200 years ago...
Telunian Sands - Second Realm
The girl sat inside a cell. She was a bird captured and encaged from the freedom of soaring in the sky.
Her hands were useless—shackled and chained, and it felt like it weighed heavier than a mountain, but nothing could ever beat the heavy burden on her shoulders.
Her legs were out in front of her—one propped up and the other lying flat on the ground, bare, bruised, and purpling. Her head hung as if on a noose, believing she did not deserve to look up at the sky—like she knew she deserved all of the treatment she was getting.
The strength in her to move was gone. All of her limbs were shackled anyway, so what else could she do but to sit there and keep breathing? She had officially done it—committed a crime so unforgivable that she was finally tossed out of Mahanzi.
The world's worst warrior, Serenfiya Dagdrazil.
Now she can finally live up to her name, and at the thought of this, she at least thought she was good for something. She was good at being the worst.
A week passed since Maddin Gog, her teacher, escorted her into the Telunian Sands and threw her into this place, away from what she called her home. She was the only prisoner in the entire desert, and the silence almost convinced her that she had died long ago without her realizing it.
She sat still, unmoving. She had not gotten a wink of sleep as dark thoughts haunted her. It forbade her to take a moment's rest. Whenever she closed her eyes, she heard her own voice whispering of how she was a disgraced coward. And it was true. She deserved everything that was happening.
A clinking noise sounded from afar. It was such a small and secluded place, built especially for her. Not a lot of Mahanzinians were disobedient, but there were a total of two soldiers that kept guard around her prison, to make sure she was fed and well-behaved until she eventually dies of the silence. That noise had probably come from one of those guards.
Or that was what she thought until a blonde young man in tattered clothes came stomping in with a sword in hand.
Her head rose up in. "What are you doing here?"
She was clueless on what Astra, her cousin, was doing in her newly confound quarters. She was pretty sure Maddin Gog had mentioned to her that no one was allowed to visit her, as a part of her punishment. But he was here, standing before her. The cousin who she loathed so much was here. Out of all people, it was Astra who came.
Why?
"What are you doing here?" she repeated. She wondered how much she looked pathetic in his eyes. His brows were pinched down, as if he could not even bare to look at the sights of her. She looked away from him and hung her neck down, grinding her molars. She squeezed her eyes shut and shut herself into the darkness.
This is beyond humiliating. I would rather die.
Suddenly, a loud metal clang jolted her from her stupor. She opened one eye to check on what exactly Astra was doing, and only for her face to morph into confusion as to why he was breaking the locks to her cell. "What in the stars...?" He never answered her questions. Come to think of it, he had not even uttered one word since entering. Was she dreaming?
She stared at him then. She watched the way the locks snapped and fell to the stone floor. He pulled the gates to her cell open with a heavy creak. She was shocked. If a sword was all it took it to break the very objects that confined her in isolation then that is no mere sword, because the entire prison was made from a special metal that cannot even be found on earth. That sword Astra was carrying must have been blessed by Maddin Gog, but Seren knew that would never happen in a million years. So what exactly was going on?
"You coming out or not?" He was shaking his head, like he couldn't believe what he was doing either. He leaned on a bar with his shoulder. He breathed hard like he had a hard time breathing.
Seren's frown did not waver. "You are not supposed to be here." His intentions were unclear. A week had passed since they last faced each other, but Seren never expected the next time they would meet would be like this. It was far too shameful on her part.
Astra pointed a sharp finger at her. She frowned even more as she stared at the tip.
"I'm here to take you home."
•••
Astra broke her out of her cell that day.
It was in the middle of the day, when the sun was scorching high and sizzling on their skin as they marched on the hot hills of the sand. Seren and Astra traveled far up north, to the direction of the northern citadel, the place where the both of them grew up in. But that was days away with the pace they were moving on. Seren's bruised feet were already starting to turn into burnt flesh.
She wore one of the long boots that Astra brought along with him. It was a hunch, he said. Somehow, he knew that Seren had gotten so low to the point that she began loosing her footwear. It ticked Seren off how much he knew her, or how much he knew she liked walking barefoot no matter where she went. She wished he knew the reason she was barefoot now was because she did not have a choice to begin with.
"Tell me the reason why you broke me out," She was asking him what was happening, exactly. Not even Astra would break the law, and especially not for Seren anyways. It was the first time someone had spoken and broken the silence between them since leaving the prison area. They weren't exactly on good terms, but Astra did just get her out into the world again.
