The Cosmic Princess

Run

Song: Leona Lewis - Run

We had parted from Glow about two hours ago. No one had said anything feeling the waves of sorrow seeping off from me after my last talk with Glowirshana. I hoped it wouldn't be our true last goodbye, but wishful thinking did not seem to be one of my strengths.

My naivety and recklessness always got me nowhere and someone always seemed to pay for it in the end.

The evening grew into darkness. Dusky blues of the sky darkened into deep violets and we found a shelter by trees. We found ourselves situated around a fire hidden by a fortress of dirt. Like before when we had been at the mercy of the nature, all was quiet around us. The stillness didn't put fear in me, instead it made be slightly saddened at the fact that the sounds of nature were absent, like they had all been destroyed a long time ago.

An awkward silence hung in the air as well all sat, yet I did nothing to dispel it, staring into the blazing fire hearing Glow's words ring in my ears.

"Don't ever lose you hope." She had said, but if only she knew that pieces of it were chipping away day by day, and I wasn't for sure if I would be able to get them back. Hearing and then feeling my kindred spirit get beaten within an inch of his life had changed me. I didn't know how, but something about me felt different. Maybe a little loss of innocence.

I no longer felt as confident about my abilities to save Terra from its demise. Could I, or we, even do it? Or were we biting off more than we could chew. As we walked today, I found myself questioning every action that I had made up to this point. Maybe I was my own downfall, and it took me this long to realize it. Maybe all the bad things that happened to me and us since leaving Terra was my fault and somehow, I just didn't know how to take accountability as well as I thought I did.

"So, what do we do now?" Mist's quiet voice broke the hush of silent pondering. Our attention went to her. Thanks to Glow, the bar that Mist had ate had cured her fatigue and she looked better. The bags on her pale skin had vanished. That tiny spark in her brown eyes had reappeared, and she looked, overall, healthier than she did a day ago.

"I have no idea." Ike spoke with a sigh. Glancing at him, I watched shadows dance across his face from the fire and his own demons. A deep part of my soul yearned for the man merely feet across from me, but I stayed rooted. We hadn't spoken much since he had awakened. His mental wall was still up too. It wasn't said, but I knew something in our relationship had changed. Our growing foundation had chipped and was shaken. Like I had said before, it was due to me.

"Well, we have to come up with something! We're sitting ducks out here! Now that we know what they can do to us, we need something!" Kaiya snapped. Through her anger, her fear was evident. "You guys didn't feel those arrows; you guys didn't go through what Mist and I did. I-we can't go through that again. We have no more allies, it's just us."

"Then we'll have to make due. That's all we can do." Aeon, the chipper one out of all us all the time, sounded disheartened like even he knew we were fighting a battle we were all going to lose.

"They'll probably kill us." Nydale huffed and then glanced at me. "Well, not all of us."

Everyone's attention turned to me with confusion until realization dawned upon them.

"They won't take you." Ike deadpanned, seeming to acknowledge me for the first time in hours. "Over my dead body."

"Oh, you'll be dead, Ike. Don't worry." Kaiya quipped, glancing at her nails and ignoring the glower sent her way by him as she turned back to the fire.

Finally finding my voice, I tried to instill a little confidence in them. "We'll figure something out. We'll be fine."

"Avril, no offense. But they all want us." Aeon circled his finger exaggeratingly around the circle. "Dead. They'll take you for themselves, but we're simply collateral damage."