"It'll do us no good to go in there like this. We better camp here tonight, if anything happens we're close enough to know about it."
Serge nodded at the Dragoon and sat down heavily upon a large rock, just outside the only entrance to Opassa Beach. The beast that awaited had spent endless time beyond those waves, it could wait another night.
"We'll destroy it Serge. Look what we've done so far. We've destroyed fate itself, Lavos' hours are numbered," the vibrant musician said as he laid his guitar next to Serge's rock and folded his legs to drop to the earth at the unlikely adventurer's feet.
"Nikki's right," Karsh added, laying the handle of his axe across his shoulders and draping his wrists up over it. "Lavos doesn't stand a chance against us."
The boy on the rock nodded slightly, looking toward a small patch of sand just beside Nikki's fingers. 'But what if we fail...?'
Karsh swung his axe down off this shoulders and leaned it against a nearby tree, grabbing a few small twigs he set out to make a fire between two nearby rocks. The white rocks would reflect the heat back toward them as they slept.
"We won't fail." Nikki said quietly, peering up at him.
Serge's eyes shifted away from the small patch of sand. 'How can you be so sure?' They seemed to say.
The rock star shook his head, letting it fall to the side slightly as he spoke to him. "We've done so much, Serge. We've awoken civilizations, defeated dragons, destroyed and reopened holes in time and space. We've overcome obstacles that we never would have dreamed our bodies could endure. We can destroy Lavos."
Serge closed his eyes and laid his head in his hand. It was too much. It was all too much. Time and time again through this entire ordeal he'd expected to wake up. He'd prayed each time they'd camped that in the morning he awaken in his own bed, to the sweet smell of his mother's cooking, and everything would be the way it was. He felt Nikki's hand laid upon his knee.
"After this, maybe it will all go back to normal. Maybe, Serge, it will seem like nothing ever happened."
'Maybe the dream will finally be over...'
Serge opened his eyes again and looked out toward the beach, toward the invisible hole in time, toward the point where it all began. Leena was standing there, in his mind, and she was talking to him about their childhood. 'A childhood I wasn't supposed to have.' The thought stung him.
Nikki peered at him. He had the eyes of a mermaid, large and soulful. Those eyes were shining with concern as he tried to move into Serge's mind. He knew that he couldn't. He was many things, but none of them were telepathic. It was different with Serge though. He almost felt telepathic sometimes when he looked him. It was as if his words were screaming out to him from somewhere below the surface.
Serge's eyes were closed again.
'You're hiding from me Serge. Don't hide from me.'
"You think too much." He said quietly, just loud enough for it to be heard over Karsh's rather loud attempt at starting a fire. An Innate Green was not the person you wanted to try and start a fire out of only sticks and flint. You would think they'd be quite good at it but something about the destroying power of fire, Nikki thought, must have some deterring effect on them.
Serge shook his head and pushed his hand back through his hair.
"Don't waste tonight in worrying. This could be the last night that any of us ever have together, knowing who the others are at least. When we meet, after all this over, it could be as if it were the first time. Perhaps we'll never meet at all."
Serge was startled by this thought. He'd been so absorbed in wanting everything the way it was, he hadn't stopped to look at what he'd gained on this wild trip. His eyes lifted to Karsh who was cursing at the fire and seemed to be threatening it with eminent suffering if it didn't light. If all of this was over after tonight, then Karsh would again be one of the Acacia Dragoons, Viper Manor standing proud among te cliffs. Without Lynx to corrupt them there would be no dishonour. Would he ever see him? Probably not. He might perhaps catch sight of him at a parade in Termina, but he would mean nothing to him then. There would be no sparkle of recognition, not if things would be as Nikki suggested.
His eyes moved to the large eyes that were peering up at him still. Those eyes had been with him almost from the very beginning of it all. He'd come to trust Nikki more than he'd trusted anyone, even Kid. No matter where they were going or what they would face, he knew he could count on Nikki and that guitar there, at his right hand. In the transformed body that was once his father's he'd thought he'd lost Nikki's companionship, but having returned to himself his friend had readily returned to his side, as if nothing had been a miss.
'Nikki...'
Nikki smiled, the sweet smile reserved for those he truly cared about. It wasn't the smooth, sexy smile he wore in all those publicity posters. This smile came from somewhere much deeper.
Serge closed his eyes. 'Don't look at me like that. What if you're right...?"
Nikki's long slender fingers touched Serge's cheek. "I didn't mean to make you think even more."
'It's a side effect of being me, I'm afraid.'
Nikki's palm slipped open to lay against his cheek as he rose to his knees. "If it is our last night as who we have become, why waste it with sadness?"
Serge drew a long breathe and tried to assuage the tremor in his chest as Nikki's finger slipped back into his hair. "We are no longer the pawns of fate, Serge. We do this because we want to make things right," he heard him whisper. He could feel the warmth radiating from the musician's skin as he drew closer. "So we should be happy tonight, be glad for what we are about to achieve." His breath played across his earlobe now, guitarist's fingers slipping to rest across the back of his neck. He opened his eyes and drew back slowly.
Nikki's smile shone softly through the escaping light of the sun, his eyes gently sparkling like the pools of his birth. Serge's own eyes fell slowly closed. Only one night to savor what he'd found here. Only one night and he would never experience this level of companionship again. Even if they did meet, and did somehow become friends in this new world they would go back to, any of them, it would never be the same as it is now. There are few things in life that can bring people into so close a bond. It would never be like this again.
Karsh had already settled in close to the fire, a quiet but steady snore would keep cadence throughout the night. The soft hum of the evening insects was quieting into the more peaceful sound of the waves at night, their liquid fingers stroking endlessly the white sand shore where even the angel's lose their way.
After tonight there would be nothing of this. After tomorrow this place would not be a memory. After tomorrow this place would be cease to have ever been. Tonight however it was here, and it was alive. Even if it was in vain, Serge thought as he felt Nikki's painted lips close on his, tonight would be a night to remember.