Hey guys, sorry the updates are taking so long. I hit massive writers block. Again. It's because I've got a new story idea that's floating around my head and won't go away. I wrote out the first chapter of that one, so hopefully it'll help me get back on track with this. If you wanna read the new one, it's called OneWinged Angel. It should turn out pretty good!

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Now that the Celcius was gliding safely high above the ground and out of the reach of the Fate Beasts, Namine and Kael stood on the bridge. Paine crossed her arms.

"Explain." She ordered. Kael took a deep breath, and sat down on the steps.

"There had to have been at least twenty shapeshifters that came running at us from just out of sight around the mountain base. They were the ones that planted the explosives, and they definitely were on their way back to finish the job." He said. Emma watched them worriedly.

"But you guys are okay, right?" She asked. Both Kael and Namine nodded. There was a long silence. Kairi blew a piece of hair out of her face.

"So, where do we go now? I mean, we have to figure out how to find this Lady Fate now, right?" She asked, sounding slightly dejected. Rikku shrugged.

"So, can't we just, like, follow some Fate Beasts to her lair or something?" She suggested. Gippal grinned at her, looking mildly impressed.

"Hey, good one, Cid'd girl." He answered. Sora shook his head.

"Sound like a good plan, but wouldn't all the ones who chased Namine and Kael into the ship have seen the Celcius?" He asked. Gippal nodded.

"Probably, but so what?"

"So, they're going to run back to Lady Fate and they'll all know what to look for. This ship is now an enormous neon sign that says 'here come the Gullwings'." Baralai stated, frowning. Kael shrugged.

"So we loose the ship for now. We can hide it in the old forest behind the manor and stay there while we decide where to go." He offered. Namine bit her lip.

"But that would be the first place they'll go looking for us." She said. There was another long silence. Then, she let out a gasp. "Hey! There's a little village that shouldn't be too far away, and it's at the base of some huge old mines there, we can hide the ship in the mines and stay at the Inn there!" She said excitedly. Paine crossed her arms.

"You think you can fit this ship in a mine shaft?" She asked incredulously. Kael nodded.

"Those mines are the biggest in existence. You could fit a small mountain in one of them." He answered.

"Impressive" Shinra stated without looking up from his work. Baralai stood up.

"Okay, so where are these mines?" He asked.

"Directly east from the mountain." Kael answered. The direction of the Celcius was altered slightly. It didn't take too long from then for a massive rocky ridge came into view. Taking the Celcius into the mines that twisted through the rock, they got off and made their way down the slope and towards the village. A thick forest stood between them and the town. The little settlement was nestled just inside the tree line on the other side of the wood. Just beyond the woods were a handful of farms. The whole town was enclosed by a low rocky wall, more intended to keep pesky animals out than any serious intruders. Just beyond the walls on the forest side were small shacks used by the lumberjacks. Each of the buildings in the small town were welcoming, made of the wood of silver pines, so that the houses seemed to glow with silver.

"It's very…elegant." Kairi said approvingly as they came to a stop at the end of the main street. Namine smiled.

"This is where I was born." She answered. Kael pouted.

"You would never tell me where you were from, even if I bribed you, and you just offer the information to them?" He asked, sounding exaggeratedly hurt. She shrugged.

"It's not nearly as nice a place as the Manor." She replied. He blinked at her.

"So!" He asked, unable to see how that applied to anything. She opened her mouth to answer, and noticed that they were alone. Her eyes darted around the street, searching for the others who had so conspicuously disappeared. She caught sight of Baralai rounding a corner a little ways down from them.

"Baralai!" She shouted at him crossly. She didn't need to shout, he was certainly near enough that he would be able to hear her fine, but it was frustrating, everyone disappearing on them all the time. She stopped and looked at her, curious.

"We're just going to find a place to stay, me and Paine, and the others are gone to explore. We're all going to meet back here at sunset." He answered. Then, grinning coyly, he added, "Until then, you two can do whatever you want." He winked and disappeared. Namine's cheeks flared red in anger and embarrassment. Kael was red as well, though not nearly as much as her. So, they've got Baralai in on this matchmaking scheme now. She thought back to the conversation on the ship. How long had Baralai been standing at the top of the stairs for? Maybe he wasn't put up to this, maybe he was doing it of his own free will? She let out a long winded sigh.

"What is there to see around here?" Kael asked, breaking her thoughts. She looked up and him and thought for a moment. Then, she grinned and her face lit up.

