Heartstring: The Rift Maker

------Prologue: Eighty Years Earlier-----

An angelic figure cloaked from head to toe in a light gray fabric, softly glided through the empty streets. Her form was consumed in darkness and bathed by an artificial light radiating from behind a darkened moon in the sky. The figure's cloaked appendages were tightly wrapped around a midnight blue felt blanket, which was balled up and held ever so delicately. It was as if whatever was concealed within the blanket of such a dark color was very precious and invaluable. The graceful gray figure hurried down a few alleyways with an immeasurable gentle movement and femininity as if there was a highly sophisticated princess underneath the sheet of off-colored snow.

The feminine figure froze rather abruptly a few feet from a wall between two silver brick buildings of at least four stories in height each. An eclipsed and massive orange star shone down almost perfectly between the two buildings to embrace the princess-like figure. It was as though the sky itself was intently watching and guarding over the cloaked being. A dollop of twilight shine illuminated a very tiny portion of the dead end alley as the shrouded princess slowly dropped down to the floor on a single knee.

"Little... one... I fear for you. But I will not show it. For you are far too important now. This was not the future we wanted, but it is the closest I can obtain for you." The melancholic soprano pitched voice further confirmed a young woman was hidden beneath the ash gray cloak. However her face was still deeply enshrouded by the shadows of her hood. She seemed to be enthralled with the dark blue blanket ball as she spoke calmly to it while adjusting herself from an immediate discomfort near the floor.

In a fleeting moment, the cloaked woman's hands had slipped away from the blanket, resting it upon the hard and cold alley ground. Barely revealed between the cloth wrapping was the gentle face of a tiny baby. The baby had dazzling violet eyes that crackled and danced like a thunder storm was contained so perfectly within the confines of such a minuscule thing. The feminine shadow seemed to be intent on making sure the child was safe upon the floor of the alley before she rose back up to her original height. Well beyond towering over the child as her voice cried once more.

"I can't say what will happen in your new home. I can only hope you will be raised and ready. This is the safest place I can send you though..." The shrouded woman continued to speak to the small child with such care illuminated in her voice. She seemed quite determined that the child could understand her. Or it was also possible it calmed her own unsteady nerves to try and have a conversation with one who couldn't converse back. She sifted through the very fabric which cast her figure in shadows, searching for something she knew she had but did not know how far up her sleeve it was. "I will be able to make sure you come out on the other end well, but the rest will be up to you and those on the other side. Cry when you are over there, even they will not be able to ignore a crying child. And keep this with you always."

The woman cloaked in shadows cut her own speech short, busying herself with her shroud instead. After a few silent moments and rustling from the shrouded woman, her instantly luminous and noticeably pearly white hands removed a vanilla envelope from the depths of her ashen cover. The envelope was hardly bigger than the petite hands belonging to the woman. She slowly descended to both her knees this time, upon the rough ground in front of the blanket-encompassed child.

"It shall assist you, and is very important." She added before finally realizing her foolishness at talking to a sleeping child and giving the softest of chuckles beneath her hood. She tucked the small envelope gently into the top layer of the navy blue blanket. For a brief moment a single neatly written word, 'Jeanne', was revealed on the middle of the envelope before she slipped it away so only a small off-white tip was exposed. She patted the spot where she had placed the envelope softly, which bled into a caressing. Gentle, radiant words left the cloaked woman's lips as though they were a whisper of nothingness to a lover. "Please be safe... Pandora."

The ashen cloaked woman sighed as she slipped her hands away from the child and abruptly rose back off from her knees. She took only a few trodden backward steps before halting dead in her tracks. The heavenly woman lifted each of her lengthy arms up, causing the sleeves of her cloak to slip back and reveal her pearly pale white and smoothly serene hands and arms against the peculiar star light. Her palms clapped tightly together directly in front of her chest with the finger tips pointed to the twilit sky as an air of seriousness washed over the shadow filled area. Romantic, calm, and seemingly almost incoherent words flowed into the brisk, freezing air, carried by the returning soprano voice of the snowy woman clad in shadows and fabric.

A night emblazoned and growing faint
Under what rests this darkened day
Rip the sky and reft the stars
Our freedom resides in her little arms
Reveal the path and guide her fate
As only this child will know the way

Her words could only be described as radiant and alluring, yet something ancient was carried with them. An ancient and poetic power embraced the words and influenced their existence. It provided a magical feel to each letter that flowed freely from the woman’s lips. The very air around the princess-like woman and the baby began to churn and illuminate. It was as if even the air knew it was being honored to such precious letters, and that it needed to show its appreciation in any way possible. There was far more to it though; for mere passing moments revealed the air swirling in a perfect elliptical pattern, gathering around the small wrapped child upon the floor.

