Quartern Systir
Disclaimer: I do not own Sorcerer Stabber Orphen or any of its characters.
A/n: I really should not be starting this. I have so much more to work on in other writing avenues. But this story would not leave me alone. For reference: this piece is most heavily influenced by the anime, as I have never been able to read the light novels (silly American, only knowing one language), and the manga was never finished. (It is mostly in the feeling of the first season, but I will probably not discount events of Revenge.) However, there may be elements from those other sources (a.k.a. through second and third sources via the internets). And, I will be adding my own little twist on other things, of course. Enjoy!
"Things can fall apart, or threaten to, for many reasons, and then there's got to be a leap of faith. Ultimately, when you're at the edge, you have to go forward or backward; if you go forward, you have to jump together." ~Yo-Yo Ma
Chapter 1: A Leap in the Dark
The spray of the ocean rose in a tower before her. She watched as its base crumbled against the side of the cliff, and then she felt the topmost drops spill against her face. Right away, the ocean began to pull back the crashed wave. Cleao admired the view below her elevated perch.
"Don't tell me you're trying to take a bath in the ocean, Cleao. You'd have better luck taking the path down to the actual shoreline so that you could actually get in the water." Majic had his arms loosely crossed when he came up behind the blonde haired girl.
Unclasping her arms from around her bent legs, she turned toward him.
"Well, I could," she replied. "But I believe some incredible sorcerer went through all the trouble of making me a warm bath back at the house."
"An incredible sorcerer who didn't even have to use spells."
"Sorcerers," Cleao rolled her eyes, "the most big-headed creatures the world has ever known." But she was smiling.
Majic held out his hand to her with a laugh, and she took it. She did not miss the wince he gave as he lifted her up. Her gaze went to the clean bandage covering the cut above his left eye.
Keeping her thoughts to herself for once, "Thanks, Majic," she said rather.
Together, they walked away from the expansive sea, and toward their smaller house neighboring the water.
Even though she headed straight to her bath upstairs, once she was inside, Cleao noticed that Majic had managed to finish their dishes from dinner while she had made time to stare at the sea. She would never stop appreciating that about him. Quickly, she stripped out of her lightweight dress, almost even before she had closed the bathroom door. But she did not want Majic to be lonely.
"Majic!" Cleao called through the wood.
"What is it, Cleao? Water not warm enough for you?" teased the green-eyed male.
"No…I was just wondering what you were going to do while I try and get clean. Do you need me to be quick?"
"Take your time, Cleao. I'll just be down here reading a book."
"Alright." She leaped into the tub.
However, Cleao was rebellious by nature, so her bath was quicker that it may have usually been. And before he could finish his second chapter, Cleao stood before Majic in her cotton nightdress.
"I'll make us some tea," the blonde apparition in front of the sorcerer declared. He heard her softly humming in the kitchen as he went back to the unfinished chapter in his book.
When she came back a few minutes later with two heated mugs, he noticed that the darkened sky was trying to tell him the late hour, so he closed his book and put it down. Instead, he and Cleao conversed pleasantly for the next hour or so. They had cool and empty mugs by the time that their talk gently puttered out.
Majic rose first to put his mug in the sink; Cleao still cradled hers in her hands. Then he made his way back over to the woman seated at the table, and placed a chaste kiss upon the crown of her blonde hair.
"Goodnight, Cleao. I'll go to bed first." He walked upstairs.
"I'll be up soon, Majic," she softly replied.
She was looking up the dark staircase he had just ascended, but she was not seeing her home.
"Majic! What happened?!" Cleao was openly staring at his heavily bandaged hand. She had just bumped into him at the Totokanta markets, a nice surprise, but she really had not wanted to meet her friend injured.
Holding up his hand to her, he glanced at it. "Oh, this? Just a simple spell gone wrong." He had his usual smile on to laugh it off. "Guess I'll never be completely perfect. Haha."
"A humble sorcerer. I never thought I would see the day. Are you sure you're alright, Majic?"
"I'll live, Cleao. I promise."
She had no reasons to doubt his words; Majic hardly ever lied. She could remember more than once her teasing of his angelic appearance (read: naïve look).
"Well then, what have you been up to since we last saw each other, I mean besides attempting to blow yourself up?"
"Actually, I've been…"
Her first encounter with his pain; she had been a fool to have dropped the matter so easily that time. Well time had proved her to not be a fool for long. She tried hard to be entirely present in all the moments of the present.
Cleao could not keep back the sigh as she stood up to put her mug away and head upstairs.
Before she went into the bedroom, the blue-eyed woman felt herself stalling just a bit in the bathroom; her nightly rituals took maybe a few more minutes than what was routine. She finished and shut out the light. She took a deep breath before she entered the bedroom in the dark.
