Disclaimer: Bob. That says it all, doesn't it?
**Dream sequence**
Ragnarok's POV
I escaped from the twisted streets of Fletz just ahead of the guards from the castle. The cry of anguish that came up when they found the still body of their fallen king could probably have been heard in Doneau. Grief slowed them, but only for a minute or so. By the time I had reached the shoreline I could hear them opening the gates at both ends of town and spilling out into the barren landscape to search for me.
As I waded into the harbor I berated myself for not realizing what was going on earlier. The attack had been aimed at Albert, but it's purpose had been to turn whatever positive feelings the Triad of Endiness (Millie Seaseu, Tiberoa, and Serdio) had for Dart into a festering hatred. As soon as the word of what had happened here reached the other two countries, there would be very few inhabited places that we could hide without being discovered. The cult had done its job well. In the space of five minutes they had cut off the Black Monster's easy access to the Moon Child as easily as one cuts string with a keen knife. I was impressed.
However much I was impressed, though, it was nothing compared to my irritation. I do not enjoy it when someone cuts the bottom out of my plans. Now we would have to wait until Dart's name and face was more or less forgotten before we could travel within the Triad without encountering hostility. Rose had done the same thing eleven thousand years ago when she had first started out on her portion of this quest. And now it would seem that history was forcing us to repeat it.
The water was now up to the shoulders of Dart's body, occasionally splashing onto his face. I shuddered, shaking off the cold water. Dart rarely let up control of his body to me, but right now I could barley feel his presence. Albert's murder, happening so close to Haschel's passing, was too much for him to bear. He had retreated to a distant corner of his mind and shut everything else out, trusting me to take care of the rest. He'd resurface eventually, but first he would have to come to grips with what had just happened.
Along the shore behind me the light from the torch of an advancing sentry bobbed up and down as its carrier tripped and stumbled over the rocks jutting out of the stony beach. Every few feet he would stop and, in the light of the torch, I would see him bend down to examine the ground, presumably searching for footprints. Not that he would find any. The rising tide had already swept over the area of beach where I had walked, erasing any trace of footprints.
As he drew closer I submerged and swam out deeper. I didn't expect him to see anything with that torch in front of his face, but there was no point in taking chances. Surfacing several meters farther out, I waited until the sentry had passed completely before making for the point of land that jutted into the ocean out about half a mile away. I would have to hurry. By morning this area would be flooded with guards, and I definitely did not want to have to deal with a hoard of angry, grief-stricken Tiberoians while trying to escape.
The cold from the frigid water had begun to sink into Dart's bones, making his joints stiff and hard to move. Grimly I forced onwards. I didn't want to harm Dart's body, even if he wasn't really occupying it right now, but I had a feeling that there wasn't going to be much help for it. The only way out of this situation was to keep swimming.
By the time I reached the point, Dart's whole body had gone numb. It still responded somewhat, but it was slow and stiff with poorly judged movements. No matter. Once the dragoon armor was on the wings would be doing most of the work. The flight to Ulara would be almost as long as the flight to Rogue, but as long as the wings didn't give out on me I should be fine.
Above the clouds it wasn't any warmer, but at least it was dry. The air was thinner up here so I occasionally would have to fly below the clouds, in the weather so to speak. It bothered me that I couldn't fly as high as I had been able to in my old body. Then again, it bothered me that I couldn't do anything I had been able to do in my old body with out the use of Dart's. Despite the twenty years of partnership, I still felt restricted. I couldn't even satisfy my need to obliterate things lately without having to have Dart wish to do the same. And while I still got in a fair amount of destruction, Dart's mind still resented what he was doing. He was too soft. Of course, most humans classified as 'too soft' by my ideals.
I wondered how much longer he would be able to remain like that. When you have a being whose entire existence has been circumscribed by destruction living inside your head, even if you are the gentlest of all people, you will slowly be drawn in by the call and insanity of total war. For sure Dart did not have the most gentle of minds, but he kept his anger and other destructive emotions well in check. It would be interesting to see how long he remained free of my emotions. Or, for that matter, how long before his thinking slipped out of line with that of a human and more onto the level of dragons.
