Alright, Chapter 3. A lot of important stuff happens in this chapter, and I'll try not to rush it as much as the last one. Thanks for the helpful reviews, zipis and the rest of you, and semicolons are my friend. I only use periods when it is vital to end the sentence.
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Date: 12000 BC
Time flew before her eyes like a flock of birds in migration. She saw and heard nothing, but only felt an implosion inside of her, as if her very being was being tossed around, churned, mortared in an old woman's kitchen. Her muscles quaked, her eyes diluted, her skin desired to fly off in all directions; yet, she felt none of this directly, and only envisioned a bright red light in the shape of a bird…what species or genus it was, she could not deduct, for her soul saw this mighty creature and not her eyes, yet as the sight of this majestic being grew stronger upon her essence, the strain on her body grew ever stronger, until she could feel her pulse racing uncontrollably, and her palms burning. The pain grew stronger and stronger, encompassing her completely and overshadowing all other sense, but the apparition of that flaming red bird gave her solace, for reasons unknown. It licked her skin delicately like an evening breeze, caressed her cheek, comforted her suffering spirit. The unbearable pain would not cease to grow, but yet this bird only came closer, and she knew instantly that were it not for this creature, she would have exploded, spontaneously combusted, her ashes spread about for miles, acres, her very existence made null. Yet she persisted, and reached her arm out, with whatever might remained within her battered frame; the birds feathers tickled her arm. It burned her, yet she felt nothing and relished in the charring skin; she placed her hand on its forehead, drawing a majestic crow from it, and in an instant, the pain ceased.
The dinosaur's head lay charred upon the bloodstained beach. Its body lay in pieces, scattered about the surroundings, and its bone had been heated so much that parts of the eye sockets were melted off. The sky was dark and somber, as if harbringing a strong rain, but no precious drops fell; all that was visible was a spiraling crimson pillar, miles in height and diameter, reaching into the heavens and above. The dark clouds begrudgingly parted as the pillar mounted, its searing red flames spiraling ever upwards.
Lucca saw all of this, and seemed not to feel the blood that spilled uncontrollably from her shoulder or the atrocious pain in her limbs. She could barely blink, let alone walk; her body was battered by some unknown force, so much so that life seemed to slip away gradually. With what remaining strength she had, Lucca heaved herself unto Epoch's left wing, and somehow slumped over the cockpit, lost her balance, and fell inside. She had not moved of her own will that time, and would not for what seemed like an eternity.
Date: 1003 AD
The sun beat down on her face, again, and those same damn canaries twittered, again. The first time, it was relaxing, a numbing melody that offset her pounding headache, but now, it was infuriating. It angered her not because the sound was unpleasant, but because she was experiencing the same circumstance that braced her not too long ago.
Lucca wasn't sure why or how she came here, but she was perfectly certain of where she was. Her eyes crept open and beheld the same bare stone wall of the Guardia infirmary, the same large window, the same massive mirror at one end of the room, and the same pale green glow in the corner of her eyes.
Turning her head, she saw Princess Nadia, with a large sheet of gauze, salt, and an iron that was not yet heated. Marle tersely looked on at Lucca's injuries, the various bruises along her arms and legs, the bite and scratch marks, and most significant, the giant chomp mark that bled profusely and threatened to fester.
Lucca glanced apologetically at her companion. This was the second time Marle tended to her and did such a good job of it, and Lucca had insulted her spitefully last time. The purple-haired girl had been consistently growing more contemptful of the princess as of recent days, and the dreary silence that encompassed this moment only reaffirmed this.
Lucca gritted her teeth and winced as Marle rubbed salt on the large gash. The pain was excruciating, and made more so by Marle's roughness. Ripping off the scab that had already formed over the wound somehow, the princess pressed down on the injury, and applied healing magic to it. Through all this, Lucca struggled to stop herself from screaming at the pain.
