Love Bites

"Ah, Felix," Kay came to a standstill and smiled sinisterly. "How nice it is to see you."

"Actually, I was just going-" Felix began but Picard trod on his foot. "Ow! You jerk of a Lemurian! I'm going to-"

"I have important information concerning Garet," Kay folded her arms across her chest, pretending not to notice Felix's eagerness to get away from her as quickly as possible.

"I already know he's a blockhead, thanks," Felix smiled hesitantly. Kay shook her head. "Oh, it's not that?"

"I read Garet's diary a while ago," Kay began, speaking ultra calmly for one who was enraged by her brother slacking off chores. "Obviously he misspells a lot of words and his grammar is sometimes inadequate. Believe me, finding his diary was very easy, it was just a big book labelled 'Garet's Diary' that he left lying around."

"And what sort of things does he write in there then?" Picard asked curiously, shuddering as he imagined Garet drawing hentai doodles in the pages. Not such a pretty image.

"1 whinging about how he's hungry and loves food, 90 Jenna, 9 stuff like ranting about Kraden and battles and reminiscing on the journey," Kay answered. "He's like a lovesick puppy, it's absolutely disgusting."

"And you came to tell us this because?" Felix ventured, wondering why Kay would come to tell him and Picard all about what was in Garet's diary, it wasn't like he particularly wanted to know, or did he?

"Oh, because Garet wrote a charming entry about how he was planning to propose to Jenna," Felix and Picard could have swore that her eyes flared red in that instant and smoke poured out of her nose, but then next second she was back to normal. "Thought you might want to know." Then Kay turned and walked off, chuckling sinisterly, leaving the two lost for words.

"This is kinda nice, huh?" Mia snuggled up to Isaac in the crook of a tree, making sure that the readers got the desired amount of fluff. Squirrels were in the branches, watching the pair intently with their beady eyes. Nosey things, squirrels. "Almost all of us are together... you and me... Garet and Jenna..."

"Hmm... hey, what about Sheba?" Isaac asked suddenly, glancing at Mia. "She and Ivan seem to be pretty close, do you think that there could be something there?"

"Isn't that for Ivan and Sheba to decide?" Mia asked curiously.

"Who says it is?" Isaac grinned wickedly, planting a kiss on her lips.

"Hmm..." Mia looked thoughtful. "Maybe we should try our hand at this thing called plotting..."

"Yeah, isn't plotting fun?" Isaac smiled. "For all we know, there's evil squirrels up in the tree branches plotting to rain acorns on us." He chuckled.

"Isaac, you're so funny," Mia laughed.

Then acorns started raining down on Isaac and Mia at a very fast rate and they decided that it was definitely not very funny as they took to running far from the evil squirrels and in the direction of Isaac's house. There was plotting to do and it had to be done now.

"Maybe we should get back to the plotting?" Ivan suggested in a bored tone.

"Nah, that started off the Adept War..." Sheba said, equally as bored. "Maybe we should play a prank on someone."

"And risk getting blasted with Psynergy?" Ivan winced. "Psynergy blasts are actually pretty painful."

"Come on," Sheba got to her feet and ran to the plaza, a speechless Ivan fast behind her.

Quite coincidentally or maybe not so coincidentally, somebody was approaching the gate. Sheba and Ivan reached the gate at the same time and stood on either side, trying to look very guardlike for two short Jupiter Adepts.

"Halt!" Sheba called out. "What is your reason for wishing to enter Vale?"

"Um, I travel," said the person hesitantly. "I need a place to stay."

"Unfortunately, Vale is not such a good place to stay," Ivan said as seriously as possible. "In the past three years we've had falling boulders, fierce storms, earthquakes, oh, and an erupting volcano. It is very lucky that we still have a populastion over one hundred!"

"I... see..." The traveller had now gone very pale and glanced fearfully up at Mt. Aleph as if expecting it to burst in a fierce display of lava showers. "I am terribly sorry to disturb you, I may have to go elsewhere..."

