A/N: first...have this song. on repeat:
listenonrepeat (dot com) /watch/?v=G4XgxduIv_0
one of my favorites. B)
edit: AND THIS, THIS ONE TOO www . youtuberepeat (dot com) /watch?v=PJ8u8aCTSHU
There was a shout, a groan, a clank, a squeak, and he was thrown into the dark, damp room again. It was impossible for him or any of the other inhabitants to regain their senses before the door slammed shut again, and silence reigned until they were sure their captors were far away enough to not care.
It ached. Everything ached. His shin felt chipped, his throat felt tight, his back felt burned, his entire body hurt, even in places where they hadn't beaten him. Or maybe they had—but with so many targeted areas, who counted?
He groaned when he was being touched and pulled, and he wasn't sure (and didn't care) if the sound was quieter or louder than he intended. He was past the point of caring about trivial things, things like pride, weakness, image.
If it hadn't been for the fact that he was here again, in this room, this relative safe harbor, he wouldn't have known whether he was being gently shifted or yanked. Almost any touch felt the same, but at least now his nerves were numbing. Getting tossed onto the stone ground blistered his skin as much as soft, willowy fingers stroking his forehead did.
"Pass me the rag, Touya," he heard, and at least now, his upper body was beginning to adjust to the comfort of a human lap as opposed to the cold floor. He had started to sink, started to relax, started to go fuzzy, when cold shock assailed his forehead and he gasped and shuddered and mumbled unintelligible pleas.
"He looks bad," observed a slightly muffled voice some yards away. "Let me try to get him aid."
"Whatever scraps of food and fabric you can find, Silver," said his caretaker. "And water. He's burning up and the rag's already drying."
Over the sound of his own labored breathing, he was just barely able to make out the sound of fading footsteps, a rhythm made identifiable by the familiar percussion of a pair of shoes he learned to recognize after several weeks and months.
"What did they do to you?" said the voice above him, soft and melodic. It was rhetorical, so he didn't respond. A sigh hitched in his throat. His head being gently stroked in a way that reminded him of warm homes and better times. "Your hair looks like a Christmas tree. Green spotted with blood and dirt."
He felt an inexplicable surge of anger, but subdued it. This was Misty. Fellow sufferer. Old classmate. Friend. Right.
"Go to sleep, Drew," she said. "We'll be here for you when you wake up."
He breathed, slow and deep, and tried to come as close to relaxed as he could. He cleared his head and waited for his heart to calm, but there was always an underlying tension he couldn't erase.
"Thanks, Misty," he sighed.
It had been almost two full days since they reached Inlusio Academy. Forty hours of meandering around or not, their everyday routine hadn't been given a beat or a schedule, and they weren't planning on it. Ash had morning classes shortly after the meeting in Sabrina's office, so they agreed to wait for him before discussing their next plan of action.
In result, it wasn't rare for Gary to find himself breaking away from the others and wandering Inlusio's halls when the majority of the usual bustlers were in class. During his time at Savoir Faire, he had been a lone wolf despite being surrounded by people. Now that in the past few weeks an ironically far smaller group had cracked his barriers, it was refreshing to be left to nobody's presence except his own.
And mine.
And Azreth's.
Hey, check her out, his dragon said, an appreciative lilt in his voice as he sent Gary a mental image of a slender, violet dragon preening in the corner of the stables.
Looks like Lithium, jabbed Gary, not even regretting it when he was sent a mental fantasy of Azreth tossing him off a cliff and roasting him alive.
Lith is pale and a prude, said Azreth, and Gary rolled his eyes.
She only flew the boulder into your face because you overdid the innuendoes.
Y'know, a few months ago, you would've been more supportive.
Guess I'm changing. Gary squinted. Was that silhouette a little ways ahead familiar?
And I'm hella proud of you, y'know that? Now, the sooner you get with the girl, the sooner her dragon will, by the transitive property, get with me…
That's not how it works, said Gary, and he felt Azreth shrug. He sent the dragon a view of the hallway up ahead. Is that…?
That's y'girl, a'ight. Go get 'er, and Gary would've punched his best friend if the damn dragon had been nearby.
Nonetheless, he stuck his hands into his pockets—but not too far, his conscience cautioned, because that would look too withdrawn and douchey, and definitely don't hunch, straighten up—and he suddenly became aware of each angle of his gait. Was it good? Was it smooth? Was it clunky? Could it be better? Did he lift his knees? Not enough? Was sauntering still cool?
She lifted her head to look at him when he was a few yards away, and he almost stumbled because he didn't exactly know what to do with red-rimmed eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. He sped up.