Seren was secretly happy to be out again. She had been fantasizing about the breeze of the wind again for many sleepless nights. However, as they trekked deeper into the sands, she realized there wad no wind at all. Just sun.
Astra stayed quiet for a while. He was in the lead between the two of them—Seren following behind, like she always did. She had grown so tired of looking at his back since they were children.
When they were five, they were already chosen to be the next chief. With them being related to Maddin Gog, people expected them to be of fine candidates. Seren guessed their rivalry started then without them realizing ut. She could not even remember a single moment wherein Astra and she had a proper interaction.
"I believe you."
Astra's words seemed to have shocked her. She looked up. Astra was still marching through the sand—he didn't look at her as he spoke.
"I believe you, I said." He repeated it like he knew she did not believe the first time he said it.
Seren's brain could not comprehend... whatever this was. Is it happening? Are we going to have that long awaited proper conversation between us cousins? But all that came out of her was this:
"Oh?"
"You killed a Fae diplomat, which is why Maddin Gog had you thrown out in the Sands in the first place."
Seren hunched her shoulders. So, this is what it's about. She clicked her tongue and hid her grimace by tucking her chin. "Go ahead and remind me of my crimes, like everyone else did. I'm all ears."
"Just hear me out?" he complained, turning around, and stopping for a second. He and Seren held a staring contest before they continued walking on sand again. "What I'm trying to say is... I believe you. What you said to everyone, including Maddin Gog. I believe it."
Seren was so pissed that she kicked sand into his hunched back. "Hey!" he recoiled, slapping that part of him.
"Don't you think it's too late for that?!" she yelled at his face. "You could have said something back then when I was being scorned and banished from my homeland, but you didn't!"
"Come on, don't be like that," he shook his head. "How can you expect someone to take your side right after you kill a Fae diplomat, then blaming them for dying, and then accuse them of trying to take over the four realms? I mean, it's you we're talking about here." He forced a laugh and waved a hand down her figure.
Seren's veins were going to explode. "And I am what, exactly?"
"You're..." Astra hesitated, making awkward hand gestures towards her. "You're Seren, the troublemaker of Mahanzi. The worst warrior of Mahanzi. Everyone knows you're crazy."
Seren went utterly still at those words. It hurt. It hurt to hear it outright from the mouth of his even if she already knew all of the things he said was true.
Astra saw the shadows in her eyes as it went darker. Suddenly, she sent a swing of her leg in the air, and a powerful tsunami of wind and sand gusted Astra yards backwards. He yelped as he flew back, then he crashed onto a dune of sand. She had just used the power of the wind to knock him down.
"So Kamir still takes your side," Astra deducted as he got up, dusting the sand off himself. He gestured to what she had just done. "See what I mean? Utterly reckless!"
"Then why bother getting me out?!" she screamed at him. "I was prepared with me rotting away in that cell forever!!" She kicked some sand up in the air, then gave the air a push of her palm. The sand was blown by a gust of wind towards Astra, who countered with a move of his own.
"Do you really want to fight right now?" He stomped his feet on the ground, then he drew with the heal of his foot an arc on the sand. At the same time a wall sprouted out from the ground—a sand wave—which pushed Seren flying backwards. "You've lost the blessings of all elements except the wind. That's how you know nobody's on your side!"
"And there it is," she said in a mocking tone. A bitter laugh came out as she swiped the sand off her lips. "Aren't you just proud of yourself for being so... ideal?" The way she said this was sarcastic, of course. "I'm just pathetic, aren't I?"
She swayingly got up on both feet, clenching her fist. She wrapped her other hand around it, positioning it to her side and looking deadly in front of Astra. Swirls of wind gathered around her fists.
"But you know what I just realized?" she started to say. "I realized now that you're just as pathetic as I am. You being here is proof of that. What are you even doing here, if you're so decent?! Because of guilt?! Nobody wants your bullshit!"
With one powerful blow, she released the wind energy she had gathered with a punch to the air in his direction through a blast. Astra crossed his arms, forming an X in front of him, and a shield of sand arose from the sand floor. It was a battle between wind and earth, Kamir and Rath, Seren and Astra.
