Setting: During the 7-year time skip. In a town that Raki is very familiar with.

Sect. I

"Such good breeze."

The young man looked at his silver-haired mentor with a raised eyebrow. "Isley-san, you've said at least once a day ever since we arrived here years ago. When will you stop?" In truth, the older man stood atop a small rise in the landscape with his eyes closed and arms raised straight out, the wind flowing through his unbound silver tresses. The entire scene struck Raki as comical.

Isley let a smile appear on his face. "You should always enjoy good fortune when it comes your way - from a lucky coin to a mere breeze." He opened his eyes slowly, his gaze drawn to the clear blue sky above him. "For it can disappear in a blink of an eye." A moment passed between them before he added, "Or something like that."

Both men shared a laugh. It was one of the things that Raki liked about Isley. He knew when to be serious but he was never overly so and he was always ready to joke around. It was yet another trait that Raki admired in the tall silvered haired man that he looked up to as his role-model for the past few years. He also knew that Isley, despite his laidback and easygoing personality, had quite a turbulent past and sometimes it seemed as if the older man had lived ten different lives already.

"Really, you should be a priest or something with advice like that," Raki smirked. His attention was soon drawn to the young lady resting her head comfortably in his lap, a contented smile on her face. In her hair lay a lone white flower, a gift from a little girl whowas traveling with a family ahead of them. Priscilla had accepted the flower gratefully, even allowing the young girl to push it into her hair without complaint. He hadrarely seen Priscilla interact with anyone elsebut this was surprisingly intimate for her.He absently fixed a strand of her hair from her face, causing her eyes to flutter open momentarily. "Sorry, were you asleep Priscilla?" The young woman shook her head and smiled again, reaching up to fondly caress the light scar above his eye.

"She always seems to fall asleep in your lap," Isley made the casual remark, coming to stand over them. "It's the warm sun, isn't it, Priscilla?"

"Yes, it feels good," came the dreamy, subdued reply. Priscilla still didn't talk much even now but she had a fairly good, if simplistic, vocabulary. She only talked to either Isley or Raki, not bothering to answer anyone else. She had gotten better at acknowledging other people but it was almost as if she didn't see them half the time, which had puzzled Raki early on but grew to see it as just another quirk in her.

"Both of you still strike me as strange sometimes," Raki gave a small chuckle, putting a hand atop Priscilla's head, running his fingers through her hair yet careful to avoid touching the flower tucked carefullyin the strands. She gave a pleased mewing sound and snuggled even more against him.

"I can say the same about you too, Raki," Isley kept his eyes on Priscilla, his warm expression never changing. "You still train hard even though your sword skills are an equal to many a seasoned sword master. And you still keep up your search..."

"..." Raki's face grew melancholy in a familiar way as Priscilla began to make purring noises. "I made her the promise. I won't break it, no matter what."

Isley gave him one of his rare real smiles. "That's good. Men with real determination are rare nowadays. Keep it and I bet she'll be surprised at how much you've grown." He chuckled as Raki's face flushed lightly with the praise and made a show of glancing around. "Well, I think that we've taken a long enough break here. C'mon Priscilla. Let Raki get circulation back to his legs again."

Priscilla gave Isley a child-like glare as she sat up, upset that her favorite pillow was going to be mobile again. "...How much further," she asked, taking Raki's offered hand as she stood up gracefully beside him.

"Not far." Raki answered her, surprising Isley a bit with his quick response.

"So, I was right. You do know this area."

Raki nodded, his eyes taking in the familiar crest of the hills and trees. "Yes I do." He began walk towards the top of the hill quickly, leaving the other two looking at him. "This is where I met 'her'."

Priscilla made a rare show of running to catch up to him, her face easily showing her concern as she looked into his face. Raki turned and gave her a reassuring smile, to which she returned and looped her arm around his before turning to face the beginnings of a fair-sized village just ahead.

To Raki, everything thing about it was new and yet everything seemed so ... familiar. The smell of the baker's goods wafting through the air...the scent of the local flowers...even the sounds of shoes upon the dirt streets.
"This is my old village - my old home."

"'Home' huh. It's been a while since I've heard that word," Isley remarked, his long strides easily catching up with Raki. "How nostalgic this must be for you." When he saw the young man nod, he added, "What possessed you to come back here after all this time?"

Raki stood quietly, gathering his wits about him. "Truthfully, I don't know. I really don't know why I wanted to come back here all of a sudden. I guess, something's just telling me that it's time to come back."

Isley took his eyes off of Raki and regarded the fair village before him. "Some quirk of fate perhaps," he spoke softly. "In any case, something feels amiss here."

Raki stopped and looked at his mentor. "What do you mean, Isley-san?"

"I mean," Isley pointed deep into the town, "that normally people are out walking about and not cluttered into the square at this time of day."

Raki looked and sure enough, it was as Isley had pointed out. Even from this distance, he could see that some sort of commotion was taking place. "Let's hurry please," he told his two companions before he broke into a quick run, leaving Priscilla and Isley behind.

Before Priscilla could follow suit, Isley grasped her shoulder and leaned in close to her. "I'm sure you can sense what is happening in there, right?" When his other 'charge' nodded, he continued, "Be careful to conceal your presence. We do not want to show ourselves in this place."

Priscilla gave him another curt nod before jerking her shoulder out of his grip and ran to catch up to Raki, who was nearly to the entrance to the town already.

"Yare yare," Isley smiled off-handedly, as he continued to walk after them at a leisurely pace, "Young ones these days."

Just a lil something for the Priscilla fan in me. Tell me what you think of it. Those on the AS Forums have seen this already and thanks to them, this fic will see the light of FFNET

I'll get back to working on 'Rank 47' eventually.