Chapter 3: Lindara, the Spiritual Gate's Temple, part 2

"It's not your fault."

A gentle whisper carried by the wind towards her, while she contemplated the horrible destruction outside, the devastated spiritual kingdom of Lindara. As soon as she heard it, she gasped and turned around, shocked that somebody would still be living there, even though everything was a bunch of crumbling buildings and falling structures. A tall, black-haired figure, wearing an impeccable white robe and lots of golden jewelry, was standing nearby the entry archway, pale and looking at her like if she had seen a ghost. Euline just stood there, not knowing what to do next…

"Euline?" the same gentle voice asked in a whisper. "Is that you?"

The black-haired woman walked towards the girl standing by the window's side, who had turned towards it again in order to dry her tears with her long, sky-grey hair as her white hands were covered with dirt. A gloved hand touched Euline's shoulder and she glanced over her shoulder at the woman's face… with bright rainforest green eyes

"I know those eyes…" Euline thought, even though she couldn't remember from where, turning around to face the woman, her gloved hand falling back to her side.

The woman seemed at a loss of words upon seeing Euline's face that close… how could it be…? Her eyes filled with tears as she hugged the young girl. Euline's memory of those eyes came back then…

"Lyenor?"


Lyenor helped Euline as she tried to get up into a sitting position, knowing that the young girl had been drained completely of her energy when she bonded with those two spirits. How had she known their names, anyways?

"Are you alright, Euline?" she asked after Euline sat down and leant a little bit against the stone dais, sighing.

"I want to think I am… but I'm not so sure…" Euline answered.

Her right hand, a rainbow crystal hanging from a black thread bracelet around her wrist, went to cover her eyes. She groaned; she still saw the strange, bright dots all around her… Her hand fell to her side and she opened her sky-grey eyes. Those dots still there! She frowned.

"…I see dots," she simply stated.

Lyenor looked up at her, not knowing what to do about it, and instead proceeding to put a tight bandage around Euline's left wrist.

"She's completely ignoring us! Shame on her!" a voice cried in the back of Euline's mind and, as a response, she groaned again.

"Ugh… Now I know what Kalas must have felt with me talking in his head!" she said out loud.

Lyenor looked up again, slightly amused by this new sentence, but then went back to the bandage.

"Well, if you don't want us to be annoying you, then don't ignore us!" Mizuti cried again, shouting the last part, making Euline groan again and Lyenor freeze in shock.

"I… I… I just heard a voice…" Lyenor told Euline, but the girl decided to ignore her too; her head ached horribly…

"Mizuti, you just provoked her a headache," Lyude's reasonably calm voice spoke. "Don't be like that to her."

Mizuti didn't say anything after that, neither did Lyude… and Euline was thankful; having voices speaking on her head made her feel awkward.



The green-eyed woman cried with joy when she heard the grey-eyed girl say her name, and hugged her more tightly, her tears running down her cheeks… but it didn't last long; Euline pushed her away suddenly and looked at her with a serious expression.

"For how long was I gone from this world?" she asked, anger slightly discernible in her voice.

Lyenor answered, lowering her gaze:

"Five years," Euline gasped. "You left five years ago, at the age of sixteen… And now you come back again somehow, when everybody thought you had died already, as the others did when they tried to cross, still looking like you did back then…"

Euline looked at Lyenor, slightly taken aback by that… still looking like she did back then?

"What?" Euline suddenly roared at the black-haired woman. "What did you say? Still looking sixteen? You and that bunch of old, decrepit fools from the Council told me nothing would happen to me if I crossed!"

"What did you call them?" Lyenor yelled back, but then started to cough; why did it have to be her and her brother the ones to have that disease

Euline's sky-grey eyes shone with a cold, merciless silver gleam. She crossed her arms and leant against a column nearby, frowning at the woman in the middle of a coughing fit.

"Weaklings… all of them," Euline thought. "Can't even raise their voices without dying. Anyways, Lyenor, could you give me back my stuff, so I can return home immediately?"

