Nascent

Disclaimer be in Part I

Author's Note: Oooh, cliffhanger! (grin, dodges bricks) Heheh. Do I have you curious about any of the characters' little secrets yet? (grin grin grin) I hope so. It's going to be a fun ride from here on out, so hang on and let's get going.

Story to plug of the day... "Hoshi no Suna" by L1v. Yet ANOTHER fanfiction of Kumo-centric angst! This one focuses on Kumo's relationship with Kiri and the deep depression he suffers daily while trying to deal with other matters, such as the Earl and stupid Oscha and a rogue piece of Omega he's charged with finding. The wording is a little clunky in places, but this is still a good story that's worth looking into. The great many flashbacks revolving around the boys are very sweet as well. (grin)

So go ahead and review that one, as well as this! RAR! Teeheehee! Story time!

---

(Kumo)

Through the haze of pain and the detached, floating sensation, it's hard to figure out what in the world is going on.

I remember well how I hurled myself in the way of the monster's attack in order to save my brother's life. And then the pain... but after that, it all seemed to fade into darkness.

I can hear snatches of slurred voices around me, but I can't tell who's talking or what exactly they're saying. I think... that it may be my brother.

I hope...

Two figures take shape in the haze around me. They are tall, with long white hair and piercing eyes; one set golden-blue, the other green-brown, also gold-flecked.

And suddenly, I know. These people are...

I slowly begin to speak, almost out of my own accord. Almost since birth, I have been trained to recite the according prayers upon my meeting with them.

"My lords, if it is truly time, then take my soul in painless passage. Nallorn, guide me through thy realm and grant me refuge from tortured dreams. Gaedrian, take me to see the crest of our world before you bring me to my place of final rest...

"I beg of you, as your child and your servant, guide me now through death..."

---

Though Kumo's lips moved, no sound escaped them.

Kiri, however, went bloodlessly white. "The death prayer," he said softly. "Kumo is... he's reciting the death prayer of our people...!" He whirled and fixed the elven healer with an anguished, panicking stare. "Please... please... there isn't much time left...! You have to do something, or he'll...!"

The young man shook his head. "The spells are already in place, and we'll use every natural cure we know. You were lucky to get him here so quickly. This way, we'll actually have a chance of saving him, however slim it is..."

Lisa's knees promptly gave out, and she collapsed with a thunk against the wood floor. "Thank God," she managed weakly. "Kaze, you... you've saved him!"

The brunet shook his head. "Common sense." He strode forward, looking almost businesslike, and laid a hand on Kumo's forehead. "He's getting feverish." His cerulean eyes fixed the healer with a piercing glare. "Hurry..."

"Yes, yes." The elf waved a hand. "Get out of here, so I'll have the space to work."

The four of them retreated, leaving the small wooden building. The village of the elves was quiet in the twilight, with young men and women watching from doorways.

"This was a setup," Kiri growled, still white-faced. "I'm sure of it. All of this... the king, this stupid quest, everything... Kumo could sense it from the beginning, and now he's..."

"Wait," Lisa began timidly. "Maybe... we don't really know what's going on here, after all. So shouldn't we go and try to...?"

"I doubt it," Aura cut her off. "But we should still try to wring some answers out of that man. Why he wanted the crown so badly, or if it was all just some weird ruse to kill people for fun."

"I should like to talk to him as well," Kaze rumbled.

Lisa shook her head. "If you do, then... I think I should stay here," she said miserably. "There'll be fighting and yelling and arguments and I... I'm just going to get in the way."

"Lisa... that's..." Aura grimaced. It was true and all of them knew it.

"I'll stay here and look after Kumo," the black-haired girl said with a sad smile. "Go on, now. And be careful..."

"We will," Aura told her, then dashed after Kaze and Kiri, who were already halfway out of the village, grim-faced and vengeful.

---

The strange lord looked up as the three young warriors burst into the keep, stone-faced and furious.

"Did you get it? Do you have my crown?"

Kiri looked like he was going to explode. "Why the hell should we tell you-"

Aura held up a hand, cutting him off. "Wait. Let me handle this one, okay?"

Kiri and Kaze looked at each other, confused, as Aura strode forward, her hand on her hip, holding out the moldy old crown between thumb and forefingers. "You want this?"

The lord made a grab, but Aura yanked it up. "Afraid I can't give it to you, sir."

The black-haired man's face quickly turned red, then purple. "And why not!"

"Because it doesn't belong to you, does it?" Aura asked mildly.

"How...?" the man gasped, and shut his mouth quite firmly.

"This crown hasn't sat on anyone's head for several hundred years," Aura informed him. "And I seriously doubt, sir, that you've lived that long. And where, pray tell, did you get this pretty here?" She pointed with her free hand to the opal orb on a chain around his neck.

"This... this is mine!"

