HISTORY

It was a tiring yet fruitful occasion. Stomachs were full and we had the safest trip. Claire's all well and I promised Cypress that she'll have another time with her favorite aunt tomorrow.

The coffee in my cup had its steam embrace me with its warm aura, perfectly balancing out the cold of the night. The lamp on my table concentrates its light, like the full moon outside, onto my crisp paper as I tap them with the pen I loosely hold. My head became heavier, making my nape rest on the top rail of my chair, due to the accumulating ideas I cannot dish out to words. The glowing stars at my ceiling sparkled with the night.

"In medias res, that's how it ought to be," I mumbled, pressing the stiff portion of my neck. Flashbacks and re-evaluation of her objective will be the avenue for the exposition.

It would start in the scene where the protagonist tends to the gem-like seed as she ventures outside of the halo for the first time. The seed glistens as Seireses come forth to procure it, for that could bring life back to them, regardless of compatibility. The glow is a response that the rightful vessel is nearby. But from her point of view, she interpreted it to be a guiding light, a warning signal bestowed by the god Amaltea.

Amaltea is also the name given to the tree. Putting it all together, the epithet goes 'Amaltea, the sacred living blaze'. It appears as a fire tree, or maybe sakura, but with branches more intricate and complexly twisted with glowing leaves. Do you think that'll be a good idea, Stella?

How did I even forget to name my characters? I am really rusty not only in scriptwriting but also even in conceptualization! Hmm. Azalea … Azalea! I think that's a good name for our little Sinther protagonist. Now, Azalea should be comparative to a teenager in terms of age. Her body is of a petite young lady marked with the usual wood patterns for her skin. Her hairs are intertwined trellis that reaches the shoulder, her nose a twig, all of her is wooden and earthy but her eyes are green orbs.

"'Yes… hmmm… Yes!" an affirmation I told myself. I think green eyes perfectly suit her. Well, there are just two options. Her skin wasn't perfect, it's dry like a bark of a tree, with small bumps and flaws that didn't make her any less beautiful. Her hands are small made of twigs with joints as burls. There is also a thick scar on her right leg that she acquired when she tripped during her running practice. Oh, I love to write her childhood as another play or novel but let me digress. She even has a mole on her nape, a bump that appears like a colony of black aphids. My god, her pretty face doesn't seem to fit with such imperfections, much how you don't expect the prettiest of flowers that grow from such unappealing trunks or bushes. Don't get me going with her voice, It's husky that sometimes you cannot make it out to be a lady. You need to glance at her twice. But, come to think of it, all blends well with the environment, her natural looks have earthy colors and yet it still stood out. Yet again like a flower with parts that are greatly different, but overall captivating. The thing that makes her even prettier is her bravery to always go beyond the woods, which you think might have been able to trap her in.

'Beyond the light, is it darkness? Might be so.' she sang the first line, nervous as she tries to extend her arms beyond the halo. 'Beyond this home, is it just nothingness? Might be so…" The singing notes go a higher level, "But why does it feel warmer?' She retracted back her hands and tucked them along with the seed, feet shaking, hesitant to continue. The manner of singing then repeats like that of the beginning, a preparation for a chorus. 'Should I go, or should I return? Tell me so. This gem beats, was it asleep?' Anew it rises, 'Why did it feel warmer?'

"Now it's a musical?" I wailed.

I stood up from my table and had unleashed a muffled roar out of exhaustion. As I was about to crumple the untidy ideas inked on a piece of paper, the trash did not allow another one. I cracked the joint of my head, stretched my fingers, extended my arms, and bent my back in the most satisfying contortions I can manage. With a mighty stomp, I compressed the crumpled papers in the bin.

Azalea, after a heavy breath, finally went outside the halo. The glimmer of the seed had helped her have a minuscule light to guide her way. Much like the other seeds stored in Amaltea, this one doesn't seem dim. Well, little did she know it becomes duller but the changes are unrecognizable.

Ok, that's a nice idea. Might as well outline that! I rushed back to my seat and had sipped from a cup of a now cold coffee of mine. Now, what's next?

The door creaked and went ajar. Small rays of light from our corridor had leaked into my room, Cypress peaking with her hands rubbing onto her languid eyes.

"Hey dear, it's past midnight and you're still awake?" I beckoned her to come inside the room.

"No, Dad. It is past midnight and you ARE still awake?" she retorted.

"I've been feeling writing. Would be a waste to lose such motivation since starting is the hardest thing to do."

"I know a thing that's hard for you to start doing. Getting some sleep!"

"Well, old women do become grumpy if they don't get enough sleep," I jested with a shaking head.

"Let's end this jabber, Dad." She replied with a laugh, "I can't sleep. I even regurgitated some of our dinners, but I already gulped them again."

"What?" I picked her up and made her sat on my lap by my study table. "I told you not to eat too much. How are you right now? Medicine?"

"I'm ok, Dad. Besides, those food were delicious and I can say that's one of the best dinners I've had." Her lower lips extended, suggesting another incoming mockery, "You can't blame me. I have to do an effort because both of you eat like birds. Yet for a fact, I know Aunt Claire eats like a glutton sometimes."

"She eats like a glutton?" I arranged her hair that draped down her face, "If you can't sleep in your room, I wouldn't mind a company."

"I woke up because you shouted."

"I did not. Call that a snore."

"Dad, everything's a scream during midnight. It's your fault that I get to wake up at the wrong time. Now go tell me the story of your pocket monsters."

"Pocket monsters?"

"Yes, Dad. Your humanoid trees."

"Don't get to call Azalea and Prim like that. They're Sinthers and Regias, with respect, respectively." I bowed.

"Basically pocket monsters, Dad."

"You are quite a kid. Sometimes I wonder who raised you."

