Casual

Ballad of the Skylark, Verse Two

With fair white hair and pale blue eyes,
The Goddess was a beauty amongst mortal man
Her soul was kind, her heart was pure
And she gave birth to the utopia of the Skylight
Her many children lived to serve
They'd do anything she'd ask
In return, she gave them food, water and a will to live
There was peace all around
Then, one day, the Great One decided
That her presence would bring forth only strife
She wove her magic one last time
Bringing forth a human body to inhabit
This girl was beautiful as well,
Dark red hair and bright green eyes,
Yet she lacked a heart and soul
However, the Goddess gave her puppet a will
And that will took control of all
Little by little, the Puppet came to hold the strings
And moved the Holy Mother on her own
Sickness, death, pain and suffering
All were born from the void mind of the Puppet Child
People screamed, crying for their helpful deity,
Yet those cries remained unanswered
When the brave ones went to arms
The Puppet brought forth the fires of destruction
And gave them all immortal torture
Some were forced into another's form
Some were forced to see their families die
Others were made to become the toys
For the brittle Puppet Queen
At last, the world became our limbo
Our nest between two worlds
Whilst none no longer died at hands of a horrid monarch
None can achieve true peace

The moon had gone down across the blood soaked fields, but the darkness remained. It always did. The pale haired girl, whose name in life had been Karen, stared up at the onyx veil that was her endless nightfall. Sunlight hadn't reached the ground since the beginning of the limbo, it had been constant darkness ever since. Her clothes and hair were still blood stained, her hands still clutching her tome tightly to her flat chest.

Her lips curved in a false smile as she watched iron-gray clouds swirl across the obsidian sky. A soft zephyr was blowing her ringlets into her eyes, sending streaks of blood across her brow. She didn't care, much more interested in watching the endless sea of black. There were no stars, no moon, which meant no light. It didn't bother her though, she had gotten used to the perpetual darkness. Night had officially ended when the moon set, but how could you really tell when night ended when the sun never rose?

She gave a dark chuckle again and continued her walk across the field. She usually just wandered the field until the time came for Lock and Miranda's battle. It was like a play to her. She had seen the battle every day for around five hundred years now; she knew every move that soldiers would use. It was engraved into her skull, like a teacher would do so a child would understand their numbers. Normally, she would just walk around the fields while memorizing the spells inside her tome. She had already memorized them, however, and had done so centuries ago. She just did it to pass the time.

The slight wind was ruffling her skirt, sending the smooth fabric over her thin legs. She couldn't truly feel it any longer, just a numb realization that something had touched her. She smoothed the parchment pages of her tome, busy in the text. One hand was holding the book open, the other's index finger running down the columns of small print. Her eyes were unfocused as she read, mentally going over the lessons she had leaned ages ago by her kind instructor and her gentle brother.

Her foot hit something very solid, and very warm; warmth such as she had not felt in many, many years. It was the warmth of a living piece of flesh. She shut her book with a snap and her indigo-black gaze fell to the ground. Had she still owned human emotions, she would have been confused, or even greatly shocked by her discovery.

A boy lay on the bloody grass, his eyes closed as though he was asleep. He had color to his skin, which was tanned from the sun, and his hair was like the blood surrounding them. He wore a dark blue tunic and white pants, both trimmed in gold, a long blue and red cape fashioned over his shoulders and blue boots came a little past his ankles. A rapier's elaborate scabbard was at his side, a golden bandanna wrapped around his brow. He looked as though he came from a wealthy, prominent family but what puzzled her was that he looked . . . alive.

Nobody had been actually 'living' in these lands for thousands of years. They all were the souls of those who had died when the Goddess went mad and sent armies to slaughter all of her creations. To see somebody with pigmentation and such warmth to his face wasn't . . . wasn't right. She stared at him and her dark smile came back.

"Well, it appears we have an unusual and unexpected guest," she said coolly, hugging her tome to her chest and looking down at the young man's face, "This won't last long. He'll become another of the lost ones within days. If he's really alive, then he'll die of starvation. No food, no water . . . Life is such a delicate thing, isn't it?"

