Chapter 10

Caged Heat

Paul Davis waked up. He felt himself laying on a soft bed, and saw an unfamiliar ceiling, with a lamp hanging for it. The light was hitting him directly, making his eyes sting, and he had to half close them to see well. Paul looked to the side, intending to see where he had ended up exactly, and he saw a tall, blonde girl whose hair covered her ears completely sitting at his bedside. She wore a skimpy, green dress, showing a lot of cleavage, a lot of thigh, a lot of everything, so tight that it was a wonder her massive breasts didn´t break it. It was also painfully clear that she was not wearing a bra. The girl noticed his movement, smiled softly, and clapped.

"Ah, you are all right! Thanks goodness! It looked so bad that I thought you couldn´t do it, but you did!"

Paul opened his mouth to say something, anything, but the only thing that left his throat was a dry gasp.

"Uh… Are you thirsty?" She said, a look of puzzlement on her face. Paul nodded, slowly and she beamed. The girl looked to the side, and with a bit of effort he followed her gaze. There was a plate full of food and a glass of water at the nightstand and he watched as she picked it up, and looked back at him. She drew the glass to his lips, and he let her help him without protest. He drank the water in one shot, and afterwards his throat fell cleaned. Maybe not any better, but cleaned. He tried to say something, again.

"Who… Who are…" He gasped, and soon his gasp descent into a coughing fit. The girl patted him on the back as long as it coughing lasted, but he barely noticed it. Every cough set his chest on fire.

"Don´t talk, okay? For now, at least. I did my best, but you were… you were bad. So don´t force yourself, okay?" Paul nodded, tears in his eyes, because of the pain and because he felt like a baby, a real baby, so weak he couldn´t even speak properly. He thought about asking her for a piece of paper, but then he remembered that he didn´t knew how to write their language. Paul gestured at himself, hoping the girl could get it.

"Do you… Do you need to go to the bathroom?" Paul effusively shook his head, blushing at the very thought of that girl, of any girl really, helping him to the bathroom-that this girl apparently thought he was so weak that he needed the help was humiliating enough- and standing close to him just in case he fell or something while he had his pants down. "Are you hungry?"

He shook his head, again, and gestured at himself, then at her. He just wanted to know what happened, how the hell he was alive. It should have been the first thing anybody could think.

"I don´t get it." The girl said, and pouted. Paul sighed. Then, he opened his mouth and mouthed his question. The poor girl looked as confused as before. That´s was when Paul remembered that it all a translation spell, and he didn´t really speak the language. He was doing it in English, not it Halkagenian, and the fucking spell apparently couldn´t help him with that. Shit. "Did you want to know what happened to you?"

Paul nodded, thankful.

"One of the orphans found you, and brought you here. You were… a real mess. Then, I healed you as best as I could, but even magic as limits. I had begun to think that while your body was fine, you couldn´t never waked up. You were here for weeks." Paul looked down at himself, at for the first time he noticed the bandages on his body. He gulped, remembering the pain, remembering that yes, he really had be about to die, no joke. "And now… well, you know. What´s wrong?"

Paul looked up at her again, and realized he was crying. He felt a little bit ashamed, but he couldn´t help himself. It was like he was at the grassland again, facing that massive army with Louise behind him. He remembered that cacophony of spells, and shots, and the sound of his heart beating wildly against his chest, like a beast out of control. And his falling. Going for the darkness of the night to the dark of nothingness. He started shaking hard, so hard he was only vaguely aware than that girl had embraced him, and when he felt her hands stroking his hair softly, he at last found his voice.

Paul screamed.

It took him a long time to calm down, while the girl embraced him, patted his back and stroked his hair, but he did. It was a reaction that he wanted to forget as soon as possible, but still, he felt much better now. He was just a stranger, but the girl not only saved his life, but also took time to comfort it. It was a nice change of peace, for once. He could get used to this.

When they had hear him screaming, children rushed to the door, asking questions at the same time, had he cached the girl´s name among all that noise-Tiffania. She hushed them, and carried on. A minute later or so, he stopped screaming. He was still crying, but not that much. Paul leaned back down on the bed and tried to apologize to her, but it came out so low that he barely heard it himself. She said something that he did not hear to the children, and they went back. Then, she closed the door.

"D-derflinger…"

"Uh, what?"

