· · · · · · ·

Luna Inverse had many at her feet (bowing or bloody), few at her heart and little understanding of why she was this way. She'd stopped asking for reasons, but she was still interesting in ways.

Good grief, ways. There's the way of life, the way of earth, the way of countries, the way of every day life and the way of people out of their element. The most relevant way today was the way Luna had lost her way today.

She was on the other side of the globe in a jungle without man-made ways, which would explain part of it. As for the rest ...

Some would say it is a simple thing, to get lost. It wasn't. It really, really wasn't. For Luna wasn't a matter of pride or being framed, or spontaneous changes in the geography (she heard this happened a lot lately). No, for her it was the reality that people could run away from her in this land.

What would have been simple was to not intimidate the guide she had hired.

It was just that he was such a little twerp, a messy eater, and he prayed every night to Siephied, complaining about the stuck up woman and her idiot pet and couldn't he just get a break? Luna was sorely tempted to answer it by making him shape up to realize his life wasn't that awful. So they'd started arguing, and every now and then Luna astrally poked him to bring him off balance.

After two days of that, he fled along with the money she'd paid.

In this strange land she couldn't pursue him, her title meant nothing and even if it would have, she had no authorities to appeal to get him brought to justice. It was a hard thing to kick someone's ass when you didn't know their whereabouts.

Or her own.

Before this disaster, getting a ride on a boat with a beastman in tow turned out obnoxious, and she'd given up on boats after a dragon almost spotted her while in the wide open. Rumors spoke of devil movement and dragon wars, a thousand year old fear rekindled. All in all, people were more than a little suspicious of the young woman with concealed eyes and werewolf wandering around. All sense of direction had been lost due to detours and one attempted arrest. And now this.

Her destination was the one place she knew where to have a private chat with Valwin, for which she needed a physical access point. Five years ago, Lina had visited these lands on a quest for adventure and off course had gotten wrapped up in the machinations of the astral. This had accumulated with her visited the dispassionate god Valwin to request he grant her power. The village tied to this temple had been destroyed in the ensuing battle against the devils, but if no one was there Luna planned to just figure out how to operate the temple herself.

Had she mentioned yet she didn't know where she or the damn temple was?

· · · · · · ·

Luna turned over under her thin blanket for the hundredth time. There was mosquitoes everywhere, it was burning hot and the local fairies couldn't be bribed into chasing them off. On top of that, the closer she drew to her destination, the stronger she heard prayers to Siephied.

The kind of things people revealed about themselves in prayers made her lose faith in humankind's future. Some people knew exactly they were selfish bastards and assumed it would be forgiven cause they acknowledged it. Others thought repeating the same words over and over was a show of faith and numbers strengthened the request. If Luna had been able to, she would have divinely told them all to shut up, Siephied was dead.

A mosquito stung her in the cheek just as she nearly had fallen asleep. With a sigh, Luna flared her power and everything not her possessions in a two meter radius burned to a crisp.

Spot had been asleep just fine, but when he smelled the fire he shot to his feet.

"Luna, what's wrong?"

"I am brimming with confidence and heroic resolve. Look at me brimming," Luna mumbled from below the blanket.

"You don't look so good."

"Spot, shut up. Need sleep."

The trek through the jungle learned Luna many things. For one, her physical body had no stamina for this. Two, she was childishly jealous of Spot and his isolating furcoat that protected him from warmth and branches. Three, bugs were horrible and had no respect for divine power.

"Luna, someone's coming."

"Wha?"

"A few miles to the north, a windrunner like Zelgadis. It's gotta be a holy one, my troll blood is averse to the wind he uses."

Luna shot up. "You're kidding."

"You know who it is?"

"A windrunner using holy power instead of shamanic? That's only worth it if one has innate holy power but no wings. Raise the fire."

Spot obeyed and she gave him a pat on the head before unsheathing her sword. She faced the direction the wind came from.

His name was Lyos, the Knight of the Aqualord and the only other human in the world who was like Luna. Lina had befriended him (off course) when they had gotten involved in a plot of Deep Sea Dalphin. The goal of that plot had been for Dalphin's priest Hylaker to possess Lyos, exploiting a weakening of the soul as his power resonated with Valwin's power.

The fire was high by the time he appeared jumped through treetops. The holy wind that had sped his pace vanished the moment he stopped in a treetop about one hundred meters away.

"Spot, go hide in the forest."

"You're expecting a fight?" he asked before disappearing in the undergrowth.

"It's really coincidentally that he would be here at the same time I am. Last we heard he split with Lina to continue his traveling. Maybe a devil possessed him successfully some time after that."

Through the ribcage of Siephied she had limited astral sight, but Lyos's astral body was nearly half her own power and thus much larger than that of a human. She could see him even at this distance.

Ragradia on his soul was not skeletal like her own attachment, but more like someone had disemboweled the dragon and dumped the guts on him, then pumped it full with water. Blue veins crossed from the exposed heart beat and a broken windpipe floated like a flag underwater. A dried skin covered half the intestines, like someone had draped a dried out snake skin across the blob in an effort to conceal its malformation. Not much success there.

Lyos leaped down the tree and a little later he emerged at the opposite end of the clearing.

Luna tilted her head aside, letting one eye peek through her bangs. As a human, he looked like a man in his twenties. His hair really was something, it just went everywhere like it was addicted to static. Sparky would be a good name for him, but she'd use Lyos if he behaved. Given that smug grin, might not be long.

"I'd like to think you're here on friendly therms, but I can't know that for sure. Wanna fight me?" he said.

