"So, what did you say your name was again?" "Audrey Ronan. You?" "Rikh Kaitun, though the spelling trips people up sometimes." "I'm the same, some people mistakenly say Au-BREY instead of Au-DREY, haha." "What was your home life like? You said something about not having a place to be...?" "Yeah, it's... a long story. I think the best I can say is it's more... 'modern' than this world? It's hard to describe without mentioning things that aren't, well... invented yet, I guess??" "Hm... I guess that makes sense. Otherworld travel isn't THAT far off of a theory, especially with what some citizens mentioned about..." "What do you mean by that?"
"Well... an odd rumor's been around for a couple years about the land 'existing before itself'; mentions of 'an Aethera before Aethera'." "Before-- huh?" "One of the Deities, Phantasy, reportedly had something to do with it after a group of heroes went to her domain. Viscious spawn of nightmare energy were terrorizing the land thanks to Phantasy herself HAVING a nightmare, her being the Deity of sleep and dreams." "Fascinating... n-not the terror part though, aheheh..." "Hahah, yeah... I wish I could've seen it myself. People made the guess that defeating her nightmare caused that huge burst of magic to spread across the land, as they remember a huge light enveloping all of Aethera." "Some people panicked, some didn't notice until they got hit, and a majority got all of their memories wiped... but whatever selection process was used made some folks retain memories of their past lives."
"That's incredible..! Who were the heroes that went to help her? Did anyone else return in this 'newer' Aethera?" "I asked as many people as I could, but not a lot could give me names. They think some current heroes like Leon and Luna were in this 'pre-Aethera', but I got a lot of 'I can't remember his or her name' and 'I'm struggling to remember what they looked like'." "One person made mention of some... weird green guy? Said his face was white and he was some Beastkin of draconic descent." "Wait, K-... No, wait..." "Do you... know who that is?" "Y-Yeah, uh... The group that helped me here knows who he is and told me about him. Has anyone here seen him around now?" "I don't think so, no. There's Isaac, there's Alna, there's a slew of other faces people have recognized as 'Aethera's heroes', but no green-wearing Beastkin anywhere." "(...that might explain his absence, then. Maybe I-)"
"His absence..?" "S-Sorry! Did I say that out loud...?" "It's fine, Audrey, it's okay; you don't have to explain if it's private." "Alright, I apologize... Again it's just-- difficult, I guess, given how different our times are; it'd be really hard to explain how important Kade is to someone living centuries behind... n-no offense, Rikh." "None taken, I promise. Maybe it's more of this otherworldly complicated stuff, but even that's enough of an explanation for me to understand." "Thank you... I appreciate that." "I guess I could try breaking it down if we have the time." "I'd say we do, yeah; I gotta meet up with friends in a couple hours, so we can talk here until then." "Alrighty, I'll try my best."