He was running. Michael felt fear as he ran. Pure, unbridled fear. It drove him, made him run faster. Towards what, he didn’t know, but he felt that he needed safety. Warmth and light. Away from what was chasing him. From death.

But… why?

He felt as if he was high or as if he had a fever. His thoughts were disjoined from one another. But even in this state he had to wonder. What was he running from? Who was he running from? He focused, thinking back. He remembered the entrance to the room. The fight, the dryad dying. The remembered…

Regitris!

Cold fear washed over him again, as he remembered the old elf’s face. He didn’t know why. He consciously knew that the elf may have had his downsides, but had been nothing but good to Michael. Yet instinctively? He remembered the elf, remembered him frowning and pure terror washed over him.

That was how Michael found himself running up the stairways. He had taken one good look at Regitris and instantly turned around, bolting away from him. He had run through his friends, through the Martials, through the Bloodlinked. He ran without words or wasted effort, his sole drive to get as far away as he could.

Yet… he had no idea why. He tried to stop and think about it. His legs ran on. He could change directions… sort of. He could pick whether to run right or left. But stopping? That seemed to be beyond what his body was currently capable of.

Once more he tried to think of why he was doing this, when a sound from behind made him focus on his hearing. A shout, then silence, before the sound of rapid footsteps. Michael turned a frightened look behind him and saw someone running after him. Someone with pointed ears.

His hand was on his sword before he noticed it was only Erea. Yet… why was he still afraid?

The elf caught up with him quickly and tried to grab his shoulder. He flinched, backing away and raised his sword. Not once did he lose a step.

“Fine. Keep running, I’ll run beside you.”

Michael could only look at her. They were passing through a long, wide corridor, so he didn’t need to look ahead. And… didn’t want to. Something deep inside him told him to watch her. She was not to be trusted.

But she was Erea. She was…

No. She was just like Regitris, only less powerful.

“Michael, I don’t mind running, it’s good for the body. But… maybe tell me what’s wrong? They were talking about you being infected when I left.”

Rationally, he understood her tone. Noticed how calmly she was trying to talk to him, despite how worried she looked. How so against her nature she was acting.

Instinctively, however, he wanted her to die. Die or leave, but just let him be. He hated himself for feeling like this, but they were still his feelings. …right?

“You’re… you’re so white. And you’re running with your sword drawn, despite being more pretty than athletic.” She said, motioning to it. “Whereas I’m using a |Haste| Spell just to keep up with you.”

Every word she spoke drove a dagger of fear into his heart. She must have noticed too, because her voice went softer and softer.

“Michael, you need to stop. There’s… something wrong with you. …please don’t make me force you.”

Force …me?

He tried to do two things at once. He tried to stop, to let her carry him back. And he tried to swing his sword at her. He missed, but that’s when Erea decided to take things seriously. She dropped behind and raised her arm, aiming at his legs.

It was a mercy gesture from the normally combative elf. She only tried to stop him. But Michael didn’t see that. He only saw an elf attacking. Like they always did. Like they always made them suffer.

“|Earth Dart|!”

Michael screamed a silent scream and slashed his sword. Magic was supposed to be beyond him, but he saw a Spell fly out regardless. Like his |Fire Slash| Spell, only the wave of magic wasn’t made of fire, but of… darkness? It looked like a dark, dirty light. But it was powerful.

It cut Erea’s Spell in two, before carrying on to slash the surprised elf across her chest. Michael saw a cut appear in her leather armor, before the cut continued in her blouse and skin. He only saw pale skin for a second, before he saw red. And immediately after, black.

Everything told him to keep running, that she was only feinting. That Erea was just faking at falling down, first on her knees, then on her front. That the rot Michael saw spreading across her chest was just an illusion. Yet he slowed and stopped and…

No. No, I didn’t do that. That wasn’t me! Except… except it was. No. Erea, no, please-

***

The mind broke and fled inside herself. Chased by pain and anguish. The dryad didn’t understand much of it. She barely remembered what happened. She remembered herself being hurt, weakening. Losing herself. She remembered a final moment of rage, before dying.

And she remembered waking up, seeing through another’s eyes. She remembered seeing him.

And she remembered running, fear whipping at her back. She didn’t know if she ran or the human did. Perhaps both. The fear she felt… was that hers? Yes. And the hurt. …yes? Or was it his.

Didn’t matter. He was coming. The elf.

Her connection to the castle was still there. Faint, but enough to tell her he was coming. And he was picking up speed. Why? Did he know she resumed control? That she even lived? Or… was it because she had hurt another elf.

