Okay, I just had my first game as catcher, and I think I'm more dirt than human, but Mianite Anniversary week rolls on! Today is alt-streamer day, which means that I have to somehow pick my favorite alt. I think I'm going to go with... Nah, I'm kidding, I'm not going to pick. Same as yesterday, I'm going to go through each alt-streamer and write them a fic. First off, Alyssa! When Mot first came through the portal, I had an idea for a flip-fic. This one is an AU (of an AU) in which Alyssa comes through instead. Andor just happens to be there. Feels ensue. -~- Alyssa's everything hurt. Her back was aching, her chest was refusing to rise and fall the right way, and she was 99% sure she had a concussion of some sort. What had she been doing? She'd woken up early for a training session with Jeriah and Mot, who was grumpy as he usually was around the Mianitee. She had visited Ianite again, who'd been helping her with her most recent growing pains. Skipper Redbeard had taken her sailing briefly (Alyssa liked him a lot- she had begun to think of him as an older brother), and then she and Spark had worked on the book of adventures. The book from her childhood had gone a long way- the stories that she, Alva, and Andor had created were being rewritten with Spark's help so that when Alyssa next saw the twins, she'd be able to show them a much better version of the book, complete with the adventures of her ten years in the realm of Mianite. After that, she'd been heading to the castle she shared with Mot, when a group of pigmen had escaped from their nether portal. Jeriah and Mot were fighting off a handful of them, and she'd ran to help. Mot was about to be hit by a pigman when she'd jumped in front of him, getting knocked through the portal. The next thing she knew, a man who looked like Spark was standing over him. "Ow," She whimpered, clutching her head. "Spark, why are you so young?" "CountryBat!" He exclaimed loudly. Alyssa winced at the noise. Everything was still sensitive, but it was wearing off. Above her, the windmill turned in the wind. "The windmill...?" She trailed off, thinking of her home land. There, the windmill was where they went to play their games and write their stories. Could she be home? She propped herself up, rubbing her eyes and looking around. She almost didn't believe her eyes. After long last, Dagrun stood before her eyes. Of course, much of the city was destroyed and changed, but she still recognized it. Much to her dismay, the castle where her best friends had lived was no more. "Is this Dagrun? Where are Andor and Alva?" She asked. The not-Spark looked confused. "Alva? But she's..." A young man stood behind not-Spark, staring intently at Alyssa. He looked slightly upset. Despite his much changed appearance and completely different wings, Alyssa knew her friend anywhere. "Andor!" She cried out, wanting to run and hug her friend, but noticed that he was upset and kept her distance. Andor looked up at her, his face filled with surprise and confusion. "You... Know me? You're real and... Alyssa?" The lack of uncertainty in his words broke Alyssa's heart. She struggled to keep it out of her voice, saying, "Yeah! I know it's been ten years, but come on, man! We're best friends. Speaking of, where's Alva? You two never used to be apart." "Alva..." Andor trailed off. "Alva's gone." "Gone? When is she coming back?" Alyssa asked, not getting what Andor. "She's dead," Andor said in a small voice. "What? No, Andor, stop joking around. Where is she?" Alyssa asked again, more serious this time. "She's dead! She's been dead since you left!" Andor cried, starting to lose his cool. Andor had been struggling with his memories as of late. After learning that his mind had been manipulated and that he was made to forget the fact that Ianite was his grandmother, he had been trying to piece together what was true and what wasn't. Alyssa had been so tangled up with Ianite and what his father referred to as 'false gods' that he hadn't been able to remember her in years. He did now, but he hadn't been fully sure that she was even real until that very moment. Everything he had known for the past ten years was coming apart all at once, and he was on the verge of breaking down. "No," Alyssa whimpered in a small voice. She was blinking back tears. "After you left, everything changed. My... Ianite lost control of the taint, and my mother and Alva... They were killed. After their funeral, my father changed everything. He became a Mianitee and made me... I'm still not even sure..." Andor struggled to explain. "I forgot everything, Alyssa. I forgot about Ianite, Spark, a lot about Martha, and you. I didn't remember you. It's still hard, and I still have