Chapter 10: Memories Frozen in Time
"Did you hear me, Ultear?" The question barely reached her ears but the callous gruff in which the voice spoke was as clear as could be. Her eyes were wide but unseeing, fingers stiff but weak as they clung onto the lacrima in her palms. Stoic underneath the smooth surface of the flawless crystalline sphere was the aged face of her Master Hades. She should have already answered, the communication between them should have ended and the orders given should have already begun to be followed through, but the dryness in her throat was a barricade she couldn't force through.
"Oracion Seis is expected to be on the move soon. This needs to be done quickly and quietly. Do not fail, Ultear. The room for failure shrinks every day, as does my tolerance for it." Hades spoke just louder than a whisper, the loudness of his voice never being what demanded respect, and disconnected his magic from the lacrima without another word. Ultear managed a quiet, raspy sound of confirmation, but she couldn't tell whether or not it escaped her throat before the sphere in her palms faded to its natural pale aqua.
As she continued her daily duties after that morning interruption from her Master, Ultear found her body working itself as if it were on a list of strings controlled by another. There were no thoughts attributed to her work as a member of the Council as she read reports, spoke with subordinates within the halls of Era, or politicked with this person or that. All of it could have been done by another entirely while her mind was retreating within itself. Memories of heavy snowdrifts and a comforting chill were few in number, short in length, but the few precious things in her life. They weren't something she spoke of, they weren't something that anyone but her Master knew, but they were everything that was worthwhile. Everything she hoped to be waiting for her in the New World revolved almost entirely around those few memories.
And why shouldn't they? They are all that keep me moving forward.
Her basking in such memories couldn't last forever, much to her despair. The morning passed in a blur, but when Ultear faced one of the intricately designed doors that led to the Council Chambers she was forced to regather herself with a deep breath and regain her awareness for the meeting to come. It wasn't that these meetings were demanding tests of one's mental fortitude, or even something that calls for intense thought and a certain clarity to be a part of. More so, it was the fact that she had a role to play. How could she be another when her own thoughts swarmed with thoughts of past sentiments. Ultear Milkovich, the councilwoman, was a stern but fair woman who put the citizens of their country Fiore and the greater continent of Ishgar before all else. Ultear Milkovich, the leader of Grimoire Heart's Seven Kin of Purgatory, was a cold, heartless woman that sacrificed anything and everything for the name of her, and her master's, goals. Masking one with the other in front of politicians and wizards that were keen in their own ways wasn't something that could be stumbled into. That was why Ultear didn't dare open the door before she was sure she was ready to, and when she did there wasn't a moment of hesitancy or uncertainty that would be found in her words, motives, or actions.
"All of the outposts of Rune Knights in the southwest are destroyed! What does it matter if it was one person or a dozen guilds!? Action must be taken!" The small form of Michello was vibrating in his red-faced fury that was sharply contrasted by the white knuckles gripping his cane in front of him. His shrieks hit Ultear the moment she stepped into the room bathed in a brilliant blue from the floor, her steps not dissuaded from the voice as she took her spot at Yajima's right and Jellal's left. Her comrade had the audacity to send her a questioning look at her minor tardiness in the meeting, one that she refused to meet as her eyes never left Michello's face painted in blithering fury.
Ultear didn't like, nor trusted, Jellal from the moment Master Hades picked him and his little friends from that eyesore on the ocean. The Tower of Heaven, it was called. A grotesque tower made to store immense power in what was called the R-System, a power that was meant to revive the dead at the cost of a sacrificial vessel and a world of magic. Jellal and his friends staged a revolt upon the zealous cultists that commissioned it and Master Hades thought it a feat worth nurturing. She never spoke her arguments against it, not once, but they were there. The entire group of cultists were overrun by their own slaves made up of the elderly and the young in their tower made to resurrect a man still living and Master Hades saw potential in that. Ultear only found negligence and luck dancing an inevitable dance. Jellal himself, the same today as he was when they pulled him from the fiery remains of the revolt, was a naive slave boy that deluded himself into thinking he was a martyr in his story. He thought that just because he was ordered to eliminate those guilds and put fire to those towns that he was blameless; he believed that he could be redeemed. Ultear couldn't act like she knew Jellal's motivations, just like nobody could assume her own, but she knew enough to know his "means to an end" mindset was pathetic. She's done her fair share of crimes, spilled her fair share of blood, but her ends were her own. There was no mistaking her actions for selflessness, not even to herself. Yet, Jellal had the gall to act as if he was better than her. It incited her fury just as much as his idiocy did, but neither were enough to prevent her from working together with him. Not when Hades demands it.
