Shattered Hearts: Part X

Shattered Hearts
By Cruzerchic123 and PurpleDameKat

Of Subconscious Memories and Swift Messages
By PurpleDameKat

Everything was black. He stood there, barely able to see even at arm's length. Not a single sound permeated the deafening silence; he wanted to speak, but somehow, he didn't want to interrupt that haunting solitude...he stayed rooted to the spot, half-waiting for something to happen, to jerk him out of this dark void...

"Take the sword, Alex."

The voice came out of the blue, breaking the reticence and echoing throughout the queer dark place. It was a very familiar voice, one he had always known for as long as he could remember...

"Hold it...like this..."

He blinked, and before him appeared a broadsword with a gilded, jeweled hilt. It was bright, glowing, and for a few moments Alex blinked the spots of light out of his eyes, rubbing them and letting them adjust till he could focus normally on the sword that had just appeared out of nowhere. Like the voice, the weapon was also very familiar, definitely something Alex had seen before...even touched...

The white Eyrie reached out for it, stretching out his hands and closing them on the hilt. He didn't know how or why, but he just did it, obeying the strange, disembodied voice.

"Yes," he whispered, his voice wavering slightly. It reverberated and gave him the impression that there were others answering along with him. His fingers felt the cold metal and the chilly gems leaving imprints on his hands. Now, all Alex had to do was raise the sword...swing it...attack...somehow he understood what he had to do with the sword...

But as he unfroze his stiff arms and attempted a simple slashing move, Alex gasped and felt the sword slip from his grasp. It fell with a shuddering clang at his feet, a note that hung in the air before fading away. Already he could feel the humiliation washing over him, just like before...

"I can't," he croaked.

"You can," replied the disembodied voice. "Believe in yourself...Alexandrion."

At the sound of his full first name, the Eyrie was suddenly aware of who was speaking.


"Dad?"

* * *

The white Weewoo landed plaintively on the windowsill of a spacious yet simple house a hop, skip and a jump away from Meridell Castle. It ruffled its feathers, lifted one foot to look at the little scroll tied to it, and started tapping the window pane with its beak, starting off softly and eventually making louder raps while nobody came to the window.

Just when it thought it was going to break its beak from knocking on the glass too hard, it stepped backward at the sight of a brown Faellie taking up the rest of the space on the sill. The Faellie wore a red collar with a round gold tag with the word "SWIFT" engraved into it in large, curling letters, and an upright flaming sword in front of a four-armed dragon carved below the name, an emblem of sorts.

The new arrival cocked its head, seemingly in askance, and made a gesture that looked as though it were scratching its head. The Weewoo watched the Faellie warily, neither petpet making a sound.

"Hey, Swift, who's your friend?"

The Weewoo squawked in surprise as a navy-robed green Blumaroo appeared out of nowhere and picked up the Faellie, which made purring sounds as she held it close to her chest and petted its earthy-colored head.

"Do you have a message for us?" asked the Blumaroo, smiling at the white Weewoo. Then she added rather stiffly, "I'm Suzana Faithwynd-Terraflare, third child and younger daughter of Lady Talinia and Sir Rohane. So maybe you could give it to me?" She tossed back her long blond curls, as though getting her point across, but whatever effect it was supposed to have was ruined by her giggling at how unnecessarily formal she first sounded.

Hopping on one foot, the Weewoo held out the other, and let Suzana untie the string that held the minuscule rolled-up letter. As she unfolded it and scanned the message as she reentered her house with Swift in tow, the white Weewoo left in a flash, but Suzana was too busy digesting the message to notice, and her fingers shuddered ever so slightly as she shut the front door behind her.

To: Sir and Lady Terraflare
From: Sir and Lady Monroe, and The Dazzling

We need your help. Come to our caravan in the Lost Desert ASAP. Please reply.

"D'you think I should tell Dad?" she asked Swift, scratching him behind one huge ear. "Oh, wait, stupid question. Alex is out there...and he could probably be in trouble. Or maybe he is the trouble. Either way..."

"Tell your father what?"

Suzana jumped, scaring Swift and making him zoom out of her arms and onto the shoulder of whoever had spoken. But the Blumaroo kept her grip on the message and hurriedly stuffed it into her pocket as she whipped around.

"Oh, hi, Mom. Where's Dad?"

"Your father is on the castle grounds, sparring with Lisha the Lioness, or so he tells me," said Talinia, glancing at the Faellie that used her as a perch. "What do you have to tell him?"

"Uh...I got this from a white Weewoo not too long ago, while I was outside," Suze retrieved the message and thrust it towards the green Eyrie, whose amber eyes grew wider with every word she read. Swift chirruped urgently, as though sensing the tension between mother and daughter. "Are we gonna have to call the army or something?"

Talinia tried to smile at Suze's remark, but failed. Obviously she was also getting worried. "No. I want you to relay this to your father, while Swift and I head off to the Lost Desert. Is that all right with you?"

"No problem, Mom," said the Blumaroo proudly. "I know the way to the training grounds like the back of my back!"

A dazzling blaze of emerald light later, Talinia was facing two Faellies - a brown one with a collar and a collarless green one with a tuft of golden fur on her head. The former took flight first, leaving through the living room window, the same one where the Weewoo had landed, and the latter zoomed away in the opposite direction, heading for the castle.

The Lady Archer surveyed their flight, taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out before leaving as well, locking the door behind her and soaring as high as she could, zeroing in on the sands of the Lost Desert and the already airborne Swift. Her wings furiously beat the skies as she pursued the Dazzling's caravan and also kept a close watch on the Faellie.

