.DREAM – 5 YEARS AGO.
Flashes of flame. A crying face; the face of a young boy, only ten years old, it seemed. Messy brown hair, twinkling almost tauntingly in the flames of the fire that dominated his surrounding. Bright green eyes, mirroring the images of terror set before him, fire striking up from the very earth in looming pillars, like a dragon rearing back its awful, flaming head to shoot down a burst of orange death. Tears, glistening in the sheer brightness of such dreadful, evil fire. And then, from somewhere near the child, a flash of black. A flash of pitch black, stark and clear against the overwhelming orange that surrounded him superiorly. Suddenly, the fire was gone… All gone with only mounds of ashes to remind all that looked upon them of the destruction the fire had caused. The tears, dried and sticky from the flames that had been in existence just moments ago, disappeared, along with the boy’s expression of complete sorrow and sadness. The scene abruptly changed, replacing the boy’s singed, sooty clothing, tears, sadness, and the land around him with a bright light; white light that shone upon the blank floors and the space around him. The flames have taken me! Taken me above, to the Heavens and to the Holy Judge! thought the boy frantically, but these thoughts were soon replaced with a serenity that only Heaven could bring a person. Another flash of black that made the boy take a long blink, painfully contrasting with the whiteness of this… place. Once the boy had opened his eyes, a little girl stood in front of him, with blonde hair and hauntingly blue eyes. If he was to never see this girl again in his lifetime, the boy would remember her still, without any need for personal interaction at all. Her image, in the few seconds that she stood before him, a small, innocent smile that betrayed her piercing eyes creeping onto her face, would be burned into his mind’s eyes for decades to come, reminding the boy of her every time he saw something as blue as those eyes. But the boy knew that he would probably never see anything as blue as her eyes, or at least he would never see anything blue that gave him the same warm feeling he felt at the current moment in time. The little girl gave a small wave, eyes closing with the happiness of seeing a best friend, even though the boy could not recall having ever seen her outside of this occurrence. If the scene could become any whiter, it did, and the boy slowly faded into what seemed like a deep sleep. In fact, the boy was to wake up and realize that it had all been a dream.

.MEMORY – 2 YEARS AGO.
RING! RING! RING! Sunny Brightsoul shot up out of his place on the feather bed he slept on every night, after a full day of schooling. And like, every morning, Sunny slammed his forehead into the wooden plank that rested just above his bed, projecting down from the sharply slanting ceiling that made up the top half of his bedroom. Though living in a decked-out barn had its disadvantages, Sunny considered the plank of the ceiling that smashed him a good one to be a wake-up, contrary to the more believe that dunking your head into a basin of freezing cold water is the best way for a good wake-up. Probably just a symptom of the chronic happiness spell cast upon him by the Great Magus Skware Eanyx, Sunny believed that all of the headaches most people would consider disadvantages to be ways of preparing you for the day ahead and a reliable way of keeping you on your toes. So, with a smile and a chuckle, Sunny thoughtfully patted that plank of wood, cracked in the center from the many times he had banged his head on it, and hopped out of bed onto the wooden flooring of a barn’s upper floor. While making his way over to his makeshift wardrobe, a large wooden crate that within lay all of his clothes, Sunny acquired two new splinters and stubbed his heel on a stubborn nail that protruded jaggedly out of the floor. Today, it seemed as if the world was out to get him, but you could never assume something like that from Sunny’s expression. With occasional ‘sucking-in’ breaths that signaled pain, Sunny eventually accomplished the task of reaching the crate, picking out his regular outfit of a white shirt and red pants, putting them on in the privacy of his closed roof, and throwing on his Healer’s cape. The hood, hanging unused against on his back, was normally not worn unless he was traveling or being teleported via cape.