"It matters how we react to it, doesn't it? If it is one person, we would be remiss to send our guild mages to investigate these attacks. That would be tantamount to sending them to their death. Sending a Wizard Saint for a group of dark guilds trying to make a name would be an equal waste of resources." Jellal, the target of Michello's fervent glares, was quick to explain himself with cockiness dripping from every word. She would relent that he was acting just as much as she was, making it less than his fault that it grated her nerves, but she could also tell how easy it was for him to play the part of a young, cocky bastard.
"As much as I would like to take action as well," Belno spoke in measured, but stern, words as she crossed her arms tightly in front of her, "Jellal is right in that we can't just throw bodies at this problem if we want it to be handled. Let them recover what there is to recover and gather themselves. Wait for the reports to come in from the dismantled outposts and decide then. Throwing a fit won't save the already dead Rune Knights or those you wish to sacrifice to take action."
While her view of the Council as a whole was a poor one, to say the absolute least, Ultear could respect that her temporary colleagues had a way with words. Slow in action, disconnected from the greater part of the world they ruled, and squabbling children when shoved in a room with disagreements are all true. Yet, individually, they all had a skill and strength in their respective words and magics. Did that mean she respected them? Not at all.
Back and forth the bickering went over who to send or who not to send to the southwest region to discover who and what destroyed their Rune Knight outposts. Everyone spoke, everyone entered their wagers and opinions, but all didn't include Ultear. She stayed quiet and let herself be drowned out by the rest of her colleagues until they settled themselves into a quiet stewing of frustration and held back words. It was only then that she spoke up and provided what she needed to say.
"I hope I'm not derailing this dire conversation," she spoke with a tone that couldn't betray the condescension she felt in those words, knowing that the eyes around her weren't fickle enough to be betrayed by their ears, "but I unfortunately have gained some troubling news to the north. An old terror may be making itself known once again in Brago and I must depart soon to investigate."
"You, my lady?" Leiji asked from across from her, brow furrowing above the frame of his dark lenses. Disbelief was clear in his voice and confusion painted the faces around them. "Surely there is someone else to handle something like this? Council members don't follow rumors, Lady Milkovich."
"Your concern is touching, Leiji, but I'm afraid I must." Her smile she gave him was supposed to be a sweet one, yet the frown she earned in return seemed less than reassuring. "I won't waste resources on mere speculation and this is a matter that is something of a personal matter that I can't trust to a random face that walks our halls. No, I'll leave at once the moment this meeting concludes and be back as soon as I can manage."
A reasoning that was one of the few that weren't entirely lies. The Council had more resources to spare than any other entity, wasting was no issue and almost encouraged. No, this matter was personal and there wasn't a moment Ultear would allow someone to think they've dissuaded her from going. Fortunately, her words to Leiji were the extent of the arguments against her seeing these rumors first hand. Plenty of suspicious glances reigned through the rest of the meeting but none were followed by words. The only eyes that truly disgruntled her were Jellal's. In their positions, they were supposed to be wholly trusting of each other. She championed him to the Council and he shined under her praise. They were seen as teammates in the same fight for security of the citizens that found themselves in the midst of the horrors of the magical world, yet here he was sending a gaze to her like he wasn't privy to her plans to leave. He wasn't, especially because they were Master Hades' plans, but that didn't change the fact that he was supposed to know.
When the meeting was concluded, Ultear didn't waste a second to turn on her heel and walk out the door she walked in less than a few hours ago. The clack of her heeled shoes echoed around her in the vast halls but they weren't loud enough to suffocate the second pair of feet that were trailing closely behind her and stomping a step far deeper than her own. When those feet caught up to her, Ultear didn't bother to look beside her to see who it was. She could see the blue hair, the strange black markings on the right side of his face, and the questioning gaze in his dark eyes. Turning to the right down a separate hall, Ultear simply acted as if the man wasn't there until he spoke up himself.
