whiteshade of blackness 'gaku april 10, 2007
comic-work's been hellishly slow...got no time and no money to upload new chapters. sorry for the late update
# 14 Forbidden Sky
Cotton-winds and Frisks(1)...Faultiers(2) and Fragmenterussä(3)
all the whispering things and dewy-smelled... Fine-grass, Lilia-of-nightshade-circles(4), and Murky-augury(5)
something sweet and succulent... fresh baked mimosa-cake, Alfercornéttes(6) and Frŭssanschiä(7), Elderberries-of-the-sixth-crowned-cubes(8)
cool and windy twilight where the Lady's-Dusk(9) sets behind the so many layers of the Stratus
the Covet-song of the Virtuosa-Fairs(10) and Long-bow Journeys' stories(11)
Aurifera-flamechests(12) and Obscury-morphos(13)
the sounds of water-chime in the garden and Rűii-naqta's music(14)...
the things I loved the most since the early time of my life...
the first memories before I started asking 'why can't I be myself'...
'mother' was never in my reminiscent...never was and never will...just a remembrance that I was a killer since birth, that one word they all loved and venerated so much...
...I missed myself...!!
Somebody please call my name...didn't I have one...?
...didn't I have a name, pretty Obscuries...?
...don't I deserve a name too...?
---------------
The winds felt like razorblades! These hostile and frosty currents he knew like his own bloodflows.
...He'd been careless...!! And now his Human had to take the consequences too. Why couldn't he realize sooner where those hunters were taking them to...?!
Don't need this...!! Don't need this ignorant self...!! This filthy and mortal and useless--...!
...and the white-wing spread. That was his last mind's awareness...
---------------
Deia came to after a long empty blackness claimed her consciousness. All her body ached and felt like had been ground by Howard's medicine-grinder. Her clotches felt heavy and wet whether by the moist air or her cold-sweat, and she felt the numerous scrapes and cuts that were bleeding mildly. They were slightly biting but only when she tried to move. Her fringes plastered to her forehead and caked by congealing blood. She touched her stinging left temple and found some neatly intervaled cuts that were most likely caused by a wild creature's claws or teeth.
She hissed with pain when the tender skin around the cuts gave an unforgiving sting, her fingers felt wet.
'...oh, great!! I'm juicy...!' –is it infection, or poisoned...?
She frowned as her awareness found similar cuts on her arms and legs, and didn't dare to move in fear that she was poisoned and moving too much would accelerate the poison's work. She let her left arm fell back to the side of her head.
Something nagged her mind. The blowing winds told her that she was moving in a fair speed.
...Something felt familiar...!
Her head felt like burning and an Ulotrichous-quake(15) friskly jumping from one braincell to another in lightspeed. She carefully breathed knowing a light tremor would wake somemore Ulotrichous-quakes that would happily making her brain as their playground...
Deia gave a tiny smirk to herself tiredly. She could think of ridiculous things at this condition meant she's not dying...yet, probably.
...something felt familiar and comforting...but desperate at the same time...!!
She frowned again slowly at the perfect-black nightsky. There's something she'd forgotten. Something important and crucial and only one...
'...only one...!' –he'd called his-bonded as the-One... her floating mind thought half awarely.
She blinked and focused.
'Prussian...!!' Deia straightened her upper body up, or tried to, actually. The sudden groggy movement jarred her potential-pains to wake and she dropped her body from her halfway rise, letting out breath from her clenched teeth as she couldn't afford to groan. After several deep bracing-breaths, she tried to sit up again slow and carefully. She managed to prop her upper body on her elbows eventually.
Her breath labored and shortened by the pains. But the empathic pains were greater at the moment, she whimpered once and reached out to the brown-haired head lied on her stomach, face down.
"...Pru...?" she managed to whisper. And straightened her body with difficulty. The said boy didn't move a fraction on her front, she embraced his head carefully, gave a small mewling sob as she noticed the uncountable deep cuts on his back, some were larger than the cuts on her.
So some things attacked them when she blacked out, and he'd shielded her with his small body. His blood soaked her clotches red.
Deia took a wet sniff once. "...Hey, prussian, don't scare me like this...!" she pleaded. His body felt colder than the night. She couldn't hold back her frustration and anger and the helpless feeling, and started to cry silently, holding the boy's head like a broken treasure.
She'd said she wanted to be stronger for both of them...!!
...something felt familiar and comforting...
Her sobbing ebbed gradually, as she felt the pressence of the one she desperately wanted to be with, and eventually looked around them. She stilled as she took the surroundings.
They were flying in great speed, a large white-wing spread at her left, most likely the thing she dropped her left arm on. There was no similar wing on her right. The soft and warm velvety strong back she was riding on, the white-flame of mane in front of her... she swallowed once.
They were riding on the back of a one-winged... fire-horse...?!
As if knowing her baffled thoughts, the said white horse cocked its head to one side, sideglancing at her. Its eye was like a clear white-sky with a pure-white sun burning as the iris with unbelievable dazzling striations that would make you see blind-spots for some moments after seeing it. The clear-shell of armor floating in front of its head and along its muzzle was something she thought she had seen before.
The horse straightened its head forward again as if not really caring about them. The tufts on its fetlocks were of the similar white-flame as its mane, she bet the tail too but she didn't want to twist her agonizing body to comfirm that. The white-wing was like a liquid-fire when she touched it, she could even ran her fingers in it when she meant to. The comforting feeling...
She definitely had seen it before, that clear-shell... it was the thing that had trapped Odin and his warsteed on the boundaries of the Land. The thing 'Thrice' said that could stop the timeflow inside. That was the boy's--... Deia blinked again.
...The desperate feeling was...
And tightened her embrace on his unmoving body. "Are you that worried about me, My-Death...? I won't die unless you kill me...we promised that...!"
Rested her chin on his head, and closed her eyes, feeling another wave of guilts and helplessness wrecked her heart again.
She was suppose to be his-Life, after all... and all she had managed so far was exposing him to dangers without being able to do anything to help the situation or mend his agonizing body to life.
...just a liar...!!
---------------
"I can't belief they are this pigheaded...!!" 'Seventh' threw both arms in the air, and flung them one by one, casting Wave-orbiculars as randomly as the mite-like enemies were crawling endlessly all around them.
"They're insect-headed...!" 'Thrice' said matter-of-factly but sounded indifferent at the same time.
"Is that a joke, or is it even the time to laugh...?!" 'Seventh' yelled between the loud hiss of the enemies' projectiles that were leaving long tails of whitesmoke in the air everywhere.
"I need a freezing bath...!" the teenager-Charms said flatly.
"This is not the time for bathing...!!" his older-in-appearance comrade yelled incredulously, casting Wave-orbiculars more rapidly. There's something definitely wrong with this flock of OWLs, it was as if they were driven into madness and racing with each other to die first, even knowing they couldn't penetrate the Charms defense force into the Land's territory. 'Seventh' sniffed once, brushing his sweat-drenched face with his sleeve. "Well...essentially, I could use a nice warm bath, too, at this moment...!" he mumbled to himself. They'd been fending the frontline since three days ago nonstop, and the heat of the battles began to exhaust them. In 'Thrice''s case maybe the heat of the desert.
"I'm naturally a nocturnal, so cold bath works better for me...!" came the flat indifferent retort.
"Do we really have to converse about THIS...?!" 'Seventh' flung his arms casting bigger Wave-orbiculars frustratedly.
"Both of you, focused to the tasks at hand...!!" came an admonishing telepathy from their present field-leader.
"...Yesssh..., 'Octonary'-shæ...!" 'Seventh' muttered under his breath. Just as he finished his words, he realized 'Thrice' abruptly stopped accelerating his Wave, staring half-trancedly to the openlands to his left.
"What are you doing, Ankhiie(16)...?! Don't stop 'waving' now...!!" 'Seventh' waved his arms casting his frustration-Wave out.
"...someone's...approaching desperately...!" 'Thrice' murmured breathily. His third-eye already saw the distant vision. Before 'Seventh' could formulate another question, the teenager-Charms shot out in a blur of whitelight.
"...inform Chieftain...!" was his only shared mind.
---------------
Deia coughed dryly, feeling the fever grilling her body from the inside was hotter than the desert's sunlight. Still, she bended her upper body as to shade the boy's head from the sun, her outer tunic was spread on his back to cover his open wounds. Yuy didn't wake the whole two days of their horse-riding escape.