She stood and brought her foot up, then slammed it onto his stomach. His eyes shot open in an instant and he let out a gasp of pain, a hand moving towards his rapier's hilt in an instant, getting to his feet hastily. First, he seemed somewhat surprised that he was holding the rapier, then his blue gaze turned to her. He stared at her in amazement, and in horror while she simply looked at him with an unfocused, emotionless gaze. Her voice cut through the silence unceremoniously.

"Welcome to limbo," she said, her voice still as empty as ever, "I am Karen."

The boy – or man actually, he was too old to be considered a child any longer – had been looking around the blood drenched field but jolted back to her at her words. She saw his eyes were a bright, cheery sapphire blue, like the sky had been before eternal darkness had set in.

"Karen?" he said icily, trying to sound polite at he inclined his head in a slight bow, "Nice to . . . nice to meet you."

Her smile faltered at the sound of emotion in his voice. It unnerved her, in a way she couldn't explain accurately. "It's a pity I don't feel the same, O Living One." There was sarcasm in her words, but it couldn't be detected, "I must say, you should be an interesting piece of entertainment for a while."

His eyes flickered to the blood soaked ground, clearly disturbed, before he looked back at her. He was a good two feet taller than she was; though it made little difference. She spoke as though she was much older, so it was truly like he was speaking to an equal. "What is this place?" he asked, trying to sound calm.

She had begun to walk away but called back to him in her deadest tone. "These are the fields of blood. If you excuse me, I have business to attend to. I don't have the leisure time to be speaking to the living."

"By that," he said slowly, walking swiftly after her, "You're telling me that you're dead?"

She glared at him with narrowed eyes. "I do suppose I am. I drove a dagger into my chest two millennia ago and I still wander these fields, these bitter lands of perpetual torment. Would you rather relive your death, or would you rather be burned for eternity? I would take the latter of the two; at least I would achieve some peace. It gets very dull, you see. In fact, you are the first attraction I have seen in a long time. Go on, tell me your name."

"Eliwood," he said simply, "Eliwood of Pherae. And you are Karen, correct?"

She nodded and stared at the sky, stopping suddenly. "Its funny, isn't it?" she whispered, "I am dead, yet I speak to you – one who is alive – like we were both on even terms." She gave her dark laugh, which she was sure made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

"If you wouldn't mind," he said, trying to sound polite, "Can you tell me what it's like? Being dead and all?"

She frowned darkly. "I really shouldn't. You'll know the feeling yourself in a few days time." She spoke as though they were discussing the weather, light and casual, or as best her dead voice could be casual. "And I am not the best one to tell you the feeling. There are those who can still put it into perspective of a living soul. As for me . . ." She stopped walking and put her tome down on the bloody ground. "Give me your rapier."

"What?" he asked, brow furrowed at the odd question. She held out a hand. "Give me your rapier," she repeated, "I want to show you something, living one." She could see it unnerved him when she called him those names.

He put a hand on the hilt, it was clear the thought went against his better judgment. With a heavy sigh, he unsheathed the sword and presented it to her, hilt first. His fingers had left bloody prints on the steel of the sword, remnants from when he had touched the grass. She clutched the hilt with both of her thin hands and raised it over her heart, preparing to sink it into her soft and delicate flesh.

"What are you doing!" he yelled, shocked, but she ignored him and plunged the sword into her heart. It pieced through her back and blood spilled down her shirt, discoloring the already stained material to make it an even darker color. She let her hands fall to her side, her expression hadn't changed at all. She stared at him, looking casual, though his sword still was lodged inside her chest.

He looked like he was going to be ill, his face a blotchy pale as the color steadily drained from it. Her lips curled into a cruel smile as she took the blade out, presenting it back to him. "I didn't feel a thing," she said with the air of explaining something simple to an over emotional individual, "Because I drove a dagger through my heart, I feel no emotion and no pain. You could decapitate me and my head would simply reattach itself to my neck."

He took the sword with a shaking hand and slid it back in its scabbard. He did not speak; it looked as though he might vomit if he tried to say anything. She picked up her tome and pointed at her chest. Visible beneath the hole the sword had made in her shirt, the split skin beneath was mending itself.

