Disclaimer: Don't own any of the healing items/ summons/ jobs, those are Squaresofts. This is non-profit fun.

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For every sin, I'll have to pay
I've come to work, I've come to play
I think I'll find another way
It's not my time to go

~ Die Another Day, Madonna

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Ashen narrowed his eyes angrily at the old man, tensing up every muscle in his body. His voice hoarse with venom, "Who the hell are you?"

Light gray smoke puffed out of the old man's mouth as he shook with laughter, he took the agizlik out of his mouth while the laughter died down. Pointing the end to indicate Ashen, "You're not a very bright one are you? Getting all defensive over an old man! Pah!"

The old man hushed under Ashen's dark growl. "If you really want to know. I am called Ramuh, the Good Elder." Ramuh snuffed and placed the agizlik back in his mouth.

Ashen turned the name over in his mind, the familiarity in the wording stuck out the most. "You're a summoner," he uttered warily.

The old man pulled down his goggles slightly to flash his beady red eyes quickly to the young man in the bed. "You could say that, but summoners don't exist anymore you took care of that, Oni."

The young man stiffened at the name from his past. The smoke, made pink by the flickering fire near by, wafted in front of him. Yet Ashen's dark stare did not flinch and even still watched the man in anticipation of some hint of violent action against the him. "So, looking for revenge or something?"

Smoke huffed from the wizened man's nostrils in amusement, "Yes that would be brilliant, wouldn't it?" He noted sarcastically, "Drag you from that wreckage you used to call a vehicle, nurse you back to health from your coma of three weeks, THEN get my revengeyes, simply brilliant."

Ashen growled and gripped the covers, "You're toying with me" his volatile eyes narrowed, "Just get to the point, old man. What do you want?"

Ramuh rapped his bony knuckles against the metal ball, like a command it rose up. "All in due time, Oni. All in due time." With little bleeps the ball floated towards the fire in the back of his home, a haze of smoke hovered in his wake. "You walk, don't you? Then follow, little boy, follow."

Another growl was emitted from Ashen at the sing-song insult. "I'm not a little boy!" the young man barked. No answer came, only the orange light stretching over the painted characters on the stone walls and the gentle roar of fire. Frustrated by the silence, Ashen ripped off the deer skin blanket and stormed off towards the little man.

The old man peered through his dark goggles at the angered young man as he tended to the kettle over the fire. "Good, looks like my knowledge of healing arts hasn't faded with age."

That one sentence halted Ashen in his tracks, realizing that he shouldn't be able to move like he is after such a deadly motorcycle accident. In fact, he shouldn't be able to move at all, even if it had been three weeks. Disbelieving it still, the young man looked to his own hand, flexing it open and shut a few times.

"Yes, you'll live. Now sit down and eat." The old man said dishing out a ladle full of some green stew into a bowl. Ashen unconsciously sat down, still staring at his hand while Ramuh continued to cite a quote of his own devise, "Bone's mend and cuts heal, but hunger eludes the doctors hands."

Ashen stopped looking at his hand and looked at the old man, the look of wonder drained from his face replaced by anger, mistrust, but also a hint of bitter sorrow. The young man turned his head away from the bowl offered, "I'm not hungry"

It was true in a sense, he didn't want to eat. Like he didn't want to live, he wanted to be with her. Though he would not end his own life, he would not aid it along. The fact he didn't die in that accident only embittered him more. Like fate was determined to keep him and his beloved apart no matter what, even in death.

Zip, crackle, zap.

"OW SHIT!" Ashen yelled holding his upper arm, his head snapping back to the old man.

Ramuh calmly put back a long tube into his float ball, "Not as tough as we think we are, eh?"

"That hurt!" The angered young man shot back through clenched teeth.

"Well I didn't have a rolled up newspaper to hit you on the nose with, so I had to make due with what I had on hand." The old man puffed sarcastically.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" Anger scrunched up Ashen's youthful face, he rubbed the throbbing red mark on his biceps.

"It means you whine and cry like a little lost puppy." Ramuh huffed through his drag from the agizlik, "Some Oni."

"You don't know a damn thing about me, old man!" Ashen barked, "And stop calling me Oni! It's not my name, got it?!"

"Fine fine, we'll play the getting to know you' game after you eat. You're heavy and I'm not dragging you back to the bed if you faint." He forcefully placed the bowl in Ashen's lap. Putting down the agizlik for once, he started to eat from the bowl he had made for himself.