"M-my…" He hacks out a cough. "My sword. Where…"

"Oh, he was being really loud and I didn´t what it to brother you, so I put him in another room. Why?" For a moment, he thought that she was hiding something, then he decided that it didn´t matter anyway. Is not like he could fight back or something, and she had saved his life, so she deserved a certain amount of trust. At least, for now.

"Give it back."

"Okay." She said, went out the room and she returned soon, with Derflinger on her hands. Then, she gave the sword to him. Paul drew Derflinger for his sheath, to allow him to talk.

"Yoo, partner… Are you finally awake? I'm so glad, I'm so glad."

"H-how I am alive?"

"I used the absorbed magic to move you, and make you run away to the forest. I thought there was still a chance, you see, but you heart had stopped… I am glad you are alive."

"I am glad I didn´t lost you too, Derf." He said, and it was true. Thought he was inwardly panicking-his heart had stopped, he said just like that- it was true. Derf had been always kind to him, and he had become accustomed to the weight of the sheath on his back. Losing him could have been painful.

"Oh, don´t get sentimental on me, partner. I will be always be with you, even you are not a legend anymore."

"What… What do you mean by that?"

Silence.

"Derflinger?" Nothing again, nothing. "Answer me!"

"You really don´t know? Look at your hand." And Paul looked. The sight of the runes was so familiar that it took him a moment to realize they were not there.

"It's gone." He said. "The runes are gone."

"Rejoice, partner. You don´t have to listen to that girl anymore."

"That girl." Paul repeated, as it tasting an unfamiliar food. He remembered how she treated him, as little more than an animal, and the little touches of kindness that mean the world to him back them but now seemed insignificant, so utterly insignificant. He remembered the two standing side by side on that hill, the day he had gone for the darkness of the night to the dark of nothingness. How she smiled, and clenched his hand. "I… I am free."

"That´s right, partner. You are free. You are dead to her and to everyone else… so you can go on, and be yourself."

He remembered his parent's smiles, the scent of warm food, the comfort of a bed, feeling loved, needed, like he was there. Louise, crying, telling him he was supposed to comfort her and him hugging her against his chest just like that, and thinking how warm she was, how fragile. Friends, friends who had seemed indistinct just a day before returning to him, is little computer club returning to him, its dusty smell and the neon screens, projects that were projects in name only written on a board, nothing but idly pass times . Her gentle hands when she kissed him and branded him as a slave. Paul closed his eyes. It all came like a wave, with a ferocious intensity he hadn´t never fell before.

"Partner?"

"How I am supposed to return back home now, Derf?"

"Listen, we can go to the east, beyond the desert of Rub' al Khali. Is a dangerous place, but is very possible we find a way to return you where you belong."

"You… You take me there? I am not even a Gandálfr now, I am useless…"

"No, don´t ever say that. Don´t ever say that, okay? You faced an entire army pretty much by yourself. Sure, you had power, but you knew that it was no sure to be enough, and you tried it anyway. Than shows just how courageous you are, partner."

"Maybe."

"Surely. The great Derflinger said it, so it's true. Carry on with pride, partner." Paul opened his eyes. He saw Tiffania at his bedside, looking at him with a concerned expression.

"I am okay. Don´t worry."

"But…"

"No buts. I am okay." Paul smiled, and presented his hand to her. "I… I have just realized I didn´t introduce myself. My name is Paul Davis."

"Ah, it's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Tiffania Westwood." She said, and then they awkwardly shook hands. It was not the best start, but it was no bad either.

No bad at all.

He stayed day and night on that bed, with Derflinger on the nightstand. Every day, Tiffania made sure to keep him company for a little while, and they sometimes talked about nothing in particular, and others she just played a beautiful song with an arc, the most wonderful song he had heard in all his life. Ten days passed, and by then he could walk again, so he started helping her with her daily chores. At first, Tiffania had refused, saying that it was unnecessary, that he should not force himself for her but she eventually let him anyway. He started with stuff like joining the children in their games when she was busy doing more important things, and worked his way up to cocking-more like trying to cook- and cutting firewood. That was precisely what he was doing right now-cutting firewood.

"Hey, partner?"

"Yes?" Paul grouted, lifted the axe and brought it down, splitting the log in two. He put the pieces on the firewood pile, and prepared another log.

"Don`t you think that girl is suspicious?"