The dryad turned to Erea, thinking about killing the elf before dying herself.

NO!

That… wasn’t her thought. What was happening?

Didn’t matter. He was coming. Regitris.

So, she ran. She ran towards where she felt the human had been running. To where she wanted to go. It might not have been safety, but it was something she wanted regardless. If she were to die… she wanted to see it one last time.

The sun.

She met no one else on her trip to the surface. Perhaps the castle kept them out of her way. Perhaps someone else. Yet she finally saw the grand entrance, after clearing a last flight of stairs. So, she closed her eyes and ran ahead. A manic grin spreading on her face.

She only opened her eyes when she felt light through her eyelids. When she felt sand under her feet and heard small waves crashing nearby. She opened them wide and what she saw… broke her.

For this was not the world she remembered, in those fractured dreams of hers. The sea and sky and ground… they were not of the natural world. They were made. This entire world was made. And as if to mock her and to drive home that fact… there was no sun. No moon. And she suspected that even if it was night, there would have been no stars.

Light was present, ambient, but without a source. She lay on her knees, in the warm sand, and couldn’t remember falling down. Tears were streaming down her face, though she did not remember why she was crying. She longed to see the sun… why? She was a creature of rot. What use had she of sunlight?

Perhaps, not now, but long ago she did.

“Nowhere left to run.” A voice said.

She turned, not standing up, and saw him. The elf. Destroyer.

Behind him, the same red robbed mage from before stood. Disinterested. Yet there were two others this time. An… orc. A child of the wilds? No. She sensed nothing from him. He was only here as a watcher. And a woman. She… she had something in her. Could she…?

“Regitris.” The woman said. “Your faction blocked my presence before. But I am here now. And I demand you allow my faction to take this being into captivity.”

“No.”

“This may be one of the last of her kind. Please, you have to-”

“Speak to me again on this matter, Ravena and you and your entire faction will be dust.”

The woman flinched, as if struck, but though insulted she said nothing more.

“And you?” the elf addressed the orc. “Any demands?”

“The boy lives. I will not accept mistakes.”

“That goes without saying.” The elf said, grimacing. “I would not trade his life for this… thing.”

He turned to her and she looked at him, not remembering when she got up. She opened his mouth and a hoarse sound came out.

Sound?

“Sir.” Michael croaked. “She… has control. I’m still… in here. Fighting… her!”

“Spirit.” The orc simply said.

She tried to close her mouth. She succeeded. But then she felt her hand raise, prying her mouth open by force.

“Michael.” Regitris said, now worried. “Don’t worry, my boy. I’ll get her out of you.”

“Not… her.” She felt her mouth speak. “I’m not her. I… can get control.”

“I would never harm you, Michael.” The elf said. “I will only excise her from you. As for you, thing. Your kind was ever eager to be in touch with the wilds. To be nothing more than a plague of primitivity upon the world. Are you ready to return to your precious nature?”

She no longer felt the human. Whether from fear or tiredness, he retreated. And left only her. But… what could she do? She was on her knees again. Crying. She saw the elf raise his hand, power massing there. This would be the end… her true end. She felt it.

She looked at her hands and saw how her black tears formed a puddle. Without really remembering why, she used her fingers and her tears to draw twin lines on her cheeks. They represented vines, she knew, without knowing why she knew. In another life, they would have represented life. Now, at the end, what could they represent but death.

She saw light and feared she died… but not yet. Instead, her eyes were drawn to the Mage named Ravena. Crying herself, the woman had raised her hands above her head.

There, a small sun had appeared. But… it was true sunlight. She felt it. Not a small sun, but perhaps a portal. Perhaps captured sunlight. The woman was trembling with the effort, but she continued to keet it up.

The Dryad looked at it and felt her tears evaporate. The light did nothing for her. Her element… it no longer drew from such beauty. But it comforted her.

Regitris looked at Ravena, but did not comment. Instead, he simply turned to the dryad a final time.

Looking not as angry as before, but a lot more tired.

“This ends. |Magic is Might|.”

***

Michael remembered.

It wasn’t his memories he was remembering, but he remembered nonetheless. He remembered as he came to be. A being of life and spirit. How green she was and how green the world was too. How young they all were, as the mountains walked and talked to each other. As the skies were as full as the earth and the sea and as the moon had her own children. Just like her realm had her.

She remembered growing up and seeing the children. How eons passed before they learned to channel their powers. She saw their essence focus and solidify. Take on names and allow them abilities that rivaled the natural ones. How these names grew in renown. How those with powerful names hid knowledge of such things. And how even those with lowly names raised themselves to great heights, by forever improving themselves.

