"'The game is done, I've won! I've won!'
She said, and then whistled thrice"-Rime of the Ancient Mariner
"The girl's heart has been split."
"Light was not able to finish?"
"The girl is dead. Therefore, light is no more."
The voice acted impatient and eager. "Assurance is necessary. Light is not so easily killed as a human."
"What can survive a sword in the chest?"
"If the girl is dead, then light must be as well..."
"For our sakes, let us hope so."
Darkness had won. Celos, now pleased with herself and covered with her sister's blood, turned from the bedside and looked at Daleth tauntingly.
"Your dear friend is dead."
Daleth's rage was no match for his fear. His tears seemed to burst in heat, and seemingly disappeared from his senses...but not his face. He screamed at the oppressor, unaware of his pain and circumstances.
"WHY DID YOU KILL HER?!"
"I told you. I had to kill light. And I also told you that no matter where you ran, or where you hid, she would end up dead."
"You killed a CHILD. Not any heavenly SAVIOR!"
"Wrong. You speak with ignorance. In fact, you should be thanking me. The circumstances in which light takes a body are more painful then my methods."
Daleth stopped. "Taking a body...?"
Celos shook her head and wiped her blade clean of blood on a robe hanging from the doorway. "I am under no obligation to explain it to you, much less leave you alive. But I think that it is a more befitting fate that your friends die along with the rest of the civilized world when I return with the others." She turned to Halystaru and raised a palm. The petrified version of the mage began to shake and slowly grew hues until the stoneskin that took the Taru's form seemingly dissolved. The immediate second this "skin" disappeared from Halystaru, she collapsed into a coma, and did not move.
Daleth was struck with awe as he watched Celos calmly strut toward the window she had shattered only moments before. As the footsteps from the attacker faded as she walked across the room, Daleth was shattered by the realization of the silence from the other room: he no longer heard the soft breathing of a girl resting.
Kidria was dead?
Daleth's senses went into shock. He couldn't move, he couldn't think...he couldn't cry. He felt like a numb statue on the floor only able to view his surroundings. He didn't care anymore. It was a feeling of ignorance, yet painful knowing he didn't care. But these feelings were vague and fleeting. As Celos finally reached the window and stepped into its frame, Daleth's feelings were overridden with new ones. Immense happiness. Incredible warmth, a soothing feeling of a caressing hand of a lover, the blend of solitude, solace, and contentment all brimmed his eyes, ears, touch, and soul. It was the happiest he had ever felt before. Happiness? Why would he feel such a thing at such a time? He didn't want to feel happy; his friends bleeding and possibly dead, with the one he meant to guard lying dead not twenty feet from him...
These new feelings override every thought he had a moment before. They filled him with energy, and while Daleth still felt pain and sadness, it was mellowed by these new sensations. All at once, they were sucked from his body, pulled from him like a mask on a face, and he felt like he had a moment before.
Celos turned. "Odd"
Daleth stared at the ground. "What...what was that?"
Celos stepped back down from her perch on the window and seemingly stared into nothingness.
"No. The girl was dead. I felt her heart stop."
Daleth cocked his head. "What?"
There was a long silence before the Pale Warrior moved. She practically ran back to the door leading to Kidria's room, and stood in the doorway. Even from his spot at the wall, Daleth thought he could see blood dripping onto the floor from the room.
"The child is dead! What is this?"
There was a small trickle of wind that came from Celos' direction. The air, despite the heat coming from the mantle, grew cold. And then a small glow illuminated the room in which Kidria lay...
"It's too late. You failed."
"But the girl is dead!"
The glow was soft at first. It waned in shape and sharpened in image until it became like a beam strewn from a flashlight which shown upon Celos' figure. The light did not move, but soon more glows began to appear, and grew in luminance. Each and every one of these that appeared also wavered into beams, until there were hundreds, even thousands of them, shining from Kidria's room. By now the room had been lit by a kind of artificial sun. Daleth could now easily see Kidria's body covered with blood stained sheets, but he could not tear his eyes away. The light's source was the bed in which Kidria lay, and unless his eyes were deceiving him, Kidria's finger's were now twitching with movement.
