"Your mother?" A person from Asahi's followers recited as he looked over to the shattered and torn statue next to him. "What about her?"
"She…" Asahi was at a loss for words. For several years, the disappearance of his parents had always remained a mystery to him. Matter-in-fact, there were no clues nor were there hints given to him up until this moment.
But despite having experienced the calamity himself, not once could he recognize that memory given to his head.
"Asahi, what's the matter?" Kendra asked as her eyes caught notice of Asahi's pale and cold face. "You look… empty."
Though he knew what had occurred to him was enough to break his heart, Asahi refused and resisted, choosing to lie to them instead.
"Nothing…" Asahi said with a honeyed and false smile.
"Are you sure?" Said a follower covered in wooden armor painted in black.
"Yes…" He replied with a strangulated voice, keeping his one trembling eye closed. "I'm… f… fine."
Finishing his sentence, his heart drained from sorrow. Every warm, pulsating, liter of happiness was excreted out from his beating heart after he was given that memory, leaving but only an empty, hollow shell of an organ inside him. There were so many thoughts that stormed and shuffled inside his mind before that memory. Now, the only thought remained in his dormant noggin was the disappearance of his mother.
Asahi couldn't even remember how powerful his mother actually was, nor the action she had made prior to the calamity. All he could remember now… was her eyes. Those two sparkling, glossy black pearls. The only thing left.
When he tried to get back up, he was stopped by a voice; A soft and modulated voice that sounded neither too sharp nor too soft. One that could match a caring angelic voice.
"Asahi!"
Echoes followed that voice. When he tried to speak, he looked around and noticed that Kendra's face was frozen, so were the bodies of his followers. Caught in shock, Asahi's gray eyes narrowly drifted heavenward and noticed that not even the dust chipping away from the weathered rock was falling down. Everything was still. So still.
Suddenly, the voice sounded again, even louder.
"Asahi, don't go too far with your little sister now! You too, Aletha!"
* * * * *
Without any warning, the surrounding environment was enveloped and replaced by a peaceful, serene sight. A vast and lush environment where the glittering crimson roses cracked and chipped like the warm flames of a campfire. Where the cozy warmth of the sun kissed the earth and nature below and around it. Skies alight with its luminance in a magenta hue, while birds fly high at ease, chasing the drifting clouds.
In front of it, standing atop a lush spire of rock, was a tiny diamond palace shaped by stone and crystals. It flew and dispersed itself into the highest climbing stairs of stone and moss, leveling downward onto the serenity below. A group of fair youth, looking at the years of ten, twelve, and thirteen, all had sprinted down the staircase in wonderment, gazing at the laughing trees around them.
An avalanche of awe descended on their wonderment as the children caught sight of a glittering horizon being bathed in the tame whistles of the soft and quiet breeze. Wildlife all around happily pranced back and forth. Rabbits hopped around with lively smiles, cattle dashed down grinning hills in organized groups, and beautiful friendly ground dragons were seen helping humans to cross gaps etched in the landscape.
A gaze worth dying for.
As the two young ones jumped around in joy, the eldest one turned to a blurry figure behind and answered with a warm grin on his face.
"Okay, mom!"
Although her face couldn't be seen, it could be detected from the tone of her response that she was smiling widely.
"Stay safe, sweeties!"
. . .
The scene was no more than a blur in Asahi's mind, just a mere memory that could never be recovered. Not the sight itself, but the figure that the thirteen-year-old boy answered to. Although some of the memory couldn't be recalled there was one large puzzle piece that perfectly fitted the memory.
. . .
"Ooo, big brother, look what I found!" A young voice screamed out as tiny sounds of footsteps sounded out.
A bright and cheery girl, with a soft round face, dazzling white hair, and glittering, innocent bright gray eyes, pointed to a small creature roaming around a pond of flowers. It had a tiny, scaly pointed tail with a large white heart-shaped tip on its point. Its four stubby legs could barely climb the one centimeter-deep pond, but the look of determination shining on its magenta and gray eyes disagreed.
"Asahi, come here!" She said as she approached it with caution.
As the creature's adorable magenta eyes met with the young girl, a young voice responded to her.
"Hold on, sis! I'm coming!"
A few minutes later, the young boy, Asahi, stood beside his sister, holding his right hand out in front of him, with the same determined smile plastered across his face. His eyes drifted over to the creature. Curiosity flared up in his wide eyes as he examined its every feature. From its wide tiny wings, to its slightly cut jaw, Asahi couldn't help but admire this creature's diamond-pattern that had stretched on its body. As a fluttering colorful butterfly flew over him, Asahi mumbled.
