--Written by: Naki
The sky had darkened by late afternoon. The temperature had cooled significantly. The stars and single red moon were covered by dark, menacing clouds. A cool breeze blew by, causing shivers out of many. The breeze was short lived and lightning struck a tree not far off the road and flames erupted. A tremendous boom of thunder followed the brief light, shaking the very air.
Slowly, small dark dots appeared on the dry road. The dots began to appear more and more faster, and soon the road had completely changed color. Serdio was getting rain.
The torrential downpour came so fast it caught the troupe off guard.
Dart was surprised. "Where'd this rain come from?"
"The sky," Meru called sarcastically.
The rain made it even more difficult to see, but Dart distinctly heard a baby's frightened cry.
"Shana?" Dart called. He couldn't see his wife. "Shana!"
Albert also heard the baby cry near him. He placed a hand on Shana's shoulder, and found her kneeling down trying to keep her baby dry. In a flash, Albert released the clips that held his cape on and in one smooth motion, he slipped it over her shoulders to protect Chandra. Wordlessly, Albert helped Shana up.
"Dart!" Albert called; his eyes searching, but not finding. "Where are you?"
Thunder and lightning had another go, causing Chandra to cry again. A shadow came close to them and they saw it was Dart. His blonde hair matted to his head from the rain. Lavitz joined them and they huddled together.
"Bale isn't far," Lavitz said loudly. "If we run, we'll be there in five minutes."
"Okay," Dart replied, analyzing the situation in his head. "Shana, Albert, you two come with me. Lavitz, you get everyone together and meet us at the gate. Got that?"
Lavitz nodded. He headed off to find the others.
"Come on," Dart motioned to Shana and Albert.
"Where are they?" Dart called to Albert irritably. He held Shana to him, trying his best to shield her from the rain. Albert shrugged; he called back that he didn't see them.
Out of the rain came a large shadow; no doubt it was Matthias. Lavitz and the others followed him.
Matthias motioned to Dart to get out of the way. He looked up the dark wood of the closed gate and ran his hand up the seam where the two vast doors met. He balled his hand into a fist and slammed it into the seam. The doors flew open and banged hard into the walls opposite of them. The collisions caused vibrations so hard that the Wingly guards fell from their posts. They jumped up brandishing their weapons.
"Identify yourselves!" One Wingly guard said over the rain. "Friend or foe?"
Matthias just stared at them. Albert came up from behind him.
"We are friends. I am Albert, King of Serdio. We have returned for the time being to recuperate."
The Wingly guards exchanged questioning looks. They had never before seen the king of Serdio. How were they sure that he really was the king?
A Human soldier from the ranks of the Serdian Army had just finished his rounds feeding the Wingly soldiers. He recognized Albert despite the rain.
"King Albert!" The soldier exclaimed. The Wingly guards exchanged looks again; guess that settles it.
Two Wingly soldiers and the one Serdian soldier escorted the team to the castle. As they stepped into the foyer, pools of water formed at their feet from their drenched clothes.
"Woo!" Claira said, wringing out her hair. "Good thing I'm not wearing a white shirt!"
Meru giggled. Haschel shoved Claira lightly.
"Leave it to you to think of something like that."
Dart turned to the elder man. "What are you saying? You'd like it!"
Chuckles came through the foyer. Albert left the group, his wet boots squeaked on the tile flooring. He returned with his wife and Charle Frahma.
"Oh my," Charle said. "You...are soaked."
"I'll get you assistance," Emille turned and left the foyer. Maids returned with her to assist the group. Dart approached Charle.
"Oh! You haven't changed a bit," Charle gushed. "You still look like Zieggy."
Zieg laughed. "Zieggy?"
Charle looked over at him and her face showed her surprise. "What...?" She paused as Zieg walked up beside Dart, his hair mashed agaist his forehead just like Dart's. "You look just like Dart!"
"I'm his elder twin," Zieg replied. "Named after my father."
"Zieg."
"Yep." Zieg turned to Claire, who was helping Claira dry her hair. "Hey mom. I've been wondering. How much older am I than Dart?"
Claire stopped what she was doing and thought for a moment. "Three minutes."
"Whoa. Three minutes." Lavitz mocked.
"Hey, it's something." Zieg shrugged.
Crying rang out from across the foyer, where Shana sat on the stone steps leading upstairs. The crying came haltingly and Shana looked worried. Deirdre sat with her, also looking worried.
"Shana, I think something's wrong," Deirdre said.
"I know!" Shana fretted.
"Do you think she's sick?"
"I hope not!" Shana said. "But she won't stop crying!"
Dart felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find Kurintsu standing there.
"Dart, go tend to your baby." Kurintsu said flatly.
"What?" Dart turned to see Shana and Deirdre and the crying baby. "Chandra!"
"She's sick, there's no question about that."
