I'd also like to take a moment to remember Pope John Paul II, who died today. You were an amazing man, and the only Pope I've ever known. You will be sorely missed, but your rest is much-deserved!
Okay, on with the chapter. (Lights turn off, curtain rises)
Chapter 14- Well, it's about damn time!
Lying on his back, Dilandau stared at the ceiling of the room. At least, he assumed it was the ceiling. He knew from the force of gravity the direction of down, and from there he deduced the direction of up. Of course, the way these Artisans liked to manipulate things, he could very well be sticking to the ceiling and have no idea. The fact that down had been assigned to the floor when he had entered had nothing to do with it.
He couldn't actually see anything. When he left, Shays had taken the door with him. Dilandau had explored every inch of the room that he could reach with his hands, feeling along the walls, dropping to his stomach and crawling along the floor. He could not get out. More distressing, perhaps, was that he had a fairly reliable internal clock. Despite the fact that he could not see the sun, he could guess within a few hours the amount of time he had been stuck in the room, or at least the amount of time that he had been conscious.
"For a whole day," Dilandau muttered, his voice quickly swallowed by the stifling darkness. "He's left me down here for a whole fucking day!" Had Shays forgotten about him? Was this some sort of punishment? Shays couldn't just leave him down here!
Or could he? Shays had told him that it would be nothing to kill him and replace him. Had Shays really meant that? Did he really mean to leave Dilandau there to starve to death?
Dilandau laughed to himself. "No, of course not. I'll die of thirst before I starve to death." Already his mouth was so dry that it was becoming hard to swallow. "He's just left me here…alone."
He tried to squelch the panic welling within him. If he panicked, he would never get out. "Like I have a snowflake's chance on the sun to get out, anyway!" He threw himself at the nearest wall, scrabbling at it as though he could somehow tear the stones apart with his fingers. "I'm all alone in here!" he screamed. "You bastards! Can't you hear me?" The stones tore at his nails, tore at the flesh of his fingers. "I'm all alone in here! I'm blind again! I'm all alone in the dark!" Panting, he threw himself bodily against the wall, and almost swore that he could feel his fingers enter the stone. He was no longer thinking clearly. "Somebody get me out of here!" he cried. "I'm alone in the dark! I'm alone in the dark! Get me out of here!"
Suddenly the wall fell away, and light flooded his vision. A pair of arms caught him and lowered him to the ground. "Get me out of here!" he continued to shout, grabbing at the person's clothes to keep him from leaving. "I'm alone in the dark! I'm scared! Someone help me!"
"It's all right," the voice told him kindly, gentle hands gripping his shoulders. "You're out now. Open your eyes. It's not dark anymore."
"Folken?" Dilandau dared to venture. Immediately, logic dashed his hopes. Both the hands that gripped him were organic. The voice was not Folken's; in fact, he was not certain that he had heard it before.
Dilandau opened his eyes, looking up into Gwinnett's worried face. "You're not Folken," he said.
"No, dear boy. Folken and Shays have left on a trip."
Dilandau sank to his knees, hiding his face in his hands. "So that was him I saw. Damn you, Folken! I'm right here! Come and take me home!"
"But you are home," Gwinnett told him, patting his shoulder awkwardly.
"This isn't home!" Dilandau snarled, looking up. "Home isn't where people shut you up in rooms with no doors and leave you!"
Gwinnett's face went pale. "Did Shays leave you in there? How long?"
"For at least a damn day!" Dilandau told him. Gwinnett sighed.
"Shays, haven't you been listening to anything Folken is trying to tell you?" He shook his head. "We're going to have to make some changes around here, before he goes too far."
"I think it's a little late for that, don't you?" Dilandau growled. Gwinnett stood, folding his arms and looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully.
"You may be right."
Dilandau crawled to the wall and used its support to pull himself to his feet. "I learned all about you people in Zaibach," he continued in a low voice, his eyes narrowing dangerously. Gwinnett regarded him with a nonchalant air.
Didn't he know that lions only became more dangerous when wounded?
"What did you learn?" Gwinnett asked.
