--Written by: Naki
Matthias is taking this different from what I had expected... Kurintsu thought, sitting across the long wooden table from Matthias. Matthias had his head bowed, staring at his fists on the dark brown tabletop. His face is totally blank; he's keeping it all inside.
Dart stood in a shadowed corner to the left of the table. He knew what Matthias was experiencing. He knew what it was like to lose a loved one.
Zieg approached Matthias. He went to lay a hand on Matthias' shoulder, but Dart stepped out of his shadowed corner and stopped him. Zieg looked to his brother; Dart's blue eyes warned him not to touch Matthias.
"Matthias!" "Matthias, come on, Zieg wants you!" "Matthais, I'm not going to leave you alone until you kiss me!"
Erisi's voice echoed around Matthias' mind. Images of her face surfaced in his mind. Minute memories once forgotten rose in his mind as if they were once grand occurrances. His thoughts were almost nonexistent. Every bit of his mind was focused on Erisi. Erisi as a young teenager and Erisi as a grown woman. Erisi the last time he saw her and Erisi as she might have been. Was she alive? Matthias' thoughts kicked in now. She must be alive, he had not sensed her spirit enter Mayfil. He felt a flicker of hope. A strange sense of foreboding drowned out that flicker. Had Erisi chosen a wrong path? Or was this foreboding coming from a path chosen forcefully for her by another being? The latter was what Matthias would bet on. He felt his first emotion in the last few minutes that felt like hours. Anger. Anger welled in him; he felt like he was going to burst.
Strangely, Kurintsu felt as if he could sense Matthias' inner turmoil. "Uh...Matthias?" Kurintsu's voice sounded strange and foreign in the dead silent room. His voice echoed as it bounced off of the quiet bodies standing amongst them.
"AHHHHHH!" Matthias jumped up and brought his fists over his head. He brought them smashing down onto the center of the table, breaking the table into two roughly equal halves. His copper eyes turned a fearful shade of red as he held his bloody fists slightly oud and his breathing was heavy and uncontrolled. His face was contorted in a way that could only be described as the look of anger that drove most men to kill. His breathing slwed down some, but his anger did not. A dead black light resonated at his chest; when it stopped, Matthias slipped down to his knees and hung his head.
"Erisi..." he whispered.
Kurintsu, who had jumped up just prior to when Matthias crushed the table, stood in front of him, looking curiously down at him. The curious look had not been aimed at Matthias; it had been at Kurintsu himself. He was experiencing instances tha the had never even fantasized as happening. He somehow knew what Matthias was going to do. A door opened, causing him to turn. Deirdre stood in the doorway.
The look on her face matched Kurintsu's expression. She walked over to him; Kurintsu noticed something immediately as she crossed the room. The way she was walking. It was not her usual way; she was walking more like Erisi did. A princess-like fashion he once thought to be unique to the once beloved Abbey sister. Kurintsu watched as Deirdre walked past him and knelt down before Matthias. She placed a hand on Matthias' shoulder and spoke to him gently.
"Matthias...my friend, Erisi is alive."
"I know that."
"The why do you worry so? She will return to you in time although changed. I can see it."
Matthias' head jerked up. What was that he sensed? He looked into Deirdre's eyes and what he saw astounded him. Although he knew the girl in front of him was not his beloved, it was Deirdre, and in her he saw Erisi. Not Erisi the woman, but Erisi the child. Deirdre seemed to embody the memory of the caring fourteen-year-old princess Matthias first knew. How...?
Kurintsu sensed this as well. He harbored a secret that only he, Father Abbot, and Lady Charle knew. He doubted that Erisi knew. He leveled his gaze at Deirdre.
"Deirdre," he said, quiet but still loud. "There is something you must know."
Deirdre looked at him and stood. "What is it?"
"Father Abbot told me something that I should now tell you. You have every right to know." Kurintsu paused. "You're my sister."
This obviously shocked Deirdre, but only her eyes told that. "How...?"
"We're twins, separated at birth, so Father Abbot speculates. Being Winglies, we shared identical looks as infants. Only as we grew out of infancy, did we mature to be different. That is why we are both thinking along the same lines right now. Something is amiss."
"You sense it too, then. This strange power that has been bestowed upon us has me perplexed. Why us? From whom?" Deirdre asked; again, only her eyes could prove her confusion.
"Erisi."
Deirdre whirled about. The one word, the name, came from Matthias, who now stood amongst the broken timber of the table. Fierceness replaced the anger that was in his eyes and he made no sound as he pulled a four-and-a-half inch splinter out of the pinky-side of his left hand. He tossed the wood to the floor and stalked out of the room.
"I wonder where he's going," Lavitz commented casually, trying in a vain attempt to shatter the morbid mood that had descended upon them.
"He's going to find Lady Charle," Kurintsu explained. "Why he thinks it was Erisi is beyond me. But..." He turned to Lavitz, who stood next to Dart. "Lady Charle should be in Bale now. Her age does not slow her down one bit, you should know that Dart. She is rather fond of you, as she was with you father."
"But...why would she know anything about it?" Deirdre asked.
"Lady Charle came from the time of the Dragon Campaign. She knows much more about it then all of us put together." Kurintsu replied.
Zieg observed the room. "Then why don't we just go to Bale?"
Kurintsu looked to him. "It too is under martial law. No one is allowed in the city. But, then again," he glanced at Albert, who stood silently near a window, "with the King, that should be no problem."
"I have a bad feeling about this," Haschel piped up from behind Kurintsu.
"You and me both," Claira added. She ran her hand through her long black hair. "Who's controlling Bale?"
"Lady Charle and Queen Emille," Kurintsu answered. "The Humans are confined to their homes for the time being while the friendly Winglies roam the streets to protect the city."
"Friendly Winglies?" Shana asked.
"Friendly Winglies are the Winglies sympathetic to Humans," Claire answered. "To be more exact, they are Winglies who are loyal to Charle Frahma."
"Like Guaraha," Meru said.
"Yes, exactly," Claire nodded at Meru. "You would be considered a friendly Wingly, young Meru."
"Yeah, but I'm a Dragoon too," she said. "And Matthias, and Erisi are friendly Winglies..."
"Kurintsu, Deirdre..." Claira added.
"And all the Winglies who lived at the Abbey," Albert piped in. "Let's not forget those who are no longer among the living."
"Really," Meru said.
A door creaked open and Lily slid in. "Zieg, Matthias wants to know when we're leaving for Bale."
"Um..." Zieg hesitated. "I haven't really thought about it yet. We were just discussing it."
"Well, he said that if you don't plan on leaving in the next hour, he said he'd leave alone for the capital. It is my opinion that that could be disastrous." Lily admitted.
"I see what you mean," Zieg said.
"Go pack," Dart spoke up. "My team has only weapons and the clothes on their backs. All we'll need is provisions."
"Who said you're going?" Zieg asked.
"My team are the Dragoons. You never know what is on the road ahead. Now go pack." Dart answered.
"And who made you boss?" Zieg pressed with an air of defiance.
Dart leveled his gaze at his brother. "Years of seeking revenge on the parents I once thought dead. All the time I spent tracking what I once thought was a mere phantom. The many people I saw die. I have no idea how you've spent your life or what you've experienced in the past twenty-five years, but I have experienced a lot. I led seven brave people against a god. I am the leader. Any questions?"
Zieg opened his mouth to counter, but Claire shoved herself in between the twins. "Alright, no more fighting. Dart, you can be the leader. Zieg, don't provoke him any more, please."
Zieg glared at Dart and took a step back. He didn't like being shown up. Especially by someone who looked just like him.