The Forgotten Zodiac

When Diana opened her eyes next, she was standing in a very unusual place. It was like...a shining cave of some kind. With crystals showing in the walls here and there. Most of them shone brilliant whites and pastel blues, reds, yellows, so on. Light, happy colors. But further into the cave, it very quickly changed to dark reds, blacks, and hazy grey. Scattered throughout were cracked pieces, and shards that had been broken off entirely.

Diana peered at her reflection in the mirror-like surface of one crystal, seeing a few fuzzy shapes locked within it. "Are these pieces of my soul?" She questioned. "My memories? Thoughts and feelings?" She felt another, taking a step back with alarm as it crumbled under her fingers. She felt a crunch and lifted her foot, realizing she had stepped on yet another crystal, one that had been broken off of the wall. "It's such a mess..."

Luen alighted gently beside her; a glowing, spectral sort of deer. He glanced around sadly, then sighed and said "Bit and pieces, yes. I can't repair all of it, of course. I'm not that powerful. I can just...make an attempt. It'll be hard on me, but I can do it." He looked around at Diana and nuzzed the top of her head, lipping tenderly at her hair, then straightened and started walking forward, making sure to keep the girl close to his side. He touched his nose to one of the pieces of cyrstal, and a moment after he stepped away, it leapt back together and turned a bright pink color. Occasionally, he touched one of the dark, still-together pieces and returned it to a vivid color.

Diana stuck close, watching curiously as Luen fixed a few things. She suddenly moved a little ways ahead, crouching near a large patch of crystal. Like glass, it provided a window to a large, circular room. The mark of Tartarus was laid out with tiling, making up the floor of this room. There was a much larger crystal protruding from the ground in the center of it, encasing a familiar shape. Forin. It wasn't truly Forin, or his soul; rather, the connection that Forin held so dear with his summoner. Frozen stiff in a dark chunk of crystal.

Luen walked over to join her next to this mark, staring up at the symbol of his beloved friend. He looked down at Diana, watching her for a moment, then closed his eyes and moved forward, pressing his nose to the symbol. Immediately, a rainbow of color blossomed forth into it, pouring from Luen in a wash of brightness. To Diana's shock, however, Luen's white fur started turning gray, darker and darker, blacker and blacker the longer he had his nose pressed to the crystal. When it was finished and he pulled back, he was panting softly, but shook it off.

"Shouldn't...shouldn't we free him?" She questioned. Diana didn't know that this wasn't actually Forin. He was supposed to be in that crystal; it wasn't supposed to be dark. Luen had fixed it entirely, and on the outside world, Forin found himself collecting the pieces of his broken connection and putting it back together. It would take a few minutes, but Forin would sacrifice any amount of time to have this link back.

Diana felt Luen's fur, frowning. "You...are you dying? Stop it. White looks better on you, not grey...you're already hurt, you don't have to do this..."

"I'm not dying," he panted softly. "It's a guage of how much energy I have left to use here. Forin never saw it when I was in his mind because he didn't see me as a deer, nor could my appearance change like this because his imagine was absolute. You, on the other hand, appear more receptive to the small changes in sight." He shook his head, eyeing his fur lightly before saying "Looks like I've already used up almost half. We'll have to be careful with the rest."

"W-well..." Diana whimpered. "Won't it hurt if you run out of energy? You can't use it all, you won't have enough to fight her when we get to her..." She hugged Luen's leg, then climbed up onto his back and held on tight. "You have to stop her. She's been ruining everything..." She held onto him tightly, pressing her face against his fuzzy neck.

"Her? Who's...her?" Luen asked, slowly heading further into the cracked crystals and fragments, carefully stepping around anything on the ground. He occasionally reached out and touched something he deemed small enough to repair while keeping his energy up, and his fur turned the most minimal shades darker when this happened. He pricked his ears up, listening for any hint of the Seed that was lurking around here.

"So...this is the Seed, then?" Luen said, carefully walking a circle around the cage, using a thin rim of ice to raise himself up to a level where he wouldn't step in the black sludge. He sighed, looking at the caged Diana with a soft expression. He tilted his head back to study Diana, then looked back at the other and said "You look so alike that it's uncanny. It's rather creepy..."

"It copied me. Once I'm gone, it will take my place...it has to be identical to the soul in order for the body to accept it. Didn't you know that? Souls can't control bodies unless the body is attuned to it. It's the same with this seed..." She shivered a bit. "You have to get rid of it..."

Luen exhaled, watching the Diana inside the cage for a long moment before finally stepping back, turning his head to the one on his back. "Hop off. I don't want you to get hurt," he said, offering his antlers for her to cling to as she slid off of his back. Once she was safely on the ground, he approached the cage, his gaze distant. He reared onto his hind legs, his forelegs curled under his chest, ice already darting through his fur at his call. He threw his head forward...

...and turned sharply, plunging the spikes into the Diana that had slid from his back.

