Author's Notes

This chapter is rated T for Pyra. Yes, I know, Pyra does not start with "T". However, she makes the fic rated T for a reason, so the description is quite fitting, even though there are some other things that occur as well. :D


Chapter 16: Crisis Averted

After getting knocked on the head by those noble boys, I wake up a minute later as they tie me next to Wolt, who is just waking up himself. Thankfully, the element of surprise is on our side, as our captors don't notice that we're awake, and we knock them over before running down the maze of halls. I unfortunately lose track of Wolt, who is no longer following me, but soon it is evident that I'm not being followed either, so I take a moment to catch my breath.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

What in the world was that? It sounded like a really loud scream of pain, but it's hard to confirm. Navigating the halls to hopefully find an answer, I turn the corner and find Sakre crumpled on the ground, a small pool of blood forming around him...

...and not three feet away, I also find Sadiki on top of Tarif, kissing the living daylights out of him.

I must admit that this is one of those moments where I can't bear to watch what's going on, and yet, no matter how hard I try, I just can't look away. How would I react if Idoun randomly did this to me? I'd probably be breathless and in disbelief, just like Tarif appears to be.

Although I wouldn't expect Idoun to randomly slap me on the cheek either, just like Sadiki does to Tarif now.

"How could you not t-tell me you were a dragon?!" she screams at him, tears running down her face, and I gasp. She found out he's a dragon, and the horrible punishment he gets other than a slap in the face is a make-out session? Ugh, why in the world did Pyra even explain to me what a 'make-out session' was? "Sniff... wait, don't answer that question. I completely understand why, but I still feel betrayed!"

Tarif can barely breathe from all of the kisses he's received, let alone respond to what she's saying. I feel no guilt for him whatsoever at this point. He looks like he's in pure bliss.

"Can't speak? Well, like I said, your innocence and embarrassment is attractive... well, actually, it's a really big turn-on for me if you want me to be specific," she now reveals, her tears drying and her forwardness returning, and at this point I audibly clear my throat to diffuse all chances of any awkward situations to start flourishing in front of me. When the two of them notice I'm behind them, Sadiki grins madly, and Tarif's face reddens. "Don't worry; we weren't going to do anything. But, hey, there's nothing wrong with implying or speculating."

It seems like Tarif has finally caught his breath enough to speak: "Sadiki... why... why did you not... kill me? You swore revenge... against the species that tortured and killed your parents... I wouldn't have blamed you..."

I never heard this story! Perhaps she told it to him privately?

"Tarif! There's no way I could kill you! Do you not realize that I could never do that?" Sadiki exclaims, and I can tell she may start to cry again. "Getting to know you has made me realize... that I shouldn't jump to conclusions about others. I can't judge an entire species based on one action. But the main reason that I killed Sakre was because I eventually recognized him for who he was."

"A dangerous individual that can't be trusted?" I ask.

"Well, yes, that's true, but that's not what I meant," she replies, lowering her voice. "When I say recognized him, I meant literally. He's the spitting image of the dragon who murdered my parents, only younger. It's quite likely he could have been his son or nephew."

"I'm his son... I assure you... of that..."

All of us turn around in horror to find Sakre standing, wings flared open, and very much alive, though panting heavily, with an empty three-pack of Elixirs scattered around him. Was he able to ingest every single one and therefore prevent his death? Even worse, he's holding a bloodied Wyrmslayer out in an offensive stance, seemingly ready to strike at us at any moment. Even though Tarif and I are not full-blooded dragons, we would still be incapacitated if we were struck by it, so I back up a step to gain some distance.

Sensing the uneasiness and the confusion of the situation, Sakre smirks at us as he recovers from his tired state. "Well played, everyone," he comments, bowing mockingly at us. "Boy," he starts, referring to me like he did last time he talked to me, "I should have assumed you would just randomly show up and cause trouble. I can't try to kill you; I'll be pursued endlessly if I eliminate a person of your caliber."

Now his eyes narrow. "Tarif, I should have assumed that you'd be one of the few to soften Miss Tomboy's heart. And lastly, Sadiki, I should have assumed that you, being a giant and having the reputation of being somewhat of a Siren spoken of in legends, would fall victim to Tarif's willingness to be led around like a dog on a leash. You couldn't be, perhaps, trying to take advantage of him, hmm?"

Sadiki's face pales somewhat as Sakre continues his accusation: "I've heard the stories about your... urges, that you hope to be able to quell whenever they grab at you like hunger, leaving your victims unable to move for weeks. Bet you didn't know dragons are full of libido, heh heh! It should be enough for even someone like you to handle..."

Tarif's face turns as red as a tomato for the first time in a while, and even I have to blush a bit at the... informative dragon trivia. I'd better keep that a secret from Pyra if she doesn't already know about it...

