Chapter 10: Recollections of an Exile
Written by Vigile

The distant howls of wolves could be heard on the outskirts of the Wolf Clan, but other than that, the world was still and quiet. Nocturnal animals indulged in the darkness of the night, creeping around with their bright eyes, that reflected the little light the moon offered. They roamed the woods unnoticed, shuddering at the sound of their predators. It was the third day following the full moon; the agitation of the wolves had yet to disperse and their senses were still very strong. The howls, although remote, released an air of anxiousness; they sensed an enemy.

All the nearby caves reverberated the canine cries from the center of the territory, but not all were empty. One, which, in the past, was a functional mine to the Wolf Clan, sheltered a female lotus who was in deep, uneasy sleep. She was lying on solid ground, with a cloak as her pillow. The echoes did not disturb her rest, but a nightmare deprived her of peaceful slumber. She shifted uncomfortably in her position and, for a long time, turned her head from one side to another until she woke up, breathing heavily and aching with a bad headache. She sat up, allowing the moonlight to settle on her figure, as it revealed features that were unmistakably Axyll's. She rested her forehead in her palms in deep thought.

She knew the nightmare she had were more than mere fragments of a far off fantasy. She tried to figure out, with great effort, what those visions in her sleep were. For a long while she sat, attempting to comprehend the meaning of her nightmare, yet no matter how hard she tried, every effort was in vain. But as the moments gradually passed, she was able to put it together. No, those weren't dreams at all, but memories; memories that have been clouded by the pains and sufferings of her experience. Like a gush of water, it all came back, her history, her life, her choices, her mistakes, every exact event that led to her exile. Every detail entered her mind, one after the other, making it seem to her as though it happened only yesterday. Only now did the timelessness of Ozro was take its effect on her, three weeks after her escape. She clenched her fists. So many memories in such a span of short time; it was too much.

She kept still in her position, trying to comprehend the story of her life, obscured for so long by the dimension of torment. Accompanied by the wolves howls and the distress brought about by the intense burden of her past, she was sleepless until dawn.

*                    *                    *

Axyll arrived at the outskirts of the Wolf Clan three weeks after she and Kisa separated. From where they parted, the territory was farther than she expected and the sun was already setting once she got settled in an old mine. She had decided that the cave would be her refuge for the whole of her stay in the clan; it was close enough for her to roam around the territory and far enough not to be seen by the nearest towns. She decided to rest for the night and start her weapon in the morning. That night, her first night, was the night of her unexpected recollections. She had not expected this rekindling of memories, nor did she believe she was ready to begin to sort out the pieces of her life's long shattered and obscured puzzle. It was a puzzle too delicate and precious, yet each fragment of it seemed to cut through her heart, as a piece of glass would, wounding the fingers that tried to glue them back together. But she would try, no matter how difficult, so that her life will no longer be incomplete but whole and entire, as her father would have willed.

*                    *                    *

When the sunlight began to peer through the leaves, and when the warmth of the day began to stroke her skin, she finally shifted her position and looked up. She squinted her eyes to allow them to adjust as she looked directly at the morning sun shining between the trees. She was still very confused, but she couldn't go back to bed, so she silently watched the sun emerge from behind the trees and rise to dwell with the pink and blue sky, hoping it would calm her mind. For a long time, she watched the sun ascend from the horizon to the wide, open firmament until there was nothing left of the spectacular dawning and a new day was born.

She took a deep breath. She knew that whether or not her thoughts straightened out, the day would not wait for her, so she stood up, straightened her garb and looked around. There was nothing there except her dark cloak, the only thing that was left to remind her of her dear friend, Kisa. She stepped out of the deep cave's opening, took a deep breath and walked towards the river.

The river water was refreshing as it moistened her pale cheeks. While washing her face, she pushed her troubling thoughts aside, hard as it was, and began planning her weapon. With closed eyes, she pondered on how she would be able to successfully create a weapon out of nothing. It would take her days, even months to form a good one by hand.

Suddenly, for one short second, a memory crossed her mind. A flash revealing a vision of herself almost a decade ago, amidst an earthquake that she, herself, was controlling. She opened her eyes and her lips curved into a little smile. She took her time freshening up beside the river, after which, she walked back to her shelter and prepared for her next move.

Axyll positioned herself at the center of the cave and kept still for a few seconds, contemplating. She had found a way to fulfill her original goal, while at the same time relieve herself of the emotional overflow brought about by the memories of her past. With a deep breath, she began to summon all her energy in the purple orb in her left hand, and it started glowing. The people in the nearby towns felt faint tremors from below the ground, but the sound did not stray beyond her shelter's wall and merely echoed against the dark cave walls. Effortlessly, Axyll lifted both her arms as if in a gesture of invitation. The tremors intensified and the echoes where almost deafening until out from within the thick walls and floor of the cave, diamonds began to emerge; diamonds of different colors, in their natural and unspoiled state. Those crystals, which the Wolves did not care to unearth back when those mines were still of use to them, surfaced, one after the other, without forming inevitable faults in the cave walls. The tremors lasted a few seconds more, destabilizing any animal close by though hardly even affecting Axyll's posture. Slowly, it ebbed away until the place was quiet again.