A whitelight approached them in a flash. Deia brightened as she knew who that was, that means the Land was near. She didn't miss the Air; more than anything, the boy in her arms definitely didn't need it the slightest, but the comfort of a place called home she did need. Especially now.
'Thrice' noted immediately the white-flame horse that was running in the wind, despite its legs that were galloping low just above the desert grounds; the fact that it didn't leave any tracks or trails of kicked dusts and sands spoke for itself.
"I've told the other to call Chieftain...!" he said without any greeting, turned in his way to flash at their side. "There're some activities outside the territory, we just have to run through it..!"
Deia nodded once. The dark coloured-flock on the grounds far in front of them didn't pique her interest, her concentration now was only to stay conscious and to get the boy to have some proper treatments immediately.
"I'll shield off the smoke they launched everywhere, might be poisons we know nothing of, but just in case, you should have your own ward up!" he had taught her some techniques of outland's harmony.
"We got hit by a Creiss-stone...!" Deia said flatly. The teenager-Charms only blinked once and nodded. Though he'd had taught her how to fend off the Creiss-stone attacks too, he didn't say anything about it. He flashed to their front acting like a spear's head. "Understood..!" was his only verbal answer after that. He accelerated the Wave around him, all the time didn't lessen the speed, making a transparent air-wall around them that could be seen like a low horizontal-shooting comet even by commoners' eyes.
They shot through the on-going battle, making a deep track in the sands and a cleared path of the mite-like OWLs and smokes straight to the Land.
---------------
Their father had been hell-ragingly mad, he'd slapped her once, something he'd never done before, then he crushed her flat in his strong embrace. Her exhausted and aching body decided that the punishment was really the crushing-hug instead of the stunned slap on her right cheek. Her face was inflamed here and there that a slap didn't effect it much in a wide range of appearence, only busted her lips corner a little. Lyea wiped her face clean in the smallpool of warm water in her bathroom, of which she insisted that she could do it by herself, saying that she better be treating Yuy instead. In any case, she could be poisoned and she didn't want to contaminate her too.
They separated them in their own beds for two days, Deia was dead-tired by the time she dropped her head on the fluffy pillow and fell asleep in an instant. Yuy didn't wake still.
The funny thing was, noone ever mentioned about the fire-horse when she woke up. As if it's just erased from everyone's sight. No, memory-blockade. She knew such a thing existed, but never something that worked in the present, like you saw the horse but it didn't enter your mind. The Charms could manipulate brainwave for a similar result, only it's just a barricade to prevent the memory to resurface, not something that rejected by your rationality as if something that was not from this reality. Or maybe that's exactly the case, it's not from this reality.
---------------
The violet orbs darkened in unpleasant burning, the silvery-purple brows creased deeper. If looks could incinerate things, the book in the rigid hands would be ashed by now.
The sound of the library doors opened and closed. The sounds of things dropped instantly to the floor.
"...D...DEIAAAA, WHAT'RE YOU READING...?!!!" came the voice of a shocked Lyea by the doors.
The said person didn't even lift the eyes from the bookpages. The bold title on the cover read 'COPULATION' and the smaller writings at the lower side read 'ADULT ONLY' stared back at Lyea unflinching and unashamedly.
It even had illustrations in there...what that dead ugly-man was going to do to her Prussian was--...
The rigid hands clapped the book close and unceremoniously tossed it on the table. The face was a cold burning mask, scowling at the thing as if finding it guilty and condemning it to seventieth hell. Lyea immediately found that it was the-other's face. They silenced for some times.
"...D'you think..." the silvery-purple haired spoke first, "...that they'd used h--..." gritted hiss, "...like that..?!"
-I'm used to be used- was what he intended to say two years ago, in the blackness of the sanctuary.
". . . . . . . . I don't know, Dearest..! You should ask Yuy that yourself!"
The violet eyes snapped at her in irritation. She stared back calmy. The-other's face contorted in disgust and annoyance. Not really hellish-mad, Lyea noted, perhaps not yet.
"Guessing what you don't actually know had happened in the past would only torturing your mind, Dearest...! The least you could do is to not let anything of your fears happening in the present and future..!!"
"Are you saying that--...!!"
"What would you do if that's true? Hunt them down to wherever they're hiding?"
"You bet I'll hunt every one of them down and CASTRATE those bastards..---!!!"
"Really..?" Lyea asked calmy. The violet orbs gleamed at her with the rage that couldn't be lashed out at the intented bastards. She stared back with serenity. "It doesn't matter now. Digging it, you'd only clawing his wounds open...!"
The rigid hands trembled with anger at each side of the body.
"It doesn't matter, Dearest! Whether it's true or not...! What's matter now is that he's okay...is he okay now, Dearest...?" Lyea could dictate people without sounding like it. Or may be in this case, since the-other was still fuming without any tangible target that it returned to the-other's-self that easily.
A low hiss, the violet orbs that were staring the floors wavered by emotions. "...I know.." the only murmured answer before the slivery-purple long braid disappeared behind the doors, leaving Lyea alone with her deep sigh.
---------------
Howard knocked the black doors softly, and stepped in when they opened by themselves. On the chair almost a couple of meters to the big canopy bed he saw the indifferent-faced Deia, slouching with both hands on the armrests and dangled to the sides, one knee rested on the other. She looked...pissed, if he could say; but calmly so.
"...Howard..!" came the apathetic greeting from the chair's occupant. He knew it from the presence's-scent that it wasn't her. "Child...!" he smiled and greeted her back. "How is Yuy's improvement?" he tried to sound casually.
"See for yourself...!" she flicked her chin to indicate the permission. The old-Charms gave a little nod and approached the bed silently, and frowned to himself when the boy's condition came to his sight. Yuy was lying restlessly under the soft plushy blankets, he looked so small and fragile that almost like drowned in the bedding. His breath was shalow and short and tortured, his black-armor wasn't protecting him from the Air, with skin ghostly bruised all over, the cuts and scrapes hidden by the bandage on his forehead. He was lain on his side, facing Deia's chair, since the wounds on his back still wet by the seeping blood. They tried outlands medicine, because they know the medicine from natural plants in the Land had the similar poisons as the Air, but it didn't stop the bleeding for the least. Beads of coldsweat made rivulets down his face, wetted his clotches and the bedding.
"...nothing, hu?" he mumbled softly. "I heard you spent the whole noon with the soldiers on the Stone-field..!" and said conversingly. The chair's occupant only gave a small snort in return. "You played with Commander Crüdeo...again...!!" Howard snickered. "You shouldn't toy him like that, you know...he's a commander after all, he needs to have his self-esteem intact, especially in front of his men!" -...and his dignity! He thought to himself; the poor man needed it for his own's sake.
"...-all his men that were also toyed by me...?" the-other said indifferently, she was the one who taught Yuy to use the naqta after all, the boy was a natural dancer, he fight gracefully like dancing, with his beast's strength it was a graceful dance of death. Howard chuckled at that, he had to admit Deia was a natural fighter, all the more since she was actually a--...
"I wanted to kill the brat, actually...!"
Howard blinked, the lower-than-usual voice sounded colder and acrimonious it bit his awareness a little. "...Brat..?" His heart pounded involuntarily.
"That little 'good-for-nothing smiling hypocrite acting princessy to everyone' brat...!" albeit the voice sounded apathetic still, but the dark feeling emitted from her presence made the old-Charms felt cold.
"...-who..?"
"You know who, don't act like you think I don't hate her, Howard...!!" the darkened violet eyes shifted from the boy in the bed to Howard's eyes, they spoke of the darkness that everyone kept them in, all this time. Howard only stared her stunnedly, it dawned on him with a great force what those words meant, what they all had done with the real child slouching on the plushy chair in front of him.
The old-Charms stared unwaveringly, looking straight at the darkened empty eyes. He fell silent for a long time, when he turned his head back to see the boy's face he worded his understanding without a voice. '...you hate Deia!'. So the child was not a child anymore, beginning to ripe to an adolescent with each breath taken. The breath they all had forced to be boxed in a conditioned life, between the prejudice and death consequences.
Had they done wrong? Did they make the child had split personalities or anything...?! Or something worse? Would they be separated even farther with the passing time? They know teenage girls and boys are FAR different...especially when they started to reach puberty--...
A soft snort. "You think too much, Howard! Everybody wanted to kill themselves sometimes...!"
