AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks again. On to the fic.

Chapter Ten: Sword and Armor

Cray emerged from belowdecks. "It all looks ready to go. How about us? Are we ready?" Near-synchronized affirmations came from those assembled on the dock, with Ryu's having a significant lag. As Deis predicted, he had gotten up that morning with nothing worse than muzzy eyes and hunger.

The upper deck of their sandflier was crowded nearly to the point of significant discomfort. It was a good thing that they traveled light - otherwise, thought Nina, if there was a sandstorm or the like a few arms and legs would probably end up sticking out of the hatch. She hauled a chair from below for Elina to sit on, and then went to her usual spot at the prow. Ryu joined her at his soon afterward. Won-Qu and A-Tur took positions just behind them, on either side of the hatch. Beyond them Ershin and Scias took one side while Elina had the other to herself; she carried on a half-shouted conversation with Cray as the latter climbed into the back of the sandflier, where the steering mechanism was located, and started them out of Kyoin and across the desert to where, eventually, Shyde awaited.

It seemed that extended travel was always perilous, tedious or both. After a half hour Nina grew tired of counting the passing sand dunes and looked for something else to do. She thought of talking to Elina, but at the moment she was still speaking with Cray, and it would be rude to interrupt. Scias had gone belowdecks. Ershin had brought the books up on deck and was completely engrossed. "Anything interesting?" she asked.

"She says that if by interesting you include disgusting in a fascinating way, then yes."

When she turned in Ryu's direction he was contemplating the sword, apparently oblivious to all else. "Are you okay?"

He looked up. "I'm okay." His words were as glass.

She remembered the phantom Fou-Lu vanishing and the sword glowing. "Is it very strange?"

Again he understood exactly - there wasn't even a blink before he said, "It would feel odd using it like a regular sword. I keep on thinking he'll start, I don't know, shouting at me in the middle of a fight. Or even just shouting, at whatever time. Least then I couldn't complain about being bored."

"I guess I couldn't complain, either."

"I just hope the Abbess can do something about it. It can't be a good life hanging around in a sword."

"Yes, that's right. Ah, Ryu?"

"What is it?"

"How did you do it? I mean, without any powers?"

"Some of it that used to be mine was still in there," he said. "It hadn't done with healing her yet. I hitched a ride on it, I guess."

She noted with pleasure that he'd stopped denying his role in her sister's restoration. "Oh. Wasn't that very difficult?"

"Not really."

"I was - we were all worried for you. I mean, supposing you got something wrong and were trapped in there instead of my sister?"

"I know. I'm sorry."

She forced in a good dose of the cheerfulness she'd once had in such abundance. "But you're back now."

"So I am."

Nina counted two more sand dunes before she could think of something else to say, but by then she'd seen the running man. "Look - I wonder what he's doing out here."

Ryu looked. "I don't think it's for his health. More like he's…"

"As though he wert fleeing, Young Master?"

Ryu took no notice of the honorific. "You're right. Cray!" He waved, and then gestured when he had Cray's attention. "Could we pull over the sandflier for him? If he's a bandit we can take him down all right."

The sandflier began dragging to a halt. Ryu and Ershin tossed out a rope ladder and the running man leapt for it as it unfurled, scrambled upward, then tripped on the top rung and landed on his face on the deck of the sandflier. "They art closing in," he cried, gasping, as Scias climbed up and Ershin helped him to his feet. "We must make haste. Thou wilt not halt this craft if thy value on thy life be high!"

Cray turned it slightly and maintained the same steady speed. "Why?"

In response, the man jabbed a finger in the direction from which he came. In the distance was a speck which soon revealed itself to be another sandflier. "They art in pursuit, though I hath done no wrong." He looked around the deck for signs of belief, saw Ryu, and ran forward. Won-Qu and A-Tur started to block him, but a wave and a shout from Ryu and they quickly withdrew. "Thou art the Yorae Dragon. Art thou not?"

"Yes," said Ryu slowly. "It's you, isn't it, Sa Ryong?" Nina waited a moment and utterly failed to be shocked by this; that in itself was a slight shock. He offered his water canteen. "Just like in the dream."

Sa Ryong accepted it and nodded vigorously as the sandflier gathered speed. "Thou hast created my current body, so thou shouldst remember its likeness, even if 'tis only in thy dreams."

The other sandflier pulled still closer. It was a good bit larger than theirs, and Nina made out nine or ten soldiers standing around on the deck, with another steering. Near the prow was a vaguely familiar face. "That's the Ludian prince," she said. "And that's Alliance military uniform." On the other sandflier she saw them begin to point - apparently they were making identifications of their own. The prince, especially, did an exceptional goldfish impression. You wrote off my sister. Surprised, aren't you? There was a strange pleasure in her anger.

"Oh… j-joy," said Scias. "N… now they'll t-try g-getting us along w-with him."

"Too bad for them," said Cray, and the sandflier shot away. The other sandflier slowed down for a moment, then took off after.

