AN: What? I'm back at this? No more Adven and Jet Iu Kiku? Well, I put that one away as it just got to the halfway point for lack of focus. I swear I must be getting ADD. I start off at something and then suddenly trail off into something else. Ever since May 21 I haven't been able to write anything concrete and real, plus Iu Kiku was starting to carry a different voice than the one I started it with, and I think it was ruining the story. The next chapter I actually wrote, but never posted because it just became one awkward conversation between Jet and Salamander that started off kind of gay (and I mean that literally) and then went into Jet trying to pass off Undine as a Lesbian, so I have no idea what was happening there, but Jet was just trying to get out of seeing Undine again.
I also have failed to finish Malebolge too. The epilogue had similar problems in which it sounded awkward. So I will write that when I feel I can do it right.
I have my old computer back, but the person who fixed it did so while I was away and didn't restore my document files, so this chapter of NDS was lost for good. So then I decided to type it anyway (like I should have done so long ago anyway). Of course, I had to reread all of the stuff I typed already, and of course, those were deleted as well, so I went on this site and read all of my story over, just finishing it on Saturday. I realize now I was a terrible writer. I'm going to work at making that not suck. Anyway, here's a chapter that's been months out of commission. It's all about Emilia, and it's fun as heck. If I get back on my old schedule I will hopefully finish this story in July, but…I have recently also toyed with making four more chapters (books) to NDS, and if I do, you can expect this story to continue even after the ending. I'll figure it out later, because the character that is required for chapter 12 (the first of the new ones) isn't available in this NDS, so I may not continue even though the rest of the story you would definitely like to see considering how much you like the chemistry between two certain characters…
Anyway, this chapter isn't the same as the first copy I made. I don't remember how that went, and it did go different than NDS, so I'm starting anew.
To get caught up, I believe the group was headed for Blue Crane, a mountain where there is a myth that an underground land of ice and snow exists, and that area is known to be the coldest part of Filgaia. Jet had found info saying that there were two tunnels, and one would be large enough for the sandcraft. First though, the group is headed to check out the one at the mountain. So, let's begin.
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In the darkness that was tinted light blue a yelp went out. In the chaos that ensued Gallows wound up lying atop Jet, each clad in warm clothing. Gallows had learned for the first time today that ice is slippery, and Jet learned that he should never take the lead ever again when they enter a cave that would have ice on the floor…and on the walls…and the ceiling.
"Damnit! I told you to be careful!" Jet roared as he stood up, holding Gallows by his coat shaking sense into him. "Why'd you walk so haphazardly?"
"Stop shaking me so I can speak!" Gallows requested. Jet complied. "What's haphazardly?"
"Uh…" Jet scratched his head. "Well, er, it was the way you were walking is what it is." He defined for the Baskar, but also proving at the same time he had no idea what the word meant either.
Jet and Gallows stood up brushing odd some snow with their gloves. "Look, let's just keep going." Gallows decided. "I thought we had some sort of breakthrough in our relationship the other night, but I suppose not."
Jet got nervous as the others of the Maxwell Gang eyed them from behind them. They were all in a single file line, considering they were standing on the edge of the left side of the cave because the area between that ledge and the other one on the right side was a deep soft snow that would bury them alive if they stepped on it. "What's this about a 'relationship' and the 'other night'?" Clive wondered with a smirk.
"IT WAS JUST A PEP TALK!" Jet defended. He coughed watching his breath escape into the air. "Now…let's go, shall we?" He continued onward as Clive and Virginia were soon behind them. Emilia and Gallows now took to the back.
"It sure is cold down here." Gallows muttered as he shivered a bit. His body was just not comfortable with the cold weather of Blue Crane. Virginia was cold too, Clive was fine with it, and Jet…you can never be too sure if he were cold or not.
"What is this white sand that melts again, Clive?" Virginia asked as she stared at the melting snow on her gloved hand that she collected.
"They call it snow, I hear. I don't know, this is all supposed to be myth…but obviously…"
"Yeah. It's not." Jet remarked. "I'm really getting pissed that all of the myths that exist have all been proven true, and all of them by us. Just once, I want a myth to stay that way once we get involved in it."
Emilia stops and begins to speak, "We should head back. There is no point in continuing any further down these halls." The other four turned to her. "We only came in here to prove that Blue Crane existed. We can return to the sandcraft and modify it so it can travel through the 'snow' in here."
Clive nodded, "Yes, that would be a smart idea instead of getting too far in here and suffer some sort of hypothermia." While there was no snow on Filgaia, there was hypothermia, but it was very rare. Still, it is not an impossibility.
"Well, I see a small area of snow up ahead." Virginia noted. "I think we can get through the area between the two paths. It seems shallow enough to get the sandcraft to that place to modify it."
"Good idea. I'll go back and bring it here." Clive nodded and turned away.
"Let me help you." Virginia spoke as she followed him, and Jet calmly followed her.