"What is it this time?" His voice was already annoyed, her lack of response to his presence clearly digging into his nerves already. Ultear fought back a scoff, stopped her eyes from rolling in their sockets, but couldn't stop herself from sending a glare to her left as she turned down another hall with well-practiced steps.
"If it was something you needed to know about, you would already know. It shouldn't be long that I'm gone, try not to give us up while I'm not here." Jellal did, in fact, scoff as his feet stopped under him and Ultear led herself back to her office, clearly taking her dismissal as just that. With Ultear left to herself, she was able to scramble together what she needed from her office, namely a few lacrima hidden here and there along with establishing some runes, before she was making her way out of the Council's headquarters and down to the ground level of Era.
The lodgings supplied for her in Era was one that was meant to "fit her station" as a councilwoman. It was the nicest place she's ever stayed in, even if that was a relatively low bar. Instead of a modest house for one, she was supplied with an entire villa on land that separated her quite a bit from the city-proper of Era. It was out of the way, but it was private. She rejected the servants and keepers provided in favor of those allowed to her from Master Hades to upkeep the place without risking discovery. That meant she felt comfortable sliding out of her formal robes and into her battle suit she preferred to wear on missions. The tougher material that clung to her upper body in a large section of white divided by a waistband that resembled the top fourth of a clock with both its hands atop her stomach was more reassuring than the wispy fabrics of her council robes. When her legs slid into the length of the suit, covering the upper half of her thighs in brown material before shifting to white patterned with black until her black heeled boots zipped over her calves, they felt less bare and more prepared to run or make a quick escape than she ever did when she was working within the Council building. She felt safer when she slid on her steel gauntlets that shielded her forearms and stretched over her upper arm with sturdy black fabric. The only part of her body that felt exposed, because it was exposed, was the space between her shoulder blades that proudly displayed the thorned heart of Grimoire Heart.
Once she was changed, Ultear truly didn't have anything to do within her villa. It was filled with things, every floor on every level, but none of it was hers. All the furniture, all the decorations, all the grandiose design, it was all there before her and would stay far beyond her, she was sure. Ultear herself had few possessions, none of which were outside her direct needs as a Grimoire Heart wizard. It made travel easy and limited distractions within her control. Within the hour of leaving the Council's headquarters, Ultear was already at Era's train station buying a ticket that brought her to the furthest north station on the tracks as she pulled her ragged traveling cloak tighter around herself. Without so much as a word to anyone, Ultear found herself on a train that was speeding north as she let herself fall into her past once again without duties of any kind finding themselves a distraction to them.
White surrounded her. Snow covered the ground and piled feet atop of it, flurries and flakes swirled and danced in the wind, and above were blankets of thick, heavy clouds that showed in bright puffs of white that glowed from the sun that hid behind them. Snow was something that Ultear had always known along with the ever-present bite of the cold. Brago saw only winter, especially when living in a mountain village as she had, and that meant that the large swaths of white was all she knew. The various greens of spring and summer were only stories and fables, the oranges, yellows, reds, and browns of autumn were nothing but tall tales told by travelers, and the concept of hot only applied to fires they lit to hide from the cold. Still, it was home. She was home. It was only in that home that she ever saw the beautiful smiling face of a woman that only looked upon Ultear with the purest of love. Dark hair of a shade that matched her own was cut just past a sharp jawline and split two dark eyes with a drifting bang. The smile was weightless, eyes brimming with joy, and face untainted by fear or worry.
It was the only happy memory that still remained so clear.
The two of them shared the winter wonderland, prancing around in the snow in anything but their smallest clothes because it was more fun that way, and because true blood of the north didn't get bothered by some snow. They danced and laughed in the blanket of white until the gray heaviness of evening fell harshly around them. Still, their smiles remained before retreating into the comfort of their humble home. Her aching didn't bother her, coughs were tame, and the shaking waited until night to return. For an entire day they were left to their happiness.
But now, no matter how clear the memory remained, Ultear couldn't stop that shining memory from being tainted. Now, whenever she thinks of the thick rollings of white that surrounded their home at the edge of their village, Ultear could only think of the smoking heap of embers that it was bathed in that night. The bright sky was dark and terrible, snow painted red and black in heavy splatters, and the flurries of snow were replaced by burning ash that clung to her all the same as Ultear watched all she had in life be demolished by the tall shadow that stood amongst all the destruction.
