--Written by: Naki
"I heard it!" Meru squealed happily. "I heard the baby cry!"
Claira smiled at her. "We all heard it."
"You're going to have to be quiet around the baby, Meru." Claire pointed out. "A baby's ears are very sensitive to loud noises." She smiled at a memory. "Back before Claira was born, back before Neet was destroyed, the twins were a handful. Although they're identical, their personalities weren't. They contradicted so much. Dart was quiet and preferred to keep to himself. Zieg, on the other hand, was loud and hyper. He was the kind of child who would was meaningless questions just to talk. The destruction of Neet didn't seem to faze his personality one bit. However, when I would ask him about Dart, he would ask me who Dart was. He completely forgot about his twin. After Claira was born, I practically had to toss him outside every time he wouldn't be quiet. He's so much different now that he's grown."
The door opened slowly and Dart emerged, shutting the door behind him. He carried in his arms an infant wrapped up in a blanket. He smiled at them.
"It's a girl!" He announced.
He hugged Claire and carefully handed her the baby. Albert, Lavitz, Haschel, and Zieg then bombarded him.
"Wow..." the high-pitched voice of Sun Raye squeaked from the arms of arms of Kurintsu as he landed gently on a dusty packed dirt road in Lohan. "Where are all the people?"
Kurintsu glanced around the deserted city. "I...I don't know."
Sun Raye looked up at him. "We have to find Dart and Matthias. They have to know what happened."
"I know, but..." he watched a fallen dead leaf cross the road on the wind. "There's no one here."
"Oh, there's people here, alright," Sun Raye climbed up onto Kurintsu's shoulder and stretched her wings. "I can smell them. Trust me."
"I believe you," Kurintsu placed a hand on the bandage on his head. It itched terribly. "Can you catch Dart's scent?"
"Umm...I can try..." Sun Raye hovered in mid-air, sniffing the breeze expectantly.
Kurinstu felt uneasy about the whole situation and kept looking around, feeling as if they were being watched by an unseen foe.
"Kurintsu!" Sun Raye's voice called from above. she sat on a windowsill, looked down at him. "I smell him here!"
He joined her and peered inside the window. "Who's that?"
"I don't know," she answered.
Kurintsu put his weight onto the windowsill.
Inside, Phoenix turned his attention to the window. "Uh...Shana..."
"Yes?" Shana looked up from the baby's crib.
Phoenix pointed a paw towards the window. "There's someone outside the window."
Outside, the windowsill couldn't hold Kurintsu's weight, and...you guessed it, it gave out. Simultaneously, Kurintsu grabbed the gutter above the window before he could fall, the windowsill completely broke off its base and fell to the ground below, and Shana screamed (incredibly, not waking the baby!). The force of the windowsill breaking knocked the window open. Kurintsu felt the gutter creak under his weight.
"Hi," Kurintsu waved pathetically to Shana. "Don't mind me."
"Kurintsu," Sun Raye said, hovering next to him. "You're going to repeat the windowsill thing with the gutter if you don't get down."
"What do you expect me to do, Sun Raye?" Kurintsu asked with an incredulous look.
"You have wings, use 'em," Sun Raye replied.
Kurintsu ignored her and looked into the room. "Um...I hope I'm not imposing, but can I come in?"
Shana didn't know what to think. He seemed pretty harmless enough. "Okay...Just don't wake the baby."
"Thanks," Kurintsu swung his body, and propelled himself into the room. "I'm Kurintsu, I come from Mille Seseau. What's your name?"
"I'm Shana," Shana said. "Why were you peeking in my window?"
"Ask the flying rat over there," Kurintsu motioned over his shoulder.
"Hey!!" Sun Raye flew over to him and jumped on his head painfully. "I am not a flying rat!"
"okay, okay, sorry," Kurintsu said, holding his head. Shana laughed. Sun Raye sat on the bed and Phoenix made his way over to her. They conversed quietly.
Shana and Kurintsu were still talking twenty minutes later. Kurintsu sat on the edge of the bed after feeling a bit dizzy due to his head injury. Shana promised to get it looked at by the doctor.
