Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Kyo Kara Maoh. This is purely fan-made.
Chapter 3
Once they entered the room where Iris was waiting, they discovered her drawing a picture on a loose piece of parchment she had found on the little oak writing desk sitting near the windowsill. And there she sat there perfectly still, like some sort of porcelain statue, and poured all of her thoughts into completing that drawing and paid them no mind.
They had given Iris some new cloths to replace the tattered ones from before. It was a simple garment, composed of a long, rose-colored, half-sleeved silk top; a pair of plain gray-blue leggings with a red-leather belt resting on her slender hips' and a set of brown shoes. But still, Iris looked absolutely lovely. And then, to finish the entire look, Iris's hair had been twined into a half-bun on the side of her head, with the remaining locks of lilac-colored hair bathing her tiny shoulders.
Despite all this beauty, Iris still really looked like a child until she looked up slowly from her work and glanced sideways at them with her soft, yet all-knowing eyes. Yuri and the others were completely shocked when they saw that her stature had completely changed. There was no more fear in her eyes as she watchfully observed each of them enter the room. But when Iris spotted Murata, an innocently soft smile lit up her entire face as she shyly got up from her perch and strode to Murata, handing him the picture.
Murata nodded in thanks before actually looking at the drawing, and once he did peer down at it, he inhaled deeply, "Oh wow..."
Her attention to detail was unparalleled to anything Murata had seen before from someone her age. Iris had drawn for him a perfect replica of a valley that seemed awfully familiar to him for some reason. Although Murata was pretty sure he had never been there, or at least he couldn't remember.
High lofty mountains loomed above the valley and cast large shadows across the clearing. Then, all around them there also towered large ancient trees that swayed in the endless winds that swept the valley. And where there weren't trees or mountains, there were vast meadows filled with patches of wildflowers.
It took Murata a moment to realize what the picture was of and he asked her, "Is this your home Iris?"
Iris shook her head and waited patiently for Murata to give her his hand. Seeing this, he handed the drawing off to Gwendal and offered his hand to her.
She took it, but then for a moment Iris just stared at his palm. Then Iris began to make little circle patterns with the balls of her thumbs. Everyone watched her and the fondness Iris displayed for Murata every time they came into contact. It was almost as if Iris could not believe that he was actually there; and that the hand she was holding belonged to the person she had been waiting to meet for so very long.
After a long pause, Iris finally wrote, 'This is our place, the place where we first met; where I waited and where I promised...'
Murata blushed slightly, but asked nevertheless, "What do you mean 'our place'...? Have we met before?"
Iris nodded and wrote, 'We met here, and here I promised you that even if you didn't know me anymore, I would help you find your peace when you finally finished your journey someday. So I waited...'
"But when did we meet?" Murata asked more insistently.
Iris didn't reply and dropped her hands from his, turning away from him, and fighting back the tears that threatened to fall. She had known all along that he would ask this, but, the question was still more painful to Iris than the answer was. Iris did not want to dwell on the past; not when they had finally gotten to see eachother again...
It was too painful.
This was throbbing pain that Iris had harbored all alone her entire life that served as her own anchor to this world. That painful ache was the price for her to remain here even after having spent lifetime after lifetime waiting for the one that Iris knew was her Destined One. Someone she had been acquainted to in many of her own past lives...
"I'm sorry," Murata apologized, "I'm just trying to figure you out. I mean, I do sense that we've met before-" Iris spun around hopefully upon hearing that but he continued solemnly, "-however, you said so yourself, I have had...'many faces.' So be honest its hard to keep track of them all these days."
Iris nodded as if to say 'I understand,' and walked back towards him when suddenly she stopped and winced, snatching her shoulder, the same one that she had pressed against the wall.
"Tell me," Gwendal asked, "Did your father do that to you?"
Horrified, Iris shook her head sharply and rushed over to grab his hand and write, 'No. My father never touched me. He may have been broken, but he never laid a hand on me.'
Confused, Gwendal then asked, "If he didn't, then who gave you those bruises?"
Iris shook her head and wrote, 'It happened when I ran away from father. I fell from my horse.'
Gwendal seemed unconvinced but told the others what she said anyway, "She said that her wounds were caused by an accident, not by her father."
"Well, at least her father didn't beat her..." Yuri sighed before adding bitterly, "...but I STILL think that he was abusive. After all, words often hurt more than actual wounds."