"Hey, is this...?"
His sister, Aletha, smiled at her brother, saying, "Yeah, it's a baby dragon!" She said with her rosy cheeks gleaming underneath the sun. "Aww, look at that little smile! It looks sooo cute! I like the color."
"But it doesn't have any color?" Asahi said with a raised eyebrow. "White isn't a color."
Aletha, as young and stubborn as she was, shrugged her shoulders and answered.
"Pfft, whatever."
Then, approaching from behind, with an excited giggle, a young silver-haired girl with large magenta eyes approached the siblings from behind, reached forward and patted the cute creature, who squirmed in delight, causing a sparkle of light to shine through the air between them. Both the siblings turned over to her in shock, Aletha's face almost fuming in frustration.
"Hey, I wanted to pet it!" She screamed at the girl with a pouty face as she reached over to her tiny hand. "Give it to me! I was the one who found it first!"
"Noo…" The silver-haired girl said as she turned her head away from Aletha. "I was!"
"Finders keepers!" Aletha said with a steaming red face. "Aiyana, I was the one who found it first. Don't make me slap you!"
The young, stubborn, silver-haired girl, Aiyana, immediately jumped up with the tiny dragon on her hand and reeled back from Aletha. Then, as she watched as Aletha approached her with desperation, the girl hissed at Aletha as if she was a snake, cradling, and hiding the dragon underneath her arms.
"Nah nah nah-nah nah! You're too slow!"
Aletha, now in tears, tried to reach for the dragon, but the silver-haired girl wouldn't budge. As her fingers managed to skim the touch of Aiyana's hand, she hastily reeled back and screamed.
"I'm the youngest! If you touch me, I'm telling mommy!"
"But I found it first!" Aletha screamed as she threw her shoe at her. "That means it's mine! Give it to meeee!"
"No way! I'm the one who found it! And I got here before you did!"
"Liar! You were only there for a second! I was there longer than you!"
"NO, I WAS!"
The intensity of Aiyana's words began to overlap young Aletha's.
"NO. I WAS!!"
At that moment, Asahi watched as his stubborn sisters exchanged arguments left and right, fighting over who gets the dragon first. Although he enjoyed seeing his little sisters argue over it, the fight almost got to the point where someone would get hurt. With a certain implication of confidence, Asahi budged in-between the two and snatched the baby dragon away from Aiyana, hollering with a stern voice.
"If you two can't get along, then no one gets the baby dragon!"
Both of the girls looked at their brother in confusion.
"What? But...but..."
"You don't want to lose your chance to play with the baby dragon, do you?"
"But, but, but..."
"If you both can't settle an agreement, then neither of you will be able to touch the dragon!"
After a wind picked up from the grass fields, Asahi snatched the scared baby white dragon away from Aiyana's hands and cradled the creature as if it were a newborn. His soft and gentle rubs that he gave to the dragon's head had comforted it. It purred with each touch like it was a cat. A smile cracked up on his face as he saw its tail wag back and forth. Halting his feet on the ground, Asahi leaned over to the dragon and whispered.
"There… there, you're safe now."
Aletha sneered at Asahi with envy. The thought of her older brother being better at petting and comforting the dragon was unfathomable for her.
"Ugh, that's not fair!" She screamed as her face turned and fumed red. "Why can you touch it and NOT me?!"
"Because this dragon doesn't belong to you!" Asahi replied with a slightly gravelly voice. "It belongs to the world, not you, nor Aiyana.
"But… but…"
Aletha's small hands trembled after she heard that. Next thing they know, Aletha showered Asahi in a storm of complaints and excuses. Aiyana couldn't bear hearing Aletha pout anymore. Although she was young, the girl was quite smart for her age. She walked away and approached Aletha, asking…
"It's okay, big sister! At least now we--
"Grrr!"
Even if Aiyana had acknowledged Aletha's complaints, Asahi, however, ignored her grumblings, looking up at the blazing blue sky, continuing to stroke the tiny dragon's head.
"Hmmm..."
He gazed up at the sky, observing the sunlight shining down onto several floating castles hidden in the walls of clouds. After a few seconds passed by, he slowly released grasp of the baby dragon and stood up straight, looking at both of his sisters and the dragon.
"Okay, if you two want, I'll bring this creature home and see if mother and father will allow it."
Both the sisters rejoiced in relief and excitement
Staring into the glittering eyes of the dragon, a loud scream interrupted the moment. It wasn't a scream that belonged to an individual, but a creature. A terrifying, reverberating roar that resounded over the entire world.
