The truth about the history of Ehert has always been handled around like some sort of torch. And the more it began to be passed down from generation to generation, the torch holding the flame would change.
It was an endless cycle of agitation, depression, and shame by those who were bestowed the honor to carry the sacred light of history.
The truth is still unknown...
Until that one winter cycle, long before the reality calamity that Sin caused.
I was one of the youngest scholars of the Applettes of Life, freshly 332. I was on a full-ride, academic quest to the Blue Oasis, where I had the oddest encounter with an elder fortune teller who had been traveling from the Forgotten Land of Ash.
Aina was her name. A kind and selfless fawn-person, with eyes of silver and hair brown with little decorations of red leaves, blue feathers, and flowers. Though as soft as she was by appearance, her tongue was as white as snow. And her aura as bold as rocks on the highest mountain.
(Ar: Tongue as white as snow. Did you and she...?)
(Ez: My- did Attor rot your brain? I meant it figuratively, Arsin!)
(Ar: Forgive me.)
In the marketplace, she was alone in a tiny corner next to the Blue Oasis Palace's very large staircase. I planned on skipping right past her to see the rulers. After all, she was no one but an ornament at the time for all locals.
But she called out to me, like a hypnotic dancer, if a dancer was much older and had more wrinkles...and not dancing.
"Excuse me, Dear boy. Forgive my suddenness but I have never seen a fairy before in all my years here."
I simply peered over my shoulder, giving her my best uninterested gaze in hopes she would back away. Take the disinterest on my face as a sign. But she was as blind as a musbrat. Petting my wings as if they were a display! Not to mention, my wings were tucked under my student robe. I felt both insulted and assaulted all at once.
"The f-- I have no business with you, old hag! Leave before I shout assault!" I snarled as I pulled myself away.
"How rude! Did your parents ever reach you any manners?!" Aina snarled back, seeming more surprised than I was when she reached under my clothes for my wings.
Perhaps it was a Blue Oasis thing, or a her thing. Either way, the audacity-- the nerve this old hag had left me in a fit of laughter.
So I laughed.
Her comment seemed hilarious at the time. Not because of the irony, far from it. But because her unwelcomed touch reminded me of my bitter past.
"You truly have not met a fairy before, hag." I responded, securing my robe before turning to face her properly. About to place down my staff but she--before I could even react-- kicked my staff from the bottom with her hoofed foot, sending me to my face.
(Ar: You were quite the gangster, Ezephyr. No wonder we butted heads on our first meet.)
(Ez: ....)
"I ought tah put some manners in you." She huffed but then stopped. Her eyes now wide.
I thought I she would get a heart attack. I was almost, almost, happy. Until I caught this faint golden light traveling up from her finger tips to her veins until it scurried to her eyes. It happened quite fast so I was not sure of what I exactly saw, but it seemed to have changed her. From her bold scolding to a more softer expression. As if she felt remorse...
Though, as a naive young-ling at the time, I also thought she was a scam artist- a thief who was after my memories to take for ransom, as it was the winter cycle (the popular cycle for memory thieves). After all, she freely bared the classic mark of mystic thieves on her back hand.
Slap!
Aina had struck my face quick, like the wings of a hummingbranch. It stung, yet felt gentle. As if she struck me with good intentions.
I wanted to apologize after the revelation of my nasty behavior came back to haunt my mind. But girthy red vines surround my body. Clinging onto it tightly. Devouring any possible room for me to squirm.
"Come now, dear. I don't bite." She grinned, revealing her mouth to be devoid of many teeth.
I was disgusted, but mostly intrigued by her sense of humor and boldness. One quality, that none her age, shared. But I did not think it was worth praising if I were to be delivered to death. So I tightened my grip on my staff in hopes of getting myself out of this mess.
"You're strong at spirit for a scholar. I commend your fighting spirit--"
I did not stay awake to hear the rest. For I fell into deep slumber in hopes of finding an escape through my domain: dreams. I figured it would be no easy task, but it was harder than I had thought as I was sucked out of the emerging dreamscape by a cold splash of liquid to my face.
"GAH!" I gasped, shooting a stare at the nearest thing.
"So you wish for the truth, huh?" Aina huffed, gazing at the scroll in her hand. A scroll...
MY scroll!
