I'm thinking about you all the time
But you're out there
And I'm here waiting
Simple Plan.
Wink eyed the stairwell in front of her, two guards had just passed up it, and a single woman with a silky dress had just made her way down. Waiting a few more seconds, she slipped out from behind the pillar where she was hiding. Taking a final look about she dashed up the stairs. Swinging her self around she rushed up the second flight, and then snuck outside through a door which lead to a outdoor walkway. She stayed there a moment before peeping in the door at the other end, finding the room empty she hurried inside from the chilly night air and headed down a near by corridor.
Just turning off towards another hall was a woman with long black hair and dark clothing to match. Wink smiled, carefully following the woman. After only two more turns the dark figure knocked ever so quietly on the door of a room. The door swung open, and the woman rushed in.
Wink immediately followed, but rather than knocking she pressed her ear up against the door.
So it was true! I knew it!!! Man, that will be the last time that Miranda just leaves a letter laying about.
After the long and frankly boring journey south following Miranda on her way to Bale, Wink had managed to sneak into the castle, steal a maid's outfit and start hiding about. Waiting and watching for her Lloyd. However after only a day the knight's in the castle were all giving her the most strange looks. A few even began to approach her, as if wanting to interrogate her. Suspicious of their strange attitude she snuck back into town, where she stayed hidden at the inn for what seemed like an age.
Now believing that things were quieting down at the castle with the wedding approaching tomorrow she took her chances and snuck back in. Having to first fight her way past some drunk, then through a long series of tunnels and finally up a latter which she swore was swaying when she climbed it.
As she emerged in the castle she was forced to hide behind three pillars, one oven, under some ridiculously large dinning table and behind a set of curtains. However her tiring efforts has paid off quite nicely. For here she was hot on the trail of one of the three dead people.
She could almost giggle with excitement at her little adventure, when she swore she saw a little flicker of blue in the window. Hiding behind the curtains she waited, and sure enough Meru's eyes popped up from over the window sill, looking in and seeming to search the room for someone.
Finally giving up the search, the wingly flew off into the night. However Wink wasted no time in rushing off, knowing that her sister would stop at nothing to hunt her down and ship her back to Deningrad.
"Crap!" She exclaimed under her breath. She ducked a pair of guards who went romping back up the stairs which she had just come down.
Finally hitting the basement she hurried back into town. Past a slightly more sleepy drunk.
Guaraha's eyes wondered up and down the streets. This outside world still held some of its uneasy feeling. Every so often a human would glance his way and stare at him, he'd stare back of course, which tended to unsettle the humans greatly. At least he wasn't staring at them like he had stared at some red haired girl, her mother had almost swiped his head off because he had never seen red hair before.
A pair of latters were leaned up against one of the straw covered buildings. He noticed a sign hung out from the side of a building with what appeared to be a jewel, next to it was a slightly faded paint which read out in human text "Jewelers". He paused for a moment reaching into his pocket and pondering something, finally he frowned and entered the small shop.
It's walls were decorated with little wooden sticks, around each hung strings with every sort of bead imaginable. The far corner of the room held a large box filled with an assortments of stones and rocks for carving. On the right wall lurked a shelf with glass covering, underneath were the proper type of jewelry; necklaces, earrings, rings, bracelets, and a few hair decorations. He wondered vaguely past a older man and what appeared to be his daughter towards the shelf. Almost instantly a middle aged woman popped up from behind the counter. "May I help you sir?"
"I'm looking for a ring." Guaraha said, staring down into the glass box, "A wedding ring."
"Oh! I've got some wonderful things that I think you'd be interested in." She hurried away from the glass shelf, and pulled something out from behind the other counter. it was a little silky black box containing sliver and gold rings, all with large diamonds in them. "These are the very best of our wedding rings, all of these have matching plain rings for the guys."
"Hm..." he scoured over the rings. "You wouldn't have anything in platinum would you?"
"Platinum? You must be nuts, only the best shops in Lohan and Feltz carry anything made out of that." She responded.
"You must be kidding me, there has to be some place around here that has a wedding ring like that!" He yelled puzzled by the lack of platinum in a large capitol such as Bale.
She shook her head. "Not anyone I know of, maybe you could look into the castle, but anything they have is going to be historically valuable, so I highly doubt King Albert would sell it to you."
"Ah... Alright then." He walked back out of the room and started back down the main road. Deeply disapointed a the fact that humans didn't seem to carry or mine platinum in the same quanity as winglies. He came across a second very similar shop, this one was slightly different by the fact that its sign had a large sword cutting into the jewel. Shrugging and figuring that humans would most likely lie to people about their competition, he entered.
