Another Epic Collection

by Aysu

More Epic Battle Fantasy stories and ficlets, though sometimes with mature themes. Warnings inside.

13. Gaea (Rated T)

Title: Gaea (tentative)

Genre: Romance, adventure, fantasy, angst

Rating: T

Warnings: Language, complete gibberish, OoC

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"Weird place," Lance commented as he looked about the cavern. His voice echoed about the space making it seem like there were several of him speaking.

The entire chamber was cylindrical, with swirling grooves carved into the walls. Twisting stones of varying sizes spiraled in towards a single, roughly-hewn platform. A crack in the ceiling allowed a beam of sunlight to filter down, square on the platform, and dust motes danced in the light. Ferns grew at the bases of several of the stones, and vines grew out of the swirls on the walls, dangling down.

"I wonder what it was used for," Natalie curiously asked aloud after a few moments. "It's definitely man made, after all."

"A ritual chamber, maybe?" Matt suggested as he peered at one of the rocks. He ran his hand over the surface of the stone and found it to be very smooth as though it had been polished.

"Yeah, probably," Lance agreed. "You get some awesome acoustics in here."

Anna had moved further in to inspect the platform, though she glanced back with a confused expression. "Acoustics? What does that mean?"

Whatever Lance might have said was entirely driven from his mind as all of the stones in the room suddenly lit up with a soft green glow. Each of them jumped in surprise, but the lights went out as quickly as they started. The four stared at the rocks in silence for several minutes until Matt experimentally poked one with the tip of his sword. Aside from a scraping sound of metal on stone, nothing happened.

"What caused that?" the swordsman asked.

Lance shook his head and looked over at Anna, "Did you step on some kind of trigger?"

Anna peered at the dusty ground at her feet for a few moments, but ultimately shook her head. "No, just dirt and rock."

The rocks glowed again and then stopped. Natalie's eyes narrowed at that and she said, "Anna, say something."

"Something?" Anna dumbly repeated in a confused tone. She blinked in surprise when the rocks lit up again. "Huh, they're—what's it called?—voice acclimated?"

"Activated," Lance corrected with a roll of his eyes. He inwardly sighed about how ridiculously uneducated his friends could be. "I wonder why they only respond to you, though?"

"Maybe because she's near the pedestal?" Matt guessed, already moving forwards. "Come on, rocks, glow!"

But nothing happened. Natalie and Lance tried next, but with no luck. A few more attempts proved that the stones only glowed when Anna spoke, but poking around the many stones revealed no reason for why that might be. It wasn't until Anna scaled the wall to get a top-down view on the chamber that they made any progress.

"Hey, the stones are arranged in a sun!" Anna called down from where she clung to a thick vine with her feet propped on a narrow ledge.

"Fascinating. Now get down before you break your neck," Natalie called back in a droll voice with her eyes covered.

Anna rapidly slid down the wall and hit the ground in a crouch, peering up at the skylight. "Must be some kind of worship chamber for the sun. Still no reason why the stones are glowing, though."

"Maybe there's a prayer they're supposed to react to?" Lance wondered aloud as he ran his hands over the center pedestal, brushing away dust and moss. "Hey, something's written here... in another language. Damnit."

Matt was dozing against the wall, having grown bored of the mystery of the glowing rocks, and now waiting for the others to finish up. He picked his head up slightly at Lance's discovery and let out a yawn as he moved to peer down at the words.

"Natz, this is your stuff," he called in a bored voice.

Natalie trotted over and knelt to look at the writing and nodded. "Yeah, this is Old Drylish. Lots of spell books are written in it. Let's see... Sun's Birth? Must be the name of the ritual. They've got some of the words here, but they've been worn down pretty far; I can only read a few snippets here and there. I bring light to your skies and sight to your... eyes, maybe? That would make sense and rhyme."

Anna beamed brightly, "Hey, I know that one! It's one of Greenwood's historical hymns!"

"A hymn? You mean you have to sing it?" Lance asked as he glanced at the rocks again.

"Yup. Traditionally, you're supposed to make an offering of morning glories, too. Our ancestors thought that was what renewed the sun each spring."

"Well, maybe we can do that here and it'll do something?" Matt suggested. "Those are morning glories up there, right?"

Anna shrugged, "I don't think it'll do anything, but I can do the ritual if you want. Should I sing it in the traditional tongue, or modern language?"

"Do you know the whole thing in Old Drylish?" Natalie asked with a considering frown. "This place is old, so it probably won't recognize the modern tongue."

Anna nodded and soon they had a small woven circlet of morning glories sitting in the center of the chamber. Matt, Lance, and Natalie stood back and watched expectantly as Anna took a deep breath. The air seemed to hum with expectance, and once Anna began singing, the stones glowed and flashed with varying brightness, and a chiming sort of music filled the air. Anna stumbled over her words slightly in surprise at the sound, but quickly recovered. Her eyes were closed in concentration as her voice rose and fell in song, and she didn't seem to notice the wind that had risen to swirl about the chamber, tossing her hair.

Her three friends did, however, and they also noticed the eerie glowing shape suddenly standing before their friend. Matt's hand shot to grip the hilt of Heaven's Gate as Natalie sucked in a sharp breath. The figure had long green hair and pointed ears, and she was dressed in a flowing robe made of a soft green stitched with gold. Golden silk was woven into her hair and strange marks decorated her skin.

"An elf?" Lance muttered as he chanced a step forwards.

"Anna's gone into a trance," Natalie suddenly snapped as she darted past him.

Indeed, the ranger's eyes had opened, but they were glazed and unseeing. A certain vibrancy has vanished from her voice as she sang, causing it to lose the liltingly beautiful quality. The stones were flashing faster and faster until stopping when Natalie shook Anna by the shoulders.

The song abruptly broke off as Anna shuddered and sucked in a sharp breath like she'd had icy water dumped over her head. Her eyes snapped back into focus on Natalie's worried expression before rolling back as she collapsed. Lance barely caught her before her head connected with the stone.

"What the hell?" Matt breathed after several long moments of silence, staring at Anna.

A stranger's voice made all of them jump, and they whirled around with weapons in hand to gape at the ghost of a long-dead elf. The elf stared at them with piercing green eyes, speaking quietly, but the words were strange to Lance and Matt. Even Natalie, who had studied Old Drylish, only understood snippets and pieces.

"A... vault?" Natalie murmured in confusion. "No... a seal? And a promise? Maybe..."

In the next instant, the elf vanished into a shimmering mist that rapidly disappeared, leaving behind only a single new morning glory. Behind the three, Anna let out a low moan and her eyes fluttered open. She blinked in dazed confusion up at the circle of sunlight overhead before it was blocked by three worried faces.

"Wh-What happened?" she mumbled as she pushed herself to sit up with trembling arms.

"You summoned some kind of vision," Natalie quietly explained. Her eyes scanned the chamber with new understanding as she added even more quietly, "This chamber is a memoriam—a place where powerful mages can leave messages that last for centuries. I'd only ever heard of them before..."

"My head hurts," Anna mumbled with a palm on her forehead. "I was... singing? Right?"

"Let's take her outside," Natalie suggested, already standing up. Her eyes were uneasy as she glanced at the flower the vision had left behind. "She's too in-tune to the residual mana here right now."

Matt pulled Anna to her feet and held her steady as she stumbled from a head rush and nearly collapsed back down; she leaned on his shoulder all the way out of the cave. Soon they were seated around a small fire with a small dinner of dried meat, hard tack, and water. Anna still seemed disoriented and kept asking if she'd gone anywhere—to the immense concern of her friends.

"Maybe you should get to sleep," Natalie finally stated in a tone that made it clear she wasn't making a suggestion.

Anna opened her mouth to object, but ultimately slumped and nodded before tossing down her bedroll and crawling inside it. Within just a few moments, she was asleep.

"What's wrong with her?" Lance asked quietly.

Natalie shrugged and shook her head. "It could just be a side effect of the trance, or being snapped out of the trance, or perhaps she saw something we didn't and it's confused her. Magic and its effects are tricky; until she's a little more coherent, we can't really be sure what the problem is."

"But this won't be... permanent... right?" Matt wondered anxiously.

Natalie smiled at him reassuringly, "That's highly unlikely. Mana has a limited lifespan, so to speak, so outside of very specific circumstances, no magical effect will last longer than a week, at most." Her face shadowed slightly as she turned to look at the fire and murmured to herself, "I'm more worried about..."

"About what? That elf chick?" Lance asked.

"Yeah. Elves have been gone for centuries, right? It happened very suddenly, too—practically overnight. Yet that image spoke as if they would be collecting some kind of promised payment, like they were still around. And she was dressed as the texts all say elven sages did."

"So, what, you think the elves are coming back?" Lance scoffed. "That's ridiculous. Humans have been almost everywhere, and we've never seen any pointy-eared flower lovers."

Natalie's lips pursed, but she said nothing more about it. Instead, she moved to pull her bedroll out and suggested, "It might be best to take Anna back to Greenwood tomorrow, if she's still out of sorts."

By noon the next day, the team was crowded in Anna's house—much to Anna's disgruntlement—and making plans to get back together in a week.

"There's nothing wrong with me," Anna muttered mutinously as she endured Natalie's mother-henning to make her some tea and fluff her pillows. "You guys are blowing this way out of proportion."

"You fainted and have been acting really weird after being hit by a magical effect—we're not blowing this out of proportion," Natalie briskly refuted. "Now then, we'll see you in a few days, alright?"

"I'm not staying in this bed the entire time, you know that, right?" Anna asked with an arched brow. "In fact, as soon as you walk out of the village, I'm going hunting."

"Anna, please."

Anna rolled her eyes. "Fine, mom. I'll be good. Pinky swear."

Natalie cracked a faint smile at the sarcastic response and shook her head. "See you later, Anna."

