A Star to Guide Them By
Written by: Firefury Amahira
Standard disclaimer: All the stuff from Boktai I do not own. You can thank Konami for making the games and making them so damn fun to play and so addictive, too. All the non-canon material though is mine. Use it without my permission and be smited! I've had to put a lot of thought into the original material I use to fill out the plot!
Chapter Two: Memory Problems
Despite her injuries, the girl seemed to be healing well, and Lita soon declared that with care, the stranger would make a full recovery.
Except that she still had not regained consciousness after several days, frustrating her watchers to no end. Her intentions had been debated, refuted, discussed, and argued, but without her input, speculation was simply that. A search through her scant belongings didn't turn up anything useful either; just a spare change of clothing and a pair of finely made short swords, the two weapons of obviously mystic origin. The runes down both the silver blade and the black blade were unreadable, even to Otenko.
They took turns watching the girl, waiting for her to wake up. So it was Sabata, yawning and about to turn the watch over to his brother who noticed the girl begin to stir at sunrise a few days later. The Dark Boy shouted down the stairs that the girl was waking up and was answered by Django's brief confirmation and the sound of footsteps as the Solar Boy went to get Lita and Zazie, assuming the star reader wasn't napping. Otenko joined Sabata upstairs as the girl mumbled something unintelligible and dazedly opened her eyes, staring uncomprehendingly at the wooden ceiling overhead. Sabata was slightly surprised by the girl's eyes, an oddly mismatched pair, the left a pale, bright blue, the other a deep shade of purple, almost black.
"You're finally awake." Otenko said, drawing the girl's attention. "How do you feel?"
The girl stared at the sun spirit with such a bewildered expression that Sabata had to look away or start laughing.
"A talking flower?" The girl finally found her voice, the words laden with a slightly archaic accent. She quickly recovered from her surprise and sat up in the bed, the sheets held to cover herself, and half-bowed. "Forgive my rudeness. I feel… rather sore."
The others returned, catching the girl's mismatched gaze. "If you'd been awake a few days ago, you'd be a lot worse than sore." Sabata snorted, indicating the scrap of silver fabric draped over a nearby chair, all that was left of the girl's robe. It seemed to take the girl a moment to make sense of his words, but mild surprise showed on her face.
"Have I been asleep long?" She inquired, her gaze fixated on the red-stained silver cloth.
"Y'been out since we found yer more'n a week ago all burned up." Zazie remarked. "Sure made an entrance, fallin' outta the sky like that."
It took the girl longer to decipher the star reader's very informal speech, but her increasingly dumbfounded expression dispelled the initial impression that she might be somewhat snobby. "Fell from the sky-?" She looked and sounded confused.
"Before we get into that-" Otenko interrupted before the baffled girl could get grilled for answers. "We don't even know your name."
"Oh, my name? Sitara of the…" She paused mid-sentence, a frown darkening her expression. "… of the…"
Django and Otenko exchanged glances as the girl's frown deepened while she tried to dredge the full introduction from her memory, the first stirrings of a bone-deep fear creeping into her face.
"'Of the'-?" The sun spirit prompted.
"I… can't remember." The girl quietly admitted, clutching tightly at the bed sheets. "Proper introductions include use-name, as well as House and lineage, but…"
"You were badly injured." Lita sat down on the bed and put a reassuring hand on the girl's shoulder. "It's not surprising your memory is fuzzy after that kind of shock. I bet it'll come back to you in time."
"Hmf! So much for finding out what she has to do with the Star of Darkness." Sabata turned to the door, stifling a yawn. "I'm going to bed."
"Don't mind him." Django glanced over after the Dark Boy had exited the room. "He was up all night keeping watch."
"I'm deeply sorry for whatever trouble I have caused." Sitara apologized quietly. "Of your kindness, would you explain how I came to be here?"
Otenko took the lead in introducing Sitara to her rescuers and explaining to the girl how they had found her. Django supplied the details of the meteor's fall, and then Lita and Zazie summarized the seriousness of Sitara's injuries when she'd be discovered. By the end of the explanation, the look of extreme confusion on her face was nearly comical, mouth hanging slightly open in disbelief, mismatched eyes wide.
"I don't recall any of that." Sitara finally remarked around her surprise. "Though it sounds as if that may be something of a blessing."
"Speaking of memory, you said earlier you couldn't recall your House or lineage." Otenko floated over to the foot of the bed to better address Sitara. "But you seem to recall your name well enough. Is there anything else you remember? Something that might help us figure out where your home is?"
Sitara frowned in deep thought, her earlier fear about her memory loss already turning to frustration, an obstacle to surpass. "Home? It was a city…"
The others waited patiently while the platinum haired girl struggled to grasp at the fleeting shadows of memory. "A large city, with lots of silver everywhere. And far fewer people living there than it was built to house." Sitara glanced toward the window, noticing something that seemed to greatly surprise her. "And the sky was always black, no matter the time of day, not blue. Is that common here? It is such a lovely color."