According to Acrrea, the dark dragon, Rose had not lasted long. The death of her friends had weighed heavily on her conscience. Desperate that the lives of her friends and Zieg were not spent in vain, she had let her emotions desert her when the task of eliminating the Moon Children became too much for her too bear any other way. The meeting with the dragoons had slowly revived her feelings, but up to that point she had remained impassive to emotion. Cold as ice and dark as the depths of the deepest night. Ruthless in the drive to accomplish her goal. Yet always in the back of her mind, sorrow. The perfect partner for a dragon such as Acrrea.
//Who knows,// I thought to myself as the endless seeming sands of the Death Frontier gave way to jagged outcroppings of red stone and pools of sinking sand. //Maybe he can withstand it. It'll be interesting to see whom he turns out to be//
Dart's POV
**The village of Neet was consumed by fire. Black smoke poured from the smashed windows and collapsed roofs of the stone houses, obscuring vision and finding its way into the lungs of those few people still living. Fire hungrily licked at the stone; the straw and wood had long since been swallowed up in the blaze.
In the corner of one of the homes a small boy crouched with a cloth covering his mouth, trying not to breath in any of the smoke. The screams from the villagers had stopped long ago; the only sounds now where the crackle of the flames and the crunch of stone walls falling as some hideous force tore them down by main strength alone. Whimpering slightly and closing his eyes, Dart huddled closer against the wall, trying to make himself as small a target as possible.
Crunch, thud, smash! The monster was coming closer.
And suddenly it was there, smashing the wall apart as though it where made from wooden blocks. Dark and terrible and wreathed in black flame, the Black Monster stalked towards him, her gossamer wings spread menacingly behind her. When she came close enough to see clearly, Dart gasped. This was no monster. It was human, if you made allowances for the wings.
"Where is she," the woman spoke, her voice flat and emotionless. "Where is Princess Louvia?"
"I d-don't kn-know," Dart stuttered, "I-"
"Liar," she hissed, grabbing him by the front of his smock. Dart flinched back as the black fire surrounding her licked at his face, but she paid no notice.
"I'm n-not ."
She didn't wait for him to finish his sentence. With a negligent seeming toss she flung him into the wall. His head cracked against it, causing his vision to explode in a burst of light.
The monster took one step forward and quite suddenly Dart wasn't that little boy anymore. When the lights faded from his vision, he was rising one cannon arm to point it at a little girl lying brokenly in a heap by the wall. Something in the back of his mind screamed at him to stop, but he only hesitated for a moment before building up energy for the blast.
"This world's one hell of a complicated place, kid. No one should have to live his or her life in confusion. I'll help you out a bit."**
I sat up abruptly, knocking the homespun coverlet askew. Breathing heavily, I wiped the sweat off my forehead. I had had that dream, or others similar to it, many times before. That I would feel guilty and have nightmares about what I had done was to be expected. But this dream had been far more lifelike than the others. I could feel the heat searing my hair as I crouched in the corner of the burning home. I could still remember how difficult it had been to breathe, and I could feel the mind-numbing pain as my body had hit the stone wall and broke. But what was worse was how much more vivid the dream had become once I had switched places with the monster. How I had felt every tiny surge and each miniscule movement of the gears as the cannon had leveled itself, readying to pour death upon the tiny form that lie in the shadow of the blackened stone wall. But most disturbing of all had been the overpowering sense that what I was doing was right. That this is what I was born to do. But that couldn't be true: it was only a dream.
Wasn't it?
I took my head in my hands and closed my eyes. Was that how Rose had felt about this whole thing? Just enter the fray, do what was right, and leave without giving a thought to those affected by her actions?
I shook myself mentally. Of course that wasn't how it had been. I'd talked to Rose about this before. She had known what she was doing, and it had hurt her. She would never have admitted to it aloud, but the pain and suffering that she had endured throughout the ages past was etched into her face told more than any words freely express. She'd seen death's face. All she'd had to do was look into a mirror. But then who had been the monster that had cared about nothing but destruction?
/It couldn't have been me . could it?/
That thought grabbed my attention. Was that really me? Did I really have that capacity for such heartlessness? Not now, certainly, but would something happen to me one day that would force me over the edge like that?
//Glad to hear you thinking. You've been too quiet for the past week or so//
/Was I out that long?/
//Approximately//
Great. And the whole time I had vacated my body, the Divine Dragon had been in control. Vaguely I wondered what sort of shape the world was currently in. /Where are we?/
//Ulara. The winglies of agreed to let us stay for as long as we have want to. //
/Nice to know that at least some of the world isn't out for my blood/
//I wouldn't be too pleased about that. Charle-//
"Dart honey pie!"
