Dai: Well. That first chapter died like a fish out of water.
Serge: Don't start.
Dai: Ah, well. Hopefully this one will make things take off. I didn't create the Continent for my own amusement. Entirely.
Serge: Right. Whatever. Can I give away the plot yet?
Dai: Only if you then let me tie you to a chair and rape you senseless. (evil leer)
Serge: …your rape scenes are scary things…
Disclaimer: No own, no sue.
Enthraille: The Orphan's Story
Chapter Two
"Boy."
Sora shifted slightly, yawning. "Hang on, Nanny, I'll be up in a moment," he managed in a voice still heavy with sleep.
Someone poked him in the head with a sharp stick.
This roused him. "Hey, what was that for?" he demanded, frowning up at the offender.
He hesitated when he saw the unnaturally silver hair that swirled around the girl's shoulders, and her aquamarine eyes pierced him with a determination not unlike Nanny's. "Boy, what are you doing here?" she asked him sharply. "Other races aren't allowed in Aidran. You should know that."
"Aidran?" Sora considered that. "Where's that?"
"Southeast of Middel," the girl replied. "Everyone knows that. Unless you're not from around here, in which case you must be a spy." She pointed the stick—which was actually a pike—at him threateningly.
This could turn nasty very quickly, and Sora realized that. "No no no, I'm not!" he said quickly, getting to his feet to keep from getting poked again. "I'm from Destira. I'm trying to find the Enthrailles about a wizard."
But this only made the girl's eyes widen, and she made a swift gesture toward the trees. On cue, several others approached wearing garb of the same bluish tone as the strange girl. Their silver hair shone like mirrors in the forested area in which Sora found himself. He backed away and nearly tripped over the beached Excalibur, to which Kairi was still tethered. A faint memory of stopping, walking, and then falling asleep on the ground floated back to him then. How long had they been at sea? It seemed like years, but it could only have been days or weeks.
"Take him to the palace," the girl said importantly to the others, who were apparently her subordinates.
"But—wait—Kairi!" Sora reached in vain for her even as the strangers seized him and started away. Behind him, the silver-haired girl stopped, bending beside the redhead briefly. She nodded to a silver-haired man and followed the rest as the man slung Kairi over his shoulder.
l…l
The woman smiled happily, bouncing the baby on her knee as she looked at her husband. "Isn't he cute?" she asked, deep brown curls sliding in a waterfall over her shoulder as she leaned over to smile at the infant.
Her husband returned the smile. "Yes, yes, he is. We've discussed this." He started toward the baby, running a hand through the soft hair on his son's delicate head, but looked up sharply, seeing something dark and ominous through the window. "It's here," he whispered.
His wife looked up at him, terror in her eyes, but she kept her movements natural. "She said to go out the back way," she replied in a low voice. "We can probably make it to the glade."
"We can hope. Take the baby and go on—I'll follow you."
Her wide green eyes betrayed her indecision, but she choked back a reply and rushed away, her feet making no sound on the stone floor. Squaring his shoulders, the brown-haired man stood in front of the door, waiting. He saw it come close, eyes shimmering in the darkness of the evening, and felt the terrible fear leap up in his heart. But he couldn't follow her now. It was too late—they would see him and find her and their son. Blue eyes defiant, he glared at the creatures, forcing his feet to stay rooted to the floor even though he wanted so desperately to run.
An unearthly sound passed through the house, followed abruptly by an anguished scream that bespoke terrible suffering as the world faded to black.
The boy sat up abruptly, the regal coverlet flying off him. His breath came in gasps as his slightly damp hair fell over his eyes. He managed to regain control over his breathing just as the door opened and a tiny man scurried in.
"Your Highness!" the man exclaimed in a high-pitched voice, his silver hair messy and his tiny spectacles askew. "One of the servants said you were thrashing in bed again. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Dmitri," the prince replied, relaxing as he took in the familiar surroundings that were his masterfully designed bedroom. "Another nightmare, that's all." He hesitated. Why were these dreams constantly bothering him? He didn't know these people, and he didn't even particularly care how things turned out for them. They looked like simple humans, even though something about their faces made him think different of them. But it wasn't like he cared, anyway—he was an Enthraille, and the Enthrailles didn't mix with the other races.
