9. Dash

The Kirlsa Caverns were dark, damp, and all together not very pleasant. This definitely was not the place anyone would have chosen to spend the day. Maria and Nel however insisted that there was some kind of object in the caverns they needed and had Fayt running around on the Haulers trying to find it.

Albel was standing back away from the group waiting impatiently for them to finish. Finally he had had enough. "This is going to take all day I'm leaving."

Sophia heard another crash and knew Fayt would be coming back empty handed again. Was riding Haulers really all that hard? She really didn't feel like finding out. "Wait, I'll come with you."

The two walked down the dimly lit halls. This was her second trip here and she didn't find it nearly as scary as she had the first time. Of course Albel wasn't with her last time. She looked up at him while they walked and smiled.

"What?" he said noticing her looking at him. His voice wasn't nearly as gruff as when the others were around.

She wrapped her arm around his. "Oh nothing really, I was just thinking of how safe you make me feel."

He looked down at her. "As if there were anything in these caves to be worried over. You could probably deal with the monsters here yourself if you needed to."

She was about to yell at him for teasing her when something on the wall caught her eye. "Hey what's that?" She let go of Albel's arm and ran over to the wall. The object shined in the flickering light from the torches. It was about a foot higher than she was and she could barely reach it standing on her tiptoes.

"Need a hand there shorty?" Came Albel's sarcastic voice from behind her.

Sophia pressed her lips together in a pout and turned to face the swordsman. "You know what, I've just about had it with your teasing for one day." She turned back towards the wall and started looking for anything that would give her some extra height. "You can't ever come up with things nicely, everything has to be laden with sarcasm."

Albel just stood amused at watching her struggle. She really did like to do things the hard way, stubborn girl. He watched as she climbed up on a small rock ledge. From where she was now she could just reach the gem that had so captured her attention.

"See," she said as she finally grasped the gem and began to twist it free "I didn't need you to get it for me!" She tightened her grip on the stone and pulled with all her might. The gem finally came loose in her hand but she had put too much force in pulling it out and began falling backwards.

No sooner had her mind registered the fact that she was quickly plummeting towards the ground then she felt two strong arm catch her around the shoulders. She looked up to see Albel grinning down at her. "You want my help now or should I just drop you on your ass."

As angry as she should have been she couldn't help smiling up at him. He pushed her to her feet and watched as she held the jewel up for him to see. "I got it on my own didn't I?"

Suddenly there was a low rumbling coming from the rock wall behind them. Sophia turned and watched as dust and small rocks came tumbling down from the cave ceiling. "What's going on?"

Albel grabbed her by the shoulder and started pulling her back. "I don't think taking that rock was such a good idea." Suddenly the whole wall began to fall around them. Large and small rocks gave way from both the wall and the ceiling. Albel quickly yanked Sophia out of the way of a particularly large boulder just before it crushed her. The force of the impact was enough that the floor beneath them began to crumble. The last thing Albel heard was Sophia screaming before they both fell into darkness.

Albel lifted himself off the floor cringing at the growing bump on his head. He looked around, his eyes focusing in the poor light. Sophia lay a few feet away, she was on her stomach, her head turned away from him. He quickly crawled over to her and turned her over. She started to wake as he pulled her closer to him. "You ok?"

"Albel" she winced in pain and looked up at him. "What happened? Where are we?" she tried to sit up but yelped in pain.

Albel placed his arm around her supporting her back. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?" she nodded and leaned froward reaching for her ankle. He looked it over lightly touching it. He could tell it was swelling up by the minute. "It looks like you sprained your ankle pretty good, it may even be broken. Can you heal it?"

Sophia shook her head. "Heal won't work on broken bones, we need to get back to the others." She looked around, the tunnel they were in stretched out in both directions. There was no telling which one led out and which one led deeper into the cave. First she needed to get back on her feet. "Albel you're going to have to help me walk."