"Your people destroyed Atlantis," Dilandau began, advancing on the Artisan, who backed away slowly. "It was a great and powerful country, but its inhabitants became too greedy for power. They thought they could become gods. They made another world to rule over, and then they fell victim to their own evil power."
"And how does that affect you?" Gwinnett asked. "It was hundreds of years ago." "Stop speaking to me like a child!" Dilandau reached out to the Artisan with both hands. "I have to kill you all, before you can do the same thing to Gaea!" His hands closed around Gwinnett's throat, and Gwinnett held his place. Why isn't he backing away anymore? Dilandau tried to tighten his grip, but his fingers wouldn't close. Something's wrong. He looked up at Gwinnett's placid face. "What are you doing?" he demanded, his vision fading in and out of focus. "What's going on? What are you doing to me? Why aren't you afraid?" His knees buckled beneath him. Gwinnett caught Dilandau as he fell, lowering him to the floor. "Why…aren't you hurting me?"
"Hurting you? My boy, what would that accomplish?" Gwinnett pressed a glass of water into Dilandau's hand. "Drink that. You weren't well when you were shut up in there, and going a day without food or drink hasn't helped you."
"Finally, someone around here with some sense." Dilandau did not particularly want to drink the water, but he knew that he needed it. It just seemed like all he had done since arriving in this damned place was to get abused by Shays and then drink water to recover. "You're a Draconian. You know that as soon as I get up, I'm going to try to kill you."
"And why would you do such a thing?"
Dammit, I told you to stop speaking to me like a child! It had not occurred to Dilandau that, despite his physical and mental age, he really was a child in this situation. Jay probably knew more about this place than he did.
"Do you really think that you could harm an Artisan?" Gwinnett asked with a smile. When Dilandau merely watched him, he sighed. "You know, you probably could. You could probably kill me right now, and I wouldn't be able to stop you."
"Yeah, right," Dilandau told him. "I've been here long enough to know that that's a damn lie."
"No, it's true," Gwinnett objected. "I have such a weak grip on destiny that I'm very nearly a Drifter. It's like having such poor eyesight that you're nearly blind. You can see, but just barely; do you understand?"
"Yeah," Dilandau told him, levering himself up on his elbows. "And, why are you telling me all his? You're an Artisan."
"My boy," Gwinnett told him with a smile, "so are you."
Only half awake, Folken turned on his side and groped about for his blanket. He must have kicked it off in the night. He didn't remember night being so cold in the City of Glass! Only when he sat and opened his eyes did he realize that his blanket had not departed him. Why is it so cold? It shouldn't be this cold at this time of year! He could see his breath on the air!
Tossing off his blankets with a shiver and throwing his cloak over his nightclothes, Folken crossed to the room's outside-facing wall and pressed his organic hand flat against the chill surface. A square of the wall went transparent, and he had his answer. The City of Glass was covered in ice. Thick clouds hid the sun away, lengthening the time until it would melt—if it would even melt on its own. All of the buildings, even the streets, had a liberal coating several inches thick. When Folken had turned the glass transparent, he had turned the ice, too. On a whim he restored the ice to normal; he could not see through it.
Folken went to Shays's bed, where the other man still slept quite soundly, and shook his shoulder. "Shays!" he hissed. "Wake up. You need to see this."
Shays swatted his hand away idly. "It's barely morning. I'll look later." Folken sighed, and ripped the blankets off Shays, tossing them on the floor. "Dammit, Folken, it's cold in here!" Shays paused. "Why is it so cold in here?"
"Look outside," Folken told him. Shays went to the square of window that Folken had created and turned the ice transparent, mistaking it for glass. Over Shays's shoulder Folken could see a few High Artisans in brown-lined cloaks and a greater number of students in brown headbands on the streets. They worked to melt the ice from the doors so that the people trapped inside could escape, the High Artisans grim, the students gleefully sliding about on the slick street.
The color drained from Shays's face, and his knees buckled beneath him. He grabbed for the nearest object—a chair sitting at the glass table—and leaned heavily against it for support.
"What is it?" Folken questioned. "It's odd, but it isn't that bad, is it?"
