The Armor of the Soul
By Dixxy
Chapter Forty-Nine: Celeste
(Kento)
It was sometime later that I woke up after the bright flash of light. I remembered opening my eyes and seeing a white ceiling. I vaguely realized that someone had dropped me on a bed. Keisha was lying not much farther from me, her arms wrapped around my chest. I couldn't help but look at her in a new light. Had she just told me she loved me?
I didn't move, not wanting to disturb my partner in arms. She repositioned herself as she continued to sleep, sighing lightly. I smiled. She was pretty cute when she was off in dream land. I couldn't help but smile.
As I stared, I saw her eyes begin to slowly flutter open. Once they did open, she blinked at me in confusion after pulling her arms away. "Kento? Where are we?" She fell back down onto one of the pillows. "This isn't Trulpa's castle, is it?"
"No, this doesn't look like Trulpa's castle," I said, sitting up. "Everything's much better furnished there. Looks like we're in somebody's apartment, but, question is, whose apartment are we in?"
"Well, maybe we should consider leaving," said Keisha, standing up. She was still a little sleepy looking, but she looked more functional than she had in the previous minutes. "What if someone's planning on turning us in? You'll be killed and me, well, I don't know what'll happen to me but that isn't important right now!"
I gaped. I didn't realize she felt THAT strongly about my safety. "I. . ."
Keisha smiled at me, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. I looked at her in slight confusion as she rubbed my shoulder. "Look, let's try and figure out what's going on before we do anything else, okay?"
"Okay," I said.
"You are safe, Ronins."
The two of us looked over to see a woman standing in the doorway. But she wasn't quite like anything they'd ever seen. Long, flowing pink haired striped with dark blue cascaded over her shoulder like soft satin, big purple eyes twinkling at us. The woman (who couldn't have been much older than twenty) wore a pair of tight jeans and a loose, purple silk shirt. But it was the pair of glistening blue wings that caught our attention. Two big, almost plastic looking butterfly wings with intricate gold and red designs made very small flutters with each breath she took.
"What in the. . ." said Keisha.
"I'm sorry if you aren't familiar with my kind," she said as she walked into the room. The woman looked behind her and touched one of the wings, which seemed to be growing out of the shirt. "I am a Flitteree."
Keisha and I stared blankly at the woman. What was a Flitteree?
The Fliteree woman sighed heavily. "I'll explain my kind in just a minute. But first, I would like you to know who I am. I am Celeste, and to my knowledge I am one of the last of my kind."
"Well, I'm Kento, and this is Keisha," I said. I crossed my arms and looked at the woman. Time to put on a business face and get the facts straight. "Look, could you tell us why you're helping us?"
"Well, aside from the fact that I don't want Trulpa to win this fight, I have a much more personal reason for helping you two and the other Ronins," said Celeste. "Coffee? Tea? You both must be thirsty."
~
After sitting down in Celeste's living room with tea and cookies (I used my crystal ball to see if they were poisoned or not- they were clean) as the Flitteree woman told us why she wished to help us.
"Start off by telling us what you are," said Keisha. "What IS a Flitteree?"
Celeste smiled. "Thousands of years before Talpa, the Nether Realm was a lively, green, and happy place. It was inhabited mainly by two people- the Flitteree and the Amazons. The Flitteree, as you can see, were a winged, fairy like people that fell into two classes- the Elementals, whose wings resembled fire, water, lightening, air, and so on and so one, and the Intellectuals, whose wings held no special properties but whose minds held a high intelligence. I am an Intellectual. The Amazons were a war-like people with some dangerous hunting skills at their disposal. My kind and the Amazons were constantly at war, each of us having different goals. We wanted peace while the Amazons wanted war. In a way we were giving them what they wanted, but that's immaterial.
"Then demons like Talpa and Trulpa invaded the Nether Realm. No one is truly sure where they came from or why they came, but the Amazons pledged loyalty to Trulpa and her brother. Nearly all of our numbers were wiped out, only one stronghold left. My birthplace, Orith. For a few thousand years, the remainder of my people held off against our enemies, keeping Orith under our control.