"Back to the point," Murata interjected, "Iris..." Iris looked back at him as Murata said, "...if you are willing, I'd like to take you to the Tomb of the Great One to speak to Lady Ulrike. She heard about your power and like me she's very curious to see how it works. Besides that, maybe she can help you somehow too."
Iris thought about it for a moment but shook her head as if to say 'No, I' can't,' and shied away.
"What's wrong?"Conrad asked.
Iris just continued to shake her head and walked away from them, resting one of her delicate hands on the windowpane and staring in the general direction of the tomb; her eyes filled with a mixture of the dread of knowing, and what almost appeared to be pity...
One thing about being unable to speak is that no one can force the words out of you. They are the ones that have to oblige by your silence because it feels cruel to do otherwise. Still, they wanted answers, some of which that Iris seemed unwilling or unable to tell them right away.
She had this knowing nature about her but yet, Iris was still such a child. Whats more, they didn't really know all that much about Iris as of yet anyway. Her life up until this point seemed to be noting but a complicated mess. But despite all that, Iris never stopped believing that someday she would be the one to save the Great Wiseman from spending his remaining time in loneliness. Iris wanted to prove that when love is real, it finds a way to transcend even death itself...
After that, they decided no to push the subject and began gearing the conversation towards more about Iris personally. That was when Murata and the others learned by what her father meant about the visions Iris could show people. Iris had closed her eyes while standing with her hands laid palm up as all of them stood in a circle holding hands. And that was only because they all wanted to see this...
The first sensation that they experienced was the sound of laughter and the sound of swaying grass in the breeze. It was so real that each of them could almost feel the grass underneath their feet, the slight brush of wind, and the warmth of bright sunbeams against their skin. There was nothing but joy radiating from the vision as it blossomed before their eyes.
Two children were playfully chasing each other around the same tree from Iris's drawing, one of them with burgundy colored hair, and the other with platinum blonde colored hair. And when Murata realized who it was, he gasped, "It's Janis!"
The vision then warped and distorted suddenly as another force interjected with the vision and lurched forward from that place under the tree to the town just below the castle. It was dark, without any light from the moon or the stars, nothing but the dying embers of torchlight lining the streets. There, they saw a woman running down the streets clutching a pile of music sheets in her arms.
A startled gasp escaped her lips as a dagger shot past her cheek just before she could duck around the corner. Hot blood ran down her face as she kept running, staining the sheets of parchment with droplets of ruby blood. There, she frantically scratched at the wall, searching for something within the stone.
However, a shadow caught up to her and as it came upon her, she shrieked with such intensity that they jerked back and let go of each others hands. It sounded just like it had happened right there in that very room.
And the vision stopped.
"What in the world was THAT?" Yuri shouted, "Iris, what just-!"
"Iris!" Murata gasped, "You're bleeding!"
Stunned, Iris touched her face lightly and stared at the blood with a blank expression as it trickled down her fingers. At first, they thought for sure that she was going to start crying and panic at the sight of the blood, but to their amazement, Iris just pulled a handkerchief and pressed it against the wound as if it was no big deal. Although, Iris was unable to completely hide her fright because they could see her hand trembling slightly in the folds of the cloth.
"Now I understand!" Murata realized, "You're an Empath aren't you? That's why you felt what happened too isn't it? You felt that woman's pain as she..."
Iris nodded before pointing at the door as it opened abruptly to reveal Anissina, who had just heard about Iris, burst into the room. "I heard a scream, is everything alright?"
Despite the situation, Yuri couldn't help but laugh and mutter nervously under his breath, "Yeah, sure, when it's a scream that YOU didn't cause it catches your attention."
"We're fine," Conrad interjected quickly before she heard that remark, "There was just a small incident and Iris hurt herself."
"Iris? Oh, you mean the girl that Lady Celli told me about." Anissina said gleefully, "I heard that she has an unusual gift-"
Before they could stop her, Iris suddenly bolted around Anissina, out the door, and down the hall. Which at first they assumed was because she sensed Anissina's intentions.
"Ah!" Yuri gasped sharply, "We better talk about this later. Come on guys, we better follow her."
"Right!"
"I guess her father was right, Iris DOES like to run off at random!" Wolfram panted, "She can't have gotten that far so why haven't we caught up to her?"
"Wolfram, have you SEEN how skinny she is? That girl is built for running!" Yuri replied.
No one else spoke as they chased Iris out of the castle and onto the road to town. And Yuri was right, given her natural lightness, Iris was a very fast runner. Even given the fact that most of them were trained soldiers, even they had a difficult time keeping up with Iris because of how fast she ran. She had to be, to reach those whose lives needed to be touched WHEN they needed to touch.
