Chapter 2

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I've only seen my father, Tellah, cry twice in my life: the first time was for Edward, and the only other time was for my mother when she too passed away. (Whether or not he cried over me when I died, many years later, I cannot say; I was already dead and unable to see.)

However, he cried the hardest for my brother. But it wasn't for him or anything he had done in life. Edward was gone, and we would all miss him. Personally, I felt sure that I was going to die myself without my twin. But father's tears had nothing to do with anything Edward had done: it was for what he had done himself.

My father told me a few years later that Edward's death made him realize something that he should never have had to realize. For those seven years, he had a smart, sweet, beautiful, and painfully neglected daughter. A daughter that had been pushed unduely into a corner and largely ignored by a father who should have spent more time caring for her, teaching her, and loving her.

In short, my father was ashamed of himself. He had forgotten about me, and it took losing Edward—who died saving my life—for him to remember that I was there. It nearly destroyed him. He never forgave himself for what he had done to me, and he never realized that I had forgiven him; whether he wasn't able to wrap his head around it or if he stubornly refused to believe it, I still can't say.

Either way, my father was never the same again in many ways. For a long time, he was trapped in a stormy depression that robbed him first of his hair color and hs sight, and more progressivley of his brain. Before Edward died, my father's hair was the same color as mine, a light and youthful brunette, and he wore a pair of glasses to counter his near-sightedness. (Another unfortunate trait that also runs in the male side of the family. I fear that my little cousin Palom's sight will soon begin to fade as well.)

These two changes happened suddenly, over the course of the next couple of years. They became more and more obvious as the seasons continued to turn. However, since he continued to hold onto his grief and shame, he was slowly losing his mind to it. He became bitter, moody, and he clung to my mother and I greedily, as if we too would die at any moment.

But my family wasn't the only one affected by the terrible virus: all of Kaipo had been crippled by it, a third of our already tiny population gone. A few days after Edward's funeral, the troup who had lft for Mist returned with an enterouge of white mages and their strange magic. The Summoners were highly secretive; they spoke to few in the two days they were there, and they worked their clensing magic by night. The town was put under curfew, everyone required to be indoors while the Summoners and their powerful Eidolons worked.

Of course, daddy insisted in being there and came home furious when the Summoners told him no; tradition kept outsiders from observing.

"It's not fair!" he bellowed, kicking the wall. I had run into my room and stood listening, my ear pressed against the door, but still terrified of my father's rage. "IF they had come a few days earlier, my son would still be alive! They have no right—"

"Tellah, calm down!"

That was my mother, Samantha, the one person who could ever control my father and his temper.

"It's their ritual, their special magic, their thing; they don't have to share with anyone if they don't want to. Great mage though you be, you have no right right to force your way into their business. And besides, you're not the only one who has lost a child to the virus. Widow Morris, who lives next door, her daughter died just this morning. If only the Summoners had come a few hours earlier, Tatiana Morris would still be alive as well. Think how they feel!"

At last, humbled, my father calmed down. Staggared—Tatiana being a friend of mine—I stumbled into bed, feeling sick and alone with my brother and friend dead of the virus and my parents upset outside.

I hadn't managed to see any Summoners until the hour that they left. Completely recovered, I ran all the way to the town wall where the mysterious people were gathering to go back home.

They were strangely stunning; none of them seemed to have an outshining beauty of face about them. But they were all majestic and elegant, the sort of people that I admired and hoped to be one day when I too was a great sage. The thing that truly held one captive was that their hair was unlike anyone else's. No plain blondes, brunettes, reds and black among this crowd: lavender purple, stormy blue, snowy white on lithe, youthful women, and one—who seemed to be the leader—who's hair was mettalic silver.

A couple close to me was wraped up in a conversation while the group gathered to leave.

"Tazé, the dragon worked wonders for these people," said the man, brushing his shaggy emerald-colored hair from his eyes.

"I know," lemon-haired Tazé agreed, and then sighed despairingly. "So many children… I feel so bad for these people. I wish there was more that we could do."

"You have such a good heart, Taz. I wish there was more we could do too. And this is such a nice little place; I wuldn't mind settling down here for a while."

Tazé tilted her head to one side quizzically. "'Settle down'? What do you mean, Aldir? I thought you wanted to stay in Mist."

"I do," Aldir agreed. "I was just thinking to myself. I just don't think it's right to keep our own children cloistered in a remote little place like Mist, when there's so much more to see."

"I don't know if I want to have children anymore," Tazé admited with another sigh. "Not after all the horrible things I've seen here. But it does mean so much to us both… Oh, listen to me; we're not even married yet!" Embarassed, she began to fidle with a diamond engagement band on her left ring-finger.

Aldir took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Things will be better soon, love. This has been terrible for so many people, and they'll never forget what has happened, but people such as these won't sucome to despair. They'll be okay."

And then the silver-haired leader gave a quick command and the Summoners all began to move out. Just as they were moving away, Tazé looked up lovingly at Aldir and smiled.

"What do you think of the name Rydia for a little girl?" she asked.

Something about the two of them stuck with me for years. Aldir's words of hope inspired me, and Tazé's trust in him moved me. It was a drastically different relationship from what I knew in my own parents, and somehow it filled me with hope.

I would encounter a daughter of theirs, very briefly, many years later. But that's getting ahead of myself.

Very slowly, things began to return to normal in Kaipo, though it had a hollow sort of feeling to it. So many people had been lost, from school children to important community leaders. Aldir was right, we would manage to recover; but it was going to take a very long time.

One happy change that occurred was in my studies. Daddy had finally taken an interested in what I was doing, and avidly began teaching me. Even then, through my utter joy at his notice, it was obvious that he was trying to make up for lost time. I didn't want him to waste his time feeling like it was something he was obligated to do; it was enough tht he cared now. But what if he took it to mean that I didn't care that he was so interested now and forgot me again?

Remember, now, I was only seven.

So I kept quiet about it. Over the next several years, my father and I forged a deep and personal bond that lasted for the rest of both our lives, even beyond my death.

But by no means was it untestable.