The amount of surging power colliding created an explosion, and soon both of them went flying into the air higher than ever. They crashed and went buried into the sand—they became one with the sand. Too much sand. I hate sand.
They both laid under the blue sky, panting and not speaking a word. They stayed like that for a good while, letting themselves wallow into their own deep thoughts. Seren suddenly thought, What if... What if me and Astra got along? Just how different my world could be?
"I see being locked up didn't take out the crazy in you. In fact, you're even crazier than I remember." She heard his voice speak from afar.
Yeah, yeah. I'm down here and you're way up there, Seren rolled her eyes. Just shut up already. "How could you not go crazy in those conditions? In a place so silent I could hear every grain of sand, and a place so hot that it makes me want to rip my skin off."
They lay on the sand, side by side, chests breathing heavily. There was once a time where this exact scene had happened when they were no more younger than seven. The only difference was, they were laying under a sky of stars, gazing at its beauty. And they were filled with the innocent promise of building a better future. So much had changed since then.
"What is that?"
Seren scoffed. She's had enough of this shit. "You better stop mocking me."
"No, you idiot. There's something up, there. In the sky."
The urgency in his voice made her sit up and crane her neck upwards. "What are you talking about?" She surveyed the skies with a palm shading her eyes from the sun. And then she spotted it. There was something... no—there was someone flying in the sky. It was so far up that that she almost didn't see it.
"What's a Fae doing in the Terunian Sands?" Astra said in an alarmed voice. And at that, Seren's blood left her body.
"Did you say Fae?" Seren was triggered. Flashbacks played in front of her eyes.
"It's getting closer."
Suddenly, a huge crash into the dunes. A sandstorm went on for a minute, but felt like hours, as Seren shielded her eyes. Her hair blew back as the sand died down, until Seren could finally see.
A Faerie was standing between her and Astra, foreign and ethereal, translucent green wings on his back. He wore a silver uniform, badges on his left chest that recognized him as a Fae lieutenant in rank. His hair was the color of mint, eyes as black as tar and ears as pointy as a bats. He looked not at both of them, while the both of them watched his every move and every breath he took.
Seren's whole body felt the pressure. Such a powerful presence, Seren thought. I can smell his bloodlust. He came down here... to kill.
The Fae lieutenant's void eyes rolled to her direction. Her breath hitched.
Don't stare into their eyes. Don't stare into their eyes. Don't stare into their eyes.
Seren.
Don't.
She forced herself to look at her feet. Don't stare. Compulsion is their specialty.
"Sorry, but the Inter-Realm Conclave isn't held in the desert," Astra said.
"Astra! Shut up!" The people of Faery are the most dangerous species Seren had come across with out of the Four Realms. One wrong play, and we're puppets. She has no idea why such powerful beings exist in the first place. They have the absolute power to wipe out the world... or dominate it.
"Astra Dagdrazil," the Fae lieutenant spoke to the both of them. His voice, if it ever had a sound, sounded like venom. "Which one of you is it?"
Seren prayed for the elementals to be there, but as usual, only Kamir heeded to her call.
She huffed out a breath. "Astra," she said.
He nodded, accepting the silent invitation. The lieutenent looked to him, then. "So, it's the boy."
Then the Fae whized away, disappearing. Seren started sprinting forward. The Fae appeared in the next second in front of Astra, then plunged a sharp fingernail into the side of his abdomen. Astra cried in pain as the poison went into his body.
"NO!" Seren reached out. She swung her leg and the Fae parried it with ease. She kicked and punched in swift and agile movements. The Fae was almost an exact copy of her, and it was frustrating to Seren.
"Not Astra," she gritted out. "You are nothing but trash!" She slapped the heel of her palm into the Fae's chest, and the Fae came blasting backwards with the emanated energy. She took Astra's longsword from the ground and pointed it down to the Fae's throat.
"Die."
And then she severed it's head from its neck. Like a lizard, its body wiggled as its head rolled down, down, down the hill of sand, leaving a trail of dark blood. But that was soon consumed by the sand.
She stood over the mess, and only after a while did she collapse to the sand. She curled her fingers into her hair.
She whispered. "You are poisoned."
The beige sand went crimson red as th Fae's neck oozed out with juices of blood.
"Yeah," Astra said.
Seren was going to loose her mind. This cannot be happening.
But she only heard Astra's voice resonating within her ears.
"We can still get you home before I face my death."
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