Disclaimer: Star Ocean isn't mine! Don't hurt me…
Chapter 10
"This way, please," a blond-haired female servant said demurely—guardedly, almost—as she led Albel and Helgrave to a corridor of bare but exquisite tile, of the finest in wall detailing but nothing gracing those transparently patterned canvases.
They were not in the Royal Aquarian Castle, even though the expense to which the hallways had been constructed was equal. But in the unsettling emptiness of these rich surroundings gave Albel the same dripping agitation of an open mausoleum.
House Sylphide was not the cheerful place of light-filled banisters and comforting aquamarine silks that Albel wanted to remember. It reminded him of the foreboding and echoing nothing of the Shrine of Kaddan.
"Albel, are you doing all right? You look like you need to sit down or something," Helgrave muttered in his ear, a sentiment that he would rather no one else hear.
"I suppose you are my brethren," they heard a pinched soprano address to them.
Albel and Helgrave found the source to be, of all people, a young girl wrapped in stockings and an airy flounced dress. Her stern features and dark hair contrasted harshly with the periwinkle of her gown. She sat at the window, and only made the barest acknowledgement of their presence with her movements.
"Rozie," Helgrave sighed, and moved forward immediately. Albel hung back, watching his younger brother approach the little sister he had never met.
Ten years of warfare had affected even their sister Rozalin. She shrunk away from him with a disdainful pout.
A bitter scowl marred her delicate features. "And look at you. Albel the Wicked, my own flesh and blood. I could never be more ashamed," she commented. "I'm surprised you're civilized enough to stand in here without feeling embarrassed of your Airyglyphian upbringing. If you both are representative of Sieg, I am thankful that Crimson Blade rid him from existence."
"I beg pardon?" Albel said, dangerously lightly. The suffocating walls had stilled his barbed tongue.
But Rozalin felt she did not need to reply to Helgrave. As if hearing soundless footsteps, she delicately raised her head towards the doorway across from the window.
"Oh, mother, Albel and Helgrave have arrived," she said to the enchanting wraith that materialized in the doorway.
The ghost smiled as if any movement would rupture her paper-white skin. Against that chalky complexion, her Aquarian red eyes and silver-spun hair seemed harshly out of place.
"How long it has been," she whispered as if it were her loudest. "Thank Apris you've finally grown so," she said as she took a wary few steps towards Helgrave.
"My son," she said; too frail for an embrace, she took his arms in her own. "Remember how Jason used to tease you so much about how thin you were as a child?"
"Mum, I'm not…" Helgrave began with a wary look over to Albel.
"How is the Vox family, by the way? Lydia never writes. And where are Helgrave and Sieg—oh, they didn't get into trouble again, did they? What did they do this time? And when will your father be getting back?"
Helgrave felt robbed of words for a moment. Then he breathed in, and said, "Mum, I'm sorry. I am Helgrave. Albel is behind you," he grimaced slightly.
Ephemera squinted at the thin creature. "The twins' sense of humor must have rubbed off on you at last. You were always so serious!"
"No, mum, really…"
Ephemera's gaze took in Albel's drawn features, quivered at his metallic limb. Something intangible registered in her eyes, and there was a presence that was not in her before.
Before condemnation fell from her lips, Albel found it was easier than he thought to disappear. He simply left.
It was a misted and lonely walk that Albel took to Aquaria Castle, where Helgrave and himself would be staying—it felt more at ease with him to stay in the place that reminded him of the time he had spent with Fayt, than to be in House Sylphide's compound and be reminded of the decade he had spent burdened with guilt.
But not even the distance could calm him. Ignoring the Aquarian eyes that followed him and the suspiciously large entourage of guards that led him to his rooms, the past few minutes he had spent with his family stirred heavily inside of him. It was not his intention to ever return, after he had left Elicoor II behind that eternity ago.
The room was dark, lit by moonlight. It took Albel longer than his soldiers' training allowed, for him to scan the room. When he did, he stepped back quickly.
