paixaorpg | Lights in the Darkness [Complete]

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Lights in the Darkness [Complete]

Character(s): Neirenn and Yorda
Content: Yorda's wandering around the city and happens upon a certain mage.
Setting: The city of Paixao, on the streets.
Time: Afternoon
Warnings: Other than possibly gratuitous amounts of Yorda's curiosity, none.

She had never been afraid of the dark. It simply wasn't in her nature, and although she would have had a hard time, if not for the glow that still filled her entire being - but something was wrong. She did not glow as brightly as she usually did, though her light was enough to see by, and she was having no trouble finding her way around the city. She couldn't manage to make her journal work, try as she might, and frowned.

She hoped everyone else in the city was alright.

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Neirenn had given up on trying to keep a light going. Each time she created one it was snuffed out within a minute or so, and she didn't want to waste her magic. Even trying to create a flame didn't work for very long.

So she used dark magic. Easy enough; it wasn't like she needed to use a lot. All she needed to do was be able to see, a simple enough spell. Neirenn could see the shapes of buildings, benches, the fake trees in the form of vaguely purple outlines that stood out well. But once she'd found somewhere to buy food, she'd head back to the hotel--

--wait. "Hello?" she called warily at the sense of another person. Moving closer, Neirenn found that she could actually see them. They--she--was glowing, though at this distance it still looked faint and dim. "Who are you?"

Yorda was staring around at the darkness, a vaguely ominous feeling coming over her. She wasn't afraid, that was true, but that didn't stop the girl from feeling as though something was coming. That woman, Maleficent... had she caused this darkness? Yorda didn't want to go anywhere near her if she could help it; the strange woman reminded her far too unpleasantly of Yorda's own mother.

The princess whirled around at the sound of another person's voice and looked at the stranger interestedly. "My name is Yorda," she told her softly. "Who are you?"

Neirenn's eyes widened at the sight of the girl. She... she was glowing. Pale, thin... and filled with an energy that Neirenn couldn't quite put her finger on. Magic, of some sort, but not a kind of magic that she had encountered. It almost seemed like the elven magic that had been in Inverloch. This girl wasn't an elf, but she was definitely not human either.

"I'm Neirenn," said the young mage. "What are you? And how are you--glowing like that? Every magic light I've tried to summon is overwhelmed by the dark magic." She realized after she said it that the question was kind of rude, but still, she wanted to know. She'd never seen anyone like Yorda before.

Yorda looked curiously at the other girl. She was used to being stared at by now, but somehow, something seemed different in the way she looked at her. Yorda was neither a mage nor a fighter, but she had lived long enough in this city to tell when she was being looked at with curiosity and when curiosity was being replaced with something much more like calculation. It wasn't the bad kind of calculation that Yorda felt she was being looked at with now (unlike her mother's); it was more like the other girl was attempting to puzzle her out.

Yorda blinked at the question and stepped closer, looking the other steadily in the face. "I am a shadow," Yorda replied simply, "though I am not right now. I have always been this way." She tilted her head, not minding the questions at all; she was usually the one asking.

"A shadow..." Neirenn's curiosity only grew at that. And as long as Yorda didn't mind the questions, which she didn't seem to, Neirenn felt it was okay to keep asking them. "If you're a shadow, why are you glowing? Not that it's a bad thing, of course," she said. "Especially now."

A shadow. It was like fonons and Auldrant and the city itself--everything from a different world. Too bad she'd been brought here against her will. "How long have you been here? Do things like this happen often?"

"I am not in that form right now," Yorda explained. "Now I am a girl." She liked being a girl, being able to be a girl. Granted, she was still female no matter what form she took, but she preferred to avoid being in her shadow form except when absolutely necessary. "I glow because I have always glowed, although the darkness has made my light weaker."

The girl thought for a few moments. "I have been here for many turns of the sun and moon, Yorda decided." When one could live for hundreds (if not thousands) of years and didn't have any means to tell time aside from watching one's own shadow, there wasn't much more to telling time than that. "This has never happened before."

"Oh, I see," said Neirenn. Light and shadow in one person... that was strange. She would have thought that the two wouldn't be compatible with each other, or that one canceled the other out... but maybe being a person was what made it possible.

The way she spoke was a little odd, too. Almost like someone from an old story. Neirenn wanted to keep up the questions, but considering the current situation--"Someone on the network said that a woman named Maleficent is responsible for this," she said. "Do you know much about her?"