"Why? I'm Luna Inverse, can't you see?"

"Oh really? How am I supposed to know whether that's true?"

Luna would have thought her flaring dragon corpse was a dead give away, but from the sound of it he couldn't see onto the astral plane at all. Perhaps because his soul was covered entirely by the power? None of the corpse chunks on him were eyes either.

"Lina is missing, I want to ask Valwin to find her," she said. "And you are Lyos. Am I guessing right you want to fight me to learn more about the nature of my power? That is what drew you here, right?"

Lyos pulled the sword off his back. "Yep. No use fighting with those though. Both our powers stems from Siephied, they'd just dissolve into the flow. If you are Luna, nothing will happen but our swords. If you are more than Luna, I'll notice when we fight."

"Funny, I was curious about the exact same thing."

He pulled his sword off his back and Luna laughed. The sword was impractically wide, more like a prop you saw on rich kids who got a fancy play sword from their parents than a true weapon. She could feel its power, but it wouldn't have hurt it to be more useful in ordinary combat.

"Compensating for something?" she asked.

"Nah, it came like this. Maybe the guy before me," Lyos said with a dismissive shrug. "Whatever, it works."

Wasting no more words, he leaped at her. Luna blocked, dove to his left and lashed out, leading to his turn to block.

It did not deserve to be called a true battle, neither tried to kill the other or even wound. But it was no play either. Luna's timing was not what it could be. She usually depended on the astral plane to see what her opponent would do, since where they meant to move was often visible just a moment earlier. But here, there was no human outline to see.

Not helping was that her astral sight was limited to begin with. Luna's soul was molded onto the inner side of the spinal cord, her torso hanging forward by strands of flesh, stomach open and rotting as everything of the corpse did. A human she could read by looking through the ribcage, but Lyos's astral form was far larger than her field of vision and very erratic.

Her low bangs were suddenly a bad idea.

As expected, the energy they expelled blended together without doing any damage. The resonance was ... odd. Not even the air was affected. Still, amidst the assertion of power they could feel traces of one another, it was almost pleasant to blend like this. Luna detected nothing devilish about Lyos, but he most certainly did about Luna.

"What's that thing around your neck?" he asked between blows.

"Prank of a devil overlord. The other thing I'm going to ask Valwin about." A lie, off course, but it was easier this way.

"Really?"

For a second a dragon head overshadowed Lyos's physical form, solid enough to mask his next move. She didn't see the exactly angle of his sword until the hilt rammed against her fingers. For all her power, she was a human still. The pain loosened her grip and the next moment the sword sailed out of her hand.

Lyos held his sword aside her neck for a moment, grinning smugly. He tapped the collar.

"You fight like a devil. Foul," Luna said. She might have been more pissed off, but just didn't feel like it. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware this feeling made no sense.

"There's no cheating in battle," he said. "So, can I be sure that thing won't be a tool to control you at some point?"

"You can't, neither can I. Don't I have a right to find help?"

"As much as I did," he said. His grin turned a little wider.

With one move, he stuck the oversized sword on his back and looked around.

Thereby the battle was officially over, but the strange resonance stayed. The edges his astral form still blended with her own. Not only that, but ... she didn't really feel like wiping that smug grin off his face. It was as if she'd known him long already. Friend or family sounded wrong, but they were here together and everything was right. Luna just stood there, only vaguely aware of the details of the battle. All her mind was on that energetic change.

A step towards wholeness.

"Addictive, no? The resonance?"

"It's cool," she said as she wiped imaginary dirt off her clothes and looked away.

"Who's that? Your guide?" he asked with a nod to Spot.

"Nah, the guide ditched us. He's with me."

"You there, you can come closer!" he called to Spot. "Always glad to see people hang out with beast folk, they could use a friendlier reputation," he added for Luna.

Spot gave him a suspicious look as he approached, but Lyos ignored it and held out his hand. "What's your name? And don't say no name, that one's taken," he said with a laugh.

Spot gave Luna a pathetic look, but she didn't cave.

"I'm Spot," he muttered.

Lyos frowned. His miasma took on a bitter tinge, the kind of rising displeasure Luna knew herself so well. She would have bet he would have acted on it, but it didn't happen.

"So, eh ... Spot. Luna. Let's go to the village. Did Lina ever get that letter? They've rebuilt the place, I live there now and train warriors."

"No, we didn't get it, but I'm all for going there," Luna said with a dismissive shrug.

Lyos went ahead, a ball of light in his hand to show the way.

Spot threw their luggage over his shoulder and followed last in line. At one point, he whispered, "Luna, are you alright? You smell really weird, like you're upset but also like you're happy. It freaks me out."

"S'nothing. Drop it." One more lie today.

Lina had given bare few details about her adventure here, but one thing had been spelled out as the key of Deep Sea Dalphin's plot. Lyos had been driven out of his mind by an overload of godly resonance, bringing the complexity of his mind down to the point where the devil priest Hylaker could possess him.

Luna had been in the kitchen when her parents handed her the letter, her mother had read it while Luna made pesto sauce. Luna had laughed about it, finished dinner and not slept a wink at night. Pesto sauce is a funny backdrop for learning she wasn't untouchable as a god-human chimera.

The reason the devils had used Lyos and not Luna likely was because he just happened to live closer to the god stupid enough to play right into the plot. If not for that, Luna might have been wielded instead. Luna would have gladly fallen to the belief she was too strong for that, but she knew the astral side. It was so easy to astrally damage a human, just to spook them a little. Devils she could deal with, but the exposure of godly power greater than her own was another thing. And for her, there would have been no brave Lina to pull her out. After all, she had made sure Lina feared and hated her.

