Agartha Begins

"It's not a pleasant place, I'll tell you right away", Lady whispered to me while Lubbock fooled around happily.

I hadn't recovered all that much, but Lady decided it would be better for me to get moving. According to her, the only way to heal was to beat your wounds a little more to remind them of their place. Anyways, she intended for me to go with Chopper, which I didn't mind, but Chopper did. He said he wasn't certain about this one, as he might have to go a "weird long mile" and I, in my condition, would only get in his way. I wouldn't have wanted to do that, so I ended up with Lubbock.

"This is his big mission after quite a while so...", Lady explained to me the cause behind his excitement, as we watched him together, "You're gonna have to watch out for him on this one, Seraph."

I nodded without thinking, just as she had said it without thinking.

Apparently, we were headed East to a city called Agartha. Agartha used to be the most flourishing, peaceful city in Mercae, perhaps in all of the world, but that was before it was ravaged by war. There wasn't much known about the place ever since, as it had been cut off for the most part. Eastern Mercae was the first to fall when the war started. Now, even after its end, Agartha remained a mystery. People that went up there rarely returned, and those that did were the ones that had been denied entry and had nothing to tell.

"At least we know there aren't any ghosts...well, actually, we don't yet know that...", Lady handed me a map which was so primitive, I had to wonder if she herself drew it, in which case I might as well ride into the sun without ever looking back.

"Agartha is pretty high up, isn't it? It's all mountains, and fog, isn't it possible that people died on the way?", I asked, "If roads were damaged after the war, it might have changed the landscape and all."

"Well, whatever it is, we'll know when we know", Lady grabbed Lubbock, who was telling Sight all about this new mission.

We set off that day, morning or noon, I couldn't tell. With the sky as red as it was, it was mostly impossible to tell the time. The night would come on so rapidly, and mornings were rather abrupt. The wind seemed to have forgotten to blow and it was impossible not to sweat. I found it hard to keep my spirits as high with the dull weather, but Lubbock seemed to be on fire.

"Hey, Seraph, this is the first time we're going out together, isn't it?", he was way too energetic as we started on an unknown road. It was too busy for my taste. Even in this oddly tiring weather, people found the courage to come out and go about their affairs. I admired that, but also found myself irritated by it all. To all Lubbock's musings, I would just nod or reply with a 'yeah', he didn't seem to mind. It was easy to get him to do things, Lubbock was just that kind of person.

He was like a kid, an oddity amongst the rest of the Valkyries. At times during our journey, I found him so ordinary that I wished I had known him before all this. Sadly, it was too late, I had already closed up. Placing a hand on my chest where the scar was, I would sit silently listening to his ceaseless chattering. Sometimes I found him all too clueless, other times I thought him reassuring. It was important to have someone like him around so that at least some semblance of 'normal' remained in all of us.

I was slightly envious too since I could have been him. He seemed to me aloof from all that had passed, I wished I could forget too. A strength like his, of being himself even when everything went to the pot, it seemed to me that he was the strongest of all.

Lubbock did most of the work on our journey and his spirit never waned even a bit. From cooking, albeit bland foods, to building shelter for rainy nights, he never complained or got tired. Since he always seemed like he was enjoying doing it, I didn't interfere. Soon, we'd made it to the mountain range which housed Agartha. It was cold there, the thick fog above us didn't let us see the peak or how far we were to travel. I knew it wasn't going to be an easy journey. We had to watch out for trouble too.

"Should we go up or down?", Lubbock asked.

"Down? There's a down?"

"We can break through here", he pointed toward a rock wall, "Here, we can make our own way."

"Yeah...", I gave him a nervous look, "I don't think we can, Lubbock."

With that settled, all we had left was to begin our ascent. We were going to find Agartha.