Muffin-Man: Sure thing, your secret's safe with me! ;) And this is the only plot you'll see, sorry!
Everyone else: Don't worry, this story is all ready to go but I update whenever I remember. And feel like cutting down on the teasing, nyar! I'm so evil…
Chapter 4, Fever
"They keep going on about me finding a suitable queen…"
Silence fell like an avalanche.
'I did NOT just say that!' Edge's brain groaned, all too late.
He looked up in Rydia's eyes, and she stared back for an eternity.
"Oh," was all that she finally said.
Nothing more.
'Damn!' Edge thought, furious with himself.
'Of course I knew he'd get married someday,' Rydia thought, 'I just… what will happen to our friendship then?'
Their relationship involved so much jokes and jocular flirting, it couldn't be the same without those things. But when Edge got married, well… no wife would allow such a friendship, any woman would feel threatened by it.
'Is that it?' that hidden part of her said, 'is it only the fear of loosing a friend that makes your heart ache so? Isn't the imaginary picture of hundreds of Eblanian women that stand in line before him?'
'Shut up!' Rydia angrily thought, very frustrated.
'I shouldn't have said that!' Edge thought, 'I've just made her uncomfortable. Idiot!'
It wasn't hard to see that she was uncertain about what she could say now. He couldn't think of anything to say that could make her feel better again. And as she finally spoke, she sent daggers straight through him.
"So, is anyone interested?" she asked, sounding as if she heavily pushed the words from her lips without really wanting to.
"A few," Edge admitted, unable to look back at her.
"And you're still a bachelor?" she said, straining herself to smooth the whole thing, "I thought you loved women…"
He felt as if an ogre had sent him flying into a wall.
It was terribly hard, but he forced himself to turn his face back at Rydia. There was something twisting in her eyes, as if she had no idea how to handle his statement. They were at least two with that problem, then.
"Hey, Rydia…" he hesitantly said.
She startled.
"Yes?"
"I… they… I just…"
Edge sighed and tried again.
"Look, I don't… I do like women, but not like that. I don't know what to…"
He fell silent and turned away again.
"They're just trying to push me," he said, making a third attempt to mend what had gone wrong, "but I don't want to… marry someone just like that."
She didn't say anything, so he risked a glance at her. Rydia was watching him, looking very uncertain. Just as he felt.
'How can I tell her?' he thought, 'dare I?'
'Last time we talked like this was in the Sealed cave,' Rydia thought, 'he can be serious when he's vulnerable or uneasy. But it's not a good thing this time. Edge… what can I tell you to make you feel better?'
"Don't look so disturbed," she tried, "it doesn't suit you well. Your advisors will just have to wait until you've been taking your own time, they can't exactly tie you up and drag you to a priest, now can they?"
"No, but…"
Edge sighed.
"It won't leave me alone," he said.
"I'm sure it'll end up fine. Things seem to do so when you want them to."
Now that felt good to hear. Especially right now, from her. The words lit a ray of hope inside of him.
"Thanks, Rydia," he said in a low voice.
"For what?" she wondered.
"For making my heart a lot lighter, for a start."
They smiled tentatively at each other. But suddenly they both jumped at an unexpected roar.
"Rydia!"
It wasn't angry or threatening; only a friendly call from someone that was too big to control his loudness well.
"Leviathan!" Rydia called back and stood up.
A blue, enormous head could be seen in the water beyond the cliffs.
"I'm sending the bottle with the waves, my friends," the king of espers roared, "I can't swim in the shallow water."
Rydia hurried down to the wetter parts of the beach and looked around for a moment, searching. Then she walked out into the water and picked up something.
"Thank you so much!" she called to Leviathan.
"Anything to help you, my friends," the great sea snake replied with a smile, "I have to return to the deeper ocean and my country now. Take care!"
Rydia waved with her hand until Leviathan was unseen below the surface. She turned and ran back to Edge, holding a small bottle in her hand. The liquid inside had a greenish color.
"Yummy…" the ninja king muttered.
"Doesn't look too tasty, no," Rydia agreed, "but I guess we have no choice."
"Right. Let's get it over with."
Edge tried to sit up, but fell back. His arms had no strength left.
"Take it easy, I'll help," Rydia said.
She removed the cork and smelled the potion.
"It doesn't smell that bad," she reported, encouraging, "come on…"
Carefully she moved her arm in under his head and put the bottle by his lips. If the potion tasted heavenly or was the worst sludge to ever touch his tongue, Edge didn't even bother. To feel Rydia's arm, her skin against his neck… maybe it was a good thing that he hardly could move, right now it didn't feel like a threat anymore, more of a blessing that had given him some time with Rydia. And if he had been able to use his arms properly, he could have embraced her without considering it. But now he couldn't, and it was plain torture even though he knew that it perhaps was just as well.
It had been so much easier to fight for the worlds future. Good-Evil, live-die, victory-Apocalypse. Simple. But this? It was so complicated, a mess of thoughts, feelings and secret wishes. It made him want to scream.
The bottle was empty, and Rydia removed it from his lips. Knowing her arm soon would leave him too, Edge had to clamp his teeth.
