Basically, I just want to say thank you to Kiomori for the review and everyone else for the hits to this story. Even knowing that people are reading this means quite a lot to me. So thanks.
And also, this chapter is fairly long, compared to the last. You have been warned.
Chapter Two
As he had been told, Yuan left as soon as he was ready. Of course, it took a while longer than he knew Mithos would have preferred, but he felt waiting a couple hours wouldn't hurt anyone. He first had to call Kratos back (which was a little embarrassing considering his abrupt goodbye) in order to try and explain some of the computer programs that would be most likely to be needed. Yuan at least left out the basics, since Kratos had taken control of the technology during the past two regeneration journeys Yuan had gone on, and the half-elf was sure his friend could turn things off and on without any assistance. However, it was pretty clear that everything else was lost on Kratos, and so Yuan ended up writing down instructions and giving those to his friend instead.
Once possible technological issues were sorted out, Yuan ended up spending an annoying amount of time looking for his wingpack. He hadn't needed it for the last eighteen years, and so it had quickly been misplaced amongst all of the cords, screens, and tools that had invaded his room. Eventually, he found it tangled up in some multi-colored wires behind one of the computers and, since it was just out of reach, found a good use for the warped screwdriver. The cube seemed like it would fall apart any day now, not too surprising since Yuan had had it since the Kharlan War, but it still worked just fine, even if it was a little touchy about giving things up from time to time.
The next half hour or so was spent with Yuan filling up the wingpack with anything he thought might come in handy. A lot of it was stuff that he personally might never need a use for but that the Chosen might need and forget. His large double-bladed sword, the Swallow, was also added to the wingpack. He found it was a lot easier to carry the bulky weapon in the small, compact cube than strapped to his back. At least with it in the wingpack he wouldn't occasionally get stuck on short doorways.
It wasn't until everything was packed and he was sure the Grand Cardinals wouldn't explode his computer system due to their ignorance that Yuan finally took the teleporter down to the Tower of Salvation. While getting out of Welgaia for a time was a nice relief, being in the tower wasn't too much better and the Seraph was quick to take his leave. He always felt like the tower was too empty. At least in Welgaia there was always Mithos and Kratos to talk to, or the continous urgent beeping of his computers or, if he was feeling especially bored, he could prod one of the few soulless angels into a conversation. But there wasn't a living thing in the tower and it was just downright creepy.
It was nighttime when Yuan stepped outside. There was no moon and some of the stars were covered by clouds, but he barely even noticed. His angelic senses more than made up for the lack of light, showing him the surrounding landscape with remarkable clarity. The tower wasn't visible anymore and he could see straight through to the mountains beyond, at least until he brought the Chosen to the temple in Flanoir.
Though he couldn't be sure due to the lack of a moon, Yuan assumed that, provided the snowy island was having kind weather, he would most likely reach Flanoir by that afternoon. Making sure the wingpack was clipped securely to his belt, the angel pulled out his pinkish-purple wings (something Mithos had made fun of until Yuan pointed out that the boy's wings were literally made of rainbows) and took off into the night.
As he predicted, he ended up landing outside of Flanoir somewhere around three o'clock. It probably would have been sooner if he hadn't almost been swept off course by some freak wind coming off the island. He'd spent some time wrestling with the wind and trying to get some headway until it had abruptly died down, and he'd almost run headlong into one of the rock spires surrounding the island. He had never really enjoyed Flanoir that much, but that experience had given him a good reason for it. At the very least, he didn't have to feel too much of the cold that was making his breath billow out in clouds.
Wrapping his cloak around himself, more in response to the idea of the wind and snow being cold than the actual temperature, Yuan trudged the remaining half a mile to the town, grumbling about the fact that Mithos had sent him here of all places. Why couldn't it have been Meltokio, or Altamira? They were both nice, warm, safe flying zones whose only dangers were the complaints of the annoyingly rich and a sunburn.
Flanoir looked quite a bit different than the last time Yuan had been there, which had been before the worlds had split. Unfortunately, neither of Tethe'alla's previous Chosens had had a chance to visit the seal on the island. But once, Flanoir had had enough colorful light displays to rival Altamira's amusement park for brightness. Now that mana was declining, they'd had to take a majority of them down and had replaced them with gaslights. The town seemed a lot darker and a little more depressing in the dim light, towered over by the imposing stone church that definitely had not been there before the separation. Most of the buildings were stone with a few wooden structures that seemed to be in need of repair.
