Chapter 1: Iris

Loud music blared in the distance as Iris gazed into the lake below her. She was at a classmate's house, celebrating the end of school at a party. Iris had never particularly liked parties, they were noisy and someone always ended up getting hurt, but her friends Yoru and Josh were going, so she felt obliged to go as well.

Inside Yoru was living it up, coke in hand dancing to hyper loud rave music.

It was peaceful out here, but it hadn’t always been. Only a year ago she had been possessed by her hateful ancestor and forced to fight against all that she believed in. She was certain that she would be okay, all the other people that had been possessed were brought back, and they didn’t act like the person who possessed them at all anymore. But sometimes in the corner of Iris’s eye she’d see Amari and it’d send a shiver down her spine.

As Iris continued to gaze out into Lake Chaparral she felt her body slip and fall, plummeting into the lake. As she felt time seemed to slow, and she was transported onto a bloody battlefield, beside her were Yoru and Josh’s corpses.

A voice called out to her, a whisper in the wind, “Save them. Only you can. Save the Wyrmling, save the Knight, save them all.” at that the voice died. Iris took a second to process what had just happened, I fell into the lake, but then I got transported to a battlefield, how does that work? Then a person called out to me to save Yoru and Josh from dying, what! Just what?

“Tragic, isn’t it,” said a voice, that seemed to be walking towards her.

Iris turned around and behind her was the woman she dreaded seeing the most in the world, Amri Rellien.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, crawling back a few paces.

Amari looked like she didn’t understand her descendants fear, “I’m here to look over you, you have quite the destiny, you know,”

Iris stumbled back another pace, “What do you mean ‘destiny’, the war is over, we killed Jiyoda,” said Iris, her voice shaking.

Amari let out a quiet ‘hm’ and started laughing, “Oh that's funny! You think this is about Jiyoda! That man’s long dead,” Amari’s tone suddenly became serious as she appeared in Iris’s face, “he, the one that gave ol’draggy so much trouble all those years ago, he is back.” Who is ‘he’ and why is he back? Iris wondered as Amari disappeared.

“Iris?” asked another voice. Yoru? Iris opened her eyes, it was a dream, good it was just a dream. Iris was relieved that Amari wasn’t back, and she didn’t have to worry about saving the world again.

She turned to meet Yoru, “Yeah Yoru,” she said.

“The party is over, me and Josh are heading home,” he began, taking his hand off her shoulder, “want to come with us?”

Iris briefly remembered what had just transpired, but decided that if it was a dream, what should it matter?

“Sure, I’ll come with.”

Yoru’s face lit up, “Great! We’re going to take the long way down, just to avoid the foot traffic,” he said.

“Cool,” said Iris. “My house is that way, anyway, so it’s no bother.”

Josh came out from the party area and beckoned them to follow him. The friends walked down the winding staircase down the man-made structure. It was mostly used for parties like this one, but sometimes it was also used for gatherings.

The three of them talked and laughed as they strolled comfortably down the staircase, not a care on their mind.

All of them had been hurt by Jiyoda’s attack, but now it was as if that had never happened. See, I’ve got nothing to fear.

“You do. You have much to fear.” Iris whipped her head around, What was that?

A figure floated into Iris’s line of sight, it was Amari.

“It was so rude of you to brush me off like that,” she said, now walking side by side with Iris.

Iris turned to Yoru and Josh, “You guys go ahead, I need to do something here.”

Josh looked confused, “Okay then,” he said, continuing to walk with Yoru.

Relieved not to have dragged her friends into this, she turned back to Amari, “What are you doing here?” she growled. “I thought you were dead?”

Amari looked pleased that Iris was paying her mind, “Well it’s a long story, really. When I separated myself from you a year ago I made sure to leave a piece of myself in you, so that you could never get rid of me,” said the specter.

“Like the cockroach you are,” muttered Iris under her breath, “and also that wasn’t a long story, it was like one sentence.” Amari simply shrugged. “Look, just stay out of trouble and you can stay in my head, free of charge.”

Amari chuckled lightly before starting, “Well that’s something I can’t do, because you’re already in deep trouble,” she said.

“Trouble with who?” demanded Iris, throwing her arms into the air.

“Thats the fun part…” said Amari, floating down to meet Iris’s eye level.