"Try Lunpa to the east," Sheba advised, pointing in the direction of the thieves' town. "It is much safer than Vale and I am sure you will get a warm reception there."

"Thank you," The traveller smiled and set off, wincing under the weight of the bags he carried on his back.

"Sheba!" Ivan exclaimed, his eyes wide as saucers. "How could you say to go to Lunpa?"

"Oh come on!" Sheba protested airily. "I'm sure Lunpa is very nice. Besides, wasn't the bad Dodonpa dude locked up by his dad?"

"Well, yeah," Ivan nodded hesitantly. "But we're not even sure how much Lunpa has changed!"

"Well, the traveller won't be coming back here for sure," Sheba walked away. "Probably scared his head will get smashed in by a falling boulder by now."

"You say it like it's a regular occurence," Ivan muttered, following her. "And I forgot to mention the steaming mad Mars Adepts who blow you up just for looking at them... oh, that's right, you're not supposed to talk freely about Adepts..."

"They would probably think an Adept was some weird animal or something," Sheba scoffed contemptuously. "That just goes to show how little they know."

"Yep," Ivan nodded.

"I'm not sure if Yepp was that bad," Sheba frowned. "He did go to Lemuria, didn't he?"

"Sheba," Ivan said warningly. "The Yepp jokes are very unfunny."

"How about the Sunshine one?" Sheba smirked. "Remember, the blacksmith in Yallam? I always wanted to stand outside his shop and sing "You Are My Sunshine" but Felix was scared that old Sunny would go psycho, pick up an axe and give chase. Where does he get his freaky ideas from?"

"WHO BURNT MY FLOWERS!"

Kay's scream rang out over the entire village, sending children scuttling to their homes and crying for their mommies, and several people screamed, believing that it was the Coming of the Apocalpyse. Garet heard the scream and shuddered violently, he was sure she was angry enough because he wasn't doing the chores, but somebody burnt her flowers?

'Please don't let her blame me, please don't let her blame me,' Garet mentally begged, trying to loosen the ropes and failing miserably. 'I've got to find a way off this stupid tree fast, then I'll probably relocate to Tundaria or something, but then I'd need the ship and I don't know who has the Black Orb, and someone would probably come after me with the Teleport Lapis or something... I am so screwed. Maybe I should wear a paper bag over my head after all.

Garet closed his eyes shut and imagined that Dullahan and Deadbeard were marching towards him, and there was no escape. He was doomed. He was doomed. So doomed. They would have to erect a memorial statue in his honour. A smaller voice that lived in his mind insultingly inferred that the people of Vale might not want to remember him but he hurriedly shut it out. Jenna would remember. Hopefully she would remember she had tied him to the tree. She only tied him because... she was impatient and it must be her time of the month or something. Yeah, that was it.

'I couldn't propose to her while tied to a tree anyway,' Garet thought glumly. 'I'd rather the situation was romantic... and I can't even say anything with a dishcloth in my mouth... this tastes like...'

Jenna, who was hiding behind a tree, shivered and hoped fervently that Kay might burn the wrong Mars Adept. Not Garet either. Speaking of Garet, she hoped that he was ready to tell her but perhaps she should wait a while. Unless someone found him first, but what were the chances of that? Few people even went to Kraden's cottage, let alone past it, or even over the fence. That meant it was her responsibility to make sure Garet didn't starve to death.

'On second thoughts, he might have already,' thought Jenna glumly, setting off at a brisk walk to get as much distance between her and Garet's house as quickly as possible before Kay went on the warpath. 'He starves like every ten seconds. It's so frustrating.'

Feizhi approached Kraden's cottage, shivering a little. She was trying to be as brave as she possibly could but that didn't stop her from shaking all over like a jelly obviously. She was surprised to see a person on the 'roof' or what there was of it anyway, levitating up with wood and putting thatch over the wood. Of course, it had been roofless before, so it was likely someone would fix it. Feizhi squinted at the person with the long blue hair, trying to figure out if it was a man or a woman.

