Welcome to Gaia! ::

Out of the shadows in front of her walked a dark figure. She clicked a little as she walked and was much taller than the girl. She loomed over her for a moment before she spoke.

"My darling child. It's been six or seven months since I've been able to see your precious little face. You look hungry, though. Why don't you come with dear old grandma for some milk and cookies?" Granny smiled darkly at the girl.

"Yes, little one!" Granny exclaimed, moving toward Mika and giving her a big hug, her limbs clicking strangely. "It's been so long! Have you grown? Granny missed you! I can feel your power, dear! You've been training? I'm sure you have a lot of questions for Granny, but I think we should get somewhere more comfortable first. Somewhere where I can get some food into that skinny little body of yours. What have you been eating? Sticks? When I found the morph, I thought perhaps she'd been taking care of you! But now I see that---"

"Synra? Oh. Morph. I found her earlier and I brought her to a dear friend of mine that's been taking wonderful care of me. I'd really like you to meet him, dear, he's just wonderful. And you need some food. Tokka is such a dreary place, honey, Mordache is much better. Let's get going. The door is this way." Granny took Mika's shoulders and began moving her in a direction. "Come along, dear, faster, now."

"Yes, yes, dear." For the rest of the time, the two walked in silence. They reached the door, and Granny simply opened it. She didn't use any keys, but her staff glowed with an unusual light. When Mika questioned it, Granny did not answer.

"We're not going to go to Mordache yet, dear. Come along." They went through the door. A light shone as they walked through. When they came out, they were at the mouth of a deep cave. Granny took Mika's hand and led her into the cave. They walked down a narrow passageway. The ground was slippery, so Granny held tight to Mika's hand. "Careful dear." She said. Down the sides, between the walkway and the wall, was nothing. Blackness as far down as the eye can see. In the distance, they could hear water falling, echoing as it plummeted into the abyss.

As they came closer to the end of the long walkway, they could see a gigantic circular area, in which was a giant shrine featuring a statue of a terrible bird-like god on a pedastal. Massive amounts of water fell from above, falling directly into the black abyss below around the shrine area.
A dark man stood directly in front of the shrine, facing away from them.

The cloaked gentleman stood up straight, hands clasped behind his back as he stared up at the statue. The room into which the slippery, treacherous tunnel led was enormous, at least two, three hundred yards wide here, and far wider at the bottom. A shaft of light fell vertically about fifty feet in all directions directly out from the shrine, and the chamber was lit enough to see the long, slippery, narrow walkway over the darkness as the two women approached.

Five waterfalls were visible around the edges of the chamber, higher up. The melt waters off the massive glacier on the higher mountain beside this one poured water into underground rivers, and they burst out into this very chamber. The long walk toward the platform, which was about three times as wide as the shaft of light, gradually removed the illusion of the statue's size. From afar, it looked small, but as one approached it became clear that it was enormous-- five or six times the size of a man, carved from stone, a horrible, oppressive behemoth amid the terrified human statues.

"Such craftsmanship is a delight," the cloaked figure said quietly as the women completed their long trek across the narrow walkway. He turned slowly to face them, smiling. The previously wrinkled face had become smooth, young and handsome (though his hair still fell long around his face), and he smiled as he spread his arms, taking a few steps toward them. "Margarette, my closest of advisors... and you have brought your granddaughter." His smile grew wider as his eyes narrowed, and he took Mika's hands in his own. What were once gnarled claws were softer with fair, smooth skin, though they remained insistently claw-like on some level. "Margarette has told me so much about you, Mika. I am known as Loki." He lifted her hands to his lips and gently kissed them.

He seemed to turn without actually moving his feet, which were still obscured by his robe. It was too fast and smooth to be real, and then he grandly swept back toward the statue at the center. He beckoned with one arm, calling over the dull roar of the waterfalls, "Come, we have much to discuss!"

The imposing man paused and turned uncannily again, then slowly approached Mika and took her shoulder. "She is a doll, Mika. It's true. I put her into this body to save her life, you must understand... and I am not yet able to craft her a new body. Some very bad people took your grandmother's life, Mika... That doll is really and truly still your grandmother. Please... try to see her for who she is." He squeezed the young girl's shoulders gently, then smiled and stepped back. His cloak wrapped around himself and shifted, reformed, and settled around his now handsome body as a smooth black suit with a red shirt and shiny black shoes while a mage's black shoulder cape settled over his shoulder.

"After all... not everything is what it appears to be." He smiled as his bedraggled hair twisted into the air and rearranged itself to fall around his face in curled, smooth locks.

The man known as Loki smiled and turned, leading both women back to the statue. "I want to show you, Mika. Come with me." In a blatant display of power, Loki raised his hands, pressing his index fingertips together and pulling open the fabric of reality like a curtain right in front of the statue. He stepped through, beckoning to them to follow.

They stood very suddenly on a cliff overlooking the city of Eyris. Far below, they could see the bustle of carts moving in and out as the daily commerce carried on. "Do you remember when your sister came to this town with her morphs? Do you remember a guild of warriors... known as Fire Emblem Forever?" His eyes narrowed, his tone dark and forbidding.