{[ Year 102 A.A., February 21, Sunday Night ]}
{[ Planet Oxhor, Holy Nation of Illyas, Ruins of Mist Pine Town ]}
Knight Harley was a young man in his twenties and an advocate of balance. His black hair had been dipped in blue dye and he wore his armour with pride whenever he walked the wide stone streets of Illyas City.
Now, he walked with a young boy's hand resting in his gauntlets. He kept his pace with the child that was beside him and watched as Athelei's black eyes scoured the town of Mist Pine.
Harley no longer felt the same pride he usually felt when he looked upon the burns on Athelei's face and the roasted corpses that littered Mist Pine's streets.
They walked for a few minutes in search and Harley's mind wandered as they did. After turning yet another corner, suddenly, the child beside him came to a sharp stop. Harley's eyes were drawn to three human-shaped ashes lying before him and Athelei.
"Let go of my hand please, sir knight," Athelei asked softly and Harley let him go.
Athelei took time with his steps as the grasp of heartbreak threatened him. There was a slight tremble in his hands as tears welled in his eyes.
Memories returned to him.
Alice's springy footsteps whenever they played outside, the soothing embrace of his mother, Winter, and Trien's comforting presence whenever he taught him. He heard their voices and recalled the way they said his name.
"Orion~" They always called out to him with the same love despite the varying tones. Sometimes there was disappointment, excitement, anger, or playfulness. But the love he felt with each syllable of his name was ever-present.
Athelei stopped in front of the smallest burned body.
"Alice..." Athelei tears flowed as a small clay sparrow was produced from his pockets. The heat had solidified and brought cracks to the clay. It looked mangled, but the shape was still noticeable. "Advanced... Happy Birthday."
A sob sounded out as Athelei laboriously bent down to place the sculpture in front of his sister's corpse. "Thank you for being a great sister."
He then moved to the ashes in the middle. His tears dripped onto the dried soil below him.
"Dad.... Dad..." Athelei called out as his hands involuntarily reached out only to touch the crumbling ash. There was no warmth. No comfortable presence.
Athelei recalled what his father said before he found himself mysteriously out of harm's way and enunciated between his silent sobs, "I'll live... but why couldn't you live with me?"
He then crawled towards the final burned body. Athelei saw the shape of his mother's hand. The sad shine of her wedding ring flashed in his eyes. The young boy gingerly held his mother's crumbling hand as he continued to weep his heart out in silence.
Athelei could not hear their voices anymore.
But he still had his voice for he still lived. And so, he called out, "Mom... Mom!"
"Dad!"
"Alice!"
He screamed as Knight Harley guarded him from behind.
'I don't like this ending. I hate it!' Athelei, influenced by the grief and denial he now felt, screamed in his heart.
"Why?" Athelei croaked out a whispered word of sorrow. His words were no longer the language his parents taught him.
He blinked a few more tears out of his eyes. "Is this what it means to be mortal?"
Human lips spoke in an unintelligible tongue. Garbled letters that seemed to bend space and time rang out. "Human grief... and death..."
'They hurt.' He thought to himself and wiped the tears out of his eyes. His cries were suddenly silenced as heavy breaths were all that was left.
"It hurts." Athelei clutched at his heart as he heard a pained groan sound from behind him.
He glanced back and witnessed Knight Harley grabbing his head in pain. He bit his tongue upon realising what he had spoken.
Athelei switched back to the Illyasian tongue.
"It hurts... but why do I feel... awe? No... these emotions don't feel entirely human..." whispered Athelei as he took another look at the three.
A conflicted light flashed in his eyes. Opposite emotions clashed inside him.
"Dad, Mom, Alice... I love you all. I guess this is goodbye... right?" Athelei closed his eyes as a faint sense of guilt tugged at his heartstrings.
"Please rest happily where Libra's balance is perpetual." Athelei prayed, and once more switched to the garbled language of his own creation.
"Dad,"
"Mom,"
"Alice,"
He paused as another stream of tears flowed.
"Your deaths... your ending... It was... It was..."
