Crystal Legacies: Rebirth

Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen:

A Night to Remember

Skye looked out from over the large balcony. There were trees surrounding her property, the canopies reaching a respectable height and covering the ground below well, but she could see beyond them. The town, her town, was alive tonight in a way that made her nostalgic. Sure there were things that got on her nerves all around but at least there was a sense of community in the air. She could practically taste the jubilation and remembrance. That might have just been the fire, grilled meats, and ash in the air though. Still it brought back some of the memories from her dearly missed past.

The aging Anima smiled bitterly as she walked back into her study. The question posed to her not that long ago went back through her head. The man with orange eyes, something she never thought she would see again in person, had asked if the history they'd heard had actually happened. As though there was a chance that everything which had happened during her youth had simply been a story that had been passed around. She looked towards the picture hanging on the wall in fond remembrance. Four girls of all different races and personalities stood proud in the painting.

She remembered standing for it; at the time she had thought it an annoying waste of time. It had taken hours over various different days where the artist painted her likeness; months of work as they traversed through the lands to add the others into the image beside her. Now it was one of the few artifacts she had that showed her friends together as a whole group. It had been restored multiple times in the last millennia and recently preserved with modern techniques to hopefully last beyond her extraordinarily long life. It was one of the only solid pieces of evidence left that their journeys had happened, that they weren't just some figures from history that had been more myth than truth.

Her ears twitched as the door to the balcony opened up. With the scent of the fires burning all around town, even some on her own estate, it was hard to get a scent on this new person. The smell of fire and ash permeated the area like a confusing fog to her deteriorating sense of smell. It wasn't what it once was; nothing was. The ages had dulled the majority of her senses. Which was probably why the stranger had gotten so close to her without her noticing.

"I do not know what you want, but I know that you will not get it," Skye commented as she looked at the woman.

Even with what remained of her once exceptional eyesight, Skye could still still see the woman perfectly in the dark room. She had long dark hair; a trait that wasn't uncommon among all the different races now. Her skin was light but not so much that she resembled a Lunarian or Aradonian. It was her eyes that really stood out - orange. Just like his.

"Tribelon?" Skye asked as her feline ears twitched atop her head in frustration.

"I'm glad my reputation has reached even here. You've worked so hard to keep us out that I thought I'd be a stranger."

"You are in fact still a stranger, you just happen to share a bloodline with those I once held dear."

"Ah, I see," the woman said as she started to smile. "What gave me away?"

"Your eyes, so much like his."