~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Cressida

"I need to rest, Ferio. It's getting late." Fuu leaned against a tree, breathing heavily and trying not to show it. Her hair was hanging limp with sweat, and she wiped her forehead on her sleeve.

"All right. But just for a little bit," Ferio said sternly. He was even more sweaty than she was, but his breath was normal. He sat down against the same tree, and Fuu slid down to sit next to him.

"How long are we going to--" she began, but heard a soft snoring coming from his direction, and smiled. So maybe he wasn't as eager and ready as he thought he was. Good. Fuu didn't think she could have taken another step that night anyway. She leaned her head against his shoulder and soon she, too, was asleep.

When her eyes opened again, it was pitch black in the Forest of Songs. The dense trees obscured any starlight that might be shining above them, and the only thing she heard was Ferio's soft, steady breathing, and--water?

She stood quietly, so not to wake him, and followed the sound until she reached a place where a crystal-clear brook cascaded into a small pond, which reflected the starlight back at her. The waterfall plunged over an overhang of only about five feet or so, and the stones near it were slick with moss. Seeing the clear water reminded her how sweaty she was--but it was too late to take a bath now. She returned to Ferio--who appeared to still be asleep. Fuu settled down beside him again--gingerly, in hope of not disturbing him.

"You left me," he murmured to her disappointedly, pulling her closer to him gently.

"I came back," Fuu replied.

"You did," Ferio said, and kissed her cheek with that same gentleness. There was nothing unchaste in the way that they lay there together, only two people enjoying a sort of utter contentedness. No more than that was needed.

Morning came, illuminating them in the dappled light typical of the forest. Birds sang in the treetops, and the gentle bubbling of the brook and waterfall could still be heard.

"Good morning, Fuu-chan." Ferio placed a gentle kiss on her nose, and Fuu's eyes fluttered open.

"Ferio..." she murmured, pulling his face down to hers for a kiss that wasn't so gentle. She released him from it, looking up at him with a dreamy smile. "Good morning."

Ferio stood up and stretched. "Let's hope we can get out of here today," he said, sounding somewhat uncomfortable. Her kiss had rattled his nerves much more than he liked to admit.

"I don't know about you, but I need to bathe. I found a place that looks clean, so I am going to take a bath. You may take one when I am finished, but you will not peek." She looked at him sternly. "Do you understand me?"

"I hear you loud and clear," Ferio replied. "Where is this place you've found?"

Fuu led him to the pond, and said to him, "Go away. I will call you when I am done. Do not peek!"

Ferio shrugged and began to walk away. However, he doubled back quietly when he was out of her sight--not intent upon watching, of course, but rather to make sure nothing bad happened to Fuu. And if he did happen to see a bit of her--

Well, what Fuu didn't know wouldn't hurt her, right?

Fuu looked around herself nervously before removing her boots, and then she heard a sneeze. She jerked and looked around anxiously, and took in a blur of movement behind a tree. "Why you--" she began, and Ferio felt himself lifted up in the air and floating towards her. It confused him for a critical moment--wouldn't she want him to go away?--and then--

SPLASH!

He plunged into the pond.

"Serves you right!" Fuu shouted at him, but he didn't surface. Bubbles and ripples were all that was there to show he'd went under. "Ferio? This isn't funny, Ferio!"

And something grabbed her ankle and she shrieked as she was pulled into the water as well. Now Ferio was laughing, and Fuu was sputtering something at him, so angry that her words wouldn't come out straight.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay!" Ferio said.

"Oh, sure you did!" Fuu used a gust of wind to send a wave at him, trying desperately to keep from grinning, but she could feel a smile creeping at the corners of her mouth.

Ferio splashed back at her, squinting and shielding his face from her. "Don't you trust me?"

"Of course I don't! Do you think that I'm stupid?"

"I don't know. I can think of times--"

"You--" Fuu lunged at him, with the intent of dunking him, but he was a better swimmer than she was and hastily stroked away, then captured her and held her underwater for a moment. When he let her up, she spit a stream of water in his face. "You are the cruelest person I've ever met."