//-knows you're awake// Ragnarok finished his sentence in a resigned tone. He retreated quite pointedly to the back of my mind at that point.
Taking my head out of my hands, I looked up. Charle Frahma stood in front of me, beaming in her usual happy go lucky way. Radiant in her bright, multi-hued dress, it was obvious that the years since I had seen her had not in any way diminished her energy. In her own way, this was the most terrifying woman alive, wingly or otherwise. The world could be falling down apart her ears and that woman would be laughing and 'honey pie- ing' the nearest virage. Last time we had been here, Rose had developed a noticeable twitch whenever Charle called her 'Rosie'. If you had the ability to make Rose twitch, you had to be fairly terrifying.
"I'm so happy to finally see you up, Dart sweetie! I was beginning to fear that you would sleep the rest of your life away." Charle chirruped happily.
"That might not be too bad of an idea," I muttered, getting to my feet. "Good morning Charle, you're looking well."
"Oh, I get by. By the way, it's mid-afternoon." She looked me up and down. "Oh, you must be starving. Arkie barely ate a thing while you were napping."
"Arkie?"
"That delightful little dragon you have living in your head." If possible, Charle's smile doubled in size. "He's so much fun to chit-chat with. He seems awfully unhappy though."
/Arkie?/
In the back of my mind I felt Ragnarok cringe. //It was that blasted woman's idea. I told her my name at least a hundred times, but she can't seem to get it through her head that my name isn't 'Arkie'// He shuddered. //Just keep her away from me//
An idea popped into my head. /You sound as though you're afraid of her/ I accused, trying not to laugh aloud.
//I am not// Ragnarok replied frostily, sounding majorly affronted. //I am just unused to the aura of . happiness that she radiates. Does she have to be so cheerful?// He actually sounded plaintive.
/It's just her way/
//Can't she change it?//
/As much as I might wish I could say otherwise, I don't think that she will/
Ragnarok and Dart seem to have some different opinions about what happened to Rose. Wonder what's gonna happen to Dart?
. This chapter was kind of dark, but hang on until next chapter. Things are gonna start getting fun. I have a feeling that it's going to be a longer one. I'll try and have it up sometime next week, but no guarantees.
Reviews are majorly appreciated!
**Dream sequence**
Ragnarok's POV
I escaped from the twisted streets of Fletz just ahead of the guards from the castle. The cry of anguish that came up when they found the still body of their fallen king could probably have been heard in Doneau. Grief slowed them, but only for a minute or so. By the time I had reached the shoreline I could hear them opening the gates at both ends of town and spilling out into the barren landscape to search for me.
As I waded into the harbor I berated myself for not realizing what was going on earlier. The attack had been aimed at Albert, but it's purpose had been to turn whatever positive feelings the Triad of Endiness (Millie Seaseu, Tiberoa, and Serdio) had for Dart into a festering hatred. As soon as the word of what had happened here reached the other two countries, there would be very few inhabited places that we could hide without being discovered. The cult had done its job well. In the space of five minutes they had cut off the Black Monster's easy access to the Moon Child as easily as one cuts string with a keen knife. I was impressed.
However much I was impressed, though, it was nothing compared to my irritation. I do not enjoy it when someone cuts the bottom out of my plans. Now we would have to wait until Dart's name and face was more or less forgotten before we could travel within the Triad without encountering hostility. Rose had done the same thing eleven thousand years ago when she had first started out on her portion of this quest. And now it would seem that history was forcing us to repeat it.
The water was now up to the shoulders of Dart's body, occasionally splashing onto his face. I shuddered, shaking off the cold water. Dart rarely let up control of his body to me, but right now I could barley feel his presence. Albert's murder, happening so close to Haschel's passing, was too much for him to bear. He had retreated to a distant corner of his mind and shut everything else out, trusting me to take care of the rest. He'd resurface eventually, but first he would have to come to grips with what had just happened.
Along the shore behind me the light from the torch of an advancing sentry bobbed up and down as its carrier tripped and stumbled over the rocks jutting out of the stony beach. Every few feet he would stop and, in the light of the torch, I would see him bend down to examine the ground, presumably searching for footprints. Not that he would find any. The rising tide had already swept over the area of beach where I had walked, erasing any trace of footprints.
