The Butterfly Effect

{-Aither-}

He always wondered if it was obvious and, if so, how obvious it was—the nervous looks he gave to their surroundings, the way he stopped any time he heard another creature. He hated being alone. All his mind did was remind him of the stories they would tell each other, of some of the things he’d seen… But he didn’t have the choice of hiding behind a more confident Fos. Day needed him to do this.

They hardly had enough light to keep the darkness away; the least he could do was actually do his part.

He stopped at the edge of a valley, at a spot with a perfect vantage point of everything in it. The only other creatures there were a few wild animals. Even then, they seemed to acknowledge the three of them and decided it may be best to leave them alone.

“This is where I put it,” Aither announced. “You’ll have to find out exactly where it is on your own, though.”

“Do we get any hints on what we’re looking for?” Demery asked.

Aither nodded. “You’re looking for a stack of letters and an old box. Don’t disregard something because it looks too well-preserved—if you find anything similar to those things, I want you to bring it back to me first.” He paused. “And whatever you do, don’t open either one of them until I tell you to. You’re putting more than yourself at risk by trying to figure out what they are too early.”

“You just made me ten times more interested in opening them,” Koyana admitted.

There were so many things that popped into his mind but what he ultimately settled with was a simple, “Please don’t…”

“I’m sure your curiosity could stand to wait until Aither tells us to open them,” Demery remarked.

“You can’t tell me you aren’t curious, too!” Koyana returned.

He only shrugged in response.

“Demery can look over there,” Aither instructed before things got carried away, “and Koyana can search there. I’ll be able to watch your progress from here. Consider everything else we’ve talked about so far while you’re trying to find them—the next step is best if you’ve had some time to consider what we learned.”

They both nodded and left. Aither sat at the best spot to watch them, greeting the little bird that soon joined him, and made mental notes of all of their actions.

From the beginning, Demery seemed to be the one who could think through any sort of problem… but also, possibly, see a problem where there was none. He gave every bit of his surroundings careful observation, likely trying to recall what Aither had said so far to piece it together somehow. After a couple of minutes of this, Demery found and pulled out a packet of letters and started back up to where Aither was.

Koyana must’ve had a good enough vantage point to see what her brother had done. For a moment, she tried imitating him. She quickly grew bored, however, and just took to wandering. Something must’ve caught her attention because she found the box by a bush, then went to join her brother and Aither.

Aither waited until they’d both come back and given him the items before giving them a smile. “Good job, both of you. I almost expected it to take a little longer…” He picked up the letters and sat them beside him. “I’m going to keep these in a safe place for now, and we’ll come back to them later. Koyana, since you’re the one that found the box, you can open it.”

She didn’t need any other confirmation. She fiddled with the lock then pulled out most of what was inside. “They’re all diary entries.” She paused. “Really old diary entries…”

Demery looked over her shoulder at the letters. “They don’t look like they should be that old…”

“The letters beside me, the box, and what was put in the box were all enchanted,” Aither explained. “They needed to be able to withstand the test of time, which isn’t an easy feat. I was surprised when I first saw them, too—it’s actually quite amazing, given that it was a mortal that put it all together.”

“Do you want one of us to read them?” Koyana prompted. After looking it all over, she quickly lost her excitement and handed it to Demery. “Actually, I’m going to pass on this one. But Demery loves reading stuff, I bet he’d do it.”

He didn’t seem to mind. He skimmed it over once before giving Aither a quizzical look. “It looks like something important is absent or crossed out.”

“Just skip over those parts,” Aither instructed, “and leave all questions for the end.”

Though perhaps not completely satisfied, Demery nodded and began to read it aloud. “‘At first, I thought it was going to be a normal day. No part of my routine deviated until I met her—and even then, I had simply thought she was an average young woman at first. She introduced herself as … and I told her my name was Tyrus. She asked if I could help her, though neither of us knew what she needed help with. It was not long after finding her that we met the others, as well.

“‘Komaeda, it seems, always lived in my hometown—by some odd force, we had never seen each other before then. Feldr was a traveler, though he saw something in … and decided to stay wherever she was. We have not talked a lot since our first meeting, but I have a feeling we are going to do something together. Whether this is a grand something or a bad something is a piece I have not figured out.’”

He flipped the page to find a whole different entry entirely. “‘..., however odd she was, became a fast friend. I am sure all of us can agree to that. It was by her suggestion that we went on a trip. We had gone on others before, but she stated that this one would top them all. It is only now that I wonder what, exactly, was her motive for asking us to come…

“‘I did not think of it before, but looking back at the memory, someone had come to visit … in our home. I do not recall what this person looked like or who they were; I did not find it something worth noting in that day’s entry. … began acting strange after that. I believe it was what sparked her to ask us to go on a trip with her. I know, at least, on the final day of our journey—yesterday—she came up to us and announced she had something to share. She revealed the identity of the person that had visited her to be her ‘mother.’ This woman, … said, had told her who she ‘truly’ was. Personally I do not believe any of it, yet… she seems to. She will be leaving to join her mother tomorrow. I suppose time will tell if what her mother threatened her of will come to pass or not…’”

Demery went to move on to the next one but gave it a curious look. “This one’s just blank.”

“Yes, that’s because you’ve read everything you needed to,” Aither said. “But you can keep the box and the entries—they rightfully belong to you, as his descendants. Maybe it’ll help you become a bit more familiar with what he did.”

“So the person who wrote this was really the one who founded our house..?” Koyana asked.

Aither nodded. “I’m sure there’s not a lot of stories I could tell you that you haven’t already heard, though. He amassed a large amount of the wealth that his descendants enjoy today on the several trips he made with the other three. I honestly just heard stories like you did, but it sounded like he never left an ally behind. I’d assume he had plenty by the time of his passing.”

“I think you should’ve said the wealth that some of his descendants enjoy,” Demery pointed out. “We’re definitely not included in that.”

Aither wished there could’ve been a way to comfort them; but there wasn’t, without mentioning things meant for a later date.

“We’ve heard stories about him from our grandparents,” Koyana remarked, “but nothing about him having friends. They always made it sound like he worked alone and actively avoided people…”

“Time has a way of contorting history,” Aither explained. “It’s a part of the reason why I’m helping you. I know there’s probably very little about what I’m saying that makes sense right now. But by the end, you’ll be able to look at all of this with all of the right pieces. It won’t be too hard to figure everything else out from there.”

“Then the other people he mentioned?” Demery questioned. “Feldr, Komaeda, and that other person?”

“That’s… a bit more complicated to explain, without touching on any details I really shouldn’t right now. But it wasn’t anything that I wasn’t prepared for—I’ll tell you about Tyrus’s now-forgotten friends.”