"Oh, I'm honored," Ferio replied. He took her glasses and swam over to place them gently on the shore. "I wouldn't want you to lose those--as 'cruel' as it would be to do so."

"You are evil personified! Trying to peek at an innocent young woman--" she scolded, trying to keep his attention on her while she used her wind powers to build a huge wave behind him. "You should be ashamed of yourself!"

"I was only--" Ferio began, and the wave washed over him. He went down with a squawk, and didn't come up.

"Come on, Ferio, that's enough." No answer; Fuu began to grow nervous. "Ferio?"

That was when something came up from beneath her, sweeping her up into the air and laughing as she, for a moment, flew. She used that moment to grab an airlift to pick her up higher--it was amazing how naturally her magic was coming to her now--and released it to fall in a cannonball to create as huge a splash as she possibly could.

Ferio flinched as she hit the water, and when she came up again it was towards the other side of the pond, near the waterfall. She rested there, treading water lazily to allow herself to catch her breath. Ferio shook water from his hair and looked at her, and she smiled back at him. He took that as an invitation to swim over to her, and kissed her once before she ducked underwater again.

She did not come up, but Ferio wasn't worried--he heard her giggling, somewhere. Behind the waterfall.

"Now what are you plotting?" he called to her.

"Me? Plotting? I'm the innocent one!" She reached a hand through the waterfall, and Ferio took it and was pulled under before her could react.

There seemed to be a small cave cut out of the rock beneath the waterfall, with a moss-covered ledge only a few inches above the level of the pond. It seemed almost too convienient, the moss as soft as a cushion and not at all slimy as it logically should have been, the ceiling just high enough to sit comfortably beneath, the width of the ledge just barely enough space for two people to lie down--

"This isn't a natural cave, is it?" Fuu said, echoing his thoughts. She sat cross-legged on the ledge, while Ferio was still in the water. He pulled himself out and sat beside her.

"No. It's like it was created to--" he blushed, and looked away.

"What?" Fuu sighed a bit exasperatedly.

"It's--it's not appropriate."

"I'm not a little girl, Ferio. Where I come from, a nineteen-year-old is considered a grown woman." She was practically whispering in his ear now, a bit too close for Ferio's comfort. Or maybe, he thought with a well-suppressed blush, not close enough... "Capable of understanding even the most crude of jokes, even."

"Really? You always act so naive..."

"Hikaru's the naive one. I'm the practical one. The one who knows what she's doing."

Do you really? Ferio wondered, glad that the darkness of the little cave hid his not-so-well repressed blush. He tried to ignore her breath on his neck, but it didn't seem to be working.

"Though what such a practical girl sees in a lazy swordsman is beyond me to comprehend," he yawned.

"Oh, Ferio," Fuu laughed softly, leaning in even closer to him to kiss his cheek. Ferio panicked.

"Too much time we've wasted," he said, flustered. "We must move on. Must."

"Always in such a hurry, aren't you, Ferio?" Fuu replied. "This is a beautiful place, but you're always saying we've got to move on. What's so great about what's on the other side?"

"You're forgetting about that weirdo, Miata. I don't trust her one bit, and this forest is her playground. I just don't feel safe."

"You just don't want to face anyone," Fuu replied angrily. "This whole trip, you've been whining, 'why me?'! You never even tried to help Clef and the others find out what's going on, what the Cathedral is, nothing!"

"I don't know what the Cathedral is!" Ferio replied.

"You're the only one who even has a chance of learning! It has to do with Pillars, and you're of pillar blood. And you just don't give a damn! You're right, you are lazy, and you're a coward."

"Whenever I even think about the damned Cathedral, it tries to make me something I'm not. It tries to take away my identity," Ferio said.

"So therefore you're not even going to try?"

Ferio looked aside, and Fuu sighed and slid back into the water. "Fuu! Where are you going?"

"To find the others," Fuu replied. "You can face whatever it is you're so afraid of on your own."

She was gone.

