Chapter 1: Part 1
Destiny Defied
by Aaron D.
The boat rocked painfully as Ryu leaped out of it and onto the surface of the SimaFort dock. Flanked by two froggy guards, he signaled to his friend, who was finally approaching.
"Jean, you gotta help us!" Ryu screamed.
Jean, being quite a mellow person, was a bit disconcerted by his friends' obviously agitated states.
"What is the problem, mes amis-what are you doing?"
Katt, in an impressive feat of strength, had hefted a huge boulder that had been sitting peacefully on the front entrance to SimaFort and was now, with an audible grunt, hurling it directly into the center of the boat which had ferried her and Ryu across the azure lake. The rock fell directly through the boat, and naturally, water began flooding out of the hole left by its passage, causing the small rowboat to sink to the bottom of lake SimaFort.
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the frog.
"That's one I learned from your sister," said Katt, throwing a wink in Jean's direction.
"How far is it from here to the shore, Jean?" Ryu asked.
"I do not know, my friend," Jean admitted. "Swimming a distance is much different than walking it, non?"
"I'd say about a mile, mile and a half," Katt estimated.
"Good," said Ryu. "She shouldn't be able to fly that far."
"I still do not know what is going on!" Jean wailed.
"That's all right, Jean," said Katt, putting a comforting arm around her friend's shoulder, "let's go in and have a couple of beers and we'll tell you all about it."
"Wait a second," interjected Ryu, "The ale's not made out of worms or something nasty like that, is it? You know what happened last time-"
"Of course not, mon ami. You cannot use worms to make beer."
Ryu let out a sigh full of relief.
"The worms are just for flavor, of course."
"D'oh!"
"You know," said Katt, "this stuff's not too bad, considering the ingredients."
Ryu looked into his mug. "I don't know. If there weren't the worms at the bottom, I might be more inclined to drink it."
"What's the big deal? There's worms in tequila too, you know." She took a huge gulp. "Alcohol kills everything."
"What's tequila?" asked Ryu.
Katt groaned. Then in an act of pure spontaneity, she put her hand into the big blue-haired man's tankard, drawing out a handful of worms. Wordlessly, she threw the offending annelids against the stone wall, shocking the amphibious innkeeper somewhat.
"Better?" she asked.
Ryu grinned.
Jean was getting quite impatient. "Well, Monsieur, Madamoiselle, will you now tell me what has brought you so urgently to my door? Or should I retire to my room and complete the ballad which I was so earnestly working upon when I heard of your arrival?"
"Sorry, Jean," Ryu apologized. "It's pretty long and complicated." He took a sip of the worm ale. "It's not terrible," he admitted.
"The story will never be finished unless you begin, mon ami."
"Right," he agreed. "You remember how I was called 'the destined child' by all of the Dragons?"
"Oui."
"Well, I never really put that much stock in destiny, but as it turned out, there was a bit more to my own 'fate' than just defeating Deathevn." Ryu drank some more. "You and Spar left together a couple of weeks after Father landed and sealed up Gate with the TownShip, remember?"
"Of course." Jean said, curious as to where this was going.
"You returned here and I guess Spar went back to the Sea of Trees. Sten set out for Highfort a few days after that. Bleu wanted to go clean out her cave back at Wisdon, and she left too, though I think Bow was a little disappointed with that. Everyone else decided to stay.
"Unfortunately, the only way we could get in or out of the TownShip was by magic. It's over five hundred feet off of the ground, so we couldn't really jump off or anything-although Katt wanted to try."
"That's not what I said!" she protested.
"Anyway," Ryu continued, "Rand, Bow, and I decided we should find a more mundane way of traveling to or from the TownShip…"
Ryu peered over the edge. The Town of Gate, directly at the foot of the artificial cliff, appeared as though it was a group of children's playthings from this height, and the Yggdrasil tree five miles away was but a tiny shrub in the distance.
"Long drop," Rand observed laconically.
"Are you sure this stairway idea's gonna work?" asked Bow.
"We don't really have any other choice, buddy," Ryu said. "A ladder won't be safe enough, and we can't just ask Nina to take everyone who wants to leave down at any hour of the day."