She remembered so many young children. Races. All of them sharing a world. Before they started fighting. Tearing into each other. Forgetting their purpose and yearning for more. Ever more. She remembered those charged with keeping peace forgetting their original purpose. Striving for war. She remembered the keepers of the wilds going berserk at the depravity inflicted upon the world. And she remembered her own kin taking a more active role. Raising children to help them. How the old ones looked at them when she did so herself. As if seeing a sad joke repeating itself.

All these things and more. How they became the guardians of the world. Enforcers of rules. How they allowed magic to prevail, only so the lesser races would have something to strive for. And how some used it to break themselves upon the world. How… disobedient they were. She remembered their own children, half of them, rising up in rebellion.

Demanding… what was it. Freedom? Freedom from what? Were they tyrants? No, they simply wished to see the world live. Live, not die, at the hands of monsters. Did they not see their role? Their duty? They didn’t. Her kin had withered away, their domains crushed and depleted. And still their children turned their back to them. Some stayed… but not enough.

A war came. Their children were now armed with magic. Her kin were too weak. And…

Michael’s heart froze at the pain he felt. Alien pain, but pain nonetheless.

He remembered so many things. Beings, sisters to the dryads, but of springs and water, being boiled alive by the children. Spells that leveled mountains. Hatred that burned entire forests alive. She saw her kin dying. She saw how some of the more savage children tortured them or butchered them, taking parts of them as trophies. Protectors of the hills being made into buildings. The bodies of the tree watchers being made into artifacts. Even her own sisters…

They had to order their other children to flee. The first children… the elves. They had hatred unlike any other. And she remembered their final action. The great gathering. And the curse. If the elves had no hatred in them before, but had only fought for what they had perceived as freedom, now they felt hatred. They bound that hatred, inserted it into their magic and their blood.

That was the end for her kin. She remembered living for a long time after that. Both with other children and alone. Sometimes, with members or other species as well. Humans. Dwarves. She remembered other wars. Yet, from that moment on, her powers decreased. She decreased. Forests were cut down. Her element lost. Until she almost died herself.

But she was old by then. Experienced. She managed to change her element. And if the green was forever lost… then may mold hold her. Her mind became fragmented after that. She did not know how she had reached the… castle. Or how much time she had spent inside it. It was all a jumble.

But it must have been long, for she longed for the sun as for nothing else.

And in the end, right before the end, she got to see it.

***

Regitris took his hand away from Michael’s forehead. The young man was sleeping, once again a guest of Gnosis’ medical wing. He looked at him sadly and quietly spoke.

“|Memory Lock|”.

He felt the Spell take hold and nodded. It was necessary. The past of his people… none would understand. None could know.

“If he is as you wish him to be, one day he will remember.” A grave, familiar voice spoke from beside him.

None could know other than those who’d already managed to find out.

Regitris was too tired to be annoyed. Not after this day.

“So he will. And when he does, I will explain to him what had transpired. And, if he is as I wish him to be, he will understand why I now act as I do. Yet, I ask you to remember that he is an Ascentionalist, Kelunad.”

The orc stepped ahead, dismissing his Skill.

“He is. Because he chose. He could have chosen differently.”

“But he didn’t.”

“Hmm. He may choose again. Regardless, I have my own interest in him.”

“So I see. And does your interest lay in… our little problem?”

The orc looked almost affronted at the wording.

“Only you would call the recent discovery ‘our’ little problem. No. I have my own reasons for helping him.”

“Very well.” Regitris huffed.

“Care to join me for a late-night sparring session?” The orc asked.

“After today?” the elf disbelievingly asked. “You did just see me eliminate a dryad, did you not?”

“I did. A weak one. I believe one must be strong, both in body and in faction. In just so many days, we’ve encountered a werewolf and now a dryad. Who knows what the future holds?”

There was knowledge in the orc’s smile. Too much of it.

“You know something.” Regitris frowned.

“I am told that is what I do.”

“Is it Ravena?”

“You know it is not Ravena.”

“Then what is it? If the old resurfaces, I must know or-“

“Would you like to spar or not?”

“…fine. One hour.”

And so they departed, leaving Michael to sleep a well deserved sleep. And… well. Perhaps it was luck. Perhaps it was magic. Or perhaps it was simply Gnosis’ late blessing. But they left a minute too soon. For right after they did, twin lines appeared on his cheeks. Black and wet. They stood there, a sign of the past and the future, before receding from view.

And for a second, a single tear rolled down his cheek.

Black.