Dmitri scurried about, seeming to be enjoying himself immensely. "I'm actually glad you've awakened, Prince Riku. There's royal business to take care of!"
Riku rolled his eyes. His servant delighted over the idea of business in any way, shape, or form. "I worked overtime yesterday," he groaned. "I was hoping you'd give me a break today."
"The position of king requires double the amount of work—you're lucky I'm playing Regent for you in that department." Dmitri drew out a list. "Not much to begin the day with, but you have to see the Duke about that murder charge." He winced. "Very nasty sight over at the manor the other day."
"I'm going to have him hanged," Riku growled. "You don't massacre children and get away with it. Not in Serre." He shook his head. "Imagine if it were the baby he'd killed."
Dmitri rested his quill against his cheek, raising an eyebrow in confusion. "The baby, your Highness?"
Shock appeared in the deep aquamarine eyes as Riku realized he'd just said that out loud. But why was he worried about a baby that existed only in his dreams? "Never mind, Dmitri. What's after that?"
There was a flicker of concern across Dmitri's features, but he pressed on down the list. "Captain Kikyo found a human boy speaking gibberish by the river just this morning. Oh, but that's taken care of—we'll have him questioned thoroughly as to his motives."
"A human? In Aidran?"
"Apparently so, your Highness." Dmitri frowned, perusing the list more closely. "He had a dead girl with him. At least, she seems dead by all accounts, but the physicians said there were still some very slight signs that's she's still…" The tiny man's voice died away, his eyes widening and locking with those of the prince. "You don't think…?"
l…l
Sora chaffed his arms, shivering in the damp as the steel door slid shut with a shuddering clank. The strange silver-haired people had taken his pack and he had reason to believe they were confiscating Excalibur, too. So he had been locked up alone in a cold, damp cell without anyone to talk to. Not even Kairi.
It seemed terribly ironic. He'd come out here searching for some fantastic, magical place that would relieve him of the boundaries of everyday life. He'd found the magic—complete with none of the technological comforts of home—but he was instantly fettered to a set of boundaries again.
Glancing up suddenly, he noticed that almost all of the torches in the room were unlighted, and a guard was advancing on the last one. "Excuse me, sir?" he said to the soldier in a panicked voice. "Could you—could you please not put out that torch?"
The guard blinked at him, nodding vaguely and extinguishing the torch before Sora could say another word. Metal clanked against the stone as the soldier left with his own torch as the only fading light. Sora leaned against the wall and sighed. "Thank you," he managed softly.
Clasping his arms about him, the boy sank to the stone floor, trying not to think about the sinister figure that his imagination had slipped into his surroundings. He seemed to see a cloaked figure crouched by the window, barely illuminated by a faint light from a crack in the stone.
It's probably just a bucket with a cloth on it, he told himself, absentmindedly feeling along the wall for a light switch. There wasn't one, though, and he was left to wonder if that really was just a bucket. But it was.
It had to be.
In the hope of reassuring himself, Sora rose and crossed the floor to it, one hand raised to move the cloth. Maybe it was just his shift in position, but it seemed like the cloaked figure was staring at him now out of eyes shrouded in darkness. Sora let out a small whimper and shrank back against the hard bed. "It's too dark," he said to the surrounding emptiness. "Someone help! Someone turn on a light…!"
An eternity passed while he stayed on the bed, watching what he believed to be a cloaked figure for signs of life. The unexplainable fear escalated to a paralyzing terror that led him to slow down his breathing, lest it disturbed the stranger and made him attack.
The metallic clanking deterred him from this task, though. Light spilled into the room from the torches the guards were carrying, revealing the stranger to be no more than a ruffled blanket over a stone block. "You're getting off easy," one guard explained. "The prince wants to see you."
They escorted him up through the dark halls and into the graceful architecture of the palace he'd seen when they brought him to the city. Two huge doors, elegantly encrusted with gold and green-tinted sapphire, opened to allow them into the throne room.
"But your Highness, this is an outrage!" a tall, imposing man roared, waving his fist in the air even as the soldiers dragged him away. "You can't possibly have enough evidence to convict me of—!"
"I believe we have more than enough evidence, your Lordship," the prince replied coldly from his throne. "It's a shame I won't be able to see you hang."