"Yeah," Bow admitted, "but I'm not sure this is gonna be safe enough, either."
"Don't worry," Rand assured him, "I've got it all figured out. It's 519 feet to the ground. If we want to go at it with a regular forty-five degree angle for the staircase, then the first step has to be approximately 519 feet away from the base of the TownShip. That way, all distances will be equal-we don't want the stairs to be too steep."
"Huh?" asked Bow, scratching his head.
"I've got diagrams up in my room if you want to see them later, but for now, just take my word for it."
"Okay, if you're sure..." Bow said.
"Won't the stairway have to be built directly over the church in Gate that way?" inquired Ryu.
Rand shrugged. "Yeah, but does it really matter?"
The church had been his home as a child, but that part of his life was now over. Ryu recalled how he and his friends had killed Habaruku, the leader of the Church of St. Eva who was posing as the priest of Gate Village. Even if that had not been the case, the elimination of Deathevn had also rendered the Church obsolete-which, if you asked Ryu, was the best possible situation.
"I guess not."
"I still think this is a goofy plan," reiterated Bow.
"Goofy or not, it's the best choice we've got," said Rand, slightly offended.
"Besides," interjected Ryu, "we'll have Nina reinforce the stairway with a weave of spells once the initial contruction's done. It'll be stronger than stone, and a tenth the weight." Ryu looked upward. "A magical stairway, reaching up to a city in the sky. You could almost call it...a 'stairway to heaven!'" Ryu raised an eyebrow in jest.
The deafening silence was only broken by the chirping of a bird.
"No," Rand asserted, "I don't think you could. This is just a human settlement on an artificially transplanted landmass that happens to be very tall. Not heaven at all, really."
"What the hell are you talking about?" demanded Bow.
"Never mind," groaned Ryu, crushed.
"Stairway to heaven?!" Katt gasped between spouts of giggling. "That's hiliarious!" The sound of her raucous laughter echoed off of the damp stone walls.
"So you were building a large set of stairs from the ground to the TownShip, non? How did this result in your fleeing to my kingdom for asylum?" Jean rested his slipper-covered feet onto the wooden table, leaning back in his chair. Due to the wet, slimy nature of the stone floor, however, the chair upon which the prince of SimaFort was resting himself unexpectedly slid out from under him, the result of which was Jean landing on the ground with cry of "Oof!"
Katt leapt up from her seat to help him back up as Ryu, doubled over with laughter, attempted not to spit out the large mouthful of worm ale had just taken.
"How impolite to laugh at the expense of one's host!" Jean admonished.
"Sorry, Jean," Ryu apologized, composing himself. "Anyway, it took us some time to get started, but once we did, we had all of the carpenters in both the TownShip and Gate helping us. The work went much more swiftly after that. Unfortunately, some other people who were less mechanically inclined-" Ryu shot a pointed look at Katt, which she did not notice, "-insisted on helping us as well."
"Yeah," Katt agreed. "Some of those guys just didn't have a clue. Not like me." She threw a couple of punches in the air. "I know all about carpentry! Right, Ryu?"
"Sure, kid," he said affectionately. "Whatever you say."
"And what was the problem?" Jean prompted.
"Well," Ryu started, "the problems began happening when we were about 300 or so feet up on the construction. We all tethered ourselves to the stairway with ropes and safety harnesses. Just as extra insurance, we had Nina come with us as well..."
Ryu tested his safety line, tugging the rope sharply to see if there was any give in it. Satisfied that there was none, he began climbing down the frame that they were building the stairs on.
"Are you all right down there, Ryu?" Nina said, standing on the third or fourth step below the top.
"Doin' fine, Nina," he answered, making his way diagonally upwards with his hands and feet to where the new steps needed to be built.
"Let me know if you need me," she added. The winged princess wore no harness, because if she fell, which was unlikely, she could not only float gently down under her own power, but she also had numerous magicks at her disposal which could let her fly, levitate, jump, or simply teleport to safety.
