The Four - Earth and Light Go Wandering

[Lygato]

Intro and explanation:

Sperrit, being so swamped with everything, has promised several stories to you. Let it be known that he is working hard on them, especially The Black Forest novel. However, he also had an idea for his and my characters, both of whom's past are intertwined. This being so he decided, not on a story, but an "RP" that he and I will co-write. There will be lots of characters that aren't controled by any real person, but have great significance to the story. However, there will also be times when some POs will be invited to join in the RP. I'll be PMing those that are going to be involved. For everyone else I can only hope that you read this and enjoy it, for it deals with the past of Miniopia and the past of its characters and their significance in the coming battle agains the greatest of all evils.

-Lygato




Sperrit rounded the trail bend, Lygato just behind them. They walked in silence through the dense forest, bright morning light filtering down through the tree tops. Many times Lygato had asked Sperrit where they were going and why, but he had never responded. Lygato had followed out of loyalty to his friend, but was wary all the same. He could still sense the vibrations of pain coming from Sperrit, though less than they had been the night that he had found him, alone and drunk in his room, clutching a bottle of poison so deadly not even an Earth Elemental's natural healing could stop it. That had been some time ago.
Lygato ducked under a low branch that had seemed to move out of the way for Sperrit. His hand brushed his harp, resting on his back, his fingers tracing the familiar symbol on the wood, touching the ornate E with reverance, as once greets an old friend. Lygato paused to get his bearings. Sperrit, walked a few steps farther and stopped.
"What is it?" Sperrit turned back to Lygato, his green eyes flashing in the light.
Lygato looked around some more, a vague feeling of familiarity tickling his mind. He shook it off. He had been more places than he could easily remember. It would not surprise him if he had been here before.
"Where are we going Sperrit? We've been traveling for days, and always North. What are you looking for and why must I come?"
Sperrit paused and then sat down on a fallen log and gestured Lygato to do the same.
"Alright... I'll tell you now.... You deserve to know...."

[Sperrit]

Sperrit eyes Lygato speculatively, but resigns himself. Lygato was more than a Light Elemental. He was a bard, and they could always sense deception through the vibrations of your voice. Sperrit took a deep breath.
"Alright... I'll tell you now... you deserve to know." Sperrit paused. "I owe you a lot, my friend. You saved me from doing something rash and terrible and horrible out of sorrow and pain, and if I ever give up the ghost that's certainly not the way I want to do it. You stuck by me through everything, got me back on my feet, got me back into fighting form. But, as you probably know, none of this has decreased my sorrow... just buried it under mountains of jobs and tasks. I need to find her, Lygato... I need to talk to her, I need to make her see that I still love her... because I do... and I think I always will."
Lygato said nothing, but let his gaze rest upon Sperrit's left hand, where he wore Alerea's ring, the ring she had left. Lygato looked at his own ring, on the flute that was sticking out of his bag. Lygato nodded to the ring Sperrit was wearing.
"Do you really think that you'll get her to take that back, Sperrit?"

[Lygato]

"Do you really think that you'll get her to take that back, Sperrit? She left for a reason... what reason I cannot know, and for that same reason she left the ring... she doesn't want to be Gira anymore. I'm sure you can understand that... she wants more out of life than to be companion to someone who will always throw her into shadow. For goodness sake, she's a princess. She's not used to being out shown by anyone, even if it's the man she loves...."
Lygato paused, not sure how to continue. He was not sure that Alerea still loved Sperrit. He had his guesses, of course, but some of them weren't very optimistic, and there was obviously something wrong, otherwise Alerea wouldn't have left like she did. She was smater and wiser than that.
"However," blue eyes looked into green. "I shall come with you to find her and see if we can't discover an answer...." Lygato looked around again, his eyes lingering on the trees and rocks.
I just wish I knew why this place seemed to familiar, he thought.

