Rain.
Rain slanted down from the sky in sheets, silver curtains in the glow of the landbound station lights. The steady sound of the impact of millions of droplets was so loud that it seemed all-encompassing, omnipresent, deafening--only to be dwarfed when thunder rang out, breaking the darkness with a report so sharp and loud it seemed to have come from the cannon that would split the world apart. It was, in point of fact, an exceedingly dark and stormy night.
The narrow channel frothed and churned in the downpour, and the ferry that stood, moored securely to the bank, rose and fell as the waves slapped against its raised hull. The woman who captained it, a sturdily-built type with all the airs of a Centran sea captain, had shaken her head sadly and pronounced it too dangerous to take down to Lower Centra until the storms had passed. Which, in the grand tradition of Centran rains, could mean anything from four hours to three days. Neither extreme appealed to Fujin.
She had never liked rain. She had usually not fostered any particular feelings of dislike toward it, but times could and did change one's perception of things. At the moment she would have found it preferable that the rains stayed away from the continent, leaving every living thing to wither and die--as long as it didn't mean another goddamned delay.
Raijin was having the time of his life--which only made her more disgruntled. He was out there, cavorting in the heavier rain than Balamb ever got to see, working out his stored-up energy. He had spent three days on the train along with her, being ever-careful (but sometimes not careful enough) not to irritate her further than his presence already did.
Raijin had muttered something about the buzz one could get from a Thundaga and wondered aloud how it would feel to be struck by "Lightnin', real lightnin', ya know?" Fujin had debated a moment whether or not to inform him of the not-so-subtle difference between natural lightning and paramagical Thunder, but had decided in the end to let him be as much of an idiot as he wanted to be. She stayed in the shelter of the station awning, watching him with a morbid fascination and pondering what she would do if he really did manage to get himself struck. It was lucky that he didn't have a solid metal quarterstaff, that was all she knew--otherwise she would probably be scraping him off the rocks by now.
The dark humor of her thoughts did nothing for her mood. Raijin didn't matter--not really. He was human--something she could either ignore or defeat. The weather, though....
She had never been entirely comfortable with the weather.It was something she couldn't predict or control--it was something that, in instances like these, could control her. She didn't enjoy being controlled. She wanted to exercise her own free will--she didn't want anything to stand in her way. If she had been a bit more hotheaded, a bit less aware of her own limitations or a bit more impatient, she would have tried to swim the channel herself--come hell or, what was imminently probable, high water.
She sat, every muscle tense with the quiet exertion of not moving. She could well imagine the sound of the Hermes approaching, just shy of a day behind them--and she wanted to get away from it. She wanted to put distance between them, to shed the pursuit. She didn't want them around, couldn't they understand that? She wanted to do this on her own, it was no one's business but hers--
And she couldn't help but realize the irony of the situation. Here she was in the middle, the hunter being hunted, the pursuer being pursued--and both ends of the chase were zeroing in on her, one far too quickly, one not quickly enough.
She didn't know what sort of spectacle would take place upon their convergence, but she didn't think it would be too pleasant.
Unconsciously, she fingered the rope that kept her shuriken secure on her back. Whatever happened, she vowed, she wouldn't let herself lose control of it all. This was the moment she had been waiting for forever--and it would be hers, no matter what arguments or bloodshed she had to go through to ensure that.
The rain continued to fall.
-
Several kilometers to the south and a few to the east, the rain existed only as a starless blur on the horizon, lit occasionally by sporadic flashes of lightning. It was dry where Taiga was--dry and cold. Lu was shivering inside her loose clothing, and Taiga really would have offered her a coat if he could--however, he had ceased to need cloth clothing a long time ago. The implants regulated his body heat, and--although he had been cold before, even uncomfortably so--the amount of body heat that escaped from the suit without being absorbed and recycled would hardly be enough to warm a jacket enough to do him any good.
He had briefly raised the question of building a fire, but Lu's response had been nothing more than an irritable "Out of what?" There was little more than scrub in the way of vegetation, and most of it seemed to be of the type that would be hard to coax a flame out of. And so Lu had decided just to keep moving, despite how exhausted she was liable to be by the time morning came around.
She had, at least, been making what appeared to be a concerted effort to transform herself into someone with whom it was possible to live with. And Taiga had been helping out in the only way he knew how--by staying quietly unobtrusive, and doing nothing to provoke her. It had been a very silent trip for both of them.
Lu didn't ask him where they were going any more. Nor did she make any demands upon him to take her back to an Estharan facility. She simply walked with him, a metre or two apart, wincing occasionally as she held her healing sides. She had yet to make any overture that could really be termed friendly, but at least it seemed as though the hostile ones were curbed for good.
A steady supply of Jelleye joints seemed to be undoing most of the damage he had done to her, and for that he was glad. The sporadic chattering of his ICI had grown no more infrequent, and it was a bizarre form of relief that there was another breathing human being out here in the wilderness with him.
The days that had passed since Lu's injury felt, somehow, like the easiest days he had gone though since his defection.
Aside from a touch of fatigue and, paradoxically, an edge of homesickness--for familiar faces, familiar sights--Taiga was in relatively high spirits as they travelled. And it helped a lot that they were beginning to get into territory he remembered--the rocks were beginning to thin out, the soil beginning to darken. Once in a while he would see a lone stand of trees off in the distance, or to his left or right--they were beginning to head into the narrow strip of fertile country he had been aiming for. He could imagine that the line of the horizon was beginning to break into the shapes and patterns that he recognized. He didn't have far to go, he was sure....
Soon, he kept repeating to himself. Soon. It's not far now. Not far now. Not any more....