"Katt!" yelled Ryu. "Let's get the next step up here!" While the more experienced carpenters among the assembly group, along with Rand and Bow, journeymen carpenters in their own right, were working on the frame, Ryu and the less-experienced builders who were volunteering their time to the project were performing the simple task of placing each step onto the stairway, one at a time. While Ryu was no professional, he had enough experience that he could solidly attach a wood plank to four supports and not have the thing come apart.
Katt, however, was another matter altogether. Having had previously experienced her "skills", Ryu had personally inspected every one of the steps she had worked on, though these inspections generally resulted in his prying the board up with very little effort and redoing the entire thing.
Therefore, Ryu had come up with a solution-making the job sound very important, he had appointed Katt as his "official assistant", a job which the Woren had ecstatically accepted. Though he had worded it so it sounded very complicated, Katt's actual job consisted of simply holding the wooden plank down while Ryu fastened it to the supports.
"Ryu!" she called. "I've got it! Ryu, where are you!?"
"Right here," he said, his head popping up from behind the last stair.
"Eeeek!" Katt pounded her fist down on his head in reflex.
"Ow! Hey, watch it!" Ryu took a hand off of the frame and rubbed his head, trying to massage out the pain.
"Oh, poor baby," she moaned in mock sympathy, knowing he had taken harder blows and never flinched. "Let me kiss it and make it better."
Ryu made a wry face. "Okay," he said, raising one eyebrow.
She puckered her lips up and bent down, closing her eyes. Ryu grinned in anticipation.
"Hey, Ryu!" The big dragon groaned, the moment interrupted.
"Yes, Nina?" he uttered, slapping his hand over his forehead. Katt made an immediate show of placing the step down very carefully, measuring each angle precisely.
"Everything alright?" she said, leaning down and looking piercingly at him.
"You bet."
"Just checking." She walked back down a few steps, looking around. "Let me know if you need anything. That's what I'm here for."
"I will." Ryu took held his hand out. "Katt, hammer." She handed it to him. "Nails." She gave those to him, as well. Lining up the nail, he began rhythmically pounding the nail into the wood, solidly affixing the corner of the board.
Ryu picked up another, and placed it on the opposite corner, so as to firmly keep the board in place. As he raised his hammer, his attention was diverted by a startled scream. Reacting as quickly as possible, he turned around, searching for its source.
Bow was dangling twelve yards under the incomplete frame, arms and legs flailing. "Bow!" Ryu shouted. "You okay?"
"I think so," he yelled back up at Ryu. "Can you help me back up?"
"Sure thing, buddy. Be down in a minute." Ryu emptied his hands, leaving the hammer and nails laying on the unfinished step.
"Better hurry," Katt said, "looks like his safety rope is fraying loose."
"That's not funny, Katt!" Bow sounded nervous.
"I'm not joking! It's really coming apart!"
Ryu looked, and saw that the woven hemp was truly fraying. Right in the middle of Bow's safety line, split ends of the twine were unraveling swiftly. He considered his options. Climbing down the frame would probably take too much time. He braced himself, then pushed off of his hand- and footholds, plummeting down to the end of his own rope. Then, he swung himself back and forth, reaching his friend just as Bow's line came apart. He flung his arms around the Plainsrunner, supporting his entire weight.
Though Ryu was a strong man, he knew that he could not keep hold of his childhood friend's somewhat massive bulk indefinitely. He also knew that his own rope would likely snap even before his strength gave out. It also did not help his concentration that Bow was screaming like a little girl. Turning his head upward, he called, "Nina, a little help!"
The dragon heard Nina's voice rhythmically intoning magical words, and then he felt his weight and Bow's abruptly become supported by her force. He let go of the archer, which he immediately realized was a mistake as Bow's incoherent wails grew even more panicked and frequent. Constant reassurings on Ryu's part that they were all right did nothing to Bow's frame of mind. The rope, now slack, followed the pair as they ascended back to safety.
Ryu felt the weave of spells leave him as he and Bow landed upon the stairway. Bow instantly collapsed, still in the fit of his ravings. Ryu was knocked backwards, nearly bowled over by Nina's crushing hug.
"Oh, I was so worried!" she said, squeezing tighter.
