Ragyn fanned his fingers out and looked at them as the mage before him spoke. He heard the words, saw the Madoushi's lips move, but his concentration was on the new arrival. Did she know that the moment she appeared on this planet that her power would dwindle quickly. She would soon be as frail and as mortal as all the other pathetic beings on Earth. Perhaps the only remaining power a weakened version of Telepathy. He had brought her back on Earth with the power of Earth. Cephiro no longer flowed through her veins after that last out burst of power. He laughed suddenly jumping back.

"Clef... I do not mean to make haste without answering your questions but needs do out weigh the pleasantries." Ragyn turned away from Master Mage and vanished while following the path Ascot had taken only moments ago.

He came into concious again beside Emeruade. No longer Hime, not in this time. A grin wrapped around his lips. "Emeruade... You don't know what a fool fool thing you have done. You are no longer a part of Cephiro. You have used your last abilities to barely summon those pathetic girls. They can not heal the land of Cephiro not even when their blood is connected even stronger than your own." He lifted her chin up so that her gaze meet with his own. "You... my dear are a mortal now. No powers. You no longer are the ruler here. You are only a shadow of what used to be. Emeruade is dead and you are only her soul in a... a make shift body just like Eagle. Oh yes... you never meet him did you? More is the pity that you wont. You see... Im sending you back to Earth. GO live a human life, die... or fall in love again with another Shadow."

With his mind and the power of the land he pushed at Emeruald. He could no longer prevent the Knights from coming to the land but he could expel something, someone that no longer belonged to the land. "Hikaru became the pillar and you lost your powers... Hikaru gave up her powers to the people and lost hers... and the people gave up their power..." Ragyn laughed. "Back to the original source..." He shoved Emeruade back through a tear in time, back to Earth.

"Now... to deal with one more unsightful problem..."

Emeraude felt herself shiver and no longer than that shiver, she felt a strong blast of dark gust push her. The former pillar screamed as it circled her and with another force, punched her out of Cephiro and into Earth once more as she landed with a thump on the hard streets of Tokyo. She winced, feeling as if someone had torn her body apart.

The sea-eyed maiden tried to breath but even that was a task for her. Then, recalling the stranger's words that were wrapped in his soft gentle voice that had only reminded her of ice, she shivered again. Emeraude winced. It had even caused her pain to shiver.

So she was mortal. A woman whose power is limited to the ones of an ordinary being to this strange human world, Earth. But she had powers before she was even a pillar so there must be a way to restore it. That man might have brought her back, but even so, he did not create her. He did not create her soul which he claimed her only to be. A shadow. But was it not the soul that makes a being?

Emeraude could not stand. Not in such with such a weak body who cannot carry the power she was born with. Perhaps it would be better if she killed herself again and hope that someone has the ability to bring back the dead. But even she, as a pillar once, could not do such a thing. It was merely impossible, or was it?

Slowly, she sat up. Perhaps she can still communicate through the minds silent words. Emeraude felt her eyes rise to the sky as the morning sun quickly gained its heat. She was once the pillar of Cephiro, all because of her strong will. This cannot kill her, not a body borrowed. Her determination increased, she had to try.

--Please, if anyone can hear me...look for me.--- Emeraude called. She was not sure if she even had the ability but perhaps...

"A soul," the princess whispered to herself, "Needs a good body to live in. However, he did not restore the one that I once occupied. I doubt anything or anyone can restore it, not even that man. Perhaps there is a being who can call to spirits." Emeraude tilted her head slowly to one side. "One who has the mind and body that any soul can occupy it with their natural abilities..."

She continued to sit in the middle of the street as people passed and started but Emeraude just pondered, paying them no mind.

*** Arista ran after the young bal but he was must too fast and obviously, he was too panicked to even notice her behind him. Then she stopped. She stood in the middle of the hall and felt a strangeness calling to her. What was that strangeness she had just felt?

She reached for her flute and played her melody, calling to the winds that occupy the air in the castle. Arista called to the waters from outside to palace walls and she called to the trees. Such a gentle, yet, mesmerizing sound she had caused from the depths of her being...all that she called had responded to her as she had asked.

"Winds of heaven, Waters unknown..." Arista chanted. "I desire to know what calls me..."

The waves of the ocean crashed from afar, the winds blew around her, and the leaves outside the walls danced to her calling. Then they stopped as she had from running.

"I dont understand," the violet-eyed maiden responded to nature's language. "Please tell me what you mean..."

The winds blew around her again and played with her hair but the confusion only grew on her face. For the wind, waters, and the spirits around her had said...

"Fate has her eyes on you, you're destiny is coming to claim you."

*** ~*~*~

Isn’t it odd how life is? One moment your laying helplessly in a hospital bed, and the next thing you know your limbs are flailing in the air as you plummet thousands of feet to an almost certain doom? Oh yes, life has such a fun sense of humor! It’s so funny it should be shot in the head and beaten before It can play one more of it hilarious jokes! I might just burst a lung from laughing! Where was I? Oh yes, plummeting to my doom, sorry I got off track for a moment. In an odd way the fall was somewhat comforting, she had taken the plunge before, and knew fully well where it lead her. She barely heard Umi cry out for one of Clef’s creatures to save them, but as they neared closer and closer to the ground Fuu began to grow worried about not being caught by the fish, although they would most likely be dead before they hit the ground.

‘Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’ Fuu mused.