Howard's head snapped to her. She was staring Yuy's agonized face apathetically. "Not suicide, just kill...you know what I mean!" And stood, approaching the big white bed and slumped next to him unceremoniously. "May be I took him in for replacing my-self, don't you think, Howard...?!"
"Child..." Howard's old eyes saw the ancient pains radiating from the little girl.
"I want to try something, I know this is not your job but could you please fetch some fresh sheets and blankets for me?" she asked nicely, even though her slight smile didn't reach her eyes. Howard nodded. He could do nothing to help the boy, after all.
Her white hand brushed the cold sweating face gently, half listening to the sound of the doors closed when Howard leaving the chamber. She kissed the restless forehead leisurely, cherising the boy's will to survive somehow still radiated from his core, although it wavered sometimes by the sheer agony his physical element was enduring. His determination burnt like a restive shimmering flame of a melting candle that was his body.
'...I feel you...!' she thought, started to accelarate her Harmony in her core. 'I wanted to get stronger for both of us...but in reality I couldn't even be strong enough for you..!' her Harmony spread to her presence wholy, it felt like a warm blanket shielding her soul, she wished soulfully it were a shield for him too. 'I will...!! I'll get stronger, I vow to my soul!' her quivering lips smiled on his forehead.
'So just this once...just one more time, bear with me...?!'
In the soiled darkness he heard the soft echoing thought, he'd been waiting for it in his chains. It was so dirty he couldn't surface his own awareness, too many impurities, too many grudges. If he were a bit stronger than this, he could fight his way up, this impurity was still wasn't strong enough to bind him with. If only he was stronger to fight all odds; it wasn't like he never lived in poisonous environments before, the OWL's 'Scape was hell compared to this land; it wasn't like he never fought such impurity before, he had survived far greater ones compared to this. It was just simply because he's not strong enough right now..in this lifetime...
...want to get stronger...
'...Forgive my failure!' the echo reverberated like a breeze for him to breathe.
...tsuyokunaritai... he let himself be pulled up.
---------------
Howard came back to Deia's chamber as fast as he could. Somehow his mind told him that she was up to something, even that she'd mean it for good but the fact that she's still only a child grew him alarmed. In a wider perspective maybe it was him that was thinking of her like his own...no, not her...the child, the real-one behind Deia's mask. Maybe because he'd once wanted a son long ago. His huried steps stopped before Deia's doors, he felt the Harmony accelarated from inside the chamber, it's Deia's he recognized. But the strong determination it carried almost made his heart stopped. Harmony-wave that strong could wound the boy just easily when he's in his usual condition, it could kill him just like that in his worse state as of now..!!
"Lady Dee...?!" he banged the door, noting that the black wooden panels were tempered with strong ward to keep anyone stayed outside, even a senior harmony-user like himself.
A series of painful choked-wheezings were heard from the inside of the chamber loud enough to penetrate the thick doors. Howard stopped his banging and listened in alarm. The wheezings followed by the sound of heavy vomits between the wet gurgles and agonical moans, they continued to the state that the heavy vomiting followed by violent gushing sounds of liquid frequently; it made his blood turned cold. Howard gulped and banged the doors with more urgency, calling the chamber's owner, only to have no answer.
When the sounds eventually stopped and the doors opened by themselves, a gory sight greeted him when he rushed to the bedroom. The white bedding was almost dyed with blackened-red liquid, there were some clotted masses scattered on the once white-sheet as if they had been thrown up violently, some of the liquid were dripping from the bedding to the stone floor. His eyes traced the red tracks on the carpet and floor that disappeared by the bathroom's doors, he unceremoniously dropped the sheets and blankets in his hands to one of the chairs and hurried to the said doors.
---------------
She sat in warm water with the boy lied limply reclining to her body, her left arm secured him encircling his body by the waist, the other hand pouring some water that gathered by her palm and washed his bloodstained face gently. Keeping his head rested on her shoulder with her cheek, all the time humming a lullaby she knew he loved very much. His breaths were not shallow and restless anymore, they had calmed and turned to weary wheezes once in a while, all in all they were of deeper inhalations now.
"Lady Dee..!!" Howard banged the doors opened in haste. She looked up with a calm relieved face and put her forefinger on her lips, wording 'He's asleep!'. The old-Charms froze in his track, noting the small pool's water had turned a maroon shade. The flushed colour seeped to their clotches, with exception on Deia's back that was dyed thickly. From the looks of it, she was holding him in her embrace when the boy threw up the blood, with his chin on her shoulder. Parts of her silvery-purple hair glued by the clots.
"..Towels?" she whispered. The stunned Howard only blinked several times, as if adjusting his eyes to a bright sudden light. She sighed, then stood up, carrying the boy's flaccid body to where the towels hung by the hangers on the walls. She wrapped one to him and put one on herself like a heavy veil. A repressed shrill from the bedroom informed her that someone else was there.
"I'm sorry to give you more hardworks to do...!" she said to the maids that were shockstrickened by the bed's state. The five maids that had gathered there turned their heads to her in the same time. She was holding the boy's towelled body upright with his head still resting on one of her shoulder, with one hand under his bended knees leaving his feet dangled. He looked sickly weary but they could see that he was sleeping soundly in her arms. It was a dearing sight before the previous gruesome vision.
"We'll be sleeping in his bed for tonight, so you don't have to force yourselves cleaning the mess right away...!" she smiled understandingly. That woke the maids from their shocks. "Lady Deia, are you underestimating us?! We've been cleaning the messes you made before you knew how to spell the word! Well, most of them...!" the older maid said while rolling her sleeves. Deia chuckled heartily, "You're right! Thankyou for your efforts, Ruéa..!!". The older maid nodded once satisfactorily and then gave orders to the other younger maids like a commander in a battlefield. They had to change the carpet and beddings including the bed itself, after all. Well, they had to change the pool's water too, come to think of it.
---------------
"...-he kept saying 'dirty' afterwards. At first I didn't guess what he meant, but he said something similar about the purposely blood-painted wall that he didn't even want to touch,...and when I think of it later, that blood must had so many hatred and grudges within, and it dawned on me that he feels such things almost like tangible matters,...so I think I had to get the dirty blood he'd swallowed involuntarily out, it's poisoning him!" Deia brushed her long mane with the towel, the end of her bathrobe swept the floor as she walked.
"You remember I made him spewing out blood all over me the first time, when I said I was only wanted to alleviate his pains somewhat..?" she smiled tiredly, actually it was her heart that was weary. Howard nodded recalling the first time he saw the boy on the floor of her chamber. "Old-din said he'd breathed deeper after that, but I was too shaken up at the time I didn't think of it from the right view. Still, I feel like I've put him in pains intentionally, but it's not really a sick feeling anymore...I can hate myself the right way now, don't you think, How-ward..?!"
The old-Charms only nodded numbly mumbling something unintellegent under his breath. Perhaps she really gave him a heart attack, she thought. "I think you need a drink, How-ward...!!" she chuckled. He just gave another mumbling sound to himself. She disappeared in the wardrobe room for sometime.
"Chieftain...!!" a low yell came from the terrace corridor, a Charms stood there with a calm bothered face. (Now, you'd wonder how he could make such an expression) "I've been calling you for the past 20 minutes, but my telepathies didn't reach you the slightest...!!"
Howard stared him, "...Uhh...I guess so..!" and muttered as if to himself. The Charms outside the window only snorted. Deia stuck her head out the wardrobe-room's doors, the Charms gave a slow small bow to her, "Forgive my rudeness, Milady..!"
"Something urgent?" she asked understandingly. He gave a respectful nod, "The General's down!"
---------------
The human-soldiers usually camped outside the Land's barrier, just outside the Forest, the Charms' posts were at the outeredges of them, making a shield for the soldiers from the enemies' invisible weapons such as poisons that the OWLs usually used. The white-smoke they released through air was poisons, just as they thought, but it was actually somekind of vessel for something else to move in. That something was only seaking for one person who was the leader of the Land's army, The General, and even the Charms' preventive actions didn't see through it.
It was because when worse come to worst, the inlanders wouldn't let The General out of the Land's protection, judging from his connection with the Land's Lord, and that way come their funerals, along with his. But it wasn't necessarily to be The General, anyone from the Lord's inner-circle would do, that was why he was so terrified when the mercenaries caught his-Human and brought them both to the OWL's territory.
He knew...
