"What do we do now?"
The question seemed to hang in the air like smoke before vanishing, choked out of existence by the stifling residue of hatred that still hung over the garden of Gaia's shrine like an acidic mist. Despair ate at everyone's mind like the maggots that wriggled mockingly in the baskets of once-fresh fruits left as tribute to the life force of their world. They had come so far and learned so much, only to have it end here with a hopelessly vandalized shrine and a goddess who was nowhere to be found, and leaving no trace of where she could have gone. Had she been destroyed with her shrine, her remains spirited off to another realm, or was she still alive somewhere, made to watch in agony as the land she had strived to watch over turned as black and rotting as her once-beautiful garden?
It hardly seemed possible to Edmund that all of their journeying, their dangers survived, had come to an end with no hope in sight. For the first time, he was feeling despair taking a hold of him, and he did nothing to shrug it away. He saw Sentinel and Overseer's shoulders slump, and Gino was already crouched down low beside some decimated bushes to the right of what remained of the statue, apparently sunken lower than the others in lament. And why not, for this had once been his home, the land where he had grown up, at his father's side and seeing Gaia through every adventurous mishap and over-the-top disaster. But now this last blow seemed so final, so shockingly cruel and twisted; it was as though every other time it had been just play, and now this….not a child's scrape, but a real, raw, gaping wound that dripped crimson life down onto the hungry ground.
Edmund heard Gino sniff, and he felt his own shoulders drooping as he walked over to comfort him, but before he could reach his hand down to rest on the skinny shoulder, Gino turned his head to look up at him, violet eyes surprisingly dry. As Gino's head turned, Edmund caught a flash of white on the dying grass, and saw that Gino had not been crouching in a fit of despair, but looking and sniffing at something that had fallen beside the bushes. Against all of the reek of the decaying things on the altar and the shriveled, burnt stink of the foliage, he caught a brief whiff of flowery scent as he focused on the object, stark white and so large against the muddy brown and green that he was astonished that they had all missed it the first time. Large, cupped petals were pristinely arranged around a generously dusted yellow center, which rose above the petals by means of a thick trunk of dark pink, covered in miniscule scales. Large enough to hide Gino's hands behind it as he carefully picked it up from the charred and torn ground, Gino brought it to his nose and breathed the scent in, long and deep.
"Magnolia," he mumbled, barely loud enough for Edmund to hear, "My mother wore perfume that smelled like this….a long time ago." Edmund was mumbling under his breath himself, only listening to Gino with half of an ear. "This seems off…..why didn't we notice this before? And of all of the things to escape this destruction, a single flower that stands out so much against the-" Blinking suddenly, Edmund looked down at Gino's still-hunched form, barely acknowledging Sentinel and Overseer as they moved forward to see what was going on. "Hold on, did you say your mother wore this flower's scent, Gino?" The boy nodded, the nostalgia on his face giving way to confusion. "Yes, but why-?"
Straightening up, flower in hands with petals draping over his pale fingers, Gino turned around and faced all three of his companions. "It was from a long time ago, I know, but….. I know this smell. It clung to my mother's clothes, and I remember it so well." He turned his head and looked behind him, back at where he had first found the flower. "What's it doing here? I didn't see any magnolia trees in this garden, unless they were completely destroyed." He turned his head back around and thrust the flower out in front of him. "But look at it; there's not a mark on it, no petals missing, and it's not even dirty. Where did it come from?"
Sentinel and Overseer were looking at him as though he were crazy, but Edmund looked thoughtful, and the determined glint had returned to his eyes. He couldn't verify it, couldn't even prove that it had anything to do with anything at all, but something Gino had said triggered something in his mind. Perhaps it was that Gaia was considered to be the mother of all, and the symbolism was too much of a coincidence. Perhaps it was something else entirely or nothing after all. Perhaps the flower had just been lucky enough to escape the destruction and somehow been unnoticed. But at that moment, however frail the connection, he was determined to seize it and find out where it lead.
"Gino," Edmund said, trying to keep his rising hope in check for the time being, "Do you see any more of those flowers anywhere? Perhaps over where that one was?" Turning back around, Gino glanced at the ground, his eyebrows coming together in either confusion or concentration. "No, I don't see any…" He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, opening them suddenly and turning halfway around. "But I can still smell it, and I'm pretty sure just one flower couldn't give off that much scent." Taking one tentative step forward and then another, Gino didn't stop until he was over halfway through the tangled, burned mess that used to be a tidy line of trimmed hedges. "I can still smell it over here, and….." Pointed nose in the air, he continued on until he was almost at one of the garden's many exit arches, now little more than charred pillars of black leaves and vines. "It still goes on, right out of the garden almost. But there aren't any more flowers." He turned around and looked back at Edmund and the two former demis. "Does this mean anything, Edmund?"
