"Filia, what are you doing?"
Filia startled and looked up to see the Supreme Elder towering over her, and the
young dragon meekly flattened her wings against her back, curling her tail around
her.
"I'm just looking at the sky, Supreme Elder," she replied softly, fidgeting with the
pink bow on her tail.
"Mm-hmm. You've wandered rather far away from the temple, haven't you?"
"Have I?" Filia craned her long neck, looking back, and blinked. "I guess I have,"
she admitted sheepishly.
"Come now, Filia." Saichuro gestured to the temple with his wing. "It is not
safe for a young dragon as yourself to be out on your own."
Filia quietly walked back with him. A few moments later, he spoke again.
"You weren't thinking about trying to fly, were you?"
She blinked, looking at the dusty desert ground with wide, startled eyes. "No,
Supreme Elder," she stammered, and inwardly winced. Had she really just lied to
the Supreme Elder? She would burn in the netherworld for that.
"You're much too young to be flying," he continued. "Not only are there dangers
far beyond your understanding lurking out there, but you're simply not strong
enough to handle the currents."
"I think I--"
"Filia!" His tone was a snap and she cringed. "You are not strong enough. Do you
understand me?"
"Yes, Supreme Elder," she whispered.
"Good. Now return to your studies."
Uncle Slim had let her know she couldn't ride that horse.
He was the one that was only meant for men.
She waited around 'til way after dark,
Rode that horse with all her heart.
And in the night, how she rode.
The temple was silent, except for the quiet sounds of the guards moving through
the halls. For once, Filia was glad for her youth, because her small size enabled her
to hide in places where the older dragons couldn't go...and didn't think to look.
The shadows helped too, and she stayed in them as much as she could while she
crept down the corridor. The main door was too heavily guarded, but there were
others.
And there were windows, too small for most dragons, but a few were just right for
her.
She could do this.
Filia snuck into one of the study rooms, and shut the door behind her, holding her
breath when the click of the latch rang impossibly loud in her ears. No one seemed
to have heard it, and she moved to the window, carefully inching it open while
keeping watch for any guards outside, and an ear out for anyone approaching from
the hall.
The night air in the desert was far too chilly for her liking, and for a moment, her
warm bed seemed to hold the greatest appeal. But it was only for a moment. Filia
snuck out the window, and cut across the most dangerous span yet -- at least to
her mind. Three hundred meters of open ground before the first rocky boulder
jutting up from the sand that was large enough for her to hide behind. If she were
to be discovered, it would be now, and it was too late to use any of the excuses she
could have given if caught inside.
But luck was on her side. Behind the boulder, Filia allowed herself to breathe
normally once again, and tried to get her pounding heart back under some
semblance of control. As her concern over getting caught lessened, she was able to
take in more of her surroundings. It was dark, so dark. What had she been
thinking? This was insane.
The fear of being caught was replaced by the fear of where she was. Was it really
so dangerous? She couldn't see a thing, the night was too dark. The moon had yet
to rise, which was the way she planned it. If the moon was out, they might see
her.
Filia drew in a deep breath. No. She wouldn't turn back. Not now. She'd come
too far. She wanted to know, and this was her chance. She was certain she could
fly.
She quietly moved farther away from the temple, where the bigger boulders were.
A nice brisk wind was blowing, perfect for lift. It was the perfect night, if she could
just stop the high-tension thrumming of her nerves. Filia crawled up on one of the
larger ones, staying as flat as she could while she looked around. No guards were
in sight, and the temple was barely visible, an obscure hulking shape looming in the
shadows.
It was now, or it was never. At least, not until the Elders told her she was old
enough, big enough, strong enough.
Filia stood, stretching her wings. She was all of the above, and more. She knew it.
She wouldn't challenge them on the issue, but she wanted above all to prove
herself right to her.
Facing the wind, she spread her wings and leapt into the air, beating down with the
most powerful downward stroke she could muster. One after the other, she kept
fighting to stay aloft, to gain altitude, to catch the wind with her wings. Filia didn't
even realize how high up she was getting, the ground wasn't her problem. Her
objective was the sky.
When she finally did look down, she faltered. She could barely even see where the
ground was in the dark. She quit beating her wings and panicked, squeezing her
eyes shut as she started to plummet.
A gust of wind struck her, and she waited for the impact, which never came. Filia
cracked open first one eye, then the other, and her heart stopped. She was there.
Soaring.
Filia laughed and stretched her wings more, tilting them experimentally, adjusting
her flight, a small speck of gold in the shadows.
She could do it.
Somehow she always knew she had the strength inside,
And even if she fell, she'd survive.
In spite of all the tears she may cry,
This is how she has to live her life.
As hard as it may be, she has to find out for herself.
Xellos Metallium. His name rolled off her tongue easily. Maybe a bit too easily.
