Written By: Armina Qi Saxton

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Chapter 2: Relics Of The Past

It was too quiet in Gaia, despite countless Gaians out and about during the cold mid-January afternoon. Many crowded the streets of Durem, the sandy beaches of Isle de Gambino, the paved roads of Barton; even Aekea was busy at this time of day when so few usually went out of their way to go there. Yet, still, there was a calmness to this day, when so many brought a certain hecticness to it. It was as though, despite the apparent rush, a cloud of serenity hung in the air.

The lazy sun loomed overhead, bearing down upon two souls that walked out of the city of Durem behind a group of mid-day shoppers. Instead of going down the dirt path that lead towards Barton, they moved south, towards the small communities that sat along the outer fringes of Durem's border. These communities, homes built years before these two had returned to their natural home, was not the destination in which the two held their sight upon. It held further south, perhaps no more then a mile and a half from the last brick house.

They had walked this distance before, at least five times in secret since the uproar of ten years prior. There was a smaller community not far from the one they were moving towards; instead of being for the living, this one housed the dead. It was a graveyard, one of the three that the Council of old had placed when there was no more need to burn the bodies of those that passed onto the next life. There were still few pyres that burned for those that had wished to be turned into ash, but the homes of the dead were easier to manage, if not more expensive.

And it was one of these graveyards, the closest to Durem, that they knew all too well. The headstones of former Councils and some of the wealthiest Gaians were buried here, safe as they could be in the ground. At least they knew not the horrors of the living world, or the ones that stepped around fading memories to get to ones that were still very much alive.

"Here it is. Our family's grave," Marie said, stopping at the headstone that held the surname of Von Helson on top, and the names of their mother, father, and sister along the middle. Anna stopped closer to it then her sister did, throwing the bundle of flowers she held into the grave itself. They landed upon the ground at an angle, some of the petals from the roses falling off upon impact. "It's too bad we couldn't get a better resting place for them. The ground isn't a place for the Von Helsons."

"Yes, it is a pity," Anna responded dryly, hardly caring about where they had buried their dead much less how they had died. "Looks like no one bothered with this one's upkeep."

"So true," Marie replied in a soft voice, glancing at her sister. Anna knelt in front of the grave, moving a hand along the engraving of their father's name, a whisper of guilt washing over Marie. There were things that she wanted to say to make Anna forget the things that had happened years before, things that still haunted her to this day. No matter what the remedies she tried were, the late night talking, the parties that they engrossed themselves in, nothing seemed to work. Not even the little things they should have remembered from their childhood.

"It's not fair that we have to do this. We can't figure out the clues he left behind without his help, even if it is a dead man's whisper," Anna said, more to the grave that held three bodies then to herself or to her sister.

"He did as he said he would, but we didn't believe him," Marie said, crossing her arms over her chest. "He warned us that he would keep his promise."

Anna glared at her sister from over her shoulder, her cold eyes staring directly at her. "What in all of the hells are you talking about? What promise?"

"He took his secrets to the grave. He knew we would want them. That way, we wouldn't be able to get to them without tearing everything apart, if we could find it at all," Marie said softly under her gaze. Anna didn't respond right away, exhaling angrily. They had torn everything apart that they knew of, tried everything that came to mind, but still there was nothing there. Nothing more then what they had already been left.

"Not all secrets are meant to be kept with the dead." Casting a sideways look at the grave, she stood up, brushing off the cold grass from her pants. She turned fully towards Marie, her eyes lowering down to the ground. "They aren't dead like he is. they are around here somewhere, even if we have to blow our own mansion into pieces to get to them.”

"Anna, where haven't we looked?" Marie rubbed her forehead, tired of running around in circles, searching for something that wasn't there. There wasn't a place in Gaia they hadn't checked at least twenty times since they had come back home, not even their own home was left unscathed. "We've searched the mansion, the bank, the guilds, and even the rubble on the island. The last thing we need to do is make our home the same as the one on the island. What he let behind is hidden good, buried somewhere in this damnable land, if it is anything at all."

