[h3][u][color=C2B280]Fleo Plector -=- Magnolia Town[/color][/u][/h3]

Seconds trickled by while Fleo stood frozen, the words of the Ash God Slayer worming their way through her mind.  [i]Fool...pointless...devoid of meaning...truly important...nothing is left for you except for death.[/i]  The declaration reverberated inside her brain, infesting her psyche with a seed of despair.  [color=C2B280]“No...purpose...”[/color]  She whispered, and a tear streaked a wet line down her dusty cheek, exactly following the mark beneath her eyes.  Those craggy lines, Gaudium had said, were the symbols of the Dust wizard; they embodied the suffering that the mage went through.  Dust magic could not simply be learned, her mentor told her many years ago.  It had to be given as a sacrifice, and even then only given to someone tormented by a fate worse than death.  There had, after all, been so many tears.  Lying on a bed for three years, with no glimpse of the outside world she loved but the light streaming in through her window—nothing had been left for her then.  But now...?

Now, in the present, she still wept.  Living for the sake of living had been all she ever wanted.  Did that mean she had no purpose?  That the gift of life meant nothing?  Fleo wanted to defend herself with vehemence, to sling counterpoints like stones and throw her story straight through his heart, until Nolan was the one crying, not her.  But no words came, just tears.  How could somebody who she worked alongside a moment ago, who in the same sentence professed the importance of protecting comrades, say such a cruel thing?  Fleo lowered her gaze to the cobblestones, torn between shame and fear, and ran away, tears streaming once more.  Each step left behind a distinct footprint, and she didn't get far before her magic reacted to her despondency, buoying her up on a thin carpet of dust, that carried her far away from the scene of the fight with the Lightning God.

By the time she felt like stopping, her Sirocco had traveled her out of the city and onto a grassy hillside nearby, and she was thankful that her desert wind blew so speedily.  The warm morning sun made the landscape glow, not only the grass and crops in the farmhouse gardens but also the timber of the houses themselves, and the livestock milling about the pastures.  Fleo collapsed against a shady, ancient tree and blinked away the last of her tears beneath its dappled canopy.  Her head pounded from the nasal strain of crying, so further lamentation served only to deepen her pain.  The city of Magnolia stretched before her, no longer seeming like a promise of a bright future.  She imagined it burning, alight with fire and awash with the glare of black lightning.  The actions of the guild meant that sooner or later, overwhelming foes would ransack Magnolia in their quest to obliterate the guild she had foolishly joined.  The townspeople needed protecting; hell, Pheonix Wing would need protecting.  But even if she were there, how much could she accomplish?  The life she would risk anything to preserve, even if it meant nothing, meant less in death.  Magnolia needed every wizard it could to protect it, but Fleo just wanted to live.  

So many stories involved a hero realizing that, to save the day, he needed to sacrifice himself.  Fleo, staring down at the city she called home for two and a half days, couldn't imagine her being that hero.