(I got a review! I got a review! Yay! *Does the Dance of Special Words with Captain Ginyu*)
This chapter's a bit more somber than the last two. Hope everyone likes it—or at least reviews it!
I don't own Zelda, Fushigi Yugi or Final Fantasy. I'm not making any money off of this—though the pure pleasure of reading reviews will make me feel very, very rich.
Gentle snores reached Tasuki's ears as he sat on watch with Laguna. It was late at night; the moon was far past its zenith, the stars were bright, and from far off the howling of a pack of wolves could be heard. Tasuki kicked a bootlength of dirt into the fire, which the fire ignored completely—it had been set well, and flames caused by his tessen were harder to stifle.
Tasuki yawned.
Laguna, who was idly trying not to watch the ex-bandit for fear of his temper, looked quickly away. Tasuki, noticing this, chuckled grimly.
"What?" Laguna asked carefully.
"Aw, nothin'. Just thinkin' about how, where I came from, people used ta go out of their way ta avoid me. Seems like old habits die hard; ya look like you're wantin' ta do the same."
Laguna laughed. "I think this whole affair would be easier if we got along, Tasuki. What do you mean, they 'used to' fear you?"
Tasuki sighed deeply. "Look at this." He rolled up one sleeve and showed his arm, with the symbol that meant 'wing' glowing blood-red on it. "Is that some sort of tattoo?" Laguna asked in confusion. Tasuki grinned. "Nah. This is my seishi-mark. It means that I was born to serve and protect the Priestess of Suzaku."
Laguna blinked.
"What's a Suzaku?"
Stunned at the sudden resemblance of Laguna's voice to Miaka's, Tasuki burst out laughing. Roaring and rolling on the ground, his lungs finally gave out and he sat up weakly, wiping hilarious tears off of his face. "Ah- ha-ha…heh…" He cleared his throat and turned back to the confused soldier. "That's exactly what SHE asked, before the Emperor Hotohori told 'er that she was the Priestess!" He snorted. "She thought it was some kinda' chicken…"
Laguna, infected by his humor, smiled at his mistake. "Oh? And what is it?"
"He. Our patron god, Suzaku, the Phoenix, and one mean bastard in a fight." The seishi's voice lowered in respect—something Laguna thought must be rare. "Miaka—she's from another world. The world of Earth. She was some kinda' schoolgirl, always studyin' and workin, tryin' hard to make her mama happy. She got in a fight with her mom, an' read this book, an' when she did, she got sucked into our world. 'Cause she was there from another world, that made her the Priestess, and 'cause she landed in Konan, that made her the Priestess of Suzaku. Which was a good thing, since we needed her bad."
Laguna wondered at the fond look that shadowed the flame-haired guardian's face, and asked "But why were people afraid of you?"
Tasuki looked at him shrewdly. "Cause I'm the Phantom Wolf, that's why! Cause I was a bandit-lord, one of the greatest! People groveled at my feet, and offered their daughters to me if only I'd give them a week of peace. 'Course, I never hurt anyone that didn' hurt me first, and I never took their daughters…but stealing? Intimidation? Easy."
"Then what?" Despite his vow of politeness, Laguna found himself curious about the young man. "Why did you give all of that up?"
The seishi shook his head. "Why the hell do ya wanna know?" Laguna was taken aback, trying quickly to find an answer, but the warrior continued. "Aw, never mind. If yer like me, you just wanna talk, fill the air with words." He reached into his pack and pulled out a leather winesack. Uncorking it, he took a long drag before passing it to Laguna. "Here. Try some'a this." Laguna followed his example, taking a deep swallow. He instantly regretted it. Salty alcohol burned its way down his throat, and he gasped at the sensation. Tasuki laughed. "Too strong for ya? Bet ya drink wine most'a the time, ne? Fuckin' weak." Laguna shrugged wryly. "That I do. But please, continue."
Tasuki nodded. "Awright. So I lived in the mountains with my bandits—really they weren't mine yet. They belonged to the Boss. He'd been injured, and he took wound-sick—Mits says it got septic or some shit like that."
Laguna refrained from asking who "Meets" was at the sorrowful look on the bandit's face.