Lyenor chuckled a little bit, the coughing fit slowly calming down. Euline wondered what could be that amusing…

"Did you loose your memory or something like that while you were at the other world, Euline?" Lyenor whispered. "Don't you remember? You were exiled from Crimoria when you came back to Lindara in order to help us battle against those ignorant fools who were trying to resurrect Malpercio!" Lyenor crossed her arms as Euline began to panic; one could tell by the way her fingers gripped the hem of her black suit's sleeves at her elbows. "I remember we promised to give you a home here, in Lindara, if you managed to stop Malpercio and minions from escaping the seal our ancestors made… but you didn't!"

Euline stood there, still leaning against one of the twisted columns and looking out the window. Silence fell then, only interrupted by the wind blowing…

"Behaving like if I was some kind of superior being won't solve things…" Euline thought then, seeing from the corner of her eye Lyenor was calming down too. "Besides, she did nothing to deserve all that mistreating from my part… After all, I didn't die or something; I just didn't age that isn't that serious, is it?"

"I'm sorry."


Outside. One word to refer to when you leave a closed place, when you go back to the place where the wind blows freely… Outside.

If only Lindara hadn't been falling apart before her, Euline would have enjoyed being there a lot…

"Wow!" two voices exclaimed from the back of her mind.

oh, yeah, and if they weren't there either.

"What was that for? Another free headache?" Euline sent them through her thoughts.

"Ah… sorry about that," Lyude apologized, while Mizuti giggled madly in the background; free headache, what a way to put it! "I was… just amazed by the beauty of this place!"

"Oh, yeah, it's pretty nice," Mizuti said.

"If only they could see how it was before Malpercio's rebirth…" Lyenor sighed, having heard their exclamations a very short while back. "Multicolored fires atop every column, flowers growing naturally over our roofs, and everything shining with golden light…"

"It must have been Heaven," Mizuti whispered, a little bit saddened by the tone Lyenor had been using during the description.

"It was," Euline thought. "At least, for me it was… After my father's death and my sister's disappearance, this was the only place where I felt… in peace."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Lyude told her, knowing what it was like loosing one's parents and siblings.

Lyenor looked back at Euline as they went down some stairs to the level below. She looked so sad… just like she herself felt.

"I'll summon the Council… or what remains from it, anyways," Lyenor said suddenly, Euline, caught by surprise, almost tripping.

"They're still here?" Euline asked, shocked.

"Yes. We evacuated the civilians only, though some of the Council's members left between them… The ones who decided to stay behind did so in order to keep Lindara living, not letting our land fall prey to the curse…"

The curse. Euline remembered that from her spiritual training: it was a curse placed upon their world in its totality by the Goddess Zyabel, in order for them to ally with the other world for as long as the universe existed, so together they could keep Malpercio asleep and sealed away in Cor Hydrae and in every End Magnus. If they wanted their world to continue being the way it was, they had to help the other world maintain its peace… but they hadn't been able to avoid Malpercio's resurrection, and now Zyabel's punishment would fall upon them. Euline then wondered: what had happened to the rest of her world?


Lyenor caressed Euline's hair as the young girl cried against her chest. She'd just told her she had overreacted because of her lost time, when it wasn't anything that serious, and that she was so sorry she had yelled at her and caused her that horrible coughing fit…

"I'm also… sorry because I… wasn't able to… stop Malpercio!" Euline apologized between sobs, and started crying harder.

She was a twenty-one year old woman trapped in a sixteen year old body crying like an eleven year old girl. Just great: she had overreacted for her lost time when she hadn't matured at all!She felt worst when she realized about the situation.

"I said it wasn't your fault a while ago," Lyenor told her. "It's nobody's fault; it was something we couldn't avoid…"

"But I was there!" Euline said, still crying and between sobs. "I could have stopped it!"

"If you could have stopped it, you would have done so… but you didn't. You hadn't got the power to stop it; therefore, it's not your fault."

They stopped talking to each other, and only Euline's sobs were heard then… She pulled away from Lyenor's embrace the second time that day, dried her tears and looked at the woman's rainforest green eyes with a determined look on her face.

"Tell me what can I do to help our world, Lyenor, and I'll do it."


"Leirul!" Euline exclaimed as she came inside the High Priestess' house, where both Lyenor and her little brother lived.

