Laianne

“... I can't believe him.”

I leaned on a nearby tree to calm my pulse and heart down. I've been running forever, but I still haven't seen a single trace of him. Ugh that idiot! He runs off all of a sudden taking all the enemies with him... Just what does he think he is? He might be a God but he's still as weak as an average Asterian!

If those were really the King's assassins then he totally doesn't stand a chance. Each of them are as strong, if not stronger than father.

Once I caught my breath I straightened up. I have to find him. That's right, I don't have anything to do other than find him. Father is more than capable of slaying the forest monsters and protecting that human, I'll just be a hindrance if I go back there.

I resumed to my feet. In this forest you can't stay in one place for too long, or monsters will catch scent of your Aster. I started with a jog, then slowly I built up momentum, turning it into a sprint, only to be stopped by a creature that pounced out of a thorn bush in front of me.

A black-furred wolf. This one's size isn't too impressive, and the two black horns on its head were both only a thumb long. A scout only as large as a goat. Its bloodshot eyes were shaking with rage, while a string of saliva hung from its white, sharp canine so long it couldn't possibly be contained inside its mouth.

The absolute worst time to encounter a monster. I called Aster in my right hand. I compressed the flames into a sphere of white and purple using my will. For the briefest moment, Alrion's face flashed in front of me—his swirling purple eyes, his chiseled jaw, and the serious-yet-goofy expression he had when I taught him how to do this.

I have to see him again today, not after his next resurrection.

All my life I blamed him for existing. I had always seen him as the only reason why father was so far away from us, me and my sister. I hated Alrion. He was dead, he was dead but why was he so important that father put him first than family, I thought at that time. I hated father because he served the dead more than his living daughters, but it wasn't more than the hatred I had for the Dark Lord of Asteria.

I've been awful to him, I told him he was an idiot, stupid, moron, brainless, but even so, when I was this close to dying, he was there. He could've just abandoned me, one less annoyance in his life, but he did the reverse. Even though he knew he was risking death again, even though father himself already gave up on me, he saved me. A man almost traded his life for a stranger.

A God almost traded his life for a mortal.

He's such a fool. He's not fit to be the Dark Lord, and yet you'll be compelled to call him that. It doesn't make any sense. He's far from the ideal God of Darkness, but he deserves everything that he has and will have—father's undying loyalty, this whole world's piety, enormous power, and...

My soul.

He deserves my whole being. I owe it to him.

My heart burned with the unyielding desire to see him alive and well. It's embarrassing, what am I doing, thinking of someone in the middle of a battle?

I hurled the sphere of Aster forward, hitting the wolf that attempted a lunge at me. The sphere passed through the scout wolf's face, leaving a clear, see-through hole into its forehead. With a pitched pang of agony, the scout fell down to the ashen forest ground, lifeless.

I killed the scout of a pack. If I don't leave the area, its kin will soon surround me. And so I ran, pulse beating, heart screaming, a stream of ebon hair trailing behind me—flowing with the cold wind.

You can't die, you hear me Alrion? Because, because you're my...

A trembling thunder that deafened one's ears cried from the sky, shaking the thoughts out of my head and the momentum out of my pace.

Among the heliotrope clouds of the dismal sky, was the great raven fissure that split Asteria. The abysmal crevice was producing branches, like tributaries to a river. The branches crept away from the great rift, becoming lesser rifts on their own.

“This,”

The sky, it was crumbling. It intends on returning to how it once was before Alrion's resurrection.

You can't do this. You can't do this to me, not after I have finally found it in my heart to forgive him. I wanted to scream, but no one will listen.

Freezing wind passed by the back of my neck as I stood there, unmoving, eyes couldn't be peeled away from the catastrophe spreading above.

A ripple of white slowly approached from the left, converting the ashen dirt in its path into livid sand—an infection that corrupted the bleak soil, turned it into something worse.

Without thinking at all I followed the direction from which the ripple originated.

It might lead me to him.

But perhaps I was already tired, or a part of me already had given up, I wasn't running anymore. Just my feet drifting forward on their own unsteady way, crunching under them the blanched dead leaves and little critters small enough to be stepped on.

It seemed like I was already too late. The sky, not a part of it was whole anymore, dark cracks covered the entirety of the surface, like a fragile, broken mirror with its fragments about to fall down. His ethereal form has already passed.

... But am I really too late? He's the God of Darkness, the being that emerged from pure Aster. Only cosmic amounts of Arkos can truly destroy him.

So if it's still like this, father can still resurrect him, right?

Hope filled me with warmth. Father still can. I just have to find his body and bring him back to Artrud. That's right, I still have to find him. I don't care if he loses his memories again, as long as he's living, we can just make more memories, together.