Sora swallowed hard as the man disappeared into the dungeon and the prince turned piercing aquamarine eyes on him expectantly. Like the other inhabitants of Aidran, the prince had long silver hair that gleamed slightly in the light from the chandelier. He was wearing a blue cloak, and when he moved it shimmered exactly like water in the evening.
The piercing eyes left Sora, turning instead on the group of attendants at the left. "The girl," the silver-haired prince said abruptly, snapping his fingers. A familiar figure was borne forward on a flat litter carried by four blue-clad servants.
"Kairi!" Sora exclaimed, aching to go to her even though he knew the guards would stop him if he tried.
"The physicians say she is dead and yet alive," the prince told him. "Explain what happened to her."
With a fervent glance at Kairi, Sora briefly outlined the events of the night he left Destira. "He told me to find a wizard and the Enthrailles, and then he was gone. So I brought her here," he finished finally.
The prince nodded, his eyes distant. He turned to confer with the tiny man standing on his right, making Sora feel strangely uncomfortable as he waited for a response.
"—It's very clear that—"
"—No, no, it couldn't be—"
"—But don't you recognize—?"
"—Of course I recognize—"
The argument ended with an abrupt close and the prince turned to Sora. "You, boy—your name is…?"
"Sora."
"Prince Riku of Serre." The prince nodded to him formally. "The Regent and I have come to a decision. You are to stay here in Aidran for one day, as it's too late in the day to attempt to leave now, and then you must return to Destira or Middel. The girl will remain here at the palace."
Sora's heart sank. "But Ri—I mean, your Highness, I can't leave her here! I have to find the wizard and those people—the Enth—"
"Serre is the country of the Enthrailles, and this is its capital city," Riku told him. "The stranger was wise to refer you to us—our physicians are the finest found anywhere. You won't need to worry about Kairi. We'll return her to you once we've finished the healing process."
At this, the Regent looked infuriated. "The prince will take a thirty minute recess," he stated quickly before beckoning to Riku and darting toward a side door.
The throne room erupted into chatter and movement as the various servants began to mingle. Sora found himself attacked by the demon of curiosity and surreptitiously slipped away from the distracted guards. Pressing himself up against the side door, which was partially concealed behind a gold curtain, he could pick up the only slightly hushed voices of the prince and Regent.
"What are you doing?" the Regent demanded. "You're feeding the boy tricks and lies! We can't possibly heal her at this stage!"
"Dmitri, calm down." Riku's voice was firm. "I didn't lie about anything. We're going to heal her."
"But it's gone! Any treatment that would bring her back to even a semblance of her original self would take decades!" Dmitri sighed. "Not to mention that we don't have much time, and unless we can get an experienced mage who can hold on to her for long enough, all we can do is make her comfortable."
Sora bit his lip, glancing back at Kairi's motionless form. So there wasn't anything he could do—the Enthrailles were no help at all. Feeling distress descend upon him, he rushed past the bewildered guards and deep into the palace, not really caring where he was going or whether there were consequences. He failed to catch the last of the conversation between the prince and Regent.
"Listen. Keep the boy in the palace for just a little while longer. I have an idea."
Dmitri stared at the silver-haired boy. "What in Sephiroth's name are you planning now?"
l…l
For a long time, Sora curled up in the corner, his body wracked with sobs. There was a brief moment during which he felt something cold along his back, but he was too preoccupied with his grief to think about it. Kairi, he kept thinking. The girl who had been by his side since he was ten—the girl he had hoped to share a paopu with. She was about to die.
The tears eventually gave way to quiet sniffles, and finally to silence. Feeling strangely hollow inside, Sora stood, wavering slightly before starting down the hall. He had to get out of here and back to Nanny, back to a world where he didn't have to abandon people to fate.
His foot slid forward on something and he flew into the air, landing uncomfortably on his rear. Frowning, he sat up and saw the silken material he'd slipped on, and he crawled up to examine it. "Why are there clothes…?" he murmured, picking up the blue cloak and watching it shimmer like water under his fingertips.
"Ah, there you are," Dmitri greeted him, having approached from the left hallway. "We were a bit worried—some of the Enthraille guards can be a bit merciless—and you heard what the prince said. I'm sorry, but there's really nothing else we can do."