He should have known they would sort to this kind of tricks once Colle' came all the way up to find him two years ago. He should've warned the humans. It was just simply because he didn't want to be judged. When you hatched in the OWL's 'Scape, you were either food or possession. Both of which he didn't find very pleasing to be. When you're a possession, you'd be used as weapons in times, not necessarily active weapon for attacking, but you could be a dormant tool to infiltrate a secluded habitation and take it down from the inside.
But that theory kind of leaving a dent in the how-to-use of him as a tool to bring down the Land, didn't it? Since they brought him along out of the targeted land... No, that would mean that they wanted his-Human to survive, for something he didn't know about. Right, that would explain why they waited for two years to use it. But why now? The OWLs had attacked them with every intention to kill when his-Human was on the outer land too two years ago.
...No! He's not seeing it from the right view. The OWLs that day were mostly spies, judging from their eyes-'companions'. But spies were always scattered everywhere and usually didn't attack in a large group, not to mention that they were usually almost didn't attack at all because they were needed to gather informations, if anything should happen they would instinctly choose to flee instead. So why did they attack all of them blindly with no concern of their lives, without even confirming their identities first? It was as if something pushed them out of urgency. What was something urgent that day? Something out of the habitual was...Colle'!! Colle' never leave the underground for ages, and his objective was...him?! True, Colle' didn't really had to hand him the crystal-pendant, it was something of no small importance to him since he kept it secured on his body, right? He tied it to the hair behind his nape, and he never showed his back to anyone, so that spoke a lot, right?
Wait! No, that still didn't make sense...Judging Colle's character, he would only make him as diversion or bait. That must be it! Colle' must've done something that stirred the 'Scape and pointed them to him, that's why the mercenaries took him along with his-Human. If they only wanted goods for sale then they wouldn't have brought him too. ...Uhm, not really, he was green-haired at the time...!
. . . . . . . . . .can't think properly right now...do one thing at a time...!
Right...!
"Yuy...!!" A surprised sound of Lyea brought him out of his strayed thoughts. As he spread his senses out to his whole body again, he realised he was standing precariously by the door, putting all his weight on both hands holding the doorhandle. Just at the time, he lost his balance and the doorpanel swung open wider letting him plunged down forward.
A strong arm stopped his fall at his waist. "Weren't you suppose to be unconscious still...?!" The Lord asked him.
He stared at his fade-blue eyes for sometimes, noting the concern in them. "...sir...!" he whispered weakly. Deia was 'Human', Lyea was 'Lady', he himself was 'Lord', Kylle was 'Kylle-person', Howard was sometimes 'Master' or 'Lecturer'depending on what he was doing, Odin was 'Sir' must be from their martial-trainings, The Lord thought. The boy opened his mouth again but only a quivering sigh came out, his eyes begging The Lord silently. Noting the panic hidden deep inside them, The Lord nodded once and carried his light body to the bedroom.
"Milord, I don't-..." Howard's words stopped at the sight of him, Lyea closed the doors and followed behind. The Lord stopped at his bedside. "Odin...!" he greeted softly.
The General was lying on his back, half reclining on the pillows propping his upper body. "I'm ashamed, Milord...must be my age-..." he stopped as a surge of pain attacked him from the inside of his body, "...-comming to get me!" and continued in a gritted blow.
"...Why, ..'seemed to worry you, too-..!!" he tried to smirk with another gritted breath and an explosive blow, followed by labored breaths. The boy stretched his arm to him as answer, and The Lord put him down gently beside Odin's chest on the bed, his small body bended voluntarily to his pillow, one arm automatically secured weakly across his chest to his shoulder. That surprised Odin a little, the boy never showed such affection or closeness to anyone other than to Deia, his weary shallow breaths hitched a little, and Odin felt a cold wet tongue licked the small wound on his neck, it felt like a little drip of heaven on his burning skin. The boy stilled for a second and let out a repressed pained sound, gripping the man's collar tightly, his whole body trembled slightly.
"...kid..?" his behaviour concerned The General more than his own state, it was only a small nick on his neck, after all. The boy's small repressed sobs that heard next to his ear alert the man, and the small fingers that turned ice-cold in a short second on the other side of his neck. "...gomen.." came the breathless answer on his pillow.
"...gomen yo..!!" the boy whispered again desperately, "...oretachi wa warui koto nano...!"(18) and then silenced. Slowly he straightened his body, one palm on Odin's chest propping him up without a weight, feeling the man's beating heart at the same time, he sagged staring at his laps with his bangs covering his eyes. "...it's not poison, it's land-killer...Genocide weapon...!". The almost soundless Lyea's gasp didn't escape his hearing, even that she'd repressed it instinctively, he knew.
"The whole Land...?" she whispered soundlessly. He nodded once. "When ?!" The Lord's asked flatly, his blue brows almost knitted together.
"...it's already started long ago...". One of Howard's brows twitched at that. "...you've lived in their territory in the past...!"
Odin's eyes widened, "...They got me back then?!". The boy shook his head, "...they collected the spesific informations about your race.."
"But back then I've never been to this land..!"
"You naturally have the antibody against the Land's poisonous environment since birth..." he unconsciously played the pointed darkblue thumbnails together.
"So, whatever it is, it corrupts the resistance in our blood to the Land's poisons?" Howard quiped thoughtfully, "I never thought that there would come a day when I'd get poisoned by this Land...!" he said flatly as if to himself, "...even now that I'm old...--".
"No, ...land-killer means it'll effect the whole land in entirety, isn't it ?" Lyea asked. Yuy stilled for a few heartbeats, then nodded reluctantly, "...it should be corrupting the poisons themselves, not the beings..!" his whisper flattened.
"And since every things in the Land have the same poisons in them for even the slightest amount, every things will be effected..!!" The Lord muttered his thoughts calmly. They were all too calm in the boy's point of view, so he stole a glance from between his bangs at The Lord's face. There was seriousness written in it, a little nervousness and a rigid contemplation told the boy that the man wasn't angry at him yet.
"What attacked Odin must be the trigger to start the self-destruct process...?" Lyea made it sound like a question. The boy's head that was dropped again was enough to answer. There was silence in the room so void that the boy almost felt like deafened by his own heartbeats hammering his chest painfully.
"...The cure ?" came the condemnation by three voices simultaneously. Odin left silenced by the pains wrecking his body, but the boy's jump of body as if being stabbed didn't escape his eyes, he already knew it that the OWLs never went halfways. "How do I dispose my body properly ?" he asked plainly. All eyes snapped at his, the boy kept staring blindly at his hands on his laps making faint sounds of clicking thumbnails.
"...You have at least 1 hour from the last time it triggered...after that the decaying process will be unstopable, and you will be fuming out the poison that will soil the whole land..."
"That means we still have like half an hour to-..."
"That's not the answer to my question!...How do I dispose my body?!" Odin cut Howard's contemplation stiffly. Yuy lifted his face, staring the man's eyes with a pair of cold dark cavern that were his eyes, the colour blackened to burning-black leaving only striations of shimmering blue in them. It was the closest resemblance to human's pupils he saw in the boy's eyes. Yuy shook his head slowly.
"...once you're soiled by it, your body changed and became the weapon itself... in years span, it already modified your structural basics so that the weapon in you will be impossible to be terminated--...!!"
Odin's brows creases, "My cadaver will be their weapon still--..."
"You'll be undead !!" Howard's flat words cut Odin's contemplation now. The General eyes shifted at him. Howard sighed deeply, "You saw their physical conditions yourself, they're half lifetime past dead..!!"
Silenced reigned as each of the humans digest the situation. "There's really no cure...?" The Lord mumbled his question. "...I didn't make any cure...!" the boy's whisper snapped all attention back to his sagged body.
"...didn't even think of it..." his small hands trembled a little, beside of that his posture still sagged weakly. "...Colle' said to just forget all about it, and beat me to death several times just because I actually made it,...so I knew he really meant what he said, and I let it slipped off my mind,-but I didn't think he'd use it..!!" the boy countered quickly. "...it... was still only almost-finished when he took the sample from me,...anyway..." and continued slowly.
Howard's brow twitched. "...you were a weapon-creator--...?!" he asked increduously, but before he finished his sentence, the boy continued in a blow of breath.
