A school girl, born with the gift of magic, she is a component of a forgotten past.

"Sixties? why does it feel colder than that?" the girl uttered to herself as she crossed the borders of the town. It had been well over a year since her last visit.

Petite steps rapped a melody of slow strides as the girl ambled along the cobblestones she was so familiar with; the town itself a maze that she frequented daily. "Old Mrs. De'Lery's? Cookie Hut? this should be the way to the apartment complex," she quietly reminded herself, as if the back of her hand wasn't quite enough.

The apartment complex in question was the residence of Kiki Masuka, best friend and overall number one companion-slash-henchman. There wasn't a better person to look up when returning home than her; even if she was going to have a load of questions on stand-by considering Aya's extremely lapsed absence.

Winding roads and weaving side-streets took Aya on a direct course to the stand-tall building that loomed above all others that preceded it; as if to proclaim that it was her destination without a sliver of a doubt. Even so, it wasn't very hard to miss; the construction was more linear than mere bricks or wood, foretelling it was something more in line with 'modern day' living.

The doorman, always performing his job to unprecedented excellence, was quick to open the door for the young lady, removing his cap per protocol as she crossed underneath the canopy.

"Morning, Miss. Can I help you with?" he trailed off in his greeting and offered assistance as he leered past the young one. She didn't have luggage, giving the bellhop nothing of importance to do. Instead of offering physical assistance, he wiggled his hat between fingers in motioned curiosity. "?finding somebody in specific?"

Aya clapped her residing hands comfortably at her back, offering a single nod of her head and beaming smile in response. "Kiki Masuka, sir."

The gentleman replaced his cap, eyes trailing for the innards of the complex as he thought aloud. "Masuka, 'eh? Fine lass, that. Reception should be able to give you the details. They're picky about privacy, though. Just friendly advice."

His warning was heeded, a hand waving at the doorman as Aya stepped through the threshold of the complex the gentleman was so kindly holding open for her. "Thanks, Mister. I'm sure I'll be alright."

Vast marble and red carpeting cascaded Aya's vision as she took a hefty look around, sucking in the warmth of the indoors that clung to her relax fit jeans and a 'Rock Girl Central' tee. At first glance, the setting gave off the eerie impression of a hotel; the reception desk, large lobby, and doorman Ted, as she was going to call him, being the most prominent of reasons.

Approaching the large, circular desk that resembled an information center, the girl made for her tippy-toes to look over the large surface, straight at the man sitting at the other end. "Nnph? Excuse me?" she huffed, exerting strength to maintain on her toes for a mere second before having to give it a break.

Dark blue saucers for eyes rose from the small game of cards that he was bemusing himself with to acknowledge the voice that called out to him. "Yes? How can?" he paused, offering the blank space in front of him an apparent, quizzical stare. "?help? You?"

With a hop, Aya flitted upwards and into his gaze, almost startling the receptionist straight out of his chair. "Yes! Can you inform Kiki Masuka that Ayaka Mahara is here to visit?"

A hand was pressed against his chest to keep his heart in check as he rose from his seat, lurching over the counter to observe the girl. "Dear Jashan, you nearly scared the life right out of me?" he exasperated, falling backwards into the comfort of his seat after a few dramatic seconds worth of chest thumping.

Aya blinked curiously as she lowered her gaze to meet the flat paneling of the desk before her, scrunching her nose. She wasn't certain if he wound up dying after announcing such a preposterous statement, or if something more sinister just happened right before her. Tempting fate, she spoke up rather loudly, "Um?Sir? Did you die?"

Whimsical page turns announced the man's well-being, before his head peeked out from over the desk, fingers sliding a folded sheet of parchment her direction. "Ayaka Mahara-Ravenlock, I presume?? I was informed to give you this should you arrive." He seemed bemused as he spoke.

With a small glare at the man, no doubt in relation to his strange behavior, Aya took the paper, unfolding it to skim briefly at the contents. Noticing the man had yet to return to his seat, she offered him a stare as if to say, "Are you all right?"