A loud whistle warning of the train's arrival at Rose Garden violently snapped Ultear from her thoughts before she abruptly brought herself to her feet to exit the still slowing train. She was the first to exit the train once the cabin doors opened and she refused to let the swarming bodies around her slow her steps, or their placement, as she walked from the train's platform. Shoulders roughly bumped into her own, scowls and growls followed her, and the occasional coarse word was shot as Ultear showed no care for others around her in her strong gait.
Around her, from the platform she was leaving to the well-maintained roads beyond that and the pristine buildings and architecture beyond that, could only be described as lavish. The roads were meticulously laid brick that hadn't wear nor stain upon it as it was walked upon by countless trying to make a commute around her. No building was held to only a story, lacking its own columns, or was absent a carved indication of exactly what establishment it was. Any significant row of grass and greenery Ultear spotted was sure to have roses of every color one could imagine and a few more added in between. All the grandiosity and vast displays of splendor outdid even the Council's attempts at immaculate presentations. The powerful like to show its power in every way it could, but rarely could the powerful outdo what the ridiculously wealthy could, even if those two groups tended to overlap too far. Ultear couldn't help but scowl at anything and everything that caught her eyes.
"Was it a bad train ride?" A curious voice came from Ultear's right, standing off to the edge of the road that was lined with a finely kept wrought iron fence that came to delicate points from fanciful designs. The woman had intended to simply keep walking. Ultear didn't want any delays from her path north if she could help it, but the recognition of the voice suddenly rang in her ears moments later. Young, yet there was a certain maturity in the voice that didn't exactly match its sound. It was a maturity born from loss and strife, one that Ultear was well-versed in. When she turned to find the source of the voice, there was a surprise that caught the woman as her eyebrows raised themselves toward her hairline.
She was short, not quite reaching Ultear's shoulder, but that was to be expected from a girl in her early teens. Bright pink hair fell down to just scrape the girl's shoulders, bangs falling loose over her forehead and partially obstructing dim green eyes that were more stern than most her age held. Soft features of youth were combatted by the want to look far older than she was, but Ultear wasn't deceived, especially when the girl's face was hugged by a headband that flared golden angelic wings from either side. The girl wore a purple body suit that followed Ultear's own choice of dress for missions with black overtaking her sides and half-sleeves. Black lengths of material that covered the girl's legs were overlapped by tall black boots that zipped just past her knees. Around the girl's shoulders was a deep red cloak lined in a fine gold, each side coming together at the base of her neck with a teal clasp.
"Meredy? I wasn't told I would be meeting anyone on this…assignment." Ultear danced through her words while trying to stay reserved enough not to draw attention to them, but the quirk in Meredy's pink eyebrow proved otherwise. Still, the small girl didn't mention it as they began walking through the crowded high-society roads of Rose Garden. Despite the grand attractions around them, neither Meredy or Ultear were caught by any of the sites to distract them from their path to the north end of the large town.
"Master sent me last night after he received word from Brain. He thought you would want someone for the second part of the mission." Meredy spoke as if she was reporting details to a higher-up. Technically, she was. Meredy may be young, considerably so for their line of work, but she was of the Seven Kin of Purgatory just as Jellal was. The same Kin that Ultear led when she was within the guild. Even if her words were direct and relatively inconsequential, Ultear felt a jolt at them all the same. Second part of the mission? She remembered the bulk of the mission Master Hades gave her, the one meant to be a distraction that pulled attention away from the southwest, but that was all she remembered him saying. That was all her mind allowed her to clung to.
That, and the mention of Brain was something that always served to unsettle her stomach.
"Very well, I hope you aren't sensitive to the cold. Where we are going isn't for the faint of heart." It was a genuine warning, one that would have been as true to a full grown woman or a small child, but Meredy seemed to take the warning as a challenge to her toughness and her pride. The girl's back straightened, her shoulders pulled back slightly, and her chin rose toward the sky just enough to complete the look of utter confidence. Ultear couldn't help the roll of her eyes as she left the girl to her own devices while they made their way through the town.