"I know exactly where we should go!" She exclaimed, grabbing him by the hand and leading him away. It took her a long moment for her to realize that she was still holding his hand in hers, and dropped it as inconspicuously as possible, blushing. His fingers lingered against hers for as long as possible without being obvious. She tried to ignore it and scolded herself silently. A part of her mind told her to relax; he did kiss her after all. Sort of. But, she brushed that thought out of her mind. She had no idea what to make of what happened at the mountain, so for now she'd act as if nothing happened. Even if it was on her mind constantly. They spent the day walking around the town, and never once met up with the others. It was something which both found oddly suspicious, but they ignored it anyhow. Namine caught Kael looking at her more often than he was looking at the sights she showed him. Each time she could feel her heart skipping and her cheeks glowing in a slight blush. She found it all totally confusing. He was supposed to be interested in the daughters of rich nobles, not her. She couldn't understand what it was that he saw in her. They had about fifteen minutes left before they had to go back as She led him to the last place she wanted to show him. It was not far outside the walls, but far enough that they couldn't see the village for the trees once they arrived. There was a massive stone cylinder, wide and taller than any of the trees. It was covered in vines and moss. It would seem that there used to be a set of stairs leading to the top, but all that was left of the first three quarters of them was a pile of rubble. There was an unrecognizable shape at the top. Grinning, Namine pulled herself up into the lowest branch of a tree growing next to the pile of rubble that used to be the stairway. Reaching up to the next set of branches, she began to climb, looking like she could pick out the path with her eyes closed. A ways up, she looked down at him.

"Hurry up! I used to climb this all the time when I was little. I'd disappear up here for hours at a time so I wouldn't be around for my parents to ask me to do chores." As she spoke, she edged away from the trunk along a branch, getting closer to the stone cylinder. Kael blinked at her.

"You'd sit in a tree for hours? And they'd never find you?" He asked disbelievingly. She grinned.

"No, no. I'd sit on the statue." She answered, taking a careful step off the tree branch and onto the lowest step of what was left of the stairs. "This used to be a statue from the old days. The Ladies…or Lady ordered it to be demolished. There was a legend about how the earth cried out and swallowed it up when the statue was pulled down. This is all that's left; the base." She led him up the remaining steps and into the top. He could see it more clearly now: the strange shape on the top was the worn remains of the ankles and feet of the statue. She climbed into the foot and sat down, nestled nicely at the top of the foot, the bottom of the shin acting as a backrest. He followed and whistled when he got a good look at the surrounding landscape.

"We don't have a view anywhere like this back home." He said, awed by the sight. She grinned in reply and pointed.

"See that? Where the trees are all shorter than the rest?" She asked. He nodded. Indeed, there was a long section of trees starting a little way out from the base and running outwards where the trees that grew there were all shorter than the rest of the forest. "That's where the statue fell. My cousin pointed that out to me. He showed me this place."

"This place is wonderful. I wish I was born here." He said, almost wistfully. She blinked at him, caught off guard by the comment.

"Why? The Manor has everything you could ever want."

"And enough rules and regulations to drown a person in." He answered. "Besides, it doesn't have anything like this." There was a long silence.

"What do you think is going to happen to us?" Namine asked after a while. Kael stretched and put his hands behind his head.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I was accused of being an outsider, you defended me. And on top of it, we know things that we shouldn't and we're running around with eight other outsiders. We're probably the most wanted criminals in the world."

"Right, but nobody knows that yet, except for the people in the Palace. And besides, once we defeat Lady Fate, we'll be heroes."

"I don't want to be a hero." She answered bluntly. "I'm enough of a freak as it is." She said. Kael frowned, putting one of his arms around her.

"You're not a freak. Why would you be?" He asked, pulling her into a hug.

"Everyone says it. You know they do. Sometimes I think you're the only one who doesn't care that my singing does weird things." She told him forlornly.

"It's a gift. You saw how everyone watched you're performance at the feast. It's amazing."

"It's all fine and wonderful to ooh and aah over me when I'm on stage, but no one at the court would come near me otherwise."

"But that's the court." Kael argued. "They lock down at the first sign of a spider. Besides, why should we care what they think? We're criminals now, remember?" He spoke with a crooked smile. She nodded, smiling a little.

"Maybe once this is all over I'll see if I can go with the others on the Celcius back to wherever they came from. Maybe I could go with Sora and Kairi. Me and Kairi are like twins after all." She sounded more like she was thinking out loud than anything else. He still had his arm around her and she was leaning comfortably against him, though she wasn't sure how she got there.