"What happened?" he said when he was close enough, all thoughts of ambling or the angle of his ankle seeming irrelevant now. He grasped her wrists as if that would somehow protect her. His eyes raked her body as he demanded, "Are you hurt?"
"No…" said Leaf with slightly widened eyes and ajar mouth, her tears frozen on her waterline. Why was she looking at him like that?
"Then what happened?" he repeated, releasing her wrists and feeling his ears tingle, realizing belatedly that people didn't do that.
She shook her head. "Earlier, I just...I overheard some of them say that Silverhaven had"—she swallowed, but her voice hoarsened anyway—"been burned to the ground."
Red stood in the doorway and watched the girl bustle around her improvised, au naturale kitchen of carved utensils and stone plates.
It had been days since he'd been taken in, possibly weeks, but it wasn't as if either of them had been counting. If he was honest, then the easy time he had spent with Yellow, the days that rolled into each other in blurs while the moments were crystal bright, were the most relaxed in recent memory.
It was a horrible thing to think, but there was less stress when he didn't have a base to run. He was worried sick—literally, even, considering he was recovering from a light cold in addition to his wounds—about his base members, but it was hard to remember bloodshed, longswords, and betrayal when early morning mist and light streamed in so innocently through the innocent little windows in the innocent little cottage run by the innocent little girl who had been taking more than just his wounds away.
"Yellow," he said, and there was a yelp and a clatter as she jumped and dropped a spoon. Lazare immediately swooped it up, bounded back up to her counter, and deposited it in the holder.
"Thank you, Lazare," she said, petting the dragon's head scales with all the strength of a light breeze. The dragon purred and cuddled up into her hand. Yellow giggled.
"He likes you so much already," said Red, walking up and toying with Lazare underneath its chin.
"I'm happy," said Yellow, smiling. "I'm less afraid of dragons now, thanks to him."
"Yeah." He paused. "Sorry for startling you like that."
"Oh, no! It's fine," said Yellow, abashed. She wringed her fingers together and looked down. "I was just organizing. Ah, actually, I was waiting for you to wake up so we could go to the market together."
His first thought was public. What if they saw certain people? Vesuvius's men, villagers who recognized him as the heir, an endless number of things that could go wrong. A sudden attack, an accusation turned spectacle, putting Yellow in danger.
But she looked so excited...and they would be out for less than an hour.
"Yeah," he said, ruffling her hair and grinning. "Let's go."
Circled around May's bed, they sat in silence in the ward, the only occasional sound Leaf's sniffle.
She and Gary had rounded up the others one by one while searching for reliable sources to confirm the story. "Yes," the professor they caught up with had said as she adjusted her glasses, "we received word this morning that the Silverhaven base was attacked several days ago. We're getting more details every hour, but it seems to have been a betrayal. Now, if you'll excuse me," and she strode away, leaving Gary, Ash, and a stricken Leaf in her wake.
The somber cloud looming over and suffocating them felt as if someone had died, and they didn't know how to process the information. But for that matter, at least tens if not hundreds must have been wounded, if not dead, which made her legs lose feeling and her heart ache for Red. Was he alright? Had he escaped? Was he captured or killed? Which was worse?
Trying to contact him was the first thing she'd tried to do, and she had periodically called and pleaded for him on the small chance that he was fine and within Stonecrest's range ever since the news broke. But dead or alive, there was little chance of a reply, and that was a double-pointed arrow of hope and devastation.
The others, upon surface examinations, were faring better than her as she was the only one with blood relations at the attacked base. The only one worse and clenching the armchair with white knuckles for the past quarter-hour was White with pale face, unfocused eyes, pressed lips.
Standing across from Leaf was Gary, arms crossed and face stoic. In what seemed a moment of telepathy, both of their eyes flicked up to the other's at the exact same moment. Their gazes held for a second. Leaf was about to offer a tight-lipped smile when Gary suddenly looked away, brow slightly creased. The corner of her mouth pulled down. She would have been offended if she wasn't so used to it—him—by now.
"We have to fight back," said Leaf. White buried her face in her hands. She spoke, and it was small, exhausted, pitiful.
"I'm done fighting. I can't do it anymore."
"Don't give up now," said Gary, snorting. "Not when you're so close."
"To what?" she snapped. "Finally running out of luck? Getting myself killed? Or, even richer: ending the war?"
He regarded her. "I was talking about your brother."
White's mouth slipped open, but she eventually closed it. She stared at the ground. "Gary's right," said May. "Our next step is Ganglion Prison. Technically, we're not looking to fight."