She'd always known from the start that he was someone -- no, something -- to
hate, to fear.
But mostly hate.
As a child, he had been the bogeyman under her bed, a specter of the past which
older hatchlings would use to taunt and frighten the younger ones. Xellos. Priest
and General to the Beastmaster. The Dragon Slayer.
No pictures of him existed, but that made him all the more terrifying. From the
very first day she heard his name, all throughout the last several hundred years,
she had built up an image in her mind. An image of a dastardly, nefarious monster
that complimented his reputation. He had slaughtered hundreds of her kind, and
with only one potent spell.
Murderer.
As she grew older, she seemed to outgrow the fear, with the hatred remaining.
Vicious, brutal, vile butcher! She hated Xellos Metallium with an intensity that
made her pulse pound agonizingly in her mind. She hated him with an intensity
that robbed the air from her lungs.
Underneath it all, she still feared him.
Now she had to share company, even so far as to -- horror of horrors! -- share a
table with that repugnant beast. That namagomi. That raw filth, kitchen garbage.
She felt soiled just being in his presence...
"Thank you for such a lovely dinner, Miss Filia!"
...until she looked at him.
Why? Why, for the love of Cephied and all that was holy, why could he not fit her
nightmares? Why could he not appear as the wretched demon which he truly was,
instead of...that?
Why did her heart stop in her throat, and her breath congeal in her lungs?
It was fear. That was all. It was hatred. It was nothing more.
She had to believe it. She couldn't possibly be attracted to him. He was a Mazoku,
he was the Dragon Slayer. He was the bogeyman.
He was unobtrusive. He was slight. He carried himself as a gentleman. He was
heart-stoppingly handsome.
"Shut up," she snarled back at him, glaring at that annoying little closed-eyed
smile, telling herself that it was her hatred for him which made her hands tremble
so. He cracked one eye open ever so slightly, and a twinkle of amethyst sparkled
out from under the shadow of his bangs. His smile grew just a fraction wider.
He said nothing more, sipping his tea as he seemingly turned his attention back to
Lina and the others.
Dear Cephied. She could not be falling in love with a Mazoku. No. Never. If she
lived to be ten thousand, she'd never admit to such a thing.
But why did he have to be such a polite, charming, attractive gentleman on the
surface, and why did her blood always race when he was near?
He was Mazoku. She was Ryuuzoku. She hated him, and nothing more...
...right?
Mama and Daddy told her from the start he was no good.
They'd seen how he treated the other girls.
She waited around 'til the sun went down,
Slipped out of the house not makin' a sound.
And in the night, oh, how they drove.
"Are you asking him to join your people, Filia?"
Xellos interrupted her, throwing off her train of thought, and before she could
resume, his words sunk in. What was she trying to say? Caught off-guard, she
stammered, trying to formulate a response.
He smiled coldly, a hint of malice in his expression. "I wouldn't talk if I were you,
Filia," Xellos taunted, "considering how you Golden dragons murdered his tribe, the
Ancient Dragons." He paused for a heartbeat. "Or have you forgotten?"
There was just enough of an intonation to his words to imply she conveniently
dismissed the past which didn't fit to her liking. Just like the rest of her people had
done. Implying she was no different from the rest of them.
She wrinkled her nose slightly, fighting down the hot stinging sensation that was
spreading from her eyes to her nose. She would not cry! It couldn't really be true.
They were preying on her emotions, making her doubt. She couldn't, nay, she
wouldn't doubt. The Goldens were pure. There was nothing more holy than the
pursuit of righteousness.
Xellos wasn't about to stop. He was on a roll now, and he knew it. He knew the
knife had been plunged in, and found great delight in twisting it. "Oh, yes, the
Golden Dragons feared the Ancient Dragons' power so much that they gathered a
huge army and wiped them out--"
Filia jumped, startled, as Valgaav interrupted, cutting Xellos out, shouting at him to
be silent. Her heart was painfully tight, as if squeezed in a vice, and a deep
pressure in her chest made it hard to breathe. Xellos was lying. He had to be
lying. He had to be. It couldn't be true. He was a lying, murdering Mazoku! Vile
beast! Namagomi!
"Mazoku are no different!" Valgaav shouted at Xellos.
Instead of making her feel better, she only felt worse. Was it true? It couldn't be,
but what was he saying? Was it true that her people had slaughtered his...
slaughtered... oh, sweet Cephied, just like Xellos had slaughtered her own. They
were two sides of the same coin, and not all that different.
It couldn't be true...
"Didn't your race try to kill Lord Gaav because they feared his power once he
turned against them?"
"Well, that is true," Xellos replied cheerfully in that genki manner he had.
"Then a monster like you has no right to smugly lecture her on the reasons that my
people were killed!" Valgaav snarled.