"Do you feel anything?" she asked, not moving away yet.
"The usual warmth and all that…"
Potions and antidotes seemed to feel much the same whatever they mended. First there was a cooling feeling as they ran through the throat, but as they reached the stomach a warm feeling began to work its way through the whole body.
Edge wasn't tired anymore, but that had nothing to do with the antidote. The poison's drowsiness hadn't got a single chance against the bitterness that the slip of his tongue had given birth to. He still felt like an idiot.
Rydia looked down at him as he closed his eyes and waited for the antidote to do its work. He somehow still seemed miserable.
Edge, married?
Rydia didn't want to think about it, but she imagined a timid, slender Eblanian woman with long, black hair. Someone he could rest by, someone that embraced him whenever he was tired and troubled after his advisors had given him a hard time. Someone that shut the door and locked it for Rydia, never allowing her to see Edge again.
Rydia's eyes burned for a second, then she forced it back. There was no use to cry like a baby. When Edge got married he got married, and she couldn't exactly ask him not to just to save their friendship.
'Friendship here and there… pha!'
'Shut up. You're not making me feel any better,' Rydia bitterly thought.
'I'm not here to make you feel better,' the secret part of her said, 'I'm trying to help you into making it yourself. Dear, dear, just look at him…'
Edge had never looked vulnerable for all the time she had known him. He had always been like an embodiment of power, reminding of an armed tornado as he attacked whatever kind of monsters he and the others had faced. But as he laid there now, looking as if he slept, he seemed somehow broken. His head was still resting on her arm.
'I'm giving him support now…' Rydia thought with a tight throat, 'somebody will do it after me…'
She had come to Cecil's and Rosa's wedding from the world of Espers, all the time wondering in which world she would choose to stay later on. She had no real home among the humans, even though she had friends in almost every town up in the sun. But it wasn't the same as a home; she had that in the land where Leviathan and Asura ruled. Of course she could go between the worlds anytime, but she had to find out where she wanted to dwell most of the time. The esperworld seemed like a natural pick, but something told her that wasn't right. Even though she was loved by every monster and all of them wanted her to stay with them, yet… she was a human, not an esper. No matter how much she loved the monsters too, they just… there wasn't anything wrong with them, she just… couldn't explain it.
Edge suddenly frowned and slowly shook his head. Instinctively Rydia put her hand on his forehead, subconsciously remembering Asura's warning about fever. And so it was. Edge was burning from inside. As he opened his eyes, they had an eerily, feverish glimmer.
"Shh, don't try to speak," Rydia mumbled, "I'll help you."
She removed her arm from his neck and sat up, placing her towel on the sand.
"Powers of water, I bid thee to lend me thy power… send me coldness."
As she pointed at the towel, a small, blue stream left her finger and turned into an icicle. Rydia broke it in two pieces and put them beside each other. Then she made a package of the towel and placed it on Edge's hot forehead.
Edge felt as if his whole body was made of red hot iron. His numbing mind tried to keep above the paralyzing tentacles that tried to snare it, fighting to keep him away from unconsciousness. He vaguely remembered that he had felt like this once before, when he was twelve years old. Then he had gotten such a fever too, so grave that everyone had feared the worst and even prepared for the funeral. His parents had been sitting by his side all the time as he had been twisting and screaming in nightmares. His parents…
The memory always brought agony. And now, with the fever trying to engulf him, it was almost unbearable. Edge's eyes widened and he gasped in inner pain. Rydia's cool hand came to his scorching cheek, and he blinked at her touch.
"It'll be alright," she softly whispered, "I promise, you'll be fine…"
"R-Rydia…"
He could hardly speak, the tongue was so hard to control.
"Shh…"
Rydia hoped that her own worries didn't show. She hadn't been this afraid since that horrible day when her mother had screamed and fallen to the ground, never to rise again. No!
Not again! She couldn't bear to loose Edge too!
"Good grief…" she whispered before she could stop herself, staring down at his sprawled form, "Edge, don't die!"
Don't die, don't die, don't die, don't die… don't… please!
"Ry-Rydia… don't worry…" Edge harshly whispered.
Shaking, he managed to reach up and touch her cheek with his fingertips. Then the hand fell; he had no strength now, even though the antidote had worked on his numbness.
"I won't die… I promise…" he whispered and fell into an uneasy slumber.
Rydia sat like a statue for a while, watching him turn his head and mutter as he dreamt. Her hand was on her cheek, where the memory of his touch still remained.
'That's better…' the noisy part of her mind softly said.
She didn't find it irritating anymore. She hardly heard it. She didn't feel the wind in her hair or the sun on her skin. She only felt that simple touch and watched Edge's struggle against the fever.
Edge.
Don't die.
I won't. I promise.
Please keep your word.
His face was twisted in agony of whatever horrors his tortured mind created as he slept. And Rydia could only watch, helpless. For a while she wondered if the sylphs maybe could help, but figured that they had no such power. The fever was the product of the antidote's war against the poison, therefore it couldn't be healed. It had to fade away by itself, there was no other way. She could only wait and pray for that he would survive.
