A/N (2015): This story is about as done as it's going to get. Despite the lengthy pauses between chapters, I'm oddly satisfied with the ending. Inspired by a piece of Aerrow/Cyclonis fanart (deviantart) called "The Odd Couple." The link is on my profile page.

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Passacaglia
Part One, Chapter One

"You killed my best knight." The first words out of her mouth, the blank stare that suffocates the disbelief hidden inside her chest; the boy whom she cannot accept as a man holds his blades downward by his sides and provides no reply.

A standstill, a moment of dim light and creeping darkness as he remains two paces away from the stone archway and watches her slide off her metallic throne to greet him. Everyone has abandoned them. She is not sorry for her loss of the Dark Ace. In some ways, the girl who is now a young woman retains some of her teenage innocence. The tragedy is Cyclonis does not know it. He stands at the ready and starts to think either she has kept her head in the crystal clouds too long or -

"I knew this was coming."

He has watched her grow through the years, watches her from afar. He knows her this way. She cannot say the same, for she chose to stay anchored to her land instead. But now, right now, such indifference for a child who came to the throne at the impressionable age of fourteen, what a lack of compassion for one who swore one day to rule the Atmos.

He speaks for the first time since this fateful meeting in this black castle. A smirk that is all too familiar slides down his face and makes its home there. The girl almost shivers – almost. At least, she thinks she should.

He says,

"Oh?"

And the primeval bells of the citadel ring.