"What are you doing here?" Albel, too stunned to say much else, demanded.
The boy pushed a stray lock of blue hair away from his face in a strikingly vulnerable gesture. "I…" he began, unable to meet Albel's gaze. "I just heard you'd be here. And we didn't exactly talk much for a while."
He made a face, one half between grimace and sorrow. "I guess I missed you. I don't know." As if to affirm this, he shook his head in confusion and reached up to his temples, his pale fingertips masked in his hair.
And just as simply as the boy stated he didn't know why he was here, Albel realized that he didn't know what to do.
"Fayt," Albel said, softer than he had intended to say it, but just as soft as he had meant it.
At this, the boy looked up. "It's too dark," he then said suddenly. "I can't see you. Not really."
Before he could quite understand what had happened, Albel found the boy in his embrace. They had both closed the distance between them, but Albel realized, with a sense of anxiety, he had been the one to open his arms.
With a sensation as sick and sudden as if he had just been struck, Albel's grip instantaneously loosened. What had he done?
There, for that one hesitant moment, Albel felt the absolutely convincing presence of Fayt in his arms. He did not pull away, did not protest. Only looked up in silent reply to the tremor of Albel's pulse.
"There's something wrong. Albel, tell me."
Albel's reply paused in his throat. "This," he finally choked.
The boy shook his head. "No, there's nothing wrong. After all…" And the subtle suggestive inclination of his head, the wanting absence in his eyes, convinced Albel of something he would have believed impossible.
Their lips brushed once before Albel felt his obsession playfully pull away.
"After all, he's such a pretty boy, isn't he?" Fayt then said, with a voice that was not his own. With an uncharacteristic smirk on his lips, he threw a lazy gaze at the smoldering fireplace and the red of the hearth bolted up his features, just in time to see them melt into a stranger's.
Albel was immediate to draw his sword. "Who in," he exhaled, too furious even for his epithets.
"Now, now, Albel, is that any way to treat your cousin Caina?"
It was a girl. A teenage girl, still adolescent and sprite-like, with cropped azure hair and a cruel twist to her lips.
"I don't have a cousin named Caina," he growled. "Especially not one with blue hair."
Her eyebrows shot up into her bangs. "Whoops, my bad. It's just that Fayt's so cute, I can't let go of his appearance that easily. You understand," she remarked obliquely, and in a flash her hair turned the dark hues of House Sylphide.
"What are you?" he said, then reconsidered. "No. Never mind that—I'll just kill you and it won't matter," he said as he drew his sword up to her throat.
And in an instant, it was Fayt's pulse that beat against that gleaming blade. "Albel," the girl said, her voice Fayt's and full of defenseless fear.
"That won't work," Albel said carefully.
The girl's visage changed again; her hair grew out to shoulder length, and a honeyed, earthy tone shot through her roots. Her stature spread to shoulders wider than Albel's, standing taller than him. But the face was young, even younger than Fayt's.
"Albel, come on, don't do this to me. You know I..."
"Don't you dare say it," Albel hissed at the mirage of a teenage boy. "You're not Jason," he said as a tremor shook through him. "Whatever you are, I'll end you. How you could know enough to toy with me like this," he began.
She giggled, returning to the distorted feminine form that mocked Fayt's. "Even after all that time you spent in my dimension, and you can't figure it out. Don't worry, my little Albel, I'll come back later once you've thought on it awhile."
She started to simply walk out, then paused and threw her piercing stare over her shoulder. "You know what? Fayt's so cute, I think I'll just borrow his form awhile. You won't mind. Still confused? Let me give you a hint: I'm the reason why you have that arm."
When Albel's blade sank into the wall behind her head, she was already gone, as convincingly as if she had never been.
He laughed ruefully to himself. "I'm going mad," he said quietly to the empty air. He had conjured Fayt and created a being from 4D space. Anything insane enough to satisfy the raging in his veins.
But then why Jason, he wondered as he grimaced and pulled his blade back to its sheath.