Part 10

"I have been a fool, and a damn fool. I can--will, rather--offer you no consolation for what I have done, for that was and is utterly inexcusable."

"Yes."

Mhaiera stopped dead and brushed the back of her hand against a tree. "You cannot understand what... this is like for me. You should be glad of that. For me, I... I... What I did, I cannot... There are no words I can..."

"Why the sudden change of heart?" This from Alex, behind her.

Sighing, Mhaiera closed her eyes, trying to hold back the tears that were forming there. "It is not so much a change of heart as it is an... explanation to me. Does that make sense? I don't know, I can't tell, it doesn't matter... does it? But I... I..."

She shook her head, tears escaping her closed eyes. She said nothing for a while, then looked directly at Alex. "You. You, you could have killed me back there. Why, then, did you not? It would have been better, for..." she trailed off after that.

Alex shrugged. "I don't know; I didn't feel right doing it. I don't know why, I mean, considering what you did..."

"I see..." She didn't seem very pleased with that answer. "Perhaps that's... oh, what am I saying...?"

Mhaiera felt a hand rest itself upon her arm. She turned her head slightly, eyes following the arm attached to the hand up to the person who it belonged to. Luna.

"I was thinking... Alex and I are going to go back to Vane with Mia, because there's nothing left here... Do you want to come, too?"

Mhaiera laughed at that. "That's funny, that's really funny... I just tried to kill you, and would be much happier with you all dead, even with my... opened eyes... And you are of course basing this all on the assumption that I have been effectively neutralized and am 'harmless'. In which case, you are a fool. Granted, I am not as hell-bent on anyone's distruction as I just was, but do not take that to mean that I'm fond of the fact that you people are alive. Quite frankly, I'd rather you all dead. Which wouldn't solve my problem, but there is... ah, ha... There's that, but perhaps not yet..." She laughed again. "But, yes, if you will risk yourselves by having me, I will go with you to a pale shadow of a city deserving of legend..."

With that, she very casually walked away.

Mia, who had been awfully quiet throughout the whole matter looked at where Mhaiera had been and said, "She's planning something... I don't know what, but it's something... I don't even think it's something exactly bad, but still..."

"It's something," Luna said, nodding. "But we should follow her right now, anyways..."

Mhaiera was very quiet on the trip back to Vane, excepting her loud complaints of seasickness on the boat back to the mainland. The shades of green she turned would have been quite artful had they not been accompanied by violent bouts of... illness.

But the boat trip ended, and Mhaiera again became incredibly close-mouthed.

It was perhaps two weeks after the four of them had gotten back to Vane when Luna got the note. She wasn't quite sure where it had come from, but it had just been there. The handwriting was angular and shaky, and the paper it was written on had been half-crumpled. It read:


"To Luna, and to whomever else should find themselves interested,

If you care in the slightest, you will notice that you cannot find
me. Do not attempt to look; you shall not ever see me again.

Were it but that I hate you so truly, so fully, I could survive. On
hate alone, I could survive. But my existance is not but hate.

I have nothing left in this world. You and those like you have taken
all that I had from me, and left me with nothing. I cannot live like
this. I am not... in any state of proper... mental health, and my
one anchor to a state resembling sanity is, it seems, long gone from
this world. Whether he was deserving of it or not is irrelevant, it
has left me alone in this world, a world I am not prepared to deal
with alone. I know you are... kind-hearted enough to attempt to give
me something, anything for this place, but that is not... it is not
what I can exist, survive on.

This is better for you, as well. My continued existance would only
be a danger to you. I am, as I have said, too unstable to be
anything remotely resembling harmless. I am only a danger to you.

But do not think that that affected my decision in any way at all. I
cannot exist like this, alone as I am. You must understand, I have
never been alone. My world is empty.

As I have said repeatedly, I cannot live like this.

I shall not try.

Your love risked death to be with you; I shall embrace it to be with
mine."

The signature at the very bottom was illegible but obvious all the same.

Luna sighed, blinked, and reread the letter a few times before carefully folding it and putting it away.

Back to Awakening.

Back to the Library of Vane.

Back to the Shrine to Ghaleon.