Disclaimer: Chrono Trigger doesn't belong to me. If it did, Flea would be a main character. It belongs to Square and their creative minds. I'm not making any money of this. Don't sue, please?

Author's notes: This is Yaoi! Male/male relationships, that is. Also contains some graphic violence and sexual acts. Hints at non-con sex as well. This isn't beta-ed. Oh yeah; Magus might seem a bit OOC. I was trying to portray his inner despair over loosing Schala.

/……/ = Flashbacks…

A Trial of Hearts

By Shaded Mazoku

Part 7: Forging Friendship

Lucca looked at the house Magus lived in now, settled in a small holt outside the nearest village. It was a nice house, recently built and well maintained. Magus had moved in once it had been clear that he was stuck in 1000 AD and it hardly bore signs of the wizard living there. But one of the windows had gotten a pair of red curtains since she was there last, and she figured that it was Flea's room. It gave the house some impression of being lived in. Lucca smiled. Hopefully, Flea's presence would be good for Magus. The man could be incredibly dour at times. Lucca didn't really know Flea, but the Mystic struck her as being far more cheerful than his former employer.

     She sighed and knocked on the door. She wasn't quite sure why she was here, but she knew that she wanted to talk to Flea. Magus opened the door and glared at her. Even though she felt a little frightened, she refused to show it, and gave the wizard a friendly smile. Remember, Lucca: his bark is worse than his bite. Still, she had the sudden urge to ask if Flea could come out and play, but she fought it back, knowing that Magus wouldn't appreciate the joke. "Can I come in?" she asked instead. Magus half growled, but he stepped aside, letting her enter.

    The house was as impersonal on the inside as on the outside. The only thing that seemed to be Magus' was the piles of old books lying scattered around the living room. "What do you want?" Magus asked, showing some books of a chair and sitting down. Lucca remained standing. "I wanted to talk to Flea, actually." Magus snorted at that, and flipped one of the huge books open. "Go ahead and try. But don't come running to me if he throws something at you." Lucca had a sudden mental image of Flea throwing books at Magus and had to fight back a grin. "He's in his room upstairs," Magus said after a while, before turning all his attention to the book.

     Lucca quickly ascended the stairs, trying to find something to say to Flea. What does one say to a Mystic who can't answer? She wondered silently. She found the door easily, mostly because someone, most likely Flea, had written "Fuck off, Magus," on the door. Flea's handwriting, Lucca reflected, was very pretty. She knocked lightly on the door. On the inside, something fragile hit the door and shattered. "Flea?" She called. "Can I come in? I promise I'm not Magus." The room on the other side was silent. Lucca waited, still not sure why she was really there. Finally, the door was opened and Flea looked out at her. He was wearing a long black dress that seemed to be a mourning gown, and his long hair had been braided. Lucca smiled carefully. "Hi!" She said cheerfully.

     Flea moved away and let her into the room, walking over to the window and stood still, staring out. Lucca walked over the broken remains of a vase and sat down on a stool standing by a low table. She sat there in silence, looking around. The room was far more personal than any of the other rooms of the house, and it looked lived in, unlike the others. On the table next to her was a collection of sketches. Lucca picked one of them up. It was a sketch of Magus, sitting by a desk and reading. The sketch was very detailed, but it wasn't in one piece. It had been torn in two at the middle. Curious now, Lucca picked up a few more sketches. One was of Slash and Ozzie trying to look menacing, one was of an unknown man with long hair in a ponytail and a very kind expression, one was of the same man asleep and the last one seemed to be of Flea. It was a young, seemingly female Mystic sitting on a chair. The model was maybe six or seven.