Albel rose to his feet and looked from one direction to another. "Oh now you want my help! You know if you had accepted my help in the first place we wouldn't be down here. At this rate I'm going to break my back just carrying you out of here."

He reached down and tried to pick her up but she swatted his hands away. "No, you know what, if you're going to be that way about it then I don't want you carrying me at all. I'll walk on my own."

Albel snorted in what she knew to be a stifled laugh. "Stubborn to the end aren't you? Fine you want to walk then lets get going." He didn't wait for her to get to her feet and started walking down the tunnel. She huffed a bit before struggling to her feet. She found it was terribly painful to put any weight on her injured leg. She stumbled over to the cave wall and used the stones for support. Of course she was hobbling slower than Albel could walk and before she knew it she had lost sight of him.

She knew she should have accepted his help. She really shouldn't have been so ticked off at his attitude. After all he was just being himself. Even though he made fun of her he was still going to carry her so she didn't have to hobble along like she was now. Things would have been much easier if she had just swallowed her pride and took his help the first and second time. Now who knew where they were or if they could even get out from here.

Suddenly light filled the cave. Albel was far ahead of her and apparently had found a torch on the wall. He was working on removing the torch from its metal holder when she finally caught up to him. "This must be an old mining tunnel." He said as the torch finally came loose from its holder. Albel move it around to cast light on the floor. They were almost completely covered in dirt but you could just barely see the outline of the old mine car tracks on the floor. "If we follow these they should lead us out."

Albel put the torch back on the wall. He then turned his back to Sophia and bent down a bit. "Put your arms around my neck." She looked at him strangely for a moment trying to figure out just what he was trying to do. He turned his head and looked at her impatiently. "Are you going to let me carry you or not?"

She slowly nodded her head. "Yeah I don't think I could walk much farther."

Albel grunted and turned away from her again. "I know you cant, I don't know what made you think you could in the first place." Sophia reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. He reached behind him and grabbed her under the knees and pulled her the rest of the way onto his back. They adjusted for a moment trying to make the position comfortable for the both of them. Once they were both settled Albel spoke up. "Ok now grab the torch and try not to set my hair on fire."

Sophia grabbed the torch and held it high above his head. "I should just for that!"

Albel loosened his grip on her knees a bit "You want me to drop you?"

She tightened her grip on his neck. "No!"

He started walking down the tunnel. "Then quit it!"

They walked for some time in silence. After a while they came to a fork in the road. The tracks traveled in both directions so either way could have been the right one. Albel sighed "Ok princess, you want to go left or right?"

Sophia looked down both directions trying to decide. Then she had an idea. She held the torch up as high as she could and watched the flame. The fire seemed to be leaning towards the right. "Ok go left."

"You sure?"

"Positive, I think there's a breeze coming from that way. We could be close to an exit."

Albel started down the direction she chose. "You know if this is the way out I might just forgive you for getting us in this mess."

Sophia rolled her eyes. "How kind of you."

"Hey do you still have that rock?"

She gasped and looked behind her. "No, I forgot all about it."

"Well we're not going back for it that's for sure."

Sophia sighed and rested her forehead against his shoulder. "All that trouble for nothing."

Albel chuckled. "Yep all you got out of this was hurt pride and a broken ankle. Its kind of funny when you think about it."

"Quit rubbing it in!" she mumbled, her head still buried in his shoulder.

She felt Albel pick up the pace a bit and looked up to see why. Ahead of them was light! Natural, beautiful, sunlight! "Oh thank goodness! It's the way out!"

She felt Albel's hand tighten around her knees. "I can't believe you actually picked the right way."

As they emerged from the tunnel Sophia had never been happier to see the plain brown earth of the Bequerel mountain path. Looking around they found that the tunnel they came from was not that far from the main entrance of the cave.

They reached the entrance and Albel slowly lowered her good leg to the ground. She used him to keep her balance as she stood on her own again. She carefully sat down on the ground, stretching her injured leg in front of her.

