[Fern]

---

"Again and again..."
 
"Repeating, endlessly, until there's nothing left."
 
"My emotions..."
 
"My life."
 
"For eternity."
 


Duyuei had begun its advance against the winged monstrosity of the Wastes known as Larai Dua. Raelyn felt the need to assist in the effort in whatever way she could, primarily because of her friendship with Mergaline. After all, Mergaline was one of the first people she met after she had awakened from her memory loss. One of her very first friends. As if fate sought to play cruel, their group became one of the first to battle against the Behemoth during the commotion of the hellish desert.

 

Mergaline had been severely wounded, and almost lost her life in the fight. Raelyn began losing her composure as soon as she realized that once again, she was completely helpless in an attempt to protect her friend's life. Once Larai Dua began escaping from the area, she eventually went to follow its tracks in a desperate attempt to get revenge for her friend's condition.

 

A fool's idea it was, and she definitely knew that. Even then, she continued searching day and night for the monster they battled, vainly hoping that she could finish it off. Much to her dismay, she never managed to find what she was looking for. Fatigue inevitably attacked her physical and mental energy as one night, she simply fell down on her side against the sands of the Wastes.

 

"Why can't I..."

 

She quietly spoke to no one in particular, weakly turning around to face the starry sky looming across the world.

 

"I just... I keep failing to protect the people I care about. Every single time we meet a dangerous situation, something terrible happens to them and I can't do anything about it."

 

"Why..."

 

The girl fell silent for a time, before tears began breaking out of her eyes and streaming down the sides of her face.

 

"Why can't I ever do anything right...? I can't protect my friends well. I can't talk to people well. I can't feel well. I almost never feel like I doing anything right, and when I do, it feels like nothing really special to me. I can't even be in a sound state of mind..."

 

"Why are they the ones getting hurt? Why can't it be me? It would be so much better if it was me..."

 

She shut her eyes in agony... and after a few moments, the world around her suddenly changed. She once found herself in that beautiful flower field she had seen in her dreams, with a white-haired, blue-eyed woman possessing an appearance nearly identical to her own standing close-by. Raelyn's eyes quickly caught the new arrival, and so she would sit up to face her with apparent confusion.

 

"You've always been like this..."

 

The woman began speaking to her with a light smile on her face, slowly walking towards the agonized Amalgama and eventually stopping a short distance away from her.

 

"No matter how many times you've tried to 'change' things by erasing it all away, you always end up with the same problem."

 

"Always... end up with the same problem?" Raelyn asked, even more puzzled than before.

 

Suddenly, the area distorted and changed appearance once more, sending the pair into a room with overly fancy decorations, and a high-quality looking bed. There was a red-haired girl with forlorn, green eyes, sitting on the edge of the mattress. The Amalgama stared at the redhead, her eyes widening in disbelief as she recognized her appearance.

 

"That's--"

 

The door leading up to the room had been slammed open as a man with an obscured face angrily stomped into the room. He violently pushed the girl off the bed and shouted at her,

 

"What the HELL did you do this time?!"

 

The girl would silently bring a hand to her cheek after falling onto the ground, trying her best to not look him in the eyes. Unfortunately for her, he immediately got closer and pulled her up to face her with intense scorn.

 

"Tell me now or else!"

 

However, she remained silent and simply kept glancing away from him. Anywhere but him.

 

"... You truly are a worthless rat. You're lucky you're only my wife because we need you."

 

The man would fling the red-haired girl off to the side, much like an angry child discarding their toy, and stormed out of the room. Once she made sure he was gone, she started quietly sobbing and letting out the tears she wouldn't otherwise let go.

 

Raelyn's mouth remained open and at a loss for words. She was processing the memory she was witnessing in her own little world. Before she finally settled on saying something, the environment proceeded to change itself once more, warping and forming a forestal area with a small house in its middle. Caught off-guard, she frantically looked around and spotted a blonde-haired girl with an appearance identical to the one from the previous vision. Unlike the other one, she seemed rather happy, jumping across the grassfield after coming out of a gathering of trees and going to meet an elder woman sitting on a chair by the entrance of the house.

 

"Granny!"

 

She went to immediately wrap her arms around the old woman with a smile as bright as the sun itself. Her grandmother let out a soft chuckle as she partially returned the gesture, as best as she could from her position anyway.

 

"You cute thing..."

 

"I'm not cute!" The blonde immediately retorted.

 

Raelyn struggled to make heads or tails about what was present before her very eyes. All she could tell was that both girls she has seen in these visions looked extremely similar to her. There were so many figures in this little world of hers that possessed her appearance.

 

The world quickly cycled through day and night, over and over, until the situation completely changed. Instead of a heartwarming sight, the blonde girl was sitting next to her now weak and old grandmother, holding her hand and doing her best to not cry her heart out.

 

"Granny..."

 

"Don't look at me like that, Raelyn... you're going to make me sad. We've spent a nice time together..." A chuckle escaped the elder.

 

"I remember when I first adopted you. You were lost, like a little puppy, and couldn't remember anything about why or how you ended up here. You managed to fill the void in my heart from when my daughter passed away, and I loved every moment of it. The moments... the memories we made together, they are precious and will never disappear."