The cloaked woman remained locked in place as though she were frozen in time while the air's movements only picked up further with an increasing bedazzlement. The child hidden amongst the iridescent lights and wind yawned ever so softly as a small tan white hand slipped out from the dark cloth and closed into a loose fist.

Little precious moments flew away as the light and winds produced around the blanketed baby had completely enveloped the child so not even the blanket could be seen. The glowing that had consumed the child was at its peak intensity, snuffing out all other sources of illumination in the air including the odd starry twilight. A single explosive flash ripped through the alleyway, expanding in all directions. And the child was gone.

The mixture of shadow and shadowy light returned to the alley. The hooded face of the woman still remained pointed down to the ground around the area the child had been. A tear fell from the blackness of the hood to splash against the chilly ground. "Please... be safe... just be safe... you are far too important...to... too important now."

"You think that child will escape my grasp by merely jumping a rift?" The shrouded woman didn't receive a chance to say anything else or even move before her thoughts and emotions were shattered by the hastily interruption of a malicious male voice. The voice held an immense and heavy coldness with its presence that caused a visible shiver to course down the woman's entire body. She shot her head up and swung her entire body around to come face to face with the owner of the shrill and sinister voice. The greatest and quickest movement she had made yet and with it, flew her hood straight from her head. Her porcelain face became revealed to all.

The most notable feature upon her face was her lavender eyes. Eyes which sparked and crackled like electricity was flowing within the very iris; the same as the child had. Her skin was pale, but just to the point of being a pearly white color that seemed to only be further accented by the odd twilight appearance of the currently eclipsed world around her. Her hair was a unique blend of light blond and brown, forming an almost sandy color. The length of her sandy hair was unseen, but at least beyond her shoulders. It was impossible to see anymore beyond her face with the rest of the cloak still covering her figure, but the newest sinister arrival seemed to only need the woman’s presence to know precisely who it was.

"My, my... 'Rora..." The sinister second dark figure that had arrived wore an entirely different set of clothes. He seemed to favor a dark royal purple over most of his outfit and appear quite professionally dressed. His visible skin was very dark, in deep contrast to the pristine porcelain princess-like figure of Aurora. His hair was full and combed at a dark shade between brown and black. He was hardly the most frightening person to gaze upon. What made him so much more sinister was the chilling aura he seemed to exude without even trying. It was an air so deathly and dark that it would cause anyone to gaze upon him to either scramble away in haste and clumsiness or be frozen in pure fear. It was clear which method had taken hold of the cloaked Aurora.

"My dear Witch, I never expected you would take such a risk to personally deliver the child through the rift..." The shrill and cold voice of the indigo-clad man seemed to carry his vowels on longer and longer with each sentence he spoke. The ashen cloaked woman remained in dead stillness with not so much as recognition that the man had even been there. Her lips held no smile nor any expression. However her sparking violet eyes told a different story, looking as though they would explode into lightning meant to strike the man down before her.

"...Run out of elixirs for sending someone else to do the dirty work? Ha... ha..." The man had a large pause from his words as a wheezing laugh escaped his mouth instead. The sound made could hardly even be called laughter though. He took a few steps toward the young woman, while his laugh continued to pierce the air. “You cast something… but… what would you need to cast when opening a rift?”

"Orion, I performed no ar-" The few words finally escaped Aurora's lips before a rush of air picked up all around both of them. The wind caused the dark shaded man to clench both of his quite small hands into fists in seeming anger. His laugh seemed to die away almost immediately as his facial appearance darkened and gained a much more fitting look to accompany the atmosphere around him. 

"I told you before! That man no longer exists! A god took his place once more! And such a name was not befitting of a true god! My name... is Laileb!" Orion released his fingers from being fists as the very breath seemed to suck right out of Aurora along with the little light around them. A few moments passed in the pitch black darkness before the light reappeared to brighten the area once more. A light smirk seemed to curl across Aurora's face before it was shrouded once more in the shadows from the quick lift she made to bring her ashen hood over her head.

"You will always be Orion… after all, you are just a little boy to me still. Somewhere… in that beast still exists that little chi-ld” Her words were cut abruptly short once more as Orion tossed his right arm out to strike the graceful woman across the cheek with seething frustration and anger seeping from him. Her head tossed to the side diligently as she took the slap across the face while revealing no change in expression.

"You are asking for your fate right here, in this disgusting alley… if you choose to continue!” Orion held his hand up briefly before dropping it back down to his side as he stepped to her right and began circling around her. There was nothing special about this alleyway as far as he could tell; it was just one of many hundreds more in the massive city of Delux. Yet he desperately wanted to know why the woman would choose such an odd and ugly place to send a child.

He quickly found himself back in front of Aurora with her face still turned to the side from the strike. He looked over her body and returned back to the hood covering her head before realizing what was directly behind her in the sky. The most frightening, cruelest, and unusual of grins slinked across his face as his deep black eyes shifted from the eclipsed sun in the sky back down to the hooded woman.

