Destiny's Marked: Chosen (Book 1)

The Sky: Mother-friend

       Aria groaned as she slowly blinked her dull blue eyes open. With everything blurry, she struggled to identify exactly where she was, and with another groan at the pain in her back, she pushed her body up into a sitting position shakily. Her magic was still mostly depleted; she didn't have enough to cast cure. The floor tilted beneath her, making her already swimming stomach lurch. A ringing in her ears was persistent as she sluggishly and sloppily opened her pack for the stash of vials filled with green liquid. The ground tilted and began vibrating in front of her eyes that were struggling to stay open- making the pack spill various vials and equipment, the clinking of the glasses like the pounding bells of a cathedral if you were just beneath them. One vial, two vials slipped through her fingers like butter in her struggle to gather them back up. She slammed forward onto her front in her attempt to reach the now further supplies, the sound of her thumping heartbeat now replacing the insistent ringing. Her brain throbbed in her skull, making her entire body throb and shake with it, black dots entering her eyesight. She reached one more time for the nearest potion; however, she couldn't keep her eyes awake any longer and she returned to the dark.

       The next time she awoke, she woke to the peaceful bells of cura and the soft, but alarmed calls of her name.

       "-a! A...! Ari-!" Her vision cleared to find a concerned Aqua shaking her awake, "Aria, can you hear me?"

       Aria blinked slowly, body slack with exhaustion, before nodding ever so slightly.

       Aqua breathed a sigh of relief as she hugged the girl who limply returned it. The bluette, pulling away, continued, "You were getting close there, Aria. I had to cast cura a couple of times before you even showed signs of a response to the spell." Aqua frowned as her motherly tone slipped into her speech, "What- or who- did this to you? Do you remember anything about what they looked like? Or, did they give any clues as to where they went?"

       The blonde was a bit more coherent by the time these questions came around, "He-... He had a-... a keyblade. And, called Xehanort his mast-... his master." She leaned forward to sit up on her own, flinching at the pain around her midsection that the cura spell wasn't strong enough to heal.

       "He?" Aqua furrowed her brows in thought.

       She glared at her lap, "Ven had-... had left and I was about to follow him when I was suddenly pinned down by a gravita spell. Somehow, I must have gotten out of the spell because the last thing I remember was fighting him and... darkness." Aria's entire body shivered. "So much darkness." she mumbled, "Cold. Empty."

       Aqua cast another cura directed at Aria's torso, lips pursed in thought. Softly, she went back to her questions, "What did he look like?"

       Aria blinked rapidly as she tried to remember. She knew who it was, but she didn't realize just how much a dark corridor could mess with a person who had even an ounce of light within them and didn't the organization jacket to protect them. She couldn't envision just what he looked like, and only glimpses of their conversation echoed and warped to mind.

       "It's ok." Aria was shocked out of her thoughts as Aqua held her close. "Don't worry about thinking too much on it." The elder female's voice hardened, "I'm sure whoever it was will be back."

       To this, Aria nodded, her eyes clearer than they had ever been that conversation, "That, is a guarantee."

       Her firm look made Aqua stop. She bit her lip as she stared at Aria, the words that she spoke sending a bad premonition throughout her. The tones were completely different from one another- one, sad yet not deterred and the other, fierce and foreboding- but Aqua couldn't help but remember the night beneath the stars in the Land of Departure, where she caught Aria looking up at the stars and saying that that was the last time any of them would see them again.