The first explosion was a ways to the side and flung sand in all directions. When Nina got the sand out of her eyes and looked back she saw one of the soldiers on the nearing flier preparing to toss another.

"Deis says it would be advisable for those who cannot fight from a distance to go belowdecks. Up here you are merely another target." Ryu nodded with evident reluctance, kicked open the hatch, and helped Elina down, followed by Sa Ryong, who still held Ryu's canteen. Won-Qu and A-Tur jumped in after, with a quick glance to be sure they would crush no one by their landing. Then Ershin threw in the books. As the hatch shut the next few landed behind them. One would have hit their flier, but Scias froze a ball of ice around it. The explosion simulated a few seconds' light rain and threw Nina to the deck. She got up and murmured an incantation, and the approaching sandflier was spun around for a few seconds in an artificial typhoon. It came down in the opposite direction, necessitating a hurried turnaround on their part.

Sometime during the next two hours the other sandflier must have run out of explosives, as they turned to straight pursuit. And they were gaining, in spite of Nina's minor typhoons - when she'd run out of energy for them, she'd taken weak potshots with her staff - and Cray's evasive maneuvers. As it began to pull up side-to-side Ryu came back on deck, followed by Won-Qu and A-Tur.

"Your turn to go down now," he told her. "It'll probably be a melee." He was right, as Ershin had been when telling him to take cover before, and there was no time for token protest.

As she began to climb down the ladder to belowdecks, the other sandflier turned and made for theirs at top speed. In the nick of time their sandflier turned sharply, nearly spun; Nina almost cracked her head on the side of the hatch. She saw Ershin go over the railing and off the flier in a long arc, and as she screamed and began scrabbling her way back onto the deck, and as Cray cursed and as Ryu shouted, Ershin landed hard. The top of the armor popped open, expelling something that shot a ways further, trailing a dark blue streamer, before it, too, landed and lay still. A second later the other sandflier saw this and turned again, making for the easier prey. Cray was turning theirs as well, but it was all happening so slowly and there was no way -

Before she could raise any mental objections, before more seconds were lost, Nina jumped off the railing, beating her wings so that they nearly vibrated with the motion. As she descended she grabbed the thing in the sand and held it close as her glide turned into a tumble and the sandflier rushed past them, nearly mowing them down. She lay where she fell for a few seconds more before she got up and saw what she was holding.

Eyes obscured by masses of dark blue hair stared up at her. For a moment she thought it might be a Pabpab - its hair was longer than it was tall, and it made coils on the sand. The next moment she was thankful for the amount of hair, as it appeared to be a girl of about eleven or twelve, in the same state as Ryu had been on their first meeting.

"Damn it," said the girl.

What was a child doing inside Ershin?

"Three days. Three more days! That was all I wanted!"

Oh. "Deis? Is that you?"

"No," she snapped back, "It's P'ung Ryong. Of course it's me." Her voice was nothing like that of the Deis they'd met when wandering in her dream, or the voice when she spoke through her armor, or even what had issued from the medium Rhem. But when you were a child, wasn't that kind of voice what came naturally? Was this why she didn't want to talk?

Deis pushed away from her and stood up to watch the approach of Won-Qu and A-Tur, the latter with the armor grasped in his jaws. As they looked on Won-Qu growled at the sandflier, which had swung around for another go, and it hastily reversed direction. "Thank you," said Nina as he bent down for her to climb on.

Deis marched over to A-Tur. "Give me that!" He duly lowered the armor to the ground, and she jumped in and slammed down the top. A-Tur picked it up again, with Deis grumbling from inside with her child's voice. Their sandflier had pulled around, and with a few bounds they were back on the deck. After Nina got off and Ershin was set down Won-Qu and A-Tur made for the other sandflier.

Fou-Lu's powers might be gone with those of the other dragons, but some had been left behind in the strength of their jaws and claws. Within a half hour the battle was won with nothing more than superficial injuries, which Nina and Scias quickly banished with light healing spells and a few appropriate herbs.

Once they were well away from the downed sandflier and back on the way to Shyde she went belowdecks, got out some of her spare clothing and showed it to Ershin, who balked. "Deis says she will not emerge again for some time."

"Just in case something like that happens again," said Nina. The top of the armor promptly flipped open and she dropped in the bundle without looking inside.

"She says thank you."

"Why are you still not talking?" asked Ryu, his eyes still slightly wider than normal. "I mean, we know now what it is."

"She says that your knowledge is not a reason for her to flaunt it."

"I wouldn't call it flaunting," said Nina. "Flaunting would be more… deliberate, wouldn't it?"

"She says, nevertheless."

Ryu sighed and turned to Sa Ryong, who was leaned against the railing and tilting the canteen to his mouth; there couldn't be more than a few drops left in there. So strange to think that a being who had once brought down their sandflier (hers and Cray's, they hadn't yet met the others back then) was reduced to a lanky man with grit in his hair and under his nails and inextricable with the rough weave of his clothes. "Now, could you explain more about why they were chasing you?"