"I'm going with you," said Ash, inadvertently clenching his fists. Leaf exchanged looks with May and White, then shook her head.
"You've done so much for us already, Ash," said May. "We can't ask you to—"
"No, I have to. That's where Misty's held."
Leaf blinked. "How do you know that? What happened to you two after Savoir Faire?"
Ash laced his hands together and stared at the floor. "Mm…well, we got out of the Savoir Faire battle together. Inlusio was the only other base I knew how to get into, because I'd done a mission here before. So, we came here. After a while, they said they were planning a jailbreak of the captured Resistance members in Ganglion Prison. They asked Misty and me to join. We said yeah.
"It didn't go as well as anyone thought. We underestimated their security. We didn't even get to any of the prisoners before all the fighting started. It was a stealth mission, so even with our dragons, they outnumbered us by a lot. Our back-up wasn't enough to beat them either, but enough to let us make a getaway.
"But right before they arrived, Misty's dragon got hurt. We both felt it. When I got over there, I tried to heal it, but there wasn't enough time. Everyone was retreating. They forced me to, too, but Misty stayed behind with Seltore. That was the last time I've seen either of them."
"Do you know if they made it?" murmured May.
"Hours after I got back to Inlusio, the bond broke. I don't know if they broke her pendant, but even if they did, I'd guess that Seltore went first anyway. It was an artery injury," he said, pointing to his neck. "Impossible to heal without emergency action."
"And I doubt Vesuvius's guys would be nice enough to save a Resistance dragon," said Gary, but Ash pressed his lips into a thin line and shook his head, to everyone's surprise.
White, however, was unfazed. She nodded. "He's right," she said, her expression grim. "Rumor is they do horrible things at Ganglion."
"Like?"
"Physical torture, for one. I've heard stories about Resistance prisoners whose entire epidermis peeled off in result, or who had their skin blackened to the bone. Death, if you're a really tough resistor, because then they just don't know what to do with you. But most people aren't that strong, so...they break from the mental torture first."
"Mental torture," repeated Leaf.
White nodded. "Make you go insane. Lose your sense of reality. Forget who you are, what you're worth. Break you. Then they can manipulate you to their side."
"And they can do this to dragons, too?" said Gary. It was almost a statement.
"That's why you said they would save Resistance dragons," said May. "And...capture Savoir Faire students."
"We've been gathering information on Ganglion for months, and dedicated more resources after the failed mission," said Ash. "The next attempt won't be like the last."
"So," said White, wringing her hands. "Suppose we wanted to try again as soon as possible. As in...tonight."
Ash's gaze flicked up. "The heads might not approve that in time." But his eyes twinkled mischievously, and he grinned.
"—May, are you listening to me?" snapped Leaf, looking up from the Ganglion blueprints and pages of notes laid out across May's hospital ward bed. White and Gary glanced up momentarily.
May laughed sheepishly. "Sorry, Leaf."
"C'mon May, focus! Even Gary's concentrated on this," said Leaf, brow furrowed, gesturing to the brunet on the other side of May. He looked up from his skimming and raised an eyebrow.
"What do you mean 'even Gary's concentrated'?" he said, but Leaf gave him a dismissive wave of her hand.
"Sorry," the brunette apologized again. "I was distracted by the instruments over there. They reminded me of Savoir Faire, and the ones you two played."
"Instruments?" echoed Leaf, following May's gaze to the other side of the room, where a few wooden pieces hung inconspicuously. Leaf looked over at Gary. "One of them almost looks like a sax."
"Almost," he agreed, standing up. He took a few steps in the direction of the nearest figure of authority, a student nurse who was cataloguing vials. He flashed a grin. "Excuse me. Are we allowed to see those for a second?"
"Oh," the blonde said, lingering for a moment on Gary's face before glancing over at the wall adornments. "Well, nobody's ever asked. I think I'm supposed to say no, but I won't tell if you take it off to 'observe' for a little while."
"Thank you," he said with a tip of his head, and she reciprocated with a smile. He ambled over, gingerly lifted the bottom instrument off of its hooks, and blew the dust off. Leaf watched as he seemed to weigh the instrument in his hands as if unsure, then looked over to her. If Leaf didn't know better, she would have thought he was looking to her for assurance. Regardless, she offered him a small smile and a nod, and he studied the instrument again. Then he lifted it to his lips.
It was a mellow piece in an unconventional major, middle-ranged and patient, and it rolled off the faux saxophone's smooth, sweet alto well. Leaf recognized the melody immediately. A composition by Debussy for his lover, it used to be one of Leaf's favorites, but she found it upsetting now that she couldn't recall its name.
