The Soldier's Hymnal


Seiken Densetsu 4: Legend of Mana


Prologue


By Gabi-hime (pinkfluffynet@yahoo.com)


-----


This is the testament of Elazul ap Lapis Lazuli taken on the third day of Undine in the month of Salamander by the counsel of Diana ap Diamond, acting Doge of the Jumi and to be delivered to the Lady Pearl on confirmation of his death and recovered many years later in a library book, still sealed.


I am Elazul, Jumi Knight of Lapis Lazuli and the protector of the Pearl of the Bejewelled City and this is may be my last accounting. I have been asked to attend the side of a woman as she goes to beg boon of the Goddess of Mana herself and I may not return so I have decided to put down my thoughts in words to preserve them, should I not return. It is the least I can offer to Pearl who does not travel with us to the Holy Tree. She deserves some explanation for my actions and I cannot tell her myself. I know that this is a cowardly way to admit it all, but I am not a man of many words and I do not have much experience with these things. This is the gentlest way I can think of to tell her.


Yes, I have been summoned to the side of woman who may be walking to her death, but I answer her summons gladly. This woman does not know this, but I would follow her into the gates of Hell itself (and I have on occasion when she has had business in the Underworld). She is truly a remarkable woman, a woman of the earth and of the sky. She is wool and leather and warmth and fury, walking a path of her own creation that I can do nothing but follow.


She has sung the world back into exsistence, spinning a web of mana and her soul to connect us all together again, defying the Goddess herself with no fears as to the consequences. I watched her slay the three holy dragon godbeasts and I also watched her weep over their bodies, when her tears were not enough to heal them. I have seen her break from that fate and resurrect the same holy dragons she slew. I have seen her ignore destiny and cow fate itself.


Of course, not all the reasons I am following her now are quite so grand. I have to admit that I have not always been so charitable to the innumerable "pets" that she dragged along with us all over hell and creation, but I had never seen a beast hatch before she forced me to attend the hatching of her rabite's first litter. She had me cup my hands and then gently deposited a tiny, warm ball of fluff in them. It had squeaked at a level of volume that I would have never imagined such a tiny thing would have been able to produce. It also nibbled at the tips of every single one of my fingers and after a while, it began to produce a sound I had never heard the like of before. It was warm and comforting and when I asked her to explain she had giggled mysteriously and told me that it was purring and that she had decided to name it 'Elazul Jr.' I pray to the Goddess she never drags that rabite to the Bejeweled City as I'm not sure my reputation could stand up to it, no matter how fond I may be of that little fuzzy sack of affection.