Shadows and Dust

Dust.

Everything here was dust. Sometimes he thought that was all there ever was, that the world was comprised of dust, coated in dust, supported by dust.

And then the memories would come back, reminding him forcefully of a time of flight and storms, fierce battles and thundering arguments. Blood and darkness. Lightning-fast reactions based on decisions that were made by the deepest instincts, the only kind of decisions that could let him stay alive in the heat of battle. Tears and pain. The people that were dead and the ones that would always be bordering on it.

Sometimes it would bring a smile to his face, and thunder would rumble gently above the grounds of Vellweb Tower.

Other times it let him enter a mood that made the blood pound in his veins. A gleeful laugh would burst forth from his throat with the force of the wings from his back, and lightning would crackle in the air and strike again and again, raising the abominable and ever-present dust.

He drew one gloved finger along the fireplace now, watching the trail it made though it barely disturbed the surface. That was one bad thing about being a shade, he supposed. It could be worse. He could be allergic to the damned dust the way Zieg had always been, sniffling and sneezing until his nose was as red as his armor.

Abruptly his mood changed, as it always had, and he swept one arm over the mantel on the fireplace, knocking over the entire shelf of dolls that had been precariously placed there. Their porcelain faces shattered, multiplying their shocked and screaming expressions into hundreds of small pieces that howled their pain. The dolls were one thing he could touch; after all, he had created them. A doll for every one of his victims until he ran out of the materials. They were hastily and angrily formed, then carelessly tossed aside, some of them half-clothed, others lying askew, others already broken. He had created a miniature battlefield—post battle—right in front of him.

He kicked the remnants of those dolls into the empty fireplace with an angry sweep of his foot, then clenched his fists and punched at the wall repeatedly.

The wall itself took no damage, of course. Shades could not do such damage, not even one so powerful as he. But the familiar pain burst along his knuckles and arms, and he welcomed it, releasing his pent-up breath in a hissing explosion of laughter. Thunder and lightning raised in the air outside his cramped room, and a storm was born.

And for the first time in a long, long time, he heard what could not be.

Voices.

More importantly, a voice he recognized. Her voice. It floated up from between the shadows of the towers, the dust of the grounds, swept into the place where he stood and filled his brain.

"He's angry. He always was."

Impossible. How could she be here?

The sunlight stung as he flew to the doorway of his room. Shielding his eyes, he gazed down the catacombs and twisting passageways of the Towers of Vellweb and saw her.

There she was. He could see her climbing the stairs, just a colored speck at this distance. But…there was someone following her. Red armor, blonde hair, familiar stance…was it Zieg? Just as impossible.

He retreated back into his room, sat in the fireplace and thought.

It was not entirely impossible, he supposed. After all, he had not bothered, in all these years to go and search for them. He did not know who would be there and who would not be. He supposed that he probably should have, but he never had the desire to. Every time he reached the doorway of his makeshift tomb, a feeling of weariness would pass over him, and always he would decide against leaving. There was no point, after all.

She would not be there. Even if her shade was there, she would not welcome him with the open arms and sweet smile he had always wanted to have directed to him. She never had, and she never would. It was useless to hope.

Sometimes he would hear her voice. A whispered secret told excitedly as if to a friend, an stern reproach for a disobedient child, an ardent word for a lover. A soft peal of laughter. He could almost see her, and he would stare at the doorway for a long time, expecting to see her there, hoping beyond all hope to finally have her look at him fully, to greet him like she did her closest and dearest friends.

And she would never be there.

Then he would lower his gaze, yell at himself for daring to hope, the loud and insane screams echoing through the tiny room and in his mind. Thunder would clap outside and the chatter of birds would stop and be replaced by hundreds of wings taking flight in fear. He hated birds. He liked no animals; that was more of Syuveil's thing. Studious Syuveil that always spent his days locked in his own tower, poring over books and scrolls and scriptures that would teach him nothing he could not find out on his own. Hiding himself in the stories of others to block away his own pain and discoveries of the tortures of the world. Syuveil, always so intelligent, was always so stupid when facing pain. No, he did not like him, either.

There was only one that he liked. Loved.

He could still remember the first time they had met.

He had always lived his life like a hermit would, alone in the darkest places of the woods, hunting for and hating his own survival. He cared nothing for others and always chased away those that came too close. Religious fanatics received the same attention. The storms were what held his adoration.

He would always stand outside during a storm, never fearing the lightning and thunder. Rain cascaded down his face and he would laugh and throw his arms wide as if to swallow the entire sky. His laughter was always dark. Sometimes he would scream. The thunder would scream with him. It was no wonder nobody dared to live within a ten-mile radius of him. He was always insane, they said, but he was the maddest during the thunderstorms.

It was during one such storm that she came.

