Chapter Eight
A Thousand Words
I've wanted to write this chapter for a long time!
You'll find out soon enough.
Hope I did a good job with the last one.
Enjoy!
I opened my eyes, feeling cold, hard and naked floor against my back. I looked around me, through the metal railings.
I was lying in one of those small cages. I looked above me, into the blackness that was the hole I'd jumped from, and landed in that passage. I let a hand go to my head. I felt dizzy, dizzy and a little sick.
"What happened, anyway?" I let a hand go down my face, and on my cheeks and forehead, checking for wounds.
I winced slightly as my fingers touched a small cut on my throat, near the pulse.
I withdrew my hand from the cut, and looked at the small, thin trail of blood trailing down my index finger.
I thought back, trying to remember what had happened. I dimly remembered a Bevellian soldier, raising his arm, and point something at me. Other than that, I could remember nothing.
"They must've gotten me with some kind of sleeping dart, or something, cause it suddenly wen't all black back there, and my eyesight got blurred." I sat up in the small cage, looking through the metal railings.
What I saw, struck me as...there was no other word for it: "creepy".
I was in an enormous dungeon. All around me, I could see many other cages like the one I was in.
The cages were hanging above the floor many meters below, from huge, heavy-looking chains attached to them with hooks on the roof of the cages. I looked upwards, letting my eyes follow the chains.
They seemed to disappear into the blackness up there.
"Just how long are those things, anyway?" I wondered, amazed and scared at the same time.
When I looked ahead of me, I saw a huge sound booster with a Sphere Surveillance camera attached to it, sweeping the dungeon with its eye-like scope, covering all the cages. Both the sound booster and the Sphere Surveillance camera were floating in mid-air. There were no way to hide from the camera.
The Sphere Camera's only blindspot were right under it. And since there were no platform to stand on under the camera, that wasn't an option. In other words: the Sphere Camera was impossible to escape.
"Great. Now what do I do?" I sat down on the floor, trying to think of a way to get out, somehow.
"So. You're the Zanarkandian our troops found at the northern outskirts of Zanarkand."
My head jerked upwards. Someone had just said something. He spokeextremely loud voice, too loud for any human being.
The extremely loud voice was coming from the huge sound booster that was floating in front of me.
I got up, looking into the Sphere Surveillance camera. It was now pointed directly at me, and no longer sweeping the dungeon. I said nothing in reply.
"Our troops told us that you'd been wandering around the one part of Zanarkand we'd conquered.
And that you were walking around with a long sword on you back. No Zanarkandian in their right minds would dare to travel near the northern parts of that city. What was the purpose of your presence there, Zanarkandian?"
"I might as well just tell him, since there's no point lying. It can hardly get worse than this, anyway." I
I should've known how very wrong I was.
"I was searching for someone." I found myself saying.
"My lover. She was a Summoner who was sent to the frontlines when you attacked my hometown."
"If you were only searching for her," the man said after a moment's silence.
"then why were you trying to steal our newest weapon? If you were just searching for that person, why did we find you in the hangar where we keep our Vegnagun?" The man asked.
"Vegnagun? Is that what you call it?" I asked, ignoring his question.
"I ask the questions here, Zanarkandian!" The guy speaking in the sound booster said in a harsh, sharp voice.
"You killed two of our Elite Soldiers, and shot the last one in his hand. Then you went to fetch that long sword.
You disturbed our nuns as they were doing their daily praying to Maester Nodachi-Sama.
One of them saw you use the Sphere Elevator that leads down to Vegnagun, that only the Maesters, and the Elite Guards may use."
"So, one of them stayed behind, and watched me leave that hall with that elevator." I thought as I heard this.
"Do you have any idea what a crisis that would be, if Zanarkand got hold of that weapon? Do you have any idea what a threat that would be? Don't you feel the slightest responsibility for your actions?"
I had absolutely no idea why this guy was trying to make me feel bad, but I didn't care.
When I spoke again, I found myself shouting. I'd had more than enough of this guy's superiority.
"NO, I'M NOT SORRY! I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING WRONG!" I roared at the sound booster.
The guy who'd spoken into it, didn't reply.
"I know you're listening. If she was your girl, what would you do! How can you blame me for trying to use your weapon? It was the only way I could save the Summoner! What would you do if you were me!"
Even though I hadn't told this guy what my true purpose of stealing Vegnagun was before, he didn't show any sign of surprise to hear this. He didn't answer my question.
"LET ME OUT! I WANT TO SEE HER!" I yelled in desperation and an unbearable sadness.
The man on the sound booster didn't reply.
I sank to the floor of the small cage, then, crying. I'd failed. I couldn't save Lenne.
I wouldn't except that I'd failed. I didn't want to face the fact that I would never see her again.
"Bah! The only reason why the world is dragging on is because Zanarkand refuses to surrender."
The man spoke again, his voice sneering, and my head jerked upwards.
"You're wrong!" I yelled at him, rising up from the floor of the small cage.
"If you'd stop attacking there wouldn't be a war!