At the very least, the people still looked the same. There was a mix between the residents, who were dressed rather lightly and moved with more of a purpose, and tourists, who looked like they were going to explode from all the layers and gawked at the buildings and the snow and basically anything their eyes fell on. Yuan got more than his fair share of wary, nervous, or suspicious glances as he entered, not that he was expecting anything else. Even if Flanoir had absolutely no problems with Desians (the followers of Cruxis figured that having a base on the snowy island was more of a hindrance than an asset), they still were rather untrusting of half-elves.
It took Yuan all of thirty seconds to determine that finding the Chosen without any assistance was impossible. After all, he had no idea what the boy looked like or where exactly he could find him, since apparently Mithos thought Flanoir small enough that he didn't need that information. Since asking around in the more tourist-centered part of town would get him nowhere, Yuan turned down a side street to the more residential areas. Immediately, people's suspicion sky-rocketed and he got more than a couple dark glares. He briefly toyed with the idea of taking his hair down completely, in order to hide the points of his ears, but dismissed it after a moment. He would only get a worse reception if it was discovered that he was lying about his race. Besides, he didn't like his hair getting in his face.
The first few attempts to find Aiden were about as far from successful as one could get. Yuan was met with snide and rather rude remarks concerning his race, as well as a few suggestions as to what he could do with his meddling, time-wasting questions. One man threatened to contact the city police force if Yuan did not remove himself from the man's lawn immediately and leave Flanoir's hard-working citizens alone. Yuan wasted no time leaving the man alone, as there wasn't a chance his questions would get answered there, but he had no intention of leaving anyone alone until he found the Chosen.
Finally, just as Yuan was about to give up and start banging on doors until Aiden appeared, he found a woman shoveling the snow from her sidewalk. She wasn't too remarkable, except for the fact that she didn't look at him with barely concealed hatred or disgust. She just seemed to be a little wary, but not much more so than anyone would be at finding a stranger standing in their yard.
"Excuse me, ma'am," Yuan said, forcing his voice into the same polite and neutral tones he'd used with everyone else, even though he wanted to just demand answers to his questions. Unfortunately, people didn't take demands very well. "Would you happen to know where I might find a boy named Aiden Norfel? I'd like to speak with him." The woman looked a little more suspicious but didn't seem ready to bite his head off. Maybe the careful phrasing he'd picked up from Kratos was actually helping.
"What do you need him for?" she asked, digging the head of the shovel into a pile of snow and leaning on the shaft. She looked Yuan over with narrowed eyes, and he resisted the urge to try and hide his ears or straighten his cape. Comments were one thing - being scrutinized was a whole different kind of uncomfortable.
"I need to speak with him concerning matters of the Church of Martel," Yuan said. There was one more moment of being scrutinized before her expression suddenly cleared, becoming much more cheerful and welcoming. Cleary, something about him had said that he was with the church and was to be trusted. Besides the fact that he was an angel, of course.
The woman smiled and pointed down the street, saying, "He's most likely at the schoolhouse, waiting for his brother and sister. But I should warn you that you won't get very far with Aiden. He's a nice enough boy, but he's made it very clear that he's not fond of Martelism. I'd watch yourself if I were you." Yuan frowned but thanked her, leaving her to her shoveling as he sought out the schoolhouse.
Most of what the woman said sounded rather troubling. When someone was described as "nice enough", there was usually something else to counter the comment. Mithos was nice enough, when he was in a good mood. Kratos was nice enough, when he wasn't being so paranoid and quiet. To say that Aiden was nice enough most likely meant that he could also be an annoyance. And then there was the fact that he was against Martelism. For once, Yuan wished Mithos would pick a Chosen who actually agreed with and understood their fake religion. Then they'd actually know about the Journey of World Regeneration and wouldn't need to have it all explained, and it wouldn't be necessary to prod them in the right direction with every step. Yuan added that to his list of reasons why Mithos should have been more patient with this journey.