It was no surprise to find that at every exit from the town there were fine carriages waiting to take clients wherever they needed to go. It was commonplace to see carriages follow well-worn paths through the meadows around Rose Garden, taking a few passes around the town itself, or even going as far as the wooded area in the distance east of the town. Without the need to work further and a desperate need to placate lives full of monotony and boredom, the residents of Rose Garden kept these carriages moving at all hours of the day and deep into the night. When Ultear and Meredy approached one of these carriages, all black with two horses drawing it with their master seated comfortably on a plush seat at the carriages head. It looked as if the carriage had just pulled to a stop, its horses and owner still fully equipped to ride. Before either could relax themselves, Ultear took sure steps toward the carriage and conjured a hefty sum of jewel in a sack carried by her right hand that thrust toward the coachman that looked moments away from hauling himself from his seat.
"One way passage to Brago. Stops needed for you and your horses will be accounted for." She spoke without allowing room for response. The coachman's already buggy eyes widened further as huffs sputtered out from under a wide reaching, fraying mustache. Hands that were fiddling with his gloves scrambled to catch the sack of jewel before it could be lost and scattered out on the fine road below. Feverish words in response were ignored by Ultear and Meredy as they climbed into the coach, settling on plush cushions that were well maintained and more than necessary for a rented luxury. As Ultear's red eyes looked around the spacious carriage she and Meredy would be sharing for the next couple of days, she couldn't find it in herself to be surprised when she heard the first true words from their coachman reach her ears.
"I shall take you both without question." The voice of the middle-aged pilot to their carriage spoke over his shoulder and into the open hatch behind Ultear's head as she heard the snapping of reins and the lurch of the rolling wheels beneath them. "Though I must warn you, this payment will only get you halfway to Brago, dearests. My horses will need sufficient rest and meal at the first stop we reach."
Ultear rolled her eyes, knowing that the cost of departing from such a pompatic place would be steep but still irritated that this was the furthest north she could take the rails of Fiore. "You'll have the other half once we've begun the second half of the journey, then." Her voice held an edge that ended any further conversation, something that was reinforced with her closing the hatch that connected the interior of the carriage with the exterior and capping the metal horn that was a secondary usage for passenger and coachman communication. Silence then settled throughout, only the percussive rolling of wheels across the uneven path ahead and the clopping of hooves filling the air.
Ultear and Meredy sat in silence, each taking their liberties to lounge across their seats they shared with no other. It wasn't an awkward or uncomfortable silence, but much the opposite. Meredy was the person she was closest to within Grimoire Heart, and vice versa. In a way, their meeting just over three years ago guaranteed that fact more than anything else. Hades assigned Ultear and Zancrow to look for an artifact that was said to be buried deep in the ground where a village found itself sprouting atop of. More so, it was Ultear's job to recover the artifact if it laid there and it was Zancrow's job to ensure there were no witnesses. There wasn't a single soul, not back then and not now, that knew of Grimoire Heart's members who shouldn't, but Hades was keen on ensuring that stayed true.
Moments after they arrived at that small village, a cleansing bath of golden flames burst to life and smoke blanketed the air in thick inky black billows. Ultear was as quick as she always was to follow her Master's orders, using her magic she dug centuries deep into the ground in an instant only to find old bones and useless minerals. By the time she had found, or didn't find, what was asked of them, Zancrow's deranged cackling was the only thing that filled the air. No more screams of terror, no more cries of mercy, just his blood curdling laugh. It made the woman roll her eyes, as the man's bloodthirsty insanity always had, while she searched to retrieve him and report back to their Master. That was when she saw her.
Stark pink sitting amongst ashes and smoke looked at her with a terror that Ultear almost lost herself within. She's seen that face before. Glassy eyes, complexion drained into a concerning pallor, mouth slightly agape, and a tremor that just wouldn't stop. Then, and now, Ultear's mind flashed to the distinct figure that sat amongst smoke and flame that was her home. She must have taken a similar shape to this girl that couldn't be older than ten years. There was a whisper within her, an airy breath that sounded like it came from the same place Zancrow's maniacal laughter did, to put an end to the girl's misery. Ultear could stop whatever fear or torment that the girl felt in that moment in an instant, but instead she reached a hand out to grasp the small girl's shoulder as a hand gripped her own years before. Come with me and I'll give you an opportunity to fix all of this. Follow me and everything can be set right. The same words said to her fell from her mouth without much coherent thought behind them before she was leading the girl toward the same direction she and Zancrow came from.
