Ominae: Ask, and ye shall receive…
Cloner4000: Yeah, they really got the short end of the stick.
THEY LIVE! And now for some blatant shipping.
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Unknown number of hours after shelling
Celes decided that his position was not an enviable one, stuck underneath countless amounts of wood and stone. Still, it was better than being dead.
The view wasn't all that bad, though. At the moment, his helmet was stuck, locking his eyes on Isara's unconscious face. While not exactly useful to getting out of the rubble, it was at least a restful place to lay his eyes. His body ached all over, undoubtedly from the shell blast – he wondered if he had shrapnel in his back.
Still, he decided he could die peacefully enough if that face was the last thing he saw.
He wiggled an arm, trying to reach his helmet to free himself. Stones shifted slightly – one particularly stiff specimen took an extremely large amount of force to shift just enough to get free. A little more wiggling and he was able to work his hand to his neck, unbuckling his helmet. By curling up, he was able to remove his head from his helmet, which was apparently pinned between a rock and… a hard place; Celes couldn't tell exactly what.
An hour's effort later, he'd managed to shift enough rubble so that he could see just how they'd survived. There was a tiny hollow in the rubble, large enough for two people smashed together to reside. A miniscule breeze of fresh air came through – well, at least they weren't going to suffocate in a few minutes. A few more hours, though, might still be enough.
They had to get out of here, soon.
Isara stirred beneath him, and he wanted to smash his head against a rock with irritation. They were in an extremely awkward position right now, and if she moved just like that, then she rubbed against him like that, and even with the armor between them it wasn't exactly helping him concentrate –
To distract himself, he pulled at a timber, not actually expecting it to move. It didn't, but dust descended in droves. Oops. Bad idea. Still moving as slowly as possible, he tried to move to the side of the girl underneath him.
Instead, he lost his balance. His hand came screaming down to steady himself on the exposed floor right beside Isara's face.
WHUNK. The sound was deafening and resonant in the hollow of space that they had.
Her eyes snapped open, and she rolled upwards to face him. For a moment, he thought she was going to wrench him again. But then she smiled sadly, as if to say "well, what now" and "thank you" at the same time.
It was a far cry from her first deliriously violent moments after her operation. Celes decided he liked the change.
"We're trapped inside the ruins of Charles's house," he said softly. Absently, he wondered why he was bothering – it wasn't as if speaking loudly was going to cause the timbers to collapse on them – but something about the situation just seemed to warrant a delicate attitude. Maybe it had something to do with how close his face was to hers, how deep her eyes seemed to be, how it would only take a few inches of movement to –
Cut.
She nodded. "How long do you think it will take for them to dig us out?" she said optimistically. Her breath washed over him – he was again reminded of steel and machinery, all underlaid with a feminine tone –
Celes sighed, both in resignation and to get the scent of her away from him. "To tell the truth, Isara, I don't think anyone will reach us in time."
He was close enough to see her pupils dilate in surprise. "Why not?" she whispered, taken aback.
"There was an attack on this village a little while ago." He wondered if his one visible eye was giving away the secret already.
Her face darkened with confusion as her mind churned – it was an endearing sight. "So they greet you with open arms after you shot them?" she asked, confused. He smiled, glad that she knew him well enough to not automatically condemn him, but to doubt.
"They were Gallians. It seems Darcsens aren't just hated in the Empire." A tinge of sarcasm crept into his voice despite his best efforts as he thought of his own half-heritage. Oh, the troubles that that had almost caused for him. He briefly recalled the moment when Lieutenant Karst had forced him to take it off, before calmly accepting him without a word of complaint, a moment that had cemented his loyalty for good.
She gasped. "I… I know that," she admitted with a sad, ironic smile, "but they had the gall to just… massacre them? Wouldn't anyone notice?"
"Not if they carried Imperial arms, and made sure to leave no survivors." His voice was cutting and bitter, his disgust clear.
For a long moment, she looked at him – simply looked at him. Briefly, Celes considered ducking his head back into the helmet stuck in midair to hide his face, but he was riveted in place. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it, unable to coalesce his thoughts, much less voice them. She was distracting.
"And what does that have to do with you?" she finally asked in a quavering whisper.
Now he was the one struck dumb, and he turned his head to the side as far as he could to avoid those eyes like wells, eyes he could fall into forever and never care. "… I suppose if you wanted to be cynical, I'd say that we, as a shattered unit, needed every ally we could get to escape."
"… somehow, I don't think that's the real reason." She cut straight through his excuse to the core of the matter, trying to expose his soul underneath. It was an uncomfortable notion.
Celes let out a long breath. Why was his heart beating so fast? A small part of his mind said to do something to break this haze that was descending over his head – but it wasn't like the haze of rage that he'd seen her with earlier when she'd insulted his craft but a haze of pure emotion and want.
"… I couldn't just watch them die. Of course, it looks like they managed to finish the job anyways," he added, shifting slightly to point at their surroundings.
"They were Darcsens," she said sarcastically. "Stinky pigs, dark hairs. And you, Imperial," she stung, "supposedly have no care for them. What gives?"
Celes made up his mind. Although he didn't trust himself enough to open his eyes, turned his head back to face her for his own retort. "They were human."
She had no scathing remark to shoot down his idealism – Celes cursed inwardly. Had that been the wrong thing to say?
Isara shifted underneath him; he winced and turned away; she moved closer –
"You really are a kind person at heart, Celes," Isara's kind voice whispered into his ear –
The scent of oils engulfed him as a pair of lips grazed against his cheek, lingering there just long enough for him to feel their softness. "Thank you."
Every sense Celes had burst into feeling. All of his bodily functions screamed at him to do something, to take this woman underneath his form.
He axed all connection he had with himself, and for a time, floated – somewhere. A whole minute must have passed before he let himself touch back down to earth. His eyes opened –
Isara was staring at him, expression shattered with disappointment, a sight that tore at his heartstrings. Slowly, he let the smile that he had been holding back fill his face, and felt it grow as she mirrored him. "You're welcome," he started –
But a thought tore away his happiness before it blossomed fully. "Now, how are we going to get out of here?"
Her own face flattened back into business. "Punch the floor again."
"Eh?"
"Do it."
Quizzically, he raised an armored fist. Spurred on by Isara's nod, he brought it down against the floor.
WHUNK. The same sound as before – and most interestingly, the floor cracked and gave way inward about an inch. He raised his uncovered eyebrow, asking a silent question.
"I examined this place while you were away." She shrugged as best as while pinned along the ground. "It happens when you move furniture in a room." A half embarrassed smile flitted across her face.
Celes twisted his mouth in confusion. "Okay, but just what?"
"There's space underneath the floor, probably a tunnel here. If I'm not mistaken, it should lead to some distance away from the village."
"Why would there be a tunnel underneath a house?"
"This is a Darcsen town, Celes," she said, as if lecturing him. "We have to be ready for a lot of things."
Oops. He felt his face flush. To recover, he raised a fist again. "Care to help?" he asked lightly.
She nodded. A hand snaked down her body – by proximity, his body as well, much to his chagrin – and snatched up a wrench. Celes almost winced, but caught himself just in time. Let her think that he couldn't feel her hand scrambling across the surface of his armor, and hopefully he would come out of this mess alive.
A second wrench later, the two of them were smashing at the floorboards towards freedom.
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Gratuitous shipping is gratuitous. Next up… just how was the trip? And why aren't they able to touch base with Squad 7? We already know that they went back thinking of her canonical death…