Edge had no idea how long time he slept, but to him it felt like an eternity. Again and again he saw his parents die; the worst thing that he ever had experienced was displayed in his twitching mind over and over again. They ran their claws through their cursed bodies, strangled each other… Rubicant killed them a few times too. Then in the final nightmare, Zeromus stood before Edge with a sword in his claws.
"Take your sword, Your Majesty," the demon screeched, "I command you to follow my orders and sacrifice either your mother or father to honor me!"
Edge tried to scream in rage, but he couldn't control his own body. He just took the sword and turned around. His parents stood there, watching him calmly. They weren't monsters this time, instead the man and woman that he had known and missed for so long.
"Kill me," his father said, "I can't live without your mother."
"No, kill me," his mother said, "you need your father."
"No," Edge harshly said, "I can't do it!"
The sword fell from his grip.
"Kill us!" his parents screeched and began to transform into monsters; the memory escaped the cage he had surpassed it to.
"No!" he screamed.
"Kill us or we'll kill Rydia!" his mother sneered.
Edge spun around and faced Zeromus again. Battered and seemingly unconscious, Rydia laid by the demon's feet. With a scream of agony, Edge threw himself towards her. But as he almost reached her bloodied hand, Rydia rolled aside and stood up. Before his eyes, she began to laugh manically. Her fingers turned into claws while her green clothes melted into her skin, which was turning into green scales.
"Look at me!" she screeched, "Lugae got me too! Am I not beautiful, Edge? I always wanted to be an esper, but this is just as wondrous!"
He backed away, but she leaped forward and knocked him down on the cold ground. He stared up into the yellowish lizard-eyes that drifted above him. They blinked, and suddenly Rydia's warmly green eyes were there instead, filled with pain.
"Help me, Edge…" she whispered, "help… they stole my humanity… please help me… you have to…"
"No!"
With a scream of terror he sat up, eyes wide open in fear. The cold towel fell down on his knees.
"Edge!"
Rydia's arms caught him as he was about to fall back.
"Shh, shh… I'm right here…" she whispered, "it was just a dream…"
Edge was gulping for air. Rydia carefully helped him lay back and put the cool towel in his forehead again.
"It's alright," she softly mumbled and brushed a drop of sweat from his cheek, "just a dream… do you feel any better?"
"Don't know…" he harshly whispered.
His heart was a pounding lump of pain in his chest, with every beat filling his body with arrows.
"Rydia…"
"Don't strain yourself," she kindly told him.
"I have to…" he muttered, "please, if I should die here…"
"You won't!" she furiously interrupted.
He tried to remember how to force his lips into a small, encouraging smile.
"No, I hope I won't," he whispered, "but if I do… please promise me you'll take care of Eblan for me…"
She stared at him.
"Wh-what?" she stuttered.
"You're the only one I trust that much," he muttered, "please, Rydia…"
For a moment longer she just stared down at him, disbelieving. Then she gravely nodded.
"Alright Edge, I promise I would do anything I can. But you won't die, you promised me that."
"I'll try my best," he whispered and managed to produce the shadow of a smile.
He vaguely noticed the sky above her head. It was slightly purple.
Had he been sleeping for a whole day? And Rydia had been watching him…? If he hadn't been so tired, the realization had filled him with a dancing feeling of tenderness.
But tired… and…
The ground was so hard and cold… he was cold all over. So cold that it hurt…
He tried to breathe, and the chilling air cut through his lungs.
"Rydia… so c-cold…" he whispered, helplessly shivering.
She tore the towel from his forehead, putting her hand on his cheek. He felt just as warm as before, but it was only the outer part of him…
If only she'd had a blanket, anything better than the towel! She hurriedly got rid of the fourth generations of icicles and dried the piece of cloth with a fire-spell. Then she spread the towel over Edge's shivering body, knowing it wasn't going to help much.
His breath was so terribly trembling and sharp… she felt helpless like never before.
'Mother,' she desperately thought, 'what can I do?'
But her mother wasn't there to help. No one was. She just had to help Edge by herself. His skin felt cold too now… she had to do something to keep him warm. There was no logs around that the waves had brought in, so she could lit a fire. A magical flame wouldn't burn longer than any normal one without something to eat.
Maybe if… but… could she do that? She had no choice.
Rydia took a deep breath. Then she laid down beside Edge and carefully moved in her arm under his neck again. He turned his head at her in tired surprise, almost too dizzy to realize what kind of thing she did to help him.
"It's alright," Rydia mumbled, not certain if she tried to excuse herself or calm him, "it's only me."
She placed her right arm over his chest, putting as little weight in it as possible. Then she moved as close to Edge as she could, lying by his side and offering him the warmth of her own body. He looked at her through the mist of fever and harshly whispered her name.
"Everything will be fine," she whispered, "I promise."
He managed to move his lips into a weak smile. Rydia looked into his feverish eyes and tried to ignore that she felt that strange trembling in her chest again as she laid there by his side, holding him tightly.
A few stars looked down at the two small humans as they laid still in silent caring.