Shades of Wings – Lavender Wings Part II
Hi everyone! This is Sammy-- here with Chapter 12! I hope you enjoy it! Don't forget to vote in the popularity poll!The results stand as follows:
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Anyway, now it's time for the next chapter of our favorite story!
Group: This isn't my favorite story…
SILENCE!
Lavender Wings Part II
"After that fiasco…" Adrian sighed, shaking her head at Briu who was wiping the blood off his spear. "Shall we head to the Farplane?"
"I guess," Kevi shrugged. "It's only respectful."
"The Farplane?" Tiffa asked. "Isn't that where the memories of the dead react to the pyreflies?"
"No," Ashnigh snapped. "It's where the dead gather after they have been sent."
"Yeah, if you want to believe THAT fairytale."
"If you don't want to go in, no one is stopping you," Ashnigh said briskly as she walked up the road towards the Farplane. Tiffa sighed and followed her, along with the rest of the group.
"I think I'll wait outside," Tiffa sighed.
"Me too!" Luna nodded. "I don't want to go into the scary place fulla dead people!" She grasped her hat and started to shake. "Sccaaarry!"
"We'll be out quick," Adrian assured them. "I don't have time to waste looking for dead remnants."
"Ahh, Lady Adrian and guardians," the Guado guarding the Farplane gate bowed and let the group in. "Please, I'm sorry to ask, but pray for our dear Lord Jyscal. His spirit is still resting."
"Of course," Adrian curtsied, but kept her terse tone. "Come on everyone."
"And this is where Luna and I take our leave," Tiffa smiled as the group reached the multi-colored entrance of the Farplane. Tiffa sat down on a ridge and Luna started jumping around the walkway. "Enjoy your memories."
"You mean the spirits of our loved ones," Ashnigh retorted and Tiffa didn't respond. The group walked into the gate, leaving the two behind.
"Woah!" Juka gasped. "This place is huge!" The group found itself on a floating platform, surrounded the gardens of the Farplane. People were already situated, praying to the images of their dead loved ones that appeared.
"You've never been to the Farplane?" Adrian asked and Juka blushed.
"Uhh…yeah, not really."
"Not really? Funny, I've never been to the half-assed Farplane."
"Oh shut up!"
Ashnigh broke the heated tension by walking over to an empty spot and kneeling. The group quietly dispersed to their own spots, Juka going last to one near the entrance.
Adrian kneeled down next to Ashnigh as she prayed. Ashnigh looked up at Adrian and smiled. "You're not going to pray Adrian?"
"I'd rather not," Adrian sighed. "My dead ones aren't exactly loved."
"Look," Ashnigh pointed as the image of a blue haired young man appeared. "It's Lai."
"Is this the first time you've seen him…since…well…"
"Since he died?" Ashnigh finished and Adrian nodded. "No, I came here the day after I found out just to prove it wasn't true. But…" she sighed, as if choking back tears. "There he was, and I knew that he was really dead."
"Ashnigh…" Adrian looked sympathetically toward her friend.
"I remember," Ashnigh laughed, "that time when you were just five and Lai came to the temple with his family."
"Ashnigh…" a small Adrian, short with curly blonde hair and dark black eyes, tugged at an eleven year old Ashnigh's skirt. "Who's that?"
"I don't know," Ashnigh smiled at Adrian as a boy about Ashnigh's age, if not a little older, came into the room. He had short blue hair and was wearing green robes. "Let's go introduce ourselves."
The two walked over, Adrian keeping a sharp eye on the boy, not breaking her stony face. Ashnigh tapped the boy on his shoulder, and he turned around. "Hi!" she smiled and waved. "I'm Ashnigh, and this is Adrian. I'm eleven, and she's five."
"I'm Lai…" he mumbled. "And I'm twelve. That means I'm older than you."
"Yeah, so?" Adrian snapped and Ashnigh patted her on the head, much to her dismay.
"Do you want to play with us, Lai?"
"No," he snapped, and turned away. "I don't play with girls. I'm not your baby sitter."
"Why did you come here then?" Ashnigh asked. "Are you training to be a priest?"
"No," he shook his head and smirked. "I'm going to be a summoner and defeat Sin! I came here for training!"