"Why do you do things like that?" Marle chided, her voice flat and emotionless. It was the way she spoke when angered by something. Lucca lay silent, only shuddering lightly from the salt in her shoulder. "The Epoch brought you back her and showed me your last destination. What are you trying to prove?"
Lucca panted with exhaustion, coughed a few times, but said nothing. Marle glanced back at her work, and applied an ointment to the now sealed cut. The wound sizzled slightly, and the blood stopped flowing from the gash on Lucca's shoulder; the purple-haired girl was unbelievably happy that the iron wasn't used.
"You've lost about two men worth of blood. I'm still wondering how you are still alive." Marle said, her voice rising a good fifth in aggravation. Lucca glanced at her meekly, like a child who disappointed his mother.
"I'm sorry…and what I said yesterday-" Lucca muttered weakly, until Marle shushed her and smiled slightly.
"It's alright. Don't speak, and gather your strength. You're gonna be bedridden for about two weeks, if you're lucky." Marle said, gathering up her supplies and bringing Lucca a tray of food. There was one large potato, some freshly squeezed orange juice, a bowl of beans, and a steak. "Eat up, so you can replenish your blood."
It was an late spring morning identical to the last two. The canaries kept creating their racket, and the sun washed the room with ambient rays. Lucca's eyes fluttered open, and she swung her legs to the side and paced to the window. The canaries made their nest on a tree not far from the window, and the girl made a mental note to move the nest elsewhere; the tweeting was quickly becoming unbearable, and any melody becomes aggravating if one hears it so often in such rapid succession.
"I'm hungry…" Lucca muttered, stepping out of the infirmary in her billowing white robe. She almost sleepwalked towards the kitchen, hoping to catch a quick breakfast. However, the mess hall was in the basement, and the imperial kitchen (yes, there was an imperial kitchen) was at the other end of the castle, so the trek would take a good fifteen minutes at least. An armored guard passed her and stared on in amazement. Lucca gave him a puzzled glance, and was even more confused when her nurse, Marie, walked by and stared at her wide-eyed.
"Mistress Lucca, what are you doing up?" She shrieked. Lucca winced at the yelling, and was unsure of what provoked it. Lucca scratched her head, and felt a lot more hair run through her hands than usual.
"I was going to get some food." She muttered. Staring across the hall, she noticed a grandfather clock reading about 11 A.M, but interestingly enough, she could tell that the precise time was 10:57, despite her being a good 20 feet from the clock.
"How did you even get out of bed? You shouldn't be able to move for at least a week! Get back in there!" Marie exclaimed, hysterically in Lucca's opinion. The woman forced Lucca into bed, and asked the guard outside the door to call Princess Nadia.
"I'm fine, just get me some food!" Lucca whined, sitting unto the bed in the infirmary and pouting conspicuously. Marie attempted to force Lucca to lie down, but the girl found no need to do so, and acted the role of the stubborn and brash teenager in her protests.
Lucca got up quickly and started darting around the room, intent on evading the nurse's grasp, and was deeply amused by the petty game of cat and mouse that resulted. Marie, despite her nearly forty years of age, was extremely resilient, and had always been well-built, having been on the track team in high school and keeping the habit of running five miles a day. Yet, Lucca evaded her with uncharacteristic grace and agility. The apex of their trivial chase came when Marie dove forward to give Lucca a bear hug and force her into bed, and the girl actually dove out of a window to evade her pursuer.
"Oh my God! Lucca!" Marie shrieked. Looking out the window and downwards, she saw Lucca sitting on a branch, with a nest of canaries right next to her. From that angle, the change in the girl was apparent and extraordinary. Her robe was disheveled from the acrobatics, and the location of her massive injury was exposed. Yet, there was only a light discoloration of the skin where the wound had been, and the skin looked firm and healthy, without a blemish in sight. Lucca's hair had thickened almost overnight and was more lustrous, reaching her shoulders in the space of a few hours. Her skin was not pale as it should have been given her condition, and shone brightly instead in the midday sun. A common person would have not imagined that a giant reptile had chomped this girl a few days before.