"Sick with what?"
"The common cold. She was caught out in that rain for too long," the doctor said. "After a few days, she should be getting better." He started to pack his doctor's paraphernalia back into his black physician's bag.
Dart rose from his seat, walked around the crib and rubbed Shana's shoulders. "Come on, get some sleep."
"I'm not going to sleep until she's better," Shana said, rubbing her red eyes. "I won't be able to go to sleep until she's better."
"You're going to make yourself sick if you don't sleep," Dart persisted. "I don't want to take care of two."
Shana stayed put and quiet. Dart slipped his hands under her arms and pulled her up and led her over to the bed that had been prepared for them. He gently laid her down onto the dark red sheets and pulled the covers up over her. She was out like a light in just seconds.
Dart took one last look at the sleeping baby before joining Shana in bed.
Shana's eyes snapped open from her deep sleep at the sound of a baby's cry. It was a strained cry; but Shana had no idea that she slept through the first ten minutes of little Chandra's crying. She rolled over onto her side, but found the opposite side empty. Sitting up, she saw Dart sitting on the chair next to the crib. He eased a glass baby bottle filled with water to Chandra and she eagerly accepted it.
Shana just sat there and watched it all. Hadn't the doctor mentioned something about her having a fever? At least Dart knew what to do about fevers.
Chandra finished the bottle; Shana noted the fact that the diaper was going to have to be changed sometime before sunrise. Dart set the bottle down on a table nearby and gently rocked the baby in his arms. It first came out a bit gruff, but as Dart recalled the soft lyrics, he sang the lullaby his mothing used to sing to him as a child and as an infant. Shana mouthed the words as the song progressed. She silently berated herself. Why hadn't she sung this to her baby yet? It never occurred to her. Leave it to Dart to remember it.
Dart went through the lullaby several times before he was satisfied that Chandra was asleep. He gently laid his daughter back into her crib.
Claire stood silently outside the bedroom door that was cracked open just slightly. She listened as Dart tended to his baby and then sany her the lullaby. Claire smiled softly; she had taught him that lullaby. She whispered the words quietly to herself.
"That's how I knew."
Claire turned, hiding her surprise. Haschel stood before her.
"What?" She asked.
"That's how I knew." Haschel repeated. "I spent twenty years of my life searching for my daughter who ran off. It was all my fault. I was too hard on her and I drove her away. She was all I had, ever since her mother passed away. And I drove her away."
Claire remained silent. A picture of recollection passed over her face.
"I thought she was gone." Haschel continued. "I thought everything she had been and could have passed on was gone. Until one day, I met a young man named Dart. We knew each other for a while, but we were separated. We met up again a couple of years later, during a tournament in Lohan. As time passed, we shared knowledge with each other and I found out his mother shared the same name with my runaway daughter. I always felt like there was some sort of connection between the two ofus, no matter how vague or bizarre the connection might be. I stayed with the growing group as the Violet Dragoon. I finally figured out the connection when..." he paused, taking a breath. "We were in Fueno, a port town on the coast, the Mille Seseau-Tiberoa border, of Mille Seseau. After saving the twon from a strange incident involving some kid and his suddenly mutated pet tiger cub, the mayor invited us to stay at his house to repay us for saving the town.
"The mayor was a widower, and had a small daughter. His daughter warmed up to Shana and followed her around like her shadow. Later, as Shana was putting her to bed, she sang a lullaby to lull her to sleep. I recognized the lullaby; my daughter had written it while she was young. I asked Shana about it, and she told me that Dart had taught it to her when she was little. Now I saw the connection. Now that I see it today..." he paused again, this itme looking her straight in the eye. "You haven't changed a bit, Claire."
Claire's face remained straight. "I still haven't forgotten those harsh words and I still haven't forgiven you. That's why I haven't said anything."
"I realized my fault not long after the incident with Lottie. I have forgiven you, I know your heart has never been fully into the Martial Arts. After two years, I realized that you weren't coming back so I set out to find you. Twenty-five years later, here I come to find you, as part of hte very group I am in. And I come to find," he motioned to the bedroom door, "that I am a great-grandfather."
Claire smiled. "I always thought I'd be an old woman when I had grandchildren, simply because Zieg just won't propose to Lily and I thought Dart to be dead. That Chandra's going to be spoilt rotten because she's an only child and will remain the only child."
Haschel looked puzzled. "Why?"
"You haven't heard?"
"No. What is it?"
"There were problems during the delivery. Dart speculated that it was because Shana's what they called the 'Moon Child' and he's afraid that Chandra will be special like her mother in ways dealing with The Moon That Never Sets. Dart didn't elaborate about the problems during the delivery, but I assumed, by the tone of his voice, that he almost lost Shana and the baby. I think he was almost relieved when the doctor said she couldn't have anymore children. He won't have to go through almost losing Shana again through labor."
