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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Yorda nodded. "Perhaps," she replied, "but there are those who were not in any danger when they came here. I do not know why we have been brought, but perhaps there is someone who does." Who that might be, she didn't know, and the princess tilted her head at Neirenn. "Are you alright?"

Yorda didn't like to speak of what her mother had done, but she would answer if asked, especially as the girl had no concept of keeping things to herself for the most part. Despite looking as someone who would be quiet and mysterious, Yorda was, in fact, quite talkative and friendly once someone got her going.

Neirenn valued her own privacy, so she wasn't about to go prying into someone else's uncomfortable past. But it did bring some relief when Yorda said that not only dying people had been brought to the city. "I'm fine," she said. "I'm just trying to figure this all out."

She sighed. "It's just that nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I've seen dark magic and traveled, but that was by my own choice. This is a lot different."

Yorda nodded. "Very well." She continued to lead Neirenn around the city; it seemed they had been traveling for quite some time now, but she didn't mind. She loved to wander about and do as she pleased; it never got old for her. "Not many have seen this," she told the other girl, "but I have elsewhere."

Where? On her island, where the queen - that was, Yorda's own mother - had ruled. The queen had drawn Yorda into her own darkness, but when Yorda had awoken, she had been dead.

"Really?" said Neirenn. She looked around still, despite the fact that there wasn't very much that she could actually seen. "What was your home like?"

Well, Yorda didn't seem to object to talking about her past at all, and Neirenn was curious. She'd always been taught that the dark spirits corrupted people who tried to use them, and she'd certainly seen it for herself with Raul... but what was dark magic like in a world that was completely different?

Yorda frowned, not minding the question, but the memories that came with it. "It was Mother who made it dark," she told the woman, simply. "She did it when those on the island displeased her." It had been rare, but it had still happened, and Yorda shivered at the memory. "There were only the shadows on the island, except for us."

Shadows that her mother had created, no less, from the souls of the sacrificed children.

"Oh... I see," said Neirenn. She tried to picture it, and came up with an image like the old watchtower that she had seen on her journey with Ash, Varden, and Lei'ella. When those on the island had displeased her... Maybe she was corrupted... maybe it's worse if you're not human.

"Are you sure you want to talk about this?" she asked. Really, Neirenn had a hard time understanding how open and freely Yorda spoke of the painful things in her life. Neirenn had always kept her problems close to her vest, even when people pressed and pried.

"No, I am not sure," Yorda replied, "but you asked and so I thought I should answer." To tell the truth, she didn't like talking about what had happened on the island, but the concept of keeping things to herself was one she was still learning - in fact, it didn't even occur to her, more often than not.

"However, it seems similar. Maleficent reminds me of my mother."

"Then don't talk about it," Neirenn said quietly, with a faint smile. To be honest, Yorda speaking of the unpleasant person that was her mother made Neirenn think of her own... and how much she missed her. Her death really hadn't been that long ago, and nobody had been able to stop it....

She sighed. "I wonder how long Maleficent can keep this up?" she wondered aloud, although it seemed a pretty transparent way to shift the subject of conversation. "It must take a lot of strength to maintain a spell like this."

Yorda nodded. "Very well. I will not," she told her with a smile of her own. For all the terrible things her mother had done, she was still her mother, and Yorda had loved her nonetheless. She hoped the woman had found peace in death, even if it made her a little sad, and that the children she had turned into shadows were happy again.

"I do not know," Yorda replied. "She has never done this before, I think; I do not know." She looked over at Neirenn. "Why would it take a lot of strength? Mother would have been able to do this easily."

"Well, I guess it must be different for fairies," said Neirenn, "but a human mage would have a hard time just casting a spell of this magnitude, never mind maintaining it for this long. Especially with dark magic, since you have to be more careful with it than elemental magic, but if she's evil I guess she's not really worried about the dark spirits corrupting her."

She glanced over at Yorda. "If your mother would have been able to do this easily, that probably just means that she was very powerful, too." And possibly Yorda as well.

Yorda blinked. "Dark magic?" she repeated, confused. "What is wrong with the darkness?" From what she'd heard people say, they thought of the darkness as something to fear. Did that mean that Yorda was to be feared? She looked down at the ground sadly. Was she, by nature of what she was, bad? Nobody had ever told her anything of that sort or given her any indications... but what if they thought she might be like her mother (for those that knew of her, anyway)?

The girl looked up again at Neirenn's question. "She was," came the reply. "It was her strength that held the castle and the island together. When she died, it sank."

"Well... in my world, at least, dark magic is fueled by dark spirits," said Neirenn. "A lot of times, people who try to use dark magic end up being corrupted by them and turning bad... but that doesn't mean you," she said, realizing that she might have hurt Yorda's feelings. The girl had called herself a shadow, after all. "Darkness isn't inherently evil. It's what you do with it that matters, like any magic." Certainly that was what Neirenn believed herself, even with knowing what it felt like to use dark magic. You just had to be strong enough and smart enough.