"Heh?sorry, it's just that we weren't expecting your arrival. This was delivered to us nearly three years ago?" he was growing more anxious by the second as he spoke; enough to creep Aya out that she had to move away from the desk after receiving the parchment.

The paper was snapped open, pulling from a pocket her thick, black-rimmed glasses.

_____________________________________
Ayaka,
When you have a moment, please consider
meeting with us at District-17A. It is of the
upmost importance that we speak concern-
ing the current conditions of Somul.

We eagerly await your arrival once you ha-
ve resettled.

Newborne
_____________________________________

Behind the super-magnified glasses came several blinks, turning to face the man who remained anxious, bobbing up and down like a jackhammer. Flicking the glasses from her face, she indicated the page with an ear piece.

"When did you get this, you said?" She questioned with hopes of re-evaluating the circumstances. "Three years ago?"

A nervous tick had the man scratching behind an ear as she fumbled with what seemed like paperwork surrounding the note that was delivered into her hands, reading aloud as though he were but a lackluster actor preparing to audition. "This letter was received by us, 'The Everglade', on August 14th of several years prior."

"That long ago? If I can remember correctly, that was a little after I left. They must have known?" she quietly assessed. With lips pinched, she chewed at the inner layers of a cheek while lost in thought; the paper being folded and stuffed absently into a back pocket.

She regarded the receptionist a final time, signaling with a hand wave to grab his attention. "Kiki Masuka? What floor?"

It took the gentleman a few moments to rearrange his thoughts to the question at hand, examining his registry. "Fourth floor, room 441, little lady. I'll inform her of your arrival."

A stern nod was Ayaka's decided response, making headway for the elevator. Everything else that she was holding onto was set on hold until well after she came face-to-face with her best friend.

"Forgive me for inquiring. Who are these 'Newborne' you're meeting with again?" Kiki mumbled while sorting through a binder that housed a small portion of her invaluable research. A small dip in the road or a mere pebble could be the young girl's vain, if it were not for Aya taking lead in their travels towards the meeting point the Newborne called for in their letter. "For some reason I'm not finding anything on them." Which was very odd, Kiki's tone reflected.

Crinkles of a large map being folded heralded a pause in step, Aya taking both the moment to survey their surroundings, as well as to answer Kiki's question. "They're? friends," she lied nearly through her teeth, the hesitation giving it away. It was a partial truth, Aya figured. They did help her out several times. Even from death.

A slender brow curved as Kiki listened to the extremely brief response, although she didn't part her gaze from a clean sheet of paper. Speculating, she nudged Aya's thoughts, "Go on. Were these 'friends' of yours that you met while away?"

The question was an obvious one, which sparked a frown from Aya at her best friend. Of course it's when I was away, she wanted to say. She maintained her cool as she answered, knowing all too well that her delinquent lie was to blame. "I suppose you could say that. It was several years ago, before I killed Alex. I can only imagine who wrote this?"

She trailed off as she felt a small rumble of turf beneath their feet. The shifting of plates was enough that the duo felt the need to try and support one another, but equally unnecessary.

They had traveled quite a distance from the city. By the map's guidance, and Kiki's navigation through paperwork, Aya estimated they had already crossed the threshold from the realm deemed home and straight on into "The Edge", a barren wasteland that, no matter the time of year, made skin itch from sweltering heat and storms of rusty red dust sting the eyes. Once a home for the pair, they were not so enthused about reminiscing on times long since passed.

"Tremors," Kiki stated nonchalantly, shuddering as she tightened her hold on Aya. Leave it a moment, and the shaking will catch you off guard, Kiki reminded herself.

Aya agreed with a solemn nod, although was immediately shrugging from her friend's grip. So soon as the shaking had begun, it ceased. Aya and Kiki both were accustomed to the earthquakes and twisters that traumatized the Edge. Yet, from their experience alone, it was easy to assert this particular quite was not a usual one. Mother Nature wasn't so vague; or simple. "This is different," Aya declared with a thumb jab towards the dirt beneath them. "Almost like?"