"I could be mistaken, but if not, then it couldn't be worse, Folken," Shays told him, eyes wide.
"Let's assume that you're right, then. What is it?"
"It's the Everlasting Frost," Shays answered. "It's the Everlasting Frost."
Dilandau snorted, sitting up. "If I was an Artisan, do you really think that I would let Shays shut me up in that room?"
"But you didn't," Gwinnett objected. "When I came along, I saw your fingers protruding from the wall. You were escaping."
"Yeah?" Dilandau rested his cheek in his hand. "Look, why don't you just throw me back in the vineyard or wherever it is that you're going to put me?"
"The vineyard? My boy, you're far more useful in here!"
Dilandau's face screwed up in confusion. "Huh?"
"I have a theory," Gwinnett began, lifting a finger, "that children born as Drifters do not always remain so. They develop their abilities with fate later on in life, like growing wings or puberty. But, I've never been able to find an instance of it until you came along. Tell me, where were you born?"
Dilandau sat back on his hands. "I don't know. And the ones who do know won't tell me." That had always bothered him. Why was it such a secret? Had he hatched from an egg or something?
"Well then, where are you from? Who was your first master?"
Dilandau sighed. What should he do? If he answered truthfully—Gwinnett had never heard of Zaibach, and would likely upbraid him for lying. Neither did he know enough about this place to invent himself a past. Gwinnett would only have to check names to find the deception. The truth, then.
"My full name is Dilandau Albatou," he told Gwinnett. "To my knowledge, I am from the Zaibach Empire and have always lived there."
"Zaibach!" Gwinnett exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "Zaibach, Zaibach." He paced several steps back and forth before turning to the still-sitting Dilandau. "Would you, by any chance, be related to Folken Lacour de Fanel?"
"We aren't related," Dilandau answered, "but I've known him for most of my life. He's my commanding officer."
"Oh, dear. It seems that someone has made a very great mistake." Gwinnett crouched before Dilandau, pushing his glasses up farther on the bridge of his nose with one finger. "Just before he left us for the last time, Folken told us of a new acquaintance of his. A young man named Dilandau. An albino with a lot of spirit."
"That would be me," Dilandau told him wryly. A lot of spirit, eh?
"Folken is here," Gwinnett said. "He's looking for you."
Dilandau brightened. Folken hadn't let him down after all!
But, Folken had lied. He had never told Dilandau that he was a Draconian. Of course, I never asked, either, so I guess it's not really a lie. Suspicion flooded back into him. Without the wings out, he had forgotten for a moment that Gwinnett was a Draconian, too. "How do I know that you're not lying to me?"
"That again?" Gwinnett sighed. "You must be a human, then. Why do you hold me responsible for the sins of my ancestors?"
Dilandau stood and began backing away. "Your people destroyed Atlantis. What if you do the same to Gaea? What if this is a chance given to me to stop you?"
"What if your great-grandfather killed a man and you were forced to spend the rest of your life in torment to atone for it?" Gwinnett countered.
All right, so that wouldn't be fair, but it's an entirely different situation. Dammit, he's trying to change my mind. Why the hell does he care what I think?
"It hurts, you know. You hate me without knowing me." Gwinnett pushed a lock of hair back behind his ear. "At least Shays has his reasons, poor as they are."
"I hate Shays too," Dilandau snapped. "He's a son of a bitch!"
"I would be inclined to agree with you," Gwinnett laughed softly," if that particular phrase did not insult my wife instead of Shays.
"I'll try to get you home, Dilandau," he finished. "You don't belong here."
"Then send me home!" Dilandau demanded. "Send me back right now!"
"I would, but I cannot." Humph! Yeah, right! All sweet talk after all, eh? "Only a High Artisan can create a pillar of light."
Dilandau slapped himself in the face. "You mean we need Shays, don't you?"
"I would rather Folken do it," Gwinnett admitted. "It will be hard enough to convince Shays to let you go."
"Why?" Dilandau folded his arms. "You're his father, aren't you?" What kind of father couldn't even keep his own son under control? Then again, the Zaibach army hasn't really had much success with me, have they? He thought with a smile.
