No Love
The sunlight was shining softly through the trees and the birds were singing cheerfully. The air was neither humid nor dry and the temperature was comfortable. Silently, a large cat stalked from behind the dark green brush. and crouched beside a clear, cool stream for a drink. The rough tongue lapped at the surface of the river as amber eyes surveyed the banks for possible prey or other predators. A striped tail whipped back and forth in a peaceful manner.
The entire scene was observed by calm blue eyes. Topped with pink hair, the small girl quietly worked her way towards the giant carnivore. A large axe leaned against a tree downstream, the blade sparkling menacingly. Her tiny feet in the oversized boots made no sound on the mossy ground as the distance between them closed steadily. As the tail whipped near her, small hands dwarfed in gloves moved impossibly fast to grab it.
A loud yowl echoed throughout the forest as the cat was pulled from its drink and flipped on its back. Before it could scrape over onto its legs, the child had a vice-like grip on a hind foot. The cat screeched again and hissed, flattening its ears against its head, expressing its unhappiness with the situation. Blank slate eyes met ferocious amber ones and the cat quieted instantly, fearing the soulless creature that had it trapped.
Slowly and carefully, the tiger rolled onto three feet and attempted to pull its leg from the chilling girl. It began to mew quietly as it pulled at its own leg. When the capturer released one hand, the cat briefly saw escape. But as the hand returned, the brief shining door was slammed shut.
"Poke. Poke. Poke," a soft voice said in a monotone.
The empty voice scared the predator even more and the mewling grew more frantic. Although the gentle prodding was not painful, a certain chain of food was not being followed, and the tiger did not understand or appreciate it.
All of a sudden, although the stoic poking was continuing, the birds fell silent. The forest hunter froze and ceased its attempts at escape, straining its hearing to find the disturbance. Beyond the gentle running of the stream and the quiet "poke…poke…poke…" that continued, a dull thrashing sound of large prey was gradually coming closer.
In all of his glory, a fumbling red head crashed onto the scene. The girl looked up and released the paw pad. The cat looked back at the girl whose gaze was now on the man standing before them. The animal took its chance and bounded away from the possessed pink-haired figure and disappeared into the greenery once more.
The red head put his hands on his hips, trying to decide if the emotionless girl would look guilty if she had the ability. Their large blue-haired companion definitely looked abashed when his paw padding appreciation was discovered, but Presea rarely ceased, not to mention show any shame. The Chosen shook his head and put his hands up in the air and stepped further into the small clearing.
"Well, since you're done with your pet kitty," he said with a half-smile, "the others sent me here to get you to camp."
"But Zelos," she protested, without protesting. "I have found camp here."
A single red eyebrow raised and he inspected the area. The proximity to the river was nice, but the ground was rocky and covered with a slightly slimy moss, not to mention it would barely fit half the party comfortably.
"I'm not sure that we could all have our wonderful stories beside the fire here," he gently said. At her normal expressionless expression. "Unless you were suggesting that it be a camp for two," he suggested grinning wildly and waggling his eyebrows.
Twinkling blue eyes searched for any sign of hidden laughter, embarrassment, joy or even disappointment. Wilder felt that it wasn't right for a child to be so separated from the rest of the world, from the emotions that should be flooding a young girl. And he brought it upon himself to unveil the wide world of feeling that she was conspicuously absent from. Cold blue eyes returned his stare and he held his breath as she opened her mouth to speak.
"I'll go get my axe." Nothing…as usual.
Zelos sighed and lowered his head in defeat. This girl was iron clad and if the Tethe'allan Chosen couldn't put some sparkle in her eye or color in her cheeks, then there was no hope.
He shrugged and walked down the river to see her staring at a tree. Zelos stood beside her, trying to decipher the tree in front of them. He looked all the way up to the top of the tree and down with no change in nature that probably stood the same way for hundreds of years. The leaves moved slowly with a passing breeze and the setting sun reflected onto the tree from the nearby stream. The only thing amiss was the chirping of the birds that had ceased when the rambunctious swordsman had still not returned.
"So…"he said slowly, "what are we looking at?"
Presea's tails gently moved with her slow head shaking. "Nothing." Silence followed.
The Chosen tried to decipher her little word. As all men knew, a woman's 'nothing' meant 'something,' and usually that 'something' was something very serious indeed. Sheena would say it when she was mad, Raine would say it when she thought it beyond everyone's scope, and even his Chosen counterpart would utter the same horrifying phrase when she was convincing people to not worry about her. But little Combatir's 'nothing' really was…nothing.
"Why are we looking at nothing?" he asked softly.
"It's not there," she replied, blandly of course.
"Oh…" Zelos trailed off, losing interest fast. "So we're looking at nothing that's not there, huh?" He raised an eyebrow, wondering if the exsphere was still affecting the little girl's brain.
"No," she said abruptly. "My axe…is not there."
"Oh! Well let's find it!" The young man jumped forward and began to look around the tree for clues pointing to where the giant cleaver might have escaped to. He had a sneaking suspicion that it was just leaning up against a different tree, so after he had circled this one twice, he began to look at the other trees nearby.
Finally, the girl showed some concern! She had been nearly heartbroken at the sight, or lack thereof, of her axe and was relying on him to find it. He clenched his fist as he swore a silent oath to find her weapon and bring it back to her while she welcomed her shining knight with open arms, and the first pure tears of joy a young maiden would cry. This would break the dark spell held over her, suppressing all of her fears, thoughts, and especially her wants. He could picture it now: him with the giant axe, sweating just the right amount in the sun. The little girl running across the field with joy in her eyes for the first time in years. And as they ran to each other, she would jump up and give him the biggest of hugs that the smallest could-
"Zelos."