The trek to the village was only two hours, they reached it just after the rise of the sun. With distaste, Luna realized that subconsciously she must have been drawn closer to the place, or perhaps to Lyos. If she wasn't even aware of the magnetic power of holiness, then she wouldn't know it either if she was altered. Her journey's forecast declared it was windy with a fair chance of insanity, but the driver had a devil chain around her neck and a wolf behind her. Metaphorically, not the troll werewolf hybrid. Therefore, she went ahead anyway.

The village was simple, straw hats on white round houses, inhabited by people with brown skin. She'd seen many such villages on her way here. Down at the sea lay the remnants of a ruin similar to the Ancient Ruins she'd seen in the east.

Its people were peaceful and their tranquility matched the quaint village. They didn't even fear when Spot passed by. When she saw the first leopard beastman, followed by a smaller catlike beastwoman, she understood why no one cared. Spot drew some attention only because wolves weren't common here and he was green.

Lyos led her into the largest hut, central to the village. Inside, a small council had gathered around tables and maps, speaking with what Luna guessed were traders.

"Hey, Orun, look what I found!" Lyos called.

When the council looked up, Luna tried to guess who might be the village leader. It was a small surprise when a petite woman stepped forward. She was brown skinned as most here, had wild white hair and an air that fit a church better than many in the church. Not what Luna expected. Putting aside that non-evil female rulers were all but unheard of outside Zephyria, she lacked the tough demeanor Luna expected in a leader.

"Orun, here's the weird flare we sensed. Luna Inverse. Luna, this is Orun, she's the leader of the village and she can operate the temple that can send you to the Tower of Wind."

"Pleased to meet you, Luna Inverse," Orun said, bowing slightly.

"Same," Luna said. She decided to let the lack of prefix slip, they likely had no such thing in these regions.

Orun excused herself with the traders she'd been negotiating with, during which Luna noticed Spot hadn't followed her in. His voice wasn't far off, so she pulled aside a heat curtain to lean out of a window.

Partially behind the curve of the wall, Spot was chatting with a human and some sort of antelope woman.

"Spot, did I give you permission to wander off?" Luna asked sweetly.

His ears flattened in submission and his tail shot between his legs. Slowly he turned. "No. I just thought it wasn't that far and—"

"Don't think. Do what you're told."

He picked up their luggage and scampered to join Luna inside.

"He wasn't bothering us," the beastwoman said.

"It's bothering me if I have to go find him. I don't plan to stay long." With that, she dropped the curtain and turned back.

Lyos stood there, arms crossed and reeking of irritation. "Just what the hell is that about?"

"What?"

Spot stumbled through the door at that moment.

"I didn't say get inside! Same rules as home, stay in sight but out of the shop zone," Luna told him.

"Off course, Luna, my mistake," he said, and he was out again.

"That," Lyos spat. There was a flare of rage, the kind that was born from rekindled memories. He better not be identifying her with that m'lady of his, the devil in disguise.

The anger subsided, Luna could not tell whether it was resonance or his self control.

"Is something the matter?" asked a confused Orun as she rejoined them. Lyos bent closer to her and whispered something in her ear. Her eyes widened a little and she nodded.

"Please follow me," she said. "I shall have to return to work soon, so please hurry."

Orun led her to a small hut at the edge of the village, Lyos and Spot trailing behind. Lyos tried to make conversation with Spot, but Spot had caught onto Luna's mood and shut it off at every attempt.

The hut had only a fly curtain before it, so Luna peeked in after Orun entered and slammed her forehead into something solid. orun stumbled back against the cluttered wall.

Luna rubbed her forehead, pushing power to heal the bruise before it could form before she looked at the object Orun held.

It was only simple broom. Orun stood straight and held it out.

"If you want me to send you to Valwin, you must first prove yourself."

"Oh, we're playing the unworthy hero must become wiser quest game?" Luna asked, lifting the broom with overacted motions and inspecting it.

"This isn't for you. This is for my people. If this village is going to tolerate and feed you, then you pay them. You'll be embedding it with power, so it can be used against devils. After a while, I will see whether or not I feel comfortable sending someone like you to Valwin," Orun said a soft but firm voice. There was a little of a leader in her after all.

"Aren't either of you worried about Lina? You know, the missing sister?"

Lyos shrugged. "Lina will be fine where ever she is. Given what we heard and are seeing about you, we're probably doing her a favor not helping your family reunion."

"Fine," Luna said, and didn't say she planned to have a word with Lina about what exactly she had told them. "So, Sparky and Spiky, do I get a place to sleep? I need a bath too."

· · · · · · ·

Across the next day Luna was set to mundane, boring work like sweeping and other forms of cleaning. If this was where her lessons of humility were coming from, someone should have told these people she was a part time waitress. Mundane work was in no way a humiliation, Luna rather enjoyed it in fact. God (herself) knew the village could use some cleaning.

Orun spent most her day attending to village organization, supervising trade, overseeing business relations and settling disputes. Luna could think up a few ways to persuade her to send her on her way, but Lyos was always around. While he could not see the astral side, he could feel things in the way dragons did. Every time she tried astrally chipping at Orun, he noticed. He hadn't cast a spell on Orun; Luna suspected he might use the very moisture in the air as a way to keep track of his surroundings.

