Tales of Fa'Diel

by Niana Kuonji

Come, gentle reader, and enter a story that begins, not with 'Once Upon a Time', but with 'In a place that was empty of anything but the name Fa'Diel...'

21. Lucky Clover

So Tiamat 42 won't kill me. ;p

———

A month passed and spring was in full, glorious riot. The trio at Haven Tree Cottage were kept busy with things like gardening, training, and trying to keep up with Trent's crops of produce. The grandfatherly tree was having a good year and the Mana flows around the little house had strengthened since last spring, with the result that his crops ripened after being only a few days on the vine. Not that Rei was complaining: more harvests meant more food to put into storage, with the extra making her a profit at market.

Bud had only grown an inch since the beginning of winter, though his spellcasting and that of his sister's had improved considerably. Rei had to keep herself from chortling with glee every time she thought about how the teachers at Geo's Academy would react if they saw her foster-children now. Bud was proving to have an excellent grasp on the more hands-on kinds of magics, while Lisa had the delicate touch of an artisan with the wards and sigils that drove her spells. Not to mention a formidable back-hand with that broom of hers.

It was funny, actually, to see her walk through town these days. Lisa had caught up to her brother in height; combined with the slow maturation of her features, she had practically every local boy falling into tongue-tied silence whenever she passed by. And she hadn't even started noticing yet, too busy with her garden and her education.

Rei sighed in absolute contentment one sunny, beautiful day, in her preferred seat on the top step of the tiny porch. Her pantry was full, her students were thriving, the monsters were convinced they lived in paradise, and Xan had written again, promising to be home in time for his birthday a week before Midsummer. Life couldn't be better.

Except…

Her contentment wavered at that traitorous little thought, then faded. Except…Elazul and Pearl hadn't come by, or even written a proper letter since her birthday. She refused to call a few absentminded scribbles on a piece of paper a letter. Notes, at best, really, and that was when she was feeling generous.

No one in Domina had seen them, either. She'd asked about the Jumi pair so often now that the first thing people said to her these days was 'no sign of them yet'.

Rei growled a little, then nibbled at her lip. She and the twins had taken care of all this morning's chores. Trent's latest bunch of veggies wouldn't be ready until tomorrow at the earliest; their monsters had been fed, groomed, and exercised. She had nothing that needed to be forged, carved, or sewn, nor was her next lot of goods due at Mark's until next week. Her medicinal herb cabinet was fully stocked.

Right, then. Rising to her feet, the knife-fighter tracked down her students at their projects and told them that she was going to check in Domina again for any sign of Pearl or Elazul. She didn't bother telling them about the persistent tugging feeling that was at the back of her mind, but that didn't make it any less real. After a few token complaints, the twins sighed their acknowledgment and off their teacher went, vaulting the front gate and loping off for town.

Bud dusted his hands together and looked over at his sister. The two were on their knees, weeding Lisa's herb garden. The youth's robe had been discarded to one side; all he wore was a light shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of trousers. Lisa wore a smock and their feet were bare. "I hope she finds them for once," he grumbled in complaint. "She hasn't noticed, but she'd been twitchy for weeks."

Lisa rolled her eyes and nodded in agreement. "No kidding. Wait, Bud, that's parsley, not a weed." Bud let go of the stem he'd been tugging on and started working around it.

————

Rei trotted into Domina less than twenty minutes later, a small part of her satisfied at the improvement in her time. After Bud had been cured of that mage-flu Rei had taken to flat-out running to Gaeus' hollow and back in the mornings before breakfast. Her stamina had improved accordingly although it often earned her strange or incredulous looks from the peddlers and traveling merchants that she'd sometimes pass.

The knife-fighter snorted in amusement. She knew that it was certainly unusual to run approximately fifteen miles in half an hour or less (nineteen if you were visiting Gaeus), but the traders always acted like it was supposed to be impossible. They should know better, living in a world of magic as they all did. Rei dismissed the thought with a wave of her hand, chalking it up to their minds not being open enough.

She gave an absentminded greeting to the Sproutling that wandered the main square and disappeared into the dim interior of Amanda & Barrett's.

To her delight, Elazul was taking up his usual corner by the taproom's cold fireplace. Upon spotting her in return, the Jumi Knight's normally aloof expression cracked into a smile. He appeared to be perfectly fine aside from one or two recently-mended tears in his cloak. Rei pounced on him with a glad cry of, "Elazul!"

Then she bonked him on the head with her fist. "You jerk! Where have you been? I've been worried about you!"

He ducked away from another swing, still smiling. "You know," he replied, "it would be nice if for once you could just try a 'Hello, Elazul. It's nice to see you. How are you?' instead of attempting to break my head."

Rei growled and leaped, catching the fleeing Knight by the back of his cloak. The next few moments were a blur of parries, feints, and flailing limbs that wound up with Rei kneeling on Elazul's lower back with her hands pinning his shoulders to the floor. Despite the speed of it all, Elazul had never felt a moment's pang for his precious, fragile core—though he had to admit, lying on top of it like this was rather uncomfortable.

"Now," Rei panted, sounding amused that she'd gotten the upper hand, "you had a question I wanted answered."

Elazul grunted, heaved, and successfully managed to enfold Rei in the depths of his loosened cloak in a move that not even he entirely understood. "Gotcha!"

Rei wriggled. Snarled. Let out a grunt of her own when her friend hefted her onto his shoulder to take away all sources of leverage she'd be willing to use. It left her with her head hanging down by his lower back and her feet by his hips, twitching. Complaining "No fair!" in a voice that was strained by the blood rushing merrily to her brain. "I can't get loose unless I wreck your cloak."

"Good." It made her pleased that he sounded so breathless. "If you'd settle down and stop trying to violate my personal space, I'd consider answering your questions instead of just being a wiseass."

"You're always a wiseass."

He grinned. "No, that would be you."

There came an irritated growl from around his belt. "Just you wait, Elazul. I know your little secret now. Pearl told me. Vengeance will be sweet."

The Jumi Knight frowned. "What secret?"

"You'll find out later at a time of my choosing. Now for Salamander's sake, put me down. I'm getting a headache."

Still wearing a puzzled frown Elazul did as he was told and put Rei gently back on her feet. They spent a moment or two untangling the resigned cloak from Rei's limbs, and another moment in companionable silence as Elazul rewrapped the swirling length of fabric back around his throat. Elazul stood looking at her for several more long heartbeats, the fingers of one hand trailing absently over the smooth surface of his core, before he finally spoke again.

"It is good to see you, Rei."

"And you. I was worried about you two, you know. You barely wrote and when you did you never wrote very much. Two sentences are not a letter."

The Knight had the grace to look sheepish. "I'm sorry. I'm not that good at letters. I never know what to say."

Rei gave him an exasperated look. "How about something beyond 'In the White Forest. Weather's lousy'? More than 'Fought another monster today. Still nothing like what I fight with you'? Salamander scorch it, Elazul! My cactus writes longer entries in his diary than you do in a single letter!"

To her surprise, Elazul turned his head away, one hand reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. "I said I'm sorry."

Was he blushing? Rei decided that no, her imagination was having fun again, and let her breath out in a sigh. "Ah, well. I shouldn't expect you to be any more of a conversationalist on paper than you are with speech," she told him, a grin tugging at the side of her mouth. Suspicion shone in blue eyes as they glanced at her. "It not like I can usually get you to use more than one-syllable words in normal conversations anyway."

"Hey!" Elazul whipped his head back around, the glare that had been so ready to spring dying away beneath the warmth of one of Rei's patented, mischievous smiles. A fingertip reached up and gently poked him in the forehead to the sound of a chuckle.

"Gotcha." The Knight was left blinking at the unexpected contact, much to Rei's amusement. She tilted her head a little, chuckling again, before tucking her hands behind her back and leaning forward a little. "So. What brings you two back to the backwater that is our pretty Domina?"

Elazul hastily pulled his mind to the new subject, telling it silently to heel and not to keep thinking about how stray bits of sunlight from the nearby window kept making interesting patterns on strands of living gold. His mind was reluctant, to say the least. "I'm still looking for others of my people," he replied. "The last few places we've tried haven't really yielded much." Aside from a few leads that had dead-ended in old stories of a particular jewel-thief, but there was no way he was going to tell Rei about those. "I thought that perhaps there might be news here."

Rei shook her head, mouth pursed thoughtfully. "No. None that I've heard of, anyway." And she would, he knew, because everyone always told her things like that. It was in her nature. "But I'll be happy to help you look."

He was back to being suspicious again. Drat. "But you have apprentices and monsters to take care of."

She'd see if she couldn't nip this one before it even got to a decent bud. There was no way she was going to let him disappear again like that before he'd even been here a week. Instead of saying that out loud, however, she merely raised her eyebrows at him. "'Lazul, I haven't gone anywhere for a month. Not even to Lake Kilma. Well, I did take Bud to visit Olbohn," she added dismissively, "and then there was that whirlwind trip following after Lil' Cactus, but other than that, I've pretty much been keeping close to home since spring started."

Elazul's face was a perfect study of incomprehension. Rei sighed.

