By the way… about the microwave… I don't know if doing that can really give you cancer. My sister said it could, but Rachel's a know-it-all, and might've said it just so she could boss me around. Which means it's probably not true. I just put it in because she pissed me off...

Fifth Chapter: Distance

Liris pulled two boxes out of the white cold box.

"What are those?" she asked, looking distainfully at what was coming out of the boxes. She thought there might be meat, and the green things could be vegetables, but there were weird things poking out of the yellow substance that she hoped was cheese.

"These are our lunches. Chicken, garlic green beans, and macaroni and cheese."

"What's macaroni?"

"Basically, processed wheat."

"So… it's like bread?"

"Yeah."

"In little circular shapes?"

"It comes in other shapes, too."

"Oh." A pause. "Do they taste any good?"

"By themselves, they don't really taste like anything. And they're terrible if you don't cook them. When you put the right sauces on them, they taste yummy," Liris sighed, as if she were talking to a child.

Which she was, in this world. A child.

Liris then took a knife and slit the thin clear film covering one of the meal's topside and stuck it into a smaller black box and pushed several buttons. The machine made a whirring noise as it started up.

"What does that do?"

"It's called a microwave. It cooks the food."

Seiryah blinked. "How? How does sticking food in a box make it cook?"

Liris answered in autopilot. "The microwaves are emitted…" she snapped back to reality and clearly noticed the lost expression that Seiryah knew she must be wearing. "They emit energy, which cooks the food."

"Really? Can I see?" She leaned over…

"Don't do that! You could make yourself sick! Microwaves can be poisonous…"

"Then why are we using them to cook our food?"

Liris sighed in exasperation and started to pour the milk.

"So," she said, taking a bite of spiced vegetables. They were soggy, but didn't taste that bad. "What are Yena?"

Liris sighed. "You like the hard questions, don't you?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Do you remember how Arvel was talking about the Arcana War earlier?" Seiryah only snorted in response. "Well, yes, I doubt you could forget something like that so quickly. Well, Yena were 'created' during the war, because people were dying faster than they could be replaced. By blending the genetic material of humans with some characteristics of animals, they could create and mass produce soldiers to die for them. Although there were more types of Yena created than just soldiers. As the idea gained acceptance, Yena were created for all the jobs that humans didn't want to do. They were slaves."

Seiryah shuddered. "Are they still treated that way?"

Liris shrugged. "Well, they're not slaves anymore, but people are extremely prejudiced against them, and it's almost impossible for them to get a decent-paying job."

Seiryah rolled her eyes. "I don't know what pisses me off more, the fact that people created an entire race to do the things they didn't want to, or the fact that even after they've admitted they're wrong, they still treat them like dirt."

Liris looked at her for several moments. "You haven't changed at all."

Seiryah smiled slightly as she thought of what she had experienced in her time as a Guardian Spirit. "I doubt that…"

"No, you haven't changed. Well, you're clueless now, but other than that…" Liris smiled fondly, and they ate in silence. They didn't really have anything to talk about, not unless Seiryah asked more questions.

As she sat there, in a city full to the brim with more people than she could have guessed existed, she was struck by exactly how utterly alone she was. She had many people who claimed to be her friends, or her family, but she couldn't remember anything about them, not even enough to know if they were telling her the truth or not. Liris sat there smiling happily as she ate. She felt a… kinship, almost, with the woman, but even Liris had little, if anything in common with the Seiryah that she had become.

For the first time in three years, she was 'home'. And yet she was plagued by a feeling that she could only describe as homesickness.

"Lady Melodia!" came the panicked cry from the hallway as her bodyguards burst into the room. She barely registered their presence.

"Back! All of you stay back!" the young duchess yelled. The guards hesitated, clearly not wanting to leave their lady in the room alone… "Whoever's in here can make themselves invisible! I can't concentrate if I have to worry about all of you…!" A slight whooshing noise was all the warning she had, she summoned her Sleet Shawl, which blunted three needles that had been shot at her enough for her to roll out of the way. Unluckily for the guards, they had no time to summon a defense. The needles hit one in the face and stuck in the armor of the other. The one who had actually been struck screamed in pain and started writhing on the floor. Melodia glanced at the needles. More specifically, at the pale lavender coating on the needles. "Don't touch them!" She barked at the guard who was about to pull the needles out of his armor. "They're poisoned!"

"Very clever, Lady Melodia," came a mocking, definitely masculine voice from the opposite side of the room. "Very clever indeed. But clever isn't enough to save you this time! Without a god to hide behind, you're nothing!"

"And you just gave away your position," she replied dispassionately. "Aqua Burst!"

Gigantic icicles burst up from the floor, hitting her poor bed and shredding it, sending ice and fragments of wood everywhere. "Missed me!" came the cheery rejoinder.

