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Chapter 14

Kira gazed up at the magnificent crystal and said slowly, as if trying to make sense of it, "It couldn't be...You...this is the Sun Cryst...?"

"Yes, this is the Sun Cryst. In the time of Jagd, the cryst that you are familiar with was created in order to protect the Sun Cryst. It was merely an imitation." the man said as he lead her closer to the enormous crystal and laid a gentle hand on its sharply angled surface. Kira watched, mesmerized as the Crystal glowed and hummed at his touch as if it were reacting to his very presence.

"Jagd?" Kira asked as she looked up at him then back to the cryst.

"Jagd, was the home land of the Druids." Kira gently laid her hand on the surface of the cryst and smiled with childish glee as it glowed and hummed under her touch as well, the crystal becoming warm as it rippled slightly under her skin.

"Druids?" Kira was so entrance by the crystal that she did not realize that it had taken her a full minute to reply to the man.

"We Druids are an ancient race, not unlike humes, but very different all the same."

"We? You aren't hume?" Kira looked at him curiously; not all that surprised than there was indeed no hume man that could be as beautiful and mysteriously captivating as he.

He smiled gently at her and nodded before saying, "Indeed, I am the last...no," He paused and smiled to himself, "I am one of the last of my kind. My name is Sulendii Jagd and I was once crown-prince of my nation." Kira's mind fluttered briefly to thoughts of Larsa before she was ensnared once again by his words. "We druids are very much like humes in the physical aspect." Kira blinked slightly, half expecting him to go on about how he came to be one of the last of his kind...or more importantly, why it is that Kira had never heard of these Druids before. "We grow and learn much like humes do, we are just as curious, maybe somewhat more intelligent and patient than the average hume, but we will laugh at similar humours, cry for the same tragedies, bleed of the same blade and die of the same poison.

"We druids were well known for our kindness and hospitality; but we were also loyal and chivalrous. We could adapt to changes when necessary and oppose them when there was naught to gain from it. Above all, we tried our very hardest to avoid war at all times. One could count the number of wars the nation of Jagd had ever been involved in since the beginning of time on only two hands."

"Ok...so apart from Druids being a great deal wiser than Humes...what's the difference?" Kira asked quite blatantly.

Sulendii smiled slightly and said, "There are only two true attributes that Druids have over the Humes. Firstly, upon reaching the age of thirty-five, every druid stops ageing, our bodies do not decay and old age will never reach us, yet we still die of sickness and any accident could result in untimely death, just as with the Humes. Hence, theoretically speaking, a druid could live for as long as he desired." Sulendii paused as he took note of Kira's awe-struck expression. He smiled slightly as she began gaping like a fish and decided to continue before she hurt herself. "However, It is not until a druid reaches the age of forty-five that the Sun cryst decides they have lived long enough. Not every druid dies at forty-five, but most do not live passed forty-eight."

"The Sun Cryst?" Kira asked, seeming to have finally found her voice again. "What does the Sun Cryst have to do with when a Druid dies?" She glanced at the huge crystal beside her ominously, as if expecting it to answer her.

"The druids have always believed that it is the Sun Cryst that decides when and how a druid will die. And that leads me to the second and most significant of differences between the Druids and the Humes." He continued, seeing the some what sceptical look on Kira's face, as if she were asking what could be more significant than not being able to age past thirty-five. "We Druids are able to communicate with the Cryst." he paused just barely long enough for Kira to comprehend his words, "And not only the Cryst, but other magical items as well, Magicite, Nethicite, small Crystals and magick stones, even the very myst itself." Kira watched in awe as he waved his hand through the myst that swirled around them and watched it is circled around his hand, never touching but following his every move. As he slowly drew his hand up out of the myst, a smooth milky wave of myst followed, climbing out of the sea of myst as if a huge vacuum cleaner were sucking it up. He pooled the myst he'd gathered in his hand and Kira watched, amazed, as it began to swirl and spin, going faster and faster all the while until she could hardly tell it was moving at all as all she could see was a disk of myst spinning at ridiculously high speeds. Soon the disk began to shrink and she watched, completely rapt and unaware of her own face drawing nearer and nearer to it as the disk of myst slowly contracted to a rock hard crystal, still spinning in the middle of his palm, just a centimetre away from his skin.

"We were the first to make crystals, taking the idea from the very Cryst we worshipped and the world flourished through our discovery." Sulendii watched as Kira picked the newly born crystal from his hands and felt the stone shiver under her touch, still full of excess energy from the high energy process of its making.

"That's amazing! But, I still don't understand...If these Druids were so great and powerful and invented crystals, then why is it that I've never heard of them before?" Kira asked curiously. She had long since decided that what he was telling her must be the truth, he'd given her proof enough of that, but it still didn't make sense as to why this was the first time she'd ever heard of these esteemed Druids.