"I haven't stayed in one place for so long since before my brother still lived at Haven Tree, 'Lazul. By now everyone in town and my apprentices have to be wondering what's kept my feet nailed down. Or if I've gone crazy. I'm bored. Save me." She threw in puppy-dog eyes, too, for good measure. Not even Xan could resist those when she tried hard.

His shoulders slumped in defeat. "All right. Since it doesn't look like I'll be able to keep you away…"

"Damn right!"

He shook his head and began to walk out of the pub. "We'd better go inform your watchdogs that I'm stealing you away for a while."

Rei blinked, then followed after. "Watchdo…? You mean Bud and Lisa?"

"Mostly Bud," Elazul admitted. "Lisa doesn't have as much of a problem with me as he does." He gave her a smile. "There's no way I want to get brained by that frying pan of his just because I pissed him off. You've had him for nearly a year now; I can imagine his fighting skills are pretty sharp."

Rei laughed, pleased at the compliment to her student and her teaching abilities, picked up her speed…and ran straight into Pearl, who'd come running through the door. The two bounced apart with breathless grunts—Rei's hand flashed out and caught the Jumi Guardian's wrist before Pearl toppled onto her rump.

"Ow, geez, sorry, Pearl!"

"Oh, it's you!" The Jumi girl gave her friend a delighted hug. "Sorry for bumping into you like that. I thought Elazul might leave me behind." Pearl smiled ruefully, then looked between the two. "Elazul? Are you going somewhere?"

He hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Yeah."

Pearl drooped. "Should I stay here?"

"…Yeah."

"That's not fair," Pearl told her Knight, sounding upset with him for once.

"You must!" Elazul replied earnestly. "Outside is perilous! Right, Rei?" he added, turning to the knife-fighter for support.

Rei studied the pub thoughtfully for a moment, then answered, "So is this place. There isn't anyone in Domina suited to keep an eye out for trouble."

Elazul blinked, like he hadn't thought of that before. "Perhaps you're right."

Then Rei dropped the other shoe. "So she can stay at my place!"

"Your place." Elazul was giving Rei the kind of look one gave crazy people. "You're serious."

"Absolutely. Bud and Lisa are good at keeping an eye out for trouble that needs exploding, and Pearl can help them out with things like housework. I can never get Bud to dust the corners when it's his turn." Rei beamed at her friends, sincere as could be. Elazul was still staring at her, but Pearl clapped her hands enthusiastically.

"That's a wonderful idea! I had so much fun on your birthday! Your students know so many different things, I hardly even noticed the time pass."

"Then it's settled!" Rei declared, slinging an arm around Pearl's shoulders and leading her out the door. "You'll keep an eye on my apprentices and vice versa, and I'll make sure I bring your grumpy knight home without a scratch." Said grumpy knight was following just behind them, trying to figure out how Rei had turned the tables on both of them so neatly.

———

Later that evening, Elazul and Rei had set up camp for the night and were in the process of making dinner. Meat was never a problem thanks to all the monster ambushes that happened along the roads, but tonight's roast Needlebeak was going to be accompanied by a healthy selection of produce, courtesy of Trent and Rei's seemingly-bottomless knapsack.

Elazul gazed thoughtfully at the fire while Rei used a clean stone and one of her knives to chop vegetables into manageable pieces, the Knight absently breaking up a stick and tossing bits into the flames. "Thank you," he said at last, startling Rei into nearly cutting herself.

"For what?"

"For offering Pearl a chance to stay with your apprentices," Elazul replied. "She is in need of things like a home…a family…"

Rei snorted. "'Laz, make no mistake, you're her family. And home…home isn't always a place. Sometimes it's people. Besides," she added with a bit more of her usual mischief, "I wanted someone else around who could keep Bud from blowing up the workshop. He's gotten loads better, but sometimes he just has to try some new potion idea of his and I usually end up needing to replace the windows."

She handed him a tin plate with his share of the meal arranged on it and plunked herself down on the log that someone had laid by the firepit. This was one of the regular stopping points along the highway, so it wasn't going to be as bare a camp as usual. The two chatted companionably while they ate, Elazul commenting that he could get used to having fresh vegetables for the evening meal. Rei replied back that if he just came around to Haven Tree Cottage a little more often, he'd have some decent supplies for a change.

They bantered like that all through the meal and the clean-up, and then silence fell over the campsite as the sun set and the fire became their only light until the moons rose.

Elazul was in a light trance again as he watched the flames devour the wood he'd scrounged, listening to the sounds of Rei cleaning and sharpening her knives. The soft grind of the whetstone was hypnotic; he didn't even jump when Rei spoke. "Hey, 'Lazul. Pearl reminded me about something I wanted to ask." When he made a noise to acknowledge that he'd heard, she gave him the question. "The morning after my birthday, when you left. You looked…I don't know, distracted, somehow. Why?"

"Oh. That." Elazul smiled slightly. "I had the weirdest dream, is all. Something about eggshells, and spirits dying twice. I was trying to remember the rest of it, but I've forgotten." Which was perfectly true. As far as Elazul knew, the whole conversation with Xan was nothing more than a fragmented dream, thanks to it happening at a sleepless one o' clock in the morning. Slumber had shattered it into random pieces that had been quickly swallowed by forgetfulness.

Xan would be annoyed if he knew. He hated wasting threats.

But Rei's remembered question had unburied one of his own, and one that had been tugging at him for a while. "Rei?"

"Hm?"

"If you don't mind me asking, where did the accent you and your brother have come from? I've never heard anything like it."

In response, Rei smiled and said something in a rolling, liquid tongue that he most certainly didn't recognize. At his blank look, she took pity on him and repeated herself in Common. "I said, 'This is the language of my clan.' It's a long story. About as long as the Mana Tree War, actually."

"I don't see us going anywhere tonight," her friend encouraged, rewarded by a chuckle.

"No, I suppose we're not." Rei made herself more comfortable on the log, leaning back to watch the stars come out. "All right then. Might as well." She took a deep breath, and her voice fell into the smooth roll of a bard's story-rhythm. "Nine centuries ago, the Mana Tree burned to ashes." Her mouth quirked as she realized she'd quoted that strange dream she kept forgetting. "Ten years before that, on the Eastern Continent, the self-styled Dark Lord decided that he would rule his land with no help from the Goddess or the gift of her Mana.

"So he began destroying everything that had to do with either. He started with a clan that had protected the Mana Tree and the way of the Goddess for ages—so long, in fact, that they were known as the Mana Tribe. If they ever had another name, time has forgotten it. He and his soldiers hit the village where the Tribe lived and burned it to the ground, killing every person that he found.

"Many died that day. But a few families were able to escape, and those of the village who were abroad soon heard of the attack and went to ground. The survivors of the Mana Tribe vanished like smoke in the rain. And for ten years the Dark Lord, son of the Lord Granz, hunted them down without mercy as heretics and power-hoarders.

"Now, most of the story that my mother told me when I was little concentrated on two people and the friends they gathered along the way to defeating Dark Lord. One was the son of a Consul of the late Lord Granz, who had vowed his revenge on Dark Lord for the slaying of his parents on the charge of harboring heretics. The other was a girl of the Mana Tribe, someone that Dark Lord was hunting very hard for. And how they fought together and stopped the Mana Tree from being utterly destroyed."

"But the Tree burned to the ground," protested Elazul.

"That doesn't mean it was destroyed," Rei told him gently. "Only that the physical form of it burned. There are worlds and worlds, Elazul. Dark Lord wanted to destroy the Tree utterly. No more Mana, no more Goddess."

"He wanted the world to die?"

"Those who recorded the story didn't think so. He just wanted a world without magic." Without love, she added in her own mind, remembering what Pokiehl had told her that day outside her workshop. "But like I said, that was most of what Mother told me, because I was still little and I loved hearing stories about great adventures. If it was real, even if it was old, so much the better. When I grew older, I went hunting for the story in my family's library."

"And?"

Rei smiled at the prompt. "After the attacks began, several of those families fled overseas to the other continents in hopes of finding sanctuary. No Heretic Hunters pursued them, and they became a part of this land's society. But one family, made up of rather adventurous lore-keepers, took up the way of the sword and starting learning how to protect themselves and others. The Tree burned, the girl from the Tribe did…something…to save it, and the Tree left this world. Life went on."

Elazul looked at her with no little surprise. "You don't know what she did?"

"No. I don't know everything. Part of the manuscript had been damaged by moisture and the ink had run. Mother never told the story the same way twice. I don't think she knew either."

"But you have the worst curiosity of anyone I know!" Elazul cried. "You haven't gone chasing after the answer?"

Rei stared at him, taken aback by his vehemence, and then narrowed her eyes in suspicion. Was that a smirk tilting up the corners of his mouth? "You're teasing me," she accused. The Knight chuckled and admitted that he was. The knife-fighter pouted and turned away, Elazul teased her some more, Rei eventually pounced on him and showed him what 'secret' she'd discovered about him.

He was ticklish.

Elazul squirmed, Rei pressed her advantage, the mess devolved into a bare-handed sparring match that made a wreck of their neat campsite. It ended with the two combatants in breathless heaps on their respective bedrolls, having called a truce for the evening.

