*blink* *blink blink* Uhhhh.....

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

*runs away from Lady_Artist*

WARNING: Blood. And tragedy. Sort of. Well, good thing I changed the rating! ^_^

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He was in an alley. The buildings on either side towered above them, darkening the corners of the small street with ominous shadows. There was barely enough light to see the path in front of him, and yet he continued to walk straight on, unhindered. He found he had no control over his own actions, or even his thoughts for the most part. It was like a silent show, completely devoid of any sound or feelings...simply darkness, and a destination.

There was a street at the end of the alley. It was brightly-lit, colourful, packed with cheerful, nameless faces, and flowers that were set upon the windowsills. And yet it was far away – black figures passed back and forth across the almost blinding light that marked the end of the narrow back street. No one looked in, no one saw him.

Suddenly, the world around him exploded into life. His darkened surroundings began echoing with the sound of a million voices, melding together into a dull roar that could easily outmatch the turmoil of an ocean. Above it all, he became vaguely aware of a single voice. It was speaking to him – directly to him. The speaker walked beside him. Her stride was what he could only describe as 'bouncy'. When he gathered the iron will to look down, he saw her smiling and chattering non-stop about things he really couldn't understand.

It was Cora.

For some reason, she glowed. She wasn't illuminated by light, but she stood out against the pitch blackness of the alleyway, untouched by the shadows. She didn't seem to notice his silence, nor the bitter coldness of the air. She raved on and on about...something. He tried to listen, and he could hear her speaking but he couldn't hear what she was saying.

The end loomed just in front of them. From shadows into sunlight, they emerged from the alley together and into the sea of voices and warmth. And for the longest eternity, no one looked at them. No one turned a glance towards him. Cora went on talking, apparently excited over something he'd not been able to hear her describe. In a fluid movement, she dashed ahead of him and began to laugh as she charged right into the depths of the crowded street.

His stupor broke. Suddenly, the street, the people, the smells and sounds, the warmth of the sun, the dust and feeling of people brushing past him were all real. He could think, and he could remember Cora's giggling voice as it was drowned out by the onslaught of noble and peasants that compacted together like a horde of killer bees. He could move and react. He could breathe.

The crowd pushed and howled from all sides. They melted by him, ignoring him, trying to move on with their business and muttering curses under their breath as they were forced to avoid him. Even though he towered above them, he could not see below their heads and their coats, bag, purses. It all blocked his view.

Where did she go?

"Cora!" he bellowed above the roaring noise. His voice had little effect against the angry multitude. He tried again. "Cora!"

"What?" came the unexpected reply. Her hand, so cold now, was placed on his arm. Cora stood at his side again, giggling like a maniac. "Ooooh, was the big, bad Amarant afraid I'd get lost?"

No. Wait...yes. Damn it, no! Now he was becoming confused again. Her questions stung as badly as a thousand nails driven into his skull. Of course he didn't care – she'd dragged him into the mess and suddenly he was supposed to look out for her? No way, he'd done that with Lani. He did not have anything to do with her, and the sooner she disappeared, the sooner she could...do whatever little girls did. Go to school, become a librarian, meet some guy in a decade or two, get married, buy a house.

In one abrupt moment, the crowd disappeared. It was no longer noon, but dusk, and the light was failing his eyes. The smells were gone, the atmosphere turned bad. The wind whipped by, tossing the shop signs and sending clouds of debris skipping down the street. A chilling rattle struck up – the only sound – as a loose roof shingle complained against the zephyr's efforts to tear it off.

"Over there! Look!" came a terrified voice of a young man. A lone figure stood at the end of a street, bearing no further than ten yards at distance. Behind him appeared a small party of rugged men -- by the looks of them, bounty hunters. From their midst rose a murmur of greedy intentions.

Cora was still at Amarant's arm, now clutching his hand so tightly that his knuckles began to strain under the pressure. She was trembling. Afraid. It was an odd thing to see, let alone having the girl he was convinced to possess a bravery like no other cling to him like a piece of algae. She didn't look up at him, nor speak.