In fact, no spells existed here at all. Orun was a skilled wielder of resident magic, which she evoked from instruments and vessels that were tied to Valwin. Gestures of the hand was her dominant control method. Lyos could also control his innate magic with gestures, but often used his sword Banisher as a conduit. He claimed that since it had been barely five years since he'd learned to fight with magic properly and little else, Orun had a head start when it came to the flow. She had been trained since infancy.

Orun was a gentle woman, sometimes somber, often with a genuine smile and a kind but firm leader. She was what people would call a good human being without sense of irony or a need to say this as softener for some flaw. In fact, given the way the world worked around Luna's little sister, her existence just begged for there to be a more interesting evil twin somewhere. After all, where else would the fun be?

Luna felt like finding said sister and kicking her ass, anything to take her mind off this dusty town. She also closed a wager with Spot about the existence of said sister; not that Spot doubted her but she needed someone to bet against.

Three days after arrival, Orun was in the middle of some paperwork in her hut when Luna opened the door and slouched down on the chair opposite of her, one leg dangling over the armrest.

"Hey, my sister dropped a name in her letters I haven't placed yet. Fanan."

Orun froze.

"She ... she was my sister."

"Bullseye! Spot, I won the bet!" Luna hollered out the window. "That Fanan bitch was an evil twin!"

"Got it, Luna! I'll be getting snake now," Spot called back.

"Good boy. Make sure the poison's out," Luna said, satisfied as she sunk back in the chair.

Orun's miasma turned bitter, the kind of bitterness of those who had lost a loved one. Fanan was dead and Luna wondered why Lina had left the entire sister deal out of the letter. Meh, probably because she was afraid Luna would read too much into anything she said about dead sisters.

Luna expected Orun to change rooms (everyone had noticed by now Luna could not be made to leave if she did not want to).

"Snake?"

"I heard it tastes good."

"You would've sent him anyway even if you lost this ... this bet, wouldn't you?"

Luna shrugged, her smirk never ceasing.

Orun just clenched her fists and looked to the papers before her, doing a decent job to hide the depressive emotions that her sister's name summoned and the unsettled feeling Luna's eyeless presence caused. It was one of Luna's favorite things, how eerie people felt when they were stared at yet saw no eyes.

"I will not send you to Valwin if you keep acting like this."

Luna tapped her fingers on the armrest. "Yes, you will. It's just that I don't really feel like it right now."

Orun fiddled a little with her papers before continuing.

"How about dancing during one of the oncoming celebration?" Orun finally asked in a small voice. "Would you be interested?"

"Huh?"

"I-it is possible to command a small piece of godly power without touching the tools. This subtle wielding has kinder effects than the destruction they cause directly," she continued. "It is through a prayer dance we request this. Maybe you can fine tune your own powers into clairsentience."

"Desperate to get rid of me? The quickest way would be to let me see Valwin."

"I cannot let you do that."

"Why not?"

"Should you displease him, we may lose our magical tools or worse, the favorable wind we need to keep our fires burning. Valwin was once indifferent to humanity, but I'm sure you noticed his dragons are on the move. We do not want his negative attention, whether it is over your callous behavior or that strange chain around your neck."

"You're not the only one," Luna muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind. So why bring up that dance thing only now?"

"My sister's name reminded me. The dance requires two people to create a flow between them, she was my partner."

Luna folded her hands behind her head. "Hmmm. So you want me to take the part of your evil sister?"

Astrally she brushed a deformed claw past Orun's small self, not enough to harm her astral body, but it set her further on edge. As a holy woman, Orun had the smallest inkling of something being wrong.

"M-my sister ... my sister wasn't supposed to be evil."

Luna shrugged. "I don't care either way. Sure, I'll dance. No loss for me."

· · · · · · ·

The celebration was done every month to test fresh students and took place a few days later, giving Luna the time to grasp the basics of the performance. It would be done in the mostly rebuilt dome that doubled as transporter, temple and archive as part of one of several smaller celebrations native to these lands.

Luna let the preparations pass by and concentrated mostly on getting an outfit together that could hide that damn chain. Silver was the way to go, this smithing village had plenty. Lyos still had a connection with his mining hometown, so there was plenty of jewelry to go around. Very few things match with dog collar but Luna thought she did a fine job magic it work by mimicking the local shoulder ringers.

The celebration was simple, just this dance to be performed within the dome. Using said dome was new, the training beforehand had been outside. It was only since Lyos joining them that they would dance on sacred ground, because when he was around the devils did not dare approach when otherwise the holy magic would have drawn them in.

A sacred carved pattern at the center of the dome allowed a ring of people to stand around it, most of whom were family of the dancing pairs. The musicians had their place here as well, but the dancers would stand on the pattern.

Orun would begin it all. She stood on her toes in the middle of the pattern, raising an orange high in the tips of her fingers. On the first thrill of the strings, she dropped her heels and released the sphere, which remained afloat. Orun spread her arms, held the pose for a few seconds as the sphere lit inside.

She clapped her hands together. The sphere burst between her hands, clouding into a swarm of smaller orange spheres.

At this sign, couples broke from the ring around. Each tapped their fingers against one of the spheres and drew out a veil of light in mother of pearl colors. Luna too jumped in and tapped the same sphere as Orun did.

Each of the couples held the veil between their fingers as they moved to the rhythm, commanding it with wordless magic. The art was to keep the veils as substantial as possible and never to touch the spheres that remained afloat in their midst. Luna thought it could be called a game, but no one took her serious when she had said so.