As he drew closer I submerged and swam out deeper. I didn't expect him to see anything with that torch in front of his face, but there was no point in taking chances. Surfacing several meters farther out, I waited until the sentry had passed completely before making for the point of land that jutted into the ocean out about half a mile away. I would have to hurry. By morning this area would be flooded with guards, and I definitely did not want to have to deal with a hoard of angry, grief-stricken Tiberoians while trying to escape.
The cold from the frigid water had begun to sink into Dart's bones, making his joints stiff and hard to move. Grimly I forced onwards. I didn't want to harm Dart's body, even if he wasn't really occupying it right now, but I had a feeling that there wasn't going to be much help for it. The only way out of this situation was to keep swimming.
By the time I reached the point, Dart's whole body had gone numb. It still responded somewhat, but it was slow and stiff with poorly judged movements. No matter. Once the dragoon armor was on the wings would be doing most of the work. The flight to Ulara would be almost as long as the flight to Rogue, but as long as the wings didn't give out on me I should be fine.
Above the clouds it wasn't any warmer, but at least it was dry. The air was thinner up here so I occasionally would have to fly below the clouds, in the weather so to speak. It bothered me that I couldn't fly as high as I had been able to in my old body. Then again, it bothered me that I couldn't do anything I had been able to do in my old body with out the use of Dart's. Despite the twenty years of partnership, I still felt restricted. I couldn't even satisfy my need to obliterate things lately without having to have Dart wish to do the same. And while I still got in a fair amount of destruction, Dart's mind still resented what he was doing. He was too soft. Of course, most humans classified as 'too soft' by my ideals.
I wondered how much longer he would be able to remain like that. When you have a being whose entire existence has been circumscribed by destruction living inside your head, even if you are the gentlest of all people, you will slowly be drawn in by the call and insanity of total war. For sure Dart did not have the most gentle of minds, but he kept his anger and other destructive emotions well in check. It would be interesting to see how long he remained free of my emotions. Or, for that matter, how long before his thinking slipped out of line with that of a human and more onto the level of dragons.
According to Acrrea, the dark dragon, Rose had not lasted long. The death of her friends had weighed heavily on her conscience. Desperate that the lives of her friends and Zieg were not spent in vain, she had let her emotions desert her when the task of eliminating the Moon Children became too much for her too bear any other way. The meeting with the dragoons had slowly revived her feelings, but up to that point she had remained impassive to emotion. Cold as ice and dark as the depths of the deepest night. Ruthless in the drive to accomplish her goal. Yet always in the back of her mind, sorrow. The perfect partner for a dragon such as Acrrea.
//Who knows,// I thought to myself as the endless seeming sands of the Death Frontier gave way to jagged outcroppings of red stone and pools of sinking sand. //Maybe he can withstand it. It'll be interesting to see whom he turns out to be//
Dart's POV
**The village of Neet was consumed by fire. Black smoke poured from the smashed windows and collapsed roofs of the stone houses, obscuring vision and finding its way into the lungs of those few people still living. Fire hungrily licked at the stone; the straw and wood had long since been swallowed up in the blaze.
In the corner of one of the homes a small boy crouched with a cloth covering his mouth, trying not to breath in any of the smoke. The screams from the villagers had stopped long ago; the only sounds now where the crackle of the flames and the crunch of stone walls falling as some hideous force tore them down by main strength alone. Whimpering slightly and closing his eyes, Dart huddled closer against the wall, trying to make himself as small a target as possible.
Crunch, thud, smash! The monster was coming closer.
And suddenly it was there, smashing the wall apart as though it where made from wooden blocks. Dark and terrible and wreathed in black flame, the Black Monster stalked towards him, her gossamer wings spread menacingly behind her. When she came close enough to see clearly, Dart gasped. This was no monster. It was human, if you made allowances for the wings.
"Where is she," the woman spoke, her voice flat and emotionless. "Where is Princess Louvia?"
"I d-don't kn-know," Dart stuttered, "I-"
"Liar," she hissed, grabbing him by the front of his smock. Dart flinched back as the black fire surrounding her licked at his face, but she paid no notice.
"I'm n-not ."
She didn't wait for him to finish his sentence. With a negligent seeming toss she flung him into the wall. His head cracked against it, causing his vision to explode in a burst of light.
The monster took one step forward and quite suddenly Dart wasn't that little boy anymore. When the lights faded from his vision, he was rising one cannon arm to point it at a little girl lying brokenly in a heap by the wall. Something in the back of his mind screamed at him to stop, but he only hesitated for a moment before building up energy for the blast.