The two were silent, the only sounds were that of the fire and Ramuh's eating. Ashen picked up his own bowl and ushered angry spoonfuls of the stew into his mouth. Sniffing sharply once as he chewed, making his irritation be heard. It was the first time Ashen had ever eaten a summoner dish, though he didn't know he was eating the food they used to make in the land he was born in.

After awhile, Ashen had finished and Ramuh refilled his own bowl, both still remaining silent. Ashen's eyes drifted to the fire, there it brought up hateful memories. The ruins of the monastery, fires in the gardens, faces of people he knew. It all came back to Aleura, her beautiful face forever locked in his mind and with it the ugly wound that claimed her life.

Ashen's arm laid lazily across his propped knee, his fist clenched tightly making his knuckles white under his finger less gloves. They did it, MAGEThey did itThey will payThey will die, all of themI'll kill all of them

Under his dark shaded goggles Ramuh watched the young man in his intensity, eating to disguise himself. The red in Ashen's eyes seemed to take on characteristics of the fire itself, the old man could fancy them casting an inferno inside the little cave dwelling.

"How far away is Ghri?"

The young man's venomous tone cut through the silence. He kept his eyes unmoving from the fire that entranced him. His hanging fist, clenching and releasing as if to wring some invisible thing. This action seemed to bring him some odd comfort in his world of rage.

The question went unanswered for a long while. Silence settled back on the room, save for the crackling fire and the bubbling rolls from the nargile as Ramuh took a long drag in thought. Ramuh slowly let the smoke leak out of his mouth.

"I'm not saying"

Ashen's head snapped violently towards the old man calmly smoking. "Why the hell not?!" He barked viciously.

"Because I can tell what you plan to do once you get there, utter foolishness if you ask me." The old man puffed on his nargile in total calm.

In a moment, Ashen was on his feet hovering over the tiny wizen figure. Agitated and tense he eyed the old man, "You don't have a clue what I'm planning or what I've been through!"

Ramuh pulled the agizlik away from his mouth at hearing the dark threatening words of the young man. "Ha!" His round wrinkled face confronted Ashen's tanned youthful one. "I know that look very well. I've seen it in the eyes of many, young and old. I've even seen it in my own once."

The floating ball inched upward, the little old man getting right in Ashen's face, "So who was it? Hm? Friend? Family? A girl perhaps?"

The red ovals went wide with shock briefly at the near prophetic assumption, then narrowed coldly, enraged at the old mans prying. "That's none of your business, old man" The younger summoner stated icy smooth.

Ashen tore away from the old summoner, with a huff he plopped back down in the spot he sat in before. He pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his bare arms around them, he buried the lower half of his face into the tangle of his arms leaving his red eyes fiercely fixed to the burning orange blaze before him. The two summoners shifted once more to an uptight silence, falling into their own conflicting thoughts and nostalgia as the fire ate up the logs under the kettle with a pops and cracks.

Ramuh continued to watch Ashen from time to time from the corner of his hidden eyes, contemplating the young man and all that he knew him to be as well as what he didn't know of him, while taking a long drag on his nargile and exhaling the rich smoke. Slowly, the young man unraveled from his constricted siting position, letting one leg drop while the other remained bent slightly at his chest, his elbow propped on his bent knee allowing his palm to press on his eyebrow and the rest of the hand tangled in his white scruffy locks. His other hand, crossed over his chest, gripped the flesh of his shoulder almost clawing at it. His oval red eyes shut tightly for a minute and then returned to the fire, their burning intensity gone replaced by glossy anguish. At this moment Ramuh's saw Ashen in a new light, he was not the formidable image of Oni, but a young man whose grief was eating him alive.

"So," he started carefully, knowing he was treading into a very delicate area, "What was she like?"

His young red eyes flashed angrily at the old summoner, but slowly eased back to the fire, "Like nothing else in this world..."

"My, you think highly of her."

"I'm not exaggerating that..." Ashen's heavy eyes closed in reminisce of the strange and beautiful girl who lit up the dark places in his life, "She was holy being, a High Priestess. She would give up her life at the drop of a hat to protect someone, even if they were some murderous pagan...all to give them another chance." A slight smirk appeared on his lips to the shock of Ramuh, "She saw things in people and was always so blindly optimistic, I used to think she was annoying like that. I still don't get why she could fall in love with me, we were so different." The smirk slowly faded. " She was going to give it all up for me...we were going to live together..."