"Hey, Nina." Ryu tried to pry her arms loose. "Hey, I'm fine. Check on Bow. I think he needs help." Despite this, Nina refused to release him. "C'mon, Nina. Seriously. You can let go now." Still, she clung to him.
Katt's eyes were narrowing. Seeing little use in a confrontation of this sort in this particular situation, Ryu took steps to bypass it. "Katt, check on Bow. He's hysterical."
The Woren knelt next to the screaming Bow, who was still thrashing around on the steps. "Snap out of it, dummy!" she ordered, with no results. "All right, you asked for it," she threatened, raising her hand and slapping him sharply across the face.
The Plainsrunner shook his head. "Uhhh...sorry, I guess." He tried to stand up, but one look at the ground, three hundred feet below, and he instantly sat back down. "I think I need to get off this thing. Now."
Ryu, still trying to shake Nina free, said, "Nina! Take Bow back home. He's probably still shaken from the fall." He twisted around in her grasp. "Nina! Let go of me!"
"No," she said firmly. "I'll never let you go, Ryu."
"I see," Jean muttered as he took a sip of worm ale. "So the problem was that someone was sabotaging the construction of the stairway, non? That is why the rope was cut, oui?"
"No, that wasn't it," Katt corrected.
"It turned out that the rope just wasn't enough to support Bow's weight," Ryu explained. "It took us two weeks to get him to set foot on the construction site again, and even then, we had to give him three separate safety ropes. After that incident, though, the rest of the job went off without a hitch.
"We finished after another month, and while it may not have been the most pretty thing in the world, the stairway was certainly functional." Ryu put his empty mug down.
Katt signaled to the bartender to give them three more.
"As we had decided before, we asked Nina to reinforce the construction with her magic." Ryu paused as the amphibian waitress sat down three more mugs of worm ale. Katt once again took out the undesirable contents of Ryu's drink after a pleading look from the big dragon. This time, however, she merely placed them on the tabletop rather than hurling them across the room. "We had a sort of ceremony as she did it. To all of our surprise, the magic weave did more than we had expected."
"She changed the whole thing," Katt interrupted.
"Right," Ryu continued. "Rand and I had figured that the weave of spells would simply reinforce what we had already built. It did much more than that. After Nina was finished, what remained wasn't the same stairway we had spent months working on. It was something completely new, made out of marble, with reliefs of people and places on the sides."
"We're on it too, fighting Deathevn," Katt stated proudly. "I checked."
"This...inspires me," Jean said dreamily. "I shall write a song about it. Let's see...
Oh, you beautiful stairway,
reaching for the stars
I can see history on the side of you
Perhaps I could climb you someday
All of the patrons of the bar, clasping their hands over their ears due to the prince's "wonderful" singing, relaxed as Ryu stopped the song with his comment.
"That's really, er, nice, Jean, but can we finish the story before we start composing?"
"Sorry, mon ami. The pure beauty of the stairway you described touched my soul."
"Understood." Ryu threw a wild look at Katt, causing the Woren to giggle silently. "So, we were all just standing there with stupefied looks on our faces. Then, the wooden frame collapsed. Katt jumped about three feet in the air when that happened."
"That was you," she reminded him. "I had to catch you to make sure you didn't fall over the edge."
Ryu blushed. "Right. Needless to say, that shocked all of us quite a bit. Moving on, I, for one, thought that the entire thing was gonna come down at that point, but for some reason-magic, I guess-it didn't."
"Those ninnies were too afraid to even set foot on the steps, but I wasn't," boasted Katt. "I even jumped up and down on it a couple of times, to make sure it was stable."
"And that was a very wise thing to do," Ryu teased her. "Seriously, though, it was completely rooted in. It was solid as stone, since that's what it was, but it was only connected to the ground in Gate and on the TownShip.
"Then, the problems started happening again..."
The door was thrust loudly open. Nero, pouring himself a beverage behind the bar, stared in shock at the large, heaving, incredibly sweaty body behind it.
"No more stairs," Bow gasped. "No...more!"
"Sit down, buddy," Ryu admonished his friend. "Have a drink with us."