"Wow, that's so cool!" Ashnigh beamed. "Have you already chosen your guardians?"
"My brother's going to go with me," Lai bragged. "He's seventeen now, but he's going to be even older when I go on my pilgrimage!"
"How about us?" Ashnigh asked and Lai looked up, surprised. "Can we be your guardians?"
Lai looked at Ashnigh and then blushed the color of her hair. "Well…usually, I wouldn't want whiny girls on my pilgrimage…but…if you're really, really, REALLY nice to me, then maybe I'll consider it."
"I don't want to be a guardian on your dumb pilgrimage anyway!" Adrian stomped her foot. "I'm going to be a summoner and beat Sin! And Ashnigh's going with me, not you!" She tugged at Ashnigh's sleeve. "Right, Ashnigh?"
"I'll go with both of you," Ashnigh smiled at Adrian and then looked up at Lai. "Right?"
"R-right…"
"He totally had a crush on you," Adrian sighed, shaking her head. "Pretending like he didn't like girls…the idiot."
"He was a little swelled in the ego department," Ashnigh laughed. "But he got over it quick."
"Especially…when…" Adrian looked up in the sky and a tall man with blackish blue hair and a wide grin appeared. "Especially when his brother died."
"Fiends are attacking the temple!"
"Everyone run!"
"Get to the shelters!"
All chaos had broken loose. A band of fiends had placed the city of Bevelle under siege and had already broken through a line of guards. Summoners were outside the city walls, summoning the Fayth to help them in their battle.
"Adrian, quick!" Ashnigh, now aged fifteen, led the nine year old Adrian through the hot and frantic halls toward shelter. "We've got to run!"
"No!" Adrian snapped her wrist back. "I'm a summoner, I've got to go!"
"No you're not!" Ashnigh grabbed her again. "You're still in training!"
"Ashnigh!" Adrian pleaded, but Ashnigh kept running, Adrian in tow.
"After we round this corner we should – OW!" The two fell back as they ran into a tall figure running the other direction.
"Makeal!" Ashnigh smiled as the two stared up at a tall man with blackish blue hair wearing sunglasses and totting a long sword with an intricate blue hilt. He smiled and helped the two up. "Are you okay? Where's Lai?"
"My little bro's in the shelter," Makeal told them. "You two better get down there too."
"Where are you going?" Adrian asked.
"To fight of course," Makeal smiled. "What, you think that I could seriously call myself a guardian to Lai if I don't help fend off the fiends this time?"
"Be careful!" Ashnigh pleaded. "Lai would be devastated if you were lost!"
"Hey!" Makeal laughed, lifting his sword onto his shoulder. "You're talking like I'm going to get my head chopped off out there! Don't you have some faith in me, girls?"
"W-We do," Ashnigh nodded. "Good luck! Praise be to Yevon," she flashed him the Yevon prayer and he returned the sign, smiling behind his glasses.
"During the battle, we watched in the shelter through a window," Adrian recalled, kicking a rock off the edge of the platform and watching it fall into the garden. "Makeal took down a lot of fiends."
"That is…until that one came…" Ashnigh bit her lip. "He never even saw it coming before it slashed him in the back."
"I'll never forget Lai's face…" Adrian shook her head. "And then…"
"ANIMA, COME FORTH!" The Earth shook, and Ashnigh, face streaked with tears, grabbed Adrian and shielded her from falling furniture. Lai stood next to the two, still completely dumbstruck. Out of the ground outside the shelter, a blood red energy rose from the earth and chains that seemed to come from the heavens pulled at the energy swirling in the abyss. The chains lifted a huge malicious figure from the ground, bound by chains and roaring with pain and anguish.
"What…is that?" Adrian asked, her eyes wide with curiosity and surprise.
The figure, dark and foreboding, stared down at the fiends, and a glint started to appear in its eye. It gave a low roar and in an instant, the fiends exploded into tiny particles of dust as the light from the creature's eye shot into each and every fiend.
"Who…could control such a creature?" Ashnigh asked, trembling.
"We never found out," Ashnigh sighed. "That thing was brought back to its master and we never saw it again."