"It has been three weeks, Derf. Is she was going to try anything, she could have done it by now."

"I don´t meant that, partner. I saw her ears… she is not human." Paul had lifted the axe over his head again, but upon hearing that he froze up. "She is an elf- a strange elf, but an elf anyway."

"How do you know that?"

"Her ears. She always covers her ears with her hair; I couldn´t be surprised I found out that she let her air grow that long just for that."

"Is that it?"

"No, of course. I saw her pointy ears the day you were brought here. In any case, listen to me. Elves are powerful, but not every elf is a homicidal bastard like the nobles paint them to be. And those that are homicidal bastards are like that for a dam good reason. But still, that girl worries me, partner. She is half elf, but she is here, instead of the east, in an orphan´s village. Is just… strange. Not to mention that she was capable of keeping you alive. There are very few things that could have saved you, in the state you were him. Ordinary water magic just couldn't have been enough. So she surely has a ring with Ancient Magic, and she used it to save you. It just… doesn´t add on, you know?"

"Maybe she is just kind."

"Maybe. But the world is like it is, and you are my precious partner, so I have to prepare for the worst. Especially now." Derflinger sighed. "Listen, just keep it in mind. Don´t act like she has already stabbed you in the back, but keep it in mind, okay?"

"Sure, Derf." He said, and brought the axe down again on the next and last log. He put them on the pile, and stared at his handiwork with a smile. It was not a herculean task, far for it, but it sure felt good to do something again. "You know what? I ask her."

"How subtle! I like it."

He went back to the house, Derflinger on his back and found Tiffania cleaning the main room, humming to herself. She was arched in front of a basin, wiping it with a dustpan and with that little green dress on her she showed far too much cleavage. Paul heard Derflinger let out a low whistle, and he found that he couldn't quite disagree with the sentiment. He approached her.

"Tiffania?" He said, but he didn´t seem to hear him, she just carried on with the cleaning and the humming of what he just realized was the song she played with that harp. Paul coughed. She stirred, straightened her posture, looked back at him and smiled softly.

"Sorry about that, Paul. I was a bit distracted." A bit, sure. Let´s leave it at that. "Did you finish already?"

"Yes, but I am no here about that. No just for that, anyway." Tiffania tensed, slightly, and Paul narrowed his eyes. It could be she just was being careful, but it also could be she was indeed hiding something big, like Derflinger had said.

"What do you want, then?"

"I want to ask you something. How did you cure me? I was as good as dead, but you did it."

"I…" Tiffania bit her lip, and when Paul was already preparing to run she lifted her right hand. He saw an expensive looking blue ring. "It was this ring."

Derflinger had been right. Then, there was just one thing left.

"Why did you do it? I am just a complete stranger."

"No particular reason, really. I could save somebody, so I did it. That's… That's what I was raised to believe it." Somehow, that answer touched his heart deeply. It was an unbelievable statement, but he couldn´t find anything but sincerity in her so he believed it anyway. "Why are you asking me this?"

"Ah, is nothing. I was just curious."

"Actually, we were suspicious of you." Derflinger chimed him.

"Eh, why?" Tiffania said, distraught. "I…"

"The world is not a good place, so we had to make sure." Derflinger said. "Don´t take it the wrong way, girl."

"Derf, did you have to be so crass?" Paul said.

"Well, duh. More fun that way."

He grimaced, and turned towards Tiffania.

"Look, I am sorry. I am I grateful for what you did, and I didn´t meant to hurt your feelings. Is just… just… I see some questionable things." He said, thinking of Louise and Guiche but most of all about himself, and because he couldn´t think of anything else to say he just said: "I am sorry."

"I-I understand." Tiffania nodded, and she went back to work just like that. Paul went out the house again, and took some of the cut lugs for the firewood pile to put them near the fire place. He was like that, in and out, for a few minutes, and went he finished Tiffania at gone out of the house. Paul sighed. The trouble had seemed so real just a few minutes ago, but now he just felt like an asshole.

Paul couldn't sleep. He tossed, turned and sweated hard, but sleep never came. When he grew tired of it, he stood up and turned on the lights.

"Derf?"

"Yes, partner?"

"The runes… do they have some sort of compulsion?"

"Yes, of course. Compulsion is exactly the right word. It cannot change your nature, but it definitively can influence you. Why?"