It was only when they reconvened at Grimoire Heart's guildhall that Ultear realized that the girl she simply dragged away from the flames held an affinity for magic, a strong one. From then on, Meredy was Ultear's responsibility and she got to watch the terrified little girl become a distinguished member of the Seven Kin of Purgatory at such a young age. She wasn't a caretaker, a guardian, and certainly not a mother. No, Ultear was Meredy's trainor, overseer, and commander. Meredy followed her orders, listened to her words, and they trusted each other when they needed to depend on each other on assignments. There wasn't another person that Ultear would want with her to face this trial before her, even if its significance was entirely lost.
Their trip to Fiore's northern border was uneventful. When the horses needed to be fed, they stopped, ate food of their own, and guarded while the coachman handled their business. When the sun dropped, the coachman pulled them over and they made a makeshift camp that had either Ultear or Meredy awake to keep an eye out for passersby. On the second day, Ultear paid the second half of their toll to Brago and it was in the late hours of the evening that the coach stopped with a ring of a bell that chimed through the cabin of the coach. Its string led to the coachman's seat, letting those inside know he wished to speak. Uncapping the metal horn, Ultear spoke into it in response.
"What is it?" She asked none too harshly, but sternly enough to let him know he should have a good reason for delay.
"We're here, dearests. This is as far as we can go together. I do not possess the necessary papers to risk being stopped in Brago on work." The bumbling of the man that eventually came out into a coherent sentence earned a roll of the eyes from Ultear that only Meredy could see. The girl smirked as she pulled herself up from her sprawl on the seat and opened the coach door and waited for Ultear. Following the girl's lead, Ultear stepped from the coach and circled around to face the coachman. "This is the furthest we've gone in some time. I thank you for your business, my dearests."
The man's face was red from the cooling wind whipping it from his seat ahead of the coach. Small goggles did their damndest to cover the man's bug eyes and protect the man's sight from the wind that now whipped considerably stronger than it had the day before. Their coachman wasted no time in leaving after he said his farewells, leaving the two girls alone on a meager dirt path that led north and into the country of Brago. Mountains filled the horizon, a chill settled in the air despite only two days of northern travel, and Ultear was sure that cold would grow harsher as they continued, and do so very quickly. Most notably, there wasn't a single breath of a soul around. Even at the border of two countries, no one was to greet or check them before entering the land. Some would consider that strange, but Ultear knew that it was only up to par for the sparsely populated land. Brago was a country of snow and cold, making its people and its rulers shrewd in everything they did. None would be checked at the border, but none will be shown generosity if they are caught doing wrong, no matter how small the deed. That reason alone was why she cared little for their coachman's departure.
While some may have considered a two day ride in a carriage a punishment, maybe even arduous for those who didn't do well in small cabins, Ultear knew that their time on the coach would be the easiest of their travels. The transition wasn't immediate, but early in the day after their first night off of the carriage, the terrain began escalating around them. The ground became harder, the cold harsher, and it was soon thereafter that the path into the vast mountain ranges of Brago became clear. No distractions altered them from their path. They walked, they ate rations stored away to remove the need for hunting or gathering, and they slept when necessary. Conversation was fleeting. Occasionally one or the other would spur a steady conversation into flow, but those were few and far between. Whatever dull affinity for conversation Ultear usually had was dampened further by the memories boiling behind her eyes. It was easy to hide from those memories when you were eye-deep in Hades's machinations and conspiracy, but now there was no turning from it.
It took just over a week before Ultear was leading Meredy down the path toward their assignment. Years and years had passed since she's last been to Brago or walked these paths, but Ultear knew them just as well as anyone who had lived here their entire life. As they walked down the mountain path, that was untouched and more so just the shallowest path through the snow, they eventually came upon the old bones of some village. Wooden frames of what once were buildings were blackened, debris that surrounded those frames buried almost entirely in snow, and adolescent pines and spruces grew in the wide gaps between what once was. She couldn't say what the town's name was or who lived there, but she was sure how its fate came to be.
Over the next two days, Ultear and Meredy encountered four more towns that shared the same fate as the first. Each had their own differences from each other, showing that they each had their own identity, but that didn't save any of them. They were close. They were too fucking close.