A young, black-haired boy looked up from a crystal ball he had been probably playing with just a while before. His bright carrot-orange eyes gleamed with pure joy when they saw the black-clad girl at the entry archway to his home.

"Euline!" he exclaimed, hastily standing up and running towards her to hug her.

As soon as he reached her, though, he began coughing. Horrible thing, being born sick… Euline took him back to his seat and helped him settle down on the very comfortable looking red cushion. She patted his back lightly and, as he stopped coughing, she passed her hand through his silky hair before sitting down besides him on another puffy cushion. She smiled sweetly at him as he looked up at her and he weakly smiled, blushing.

"So… what have you been doing around here?" Euline asked.

"Oh, nothing great…" he responded. "Everything's been a little bit too boring lately, with everybody leaving Lindara…"

"And why haven't you left yet?"

"I want to help my sister keeping Lindara safe!" he said, trying to look brave and strong, but failing miserably… besides, he looked like a tomato blushing like that.

"Oh, he likes you!" Mizuti murmured before giggling.

Euline blushed lightly and looked down at her lap. Leirul got a little bit upset at that, and immediately asked:

"Why did you bond with such an annoying spirit?"

Euline, Lyude and Mizuti were shocked at that. It was obvious Leirul had heard Mizuti, even though she had spoken in a very low voice… How?

"Leirul, did you hear Mizuti say what she just said?" Euline asked.

"So her name is Mizuti… Yes, I did," Leirul answered. "And just who's the other one?"

"You can sense Lyude too?"

"Yes, I can!" he smiled proudly, standing, when he saw the surprise on her face.

Euline giggled at the heroic posse he had done when he stood, then he blushed and sat down again. Oh, she looked so pretty with that smile and that silvery gleam that appeared on her eyes when she smiled that way…! He blushed even more. A voice startled him then:

"Well, seeing as he can hear and sense us, might as well greet him…" Mizuti said. "Hello, boy!"

"Nice to meet you, Leirul," Lyude spoke then.

"I insist: that Mizuti girl is annoying," Leirul growled, glaring at some point above Euline's left shoulder.

Euline looked at him confused; Leirul never growled neither showed any signs of being in a bad mood, ever! She then tried to look at the point he was glaring, but saw nothing… She decided to ignore it; he probably could also see Mizuti.

"Leirul?"

"Yes?" he growled.

"Excuse me, but… are you in a bad mood right now?" she whispered.

He looked at her eyes, finding worry for him there… He blushed then, crossing his arms and lying down on the big red cushion.

"I… have been under great pressure lately…" he answered, closing his eyes. "I'm sorry for growling and glaring… but they won't leave me alone!" he yelled, rolling to his side and coughing a little bit, back to Euline.

"Who won't leave you?"

"The Council's decrepit members! They want me to become the High Priest and exile Lyenor, or probably execute her!" Euline and her Guardians gasped. "Yes, I know that wouldn't be right… But they insist and insist, again and again! They blame our world's partial destruction on her and you…! But that's not true; neither of you is guilty for that…"

Euline approached Leirul, placing her hand atop his head. He opened his orange eyes and looked up at her smiling down at him.

"I promise I'll help our world recover as soon as possible, and that I'll keep them from hurting you or your sister, Leirul."

He smiled and brought his arms up around her neck to pull her down for a kiss… on the cheek.


"The only way to help our world now is by defending the Elemental seals in every land on this dimension," Lyenor said, taking out from the folds of her robe six Magnus cards and handing them to Euline. "Shall they be released…"

"…the dimensions of the living and the dead will blend, destroying everything," Euline said as she received the cards on her hands.

The young girl smiled down at the cards as she saw each one of them: Fire, Water, Light, Darkness, Chronos and Wind. The gifts from six powerful Spirits that had vowed to help her in exchange of passing the weight of their dimension to her shoulders. She still didn't quite understand what that meant, neither did any Lindarian know; she suddenly had a feeling she would know soon, though… Anyways, this six Spirits were the source of all her power and magic, being their gifts the ones she had replaced certain Magnus cards in Kalas and Xelha's hands while being their Guardian Spirit; she owed them so much

"But defend them from what?" Euline asked after a while, suddenly noting that Lyenor was heading towards the entry archway.