"This world's one hell of a complicated place, kid. No one should have to live his or her life in confusion. I'll help you out a bit."**
I sat up abruptly, knocking the homespun coverlet askew. Breathing heavily, I wiped the sweat off my forehead. I had had that dream, or others similar to it, many times before. That I would feel guilty and have nightmares about what I had done was to be expected. But this dream had been far more lifelike than the others. I could feel the heat searing my hair as I crouched in the corner of the burning home. I could still remember how difficult it had been to breathe, and I could feel the mind-numbing pain as my body had hit the stone wall and broke. But what was worse was how much more vivid the dream had become once I had switched places with the monster. How I had felt every tiny surge and each miniscule movement of the gears as the cannon had leveled itself, readying to pour death upon the tiny form that lie in the shadow of the blackened stone wall. But most disturbing of all had been the overpowering sense that what I was doing was right. That this is what I was born to do. But that couldn't be true: it was only a dream.
Wasn't it?
I took my head in my hands and closed my eyes. Was that how Rose had felt about this whole thing? Just enter the fray, do what was right, and leave without giving a thought to those affected by her actions?
I shook myself mentally. Of course that wasn't how it had been. I'd talked to Rose about this before. She had known what she was doing, and it had hurt her. She would never have admitted to it aloud, but the pain and suffering that she had endured throughout the ages past was etched into her face told more than any words freely express. She'd seen death's face. All she'd had to do was look into a mirror. But then who had been the monster that had cared about nothing but destruction?
/It couldn't have been me . could it?/
That thought grabbed my attention. Was that really me? Did I really have that capacity for such heartlessness? Not now, certainly, but would something happen to me one day that would force me over the edge like that?
//Glad to hear you thinking. You've been too quiet for the past week or so//
/Was I out that long?/
//Approximately//
Great. And the whole time I had vacated my body, the Divine Dragon had been in control. Vaguely I wondered what sort of shape the world was currently in. /Where are we?/
//Ulara. The winglies of agreed to let us stay for as long as we have want to. //
/Nice to know that at least some of the world isn't out for my blood/
//I wouldn't be too pleased about that. Charle-//
"Dart honey pie!"
//-knows you're awake// Ragnarok finished his sentence in a resigned tone. He retreated quite pointedly to the back of my mind at that point.
Taking my head out of my hands, I looked up. Charle Frahma stood in front of me, beaming in her usual happy go lucky way. Radiant in her bright, multi-hued dress, it was obvious that the years since I had seen her had not in any way diminished her energy. In her own way, this was the most terrifying woman alive, wingly or otherwise. The world could be falling down apart her ears and that woman would be laughing and 'honey pie- ing' the nearest virage. Last time we had been here, Rose had developed a noticeable twitch whenever Charle called her 'Rosie'. If you had the ability to make Rose twitch, you had to be fairly terrifying.
"I'm so happy to finally see you up, Dart sweetie! I was beginning to fear that you would sleep the rest of your life away." Charle chirruped happily.
"That might not be too bad of an idea," I muttered, getting to my feet. "Good morning Charle, you're looking well."
"Oh, I get by. By the way, it's mid-afternoon." She looked me up and down. "Oh, you must be starving. Arkie barely ate a thing while you were napping."
"Arkie?"
"That delightful little dragon you have living in your head." If possible, Charle's smile doubled in size. "He's so much fun to chit-chat with. He seems awfully unhappy though."
/Arkie?/
In the back of my mind I felt Ragnarok cringe. //It was that blasted woman's idea. I told her my name at least a hundred times, but she can't seem to get it through her head that my name isn't 'Arkie'// He shuddered. //Just keep her away from me//
An idea popped into my head. /You sound as though you're afraid of her/ I accused, trying not to laugh aloud.
//I am not// Ragnarok replied frostily, sounding majorly affronted. //I am just unused to the aura of . happiness that she radiates. Does she have to be so cheerful?// He actually sounded plaintive.
/It's just her way/
//Can't she change it?//
/As much as I might wish I could say otherwise, I don't think that she will/
Ragnarok and Dart seem to have some different opinions about what happened to Rose. Wonder what's gonna happen to Dart?
. This chapter was kind of dark, but hang on until next chapter. Things are gonna start getting fun. I have a feeling that it's going to be a longer one. I'll try and have it up sometime next week, but no guarantees.
Reviews are majorly appreciated!