[Sperrit]

Sperrit smiled at Lygato.
"Thank you, old friend. That means so much to me. I'll need moral support more than anything, though I have to admit that trying to find a floating, and thus, MOVING city is going to be a little hard considering...."
Sperrit broke off, the light in his eyes growing dim.
"Um... yeah... anyway, there is a mountain is at the heart of the Wind Clan's territory. We'll have the best chance of seeing them there than anywhere else. We're only a few hours away from the base right now. If we hury we can make it by night fall."
Sperrit picked up his bag and stood up and started down the trail again, letting Lygato catch up. Somehow he didn't want to here Lygato's calm, logical reasoning as to why they shouldn't be doing this right now....

[Lygato]

Lygato picked up his own bag and followed Sperrit. This was going to be an interesting trip. He was going to have to prepare Sperrit for another rejection without seeming to do so. It would take a lot of thought, a lot of patiences, and most of all, no distract-
"Oh my dear Dragon Lord...."
Lygato had stopped for both he and Sperrit had walked into a small clearing, and there, in the center of the clearing, was a small, decaying, wood house. But the growth of the grass and the trees, the erosion of the rocks and the age of the house could deceive him no more. His senses were flooded with the most familiar resonances and tones, the entire clearing seeming to ring with them. Lygato fell to his knees, staring at the house, his mouth open in a mixture of surprise, fear, and utter sorrow.
Sperrit was next to him in a second. "What is it, Lygato? What's wrong, what do you sense?"
Lygato could only stare at the falling structure in front of him.
"This is my home...."

[Sperrit]

Sperrit stares.
"Wha... What? I thought that you had spent your childhood traveling with Edward, training and working for food and clothes at the towns and palaces. This place.... is your home? What happened?"

[Lygato]

Lygato looks up at Sperrit.
"I don't know... when Edward came and took me to train my mother and father were still alive and well. I was only five years old, I think, but there's no rea-"
Lygato stops talking, his sensing reaching out as far as they could go. Now he knew why he had been unable identify this place by resonance. There was something causing a large stir in the vibrations. Lygato stood up.
"There's someone here... a warrior of great power... he's a..."
"Fire Elemental."
A figure steps out from the shadows of the house, his eyes shining with red energy, his hands clentched.
Sperrit stares, his memory working hard. That man was familiar... but from where?
The man walks up to Lygato and holds out his hand. "I've been waiting here for you, Lygato. I sensed you in this area. I knew you'd come here. Purposfully or not."
Lygato's eyes narrowed. "Why did you seek me here?"
The man's eyes bored into Lygato's. "It's about our parents."

[Sperrit]

Sperrit snaps his fingers, breaking the reverie.
"I remember! You're the guy that saved me from Valose on the continent across the sea! I never got to thank yo-"
Sperrit looked from one face to the other, both of which looked utterly shocked at Sperrit. Sperrit blushed.
"Uh... sorry about that... guess I was just excited to see you again. Thank you for saving me from Valose."
The man gave Sperrit a small grin. "No problem, man. Actually, this is very convienient. I thought I was going to have to track you down after Lygato here. Unfortunately, your power doesn't effect heat quite as much as his does. I had no idea you were here. But, never the less, this involves both of you... well, all of us."
Sperrit blinked. "I thought you said this had something to do with your parents...."
The man nodded. "Yes. My parents, Lygato's parents and, incidently, yours as well, Sperrit."
Sperrit's eyes darkened a bit. "My... my parents are dead...."
The man nodded, his own expression grave. "The question is not whether they're alive. The question is why are they dead."