Was he defending her? After everything he implied that her kind had done to him,
was he defending her?
"Lord Gaav was the only one who ever helped me! And I will never forgive the
Mazoku for destroying him!"
Everything started happening too quickly as heightened tensions erupted into
battle. She didn't have time to think, only react. Her reactions were sluggish, her
mind too heavy. Was it true? She had to know. It burned her soul like truth. But
she could feel the tremors beneath it, the earthquake waiting to strike if it took
root. It would turn her life, her very essence upside down. It would shake her
every belief down to the core.
She knew it, because it was already starting. How could the same race which
brought her up from a hatchling, who taught her that all Ryuuzoku were the very
embodiment of all that was holy and good, that righting injustices was the most
divine and holy quest which one could take, and that the Ryuuzoku way was the
only way.
The only way...
She had to know.
"I will not be defeated by you, not by the bloodstained hands of a Golden Dragon,"
Valgaav snarled at her.
"Wait," Filia begged. "Please tell me! What you... What you said to us before! Did
my people really massacre your race? Please tell me!"
He looked at her, then dismissed her. "Just go home, little girl."
No, he couldn't do this. He had to tell her. She had to know! "Please, tell me! Tell
me!"
Somehow she always knew she had the strength inside,
And even if she fell, she'd survive.
In spite of all the tears she may cry,
This is how she has to live her life.
As hard as it may be, she has to find out for herself.
"Make one move and you're dead, Filia."
Her eyes widened, and her heart stopped in her chest. No... What was he...?
"Xellos?" She hated the way her voice trembled. "But why...? What are you
doing?"
He ignored her. "Now then, Supreme Elder," Xellos said, his tone cloying in its
politeness. "Will you please remove the barrier for us?"
"You can't!" Filia shouted.
"Believe me, I would enjoy nothing more than killing her." The staff tightened over
her throat, and at that moment, she knew for certain he was telling the truth.
"Useless," Saichuro, the Supreme Elder, the oldest of the Golden Dragons of Filia's
clan, said. "I won't comply, no matter who you kill. We will do nothing to
endanger the peace of this world."
She blinked slowly. Useless? He was just going to let this Mazoku kill her? He
was her teacher! Her mentor! She had done everything he'd asked! "Supreme
Elder..."
He brushed her off. "Do what you please," he said, and his words stung her like a
slap to the face. "No matter what happens, I will not hand over the final weapon to
you!"
Fear and hurt mingled in a blinding compound, seizing her chest. She didn't want
to die. Was that weapon worth it? There had to be another way! "No, I don't
believe it. He'd even sacrifice his own people for this?"
And it was growing very easy to believe that her beloved Supreme Elder would
have helped planned the murder of the Ancients.
"Oh, I see." Xellos caught her attention now. There was something different to his
voice. "So you knew from the very beginning that the final weapon was hidden
here, didn't you?"
Please say no, please say no, Filia silently begged the Supreme Elder. If he had
really known all along, then he -- and perhaps the other Elders -- had blatantly lied
to her about her mission. If he had really known, then was she just sent to have
her strings pulled like some puppet, manipulated behind the scenes in a way that
would make even a Mazoku jealous? No, please say--
"Yes." His voice was like a whipcrack, and she choked down a moan, his form
blurring in her vision. "What of it?"
She didn't hear what Xellos said over the roaring of her own pulse in her ears.
There were only bits and pieces, like half-remembered ghosts in a dream. She
couldn't think past the Supreme Elder, past the enormity of what he was saying.
"Know that...break...barrier...want...kill Filia."
The Supreme Elder's voice snapped through her fog, penetrating it, pulling her back
into a razor-edge crystal clarity which she fought. The fog was better. The fog
hurt less. The truth was painfully brilliant.
"--final weapon, the Ancient Dragons turned against we who depended on the gods.
But we destroyed them all, before they could become enemies of the world, and
then we left the Dark Star weapon behind this barrier they created!"
"It can't be..." Filia whispered. Valgaav's words had carried too much of the weight
of truth with them. There was a pale cast of delusion over what Saichuro had just
said. "That's a lie!"
"After that, we kept the Dark Star weapon sealed from the eyes of all the others,"
he continued, ignoring her. "Beyond that, we cast many more barriers in order to
protect it."
"It's not true," Filia said, goading him now. She had Valgaav's story, and she was
always taught that the truth would never hold up to pressure. "I won't believe it,"
she shouted stubbornly. "You're lying! Weren't they all killed because they refused
to fight by your side?"
"Silence, Filia!" he snapped. "No matter what the Ancient Dragons' intentions were,
only we, the Golden Dragons, could be trusted to possess a weapon this powerful!"
Only the Goldens. She knew enough.
It was true.