The schoolhouse wasn't too difficult to find, as it was one of the larger buildings in the residential part of Flanoir. It was all one large room with a bell tower topping the roof. The yard was covered in the snow art of small children; snowmen, snow angels, snow forts with piles of snowballs, snow tunnels that were probably meant to be igloos, and snow sculptures. Parents waited around the yard for their children to be released from school, chatting amiably amongst themselves. The only person who really stood out was the one solitary teenager who stood beside the door.
The teenage boy was fairly tall for his apparent age, which was about fourteen to fifteen years old. He was dressed in the same rather thin winter-wear that all of Flanoir's actual residents preferred, and the clothing was patterned in a mixture of black and grey. Tufts of white hair stuck out from beneath his hat and glacier blue eyes were locked onto the schoolhouse door. He was the only one under twenty in the immediate vicinity, and so Yuan took a wild guess and assumed that this was Aiden.
Yuan picked his way through the artwork that littered the lawn, completely ignoring one parent who demanded to know just what business he had here. He could feel more than one set of eyes on him, and it made the hair on the back of his neck prickle, but that was also ignored. It would take more than a rude question and some staring to keep Yuan from speaking to the boy he'd been sent to collect in the first place.
"Aiden Norfel?" the angel questioned as soon as he had safely made his way to stand next to the boy. Aiden glanced briefly over his shoulder before turning his attention back to the door. Yuan took that as confirmation and plowed on, moving around so that he wasn't speaking to the teenager's back. "My name is Yuan Ka-Fai. I need to speak to you about the World Regeneration."
"I don't care," Aiden said almost before Yuan had even finished his sentence. The calm, bored way that it was said threw the angel off for a moment. "Go lecture someone else about your religion. I don't want to hear it."
Yuan frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not here to try and convert you to Martelism. There are probably enough priests to do that. I'm here to tell you that you're the one that's supposed to go on this journey." This got a notable reaction from the teenager, but it definitely wasn't what Yuan was expecting. The past two Chosens had responded with confusion, shock, or disbelief. Aiden simply looked at Yuan as if the angel had sprouted another head.
"Oh, yeah?" he scoffed. "And just why is that?"
"...Because you're the Chosen of Mana," Yuan said slowly, as if he was back to explaining to a young Mithos why it was a bad idea to practice Fireball on his friends. Aiden snorted, shaking his head as a smirk came to his face and he looked back to the schoolhouse.
"Yeah, that's great. Nice joke. Might want to work on the punch line, though," he said dismissively, waving his hand in a 'shoo' motion. Again, Yuan was baffled by the boy's attitude, but his bewilderment quickly turned to annoyance. He was just about to try explaining it again when the door to the schoolhouse shot open and an army of small children poured outside. The children's yelling and shrill laughter hurt Yuan's sensitive hearing and he flinched away from the sudden noise.
Two children broke off from the mob and jumped at Aiden. One of them was a young girl, about twelve years old, with blond hair so light it almost looked white. She was dressed in the usual thin winter clothing, all of which were some shade of red or pink. She hugged her older brother for a moment before looking curiously up at Yuan, her eyes darting nervously between the ground and the angel. The other child was a little half-elven boy, no older than eight. His hair was almost as blue as Yuan's and it almost blended in to his clothing, which was all about the same shade. He was speaking rather quickly and excitedly to Aiden, who listened with a kindness and patience that made him seem like a different boy than the one Yuan had been speaking to.
When the little boy paused for breath, the girl reached over and tugged at her older brother's jacket, pointing shyly at Yuan. "Aiden, who's that?" she whispered, but Yuan's hearing picked the words up easily enough.
Aiden glanced over his shoulder, annoyance flitting across his features as he realized he actually hadn't gotten rid of the man behind him. His expression just about matched how Yuan was feeling just then. "Don't worry about him, Audrey. He's just someone from the church. Says his name is Yuan Coffee," the boy said dismissively.
"Hilarious. I've never heard that one before," Yuan muttered to himself. "It's Ka-Fai," he corrected more audibly and Aiden snorted, clearly not caring overly much if he butchered the angel's name.
Audrey gently hit her brother's shoulder, a small frown coming over her face. "Be nice, Aiden," she admonished quietly. The teenager paused at the rebuke before his shoulders slumped and he nodded. The little boy looked curiously between his siblings and Yuan, one hand clasped around one of Aiden's. "I'm sorry, sir," Audrey added to Yuan, her words barely audible even to him.