Majic was asleep in the large bed placed at the center of the room. The bed was excessively big for just the one person lying in it, but he needed it that way. Cleao headed straight for it.
The young woman kneeled beside the resting sorcerer's form. She dropped her head into her folded arms draped over the edge of the bed and smile softly. A few silent moments passed. Then Cleao ran a hand gently through his short, blonde hair.
"Goodnight, Majic," she whispered.
Afterwards, Cleao quietly got to her feet to give one last look downwards.
She did not get into the bed with him then. They never slept in the same bed. Once, before things had aged, she had thought that her lying next to him would ensure a better outcome. A little reluctant, he had accepted her sleeping in the bed with him that one time. Except, the morning filled her with screams when they both awoke covered in blood. She would not sleep in the same bed again.
Tonight though, Cleao wrapped herself in an ageless quilt, a gift from Mariabella, and went to the window. There, she curled up on the built-in lounge beneath the glass panes. Her eyes closed and she slept.
It was as if she heard the sound of his last intake of breath, because her eyes snapped open just seconds before he let out his agonized scream. Cleao was up in an instant, scrambling out of her blanket, and dashing to Majic's side. When she got to him, she threw her hands to her wide, open mouth in shock.
Majic's body was spasming in pain as he screamed. There were fresh burns all over his body; the worst burn was wrapped around the side of his face. His relentless cries and searing flesh were bringing tears to Cleao's blue eyes. The burns stretched and tore as the sorcerer continued to thrash about. He was starting to bleed in places too.
"Oh Majic," Cleao stuttered out.
Crying more urgently, the young woman flung herself away from the awful sight before her. She ran at the window and threw open the glass.
"LEKI!" she shouted out to the mountains around them. "LEKI! Majic needs you! Hurry!"
When she heard the answering howl, Cleao rushed back to Majic's side.
His eyes were open now, making him more awake to his pain. Cleao wanted to calm him, to keep him from moving around and aggravating his wounds, but she could not place her hands anywhere to hold him down. But she refused to let him keep suffering like this. She started to whisper soft and reassuring words to him, in the shell of his ear; she clenched her arms tightly to her sides, keeping herself from physically trying to soothe him in an embrace.
The golden-haired woman continued to speak muted promises to him and him alone as costly seconds ticked by waiting for Leki. She could not afford to breakdown, but her eyes still sent silent tears down her cheeks.
A sudden whine at the window caused her to turn.
Leki, a larger than the house, blue wolf, was extending his massive snout through the open window.
Without warning, the Deep Dragon sprang into the house as his body rapidly changed size into that of an ordinary wolf. He was over to the bed in seconds, Cleao having stood up when Leki appeared outside. She watched as he leapt up onto the bed to protectively stand over the sorcerer's twitching body. Then Leki's eyes glowed green.
Her tears stopped when her animal friend went to work on Majic. His screams died down as the glowing, green light spread over his form. Slowly, the burns began to heal. It was only after Leki had finished repairing Majic's wounds that the young man stopped moving. The Deep Dragon crawled off of his patient in order to sit back on his haunches and observe his work. Cleao almost started crying again when Majic sat up.
"Majic?" the woman whispered. She clasped her hands tightly against her chest. "Are you alright?"
His green eyes turned to her and he nodded. Then, sensing what she needed next in the form of assurances, he opened his arms to her. Cleao did not throw herself at Majic (something she would have done long ago if something like this had happened back then), but carefully sat on the edge of the bed to gently hug him. Leki, watching, was also satisfied that Majic would survive; the blue wolf shrank to the size of a pup and curled in on himself to fall asleep in exhaustion. Cleao hugged Majic just a little bit tighter, her head over his shoulder.
A few minutes later, she pulled away.
"Does anything hurt?" she asked.
Majic took a few seconds to answer. "Where the burns were, my skin feels a bit raw. And the muscles below are tight and sore. But I will finish healing on my own."
"Will you?" These words were so quiet, probably just meant for Cleao herself, that Majic almost did not catch them.
"I'll be fine, Cleao."
Cleao shot up off the bed. Standing over Majic, she almost looked like the fierce brat she used to be.
"Will you though? What if you have another nightmare tonight?! You'll get more wounds on top of the ones you have now. Your body will never be able to repair itself fast enough! These ones were really bad this time, Majic. And you know they are getting worse each time. Leki can only heal you so much. What if,…" she looked down, refusing to glance in his eyes as she said this next part. "What if you die next time?"
The room went silent.
Majic watched her, but was not forthcoming with an answer.
When she could not take the quiet anymore, Cleao sighed.
"I think we should go back to the Tower of Fang." she said.
TBC…
A/n: Please let me know your thoughts, both good and bad. Thank you, and until next time!
-ROMS