The Aeon and the Star

-GoldenEagle

Author's Notes: Hola! How is everyone doing? I actually wrote this installment the same night as Chapter three. This is the first time in a long time I've really lost myself in the writing, which is a good thing, mind you. I felt very refreshed while writing it (despite the fact it was four in the morning). So, hopefully this is better than my last few installments. Anywho, enjoy!

Chapter Four

She hit the ground with a painful thud, her entire back fiery with pain. She would have just laid there, waiting out the awful pangs that were shooting through her entire body, but she found out quickly that it wasn't an option. Large pieces of marble which had once made up the balcony she had just been standing on crashed down around her. She rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding a heavy, larger-than-man sized piece. It broke into pieces, sending sharp pieces of the rock outward. Several pieces tore into the skin of her back and she cried out in pain and terror. Another thought occurred to her as the last pieces of debris fell. Where had her mother gone? Was she caught beneath one of the massive slabs of marble?

"Mum! Mum, where are you!" She cried out, still rolled into a ball on her side, her eyes clinched shut so tight that the tears she was crying could hardly push through. She opened her mouth to cry out again when a hand grasped her arm painfully. Her eyes shot open, terrified that someone, the enemy, had caught her, but only found her mother above her. A stream of blood originating from a large gash on her forehead covered the right side of the woman's face. Despite the relief that her mother was well, Evadne felt a deep fear rise at the look in Celena's eyes. It was a calculating, cold, and carnivorous look. The look of a survivor. The look of warrior in the midst of battle. For the first time in her entire life, Evadne Schezar caught a glimpse of the long "deceased" Dragon Slayer general behind her mother's gaze.

"Quick, Evadne!" Her mother yelled out. The youth was surprised to realize that her mother had to shout to be heard, for there was suddenly a barrage of noises surrounding them. By the gods, there was so much noise! And fire, a sudden ring of it. The air temperature changed so drastically that it seemed unnatural, the very breaths she took burning her throat with ash. Somehow she had forgotten her mother's words, forgotten her completely as the scene around her clouded her senses. She was pulled from her daydreaming (more like day-nightmares) by her mother's nails digging deeply into her arms once more as she pulled her up brutally. There were no words said now, just running, running as fast as they could from something they couldn't see...

Evadne couldn't see through the smoke by this point so she followed Celena with a faith only a child can muster for their parents. Celena, on the other hand, ran only by instinct, an instinct she had forgotten she ever had. I never thought I'd be thinking this, but for once I think I could thank the gods for Dilandau... She charged right into someone with such force that it sent her tumbling backwards and into Evadne, both falling to the Asturian soil. Celena quickly braced herself for the bite of a sword or some other taste of death by the enemy, but was surprised when a pair of callused hands hauled her and Evadne to their feet. Her eyes watered as she tried to see her rescuer, but it was her daughter that reacted first.

"Gaddeth!" It was a frantic cry as she flung herself into the broad chest of her father figure and let out a terrified and, as much as she hated to admit it, vulnerable sob. "Oh, gods, Gaddeth, what's going on?!"

"We've been attacked." He practically yelled through the clamor around them, his eyes flitting down to the teenager pressed into his chest and then up to Celena's eyes. A knowing glance passed between the two adults, one that was both scared, knowing, and compassionate. Celena knew exactly who was attacking, even before Gaddeth mouthed the word "Zaibach" silently.

Evadne then pulled herself from the older man, her once panicked face now composed with a cool clarity that sent chills up Gaddeth's spine. His soot streaked face held a bit of worry at the personality twist, so much like her mother's had once done shortly after her return from being Dilandau Albatou. Yet he was distracted from his dark thoughts as something exploded near by. I guess the fire's reached the supply unit. There goes an entire month's worth of Karosene...