"Who'd you steal it from?" Her voice sharpened to a razor edge. "It is not yours. The old sages would never have given you a crystal eye, and if I'm not mistaken, that's what it is."

The man's face started to go pale in blotches. "Matoya has no need of it!" he snapped, outraged.

Aura crossed her arms. "Matoya? That poor old herbalist who lives in a cave near Cornelia? You stupid bastard, she's blind. She needs that stone to see!" She marched forward, shaking a finger at him, as he stepped unevenly back. "You could never fool me. Ever since we retrieved the crown, I've been wondering... and now I'm certain. I know more about magical artifacts than any living creature on this world, and I know that neither of these items are yours. Give it up, Astos."

Astos gaped at her, then gibbered madly.

Kiri whistled, staring at Aura with eyebrows upraised. "Wow. Nice one."

"I'll be taking this crown back to the elves and the crystal back to Matoya," Aura said firmly. "But first... one of my friends has some revenge to take on you. You see, thanks to your clever little hijinks, his baby brother is very, very sick... and we don't like that, do we?" She nodded, and before Astos or Kiri could even blink, she and Kaze were standing on either side of the dark elf, with their guns' barrels pressed to his temples. "Kiri. It's your call. Do whatever you want with him."

The swordsman, overcoming his initial shock, smiled slowly and drew his red blade, giving the sickly-faced Astos an evil look. "Certainly."

---

"We've got his condition stabilized, but..." The healer shook his head. After dealing with Astos, Kiri and the others had returned to Elfheim to find Lisa near to tears and Kumo no better than before. "His chances of recovering are very slim. This poison is vicious, and without the antidote... we don't have anything like what would be needed to purify his body at this state. You'd have to go to a real herbalist to save him now."

Aura pulled out the opal she'd appropriated from Astos' corpse. "This belongs to Matoya," she said softly. "If we bring it back to her... maybe she'll be willing to give us some kind of antidote to heal Kumo..."

"Maybe," Kiri said, looking at his brother.

"But, Aura..." Kaze whispered, looking sad. "A crystal eye..."

She shook her head. "Matoya needs it much more than I do. Don't tempt me, Kaze. I would've given it back to her anyway."

Lisa and Kiri looked at the two of them, but decided not to ask.

A trace of the old crooked smile twitched at Aura's lips. "I'll explain everything once we're on our way. It isn't fair to keep you in the dark, after all."

Kiri nodded and turned to the healer. "How long...?" he asked bleakly.

The elf shook his head. "A week, perhaps, before he reaches the crisis point. This is a slow-acting venom once it's begun to show symptoms. And at the crisis? Perhaps a day."

"There's a port near Cornelia," Kaze told the others. "Let's go."

---

They were on their ship and sailing within the day.

"I still wish that you would use it," Kaze told his sister as the two of them joined the others abovedeck. "You've searched for one for so long..."

Aura's fists got a little tighter. "This one belongs to somebody," she snapped tersely.

"What is the deal with you and that crystal eye?" Kiri asked, apparently just wanting to get it up front and out before they had to do any maneuvering at the prow.

Aura let out a slow breath. "I wasn't born like this. Up until when I turned three, I was a perfectly normal kid, like every other perfectly normal kid in our village. But then, when I was barely more than a toddler, a scarlet fever epidemic hit us hard.

"I had it worse than anyone else. For a while there, everybody thought I was going to die. But destiny had other plans. A wandering healer who identified himself as the head of the Pacifist clan came through the village and his powers gave me the strength to overcome the illness. But... it wasn't without a price. Ever since I caught that scarlet fever strain... I've been blind."

Kiri and Lisa exchanged looks of disbelief, then stared back at Aura, dumbfounded. Blind? Then how could she wield her guns with such precision, such force, such...?

"It was pretty bad for a while," Aura went on. "Being unable to see... my brother had to lead me around. I depended completely upon him to survive until my senses and my coordination were sharp enough for me to move on my own. But I hated it, even though I'd learned to live with it. I wanted my sight back. I wanted to see Kaze's face, see my parents, see color and light and darkness again. The powers that'd been latent within me had awakened when the healer treated me, so I turned to them for an answer. I was trained by the most powerful men and women in our village to see with my mind instead of my eyes. Slowly, I got better and better at it... but it wasn't an ideal solution. With psychic sight, you have clarity, but... it leaves you colorblind. It's second-best, really.

"Like I already explained, my brother and I had to learn about magical artifacts to be allowed to carry these guns around. While researching, I heard about crystal eyes. If I had one, it would restore my natural sight as long as I wore it or tapped it. But most crystal eyes have been destroyed since their initial creation. My parents and Kaze and I have been trying to get news of one left intact for years. Matoya's is the first one I've ever seen, but as of now I'm pretty much the expert on crystal eyes and all other magical artifacts, so that's how I knew what it was. It's a really bad temptation to use it myself, just once, but... if I did, I wouldn't be able to stop. Matoya is completely blind without it. She needs it way more than I do. And... I might be able to find another one, someday, or even make my own. Stealing from the old and helpless isn't fair, no matter the motive.