"Colle' was one of the Highest...!!". He gritted his teeth. "...he's one of the Highest, so I thought he'd want a worthy possession, too...! That's why...—I didn't want to be degraded from possession to food, so I-..!". A deep quivering tired breath, "...He's the legendary Collector, after all, ..they said I'd be lucky if he even consider me worth as his possession's food, but he treated me as a living thing and taught me a lot, and I didn't want him to see me as another waste or dreg –like he used to say about most of the others..- ...and at the time the others kept talking about genocide-this, genocide-that, and just be all mouth, and I wanted him to keep me, because the others were such good-for-nothing rotten bastards..!!" his whisper became a low flat hiss, getting colder and harder at the last words, and everyone in the room realized it. They silenced staring at the boy, as he was frozen staring down his own laps, his hands had stopped trembling, his mind was remembering things he couldn't leave forgotten.
"...I could...stop the change of your body...!" came the slow cold whisper after a long pause, a cold hand lifted to odin's face, caressing it with the tip of it's fingernails. "...You won't feel the pains anymore..., not dying anymore...!" the boy's face slowly lifted, staring the man's eyes from between his long bangs. "You won't be their weapon anymore...just let me eat you !" Odin started as he saw the unholy white-glimmers in the boy's dilated dark pupils. Slowly his lips leered showing the two lines of his needle-sharp teeth, and bended forward as if in slow motion, breathing in the man's scent from his neck up. "They starved me for the longest time!" a little chuckle, " ...But you'll just feel a cold tingling and nothing else,... and then you'll never die..!!" a cold snicker.
"...so how about it, little human...?" a bluish cold tongue licked his throat slowly, and Odin jumped by the cold. The Lord blinked at the turn of event, and even still dumbfounded and not comprehending anything, he extended his hands to pulled the boy from Odin. Right about then the doors flung open.
"Howard, did you find Yuy--!!" In a click everything went still. "THERE YOU ARE...!!!" then clicked to life again with Deia's accusatory yell. She half ran to the bedside, tossed her father's hands that were in the way, and grabbed the boy's upper arm to turn him around facing her. "I thought I left you to rest in MY BED since you're still so weak you looked like you're gonna die just by the effort of opening your eyelids!! What are you doing HERE...?!!" Deia's angry face shakened a little when she saw the boy's shock-stricken face. His eyes were darkened to black, staring wide and unseeing, his face impassive like a mask.
Deia frowned still, "Yuy ?" and called flatly, cupping his cold sweating face with both hands. She wasn't really blindly livid this time. After a few breaths span waiting for any respon or recognition from him and not getting any, she looked at Lyea at the other side of the bed. "What--...?!"
Suddenly he jolted, backhanded Deia's hands off of his face hard, and flung himself to the nearest armoire. The glassdoors of the armoire shut close after him and followed by it's slide wooden-doors.
Deia froze for a few seconds, then ran to the armoire. She banged the doors a few times. "Yuy ?! What is it...?!"
Feeling that she wouldn't get any answer from the boy inside, Deia turned to everyone else in the room, who were also shockfaced and just as perplexed, maybe even more than Deia. "What happened..?!"
Howard reflected a flash of information to her in his mind, cutting a few spesific scenes by a slight reflex of consciousness. As it was, Deia only received more about the fact that he's the one created the land-killer, and thinking that he was frightened and crushed by the guilt. But a flash of recognition came in her mind from the boy's awareness.
'...He's frightened by something else...someone...' -from deep down..!
She widened her eyes as it hit her. "Yuy !! Get out now, or I'll get in..!!" she banged the doors again. Then as a second thought, she stepped back and extended her right hand with open palm. The wooden doors slid open steadily when she let her Harmony out. Howard stared with a teacher's eyes, she did it smoothly with such control of an experienced senior-Charms, no excessive harmony leak nor too much strength, he noted with satisfaction. Maybe it's time to lift the restriction-charm he'd put on her in one of these days.
Through the glassdoors, she could see the boy balled with his face hidden behind his knees, his hands covered his head as if protecting himself from something. His body shook with fear, and he was reiterated word of unknown language in whispers. Before Deia could call him again, his upper body jerked up, covering his ears with both hands, eyes closed in fright, his one word grew louder in a real voice. Deia froze hearing his voice for the first time.
"...—urusai! ...urusai...urusai...URUSAAI--..!!" his voice turned to hardened yell, then he let it out in a soul-shattering shout with all his breath, quivered with such intensity. "...KIEROOOOO...!!!"
An invisible power blasted around him, it shattered the glassdoors to tiny pieces first, then all the breakable things in the room, including the wooden furnitures that were blasted by something as if from the inside out, leaving broken surfaces and grazes everywhere. When the blast of power passed, all the effected things were suspended in the air as if stopped from time. The wood splinters, the shreds of cloths, the fractures of china and glass. The fragments of the armoire's glassdoors that were pouring on Deia like a tidal wave, shining beatifully as each fragment refracted the lights in the room.
"Deia..!!" The Lord called out when he opened his eyes again. "Don't-..!" Howard's warning was unnecessary as The Lord stopped by himself when a suspended fracture of the glass grazed his arm, and let out a hiss.
"It's okay, Father, Yuy won't hurt me...!" Deia said low and calmly, still staring at the boy who was breathing heavily as he was facing his own demon all by himself. Eventually his face lifted up and recognition shaddowed his unseeing eyes.
A clear chime echoed once, and as the reverberation still heard in the air, all the air-suspended fractures gradually dropped to the ground, like a sequence-fall of domino cards centering from Lyea spreading out. Deia felt the glass fragments rained down lightly, some to her feet, but she paid no heed as they didn't harm her. Noticing the clearness came back to the boy's distant eyes somewhat.
"...nee-sa--..." he whispered in a start, slowly reached out his right hand dreamily. "...Onee-sama...!" Deia heard him again calling softly, his tight and pained expression melted to a disbeliefing relief. A flicker of jealoussy stabbed her heart hearing the weight of expectancy in his voice, she gripped her dress trying to quell it. After the reverberation died down, the realization dawned in his eyes little by little. When recognition of her in his eyes was visible for Deia, she greeted him once flatly.
"Yuy..!"
The tornt expression and disappointment that flashed ih his eyes tore her feelings a little, but she ignored it.
'...'uma--...' he worded soundlessly. Deia smiled, "It's me..!" and said confidently.
"Human..." his soft whisper lifted her heart back, more than enough.
"So, you've been hiding a naughty innerself, all this time. How come you never tell me..?!" she squatted down. The boy started at her nonchalant question, fear creeped down his face, it's frighteningly visible as it invaded the already pale skin. Deia lifted both her hands up, "Hey, it works FINE with me! 'Glad I'm not the only black-star under the roof..!!"
Odin shared a look with The Lord, '...Bright eye-colors like his usually come with a package!', was what he'd said about the boy the first time they took him in.
"Hmmm...maybe we could plot a little mess together the next time I feel like it...?" she asked sweetly. Howard cleared his throat and fixed his spectacles on his nose. "Absolutely NOT, Milady...!"
Deia's laugh bursted out light and clear like music. "Just checking, How-ward..!!". In the armoire, the boy squirmed with a shy flush colouring his face lightly. "So, come now...You're still not up to playing hide and seek in an armoire, yet. Your wounds at your back're still bleeding, they're hurting, aren't they...?" she offered him a hand. He just squirmed again, averted his eyes from her open gaze.
"Oh! ...don't tell me you've used up all your leftover energy in the outburst just then...?!" she asked cognizantly. Her answer was a deeper shade of blush on his face. She chuckled happily at that, and pulled him to his feet by the arms. "Come on, up--now !". The boy squirmed shyly in her hands, and his buckling knees gave out. "Or may be not...!" Deia caught his light body and slung his arms on her shoulders. "Might be for the best, you don't want to step on those shattered glass with bare feet..!!"
"My troubling beast..!" she admonished playfully, carrying him to the bed. He squirmed and hid his blushing face on her shoulder. Howard snickered loudly, and Lyea let out an affectionate relief snort at them. The Lord let out a low humming sound deep in his throat, funny that it sounded like a growl. Odin sounded his repressed hitch as his mind registering the pains he's in again.
"So what's it about this land-killer thing...?!" Deia asked once she'd seated him on the bed, still holding his head to rest on her shoulder. "If there's no cure, you just have to make the process reversed, right..?" she said nonchalantly. "Besides, as the inlanders of an intentionally secluded land, we are at least mentally prepared for this kind of situation, right, Father ?"
The Lord shrugged, "True, I'm not panicking...!" and said to himself. "It's not about you...!!" Howard mumbled from his spot behind him.
