Islanders- Enter the WarMage, Chapter 5: "Following a Dream"
(Another "Life on the Island", from fewer perspectives and not NEARLY as long, it also hints at what's growing between our two WarMages.)
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He sat in the workshop, chisel in hand, carving the first details of a small statuette from a block of marble. He had carved it into a rough form, of a man and woman with a long, slender dragon laying at their feet, looking up at the bundle held in their arms. When he was finished, it would be a likeness of Kain and Valvalis, holding a child wrapped in cloth while the dragon looked up in wonder.

Rubicant was an accomplished sculptor, enjoying the work he made into stone and clay. This would be his gift to the soon-to-be parents, one that they would certainly love. His sculptures could be found almost everywhere in the Palace, unless he decided to sell one under an assumed name on Earth. It was a hobby of his, and one he excelled at.

Each of the Islanders had some other skills besides fighting and such. It was something to do during quiet periods, and made them quite self-sufficient. It's kind of strange, after all, to go to a tailor and have a robe made out meant for special occasions on the Island. Especially when the clothes looked like out of a fantasy novel.

Or game... Rubicant thought to himself. It was quite a shock to him that in this world, his life... well, not his exactly... was all but a game people played to amuse themselves for a time. It was the same shock shared by everyone else at first, but in a way, he could understand. Different worlds after all. Or dimensions as some called them. It didn't matter to him.

He looked over the nascent sculpture, chiseling tiny pieces away, forming the larger details first, before going onto more complicated work. Yes, this would be a fine piece, to immortalize this joyous moment.

He felt a bit jealous. He still held feelings for Valvalis, but he had understood her, and love. So with his dying breath, he threw Valvalis free from the Giant of Bab-il, where she could go to Kain, providing he survived. He had few doubts that Cecil would beat him and the Fiends, then go on to destroy Zemus. He was proven right, if only the problem that Zemus would not remain dead.

For his deed, and the fact that outside of serving an evil alien bent on destroying an entire race, he was a generally nice person... His sense of honor, and his personality was instrumental when he found himself awake and fine at the feet of a young man, Valvalis, Rydia, beside an old man and a young red-haired woman. Apparently the young man, who would turn out to be the King, had decided he deserved a second chance at life.

He had taken it also, as a second chance at Valvalis, but quickly stopped when he realized she was married to Kain. So the newly dubbed Flame Elementalist went on to chase women, to try to forget about his feelings for Valvalis. He was still close to her and he appreciated that. But yet... he was still sorrowful that he could not have her himself.

But not now. His mind was on another woman now, even if he felt a twinge of jealousy. Maria was a beautiful Spanish woman, Rosa's Watcher Lady and a skilled Healer and hopeful sculptress. There's hope for me yet, he thought to himself as this goddess approached him wanting to learn his art. And right now, she was watching him work, with an admiring eye. I hope it's not the stone that she's admiring, he thought hopefully. He couldn't tell, though.

The door opened, and Aurora entered, looking very excited. "Hey Rubicant, I have a job for you!" Her entrance seemed to startle Maria out of whatever she was thinking of, as her and Rubicant looked up at Aurora.

"Sure, after I finish this."

"Rubicant, that can be finished later. I need this NOW."

Rubicant stuttered. "Aurora, this is a gift for Val..."

Aurora stopped him. "Rubicant, this shouldn't take long. I need a mask made."

"A mask?"

"Yeah. Ceramic, Pure White..." She gave him the details quickly. Rubicant couldn't understand, so Maria got a notepad and pen and jotted down the details. But there weren't many of them.

"Well Aurora, that's pretty vague... I can get it done quickly, but... is there anyone this is for?"

"It's going to be a surprise, and I don't want him to know."

"Him? Now, does Aurora have a crush?"

Aurora blushed at that, giggling, almost like a schoolgirl. "Maybe."

"I'd say she does," Maria piped up, still scribbling on the notepad. Aurora's face reddened even more deeply, then frowned. "I couldn't give you that much and you're still writing?"

"I'm pretty good at making out details from pictures."

"Pictures?"

"Yeah. The ones in your mind."

"Aurora looked confused for a moment, then smiled as she remembered, "Oh yeah, psychic. Thanks Rubicant, Maria... I need this as soon as possible."

