(Storyline) Fireflies

It was high noon on the northern coasts just outside of Mare Maris. No clouds marred the sky or obstructed the rays of sunshine as they shone with resplendent splendor down upon the Great Crystal Abbey. The building, a product of light and good as much as it was composed of glass and stone, returned the illumination in kind, casting light over the landscape. Bits of gems jutted up at angles from the ground where they'd been uncovered by whatever had ended the previous age. Benign grass plains stretched out in all directions where deer and rabbits munched placidly on the grass, and in the distance, one could see sparse and lively woods where the creatures slept at night.

All in all, a more peaceful scene was hard to find in all of Terra Regnum, but problems had been brewing within the Abbey walls. Horror! Terror! Scandal! The Elder had gone up to the waterfall to meditate and on his way been intercepted by a horrible beast. His body dissolved in its black, inky maw. Ashes to ashes, alas, but spirit to spirit. The Elders soul escaped back to the safety of the celestial realms, and he even wrote a letter apologizing for his delay and explaining the circumstances.

The churchyard night had been filled with celebrations and fireworks the night the letter had come to them, carried on a mystical wind, but the words also held bad news. A world-wise warrior was required to escort the spirit of the Elder back to his home where he might be revived by his fellows.

And so, the monastery put out a notice in Mare Maris.

†     

For several moments, no one answered the door of the abbey.

When the door did open, however, the figure standing there might not have been what the other young man expected. It was obviously a kamikonjou: the broad, pure white wings; the benevolent, though curious blue eyes; and scattered, straw-blonde hair advertized that much. The entity was slightly muscular and his skin was an almost radiant, milky color. Much of that skin, in fact, was visible due to the fact that he was clad only in his heart-pocked boxers, a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers, and a few other peripherals. He smiled at the stranger as a soul that knew not the definition of "awkward".

"Hey! It's been forever since we've had guests!" He began cheerily before an aged hand fell on his shoulder.

"Rigel, by all means calm down." The owner of the hand's mouth was lost in a white forest of hair that blotted out the motions of his jaw. It seemed to be making up for his perfectly bald head that glinted softly in the ambient light of the abbey, and his simple sackcloth robe had enough material to make decent both him and the picture of youthful welcome in front of him. "I am sorry about my young friend. He is new in our ways. Come in! Come in!" The older angel waved for their guest to proceed across the resplendent marble floors to the cavernous interior of the temple. The large room had a large altar at the far end, where many kami knelt praying or sat meditating. A teenaged-looking female kami sat at an organ adjacent that altar, fidgeting like a child waiting to be given permission to eat. "What brings you to the Abbey, my friend?" he continued, low enough as not to disturb his peers in prayer. "Rest for your soul? Charity? Or perhaps you found the advertisement we put out?"

"I made it," Rigel cut in proudly. "I wanted to put a fair maiden on it and an offer of gold, but the others told me not to. I'm sure we would've gotten some cool guy with an even cooler sword if I had. Can you fight well at least? We wouldn't want to put a human in harm's way."

The old man frowned beneath the cover of his beard. "Rigel, hold your tongue. Do you not know of Saint Alexandria, the most powerful light magic user we've seen among us? She took the form of a mouse and defeated three dire dragons alone... in Hell! You will not underestimate our guest."

The younger man seemed to wilt a bit. Even the ears of his slippers fell a bit. "I didn't mean anything by it. I'm sorry."

†     

The whitemouthed kami stroked his beard ponderously as their visitor spoke. "It is not something in here, my kind friend." He raised his hand and pointed to one of the massive, painted windows. "It is something out there."

The angels at the altar all stood in one accord, and the girl at the organ took this as some sort of inaudible cue. With quiet excitement in her eyes, she drew back her hands, cracking her fingers before sending them down on the keys like rain and lightning bolts from the fist of an angry god.

†     

The organ cried on in the background. The elder continued to stroke his beard. He thought for a moment before answering. "He was alone. He sought solitude to meditate on the arts, and on normal occasions, the demons do not venture up here. I can only assume that whatever beast our Elder wrestled with did not fight with fairness or honor. It is a common trait in their deplorable lot." The abbot appeared to grow disgusted even thinking about the other class of spirit. "Fear not. Any monster that strikes from the shadows is a coward for a reason. He probably will leave to bother others if he should see two in a group." The tangle of white facial hair tugged up at the corners, as though the man were smiling somewhere under all that. "I must run this abbey in our Elder's absence. Since you wish to help us, and thank you for that, blessed one, I will appoint a guide for you." He turned as though he was preparing to pick someone out from the crowd reverently listening to the organ music...

...when Rigel raised his hand high into the air. "I'll go!"