"This is also why I grow my bangs into my eyes, by the way. The fever totally destroyed a lot of them, and... let's just say they aren't pleasant to look at. Kaze and my parents're the only ones who can stomach looking, so I don't inflict them on anyone else. Just in case, I keep my eyes closed, too. Kumo knows... or at least, he knows I'm colorblind. He asked me about my reaction to his hair color once at night... I had to confess it to him, I had no choice in that matter.

"But my stupid sob story doesn't really matter right now. This was already stolen from Matoya once, and besides... Kumo's life may hang in the balance here. Compared to that, I'm not important. And because I can see with my mind, I can afford to wait."

Aura fell silent, stood up, and swarmed up the rigging to the crow's nest.

Kiri and Lisa exchanged bewildered looks. "I... I had no idea," the black-haired girl managed to squeak, blinking.

Kiri shook his head. "Neither did I..." Both of them stared back up at Aura, who was looking fixedly out across the water, grim stubbornness on her face. "She's amazing."

"She's brave about it now, but..." Kaze looked up at his sister, watching the wind tease her braids. "She suffers," he said simply at last. "She... is a lot like your brother... and like you, Lisa. Hiding her pain behind a false smile. She suffers now... and always has..." So saying, he drifted off, a vague black shape against the warm wood tones of the ship.

Kiri stared into the wind, unusual melancholy settling over his sharp features. Lisa, finding that there was nothing she could say, gazed down at her hands, clenching them.

I will become strong... so that I can help my friends... I don't want to weigh them down like I do now for the rest of our journey... I will become strong...!

---

"Obaasan," Aura said gently, holding out the opalline crystal, "I think this belongs to you."

She placed it in Matoya's hand, smiling at the old woman's cry of surprise.

"It does that," the herbalist said wryly, slipping the chain around her neck. Staring at the girl who had returned her sight, she nodded. "It looks like you could've used this as well."

Aura shook her head, smiling sadly. "It belongs to you," she told the woman. "I'll keep searching for my own way to see again. Besides... I'm a psychic, so I don't need help right away."

"You've a good heart, young'un," Matoya said plainly, stumping over to a wall of phials. "Now, is there anything I can assist you with?"

"Actually..." Lisa ventured timidly. "A friend of ours is very, very sick from some kind of poison..."

"My little brother," Kiri interrupted. "He was stung by a giant scorpion in the Marsh Cave to the south of Elfheim. That's where he is right now."

Matoya nodded. "Can one of you describe his symptoms to me?"

Kiri and Lisa looked at each other awkwardly, but Kaze stepped forward with a nod. After a short discussion between the gunner and the herbalist, Matoya pulled a thin blue bottle from the wall.

"This antidote should do well against that type of poison. You were lucky your friend here thought of me... I'm one of the few who has the materials to make this type of elixer. And... you said he's in Elfheim?" Mystified, Aura nodded. "Then take this with you too." Matoya held out a yellow crystal flask. "It's Jolt Tonic, the most powerful potion in my collection. It might be able to help their sleeping prince."

"I don't know what to say," Aura murmured, overwhelmed. "Obaasan..."

"Go on, get," Matoya said calmly, waving a gnarled hand. "Your companion needs you, right? I'll see you some other time."

Aura nodded, taking the potions and heading off, letting the others trail her back to the port where they'd left the ship waiting.

---

(Kumo)

Through the ache crawling along my body and dulling my senses, I can hear a voice for the first time in what seems like years.

I expected Nallorn and Gaedrian to take me, but instead, they left me where I was, not even saying a word. I have floated in living death for some unmarked expanse of time, but... I don't know what's happening to me, nor have I since they abandoned me. I thought I was dying, but...

The voice calls to me again; I struggle through layers of thick, suffocating pain towards it.

"Kumo-chan... Kumo-chan...!"

I know this voice...!

Struggling to speak, I manage to choke out a reply, painfully opening my eyes. "Nii..sama...?"

I blink to clear my vision; Niisama's anxious face hovers next to me, deep fear in his beautiful eyes, a few strands of his long hair brushing against my chest. The warmth of my left hand makes me realize that he's clasping it tightly in both of his. Looking back to his face, I can see the tears starting to form in his eyes.

"Niisama..." For him, I can manage a smile.

The terror I can see scrawled across his features collapses like the card houses we made as children with Mother's guardians. To hide the tears on his face, he drops his head to my chest, speaking into my collarbones: "I thought you weren't going to scare me like that again."

"I'm sorry," I tell him, giving him the strongest hug I can through the remnants of whatever has kept me like this for so long.

Niisama gently kisses my chest, squeezing my hand. There is nothing more we need to say.