"-...so you don't have to feel that guilty about us, this is our circumstances we've choosen from long ago..!" she brushed his head with her chin. "Alright ? Just calm down and let Fate decided on her own choice, I'm sure she's not that cruel since she'd brought you to me, don't you think ? Shouldn't that be our advantage in this situation...?" and whispered to his ear, the hand holding his head brushed it gently. A small nod answered her, and she felt like the happiest being in the world just by the fact that he was hers again.
...one thing at a time...! He reminded himself in his mind.
"You haven't answer me-, wait, no, change my question; why were you here?" Deia pouted a little, recalling that she was almost panicking when 'Octonary' went from her chamber's terrace and she couldn't find him in her bed when she returned to her bedroom. Ofcourse Howard had to see to The General's condition first at the time...
"...skirr..." he whispered lamely. Lyea's brow twitched once, her hand sought the crystal hung on her waistband reflexively. It felt cool like a dewy glass, she didn't realize it till now.
"What's a skirr...?!" Deia frowned. "...the...sound..just now..." Yuy hid his face on her uper arm. "Oh. Well, never mind that now..!" Deia's eyes stared with query to the crystal pendant Lyea dangled in her left hand, noting that somehow she didn't effected by the invisible blast judging by the apperance of her surroundings, even the fragments of things scattered around her feet made a clear untouched circle.
"We couldn't find the Fēond'arc and Deceiver-Lily at this time of season...!!" a dirty 'Seventh' suddenly appeared from thin air, bowing passingly to the people in the room, and went to the marble table near the armoire. Frowning when he saw the various scrapes on it, but ignoring them all the same. He laid the things from under his shirt on the table, nodding when Lyea hurried to his side.
"We could use Grand-candle and Tornt-Snapdragon for substitute of Deceiver-Lily, but Fēond'arc is crucial...!" Lyea said biting her lower lip gently, her face was masked with seriousness like she'd never showed before. The two of them caught in the topic and talking some in ancient terms that Deia felt just to ignore them all the more when her ears started to burn.
Yuy looked up in question to her face, noting that she got this relief and bothered face at the same time. "Hm? What..?!" Deia stared down at his wide wary eyes, "You do realize that we are the people of 'poisonous' land, don't you...?" she said wryly. "Sister over there doesn't know a thing about Waves nor Spells, but she has a knack for potions, you know. Or she never showed you..?" Deia whispered to his ear.
Actually that was why Lyea liked to spend her time in the underground library. Learning new potions and digging old even ancient ones, it's her joy and pet.
"Odin, the pills you've taken should have made some effect right now, do you feel any significance from before ?" she asked passingly, her attention was focused to the ingredients on the table.
A hitched swallow, "...it felt like burning before...it's like cutting from the inside out, now...!" the man said flatly, his face looked more like irritated rather than in pain.
"Hummm... so Drowncastle should be mixed with Littledove for the pains, and Flaxen-Medusa with some of--..." she mumbled to herself. 'Seventh' watching her with both brows lifted, a bead of sweat on his face.
On the bed, Odin glanced at The Lord and Howard. "She's enjoying making me her guinea pig...!" he worded. "Just your luck !!" The Lord worded back. Behind his fade-blue eyes Odin could see the worry hidden covertly, he just snorted to answer his Lord's worry.
"I'm missing something essential, here. Yuy, what did you make it from ? -what ever it is.." they heard her muttered the last words too.
"...my blood..."
Lyea stopped what she was doing at his soundless whisper, and looked back at him from her shoulder. Deia hugged him quickly, noting warily the looks in her sister's eyes. "He's lost quite an amount of blood, already..!!"
Lyea approached with long strides, keeping her wide thoughtful eyes at the boy's face who was obstructed by Deia's embracing hands. She stopped a couple of steps from him, ignoring Deia's teethbaring directed at her. "The wounds...they're not still bleeding because the 'it' calling out to your blood, ...aren't they ?"
"...my blood's bassically resilient to poisons...they'd just expose me to the venom when they wanted my body to produce the antipoison..." Deia's face hardened. "...these wounds were inflicted by the gate-eaters under the Broken-earth Scape...I've already applied my blood on your wounds, so I think the venom wouldn't be fatal to you, anymore..." he closed his eyes. "But it differed somehow, I'm too soiled, now... even it could be because I'm the one already altered by the land's poison...but they're desperate out there..!"
"...Colle' was here!! He never got to the surface for ages...!! The others might just attacking this land because of that fact alone, not because of me! There's something very wrong going on in their place, and they need Colle's skills...The mercenaries would've taken anyone from this land, because they're sure that he had done something to the land...!" he said looking up to Deia's face. She frowned as her mind registered the worry blackening his eyes.
"Yuy,...you're more worried about them rather than us...!!" a flicker of jealousy and anger burned in her eyes, he could see it clearly, accompanied with the puzzlements in them. Slowly and ever so carefully he disengaged himself from her hands and backed away further on the bed, his eyes watching hers like a prey's eyes glued to a predator's. He risked a glance at Lyea by her side, "...what do you need..?" and asked carefully.
"Are you on their side, Yuy...?!" Deia asked slowly, watching his body language like a hawk. "Deia, this is not the time !" Lyea said flatly.
"...ikitainda kara...!" he whispered assuredly. ...because I want to live... "Ore ga... mina o mamoru kara...!" because I will protect everyone...
"...but we're not part of your 'everyone'..!" Deia understood the language meaning by the connection in their minds, "...not even one of us, right !" she said evenly. The boy didn't answer, only searching her eyes with an odd ancient expression on his face; as if he understood her saying, as if hearing something undechiperable at the same time; as if his mind correcting the accusation but denying it in his heart, as if also not caring everything, like subjected to something that doesn't matter, anyway. As if seeing something of a daydream.
"Deia, we're running low on time, we still have only about fifteen minutes at the most...!" Lyea snapped.
"...Ogreish-'I'...!" Yuy's distant whisper stopped her from saying more. "I composed it from Ogreish-'I'..." even that his eyes never leaving his Human's hard stare, he'd said that as if defending his Human. His face calmed to a composed adult's expression, an expression he'd never shown to anyone before.
"...Ogreish-'I' is only mythical plant-...!"
"For you surface-walker, maybe...! Ogreish-'I' could only live in total darkness...besides, it's not a plant..." his eyes glanced at Lyea and back to staring his Human's eyes. "...It was the antivenom my body made for countering Ogreish-'I''s poison, ...mixed with other minor contradictory remedies to my antibody and both the poison...!"
"...in short, it was the end result of poisons collision where the actual effects are nullifying each of its contradictive opposing-reactions, so it's in a perfect balanced state..."
"...in other word it's dormant, then you just need to add something else to unbalance it to react...! " Lyea said waryly. "..-when you add another poison, such as the Land's poison or the inlanders antibody to the poison, it would automatically fix up the contradictive-poison to balance itself..." Howard added. "The process of balancing was the weapon, isn't it...? Not the poison itself...?!"
"...destructing and rearranging its hosts...everything...!" Lyea mumbled to herself. "If an antivenom was the waned venom to diminish it, then when the antivenom got stronger than the venom itself the contradictive opposant would be the original venom, right?"
The boy smirked, the white glimmers came back in his eyes. "...you can think..!" he said. The voice was silky and serene.
"Thankyou...!" Lyea said evenly. "So, you do have the Ogreish-'I' with you ?"
The boy lifted his brows, "...and you can ask !"
"...-Please" Lyea decided that she shouldn't take it as sarcasm for their sakes. The boy knew what was in her mind, and snickered, his eyes burned at her scrutinizingly and his snicker continued into a deep long chuckle. When he stopped, he put his righthand's palm on his chest without a word, his smirk still plastered on his face. His eyes gleamed white, like the opposite of a ring-eclipse. Then there was whitelight bursting under his palm, either from his palm or his chest, but the hand sank into his chest from pass his wrist. Deia gasped, instinctively worrying about her beast's sake and not the half-entity before them.
He drooped his eyes staring at something inside his-self's mind. "...it bites..!!" and said flatly. After a few seconds, he pulled his hand out of his chest, leaving a handprint of light on it. A sudden screeching screams filled the room deafeningly, it sounded like a flock of banshees wailing at the same time. Deia and 'Seventh' covered their ears spontaneously, Lyea only pinched her face and took a few steps back, Howard and Odin gritted their teeth, only The Lord stared it evenly.