At first the dance was just like in practice, but that changed as the magic of the pattern below their feet slowly responded to the items that were in alcoves all around. Holy power was drawn into the veils, bring along a warm, soft feeling. As the power grew denser, the people changed. Those that danced first, then those that watched on the sidelines.

The two women who had been squabbling about a goat's ownership settled their dispute, the children who felt bad over having been denied early candy no longer cared. White magic having soothing effects was not an unfamiliar concept to Luna, there had to be a shamanic side to this method. Or perhaps this was where white magic and holy magic truly had no difference.

The trance took a hold of her too, pulling her into sacred resonance with the world around.

All others were human, but she walked here as Siephied.

Valwin's presence she never saw or heard or truly felt, but she knew it now. On this end of the world was the Tower of Wind, stark on its opposite was Vrabazard's home, the Pillar of Fire. Two holy nests, the Earth Bridge and Water Vein were without gods, but still had godly resonance, the latter more so than the former since Ragradia's corpse still was there to seal Lei Magnus. Deep between them burned a blue light, Megiddo beyond which Rangort's Hell lay.

As if it had always been knowledge to her.

As if the gods were immaculate, true creation of Siephied. Not a remaining scrap doomed to human souls. Not like her, but she didn't care for the rot anymore either.

Rot? She felt the start of healing. Even Lyos's astral form, which she could see far above the crowd that hid his mortal body, it didn't seem so bad anymore. Luna threw herself into the flow. She knew more the longer she danced.

The old battle long ago, Shabranigdu's ugly self disrupting the flow. The harmony of the flow, the detail of the world.

The humans around were insignificant, but so much closer. They thought this dance was beautiful, she could taste it in their miasma.

She remember Siephied eating miasma and feeling content. But Siephied never thought of anything as beautiful. It was irrelevant to a being from the astral plane. All Siephied needed was the flow and its instinct satisfied.

Luna didn't quite like that. There were a lot of things she thought were beautiful even if it didn't fit in her little sphere of need and self.

Right?

Not that she felt like leaving her town and seeing the world. Not that she cared. Not that she ever was a savior unless she had to.

Like the gods, she stayed at home if nothing bothered her.

As she danced now, she was fine with that, yet her conscious mind remembered herself feeling loathing to any parallel between her and the gods.

The flow pulled her along in the trance, save for the devil chain around her neck. A grain of sand in the oyster, but it was enough to keep her grounded enough for one thought to surface.

"~ This is not me. ~"

Building up resistance, Luna pushed herself out of the harmony. She dropped the veil.

All of the wide world returned to be only this room to her. Bland earthen walls and people in colors she did not like and music she did not care for. She was just Luna again, yet even now she did not stop feeling the immediate flow.

The music did not stop immediately, not until Orun herself stopped dancing. It took the woman a moment to find herself again. By then, every eye was on Luna.

Orun's hands twisted around the veils, pulling them closer to herself. Luna tasted the disappointment in her miasma.

"Are you tired? I'm sure you're not used to this heat, perhaps you should drink something ... ehm ..."

"What did you make me do?" Luna said with a calm, friendly voice. The kind of voice she used on troublesome customers that shouldn't know what she truly thought. "Whatever it was, it was not natural."

A chill took over the dome, every last conversation died as the air became thick with anger. The miasma of astral beings could become so intense even organic beings could sense it and while Luna was not quite murderous, it was strong enough to thicken.

"Then what happened?" Orun asked.

"Leeches in my mind. What am I supposed to do, ask the gods nicely so I'll stay sane?"

"Spirituality is not merely worship. It may be entirely about inflection," Orun gently said. "If you resonated like that with the world, it is by your own nature."

"I did not sign up for spirituality," Luna said. "What would I ascend to anyway? I'm already Siephied reborn, I don't need a link with the other pieces."

"You're not Siephied. Siephied's cessated," Lyos said behind her. "I'm no Ragradia either. We just have their power, that's all. None of their personality, knowledge and especially not a bloody right to disturb a celebration."

Luna didn't turn, avoiding to see his disgusting astral form. "Who are you to tell me anything?"

"I tell you as someone who thought being the Knight of the Aqualord was everything."

"And Lina cured you?"

"Nah, Nameless did. Lina helped me in other ways. She—" She tasted his miasma far more sharply than before, even at this distance. That was new and she didn't like it.

"Sobstory at midday o'dial," Luna said as she walked out. "Spare me. I'm going to bed."

She left behind the veils and the people, but no matter how much she tried to shake off that new sensation of the world around her, it remained.

· · · · · · ·

Luna walked across a range of stupidly idyllic mountains with too muchEdelweiß and white cotton candy draped around the peeks. Pretty as it was, the paths were difficult to travel. Little loose rocks everywhere and only solid wall on one side and a canyon on the other made her feet slip more than once.

Every path she had walked on so far had collapsed under her, no matter how stable it had looked. Luna had trekked through mountains during her knightly training, but never had she encountered such a thing. The constant falling made it really difficult to keep hidden from the dragons. It was like she weighed five tons.

"Siephiedammit!" she called as she slipped off a ridge once again. The curse echoed through the entire mountain.

Wait a second.

She never said Siephiedammit because ... well, that would be like asking herself to damn someone. So redundant.

She also wasn't five tons and she had no reason to hide from dragons when she could just kick their ass.

There was only one explanation for this.

Dreams.

And not her own to boot.

Orun had been right after all, because unless that snake had any hallucinogenic effects, she was in someone's dreamscape. This wasn't exactly finding Lina, but it was a world more precise than tuning into Divinity Network. And this happened just after a short hour of sacred concentration?