"So you're from the Mana Tribe?" Elazul asked after he'd gotten his breath back. Rei sat up on her bedroll and crossed her wrists in front of her knees.

"A descendant."

Elazul thought about that for a little. "That makes you, what? A Mana Priestess?"

"Sort of," Rei admitted. "I don't have any real formal training. I know a few prayers and little rituals, but with my immediate family it's always been more like 'just take a swing at it and if it works, it works'. It's the rest of my family that's been in formal service."

Elazul sat up. "You have more family? You never speak of them."

Rei shrugged. "They're all on the Eastern Continent. They went back about a century ago when someone finally got the idea to check for others there and found that the core clans had rebuilt the Tribe where the Mana Sanctuary used to be. Xan and I get letters or gifts sometimes from our cousins. He wants to visit them someday, but there aren't many ships willing to sail the Eastern sea anymore. So he's saving up to build his own and to hire a crew."

"Your brother, I may have mentioned before, is insane."

"It runs in the family," Rei chirped, getting to her feet. "I'll take first watch, okay? I'll wake you for your turn."

Elazul nodded and Rei moved off, beginning one of the many rounds she would walk around their campsite. The Knight, in the meantime, lay back down on his bedroll and gazed blindly up at the stars. There were more of Rei's people. Sweet Goddess, he wasn't sure if he was thankful or frightened at the thought. On one hand, Rei didn't have to suffer the knowledge that she was part of a dwindling race. From the sound of it, her race was actually thriving happily in other parts of Fa'Diel. On the other hand…Elazul kept a groan firmly behind his teeth. Dear Goddess, he wasn't sure if he could handle more than two Venstries in his life. Most days he was lucky if he could keep up with one.

———

Rei made a surprised sound as the two ambled up the wide, shallow steps that led to Geo's massive gate, looking at the empty terrace with her eyebrows lifted nearly to her hairline. "What is it?" Elazul asked curiously, following her gaze. He didn't see anything unusual about the place she was staring at. Just stone.

"Oh, nothing important, really," Rei told him, sounding distracted. "It's just that Gilbert's statue isn't here."

"Who's Gilbert?"

"A centaur who was a very bad minstrel. And stupid enough to be in love with Love. He tried hitting on Professor Kathinja of the school here. Three guesses what she thought of that."

Elazul's mouth twisted wryly. "Turned him to stone?"

"Mhm. He's not dead, just stone, so I'm not too worried. It's just odd that he's missing."

Elazul replied with a neutral sound in his throat and the two walked on. Since it was the middle of spring the weather here in the desert was warm, but not yet hot enough to do bad things to Rei's temper. A fact that he was most grateful for. The two had been traveling for about a week now, searching amongst the places they'd stopped for any rumors or stories about magical jewels or people with stones growing from people's sternums.

About halfway here, they'd picked up a crumb of a rumor that hadn't been about either—only that Sandra the jewel hunter was supposedly in the area of the desert city. Rei had gone still for a long moment upon hearing that and immediately had turned their footsteps straight for Geo. Elazul had wondered about the look in Rei's eyes at the mention of the hunter: they'd burned in the depths with a fierce, hungry fire that had shocked him by its heat. Had Rei already lost to the hunter once? More than once?

…Had she seen one of his people die?

The Knight shook his head, hard, shaking that thought loose. Impossible. Rei was too much a creature of emotion to take a death of an innocent without mourning. And if she had, she'd be stone already.

Still. Even before Sandra had been mentioned, there had been a lingering hint of pain that echoed to him on a level below the song of his core. He hadn't managed to get her to talk to him about it yet, but he still had some time before he gave her back to those high-spirited apprentices of hers. He'd see if he couldn't lance that pain before it turned into something poisonous.

Elazul was yanked out of his thoughts by a strange pulsing noise and a burst of shimmering colors just ahead of them. The broad, massive gates of the Palace of Arts loomed before them, with a girl with green hair standing with a round, stained-glass window that hovered in mid-air just in front of the open entrance. The Jumi Knight knew that Rei would likely call the girl's hair true green, or maybe grass green, but all Elazul could think of was that the girl's shoulder-length hair was the same shade as his friend's cheerful eyes…and that the color was a vibrant splash in the round stone glowing just beneath her collarbone.

"Looks like we did it!" the girl told her companion happily, bouncing a little on the balls of her slippered feet. The window-thing rippled in the air as it reprimanded her for her enthusiasm. When she began to protest, it called her 'dirt' in the tones of someone who'd repeated it many times. With her lips curled into a pout, the girl and her companion disappeared in the same manner they'd appeared.

"That girl?" Elazul murmured to himself in surprise, feeling his core sing for a moment. Was she really a Jumi? "No, it couldn't be!"

Rei was frowning a little beside him. "That was Nunuzac," she said to no one, in the same way she'd identify a Malboro in her garden. "But who was the girl with him? I didn't see her at all when I was convincing the students to go back to class."

She'd mentioned that on the way here, catching him up on what he'd missed. He knew perfectly well that she'd glossed over some parts, but right now his mission was first and foremost in his mind. "Then perhaps we should go find out where this Nunuzac has been hiding her. Don't you think so?"

The knife-fighter rubbed absently on a thin scar just above her left arm-cuff, gaze thoughtful and very far away. "Yes," she said at last. "I think we should."

———

"Are you sure you're alright?" Elazul asked for what was probably the dozenth time as they strode through the gates to the Academy of Magic. For a place in the middle of the desert, it certainly had a lot of plant-life growing around the border-wall and within. The broad leaves of some kind of bush nearly hid the two twenty-foot desert-dragon statues rearing on either side of the gate—protectors in case of attack, he had no doubt.

Rei gave him an exasperated look and repeated patiently, "Yes, Elazul. I'm perfectly fine. I was fine a minute ago, and every time you've asked me in the last five minutes! Enough, already!"

"Okay, okay." Elazul raised his hands in surrender. "It's just that I've never seen you go quiet on me before. I didn't think you had 'quiet' in your dictionary. Yeowch!"

Rei took her heel away from his toes and stalked through the gates, giving each statue a cursory nod. The proud set to her shoulders and stiffened spine made him sigh in relief. Whatever mood had taken her at the Palace of Arts, it was definitely gone now. Elazul winced as he resumed walking. Cheering that woman up was a real pain sometimes.

Rei led him through the main entry into the school proper, hair ornaments chiming their own reprimand with every step she took. The music of her motion gentled when a young boy in brown student robes came into view, standing just outside a doorway that led only-Rei-knew-where, and the knife-fighter knelt to bring herself to his height. "Hi, Brownie. How've you been?"

"Hi, Miss Rei!" piped the child, giving her a smile touched with shyness. "It's nice to see you again."

"You, too. Did you forget your homework again?"

"Uh-huh." Brownie looked around her, eyes widening a little at a Jumi man who was trying very hard not to loom. "Who's that?"

Rei didn't even bother to look behind her. "That's just Elazul. Don't mind him, he only acts like he's grumpy. He's really a big softie," she told him in a confidential tone. The boy relaxed, grinning at Elazul, who was now trying very hard not to bristle or splutter protests at the maligning of his reputation. "Hey, do you know a girl about my height with green hair?"

Brownie nodded. "Sure, Miss Rei. That's Esmeralda, an' she's in class right now. She was in a real hurry, too, 'cause Mister Nunuzac kept her later than usual with an experiment."

Rei looked over the child's head towards the door. "Who's teaching today?"

"Miss Kathinja. I don't think she'd mind too much if you went in, so long's you're quiet."

"Great. Thanks, Brownie. Oh, and Bud wants to know if you got his letter."

"Sure did. I'll be writing him back soon, I promise."

Rei ruffled his bangs as she rose, and beckoned Elazul to follow her into what was evidently a classroom. Inside it was bright and airy, not at all like the dim patience of the hall outside, and taken up with sixteen long tables curved like ribs in front of a low platform. The platform held a podium, the wall behind it a chalkboard covered in writing. Most of the backed stools at the tables were filled with children in green or blue robes, all writing fervently on parchment.

On the platform was Kathinja, a book held open in one hand as she taught, who raised an eyebrow as the companions entered. She gave them a nod and returned her attention to her lesson. At the farther row of tables, second row, the green-haired girl sat, listening just as closely as the other students.

"'Scuse us," Rei began when they'd reached the girl's side. "But we were wondering if we could have a word with you?"

Raising her head from her notes, the girl blinked at them, then smiled. "Hello!" Her eyes widened as the stone that gleamed low on her sternum chimed, a ripple of light now familiar to Rei diffusing into the air. A heartbeat later Elazul's core sang in reply, making the Knight's face break into a broad smile.

"Ahh," he breathed. "A Jumi! I am the Lapis Knight, Elazul. I'm on a journey looking for other Jumi."

"Wow!" Up close, it was easy for Rei to examine Esmeralda in greater detail. The aforementioned green hair was kept mostly out of the girl's face by something that could best be described as a tiara, with a tiny green gem adorning the middle of her forehead. She was dressed in a desert-dweller's sleeveless vest, bound around her waist by a sash, and a pair of loose trousers gathered at the ankle. She wore sturdy shoes and a pair of arm-guards similar to Rei's own, except that they ended at the girl's wrists instead of her knuckles. Most of the outfit was in shades of green, but the sash, arm-coverings, and the upper half of the vest were a soft terra cotta shade.