Diana screamed, falling back and hugging the wounds on her chest. "D-darn you..." She spat. "Ho-how did you...what gave it away?" She hissed, her eyes changing to that black color. It had been as Luen had suspected; the Diana he had been with all this time was the Strider Seed that was infecting this place. The Diana in the cage, voicelessly watching as everything in the tunnels changed.

The dark crystals turned light, the light crystals turned dark. The real Diana, the soul in the cage that the Seed had been trying to destroy, knew that the Seed had altered the colors in the caves to make it seem like the one in the cage had been the the attacker. All was not as it appeared at first glance, certainly not. The black sludge had been attacking her, trying to drown her and kill the soul of the real Diana, but she had been fighting it. Of course she was.

"It was easy, really," Luen said, his form wavering sharply as he stepped closer to Diana's cage, rapping his antlers against it and causing it to fall apart. "The first thing was that Diana is far too kind to ever say she hates someone, and she would never lock someone else up like this. Next, your hands were cold. Hers are warm. The last..."

He had reached Diana, bending his head down to her. His outline shattered upon contact with her, and he became a completely white version of his human form, cradling Diana close.

"...A deer isn't what her mind chooses to see me as," he whispered as wings jerked forth from his back, white and shimmering.

Not a deer. Similar to how Forin was her guardian, so too was Luen, except the kirin was more of an angel to her.

Diana, the real Diana, fell into Luen's embrace. She still didn't remember still, but she knew for a fact that this man was here to help her. She felt trust towards the Kirin, and some part of her knew, even without memories, that Luen was a dear friend. It was the one thing that Remor, with all of his soul manipulation, couldn't have possibly erased. Cliche it may have been, but Remor couldn't touch the love she felt towards and from Luen. The connection between their souls, the tight bond between close friends.

"Bah! She was weak, and I was going to make her strong! I could have made something great, you blasted Kirin!" The corrosive seed's form seemed to be melting into the sludge. "She wanted it, too. She wanted to be strong for you and Forin, but no...you had to come in here and muck everything up!" Its voice changed, too, releasing Diana's and returning to its own.

"You're the muck!" Diana wailed at once, hugging Luen for all she was worth. "Keep it away from me, I don't want to be that thing again!" She pleaded, crystalline tears falling from her eyes and making quiet chimes as they touched the floor.

"Shh, it's okay," Luen soothed, stroking her hair back and putting a hand under her chin in order to tilt her head up to face him. "I'm here. Nothing will hurt you again."

As he bent and pulled her even tighter into his arms, his ice powers flowed in waves off of him, rushing forth unbidding, surrounding the poisonous seed with bright, clean white snow, which reflected off of the light crystals, burning the seed away into nothing.

Luen ignored the burning goop, instead concentrating his attention solely on Diana.

The screams slowly petered into nothingness. Diana kept her eyes locked on Luen, happy tears pouring down her face and ringing against the floor again and again, with each little droplet. "Y-you're not hurt, are you? I mean, I know you're hurt on the outside, but...are you hurt here?" She looked down and began to inspect his bright and angelic form, worry on her face. When she was satisfied that he was okay, she hugged him again, clearly more at ease now. "I can't wait to remember...I want to remember you, Luen. Everything that Remor did was a lie, I see that now...now I just have to start remembering things, to fill in the gaps, right?" She beamed at him, tilting her head to the side. She blinked, and to their side, a crystal slowly started reforming. "I'm already remembering things. A woman named...Luna? Luna, she's outside, isn't she? We have to go see her!"

"Yes, she's waiting for us," Luen said gently, kissing her forehead and closing his eyes. "Her and Forin too. Come on; let's go back." Again, the white-blue magic flowed forth, coating the remaining few crystals in a healing wave of sweet coolness, then everything faded around the two, the surroundings becoming brighter as Luen pulled them back to reality.

There, the kirin promptly went limp around Diana, exhausted from the drain on his energy.

Diana was still hugging him, and helped him sit up again. "It's okay," She murmured. "You did good, Luen. Rest now," She smiled, and looked around.

"You're back," Forin moved forward at once, holding out food to the both of them. "We saved some food for you, Diana, here," He put it in her hands, smiling. "You...your eyes. They're back to normal." He beamed, tears of relief welling in his eyes. Diana stood and moved forward at once, hugging him tightly.

"I know. I'm starting to remember, too...slowly. I remembered a name," She looked around, spotting the Amnairian she was looking for. She hurried over and hugged Luna tightly. "I remembered you. Only a little, but...I definitely remember you."

Luna's smile was wide and happy as she scooped Diana up, nuzzling her and saying "Diana, Diana! Oh, we all missed you so much!"

Luen, sitting on the ground with a breadroll Forin had shoved into one hand, smiled weakly at the two before his vision went blurry. He passed out a moment later, flopping back into a small heap on the ground.

Seria flicked her tail softly, watching their joy through her bright blue eyes.