Look! It's a bird! It's a Plane! It's the long-awaited chapter of Doom!
Oi, sorry doesn't even cover how I feel, but I won't get into that. What you lot SHOULD know is that this chapter contains just the slightest inkling of Dark Prince/Farah pairing. I'm not saying I'm having any romance at all in this story, nor am I saying that I'll have that pairing if I did. The situation presented in this Chapter just... worked much better with a bit of sappy mush in it XD!
Forgive me, mush-haters!
Disclaimer: Don't own nothing. Zip. Nada. Squat. Zero. Zilch. Etc.
Chapter 9- Hero
"Resisitance?" The Prince followed Jamila's movements as she walked across the foyer and ran a hand along the wooden railing of a staircase leading up, where three men were laughing over a series of crude jokes.
"Resistance." Jamila repeated calmly, turning her dark brown eyes upon the two of them, watching as Malik sidled to the right and started poking and prodding at a damp, dripping shell. "I wouldn't do that." She said coolly, continuing her walk.
A yelp resounded through the hall and Malik ripped away from the shell, which had transformed into a very upset turtle.
"The children should know better than to let them out." Jamila said softly, grabbing the beast before Malik could complete his very graphic thoughts on it. "Though you DID deserve it." With a raised brow, she watched as he huffed angrily.
"Why is this the first time I have heard of any kind of resistance?" The Prince questioned gravely. "It would have been much appreciated the last time something like this happened."
"Last time, Prince, we were all caught unawares. No one anticipated the arrival of crazed beasts composed entirely of Sand." Jamila turned on her heel and took in their appearance. "This time it was you who were taken by surprise, and we who were prepared, correct?"
"We weren't totally unprepared." Malik folded his arms and snorted. "At least I was not." He looked sidelong at the Prince, who flustered and threw his hands up. "And I was! You are the one that resembled a dying fish when they came through the door!"
Before another argument could erupt, Jamila launched into a loud explanation of what exactly the Resistance was. "We take in those who cannot fight for themselves. Children, elderly citizens, women..." She turned around and quirked a small smile. "We also have a force of soldiers that rival your own elite guards." She then gestured to the right, where dozens of weapons were lined up against the wall. "We are prepared for anything and everything."
Malik grimaced at the boredom he knew would come very shortly and looked at the Prince almost pitifully. "Do we have to listen to her ramble on about how wonderful she is?" He asked bitterly, casting a heated glare at Jamila's turned back.
"Yes, so do not be disrespectful." The Prince threw Malik a warning glance and turned away, causing the entity to snigger quietly. "What is so funny?" Prince asked cautiously, not entirely sure if he wanted to know how the mind of his opposite worked.
"You! You also think that this whelp thinks a bit too highly of herself! Admit it!" Of course, his laugh fell into a tense silence as Jamila whipped around.
"If you are not interested, you can go look around for yourself!" She hissed.
"Alright, I will!" Malik waved in sarcastic merriment and began walking in the opposite direction while Prince rolled his eyes, sighed, and encouraged Jamila to continue.
Xxxxx
"'If you are not interested, you can look around for yourself'!" Malik mimicked rudely as he erupted into an empty, simple room. "How annoying." Finally looking up, he took in the room slowly, taking his time by focusing on each part of the decor that stood out. A wooden chair that appeared to be old and worn. A rusty nail that had probably been pulled loose from said chair years ago. A sizeable square of mismatched wood upon the floor, acting perhaps as a door to a cellar? After all, with so many people under one roof, there had to be some sort of place to store food.
Hesitantly, Malik crouched and peered steadily into the floor until the craving for some good food got the better of him and, digging his fingernails unto the crevice between the two types of wood he hauled up, revealing an old, dry set of stairs leading unto an unnerving black abyss.
"Look at yourself!" He reprimanded irritably when a gut-feeling stopped his walking. "Afraid of the dark..." Malik snorted bitterly and began his descent. "I am the dark."