With a huge yawn and stretch matched only by that of the titans, Sunny climbed joyously down the main ladder that led to the ground floor of the barn, making his way out of the towering doorway, humming a cheering song that beautifully fit a happy, sunny morning. However, upon reaching the threshold of the doorway, Sunny noticing the dark clouds looming overhead, the sprinkling of rain that served as a prelude to what would be coming, ominously foreshadowed by their conjunction with the puffy, black clouds. Shaking his head with a small chuckle of irony, Sunny continued on his merry way down to the market to do some afternoon shopping for his Master, the Great Magus of the Village of Magi. Skware Eanyx, the Great Magus in question, not only served as the town’s Magus, ironically being the only mage in town, but also as the primary elder and advisor when it came to any situations involving village-wide decisions, and the Headmaster of a private Magus Academy. Sunny Brightsoul, the brightest student in his class of three, was aspiring to one day become a Healer, a master of curing others’ illnesses and injuries, while one of his fellow students trained to become the next town Magus, and the other training to become a Druid, a master of all things natural to the earth. Though he was ‘friends’ with everyone in town, he did not exactly fit in to a particular group; plus, the two other students were extremely snobby and believed themselves to be surpassing him in skill by choosing a profession with more authority. Even so, Sunny enjoyed their company despite their hate for him, happy to appease all by admitting his inferiority to any who wished for him to say it, if that be their heart’s desire.

So, thinking of his two ‘friends’ at mage school, Sunny changed from humming a happy tune to whistling a happy tune as he trudged on through the muddy dirt road that led from the barn to the marketplace of the Village of Magi. Being a considerably small village, named with such importance as to give outsiders a good first impression for the honorable Regional Fair, the Village of Magi boasted a minimal space for a marketplace. The entire complex was made up of a small square with three separate shops skirting an almost disgraceful, tiny fountain: Dann’s Groceries, The Mole’s Hole Pub (because the mole’s honored role as the town mascot), and Smithing by Vincent van Rocoko, a blacksmithing forge run by a fashionable man who seemed very unfitting of his occupation. Today, Sunny was heading to Dann’s Groceries to pick up a daily supply of food items for his Master. This was the usual task Sunny was set to for most days; a task assigned to him by group vote within his private mage school. Though the Great Magus did give him the offer of putting the task upon the other two wretches, Sunny complied remarking that he would be overjoyed to be able to honor himself with his Master’s menial tasks. In reality, this task was unneeded and was simply a way to temporarily rid the other two students of Sunny in an attempt at getting on their Master’s good side without ‘Too-Sunny Sunny’ there to steal their spotlight. Even so, the Great Magus Skware Eanyx favored Sunny over all of them, and rightfully so – Sunny’s chronic happiness, a spell the Great Magus put on him, always allowed for others to easily take advantage of him. Tore between removing the spell and causing Sunny emotional torment or helplessly watching on as Sunny is made fun of and made to do silly tasks that cause him humiliation, the Great Magus are resorted to giving Sunny his education as a silent repayment.

Sunny scrolled down the list with his eyes, searching to see if there would be a need for eggs today, since he stood right by them anyways. Seeing them on the list, Sunny gave a smile to himself, filled up a small carton full of eggs, and made his way over to the produce section. On the way, while staring down at the list with concentration, Sunny bumped into a fellow shopper, causing her to drop everything she had been holding. Egg shells and slimy yolk sprawled out on the floor, making it very slippery and almost making the girl he had nudged trip. With wide eyes and a feeling of immense regret for what he had just accidentally done, Sunny bent down on the ground to assist the lady with anything else she had dropped. But as he came down to her, they looked up for just an instant, eyes locked. Sunny stared into the most blue eyes he had seen in his lifetime, bluer than the ocean, more piercing than a dagger poised to strike, a blue that could only be… dreamt. With sudden realization, Sunny gave her a thoughtful, cheery smile, opening his mouth to inform the girl of the dream he had experienced only ten or so minutes ago. But, before he could get any words out to describe the irony of their meeting, the girl gave him a blank stare, as if she was confusedly trapped in time, followed by an angry glare. [b]”Look what you did!”[/b] she scolded him, though a sort of confused expression still resided in her eyes. Sunny, also trapped in those blue eyes for a moment, could not force his mouth to move, could not force his tongue to form words, and so sat there stupidly staring into those blue eyes. And then, before Sunny even realized it, the girl had left angrily without any of her groceries. As she stalked away, Sunny called after her, [b][color=gold]”I’m Sunny!”[/b][/color] though his voice had probably been warped by the noise of the crowd; if she heard was he said, it could have sounded like anything. Feeling bad about what had happened and the fact that she had not even allowed him to try and fix the situation, Sunny sullenly finished his shopping and returned to the Great Magus.