I kicked the ground and burst to a sprint, like I wasn't so tired just a moment ago. Low branches grazed my cheeks every other second, but I didn't care. I had to get to him, I told myself, making my racing heart spread out flames of determination inside.

A loud rustle among the trees. I instinctively stopped in my tracks. I scrutinized the surrounding with untrained eyes.

I couldn't see anything but pale trees and dark shrubs around me, but as father always said, never trust your eyes when it's dark. I planted my feet firmly on the ground.

Out of the inexplicable darkness ahead of me, a sphere of Aster, five times larger than what I could conjure, was born. Achromatic, I wouldn't have seen it in the middle of the darkness if it was not for the purple ring of erratic flames that surrounded it.

From my perspective, the sphere grew larger and larger but in truth, it was only approaching me,

In an incredulous speed.

I skipped to the side and avoided the bolt only by a paper-thin margin. The dark sphere hit a tree far behind me and exploded, turning the tree into ashes within a second. Frighteningly powerful.

A hooded figure emerged from the ebon curtain ahead, clad in a black leather long coat with purple trappings around the coat's cuffs and seams. I couldn't see the assassin's face from the shadow the hood provided.

The assassin treaded forward, but stopped not too long after. Purple flames covered both my hands and I took a battle stance.

“That really isn't necessary, is it now? Sis.” The hooded figure said, voice honeyed, attractive, familiar.

For a second I doubted my ears, until she peeled off the hood that casted shadow on her face.

“La-Laryenne?”

---

Heart-shaped face, freckled metal eyes, high cheekbones. Laryenne, with her pink lips beamish and her straight raven hair riding with the wind. My sister. My twin sister who shared the same beauty as mine. That strange feeling again, like I'm facing a mirror. Like the mirror will swallow me whole, drown me, make me non-existent.

The flames in my hands died down without my doing.

“Where are you running off to?” She asked. “Isn't father that way?” She pointed to my south.

“... What are you doing here, Laryenne? And where's... Where's Alrion?” I asked.

“Hmm...?” She tilted her head. “Why are you asking?

Anrietta already sent his ethereal form into the afterlife.” She said with a blank face.

Right there and then, my world crumbled. I squeezed my hands covered in cold sweat into fists as I tried to endure the pain inside. A spear, gouging my heart, digging deeper each second the reality took to sink in.

It was the one thing I absolutely didn't want to hear. And it was even my sister who said it.

“Give me his body, please...” I pleaded in an undertone, my head hung down and my ears ringing like I had been hit.

“Why?” She crossed her arms on her chest. “I can't do that. They're still in the process of sealing him off.”

... Sealing?

“What... do you mean?” I froze.

My breath wouldn't go out, my trembling eyes wouldn't stray away from Laryenne's deadpan face.

“Exactly what it means, we're sealing him for good. He wouldn't cease to exist completely of course, we don't want to destroy our world, but no one will ever be able to revive him. Not even father.” Her eyes closed and turned solemn, but the corner of her lips was tugged to a faint grin. “Besides, why does it concern you? Why do you look like you're about to break and cry?

... Isn't this what we wanted? What ‘you’, wanted?”

“I...”

My eyes wandered down to the ground. The ground that turned white. Things are... Things are not so simple anymore. I did wish for him to just fade away, but that was before. Now, I don't know anymore.

“Ha.” She clapped her hands. “I get it now.”

She formed a heart shape with her two hands together on her chest, still with a mirthless, blank face. “Looks like my little sister is maturing fast...”

“Stop it.” I said, heat creeping up my ears.

And it's not like I'm any younger compared to her, we're twins...

“Well anyway—oh?” She looked up without having finished. “Would you look at that, they failed after all.” She said with amazed eyes and widened mouth.

“Eh?”

My eyes almost fell out of their sockets as the ruined firmament above all of Asteria began to heal. The verdant air around us vibrated, a disturbance in nature caused by the behemoth movement of magic. It made my bodily hair stand on ends.

“This is...”

“The renascence of a primordial God.” Laryenne muttered in pure amazement. “A sight to behold...”

The great rift thinned out ever so slowly as the celestial space trembled, closing the lesser veins in the process. Meanwhile, in the middle of the sky was a vortex forming. A vast, swirling maelstrom of ivory light, swelling larger as the dark sky around it healed.

It was beautiful.

The ground beneath my feet rumbled as its white color faded to black.

Alrion, he's alive.... And this time, he'll do well as the primordial God of Darkness.

Tears almost escaped my eyes as I gazed at the sky—at Alrion's sky.

There was no reason to worry about him anymore. He won't face death again. My heart jumped out of its cage, an inexplicable feeling of relief and happiness inside.

“Well,” Laryenne brought her head back to the land and closed her eyes as she heaved a sigh. “I guess it really was just the King pushing his luck. I wonder what he'd do next...”