"When I was very young, only about seven or so, Talpa sent two of the Dark Warlords to wipe us out. This was about sixteen years ago, mind you. It was awful. Tin Cans flooded the streets, impaling and decapitating anyone they came across. The streets were red with blood of my fallen people. I don't know how to this day, but I escaped from my home before they found me. After much running and hiding, I found myself in a crystal shop littered with bodies and broken sculptures. It seemed safe since the Tin Cans had already passed through there, so I hid behind the counter. When I got there, well, I couldn't believe what I'd found," she said.
"What did you find?" I asked.
"A baby."
"A baby!?" said Keisha. "You found a baby?!"
"Yes. He was bundled up in some blankets and laid out in a basket. But he was alive- the Tin Cans overlooked him somehow. I stayed with the baby for nearly an hour until I didn't hear anything outside. Taking the child with me, I flew around the city to see if I could find any survivors. I, I found none." Celeste lowered her head, obviously hurt by the memories. "Because of my age, I knew I would never be able to take care of the baby. I needed to find someone else to do it for me."
"Who took care of the baby?" said Keisha. At this point my partner in arms was hooked on every word that escaped Celeste's lips, absently taking cookies off the tray and putting them into her mouth, chewing on auto pilot.
"Well, I don't know that," she said. "I found a way into your home world and left him at someone's doorstop with a note. I knocked on the front door, then flew into a tree. I watched as someone opened the door, gasped at the sight of the child, and took him in. Then I returned to the Nether Realm and moved into the Under City, which is where I am today."
"What has that got to do with us?" I asked.
"The Child of Destiny has been born. That means that your generation of armor bearers is known as the Age of Legends," said Celeste. "Each one of you, Warrior and Senshi alike, has an extra power. For the Child of Destiny, being the Child of Destiny is that extra power." The Flitteree woman leaned over, her forearms on her calves and her hands clasped. "Since this is the Age of Legends, I began to wonder if perhaps the child I saved that night grew up to be one of the five Ronin Warriors. The added ability to fly and in the case of the Elementals use wild magic would easily qualify one for the Age of Legends if his heart is true to his virtue. What I want to know is what happened to that child. To my knowledge, he is the last of my kind aside from me."
"So you want to breed with him to restart your species?" asked Keisha.
"No, no, not at all!" said Celeste. "Because Flitterees and Amazons are. . . cousins, of humans, we can breed with them. It's not my species I'm afraid for. I just want to know what happened to him, that's all!"
"Well, how do we know what someone's role in the Age of Legends is?" I asked.
"Easy," said Celeste. "Partner in arms have either the same extra power or completely opposite powers, but there's always a relationship between the two. A good example might be a child born as a vampire and a vampire slayer- they're natural born enemies, yet they're partners in arms and have to work together."
"Then me being a seer isn't some strange coincidence," I said.
"Yes," said Celeste. "Keisha will have some sort of a psychic ability as well, though it might not be the same power you have. Anything that means 'psychic' could potentially pertain to her."
I sighed. "Well, since I'm a seer and Cye is the Child of Destiny, that leaves either Ryo, Rowen, or Sage to be the Flitteree IF he grew up to be one of us. Sad to say but there's no way to tell who it is. Any of them could be him!"
Celeste frowned. "Someday I'll find him. But until then, let's save your friends!"
~
Latest batch of questions has been fired.
Musou Misora: There are sixty chapters in this story, which was explained earlier. Since this is part. . . forty-nine, that leaves eleven more parts (though the last part is an epilogue, so it's really only ten more parts ^__^). There are four stories before Dragonia: Oh, Lucky Me, The Last Amazons, A Tale of Two Torrents, and Dark Chocolate, White Diamonds. The last three are almost pure romance (which some action, of course) and the first is mostly comedy.
Winter: We all know you're loyal to the Senshi stories. 14 out of the 20 reviews for RSL were yours. Oh well. At least I know I have repeat readers now.
Dixxy