"He has no respect for me." Gwinnett adjusted his glasses again. "He has no respect for those weaker than him."
Dilandau lifted his chin, red eyes flashing. "You people have kidnapped me, you know. I'm an important official of Zaibach's army. This could be a cause for the Empire to declare war on you." Maybe. He did not know if Zaibach's weapons and technology could stand up to the destiny tricks of the Artisans. Then again, the Sorcerers probably had some nasty tricks hidden inside those cloaks that he knew nothing of.
Gwinnett bowed his head, hair spilling into his face. "What can I do to rectify the trouble we have caused?"
Dilandau chewed a fingertip, thinking. Blegh. It tasted bitter and sour, the way that burn treatment smelled. "Prove to me that you're not the monsters who destroyed Atlantis," he answered slowly, choosing his words carefully. "I want my freedom. And I want to get to Folken as soon as possible. We'll see what happens after that."
Gwinnett nodded his agreement. "I shall do all that I can."
Folken looked to Shays as they made their way carefully down the ice-covered street. "Are you sure you're all right?" he questioned.
"Yes," Shays answered immediately, and Folken recognized a lie. The man's face was still as pale as Dilandau's, and his footsteps faltering, as though he might collapse.
Upon seeing the ice covering the city, Shays had attributed the phenomenon to the Everlasting Frost. Folken remembered the legend from his time in the Mystic Valley, though he had never put stock in such a thing. It was a prediction of the End of Times, when the sky would perpetually darken, snow would howl from the skies, and wolves and dragons would pour from the mountains to rend the survivors to pieces. As a scientist, Folken knew t hat such a thing was nearly impossible, and dismissed it as a folktale. Shays, however, was firmly convinced.
"Are you fit enough to help me?" Folken asked.
"Yes. I can make it."
"Good."
They spread their wings and flew to the uppermost balcony of the Bell Tower, a place that could only be reached by the air. The glass door stood open, inviting them in, and closed tight behind them of their own accord.
Dozens of crystal globes—the bells—hung suspended in the air, each filled with a bright green liquid. An Artisan manipulated fate by oscillating destiny particles and then controlling the waves. That green liquid was made up of pure, concentrated destiny particles, oscillated with the hands. Folken had designed Zaibach's machines based upon the structures in the Bell Tower and mathematical calculations. With those, a Drifter could manipulated fate to a limited extent; with the Bell Tower, a High Artisan could accomplish far greater and more complicated tasks than he could ever be accomplished with the most intricate machines.
Folken busied himself with re-arranging the globes to suit his purposes, pushing them gently through the air. They bobbed like children's boats in a stream, drifting along to a stop at his desired elevation.
His metal arm put him at a disadvantage. In practice during his schooling, he found that his fingers would crack, chip, or completely shatter glass as often as not, and the crystal in the Bell Tower broke even easier. Whereas a normal High Artisan would play the songs with two hands, Folken was limited to one. He had compensated with practice, and by the end of his studies, he was just as competent as any other Artisan. However, he had not kept up his skills in Zaibach. Shays would play the song with him, as they had done many times before.
"Are you ready?" Folken asked. Shays stood in the center of the room, craning his neck to look up at the sky through the transparent ceiling.
"I don't like the clouds. It's going to snow. It shouldn't be snowing at this time of year."
"It's just a bit of odd weather," Folken told him coolly. "It's not so uncommon."
"What's with that tone of voice?" Shays cast him a baleful look. "I thought that Folken came back to us, not the Strategos."
"I was so happy to be back that I began to lose focus of my goal," Folken replied, his face betraying no emotion. "I cannot afford to be Folken any longer. I must be the Strategos." He struck one of the bells with his fingernail and a sweet, high note filled the air, accompanied by a burst of light. "You never answered my question. Are you ready?"
"Ready when you are. Lead me to what you're looking for, and I'll follow." Shays tossed his cloak back over his shoulders to free his arms and flexed his fingers, stepping up to a row of bells that Folken had arranged.
Outside, rain began to fall softly, freezing as it neared the city and bouncing off the glass as pellets of ice.