"It's...quite all right," Yuan said slowly, a little surprised by the sudden apology. "I just need to speak to your brother here for a moment." He gestured to Aiden, who looked far from happy about it being brought up again. Audrey nodded quickly, her eyes glued to the snowy ground.
Frowning to himself, Aiden tugged at his little brother's hand, starting back across the yard. "We can talk at my house. But I still don't care," he grumbled. Yuan sighed but followed behind the teen and his younger siblings anyway. At the very least, Audrey had gotten him to consider listening, which was better than a few minutes ago. It would be better if Aiden wasn't so reluctant and dismissive, but Yuan sincerely hoped that would change quickly, otherwise there would end up being problems.
The walk was mostly filled with the loud, constant chattering from the small half-elven boy, whose name was Eli. The boy had started speaking as soon as his siblings had settled the issue of Aiden's rudeness. He spoke about anything from what he learned in school to the snow angel he made to voicing his excitement that Yuan was also a half-elf. It was nearly impossible for either of his siblings to get a word in edge-wise, not that Audrey seemed to be too interested in joining in. She kept her gaze downward and shuffled after her brothers, shooting quick, shy glances at Yuan over her shoulder.
The Norfel house was a small, one-story building that was squeezed between two other houses, as if there had been too big of a gap between the other two buildings and they needed something to fill the space. There was one small, sad-looking snowman with only one eye in front of the house, which was the building's only real decoration. The door caught when Aiden tried to open it and the teenager ended up shouldering his way into the house, his siblings hurrying past him. Yuan looked the building over skeptically for a moment, debating whether or not he should trust it not to fall on his head, before following the kids inside. If being inside a very dilapitated house was what it took to speak to Aiden, then he didn't have much of a choice.
Eli and Audrey had disappeared into the back rooms of the house, and Yuan could hear them playing some kind of game. Aiden was busying himself with lighting a few lanterns that hung from the ceiling and he seemed to drag on the chore as long as possible until there weren't anymore to light. He looked around for more before sighing, completely oblivious to Yuan's rapidly thinning patience, and flopped into a chair. "You're not going to attempt that joke of yours again, are you?" Aiden asked.
"It's not a joke," Yuan said, frowning at the boy in annoyance. "You are the Chosen of Mana, the one who is supposed to undergo the Journey of World Regeneration and save Tethe'alla."
Aiden did not look very convinced. "And how would you know that? I kind of doubt that it's listed anywhere that I'm this 'Chosen of Mana'," he scoffed, making air quotes around the last three words. "If so, I think I would have known of it sooner."
"No, your name isn't listed," Yuan sighed, shaking his head. "I'm an angel of Cruxis; it's kind of my job to know."
Again, the reaction Yuan recieved was far from what he was expecting. There was a certain reaction one came to expect when revealing their angelic background. In Yuan's experience, this was mostly shock, awe, and reverence, sprinkled with a little disbelief. Aiden skipped right over the first three emotions and simply looked disbelieving and skeptical of the claim. Yuan sighed and gathered his mana, allowing his wings to appear from his back. For a split second, Aiden did looked surprised, before he cracked up laughing.
"Your wings are pink," he laughed and Yuan quickly put them away with a scowl. "How manly."
"They're not pink. They're also purple," Yuan huffed, which only made the teenager laugh harder. "And that's just the color of my mana! I use lightning magic, that's the color of lighting magic!" Aiden's laughter refused to die down, which only served to irritate Yuan further. "It's really not that funny. I hardly chose the color of my wings!"
Yuan paused before closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead. He was getting defensive about his wing color to a fifteen year old human boy. One that he had only just met, no less. It really shouldn't have bothered him as much as it did. It might have been because he'd been teased so mercilessly about his wings when he and his friends had all become angels that now it was simply reflex to get defensive. Though all that mattered now was that his protests were fueling Aiden's laughter.
"Would you please stop laughing?" Yuan snapped after a moment. He removed his hand from his face as Aiden's laughter slowly died down. At some point during the boy's hysterics, Audrey and Eli had appeared and were hovering in the doorway curiously, wondering just what was so funny. After a minute, Aiden was reduced to simply chuckling and hiccuping as he got himself back under control. "Are you quite done now?"
