Flarth’s Explanation

 

I had been sitting on the edge of a cliff while staring down at the night sky in the sparkling sea. I start kicking pebbles down the cliff, until; I hear flapping wings, following a quiet land, and rough footsteps behind me.

“Hey, Travallian,” Flarth says as he sits down beside me.

“Hello, Flarth…” I reply without looking at him. “How’s Trans and Flit?”

“Well, just look over there,” he points at the direction behind me.

I slowly turn my attention to where Flarth is pointing and notice that they were still fighting.

“Zeo tried to break them up, but it was not one bit successful,” Flarth sighs, “Even I tried to break them up. I got hit on the head for that, Flite smacked me because I was in the way…”

“Ha ha ha… Are you okay?”

Flarth nods slightly at me and then takes a blue, silk pouch out of one of his cloak pockets. He slowly opens it and takes out a jewel and holds it out in front of me. I look at it closely then look back at Flarth.

“Hey! This sapphire, it’s emitting a white light,” I say while looking more closely to the sapphire.

“Yes,” he says while looking at my Emerald Staff, “Now look at your emerald,”  

I look at my emerald and notice that it was glowing with a slow flashing red and blue light.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“When the magical HardSlash family jewels are together, or just near by each other, they start to glow with a color of their main elements. Even just two jewels together can trigger this,” Flarth grins, “There are 4 family jewels in all. They were given to the children of Cassandra and Lasereth HardSlash.”

“I had a feeling that I knew you from somewhere, but I wasn’t sure. Since your sapphire is glowing white and my emerald is glowing red and blue… That would mean you’re my brother.”

“Glad that you’re a fast thinker. You always had been when we were younger. It’s most likely when we were ten to fifteen years old, about nine hundred ninety-one years ago. Anyway, I am not just your brother, I am your twin.”

“Ten to fifteen?” I give Flarth a confused look. “Had not I been missing at those ages?” I scratch the back of my head, “My twin. Hmm… ”

Flarth stares with a similar look I had given him. “Sad… Mega Flare really did get to you as well. At least you know more than the others. We’re really one thousand six years old. We are growing slowly so we still look like kids for strange some reason. I’m still looking into that.”

“Mega Flare?” I say right when I hear the name ignoring the other things that Flarth had said, “He killed my adoptive parents awhile ago at a ruined village! He then gave back my emerald and left me there.”

“Really? That’s not like him. Well, not like when I met him. He almost killed me when I was climbing a mountain. He just left me, lying unconscious and bleeding badly at the side of a cliff, without taking my sapphire. Perhaps he forgot, but that’s pretty stupid.”

“Eh…” Is all that came out of my mouth.

“That was also the day I became vampiric,” he shudders, “It’s still hard to get used to it. I’m glad that I’m good at pretending to be tough,” he lets out a nervous laugh.

“Hmm… Flarth, who are the other two children in our family?”

“Our older brother, Zen, who left our village a year before I did and our older sister, Silest, who decided to go with Zen,” he pauses to think, “We all left our hometown. That’s pretty weird.”

“I was taken away. I didn’t leave on my own will,” I cross my arms.

“Haha. We all have our reasons.” Flarth puts a hand on my shoulder, “I’m planning to look for them. Silest possesses the white magic and memory jewel. We can use it to restore everyone’s memory in our village. Zen possesses the black magic and time jewel. With their help, we can defeat Mega Flare! Are you going to help me find them?”

“Sure thing! You can count on me, brother!”

“Good! I know that I can! With your red magic and transformation jewel and my red magic and teleportation jewel I know that we’ll get through!”

“Teleportation!? Why didn’t you tell me that earlier when we were on our way to this village?”

“Trans doesn’t remember anything from our past because of Mega Flare. He would have taken this sapphire away from me and try to use if for himself if I had revealed it. I use it when I’m alone most of the time when I fight creatures. I think I’m almost as strong as you now.”

“Almost as strong as me? You saying that I am stronger than you?”

“Yes. You are in fact the strongest in the family. Zen was so jealous that he fled out of the village. Silest went with him to make sure that he did not get hurt. Since Zen has no white magic, Sil thought it would be a good idea to go with him.”

“Heh… An older sister with white magic and an older brother with black magic and you and I both have red magic, which has both black and white magic. I can see why Zen is jealous.”

“Yeah, but I bet he has snapped out of it by now.”

“Think again, Flarth. Are you sure about that?”

“If he is still jealous, I would say that he’s an idiot! Well, come on! He’s older than you! Why would he be jealous for this long?”

“Yeah. You are right.” I paused to think, “Hey! Weren’t you going to do something to Trans?”

“Not anymore. He has his hands full. Fliter is a big enough problem for him to handle, I think.”

We both got up and started to walk through the village and into the home of my adoptive parents as the sun started to rise into the sky.