"Where is this all coming from?!" Evadne cried above what she now recognized as the whir of machines and distant screams, death cries, from the city streets. The dying pleas made her sick to her stomach, made her head seem to spin in an out of control twirl. When she received only a distant glance from the soldier, she paled. "It's the invisible enemy, isn't it?" Gaddeth's gaze grew sharper on her as she muttered the words, her voice somehow carrying above the racket around them. "Like the Great War... Like Fanelia, and Freid... We're going to die..."

"That's not true!" Gaddeth barked out. "We're getting out of here. Alive." He said it with such certainty that Evadne could almost believe him. Almost.

"Where's Allen?" Celena spoke for the first time, her eyes losing some of the strength she had borrowed from an entity that was as much a part of her as Gaea was of the universe.

Gaddeth shrugged. "I just woke up when the attack came. I haven't had a chance to look for him yet." His voice was still a yell, but he was growing hoarse, the smoke and ash seemingly scraping his throat raw.

But Evadne wasn't listening. Her eyes were focused in on the smoke, her brain dazed. She tried to remember what had just gone through her head, but it seemed to be drifting away from her. A tune, a melody of sorts played through her, encaptured her... No, encapture was the wrong word. Possessed her. What was it? What had the words been?

Come to me, Child, come...

No, it wasn't a song, a lullaby, but a screaming, persistent buzz. Evadne stumbled back, into her mother, her hands raised to her ears, trying to block out the screaming, horrible noise. Much worse than the dying screams around her, it seemed. Yet, despite her agony of the scream, she could feel her feet inch forward, as if in a dance to a rhythm she could no longer catch. Step, step, step- And someone grabbed her from behind violently, yanking her from the dance. The screaming in her ears only grew.

Come, bitch! Fill the hole your mother could not! Filthy Schezar, the bitch of Asturia, come here, damn it!

Evadne hadn't realized she was screaming, a blood curdling scream, until her mother slapped her, full out knocked her to the ground. She bit her lip as that song faded only a bit, whimpers escaping her as she gripped her head, pulling at her hair. "What's wrong, Evadne?! Damn it, tell me!" Despite her mother's earlier blow, her voice was now filled with fear and sorrow. Not because she did not understand what was going on, but because she knew full well. Celena could feel a slight buzzing in the back of her mind, a buzzing she knew her daughter could hear fully. And she knew. She knew that somehow, sometime, along the way, her past had caught up with her.

She pulled her daughter up into an embrace, giving a very confused and frightened Gaddeth a look that could have made a flower wilt in depression. Tears escaped her eyes, streaming down her face and falling onto the black stained hair of her daughter. But the broken look was soon replaced by one of terror as her eyes focused into the smoke ahead of them, her body going rigid. Gaddeth followed her gaze with a growing sense of dread. At first there seemed to be nothing, as if Celena had merely caught a glimpse of something passing and gone. But soon a form took shape from the smoke. Gaddeth blinked slowly, not understanding what he was seeing, thinking his eyes were betraying him. For the form seemed to shift in the smoke, its body changing shape, the face unrecognizable. Then, as if a final decision had been made on the specter's part, its shape stayed in one place. The soldier's mouth jutted open as the shadowed form was replaced with that of a very convincing Celena look alike. The woman's mouth moved, but no sound seemed to escape her lips, though she was obviously forming words. Gaddeth felt a slight buzzing, almost vibrating, at the back of his skull, and then, in the same place, his mind numbly grasped at the fragment of a phrase.

-to me-

Although Gaddeth could only faintly precept the chants, Evadne seemed to react in full. Her head pulled from her mother's chest, her eyes dazing over as she tried to pull away. Celena gripped her closer, struggling to keep her daughter from going to the smoke figure that looked so much like her. She buried her head in the teen's hair, knowing in that moment how much she meant to her, how she couldn't let her go. "Evadne, don't. Don't give in."

"But I have to get to her." She said, her voice blank. Yet, as she continued, it turned into something that resembled the whining of a child. "Let me go! Mum's calling me."

