Disclaimer: This gets annoying after a while.
Triad Orion: THANK YOU! Constructive criticism is always appreciated. I know it's chatty in the beginning. It's meant to be that way. They would normally talk that much, even if they don't do so in the game. And you had better not show up acting like a pizza deliveryman. Cause I know that trick now!
Jupiter Girl: Enjoy the ride! I know how much you like Ivan ficcys! Not too sure about the 'Ivan-gets-beat-up-by-things' aspect, but hey, part of their world, right?
Alex: Kaede says hello. She's supposed to be home by Sunday.
Jupiter Adept
By: Avaria
Chapter Two: Reunion
"Out on the sea, on the sea, on the sea! Only place for me, place for me, yes, for me!"
"Stop, please, Picard!" cried the Mercury Djinni on his shoulder. "First of all, this isn't the sea, it's just a rather big lake, and second, your voice could use a tune-up."
"It's called the Karagol Sea, Torrent," Picard remarked innocently. "And if you don't like my voice, don't listen."
"The one thing I agree with Torrent on," said a Jupiter Djinni from Picard's other shoulder, "is that you should not sing. Ever."
"You two, actually agreeing on something? Unreal," Picard said good-naturedly. His humor was met with a spray of water in one ear, and a gust of wind in the other. "Oh, stop that! Can't you guys take jokes?"
"Good ones," the Djinn said, making Picard laugh. Torrent and Gust laughed with him. His laughter was one of those things that filled a room and caught everyone else up in it, making them laugh too.
"We'll be docking soon," said one of the crewmembers as he passed Picard, the Djinn suddenly gone in purple and blue blinks of light. "You might want to get ready."
"Thanks for telling me," Picard said, and the crewmember nodded.
Fifteen minutes later, Picard and the Djinn stepped off the ship and onto the solid ground of Kalay Docks. Though missing the water being all around him, Picard had more pressing business ahead of him, in Altin. It seemed there had been a fire there that was randomly appearing again and again, and he was asked to come help locate its source.
"Should we stop and see Ivan along the way?" Gust asked him, appearing again.
"We don't have the time, if the situation in Altin is as serious as it sounded. Sorry Gust. Maybe we'll stop by on the way back."
Passing Kalay by, Picard looked at his map. It wasn't all that great, having been drawn by someone who'd never been farther east than Vault, but it would do. Or it would have done, if the clouds gathering in the early-morning sky hadn't broken right then, drenching the young man and the Djinn.
"Oh great. Rain. Lovely," Gust complained, disappearing. Torrent, however, didn't seem to object to the rain at all, being a Mercury Djinni. Picard didn't mind rain either, in moderate amounts, but thought that this was a bit much. Especially since he had to walk through it.
He pulled up his hood and resigned himself to walking in the rain, passing the mountains that surrounded the Lamakan Desert as he went. A light from inside one of the many caves caught his eye, and he turned to look at it.
"I recognize something about it," Gust said, picking up on Picard's thoughts and reappearing. "It feels familiar. Like I've known it before…Ivan! It's Ivan!"
"Excuse my asking, Gust, but what is Ivan? I mean, what are you talking about?" Picard asked, golden eyes holding a puzzled look.
"I sense his presence, sort of. I was 'attached' to him for a long time, you know."
"Ivan's in that cave? But why?" Before either Djinn could reply, Picard had broken into a run for the cave. He didn't need to be reminded that, after fighting against all those things that had attacked the ship from Tolbi, he was incredibly low on Psynergy. The lack of power sat on the edge of his awareness, and he likened it to seeing something out of the corner of his eye that, when he turned to see it in full, disappeared. But that wasn't the first thing in his mind right now.
"Ivan's supposed to be back in Kalay, with Sheba," he said to himself. "Not out here."
~^~^~^~
Through the dark haze of his sleep, Ivan could hear voices. Familiar voices, too. Ivan struggled to make out the words.
"How is he?" asked a high-pitched voice.
"Not too good. And I'm low on power. What did Garet call this? 'The old-fashioned way'?" a deeper, slightly accented voice answered, and Ivan dimly felt the pain in his arm diminish. "Too bad the rains came, or we could have taken him back to Kalay."
"I happen to like rain," put in a third voice. "And you should too. Call yourself a Mercury Adept. Sheesh."
"You picked that up from Garet," commented the first voice.
"Both of you be quiet!" the second voice hissed. "We don't want to attract any unnecessary attention." For what seemed a long while, there was silence, and Ivan felt himself fall asleep again.
Waking a second time was much easier, and a good deal less painful. Slowly, Ivan opened one eye and found himself face-to-face with a face that was not a face at all.
"He's awake," said the Jupiter Djinni that hovered over Ivan. "Sure took you long enough to get up, sleepyhead," the Djinni remarked to Ivan.
"Do I know you?" Ivan asked it, and the creature looked hurt.
"You don't remember me, is that it? Or you're playing one of your tricks again."
"Probably the former, Gust," said another voice, and Ivan struggled to sit up and see who it was. Almost immediately strong hands helped him, and this time Ivan did recognize the face that came into focus.
"Picard," he said softly. "But you were in Tolbi."
"I was. But I received a message that I was needed in Altin. I was headed that way when I saw a light. It was your fire, apparently."
"'Apparently' my tail," said the third and final voice, and a Mercury Djinni jumped onto Ivan's lap. "Please tell me you haven't gone totally insane, Ivan, and forgotten me too."
"You all look alike, actually," Ivan said, a smile creeping onto his face. "But it would be hard to forget you, Torrent."
"Oh, that's right, remember the water Djinni and not the wind Djinni," Gust muttered.
