She reluctantly left Kalas again, and was pulled into the Interdimensional Crack.
As she went, she could feel herself growing more and more solid, and she landed on the hard blacktop parking lot with a thump. Getting up and rubbing her sore butt, she looked around. She was in the parking lot of the Rose Plaza, where she left. She checked her pockets and found that her six Magnus were gone. After a quick test, she concluded that she had her magic back and began to walk back home.
She wasn't even to her front porch yet when her mother opened the door.
"Oh my baby girl, I was so worried about you!" Gabrielle gushed as she rushed to embrace Arietta. "Where were you? What happened?"
"Mama, you're never going to believe this…" Arietta said. She sighed and called out her Wings of Heart. Her mother gasped, recognition filling her eyes.
"Ari… You'd better tell me the whole story…" Gabrielle led Arietta inside, and they sat on the couch. Arietta pulled her Wings back in and began to talk.
"Ma, remember about three and a half years ago, when they found me passed out in the book store?"
"You were comatose, I remember, I was so worried."
"Well, I wasn't in my body. I remember waking up in a place called-"
"Nekton, near Balancoire in Mira." Arietta stared at her mother.
"How'd you-?" she tried to ask.
"Who were you a Spirit for?" Gabrielle asked back, memories of her own Guarded filling her mind.
"His name is Kalas."
"You mean that boy that Georg created from a Magnus?"
"Yeah, him. But how'd you…?"
"Never mind that. Continue."
Arietta told her mother the whole story, pausing only once to get the book from her nightstand. It was a lot thicker than she remembered, and the title had changed. As she relayed the story, she flipped through the book. On the Table of Contents, she found the book was split into three parts: Origins, Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, and Guardian Wings.
Occasionally, her mother would ask about a place, or a specific person, leading Arietta to wonder just how much her mother knew.
"I met Xelha, Gibari, Lyude, Savyna, and Mizuti, and the seven of us stopped Malpercio from destroying the world. Melodia summoned him; but she was being manipulated by Eris, who we had to beat this time."
"Eris… Isn't she the Goddess of Chaos?"
"Not any more. We sealed her away in one of those pocket dimensions, the ones that you can fall into in the-"
"Trail of Souls."
"Mama, how do you know all this stuff?"
Gabrielle gave a knowing smile, and closed her eyes. There was a flash of spring green, and a pair of Wings of Heart appeared on her back. Arietta yelped and fell off the couch.
Gabrielle's Wings were a pale, creamy rose. She had two Wings on either side, much like her daughter, but they weren't membranous and jointed. They were large and feathered, and they shimmered slightly when the light hit them, turning them from creamy rose to a pale orange-rose.
She muttered a phrase, and the papers on the coffee table exploded in flames. Arietta jumped and immediately cast Sacred Spring. She looked up at her mother, who had a look of understanding on her face.
"I was a Guardian Spirit myself, about twenty-five years ago. I fell off the roof of your grandmother's house, and put myself in a coma. I was whisked off to Nekton, where I met him. He was supposedly an Imperial assassin, but he had Wings of Heart."
Arietta nodded, heart falling into her stomach, already missing Kalas.
"Who was he?" she asked finally. Gabrielle smiled.
"His name was Sagi."
---
"You need a ride to school?" Gabrielle called. She gave a warm, knowing smile when her daughter rushed past, grabbing her breakfast and her schoolbag as she ran out the door.
"No, Mama, I'm gonna fly there!" Arietta called back, already calling out her Wings of Heart.
"Alright," Gabrielle yelled out the door, "just make sure nobody sees, and come straight home after work, I have a surprise for you!"
"Alright, Ma!"
Arietta flew off in the direction of the school as fast as her Wings could take her, which was a lot faster than they could before. The joints did a lot. She landed in the back fields and called in her Wings as quickly as she could.
"Ari!"
Arietta looked around and saw Andriana flying towards her, vibrant Wings beating quickly. Andriana called in her Wings and dropped the last ten feet to the ground, meeting her friend and rushing inside. They made it to homeroom just as the bell rang.
"Ari, that was kickass what you did to Eris! And that redhead was HOT! PLEASE tell me we'll see them again!" Andriana rambled, completely ignoring the morning announcements. Arietta grinned, tuning back in just in time for the tail end of the speech.