Kathinja cleared her throat. "Rei, Elazul, as much as I appreciate your company, you're disturbing my class. Shoo."

"Erk!" Rei ducked her head and gave the professor an apologetic nod. "Sorry! I'm trying to be quiet, really I am!"

"Out, woman."

Esmeralda giggled. "Meet me in the Library some other time. Maybe on a Gnome or Undine day." Apologizing again to Kathinja, Rei scampered from the classroom with Elazul close behind, waving to Esmeralda as they went.

Once they were back out in the hall, Elazul turned to Rei. "Now what?"

Rei started walking and he fell into step beside her. "I suppose now we wait. I heard there's a café down in the middle of the city that allows overnight guests with no charge." A pause. "Maybe we can go sightseeing, too. The last couple of times I've been through here I've been too distracted." She glanced up, saw his querying look, and explained, "The first time I came here it was to meet with Kathinja and talk about my apprentices. I ended up convincing the students that were boycotting at the time to go back to class. Gilbert got turned to stone, and Kathinja and I had a nice lunch together. The other time was to check if Lil' Cactus was here. He'd gone running off when Bud came down with a mage-bug and I ended up tracking him halfway across the continent and back."

Elazul made a thoughtful noise as he walked. "I hear the local cuisine's pretty good. We should try that, too, while we're here."

Rei let out a huff of laughter and stretched her arms over her head. "I'll be damned!" she said cheerfully. "I go into this trip ready for work, and instead I'm going to end up with most of a vacation!" Elazul's laughter echoed in the hall they left behind for a long minute.

———

Very late that night, Elazul sat on a balcony on the second story of the café 'Sorry, Carl!' In one hand he held a cup of palm wine that he'd been nursing for the past hour. He needed it as an anesthetic to the pain still thrumming along the unexpected, soul-deep link to Rei, which he'd accidentally opened wide this afternoon when he'd gone looking for it. He still wasn't sure where it had come from or why it channeled from Rei to himself, but it was an excellent gauge for the knife-fighter's deeper emotional states. The problem was that her deeper emotions were wound like a Monkey's Paw knot and featured grief, rage, frustration and guilt.

Out of self-preservation, Elazul had done the only thing he could think of. He'd made sure the two were alone that night in a corner of the café and had gotten Rei drunk. He was having trouble believing that it had only taken two cups of palm wine, even though he'd seen it with his own eyes.

Luck had been with him: Rei was a talkative drunk, and the guard had come off her tongue under the influence of the wine.

Out had come spilling the tale of Larc the dragoon and his sadistic, power hungry master. Rei had told him of the meeting, the blackmailing, and the choice she'd been left with. Murder, or the dissolution of her very soul. Of killing people for the sake of desired power, or leaving her apprentices and her brother alone in the world. It wasn't Deathbringer that she'd mourned, nor the two dragons that had fallen to her knives and the axes of Larc. No, there had been bitter satisfaction when she'd described the fight with the Undying Emperor, and she had no reason to mourn two beings who had been revived with the hopefully-permanent death of Drakonis. Though there had been plenty of guilt.

It had been the Windcallers she'd mourned, Akravator's dragoons, who hadn't been granted the same luxury of returning to stolen life. It had been the knowledge that a slain soldier named Thona would once again resume unending service to Deathbringer that left her grieving.

And then grief and guilt had turned to rage as Rei had turned her fury onto the memory of Drakonis. The Crimson Dragon had perverted her skills, her very purpose in life in order to further his own goals. And the bastard had done it with a smile. Elazul thought she had the right to be angry, but the café's owner had been a bit miffed at having one of her tables broken by the application of a fist.

The Jumi Knight had placated the Dove quickly and sent her back downstairs with the solemn promise that the damage incurred would be paid for. Fortunately Rei had been too busy ranting at the wall at that point to notice anything or another loop of guilt might have been added.

After that Rei had told him about the fight with Larc, followed by the frustrating hunt for Drakonis himself in his lair in the depths of Underworld. Here was another chord of pain: Rei hadn't been able to save Larc from the hands of his depraved master, stacked with the memory that it had been she and Sierra, Larc's sister, who had struck Larc down.

That part had been lightened only a little by Rei's description of her camp-out in Olbohn's office for a week in order to free the dragoon after everything else had been wrapped up.

Gently, Elazul had asked her why she hadn't said anything to Xan, or even let herself grieve in private. She'd replied that she hadn't wanted to see the hurt in her brother's eyes when she told him that she'd murdered innocents for his sake. It had been obvious to Elazul that telling her apprentices about it had never even crossed her mind. She'd added that she'd managed to get a little of the hurt out when she'd written everything down, but by that time she had been home and there simply wasn't anywhere that she could vent without being witnessed by someone she didn't want watching. And then there had been the planting, and the weeding, and the forging, and…and…

That had been about the point where Rei had finally lost her train of thought, leaving the fighter blinking owlishly into the depths of a cup that had been filled with plain water. She'd drunk it all without noticing. Elazul had refilled her cup and asked, "Why not go back and talk to the dragons? Not Drakonis, of course, but Akravator and Jajara?"

"Why?" she'd asked back. "They probably hate me."

He'd given her an honest smile. "No one could hate you, Rei. I don't think it's possible. Besides, I bet they know that it wasn't your fault. Drakonis didn't give you a choice."

"But he did," she'd insisted. "I was just too much of a coward to take it."

The cup of water had spilt across the new table as Elazul had pulled her into his arms, not even remembering how he'd gotten from his own seat to standing behind hers. "You are not a coward, Rei Venstry," he'd growled to the wide green eyes staring up at him. "You chose, wisely I might add, to make sure that the damage was as little as you could make it. Think, you idiot!" Here he had shaken her a little, just to make sure she'd been paying attention. "If you had chosen to die, what would have happened then? Larc would have simply looked for another fighter and there is no guarantee that that one would have the same morals you do. That one might have let Drakonis win. Or just as bad, he might have chosen your brother, and given him the same choice to fight or leave your apprentices utterly alone.

"No, Rei. You made the right choice. You did the right thing. And if I ever hear you call yourself a coward again and mean it, I'll…I'll…" Elazul had hunted for a suitable threat and had come up at last with, "I'll lock you in the same room with that Escad fellow without any weapons for a week."

Rei had blinked up at him, her mouth opening and closing a few times. He'd reached up with one hand and swiped the ball of his thumb against her cheek, wiping away fresh tears. "Idiot," he'd added quietly. "I will always listen when you need to talk. All you have to do is ask."

"Or you'll make me?" Rei had joked weakly. When Elazul had nodded, she'd buried her face in his shirt and had mumbled, "Thank you."

So now Elazul sat out in the cooling night, firmly ensconced on the balcony's stone railing, his back against a wall still warm from the sun. Rei was asleep in one of the side rooms downstairs, with hopefully enough water and juice in her belly to negate a hangover. The last thing Elazul wanted to deal with was a wildcat with a headache, nausea, and a legitimate bone to pick with him. Getting her drunk was a cheap trick, but since the pain echoing through the soul-link had faded considerably since his scolding, Elazul was going to consider it worth it and deal with the consequences as they came.

The Jumi Knight tilted his cup towards the moonlight pouring from the two full moons dancing around the other five (in varying stages of waxing and waning), and contemplated the wine swirling in it. After a long minute, he poured the rest into a nearby plant and left the cup out for the café's owner to pick up in the morning.

Time to go to sleep. Before he went and did something really stupid. Like kiss Rei goodnight.

———

Esmeralda's mouth dropped open at the sight presented to her a couple of days later in the Academy's Library. The neat, if travel-dusty people who'd spoken with her had been replaced by non-dusty people that wore several bruises and the faint aroma of clean sweat. Elazul's hair was mussed and Rei's pipes stood slightly askew; both of them acted like nothing unusual had happened at all. "Elazul!" the Jumi girl cried. "What happened to you?"

"Quiet, dirt!" scolded her teacher, Nunuzac. "This isn't war. You don't have to yell."

Elazul bristled in outrage. There was that word again! "Dirt…?" he repeated quietly.

"Useless dirt!" Nunuzac told him, rippling his image. "Jumi cores were once valued for their magic. The mages vied with one another for these cores, but they were all useless!"

Esmeralda turned to the summoner to protest, "Wait! Not in front of our guests."

Nunuzac rippled again, an event that seemed to hold the eyes of Elazul's companion captive. "The ancient texts talk of their incredible powers, such as great magical forces and powers of healing. This is my sweet little apprentice, but she is just a worthless clod of dirt."

That did it. Elazul stalked forward, fists raised. "Why, you!!" he growled, lashing out. Nunuzac's window was knocked flat, and promptly disappeared. Esmeralda sighed in relief—rather short lived, as it only served to draw the Knight's attention to her. He demanded, "Are you really a Jumi? Why don't you defend yourself?"