"I went to find a kinda plant that the healers'd told me would make him well again, but when I got back, he'd died already. An' there were other problems. There was this girl—funny dressed little thing, maybe sixteen years old, and obviously she didn' know the mountains from a hole in the dirt, 'cause here she was walkin around like an idiot. So I did the obvious thing; I kidnapped her. She didn' even really fight me. She told me that she was the Priestess of Suzaku, and someone'd told her that one of her warriors lived as ruler of the bandits on the Mountain. So she just up an' went, just like that, to find him! O'course, that person was me, but I wasn't gonna tell her that, right? Fuck no. I wanted to stay where I fuckin' was." He smiled. "But I didn't. She won me over, and I fought for her. End of story."
Laguna protested "But—but—Why—"
"Ah, ah, ah! I told ya why they were afraid o'me. Yer turn."
"What?" Laguna was startled.
"Ya heard me. Yer turn. Who are ya?"
"The President of Esthar—"
"Bullshit. WHO are ya? Gimme a story, damnit! I wanna hear something about ya. Why did you become this president guy? Is it like bein' an Emperor?"
"Sort of. It's like being an Emperor that has to take care of all of his people, sacrifice his sleep and personal time to stop this war or that one, make sure that there's enough to eat…keep them safe and healthy and happy."
"Sounds like Emperor Hotohori ta me." The bandit grinned. "Ya seem ta be a bit less full o' yerself, though." Laguna shrugged. "I don't know him, so I couldn't say."
"Anyway. So yer an Emperor with a dumbass title."
"Basically, yeah, except that I had to get elected. The people chose me."
"Aw, forget this shit. This is *boring!* Tell me about yer woman."
Laguna jumped. "My what?"
"Concubines? Paid Ladies? Velveted Pearls? Or did you have a sappy relationship with a wife an' kids an' all?"
"I had a wife."
Tasuki frowned. The older man's face had settled into a bittersweet smile, and his eyes were bright with what might have been tears. "I loved her very much. She's buried in a place a lot like this one, actually." He gestured at the wide field, with the bright stars above. Without him seeming to notice, his left hand reached out and toyed with a flower, idly rolling it between his fingers. "Her name was Raine, and she was beautiful. She had long dark hair, and she was so tiny that my two hands together could almost meet around her waist. She was always happy, always spreading joy to someone or another, and I never met anyone else who had such a capacity for loving. She had a little girl, Ellone, who she'd taken in after the monsters came. I love that girl like a father does, so I suppose that you could say we had children. Raine died birthing my child, my beautiful son—I didn't find him again for twenty years."
Tasuki shook his head. "So yer world has its problems too, huh?"
Laguna nodded. "You have no idea. My people travel to the stars, and that only gives us more problems. The Sorceresses, the Garden—all connected, all together and necessary…sometimes I hate it."
"So…eh…how did you meet this Raine?" Tasuki was interested despite himself, and he offered the skin to Laguna after taking another big gulp from it. Laguna sipped gingerly and sat back, resting his head on his arms and staring into the sky. "I got sent to war for stupid reasons. Then everything went bad. A sorceress—uh, an evil female magic-user with a lot of power—had taken control of a lot of things, and she wanted it all. Monsters were set loose, and when I escaped the army I was taken in by a little town called Winhill. They needed someone to kill the marauding monsters that showed up from time to time, and I needed a place to stay outside my home country so that I couldn't be executed for failing a suicidal mission. It worked out fine. The job was simple, the townspeople that were still left after the initial monster attack and the war loved me, and I was sort of adopted by Raine and Ellone. I loved Raine—I finally knew what it was like to really love someone, and it hurt when I had to leave. I married her before I did, but when I went to fight the Sorceress Adel, who had kidnapped Ellone, Raine gave birth and died. I never got to tell her how proud of our boy I am—she never got to see Squall saving everything and marrying a lovely girl himself." Tasuki yawned accidentally, and he saw Laguna's supressed smile. "Not trying to bore you." Tasuki shrugged. "I've been awake now for about two days."
Laguna nodded. "And I, as well. But I'm not really tired yet."
"Me, either. So, what else?"