     "Did you draw these?" Lucca asked, looking at Flea. The Mystic turned slowly and looked at the sketches in her hand. He nodded, quickly crossing the floor. Lucca smiled. "They're very good. You're good at drawing," she said. Flea visibly relaxed and pulled out another stool to sit on. Lucca held out the sketch of the young Mystic. "Is this you?" She asked. Flea looked at the drawing and shook his head. He reached over to the table and grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill. "It's not me. It's my sister," he wrote, and showed to Lucca. Lucca blinked. "Your sister?" Flea nodded. "Yes. My sister. Her name was Calluna. We were twins." Lucca looked at the sketch again. Now that she knew that it wasn't Flea, she could see slight differences, but she was willing to bet that they must have looked really identical. "What happened to her?" She asked. Flea shrugged. "One day, she never came home. We found her dead in the forest the next day. Humans killed her," he wrote. "She was eight." Lucca felt herself pale. She knew that things like that could happen, but it still shocked her.

     "Don't worry," Flea wrote. "She's better off where she's now."  He took the sketch carefully out of Lucca's hands and placed it on the table. "The world is no place for innocents like her." He looked down at the sketch. Lucca quickly took the next sketch, the one of the man with the ponytail, and showed it to Flea, not wanting to lose his attention just yet. "Who is this?" She asked. Flea looked at the sketch and smiled slightly. "His name was Shard," He wrote quickly, a fond expression on his face. "He used to be my teacher. He taught me all I know about magic."  He traced his fingers idly along the lines of the drawing. "He's dead now," he wrote with the other hand. "All of my friends are." Lifting his hand, he looked down at his now dark gray fingertips, where excess graphite had stained the skin.

      Lucca looked at Flea. The Mystic was watching her, too, with an unreadable expression on his face. She suppressed a shiver. Those eyes of his are pretty creepy, she thought. Flea's eyes were deep pink, but every now and then, a swirling black pattern would be visible there, disappearing again so swiftly that one couldn't be sure it had really been there. Lucca was very smart, and knew a lot about many subjects, but when it came to Mystics, she knew next to nothing, and she hated not knowing. Perhaps that was why she was here. She wanted to learn about the Mystic race, and there was nobody who could teach her more than a Mystic could. And perhaps, just perhaps, there was something she could do for Flea in return.

      "Have you considered making some new friends?" She asked. Flea's expression immediately changed to a guarded, suspicious one. Lucca held her hands up, signaling that she meant no harm. "I don't mean that you should just move on and forget your old friends, but it could do you good to have some company. Company you like." She smiled mischievously. "Company that isn't Magus." Flea's lip twitched at that. Lucca took that as a good sign and continued. "He isn't exactly the most talkative company one can get, and getting glared at gets old so quickly." This time, Flea did smile. Only for a small second, but it was there. Lucca smiled, too, and looked around the room. "Have you even left the room since you came?" She asked. Flea shrugged and wrote something on the parchment before holding it up so that Lucca could read it. "Only to use the bathroom and to… …decorate my door a little." Lucca grinned. "I saw that." She got up and looked around some more. "You have made it very pretty here, but a change in scenery wouldn't hurt." Turning around, she looked down at Flea, who was still sitting. "Do you want to go for a walk?"

       Flea looked up at Lucca, his eyes widening. Go outside? He asked himself silently, considering the idea. He had tried to hide it from Lucca, but he was terrified of what was on the outside of the house. People stared at him, and while it had amused him once, it scared him now. It made him remember, and he didn't want to remember. He had worked up a strong shield against the memories, but he was afraid it would crumble if he went outside. He didn't have a shelter there, nowhere to hide when the memories came. The very idea frightened him.

      But on the other side, Lucca had a point. He could do with company that wasn't Magus. He could definitely do with a change in scenery. He had been in this room for three weeks now, only going outside these walls to go to the bathroom or get some food from downstairs. The few times he did that, Magus had glared at him at first, and then ignored him completely. It suited him just fine. Flea had been busy furnishing his room and adding to his wardrobe, having realized that while he couldn't use any major spells, conjuring dead things, like stone, fabric and wood, was still easy.

      Finally, he looked at Lucca and nodded, but he sharply wrote "no towns" on the parchment. Lucca nodded. "No towns. We can go for a walk in the forest or something," she said, and headed for the door. Flea got up and followed her, his dress making rustling sounds as he walked.