However, after two minutes filled with stumbling, tripping, cursing and head-hitting, Malik changed his mind about being darkness reincarnate, and about there being anything edible below ground. "I'm sure most denizens of darkness do not go about beating their heads within their own element... and I'm sure they have more satisfactory places to store food."
Of course, talk of elements started his short attention span into gear and, as Malik's view became sharper in the light, or lack thereof, his mind wandered. "Is darkness an element?... I always thought it was fire, water, earth and air... If you added anything, the entire world would be thrown out of balance..." Running a hand through his hair, Malik closed his eyes and sighed. "And if there is darkness, there is light, and if there is light and dark, then there must be ice to be fair... so then fire would have two opposites?"
"The guards just get stranger and stranger..."
"I'm not strange, nor am I a guard– wait! What? Who said that?" Malik scanned the blackness for life and heard shuffling to his left. Feeling along the wall, his palm landed at the edge of a window then continued on to meet bars and finally an appendage he recognised as a nose... maybe?
Smirking boyishly, he pinched his forefinger and thumb over it and heard a squeak of pain. Yes, definitely a nose. Now to learn the identity of the nose. "Who are you? Do I know you?"
The darkness hid her face, but Malik recognized the next sentence immediately: "Release my nose and tell me where Prince is!"
"Of course, M'lady." He released the appendage and heard a series of muffled complaints. "No need for thank-you's, Dear Prince is above us, being given a tour of this place by another woman." Even in the dark, Malik made the motion to be staring nonchalantly at his fingernails whilst Farah hissed in vexation. "A very pretty other woman if you ask me..."
"And where is here?" Farah attempted to keep her cool as Malik wheedled around her questions slyly. "Who was this woman? Why is Prince with her? Why are you not with this woman?"
"Here is a Resistance of sorts, organized by the Babylonian citizens to the extent of my knowledge. That woman is called Jamila. Prince says he wants to learn about the Resistance, but I don't believe him, not with the Living Bosom at his side." Malik took a deep breath. "And, Farah, if I didn't know better, I would believe you think me some sort of perverse deviant!"
Farah kneaded her brow and sighed loudly. "You speak in circles, and do not get me started on the level of your perverseness!" She caught herself from giving him a full lecture. "But, this woman... what did she look like, Malik? I need details!"
Feeling that his sarcasm be best forsaken at the moment, Malik frowned into the black abyss. "She has very dark hair... and her face is rather... straight... Much like a horse, actually." Like a child, he chortled at the comparison. "She dresses very much like you! Very scantily-clad lass, showing off those stunning abdominal regions to the monarchy!"
His laugh echoed through the underground world and Farah blanched. "Oh no... no!" Her arms slithered out through the bars and clamped over Malik's mouth. "Be quiet! Prince is in great danger and you need to get me out!" When he seemed to be hesitating, Farah snarled an unladylike oath. "Now!"
"Who do you hate more than anyone else in the world, Girl?"
Taken aback by the serious and spontaneous nature of his question, Farah made herself out to be a fool, stumbling over her words. "Well... I su-suppose the Visier. But that has little to do with our current situation."
"Did you know that comparing the relationship between Prince and the Visier, who took everything away from him, and the Prinec and I, the latter is by far backed with more hate?" Farah squinted through the darkness, and found his gaze boring into hers. "Why would I want to go on some cock-and-bull adventure to save my worst enemy?" With his voice lowered and contained rage bubbling forth, Malik began pacing like a cornered animal, all thoughts of Kaileena and her warnings pushed away to allow his vicious nature to burn through.
"Why are you all so positive I care about the Prince's fate? I say let the bastard die! I say let you all die!" Farah stumbled back at the force of his words, finding she would much rather screaming and yelling than the terrifying, dangerous fury that smothered his words. "Let Babylon fall to it's knees and let it's savior hang for all I could care!"
