After informing Mhaiera to wait until he was finished to interrupt as this was a long story, Alex (because he was, after all, best suited to tell the whole story) began.
He began at the very beginning, which was probably the best idea, but starting with a story about dragon diamonds and trials had Mhaiera quickly develop a look of 'get to the freaking point'. She held her tongue, though.
Alex did, however, notice Mhaiera's impaitence and sped up slightly, though not overmuch.
Mhaiera began only half-paying attention and examined her needlelike nails.
Alex noticed this, and was more than slightly irritated, but was too polite to say so. But Mhaiera did, however, start paying more attention when he started speaking of Meribia and what ended up happening there.
She got a dreamy look in her eyes as Alex mentioned Vane and the measures he had to go through to get in. But that dreamy look turned to one of intense longing as both Alex and Luna told of their first encounters with Ghaleon.
She retained that look until Alex told of Ghaleon's revealing himself as the Magic Emperor and his kidnapping of Luna, at which point, Mhaiera began shaking her head slightly, as if to deny what he said, and murmuring things to herself.
Luna almost told Alex to stop. Almost.
But Alex continued, and Mhaiera kept murmuring her silent denial while Mia and Luna exchanged worried looks, but neither wanting to risk whatever Mhaiera would do if Alex stopped in the middle.
Mhaiera was restraining herself more and more, the further Alex got in the story. By the time he was talking about the Frontier, her whispers to herself had grown faintly audible, mostly statements of denial. Her hands had balled into fists now, her nails cutting crescent-shaped marks into her palms.
Still, she didn't say anything until Alex finished, when she said in a flat, emotionless, dangerous tone, "He wouldn't do that."
"But he did..." Mia said softly.
Mhaiera shot Mia a glare that would have frozen steam. Then her eyes fell on Luna, a wild, desperate hope arising there. "You..." she half-whispered. "You... are the one who was Althena, are you not?"
Luna nodded, not quite sure where Mhaiera was going with this. "Yes..."
Mhaiera shakily stood up. "Then..." she breathed. "Then this... this is all your fault..."
"What?" Luna said, startled.
"You..." Mhaiera whispered, walking slowly towards Luna. "If it wasn't for you... If you hadn't... Then I wouldn't have had to... And there wouldn't be these... lies... being told... and I wouldn't be... so alone..."
She dropped to her knees, crying. With a desperate sob, she began lobbing fireballs at Luna, though her aim was terrible, and most of the fireballs fizzled out before they even got near enough to Luna to be of any harm at all. All through it, she kept sobbing, "This is all your fault..."
Luna looked sadly at Mhaiera, though she didn't dare get any closer. She made a gesture to Alex and Mia to stay where they were, to not interfere.
"Mhaiera..." Luna said gently.
Mhaiera stopped, though more because she buried her face in her hands than anything else. "Tell me it's not true..." she said. "Tell me that was a lie, please ..."
Luna shook her head. "I can't do that..." she said. "You... wanted the truth, and that was what you got... I'm sorry that you found it so..."
She raised her head and shook it. "He wouldn't do that ," she said softly, but with absolute conviction. "It's a lie ."
"It's not... It's not a lie... That's what happened..."
Very shakily, Mhaiera stood up. "He would not do that," she said, at a more normal volume. "And it's because... because of you--" this to Luna, "--that people are willing to believe that he would. You... are the reason that I am... like this. Right now. It's because of you... that all of this..." She shook her head violently. "Damn you... I'll... I'll fix things, I will... I'll end these damn lies... And then... then... I'm going to hurt you... for what you've done to me..." She raised her hand slightly, holding it in the air as a royal purple line etched its way around her in an outline. When the outline completed itself, Mhaiera vanished, leaving it hanging in the air for a few seconds when it, too, disappeared.
Eyes wide, Mia said, "Did you feel that?"
Both Luna and Alex shook their heads.
"It was like... It was like..." Mia sighed. "I can't quite describe it, but the sheer amount of power she was drawing on... I wasn't even trying to feel for it, but I did anyways..."
"This could become very bad..." Luna said. "We need to find her, as soon as possible..."
She closed her eyes and snuggled closer to him. "This is nice..." she murmured.
"Yes," he agreed, pulling her even closer.
"I like it out here..." she said. "We should do this more often..."
"And how do you propose we go about doing that ?"
"Oh, I don't know..." she giggled. "Why doesn't one of us just wave our hands and make it so that we're always like this?"
"You wouldn't like that, you hate it when bugs get in your hair..."
"True enough," she said pleasantly.
Neither said anything for a while, then, while she was on the verge of drifting off to sleep in his arms, she said, "You know... we should find something for us to be doing..."
"Is that really all you think about?" his voice had a very gentle, slightly mocking tone to it.
"That's not what I meant..." she said.
"I know. But go on."
"I was thinking... You remember hearing about that book? That one that's supposed to contain all sorts of knowledge not meant for the eyes of mortals and whatnot? The one that's been neither hide nor hair of in Althena knows how long?"
"Yeah, I remember..." He shrugged, very slightly.
"Why don't we... Why don't we see what we can find out about that? I mean, what could it hurt? And it'd be something to do, at least..."
He smiled softly. "You've actually planned this out, haven't you? All right, then, why don't we do that? After all, we don't have anything better to do--for all practical purposes, anyways."
She laughed at that. "Who are either of us to be practical? But--thank you. Thank you for... for... Oh, I don't know, but..."
He pushed a few stray locks of hair out of her face. "You're not going to start with that again, are you?"
"No... I don't think so..." she sighed. "But still..."
"Don't..." he said softly. "Don't start... it's just bad for you, you know that..."
"I know..." she shook her head. "But it's so hard... I... I'm just glad I have you... I don't want to think about what would happen if I... if I was alone..."
"Then don't..." he whispered.
She didn't say anything more. Within moments, she was fast asleep, and he was not far behind.