She nodded vaguely to Yorda's explanation of what had happened to the island. "I've never heard of anything like that, either," she said. "It was completely dependent on her?"

Yorda nodded thoughtfully. "That sounds like my mother," she replied, a frown on her face, then smiled at Neirenn. "Thank you, she told the mage quietly, albeit sincerely. "I am glad to hear that." Yorda had no desire to study magic, although she thought she might like to learn more about it; it did sound interesting, even though Yorda was content with what she was able to do now.

"Yes," she answered, "everything on the island existed because of her." She hoped fervently that the birds she had so loved to watch, even while she had been imprisoned, had escaped the island and not been destroyed along with everything else.

"I'd be really surprised if you ever did anything to hurt anyone," said Neirenn. She couldn't really imagine this girl being corrupted... even with her dark form, she didn't show any sign of malice. Or apathy, which could be just as bad... if not worse. She was just too innocent and nice.

"What was the island like?" Neirenn asked. She tried to picture it, and came up with a mental image of the coastline where they had found Silvah and Raul in the old watchtower.

That earned a blink. "I would never hurt anyone," she told Neirenn earnestly, upset at the very thought of doing such a thing. Besides, she was completely innocent, despite all she had gone through, and she hadn't even the slightest idea of how to hurt someone at all (other than perhaps swinging a stick in their direction, as Ico had done to the shadows that had come in near constant attempts to carry the princess away).

"The island was very beautiful," Yorda said with a bright smile. "It was usually sunny, and the birds would come out and make strange sounds." She recalled the word Hamel had told her. "They sang."

Neirenn regarded her curiously for a moment. She quite believed Yorda's statement, and suspected the truth of it: that Yorda wouldn't even know how if she'd wanted to. She listened quietly to her description of the island... and wondered why Yorda's mother had turned to evil ways, but chose not to ask such a question.

"It sounds lovely," she said with a smile. "You spent your whole life there, didn't you?"

Yorda nodded. "Yes," she replied, "but Mother locked me away when I was older." She knew why, of course - her mother had been afraid to die and had wanted to use Yorda's body - but that hadn't made it any easier, and when a ray of hope had come into Yorda's situation, in the form of the horned boy named Ico, Yorda had taken his outstretched hand and run with him for her life.

"Oh..." How could anyone's mother be so horrible?! I know the mothers of severed elves must have sent their children away for being 'defective,' but... how? The image of her own mother--smart, encouraging, loving--floated in Neirenn's mind. How could someone mistreat her child...

"Did you ever escape?" The question came out, even though Neirenn didn't want to ask it. 'I came here when I thought I would die.' She said that.

Yorda smiled serenely at Neirenn. "Yes," she replied. "I came here instead of dying. Ico helped me through the castle. I opened the doors for him and he fought the shadows away." She smiled softly to herself, sighing contentedly at the memory. "We live here together."

"Really?" said Neirenn. It sounded kind of like a storybook, the girl locked away by her evil mother and the boy coming to spirit her away. Except it might not have had a happy ending, if they hadn't ended up in this city.

"It sounds... sweet. I guess it's pretty good for you two that you were brought here, huh?"

"Yes," Yorda replied, her smile growing brighter. "We are safe here... or safer than we were before." She frowned a little. "He has brought the sword, but I do not fight." She didn't like even so much as the thought of harming others, even if she needed to; she had flinched and gasped as Ico had swung relentlessly at the shadows which had come after her. She knew it had to be done, if she were to remain out of her mother's clutches, but it still hadn't sat well with her - she wished the shadows could have simply gone in peace rather than resorting to violence.

"This place does seem to have more dangers than it looks like at first," said Neirenn, looking around. She wasn't surprised by what Yorda said; although she might be powerfully magical the girl seemed rather too delicate and kind to think of hurting someone, even in self-defense.

"It does look nice here--well--when it's not being taken over by an evil fairy," said Neirenn with a frown at the blackness.

"Yes," Yorda replied, "there are many dangers here. The shadows are different than the ones back home, and there are people who seem worse then the shadows here." If worst came to worst, Yorda knew instinctually that she could stop them, but that wasn't something she wanted to consider. What if she became like her mother?

At Neirenn's assessment, the princess smiled at the other girl. "Yes," she replied. "It is. I like it here very much."

People who are worse than the shadows. Neirenn decided to file that away in her mind. More than just Maleficent... and related to that Organization that Luke had spoken of? And then there had been that quite secretive person that contacted her over the network, too.

"Well, I can see why," she said.

She was quiet for a moment, and decided she did have another question. "Where do you live, Yorda?"

Yorda smiled. "It is the Actua Are near Cid's shop," she replied. "I live there with the boy." She had been to Cid's shop once, and although she hadn't seen there since, the girl had learned many useful things, such as cleaning, making tea and remembering not to eat a plate when she saw it. The girl smiled at the memory of the kind, if temperamental, older man.

"Have you found a place to live?" Yorda asked, blinking at the other girl.

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Lights in the Darkness [Complete]

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