That seemed to surprise those in the room, but Otenko mused to himself that it would certainly confirm his suspicions that the amnesiac girl was in fact one of the lost Star Children. "Yes, during the day the sky is blue. It turns a much darker blue, close to black at night."
"I don't recall ever seeing a blue sky… just black. My city must be very far from here then." Sitara seemed to oddly brighten at that conclusion. "Which means I will have to travel a great deal to find it?"
"Not in your condition." Lita surveyed the platinum-blond girl with a critical eye. "Your injuries are healing well, but you aren't leaving this room until those burns are more fully healed."
That seemed to take the wind right out of the girl's sails as she slumped slightly and nodded. "Yes, you are right, it would be quite bad to push my luck farther than I already have. But once I am fit, then?"
Lita looked about ready to say something, but Otenko opted to interrupt. "Sitara, you're likely right that your silver city is quite distant from San Miguel, but I suspect it can't be reached by simple travel. Since you fell from the sky, it's safe to assume you had to have fallen from somewhere very high, from somewhere in space, if you've never seen a blue sky before. The means of finding it, let alone reaching it, are probably magical."
Zazie and Django both pinned Otenko with surprised looks, not having thought the sun spirit would allude to the possibility that their guest was one of these supposedly powerful Star Children so soon. The comment didn't seem to elicit any recognition from Sitara though, who nodded slightly in thought.
"And if such means are to be found, they are lost somewhere among all the other things I seem to be forgetting right now?" She assumed aloud. "Pity that I can't find my way home any time soon."
"Y'don't sound all that torn up about not findin' yer hometown." Zazie observed, catching the lack of any sort of despair in Sitara's tone.
"If you must know, the truth is that I do not feel much inclined to rush back to wherever 'home' is. I do not yet recall specific memories, but I recall enough of a sense of despair." Sitara addressed the star-reader, her tone not confrontational, but certainly blunt. "I recall often asking about some place… Everyone called it 'Below', I think. In any event, I vaguely recall being informed that it was not my business and to disregard such foolishness. If I must run about minus some unpleasant memories, I imagine it will be worth it to indulge a desire to travel that no injury could make me forget."
"Do you remember why you were discouraged from asking about… 'Below'?" Django asked before Zazie could compose a suitably sharp retort.
Sitara frowned in thought, the expression quickly becoming associated with the girl trying to drag something useful out of her muddled memory. "I think… I should know this, I really should. People in the city were not supposed to interfere with Below, I think it was. Everyone was afraid something awful would happen, that… who was it? … I can't remember. Just that someone would find a way to the city and cause a great deal of trouble, perhaps even destroy the place."
Looks were exchanged among those in the room already familiar with Zazie's prophesy. Was it possible that the nameless 'someone' was the Star of Darkness?
It would be another four days before Lita pronounced Sitara recovered enough to get out of bed and walk around for any length of time. True to the Earthly Maiden's predictions, the platinum haired girl seemed to recover tiny bits of memory as time passed. No sooner had Sitara finally gotten into her spare change of clothing- black pants, purple tunic, bright silver chest plate, gauntlets, and shoulder pads, and a black travel cape with a white inner lining- then she was raring to explore her new surroundings. She seemed completely enthralled with the idea of a city where one did not have to take care to avoid plummeting from a precipice too vast to contemplate. Things that Django and the rest seemed to take for granted captured Sitara's attention- that stars twinkled at night, that the sky turned several various shades of warm color besides blue at sunrise and sunset. She seemed positively stunned silly the first time she saw the Moon at night.
Needless to say, her intense fascination with everything resulted in her sleeping irregularly, meaning she was often catnapping during the day, or roaming around at night. Sitara's thirst for knowledge had managed to drag a shortened version of Django's misadventures in Istrakan and San Miguel out of the Solar Boy. Sabata had decided to try and studiously avoid the enthusiastic girl, not wanting to be pestered by her rampant curiosity. He managed well enough, utilizing his particular abilities to vacate the area when he heard her running around at night, and he tended already to be scarce during the day due his low tolerance for sunlight.
One such night, the Dark Boy spotted Sitara lying on her back in the grass, much the same way he and Django had been the night she'd fallen to Earth. Not wanting to deal with her, Sabata began to quietly edge around to the far end of the plaza, trusting in his stealthy tread to avoid detection.
"I do not mean to be rude, but no matter how quiet you are, you do rather stand out to anyone with some sensitivity to the magical arts." The platinum blonde's voice commented in the dark. "If you don't want to talk, you only have to say as much."
That stopped Sabata in his tracks as he spun to look over. Sitara hadn't so much as turned her head in his direction, yet she'd known he was there. "So you knew I was here?" He muttered.