Aiden nodded and snickered, "You have pink wings." The younger two kids immediately became interested, even though Audrey looked like she was also starting to doubt her older brother's sanity.
"I highly doubt yours will be much better," Yuan scoffed, turning away from the inquiring eyes on him.
There was a moment of confused silence, punctuated only by Aiden's hiccups, before the teenager asked suspiciously, "What's that supposed to mean?" Any of his previous mirth seemed to have disappeared entirely at that statement. Yuan wasn't sure if he like the suspicion any better than the hysterical laughter, though.
Yuan let the question hang in the air for a moment as he found somewhere to sit. He ended up pulling a rickety wooden chair around so that it was in front of Aiden's seat and very tentatively sitting down. The wood creaked in protest but otherwise it held firm. Audrey and Eli crowded around their brother, the tiny half-elf boy climbing into Aiden's lap as they all looked at Yuan curiously.
"It means that at some point in the near future, you're going to have wings of your own," Yuan said, using a tone of voice that suggested that Aiden should know this. "Being the Chosen of Mana means that you become more angelic with every seal that you unlock." Aiden frowned unhappily but Audrey's eyes immediately lit up, her head whipping around between Aiden and Yuan. The angel was vaguely surprised that she could even move that quickly.
"Aiden's the Chosen?" she gasped, and even in her excitement her voice was quiet and rather hesitant. Aiden shrugged and she rounded on him, eyes wide. "Why didn't you tell us?"
The teen frowned and made a vague gesture toward Yuan. "I just found out myself. But you don't seriously believe this crazy fairy guy, right?" The insult was strange enough to give Yuan pause, as he couldn't recall ever having been called a 'crazy fairy guy' before. The pause only lasted a half a second, long enough for his brain to process the words, before he started to grow irritated once more.
Audrey looked over her shoulder at the angel before her eyes darted down to the ground, shuffling her feet. "Well...yeah. I mean, he has to be an angel if he has wings and stuff, right? So he'd know. Angels always know. Right, Mr. Ka-Fai?" She didn't even glance at him again, instead addressing some kind of stain between the toes of her shoes.
"I guess you could say that," Yuan said with a nod. The smallest of smiles came to the girl's face and she looked up at her brother, who still seemed to be rather disbelieving but he was softening under his sister's gaze.
"What does Chosen mean?" Eli asked before the silence stretched for too long.
"It means Aiden is the person who is supposed to save Tethe'alla from the Desians," Audrey answered. Aiden seemed to be growing uncomfortable with being literally in the middle of a conversation about himself.
"How's he gonna do that?" Eli asked, looking between the other three in the room. "Is he gonna go fight them all? Aiden's a really good fighter. He could get rid of all the Desians like that."
Yuan couldn't help a smile coming to his face at the little boy's idea, and not only because the mental image of Aiden charging into a ranch with a sword was extremely funny. "No, Aiden isn't going to fight them all, not directly at least," he said, drawing all of the Norfel children's attention. Eli looked really interested and excited, Audrey still wasn't meeting the angel's eyes, and Aiden was trying to hide whatever faint interest he had behind a very well-fortified wall of contempt. "What the Chosen does is go around Tethe'alla and release the four seals. They're scattered across the world and each one has a guardian that Aiden will have to defeat. When it's all over, he becomes an angel and the Desians disappear." Yuan knew he was glorifying it, he knew all too well, but he couldn't in good conscious tell an eight-year-old that his brother was going to die and that the Desians would just return in another century or so.
"That sounds like some fanciful fairy tale," Aiden scoffed, lifting Eli from his lap and setting the little boy on the ground. "And now that story time is over, why don't you two run off and play and I'll see our...guest out." Audrey gave her brother the fiercest look than Yuan had seen from her yet, but she didn't argue, taking Eli's hand and leading him back to the other rooms again.
Yuan frowned and watched them go before rounding on Aiden. "Would you quit being so stubborn about this and accept that I'm telling you the truth?" he snapped, his patience having run out at the teenager's latest comment. "I could understand normal disbelief, it's rather sudden, but you could quit fighting this every step of the way. You're the Chosen of Mana, you're supposed to regenerate the world, now stop snarking and just go with it."