"I should have known." Paul sighed. "I… I started to remember about my life, my mother and father. I started to wish, wish really hard, to turn back. Back then, when I was with Louise, I didn´t think about it all that much. She was real, her and her little touches of kindness, not what she had forced me to leave behind. She was my… my world."

"And now?"

"I hate her." He nearly growled. "I hate everything about her. Yet… I remember how fragile she is, and that kindness still has some meaning for me. Is all confusing, and I can´t help but doubt that is real."

"Is as real as anything else, partner, but if you asking if the runes have something to do with what you are feeling, then yes, that´s probably true."

Paul looked beyond the window, a bit wishfully. The light of the moons reflected on the forest, making the shadows just a bit brighter.

"I was a single child. Mother and father never thought about children or about forming a family-I just came and they were forced to deal with it. I was not spoiled, but I was never treated badly. Mother is good cock, but father can be trusted with making himself a sandwich and not much else. In my first year of high school, I formed the computer club and I became an escape for me and my friends. Mark, Bill, George, Beverly. Beverly... she had such beatiful, red hair. I used to daydream about the two of us sitting somewhere, her head agaist my shoulder, and me stroking her hair, thinking just how soft it could be. We did all short of stuff there. I used to doddle ideas for stories on notebooks, papers, one side of the school guide- anything I could find. I wrote some of them, too. Not much, but some. We once thougth about doing a animation. We wrote a rougth outline, together and I turned it into a script. It never got done. Is name was Once Upon A Time, and it was about the falling of a famous knight and the kingdom he wanted to protect. I sent some histories to a lot of magazines, and I collected a good pile of rejection letters. We used to play video games together on the weekend, and argue for the sake of arguing."

"Partner?"

"It makes it seem more real, when I say it. Like is more than just a dream of mine, like is all there, somewhere and I just have to find it." Paul closed his eyes. "I can´t stand it. I can´t stand thinking what happened to them when I was gone, I can´t stand knowing that all of them think I am dead, much less how they coped with it."

"…You can still turn back."

"No." His hands clenched into fists, hard. "No. Is over, Derflinger. Even if there was some way to return, when this world doesn´t know about mine, nobody could help me do that. I am just a normal human, a commoner. Even when I had the Gandalf runes everybody thought of me in that way. They thought they could just walk over me. Like Louise, Henrietta, Wardes, Guiche and that chief or whatever that bastard was. That's all they ever will do, until I break. Walk over me. Walk, walk, and walk. They won´t care until they start hearing the cracks, and even then…"

"Shut up." Derf said. "I don´t like to hear you like this. I wanted to tell you later, but there is more to my idea that just a half-baked hope. I know you can return back, and I know how you can do it. Brimir had spell just like that. He called it The World Door. When Louise grows enough, she surely will be able to use that spell. Just find another Void Mage and ask for help, or go back to Louise or something, but stop talking like that."

"Another Void Mage?"

"Yes, there are four void familiars, one for a mage of each country. Tiffania Westwood is a Void Mage."

"Why… Why didn´t you tell me sooner?"

"I know a lot of things, partner. A lot of things. A knowledge is not always the gif people think it is; sometimes, is better to be ignorant. So I tell you these types of things when you need to know, and no a second sooner."

"Knowledge is always better."

"No. You know why the war between elves and humans, which has lasted since centuries, started? Brimir suddenly decided that he wanted to kill all the elves, and Sansa, my partner and creator killed him. With me. All those people that live for Brimir don´t who he became, and all those people who died for him and will die in the future will die only because Brimir couldn´t get out of his high horse and because of the idiots that started the whole 'Reclaim the Holy Land' idea."

"That´s…"

"I have been wielded by a lot of people, even those that were not Gandálfr. I saw soldiers bend on their crusades, all holy and mighty, burning down the homes of people who didn´t do anything but be in the way of their army. I saw the corpses of many children, and mothers staring at them with that glassy look of their eyes, like the body was fine, all right, but there was no longer anything inside. I saw people being burned alive for speaking against Brimir."

"Derflinger, stop…"

"I have seen wars being lunched for profit, or hate or just simply boredom. I have seen people sell out other people's lives. I have seen…"

"Shut up! I get it, so shut up!" Paul screamed, tears it his eyes. He breathed deeply, in and out, trying to calm himself down.

