However, I do own Esakatari, she is my character. No one may use her unless they have permission from me. Lost
I opened my eyes; I had no idea how long we had been sleeping here. I looked around trying to remember where the hell we were. Above me…the white cherry blossom tree was still just as beautiful as when we first got her; then I remembered something about a cave that we had passed yesterday, "Oh, that's right! We stopped here for the night! And if I remember correctly…Kadaj doesn't even know where we are." I looked to ether side. Kadaj wasn't where he was sleeping night the night before. I don't really know why I listened to that Advent child…. I guess it was because I owed him my life since he saved me from falling off that cliff two years ago. When Cloud had so called 'accidentally' pushed me off, Kadaj had come running to save me and grabbed my arm just before I was beyond reach. When I was back up, I asked him why he saved me and he simply said that he liked my face; I didn't really like that answer but some how I knew that he as only kidding. As I thought about it, I felt something move around on my chest. I glanced down…it was Kadaj; he was asleep as I thought. But…he was breath was shallow and raspy …as if he was having a nightmare. He sometimes squeezed his eyes tightly and moaned. "Kadaj?" He didn't move, "Kadaj!" He still didn't move. Suddenly, I heard a noise from behind. "Kadaj!" I shook him awake.
"Huh? What? What's the matter?"
"Shhh!" I said.
He listened quietly for a moment, "What is it?"
"There's something moving around here." I answered. He looked unbelievingly at me, but then there was another sound closer than the first. "There!" I said pointing towards a tree. "What do you think it is?"
"I'm not sure…I'm gonna check it out though." He crouched down and started to creep up to the tree. As he got close, he stopped just behind the tree.
"What is it?" I whispered.
"Shhh." He looked over; unexpectedly he pulled out his sword and darted around the tree. I heard his sword cut threw flesh. It was a sickeningly eerie sound that sent a shiver down my spine; then there was silence again. He came back around a split second later with blood on his black leather outfit; it looked like a pair of bell-bottoms fused with a long sleeved shirt with belts around his chest and legs to me. It looked a little uncomfortable and hard to maintain, since leather was so hard to wash. The belts that went around his chest had pads where they crossed his shoulders. I called them 'dragon scales' 'because that's what they looked like. He often says that real dragon scales are smaller and harder than what he has but I disagree with him. Besides, I should know what real dragon scales looked like since I lived with the large beasts for a while. His black leather gloves had blood on them also.
"Is it dead?" I asked.
"Yeah, it's dead." He said that as he walked back, then he wiped off his blade before putting it back into its purplish-black sheath. He walked over to his backpack and pushed his pale hair back from his green slit eyes as he looked for some thing, he'd been carrying that thing the whole time we had been on this trip, which was over a year now. A moment later, he pulled out a knife that he only used when he was going to skin some thing.
"What was it?"
"Just a deer…but at lest we have some thing to eat now." He turned and walked back to the tree. I pulled my black leather bound legs in until I looked like a ball. I hated killing animals to eat but I wasn't about to start complaining just yet either. I hadn't eaten meat for two weeks and Kadaj hadn't had any for nearly a month. He had been giving up the better part of his food so that I could eat better. Still, I didn't have to watch him cut it up as I did one time…I could never look at that particular knife again after I saw him do that.
"Esakatari? Could you hand me my backpack?" he called out.
I ran over with the bag, after I put it down behind him I said, "I'm gonna look around here if you don't mind?"
"Fine by me." He said with out looking up, focusing on ripping the hide from his kill. I left him with a shudder; turning I was just about to leave when Kadaj came out from behind the tree saying. "Wait…one thing…if you see anything weird or see any one at all, come back here right away."
"Yes sir." I jumped off the boulder I was standing on and ran to the cave I had seen on the way to camp last night. I didn't really know why but something about the cave attracted me when I first saw it. I had been wanting to go explore it ever since. "I wonder what's in there." I asked my self when I got up near it. What Kadaj had said before we set out on our little journey started coming back to me.