Laryenne stole my gaze when she turned her back and walked the opposite direction without a care in the world. How could she afford to be so calm? She's an agent of the King, isn't this bad for her?

“Oh, I forgot.” She peered at me over her shoulder. “Because you're my sister and because you're hopelessly in love right now, I'll let you off without consequences.

But remember this, little sis.” Her lazy eyes straightened sharp. “The next time we meet, and you're still on the Dark Lord's side, know that I won't hesitate to take your life.”

With those words, the looming darkness of the forest ate her figure.

“Laryenne...”

When that time comes, what will I do? Can I defend myself from her, when she's that strong? I don't know, but if there's one thing that's certain it would be that I can't always call for Alrion for help.

The whirlpool of light on the sky had grown so large that my surrounding almost felt like daytime. But what do I know about daytime? I never got the chance to experience something like that. The fissure in the sky also became nothing more than a measly crease. A moment passed, it completely closed up. For some reason, the rift's non-existence prompted the whirlpool of light to explode into a burst of white light.

I closed my eyes as the ivory flash engulfed everything—the trees, the ground, me.

When I opened my eyes, it was to a cerulean expanse. White fuzzy strips adorned every part of it, just like the purple clouds of Asteria. So this is daytime... I could only remember father telling me how nice daytime felt like, and that he was such a fortunate Asterian to have experienced it. Now, now that I finally see day with my own eyes...

It isn't bad at all.

My eyes stayed up above for a few more moments before I had to move.

I need to tell father about Laryenne.

---

The forest was no longer dark, but it was still dim. Well I guess that's just how things are, since the tree leaves protected the forest from the sky's light like canopies.

Anyhow, the improvement on visibility was a great help in tracing my footprints that were pressed on the black dirt. I was confident that I would find my way back to father and Danrel.

But in the end, it was nothing more than my wishful thinking, because I forgot a vital fact to my current situation.

I killed a scout wolf earlier.

Those pesky things, when killed, will alert its whole pack through blood sense. Once they find the dead scout, they will proceed to eat it, then go after the one who most likely killed their member.

And without a doubt, it was me.

So now, a dozen-odd wolves are surrounding me. All of them had black furs, black ram-like horns, and bloodshot eyes that bulged out of their sockets. All of them were bigger than the measly scout, and their sizes ranged from as large as a lion wasp to a heavy ram, which is a lot bigger than an Asterian.

Their pack leader, the largest one, was towering in front of me. It was at least one and a half me in terms of height. And that's when standing, when sitting it could easily be two times of me. But I'm kind of short, so in comparison, this pack leader is not the most impressive one out of this forest. But it will be the one who will try eating me.

Shut up. Don't make fun of my height. I'm at least five feet and one inch tall. Wondering how I knew those measurements? Ask Polarchon, not me.

The pack leader casted down a shadow upon me as its carbuncular eyes looked down at me with raging ferocity. The other ones who formed a circle around me however, were all just sitting, staring at me and their chief.

Honestly it was like being in an arena. Wolves are proud creatures after all, they like displaying their strength. That goes double for the leader.

The leader began to snarl, slimy saliva drooping out the side close to its giant yellowish fangs. A book I've read said that it marks the start of the ‘duel’. If the leader wins, the challenger will be feasted on by the whole pack. But if the challenger wins, the pack will let the poor individual go.

So all I really had to do was just kill the leader.

I drew out flames in my hands. White and purple, I morphed them into a single, large sphere instead of two smaller ones because I somehow doubt it will pierce the skin of a leader that has been tempered with the same element.

The leader got ready as well, leaping backward a few strides far. It raked the ground with its claws, in preparation to run and pounce at me, or ram me with its horns.

It was intimidating, but I'm not going to die. Not right now, I refuse to. Not when I know Alrion is more alive than ever.

Hmmmm... Speaking of Alrion, how did he do that again? Shouting ‘Hadouken’ while joining both palms by the wrist like this?

For some reason, when I saw myself doing the same thing, I felt a rush of warm embarrassment climbing up my cheeks, so I stopped it.

The giant black wolf launched itself forward. On all-fours, it was fast like a blur, but not fast enough to close the hefty distance before I hurled the sphere that was arguably larger than one's splayed palm.

The sphere of white and purple Aster traversed the air with a high velocity, and it would collide with the rushing beast. When that happens, I have no doubt it will be the beast's end.

To my surprise, though, nothing of that sort happened. The big wolf's body tipped to one side and down to the ground in the middle of its sprint, before it even met the sphere of Aster. Instead, the sphere hit a distant tree.

Since the beast was running swift when it crashed, its body rolled forth into a mass of black fur, provoking a cloud of black dust from the forest ground. A heavy thud. The beast's unsightly roll stopped only when its momentum died down from the friction.

What...?

