A/N: Ok, so, ah, er, um and all that junk. This is my first LOD fic and my second fic in all. It is a Lloyd/Rose fic, something we here in the LOD section of ff.net are in sore need of. I am not saying we all become geniuses and write another Save my Tears but the least you people could do is try? For me? No, wait, let me rephrase that, for Rap's ?(who's permission I haven't asked but I am sure would love another L/R fic anyway) Well, tell if like and don't forget, READ AND REVIEW!
Disclaimer: LOD belongs to Squaresoft, and Rap's (whose numerous works have given her more rights to it then all those money grubbers in Squarsoft combined.)
^Lady Crysania Majere
And now…on with the fic…
Souls in Silver Midnight
It was always midnight between the worlds. Pure darkness, save the thin, keening, gray-black wind, which resided there, conveying souls swiftly to purgatory. Nothing else lived in that midnight tunnel, and it was often disputed that nothing did, as the winds' quality was not that of life. Oh, sure, there were plenty of guardians (Zackwell, and Ra'shin just to name a few), but even they never entered the place, much lest lived there. Only souls could leave and enter unhindered, and them, only once. Most say (though when they do say it, they do it both softly, carefully, and glancing behind their shoulders) that Soa had never meant to create Between (as it was called), and on occasion, it was even muttered that Between had existed well before Soa's time. But that was blasphemy, mad, and impossible besides. Soa was first and created first, She must have simply created Between and it's Wind for purposes of her own. And no one dared question Soa.
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Darkness/but then again, here it was always dark.
Wind/how long had she beat against it? Hours? Days? Years?
Sanity/it did not matter. The Wind relented now as much as it had then.
Hope/there was none left.
Rage/she clawed at the darkness, straining.
Memory/ She would not go to the other place. The hated place. Death, was it called? She could not remember. She had bested it once.
How/how?! HOW?! She could not remember. But she would do it again.
Reason/she had forgotten. All that was left was to struggle. She would not give up! Not now not ever.
Others raced by her. Riding the Winds current. Fools. Pitiful, weak fools. She paid them no attention. She had to get out. To Life, oh sweet, sweet, Life.
One clung to her. No time. She had no time to waste. The Wind now pushed her more forcefully now.
She tried to claw it away. No time. What did it want?! Irritably she listened to the soft mental call it gave. She had no time for this. No time.
Probably asking directions. No time for this. Listen. No time.
The voice was firm, strong. It was not entirely resigned yet. She must be far closer to Life then she had thought! She must hear. Listen.
Life. Live. Fight.
She was impressed, but disappointed. Another like her, she had not thought it possible. But she was not near Life yet.
Together?
The thing must have sensed her probing. It was strong. Possibly as strong as she. It wanted them to work together! How amusing.
Why?
No one ever asked if there was nothing to gain. Not that she had met another.
Strong.
Full of itself, wasn't it? It must have had quite a bit of arrogance for any trait to linger long in Between. But then again, arrogance had always been one of her favorite qualities.
Bind. How?
Defiantly a problem. The only way for them to be useful collectively would be to Bind together so they could have access to each others strength, both physically and magically. Her mind warned of consequences but surely nothing was as bad as the Wind. As Death. But she was no Wingly, thus could not Bind. Wingly. She wondered what that was.
I. Now. Yes?
The voice was still coolly arrogant. But irritation and something vaguely like hope tinted it. It would be nice not to fight alone.
What the hell.
Yes.
What came next was a sensation of stretching, mixing, gaining, and giving. She had been right; it was as strong as she. The new power pumped her. Feeding her.
Strong!
The voice sounded both smug and shocked. Full of itself indeed! It must have been male. If she remembered correctly men loved ego boosts.
Strong.
She agreed, men seemed to work better if you appeared to see eye to eye with them. And it was then and together that they began to push against the Wind.
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It was long before they came to the barrier to Life, but to get out all it took was a final thrust. To get out. Out. Into sweet and glorious life.
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Rose had a headache; reconsidering the amount of throbbing pain in her head, she decided it must be a hang over instead. Not that she could exactly remember drinking, but when one had drunk enough to merit the agony blooming across her temples, one would probably not remember drinking. Still, it was strange, Rose had never liked drinking. She grimaced painfully, now for the routine part. After one has been drinking one must always check for three things;
One must check to see what one has ended up using for a bed.She had little need to open her eyes for that(which she did not), the stone digging rather painfully into her shoulder blades told all. Passing out on the ground is defiantly something she'd not want to remember. Oh well. It could have been worse.
One must check to see if one is in possession of all of ones clothes.Again, something that did not require one to open ones eyes. Thankfully, she discovered she was still in possession of those necessary articles. However, dirty, dented, bloody, gauged, sweaty or punctured they felt against her skin. She was still in her armor. It could be worse. Lastly….
3. One must ALWAYS check that there is NEVER, EVER, a man in a place close enough to have shared the same sleeping spot as you, be that spot bed or ground.
She really didn't think she needed to check that. She trusted a drunk Rose as far as she could spit, but even with that small amount of trust she was sure that she would never lie with a man. Not after Zeig. She winced and pushed the thought from her mind. But…rules were rules , sighing she blinked her eyes open. Only to find herself looking into a pair of crimson eyes. Male eyes. Wingly eyes. This could not have been worse.
Damn. It. All.