"I don't know." The latter admitted with a small sigh. "It's a long shot, a very long shot, but right now it's all we have." He pointed to the flower Gino still held. "I think that was left for us to find, and we are meant to follow it. Of course a trail of white flowers in a destroyed garden would not go unnoticed, but a scent might pass undetected. It just seems too much of a coincidence that the smell would be one that you of all people would recognize, Gino." Nodding in agreement, Gino turned around and breathed deep once again. "I can follow it easily enough, if it leads anywhere." "Let us be off then," Edmund said. "I've had quite enough of this place."
Sentinel and Overseer had been off to the side listening; the latter looking hopeful at the thought of a trail they could follow, the former unable to contain her malicious mirth. "Anyone else find it funny that we're following the piglet's nose? It's a regular truffle hunt." Overseer turned toward her with a frown. "It doesn't matter, as long as there is a chance that Gaia escaped from all of this. Gino could be the one to find her for us; you should be grateful." Her smile vanishing, Sentinel slowed her pace, dropping behind Overseer enough to where she could mutter darkly to herself about killjoys and the general unfairness of her lot.
Edmund's hunch only seemed to strengthen as he noticed that their invisible trail seemed to keep them well into the shadows and out of the more public places. The voices of Gaians hawking their wares at absurd gold prices were well in the distance, and even the gold that littered the island like sand seemed to be a bit less under their feet. Once in a while he thought he heard a familiar voice; tinny as though coming from a TV or a radio, but he could not make out the words. After a bit, he put it from his mind and focused more on keeping Gino safe and hidden as he walked along, eyes half closed and nose in the air, breathing deeply for the flowery scent that led them to a place that they could only guess at.
It wasn't until they had been walking for some time that Edmund suddenly stopped, his hand reaching out to grab Gino's shoulder and bring him to a stop. "What is it?" the boy asked, but as he opened his eyes completely, taking in their surroundings, he let out a small gasp. "Hey, this is…." Edmund nodded gravely. "Indeed it is. This scent is taking us in the direction of Gambino Mansion." His eyes narrowed at the thought, remembering well the dark events that had set this entire journey in motion, beginning with the death of Johnny Gambino. With the mansion standing empty for so long, there was no telling what sort of condition it was going to be in. The dark elves might have set it ablaze, or some other vandals might have done it mischief. For all he knew, the blood of what once was Gaia's most powerful man still stained the walls and floor. This was something he wasn't sure he wanted Gino to see. He already saw the troubled look that came over the boy's face like a shadow as soon as he had realized where he was; doubtless he was thinking the same thing.
Gino's voice cut into his thoughts. "Edmund," he said, his voice not entirely without a waver. "We'd better be more careful from here on out. The ones who…who killed my father might still be close, since they've been looking for me." Nodding, Edmund turned to Overseer and Sentinel to make sure they had heard. "Stay close together; we're getting close to Gambino Mansion, and there's no telling what we're going to find there." Turning back to Gino, he assumed a post right beside him, moving forward as Gino continued to follow the elusive scent of magnolia through the shadows.
It seemed like no time at all before they reached the gates of the mansion grounds, but the sight of it caused all four of them to stop dead in their tracks and stare in horror. Apparently the same spirit of maliciousness that had ravaged the garden of Gaia had also paid this place a visit. Where once there had been acres of luscious grass, now a few sickly blades struggled to grow among the literally thousands of holes that dotted the landscape and peered out from around piles and piles of dirt, some reaching as high as Gino. Muddy footprints of every size were strewn about, browning the grass and marring the walkway leading up to the house. In the distance, the house stood empty and cold; from all the way there they could see how the doors no longer hung on their hinges, how the once tall, proud outside walls were now tainted with the marks of vandals, and darker spots that they could not quite make out, and the once magnificent windows now loomed like giant, dead eyes, broken and lifeless.