Lyenor stopped and turned around slowly.

"There are people right now, evil souls in this world, that are trying to destroy everything and construct an universe on their own anew with the power of Zyabel," Lyenor said, her expression solemn. "You must keep them from doing so, if you want our world, and the world of your new friends, to be saved from destruction."

Lyenor turned around again and walked away. Euline stood there, stunned by that information Lyenor had just given her; evil souls in this world?She had to battle some more evil souls again Hadn't it been enough battling against Melodia and her evil pet God? And against that thing that came from the Earth? She wondered if her life would ever go back to normal…

"Wait! But how am I supposed to do all that? I hadn't enough strength to keep Malpercio resurrecting, how could I ever keep these evil souls, plural unlike evil soul, from releasing six Elemental seals and awakening Zyabel?" Euline yelled at Lyenor's back, but the woman refused to look at her, or tell her something. "I need help…" Euline cried, falling to her knees, the Magnus cards on her hand falling to the floor as well.

A sky blue light came out of one of them, the Wind Elemental Magnus. Both Euline and Lyenor, already at the archway, looked down at it with curiosity and a little bit of shock. It then became a strange chimera: body and head of a wolf, its three eyes missing, leaving empty black holes in their place; its front paws were the claws of an eagle, it had bat-like translucent wings with shimmering butterfly scales; and, finally, all its hind part was missing, being replaced by several sky-blue colored tentacles. Euline and Lyenor gasped; yes, a horrible creature indeed... It jumped towards and through the Spiritual Gate.

"What…? Wait!" Euline, the first to recover from the shock, called the chimera… but it was gone.


They were in a long corridor that shared its structure theme with the Spiritual Gate's room, and at the end, they could see the entry archway to the Great Ancestors' shrine, and across a circular room, another archway covered by a red curtain; the Council was waiting for them there.

Leirul's hand went to hold Euline's; he was shaking, scared and nervous… She gave him all the security and comfort she could through a smile while they walked behind Lyenor. After all, Euline had promised she would protect him and his sister; he shouldn't be nervous about anything.

"Don't be nervous, I'm here with you," Euline told him silently.

He then smiled a little bit. Lyenor had been looking back at them occasionally through the corner of her eye; this last scene made her smile too. It made her infinitely happy to see her brother smile. And she was infinitely thankful to Euline because she had always made him feel better, no matter what…

They finally crossed the first archway. This room had its columns' torches lighted up with white fire, and was cleaner than the Spiritual Gate's room, which had fallen in complete abandon, while this had not, as it was the Council's meeting room as well. They continued walking towards the red curtain.

"This is the first time in five years that I see this pitiful bunch of old priests and priestesses," Euline sent Lyude and Mizuti through her thoughts.

"By the tone of that, I can tell you wanted to never see them again in your whole life," Mizuti said.

"Yes, but dreams and wishes don't come true," Euline said.

"Wish you luck anyways," Lyude said as Lyenor pulled the curtain open.


"It had never behaved that way," Euline kept talking, standing in front of the Spiritual Gate and still being ignored by Lyenor, who was leaning against the archway. "I mean, I had to summon them always, they never came on their own accord…"

Suddenly, the atmosphere felt altered by a strong gust of sky-blue colored wind, the cry of a raven coming from it. Euline looked up: the chimera was back, slowly changing into the form of a raven… and it had brought two spirits from the other dimension. She gasped: she knew those two spirits!

"Lyude, Mizuti!" she called them, but they didn't seem to have heard her. "Lyude, Mizuti! Don't go away. Don't hear the stars' song. Please, don't die!" they had heard her; she tried again to call them forward and keep them from drifting off. "Come on, Lyude, Mizuti. I want to help you both."

The Wind raven then flew through the Spiritual Gate, striking them with its power in order to make them more aware. Euline raised the Wind Elemental Magnus and the raven crashed against it, rainbow light coming from the card as it did so. Euline tried once more.

"Come on, bond with me."

She saw them moving and coming towards her, and, like when she had bonded with Kalas and with Xelha, a whirlwind of bright sea green petals followed them and it burst as they, Lyude and Mizuti, became her Guardian Spirits. But then energy left her, and she fell to her knees…


The End… of the Chapter!

