Lina sank back onto the bed, the anger slowly seeping out of her to be replaced with an emotion that she thought she was inured to: Shock.
'How?' she thought. 'How did he know the symbol?'
Ever since Lina was a little girl, she had had nightmares. What separated her nightmares from other children's was that hers were always the same.
(A smiling yellow-haired boy and a big tin man lay on their backs with her in the snow, making angels. She couldn't see the yellow-haired boy's face, or anything of the Tin Man except the gleam off his shiny body and two points of red light from his head. She felt… safe with these two odd people, and she knew as long as she was with them, nothing bad would hurt her or Alexander.'Alexander? Who's Alexander?' Lina would think. I don't know any Alexander's… "Look, Big Brother! An angel!" she cried giddily, flopping about in the snow. The fair-haired boy laughed.
"Very good, Nina!" he said, tousling her hair with his left hand. "Would you like to see something neat?" He asked her.
For the first time, the Tin Man spoke. "Ed, I don't think we should…"
"Ah, come off it, Al," Ed said, grinning. "It won't hurt. Just think of it as further studying for the State Alchemist Exam- just with an audience." He began to draw an odd shape in the snow. He drew a large circle, and then a smaller circle within it. Then he drew three equal triangles, each with one point outside of the circles, spaced so that while they didn't touch each other, they seemed to form a larger triangle, one that was outside of the circles. "See this shape, Nina? It makes dreams come true.")
At that point the dream would change. That part of the dream was one she always feared yet wanted to relive, for although it was a pleasant dream, it always brought with it the other one.
(She was standing in a basement in the center of an intricately drawn symbol on the floor, holding stroking the muzzle of a large dog. A middle-aged man with receding reddish hair and large rounded glasses reached down towards her saying, "Nina, would you do a favour for me?" The dog she was petting let out a frightened whine, and she moved to comfort it. "It's okay, Alexander, Daddy wouldn't hurt us." She told the dog. It licked her face.
"That's a good girl, Nina. Just stand there in the circle with Alexander, I'm going to start now, so don't move, okay?" the man with the reddish hair said as he knelt down and touched his hands to the symbol. What followed next was not so much pain as an uncomfortable feeling of being twisted inside out and being sucked through a straw going on and on until she thought she was going to die, until it was worse then the pain, and she screamed.
Then she could hear a voice, one that sounded so familiar, yet one she couldn't place. "I'm sorry, Nina. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you-"
Then the scene changed one last time, and she was in a darkened alleyway at night, where there stood a man in a yellow jacket. The man knelt and scratched her head. "You, like I, have been cursed by alchemy," he intoned. "I release you from your torment." A pinkish light came from his right arm, and then she felt nothing.)
Sometimes silently jerking awake, sometimes with a scream of fright that would bring her grandma running to comfort her until her breathing slowed and she didn't shake with fear, but always in a cold sweat she would emerge from the awful dream. Thankfully over the years it had become less and less frequent, until instead of having it every couple of nights like she did when she was younger, it tapered off to once every couple of months or so. One thing still bothered her whenever she cast her mind upon it about the dream though: She did not know why they had all called her Nina instead of Lina. She had a feeling that if she knew that, the rest of the mystery would unveil itself. She was interrupted as the door opened.
"Now if I were him, where would I go?" Rosette mused to no one, alone in the sleek Sleipnir. She only hoped that she could get it safely back to Jack- it was such a work of art she knew he'd never forgive her if she handed it back to him with a scratch on it. She ticked each establishment off in her mind as she drove past it. "Lessee here… 'Murray & Ready's Tailoring?' Nope, he didn't look like he needed new clothes… 'General Store'- Naw, 'Saloon' Well, I'll check back there later… and even if he's not there, I can make sure its not a wasted trip- even if I am- tee hee."
She saw something in the middle of the street up ahead. The image was clearer as she got closer and saw, to the feeling of a sinking heart, it was a half-dozen men standing in a cluster, each of them with a rifle in his hands, and they were staring hungrily at her.
'Not good-' she had time to think before they opened fire. She ducked; the bullets sailed over her head, but now she had no control of the vehicle. It swerved to the right and was about to crash into the post office before she was able to bring it to a stop. Steam poured out of the engine block- they must've hit the carburetor, which meant she was sunk- no weapon, no vehicle and no chance. She was dragged out of the car and thrown on the ground. She wasn't going to end like this, she wasn't! She still had to find her way home, save her little brother, and kill Aion- she was not going to be killed by some punk on another world. Just as she was tensing to spring at them, she heard a shot, and then another, then another- six shots in all. Each shot was punctuated by one of her would-be captors falling to the ground. Rosette huddled close to the ground, both hands, good and broken, over her ears as the thunderous shots roared over her head. She stayed close to the ground as the last blast echoed and died away.
They were still ringing in her ears when she noticed that large black boots blocked the ground in front of her face. She looked up and saw a hand outstretched towards her. She grasped it and was hauled not unkindly to her feet. He was dressed all in black- black boots, black pants, black leather jacket, black motorcycle helmet with the tinted visor down so she couldn't see his eyes, even black leather gloves that covered his hands into his sleeves so she couldn't see what complexion his skin was. In his other hand was a huge pistol that was- you guessed it- black, which he tucked back into a belt-holster.
'Very mysterious,' she thought. Still, he'd be paying dearly for his mystery- wearing all that black, especially with all the buttons buttoned and zippers zipped, not to mention that a good chunk of the outfit was leather, and it was a wonder he didn't keel over from the heat.
"Thank you for saving me," she said. The stranger nodded, almost as if he were saying, "Don't mention it."
"Why did you save me?" she asked. He shrugged, as if to say, "You were in trouble."
"How did you get here?" she pressed. He pointed to a black motorcycle that said Kawasaki on the side in white lettering. Well, she had to give him credit; this guy didn't half-ass anything- he shot all her guards, and was in all black.
'Wait,' Rosette thought suddenly, 'if those guys were waiting for me, then they-' "Shit!" she swore softly. She looked for her saviour and saw he was already on his bike. "Um, I have to go to Jack's Auto Body Repair Shop- you know where that is, right?"
The man nodded.
" Okay, then if it's not too much to ask, could I hitch a ride with you?" she asked, "seeing as my car kinda broke down…" she eyed the steaming mess the car had become.
The man in black patted the seat behind him. She swung her leg over and clutched his stomach with her good arm. 'Damn,' she thought. 'I wonder how many Hail Mary's this is worth.' "Sorry!" she shouted as gunned the engine, "I never caught your name!" Wordlessly as ever, he pointed to the side of the motorcycle. "Your name's Kawasaki?" She asked. He shook his head and pointed again. Then she saw it: under the word Kawasaki, which was printed on an upwards diagonal, was another word, printed in the usual left-to-right horizontal:
Paladin.
