Ok People. I just finished my Geophysical Science report on Mt. Fuji and I'm just about ready to go to bed, but before I do I think I'll start this next chapter. The last one didn't get as much feedback as I wanted so that's why it took so long to get this up. :P
passes out tissues Hold on people, this is gonna be a tearjerker.
::Disclaimer:: I do not own Dragon Knights. Poo.
The faint sound of men's voices was what awoke Alfeegi from his slumber. The sun was shining brightly outside, but the drapes were pulled that small ribbons of light danced across the room. The dragon officer slowly lifted his eyelids. They felt as if thousand pound weights had been tied to eyelashes. His head pounded harder then any migraine he had ever had in his life. He tried to move but found that a much too difficult task to handle. His arms felt like they were being held down, and his legs ached so much that moving them sent jolts of pain threw his entire body. After a few minutes of struggling he decided it was in his best interest to relax and try and decipher what the voices were saying.
As he had noticed when he first awoke, the voiced were faded, hushed in a way. He wasn't able to tell who it was speaking...but grasped words and parts of sentences here or there.
"...sleep...tired...rest..."
"No, I.... don't...something's wrong.... what if..."
"Can't...."
"....lets...maybe...awake..."
The talking stopped suddenly, which gave the white dragon officer suspicion that someone was coming into his room. He struggled with himself again and managed to sit up just in time as, he had suspected, Thatz, Rath and the dragon lord himself filed into the room one after the other. They all looked at him, quite taken aback that he was sitting up in bed.
"Alfeegi..." the Lord said, stopping in his tracks.
The white dragon officer sat, confused on how to respond to his employer's state of shock. "Yes my lord?"
Before he could say anything, he was attacked from the side by a Rath-shaped object clinging to his neck. "Your up!" the dragon knight cried. The secretary stopped dead. Was Rath hugging him? What was going on?
"Now, now," He heard from the doorway. "Let's not kill him after he just woke up from his little nap." Alfeegi looked up to see Kai-stern hovering near the entrance. "How are you anyway sleeping beauty?"
"What are you talking about?" He asked, trying to pry the now permanently attached knight of fire from his body. "What's going on?" To answer his question were now four very confused faces.
"What do you mean 'What happened?' Don't you remember?"
"Well obviously if I had I wouldn't be asking you now would I?" The agitated officer glared. "So why do I hurt all over anyway?" He could feel the tenseness in the room grow as he others began to grow more and more uncomfortable. "What?"
"Alfeegi," the lord began, "We suspect that you had a type of...mental breakdown."
"What?" The officer asked in disbelief. "My lord surely you jest-''
"I wish a were joking. A few nights ago you...you tried to kill Kai-stern at the dinner table and then proceeded to try and take your own life."
Alfeegi sat there for a moment, looking around at all the faces in the room as to try and find some sort of hint that it was a joke, like they were kidding. But alas, there were none. "You..." he began. "I...I..." And then it hit him. All those images came flooding back to him and threatened to sweep him away in its current. He grasped his head and looked down at the bed sheets as they came. The dragon lord, Ruwalk and Kai-stern, the dinner table, the knife...all of that blood.
"Alfeegi?" He heard the lord speak. "Are you alright?"
He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but at that moment his stomach let out a very loud, very distinct rumble. He felt the heat rush to his face as he heard the other men chuckle. "Hungry?" Rath asked. Alfeegi nodded and the boy dragged Thatz out of the room with his in search of food. He let out a long sigh and thanked god for irony as the other two dispersed as well, leaving him alone to deal with his newly remembered memories.
'Three days?' he asked himself. 'That was a long while.' He leaned back onto his pillows and closed his eyes, thinking back to that very moment when metal hit flesh. He stuttered. He remembered the feeling very clearly. "What was that?" he asked himself aloud. Thinking back, it was not like him at all. It was as if sitting there he was hit with an alien force. His emotions had gone wild and suddenly overtook him, increasing them ten fold. It was like someone... or something had suddenly...taken hold. Like he was being manipulated against his own will. Like-
"Alfeegi?"
The dragon jumped at the sound of his own name. Jolting upward despite his now prominent headache. There he saw the Earth dragon knight holding a large plate of food and standing in front of him. He smiled widely and placed the food on the officer's lap. "I didn't know what you wanted so I brought all kinds," he said. Alfeegi sighed. Just like Thatz to go overboard when it comes to food.
"Thank you," he said quietly and took a rather large bite out of a piece of bread. It took him a few minutes, and halfway through a turkey leg, to realize that the knight had not yet left. "Do you need something?" he asked. The boy looked a little shocked and shook his head slowly. A small touch of redness gracing his cheeks.
