A Light In The Darkness - Christa

[Gildarts]

“Damnit Mornel, you weren’t supposed to die.” She cursed his name and pounded another shot glass into the wood of the bar. Of course, no matter how many shots she took, she really had never had the ability to get stupid-drunk, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try, in mourning honor of her lost friend. He’d have suffered, missing his golden years and all those devoid memories would’ve been a terrible way to live the last ten... five years of his aged life. Instead, whatever she had done to the angels, it almost confirmed to her that they were dead. But Jesse dying wasn’t part of the plan. The bastard. Can’t count on you now, CAN I?! she thought, her mind enraged as she looked at her next shot, disgusted. “You know,” Christa muttered out loud, though only the bartender was within earshot, “I can’t even get drunk.”

The bartender was there, she didn’t talk much to Christa, though perhaps it was because she knew what had caused it. “He was a fine man, you know. And even though you’re a Prime, I know based on your reaction that you view death very seriously. We secondaries appreciate that.”

“Not even a few weeks ago, I was secondary.” Christa’s body started to move before her mind, and her barstool screeched across the wood of the floorboards as she angrily left the bar. Nothing could quench the feelings inside, they were a swarm of indecipherable tsunamis, and her mind would not just let them go.

Christa had settled off to the side, in a small corner of the town, alone, save the wolf-pup which still slept next to her. Poor thing. But Christa’s thoughts had little space to dwell on the dog’s idle condition, it made sense it might be out for a few days, given all the poison and its fatigue. The palm of her pale hand held open, flat, while a shimmering orb of Omnillium remained suspended there for some time. The question always came back to her now that she was a prime, who to safe, and who to let die?

Should she summon her old friend again, just because she knew him? Fucking bastard. She couldn’t even count on him to live. Christa squished the malleable orb in her hand and released it once more, as it returned to its natural an spherical shape. The woman thought of what the man had died for, which was mainly a big fat nothing and then resorted, hopefully to cheer her up, what he had at least lived for. He and his cause represented honor, courage, and pure compassion. And he had used his life to fight for all of these things. With a sigh, her head hung lower than ever. Finally, she muttered, making up her mind, “Alright, but only because I want to see your stupid grin again, Jesse. And I think you’d do the same for me.”

...

It was stupid. People just died again, so then why did Christa do it? She didn’t have an answer herself, but she summoned him anyway. She had conjured the secondary upon the way she remembered him, and she knew a lot about her old war comrades. Though this time, she shoved him through the portal of the Nexus, and had made it so the entirety of his memories would not return at once, since she deemed Mornel was a little worth of some “R & R,” plus, she didn’t want to see the look on his face when she went up to the gate of Darkshire for the last time as a traveller.

“Who goes there?” the short guard called down.

Christa felt a small smile grow on her face with the memory of her friend, because this time, she was fighting for him, and perhaps, what he had lost, and what she had never found. Devotion. “Christa Adams, damn good sniper, better tactician, and even better recruit, if Darkshire will have me.”