"The Seeking Song, then." Folken lifted his organic hand and struck the crystal globes with his fingernails, their sounds bouncing from the walls. A flurry of chimes from Shays joined his, and light exploded over their heads. More notes adjusted the color and shape of the light until an image of Gaea floated in the air. His eyes fixed upon it, Folken let the image guide his hand. Gaea dissolved and re-formed itself into the Mystic Valley. Shays followed Folken's tune, brow furrowed in intense concentration in sharp contrast to Folken's controlled, fluid motions.
Outside the rain picked up, the new sound of hail making the notes difficult to hear.
Folken sent his consciousness sweeping over the Mystic Valley, and one by one areas disappeared from his image as he rejected them. "Not there," he murmured to himself. "Not there, not there."
"Are you sure he's in the Mystic Valley?" Shays questioned.
"I'm sure of it. I can feel him. He's here somewhere." Folken pushed away a larger globe and pulled a small one forward to take its place. "I'm narrowing it down. Go an octave higher."
"All right." Shays hurriedly pushed several globes up to replace them with smaller ones previously floating at knee-level. The song continued, higher and faster. The chunks of hail grew larger and larger, several striking with enough force to send cracks spiderwebbing through the ceiling.
"Almost there, Dilandau. Almost there." Folken felt as though he was running through a maze with a clock ticking down. Why this sense of urgency? "Stop!" he ordered, and Shays dropped his hands. Folken kept up a steady ping against one bell to freeze the image in place. "Is that where I think it is, Shays?"
"That's Last Snow," Shays answered, staring up at the image.
"Dilandau is there?" Folken mused. "If he's back there, why didn't we know?"
Shays bowed his head, thinking. "Can you show me what this young man looks like?" he asked slowly. Folken swept his hand across the bells, and the light changed from an image of Last Snow to an image of Dilandau's face as Folken remembered it, teeth bared in a vicious smile, red eyes flashing dangerously.
"Does he look familiar?" Folken asked. Shays lifted his head to the new picture.
"You're going to be very angry with me, Folken."
"What is it?"
A hailstone the size of a man's head shattered the ceiling and punched through the floor, letting more ice in to rain down upon them. The wind screamed fitfully, and the crystal bells exploded as hail struck them. Sharp shards sliced through the air, slicing through Folken's clothes and burying themselves in his skin. Shays lay on the breaking floor, blood running from a gash in his head. With a crack like bone breaking, the floor gave out beneath them. The intact bells remained floating in place, but the rest of the glass plummeted down to crash through the next level. Cracks ran through the walls, pieces dropping out and falling in. The Bell Tower was collapsing.
Folken's wings shot from his back, spraying feathers into the air that the wild wind swept away. He swooped down and caught Shays's arm, ignoring the hailstones that battered him. He closed his eyes, and the air around them turned white. Destiny cradled both men in its palm and lifted them into the sky. The wind howled with anger as the pillar of light dissolved.
Dilandau sighed, though he was not quite sure why. He was neither relieved nor content. It just seemed like the sort of thing one should do when submerging oneself to one's chin in hot water.
He had done it; he had finally found the one person in the Mystic Valley who came anywhere close to reasonable. (Folken and himself excluded.) He wasn't certain that he could trust Gwinnett yet, but he was willing to take the risk. It occurred to him that he had learned from General Adelphos that he should hate Draconians. With that long-buried memory new in his mind, he was eager to prove the general wrong.
He had never realized how happy the simplest things could make him. Gwinnett had taken him to the kitchen and given him real food. (And more water, as he had been trapped in that room for at least a day with no food or drink, and was dehydrated and malnourished before that.) He had been shown to a bathing room after that, and, by his internal clock, it had taken him the better part of an hour to clean off all the dirt and green burn treatment that had collected on his body. The water in this little, wooden room had been altered to keep it from cooling, just like the warm, humid air. He could stay in as long as he wanted, and his clothes awaited him whenever he finished. Not the Drifters' rags, but his Zaibach armor, even his sword. Well, his diadem was in pieces on Shays's desk, but Gwinnett had given him everything else. He would not be content until he returned to Zaibach, but this was a definite improvement.