Axyll put her hands down and opened her eyes. It felt good to be able to use her power again, and she was relieved that seventy-five years in a timeless dimension, as she had calculated, had not weakened it. She observed the protruding crystalline figures that emerged from the ground and walls of the cave. She closed her eyes again, this time summoning her memories. She invoked for the story of her past, allowing each detail of her history to flow into her being, gradually consuming every part of her consciousness. As thought, emotion, event, feeling, and every other thing from her past filled her mind, she lifted her left arm to gain more energy, and the diamonds slightly stirred, controlled by her hand and the orb that was glowing yet again. As the moments of her life flowed back one after another, the crystalline gems dislodged themselves, as it seemed, and they began to glide across the cave and circle around her, suspended in air. After gaining enough energy, she lowered her arm with the orb still gleaming. With her head bowed, she impelled her memories to mold the diamonds into strong, sharp and indestructible blades. The formation of her weapon had begun.

Axyll's father, Imbris, was telling her, she could vividly remember, that she was created to continue the struggle her father was fighting. She was to carry on for him, once he gets defeated. She could hear his voice ringing in her head, telling her that she was no ordinary Lotus, created through extraordinary magic known only by very few high scholars, the color of her eyes would always remind her of that. Green and blue diamonds glowed amidst the numerous ones surrounding her. Right before her, gems of olive and aquamarine merged together and changed in form.

She had been trained extensively for nineteen long years, by her own creator, to fight against the strongest among warriors. In those nineteen years, she had grown powerful, adapting her father's elemental power over the earth as her own. She had learned, and mastered the control of the earth and its elements; creating earthquakes, erupting dead volcanoes and deforming land structures. But before she could complete her training, her father had been defeated. Axyll's expression cringed a bit as the following events came back to her. Her father, the strongest of all Zymeth's political rivals, had been defeated by the leader of the clan himself and no one could tell her what the lightning welder had done to her maker, her beloved father. A crystalline tear rolled down, across her colorless cheek. The diamonds circling around her continued to mold, seemingly on their own, letting the energy of Axyll's memories shape them.

It was time. The time her father, since childhood, had prepared her for had arrived. She had to continue his fight; she had to take revenge. The soft tinkling of the gems as they collided and merged rung in her ears. She knew that her training was not complete. She knew she had to finish it before she could go against the powerful leader. But she, was by then, already very strong, and she knew this well. So stubborn were her actions, so wrong were her choices, so inevitable her mistakes. The tinkling became stronger, clanging with more force.

She might have defeated many warriors of her level, but to battle against Zymeth was suicide. She had overlooked that fact, clouded by her intense anger, and had set off, bringing herself to her own end.

Axyll's breathing suddenly discontinued. Pain from the lightning waves that were controlled by the Lotus leader was unbearable. The shock stunned her nerves and for every second of his attack, she was paralyzed. Yes, she was strong; she could still fight, but not long enough. Despite all the years of her training, her powers were still incomparable to Zymeth's. The earth was no match for the sky, and the next thing she could remember was that she was hovering behind the Lotus leader, unable to move and controlled by magic, and was being brought to a seemingly concealed and completely empty hall with nothing but lotus emblems on its walls and an ornate metal box placed above an equally ornate stand at the center in the room.

She could still recall clearly the accentuated words of her enemy, "You are the last of those who will dare fight me. No other Lotus would risk defying me after your father's defeat," his tone was condescending as he said the word 'father'. "As for you, you shall follow him into eternal damnation."

The loud cacophony of diamonds was unheard by the person centering it. The string of memories continued to fill her consciousness and control the entities surrounding her. One by one, the crystalline gems came together, compressed and shaped themselves into a single strong, indestructible weapon bound by her past and forged together by the memory of her father. She was going to use it to save him.

As the puzzle of her past was completed, her emotions waned and the energy surrounding her ebbed. She finally opened her eyes; only to see the dark shadows that loomed in the night, she had spent all day. Hovering before her was her new weapon, a double-ended blade of a single diamond; the diamond that emerged from what were thousand smaller ones earlier that day. It was gleaming with pride for its new strength and fresh purpose. In the silence of the forsaken cave, she slowly reached her hand to it and held it tight in the middle. She looked at it affectionately. < This is part of me, now. > She thought,

Erdus, a forsaken diamond finally unearthed, for beneath the earth it came, to aid another forsaken one, who has once again been returned to reality.