Laguna shrugged and watched a shooting star. "Nothing much. I stopped Adel, but when I came home, Raine was gone and so was my son. Ellone was all right, but she was so young…too young to really understand what was going on. I let her go to an orphanage to be with the other kids, since I really couldn't be a father to her at all, with all the work I had to do. She grew up, and with her help, my son Squall saved our world."
He sat up again and faced the seishi. " And you? Any special girl?" Tasuki reddened. "No-oo." He said softly. "Ah." Laguna said with understanding so thick in his voice that Tasuki almost choked on it. "One you wished had been special?"
"Not really. I mean, all of us love Miaka in one way'r another. Shit, Nuriko loved her, and he only goes for men!"
"Ah! Your Priestess. I thought you said she was funny looking?"
"No! Not funny lookin', funny dressed. She wore this little outfit—nothin' like all the women on my world. She had hair about to here—" The guardian put both hands behind his back to touch his shoulderblades—"An' it was a brown that looked red in tha right light. Her eyes were brown, her skin was pale, just like anyone else in China…"He trailed off. Laguna cleared his throat and the warrior started, blushing so furiously that it was obvious even in the mere light of the moon. "Anyway! She had this way of makin' anythin' seem better. It could be the middle of a battle—an we all lost enough friends, too—an' she'd still make us see hope. She never let herself get beaten down. I mean, the man she fuckin' LOVED was stolen by the enemy. Her best friend became the Priestess of the enemy. Nuriko, Mitsukake, Chiriko, Hotohori—they all fuckin DIED…"
He caught himself as his voice broke. He was silent for a moment, and he looked away from Laguna, but then he turned back as though there was no problem. "An' she held 'em as they did. An' she told 'em how much they meant ta her, how much she'd miss 'em. And then she got up an did it all again. She fuckin' got up even when she knew she was just gonna get beat down again. When Tama, her boy—when he got all screwed up by the mind- poison an' tried ta kill her, she just stood there. She said that, if she was gonna die, she didn' blame him at all 'cause it wasn't his fault, an' that she'd just let him run her through."
Laguna swallowed hard. "What a woman."
Tasuki's face turned to him, burning with pain and barely-held rage. "Woman? Shit! Miaka wasn't even sixteen! She wasn't any woman yet!" A tear ran down his face. "She wasn't even allowed to grow up. It all had ta just happen fer her. One day she's a kid, the next she has ta watch everything she loves die."
"Was she all right?" Laguna found that he feared the answer. If her lover killed her, if she died just when she needed the most to live…what justice could there be in the universe?
"That made Tama remember her, 'cause she wasn't afraid. An' we beat the enemy. An' she got to go home an' take Tama with her, an' marry him, an' they've got kids now. They're happy. An' they damn well deserve it! If she'd died, I don' know what I could've ever trusted again." Laguna shivered at the sentiment, which so closely echoed his own silent one. "I understand that. Good for her. She should have happiness, and I hope she is left well by it." Tasuki eyed him warily. "Why do ya agree so easy with me?" Laguna shrugged. "Because I've known people like that who deserved better than the universe gave them." He said softly, thinking of Julia, who he had loved first of all, who taught him how to love. Without her, there would never have been anything between he and Raine. And she had not gotten what, by rights, the world should have given her for her goodness. Tasuki left off his studying of the man. "Well. Moon's set—it's time ta wake Chichiri an' Link up. Their turn."
Laguna nodded. "Good night, then, Tasuki." The ex-bandit took a long pull off the skin. "Yeah. G'night." Tasuki went over to Chichiri and gently shook him awake, and then did so for Link. Weary, he stumbled to the ground, dragging Link's blanket along with him. "Thanks for the drinks!" Laguna said softly. Tasuki waved him off, turned over, and fell asleep. As Laguna felt the gentle arms of sleep taking him, he gave one wordless prayer for all of those that deserved better than they got. The last thing he saw before sleep stole him away was a flying ember, trying to make it to the stars.
Like that, we are…
He thought. We dance, and we fall, and we're so bright that we burn….and in the end we all go cold…but some of us are bright enough to leave an image after them… Everything faded into darkness.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
