"Master?"
"What news do you bring me this time, Kallisti? I trust it is good."
"I have found her."
"Truly? Then it is good news, indeed."
"Actually..."
"Don't tell me... something is wrong."
"I have found her, and she is dead."
"Dead, you say. This is not good. How did it happen? When?"
"Several months ago. Quite messily. During a long and bitter fight."
"... All right. I will grant you the power to travel back in time and retrieve her. I trust she can be revived?"
"Easily, Master. Thank you!"
"And no side trips this time. The time stream has barely recovered from your last round of 'improvements.'"
"Oh, you're no fun."
One less corpse to bury. Would anyone notice?
Too much was going on. A legendary Beast, revived. A deluded Copy with too much power in his hands. Dark power surrounding everything.
Would anyone notice one more person - quick and quiet - her long dark robes rustling in an invisible breeze, her enigmatic smile barely visible among dark unruly curls - appearing at the edges of perception?
Would anyone notice the sudden disappearance of the cooling flesh of she whose desire for revenge had caused all this chaos?
The threat was eventually dealt with, the beast destroyed, the Copy killed and buried.
And none noticed the disappearance of she who had started it all.
So much the better.
I... am... c-cold....
"Do not worry," said the dark-robed, dark-eyed woman, smiling gently at her awakening charge. "Everything is going to be alright. You are safe now."
How could he? I created him... I made him....
"You will live." The woman's dark, thick curls, covering most of her face, were waving, moved as if by a gentle breeze; a breeze her charge could not feel.
So cold.... But she was becoming warmer somehow, as the long seconds passed.
"I will say goodbye for now," said the woman. "But we will meet again... Discordia no Miko." She faded away, leaving her charge alone in a dark world.
So cold....
Ellis woke slowly, the warm sun drawing her forth from the depths of sleep. So cold... What... what happened? Where am I? The world faded gradually from black to soft green and blue, as she slowly opened her sleep-weary eyes. As her thoughts ordered themselves, she realized that she was lying curled up in the middle of a peaceful, grassy plain.
That woman... who was she? wondered the young, confused lady. But intangible images of dark curls and sad smiles rapidly swirled away, out of her grasp. What woman? she thought, bemused by her imperfect memory.
It was then that the full weight of true remembrance settled on her. The last I remember, I was... we were... summoning Zanaffar.... Her heartbeat quickened. And Rezo... my Copy Rezo.... In her mind, she saw him smile, and lift his hand towards her, and release a killing blast of pure magic....
"NO!" screamed Ellis aloud, face twisted in horror, clutching her suddenly-aching head with leaden arms. "It can't be! It didn't happen! Rezo...." Her voice trailed off into a series of heart-rending sobs that racked her thin frame.
When sorrow had spent itself, she lifted her head from her hands. Eyes that had once been young were now twin slashes into darkness: sinkholes into which the light of the world fell, never to escape. With a voice hoarse from the strain of sobbing, she quietly spoke the words that grief and madness forced into her mouth.
"It was their fault."