Ooh, she could do interesting things with this.

Luna was sure this was Filia's dreamscape. The worldly mechanics were as observed someone who had a much harder time traveling mountain ranges by foot due to weight and someone for whom avoiding dragons was a law of life. That, and the part of legions golden dragons around about their need to find and kill the ancient dragon. Huh, those hadn't seemed out of place before.

"Woah, Filia. You're coping so well with that whole genocidal dragons thing," Luna muttered as she climbed back on the ridge.

She wasn't usually aware when she was dreaming, but now she was she noticed a lot of things out of place. Idealized mountains aside, she was wearing the outfit of Liliane's Siephied Knights. Or rather, the way Filia saw it. Luna knew the outfit to be a bit coarse and heavy, but in this dream the dark cape billowed as if it weighed nothing and the golden shoulder pads were more gold than coppery.

She whistled and from then on, Spot had been at her side the entire time.

Well, a version of Spot. Luna broke out laughing when the dreamscape granted her an boar sized neon green poodle. Luna had once complained to Filia about keeping him outside cause he got green fur all over the place and was huge, but she had never said what he was.

"Spot, find Filia."

Poodle Spot wagged his tail as he happily skipped down a mountain path that hadn't been there before.

Sometimes, she saw a figment of Xelloss assault a flock of dragons and torture them to death, and at point she passed what probably had been the temple of the ancient dragons. It was littered with corpses of both gold scales and dark feathers.

Spot led her away from these nightmarish figments and down the ground lands, a trek that would have taken weeks if this had been a real landscape. Luna wondered whether Filia's conscious was aware of every facet of this dreamscape, because her own dreams were no landscapes she could observe from an omniscient point of view. Luna's dreaming was aware in only one location and didn't get high definition, but from the looks of it it was different for a prophet.

Filia's refuge was a quaint little brick town that had entirely too much tea, ceramic and icecream shops for such a small place. Everything else was gardens, parks and cottages, its inhabitants humans and beast folk. Luna walked a little slower when she saw this, wondering whether or not she'd have to do something about the Spot figment, which was gradually changing into the hybrid she knew him to be. Filia would be annoying about him if she found out.

As soon as the Spot figment had pointed out an inn, she killed the neon green abomination and buried it in a nearby garden. Using dream logic to make the blood vanish, she stepped into the inn and suddenly was a dancer. Going with the flow, she performed the same dance she had learned earlier. It carried none of the enchantment, though, as the sensation of flow dance started by Orun was not known to Filia.

The music ended and the people in the inn applauded her performance, and Luna bowed.

"That was beautiful, Luna."

That was definitely Filia's voice, though the lack of miss stood out. Luna looked across the crowd to find her.

If she hadn't known Filia, she wouldn't have guessed she was a dragon. Blending in perfectly amidst the humans was a Filia almost like the one from real life, but not quite. The elven ears were gone and instead of her priest outfit, she wore a dirndl in greens and pinks. With her she carried a basket full of jars filled with marmalade. She was in the middle of selling these.

Jumping off the stage, she hopped across a few tables to join her.

"Hey Filia. You might wanna check your soul gate. I'm a total newbie at soul surfing yet I just fell into your head without even meaning to."

Delighted, Filia hooked her fingers together. "You did it! You're using your divine powers to tape into the flow like the gods do! Luna, you're getting in touch with the spiritual side of yourself!"

"Huh ... I guess I am," she said as she stole a finger of marmalade. It tasted of cherry, far more purely than in real life. "Hmm, I can taste food in this dream. I never can in mine. Neat."

"Such details come with being an experienced lucid dreamer," Filia said while pouring Luna a cup of wine. It was best not to question where the cup came from, especially since the inn had been replaced by a corn field, wide below the open blue sky. There were dragons in the distance, but they didn't seem to notice them and Filia no longer was worried. Her family was there too, sitting around a picnic sheet on flattened corn. Luna sat down.

"So, where did you disappear to, Luna? I hope Liliane didn't change her mind about sealing you. " Filia started preparing sandwiches, aided by the figments around her. They handed her things as she requested, but she didn't really interact with them.

"Oh, yeah, that. I'm not in Zephyria anymore. Was gonna drop you a note, but some stupid devil knocked over the closet with my crystal ball and it didn't survive. We gave it a beautiful eulogy, you should have been there."

Filia nodded grimly. "Don't you just hate it when they just get into your house and make a problem?"

"Absolutely. Let me tell you, it's the queen bitch—"

"Luna, please don't use that language in my dreams! Besides, Liliane is not that bad. Sure, she may be a little close minded, but ... " Filia's eyes went wide. "You weren't talking in metaphor."

Luna looked over her shoulder to see a horse sized beige wolf with swan wings.

"Huh, interesting. That's got some details right. Am I leaking memories?"

"You are putting forth knowledge, as you are the god here ... " Filia said absently. A deep frown appeared. "Xelloss said he had no reason to believe you were involved. I thought he couldn't lie, but if the beast monarch sought you out, then he must have lied or he didn't know. I don't know what's more unlikely."

Luna tilted her head, trying to get an idea on what bothered Filia so much about this. What did it matter when devils were likely to backstab someone one way or another?

It took Luna a few seconds to realize that she had just said that out loud. Her first clue was the corn flattened by sheer divine force from the skies and the echo of a booming version of her own voice. She could have sworn there was a backdrop of angel choirs too.

Dammit. Her subconscious had just as much to say in this dream as her conscious self.