It was as if the wolf tripped on something and fell before it could reach me, but no. On closer inspection, it was already dead. Yes, its death was so abrupt that the beast didn't have a chance to cry. So abrupt that I had trouble understanding what happened at first, but after the dark dust settled, everything became clear.

Something was stuck on its broad forehead. A shaft. A shaft made of crystallized, pure black Aster. It might've been a spear, and I just couldn't see the other end of it since it was deep inside the wolf's head.

The wolves surrounding me all scurried off like mouses that saw a cat, fading into dark shrubs and through arched tree roots. All that was left in the forest clearing was a dumbfounded me and a giant wolf's corpse.

Or so I thought.

“Hmm... Alrod's second daughter, yes?”

A voice behind me—husky, proud, feminine. It made me turn around involuntarily.

There was no one behind me.

All I saw were inanimate trees, shrubs, and dark vines hanging on branches. There were some crawlers, but everyone knows insects don't talk. Was I going crazy?

“Up here.” The voice reached me again. This time though, I finally caught the direction it came from. Above.

“... Who?”

Floating above me was a woman. She was, she was beautiful. Her straight hair was of ivory color, not at all that far from her porcelain-white complexion. She had full pink lips, while her cheekbones stood out because it was perfectly defined.

She was wearing a blouse and long skirt of peculiar style I haven't seen before anywhere. They were black, uniform to each other, though the skirt somehow looked special with lanes of white frills all over. They were beautiful clothes, if not strange.

What concerned me the most though, wasn't her face nor dress. It was her purple eyes. They looked identical to...

“Alrion?”

She hovered down slow, gracefully landing on the forest ground with one foot. Now that I have seen it, her sandals were weird as well, they had what I could only assume as pointed deadly weapons, which were also used as supports.

“How perceptive.” She bobbed her head to the side and flashed me a white smile. “That's right, I'm Alrion.”

“HAAAA?!”

I couldn't help but let out a baffled squeal that sounded more like a tiger cub's cry than anything remotely Asterian.

“B-but Alrion is a male, right?!”

This can't be. This, this woman, she's not Alrion is she? Well, her hair was also long, straight and white, but she had a big chest! And Alrion had a male part! I'm sure of it!

“It depends... I assume you're thinking about my other half?” She said, a hand on her chin.

“… Other half?”

“Yes...” She giggled. “The man you slept with. He and I are Alrion as a whole.”

My eyes wandered around the place looking for explanations. To be honest, I didn't get what the woman was saying. Was she saying that Alrion isn't just one individual?

“I can see you're having troubles understanding.” She nodded at her own words. “I totally understand, he also had the same problem earlier...”

“… Earlier?” I tilted my head.

“Yes, earlier.” She said. “I think it would be easier for you if you think like this, the God you've been with the whole time is the mind of the God of Darkness, while I'm the Aster inside him, the power of the Dark Lord.

But since he was incomplete, I couldn't take shape until earlier, when he finally became a divinity. So, together, we're Alrion.”

“… I see.” I nodded.

It had been a confusing explanation, but somehow it made sense. Still, why a woman?

“But yes, I get your dilemma. You can't call us both Alrion, yes?” She asked.

I nodded.

“That's why you can call me Asterielle!” She threw her hands up in the air. “Your father also calls me that.”

“Oh...”

So father knows about this? He didn't tell me anything about Alrion being comprised of individual beings, though. He had told me a lot of worthless things about the Dark Lord, like the Dark Lord's height, how the Dark Lord is scared of small insects, but he never told me anything important like this.

Well, maybe he just thought it was none of my business since I already openly declared that I didn't like Alrion.

Asterielle approached me, her purple eyes narrowed to a furtive gaze. “But still, if you really look at it closely, my face resembles his to some degree, yes? I'm like his female counterpart.” She whispered.

She was right. I couldn't explain it, but their eyes, nose, and complexion were somehow identical to each other. It feels... strange, to be looking at a beautiful woman who looks like Alrion this close... It's making my heart thump and my palms sweaty. Even though the one in front of me was a woman. A woman with quite the appealing bust beneath the blouse. Ugh, I hate her...

“Umm... So,” I averted my eyes. “Where's Alrion? The male one, I mean...”

“Well that's the weird thing, you know?” She distanced herself a step away from me, then she paced around the clearing. “He sent me here instead of him.”

“I was so sure seeing his companions' well being would be his main priority, but no.” She shook her head with a sigh. “When I told him the enemies were escaping, he said ‘No, they're already safe so I don't have a reason to visit them, on the other hand, I have to catch Anrietta. I'm not letting her get away.’ like a grump.

Seriously that man, you'll never know what he's going to do next. Sometimes kind and compassionate, then the next, cold and pragmatic.”

“Tell me about it...” A snicker came out of me.

That's what I like about him. He's serious when you need him to be, not to mention smart, creative, and cunning.

Still the biggest idiot, though.