"You... take... that... BACK!" Sadiki suddenly yells, and in a flash she lunges for Sakre in an attempt to tackle him down at the horribly baseless and insulting comment. Unfortunately, he flaps his wings and leaps backwards to avoid Sadiki's attack, and he snidely laughs as he stays hovering in the air, taunting us: "so, it seems that nothing worked out today. Couldn't kidnap the impressively endowed sister to ransom with and then kill anyway; couldn't kill off the bothersome brother by someone who actually took an interest in him to result in a sick form of irony. It's sad, really."

What is wrong with this person? Does he really not have any good qualities to speak of?

"Someone like you, who views life so worthlessly and has no respect for anyone..." I say, anger seething through me, "you'll never get away with your plans."

"Ha! Nope, not today," he agrees easily, and yet his confidence is evident in his demeanour, which is worrisome. "Here's a treat for you: my ultimate goal, which I never mentioned during our last encounter. My goal is to rule over the entire span of creation, which consists of more than just the continent of Elibe... and while it seems that the prince and princess of Renais will stay safe another day, don't worry; I'll find another way to infiltrate their continent of Magvel."

As he speaks, loud stomping can be heard, and it quickly gets louder and louder. No one can tell what it is; this is, until Sakre turns his head and his eyes widen in horror. He quickly hides his fear, however, and shouts, "don't get too excited! You haven't won! I'm still going to rule... and I'll still need to have my way, so to speak,with Idoun to fulfill that destiny. Her powers of creation will soon be ripe for harvesting, like before and during the time period her soul was destroyed. Enjoy yourselves until then..."

Sakre immediately flings himself backwards to avoid a giant fist aimed for him that's materialized from one of the hallways, and he laughs maniacally before flying away in escape. There is no hope to catch him, so we don't even attempt to follow, much to the chagrin of Sadiki. "I can't believe I was fooled by that, that... cretin!" she growls, clenching her fists angrily. "And those things he said... I'll never forgive him!"

Tarif and I look at each other, and mentally agree not to ask about anything Sakre implied about Sadiki tonight. It's probably for the best, if only for her dignity. It's not like anything he said was true...

...right?

"He the man who try to take Fayette," a voice mentions, and the fist that tried to punch Sakre retracts before Gonzales shows himself as the attacker, with Fayette perched on his shoulders, which I must admit is quite adorable. "Nice lady in red dress say to punch him, but me missed."

"You saved them regardless, Gonzales. Just your presence was enough to scare him off, considering you got a good shot on him earlier. You're a hero!" another voice calls out, and Pyra shows herself from behind Gonzales, and once she notices the blood on the ground, she immediately grows concerned and begins to inspect us thoroughly, and yet, without making us uncomfortable. She can be serious when she needs or wants to be.

"Wait, we're perfectly fine..."

Anyway, after Pyra deems us okay, she starts walking backwards (so she can still face us) towards the distant hallway that Sakre escaped from, her face forming a mischievous grin. "I'm glad you guys are okay. At this point, our unsuspecting guest should be here in about a minute, so hang on for a minute..."

After waiting for a short amount of time, Pyra puts on a warm smile and closes her eyes before spreading her arms open and positioning herself in front of the hallway that she was walking towards. It appears that she intends to catch somebody in a big hug?

"Hello there! We miss you!" she coos, and I hear someone shout, "wait, what? AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" before a seemingly panic stricken figure crashes into Pyra and pile-drives both of them onto the ground. When we all run and see what happened, I deduce that it's Oscar who was running at full speed this way, and that he is now unconscious. How did Pyra know he was coming?

"Me untie him from chair and he run scared," Gonzales explains to us sadly.

How long could he have been running? He doesn't seem tuckered out at all. Maybe it was only for a few minutes.

"Don't worry; he doesn't like anybody... except for one person who only I know about... and very much so, he had told me, hee hee!" Pyra informs us, and Gonzales' sad face lightens a bit. "Now, the fun part! Time to make this really awkward for him!"

Everybody (even Gonzales) decides to turn around so as not to see what she is doing, (which I'm very glad I did in hindsight) but it doesn't prevent us from hearing her giggle and making other uncomfortable sounds (uncomfortable for us, anyway) before she starts muttering to herself, "so, let's just place him on top of me, then put this thing here, and this thing there... OOOOOOOOOOOOOH. I never knew how good cold hands feel on my chest, especially with the fingers on my n..."

"We're leaving. Now," I declare, and nobody argues with me as we walk away quite quickly to avoid the embarrassing scene and to prevent the disturbing mental picture from manifesting itself any further. Pretty soon, though, a scream can be heard from behind us.

I guess Oscar woke up.

