A/N: W00T! Four reviews for this chapter! Before I continue onward with the story, though, I'm just gonna take a brief moment to thank everyone who's taken the time:
ChibiUmiChica (Hope to talk to you online soon!)
PrimeraPixie
Momentum
CPMiko
Avatar
Iarly
Evanscence
The fluffyness of Fuu
Sweety
Lantis_Luvr
I'm pretty certain that's everyone, but if I left you out, please get in touch so you can flog my sorry ass! xD; On with the story!
Vernal Equinox
Fuu felt her feet touch moist soil, and glanced around anxiously. About halfway through her and Sawn's flight, she must have lost consciousness. For now she wasn't soaring through the air, she had touched down in the middle of a musty forest. This is the exact place where I nearly died, Fuu realized suddenly, recognizing a very inimitable tree to her left side—the one that she had plummeted through upon reentrance to Cephiro.
She had now gotten her senses about her, and she mentally kicked herself. She'd left the castle with a faerie she barely knew on a whim. She could have been injured, or worse!
"Why did you take me he--" Fuu was cut off in mid-sentence.
The pale, transparent ghost of a Sawn that had taken her to this spot was nowhere to be found.
Fuu groaned, slapping her forehead. "I'm so stupid! What in the world was I thinking?"
Fuu's angered exclamation was interrupted by a weak cry. She gasped, tensing her muscles. From the bushes came a staggering Sawn, battered, bruised, but solid. Fuu realized at once that this was not the same faerie that'd retrieved her from the castle; no, this faerie was much more . . . alive.
Sawn glanced up, breathing labored. Her gaze locked with Fuu's, and she smiled weakly before collapsing.
Fuu was at her side immediately, checking the extent of Sawn's wounds. Her wing was broken and torn, lying limply at her side. There was a deep laceration across her abdomen, which instantly caused Fuu to wince. At least two gaping stab wounds were visible in addition. The amount of blood she was kneeling in was stupefying.
She knew only a bit about medical attention, and that was because her sister was in medical school and had taught her a thing or two. But not enough to treat such injuries, Fuu realized in desperation. What can I do?
Sawn sputtered, hacking up a bit of blood. "Magic Knight?" She whispered. "It's you . . . you're the Magic Knight that I--" She branched off into a hacking fit, which Fuu waited tensely to end.
"Who are you?" Fuu asked. "How are you here? You're a faerie, right? Didn't your kind die out?" Now that she had begun to ask questions, it seemed as though she couldn't stop. "Why did you save me? How do you know I'm a Magic Knight? How did you manage to get me to the castle without being caught? How? Why?"
Sawn chuckled wryly. "I s'ppose I owe you an explanation."
She took a deep breath.
"I'm not a full faerie. Actually, I'm half pixie. My mother was the sole survivor of the Great War—heh, I know it's quite a stupid title, but my mother was the only one left to tell of it so she dubbed it something that would, hopefully, fade away in oblivion. How she managed to get out of that horrific slaughter fest in one piece no one will ever know. And I don't care to... I just s'ppose someone up there liked her. A lot."
Sawn took this pause in her account to giggle sardonically, but then broke off into another coughing fit. Fuu pounded her gently on the back until it subsided.
Sawn eventually continued her story, only in a raspier tone this time.
"My mother never really got over her memories of the war. I mean, can you blame her? She lost everything. House, family, friends, possessions, village—everything. She married a man—a pixie, one of those weird, lanky, tall pixies, that is-- she didn't really love and eventually brought an unwilling soul into this world—me! Do not spout off to me about how beautiful Cephiro's people are, how gorgeous its skies are, and how clear its waters are! The way I see it, this place would have been better off destroyed or taken over by one of those foreign countries that invaded . . ."
Fuu listened in horror as Sawn rambled on about how much she loathed her life in Cephiro. The wind knight had never been exposed to this side of Cephiro. She had known it was there—plight, suffering—but it was almost as though she had refused to see it.
Sawn continued, eventually starting to jumble words together, and to jump from one topic to another. Tears were pricking her reddish eyes, tears of utmost distress. Every so often, her tirade was interrupted by jerking convulsions or by spitting up phlegm. Fuu tried to comfort the dying faerie, but to no avail.
Eventually, Sawn quieted down. Her voice now was hoarse and considerably weaker. "Magic Knight . . ."
"Call me Fuu."
"Fuu. Odd name," Sawn chortled dryly. "I've always liked humans. They're interesting creatures. I'm obliged to save all those who wander into my territory, or in your case, fall." She laughed again. "So don't take it personally."
"You knew I was a Magic Knight, though."
"Of course I did . . . everyone in these parts knows what you three look like . . . you and your comrades . . ."
Sawn was starting to expire. Her oval eyes were fluttering.
Fuu was beside herself. In books back on Earth, all of the faeries she had read about were always graceful, intelligent, and joyful. Right now, Sawn was the opposite of all that. And she was dying fast. You'd never read about the more fragile side of faeries in a story book or a novel.
Fuu opened her mouth to say something more, but stopped. The woman who was lying at her bent knees had gone perfectly still. Sawn's face was a pasty gray, perpetual frown playing upon her blue lips. Her eyes were closed to the world.
Sawn was dead, and Fuu had not been able to do a damn thing to prevent it. The Magic Knight squeezed her eyes shut tightly behind her wire-rimmed glasses, which she then removed to wipe the accumulating tears.
Sawn had said not to take saving her life personally. 'I'm obliged . . .'
Fuu didn't care what rationale under which her life had been salvaged. Sawn had given her a second chance, while Fuu had been able to do nothing in return but to watch her 'savior' die.
Fuu buried her face in her hands, a sense of self-loathing and loneliness all encompassing.
A/N: I LIIIVE! O__O Sorry it's taken me so long to get this chapter up. Gomen nasai! ::bows:: Gomen gomen go—you get the idea. o_O Please review, minna-san! I'll love you forever if you do! X3
