Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Knights. I, um, actually don't own much. I DO however, own a copy of each book that has been printed into english!

Warnings: Not sure, as I write this bit before writing the story. Oh! RxC! Eaaargh...:about halfway done with fic:: Damnit. I dun wanna get flamed, but I think Cesia's a tich OOC. ::mutters:: I really don't want to fix it, as that would involve rewriting a lot of this, but... Rath's IC, but I'm not sure about Cesia. ::thinking:: Ok, um... Just... Don't complain too much, because it's not THAT bad, ok? (Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think it's as bad as I originally thought it was.)

Damn, this chapter is UBER short. Sorry...

A/N: Hee. This will be the last time I update this story until December. Aren't I nice? Getting the RxCness taken care of first?

::And she said yes::

Cesia ran her hands down the slick metal of the bleachers, shivering involuntarily as the cold came into harsh contact with her smooth hands.

She smiled at the feeling.

The cheap tinfoil encircled her heart, creating a cage of steel.

Bars which nothing she possessed could break. Not now. Not tonight.

She was safe.

The music of the song wrapped around her, suffocating, and she slid it through her mind, soaking up individual words, but not their meaning.

Well, here it was. The last dance of the night. Tintlett was gone.

Cesia had caught a glimpse of her blonde friend leaving the stands with her old schoolgirl crush, and Kitchel was still nowhere in sight.

Probably still outside, laughing at nothing. Meaningless dreams.

The steady bass beat in her slowly deafening ears, and the world lost all time, sliding into a frozen orb of sound and sight.

Cold perfection.

And then...

A ray of flickering warmth penetrated her crystal sphere, the glow of flames whispered beneath cracking layers of frozen ice.

She blinked her eyes wide, shaking off the falling dust and for all appearances reawakening to the movement of the world.

And she heard her name called.

"Cesia."

The sound broke the mirage completely, and everything jerked back into normal time, the gray fading away behind her eyes.

"...Rath?"

Her voice was startled, questioning, not daring to hope.

Not wishing for pain.

But there he was, standing before her, nervously scuffing his foot against the gym floor, face tilted to the ground, unable to hide a tinge of red.

"Um..." his fists balled, clenching tightly at his sides, wringing the air that slid through his fingers. "I-- Would you..."

Her heart fluttered against her will, beating its wings against the bars of her chest, struggling to break free. She beat it back down, but not quite as harshly as before, her eyes too fixated upon his slightly shaking form to pay attention.

Rath took a deep breath, and Cesia found herself drowning in the music once more, engulfed by chords and notes and harmonies. Only this time, she found herself able to breathe admist the confusing swirl of lyrics.

A smile of tentative relation to their words wrapped around her soul. Not tightly, not clinging to her, drenching her, as it would to one of the golden rimmed dolls on the dance floor, but simply... Touching. Allowing room for hope in this morbid hour.

"What is it?" she breathed, not catching his gaze as his line of vision was still glued to the floor, but instead grabbing his determination.

His face flushed to a burning shade of crimson, mimicking the rapid pace of the blood pounding in his ears.

"...Would you... Like to dance?"

Her heart leapt, and for the first time that night, she made no attempt to stop it. The bars gave way, and she gave a smile.

"Yes."

:n:

Animegoil: I know EXACTLY what you mean! ...That's why he's taking psychology in school. :nodnod: He is. I'll show you his schedule sometime. I think I already said this, but I plan to put up a new schedule in my bio everytime I update Fame and Fortune. Just tell me who's you want to see first! :whispers: Yeah, I think Rath was trying to say something, too. He just won't tell me what it really was. Stupid Rath.

Hououza: Ha, he was considering beating up Thats. But he didn't. Perhaps that is for the better. More time to dance with his girlfriend. OW!:gets hit by Rath: Geeze, you hit me but not him!? Thanks for the luck! I've survived my first quarter of high school, and I've got good grades! ...Except for Spanish. Let's ignore that class, shall we?:ignoresignoresignores:

Elfin Kagome: Yup! You are! The...:counts: 21st of December is your day. nn Little Red Riding Hood? Lol!

Kat: Haha! RxC! I have paused in doing my ISS homework to finish this story because... I really got bored of finding salient points...

Jaid Skywalker: Jaid Skywalker?! It's you! :hugs: Sorry for abandoning my Gundam Wing story!! I just... Got really busy and distracted and... :fumbles for decent excuse: Plus, my last chapter only got one review. :sticks out tounge: I've been really busy with my Dragon Knights stuff, though, as you can see. I've got lots of stuff up here!

Isis-Ishtar123: Yeah, they're coming. I know what I'm doing for them. More so than any of the others, actually.

Sarehptar: XD Glad you found that funny. It wasn't really soon, but it is updated.

insaneoveranime: o.o Thats thinks you are God.

Kat Ho: :laughs at the spazziness: Dramatic! :strikes a pose:

Capella: Thatchel!! :high fives: Yes, I agree. Thats is SKILLED. :sighs: God, I envy him. Like in book 16. That is one of my favorite scenes. You know... That whole bit with Thats and Rath and Thats is yelling at him. :sighs again: I LOVED that scene. I was just... Awed. That was amazing. I envy him so much. (I was also like, "BOO-YAH! Kiss my ASS, you Thats bashers! Look at that! LOOK AT THAT! He's NOT some stupid idiot like you always pretend he is! HahahaHA! Kick ass! KICK ASS!" Hee hee. I was happy.) ...Maybe that's because I've got a pair of psychologists(Yes! I finally spelled that right!) for parents, but I really do envy him. God. I just wish I was able to do that.

:n:

I'm actually a little scared to post this chapter. I don't know how people will react to it. I know it's stupid, as this is a chapter right in the middle of my story, and nothing graphic happened, and there weren't any unexpected plot twists, and I didn't kill anyone off... Wait, that would be a plot twist, wouldn't it? ::runs around in circles:: Aaaarrgh! I tried so hard to get this to work, but I can't quite get it, and I know people are gonna complain, but I need to post this today, and... ::trails off into incoherent rambling as the readers get bored and go off to read someone else's story::

Please review?

And yes, I meant to say "morbid"... ::shifty eyes::