"What happened to these villages?" Meredy's curiosity finally got the better of her. Ultear was sure she would ask after the second or third example of the same destruction, but something staved her off. Something. She knew what it was. Since turning down this old, forgotten road, Ultear hadn't muttered so much as a word. Her head swirled and swirled, none of which inspiring any want for conversation. Before answering the girl's question, a lump in Ultear's throat was swallowed down so she knew her words would make it past her lips.
"Have you heard of the Terror of Brago?" She asked, beginning as if she was introducing some ghost story around a fire. Meredy didn't seem to catch on at all, her stoic face simply staring up at Ultear as she shook her head. Looking forward, through the heavy flurries of the day's snow that came down significantly harder than any other they've had thus far, and the shadows of the next town were vaguely visible if eyes were squinted and strained. "No one knew where it came from, why it was brought upon them. It seemingly appeared out of nowhere and began wandering the mountains of Brago. Any city, town, or village the Terror came across was destroyed in mere moments. The Kingdom of Brago, the mages of Brago, and brave men and women of Brago's people all tried as they might to bring down the terror. All they managed to do was add to the death it so greedily collected."
Ultear stopped, gathering her breath and thoughts as the disheveled town became more clear. That clarity only gave way to more hidden sights, however. Behind what could now be seen as broken frames, piled lumber, and gathered debris was a large shrouding mass that didn't seem to have a proper shape. Her feet wanted to stop. Her body wanted to halt all movement. Her mind didn't want to be exposed to any more. None were listened to as Ultear's feet pushed further through the snow and her voice continued her story.
"That is, until one woman came along. She didn't fight it head-on, as she knew it would be suicide without cause, but she decided to sacrifice herself another way." They were closer, the shrouding shadow now showed two different shades within itself. The outer, greater shadow was lighter and less prominent in the dense snowfall in the dark afternoon. It was almost perfectly round as it encased the darker, smaller shade within it. The smaller shadow did have a form, a humanoid form. It was several stories tall, built with broad shoulders, long arms that almost met its feet, and had short legs with knee joints that were inverted. A cold sweat burst forth under the cloak Ultear hugged close to her form, but she spoke strong still. "Her body was sacrificed, transformed into magic as she used it as a vessel to seal the beast where it stood."
Now the Grimoire Mages stood just outside the dilapidated village and the crystalline sheen of the shell of ice around the Terror of Brago. Its mouth that was filled with countless of sharp teeth pointed every which way was still pulled into a snarl. Its eyes were shadowed and soulless beneath a boned brow that extended out from its face on each side into horns. A mane of fur gathered around its neck and fell down its back with a twisted lock pouring over each shoulder. The beast was massive, terrifying, and exactly as Ultear remembered.
"And so lies Deliora, The Demon of Destruction." Ultear wasn't sure what Meredy made of them, but those words were heavy to her own ears as she pushed herself forward to step through the debris of the town she once lived in. Her eyes never strayed from the massive beast that absently looked down on them, not even when she stood before the demon's feet. Ultear's red eyes burned as if they themselves would pierce the ice and rid the world of the demon once and for all.
That wasn't her assignment.
Those weren't the words Master Hades spoke to her.
Instead, Ultear split the seam of her cloak with both arms as her hands found themselves joined by the lacrima in her hands. The lacrima floated out of her grasp and settled just before the ice that seemed to emit a bone deep chill.
"Arc of Time: Flash Forward!" The words were so hard to choke out that they had to be yelled. She didn't want to watch, yet her eyes never moved as a silver magic circle came to life and bands of her silver magic wrapped around the massive casing of ice.
I'm sorry, Mother. I have to do this.
Tears froze on Ultear's face and blew away into nothingness by the harsh wind as an ear shattering roar burst through the air and shook the world.
Honestly, I don't even remember when I wrote this chapter. I had an idea of what happened, fucking duh, but none of the details really lingered. Gotta say, I like how this turned out. I guess it helps that this chapter sets up what I'm writing right now on my end, so it was a good reminder of what I've already touched on.
Have to give some appreciation to Discipline01 and RegulusCetus for their consistent reviewing. Big fan of it and couldn't ask for more or better.