 

Her grandmother fell silent for a time... pondering about something. She soon had a soft smile on her face as she lightly grasped the blonde's hand.

 

"If you insist on adventuring... do me a favor, will you?"

 

She was met with a look that was both curious and vaguely agonized.

 

"I've heard about it before. I've never seen it... but I know in my heart that it exists. Next time you go on a big journey... try to find a land with strange, but beautiful flowers."

 

"A land with strange, but beautiful flowers...?" Her granddaughter quietly repeated.

 

"Yes... a land filled with flowers not found anywhere else. Beautiful like the moonlight, and bright like the sun. Such land has no pain... no monsters, no evil. The people that live there are in eternal harmony, surrounded by angels. I want you to find it for me, Raelyn. That's my final wish. Will you grant me it, dear...?"

 

The blonde silently stared at the woman and proceeded to tear up, making an attempt at controlling her sobbing to no avail. However, she answered,

 

"Yes... I'll do it for you."

 

"Are you really sure? You might never find it. I for one have never seen it, only feel that it might exist."

 

"Yes! I will search until the ends of the world until I find it! I'll do it for you! I'll keep searching until the day I die!"

 

And so, her grandmother would shut her eyes with a growing smile...

 

"Thank you, my dear. I'm glad I met you. I love you."

 

"No... please don't go..." Raelyn ended up begging the woman to not disappear, despite not being involved in the vision herself. She could only watch her past self attempt to mentally brace herself for her grandmother's passing. Raelyn rose up to a stand and tried to reach for her family's hand, but the environment instantly distorted and returned to its original state of a white flower field, throwing the girl off-balance and causing her to fall on her knees. She observed her empty hands in agony.

 

"Always the same."

 

The blue-eyed woman merely spoke out that one line, shifting her gaze towards the pained girl. Raelyn, being in a sensitive state of mind, found herself irritated by the woman's commentary. She swayed her hand to the side and raised her voice,

 

"I don't want to be like this! But I can't help feeling this way! I'm... I'm so weak... everyone else is much stronger than me..."

 

Her sorrow was met with a cold, empty gaze from the woman standing near her. She approached Raelyn and bent down to look her in the eyes.

 

"This world is accursed. All life that is created is simply meant to disappear one day. Everything, even you and I, is going to disappear one day. Whether that's something you can face or not is not something that matters to anybody. The things you cherish will vanish and scar your heart, and no one will be there to help you."

 

"That's what happened to me. For so many years, I watched life suddenly come to an end, over and over again. It made me realize how fragile everything really is. And when you grow attached enough to those things... when they disappear just like that, you are filled with immeasurable pain. If not you, then someone else."

 

"I was broken. I tried my best to be happy, I really did. No one would know how I truly felt, no one but myself. Even in my final moments, there was nothing that gave me peace of mind. I left this world with the despair created by the cycle of life."

 

"You're destined to suffer eternally. Just as I was. That's why you're just like me."

 

Raelyn had stopped crying halfway through the words of her blue-eyed replica. Or, perhaps, all things considered, -she- was the replica. For whatever reason, she was an Amalgama that possessed the same appearance as the person that spoke to her. She never truly knew the answer why, and just imagined that such answer was located in one of her long-forgotten memories. However, there was something she begun to believe.

 

"I don't want it to be like this..."

 

She wiped away at her tears and quickly rose up to a stand, turning her head towards the woman.

 

"Be like what?"

 

"Be like you."

 

The woman blinked a couple of times. She eventually let out a confused chuckle.

 

"I don't think you understand. You don't have a say in the matter."

 

"Then I'll make it so I have a say in the matter." Raelyn angrily responded.

 

"You, me, and everything surrounding us is finite. The pain will not be something you can avoid. You have to understand that..."

 

"I'm so tired of this! I'm so tired of being unable to be strong. I'm so tired of being unable to protect the things I care about. I'm so tired of being helpless... and most of all, I'm so tired of being tired. I don't know how you can just sit by and accept feeling that way, but I don't want to be like that. I don't agree-- I don't want to be you! I want to be happy, I want to find the place she talked about... I want to be strong, somehow. I want to try to be strong."

 

"I reject you and your idea of the world. I..."

 

"If this truly is the world we live in, then I reject this world!"

  

The blue-eyed woman was at a loss for words. There was probably no way of convincing the girl at this point. Her expression became devoid of life before she turned around and began walking away from Raelyn.

 

"I see. Let's see where this gets you then."

 

Raelyn suddenly opened her eyes and realized she was still in the middle of the Wastes at night, so she became alarmed and quickly searched her surroundings for threats. Thankfully, the area she fell asleep in was a slightly safer one. Relieved from the lack of enemies, she once more set her eyes upon the starry sky above.

 

She was silently taking in the beautiful sight before her. After a moment, she held up a part of her hair and brought it in front of her face, right in between her eyes and the moonlight.

 

"... I'm not like you." She said, beginning to cast a minor spell as focus began leaking out of her hand. The hair strands she was holding would fade from a pure white to golden.

 

"Unlike you, I'm sick of this."