Sora held up the cloak. "Wasn't he wearing th—?"
"Oh, don't worry about it. That happens all the time," Dmitri explained, chuckling lightly. "I'm sure you can imagine." He hesitated just then and stared at the cloak, his expression changing first to one of realization, then one of doubt, and finally, one of reluctant trust.
The brown-haired boy, on the other hand, was thoroughly confused by the tiny man's earlier statement. "What do you mean?"
This seemed to awaken Dmitri from his state of thought, and he started briskly down the hall. "Come along, now. I had a room at our best hotel reserved for you. If you've come all the way from Destira, you must have had it rough." The tiny man chuckled again. "It's sort of a fantasy out here, though. Imagine, boxes with people in them, lights that burn without fire—pure foolishness, really."
Dmitri continued to chatter mildly as they continued down the hall, and Sora quickly decided that the little man talked too much. But the rhythmic tone of Dmitri's voice provided a background—something dependable and solid, so that Sora was almost sad when he was escorted from the palace and entered the fancy hotel alone.
The rooms were so finely designed that Sora wasn't sure he'd ever left the palace. He wandered aimlessly about the rooms laid out for him, staring in awe at the gem-encrusted furniture. It was then that he felt something shift in his clothing—almost like that cold feeling from before—and he stopped short. There was another movement, an unmistakable shift as something grazed his skin. Fear overtook him, but Sora kept his mind intact and did the first thing that entered it.
Screaming and thrashing wildly, Sora ran out of the rooms and ended up in the lobby before he realized that the movement had stopped. "Need a bit of air," he explained to the concerned clerk at the front desk. She kept watching him, though, so he had no choice but to leave the hotel to keep from looking foolish. Well, any more foolish than he already did.
Like the other Enthraille cities, from what Sora understood, Aidran had the traditional domed houses that were made of a material that shimmered slightly, much like water. The Enthraille lifestyle seemed to be centered around water—that and something else Sora couldn't quite grasp. Out in the banner-bedecked streets, traders shouted their prices to the silver-haired shoppers and exchanged exotic fruits for gold coins. Blue-clad children played intricate games that involved swinging pendulums and brightly colored stones, watched in amusement by parents that occasionally seized them with a surprisingly lithe arm or leg to keep them out from under the feet of passers-by.
For what seemed like hours, Sora wandered the streets and gazed at the unfamiliar customs. The sun above didn't beam down too brightly, since the entire city was shielded under a blue-green canopy of extraordinarily tall trees. Sora found himself wrapped in the hum of the trees and the voice of the earth.
When at last he returned to the hotel, since night was falling over the canopy graciously provided by the trees, Sora met a sight he hadn't counted on. "Your Highness?" he exclaimed, seeing the silver-haired boy in his room.
Riku was wrapped up in one of the silken robes and quietly enjoying a drink next to the window. "About time you got back," he said, standing and placing the glass on the table. "I was starting to worry about you."
"But…you…the palace…?" Sora stammered.
"Exactly." Riku rolled his eyes. "The palace. They wouldn't have let me go if they saw me."
Sora frowned. "How'd you get out, then?"
"I—well, uh…" Riku suddenly looked embarrassed. "I concocted an explosion that kept them distracted long enough for me to slip away." But for some reason, he couldn't meet Sora's eyes.
Shaking his head, the brown-haired boy sat down on the bed, still trying to comprehend the enormity of the event. "But…why are you here? Aren't you supposed to be back there doing princely things and stuff?"
"Maybe I'm supposed to, but, quite frankly, they bore me." Riku sat down, his expression sour. "I'd much rather sneak out with you and save your friend. There's not much we can do for her in Serre."
It was Sora's turn to be embarrassed. "Yeah, I know. I listened to you talking with Dmitri."
Riku suddenly looked profoundly impressed. "I think I'm going to like you." He rose, crossing to the bed. "Anyway, it's about time we turned in. The best thing is to head to Middel tomorrow morning to see if we can find out where the wise man has made his residence."
"Middel?" Sora repeated, standing. He remembered that the girl he'd met—Riku had said her name was Kikyo, hadn't he?—had mentioned Middel briefly, but only as a landmark.