OOOOOO

"What the hell do you mean Anna's missing?" Lance demanded furiously.

"Exactly what I said: she left early morning two days ago and never came back. She didn't even wave a goodbye or anything," Sarah snapped back with equal heat. Her eyes were bright with worry as she stared at Sky Feather in her lap. "She never leaves without her bow—never."

Matt exchanged a worried look with Lance before asking, "How was she acting before she walked off? Did she say anything odd—do something strange?"

To neither man's surprise, Sarah nodded. "She was pretty confused at times. It was almost as if she thought she should be seeing something else, or be somewhere else. Not all the time, of course, but often enough that we told her she should probably stay in bed." The younger woman looked up worriedly. "She told me she'd been hit by a spell, which was why you guys had made her stay here for bedrest. Do you know what's wrong with her?"

Lance's lips pursed and his eyes were dark. "No, but I suspect Natalie does. She's been dragging us to old libraries and places like the memoriam—the place Anna was put into a trance—and now she wanted to see Greenwood's records. C'mon, Matt, let's go get her to fess up."

Matt nodded before sparing Sarah a confident grin. "Don't worry: we'll bring Anna back."

Sarah held out Sky Feather with a wobbly smile. "Make sure you give her this when you find her. And tell her she needs to quit making all of us worry so much."

The swordsman nodded, and tucked the weapon away before waving and following Lance outside. The gunner all but stormed across the village to the building where Greenwood kept all their records and important artifacts. Inside, Natalie was bent over a low table with a number of fragile, yellowed scrolls and papers spread out before her.

"Alright, Natz, we've been patient enough. What the hell is wrong with Anna?" Lance demanded furiously. "She's wandered off, and it's been over a week, but she was still in a daze."

Natalie looked up briefly before sitting back with a long sigh and a shake of her head. She waved a tired hand at the scroll she'd been running her fingers over, and both Matt and Lance stepped around to look at it. A complicated diagram sprawled across the paper, comprised of lines and names and dates. Lance frowned and raised his eyes to the flowing title at the top.

"Families of Greenwood? You've been looking into Anna's genealogy?"

"What's a genie-pology?" Matt asked in a baffled voice. "Some kind of wish-granting apology creature?"

"Genealogy, and it's the study of family trees and lineages," Natalie corrected tiredly. She nodded to the papers she'd pulled from Greenwood's records and added, "I had my suspicions after the vision Anna summoned and the fact that she knows Old Dyrlish. Adding to that, Greenwood's customs are unique and archaic, but unarguably effective. And on top of that, Anna looked scarily similar to that elf: she has the green hair and eyes, the delicate features, and the powerful nature magic."

Matt still looked confused, but Lance's eyes lightened with understanding.

"You think Anna—maybe all of Greenwood—is descended from elves," the gunner murmured.

Natalie nodded and rubbed her hands over her face with another tired sigh. "Greenwood's records are impeccably accurate and complete, including birth and death dates, marriages and divorces, offspring and their families, prominent features and colorings; I've traced her family line back over a thousand years, and she's descended from a young man and a full-blooded female elf."

Matt frowned skeptically. "A thousand years is a long time. Why would that have any effect on Anna now? I mean, blood doesn't run that strongly."

"It wouldn't, if Greenwood weren't such a secluded culture," Natalie agreed quietly. "And a few elves wandered in and out of the village over the course of a couple hundred years, adding back into the bloodline. It's rather remarkable how pure Anna's blood could potentially be, and with little to no genetic defects from interbreeding. She has at least twenty-seven different elven ancestors, to say nothing of the ones who showed up more than once, and over three hundred half-elven ones, with the most recent one being less than two hundred years ago. It's little wonder her magic is so powerful, even though she's never trained it or focused on it."

"Well, as fascinating as Anna's remarkably pure, if disgustingly inbred, elven blood is, I don't see what it has to do with her predicament now," Lance snorted sarcastically.

Natalie's lips curled in a faint smile. "It has everything to do with it. It's why she was able to activate that memoriam, why she went into that trance, and likely why she's all out of whack now. The image she accidentally summoned was just a messenge, but I'll eat my own staff if she didn't also accidentally summon up the spirit of a dead elf, and it's been trying to possess her."

Lance's eyes widened and Matt's jaw dropped open as they both gasped, "What?"

Natalie nodded and pulled a musty tome over and opened it up to where she'd marked a page. "Greenwood has this interesting legend about the second coming of powerful magical creatures with flowing green hair and pointed ears—the ideal progenitors of their village. Sound a lot like elves, don't they? And when I had us visit those old ruins this past week, I was tracking residual mana, and I found that at one point, a long, long time ago, there was a mass displacement spell used. I don't have any accurate readings, of course, because I only used my own senses, but every single place seemed to have a similar dating on the spell—a similar amount of time passed since it was used."

Matt looked more and more lost by the second, but Lance nodded with understanding.

"You're saying the elves jumped ship on this plane of existence using a mass spell, but they wanted to come back some day."

"Exactly! But it can't have been complete, or there wouldn't have been more elves in Greenwood's lineage," Natalie agreed with a hint of scholarly excitement. "I suspect that the spell only hit the largest settlements, and any elves not present when it was cast were left behind. They may have wandered, looking for their kin, and found Greenwood and settled there instead. And mass spell aside, dozens of scholars agree that elves were exceptionally good with magic, and that the elven sages were highly in-tune with the world's mana, to the point of being perfectly clairvoyant. They could easily have looked ahead to a point in time where someone with enough elven blood and mana could let them back through—someone like Anna."

"So, basically, some elf ghost is controlling Anna to make her open some kind of portal to Fairy Elf Land, to let a bunch of elves back into this world," Matt summed up slowly.

"Well, that's putting it very... simply... but yes," Natalie agreed with a grin.

"What will opening this portal do to Anna? Should we stop her?" Lance asked quietly.

Natalie's lips pursed before she shrugged and stood up. "If it's already been seen by the elves as going to happen, then we may not be able to stop her. As for what it will do it her... That depends on the kind of portal they need opened, and what the cost is to open it. We should definitely catch up to her, and hold her... and her ghostly hitchhiker... back from doing anything stupid or rash until we know for sure she'll make it through okay."

OOOOOO

Anna stood in the solitary beam of sunlight, her back to her friends entering, and one hand on the withered trunk. All around the chamber was bare of living plants of any kind, apart from a series of small patches of wilting flowers leading up to and surrounding where the ranger stood motionless.

Matt broke the tense silence, "We finally caught up to you."

Anna didn't turn, though her head tilted up slightly as her fingers trailed up the cracked bark of the tree. The three behind her exchanged uneasy glances at her silence, each considering that perhaps she'd been fully possessed. The ranger stepped part of the way around the tree, her hand grazing the bark. Beneath her feet, patches of flowers blossomed from dry, dead earth, only to wither shortly after she stepped away.

"Anna, or someone else?" Natalie asked quietly, a hint of a challenge on her voice.

"Ae El'estrya... Dryl vaen etrentira," Anna murmured, her voice echoing softly.

"Not Anna, then," Lance noted uneasily. "What'd she say?"

"A life tree. She's surprised one still stands after so long of the elves being gone," Natalie replied in a low voice.

Anna finally turned her head to regard the three with a hint of interest in her otherwise expressionless face. Deep emerald green eyes glinted with a new ring of gold around the pupils, and a strange light filled them. All three shivered at the inhuman stare from such a familiar face. It was as if Anna had had her existence replaced with a creature so ageless it had seen eternity and no longer found life enthralling.

"You understand Ae Drylia well, for a human," the being mused. Her eyes scanned along Natalie's form, seeming to see straight through her to her deepest secrets. "Perhaps not so unusual. Mages are known for pursuing scholarly interests, and they do adore chasing the secrets of the elves... no matter the cost."

"What do you plan to do with Anna?" Natalie demanded, ignoring the warning in the being's words. "Will opening the portal hurt her?"

Anna's shoulders shrugged with lazy disinterest. "Perhaps. Mortal flesh has never withstood divine mana very well. But she has a certain affinity for life that has made controlling her more difficult than expected, and it may spare her in the end. It matters little. I will be opening the portal regardless."

"Not good enough," Matt shot back. His grip tightened on the hilt of his sword. "We want a guarantee of her safe and healthy return."

Anna turned fully to regard him with visible contempt. "You cannot scare me with displays of might, boy. I was ancient when your goddess first formed on this world, and I do not toy with my enemies as she might."

Lance stepped up beside Matt. "Good. We don't toy with ours, either."

"Guys, slow down," Natalie warned softly. She raised her voice and said, "Elves came after Godcat's appearance. Are you a precursor to elves?"

Laughter filled the air at the question, sounding at once lighthearted and cruel. "Elves? No, I far predate elves. You know what I am, even if your kind no longer knows me. You stand on my skin and you reap my gifts. By my graces, your lands remain fertile and your beasts plump. I offer bounties of birth and life, and I bear the seeds of your futures."

"Can we just skip to a name?" Lance snorted impatiently. "I don't much care for fancy descriptions of supposed boons."

Anna's eyes flashed as she tilted her head and her eyes shifted to him with cold calculation. "Lancelot, fourth son of House Tenebris. You specialize in military grade weaponry, tactical missiles, high velocity projectiles, lightning, fire, and dark magicks. You spent your youngest years trying to prove yourself just as valuable as your far more successful older siblings, only to end up conquered in a far distant land by people with far inferior technology. Even now, you fear you are not good enough, do you not? Perhaps one day your friends will turn from you just as your family did, leaving you behind to gather the pieces and wander to a new life."

Lance violently flinched at every point the being laid out, his face going pale. "I- I've never- How did you...?"

Natalie stepped between him and Anna. "Don't listen to her. She's trying to break your focus, make you vulnerable to self-doubt." Her eyes held emerald-ringed gold, and she murmured, "You're Ae'Ethrall Gaea, the eternal spirit of the earth, aren't you."

