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Love... is a strange thing. So is hate, and courage, and fear, and happiness. Nobody can ever understand them. But, even though we don't comprehend these things, it feels... natural, to a certain extent. It's the same with a lot of things.

A thought, a feeling, a fear... it's all the same. In every mind, there is fear, and in every human heart, there is love. And... to think... we were filled with it all when we were born... and that's why we learn. We need to find the source of it all. And we here feel that we finally have...

---

It was a perfect scene. Birds fluttered around the wood, playing with each other while they sang. The creatures seemed to be happy working in their homes, while listening to this beautiful chorus.

Beyond the trees of the homes of the animals was a wide river, its clear water glinting as it rushed across the shingle, moving with the mullet as they darted downstream. From the thick canopy above, the light shone as through as green, tinted rays of warmth dancing on the water's surface, and bedazzling anything near it with radiance and beauty.

But go further than this place, where everything is perfect, to an area where exotic plants thrived, where the fruits on the passionflowers were ripe enough to eat, where the papayas were growing. This was beauty at its best, nothing had ever gone wrong here. And that was all down to the centre of the forest, and what lay there. For in the precise centre, sitting on an old tree stump, was a small, but beautiful sapphire.

The radiant blue colour that seemed to emanate from it tinted the heavy air surrounding. Its glassy surface shone in the sun, a blinding beacon to those who looked upon it. Its cleanly cut edges were perfect in every way. In the centre of it was a spiral of deeper blue, making your mind swim and lose all consciousness of yourself; all focus would be upon that one spot in the gem.

It was a humble stone, and the way it sat there made you think that it was ordinary. But ordinary was the furthest from the truth you could possibly get. This sapphire was time and space. It was war and peace, earth, wind, water, fire. Everything was the sapphire. The sapphire was everything. Without it, there would be nothing. Without it, the world would be blank.

---
Liam Johnston was clambering up a cliff in the Forest of Watch, and the people already at the top were closely looking at what he was doing. He had short, chocolate brown hair, and sea green eyes. His face was pale, and was unblemished, except for the beginning of a scar that travelled from the left of his chin to his Adam's Apple, forming a perfect half-heart shape. He went down a storm with the girls he knew, and as a well known ladies' man.

As he reached up his muscular arm to grip onto a rock above him, he noticed how far he was behind everybody, so making haste to catch up, clambered up the cliff onto a small ledge where everybody had just started the descent.

Liam just managed to catch one of his friends, and his breath quickly, as he stood at the top of the cliff.
'If you're going to get down by darklight, you're going to need to hurry!' the friend panted, clearly out of breath from the speed that he was expected to climb. Liam shook his head and grinned. It was early. It couldn't be coming now. But his friend was right. The stars were beginning to emerge, and darklight was approaching fast. The Nox birds of the Watch were waking, and narrating the day's death with a wall of harmonious singing.

Liam was mesmerised by this music, but knew that he couldn't wait much longer. The darklight took no prisoners. It was merciless and death bringing. So, keen to avoid the fate described in myths, scrambled down the rock face quickly. But as he reached halfway down, something was wrong. The certain clamour of his friends congregating at the bottom was gone. There was nothing to be heard except for the Nox birds in the background. And as if confronted by a terrible beast, it dawned on him.

Darklight had fallen. Destiny had been sealed.