It was all a lie. Her entire life, everything she'd been taught, everything she
believed...lies.
And the one she adored like a father had willingly lied to her to keep her
people's dirty little secret of genocide.
It was fifteen years to the day
He became a stranger in her eyes.
In the coldest words of anger
He said, "without me, you won't survive."
Full circle. They were back in the same place where she had first met him. Not the
place where she first saw him, but the place where she had come to realize just
who and what the green-haired, hate-filled, handsome, and different Mazoku truly
was.
Now they faced one another again. He was different before, and he was different
now. Now, he was merged with a power that would only be matched by a fully
restored Shabranigdo.
And she had a hand in that.
Maybe everyone would think she was foolish for being here, and they would be
right. It was foolish. He could kill her without any effort at all. He had always
been able to do so. And now, she was truly alone. Every other Golden Dragon was
dead.
Strange, how she lacked it within her to weep for the people she had known and
loved all those centuries. At that moment, thinking back, she felt something very
akin to hatred. They lied to her. They used her. They betrayed her.
Foolish. It was a risk to stand there before him. No one would be able to stop him
if he decided she should meet the same fate as the others. But she had to know.
She had to speak with him.
"The little lady," Valgaav said quietly, studying her. Or was it Dark Star? Did it
even matter?
It didn't. Not to her. Filia plunged on ahead, standing straight. "I am the last of
the Golden Dragons who served the Fire Dragon King." For a heartbeat, her
resolve almost faltered as she saw the disdain and hatred in his eyes. "Now I am
just like you. I am also no longer a priestess." At least he seemed to be listening
to her. "I think now, I deserve to talk to you."
His lips curled in derisive sarcasm, his tone was mocking. "Oh, then I'll ask. Who
is it you hate the most?"
He didn't get it. Oh, Cephied, maybe there was a chance to turn the tide, if he
would just understand! "I don't hate anybody!" Filia protested. "Everything you
said was true! So how? How can I atone for the sin we committed? How can I ask
forgiveness? How can I quell the hatred you feel? Valgaav, how many more must
be sacrificed before you're satisfied?!"
He shook his head. Was that pity or anger in his eyes? "You don't understand,"
Valgaav replied. "What I want is not more sacrifices!"
Filia raised an eyebrow slightly in confusion, but he continued before she could say
anything more.
"What I want is the purification of the entire world!"
It was several months later before Filia could look back on that time and admit to
herself the truth. The truth that she had known deep down they were locked into
their paths when he said that. It took even longer for her to realize she had done
all she could.
There's a suitcase in the closet she had packed six months ago.
She don't leave a note, that's not her style.
So she waited around 'til way after dark,
Left that man who broke her heart.
Now she's gone, oh, she's gone.
Filia always did love the spring. New life, new growth, the sweet scents of the
flowers bursting forth in the garden and along the walls of the house.
Her house.
Her own home. Filia smiled softly, and the little thrill of mildly terrified glee at
striking out on her own had not faded over the last season.
She didn't doubt that she would not have made it as far as she did this quickly if it
weren't for all the aid Jillas and Gravos gave her. The two servants, once
unfailingly loyal to Valgaav, had come to her aid once it was all over.
Valgaav was dead. She hadn't wanted to kill him. She only wanted to help him, to
make amends for the atrocities of the crimes committed by her people. But in the
end, he had left her with no choice.
No, she had a choice. She could have refused to aid Lina, the others, and Xellos in the
last final moment. She could have allowed Valgaav to wield the power of the Dark
Star, returning the entire world back to its newborn state.
Returning them back, perhaps to live again, and not repeat the same mistakes.
The temptation to allow Valgaav to do just that was overwhelming.
In the end, though, she was still Filia. In the end, her own desires and longings fell
by the wayside against the fate of so many.
In the end, she stopped him.
L-Sama worked in mysterious ways. Had the Lord of Nightmares heard her
prayers, her quiet longings, and taken pity on her? Had the Lord of Nightmares
decided that she must atone for the crimes of her race? Or had the Lord of
Nightmares taken pity on Valgaav? Not a Mazoku, not a dragon, just a boy so
blinded by pain all he could see was the hate?
Maybe Filia would never know. It wasn't all that important anyway. Smiling softly,
she looked over to the basket, where a dragon's egg was securely wrapped in
cloths. An egg which the world had not seen for a thousand years. An Ancient
egg.
He received his wish -- rebirth. And this time around, Filia would do her level best
to ensure his life was as perfect as she could manage to make it.
It was a new beginning for them both, and she wasn't going to let the chance pass
her by.
Somehow she always knew she had the strength inside,
And even if she fell, she'd survive.
In spite of all the tears she may cry,
This is how she has to live her life.
As hard as it may be, she has to find out for herself.
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