"What is all this?" Gino's voice was barely a whisper, and there was no hiding the shudder in his voice as they slowly walked toward the building, taking shelter behind the large piles of dirt and peering down into the gaping holes. "Why have they done this? What were they looking for?" They found the answer when they reached the building; a large announcement had been carelessly nailed upon one of the ornamented front doors, now laying askew in the entryway, the writing almost faded to nothing from the elements. With a sudden, angry movement, Edmund reached down and yanked it free, holding it up in the meager light and reading aloud. "Come to La Victoire now for our newest range of items; the Buried Treasure of Johnny Gambino! We have dug up every inch of the mansion grounds (Johnny didn't mind; I mean how COULD he, right?) and come away with some pretty swanky stuff! Hurry to our shop to claim your share. If jewels don't catch your eye, millions in gold are also up for grabs, but it won't last long, so hurry in! Signed, Cygnus and Jet."
Edmund's voice had been growing bitterer as he read, and when he finished, his fist closed in rage, crumpling the paper. He saw now that the dark marks in the wall were holes where bricks had been yanked free, doubtless in the hope of finding more treasure than what had been buried in the ground. He could only imagine what the insides looked like now, his mind's eye seeing hordes of greedy Gaians breaking down the door, swarming inside and pulling down tapestries, ripping open furniture and pulling up floorboards, heedless and uncaring for the death that had occurred there. He turned to Gino, expecting to see sorrow, but his eyes widened as he saw a rage on the boy's face that mirrored what he was feeling inside. His violet eyes seemed to be aflame, and his entire body seemed to emanate heat.
"How…..how DARE….what right did they have…to do this?" He looked up at Edmund with a fire in his eyes that he had never seen before. "Who is this Jet and Cygnus, and what right do they claim to have to do this to my father's house, to MY house? Who are they, to take his death so lightly and use it as a reason to open my doors to a bunch of heartless rabble? Are they the ones behind the destruction of the shrine as well?" Edmund shook his head, looking down at the now-useless piece of paper in his fist. "It seems as though we've been gone far longer than I realized. I've never heard of them, or their shop. But we won't find any answers standing around here; can you pick the scent back up, Gino?"
Without answering, Gino closed his eyes, as much to block the cause of his rage as to focus his senses on the trail they had been following. Opening them slightly so not to run into anything, he walked around on the front steps, then down them. He picked it back up close to the right front corner, the trail leading along the side of the mansion and towards the back. Edmund followed close behind, eyes darting around for any sign of trouble, while Sentinel and Overseer, less moved by all the commotion, brought up the rear.
Gino was halfway through the mansion's back garden, now growing wild from neglect, when the trail abruptly ended. He sniffed around frantically, in a manner that would have looked positively hilarious any other time, but to the weary group who had just trekked halfway through the isle after a mere flower scent, it was a sign that sparked panic. "Edmund…..it's gone. I can't smell it anymore." Edmund walked forward, his own nostrils twitching, but he could not smell the slightest whiff of magnolia. Sentinel strode forward, hands on her hips, looking around with disdain. "I don't get it. Why did the smell lead us here? Nothing here but another stupid garden." Overseer looked around, trying to find something a bit more positive to latch onto. "Well…..at least this one seems to have been generally untouched; just your average untended growth."
"That doesn't help anything." Edmund muttered darkly, looking around for anything at all that they might have missed in coming here. But no, it was all as he remembered whenever he had paid visits to the Gambino family. Gino's mother had always loved these beautiful gardens, and never were they so beautiful as when they had been tended by her gentle, loving hands. A sentimental place, but how did that help them now? A sickening sense of déjà vu enveloped him; not an hour ago, they were thinking the same thing in Gaia's garden; that their journey was at an end. There had been a clue to lead them on then, but this was more dangerous ground, and he knew it. Every moment they lingered here trying to find any clue on how to proceed, they could be spotted by unfriendly eyes and the malicious entity behind this would be upon them, and that would be the end.
Edmund did not realized it until he looked down that his black thoughts had caused him to draw his sword until he felt the well-worn grip's groaning protest beneath his fingers. With a single, anger-fueled motion, he brought his sword to bear and sunk it deep into the earth in front of him. To his surprise, he heard a muffled thunk, and the sword just stuck out of the ground, refusing to budge any further. Pulling it out with a small bit of difficulty, Edmund looked down at the ground with widened eyes. "Gino," he said breathlessly as he sheathed his sword, "Help me get this sod up right here." Without a word, Gino knelt down beside Edmund, seizing a handful of dirt and casting it aside. "So we're digging now; isn't that just like truff-" Sentinel paused in mid-sneer as she realized that nobody was listening to her; Overseer had gone down on his hands and knees and was now wrestling with a corner of sod that had deep, solid roots into the dark earth. She sighed in exasperation and stood there watching, figuring four would just cause them to crash heads together.
