On Sapphire Wings
Chapter Five
And it feels now,
Just like heavens coming down…
There was so much blood.
The power of the Dragon had not only turned the city of Deningrad unto a huge ruin, but very few people appeared alive anymore.
It sent a chill down Lloyd's spine as he ran through the streets. This was so wrong, she couldn't be dead…
"Wink!" He called, nearly tripping over something he hoped for his stomachs sake was not formerly attached to a human, though it looked like it had been.
There were eyes on him from seemingly everywhere. Some were people that had been torn apart and horribly injured and were moaning for help, and some were dead, but continued to stare wide-eyed at him anyway. He gagged a little and continued running up the long street.
She was at the palace. Maybe she would be safe – maybe the fortress would have averted the magic.
Please god.
Reaching the crystal double doors of the palace, Lloyd pushed passed the corpse of a guard whose skin had melted off, and flung the doors open with renewed panic.
God no. God god god, come on, this isn't happening…Taking the stairs two at a time, Lloyd halted only fast enough to avoid trodding on a body lying face down beside a statue. His heart sank.
The blond hair of the body was matted with blood, and there was a sickening piercing through its stomach where it had fallen over – onto the sword of the statue it lay under.
Overwhelmed by it, Lloyd hardly even noticed the Human curse word fall indignantly from his lips.
"Lloyd."
The voice drifted down to his ears so softly that he wouldn't have been surprised if he imagined it. He looked up to see Luanna watching him worriedly. Tears hung in her blind eyes.
"Theresa is dead." She said. "So is Seti."
Lloyd looked back down at the stabbed body, and Luanna added. "That's Theresa, not Wink. But you have to follow me!"
Sensing the urgency in the violet-haired womans voice, Lloyd followed her as she led him to a collapsed corridor. The walls had fallen inwards in a shower of razor sharp crystals, and there was blood on the ground were people had been killed by falling pieces of stone. Luanna made a noise as if holding in a sob and said,
"Wink is in there. She's not dead but she will be soon."
The black-garbed Wingly turned and gave her a grateful look, then began to tear his way into the crystals.
The jagged shards of the wall cut into his hands, but he bit his lip against it and furiously tried to break his way into the blockage. It was not yet done falling into place, so most of the stuff at the top was easily pulled away. It was a slow and painful process.
After a moment of pushing away loose crystal, Lloyd found that a very minute amount of his luck had held. There was a small tunnel under the crystal that had not quite capsized yet. Without thinking a moment over it, he pulled his way into the macabrous tunnel of needle-like crystal and crawled on his hands and knees through it. Warm blood was now trickling from his leg where he figured a vein had been pierced, but a sort of animalistic strength forced him to ignore the agony of it. However, he knew he had to hurry. He couldn't keep this up long.
He nearly vomited as he stepped down on the arm of a maid who'd been impaled by a huge green crystal. Her mouth was open in a silent scream that had lasted long after she had.
A shudder worked its way through him.
"Wink." He cried out hoarsely. He halted his march onwards into the corrupted corridor to listen. Silence…
And then:
"I'm here!"
Everything in his mind lifted as the silky nymph-voice replied to his call. He pushed an overhanging translucent rock away and pushed on with the desperate might that he had felt so many times lately.
And finally he reached the end of the crystal barricade. He lifted himself out and stood shakily, and before he could react, the Sacred Sister held him as tight to her as she could, sobbing in relief and sorrow. She began to speak in a rush of words that mixed with her crying and made no sense to him.
He thin lips turned up just the slightest bit into the ghost of a smile, and he returned the embrace, murmuring softly in her ear. "It's okay…everything's alright…"
"Seti's gone!" Wink tried to say, but ended up whispering. "She's dead!"
"I'm sorry." He said, stroking her hair.
He waited awhile for her to regain herself, and she finally let go of the hug and took a step back, wiping her eyes with her hand.
"Everyone's dying. It's just like when the Dragon attacked us." Wink muttered. "Is anyone still alive?"
"Luanna is. And I think Miranda." Lloyd told her. He grimaced as realization sunk into Wink's mind.
"Theresa's been killed too?"
Lloyd nodded, hating the sadness on her face.
Wink looked about ready to go into another crying fit when Lloyd firmly said, "We have to leave now. If we don't hurry we'll be stuck here."
Wink nodded, her face twitching as she held in tears, and followed him as he walked over to the crystals. It didn't look promising.