"Mm, and you are Natalie, the last of a bloodline of shrine maidens from the far south whose blood can be traced to the first elves. Smuggled away as a girl during the last purge and delivered to the Circle. What would your family- your friends say if they knew the mutations you've embraced for your magic? It wasn't enough to lose the parts that make you fundamentally human, hm? How sad, to know your bloodline ends with you."

Natalie's mouth tightened, but her eyes didn't waver. "She's an ancient deity, encompassing worships for fertility, longevity, memory, life, and death. Anything any natural object in the world has ever known, she'll know, too: animals, people, plants... even the rocks and earth can serve as her eyes and ears."

Matt rolled his shoulders and settled into a stance. "So she knows all of our tactics, all of our strategies, all of our strengths, and all of our weaknesses." His eyes narrowed as the goddesses eyes settled on him, and he cut her off with a snort. "Yeah, yeah, I'm the bastard son of a whore, spent ten years as a prostitute, always worried about that one mistake that will kill my new family, blah, blah, blah. I'm not impressed, just so you know."

Anna's lips curled in a smile. "Ah, a man with balls, if not a brain. But you are not a man, are you?" That caused Matt to still, and her smile widened as she amended, "Not entirely, at the very least. The blood of dragons runs thick in your veins."

Matt's jaw dropped before he snapped it shut as he pushed the problem aside to handle later as he smirked. "Well, that explains the addiction to gold, I suppose. So are we doing this, or what?"

Anna's expression flickered before creasing with displeasure as she turned away. "...No. I do not hurt those who have served me. Besides, my time manifested is too short to be wasted on worms such as you."

Natalie's eyes narrowed. "Anna," she snapped firmly. The goddess stiffened, and the mage risked a step forwards. "You're still the primary force over your body. Fight her."

OOOOOO

Lance's eyes drifted to where Anna sat staring at nothing, her gaze shattered. A twinge ran through him at the sight before he took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. "I'll stay with her. It's... it's my fault she's like this, anyway."

Natalie's voice was stern as she crossed her arms, "What happened isn't your fault, Lance. Gaia even said as much before she left."

"Regardless, Anna needs a watcher, and since you're going to be looking into unlocking mana spouts with Matt, then it only makes sense for me to stay behind."

"Matt doesn't have to be with me: the spouts are in holy temples, after all—hardly giant monster dens."

Lance let out a faint snort. "If you think Matt is going to let you traipse around the world with no protection, then you're delusional."

Natalie's eyes glanced at where Matt was gathering branches a short distance away, out of earshot and visibly upset. "He has a slightly... obsessed... if misguided urge to see to my safety," Natalie agreed evenly. She watched the swordsman for a few more moments with wistful longing before shaking her head. "But regardless, he'd be a better fit for staying with Anna."

"What, am I not good enough? You think I'll get bored and leave her on her own?" Lance asked bitterly.

"No, I think you'll hate being stuck in Greenwood for months on end," Natalie corrected sharply. Her voice softened some as she brought her gaze back to Lance. "I know you look after all of us, Lance, but you shouldn't do things that will make you miserable in the process. I promise we're not going to be offended, or chase you off, or whatever else, by you having different tastes in what's cool and fun than the rest of us. If it hasn't happened for six years, then it likely isn't going to happen, ever—not without some kind of drastic negative action on your part."

Lance winced, having almost forgotten that the others now knew his deepest insecurities, and his eyes dropped to his lap. "I have to do this for her, Natz. Even if it really isn't my fault she's... broken... I need to prove to myself that I can fix things... even if just once in my life. And it is my fault. Gaia could have merely cracked Anna, but instead she destroyed her, because I went out of my way to infuriate her."

"I think Anna was doomed to this fate and worse the moment Gaia first entered her."

Matt's voice had them both looking up to see him standing not far away with a bundle of branches in his arms, watching them with a serious and somber gaze that was very unlike him. He set his load down and began arranging the branches to burn for a long time.

"I don't think mortal minds were ever meant to see and understand as much as Anna did when she was possessed," he went on quietly while tucking dead grass between the branches to serve as kindling. "We saw the start of it, when Anna was just confused. We thought that maybe she was seeing just two different lifetimes—her own, and an ancient elf's—but now I wonder if maybe she was already seeing much, much more. How can anyone ever comprehend seeing every past death, every past war, every past act of suffering and cruelty, without snapping? Even seeing nothing but countless acts of kindness and good would drive a person mad."

OOOOOO

It was probably a good thing Anna wasn't really aware, Lance mused bitterly: the whispers and stares from the villagers would set her on edge, drive her into the woods. She'd always hated being the center of attention. His grip on her wrist tightened minutely as he picked up their pace while shooting dark looks at anyone who so much as glanced at them funny. Thankfully, the village was small, and quiet forest surrounded it on all sides; it was easy to escape the discomfort of interacting.

"No wonder you like forests and jungles so much," Lance told Anna as guided her around the tangled roots at the base of an ancient oak. "It's a lot easier to disappear and not have anyone bother you in a forest than in a city, that's for sure."

Anna, as always, said nothing. Lance swallowed his sorrow and kept on the invisible path.

"We're almost there. I found a nice quiet spot by a stream that I thought you'd probably like," he went on quietly. A tight laugh half formed in his throat as he added, "Of course, you've probably already seen it, but still..."

Twenty minutes later saw them sitting on a flat rock dappled with sunlight beside a place where water chuckled across the rocks. Anna perched on the edge of the rock, blankly staring down at the water, somehow both lifeless and confused at the same time. An ignored helping of peeled and sliced apples sat on a napkin beside her, slowly turning brown. On the other side of the apples sat Lance, silently nibbling on a piece of pear, forcing each swallow past the tightness in his throat.

"It's pretty, huh?" he asked with false cheer after several more minutes of silence.

Anna mumbled incoherently, and his shoulders slumped. A rustle in the brush brought his gaze around suspiciously only to see a small, furry animal attracted to the scent of the fruit. It had overly large ears, brown eyes, sleek tan fur with a white belly and a bushy tail with a dark stripe running down it. With no sign from Anna that she was going to eat on her own, Lance tossed a slice to the animal. The creature shied back for a moment before darting forwards to snatch up the food and rapidly devour it. When it finished, it looked up with large eyes, hoping for more.

"Well, you're disgustingly cute," Lance snorted as he tossed a second slice to it.

"What're you even supposed to be? Some kind of bunny...squirrel... fox... thing?"

The animal didn't respond—not that he'd expected it to.

"Foxhare."

Lance shot a foot in the air in shock and jerked to gape at Anna. The ranger's eyes were focused on the small animal now hiding under a patch of ferns, startled by his sudden movement. His heart raced at the acute glint of presence and actual thought in her eyes.

"...A-Anna?"

"They're omnivores: just as happy to eat small rodents as they are to eat fruit. Pretty rare, now, since..." her words trailed off as she hesitated with a confused look on her face as she looked around. "Wh-where...? I was... doing something important... gotta go... do... that..."

Lance caught her hand when she shakily stood, recognizing a lapse into a memory. It was easy to tug her back to sitting down beside him, apples knocked to the ground and forgotten. With an aching heart as she slipped back into staring, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and pulled her into a tight hug. It was impossible to know if the information about foxhares had actually been Anna's memory or someone else's, but he, perhaps childishly, decided it had been her own. He needed to believe she would recover someday.

A snuffling at his feet had him opening his eyes—when had he even shut them?—and he leaned forwards to see the foxhare had eaten the apples and was now looking for yet more food, despite the rounded belly it had. He nudged it with his toe, trying to get it to leave, but it simply jumped on his boot and clambered up his pant leg like a squirrel. With a roll of his eyes, he gave up and let the animal pilfer what remained of the small picnic.

A few hours later and he was wondering what he'd done so wrong in a previous life. Anna was silent as he led her back to Greenwood, and atop his head was a furry hitchhiker. Attempting to remove it had led to claws digging into his scalp and a protesting mewl. He stoically ignored the giggles and aww's from the villagers he passed, and shut the door to Anna's home with more force than was really necessary.

"Get off of me, you damned rat," he growled as he shook his head. "I'm not adopting you, so beat it!"

The foxhare obligingly leapt to the floor, only to ignore the open window and begin poking around the small home. With a string of unfavorable mutters, Lance let it go and turned to guide Anna to lie down. The ranger had moved unbidden and was now crouching not far from the foxhare with one hand extended. Her gaze wasn't quite right, but she clearly liked and responded to the small animal. Instantly, Lance's ire vanished, and he began planning ways to accommodate the new houseguest.

By the end of the day, he'd fashioned a bed for the animal out of an old apple crate lined with a soft blanket and padded with a worn pillow, fitted a pet door into the entryway wall, and filled a bowl with water. The foxhare opted to sleep on Anna's stomach instead, and he leaned in the doorway of the ranger's bedroom to watch the pair with baffled warmth.

"Foxhares are symbols of peace," Sarah explained the next morning as she gathered fresh lettuce from her garden. "They're native to Ashwood, but we rarely see them anymore. Hunting turned them flighty, and poaching has done awful things to their numbers. I'm surprised one followed you home at all—much less rode on your head."

"Anna likes it, so I guess it stays as long as it wants," Lance sighed. He tucked his hands into his pockets and leaned on one leg. "She actually started explaining what it was to me yesterday, and when we got home, she coaxed it out from under the table."

Sarah's face spread in a warm smile. "That's progress, I suppose. Anna's always liked small animals, despite being a hunter; foxhares are among her favorites. They're loyal creatures, and will hunt down any rodents nearby, so having one bond with her wouldn't be a bad thing."

Lance nodded before standing straight and walking off to retrieve food for breakfast. Anna was sitting up with the foxhare curled in a purring ball in her lap when he returned.