"If some thing strange happens to you…and you don't even know what it is…then watch your self but go for it! If Worse comes to worse I'll save you. But often times Jenova gives people tasks that may seem odd to them but that's only because we don't yet fully understand mother and he mission." I stopped just before I walked in…I also remembered something else he had told me, "But don't forget…some times the very things that you could be attracted to can also be an enchantment, and I might not be able to help you if you get sucked into one of those. Depending on the enchantment." Nevertheless, I walked on in any way. The cool air almost froze me but I could feel some thing pull me along as I walked deeper and deeper into the cavern. The walls seemed to have paintings on them telling a story. From what I could make out of it, it was a tale of a dragon, which seemed to be beating down on a town below. I saw something that looked like Lord Sephiroth in this mural but I didn't think it was him…Lord Sephiroth was old…but not that old! As I walked on I tried to think of the possibilities that could be at the end of this walk…all I could think of was chicken eggs. I tried to make my self think about something else but my mind kept going back to chicken eggs of all the stupid things! Yet, I kept going for who knows what reason. As I got to an opening in the wall, I thought I heard Kadaj call out my name. I ignored it and went on in, "It could be an enactment trying to get me away from here."
I came to a dead end, "Now what?" I felt along the wall. Then a sharp edge almost cut my finger. There was a break in the surface, I looked inside and couldn't see any thing. So, I inched my way in. It wasn't long but it was a painful crawl before I came out the other side in a cavern full of crystals and any other precious stones. I forgot about how my stomach hurt from all the cuts I had gotten. I shouldn't have worn my battle shirt out here; there was nothing around my abs to keep me from getting hurt. "This place looks like a dragon's hording room." I said out loud. I felt a pull to the center of the gold pile. But I could also hear Kadaj's voice sounding increasingly concerned.
"Esakatari! Where are you!"
Still, I didn't answer. "I'll just see what it is and I'll get out. For all I know…that voice is just a way of getting me away from here when I should keep going!" I walked to the middle of the horded treasure and found a nest of dragon eggs! "Oh my! Yes!" I picked up the four dragon eggs. A thought ran through my head after they where in my pockets, "First of all: Kadaj probably won't let me have the four of them even for a second. The mother dragon might want to raise them." But before I got out, I saw their mother…lying dead on the floor. "Oh no…." I let out a hushed whisper as I silently mourned for the great beast.
"Esakatari! Oh my God! Where could she be? Esakatari!" I could hear Kadaj screaming at the top of his lungs for me. I found a crack in the roof of the cavern and crawled out. "Esakatari!" He screamed out one last time, his face was red from shouting so much along with worrying. His pupils were almost not there, they where so small from his concern and he had his sword out.
"Here I am." I said cheerfully. He spun around and looked up at me, he let out a huge sigh, smiled for a moment, and then he got mad again. He darted up the hill towards me, "What the freakin' hell were you doing? You cause so much trouble!" He demanded as he put his sword away.
"I was saving the dragon babies." I replied, hoping that if I said 'save' that he would let me keep them.
He stared into my eyes "Saving…what?" he questioned with a darker face.
"Dragon babies." I repeated, he glared at me. "Oh come on Kadaj! If I leave them there they'll die." I tried to tap into his sensitive side, which didn't work.
"No! It's probably better if they DID die!" He turned and walked away "Leave them and let's go!"
"Oh…I'm sorry little guys." I said pulling them out one by one. I started to cry; Kadaj didn't understand why I had to save them… or even why I cared about them. My people had been training and raising dragons for years and years. I was always told that there was no such thing as a bad dragon if they where well looked after by good people. I always wanted to raise some of my own but I had to leave before I could get my hands on even one dragon egg. I got up slowly and started to walk away.
Kadaj stopped and without even turning around to look at me said, "Alright! You can keep them!" He growled.
"Yes! Oh thank you Kadaj!" I gave him a big hug.