It simply wasn't like Fuu to do that. Ferio didn't know what to do...he was beginning to feel lost simply because she wasn't there any more. Why had she become so upset? Had he really been so selfish?

There was nothing to do but move on. They would meet again, and he would apologize, and-

Wait a minute, why should he apologize? She was the one who'd blown up at him! Only because he wanted to keep moving, rather than sit there and waste time...there would be time for that when they got back to the palace, and...yes, Fuu would have to apologize to him, there was no doubt about that.

"Ferio..."

It was a quiet voice, a whisper that came from everywhere. Not Fuu's voice, but familiar.

"My Ferio..."

"What?" Ferio said, looking around. "Miata, if this is another of your tricks-"

"It isn't a trick," the voice replied. A woman appeared in front of him, a woman with dark green hair that flowed to the ground, and amber eyes. The face looked surprisingly similar to his own. She was wearing a white dress, with gloves and a jewel in her forehead.

And she didn't look quite...solid.

"Who are you?" Ferio demanded.

"My name is Cressida," the ghost replied. "Ferio, I thought I would never be able to see you again..."

"You-you're not-" Ferio gasped.

"Ferio, I gave birth to you, and I died. A Pillar cannot survive childbirth. I told Emeraude, my successor, to raise you as her younger brother. The only other one who knew your true parentage was Miata."

"Her? You trusted that crazy witch?" Ferio said, though her words still hadn't quite sunk in. His mother...

"She was like a daughter to me, after her true mother died. And she took care of you in your infancy...and promised me that when you came to the Forest of Songs, she would let me see you again."

"I don't get it," Ferio replied. "You're dead. What are you doing here? How are you here? Just what are you?"

"My spirit is a part of the Cathedral, but Miata helped me to come here, so that I could see you. I summoned you here."

"So you're...my mother..." Ferio said softly, shaking his head.

"I was the Pillar before Emeraude," Cressida said. "I knew what she would have to do, and I also knew there was nothing I could do. Like Emeraude, I fell in love. We were both inexperienced as Priestesses, so it's no wonder that we could not make effective Pillars..."

"Priestesses? What are you talking about?"

"In the time before there were Pillars, Cephiro was taken care of by the Priests and Priestesses of the Crystalline Cathedral. Their magic kept the world safe, and they served as government, judges, helpers-whatever was needed. People could always come to the Cathedral when they had a problem, for the Priests and Priestesses of the Cathedral were completely devoted to Cephiro. They were bound to help, no matter what.

"The price of devoting oneself to the Cathedral, though, was to lose one's humanity. The longer one remained a part of the Cathedral, the more they lost. The oldest Priests were nothing but devotion to Cephiro, with very little humanity left. The youngest, though, the newest to the Cathedral, were still very human. There were only two who had been there for a shorter time than I had, and one was Emeraude.

"People came to the Cathedral in greater and greater numbers, their desires becoming selfish. It became apparent to the rulers of the Cathedral that they were no longer able to take care of themselves, and were depending on the Cathedral for too much. They decided the people needed something to support them-a Pillar-until they learned to take care of themselves. And the idea for the Pillar system was born. Each Priest and Priestess would take a turn as Pillar, and when the people were ready, a system was developed to destroy the Pillar system."

"The Magic Knights," Ferio breathed.

"That's only half of it. The story has become distorted over the years, and the second half completely forgotten. A child born of both Pillar and human blood must reopen the Crystalline Cathedral and awaken the Priests and Priestesses-the Pillars-who sleep within."

Ferio was awestruck. "Are you going to take me there?" he asked softly.

"Yes," his mother replied. "But first-there is one more test-"

All of a sudden Ferio was on the edge of the forest, where it became a plain of snow and ice with mountains on the horizon. Three women walked towards a lake as if in a trance. Hikaru, Umi, and-

"Fuu! What's going on?"

"Magic Knight...Come to me, Magic Knight..."

Cressida watched Ferio's face tighten as he watched Fuu walk slowly towards the still lake.

"Return...to the Cathedral..."

"Mother, what's going on?" Ferio demanded. Cressida said nothing, and her face betrayed no emotion.