"Lucca! What the hell!" Marle shouted from the window. The princess had just appeared in the window, but hastily bolted into the infirmary, and returned with a thick rope, bristling with loose fibers but very strong from sheer sturdiness. Marle lowered the rope, assisted of course by a few guards, until the cord was just eye-level with Lucca.
"Climb up!" One of the guards hollered in a deep, sultry voice that seemed the result of his ostentatious and uncomfortable armor. Lucca eyed the rope curiously, entirely beside herself, and Marie was almost positive that the girl was delirious.
"I'm feeling better now, Marle. Thanks for the help!" Lucca exclaimed cheerfully, before she left off the branch and into the dense forest of Guardia.
Lucca ran through the forest at blazing speeds. She had never been one to display athletic prowess; after all, her natural gift, and innate obsession, had always been machinery and science, and such pursuits left no room for exercise. Besides, she had always been a miserable failure at all activities requiring physical exertion; she was always last in the one-mile run activity in her intermediate school, and had never been able to do more than one push-up, whether it be the simplified or more challenging version.
Yet, now, she tore through the forest, leaping over fallen trunks, swinging on low-lying branches, relishing in the feeling of her calves twitching at their sudden strength and endurance. It was the most thrilling sensation she had had in months; she was enveloped by the arboreal surroundings, and though they blurred past her eyes in her haste, it was enthralling nonetheless. The sweet smell of leaves, the nipping on some random insect buzzing to her side, the sensation of her leg tearing through an idle strand of spider web; never had Lucca felt such rapture at these wonderful beings that surrounded her in her sprint. At one occasion, she stopped to catch her breath near an azure stream and slowly drank its cool water, sighing gleefully at its vibrant taste. She was overwhelmingly elated, and her spirit fleeted inside of her; it was like experiencing a dream, in which one is placed in a situation unbeknownst to them but excel at it nonetheless, whether it be by intuition, luck, or a hidden talent. Yet, this current feeling was even more dreamlike in that Lucca's muscles demanded to be exerted more. She had an excess of energy, of the kind young children get after having one too many pieces of candy, but no matter how fast she ran, or how much the sun beat upon her bare back, clothed only by a thin hospital robe, she was never exhausted. Her body persisted from some indescribable well of stamina that seemed endless, but she paid no notice and grinned at the warm sun.
Lucca left the forest in little under an hour, running constantly (a remarkable feat, considering the part of the forest from which she began her sprint was nearly 12 miles long). A few random villagers stared at her oddly: here, some girl in a hospital robe was bolting through the market at a speed uncharacteristic of one with her build and appearance. She paid them no mind, and headed instead to her house, not for any particular reason, but because her legs carried her southward in her home's direction. The wind blew once more unrestrained against her face, yet her speed only increased, and her rapture only grew at this feeling of exertion. Her house was a few yards away, and an impressive acrobatics display, she leapt unto the roof of the small terrace behind her house, and propelled herself unto the balcony of her second-story bedroom, flying through the wooden shutters, breaking them off their hinges, and landing gracefully on her feet.
"That was amazing…" Lucca whispered incredulously. She was exhausted, yet strangely refreshed, as if dipped in warm healing springs, if only those existed. She had just covered a distance of over 20 miles in less than an hour, yet felt no repercussions; there was no instinct to collapse from overexertion or pain, and her legs nagged her to run some more. Heavy footsteps could be heard down bolting up the stairs, and she recognized it immediately as those of her mother when she was in a panic. Lucca dove under her covered to hide her hospital robe; this action wouldn't have made much of a difference either way, since her mother knew full well Lucca had been hospitalized twice in less that a week!
"Who's here?" Lara screamed, flinging the door open. Lucca lay on her bed, raising her covers as if to hide her torso, and looked sheepishly onward. Her mother stared, astonished, and gathered the breath to scream for her husband. Before the words left her mouth, Lara felt a hand clap over her mouth, and Lucca standing behind her, whispering into her ear.