"See? This is what knowledge does to everybody. Even if I didn´t tell you all of that, you know it. Are you not hurting more now, that you know the life she stripped you off, that when the runes keep all those uncomfortable thoughts away? Are you not?" Derflinger said, his voice growing lower and lower. "I love you, partner, but I also have a lot of uncomfortable thoughts, decades of uncomfortable thoughts, and I know just how much it all hurts. So, trust me. I let you know what you should know, when you should know. Okay?"

Paul nodded, weakly.

"Okay." Then, he lied down on the bed, illuminated by the soft glow of the moon. He thought he heard it mutter. Paul drew the covers tightly against his body, and tried to sleep.

Paul somehow fell asleep, and dreamed. He watched the sun rise-no, not he, but they, they because Louise was sitting beside him, her gaze fixed on the horizon as he stroked her soft pink hair. She raised her head to look at him, her face cast in shadow, and told him that she loved him and he said that he loved her too, his heart beating almost painfully on his chest. It was a fairy tale love scene, all right, and when he brought down his lips against hers it was all the more so, but then he fell something foul and sticky against his mouth and he separated for her and saw dozens of little spiders crawl out of her mouth and down her body as she just looked at him, smiling a fixed, almost painful smile, and then he screamed at found himself not bitten by spiders, trying to swam the off or completely overwhelmed but in one room of Tiffania house in the Westwood Village, and he was all right, he was fine.

That was when he saw it, ligth that somehow held a shape at his bedside and from it came a familiar voice. It was a door, he thougth. A door back into his cage. He had flew for a while, but even birds have to go back to the ground. The voice said:

"Paul, please. If you are there, somehere, anywhere, help me. I need you." Paul left the bed, took Derflinger´s sheath in one hand and approached the ligth. He stared at it as it swirled, almost dizzingly.

"Partner?"

"It all went bad, and I don´t know what to do withouth you anymore." Louise continued. "So... if you are alive... if you are fine... please, please, go back to me."

"I can´t stand it, after all." Paul murmured, as in a dream, but it his heart he knew those words were true. He thought about all of them again, the people he couldn't never see anymore because that girl existed and for no other goddamn reason at all. He thought about them, and he started crying. "I can´t."

"You are going to regret this." Derflinger said.

"God." He laugthed, bitterly, sounding to himself like he had lost it-at maybe he had. "I hope not."

"...I see. Farewell, parnert." Paul stepped througth the door of ligth, eyes closed, following Louise´s voice and before he knew it he floated away, and a second later he was standing again. He opened his eyes, and instead of the palace or the accademy he saw that he was in a room as big as the hall he had nearly be executed it. There was a throne of the far end of it, in which a tall, blue man sat in, with Louise rigth in front of him, her regal dress with deep gashes, looking at him with eyes half scared and half filled with hope. Four soldiers stood around them, in a cirle. He didn´t understand.

"This... is the Gandálfr?" The man of the throne said. "Uh."

Louise approached him lightly, reluctantly.

"I am sorry." She said as she closed on him. "I am sorry."

"Louise?" He murmured, and even thougth he was having bad feeling about this, that´s all he did. Even when she grabbed his head with her hands, and pressed herself agaist his body, her lips closing on his, he didn´t do anything else. Paul didn´t understand what was going on, but he was far for stupid. They were in danger. Both of them. So when Louise kissed him again, he only stiffened. Then, the pain came. He felt, truly felt, like he was ligthed on fire, and fell to his kness trying to hold back a scream but it came anyway, and it sounded like the dying scream of a beast that had be finally put down. A minute later-which may as well have be a eternity- the pain ended, and he breathed, trying to keep it all down, trying not to cry and, most of all, trying not to loss concious. When he got back enougth stregth to lift his head off the ground, he saw that Louise had felt to her kness at his side and felt her hands grabbing his shoulders. She looked about to cry.

He felt his hand being grabbed, the hand of the runes and when he looked to the side he saw that it was one of the soldiers. The soldier nodded, and released his hand.

"Excellent." Paul and Louise turned towards the man on the throne. "This whole things has gone far beyond my expectations. You-both of you-not only gave me a chance to strike at Albion, but nearly wiped their army out. And now, this power of yours... is mine. Nothing will be out of my reach. Even... I can even go beyond the void in my heart. All of Halkegenia will felt the power of Joshep, King of Gallia."