In a matter of minutes, the three stood up and looked down at their feet, where a few streaks and loose clods of dirt still clung to a thick, solid trapdoor, the large ring attached to one end surprisingly rust-free. Reaching down, Edmund seized the ring and pulled, Gino and Overseer flanking him and helping to pull up the heavy wooden door, until they stood above a generously sized square hole. A musty scent rose up, but nothing was to be seen in its depths; there was no telling how deep the hole was, and there was no ladder or rope to aid a person's descent. Gino crouched down to peer inside, but to no avail; not a speck of light came forth, or a single sound. "I never knew this was here." he mused thoughtfully. "Neither did I." Edmund replied. He could feel his hope mounting, and at that moment, he wouldn't have cared if the hole went all the way to the other side of Gaia. "You stay here; I'll go first and see how deep it is." Gino was about to protest, but he knew it would be useless, and besides, Edmund DID have more experience with landing on his feet. Still….. He tried not to think about the sight of Edmund, laying fathoms down in a deep hole, legs broken and gritting his teeth in agony. In the time it took him to shake the thought loose from his head, Edmund's form vanished inside the hole.
There was no sound for what seemed like many minutes, but in reality it had only been less than one before they heard Edmund's voice calling up at them. "It's alright; it doesn't even go 10 feet. Come on down." Gino looked over the edge of the hole and could just make out the top of Edmund's head in the darkness. Tentatively, he turned around and started to climb down, his feet scrabbling for purchase as his fingers clung with white knuckles to the crumbling edges of the hole. He extended his arms as far as they would go and then dropped down, landing solidly beside Edmund on what appeared to be a pile of black dirt. Pointing to it, Edmund smiled. "This is what made it seem deeper than it was; it's probably heavily laced with charcoal."
"No kidding." A voice said dryly behind them; as Edmund had been pointing the dirt out to Gino, Sentinel and Overseer had landed in the hole as well, the former brushing coal dust off of her clothes in disgust. Gino pointed in the direction the mansion had been at what was obviously a large, gaping tunnel leading out of the hole. "Whatever lies that way, it must be why they hid it away like this, AND it was what the flower scent was leading us to. Let's go and find out." Without pause, he walked forward, Edmund following closer behind than a shadow, the other two trailing behind. After a few moments, Gino's voice came filtering back in the darkness. "This is longer than the garden was; that means wherever this leads, it's a part of the mansion…..or beneath it."
Several minutes later, the tunnel ended abruptly at a smooth, blank surface; Edmund almost bumped right into Gino as he stood there, moving his hands delicately on the cold surface. With the light that had shined down the hole far behind them, it was impossible to see what sort of obstacle was blocking their path. Gino, however, seemed to recognize the material, and his right hand suddenly darted right, and with a small intake of breath, he placed his hand on a smaller flat surface jutting out from the wall at an angle. There was a sudden blip of light as a green line flew beneath Gino's hand, and a tinny voice spoke in the darkness, crackly and mechanical. "Gam-gam-gam….bino, Gino-no-no. Hand scan-scan-scan approved-oved." A sudden light surged forth overhead, causing everyone to wince and peer through slit eyes as the light revealed a large, metal door. All around them, at some point the hard-packed earth had given way to slabs of metal, and an obviously old and outdated hand scanner beside the door still held Gino's handprint in the dust that had gathered there. With a quiet swish that denied the same condition as the scanner, the door slid open to reveal a small elevator, dusty and unremarkable, with wooden paneling and handrails that still at least looked sturdy.
Before Edmund could say anything, Gino stepped in, the elevator compartment bouncing ever so slightly with his entry, but not creaking. Looking at where the buttons would be, there was only a single, large button, with an arrow pointing down. Edmund entered right behind him and peered around the box as though he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "I've never seen this before, and I thought I knew this mansion as well as Johnny. Why didn't he tell me about this?" Gino shrugged and moved to press the button. "I guess we won't find out until we discover what 'this' is, won't we?" Edmund moved his hand to block Gino's outstretched finger. "Gino, I don't like this. We don't know where this goes; it could be dangerous."
