Chapter 4 : A Hero's Return

The familiar walls and parapets of headquarters loomed over Riou like a griffin taking wings to the sky. Its stones stained with the blood of so many, as cold as death, yet the lichen-covered lime felt warm to his heart as memory played itself over and over. It would never really be home the way that little village deep in the mountains was, but the castle was a special place that Kyaro could never be, either. He had meant to ask Viktor about the place long before it was destroyed several times, but other people who'd know the man from the Toran Unification War advised it against it. Whatever North Window looked like only Viktor, the dead and the stones know, and none of them would ever answer his question. Thus it was. The ancient town was dead. In its place stood headquarters, set with the same stones but tempered with a new fire. Where what was started had truly begun.

I'm back, Riou thought, looking at the display of dappling shades against the cerulean sky.

The stones welcomed him, their unseen faces sculpted by time smiling at his return. That, or he really need a good long night's sleep. Riou took a confident, tentative step into the gateshead. He heard his footsteps coming up from the cobblestones, and wondered if the castle's inhabitants that he'd come to call friends and comrades would forgive him like the stones did. After all, the leader of the Jowston Alliance had disappeared with nary a word to anyone but the strategic staff. Riou wondered how it was to feel disappointed and betrayed. His commander might've been very different from he himself and their circumstances were as dissimiliar as can be...but he could easily draw some pararells between them. To the young soldiers in the Unicorn Brigade, Rowd was like a god. He was kind, though not terribly gentle. He was honest. He was reasonable to his subordinates. Rowd was everything an enthusiastic kid would ever hope to find in a commander. Yet Riou knew better than everyone else on how that episode ended. He could imagine that to the average, despairing Jowston people, a boy hero who suddenly rose up and started to fight back might have been the very leader they dreamed of. They probably did respected him and expected him to lead them into the future after the war ended. Needless to say, some might be very disappointed when he left office without words, though some might understand his reasons. Lord Tir McDohl of Gregminster definitely would be one. Riou didn't have a clue as to what those disappointed citizenry would think when he suddenly appear and say he had decided to take up on the offer to rule after all. Some would think less of him, for a certainty.

Something snapped under his feet with a twang. Alarmed, Riou looked up, his mind reeling back to the face of the assassin in the wild grass. And a pailful of cold, cold water covered his face.

"Uh oh," somebody gasped from the direction of the guardshouse. Though he was gagging and sputtering water, Riou knew who that somebody was. A certain winger was sure  to have some questions to answer later on. Dropping water on who could've been visiting dignitaries was NOT a good way to ensure continued sanity.

Later would wait for later, though.

Literally throwing his previous semi-calm out of the window, Riou raced through the gatehouse, past the guardsmen, past the second watchtower, past everything to the amazed stares of bystanders. Matters of state would have to wait. Weeks and weeks of traveling alone in mourning allowed him to be a bit more frank with himself. There was something, something he really wanted to know what it was that's been nagging at his mind for much of the journey. Riou felt that only by confronting it would he find his answers. And put his mind to rest before the burden of the country weighed down on him. Past the inner walls, past the terraces and to...

The courtyard, dancing with shadows casted by the trees' swaying leaves, was full of people like always. Perhaps even moreso, given the fact that trade was nothing if not prospering after the war, and merchants all over flocked to Han's store like it was a diamond mine. Riou found that faces familiar to him was lost in the newfound deluge, and he had to strain to find anybody he knew at all. Eventualy, though, he managed. The fact that the person wasn't actually a person but a barrel spoke much of his success.

"Gadget, do you hear me?" Riou queried. He felt as anxious as a little kid.

The barrel remained silent.

"Gadget? Gadget! It's Riou, answer! This is serious!" he began to yell and shake the thing, earning queer looks from the passerbys.

Still, the barrel kept its stance. The boy began to think that perhaps it was a real barrel, not Gadget, and he'd made a fool out of himself in front of half the castle. That was before an idea struck him that it was time to be less nice. Riou crossed his arms, tried to look as mean and no-nonsense as he could, and spoke. "If you don't answer me now, you stupid pile of wood, I'll tell Meg where you are. And where you will be afterwards. Make no mistake, Gadget. You can't really hide. I can assign a crack team of army spotters to look for you and if I don't get a response in a timely fashion, you can bet that I will." Riou stopped to catch his breath and waited for some kind of response.