His voice quivered,
"It is somehow... beautiful."
B Z Z Z Z Z T !
Electricity ran through Athelei's bones when he finished this sentence. It coursed from the earth below him, up through his skeleton, into his spine, and rested at the crown of his head.
"Hah," Athelei sighed as Knight Harley fainted behind him. The knight's body finally went limp.
In the Illyasian tongue, Athelei spoke of his observation, "The universe reacts weirdly to the language I use."
Athelei's gaze landed upon three gemstones that rolled towards him through the reverberation of space and time.
One was Cyan, another Purple, and the last, Orange.
Athelei reached his small hand out and felt a sudden connection be established.
Three small flashes of light were birthed by the marble-sized gemstones. They flowed swiftly into a screen that floated before Athelei's eyes.
"The Cosmic Interface," Athelei noted, "But mine is... multicoloured?"
"...Curious."
Suddenly, the screen stabilised in the multi-coloured lights as information manifested out of nowhere. Athelei let out a soft gasp of surprise.
The information was displayed in the same abstract image writing he had used within his diary.
It read,
[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]
- Nebula Gems activated.
- Colours detected: Cyan, Purple, Orange...
- Trinity successfully formed.
- Recognizing User, Athelei: former Denizen of Infinity and Contributor of Infinite Creation...
- Recognized.
- Please absorb the Trinity Gem to bind the Cosmic Interface to User Athelei.
[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]
Athelei was quite simply, stunned.
He looked down at his hand and saw that the three gemstones had disappeared and instead took the form of a tri-coloured marble that rested on his palm.
He gripped the gem tightly and sniffed the snot back into his nostrils. Then, with a firm resolution, spoke in the tongue of Infinity.
"Return to me,"
And the gem obeyed.
.
.
.
Knight Harley was being roughly shaken awake as he struggled in and out of consciousness. His head hurt as if he had listened to the cries of a banshee as a lullaby to sleep.
"Urghhhh," Harley threw up onto the soot-filled street he laid upon. He swore as the stinging pain suddenly flared, "Shit!"
"...Shit?" An innocent voice echoed out.
Harley froze. His gaze snapped back to meet a pair of bloodshot eyes that had clearly been through a lot of crying.
"Forget what I just said, Orien." Harley hurriedly said and stood up with haste.
He suddenly regretted doing just that as he took a breath and opened his lips, "Shi—Shucks. Where did this headache come from?"
Athelei sniffled and pointed at a weird green shard that was glowing with malevolent energy,
"Maybe from that?" He asked innocently. It was a shard that Athelei discovered embedded inside his mother's corpse.
'Whatever that green piece is, it's a questionable item that invokes discomfort. A good excuse to hide my use of my native language.' he thought.
Athelei watched as Harley's brows scrunched in confusion. His expression then moved to shock.
Then denial.
Then dread.
Then panic.
"SHIT!" He yelled, "Let's go, Orien! I have to report back to the camp, as soon as possible!"
"W-wait, sir knight! I need to get my parents' rings!" Athelei hurriedly scrambled to retrieve three mementoes from his late family.
He recovered Alice's favourite necklace: A silver piece that hung what might've been a Purple Nebula Gem.
And he recovered his parents' wedding rings: Plain, matching gold rings crafted with no adorning jewels.
Secretly though, he was able to nab a curious bottle the size of his small, four-year-old, pinky finger. Inside was an ominous green liquid he knew nothing about but felt compelled to take.
Seeing the young boy finish up his business, Harley picked him up and fled like the wind. Harley had been filled with pity upon witnessing the grieving child and then taken on a ride of pain, shock, dread, and panic.
It was a rollercoaster of emotions for the young knight that did not sit well with his stomach.
In Harley's arms, Athelei silently contemplated the happenings of that night. Quite frankly, he was torn between horrible feelings of loss and emptiness yet his consciousness was in the clouds from his witnessing of a tragic, yet twistedly beautiful end.
In the end, he gave himself a vow to respect the ends of those who he loved and loved him back.
'Things must end on my terms.'
This was his first human creed and conviction.