Curtsy of a disturbed Filia, the surrounding melted away into a temple hall so large it could fit a whole swarm of dragons. A red shadow fell from behind Luna. She looked over her shoulder

There was the crumbled statue of Vrabazard, shining red as it burned. The picnic sheet was still there, and so was Filia's troupe, all fixated on this statue. Wolf Zelas had sat down and was scratching herself behind her ear while a new Poodle Spot took a leak against the statue.

So this was what Filia thought of her now?

"Oh no, no you don't. You are not associating me with those lazy space blobs, Filia Ul Copt!"

"I can't help it, you're using godly power to be here!"

Luna placed her fingers against her forehead in thought, and by walked a Lina figment in the same thoughtful pose. Luna dropped her hand at once, disliking the association.

"Okay, let's clear this all up. Liliane is not involved. Zelas is in league with Rangort, they're using me as a proxy to find Lina cause supposedly, it won't be suspicious to Scabbs and Puffy if I want to find her, but if Rangort does it they'll want to know what's going on. Xelloss may or may not be in the dark for similar reason, and you shouldn't fret about that."

"But what do we really know?" Filia asked.

What were the devils plotting, what were the dragons plotting?

Was Luna really the evil sister out of the equation?

That last one, and only that last one thundered from the sky too :

"IT IS A RIDICULOUS MATTER! MY ESTEEMED SELF IS NOT THE ONE WHO NEARLY DESTROYED THE WORLD JUST SO MY BOYFRIEND COULD LIVE A FEW MORE YEARS! HOW CAN ORUN CAST MYSELF AS THE EVIL SISTER? CLEARLY IT IS LINA."

A confused Filia looked around at a vague double Orun and a cleaner version of the village. "Luna, what am I missing?"

"Eh, nothing. We should be talking about more important things. Orun didn't even really cast me like that anyway."

"BUT IT FELT LIKE IT!" Luna Above declared.

"Eh ... I don't believe you're the evil sister. You are not even twins. But ..." Filia's dreamscape turned very dark. "Miss Lina is very scared of you ... after I've seen her in face of Dark Star and Ruby Eye, I wonder why? What did you do to her?"

"Eh, don't overthink it. You know how things are a lot more scary when you're young? Besides, she had it coming. She sold recorded Visions of my under the shower to a bunch of boys."

"She did? That is vile!"

"THY HAST NO IDEA!" Luna Above declared. Ominous clouds started to pack together. "BEHOLD AND LET ME ILLUSTRATE HOW PEOPLE LOOKED AT MY ESTEEMED SELF FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR."

"No!" Luna cried, only to be ignored by herself as the scene changed to the village full of snickering people ... and what Luna saw and tasted on the astral plane, knowledge now up for grabs. Under the surface of reverence and politeness, the people in the village saw a broken pedestal. She wasn't the good girl anymore, because many didn't believe Lina had been able to sneak up on her, sharp sensed as she was said to be. She must have done it on intention.

Filia covered her mouth with a hand, and Luna hated that she could neither see her astral side nor taste her miasma.

"ARE THOU LAUGHING AT ME?"

Filia shook her head. "No, I'm just learning a lot of details I have no business knowing. I understand now why you're afraid of what the gods might take along when their power reaches to us. If this is what you can't help but perceive, I can't even imagine what they can do when inside our minds."

"OH. OKAY. BECAUSE THE LAUGHING MAKES MY ESTEEMED SELF FEEL BAD."

Desperately Luna clasped her own mouth shut with both hands. There was no living with herself after this.

"I AM ALSO REALLY AWARE THAT IT'S RIDICULOUS HOW WORKED UP I CAN GET OVER LITTLE THINGS LIKE STUFF THROWN ON THE FLOOR," the merciless Luna Above continued as the clouds broke to let through a lone ray of sunlight. "BUT REALLY, FATHER NEEDS TO LEARN TO PUT THE TOILET SEAT DOWN."

Much to Luna's horror, she found herself hiding behind a rock. In the real world she would have done no such thing, but here the rock just conveniently was there all of the sudden.

Filia gave a little laugh and without miasma to taste, Luna had no idea whether it was mocking, uncomfortable or something else.

"CEASE THY LAUGHTER, THY INSOLENT SILLY PERSON!"

"I mean cut it out," Luna grumbled from behind her rock.

Filia stepped in view and sat down at her side, lips pressed into a thin line. "I'm afraid your subconscious has hijacked my five year old self's fantasy of how Siephied would act."

"That's all you're laughing about?"

Filia made a dismissive handwave. "You'll have to accept that if you walk in the shadow of Lina Inverse, your dignity shall burn on her altar."

"Which translates to the sacrifice of your cool factor if you ever follow Lina," said a Xelloss figment who popped up on Luna's other. "And an absolute accent on how humanly weak you truly are."

Luna flicked a flare of white fire at him at the same time Filia hurled her mace. In this reality, they could actually hit. But, Xelloss just kept listing definitions of how pathetic everyone was.

"THIS IS GOING TO BE A PROBLEM," Luna realized and involuntarily declared as Luna Above, this time with a far louder angelic choir.

"Oh, don't worry, Luna. I won't tell anyone about anything embarrassing that happens in here," Filia said mechanically, staring past her with wide eyes for a second or three. Then she turned away.

Luna looked past figment Xelloss to see that figment Zelas had turned into her aristocratic human form, lovely as in reality except her behavior was ... off. She winked at Luna as she lay on a four poster bed.

"WHY YES, MY HOLY SELF DOES THINK SHE IS ATTRACTIVE," Luna Above said with solemn repose.

