance of every single one in her life, people who had not been in her life a year before but now she felt as if she couldn't live without. "Everyone," she announced in her most confident possible voice, feeling suddenly nervous as all eyes turned to her. "It doesn't matter why, or how. This is what we came for, and this is what we have to do."

She wasn't sure she had even convinced herself, but Elazul gave her the barest of nods. A small gesture, but from him, it bolstered her confidence more than any words could say. She stood a little straighter, daring to meet the eyes of everyone in the room, watching acceptance slowly cross their faces.

From there, it was just technicalities.

"Who will watch the twins?" wondered Daena.

"We don't need watching!" squealed Lisa. "We want to go!" cried Bud, right on her tail.

Ariesa thought about that, with a twinge of worry. She wished she could keep them safe forever… but she knew it was not to be. They were on the cusp of adulthood, and she could not shelter them forever. Besides, she felt as if they all had a role in this.

"No," she announced with her newfound confidence. "We all go. Everyone in this room."

"We're all connected!" the sproutling shrieked gleefully outside.

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Matilda stood in the grass, beside one of the many portals to the Underworld; this one an oddly animate tree, bark contorted into a vague resemblance of a face, its eyes seeming to glow of their own will. This one just happened to be closer than most to where she wanted to see today.

Olbohn stood behind her; he had walked with her to the surface, but he had made it clear that he desired to go no further. From here on, she was on her own.

"Are you going?" he asked her. There was only the grasslands of Forcena before her, but that was not what she saw. Beyond, many thought there was nothing but ocean; but now, she knew better.

It pulled her, called to her… yet she knew that was not where she was destined to go. As much as she might desire it… it was left to others, and like many other things, she swallowed her desire, knowing it was not to be. That was part of what was called wisdom.

The Tree had its own wisdom and wants, and they could only leave Her to it now.

"No," she replied without turning. "We have knowledge, wisdom, but this is the province of imagination. We are not truly of Mana, not in the way we wish we were. It is time for those of us that call ourselves Wisdoms to stay back."

"Except for Pokiehl," Olbohn replied. "There are other reasons he will stay in, as you well know."

"Of course," Matilda replied. "It is left to him."

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As comforting as it was to have the others around her, Ariesa still found herself clinging to the sword in her arms as if it was a lifeline. Which, perhaps it was.

She found herself cradling it as if it was a baby, she having the oddest sort of protective instinct towards what was, in fact, merely a thing… only not. There was something more that she could not identify. She thought at first it felt of Mana, but now she was not so sure.

It felt like the Goddess.

It reminded her, in passing, of something more. The dream. The dream of so long ago that she had nearly forgotten, until the Sword came into her life. She wondered now – had it been the Goddess, the being she had never truly believed in, reaching for her? Was she finally remembering, needing, the way she had been told to do?

She wasn't sure she had the answers, and part of her was scared to find them.

Elazul walked up behind her, to be at her side. She did not need to be told he was there, it was the particular sense of affection she had developed that let her know even without hearing his footsteps.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked with a wry smile. "You should see the expression on your face…"

Ariesa wasn't sure how to express it herself, the dueling thoughts in her head. "Dreams are a cage, and hope is a thorn," she murmured. "Is there really anything to come of this?"

Elazul was silent for a minute, seemingly lost in thought. "We have a saying among the Jumi," he began. "Sappho was the first one to tell me. Ninety-nine percent of life is fate; the other one percent is your hope guiding you."

"Did they still say that, when the Jumi city died?" Ariesa asked pointedly. He had no answer, and she continued. "Hope, dying… everything that has happened to the world. Knowledge and its pitfall… Do you wonder about the death of the Goddess?" she asked, and he only shook his head slightly. "What happened then, what did they hope for then, before their hope died?"

Elazul looked off into the distance. "That small sliver of hope… I used to think it was a desperate attempt for the Jumi to believe when truthfully, there was nothing left. Now… after everything that's happened…" Ariesa flashed back to the Jumi city. "Maybe it's that bare sliver which still let us feel."

Ariesa nearly stopped in her tracks with a sudden realization. Elazul had always been the one who was struggling, aiming towards a goal most would say was hopeless… and somehow, through it all, he had never given up. She suddenly stared at him with new respect and admiration.

Spontaneously, she wiggled under his left arm, and he looked down at her in surprise. Letting the sword drop to her side, she reached up behind his head to kiss him once, twice.

He hardly resisted, but afterward, he looked at her, puzzled. She didn't say anything, and after a moment, he let it go.

That didn't mean he didn't get it. He seemed to be weighing his words carefully when he finally spoke. "I've been talking to the others…" he ventured hesitantly.