"Most correct, child?" bellowed a baritone voice that rumbled through their ears like gravel under a moving truck's tire. The strength it carried was unmatched, barren as the wastelands they occupied.

Not fully free from Kiki's grasp, Aya shrank into her hold. A man of molten rock, deriving from the earth that they walked, rose a towering height before the girls, blotting the very sun that stained the horizon behind him. Aged, withered, yet ever strong in physical attributes, with a face cracked like dehydrated earth; his dulled brown eyes empty like dust swept under a rug. Everything about him brought back memories that Aya both feared and cherished.

He was Newborne; a faction of individuals that worked under her brother and helped facilitate the kidnappings at the Magic School. He was just as much to blame for the anguish of so many as any other that walked the earth under that banner.

Pushing free from Kiki's grasp, Aya brashly pointed a finger at the chiseled man that exacerbated her feelings. "Zanzan. You're the one that sent the letter?" Her ill-feelings towards the man, no, the entirety of them, huffed from a heaving chest and parched lips.

She was equally reminded that they spared her life long ago, back when they were given the order to kill her after discovering their schemes. A quaking finger maintained discipline, but was faltering.

Zanzan, reminded that he is but a gentleman amongst ladies, provided a polite, curt bow of his head, arms out at his sides. "I was, indeed. Yet, it was not I who wished to speak these issues with you, you see. I'd have kept our relationship far and distant, as it has been for these past few years."

A fluent hand motion, grazing the air like it were drenched in moisture, brought forth a second, equally disturbing tremor that made the girls tumble. A stalagmite pierced the ground, rising in a slow, steady motion that poked the old gentleman's open palm. Teasing the rocky tip of the stalagmite, Zanzan snapped his calloused fingers, causing the mineral to crumble as though it was nothing greater than a biscuit in the hands of a small child.

Replacing the rocky formation was a hooded silhouette; void of figure or features beyond that of a muddy-colored robe that clung worthlessly to what may be nothing but a skeleton beneath it.

Fingers that resembled pencils, thin, pale, and lanky, pierced through the ends of sleeves to draw back the heavy hood that shrouded a distinguishing face; revealing that of a woman. She was young, possibly not even twenty, but looked as though she had been through centuries worth of living. She was dreary, something out of a Halloween book, with wispy locks of magenta that disobeyed a master's wish to shield a low self-esteemed visage.

Her eyes--no, she hadn't any. A thick material, imbued with faintly scribbled runes, dressed where they should have been.

"We meet again, young Mahara girl," the woman spoke, her voice a gentle flutter from lips inclining to smile.

Kiki's eyes closed tightly, head moving from side to side as though she was dreaming. What the hell is going on, she inquired to herself. Ayaka brushed fingers against Kiki's own, unlatching herself from the grip of her friend to inspect the second arrival closely. "?you. You're that seer."

Aya vividly recalled the woman when she was ordered by Rey, her brother and master of the Newborne, to kill her. Rinku's vision of crushing her head like a melon was not one she'd ever forget.

"'That seer'? So soon to forget they who brighten one's life with renewal, to but not call them by an alias as they're prone?" A melody of words rang from the woman, a certain pain that she feigned with such gracefulness soaking them. She inched closer to Zanzan, decrepit digits resting against his chest. "A mistake; atone--"

A gentle noise snapping from the corner of Zanzan's mouth, cutting Rinku off in the middle of her guilt-riddled speech. "Rinku requested I write you the letter and see to it that we speak."

The girls paid no mind to what the woman spoke. Aya thumbed her back pocket, procuring the letter in hand to read it over. "But it says here?"

Rinku took on a much more sincere expression as she parted from her large companion, approaching Aya. "Meetings are by chance or by arrangement. A chanced arrangement is what we acquired for you do not exist in District 17A presently."

Zanzan's eyes solemnly observed the three, letting Rinku do precisely what it was she asked him to aid her with. It was no longer in his hands.