Haschel nodded. "I understand. That's what happened with your mother."
"What?" Claire asked. She had never been told of what had become of her mother. Well, not exactly. She knew that she had died while Claire had been a baby.
"Your mother had what I thought was a decent pregnancy. There had been a few minor problems, but the doctor said not to get worked up over it. Then came the time for you to come. She...died during the labor. The doctor swore for years that it was a miracle for you to have survived. You were all that I had."
Claire remained silent contemplating this new information.
"I had planned to tell you, but I didn't know how to word it. You ran off before I could figure it out."
"What time is it?" Claire asked suddenly.
"Um...sometime around two," Haschel answered.
Claire stared off out a window built into the side of the stone corridor. "It's time for me to sleep." She started to walk away. "Good night."
Haschel turned to her. "Aren't you going to call me it?"
Claire stopped, but did not turn around. "Call you what?" She needn't have asked that question; she already knew what he was implying.
"Dad," Haschel answered with a small hint of hope in his voice.
Claire stood there for a moment before replying. "I still haven't forgiven you for those cruel words all those years ago. I will decide when I will call you that." Without another word, she walked off, disappeared down the dark corridor.
The baby was crying again. Shana woke up this time in a grumpy state of mind. She sat up in the bed, brushing her hair from her face. The room was dark, and Chandra was screaming in the crib. Shana felt for Dart, but he wasn't in the bed. She muttered to herself under her breath, and started to get up.
The door opened suddenly, and a person rushed into the room. A glass bottle clunked against the wood table by the crib.
"Shh...it's okay, Chani, daddy's here."
Shana smiled to herself in the dark. She reached over to the nightstand besides her and turned on the oil lamp, suddenly illuminating the room. "Chani?"
Dart turned and looked at her. There were dark circles under his eyes. He said nothing and sat down in the chair next to the crib as Chandra sucked eagerly at another water-filled bottle. Her tiny face was red and her eyes were closed.
Shana got up. "You need your sleep Dart. I'll take care of it."
"No, it's okay," Dart looked up at her with tired blue eyes. Chandra squirmed as she pulled away from the bottle and let out another cry. "Now what's wrong?"
"She probably has a wet diaper," Shana said. She took the baby from Dart. "I'll change her."
She laid the baby on the bed and proceeded in taking off the wet cloth diaper that was wrapped around her child. Chandra stopped crying as the feeling of wetness left with the diaper. Shana smiled down at her.
"Goodness, with all that water you drank, no wonder you had to go!"
She handed the dirty diaper to Dart, who gave her a clean one in return. After securing the diaper in place with pins, Shana leaned down and kissed Chandra on the forehead. Chandra cooed as her mother picked her up.
Shana carefully laid her baby into the crib and stood looking over her. She laid her hand on the crib's side. Dart came up behind her.
"She's an angel," Dart whispered.
"Yeah," Shana replied. "It's been rough since she was born, though. It's been hard to get a decent amount of sleep."
"I know the feeling," Dart confessed. His arms encircled her waist from behind and he rested his cheek on top of her head. "I love you."
Shana smiled to herself. "I love you too."
Dart turned her around and kissed her gently. Shana broke off the kiss and looked up into Dart's eyes. "I think it's time to go back to bed. Before dawn."
Dart smirked. "Good point."
Meru came walking into the dining room stretching. She had slept late; everyone was already eating. Shana sat at the far end of the table, next to Dart. She was nursing Chandra, with a small blanket draped over one shoulder, partially covering the baby.
Meru spied an empty seat next to Claira and grabbed it.
"Sleeping late?" Claira asked.
"Yeah," Meru muttered.
Meru remained silent throughout breakfast. Claire, who was sitting across from Claira, was also quiet with a thoughtful look on her face.
After breakfast, Matthias cornered Charle and they met Albert and Dart in Albert's study.
Miranda watched them go. "I wonder what they'll talk about?"
Shana shrugged. "I don't know."
The four didn't stay in the study for very long. A few minutes at most. Charle emerged with a grave face, but the curious looks of Albert and Dart suggested that nothing had been revealed yet. Albert motioned towards the others.
"Let's go outside. It's far more spacious than in here," Albert said, his voice sounding anxious.
The entire group emptied outside into the small garden behind the castle. They all grouped together: Emille, Albert, Dart, Shana, Chandra, Lavitz, Deirdre, Miranda, Kurintsu, Kongol, Claira, Claire, Haschel, Zieg, Lily and Meru sat in a good sized grass law in the middle of the garden.
"What's this about?" Meru asked. Chale stood in front of them, her skirt swaying in the slight breeze. Matthias stood not far off to her left.
"I have a few things to tell you about," Charle started. "Most of the things I am about to tell you pertain to Dragon Mythology and have not been spoken of in eleven millennia..."