"And?" Ariesa prodded.

"They hope, still. Even Thoma. What has made you lose hope now?"

Thoma. She thought of something. "I need to talk to him," she murmured, and abruptly fled Elazul's grasp.

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Elazul wished he could run to Ariesa, but he knew she needed some space, to be alone with her thoughts in a way that he could not provide. That, he could understand. He had plenty of worries of his own; they had the Sword, the Sword he needed for the Jumi, the Sword he needed if… if he ever could be with her in the way that they both wanted. They were so close, yet so far, and his tension was mounting.

But he had another place to find comfort, and as he wandered over to his guardian, he weighed her role as well. His life, in a sense, as he was hers; the two of them lost, alone.

Only, that wasn't really true any longer.

The look she had now… it was loss, yes, but he had the feeling it had nothing to with him this time. Her lips were pursed, and she had a faraway expression in her eyes, that showed the depth that had started to appear.

He knew what that meant. She was remembering.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked, repeating the question he had asked Ariesa only minutes before.

She paused. "I had another name… not Blackpearl…" Pearl hung her head. "I've been so many things, but so few of them I can remember… and more than just the memories, it's the feelings I miss the most."

He didn't need to look at her face. He knew everything he needed to know through his core. Even so, her inner turmoil threatened to overwhelm him with its intensity; hope and loss, passion and pain, and a thin rivulet of love through it all, a ribbon that stood out in its purity.

Randomly, he remembered Granz once again. That was not where he had found Pearl, but it was now clear to him that was where other things had begun. He knew why he had made his choices one way rather than the other; but it nagged at him still, the choices he had made, the what-ifs and if only's. It left a crack, thin but as dangerous as the one that had previously bisected his core; a divide, between he and his guardian, a knowledge he had wanted to ignore, the truth being that they were not the same.

And now, he thought, sneaking a glance at Ariesa, that crack was widening. He didn't know if it could be bridged, and if so, how; or if there were things that would break them apart.

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For once, Thoma was not in the company of the twins, saving Ariesa the trouble of breaking him away. Still, it made her rather uncomfortable, as if she was intruding on his own private moment. It certainly looked that way, from the somber look on his face.

"Hey," she began, awkwardly.

He practically jumped, startled. "Oh, hi," he said, half-distracted. For a moment, Ariesa looked at him, trying to remember him as the soldier of the Empire as which she had first met him. She couldn't fit it in; all she saw was a young man, nearly as young as the twins, a young man who had seen too much.

And I once thought that Elazul looked careworn, she thought with sympathy.

"I was wondering…" she began quietly. She knew she had to ask, but she hated to bring it up all the same. "I was wondering what you could tell me about the Empire."

"What would you like to know?" Thoma's voice was guarded, perhaps a bit fearful. It made Ariesa feel bad for even asking.

"I guess…" she began. What did she want to know, really? "I mean, I know they destroyed the Jumi city. But I've heard they wanted the Mana Stones, I've heard they wanted the Sword, I've heard maybe they just wanted to conquer the world… Now, I'm wondering, what was it really all about?"

Thoma sighed. "I don't know if I have all the answers," he told her, "but I've been thinking about it… a lot. Maybe I have some ideas."

"Tell me," Ariesa encouraged in her most soothing voice.

"Well… the mission I was on… it was about trying to find the Sword. The ultimate weapon, we were told, and the Emperor wanted it; nothing else would do. The only real problem was how to find it."

"Sierra said that Deathbringer was looking for the Mana Stones, and that's how she and Larc got involved."

"I think he was… for a while. But then he was killed, you know?"

"Sierra was the one who killed him," Ariesa affirmed. "She told me the story herself."

"Well… I don't know how it happened, but the Emperor ended up being Jajara's dragoon. I mean, when I was in the bone fortress - " here he shuddered with the memory – "it was pretty clear to me who was in charge. Though, as far as the empire was concerned, thanks to Jajara, not much has really changed," he finished sarcastically.

Ariesa realized something. "It was Jajara that started looking for cores and the sword in earnest," she uttered confidently. "But I thought the dragons were good. Why would they do such a thing?"

"He wasn't hunting Jumi, if that's what you're implying," Thoma said almost defensively. "I mean, we were pretty much looking for cores that were already dead."

"So… Jajara was looking for… this. That's the jist of it, right?" Ariesa motioned to the item at her side. "And the Empire and its leader were just plain looking for power."

"As far as I know," Thoma told her. "But I wouldn't put anything past them. I kind of doubt they've given up." He looked away for a minute. "It wasn't like they told us much, but I kind of put some things together. That sword you're holding… it's not really a weapon. It's a repository of the power used to contain chaos and create Mana. So… it could create, or break things apart."

