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Terra woke. She rubbed her eyes groggily and looked around, half-hoping that the room earlier was a dream; hoping that she would find herself in the hospital surrounded by…her family? Her hopes were in vain.
Something, a warm, comforting thing, was rubbing her mind. Terra looked around, but there was no one there. The rubbing persisted, until Terra suddenly felt something fall. Now there was an alien presence in her mind, but it had the same comforting feeling of the former touch. It pulsed slowly, twice, and then disappeared.
Terra wasn’t unduly concerned about the presence…she was more occupied with her memories. Her newfound memories were clamoring to reveal themselves to her, so she turned her attention to them.
A small cottage in a field was sitting all alone. Terra viewed it curiously from about six yards away, before surveying the landscape. There were no trees to be seen, except for a tree that grew by the nearby pond. The cottage was a comforting sight…a thatched roof, but it seemed very solid. The walls were made out of faded red bricks, and the chimney was sound. The cottage was a rectangular shape, and on the parallel long ends, two windows with flowerpots were residing in a relaxed manner. They bloomed bright and so vividly colored, Terra thought that she could smell their fragrance, even from this distance.
Laughter was heard from within the cottage, and four girls ran out of the cottage. Terra recognized one of them as herself, but so much more younger, happy and carefree. This younger Terra, and the three other familiar girls’ names she couldn’t remember yet, were romping about in a game of tag…of a sort. They had built types of bubbles around themselves, and were flying through the air, trying to catch one another as they zoomed in the sky. Terra recalled the wonderful giddiness of flight overtake her as she watched herself laughing and flying frantically. The one in the pearly ball was ‘it’, and so she flew, and seemed to summon up winds to push her to go even faster, as in the next second, the girl in the aqua ball was ‘tagged’.
“Tag! You’re ‘it’ Thalassina!”
“Not fair Zephyra! You used winds to push yourself!”
Terra smiled as she recalled that trick with the winds. It was one of Zephyra’s many favorites to play on them all.
“Igna! Terra! You know that Zeph isn’t allowed to do that!” Thalassina wined.
Inga, whose full name was Ingatia, stuck her tongue out, and transferred from a ball to a pair of fiery wings that were the shape of a butterfly’s, twice as long as she was, and flew away top speed shouting “Catch me if you can Thally!” Her wings carried her with incredible speed, seemed to glow with white hot heat, and seemed to give her the nimbleness of a butterfly.
Zephera also exchanged her ball for wings, which were almost transparent, although Terra remembered that closer inspection would show that the wings were shaped like an angel’s, and the ‘transparency’ of her wings were caused by a pearly sheen of white that blended in with the sky. She zoomed off in the opposite direction of Ingatia, and Terra watched herself tease Zephera by showering her with a light sprinkle of soil, then take off after Ingatia.
Terra remembered joy that had been denied her since…that day.
“Thally, come on! Stop hovering and try to catch us!” yelled Zephera. When Thalassina still didn’t move, Zephera bellowed, “IGNA!!!!!!”
The fiery dot on the horizon started to grow bigger, until Ignatia was a recognizable shape, but still far off.
“Plan H?” she inquired.
“Plan H.” confirmed Zephera.
The girls sped toward each other, until they were only several feet above Thalassina, and slapped five as they zoomed away.
Thalassina shrieked with mock rage, and gave pursuit to Ingnatia.
Eventually, after the game had continued for about an hour, a woman clad in a simple maroon dress with golden locks, appeared in the door to the cottage, and called in a musical voice, “Terra! Igna! Thally! Zephy! Time to come inside! It’s suppertime, and there’s roast chicken on the table!”
Thalassina shrieked, sped towards the cottage, and landing with an undignified thud as her ball dissolved, she ran into the cottage.
“MA!! DON’T LET THALLY EAT ALL THE ROAST CHICKEN!” shrieked Ignatia as she flapped hard to reach the cottage. “I WANT SOME TOO!!”
Terra, as an onlooker in her memory, laughed at Ignatia. She was always found an excuse to shout about Thalassina every day.
Ma’s roast chicken was the best, roasted over a spit in the fireplace until it was tender and brown, and sprinkled with herbs that gave off a tantalizing aroma of…well, roast chicken.
Terra watched as all the girls, including herself, landed at the doorway, and scrambled inside to find a certain Thalassina already stuffing her face on a chicken leg.
“Omun dzecindlio,” was a gargled sound that came out of Thalassina’s mouth. Her mouth is so full, Terra remembered thinking, that it’s a wonder she can make any sound at all.
The other two merely looked disgusted and amazed at the same time.
Thalassina took a huge swallow and repeated, “Oh man, that chicken is DELICIOUS!!”
Everyone laughed, and sat down at the finely carved table that Terra had made for them with her magic last month, and ate well.
At this point, Terra realized that the memory was fading. Well, she reasoned, now I know some of my past, my real past.
Terra reentered the real world, in the strange bed that she found herself in, and found that she was exhausted to the point that she couldn’t move. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t, but just plain couldn’t, and that’s not to say that she didn’t try. She tried to move her hand, and she felt a dim response from her wrist, but she didn’t feel anything move.
Terra lay there and thought about the memory that she had just retrieved. There was a certain sadness about Ma, and the entire memory.
Well, she thought, I guess why it was so sad is what I’m going to find out next.
But at the moment, she was exhausted, and she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
~*~
A small planet was in view of the group now, although it was still rather far off, the knowledge that they were close to their destination dimly cheered the whole group…except for Blink, who was as already cheery as could be. The girls had been in silence for a while, each thinking their own thoughts. All the girls were primarily focusing on how tired they were, and the ache that was streaking through their bodies. Their bodies were obviously protesting the strain that had been put over the last several hours which were supposed to be spent sleeping and restoring energy, not using it up.
Rui was still trying to get over the fact that she had most likely given up her sisters for good…and her normal life had been thrown away in the mix of that particular package. It was too much at once. She put her family below friends who were the best family she had ever known before. Was it the right decision? Was she thinking clearly? Were friends supposed to mean more than a family who never truly loved her? Was she going insane?
Was it really like that? Did her family really love her, and did she let them all down by choosing to save her friends over them? Was any love they actually had for her going to evaporate in a cloud of misunderstanding, anger, and pain? She had been their only hope from imprisonment after all. She had been their only hope of freedom. Did they know she had betrayed the Lady? Did they know that she might as well have denounced them?
Rui didn’t want to think about all this, but there was no conversation, and there was nothing to distract her from it. These thoughts hammered and drilled their way into her mind. When she managed to take away the hammer and dull the drill, they bunched up together, and crashed into her mind like a tsunami of anguish over a grain of sand. It hurt Rui with that same magnitude as well. Making sure none of the girls were watching, she deftly flicked her wrist against wet eyes, not aware that Blink was right behind her, watching curiously. Blink felt she simply had to do something, so she went into Rui’s ball. She didn’t know exactly what she was going to do yet, but Blink knew that Rui was sad, an emotion that was beyond her. Rui took no notice of the little star because she was starting to wipe her tears in earnest. Blink considered several options, and decided on the very simplest one. She came right in front of Rui’s face. Rui didn’t look up, muttering to herself things like ‘get yourself under control’ and ‘such a wimp, stop crying’. Blink carefully floated until she was only a half an inch or so from Rui’s face.
“HEL-LO!!!” she said happily.
Rui’s reaction and the laughter following the Blink’s unorthodox greeting was something to see.
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