"We're not falling for that."
I kicked the railings of the small cage in anger. I looked down on the floor, feeling how a white-hot anger flared inside.
"Someday, your precious weapons will end up destroying you."
I turned my back to him, and sat down on the naked floor of the cage again.
I opened my eyes, and looked down on the floor.
"Must've fallen asleep, somehow." I thought, unable to understand how I'd managed to fall asleep here,of all places.
I got up from my sitting position. The dungeon was quiet again.
The Sphere Surveillance camera was, once again, busy with sweeping the dungeon for hostile activity.
I grabbed the metal railings, and tried to bend them open. I pulled at the railings until my entire body screamed with pain. With a tired groan I let go of them, and fell to the floor of the small cage, breathing heavily, feeling how my muscles still seared with pain after the attempt of break-through.
"Fuck. I've got to get out!" I thought, getting up again, massaging the muscles on my upper arms.
I started kicking the railings, in a faint hope that I would actually be strong enough to break through that way.
After some minutes of kicking, I stopped, and let my foot drop to the floor.
I leaned against the metal railings of the small cage, eyes closed due to the pain in my foot.
"It's...no use." I swore under my breath in frustration. Why? How? All those questions that had no answer...
Suddenly, my ears caught the sound of something big flapping up and down in the air.
It sounded like...huge wings. My head jerked upwards from looking at the floor, and I let my eyes sweep the dungeon, looking for the source of the noise. But I could see nothing.
"What the?-" I thought, as I finally realized where the sound was coming from.
Even through the wall opposite of me, with the Sphere Surveillance Camera, I could hear it, though just barely.
Then, I heard something else: the sound of some kind of beam being charged, before it's shot out.
"That sound...is it really..." My eyes widened as the sound tensed, getting louder and louder, until it happened.
The entire wall was blown to pieces. Enormous parts of the wall fell to the floor below, making an ear-splitting sound as the huge debris made contact with the floor. I clasped my hands over my ears over the noise,
trying to see through the smoke the pulverized wall had caused.
I'd never thought I'd ever see him again, and least of all her.
Shiva, the Ice Aeon stood on Valefor's back.
I hadn't seen her since last winter, when she and Lenne were having an ice- and snowballfight outside, and I was too sick to join them. She stood on Valefor's back, her icy hair reached all the way to her butt.
She wore a bikini over her private parts. The bikini was slightly revealing, nonetheless.
Her eyes were the one part of her I hadn't forgotten.
Those eyes of hers, looking at me with that piercing gaze I remembered so well.
She was looking at me with a soothing expression in her face, as if she was saying:
"Everything's going to be alright, Shuyin." I got so happy when I saw them.
How did Lenne know how to show up here? Lenne. The thought of just her name, was enough to make my heart leap.
Valefor flew over to my cage, and I stepped back as I saw what Shiva was about to do.
Shiva was standing on Valefor with her right arm behind her, conjuring a long, sharp icicle in the palm of her hand.
"Whoa. Better brace myself."
I watched as the making of the icicle was complete. Shiva took it in both her hand, holding it like a sword.
I lay down on the floor of the small cage, hoping it would be enough to protect me from the weapon
I heard the sound of something being cut, a sharp, penetrating sound that seared at my ears, but it lasted only for a moment. I heard how many small objects fell downwards, and the sound of the objects hitting the floor below.
I opened my eyes, and looked around. The railings of the cage were all cut off.
I looked into her eyes.
"Let's go, Shuyin. She's waiting for you." The Fayth of Shiva told me inside my head.
"Lenne." I thought, feeling such joy I could hardly bear it. I climbed up on Valefor's back.
Shiva jumped upwards in a sudden motion, and dissolved into nothingness.
I understood that Lenne, wherever she was, had dismissed her.
I flew on Valefor, passed the remnants of the demolished wall.
I looked down at the floor far below me.
It was hard to imagine that those gigantic boulder-sized chunks of debris down there were the remains of a wall, a sound booster, and a Sphere Surveillance Camera. I looked ahead of me, through the hole in the wall.
Valefor flew through it.
We were in the same room as the one the Machina had been in. It was still there.
From the north-west part of the room, I now saw the Machina from a different angle.
I now saw the tail more clearly. A long scorpion-like tail with a big sharp sting at the end.
It swung from side to side, as if the Machina was planning to use it on someone.
Just below us, I saw a huge balcony. Valefor flew lower, and landed on the balcony-like platform.
I slid off his back, and looked around, not knowing why we landed here.
Valefor started pushing me towards the edge of the balcony.
I looked at him, confused. I didn't understand what he wanted.
He nodded towards the end of the balcony.
I looked in the direction he nodded.
I could see nothing there.
"Maybe there's something over the edge?" I started walking towards the end of the balcony.
What I saw, made me feel like my heart would explode through my chest with emotion.
In that instant, I changed from a man with absolutely no hope at all concerning my lover, to someone with purpose.
She was there, Lenne. My Lenne was there, her arms outstretched, and with eyes overflowing with love an warmth.
