"I have to jump out of here?" I asked the 33rd Leader of Aria. "I can't even make anything out—it's pitch black outside."
"Yep. A cheeky little leap out of this window will bring you straight into our hangout spot," the man replied, flashing his pearly white teeth at me.
"How big is the fall?" I reluctantly asked.
"Big enough," he said before lifting me up by the neck of my shirt and the waist of my pants. "Hip, hip, HOORAY!"
The man spun around in a circle before finally launching me out of the open window, the sheer velocity of the motion leaving behind trails of black smoke.
Flailing my arms around in a desperate attempt to stop my descent, I began my freefall into this top-secret lake. What a joke. I'm sure that out of the hundreds of people living in this castle, you're the only one aware of it, Mr Don. My pedantic rant was cut off by my mouth deciding to engulf an innocent fly that was passing by. I choked and coughed in an attempt to spit it back out—to no avail.
'How the hell am I going to survive this fall in the first place? Knowing him, he's probably already waiting down there to catch me. Show-off.'
Unfortunately, my guess was incorrect. Very incorrect. Before long, I plummeted face-first into a deep body of water, the impact finally dislodging the fly from my gullet. The insect was instead replaced with gallons of water that invaded every orifice. Sound waves were blocked from entering my ears due to the ocean that had built up inside them; I could feel my brain twitch in preparation for the litres of water about to enter through my nose, while my mouth became dry as it suffocated with salty water. Instinctively, I held on to what little breath I had left, shut my mouth, and began swimming back to the surface.
I pushed my head out of the lake and stole as much air as I could, my eyes, which were now crimson red, clenched shut. After a few seconds of inhaling, I blindly made my way to the closest piece of land I could find, which happened to be only a few metres to my right—or at least what I thought was my right.
Pulling myself up, I was greeted by the man who had destroyed my life.
"Thank... you," I muttered between jagged breaths.
"For what? I didn't help you get out." Noctis replied.
I looked back at the lake. At the castle hidden somewhere above us. At the life I had left behind.
"Never mind."
My eyes now comfortably open, I looked around at the lake I had been invited to. Only a moment earlier, during my drop from the window, this whole area had been nothing but pitch black. Even up until the moment of impact with the water, it was all undiscernible. But now, having emerged from said water, the whole area was aesthetically lit, glowing a mixture of radiant colours, blue and violet at the forefront.
"As you have probably gathered, this place isn't your usual lake. Simply put, it is powered by bioluminescence. These lights you see are all naturally emitted by the organisms that thrive here. They act like motion sensors, only lighting up when they detect foreign life. That's why you couldn't see anything before you landed," Noctis explained.
'He's not lying,' I thought to myself while kicking my feet in the water, each motion leaving patterns of bright blue light.
Looking around, I was able to take in the other parts of the lake I had neglected beforehand in favour of the big, bright lights. A small distance away from Noctis and me seemed to be a path that stretched across the whole of the lake. It was a very small lake from what I could gather; you could probably clear the path in no more than 15 minutes. Additionally, there were thick trees scattered across the area, each with even thicker branches looming over our heads. Each tree and bush was decorated with small lights hidden inside their greenery. Upon closer inspection, those lights seemed to be bustling around the shrub. Are they alive? My suspicions were proven true when one of the lights jumped out of its hiding spot and began to fly into the distance, my eyes following it until it was out of view.
"Fireflies. They're the unsung heroes of this place. Without them, you wouldn't be able to see anything that wasn't the water," Noctis spoke as if he was reading my mind.
"But you would?"
"Of course I would," he replied.
"Now, Taiga," he said while making his way to the path. "Please tell me what you would like to discuss." He spoke while beckoning me to join him.
"Where do I begin? Let's start with you announcing me as the next Don! What the hell was that about?!"
"Ah, yeah, that's my bad."
"Your bad?"
"Listen, I needed to cause a distraction to get out of there properly and the Members of Parliament were pissing me off, so I decided to play a little prank on them. That's all."
"A prank? So I'm not going to be the next Don?"
"No, no, probably not. It's just something I said to keep things interesting. You haven't shown anything that would make you worthy of this title yet. You're not disappointed, are you? Did you really, really, really want to become the big ol' Don?"
"No, I'm not disappointed, you buffoon. I had no intention of accepting your faux offer anyway. Becoming the leader of such a powerful nation brings things that would make my mission in life pretty difficult."
"Is that so? What is this mission, if you don't mind me asking?"
"To be happy."
"I see... You've got your work cut out for you then."
"Next question..." I said as we continued down the path, my right leg accidentally clipping a nearby rushing stream, causing hundreds of fireflies to burst out and escape towards the jet-black sky.
