✾ ❃ ✾
Naminé Yamada wishes to kill demons.
Followed by the nightmares of her past, Naminé dedicated her life to strengthening herself mentally and physically ever since the death of her mother, hellbent on avenging her somehow. Though it seems that...
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"Let's go in the garden."
Slipping a hand into her mother's own, a young girl just barely the age of eight smiled brightly beneath the canopy of luminous wisteria surrounding their home, a calm washing over her at the sound of her mother's lullaby.
"You'll find something waiting."
It was a song that the young girl never went one day without hearing. The melodic lyrics echoed off the blooming, lilac petals, their glow all the more radiant as the sun kissed the earth just before giving way to night. It was her favorite time of the day to come tend to the wisteria trees with her mother at sunset.
"Right there where you left it, hiding underground."
Though she did not want to spoil listening to her mother's beauteous voice, the young one couldn't help but grip her hand tighter as she sang along.
"When you finally find it, you'll see how it's faded. The underside is lighter when you turn it around."
A string of giggles erupted from the young girl as her mother scooped her into her arms, strands of her pristine white locks spilling onto her face, her mother's gentle touch curling them behind her ears as they continued waltzing amongst the blossoms.
"Everything stays right where you left it. Everything stays, but it still changes. Ever so slightly, daily and nightly, in little ways when everything stays."
It was their daily tradition to sing the Yamada family lullaby while tending to the proud wisteria. Many times even leaving their own home to help tend to or plant the delicate blossoms across their small village, the young one always noticing the way the citizens highly revered and respected her mother. Though Ichika Yamada's humble ways always denied such claims whenever her young daughter asked why that might be.
"Enough now, Naminé," her mother laughed while trying to quiet the young girl's singing. "Let us go check on your tree, shall we?"
"Yes!" Naminé cried out excitedly, practically leaping from her mother's arms to race to the back corner of their property. At the sight of the tree budding from the earth, small hints of lilac bursting from its weak bark, Naminé's smile somehow grew wider.
"Mother! Mother! I think it grew a tiny bit more! Can you see?"
But when the young girl turned around, Ichika Yamada was nowhere to be found.
Confused and a tad worried, Naminé rose from her crouched position and glanced around their home, all too aware of how quickly darkness had fallen across their land. The sunlight should not have died so hastily . . .
"Mother? Mother, where did you go?" she barely whispered, something like ice crawling along her skin as the night grew thick like ink. "Mother!"
Tears prickled her vision as one of the luminous wisterias shriveled, its light dying out, leaving it to vanish within the shadows.
One by one, every wisteria followed suit, dying and disappearing. Dying and disappearing. Dying and disappearing.
Until only one remained. Naminé's own wisteria tree barely half the size of the child who planted it.
Racing towards its light, she could sense something moving in the shadows around her. Something growling. Hungry.
Hunting.
It was then that the lilac glow of her tree gave way to another color.
One of blood.
"Let's go in the garden."
A horrid, demonic being growled the start of her mother's lullaby, earning a scream from the young Naminé as she heard the excruciating sounds of talons grinding against stone.
"You'll find something waiting."
The nightmare grew closer--its voice and rancid stench drawing nearer as she clung to the scarlet light of the wisteria tree. Though when her fingers brushed against its blossoms, something sticky clung to her skin.
Pulling them back, she found that it was fresh blood trailing down her fingers.
"Right there where you left it, hiding underground."
A scream came from the young girl as she wiped the blood on her clothes, the coppery smell of it still lingering behind even when she removed it. Her lungs were no longer able to breathe within the shadows, the thing stalking her now beginning to approach the light of her tree.
Scarlet, slitted eyes revealed themselves, a row of fangs smiling beneath them as it continued to sing.
"When you finally find it, you'll see how it's faded. The underside is lighter when you turn it around."
In one fell swoop, the light of the blood tree was crushed beneath a clawed hand, leaving the young one struggling to find her way through the darkness, fear causing her small heart to nearly rupture.
"Everything stays right where you left it. Everything stays, but it still changes. Ever so slightly, daily and nightly, in little ways when everything stays."
Silence.
The fear in her heart caused her pulse to pause, desperately trying to hear anything.
It's going to eat me, she thought, stumbling as she drew further into the darkness. It's going to eat me! Mother, help me!
"In little ways . . ."
There was only enough time for little Naminé to scream before the beast's claws ripped through flesh and bone.
"When everything stays."
✾❃✾ ✾ ❃ ✾ ✾❃✾
✾ This recurring nightmare is one that Naminé is certain she will never be rid of as it has plagued her since childhood ✾
✾ The fact that this nightmare falls on the day Naminé leaves for the Final Selection seems like an omen of some kind ✾