And, as if waiting for his attention, the whole think collapsed, dust rising in the air lazily. A tendril of blood splashed out from the crystal, splattering on some debris near Wink's foot. She began to shake uneasily.
"We're stuck."
Lloyd nodded. They were in a room, possibly some kind of infirmary, and the only window in the place was blocked off by crystal. He doubted he could kick through the ceiling, and an attempt at making a hole in the floor would most likely end in the entire thing falling. They were trapped in a jewel tomb.
News of the disaster in Deningrad reached Serdio almost immediately, as a merchant just leaving the city had witnessed the horrific event and fled to Furni, where they had sent the message via pigeon to both Zior and King Albert.
By the time night fell, Dart and Shana both knew.
They were sitting around in their home, waiting hopefully for updates on the status of their friends in Deningrad. But the sorrow in both their hearts seemed to hang in the very air they breathed.
There was something else that bothered Dart too. The city had been attacked, though by what, Albert hadn't been able to say.
Strangely, the dragoon spirit of the Divine Dragon was radiating softly from its spot above Dart and Shana's fireplace. It was not a bright light, but more a soft, happy glow, and something about that was disgustingly eerie. It was almost like the Spirit within the stone was happy that Deningrad had been attacked.
And it was warm, like it always was after it had been activated.
Dart didn't say anything to Shana about it, he didn't want to ruin her hope that Miranda and the Sacred Sisters may have survived. But if the Dragoon spirit was involved in this somehow, he doubted that anyone was safe.
Luanna stayed by the crystals for hours after the final collapse. She'd sat there, staring into space and thinking depressed thoughts for at least two hours, unable to believe that both Wink and Lloyd could have been killed until, without knowing it, she'd fallen into an exhausted sleep. After she awoke, it had taken her a while to remember what had happened, and then she tearfully recalled that her and Miranda were now the only Sacred Sisters left.
After the crying stopped, she stood shakily from her seat upon the pedestal of a statue and began down the stairs to find out where Miranda had gotten too. Just as she reached the bottom step, her fellow Sacred Sister called out to her.
"Luanna, are you okay?"
Luanna nodded gravely. "Wink and Lloyd were trapped by the crystals."
There was a pause, "Lloyd? He's dead!"
"I'll explain it later."
Miranda paused again, then said. "That must be the Wingly then."
It took Luanna a long time to realize that she had not been spoken to then, and after a moment of probing Miranda's mind, learned that there was another being with her, a Wingly.
"I found this guy wondering around the city." Luanna's blond friend explained, then said. "He told me that he could sense a Wingly at the top of the Palace, so I figured that maybe whoever it was could help Wink."
The Wingly grunted in agreement and said, "He's not hiding his magic, I can sense him up ahead. We have to hurry though, it's possible one or both of them is injured."
Miranda took Luanna's arm and led to her back up the stairs, following the vicious-faced Wingly. She knew that her blind friend was probing her mind to find out what exactly had happened, but she ignored it as she had learned long ago to do.
When the strange Wingly whom Miranda'd mentally nicknamed 'Vicious' reached the crystal barrier, he paused, speaking to himself in a foreign language. The blockage had fallen once more since the many hours ago when Miranda had came there with Luanna and learned that Wink was trapped there.
Without warning, Vicious's hands began to glow, and he placed them on the crystal, which drooped down as if it had melted. As she watched in amazement, a huge hole developed through the aggravatingly long tunnel of gem. Vicious looked back at them once, then stepped into the tunnel within the barricade and stalked forward towards where Miranda hoped Wink was waiting. The blond woman followed, pulling Luanna along.
It took only moments to get through the tunnel, and Miranda was shocked by what she saw, even though she'd braced herself for it.
Lloyd, who she'd watched get impaled by the magic of Melbu Frahma, was looking up at them with his ruby eyes. Wink was sitting in front of him with her eyes closed, and his arms were wrapped affectionately around her neck.
Too many things pieced together at once in Miranda's mind, and she decided to deal with it as she dealt with most things.
"What the hell are you doing, Lloyd?"
Wink's cerulean eyes opened slowly, and relief flooded through Miranda. She was alive!
"Guys! You're here!" Wink exclaimed. She stood up hastily and hugged Miranda and Luanna happily.
Miranda watched Lloyd untrustingly as Vicious walked over to him and said, "Rowan. I thought it was you."