"Evidently, light is not."
Even now, Daleth easily remembered the incredible power and hue of the light that had come from Takmir when he had been destroyed in Jeuno weeks ago. That light, despite its power, was no match for this new one, which was not so much hostile...just incredibly strong. The beams of light began to meld to form one large beam, until it was a sphere of radiance that gyrated around the dead girl's body. The sphere suddenly halted and contracted back into the sheets, until the room was dark once more.
All was quiet until Daleth whispered a small realization to himself.
"The greatest power shall be found
in the smallest possible voice."
Then the world was akin to fire as it exploded in a brimming energy that blinded all senses.
Daleth was too weak to fight the reaction that his eyes naturally took in shutting his eyes from such an insanely powerful glow. He did, however, manage to open his eyes after the explosion diminished, and saw that Celos had been thrown forcibly backward by the explosion of the light into a wall, where she now sat, bruised, battered, and visibly angry. Daleth had not been harmed one iota by the same eruption.
He turned his eyes back to the room and saw that a form of white stood standing next to the bed. The figure's arms, legs, fingers, and body were outstretched, as if to soak up the air, and Daleth noticed that Kidria's body was no longer in bed. In fact, the sheets which had been soaked with blood now lay on the floor, and the bed was bare. As time slowly passed, the form took shape, obviously a young woman, with pale skin and golden hair. Her eyes were blue, and her golden locks were long and led to her shoulders, which were rather broad. Her armor was befit in the same manner as Celos' in that it, too, looked irregular and curving, but it was a clean, pale white instead of a dreary black. Her fingers, legs, and feet were also covered in this same armor, which seemed to slightly glow in the dark. On her left hip was the sheathe of a sword fit with jewels of every color and cut imaginable, and on her right hip, a large, rectangular, shield of the same example. When the light finally faded and diminished into nothingness, Daleth recognized the face of the girl:
It was Kidria.
And yet not so. As Kidria walked forward, she no longer walked in the manner she used to. Her walk was proud and vain, her movements fluid and smooth. Her face looked like Kidria's, but her hair and eyes were now a different color then the Kidria who had been murdered moments before. As this new girl walked into the room, she approached Celos and stopped to face her assassin.
"Dear sister..."
Daleth was shocked by the voice that came from Kidria. It sounded exactly the same as Celos'; the same tone, uncaring attitude, and unwavering voice. It was hard, cold, and brutally coincided with the wound left by Celos: Every time a word came from Kidria, the bleeding gap in his side ached and pulsated. It was not Kidria's voice.
Celos spat, and Kidria continued with her sentence.
"Sister, you attempted to kill me."
Celos appeared incredibly irritated by this sentence. "Your appearance never makes me happy."
Kidria smiled. "I can't say yours is quite welcome either. But once again we meet. I will not hasten to fight, but I will not let you go. You are divided, I am not."
"I am not going to play a farce by claiming I can beat you here and now. But rest assured, you won't kill me here. Not now."
The movement was so fluid Daleth would have never seen it coming. Celos thrusted out her leg, aiming to trip Kidria, who simply stepped back out of the range of the kick. Celos followed this step with a jump forward and jabbed at her sister frantically at such speeds that to Daleth's eyes they all appeared a blur. No person he had ever met could dodge those attacks, yet Kidria adapted quickly to this style. Celos never touched Kidria with her blade, who didn't even draw her sword or shield to fend the attacks.
Two more stabs were followed by a roll that cellos used to draw her other sword, leaving the sister in black with two blades to fight the White Warrior. Celos used the two swords like a hurricane, spinning them wildly, cutting the air which left small rushes of air that gently brushed Daleth's face. Kidria continued to easily dodge the attacks, but as soon as Celos jumped into the air and tried to strike downward, Kidria made her move.