Shoulders hunched, the green-haired girl replied, "Because it's the truth. And fewer people will be after my core!"

Elazul made a noise of disgust, pride evidently quite offended at her answer. Some of the prickles in his stance smoothed out, however, when Rei put a gentling hand on his shoulder. "Easy there, Chobin Hood. Just because I kicked your butt in Kristie's arena doesn't mean you can take it out on the lass. You already got to thump Nunuzac, which is more than I ever get to do."

"Still…" grumbled Elazul, but his heart wasn't in it.

Chuckling, the young woman stepped around the taller Knight and stuck out a pink-clad hand. "Nice to meet you again," she said cheerfully. "I'm Rei Venstry, and the cranky fellow behind me, as you might recall, is Elazul."

Esmeralda thought she was inordinately merry for someone who had a respectable bruise beginning to color her jaw, and took the offered hand in a quick, friendly clasp. "And I'm Esmeralda. But what on earth happened to you two?"

Rei shrugged while Elazul turned faintly pink. "Nothing, really. 'Lazul pulled a low trick on me a couple of nights ago, so I paid him back by having him spar with me in the battle arena beneath the Palace of Arts. These bumps are nothing to worry about, really. They'll likely be gone by tomorrow."

Elazul made an irritated sound. "For you, maybe. But your potions don't work as well on me, remember?"

The knife-fighter twisted to look over her shoulder at her friend. "Then you shouldn't get me drunk, now should you?" Elazul's half-hearted mutter only made her grin wider, until a thoughtful expression took its place. "Oh. I never did ask you, 'Lazul. What now? You didn't get around to telling me what it is you do when you find another Jumi. Or, better yet…" Rei turned back to Esmeralda, "I'll ask you. What do you want to do now?"

"There's something I want to ask," was Esmeralda's instant reply. She craned her head around to look at the Jumi Knight standing behind Rei. "In your travels, Elazul, did you see anyone who looks like me?"

Elazul thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No. How about you, Rei?"

In turn, the knife-fighter gave Esmeralda a slow, measuring look, but in the end, she too, shook her head no. "I'm sorry to say I haven't."

"Oh…"

"Looking for someone?" Elazul queried, neither he nor Rei missing the note of grief that had suddenly appeared in the apprentice mage's voice. Esmeralda turned away from them, wrapping her arms around herself.

"Sorry," she apologized softly. "Let me be alone for a while."

Of course, there was no way that Rei was going to do any such thing, but before she'd gotten her feet properly set, Elazul had already put a hand on the nape of her neck and was steering her towards the stairs leading out. But he paused at the base of the stairs to let his core sing a goodbye. Esmeralda's core sang back, muted compared to the silvery chime they'd first heard in the classroom above. "If there is anything we can do, just ask," he told her in a voice that had, until now, been reserved solely for Pearl and the vulnerable creature that Rei was when drunk.

Then, ignoring Rei's squeaks and mutters of protest, he chivvied himself and his companion out of the Academy.

———

The Jumi Knight got Rei to leave Esmeralda alone after that for one whole day, mostly by agreeing to several more sparring matches in Kristie's arena. The knife-fighter's bruise-potion worked well enough that neither of them looked like some insane artist's version of leopards, though Elazul had to move a little more carefully to avoid pulling on sore muscles.

Still, he considered the trouble worth it if it meant that Esmeralda had time to recover her balance and Rei had time to work out the dregs of her unhappiness. He kept reminding himself of that every time the muscles around his left scapula seized, ruining his overhand swing no matter how much he gritted his teeth.

After he'd nearly dropped his sword for the fifth time, Rei stopped their sparring and bullied him into taking off his cloak. "And really, you dummy, it's not like you need that down here. Are you trying to strangle yourself?" When he complied, she spent several minutes poking and prodding his back through his sleeveless shirt and making grumpy noises.

Elazul did his level best not to twitch when she'd hit tender or sensitive spots.

Rei sighed, gave him back his cloak, and called their sparring done for the day. "And for putting up with me," she told him as they emerged into Geo's midday sun, "I promise to see if I can't get those knots to loosen up later."

A massage? Elazul felt himself perking as they walked towards the Academy. When was the last time he'd gotten one of those? His back twinged again, telling him that it wholly favored the idea. He rolled his shoulder, attempting to ease the strain burning under his skin. Rei had said later, so he and his abused body would just have to wait until after they'd seen Esmeralda again.

He walked alongside Rei as they passed through the gates of the Academy, nerves prickling as he felt the protections of this place examine the two of them again. He hadn't liked leaving Esmeralda alone with her grief like they had, but he knew as well as anyone that sometimes that first blow needed to be suffered by yourself. He'd felt that painful strike more than once over the meager two centuries that he'd been alive.

Elazul shook his head to cast off the gloom he'd felt beginning to settle on him; Rei glanced at him sideways, an eyebrow quirked up. "Nothing," he told her in answer of the unspoken question. "Just thinking too hard." And he'd been spending too much time with her. The faint smirk she wore now said 'I wondered what that burning smell was' clear as day to his eyes. He growled wordlessly and made a half-hearted swipe in her direction that was effortlessly dodged.

The two made faces at each other until they reached the door to the classroom they'd found Esmeralda in last time. It was two meek adults who slipped past an ever-vigilant Brownie inside, to find a woman standing at the front, wrapped head-to-to in musty-smelling bandages and long robes. This, then, must be the bizarre Professor Thesesis. Pale eyes studied them for a moment from amidst a fall of hip-length, nearly-white hair. The light slid around the edge of the doctor's reflector she wore as Thesesis gave them a faint nod and continued speaking in a soft, dry voice.

Feeling tiny shivers climb up their spines, Elazul and Rei headed for Esmeralda, seated in the same place as before and wearing a lonely frown. Rei slid onto the empty stool next to her and gave the Jumi girl a bright smile, idly kicking her feet as Elazul came to stand beside Esmeralda. "You looked troubled…" he offered hesitantly, the usual greeting of core-to-core muted. "We wanted to come see if you were alright."

The green-haired girl gave them both an unsteady smile and nodded. "Yes…And I have a favor I wanted to ask," she added, turning her head towards Rei, "of this person."

"Okay," was Rei's predictable, immediate response. Elazul rolled his eyes a little, but agreed readily enough when he and his companion were told to come back on a Gnome or Undine day. He started to leave, then paused, surprised when he didn't hear Rei's light footsteps echoing his.

She was still seated on the stool, chin propped in her hands, listening with all the signs of total attention to the lesson in progress. Thesesis was apparently doing a lecture on natural objects used in magic and it took a careful listener to catch every word she spoke.

Elazul looked towards the ceiling, silently appealing to the Goddess and the Flammies for patience, then gave the faintest chink of his core as farewell and left. Rei spotted him leaving as he crossed her line of sight and gave him a sheepish grin, shrugging her shoulders in apology. 'Sorry,' her body language told him, 'can't help it'.

He replied with a quick wave and a tilt of his wrist. 'Don't worry about it. I'll be in the café.' She nodded to show she understood, and immediately went back to the lesson, eventually begging a sheet of parchment and a quill from Esmeralda to take notes.

———

Two days later the companions went to meet their new friend in the lower level of the Academy Library, this time as neat and tidy as two life-long fighters could be. Nunuzac was there as well, obviously to keep an eye on his student as she spoke to the foreigners. Thesesis was also there, leaning over a roiling cauldron by one of the main windows on the upper level. She merely gave Elazul a glance and Rei a brief nod before she went back to whatever experiment that she had cooking.

"Thank you so much for coming!" Esmeralda told the pair brightly when they came to a stop in front of her.

Rei lifted a shoulder in a lopsided shrug. "You told us to. Besides," here she let her mouth curve into her accustomed mischievous grin, "you said you had a favor to ask, no?"

"So what can we do for you?" Elazul added, tilting his head to one side, a mannerism that he'd picked up from Rei during their trip here. "Or, rather, what can Rei do for you?"

Esmeralda gestured them to take a couple of the random chairs that were scattered around the room, circling desks whose woods were dark with age. Elazul took a chair but Rei perched on the edge of the nearest table, head cocked in a patient, listening fashion. "First, let me explain," the emerald Jumi girl said seriously. "I ran away from the Jumi city and was taken in by the Academy."

Elazul raised a hand to pause her, his expression thoughtful. "Why did the Jumi city die out, anyway?" he asked. "I was away at the time with Pearl, and by the time we got back everyone was gone."

"Florina, the only one who could heal, was kidnapped." Rei nodded at Esmeralda's mention of the Jumi's Clarius. She remembered Rubens telling her about Florina, back when that whole fiasco with the dragons had only just started. Elazul went quiet again, murmuring the words 'healing' and 'Florina' as though tasting the memories they brought to mind.

Esmeralda waved a hand, chasing away the smoke of the past. "It was too risky to stay together in the Jumi city because the power of healing was no more. In the chaos I was torn from my sisters…"

Rei leaned forward, the reason for her new friend's breakdown the other day growing clear. Elazul merely jumped to the wrong conclusions and sent a dark look at the hovering sorcerer. "So that Nunu-magic-guy…He's been interfering, eh?"