trouble telling what's true and what's not. The only reason I even remember at all...." The not-Spark tried to comfort him. "It's all right, Andor. You're safe." Andor tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace. "I'm glad you left, Alyssa. If you'd stayed, you would've got broken too." Alyssa was tearing up. "Come here," She whispered, almost tackling Andor in a hug. "I missed you so much. I'm so sorry, Andor. I'm so so sorry." Andor hugged her back. He was crying. "It's okay. It's okay." - Later, after Alyssa had returned to her former home and visited Alva's grave, she decided to go to the windmill for old time's sake. She still had the book in her bag, luckily. Maybe if she read it in there, she could pretend everything was still okay. Andor was already in there when she arrived in the upstairs part of the building. "Oh, hello, Alyssa," He greeted. "Hey, Andor," She replied. Both of their eyes were tinged red from their tears. Andor was sitting on the hay bale he, Alyssa and Alva would spend hours sitting on while writing their stories. "I have the book," Alyssa told Andor, sitting next to him and pulling the ancient thing out of her bag. "I haven't seen this in years," Andor admitted, taking it from her and flipping through it. "The first part is all what we wrote when we were little, but the last part is a memoir, as Spark called it. It's a bunch of our best memories from we were younger, as well as some of mine from the other world," Alyssa explained. "Maybe it will help with your memory?" "Yeah, it will," Andor agreed. "Thank you." "It's as much my book as it is yours," Alyssa told him. She eyed his wings, noticing how they were small and white. Andor's wings had been purple before, and she knew that his wings should have grown with him. "Can I..." She began. "Can I ask about the wings." Andor looked up at the ceiling, trying to figure out how to tell the story. He figured the best way to tell her was to just go for it. "While you were gone, my relationship with the king, I mean, my father got really bad," Andor began. "He gave me the title of 'family disappointment', and for a while, I thought I lived up to it. I knew what he was doing was wrong, but I had always been terrified to speak up. Then, these other-versions of you came here. Jordan was one of them. He became a really good friend, and gave me the confidence to speak up for Ianite. I did. You should've seen me. I gave this whole speech, proclaiming that I'd forever believe in Ianite and such, and as I did, I was able to form a sort of force field around me, pushing back the lieutenant that was after me. That was the first tip off that I was a demigod. It didn't last long. I got tired really quickly, and fell. The lieutenant took me prisoner and brought me to the Inertia." Alyssa gasped. "The Inertia? That was Dianite's factory. Why would he take you there?" "Things have changed since you were gone," Andor pointed out. "Mianite took it over and converted into a prison camp. It's bad, Alyssa. So bad. There were kids younger than you there, some barely even able to walk. There were people everywhere, being tortured for only not following Mianite. It was sick. They tried to break me with excessive work, beatings, starvation, and solitude. At first, it didn't work. But then..." Andor trailed off, staring out at the wall. Alyssa took his hand and squeezed it. "It's okay. You're here." Andor smiled weakly and squeezed her hand in return before continuing. "My father came to my cell one day and ask me one last time if I'd accepted Mianite as my one true god. I screamed at him, asking him why he'd done this to his only living child. He ignore it. He told me what was about to happen had to be done and then they brought me to a new room, with a saw on the table... They... They tied me down and cut off my wings. It was slow and oh, gods, it hurt. I kept screaming out, but they wouldn't listen. My father was THERE! Watching me get stripped of the one thing I had left and he just STOOD THERE AND WATCHED!" Andor had begun to sob, screaming in random intervals. "HE WAS MY FATHER, AND HE DIDN'T STOP EVEN WHEN I SCREAMED FOR THEM TO JUST KILL ME INSTEAD! It hurt so bad, I thought I was dying. I broke. I lost my fight. Jordan and his friends freed me, and Jordan gave me new wings, but... It's the only... It's the only memory I have that is crystal clear. Funny how that works. Alyssa was crying as well. She wrapped Andor into a hug, and whispered to him, "It's all right, Andor. You're broken, but that's okay. You'll heal stronger. You can do this, all right? You can soar and prove to them that they can't clip your wings." "Gods, I missed you so much," Andor cried. "I missed you, too."