He lifted an arm from the water, gazing at the back of his hand, the movement splashing water over the side of the tub that trickled out through gaps between the boards of the wooden floor. His hand was pink from the heat of the water, but his burns had finally healed, now. The dragon bite was another matter. He had gotten so tired of Arias's attentions that he had told the other man that it was nearly gone, but truthfully, it had hardly healed at all. The skin of his shoulder was decidedly bluish, marked by purple lines where the mountain dragon's teeth had torn his skin, and cold to the touch. Actually, that cold was the only reason that he had been able to ignore the wound—it had gone numb. The hot bath water worked warmth back into it, though, and as he worked his arm around in a circle, icy tendrils of pain shot across his shoulders and down his arm to his fingers. I'll have Folken take a look at it when he gets back. Damn, won't he be surprised when he finds out that I've been here the whole time.
He combed his fingers through his wet hair, working out the knots and tangles. He had needed a haircut before he left, and he knew that his hair grew rather quickly. It had started to curl at the back of his neck, as it always did when he let it get too long, though the water was sufficient to weigh it down. Just how long have I been here, anyway? It can't have been that long! Then why has my hair grown this much?
Well, he had wasted enough time getting himself clean. He stepped out of the bath, pulling the cover over the tub of water that blocked the spell to keep it hot, and dried himself off quickly. As promised, there were his clothes, awaiting him nicely folded in a basket just outside the door. The familiar weight of the armor lifted his spirits, reassuring him that things were, indeed, returning to normal. Draping a towel over his head, he opened the door and thrust his arms into the sleeves of his armor jacket, throwing the garment casually over his shoulders as he stepped out of the bathing room. He yelped and clawed it off, throwing the jacket to the floor. He had thought that his shoulder didn't really hurt much, but the weight of the armor pressing down on it was nearly too much to bear. I guess things aren't so great after all. At least it wasn't swelling up. But then, when a wound swelled, it was because of blood rushing to the area to cushion it, right? Hot blood?
He draped the jacket over his good shoulder and massaged the other carefully as he walked. The heat from his hand helped with the pain a bit—or would it be better to leave it alone and let it go numb again? Somehow, numb didn't really seem like a good thing. Dilandau did not have much experience with recuperating from wounds. No one had ever gotten close enough to wound Dilandau Albatou in battle before.
Gwinnett had said that he would be in the library. Great. How the hell was he supposed to find the library? He still hadn't learned his way around, though he could at least find his way outside, now. Let's see…it was upstairs, he knew that much. Nothing returned his confidence like feeling the slap of his sword against his thigh once again!
"No!" a high-pitched voice shrieked. "No! No! Can't!"
Dilandau smirked. Well, the little demon child came in handy for once. He followed the sound of her fitful voice down the hallway, and it led him to the library.
"No! You can't do that!" Jay pounded her fists against the window, shaking her head wildly. "You can't do that! You can't do that!"
Gwinnett pulled her back, catching her flailing arms. "My dear, what is the matter?" he asked, turning her around to face him.
"No!" Jay stomped her foot stubbornly, and her hand came around to slap Gwinnett in the face, knocking his glasses to the floor.
"Jay!" He gripped her shoulders sternly. You know that we don't hit people."
"Shays does!" Jay folded her arms stubbornly.
"Shays can go to hell," Dilandau interjected, pulling out a chair and sitting down, tossing his armor jacket on the table. Jay started at the sound of his voice.
"Don't like her!" she shrieked. "She smells like blood!"
"Damn straight. Stay away from me, kid." Dilandau pulled the towel off his head and began to dry his hair.
"What do you mean, 'she'?" Gwinnett crouched down to be on a more equal height with Jay. "Dilandau is a man."
"Get rid of her!" Jay insisted.
"Now, that wouldn't be very fair to Dilandau, would it?"
"Get rid of her!" Jay marched up to Dilandau in her odd, faltering way and gave him a good shove. "Go away!"
Dilandau groaned and doubled over, clutching at his shoulder. "Out of all the places you could have done that, why'd you pick there, you little freak?"