Adjusting her glasses, as Kiki often did before probing, she spoke up. "We were students of Somul's magic district. We're quite aware where we were supposed to--"

Rinku's gaunt face flattened, her expression asserting Kiki did not understand. Aya shook her head, crumbling the paper up as it no longer served a purpose. "Regardless of that, you have something you want to talk about concerning the school?"

An earnest nod of her head, motioning behind her to the vast wasteland of The Edge that leered at them from every direction. "Of emptiness?"

The girls rushed with renewed vigor through the desert plains. Humps of clumped sand and jagged snaps of blistering wind couldn't slow them down, nor would they let up even as their throats burned with thirst and threatened to close.

They had to see for themselves the truths of what the Newborne spoke. A city so full of vitality and large as Somul certainly couldn't crumble over the course of several years. It was a titan among peasants. A cup of hot cocoa in an everlasting styrofoam cup.

The possibility of them being mistaken was too great.

Gleaming spires that reflected tantalizing sun rays from their peaks jutted up past mounds of dust like a lighthouse set ablaze in twilight; just out of their vision's reach, but so close that it could almost be touched. That was what Somul's glory was all about. It was more than just a visage of perfection. No. It shined radiance. Like something out of an oil painting. A captured image that would last longer than a lifetime.

Yet when Aya and Kiki's feet sunk into the grains of sand just outside the perimeter of the city, standing within the filth of desert heat, they knew that what Rinku and Zanzan spoke was nothing but the truth.

"What is this?" the blonde asked rhetorically, knowing that an answer would pique proud memories.

Her vision was clouded with water, sand, and swirls of dust that shrouded her world like fog of war as she looked onto a city hollowed of life. It was undeniable. Their city, her home, had fallen into a shadow. A glorious memory.

Nothing remained of the city she knew. Crumbling spires, deserted posts--these were all that remained, with a cutting silence that sliced into anticipating ear drums with ringing deafness. The pattering of conversation and shouting tradesmen was exchanged with dusty howls of dark, ghastly wind. Rinku's description of its whistling tone was precise.

Wide sapphire eyes spun to Kiki, catching a small glimpse of Zanzan guiding the seer through the troublesome sands in her wake. Uncertain how long she could clamp her anger, she fumbled down the slope of the last remaining sandy hill she'd crawled over, and shuffled through the grains to meet them somewhere half way.

"What happened," she demanded, barely giving the pair a chance to muster breaths. "And don't try to dodge the questions with rhetoric!"

The giant's solemn amber eyes met the fiery gaze of the child; that which lingered within as blatant as the sun that punched them with a boxer's grace from above. He did not speak, and offered no intentions of providing her with further explanations than what he already had. Their clock had run short, and this was all that he could muster with what ticking time they had remaining.

Kiki hurried down after her friend, pulling the glasses from her face as she did so. "At a glimpse, I suspect this was not recent. I would like to go into town for a better examination."

"Then alone you shall be, with your shadows and reflections of mirrors," Rinku riddled, closing the ever close distance between she and her large companion.

The girls exchanged glances, looking to Zanzan. "Our paths must part here, children." he offered in hopeful assistance. "The clock ticks a new hour for you, and we are not among the minutes, or seconds that accompany it."

Aya frowned at the giant, turning her gaze onto the blinded seer. If somebody knew the answers to those questions that burned in her, it was the observer.

"I cannot," Rinku answered, before Aya could ask. "To change this path would be a dreadful affair; an everlasting paradox."

Swiping her glasses against her shirt to buff the plastic clean, Kiki nodded at the pair. She assessed their usefulness had reached an unannounced limit well before they all crossed paths. This was nothing more than solitary warning for them; one that she would soon understand. "You're leaving then?"

The giant lowered his head in response. Crumples of earth surged through the grains of sand at their feet, nipping at the pair until it rushed upwards like a venus flytrap, consuming the pair where they stood. Within moments, it disappeared much the same as it had came.

Aya emptily stared where the Newborne once stood, fingers balled into white-knuckled fists. "They know more than they're telling us. I don't understand why they can't just say so."

"I may have an idea," Kiki expressed, fingers skating over Aya's shoulders. "It'll probably give you the answers you're looking for."