"No, Evadne, no! It's a trick. Like when you think you see the ocean in the road, but it's just a mirage, a reflection. See past it! See it as it truly is and you will be able to fight it." She hissed into her daughter's ear. Evadne blinked slowly, turning her head to look at the smoke figure that looked so much like her mother. She tried to focus, to grasp the words whispered in her ear. Still that buzzing came, that screaming in the back of her head. And yet, as she tried to see past the mirage, the mother that had been standing a few feet away seemed to flicker. Then, like the heat that rises from a flame, the air around the creature moved in waves, and she saw. She saw someone that was not her mother, but a hooded figure. A hooded figure with a long blade in his hand. She forced her head into her mother's chest again fearfully.

"Momma, I see. I'm afraid." Despite her realization of what the person was, that lullaby, that screaming in her head was still there. Stronger, even. She had to do everything in her will to keep her feet from moving, from shuffling towards that bladed figure.

Gaddeth was confused by the scene, but extremely spooked as well. He still saw the apparition as a Celena look alike. He cursed himself because he couldn't bring himself to bring his sword up in challenge to the figure. It looked too much like her...

"I want you to run. Run to the stables, if they are not burnt down now, and mount a horse. And I want you to flee, run as far as you can from Asturia." Celena muttered into her daughter's hair, her eyes never leaving the smoky figure before them.

"But, Momma, what about you? What about Gaddeth, and Uncle Allen-"

"Run, Evadne!" Her voice was not calm now and the teen turned in her mother's suddenly stiff arms to see the apparition charging, blade raised high. Behind the enemy an Alseides flickered into sight, its gears whining. A red Alseides. "Run!" It was a scream.

Gaddeth stood frozen, not being able to see the blade aimed at him, only a vision of Celena running rather determinedly towards them. Evadne stood frozen in place until her mother pushed her away, pushed her behind her. Celena's now freed hands reached forward, grasped the sword in Gaddeth's hand and pulled it from his startled grasp. It was good that she had done so, for she immediately had to turn and raise the blade to block it from crashing down upon his head. With a sensation like that of a wine bottle popping open in the back of his skull, Gaddeth suddenly saw the being as it was.

Evadne was now running blindly away, the entrancement fading from her mind the farther she ran. She ran by instinct, by raw and survival instinct, finding herself at the stables quicker than she had imagined. Yet, by the way her side seemed to be stitched and the way she couldn't really find her breath, she imagined she had been sprinting for some time. The barn was not burnt to the ground, as she had feared, but aflame, none the less. It took all her might, all her courage, to dash through the doors. She was immediately shrouded in a cloud of smoke that was thicker than that of outside. She brought her arm up in front of her eyes, as if that could ward off the offending clouds of blackness. She stumbled forward, wondering how the hell she was going to get out of here with her horse, when a large and bulky form pushed past her so roughly that she was shoved into one of the stall walls violently. She heard a slight crack as the back of her skull hit the wall, and she felt more than a bit dizzy, but she was too focused on the retreating animal to take notice.

She ran forward, slightly off balance, towards the slightly trotting horse. It stopped and turned suddenly, its ears pricked forward, its nostrils wide and testing the smoke filled air. When it saw her oncoming form, it turned to run, but too late. She launched herself onto its back with an expert grace and dug her heels into its side. A scream of surprise and, possibly, recognition, came from the steed, and it bolted forward, making the girl grip to its mane to keep her balance. She did not bother to direct her mount, nor try to see where they were going. All she knew was that the sound of the stallion's hooves changed as he galloped through the stone courtyards, through the paved streets, and then, finally, onto the muddied roads lying outside of Asturia's main gates. By the time they had reached the country, the horse had slowed to a tired and weary walk, and the rider on its back fell asleep from exhaustion, fingers interlaced tightly together, her arms around the beast's neck.

Author's Note: Leedeehee, leedeehoo. So, how was it? Please review and tell me. Again, I warn that the story almost seems to have nothing to do with Leviathan's Daughter, but in the end, you'll find it has everything to do with it. Toodloo!