"As I said before, you do tend to stand out oddly. I hadn't commented on it prior as it seemed you were not feeling particularly social." Sitara responded easily. "Your brother also stands out to a lesser degree, like whatever it is I feel off him is hidden below the surface rather than openly admitted to. I haven't asked him about it since it seemed to me something of a personal nature, and for all the generosity I've been shown, I am still a stranger here."
That piqued the Dark Boy's curiosity, so he grudgingly decided to have a seat. Maybe he could jog the girl's memory, or perhaps find out something else that could be useful. "And just what is it that you're so sensitive to?"
Sitara remained quiet for a long moment, obviously thinking on how to respond. "I am not entirely sure. Lacking a more diplomatic description, it is power, but a tainted one."
Sabata snorted, a sort of short laugh, which startled the girl. "So you can sense darkness like Otenko, can you?"
The surprise in Sitara's voice was plain as day. "Is that what it is?" She sat up and peered at Sabata with narrowed eyes, seemingly looking for something. "Yes… I suppose that is it. Despite such, you are not Immortal. How strange."
The Dark Boy made a particularly derisive sound. "Things never got that far. So you know about the Immortals then?"
"Bits of my memory have returned. The reason no one was to leave the city was for fear that it would enable the Immortals to find their way in and bring ill fortune to the people." Sitara retorted. "I remember the excessive paranoia well enough. That was part of why I wished to leave so badly. Life in the city was stale and dull. I wished desperately to leave and see the world Below that the schools studied so much."
"Did your schools ever talk about a Star of Darkness?" Sabata inquired, figuring it was as good a time as any to see if enough of the girl's memory had returned to start deciphering Zazie's star reading.
"This is the second time you have mentioned such a thing in my presence. No, I cannot recall learning of such a thing. May I ask why this thing seems to concern you so?"
Sabata contemplated the question for a moment, debating if telling this strange girl that there was a pretty good chance she was going to be tangled up in some prophesy was a good idea or not. There was little doubt in his mind she was obviously the 'fallen star' from Zazie's prophesy, and to him it seemed likely that the answers to the remaining unknowns were locked away in Sitara's addled memory.
"You might as well be clued in. Maybe it'll knock loose some useful memory." The purple haired youth finally commented. "Zazie's a star reader. I don't know exactly what she does, but she can predict the future or do some fortune telling."
"She is quite blunt." Sitara interjected. "And her accent is strange. I find her rather difficult to understand when she speaks."
"Hah!" Sabata barked out a short laugh at the remark. "That's an understatement. Anyway, she came up with some sort of prophesy that everybody thinks you're probably part of."
"Prophesy?" That had the girl's attention. "I do not wish to pry, but would you please tell me more of this?"
Sabata obliged and recited the vaguely worded prophesy for the girl, who frowned in deep thought. The Dark Boy watched the pale girl carefully, looking for any telltale signs that something had been jogged loose in her memory. Instead, the girl shrugged helplessly after a long moment.
"I am truly sorry. I see where I may fit into this prophesy as the 'fallen star', but I do not know anything about this Star of Darkness or the 'dance of the Heavens' or these lost people." Sitara admitted, returning her gaze to the stars above.
"I've got an idea about the lost people, actually." Sabata eyed the girl. "Otenko's convinced you're from some lost race of Star Children, which makes sense with all that stuff in the prophesy. If you're from this legendary lost city, it makes sense that the people there are the lost ones."
That seemed to jog something in the girl's fuzzy memory. "I think that you are correct. It feels familiar. The stars, I mean. I am nearly recovered completely- perhaps in the morning I may test my abilities and see if what I recall of magic is accurate. I think perhaps that will prove beyond doubt if the talking flower is correct about my home." She quickly stood up, stifling a yawn, and bowed neatly to the still-seated youth. "Sabata, you have my gratitude for speaking to me of these things. Now that I am aware, I will be certain to remark on it should my memory return to me with any knowledge that may be of use. For now however, I had best return to my bed, much as I do enjoy the night sky. I have enjoyed speaking with you. Perhaps we may talk further sometime, if it will not trouble you."
Sabata snorted at the girl's formality. "Maybe."
Author's notes: Sitara's a pain to write too. Different reasons than why Zazie's tough to write. Zazie's got that real short slangy way of talking (at least in the US version. I am told she probably has a Kansai accent in the Japanese version), Sitara's all formal wordy with her speaking. And no, before anyone can cry "self-insert!" or "Mary Sue!", 1) Sitara and Sabata are not going to hook up as a couple. He's got too many issues of his own, and she's got her own issues. 2) Sitara is about as far opposite of me as many of my characters get. She's more tactful, formal, and a whole hell of a lot nicer than I usually am. She's there to help kick the story into gear!
So, mini-rant aside, comments are welcome, flames will be used to light the trashcan on fire.