       Magus looked oddly at them as they came downstairs, Lucca with a smile on her face and Flea busy with lifting his skirt so he wouldn't trip. "Where are you going?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. Lucca grinned. "For a walk," she replied happily. Magus growled and reached out to take Flea's wrist. Neither he nor Lucca had expected Flea's reaction. The Mystic hissed and recoiled from the touch, lashing out with his hand at the same time. This happened so fast that Lucca didn't understand what was happening before Magus pulled back, four bloody lines trailing down his face where Flea's claws had met his skin. Flea was clutching his head in pain, the effects of the spell Magus had used to bind his life force setting in, giving him a terrible headache. Lucca blinked in surprise, not understanding what just happened. Flea hissed again, and grabbed his cloak of the hanger, before walking out the door. Magus was cursing under his breath, rummaging through his supplies for a tonic. Lucca just shrugged and followed Flea out the door.

The forest was silent that day, and very peaceful, so Lucca saw no reason to say anything to Flea just yet. The Mystic was still fuming silently, but she was willing to bet that if he could speak, he'd be cursing Magus loudly. She occupied herself with looking at him instead. Flea was beautiful. Lucca couldn't help but think so, even though he was even more feminine than she was, and she was a girl. He moved with a grace that she could only dream of achieving someday, and his feet made no sound on the ground. His hips swayed slightly when he walked, giving him an illusion of the broad hips of a woman. This combined with him being very slender, made him look like he had feminine curves. The last time she had faced Flea, in Ozzie's fortress, the Mystic had actually had breasts. That must have been either an illusion or some sort of a shapeshifted form, related to his magic, because he had none now. He still looked like a woman, though, and if Magus hadn't told her that Flea was male, she would never have guessed.

       Realizing that Flea was watching her, she blushed slightly, looking at the ground. She hadn't meant to stare. Flea didn't seem angry, though. Just curious, like a child trying to learn how its favorite toy worked. He sat down on an old log, covered in soft green moss, absentmindedly spreading his skirts out around him. Lucca decided to follow his lead and found a large stub to sit on. They were sitting opposed to each other now, looking at each other. Flea's eyes had that hint of black again, swirling around in his eyes like a whirlwind. He held out one hand, fingertips still stained gray by graphite, and concentrated slightly. A parchment and quill appeared in his hands. Lucca gasped. "I thought you couldn't do magic anymore," she said, looking at the magician. Flea smiled slightly. "I can't do spells anymore. But conjuring things is easy. It only takes concentration," he wrote quickly, leaving elegant trails on the parchment. "Conjuring isn't considered real magic, because not all magicians can use it. Instead, it's considered an independent skill." He tilted his head to the side, causing his braid to fall over his shoulder, trailing down his chest. The black velvet of his cloak was utterly black, and barely shone in the sunlight at all. Instead, it seemed to be absorbing the light. "Magus can't do it," he wrote, and his handwriting looked decidedly smug as he wrote.

       Lucca grinned. "I bet he really hates that," she said. "He seems like the kind of person who hates it when someone can do something he can't." Flea nodded, and leaned back against a nearby tree. He did feel a bit better. Maybe talking really helps, he thought and closed his eyes, feeling fairly content. Lucca got up and walked over to where the Mystic was sitting, seating herself next to him, so that she could see what he was writing better. "Flea?" She asked, looking at him. "Do you think you could teach me about Mystics?"

-TBC

Author's Note: Yes, I do realize that I haven't updated in ages. I've been busy. I wish I hadn't been, but that's Real Life for you. A waste of time, but it can't be avoided. Flea's dress in this is inspired by Mana of Moi dix Mois, formerly of Malice Mizer, and his beautiful Shiroi Hada ni Kuruu Ai to Kanashimi no Rondo costume. I love his style… …Next chapter will be filled with my made up Mystic lore…