"It was originally a human town, but now it has several races involved. Centaurs, Trolls, Dwarves, you know," Riku remarked matter-of-factly as he slid under the coverlet. He glanced at Sora and frowned. "Humans sleep, don't they?"
Sora suddenly found himself blushing furiously. "Well, yeah, but—!"
"Oh, come on. I don't move much unless I have a nightmare."
"It's not that…"
Riku raised an eyebrow slyly. "I'm cuddly, I promise."
This brought Sora's blush to a whole new level. "I'm not sleeping with you!" he said fiercely, crossing his arms over his chest.
The prince shrugged. "Suit yourself. Good night." He blew out the candle and turned over.
For the first few moments Sora stood in the dark numbly, wondering how Riku had managed to slip practically the whole hotel room through his fingers. Muttering sourly, he lit one of the candles near the dresser and began to change out of his island clothing. He hesitated suddenly, feeling eyes on him, and turned to see Riku propped up on his elbow, his eyes glinting softly in the candlelight. "May I help you?" the brown-haired boy asked flatly.
Riku waved his hand dismissively. "Don't mind me. I only kind of wondered what you looked like when I wasn't—" He stopped short. "I wondered if you were fat," he finished quickly.
Eyes narrowing, Sora held up one skinny arm. "Does this look fat to you?" But even as he finished that sentence, it occurred to him that he was half naked and giving Riku a gratuitous view of his chest and legs. Why that bothered him he didn't know, but it did. Blushing again, he busied himself with pulling on one of the robes and shoving his clothes into one of the drawers. "Good night," he said firmly, blowing out the candle.
The silver-haired boy listened with amusement to the solid thud of Sora's face against the wall.
Moving as carefully as possible so as to avoid painful walls and furniture, Sora searched through the rooms for another bed. He failed to find one, though, and curled up on the sofa by the fireplace. But the hotel was unfamiliar—just like the prison cell—and he couldn't find a place where it didn't seem like he was being watched by that unnamed creature. So he found himself wandering back to the other room and taking his watch from his pack and gazing raptly at the second hand.
Seven minutes later, Riku's back rose and fell in the steady breathing of sleep. Sora, clicking off the light on his watch, gingerly slipped under the coverlet on the half of the bed that Riku had graciously left unoccupied. He found an obscure comfort in being so close to another person, having the childish knowledge that nothing would touch him while he was being protected in this way. Although he knew it was a child's fear—the darkness—it seemed strangely as though the danger was there, and it was very real.
l…l
Nanny's gray hair shone in the starlight as she shook her head. "Hard to tell where they've gone," she said to Kairi's father, Lyle. The two worried guardians were relaxing on Nanny's patio after a long, stressful day.
"It's not normal for Kairi to want to run off like that," Lyle said to her in bafflement. "Sora probably convinced her to do it. He's always been a wild one."
"Don't bite your own tongue, Lyle," Nanny told him sharply. "She's the one who built the raft, and I made sure Sora had nothing to do with that." The middle-aged woman knitted absently for a few moments, forming the pattern of a scarf she'd been preparing for Sora for that winter. Gazing out at the stars, Nanny sighed. "He's a boy, so he's like other boys. Headstrong and foolish. No doubt he'll run into trouble the moment his foot touches the sand."
Lyle cast a confused look at her. "What makes you say that?"
A steely glint appeared in Nanny's dark eyes and the click of her knitting became more frequent. "Sora's parents were both murdered. Someone came in the night, and it happened too fast for me to do anything about it. But I've raised every man in his family, so I know boys. If he finds out about that and he finds who did it, Sora's going to rush in there with a wooden sword looking for revenge."
"Every man?" Lyle looked astounded. "But you don't look a day over fifty! How could you—?"
"It's not important," Nanny cut him off. "What's important is that we find your daughter and my godson."
l…l
Dai: Ze plot…it t'ickens!
Serge: Oh, shush. It's not all that complicated anyway…
Dai: …(cries)
Serge: Cut it out!
Review Replies (I've changed these because I got tired of posting whole reviews so these are just replies):
SeekingRedemption: Yeah, I haven't done much on that one yet…they've just barely left Aidran. But then, at least TOS is finished, ne?