La fille aux cheveux de…de what? The girl with what hair?
In her lapse of preoccupation, Leaf hadn't gotten lost in the music. But, as she glanced around, she seemed to be the exception. May and White's slight smiles were intent on Gary, as were the other patients and even the nurse.
Leaf almost sulked. She could awe them, too, if there had been a flute on the wall.
But would she have? pressed some small, annoying corner of her mind. Wasn't there something different about his playing right now compared to his playing in class that felt so long ago? He never seemed to have tried very hard, used to goof off whenever he had the chance, and had been awarded a fraction as many solos as Leaf. She never considered the thought of Gary Oak being remotely musically talented until now.
Was it sincerity? Was that what was changing his sound right now? Was Gary taking seriously his chance to be the only one able to show off? No, Leaf reasoned, if that was the whole case, he'd probably play "Careless Whisper" or something again while stripping slowly.
The song was beginning to enter its final quarter, a fact given away by the growing amount of harmonious overtones.
Maybe it was sincerity effected from a different reason. His rhythmic sways and leans with the music, his gentle vibrato, his dramatic, expressive dynamics...all things she didn't think she'd ever watched him incorporate into his playing until now.
Ultimately, she decided she couldn't find the explanation why, but it was a beautiful song played beautifully by a slightly beautiful musician, and for now, maybe that was enough.
Leaf felt her cheeks burn. Not that she'd ever say that to anyone, she resolved hotly, but then Gary's eyes opened to look straight at her.
Her breath hitched, and her mind blanked—with exception of one word.
Lin. La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin.
The Girl With Flaxen Hair.
Leaf swore his mouth pulled up into whatever small smirk it physically could while blowing on a reed. He closed his eyes as he entered the last few notes of the piece. After the final note faded, he moved the instrument away from his mouth. The room erupted with applause. Gary grinned, bowed, and Leaf clapped in respect as well.
"I didn't know he could play like that," said May appreciatively.
"Yeah," said Leaf, brow furrowing. She turned back to the blueprints, bracing herself to focus again. "Me, neither."
"Hey," Leaf heard a female voice say. She glanced up to see that the blonde student-nurse had caught up with Gary when he was halfway back to May's bed, the instrument back safely on the wall. "That was beautiful! I can't remember the last time a song almost moved me to tears."
"Thanks," she heard him say, and peeked just to see him grinning sheepishly with his hands in his pockets. Leaf's scowl was barely noticeable, but it was there.
"I haven't seen you around before. What year are you?"
"Oh, I don't attend Inlusio."
"Ah, so that's why you and your friends aren't in uniform. But you were educated by the Resistance, right?"
"Savoir Faire," he said, nodding. "Up until it was attacked."
"Oh, I heard. I'm so sorry," she murmured. Out of the corner of her eye, Leaf saw the girl touch his arm. She tried to ignore it. "If there's anything I can do to help…?"
"No, I'm fine," he said. Where did he get off smiling like that? "Thank you. You're very generous."
The girl's lips lifted. "You know, you're welcome here at Inlusio to finish your studies. I'm a seventh year here"—oh, Leaf knew what must have been going through his head right now ("hey, older girls!")—"but instead of training to fight, I'm primarily studying first-aid and medicine. I know we're much more rounded than Savoir Faire was in that respect, but that means that if you want to, you could start a music department here and teach." Leaf's ears perked up. Would he really? Was Gary above leaving them for a life here at Inlusio?
He laughed. The girl grinned.
"I'm serious! With playing like that, you'll have the superiors wrapped around your finger in no time."
"Thanks, but I'm nowhere near good enough to compare to others I know, let alone to teach. Besides," he said, "I have duties to milady."
Leaf couldn't help it—what an obscenely obvious reference to her princess status. Her eyes noticeably darted to Gary, and she felt as if everybody in the room noticed when he glanced back a millisecond later, made pointed eye contact with her, and smiled.
The exchange ended as soon as it began because Leaf hurriedly ducked her head, blushing while futilely trying to concentrate on the outline of Ganglion's B2 floor.
"'Milady'? As in...your girlfriend?" she said. Leaf flushed darker. She wondered how many others listening in on the conversation had assumed that as well.
"My partner," he corrected.
"Isn't that the same thing? Unless you mean—playing for the other team?"
"Wait, no—maybe not all Resistance schools have this," said Gary, chuckling awkwardly. "In our sixth and seventh year, we were assigned partners bonded us to through our dragons. It's based on fighting compatibility, you know, learning from each other, and we go on missions."
"Oh, I've heard about that," said the girl. "Are you bound for life?"