She was alright. She was safe. She was here.
For a moment, I couldn't speak. I didn't know how else to get my feelings out, other than holding Lenne.
I stepped back, and jumped over the edge of the huge balcony, keeping my eyes fixed on my lover the whole time.
I landed on the floor of the hangar.
What happened next, felt like it all happened in slow-motion.
We ran towards each other. In just those few seconds before we made physical contact in what felt like years, images of my life with Lenne flashed before my eyes, clear as day. I pushed them away.
Right now, I wanted nothing more than to hold Lenne, give her the protection I knew she loved, keep her warm and safe in my arms. I wanted to give her what she hadn't had in so long. And I wanted it to be in the present, not the past.
Lenne flung herself in my arms, and I held her tightly, refusing to let go, and I knew she would never want me to.
Lenne clung herself onto me, clinging to my more than I could ever recall her clinging to me before.
Lenne. She was...in my arms again.
"Shuyin...oh, Shuyin." She sounded as if she too, didn't know how to say what she felt.
I felt how her warm tears fell on my shoulder. I held her tighter, letting my hand go up and down her back in a soothing motion. I wanted her to know I was here, that I would never leave her, that I would never let anyone hurt her. Especially now, after all we'd been through without each other.
"Lenne...I'll never let anyone separate us again." I whispered, holding her, protecting her.
I felt her lips meet the back of my neck. Her soft lips. I hadn't felt them in so long.
She moved her head, and looked at me, her eyes overflowing with love and care.
But at the same time, I felt how her hands shook slightly against my shoulders.
"Lenne, what's wrong?" I asked her, ready to protect her from anyone, anything.
"Shuyin...there's something I want you to know. When I was at the frontlines, I started to get sick. I threw up, and I had trouble eating and sleeping. It didn't go away, and it didn't feel like any normal sickness. So I started to think. I got a strimmel for checking pregnancies."
I gasped at this, and my eyes widened. Was Lenne really gonna tell me what I thought she would?
"The strimmel turned blue." She said, looking as if she was finding it hard to say what she wanted.
"Shuyin...I'm carrying...our baby." Lenne said after what felt like an eternety.
My mind spun around at these words. Lenne, me. Parents. I couldn't take it in.
"That's why I left like that. I didn't want to give birth to our baby on the frontlines. I wanted to see you, and I wanted us to be together in the birth of our child, so I left, leaving for home. But when I reached our house, I saw that you'd left. I searched for notes, or messages, thinking that, by a miracle, that you'd left a message telling me where you'd gone. But I found nothing. I had this feeling that something had happened to you, so I left with Valefor. I thought that you were headed for the northern parts of Zanarkand, where Bevelle first invaded, so I went there."
I looked into Lenne's eyes. They looked worried now, as if she was afraid something would happen.
"But when I reached the northern parts of Zanarkand, I saw only enormous Bevellian airships with hundreds of rockets under them. I saw one of them take off, and I followed the airship on Valefor, thinking that it was headed for Bevelle. I thought that...I would find clues to where you'd gone if I went there. When I arrived, I saw this temple, and a group of Soldiers around a huge tank with a cage in it. The Soldiers were standing in a tight circle around someone. Then I saw them enter the temple, forcing the prisoner in with them. I decided to enter the temple from anywhere but the main entrance, so I started searching. Until I found a small door at the back of the temple. I entered it, and after many hours of searching I found this hangar, and heard a man speaking in a room nearby. I could hear him speaking through the wall.
He was interrogating a person from Zanarkand. And then I knew...I just knew that the person he was talking to...was you. Especially when I heard a much lower voice saying he was searching for his lover.
I got so happy, Shuyin. It made me so happy to know you were there. I wanted nothing more but to break through the wall, and find you there. But Valefor told me I should wait until the man had stopped interrogating you, so I did. And I found you. I'd never thought I'd ever...see you again."
Lenne's story finished. I looked at her, unable to say to what she'd done. It hadn't even occured to me, not until I saw Valefor and Shiva, that Lenne could be searching for me.
"Shuyin...our baby...-" My Lenne never got to say what she wanted to say.
Suddenly, the entire hangar got filled with a bright light, and I heard loud footsteps approaching fast.
I held Lenne tightly, trying to give her all of me, in what I somehow knew, would be the last moment we shared.
The entrance door to the hangar burst open. I looked at the Bevellian Soldiers standing there, their Machina weapons pointed straight at me and Lenne. Hatred towards those bastards, and a terrible sadness over that it would end this way flowed through me. The Bevellians stood there, without firing. I looked at them, a furious expression on my face.
They didn't fire. I looked into Lenne's face. She was looking at me. She looked so...scared and sad. It broke my heart to see her like this.
How could it come to this? Hadn't I just heard her say she was going to have a baby?
I felt so sad inside. Lenne tried, but just barely; She managed the slightest of smiles, her eyes showing love, sorrow and caring all the way. She really loved me. And I couldn't protect her.
"I love you." I heard her whisper. We would die. I saw that now. But at least...it would be together.