Yorda was different as a shadow, and different in her normal form. Each side had its own powers, strengths and weaknesses. She was not like her mother, who chose one side and seemed to shun the other; she liked the light and the dark well enough and knew better than to attach any particular attribute to it that did not need to be - such as good or evil.

"Yes, I know of Maleficent," Yorda replied serenely despite the fairy in question, looking at the girl as though they had all the time in the world. "She frightened me. I do not like her very much. she has taken over the city. If it was she who caused this darkness, we should stay away from City Hall."

Curious, how easily Yorda answered that question. It seemed almost too much so, actually, with the admission of fright. "Is she very powerful, then? Do you have any idea how her magic works?" Neirenn said. She had told that mystery person on the system that she would try to find out more, although she wasn't certain that it wasn't a trap of some sort.

The fact that Maleficent was a "fairy," a tall one in black robes no less, felt rather discouraging to Neirenn. She was rightly proud of her magical abilities, but she knew from experience that going up against anyone whose race was naturally magic would end badly for her. But she wasn't thinking so much of confronting her directly as trying to undermine the spell and poke holes in it.

Yorda shook her head. "I do not know," she replied. "I have never seen it. She appears to favor Darkness and thorns, but I do not know what else she is capable of." She thought for a moment. "If you are trying to learn of her, you should be cautious. We do not know how far she will go, but a man named Hades kidnapped a girl once. I believe she was rescued, but..." she trailed off, lowering her eyes. If Hades would do something like that, what would his apparent superior do?

Yorda didn't know entirely what a fairy was, but she'd seen the word bounced about on the journals about her, and if that was what a fairy did, Yorda wasn't sure she wanted to know more.

"Well, I have no intention of getting kidnapped," said Neirenn. "But this is a nuisance." She looked up at the blackness. Maleficent had certainly done a very thorough job on this. Maybe she could manage to create some kind of small shield against it, big enough for a person to keep a light alive in.

"Can you use magic, Yorda?" Given Yorda's entire nature, Neirenn would be surprised if the answer turned out to be no.

Yorda watched the other girl, slightly stunned by how confident she sounded. Of course, she had never intended on being kidnapped, either, but that hadn't stopped the shadows from her world from picking her up and attempting to carry her off whenever they got the chance. "I do not mind the darkness," Yorda decided. "I mind the darkness coming unnaturally and malevolently."

Yorda blinked at Neirenn. "I do not know," she replied. "I can open doors and change my form, shield and heal and go to other places. But I do not know if that is what you would call magic."

Neirenn nodded. Dark magic in of itself wasn't a bad thing--so long as you were strong enough to handle it without being corrupted by the dark spirits that fueled it. At least, that was how it was in her world. Yorda didn't seem to be corrupt in any way, despite describing herself as a shadow.

She stared at the girl when she listed her abilities, one word in particular catching her attention: heal. "That sounds like magic to me," she said. "Especially the shapeshifting... and the healing." But Yorda wasn't human. Still, for a shadow to possess healing magic...

That's not what I need to worry about right now. I can ask her about that later. "So what kind of shielding can you do? Maybe we can figure out a way to repel the darkness enough to let us keep a light going."

Yorda had never had any hint of corruption touch her in her entire life, despite what had happened to her in the castle and the Heartless that had come after her once. It was as though it couldn't touch her at all, in fact. She smiled at Neirenn, ecstatic that she was learning something new about herself. "It does? Then I am glad," she decided.

Yorda thought for a moment and nodded hesitantly. "I will show you," she decided, closing her eyes and focusing. She could feel her molecules shifting, the light that filled her being being drawn back into her body and being replaced with inky, smoky darkness as all discernible features of her disappeared. "I will try," she replied, her voice changed from its normal breathy tones to a more powerful echo, albeit still quiet, as the girl willed a shield around her being.

Neirenn returned Yorda's smile. It was hard not to feel a liking for the girl, strange though she was. She seemed so innocent, even more so than Ash had been.

But her expression became one of wonder as she watched Yorda's transformation. Everything light and radiant about her shrank back like draining water, darkness flowing into its place. "That's amazing... so this is what you mean by shapeshifting..." Neirenn had been expecting some kind of transmutation, turning from a person to an animal, but this was no less astonishing. Even more so, perhaps. That was just a changing of, well, shape. But Yorda looked as though she had just reversed the nature of her very being.

Even her voice was different. Neirenn felt her create the shield around herself and remembered what they were trying to do. "Okay," she said, conjuring a small orb of soft blue light above her hand. The darkness pressed in around it immediately to squeeze it out. Will this work? That shield is definitely dark magic... Still, Neirenn pushed her hand into it.