I'll never forgot the suspicious smirk she had on her wrinkled face when her eyes met mine when I reached out. And the next words didn't help with it. "Come with me to the restricted glass forest."
It was odd of her to emphasize the word 'restricted'.
I remember gripping my staff in extreme suspicion, despite risking my strength against the vines. Surely, this was going to be the moment that the old fawn would reveal her true self and steal my memories. Perhaps steal the gift of the Goddess Aralaine along with it!
Oh, young me was foolish and afraid. Paranoid to the very core as she released the vines on my body once we arrived at a mossy, stone wall in the middle of this empty section of the forest with the fog still dancing around us.
"How can you see through this fog?" I murmured, ready to cast a spell of light. But Aina grabbed the hand I slightly rose my staff.
"You fool! Casting a spell of light in the glass forest will kill us!"
"Wh- what?"
"Oof, and here I thought you were the smartest out of the basket of foolish scholars." She tsked in disappointment with the shake of her head.
"No one insults the Applettes of Life. Though, you are not wrong, old hag..." I admitted. And it was the truth. Our school, as well as the scholars and professors amongst it, were no shorter than a warrior with their head in the clouds.
However, I was far from those airheads. I devoted myself to studies for merely one objective, which Aina held in her hands.
"Tch! Disrespectful young fairy. My name is Aina. Remember it or I'll have this forest take you away." Once she gathered a moment to draw a breath, she turned to the wall and pressed her hand on its surface. And beyond my ears' capabilities to hear, she whispered something that invoked a series of laternbugs to emerge from the trees.
Each one floating in a line to where I assume we were going.
We passed by the silhouettes of rather suspiciously shaped trees. Some appearing like thin, tall beasts and others like thorns on a single branch.
Not to mention, the air was dead. Not a single sound could stick to the air. And the fog was unable to let the light of the lanternbugs pass through to shine our path.
How useless, I thought the bugs were. But maybe it was me who made the mistake of falling behind as the lanternbugs picked up their pace to keep the path ahead lit.
And Aina seemed so sure of herself as she walked. Eventually walking far beyond my speed.
I thought it impossible, the way she scurried into the foggy forest, out of sight and out of my radar.
"Old hag!" I shouted after her but it was too late. She was long gone, along with those useless lanternbugs.
I held onto my staff tightly as I slowly walked to where I thought she was walking, despite her hooves having left no mark on the ground. After all, it was covered in deep snow that kept being piled on by the darn sky.
"Aina?"
I am lost...
I was convinced by this single thought as I walked and struggled through the snow like a madman with the cold stiffening my joints.
I was going to die....
Surely it was the end for me. It had to be as I fell to my knees, drawing a weak breath which no longer contained warmth.
"Are you lost?" A deep and dark, yet honey-tone voice asked behind me.
"Yes..." I muttered weakly. Even if it was a ghost or illusion that I was talking to, perhaps I'd best stick with an end where I didn't end up feeling alone. "Can you help me?"
My eyes met the voice and I was struck in the heart by fear as sharp and cold as an icicle. Its presence screaming at me. Telling me to run. But I was frozen. Glaring at the image of him... but he shouldn't be alive.
(Ar: Who was it?)
(Ez: It was...)
Finally, I regained the strength to run away. Pushing through the snow, though my lungs filled with ice and my mind with frost. I ran for what seemed like forever. Perhaps it was only three steps away from the voice and I made a fool out of myself. But I only wished to live and keep Aralaine's gift out of the clutches of evil.
My messy steps soon led me to what has to be the greatest change in my life, for when I tripped over a thick tree root, I rolled down the hill I was unknowingly on top of. Falling and rolling until...
THE GRAND LAKE OF INFINITE LIGHT!
Standing before me like a white blanket of glowing constellations and dark planets. Peering into it was said to be like peering into the endless, vast sky. All of space's secrets revealed in this lake. And to dip your body into it has been said to lead to many disappearances and other unforeseen outcomes.
If I were not stuck in my predicament at that moment, I would have stopped to admire the lake from afar.
However, I did manage to stay on my two feet mid-fall and stand at the edge of the lake with my balance tipping. Eyes stuck on the lake's magical water. My faint reflection showing the frost on my face as well as an unknown figure standing behind me.