OOOOOO

Lance let out a silent sigh as he carefully rested Anna's shaking body against his side and wrapped an arm securely around her. Close contact was about all that helped her in moments where some awful image plagued her mind—that, and music helped. Unfortunately, it was the middle of the night, so he couldn't dart off to get Sarah to come play the flute for Anna to calm her, and he'd never been skilled with instruments. But Anna's shaking was getting worse and becoming coupled with tiny whimpers that broke his heart to hear.

With a deep breath and a light clearing of his throat, Lance opened his mouth and began to sing a low, wavering song. The words were foreign to Anna's ears, and, likely, anyone else who might have listened in, but they rolled smoothly off his tongue. It felt strange to use the language of his birth, and the accent he'd worked so hard to hide curled along the words, but it wasn't too bad by his estimation. The song wasn't necessarily a happy one, but more of a wistful nostalgic one. Regardless, it did its job, and Anna's shaking died down.

Lance finished the verse before falling silent with Anna resting peacefully against his shoulder. Her eyes were closed, her breathing even and slow, and he let out a long sigh before carefully shifting from underneath her to lay her down. Once she was comfortably settled with a blanket up to her chin, he stood back and simply looked at her.

It was only in that moment, five weeks after taking on caring for her almost entirely alone, that he realized what Natalie had been worried of on his behalf. It hurt more and more every day to see Anna like this and know he was at least somewhat responsible. Oh, he could blame Gaia for possessing her, he could blame fate for setting her on this course, he could blame Anna herself for being so vulnerable, but he didn't blame any of those things. They were too abstract, too intangible, to be a focus for his blame and his sorrow. But his failings and shortcomings in saving her, his inability to trigger any kind of progress in her recovery, his struggles to do the things around her village and home that he was certain she'd been able to do with ease? There was a target for those: himself.

"Natalie was right," he mumbled to himself as he sank into the chair beside Anna's bed and buried his face in his hands. "I must be some kind of masochist to have wanted to be here and to still want to be here."

But he couldn't leave Anna now. There had to be something of her still in there, somewhere. She reacted to certain things—familiar things. Music, the tastes of her favorite foods, the feel of a bow in her hands: each of those things triggered responses from her, but none of them were enough to get her to return to sanity, to get her to look less like a shattered shell of a human being. A stillness here and a motion there couldn't be all that remained of his friend and her passions.

Singing to Anna became a normal part of Lance's nights. It was something he'd latched onto that he could do for her that helped. Beyond that, he threw himself into learning Greenwood's customs and chores. These were Anna's people: perhaps by becoming as close to being one of them as he could, he would find the key to bringing Anna back, or at least enough of her that she could really live again.

To his relief, none of the villagers questioned too far into his sudden interest in how they hunted, or his offers to help with planting, or lessons in how to select trees to fall and chop up for fire wood and building. They showed him the near-invisible signs of a prey's passing, how to lay snares, and efficiently skin kills for the pelts; how deep to plant different seeds, and identify sprouts versus weeds; how to weave baskets, blankets, and carpets; the differences in plants used for dyes, and those used for eating and healing. Anna was always a nearby sight wherever Lance was in the village, only separate from him when he joined hunts every third day.

Rumors began to circulate about what his relationship had been with Anna that he'd become so dedicated to her recovery and to filling her shoes in the village. Had they been lovers? Had Anna absconded with him? Was he planning on becoming a member of Greenwood? When asked, Lance would snort and deny the claims, stating that Anna had a freaky relationship with her bow, and that it only had room for one, before changing topics to a new skill to learn.

"So you don't love her, but you live with her, care for her, and have a one track mind for her health," Sarah summed up sarcastically one afternoon as she and Lance sat in the shade of the younger woman's house, shelling beans for storage. "I'm starting to think maybe you have no idea what love is, if you think what you're doing isn't a display of love."

Lance grunted noncommittally.

"I mean, you've never been one to care about this culture before. Sure, maybe you could explain it away as wanting to make it up to Anna for not saving her in time, but-"

Lance's hand tightened on his shelling knife before he dropped it with a swear when he slipped and the blade cut into his palm. With a frustrated growl, he dug a bandage from his adventure pouch and roughly tied it around his hand to staunch the flow of blood, using his other hand and his teeth. The white bandage rapidly stained red, but Lance only stared at it with dull eyes and tears in the corners.

Sarah tsked and stood up to vanish inside her house for her flute, returning to heal the wound. Lance didn't move at all from where she'd left him, nor after she healed his hand and unwrapped the wound. With a shake of her head, the young woman clasped his now-healed hand in both of her own and ducked down to meet his eyes.

"She doesn't blame you," Sarah stated firmly. "She doesn't blame you, and nor does anyone else in the village. So quit punishing yourself, alright?"

"You should blame me," Lance whispered bitterly. His eyes drifted to where Anna had been left leaning against a tree, her legs tucked under her, and her eyes fixed on the grass. "I killed her."

Sarah slapped him across the face, and he actually recoiled before gaping at her with a stinging mark on his cheek. The woman's pale green eyes sparked with frustration as she snapped, "Did you possess Anna? Well?"

"No, but-"

"Did you slam her into a wall to make her go silly in the head?"

"No, and that isn't even what-"

Sarah swept on, cutting off his every protest, "How about holding her mind hostage? Are you doing that?"

"Of course not! What I meant was-"

"I know what you meant, Lance, and I'm telling you you're wrong," Sarah cut in sharply. "What happened is tragic, and Anna may never recover from it, but you had no control over what happened to her. And if you want her to get better, or at the very least honor her memory, then you need to quit moping about and blaming yourself for events beyond your control. And you need to quit acting like all hope is already lost for her. Matt and Natalie are doing their damnedest to help Anna, and you are too, in your own way. So buck up and quit sulking. You look pathetic while you do it, anyway."

Lance stared at Sarah in shocked silence for a long time, just until she started fidgeting uncomfortably and he pulled his gaze away and to his lap. Her argument had been a little all over the place, and far more bullheaded than he'd ever seen of her, but he felt a tiny voice pipe up to say she had a point. Anna wasn't six feet under, yet, so why was he already giving up? Matt and Natalie hadn't, after all. Somewhere, probably across the ocean, they were working diligently to open the paths required to allow elves back into the world, and with the elves, hopefully also highly-skilled healers.

"...You're right, I am being pathetic."

Sarah smiled brightly, not needing to hear him say he would try harder to know he was planning to. "Good. Now let's finish this so you can head on over to Jeff's for your woodworking lessons." At his incredulous glance, she smiled wider and tilted her head, "You didn't think you could just abruptly drop all the tasks you've taken over, did you? Besides, some light distractions will do you some good. Something tells me you're prone to brooding."

That evening, as he plucked splinters from his hands, Maple crept inside for the first time in weeks. Lance smiled at the foxhare and moved to set out some leftover bread, meat, and fruit for it. It seemed fitting that the creature had returned as soon as he'd gotten his head back on straight.

OOOOOO

There were good days.

Good days entailed Anna actually holding some short conversations before her shattered mental state crept back in, breaking up discussions and convincing her she was someplace else entirely. She seemed almost normal during those times, and it was clear she cherished them nearly as much as Lance did. They were entirely inseparable when she was lucid, typically joined by Maple the foxhare riding one of their shoulders or darting around their feet.

Anna would show Lance all her little tricks for baking and carving, eager to teach him and to share a part of her life she'd never shared with her friends before. In turn, every time she returned to herself, Lance would regale her with anecdotes of his struggles to understand and become a member of her village. Little wooden carvings decorated her home, steadily becoming more and more like the models he was trying to fashion them after, rather than the strange lumps of wood he vehemently swore were birds.

It was still so weird to Anna, to see Lance carrying a bow around sometimes instead of his gunblade, or to see him bent over a field with a hoe—even after months of seeing him like that. He weathered her teasing with surprising grace, clearly too relieved to have her somewhat back to normal to be upset by the prodding. Sometimes, she'd laugh at something he'd say or do, and he'd freeze and just gape at her, like he was stunned by the noise; it hurt when she finally realized that he half believed he was dreaming her talking to him.

Neither one of them spoke of the inevitable slip back into madness that would soon come—not until late in the evenings when Anna could feel the memories that weren't really her own begin to creep back in, no matter how hard she tried to block them out. Lance would be subdued as she asked him to repeat whatever it was she'd missed when her vision faded into ancient battles and distant lands with unfamiliar people—people she'd never met, but knew the names and lives of. Sometimes, he'd ask her to repeat herself, quietly mentioning that she'd slipped into some foreign language, and spoken words she couldn't remember, much less repeat, when she was herself.

Every time she began to become lost, she'd fall all but silent, simply watching Lance with a desperate fear, always wondering if maybe this would be the last time she actually saw and spoke with him. What if she never surfaced from the madness this time? The bouts of insanity came and went at irregular intervals and for irregular lengths of time, sometimes lasting hours, and sometimes stretching on for weeks, while the lucidity only ever lasted for two days at a time, at most.

The fear would make her cry, and Lance would choke up as he promised he'd still be there, and she would definitely see him again. He'd joke about how she'd better not say his next basket looked more like a squirrel's nest, or that he'd have a perfect animal carved. Neither of those things had happened, yet, but he was certainly improving. Anna began to dread the hugs he offered at those times—hugs meant to comfort her when they both knew her time was almost up. Yet despite what they symbolized for her sanity, they were so warm and gentle that she craved them. Her last thought was usually that she wished he'd hug her more when she could properly enjoy it.

Those were good days: days where she could actually be herself and enjoy life, if only for a brief time.

And then, there were bad days.