That had his companion dissolve into giggles while Nunuzac harrumphed and Esmeralda waved her hands again. "No, no, it isn't like that at all!" she protested. "Mr. Nunuzac has taken me in. In exchange for his instruction in magic...I promised that I would stay until a knight appeared."

In the background, Rei was still giggling and sending highly amused glances at a certain summoner-cum-stained-glass-window. "Nunu-magic-guy…!" If summoning circles could glare, Nunuzac would have been peeling paint at a hundred paces.

"So I should be your Knight, eh?" Elazul asked, able to ignore Rei with the ease of practice.

Esmeralda immediately shook her head. "No, Elazul. You already have a Guardian, right? Mr. Nunuzac says that's two-timing." (Rei clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter, not wanting to disturb the students trying to learn around them.)

Nunuzac's glare transferred to a bemused Elazul, who was blinking at the Jumi girl. "But knights and guardians aren't lovers or anything."

Esmeralda's teacher gruffly cleared his throat somewhere beyond the glass of his prison. "The most one can do is protect himself and one other. Stop showing off, Jumi boy."

"You underestimate me," Elazul replied stiffly, before turning to Rei and poking her in the side. "Cut that out, already. I don't know what you find so funny. Be serious for a change, would you?"

Rei got her merriment under control with an effort and took several deep breaths, looking everywhere but directly at Nunuzac. "Right, sorry. Please continue."

Her friend shook his head and looked towards the ceiling for patience before returning his gaze to Esmeralda. "So what now?"

To their surprise, the girl that had been so outgoing before suddenly turned shy. "Well…Mr. Nunuzac said I should ask Rei."

Colors rippled as Nunuzac showed his amusement at Rei's open-mouthed shock. "Of course! I do like those exotic hair-pipes!"

Elazul was grinning too, the traitor, as he reached over and gently shut Rei's mouth for her. "Well? What do you say, wildcat?"

Rei blinked. Blinked again. Looked from a hopeful Esmeralda to a grinning Elazul to Nunuzac, radiating approval, and back again. Scratched at the nape of neck and knew she was turning bright red. "I…well…Okay?"

"Congratulations," Elazul said to Esmeralda. "This is the second time I've seen her caught speechless in a year. The first time, Pearl and I had to give her dusk crystals for her birthday." Esmeralda giggled, throwing her arms around Rei's neck in a hug.

"Thanks, Rei!"

Still grinning, Elazul patted the knife-fighter on the head and told her, "I'll head for that jewelry shop." They'd talked about it as one of the places they'd wanted to sightsee at. There were a few stories about it in the neighboring areas that said some stunning pieces had been there at one point or another, and everyone agreed that the shop owner always had excellent tastes in merchandise. "Call me if you need me. I hope we can find her sisters."

Rei and Esmeralda watched him go, and then the knife-fighter turned to the spell-caster. "I guess we should get started. What do your sisters look like?"

The smile that Esmeralda gave her was…odd, the knife-fighter thought, as her new friend simply shrugged and replied, "Don't worry. My sisters will soon be drawn to my core. We'll see them soon."

Puzzled, Rei asked, "But if they're easy enough to bring here, then why did you wait? It's not like Geo is really dangerous, is it?"

Green hair fluttered as the Jumi girl shook her head. "It's not dangerous, really…but…you'll find out soon."

Muscles rolled when Rei stood and stretched, nodding to her…Guardian. Wow, that was going to take some getting used to. But it felt just like the day that she'd taken Bud and Lisa into her care, so Rei figured it wouldn't take long at all. "All right, then. Last question: where should we start?"

"The jewelry shop."

———

Elazul had barely gotten his eyes accustomed to the dim, cool interior of the jewelry shop 'Wendel' when Esmeralda darted in, followed closely by a bemused Rei. It was obvious that the knife-fighter had no idea why they'd come here, but her eyes lit up all the same at the sight of the youth behind the counter. "Alex!"

"Hello again, miss," he replied, before he gave Esmeralda a light frown and chided, "Don't run inside the store."

"I'm sorry," panted the Jumi girl, "I'm in a hurry. Do you have anything that looks like my core?"

Rei's grin froze, then melted into a look of pure dismay as Elazul spoke. "Wait! So your sisters are…"

A sad nod. "Only their cores are left. They were taken by Deathbringer's army."

Only Elazul was close enough to Rei to hear her mutter, "I knew I didn't kill that bastard hard enough," under her breath. Or at least, he thought he was, until he noticed Alex giving his friend a surprised, measuring look.

Bringing his attention back to the other of his race, Elazul ventured, "Oh, so you're looking for the mementoes of your sisters."

"No," Esmeralda replied firmly. "There might be some magic left in their cores. If I had some tears of healing, I could bring them back!"

"The only one of us who can shed tears is Florina," Elazul reminded her, not unkindly, "and she isn't with us. Isn't your safety more important? Let me handle it and get back to class."

Esmeralda pointed at his waist, where his scimitar hung from his sash. "What's that sword? If you're a knight, don't talk like a sissy!"

At the same time, Rei grumbled, "Thanks for the vote of confidence there, 'Lazul. Means a lot to me." Her friend gave her an apologetic shrug, acknowledging the truth in them, before he shook his head at Esmeralda and commented on how different she was from Pearl.

Alex, who'd been making attempts to add to the conversation, gratefully seized the moment of pause. "Um, excuse me. We don't deal with Jumi cores here."

Esmeralda looked at the youth with no little surprise. "Well, how rare! A courteous shopkeeper! And here I thought jewelry shops were the same as morgues." Turning to Rei, the Jumi girl said, "Alright, let's go to the next one." And jogged out.

Rei cast one longing look at the displays of necklaces, bracelets, and myriads of polished stones, then chased off after Esmeralda, calling, "Hey! Wait up! Bye, 'Lazul! Bye, Alex!"

Elazul and Alex were left where they stood, blinking after the two young women. The shopkeeper pushed his glasses back up his nose and commented to no one in particular, "I didn't know there were Jumi in this city…"

———

Rei caught up to Esmeralda just outside 'Wendel' and followed the determined mage-in-training to the café that had housed fighter and Knight for the past few days. It occurred to Rei that she might, finally, have met her match in terms of boundless energy. What a strange thought.

The Dove in charge of 'Sorry, Carl!' looked up from her ledger and frowned when the two girls ran up to her place behind the register. "Step up to the counter, please," she instructed them. "You, miss, should know that by now," she added as an aside to Rei, who shrugged in reply.

Esmeralda ignored the polite command and asked, "Say, do you have anything like this?" Her core flashed once, a brief, bright note, before it returned to being a warmly-lit green stone.

Rei noted that the Dove paled, which was a hell of a trick for someone whose skin was porcelain. "Who…who the heck are you?" demanded the café-owner shakily, staring at Esmeralda in shock.

"Do you?" repeated Rei's friend.

"No!" half-shouted the Dove. "Of course not!"

Esmeralda apologized, saying that it had just been a hunch, and beckoned Rei to follow her back outside. When their footsteps had faded, the Dove looked around to see who might be watching, and hopped ungracefully to the large potted plant that sat in front of the wide, open stairs leading to the second floor.

Outside, Rei got Esmeralda to slow down at last as they walked up the sun-glazed road towards the edge of the business district. "That Dove really isn't a good liar," was Rei's mild comment after a few moments of silence.

Esmeralda nodded. "I know. We'll just have to go back there later."

Rei made a thoughtful noise, then shaded her eyes with one hand. The other rested easily on the hilt of one of her knives, following the sway of Rei's hips in an old, well-used habit. "All right. Where else do we go?"

Esmeralda flashed her Knight a grin. "Just follow me!"

"Like I haven't—ack! Hey! Wait up! Don't make me run when it's hot!"

———

Elazul watched Rei flop down across from him with little of her normal style and attack the food he'd ordered for both of them. It was already dark outside, and Rei's hair was damp from a recent washing. She and Esmeralda had visited the public baths before they'd parted ways, he'd wager, since his fellow Jumi was nowhere in evidence.

"You look like you've had a long day," he observed, voice mild as he took a sip from his cup.

Rei groaned, leaning backwards and stretching until her companion heard several vertebrae pop. "Oh, spirits, you have no idea!" she said fervently. "Trying to keep up with 'Melda was as hard as anything I've done!"

Elazul raised an eyebrow. "You've given her a nickname already?"

Rei's grin was decidedly goofy when she told him, "Well, I'm her Knight, yeah? Who else would get to make up a nickname for her? Nunu-dummy's too distant to do something silly like that."

Figuring that he wouldn't even bother trying to wrap his head around the thoughts that that comment brought up, Elazul took another bite of his own dinner and chewed for a moment, considering. After he'd swallowed, he asked, "How many of her sisters' cores have you found?"

Rei shifted unhappily. "Well, only one for sure, so far," she admitted, then leaned forward in sudden urgency. "Elazul, listen. We found another Jumi down in the basement of Kristie's Palace. I don't know how we managed to miss her when we went down to the arena to spar. Esmeralda called her 'Diana'."

No longer relaxed, Elazul leaned in closer until their faces were only inches apart. "Diana? Here?"