Yet, there was an underlying frailness to Iris that they had already observed. The heartbreak of knowing; to feel when someone was in agony, either emotionally or physically, and to be open to all those feelings regardless of how much time had passed. Forced to follow the impulse regardless of what Iris was doing or who she was with...
That is what they learned when they finally found Iris.
She was sitting on her knees trying desperately to pry open a loose stone in the wall of an old building. Her brow was covered in sweat both from running and because of the ongoing twinge of pain from her now throbbing cut. It was clear that Iris's pain would not go away until she resolved this so she kept pulling until at last it came free.
Hurry, he's leaving! The woman's voice shouted in Iris's mind, He has to see them, he has to see the last words of our song!
Poor Iris clawed at the stone with quivering hands, unable to escape the woman's desperate pleas nor the overpowering sense of urgency that now filled Iris's heart as if it were her own. Murata called her name and tried to pull Iris away from the wall but she ignored him, as if he wasn't even there. It pained Murata in a way that he couldn't even comprehend to see Iris unable to stop herself from tearing at the stone even when her fingers began to grow raw and bloody.
Then finally, with a resigned glint in her eyes, to their ever-growing astonishment, Iris finally pulled out the same bloodied sheets of music that they had seen in the vision. Staining them with fresh blood from her fingers.
From the looks of those pages, they were very old. With tattered edges that had slightly yellowed with age,where only the black notes and bloodstains remained clear. Before they could get a closer look, that's when Iris stood up and dashed to the far end of the alley just as a man appeared.
"Oh, Your Excellencies!" the man bowed nervously as he stepped into the alley and saw all of them just standing there, "I didn't realize it was you."
"We were just-" Murata tried to explain when the man suddenly began to stare at the pages in Iris's hands.
His eyes grew wide as they fell upon the title of the song on the first page and he inhaled sharply, "It can't be...!"
"Do you know what those are?" Gwendal asked curiously, stepping behind Iris.
And Iris, with a weak smile offered the pages to him, her eyes glittering strangely; hopefully.
With trembling fingers, the man took them from Iris and said shakily, "I would know this writing anywhere Your Excellency. This was our song, mine and Gabrielle's. But she disappeared nearly twenty five years ago, and I never saw her again..."
Snatching his wrist, Iris looked him meaningfully in the eye and the man stiffened as a vision blurred across his vision. "What the-? What is this?" he exclaimed, "This is...No. No this can't be real! NO!"
"What's going on? Is she showing him the same vision that we saw?" Yuri asked nervously.
"That'd be my guess," Wolfram stated, equally as nervously. "But then that must mean...That woman...she was-"
"Murdered," Murata answered simply, "And that same woman's spirit called out to Iris, compelling her to come here with such force that it physically effected her body. Hence the cut that Iris suddenly got after the vision ended the first time. Such things have been known to happen to Empath's."
"What's an Empath? You called her that just before she ran off," Conrad observed, "Do you know something about this power? Because I for one have never heard of such a skill from anyone other than a priestess like Ulrike."
"Just wait and see," Murata stated simply, never taking his eyes off of Iris...
Even as the two stood there, locked in visions of the past, Iris's skin began to pale and she appeared to be in pain. But the pain didn't come from the cut, it came from experiencing all of Gabrielle's emotions all at once. Wrapped in a tempest of sorrows, regrets, pain, hurt, that she could not escape until the deed was done and Iris fulfilled their final wish.
Finally, the two of them crumpled to the ground and the man began to sob, "I can't believe this. Even in the end, all she thought of was me. I thought that Gabrielle hated me when really, all that time she spent obsessing over the piano, refusing to speak to me, it was all to finish this one song. And all those times she felt like someone was watching us, someone was. They killed her. They killed her because she refused their advances...and I never knew...I never-"
Iris seemed so tired and yet even as this stranger wept before her, all she did was wrap her thin arms around him like a mother would for their child and sat there. At last they understood what Iris's powers were all about. Not all of it, but enough to understand the burden she bore.
Yet, when Iris looked back to face Murata and the rest of them, the most loving smile lit up her pale face and the cut on her face vanished without a trace. As a testament that she had appeased the spirit that called to her...
And when the man stopped weeping, he turned to the very last page of the song and read aloud the final verses:
Dreaming of you, in days without you that have long passed us by, I remember. Our days are my treasure; more precious than gold. Remember me, and I am not far; I am here. In these words I live forever, your name on my lips. Your name, is my song...