The peaceful fields were hurriedly replaced by an unclear shot of a large creature wearing white scales and large wings, screaming and discharging a white beam of energy to spew at what looked like the top of a sphere.
After the laser pierced through the thing, another blurry vision overlapped that memory. revealing a woman wearing a dark cloak whispering to the white giant-pointed ears of a massive dragon.
("Fulfill the duties of our family, and heal this world. For this shall be your task, not ours any longer.)
("Understood, my lady. Thank you for granting me a great life.")
As the blurry body of the glorious white dragon stood up and swiftly soared out from the floating white palace into the sparkling sea of stars of the cosmos; all of the overlapping memories vanished into a void of cold darkness.
* * * * * * *
Upon opening his eyes, there were no clouds nor were there strong winds.
"Almighty, God! Awaken from your slumber! For it has been two suns since your eyes have been opened." As the voice spoke, Asahi started to become aware of a dull sullen glare of white light shining through his tunnel of perception. Instead of seeing the light streaming down the sides and walls of the vast chasm, instead… it illuminated an entire enclosed space, stretching horizontally among a ceiling of stone.
"What happened?"
Casting his eyes upward, he beheld a spectacle which froze his inner core. A linear corridor with several windows which allowed light to stream upon each path. At first, the stillness of the aura of this place concerned him. But when he looked to his left, he noticed that there were at least five people accompanying him during his slumber. One of which, her eyes widening in shock.
"Asahi?" She said with a disbelieved face.
Asahi could not help but feel an utter sense of hopelessness within the cold expanse of the ones who had resided in. He could see it-- A prosperous and glimmering hall coated in shades of sparkling white; now reverted to hallways of charcoal and scattered bricks. The sight served as a harsh reminder that this was a past long gone.
But instead of Asahi reconciling his dreamy and incoherent feelings, he decided to numb it away by staring at the girl who had awaited his supposed slumber.
"Huh?"
Others kept their glance at him, their masks peeled off revealing their undeniably beautiful faces. All of which had not a single mistake engraved on them. It was almost as if to Asahi, that none of the people around him ever aged. To his surprise, it seemed as if the blue-haired girl, Kendra, was covered in bruises. In return, he stared at her at times longer than he could count.
(How… How long has it been?) Mused Asahi as he kept his position secured.
The longer that Asahi gazed at Kendra, the more absorbing became the trance, almost starting to become startled and dizzy at the blinding hues of her shimmering blue hair. He tried to reel back his gaze, but just couldn't stop thinking about how in the world she had received bruises.
Before he could redraw his glance at the mystery of the bruises, Asahi diverted his attention to the glare of the white walls and asked with his normal tone.
"Kendra…? Are those… bruises?"
Stupefied with shock, the young woman tottered closer to him, retracting her position to a straight one. She noticed where Asahi's gray eyes had anchored too, and immediately arched her back, sweating profusely. With a tone with slight embarrassment, Kendra nodded her head and replied.
"Yeah…" She said with a slightly unsure voice. "I got them when I was trying to defend you from those… things."
"Things?" Asahi recited as he stared at the darkened spots on Kendra's arms.
The reply itself was enough to gather the attention of the other four people who had surrounded him. They slowly crawled over to him with wide, astonishing eyes. Despite this relatively strange reaction, Kendra nodded her head and continued.
"Yup…" She said as she felt her heart implode from seeing Asahi's torso exposed. "When you all of a sudden fainted in front of us, me and your… group were ambushed by these…" She gulped down a cold, dry breath of fear, cowering at her recollection. "These…"
The overall memory was enough to put Kendra in a state of panic. It seemed to Asahi that this memory made it to where not even the one who had presumably defended him could recall it. Though the tension of this moment may be tight, Asahi did his best to suppress and ease out the situation by keeping his voice relatively quiet.
"There… there…" Asahi said as he observed the marks on Kendra's knee. "I… have also encountered something. A memory… I would have never expected. So I understand…"
Suddenly, a girl with short, brown hair with a black hair clip protruding over her head and crimson eyes interrupted and stepped in front of Kendra and sat down on one knee. Giving an elegant and respectful bow, the girl then informed Asahi with a heightened voice as Kendra almost broke herself into tears.
"Lord Asahi, it may seem to us that you need an explanation." She said as she lowered her brown shield. "Is it needed of you, my lord?"
Keeping his formal-aura at bay, Asahi nodded quietly. After which, the mysterious girl resumed.
"From whence you had collapsed, monsters of strange proportions started invading you and that lady next to you..."