"Hidden it good, it is," Anna echoed, lapsing into silence. Her eyes closed, her thoughts lingering on the last breaths that their father had spoken to them as he laid dying on the floor of the mansion, in a pool of his own blood. They had been garbled, barely even auditable, but both had understood completely what he had meant. Everything has ties in blood. Those five words had a meaning to them that night one understood and couldn't to this day, not even the ten years after his death.

Then her eyes snapped open, a faint smile coming upon her lips as she moved her head back up. There was a glint of an idea that formed in her mind, one that she had not thought of before but now knew that it was something she should have dwelled on for more then a single moment. That glint flickered in her eyes, causing Marie to look at her with a curiosity that only made the idea seem more worthwhile.

"If he took what he knew to the grave, then we'll just have to dig them up," Anna said, walking past her sister with a faraway look upon her face. She ignore the look that was upon Marie's face, moving quickly back towards the city.

"Don't you think that is going too far?" Marie asked, a worried tone in her voice. Anna stopped walking completely, spinning around with a flare. There was something in Marie's eyes that indicated she did not like the idea of digging up the dead, but she ignored it just as she had ignored the pleading tone in which had been spoken to her.

"Going too far? No, I don't think so, Marie. I think we have the right to know our family's history, don't you think so?" She gestured around at the spit of land they were standing in. "Look around you, Marie. We don't know if this whole land of Gaia is ours, or if we have claim to something greater then it. I, for one, want to regain what we lost and get it back as soon as possible. I intend on doing that, with or without your help."

Anna turned around on her heels, walking quickly back towards the city. Marie stood there, watching her sister leave her at the gravesite without even a hint of a goodbye. She wanted to run after her, take her by the shoulders, and shake her back to her senses, even if there was some truth to her words today and the words she had spoken in the past. There was something terrible that was going to happen, something that Marie couldn't shake from her body, something that brought the extra chill to the air.

"Anna, we can't continue living in the past. Anna!" Marie called after her, but Anna was too far towards Durem to even hear her words. Rolling her eyes, she started to jog in the direction of the city, not even casting a single longing look at the graves that stood behind her. There was no use in looking back, only ahead; that was the way time went, forwards but not backwards. If only some would allow themselves to moving with the flow of time, then there was no reason to look over their shoulders.

****

Many miles to the northwest of Durem, across most of the known territories, a single boat glided towards Isle de Gambino from the port. It held two occupants, both male, but with one looking as though he did not want to be anywhere near the island. He had hesitated at the port, casting a longing expression towards Barton before climbing into the boat with a sigh. If he could, he wouldn't have left the comforts of warmth behind, but there were other things that he had to do on the island, things that he was ready to forget.

Leon stared straight ahead at the island that slowly came closer to him, a light fog settling over the water. The boat master sat behind him, carefully steering the small craft towards it's destination without word. There wasn't much to say between the two, only content on listening to the wind as it moved past them in shallow harmony. One kept to his duties in guiding them to the island, the other wishing he was going somewhere else other the soft, sandy beaches.

The fear of going to the island wasn't due in the fact that he knew Rina was there, waiting for him. He had asked her to wait for him there without telling her more then she needed to know until he saw her in person. It was because of something held secret there, laying in wait for almost ten years for them to come and claim it. His and Rina’s parents vault lay undisturbed for those same ten years, waiting for the day when it could be opened by those who were left behind. What the vault held, Leon didn't know nor held any curiosity to know either. Doing this, going back into a past that he could barely forget, was for Rina and Rina only.

The only true smile Leon had been able to muster in the last few weeks, came to his lips when the boat steadily reached the short of the island. It wasn't directed at the place itself, but rather the person that he saw standing not far from the boat's landing site. It was a young woman, looking no older then sixteen but was only a few years older, wearing an old coat overtop a yellow dress. Her face lip up when she saw Leon climb out of the boat and onto the sandy shore, muttering his thanks to the boat master and tossing several coins into his waiting hand.