Gino's hand faltered for a moment, but the look the young man fixed Edmund with was steady. "If we don't go, then what was the point of coming here at all? We need answers, and chances are, any that would be found up there are missing or long gone. Besides…." He turned his head away to look distantly at the wooden panels. "I don't think a single door like this one has ever opened for me since I've lived here. Anything like the G-Corps lab…..always opened for my father, but not for me. I guess I figured I was too young, but this one…it's obviously old, but it takes my handprint. That means my father programmed it to let me in ages ago. Whatever's in here, I should know about it anyway, even if it doesn't help us at all. It might be the only thing I have left of him."
With a long sigh, Edmund withdrew his hand and gestured for Gino to press the button. "Alright, but….please at least let me go first. I would never forgive myself if I let anything happen to you, especially in your own house." Gino nodded grimly, and as he pressed the button, the elevator gave an absurdly normal 'ding!' and the doors began to close. "Wait!" a voice came from the outside, and Overseer and Sentinel just barely managed to barrel through the doors before they closed. Gino and Edmund stared at them in surprise. "Why did you guys just stand there for so long instead of coming in?" Overseer looked down sheepishly, and Sentinel fell back on her usual mumbling. "Thought you were…..y'know…..making sure it was safe." Shaking his head, Edmund reached out and gripped one of the dusty rails as the elevator lurched and began to slowly descend.
None of them knew just how long the ride would take, or even how fast the elevator was going; it seemed to be taking it's time, judging by the almost absence of that weightless feeling that usually accompanies an elevator ride. When the compartment finally lurched to a stop, it seemed as though they had been in there long enough to journey right through the center of the world, and everyone was tense and eager to disembark. When the doors slid open, they were faced with yet another tunnel of blackness, but as Edmund stepped out and onto the metal floor, small lights appeared on either side of the tunnel, beckoning them forward as they lit one pair at a time, until they stopped somewhere far ahead, the tiny pinpricks of light almost meeting in the center. Pausing for just a moment, registering the lack of sound save for the very faint humming of the lights at their feet, Edmund started forward, followed closely by Gino, and the demis once again following behind. The door slid closed whisper-silent behind them, and they moved on without looking back.
The lights that led the way were small, but they afforded a small bit of light, and it was this reason that Overseer first noticed something strange about the walls. "Hey," he said quietly to Sentinel, grabbing her sleeve and pointing. "Look at the walls over here." At first she ignored him, but as he continued to tug at her sleeve, she brushed his hand away with a snarl and looked at what the fool was pointing at. Her eyebrows came together in puzzlement, and she reached out to trace the strange pattern that was barely perceptible in the meager light. "It kind of looks like….." "The descendant." They both said quietly, for once equally in awe and not glaring at each other for sharing the same thought; only that creature ever seemed to bring them close together.
Edmund suddenly appeared between them, their lagging behind had been noticed. "What are you two fools looking at?" Before they could stammer a reply, Gino was standing beside Overseer, peering curiously at the designs on the wall. "Edmund, come look at these wires." Edmund's eyes moved over to where Gino was, and saw him tracing a long, thick, outward engraving of a wire imbedded in the wall…..but WAS it a wire? It did seem to pulsate with electricity, and as he placed his own hand upon one of the thick, squiggly protruding patterns, he could feel the hum of hidden power beneath the thin metal covering. But there was something…..familiar about the way these wires twisted and turned. They were all generally horizontal, leading down the corridor to their unknown destination, overlapping and dancing around each other, and a few even branching off to end in some random place as he assumed the wire moved deeper into the wall. Branching like….. Edmund snapped his fingers together. "That's it; I know what these remind me of; tree branches!"
The other three looked again and at once wondered how they could have possibly mistaken them for anything else. The wires in the wall were unmistakably patterned like tree branches; long, winding protrusions that raced along the walls like a long arch to a metallic arbor. Edmund looked more confused than ever. "It's definitely artistic, but what could be down here that calls for so much power?" With no answer forthcoming, they resumed their walk forward, reaching out to subconsciously trace the patterns with their fingers, each seemingly lost in thought.