"They didst come upon me and request my identity, as they knew of no mortals who resided near. Apparently I hath not been a 'good neighbor.'"

Ryu put his hand to his forehead. "You told them who you were?"

Sa Ryong flushed. "I hath… not so much knowledge of subterfuge. Some days after, they returned and didst attempt to persuade me to return with them, as they didst believe I could be of help in their war."

Nina said, "Didn't they know you lost your powers? You did, right?"

"Verily, I hath. But they wert loath to believe it, and waxed wroth upon my refusal. Whereupon," he concluded, "I took my leave. Hast thou more water to spare?"

Scias nodded and passed over his own half-full canteen. "As… m-much as you w-want. You j-just c-cast ice s-spells and l-let it m-melt."

"I must thank thee."

"It's n-nothing."

Sa Ryong turned back to Ryu. "Might I accompany thee to thy destination, if 'tis not an inordinate burden? I believe 'twould be an unwise course to remain in the desert."

"'s fine with me. Anyone have a problem?" No one had.

"So," she said to him that afternoon as they sat alone on the deck, drinking more tepid water, "that's another lucky accident to your credit, Ryu. With Deis, I mean."

He stared at her. "Why are you so sure it was me this time?"

She blinked. "Well, who else do you think it could it have been?"

"Just not me. Isn't one 'lucky accident' like that enough for one lifetime?"

"Of course it's enough, if it's such a big one."

"If I could just have it for a while longer," he said, "Just a little while longer. I know I couldn't set everything right in the world even if I had forever to do it in, but couldn't I have tried to make it better? At least I could've fixed some of what got broken."

"You mean like what happened to Chedo?"

He balanced his sword on his lap. "I was thinking more of what happened to people. Like General Rhun, and Mami from Sonne. If all of this hadn't happened they'd probably still be doing all right."

"You think they shouldn't have died?"

"Of course I don't think they should've, not so soon. If I just hadn't been so hasty then I might've been able to take it all back. They could've - no, they would've died again someday, sure, but at least I would've kept it from them for a little while longer." He laughed, short and sharp, and she thought of Fou-Lu. "Oh, I thought I was being so noble, tossing out all that power. The truth is I was scared. Scared that I might slip and end up blowing apart the whole world instead someone like that Rasso, next time. But what made it so much worse than power like you've got? Your typhoons and your vitalizations?"

She guessed, "Because there was so much more of it than anyone else had?"

"Nina, this isn't a test. If you don't know I don't either. And I don't." He didn't get up and start pacing, or smack a fist into his other hand like Cray, or even fold his arms. Nina would have felt better if he had done that, or just about anything besides sit there and just talk, with only his voice shifting.

"The world doesn't need it, sure, but it could've made things easier, couldn't it? And what did they do, the others, what did they do that made me think I needed to drag them in with me? It wasn't as if they ran about blowing up cities and demanding sacrifices. And after all that I didn't even send them home. No, I just gave them new bodies and stuck them back down here and sent them off - to do what? Get a job chopping wood? And not even a little bit of it left, a little bit to defend themselves. You heard what happened to Sa Ryong!" He slumped. "I must have had some kind of reason for doing all of that, but for the life of me I don't know what it could've been."

She spoke and her voice sounded pathetic when set against his tirade. "Ryu… I'm sorry."

"Don't," he said quickly. "Don't. There's nothing for you to be sorry about." He moved close to her. "I shouldn'tve thrown all of this at you. Expected you to be able to fix it. I am such a -" She thought he might reach out, but instead he moved away again.

"No, I don't think that at all, I - look," she said desperately, "a shooting star."

He looked up at it, then promptly back down. "I need to do something about this," he said. "And about Fou-Lu. He's not going to spend a few more centuries hanging around in a sword if I can help it."

"You could go to Chek, maybe," she said, "and ask the Abbess?"

"Yeah… that sounds good. So after you're all home could you see about-"

"I'll go with you."

He looked up again, to her faint delight. "Cray and your dad and everyone might not be too keen on that idea."

"I don't really care whether they are," she said, ignoring the automatic twinge at her lie. "I want to know if you are."

"It could be a bit… tricky, getting up there again."

"I've been up to Chek once already, you know. I'd be ashamed if I couldn't live through a second time." It was a bit sad, how he so obviously floundered for another objection. "I'm certainly not letting you go up there alone."

Finally, a smile began to form - it grew slowly, but it grew, as he looked to his sword and back to her. "Well, I'll have Fou-Lu with me, won't I?" After they both stopped laughing, he said, "That's fine. Let's work out the rest when we've done with this desert, all right?"

Nina smiled back. "Sure!"

They talked for the rest of the afternoon and evening, without again mentioning Fou-Lu or the Endless. But his words remained in the back of her head, all the same.