[Lygato]

Lygato stares at the stranger.
"My parents are... dead?"
The stranger nods. "Yes... as far as I could figure, they left this house not long after Edward took you away...."
Lygato recieved this news in silence, though his head was ringing and his heart felt dead in his chest. It was true that he hadn't thought about his parents in a great many years, at least not in any tangible form. There had been moments when he had felt a vague emptiness and loneliness and not known what it was about. Now he knew. He had missed his parents, missed their smiling faces and warm embraces. He had always thought, in the back of his mind, that one day he would return here, would see his parents again. They would be older, yes, but relatively the same, and he would tell them all about where he had been and what he had done. But they hadn't even stayed after he had left. And now they were dead... and for some strange reason that bothered Lygato in a way that it shouldn't have. It wasn't as if he hadn't expected them to die, or hadn't thought that they might have been dead before, but something about their being dead struck him as wrong... as if they had been taken unfairly. He looked at the stranger, who looked at him sympathetically.
"I understand what you must be feeling... I think we all can. You see... I, like you and Sperrit, lost my parents at an early age, not knowing what had happened to them or why. They left me in the care of elves in a forest far away and they left me only one thing...."
The stranger reached into his shirt and pulled out an old fashioned locket. He opened it.
Inside the locket there was a picture. Lygato stared at it for a moment. There were eight people in the picture, four male and four female, all of them looking happy, with varying smiles on their faces. Lygato stared and then gave a short gasp of surprise. He pointed to a man with long, autumn colored hair who had his arm around a small woman with long black hair.
"Those are my parents!"
Sperrit, too, was staring at the picture, an odd expression on his face. He pointed to a man with long, dark brown hair, the same color as Sperrit's, who was holding hands with a woman with brilliant green eyes.
"Those are my parents," he said in a strange, dead kind of voice.
The stranger pointed to a man with short, spiky brown hair and blue eyes who had his arm around a woman with what looked like red eyes and long blonde hair that did not cover her long pointed ears. She was clearly an elf. The stranger sighed.
"And those are mine."

[Sperrit]

Sperrit stared at the picture. He had seen images of his mother and father from the Eidon, who had told him of their death. Sperrit stared at their smiling faces, a deep need seeming to rise in him. Unlike Lygato, Sperrit had no real memories of his parents while they were alive. They had left when he had been four summers, but his years with the Elder seemed to have blocked out those first four years. He had never really known them.
Sperrit turned to the stranger. "How is it that your parents, my parents and Lygato's parents all knew each other... and are all dead?" Sperrit paused, memory coming suddenly. "How can that be, Ry'anel?"
Ry'anel smiled. "I'm surprised you remember my name... we met only for a few seconds, and that was some time ago."
Sperrit grinned back. "You don't often forget the guy that saves your life, ya know. Or such an unusal name."
Ry'anel shrugged. "It's an old elvish name. Apparently my mother won out when it came to naming me."
Lygato looked deeply puzzled. "Sperrit's point still stands, though. How DID our parents all know each other? And how is it that they all dissappeared... dead... at the same time?"
Ry'anel shrugged again. "I don't know. That was why I was looking for you. I thought you might have some clue that I did not...."
Sperrit shook his head. "The only thing that I know about my parents was that they were both Chosen."
Ry'anel stared at Sperrit.
"Really? Both of them? That's quite unusual.... Chosen are usually taken from all different walks of life. They rarely know each other before or after their task is complete."
Lygato nodded. "True... I believe in one of the ancient ballads it says that the Orange Dragon wanted it that way, so that they could focus on their task and not be restricted by emotional ties." Lygato nodded to the picture. "Apparently, that wasn't the case here."
Sperrit was thinking. "But, my mother was of the Earth Clan, and my father wasn't. They didn't know each other before the Choosing."
Ry'anel looked puzzled. "But that would imply that they fell in love during the Task... but that never happens... does it?"
Lygato shook his head. "There was one other instance. It was in the Epic Poem: The Legendary Eight. The Chosen of Earth and the Chosen of Thunder fell in love without ever having know each other before."
Sperrit looked closely at the picture.
"Ry'anel... do you know who they are?"
Sperrit pointed to the last couple, a tall powerful man with light hair and an impressive looking woman with dark hair.
Ry'anel shook his head. "I have no idea. No one that I've met so far can tell me."
Lygato stood up. "Then we'll start by finding out who they are... and if they're alive... or dead."