Rei nodded, green eyes holding none of their usual sparkle. "It gets worse, Elazul. Diana actually told the jewel hunter to come and steal her core! She thinks that since she'd the head of your race now that Florina isn't with you, that Sandra might be content and leave the rest of the Jumi alone."

Mind reeling, Elazul sat back and stared at his friend, aware by the chill on his skin that all the warmth had drained from his face. "But that…that's insane," he said hoarsely. "The hunter's crazy, she doesn't care about the Jumi or she wouldn't steal our cores!"

"I know!" Rei nodded several times in fervent agreement. "Esmeralda and I tried arguing with her, but the woman's as stubborn as her signature stone. I thought that maybe you should try talking to her tomorrow. I'd say tonight, but the Palace is closed to the public."

Trembling fingers ran through long, dark green hair in a nervous gesture Elazul had thought he'd gotten rid of. Thought of his home always made him feel like the inexperienced Knight he really was compared to some of the Jumi he'd known; and all he could think of when Diana came to mind was how nervous the Lucidia Guardian had always made him, the few times their paths had crossed.

"I'll see what I can do," he said at last, wrapping his hands around his cup to keep them from shaking any harder. All this time he'd searched for others, only to find not one, but two Guardians with no Knight to protect them in this huge city. And that damned jewel hunter was probably already on her way. Damn it, damn it, damn it! "Where's Esmeralda?"

"She went with Nunuzac back to the Academy for the night. I'm heading over there in a bit; she told me that of course she could spare a bunk for her Knight. Neither Nunuzac or I will be letting her out of our sight until this is over with. Since Pearl's well clear of the giant mess we've found ourselves in, I suggested that Nunuzac find you a bed somewhere in the Academy, just in case. It's open if you want to skip sleeping here tonight."

Elazul gave his friend a decisive nod. "I'm with you, always."

Rei stretched her hand out and they gripped each other's wrist tight for a moment. Rei's grin was shaky, but gaining confidence. "Right. Always and ever. We'll hit that hunter so hard her head will be spinning for years."

And in her thoughts Rei vowed, This time, I won't fail. I won't let Sandra hurt another one of my friends. Never again.

And if she'd been listening, that part of her mind that had Xan's voice would have warned her, 'Never swear on never'.

———

Rei poked her head into the office of Mephianse, the headmaster of the Academy. Esmeralda was already inside, rummaging through one of his cabinets with clear intent. It was Dryad day, the one day a week when Mephianse himself would teach classes, and thus the only day where Rei and Esmeralda could double-check for the draw of a Jumi core. "Are you sure this was a good idea?" Rei asked uncertainly. The whole room reeked of Mana and spells, and she fully expected Mephianse to come charging in here demanding to know why they were raiding his office.

In response, Esmeralda held up a round emerald the size of her palm that made a tiny 'chink' noise when the sunlight hit it. Triumph was replaced a moment later by doubt as Rei's Guardian turned towards her. "Does this make me a thief?" she asked in a tiny voice.

Rei blinked, then shook her head. "Of course not! She's your sister. Even the Headmaster would have to agree that under the Laws of Contagion and Association her core is still a part of you."

Esmeralda beamed. "You're a wonderful Knight." She turned slightly pink and admitted, "I…I always wanted to be able to say that. Thanks!"

Her Knight grinned back. "No thanks necessary. Now put your sister's core away and let's get going."

"Right!"

The two slipped back out into the sunlight. Despite her assurances to Esmeralda, Rei didn't breathe easy until they were past the guardian dragon statues and out on the main street of Geo. Mephianse would likely not have been pleased to find one of the students and one of the people that had given him so much trouble in the desert poking their noses through his drawers. Rei was quite pleased that nothing at all had happened aside from their finding one of the missing cores.

Esmeralda held a hand protectively over the pouch where the two cores of her sisters that they'd found so far were kept. It had been firmly belted to her waist and woe to any pickpocket that tried to go after it. "All right," she said after they'd walked back to the marketplace. "There was the warehouse, the headmaster's office…And one more place where the cores respond." Her core sang. "I'll bet it's in that coffee shop! Let's go see!"

"After you," Rei said, making a sweeping gesture. Esmeralda giggled and took off at a jog; Rei dropped into an easy lope at her heels, wondering if this odd protective feeling was what everyone who followed her around felt.

They went into 'Sorry, Carl!' together. Rei waited by the counter as her friend stood in the middle of the room and let her core ring out. "I knew it was here!" cried the Jumi girl, and raced over to the potted plant in front of the stairs.

"Blimey!" shouted the owner angrily, glaring at Esmeralda's back. "Wot's 'at yore doing!.? You bloody well stop that!"

Fingers smudged with potting soil, Emseralda's hand emerged from amidst the broad leaves of the plant with a palm-sized green stone caught in her grasp. "It's here!" she caroled to Rei.

"That's my emerald!" the Dove shouted angrily, the water every Dove carried in their pitcher-like bodies hissing and bubbling.

"This is my sister," corrected Esmeralda firmly, "and I want her back!"

"Wot's 'at gibberish yore sayin'?" the Dove demanded. "You must be out of yore bloody 'ead!"

Esmeralda clutched her sister's core to her chest, an expression of hurt shining in deep green eyes. "Why, you sure say mean things for a Dove!" She looked pleadingly to Rei. "Come on! You're my Knight! Fight for me!"

All amusement that Rei had been feeling disappeared, and she gave her friend a disapproving look. "I don't fight people who can't fight back," she said quietly. "And you shouldn't ask me to."

The Dove, who'd gone still behind her counter, nodded fervently. She certainly didn't want to go against anyone who could break a solid oak table in one hit, no sirree! "You mustn't strike a lady!" the owner scolded. "'S truth! Use yore noggin for once! If you got something to say, I'm listenin'!"

Beneath the disapproval of both Knight and Dove, Esmeralda wilted, thoroughly abashed. "You're right…I'm sorry." Rei gave her forgiveness instantly in the shape of a nod and a smile. Esmeralda brightened and turned back to the proprietor. "It's a long story. Will you hear me out?"

"'Course!" agreed the Dove, who had every intention of tossing both of them out of her café on their rumps once the green-haired girl was done talking. Of course, that was before Esmeralda opened her mouth and started talking. Rei merely settled back against a wall and closed her ears to it. She knew this story already, and it was getting harder and harder to hear it with every passing day.

Their host didn't have Rei's experience, however, and was bawling by the time Esmeralda finished her tale of woe. Literally, twin little fountains of tea-water were pouring out of the sobbing Dove. "Blimey! Bein' killed for yore cores? That's terrible!"

"They're not exactly dead," Esmeralda told her. "Ages ago, the Jumi healed their wounds with tears. So I think I could revive them if only I had some tears of healing."

The Dove sobbed, "If you need tears, then take mine! Take all you want! They're just tea-water, but they're good and pure. You can take them!"

"Regular tears won't do," the green-haired girl replied gently. "They have to be Jumi tears."

Wiping her eyes—Rei winced at the faint screech of ceramic on ceramic—the owner of the café asked, "Can't you cry, then?"

Jumi girl and knife-fighter shook their heads. "Nope. Jumi tears are shards of life. That's why tears can heal a Jumi. Ages ago, the Jumi put life into their tears and shared them freely. But one day, we couldn't cry anymore...My teacher says that it might be a survival instinct," Esmeralda said, voice soft.

The Dove told her earnestly, starting to cry again, "I don't rightly understand, but you really need 'elp! Go on, take it."

"Thank you," Esmeralda said, never having intended to do otherwise. And with that, the two young women dashed out of the café.

After a moment, the Dove came to a realization. "Uh-oh! Me water!"

Meanwhile, high above the café, on one of the gilded domes that decorated the higher-class buildings, a woman with orange flowers in her hair watched everything from her perch. "Looks like the Lucky Clover is whole again," purred Sandra, watching a green head and a golden one emerge back out into the sunlight.

Rei was giving her friend a congratulatory hug when there came a familiar sound of heavy cardstock hitting the ground from just ahead of them. Esmeralda slipped out of Rei's hold and ran to where a cream-colored piece of paper sat amidst a vanishing puff of dust. She scooped it up and read it, then turned her pale face to the knife-fighter. "It's a note," she said, trembling. "It says 'The Lucky Clover will be mine.' What are we going to do?"

"You're going to stay next to me, is the first thing!" Rei told her firmly, stretching out a hand to catch a fabric-clad wrist. But Esmeralda backed away, shaking her head.

"No, I'll just be a burden to you. I'll head back to the Academy."

"NO! Esmeralda, listen to me!" Rei felt her stomach drop as her Guardian dashed off up the road back to the Academy. "DAMN IT!" Fear lent her feet wings as the knife-fighter bolted into the nearby jewelry shop where Elazul was waiting for her and the Jumi girl.

He looked up when she sprinted in, wild-eyed and shaking. "What? What's wrong? Where's Esmeralda?" he asked her, catching her by the shoulders. "Rei, breathe."

Rei clutched the front of his shirt and began hauling him bodily with her, completely ignoring Alex behind the counter. "There was a note from the jewel hunter! I tried to get her to stay with me and the little idiot ran for the Academy!"

