RE:WRITE

17.0 Ignis_Chapter 4: Sadness

900 years of sadness and loneliness. That's what I went through after Yunni died.

I left the shrine because it reminded me of her and roamed the world instead.

I journeyed across the great desert of the Fire Kingdom, crossed the plains and the plateau of the Light Kingdom and bathed in the lakes and the rivers of the Water Kingdom. After my sisters finally reconciled their personal hatred, I even managed to soar up to the floating island of the Air Kingdom, trekked across the Anderan wastes and the Twilight Forest in the Dark Kingdom and climbed the lofty mountains of the Earth Kingdom.

But I was still sad and alone.

The only people I talked to were my sisters.

My sisters were unusual but that was to be expected since they were Goddesses. Fate had decreed that Solaron, the Light Goddess, and Lunaris, the Dark Goddess, would forever hate each other. Agua, the Water Goddess, and I, the Fire Goddess, were to support Solaron while Terra, the Earth Goddess, and Breze, the Air Goddess, were to support Lunaris.

Whenever we saw a Goddess from the other faction, our hearts would be filled with anger and hostility whereas coming upon a Goddess from our own faction made us feel calm and safe.

But none of us wished to play Fate's game, so we met on the Bridge of Babel that connected the Northern and the Southern Continent and formed a pact.

A pact to oppose Fate's machinations.

Although we couldn't stop our followers from fighting, we resolved to, at the very least, reduce unnecessary casualties as much as possible and increase cooperation between the Dusk Alliance in the North and the Holy Union in the South. We adopted a unified calendar that began from the day we were released from the Haze and used names the months after ourselves. A little narcissistic perhaps.

But resisting Fate was difficult. I did not know what my sisters did to try to resist Fate, but I had given up long ago. Because Fate's biggest curse to me was loneliness and I could find no cure for it.

I dared not form bonds with any mortals, because their lives would be short like Yunni's and they would be prone to untimely deaths...like Jeffi.

My relationship with my sisters seemed cold and artificial. The positive emotions that I felt when I saw Solaron or Agua repulsed me nearly as much as the negative emotions I felt for Lunaris, Terra and Breze.

Those emotions weren't mine. They were what Fate wanted me to feel and that level of intrusiveness sickened me.

And Fate had its dirty hands in many other places too. There were wars and famines, droughts and floods. There were times when the people of Erath felt hope, only to have it come crashing down around their feet.

The battles between the Hero and the Demon Lord were the worst of all. If they encountered each other early on, the Demon Lord would make quick work of the Hero and the damage would be minimal. But more often than not, the Hero would only fight the Demon Lord after they had grown to frightening levels.

Then there would be carnage. There would be destruction. And there would be death.

But then Lunaris began to act strangely, secluding herself in the Twilight Forest and rarely ever coming to our centennial meetings. Then, the Demon Lords stopped appearing.

Before that time, the Hero and the Demon Lord would usually deal enough damage to each other that other warriors would be able to finish the job, ensuring that neither side could win. But after the Demon Lord stopped appearing, the Hero could wreak havoc on the Dusk Alliance without fearing the presence of a being comparable to them.