Aiden glowered, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms. "I will not 'just go with it'. Why should I? We don't have any problems with Desians. There's no reason for me to want them to disappear. And I don't want to go and risk my life and become an angel with shiny fairy wings like you, all for people that I don't know or care about. Give me one good reason why I should just accept this."
For a moment, Yuan was stumped. He hadn't come across this argument yet, and he was pretty sure Kratos hadn't had this problem with Sylvarant's Chosen, either. Anywhere else and anyone would have jumped at the chance to get rid of the Desians but here...Desians were more of a horror story than anything.
While Yuan considered, Aiden watched him expectantly, his defiance slowly changing to triumph the longer an answer took to arrive. Just then, Eli let out a squeal of laughter from the bedrooms and Yuan sat up, pointing back the way the younger two kids had gone. "You should accept your position for them," the half-elf said, and Aiden turned to look down the short hall. "What if, a few years down the line, your siblings decide to leave Flanoir and go visit someplace else. For work or vacation or whatever. But instead of having a good time away from home, they get taken to one of the human ranches, never to be seen again. Then it would be your problem, but by then it would be too late. We'll have passed you up and it may be fifty years before another Chosen comes around, and there's no way they would last that long at a ranch. But if you actually listen to me now, that can be avoided, and if they do decide to leave, it'll be safe."
As the scenario was laid out, Aiden's expression became more pained, and his hands clenched tightly into fists. They sat there for a moment, listening to Eli loudly proclaiming that Audrey was cheating while she pretended to cast some ridiculous spell. Finally, the teenager slumped in his chair, glaring daggers at the floor. "Fine," he spat, and Yuan felt rather accomplished for getting that one single word from the difficult boy. "I'll be the stupid Chosen."
"I'm glad to hear it," Yuan said, standing and brushing some dirt from his cape. "I'd like to leave tomorrow morning, give you time to pack and rest. And before we'd go, I'd like to explain everything to your parents, whenever they get home."
Immediately, Aiden's glare snapped up from the ground and to the angel, taking Yuan aback. "That's kind of difficult, since they disappeared two years ago," he said coldly and Yuan blinked.
"Oh. I'm...sorry," he said, not quite sure what exactly to say to that sudden revelation. Then a thought hit him and he gestured once more to where the younger two kids were playing. "If that's the case, then is there someone who will be watching your siblings while you're away?"
Aiden stood up, crossing his arms over his chest and scowling. "They're coming, too," he said firmly. Before Yuan could protest, and he definitely wanted to, the boy plowed on, "I can't leave them here alone, and no one likes watching them for too long. Most people can't stand Eli because he's a half-elf, and those that can won't put up with him for long for fear that they'll become just as hated for siding with him. There's nowhere for them to go."
"You're suggesting taking two young children on a dangerous journey across Tethe'alla, full of Desians and who knows what kind of creatures? They're going to get hurt, Aiden, there's no way around it. Why don't you just ask the church if they'll help? I'm sure the priests would be more than happy to watch your siblings while you go and regenerate the world," Yuan argued, crossing his arms as well. Sadly, the threatening effect was lessened by the fact that he wasn't all that much taller than Aiden himself, and he wasn't quite as good with striking fear into people's hearts with a single look as Kratos was.
"They're coming," Aiden said, his tone suggesting that he wanted the conversation to end there, but Yuan wasn't going to be deterred by some kid's strong tone. His frown darkened to a glare, and the two of them stood there looking like one of them would snap at any moment and literally try to smack some sense into the other. Yuan understood Aiden's protectiveness for his siblings, the angel had seen it and was still seeing it between Mithos and Martel, but he didn't see how Aiden could even consider dragging his family into this mess that they were going to get themselves in. However, the boy seemed to be unwilling to waver from his decision. And it had also been hard enough getting him to agree in the first place. If saying no possibly pushed him into backing out...
Finally, Yuan threw his hands up in the air and turned on his heel, seething. "Fine! Drag your siblings around to get killed. You just better not expect me to watch their every moves," he snapped over his shoulder. He didn't need to turn around to see Aiden's satisfied smirk; he could practically feel it against his back. "Just be ready to go first thing tomorrow morning." Without waiting for an answer, Yuan stormed out of the house, closing the door rather harshly behind him.
Why couldn't this trip just start out simple?