"No...no, It's just that...I was ordered not to let you out of my sight."
Alfeegi turned his head slightly and stared at the boy. "And why would you be ordered that?"
The earth dragon knight cleared his throat and sheepishly pointed towards the knife and fork near the side of the secretary's plate. The teal-haired man's face turned quite red. Thatz looked away from him, obviously sensing that the man was not pleased with his response. He crossed his arms defensively and waited until he heard the shuffling of the bed sheets to look back.
The officer had pushed his food away, shunning it from himself, and had his hands to the side of his head, gently rubbing his temples. His eyes were shut tightly now, not wanting the sorrow that he now felt to take form, he just sat there. He didn't know why he felt the way he did. He didn't want to. He just felt...so bad. From the events of the night before and now not even being able to eat without a guard, and all that plus the loss of Ruwalk, it was starting to get to him. He smirked. Just starting to get to him? He had tried to kill Kai-Stern. It had already gotten to him.
"Alfeegi," he heard the dragon knight speak. "Do you want to, you know, talk about it?"
He looked up towards the boy. It was clear that he was worried. He shuffled where he stood and looked at him with such uncertainty, something so uncharacteristic from the easy going Thatz that he knew. He was obviously uptight about the question, though he knew that it had to be asked. It would only be a matter of time before he would have to truly explain himself to the lord, so why not to him as well?
The secretary placed his hands into his lap and beckoned for Thatz to grab a chair, which he did. He pulled up to the edge of the bed and sat quietly for a few moments time. Alfeegi sighed defiantly and looked up towards the ceiling. "So you want to know what happened?" Thatz nodded and remained silent. "Well," he began, and started to explain the events of that night. Everything, not one detail had been spared. His emotions were thrown out for all to see...and not once did he question why the boy wanted to know so, or why he was telling him in the first place.
Threw its entirety Thatz said nothing, seemingly listening quietly and not even a sound came from his lips. "And then...I woke up here." The officer finished. He looked to his covers and was quiet as well, waiting for the boy to say some lines of disgust and walk away. How it was so stupid to overreact that way or so scoff him for liking another man. But he didn't, and it wasn't until he looked at him did he figure out why.
The boy's cheeks were wet with tears. Eyes red from crying silently so not to disturb the course of the tale. He shook somewhat and the first noise to leave him in a while was in the form of a soft sob. Alfeegi gazed at him in amazement. The boy looked up at him, eyes sparkling like emeralds from the tears. He rubbed his eyes and stood up. "I should take the plate back if your not going to eat it."
"Thatz, what-''
"Are you done?"
The white dragon nodded and watched the earth dragon scurry out of the room with plate in hand, leaving him to wonder why the human turned dragon acted the way he did.
Several days passes after he had first awoken and he had not yet been allowed to leave his chambers. Even though he nagged at the dragon lord that he was perfectly fit to do his job, he argued back the he didn't want his wounds to open again and rest would be good for him anyway. "Think of it as one of those vacations that you never take." He had joked.
People visited often, but it always seemed as if they were uneasy around him. His majesty was around most often as well as the dragon queen. Rune had not yet come back from his job with the fearies or his wounds would have already been healed by this time. Rath came once in a while, but Thatz hadn't been in sense the first day that he had awaken. The secretary often thought of the boy and why he had acted the way he had...but it wasn't for a few days more did he find out the answers that he wanted.
The sun was shining through the window, as every day. It pooled across the floor and onto Alfeegi's form, snuggled under the warm blankets of his bed. He had been lying there for at least an hour, just listening to the birds sing and focused on how warm that he felt. It felt so good. Today felt brand new in a strange sort of way, so fresh and so pure. He didn't want to chance leaving his position as to taint the day in some way. He sighed and had just begun to debate on how to get the Dragon Lord to let him work again, when he heard the door creak open.
The officer sat up groggily, rubbing his eyes and trying to focus on who it could be. As his vision cleared he saw that it was Thatz, carrying a plate of food as he had been doing the last time he had seen him. The boy smiled and walked up to him, again placing the food on the bed.
"Morning," he said, taking a seat next to him.
"Good morning Thatz," he replied, watching him before quickly turning to his food and beginning to eat. "Mmm...this is good. Tell the cook that she really did outdo herself this time."
"Actually...I cooked it this morning," The officer looked up, amazed. "I thought, that I would apologize for the other day."
"Apologize?" Alfeegi repeated the words. "What was there to apologize for? You just asked me what was wrong..."
"That's why I'm apologizing." The dragon knight's face began to glow red. "I didn't mean for you to remember those things, I know that I..." he cut off short and turned away quickly from the officer. He placed one hand on his face and let out a strange sound, kind of a half sigh and half groan.