"Mother! Don't tell him, he'll worry himself." Lucca muttered, slightly irritated but with the undying playfulness that had gripped her in the hospital.
"Lucca, what about your injury? How…why…the infirmary…" Lara stammered, unable to gather her thoughts. She had practically gotten a heart attack from finding out that her daughter, her only offspring, was on the verge of death the day before, and here that very daughter stood behind her imploring her to keep a secret. It was mind-boggling.
"Don't worry, I'm fine!" Lucca said. She ran to her closet with unnecessary speed, since it was so close anyway, and threw a tunic over her hospital gown. She was working on finding some pants when her father walked through the doorway with a crowbar in his hand.
"Lucca!" Taban screamed, his voice over an octave higher that its usual sonorous tenor. The following was an awkward moment: a mother glancing back and forth between her husband and daughter, a father staring awestruck as his previously hospitalized daughter, and a teenage girl struggling to put her pants on.
Lucca grinned childishly, pulled on a pair of home-sewn pajama pants that fit her perfectly a few nights before, but now came well above her ankles. She grabbed a pair of spare spectacles from her bedside table and put them on; her view of her awestruck father became blurry.
"How…did…when…" Taban muttered uncertainly. Lucca fumbled with her glasses, trying to figure out why her vision got worse when she put them on. Were it not for Lara's wise motherly interference, this awkward moment would have persisted.
"Well, let's have lunch! Taban, we'll figure this all out later. Come down, Lucca dear, I'm sure you're starving!" Lara said jovially. Taban glanced inquisitively at his wife, still confused.
The family started down the stairs, not saying a word due to the recent perplexing events. Lucca had resigned to leave her glasses behind and stalked behind her parents, who put on sternly befuddled faces; the trio walked inside the kitchen, and the warm aroma of Lara's lunch quickly overshadowed the incomprehensible circumstances.
"Oh, by the way, Taban, can you take a look at the sink pipe? I think it jammed up, but I can't quite loosen the bolt." Lara said while she bustled around the kitchen, gathering plates and setting them on the table. Lucca brought out cutlery and a few cups, setting them on the oaken round table in the shape of an inscribed triangle.
"Of course, dear." Taban said. He went under the sink, tried twisting the bolt with his fingers, and failed miserably; using a wrench did not help the crisis.
"Looks like I might have to call the plumber. I'll do it first thing after lunch." Taban said. By then, Lucca was standing behind her father, watching his work. In the way most people pitch in to try to resolve a petty problem, Lucca tried her hand at loosening the bolt. Lara and Taban paid this no mind, for they were sure their daughter was incapable of such an action. They were proven wrong, however, when an excruciatingly loud screeching sound resonated in the kitchen, and Lucca stared, aghast, and the large chunk of pipe lying in her hand that she had ripped out from under the sink. Lunch was not served that day.
Lucca sat on a side of the fountain in the middle of Leene Square, and was relieved when Crono and Marle came rushing past. They had just heard from a guard that Lucca needed them immediately, and that the trio should gather in Leene Square at once, and that the matter was an emergency. Not surprisingly, the two sped with all their might towards the square.
"What's going on?" Marle said anxiously, wringing her hands together. Crono's countenance held the same concern. Lucca had fled the hospital, and this was the first they had heard of her for several hours. Whatever searching parties had been send out always returned with negative reports.
"There's something wrong with me…" Lucca muttered, staring into her reflection in the water. Her hair was significantly longer, just above her shoulders now; her eyes shown brightly and clearly, and she could see for miles even without her glasses; and most significantly, she showed physical strength and dexterity unseen in most humans in general, let alone sixteen year old girls! This realization disturbed her greatly, and the medley of odd occurrences terrified her slightly. After all, she had just ripped out her kitchen sink, without even exerting herself.
