"You can call me, Apollina."
"….."
I fell silent hearing her, my brain trying to process what she had said.
When it did, I opened my mouth.
"Apollina? That Apollina?"
"Yes! That Apollina," she said with a giggle. "Now, will you accept my hand, Lumiel?"
This felt so weird…
I accepted her hand anyway and let her pull to my feet.
Damn, she was strong.
She looked too delicate to pull up a fatso like me but she did so.
"So…if I am not dead, I guess I am inside the Flame. Going through the Ritual?" I asked her.
That was actually the only answer I could come up with.
Apollina nodded, her smile widening. "Correct answer. Better than the heaven one at least." She giggled once more.
"Well, I felt like I was honestly dying," I shrugged. "I felt my insides burning and could literally smell my skin burning and like…my blood had been replaced by lava…"
I shivered a little just remembering that pain.
"That is a good way of putting it, Lumiel but but not entirely true either," Apollina said as she turned around and started walking across the prairie expecting me clearly to follow her.
"What are you talking about?" I asked following her.
She didn't reply, just kept walking through the grass that beat beneath her bare feet and sprang back up greenish and seemingly longer and brighter.
Now, this might be a play of my brain.
Anyway, I was about to ask her more but stopped noticing someone ahead.
"What?"
It was Apollina but another version of her.
This one looked younger, maybe in her early teens.
She was sitting on a large rock, staring up at the sky with her arms wrapped around her knees.
"Since my birth I always felt a strong connection with the sun," she said. "I would often spoke to him, converse with him like a friend, my only friend."
"Didn't you think that maybe real friends could be more interesting? Like that have the advantages of talking back you see, where I am coming from?" I asked her, stepping next to her.
"Look up," Apollina said besides me looking up.
I looked up following her gaze.
The sung huge above us.
I couldn't help but compare to the one from Daniel's world, from Earth.
It felt less harsh somehow, less blinding but it had a tinge of redness.
And the more I stared at it I felt something strange…
What was this…
"Do you feel it?" Apollina whispered close to my ear.
"I feel your very hot breath on my ear and it turns me on…"
She pinched my arm.
"That hurts."
"Don't you feel it, calling you, your veins must be feeling hot, don't they? The urge maybe to do something you can't quite name?" She asked me.
"I have only one urge right now and it won't please you—"
"Lumiel."
I sighed.
"I feel yeah…but I know what exactly," I replied.
It felt like loneliness, regret mixed together.
It wasn't a pleasant feeling honestly.
"It is Helios." Apollina said with a smile, watching her younger self grin up at the sun. "The God who loved humanity so much he stayed even after they forgot how to love him back."
"Didn't you have any other friends, ancestor?" I asked her.
Her expression soured, her cheeks puffing out slightly.
"Quite sarcastic aren't you? Definitely not the Lumiel from before, should I blame Daniel for that?" She asked.
"W—What?" I fell dumbfounded hearing that.
How the heck did she know about my past life?!
"How do I know about Daniel Brandt? Your other self you somehow merged with?" Apollina asked the question I was wondering. "Since the moment you entered the Flame, I learnt everything about you."
"That's creepy."
"Every memory every thought, every petty resentment and secret shame you have had," she continued with a slight smirk.
"A very meddling ancestor you are, aren't you?" I asked not hiding the sharpness and the annoyance in my tone.
Obviously I didn't like having my life read like an open book.
"I have to be meddlesome, that is my role here," she said. "And that is how I learned everything about you Lumiel. The timid boy too terrified ti disappoint everyone to actually try. Or Daniel, the confident man who spent most of his time chasing women. Quite the hobby you have though I may like your other hobby if I may say."
I narrowed my eyes slightly.
She giggled immediately.
"Tell me Lumiel, would you contemplate showing me one of these tricks?" She asked me.
I smiled.
"You know, my people worship you like a Goddess, the disappointment would be quite big if they find out what kind of girl you really are," I said.
"And what kind of girl do you presume I am, Lumiel?" Apollina asked curiously.
I leaned and whispered to her. "An ordinal girl whose only friend is a dying star."
When she heard that, Apollina fell completely silence.
I thought it hit her painfully but instead she burst out in laughter.
A loud laughter in a high pitched voice.
"Hahaha!"
Watching her laugh at first I was surprised but eventually I found myself smiling.
Despite the absurdity of the situation, it was oddly reassuring knowing that Apollina wasn't some deity.
She was clearly not an ordinary woman but she wasn't a Deity either.
"You truly are something, Lumiel," she wiped her tears. "I see why Helios finds you interesting."
"The trial is over?" I asked sarcastically.
"Yes, it is."
"What?"
I actually didn't expecta a positive answer.
She smirked at me.
"It's over, your first trial is complete. I deem you worthy of the Flame, Lumiel."
"Deemed me worthy? What were the conditions of the trip completion? Flirting and mocking you?"
"You sound almost disappointed, Lumiel. Did you expect something else? Are you perhaps into pain?" She raised one of her golden brow. "From what I have seen, you certainly are an expert in that domain."
"I am indeed an expert in it," I said getting closer to her and smirked slightly. "But I didn't think you were that kind of woman, Apollina."
"That's rude, I wasn't speak of that hobby of yours but—"
"I know you weren't," I cut her off.
She blinked surprised.
"I am your ancestor, Lumiel," she said.
"Do you really want to know more about my tricks with women?" I asked her reaching out my hand to her hair.
She smiled slightly.
"My new Guardian is quite smooth talker."
Then she reached out her hands suddenly placing both hands on my shoulders and I dropped immediately to my knees.
I raised my gaze to her puzzled. "What are you——"
Before I could finish, she pressed her lips softly against my forehead. A gentle and warm kiss.
"Please," she whispered against my skin. "Protect our Kingdom and our people, Lumiel. Don't let what I built to ash because I chose wrong."
"Apollina—"
I called to her but I felt immediately my consciousness slipping away.
She just smiled at me and waved her hand at me with a wide almost teasing smile on her lips.
Damn it….
At least tell me more…