All Alfeegi did was watch him, before the facts began to sink in and the puzzle began to solve itself. "Thatz," He whispered. "Do you have something that you want to tell me?"
"No," the boy said all to quickly. "It's nothing, I don't want to bother you."
"Thatz, your not acting yourself, are you sure your ok?"
"I'm fine, I'm just fine I'm..." Tears began to fall down his face and onto his lap. "Damnit!"
"Thatz..." the boy was silent. "Thatz, please tell me what's wrong."
A sigh came from the boy as he turned again towards his elder. "You really want to know?" Alfeegi nodded and inwardly giggled at how the tables had turned. Thatz then breathed in and began to talk.
"I'm in love with someone that I can't have."
Alfeegi had suspected as much, he wasn't as narrow-minded as some people may have thought, and that's why his story had leaded him to tears.
Thatz continued. "We are...or were best friends....but you know how it is." He smirked somewhat bitterly. "I figure out my feelings, go to tell him and find out that him and Rune..." The boy slipped up, trying not to name names but it seemed that in his anger he began to not care what the white dragon officer felt. "They had already had something going on between them that they had "forgotten" to tell me about." Angry tears began to fill his eyes, the boy's frame to shake, and he still continued his voice filled with rage.
"I was happy for them.... I suppose. I mean, they were both my friends, right? But as time went on, they started showing their affections around me, and they knew. They knew that I like Rath and yet they still did that to me. Hugging and kissing and holding each other. Like they didn't know it hurt me! LIKE HELL THEY DIDN'T KNOW!" Thatz banged his fist onto his leg, but seemingly oblivious to the pain he had caused to himself.
"Thatz," Alfeegi whispered. "Thatz please, calm down." The boy did so, swiping away at his tears and actually facing the man. "Thatz I never knew..."
"Well, a lot of people don't think that I have any emotions past greed and gluttony." He laughed sarcastically making the officer cringe. It was true that he had only thought that the boy's focus in life was to be lazy, but after hearing this he thought that he had no right to even think that.
"I'm sorry Thatz..."
"Don't be," he replied quietly. "You listened to me and I thank you for that."
The room had an uncomfortable silence to it after he had finished, and it remained there until Alfeegi spoke again.
"So...you like Rath?"
Thatz nodded his head. "Yes, I try not too, and I have tried to get over it...but it hurts when I think back to it, you know?"
"Yes, I do." Alfeegi thought again. "So we're both in kind of the same situation."
"Yup, I guess."
"So, so you like anyone else now?"
The boy stiffened and Alfeegi's comment hit a soft spot. The boy blushed and nodded quietly. Alfeegi just smiled. "Dose he like you back?"
"I don't know. He worries about me, does that count?"
Alfeegi smiled and nodded. "I don't think that anyone would worry about you if they didn't have feelings."
Thatz's blush deepened. "Yah well...I should go now. Do you want me to take your food?"
"No, I'll just finish it and give it to the lord when he comes back."
"Alright, but don't eat too much. You might get so fat that you'll loose any chances at love." He winked then, chuckling. Alfeegi just blinked, and then for some strange reason, as they looked at each other, they started laughing. Softly at first but then escalating louder and louder. Soon Alfeegi's face was bright and glowing, holding his sides and shaking.
"Why.... are....we.... laughing?!" He asked during breaths.
"I...have no...idea!!!" This made them laugh even harder. The officer wiped his eyes and was about to ask Thatz to stop being to stupid when he was cut off. He felt something soft and warm on his lips, and it took a few seconds to realize that it was Thatz. His eyes grew wide as he watched the knight, his face soft and childlike, glowing with a type of light that he had never seen before. He seemed so calm and somewhat happy...but it felt so...wrong...
As soon as it had begun the dragon knight pulled away, blushing madly and covering his mouth, looking at the man with wide eyes. "Thatz..." He whispered, but the boy kept backing away.
"Alfeegi I'm sorry...I have no idea what I just...I mean..." Then he stopped, and suddenly turned and bolted from the room. All the officer could do was stare after him and sit helplessly as someone he cared for was torn apart...by him...again...
He whimpered as his head started to pound and a familiar energy began to surround him, and as the room began to close around him, he heard that voice again within him...
"This is all your fault...."
Then it was dark.
WOOOOOOOOOO!!! Finally I finished!!! I told myself that I would post on my B-day and I did! GO ME!!! Wow....I started this while I was back in school...and the summer is almost gone! Oo AHHH!! Must post sooner!!
Oh I am sooo getting flamed for this one...what do you all think ; ahahahahahaaaa....