"...and noisy..!" the boy said calmly as if to himself. The Ogreish-'I' sphere in his hand was about the size of an apple, it was transparent and colourless, with orbs of shimmering 'eyes' dispersing incessantly in the globular body, spikes and tentacles emerging and drowning on the body randomly. Several tentacles found their ways seizing the boy's hand and piercing through the wrist in a deadlock coils. The screeching got more high pitched from ear-piercing to brain-shattering, and Deia couldn't take it anymore.
"Make it shut up...!!" she yelled. The boy snorted, but did as she said, licking the sphere like a cat licking its prey. The screeches died down eventually to a high whirring sound, the tentacles seizing his hand returned to the body and the spikes calmed, made it looked like a ball of water. A low whirring sounded from Lyea's direction as if Skirr was also calming the thing down. All in all, their whirring were syncronizing and made a friendlier sound to their ears.
"Tame it properly before use...!" the boy said evenly, and tossed it unceremoniously to Lyea. "I only brought one in me, so don't ask for more..."
A pair of hands holding a shell of black light-sphere closed in a flash on the Ogreish-'I' just before Lyea's face. She felt a body materialized behind her back, then white cloak flowing around her body, and two 'tails' of long scarf told her who it was. "You don't throw a life-eater creature to a human being just like that..!!" 'Thrice' said harshly, his one visible eye shone red almost like burning fire, above Lyea's head. She just blinked and stood still in his encircling hands, her face flushed a little.
The boy ignored him and crawled to Deia, he kneeled right before her stiff standing body, and stared each other face to face so close that they're breathing the same air. "...you smell like darkness..." he whispered breathily, closed his eyes and angled his face to whisper next to her ear, and rested his head on her shoulder. "...'he' may not like me, but...-" he breathed deeper and harder, it fogged and brought a shiver on her neck. But she stubbornly held still, ignoring him—the one that wasn't her beast. He chuckled tiredly, a deep intake and colder sigh. "...take good care of me,...I'm dying..!" he smiled, "...and you'll need to take another bath..!". A harsh snicker developed to a manic breathy chuckle, turned to wet coughs in the middle and she felt a thick cool liquid bursted to her front.
She gasped and grabbed the boy's shoulder to pushed his body backward, but a cold bleeding hand embraced her waist tightly. "...don't.." he whispered chokedly, "...'m fine... tame..!" his pained eyes sideglanced to the Ogreish-'I' in the black light-shell held by 'Thrice''s hands. The teenage-Charms nodded and flashed to him. The boy extended his left hand and brushed the shell's air just ghostly. The Ogreish-'I' sphere shone, and he worded 'fire' to 'Thrice'. There was a flash of something in his red-shining eyes, but disappeared together with the red-shine when he focused to the shell in his hands.
'Seventh' hurried to his side, "I'll--...". But 'Thrice' already accelerated his Harmony conjuring the fire to flame in the shell. The flame was blown and wafted by the Ogreish-'I' shining sphere, it looked llike they were fighting in the shell. "How long is it doing that? We don't have much time..." Howard quiped from the side, scutinizing the shell with his spectacles lowered on his nose, his pearly-white eyes shone in interest.
The boy stared with eyes drooped and wavering, focusing and distanced as he felt his mind tried to slip from him again and again. Deia tightened her full embraced on his slightly trembling body, and he smiled to himself. Opened his lips just a slight, then he sang his forbidden-Voice out. It sounded like a world-choir, of trees and soils and rocks, of waters and winds and lights, they could hear the maidens' voices in it, like a backsong or music. Something that luring the souls to rest. They felt like their souls dispersing to merge with the singing, and started forgeting their existance, when suddenly 'Thrice''s flat word brought them down to their bodies again, and the awareness hit them violently.
"...It has eyes !!"
Lyea gasped and lost her footing, 'Seventh' caught her from behind. The others were generally sporting stunned faces as if been slapped by the face. Howard flicked his head and pushed his spectacles up, clearing his throat. "...you have one hell of a Voice, Boy..!"
Yuy smiled ironically, "...Ogre likes my singing, ...that's why I brought her along..! Didn't mean to give you troubles..."
"No..!" several people quickly interjected his defeated tone. They looked at each other surprisedly, "No, actually we're lucky that you're here...! Right!" and only Howard continued, while the others just nodded with an awkward smiles on their faces. Odin watched with a frown, and The Lord stared evenly at nothing. Deia hid her lips behind the boy's shoulder and whispered to herself, "I didn't want you here for something like this...!" A cold flash burned in her eyes for a second.
The Ogreish-'I' sphere fused with the fire and dissipated to a liquescent smoke-like wafts. In the wafts they could see four 'eyes' shining white, 'staring' at them one by one. "...koi.."(17) The boy reached out his open left palm to it, and the wafts penetrated the shell in 'Thrice''s hands like nothing obstructing it, and 'swam' to coil around his hand.
He crawled to get alongside Odin's chest with Deia's help. Put his left palm on the man's wound on the neck. Odin blinked when the cool wafts touched his stinging wound, and suddenly his body jerked as he felt something sucking his life from the inside out. His rigid hand seized the boy's hand reflexively, gripping the smaller hand compulsively. A warm hand stayed on his forehead gently, The Lord's fade-blue eyes stared him with tender feelings mixed with sadness. He smiled. Odin stared for a second then closed his eyes.
"How long..?!" Howard asked to noone in particular. "A couple of minutes the most...!" Lyea answered evenly. 'Thrice' watched with a distant gaze, 'Seventh' was watching him from his side.
The wafts gradually turned to black and its 'eyes' turned red. Odin gritted his teeth feeling that he couldn't hold his life from being sucked away anylonger. Just as he thought he'd loose his grip on the end of his life thread the force that sucking it stopped abruptly and he fell limply to the pillow with a blow of breath. The black wafts shot out to the boy's craft plate like an arrow, he gasped chokingly when it penetrated his body, bending forward in pain.
Deia let out a pained sound, the hand gripping his sleeve trembled with empathy, her mind registering his pain like a cloud shielding her awareness. He tried to catch his breath for sometime, when he glanced at Lyea, his black-armor already covering his lower face. Lyea nodded at him, "Leave the rest to me..!" she said assuredly. Just as she spoke the last word, the boy dropped to the bed unconscious.
"Pru..!!" Deia lifted his unmoving body panickly. "He needs the sky!" 'Thrice' said evenly, staring with unreadable eyes when she stared back at him. "Forbidden-borns usually sky-bound. He understood that he wouldn't beable to see the sky anymore when he decided to stay in this land,...just take him to a higher place, Little lady."
Deia blinked stunnedly, her hand moved under the boy's tunic slowly, finding a small handprint wet with blood. "It's not physically open wound, just the reflection of his mind regestering the access opened...!" 'Thrice' continued while bandaging the boy's right wrist that were bleeding by the Ogreish-'I' tentacles before. "Don't touch these wounds before he himself say it's alright for anyone to touch them...!"
Deia half stunnedly nodded, then carried him out in a hurry. Truth was, she never really agreed to the idea that he used himself for others like that. May be because her inclination weighed more on him rather than else's sakes. Rather than this Land's sake !
"...report...?" Odin asked hoarsely. 'Thrice' gave a small bow to them, finding The Lord's eyes burned at him with the seriousness he seldom showed outright. "The OWLs retreated when I heard that creature screeching. Must be something they feared of, since they didn't do it orderly..!"
"The other report..?" The Lord asked silently, his eyes fell on what Lyea was doing with the bandage and the ground ingredients by the other side of bed.
"I went to the suburb of Eyränd. You're right, Milord, they'd been attacked, too."
"...had been ?" Howard muttered to himself. "Means nothing left...?! Was it looked like somekind of plague?"
"Death." 'Thrice' said apathetically. "There was entiredly nothing left, even the soil was dead. I didn't check further to the land, but there seemed to be somekind of barrier that controled the 'death' since Eyränd was an openland but the deaths seemed to stop just right before its boundaries."
"The other scouts reported the same thing happened to other neighbouring lands, the farthest we could check in the short time was the sub-territory of Furndeisth, Stegāto. It looked like the people fled in haste, there wasn't too many dead bodies found as it should be, that means they knew about the attack or being warned first."
"Dead bodies.." The Lord said indifferently.
"They're mostly charcoaled in Stegāto, the rest were dried cadavers. In the suburb of Eyränd I found the remnants of living beings in the sands. In Grandmongrel found melted remnants. In the city of Rűdern found rocked masses resembling frozen lava with parts of human bodies sticking out, with exception that the plants there seemed like didn't effected. In the lordless colonies to the south found the dead-sleepers..-"
"Dead sleepers..?"