"What!.?" Elazul didn't need any more information than that. He picked up his pace, Rei keeping up, until they were sprinting up the road towards the mage-school. "We should find Esmeralda, now!"

His friend needed no encouragement. Instead, she picked up her speed so that her hair was flying from the wind of her passage, Elazul's a gleaming banner of war from his place beside her. But even with their speed, by the time they reached the gates of Geo's Academy for Magecraft there was already a certain mouse-man steaming at the ears in his frustration.

"We were too late!" cried Inspector Boyd. "Esmeralda's gone! She's been kidnapped by the jewel hunter!"

Rei's heart froze. She barely heard Elazul's shout of her needing to find Esmeralda before she was already turned around and bolting back the way they'd come. If she'd asked her companion why she was the one who was expected to find the missing Jumi girl, Elazul's reply would have been simple. 'Because you always do.' She was his people's best hope.

Elazul barely kept up as Rei practically flew down the main street of Geo, her instincts yelling at her to go to the Palace of Arts. They blew through the open gates and past Hamson and Skippy out in the front courtyard, past Kristie and Mr. Sotherbee who wordlessly pointed towards the stairs that led down to the warehouse.

Rei came close to tripping headlong down the stairs in relief at the sight of Esmeralda standing in front of Diana on her pedestal. But that relief was short lived. With a heartbroken exclamation of, "No! That's terrible!" the green-haired girl vanished in the spiral of light that was a transportation spell.

"Esmeralda!" called Diana.

Rei skidded to a halt in front of the diamond Jumi and the only thing that kept her from face-planting at her sudden stop was the firm grip Elazul had on the back of her outfit. He was staring wide-eyed up at the Jumi woman in awe. It wasn't that he hadn't believed Rei, but being told and seeing something for yourself would always be worlds apart in terms of heart-wrenches.

"Incredible," he breathed. "It really is you."

"Yes." Diana's voice was sad, brimming with her long years and a dozen unnamed regrets. "I was the one once called Diana, in the Jumi city. Young Jumi Knight, can you save her?"

"Of course!" declared Elazul, never noticing that Diana's soft brown gaze was on coldly blazing emeralds. Rei nodded once.

Diana gave them a tiny smile. "Then I leave it to you."

Rei's war-cry echoed in the cluttered space for long moments after Diana's teleport spell swallowed her and Elazul.

————

Rei and Elazul found themselves in the well-lit battle arena that they had spent most of their long afternoons in Geo in—and with them was a honey-colored Jewel Beast that hissed angrily at them the moment their feet had steadied.

Rei didn't even wait for Elazul. Her knives spun out into golden arcs and were flung with devastating accuracy right into the thing's head. Her hair-pipes sang an angry melody when the knife-fighter sprinted for it, leaping and planting both feet into the Beast's neck as she ripped her knives back out.

For once, Elazul didn't bother to berate his friend for her crazy stunts. He was right behind her, swinging his blade to hack out pieces of their enemy's body. No special attacks were used—they didn't need to be. Sandra had underestimated how much either warrior had grown in strength since the last time she'd challenged them, and the Jewel Beast was no more powerful than the other one that Rei had fought.

Between Rei's temper and raging fear and Elazul's grim determination that he would not lose another of his people, the two fighters destroyed the Jewel Beast set against them in less than a minute. And without a word about it, Rei and Elazul sprinted for the door gaping open on the far side of the arena. The one that had always been closed until now.

Rei and Elazul raced down the stairs that were revealed by the shattered door into another room sunk into the floor. An arena below an arena? Rei wondered distantly in the fraction of her that was calm. This room was dimmer than the other, but what really concerned Rei and Elazul were the forms of Sandra and Esmeralda near the middle of the open space.

Esmeralda was crouched down, crying without tears as she looked up at the expressionless Sandra. "I can't shed tears," the green-haired Jumi girl sobbed, sounding—not concerned for her safety or fearful, but grief-stricken—"Not for myself…not even for my sisters!"

Sandra looked over as the furious, battle-sore fighters ran into the open, expression changing not even by a hair. "Looks like you're too late," she said calmly.

Then she reached down and tore the green stone from Esmeralda's chest.

Rei let out an enraged, despairing howl, lunging for Sandra just a second too slow to catch the woman as she escaped on that thrice-damned grappling hook-and-rope. Esmeralda disappeared in a shower of light fragments that glittered on the ground for a heartbeat before fading into nothing.

Elazul swore, eyes on where Esmeralda had vanished, and then turned to look at Rei.

The knife-fighter stood with her knives clenched in her hands so hard that her knuckles were white and blood trickled from where her nails had bitten into her palms. Her head was cranked back, glaring at where Sandra had disappeared into the roof's shadows and the beams mostly-hidden in the darkness. Her lips were peeled back into a feral, noiseless snarl, torchlight glittering in her eyes.

Elazul took a step back before he could stop himself. He stood a yard or two away from the door, staring at the wild thing his friend had become. The look she wore frightened him, as only losing Pearl frightened him. Dragons must wear a look like that when someone raids their nests, he thought to himself.

And for the first time, Elazul feared that Rei would do worse things than cry in the name of their friendship, if it meant that he and Pearl kept on breathing.

Rei took a long, deep breath and then howled at the ceiling, putting all of her rage, her grief, and her determination into the sound, then whirled on her heel and strode past him with her head held high. Elazul followed after Rei, letting her lead the way back up to the warehouse-basement to where Diana glittered in her false-stone beauty.

The Jumi woman gazed at them from her pedestal, looking first at the grim, silent Rei, then quiet, sorrowing Elazul. Her voice was empty, neutral when she spoke, wary of the dangerous gleam in narrowed green eyes. "I take it that things went badly."

"You might say that," snarled the knife-fighter, pacing like a caged tiger around Elazul—there wasn't room to pace around anything else, not when he stood on the only bit of open floorspace.

"I'm sorry," the Lazuli Knight said to Diana, feeling his spirit be nearly crushed under the weight of his failure. "We…we tried…"

"I knew it would happen…" Diana sighed. "I believe that the jewel hunter wants to have revenge on all the Jumi."

"Revenge?" Elazul caught Rei as she passed him for the dozenth time, wrapping her into a one-armed hug and letting her dig her nails into the gemstone glove he wore as armor. "What for? What could we possibly have done to her to deserve this?"

"Bring your Guardian here with you," commanded Diana, sounding for the first time like the woman she must have been when Rubens had fallen in love with her. "I shall tell you then. I give you this as proof of my promise."

Rei stared in incomprehension at the small bar of Granz steel being offered to her. She stared at it so long that Elazul at last was the one to accept it and stow it away in his belt pouch. Rei kept staring blindly at nothing; the man holding her felt a distant note of surprise that whatever she was feeling wasn't blasting down their connection.

Diana gave them another small smile and bowed her head. "Allow me to return you to your Guardian."

———

Bud and Lisa stared. Their teacher and the Jumi Knight had popped out of thin air onto the front path while the twins had been drawing water from the well for tonight's supper. Both fighters wore a haunted look around their eyes and their clothes and hair were in disarray. Most worrisome was the utter silence in which the two adults walked into the house together, Rei's hand firmly caught by Elazul's and white-knuckled with the strength of their shared grip.

Inside the cottage, Pearl had fallen into a drowse while she waited for the twins to tell her what they wanted her help with in making. She gave the two fighters a half-awake smile as they approached her, happy now that her world was back together.

Elazul stopped, and Rei had to stop with him since he was still holding her hand. "I must tell her about Esmeralda and Diana…" he murmured to Rei. The knife-fighter had no time to respond before Pearl spoke, calling them over in tones of sleepy content. The Jumi man gave a faint sigh of regret and decided that he wouldn't tell her just now, not when she looked so happy.

Rei tugged her hand free and plopped down in one of the other chairs, folding her arms and resting her chin on them in echo of Pearl. "I'm getting so tired of it, Elazul," she said softly. "I don't know how much more of this I can take."

"What happened?" Bud demanded, keeping his voice down as he and Lisa came in with buckets of water. "What did you do, Lazuli?" Rei glared at him; the Elven youth gulped and fell silent.

Elazul had no real emotional connection to the twins. He thought they should know the truth, and Rei was too heartsore to stop him when he answered the first of Bud's harsh-voiced questions. But for Pearl's sake he drew the twins into the library to talk to them. Pearl had dropped into a full nap and he didn't want to wake her with the sad news.

Leaning against the desk, Elazul looked into maturing faces and told them. "One of my people died today. The jewel hunter took her core and those of the sisters Esmeralda lost during the war. Sandra called them 'the Lucky Clover.' Some luck," he added bitterly. "Rei and I tried to stop it from happening, but Sandra was always at least one damn step ahead of us."

The twins stared at him. Then looked at each other as realization dawned. "The other jewels," breathed Lisa in growing distress. Bud nodded in agreement and the two quickly headed back out into the main part of the house, leaving Elazul blinking.

Other…jewels? Did that mean what he thought it meant? Oh, please Goddess, don't let it mean what he thought it meant.

Elazul hurried after them.

————