While the rain would have made anyone else look like a drowned rabbit, and shiver like one, she merely stood there, one hand gracefully wrapped around the slim trunk of a birch tree. The silver dress she wore was soaking wet, the silk molded to the figure of her body. Her red hair was plastered to her face, dripping rainwater steadily. Her eyes were wide and green and knowing. This was a woman that did not cry, did not scream.

Any other and he would have chased them away. This one made him lower his arms and open wide his eyes, drinking in her very essence. "Why are you out in the rain?" ah, the first thing out of his mouth was such a stupid question, not a dazzling compliment or witty remark that such a lady deserved.

But she did not seem to notice. "I could ask the same question, Kanzas."

He should have questioned how she knew his name. Very few people did. The villagers called him the Insane Hermit. How could she have known his name when he himself had almost forgotten it? But she smiled, and in the glory of it, he forgot everything but how to breathe. Seeing her was seeing light itself. The brightest purest light that could ever exist.

"You love the storms and thunder, don't you?"

He could only mutely nod.

"I came to ask for your help. You live far away from the world, but even you must know it. A great war is brewing. Good against evil, we want to take back the world that rightfully belongs to us. The prophecy has spoken of seven spirits that will take the power of the elements and fight for us. We know that you are one of them, Kanzas. You are the spirit, the Dragoon, of the element of thunder. I came on behalf of all of us to ask for your help."

"Who are you?"

"My name is Shirley." She cupped her hands together and let the raindrops fall into them. "I am the Dragoon of Light." A miniature sun was born in her palms, and she tossed it into the air where it burst into little glows, like the faeries of old.

"I will help you."

In the beginning, he had agreed only for her. Seeing her after so many years of self-chosen isolation, after so many years of being deprived of every emotion, she brought it back in a blaze of glory and wonder. Seeing her, in the middle of a rainstorm with her hair stuck to her face and her eyes wide and bright and her mouth in such a radiant smile, he believed in light. He agreed because he thought that it might bring him closer to her.

It did not take long to pack his things, and he followed her.

It was not until they arrived in Vellweb Tower—his prison now—that he learned of her husband. A giant of a man with slow inarticulate words and bulging with unsightly muscles, with strong undefined lines in his face, this was the Dragoon of Earth, her husband and her only love.

Never would there be a place for him in her heart.

Yet the light never faded. He had given his word that he would help, and so he did. The rest of the Dragoons—he was the last one found due to his solitude—helped him to harness the power of the storms and thunder and lightning into his power as the Dragoon of Thunder.

He had never declared his love for her, but she must have seen it in the way his eyes followed her, in the way he spoke of her, in the way he knocked out one of the soldiers when they spoke ill of her. Yet she never look at him in the same way. She only loved that despicable oaf with his too-gentle way with flowers, Belzac.

But he never stopped loving her, even now, years and decades and centuries and perhaps even millennia later.

And his love for her was the exact reason that he never ventured out of his room to see if she was there, or any of the Dragoons actually. He knew that he himself was already dead. He had performed the forbidden spell and destroyed himself along with the Super Virage. He exited the stage of the world with a flare of power and splendor. Maybe it was for her.

He would never know.

Footsteps sounded, light, a woman's footsteps, against the dusty stairs that no one had used for such a long time. For a wild moment he thought it might be her, but the next moment quenched the hope. It was impossible, she would not come to see him, and besides, he had seen his visitors. Most unwelcome and unexpected.

He leaned his head back against the fireplace. He knew she would have trouble seeing him, a shade. A shadow hidden amongst the dusty ruined remains of this once-glorious place. He opened his eyes to see her. Was she dead, at least?

Rose looked exactly the same as she had when he last saw her, untouched by wrinkles or time. Perfectly formed, not misty, her eyes sad but sane, unchained by death. She was not a shade. She was still alive. Was she only one? He had known that she was beautiful but she never stirred any emotion within him except for anger when she spoke seemingly haughtily to him, as if unconsciously reminding him that she had been a noblewoman and he was a mere…hermit.

"Kanzas." Her greeting was a nod of her head, civil but not warm.

"You are still alive?"

"I am the only one who made it through the Dragon Campaign."

So it was settled then. Shirley had indeed died. He did not know whether to be joyous or saddened by this news. She was always so full of light and life that it was difficult to imagine her…dead, but in death at least she would be free of the suffering that had always claimed her and others. Discarding her pain as a Dragoon, she reached out and spread light to others, giving them hope and warmth, and in her own way, had given him the same. She was a star, shining not with the light her powers gave her, but by her own light. And this woman now, Rose, was her opposite, shrouded in darkness and unwelcome here in the one place that was still his own.

"Why are you here?" He snarled.

She came forward a few more steps and he saw her clearly. Strange, but while the elegance was still in her step, the arrogance was not. She had changed. Years among the living while she herself should be dead could do that to her. Perhaps that was what stripped away her arrogance. "I was asked to come and free you and the rest of the original Dragoons, our friends."