The crowd of bounty hunters shifted forward nervously. "It's the murderer!" one cried. They responded with a chorus of shouts and yells. "Get the murderer! Kill the murderer!"

"No!" Cora suddenly screamed. She tore herself away from Amarant and began to run towards the group of men in blind terror. "Leave him alone! Don't hurt him! He never did it! I did it! Kill me!"

"N..." The word caught in his throat. The horde of aggressors had begun to move their way. "No..." Amarant attempted to move as well, but he found that he could not. Chains had bound him to the ground – an invisible poison paralysed every possible attempt to follow her.

Cora threw herself at the first man, her glaive unsheathed. The weapon spun easily in her hands, one of the two blades catching the assailant across his head. He collapsed, blood pooling on the ground beneath his fatal wound. The eleven-year-old hesitated. Amarant saw her gaze attached to the horrible mess she had created. She was overwhelmed with fear.

Another man lunged at her, nearly striking her down. She dodged in time for his axe to swing past her head, and she struck him across his middle while he was recovering from the swing. More blood spilling, he too crashed to the ground in a heap.

She was fighting well, but to Amarant it was a blur. There were too many – sooner or later, she would...

Clang. Crash. One more bounty hunter fell, incidentally throwing his sickle to one side as he died. The blades of the weapon cut through the flesh of another man, wounding him, but not mortally. There were six remaining men, and they gathered themselves together like a group of attacking wolves. To the girl, they were a boulder while her glaive was a mere toothpick. She stared at them. They bowled down on her.

Cora dropped her weapon. Everything slowed down. Her weapon had not even struck the ground when a double-edge blade loomed above her head. The events snapped, the painfully torpid seconds reverted back to normal space and time.

The blade came down. More blood spilled.

-|-|-|-|-|-

When he woke, his first realization was simple: he had no idea where he was. Instinctively, the bounty hunter raised his torso from the cool metal surface he lay upon.

And bashed his head against a bar.

Amarant swore, ignorant of the company that might hear him. He brought a hand to the newly-formed bump on his crown. The room he experienced when he snapped his eyes open was a blur to begin with, but gradually the white-and-silver interior came into focus. Vaguely, he was aware of someone giggling in the background. It was only so difficult to guess.

"I can't believe you felt that through that incredibly thick hairdo of yours," Cora commented. She was sitting beside him, a book in her lap and noticeable fatigue in her voice..

The bounty hunter lifted an arm to the back of his neck and stretched, depleting the kinks that had developed over a long period of time. The kraken incident was still fresh in his mind, and a dull ache in his mended leg told him all he needed to know about the events that had occurred between now and then.

"Hungry?" the eleven-year-old wanted to know. She glanced at a tray packed with food that had been set on a stand near the 'bed'. "Amses'll warm it up for you if it's too cold."

"Not in the slightest," he informed her, dryly. Any moment, the room would stop spinning. Any moment now...

Traces of his dream still lingered in his mind, and apparently he failed to hide it from his expression. Cora tilted her head to one side, her legs swinging absently-mindedly below the chair. "Um...are you okay?"

Lovely. Fantastic One hundred percent. Never felt better. Fine. Sort of. A little tired. Feeling kind of crappy...Amarant sighed, eyeing his surroundings with obvious disdain. "I feel like shit."

"Well, you smell like it too," the girl informed him with a straight face. Ignoring his sharp glare, she went on. "I mean it. You've been out for like..I dunno, four days, and you smell."

"My most sincere apologies," he remarked sarcastically. Cautiously, the bounty hunter placed his operable foot on the floor and stood up. He tested the vitality of his injured leg, placing just a small amount of weight on it. It held, to his surprise, with next to no painful objection. Cora leapt out of her chair at the same time.

"That's a stupid thing to do," she warned him. "If you try to move around, your wound will probably open up again...or something like that."

"Where are we?" he demanded gruffly, disregarding her polite 'presage'.