"What do you mean? You're fine, there's nothing wrong!" Marle declared, walking up to Lucca and placing a hand on her shoulder. A sudden hatred surged to Lucca's consciousness: she had an incomprehensible urge to slap Marle's hand off, though she did not know why, and dismissed the thought quickly. Had she not been so preoccupied by the recent events, she would have put on the patronizing look she was so famous for in the village, and set herself at odds with her friends. Lucca shrugged lightly, pushing her hand off her shoulder.
With a laborious groan and apparent physiological exhaustion, Lucca hoisted herself off the fountain step and stood up, looking directly at Marle. The princess was taken aback; for one, Lucca had somehow become taller than her. The inventor's hair was thick and disheveled, her shoulders broader, her face more angular. Most terrifying, however, were Lucca's eyes; they sporadically flashed red, then returned to their purple hue, and held a mixture of anger, confusion, resentment, and some other emotion the princess could not make out. The two girls looked at each other for a few moments longer, Lucca staring dead ahead, slowly growing angrier despite her relatively placid and composed expression; Marle, on the other hand, was baffled, and took a few steps back. There had been a definite change in the person standing before her, but what startled the princess so much was the fact that she couldn't place it. Lucca had always been an excessively emotional person: when she was angry, she made her rage felt; when she was glad, she rejoiced; when she was morose, she expressed her sadness however she could. But now, Lucca stared at the princess, utterly stoic, her eyes holding some unquenched fire; Lucca's figure looked so much more imposing because of this expression.
Crono saw this entire scene, and did not move. He had never seen this side of Lucca either. The hyperactive inventor he had known for over a dozen years seemed a stranger to him, the way her eyes turned fierce as they beheld Princess Nadia at that moment, the way her hands subconsciously formed a fist and shook. Crono was well aware that the two girls had always had a moderately strained relationship: Lucca was easily vexed, and Marle was mercurial and indecisive, so the girls frequently got in petty arguments. Lately, however, Lucca slowly antagonized Marle more than often, and with more fervor; Crono had always suspected that it was simply female hormones running wild, but lately, he felt he had something, however minute, to do with the silent rivalry between the two girls.
Lucca calmly turned and faced the fountain. She held a long, slim hand towards the fountain, and pointed at the large marble fountainhead, the serene sculpture of Queen Leene, standing majestically over the large plaza dedicated to her. She wore the coral pin so closely associated with her, and held a large vase, pouring water into the pool in which she stood. Lucca pointed at this woman's statue, her countenance devoid of emotion, and conjured a small, tennis-ball size sphere of fire off the tip of her index finger. She winced painfully, her hand shaking, as if she struggled to keep the ball at bay, struggled to stop it from growing out of proportion. Marle stared incredulously at the purple-haired girl, pointing powerfully at the statue of Marle's ancestor, and wondered what she hoped to do with such a small ball. Was this what was wrong? Did Lucca have trouble molding her mana and expulsing it? Had whatever inner spring she drew her strength from run dry? It would explain the awkward stare Lucca had just given her: perhaps the inventor was just stressed, perhaps a bit embarrassed, as to her magical powers malfunctioning, and was angered when Marle insistently asked what the problem was. Or maybe, the problem was that-
Time seemed to freeze. The small ball left Lucca's fingertip and raced towards the statue, but for some odd reason, Marle felt impending doom racing in that small ball. It sunk into the fountain head, and in an instant that seemed to linger forever, a faint red light erupted from Queen Leene's eye, and her head exploded, scattering marble in all directions; a shard of marble flew past Marle's cheek, and the Princess only realized what had just happened when a droplet of blood fell on her shoulder.
I'll end Chapter 3 here. There was supposed to be more to this chapter, but I think it would fit more in chapter 4, which is coming soon! Sorry for taking so long for this chapter, but I forgot what had happened, and had to redo parts of this section of the story! Also, I don't think there's a statue of Queen Leene on that fountain in Leene Square, but let's assume there is, if there in fact isn't.