"And who asked such a thing of you?"

Rose swallowed, a display of nervousness if she was capable of such a thing. She had known of his affections. She was the one that had been able to read the sidelong glances, the reason behind his madness on the battlefield. "Shirley."

Oh. Her shade was still here then. He had never gone to search for it.

"Is everyone else here?"

He saw the breath hitch in her throat. She swallowed again and glanced over her shoulder as though expecting to see them behind her. "No…not anymore. You are the last one. Shirley…Shirley was not chained to the Towers. She saved the life of a…traveling companion of mine, came to ask me this one last favor, and disappeared. I don't know where, to where shades go after it is past their time as well, I suppose. Belzac I have already freed. Damia as well. Syuveil…I spoke to him. He went willingly. Zieg…" she clenched a hand at her side, and the man standing behind her came to put his hand on her shoulder.

"Who is that?" Kanzas snapped. It looked like Zieg, yet there were definite differences.

"This is Dart. He is Zieg's child."

"Yours?"

"No."

The one word she uttered was enough to understand the new way she carried herself. She and Zieg had been soulmates, destined for this life and the next. If he had deserted her and gone to marry someone else and have a child…it must have scarred her so. Were they companions in their jilted pain then? He did not like her, never did, and refused to think that they could be the same in anything. Would she turn her attentions to Zieg's son Dart? She looked at him with a fondness in her eyes, but she did not seem to be in love with him.

He decided to let the topic pass. It was of no interest to him. "Where is Zieg now then?"

"In the possession of a demon."

"What?" her statement hinted a fight, and the thought of a fight brought the sluggish blood pulsing in his veins. He clenched his fists and laughed.

"Do not laugh!" her eyes flashed. "It is an important matter. I will take care of it."

She said this with the anger that he would expect of her. And a trace of guilt that he has suspected just as much. She always carried this guilt with her after she had fallen in love with Zieg, and cautious around Kanzas because he had seen.

Not many people knew that before Rose had loved Zieg, she had loved Syuveil almost as much. Syuveil was the one who discovered her the way Shirley had discovered Kanzas. She had loved him before Zieg came along, and he had been the one to see that, walking in on them one day while her fingers were twined in the soft blonde strands of the Wind Dragoon's hair, their lips pressed together.

It was the only time anyone had ever known of their secret relationship, and Kanzas had kept his mouth shut. Not because of any particular like for Rose or Syuveil, but because it would not benefit him to tell, and besides, it did not interest him. He did not say anything even when Rose met Zieg and fell instantly in love and discarded Syuveil, though not ungently.

How did she feel now, when she herself had been discarded for another woman? He almost laughed.

"Do you think you can 'free' me now, Rose?" He called to her.

"I was asked to. I promised Shirley."

It was what Shirley wanted. That in itself was almost enough for him to agree. Add that to his millennia of suffering and boredom, and he would have gone forward willingly, had it not been anyone but Rose that asked. Rose was always the one that grated his nerves. And besides…he had a reputation to think of. Kanzas was not one to step forward voluntarily, giving up like a newbie fighter. No, he was the one that struggled and fought and snarled and spit and howled. It was expected of him to resist.

"You can try, Rose. I won't give up without a fight."

She looked surprised. "You mean that you would want to hold onto this existence?"

"Why would I not?" He eluded her question.

"Because I have been holding my own existence for eleven thousand years, and I want to give up."

The boy Dart behind her gasped, pawed for her hand, but she pulled away, snarling. "Give it up, Kanzas. We've fought for so long. Make things easier for both of us."

"Drop dead, Rosie." The nickname she always loathed.

"I will soon." She promised. "Come, Kanzas, if you want a fight, you'll get it."

Fighting had become second nature to him. So simple to throw out punches and take them. He fought with half a mind, thinking of Shirley and the light that she promised. Death was a darkness at first, and would most likely be it again.

As if reading his mind, Rose said, very calmly. "It is not always darkness afterwards."

Her words shocked him for just a moment. A moment was all it needed for her to defeat him. He sat on the ground and stared up at her. Nothing to say now.

The boy wanted to come forward but she waved him back with a sweep of her hand. She dominated in that group then. "I can't promise you anything." She whispered fiercely, stooping down to look him in the eye. "But maybe, in death, you can find this 'bright place' that you are looking for. You…you might be able to find her."

He struggled for a contemptuous gaze, gave it up halfway. "Perhaps." He nodded at her once, not bothering for a formal goodbye, and simply stopped holding onto the world. It was not difficult; she had weakened his energy significantly. Letting loose his grip on the physical world, he gave up fighting the calls of death and shut his eyes, leaving behind everything that was but shadows and dust.