Three times faster then Celos had acted so far, Kidria drew her shield and sword, deflected Celos' attack, and bashed her in the face. Stunned by the blow, Celos was unable to react as Kidria simply turned and shoulder smashed Celos in the stomach. The pale warrior was sent flying at the wall, which she promptly crashed through like a brick and proceeded to fly upon the dark streets below. Daleth felt the shudder as Celos hit the ground and heard pavement crack. He eased himself over to the new hole in the wall and watched Celos stare up at her obviously stronger opponent, Kidria, who had sheathed her shield, but not her sword. Kidria returned the look, but did not speak. When Celos stood up, now visibly beaten up, Kidria jumped from the second story down to meet her. Hoping to catch her off guard, the pale warrior heaved her black sword at her sister. Kidria turned aside and caught the blade in her free hand and sent it flying back like a boomerang in an instant. The sword hit the pale warrior in the shoulder, reeling her backwards and embedding the back end of the blade that reached through her body into a wall. Daleth was amazed by the incredible speeds of these two; he would be unlikely to even react to Celos' actions, but Kidria's speeds were simply unreal.
Celos yanked herself from the wall and stood up, her black armor covered in a silvery sinew of her own blood. Once more she faced her enemy with both swords, the two Elvaan women staring silently at the other. For a couple moments, the night was quiet, until Daleth heard a hum of a young child, who was playfully running down the street, unaware of the fight before him in the night. Before Daleth had time to shout, Celos had done what Daleth had expected her to do: She had grabbed the boy and now held a blade to his throat, while Kidria simply watched.
Celos grimaced, half in pain, and half in self-pleasure: "We both know your aims. Would you kill a boy to complete them?"
The girl in White did not flinch. "I will not let anything get in my way, sister. Not even your threats." Daleth's eyes blinked at this.
The pale warrior in black's grin diminished. "You would kill a young boy, sister, for your aims? That's something in my line, not yours."
"I would not actively kill such a boy, but if he is ignorant enough to get in the way, then he pays for his silly tricks."
Daleth screamed at the top of his lungs for Kidria to stop, but she took no heed, and charged forward to attack her sister. Whether it was ironic luck or just an odd happenstance, Kidria's attack was so fast that Celos did not have time to slit the boy's throat before the warrior in white was upon her. Kidria clumsily knocked the boy aside and swung her blade at Celos, who countered with her left black blade. With her other hand, she attempted to stab her sister, but it was met by Kidria's shield instead. As the blade bounced off the hard armor of the glowing shield, Kidria ducked and jumped to the side of Celos, bouncing off a wall, and twisted upside down. Gravity pulled her down until Kidria completed her loop, finishing with a smashing roundhouse upon Celos' head, whom was sent smashing to the ground. Kidria lightly stepped off of the Pale Warrior's head, and then turned back around. She lifted her sister off the stone and up towards her face, then swung her like a doll into a nearby water barrel, breaking it into pieces. Water mixed with silver and trickled across the street. Kidria once more proudly strutted over to her sister, still unharmed, while the Pale Warrior showed obviously had difficulty standing up. She smiled.
"Old times." The Elvaan clad in light armor did not respond. "But I have to call it quits. Even I must admit when a battle is lost, and despite my wishes, I do not think I can hurt you alone."
"Stubborn. I told you I won't let you leave."
"Aye. But I will escape anyways."
Celos burst forward on her haunches and proceeded with a flurry of attacks that were far too fast for Daleth to recognize. Each attack made was somehow reflected or deflected by Kidria, but Celos still fought as she spoke.
"You say you won't let any innocent get in your way...I do know, however, that you cannot let the carrier die. Seems that for now, he will take the brunt of my intents."
Celos promptly stepped back from the fight, sheathed one sword, and sent the other spinning at Daleth's face. He was too weak and amazed to consider this attack, but he did need to: Before the blade had reached his face, Kidria had appeared before him and grabbed the blade from midair, its tip less then a foot from Daleth's head. When his focus turned back from the blade into the street, he found that Celos had taken this opportune moment to disappear. Daleth swallowed to wet his drying throat and turned to the girl who had saved his life.
"You aren't Kidria, are you?" Daleth stared hopefully, but the girl shook her head.
The girl did not speak, and unfortunately, Daleth did not need her to. Silence spoke far louder then any reply she could make.