Some days, she'd cry nonstop for hours on end, and even singing couldn't soothe her; Lance usually resorted to drugging her, to hopefully offer her some dreamless sleep to escape the agonizing thoughts. Other days, she was as still and silent as the grave, and even Maple purring in her lap triggered no response. The foxhare usually vanished shortly after those periods began—like she knew the woman wasn't really the ranger she'd bonded to.

The worst days for Lance, were the days when Anna became someone else. Sometimes she spoke languages he'd never heard before, sometimes she spoke her native tongue, and sometimes she spoke his own native tongue. No matter what language, she had the wrong memories, and the wrong personality. It could be hard to convince her to stay inside those days, for fear of her getting hurt if she got out into Ashwood. Sometimes, she even attacked him, and he had no choice but to subdue her by force before she figured out how to work her mana.

Sarah only questioned the bruises he'd brought her to heal once, and had promised she understood. Each time, she comforted his guilt for having to attack his own friend to keep her safe; eventually, she began tutoring him in how to use healing magic so that he could assuage his own guilt by healing the marks he unwillingly made. Sarah, Lance had discovered, was some sort of benevolent goddess in disguise as an opinionated, if somewhat lazy, young woman. He inwardly thought he'd be rather smitten with her, if she weren't nearly seven years younger than him, and if Anna being in such bad shape weren't the catalyst for their interactions. As it was, however, she was an amazing friend, and he could see why Anna thought so highly of her.

Luckily for both Lance and Anna, it had been a good day when a sharp knock came to the door. Anna gestured for Lance to stay sitting and fletching arrows, and moved to answer the door. Still, the gunner leaned over to see who had come calling, and his eyes widened at the sight of Matt and Natalie.

Both the visitors were too busy staring at Anna with dropped jaws to say hello, and Anna was too busy opening and closing her mouth in a sudden loss of words to welcome them inside.

"A-Anna?" Matt finally gasped. "You're... better?"

Lance set his tools aside and stood up when the silence stretched on for a little too long. He nodded a greeting to his other friends as he rested a hand on Anna's shoulder. "No, not really. She has her good days and her bad days," he admitted bluntly. He squeezed Anna's shoulder reassuringly when she flinched, and added, "Today would be a good day. Come on in."

Natalie and Matt shuffled past the other two and toed their boots off, looking around the ranger's house to try and keep from staring at her. Anna, in turn, fled to the kitchen to hide for a little while under the guise of getting refreshments. As she sliced fruits and poured water, she listened in on the quiet conversation going on in the other room.

"I'm floored, Lance," Natalie murmured. "I never thought she'd be lucid again—not even for brief periods of time. When did it start?"

"About three months ago," Lance replied just as quietly. "She's fine for a day or two, but the madness always comes back."

Anna flinched in the kitchen, and quietly set her knife aside. It hurt to hear the truth out loud.

"And how have you been holding up?" Matt asked in a serious tone. "We tried to send word about what's been going on, but I'll guess you never received it. Natz isn't so great at teleportation or scrying magic, yet."

"Better now than this time last year," Lance snorted. "I've got a better support network here now, so it's not as bad... handling things. Sarah's been a huge help. I probably couldn't be doing this without her."

Anna had just been about to lift the tray to rejoin the others, but her grip faltered and she let her hands drop back to her sides at Lance's words. It hadn't occurred to her that she'd been an immense burden on him—likely on the entire village. Granted, she'd known he had to have been caring for her, but his tone made it sound like things had been more difficult than he'd ever let on. She wondered why he'd never mentioned it to her.

"Hm... We'll get the details later, I guess," Natalie sighed, clearly picking up what Anna was: that things had actually been worse than they seemed. "Is Anna hunting again?"

Lance let out a bark of laughter, and Anna assumed Natalie must have gestured at the arrows he was making.

"No, these are actually mine. Greenwood doesn't like me using a gun on the game—worried about lead poisoning, I think, plus it's against their culture to hunt with objects not fashioned from stuff found in nature. I've got a long bow in the other room, but I can't summon arrows like the villagers can, so I have to carry my own. Anna's been teaching me how to do make arrows myself so I can stop pestering James for them."

"Never thought you'd take up a bow," Matt laughed.

"Mm," Lance hummed noncommittally before he raised his voice. "Anna? You okay in there?"

"Y-Yes! I've just gotta..." Anna trailed off as her eyes darted about for some excuse for why she hadn't returned, yet. "...I'm just washing the cutting board and knife."

Familiar footsteps had her shoulders tensing, and sure enough, Lance appeared in her peripheral. She refused to look up at his worried eyes.

"Why don't you go talk with the others? I'll take care of this," Lance suggested after a few moments. He caught her hand when she turned to grab the tray of food, and lowered his voice so that only she would hear. "They aren't going to be upset with you, you know that, right? They know what's up, so don't worry if you start lapsing. I'll be right in, alright?"

Anna swallowed against the lump in her throat at the reminder, and bit back her questions of whether he was upset with her. Instead, she ducked her head a little and picked up the snacks and stepped out to face her friends.

Matt and Natalie both looked up at her entrance and smiled widely. She tried for a shaky grin back as she set the food down, and hoped they wouldn't comment on the trembling in her hands. Matt immediately reached for the food, followed closely by Natalie, though the mage held Anna's eyes for a brief moment, silently asking some question Anna didn't understand.

"Greenwoof 'as fe besf fruifh," Matt mumbled contently around a mouthful of pear.

The familiar sight of Natalie scolding him for talking with his mouth full helped ease Anna's nerves some. "Lance told me you've been traveling to distant temples?" she mentioned uncertainly.

"We have three more to hit, but our next ship doesn't leave until next week," Natalie explained. She shrugged with a smile as she admitted, "We figured we'd stay in Greenwood, see how you and Lance have been doing. We... didn't expect you'd actually be able to talk with us, though."

Anna's eyes dropped. "Sorry."

"What are you apologizing for?" Matt demanded, though with a grin. He nodded confidently and popped a slice of apple in his mouth before he added, "It's a great thing to have you getting better. I'm sure you'll be perfectly back to normal in no time at all!"

"I hope so. I'd like to stop worrying Lance so much," Anna whispered.

"Don't worry about me, just focus on healing," Lance gently chided as he tossed himself to sit down beside her. "I'm doing just fine, alright?"

Anna didn't reply. The four sat in uncomfortable silence for a few moments before Matt began talking about the temples he and Natalie had visited, the prayers they'd performed, and the adventures they'd had on the road. Lance talked about the things he'd been learning and doing in the village, and the things Anna had been teaching him. At some point, Maple slipped inside and made a beeline straight for Anna's lap, and Anna relaxed significantly as she began running her fingers through the animal's soft brown fur.

It was hard to hear about all the new things her friends were learning and doing while she'd been stagnating on the brinks of madness—progress for her was getting back to where she used to be. For a few moments, her breath caught as the warm light of her living room faded and she found herself on the wall of a windswept castle.

"...What is that?" Natalie suddenly asked, breaking the vision, and causing Anna to look up in surprise when she realized she was being addressed.

For a few moments, the ranger simply gaped at her friend, and in the corner of her vision, she saw Lance's eyes softened in understanding. She wanted to be angry at how unfair it was that all of her closest friends were here, and she couldn't even keep her mind in one piece for more than an hour.

"That's Maple," Lance finally answered for her. "She's a-"

"Foxhare," Anna blurted out. She flushed at the stares Matt and Natalie turned on her, and stumbled on. "A foxhare. They're a kind of canid that lives in Ashwood. We, um, used to keep them as pets, but then poachers killed and trapped so many of them that they turned really shy."

"Not this one, apparently," Matt noted with a smile as the foxhare jumped across to Lance's lap to clamber up his chest and twine around his neck while purring. "I've never seen anything get that close to Lance—much less be happy about it."

"Har, har," Lance grumbled as he tried half-heartedly to shrug Maple off. "...Stupid beast."

Anna was smiling slightly as she said, "Lance fed Maple some apples in the woods and she followed him home. Now she pops in and out as she pleases, and declares herself queen when she's around."

Maple mewled as if in agreement as she seated herself on Lance's head to begin cleaning a paw. Her throne looked resigned as he heaved a sigh.

For the next couple of days, Anna's house was crowded, but there was a fierce familiarity and joy among all of them at being reunited after so long. Even Anna quickly got over her misgivings about how much of a burden she was, and things were upbeat and cheerful, until the beginning of the next slide.

Matt and Natalie had long since fallen asleep in their bedrolls in the sitting room, but Lance sat up with Anna in her room with only the light of the moon outside to see by. Anna half-heartedly beat her forehead on Lance's chest while whimpering about how unfair it was. Why couldn't she just recover already? Clearly her brain could function part of the time, so why did she always relapse? Lance had no answers for her.

"I'm tired of this," Anna mumbled. She let out a snort as she added, "Preaching to the choir there, I suppose. At least I don't remember being crazy..."

Lance shut his eyes and rested his cheek against the crown of her head. "...No, you don't, and I'm glad for that. Don't worry, Anna, this will end someday. I mean, look at this stretch: you lasted nearly four days this time. That's almost twice as long as the last longest."

Anna turned her head to the side to stare out the window at the moon. "But I always break again... How many times can I break before I stay broken?"

"Don't talk like that," Lance bit out in a tight voice.

"But at least then I suppose you finally wouldn't have to deal with me," Anna went on in a horribly false-cheerful tone. She felt his grip tighten around her, but passed it off as revealing the truth. "You could go with Matt and Natalie when they leave, you know? It's been over a year now; I can't ask you to stay for longer than that. You have a life to live, after all."

"You must already be crazy if you think I would be happy with losing you to this madness," Lance growled. He pushed her back to grip her by the shoulders and held her eyes with his own eyes practically glowing in the dark. "I'm not leaving you behind, you hear me? You don't have to ask me to stay, because I've already decided to. So quit talking crazy when you aren't actually crazy, damnit."