"You two have done nothing but argue since I found you, Gust! For five minutes, control yourselves!" Picard said angrily. Then he turned to Ivan again. "How do you feel?"
"Like I've been hit with a ton of…flying Thunder Lizards," Ivan said with a small grin.
"Oh very funny. And why are you out here at night? You wrote saying you had students, or something to that effect. Where are they? And where's Sheba?"
"I've left Kalay."
"WHAT?!"
"I've left Kalay. I'm headed to Lama Temple, where Master Hama is, to learn of my past. I can't remember it. And now I need to know, who my parents, my family, were. And the cave entrance to the Lamakan collapsed. So here I am, without a map and half-dead in some cave."
"Oh, Ivan…you do know it was stupid to leave alone, right?" Picard's eyes clouded with concern, and Ivan frowned.
"I wasn't about to drag Sheba and the twins with me! I don't think they need to know…unless I want to tell them." Sighing, Ivan looked down at his arm and found it tightly bandaged. "Nice job," he commented evenly, letting the shadows from the fire hide his grin.
"It is my job, after all," Picard muttered, and Ivan laughed. "What happened to you anyway?" Briefly, Ivan recounted the Rat Warriors and his failed attempt at escape. Suddenly frantic, he looked quickly about for his Zodiac Wand. Seeing it leaning against the opposite wall, he sighed contentedly.
"Well I don't care if you want to go alone or not," Gust said stubbornly. "I'm going with you! And maybe I can reach Smog or Zephyr, if I try."
"Please, it's hard enough telling which one you are apart from all the others," Ivan said jokingly. "I don't need more of you than I can handle!"
"Very funny, Jupiter boy."
"Gust has a point, though," Picard said, a thoughtful gleam in his eye. "You shouldn't travel alone. If it were up to me I'd say you shouldn't travel at all."
"It is up to you, boy!" Torrent said, jumping to Picard's shoulder. "Ivan can't exactly decide."
"Hold on a minute! I can decide just fine, thank you!" Ivan said defensively. "Or is this more of that Mercury babble I had to put up with for months on the road?"
"More of that Mercury babble," all three of them replied, making Ivan laugh.
"You should go back to sleep," Picard commented. "It's late, or early, whichever way you want to put it. And it doesn't look like the weather'll be clearing up for a while. It's been raining all day."
"I've been out for a whole day?! What time is it?"
"Probably about two hours before dawn. But you won't see the dawn in this rain. It's coming down in sheets."
"I love the rain. I don't know what Garet's problem was," Torrent said thoughtfully. "Even that little bit of water in Mercury Lighthouse was enough to drive him over the edge."
"Duh. Fire adepts have an instinctive aversion to water," Gust said in a superior-sounding voice. "Please tell me you knew that."
"I told you two to be quiet!" Picard said, raising his voice a bit.
"You know, you're almost as scary as Mia when you get mad," Ivan said quietly. Picard laughed.
"Mercury trait. I think. Maybe it's just Mia and I. But you heard me, I hope. Go back to sleep."
"You sure are demanding," Ivan muttered, but he was having a hard time fighting off sleep as it was. Rolling over and closing his eyes, he fell asleep almost instantly. Gust, now joined to him, drifted off as well.
"You think he should go back to Kalay," Torrent said to Picard after a while. The Mercury Adept said nothing, his serious eyes staring into the fire. "You'll damage your vision by doing that, you know. I think I'm talking to myself, actually, with how deep into it you seem to be. But I am joined to you—I know what you're thinking. Look, if he goes back to Kalay, he'll never know about his past. And he has to know. I was with him that day Master Hama taught him Reveal. And I know she knows what Ivan wants to know."
"You're babbling, Torrent," Picard remarked. "I thought that was a Jupiter Djinni trait?"
"No, it's a Djinni trait period. We all babble with not much else to do. But you have to admit I'm right."
"Yeah, I guess I do. You're seldom wrong, actually. Is that a Djinni trait too?"
"No, that one's all mine," Torrent said with a laugh. Picard laughed as well. "Think we can get going tomorrow?"
"We?" Picard asked, his voice hinting at mock surprise. "What do you mean, 'we'?"
"Oh, come off it. I know you mean to go with Ivan to Lama Temple. It'll take at least two weeks, probably more if we're laid up like this all the time."
"And knowing Ivan, we will be."
"You said it. Though, Garet was always more accident-prone than Ivan was. Probably because of his stupidity."
"I'm not gonna go there."
"Smart boy. You should sleep too, you know. Get some of that Psynergy back."
"Then who will be left to watch out for danger?"
"No danger will come. The rain drives most things away."
"Alright…I'll believe you, this time." Without another word, Picard lay his head on his pack and fell asleep, Torrent following suit not much later.
~^~^~^~
"He's been gone for a whole day. I don't like this," Sheba muttered to herself. Salen and Rilion had gone together into town looking for him, and had come back with nothing.
"Maybe he's gone to send that letter? It's a two-day trip, to the nearest post and back," Salen suggested.
"Maybe. I guess we'll have to wait a day and see."
"More than a day," said Rilion from where he sat at the table. "Big storm is coming. The kind that turns into a great descending spiral."
"Tornado. But the season's wrong for a cyclone storm," Sheba said, tapping her chin in thought. "There have been freak tornadoes in the past, but not often, and never at this time of year."
"I wonder," all three of them said together. It didn't even seem odd to them that they had spoken simultaneously. Because it was true. They did wonder.
They had every reason to.
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
Still having fun? The chapters are pouring from my head, so expect more after…hmm…ten reviews? That's not too much, is it? ~Avaria
