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Once upon a time. So many stories start with that. So why not let it guide this little fairy tale of demons and dreams? There is so much and so little to explain that it seems only appopriate to look to the fairy tale and turn aside the reality.

It's a sweeter existance that way, isn't it? When memory is more held in ideals than in the harsh darkness of reality... Its a far more tolerable existance to dance off hand in hand with. Thus, in what better manner can one choose to display this dance of death?

So, Once Upon a Time, there was a land known as Elru, contentedly living away their lives in peace. They were little known and remained ever comfortably isolated from the rest of their struggling world, with only a knowledge of a sky-high city to hold some fear of, and yet, that in itself was not much of a fear to them, when it came down to the thoughts of the commonfolk.

Day by passing day, they would know, and often watch, the doves which set upon their stonework housetops.

Day by passing day, they would watch them settle so beautifully among the trees, a mere thousand dots and sparks of silver white, caught between those emerald branches, ever singing and chiming that lovely song for all the happy Elru to hear.

Never could one walk about that city and not hear that song, those chimes, those happy songs of bird-cry. It seemed as much a part of the land as the trees, earth, and sky, an unavoidable sight of beauty in a beautiful land.

Dominia did not watch the doves. Because they were also as dismissable as the wind.

And then, one night, Elru was no more.

Pervect, perfect, perfect. And then but little more than ash and blood cast aside a lifeless town.

Isn't that the best way to remember it?

Even if its not true, even if its not always the way its remembered.

And that means this slaughterhouse must be the Happilly Ever After....

Obviously. Because, forever more, the doves will play amongst those ashes.

Because they are as much a part of that land of Elru, and as much a part of that blood-choked tragedy as the smoke-charred trees mountains of the once-Elru.

Dominia could never understand this, nor understand why.

With a sigh, she stopped, her heavy steps near stumbling still, as if, somehow, the bonds that held her back had drawn her unmoving for a moment. She sighed, leaning weakly against some old mound of foundation and house and life, leaning her tanned face against that chill, forgotten stone a moment, her eyes closed for an inespressable moment of pain.

Her words echoed harsh, barely shuddering whispers, as if her voice were but a trembling leaf about the wind, "....Aren't you proud of me...?"

She shuddered softly as the wind drew by, as faint as can be, as if she flinched against the breeze itself, against those memories and all those words, which seemed to dance ever upon the wind itself. It seemed she flinched as if struck, as if the wind itself could tear her to her end.

And perhaps it could. Because, upon the edge that tear-called wind carried the faintest chrips of the distant doves, a flurry of memory's tears, and all those words, words, words, never inescapable in this land of once-home.

Tell us, tell us...
Where do you fly, stranger?
Your flock is gone.
Tell us, tell us...
Your wings are half-clipped.
You look Lost.
So tell us, tell us..
Why you're not flying towards the horizon your flock used to love.
So tell us why, because we wonder..
Why do you bother coming back to the nest?


Word upon word, memory upon memory, they mocked her.

It is a simple thing to understand, if you listen to the doves.

Because the doves are and were as much a part of Elru as the Elru themselves.

So, it seems but right that, Once upon a time, Dominia never listened to the doves, never noticed the doves. And yet, day by day, she stumbled through them and their world, her world, and yet, at the same time, never noticed what her world was.

So how could she, when she returned to that blood-stained world, expect their praise?

Those chiming cries and beautiful songs were truer to the Elru heart than anything- they meant more than sylvan ear and swiftest grace, and meant so much more than that elusive power of the Emotion and Heart. Those chiming cries were of home.

Those chiming cries knew who they were and where they perched, be it in death or in harmony.

All together in song, ever and for eternity, but sisters and brothers, 'Wings of a Feather'.

And yet she ever ignored their every flock and fly and sing and cry.

Even when each and every feather bound cry was once her dear brothers and sisters.

Dominia turned those sapphire eyes to the skies above, darkest depths of darkest memory, torn between the palest laces of cloud and moonlight. Those palest eyes held tears unshed, a pain unheard, a cry unknown, and yet, somehow, her face held not a trace of any such emotion, and instead cradled loss.

She shuddered softly, stumbling a few steps away from the foundation she leaned against, as if the chill of the stone had stung her, thrown her aside, away, as if somehow the jeering wind had coaxed the rest of this once-home to turn against its once-child.

Once-child.

Because, Once upon a time, a Solarian stood in the depths of Elru, her gaze held to the land about her. She shed her tears to the wind and her prayers to the lost, and looked for her once-loved, her once-life in the ashes of memory and the depths of agony.

While all about her, her flock and her inheritance sat about those crack-carved stones and laughed and laughed away, because, Once upon a time, it was the harshest irony and greatest wrong for a Solarian to be wishing for the sake of the land a Solaris killed.

While she stumbled aside from that building, she walked a step or three into that only too familiar square, so painfully carved in the back of her memory that its wound of marking held to this very stinging moment. It seemed again there could be that Demon aside it, within it, her Savior away and against it, as her own personal fairy tale had held.

But today and now, only the doves remained, startled out of song and taunt by those stumbling steps, as the whole tormented silver mass rose startled to the heavens above, chrips high in a fear that no human word or Elru cry could match, soaring away, away, so high they seemed to be bound for the arms of that God who seemed so willing to allow those thousand, thousand, thousand Elru to draw to his waiting grasp.

Dominia had only watched the doves once, upon that darkest night, in which they rose in such panic, such worry, soaring off in frantic flurry, leaving her and her alone to the land she believed she held in pride.