Break things apart. Ariesa hoped it would not come to that. "Who would want to do that?"

Thoma gave a one-word answer. "Demons."

Ariesa blinked in surprise, and he continued. "I didn't see any, but some of my friends did. They said that they were creatures of the Otherworld, and they had come to Forsena for… something. They weren't sure, and no one really wanted to suggest the Emperor had asked them there."

"The Empire. The Otherworld," she murmured, a bit fearfully. "It seems even the Goddess can't solve all of the world's problems."

Thoma looked at her with the trusting hope she had seen in his eyes when she rescued him in the Bone Fortress. "Maybe not," he told her, laying a hand on her arm, opposite from where she now held the Sword of Mana in a white-knuckled grip. "But She can always help, right?"

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"They call this the Royal Coastline," announced Elazul.

They were some distance west of Judd, and Ariesa felt a pang of despair. The Sword still wanted to go forward, but before her, there was nothing but ocean, as far as the eye could see.

"Which royalty?" Escad asked doubtfully. "It looks like just another beach to me."

Sierra, perhaps unsurprisingly, had the answer. "None, and all," she related. "It used to be a hub, where paths from all countries crossed." She walked along the strand, pensively. "It was the country of Rolante who named it, however, naming the east and west ends the sunrise and sunset beaches, representing past and future, cycling over and over again."

"Rolante?" Ariesa asked, startled. Her country, she thought with an odd sense of pride.

"So how do we get through?" asked Lisa.

Her brother had been wandering along the water's edge, dipping in and out of the tide, leaving the edges of his sorcerer's robe quite soaked. "Ariesa…" he began. "I think you should come here."

She shrugged, and joined her young apprentice. He's taller now, she noticed randomly; not yet tall by any means, but enough so to remind her he was approaching manhood. And his look now was certainly not that of a child.

He looked over the ocean. "It's like an ocean, only… not," he told her. She stared hard into the distance, noting absently that the waves were soaking her boots; at least the water was pleasantly warm. "Can't you feel it?" he urged her.

No, was her gut response. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Elazul take a few inquisitive steps nearer to her; and slowly, a fuzzy image formed in her mind. It was something… out there, beyond, in the oblivion. Suddenly, sharply, she knew what it was.

"The Mana Holyland," she breathed. "It's out there."

"It is," Bud said confidently.

"How did Anise get there?" she asked, confused. "They said she built bridges."

"They weren't real bridges, not really," came the voice of Pearl. Ariesa hadn't noticed when the girl had wandered into the water, but she now stood in it thigh-deep; she didn't seem to notice that her dress was soaking wet, more so by the minute. Just like the Pearl that Ariesa had first met. "They were… sort of… a dimensional bridge. She made them with Mana. One of the only things she did that was pure." Pearl paused sadly. "I know, because I was alive then."

"I don't have any Mana," Ariesa protested, for what seemed like the thousandth time.

"You do," Bud insisted, motioning to the sword she held. It seemed nothing special, at first glance, but… "It's right there in your hands."

Ariesa felt doubtful. "What am I supposed to do with it?" she asked.

"We told you. Create an opening in space," Lisa announced, coming up to join her brother.

"But how?" Ariesa insisted.

Bud sidled next to her. "Um… I kind of get it, but I'm not really sure how to explain it," he said, "but I'll try. There's like this chaos, you know, and it's disrupting the Goddess?" Ariesa nodded impatiently. "Well, She needs that chaos. Right now she's scared of it, so she's hanging onto her barriers, but because she's scared… maybe that barrier is weak in spots. If you can shape it a little bit, maybe you can get through. The Goddess still has to let you close to Her, but we have to get through this first. Maybe if you just try to imagine…"

Ariesa caught her breath. Take this sword, close your eyes, and imagine. The words echoed in her head once again, and she let her eyelids lower – not completely, but enough that she felt more than she saw. Thoughts threatened to distract her, but slowly, she let them fade away, one by one, and quiet descended over her mind. There was no sound in her head but the peaceful lapping of the waves, and no sensation other than the feeling of the sword in her hands, cold metal but a strange warmth emanating from it nonetheless.

It was that warmth she focused on, it pulsing seemingly in time with the water, the resonance at first a dull throb, but slowly sneaking in to resound in her skull, a subtle beat that drew her in, over and over again.

It seemed as if the elements themselves were creeping into her mind. Her knees threatened to give way under her, but she felt someone propping her up. Elazul, she noted distantly, but the Sword would not let her know more than that.