Luna grabbed Filia by the cloak. "Filia, dream exit. Now."

"I'm afraid that's out of my control. I have a window open, but you are far stronger than I am. If you're still here, you do not really want to leave."

"How can I not want to leave when this is the second most humiliating thing in my life, and I can't even make anyone pay?"

"Only this much? It's no regular occurrence living with Lina?" Filia asked, putting a finger to her chin. "Zelgadis told me that it took mere days before his mysterious heartless swordsman imago was ruined by Lina. As her sister, I would have thought she would have affected you long ago."

"Lina used to run from me. This is the first time I'm involved with her in a way beyond scary big sis."

"BEYOND EVIL SISTER MY ESTEEMED SELF MEANS."

"You shut up!" Luna snapped at the sky, which responded by shining a little more sun.

Filia put her on Luna's shoulder. "Luna, didn't you just tell me not to fret? While we're here, how about we have some fun?"

With a snap of her fingers, there was a figment of Liliane. "We can hit everyone we want to hit and I'm sure you'll soon learn to control your subconscious. It just needs a little practice."

"THIS COULD ACTUALLY BE USEFUL FOR SOMETHING I WANT TO DO."

Filia looked positively giddy (as opposed to negatively giddy, which Luna did when she rectified people).

"Okay, you learn me to control dreams, and I'll teach you a bit about astral locks on souls. Deal?"

"Deal."

· · · · · · ·

When Luna woke in the late morning, she was greeted with the sight of sun on the straw ceiling and Siephied's ribcage on the astral plane. With a groan, she pushed up and rubbed her eyes. For all of the dream, she had not seen the corpse or even realized it had been gone.

Now, the dimorphism of her soul and Siephied's power was stronger than ever. Ironically, those two facets had become more one than ever. It made so little sense that her human mind reeled at her astral body when it was more and more ... right. Closing her eyes did not make the corpse vanish, but she felt the flow further around herself and could feel the physical world through it a sharper. Grains of sand on the floor, all the detail of Spot's fur and the soft breeze in the curtains. It was worse than after yesterday's dance.

She breathed out and opened her eyes again, but made no move to get out of bed. She needed to think.

In the dreams, everything didn't just look different, it felt different. A sunset was beautiful when seen through the mind of one who cared for such things, even if Luna herself did not. How easy it was to take on the mask of another person, once inside, once a personality could be lived through on the same principles as her own mind. Just different triggers. Filia's dreams always had beautiful skies and Luna remembered them as such even as consciously she had not paid attention to it.

This variant of sharing energy wasn't remotely as disturbing as what had happened earlier during the dance, perhaps because it didn't change who and how she was. Oh, it exposed her alright, but she didn't lose herself into thinking it was alright to be something she wasn't. She couldn't pin point what the dance had made her be, but she didn't like it. In contrast, the dream experience was just a mask to wear.

The price? Having her embarrassing secrets not merely exposed, but blared from the sky. Not that it mattered much, Filia had greater shames and deeper fears, she didn't make a big fuss out of Luna's secrets.

Luna felt like making a fuss about Filia's secrets though.

Filia's fears were all over her mental landscape, lurking close outside the nests she created for herself. She went through moods as if death chased her and her dreamscape changed accordingly. One could step from a boiler room where she hid from a mob to a Sailoon dancing hall, and it would make sense in Filia's emotional landscape. Melancholy and guilt mixed poorly with the fascination she had with cultures or her shallow indignation about small offenses. Luna couldn't understand how Filia lived with herself being such a contrast in five directions.

Val was worst. Whenever the figment of Val was around, he was a cute kid within her line of sight but a devil the moment she turned her back. Every time this happened she would look over her shoulder, worried, only to find a child. There would be a tense smile and a hand inviting him to step ahead. He'd smile back and take her hand as if he had never looked at her with cold hatred. This too was something Luna only became aware of now, because within the dream it had not been important to think about.

Luna knew Filia had issues, but hadn't understood. Knowing and understanding were very different things, Liliane had said this so often Luna had gagged on the words. Ha, truth after all.

Dammit. Being so familiar with someone meant an awful lot of responsibility. Not fun to think about.

The seed of doubt sprouted. Did she really want to keep doing it, exposing herself like this? The dreamscape was more benign as an extension of her holy power, but not entirely safe either. If Luna could get into Filia's mind, then so could the gods. She didn't want to meet them anymore, not that she cared to before.

But exactly because she knew so little, it would be useful to learn the full extent of what holy powers and souls could do. Filia sure as hell could use it, and understanding it would give Luna a defense if it ever were to be done to her by gods or devils.

And it most certainly did matter that Xelloss did not seem to know what Zelas was up to.

Speaking of that, it only stood out after she started thinking about dream logic and what was questioned, but Lyos and Orun had not asked anything about her search, not why or whether she had exhausted all other options.

Whatever was going on, it had the signs of a legends and secret games. Luna needed to know more if she wanted to walk out of it. Plus, even if she was weak before the players this time, it wouldn't do to act like she was. Her little sister, smither of gods and devils, feared her and Luna was damn well expand that reputation from the physical realm to the spiritual one.

And Luna Above whispered that perhaps she was going to dream again because she really liked seeing the world without an overlay of corpse.

· · · · · · ·

Author's Note : Lyos, Nameless and Orun are from the Knight of the Aqualord manga. The events of the manga are slightly adapted to fit onto anime canon, so Lina didn't go there right after the breaking of the barrier, but several years later.