Anna's eyes darkened as she met his furiously protective glare. "You never told me I've been hurting you just by being there. Why the hell are you still here if it hurts so much just to look at me?"

Lance's expression seemed to settle some as Anna posed the question he'd asked himself a hundred-thousand times, and had yet to answer. There was no logical reason for why he stayed with her. Sarah and the rest of Greenwood were more than capable of caring for Anna—especially since she had periods of lucidity that were getting longer and more frequent. He'd long since reached the conclusion that what had happened to her hadn't been his fault—not really. He really missed traveling and using his weaponry to combat powerful monsters.

So why did he stay?

It was ridiculous, but the only things he could come up with seemed inconsequential. He'd miss chewing out Maple for snatching fruit from the fruit bowl, or fresh cookies from a sheet, only to forgive the blasted creature five minutes later when she returned, looking pathetic, and with a flower in her mouth as an apology. He'd miss the smell of dew on the fields in the morning. He'd miss long hunts in the woods. He'd miss having the opportunities to create things with his own two hands—things that weren't used solely for slaughter and mayhem.

And he'd miss Anna. A lot. Yes, it hurt when she looked at him without recognizing or remembering him, and it hurt to have to take her down when she turned violent, and there was still some lingering guilt over her state. But he remembered dozens of moments when she'd placed her fingers over his own to guide him while he crafted or cooked, or when she'd praised him for a job well done, or joined him for strolls in the woods. And he adored her smiles of amusement and cheer when he messed up spectacularly, or came to show her his latest carving. Even when she wasn't really there, there were moments he enjoyed: the feeling of her resting against him so trustingly as he soothed her anxiety attacks, and the way she sometimes swayed to him singing.

Those reasons were better, but convincing enough to serve as his reasons for staying despite the agony it caused? ...Did he even really need a reason to stay by her?

It didn't matter anymore. Anna's gaze had cracked and she was lost again. Lance swallowed heavily as he guided her to lie down and tucked her in. He brushed the stray tears on her cheeks off with a tender hand and whispered that he'd see her soon as he stepped out. With a heavy sigh, he shut her door and leaned his forehead against the wood.

"She's gone again?"

Lance didn't even twitch at Natalie's voice. "Yeah, for now. Don't be surprised if she starts talking in some weird language tomorrow, or asks for people you've never heard of."

Natalie's lips pursed as she absorbed that information and took in Lance's defeated posture. "Well, I doubt you'll be sleeping any time soon, so why don't you come tell me and Matt about how things have really been?"

The gunner remained where he was for several long moments before standing straight. He silently followed Natalie to where Matt was sitting up on the couch with a glass of water in hand. It should have been a surprise that both of them were still up when he'd been fairly certain they'd fallen asleep for the night, but it wasn't. He was too tired of it all to be surprised.

"So, Lance, how are you really holding up?" Matt asked in a concerned voice as soon as they were all seated.

"Better, honestly. Sarah smacked me some time back, and basically chewed me out for sulking and blaming myself. I wasn't lying that I have a support network here, now; I've been told I might as well be one of them. Anna's still... messed up... of course, but it helps a lot that she has moments where she's more or less okay, now."

Natalie nodded, accepting his answer and honesty. "We noticed she gets... distracted, sometimes. What's that about?"

Lance shrugged and ran a tired hand over his face. "Even on good days, she'll slip a little—start seeing past events and people, sometimes ask questions like she's someone else. The difference between those times and when she has long stretches of being trapped in her head, is that she'll sometimes remember what she saw, and not what was actually happening around her. When she relapses completely, it's like she's gone comatose for all she reacts to people and things; thankfully, she also doesn't remember what she's seeing."

"How independent is she when she's relapsed?" Natalie asked with a frown.

"Enough that I don't have to change her clothes and she'll eat on her own, but only as long as she's presented with the items she needs, though the women in the village bathe her since we can't trust she won't accidentally drown herself. She typically doesn't talk, and she won't move around without being guided. There are exceptions, of course: Maple tends to spark a reaction from her, but the damn beast likes to vanish for several days when Anna slips. Other than that, she'll sometimes sway to music," Lance explained in a detached, almost clinical voice. His eyes darkened as he leaned to rest his forearms on his knees. "Then there are times where she's stuck living someone else's memories. She'll do anything from panicking, to sobbing, to attacking people. The former two can sometimes be helped with music, but more often than not, we force feed her a sleeping draught; the latter almost always requires forcibly knocking her out."

Matt and Natalie both frowned at that and the way Lance's face seemed to tighten.

"How often has that happened? Needing to knock her out by force?" Matt asked after a few moments.

"Once or twice a relapse, usually. There isn't any safer way to handle her when she gets like that. Greenwood has a lot of passive mana that's really easy to tap into, and it's all from her element—we can't risk her going bonkers with her magic."

Natalie blew out a sigh and shook her head. "I'm sorry."

Lance feigned nonchalance and shrugged. "Still, she's been improving. The relapses aren't usually so long now, while the periods of sanity are longer." He gestured at the pair seated across from him and briskly changed the topic. "Which way are you two headed now? Can't be too much longer until you head out, after all."

"Tomorrow evening, actually," Natalie agreed slowly, clearly not quite ready to leave the topic of Lance's condition watching over Anna. "We need to talk to you about that, too, though."

"We're heading east by ship from Goldenbrick," Matt explained with a serious look when Lance arched a brow. "The next temple is in Ralthis—the grand temple, we were told, is currently being cared for by House Tenebris."

Lance's eyes widened before his expression went blank. "I see."

"Any info you can give us? People to talk to or avoid, landscape, political climate, and so on?" Natalie pressed uncertainly.

"I can do you one better," Lance snorted as he heaved himself to his feet. "I'll write you guys a letter of recommendation and passage. Show it to my parents and they should supply you with whatever information or access you'll need. Assuming you catch them on a good day, of course."

Matt and Natalie exchanged a look as Lance settled down at the table and dug out a pen and a piece of parchment along with an obsidian seal and a block of wax. Soft scratching filled the air for a few minutes as Lance scrawled a lengthy message on the paper before signing the bottom. A little fire magic melted a blob of wax onto the paper that he pressed the seal into. While the wax cooled, he deftly fashioned an envelope that he tucked the letter into and sealed shut with another wax seal before handing the envelope to Matt.

"The seal alone will get you past all the guards up to the castle," Lance instructed tonelessly as Matt and Natalie inspected his seal—a dragon's gaping jaws. "Once at the castle, request an audience with Leila and Johnathan Tenebris. If they seem reluctant, tell them... tell them that Lancelot Tenebris vouches for you and owes you a debt of life, and to refuse aid means a personal slight. They may request a favor in return. It won't be something small, but it will be a doable task. Complete the task and they'll be honor-bound to provide anything within reason that you ask for: information, connections, shelter, supplies, and so on."

"Thanks, Lance," Matt murmured as he tucked the letter into his adventure pouch. "I know you'd rather not have contact with your family at all. I don't know why you don't want contact with them, but it means a lot that you'll do this for us—for Anna."

Lance shrugged again. "It's a small thing. They'll know I'm alive, but not where I am. I'd, ah, prefer to keep it that way, if at all possible."

OOOOOO

Anna woke and immediately was relieved that she was herself. It was morning, the birds were chirping outside her window, and a cool breeze was wafting the curtains. Early, she decided as she sat up and blearily peered at the grey dawn light, but not too early to be up. One hand rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she slid her legs around to stand up, already planning on getting up to tug on her robe and surprise Lance that she was back.

Then her expression fell as she remembered that he might not be there, anymore. She'd told him it would be fine if he left to join Matt and Natalie, and he hadn't had any reason not to, she recalled.

Suddenly, getting up didn't sound like such a fun idea. She wouldn't be allowed to hunt or work the fields, everyone would be too busy to talk with her, and she'd been getting a lot of overly-bright-and-obviously-fake smiles ever since she'd begun to recover. Her people were weirded out by her condition, she knew; only Lance and Sarah treated her mostly normally.

"Just Sarah, now, I suppose," Anna mumbled to herself as she laid back down, curled in a ball on her side.

The light outside her window grew progressively brighter, but she felt no urge to get up, even if just to eat. Who knew how many days had gone by this time? Was it even still summer, or had it moved to autumn? Was the harvest in, or just being begun? The door to her room opened, but she didn't roll over to greet whichever villager was supposed to be caring for her. A quiet sigh sounded and footsteps padded to the chair by her bedside followed by the soft clink of plates being set down. Silence reigned for several long minutes.

"This would be day thirty-five. When are you going to come back?" Lance asked in a tired, mournful voice. He clearly didn't see Anna stiffen, because he kept talking in that same, quietly miserable way, "I'm sorry. I do want you here, you know? And I want to be here; I didn't mean to make you think you should stay gone. Or maybe you sense me here and want me to leave, and you won't wake up until I do? I've never been able to tell how aware you actually are like this..."

Anna's eyes had gone wide and tears silently ran down the bridge of her nose. Lance had stayed for her, despite being told he could leave. He'd stayed and waited for her sanity to come back again, even when it had seemed hopeless. Thirty-five days was longer than she'd been out for quite some time.

"I'm here, Lance," she mumbled without turning around. He fell silent behind her, and she swallowed before adding, "Thanks for being here, too."

A hesitant hand on her shoulder had her holding her breath. She didn't fight the hand when Lance turned her over to try and meet her eyes, but she did look away. A soft laugh of relief had her swallowing just before she was pulled upright into a tight hug and a deep kiss.

Anna stiffened as she gaped at Lance's closed eyes barely an inch from her own. Her face flushed a beet red and her lips tingled where they touched his. What she could see of his expression was blissful, and her eyes softened slightly. Slowly, her body lost its stiffness in favor of melting into his hold and returning the kiss.

