AN/ Chapter One, still too short, but that's just how this works. My least favorite chapter of all I have written so far, really. If I were you, I just skip this one completely *^_~* Just joking. Anyway, enjoy if you can, and R&R please, Thanks
~Gabe~
Part One - Roses and Tears
Allen Schezar, Knight Caeli, stood silently in the shadows of an ancient willow tree, the largest tree in the oldest garden on the Schezar family estate. The warm summer rain dripped from the canopy of leaves above him onto his slightly bowed head, trickling into his eyes and down his neck, as he watched his sister, Celena, kneeling beside the small white stone with her roses and her tears. He wanted nothing more than to rush over to her, take her into his arms, and make all the sadness and all the pain which had consumed her for the last few months fade away. He remembered when they were both only children, a once upon a time, when he could make her smile with a glance, and her musical laugh, heard so often then, could melt the hardest heart. He remembered, and ached for the simple joys of those years. Then, the world seemed to fall apart. When Allen was eleven years old, his father disappeared, forsaking his family and his responsibilities, and departing on a mad quest for a lost power. Soon after, Celena disappeared as well, taken, he learned years later, by the Zabaich Empire and used in diabolical experiments in an effort to allow them to understand and manipulate a person's fate. Her gentle personality was destroyed, her beautiful smile, her soft laugh, her very soul, was twisted, hideously warped, until nothing of the Celena he had known remained.
She became Dilandau Albatou, an evil, sadistic monster, with no conscience, no compassion, only hate. It was this Dilandau, who lead Zaibach's most elite group of soldiers, the Dragon Slayers. Under his command, they were responsible for untold destruction, and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents. But the Dragon Slayers had be dispatched by Van Fanel, the young King of Fanelia, and Dilandau had reverted back to Celena, once after the trauma of these deaths, once in Asturia, and then once more, permanently this time Allen hoped, after the death of the dog-man Jajuka.
For the first few weeks after this transformation, it was as if Celena were only a child again. Her mentality, and her emotional stability were that of a six year old, and she truly began to worry Allen. Then, about a month later, she began to mature. It was amazing how quickly it happened, one day she was blissfully unaware of her surroundings, completely enthraled by the movement of a beetle's legs, or the way a leaf moved in the wind, the next she was speaking with people, and going about a daily routine, as if nothing had ever been wrong. However, as she developed, she slowly began to distance herself from the people around her, never allowing anyone, not even Allen himself, to get too close, to break down the emotional walls she seemed to build higher everyday.
"What is happening to her?" Allen asked himself, "Why has she become so cold?"
She began to spend all of her time in the gardens, most of it in the old quarter. She had a small white stone placed in the middle of the oldest garden, and would go out once a month with a bouquet of fresh roses, sixteen of them, placing them next to the stone, and just sit and stare for hours, sometimes crying, as if it were a grave. Every time, Allen would go with her, stand by and watch her from the shadows, and every time he would try to comfort her in her apparent depression, he was pushed away. This time, however, he would not give up so easily.
"Celena, please. Tell me what wrong," he pleaded as he knelt beside her, "I might be able to help."
"No one can help me," she whispered, eyes never leaving the roses or the stone,
"Please Celena," Allen began, but was cut of,
"No. Just go." She said quietly,
"Celena..." he began again, hand reaching for her arm,
"NO!" She cried, as she swatted his hand, and pushed him roughly away. Her eyes met his only for a moment, but the coldness, the despair in them, chilled him to the bone. He rose stiffly, as those eyes returned to the roses, then turned smartly on his heel and strode wordlessly out of the garden. Celena, kneeling alone and motionless in the soft rain, was lost in her thoughts, her memories, with the wailing voice inside her head.
AN/ Ohhh. . . how do I loathe thee, Chapter One, let me count the ways. . . Try to ignore any mistakes, I sure did *^_^* See ya'll later. . .