"I'd...like to...but...I might...pass...out," said the Plainsrunner, still trying to catch his breath.
"Don't be such a wuss," Katt scolded him.
"Yeah, come on, be a man," Rand added.
"O...kay." Ryu grinned. He knew his childhood pal wouldn't need that much persuading.
Tongue hanging out of his mouth, Bow sat down next to his friends, and shakingly poured himself a glass of dragonwater. "Where's...Nina?"
"Dunno," answered Rand. "She doesn't drink much, anyway."
"Yeah, not like us," agreed Katt.
"Bottoms...up," said Bow, still winded, and tipped his glass upward as he took a huge mouthful of the potent liquor. "Ahhhhhh," he sighed, and breathing heavily, he slumped down in his chair.
"Why did you need to go down to Gate, anyway, buddy?" asked Ryu as he poured his friend another drink.
"To get...some...groceries."
"You just needed groceries?" said Rand incredulously.
"Why didn't you just use the lift-thingy?" Katt inquired.
"Actually, buddy, that IS what we built it for," explained Ryu. "For little things like that, so we don't have to go all the way down. It's too small for people, but we send a list down every other day for the grocer."
Nero was laughing out loud as Bow got up, screamed in fury, and stomped on the ground, hurting his already-sore legs. "A lift?!" he demanded. "A LIFT?! I can't believe this!" Bow began pounding on the walls in frustration.
"Settle down there, sonny," Nero ordered him from behind the bar.
"I just walked up over a thousand steps when I could have used the LIFT!" Bow seemed disinclined towards settling down.
"Bow!" Ryu yelled. "Sit down!" Calming down, the Plainsrunner obeyed his friend's command. "Now you know about the lift. Next time you won't have to climb the stairs. Besides," he said with a pointed look, "it was good exercise for you, anyway."
The Ranger slammed his head down on the table.
Hours passed, and by nightfall Ryu was stumbling up the second floor stairway, arms around his childhood companion. Singing a drinking song they had learned in Highfort, the two shuffled aimlessly toward their rooms. "G'night, buddy," Bow said as he accidentally slammed his face into the doorframe.
"Yeah," Ryu agreed. "Good, uh-what you said." He finally turned the doorknob after a couple of tries, and staggered into his room, remembering to take his shirt off before flopping into bed.
Hours later, he awoke with a strangely uncomfortable feeling in his gut. Jumping out of bed and rushing over to the window, he made sure the panes were open before emptying the contents of his stomach out into the night air. The taste of bile mixed with dragonwater and beer filled his mouth and permeated his sense of smell. Wiping the remnants off of the corner of his mouth, he headed back for the bed, satisfied.
Just as he was nodding off, he was brought back to wakefulness by a light rapping at his door. Slowly rising once again, he walked over to the door, trying not to trip over his own feet.
"Yeah?" he prompted as he opened the door.
It was Nina. As he attempted to focus his eyes, he slurred, "Oh, uh, hi Nina. What're you...where've you been?"
"Sorry to wake you up, Ryu," she apologized.
"You didn't, not...not exactly."
She took her hands from behind her back, holding a long, flat object. "I made this for you. That's where I was all day."
"Oh," he said, accepting the object from her. He put it carelessly aside in his quarters, where it slid to the floor. "Uh, thanks."
"Aren't you going to look at it?"
"Woops! Sorry." He picked it up and looked at it. It was a painting of some sort, with reds and blues which seemed to blur together in his eyesight. "It's...beautiful."
"Oh!" She clutched her hands in front of her chest. "I'm so glad you like it! It's my gift of love to you."
Something didn't click right in Ryu's alcohol-fogged mind. "Uh...what?" He blinked.
"Let me come in. I'm going to stay with you tonight."
Now, normally, when an attractive woman offers to spend a night with one, one would most likely be a fool to turn the woman down. However, at this particular point Ryu was lucid enough to realize that not only was Nina's behavior somewhat abnormal, but that he was in no shape to entertain any guests of the female persuasion at this time due to the amount of liquor he had consumed.
"I don't think that's, uh, too good of an idea, Nina."