"Hey! No touching for more than five seconds! Got it? I don't like hugging!" I felt like bringing up the fact that he was sleeping on me last night but I didn't. "Let's get back…. If I had known that while you were gone you would get me so concerned that I would have to go find you. And then after I found you that you would be talking me into taking care of dragon chicks I would have said no!" When his back was turned, I stuck my tongue out at him. I smiled as I gathered the bluish white rock-like eggs up and put them in my pocket. Kadaj didn't know but I stole his black baggy pants earlier when he wasn't looking and he still hadn't noticed…at lest not yet.
"Thank God I DID steal his pants or I'd be having a hard time getting these back to camp." I whispered as I closed the pocket with the flap.
"Did you say some thing?" Kadaj called back after I stood up.
"I was talking to my self." I yelled back.
"That can be a sign of insanity." He said as he walked on. It irritated me he never listened when I wanted him to but the moment I start talking to myself he's all ears.
I ran up after him, "You done with the deer yet?"
"Mostly, there isn't any real point in cutting it up completely yet." That aggravated me too! When he didn't finish the job he'd hang it on a tree somewhere and some how I would always find it and scream, and then he'd laugh at me for being so scared!
"Well tell me where you hung it up so that I can avoid it."
"But then I wouldn't get my laughs in." He teased.
"Kadaj!" I kicked him as hard as I could in his lower back. "Ow! Okay! Don't get vicious! It's over on my side of the rock so don't go near there unless you need a good scare." I didn't go over there often any way…now I wasn't going to go near there at all! "We're gonna stay here a while until I can find where we are on the map." I couldn't help but feel like he really had no idea where we were and that we were lost out here.
"Lord Sephiroth would have known where we were." I whispered, trying to keep Kadaj from hearing.
"SEPHIROTH ISN'T HERE!" He roared at me. He whipped around and glared at me, his eye has contracted into tiny slits again, this time I thought that he was trying to burn me with his gaze. The last thing he ever wanted to hear was how Sephiroth would have done things better. He'd been told that his whole life and he was sick of hearing it. I often had brought it up to him and then he'd flare up like that.
"Sorry." I said.
"Well ya' should be! If it weren't for me, we'd be DEAD by now! So shut up!" I dropped my head; I had pushed him way too far now. I wish this didn't happen as often as it did. I just shut up as he told me to.
When we got back and I walked behind my side of the rock, I sat down and pulled out the dragon eggs, "I think there three days old already." I was trying to avoid Kadaj because he was still mad at me. I wish that some times Kadaj knew that I'm an Advent too, and that Jenova's life cells where inside me as well so I also was part of their Advent stream. Even though I came from the humans and I wasn't born with the life cells, some thing happened to me and Mother's cells entered my body so I at least had that if nothing else, yet unlike Kadaj, I didn't have a purpose to live. I was lost in a world of faces and of Advent children. But in the past few months, my eyes had been changing into slits just like Kadaj's eyes; along with my eye color, which was sapphire blue, was now turning green as well. I sat there looking at my eggs; I felt a burning in my right palm where the cells had entered me then suddenly I felt like I was going to be sick for no apparent reason. I had felt this way before…when my eyes started changing from normal to slits. I bent over, I though I was going to throw up. I moaned just a little bit,
"Esakatari?" Kadaj asked from behind the rock, "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Leave me alone." The feeling got worse.
"Esakatari?"
"I said leave me alone!" Yelling that out made it worse,
"Esakatari! Why are you lying to me?" He jumped over and grabbed me as I fell over.
"Let…me…go." I fought, but not for long. I felt so weak that I just fell back into his arms.
"What's going on?" He asked looking anxious.
"It's not your fault if that's what your wondering. It's been this way since that accident two years ago."
"What accident two years ago?"
"Aaaah!" I cringed, I felt like I was on fire. "There was an accident two years ago…some of Jenova's life cells entered into my body."
"Don't fight. Let it go." He said holding me down.