"Jay!" Gwinnett seized her wrist and pulled her away from Dilandau. "That is quite enough!"
"No!" Jay struggled against her father's grip. "No!"
With a flick of his wrist, Gwinnett held a syringe in his hand. He braced Jay's hand against the table and slid the needle into her arm. Dilandau's skin crawled as he watched the plunger descend, forcing the clear liquid out.
"You shouldn't use drugs to control people," Dilandau said quietly. "It makes them feel violated."
Gwinnett gave him a tired smile. "Sometimes it's for their own good, so that they don't hurt themselves."
Dilandau thought back to the Sorcerers, and their experiments that he had no memory of save an ominous feeling. "Many evil things are done under that excuse."
"But I am not an evil man, am I?" Gwinnett asked. The syringe disappeared, and Jay leaned heavily against her father.
"Sleepy," she murmured. Gwinnett helped her to a chair, where she obligingly sat down and fell asleep immediately.
"I don't know whether to be angry with her, or be happy that she used a few complete sentences just now. It's an improvement." He sighed. "Did you see where my glasses landed?" he asked Dilandau.
"At the base of the bookshelf by the last window."
Gwinnett retrieved his glasses, replaced them on his nose, sighed again, removed them, and began to bend them back into shape.
Dilandau stared at the sleeping Jay across the table. "What's wrong with her, anyway?"
Gwinnett opened his mouth to reply, but stopped when a pillar of white light shot down from the ceiling. It dissolved to reveal Folken lowering an unconscious Shays to the floor, both bleeding.
Folken looked up, smiling wearily. "I've finally found you, Dilandau," he said softly.
Dilandau stood, planting his hands on his hips. "Well, it's about damn time!"
This freakish little bonus was inspired by something mentioned in a review. Thank you, Phyllis-chan, for fanning the flames of my lunacy. Thank you also to my roommate, Maiden of the BH, whose Harry Potter book I stole without permission as reference to write this. (And for reading it over before I posted it.) Thank you to JK Rowling for writing ridiculously easy-to-read books, so I was able to find the scenes I needed in no time. Hell, thank you to the makers of Dragon Half, for writing the song "Watashi no Tamagoyaki", which I listened to while writing this to set the mood, and to the Bigelow tea company, whose Earl Grey kept me awake well after midnight in order to write this.. Er…you may not understand part if you're not familiar with Sorcerer Hunters, but Rowling gave me an opportunity too good to pass up with that last dessert that Ron listed. Needless to say, the rating for the rest of the story also applies here.
-La Ra Everlasting Frost Mini-Adventure #1Free the Drifters!-
(A Chibi-Folken sits sullenly at a large dinner-table with an also-superdeformed Shays and Jay, all of whom are wearing red-and-gold-striped neckties over their regular clothes. Folken has buckteeth, Shays has red hair, and Jay is wearing a pair of glasses.)
Chibi-Shays: "Why aren't you eating, Folken?"
Chibi-Folken: "I can't eat this food! It was made by slave labor!"
(Chibi-Shays blinks)
Chibi-Shays: "So?"
Chibi-Jay: "La, ra, la, ra, la—"
Chibi-Shays: "Shut up, Jay!"
(Chibi-Shays pulls out an electric fan and sets it opposite Chibi-Folken, wafting the smell of the food at him)
Chibi-Shays: "Look at all this great food! Pickled cow tongues, sea urchins with tomato sauce…"
(Chibi-Folken turns green)
Chibi-Folken: "You've just given me another reason to not eat…"
Chibi-Shays: "How about dessert, then? Look, now, treacle tart! Chocolate gateau!"
(A red-haired woman and a bodybuilder, both superdeformed, run in. The red-haired woman pounces on Chibi-Folken)
Chibi-Chocolat: "Darling!"
(The bodybuilder flexes his muscles)
Chibi-Gateau: "Look at meeeeeee! Look all you want!
(Chibi-Chocolat takes a good look at Folken)
Chibi-Chocolat: "You're not Darling!"