The man turned back to the two young men. "Oh." He seemed somehow disappointed. "Well, I see no harm in that." The younger angel smiled before a light overtook his form. A flash filled the room, and when it cleared, a small, white parakeet with a sky blue belly flapped there in the air (picture). If the visitor didn't stop it, the bird would land on its shoulders and begin cheerily singing along with the organ music. "Rigel will make a sufficient guide for you. Do you have any further questions? Are there any provisions we can get for you? We are of simple means other than this building we have been blessed with, but we can try..."

---

The sky clouded over a bit as the man and the bird began their journey to find the elder. Rigel was as pleased as he could get, and he advertised the fact by singing cheerily as happy birds do. "You'll have to excuse me," he said, pausing the flute of his avian voice for a moment. "I've just... never really got to see the world outside of heaven and this abbey. My mother wanted me to be around my own kind, and I want to obey her." More song followed, an upbeat tune to the rhythm of the stranger's footsteps. "Just keep following this road. We'll pass the waterfall, and then we should find the village where he sought refuge: the Temple at Lephesus." He nodded towards the scattered stones. Most of them had the crystals from the Temple visibly jutting out of them, but those that didn't gave off the same aura as they did. "These were laid down years ago by another volunteer. If something ever attacked the abbey, we could find our way to safety and the other kami by following these rocks. I've never visited Lephesus, but I hear they're real nice there."

The bird took a quick, darting glance around the shoulder, as though planning to do something naughty and not wanting to be observed. "Say, Sir Lejo, have you ever come across an onikonjou before? A... demon?"

---

Predictably, the little bird wilted. Indeed, if it had been possible for a blush to show through the cloud-white feathers, a rosy hue would have overtaken the parakeet's cheeks. He shifted from one foot to the other, looking down at the ground. Humor didn't exist in abundance at the abbey, and it showed in the angel's difficulty in picking up the tinge of jest in Lijo's voice.

Before the little one could commence apologizing, however, he received the answer to his previous question. He tilted his head to the side for a moment before fluttering. "I knew it! The abbot and the nuns and everyone else always say such mean things about the demons." He tucked his wings back against his body. "They have all of these stories of evil and torture, but-- and don't take this as a sign of weak faith-- I have a hard time believing them. I just want to meet a demon for myself. Surely they all can't be bad."

He looked up to the sky, thinking for a moment. "The abbot is very old. He tells us stuff like... well, nobody knows what happened when all of the people woke up before I was born, but he said he has these visions. He says that we angels used to serve a supreme being who made everything, but that he erased our memories and left us on this world to test us. The demons are the ones who test our ability to stand firm against evil, and the humans are here to test our ability to protect. He says that this supreme being reveals himself to us when we seek him through meditation. The elder got a following before I was born and built the Abbey from the ruins left behind."

"As for the guy himself, he's very quiet. He's fat and always smiling about something." The bird grew cheerier thinking about it. "He's one of my favorite people in the Abbey. If a demon really did hurt him, I'm going to vanquish him so hard!" The little bird puffed up. "I don't know how to fight, but if we run into trouble, I promise I'll do my best to help!"

He tilted his head at the drink, then looked left and right. "I'll have some, if it won't be too much trouble." He took another guilty glance around. "It's... juice, right?"

---

Having been absolved of the moral conundrum of wine sampling as a permitted ability, the bird heartily, though perhaps a bit inefficiently due to the structure of his beak, sampled the deliciously sweet beverage.
And he warbled with gratitude. "Thank you! And if that is what you wish, it's what I'll do. I'll even see if I can find some backup." He answered the topic of something bad happening to the spatial mage.

But on the subject of his Elder-- well, his elder's disappearance, he had considerably more hesitance in answering. He didn't actually get to see the letter; only the head abbots did. He heard of its contents through an announcement that morning, and the story weaved and wandered and seemed to change every time he heard it. He'd never been asked to actually assemble the various scraps into a cohesive story of the circumstances.

"Well, I think he was actually there..." the bird said, tilting his head so one eyes was thoughtfully facing the sky. "...yea, he was there at the waterfall, and he was meditating, and a demon popped out of the woods! He was a cat... wait no... a wolf... oh... he might've been a bear... a badger...? Well-- beast! A beast with all kinds of black magic!" He hopped from one foot to the other in his excited way. "And he wasn't alone! He had a bunch of minions! The elder fought them off as best he could, but the demon had special magic that keeps kami from being able to use their spells! And you know we only fight with spells well... at least in all of the stories they tell me that. There was Saint Brutus the Wise who actually fought with a flaming sword, but there's been a lot of doubt cast on whether or not he was actually one of us or if his blood was tainted."

"We in the abbey train our defenses, so even if the beast was a monster that he couldn't defeat, he would've been able to easily get away from it, so yea. Oh! But Lephesus was where he went after he escaped the demon at the waterfall. He was only going to go to the waterfall to meditate at first."

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