"Did I?" she asked, smiling sweetly. Her assailant took a step forward…

And something crunched beneath his feet. Ice, to be exact. Ice from Melodia's previous attack.

"Shaan," he hissed. Melodia didn't know the word, but it sounded like a curse to her.

"Dark Flare!" cried Melodia, and a burst of dark energy went off. Her assailant screamed in pain: this time her spell had hit. Something… flickered. Maybe, one more time… "Dark Flare!"

A second scream erupted from her enemy, and something spewed sparks on his right hand. Suddenly he was quite visible, and he crashed to the floor in an ungainly heap.

"Give this to him," she said to the unwounded soldier, handing him her Sacred Wine magnus and nodding in the direction of his companion, who was now reduced to shaking and moaning, but still breathing.

"Y-yes, Lady Melodia!" he replied, nodding jerkily. To be so easily unsettled… he must be a new recruit, Melodia realized. She then stalked over to her assailant and grabbed the collar of his dark coat, dragging him up so she could stare into his half-glazed eyes.

"Where is the antidote?" she snarled.

"Antidote?" he asked, his voice sounding pained and confused.

"The antidote to your needles, foolish man!" she snapped. "I can't honestly believe that you would walk around with such dangerous weapons without an antidote!"

He scoffed. "Why… would I… give it to you? So you can… heal that idiot?"

"So you can live. Injuries caused by dark magic are many times more likely to become infected. If you do not receive treatment within the next five minutes, you will die. I can even guarantee that we will allow you to leave… after you are escorted outside of Mira, of course. Just give me the antidote." She was lying, of course, but she doubted that the man would know that. So little was known of the arcane arts by the common people that the lie was easy for him to swallow.

Her attacker looked hesitant, his eyes flickering briefly to the downed soldier, and back to Melodia's crimson orbs. "O-okay! I give up! I don't want to die!" His hand went to his belt pouch…

"Lady Melodia, get back!" the uninjured soldier cried out in warning, throwing his spear. Melodia had to push away from her prisoner and duck to avoid being impaled. The assailant, not being physically able to avoid the incoming projectile, took the spear cleanly through his stomach. Something small and metal dropped from his gloved hand. Another throwing needle, coated in poison.

Melodia cursed her stupidity. Why hadn't she thought of that?

"Stupid… witch…" coughed the assassin. "I'm… better off dead than going back without finishing the job. They'll… make me wish I'm dead… kill my family too…"

"Who is 'they'?" Melodia asked. But it was too late, her assassin was already gone. Her red eyes swept around the room. The guard who had been hit might still make it if she could find the antidote, but her room was a disaster area. However, miraculously, her desk... and all the gods-forsaken paperwork had survived.

So, a dying guard, a pile of splinters for a bed and dressing table, a mysterious 'they' who wanted her dead, and more paperwork.

Joy.

In Alfard, where the rebuilding process was starting slowly due to lack of concentrated leadership, a few minor accidents occurred that same day. Machines malfunctioned, a chain suspending scrap snapped, causing several unwary civilians to be pelted by scraps of metal, and a roof collapsed in Mintaka. Luckily, no one was killed or even seriously injured. People blamed it on the lack of leadership, on Geldoblame's misrule, on Melodia and Malpercio, and any number of things. No one saw the relatively inconspicuous cloaked figures moving among them, hiding their smiles behind their hoods. They weren't supposed to.

And, due to the time difference between their dimensions, all this and Melodia's near-death experience happened between the time Seiryah finished meeting with her grandmother and when she finished her microwaved lunch and went out on the apartment's patio to think. Later in the day she would call Maisra, and arrange to meet her in three days, hoping for an understanding hand to help her adjust to some simple things, like reading, while silently hoping that the silver-eyed woman wasn't one of the people who had been responsible for the deaths of her family.

But for now she sat, and watched people and Yena scurry around the enormous city as events in a world she still though of as home turned once again for the worse, and as the powers in her own once again took notice of her, and started working out how to use her lack of memory to her advantage.

And somewhere far from the apartment building, but in the same world, blue eyes framed by red-gold hair that now reached almost to the floor looked out a window, wishing for the home that she was starting to forget. But she couldn't get out, didn't dare, so she simply started once again to recite a part of her new favorite story as she idly kicked a rather expensive looking doll that had fallen out of her hands and onto the richly carpeted floor…

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair…"

Three guesses as to who the blue eyed girl was… -.-;;

Sorry you had to wait so long for this chapter! It would have been up earlier, but I got dragged to my relatives for Easter Break. Thanks to Toki, Frozenleaf, Rebbe, and Luv2Game for reviewing! I hope your spring breaks didn't suck as badly as mine did.