Stranded

Chapter 6

"Lady Rydia, what are you doing up at this time of day?"

"Oh… hello… I was just taking a walk."

"Ah, well, I suppose you better be getting along, now. The King will want you back very much soon."

"Really? I mean, its 4 in the morning."

Oh, he'll notice soon enough, I mean, after all, I did…oh…um…if you'll excuse me miss, I need to finish the laundry before daybreak…"

"Come back!"

"…Yes?"

"What happened."

"Miss Rydia, I don't… I really think that…"

"Please, tell me what happened."

"…Lady Rydia, please, do not be angry at me for this…"

"I won't be. Tell"

"Well, many times you would get very angry at the king, correct?"

"Yes."

"And often times you would leave the castle completely."

"Correct."

"Well…the king does not like to be alone."

"I have assumed as much, which is why I leave when I am angry with him."

"Well, you see, he…how do I put this…finds a substitute for you."

"…"

"Every time you refuse to give him what he wants, he chooses someone else to give it to him."

"…"

"Even when you pull away from a kiss too soon, he'll immediately come to the laundry or the kitchens to find someone else"

"…"

"Lady Rydia, I am sorry, but that is the way he is…"

"No. It's okay. That is how he is. Must be in control. Has to have everything he wants. Exactly. When. He wants it."

"Lady Rydia, please, perhaps you should lay down…"

"Yes, I should. Prepare me a bed in the East Wing."

"But shouldn't you go…"

"No! I am never going to go into that monster's room again! A room in the East Wing, please!"

"Kain…" Rydia awoke slowly, looking around. The memories started flooding back to her.

She lay next to the dragoon, on the soft grass on the cliff overlooking the sea, far from the eyes of the ninja

Kain rolled over, closer to Rydia. Rydia stroked his cheek and got up, looking over and into the sea. So calm…

"Rydia!"

She looked up the hill, just to see Edge streaking downhill towards them, waving something clenched in his fist. His face was terribly red, and this eyes were alight with a fire.

Rydia beckoned Kain awake as Edge pulled into a furious stomp, pointing what was clenched in his fist at Kain's throat, making it still enough for Rydia to see what it was.

The stick.

The stick that Kain had touched the symbol with.

And he was right. The stick was burned black, and in an eerie, almost glowing white, the symbol was carved into it numerous times. Kain's eyes widened.

"Where… did…you find… that?" He struggled to get out. He slowly inched away from it.

"Next to all the other weird symbols like this! And I assume you know what's going on!"

"Put it down!"

"No!"

"Put it down NOW! Edge, it's not funny! Drop it!"

"No! Tell me what's going on!"

"If I do, you'll kill me."

"Try me."

"You're going to die."

Kain's last words were said looking directly at the stick, on which the symbol's were beginning to pulse. Edge's jaw slipped open, then clenched, and he whipped back the stick like he was going to attack. Rydia then completely lost it. She ran between the two men, and wrenched the stick from Edge's hands.

"I'm sick of this! Why are you so thoughtless?"

"Rydia, put it down. Now." Kain grew more tense by the moment, but Rydia paid no mind as the symbol's pulsing grew stronger.

"How could you just stomp down here, waving this stick and trying to attack him? What has he done? Tell me Edge!"

Kain grew frantic. He tried to shake the stick loose from her grip, but she held fast. Edge put on his dignified act to answer the question.

"My love, because he stole you from me, and has kept you away from me, my dear Ry-"

"You idiot! You never had me! How can you not see? How can you be so blind?"

Kain tried even harder to wrench the stick from her grasp, paying absolutely no attention to anything but it.

"Edge, I hate you!"

Edge jaw once more slipped open, and he ran up to Kain and grabbed the front of his shirt.

"I don't know what you did to her, what you told her but-"

And then there was silence.

Complete and utter silence as the stick let out a loud, throbbing pulse that could be felt even by the trees far away, which shook as though something had rammed into him.

Rydia's grip loosened on it. She lurched forward, completely out of control of what she was doing.

Kain caught her by the front and put her back to the grass and Edge came up and fell to his knees.

Rydia's senses started failing as Edge's frantic yells fainted, and the grass beneath became cold. Her eyes went blurry.

Kain brushed her hair out of her face just as her eyes glazed over and her breathing stopped.

Author's Notes- Okay, I actually like how that turned out. We'll clear a LOT of things up in the next chapter, I promise. Oh yeah, sorry for the impossibly late update. I sorta cleaned out the computer (or one of my friends did) and of course, they dumped all but the few things I told them not to dump, and I forgot to tell them about this story, so I had to start from scratch on this chapter again. I hate starting over on stuff. Its almost as painful as leveling up when you somehow managed to get to the final dungeon of a game 22 levels under the recommended level. So anyways, I'll try hard not the do another stupid thing this time.

The Magnifique