robbed of your ______

“Please, calm down, it’s okay! I promise!”

Zane took another swing and felled a wall as Lucian sung to calm the queen. It’d become a routine, since she became a ‘traveling companion’ of theirs. After Zane, Lucian, and Shay (against his will) woke up, they wasted no time packing and heading off to bring the Spark Queen home.

Hopefully themselves too, but one thing at a time…

They’d yet to encounter more apparitions, and the wall Zane broke hardly felt warm to the touch. So, maybe they’d gotten lucky and avoided whatever cursed place attracted—

A weeping sound graced the their ears, a dark cave illuminated by deep blue lights. Apparitions of sadness, and they floated ever slowly towards the trio. They formed a thick cloud of blue, traces of misery meant to precede brighter hues now condemned to fade in the dark.

Abandoned emotions, buried and forgotten. An incomplete funeral, the procession waited, waited, waited—

Zane swung as the apparitions reached the entrance. “C’mon, focus and we can take care of them quick!”

“Got it!” Lucian’s staff glowed with Rage and he joined Zane in beating the apparitions to nonexistence. Shay even lent a hand, taking out a straggler or two with a small hammer.

The queen, though, kept her distance. As the last abomination crumbled into dust, he turned to check on the monster. “You know, it could stand to help sometimes.”

“Perhaps it’s scared of them,” Lucian said. “It’d rather avoid the unknown than fight brazenly. Unlike us, it has no way of discerning an apparitions origin’s, so it can only regard those things as… something akin to how people speak of ghosts. Or something along those lines?”

Zane shrugged. “Think that metaphor’s off. People already think these things are ghosts.”

“Oh—good point. Sorry…”

“Don’t apologize. Let’s get going already.”

Zane waved a hand, taking the lead. He’d taken the silence as a sign they cleared out all the apparitions already.

A stupid mistake, really. Almost on the level of a rookie adventurer.

“Ah—wait, stop!”

A large one grabbed Zane’s arm, yanking him to the ground. The heavy haze of Sadness smothered him. His mouth gaped but no air entered. It laid atop him, crushed him, sent his brain into a haze—maybe from oxygen deprivation, but something else manifested, a slow trickle of misery growing into a torrent.

A well of emotions finding somewhere to rest. Zane was consumed.

When sadness gripped you—apparitions of any kind, really—memories resurfaced. Not necessarily forgotten ones, but ones which didn’t linger unless forced to the forefront. These beings dug for deep buried tragedies, never satisfied with recent wounds. And, even if he wouldn’t admit it, Zane had a lot of things to be sad about as of recent.

And a lot he hadn’t felt in years. Years upon years—buried, waiting to burst—

He saw a beach. In the distance—he sat on a grassy field which touched the sand with a gentle hand, dirt and tufts of plants giving way to a sea of glittering jewels, then to the waves which carried specks of light off into the unknown.

A hand ran its way through Zane’s hair, loving and omnipresent—he wanted it to be there forever. An impossible yearning.

Zane’s dirt-coated hand pulled a flower from the ground. He sucked the nectar from the stem, a sticky bitter coating with a sweet aftertaste. And he remembered who picked him up after, held him up so he could see something rising out of the waters—

“Get away, you damned thing!”

“Ow!”

Darkness ripped him from his memories. Someone smacked Zane’s head and he squeezed his eyes shut, numbness crawling over his body. Puffs of frost pushed against his skin, meting as the Sadness apparition dissolved.

Shay clutched his hammer close, panting, Lucian looking at Zane with horror.

“What were you doing!?” Shay yelled, turning to Lucian. “Next time I say hit him, hit him! Better sore than a human popsicle!”

“But—but I didn’t—what if I—”

“What if you what? You’re gonna be a real useless one if we get into any more actual danger.” Shay sneered, pulling Zane to his feet with equal amounts of indelicacy. “Tch. Wake up and smell the risks, ‘cause I’m not doing that again. These things give me the creeps. ‘Sides, I’m not apt for a fight.”

Shay began walking away, but Lucian stayed. “Um… Zane doesn’t… he… I’m sorry…”

“What?”

“He doesn’t look well.”

Zane said nothing, clutching his forehead. He hadn’t mustered much of anything other than existing—though the memories had come so vividly, details crumbled off the edges, and it took focus simply to keep the image alive.

He couldn’t say why, but he had a feeling he couldn’t lose this.

…Strange, really, since he never once visited a beach as a child. Nor had anyone been so loving to him in his youth. He had to grow up first before anyone paid him any mind, before he became a Guardian and proved useful.

So where did these images come from? And why did they feel so… embedded? Zane grit his teeth. He had an awful feeling this was going to fade, and he hated that, he hated not feeling in control of himself, of a piece sitting just out of reach even if he flexed his fingers to the limit, but how could you do something about a presence that just wouldn’t hold on—

A song began. The queen chirped in the distance, satisfied. Zane found his own heart stirring to it, and though he tried to stop it, he relented.

Though the images stayed.

Lucian stopped singing, folding in on himself.

“…I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” he said, looking anywhere but at Zane. “Are you okay? What… did it show you something horrible?”

He probably wanted to know if he helped. Zane sucked in a breath and gave Lucian a thumbs up. “Eh, not the worst thing ever. Let’s just get going. I’ll shake it off as we go along.”

Besides, there wasn’t much use in getting angry at Lucian. There wasn’t. He was kind of a coward, but he had a chance of getting better. Seeing him look so sorry dissuaded Zane from criticizing the other man.

Just be the bigger person and leave him be. “You’ve got this next time,” Zane said, hitting Lucian’s shoulder. He smiled, and with Shay’s general annoyance hurrying them onward, the trio proceeded continued their journey.

…

But why did sadness bring out a memory so happy?

That question ate at Zane, as he punched another wall down, dust clouding his entire world. A sweet aftertaste clung to his tongue.