Silence

Chapter Two
-- the answer is always in a place you'd rather not go --


Awake: sounds of morning (mourning? odd...) and the smell of damp soil. They were still at the edge of the forest, though far enough away from it not to be disturbed by its alluring enchanted melody. He was short of breath, but couldn't figure out why-- perhaps a dream (yes, yes, just a dream) was the cause. Oh well. It was nice to be awake early, for once.

Glenn was snoring loudly nearby. He smiled. It had to be Glenn, of course, because no one else that he knew was quite so noisy a sleeper. Just lucky that he could have slept through an earthquake, otherwise he'd be more deprived of rest than was manageable. Stretching, popping a few joints, he peered around in the slight fog of early dew-spun dawn time, looking for Leena. She, quite to her misfortune, was an extremely light sleeper and had never particularly enjoyed being dragged along when Glenn was involved, for precisely that reason.

As he'd suspected, her head was smushed beneath two make-shift pillows. Poor Leena.

Well, she needed to go back to Arni anyway. The kids were probably missing her, and it wouldn't be fair to subject her to Glenn's snoring for any longer than absolutely necessary. He almost laughed. Ah, the joy of responsibility...

Speaking of which, if he was going to send her off, there was the decision of who to bring back into the party. Macha would be a welcome addition, but she'd been fighting alongside them just before Leena. Come to think of it, Nikki had been mysteriously 'missing' since they'd dropped him off in Termina. Maybe Leena could track him down. That'd at least keep her from arguing with him about being sent off-- he hoped.

It seemed the headache was gone, too... "I'm going to kill him." Blinking and trying not to panic, he whirled back to stare in shock at Leena. She appeared to be half-awake, and all zombie. "I didn't sleep at all."

"Um, Leena, look...don't kill him, just...wake him up!"

She smirked a bit. "You mean, cast a nice little AquaBall on him or something?"

As he had no real experience with dangerously sleep-deprived girls, he only nodded. The Leena he knew was never so vengeful-- of course, he'd never seen the other Leena short several days' sleep...

"Fine."

Glenn let loose a loud 'snkark'.

Leena concentrated.

Spluttering, the Dragoon leapt to his feet and unsheathed his sword in one swift motion. "What? Where? Danger?" Serge found himself laughing too hard to breathe, and doubled over, still chuckling. Glenn blinked owlishly at them, and Leena only 'hmphed' and sat firmly down on the ground, arms crossed over her chest. "What was that for?" Glenn whined.

"Me sleep. You no snore." Leena laid down.

A slight breeze blew away the last of the morning haze as the blond Dragoon shrugged, muttering something about not understanding women, and sheathed his sword again. "Are you feeling better this morning?"

"Yeah." He tried a cheerful smile, but it didn't feel right on his face. "Just needed some rest." Soft, a little sigh escaped him (or something deeper inside of him?). He was itching to explore someplace new and see if maybe there, maybe in that place he hadn't found, the answer to Kid's sickness would be waiting. And then maybe he wouldn't feel quite so helpless-- or so soulless.

Maybe Korcha wouldn't make the effort to shake his confidence again. It wasn't really strong enough to survive such treatment.

"What shall we do now? Last night you mentioned Termina..."

He shrugged. Honestly, a day spent thinking about their situation as it stood would probably be of greater benefit. It was just damn irritating, that he never had the courage to say what was bothering him until he was too incapacitated to say anything aloud. Warmth.

"Listen, Serge." The hand on his shoulder was connected to an arm; the arm to Glenn; Glenn to the voice. He bit his lip. Confrontations. He wasn't good at them. "I know you are worried. What I do not know is what you are worried about. You cannot allow it to keep you from telling us what is going on." Concern? (condemnation) Over what, he wondered, and shrugged again.

"I'm just not sure where to go."

He looked up into the scarred-stern face of his friend, and knew that neither of them believed those words. "We haven't been to Mount Pyre," Glenn offered politely, once again sparing him the difficult task of explaining. Thank...thank whatever Dragon it was who granted that much. If there had been someone demanding explanations...

From the ground, there drifted an annoyed voice. "There's a fog over the bay surrounding Mount Pyre. Forget it."

Leena glared up at them through one eye, frowning, still quite obviously awake. Serge sheepish looked around for escape from the impending tantrum-- there was sure to be one, she was tired, cranky, and staring at the source of her troubles-- only to find Glenn doing the same. Wouldn't do to have both of them running like foolish ninnies when she'd only track them down and give them hell later. "We could navigate the fog," Glenn finally sighed, coming to the same conclusion.

Shrugging, the girl rolled over on her side. "Fine, but I'm not going to get involved with it. Send me back to Arni. I'll grab Nikki and tell him to meet you here." They looked helplessly at each other.

What to say? "We need to go to Termina as well. We do not intend to abandon you, Leena."

Leena didn't say anything. Serge didn't either. Did he really want to go blind into a thick fog, when they could easily be killed by any number of accidents? Squalls, predators in the water, hidden armies of ships, coral and sharp rocks waiting to beach ships as much as a mile away from a coast line-- no, he didn't really relish the idea of giving in to possibilities like that.

Sighing, she finally sat up again. "Fine." She didn't look pleased with the decision, but knowing her, she wasn't going to stop them from getting into trouble. Serge figured she would make an excellent mother some day; her children would certainly never be naive. "Termina's not too far. I can wait to sleep until then."


Notes: ^_^;; All right, all right, I get it, I'm not the most dependable author in the world. I actually have planned this one out as far as I can (it sort of loosely follows the game plot-- to a point) so you won't have to worry about a lack of continuity for a little while.

I know the chapters are uncharacteristically short right now, but if I make 'em too long, the sheer size of the fic will make anyone who sees it cringe. ;_; I don't want to do that!

Thanks for the reviews...*falls over* but, Tami...they always attack you. You have to run from them all over if you don't just kill 'em and get 'em out of your way!

^o^; Anywho. Hope you enjoyed chapter two. *grin*

=Lena=
(everyone signs like I do, so I'm trying this to be different...whee! ^^')