I coughed a thin air to commence my storytelling. The eyes of my dear, even if tired, had all its remaining focus on my lips, waiting for words to come out of it. "Azalea is a Sinther. She lives with her grandfather, telling her stories about the dark pasts of their race. How they'd get to capture every last of the Regias, just for their hearts, for fuel."

"Dad, that's murder."

"Yes, dear. I won't get to finish the story if you kept interrupting. There's hmm... murder in Mithanegra and the Pirate Queen, but let's not call it murder shall we? They are metaphors, artistic symbolism. Death in literature can mean acceptance in letting go, leaving the past behind, growing out to becoming a better person, basically a start from an end, another chapter."

"How I wish everything was literature."

"Why'd you say so, Dear? Literature is poetic, to the point, most are heavily romanticized, biased to a perspective or point of view, often can happen in real life but never entirely realistic."

Finally, My smug young lady had seemed to quiet down. Continuing, "Those stories from her grandfather had been going ever since she was a child, a dark past hidden through myths, fables, and nighttime stories. These stories were only possible at the outskirts for the rule of law and the tyrannical oppression of the chief is less implemented there. And that is either a lucky coincidence or a planned refuge. Those were knowledge passed down from ancestors, for they were a family of loyal keepers to the Regias. They've been furtively keeping the history alive. These had fueled her curiosity day by day to venture outside of what they call home.

"Her grandfather showed their ancestral library. Since, she read books after books and scriptures per scriptures morning to sundown. One night, she discovered a scroll at a nook in between the shelves. She skittered upstairs and carefully dusted it off.

"She unfurled it on the floor. Lying on her stomach, she examined the drawing line by line, scribble by scribble, detail by detail. At the upper center, It seemed like an eight-winged beast graciously soars the skies above the lush forests. The wings of the creature burn even brighter, hotter, than the light produced by the flames of Amaltea for it was blue. In the picture, It rises high above everything else, spreading its wings radially, its feline mouth opened as it roars, its body compressed almost to a ball.

"The Regias too are there, standing taller than the canopies as they worship their sun god, holding their gem-like hearts above their heads as offer before their coming death.

"She brought a decanter containing a preserved lighting plant to further inspect the art. To her surprise, the light brought more colors and vibrance to where it touched. She hurried outside and plucked another luminescent bud that grows in their vicinity, and it seemed that their collective light is enough to shower upon it.

"The feathers of the holy beast became iridescent. Magical as it was, eight beams gradually radiated from it; thus, spreading animation to the art. Slowly the gems that the Regias held gleamed blue (almost white) and from the canopies started what seemed like a real fire. The leaves turned red and a halo enveloped the outlines of every tree there is. The tapestry then became comparable to stained glass, but alive.

"She then remembered a story from her grandfather of a deity that sleeps at night and so it might be this. Other tales about a paradise once everyone shared, of times where there are a lot of Lumenarbre but are not as gigantic as Amaltea, and a lot more.

"So she wondered, 'All of that was fiction? I am now skeptical, and if they were real, then this tapestry depicts a world that had been before the fog had shrouded the world.'

"But of course for Azalea, everything is still a puzzle. 'What happened to all of these? Where are they?' she asked. But, a minor detail had cemented an idea of everything to be possibly real— two tiny creatures are hugging a twig from a Regia's foot. The wooden creatures have an uncanny resemblance to her grandfather.

"Her awe didn't last long for her grandfather darted and had closed the scroll. "What do you think you're doing? How long has it been lit?' He kept asking questions as he restlessly peeked through windows and through spaces of the logs that form their wall.

"I still am thinking of scenes for this story but let me jump from here, Cypress.

"Azalea's unquelled curiosity sprouted a mission. It is her self-sworn duty, as a keeper of harmony, to venture outside and discover the realm of the Seires and to look for the beast.

"Once a year, exactly during summer (there are no summer in their current state), Azalea always observes a glimmer accompanied by a distant roar. Her intuition is that it is the beast that she needs to meet."

Cypress interrupted, "I thought there were just two pocket monsters? Where's Prim?"

"Remember how I told you how they met in the woods? Prim, the mindless vessel had its eyes on her, who was holding something that greatly interests it. It is its heart, a seed which appears like a glowing gem."

"I don't remember that, Dad."

"You don't? I seemed to have told you that already." After a brief pause I continued, "Prim had sat on its haunches like a dog, still fixated on the gem seed. Azalea, out of a fascination with the creature had examined it in all of its angles. She would just sway Prim's hands away in each of its attempts on getting a hold of the item, reprimanding it along the way.

"But she'd been out of the halo long enough. The glow of the gem seed had attracted more and more of the Seires. The throngs of them had been looming even with a little light. Whispers of what seemed like leaves rustling were heard, or should I speak of it as a budding rumbling from the Seires's footsteps.

"She quickly turned and rushed back inside. While doing so, she had the gem seed slice a small cut on Prim's forehead. Her last glimpse before everything becomes temporarily blinding was that of a crimson petal that grew from the crevice. She tried to peek anew but Prim pushed her back inside.

"She scampered back to her grandfather. He greeted her with open arms. Although afraid of what might have been her fate, he was exulted deep inside that someone will continue his efforts. He knows that all of his stories, his teachings had been working. He knows that it is a big quest to pass down. But Azalea, being one of the few who successfully plucked a seed from Amaltea, raises high hopes."

A soft snore had stopped me from continuing the story. Cypress's head is pressed on my chest, smiling with eyes fully shut. I carefully brought her up to my bed and tucked her nicely in my blankets.

Her mere serenity felt so contagious. All of the work I've done today had finally conquered my mortal body. I guess I'll stay with you tonight and call this a day… although it's past midnight. I do hope I remember all of these details tomorrow.