Her hand went through, but the light struck it and bounced back. Neirenn felt the shield's strength flicker, too. "Okay, it looks like that doesn't work," she said.

In a way, Neirenn was right. All Yorda had to do was call the light back into her body and summon forth the darkness from which she was practically born. "Yes," Yorda replied simply. What else could she have done, she wondered? She had never seen any other kinds of shapeshifting but her mother's, which was almost the same as hers (but her mother had been mostly shadow in the end anyway).

Yorda gasped as the orb of light bounced off of her shield, her shoulders hunching as she flinched - imperceptibly, thanks to the shadows. "I am sorry," she told her, shifting to her normal form and allowing the shield to fade (she didn't know how to keep it up in her usual form anyway).

"It's all right," said Neirenn. "I should have guessed that it would do that." Darkness and light didn't usually mix well, after all. Except, it seemed, in Yorda herself.

She wanted to keep experimenting with Yorda's shield--maybe a flame would be more compatible--but she didn't want to push her. She had no idea how much stamina Yorda had. In a few minutes, maybe. "Do you have any ideas?" she asked instead.

Yorda nodded. "I am sorry," she told the other girl. As for fire, it would simply bounce harmlessly off Yorda's shield. Only light or lightning would have any sort of effect on it - and it would be a harmful one. Depending on how strong the spells were, it could take anywhere from a few minutes to a matter of seconds to decimate Yorda's shield and harm the girl.

Yorda thought for a few moments. This girl seemed as if she was in need of help - and Yorda liked to help people whenever she could. "I will be your light," she decided.

"You don't have to apologize," said Neirenn, smiling a little. "It was just an experiment." The girl looked so delicate in this form, Neirenn thought. She didn't want to push her past her limits.

She was slightly taken aback at her honest declaration. "Oh... thank you," Neirenn said, her smile widening. "I'm all right, really. I can find my way around with magic... but it would be a good idea not to go around on our own."

Yorda was stronger than her delicate appearance suggested - but she and Neirenn didn't know that. Yorda had only tested her limits with Ico in the castle - and then she'd proven to be stronger than she ever could have imagined. Yorda smiled to herself at the thought of it. Perhaps she could be of more help to others. That would be nice.

"Then I can walk with you awhile," Yorda replied. "I have lived in this city for a long time now, I think, and I can help you."

"Okay," said Neirenn. She clasped her hands behind her back, still full of questions about the girl and this city, even more so now than before. But she'd managed to get her curiosity somewhat in check... Yorda was a person, not a book, and Neirenn didn't want to overwhelm her. And she was nice.

"So what do you know about this place? When it's not being covered in darkness by an evil fairy," she said.

Yorda usually bombarded everyone she met with countless questions, even to the point of annoyance. In return, she didn't mind being asked questions herself - in fact, she rather liked it. She beamed at Neirenn again, happy for the chance to help once more, and told her everything she knew about the city - where to find things, where that big metal snake they called "train" could be found, what had happened when Maleficent had first shown up (And everyone had argued against her, not liking what she was doing), how beautiful it all was.

She especially liked that.

Neirenn listened with a look of wonder on her face as Yorda guided her around the city. The train in particular was fascinating, and she listened intently to the story of Maleficent's arrival and subsequent events.

But hearing about the beauty of the city, strange though it was, made Neirenn want to figure out a way to dispel this darkness even more. It sounded so fascinating. "I wish I could have come here on my own will," she said, gazing up at the hidden arches and domes, and staying close to Yorda and the light she provided. "It seems so amazing."

Yorda smiled at the look on her new friend's face. She loved the city and everything in it, even with the dangers that occasionally appeared. There was so much to learn and do, and when one had only ever lived on an island, isolated from the rest of the world and caged, it was truly a blessing to come somewhere else and not only find freedom, but happiness.

"I appeared here when I thought I would die," said Yorda. "I did not mind. I like it here."

Neirenn's steps faltered at Yorda's simple statement. "Oh..." Like Luke... am I the odd one out, here? Maybe this is some sort of afterlife, then... but I'm sure I didn't die. She could say that with certainty. But Paixao was such an alien place. A gated city of domes, filled with luminescent people...

Maybe Mother will be here.

But no. Yorda and Luke had been dying. When Yorda thought she would die. She and Luke were both bodily here... they were still alive.

"I'm glad for you, then," she said. "Maybe that's why you were brought here..." She wondered what had happened to Yorda, but despite the ease with which the girl spoke about it, Neirenn didn't want to pry too deeply.

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Lights in the Darkness [Complete]

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