* * *

Alex opened his eyes.

The dark void was no more, and he felt as though reality was slapping him, telling him to snap out of it. His head hurt, like the time he had exhausted all his energy by putting up a shield too strong for him to sustain, and the light seemed to burn into his eyes, just like the sword he had seen...

Was it some kind of vision? Did it mean something? Now that he was coming around, the white Eyrie realized that it had been the Sword of Apocalypse, a legendary blade lost to Faerieland many, many years ago till it was found by his father and used to vanquish Terask, the usurper of the Faerieland throne...and indeed, the voice in his head had been Rohane's words of wisdom, memories of the first time he taught Alex how to use a sword...

But back then, Alex was too young to wield the Sword of Apocalypse, let alone even lift it off the ground. Then of course, he realized that his true calling was archery and stuck to it as he grew older. So what did it mean?

"He awakens," hissed a terrible, wicked voice, so very unlike Rohane's encouraging, steadfast tone. But something about the voice sounded rather...muffled...

The face of a shadow Shoyru suddenly loomed before him. Feeling enraged strength pour into him, Alex leaped up at her, all thoughts of the sword and his father forgotten. Now there were more important things to think of - like the Twilight Triplex's nefarious scheme. But instead of feeling skin, flesh and cloth and watching Thairelle squirm and howl in pain, his hands collided with glass. Wincing, he stepped back and heaved, but whatever it was that kept him away from Thairelle, it barely budged under his weight.

Alex yelled out a spell so loudly he thought the glass vibrated with his words. Whitish-gold lightning bolts arced out of his fingers and into the transparent wall, but they barely left a scratch. Before trying again, he decided to look around and see what kind of trap he was in. He stood up, stooping to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling, and almost thought of breaking it with his head. Of course, anyone with a half-wit would know that would be a very futile and foolish attempt to escape.

He was trapped in what seemed to be half of an enormous hourglass devoid of sand.

As he turned to his right, he saw the tiny passage in which the particles of sand would travel from one bulb to another, and saw Kakirusha in the other bulb, banging her fists on the glass, screaming, tears streaming down her face.

"Kakirusha?"

"Alex!" The brown Aisha immediately stopped and faced him, but the passage was too small for even a single finger to fit, let alone either of the Triplex's captives. "You're awake! Oh, thank goodness!"

"Yes, thank goodness," someone else crooned sarcastically. "The young chick still hasn't learned his lesson, has he? We're not letting anyone stop us in our plan to take the spotlight once again, most especially not an inexperienced rookie like you. Didn't you think that after seeing what you're capable of, we'd magic-proof our trap?"

The white Eyrie gritted his teeth and stretched out his arms, desperately feeling for a crack, or a hole, or anything he could use to his advantage. But the glass was as clear and as flawless as it could possibly be, and buzzed under his fingers with an arcane power. He clenched his fists and swore loudly as the three Shoyrus outside laughed triumphantly, praising each other for a job well done capturing the Dazzling's dancing diva and keeping the too-young Terraflare from disrupting it.

"Alex," whispered Kaki, glancing towards him. She could sympathize with him, as her efforts to break out of their strange prison were as futile as his.

"I'm sorry," he gasped, crawling as close as he could to the Aisha. "I'm sorry I couldn't get us out..."

"No...don't blame yourself," she reassured him. "At least we're both alive...for now...and we'll find a way out."

"You really think so?"

"Actually, yes," interrupted a third party. Tierea snapped her fingers, and in an instant, Kakirusha disappeared from her hourglass bulb and reappeared in Thairelle and Trisenne's clutches. "There, Miss Monroe's found a way out. Unfortunately, we're not through with her yet."

"You will dance for us now, won't you?" drawled Trisenne, keeping a very tight hold on Kaki's wrists, so tight that her face was screwed up in pain and anger. "Because if you don't..."

Thairelle patted the hourglass in which Alex was still trapped. "Mr. Terraflare will take the punishment intended for you. We could fill this up with anything we desire...sand, water, even molten lava and liquid fire...you can take your pick. If he's lucky, he'll survive. That is, if he's lucky. And our magic is the only thing that can free him."

A vague mix of horror and fury boiled up inside Kakirusha. They were going to use her for their own personal gain...and worse, they were going to use Alex to make sure she complied...again.

"Don't listen to them!" he shouted from behind the glass, knocking on it. "Don't - "

The hourglass suddenly flipped over so it stood like a normal one, with the Eyrie kneeling in the bottom half. He looked up and saw the top suddenly fill up with what looked like pink, sparkling sand, which was already running down into his bulb. In no time at all, all the sand would cut off any breathable air and he would be suffocated...

Then the sand changed, becoming more fluid and less pink. Now it was transparent and wet...it had turned into water, sloshing around his legs. Several drips of water later, the sand returned, with no trace of dampness whatsoever.

"Alex!" screeched Kaki.

"Does that mean you will dance for us, then?" asked Tierea nonchalantly. "Because if you do, we can get him out of there in no time."

"Don't listen to them!" Alex repeated, spitting out a mouthful of sand. "Get out of here! Get help! Get - "

He gasped as icy cold water splashed on top of him, rising up to his waist. Kakirusha gasped too, in anxiety but mostly in fear. She had to make a choice now...but what would it be? The Twilight Triplex were numb to her feelings and to the sounds of Alex still trying to find a way out of the hourglass, as falling sand changed into rushing water and back again...

TO BE CONTINUED...yes, I wrote this before midnight and I want to watch Jigoku Shoujo now. XD So kill me.