"I see... using the eclipse to send the child further than you would be capable of normally? That would also explain why you needed to come yourself." Aurora's head tossed back over to look at the sinister man in front of her as he spoke with his elongated vowels once more. "Very clever... I am guessing you didn't think I knew about the environment affecting your... blood's power? You should have known better than that. Those rifts were my life; I know more about them, than even you do!"

He paused for a moment expecting a response of any kind, but there was only a serene silence accompanying the dimly lit area. The two of them stood face to face gazing over each other through the twilight before Aurora's feminine voice shattered the chilling calm. "You will never see that child until the day you die...”

Aurora flicked her wrist when she finished her very brief venomous words. It was too difficult to see with the poor light and the gray cloak shrouding what she had actually done. The way she moved her hand seemed very unlike her princess-like composure as it was hard to believe she would make any type of unnecessary movement. An unnecessary movement she did not make, however.

"I don't need you to tell me where to find the child. It would be difficult to believe you anyway. Instead I have my other method of extracting the information I need. Besides I am still curious as to why you chose to cast.” Orion tossed his right hand out once more, this time grabbing for the hooded woman's head. He remained stationary with his hand outstretched, gripping onto the top of her head as the hood supplied no hindrance. She didn't bother to move or squirm in the slightest, nor make any notion that someone was firmly wrapping their palm around the crown of her head.

"It...It can't be... I just watched you cast and... open a portal…" It became apparent why she hadn't bothered to escape or budge, when her fingers folded away from each other on the hand that had twitched moments ago; a small capsule with a syringe clattered to the hard and cold floor, breaking the needle in the process. Orion firmly held his grip to her head as he gazed down at what had dropped to the ground, with intensely widened eyes. "An elixir... Impossible! Who could you have gotten... with that..."

His voice was far less unreal and more full of emotion than any other time before; it was possible there was even a scent of fright in his tone. Aurora didn't bother to move but she did produce yet the smallest response yet. "You." Her very breathy and monotone singular response as well as the answer itself, instantly shifted Orion's demeanor back to his burning icy presence.

"You have no idea the pain you will feel... You deserve no mercy!" Orion cackled maniacally as he pressed his fingers harder against her head. "Ha... I have the perfect idea... the perfect plan with you... physical pain you wouldn't mind... No... No. I have a much greater scheme in mind now. I did always tell you... we would work together eventually again, whether you would want to or not. And what better person to have at my right hand side than the original Riftmaker."

His cackle continued as the very force he produced with his hand against her head felt heavy alone. He had his new grip on her head for no longer than five seconds, before strings and threads of pure glowing purple seemed to erupt from the tips of his fingers before weaving through her clothing and embed themselves through her skin. Small elongated bumps could be seen upon her visible skin in places where the threads slipped into her body. "Now... for the witch... we need the perfect name to accompany your... new life."

He paused briefly as though he were contemplating what to actually call the graceful woman who already had a name. He stared up into the twilight sky before finally turning his head to look back down at the women tangled in various threads like a puppet. A smirk crossed his lips as he ripped his hand away from the top of her head with a couple of shadowy strands snapping from his fingers and fading gently into the shadows. The dark and malicious glow of violet consumed the threads embedded into the princess-like woman as Orion slid one hand into his pocket and extended the other to the glowing figure whom eyes glowed in an ever deadly blood red. "Of course... why didn't I think of it before?"

"Take my hand... Ariava..."

-----Chapter One: The Day the Sky Fell-----

A cobalt sun's light fragmented into thousands of crepuscular rays as it shone through the leafy canopy tops of a beautiful sapphire hued forest glinting with minute specks of navy blue cotton dancing upon the wisps of gentle wind. The fluff was gathering on top of a single massive frond near the mossy jungle floor, before finally giving way to the accumulated weight and slipping enough out of place so the cotton fuzz could roll right off the leaf and drop like a brilliant fluffy waterfall, upon a young woman who had been lying underneath the frond.

The emerald-haired young woman popped up through the mass of cotton, spewing and blowing fluff away from and out of her mouth. There wasn't an ounce of frustration apparent in the girl's expressions from the cotton shower she had just received as she brushed as much blue fuzz as she could from her flowing, wavy and long viridian colored hair as well as the sky blue tunic and long skirt she wore. Instead she suddenly erupted into a soft and playful laughter with her crackling violet eyes adding to the ecstatic air encompassing the young woman.

"I should be plusmindful during the bloom season. Otherwise Rogehr would pluslikely say something like 'Joan Siple you have violated your bound code and must therefore be locked away for a few days!' He would say something like that for sure!" The cotton covered woman named Jeanne giggled as she thought about how ridiculous the town head acted towards her most of the time. She hardly minded though, as she was the kind of girl to just put her head down and accept what other people tell her as the truth; everyone 'was' always telling the truth to her.