The familiar toneless tone interrupted his daydream. He looked up from the tree that he was looking around and saw her on the shore. She turned her head and looked at him. The sun shone gently golden on her face and for the briefest of moments, the Chosen would later swear that he could see something. Unidentifiable, but it was more than the reflections on the water and his need to see the emotionally starved little girl become a tiny bit more human. But as soon as he had seen it, there was nothing left. Once he was sure her eyes would reveal nothing more, he noticed that she was pointing at the river.
"I've found it."
He walked up next to her and followed the line of her point and there it was, the Gaia Cleaver in the middle of the river, looking suspiciously tame as the water gently flowed over it. Zelos kicked off his boots and started to remove his arm guards when he noticed that the girl was wading fully clothed and halfway to her weapon.
"What the-" he stammered. "Presea! What are you doing?"
The girl knelt down into the cold stream and hauled the deceptively large weapon onto her shoulder. She turned around to come back and again blue eyes met blue…but nothing was exchanged. When she reached the shore, she set the blade down, but kept a hold of the handle.
"What'd you got and do that for?" he asked, sounded slightly annoyed. "I was getting ready to grab it for you my dear."
Presea tilted her head to the side and looked at him with those empty eyes. "You are like a cat. You do not like to get wet."
Zelos froze at her words. It was most likely the first time she had given him two sentences back to back. And she compared him to something…she noticed him. And she had remembered and sacrificed her quaint clothing for his comfort. The Chosen could feel his back straighten and his chest puff out as he was ready to prepare a quip for the girl in order to coax more out of the tightly locked shell.
"And you can't carry my axe."
The swordsman froze, staring at the child who still looked on him with blank eyes. And then he wilted. As the young Combatir walked towards the direction Zelos had come from, he followed her, not wanting to be left behind for any tigers looking for paw pad revenge.
~~~*~~~
The fire crackled soothingly, whipping at the air and catapulting tiny flares into the night sky to land at the feet of the weary travelers. Swords and chakram littered the campsite and cleverly concealed attempts at food were shoved aside and forgotten. As the night grew darker and colder, stories and laughter lit and heated the campsite. A lone pair of blue-grey eyes observed the scene.
Lloyd was sitting near the fire. He liked the fire. It was red, like his shirt. He was laughing and the sound made her feel brave.
Beside him was Collete, listening intently to the story. The girl's blue eyes were wide with wonder and reminded her of a pond. Collete liked water and was very nice to everyone.
A short half-elf was helping in telling the story. Genis was very smart and loyal. His grey hair looked like the ash of a fire. Normally, he was very loud, but when she was near him, he was quiet…she wasn't sure why.
Raine was talking to Sheena. The older woman was nice, but scary when she wanted to be. Raine wore a bright jacket, like an amango. The ninja was loud sometimes, but she was also sometimes good at her job. Sheena's hair reminded her of wind through a field.
Sitting next to her was Regal. He looked at her and then looked back at everyone else. Regal was always solemn. It comforted her. He reminded her of a mountain.
Zelos was also by the fire. He was lying down and had his eyes closed. Like she had said earlier, he made her think of a cat. She wondered if he would ever have paw pads.
The blank eyes went back to the fire.
~~~*~~~
The Tethe'allan's red eyebrow twitched. The kids on the other side of the fire just didn't understand the value of peace and quiet. Especially when there was a much more interesting conversation going on between two lovely ladies behind them. He sighed and gave up on learning more about the women's plights and began to imagine the future. The Chosen often looked beyond their quest when left to his own devices (and unable to meddle in others' devices).
Mr. President obviously had other things on his plate once the right long-haired pretty boy was taken care of. Regal would go back to Lezareno and most likely be too busy to be any fun at all of the Chosen/duke-ish events that would come up.
His delectable ninja would become a lovely chief of Mizuho…and would be obligated to attend Meltokyo more often. He smirked at the thought of the fun he could have with his asian sweetie in public settings.
The sexy professor and her brother would most likely accompany his angel and Lloyd to Sylvarant to spread the good news and work on followup. Half elfs everywhere were probably unifying and preparing rebellions…those four would feel responsible and fulfill the need to stop them.
Well, everyone would go off on their journeys and leave him. The great Zelos Wilder would return to his luxurious life of babes and courtly politics. So seven people would walk away from this epic quest and restart…wait-seven?
His eyes opened and he saw two heads of silver, one of brown, yellow, and black. Against a tree, the blue-haired man sat…by the little pink girl. Presea was leaning up against a tree, her hand-me-down giant gloves tucked behind her and her eyes were blankly looking across the camp at the group of youngsters. Zelos tried to imagine her looking with longing, wanting to be accepted into their childish group…but no matter how he squinted he couldn't find anything telling in her eyes.
Perhaps Presea would go back to Ozette. Maybe Regal would insist she stay with him or she would go along with the others. She didn't really have much to leave or let go, and who knows what she was going to be fighting for when this was over. She could always become the woodcutter for the palace again.
He closed his eyes and laid his head back down and sighed. It didn't make much of a difference of what she did or not…
~~~*~~~
As is apparent by the title, "No Love" types of relationships are the least likely to actually be relationships. There aren't any of the attributes in the interaction or emotions of the parties, therefore just probably would not happen.