The FireWing Arc - Darkstalker Forever

Prologue

(Emotion - I can't help falling in love with you)

He can't come back. He can't ever, ever come back. Tears dripped off her snout, falling to the join the surf swirling around her. She had stood there for many long minutes, minutes that felt like hours, and still she could not force herself to make a decision. She stood, unmoving, paralyzed in an agony of indecision. She struggled to gain control of her erratic, sobbing breathing.

Where did it all go so wrong? The water was freezing, but she didn't care. She felt as if she was bound fast by the thousands of strings of possible futures, tied tight in a web she had crafted for herself.

She thought of her love, her Darkstalker, her true, predestined love. She'd betrayed him. She'd left him to lie, trapped, beneath Pyrrhia for all time. The futures they should have had together, gone forever. It had destroyed her. She had only one thing left... possibility. The possibility of a new future. A new life, away from Pyrrhia and all the memories and futures. A new her. A new world.

..but it would be a world without Darkstalker.

She had to focus on the bright futures shining ahead. She had to leave the past in the past. She had to focus on the good futures, even if the paths to them were ones of sadness, longing, regret, and wishes.

Just like he had said. How could she do this? How could she leave it all behind? How could she leave Darkstalker behind? The futures flashed before her eyes. Futures where she came back to him... futures where they were eventually happy, and together? It was all too much. She couldn't bear the temptation any longer. She had to leave behind those futures once and for all. She had to leave her world, it was the only way.

Darkstalker she would leave, to his imprisonment in the world of dreams. If only she could talk with him one last time, come to peace with him with a proper goodbye and tell him how much she would always love him...

Dreams... She opened her talon. There upon, the Dreamvisitor sparkled in the moonlight. She shouldn't do this... she couldn't do this. It dangerously unbalanced the futures. She had to let go.

But there was no going back now. She had to see him once more...

Darkstalker sat in his old room back in the Night Kingdom, his back to Clearsight, the blanket they had shared rapped around him. He was rocking back and forth, staring down at something in his talons, and looking utterly alone.

Clearsight crept forwards quietly, not wanting him to yet find out she was in his dream. How would he react? Would he be furious with her? Would he plead with her to set him free? All at once, she felt as if she couldn't breathe. She suddenly wished she wasn't here, in his dream, their minds so close together.

She cautiously peered over his shoulder, down at what he was holding.

...it was his scroll. The talisman wherein he had stored his animus power. The scroll he had made because of her. For her. The scroll she had stolen, lured him away with, used to betray him.

No regrets. I can't have any regrets. I'll just have to focus on the new futures and forget the old ones...

He was staring at one line. The most recent, the ink still shining fresh. Enchant Arctic the IceWing to obey my every command.

He muttered something under his breath. Still unobserved, she leaned in closer to him, her snout nearly brushing his ear.

"No regrets. I can't have any regrets."

For a moment, Clearsight panicked. He read my mind! He knows I'm here, watching him, thinking this now!

But no, surely that was impossible. She wasn't even really here, just Dreamvisiting. And he seemed genuinely really absorbed in what he was doing. Surely if he knew she was there he would have reacted to it by now.