Suddenly, Overseer stopped dead in his tracks and gasped. All heads turned toward him in surprise, expecting him to explain the reason for his sudden shock, but all he did was look straight ahead, tears starting to appear at the corner of his eyes. "Sen…c-can you feel….?" Sentinel frowned and closed her eyes for a moment, but then she snapped her eyes back open and a brief look of (horror?) crossed her features. "Is that….?" Overseer nodded, and with a quick burst of energy, he went dashing past Edmund, nearly knocking him down and sending Gino practically flying into the wall and earning a branch-wire shaped mark on one side of his face.
Edmund was the first to react. "Come back here, you fool!" He shouted, dashing after him with his hand on his sword hilt. Gino looked at Sentinel for a moment before turning and running after Edmund, the back of his coat flying behind him. Left alone, Sentinel blew out a long, aggravated sigh, and then she trudged along after, in no apparent hurry to reach the end of the corridor.
When Edmund and Gino reached the end of the floor lights, they saw another door similar to the one they had encountered at the entrance, save for this one having two sides, and the strange branch wires crawled all over the door like worms, forming an intricate and almost alien pattern mirrored on each side. Apparently Overseer had already gone inside. "Idiot." Edmund grumbled to himself, and stepped forward. At the motion, the door slid open, and when they stepped over the threshold, they stopped dead in their tracks, eyes widening in awe and disbelief.
The first thing they saw was Overseer, standing just a few yards away, head tilted up and taking the scene in. But neither Edmund nor Gino paid him any mind; they were too busy observing what had caused their companion to stop in his tracks. They were in what appeared to be an immensely large room, easily the size of one of the Gambino mansion's ballrooms, save for the ceiling, which seemed to reach much, much higher. The walls, ceiling and floor were completely dark, save for one feature. The wires that had so closely resembled branches in the corridor were even more so here, clustered and winding all around as though they had simply grown on the walls like centuries of unkempt shrubbery. But this time, the branches had leaves; little dots of light that blinked a bright green and sat in leaf-like clusters all around the outside of the branch-wires. Only a closer inspection of the lights showed that the blinking lights weren't leaves, but barely perceptible glyphs, numbers, and letters. They weren't looking at leaves and branches, but a massive amount of wires, throbbing with power, and coding for some as yet unrevealed program, glinting beside their power source and occasionally dancing down to the floor via the wall, like drops of green rain. From far away however, as they were now, one could almost imagine that they were standing inside a sacred grove, humming with ancient power and glinting with hidden magic.
All four pairs of eyes, for now Sentinel had finally caught up and was hanging around the closed door as though she were a naughty child entering her parent's room for judgment, were fixed on a spot near the back of the room. A large, bright circle on the floor stood out, like the bottom of a beam of bright sunlight gleaming down from the world above, and a similar spot was hovering many feet above the first, clinging precariously to the back wall, or perhaps dangling from some unseen wire; it was hard to tell when so much of the room still remained shrouded in blackness.
As they stood there staring around them, they suddenly heard a voice; calm and gentle, sounding every inch human and not at all mechanical. "I have been waiting for all of you. Please come forward." It said, and then they started as a path suddenly lit up before them; a straight path of yellow squares like stepping stones, leading right up to the circle of light. Edmund led the group forward, each one continuing to look about and peering at the rest of the darkened floor, where stray bits of coding could be seen flickering about like fireflies.
As they reached the edge of the circle, the coding on the walls suddenly began to flicker much more brightly and rapidly, as though they were leaves being blown about in a strong breeze, and the circle began to hum and glow. Millions of small, golden bits appeared and began to swirl around in the circle in a perfect pattern, never once crossing over its edge. As the group looked on, the golden cloud gathered and began to form, like a picture coming into focus. A human form emerged, slender and graceful, any of the bits gathering to reveal a long, flowing dress that seemed to pick up the coding's invisible breeze. Slender arms appeared, not encased in sleeves but adorned with simple jewelry at the wrists and fingers. Waves of long, beautiful golden hair billowed out behind the head, all the way down to the slim waist, and two holes in the face gave way to beautiful indigo eyes that seemed to hold all of the world's love and compassion in their depths. A simple gold pendant with one large, fiery opal hung over her breast, and two matching earrings glinted from her ears, poking out of her stray tresses like a pair of minnows in a golden sea.
The figure looked down at the four speechless people below, and her mouth curved upward into a gentle smile. Sentinel and Overseer both dropped down to one knee, one in abject humility, the other in begrudging respect, both mumbling "My lady Gaia." But Gino, who stood still as the figure seemed almost to bore into his soul with his own pair of eyes, could only whisper in complete disbelief. "Mother?"