"Leon, why did you want me to come to the Bank with you? It's too cold out to do anything." Rina shivered, bringing her coat around her even more tighter then it was. It wasn't exactly freezing, but the cold never really bothered Leon as he walked up to her, his smile fading. At least not the degree in which it affected most Gaians. He was used to the cold, having spent many sleepless nights moving about in the winter, keeping watch over the small townships.

"There are some things there for us that Meredith has been keeping safe. It's time we got them," Leon said, as he begun the rest of the walk towards the Bank. Rina hesitated, looking back at the small boat that had carried Leon across from the port. It was heading back to the other side, where she could barely make out several Gaians waiting to be shuttled across the water through the light fog. She shook her head, rushing to Leon's side as she walked in stride with him.

"At the Bank?" She asked, giving him a sideways look. "Why would there be anything for us there?"

"It is from our parents," He said lightly. Although she took notice that he did not look at her when he spoke those few words, Rina's face lit up even more and a smile spread across her lips.

"Oh, good. I can't wait to see what they left us," She said in a half squealing tone, a tingling feeling washing over her. That feeling, the feeling of that she was going to open something exciting, soon evaporated, as did her smile, once she saw the expression that was held upon Leon's face. It gave her the impression that he did not want to go into the Bank for this, not even when he would be taking his flirt look at was left behind for them. "You'll be okay with this, won't you?"

"I'll be fine," Leon said with a faraway tone and eyes straight forwards. Grabbing him by the arm, Rina forcibly pulled him to a stop, which held a certain degree of impossible to it, considering she was trying to pull a well-muscled man in a good deal of armor to a full and complete stop. Leon diverted a glare towards her when he stopped, wondering why he had been pulled back when they were so close to the Bank as it were.

"No, you won't be. I can tell. You are shaking and you won't even look at me." Rina let go of his arm, allowing her arms to fall imply at her side. There was a truth to her words, one that he wouldn't readily admit, not even to her. How she could tell he was shaking uncontrollable under his armor, Leon could only guess. "Leon, please look at me. Tell me what's wrong."

There was a pleading tone to her voice, a tone in which Leon did not like to hear, especially coming from her. He had a very good reason not to look at her, mainly because it was hard enough as it were to walk this far to the Bank with the idea he was going to be looking at things that his parents had left him and Rina. Dread had filled him, from the moment that he had walked out of the Guild Office to the present, when he and Rina stood in front of the Bank. He did not want to go in there and move around things that were long-since dead, not when there were other things that he would rather be doing. Things that were relics of a time that he only wished he could forget just as easily as others had.

"It's not that easy, Rina, to forget things," Leon said with a shake of his head. "You've somehow managed to block everything out that happened. I can't do that. I'm not like you."

"You think it's easy to block that out? Our parents' deaths? Or did you forget that I saw that happen as well?" She looked down at the ground, fighting the tears that were just waiting to be let go. "I'm still having nightmares about it. I wake up, only to find nothing there. I can still hear mom screaming for us to get away, just before she was shot." She raised her eyes slightly, mists of tears already at the base of her eyes. "It scares me to hear it again when I sleep, only to wake up and know that it isn't a dream."

"They scare me too," Leon softly said, gently taking Rina's hand and giving it a tight squeeze. She looked up at him, their eyes meeting and an understand coming between them. They both knew there were some things that were still there, between the past and the present, that they couldn't get rid if until they faced them. "Are you sure you want to go in there and see what they left us?"

"Yes, I am," Rina said, latching onto his arm tightly. There was more to her being scared of nightmares, more to her wanting to step back into the past, more to everything then she knew.

"Okay, then. Let's go," Leon said as calmly as he could, despite his stomach becoming entangled with fear and doubt. He couldn't show these emotions to Rina, not when they were at the Bank's doorstep. When all was said and done, then he would relax and become more at ease. Until then, there was nothing he could do except that he was doing into a dark place as he lead Rina into the Bank, terrified.