"What's happening to me?" I couldn't see very well and I was getting scared,
"This planet is trying to stop you from growing any more." He wiped my forehead off from all the sweat.
"What? Does this mean that I'm going to die?"
"No, it means that you're not going to feel too good for a while."
"No kidding! Aaaah!" I cringed again.
"I said don't fight it!"
"Shut up! You don't know what you're talking about Kadaj!" I snapped, I gave him a hard, fixed stare; it felt like my eyes they were blazing.
"Fine, you're just going to tire your self out though. And if I know you…you don't like to be vulnerable to some one else. This is what you are when you can't move."
"Yeah! Well I'm not going to stay here long! No sir!" I struggled and struggled with the sickness inside that tortured me but I didn't get anywhere. Plus as time drew on I felt my strength leave very quickly. I stopped fighting, and then I started falling asleep, "No." I whispered, "No not here, not now." I didn't want to sleep in his arms; I would be unarmed and it was the same as sleeping in a barred enclosure. But I felt like I couldn't help my self. I started to drift off; I was awake enough to feel him wrap some thing warm around my cold and somewhat lifeless body. His gentle hands held me close to him. I snuggled into his leather-clad chest, almost immediately the pain was gone and I feel asleep. I entered the Advent stream world, a place where I could meet with or talk to the other Advents. I was lying there, not really awake but still not really asleep either,
"Esakatari." I thought I heard Sephiroth's voice whisper behind me. There was nothing there except white light; I felt a hand press onto my head. It was too big to be Kadaj's. More hands came and touched me and I felt a power surge threw my body. "The others share your pain. You don't have to struggle with it alone." I heard Sephiroth's voice say as the hands left me. I closed my eyes; I just wanted to sleep for a little while now.
"Wake up! I need to talk to you." Jenova's commanding voice came from the white abyss. "Rise, you have a task given to you now." She continued, "The dragons you found where not discovered by accident. I gave those to you so that you would raise them. They will be rider dragons. You are to train them to be so when they hatch. Do not tell any one else what I have told you about the dragons. And about you body. The pain will pass in time." She left me, now things in my life changed. I no longer was without purpose, I had a reason to live and die. A part of me started waking up and I could still feel something holding me, and to some extent, I knew it was Kadaj. I fought my self to wake up but it didn't work.
"Kadaj. If you're still holding me, and you can hear me, let me go. I don't want to be vulnerable, don't make me be defenseless to you." I felt like he was still cradling me. "Let me go." I pleaded; I struggled to wake up again. I felt like I was stuck inside a cage and I DIDN'T like it. "Let go, let go, please!" I kept fighting. Once again, my strength absented from me. "No, not again." I remembered no more. When I woke up the moon was shining. I was still in Kadaj's arms; he probably cradled me the entire time I was asleep, he had also fallen into a slumber. I tried to move around but something held my feet together. I guessed it had been what ever he wrapped me up with. Kadaj woke up from my persisting struggle.
"Help…I've fallen and I can't get up." I said with a humiliated face. He smiled then unwrapped me. He had me enfolded in his coat. I got up and stretched.
"You feel better?" Kadaj asked rubbing my shoulders.
"Yes, what happened? How long was I asleep?"
"About two days. I told Sephiroth you where in trouble 'because you were feeling the growth pains of an Advent…I guess you heard him."
"Yeah, and I guess Jenova decided to show up." Kadaj stopped and turned me around to face him, his eyes slits contracted.
"You meet Mother?"
"Well, not really…she just…talked to me." Kadaj dropped his eyes and looked away.
"Not very many people…get to meet Mother like that."
"Would you be another person who has?"
He turned, "Yes."
"What happens now?"
"Mother will tell us." He picked up the map. "But right now? We just have to find out here the hell we are here so that we can move on."
Hey! Hello? I warned you that I'd only put up more if people REALLY liked this one. I have the chapters already written I just want you to tell me if it's worth my time putting it up okay?