"What?!" She stomped her foot on the wooden floor. "Don't you love me!?"
"Nina, you're really weirding me out right now..." He belched.
"Don't you love me!?"
"Just leave me alone!" he screamed. "I want to go to sleep!"
"I'm sorry," she moaned. She knelt down, drawing her body together in the fetal position. "I just want you to love me, that's all."
"Oh, God," he muttered, forgetting that God was now sealed up and unreachable. Had he not been so inebriated, he might have known what to do in such a situation, but now, he had neither the knowledge nor the patience to deal with it. "Nina, just go upstairs and go to sleep. Things'll be...better tomorrow." He shut the door and went back to bed.
Her muffled sobs floated through the door and into Ryu's ears. He smashed the pillow over his head, trying to silence them. Finally, he drifted into an unrefreshing slumber, oblivious to the small cries outside his door.
"The princess of Wyndia did this?" Jean questioned disbelievingly. "This cannot be true."
"My memory may be a bit fuzzy, due to the well, you know..." Ryu trailed off.
"Due to the fact that he was drunker than a Evan preacher before Sunday service," Katt finished.
"Watch it," warned the dragon mirthfully. "You're talking about my dad there."
"Uh-oh," said the Woren in mock dread.
"Why are you joking about this?" Jean leaned forward. "This is something truly serious, non?"
"Indeed," affirmed Ryu. "The next morning, I woke up with the mother of all hangovers..."
Ryu awoke. He wasn't feeling that bad. He just needed to go downstairs, make himself a cup of coffee, get some breakfast, and he'd be fine. He turned over in bed and instantly wished he hadn't. Trying to go back to sleep, eager for the cool blanket of unconsciousness, he felt an uncomfortable sensation and leapt up and ran to the window, trying to miss the windowsill as his stomach rejected more of the previous night's libations.
Feeling much better, he head back for the bed once again, trying to ignore the wash of pain that went through his skull. He lied down and sank back into sleep.
He awoke again with a bright sunbeam shining on his eyes. Turning his head out of the beam's range, he noticed that the splitting pain in his head had reduced to a mild twinge. Flipping over, he saw an image that shattered his resolve to continue sleeping.
The painting.
He had convinced himself in his waking moments that the last night's events had been an odd alcohol-induced dream, and that what he'd remembered could not possibly have really happened. Nina's painting, however, erased all likelihood of that. "Nina?" he asked weakly.
He sat up, holding his face with his hands, resting his elbows on his knees. Steeling himself, he raised his head and peered at the picture. It was either done very badly or done very well in a style he was unfamiliar with. It appeared to Ryu as if a child had painted it. A blue-and-red blur, most likely a representation of him, had its disproportionate arms around another blue blur with wings, leaving no doubt as to what it was supposed to be.
"Oh, God," he blasphemed.
With no idea how to deal with the current unusual situation, he left his quarters and headed for the kitchen, in search of coffee, which he still was in need of. As Ryu passed through the door, Nero, sitting behind the bar and holding his head, offered him a cup.
"I used the big pot," said the hermit, rubbing his face. "I figured we'd need it-I know I did." He took a huge gulp from his own mug. "Must be gettin' old."
The dragon mumbled a word of thanks as the old man filled his cup. "Anyone else up yet?"
"Yet? It's past noon. Everyone else's already been by here, 'cept for Bow, but he usually don't get up this early, anyway."
Ryu smiled as he tilted back his cup, then grimaced as the scalding liquid burned his tongue. "Still hot," he declared.
"I left the pot on the stove," Nero explained. "Cold coffee don't taste any good."
"Yeah," Ryu agreed. "Seen Nina?" he asked nonchalantly.
"A few hours ago," confessed the old man. "Don't know what she's up to, though."
"Hm," Ryu muttered. He had hoped that he would not be forced to revisit the last night's incident with her, but unfortunately, trying to avoid the winged girl would be difficult if he did not know where not to go. Certainly, he was likely to encounter her if he remained where he was.
Before he could finish that thought, the front door opened. Ryu's whole body was a tight coil of tension as he waited endlessly to see who the newcomer was.