This place was filled with more decorative weaponry and high class furniture then he had been expecting. Both of the walls had cases filled with decorated boxes, daggers, and fetishes. He eyed the younger man at the counter, the guy was asleep, his drool just starting to creep over the edge of his mouth. Kinda like Shonia, he thought.
He walked politely over to the counter and tapped the man on the shoulder, he didn't stir. Guaraha eyed him, and then shook his shoulder lightly. This time he got a bit of a reaction, but the man drifted away after only a second. Finally Guaraha took the ultimate measure. Grasping both of the man's shoulders in his hands he began to shake, "WAKE UP!"
The man who had been happily sleeping a moment before jumped out of his seat with enough force to knock Guaraha right off his balance and down into the floor. Standing up he found the man ashen pale, with a horribly frighten look on his face.
"Dear Soa.... Ug..." He sat back down in his chair, and looked at the wingly. "For Soa's sake... You needn't have done that to wake me up. See the bell?" He asked pointing to a small bell on the desk, with a written note below it. Ring me.
"Ah... No I'm afraid I did not." The man just shook his head in response.
"So what can I do for you?"
"I need a platinum wedding ring." Guaraha responded.
"Platinum? Hm... The only one I've got has a nice ruby in it, I made it for King Albert about a week ago... Think it was a present for some one..." The man reached behind the counter and brought out a white box, opening it up he revealed the platinum ring with the ruby in the center, two little ornate diamonds had also been added to the gift. " Erm... I think it's a gift for that water dragoon.. Erg! The pretty silver haired girl.. Arg, sorry man I forget her name!"
"Meru." Guaraha stated.
"Heh heh, yeah that's it. She used to be a big hit in Donau, I saw her once there. Speaking of which you guys kinda look alike."
"We do?" Guaraha asked puzzled.
"Oh yeah, silver hair, red eyes! My god! That one tactician Albert has looks like you too!" The man jumped out of his seat and shook his finger at Guaraha's face. "Don't tell me your all related!?"
"Oh! No we're not, we're just all winglies." He replied, brushing a hand though his hair.
"Ya don't say, well that's a sign of things changing. I had no clue." He rubbed his fingers against his forehead. "Don't tell Meru about her present tho, I'm sure Albert would be mighty disappointed if word got out."
"Sure. So how long would it take to custom make a wedding ring in platinum?"
"Uh... Lessee. A full month, about a week or two for the supplies from the Tiberona Border Mine. Another week for the construction. What type of diamond were you lookin at?"
"Do you have any examples?" Guaraha asked, pushing the box with Meru's birthday present back across the table.
"Well... I have a few already cut things." He removed the box from the shelf, and reached back down for another white box. This one containing pre cut diamonds. "Yeah, here we go. Most of these are gonna cost... Wait a second how do you plain on paying for this?" He man inquired.
"Payment? Well I have a fair amount of Gold, you see. What would it cost to make?"
"Ah, well I'd think somewhere around 8-9000 gold. Maybe ten if we pick out a large stone."
"Well that's no problem then."
"Really? Are all you wingly types this rich?"
"Ah, well if you must know Meru is my fiancée. That's why I've got this money." Guaraha responded rubbing the back of his neck uneasily.
"Amazing..." The man shook his head and returned to the box. "So, this is what I got. I'd judge, these would be about 1000g" he said outlining a small area. "These medium sized ones are 1500 to 2000. And this row here are all 3000 plus."
"Alright." Guaraha ran his eye along the stones, finally setting on one near the 3000 plus row, but of course not in it. "This looks good"
"Splendid! Since this is commission I'll need some paper work, and I've got Meru's ring size off of Albert... So" He fished around for some of the pages below his desk. "All I need is a small prepay fee, just in case you run off and leave me with the ring."
"How much?" Guaraha asked.
"4k It's usually about half up front, you see."
"Of course, I'll need to go and fetch the money first however. Will you be open tomorrow...?"
The man gave Guaraha a strange look, "Of course not! It's wedding day everyone but the venders will be off!"
"Thought so, when would be the best day?"
"Friday, could you come back then?" He asked, sliding the pages and the pen over.
"Friday is fine, I should be here for the rest of this month. Unless Meru wants to leave early, and in any case we'll be back for her birthday it seems."
"Hey yeah, looks like I became Meru's personal jeweler with out even knowing her." The man shook his head and waited as Guaraha finished up with the papers.