"We beat the fiends, but Lai lost his brother," Adrian sighed. "That's when he really started to hit the books when it came to Summoner training."
"You did too," Ashnigh reminded Adrian and she blushed. "I think it was because you wanted to find out what that thing was that was summoned."
"It interested me…" Adrian nodded.
"I think that's when I started to fall for Lai," Ashnigh smiled to herself. "Remember that time that you slept in my room and we ate chocolate that I stole from the cooks?"
"Correction: You ate chocolate. I hate sweets."
"Anyway…" Ashnigh stared Adrian down, wanting to continue with the story.
"Hey Adrian, you'll never guess what I have to tell you," Ashnigh grinned. She was now aged about sixteen or seventeen and had shorter hair in a sort of bobbed cut.
"What?" Adrian asked, looking up from her book. Adrian was about eleven, and had just added the black streaks into her now longer blonde hair. "What is it Ashnigh?"
"Lai helped me carry my books to acolyte training today!"
"…so?"
"What do you mean "so"?" Ashnigh blushed. "I think that he likes me! Could you believe that? Lai and me together?"
"I don't really care," Adrian shrugged, returning to her book.
"We've been friends for so long," Ashnigh sighed, putting another piece of chocolate into her mouth and chewing slowly. "It would be really weird if we got together. And anyway, he's going to be a summoner, so he probably doesn't want a girlfriend." Ashnigh paused and blinked a few times. "Or…or what if…or what if he likes someone else! There's Uho, and-and Miki and, and, and no, he wouldn't like Wara, would he?"
"What are you rambling about?" Adrian asked, raising an eyebrow. "Why don't you ask him if he has a girlfriend?"
"Then he'll totally know!"
"Know what?"
"Know that I like-" Ashnigh put her hand to her mouth, knowing she'd said too much. Adrian's smirk grew wide as she turned around to face her friend. "Don't look at me that way Adrian."
"Look at you what way?" Adrian asked, trying to hold in a laugh.
"That way!" Ashnigh laughed, chucking a pillow at Adrian. Adrian grabbed the pillow and chucked it back at Ashnigh. Ashnigh snatched the pillow, then another, and soon the two were engaged in a full out pillow fight.
"That was so immature." Adrian rolled her eyes. "Of course, I was eleven years old."
"I thought that would be your reaction to that story," Ashnigh said, shaking her head back and forth. "You never liked to have any fun."
"Fun gets in the way," Adrian sighed, standing up. "Ashnigh, enough trips down memory lane, I have something to ask you."
"You're going to ask me about Lairon, aren't you?" Ashnigh sighed, standing up next to Adrian and looking down at her shoes. "Adrian, it was just a kiss."
"But you enjoyed it, didn't you?" Adrian asked and Ashnigh blushed, refusing to look Adrian in the eye. "Ashnigh, you know how I feel about men, love, and kissing. All are horribly pointless. But, I was never like you. You are a kind and gentle person who seems to have been made to love someone."
"I'm just not sure," Ashnigh shook her head.
"Did you enjoy being with Lairon?" Adrian asked and Ashnigh nodded. "Then I think that it be best that you be with him."
"B-but Lai…"
"Lai wouldn't want you to remain his forever," Adrian shook her head. "Chained to an invisible rock."
"I'll think about it," Ashnigh assured Adrian.
"I still don't approve," Adrian told Ashnigh. "Even if it's for the best. I don't want to see you get hurt again."
"Thanks Adrian," Ashnigh smiled and gave Adrian a hug, much to her dismay.
"No touchie!" Adrian slid back, her eyes wide and her eyebrows arched. "Thanks for the talk, I'm going to see how the others are doing."
The End of the chapter! Don't forget to review AND vote!
Anyway! Stay tuned folks, cause it's going to get EVEN hairier from here!
Next Chapter: Black Wings Part II
And now, for something never seen in SOW history! A…
PREVIEW!
Preview of Next Chapter:
Adrian reveals the secrets of her past through the spirits of the Farplane! What secrets do her past hold and how do they relate to the people that have passed away from her life? The guardians are about to learn more about their summoner than they ever imagined!
Next Chapter: Black Wings Part II