Gallows and Emilia decided to continue to the area up ahead. Watching their breaths hover through the air. "Something the matter?" Gallows wondered with a serious face.
"Hmm?" she hummed as she came back to reality, "No. Nothing's wrong."
"I asked what's the matter, not if there was anything wrong." Gallows clarified, still with his serious facial expression. "Is the stress getting to you? All of this Twilight junk? If so, where would we be in our lives without this trek?"
"Like it matters to me." She simply says.
"That's just because you had no life or past before this." He muttered offensively in response to her rude remark. It was silent for a moment. "I'm…I'm sorry, I—"
"I had two lives before this." Emilia simply interrupted Gallows' apology. "Two lives I lived before I met you. You may even argue four. I've even had two loves. One lost by the hands of another and one lost to me because of the sea." She explained never facing him. "Three lives that I have lived." She repeated. "One of which I am living now." She clarified. "There were two lives before this. One that I forgot and want to remember, and one that I remember and wish I could forget."
She left him behind to walk to the nearby blue cave wall that was covered by ice. The blue ice on the walls must be the reasoning behind the name Blue Crane. Gallows, realizing that she wanted to be alone, decided to continue a little further along the path that showed itself. It was a continuation of the tunnel after the small area Emilia stood on now that was shallow and stable enough to stand on. This area was about the size of two sandcraft.
After a few minutes Gallows returns to the area Emilia stood upon. "What is it that's bothering you?" He calmly asked.
"For a while now…all I can remember is how Ed died…"
"Ed?" He questioned. "Is he the man who was the love in your second life? The life you want to forget."
Emilia calmly nodded. "…he was murdered, by someone who knew me. Someone from my first life!" She stood there a moment. "That man…Isamu, he was there too, but he was not the one. It was that man, Aries, he called himself."
"I see." Gallows said for the lack of any other response.
"I think…I think if I knew why Ed ended up dead…I could lice without that second life. Until I do though, I can't seem to forget what happened, and I don't think I will be able to love another. Every man I do love I lose, so until I know why I'm cursed, I can't get a new future." While Emilia said it aloud, it was more directed to herself.
"Emilia…" Gallows was at a lost of the right words. "You don't have to do this alone. We're all here for you, so stop hurting yourself."
"I know that. I know that you all are with me." She replied quickly. "But, but…this is something I can do only on my own. It's my past and it's my life."
Gallows nodded in understanding. "Then…I'll be supporting you from wherever I am."
"Gallows…" She stared at him. "Thanks."
After a short time of silence the sandcraft noisily makes it's way—just barely—through the snow. It was tough, considering it was not meant to be pushing it's way through snow. That was what Emilia was about to fix, and that was what she quickly went about doing. The rest of the group decided to leave the craft to her and hang around outside of it in the snow where Virginia quickly recognizes that you can make things out of snow. So, Virginia was busily making a snowman.
"Snow is such a strange thing." She muses to Jet. "To think…that there is such a thing as frozen water."
"I know." Jet responds quickly with snow in his hands. They were moving around it and packing it together. "Look at how you can make it into a circle."
"When it's in three dimensions it's not a circle, but a sphere." Clive points out.
"Uh…that's…a snowball." Virginia comments as she starts to move back a bit.
"I know." Jet grins with a glare of mischief.
"Don't you dare!" She protests to Clive's amusement.
Virginia tosses a snow sphere through the air hitting Jet's shoulder. "Hey! I was the one who was meant to throw one first!" He quickly retaliates and she responds to his counterattacks.
While the rest of the group was outside having fun, Emilia was tooling away on the sandcraft, and was now close to being done. She was taking a break by lying in her bed in silence. As she stared at the ceiling in the dark a knock rang out. The fist lightly touching the metal door made a hollow pang in the quiet. Emilia stands cautiously and comes to the door, watching it slide into the wall with a mechanical whir. When it had been removed from her field of vision she was left face-to-face with a man of the same age who wore brown hair. On his body was a forest green shirt with long sleeves, and on the face that was weathered with evil there was a scar on running down his right cheek.
A man that goes by the name of Aries.
"You?" She said, startled. "You can't…be real."
Aries lets out a maniacal laugh. "It was hard to find you, my old friend. Were you hiding from little ol' me?" Emilia moves away from the door clutching the hilt of her shinobi-zue weapon. "Not so fast Speedy." Aries remarks with a grin. "We don't want to damage your beautiful ship, do we?" He paused and turned his back to Emilia. "Come with me."
"Why should I?" She vehemently questioned.
"Maybe I'll tell you a little something that you want to know." He bargained. "Or…if that doesn't compel you enough…then I'll just have to kill your friends while you helplessly watch me. I'll even do it with your own sword."
"Monster." She remarked through gritted teeth. All he could do in reply is laugh.
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I just realized I can't remember how I spelt Aries' name last time. Was it Ares or Aries? There are so many ways of spelling it I think. Anyway, let's place bets on how long it will take for me to write the next chapter…