"Sleeping to death, Father..." Lyea muttered. "Did their bodies disintegrated when touched?"
"Yes, Milady. So did the plants, but the scout who went there reported to spot some small insects that still living..-" 'Thrice' stopped repoting when The Lord signalled him to stop with his hand.
"We can go to details later. Right now we should quarantine the woundeds and check if there's any other case like this. It seemed like the OWL wanted open war with the upsiders, not only us, so we should contact other lands and see if they need help..-"
"Milord-..?" 'Thrice' asked perplexedly.
The Lord cocked his head, "In a full-scale war, such a tiny land like ours wouldn't survive for too long. We're short on human forces and the Land doesn't give too much stock of provisions, either. If they cut our trade-route, about one-third of our civilization will crumble, not to mention that we have our own circumstances concerning the Land's environment, the beasts attacks were increasing abnormally this past half year..." The Lord said half paying attention to what he himself saying.
"We could at least help mending the woundeds in other countries, and gather information there about the enemies, try not to engage with any political matters, I'd like to keep ourselves neutral when it come to other lands' conflicts...we don't need more enemies, anyway...!"
"Howard, see to it..!"
"Milord..!" the old-Charms bowed and looked to a stunned 'Seventh', then teleported from the room. He understood and bowed to excuse himself, stole a glance to 'Thrice' then followed to whereever Howard teleported.
"Yuy said something about 'broken-earth scape' just then...Do you know anything about it ?" The Lord's voice sounded thoughtful but his face looked like he's not interested. 'Thrice' blinked and opened his mouth to answer, but The Lord beat him. "The Collector was one of the Highest...Deia said one of the mercenaries said something about 'the scape's inhabitant', too...!"
"The 'Highest' would be one of their community's classes, I suspect. 'Broken-earth Scape' is the planes to the far north from here, it's one of the gates to their habitations in the undergrounds...'scape's inhabitant'..." 'Thrice' paused and stared at the floor. "When you say only 'scape', it'd mostly means the shortened for 'Last-Scape', the deepest habitation of the OWLs. The ones who live there are far different than the OWLs who rampaging the surface..." his voice sounded farther.
"...like you ?" The Lord's eyes fell on him. 'Thrice' silenced and stared back with a mask's eyes. "They didn't find me worth keeping, so they discarded me to the surface in a short time."
The Lord hummed to himself, "...How do you think about that boy..?"
'Thrice' bowed. "I'm in no position of giving any judgement--..."
"-Means he should be higher than you in your society's ranks...!" The Lord rubbed his chin with one hand, the other he still halfconsciously put on Odin's forehead. "How high is he ?"
"...Truly, this is just a question, not a judgement !" he added as a second thought.
'Thrice' stared the human Lord for sometime. "...higher..!" he answered silently.
"Compared to The Collector...?" The Lord lifted one brow. 'Thrice' casted his eyes downward, swallowed once, "...higher !"
The Lord's other brow lifted matching its pair. "He didn't seem like he acknowledged himself so..!!"
'Thrice' tried a few time, "...It's..."
"His innerself !" The Lord said to himself. "I see...but you couldn't have two ranks at the same time, could you..?" He hummed an affirmative to himself again. "How old is he..?"
"Sir..?" 'Thrice' lifted his head in surprise.
"You should be able to recognize his age by his pressence, right ? He has an old gaze sometimes, it concerned me for the least. To manage a 'higher' rank in such a society would took quite a while. Deia seemed too fond of him as a younger brother, and he reacted to that conditioning, I just don't want him to have a clash with his own identity...-" he blinked, his subconscious supplied his mind with a face of Deia with a dark alien gaze filled with something akin to cold hatred. "Eih, did I say that right...?" he said reflexively, tried to shake the unbidden realization off.
Odin snorted.
"The Last-Scape's time runs slower than the surface's. The farther you live from the core of Sphere, the faster time passes by. From our view, it almost looked like the time's stopped in the 'Scape. I wouldn't be too concern about his identity-clash, Milord. The fact that his body deteriorating might be because of the difference of the passing of time here...! To have his body forced to grow in our life-speed must be more than painful for him..."
"How old is he ?" the Lord repeated the question, his brows creased.
"...older..." 'Thrice' said softly, the end of his lips quirked upward a little, "...by a few centuries !"
Odin bursted the not-too-tasty potion from the glass Lyea was holding to his mouth. Lyea stared the teenage-Charms, then glanced at her father, then proceeded to rub Odin's back as he coughed hardly.
The Lord hummed to himself, long, with hand still rubbing his chin. Lyea stole a glance at him again, noting the uninterested expression masking his face, on the contrary meant he had something in mind.
The Lord nodded once than dismissed the teenage-Charms, ordering him to take some rest before he let himself out. 'Thrice' seemed like he took it differently for a while, the feeling of being an outsider his whole life rubbed on him deeper than anything. "Come to work for the next shift, you rest when you rest..!" The Lord grinned childishly and shooing him with a hand. "Children should act like children no matter how old they are !" he muttered.
'Thrice' had a shy expression for a second, the slight flush on his face still lingered when he bowed to excuse himself, muttering "I'm sorry !", then fled from the room on foot.
The Lord had the tendency to chuckle outright. "He's cute when he had that expression..!!"
"He's older than you by a few centuries..!!" Odin muttered harshly. "Oow...but I like cute children !" The Lord pouted like a five years old girl.
"Father, those words could be taken as something scandalous, you do realize...?!" Lyea muttered low with a sweatdrop. Her father only chuckled deeper. "Well, who do you think rubbed the liking to cute-things to Deia in the family...!" he grinned widely.
Both Odin and Lyea snorted simultaneously.
---------------
---------------
(1) (2) (3) the name of plants that had their own unique characteristics and usages
(4) (5) ...still the name of plants, only the ones mostly used as adornments or charms/amulets
(6) (7) (8)...plants too, edible ones
(9) Lady's-Dawn, the term the people of Archantra used to call the sunrise, as they never see the real rising/setting sun, and only the aurora-like lights that shimmering through the layers of the Stratus. For sunset, they called it Lady's-Dusk. Simple, isn't it?
(10) a type of Fairs
(11) actually a type of bird that tale-telling stories in their own language
(12) Aurifera-flamechests; a type of insect that mostly resembled dragonflies, only two-bodied and had fish-like tails, the wings were like a flying-fish's fins
(13) Obscury-morpho; a type of butterfly; it was believed that when a child was born in Archantra, the iridescence-lights on their white-wings were halo-ing with the child's name in ancient-writings, as if being written in the Air.
(14) Rűii-naqta; a type of naqta that usually used in ceremonies and sacred rituals, the stick and blades were given holes or carvings in such fashion that would let out winding music when moved/used strategically
(15) Ulotrichous-quake; actually Deia made up the name, it was usually her imaginary-scapegoat when she was little, for all the mess she accidently (or some were not so accidently) made. The poor-soul that had really been made 'ulotrichous' was one of Howard's summon-beast of the dog type (you'd guess it'd be a poodle...hahaa), it was severely burnt by one of Deia's cooking (that was usually inedible) and ran amok and making one hell of hysteria in the Castile
(16) linguistically a suffix used for children's names, literally means 'sweet child', usually used for little girls under 7 of age. The Archantra people usually gave their daughters names with an 'a' at the ends so that they could call them automatically with the suffix, e.g. if it's Deia they'd call Deiankhiie. The word 'ankhiie' as not a suffix lately used widely to call someone as '(childishly)spoiled' or '(childishly)tenacious' ...
[ something The Lord wouldn't have to hear someone call him with since it was considered as a felony for everyone of lower rank to say The Lord's name, that automatically means everyone in the Land...one reason why Odin called him with a nickname although secretly behind his back.
(17) ...means 'come here', not love! You people would sue saru if saru made him fall in love with others rather than his Human, right...?
(18) 'we're such evil people', ...something like that...
...all the names of the ingredients Lyea named were plants, the poisonous ones...too many for numbering there, you'd be more confused by now, hahaa
ikitai means (I) want to live; with 'nda' at the end for stressing the meaning
kiero means disappear, in ordering form
right...after there're some other lands mentioned here, there'll be more to come, and hope that the plot got wider spread... being bored for writing about the small-world of Archantra only...some love-quarrels in the next chapt, heehee...guess who!! (grinning hentai-ly...not really...!)