"…and as a reminder to all Concert Choir people, there's a rehearsal today at five after school. If you're not there, you won't get to participate in the concert and you will fail the course unless you have a valid reason for not attending. Thank you, and have a wonderful day."
Arietta went through the day somewhat on auto-pilot. Several times, she caught herself trying to talk to Lyude or Gibari or even Mizuti, and staring out at the sky longingly.
'Alright, Ari, pull it together, you're here now, you're-' she cut herself off, not daring to even think the word home. She mentally slapped herself for her next thought; 'There was more home than here ever was…'
"Arietta! Could you please tell us the answer to number six on page four nineteen?"
Arietta jerked to attention. She flipped the page and glanced at the requested question. What Italian term was given to the intervals in music? She silently thanked every deity she knew of that she hung around Lyude for so long.
"The term is intermezzo, which literally means interval," she said. The teacher glowered.
"Very good, but next time, make sure your mind is with your body in class!" she snapped, turning back to the board.
The rest of the day went similarly. Even at work, her co-workers commented on how out-of-it she was. As it stood, she was creeping around ever corner, subconsciously expecting there to be a Cursed Grimoire or a Skelton Warrior waiting for her. Twice she found herself about to cast a Shining Seraph on things that startled her.
She rushed from work straight to the rehearsal. She relaxed slightly as she took her place on the highest riser on the far left, being the tallest soprano. When the music started, she completely relaxed. She was in her element; this was where she belonged, surrounded by music. After they finished the other songs, the director stood up.
"Alright, anyone who's going to audition for this solo, come down here!"
"I can't believe she's letting us sing an Evanescence song!" a girl near Arietta exclaimed.
"Yeah," her friend replied, "after Arietta sang it at the talent show, everyone loved it, so Johnson couldn't say no."
Arietta stepped down from the risers and waited for her turn to audition. She heard whispers about herself, about her getting it, hands down. She grinned and ignored them in favor of stepping up to the microphone.
"Don't say I'm out of touch…" she sang, losing herself to the melody. She closed her eyes. "With this rampant chaos—your reality… I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge… The nightmare I built my own world to escape…"
When she finished, she heard clapping in the back of the auditorium. Her eyes snapped open, and she gasped.
Kalas, Xelha, Gibari, Lyude, Savyna, and Mizuti. Granted, they were all wearing clothes from her world, but it was still them.
'But-wait-but-but-how- GAH, why can't rehearsal be over!' she thought, the only coherent thing in her jumbled-up thoughts.
'Don't worry, we can wait,' Xelha's voice echoed in her mind. Arietta jumped so badly she almost knocked over the mike-stand. Shaking her head, she hurried back up the risers. For the rest of rehearsal, she was jumpy and nervous. After what seemed like an eternity, they were released. Arietta didn't even wait for the people in front of her to leave the risers; she jumped off the back. Using every bit of her duck-and-dodge ability, she wove through the crowd of people towards her friends.
"Hey, Ari!" Gibari said as she ducked past three girls. He was wearing jeans and a Hawaiian shirt that was an eye-popping shade of orange.
"Wait, how'd- but-but-but-" Arietta sputtered. Kalas grinned.
"I think we fried her brain," he commented, earning himself a light thump on the head from Xelha. Kalas was wearing jeans and a black shirt that said 'Your village called, they want their idiot back.' Xelha was wearing a pink top and a flow-y denim skirt.
"Could we perhaps leave? These girls keep staring at me," Lyude asked. He was in a sensible button-down white shirt and gray pants. Savyna, in her green shirt and dark leggings, nodded.
"Y-yeah, let's… go to my house…" Arietta said, still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that her friends were in front of her, in the flesh.
"You be wondering how we be here, correct?" Mizuti asked. She wasn't wearing her mask, or the odd hat that she usually had. Her teal hair was getting her stares from passers-by, but she ignored them. She was even walking on the ground as opposed to floating. She was wearing a flowery sun dress that was mainly pink and orange.
"Yeah, let's start there."
"It was a collaboration between the witches of Wazn and the Children of the Earth," Savyna said.
"Yes, they opened a passage for us in Nekton so we could visit," Lyude added.
"We missed you, and we wanted to see you again," Xelha said.
"Well," Arietta said, slowly getting over her shock and grinning, "you're here now. Welcome to my home!"