It was there, she realized, hidden between dimensions where the elemental spirits waited, the dimension where dragons, fairies, and all other creatures of Mana existed at the same time as in the world she knew. The world is Mana, and it is all connected, she realized dreamily, the pleasure of that forged connection washing over her, drifting her towards ecstasy so sweet she almost forgot what she was doing… until she realized it was happening.

Her first clue was the odd realization that water no longer coursed at her feet. Her second realization was a dim image, barely ingested, before her through her heavy-lidded eyes. Her third realization was a voice, barely recognizable as Elazul's whispering to her. "Look."

She did, and her eyes first opened slightly, then suddenly snapped wide as she realized what she was seeing.

There was ocean before them no more. The water had sunk somewhere deep within the earth – down to the Underworld, she wondered? - to leave bare sand behind, littered with sea creatures dying as they were suddenly exposed to air and sun. A strangely desolate scene, but one that gave Ariesa hope nonetheless.

It was faint, and so far away that she might have considered it an illusion on the distant horizon, but there it was, breaking up the expanse of flat land before them.

A tree.

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Appearances were deceiving; it was not a matter of hours, but days, that they traversed the now-empty seabed, to a tree that only grew in enormity with every step they took. And in the same way, tension built within and between the group, breaking occasionally into bickering and snarky comments before dissolving once again.

Ariesa found herself saying little, feeling only strangely moody and depressed.

Lisa was the first to get over it all, and start gazing at the rapidly-encroaching tree with the sense of wonder that is probably deserved. "Is that… the Goddess?" she wondered out loud.

"She wouldn't be all that peaceful," Escad retorted, and Daena reprimanded him sharply. "What, Daena?" he barked back, turning to face her. "Do you think we're doing anyone any services by lying? Don't you see the danger She is in?"

Daena hissed slightly, but Sierra placed one hand on her shoulder, and whispered something to her that seemed to calm the feline woman. Lisa, for her part, looked slightly wild-eyed at the thought, and Ariesa noted distantly that Bud stepped towards his sister to calm her, but Thoma reached the girl first. Bud pouted slightly, then turned and walked away.

"He's right, you know, whether we like it or not," Pearl said sadly. "There's things that are off… things that are missing, things that are there but shouldn't be. Balances out of alignment…" She shivered slightly. "Lost memories must be regained, imagination must be reinspired…" Escad started at that last.

Thoma looked suddenly backwards. "What is it?" asked Lisa, all sudden concern.

He shook his head, and turned back to her. "Nothing," he told her. "I guess, just my imagination. Maybe Pearl was freaking me out." He forced a smile. Lisa looked unconvinced.

The land slowly began to rise, now not the dried-out surface of the ocean, but obviously becoming the true Holyland. Smaller trees began to appear, first sparse, but then thicker; smaller than the Tree before them, but still lush, green things with a sense of life beyond even being alive, if that was possible. The aura of the Goddess's own forest began to permeate, settling in the skin of all, and peace and harmony settled over the group.

Well, almost.

Though Ariesa felt her mood lift, her mind was still positively swimming with thoughts, they flooding her brain as she tried to put it all together, suspecting that she had little time left to do so. Mana, silently echoed the word over and over, as she contemplated anything and everything that simple concept contained.

She was drawn sharply to attention by a sproutling running across her path. "The wind blew some leaves away!" it cried, only to bump directly into the sprite. She looked down at it in confusion.

To her surprise, she looked down not into the large, garish eyes that she had always associated with the things, but deep pools of knowledge. She shrank back in fear, but the gaze held her. "Listen to the wind, it tells us of the weather and the seasons," it told her very seriously.

"What do you really know?" she asked, part curious, part contemptuous.

Its feelings didn't seem to be hurt. "We all hear the wind. There are many of us, but we are all one. We are all connected. We are all what we are thinking. You, too," it finished, then ran off as quickly as it had arrived.

Ariesa gasped, and felt a bit wobbly. Sierra, nearest to her, reached out a hand, but Ariesa waved her off, choosing instead to cling to the nearest tree.

She had been so preoccupied that she had failed to notice the sun was ready to dip below the horizon; and looking towards the tree before them, she gauged there were only hours left before they would reach it. There was something in the air that frightened her… perhaps it was her own fears running away with her, but she knew, absolutely, she did not want to get any closer at night.

"Let's stop here," she suggested, receiving relieved nods all around. "Let's make sure we rest. Tomorrow - " her voice trembled slightly – "tomorrow, we greet the Goddess."