"I'll go with you wherever you choose to go." He said. She sat up a little and frowned.

"You can't come, still have a life here. You can't leave it."

"Why not? My brother Torin would make a much better heir than I would, and it's not as if the King's Guard actually needs me anyways. I'm "too valuable"…meaning my parents are too powerful to risk putting me on active duty. They would be very upset if I were injured. There won't be much of any consequence if I leave, and I'm not letting you go without me." He told her firmly. There was a long silence as Namine contemplated whether or not to actually ask the question that was tugging at her mind.

"What about Taniki?" She asked quietly.

"What about her? It's an arranged marriage. She doesn't really care about me, she'd just better at acting like she does than I am. She'll probably end up with Torin anyways, and I know the two of them get along famously." He answered. He pouted over-dramatically. "It sounds to me like you don't want me to come." He said. She shook her head, trying unsuccessfully to keep from grinning. There was another long pause and her grin faded as reality hit her once again.

"I want you to come, but we both know you shouldn't." She whispered, her tone of voice a hint at her being upset.

"And we both know that what I should do and what I will do are two completely different things." He said. She laughed.

"I'm sorry, but you never do anything even remotely rude. You always do what you're supposed to do."

"Are you calling me a goodie-two-shoes?"

"Maybe." She flashed a grin at him.

"I am not." He argued, trying too hard to sound indignant. Her grin widened.

"How are you not?" She asked disbelievingly. "Prove me wrong." From the look on her face, it was a dare. He paused, looking thoughtful for a moment. He still had his arm around her and she was sitting sideways, resting her head on his shoulder with her legs crossing over his. When he turned his head to look at her, he found her face very close to his.

"What will prove you wrong?" He asked quietly. She smiled slyly and shrugged.

"That's what I asked you." She answered, moving slightly to look out over the view. He grinned in spite of himself and cupped her face in his free hand, turning her face towards him so she was looking back at him again. She raised an eyebrow, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "What are you grinning at?"

"I thought of something." He answered with a mischievous grin. With the hand that cupped her face he traced the curve of her cheek and put two fingers under her chin, drawing her towards him until their lips met. The kiss was short but sweet. They parted and her arms had found their way around his neck. He planted a kiss in the hollow below her ear, making her gasp.

"So did it work?" He asked, grinning.

"Did what work?" she asked, having a hard time thinking of anything but the tingling numbness left on her lips and neck.

"Did I prove you wrong yet?" He asked, his grin widening. To be totally honest, she'd forgotten it with the kiss and really didn't care anymore. She grinned back at him.

"Ummm…I'll let you win if you kiss me again." She answered.

…………………………

Namine first noticed something was up when she realized that she could barely see Kael, despite the fact that he was only inches away from her. Looking around, she let out a gasp. The sun had gone down completely, and dusk was waning. He was looking around too.

"So, maybe we got a little carried away…" He noted quietly. Neither of them made any move to stand up.

"We're already late and I really don't want to stand up." She said with a sigh. Her eyes scanned the view, and she glanced over the rooftops visible for the trees. She saw a flurry of movement and watched it. Someone was running down one of the streets, coming in and out of view between the roofs and trees. Then there was another. So they weren't the only ones running late. Another pair ran down the street a moment later. One of them stopped suddenly and the other disappeared behind one of the trees for a moment before coming back to see what the first was doing. Squinting, Namine let out a gasp and started to blush. Kael blinked at her.

"Are you okay?" He asked, sounding concerned.

"It's Emma and Riku. They can see us." She said, nodding in the direction of the two figures, both of whom were watching them. He grinned.

"Then let's give them something to see." He spoke quietly, guiding her lips to his once again. The kiss was much more lingering than either of them had intended, though neither was about to complain. Glancing back at the space between the houses and trees, she noticed that the two figures were gone.

"Looks like they had the decency to give us some privacy." She noted. With a resigned sigh she got to her feet. He got up behind her and they made their way down and back to the village. The others were waiting for them at the meeting place. Judging from their breathing, it looked like Rikku and Gippal were the other two who were late. Emma and Riku were grinning helplessly at Namine and Kael, who turned red and grinned back. Kairi took one look at the two couples and could immediately guess what was going on and started to grin. As new couple approached the group, she leaned over to Namine.

"Girls meeting in the inn as soon as we get there, in my room." She whispered. Namine blushed even brighter and nodded reluctantly.

Again, my apologies for taking so long, I was having a hard time with getting this chappie going. Next one should be good tho! Promise! RnR!