Sulendii smiled at her and turned toward the cryst, placing a gently hand on its surface again before continuing. "During the earliest years, when Jagd was only just forming, it was rumoured that we Druids were sent down to Ivalice by the gods to watch over and protect the Cryst." Kira stared at him for a moment and sighed, assuming that he would eventually get to that part. "Not even the esteemed Viera could compare to our abilities to communicate with the Cryst. We treated the Cryst as though it were alive, as thought it were simply another Druid, a Queen or Princess that needed to be protected and sheltered from the world. We lived at peace with ourselves and with the Cryst. Never once did any one Druid even dream of taking the Cryst for himself and using her powers for his own selfish gain while countless other races did the very same. Even though Druids are not fond of war and conflict, we were still a force to be reckoned with when the time came to protect what was ours. Our military force was one of the most formidable and the most feared as well, for the Cryst would always be on our side, and even without the Cryst, our magical abilities have always been above average with our ability to communicate with the stones.

"For years, decades, even millennia the people of Ivalice have been absolutely captivated by our abilities to communicate with the Cryst, to be able to manipulate the Myst and create magicks the likes of which they couldn't possibly imagine doing themselves; but we Druids could never explain it to them. For us, it was just a natural occurrence, one didn't even have to think about keeping up a spell for an entire day without tiring, isn't that so Kira?" Kira blinked and looked suddenly stricken. How had the conversation turned to her? One minute he was talking about Druids and their awesomeness, and now he was looking deep into her eyes as if willing her to say something, to see something, as if he'd been trying to tell her something all this time and she didn't seem to pick it up.

"W-what...?" was Kira's intelligent answer.

Sulendii smiled and placed her hands on her shoulders gently and said to her, "Kira, haven't you found it strange how magical stones and crystals seem to just do as you ask them? Haven't you found it odd that you are the only one that could possibly be able to tell when a stone is dieing, whilst others would say that you are being silly to say that an inanimate object such as a crystal or stone could die? Don't you think it strange that whilst in the presence of myst, you always seem more affected by it than others? Is it not true that whilst you found your way down here, you felt completely relaxed, excited, full of joy and happiness, despite your situation?" Kira frowned slightly, what did he know about her situation?

"Where are you going with this?" Kira asked wearily, feeling as though someone had suddenly dragged her out on stage in the middle of a blinding spot light in front of an enormous, anxious crowd.

Sulendii smiled at her and said, "Why don't you ask the Cryst?" Kira raised an eye brow at him and he shook his head slightly, his smile widening, "You won't have to speak aloud, the communication between a Druid and the Cryst is much different from how we communicate with the rest of the world."

"So you're saying that I'm a Druid then?" Kira said, her voice so laced with scepticism it was hard to tell if she was asking a question or not.

"See for yourself." Sulendii smiled at her and stood back giving her room to get closer to the Cryst.

Kira's eye brow had yet to descend from it's perch atop her head as she reluctantly moved closer to the Cryst. Kira stared at the Cryst for a moment and thought about everything Sulendii had just told her. If I am indeed a druid, then that would explain my superior magical abilities, but, do I really want to know if I'm a Druid or not? What would it mean if I found out that I'm not really a Hume? For what purpose? Why was I lead here in the first? I'd been quite fine with not knowing until now. Why now when there are so many other...things going on right now? Was there an ulterior motive? Would my knowing my true heritage serve some purpose? And if so, to whom?

Suddenly there was a great flash and Kira saw a series of images flash through her mind. There were pictures of a woman, a regal looking woman with long flaming red hair and light purple-ish grey eyes. She was holding a baby in almost all the pictures. There were pictures of the child at different stages, first as a new born babe, then a crawling baby, then a small child no older than two; then a picture stood out amongst the hoard, The red haired woman sat with the child in front of her, floating as it examined a bright green crystal. The mother was smiling as if her toddler was not simply floating above her lap, as if such advanced magick was something any toddler could do. It wasn't until the last picture fluttered through her mind did she realized that these were pictures of herself and her mother. The last picture was moving and she could hear everything, could feel the sorrow and the pain emitting from it. Kira hardly noticed that tears were rolling down her eyes as she watched the day her mother died play over in her head like a short movie behind her eyes, completely unaware that this was now her own memories she was seeing. Kira watched as her five year old self cried and fell on top of her mother's casket, crying for her mother to come back to her, her flaming red hair, so like her own mother's, short and unkempt; her father, Old Dalan, not so old back then, tried in vain to pry her from her mother's casket before she destroyed it in her rampage.

Kira hardly had time to register the change in scenery as another set of photos began to flit it's way through her bruised mind. These pictures were pictures of different women and men, all with the same red hair and purple-ish grey eyes as Kira and her mother. They seemed to be going back in time, following a family tree maybe or something of the sort as the people's clothing and surroundings continued to age and age until it stopped on one picture of a woman that looked almost identical to herself as she stood, her hand resting on the surface of the very Sun Cryst that sat in front of Kira now, except this woman was in the Pharos, the highest point where the imitation Sun Cryst once sat and she was looking out at what Kira thought should've been the sea around her, but instead she was looking out at a marvellous city, wide and vast, full of life and magick; and Kira somehow knew that she was looking out at the city of Jagd through the eyes of her ancestor.

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To be Continued...