"Alright Aurora, see you later!" Rubicant smiled as Aurora left, putting aside the statuette to get some clay for a mask. She forgot about the Healers being psychic! That's kind of hard... to... do... he thought to himself as his eyes widened. Maria was looking back up at him, having finished writing, smiling in the funniest way. And I forgot too!

He blushed, his normally reddened face turning a deeper scarlet, realizing that his thoughts were practically being broadcast out to Maria, along with his emotions.

"Ummmm... Maria...?"

She got up, smiling and kissed him on the lips gently. "Sure. I'd love to go to dinner with you tonight. I got what I wanted out of this anyway... You don't have to be nervous about it!" She smiled a bit more and left herself, blowing a kiss to Rubicant.

It was only then that he realized that he was thinking about asking her out for a date.

Sometimes it's good to have a psychic as a hopeful girlfriend, he thought to himself as he started work on the mask. He was very happy now, and all thoughts about Valvalis were pushed from his mind now, daydreaming about the dinner he'd have with Maria tonight as he read from the note, so he could shape the mask just right.

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Edward was next. Aurora wanted a cloak to go along with the mask, but gave him sparse details about how he should tailor it... Until Maria came after she left, to fill in details. The bard looked at the notepad thoughtfully, wondering who it would be for. He had learned how to tailor, himself, and did much of the clothes for everyone on the island.

So he sighed and looked up. He too had been working on a gift for the baby, a set of baby clothing for Kain and Valvalis to doll up their unborn child in. But Aurora had insisted that the cloak be done as soon as possible, so he had started work on that, and had a rough shape cut out of a bolt of violet cloth. The embroidery will take me a week at least..., he sighed to himself, wishing Maria had stayed around to at least keep a strong Haste spell on him. But it was too late, he'd work as quickly as possible. At least the birth was supposed to be a few months away.

But right now, he put away the cloak, after staring at it, thinking for five minutes. He had a date of his own to keep, one with Anna. He'd promised her a private lunch together, and he would keep it.

So he left, heading over to his room to change. Anna would be waiting inside, so he wouldn't miss her. Apparently she found this little place in San Diego that made the most divine Chinese, so she wanted him to come along. She could be rather... insistent... when she wanted to be, and while he wasn't the timid man he was years ago, he did not want her angry.

He entered his chambers, to be greeted by the sound of a shower running. Anna must be getting ready, he thought to himself as he laid his street clothes out and entered the bathroom.

Anna was singing in the shower, just notes really, no words... more like humming a rather sweet melody before she fell silent. "Edward, is that you?" she called out.

"Would anyone else walk in on you in the shower?" Edward replied, disrobing and joining her.

"I don't know. Edge did that a couple of times when we were acting as Alison's parents once..." That brought a laugh from Edward, as he shook his head.

They two had a little fun in the shower (not that kind of fun, perverts!), cleaning up rather clumsily as the shower was really only made for one person. They both emerged, joking with each other as they dried off and dressed, making playfully snide comments about each other's choice in clothes.

"You ready to go love?" Edward inquired when they finished dressing, dressed in a t-shirt and pair of jeans now, along with tennis shoes.

"Whenever you are!" Anna nodded, having donned knee-length shorts and a halter top, tennis shoes also, wearing a purse.

With that, Anna suggested a location they could teleport to without trouble. After they both intoned the spell, Anna burst into a flock of stars leaving the window for a back alley not too far away from the restaurant where they would not be seen reforming. Edward followed, crumbling into sand that followed the pinpoints of light.

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Robert stood alone on a ledge, a rapidly decomposing body laying behind him. The body was that of a Zombie, released from the unholy magics animating and preserving it, thus killing it and bringing it's body closer to it's true age. It would crumble to dust before long.

He had the misfortune of encountering it... no, it had the misfortune of encountering him during his meditation. He was at his favorite meditating place, a rather peaceful spot on Mt. Ordeals, if one did not mind the occasional Zombie attack.

Meditating was a very important ritual for WarMages, most WarMages preferring to meditate for at least a half-hour every other day, when at peace. The time spent contemplating peace and war, light and darkness, good and evil, chaos and order, or perhaps just thinking about something was very important to them, as it helped calm their more violent tendencies.