"In an airship," she replied curtly, placing her hands on her hips.

"Cute." Amarant grimaced. "Where the hell are we?"

"In the air!"

"Brat..." He decided to rest some of his unbalanced weight against the cool metal wall. "Just tell me where we're heading."

Cora looked at him sourly, but said nothing. Inhaling deeply, she clenched her fists at her sides, narrowed her eyes, and stormed across the room and through the door to the cockpit. She yelled something, which was obscured. Amarant pushed himself away from the wall and followed her, kicking himself mentally.

The airship was small, her discovered. It was very well-equipped, which was obvious even thought he knew next to nothing about airships. He doubted it actually belonged to either Cora or her guardian, although he was clueless as to how powerful or rich the eleven-year-old's family was. Everything was clean, from the panels at the technologically-advanced console, to the seats, to the floor. It reminded him of the prisons of the Desert Palace.

Cora was silent where she sat, in front of the panels. She pretended to ignore him, drilling her attention on the blank main screen. Stubbornly, she placed a foot on the 'dashboard' and moved her mobile chair left and right. The sounds were few, ranging from a quiet 'blip-bo-blip' from a flickering green light on the panels, to the squeak of her chair as it spun lazily about in circles.

Amarant found it unnecessary to limp as he made his way to the front of the ship. He side-glanced at her with contempt, and them focussed his eyes on an item resting on the panel board. A picture of an elderly couple smiled back at him, wearing ridiculously bright white coats and goggles that mussed their hair to an unbelievable extent. The bounty hunter grunted. "Distant relations of yours?"

Cora bothered herself to look at the object of his attention, and she snorted. "No," she shot at him. "I don't have a clue who they are, and – you guessed it! I don't give a damn."

"For a kid, you swear too much," he commented idly. "Not to mention your record for stealing--"

Her deathly glare actually cut him off. It was a dangerous look, probably not one to be messed with. Amarant mentally rolled his eyes. "...borrowing other's possessions."

"If you seriously think that I think you care?" Cora pressured him, crossing her arms. "Think again."

".............." He lacked a response. Instead, he turned his head to glance towards a door that attached to the eastern wall, and back. "Where's the old man?"

"Sleeping," she replied, completely monotone. "He had to cast Curaga at least six times to keep you alive. I had to drag him to bed before he passed out. You should be thankful."

"I should be dead," said the irritated other.

"But you're not," she pointed out forcefully. She stopped spinning her chair and faced him. "And I'm beginning to wonder if rescuing you was even worth the effort!"

There came a startled snort from the adjoining room. After a moment of weary shuffling noises and the muffled strike of a match against a rough surface, Amses came lumbering out with sleep still tagging him. His lit pipe extruded loosely from his lips, the smoke from its burning end curling skywards and vanishing in all visible gloom... He bore a friendly grin, despite his obvious fatigue.

"Bravo," coughed the 'old man', lifting a hand to take the unhealthy instrument from between his teeth. "Ye know, no everyone's battled a live kraken and lived te tell about it."

"Battled, no." The bounty hunter challenged, smirking. "Ran from. And I don't like stories."

"Hrrmm," Amses growled thoughtfully. He coughed again – attempting to clear his voice. "Bah, right. Where would we be without them? Ye like a few, don't ye?"

Amarant chose not to answer the question, feeling that encouragement was the last thing the slightly eccentric guardian needed at the moment. It felt, in fact, like a kidnapping – only it was his turn around to be hauled from his steady track and thrown to the ground. He felt...desperate, almost. If indeed Lani was in some sort of mortal danger, hence the moogle's broken warning, and should he fail to aid her...

What? If he failed, should he care? Trust, he decided. That must be it – she confided in him as he felt mutual accord. There would be no forgiving himself if she died. It had been his idea to let her alone, knowing full well of her incompetence and lack of ability to look out for herself.