"Excuse me," Feizhi called out. "Are you a man?" She could be fairly blunt at times but she just wanted to be sure. Perhaps it was obvious really, as far as she knew women didn't usually fix the roof so how could it be?

"I'm getting really sick of these stupid gender cracks that everybody seems to be making about me which are completely biased, stupid, rude and unfair and I do wish that people would quit making them because they are extremely unfunny!" Alex shouted down. "And I do not want people disrupting me from my sacred work that I must do at all costs, this is the only way that I can win back my beloved Mia into my arms so that she will admit her affection for me and we can be together forever. She was sadly, most tragically taken from me by that asinine jerk, the one who goes by the name of Isaac... that..." A stream of expletives followed.

"How dare you say such things about Isaac!" Feizhi exclaimed passionately. "He is a charming, wonderful man who does things for the good of others, he is noble and handsome and at least he doesn't look like a girl! That Mia must be a very wise girl to have picked him rather than some stupid man like you who can't even see the good qualities that Isaac possesses!"

"Well, you are a blinkered fool," Alex crossly slammed some thatch on the roof. "Isaac is a greedy man, he stole the power that I wanted, I wanted to be immortal and omnipowerful but no, the wicked Wise One, protector of this stupid village, had to give it to Isaac so that makes Isaac a thief and he also stole my woman so he is a very wicked thief and I intend to win Mia back sometime, I know that she loves me really, she is the light that guides my way, shining to me in the darkness, giving me a reason to live, I only wish to be with her for eternity and I know she would love me had I something to give her, or something to make her proud of me, such as the power of Alchemy itself. What a great power."

"I... see..." Feizhi swallowed nervously. 'Oh fantastic! Now I'm having a conversation with a megalomaniac who hates my dear Isaac! Maybe I really should not have bothered coming up at all... I can't believe someone could hate Isaac!'

"Whatever is happening out here?" Kraden walked out of the cottage and looked up at Alex. "Harumph! Are you not even done yet? I demand that you hurry up, I do believe that the consistency of clouds in the sky means that it will rain very soon and I would rather that my precious books did not get wet, a lifetime's work could be ruined and if you don't hurry, I shall notify the others."

"Excuse me," Feizhi approached and the old man turned his attention to her. "Why is there a megalomaniac fixing your roof? And is it just me or does he talk more than even you do?" She had not witnessed the horror of the encounter in Champa where Alex had talked nonstop to Felix, Jenna, Sheba, Picard and Kraden and had actually managed the once thought impossible task of outtalking Kraden.

"Well, this megalomaniac, you see," Kraden cleared his throat and lowered his voice so that Alex would not hear. "He is blinded by his affection for Mia. However, Mia is a good girl and she sees how bad he truly is, so she blackmailed him into doing a list of tasks, many of them impossible. She was very nice, she made the first one fixing my roof although I suspect it was so I wouldn't have to make Isaac and the others do it but of course I'm not complaining."

"I see," Feizhi nodded. "Well, I can understand why Mia wouldn't like that guy, he's a complete jerk! How can anybody not like Isaac? I think he must have been dropped on his head as a baby or something, he has some serious problems and I think he could do with therapy or something. Does he plan to get lost after this?"

"Hopefully, yes," Kraden glanced up at the bluehaired man. "I scarcely believe it... that megalomaniac, Alex, the ONLY one who is capable of outtalking a rambling old man like me and people often accuse me of talking too much, even sleeping through my lectures even though I work so hard on them and it is a terrible shame that they ignore me like that, what can I do but talk? I'm not useful for much else..."

"Whoah..." Feizhi stared in fascination at the only person who was capable of outtalking Kraden. "He's going to go down in history alright..." She sensed several people wishing that he was history, but she brushed the feeling off and wondered what to do next. She had faced her worst fear by going to Kraden's cottage and talking to Kraden, and had actually found something worse in the process.

"... and we'll probably have a party..." Kraden had of course started rambling again.

"Huh?" Feizhi blinked. "When?"

"When he leaves of course. Why else would we have a party, we've had little occasion to lately."

"Oh."