WarMages generally had a temper problem, and no one knew what would set them off. But whoever provoked them enough would not live very long without a Healer nearby... and probably a few other people too. There was an advantage to NOT meditating though, the longer they went without, the better they could resist attacks on their minds. But then they would start to feel edgy, easily annoyed, perhaps with a hair-trigger temper. Since that didn't matter during war... not too much, losing one's temper in the middle of battle leads to mistakes that can be fatal... it did matter during times of peace. A WarMage who lost their temper frequently or flagrantly tended to get notice from their superiors... a notice that they did not want.

And certainly, Robert or Aurora would not hesitate to kill a WarMage that proved too much trouble for their worth. So most WarMages preferred not to incur their wrath and chose to meditate. It was not wise to anger someone who took pride in causing lifetimes worth of pain in the second before they killed you. WarMages may not be cruel unnecessarily, or may not like drawing out someone's death, but it still wasn't good to mess with people who had spell that were rumored to kill people from sheer pain before the actual spell could kill... especially if the spell was meant to kill within seconds.

In any case, Robert stood there a moment, grumbling before he sat down again, gazing off into space with his own thoughts, meditating on what it meant to be a WarMage and why he existed as he had been, for some time now. He could keep track of time rather well, unless he was distracted. Then he had no track of time whatsoever, a fact that inconvenienced him several times before. Right now was one of the times he was distracted, unsure of how much time had passed.

Deciding he was there long enough, he got up, feeling pretty calm and refreshed. He was hungry, so he decided to get some fruit over in Mysidia. Intoning the teleportation spell, he split into five faded, translucent forms of himself that spread out, continuing to fade until about ten yards out, when he vanished completely.

In the market of the Town of Mages, five translucent forms appeared before combining to form Robert. Teleportation was an art among the Islanders, and all of them had a unique way of disappearing... so to speak. Some were quite simple, like Aurora just popping out with a thunderclap of displaced air (or silently, if she wished) or Edge's puff of smoke. Some were quite complex, like Edward's sand trick, a homage to the desert kingdom of Damcyan. No matter what, they found some way to teleport that best fit their personality.

Robert headed to a market stall, flipping the vendor a few Gil and buying for himself a couple of oranges and some sliced pineapple. He then found a place outside of town where he could be alone with his thoughts.

Right now, he thought about Aurora. She had left before he awoke, which probably saved them both an awkward encounter that would have probably happened if he was up when she awoke in his bed. She looked so peaceful asleep though, that he couldn't bear to disturb her. It was probably good that he had learned how to sleep comfortably on hard floors, that would have really made her wonder.

He thought back to that funny feeling he had that night as he went to sleep. Normally he would have been incredibly angry at someone invading his room when he was trying to sleep. That was evidenced by when Palom went to his room to play Chrono Trigger. The little shit could have asked to borrow it after I awoke, he thought, grumbling.

But Aurora looked so peaceful, so beautiful like that... he almost wished that he could keep her like that for eternity. But Rydia and Aurora would have been upset if he tried any sort of permanent sleeping or temporal stasis spells on her, so he put it out of his mind.

But she was just so beautiful!!!

That thought blazed through his mind, burning itself into his brain. She was just so beautiful... It echoed in his thoughts for a little before leaving him confused, with that warm feeling again.

Rosa only smiled strangely whenever he mentioned Aurora, and she had made note of asking him what they were doing together last night and why she wasn't in her chambers. She didn't look pleased with his answers, but she kept up that damnable smile all the time. The only thing now, was he was starting to notice that some of the others had started to smile at him the same way, including Rydia, who just seemed to beam. She had made a big show of making sure the two had sat together during breakfast, completely confusing the two... If only he knew what was going through Rydia's mind at the time when he asked why it as so important.

A young voice shook him from his thoughts. A young apprentice mage of about ten or eleven, of the Black arts judging from the cover of the book he carried: "Applied Theories of Magickal Coldness", had spoken up. "Master Robert, the Elder has heard that you have come to Mysidia, and he wishes to speak with you."

"Alright. Lead the way."

The child led him to the Elder's office. The town was like one big campus, where the arts of magic were taught almost exclusively. If one wanted science, one went to Baron. Here in Mysidia you learned about magic.