"I know a few," Amses concluded. Grunting, he leaned over and placed a hand firmly on the arm of the seat adjacent to Cora's own. With a resounding 'snap' from one of his joints or another, he flopped onto the comfortable padding of the chair. "But I dun' like them. Oh, my bones ache..."

Amarant saw, but didn't heed Cora's explicit 'I-told-you-so' glare. Crossing her arms again, she threw herself back against her seat and spun it about to face the cockpit controls. Her mouth was drawn into a thin line, the red tinge of her ears somewhat dulled but evident enough to keep her present temper known. Without a word to either adult, she punched an ugly green switch on the panel closest to her.

Light flooded the dim room, spilling from the front wall as it was retracted to reveal the view outside. The screen was lifted with it, leaving no sounds or movement but the gently whirring motors. Amarant shielded his face with a large hand, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness. But they adjusted, eventually...

Below them was not a sea, or a plateau. The ground was not rocky or barren, or bare as the steppes and canyons of the Forgotten Continent were. They were green, and the air swarmed with ships easily their own size and bigger. Rooftops littered the world below, and towering walls. Looming straight ahead was the unmistakable Lindblum castle, decorated with seagulls that perched and flew. It was morning – the sky was yellow, the sun was just above the eastern horizon, and the ships that flew landed at the lively cargo docks.

He'd been to Lindblum only once...with Zidane, and the others. After the 'queen' had lost her voice, and they had trekked out to the Black Mage village again. It was big – even bigger than Alexandria, and he hated it. It was safe, but it wasn't foolproof. And he figured the next time he saw Baku, the highly-allergic, annoying rabbit man would end up with a Rising Sun blade lodged in his throat.

"Now we realise somethin'," said Amses through pursed lips. "And that's that Linblum ain't yer home away from home. We perceive these things, Mr. Coral."

"How quaint," the bounty hunter pointed out. "Nice as your intentions are, I need to stay away from this place for as long as I can."

Cora forgot her bitterness…almost. "Why?"

Amarant backed up a pace or two, turning away from the otherwise 'breathtaking' scene. "I have somewhere else to be."

"Where?" she demanded, hopping on her feet. "We'll take you there, okay? But…why can't you just hang around a bit? I mean, you still owe me that match!"

A brutal image flashed inside of his mind. Cora, blood, the flash of blades and the wicked grins of the men that would do her harm. He tried to conceal the effect the visions had on him, but he openly jerked his head to one side at the mere thought of her premature fighting abilities. An ability that would most likely get her killed one day, when she deserved a secure future. Damn it, he decided. Why did he care?

"I think," said Amses, rising out of his chair. "That a good inn, a meal…eh, and perhaps a long bathe are in order. What say ye to that?"

A queasy silence drifted between the three of them. "Whatever," stated the irked bounty hunter. He left the room in a wake of both weary indifference and a younger, flared temper.

"Ohhhhh!! He has the nerve--" Cora exclaimed, kicking the wall nearest to her. "That's it! I'm giving up! So if you see him, don't bother telling him where I'm going! 'Cause I'm going to see my best friend! And when I'm done that, I'm going to go see Uncle Baku and Marcus! And I'll be soooo glad if I never, ever, ever, ever, ever see him again!"

She balled her fists and stormed out of the cockpit like a constrained, raging bull. Just before she turned around the corner, she faced Amses again through the open doorway. He face was twisted in her evident fury. "Ever!"

When she was gone, the lack of sound knocked at the guardian's skull like an inquiring salesman. He could feel the ship tremble below his feet as the auto-pilot system directed them into a docking bay. Poor old Amses felt his simpler set of plans slip right through his fingers and disappear. Now, it seemed, there was much more to deal with than he'd feared would face them.

My, he thought sombrely as he set a pace towards the deck of the airship. One day! She'll learn how to chew more than she's bitten off.

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*sniffles* I miss you all so much! Group hug! *charges her reviewers and gathers them all into a BIG hug* Yahhhh…so tired. *yawns* Okay, I try to update a lot more! Must…think…ideas! ^____^