I was too late, though. For this figure, with a touch like the wind, pushed me in.
I do not know, even now, if this was real or not but as I fell deep into the waters with my breath held, I flinched at the sound of metal clashing and voices screaming in anger as the white waters around me turned red.
Shadows of men ran around me, as if in a hurry. As if in search of a great evil.
"He must be hiding somewhere! Find that wretched elf!"
More sounds of metal accompanied the sound of broken pottery and the crying of children and families.
"Not here!" One rough voice shouted.
"Look again! He has to be here!"
Doors slammed open and mouths forced shut.
All I could hear, and not see.
The redness disappeared and I was standing in a plain field. The grass stained with blood and the soil housing the bodies of various humans. Children, mostly.
It was horrifying. I felt like running away even though a part of me knew this was just an illusion.
Then there he was.
Standing in the middle of the bloodshed wearing a crooked smile, his white scales shinning in the fast glimpse of the sun that quickly hid behind another dark cloud.
The owner of the voice I heard in the forest.
The owner of those rather feminine eyes with slits of a classic dragon dipped in this golden ring with flakes of red and a base of deep red in the middle.
It was like peering into a storm of gold and fire, with the eye of such storm being the blood of man.
And his very light, blonde hair kept in a loose ponytail could not hide the horns he had hidden beneath his cloaking magic nor the girthy, treasure-decorated tail that slightly wagged at every scream that pierced the air.
Then those thin red lips formed words I could not make out.
I was afraid. But not from the secret words he was flapping.
"There it is!"
"There's that damn Dragon!"
Voices of humans shouted all around us.
But what did clench my heart with fear beyond imagination? Beyond the nightmares I have witnessed both here and in dreams I have traveled through in the past?
It was the fact that this dragon was staring at me, pressing his clawed finger against his soft smile to hush my urge to scream for help.
Because he was an illusion made in the magical waters of the Infinite Light Lake.
And I was real.
As a reflex, I waved my staff in front of myself. Planning to shoot at the image but the battlefield disappeared. Leaving me with...
"You, child of Aralaine, are destined to walk a path no man shall ever walk alone without risking death." A nymph-like being said to me with her arms spread out.
She was like a dream. She moved like one, with her thin beige dress fluttering around her along with her elegant, long dark-green hair. Though she appeared as a detail-less figure, I could somehow imagine them clearly along in her mind. Along with her name.
"Neuvirik." I breathe, although a rush of cold liquid invited itself down my throat and nostrils, and into my lungs.
Neuvirik clamped her webbed hands against my chest, eyes closed and lips forming words.
It was astonishing to see her beauty from up close. To see mystifying symbols and marks running like lines on her face. Glowing and flowing with magic unlike any I had felt or seen before.
"Aralaine chose the best person to protect her gift." She said hushingly, her glassy white eyes shinning as she wore a smile on her black-blue lips.
I invited a breath of air unknowingly to tell her, "What am I destined for?"
But she stayed silent. "Go on. Ehert awaits, sleeper."
With one hand to my chest, Neuvirik pushed me away. Sending me to fly back several meters until great hands fished me out of the water. Dragging me out until I was completely out of the lake.
Immediately, I sat up, cracking my neck with a smile on my face.
"How most intriguing!" I yelled, waving my cane in utter excitement as I laughed. And laughed some more while dancing and kicking snow. Spinning and spinning in excitement.
"So she has accepted you." Aina smiled, appearing before me with a blanket ready to envelope me, which was a gesture of genuine joy and relief.
I walked up to meet her. Regret and shame running even more rampant in my mind when I remembered my foolishness earlier we met but she dismissed me and asked, "What did you see?"
"I saw a battle." I told her immediately as I settled myself onto the ground of white leaves, embracing the cold that soon turned into warmth. "A battle so ancient, that no living being even touched on its existence."
When I peered over my shoulder to look back at the lake, the much more recognized relic of history--the glass tree--stood in its place instead.
We then spoke. Her story, which was once unheard of and could even be passed off as a mere fairy tale to more seasoned scholars, established the position of the Gods and several other connections never acknowledged before.
I begun to realize how wrong I was about the history of our world.
"What you witnessed was the Battle of Ralzeoth was both a battlefield of blood and mind. A piece of history dipped in deep regrets and anguish..."