He talked with the Elder for a while, who mainly wanted to know how his star pupils, or who was once his star pupils anyway, Palom and Porom were doing. After that they conversed on the new magical theories Rydia and Tellah had discovered since they last spoke, and the discoveries that were made in Mysidia. After that, they just talked about how everyone was doing, the state of the Island and the various kingdoms in this world.

It was night when he finally left, and realized it was time for dinner. He had a dinner date today, and he wasn't bound to be late lest he find himself the object of a princess's anger.

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"Thanks for the wonderful dinner, Robert."

"It was my pleasure."

"I guess this time I get to foot the bill, right?"

They alternated between each other paying when they went out. It was what they agreed to, since they went out together often. Not exactly dating, but they liked having time to talk to each other without problems. They knew each other well, having suffered through much of the same trials.

"That was an interesting dream by the way."

"Yeah. I figure it may be someone I know, so I had Rubicant make a mask and Edward fashion the cloak."

"And the point of this is?"

"I think my dream's trying to tell me something... you know, pointing out who the perfect man would be for me. And I think it may be someone I know..."

"Or it could be just a dream."

"Now Robert, let me be an optimist. If the mask fits well with the cloak on a man, I know who I will go after, if he's not taken."

"That does make a strange kind of sense, when you think about it, but I'm not one to put much stock into dreams, you know?"

Aurora smiled, a spoonful of vanilla ice cream inside of her mouth. She savored the taste a bit before swallowing. Robert was watching her with interest, some sort of thoughts going on behind those eyes. She briefly wondered what they were, but he wouldn't have appreciated an intrusion into his thoughts too much. "I know. But you're a pessimist."

"Pessimist my ass! I'm a realist."

"You were a realist seven years ago, and being a realist involved not believing in magic or other worlds."

"No, that's a skeptic, and I did believe in both."

"Liar."

"Am not!"

They argued a little like that, laughing, before getting up, Aurora paying the check, and Robert leaving a nice tip. The "Am not!" and "Are too!" continued for a while until they couldn't hold in the laughter about arguing like children anymore and collapsed in a park, rolling on the grass laughing like mad.

Once they calmed down and wiped the tears from their eyes, after a good five minutes, they laid there, just talking and pointing out the various constellations in the night sky.

"Still, it is an interesting dream. Very romantic. Kind of depressingly so."

"Oh, don't tell me you're going to get depressed again."

"No. But then, I'm not the silly girl basing her entire love life on a mask and cloak that are for a man she's probably never met that may not even exist because of a dream," He laughed and poked her nose, "You read too many romance novels!" He laughed again and poked her belly.

"Oh, silly girl am I?" She squirmed at the poke, "I'll get you for that." She made good on her word by proving to herself the fact that Robert was incredibly ticklish, and nearly made him pass out from lack of air, he was laughing so hard.

Once he calmed down, returning the favor by showing Aurora was equally as ticklish... then she countered, and he countered again... for a good half hour, they left the subject of her dream, gossiping about the other Islanders for a while before getting up.

"You going to sing me another lullaby tonight?"

"Sure! Why so many requests?"

"Because I love hearing you sing. How about that one song you sang last night..."

"Again?"

"No, the one before you made the imprint that Cid bitched about for three hours straight."

"Ahhhh... my newest creation. Alright, I'll sing you to sleep. Just stay in your bed this time, ok?"

"Oh alright. But... your bed was so comfy and you looked so cute sleeping on the floor!"

"Yeah well my back, neck, and shoulders didn't feel cute when I woke up."

She pouted, giving him a playful shove. "Alright you meanie. I sleep in my cold, uncomfortable bed, with no one to sleep at the foot like a dog." She laughed at that, while Robert gave a pained expression. "What's wrong?"

"Don't mention dogs and beds to me in the same sentence."

"Why not?"

He told her. She could not stop laughing until late into the night, where she slept peacefully after having Robert sing her lullaby, drifting off into peaceful sleep.

One thought troubled Robert however, besides the fact of Aurora thinking that having him sleepily trying to french-kiss a dog was hilarious...

He really didn't mind if she slept in his bed again, and stayed awake a bit at night thinking about why his insistence of her staying in her own bed seemed half-hearted...