The door flew open and there stood Dart in the doorway, sans his obvious bright red armor. The tight black T-shirt conformed to his chest, defining all the muscles. He rested his left hand on his waist as he looked curiously at the scene inside the room.
"Shana...who?" He asked. Kurintsu turned his face towards Dart. Dart stared a moment before it hit him. "Kurintsu...what...?"
Kurintsu rose to his feet, wobbling just a bit. "Dart."
Dart crossed the space in between the two of them and gripped Kurintsu's hand tightly. He released Kurintsu's hand and motioned towards his head. "What happened to you? Why are you here?"
"One question at a time," Kurintsu said, fingering the bandage around his head. "Can I first get this taken care of before I get gangrene and die?"
Dart chuckled and glanced at Shana, who now held their baby daughter against her chest. "Sure, come on."
Kurintsu gritted his teeth togeter as the doctor dabbed the cut on the side of Kurintsu's head.
"Hold your hair back; I can't see the cut because your hair's in the way," the doctor instructed.
"Is it bad, Doctor Macalpine?" Shana asked. She sat on a bench across from Kurintsu on the examination table, nursing the baby.
"It'll need stitches," Dr. Macalpine said, squinting through his small spectacles that perched on the end of his thin nose.
"I forgot to ask," Kurintsu said, changing the subject as Dr. Macalpine moved across the room for a needle and thread. "What's the result?" He pointed at the baby Shana held.
Dart shared a smile with Shana. "It's a girl. Seven pounds and seven ounces. We named her Chandra Feld."
"Planning any others?" Kurintsu asked. His face scrunched up in pain as Dr. Macalpine cleaned the wound with rubbing alcohol. "Oww..."
"We can't have any others," Shana said quietly.
Kurintsu jerked his head twoards her and out of the grasp of the doctor, who made an impatient noise. "Why not?"
"There...was a problem during the delivery. She's not able to have any more kids." Dart said.
Kurintsu allowed Dr. Macalpine to steer his head back to staring at the wall. "I'm sorry."
"That's fate..." Dart said, almost to himself. Looking back at Kurintsu, he abruptly changed the subject. "Anyway, answer the questions from earlier."
Kurintsu stared at the wall with a blank look. "You really want to know? Well, I came all the way here to find you to tell you anyway. I can answer both questions with one answer. Not long after you left, Bane attacked the abbey again."
Dart froze.
"Let's just say it did become a snowdrift. It's leveled. Not a stone is standing. Some were killed. Lady Charle, who'd arrived just a day before, lead the Abbot and most of the Abbey dwellers through the basement tunnels out of the Abbey grounds. But..."
"What?" Dart pressed. Doctor Macalpine pierced Kurintsu's scalp with the sewing needle. Kurintsu grunted in pain, but made no other sounds as the doctor continued stitching up his scalp. Kurintsu's sky blue eyes clouded over in anger and acquired a redness that caused his irises to tint a slight shade of purple.
"There's more?" Dart asked.
"Of course, there's alway a stipulation," Kurintsu said tersely. "Erisi...agreed to go with Bane if he would spare the Abbey. She sacrificed herself to him to keep us safe. After taking her away, he turned his back on her nobleness and ordered the destruction of the Abbey. Lady Charle second-guessed him, and emptied the Abbey grounds. I have no idea if Erisi is even still alive. I shouldn't have allowed her to leave. No matter what the circumstances."
Dart remained silent. Words failed to convey his feelings.
"Umm..." Shana said quietly. "Shouldn't...we...tell the others?"
Over the next few minutes, silence reigned. It finally broke when the doctor snipped the thread with a pair of small scissors. Little Chandra cooed as she finished nursing.
Doctor Macalpine reapplied fresh gauze to Kurintsu's head.
"Now, no real strenuous activities, mister Kurintsu. I don't want you to pull the stitches."
"Yes sir," Kurintsu slid off the examination table with an air of relief. Dart motioned to him.
"Come on Kurintsu, we need to tell the others. Matthias...I'm not too sure how he'll react."