Albel went and looked inside the cave. "I think they're still here. I'm not going back in there that's for sure. The fools will just have to meet us out here." He came and sat down next to her.

Sophia finally got a good look at him for the first time since they exited the tunnels. She tried but couldn't help the laugh that escaped her lips. He looked over at her, a bit irritated. "What the hell's so funny?"

She reached up and ruffled his hair causing dirt and dust to flutter down from the tangled mess. She laughed again "You're covered in filth."

He swatted her hand away and smirked at her. "You think I'm bad you should see yourself." He reached out and ran his hand through her hair. His hand drooped to her cheek and he used his thumb to try and wipe away some of the dirt that stained her face.

She looked down at her cloths and took in the damage that was done. Her shirt was covered in dirt and there were several rips in her skirt. " We're both a mess. My whole outfit is ruined."

Albel reached down and started picking at a tare in her skirt. "You could always take it off now I suppose."

Sophia smacked the top of his hand. "You're a pervert!"

He just smirked down at her and leaned in. "You already knew that." he brought his lips to hers and kissed her. She smiled against him and kissed back, even though she could taste the dirt on both their lips.

He pulled back and looked down at her. "You know I don't think you're dirty enough."

She looked up at him questioningly before she realized what he was doing. He brought his hand up to his hair and started shaking out what was left of the dirt. She squealed with laughter and tried to cover he head with her hands as he shook the dirt out right over her head. "Stop it, keep your dirt to yourself!"

"I can't believe you two had me run around for hours just to find that thing!"

They both turned and looked at the mouth of the cavern. Fayt, Maria, and Nel were walking out.

Maria seemed a bit upset as she looked down at the jewelry she held in her hands. "I'm really sorry Fayt, I thought it would be better than this."

Nel followed behind the two looking quiet indifferent. "It was just bad information. When my informant told me it was a rare treasure I just assumed he meant a useful item, not an antique."

Maria turned towards Nel. "Well maybe we can have it appraised, it could be worth quite a bit."

Fayt spoke up, annoyance evident in his tone of voice. "Yeah and every penny goes towards my new armor because I was the one who…." He stopped talking as soon as he caught sight of Albel and Sophia seated on the grass. "Sophia are you alright?" said Fayt as he ran to kneel beside her.

Nel and Maria followed right behind him. Maria tucked the Jewelry in her pocket and looked down at the pair. "What happened to you two?"

Sophia was embarrassed to be receiving all this attention. "There was a cave in, it was really my fault, we fell through the cave floor into a lower tunnel and…."

Albel wrapped his arm around hers and began lifting her to her feet. "She broke her ankle." Fayt took her other arm and helped her gain her balance.

Maria tossed her hair behind her shoulder. "We should get you back to the ship, I'm sure Mirage can fix you up no problem."

Fayt and Albel helped her walk as the group made there way back to the ship. Halfway there Sophia started to laugh. Albel looked over at her. "Now what's so funny?"

She looked over at him and then Fayt. "I was just thinking how nice it is to see the two of you cooperating for once."

Albel glared down at her. "How many times do I have to threaten to drop you before you stop making comments like that."

Fayt immediately came to her defense. "Hey leave her alone! She didn't say anything wrong!"

"Mind your own business maggot!"

"Oh I'm the maggot? At least I'm not threatening to drop my girlfriend when she has a broken ankle!"

The two keep on like that, arguing with one another with Sophia trapped in the middle. She sighed deeply and shook her head. She really needed to learn to keep her thoughts to her self.

A/N

From chapter 12 on I think I will write Albel and Sophia as a couple. They are a couple in this story even though they spent most of this chapter fighting.

I hope this wasn't too corny, it was the only idea I could come up with for the theme dash. Oh and the item they were looking for in the cavern was the antique jewelry. You need it to recruit an inventor. Sorry, I'm to lazy to look up his name right now.