Of course, this made no sense to Miranda, which aggravated her further, but she held her tongue as the garnet-eyed Wingly looked at Vicious and asked, "What are you doing here?"
Vicious said something in the foreign language Miranda guessed was the Wingly Language, and kicked a piece of bloody debris into the wall, searching for words. Lloyd nodded, and said something back, and Vicious shook his head, obviously upset over something.
"Okay, do you guys like know each other or something?" Miranda demanded angrily.
Vicious looked at her with a sigh and said in his shaky accent, "I helped to cause the attack."
Miranda blinked, searched her vocabulary of swear words for a decent one, gave up, and blinked again. Then she said, "O-kaaay…"
"Why did you help us then?" Wink asked.
Lloyd shook his head and said, "We should explain this all later. We have to get out of here now."
Wink felt weak with weariness, but her, Lloyd, Miranda, Luanna and the Wingly – whose name she'd learned was Kianako, all scoured over the city, searching for life.
Wink had never had to do anything so horrible in her life. The blood and gore around her was enough to more than once send her into vomiting, and those not dead were begging for it. It was like a vision of hell.
She stayed close by Lloyd's side, feeling – if possible – the slightest bit better in his presence.
After countless hours in the freezing cold of the night, they only managed to find two uninjured citizens, two siblings, and only seven people still alive enough to be helped. The few other survivors all died midway through any sort of medical care.
Eventually they forlornly decided that there was no other life, and the fourteen of them all stood at the city centre as Luanna and Miranda debated what they do. Lloyd was staring up at the sky, thinking about something, though what Wink couldn't tell, and Kianako was anxiously trying to comfort and support the townsfolk with a near mad look in his eye. Apparently, he'd been lured by someone named Kyris into thinking that by using some sort of magical stone on the city, it would somehow lead him to a better life. He'd probably wanted revenge at the time, and when he'd gotten it, he'd realized how sour the aftertaste was. Wink felt both angry and piteous to the Wingly, but was unsure of which she actually felt more of.
"Zior will take us in." Luanna was saying.
"But we need to tell Albert about this. If this Kyris guy'll attack Deningrad, what's keeping him from doing the same thing to somewhere else?" Miranda's aggravated voice seemed booming in comparison to Luanna's soft voice that reminded Wink of the wind running through the trees in winter.
"These people have gone through too much, Miranda. Why should we push them any harder than we have to?"
"Then, try and get some refuge from Zior, but I'm going to Serdio."
"But it's dangerous."
"I'll be alright."
Miranda turned on Wink. "What about you? Serdio or Tiberoa?"
Wink considered it a moment, then said. "Serdio."
Luanna shook her head and said, "Fine, I'll come too." She looked seriously at Kianako. "You should come too. You have information that's vital to our protecting people from more attacks."
Kianako nodded, ignoring a snide remark from Miranda.
Finally, Luanna smiled lightly at Lloyd. "I doubt you would stay in Tiberoa, correct?"
The amber eyes flashed down from there heavenward position to study Luanna a moment, then they caught Wink's blue eyes and held them a moment which seemed to last a heavenly eternity. "I don't trust him." He inclined his head towards Kianako. "I want to be sure you'll be okay."
Miranda snorted. "I don't trust you. To think you've been hanging around Deningrad the last few days!"
"Miranda, he's done nothing but help since he came. If not for him, I'd be dead and so would all of you!" Wink snapped. The harshness in her tone surprised her.
Miranda looked at her a moment, then looked at Lloyd, then the ground, then she gritted her teeth together and said, "Fine."
Kianako smiled lightly and said, "Onto the trail we blaze then. We'd better go fast, Kyris isn't going to wait for us."
Miranda lead the way, closely followed by both the Winglies. The nine townspeople followed them wordlessly, and Wink and Luanna took up the rear.
Luanna looked up at Lloyd, then gave Wink a long stare that spoke words,
'I know what you're thinking, and what you want, and I don't approve.'
Wink was slightly surprised by the harsh expression, but she glared back rebelliously.
'That doesn't matter.' Her eyes replied. 'Because this is what I want, and I'm going to fight to have it.'
A/N: Wow, good thing I rated this PG13. Lotsa blood there. o.o
I didn't really get as far with this chapter as I'd wanted to, but oh well.
LOVE you reviewers! Thank you thank you thank you!
PS: Haha, and I'm sorry I confused you Sors =P