Gary shrugged. "You could be, but there are plenty of ways to break it. While we're still fighting in the war, it's useful, so I don't see us breaking it anytime soon. It's come in handy more than once. Even when we're not in danger, it's...comforting being able to feel her in my head, knowing she's alive and fine." His voice quieted in the last sentence, and Leaf's ears strained to catch his words. She made out syllables, but it took a while for it all to register.
Once it did, warm butterflies filled her tummy. Leaf was so wrapped up in telling herself to calm down, stop reacting to his flirtatious tendencies, and to get ahold of yourself Leaf Green that she barely noticed Gary nod, say goodbye, and return to the group.
"That was such a pretty song, Gary," said May when he sat down, White nodding in agreement.
"Thanks," he said. "What'd you think, Leaf?" Without looking up, Leaf shrugged.
"You rushed the middle and didn't hold some of the base notes long enough." She heard Gary chuckle and May laugh.
"Don't listen to her, Gary, she was straight-backed attentive for the whole thing."
"I guess you could have mauled it worse."
"Thanks," said Gary sarcastically. Leaf rolled her eyes and hunched over the maps and blueprints again, her flaxen-colored hair cascading down her side and onto the papers.
When nightfall came, they slipped out of the academy in small groups via various underground passageways that, according to Ash, would all be shorter and quieter at the end than the first one.
May had been given the green light for discharge later that afternoon, and Ash had to come up with a clever excuse for his closest dorm mates as to why he was sneaking out past curfew. The dragons had been informed of the plan hours earlier, and they were to all regroup at a small street intersection that, according to Ash, was a few hundred meters directly west of the academy.
When Leaf and White were within distance of three familiar figures waiting up ahead, the others turned and continued on, and they followed them to where they had agreed to meet their dragons.
Leaf estimated it to be about a quarter to midnight now, and the moon was high as they trekked into the woods. Sounds and shadows followed them. As Leaf warily eyed the shrubs and small dark hills, she had never been more grateful to be in a group outside of a non-combat situation.
Seconds, minutes ticked by. Owls in the trees cooed. Wolves in the distance huffed. Leaves underneath them crunched. Their shoes thudded.
Then there was a soft, barely audible echo of the crunching leaves and thudding shoes. At least, that's what Leaf thought it was, her mind tricking her.
But forest floors didn't echo, thought Leaf as she pretended to scratch an itch on her side, but really moving to grip her one of her daggers' hilt. At least not rhythmically off and diagonally behind them.
She whipped around, aiming the dagger at a thin tree beside the hunched figure while grabbing the other. The first found its mark with a satisfying kh in the trunk, boosting Leaf's ego but, more importantly, paralyzing their follower.
"Who's there?" shouted Leaf, hearing White drawing a shuriken beside her.
"Hands in the air and walk slowly into the moonlight," commanded White as they heard the other three-fifths of their group hurry back to them.
Their figure raised their arms, taking tentative steps towards a patch of soft light. "Don't shoot," came a voice. Female.
When she was finally illuminated by the moonlight, Leaf and White briefly exchanged looks. They didn't recognize her layered auburn hair, asymmetrical bangs, and thin nose. They had never seen those dark eyes and high cheekbones before.
Except—Leaf squinted—hadn't they...?
"What do you want from us?" said White, still on red alert. Leaf had inexplicably begun to relax, but White's sharp tone brought her back. Leaf mentally berated herself. She had to be careful, she knew, but what was it about this woman that didn't seem dangerous?
"I can explain," the brunette said, "if you'll let me."
"Hey!" shouted Ash, their running steps no more than a few dozen meters away now. "Are you okay? What's going on?"
"She's about to tell us," said White, her eyes narrowing, still defensive. The other three were finally within range now, panting lightly behind Leaf from their sprint.
"Were we followed from Inlu—" began Gary, but stopped. Leaf looked over her shoulder at him to find him wide-eyed and jaw-dropped.
"Gary?" breathed the mystery woman, and said brunet seemed to flinch. Leaf heard him swallow.
"Daisy?"
-*-x-*-
flaxen-haired girls=naive, innocent
debussy+first major relationship=songs entitled girl with flaxen hair
debussy=gary
flaxen-haired girl=leaf ergo do you see what i did ther ;)
Hey guys 8) sooo...it seems that I'm atrocious with being productive writing-wise over summers... hope you guys still liked it though! (-vows to reply to finally stop being a dingus and reply to reviews this time around-)
comments, thoughts, critique? j'ai beaucoup appreciee ;)
(-will stop with the subpar french now-)
mucho amour,
Aph