"I'm already dead, so I can't ever be killed. Understand?" She walked off and he followed. It was like he was some sort of dog that followed its master everywhere. She would have felt annoyed. His voice was weak when he spoke, hoarse as he fought to keep his stomach down.

"You can't feel anything? Not even love?"

". . . I knew what love felt like," she said in a whisper-soft voice, "I have the memories of when I could feel things, but memories fade. To truly answer your question, yes. I am a shell. I feel nothing at all."

"That's really sad," he said softly, "You don't have to answer this question but do you . . . see your family? They aren't alive either, are they?"

"No. They are in heaven. I am here because taking ones life is a sin, but my heart was too pure to go to hell. My parents died of illness. My sister is in hell for sins untold and horrid." It was still like a casual conversation. It greatly disturbed him and she took a sick pleasure from it, or as pleasurable as she could feel.

"Now let me ask my own question. Why do you follow me?" she asked, stopping and staring at the lightness sky.

"I . . . really don't know," he said softly, "I feel kind of bad for you, but I'm confused to. I was told I was to come here to release the people here." She gave a dark laugh.

"There are no people here. There are only souls. Souls of the departed who belong nowhere. When the moon and stars come, I will show you something that will most likely sicken you, but brings me laughter."

Her eyes returned to the crimson ground and she could guess his question before it was even asked. "This blood represents all the people who once lived here. We all died. Nobody here is alive, except for you. Now tell me, why are you the chosen one? Why is it you who remains alive in the endless expanse of death which is my home?"

He looked stumped at the question and did not answer. She needed no answer and they walked in silence for a long time. "Do you have a moon? Or stars?"

"They set an hour before your arrival, I presume."

"Then you have no sun?"

"Sunshine is happiness, it is light. We, as death, do not deserve light. We deserve darkness. Do you understand? Because the final person alive died a thousand years ago, the sun set and never rose again. We have night and nightfall. Nightfall has no light at all."

He still looked unnerved but asked no more questions for a long time. She opened her tome again and read over the symbols. She barely took notice that he was with her still.

Pherae's young marquess stared down at the girl beside him. Pale haired and skinned, she looked like a half-decomposed skeleton. Her bones were visible through her skin, her clothing sticking to her body from her blood loss. She was buried in her tome, ignoring his presence completely.

He shivered slightly. This girl gave off an aura of ice, she seemed to have no natural heat of her own. Didn't it bother her at all? Then again, she said it hadn't hurt her when she had drove the rapier through her chest. He felt ill at the very memory of that scene and knew it would haunt him years later. He idly figured Thor's Ire again, staring around the vermilion fields and hills.

He had never truly been to Sacae, but Lady Lyndis had told him enough tales of the plains to give him a crystal clear picture of the rolling grasslands. This place may have fit into that description, had it not been devoid of all life and covered in a sheet of blood so thick you could no longer see the green of the grass below it. The sky was an endless sea of black above him, no stars or moon breaking that perpetual view. Somehow he couldn't believe Karen when she told him this was limbo. To him, this was hell.

She shut her book with a snap and he looked at her. She was looking back at him with her pitiless black eyes and spoke in her voice, which was as soft and dangerous as a snake's rattle and as cold as stone. "Why did you come here?" It was a simple question, though he could not come up with an answer as simple.

"I was told if I came here and helped the people," he began, "I would see the woman I love."

"Love plays cruel jokes to the mind," she said darkly, "Love was indeed the reason you see me as a living golem of flesh and bone. I could have died a simple death, by illness or murder, and I would have gone to heaven. I would be with my parents at this moment. But I could not wait for my body to die of natural terms. I decided to help it reach its end faster. I drove a dagger through my heart, hopping I would go to heaven and be with my mother and father, whom I loved so dearly. Fate played a cruel trick and cast me asunder, leaving me in this limbo. Love will probably also spell your end to. Because of your love for said woman, you will die here and wander these lands as I do now."

"And if I don't die?" he asked calmly. She chuckled darkly.

"You most certainly will. You are still a living human. You require food and water to remain alive. Nothing is born and lives here, you will only find dead animals and plants that provide no nutrients. Water dried up centuries ago, when the last person was officially proclaimed dead. You will not make it alive for even a week, Eliwood, and you will certainly never see your love."

End Chapter Two