Dragon Aster Trilogy

27: WINDS OF THE PAST



“Cirrus.”

Cirrus turned around and found a woman standing in the middle of the empty street. As he looked around, he realized that this world that had moments ago overrun his senses with its complexity and crowdedness had gone entirely silent and still. But her voice… “Who are you?” Her glow dimmed to reveal her face and Cirrus had to blink a few times to believe he looked at his own mother.

“You have grown up so much.”

“Mother?”

“Yes.”

Alexia was here. Cirrus looked around, and could only guess that souls who belonged to Hino, returned to Hino like Hain’s had. Which meant that his sins were standing right before him no less than if he had died to find others of them in Aragmoth.

“Why are you here? Have you come to find me?” Alexia asked.

No. He didn’t even think it was possible. “I…” Cirrus could see Alexia more clearly now. He shivered at the realization that all his questions had given him no answers to just who the Sentry was who they exorcised him of on Aster. My mother is a Sentry? How is that possible?

“Are you looking for Asil?”

Cirrus didn’t answer, fearing that he had yet to find the worst of his nightmares.

Alexia turned and looked down the street. “Strange how the last Threads of Fate that Aragmoth has woven has led you here. Back to the same world where you met the Fay for the first time. You are Dreamwalking, but if your soul dies here on Earth and in the present, then you will die on Aster. You must turn around and go back,” his mother said sternly.

“I’m not leaving without Sybl.”

“She does not love you,” Alexia said.

“She does, and nothing you can say will change that fact. Even if your kind kills me.”

“There are a million things on this world that can kill a dragon. You must not fall any further into Damek’s trap for the Fay. He will gain nothing by killing Sybl and everything by killing you.”

“A million things, eh? Odds aren’t as bad as I thought.” He walked past his mother, and she caught his arm and pulled him to a stop. It was in her sadness that he could see the extent of the truth. The pieces that Sybl’s heart wouldn’t allow her to tell him. Twenty-nine years of feeling sorry for himself. Thirteen of those years he spent with his soul frozen in Time and trapped in the body of a dragon. It all made sense now. His own mother had cursed his very existence. “Did Simera know? Did he know you were a Sentry?”

Alexia let go of him and then stepped back. “I was what I needed to be at the time.”

“You never wanted me to come back to life. You wanted a monster worthy of Dyaus’ Line, only Simera gave you me instead. But that wasn’t enough to stop you from trying to repeat history and destroy Aster all over again.”

“I never wished for the destruction of Aster,” Alexia insisted. “I have always cared about you, even before you were born. You don’t remember that it was I who gave you the power to see Asil on the first Aster. That I was the one who allowed you to follow the Fay you had fallen in love with back to her world. Your jealousy for what you didn’t understand twisted it from there. Your jealousy turned into hate, and with that hate, you were the one to destroy the planet.”

“My jealousy?” Cirrus almost laughed it back at her. “You were the one who couldn’t accept that Asteria had taken Daath from you. Now Daath is back, and you claim to want to make it right from the monster you helped create? You tricked me into becoming the force that destroyed an entire world!” An image of Kas lying dead back in Toria flashed through his mind. “Maybe Kas was right—I should leave you and Earth to the Fate you’ve brought on yourself, because I’m not your son. I was never supposed to be your son. Now leave me be so I can save the ones who truly give a damn about me.” Cirrus continued down the sidewalk and away from her as a rush of wind was left behind with his mother. But just as she vanished, the grass began to grow through the stone ground, and vines and greenery quickly began to overtake the buildings and Tech around him. Then in one fast, unprecedented rush, everything was torn down into the form of a field of flowers. He looked across it as for a moment he swore he saw Sybl, but when the spirit looked at him, Cirrus knew that it was Asil. A memory buried—no—taken from him. Taken by his own mother.

He looked back at Asil and walked over to her, but she vanished into thin air with a playful laugh. “Asil!” Cirrus felt and caught a sharp stab at his side and looked down to his hand that was now covered in blood. He forced his mind to stay focused, as this was an illusion. The past couldn’t repeat itself and neither could the injuries he suffered.

“Cloud Warrior,” Asil’s voice came again. “Why are you bleeding?”

He looked at the pale and frailer version of Sybl with no answer. “I’m not really here. Just my mind is.”

She touched the gash cut through his white tunic and her warm heat quickly mended him. “You bleed rather real for not being real,” she mocked him. “Have you not found all the answers you wish to by your blade yet?”

He smiled as he knew that she would say that. Cirrus also knew what she would say next.

“Do you love me, Cloud Warrior?”

“I love…” he stopped in thought for a moment. “I love you in the future. The future I have to get back to so that I can save you.”

She laughed and it sounded like wind chimes crashing against his heart. “You are in need of saving far more than me.”

“Fate is an endless circle,” he replied. “I’m in the wrong place on it.”

She turned around for a moment, before spinning back to face him. “Am I more beautiful in the future, Cloud Warrior?”

“You are…the most beautiful of the humans you always worked so hard to help. You are the Fay of this world and yours, and they need you.”

She walked back over to him and without a warning kissed him.

Cirrus took a moment to pull away in surprise, before a surge of pain went from his Mei to his heart. He collapsed to his knees as he felt the wound on his side reopen.

“There is no truth in your soul or your kiss, Cloud Warrior. There is no future self of me that you love.”

He braced himself against the wind that picked up violently, before the field ignited all at once into angry red flames.

“I will teach you the consequences for tricking a Fay’s heart!”

Asil lifted her hand as her blue eyes glowed dangerously, and Cirrus panicked that he would be burned alive. But before the fire could hit him, Moon’s claws caught and covered him first, saving him from a painful death with his cold estus energy.

Moon looked at Asil and the Fay spirit stepped back in a terrified fear. The fires extinguished on the field and the Cael pulled Cirrus into his somn. With nothing more than pain and fear to give her, Cirrus escaped from the corrupted memory of his past by awakening.