The young man's eyes cringed tightly under his lids, his jaw clenched as he gripped his shoulder tightly. His body relaxed again and his eyes opened once more, the fire in them once again blazing fiercely. He continued, a new bitter tone rung in his voice, "She was innocent, you know? They all were..." The young man seemed to snarl, "They had no part of any of this... MAGE..."

Blood started to trickle down Ashen's arm from his shoulder where his nail dug into the tanned flesh, he didn't seem to feel it at all, locked in his bitter thirst for revenge. Ramuh watched the young man in wonder, shocked by all he had just heard. The Oni actually feels...

Regaining his composer he placed the agizlik in his mouth, he spoke low in muffled words, "You know, if you go, you will just get yourself killed?"

"Heh..."A cynical smirk graced Ashen's lips, his eyes rolled over to the old summoner, his face almost looked kindly, "Maybe that's the plan?"

The old man again gawked at the young man's blatant admission, he wanted to die, and throwing his life away in a brief moment of revenge was how he planned to go. The younger summoner's face just slid back to the fire, ignoring the man's stare. Anger gradually simmered inside the old summoner, for some reason this mode of thinking, specifically this young man thinking it, infuriated him. He slowly pulled the agizlik from his mouth, his face was hard even under his goggles one could tell he was glaring at Ashen.

"What gives you the right?" The old man said slow and deliberately in a sub-zero tone.

Ashen's face inched back over to the old man with narrowed eyes darkly glinting.

Ramuh continued, his voice a little more aggressive, "What gives you the right to thirst for death? When so many who deserved life died at your hands." Gradually his voice began to escalate, "What gives you the right to feel love when you stole the lives of those who never had the chance to feel it?!" His hand shook the agizlik firmly at Ashen emphasizing his rage, "And what gives you the right to revenge when no one's left to claim revenge on you?!"

The old man took a sharp intake of breath, he nearly shook with rage, "You lost someone you loved? So what! Who hasn't?! I've lost more to you in an hour then you will ever lose in your entire life! You have no right to mourn in such a pathetic manner!"

Ramuh breathing slowed to ragged breaths after his enraged out burst. His glaring eyes under his dark goggles watched Ashen's, his young cold eyes glared threateningly at the old man, but then slowly his whole head turned back to the fire.

The rage inside the old summoner burned brightly again at the young man's gesture of disregard. He resisted every urge in his body to strangle the insolent little brat. "Kuso-" He hissed trying to keep it under his breath but failed miserably, "Baka Oni!"

Instantly, Ramuh tapped roughly on the metal ball under him and floated away to some place far from Ashen's presence. Muttering curses in the old summoner tongue that Ashen couldn't understand, but figured centered on him. Good, he was starting to piss me off.

The young man stretched out, for the first time noticing the dry blood on his hand and shoulder. Mystified by its presence there briefly, but filled out the blanks as he examined the finger nail marks in his skin. Staring at his hand he noted the symbolism. Blood on my handsisn't that always the case?

My blood, their blood, her blooddoes it ever get clean? Even when you try to scrub it away, it's still there. It'll never go away. So why shouldn't I die the way I lived? Bloodstained.

Beeps tore Ashen from his thoughts, he turned his eyes to the little man. He still seemed to be angry, but simmered it down to bitter tolerance. Ashen gave him the what do you want now?' look, but the old man ignored it, he was here with a purpose.

"Do you want them back?" He asked sharply.

Ashen furrowed his brow and stared at him quizzically, "What are you talking about?"

Ramuh floated over in front of Ashen. He tapped his index finger to his temple slowly and deliberately. He whispered with a low hiss emphasizing his meaning, "Them"


Ashen's eyes grew slightly wider. He suddenly understood what the old man was talking about.

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AN: I like the way this chapter's written, lotsa body language and emotion. I had just finished reading Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and though I don't really like Steinbeck's stories, I do like his writing style cause it's similar to what I would like my own to be. So this chap is a serious attempt at mingling some of his with my ownis that wrong? I mean, yes writing is an expression of self and every writer has his or her own style, but we also learn from those we admire and take on, whether consciously or unconsciously, the characteristics of those who inspire us. I guess that's how I reason it, so if someone has a problem with itBite me?

See ya next week! * Smile *