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Coming soon: Awakening into Dreams: Part II of the Fabula Fereganae Cycle
Gemmie and Maya are dead. No, worse than dead. Sansonis and Ifaut, gone. Now with only two of her companions left, Stefi, the Final Fieretsi, is left drifting ever westwards aboard a crippled airship. There she finds Alzandia, home of the Alzandian Furosans, and Cédes’s original home. But there is no warm welcome for Cédes from the people who were once glad to be rid of her long ago.
With the coming confluence of all five elemental guardians and the encroaching eternal twilight, Feregana looks set to change forever. And, beyond the bounds of the world, two lost souls may be the only ones who can prevent the past from repeating.
Chapter I: Time to Love, Time to Mourn
Stefi tore the bandana from her face and let it flutter lifelessly to the deck.
Cédes approached, perturbed by the silence radiating from Stefi. Did it mean she was recovering? Too upset to talk? Wanting to talk? Only one way to find out.
“They’re really gone, aren’t they?” Stefi said as a warm hand found her back.
Cédes didn’t reply, but she slipped her arms about Stefi and rested her head on her human friend’s shoulder. An honest answer would only provoke grief, a false answer empty hope. All she could do was listen.
“I’ve been listening,” Stefi continued. Her hollow voice spoke as if to the night stars. “But there’s nothing. Nothing. I’ve tried everywhere. But how can they be gone? It just doesn’t feel possible, you know…”
After several moments had passed in silence, Cédes felt it was time to finally speak. “They may be gone, but they will always be in our memories. The ferrets chose to save us, knowing the price of their actions. The best way to honor them is to give them the mourning they are due and carry on.”
“Not just them,” Stefi said, “Sansonis and Ifaut too. It’s not fair.” She began to sob again and broke free from Cédes’s embrace. “It’s just not fair!” she screamed to the stars. They remained silent, uncaring, deaf to her protests. “Gemmie and Maya, I can almost accept. But those two? They had no choice!”
“They knew the risks, and still they fought,” Cédes said. She found no comfort in her own words.
“It still isn’t fair,” Stefi said, her voice returning to normal. “They were finally being honest to each other. Ifaut, she was so nervous about her feelings when we were with the Blue Tail kids, and to see her finally be true to her own heart and Sansonis was…” A fragment of a smile showed on her face. “…cute.”
“Yes,” Cédes said with a smile of her own. “I have known Miss Ifaut for most of her life. Something most unfortunate happened to her when she was rather young, an incident that caused her to lock away her feelings for fear of the same thing happening. Only now, with a Kalkic human of all people, has she begun to feel love once again.”
“What happened?”
“That is not for me to say. Even in death she still has her privacy. Just allow me to say that it is the reason for her overprotecting attitude towards Sansonis.”
“You’re talking like they’re still here,” Stefi said, noticing Cédes’s odd choice of tenses.
“Indeed they are. They are not truly gone. The imprints they have left on our souls are still there. Perhaps the tides of time may erode them so that they become less vivid, but they will always be there if we let them.”
Cédes’s words relaxed Stefi’s weary eyes. She closed them, picturing for a moment Ifaut laughing while Sansonis looked on curiously, not quite understanding the joke but appreciating her smile.
“I can still hear them, and I won’t forget. I couldn’t forget Ifaut even if I wanted to, especially the way she treated Sansonis like a pet. Not that he seemed to mind.”
“That is how we should remember them,” Cédes said, “forever young and happy.”
“You’re right. Ifaut would have been dragged kicking and screaming into old age.”
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