"PYRA! How in the world did you tie my arms to your chest so that I can't move my hands? And get my head in between your... seriously! These things are bigger than my hands for crying out loud! And I have big hands!"

Well, so much for avoiding the disturbing mental picture.

"What's the problem, Oscar? Do you... not like them?"

"...there is no safe answer to that question."

I'll agree with that statement.

Tarif coughs awkwardly into his hand. "So that's what... Oscar's voice sounds like..."

"Tarif, don't think, just keep walking..."


When we all emerge from the hallway, (minus Pyra and Oscar) I find Cormag has caught the three noble boys and tied them up with the silver scarf they were carrying with them. Janani, who's waiting beside him, looks a little bit disappointed for some reason, though. Wait, does she have chocolate on her lips?

"Got them," Cormag reports triumphantly. "They shouldn't be causing any trouble for a while, considering that I reported their kidnapping attempt. Another guard will escort them to the jailhouse."

I thank him, and then a disorientated Wolt emerges from another hallway, definitely confused about what's going on. But once he sees us perfectly fine and our former attackers in custody, he looks relieved. "I guess everything worked out. Where's Pyra?"

"Don't ask."

A bunch of us laugh, much to Wolt's confusion, but he decides to go with it and chuckles along with us. Eventually, we decide to go our separate ways for lack of anything better to do, and as I wander around the ballroom, I think about everything that's happened. The wedding, the balcony bonding experience with Idoun, Sakre's appearance. A lot has happened in the span of one day. Hopefully, it can simply end peacefully and without further incident...

"Roy?"

Hearing Idoun's voice is quite reassuring after everything that's happened, and I beam warmly at her when she approaches me from the table that my father and Tavia are sitting at, but unfortunately, they're giving me disapproving looks. I'm not sure about what happened while I was gone, and so I escort myself and Idoun back to the table so I can find out.

"Idoun mentioned; very, very briefly of course; about... how good you made her feel on the balcony," Tavia informs me with disdain.

"Son, you're completely destroying one of the main benefits and customs of marriage if you decide to just 'go all out', so to speak, with someone before you are wed," my father adds, clearly disappointed in me. "I taught you better than this, Roy. Idoun is such an innocent girl..."

I groan in annoyance. This is going to be an interesting explanation, considering now that I'm remembering what I caught them doing out there as well...


Author's Notes

Sakre, Sakre, Sakre, can't you do ANYTHING good? Why must you always make this fic rated T for a reason like Pyra does?!

A Siren is linked to mythology. For those who don't know, Sirens were creatures that looked similar to human women, lived at sea, and lured sailors to their deaths (usually by having their boats smash into rocks) by their beautiful singing, which was almost impossible to resist. That's the gist of it, anyway; there's a lot more to it, but no more explanation is needed. Sakre was referring to something in Sadiki's past in his accusations that paint her in a really bad light, but... there IS a bit of truth in what he's talking about. We'll get to Sadiki in another chapter.

So, here marks the occasion where I admit the one and only straight-up lie I've told someone on Fan Fiction: the origin of Tarif, although now Fayette is wrapped up in that too. Tom-ato13 figured out pretty quickly that Tarif was Ephraim and Myrrh's son from the FE8 universe of Magvel, and he asked me if this was true. I flat out told him no. In reality, he was right the whole time; I just didn't know when I would write it into the story. I believe he only knew because he hates the pairing of Ephraim and Myrrh, and I used to bug him about it all the time in the past, although I did give some big hints that would point to the conclusion of them being his parents as well, especially if you look back on it after finding out the truth. So, Tom-ato13, if you are still reading this story, I apologize! Not for the action, of course, but for the deceit.

Wow, Pyra, she's going a bit far here, even for her. I think everyone knows how she was supposed to end that one sentence before Roy decides it's time to leave her to her devices, but I don't think that n-word would be good to use in the fic, even if it is simple body anatomy that everyone possesses. Someone else used it in a story I saw recently, but I still don't want to. :p Still, I have to admit that her awkward scenes are the most entertaining to write in this story by far. I don't know if I can say "poor" Oscar or "lucky" Oscar. :D Although, now that I think about it, am I allowed to use the word "libido"?

Now what? So, I finally finished Faithful, so time to write a few long awaited requests. In between chapters of AGOH, of course! Next chapter I hope to add more Roy and Idoun goodness.

Also, I updated my profile with a list of sequels I plan to do in the future, called My Sequels. Another change is that I am now going to post what my next fic is every time in the Fan Fiction section, meaning that if someone's specific request is next on my writing list, it will be listed there. So, every time I upload a new story or chapter of a story, you'll see what my next writing project is! Cool, right?

For some reason, I now feel compelled to insert a "please review my story" into this chapter! :p