The Enchanted Realm: At Journey's End

The Flame Within

 "You made an oath, Orion." Moonlight growled.

"I-I thought you missed me?" The boy replied.

"Who says I didn't!? I missed you since the second you left!" Moonlight's eyes were now hazy with tears. "But that isn't what I'm mad about, Darkheart." She stormed closer. "You broke your oath; your promise!" She punched his shoulder.

"A lot of promises are broken, right? What's one more?" Orion chuckled nervously.

"You really think that helps?" Moonlight's voice began to well with sadness and anger. "I've spent two years trying to forget. Trying to forget all of those adventures. I tried to forget you, Orion."

"You're not the only one who tried." Orion mumbled. He laid back against the supported wall. "I tried to forget all the pain: I tried to leave all my suffering in the past; all my friends' suffering." He sat against the wall. "But it's impossible." Moonlight joined him against the wall, her arm slowly resting on his shoulders. "The Realm, it does things to a human like me. It cost me my parents, my friends. My old life. I traded my joy for depression, my curiosity for anxiety; it cost me my entire past." Moonlight's gray tail coiled around Orion's waist. The two figures had disappeared. It was only Moonlight and Orion now. "I made the promise because I thought, 'If I stopped going back, maybe it'll stop?'" The teen smiled through his sadness, a clear indication of his insanity. "How wrong Past Me was. All the pain stuck with me until high school. All my friends left me, my parents are both gone." His insane smile turned into a dark grimace. "But I just couldn't say it. I told myself I would, that day in the chamber. I told myself I'd tell them I wasn't okay..." The troubled teen looked blankly forward. "But it never came."

"Orion..." Moonlight was on the verge of tears, her voice only a whisper from breaking down. "I'm so sorry." Her head fell onto Orion's shoulders; her arms trapped him in her sorrowful embrace. Orion only sat in silence, his body frozen, his mind blank. His gaze fell upon nothing. It was almost as if he had died. Orion awoke from his trance-like state, laying his head above Moonlight's. In the moment of silence, the wolf appeared from the darkness.

"I do hope I'm not intruding on a certain moment, but the Commander would like to speak with all of us." He stated somewhat formally.

"You're not." Orion replied. "We'll be up in a minute." He promised. The wolf nodded, vanishing with the flick of his tail. Orion looked at Moonlight, who had calmed herself into deep breaths. "C'mon, Moon. Let's go." The wolf girl chuckled.

"As long as you don't call me that while we're up there." She replied. Orion nodded. The two rose from the ground, climbing up the ladder and taking positions around the table.

"Alright, soldiers," The Commander began, "Intel suggests another island somewhere. Bad thing is, we don't know where it is. We need to find it A-S-A-P. The island has a fifty percent chance of getting us closer to our target. Look on any map you can find; search for anything on the edges that looks like an island."

"Yes, sir." Everyone replied in unison.

"Dismissed." The Commander moved away from the table. In fact, everyone did. All except Orion. He could only wonder what they were doing. And another island? How hadn't Orion known this from Pyrrum, or any other map he had studied during his previous trips here. Then a question occurred in his mind.

Was the other island where the Steampirates came from? Orion wondered. His second trip, two years ago. That airship arrived from the west. The island is further west. "Commander!" Orion spoke up. The large fox turned his head. "I know where the island is." Orion took a compass laying on the table. "We have to head west." There was a moment of silence.

"You heard the boy." The Commander said. "We head out in two days."

...

Orion laid on the top bunk of the dual bed, his mind seemingly blank. From afar, it simply looked like Orion stared blankly at the wall; but there was much happening within. His mind wandered through questions, memories, everything. The day before was rough. And it would only get worse, he thought. Confessing all his mental issues to Moonlight seemed like the only thing he could think about, apart from the mysterious mission that was going on. He couldn't sleep. His insomnia returned. Orion stealthily got out of the barracks, taking the ladder down to the level below. Orion turned around, his eyes falling upon the armory. Sets of armor were posed onto metal stands with elegance. But what caught his eyes is the set of armor on the far left. There, a dark-scaled set of armor was worn by a mannequin.

"So you've found my experimental armor." The Commander echoed from behind. Orion whipped around, seeing the Commander applying attachments to a one-handed gun. "I call that one Savior."

"You...name your armor?" Orion chuckled softly.

"Need some way to keep my sanity, don't I?" The Commander joked in reply. He walked towards the armor, taking the helmet and looking towards Orion. "I made this for a human fit." His hands held the helmet. It was an offer. "Touch the helmet, and the armor's yours forever."

"You really trust a 16-year-old human teen to wear something like this?"

"No." The Commander put the helmet on Orion himself. Orion could see through the helmet as though it wasn't even there. "Made with stuff from my realm and this one." Orion took the helmet off, having a closer look at it. The design was slim enough to fit a human head in it. From the outside, there didn't appear to be eyeholes. The mask itself seemed to fold over the wearer's face with ease. Orion looked up at the armor-bearing mannequin. The armor was also slim enough to fit around the teen's thin body. "So, you have a choice, kid." The Commander took an arm guard off the mannequin. "You can take the armor; help us protect the Realm; or you can go in without armor, and die a rather stupid death." The option was obvious.

"I'll take the armor."