In the cabin of the Great Magus, positioned directly in the northern district of the small village, Sunny recounted his tale with the Great Magus, including the relation of the young lady and the girl dreamt about. Apparently, the two other students that were often trying as hard as they could to earn brownie points in Sunny’s absence, had been sent on an extra special mission down to the outskirts of the village, to recover some pearl of interest owned by one of the wealthy, old folk of the village. The Great Magus, first slowly stroking his straggly, white bear in thought, opened his mouth to instruct Sunny on the nature of his fated meeting with the girl in his dream. [b]”I am the Agent.[/b] With a confused look on his face, Sunny stared up into his Master’s eyes, trying to decipher some hidden meaning in what he had said. But to no avail, Sunny was completely flabbergasted by his Master’s mysterious statement.

.CURRENT.
In a flash, the colors of the scene swirled, and Sunny found himself blearily rubbing his eyes in a dimly-light room. Though massive and adorned with golden pillars that at least reflected some light, Sunny felt as if he was in a cramped, dark space. And then, with a small stretch, the feeling left his curled up body, and he found himself standing before a giant, monolithic, obsidian beast, the owner of the unfamiliar voice that had come from his Master. He had been dreaming; Sunny often found himself waking up from his past memories, having relived them as if they had been just the day before. But such a sight of blackness made Sunny shudder in place and left him shivering through the speech of the monstrous entity before him. Of course, Sunny’s first instinct was to bring out his winged blade and leap at the being of darkness, but almost a magical hold sat upon him, not allowing for hardly any movement. By the time it had released its hold of him and the “Agent” and stopped speaking, Sunny was utterly confused and uninterested in attacking anything. Mouth open about to blurt out all the many questions he had, Sunny was disheartened and unsatisfied to see the Agent leave, but was surprised to hear a voice from somewhere next to him. It was a girl… THE GIRL! The girl with blonde eyes and piercing blue eyes stood before him, speaking to him! Eyes widening with happiness, an unnatural happiness that Sunny had never felt for anything before, Sunny nodded stupidly when she called him Sunshine, knowing deep down that was not his true name, but feeling that he must comply with everything she said. It had almost been a subconscious goal to find and question this girl of his dreams, a goal that had left him a year or so ago. Now, remembering the dream he had just had, Sunny felt as if everything that was currently happening was all tied together.

With his priorities straight, after shaking away the odd mind-numbing quality Sunny was subjected to when looking into this girl’s eyes, Sunny spat out, ”No, my name is Sunny, not Sunshine… You remember me? I mean, it was so long ago… The only reason I remember you was because of a dream I had. For some reason, now that I recall, I had a dream about you the very night before we bumped into each other at the marketplace!” Though he probably sounded delirious, Sunny had to inform this girl that he had been searching for her for so long; his goal was just been delayed by the effects of memory that tended to fade over time. Smiling with happiness, caught up in this unforeseen meeting, Sunny nearly forget everything that just happened. And then it all came over him at once. ”Shadow? Hm… You don’t look like a Shadow… I mean, once you get past the black clothing and everything. And what just happened?! What was that thing? I kind of missed most of it because I just woke up… Where are we?” With his plethora of questions, Sunny awaited eagerly for Shadow’s response.