It was sudden, beyond strange, and felt a little weird to do, but she doubted that the flash of heat that ran through her was a bad thing. Yet barely two seconds after she began to hesitantly return the affection, Lance jerked back with a sharp inhale and a mortified expression. Anna had just opened her mouth to say something—though she wasn't sure what—when Lance bolted from the room, spewing a million and one overlapping excuses and apologies.

She was tempted to be amused, even as she heard her front door slam. Mostly, however, she felt embarrassed. Her first kiss, and it had been stolen, right along with her breath, by Lance, of all people. And all she could do was stare after him wide-eyed and run her tongue across her lips while her mind raced.

Had it been romantic, like her racing heart was hoping? Or had it simply been relief and happiness that had prompted him to greet her that way? The latter seemed more likely, given his reaction once his mind had caught up. Her heart and dazed smile fell somewhat at the thought. Her expression fell even more when she figured her shattered mental state was a huge detriment to anybody; if it could make Lance kiss her, then it must be an extremely stressful condition for everyone around her.

Anna abruptly shook herself, trying to shake the depressing thought. Determined to make the most of her temporary sanity, she stood up, intending to get dressed and have some of the food Lance had left for her. Then she would find Lance and tell him not worry about what had happened.

The food was easy; tracking Lance down was not. Sarah gave her an enthusiastic hug before directing her to the western fields to find Lance. Unfortunately, the gunner must have sensed her approach, because when she arrived, the three workers said he'd trotted off to help with the daily hunt. Anna thanked them with a frown before slowly heading back home to wait for him to return.

Several hours passed with her alternating between pacing and staring out the window. The sun inched across the sky with painful slowness, but Lance didn't return for lunch, or for dinner. Anna wound up falling asleep at the table, her head resting on crossed arms.

When she woke the next day, she found she had been tucked into her bed with a glass of water on her side table. Lance was nowhere to be found in the house or the village.

"Well, fine," Anna thought to herself with immense hurt.

The ranger gathered up her bow for the first time in over a year, strung it despite the protest her muscles gave, scrawled a brief note, and then slipped out her door. Sneaking past the villagers was stupidly easy for her, and she plunged into the trees of Greenwood without hesitating or looking back. Her eyes were set firmly ahead and her goal was clear. She would return to where Gaia had been summoned into her body and delve into the ancient ruins for answers. If nothing else, she would find some brief solitude away from the wary concern that was always around her.

That evening, just after midnight, Lance returned to Anna's house with tired eyes, already prepared to move her to bed and catch a few hours sleep before fleeing again. Yet instead of her sleeping in some chair or at the table, he found the house empty with just a note laying on the table. Immediately, his heart rate picked up with worry before stopping as he read Anna's brief message written in her familiar flowing scrawl.

"Lance,

Gone to the elven ruins to try and fix this, however that may work out. Feel free to leave whenever.

Anna

P.S. Don't worry about the kiss. I know it was an accident."

The note hadn't even hit the floor before Lance had left the house again. The gunner raced into the near-pitch-black forest. He tripped frequently over roots and vines, and startled many smaller monsters as he crashed through the overgrowth. All he could think was that Anna had gone to flirt with death, and he hadn't been around to stop her like he'd promised. Sarah had even warned him that morning that Anna was likely to try something impulsive if he kept avoiding her, but he hadn't listened. Embarrassment, shame, and confusion had encouraged him to avoid confronting Anna about what he felt, and now...

Now he might never see her again—not if Gaia got ahold of her again.

The crevice leading to the ruins yawned over his head, a dark and imposing fissure in the half moon light. His palms were bloody from tripping, and he'd torn his jacket in more than a few places when he'd recklessly ripped it free from brambles and thorns. His breath came in sharp rasps and sweat stuck his bangs to his forehead, but he didn't pause to recover before diving into the cave.

The memoriam was filled with an eerie half-light from the moon reflecting off the polished stones. The center pedestal was sunk into the ground, leading further into the ruins. Anna was nowhere to be seen, but another creature was.

Maple paced impatiently around the opening, tail lashing and hackles raised while a malcontent growl rumbled from her tiny chest. Lance could only guess the foxhare sensed the odd presence of the ancient ruins, and was smart enough to not enter. She was proof that Anna was inside, however, and Lance swallowed heavily.

"C'mon, girl," he muttered as he paused to let her clamber up to his shoulder. "Let's bring her home."

The tiny mew and familiar weight were a comfort Lance sorely needed as he began the descent down the steep and winding stairs. The traps were still dead, and the whispers gone, but both felt it was more of the world holding its breath than because the spirits were at rest. Still, it made their journey smooth and fast, and they came out into the massive natural altar.

And there Anna was, meditating under the massive tree. Her eyes were closed, her legs crossed, and her bow rested at her side. A soft green glow surrounded her form, and Lance tensed uneasily. Gaia had had a green aura around her, too.

"Anna?" he tried hopefully. Maple was still and silent on his shoulder.

His voice echoed a few times before fading out. Anna merely opened her eyes—eyes that were their normal emerald green. She didn't look surprised to see him at all, but nor did she look happy. He inwardly supposed it was enough that she was still her and sane.

"Come on, let's go," he tried, risking moving forwards.

"I thought you were avoiding me."

Lance winced slightly before awkwardly nodding. "I was, but now I'm not. I... shouldn't have in the first place. I'm sorry."

Anna held his gaze with a skeptical look in her own. "Why did you kiss me?"

Lance froze again, barely three feet away, sensing that this was a test of some sort. Anna was perceptive—very perceptive—and she would catch him if he tried to lie or fudge the truth. His throat moved as he swallowed before he opened his mouth to reply. No noise came out, and Anna's gaze shadowed some and she stood up.

"Why did you kiss me?" she repeated with a tiny hitch to her words.

Lance took a deep, shaking breath. "For the same reason I've stuck around for so long. I- I think I... love you, Anna," he haltingly whispered in an awkward voice.

Anna took a shuddering breath of her own as her eyes drifted to the side and her cheeks flushed. "I thought you might," she admitted in a tiny whisper. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides. "You shouldn't. You really shouldn't. I'm a mess. I'm broken. I'm nothing like you. You'll be happier with just about anyone else."

"That's probably all true, yet here I am," Lance sighed with a shrug and a self-deprecating smile. Anna didn't look amused, and he let his smile fall. "You're a mess, you're broken, and you're pretty different from me. But I don't think I'd be happier with anyone else. I just..."

His words trailed off and he let his eyes drop while he took a deep breath. Maple pressed a little closer and began purring, sensing his anxiety. Steeling his nerves, and deciding on his words, Lance brought his eyes back up.

"You asked me why I stayed, and I really thought about it. I don't have any one reason; I keep coming back to silly little instances and things that I only got from being around you. Greenwood has really grown on me. I like hunting with the village, and, to an extent, I like working the fields. I like the sight and smell of early mornings in the woods. I like learning all the crafts and skills, and I especially like when you help me with them. I like that there's a society so unique and... good... that is willing to take someone like me and shape me to be better. I like that what I've done while living there makes me more like you—a person I've admired for years. And you were the person who let me enter that world and helped me build my place there. You're the person I looked forwards to making smile, making happy. And in the end, you're the real reason I want to stay and keep learning. Seeing you smile makes me happy; being the cause of you smiling makes my heart race... and kissing you felt so right. If this isn't love, then I'll never know what is."

Anna's eyes had gone wide at his speech. He looked incredibly embarrassed, but painfully honest.

OOOOOO

"It is true that this seal belongs to our son, Lancelot," the lord agreed at great length.

Matt and Natalie braced their patience for the however that they knew was coming.

"However, we have not seen our son in well over a decade. One can only assume he has passed, and as such, you could simply have purchased his seal from a curiosity shop, or even lifted it from his corpse."

"Why in the world would we have come all the way to speak to you if we'd murdered your son?" Matt demanded impatiently. "Lance is perfectly fine and breathing, and we see him regularly. He gave us that letter so that you would help us complete our task. So help."

Natalie laid a soothing hand on Matt's arm, but looked up at the lord and lady sitting so regally before them, her expression cool. "Please excuse him. He understandably doesn't take people implying he would hurt or kill his friends very well."

"My husband was merely stating a logical possibility," Leila countered calmly. "You must agree that it is most unusual that you would bear a letter from our estranged child after nearly two decades of silence from him. You claim he is your close friend and adventure and battle companion, yet he is not here with you on your quest of upmost importance. Furthermore, you seek access to a temple well renowned for its lavish implements of worship and exquisite decorations. Surely you can see why these facts added up make us wary of believing you."

Natalie's grip tightened on Matt's arm in warning as she felt him tense at the further insult that they were lying. "Perhaps you could assign us an escort? We only need access to the inner sanctum for a brief ritual to unseal the mana flow."

The lord laughed scornfully. "Do you honestly expect us to believe that a retinue of guards could stop you should you decide you wish to plunder our holy site? We have heard of the battle prowess of Matt and Natalie even here."

Matt growled, despite Natalie's silent look warning him to calm down. "If you had just granted us access three hours ago when we first delivered the letter, we could have prayed and been on our merry way. We're not going to plunder the damn place, you have our word."

"The word of two strangers and a suspicious letter do not amount to much."

"Then how can we prove our good faith?" Natalie asked, cutting across Matt's next argument before he could make things worse.

Both Jonathan and Leila's mouths curled in decidedly sinister sneers, but Leila was the one who spoke. "Convince our son to return home. If you can achieve this, then we will grant full access to all parts of our lands—including the temple."

Natalie hesitated with a frown. "He told us that he would rather not have contact with you. We don't know why, and until very recently, we were not aware he had any surviving relatives. He's very... closed off."

"Then I am afraid our dealings have come to a close. We will cover your lodging fees for tonight, so do spend the rest of the day securing and preparing for a voyage home," Jonathan replied dismissively.