Author's notes:

Heck, I feel sooo good! I finished it, I finished it! (jumpity, jumpity!) Almost a YEAR late, but I finished it at last! (and in one afternoon… guess the boring summer class stimulates my brain for not-class-related stuff). I sigh, as I finished! Oh, my…! I feel so happy! I see the light at the end of the tunnel! God's talking to me! (XD not yet, please; gotta end this fanfic first!). Anyways, I thank in advance to all those who read this chapter, and I apologize for the fact that I can't answer that much of your reviews as it has been forbidden by FF. net.

But responding to Ayla Skyrider (LD on the BK forums D, that rules and pwns all the other forums): yes, it's true that Euline's name in correct Spanish pronunciation ends with a "eh" sound, not with "lean" (her name would be Eulin if that was true); but, as I stated on the BK forums (that keep ruling and pwning over all the other forums), I Americanized/Anglicized the name of Euline, and also changed it before putting it on the fanfic (it was meant to be Eulina, "eh-uh-lean-ah", but I didn't like the "a"… and neither I do like the "e", but between erasing an "a" or an "e" from the pronunciation, the easier to erase is the "e"… and I didn't choose Eulin because it doesn't look as pretty as Euline).

To be noted: I won't use this writing right now because I'm short of time…

Chapter's notes:

I think this chapter was pretty funny in some parts, but I don't know what you think (unless you review). Also, to be noted, is that this chapter alternates between what happened before Lyude and Mizuti arrived Euline's world as Spirits and what is happening while their first hours there. Next chapter: da kreepy Council of the decrepit zombie priests! (ha, ha, ha! Wished I could do that, but it would ruin the story…).

For those who viewed my topic about the time Kalas' Guardian Spirit spent in his dimension at the BK forums (you know what follows: ruling and pwnage), now you know why it was so important for me to take an approximate! But you'll all say "you concluded it was three years!"; yes, they were three with him and Xelha (bonding, two years of who-knows-what, Melodia's spell, finding Xelha, betrayal, bonding with the lady, redemption, bonding with the traitor… forgive me, with Kalas, and bye-bye scene after killing "the thing that came from the Earth")… the thingy here is: "what happened during those two missing years?" (oooooohhh, the mystery!). Oh, yeah; and here I suppose Euline was born around the same year than Kalas, so she is supposed to have his current age (21, probably 22) right now… but with her body frozen in time for five years, who's going to believe her? (so far, her father is dead and her sister has disappeared… nobody to support her statement back in sweet home, Crimoria).

Also, Lyude and Mizuti didn't get much dialogue in this chapter because: 1) they haven't grasped completely the ways of the Guardian Spirits, 2) Euline was annoyed and felt awkward with their voices at first, so probably she blocked them (he, he, so MSN like), 3) this chapter is half flashbacks (by the way, Euline behaved like a crybaby, as well as Lyenor, during half of them! The shame on them!), 4) Leirul can listen to them very clearly, so there's no privacy. Don't get all "evil pet God" on me, please; they're going to have more dialog after they have dear Leirul faaar away from them (Leirul is such a sweety… but has far more power than Euline, clearly explained by the dependent fourteen year old being able to see, hear and sense her Guardians). Now, let's bring up the bonding thingy here: they, as stated in last chapter, didn't know what was happening and weren't able to listen to Euline's voice clearly, so, in this chapter (that deals with a lot of flashbacks), we get to see what brought them here (an out-of-control Magnus card) and also what Euline was doing (not much).

Anyways, I don't think I can bring up more notes if I want to publish this TONIGHT before my mother comes yelling that "it's too late, go to sleep or say bye-bye to the laptop!".

Pronunciation corner:

Lyenor: "ly" (just like Lyude's "ly"), "eh", "nor" (like in "she didn't like coffee nor she wanted tea"… and I don't know if that sentence is grammatically possible).

Leirul: "le" (like in "leg"), "e" (just pronounce the letter like they told you in kindergarten), "rule" (with the soft "r").

Crimoria: "cree" (like in "creed"), "mo" (like in "mob"), "ria" (like in… ah… eh… I don't know! Just say "ree-ah" with the soft "r").

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