The Forgotten Returns by Kigaeno Moondancer 4 Sept 2004

Place: the Cleyran Tree
Date: 23 January 1800 (the day Cleyra is destroyed)
Rating: PG-13
Characters:
Adam, Burmecian Child
Burmecia, King
Claire, Moon Maiden
Cleyra, High Priest
Fratley Irontail, Sir
Jack, Burmecian Child
Kigaeno Moondancer
Learie, Burmecian Refugee
Puck Burmecia, Prince
Satrea, Sand Oracle
Shannon, Water Maiden
Sharon, Flower Maiden
Wylan, Tree Oracle

Impossible. Insane. How could Burmecia have fallen so quickly. no one was safe now, and he couldn't believe that Cleyra would be able to fend off such an enemy. Summoning all the energy he could muster, he raced towards Cleyra on his chocobo. The windstorm?

Gods he hated being right sometime. Kigaeno saw nothing but the bare tree as he approached. The wind storm had completely vanished. Not even he had believed it could be done so quickly. He had to act quickly as well.

Arriving some distance away at the base of the tree, he saw ships in the air above it, and soldiers at the base. He was too late. He had to act now. Hopping off the chocobo, he sent it away, and looked up at the tree.

Wind swirled around him as he chanted, gusting upward and pushing him up off the ground, sending him directly towards the top of the tree. It wasn't nearly as fast as he'd like, and required an exorbitant amount of concentration, but he had to get there before they did. How dare they attack this sacred place! What on Gaia was that wench thinking!

She would pay. They would all pay. But first, his people must survive whether they wanted his help or not.

Claire silently slinked through the passages of the tree. Had the others escaped? Would Freya and her friends be there to help? All she knew is that she had seen them go down the tree, and they needed to be called back up. But she had never been down the trunk, and was hopelessly loss.

Tears streaking down her face, her fear finally over came her and she huddled down into the sand sobbing, louder than she intended to and almost forgetting her own welfare as she thought about what must be going on at the top.

"You rat!" it was a single Alexandria soldier. Only one? She had expected to see droves, but even one made her heart sink into terror, and the female soldier drew her sword.

Reacting only by screeching and crawling backwards, she shortly realized that she had just crawled backwards off a ledge. The soldier only let out an amused laugh, and walked back up towards the city.

Arriving at top, Kigaeno was immediately met by several creatures. These were the soldiers they were using then? This must be why they so quickly overcame Burmecia. Landing directly in front of the black mage soldiers, he held out a single hand, sending a wall of fire into them with a single Firaga spell and watching them fall, inanimate. Cheap copies of the real thing. What were they? It didn't matter.

As he hurried towards the temple, he noticed that oddly enough, many of the mages seemed to be leaving and the city seemed rather empty. Off in the distance as he ran forward, he watched what looked like a red coated dragoon and a human piggy back on the teleport disks of several of the mages, as if they were trying to follow them.

He wished them luck, and wondered if it was over. But as the sky darkened overhead, he knew it wasn't. That bitch. Hadn't she done enough?

Claire landed on the sand below with a thud and a squeak, rolling onto her back and was relatively uninjured, at least in the physical sense. Her psychological state was something of a different story, and she did the only thing she felt capable of at the moment. She ran, as fast as she could, towards the bottom of the tree. Luckily for her, her route seemed to be different than that of the soldiers, and she found herself exiting the tree on the opposite side as the normal entrance.

Standing in the remnants of the once swirling sand storm with tears streaking down her face still, she knew nothing else to do than to walk out into the desert, not knowing where she would go and having never left the tree before.

"I don't have time for this shit! You know good and well I had nothing to do with this!" Kigaeno couldn't believe that even now the High Priest was unwilling to take help, "You are not safe here! I was right before, you can't deny it, now you have to trust me to be right again."

Without listening to the High Priests further statements, he chanted the spell and opened a portal to his mountain retreat. It had taken him ages to successfully develop this spell, and it had finally come to use as he opened it directly next to the Cleyran Harp.