This time he was rewarded with it. The barrel whirred for a moment and in a truly amazing display of gearworks and machinery, bloomed and refolded like flower petals. Riou watched in amazement as part after part seperated, joined with another one, snapped into place and finally collapsing into the familiar form of the wooden contraption with a mind of its own. The crowd's stare turned from being incredulous to simply enchanted as science, contrary to their beliefs, suddenly turned into magic.

Disregarding the stares, Riou moved closer to the 'barrel' and noted that its mechanical eyes were full of apprehension. He smiled. "Hello, Gadget. Haven't seen you for sometime," he said casually. "You don't look so well."

[Can you blame me?]

The boy shrugged. "I suppose not. Sorry about that, by the way, but the I would be thoroughly shredded in the rumor mill if you remain an ordinary barrel."

[I don't see this seriousness that prompted your previous functions, Riou.]

"Well, you probably want to get back to res---er, hiding, don't you. Just tell me where I can find the gypsies then."

[Gypsy?]

"You know, the wandering performers. Eilie, Rina and Bolgan." Speaking the names somehow gave him a queasy feeling that he never had before.

The machine whirred again as if searching for some lost fragments within its maze of strings. [Eilie. She left yesterday evening.]

"Yester evening," Riou repeated, feeling half dazed as his mind began to catalogue the answer into coherence. Yesterday evening. Left. Gone. To somewhere he couldn't possibly know, taking the answer he sought with her, off again in her endless wanderings. Half of him understood immediately, but the other simply refused to understand, though the fact remained that he had to deal with it, somehow. He'd survive worse, far worse. Letting go, it seemed, would prove to be the most useful skill he'd ever learned in the last tumultuos years.

Thanking Gadget quietly as he collapsed back into his barrel form Riou continued to walk briskly, apparently at ease to all the people intent on watching him. His mind, however, was anything but at ease. There was the matter of Eilie, of course, and then there was his duty and the assassin. He would never, ever, ever mention the first to Shu or anyone for that matter, but the boy had no idea how the strategist would react to the news of the third, the father-brother-teacher figure that he was. He figured that depending on how things go, Shu could end up in either his furious or analytical modes, though neither of these particularly appealed to the to-be-leader of the new Dunan Republic.

And so Riou made his way through the familiar keep, greeting the familiar faces, smiling to familiar people and dodging bear hugs all around as he went up the floors to the strategists' quarters. It felt rather nice, the feeling of being back where one belonged.

Riou stopped dead in his tracks just when the thought crossed his head. Where one belonged? When did I start thinking that?

Maybe things would be easier than I thought.

The spot that he was standing on, incidentally, was the front door of Klaus's room. And incidentally again, it was the exact time that the young man chose to slam the door open, carrying with him a bunch of papers with a certain bat tagging along behind. Riou went sprawling to the flagstones to the utter amazement of both man and bat.

Klaus's eyes opened, bulged. "Lord Riou!" he yelled, flinging the papers sideways as he rushed to his leader's side, checking for vital signs. Sierra, understanding the situation, swooped off to the infirmary.

----------------------------------------------------

In his dream, Riou saw a bird. Not just any run-of-the-mill bird, but a magnificent one. Its feathers were white as snow, it eyes were fire, and the creature was looking at him with understanding. Then it spread its wings and shattered away into a million pieces. He reached out to catch them, but the pieces dissolved away into searing rain, burning him like a thousand infernos, though there were no wounds. But soon the fire stopped, and through the blurry haze he could see the droplets forming into something, a shapeless thing that he couldn't identified. It shone so bright that he couldn't see.

And then Riou opened his eyes to Shu and the others sitting by his bed.

"Good afternoon, my lord," the older man said coolly, though not without some wry amusement. "I trust you've had a good hero's return."

Somehow, despite all that's happened, Riou still couldn't help but smile at that. Dismissing the silly euphoria as quickly as it came, he proceeded to relate the events of his return to Shu, who listened to every word with a suddenly stern expression.

Including that incident with the water pail.