"We'll get him here," Matt blurted out. "Give us time to contact him, and we'll have him here. Then we'll have access to the shrine, right?"

"What are you doing?" Natalie hissed under her breath. "You know Lance won't-"

"Very well. A fortnight should be more than ample time."

Matt nodded and turned to go at the dismissive wave from Johnathan. Once in the reception room, Natalie rounded on him, and he brought his hands up placatingly.

"It'll be fine, Natz," Matt promised. He glanced around and lowered his voice as he turned to lead the way outside. "Lance would be furious if we gave up our chance to help Anna. And even if he isn't willing to come out here, then we have time to sneak into the temple and then sneak off the continent. Might as well loot the place for spite if that happens."

The last part was muttered too low to be heard.

OOOOOO

"They want me to come home," Lance asked flatly without any inflection. "Of all the things to ask, that's what they want."

Matt's expression looked apologetic in the misty screen of light. "I told them we'd do it, but Natz and I can just break in and out of the temple if you don't want to, or can't, come."

"No, you can't," Lance sighed with aggravation as he threw himself down beside Anna, who was listening with interest and concern. "The temple can only be entered with a blessing—a blessing only the caretakers can give. And those two are the caretakers, like it or not."

"So why not go?" Anna asked, speaking up for the first time. "I mean, it's not like you'd have to stay there. All they asked for was for you to show up, after all."

"Because I hate them, that's why. And they'll find a reason for me to stay. Did they say why they want me?"

"No, nothing."

"Are they aware that it's a two month trip and I'm caring for someone?" Lance sighed in an already resigned tone.

"We mentioned something to that extent, yeah."

"I'm not leaving Anna here," Lance warned flatly.

"I can go with you. We were talking about seeing how I'd fare going outside Greenwood, anyway," Anna suggested calmly.

"I was thinking someplace a little closer to home than across an ocean," Lance blandly muttered. He chewed on his lower lip in thought before sighing. "Tell them I'll be there as soon as the winds allow and I'm bringing a... friend, and that I'm not staying."

"We will. See you soon," Natalie agreed before severing the connection.

Lance stayed where he was for several long moments, simply staring at the wood of the table. Anna waited patiently for the impending curse and muttering. She wasn't disappointed.

"Damn old farts. They always do this. Next thing you know, I'll be accused of abandoning my country—which carries a prison sentence, at the least—and never mind that I have five older siblings. Five! I'm not needed for succession, and they have plenty of kids for arranged marriages of power. All they really want me there for is a damn power trip to prove I'll listen once in a while. Fuck them."

Anna smiled slightly at his ending. "Feeling better?"

Lance snorted. "No, but it's a start." He turned his eyes to her and smiled apologetically. "Sorry about that. Now, are you sure you want to come along? They're going to be absolutely rotten to you as soon as they find out I love you."

Anna shrugged. "So? I don't know them, and I don't care to. I don't particularly care if I'm in their good graces or not."

Lance smiled slightly. "And there's the bullheaded girl I love. C'mon, let's pack and let the others know."

OOOOOO

"No wonder you think we're a bunch of savages," Anna half-joked as she craned her head back to stare at the arch they were passing under. "Even Goldenbrick's architecture is pretty pathetic compare to this."

Lance shrugged as he glanced up at the tall buildings looming on all sides. "The capital is the culmination of over a thousand years of relatively stable rule and profitable trade. Goldenbrick is only a hundred years old by comparison, though I imagine it'll end up something like this someday."

"What's the language everyone is speaking? Can you speak it, too?" Anna asked as she turned her eyes to the many bakeries and street vendors calling out their wares.

"Ralvish, and yes. It's my birth language," Lance replied tightly as he guided Anna down a side alley he remembered using as a young teen to slip into the city proper without being noticed by the many patrols. "Stick close, this next street is always really crowded."

Anna obediently slipped her hand into his and cocked her head at the approaching drone of hundreds of voices all talking at once. Her eyes widened as they rounded the corner to the sight of a sea of people bustling about as thick as blades of grass in a field. Meekly, her shoulders hunched in a mixture of unease and shyness, and her hand tightened around Lance's. A gentle, reassuring squeeze from him helped a little as they stepped into the flood of people.

Shoulders jostled them every step of the way, but Lance kept forging a path directly through the crowd, ignoring the street vendors and beggars reaching out to them and everyone around them. A swirl of foreign voices and words occasionally intermixed with phrases she understood washed over her, and she uncomfortably likened it to when she remembered snippets and pieces of the broken memories she suffered from.

Then they were through the crowd and Lance was shouldering his way into a lodging; she just barely caught sight of a worn wooden sign depicting a nesting raven hanging over the door before she was dragged inside. It was much dimmer inside than out in the sun, and Anna balked in favor of blinking to adjust her eyes to the change in lighting. She found herself blinking at an empty dining room with several worn, round, wooden tables scattered about and a fire warming the space. A thin veil of smoke clung to the ceiling, and smelled of cooking food and some acrid stench she couldn't identify.

Lance had left her beside the door in favor of striding up to the desk and ringing a bell to summon the owner. A stooped middle-aged man came out of a back room to greet the new arrivals, and he and Lance exchanged a few quiet words before a pouch of gold changed hands and the gunner was given a key. Lance nodded his thanks and half turned to gesture for Anna to follow.

"We're in luck: Matt and Natz are here now," Lance told Anna quietly as they climbed the narrow, creaky stairs to the third floor.

"It'll be good to see them again," Anna hummed with a smile. Then she frowned thoughtfully, though Lance couldn't see it. "I wonder how they got past the language barrier?"

Lance snorted and shook his head in a mixture of exasperation and admiration. "Matt, despite his outward behavior to the contrary, is brilliant with languages, and Natalie isn't too shabby, either. I'm sure they either already knew Ralvish, or picked enough of it up from the trade language to get by."

They stopped outside a worn door halfway down the hall, and Lance raised a hand to knock. A few moments passed in silence before a latch slid back and the barrier opened to reveal Matt cautiously peering out at them. A split second later, and his face split into a smile of delighted welcome, and he stood back to let them in.

"You guys made good time," he said cheerfully once the door was closed again.

"Hey, Lance, Anna!" Natalie greeted with a smile from where she was reclined on a bed with a stack of books beside her and one open before her. "You're both looking good. I'm glad to see you're doing well, Anna."

The friendly greeting, and lack of immediate coddling, caused a tension Anna hadn't even realized had built up to fade away, and she offered a wry smile of her own. "I haven't had a relapse in weeks—my longest stretch yet. Kinda wouldn't have missed the boat ride, though."

Lance snorted at that and informed the other two, "She spent almost the entire first half with her head in a bucket, and we had clear weather the entire way. Definitely not a sea dog, though I found out she can swear like one."

"You're all heart, Lance," Anna stated dryly with a roll of her eyes. "So, any word from the lord and lady since we last spoke?"

"Other than that they're covering our lodgings, no," Matt replied as he moved to sit down on the second bed. His tone was level, but his eyes were serious as he added, "Despite that, however, we've had a couple shadows following us. I don't know if it's just to keep tabs, or if they're a threat, but we've been laying low, for the most part."

"Which is why it's great that you two are finally here," Natalie added fondly. She lowered her voice to a stage whisper, and added, "Between you and me, I think being cooped up is addling his head."

A pillow flew across the room to hit her head, and she let out a laugh as she threw it back at a pouting Matt.

---

A/N: And again, FF removed all my italics. Le sighe. A problem for another day.

I'm not dead. Still in therapy, but I think I'm making slow, steady progress. Anyway, this is another super long thingy that I really like that I work on every now and again. Obviously mostly Anna/Lance centric, though I plan to include parts with what Matt and Natalie are doing. The style changes slightly throughout it since it was written over the course of several months. Some things to know: the elvish is complete BS that I flung out that means nothing and doesn't really translate at all, the lyrics for the Hymn at the start are taken from "The Sky and the Dawn and the Sun" by the Celtic Woman, and if you want to know what a foxhare looks like, I have a bunch of doodles I've done of them on my Deviant art profile.

Oh, and for those of you that haven't seen the note on my author's page, Ch. 2, Escort, of Another Epic Collection has had an addition to the end, so if that interests you, please go read it! :3 I don't think you guys get an update notification for additions to pre-existing chapter, so I can only let you all know in less obtrusive ways. :P

Responses to Guest reviewers:

Little Follower: Thank you for the kind review and understanding of my situation. It means so much that you were willing to take the time to write an encouraging pick-me-up.

Have I ever really told you how much I enjoy reading your reviews? They're so entertaining and hit everything an author wants from a review. XD Anyway, Guardians is a mess, plot-wise, especially from an outsider standpoint with no view into what will happen in the massive time skips. :P I promise the plot is more cohesive and smooth in my head than it is here on FF. (^_^;) Some parts will remained unexplained for where they are just because people, realistically, don't noodle through their emotions and situations all the time, and especially not in the moment, and I'm not sure how to write that kind of explanation in narration as of yet. Like Natalie is depressed, and speaking from a standpoint as a depressed person, you don't question a lot of what's wrong with yourself and your views, and you certainly don't rationize and react in any healthy or reasonable manner. You recognize you're depressed, and you even take steps to try and cope with or undo the depression or forgive yourself, but it takes time, and thought, and outside help to really understand why everything is happening to you and get back to feeling good. Anyway, I went off on a tangent there. Sorry. :P

Miles: I've actually started writing more, and am filling in the two hundred year part where Natalie is dead, focused on Lance and Anna coping with the changes to the world, team, themselves, and grief, but the document is so long that my iPad lags when I type, so I had to make their part its own seperate document. XD

Jason: It's been ages since your review, and since then I have played the privately beta, and I can assure you that it's a great game and you're sure to enjoy it! :3 As for the AUs, I like to think it makes okay to make up a billion backstories for the characters. XD