"Well, your Fraze is quite the unique one, if I do say so myself," Noctis interjected, believing he already knew what I was going to ask.
"My neck. What happened to my neck?! What happened while I was unconscious?"
Noctis flashed a disgusted look before clicking his tongue.
"Nothing happened while you were out. Your brother, Shin, grabbed hold of you by the neck after you passed out in the alleyway—tried squeezing the life out of you while he still could. I was able to pry him off you, but if that girl hadn't been there, I might have had to use my Fraze."
'Liar.'
"Oh, okay," I responded, keeping my true feelings a secret. "It seems I jumped to conclusions. What were you saying about my Fraze?"
"It's quite alright, Taiga." He stole another glance at my neck before continuing forwards, both with his feet and his mouth.
"I need your Fraze, Taiga."
"My Fraze?"
"Yes. I believe your Fraze, 'Still Waters Run Deep', has the power to cure my wife."
"How so?"
"Right now, all you can do is run real fast, and I do mean really fast. That feat you pulled in the alleyway would have the average Orator keeling over in defeat."
"What's an Orator?"
"They're just people who have trained to use their Fraze to the utmost efficiency. They usually come in the form of mercenaries or soldiers, but there are also some healers and entertainers. Not to mention a couple of smartass detectives."
"You're saying I'm as strong as one of them right now?"
"Yeah, you could probably take a few weak ones. Any Orator slightly above average would probably best you, while any member of the Tallow would decimate you. They're strong enough to leave lasting damage on me, and I'm the strongest guy in town."
"I'm guessing the Tallow are the super-strong ones? The once-in-a-lifetime kind of fighters, right?"
"Well, they're definitely not once in a lifetime. I mean, you've even met the youngest member, Jane."
"Jane?"
"You know, the kid with pink hair. He only recently joined Parliament and the Tallow, but he's definitely made himself known among some of the elders."
My mind drowned out anything Noctis said past his description of the boy. He's talking about that bastard who put me through the forest in the first place. If he's here in this castle, I'm going to make him regret torturing me.
It seemed as though the anger coursing through my veins was on full display as Noctis rested his hands on my shoulders and offered some advice.
"Listen, I know you're furious at Jane for what he put you through, but look at yourself now. You're a better person than you were before, aren't you? You said it yourself. You're happier here than you ever would have been back in Berry Town. He was just trying to help. To make you confront your own fears."
"Enough about that bastard," I retorted angrily, though I had been somewhat swayed by the man's words.
"How is my Fraze supposed to save your wife? According to you, all I can do is run fast. How am I going to cure anyone with that shitty power?"
"It may seem useless to you right now, but I promise you it will bloom into something beautiful—something that can save her. I just know it. I can feel it. From the moment I gave it to you, I knew it was something special."
"So it's just a gut feeling? What's wrong with your wife in the first place?"
"God knows. She's shown no physical signs of sickness nor any mental degradation. She just came up to me one day..." The flamboyant leader of Aria lifted his eyes to the skies before continuing.
"She told me she was dying."
"Of course, I didn't believe a word that came out of her mouth, so I hired countless Orators who specialised in medicine to run tests on her. They all came back saying the same thing. She only had a few more years left to live. That was until I conducted my own scans using one of my many Frazes. That was when I found out she had under a year left. I also found out what the sickness was. A brain tumour."
'I'm calling bullshit on this story. This is the same guy who's been lying to me since the day we met.'
"Isn't that something Fraze powers could fix? Surely there's someone like Arthur, but even more skilled—"
"No! No, it can't just be fixed!" The man was now grabbing me by my collar and screaming in my face.
I had said something wrong.
"All these useless doctors, what are they good for? What's the point of studying for years if you can't even fix a normal brain tumour?! There are magical powers in this world, but a brain tumour is too complex?!"
"It's not a normal brain tumour, is it?"
Noctis loosened his grip.
"Nothing's normal in this goddamn world! Of course it had to have been caused by her Fraze. The brain tumour is amped up by the usage of her Fraze—something she couldn't control. Her Fraze is a passive one; it can't be turned on or off like mine or yours. She's stuck with it. Forever."
The once-dominant man who had instilled fear within me like no other had now devolved into a weeping, sobbing mess, his waterfall eyes covered by his orange hair. His hands stayed glued to my collar as he fell further and further onto the ground. Before long, his head was at my feet, his silent sobbing begging me for help.
"I'm sorry, but do you expect me to blindly believe this sob story? Are you telling me you have no ulterior motiv—"
"Please, Taiga. Save her."
"Save me."