"Take the portal and safe yourself Priest, do it now! Everyone! We could be all that's left!"

The Burmecian King was the last to hesitate in such a situation, and likewise he was the first to go through, followed by a female burmecian refugee, Learie, and two children that were apparently hers, Jack and Adam. She had to literally drag them through as they were apparently screaming for their father still.

"I swear on the honor of this place.." Kigaeno looked at the other Cleyrans, "I have never lied to you Priest, and you know this. I will bring you back here once this is over, but now this place is not safe."

Sharon and Shannon, the two maidens that were present in the temple, were half way through the portal before he finished speaking, and the two surviving oracles Wylan and Satrea were quickly behind. Reluctantly, the Priest followed.

Kigaeno snarled to himself angrily. How could this be happening. Grabbing the cleyran harp in both hands, he shoved it over into the portal, feeling hands grab it from the other side and pull as he shoved it all the way through and was the last one through the portal.

Energy surged from behind Claire. A deafening noise that range out deafening her for a moment as a wave of hot air hit her from behind and threw her forward. The enemies had done the unthinkable by using a summoning spell to destroy the tree, and she was barely out of range of a lethal blast. Tumbling to the sand, she lay for what seemed like forever.

Finally a hand shook her from above and she blinked awake. It was the burmecian child she had seen earlier, "Get up!"

"I-I can't.." she sobbed to herself, then found a second individual picking her up off the ground.

"This is the only one I can find, the others are surely all taken. Perhaps even ..." Fratley didn't want to think about Freya being killed. He didn't even know why as he didn't really even know who she was with the loss of his memory. It was too painful to think of right now, "We have to get this girl somewhere safe Lord Puck."

"Then comeon! I found a chocobo that we can put her on. We'll head for one of the villages." Puck yanked out a potion of his own and spread it over Claire, but it didn't seem to do a lot of good. Most of the damage seemed to be emotional shock.

Likewise, Fratley casts a quick Reis' Wind spell on her to regenerate, but he knew she wasn't likely to be fully cognizant for some time. He carefully placed on the chocobo, picking up Puck and placing him behind her, "Please hold her still Lord Puck, I will walk ahead."

He took a deep breath, and buried his raging emotions beneath his rigid exterior as they walked. Even if he didn't know who these people were, he could tell that they didn't deserve this. Beatrix would pay. Queen Brahne would pay.

Was it his fault? Had he stayed up there could he have stopped this from happening? Or would he have been struck down just as easily. The least he could have done is die with his supposed King, and he couldn't shake this emotion from his mind.

Freya.. where are you? ...who were you? Why do I care?

Kigaeno felt the blast of energy behind him in the portal as searing flames leapt out from behind him, searing the back of his coat with flame and ash. Crap; he had just got this coat too.

Turning quickly, he raised a hand and shut the portal, even as he felt the flames sear at his hands, skin feeling as if it might boil. What on Gaia had she done.

As the portal closed, he fell to his knees and forward, not hitting the floor only because Learie grabbed his arm and barely kept him from falling.

"Medicine now! You there, can't you heal?" Learie's eyes shot towards the Cleyrans, and Wylan came forward putting her hands on the ragged black mage Kigaeno.

"I'm fin... " gods he knew he wasn't fine, and felt himself being dragged over to what he barely recognized as his beds, the maidens shoving the books off of it, evidence that Kigaeno almost never slept, "Please don't leave.. I have to keep you safe."

His words were all but pointless, as if he could keep anyone safe right now, but he knew he was in good hands. Still, the King Burmecia spoke up, "He's right. They think we're all dead. We have to stay here until we're certain of what to do next."

Kigaeno smiled. Someone appreciated him. Someone actually followed his advice. As he slipped into unconsciousness, he somehow felt pleased with himself and for a moment, his rage subsided into dreams of Cleyra, of what he had shared there and of his longing to be there once again.