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Rubens hustled Diana through the Underworld, one arm around her as if he would never let her go. Perhaps he wouldn't, he thought, now that he had her back. He relished the sense of her against him, a precious jewel, as she had always been and would always be.

That was the way it had always been. He was the passion, and she was the healer, the caring. Despite how hard many had thought she was, that softness was there, in her core, both literally and figuratively.

Her hair trailed behind her, undone curls cascading down her back, but this time it was not for lack of care. She wore the robes of the Jumi leader, a costume that gave her presence, and the woman within had some of the iron she was known for once again. Still, there was a trace of anxiety that her lover could not fail to recognize.

"The Empire is closing in, I can feel it," she said, looking at the walls as if her eyes could bore straight through them.

"How?" questioned Rubens.

"I don't know how to explain it," Diana admitted. "But I feel as if we need every advantage we can find, before someone tries to take the Goddess from us."

That's why we're here, thought Rubens.

He knew his way, and he easily led her forward through the maze of caverns, warmth increasing as they descended. She did not let it touch her, nor did he. She seemed content in this moment to let him lead, and he felt bolstered by her trust in him once again.

Diana had found hope, and that was more precious than anything to him.

They were near the bottom, when Rubens spotted an unfamiliar dragon. Small, blue, and for reasons he could not explain, he was absolutely sure it was a female. She rose, gracefully spreading rippling wings, blocking their path.

"Who are you?" he asked, confused.

"I am Tiamat," she replied petulantly, "and this is my domain. For the moment. Borrowed, if you will."

Diana gasped in surprise. "You are the dragon of water," she said, curtsying gracefully. Rubens had never seen her do that before. "My esteem to you, and the element you guard."

Further to his surprise, the dragon arched her neck low to the ground, matching the Jumi's gesture. "And to you, keeper of the element of water, Guardian of Mana," she intoned. "And to you, knight of fire," she said, turning to Rubens, surprising him. "You have been to this domain, in more ways than one. I know what you seek."

"Do you?" he challenged.

"I do," she said, and stepped aside gracefully to let them pass. "Be welcome here. We are all on the same side; we will all have a role soon enough."

Diana glided serenely into the caverns beyond, now all confidence. Rubens only shrugged, and followed. The cavern into which they entered was a dead end, occupied solely by a lone figure.

No matter. That was who they had come here to see.

"Who is he?" asked Diana. Rubens did not answer, merely strode over to tap the man on the shoulder.

Larc lifted his head. "Rubens," he said. "Why would you come back to this desolate place?"

"To keep a promise to your sister."

Larc started at that, pain crossing his face. "My sister? She is well?" he asked.

"She is," Rubens replied. "And it is your duty to join her."

Diana had slowly crept behind him, and Rubens turned to wind an arm around her once again as Larc peered towards her in confusion. "This the leader of the Jumi, the Lady Diana. And my guardian," he announced proudly.

"Guardian?" Larc asked, regarding Diana quizzically, she standing firm as he looked her over. "Dare I hope that means what I think it does?"

Diana needed no further explanation. "Jumi have access to proper Mana, as you well know," she told him. "You have become… something of a creature of Mana yourself, however you became this way. With the Goddess this close… this will be easy enough."

"More or less," Larc snorted. "I'm still sort of dead, too. I need a tie to life. I have to be a dragoon to survive."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. This is the first step," Diana noted with impatience in her voice. "Hold still," she ordered curtly, and Larc, to his credit, did not argue.

She pushed him down to a kneeling position before her. Larc bowed his head humbly, fearfully, as if penitent. Rubens did not even need to look to know what was happening. It was the pain, pride, and hate, of centuries of suffering and trying to survive as a Jumi, wishes and lost hope, trying to bring life even to those who hated and scorned them, because that was what the Goddess had asked them to do. Slowly, carefully, Diana allowed all of those ugly feelings to rise up once again… and by acknowledging them, she became free.

He felt it welling, accumulating, even before he saw it. A tear, in Diana's eye; a teardrop where one had not been seen for centuries.

The first tear dripped onto Larc's fur, and he howled involuntarily, the shard of life sizzling as it hit the man who was neither living nor dead. He flinched from the next, and the next, in obvious pain, but with every drop, Rubens saw dull skin and fur becoming vibrant once again, the life and Mana spreading inside of the enslaved beastman.

Finally, Diana's last tears trickled over Larc's head, and he raised his face in wonder. The face which looked down on him was free of the frustrated hopes it held before; now, it was only determination.

"The Empire is coming," she intoned regally, and Larc nodded. "I would go myself, if I could, myself and my knight, but I feel as if we are not the ones supposed to be there."

Larc nodded. "I will go," he said, and rose to his feet.