Guaraha left the jewelers thinking about how in the human world, there was always someone who would get the work done. Sort of different from the wingly world, where there was always someone you could force to get the work done. He looked up, the sun just barely casting it's light on the top of the castle. A bar was just down the street, and he thought he saw a young girl with sliver hair go dashing in there.
He approached the bar and entered, sitting at one of the few open tables near the fire place. Even if he had grown up in a cold climate, there was something about the constant artificial warmth of the wingly homes which was longed for. He sat there for a small amount of time, before the true owner of the silver hair came over to him. Apron on and little tablet of paper in hand. "Hello sir!" She said with a wink. "What can I get you?"
"I'll take the soup." He responded smiling at the fellow wingly. She was the first one he had seen outside of the Dragoon's group.
"Alright, we have some good Me'l tonight if your interested." Me'l being the wingly word for wine, it was most likely a test to see if he really was a wingly.
"I'd love some, but Roe Me'l is preferable if you have it." Guaraha passed the girl's test with flying colors, for she sprang off to deliver his order.
He sat and watched the fire, and her through the side of his face. Finally she returned with the dinner, and his red wine. "Sorry about the wait, since the wedding is tomorrow everyone is coming in to gossip. But if you'd like I have a break in twenty minutes, we could talk?"
"That'd be wonderful." he responded smiling, and picking up his wine. He was sure that it was less than twenty minutes when she returned, with a pair of glasses, both Roe Me'l.
"Well hello, I thought you might want some more." She spoke setting the drink down in front of him.
"Sure." He paused as he took a sip. "My name is Guaraha."
"Suager, all the humans around here get confused and call me Sugar." She said waving her long silvery hair behind her ear. "It's been awhile since I had someone to talk to."
"Hasn't been to long for me, although the company has been minimal." He told her with a smirk.
"How so?"
"You know of Meru, the water dragoon?"
"Oh! Her? She was such a sweetie, I ran into her one year in Donau. You come from her country?"
"Her forest more like it, then of course there is Alulan... Albert's Tactician." He stated.
"Oh... That man, urg. I've got some fairly good senses... I took one look at him and thought, evil! And what's creepy is it seems like I was right, but he had a ta'ch on him."
"Ta'ch, that's what Meru thought. She's rather poor when it comes to things that involve magic, so she didn't voice it." Guaraha sighed. "She'd really be much better if she tried, especially now."
"Ahoy, anyway I've seen him once to twice when he came in here to eat. The ta'ch is gone now, but he's got something new on him. Like an Amamaru, but different, and a lot better you see."
"Of course, he got his memory wiped after the Moon fell," he responded.
"Did he really? I had no idea anyone had that power, considering that he was the most powerful I've ever seen." She relaxed her hand against her face.
"Sorry, it's uin'clas so to speak."
"Damn, can't get anything in or out of anyone these days." She snorted as some men came to sit with them, the seating had almost filled up.
"'ello." One of them said to her. "Brother or something Sugar?"
She looked over at Guaraha with a wink, "Oh no, it's my father."
"Ya don't say." The other responded leaning over the table and looking at Guaraha, who just sat there sternly.
"My dear, if your brushing elbows with this sort of people I must insist that you come home!" Guaraha spoke just barely maintaining a straight face.
"By Soa, papaaa! I doon't wanna go home!" She sobbed.
"We don't want 'er to go home either! Come on papa! Be nice to the girl!" The first man responded, panicking.
"Hm... I'll have to think about it, in the mean time..." Suddenly a cry echoed from the street outside, it sounded like the scream that a overgrown bat might make.
"Another murder?" The man asked.
"On a day such as this?" The other asked, they both gave Guaraha a glance.
"Has there been others? I'm going to go look into." Guaraha responded, not entirely surprised to find Sugar was following him out.
"Yeah..." She murmured, as they exited the bar they saw a small group of people gathering around a corner of the street only a few dozen feet away. Hurrying over they looked down to see the body of a knight. People were whispering, and giving each other uneasy looks. Sugar looked up at him, and whispered something underneath her breath to him.
"Noi cam' deba deiavia sort fina curops ta'ch... Famin corim reiso junya."
It feels the same as the shadow that was around the man with the corruption... It must be evil."
Guaraha spun around, looking down the streets and into the sky. "Melbu Frama?" He asked the wind, but all that returned was a strange look from Sugar.
A/N: hope you liked the side story in this piece. I've always wanted to stick one in, just haven't had space till now! So I hope you enjoyed! Review cause I'm a spiteful bitch!