And that was when she began to summon up the last days memories.
The Wind. The darkness. The insanity. The creature to which she had bonded.
Damn. It. All.
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Lloyd had never been ill once in his 11,000 some years of life. Maybe it was just him. Maybe it was some long vanished Wingly trait. He was not sure. But right now, he concluded, he was very sick. Unless those hundred some dragons stomping about in his head were real. Yes, he was defiantly ill. Vaguely, he recalled someone teaching him something of human sicknesses. The common potion was good for most anything. Antidotes for toxins'. Not he was poisoned, but it was always good to know. Now what was in the common potion again? Redroot, cu'terin, dogleaf, and….what was it? Damn! Maybe he should just Heal himself. Lloyd hesitated, he hated using magic when humans were around. Not that he thought there were an humans about but…. Humans were much the same as insects; numerous, annoying, weak, and to be found when ever you turned over a rock. What was that last ingredient?! The bloody dragons were getting very much on his nerves. Perhaps he should get up. Moving would probably help. It might keep his mind off things. Opining his eyes he got up, sighing irritably. The dragons did not want him moving. They renewed there stomping with vigor, adding much of what he supposed must be tail thrashing and head bashing. Damn. Grumbling he stretched, and began to look around.
Upon surveying nightfall on the broken, desert-like wasteland around him, he felt immediately felt sick again, enough to make for those 11,000 some years. Daiz. Zeig. Melbu Frama. The god of destruction. Damn. How in the hell had he survived? Had he? His stomach twisted, and he began the recollection.
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Lloyd hated ignorance. He hated confusion as well. And he was completely positive he must hate helplessness worse than the two previous combined. Maybe it was because all three of them were quite new to him. Most Winglies he knew also hated new things, but up until know, he had always wondered why.
The dragons were gone now (mercifully), but what they had left behind was almost as bad as if they had decided to settle down permanently. He had walled it off, deep in a hidden corner of his mind, but it was still there, living, breathing, the Other. Now that it was over and done with, the price paid, he began to regret his decision in Binding. The permanent link it created between two creatures shared thoughts, emotions, and a binding invisible string as well as power, knowledge, and skill. Even before the fall of the Wingly Empire, Binding was almost non-existent save in the most intimate (and almost always, husband to wife) relationships. The fact that he had bonded to who-knows-what type of creature…. Yes he was seriously regretting his mistake in Between. Of course, he realized, he did know something of whatever it was. A few things, actually. He had always been observant and now observing was paying off.
One; the creature was undeniably female, though not the fragile, porcelain sort. Only a female could be as skeptic, as demanding as that one had been, as practical(well perhaps not that.).
Two; the woman was defiantly knowledgeable, immediately ruling out humans and Gigantico.
Three; the woman had immense strength in both sword (or what ever weapon she used, (and he was sure she did use a weapon), though he sneered on spear and would laugh openly at bow.) and magic. He had never really considered that anyone in this time could get so…. well there was only one word for it, powerful. He had not seen her like in at least 9,000 years, and had not expected to see it again. Maybe in some places the old blood still ran stronger than he had thought possible. Maybe she was one of the old blood, though he had been positive he could count those old enough and surviving on one hand. Name each name in one breath. Who? Damn it! Who?
As Lloyd moved through the broken ruble he pretended it was these questions that kept him moving forward. Kept him from flying off. He pretended it was these that tugged at him, prodded. All the while denying a thin invisible cord dragging him inexorably on.
The sun was just topping the horizon when he came to it, the large pile of rocks, no different from many others. Had anyone seen the tall, lithe, silver-haired figure stop beside the mound, they would have suspected he had chosen randomly, from either coin toss, or perhaps dice. Yet it was to this that his feet had led him, and this at before which the pulling stopped. With a combination of both reluctance and eagerness he approached the rubble. Yes. She was there, he could feel the Bond resounding at such a close distance to its twin. Carefully he activated the long flows of bluish magic used for wings and glided up to the top of the heap, where one large, slab of stone lay tilted. Reaching down he lay his fingertips upon the cool face of the rock. Using only the smallest spell he extracted the stone and hurled it down some twenty feet away. Turning back, he stared at the figure within, noting that she had avoided being crushed by a hair. Black hair. And after he had been so sure she was a Wingly …disappointment flooded him. Oh well he could live. Maybe.
It was then that something about her face caught his eye. She seemed… familiar, somehow. His mind strained, but as quickly as it had come, the familiarity was gone, flashing through one of the many gaping holes in his memory. The dried blood masking her face wasn't helping either. Maybe if he got just a little bit closer…. And he did, bending close enough so that he could see every detail clearly, which was also close enough to be considered unseemly, not that he noticed. Lloyd had a curiosity to settle and really, who could ever think of a human that way? Damn and damn again! That idiotic little memory flaunted and danced just out of reach. If only….
The eyelids on the face beneath him moved. The ringing in his head becoming almost a dull roar, and suddenly he was staring into a pair of, dark, cold, violet eyes. And Lloyd remembered.
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So? Like? No like? Did you notice I got Lloyd into saying 'Damn' a whole bunch? If you did….well J. Tell me in your review and you get a cookie. Those of you who read this anyway. And remember, we're on the honor role here. Be truthful, (and though there is no way in h*** I'm going to know) and I'll give you 2 cookies. R/R. J