Malik felt a clenching in his chest that was unfamiliar, but ignored it as he continued. "I was not created to feel sorrow, or pleasure, or anything of that sort! All I feel is hate and rage!" He broke off and looked away from Farah sighing heavily. "Can you imagine what that– no, of course you can not..." With a tight voice, Malik subconsciously rubbed his eyes, who had been tingling most peculiarly for moments now. "Come... I will try to get you out."
"Are... you alright?" Farah croaked uneasily as Malik studied the hinges carefully. "I apologise if–"
Pulling on an incrediby false smirk, he looked up and sniggered in a familiar fashion. "Hark! The beast feels for another creature, or are my eyes and ears decieving me?" He crouched back down and she tried to poke her head through the bars. "I am serious, you know..." She added uncertainly.
"As am I!" Malik snapped tensely. "I am fine!"
As he worked to remove the hinges, however, a lonely drop of salty liquid fell from one of his tingly eyes and formed a perfect, silvery, glistening track to his chin, where it hesitated and fell softly onto the dry ground with an inaudible splash.
And then, hearing dozens of soldiers feet filing through the hole he had stupidly forgotten to cover, Malik realised what poor timing these strange new emotions pounced with.
"Hide!" Farah hissed angrily as the footfalls grew louder. "Go get Prince! Whoever he is with-" She lowered her voice and Malik leaned in to listen. "Whoever he is with puts him in grave danger." When Malik rolled his eyes at the prospect of saving the Prince, Farah grabbed his upper arm, carefully avoiding the Daggertail. "Please, Malik."
Ripping his arm away from her hand, Malik took on an affronted look. "Fine." He growled. "I'll try to get him." He cast one last glance at the bars and shook his head, slipping past the guards with ease, being now used to the lack of light, while they were blinded by it.
Finding Prince, however, was proving quite difficult. The manor was surprisingly massive, and each room was bare of any kind of life, except one that seemed to act as a nursery, harboring a dozen young children and an exhausted caretaker.
"Ah, Prince!" Malik exclaimed, running into a sitting room where his counterpart and Jamila were sitting. "Prince, if I could have a word?" He danced in the balls of his feet impatiently. "NOW?"
Looking once more at Jamila's curious expression, the Prince stood up and followed Malik into a deserted, dank room, where he watched with guarded interest as Malik hastily paused to think. "Are you just going to stand there all day, or tell me something?" He finally asked darkly.
Heaving a deep breath, Malik tried to explain. "There is a basement... no... well... a cellar, really. Anyway, Prince, in this basement-cellar, your 'Dearest Jamila' is holding a particular captive."
With obvious disbelief, Prince encouraged Malik to keep going.
"I don't know much yet, she didn't really explain, but she has Farah down there, Prince." Malik grimaced at how stupid this sounded to him, let alone Prince. "I'm not lying!" He added hastily. "Not this time, anyway. You have to believe me!"
But, as his face burned in anger, Malik suspected that the Prince, in fact, did not believe him. "You ARE jealous, aren't you?" He snapped. "You want all the attention from everyone! When Jamila decides to pay you as much respect as you her, you decide she's devised a way to kidnap Farah!"
Malik attempted to cut off this rant before it began, but found that his vocal cords were on strike. "This building has no cellar! I happen to trust Jamila! Of course, after all I've seen you do, I'm still surprised you have not stabbed me in my sleep!"
"Fine." Malik hissed coldly. "Fine! I'll do it myself, and I'll be sure to tell her how eager you were to come to her rescue," He sneered "'My Hero'!" Turning on his heel, Malik stormed out the door and glared at Jamila, who had evidently heard it all through the cheap wood.
She smiled coldly and brushed past him into the room, giving off the air of a woman who had, without a doubt, won at her own game.
"Fine..." Malik repeated with less certainty. "I'll be the bloody hero..."
And there you go, my wonderful, kind, awsome friends! A long-awaited chapter! Unfortunately, the next one may take just as long, seeing how I haven't got a computer anymore(I'm using a neighbor's right now)...
But, wish me luck anyway! Tell me how this chapter was, so I know if or if not I've still got a knack for Prince of Persia writing XD.