(They run away. Chibi-Folken and Chibi-Shays both sweatdrop. Chibi-Jay kicks her feet)
Chibi-Jay: "La, ra, la, ra, la, ra…"
Chibi-Shays: "SHUT UP!"
Later
(Chibi-Folken enters the room carrying a box. Chibi-Shays and Chibi-Jay both look up)
Chibi-Shays: "What'cha got in there?"
(Chibi-Folken dumps the box out onto the table—it contains about fifty purple, teardrop-shaped badges bearing the acronym S.P.D.W)
Chibi-Shays: "Spdw?"
Chibi-Folken: "Woah! How did you manage to say that? There's no vowels!"
Chibi-Shays: "I took lessons."
Chibi-Jay: "Spdw! Spdw!"
(Chibi-Jay begins to eat the badges)
Chibi-Folken: "It's an acronym for Society for the Promotion of Drifters' Welfare!"
Chibi-Shays: "Shouldn't that be S.F.T.P.O.D.W, then?"
Chibi-Folken: "No! Anyway, I wanted to be The Organization to Put an End to the Outrageous Abuse and General Not-Nice Treatment of Our Fellow Descendants of Atlantis and Campaign for a Change in their Social Status Because They're Really Just Like Us and Perfectly Capable of Guiding Their Own Destinies, I Know Lots of People Back in Zaibach Who Do it and it Works Out Pretty Swell…but I couldn't fit it on the buttons, and O.P.E.O.A.G.N.N.T.F.D.A.C.C.S.S.B.T.R.J.L.U.P.C.G.T.D.K.L.P.L.U.B.Z.W.P.S is even harder to say."
Chibi-Shays: "Wouldn't it be T.O.T.P.A.E.T.T.O.A.A.G.N.N.T.O.O.F.D.O.A.A.C.F.A.C.I.T.S.S.B.T.R.J.L.U.A.P.C.O.G.T.O.D.I.K.L.O.P.B.I.Z.W.D.I.A.I.W.O.P.S?"
Chibi-Folken: "No! You don't include particles in acronyms!"
Chibi-Shays: "Oh……But, the Drifters like being enslaved!"
Chibi-Folken: "That's just because they don't know any better!"
(Chibi-Dilandau pops in)
Chibi-Dilandau: "Listen to him, asshole! Slavery sucks!"
(Chibi-Dilandau flips Chibi-Shays the finger)
Chibi-Folken: "Did you hear something?"
(Chibi-Folken turns around just after Chibi-Arias pops in and drags Chibi-Dilandau away)
Chibi-Jay: "Don't feel good…"
(Chibi-Folken looks at the table)
Chibi-Folken: "Where did my badges go! I spent a long time fate-altering those!"
(Chibi-Jay throws up on Chibi-Shays)
Chibi-Folken: "…..oh. Crap."
owari
(fanfare)
xFoxfirex: I'm glad you're enjoying it! Glad you like Jay; I'm always unsure as to whether my original characters are fitting in or not.
InvaderRed: (salutes) I'll do my best!
Permetaform: Good to hear from you again! Thank you!
Black-Inque: Yep, a city made of glass. That means that none of the people who live there are allowed to throw rocks. (Okay, lame joke.)
I don't remember: No! Don't get sick! I'll update as soon as I can!
Cala Akina Morushiku: Well, under the refine-my-search drop-down menus, it's listed as a Dilandau and Folken fanfiction. (evil grin) Whoever said that the story was supposed to revolve around Dilandau's rescue? Nya…I'm not making any sense…so I'll shut up and move on.
Spinereader: I did that to Folken on purpose. Being back in the Mystic Valley and seeing the people there again is making him very nostalgic, and he was acting like he used to when he was younger. As Shays noted, he was being Folken, and not Strategos. A temporary lapse. The guy's gotta have fun every once in awhile, right?
Jhaylin: I went with some of both!
Chiazmo: Glad you liked it!
Phyllis Nodrey: I don't remember how much of your review I answered by e-mail…so I'll just assume that I answered it all. Did you like Keisho? Whether he appears again will pretty much be determined by everyone's reaction to him.
Macky: Will do!